thewills'wanderings

Can’t believe today is the final day of our adventure. In some ways it seeems as if we’ve just left NZ but then when I think of all the things we’ve done they seem so long ago.

We’ve just spent 3 nights back around LA. On the 31st we were in the outskirts of LA and it was Halloween. That was a real cultural experience! It’s so big over here and we decided to get in on the act. In NZ we don’t ever get into it – we don’t like what it celebrates and it just doesn’t seem like an NZ tradition. Over here though it’s a real part of American life. People go to a pumpkin patch and pick their pumpkins, or buy them at the supermarket and lots of houses are decorated. There were even pumpkins outside RV’s in the RV parks!

The girls decided they wanted to trick or treat but we didn’t want to go crazy and get costumes so they got creative and wore undies on their heads and over their clothes and just generally made themselves look ridiculous. They put signs on their backs saying “We come from Down Undie!(New Zealand). We drove to a new subdivision, very desperate housewives looking, and parked the RV and joined in with the other American families. It was quite a laugh. Lots of the houses had full-on Halloween parties happening with amazing(horrible) decorations all over their houses. The girls got some really funny comments and they explained that they were travelling and come from NZ. We had some cool conversations with people. As you can imagine the girls ended up with a bucket full of candy and were very happy.

As we were were walking along in the dark behind them and all of the other childrten and parents, I couldn’t help but think of the amazing experiences we’ve had this year. Such extremes, from Nepal watching a Buddhist prayer flag ceremony in a village high in the Himalayas to now experiencing American Halloween! Also the extremes of poverty and wealth. Having seen subsistence farmers struggling to just survive in Nepal and parts of South-East Asia and then to see some the richest cities in the world.

Speaking of wealth and extravagance, we couldn’t come to the States without doing Disneyland. Yesterday was the day and it was awesome. Once we recovered from the cost of the tickets we made the most of every moment and hardly even stopped for lunch(sandwiches made from the last of our supplies!)We had a parkhopper pass and first went to California land and the to Disneyland. The big girls loved all the scary rides and I spent more time with Charlotte on the fun rides. It was just as I imagined it, fun, magical and over-the-top, full of BIG American people with all sorts of mickey ears on their heads. We were waiting at the gates for it to open and left at closing. The queues were not bad at all, maybe because it was the Monday after Halloween and everyone had been for the big Halloween celebrations.

So a great day, a fitting end to what we can only describe as a trip of a lifetime, adventure that we loved every minute of. OK that’s not quite true, there were the odd bad days, but no more than back at home! Right now we’re all looking towards home and thinking and planning about what’s next and that’s quite exciting.

Thank you all for your interest in our travels. We’ve really appreciated your comments and e-mails. We can’t wait to catch up with you all in person and we promise to not bore you with too many details of our trip and long slide shows.(They can be arranged though if requested!)

See you soon!!!!

Fit, strong , intellegent and hard working male looking for work. Will do anything as long as it doesnt involve being put in confined spaces with children!

Well, everyone keeps askimg me what I am going to do and at this stage I have a few ideas but nothing fixed! In the meantime I am looking for some temporary work for when we get back (7days from now). So If you have any ideas flick me an email!

Cheers

Tim

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We spent a night in LA at an airport hotel before picking up our camper the next day. We were so excited to see how BIG it was. It even has a pop-out side that makes it even bigger when you’re not driving. We left LA and headed for the nearest campground we could find which is at Malibu Beach. This was our first introduction to the RV parks here which are full of absolutely huge RV’s. We spent an hour or so getting stocked up on food at the supermarket. Everything is just so BIG here! It’s hard to find anything in a small bottle. You buy milk and juice by the gallon and you can buy every kind of pre-packaged food you can think of. It’s quite disgusting really but very easy to shop. We’re surprised how cheap it is to shop here, especially with the exchange rate being really good for us right now. A gallon of milk(3.88litres) is $NZ1.74! With the girls being such milk drinkers, they are in heaven, especially after being in Asia for so long with milk that just didn’t quite taste the same.

From Malibu we made our way to Yosemite National Park where we spent 4 days. The scenery was stunning, with huge limestone cliffs surrounding the village. Tim met a Japanese climber and climbed Half Dome which he has always wanted to do. We did a few walks and quite a bit of rockclimbing and just enjoyed hanging out in the park.

From Yosemite we made our way to Death Valley National Park. It was amazing!We left Yoaemite in the morning and drove over a high mountain pass where there was snow on the side of the road. The scenery was stunning. The girls loved jumping out of the RV and playing in the snow. It was amazing that in 2 hours we were in Death Valley in 38 degrees absolutely dying in the heat of the desert. Death Valley was definitely an experience. It’s a real desert and so hot even though it’s not even summer. It can get up to 57degrees in summer. In our agreement for our RV hire you aren’t allowed to drive in the Death Valley until after 10th October because it’s too hot and cars blow up. We stayed the night in a campground with a pool, a very lukewarm pool, but it was better than nothing. After a very hot night we were all keen to leave the Death Valley. Pretty soon we were out of the heat and on our way to Las Vegas!

Las Vegas was never somewhere we planned on visiting but it was on our route so we decided to check it out. What a bizarre place. A big tacky city in the middle of the desert. We found an RV park a bit out of the action and decided to get the bus into the “strip”in the evening. The bus trip itself was quite hilarious, just seeing all the different people and watching them. We had some dinner and wandered around looking at all the over the top hotels and casinos and little wedding chapels just like on the movies. You don’t have look far to also see dozens of pawnshops and loansharks advertised everywhere. Unfortunately, because of the wind the shows that are on every hour, every night were cancelled which was a bit disappointing. Anyway, it was a cool experience and we finally got back to our RV park at about midnight that night.

From Vegas we headed toward Zion National Park stopping to look at the Hoover Dam which was very impressive. Tim was very excited because he’d seen it on Megastructures. The security was amazing. We had police offices search our campervan before we drove onto the dam.

Zion National Park was absolutely beautiful. We stayed there for 3 nights and did some hikes. I took the big girls for a steep climb up to Angel’s Landing, a really high point in the Park.It had exposed cliffs and chains to hold on to. The next day we all did a canyon trip which involved us walking in freezing cold water. After a while Charlotte was cold and tired, so Tim turned back with her and Maddi and I carried on with Michaella and Ashleigh. It was a fantastic trip, would have been even better if it had been summer and the water warmer! I really enjoyed doing some fun stuff by myself with the girls on those 2 days. I had ever so slightly sore butt muscles for a couple of days!(There’s been far too much sitting on my bum in the RV and eating disgustingly, yummy American food lately, so it was good to do some exercise).

We left Zion and made our way to the Grand Canyon. It was impressive, although I think Zion National Park was much more beautiful. The girls did a Junior Ranger programme at Zion and at Grand Canyon Parks which had them completing a booklet and then going to the ranger and getting it checked. They then had to take an oath to promise to look after the National parks and living things in general. It was quite funny seeing them all standing with their right hands up repeating after the ranger.

So, we’re now heading towards Los Angeles planning at stopping at Joshua Tree on the way. It’s a famous climbing area that should have some good climbs for the girls, who are now all quite hooked on climbing. They get almost as excited as Tim does when they see a big rockface in front of them. The plan is to back in LA for the night of 31st October and then we’ll do Disneyland on November 1st. That should be a great way to finish our year off! We then have the 2nd to check out Hollywood and do some shopping and then we return the RV on the 3rd and fly out at 11.45pm that night! We then lose the 4th somewhere and arrive in NZ on the 5th! Wow!

We are really loving the States. It’s just so easy after months of struggling with language. It’s the perfect way to end an incredible year. It’s also fantastic that we don’t have to worry about weight restrictions because lots of stuff is cheap here and we’re doing a wee bit of shopping. The girls have worn the same clothes for nearly the whole year, so they are loving the chance to get a few new things. We’re also loving the extroverted, friendly Americans. Okay, we do mock them just a bit, but they are so friendly and helpful, quite different from Europe. The girls do some amazing American accent impersonations, even Charlotte has started! Maddi’s the best though!

So, the questions everyone are asking or want to ask. What are we doing when we get back? Jobs? Schools? Where will you live? Well, we don’t have any answers really, but lots of ideas. The girls have interviews at Kingsway when we get back, so hopefully they’ll be there next year and we’ll be living up that way(Whangaparaoa). When we first get back we’re going to stay with Jo and John(Tim’s sister and family)in Remuera. They’ve renovated and expanded their house just for us coming back, so we can all fit!Thanks guys! I’m sure everything will fall into place when we get back, we’re still trying to pretend we can live like this forever, but no, we do need to get back to reality.

Well, must go and collect our washing from the huge dryer in the camp laundry and Tim needs to disconnect the poop pipe and we’ll be on the road again! (Speaking of poop, we are thinking the tank isn’t draining properly and Tim thinks we might need to put our hand down and unblock it. He seems to think his arm is too fat and that it’s a job for me! Oh no! Anyone seen the movie, R.V.?

I’m sure some of you have watched this reality TV show(Leigh I know you want to apply to enter it). Anyway, after our last 2 days in Europe/London I think we could win the family version!

Let’s start with our last day in Germany. Because we were flying with Ryan-Air and we discovered their Ryan-Air Frankfurt airport was miles away from Frankfurt main airport where our campervan had to be dropped off, we had to do some serious co-ordination to make it as easy and cheap as possible(haha!). The plan was for Tim to drop all of us girlies and all the luggage at the Ryan-Air airport at around midday(our flight wasn’t until 6.10pm) so we had a long day at the airport. I had lots of food and stuff to do so I wasn’t too stressed about that. Tim had to drive about an 1 hour 20minutes to drop off the campervan , then get a taxi to the main airport and a shuttle bus to us. All a bit complicated but he had lots of time and we’d all done it the other way round when we arrived.

So, I spent the day at the airport juggling luggage in our bags to make sure no bags were overweight and waited for Tim to arrive. When the shuttle bus arrived at 4.45pm with no Tim, I knew that something was wrong and Tim might not make it in time. Stress was building. 5.30pm and he still hadn’t arrived and finally I gave up and went and checked when the next flight was. Our flight to LA from London was leaving at midday the next day so we had to get another flight to connect with that. By this time it was 5.45pm and Tim came racing in super-stressed as you can imagine. He had realised he might not make the bus shuttle so decided to get a taxi the whole way. He got in the taxi at 3.15pm and he should have been there easily by 4.30pm, that is if he had a driver that knew how to get there. The driver got lost and they drove around for nearly 3 hours! Unbelievable!We didn’t have such drama in all our Asia travels!

So, we had missed our flights and had to book some more fast. Luckily, we managed to get flights for the next morning at 6.35am so we would be able to connect with our next flight. We got a room at a B&B right across the road from the terminal and had a few laughs about our drama. We’ll definitely be trying to claim this on our travel insurance. All went well the next morning, up at 4am, buffet breakfast and over to road to catch our flight.

We arrived at London Stanstead airport and had our bus booked to Heathrow airport. The bus didn’t leave on time and then proceeded to get held up in roadworks which was all a bit stressful after our previous day, but we didn’t really panic because we thought we still had lots of time up our sleeves. We arrived at Heathrow only to find that the bus stopped at Terminal 1 and we had booked to go to Terminal 5. They are about 10 minutes apart by bus. We were told on arrival that the bus would go to Terminal 5 when another driver arrived but they didn’t know when! I got quite stroppy by this stage and really did have a bit of a tantrum. I don’t very often get seriously angry with people but I was starting to feel very helpless and I did get very angry with the driver and the bus staff. The girls said I was like one of those crazy netball Mums on the sideline. Oh dear!

Well, because of my tantrum we did get advised that a train would be the quickest way to get to Terminal 1(they probably just wanted to get rid of us) so we raced down the ramp and round corners and up a lift. We were quite frantic by this stage, desperately trying to buy tickets for the train only to find that it was free! We finally got down to the platform only to hear an announcement over the speaker that all trains on the Heathrow express will be suspended due to a fatality. By this stage, I thought it was all over and there would be no way of making our flight. To make it worse Anne’s parents were waiting for us with two huge bags that they had kept for us while we were in Europe and I knew they would be stressing. Our next plan was to race and try to find a black cab to take us to Terminal 5. So, off we went, up ramps, along corridors desperately trying to find the exit where we could get a taxi. By this stage my shoelaces were undone and I was having great difficulty controlling the overloaded trolley. The girls seemed to think it was all quite a challenge and were running as fast as they could. Even Charlotte, who usually begs to be carried even the shortest distance, managed to keep up. We found a black cab that agreed to squash us all in and drove us to terminal 5. When we arrived I sprinted in like a crazed woman while Tim got bags and children out of the taxi. Margaret and Colin soon found us, them looking almost as stressed as us and all was well! It was so nice to see them. Margaret had fruit for the girls which so nice. It was like the girls having one of their own Granny’s there. She even took away their munched on apple cores!Don’t you just love grandmothers!

So, we made the flight and after a glass of wine, I soon recovered. The flight went well, thanks to the individual tv screens. We arrived in LA and got a shuttle to our hotel nearby. By the time we got to bed we had been awake 24hours!

href=’http://blogs.bootsnall.com/adventure/files/2009/10/031.JPG’ title=’031.JPG’>As we drove intp Switzerland Tim and I both commented on how it looked just as we imagined it, just like books and tv have portrayed it. You could just imagine Heidi and Peter running along in the mountains. The beautiful Swiss houses with window boxes full of brightly coloured flowers and high jagged mountains everywhere you looked.

We drove to a beautiful little town called Martigny and found a free camping carpark in the middle of town. I wandered off to have a look around and was surprised that it was a French speaking town. It’s amazing in Switzerland how there are distinct French speaking and German speaking towns so close to each other. Wandering in the supermarket (I know, that’s all I ever seem to do) I was very glad I had filled up the fridge in Italy and France. Chicken and meat in general was so expensive. About $40NZ a kilo of chicken breast!

We headed straight for Zermat the next day where would base ourselves for 3 nights. This is serious tourist town at the foot of the Matterhorn, an impressive peak that was beckoning Tim to climb it, as you can imagine. In Zermat no vehicles are allowed except electric cars so you have to stay in a nearby town and catch the expensive train into Zermat.

We decided to spend a day doing a walk in the mountains where we would leave Tim at the turn-off to climb the Matterhorn. We had to catch 2 cable cars which were very impressive and then we had lunch high in the mountains and walked 2 and 1/2 hours to the point where Tim went off to climb. I walked down the rest of way with the girls and we caught another cable car down and then the train back to our camper. Tim stayed a night in a hut half way up and then climbed the mountain early the nexdt day. It was a challenging climb to do by yourself and wisely he turned around 100 metres short as he felt it too dangerous to do without anyone to belay him.

While he was off having his adventure we spent the day at a forest adventure park, similar to Tree Tops in Auckland. The girls had a great time. There was a really good 4-7 year olds section which Charlotte loved. She was amazing and didn’t stop all day. We left Zermat and headed north finding a great spot to camp out in the middle of nowhere overlooking a lake with a playground next to it which was a bonus. heading north towards Germany we popped back into France for the night and stayed near Strasburg.

By this stage we were on the home run and decided to find a campground near Frankfurt-Hahn airport where we would fly out the following evening. After a bit of a mission of a day we finally found a paid campground which we really needed for the night so we could use washing machines and clean the camper ready to return the next day. If only we knew what a stressful 2 days were ahead of us……

We drove from France to Italy through yet another amazing European tunnel. I think it was about 4kms long. It’s amazing to emerge from the tunnel and find yourself in a different country. Quite soon we could see a difference between France and Italy. The gardens aren’t so manicured and everything is just a bit rough around the edges. Our first stop was a supermarket to get some supplies. Here we learnt how seriously the Italians take their siesta. It was 2.30pm and the huge supermarket complex was completely deserted. We thought maybe it was a national holiday but then read on the door that it’s closed everyday from 12-2.45pm. We all wondered about the staff in these big stores. Are they all snoozing out the back or do they go home? Imagine the Warehouse or PaknSave closing down everyday for 3 hours? Quite funny.

When we finally got in to do our shopping I had great fun buying lots of yummy pasta and more cheese and pesto…….ah I’m missing it already. Of course, we have it all in NZ, it’s just the volume of it here and how cheap it is.

We drove to Turin, a city in northern Italy and found a campsite for the night. We decided to only stay in Italy for 2 nights which was a bit sad but we wanted to head to Switzerland and had to make some tough choices. So we camped in Turin at a proper campground which had quite a few permanent residents. The girls ended up playing soccer with 2 Italian boys in the evening which was cool. We decided to head into Turin the next day by bus and get a feel for an Italian city. What a difference from France. We caught a tram and got off in the centre of the city. An older Italiian woman came up to us when we got off and held my arm and spoke constantly in Italian obviously commenting on the girls and how many there are and how beautiful they are. It reminded us of being in Asia. We stumbled upon a bustling local market which was fantastic. Again, very much like Asia. Vendors yelling and people haggling, lots of food and the usual marketware. What amazed us was how cheap it was. We got a few things we needed(and some we didn’t). If we didn’t have such weight restrictions flying back to London it would have been tempting to to buy a bit more. We found that market actually cheaper than some of the Asian ones we visited.

We wandered around town and found a pizza restaurant for lunch and then a Gelato after that! Yum! Everyone was fading so we decided to make our way back to our campground which was a bit of a mission. A really friendly woman who couldn’t speak English took it on herself to help us and actually got off the tram we were on and lead us across the road to a different stop and figured out how to get us to our campground. Fortunately, a young Italian who could speak English came to our rescue. In our short time in Italy we found people really warm and friendly, very different from France.

Our next stop was an Italian town close to the Swiss border where we camped at another paid campground. It’s a bit harder to free camp in Italy from what we could figure. We spent the next morning at the supermarket again stocking up on supplies for Switzerland to avoid the high food costs there. Our camper fridge was chocker with lots of yummy food which kept us going a while. Tim gets a bit stressed about how much time we seem to spend supermarket shopping but it’s so much fun! It does take a while though, when you’re trying to figure out what you’re actually buying!

The drive into Switzerland was amazing. This time we went on a train through a tunnel. Yes, the whole camper! We drove onto a train and then the train took us through the tunnel. It was a bit dicey getting onto the train, really narrow, a few scrapes on the mirrors!!
We emerged in Switzerland and made our way to Matterhorn country!!

We left Chamonix and headed for Annecy another beautiful French town on the edge of Lake Annecy. The lake was clear, clear blue and pretty chilly, especially after months of swimming in tropical water. Actually I didn’t swim, putting my feet in was enough and watching how the girls jumped in and then gasped for air and swam back to shore as quickly as possible was enough to convince me that it was cold. We had a really relaxing few days here, and here we managed to get our computer to a usable state. We lost most of the data on it but managed to save the photos, which is great. The major hassle is that it came back with everything in French, so it’s very annoying. Apparently, there is nowhere in France we can get the English software. We can cope with it for now but will sort it out as soon as we can, probably in the States.

We left Annecy, heading south for the coast. We arrived near Marseille and found a campsite in a car park right on the top of a cliff that had the most spectacular view across the Meditaranean Sea. We wondered why we had it all to ourselves. In the morning we were woken by people closing the road so they could test a car. They told us we weren’t supposed to camp there anyway. They were very cruisy about it and just asked us to move around the corner which is where we had breakfast perched high on a cliff. Awesome!

We then decided to follow the coast all the way to Monaco and then in to Italy. Quite naively, we imagined stopping where we liked and swimming all along the coast, but this is not NZ or Australia! We did do lots of swimming but there were also lots of stressful moments of trying to find a park for the campervan, a particularly bad moment was driving down a one way narrow road and finding a low bridge that we couldn’t get under.Tim then had to reverse out all the way while I stood in the middle of the road warning traffic coming behind us. This was in Cannes, which is full of rich and famous, glamorous people. I didn’t feel very glamorous at that moment. Luckily we have German number plates, so the Germans get the blame for all our bad driving!!Well, we did have. We’ve been getting tired of being mistaken for Germans. French campervanners aren’t friendly to us because they think we’re German, and Germans don’t seem to be very well liked. The Germans come over to us, speak German and then can’t understand why we’re not German. So the other night the girls made an NZ out of black electrical tape and also a kiwi shape and we are now happy. The only problem is that now NZ gets the blame for our driving!

We had another fantasic campspot the other night. We were a bit stressed about finding somewhere free or cheap for the night and had resigned ourselves to having to stay in an expensive campground when Michaella yelled out, ‘Over there! There’s lots of camper-vans! ‘ We decided to investigate and yes there were lots of campervans right on the waterfront in a marina carpark behind a gate. We thought it must be private but drove up to investigate and we were so suprised when the man at the gate opened it and said that we could camp there for 8 Euro. We hd toilets, power and wifi, right on the edge of the clear blue sea! It would have been perfect if Charlotte hadn’t woken us in the night with serious vomitting and diarohea. She’s now ok and back to her cheeky self.

We almost stayed at this spot for another night but decided to move on as we have such limited time. We drove along the coast swimming when we could and taking in the sights. We drove through Nice and on to Monaco. The scenery was spectaclar. I think the best way to see this coast would definitely be from one of the many superyachts we saw!Driving in a campervan is a bit stressful along such a densely populated coast. We breathed a sigh of relief when we reached Sospel, a beautiful town close to the Italian border and found a quiet camp spot. The town was probably our favourite so far. You could hear a mix of Italian and French spoken and had amazing little cobblestoned streets, a huge cathedral and rugged mountains all around. We stayed here 2 nights before we crossed the border through yet another amazing tunnel into Italy.

Well, I have a new woman in my life. She has a sexy English voice, never talks back, doesn’t argue, goes whereever she is told and best of all I can turn her off when I’ve had enough.

Kim has now been relegated to only doing cooking, cleaning and dishes(and a few other things as well). Jane now sits proudly in the front seat and has prevented many marital disputes. I recommend any man who has been frustrated with directions given by non-spacially minded navigationally challenged wives, to always invest in a Jane.

In case you haven’t figured it out, Jane is our tom-tom GPS which we hired with our campervan. All you do is type in your desired destination on the touch screen and up comes your position on the map and a computer generated voice tells you exactly what turn offs to take, times, distances and all sorts of other interesting points of interests along your route.

Kim says……….I’m typing this for Tim as we drive(I don’t know why when he talks such rubbish).All I can say is I’m SO glad we have Jane. Now, I can just sit back and enjoy the ride without getting abused for not giving instructions soon enough, for not understanding foreign language road signs etc etc….
Jane does have a few limitations though, she lost the plot when we went high in the French Alps on windy roads and then we had to rely on the old-fashioned method. Of course, it took Tim a while to actually admit that Jane had failed him. It was quite devastating for him.

Big news is that our computer has died. Well maybe not actually dead yet but very sick, so we are feeling very lost. You soon realise how much you rely on it when you don’t have it. We can probably get it fixed over here but are having trouble finding anyone to do it. So for now our updates will be brief and sorry no photos. It costs about $20 an hour to use the internet so I’ll keep it brief.

Well, we had a fantastic 2 nights in London with Colin and |Margaret(Anne’s Mum and Dad). They really spoilt us with great homecooked food and just generally looking after us. We did lots of the London sights and really enjoyed it. We had great weather, a high of 30 degrees one day! Who says England weather is bad?

We then flew from London to Frankfurt and picked up our camper which is great-a bit smaller than we thought, still sleeps 6 but is quite cramped moving around. We then drove to Paris in 2 days staying on the way at a beautiful little spot on the border of Germany and Luxemburg. It was at a vineyard and we didn’t have to pay to camp just buy some wine, which we did. Michaella walked nearby and bought a huge big lettuce that the farmer picked out of his garden for her. We are SO loving the food here. Germany was quite cheap especially for cheese, salami, ham etc. It’s so nice having a fridge full of yummy cheese and meats.

We stayed on the outskirts of Paris and caught the train in. What a buzz to arrive in the centre of Paris right outside the Notre Dame! We even bumped into someone we knew from Papatoetoe(Judith Robertson) inside the cathedral! We really only got a taste of Paris but it was enough for the kids. The highlight for them was watching the crazy rollerbladers and kids doing tricks on bikes at the Eiffel Tower. We had a great day, so nice to see famous sights that you’ve only seen on movies and read about.

We next day I went off by myself to Versaille and had a wander while Tim did washing and other stuff. Lucky me, eh?That afternoon we left Paris and drove to the Burgundy region and stayed at a little place called Beaune. It was stunningly beautiful, surrounded by vineyards and little wine cellars and gourmet food stores everywhere. Oh, I have to come back here again with some girlie friends!!

We then hit the road and headed for Chaminix in the French Alps which is where we are now. The scenery is amazing and we’re really enjoying just being here. We couldn’t hire a climbing rope so Tim bought one this morning and he’s off climbing now with all the girls. I’m in town with no children and going to sit in a little cafe and have a coffee. Can’t wait! Because things are expensive here we haven’t been eating out and I’ve been very restrained and not bought a coffee yet. I have to have one though, I can’t possibly walk past all of these cafes. We’ve been having beautiful croissants and baguettes for breakfast and lunch. I love all of the cheese and wine. The cheese is wasted on Tim, how can he not like cheese? Lucky he likes red wine! Wine is really quite cheap, sometimes cheaper than water!

Well, I better go, I don’t want to spend all my money on internet and not be able to afford a coffee!

Well, yes we did make it to Malaysia but only for about half an hour! We took the overnight train from Bangkok to Pedang Pesar, the closest border town in Malaysia. Actually the train station arrives in a kind of no man’s land with Thai and Malaysian immigration at either end of the platform. We got off our train filled out our departure cards for Thailand then officially left Thailand, walked along a bit, then filled out arrival cards for Malaysia, then filled out departure cards for Malaysia, left Malaysia, walked around the corner again and back into Thailand with another 15 days stamped in our passport! It was all very funny!
We then jumped on a train back north a bit into Thailand where we got a mini-bus to Krabi. Tim and I had been here 15 years ago, climbing when we were on a break from working in Japan. It’s a beautiful area with huge limestone cliffs and emerald green water, and when we came here before, we loved it. In those days we were able to stay in a bungalow for about $1.50 a night and eat all sorts of fruit for not much money. Well to our HUGE disappointment the world has found Krabi and it is now full of lavish resorts and totally commercialised. It was hit hard in the tsunami, but has definitely bounced back. We couldn’t find anywhere to stay under $70 a night which was a bummer. A pineapple cost $4 and it was all a bit depressing. Anyway, we had a good day there, hired climbing gear for half a day, swam in the emerald sea, did a bit of a hike where we actually saw a snake in the wild! Our first one after all our time away! It was pathetically small, actually looked more like an overgrown earthworm but it was definitely a snake, so that was quite exciting. There were also monkeys and squirrels in the trees which was fun. Because there is no road access, you have to get there by boat, so we took a long tail boat which took about 45 minutes. The sea was a bit choppy at times as it officially the monsoon season but nothing too major, although I was pleased that we were quite close to land most of the time and there were life jackets on board.
Our original plan was to stay around Krabi for a week or so before heading back to Bangkok to get our flight to London. But with the costs so high we looked at plan B, which has turned out really well. Once again I managed to find a timeshare bonus week at a ridiculously low price in Phuket. So we took the boat back to Krabi town and then a minivan to Phuket. The timeshare was not the usual resort style, but instead a villa at the Phuket marina. It has been perfect. It’s a 2 bedroom house upstairs and down with a full kitchen and our own parking space. It backs onto the lagoon so if we had own our boat we could park it right outside. We’re about 8km out of town and with a taxi or tuk-tuk costing about $15 each way we decided to hire a car for 4 days. It’s a tiny little jeep which we can only just fit into, although the girls have been going Thai style on the deck at the back a lot of the time. We’ve been blatting around the island which is way bigger than we thought. It’s been nice to have the freedom to explore different beaches and buy our own food at the supermarket and cook for ourselves.
Yesterday, we went to a surfy beach which was great. Tim hired a surfboard and the girls hired boogie boards and we all felt like we were back in Aussie! The sea is really rough and the weather not great with the monsoon season, actually yesterday was the only day it hasn’t rained, but after all our months of travelling we really don’t mind what the weather does. We’ve been so completely spoilt with great weather for almost all of our trip that we wouldn’t dare complain. We had been quite worried about how it would be travelling in South-East Asia during the rainy season. We’ve all decided that the rainy season here is about the same as a good Auckland summer! The difference here is that they have nearly half of the year with no rain at all and the other half with the odd big downpour, which is over in an hour or two. The south of Thailand has definitely been the most monsoony though.
So, what now? Well, we’re heading out to Ko Phi Phi Island tomorrow. We decided we couldn’t come to one of the top snorkelling, diving places and not get out there. Because it’s the low season prices are reduced and it’s quite affordable. It will probably be raining but the island is 48kms out and is still supposed to be clear and sheltered, so it should be a good day.
So, on Friday, we leave Phuket and at this satge it looks like we’re going to do a one-way car rental and drive ourselves back to Bangkok. It’s actually cheaper when you take into account the tuk-tuks and taxis from train and bus stations. We have to pick up a bag that we left in central Bangkok a hotel and then drive to our guesthouse which is out by the international airport, where more of our luggage awaits us! We’re not looking forward to seeing all our luggage together and trying to pack it!
So, only a few days left and Thailand and I’m started to feel sad about it. Believe it or not, it feels so familiar. Tim is really over Asia now, but I don’t feel at all desperate to leave. It’s been such a great few months, far better than we could have imagined. We’ve done and seen so much, it’s hard to process it all. The other day we tried to name every place we’ve stayed throughout the year so far, we actually managed to do it! Some of us better than others though. Don’t worry I won’t list every hotel, guesthouse, teahouse, campsite we’ve stayed in. That would be seriously boring for you.

……………..some time later after 3 days of driving from Phuket to Bangkok.

Well, yes we hired a car and drove up from Phuket to Bangkok. It all went really well, we stopped and stayed at really local non-touristy towns on the way which was a change after Phuket. Our major achievement was managing to navigate out way into central Bangkok, then to a big shopping mall then out to the outskirts of the city where our guesthouse is. There were some hairy moments where we had no idea where we were going but we made it!!
So, it’s now 6pm on Monday 7th and we fly to London in about 7 hours. Yes, that’s right our flight leaves at 12:45am. We’re just killing time at our guesthouse, swimming and organising our gear before we head to the airport at about 10pm. Charlotte’s having a huge sleep so hopefully she’ll be ok. I’m sure she’ll crash in the corner of the airport somewhere later. Sorting our gear has been a huge mission having picked up bags that we’d stored here after being in Nepal. We decided against sending some stuff back to NZ, just too expensive and we’re not overweight it’s just the hassle of lots of bags.
We arrive in London at 7am tomorrow and we’ll be catching the train to meet Anne’s parents (Anne is my very cool English friend from Titirangi, for those who don’t know) who have very kindly offered to put us up for our few days in London. It’ll be nice to see some familiar faces and check out where Anne grew up. We’ll be doing an action packed 2 days of sightseeing before we fly to Frankfurt to pick up our campervan and start exploring Europe. We can’t wait! CHEESE and WINE!!!(oh yes and the wonderful historical buildings and such things). The reason we are flying to Frankfurt is that it was way cheaper to hire a camper there and with the cheap flights it worked out well. We’ll be spending most of our time in France though, and a bit of northern Italy and maybe pop into Switzerland.
Sorry no photos yet. We haven’t had great internet plus our waterproof camera got water in it so we’ve taken a while to get another one. We promise to update photos as soon as we can.