BootsnAll Travel Network



Cambodia: Siem Reap and the Temples

October 23rd, 2006

We had a fabulous time in Siem Reap. The people are friendly, the place is colourful and clean and there is so much to see and do.

The temples of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom and all the other surround ones are amazing.  We saw them from the back of a Tuk-Tuk, kids in tow.  I was paid the greatest compliment about our eldest son.  A lady stopped me and said that she had never seen a child so freely display his excitement about a temple – she had seen him emerge from the steps onto the walkway towards Angkor Wat, at which point, he exclaimed, WOW Dad, look at that with a huge grin on his face.  I am so proud of him and Tate.

We left Cambodia with tears in our eyes, knowing it was our last destination before heading home.

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Malaysia

October 23rd, 2006

Well what can I say about Malaysia.

We had such high hopes for Malaysia, in my mind I envisioned it to be the New Zealand of SE Asia.  It’s not.

I am not sure if we were slightly less jaded if we would have a better view of Malaysia but all in all we found it tired and not particularly attractive.  So in the spirit of saying nothing if I can’t say anything nice, I’ll move onto Cambodia.

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Thailand – the coup, the new airport and onto Malaysia

September 28th, 2006

We arrived in Thailand and transferred straight away to our resort (www.rabbitresort.com) in Pattaya.  Fabulous, fabulous resort.  The staff were amazing, the food was wonderful and the accomodation nothing short of divine – imagine our very own bedrooms.

Such a pity that Pattaya is such a dump.  Prostitution, girl-men, men-men, men-girl/men, you name it, you can find it in Pattaya.  This meant that the children couldn’t leave the resort but we were so tired after China we weren’t much bothered.  There is a Tesco in Pattaya, we were in heaven.

On our 3rd night there, the phone rings at 1am.  It’s my dad – he says to me “are you all alright”, I ask why.  “There’s been a military coup” he says.  I can tell you I did feel pretty frightened but in true Thai Style, even the coup was conducted with a smile.

Rabbit Resort is a gem – it’s manager Windy and Noot the childminder became good friends and we hope to keep in touch.

We spent four days in Bangkok – we stayed in Sukhumvit but spent some time investigating old haunts and catching up with one of Torien’s old mates from the UK.

On the 26th September we flew to Kuala Lumpur (we were some of the first passengers to use the US$4bn airport iin Bangkok – its pretty amazing).  KL is a lovely city but to us it’s just another city – we’ve seen so many.

Our trip will be over in just under a month.  I can’t believe it.  Although I will be happy in many ways to return to a normal existence, I imagine I will feel truly bereft.

This trip has been a magical experience.

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China & Hong Kong – August 25th – September 14th

September 28th, 2006

In my lost posting I described the insane attention the children received in Beijing.  Our trip up the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace.

China is an incredibly large country which is developing at an unbelieveable pace.  Sadly it’s in danger of losing the mystical and historical charisma that is conjured in the western mind because it’s politicians are hell-bent on pandering to western tastes.  There is little or no sensitivity when it comes to the renovations being done in preparation for the Beijing 2008 Olympics.  Slap on a coat of dulux – who cares if the temple is a couple of thousand years old.  We were astounded to learn that all but one of the traditional Hutong communities have been knocked to the ground to make way for new shiny buildings.  These places are the historical stronghold of the average Chinese person – it doesn’t make sense to rid the city of all but the Aristocratic history, but it is being done.  This is rationalised by the fact that these old housing districts are/were fire hazards with little or no building standards – but they have been there forever.

MacDonalds and Pizza Hut are on every street corner – whilst I was secretly glad of this for the children’s sake it didn’t exactly meet upto my expectations.

On the plus side, Chinese people are incredibly friendly, open-minded for the most part and always willing help.  We travelled on planes, over-night trains (which are fabulous – if awfully smoky), in taxis and on boats and covered a lot of mileage.  We saw all that Beijing had to offer, on to X’ian for the terracotta warriors, then onto Guilin to see the River Li and the “pretty” rural China you see in the pictures.  Then onto Guanghzhou (not the most pleasant place) for a ferry to Hong Kong.

Lord the travelling was hard – the food was inedible.  I’ll tell you a quick story:

We were in a Cantonese Restaurant with a local.  I was relieved to find a “picture-menu” and quizzed the person we were with about the items on the menu.  One of the things looked like Pork and/or Chicken Strips.  When I enquired, she assured me that this was Chicken/Pork.  I was ravenous – 10 minutes later my food arrived.  On closer inspection, the plate in front of me contained nothing but Chicken Paws – absolutely nothing like it to kill the appetite.  Deep fried chickens feet, claws and all.  Bleuuuurrrrghhh!!

I could go on all day about China.  It has many good points and many bad points – certainly it’s not a place to have a holiday.  We were exhausted by the time we reached Hong Kong.  For us the most difficult thing about China was the food.  Everything tasted horrible – I was trying to think of a nice way of saying it but I can’t.  The food was gross.  We were hungry.  Believe me, we can tolerate pestilence, flood and doomsday but do not take the food from a hungry De Jager.

We are happy that we saw China before the Olympics.  Both Torien and I believe it will change irrevocably after that.  The days of being the Tourist Attraction at a tourist attraction will be well and truly over for the Western Tourist and that is a true loss.

 We spent three days in Hong Kong after China – where Tate was stocked up on his now beloved Thomas the Tank Engine trains and tracks and Caelan was finally rewarded for his patience on our mammoth trip with a coveted Nintendo DS Lite and two games (for which he owes us half the money for the recored).

On the 14th we flew to Bangkok.  I’ll update in a new post about that experience.

TTFN

Stella

 

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I can’t believe it – some of our entries have been lost aarrrrrghh!

September 28th, 2006

So I am left having to try and recapture all of the time we spent in Australia and the first ever post from China which was really written from the heart.  I’ll do this in the next few days and re-post them when I get a chance.

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New Zealand is over :-(…. tomorrow we fly to Australia

July 23rd, 2006

Another month has flown by.  We had no preconceived ideas about New Zealand before we got here (well maybe a few about sheep 😉 but we leave with a wholly impressed perspective about this great country.

In my last entry I said that I thought New Zealand would be too remote for us, but since then we have visited Christchurch.  If it were practical this would be a great place to grow old. For those of you who have not been to Christchurch it’s a wonderful mix of ethnic New Zealand and old English Charm.  The town has everything one could need – believe me the nightlife and club scene is thriving, at least it was three storeys below our apartment on Saturday night.

Skiing was a highlight – Caelan loved it and was completely finished after 2 days after skiing school.  Tate picked up the obligatory nursery school cold after spending two days in the nursery, which is a bit of a bummer but to be expected in the winter months.  We decided on Cardrona as it has a good reputation for beginner slopes (www.cardrona.com) and we were not disappointed.  The lessons were good and there were plenty of them and it wasn’t too expensive.

Without a doubt the highlight of our trip was the Cessna flight over the Southern Alps from Wanaka to Milford Sound.  It was breathtaking – the weather in the Sound was absolutely perfect (cold though) and the kids loved the experience of flying in a very, very, very little aircraft.

New Zealand is such a beautiful country, we’ll miss it so much.

Tomorrow we fly to Melbourne.  I’ll update from there.

Love

Stell & the Boys

x

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Fiji and onto New Zealand

July 11th, 2006

Sorry it’s been so long since I last updated. Internet access has been a little less available than usual – actually it was non-existant in Fiji and I have to brave the cold in New Zealand and go out to an internet cafe in New Zealand if I need to check mail. Today is the first day we have accomodation with WIFI so I can update.

Fiji was incredible – Octopus Resort lived up to it’s promise of a peaceful paradise. The food was great, thanks to a fantastic Scottish Chef and the Bures (thatched huts) were fairly spacious and clean (we had a few unwanted visitors but that’s to be expected in the tropics). There isn’t much I can say about Fiji without sounding cheesy but it proved to be the rest we seriously deserved after the mammoth USA Roadtrip. The kids were so well behaved – the flight from LA to Fiji was long and the 19 hour time difference wrecked me. I just couldn’t believe how well they handled it. We got to spend our evenings with fellow travellers and met up with a great bunch of people.

We left Fiji with heavy hearts onto New Zealand. We knew it would be cold – a batch of Kiwi arrived at Octopus the day before we left and spared no mercy in telling us exactly how very, very freezing it was in NZ.

We were pleasantly surprised when we reached Auckland – it was sweater weather. We stayed in the FABULOUS Oaks Smartstay Apartments. Dishwasher, own washing machine – heavenly. After a rest of four days and a blitz on the cold weather gear shops we felt able to brave driving long-distance again and we left Auckland for Rotorua. Spent a few days looking at Geysers and stayed in the miserable YHA there. The nastiest beds thus far and a few bed-bugs for our dollars too (sad).

Yesterday and the day before we spent at Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. We hiked in the pouring rain to the Fox Glacier face yesterday – breathtaking in the extreme and just the experience I needed to rejuvenate my excitement for sightseeing.

Today we moved onto Wanaka for Skiing. We are staying in an apartment (very happy emoticon required) with all modcons. Tomorrow we will have a rest day and then the next day our eldest will realise his lifes’ dream of snowboarding lessons at Cartrona Peak.

Are we tired? Yes some days I feel knackered to the core. Are we ready to come home? – HELL NO. Are we having a wonderful time? Yes. Are the kids coping? Better than we could ever have hoped? Most importantly are we finding our place in the world? Not yet (the USA is not for us and New Zealand is too remote). We are thinking Brisbane might be the ticket.

Australia awaits on 25th July. I’ll update from there.

Missing everybody at home.
Love
Stella

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Canyons, Bright Lights and Theme Parks, Weeks 5 & 6 USA

June 13th, 2006

I have seen the Grand Canyon. It is truly one of the most incredible things I have ever seen, words cannot describe the beauty and scale of this place. I am not religious but if anything were to convince me of a higher power it would be the sight of the Grand Canyon at sunset. We stayed overnight in the Grand Canyon national park which was absolutely wonderful. I think the kids were pretty underwhelmed with the entire experience (Caelan just didn’t get the fascination with a bunch of rocks and kept asking where the nearest pool was, Tate just kept to himself and behaved like a star, as usual). Nonetheless they were rewarded with the incredible Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas a few days later. Complete with Wave Pool, Lazy River and real beach (www.mandalaybay.com). We decided to treat ourselves to a real hotel, parked up the RV in the hotel carpark and took advantage of the luxury of this gorgeous hotel. We ate in the Rainforest Cafe in the MGM Grand but sadly did not waste one penny on the slots or gambling (the joys of having two kids in tow).

Since then Torien drove the final leg of our Roadtrip to Los Angeles. Leaving the RV was really sad for us. The old girl did a fine job, the total mileage was….. wait for it… 5700 miles (nearly 9000 km’s for those of you in SA). We picked up our teeeeensy hire car and made our way to Disneyland.

Caelan has had a ball – he went on his first proper rollercoaster. That kid is brave, I was pretty nervous and he was cool as a cucumber on the California Screaming Coaster.

Tomorrow we are off to Seaworld and the next day to Universal Studios. Then we are off to Fiji on the 15th, our resort is all booked (www.octopusresort.com) as is the babysitter when we arrive. We will have a blissful 2 or 3 hours a day to ourselves in Fiji when the experienced babysitter will take care of their every need. Fantastic!

Both kids are now entirely chicken pox free. It seems like a lifetime ago that Caelan started getting spotty in Washington DC.

See you all soon
Love
Stella, Torien, Caelan and Tate
xxxxxx

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Week 4: The USA

May 31st, 2006

I can’t believe we have been on the road for four weeks.  I find myself trying to remember everything and then panicking when I think I have forgotten something.

Tatey got the chicken pox today.  But we’re not stressed.  All we have to do is keep him comfy and away from the other children for about five days and then we’re home and dry (as long as Torien doesn’t get it :-()  He is for the most part still incredibly cheerful, if a tad on the snotty side.

We are loving the RV – although the driving has been pretty hard on Torien.  We have travelled about 3000 miles so far and seen many, many places.

Last week we visited Graceland – this is without doubt one of the most memorable experiences of my life.  I felt a little foolish walking around with a tissue but I found the tour moving and so very, very enjoyable.  We stopped later that evening in Beale Street in downtown Memphis for a meal – it’s a really vibrant and amazing town.

After Memphis we drove a mammoth 1000+ miles over two days to get to Santa Fe in New Mexico.  Wow, this place is amazing and so different to the lush, humid south.  We’ll spend a few more days here and then head off to the Grand Canyon and then onto LA for a Disneyland and Theme Park extravaganza.

I won’t lie and say it hasn’t been stressful at times but I’d not change one single thing.  We are learning coping techniques for dealing with a stroppy five year old and have learned (very quickly) that the best time for travelling with little children is in the early hours of the morning when they are sleeping.

If you ever wondered what it would be like to do this, take a chance.  I promise you will not be disappointed.

I’ll be back after Disney.

Stella (aka dejags)

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The RV – New York to Washington DC and beyond

May 18th, 2006

So we fetched the RV on Saturday the 13th.  Great stuff, I hear you say.  Well that’s what we thought until we attempted to leave Long Island and get into New Jersey.  We have never encountered worse roads, worse traffic, highways that you get stuck on.  We got given directions to get to the Verizano Bridge to cross from LI to NJ.  The cab driver who gave them to us forget to mention that the main road we were to use was for vehicles no higher than 10ft.  Our RV measures up at 12ft – it was a hair-raising Griswaldish (National Lampoons Vacation) experience.  But we survived.

We have since got used to the RV – it’s fairly spacious and we are comfy and more importantly so are the kids.  Well they were until…

Caelan developed Chicken Pox!!!  Tate is just coming down with it and Torien has never had it, so will in all likelihood get it too.  Poor old Cael spent his 5th birthday miserable as sin, covered in a zillion blisters and trying his best to put on a brave face.

We are still having a great time though.  We visited Washington DC, and today have driven to the more westerly part of Virginia (Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive) – it’s an absolutely stunning part of the world and what’s more, the camp we are staying in has WIFI :-).

Everything is good, although the kids are ill, we are handling things just fine.  The park we are staying in for the next few days is breathtakingly beautiful.

The end-of-day Budweiser has been a little more appreciated than usual over the past few days but I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world.

Signing off for now.

Stellx

 

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