Goodbye, Thailand

Another short, but excitement filled point form update just for you.

1) We leave Thailand tomorrow and head to Tokyo. I have done my research on radiation, so don't worry. I'm pretty much a nuclear expert now and I think we'll be ok. We will join Mark's older brother, Michael, and his fiance for a celebration of their wedding and other fun. I'm also excited for sushi.

2) We almost got struck by lightening on the top Thailand's tallest tower. We think it struck the lightening rod on the top of the building. So good news - lightening rod technology appears to be sound.

3) We got approached by a group of Indian tourists who either thought we were famous or just really like white people. They made us take photos with all of them in various combinations. It was weird. Mark luckily managed to distance himself from the commotion - either that or he wasn't white enough for them to care about photos with him.

4) My new favourite place in Bangkok is the Pak Khlong Market. Flowers everywhere! And we bought 150 roses for $3. I'm not joking. Now, what do you do with 150 roses while travelling, you may ask? Put them in a pile by the hotel TV, of course.


I'm running out of internet time so that is all for now. My concern for the next couple of days is how I'm going to watch the Royal Wedding. I think I've figured out when it's broadcasting live in Tokyo, so hopefully I will be watching :)

Up to now...

I'm so far behind. Computers with high speed internet have been hard to come by lately. So to make up for lost time, here is a point form essay of what we have been up to in the last couple weeks.

1) Our friend Karen joined us in Bangkok to travel with us for a few weeks. This was good because a) Dan, Mark and I had run out of things to say to each other and b) having another girl around is good and c) I like Karen.

2) We made our way from Bangkok to Koh Tao, a nice little island in the South of Thailand. Mark, Dan and Karen did some scuba diving. I got massages and drank ice coffees and read Water for Elephants. If anyone goes wants to go see the movie with me in about a month, that would be nice.

3) From Koh Tao, we headed up to Chiang Mai where we joined in the Songkran festivities. Songkran is the Thai New Year's celebration and it is, in short, a nation wide waterfight. So ridiculous. We just walked around with a water gun and a bucket soaking people and getting soaked. It was fun. It's a good thing it's really hot in these countries because otherwise I might not have enjoyed getting ice water thrown on me every 5 minutes.

4) We took a 6 hour bus ride (boring and hot) to the border between Thailand and Laos. Then we took a boat ride across the river to a new country.

5) We went and lived in the Laos jungle for three days, ziplining through the trees and sleeping in treehouses. We saw two snakes, a squirrel, lots of bugs, a couple birds, butterflies and monkeys. Oh, and leeches (luckily I grew up swimming in Wellman Lake and am somewhat desensitized to leeches. That doesn't mean I like them). It was awesome. Although I probably wouldn't have used the word awesome when we were being evacuated out of our tree house at 4am due to stormy weather and "potential strong winds". But in hindsight, even that was fun.

6) We went to an internet cafe while waiting for our 14 hour bus ride to our next location in Laos, which is Luang Prabang.

You are now up to the present. I need not elaborate how I am feeling about this upcoming bus ride.

But I'm sure there will be at least one good story to come out of it.

World Heritage Ruins

As a self proclaimed nerd, I enjoy visiting anywhere that holds cultural or natural significance in the world. I think I have mentioned before that I have a goal to visit as many listed World Heritage Sites as possible. If not, now you know. Please visit http://whc.unesco.org/en/list to be a nerd like me. Anyways, I am working towards my goal on this trip and one of my favourites from Thailand is the Historic City of Ayyutthaya. Mark and I visited this place on a day trip out from Bangkok. We took a long, un-air conditioned train ride where it seemed like we would never leave Bangkok. What a huge city. Yeesh. Luckily, we managed to get seats even though our tickets were actually "standee" tickets. And there was this little Thai boy across the seat who was very bored so I taught him how to unbuckle and buckle up my camera bag. I am quite the entertainer, I know. Founded 1350, Ayyutthaya became the second Siamese capital. It was destroyed by the Burmese in the 18th century. Its remains, characterized by the prangs (towers) and gigantic monasteries, give an idea of its past splendor (I didn't write that bit, that's from the website. As is the photo below). There are about 20 or so ruin sites scattered amongst the town and it's incredible. I don't really understand how people had the patience to build such places without modern technology. I suppose they didn't have much of a choice - if the King tells you to build something, you build it. We enjoyed our walk around the ruins and then just made it back to have some pizza at the rip off Pizza Hut before the rain came. We got a bit wet walking to the train, but luckily had the luxury of reclinging seats and a car with fans on the way back. Paid a whole $5 for that ticket (as opposed to the 90 cents we paid for the first one). And it was worth it.

Busy Bangkok

Thailand - land of smiles. I actually am not sure if that's what their catch phrase is or if I just saw it on a tv commercial. Anyways, we have spent the last week in Bangkok after an eventful trip from Australia. To sum it all up quickly, we had about 48 hours without any real sleep that included one red eye flight, 15 hours in the Melbourne airport and one bit of "scheduled maintenance" that happened to be scheduled during our flight time thus delaying our flight by 5 hours. Turns out scheduled maintenance actually means installing a new engine. And what did we get in return? Free headphones and soda pop. That's what happens when you fly budget airlines. One guy was so mad he started a fight on the plane! Ok, he was actually just really drunk and beligerant and I'm not sure why he started fighting, but it was exciting nonetheless. He got moved to the back of the plane by us because we were sitting by off duty police officers. We finally arrived to Bangkok at about 2:30am and made our way to Koh San Road where we have been staying for the last week. I have to admit that I was a bit shell shocked at the amount of activity still happening on the street so early in the morning, but luckily our hotel room was nice and quiet so I was able to sleep. I have been getting used to the amount of people, the smells, the business - but it's not for me. I like smaller places. I mean, the entire population of New Zealand fits in Bangkok 2.5 times. Bit of a change! Although Bangkok is not my cup of tea, we have seen a few really great things which I will try to write about in the near future. Unfortunately, we had to part ways with our computer in Australia so photos will be few and far between for the next while. I apologize. I even find myself boring without photos. I won't be offended if you quit reading. We are off to a smaller island tomorrow so hopefully that will be more my style. You know, boring and quiet :)

Koalas aren't bears and other animal facts

Australia has been a great adventure so far. We have really enjoyed being here with our friends Bret and Nicole (and Dan, of course).

We were always told that Australia was quite different than New Zealand - so far this is true in a number of areas. For example, Australia has dill pickles and regular coffee. This is good. They also have scary spiders and a lot of lizards and weird bugs that I don't like. This is bad.

Some of the wildlife is not so bad, though. Most of our wildlife viewing so far has been done in the zoo or at Sea World. But we did see a number of things in the wild too. Here is just a sample.

1) Kangaroos - Obviously. We got up close and personal with some in the Australia Zoo. They are kind of fun. Not all that exciting (as evidenced by below photo), but pretty good. Bret and Nicole saw some of these guys in the wild - the rest of us still just have the zoo. Funny, I thought we would see them everywhere.

2) Snakes - Mark is very paranoid. He has been on edge since we got here. The other day I accidentally brushed up against his leg in the movie theatre and he freaked. Quietly and in a manly sort of way, of course. Anyways, still only seen these guys in the zoo as well. Thank goodness.

3) Crime fighting sea lions - Only at Sea World would you ever find such a thing. Sorry, I was too busy watching the show to get a good photo.

4) Wombats - Who knew wombats were so cute? Not me. I still don't really know what their purpose is, but oh well. They waddle.

5) Bats - In the wild! I'm not kidding. I don't have a photo, so that doesn't really help with my credibility, but honestly, these huge bats fly around at night. It's like Gotham City.

6) Koalas - My favourite! They are seriously cute. I did not expect that I would find them so endearing. But come on, look at that face. They sleep 20 hours a day and eat leaves the other 4. What a hilarious existence. No contribution to the world at all except for being cute.

There were a lot of other weird things at the zoo, but it's late so I am going to try and sleep when I know there are lots of big red ants and other such creepy crawly things infiltrating this less than flashy hostel room. Yuck. I wish they were just koalas....

When we left New Zealand

I cried. And I don't cry very often.

I thought about ending the blog post there because I just don't know how to put into words how amazing our year in NZ was. There were too many good people, good times, and good places to write about. Both Mark and I felt a strong connection to this tiny country even after such a short time. The culture, the people, the places - it was all so good.

You should all go sometime if you haven't already been.

Aotearoa - land of the long white cloud. I miss you already.

Top 10 Tips for The Milford Track

Milford Track is a 55.4km hike through the Milford Sound wilderness of New Zealand. It's an amazing place filled with beautiful mountains, rivers, birds, trees and other such things you find in the wilderness. Mark, Dan, and myself accomplished this feat over a four day period.

Now, before you go on the track you have to do some reading on how to get there, the daily routes, what to bring, etc. The Department of Conservation puts together a brochure with tips on how to do the hike. They include, as you would assume, things like "bring a pair of sturdy and worn in hiking boots" and "jeans and cotton shirts are not acceptable attire" (ahem, Dan). These are all very good tips to adhere to. But after doing the hike, I decided to write my own Top 10. Here they are, in no specific order.

1. Choose your companions wisely. Take along good friends and husbands who will carry the food and cooking supplies so your pack can be lighter. It is also good if they are optimistic and encouraging when you get tired and complain - even though your pack is lighter than theirs.

2. Know your enemy - the New Zealand sand fly. Those little jerks are everywhere. Invest in some heavy duty DEET repellent that is likely dangerous to your own health (seeing as it melts off nail polish) but keeps the flies at bay. Also, it helps if one of your companions seems to attract flies more than you (ahem, Dan).

3. Wet weather gear is a must. It will likely rain at some point on your trek (lucky you if it happens to be Day 3 which is the hardest hiking day - 2 hours up and 2 hours down) so be prepared. Also, be prepared to be soaked through even though you are wearing wet weather gear.

4. Prepare some conversation topics ahead of time. 20+ hours of walking and then additional time in the evenings spent with the same people and you tend to run outof things to talk about. Things to try might also be playing games where you have to sing songs containing a certain word, etc. But try not to take along a companion who knows too much about music (ahem, Dan).

5. Dehydrated space food is not that good. It's ok and it's light, so that's a plus (for your companions who are carrying the food, anyways). But it's not that good.

6. Use the mile markers as resting points. Especially on the last day when you want to die.

7. Have a mantra. You might find yourself getting tired. And sore. And hungry. It helps to have a mantra to repeat while walking to keep yourself going. A good one is "Carry On, Finish Strong". (Thanks, Dan).

8. Rain is not always a bad thing. The waterfalls that appear out of nowhere with the rain are amazing. You would never know they are there on a sunny day, so one day of rain might actually be desirable (emphasis on ONE).

9. Enjoy meeting new people. You might find that some of them are washed up improv actors that are actually pretty funny and then end up a pub with them on quiz night two days after you are done the track. Good times may ensue.

10. When moral is low, just look around. Remember that you are in an amazing place and that are there and not sitting at a desk in a cubicle. Enjoy.