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To catch up on pictures.
Custom Tailored Suits in Bangkok.
Cambodia proved to be the most touching, sobering, fascinating country we’ve been to. Period. A more troubled past than anywhere else I can think of, a corrupt government still calling the shots, a poor and hungry population and yet the grandest temples in the world including Ankor Wat, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Civilians eager to put the horrible acts of the Khmer Rouge behind them and move forward, to embrace tourism which most probably is the only way the country will ever be able to get back on it’s feet. It’s a country filled with some of the friendliest people we’ve met and some of the prettiest countryside we’ve seen. Cambodia deserves better and more than any place we’ve ever been, deserves our help.
Traveling to Cambodia was both physically and mentally difficult coming from Ko Chang. Physically, the 20 hour excursion to and from Siem Reap was exhausting and flat out awful. The scam bus(es) robbed us of our ability to make our own decisions and remain independent. The 7 hour off roading expedition to/from the border in a beat up, broken bus was downright misery. The buses had no A/C, missing seats for passengers, broken windows, the dirt from the road soiled all clothing and gear and made out lungs, eyes, noses and ears sting. All in all, easily the craziest off-roading adventure of our lives. Mentally, coming from a lame volunteer program helping no one, we felt cheated knowing what our donation to T2T could have done in Cambodia. Taking all this into account, Cambodia was still worth it.
Siem Reap is the place where 95% of Cambodia’s tourism takes place. The town is centered around Bar Street and the market where one cant go 5 feet without being asked to buy a xerox copy of the newest Lonely Planet or to donate money to one of the unfortunate landmine victims. Siem Reap translated means ‘Siam defeated’, a reference to a time when Cambodia actually possesed the ability to fend off attack from one of its neighbors. Prices in Siem Reap are ridiculously expensive compared to the rest of Cambodia which makes the following amounts that we paid all the more chilling. Hotel room at very nice 2 story guest house, $20. Average upscale meal, $2-3. Tuk-tuk ride around town, < $1.
Why has Cambodia had such an impact on us? The landmine victims stuggling to survive, the abundance of orphan children roaming the streets, the poverty of those not capitalizing in on tourism and the effect that has on the temples. Most of the damage to the remains of the Ankor Temples have been caused by looters and people breaking off elephants heads and symbols of the Hindu Gods to sell for a few hundred bucks on the black market since they are stolen from the original sandstone. Futhermore, learning how what in the States we might consider to be a tiny amount translates to so much in Cambodia it’s hard to fathom. For example, college education for one year at the public university which is quite good costs only $250. This made our volunteer work in Thailand further feel like a complete waste but we’ve recently learned that we will be transferring our donation from Travel 2 Teach to a Cambodian charity of our choice, yet to be determined. Very good news and a very respectible move on the part our Thai volunteer organization.
That said, the temples were amazing. Two full days of sight seeing have given us a profound appreciation of the Hindu religion and the Ankor people. A look at how many pictures we took clearly illustrate how captivated we were. And our visit to the landmine museum nearly brought us to tears. Arriving 20 minutes outside of town, our teenage tour guide/landmine victim taught us how each different type of landmine worked and how many people it was designed to kill. He told us the story of how his siblings were killed when he accidently stepped on one at the age of 8 and pointed to piles of hundreds, maybe thousands of disabled landmines strewn about. Pictures and facts surrounded us as we toured the make-shift tent/museum including the most troubling fact the United States still refuses to sign the anti-landmine treaty. It was yet another instince where we were embarased to be American.
Hi everyone. Brief update, sorry about the lack of pics but those”ll have to wait until we reach Israel and get a good internet connection. Ko Chang was quite a change from the more isolated atmosphere of the Gilis. Our volunteer program Travel 2 Teach ended up being a total bust and greatly soured our experience of this once backpackers dream. We taught english twice for a total of four hours to staff from two 4star hotels on the island. Not exactly what we signed up for so we ended up leaving early to explore Ankor Wat in Cambodia.
Even though, T2T stunk, we still managed to keep our spirits high by exploring the island on local transporation favorites, motorbike and elephant and by relaxing and partying at the many beaches Ko Chang has to offer.
Our accomodations on the island were a dismal dorm with 7 people and a nasty shared bathroom. The only redeeming qualities were that we were next to a bunch of locals and had the accompaniment of a friendly and lovable ridgeback named “eighteen”. Unlike our T2T coordinator, Eighteen would always walk us from the main road to and from our dorm to make sure we got home safely. The rest of our dorm experience can be sumed up by our sleeping situation, mesquito nets covering painfully uncomfortable upper bunks with no fans.
Elephant trekking was spectacular – perhaps our best activity on the trip to date! Imagine jumping on a rescued logging elephant in the middle of a jungle river and scrubbing it with a brush while it shoots water at you through it’s trunk. Then riding it up to its home and fitting a seat on it for a 1.5 hour trip though the local jungle. Finally, after the stroll, happily feeding it bananas. It was incrediably amazing!
Many trips to the beach yields sore feet from avoiding coral in the shallow waters. Nights were centered around Sabay Bar and firedancers where the action always upbruptly ended at 1:00am. Yet getting home still took several hours. (Think late night munchies, inconsiderate dorm-mates and non-existent taxies).
Local food was fantastic and the T2T highlight was learning to cook local Green Curry. Be prepared for some authentic Thai cooking when we get back.
Southeast Asia can be summed up in a single word: Scam!
Unfortunately it has been one giant scam since we got here and our patience is running a little thin.
Our most recent adventure in Scam World was the unofficially called “the Scam Bus” the only way to get from Koh Chang to Sieam Reap in Cambodia. Here is how it works: We purchased our tickets from a tour guide in Koh Chang one that the coordinator of our volunteer program (aka the big scam) was kind enough to purchase for us from a friend for a local price almost $20 us. The tour operator then picks you up at your designated pickup spot and crams you with your luggage and 12 other people into a miny bus. They then drive you for 5 hours to the border on the Thai side where they deliver you to corpote bandits who charge you $33 us for a Cambodian Visa even though the visa clearly costs only $20 but as you are in the middle of nowhere you have no choice but to pay. Great so now you are out $53 US. Now the real fun begins.
Next they shepard you across a border which makes Tiajuana seem calm and the pinnacle of German efficiency. But it is ok you get a little pink sticker to indicate that you are gullible in case your white skin didn’t tip everyone off already.
Side note: The border itself was a really interesting experience there were so many people walking across as no motorized veichles could pass through. People were carrying everything across – the most interesting thing I saw was a man carrying a live eel in a plastic bag. It definitely felt like the wild west.
So continuing with our story… So our tour guide then drops us off at the bus station and takes off. Great! Immediately we find out that things are very very wrong. It is already 5pm and we were supposed to be in Sieam Reap by 6pm. Next we meet a group of harried tourists who have already been waiting for 3hrs for their bus to arrive. Apparently the bus is “broken” right. So we are about to split a cab with fellow
tourists when they roll the bus around. Please note that at this point we had already been traveling for 11 hrs. OK fine we take the bus to save the extra $10 for the taxi. We didn’t realize that it was the bus not the taxi that was the scam. So we take of in the ghetto mobile. Which proceeds to take us across a dirt road for 7hrs! At times the bumps were so big that I literally flew 3ft into the air. At this point it is really dark and the only thing that you can see is lightening in the distance. Go figure – the bus doesn’t get into Siam Reap until 1am after every hotel including our own has closed except conveniently the one that is paying the bus driver a commission to deliver all of us to this one guest house. The worst part was that they didn’t want us to leave the premises in fact when I insisted that we had a place booked he didn’t want to let us leave and it lead to a full blown confrontation just to get away from the guy. I flipped and yelled at the guy and amazingly Steve was just as angry this time. And let me tell you it takes a lot to make Steve angry enough to yell at
someone.
I wish I could say that the story ended there but it doesn’t. We managed to get someone to take us to our actual hotel but when we got there the hotel had closed for the night not surprising considering it was now almost 2am. Somehow we got lucky a nice Cambodian woman (maybe the girlfriend of the manager) walked up to the hotel when we arrived, we explained the situation to her and she called someone and spent the next 30mins convincing them to bring us a key. We finally get a key and there is someone in the room we rented. Shit. OK she gets them to bring us another key and at some god awful hour we finally manage to sink into a very nice hotel room and promise to check in in the morning.
In the morning our next problem arises… so we had managed to set up a guide to show us Angkor Wat in the morning but when we woke up we never managed to reach him because we had the wrong number. We were totally exhausted so we went back to sleep when we woke up we realized that Steve had copied down the number wrong. We finally managed to get in touch with the guide, Sam, he was super nice but pointed out that it wasn’t worth trying to see the temples anymore because it was too late in the day and he was so sorry but he was booked out for the rest of the week. Darn.
The sinker to the story is that we bought a knock off lonely planet from a little kid and in it they describe the scam I mentioned to you word for word. We feel like idiots and we missed out on an awesome guide.
All this said, we still get to see one of the seven wonder of the world tomorrow, Ankor and those who’ve been scammed just as us say undoubtably, its still very worth it. Looking forward to continuing the true Cambodian adventure…sort of.
Wish everyone the best. FYI our new Thai number doesnt work in Cambodia so try calling us between May 11 and May 13 cuz we’d love a call.
Oh these blog entries are getting harder and harder to keep up. Think slow internet connections, noisy and smokey 95+ degree internet cafes in different languages and you might get a taste of our situation. Nonetheless, some great travels to report on.
Bangkok –
Right now we are in Bangkok, it’s the hottest time of the year and the temperatures have been in the upper 90’s all week Steve and I have been walking around in a daze which is bad in a country where you don’t speak the language. This place is so confusing. While I’m not a big fan of the BKK in general we spent the morning exploring the grand palace and the temple which houses the emerald Buddha. I’ve
never seen anything so incredible! The buildings are all covered in gold and colored glass. The Buddha is actually entirely carved out of a single piece of jade. They don’t know who our when it was carved but it was first discovered in 1450 when some one realized that it was only covered in plaster not made out of it. It was amazing you walk
into this temple after taking your shoes off and high up on this thrown is the Buddha in front of him is an alter covered in lotus flowers and everyone sits on the floor in reverence. The monks sit and pray on the sides of the room. Although we’re obviously not Buddhist it was hard not to be caught by the spirituality of the place.
Other than that BKK is a crazy place it is definitely a shoppers haven (Christine it is calling you) but I think what is the most interesting are all of the food stalls on the street. Lining the streets people cook full meals over gas stoves. The food is so interesting super cheap and generally better than the restaurants though it certainly feels like you are risking your health every time you eat there. I’ve been opting for the deep fried options in the hope that the hot oil kills off all the unsavories. Though the fruit stands are hard to resist.
In another day we head to the island of Ko Chang near the Cambodia border for our volunteer work. Looking forward to what experiences await us.
Bali, Indonesia-
What an experience from very beginning to end! Baggage scanners break in Sydney airport leaving many bags behind and put us several hours late into Bali. Though luckily our bags make it onto the plane, the delay causes us to miss our connecting flight out over to Lompoc and the Gili’s. Tensions were high as we failed again to get on a standby flight the following day. In an attempt to cut our losses we quit trying to fly out that day, formally book a ticket for the following morning and head to the nicest closest hotel possible, the Kuta Seaview. An excellent decision as the $45/nt oceanside resort is fantastic and immediately boost our spirits. Bali is very pretty and surprisingly clean (smoke and incense excluded). It was our first time in an Islamic country (88% Muslim) and the people for the most part are extraordinarily friendly making the terrorism in Bali particularly unfortunate. Scooters zoom through the narrow Bali streets, and though the place thrives on tourism, Bali still has a remarkable sense of culture. Memorable were the musical bells and picture perfect surfing waves at Kuta Beach.
Gili Trawangan, Indonesia-
The trip to the Gili’s was no easy task. Cab-Flight-Cab-Public Boat-Cidomo (a horse drawn carriage…of sorts). Our difficult to obtain $30 GT Air flight to Lomboc included a super sketchy 40 passenger retired military craft with problematic landing gear. Later this airline would report ‘technical difficulties’ requiring us to find alternate means for returning to Bali. But we made it and the trip to Gili Trawangan was well worth the effort.
Snorkeling –
While staying at Dream Village we met a very nice Dutch couple – Lynn and Martin. We decided to charter a boat with them fro a private snorkeling trip around the three Gili islands.The boat was an ancient fishing boat that had been converted into a glass bottom boat. The captain was great – very relaxed and friendly. The first snorkel site we arrived at we jumped in and found tons of stinging jellyfish which our captain assured us were no dangerous but we decided to get back into the boat as quickly as possible anyway and head to the next site. Although we enjoyed the company the snorkeling was depressing – it was like seeing a waste land. It turns out that over the last decade the entire reef has been decimated by dynamite fishing. Although there were plenty of fish they were left to swim above the rubble. It looked awful! The only coral we say were a few soft corals nothing extensive. Lynn who had been to the Gili Islands in 1997 said it was a 100% changed. Nevertheless we did still see a number of sea turtles which was great. Diving with the turtles and clown fish a few days later was especially memmorable.
Gili T was a great small town with in 24 hrs of being there is was hard to go anywhere without seeing some one you knew. We must have run into Joe from Sulawesi close to a dozen times after we ventured across the island one night with him on a failed attempt to see the turtles laying eggs. There are no motorized vehicles on the island and the time of day was only clocked by the 5 daily prayers blasted over broken loudspeakers at the mosque (nice the first day but pretty painful at 5am the rest of the week). I suppose Gili T is as close to paradise as you can get. The beaches were incredible everything was really affordable aka $30 a night for
your own bungalow, less than $10 for a very nice meal, and the people were incredibly nice. It is hard to think of a better place to burrow in and relax for a couple of days.
Sydney –
After checking into the sparkling clean Sydney central YHA and cleaning up we went to see a ballet performed by the Bangarra Dance Troop and the Australian National Ballet. It was a combo of ballet and aboriginal dance set mainly to classical music. The dance was incredible but what really stood out was the aboriginal song master (singer) as well as the final act when they poured water and white paint on the dancers. Very unusual. I can say I never thought I would
were Chacos to the ballet before. The Opera house was spectacular at night and during intermission we walked out on to the balcony and had an incredible view of the harbor.
Sydney Aquarium – we got to see a platypus! They are actually a lot smaller that I thought, which was a surprise in comparison to all of the other animals in Australia which e larger than expected. The other interesting part of the aquarium were the 3 giant tanks in the harbor. The great barrier reef tank was really interesting with clown fish
tangs and a type of leopard shark. That separate shark tank was also interesting as it took you through tubes at the bottom of the tank so that the sharks swam over you. Some of the sharks were up to 2 meters in length.
Rocks – The historic part of Sydney was the original site of the convict colony. This was perhaps the most beautiful part of Sydney as it was filled with rambling cobblestone streets. Not really a layout for a city I would have chosen it I were living with thousands of convicts but oh well. This was certainly a very sad part of history. It is hard to realize that many of the people were sent to Australia for petty crimes that would ordinarily have been short sentences, but
being sent to Australia was essentially a life sentence no matter what the crime.
Even though Sydney has far exceeded our expectations, we are excited about flying out to Indonesia on Wed. We will head straight out the Gili Islands, a remote group of three islands off the coast of Lompoc which have over 3500 species of stuff in the water. Compare that to the Great Barrier Reef which has only 1500 and the Red Sea with 600 and you’ll see why it’s worth the trek out there. A bit nervous about the travelling in Indo. but all should be well.Stay tuned for pics. It’s proven quite difficult to upload large numbers of photos from Internet cafe’s.
Wish everyone our best.
S & J
(written by Steve)
Hello all, our apologies for the periodic posts. We’ve been out and about continuing to explore the South Island of NZ. Wow, so much to write about don’t know quite where to start.
Greymouth. Our Magic bus tour of the “top of the south” continued after Nelson to a dreary little town called Greymouth. Our new bus driver/best friend showed us a good time by taking us on a tour through the local Montieths brewery. The tour was standard brewery experience except for the fact that at the end our brewmaster guide left us to pour our on litres out of the tap – basically as many as we could hammer in 30 mins he was gone. Needlesstosay, it was a great start to a night that would end with Richie (our Magic bus driver) getting us all kicked out of the local pub. Rumor has it that you can pick up Montieth’s Black (Steve’s favorite flavor) at your local Trader Joe’s. Someone please confirm…
Arthur’s Pass. From Greymouth we jumped aboard the TranzAlpine train which is supposedly one of the 10 best train rides in the world. The first leg was pretty but nothing special. The second segment from Arthurs Pass back to Christchurch was nothing short of spectacular. Huge gorges swept out by glaciers long ago now filled with glistening turquoise water. Mountain tops still covered with patches of snow. Absolutely breathtaking. In Arthurs Pass we stopped for 2 days to explore and hike around the High Sierra-esq area. We were stuck in a bit of a rain storm and Jenny came down with a cold, but that didnt stop us from hiking to the local waterfall and further back up into the mountains through moss forests and raging rivers. All in all, a great stop.
Christchurch. Back to Christchurch, the hub of all South Island travel for Steve’s BDay and to pick up our now beloved Space Ship. OK, the Spaceship is just a 10 yr. old tricked out minivan but it’s been our home for the past 8 days and we got 5 more to go with ‘er. Aside from provide sleeping quarters, she (her name is Ming) is also our kitchen, living room, dinning room, and office and oh yeah, also our only means of transportation and the main reason we are already completely over budget. Stupid Petrol prices….. Anyhow, the first thing I did when turning 25 was rent a ca, well actually a campervan in case you were wondering. And for my birthday well, we kinda celebrated in advance on March 23 buy splurging on a fantastic dinner on ‘the Strip” in Christchurch. The night was great, incredible food, good wine, music, the works. Definitely very memorable.
(cont by Jenny)
New Zealand: The Space Odyssey
So we have gone white trash and picked up a lovely little 1996 Toyota
Space Ship named Ming aka a camper van to tool around the country. Yes
Steve and I are now intimately familiar with many of the lovely
holiday parks in the country as well as with the many biting insects
that the tour guides neglect to mention!
So here is the quick run down on what we have seen since with started
the space odyssey:
Hanmer Springs: After a hair raising trip trying to maneuver Ming
through the treacherous streets on inner Christchurch on the wrong
side of the road we entered in our coordinates and headed to the
sleeping alpine village of Hanmer Springs. It was in a word wet! Known
for it’s naturally occurring sulphur hot springs we indulged in a
smelly dip at the bath house. Then we spent out very fist night in the
cramped quarters of the space ship that would be our home for the next
12 nights. Unfortunately it pored all night and we spent an
interesting night trying to construct our origami bed without getting
soaked. Great fun really.
After our wet adventure we decided to cross over the southern alps via
Lewis Pass inquest of better weather. The drive through the alps was
incredible we saw very little besides sheep. Right now the trees are
changing color and it is absolutely beautiful. After camping one night
on the West Coast just past Greymouth we arrived at Franz Josef.
Franz Josef: Is an interesting place essentially an alpine village
that is set in a temperate rainforest. To get the full experience we
stayed at a holiday park called the Rainforest Retreat which apart
from the mosquitoes was incredible it was literally set in a moss
covered jungle. In Franz Josef we too a full day hike on the Franz
Josef Glacier a temperate glacier that is actually advancing (growing)
something that I never thought I would see in my lifetime. We strapped
on rubber boots and crampons and climbed straight up the terminal face
of the glacier. We even got to carry ice axes! Apart from the penguin
so far this has been the highlight of our trip. (Check out the
pictures) Steve managed to escape the adventure unscathed I had one
embarrassing fall that has left me a bit bruised but other then that
no ill effects.
Lake Wanaka:
In an effort to pack as much into our time in NZ as possible we took
the next day to Lake Wanaka. We didn’t make it the whole way to the
town but managed to reach the northern tip of the lake by sunset. We
found the most incredible campsite on a spit sticking out into the
lake great beach fantastic view and then we got out of the car and
realized that we had arrived just in time for dinner and we were the
main course. We were instantly surrounded by hundreds of sand flies
also known as biting flies that leave bites that feel much like
mosquito bites awful little buggers. The Maori say that sand flies
were created by god so that people wouldn’t be rendered immobile at
the beauty of Fiordland (southern tip). I think we could have managed
with out them. After the sandflies the mosquitoes attacked and after
we finally managed to get into bed for the night we awoke to strange
noises looking out of the van we found we were surrounded by
reflecting eyes, turns out they were possums but unnerving never the
less. At dawn we made a B-Line for the town of Wanaka.
Wanaka:
Situated on the end of the Lake Wanaka is a beautiful sleepy town with
great food , fun shopping, and really nice people. We had a great time
relaxing for two days on the beach and doing very little. After our
sandfly disaster we splurge and stayed at a 5 star holiday park with
hot tubs and even a car vacuum. We promptly did laundry. It is so nice
to finally feel clean again!
(cont by Steve)
And now we are in Queenstown, the adventure capital of the world. Adventure in New Zealand speak translates to “we will suck your wallet dry on activities you can’t pass up”. Just today we hoped on the world renown Shotover Jet boat, a specialized water vehicle capable of screaming down the narrow gorges of the Shotover River at 80km/hr on 10mm of water. The boats utilize a jet impeller (read really advanced internal water engine) and thrust vectoring enabling insane 360 spins. A very cool piece of engineering at $230K NZ a pop. Also on the to-do list while here is a bungee jump. I always said I’d do it in New Zealand and well, I guess that means it’s time to do it. The only decision now (parent’s please skip ahead) is to jump the original bungee site where AJ Hackett started it all, the Kawarua Bridge down into the gorgeous Kawarau river. Yes, into the river. Or really sack up and head to the Nevis, what I believe to be the highest bungee jump in the world, a whopping 440 ft down. Should be a good thrill regardless.
Other than that, it looks like we will be heading to the Milford Sound tonight for an early cruise in the morning. When traveling in Ming we usually have one of three option for sleeping at night. Holiday Park, (the NZ of KOA but usually much nicer, much proffered but usually costs $30NZ), DOC site which is a dept. of conservation rural campsite usually complete with loads of mesquitos and dreaded biting sandfly’s. Oh how I hate you sandfly’s but ah ha! I just bought a Kathmandu mosquito night so good luck getting to us suckas!. BTW, combined Jenny and I have something like 60 bites between us. Oh and the third, cheapest and least preferred option is to park on the side of a road, close the curtains and crash. I believe this third option will be the one we will utilize most the next couple days…..ugh.
Aside from the Milford Sound, we’re also looking forward to a day’s tramp on the Routeburn before the mad dash back up to Christchurch to catch our flight to Sydney on 06 April.
All right. Think that covers most of it. Now let’s see how this picture uploading thing works. BTW, in Sydney, we’ll try and upload all the pics on yahoo photos for your enjoyment and to clear our memory cards.
Vacation, Traveling and Tourism
So we are officially on day 26 of our world adventure and I figure
that with all of this blogging and emailing it would be useful to
define a few terms. Ironically, vacation travelling and tourism are
used almost interchangeably when in reality, as we have learned they
lead to wildly different experiences.
Let me start with Vacation: we all are intimately aware of vacation at
our first job we are dutifully dolled out 15 precious days of PTO
which we accrue at a snails pace and then hoard away with the
diligence of a miser until we can take it no more and jet off for a
precious 4 day weekend or in a wild splurge take “gasp” a whole week
off. We plan carefully making sure to leave on a Friday afternoon
return late Sunday night so as to squeeze almost a full 9 days vacation
out of 5 precious working days off.
So what is the vacation that we so carefully calculate for? Vacation is
the hunt for the most elusive of sentiments … relaxation. Vacation at
it’s ultimate is a beautiful secluded beach a hammock and
cabana boy. Vacation comes in many colors but the goal is always the
same a few moments to escape from the stress and madness of the
everyday.
On the contrary traveling is none of these things. Though you may come
across the occasional exceptional fruity cocktail there are no cabana
boys in traveling and relaxation is as elusive as in the office.
Yes traveling is something completely different. Traveling is the quest
to roam the world like a primitive nomad. It is a journey were toilets
are little more than vial holes in the ground, where touching the soap
seems more dangerous than not washing your hands, where youth hostels
become a luxury, and where brushing your teeth in public seems
acceptable. This my friends is traveling.
Why do we travel? I’m still looking for the answer. It seems to be a
deep seated need in human nature perhaps left over from the time when
we depended on the land and were constantly looking for the new
resources maybe it is to challenges the limits of our own horizons to
push ourselves to the limits and see how we do. Maybe it is to marvel
at the greatness of our own species. I’m really not sure but without
fail after 4 months of staying at home the bug hits and if I’m not
gone by 6 months I feel as though I will lose my mind. So we travel.
By far the most curios of these experiences is tourism. Perhaps it is
companies attempt to blend travel with vacation, to allow people who
really want a vacations to do a little exploring without any of the
stress normally associated with it. But in my experience tourism is
really the unique scenario of paying incredible amounts of money to
have the unique experience of feeling like cattle. It is the moment
when after shelling over your hard earned dollars you are expected to
shuffle onto a bus at the crack of dawn to then be herded around a
variety of site or excursions with 20-40 of your fellow tourists. You
are told when to apply sunscreen, where to stand for your picture, and
the exact number of steps it will take you to make it to the top of
that temple, where you can commune with your fellow tourist pals.
The best example tourism was when Steve and I took a horse back ride
to a waterfall in Mexico (actually one of the best trips ever). After
being picked up and placed in a saddle we were led tail to nose up
hill through the jungle single file with 20 other tourists. We swam in
the pool and had an endless supply of beer (I love Mexico) then the
vaqueros literally herded – yes think cattle drive – our horses with
us till on it through a river back to the ranch. I pity cows.
Yesterday we spent the day kayaking the Abel Tasman National Park. Absolutely spectacular! We cruised the gorgeous New Zealand coast and riveled at the amazing green water. Highlights included paddling up on a cute little blue penguin which most people usually dont get to see. It was the first penguin Jenny and I have ever seen out in the wild. Way cool! Supposedly there are many more penguins of a different type down south in Dunedin. On the kayak trip we got to stop at several great beaches most of which completely dried up at low tide. A few days ago we were in Kaikoura famous for its dolphins. Though we didn’t actually make out on the water to see or swim with them, we did get to hike through several seal colonies. We were lucky I guess since none of the seals decided to attack us (which I guess actually happens). For the most part though, we just veged out in this relaxing little city.
So this is our first attempt at uploading pictures so hopefully we can get this to work. Once we get it figured out, we’ll put more up. Hope everyone is well!
04 March: Oakland – Lihue
10 March: Lihue – Auckland
14 March: Auckland – Christchurch
06 April: Christchurch – Sydney
12 April: Sydney – Bali
overland to Gili Islands, Lombok
21 April: Bali – Bangkok
overland to Ko Chang for volunteer work
possible side excursions to Cambodia/Vietnam
14 May: Bangkok – Tel Aviv
23 May: Tel Aviv – Istanbul
overland for a month to Greece, Albania, Croatia & Germany
Hi from Auckland, New Zealand. (not to be confused with “Oakland” which is pronounced the exact same way). It’s Steve here with a first update on the big RTW trip. Things have been going well for us since we left home March 4. Our week in Poipu, Kauai was wonderful. Great weather, great company, great house, great scenery. Most of the time was spent with the my nephews Kai, Finn and Kaleo at either the unofficial ‘baby beach’ near Brenekies or at the Kiahuna pool, well the Kiahuna pool water slide to be exact. Highlights for Jenny and I included a bike ride down the old cane road to what I’ve now declared to be the most beautiful beach I’ve ever been to, Maha’Ulepu Beach. When we got there mid-morning we shared the beach with only a local Hawaiian fishing off the nearby cliff and a picture perfect rope swing just beggin you take it for a swing. Our surroundings couldn’t have been more picturesque and Kauai made for a great transition to beginning the big adventure. Many Papaya’s and 5 boxed juices on 2 different airplanes later we made it New Zealand. We’ve only been here about a day and half and have already walked and wandered through the entire downtown area. Trips to the Sky Tower, the Auckland Domain Museum and numerous strolls up and down Queen St have dominated our time here. Tomorrow we fly to Christchurch where we’ll be picking up a Magic Tourbus (I’ll report later if it really is Magical) to take us around the Northern part of the South Island. Christchurch – Kaikoua – Picton – Nelson – Westport – Greymouth and then TranzAlpine Train back to Christchurch. It should be fun since we’ll be with other backpackers and hop on and off wherever and whenever we like. Once we return to Christchurch, we then plan on “hiring” (renting) a Campervan for 2 weeks to tour the rest of the island. Not a shabby way to spent a few weeks and enjoy my bday eh?
Go Bruins and Cheers!,
Steve
Steve