Beginnings and endings...

It took me a bit to get that one, pehaps I'm just a little slow. All the Thai people who speak good english say it. It makes us laugh (once we get it). I'm so verry sorry that I have fallen back into a once a week or more update phase. The internet was hard to come by in the Islands and when you could find it it was dialup and hardly conducive to picture uploading. I'm sorry to say that this blog will be likewise dissapointing as I'm finding myself hardpressed in Bangkok for time to get everything done before departing for South Africa. I still have the problem of one reissued ticket (stemming form the theft in Auckland) and I have to go back for my forth and final fitting for the suits I'm having Tailor made. I won't tell you how much they cost, those of you who wear and like suits would kill me . Anyway, I promise promise to get the island and Bankok pictures up as soon as I can! I am coming home April 1st and will see everybody soon! Ha ha wait thats April fools day, perhaps April 2nd.

Well, we've made it down to the famouse Islands of South East Thailand. You may have seen the movie The Beach, most of that was shot on Ko Pha-Ngan and Ko Somui and other smaller islands right around them. We're on Ko Pha-Ngan right now in a small little beach resort up in the North, pretty much as far away from the famous full moon parties as possible which is both good and bad. The distance means better security of our stuff as thousands of people flock here for the monthly event but also means a long cab ride in for the nights out.
Anyway, back to whats been goin on in the last little while. After I posted last time in Bangkok we did a little exploring by Tuk Tuk, a crazy looking half motcycle half taxi cab that Thailand is famous for. You have to wade through drivers trying to offer you "yours" of the city for 10 baht and by "tours" they mean one temple and 3 tailor shops. They get coupons for gasoline if they bring people to the tailor shops so they always do it even when you tell them not to, which is a little worrisome if you had to get to somewhere right away. It also works to your advantage as you get to understand the system. We havn't paid for a tuk tuk since the first day cause if you tell them your ok with stopping at a shp and pretending to be interested then they'll take you for really cheap to where you want to go (after you stop at the shop and mess around) and we've been able to get them to do it for free. I did actually end up getting some stuff made which was really fun and out Tuk Tuk policy let us shop around quite a bit before we found the place we liked best.
Anyway, yah, they're lots of temples and stuff like that in Bangkok but the weather was pretty bad that first day so the pictures aren't awesome.

This is the golden mountain, one of the big temples in the city

they're little buddah shrines everywhere, I think its rude to take pictures of one that people are praying at so the ones I've taken are the ones outside the temples and are less ornate. The ones inside are so intracate and golden and jeweled and stuff

this is the actual golden mountain part of the temple, the view of the city from the top is pretty good


Like I said the weather was a bit bad
That night we took the night bus to Chaing Mai to go trecking. We are tring not only to budget but make the most of our time so we planned to leave for the treck the morning that we arrived on the bus which made for a pretty hard first days hike. The hills around Chaing Mai are beautiful though and the hill tribe people we got to stay with were great as well

on the way out from chaing mai to where the trail starts I got to ride on top of the truck with our Thai guide, Wee.

lots of cool waterfalls, some you can dive off

the jungle is dense and goes on forever
That night we stayed with one of teh hill tribs in their houses


a common toilet
they make the best food, noodles and rice and stuff
sunset at the vilage

there was a festival the night we were there and all the kids had firecrackers and sparklers to play with, even the really little ones


We had a fire and chilled out with the family that we were staying with

The next morning we were off again to the elephant camp where my camera died, but Tom has pictures that I'll post later
We ate lunch at another hill tribe village

they grew lots of things

Wee made me a slingshot

there dogs everywhere

after that second night it was back to Bangkok on the nightbus. In bangkok we had the day to kill cause the night of the morning we arrived it was another night bus down to the islands. (meaning that last night was my first night in a bed in 5 days) The busses aren't bad and they're easy to sleep in but the times are arbitrary, they say you get into the next city around 9 but we got to bangkok at 4:30 in the morning wich is hardly a full night. That would be fine if you were staying there, you'd just go to your hotel and sleep but we were leaving on another bus that night. Not a whole lot to do in Bangkok at 4:30 in the morning with your bags and stone cold sober so that sucked a bit.
we went to the royal palace that day though it that was pretty cool


And toured around the nicer part of the city. Its a wierd city cause some places look like those pictures from the top, and like this

but other parts look like home and are super trendy

its pretty wierd. A real channel purse costs about 200,000 Baht. A meal costs 20 baht. You do the math but this is a country of disparity I think.
yesterday night we bussed down to the islands and its been great here. Like I was saying before we're pretty distanced from the hussle bussle of Haad Rin and out little spot is nice. I'l;l haev more pictures of around here for you later cause my camera is now recharging but the boats and island culture is really cool. Lots of those long wooden ones liek you see in the movies and stuff and the colors are vivid and all over the place

We have access to the internet a lot here so I'll update again when we explore more of the Island. Miss everyone, hope everything is going good.

ya that doesn't say anything, but this keyboard is Thai capable and I couldn't resist a bit of key smashing in the Thai option. Looks pretty cool though, I know, sorry to disappoint everyone but I've not exactly picked up Thai yet. I'm Hoping it doesn't say something increadably offending cause there are lot of Thais around that can probably see it.
So I got to Bangkok around 11:00 pm 2 nights ago and it took us about 4 hours to get to the road with all the hostels on it Khao San road. We knew we were supposed to take the A2 bus into town and the first bus that pulled up had a lot of funky looking things like this ากสร หืรสแอำ on it so I asked the driver if it was the A2 and he nodded enthusiastically and waved us on. Unfortunately for us the bus was not the A2 it was the bus that took us about 30 minutes south (the opposite direction from the city) to the major souther bus depot from which luckily a bus still ran into the city. We got there around midnight and I asked a police officer when the bus to the city came and he said around 1. Thinking we might try a cap Tom and I walked across the road to a taxi rank and asked the fare into the city, its about 400 Baht (1 dollar is about 37 Baht) so that was more than we wanted to pay so we say and waited for the bus which arrived right on time and hour later at 1 o'clock and we got on. After sitting on the bus in the station for about 20 minutes (and noticing that the bus driver had fallen asleep) I asked the lady behind us if it was the right bus and she said yes, a couple minutes later I asked her when it left and she laughed and said not until 2. fed up with waiting we took the cab that ended up being 450 baht cause there is a toll road. We thought we'd be ok though now cause the taxi rank guy seemed to know exactly where we wanted to go, The Bella Bella guest house on Khao San Road and he told the taxi driver (in Thai) what seemed at the time like complicated but good directions. Khao San road is supposed to be the backpacker heart of Bangkok famous for its numerous open air markets, street food vendors, night clubs and guest houses. What we're learning is that the whole area around Khao San looks about the same and the many winding and confusing streets crossing Khao San could be easily confused to first time travelers as Khao San. And indeed the road that we were dropped on did have its share of street vendors and dreadlocked backpackers, but it was hardly the thumping heart of activity that we expected at 2:30 am on a sunday night. Obviously we had a pretty hard time finding the Bella Bella on the wrong road and settled for a shady as Guest House and leaving the figuring out where the hell we are part for the next morning. And we did figure it out, we were only a couple of streets over from Khao San and we stayed there the next nice in a nicer guest house and booked stuff to do until about the 4th of feb. We're headed to Chaing Mai tonight on an overnight bus to do some trecking in the north. Its about a 14 hour bus ride from bangkok and we're hopefully getting picked up at the bus station by our trecking guide. We get to ride elephants into the jungle and stay with one of Thailand's most famous hill tribe people the first night. The long neck people are all over the national geographic pages, you know the ones where the women where massive golden rings around their necks that stretches them and makes them frightfully long. Anway its back to bangkok after that to catch a bus down to Ko Pah-ngan (pronounced Ko-Pan-yang) for some beach relaxation. Pah-ngan is famous for its full moon parties which we'll catch on the 2nd of february. After that we don't know but I think we'll head to Ko Toa for some diving and then back to bangkok for some market and temple tours, and a but of shopping at the open air markets. Sorry no pictures yet, first of all cause I havn't taken any yet (I'm not sure what the etiquette is for photos but I've not seen anyone taking many of the buildings and stuff so I want to check that out. Also we've stored more of out stuff so we don't have a lot on the busses up north, apparently they can be pretty sketchy and attendants sometimes take things out of the bags and repack them while there underneath at stops in the middle of the night. BUT, as soon as I'm back from Chaing Mai I will have lots of pictures to show you so that will only be 5 days or so. Until then I don't think I'll have much internet access to don't worry if I go a couple days from now without updating. Miss you guys. Thailand is awesome.

so im trying to figure out this travel map thing, bear with me as I do. We got all out errands done today for Thailand, just one day left its crazy

Hello everyone. I am so terribly sorry to be so long in updates I can see from all of my homes I have been irritatingly slow on this for the last little while. It embarrases me to say that I actually have New Zealand pictures that I still need to put up on here and that is pretty bad (luckily for you they will be up on this one but all in good time, no peaking ) Tom and I have made it to Perth and are basking in the last days (that we'll have) of the beautiful Australian summer. It'll be back to the Northern Hemisphere and winter (well, for 3 weeks, and as much as Thailand can have a winter). As you may have seen there's been some bombings in Bangkok over New Years and although we have to fly through the capital we won't be in the city for very long and the rest of the country is pretty safe we think.
Ok, so what have I been doing this last month while I've been irrisponsibly out of contact and selfishly slow on updating? To tell the truth, until recently, not a whole lot which is largly the reason for the slow updates. We were in Sydney over the holidays for quite some time in a little cabin and I felt like i was turning from a traveller (that we so clearly were in the cars up the east coast) into a more perminent resident of the area. It was something that was fun for a little bit but started to drag on you as I felt like I was living here instead of travelling here. In short not a whole lot was happening that differed from each day so there wasn't a whole lot to update on the blog, mostly we sat around all day and read or played games and then partied a little in the cabin. But since I've been so bad about it I need to stop there for a second and take you back a month or so to my last days in New Zealand instead, which I think you'll agree produced much more interesting pictures that the christmas cabin did
After we drove up from milford Sound (which would be the last pictures that you've seen) we headed to Queenstown and spen the day driving three Deer Park which is a huge area of land above Queenstown. They have all these crazy animals up there like Tibetan Yaks and Bison that you could almost walk up too and touch. The Bison were behind a fence but the yaks lay all over the roads and nothing but there size and massive horns were keeping you away from them.


There were cool friendly goats all over the place, they were my favorite.
Up further you get to a bit of a crest where they did several scenes in the LOTR movies, mostly in Rohan.

I don't know if you remember but there is a bit in the movie when they fight the wargs on these rocks and these are these rocks.

It dawned on me around this time that Peter Jackson didn't choose his sets and scenery randomly and it started to become no surprise really that the spots he chose to film at are the most strickingly beautiful spots in New Zealand. This is the same spot but looking back out over the city and the lake it rests on.


I told you about the American guy we picked up hitchiking who ended up staying with us for the last week or so. Here, finally, is a picture of him

Before we left the Queenstown area we went Jet Boating on the Shot Over river which was scary, they get really close to the walls and do 360 turns through the tight canyons. its pretty nuts

After that though we had to start getting to Christchurch pretty quickly cause I had to fly back to Auckland for my passport, on the way though we stopped at 2 really cool places (both LOTR spots)

This is the bit of river that they row boats through with those massive statues of kings along the canyons, I don't remember what there called, dave knew and told me but I don't remember now.
The second best spot in New Zealand (competing closely cause of the weather as well) was the secluded valley that they placed Edoras the Rohan main city thing. The valley was way out of thy way but so beautiful, you drove to it along a river and the walls of the valley got steeper and steeper untill you were wrapped in this massive bowl of green and brown and white (from the snow). In the center of the vally is the rocky hill that the set was on and its amazing.



It was hard to capture the scale of things for these pictures (not for the first time, but untill you go you'll just have to believe that the pictures don't do anything compared to the actual places, but then you all know about this sort of thing.
Now jump with me to Sydney, actually Wolongong (60 km to the south) for christmas

sausage and mash for christmas dinner and a tree decorated mostly with Tompons that the girls tried to pass off as icicles.

cozy huh? Unfortunatly the firework pictures turned out pretty aweful, the view you had on the TV is undoubtly much much better but here are my 2 best shots


it was enough to be there I think.
Sadly enough it wasn't much later than this that Tom sold his van and we split from the girls to head to Melbourne on the plane after staying in the Airport (I think I've told you this stuff already) but

here is the last taken picture of us and the van... so sad
Molbourne was a bit dissapointing, they say that if you love Sydney you hate Melbourne and vice a versa but I think mostly the uncomfortable stay was due to the ridiculously hot weather. You could't sleep it was so hot you had to wake up every hour or so and have a shower only to crawl back in your wet with swet bed, not fun. The drive out of Melbourne south on the Great Ocean Road was, however, really really cool.

The apostles are a famouse rock formation off the coast as well as the caves and just generally dramatic coastline.


On the other side of the Great Ocean road it was equally as pretty at Belinda's and her parents spots in Adelaide. She came through big time letting Tom and I shack up in her Unit just south of Adelaide but even better taking us for a couple nights out to her parents farm house in Ashbourne (about 30 minutes from the city)

The view from the house was unbelievable

and teh surounding land was so different and cool. The water is scarce there and the gum trees grow in a haphazard random way making the area look spookily beautiful


They really treated us like part of the family, I think that their hospitality and tours of the area is the reason that Adelaide is my favorite spot so far. Unfortunatly we wern't able to find the game on but I got live updates from dad on the phone, sounds like it was quite a beating. My favorite bit of the Denver family was this lil thing

I miss my puppy

Before we left to do the winery tours Belinda's dad took us to the cattle markets that he used to frequent when he owned his much bigger farm. I had mixed feelings about it all, its rare these days that you get a close look at the beggingings of the food production industry and I couldn't help but feel a bit bad for the cows, its a crazy thing out modern world where were so dissociated from the means of our food production.

The farm they used to own was on an Island down close to the river that runs South of Adelaide. Thier old friends on the island have taken up wine making and before we went to d'Arenberg they took us to this small little spot to check out a much smaller production process.

She calls herself the crazy wine lady and she certainly was, making Angus Wines a small but funkily cool spot and I thought the wines were pretty nice.

really a much smaller enterprise when compared to d'Arenberg where we went next.

Clair, our guide, was awesome and so excited and enthusiastic about the wine and winemaking at d'Arenberg that she seemed almost giddy and giggley. We got to learn all the great stories behind the funky names of the d'Arenberg wines.

These are 60+ year old Sharaz vines that they use to make their Dead Arm Sharaz which I though was awesome. They call it Dead Arm cause these vines have been stricken with a virus that infects one of the "arms" of the vines making it branch in only one direction. Its a good thing cause it means that all the nutrients are still being produced but directed to only half of the crop hence the increadably heavey and intence flavor that these grapes give to the wine they become.

These are just big short term storage tanks for some of the White wines but I thought they were cool and the view from the top was great.
Another cool story is the LAzy Lizard one. Apparently the strung up vines are a favorite sun basking spot for the Australian Bearded dragon and often rimes in the harvesting process they end up in the extractors and stuff, this one

this one is gentle enough that the lizards can scamper out and don't add any of their flavor to the famouse wines
After a great week in Adelaide we headed west accross the continent. Its pretty cool having drivin accross a continent and I can tell you there really is nothing in the middle of this one. For miles and miles there's nothing taller than a 5 ft tree or bush and you might pass a car every hour or so. This is one of those spots that traslated to poorly on the camera, the scale is just to hard to translate.

but it was a fun experience, we're in Perth now and hanging with one of Tom's mates from back home and getting ready to pregress onto a new country Thaliand. We're bakc in hostles, which I'm not crazy about. After so long in your own space and stuff a hostle is no good plus they really are not that cheap when you think of the scale of this trip. Anyway, I'm updated and absolutly nakered, I'm dreading this internet bill but hey you know what? you guys are worth it and I promise I won't let it go this long again. Hope everything is going good! Talk to you soon