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You might think that after arriving on a 12 hour flight from South America I might be a bit too tired to head on out on another trip less than 24 hours later. But then that wouldn't make me Maria Lambert would it?
So the day after the end of my 'Circle the Pacific' trip I jumped into our new trailblazer (I can't leave my dad unsupervised for even a few days-- he can't control his car buying frenzies) and headed out to West Chester, PA with my mom and my dad to attend my favorite cuzzy Claire's engagement party.
The 5 hour drive shouldn't have felt like much after 22 hour bus rides to Bariloche, Air Asia crash landings, wild Thai taxi trips, 3 meter swells boat journeys, and everything else I'd already endured this summer-- but then again my dad was driving. Which meant him talking to himself, 'entertaining himself' by making flatuence sounds with his mouth, singing Christmas songs ('I'm dreaming, of a white, Christ-mas') etc. That made it probably the longest 5 hour trip yet. God love him.
We did make it there, in spite of my dad's failure to take our exit (Dad: Laurie, Maria, Claire, Melissa, and Heidi 'I was talking! I didn't notice!' - Mom: 'Don, you complain about backseat drivers, but this is why you have them! You've been taking this exit since the 70s!') Arriving at the farm was like coming home, as always. It was great to see Grandma and Lisa, and always fun of course to lapse back into spanish with them. Vlad-ee-mehr! (aka 'walter') and Carmen were there too. Even better I found out that Claire didn't know I was coming still-- oh how I love surprises!
At around 6pm the party got started-- all the family minus the Wesley clan was there and Claire was pretty excited to see me (I hid behind Willy). She looked absolutely beautiful-- so chic! (very cute shoes Claire). And all the other bridesmaids were there--Heidi and Melissa who I'd met before plus Laurie who'd I heard loads about but never gotten to meet. Sean and his family were there too of course.
The party was at the pool house and catered by the Jim Barnes and Friends down at the Dilworthtown Inn. Which meant that Uncle Phil's order of 'heavy appetizers' turned into 'heavy appetizers' and full out dinner. And dessert. And extra booze. It was pretty spectacular.
During dinner I somehow wound up at the castellano (spanish) only table with longtime Argentinean friends the Bennatis, abuela, Lisa, and Carmen. Very entertaining. Probably the best part however was Uncle Phil's toast to the newly weds-- so sweet (even though Lisa did provide comic relief as always by stepping into the limelight mid-speech). Another great moment was that Laurie's 'got any more chocolate back there' teasing to the waitstaff resulted in them going back to the Dilworthtown and bringing back the most delicious serrano pepper chocolate truffles (spicy, sweet, salty-- MMMM) and a pretty damn good chocolate torte with raspberry sauce and madeleines. It was like magic.
And this was only the start of the evening.
At around midnight we changed out of formal attire and headed over to Claire's friend Liz's who was having a birthday party. It was pretty entertaining (especially watching Roger sing karaoke with Marines) (oh and making towers of plastic camels--don't ask). At around 2:30 we headed back and made a midnight snack of the leftovers from the catering (YES!) before super partiers Mel, Heidi, Roger and I walked back up to the pool house.
Actually I was planning on going to sleep, but Lisa 'somehow' locked me out of the main house (my mom only reminded her about 5 times to leave it open). Around that point it started to rain. So we just so happened to get 'trapped' in the pool house with all the leftover booze. HA!
What ensued was some pretty hilarious story telling with shoes as props and running around waving an American flag yelling out 'FREEDOM' in some sort of yankee-William wallace enactment. Around 4:30 ish (waaaay early by Argentinean standards-- we'd only be going to the bar at that point) we headed back home to Claires. Somehow I snagged the couch which made a nice sleep for about 5 hours before it was time for Heidi to go catch her plane.
The morning was spent reliving the night before, eating semi-stale Lucky Charms (okay that was just me-- and I swear I like them better just a little stale, yeah I know that's gross) before dropping Mel off at the train station and making a soft pretzel stop at WaWa.
Somehow I got out of going to church which was quite the relief actually since it's always chaos in the moments leading up to getting out the door and Lisa could always just randomly have a leg cramp or something mid-mass which is actually funny albeit embarrassing since my Grandma and Lisa always sit in the front row. But my mom was there to play good Catholic daughter so I got out of it and instead got to facebook stalk and read glamour. Clutch.
We left later than we'd planned---as always, a heavy-handed (yet completely unintentional) dosage of Argentine-Catholic guilt from my grandmother held us up. But finally we got going. This time some Dramamine helped me maintain my sanity while being subjected to my dad's vocalized stream-of-consciousness ramblings. Around 10 pm we were back having only been gone for 36 hours.
And for my next trip? Well it's down to Dallas next week for a mad-moving-in decorating blizt on my new apartment before starting work Sept 18. Should be fun.
Patrick and I arrived in Argentina on a Thursday. For me, it was a very long Thursday. I started leaving NZ at around 9am and eventually made it to Buenos Aires at around 4pm. Doesnīt sound too bad except that I crossed the date line so if you do the math (which I havenīt bothered to) it was a very long day for me. But I was very happy to finally be here and of course Pat was overjoyed.
But we didnīt have long to get to know the lovely capital since we were invited to hitch a ride along with Tio Paco and Tia Lia back to Balcarce the following day. Winter vacations had already started for all the students meaning that everyone had the next week off (except poor Maria Lia who was stuck in BsAs working) so Balcarce would just be a week of hanging around, going to the boliches, and eating. Just what weīd hoped for.
The next morning we literally crammed into Paco and Liaīs VW Golf. Fran came too making it a very tight squeeze already for 5 people. But of course we had luggage. And because the car runs on natural gas, the gas tanks in the back donīt really leave much in the way of trunk space. Which meant that for the 5 hour drive we had bags on our laps and bags on the floor and bags crammed between the driver and passager seats. Forget about seatbelts (which Argentineans do anyway) --in the event of a crash we were going nowhere. It was quite humorous.
Balcarce of course was everything Iīd hoped it would be and just as I remembered. It didnīt feel like a whole year had gone by since I was there last--more like a month or two. Of course we had planned to stay for just 4 days but ended up there for a week and a half. Balcarce is kind of like that. Time just passes slowly. Since I donīt feel like writing a novel, Iīll just hit the highlights of the trip...
Well first off apologies for not having written in what seems like forever (actually just about 2 weeks). Iīve been in Argentina of course, hanging out with the family and as always sitting in front of a computer has been the last on my list. Especially since everything that I wrote in my blog last year about Argentina pretty much still holds true. Just change all the "Ana Emilia, Maria Lia, Fransisco, Lia....(long list of family members) ....Pablito, Rocio and me" to "Ana Emilia, Maria Lia, Fransisco, Lia....(long list of family members) ....Pablito, Rocio,'PATRICK and me" in my entries and youīve pretty much got it.
But we did take a very nice trip to Bariloche this year which was something new so Iīll comment on that.
Much to the chagrin of my Dad whoīs already a nervous wreck from all my New Zealand adventure activies, Patrick and I decided that we did want to send ourselves barrelling down the Argentinean Andes on skis. Even better Fransisco and Ana Emilia decided to come along too. Never mind that Patrick was the most experienced of all of us having been skiing about 6 times, we were ready to go.
Somehow our aunts talked us into taking the colectivo (the bus) instead of flying. Yeah it was cheaper, but the bus would take us about 20 hours to get there. I figured it would be worth it though if Fran and Ana could go with us though which might not have been possible if weīd flown. So colectivo it was.
Last Wednesday we set out from the BsAs bus terminal at around 1pm. The first 6 or so hours on the bus werenīt actually so bad. They played some movies, we read, slept etc. Then we got bored. Finally we stopped at around 9:45 for dinner. Thank God we were out the bus. Fran was especially desperate having spent the last 9 hours sans nicotine. Unfortunately the dinner was less than stellar. Cannelonis filled with mystery vegetables, rice, and who knows what else. Suprisingly picky-eater Patrick (who to his credit has not been picky whatsoever this trip) really liked them. Go figure.
Back on the bus we tried to get some sleep. Even though our seats reclined way back until we were almost horizontal, the blindingly bright TV screen and unnecessarily loud audio from the video made it rather hard to sleep, even with ear plugs and a face mask. I did get a fairly good nights sleep considering, even though now that I think about it, I did pop two dramamine right after dinner.
Finally the morning came and by around 10m we were at our hotel in Bariloche. We had just enough time to change and then by 11am we were off for the ski slopes. By noon we were getting fitted out for skis, boots, ski pants, etc. Fran got a pretty rocking ski jumpsuit that made him look like he was getting ready to fix someoneīs air ducts or plumbing system. The snow was really coming down outside--so much that you could hardly make out where the lifts were. We got our passes, a few maps, and then made our way to the practice area. It was time for instructor Patrick to make his Spanish ski lessons debut.
Even though both Fran and Ana had been to Bariloche for their senior trips (a tradition in BsAs for graduating high school īegresadosī) they didnīt have any skiing experience since most of the senior trip, unsurprisingly, was spent rip roaring drunk. Apparently for the egresados (who we did see a lot of that weekend) the fun is more in throwing snowballs, going out to the boliches (discoteques) at night, tackling one another in the snow (we think we saw some guy get his collarbone broken by his buddy by accident), and other similar drunken schnannigans. So we were starting from scratch.
As best as we could, Patrick and I then tried to explain how to ski in Spanish which was pretty damn difficult considering I didnīt really have much of a ski-savvy Spanish vocabulary. And I didnīt know what I was doing either, having only been skiing twice before, and one of those times was when I was 15. But somehow we made it work, and Fran and Ana were soon going down the baby slopes. Patrick finally convinced them to try a green ībeginnerīslope and although they were scared at first, I give Ana and Fran a lot of credit for pushing on. They didnīt even fall too much. Unfortunatley it was snowing like the dickens and you really couldnīt see ANYTHING which made it especially scary for beginners. The best part of that first day though was witnessing Fran and Ana both wipe out completely into a deep snow bank. Of course Pat was right behind them and they were fine, but it sure was hilarious.
This morning was stressful. Our ferry started boarding from Wellington at 7:55 a.m. and we were to drop our car off at Nationwide by 7:30 a.m. Didn't seem like it would be too difficult. We left the hostel with plenty of time to get gas and make it to the car return place...well plenty of time if you don't plan on getting lost. Which we did. Why doesn't NZ mark their crossroads! In a nutshell we got stuck on the highway, had to ask for directions twice and finally got it to the ferry station where we asked the parking attendant where the Nationwide return was. He tells us that if we give him $5 he'll return it for us. Sounded sketchy, but seeing as we didn't have too many other options and he looked legit, we went for it.
Fortunately we didn't have a long walk (about 100 feet) to the Interislander check in because we had a lot, and I mean a lot of stuff. I had my big pack, a big bag, my small daypack, and our mini ice cooler and 5 bottles of wine to carry. Blake had his ginormous 70L bag, his stuffed to the gills backpack, his Vietnamese rice paddy hat (yes, still), 5 bottles of wine, a couple of plastic bags, and our huge bag of groceries. We made two trips. We checked as much as we could and were still struggling with the rest, but at least we were on board.
And the ship was huge! I've never taken a cruise, so it was definitely the biggest boat I'd ever been on. It had 10 decks and its own cinema. After resting a bit and having some breakfast, we took the elevator up to the look out deck. There we met the nicest Kiwi family-- young parents with two hysterical young kids. One 11 months and the other just 2. The 2 year old kept trying to run off with our cooler which was pretty funny. The little klepto in the making got away with it 3 times before having to be put in time out. The dad used to be a tour guide in the south so he was helping us plan out part of our route and telling us of some nice out of the way places to go. We were having a nice chat and then the 2 year old randomly attacked his sister and all hell broke loose. It was pretty funny actually and quite hard not to laugh. More time outs and then tearful, forced apologies from the kids. Very amusing. Well then the family decided it too cold to stay up there much longer so we said goodbye to them.
Then just Blake and I were left enjoying the sunny morning view of Wellington when another traveler asked us to take his picture. We did, and then got to talking with him. He was from Scotland and on a similarly short holiday through NZ. We talked about our trips, jobs, blah blah the usual. Then we found out he was going to Franz Josef as well, but couldn't get out there until the following day because the bus left too early to catch it this morning. Well we chatted some more before Blake and I decided to go inside to escape the cold. As soon as we'd left we both turned to each other and said,'think we should invite him to ride with us?' (not actually in unison, but close to it) we'd both had the same idea but didn't want to invite strangers into our car without asking the other first! I thought it might add some amusement to the trip myself so Blake went back up to invite him, but alas he was gone.
So we took to napping and reading when there's the Scotsman again! I extend the invitation to him and he readily accepted since it would save him wasting a day in Nelson (not to suggest that all days spent in Nelson are wasted; rather just that he was keen to get the Franz Josef asap..) Then I remembered I didn't know his name! It was reminiscent of a some sort of post one-night stand can't-remember-anything scenario in terms of awkwardness I'd imagine (I promise I'm not speaking from experience). His name was Neil which I thought was funny because we'd already met another Scottish Neil in Halong Bay. We introduced ourselves as well and carried on.
Off the ferry I went to pick up the car since it's in my name. Unfortunately the car is actually smaller than the previous Toyota and I'm thinking erg! how are we going to all fit! Ha! But we managed to squeeze in, with me driving and Neil in the back. And then it was just fun from there on out. We had a long drive that day, about 7 or 8 hours worth so having the added entertainment of a Scotsman stereotypically full of amusing and outlandish stories was quite nice. We all enjoyed the scenery and stopped for pictures many times. The roads were just as nice as on the North Island but with even fewer people and cities along the way. In fact it was one of the more rural areas I've ever been in. Which is why it was so surprising to see Asian tourist trying to hitchhike alongside the road in the middle of nowhere.
But there he was, beladen with two backpacks, the larger one on his back and the smaller in his front, in the characteristic fashion of student travelers. We passed him and then almost immediately saw an abandoned car just past him. We drove a little further and then we started feeling bad that we'd passed him. We didn't have room and he could be crazy or something, but what if his car had broken down? We saw a hotel just up the road and made a u turn at least to offer him a call on one of our cell phones. We reach him and I get out to ask him if his car broke down. He obviously didn't speak much English but said 'Yes, cahr!!' very enthusiastically. I asked if he needed to call someone, using the appropriate gestures to make it rather clear but he looked very confused. I tried to ask him again if that was his car down the road, gesticulating rather wildly to the abandoned car, but he remained clueless. So just asked 'what do you want?' and he said 'Hitchhike'. Hmm no. I told him we didn't have room and were really sorry but I doubt he caught much of that either. Not wanting to leave him completely in the lurch, I said 'HOTEL' and pointed down the road and held up my open hand '5 minutes' and then in a manner that dive master Dave with his continual hand signals would have liked, I pointed to my watch and made a walking sign with my index and middle fingers. He got that alright though he did look sad because we weren't giving him a ride. But we surmised that to have arrived that far out in the middle of nowhere without a car he would have had to have been dropped off by someone else. And to just leave him there? Well he must have just been annoying, crazy, smelly or something else similarly distasteful enough to warrant giving him the boot. We did feel a bit bad though especially because after the lone hotel, there was nothing for a few hours.
In fact the countryside was so bereft of signs of life (except for sheep, naturally, which were everywhere) we were hoping that we'd find a gas station eventually. Even when we did happen upon the small town, we were lucky to strike upon a few houses. The scenery was, as you'd imagine, beautiful and unspoilt. We continued along, jabbering away and listening to music until we finally did come upon our 'stop' in Panakaika or something like that where tour guide on the ferry had suggested we stop. We had made it just before sunrise so that we could catch the rare geological formation of these 'pancake' rocks and blowholes. Blake was rather keen on taking what would be an unquestionably lewd photo with the blow holes and we were curious as to what pancake rocks were. Well a short walk through the woods and to the beach and we were a little disappointed to just fine some large protruding rock formations with horizontal lines on the sides. They were supposed to look like stacks of thin pancakes, but I didn't see much resemblance. Luckily we walked a bit further because it got better--at the second lookout point there were huge formations of these rocks and the waves had carved out interesting caves and holes, and gorges. We still hadn't seen any blowholes until we came to the largest part even further along. Turns out the blow holes are massive holes that blow out water from the surging waves below like geysers. Unfortunately the tide wasn't high enough or something to cause them to really 'erupt' but it was still interesting although Blake could likely climb down over the cliff to access them! Photo ruined. Ha. My favorite part was that they had this funny sign that said 'Nature's Secret Pancake Recipe' (and yeah 'secret' was in italics) and then explained how Mother Nature had 'whipped up some geological pancakes' through millions of years of sedimentary stereolineal blabbady blah blah geological-term babble build up. I thought this was just rather funny and a good example of good ole Kiwi sense of humor.
Having exhausted the lovely photo opportunities of the pancake rocks and a sunset seaside view, we carried on. Fortunately we arrived in Greymouth, a bustling metropolis of maybe a few thousand people, where we could get gas. We also found an Irish pub (they are everywhere) and ordered up some dinner. My lamb chops and mash were to die for and even better the round of beers Neil had bought for us as a way to say thanks. We had a nice meal and enjoyed the break before heading back in the car to get to Franz Josef. Nothing too remarkable happened those last few hours except lots of jokes and teasing. Around 9-ish we made it to the YHA in Franz Josef and literally crashed. So tired. I tried to write this update actually, but almost fell asleep at the computer. So I headed off to bed.
Luckily Blake and I had a twin room (I steal covers and he hits people in his sleep...among other things...) so we turned off the lights but of course, Blake being 'one of the girls' wanted to have 'pillow talk' and make fun of me some more for wearing my retainer and for asking too many questions about logistics on the trip. It was funny. But then sleep finally overtook us and we caught some shut eye so that we could wake up refreshed for our glacial hike tomorrow!
Today was the big day! Around 10ish Blake and I arrived at the Hastings Aerodrome so that he could take a flying lesson and I could do my first sky dive! The weather was perfect for flying-- sunny, cloudless skies. While Blake took off for his first piloting experience, I arrived at 0800 Skydive, a small hangar amongst other small hangars at the small aerodrome. I met Marty the skydiving instructor, Lars the pilot, the videographer, the booking guy, and the resident hangar cat. All of them (even the cat) were very nice and very reassuring, not that I was really nervous at all. They equipped me with a jump suit and harnessed me up real tight then gave me a quick sky dive lesson.
The sky dive would be at 10,500 feet and it would be a tandem jump. So I would be strapped into Marty who would take care of the parachute and all the other details. All I had to do was lean my hips forward and head back and keep my hands on my shoulder straps and elbows in and fall out of the plane. Seemed easy enough. Then we would free fall for about 37 seconds before Marty would pull the chute and then a nice easy 6 minute descent until we landed back at the airfield.
The videographer took some pictures and then we loaded into the tiny two seater plane (one seat was removed of course so we could jump out properly). I sat behind the pilot and Marty and the videographer crouched on the other side. The ride up couldn't have been smoother and the view was spectacular. You could see all the way to Mount Igmont and the Tongoriro crossing that we'd just hiked 2 days before. Marty said that we had exceptionally clear skies, since you can hardly ever see Mt. Igmont. About 20 minutes in the air we reached altitude by which time Marty had already strapped me into his harness very securely. Then it was time to jump! The videographer opened the door and whoosh! the wind whipped in! He climbed out first and hung around to the side so he could capture the exit. Now it was our turn: I scooted towards the door, sat on the edge of the plane and then on Marty's command leaned out!
Geronimo! What a feeling! Jumping out of the plane wasn't scary in the slightest-- the ground was so far away that it didn't feel as if you were really that high up. Very surreal. The force of the wind pushed against me strongly (we were plummeting at around 200mph...) but I could still easily move about and looked up to see the plane rapidly disappearing. I even saw the videographer next to us and gave a nice big thumbs up and smile for the camera! Before I knew it the 37 seconds was up and Marty had pulled the parachute. We jerked back and immediately slowed. Then I could really take in the scenery and the view was indescribably great. It truly didnt' feel as if we were actually that high up! You could see, talk, hear, just as if you were on the ground. Very strange. At this point Marty and I were in a seated position and gliding. He let me have a go at controlling the descent for a few turns, then took control again and did some very fun 360 spins in either direction. Now it was finally time to land and he positioned us so that we'd come in right in front of the videographer who'd already landed a few minutes prior. Marty told me to keep my knees up at we'd land on our bums. Actually those last 100 feet were probably the scariest because all of the sudden it seems as if the ground is just rushing towards you... but honestly even that wasn't scary. I was smiling the whole ride down. We landed very smoothly-- I couldn't believe it! And there was Blake who'd just arrived and had been taking some pictures of my descent. I was quickly unstrapped, smiled some more for the camera and stood back on solid ground! Marty said I did a great job for a first timer and was really impressed at how calm I was. Guess I'm a natural. Who knew I had such an adventurous streak. The whole experience was so much more serene than I'd have expected--the bungy was far more nerve racking. I could see how you could easily get hooked on sky diving--Marty had started in 1970 and the videographer in 1966! Too bad it's an expensive sport!
But even with the 260 NZ$ price tag, I still decided to buy the photos/dvd which, Mom and Dad, should be in the mail in the next week or two. On the other hand, the skydiving crew did give us directions to Wellington, the address of a place to see kiwi birds, and some polish to remove the lovely blue 'racing stripe' I put on the side of the car the other day while trying to squeeze into a very very tight parking space.. whoops.
By noon we were back on the road, but not for long! We had to stop to take pictures 3 times-- it was that pretty-- until we said enough and just kept driving. We stopped again a few hours later when we chanced upon the Tui Brewery. Tui's a local brew here and rather good so we popped in. We bought some souvenirs, laughed at the farcical Tui 'his-tui-ory' and Blake sampled 3 of their brews. Tui has some pretty brilliant marketing slogans which gave us some good laughs... Back on the road we had some more great driving until arriving at Mount Bruce Wildlife Park where we could see real life Kiwis, NZ's national emblem. The park was nice and it just so happened to be kaka feeding time so we managed to catch that. Kaka are a type of parrot indigenous to NZ and don't think for a second that we didn't make several fourth-grade level jokes about 'kaka'. After watching the kaka, (ha), we moved on to the Kiwis.
Now Blake was really excited about the Kiwis and had been talking about them for the whole trip. Kiwis are nocturnal and endangered making them next to impossible to see in the wild. So he was really excited about this. The 2 kiwis at the wildlife park live in this artificial landscape indoors which is darkened during the day to simulate nighttime so they'll come out. At night, artificial lights come on so that the kiwi will sleep while there aren't any visitors. We were lucky and got a good close up view of both of the kiwis---and they are funny funny little birds! So round and so fat with this strange strawlike long pointy beak. And they wobble! They actually looked quite tasty... Once we got tired of watching them waddle around, we moved around to the interactive exhibit which Blake had a little too much fun with. More walking around outside and finally we were off, once again back on the road.
Oooh NZ driving. How I love it. Luckily it was still my turn at the wheel as we approached Wellington at sunset coming through the mountains. Kid you not, it was by far the windiest road I've ever seen. Ever. We must have looped around for about 30 minutes. So much fun. I've got to get me a sports car and come back and have a go at these roads!
Well now we're in Wellington and have just had some great Mexican and Indian food (2 restaurants, long story) and are not looking forward to getting up early to catch our 7:55am ferry to the south island. But the ferry crossing is supposed to be beautiful so I suppose we'll make it! Tomorrow is just a lot of driving down to the Franz Josef Glacier and then the day after we hike the glacier. And then it's time for me to go! I'm so sad-- I love it here so so much. It's definitely been a highlight of my entire travels. Sure it might not be as exotic as Thailand or 'nam, but it is wonderful in its own right. Definitely coming back. But it's alright that I'm leaving since I'm going to Argentina next and that means family and familiarity. Besides I've been blowing through my money and don't really have any other adventure sports I'd like to try (base jumping? luging? bob sledding? Blake and I were trying to think of some others...). Still can't get any pictures up, but don't worry, I'll get a bunch up in just a few days once we get to BsAs!
Well if you've read my latest blog and my plans to sky dive, you'll know that today was the big day. I got up ready to leap out of a plane strapped to a stranger at 12,000 feet. The skydive service picked me up and I had the nicest chat with a girl my age driving the car. Halfway to the site though she gets a call: no sky dive. Apparently there were too many clouds to jump right then-- I was so bummed out! So I did the only natural thing to do when your sky dive gets canceled: bungee jump.
Taupo is really a great little adventure tourism town and I had heard good things about the bungee as well so I readily signed up for that as well. Blake was still packing and checking out, so I went by my lonesome. After signing my life away and emptying my pockets, my weight was written on my hand and I was sent over to the cantilever platform to make a leap of faith. I was the only jumper (it was a Sunday morning) so I didn't have to wait at all. Two girls quickly rolled up my jeans and attached the straps to each ankle, efficiently calling out the checks to one another on the carabiners, etc. And then came the bungy cord, an impressive mass of tiny rubber strands all bound together. They hooked me in, performed the final checks, and positioned me at the edge. I looked down at the calm blue water just 47m below and psyched myself up to jump. I smiled quickly for the camera, one girl told me to lift up my arms and then jump. So I jumped.
And then I screamed. Jumping was the easy part but as soon as I'd left the platform I couldn't keep from screaming out for dear life! The drop was such a rush and zooming towards me was the water! I recoiled just before I hit the water and I was back up again, probably around half the distance I'd jumped. By that time I'd stopped screaming and was just laughing primarily because it was fun, but also because my shirt had creeped up, exposing my stomach and the hood of my jacket had come over my head. I bounced up and down about 4 more times and then I deftly (if I say so myself) grabbed the extended pole offered to me by the bungy-collection boat man. They pulled me down, told me to look at my feet and calmly laid me down in the boat. Very fun. Back to shore and all I had to do was enjoy a nice walk back up to the office which was easy considering I couldn't wipe the smile off of my face.
Back at the office I talked myself into buying the pictures they'd taken which were quite good. They were running a special, so along with the pictures I also got a free DVD of the whole thing which was pretty darn hilarious. I knew I had to get it when they got the pre-jump part in, with me asking about how it works etc. Especially because Gnarls Barkley's Crazy (which Blake and I have deemed the theme song of the trip) was coincidentally playing on the radio just before I jump. I was actually rather impressed with myself after watching the jump because it was far! My parents are going to flip out when they see it...
After the bungee we were off on a mad dash to Hawke's Bay for our wine tasting. I got to drive and the roads again were more than ideal and about an hour and a half later we were at our next YHA hostel and ready to go wine tasting. We checked in and then Grape Escape came to pick us up. Again being winter, there were only 4 of us on the tasting van instead of the usual 10 or so. Our guide Greg took us first to Trinity Hill winery which Blake and I took to be a good sign since our favorite Irish Pub hangout in Dallas is Trinity Hall. I tasted some really great Merlots, Chardonnays, and Cabernet Sauvignon and by wine number 9 I was starting to feel it, and starting to wonder how I was going to keep this up for the next 3 or 4 wineries! I bought a very nice Merlot there that will probably go to Adriana and then we took off for the Ngatarawa winery. This place was really nice--an old racing stables that had been converted into the office. The staff was funny (or maybe it was just the wine..) and again about, oh, 9 tastings later I was finding myself reaching for the crackers by the handful. There we tried some really nice Chardonnays again, which I got a very good 1994 Reserve for the white wine mama of mine. Hope she likes it!
Next on the list was Sileni Estates which actually now that I think of it I'm having a hard time recalling...oh yes. The cheese. At this place we had some lovely cheeses-- a very soft bleu cheese that was to die for. And gouda. Mmmm. The wine was great too. There I bought a very nice Pinot Noir-- probably the best I've ever tried. Last on the list was Matariki winery where I bought the nicest dessert wine that I've ever tasted. Not too sweet and very crisp and clean. I ended up getting two bottles-- one for me and one for one of the cousins perhaps.
Well by the end of that you can imagine the state we were in. Rather inebriated. The guide dropped us off at our hostel and after a brief pillow fight, we took a much needed 2 hour nap. We woke up, somehow convinced ourselves to get out of bed, and grabbed dinner. Feeling loads better after having eaten and had some water we then went to the supermarket. Which brings us right up to the present.
So what's on tap for tomorrow? Well sorry parents, but tomorrow morning I'm trying round 2 of sky diving. Unfortunately it's a bit more expensive here, but I've really convinced myself I want to do it, and you know how I get once my mind is set on something. Blake isn't jumping (he's already done it--and no, he didn't put me up to this) but he is going in a little plane which he is going to get to help fly a bit. I predicting an Air-Asia triple-jump esque landing and take off for him! After our aerial adventures we're just driving down to Wellington. And that's it! Seriously things are great here. I've overcome any latent fears of heights, closed in spaces, falling, driving fast, and flying already on this trip. The only thing left to work on is my discomfort at being naked with Asian women which thanks to the onsen, Thai oil massage, and Vietnamese sauna is much better. But you've got to have something to work towards.
Alright--ciao!
Hey all! Just got back from a very exciting day out at the Tongoriro crossing. Blake and I arose bright and early this morning to catch the Tongoriro Expeditions bus out to the mountains at around 6:20am. Unfortunately, at around 6am we realized that all of our food was locked in the hostel kitchen! Since we would be spending the entire day out in the blustery cold on the mountain, we were really wishing that we could get at our food... but we figured that the bus could probably just stop at a gas station.
Well that would have been a good plan if the bus had just been for a few people-- instead it was crammed full of 20-25 year olds all being picked up from hostels and hoping to get a real life Lord of the Rings Experience. And we were headed straight for the mountain.
Immediately the commotion of getting ill-equipped backpackers fitted with adequate winter clothing and hiking gear for the 17km trek all in the aisles of an already very packed bus. Luckily Blake asks if we could stop at a gas station real quick since we have no food and not enough water, and they oblige. 20 NZ$ later, I've got some sandwiches, granola bars, H20 and red bull to keep me going. Back in the bus the struggle of changing pants, finding a coat, etc ensues. Fortunately my run to the Warehouse days before has me with more than enough winter clothing. All I needed was a pair of crampons (for my boots on the ice) and the rocking water proof boots they lent us all.
Eventually we all arrive at the Tongoriro site and already the view is amazing. The mountains (which are volcanic) rise about 2700 m high and are covered with snow. We'll be ascending to just around 1800 m today from 1100 m but it was going to be tough in all the snow! We set off along the easy bit towards the mountain and already I'm feeling like I have on too much clothing which is a good sign. An hour or so later we arrive (all 30+ of us) at the omenously named 'Devil's Staircase'. Our guide led the way, toeing in a path into the fresh snow and we snaked our way up a very steep hill. As we're sinking the snow, trying not to topple down the rather steep slope, and doing our best to follow exactly in the footprints of the fellow in front of us, 3 men just blaze by us with skis attached to their packs. Josh, one of our guides later tells us that they are going to be skiing down the 45% incline. Crazy Kiwis.
After a lot more of inching our way up the icey slope, we make it to the top. Of the rim. A quick break to catch our breaths and we're back off, tramping through knee high snow across a beautiful snowy plain towards the next ridge. With Mount Doom on our right, we can just make out the volcanic steam emerging from the top. This image coupled with the periodic grumblings carried forth by the wind from afar makes me wonder just how likely Mountie Doom is to erupt at, oh, any minute...
But we keep trudging along, feeling like moon walkers because of the giant strides we're taking, leaping forward just to sink down again slowly. Just as I'm getting rather knackered, we reach the next incline and we're off over the crest of this rim. And it's absolutely wonderful. You can see for forever in either direction. Behind us in the very far distance lies the Mt. Fuji-esque Mt. Irod or something like that, while in front of us below lies an entire mountain range. Beautiful. After many pictures (snow angels, 'ah i'm falling', pretending a rock is a bucking bronco etc) we all continue, yes, upward, yet again up a steep and icey bit. I'm wondering if we should be putting our crampons on yet, but Josh seems pretty confident and finally around noon we reach the summit!
At the summit, sulphuric gasses are rising up from the peak which heat the ground just enough to melt the snow and make quite a nice warm seat to sit down and eat lunch. Marveling at the view (which has only gotten better) Blake pops open his champagne that he bought in Bangkok to celebrate. Some people congratulate him for his dedication to the bottle ('you're a legend!') but most just give him the eye and silently declare him an alcoholic. Me, I know that it's his 22nd bday and this has been planned out for weeks and that we both expected it to just be us two and a guide, but it was funnier leaving the rest of the trekking group in the dark about this. After a lot more funny pictures involving Blake's cheap (and none too alcoholic) girly champagne (which not only had roses on the bottle but came with a heart pendant..really), it's time for us all to start the descent. And what better way to do it, than to slide down the mountain.
While I'm sure most of us thought Josh was joking when we he said we were to slide down, sure enough he just sits down and takes off towards the flat part of the crater below. Following suit I plop down and zoom down. It was incredible. Thanks to my ski pants I flew down the hill, so fast that I kept pushing the Brit in front of me forward with my legs as I ran into him. But it was cool since I caught his jacket when he lost it mid-slope (he was using it as a seat.. didnt' work). At the end we were all snow covered and a bit wet but couldn't have been happier. The icing on the (birthday) cake, was seeing Blake come down, champagne bottle in hand, drinking. Fantastic.
Exhilerating sledding ride down, we tramp onwards yet again across the flat cratery bit. As we're walking I talk to a Canadian guy who is working here at a sky diving place in Taupo. Which gets me thinking.. I was already considering doing a bungy in Taupo (47m opposed to the crazy one Blake is doing at 200+m) but sky diving sounds even better. By now I'm pretty much over any kind of fear of heights I might have had having tackled the 100m abseil the day before, so this really does sound like a good idea. Upward along the path, we reach another crest of a hill and there below us is Lake Taupo and in the distance the East coast of the island! You really could just see forever. From there, more descending (weight in your heels!) until we reach a rather dodge bit that's fairly icey and with quite the rocky slide down to the gulley that I'd rather not try out. Moving carefully along, we all snake our way around until.. yes! another slide down the mountain!
And this one was even better. Having gotten the hang of it the first go-round, I really zoom off this time, winding in and out of the channel made in the snow. With the wind rushing past my head I can just see the hut down below which is our next stopping point. I manage to make it all the way down with just one quick stop where I ran out of momentum and had to walk. More of a rest and then the real descent, back down to 700m. Blake and I talk most of the way and an hour and a half later, at 4pm we're finally back at the car park (not the same one mind you) and there's our bus! We return our borrowed equipment and hooray! we get free coke and beers! Once back on the bus we all chitchat before getting really sleepy and then once we're back on the road, they stop for gas and then come back with bags of chips (french fries) piping hot for all of us! Too bad there was no ketchup.
So here we are back at the hostel and yeah we haven't had really much internet access at all, let alone time, so I know I'm behind on my updates. Hopefully I'll get a chance tomorrow to catch you up... especially since tomorrow I will be sky diving! Yea! Don't worry parents, it will be safe and by the time you read this it will already have been done. Love you!!!!!!!!
Today was amazing- one of the best experiences so far out of the trip. Spelunking, pot-holing, caving... whatever you call it, it was cool. Blake and I had planned to do the 7-8 hour adventure to the Lost World cave in Waitomo which included a 100m abseil down to the cave, bouldering into the cave, and then jumping into the waters and following the river up stream for several hours. Unfortunately, because of recent rains, the water level was too high for the long adventure and they told us we'd have to do another 4 hour 'wet' adventure in another cave that would give a similar experience and then we could still do the abseil and glowworm viewing bit of the Lost World cave for a few more hours. Not having much other options, we said alright and they sent us off with just one other tourist, a Brit named Helena and two guides Brad and Neil in a pink school bus towards the first cave. Little did we know how lucky we were that the big cave was flooded out..
After a quick bus ride and get-to-know-you chat among all of us we arrived at a shed where we would be equipped for the wet part of the cave. In the very very cold winter weather (naturally the shed wasn't heated) we stripped down to our bathing suits and put on some damp (why are they always wet!!!!!) wetsuits. Next came rock climbing harnesses and then gum boots (wellys) and as a final touch the caving helmet complete with head lamp. The three of us newbies then walked outside into the very cold weather yet again and practiced on a hill with a rope how to abseil down a bit. It wouldn't have been hard at all except for that my hands were frozen. Neil kept assuring us that it would be warmer in the cave, but we were pretty skeptical about that, especially since we'd be getting wet. After practicing we descended towards the cave and prepared ourselves for the first abseil. Brad went first and then one by one we followed, descending 30m into the dark cave below. It was just a bit scary at first especially with the water splashing down upon me as I lowered myself down with my frozen fingers but once at the bottom it was rather exhilerating. Then we were supposed to sit in the water and scootch into this tiny hole and slide down like a water slide. It looked dodgy but I followed Blake through and there was Brad on the other side. Next came two more abseils, shorter than the first but far wetter with water crashing down on us.
We waded through the water ducking under rocks and trying to keep upright and then it was time for Brad to lower us down on one more abseil. Of course he turns off our head lamps just as he's about to lower us down and goes 'geronimo!!!!!' I thought it was going to be this huge drop, but actually it was just 10 feet. Pretty funny. More clambering over rocks and wading through the water which had surprisingly warmed us just like the guides had said that it would. We worked our way through the caves like this, squeezing in between crevices, laying down in the water and crawling forward in low spots and having a wonderful time. So much fun. The best part was when we got the chance to 'sump' which is when you have to completely submerge yourself in the water in order to get through an opening. Of course Brad was on one side and Neil on the other so it was safe especially since the wall separating the two coves was only about an inch thick meaning you had to duck under for just a second. It was still pretty crazy though!
Another great moment was when we turned off all of our headlamps and learned about the glowworms hanging above us. Glowworms exist only in New Zealand and thrive in wet caves like the ones all over Waitomo. They're not actually worms, but rather the pupae form of maggots and the bit that glows is just their digested food (yum...) sitting in their intestines. The light attracts other insects (primarily the flies that these maggots will one day become) which get caught in these little silky lines that they let down from the ceiling of the cave where they reside. Once the maggots become full on flies they live for 2-3 days at which time, as Brad so eloquently put it, 'they find a nice friend, have a drink or two, head back home and basically have tantric shagging for 2 days after which the male leaves all discombobulated and sees a nice little light flies up towards it and gets eaten by his breathren. The female just lays a bunch of eggs and meets the same fate as the male. Tough life.' Not the best set up, being a glowworm I suppose.
We really lucked out on this bit of the caving adventure because there were only 3 of us so we had gotten through the caves very quickly. So at the point where they usually exit the cave, we had the opportunity to carry on further for another half an hour before turning back. And then came the best part: we got to rock climb up the walls. Don't worry parentals, we were secured by a top rope which was good because it was a challenging climb with the water coming down atop our heads and trying to get a toehold while wearing mud boots. But it was exhilerating. After another 2 climbs and a ladder ascent we reemerged and found that the drab winter morning had miraculously turned into a lovely, sunny, winter afternoon. Then came the hardest part of the entire adventure: climbing back up the huge hill towards the shed with mud filled boots! But we made it and after a nice hot shower we dressed and then set back for the office in town.
Blake and I still had a dry caving adventure left that afternoon so we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed off just the two of us with a very funny Brit named Rob that was to lead us into the Lost World Cave. We had a nice drive over to this particular cave which was only discovered in 1905 by some railroad surveyors that must have been rather astonished to come upon a 100m deep cave whose roof had fallen in making a spectacular 'Lost World' of sorts.
Immediately I was happy that it was just Blake, Rob and I because we were using lobster claws or cowtails (two carabiners attached to ropes and attached to us) to hook into a series of ropes just as an extra safety as we approached the cave opening. At least one lobster claw has to be hooked in at all times so you can imagine that switching from one rope to the next in series would take a group of 12 quite some time. But as a small group, we could move quicker because there was no one to wait for. Finally we come upon the chasm where we'd be doing the abseil. Still hooked into the safety lines with our lobster claws we inched out onto the suspended platform. Looking down, it didn't even appear to be 100m. Rob did a few safety checks and soon we were ready to get strapped in. We were using the 'rack' again, a metal device used for abseiling that uses friction to keep you in place. Rob assured us that we wouldn't be going too fast since the rope was so heavy because of its length but warned us that as we descended the rope would get lighter and we would have to use a leg wrap (wrapping your leg around the rope) to slow ourselves further. I wasn't worried at all because after all my rock climbing I've become comfortable with trusting ropes and we were all descending together and we had another automatic locking device in the event that one person lost control. Rob saw that we were ready to go, and after a few more practice leg wraps we all started to go down together.
And it was fantastic. The weather was clear so we could actually see straight down to the bottom which Rob said it rare this time of year. As we moved further down we joked around, talking casually, which we found rather funny in itself considering we were more than 300 feet up in the air, dangling on a rope. When we felt like we were about 3/4 of the way down, Rob told us we were only halfway-- funny how the perspective messes with your perception of distance. As we looked up at the now rather distant platform above you could see individual water droplets falling down from above, seemingly suspended in the time it took for them to finally reach us. Around us you could really differentiate between the layers in the rock and could see just how enormous the cave was. After a few more minutes we finally came upon solid ground and very ready to give our nether regions a break from the harness! Next came bouldering and inching along rocks again, more glowworm viewing, and lots of joking around with Rob. It was great but not as adventurous as the morning because the spaces were more open meaning it was more climbing rather than squeezing and crawling. But still lots of fun. Actually one of the better parts was climbing up this great 30m high ladder (we were hooked into a safety line) which is far higher than you'd expect, even looking at it. Standing at the bottom the top just disappeared into the dark above. More ladder climbing and climbing in general and an hour later we were again back on land, out in the middle of a pasture. It was so surreal thinking that we'd just come through under that pastureland in a huge cave--you'd never suspect that something so incredible could be lurking below, just underneath grazing sheep.
So that was the caving day. Absolutely one-hundred and ten percent wonderful and one of the best days yet. After that full day we then drove off into the sunset, headed for Taupo..
ARRRRRR from Auckland! Yesterday, as I was thoroughly enjoying the hot water in the shower, a great idea came to me: we could easily stop to watch Pirates of the Carribbean 2 in Auckland on our long way from Tutukaka to Waitomo. Now Blake has been talking about Pirates of the Carribbean for months already so when I suggested this idea he was all over it like white on rice. With that plan in mind, we headed out from Tutukaka back to Auckland, the great metropolis of 1.4 million, which is nearly a third of NZ's entire population. Crazy.
Up until this morning, Blake had driven the car, but now it was my chance to try my hand at left of the road driving. As I pulled out onto the main road I kept chanting to myself 'keep left! keep left!' and after a bit of hesitation and trying to find my place in the lane, I got the hang of it. 10 minutes down the road, and I was a pro, zipping around curves and over hills with no problems. And a lovely drive it was. My dad would love it. I only wish we'd had a proper sports car instead of our toyota, but it was still very fun. Well paved, well marked, and windy windy roads through breathtaking scenery made it one of the best drives ever.
By around noon we'd arrived in Auckland and set off to do our errands: see about changing flights, eat lunch, buy a waterproof case for Blake's camera, and of course Pirates. By 5pm we'd accomplished all of this, and I'd bought a pair of jeans. And let me tell you, nothing felt more luxurious than putting on a pair of jeans. I hadn't even realized that I'd been missing them until I got to a place where people were actually wearing them. As for the Pirates, well the movie was pretty good and Blake was happy, even though it doesn't end proper which was annoying. Still, well worth the detour.
With everything accomplished we were about to be on our way to Waitomo which we'd figured would take around 3 hours. But then the camera store man bursts our bubble by informing us that it would take around 5 hours. What! We weren't psyched for that kind of a drive, especially at night but having no other options we took off. And then we promptly got stuck in traffic. Perhaps leaving at 5pm from NZ's only big city wasn't the best idea. The bumper to bumper wasn't too bad though and soon we were off. We stopped for gas a little ways out at around 6:30 where we met a huge Cowboys fan (Kiwis watch football?) who told us his dream was to drive through the American south. Funny. Anyway, he gave us a better route to go, but told us that we wouldn't arrive before 10pm. Hearing that, we slapped together some sandwiches and resumed driving. Many kilometers of windy roads snaking through the middle of nowhere and several ipod playlists later, we figured out we were really close to Waitomo. We made it there by 8:45pm in the end, just in time to check into the hostel. Since we made the entire trip in under 3 hours instead of the 4-5 suggested by the other 2 locals, we concluded that 1) Kiwis must drive rather slow 2) Kiwis must take a lot of rest stops 3) Kiwis just don't have any real concept of time. My bet's on no. 3. Especially since whenever we tell a local that we're here for just 2 weeks, their eyes about bug out of their head. Anything less than 5 weeks apparently is just unacceptable.
So there we were, safe and sound in Waitomo and in our very comfy, warm beds we quickly fell asleep.
Yesterday, after a very very long day of traveling, Blake and I arrived from Bangkok via Sydney to Auckland New Zealand. For all of those (ahem, Americans) who might need a geography refresher, NZ is pretty bloody far from Thailand. We left 6:30pm and arrived about oh 15 hours later very very tired in Auckland. After renting our car (white toyota corrolla) we headed straight towards 'the wearhouse' which is like a lower end 'tar-get' where we had a winter clothing spending spree. Blake already had some clothes from Australia, but the warmest garments I had were a $2 pair of fisherman's pants, flip flops, tee shirts and a fleece. Not quite enough for snowy, wintery New Zealand.
After dropping about $200 big ones, I left with the works- long underwear, fleece, snow jacket, snow pants, tennis shoes, long sleeve tees, scarf, gloves, ridiculous looking ski hat, and loads more. The exchange rate is in our favor here making everything rather inexpensive. Next, we headed over to the supermarket and stockpiled on some groceries. Then we were off.
After a minor wrong turn, we were headed off north on Route 1 towards Tutukaka. It was already dark unfortunately, so we missed the scenery along the 2 1/2 hour drive, but it was still quite fun especially because the roads were well-paved and windy. And it was so liberating to have a car! And normal food! And English!
So Blake and I were quite content, listening to our ipods, munching on sandwiches, sipping red bulls, and cruising through rural NZ. We only wished that we had a nice little sports car to really whip around the corners.
Eventually we arrived right at Tutukaka, and found Malibu Mal's, our accommodation. We saw a white board outside of the house telling us welcome and to make ourselves at home in our 'unit.' We open the door expecting twin beds in a small room but instead found a living room with TV, kitchen, bedroom with a huge, very comfy looking bed, another room with not one but two bunkbeds, and a bathroom. All for us. We even had complimentary cereal, milk, coffee, etc. Nice.
We watched a bit of TV (only 4 channels unfortunately) then I claimed the big bed, and Blake happily climbed into the bunkbed with the elephants on the bedspread. (what a goob). The only problem with the place was that it was FREEZING! I don't know if they didn't have the heat turned on or if it didn't work, but it was cold there. I slept with not just my fleece (which I have already been mocked incessantly for because I wore it in Cambodia one night--hey the AC was on full blast and it was cold..) but also threw on the long underwear, hat, and contemplated gloves and the scarf. I may have looked ridiculous, but I slept like a rock--a very toasty little rock.
The next morning after a quick breakfast, we headed round the corner to Dive! Tutukaka, the dive operator for our two dives. There were only 5 of us going out that day, Matt, a Brit, Alex, a Dutch guy, and Sten some Dane. The weather wasn't looking good, and the two instructors weren't too happy about the 3m swells on the sea, but they said we'd get in the boat and give it a go. We packed our gear up and headed out.
The boat was far nicer (and smaller) than the one in Thailand, but no surprise there! We also actually had life jackets and a quick safety run down on this boat. Without wasting too much time, we took off for the 1 hour ride to Poor Knights' Island. And a bumpy ride it was.
I'd been in choppy water once before, on the way to Chumpon pinnacle last week and even though this weather was worse I felt safer. Maybe it was the life jackets, maybe it was a nice looking Kiwi skipper named Craig instead of a bare-chested, tatooed, chain smoking Thai, or maybe it was just because I've gotten some sea legs finally. Whatever it was, even though we were literally bouncing all over the place, I felt fine. Of course I didn't take my eyes off the horizon line pretty much the entire ride out.
Despite the very rough seas (winds moving at 35 knots---don't really know how fast that is but it sounded bad), we did make it out the islands which are protected now by the government and no one is allowed to step foot on. Apparently some of the native Maori people used to live there prior to the 1800s, but a huge massacre by Captain Cook took place there (I think) so they moved everyone and made it a protected site. Now there are about 100 dive sites surrounding the place and because the islands are volcanic formations and there's a warm current running through, there is loads of sea life to see. Even before we got in the water we saw furry seals laying on the rocks and birds in the water. Luke, our other skipper, also showed us some pictures of the humongous bugs that live on the island-- crickets as long as your forearm. Gross. But we were really there for the water so braving the cold, we quickly stripped down to our bathing suits and put on our wetsuits which of course had gotten soaked by the freezing rain on the ride over. Brutal.
But once the wetsuits were on, we were actually pretty warm. The only part of me exposed was my face, but I still was hesitant about jumping into 16 degree (celcius) water. With everything hooked up, and us anchored in to calmer waters (thanks to the shelter of the island from the winds) I did the giant stride entry in and whooo! what a shock to the system! It really wasn't that cold, but I could feel the water seeping into my wetsuit--brrr. Everyone else followed me and after a quick buoyancy test to make sure our weight belts were heavy/light enough, we descended.
It was cold, but beautiful. The surge was fairly strong so we really had to hold on to the kelp growing nearby (very sturdy). The coral just keep getting lovelier as we descended down to 18m. Immediately there were just tons of fish everywhere as well as the strangest looking creatures growing on the coral. We had time for a swim through (swimming through a coral hole), and then just exploring. Because girls don't typically use up as much air, I got to stay down the longest because the boys all got low on air (50 bar) way before I did. So while Blake only got 37 minutes down there, I had 48 and got to just go along with the guide Luke so we saw quite a lot of cool nubibranches (some type of sea cucumber thingies--tiny) and moray eels, and other fish.
After ascending with Luke, I realized just how cold I really was as I emerged from the water. My feet were like ice blocks. They hurried to take off my equipment and then I got coffee and a hot shower (mmmm). Next came lunch and a bit of a rest and looking at seals until we changed spots. The next dive at Dutch Cove was with the other guide Craig. Again I lasted way longer than all the guys, so by the end it was just Craig and I down there and then we saw the coolest thing I think I've seen yet--- a mosaic moray eel close up. Craig had it in his hands and I got to touch it! It was so cool. Even better than seeing the shark from a ways off in Thailand. 50 minutes under the water and I resurfaced with Craig. More hot shower and then changing out of the wet suit and we were headed back towards land.
Of course we were expecting yet another bad bumpy ride because the weather certainly hadn't gotten any better, but almost immediately into the ride back, we realize it must have just been Craig's driving because with Luke at the wheel it's not nearly as bad! An hour later we return, have our log books stamped, then head back to Malibu Mal's for some hot cocoa and a nap.
Around 7pm we head out in search of internet and a place to eat, but according to the woman upstairs (who we assume must have worked at the place...still not sure) there is no internet in Tutukaka. Ha. And there are two places to eat. One is expensive and the other is a pizzeria. Except the pizzeria isn't open. So we opt for the Tutukaka Deep Sea Fishing Lodge that has a cafe.
We walk in and it's 2 older guys and a well-seasoned bar gal in there with two chefs in the back. That's it. It look a bit dodgy but we decided to give it a go. We ordered up some beer and burgers and sat down with the locals. And these two guys were hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. Like the 2 old Irish guys you would find in some non-descript pub in middle-of-nowhere Ireland. Except Kiwi of course. And the burgers--- delicious. Heaven on a bun. With cheese. We were laughing hysterically. It was everything that we had hoped for from New Zealand. Yes. Of course the place shut down around 8:30 so it was an early night for us. A bit of TV watching back at the guesthouse, and some laundry and well we called it a night. And so will I now!
Back in Bangkok. Blech! I don't even know where to begin on the last few days. Basically they included the following activities:
So basically it was great-- except for the most nerve racking 'taxi' ride yet-- we were late for a dive and our driver was booking it. I won't go into details but we were in the back of a pick up truck zooming around on dirt roads. And the diving was wonderful. Lauren, the two Austrian guys, Luca and Philipo, the two Quebecoise Marie-Eve and Julie and moi are all advanced divers. We did 5 dives in two days which included a night dive, a 30m deep dive, a navigation dive, a buoyancy dive, and a cave dive. Very very fun and we got to see SHARKS! They were about 2m long grey reef sharks and they were right there! Philpo was so excited he almost swam after one. We also saw puffer fish, moray eels, blue spotted sting rays, and a school of barracuda. I really wish that we'd had time to do our rescue course as well where you learn any emergency skill you could think of. Oh well maybe another time.
But now I'm in Bangkok with Blake and we're getting ready to try and send some of our many purchases home. After a ferry ride and another bumpy landing on Bangkok Air we've made it to good ol' Bangkok where we had to leave Lauren at the airport to catch her flight back home to America. I'm rather sad and it still hasn't hit me that she's left. I'm not sure exactly when I'll be seeing her again which really is unnerving.
Blake and my flight is at 6:15 p.m. and after a mere 9 hours in the air we'll arrive in Sydney where we get to wait around for another 3 hours before a 6 hour flight. Lovely. I'll definitely have to update more when we get there, and pray that there is an internet connection where I can finally upload some pictures! But for now it's buh bye to South East Asia....
Argh! I HATE Bangkok! This city frustrates me endlessly (save the lovely frappaccino on Bangkok pass through number 3). I just got back from a taxi trip from hell--the guy had no idea of the city and I had to give him directions in the end!!!!!!!
The ride should have taken just under 10 minutes and cost 35 baht like it did when Blake and I took it this morning so we could go ship our package to the states. But oh no, I happen to pick the one taxi cab driver that has no idea where anything is in Bangkok. It was quite simple really. He picked me up by Khaosan Road, the one road that everyone, even people who have never been to Bangkok, knows. Then I asked him to take me to the Shanti Lodge. I showed him their business card, which has the address in Thai. And a map on the back. And the map shows Khaosan Road and the hotel which is right next to the river and the National Library. A monkey could have figured it out. But instead he has us going all the way down one road the wrong way I'm telling him this is wrong but he keeps insisting he knows where it is (or at least that's what I assume he's saying). At one point he goes 'sri ayutthaya' and stops the car. Although it is in face the street I need, he is in no way close to my hotel. At this point he jumps out of the car to ask a police man for directions. The police man, as I'd predicted points emphatically in the other direction down Sri Ayutthaya, the way we'd just come. Now I'm still mad because this guy is wasting my time, but assured that now that he's gotten directions and I've shown him yet again on my map where the hotel is I stay in the cab. Now he's driving in the right direction at least but yeah he still manages to screw it up. About a block from where we need to be he takes a left instead of a right. Now at this point I'm about to lose it. With a lot of yelling and finger pointing I convince him to circle the block and take a right. He looks at me skeptically and at this point I'd just like to slap him. Finally, thanks to my own directions, we arrive at the hotel. I jump out without paying, and luckily I think he was expecting this because he didn't even argue. All in all the trip took a solid 50 minutes and the meter had run up to 115 baht. Just one more story of why Bangkok blows!
But hey at least I'm leaving.Oh just a few more funny things: this morning Blake and I passed by more than one 'ID' services on Khaosan. For just a couple hundred baht you can buy student ID cards, diplomas, Teaching English as a Foreign Language degrees, and probably loads more. Now that's what I call sketchy. Equally sketchy was the designated sand-filled container with the words 'Clear Guns Here' printed below what we assumed was a space to fire your loaded weapon before going through airport security in Koh Samui last night. But on the upside, just after security Bangkok Airways provides all of its pistol packing customers with complimentary coffee, tea, cookies, biscuits, internet, etc etc. Bizarre.
Since I'm just killing time at the Shanti Lodge in Bangkok while Blake showers, I thought I'd list out a few of our Southeast Asia highlights:
Now onto New Zealand
Yeah kind of worst case scenario. I suppose we'll just have to start from the beginning...
Tuesday we had our final day of diving to receive the open water certification. Big black storm clouds were on the horizon and the wind was stirring up some waves so we couldn't go out to Chumpon pinnacle so instead we headed for Twin Peaks which was still great. We had 2 good dives and were really excited to have finished everything. When we got back it was time to pay 'beer fines' the beers we owed Dave because we'd had our masks on our head instead of around our neck during the dives since the former is an international sign of distress. So we all rejoiced in our open water certification by having a beer and filling in our dive logs. After about an hour we got to watch a dvd of ourselves in the water which was fun to see but too expensive to buy. We hung around the Master Divers' shop for some time after that and finally headed back to Sairee Beach at 8pm. Lauren and I changed out of our bathing suits then met Ashley our instructor, and Marc, another diver at the AC bar. We played pool for awhile (Lauren really held her own) and sat by the beach for even longer. Well it was sometime while I was talking to Cosimo, this half French half Sicilian guy and Lauren was talking to Ashley that Lauren's bag was stolen.
She set it down, turned her back and it was gone. Passport, wallet, ipod, razr, credit cards. Everything. We searched everywhere but it was gone. We hardly slept at all that night (like an hour) and then as early as we could the next morning we went back with Ash to the bar, but it wasn't there. Searching around alleys and combing the beach ensued, but to no end. Several international phone calls later we realized this meant completely curtailing our vacation in paradise. Because Lauren's flight was Monday morning at 6:30am from Bangkok,, something she'd definitely need a passport for, that meant that if we left immiediately we might have just enough time to get to Bangkok by Thursday morning before the embassey there closed at 2pm so that we could bribe them to please process the passport in one day instead of 3 (of course the place is closed on the weekend).
So we were very upset. Leaving for Bangkok was practically unfathomable while sitting on the deck looking out at the azure ocean and feeling the coolness of a wonderful beach breeze. Getting on a ferry, running to catch an overnight bus, Bangkok traffic, embassey lines, tuk tuk drivers surrounding you... and no advanced diving--well our reservation in paradise had just been changed for one in hell. Sorry mate, out of room here. Try the shite-hole up the way. Definitely not how we'd envision the end of our wonderful trip.
So we're sitting here wallowing in self pity, looking mournfully at the water when I decide to check train and ferry times at the place down the way leaving Lauren and Ash behind. I almost duck into the first place I come across but something made we walk just a bit further. Then I passed the AC bar, where the purse was lost. For whatever reason I though, oh I'll just look one more time. I made a quick tour of the bar, but no one was there, the upside down bar stools resting on the counter making the floor look especially empty and devoid of any waylaid personal belongings. I was walking around looking for anyone to ask about the purse when I passed the adjoining dive shop. Just for the hell of it, I turned around and asked unethusiastically if anyone had found a purse. I told them that I really just neede the passport and would even pay for it, no questions asked. The guy said he didn't know but he'd check and then went and asked an Australian girl sitting behind a desk and she goes yeah someone did turn one in this morning. As she reached down for it I peered over her shoulder fully expecting to see random purse, but there it was. Lauren's bag. With the passport. And even her credit cards. I was so stunned that I just stood there for a few seconds with my mouth open before 'ohmygoodthatstotallyherpurseicantbelieveitthisisincredibleshesgoingtobesohappy' just flew out. I almost kissed the girl who handed it to me. With the biggest smile on my face I tried not to run down the path to where I'd left Ash and Lauren. I put the purse behind my back as I walked in and tried to muster my best poker face.
'Lauren, the next ferry leaves at 2pm. But I don't think we should take it.'
Lauren, practically too exhausted and self-pitying to argue just replies 'why?'
'I just really don't think we should go to Bangkok today. Or even tomorrow. I think we should just stay here and do our diving certification.'
Just before she got really confused from my sudden lack of camraderie, I whip out the purse and with my face beeming, announce 'because I found your purse!!!!!!!!!!!!'
Equally stunned Ash and Lauren didn't even react for a moment. Lauren goes 'What?' then sees it, jumps up and kisses me. Ash just says 'you're joking- you're joking' about 5 times before Lauren exuberation confirms that yes indeed this is the said purse and opening said purse reveals lost passport. American passport. So no Bangkok, no walking down the overcrowded, dirty streets, avoiding men that smell of homelessness and curry. No bustling around, worrying about Monday morning, no queues. Instead we were given our paradise back. We didn't have to go anywhere. And we could dive tomorrow if we wanted. The other things lost didnt' matter because we'd gotten back all we really needed, our chance to stay here.
It really was magical in a way. So just when everything looked like it was hopeless, it turned around. Even funnier was that if she'd just had her ipod, phone and cash stolen she would have been furious but since she'd thought she lost everything when she got back just some of her things, we were all overjoyed. And that's how the worst day suddenly became the best day. But it wouldn't have been the best day if it hadn't been the worst day first. There's a good life lesson in there. And now Lauren knows that I wouldn't let her go to Bangkok by herself even when I really really really really didn't want to go, and that nothing is more important to me than her (not even diving). I suppose you could say we were being tested in some way, seeing if we'd all do the right thing even when we didn't want to, seeing what would happen when the proverbial shite hit the fan. Maybe you just think it's blind luck, but I think for Lauren and me, we'll just call it a gloriously answered prayer.
Mmm so after the worst day turned into the best day we just sat around for a few more hours smiling and drinking banana shakes (okay so Ash was drinking beer) until we went back to the dive shop. Of course we told everyone the shortened version of the story and surprisingly no one really understood how very happy we were to have gotten the passport back. They could only seem to focus on the lost ipod, phone and cash. 'well at least you got the passport' was more of just a sympathetic I'm-trying-to-make-you-feel-better response when actually I especially was feeling invinceable for having achieved the impossible by retrieving the unfathomable. oh well. we were happy.
Then we were TIRED. we still hadn't slept at all, so we took a nap for a few hours before meeting up with Ash for dinner at 8. But Ash was no where to be seen. So we walked down the Italian restaurant we had planned to go to but still so sign of him, so we ordered up some pizzas. They were surprisingly amazing--akin to the random deliciousness of the gelatto in Hanoi or the hotdogs in Copenhagen. Better than pretty much any pizza I'd ever eaten (except Naples). Except unlike Naples we had a clean very posh decor in the restaurant instead of a view of a trashy street and Italian prostitutes wearing 'skirts' and boots up-to-there. Unfortuately we were a bit full so we took it to go and walked back. Still no Ash, but we met up with Marie-Eve and Julie for awhile before going to bed insanely early.
This morning, we woke up rather late (for here) and had breakfast at our favorite place, In Touch where we've been lounging about (literally--we've taken naps here) for the past 5 days. After a few hours on the deck reading, we decided to walk to the Master Divers shop to see what time we needed to be there tomorrow morning to start our advanced certification. During the walk we shared slang phrases in English and French and some how in explaining about chill-axing (chilling and relaxing) we got to ex-laxing. It was pretty funny at the time and even funnier since no one's dared to define it quite yet (probably for the best).
On the way to Master Divers we ran into Ash, who as we'd figured, fallen asleep and stayed asleep for way too long. We did make plans to meet up with him tonight though. At Master Divers we settled on our dives for tomorrow--buoyancy and naturist for dive 1, navigation for dive 2, and night dive for dive 3. And we found out that Dave is cooking up a barbecue tomorrow evening after the night dive. Excellent. And everyone who did the open water certification is doing the advance, plus Julie, so it's going to be very very fun.
Next we grabbed a cab to Freedom beach while was lovely and remote and read some more. Then it got a bit stormy so we walked around to a restaurant and who was there but Cosimo-the French-Italian guy! He was in on the whole passport loss, so he was really surprised to see us here--we explained that we'd found it and also tried to make plans to meet up later. Crazy. Koh Tao really is a small island I suppose. Then a late lunch, a taxi ride and here we are!
So most def the last few days have been 'absolutely mental'... and who knows what will happen when Blake arrives!
Today was my first day ever scuba diving and it was the best experience. Well except for right at the beginning when I felt like I was going to ralph on the boat ride over to the dive site. It was super choppy plus I hadn't really eaten breakfast so when you put the two together I wasn't feeling so hot. It worked in my favor though because by the time we did reach the dive site, I didn't hesitate for a moment about being the first one in (after our instructor David of course). Thanks to the screwy laws of physics, even though I weighed about 70 pounds extra with the tank, wetsuit, weight belt, etc etc on, I floated right up to the top of the water as everyone else entered.
After all 5 of the newbies had gotten in the water, David and our other instructor Ashley led us a short surface swim away to chest high water where we could practice. Today we learned how to breathe underwater (very easy--easier than snorkeling for sure), and then how to recover our regulator (what you breathe out of) if it comes out, how to defog our masks, remove and put back on our masks, etc etc. We were out in the shallow water for about an hour just getting comfortable and everything went very smoothly. So far Lauren and I are just very impressed with the course and Master Divers. They take safety very seriously and are really professional, but still joke around and make sure we're having a good time. I only wish we had an extra day or two to do our advanced certification!
So after getting accustomed to being underwater, we then went on our first dive all together first at 3m then increasing slowly down to 7m. I stayed with my buddy, Lauren, of course the whole time which was a little bit strange because sometimes she'd be above me or behind me and I'd lose her for a second. I suppose I'm not used to searching for people in 3D. We saw a fair number of fish (trigger, parrot, sargent major, bat) and coral of course. The whole time I did feel like scuba steve just gliding through the water but horribly awkward on land.
The whole scuba process is actually much more mathematical than I'd realized. You have to use these 3 charts to calculate ascent speeds and how soon you can dive again after resurfacing. It's fairly complicated but luckily we just have to follow David's lead. David said that decompression risk is real, but in 4500+ dives in his career he's only seen it once from a bloke who dove after having partying until 6am with a 7:30am dive. Not advisable. The guy just had to go to the decompression tank for awhile to recover. Also we learned our 4 emergency resurfacing options although again David said he's never had to do anything other than a normal ascent in all of his dives. No worries.
Tonight is the world cup finals but Lauren and I are feeling quite tired so I think that we are just going to go to bed early and then enjoy the morning off tomorrow. We don't dive again until 12:30 and this time we'll be practicing basic skills again and then going down to 12m. The deepest we'll go during our open water certification is just 18m. 30 m is the recommended limit for recreational diving.
On another note, we've spent some more time hanging out with Marie-Eve and Julie, the quebequoises. They're really nice and it's great for me to practice my French again. It's come back surprisingly quickly. It helped that I've been reading a book in French these past few days.
It really doesn't even feel like we're in Thailand here, except for that the wait staff don't speak the best English sometimes. 99% of the people you see here are western, usually Brits, and the Brits seem to run most of the dive shops. I'm quite glad we did go to the North of Thailand because if we had only gone to Bangkok and the islands I don't think we would have experienced much Thai culture at all.
It's hard to believe that our trip is winding down. Lauren leaves in just a week. I'm going to miss her tremendously. Especially when she leaves me alone with Blake-- ha! Blake has been fun to travel with though, even if he does tend to run late in the mornings and stop every 2 feet to take a picture of something. I'm glad he's going to have a chance to experience the islands as well when he meets back up with us at Koh Pha ngan.
We've just arrived in Ko Tao (Turtle Island) today in the south of Thailand on the eastern shores after a very long day of traveling. We departed Cambodia yesterday morning at around 11am and were rather surprised to be taken to a different airport than the one we arrived at---no worries it was only because they opened up the new airport the day before. It was really nice too-- reminded us of a resort airport. We were pretty excited about our flight too on Bangkok Air which is "asia's boutique airline" instead of having to fly crummy Air Asia or Air Vietnam. Well that is until we saw the plane. It was a turbo prop and painted pyschedelic Austin-powers style. Lovely. The take off was smooth though, the service was great, and the food superb (especially for a one hour flight). Things did get turbulent however, though it wasn't as worrisome as on the other flights. Probably because you expect some turbulence on a prop plane. When it came time to land though I did resort to my 3 point de-panic technique which includes 1) close eyes 2) breathe deeply 3) pray to St. Christopher et al. It worked like a charm because even though we were landing at mach 4, our triple jump landing was smoother than any of the other ones. I actually started laughing when we landing part out of anxiety and part out of the hilarity of asian air travel.
But we were there safely. We then hailed a cab and were off in search of "shanty guesthouse" that someone had recommended to Blake. The name did raise a few eyebrows (namely Lauren's and mine) but the place turned out to be "shanti" and actually quite nice and not like the squatters' bamboo shack that I had envisioned. Blake reserved a room for the night and then lo and behold I got to leave about 10 kilos worth of stuff with Blake because they have storage at good ol' shanti meaning I don't have to lug around any souvenirs or tailor made suits until I return to Bangkok on the 17th.
Then I was met with the conundrum about whether to extend my New Zealand trip 3 days. The extra time would give me time to hike the glacier, do a jet boat (meh) and do a 200 m bungee all for just $500. For some reason I was seriously considering this and Lauren and I went all the way down to the other side of Bangkok on the river boat (just 25cents to ride!) to get to the STA office so that I could change my flight to Argentina for the later date, when I realized that I didn't really want to do a bungee and the other things didn't matter that much to me. Plus it would be nicer to arrive when Pat does. So standing there almost to the STA office but now not needing to go, just on the verge of frustration, Lauren and my eyes zoom in on a familiar green beacon of normality in the midst of yet another frantic asian city-- yes, it was a Starbucks. My gaze met with Laurens and without even needing to communicate it, we started moving towards it, pulled in by the sheer Americanism (and need for caffeine) of it all. Stepping inside was like being transported right back to our own culture. Light carmel and java frappaccinos in hand, we plomped down on some very familiar bordeaux colored arm chairs and revelled in the rare moment of serenity found from the last few days.
Unfortunately that serenity only lasted until we'd finished our drinks down to the last slurp. Then we were back on the streets of Bangkok (in a completely non-prostitute way), haggling with tuk tuk drivers for a fair price, side stepping shop vendors touting their wares, and avoiding suspicious looking street vendors for fear of inhaling the odor an unwelcome "treat" cooking (dried squid anyone? ) But for 20 minutes we had bliss from overpriced specialty coffee drinks. On one hand it was sad that a starbucks even exists in Thailand, poised to become another omnipotent westernizing force like mcdonalds or the 7-11s we see on every corner; but on the other hand it was wonderful to have it there.
Lovely coffee break aside, we didn't have time to do much else in Bangkok. We rushed out of Shanti leaving blake behind (he's going north, we're going south) and walked down the street to hail a cab. Except for some reason, the traffice gods were not with us and every taxi we tried to hail was full or just sped past us. I was incredulous. Every 2 steps we get hit up for tuk tuk rides, taxi cabs, moto (you wan' moto lady?) pineapple, cold wata' and the like but here the one time we need a cab to get to the train station we can't find one. And it's not like we didnt' look like we needed one. With our backpacks and white skin it was pretty clear we were on our way somewhere and in need of a ride. On the verge of desperation we hailed a tuk tuk and we he told us 100 baht we jumped in. At that point it started raining (hey better than before) and thankfully tuk tuk man took us through all the backalleys so we made it there in record time. Even though it had cost us more than a taxi (not much) we were so thankful that he'd bailed us out and not haggled us that we tipped him 20 baht. He was smiling like a fat little buddha and frankly so were we.
At Hualampong train station safely, we had plenty of time to buy books and snacks for the train ride. About 45 minutes later we borded our night train and only 45 minutes after that we were off (it was late-- thai time). After a not so memorable dinner, the gay train attendant (what is it with the homosexual train attendants!!) came and pulled out our beds. I of course was fascinated by the precision of it all. So I timed him (yes this is nerdy I know). Out of three tries, his best was 2 minutes 45 seconds to undo and make 2 beds although he did ours in just under 3 minutes and that included putting up our table too.
Seeing as we had to get up at, oh 4:30am to get off at Chumpon, we pretty much crashed. Well except that the train was really jostly and without the sleep aid of intoxication like on the last night train, we kept waking up. But actually that was good because at 4:45 we arrived at Chumpon and Lauren and I had just enough time to collect our belongings and get out into the pre dawn light. There we easily met up with our ferry service which bussed us to the waiting office where a bunch of backpackers were passed out in a 'sleeping room' which basically consisted of mats on the floor while we all waited for the 7am ferry.
Finally 7am came around and we were off on the ferry which took about 3 hours. So there you have it, about 24 hours en route and there we were finally at Ko Tao and on the beach.
So here we are in paradise a/k/a Koh Tao. It's just lovely here-- everything you'd want in a beach--clear warm waters, white sandy beach, idyllic palm trees and teak wood restaurants with wide decks overlooking the ocean, cheap but good food, and a great night life. oh and some of the best diving too. after immediately arriving Lauren and I easily found Master Divers, the same diving company that Emily Gipple used and we readily signed ourselves up for SSI (scuba) certification that includes classroom instruction, 5 dives, accommodation and transportation too for just over 200 dollars. quite the steal. Along with us in our ferry are two quebequoises one, Marie-Eve, who doesn't speak a whole lot of English but who needed to do the certification test as well. The other, Julie, spoke great English but was signing up for the advanced certification. So Marie-Eve was pretty nervous about doing the certification by herself until she found out I speak French! So in our certification class is Lauren, Marie-Eve, two Austrian guys, and me. We first were taken to our bungalows at Ocean View up on Sairee Beach which is pretty much where all the backpackers are. The rooms weren't fantastic but we didn't care because we'll be outside all the time! After a quick lay out on the lovely lovely beach, we were picked up to attend our first day of instruction which was classroom only. We met Dan, the same instructor that Emily had and loved last year, teaching our introductory class so I was quite excited. And I can see why Emily recommended him. Not only is he rather attractive with his British accent and California surfer look, but he's funny and he really knows his stuff. Nevertheless, it was still a long day considering how early we'd all gotten up and by the 3rd video we were pretty whupped. Tomorrow though we'll be going into very shallow (waist deep) water to learn how to snorkel and scuba. Then more classroom time, then dives. No worries parentals, everything does seem perfectly safe, completely legit, and lots of fun. We're very excited.
The rest of today we just spent reading on the beach and then having a yummy dinner at Flower restaurant. It sure does feel good to be back in Thailand. Well that's all for now, I'm going to attempt to study my diving stuff. Check back later
Somehow we dragged ourselves out of bed around 4:40 this morning and hurried to get ready to go view the sunrise at Angkor Wat. At 5:05am Luis was no where to be found but it was starting to get light out. Luckily he showed up a few minutes later, apologized (hed been up until 3amI swear people dont sleep here) and raced us to the temples. We arrived at around 5:30am. Lauren ventured inside, while Blake and I camped out with some other tourists by the reflection pools. The sunrise didnt look like it was going to be spectacular, but we got wooed into staying by a woman selling hot coffee. For $1 she brought it over to us along with plastic chairs to sit in. Excellent. We captured a few good shots and then met back up with Lauren and headed back in the temple. The third level was pretty vacant and Blake and I took some funny shots of him jumping and pretending to play paintball in the columns.
After Angkor Wat it was still very very early, so we had Luis drive us over to Ta Prom which was devoid of tourists and overgrown with jungle. Huge trees had grown atop many of the walls and much of the temple was in ruins which made us really feel like jungle explorers. Well except for the local Cambodian guy probably trying to score a buck that would just make an uhhhhhhhhhhhhh noise to get our attention to show us something. Not quite as useful as Art somehow. We spent a good hour just exploring around there which was really cool and much more of the jungle ruins experience wed been seeking. After Ta Prom it was time for one more temple Preah Khan (not much to report) before heading back to the Jasmine Lodge for a much needed 3 hour nap. So that brings us up to speed. This afternoon were heading over to the floating villages on the lake and Blake is going to get his shadow puppet souvenir (dont ask). Tomorrow morning we just might head back to Angkor Wat one more time for sunrise pictures and then we leave on our flight at 11am to Bangkok. From Bangkok well split upBlake going north, and Lauren and I heading south. Lauren and I have a night train and then a very early morning ferry before we god willing arrive on Ko Tao. Wish us the best of luck!
Temples, temples, and more temples.
For our first day in Cambodia at Angkor Wat, we decided to continue our flash-packer tradition and hire a taxi driver (Luis) for the day, as well as a guide to show us around. We also decided to be lazy and didnt depart until 9:45am finding the 5:00am sunrise option not much of an option given our weary state. First on the list according to our guide Art (not real names obviously) was Angkor Thom, a walled city that once housed 1 million people in the 11th century. Surprisingly, its bigger than Angkor Wat in terms of area size, but thats because the King actually lived at Angkor Thom whereas Angkor Wat was only a place of worship.
At the entrance we immediately were confronted by hoards of small children and women offering bracelets, cold water, food, tee shirts, postcards ( ten for one dolla...) and the like. Politely saying no or even just walking away didnt work. These kids were persistent. Somehow we managed to make it to the causeway leading into the main gate which were lined with gods churning the water" by holding a serpent along one side and with the demons doing the same on the other side. The main entrance was topped by a huge Buddha head with faces facing each of the four cardinal directions. On either side were three headed elephants holding lotus blossoms. The lotus blossom is a symbol of Buddhism while the three headed elephant is a symbol of Hinduism. When the King built Angkor Thom, he wanted to unite the 2 religions so that is why the two symbols were paired together.
We passed into the temple walls underneath the towering Buddha heads and made our way over to Bayon. The King commissioned this temple in order to remind the people of his bravadothere are 54 towers (one for each province at the time) with each tower topped by 4 Buddha faces, one facing each cardinal direction, and all the Buddha faces apparently look similar to the kings own image. We got some great explanations of the bas relief work carved into the stone on the first gallery from our guide Art. Some of the things included in the very intricate 3 layer reliefs? Army processions, throwing dead bodies to crocodiles, battles, smoking marijuana, and monkeys getting it on in the trees. Ha.
After exhausting Bayon we were off to other temple inside Angkor Thom where you could climb to the top and view the rest of Angkor Thom. Like most of the ruins, the stairs were steep and in disarray making climbing rather precarious. Still, we were all feeling very Lara Croft tomb raider and scampered up to take pictures. Rain looked like it was on the horizon and I started to wonder how we could possibly climb down without falling to our deaths on the slippery stones but the weather held out.
More walking around the huge complex of Angkor Thom brought us to the pools used by the King and his Concubines, as well as more ruins of walls and smaller temples. Continuing onward we reached the Leper King Palace which is believed to have served as the site for crematoriums. Creepy. We looked at yet again more bas reliefs (interesting, but seeing as it was so hot, we were getting a bit bored) and then on to the Elephant Terrance which was really long and had lots of elephant carvings. It was also where the King would observe kick boxing matches.
By this time we were pretty ready to move on but not before stopping to buy some tee-shirts which were going for $1 to $1.50. Blake also bought about 15 bracelets off of a kid for just $1 which actually turned out being pretty cool. We then headed back towards Angkor Wat to break for lunch throwing back some bowls of noodle soup before heading back out (fighting the pestering children touting post cards, books, etc at unreasonably low prices the entire way). We then finally came upon Angkor Wat, the worlds largest religious site, and one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world.
Angkor Wat is surrounded by a massive moatso big that it looks like a river at first glance. You have to cross an equally massive causeway to even make it to the first entrance to which there are three levelsthe center and highest used only for the King, the flanking entrances slightly lowered, reserved for the High priests and Brahmin, and the furthest out and ground level entrances used only for the commoners. We entered through the high priest doors mainly because it was less crowded and finally you could really see all of the Angkor Wat skyline.
Angkor Wat has 5 towers: 4 are arranged in a rectangular shape on each of the four corners while the 5th is in the center of the rectangle. Viewing the temple from straight on, you only see 3 towers because the two back corner towers are hidden. Walking to the side slowly reveals the other towers. After taking more than a few pictures, we then headed over to the reflection pool to take pictures of the five towers reflecting in the water. We then headed inside where we were given even more history on bas relief used in this temple. Angkor Wat was built by the King who preceded the king who built Angkor Thom (around the 10th century) and was a Hindu temple. With the exclusion of Angkor Wat, none of the temples were used much after being abandoned in the 13th 14th century. Angkor Wat was used in the 16th century however by Buddhists which was when the reliefs decorating the first level were added as well as the Buddha statues. The French found pretty much all of the temples in complete abandon (look at pictures of Ta Prom for an idea) in the 19th and early 20th centuries and so a lot of clearing out overgrowth and restoration has taken place.
We were really surprised that we could pretty much just wander anywhere we pleased within the temples, including Angkor Wat. We could even climb up a very very steep staircaseto the third level which historically only the king could access. From there it was like being transported into another era (minus the tourists) and we had a great time trying to photograph monks wearing their bright orange robes and just enjoying the cool pre-storm weather. The whole place was incredible especially considering it was built by hand and from stones hauled about 55 km away from here by elephants.
By this time wed been walking around all day, so we had just enough energy to climb the 100 meter hill up to yet another temple just outside of Angkor Thom where you could view Angkor Wat 1.5 km in the distance. This was accomplished in sprinkling rain on the verge of a thunderstorm and I kept thinking, why am I climbing to the highest point during a t-storm? But we werent struck down by lightning although we were getting pretty tired by that time, so we descended, being very careful not to break any ankles on the extremely unkept stone stairs. Back in the cab we then returned to the lovely Jasmine Lodge where it was time for an internet cafe break before Lauren and I went to a traditional Cambodian dance performance paired with very tasty buffet dinner while Blake slept. The dance was interestingcoincidentally enough Id already seen one or two of the dances they performed done by the SMU Asian Council at the Talent Show a few years back. The best dances though were the all female slow dances that made lotus blossom' hands and then hand movements that just completely entranced Lauren and me. Trying all the different foods was fun too. We really like papaya salad, fish amok curry, fried noodles, and the strange gelatinous desserts. Not so popular were the fried bananas which werent sweet, and odd doughy custard cakes dipped in some sort of cream fish sauce. No clue.
We finally returned at around 9:00pm to find Blake still asleep. We woke him up and we all joked around for an hour or so before heading directly to bed since we had decided to get Luis to pick us up at 5am the next day in order to view the sunrise.
I seriously want a t-shirt that reads "I survived Vietnam Airways". Today was risky flight numero quatro and although not as bad as what we like to call the "hop, skip, and a jump" method of take-off and landing that we experienced on Pacific Airways, it was still a harrowing journey. We actually left on time from HCMC which was so surprising that I had to slurp down piping hot noodle soup. Oh wait that was the last Vietnam Airways flight from Da Nang to HCMC. I getting them all confused!!! No this time they made about 15 announcements that we had to get to the boarding gate even though the plane didn't board until 30 minutes later and then so run through security to the gate and guess what no ones there and we just have to wait. Mind you, this is separate from the exorbitantly priced cafe. Lauren hadn't gone through security yet so she kindly snagged a $4 baguette sandwich for us to share. Once on the flight we were okay until we got to Siem Reap 45 minutes later. At this point we were already a bit nervous for another triple-jump landing where the plane comes in at full speed, hits the runway, bounces a few times, then violently veers to the left and right until we finally slow down and realize we aren't going to die. But we had to wait a little longer for that lovely experience because instead we circled Siem Reap for a full 20 minutes. Apparently there was a storm brewing below which only intensified our nerves about the landing. I stuck to my calm meditative breathing and St. Christopher prayers to help calm my nerves, but I was still eyeing the open fields as we approached the ground and wondering if we were about to land in a field or something.
Fortunately, we did land again with violent jerks to the side and a sizeable bump, but by the grace of god we had landed. We disembarked excited to finally get to our hotel and just relax, but that wasn't in the cards either! Although we had all gotten evisas, only Lauren and I had bothered to print out the whole email response page because it said in the email that we only needed the number of the visa. So Blake just had his number which should have theoretically been right. but not for the Cambodian immigration team who almost didn't' let Lauren in because she'd cut the header and footer off of the email print out. So Blake definitely wasn't getting through. And because they don't have a computer at the airport (yes, no computers...) they had to call Phnom Penh Ministry of Immigration to use their computer. Except they'd already closed for the day. So they telephoned the official at his house who then had to drive back up to the office and call back with Blake's visa information to confirm it. The whole process took about 40 minutes during which time we did have an interesting conversation with the giggly immigration officer who was actually quite nice about the whole ordeal, even though we were dead tired and just annoyed that there wasn't a computer there.
Finally we did get through and lo and behold, Luis, our taxi driver was still there waiting for us to take us to the Jasmine Lode. So that was great, and so is our room. A triple with private bathroom costs just $9 a night but being the flash-packers we are, we decided to pay $15 a night so we could get the remote to the air conditioner and hot water. Excellent. After a quick rest we headed upstairs to the restaurant overlooking the street, and ordered up some very tasty curries. I hadn't even realized how much I'd been missing Thai food! It was delicious. Then we played a couple of games of pool which is free there and made friends with a tuk tuk driver (not corrupt like the Bangkok one). by that time Lauren and I were whipped so we decided to turn in, but party animal Blake had to celebrate the fourth in true American style so he got tuk tuk driver friend to drive him to the Angkor What? bar where he ordered a half bucket of whisky for $4 and stuck around to watch the first half of the Italy-Germany game which didn''t even start until 2am. Needless to say he had a late night!
So that was our first day in Cambodia.. when I get back from dinner, maybe I'll have more time to write about our second day, out at Angkor Wat!
Well today has made for by far the most interesting 4th of July that I've ever celebrated. We started off the day eating French bread at our hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, then headed over to visit the Cu Chi tunnels on a half day tour at around 8am. A big luxury bus picked us up and then shuttled us over to the Ben Dihn tunnels which are only about 50 km away but takes about an hour and a half to get there because of the roads and the traffic. We stopped along the way to learn how traditional Vietnamese lacquer pieces are made and we were really impressed-- it's so much more intricate a process than we'd realized. First you have to lay the design which is made by painstakingly carving pieces of wood, painting, or laying cracked eggshells onto the wood or whatever you're lacquering, then you have to do like 2 to 4 baths in the lacquer followed by rinsing and then vigorous hand scrubbing. Of course I'm a sucker for buying things once I learn how they're made, so I picked up a nice river sunset scene made out of eggshells for myself.
After the quick visit to the lacquer (and the loo) we headed back on the bus and soon arrived at the cu chi tunnels. Our tour guide for the day, Khann first gave a great background on the Viet Cong which we found pretty useful considering we learned about the Vietnam war in, oh 10th grade. Basically, the North of Vietnam was communist and led by Ho Chi Minh while the South was more republican. The US entered into the war to stop the spread of communism in South East Asia and therefore fought along with the South. The Viet Cong was the guerilla force that lived in the south but was allied with the North. The Viet Cong had first used a tunnel system during the French war in the 1950s and expanded the system for the American war. During the French war, the tunnels only had one level, but because after the Americans basically bombed all of the surrounding area, during the American war the tunnels had 3 levels so that people could live there. The Viet Cong numbered about 16,000 people during the war (1965-1973) but by the end of the war only 6,000 had survived. And you could see why. It wasn't an easy life style by any means.
Khann explained that the tunnel system was a network, with people living on the first level about 3 meters underground, with arms and supplies stored on the second level down (about 6-8 meters deep) and then with escape routes 10 meters down that often would spit out into the Saigon river. You could enter into any point and then access any other point in the 250km long network. First Khann showed us a bamboo trap with sharpened bamboo sticks below that was used to protect tunnel entrances. Then he showed us an actual tunnel entrance. No wonder the Americans had a hard time finding them. We walked right over one and didn't' even notice. The Vietnamese only could tell by walking with a stick and tapping the ground as they walked. When you came upon a tunnel, the stick would make a hollow sound. Then you had to clear the leaves away to actually see the tiny little rectangular opening-- only 34x50 centimeters. You lifted off the lid and then Khann demonstrated how to get in. First you put your hands on either side of the small opening and lower yourself in. You'll be about waist high now. Then you push the leaves to the sides of the opening and you toss a bunch of leaves on the wooden cover. You carefully hold the cover level above your head with your arms extended, and then you slowly squat down. when you bring the lid down you shake the cover so the leaves distribute and you can't tell the opening was even there. It was incredible to see how well it worked! Then Khann invited us to try and get in. Lauren and Blake both tried it and we got some pretty funny pictures from it! (I didn't want to hold up the rest of the group so I passed)
After seeing how the original entrances looked, we walked towards the widened tourist version. But first we stopped by an American tank that the Viet Cong had mined and I got my picture taken in it. Next stop was learning about the different traps that the Viet Cong used to protect themselves from the Americans. Mind you, we're really feeling a bit strange at this point, especially when Khann is demonstrating how the different horrible barbered nail traps would injure the American troops. But the day before we'd seen pictures of all the atrocious things some of the Americans had done to the Vietnamese at the War Remnants Museum, so it didn't feel so one-sided.
Finally it was time to go into the tunnels themselves. Like I said, they've widened them for tourists now so it wasn't that bad. Still they had exit points every 30 meters along in case people wanted out (we only went about 120 meters) and they did. One lady wouldn't even go in! I strapped on my head lamp which wasn't really necessary seeing as there were some lights along the way, and then took the stairs down (not originally there of course). Then following Lauren I went down into the tunnels. Surprisingly it was really hot down there. I suppose I was thinking caves are cool so tunnels will be cool too, right? But no. It was hot especially with everyone crammed in there. To walk along, we had to stoop so that we were basically bent in half. So I had a great view of Lauren's bum, but not much else. Still I was happy to note that I didn't get claustrophobic, even when it got even narrower in the last stretch and I had to crawl on hands and knees which is good considering that I'm going caving in just a few weeks!
Then whole experience left us sweaty and dirty, but also with a real appreciation for how sneaky those Viet cong were and how much they just wanted to protect their country. We had a very light lunch of some tapioca root that we 'dipped' into crushed peanuts with sugar and tea-- something very similar to what the Viet Cong might have eaten. It wasn't bad, but then again I wouldn't much like eating just that and rice for years on end while living underground.
Well the next part was really cool because they took us to the shooting range. We'd been wondering what was making all the realistic background noise and now saw that it was tourists shelling out 1.60 a bullet to shoot M16s, AK47s, and other machine guns. I've never shot a real gun, but I'd heard about this experience from other tourists and knew that I just had to fire my favorite gun from 007 golden eye video game and paid $13 for 10 bullets on a Russian AK47. Luckily I had my own ear plugs because these babies were loud enough to where the supplied ear protection wasn't even enough. The guns were mounted on a wall so that they didn't kick back and some official loaded them for you. I tried to aim and the target with a deer painted on it off in the distance but doubt I got anywhere close. The first shot kind of startled me, and then I told the official to put it on automatic. The next pull of the trigger unleashed 9 bullets in rapid succession--the power and speed of it shocked me, and I backed up with my mouth agape and almost laughing from the adrenaline rush. It was crazy.
Blake had his turn next at the American M16 (wearing his aviators might I add) and every shot he took I winced and shut my eyes. It was incredible, the power of those guns. Lauren didn't much like the idea so she stayed back which was understandable-- it was pretty surreal to be firing Russian guns, by the cu chi tunnel, where Americans were killed on our Independence day. but a memorable day it was, and we were all very glad that we'd come. It was definitely one of the cooler experiences of the trip.
Saigon, arrived way too early after yet another way too fast landing that left the plane bumping all over the runway. after a lot of traffic arrived at Yellow house hostel. trekked bags up to 5th floor then took naps. had lunch at Kim's cafe- soup was good, guacamole was horrendous (yeah we should've known). walked over to the reunification palace, but Blake had been drinking a bit so we couldn't really pay much attention. then it started raining and we walked uphills both ways to the war remnants museum which was a completely sombering and stupifyingly horrific photographic requiem of the Vietnam war. I left feeling completely numb and just horrified about what chemical orange and napalm can do to a person. we walked around in silence for a while, then finally hailed a cab and had a coffee at the hotel continental. an hour or so later we were fine again and Lauren and I had a bit too much fun in this cute boutique called Indochina in the city center (I got a very cute shirt). then we walked around for a while, buying souvenirs, until having dinner at pho 24 again which was really good and then trying out the Saigon bia hoi which was a horrible experience. for 2 liters of fresh beer we were supposed to pay 20,000 dong, just over a $1.33. But instead we got bitten by mosquitoes, and charged for our 3 napkins and the cocktail peanuts. yeah it did only cost $2 in the end, but we were mad at the principle of it. then we walked around some more before ending up at a ritzy 4 star hotel roof top where we paid upwards of 80,000 dong for drinks, though they were good! then finally a stop at the Texas style saloon, which was just ridiculous. ah it was a crazy evening. definitely ready for the tunnels tomorrow!
Well Blake and I are sitting here in an internet cafe now just waiting around for our custom made suits to have the finishing touches put on them. So much has happened in the last few days that it's going to be a long entry!
First our last day in Hanoi was great. After the museum of ethnology which was so so, we went to the Hanoi Hilton which was a prison that was used by the French to torture insurgents during the French colonialism period in the early 1900s and then later occupied by American POWs. Now it's a museum and let me tell you it was pretty creepy seeing the torture and execution devices used (including a full sized guillotine with the blade still on it) as well as the actual prison cells themselves. Definitely not a place you'd like to spend the night in. Another part of the museum then provided information about the Americans who stayed there and really emphasized how well they were treated. Apparently John McCain was there which was a very surreal experience to know that he had stayed in this dark, creepy prison. It was also very strange to think of Americans actually living there in general so recently. But the Vietnamese don't seem to harbor any bad feelings towards us at all anymore incredibly enough.
After the sombering prison museum, we walked around in the rain for a while trying to find a nice hotel to get massages at. Our shoulders were still sore from the kayaking the day before so we thought it would be a welcome treat. Unlike in Thailand where massage parlours are literally lining the streets, in Vietnam the government's afraid of 'happy ending' massages so only really upmarket places offer them now. The first place listed in Lonely Planet was actually a hotel that appeared to have been just recently razed, so we hit up the second on the list. As soon as we walked into the salon entrance, it was obvious that this place was nice, but that its target market was definitely female. Despite looking like vagrants without a dime to spare, the kind staff overlooked our muddied flipflops, wet hair (it'd rained), and trashy looking beach bum clothes and happily produced a laundry list of services. Blake decided to take off and meet us later at the hostel seeing as it was definitely a females only experience. Lauren and I deliberated about what to have done and settled on a thai massage and full body scrub for me and a Swedish and full body scrub for her. The prices were a good deal higher than in Thailand (about $50 for both) but we soon found out why!
After we'd settled on which services to purchase, we were ushered upstairs, and taken to a lovely little locker room and provided plush pink robes and towels. We then were instructed to spend 15 minutes in the steam room, 10 minutes in the sauna, take a shower, and then pop around the corner to be taken to our massage room. We were really excited at this point seeing how nice the place was and hurried into the steam room which was HOT and smelled of lemon grass. I set my stop watch (yes I'm a nerd) and after about 11 minutes we had to get out for fear of passing out from the heat. After reveling in the coolness of the lockerroom, we ventured into the sauna which was really really hot-- like nearly 90 degrees celsius. yikes. About this time we were again reminiscing on the Japanese onsen experience and how very fortunate we were to have disrobed in front of each other and Asian women already because of course there was a naked Vietnamese woman in the very small sauna with us. We managed the full 10 minutes there (with a quick cool down break at the 5 minute mark) and then had lovely lovely cool showers which felt so nice. We also got to use all of their beauty products which were high end l'Occitane shampoos, scrubs, and conditioners and Shiseido makeup. We felt spoiled rotten.
After showering we were instructed to order drinks (watermelon juice!) and dinner (yes!) to be delivered after our massages. Then we were taken into a beautiful room with two white massage tables. The most relaxing music was playing and after 2 1/2 hours of blissful massage we strolled back to the showers in a daze, washed off the body scrub (mmm) and then sat down to a very delicious dinner of 'Hong Kong noodles' which turned out to be beef, noodles, and yummy mushrooms in a brown cream sauce. very good. the whole experience was so very Paris Hilton like that we felt incredibly posh and definitely like 'flash'packers-- the term used for backpackers who don't really stick to much of a budget. yup, that's us.
Well so we're waiting this morning for Blake to get back from a morning run. He left about 2 hours ago so now I'm starting to wonder if he passed out from heat exhaustion, got mugged, ran off with a Vietnamese woman, etc. So we've got some time to kill waiting for him to get back so that we can check out the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, the Temple of Literature and the Ethnology Museum. We also desperately want massages since from all the kayaking yesterday my shoulders are KILLING me. And I conveniently forgot my bra on the boat in Halong Bay so I've got to keep wearing my bathing suit top around until I can replace that.
This morning Lauren and I enjoyed yet another banana pancake. They are soo good here. They're actually banana crepes but who really cares what they call them they're great. I think I might actually turn into a banana before my time in South East Asia is through. Take yesterday for example. I had a banana at breakfast and then banana ice cream at a place called Fanny's last night. And let me tell you Fanny's ice cream was spectacular-- even better than authentic Florence gelatto. It had the consistency of a banana smoothie really but was somehow also ice cream It was amazing. Lauren and I are completely planning on going back later today. Maybe twice.
We also had pho last night, the traditional Vietnamese beef noodle soup. I'd already tried it once at Little Hanoi restaurant, but Lauren and I decided to try it at a place that Mitch, one of the Aussie hostel owners recommended. We almost didn't find it, a little place called Pho 24 that was really cute and modern on the inside. Lauren got the original, and I bravely ordered the special--pho with beef, beef brisket, beef tendon, and yes tripe. Despite my horrible encounter with tripe in Argentina (see the blog entry 'Tigre and Tripe' from last year) I decided to be adventurous and give it one more shot. And I'm glad I did because it was a lot better this time. Can't say I really enjoyed it, but I was fairly indifferent about eating it this time. I think it helped that there was other meat in the soup and that it was sliced a lot more finely than when my tio alberto fed it to me. I also hadn't been eating other random beef organs earlier in the day, like when I had it in Argentina. You really do just have to try everything a few times. Although that still isn't working for vegemite. That stuff is rank.
Alright so some observations on Vietnam. First off it's kind of strange how the women especially cover themselves up all the time. Hats, long sleeve tee shirts, scarves covering their mouth and nose, umbrellas-- even though it's about 110% humidity and 100 degrees here. We asked our Halong Bay guide and she said it's because they don't want dark skin. This reminded me of all the lightening products we saw at the Boots pharmacy in Bangkok. I guess we always want what we don't have-- they want light skin, we want dark tan skin.
Also of course we keep running into squatty pottys here. Lauren came across the worst one yet in the Dong Xuan market here in Hanoi. She basically paid 1000 dong to go into a room that had no stalls and with women just all doing their business out in the open. And then she found the stalls, but there were no doors and to her complete horror, huge piles of shite just on the floor of each one. She about ralphed at that and ran out unrelieved to recount the horror of what she'd just witnessed. Of course I found this rather hilarious that people just shat on the floor together in communal fashion and eventually we were all laughing about it. So that's the worst thus far!
And on traffic. Hanoi traffic is nuts. A thousand and one motorbikes are zooming down the street at any given time. Traffic lights are optional. Crossing the street is a leap of faith in itself. You just have to make the decision to cross and then walk (don't run!) at a steady pace so that people can have time to just swerve around you. It's actually not quite as bad as it sounds because 99% of the time its just a motorbike so it's pretty easy to swerve around a pedestrian. I've never seen anything quite like it, even in Rome.
And then there's how people actually ride motorbikes. As in Thailand, in Vietnam, a normal motorbike can fit an entire family of four or about 50 pounds of potatoes, leeks, etc as long as they're carefully balanced. I keep waiting to see 5 people on one motorbike just because you see four fairly often so I think it has to be possible. Kids do count too. We've seen infants as young as 3 months just resting in a passenger's lap and toddlers standing between their parent's outstretched arms on the handlebars all zooming down the street at 40 mph. Crazy. My favorite is when you catch the odd 12 year old driving the motorbike. Even more amazing is that we have yet to witness an accident of any kind. I think I'll actually be astonished when I see one.
Alright well Blake made his back so I'm signing off, but I'm sure we'll have tons to write about tomorrow. Right now I'm just so excited to go to the beach tomorrow!!!!!
Just got back from Halong Bay this afternoon and it was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful--even more than I expected. We left at around 8am from the hostel and were picked up by Ocean Tours the tour company that we'd booked with. We picked up 6 others, a Scottish couple living in Malaysia and a pair of couples from Spain. We then departed for Halong Bay, about a 3 and 1/2 hour drive. We also then met our tour guide Ngoan, a slim young woman who spoke pretty good English. She was no Wasa though! She briefed us on Hanoi and Halong Bay history and then told us about where to go in Hanoi to find good dog and cat meat. (We weren't too interested). And she told us about how Vietnamese people like to string up live cobras from trees, skin them, and then drink their blood while it's still hot from the dangling end, like some kind of bizarre tribal beer bong. Yummy.
About halfway through the trip and after a much needed nap, we stopped for a break at a place that sold local handicrafts made by handicapped children. I bought a very cool picture done in embroidery of a Vietnamese woman carrying some mangos on those balancy things that Blake carried in the infamous pineapple fiasco. I talked the price down from $68 to $58 which was fair especially because as the 4 foot tall salesman kept reminding me 'made by handicap' children'. no word if the kids get any of the profit though.
After the break we piled back into the van and about an hour later we arrived in Halong Bay City. We jumped out and headed straight to our boat, the Halong Bay Dream and man was it ever. It was soooo nice. A new boat with space for 14 and just beautiful on the inside. Lauren and I shared a room with two big windows (for a boat) and Blake got his own room since there were just 9 of us total. After we set down our belongings, we headed up to the main deck to the open dining area for our seafood lunch. And it was incredible. They just kept bringing out dish after dish! We had the freshed squid salad, huge shrimp, lovely vegetables, rice, noodles, a whole grilled fish, fruit... the food just didn't stop coming!
Fully stuffed to the gills, we slathered on some sunscreen, threw on our bathing suits and went up to the top deck. By then we were really getting out into the bay amidst the nearly 2000 islands there and it was incredibly beautiful. The islands are all made out of limestone from decayed oysters, clams, etc from the past 350 million years that grew to form a mountain range because of the pacific rim tetonic plates shifting. Eventually the mountain range was eroded by the water and the islands formed. Now they are all protected by Unesco which is fortunate because the only one that can be inhabited is the national park on Cat Ba island. Just beautiful!
After sunning ourselves we then docked briefly to visit the Amazing Cave which is the biggest of the 8 or so caves that have been discovered so far in Halong Bay. And it really was amazing. Especially interesting though were the trashcans inside in the shape of dolphins and penguins which gave the weird sensation that we were at an amusement park of sorts.
From the cave, we moved onward to an island with a lookout pagoda at the very top. One 10 minute very vertical climb later we were super sweaty but enjoying the wonderful view. Blake showed me how to do a stitch assist too on my camera so I think I should be able to join several of the photos together to make a nice panoramic. Next, we returned to the boat and then jumped off from the top of the boat into the water. I was quite scared at first seeing as I'd really never done a high dive before, but it was worth it and then it was great! And the water was wonderful, just warm enough to be enjoyable but not so warm that you feel like the person next to you just 'relieved' themselves in the water.
after the swim we towelled off and then were fed another enormous and delicious seafood dinner. Dinner was followed by a great conversation with the Scottish couple that had been living in Malaysia the past 2 years, a little bit of World Cup viewing, and then Blake and I laying out on the top deck to look at the stars. It was the perfect day and we didn't go to sleep until after midnight when we pried ourselves away from the night sky.
The next morning, Blake woke me up early to have a look at the sunrise, but at 5:15 am it was already up. So we went back to bed and then got back up in time for a 7am breakfast (also way too much food). Breakfast was followed by kayaking which was incredibly fun. We paddled around for about an hour and a half, with 2 people in each kayak. Lauren and I paddled together, and with her excellent instruction I eventually got the hang of it. It was difficult though because even though the water was pretty calm, the current was really strong. We all paddled together into these beautiful lagoons by Cat Ba island which was just such a peaceful experience (aside from the aching arms) that made me feel like we were in the movie "the beach" (which I am appropriately reading at the moment).
After kayaking, Lauren and I had another swim, then it was time to pack our bags... but not without yet another inordinately huge seafood meal that we could hardly finish! It really was the perfect get away. And amazingly enough, it only costs $2000 to rent out the boat per week, including food. So I'm thinking, grab a group of 14 and come back sometime in the future for some R&R.
Well I'm back in Hanoi though, wearing my new Halong Bay pearl necklace (they do a lot of pearls there) and getting very excited about tomorrow's trips to Hanoi's museums and then the following day at China beach between Da Nang and Hoi An! It's going to be great!
Hey all- just got into Hanoi late last night after the most tiring day trying to stay awake enough to book train tickets and plane tickets and check our email etc etc. Then the flight was late of course so we didn't get in until about 11pm and by the time that we were trying to pull money out of the atm we were so exhausted that we couldn't figure out how much to pull out. I pulled out 200,000 and then a few minutes later realized that was only like $13 instead of $130... whoops. So I pulled out some more money and then we were off.
We had arranged a taxi pick up so we met up with the taxi driver who didn't speak a word of english. Then we began one of the more annoying 45 minutes drives of my life. Apparently in Vietnam people honk every time that they want to pass someone. And our speed demon taxi driver had a penchant for honking. Nevertheless, we did get in safe to our hostel which is wonderful-- probably the nicest I've come across yet, especially for just $7 a night (free internet, free breakfast). This morning we've just had some breakfast and are about to book some tours and then walk around Hanoi with some Australian guys that we've met. Will write more later--Wow, so last night was kind of crazy! We left Chiang Mai yesterday afternoon after a packed day of thai cooking class in the morning and bamboo rafting in the afternoon. The thai cooking class was really fun-- Winnie, Christy, Dale, Luisa, Susie, Holly, Lauren and I joined in and each cooked 4 dishes: pad thai, tom yun coconut soup, sweet and sour vegetables, and green or red curry. First we went to the market to learn about the ingredients and then bought what we needed. Then we were taken back to the lovely cooking school and taught how to prepare each dish and then eat what we had prepared. It was a lot of fun and pretty easy to do! Even funnier was the 'ladyboy' or transvestite. There are a ton of them in Thailand it seems! He/she was really friendly though and a good instructor!
After completely stuffing ourselves during the 4 hour cooking course, we went back to the People Place hotel to quickly pack together our things and collect our laundry-- and let me tell you we were sooo excited to have clean laundry! Next was bamboo rafting about an hour north of chaing Mai in the jungle. The raft was really long-- probably about 15 feet and the water was a lot choppier than I would have thought. And don't worry dad, we did all wear life jackets! We also had a really experienced raft driver so it was quite fun even though he did keep splashing us! Unfortuately we didn't get a photo because it would have been a bad idea to bring our cameras down the hour long river ride, but we did purchase a photo of us on the raft which is being mailed to the USA now (2-3 months.. we'll just have to wait!)
By the time we were done with that fun, we headed back and quickly packed our things again so that we could head to the train station. And it was on the train where things really got interesting.
Well first of all, we drew tickets to see who got top or bottom berth on the train which unfortunately put either Lauren or I right next to Terry, the uber loquacious Austrian woman who was honestly talking all of our ears off. Well my patience was wearing really thin, so I knew that 14 hours in close proximity to her might cause me to kill her in her sleep, so I asked if we could swtich tickets so that Lauren and I could sit next to one another and her a bit farther down. Well of course she didn't understand straight away, but she grumpily acquiesced after a bit of me badgering her.
Next we had dinner with Wasa and Luisa and Dale during which time a tomboy came up to greet me all in Thai. I was a bit overexcited to practice my Thai which was a bad move because I found out then that she was a lesbian with a crush on me when I went to shake her hand and she kissed it! I brushed it off though and we finished our meal. After dinner Wasa goes, 'okay time for party car!' Naturally we thought she was joking especially because she doesn't drink, but she led us all off to the dining car. There she goes 'okay now beer!' and Dale and Mike ordered up some Singha beer. Then all of a sudden dance music starts up and it's only then that I realize that there's a DJ over behind the counter of the dining car! And the staff is all drinking! Then they turn on a disco light-- and things really just spiraled from there. Lauren and I soon grabbed our ipods and then the party really got started. After about 3 hours of dancing and falling around (because of the rickety train, not because of the beer or at least that's what we told ourselves!) we had befriended a Japanese guy, a finnish girl, I'd been kissed on the cheek by the lesbian tomboy (oh god..) and we'd given Dale hell for not knowing who Bob Marley was.
By 10pm the dining car/party car got shut down, but of course we didn't much feel like going to sleep then! So somehow Dale, Lauren, Susie, Holly, Mike, Christy and me all crammed into my bed. And we stayed there squished like little sardines until 1am with the highlight being Lauren falling into Wasa bed-- you would have had to see it to believe it.--it was one of the strangest nights I've ever had.
Well we're out of time, but will write more later.
So I promised that I'd write more about the homestay outside of Lampang so here it is. I'll try and remember it as best as I can but since it's now a week later in Vietnam, my memory might be a bit shaky!
The homestay was an unforgettable experience. We all pretty much staying together in a person's house on the top floor which was like a loft. The beds were mattresses on the floors underneath mosquito nets, and being all together in a big room like that reminded me of a slumber party. At 6ish after the best day at the elephant conservation center we were treated to a traditional music show performed by the village children. After the music, we were then invited to try and play the instruments ourselves which was pretty funny. I like the xylophone the best and some weird sort of violin. Then we had dinner prepared by the family which had some great rice cakes mmm. After dinner then the local kids performed traditional dance for us. We saw a candle dance, knife dance, karate, and long finger dance (they were these strange finger extension things) it was really cool and then we got to try the candle dance ourselves too! I was scared I was going to singe my hands (you hold a candle in each hand and twirl your hands around) but luckily I emerged unscathed.
That night we all played jenga together outside which was a lot more fun that it sounds. Dale must have taken about a hundred photos of the jenga game just trying to catch one when the jenga tower was falling. I don't think it worked though!
The next morning we woke up to the sound of roosters and the school across the street making announcements which I mistook for propaganda! Then at 6:45 we did some morning yoga led by the father of the homestay. It was a bit more calistinic than I was used to (think revved up tai chi) although we did enjoy the self foot massage bit. Then we had a lovely breakfast with these great sticky rice coconut custard things. Yum.
At 9am we visted a local school and taught some very hyper kids "head, shoulders, knees and toes" and "I'm a little teapot" and sang the elephant song. With the older kids, we played english pictionary and then later basketball with the girls who were so cute. At 10:30 we did a bike ride about 10 k long around the village which was one of the better experiences because we really got to appreciate the countryside. We visited a temple and learned about the no-nos of buddism (stealing, adultery, killing animals/people, lying, drinking alcohol..(ouch)) then went to a funeral pyre, a mushroom farm and finally shopping! I got the best slippers for just $1. Sweet. Then we had the best meal yet with veggies and pumpkin curry at the homestay. That afternoon we then took off in the Soeng thaw to chiang Mai. Definitely a great experience!
Chang chang chang! That's how the elephant song goes in Thai (chang means elephant) and the last few days have been all about — elephants!
After leaving Lampang early Thursday morning, we drove for about 45 minutes until we reached the elephant conservatory. We had scarcely gotten out of the soengthaw before we saw 3 or 4 elephants right ahead of us! They were so enormous and it was amazing to see how the mahout (the drivers) ride on them just by sitting on their heads right behind their ears. We first went to feed the baby elephants. There were two babies, both next to each of their moms and we got to feed them all bananas and sugar cane. It was one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had, being able to actually touch the elephants. Although it wasn't quite as nice when they started to get really excited about the bananas and snorted all over us! And elephants really do eat a lot--the baby snatched a whole bunch of bananas out of Mike's hand when he turned his head for a second and then stuffed them all in his mouth! It really was fascinating to see how adeptly they use their trunks to eat and pick up things.
Next, we watched about 12 elephants take a bath in the pond which was hilarious because they got quite into it and just rolled around in the pong and squirted water out of their trunks and onto the mahouts. The mahouts also had to brush their tusks which was pretty funny to watch. Then at 10:15 we got to watch the elephant show. It started with us waiting atop a hill for the elephants to come. We can hear a drum in the distance and then the elephants slowly start to come up the hill one by one. Only when the lead one gets close can we see that one is carrying a thai flag, two are carrying a drum, and get this-- one of the elephants is playing the drum as they're all marching forward! All in all there were about 15 elephants all in a row, holding the tail of the elephant in front of them with their tusks. It was really cute.
After that impressive entrance, we went into the open arena to watch the show. The elephants marched in to the beat of the elephant song and then as they were announced they all bowed. Then they demonstrated how the elephants work together to move logs and make piles out of logs in the logging industry. Then one went to play the xylophone while 2 elephants drew paintings! And one of the paintings was quite good! It was of some flowers and Luisa and Dale actually bought it afterwards for about 500 baht. You wouldn't have known it was done by an elephant at all! Then the most amazing bit was when they all got together to play these special instruments and they played the elephant song! I mean we can't even sing it properly even with the words and elephants are playing it.
Then after the show we got to feed the elephants again which was even funnier than feeding the moms and babies because all the trunks were reaching out to us at once! Finally we got to the best part which was the actual elephant ride. We all rode in seats attached to the top of the elephant and led by a mahout sitting on the elephants head (apartently it's rather hard to learn to ride the elephants bareback). Lauren and I got together of course, and then we were off! It was really bumby at first and we our feet were just dangling on the elephant's back and we were surprised to notice that the elephants have hair on their bodies. It was so much fun and we thouroughly enjoyed the beautiful weather and our precious 30 minutes on the elephant. After the ride we were all in great spirits which was perfect for shopping afterwards.
Wasa then took us to the shop where they make paper and paper products out of elephant dung. Surprisingly it didn't smell at all, and was really nice looking hand made paper. I got some nick nacky gifts for some of the cousins and a nice travel journal. After shelling out some baht for elephant poo products, we then thought it was time for a nice lunch. We drove out to a picnic site, and enjoyed a delicious meal of curry, fried pork, sticky rice, sweet and sour veggies, tofu and veggies, and pineapple prepared by Aoi, the woman who runs the home stay where we were spending the night.
After relaxing there for quite some time, it was time to hop back into the soeng thaw and head over to the elephant hospital. The elephant hospital there is the first one in the world and has been in operation since 1996 when an elephant named Motala stepped on a landmine that shredded her front foot and her owners tried to help her. Motala was injured in the woods by the Burmese border while hauling logs, and it took her 3 days to walk the 10 km to the road where they could pick her up. After emailing all around the world, they got together 30 veternarians who performed the only surgery of its kind to try and treat the wound. The surgery got a lot of publicity and they decided to found the hospital to treat other elephants. Today Motala is still there and is being fitted for a prostetic leg. It's so sad to see such a huge gentle creature with its leg just blown off. The worst bit was that a 7 month old baby elephant was there with his mom. They'd just arrived 2 weeks ago after the baby's front leg was torn up in a land mine. We got quite close to them and saw the baby taking a bath. Then he lifted his bad leg out of the water and it was just a shredded mess with long dead strips of flesh hanging off. He just had to hobble around using his trunk to get him out of the water and then hobble over to his mother to try and nurse. You see they still weren't sure how to treat the wound and were still in the process of monitoring his response to various antibiotics. Unfortunately, in order to do that, they had to restrain his mom because she knows her baby is hurt and naturally wants to help it. So when they might give the baby a shot, the mom could run over and try to hurt the vet, so they have to restrain it. It was the saddest thing because the whole time the baby was taking his bath the mom just kept pacing back and forth back and forth and she seemed so happy when the baby finally came over to nurse. I was really about to cry over the whole thing-- it was like a real life dumbo movie except worse.
Afterwards we all made some donations to help keep the hospital up and running. It really was a special experience and something that I will never forget. After that moving day we were off to the homestay, but seeing as it's now 10:45pm and we're in Chiang Mai and just dying for a quick foot massage I think we'll have to write about the homestay later (it was fantastic--) and of course after tomorrow's thai cooking class and bamboo raft ride I'm sure we'll have even more to write home about! And no worries-- lots of great pictures of elephants and much more are forth coming!
Sitting at yet another internet cafe in yet another small Thai town. This time we're in Lampang which we arrived to by bus (about a 4 hour journey) this morning. Naturally the bus was running about a half hour late (Thai time..) but we still got here plenty early in the day. Our guesthouse in Lampang is tree-house like again with dark wood and open-air halls. Lauren and I have our own little room with tatami mats again and bed pads on the floor which is traditional Thai style. We're all sharing a bathroom which let me tell you, a lot of the others on the trip are complaining incessantly about.
The griping from particular group members started almost immediately, but it's progressively gotten worse in the last two days. I hate to use the stereotype, but it's the older tour members that seem to be disappointed with the tour. They think that we should have received more meals and better accommodation for the price we paid in advance. I agree that the tour was a bit pricey for where we are, but the brochure explicitly stated that the whole point of an intrepid tour is to get off the beaten path and travel like the local people do. The notes on the trip on their website clearly listed everything that would and would not be included and stated that we would be traveling on busses, open air taxis, using squat toilets occasionally (still practicing on that one really) and experiencing a bit of culture shock. So I'm not really sure where all the confusion has stemmed from. Unfortunately, you can only shake off complaints from others for so long before it starts dragging your mood down, too.
Anyway, that's me venting. Last night was actually quite fun. After the internet cafe, Lauren, Mike, Christine and Christine's mom and I went to the 'Poo' Bar (actual name) across the street, but Christine's mom didn't feel like staying and insisted on going home. Mike walked Christine and her back, and then Christine and Mike came back. We had a few beers and met a crazy hippy guy from Atlanta who was very excited to come across some Americans. He'd been living in Sukhothai for like a year and was CRAZY but very entertaining. And no he didn't try to scam and/or sexually harass us. Just looking for some company!
Also today we went to a spa while some of the other people went to some more temples. I had an oil massage but was disappointed to find out that it only lasted 20 minutes and involved being totally naked with a Thai woman rubbing baby oil all over me. Luckily thanks to the Nikko onsen, I wasn't as embarrassed as I normally would be being naked with a non-English speaking Asian woman but it still wasn't the best 150 baht I'd spent. After putting my clothes back on, I decided to get the real deal--a Thai massage--also 150 baht but for an hour and much more relaxing. Of course some people were complaining that they didn't like Thai style massage (granted it is different, more like stretching and physical therapy) or that it was too loud. By the end Lauren and are were like ENOUGH! But we decided to just avoid the situation by getting facials. Very nice and yes we looked ridiculous with cucumber all over our faces. Then we went to the market, Lauren bought yet another phone charger and we found a pretty decent fendi knock off for just $40 (but we didn't get it). Then we had dinner all together (minus the disgruntled Swiss couple) at a riverside cafe that had a great view but rather poor food. My pina colada was more milky than pina and the "lab" some northern Thai pork dish was just so-so. And I'm not saying that because it had all parts of the pig in it which was interesting in itself but because Wasa got it too and she said it wasn't very good.
Hey all! We're now in Sukhothai and are still having a fantabulous time! Sukhothai is a welcome break from Bangkok (all one day of it) and is way more chill and friendly. We arrived here by train (5 hours) which was only about one hour late--they call that Thai time--and then by an open soengthaw taxi thing. Our guesthouses we're staying in are too cute! Bungalows made of bamboo with our own front porch and underneath bamboo shoots and palm trees. We each have our own bed with a mosquito net which Lauren and I were quite excited about. And our shower and toilet is kinda open in the back with open slat boards from the waist up! (no peeking!) it's just like Swiss family Robinson except closer to the ground and minus the ostrich rides of course.
last night we had a lovely feast of green chili curry (spicy! I love it!) fried pork, sweet and sour veggies, lots of jasmine rice, coconut cake and hairy fruit (good actually-- but yeah they're covered with spiky red hairs). A monsoon came but no worries because we didn't have any where to go and we got to fall asleep to the sound of the rain.
I woke up early the next morning, grabbed a quick cold shower (no hot water, but not really needed in this climate!) then read some on my front porch. Then we had banana pancakes (more of a crepe) for breakfast with fresh fruit and coffee- yummy. By 8:30 we were all off in the soengthaw again to drive out to the temples from the 15th century or so. We rented bikes and Wasa gave us a lot of history on Buddhism, Hinduism, and the significance of everything we were seeing. It was hot, but very enjoyable because we got to see a lot. Then we had a picnic lunch by the temples (more spicy food) and then chatted awhile followed by a bike ride back to the town. We next visited a ceramics shop where they were making the most amazing sculptures by hand. Incredible. I bought a little blue and white dish for my mom (don't worry mom-- it only cost a fraction of what I paid for the one from Germany) but wanted to buy so much more-- namely an elephant that was a few feet high. But he would've cost too much to ship.
Next was swimming at a local pool. We had the whole place to ourselves and we taught the Swiss couple to play Marco polo--hilarious! At 4:30 we had massages-- 200 baht ($5) for an hour and a half = cheap bliss. It was so relaxing. I think we're going to get another one tomorrow when we go to Lampang as well as facials. I love the pampering! Ooo I almost forgot-- we went to a local market earlier in the day and I saw a woman ripping out the guts of a frog. It was kinda cool in a sadistic way.
We all headed into town for dinner and Lauren and I had more pad Thai from a street vendor (don't worry, Wasa said it was safe to eat) as well as a banana and honey smoothie. Total cost? About 50cents. It's nuts! Well this internet cafe is about to close, and we're going to the bar across the street next so we'll have to write back later. Tomorrow we're off to Lampang to stay in a guest house and get pampered and then the next day is elephants! I'm so very excited! We're truly loving it here and feeling very safe-- the townspeople are wonderfully kind and not trying to scam us at all unlike in Bangkok! And Wasa is a wonderful find. We'll write more later!
Thailand is NUTS
Wow, first day in Bangkok and all I can say is pandemonium. It's completely nuts here--the streets are literally overwhelming--crowds of faring (foreigners) walking around with all the Thais trying to sell you anything (my fav, 10 baht to let a bird out of a cage), American pop music blaring, the smells of noodles cooking--just chaotic. But chill in a very strange sort of way at the same time. None of the farang seem to have any kind of agenda and the Thais really just want to make some cash.Lauren and I arrived last night from Japan after a completely smooth transfer from Nikko to Tokyo to the airport and then a 6-hour flight to Bangkok. We got in late, but weren't really all that tired. By the time we got back to our hotel (dated, but clean) we turned on the tube just in time to catch the beginning of the USA vs. Italy soccer match. Lauren elected to stay up but I was way too tired and hit the hay.
Mango shakes and pumpkin curry
This morning we woke up around 8:30 and I thoroughly enjoyed my hot shower. Then we got ready for the day and hit the street at around 10:30. First we walked down the road to the main backpacker road Khao San that is absolutely manic in every way possible. We found a great cafe recommended by the Rough Guide and a few dollars later were slurping down fresh fruit shakes (mine was mango) and gobbling up spicy pumpkin curry as fast as we could manage.Next was walking up and down the street and then we decided to head over to the grand palace which was just a 20 minute walk or so. On the way there some men tried to hand us 'free' corn kernels to feed the pigeons, which were suddenly surrounding us in a rather Hitchcock-esque manner. Not wanting to be attacked or in any kind of close proximity with a potential H5N1 carrier, we insisted we didn't want them, but they kept putting these bags in our hands. Wisely, we threw them on the ground and scurried off-- my hunch is that they were trying to get us caught in a frenzy and then grab our purses. But they didn't fool us!
Travel by tuk tuk
Then we arrived outside the palace and found out it wasn't open until 3 pm but we could take a tuk tuk (some little three-wheeled open air taxi thing) around to some of the other sites in the meantime. An American named Emily was there as well so we invited her along and we were off. The tuk tuk driver was awfully giggly in a strange, Pillsbury doughboy way. He took us to the Standing Buddha first which was rather interesting-- a massive 60-foot high golden Buddha surrounded by monks wearing bright orange robes weaving these beautiful screens out of yarn. We took pictures then headed off. When we got back to our tuk tuk driver, he ran to the bathroom real quick and we met a nice young guy working on his car next to us. Apparently it was some holiday this week and they were running a lot of specials on tuk tuks and tailor made suits, etc.Buyer beware
We next got to go to one of the tailor shops and were served cokes and then got to look at magazines. The suits were actually quite nice that we saw and the man was a good salesman. They said that we could have 3 suits for the price of 2 and free international shipping. I had picked out some materials and was seriously considering having 3 suits and a skirt or two made, but the initial price (32,000 baht-- like more than $800) was too high. After a whole lot of haggling I got them down to like 25,000 baht, but in the end decided it was still a bit high. But I thought, just over $650 for all of that clothing and free shipping-- well that would be a great bargain. But something still didn't smell right. Just as I was about to change into some shorts to have my measurements taken, it hit me--the man by the temple wasn't really an official. We were about to be scammed.This was how it worked--the man wasn't an official at all but in cahoots with the tuk tuk driver. He lied to us about the temple, which was actually open then, and then the tuk tuk driver took us off around town. He took us to tourist spot to gain our confidence and was all super friendly, and then when he went to the bathroom, this 'nice young man' was actually a plant, telling us about the so-called special holiday. And then we were taken to the tailor shop he'd hyped up. Now the tuk tuk driver was about to collect on my naiveté. No way.
I left empty handed but still with all my cash, and the happy tuk tuk driver (thinking we'd bought a suit probably) drove us to a gem shop. Now my suspicions were confirmed and I insisted we be taken back to the palace. Then happy go lucky tuk tuk man got super grouchy. He did take us back and in the end we actually screwed him thanks to my quick wits. For 25 cents apiece, we got chauffeured to a tourist spot, a free tour of the city, and a diet coke. Ha.
We did leave with a bad taste in our mouth though and I was quite upset that I, the 'super savvy traveler' had almost gotten duped. And of course we were upset that we'd been lied to. But it was a learning lesson, and really we were no worse off except by the time we did get to the temple it was raining.
The Emerald Buddha
We parted ways with new friend Emily, equally upset of having been lied to, and then in the pouring rain, Lauren and I entered the palace finally. Luckily the rain wasn't really too bad once it let up and we were already soaked. We had been sweating so much earlier that it was rather refreshing. The palace was so cool-- so very different than anything I've ever seen-- very gilded, very ornate. The emerald Buddha was very impressive, but unfortunately we couldn't take photos.After about an hour strolling around the palace, we had a quick tea and coconut (yes a real coconut) and then walked in the drizzle to Wat Pho where the reclining Buddha was. And it was absolutely jaw dropping. The Buddha is 65 meters long--huge and golden. It was breath taking.
We walked around a bit more, then decided to take a taxi back to the hotel. We knew we were paying too much, but since it was only 3 or 4 dollars just acquiesced. Then we wondered around Khao San some more and then made the wonderful decision to get a Thai massage for 30 minutes before our intrepid meeting at 6pm. It was great--so relaxing and only 120 baht (3 dollars) apiece. I'm going to get massages every day.
On to Sukothai
At 6pm we had our meeting. We met our tour guide, a kind Thai woman named Wasa (yeah like the cracker!) Of the 12, we're the only Americans. There's a mother-daughter pair from Canada, an Australian couple, a Swiss couple, an Austrian woman, a Canadian college grad, and two British girls traveling together. Lauren and I had dinner with some of them at this great restaurant right next to our hotel that we never would have found without the help of Wasa. I had pad thai, and well it was great. Now we're just about to head back to the hotel since we have to be ready to leave at 8am tomorrow so that we can catch our train to Sukothai. Everything is good and well, especially now that we're really 'on our guard' as how not to be scammed!We'll be in a rural area this next week (until Thursday) but we'll try to update.
Ciao!
From Japanese shrines to Lost World Caves
The main sights that we are hoping to visit include the Royal Palace in Tokyo, the Shrines at Nikko, Japan, the tribal villages in Northeast Thailand, the Full Moon Party at the beaches in southern Thailand, the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the Viet Cong tunnels in Vietnam, Halong Bay in Vietnam, the wine country in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, the Lost World caves in New Zealand, the Bay of Islands in New Zealand, and the Tongoriro Crossing in New Zealand (where they filmed part of “Lord of the Rings”). In Buenos Aires, I'm sure I'll go back to the Teatro Colon, the zoo, and the Obelisk!
No more comfort zone
I am hoping to really push myself out of my comfort zone. I've traveled throughout Europe and in Central and South America, but this will be the first time that I will be in countries where I won't be able to speak any of the language or at least be able to try and read it. It's also the first time that I'll be traveling with my best friend Lauren outside of the U.S. and I'm very excited for us to be able to share this experience. I'm also very excited about all of the activities we have planned which include everything from getting our scuba diving certification, to elephant rides, to caving!
Hobo chic
I've had more than a few shots and gotten malaria pills to prepare for this trip! I also bought a few Rough Guide travel books on the area as well as phrase books for Japanese, Thai, Khmer, and Vietnamese though I doubt they'll help very much... I've bought mainly light-weight clothing for Southeast Asia since it will be very hot there, and am planning on buying heavier clothing for New Zealand (where it will be winter) when I arrive there so I don't have to carry it around. I bought a new backpack (50 Liters) at REI the other day, which is going to be my only luggage in Asia and New Zealand. When I arrive in Argentina, my brother will be bringing another suitcase for me with my winter coats since it will be the dead of winter there!
We have packed keeping the local culture in mind-- no shorts, no sleeveless tops. Lauren and I have termed our travel attire as 'hobo-chic'---loose tunics, loose skirts, gauchos, sandals. I'm a bit worried about Tokyo where I'm sure people will dress up, but three days there doesn't really merit bringing nice clothes to just carry around the rest of the trip. We're also hoping to buy a lot of clothes there-- including business suits which I've heard can be handmade in Vietnam in just a day for like $40.
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