Tag Archives: travel

27 Oct 2011 · 6:10 AM

Dabbling in DC

Washington, the Capital City, perfectly manicured, museum city and political epicentre to the max… but if you scratch around it’s also home to great bookshops, art galleries, friendly people and wonderful food. Our trip in December/January 2009/10 allowed us to get most of the tourist stuff out the way and that meant that this time we managed far less but enjoyed it just as much.

Jean Pierre, a friend of my dad, let us stay in his immaculate apartment in NW and right on New York Avenue with views to the Capitol and the Washington Monument. A surreal feeling of “you’ve arrived” fell over us and we almost forgot that we were two backpackers travelling around the world on a shoestring.

Chateau DC

After extending our stay by an extra night, because MEGABUS is so organised, we had two full days in the city and were resolved to make the best of it!

There were a few things that we had planned to do, including some of the Smithsonian Museums and also made a turn at the Hirshhorn Museumon the mall.

Underneath the Hirshhorn

The gallery, if you are not familiar, is a rotunda with a hollow centre, allowing for three levels with two circular walls open for their exhibits. This provides the best possible space to view Andy Warhol’s Shadows that is on exhibition for the first time in it’s entirety until the end of January next year. My explanation of the gallery makes sense when you see this mega artwork in the flesh. He (Andy) referred to it as one painting, made up of 102 pieces, and it encircles about ¾ of the gallery space, almost 140 meters (that’s the artwork, not the gallery). It is a reproduction of shadows in his studio and is once again reproduced in hand painted and silkscreened images in the bright colours that he is known for. It seems pretty simple at first and then you realise how much work must have gone into producing art of this magnitude. And it just looks pretty cool too!

The Air and Space Museum didn’t disappoint either with a new exhibit (since we were last there) of the Hubble Space Telescope and many of the images that were captured by its deep field imager. Spectacular!

We wandered from Dupont circle, having beers at Afterwords Café in Kramer Books – to Georgetown and the many shops of M Street. We people watched at the front gate of the White House and we sat in the sun at the steps of the Capitol, enjoying the fact that it was still in the plusses and not as unbearably cold as last time! And we ate Mussels and drank South African wine at a beautiful Belgian restaurant with Jean Pierre. He really looked after us and let our travel wary bodies relax a bit.

Only the best!

One more thing worth telling y’all about was a photographic exhibition at the National Geographic Society’s M Street gallery. The photographer, Brian Skerry, is a marine photographer with a career spanning 30+ years. I will let the photos on his website do the talking but if you are in DC soon, make a beeline for 17th Street Northwest and have a look at these unbelievable shots.

Although we did manage to fit quite a lot in, we left DC with a longing to spend some more time there. We would have loved to see the snow, the leaves falling off the trees and the Christmas lights. But New York doesn’t wait for anybody, and Halloween this year is going to be a definite TREAT!

DC’s fantastic Metro
Chinatown
It’s smaller than the one in Austin, Texas!
DC Row

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08 Oct 2011 · 7:49 AM

San Diego in pictures

The Santa Fe train station with downtown as the backdrop

A highly detailed spanish facade in the Museum District (Museum of Contemporary ART)

 

The Botanical House in Balboa Park

A Pitcher Plant in the carnivorous plants exhibit

Louie Mattar's 1947 Cadillac that he drove non stop for 6320 miles... look it up!

The original "Herbie" bug!

The MTV Piaggio

Spreckles Organ Pavillion, Balboa Park

Having drinks on Coronado at the "Del"

Glorious Pizza at Village Pizzeria, 1st St, Coronado

MIssion Beach and a bit of volleyball

Wavehouse at M Beach

Margaritas at Margaritas

Fall for the Arts festival at Broadway Pier

Grandpa Lionel will appreciate this one :)

Boarding the museum at the USS Midway

Inside the lower deck hangar aboard USS Midway

Lieutennant Corporal DD Kotz

Airshow at MCAS Miramar

MRT Trolleys that buzz around SD

The kindly fellow who let us crash at his place, at times a gentleman....

 

Newport 'Party' Place

A stellar time was had by all, what a great week. Look out for our new post on Austin… coming to you computer screens soon!

Ciao for now!

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05 Oct 2011 · 5:51 AM

The last of our time in SD!

Well quite apart from the fact that we managed to get the cops over to Newport Place twice in one week, one could say that we had a good… no GREAT time in San Diego. It is such a champion city and we thoroughly enjoyed our time there.

There are some things that we missed out in our final post that are worth telling here, we’ll try and recount them as accurately as possible!

San Diego has so much squashed into it’s downtown area, it’s scarcely believable for such a small CBD.

Balboa Park is similar to the mall in Washington DC and full of museums and activities for all. We took a couple of bikes up to the park and rode around looking into all of the exhibits and wishing that we could visit all of them properly. Eventually after realising that the afternoon on Friday was drawing to a close (and that we had a braai to attend at Adriano’s) we settled on the San Diego automotive museum (mutually agreed upon) that was holding a VW through the ages exhibit. Everything from an original Type 1 Beetle through to some iconic examples such as the Split Window Camper, an immaculate Convertible Bug, some Rat examples of bugs that some artistic people had created and some “newer” MK 1 Golfs and Sciroccos.

The Park is also home to a magnificent Botanical House with a display of various orchids, bromeliads and carnivorous plants. I tried to photograph some of them but could have spent much longer in the cool fresh air.

On a final note, and unfortunately we weren’t able to witness it, we visited the Spreckels Organ Pavilion that houses one of the world’s largest outdoor pipe organs. For those who know things about these things it has 73 ranks that total 4518 pipes, and that my friends is apparently quite a few!

So that was another land based highlight of our week in SD and we also have one other highlight that was very much water based! We took the afternoon on yesterday to visit the decommissioned Aircraft Carrier USS Midway that is docked in San Diego Bay and now serves as a museum and a reminder of those who fought in the two World Wars and also the Korean War, the third and final of the Midway’s service. The tour takes you through the “floating city” from the quarters of the lowliest of sailors on triple berth bunks and barely enough space to breathe all the way through the serviceable areas, the Fo’c’sle and the armoury to the Captains suite. It was an amazing tour and we really could have spent longer on the ship. The thing is utterly gigantic and in it’s lifetime has gone through three flight deck re-fitments from a straight landing deck running the length of the deck to two angle flight decks including modifications to house steam driven catapults to launch aircraft to 200 knots in just over 2 seconds.

The last of the tour takes you through the inner deck where aircraft are stored and repaired and up onto the flight deck and to the control tower where all the action is monitored and regulated. All the while the history of aircraft that were used on the ship is laid out chronologically from WWII fighters to modern strike fighters and radar aeroplanes of the 21st century. It is all amazingly coordinated and unbelievably maintained. Unfortunately whilst explaining to Dom how a jet engine works, I got my finger caught in one of the fans and I think my fingernail’s days are now numbered!

So now on to Texas and Austin is our next stop. I will put up a photo gallery of Balboa Park and the Midway as well as some miscellanea of our time in SD and Newport Place with the Brazilian!

All the lads and lasses out for all night cocktail hour!

Later Gang!

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15 Sep 2011 · 9:54 AM

RV ready or RV not?

The title of this post will come as no surprise to anybody who has been following either Dom’s or my Facebook entries over the past calendar week. So now is the time to tell you all about it!

The pickup point was El Monte RV, a grand bunch of people who were very cordial and helpful in directing us to their premises in Dublin, a fair way East of San Francisco proper. Nothing however could have prepared us for what was to come. We should have realised that something was awry when the friendly sales guy told us that we would have to bring our belongings “out back” because the RV was too big to be parked in the substantial space in front of the building.

Dom in for perspective!

Regardless, we left our inhibitions in one of the many storage trunks under the vehicle and set off in the direction of Frisco to the Great Ocean Highway and a parking lot where we were supposed to be able to spend the night before the long drive to Yosemite.

The drive up Van Ness Street in the middle of rush hour traffic in Frisco was quite hair raising for us and mildly life threatening for anybody who was unfortunate enough to be driving anywhere near us at the time but we made it and finally pulled up over about five parking bays in the lot which was right on the beach. A great place to “set up camp” we thought, the authorities had a different idea though.

To summarise: Comfortable. Sleepy. Lights and sirens. Loudspeaker. Police Officer. Possible Fine…

We awoke to the distorted sound of “All vee-hicles must vacate the beach area and any remaining after 11pm will be subject to a fine and possible arrest.” The officer behind the loudspeaker was quite cordial when I asked where we could spend the night and he kindly offered to ignore all 40 feet of our RV if we parked up one of the side streets. He did however add that this was NOT legal and we may be woken up at any time in the morning by another cop who may not be so lenient. Thus we spent the whole night wide-awake and terrified of being arrested for inhabiting a parking space. What we did do was drive back down to the beach, which reopened again at 5am, and slept sweetly until we left at 8.

We drove North and over the Golden Gate bridge in the mist and headed towards the Napa Valley. A great surprise was to come across the Infineon Raceway and to watch some Lotus Cup action for a while. Since we were driving, wine tasting wasn’t an option but there were certainly more than a few opportunities where I really could have stopped for a small sip or five!

All we got to see of the GGB!

 

Driving through the wine country!

Our route took us in a big circle and back past Dublin where we fetched the RV, it was great to see just how much we’d adapted in the short day that we’d had the vehicle.

We arrived at the gates of Yosemite a bit later that evening with a vag9ue plan to ask about RV sites that would fit our monstrosity. This wasn’t to be because the reservations office had closed so we retraced our steps a few miles (yes, we say miles now…) down the road to Yosemite Lakes and set up our camp!

The day that followed in the park was something we’ll remember for the rest of our lives. We drove up to the gates again at 8am and went straight up to the Merced Grove of Sequoias, these giants are ancient and completely overwhelming, living for thousands of years and growing to heights in excess of one hundred meters tall. And it’s the same with everything else in this park, the views are incredible, the air crisp and clean, it is definitely one of the most beautiful and magical places in the world. The pictures give you a good idea idea, but to actually be there was certainly one of the highlights of this whole trip.

!!!

The trunks were much wider than the gap between them!

Ancient Giant

Our route took us from the Merced Grove down South and into Yosemite Valley, we had originally planned to visit the largest grove of Sequoias that is right down at the Southern end of the park but we were advised otherwise by a (far more experienced) park ranger who was more realistic about the time that it would take to haul the RV down the smaller roads. After lunch we visited another, larger, grove of Giants and about halfway in, the heavens opened. Undeterred we carried on down the path which had, by this time, turned into more of a river than a forest track. With torrents of rain and thunder as loud a freight train we reconsidered carrying on for a while but eventually made the decision to continue.  Knowing what we do now, the decision we made was the right one because the trees in this grove dwarfed those in Merced in size and age. The living ones thought to be close to 2500 years old and the largest diameter (unfortunately dead) trunk was close to 4600 years old. Large enough to drive a car through underneath it and completely awe inspiring. Unfortunately, due to an early start the next day and a very long drive to Vegas almost upon us, we had to leave the park after driving along the Tioga Road and ended up in Lee Vining for the night, population 387, no jokes! The pass that took us there wasn’t unlike Zoji La in India, except with perfectly surfaced roads and no enormous trucks fighting for space. It was, however, just as breath taking.

We had pulled over, blocking a bit of the road, to take some shots over the valley.

Well worth it!

The views of the mountains were almost as impressive as the Giant Sequoias and just as beautiful.

Some of the trees grow directly out of soil caught in the crevices in the granite.

Tioga Road

Tenaya Lake in all of its glory, just before sunset when the light is just right!

Monday morning we were up with the birds to get an early start on the drive to Vegas, and D even drove some of the way while I navigated. We drove through more beautiful misty forests and a few one-horse towns, saw tumbleweeds and cool-looking Joshua Trees. As the snowy mountains of the Sierra Nevada changed to cacti filled desert, we hit Las Vegas rush-hour. For the rest of our night in Las Vegas, you’ll have to wait for the next post :)

Long straight roads and blue skies!

Vegas BABY!!!!

The result of rental/relocation is a cheap way to travel on your own steam but it really limited us in time, and we could have spent a week out there in the “bush” because it was truly magical. Our next mission is to drive up to Page, Arizona and to the Grand Canyon. For the meantime, Bret and MJ are looking after us in Phoenix!

Later Gang!

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12 Sep 2011 · 8:23 AM

Frisco in pictures

We took a walk out to the Municipal Pier to look back at the city and whilst it was a gorgeous view we managed to get in the way (again) so all you have is us with a bit of San Fran in the background!

The view out to Alcatraz was only made better when some ocean-going yachts made their way into the bay.

We wandered around Fishermans Wharf looking in at all the shops and stared longingly at the barrels full of salt water taffy...

One of the many fascinating features of Frisco are it's hills, this one one the way to Lombard Street was very steep!

Lombard Street is the "twistiest" street we've ever seen!

The preferred method to climb the steep hills in SF is the cable car, one that we didn't use and are all the fitter for it!

At the Musee Mechanic there are all sorts of antiquated (and working) games and arcade regalia that take you back in time where things were simple and entertaining. A far cry from the computer generated entertainment of today. Take these singing minstrels for example, 25c a song... I bet Katy Perry wouldn't settle for that!

On a whim we walked around in the SF City Hall for the morning, a three layered dome that is larger than the US Capitol in Washington DC.

And from the outside later that evening, the temperature was decreasing rapidly and with sore feet we still had a few blocks to walk before we reached the warmth of the hostel.

A day in the Park, it was designed by Ferdinand Olmsted of Central Park fame... but twice the size! We know, we walked it! Unfortunately one of the oldest businesses, the boathouse and bike shop, in the park has had to close down because state funding is paying multinational corps and has thus cut small business funding. Even though it's been around for 72 years... This pic is taken outside of the Japanese Tea Garden (still operational).

We had to do some washing eventually...

This is about as much of the Golden Gate Bridge that we were able to see in our time in SF. At least it was dramatic!! It was pretty dramatic driving over it aswell... in fact very much so considering it was blowing a gale and the RV is almost four meters tall.... Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!

Yosemite next, its a big one! D & T *grinning*

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02 Sep 2011 · 10:19 AM

Los WHAT?

Wow it;s hot here, especially in comparison to Melbourne (sorry Salters). So we arrived in the States yesterday on the last, and longest leg of the URT. Again, WOW, I can’t believe four months have gone by so quickly. It was a cultural change not unlike the one we faced when traveling from Europe to India, except in this instance not quite so dirty and certainly not nearly as many people are involved… Shudder!

LA is a crazy town, well its a metropolis really and we managed to walk quite a bit of it today. Yesterday went to the dogs in that a fourteen hour flight that landed us half way across the world an hour before we took off rendered us pretty useless and , I at least, slept all afternoon! Before we passed out we did manage to take a walk over to ‘The Grove” a small shopping/ pedestrian mall adjacent to the original LA Farmers Market (click the link I’m too lazy to explain, yes it’s been two days and America is rubbing off on me) that is not very far from where we are staying with Byron’s sister’s boyfriend Dave, in West Hollywood. It’s worth a look, and they have a cute tram that runs the length of the mall showing off how the LAians have managed to create something interesting in their own, movie inspired way.

However, back to more current affairs, we checked out Hollywood today and passed quite a lot of time joining fellow tourists walking down the (aptly named) walk of fame, exclaiming excitedly when we recognised the name of a favorite celebrity or even when we didn’t and thought that we had. It’s a pretty long walk, but also an amazing testament to the modern era’s most celebrated entity. Tee hee!

The closest that we managed to get to seeing anybody famous (apart from some well worn handprints and footprints outside of Sid Grauman’s famous Chinese Theatre) was the fairly moth-eaten costumes of the “Sidewalk Superheroes” OK not all of them are totally vagrant types… but Yoda was certainly dealing out his fair share of drunken slur and shouting at anybody unfortunate to forget to tip after taking a SUPER-photo! Anyway it turn out that there’s a movie being made in their honour, wait a movie you say… not in Hollywood surely… you betcha though Spiderman is going to be famous, AGAIN! These guys congregate outside on the publicly owned sidewalk at the Chinese Theatre because they are in fact in breach of copyright and are not legally allowed to get in the way of anybody trying to photograph their favourite dead (or in some cases alive) celebrity’s shoe/hand impressions. Sorry f I am being sarcastic, the glitz and glam of it all is very real, but there is an interestingly hopeless side of it that tickles my dark side :)

We lunched at another, apparently famous, spot called Mel’s Drive In and then took a walk in the direction of Sunset Boulevard. The strip as it’s known is supposed to be the nightlife hub of the city and also a great place to go celebrity spotting. Sort of like bird watching when all of the birds are really really timid and don’t come out often. Eleven and a half kilometers (7.2 miles) later we entered Beverly Hills and were way off of our Google printed map that we decided to head back in the direction of Dave/Kate’s place. This by no means had anything to do with the gigantic blister forming in between Dom’s toes and absolutely had nothing to do with my not wanting to listen to her moan about it anymore…

Thus ended our first day in the “Wood-hood”, hopefully we’ll have some scandalous stories for you tomorrow… Apparently J-Biebs crashed his Ferrari, that was in fact NOT really his Ferrari, yesterday in LA and this was all the news until everybody found out that not only does he pretend to sing but in fact he also pretends to have a Ferrari…

Ciao for now :)

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20 Jul 2011 · 4:05 AM

Howling at the Moon

It’s far easier to reflect on past experiences when sitting in luxury at a family friend’s condo in Surin Beach than on a train or other form of relatively uncomfortable transport between places. So as I look out at the ocean and enjoy the peacefulness of it all I’m reminded that we are both so fortunate to be in a position to travel like this and are also super thankful to all of those who made it possible!

Some of the most fun you can have on a small island off the coast of Thailand is to rent a scooter for 24 hours and mission about to all of the sights. It gives such a rush of exhilarating independence and it really beats having to fork out hundreds of baht for tuk-tuks/taxis everywhere.

Hiring scooters for the day, definitely value for money!

We decided to visit one of the larger waterfalls on the island, about a twenty minute ride from where we were staying in Baan Kai, and another 25 minute hike up a super steep, rooted path. It was all worth it though for the view over the island from the high point above the falls and also for the refreshing mountain pool that we were able to dip in before beginning the trek down again.

We returned to Thong Sala for dinner and a wander around the night market. Cocktails and beer on the beach at the Highway Bar (a must visit) just made the experience all the sweeter. The poor 100cc bike that we hired really struggled up some of those hills though!

But now, on to the crux of the matter! The calm evening of the 16th brought the first bit of sun we had seen on the island since we’d arrived a couple of days before so the girls were up and heeding the call of Vitamin D and Marion swore blind that she wasn’t going home without a tan. We used up the last of our scooter rental by going into Thong Sala to buy an extra ticket for the ferry/bus to Phuket for Jade and then made our way swiftly to the beach.

Needless to say, the afternoon came and went and we all had various degrees of sunburn (some desired and some not so much). But time was running out and we had a party to get to. So for those of you who don’t know about the famous, or possibly infamous, Full Moon party hosted by Haad Rin “Sunrise” Beach, here’s the low down.

Held once a month, these parties rival most if all trance parties that Cape Town has to offer and host between ten and fifteen thousand people on an average month and this number rises in excess of thirty thousand for New Years Eve. Now this may not impress some but when you consider that it’s held on a spit of sand thirty meters by 800 meters it gets pretty crowded. There are bars, clubs and restaurants lining the beach, with revellers, dressed from head to toe in lumo clothes and paint, listening to music that varies from commercial to psy-trance and there’s even a DnB venue for the coolest kids :) The drink of choice here is “The Bucket”, a mixture of your choice of soda, a local Thai Red Bull and… wait for it… 250ml of local Thai rum. The bucket gives Tipo Tinto (from Mozambique) a good run for it’s money and after a couple, many of the revellers are reduced to slurring, stumbling cretins.

Painted and ready for the party :)

We planned to meet our friends at Mr. K’s fried chicken (a GREAT place for a midnight snack) on the main street in Haad Rin at 11pm so we chilled out in our bungalow and had a good Thai meal up at our restaurant whilst playing cards and watching the sunset. We taxi’d to Haad Rin with a bunch of boys who were clearly on a mission to have a great night and despite our best efforts only made it to the chicken spot at 11:30pm and thus missed Jade and Lindsay and co. We were to meet them later under interesting circumstances but that’s a story for another time.

Watching the sunset at the hotel before the party

What an epic party though, one and all were having a decent jam to the music of their choice and far too many buckets were being consumed! Judging by the state of some that we saw, faaaaaar too many buckets!

T and D enjoying a warm-up bucket a few nights before the party

At 5:30 we really needed to make our way back to the Resort to fetch our bags because we had a 7am ferry to catch back to Surat Thani and on to Phuket by bus and this also turned out to be a story on it’s own.

We boarded the ferry with minutes to spare and immediately passed out for the duration of the trip between Phangan and the mainland. We had to endure another 90 minute bus transfer with blaring Thai pop music between the pier and Surat Thani town that would have been a big fat party had we not all been in some state of unconsciousness/hung-over. And then our reality from about 11:30 was a couple of transfers by local taxi and a looooooong wait only to be shuffled on to a local bus, not our booked minibus, and sent off in the direction of Phuket at breakneck speed.

The fact that we were still on the outskirts of Surat Thani an hour later should have told us something, just like the extra thirty people sitting in the isles and on the stairs of the bus should have. What really got us worked up and what finally ended our trip on local transport was when the driver cooked the brakes on the bus going down a steep hill far too fast, that resulted in the rear end of the passenger compartment full of smoke and the acrid smell of burning brakepads. This was far too much for us, and our newly made Aussie friends (and one American), and we exited quickly while being screamed at in Thai by the conductor. Fun times!

So there we were, at a bus stop about 180km from Phuket, and we realised that we were in a bit of a dilemma. The biggest problem was the language barrier but we managed after about an hour to organise ourselves a minibus down to Phuket that would not break the bank and more importantly leave us with our lives intact. So more thanks go to our CHAMPION Aussie friends who not only saved the day but also made the wait and the rest of the trip a good laugh!

Waiting for a taxi in the middle of nowhere, and this walks past...

Arriving in Surin Beach we did a happy dance when we saw the white-sheeted, air-conditioned, infinity-pooled Surin Beach Condos and did what all over-tired and underfed people do…ate, and went straight to sleep. No skaam, no worries, just incredible horizontal-ness!

Our view from the apartment! :)

The four of us enjoying a cocktail on Surin Beach

Phi Phi today! Whoop!

T, D, M and J! Party’s getting fuller!

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14 Jul 2011 · 4:24 PM

The Long Road to Paradise

After our fantastic adventure with the elephants on Monday, we spend the last day in Chiang Mai sampling more local food and fruit smoothies at

Fried goodies for sale in Chiang Mai

the market and packed up all of our goodies. We even hired a scooter and took turns riding it around the old town, T doing most of the riding and M and I catching a lift on the back :) After that it was time to start the long journey Southwards to Koh Phangan. We got to the Chiang Mai Railway Station, a very nice, clean place, in plenty of time, and boarded the Special Express to Bangkok. It was an overnight sleeper train, with a little too much AC (you can’t win), but it was comfortable enough and we all had a good few hours of sleep. We arrived in Bangkok before 7am, and had 12 hours to kill before our bus to the South. Luckily we could store our bags at the train station, with the tour company that we bought our bus tickets from, V.C Travel and Tours, a very reputable company if you’re looking to tour around Thailand.

First stop was Lumphini Park, an easy three Metro stops from Hua Lamphong Railway Station. Here we wandered around, in an early morning daze, watching the Thai people enjoy their morning in the park. We found that there is a whole section of weights and gym equipment that the public exercise on for free, there were a few people doing Thai Chi classes, a group or two of older people singing together, and people some just walking through the park to work.

Watching the Monitor Lizzards in the river

Next we decided to visit the Dusit Zoo. It was a fair distance from Lumphini so we took the bus to the Victory Monument and from there we walked, and we walked, and we walked, until we eventually found the zoo! What fun we had, looking at all the different animals. There were deer and binturong, bears and sharks, chimpanzees and lions, panthers and snakes, elephants and birds and monkeys of all shapes and sizes.

Albino Golden Thai Python

Hippo showing us her teeth!

We spent hours and hours looking at all the animals, and eventually, when we were starving and tired, stopped for lunch and headed back to the station by bus. Luckily, after such a long, hot, sweaty day, there were nice cold showers at the station that we could, and did, use. By that time, it was almost 5pm and we could relax with our books until the bus trip.

We had originally been told to be very careful with all of our valuables and belongings, as the buses going down South were known to be dodgy with the baggage. Some people have told us that someone sat in the bottom “cargo hold” of their bus with all of their bags and picked the locks and went through them looking for anything useful or valuable to steal. We were extra paranoid about getting our valuables stolen, and spent a good while securing all of our bags properly. Then we boarded the bus at 7pm and hoped for the best. Thailand also seems to be one of those places, like India, were you are shoved around from place to place and no one tells you exactly what is happening. On one of these unexplained moments, and there were many along the way, we sat for an hour on the side of the road, waiting for some unexplained thing to happen, whether it did or not we will never know, but we eventually made it to Surat Thani at around 6am. Well, I say we made it to Surat Thani, but to be honest, I can’t say for sure where we were dumped, as there were no signs or names in sight. We were dumped on the side of the road at a cafe, where another 30 people lay sleeping, clearly having already been dumped earlier that morning, and waited for the next instructions. We were each given a sticker with the name of our destination on it. Every so often a “mini-bus” would pull up and call a destination, and those people would scurry to get their bags and off they went to their island of choice. Eventually, after about 2 long hours of waiting, the ‘Koh Phangan bus’ arrived and we got on, hoping for a quick bus ride to the ferry pier. The bus stopped yet another three or four times before getting going but after about half an hour, we were on the open road, wind howling through the open windows and a very loud, skipping Linkin’ Park song playing on the stereo speakers. At about 9:30am we arrived at the pier, looking like we’d been dragged through a bush backwards, in two-day old clothes. No matter, a quick bowl of fried noodles for breakfast and a toilet stop and we were on our way to the ferry to the island.

Waiting on the side of the road in Surat Thani

A quick aside about the people on this ferry… In Leh we explained that there were lots of tourists, but the good kind, see this post on Leh to read it again. However, this ferry was FULL of tourists, like us, between the ages of 20 and 25, but not the good kind. I should have expected it, considering we are arriving on the island of the Full Moon Party (click here to read about what the full moon party is), but these young people seem really arrogant, rich and demanding. A far cry from the happy-go-lucky, tree-loving tourists in Leh.

The ferry took little over 2 hours, plus a good 45 minutes of waiting on the boat before we left, so by the time we got the beautiful island, it was lunchtime. Swarms of taxis waited on the pier to round up the tourists heading to the different beaches, and we headed through them, into the town of Thong Sala to find some lunch and plan our next move. After a healthy bowl of noodle soup and a fruit smoothie, we were ready to trawl the beaches for a place to stay. We took a taxi to Baan Kai, 80 Baht each, and started our walk up the beach asking at every bungalow for an available room. Not long after we started, and a short distance up the sunset beach, we found a little piece of heaven with an available bungalow at the Golden Beach Resort. Its not a luxury hotel, just 3 beds and a bathroom but our view is spectacular and beach is a few metres from our balcony. Paradise? I think so.

View from our room at the Golden Beach Resort

D x

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11 Jul 2011 · 6:00 PM

Elephant mahout, a humbling experience

When we came to Chiang Mai, all I wanted to do was see an elephant, but it can be pricey and our budget isn’t what you would call lenient. However, when my parents offered to pay for us to go on the elephant mahout day trip, we jumped at the opportunity. Little did we know that we would not only see the elephants but feed them, learn to ride them, and bath with them in the river. The experience was nothing less than incredible and the money WELL worth it, (even though we didn’t have to pay for it ourselves). The camp that we went to was called the Baan Chang Elephant Camp and is really well-run by Woody, a guy who has grown up with the elephants and trained them from a young age. The fees (upwards of 2400 Baht per person) are used exclusively to buy food (and elephants eat a lot!!) for the 8 or so elephants who live on the camp, and to pay their handlers who care for them day and night (interestingly, elephants only sleep for approximately 3 hours each night).

Below are some photos of our day at the camp!

Elephant Chair

Learning the commands from up top

"Yuut" to stop, "Baai" to go

Time for us to try out all of the commands we have learned on our own on a walk in the jungle!

Stopping for a short break in the jungle

Time for a dip in the river

Bath time-scrubbing the elephants clean!

Having fun in the river

Lots of fun!

The elephants and our group

Big strong elephant

Time to say Goodbye

If you would like to know more about the camp or book it for yourself (they also do 2 or more day camps) visit Woody’s blog on www.woodyelephanttraining.com and check out the photo gallery page in the next few days to see more photos of us in action! :)

D, T and M x

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06 Jul 2011 · 6:29 PM

Delhi Belly to Bangkok

On Monday when we jumped on the plane in Delhi we were full of excitement. Not because we were happy to leave India, it has been a spectacular time, full of colour, mountains, people and smells (some good, some not so good), but rather because were were traveling again. It is such a buzz knowing that you are on your way to another different place! Bangkok hasn’t let us down!

One thing that was very clear when we alighted was that we were not getting away from the heat or the humidity… not on your life! It has been a consistent 30+ degrees celcius since we arrived, broken only by small, heavenly stops in air-conditioned airports, trains and hostel lobbies. You are acutely aware of this novelty once you have been traveling in India for a few weeks. For those who have been in Bangkok before you probably think it’s a fairly grimy city, but once you have been to Mumbai, Delhi, Agra and Kolkata you gain a bit of perspective and Bangkok becomes a shimmering pearl of a city on the banks of the Chao Phraya! Please don’t misinterpret this as me saying that Indian cities aren’t beautiful, they are some of the most beautiful I have seen in my limited travels, but they aren’t exactly hygienic and it’s pretty awesome to not worry about falling ill when sampling the local fare.

Local fruit and veg

This has led on well, the food here is to die for. Dom and I both enjoy Thai food and often eat from the local Thai restaurant back home in Cape Town. This place has really blown me away though because whatever I was dreaming and wishing it would be, it is better! Thai prawns and sweet and sour veg for lunch, spicy pork with noodles for dinner, battered and fried banana slices for snacks and fresh fruit like you have never (ever) seen before! And the greatest thing… it’s ridiculously inexpensive and filling food! Too much for me…. Oh, the beer and “soda-in-a-bag” are great too!

Soda-in-a-bag

A small excited feeling has been growing in us over the past week because my sister is joining us in Thailand for two weeks from tomorrow!!! So the URT increases to three Saffas tomorrow, fun huh? And before we forget, our great friend Jade is also planning to pop over so we are going to be having a fun-friend-filled time in T minus 12 hours, yippee!

Patpong Road

More on the sights and sounds and smells tomorrow. For now, sleep… we must catch the 6am train to the airport to meet a no-doubt tired Marion (sans her luggage after ACSA left it in Cape Town) and this is troublesome for our holiday accustomed bodies! Nighty night!

Trist out!

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