Steff + Justin's Big Trip

New Zealand - North Island

2008-02-18T03:53:00.003Z

To start, we are sorry to let you down with the visuals, but our little Apple laptop has finally given up the strength to travel. As a result, we sadly can no longer add photographs to our blog, because we cannot download the images off our camera's memory cards.

Our flight from Christchurch to Auckland took us along the East coast of the South Island and then along the West Coast of the North island, which fortunately for us happened on a cloud-free day. The views were spectacular, especially the view of Mount Taranaki (2518m), a perfectly conical Volcano that sits just to the South of New Plymouth.

Our first few days on the North Island were spent in Auckland and Orewa, a lovely beach community North of Auckland. Orewa was a good base with a decent kitesurfing scene, we had a bit of wind and managed to spend a bit of time out on the water. It was a nice contrast to our time in Auckland which was spent eating sushi, noodles and turkish food... Yes, this is Auckland, wonderfully multicultural. We also got to see some Kiwi electronica at an our door music festival called 'Groove in the Park.' We are sure that every 17-22 year old in Auckland must have been there, plus a few of us 'slightly-older' folk. It was so much fun to get down to some seriously funky tunes on a sunny afternoon in the park. The neat thing for us was that we received a 'miracle' just before we went in with a couple giving us their tickets just as we approached the venue. The great thing was that we were just discussing that it was probably too expensive, considering we didn't know any of the music and viola, free tickets, awesome!

After having some fun around Auckland we popped by to see Steff's high school friend Matt and his wife Amy. It was great to catch up with them and get some perspective on life in New Zealand from some ex-(Vancouver) islanders.

After our quick visit with Matt and Amy we headed down to Rotorua, where we had a super weekend with another old friend from Vancouver Island, Robyne. Rotorua is a neat place with an interesting smell, yup it is pretty smelly! The whole area around Rototua is a very active geothermal area, with hot steam and water coming out of the ground all over the place. All this steam coming out of the ground is sulfuric, which makes the whole town smell like one giant engulfing fart!! But, smell aside (which you do actually get used too) it is a great place.

On the Saturday we took a trip with Robyne out to the coast and climbed Mount Maunganui for some great coastal views over the area known as 'The Mount' and Tauranga. This area has miles of beautiful beach, including an artificial surfing reef that was built a few years ago to further amplify the existing surf breaks. After a climb on The Mount it was time to go to the beach for a swim, this was about the time when Justin got quickly sidetracked realizing that the wind was up and this site was looking very interesting with the waves. Justin rigged up the kite and went out for his best day of kitesurfing to date, where he discovered how much fun there is to be had in the waves while kitesurfing. Having sorted out some new wave riding skills it was time to pack up and head back to Rotorua for yet another, concert in the park, this time Rotorua style.

We picked up a few important supplies, like wine, cheese, pate, baguettes and crisps and then headed to the park for a night of great music and good people. The concert was a big deal with thousands in attendance and a whole assortment of music, very professional and impressive for the size of the community.

Sunday was one of those relaxing rainy days, where we did a few things but mostly took it easy. In the evening we headed out to a Maori Hangi and dance at a nearby Maori village. It was a great night out and very interesting to learn some more about the Maori people, and the Hangi, which is a meal cooked in a pit dug into the ground, was absolutely delicious, mmm!!!

On our way out of the Rotorua area we stopped for a couple of hours at an area called Hells Gate which is said to be the most active Geothermal area on the North Island. Underneath this fascinating restless piece of earth is a Magma spike that comes less than 2KM from the earths surface. Steam and bubbling pits of mud and water cover the landscape, some of the water reaches almost 150 degrees Celsius (50 degrees higher than the boiling point of water) which is possible because of the unusual mineral content in it. As we walked around this area we imagined that this must have been like scenes of the planet during its restless time of creation, millions of years ago.

New Plymouth was the next destination on our 10 day whirlwind tour of the North Island. Justin has a second Cousin in New Plymouth that he hasn't seen for many years since she and her family lived in Ontario. We had a wonderful visit and it was great to reconnect with Christine and her husband Don. New Plymouth is largely an industrial town with some of New Zealand's best surf breaks, absolutely gorgeous waves with nice barrels!

We then made our way East, across the island and just had to stop in the unique Tonagriro National Park, which has 3 active volcanoes: Mt. Rhuapehu (2797m). Mt. Tongariro (1967m) and Mt. Ngauruhoe (aka Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings films) (2287m). We couldn't resist inspecting the volcanic crater on the highest Mt. Rhuapehu and made the effort to the hike up and over old lava flows to the top. The way to the top was not marked at all, but we were told the general direction and through the clouds we did manage to find the crater and we were very rewarded! The massive crater was full of ice, rock and steam with very jagged hills in the background, almost a moon-like landscape really. Then over one of these jagged hills we had lunch above a beautiful ice blue and steaming crater lake. What a sight! It was a bit windy and the sulphuric smells, so we didn't stay long at the top and headed back down to a more hospitable environment and continued our drive to the East coast town of Napier.

In the Art Deco styled town of Napier, or more specifically, Hawke's Bay, we went wine touring. This region is known for chardonnay and sauvignon blanc wines and we enjoyed touring a select few wineries. The neatest part about this town was connecting with some relatives of Justin's whom we have never met, and what a lovely bunch they are. Ian, Everlyn and their family live in a beautiful home on a hill overlooking some rural hills of Hawkes bay, just outside Napier. The Gearey's were excellent hosts and it was so nice to meet some new family members.

Unfortunately, we only spent a couple of nights with the Geary's and then we were on our way back to Auckland, ready for our next flight.

We had one more quick little stop up our sleeve, a nice way to round off our North Island experience, Zorbing!!! We have wanted to try this for years. Zorbing is basically putting yourself inside a big inflatable ball and rolling down a hill, what could be better? Well, it can get better! Chuck a bunch of water inside the ball and then hop in! With this method you can slosh around like being inside a giant washing machine, great! So, we both had a go of this slightly bizarre, but uniquely Kiwi thing to do, it was a blast, but like many good things ended to quickly. Satisfied with our Zorbing we headed up to Auckland and boarded our next flight, for the island of Tongatapu in the South Pacific.

The South Island of New Zealand

2008-02-06T22:26:00.000Z

We wouldn't normally mention much about the actual arrival to a place, but this one is worthy of a mention. Our flight had us flying into Christchurch, where the plan was to land, grab our bags and then find a phone to get in touch with our friend Jo and find out where she lives. As it turned out there was no need to phone her, she had figured out what plane we were on and welcomed us at the airport, what a surprise!! We had met Jo several months before while in Varanasi, India and it turned out that she was on her was back to New Zealand after working in the UK for 2 years, like us. The funny coincidence was that she had been working in Manchester as well and had in fact been living just up the road from we had lived. After chatting over a few days in Varanasi we parted ways, only to meet up again, by complete coincidence on a street in Katmandu, Nepal. Anyhow, we went went raftng for a few days in Nepal and she had then invited us to look her up in Christchurch when we arrived.

After our surprise pick up at the airport we headed back to her place for a lovely cheese board, crackers and bread, and always welcome, gin and tonics- excellent. Shortly after our arrival at the house, Jo's boyfriend Sean and his friend Wayne (great Kiwi Blokes) showed up and the real feast began, all sorts of yummi-ness, including green tipped New Zealand mussels which were absolutely outstanding, those who have enjoyed these will not easily have forgotten them. All in all this was the nicest, warmest welcome we had had to any country since leaving the UK.

We spent a few days in Christchurch, which is picturesque little city with great access to beaches, mountains and the very interesting, nearby Banks Peninsula. On our first day we spent the day out exploring the Banks Peninsula, an unusual land formation created by two volcanos. The cap of one of the Volcanos has created a small island inside a well protected ocean inlet near the town of Lyttleton. Interestingly this little island was the place where the first Antarctic expeditions of Shackleton and Scott made camp to prepare for the journey south. If you look on a map of New Zealand the unusual geography of Banks Peninsula is immediately obvious, it is a round, mountainous piece of land just south of Christchurch, unusual since the rest of the land in this part of the Canterbury region is totally flat. The whole peninsula is carved by deep inlets around all of its ocean-exposed coastline. Of special interest to those epicureans among us, there is a wonderful cheese factory in the Banks Peninsula called Barry's Bay which makes a wide selection of delicious cheeses, very nice. Also, on our way out of the peninsula (exiting back to Christchurch through a long tunnel which began in Lyttelton) we stopped at a 'Dairy', which is the Kiwi term for a convenience store or corner shop that will almost always have an ice cream counter. This was the first of many delicious ice creams that would be enjoyed in our journey around the South Island. It turns out the Kiwis are quite fond of there ice cream, which is readily available everywhere, so doing as the locals do here would be a very good thing to do, especially with favorite ice cream flavors like Hokey Pokey and Boysenberry- yum!!!

Leaving Christchurch in our sleeperized Nissin station wagon we began our counter-clockwise journey around the South Island. The landscapes were a stunning, gorgeous geography of forests and arid mountains with coastlines of water that seems an impossible colour of blue. Just before the town of Kaikoura we stopped to look at the water and were greeted by a few New Zealand Fur seals who were lazing about on the rocks beneath the road. Here for the first time since we were in British Colombia we saw masses of Kelp forests, there tops swirling about in the waters near the shore. The water seemed to be healthy and full of life. Apart from the insane shade of blue, reminded us a lot of home.

We did a great tramp around the Kaikoura coast line ('tramp' being the kiwi word for a hike, walk or ramble. Not the North American term for a slut, street person or prostitute, 'doing' one of those would certainly be very different to 'doing' a tramp in New Zealand!). The coastline here is very exposed and windy, the shores are covered in Seals, thousands of them. The rock formations here are interestingly carved chunks of limestone, weathered, worn and shaped by the extreme environment where they sit. We had a great walk, satisfied our appetite with a order of fish and chips from the local 'chippy' which was surprisingly inexpensive. But i suppose it can be cheap when they don't give anyone any utensils (that's right, it seems that the Kiwi way of doing fish and chips is to eat it all of a piece of paper with your fingers, hmm) and you also get charged extra for any condiments, tomato sauce, tarter sauce, even vinegar! At 0.50 cents per condiment packet the extras soon add up. None-the-less it was tasty and were were on our way to find a nice quiet piece of beach front to spend the night.

The next area for us was to explore was the world famous Marlborough wine region. This hot and arid landscape of vines is famous for its Sauvignon Blanc wines, which after touring some of the wineries in this region, were remarkably consistent and lovely. I think it would be fair to say that if you wanted a nice Sauvignon Blanc wine you could fairly choose one from almost any of the wineries in this region and it would be good. Certainly our favorite winery here was Cloudy Bay, a large winery whose wines are readily available in the UK and Canada, as well as many other countries around the world. I am not sure why, but a part of us almost wanted to be disappointed by Cloudy Bay, maybe because we wanted to be wowed by more by some of the smaller, more boutique wineries in the region, rather than this massive producer. As it turns out we were not disappointed at all, in fact it is the only winery that either of us have been to where we really liked all of the wines! Unbelievable, these guys were certainly masters in the art of wine making, beautiful wines. We spent a couple of days in the region, had a lovely afternoon picnic, with of course a carefully selected bottle of wine, and enjoyed the welcoming atmosphere of the region.

Our trip around the South Island continued with a trip to Queen Charlotte Sound, a beautiful hilly area with a maze of ocean inlets. The area is home to some excellent walks and super kayaking. We decided for an afternoon of kayaking to explore some quiet little inlets and bays, our starting point was the town of Portage which follows an hour drive from Picton along an impossibly tiny, curvy road. Picton, is a lush, picturesque little town which also serves as the ferry terminal to and from the North Island. As a little comment here, it is worth noting that unlike in British Columbia, there is more than one ferry company operating a car ferry service here, consumers in BC would no doubt be better served with a little ferry competition between Vancouver Island and the mainland. Anyhow, the Queen Charlotte region was fantastic, very picturesque and plenty of outdoor pursuits to keep you busy.

Our next stop was the northern city of Nelson, a great little city which felt almost tropical. Justin was a happy guy here since there was a great Kitesurfing scene here so he wasted no time in rigging up the kite and heading out in to some very choppy water. The water was lovely and warm, the sun was shining and the wind was 'on.' After a great day of Kitesurfing and chatting with some very friendly locals, we made our way up towards the trail head of the Abel Tasmen Track where we would walk along a 54km stretch of coastline camping on the beaches as we went along. The night before we arrived to walk the Abel Tasmen trail we had one of our best car camping spot to date, a not yet completed green of a golf course that sat precariously on top of a cliff with stunning views out over the sea. We woke the next morning to our fantastic setting and drove down the road for a cup of fine coffee and fresh fruit ice-cream for breakfast, this is surely what the good life in NZ is all about!

The Abel Tasmen walk is one of several famous multi-day walks in New Zealand, the beachy landscape of the trail attracted us. The trail was pretty straightforward and we had allocated 3 days to do it. The trick to getting this trail right is timing your walking so that you hit the multiple intertidal zones at low tide. Some of these intertidal zones are quite large and do not have a high tide option for avoiding them, so planning where to spend the night and how far to walk during the daytime is essential. We managed fairly well and were never more than thigh deep in water, it is not difficult really, but it is important to keep an eye on the time. The camping was very nice, but over all the trail and nearby beaches were a little busier than we would have expected. One thing that the Kiwis are very good at is tourism, which i guess you would be too if you had 2.5 million visitors each year. But sometimes part of being good at this tourism is knowing how to get plenty of people into a particularly nice area. In the case of the Abel Tasmen, one of the popular things to do is to do day hikes where a water taxi will drop you off on one beach, you walk a few hours and then get picked up at another, and there were quite a number of people doing this. Also, on the beaches you've got more people with their private boats hanging out for day with families, water skiing, jet skiing and so on. All of this business would have been fine, but i guess when we decided to spend three days on this undeveloped protected coastal park, we thought it would be a bit more remote. The flip side to our slight disappointment here is that the Kiwis are doing a great job of getting people out to these areas and running some great tourism businesses, other naturally beautiful areas of the world would be good to pay closer attention to the way tourism in general is managed here in New Zealand, because overall they are very very good at it. No wonder it's such a popular destination, but bring a thick wallet if you come!

At the end of our 3 day walk on the trail we had arranged for a late afternoon pick up on a beach. The speed boat ride back to the start of the trail turned out to be quite the event when 20 minutes in, our boat slowed to a stop when the captain realized that we had been completely surrounded by hundreds of bottle-nosed dolphins who had decided to have a little play with us and put on a show. They darted all around the boat and a few came flying right out of the water like hasty circus acrobats, anxious to please the crowd, this was a very special experience. Shortly after our Dolphin encounter we came across a load of seals lounging on some sunny rocks of a small uninhabited island. What made this unique was that there were a number of small seal pups, only a few weeks old and you could tell they hadn't quite figured out how to move their awkward bodies yet and were funny to watch. I am sure they would one day realize that flopping about like a person trapped inside an awkward overstuffed bag of lard is very much a normal part of being a seal.

We arrived back to the car and treated ourselves to a nice coffee, fruit smoothy and a warm sunny patio, where we planned our next move. We would end up that night in an end of nowhere campground, which we choose instead of free camping so that we could charge up the camera and computer batteries. The next morning we woke up feeling fine, but all that was about to change. We are not sure whether it was the apple juice or the campground tap water, but something was very wrong. Both of us fairly quickly became rather ill feeling and what followed was a good four days of fun crushing, explosive diarrhea and stomach pains. Justin actually ended off pretty bad and became the most sick he has been on our whole trip. A strong course of antibiotics ended up putting him back on course. Steff's body seemed to have a good handle on the situation, while she by no means escaped whatever evil little guy had gotten into us, she had faired much better. Turns our the cause was giardia.

The illness had put a little damper on our trip down the more remote West coast of the South Island, which was very beautiful and full of life, including---Sand Fleas. Now, I don't know why previous visitors to New Zealand have left out details regarding these horrible little creatures, but we will certainly not subscribe to any such omission, they irritate to no end. Sand Fleas look like over grown fruit flies and love to bite people. Despite their name they don't just live in the sand, they live pretty much everywhere that you would like to be. Fortunately Deet based bug repellants seem to keep them at bay, but if you forget to put some on and decide to leave the safety of you vehicle, watch out! Now some areas are worse than others, some times of day are worse than others, but the West Coast definitely has plenty of the little buggers. The sad thing is that if you are not effectively covered in DEET they really threaten to ruin an otherwise great time. Anyhow, they have been mentioned and we will leave it at that.

While on the West Coast we visited the Franz Josef Glacier which is a wonderfully accessible, rather large Glacier that starts up in the peaks around Mount Cook (3755m), the highest mountain peak in Australasia. We spent an afternoon at the base of the Glacier and enjoyed the views. It was neat to watch the hundreds of clampon-clad tourists get led onto the glacier for a quick visit on the ice, lead by the glacier mountain guides. Remember the comment about how they are great at the tourist business here, well this was one of many great examples of this. We had initially planned on Glacier walking as well but didn't end up doing it for a few reasons, not the least of which was still being ill. But take note, those living near accessible glaciers, this glacier walking tours is a super money making business!

We continued our way down the West Coast and eventually headed back inland to the arid town of Wanaka, somewhere we had been looking forward too. We spent a few days in the area, just enjoying not moving around for a bit. We enjoyed some of the amenities of this quaint little town on the lake. Great for swimming, walking, a little wine touring and some mountain biking, not to mention one very unusual local cinema. The region has a very well organized set of mountain bike trails that are all graded and mapped. We visited the areas local downhill style mountain bike trails and then did a cross country style ride along a beautiful stretch of river. It was a great day out and since we were finally on the mend, good to get our bodies moving again with a bit of exercise.

Following a few days in Wanaka we drove down to Queenstown the whatever-adrenaline-pumping-activity-you-can-create-that-you-can- charge-tourists-heaps-of-cash-for destination. And that pretty much sums it up. Queenstown sits on a beautiful lake with a gorgeous mountain back drop, an unique looking mountain range called the Remarkables. For us the town felt overly contrived and while the activities it offered were interesting you couldn't help but feel like it was all just an elaborate tourist trap that could just leave you feeling, well, broke! We moved on, Milford Sound here we come!

With our trusty, but seriously under powered Nissan plodding on we started towards Fiordland, a large park in South Western New Zealand that is very rugged, wet and lush and deeply cut by mountain fiords that have made the area famous. (Just as a side note here, those who are sharp and up on their geography terminology will note that in the last paragraph I had said 'Milford Sound here we come,' Milford Sound is actually on of the most spectacular Fiords in Fiordland, it is actually a mistake that the name has never been corrected. Now, for those who are confused, as Justin would have been before learning this little tidbit, a Sound is ocean inlet that has been formed by an ancient river, while a fiord is an ocean inlet that has been formed by an ancient glacier. Milford sound is actually Milford Fiord, incorrectly named. But really whatever you call it, it's a pretty amazing place to check out).

The drive into Milford Sound must surely be one of the world's most spectacular drives, sheer mountain sides, deep rivers, waterfalls rainforest and glaciers are what defines this region, absolutely stunning. Nearing Milford Sound there is a long tunnel to drive through that is really only wide enough for one lane of vehicles which is why they use traffic lights on either end of the tunnel changing in 15 minute intervals. After popping out of the Milford side of the tunnel the road begins to wind its way down an amazing valley that begins as an impossibly huge rock amphitheater, this is road trippin' at its best.

Once we arrived in Milford Sound we made our way to the docks where we would join a small boat tour which we had booked a few days prior. The glacially carved rock formations, including a spectacular hanging valley were fascinating to view. The sides had many waterfalls dropping from the cliff tops, one of which we went under with the boat. One of the interesting features in this region is the short forests that cling to the rock faces. The forests of beech actually don't really have any soil to set their roots into so they have adapted a remarkable way of intertwining their roots into surrounding trees so that the whole forest is tied together they can cling to the steep rocky sides. What results from these type of forests is the occasional tree avalanche, where a whole group of trees sometimes slides off the rocks and plummets into the cold waters below, bizarre.

Milford Sound was fascinating, but it was time to make our way to another destination on our hit list, the Central Otago Valley. The Central Otago valley is another hot arid wine region here on the South Island, famous for its Pinot Noir wines. The Bald Hills winery from this region won the 2007 red wine of the year at the London International wine awards, so we felt there would be some excellent tasting to be had. We learned a couple of important things in the region; first of all we found that neither of us was a great fan of the Pinot Noir wines, even the best of them, and secondly that maybe wine awards aren't all they're cracked up to be, a point which we discussed with people at a few of the wineries, they all felt the same way. But, wineries are very interested in getting awards because it's great for business, even though they may not necessarily agree with the judges. We put a real dent in the list of wineries around here, Justin was hot on the pursuit of a great wine and Steff was drunk! Justin, being the designated driver here was making fine use of the spittoons provided, spitting out all, but the absolute best of the wines. Steff meanwhile, having her place in the passenger seat was getting increasingly chatty and rosy in the cheeks. After a while Steff had felt the touring should end before things got out of hand, Justin meanwhile was not satisfied that the nicest wines had been sampled. It wasn't a case of 'Lets Get Steff Drunk' or anything, it was actually that we were invited to a lovely roast chicken dinner the following evening and were determined to fine the perfect bottles of wine to go with the menu. We had decided on white, but were in a region famous for its reds. But alas at winery number seven our efforts were rewarded with a couple of stunning bottles of white, Justin was happy that suitable wines had been found and Steff was happy that there would be no more wines to taste. Following an hour or so of chin wagging with other wine touring folks at Olssens winery, we were on our merry way.

After a night in super free camping spot number, uhhhh we lost count, we made our way back to Christchurch for our tasty meal and preparations for the next phase of our South Island adventure.

We had traded in our reliable little Nissan station wagon for something a little more exciting- a motorcycle, where the plan was to spend the week cruising around roads we had selected for their motorcycle friendliness, namely that they didn't continue in a straight line for too long. We picked up a Honda 750 Shadow, American Cruiser Edition, which basically means that it looks much like a Harley, but is not as noisy and I suspect more reliable. The afternoon we picked this up was interesting as the car rental place hadn't provided enough riding gear for the two of us, so Steff was asked to drive a car back to the owners house to pick up the remainder of the gear, while Justin rode the motorcycle behind. The interesting thing here is that Steff ended up in a hot silver convertible, a Mercedes SLK230 Kompressor, this was one fun journey. It was a gorgeous sunny day, so Steff with the top down (on the car that is) in her cute pink t-shirt and blond hair blowing in the wind, drove with Justin on the New Honda cruising along beside her... Uhh, somebody refresh my memory here, aren't we supposed to be backpacking?!!

After getting everything sorted out with our gear we were on the road and making our way towards the popular Hamner Springs for a bit of hot spring soaking. The bike proved to be very comfortable and we were excited about the next few days of mountain roads. For those of you who are somewhat familiar with the South Island i quickly outline the route plan. We left Christchurch for Hamner then continued along the Lewis pass to Greymouth and then back across the mountains through Arthur's Pass before connecting up with the inland scenic route south before connecting with the road into Mount Cook. For those unfamiliar with the region, this is a pretty and scenic route. Well, a few days in the weather turned unpleasant and it was looking like we were not going to be seeing much of Mount Cook, so we changed our plan, came back to Christchurch and enjoyed a day riding around some stunning motorcycle roads in the Banks Peninsula region, what a super day, including (no surprise here) more yummy cheese and ice cream. As a great finish to our motorcycle adventure, Jo's friend Wayne lent us his BMW FS650G Dakar motorcycle to ride for the day after we returned the Honda, really nice to compare such different machines. I had been considering the idea of getting one of these BMW's at some point so it was great to have a first hand experience of riding one, unfortunately we only rode it around town since i think we were just a bit worn out from spending so much time cruising around the island on the Honda.

As a final bit of fun on our South Island adventure Jo had planned a two day tramp into the mountains near Arthur's pass where we would stay at a newly constructed mountain hut. The weekend turned out to be a great success with beautiful mountain scenery, good friends and a fantastic curry meal made be Sean, Jo's boyfriend. A super way to finish off the South Island tour. Tomorrow morning we head to the airport where fly up to Aukland for a little more Kiwi fun!

Australian Road Trip

2008-01-01T21:00:00.000Z

Yes, we are still alive! Despite a lack of regular updates on the blog we are still traveling around and enjoying ourselves along Australia's east coast. Since it has been awhile, will give you brief updates of various places along our slow meander up the East Coast. There will be a fair bit more than a normal update here, so you might want to grab a nice hot cup of tea and travel with us for a bit.

It began in Sydney where Justin finally met up with Steff after a 2 week absence for his sister's wedding in Ontario. It was so amazing to be back together again! It really wasn't so nice having to be apart. Anyhow, we met at the airport and then headed into the cute little borough of Sydney, called Glebe where we checked into our hostel in this historic residential area. Being Spring, the streets were lined with trees in full blooming colours of purple, pink and red! Sydney was an amazing city, very clean, well laid out, first class as far as cities go. After a few days there, looking at some vehicles we finally settled on a GIANT Ford Falcon station wagon with a mattress in the back, which was sure to save us a fortune on accommodation expenses. The car also came complete with a stove, pots, pans, water jug, tent, chairs, folding table, the works! Plus the car has power everything and floats down the road, and we've nick-named it 'The Mayflower' due to its large size and a faint creaking (like a large wooden boat) we can hear as we go around bends.

We left Sydney for the long road trip north, but actually only made it to Freshwater Beach near Manly, at least 25 minutes away! It was just so pretty around there, so we couldn't pass by without stopping. We spent a couple of nights with our friends Bex and Andy, who we met in Vietnam. When we met them in Vietnam they had just been engaged in Paris and they were on their way back to Australia where they live (but they are actually British). While we stayed with them they had their engagement party which involved, not surprisingly, a massive BBQ with lots of meat and lots and lots of beer and a touch of wine, good fun with some great people. Wine is what led us to our next destination, the Hunter Valley, a few hours north of Sydney.

The Hunter Valley is the closest wine region to Sydney and we just had to check in out. We spent a two days exploring the region and tasting wines made from grapes grown on local vines and also from grapes grown in the more famous Yarra and Barossa Valleys. Overall the Hunter Valley wines did not impress us as they lacked any real full bodied flavour that we have all come to expect of Aussie wines. The Hunter Valley does not get as hot and dry as other wine regions, which is why they do not produce the flavours we were looking for. Also, many of the Australian wines available overseas are not from this region, so the flavours of the Hunter Valley wines did not meet with our expectations for Australian wines we have had in the past. We left a little disappointed with only two bottles of wine, but we did have fun with all the wine tastings to find those two!

After the Hunter Valley we headed back to the coast where went in search in kite-surfing spots for Justin. We found the the ultimate spot in a small, off the beaten track coastal town called Old Bar. It's a cute little town with a tight community of talented local kite-surfers who warmly welcomed us. We spent a few days here while Justin worked on improving his kite-surfing skills, checking out the local beautiful waves and making new friends. As hard as it was to leave, it was time to get up to Port Macquarie to visit our friends April, Sarah and Olivia.

Port Macquarie is a beautiful coastal city where many Aussies come for a relaxing holiday or to retire. The temperature is just perfect; warmer than Sydney, yet not humid as it is further North. There are many beautiful beaches and rocky cliffs overlooking the sea, and of course great waves for surfing, the national past time of Australia. We really enjoyed spending time with Sarah and April, who we lived with in Vancouver during 2000/2001. Olivia is Sarah's daughter, aged 3 and she is great fun to hang out with. We were the first Canadians that little Olivia had ever met, so she asked Steff, "Why do you talk like that?" referring to the Canadian accent and also asked, "Do you have two voices?" wondering if we could also speak like her in an Aussie accent as well. It was a very cute moment!

After our visit in Port Macquarie, we continued our drive North along the coast and stopped in Yamba, famous for it's point breaks (surfing) and where we were had the opportunity to get up close to wild kangaroos and observe them for hours. One evening, while exploring some small roads in search of a kangaroos and not finding any at all, we met a friendly lady, named Nerida, who wondered it we were lost. We said no, but that we were (yes, at the age of 30+) searching the forest for kangaroos! We felt a bit silly, but our honesty paid off and she invited us back to her remote 100 acre island that has a massive kangaroo population! Fantastic!! So off we all went and she gave us a great tour of her property, showed us how to interact with the kangaroos and welcomed us to camp on her property for the night, so that we could photograph the 'roos in the morning when they are most active. we kindly accepted and at sunrise took some great photos up close and even observed the two largest rivaling males have a boxing match. Not sure who won, but it was exciting to experience. Interestingly, Nerida's 100 acre property houses many endangered plants and is home to not only 100's of 'roos, but also acts as a sanctuary for birds, yet only a few years prior a Japanese company had owned all the land and vicinity. The plan was to build an adult playground with an airport, resort and casino strictly for the Japanese. The whole project was cancelled as the Japanese Yen had plummeted and thankfully the kangaroos were there waiting for us! It was lucky that we had the opportunity to observe all those 'roos, as throughout the rest of our travels in Australia we only saw dead kangaroos flattened at the side of the road.

Our next major stop was in the beautiful Queensland city of Brisbane. We visited with our Canadian friend, Zoe, who also introduced us to all her friends, which was great fun! Turns out Brisbane is very picturesque, also very artistically oriented and mixes the older colonial and unique Queensland architecture with wonderfully modern homes and buildings. We loved the feel of the city and only left it because Zoe and friends had invited us to join them up in Noosa for a party weekend in a grand, luxurious house. Naturally of course, we had to join in and subsequently spent almost a week in Noosa, not just a weekend. Noosa is to Brisbane, as Whistler is to Vancouver- a party, relax and enjoy type of town. Of course the kite surfing opportunities made it a good place to be as well!

But, the luxurious time in the house had to come to an end and we returned to our car camping lifestyle. We drove from Noosa up to Hervey Bay near the famously touristic Fraser Island. We spent 4 days staying at a lovely little campground on the beach. Lots of relaxing, reading, swimming and looking at the Southern Hemisphere constellations in the evenings, while enjoying a glass of wine on the beach, very civilized. Harvey bay would have been a prime spot for Kitesurfing too, but sadly in the 4 days we were there the wind failed us, teasing but never quite building up enough to get out on the water. The beach area was lovely but what lay slightly inland from the lovely beach areas is strip mall hell, which seems to be spreading over Australia like a disease. While in the midst of strip mall hell we could have been anywhere in Canada or the US, kinda sad really.

From Hervey Bay we began the long drive up to the Whitsunday Islands near Airlee beach. The drive was pretty dull actually. We spent a night parked up in the country side near the town of Rockhampton, a place with some interesting residents, we left pretty quick. The last hour or two before Airlee beach, the launching spot for the Whitsundays and Great Barrier Reef, was very beautiful and finished with a drive into Airlee where the unbelievably coloured water hugged the beaches. It was a challenge to get ourselves booked on a tour that included everything we wanted to do as it was Christmas and Summer Holidays and very busy. We found one, but unfortunately it was all to happen in a single day rather than the 3 day tour we had envisioned, nonetheless we were EXCITED about it!!!

After sorting out our tour we made our way to a lovely campsite in a mango grove (yummy!!!) that was full of great travelers from all over the world. We had a couple of days to check out the local area before our day trip. We traveled a little bit north to visit some quiet deserted beaches and had a lovely time wandering around in the white sand. No swimming in the water here though, the waters at this time of year have some very unpleasant, in fact deadly, jellyfish. You get the usual box jellyfish, which can kill you, but you also get some very nasty and dangerous tiny ones that you pretty much can't see, often less than 3cm long! Despite the beautiful looking but potentially dangerous waters we still enjoyed some lovely romantic beaches all to ourselves.

It was the morning of our big day out, and it was raining, how disappointing. We were about to blow all our budget for this part of the trip in a few hours and the weather sucked. Fortunately as it turned out, it was only on the mainland and not out on the islands or reef. One of our goals for the Great Barrier Reef was to see it from the air, in our mind this was really the only way to get a sense of scale for this, one of the Earths great wonders.

We headed over to the Whitsundays airport where we boarded a Cesna Caravan, which is a small 8 seat propeller plane that had been outfitted with pontoons and retractable landing gear, making it completely amphibious. We first flew out to a small island off the coast where we picked up the other 4 guests, we got some extra flying in since we had to first fly out to this small island. From there we took off from the small tropical bay and flew for about 15 minutes until we were over the gorgeous white silica sands of Whitehaven beach. We did a few circuits before we landed just at the edge of the shore and went for a walk onto a secluded section of beach. Arriving on the beach our pilot brought out a lovely champagne picnic, complete with cheese, crackers, fresh fruit and cakes, wow! this is the life! We spent about an hour and a half on the beach before heading back over to our plane for the next part of our trip. We all boarded the plane, buckled in and the we took off again from the water flying low over another beach and some island hills. This time our heading would be for a section of the great barrier reef, 60 miles from the main land and another 15-20 minutes from Whitehaven.

The first bit of the flight was just over deep blue water, but then the Great Barrier Reef came into view. The white water crashing on the edge of a giant section of reef. Before landing we were able to do a couple of circuits over the reef and got to see the famous Heart Reef. After enjoying the views from the air it was time to touch down so we can see what things looked like under water. Our plane touched down in a completely enclosed section of the reef, only accessible by special permit to small groups since much of the reef is now under protection.

As we touched down on the water i could see through the windows that our landing strip was a carefully picked line through clumps of shallow coral, the colour was beautiful. The plane eventually came to a rest at a small, semi sub, (half small boat, half submarine). As the plane was anchored we pulled away in the semi-sub and began to cover a small distance towards another section of the reef. We could go inside the semi-sub and sit in the darkened gray carpeted submarine part of our craft with big windows looking out into the water. We were getting pretty excited looking at all of the hard coral under the water, some of it bright blue but most of the colours were mauves and yellows, and of course there were tropical fish, big ones! Shortly we came to a stop where we got set up with our snorkel gear and hopped in the water, it was pretty neat that there was no land anywhere in sight yet here we were on the reef with a maximum depth of no more than 15-20 feet. Now, those who will remember something i mentioned a few paragraphs ago might be thinking; 'hey, what about those deadly jelly fish you mentioned?' Well, the great thing about the reef is that the jelly fish don't really hang out there, they prefer to be terrorizing tourists at the beach, so we didn't need to worry, we did wonder about some of the huge fish we saw though, they looked like they could do some real damage.

After a couple of hours our date with the reef had come to an end. We climbed out of the water back onto our semi-sub where we were greeted on the outer sun deck with some more champagne, great! I was thinking that the only thing better would be some more cake, then, out came the cake... Can we do this everyday???

The flight back was lovely, the late day sun made everything look golden. We swung north for a view looking South over a large section of reef, very large boats near the reef looked like tiny white dots, this was exactly how we had hoped to see it, from the air. We touched down on the small one hotel island of Hayman to drop off the other 4 guests and then got ready for another take off. Justin climbed into the copilots seat for a different experience on the way back, Justin taking the controls was pretty much out of the question, but he enjoyed it nonetheless.

Like all great things, this day had to come to an end, it really was one of our best days so far on our whole trip. We left the airport and went back to the campsite and treated our selves to a really great meal and a tasty bottle of Australian wine. Waking up the next morning the whole thing seemed like a lovely dream, but flipping through the images on the camera confirmed that it really did happen.

We had a nice slow departure the next day and began to head inland for our route back South. We selected something a bit different for the drive back, roads that were a few hundred kilometers inland from the coast, so we could see some different geography. It sounded like it would be a great idea, at least that's what we thought. What ensued was 3 days of fairly repetitive scenery. It was pretty different geography and landscapes to the coastal areas, but after looking at it for a couple of hours it gets pretty tiring, only there is more 2 and a half days of it left to go. We needed things to keep it interesting, the iPod battery was dead, our 4 CD's had been played too many times, we began to stop for a look at some of the heaps of roadkill, just to keep things interesting, oh yeah, we were bored. But it did all eventually come to an end when we finally popped back out on the coast, amidst acres of banana trees, near Coffs Harbour, a couple of hours north of Port Macquarrie.

We spent one last night on a cliff top in a place called Scott's Head before heading back to our friend Sarah's place in Port Macquarie the next day.

We spent Christmas in Port Macquarie with Sarah and April's family which was really lovely, we felt really lucky to be part of a family to celebrate Christmas, Aussie style. We relaxed, ate, drank and played games over Christmas day and on Boxing Day enjoyed a mid day party at Sarah's, really good fun.

On the 27th of December the wind was up and Steff and i headed down to Old Bar (our favorite Kite-surfing spot on the coast) to start Steff's Kitesurfing lessons. Not happy to just sit at the beach watching all the kiteboarding fun Steff needed to be out there rippin' it up. While Steff was having lessons Justin was out on the water working on his Kitesurfing skills too. It will be great to get out on the water together and enjoy flying along under kite power, yipee!!!

Hope you enjoyed our Australian update and there are many new photos for you to view in the Australian Photo Gallery. :-)

On My Lonesome....

2007-11-21T06:25:00.001Z

It's Steff here, reporting from Sydney, Australia and ahem, on my own. Yep, alone, just me holding the torch continuing on our world travels. Justin has flown to Toronto to attend his sister, Krystal's wedding and for a family reunion. A worthy cause for sure. Sydney is a beautiful city, but at the moment, i am suffering a bit of culture shock, or P.A.D.- Post Asia Depression. After having been in Asia for the last 8 months, it is certainly a shock to the system to re-enter into 1st World living standards, lifestyle and pricing. I suspect it will take about a week to adjust, just as it took about a week to adjust to India after we left England.

Sydney is a beautiful cosmopolitan city and from what I can tell so far, life here and the history as well, is a lot like Canada, which may be why we Canadians and Aussies all get along so well. And I must say that Australians are definitely a very friendly bunch indeed.

I've also had a wonderful opportunity to spend time in Port Macquarie, a chilled-out seaside town, 4 hours up the coast from Sydney. Our friend April and her family have warmly welcomed me into their home and have kept me well entertained. We lived with April years ago in Vancouver and it has been absolutely great to catch up with her. April and her sister, Sarah have been introducing me to Australian music and we had the fortunate opportunity to go see a band in concert called 'Kid Confucius'. We all danced like maniacs which was fabulous! The sandy beaches here are beautiful and there are great waves to play in.... when the water gets a bit warmer! It's only Spring time here, so wet-suits are still needed for surfing and boogie boarding.

I was very keen to meet some kangaroos and koalas, so we headed out to an animal reserve with Sarah's 3 year old daughter, Olivia. I was just as excited, if not more than Olivia to see kangaroos and wallabies bouncing around everywhere. We even had the chance to pet and feed them corn. We also visited with the koalas, which are a very cute and funny animal. They are so sleepy, despite sleeping 18 hours of the day and this is because the eucalyptus leaves that they eat have very little nutritional value (like white bread!) The koalas just recline and laze the day away in their trees and sometimes fall out on account of being so dopey from such a poor diet!

After two weeks, I took the train back to Sydney to meet up with Justin and continue on with our travels.....together. :-)

Town of Ubud, Bali

2007-11-21T04:37:00.000Z

Our last 3 days in Indonesia were spent in the town of Ubud, right in the centre of Bali. It is a very touristy town with gift shops galore, glorious coffee shops and tasty restaurants, so we didn't mind it, especially after being on rustic, isolated islands. Ubud it is touristy for a reason. The charm of the town is present on every street with its intricately decorated temples, beautiful tropical gardens among them and lush, green rice paddies surrounding the town. Every morning the Balinese Hindu women carefully place small offerings of flowers, rice and candy in strategic spots to ward off the bad spirits from their homes or businesses. Women wear a traditional, patterned long skirt and a flower in their hair while performing elegant, dance-like moves of precision and thinking a short prayer. It was truly a lovely aspect of the culture to observe.

We hired a shooter one day and explored one of Bali's two volcanos. We drove our little scooter right to the edge of the volcanic crater and to our surprise, there were roads, farms and villages located inside the crater!!! Not exactly our idea of the ideal place to live!! Oh and yes the volcano is active, but hasn't exploded since the 1960's. So of course, we had to go and venture down into these towns just to see what life is like. The roads were totally funny to drive on, because they were laid on old lava flow which made the roads feel like a mini roller coaster ride, dipping up and down like a wave! totally bizarre. Land has got to be cheap here!!

Overall, our time in Ubud, was a picturesque, relaxing, tasty experience.

Please check out a few photos in the Indonesian gallery.

The Gili Islands

2007-10-18T13:22:00.000Z

It took us a couple of days to get from where we were on Bali over to Gili Air, our first island stop. We arrived within a few days of the end of Ramadan, Islam's 30 day annual fast, so things were not exactly normal. These islands, much like Lombok are basically totally Muslim, unlike the Balinese Hinduism found on Bali. We rather enjoyed talking with the locals on the island and learning more about Ramadan and Islam in general. Steff was not a big fan of the seemingly never ending stream of prayers and singing (raher make that whaling) being pumped out of the Mosques loud speaker. Also, it was not like we could get away, these islands are tiny little things, we could even hear it snorkeling with the fish, what do they make of all this?. We have heard Muslim singing/prayers in other places and to be honest, these guys were far from the next auditions for X Factor, they were awful.

The singing was really a very minor thing, everything else was super and the snorkeling and diving were out of this world, amazing. These islands have a far greater variety of underwater life than we've ever seen anywhere, there is something like 3500 different types of fish here. Plus there were the Turtles, we had several wonderful encounters with Hawksbill turtles which are amazing creatures. Lots and lots of fish, everywhere you look underwater. One of the reasons that the underwater life is so interesting here is because of the strong currents that move through these islands, these currents can also make being in the water a bit humbling. Most of our time in the water would be planned to go along with a current. This usually meant dropping in the water on the North end of the island(s) and drifting south with the current, very nice once you get used to it. But once you try and swim into the current you quickly appreciate its strength. The beautifully coloured waters around these islands were the main attraction, the accommodation was simple, as was the food.

In total we spent 6 days on Gili Air, an afternoon on Meno (which was plenty given its reputation for Malaria and Dengue Fever) and 3 days on Trawangan before making the long day trip back to Bali, via Lombok Island, where we made our way to the Town of Ubud, Bali's artistic and cultural heart.

Southern Bali

2007-10-17T14:40:00.000Z

We left Singapore for a relatively quick flight to Bali where we arrived at night time. We sorted out a hotel on a part of the island that was supposed to be good for kitesurfing. We spent 4 nights in a lovely garden bungalow on the East coast of Bali, waited for some wind (which sadly didn't arrive) and rode around on a motorcycle we rented.

We did a bit of surfing over on the West coast. We found a good sand break with some forgiving waves and had a few nice rides there. We did also head down to Uluwatu one day to look at some of the big wave surfers do their thing. Uluwatu was particularly good because you can stand up on a cliff and look down on the surfers ripping it up in the beautifully coloured water above the reef. These were super waves complete with barrels, much more amazing to watch for real than on a surf film. We enjoyed lunch at a little surfer restaurant on the cliff while we watched surfers down below, some having some incredible rides and others getting eaten alive by the liquid beasts.

After our afternoon of surf watching we went to a nearby temple to watch a Kecak dance. This is a traditional type of Balinese singing/dancing that is pretty amazing (for those of you who have seen the film 'Baraka' you will have seen a little bit of this already). The dance features an a cappella chorus of around fifty men, often making fantastic sounds accompanied by unified movements of their upper bodies and arms. The setting for this was really beautiful, while looking at the 'stage' you could see the sun setting behind over the ocean, we were at the top of a sheer cliff a few hundred meters above the water. The performance was timed to coincide with the setting sun and take us from light to darkness, very dramatic. It was well worth watching and after an ever increasing list of lame 'traditional' songs and dances in other countries this was refreshing.

Realizing that this was not a great place for Kitesurfing we decided to change things up a bit and get off Bali. We did enjoy Bali but in actual fact it wasn't as good as we were expecting. It is overpopulated (2.1 Million plus many thousands of tourists), busy, dirty, overly commercial and in places feels like a burnt out tourist destination of years gone by. This is how things are on the main Southern half of the island. Where was this lovely tropical and exotic island we were expecting? It certainly wasn't Bali. Fortunately it can be found not too far away. We made a break for the Gili Islands of Air, Meno and Trawangan. These tiny little islands off the coast of the bigger island of Lombok turned out to be just what we were looking for, three tropical, laid back islands ringed by coral reefs, perfect.

Singapore...For One Day

2007-10-17T14:21:00.000Z

Singapore made for a nice 2 day stopover on our way to Bali, Indonesia. As everyone seems to say, Singapore is incredibly clean and tidy, everything seems new, well made and stylish. It has a weird sort of Disneyland perfection to it that makes it seem almost surreal. We really enjoyed it. It was however, expensive. So it's probably a good thing that we made a short stopover here and not much more.

Chiang Mai to Pai, Thailand

2007-10-17T14:01:00.001Z

After leaving Laos, we headed to Chiang Mai, a bustling and friendly city in northern Thailand. Here Steff took a cooking course and learned to make several tasty Thai dishes from a man who was part chef/part comedian, so she laughed a lot despite being bombarded with too many chillis in the cooking. We also took in a few matches of Thai Boxing with our Irish friends from the Gibbon experience. We explored the cities very large and well known night market area, sadly the vendors in Chiang Mai are not very interested in bargaining, a sport we quite enjoy (especially Justin) while in Asia.

From Chiang Mai we decided to hire a proper motorbike and drive further north to an arty town of Pai, close to the Chinese border. The road to get there is very well known as an excellent road for motorcycling; it is relentlessly fun in its bends, twists and turns and we had the luck of it being freshly paved!! We absolutely loved riding the bike along the scenic, smooth and twisty road. To get to Pai, we had to ride over a mountain pass, where the weather became a bit cooler and at the highest point there was even a mixed vegetation of pine-trees and banana trees in the same area! A bit of an odd sight to see.

Pai itself is a lovely, laid back, arty town located in a lush green valley alongside a river. Normally there are bamboo foot-bridges that connect the town of Pai to the other side of the river, but those have all been washed away because of high river water, and well, no one has really got around to rebuilding them in the last two years!!!

The next day we headed back to Chiang Mai and had that great motorbike ride again in reverse. That evening we took an overnight sleeper train back to Bangkok for a few days, before flying to Singapore.

New Photos for this post are located in the Thailand gallery for photos for you to enjoy.

Having Some Seriously Fun Monkey Business, Laos

2007-10-01T06:15:00.000Z

The whole Gibbon Ecotourism Experience is an interesting project aimed at providing local village people with a means of income in the hopes of creating a sustainable forest region that generates money not by cutting down forests and destroying Gibbon habitat, and it is working very well. It is a beautiful area, the tree we were in was over 600 years old, it would be so sad to see this area destroyed which is why the Gibbon Experience is working hard to make sure that doesn't happen. The 'Experience' has hired over 60 local villagers to patrol almost 20% of the Reserve and to maintain the tree houses, cook food for guests and so on. The money that the guests pay for staying in the reserve pays all the cost of running the business. All the money made is right now put back into the project, which is nice to know. The tree houses themselves have minimal impact on the area, right now there are 5 of them and each is far away from the others (sometimes several valleys separating them) so guests get a real wilderness jungle experience.

Before we began to live out every kids tree-house fantasy we would have to get to our destination first. We were told that the tree-houses were deep inside the 130 000 hectare Bokeo National Reserve and that we may have to hike for up to 10 hours to arrive if we couldn't make it in a 4x4. Fortunately for us we hadn't had much rain in the last few days so things might be alright. Our Toyota Land Cruiser got us to within an hours walk of the first tree house, the drive in was far from ordinary. We drove from Huay Xai for about an hour on perfectly normal roads until we turned off abruptly and started down a steep dirt track that led us straight into a fast flowing river, this was nuts. The snorkel equipped 4x4 beast of a truck now made clear sense to us. We made it across the river with ease and then slid, bounced and climbed our way along 40 minutes of rugged off-road terrain until we arrived at a small idillic village. The village looked as it probably did hundreds of years ago, no signs of modernity, except for us and a bunch of Irish tourists getting out of our dirt eating truck (in case you haven't picked up on it yet, we thought this 4x4 was one seriously cool machine, a tank of a vehicle ready to take on anything, even fully loaded with passengers, luggage and food).

We headed into the woods until we arrived at a wooden shack with a bunch of rock climbing harnesses hanging on a line strung across the porch. These were much like rock climbing harness', but with one key difference; a small double wheeled transport pulley that was clipped to the front of the harness, this little guy was to become the source of some serious fun. We each grabbed a harness and walked a further 5 minutes into the woods, but not before being accosted by a monkey that liked to terrorize Steff by jumping on her head and a small black bear who was obviously comfortable with us around.

We arrived at our first zip line, a long steel cable that would take us straight into Tree House number one. Most of the group would stay there but we stayed at tree house number three with a lovely Irish couple, a further 40 minutes away, involving 3 zip lines and a 20 minute walk. When we finally zipped into our tree house we arrived to find ourselves 45 meters of the ground in a tree house complete with a kitchen (including a stove), bathroom with shower and running water, this was amazing! The tree house was basically open concept (no walls, just wooden railings) allowing for fantastic views over the trees and valley below

We spent the next three days zipping around the forests, covering 15 of the zip lines in all, some over 450 meters long. We also did some hiking through the jungle with the hope of seeing Gibbons, a once thought extinct monkey that makes some of the most incredible sounds we've ever heard. Sadly we did not see the monkeys (or tigers, or elephants, or anymore black bears), but it didn't matter. Living in these tree houses and transporting ourselves the way we did was just so much fun, it is astonishing how many valleys and how much terrain you can cover on these zip lines in no time at all. We were truly kids again.

What a truly fun time we had. Sure there were many leeches and the biggest spiders we've EVER seen, but heck it IS the jungle.

Check out some of the pics and video of us zipping to get a better idea of what it was like.

Video1: Morning Mist

Video2: 400m Zip Line with Justin

Luang Prabang to Huay Xai, Laos

2007-09-29T03:33:00.000Z

Luang Prabang was relaxing and pleasantly touristy. We enjoyed some great food and took in the relaxing pace of things. We didn't really do too much there, we had a nice hotel on the Mekong and walked around the city enjoying the hundreds of Monks, temples and French colonial architecture.

On a couple of mornings we did get up early to watch the procession of monks collecting alms, which was quite a beautiful sight. Each morning starting at 6am the locals would get out their straw mats with bowls of sticky rice. They would kneel as the monks formed long processions down the streets, bowls in hand, receiving hand outs from the generous citizens of Luang Prabang. A really beautiful time of the day.

We did spend an afternoon visiting some beautiful multi-tiered waterfalls, 34km's from town. The rainy season had really swamped the place though. The picnic area would have been great, with some scuba gear. Although it might have been a good idea to take down the sign which indicated the area for swimming. This swimming area looked like a giant angry bubbling witches brew ready dissolve all those who enter, really not safe. We did talk to a guy later who thought he would give it a go anyway, 'it must be safe, after all there is even a sign saying 'swimming area.''(!) He got sucked under in a bad undertow and pinned at the bottom for what he reckons was about 20 seconds before being spat out downstream just before the next serious drop of the multi tiered waterfall. He then decided that it was probably a bad idea to swim. People are funny sometimes. If you put up a sign at the top of the waterfall saying 'Jump off waterfall here,' I wonder how many people would just plunge to their death, simply because the sign (an indication of some sort of all knowing authority) told them too.

So, other than a lovely bicycle ride through some local villages on the other side of the Mekong we didn't do to much in Luang Prabang, just laid low plodding around the city, at night we would wander around what is surely the worlds most peaceful and calm night market, absolutely lovely. After a few days of this we bought a ticket to travel up the Mekong river towards Huay Xai near the the Thai border, but we would first have to spend a night in Pak Beng, a rough little transition town that is halfway between Luang Prabang and Huay Xai.

The river trip was amazing, mostly for what we didn't see; signs of human development, there was so little of it. No bridges no real towns, just a few small grass hut villages. Along the river were hills of jungle that reached out from the river banks and stretched as far as we could see, sometimes over several layers of hills and mountains. The river itself ran strong and brown with silt, some areas had extremely strong currents with rapids and whirlpools, a reminder of the force at which this beast, the Mighty Mekong moved through the landscape.

After two days on the river and one night in Pak Beng we arrived in Huay Xai, a town of little interest, except for one small office which we went to visit. It was the office for the Bokeo National Reserve Forest and The Gibbon Experience. We had heard of the Gibbon Experience when traveling in Nepal, we were told it was a super little adventure but had decided not do it for financial reasons. I thought we could just see if there was any last minute spots and if so maybe we could get a deal. Anyhow, shortly after we were scheduled to leave the next morning for the Gibbon Experience, a decision that resulted in us having one of best times we have had yet.

Hanoi to Laos

2007-09-29T03:24:00.000Z

Our train left Hanoi at 11pm and what ensued was one of those journey's where everything just came together perfectly well, despite having made no plans for our multi-leg journey. Our first bit of luck was on the overnight train, which we could only book seats for, all the sleepers were taken. Within 10 minutes of the train leaving we were asked if we would like to have our own private A/C sleeper room, which had become available. Of course there was a price, this was an enterprising offer from the girls working on the train, but the price was perfectly reasonable (after some proper asian style haggling, with a smile). We had a really nice sleep in the locked safety and comfort of our own private room.

We arrived in Vinh, down the Vietnamese coast at 5am just before sunrise, we had to then make our arrangements here to get a bus into Laos. The bus routes seemed complex for the area we wanted to go and looked like they would involve many transfers and plenty of time sitting around, but we really wanted to break free from the usual routes and take more remote roads into Laos bringing us to the city of Phonsavan. But before we could get there we had to sort out what the guide book said would be several different busses to get there. That morning in Vinh brought us a fantastic meeting of coincidence with a guy from Laos who was driving a bus all the way to Phonsovan, he does this 3 times a week at 6am and we were there at the right time and just happened to bump into this guy, a mile from the bus station. This saved us an incredible amount of messing around, and certainly time too.

The journey to Phonsovan was beautiful, the mountains grew bigger and bigger as we approached the border. The border was in a high mountain pass that didn't look like it saw many tourists at all. The border crossing took us 2 hours to get through, with their unimaginably slow pace of sorting us out and doing the paper work. Once we started moving again the bus began to descend through some very steep mountain switch-backs, no worries though we had a great bus driver. We did unfortunately pass another bus that wasn't so lucky. A large passenger coach had come skidding off the road on one of the steep turns, toppled over on its side and slid part way down an embankment where it rested awkwardly. The scene had obviously just unfolded as stunned passengers milled about on the road, one woman was screaming and crying near to the bus. I assumed we would stop to help but after a few words between our bus driver and someone on the road we moved on, leaving these people on an isolated mountain road. Strange.

Phonsovan was uneventful, we decided to leave the following morning for Luang Prabeng. We were already noticing a big difference between Laos and Vietnam, the people were very genuine, friendly and easy going in Laos.

The following morning went smoothly, we boarded our bus and started our 7 hour trip for Luang Prabang. Everything was fine until we stopped by the roadside to pick someone up. This guy had a small motorcycle with him which was loaded onto the roof. As they loaded the motorcycle on the roof our new passenger stood outside our window hanging on to the side of the bus helping load the motorcycle on. It was at this point that Steff noticed something odd about our new passenger, he had a gun, a very large gun, hidden under his coat. This was an attempt to conceal a weapon that was clearly too large for the coat trying to hide it, a trench-coat might have been more appropriate, the end of this assault rifle was sticking clearly, uncomfortably, out the bottom of his coat. He got on the bus and sat at the front, the butt of his gun sticking out of the shoulder of his coat so that it was clearly visible down the aisle. Right, this is where I started to get a bit worried, I was certain i had read something somewhere that might help understand this situation. I grabbed the guide book, searched the index, buses...safety, here we go, page 251 'Dangers & Annoyances', I started to read; oh, this wasn't good. We were on route 7, one of two known routes in Laos where buses have been taken by rebels and passengers shot to death. Route 7 is very remote, there is nothing along this road, no traffic either... How does he look, this guy? He was fidgeting, I think his hands were sweating, I was certain that the situation had the potential for a rapid decent into blood and chaos, but maybe i was being irrational. Don't rebels need to just take the bus too? Perhaps he was visiting his grandma, who knows. What about the motorcycle, was this a getaway vehicle for after he has disposed of us all. My overactive imagination was full steam ahead, Steff decided to have a nap and slept peacefully beside me, had she forgotten about this guy?

We did arrive in Luang Prabang, alive. The guy with a gun even helped me get my bag off, nice rebel insurgent. Oh, I should mention one funny thing that did happen on the bus. At one point, a few hours into the bus ride I really had to go to the loo, I just couldn't hold it, so i decided to ask the bus driver to pull over for a quick stop. I walked to the front of the bus and what do i do, i walk right into the end of this guys gun. My thigh made hard contact with the butt of the gun under this guys coat. "Sorry," I said, trying to pretend I just knocked his shoulder or something. What a stupid thing to do, it's almost like because I was so concerned about this gun and this guy that I walked straight into it (maybe a case of "whatever you do, just don't mention the war." Faulty Towers fans will know what I mean) Anyhow, I did manage to get off and pee with out being shot . Bizarre situation really. We met a German guy later that night in Luang Prabeng who we told our experience too, he mentioned that this guy might have been an undercover army officer on the bus incase of an attempted rebel takeover, this made us feel better, I think.

The drive overall was very beautiful, it is amazing how undeveloped Laos is. Lots of mountains and hills all rolling with thick lush green jungle. The country is like a calm wilderness haven in the midst of an ambitious Asian storm of emerging capitalism and overpopulation. Overall, a pleasant change of pace from China, Thailand and Vietnam.

Hanoi, Vietnam's bustling capital... and Halong Bay

2007-09-19T10:45:00.000Z

We arrived into Hanoi's old quarter early in the morning (6a.m.) in the midst of a busy street market. Our guest house was tucked down a narrow alley that was full of vegetable and meat vendors, the later butchering and selling their meat right on the streets. Water was used to wash away remains of meat and blood onto the pavement which was quite a sight first thing in the morning after a restless, overnight, 12hour bus ride to the capital.

We spent a day wandering around the bustling city filled with motorbikes and then booked a three day boat trip through Halong Bay, an absolutely beautiful part of Vietnam. The Halong Bay area is an area in the North East of Vietnam where almost 2000 islands rise from the tropical waters into fascinating shapes of Karst formed limestone.

Our three day trip was really lovely and relaxing. We had a super group of people on our trip, mostly Brits (and a notable Aussie guy), which we have decided are a great bunch to hang out with and have a good time (and maybe cause a bit of innocent trouble). The trip began with a mini bus ride out to the docks of Halong Bay city, a busy dock with hundreds of tourist boats and where you begin to feel like you are on a sort of tourist assembly line. Right after we boarded lunch began while our big wooden boat puttered out of the harbour. We made our way to a small island with some giant Karst formed caves which were really spectacular, despite the tacky disco lighting that the Vietnamese have decided would improve things. You really felt the tourist assembly line in full effect here, along with the absolutely stupid comments from our tour guide of how certain parts of the cave looked like Dragons, Romeo and Juliet and giant breasts to feed a thousand men! All of these things were a stretch, even with the best of imaginations. So, we steered away from the group and ended up having a few moments of peace to enjoy the splendor of the caves, with out the moronic commentary. The caves were truly a magnificent display of huge and ancient stalagmites and stalactites and possibly the biggest caves we have ever been in. After the caves, we boarded our boat and sailed through some gorgeous watery scenery dotted with jungle covered islands . This is a really spectacular area of our planet, stunning Karst formations were in every direction. It is really no wonder that this region has also been protected and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

We spent a night on Cat Ba Island where we were introduced to 'Bia Hoi' with our group. Hoi beer is a locally made fresh beer, without any preservatives, that costs less that 15 cents a glass, ironically much cheaper than water. Cheap beer and a bunch of Brits with us tagging along, it could have ended up getting really crazy, but we were all reasonably responsible, but in retrospect this was all just a mild warm up for the next night we would spend on the boat, but we will come to that in a bit.

The following morning we did a short hike on the island up to a viewing tower that would have surely sent UK health and safety workers into cardiac arrest. Feeling like living on the edge we climbed the old rusted tower to get a better view of the bizarrely shaped hills on the island. On top of the tower the platform was made of old wooden planks that just lie loose on the rusted structure. The tower was about three stories high, but also atop a shear sided hill, making it feel dangerously higher. After returning to the bottom of the tower we saw a hand painted sign warning that only 5 people at a time should be on the tower, which was clearly originally designed to hold many more than this. Upon seeing the sign the next logical question I thought of was; 'how did they figure out that this rusted beast couldn't actually handle more than 5 people?' Hmmm...

We slid our way back down the insanely slippery mud and sharp rock strewn trail, back to the road where we boarded our bus. It turned out that flip-flops, the footwear of choice, didn't make for greatest footwear on this trail that must have been sponsored by the island hospital's finance department. We all did manage to get away unscathed, albeit totally covered in red mud.

We then headed for the boat for an afternoon sail to a pretty cove where we all did a bit of Kayaking. There were interesting floating villages nearby which we paddled through while navigating around the small islands. It felt great to have the freedom to float around on our own and to enjoy the sunset with the tall, narrow islands as silhouettes. After this we boarded our boat again, there was already a plan in the works to negotiate a better price for the beer on board, our Aussie comrade had decided we should begin negotiations by offering to pre-buy 30 beers, uh oh, things were going to get interesting tonight. Following successful negations the nights liquid-fueled entertainment began. Lots of fun, jumping off the roof of the boat for a late-night swim, upsetting the crew, and threats that the local Vietnamese boat police would be called in to sort us out. I would say the evening went over successfully and we went to bed relatively early (2:30am) and left the Aussie and Scotsman to take things to the next level, or two.

The next day we puttered around the karst islands some more and swam in some fiercely strong currents. I was certain the captain was trying to drown us after the previous nights' performance. We eventually made our way back to Halong Bay City where we were greeted with some drama by a machette swinging Vietnamese man clearly trying to kill another man. The local bystanders were totally unfazed by this, so perhaps that man has a reputation for machete attacks, who knows? At times the conflict was looking like scenes from a Jackie Chan kung-fu film, especially when the defendant found a large stick which he used to effectively block swings of the machete. Following this bit of entertainment we headed in for lunch at a local restaurant and then made our way back to Hanoi.

Upon our return to Hanoi, we were invited to stay with a high school friend of Steff's, Kelly (Martin) Caleb and her family. Her and her husband are teaching in Hanoi at the UN school, raising their son and traveling through Asia at every opportunity. It was great for Steff to reconnect with Kelly and for us to spend time in a family home, a pleasant change from guesthouses and hotels.

New Photos have been posted in the Gallery.

Cheers everyone and we'd love to hear from those of you who are reading the blog, we're craving some update emails from friends and family!! :-)

Hoi An: A 'Tailor Made' City

2007-09-15T03:36:00.000Z

On our continued slow meander up the Vietnamese coast we arrived in old city of Hoi An, a living museum. The old part of the city, which is also a UNESCO world heritage site, is very charming and atmospheric. It hugs the riverside and is full of beautiful buildings that seem to be a mixture of French colonial and Chinese style architecture, very unique. Many of the buildings are painted an inviting shade of yellow which looks lovely with the green tropical plants and tables and chairs of the restaurants and cafes that spill out onto the sidewalks and patios. Many of the buildings were built in the early part of the 19th century and have the look of aged beauty. The city is full of great places to eat as well as plenty of its most famous type of business', the cloth shops and tailors.

Hoi An has become famous on the South East Asian travelers scene for being the place to have tailor made clothing done. With some 400 plus shops tailoring clothing it actually becomes difficult to know which one to use. We did a little research on the web to find out what people had to say about their favorites, it was interesting what sort of information we came across. Some people had had some great experiences here, some had there dreams of bespoke clothing turn to nightmares. Armed with our new information the fun began. We selected some ideas from the latest in designer fashions, found in magazines and catalogues, picked out our fabrics and set wheels (or rather sewing machines) in motion.

Once you give them your idea and pick your fabric the process begins with the measurements. They take so many measurements it almost seems absurd, but you remain still and do as your told while the tape measure swirls up, down, around, under and over every part of your body (wondering 'why do they need to measure that?'). Also, the place we went to, Yaly Couture, took 3 photographs of us; front side and back. The photographs were taken in a blue booth with a grid pattern on the walls and a measuring stick at the back, it all seemed rather high tech. Apparently the tailor is given the photographs so they can quickly look at your shape and size and reference it against the grid while they bring your fabric dreams to life.

We found that it took 3-4 fittings, on average for each of our main pieces of clothing to get them perfect, the shop was great, nothing was too small of a request and they would even point out corrections that should be made that we didn't notice. In the end we were very happy with the was things went, although our pockets certainly felt lighter.

We managed to spend about a week in Hoi An, but it wasn't all about the clothes, we did a few other fun things. We spent a day on a motorbike riding north on the coast to a place called Marble Mountain, an area of churches and temples that have been integrated with natural caves and surprisingly interesting. We also went to China Beach, a significant area for Rest & Relaxation for U.S. troops during the Vietnam war and a great spot for surfing. Sadly, the waves weren't big enough to surf when we were there but we sure had a nice time swimming in the warm waters.

After Hoi An we made our way up to the popular Vietnamese vacation area of Na Trang. Our time would be short here, just one night and a day of floating, swimming and eating courtesy of a boat trip. Our sunny warm day on the boat puttered around the nearby islands in the gorgeous blue-green waters around Na Trang.

Following Na Trang we spent a couple of nights in the not-so-exciting city of Hue. You know that when a giant flag pole is listed amongst the 'sites of the city' that it's probably not going to be that great. It was very humid there, making things uncomfortable for going around to the, uhhh, sites. While in Hue it wasn't entirely boring however, as we did manage to time a visit to a Buddhist monastery while the monks were chanting and praying during their morning prayers, which was a really special experience.

Leaving Hue, we travelled by overnight bus to Hanoi, capital of Vietnam. Following several really crap bus rides here in Vietnam, we splurged on tickets for a fancy new sleeper bus, a very smart decision. There was still a couple of irritating issues surrounding the bus, but the ride itself was fine. We arrived in Hanoi's Old Quarter at 6:30AM, the street markets already bustling away. Things looked like they would be pretty interesting here.

Some new photos of Hoi An have been posted in our Gallery.

Mui Ne Beach, Vietnam

2007-09-03T11:00:00.000Z

Mui Ne Beach has been a lovely beach paradise, located on a massive sandy bay. It is a quiet resort town at this time of year, as it is the off season for this kitesurfing and windsurfing mecca. We are staying at a beautiful resort where the rooms have all the modern amenities, beautifully decorated and the most attentive staff waiting to serve us at every moment. We feel like we are on our honeymoon and not that we are backpacking around the world!!! But due to this actually being the quietest time for traveling in Vietnam, we benefit with being able to afford posh resorts!! Fab! Also, another benefit to being the quiet season here, is that traditional Vietnamese life can be viewed on the beach. One morning we observed 100s of people pulling into the beach massive fishing nets that had been set by boat the night before. They were slowly, step by step bringing in the nets over hours in the morning heat. Once the nets were in, we could see their massive catch of fish and watch the people sort through and divide the fish among the individual families. It was very inspiring to see so many individuals come together to help each other for the greater good of the whole.

Justin has been learning to kitesurf over the last 4 days and he has now got it! He has that sparkle in his eye of excitement and is now officially addicted to this new sport in his life. It's good we have more time here for him to go play in the wind and the waves.

It has been wonderful to stay here as long as we have, but it is now time to press on and return to our backpacking lifestyle.

A few new pictures have been posted in our Vietnam Gallery.

Love to you all,

steff and Justin xoxo

Cambodia to Mekong River Delta, Vietnam

2007-08-22T15:12:00.000Z

After leaving Battambang we left for Phnom Penh, Cambodia to arrange our trip into Vietanm. Once again we had a great time in Phnom Penh where we stayed close to the riverside, planning to leave for Vietnam the next morning.

The riverside in Phnom Penh is a very nice area, but not a realistic place for Cambodia, really a beautified tourist area full of nice restaurants, cafe's, hotels and bars. We spent the late afternoon and evening in this part of the city and enjoyed socializing, eating and drinking. We also arranged our trip to Vietnam through our guesthouse. We'd decided to take a slow boat that would travel mostly along the Mekong river, before turning off into some smaller waterways and finally reaching the small city of Chau Doc, Vietnam, along the banks of the Bassac river.

Our lazy trip along the rivers took the better part of the day and with the warm weather and sunny blue skys the whole experience was very pleasant. The riverside immigration was straight forward and we were made to feel very welcome into Vietnam.

Along with a small crew of two on the boat there was also another couple from London. We had initially planned to travel from Chau Doc through to Ho Chi Minh City (which the Southern Vietnamesse prefere to call by its older name, Saigon). While on the river we were chatting with the other couple and found out that they were going to spend another 2 days getting to Saigon, traveling on the rivers and spending some time staying with a family that lives along one of the tributaries. We decided that it was a nice plan and arranged to join them, this turned out to be a really great decision.

We spent one night in Chau Doc, a nice little city that bustles with riverside life, full of markets where people from all around the Mekong Delta come to sell there goods, mostly food. The people here were very friendly and it was clear that Vietnam was very different to Cambodia. It was clear that the economy was much healthier and people here enjoyed a much better standard of living than their Cambodian neighbors.

The next morning our boat navigated through a maze of rivers to get to the home we would stay at. On the way we stopped at a fish farm and a small and interesting riverside village that was made up of an entirely Muslim population of about 2000. In Vietnam the Muslims represent only about 0.5% of the population, most Vietnamese identify themselves as Buddhist (although in reality it is not so clear cut as the major religion here is actually a combination of Buddhist, Confucianist and Taoist) .

The fish farm was particularly interesting. Farmed fish represents 15% of all the fish consumed in Vietnam right now and these fish come from small family run fish farms rather than large operations. The fish live in nets underneath floating homes along the Bassac river and many of the family's began their business using government grants which are available for starting this type of business.

After a few hours on the river we arrived at the family home where we would stay, deep in the Mekong Delta. We spent a lovely afternoon playing games with the family, eating their traditional food and swimming in the river. We were something of a curiosity and many of the cousins, aunts, uncles and neighbors come by to hang about the house too. The food they made was very, very good and we felt very lucky to be able to enjoy some real home cooked Vietnamese food, delicious!

In the early evening before dinner we went out to do some fishing with the daughters of the family. We were given bamboo sticks with a piece of string tied to the end and then a homemade metal hook, I was a little skeptical as to how well this would work. We left from the house and began to follow a small trail through a lovely orange grove, the air was rich with the smell of the citrus fruit. After navigating our way across some precarious logs balanced over water ways and some serious mud we arrived at what looked like a small man made canal that ran between the orange grove and a large tree lined rice field. We then baited our hooks and started fishing and the 6 of us started pulling out fish like you wouldn't believe, the most successful of us was the 5 year old girl from the house who caught four fish in no time at all, so much for modern fishing technology. We really enjoyed our little fishing adventure and eventually made our way back to the house with a bucket of fish which we were sure would be a big hit. On the way back we ate all sorts of berries and enjoyed the smells of fresh lemon grass which we picked and rubbed between our fingers, it was all a great delight for the senses.

That night we enjoyed another great meal and chatted at length with a neighbor whose English was excellent. He told us about life in the Mekong Delta where food and fish are available in abundance. We also talked about what life was like during the Vietnam war and what the families had to do to stay alive and safe while the military boats powered their way through the rivers looking for the enemy hiding out in homes. It was a great insight into life in this part of the world and it's amazing how different it is from our own. These people are mainly farmers, they work the rich soils of the Delta, constantly battling against the water which is seemingly everywhere. This area is formed entirely from sediment of the 4500 Kilometer long Mekong river, the waters here run a rich colour of reddish brown with all the silt in it. So much silt washes down these rivers that the shoreline can be extended by as much as 79 meters in a single year. All of this makes for the great agriculture and this region produces enough rice to feed the entire population of Vietnam (84 million) and have a significant amount left over for export. They also grow many other crops.

The next day we left our family home and traveled the rivers to see floating markets near My Tho. We also stopped to visit a small business that produces rice paper and another business that produces incense for the temples that are in abundance all over Vietnam. After several hours our boat docked and we boarded a small mini bus for Saigon.

We only stayed in Saigon for two nights. It was a busy busy city and there must be enough motorbikes here for every person in Vietnam. Justin managed to get hit by a motorcyclist who was more interested in his female passenger than where he was going. Other than a tire mark on his leg he escaped without injury but the whole event made subsequent road crossings in Saigon a little scary. We didn't do too much in Saigon, just walked around a bit and enjoyed the general hustle and bustle. But we left pretty quickly anxious to hit our next stop Mui Ne beach, kitesurfing capital of South East Asia and a beautiful tropical beach area to boot.

Lots of love to family and friends, wish you were here...

The Temples of Angkor

2007-08-19T05:02:00.000Z

We left from Phnom Penh and had a short 5-6 hour bus ride up to the central Cambodian town of Siem Reap. When we arrived at the bus stop we got off the bus and were immediately swarmed by about 60 touts with tuk tuks, all aggressively trying to get us to go with them to their hotel. It was pretty crazy! They would grab our arms to get our attention, all yelling that they had the best deal in town, just trying to get to our backpacks off the bus was real work. Fortunately, for us we had pre-arranged a place to stay and our tuk tuk driver had exchanged a look and a nod with us confirming that he was there to pick us up, so he waited quietly outside the mob scene. We checked in to our hotel, had a rest and prepared our plans for an early start the next day for visiting some of the temple ruins around Siem Reap.

The next morning we woke up just before sunrise, organized some bicycles and started peddling the 8km to the first of the major temples. The quiet road wound its way lazily through the countryside and eventually opened up to reveal our first site of Angkor Wat and the massive moat that surrounds it. It is a moat that makes the castle moats of Europe look like a kid's swimming pool by comparison. We were stopped at a check point to verify our tickets, which we didn't have yet. We were so excited to start exploring these places, but that excitement was quickly squashed when we were told we would have to ride back towards Siem Reap about 5km on a different road to purchase our expensive $40, 3 day pass, urgh! We missed the sunrise on the temples as a result, but what can you do.

Once things were sorted out we eventually ended up at the temple of Bayon and it was still early enough that we had the whole place to ourselves. Bayon turned out to be a magnificent 1000 year old 3 story temple covered with carved grimacing faces everywhere you look, it was a very special place. It was surreal to have the entire temple to ourselves, which certainly enhanced the experience of exploring the many corridors, ancient bas-reliefs and of course discovering all the carved faces. This temple turned out to be the favorite of Steff's of all the temples we would visit in our three days of exploring the temples and monasteries that dotted the jungles all around Siem Reap.

The shear number and size of the ruins is what makes this area mind boggling. Our visit to this area was easily one of the highlights of our trip so far. The Angkorian period in which these temples were built spans 600 years between AD 802 and AD 1432. The more of them we saw the more apparent it became how different they all were. Roughly in the centre of the expansive ruins was the Bayon temple which would have originally sat in the middle of the city of Angkor, the capital of the Khmer empire, more than a thousand years ago that would have had over a million citizens. All of this at at a time when London would have had barely 50,000 people. To enter the city, we had to cycle through a very tall, but narrow and impressive stone gateway/city wall, which had enormous heads peering down at us. It was certainly a grand entrance, even as a ruin and since we were the only ones there so early in the morning, it left a lasting impression on us. We cycled from temple to temple through the very humide jungle, but at least while we were riding we had lovely breezes which helped cool us a little. Despite being a major tourist centre, we managed to get off the beaten track with our bikes and attempted 'off-roading' through the jungle on our rickety, almost ancient, Cambodian bikes. We were treated to discovering small makeshift Cambodian villages and even watched some men fishing in traditional fashion by throwing weighted nets into the water.

Justin's favorite temple was Ta Prohm which is undoubtedly the most atmospheric ruin at Angkor. This is due to the fact that, unlike other Angkor temples, it has been left to be swallowed up by the jungle and looks more like the way most of the temples of Angkor appeared when European explorers first stumbled upon them. The massive root systems of the jungle trees hold together much of the crumbling towers and courtyard walls which are covered in moss and lichens. The true awe of this temple is not so much the beauty of the stone work, but more the cycle of ruin, with humans first conquering nature to rapidly create and nature once again conquering humans to slowly destroy. Our 3 days exploring the temples and monuments at Angkor were truly wonderful days and certainly worth a visit when traveling in South East Asia.

After Angkor and Siem Reap, just a few kilometers West, we took an 8 hour boat trip, which left at sunrise from a small village. Our guide book described this as a lovely floating village, sounds nice. When we arrived there it turned out to be one of the poorest areas we have seen on our travels. The 'floating village' part of it was basically a few wooden homes built on empty steel drums, they were very basic. These poor families lived in temporary stilted shacks and were built, not on solid ground, but on the mud flats that extended far into the lake. These families can only live in their shacks until everything floods, once a year and then they are forced to find a home elsewhere. Some families move their shacks to dryer ground, while others move into small wooden boats, some only 5 meters long. Things felt rather desperate here and we felt slightly uncomfortable with our big backpacks and cameras in the midst of this desperate poverty.

The boat eventually set out from the 'village', completely overloaded with people and luggage, and began to make its way across the expanse of Lake Tonle Sap, a huge lake of silty brown water in the heart of Cambodia. Once we reached the other side of the lake we entered a network of rivers through rice fields and jungle, some sections barely wide enough for the boat to navigate.

After our river trip we arrived in the incredibly boring city of Battambang. There really wasn't' much to do here. Again, the guide book was really off on its description of this place as 'a city full of attractive old French colonial buildings.' Wrong! We did however enjoy a meal at a fairly nondescript restaurant on the river where actress Angelina Jolie supposedly ate during the filming of Tomb Raider. I am fairly certain that this was the most exciting and interesting thing that has ever happened in Battambang.

We left on the first bus out of there, early the next morning back to Phnom Penh.

Two new set of Photos have been posted in the Cambodian section of our Gallery for you to Enjoy. Cheers! :-)

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2007-08-07T10:00:00.000Z

We arrived a few days ago in Phnom Penh, capital city of Cambodia, a country that is the home to the temples of Angkor which are some of Asia's most spectacular temples and ruins. Cambodia is also the place where some of the most horrific crimes against humanity have occurred, and not very long ago. It is difficult to understand why the atrocities that happened under the rule of the Khmer Rouge during the later half of the 1970's took place, especially in a country where the people are so genuinely friendly and kind. Part of the experience of visiting Phnom Penh is to realize what the Cambodian people have suffered.

The last few days here in Phnom Penh have shown us the warmth of the Cambodian people, despite what they have been through. We have visited the sites of S-21, a detainment and interrogation prison set up under the Khmer Rouge, and the Killing Fields, also known as Choeung Ek, which was the genocidal extermination camp of almost 20000 Cambodians. Sadly this was only a small number of the more than 2 million people who died under the brutal regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Being here and learning about these horrible times in recent history it is hard to believe that this has happened in our life time, and to such a wonderful people.

On our first full day here we decided to visit the Killing Fields and S-21, with the hopes of gaining some understanding into why these events happened. Our day began with overcast sky's and light rain with a cool breeze, somehow appropriate for our experience that lay ahead. The killing fields, just 15Km's from the centre of Phnom Penh, was were people were taken to be executed, and then disposed of in mass graves, each containing hundreds of bodies. Under the Khmer Rouge the lives of these people were considered so meaningless that they did not even want to waste their bullets on them, so they were bludgeoned to death. Small children were sometimes just picked up and beat against the trees in an area that was once an orchard. In the Killing Fields only a portion of the mass graves have been unearthed, many human remains will stay in the ground.

As we walked around the area bits of human bone and clothing can be seen on the ground, often partially embedded in the dirt, a grim indication of what lay beneath. On the site a monument has been erected which contains the skulls of many of the victims, arranged on glass shelves according to age and sex. Strangely though, it was the pieces of clothing that we found more disturbing than the bones and skulls. I suspect this may be because the bones are somehow generic and without identity, while the clothing is a reminder of each of the victims individuality, it makes it more personal. The people who were executed on this site were transfered from the former school-turned-prison, S-21. Following our visit to the Killing Fields we came back to city to visit S-21, a site which has been preserved as a kind of museum, a solemn reminder of the darkest side of humanity which must ultimately lie within us.

S-21 is a crudely made prison, whose purpose was to interrogate and torture Cambodians who were suspected of working against a highly paranoid Khmer Rouge. The torture that happened here was a evil as one can imagine and regardless of the outcome of the interrogation many of its prisoners met their unjust end in the killing fields.

A visit to both these sites, needless to say, left us feeling pretty down and still without an understanding of any justification for what happened here. Many of the Cambodian people also cannot understand why these events happened, these were the actions of a truly evil regime. But, despite these relatively recent events, the Cambodian people remain as some of the nicest and welcoming people we have met since our travels began.

After a pretty heavy day we decided to go out to a well known local night club, the aptly named (given the local history) 'Heart of Darkness.' It was a fun night out, shakin' some bootie to a variety of disco classics and modern electronica well into the wee hour of the morning. When we arrived at the club we had a stark reminder of where we were, there was a sign at the entrance indicating that guns and knives were not welcome here, along with flip flops. Several security guards were outside to properly pat us down. Inside the club locals and tourists alike got down to some funky tracks while private body guards to some of Phnom Penh's elite stood motionless, protecting their clients. It was a good night out and a pleasant contrast to the day.

While here we have been tootling around the town, enjoying some fantastic food and certainly the best cups of coffee we have ever had, Khmer Coffee (the term 'Khmer' basically referring to 'Cambodian', not to be confused with 'Khmer Rouge') . The city is slightly chaotic and is a small, pleasant reminder of India, only fewer people, cleaner and the food is better.

The food has been very tasty and not spicy, something we were not expecting. After looking into the local cuisine a bit closer we were surprised find that much of the spicy food in Asia is due to the influence of the Portuguese in the 16th century, when they introduced the Asians to the chilly pepper. I suppose with such a small population (a mere 14 million, small by Asian standards) and the very difficult past that Cambodia has had it is not really that much of a surprise that few people hear much of Cambodian food and coffee outside of the country.

Another uniquely, although controversial, Cambodian tourist activity is paying to fire weapons selected from a virtual buffet of guns, grenades and missiles. Love it or hate it, it is a real part of what tourists can do here. After 25 years of civil war in Cambodia there is a surplus of weapons and artillery, and enterprising military personnel have created a business from the situation. So, when presented with the opportunity to check it out we agreed, more with curiosity than anything else.

We were driven out into the country and taken down a quiet dirt lane that led to a walled compound with large steel doors. A young boy, no older than 8 or 9 opened the solid gates and waved us in. Inside the compound was a long brick building with some tables outside and a small pond filled with muddy water. We sat at one of the tables, a selection of guns hung on a wall nearby. We were given the 'menu' listing what was on offer; AK47's, Tommy Guns, Grenades, Rocket launchers and Anti Aircraft guns. We were also told that we could arrange to fire a tank if we wished. Intrigued by all of this, and keen to get a few photographs, Justin decided to fire 7 rounds off on a Colt 45 hand gun. The gun was loaded and we were led inside the very dimly lit brick building, at one end was a large pile of tires and a target set up in front, the air was thick with the smell of gunpowder from the recently discharged weapons. Admittedly it was pretty exciting and the whole experience, while bizarre, was certainly unique, and this was fair from a slick and safe facility like you would imagine in Las Vegas for example. When we came out of the building we met a young British guy who, having fired a couple of different fully automatic machine guns decided to throw a grenade into the pond, this is just not your normal type of holiday activity! We were surprised when the grenade went off by the shock wave that could be felt deep in the earth below, the British guy walked away from the pond shaking but satisfied. After this surreal experience we headed back to Phnom Penh, glad that nothing went wrong and having experienced one of the more unusual sides of Asian tourism.

Krabi, Ton Sai and Rai Lay Beaches

2007-08-07T09:43:00.000Z

Following an absolutely blissful 10 days on Koh Phangan we decided to make a move for the the Krabi area on the West coast of Thailand. The trip across took about a day and involved a pick-up truck, a ferry boat, then a big bus, then a mini bus and finally a very wet and rough ride through big waves on a long tail boat. We went to Ton Sai beach, just a smidgen north of West Railay Beach. When we arrived (wet, very wet, soaked in fact) we had a look at some different bungalows and finally opted for a bit of luxury, which was nicely priced since it was low season. Instead of the usual bamboo bungalow, we treated ourselves to a modern designed bungalow complete with A/C, fridge, large balcony, big bathroom and satellite TV, what luxury! Our main motivation was, however (surprisingly), not the satellite TV, but the close proximity to the beach. The traditional style unkept bungalows were a serious trek into the jungle and the area around them had a depressed feel about them.

For those people who have been to this part of the world you will no doubt have been most impressed, not by the beaches, which are great, but by the incredible Karst rock formations. They are truly amazing! These unusual rock formations are not overly common on our planet since they require a rare mix of natural chemistry to form. These rock formations are formed in limestone and are caused by erosion, but not your usual weather based erosion. The limestone erodes into these formations from very acidic water, which happens when salt water and fresh water mix. The mixture must be exactly 97% salt water, which acts as a sort of catalyst to acidify the fresh water to just the right amount to erode the limestone. The appearance of the rock in places is like liquid (almost as though the rock has melted) and often forms stalactites like you might see in a cave. Probably some of the most impressive sights are some of the giant overhanging sections of rock that can sometimes look like a wave of rock reaching out from above. All of this stuff makes for the most interesting rock climbing we have ever seen, which is why we just had to get set up with some climbing gear and have a play on this stuff.

It is certainly no secret that this area is one of the world's most famous regions for rock climbing. There are plenty of people out on the rock which makes for a great spectator sport too, especially when climbers are on some of the more challenging routes. Around Ton Sai Beach, where we were based, there is a large selection of climbs and many of them are rated as quite difficult. A great aspect about our location was that we could sit at the beach bar or restaurant and watch people climbing virtually over our heads and at night a huge rock face that hangs above the beach was lit up and looked positively surreal.

For our climbing adventures, we decided to hit some of the easier climbing routes on other beaches and near an area called the Diamond Cave (no real diamonds in the cave mind you, just some impressive looking formations of limestone and quartz). It had been a while since we had been out climbing with ropes and gear, and did we ever feel it! We found that we tired easily and were filled with more fear than we would have liked. Mind you, some of the rock was quite sharp, which meant that even small falls could be dangerous. But it was really good to get out and do some climbing, a great way to enjoy these fabulous rock formations.

Another highlight to the area was visiting an idyllic deep lagoon that was basically a large deep hole in the rock that filled in the bottom with sea water at high tide. The hike in was pretty treacherous, but a super adventure. Some of the rock decents into the 'hole' were roped for extra safety, but the seriously slippery mud and the fact that we were in flip-flops did nothing to help the situation. When we arrived in this magical little Lagoon we treated ourselves to a swim in the shallow water. It was really nice to just float on our backs and stare up at the 360 degree rock face and hanging jungle all around us.

After a few days in the Railay/Ton Sai area we took a 15 hour overnight bus ride back to Bangkok to arrange our trip east to Cambodia. We really enjoyed our few days in Bangkok and treated ourselves to some great films at one of the cities very modern cinemas. We both got to see our first film in a fully digital cinema that uses digital projection instead of the usual celluloid projection cinema. It was really incredible quality and a nice treat for Justin since he has been reading about the technology for many years. We saw Pixar's 'Ratatouille' an animated film about a cute rat who is a great French chef. This was the perfect pairing of cutting edge digital animation and presentation, just great! We did enjoy some of the other Western treats that Bangkok has on offer, Dairy Queen and Pizza, just to name a few. I guess, thinking about it, we were probably missing home just a little bit.

Thailand has been a great place for a real vacation, very easy and uncomplicated. But we have left Thailand for now, but we will return but next time to the north, it will be interesting to see how our experience in the north compares to our travels in the south.

We left Bangkok via the airport. We had just heard one too many stories of seriously uncomfortable journy's to Cambodia overland, and decided to avoid the whole problem by flying. With a flight time of just under an hour, we were in Phnom Pehn in no time at all.

Koh Phangan

2007-07-22T06:23:00.000Z

The days are slipping by easily in our tropical paradise. Beautiful warm sunny days, enjoyed from our beach-side bungalow with a coral reef right off the rocks, Ko Phangan is a great place to be right now. We've settled into a quiet little corner of the island with a handful of stilted bungalows on the shore. Our view is straight West and each night we've had quite a show of a sunset, best enjoyed while swinging in the hammock on our deck... It's going to be tough to leave here. So we won't, at least not just yet anyway. We will be here now for almost another week, which has forced us to alter some plans for after we leave here, so that we can stay longer than expected. So, not much to tell really, just a lot of blissful relaxation.....
Oh, but we should mention the Elephants.

A couple of days ago we took a motorbike to the center of the 190 Square Kilometer island to see the Elephants. There are 9 Asian Elephants there, that are fascinating to watch. We realized that other than in Zoo situations, we've never really spent time up close with Elephants, they are amazing animals. You can tell that they are intelligent beasts, the way they use their trunks and feet (which are super cute looking things) is with some real skill. Apparently an elephant can use it's trunk to pick up everything from a small coin to a 600 pound log.

A Thai elephant experience would be complete without riding on one of these huge animals, so we arranged a ride on the back of one of the larger elephants, a 50 year old female from the North of Thailand where she worked in the logging industry, excellent training for carrying both of us on her back with a bag full of camera gear. It's pretty amazing how high up you sit on these elephants, i felt a bit like a character in some fantasy novel, exploring foreign lands on giant mythical beasts. Sadly elephants don't fly, as 'Dumbo' might suggest but none-the-less it was a great experience. Hmmm, actually now I think about it, it was a 'mostly' great experience, there was one unfortunate incident.

On our elephant ride through the jungle we had a Thai elephant driver who spent time walking along side our elephant talking to it and tugging its ears,(i think they like each other). Anyhow, after about 15 minutes on the top of our elephant our Thai guide and driver suggested that we give him the camera so he could take a picture of us on the elephant, what a great idea, I thought. I set up the camera and handed it down to him, he then took his position 10 feet or so in front of us, it looked like he might have gotten a couple of decent photo. He returned to the elephants side and got it moving up a particularly steep section of trail, meanwhile holding onto the camera. While the elephant was working to get up this steep trail our guide had decided to walk a few feet behind the elephant. Now, i am no expert on elephants, but in retrospect, when we are really straining physically it would not be unusual to pass some unexpected wind. Well, keeping in mind that an elephant can consume tones of food a day and the fact that its bowels are surely big enough to house a Thai couple and their child, maybe standing behind it was not such a great idea. So as we were climbing this steep section of trail there was a horrendous sound from the rear of our beast, i turned around to see that our guide/driver was covered in the discharge of a very wet, very large elephant fart. He was trying to wipe the elephant shit off the camera, unaware that we were watching. He held onto the camera for a bit (presumably letting the wet splotches dry in the sun and giving himself time to wipe it off some more). All i could think of was trying to explain this to Canon's service department "...yes, thats right, the substance is elephant shit. Does my warranty happen to cover this? Do many peoples cameras get damaged through elephant shit, or is this an unusual case......yes, uh huh.........I see..." this most certainly wouldn't go down well. Anyhow, all unnecessary worry in the end. Canon has apparently already considered this eventuality and it turns out that the camera is in fact shit proof. fantastic!

Lots of love to our family and friends, wish you were here!!!

Underwater Photographs Around Koh Tao

2007-07-22T06:18:00.000Z

Just a quick update here. Just before we left Koh Tao we were given a disk of underwater photos from various people on Koh Tao. We thought we would post a few for you to take a look at. We did have a few questions from some of you about some underwater shots, so here you go. I am sure that for those who enjoy the experience of Scuba, it will be nice to look at some of these shots of the divers, for us it is a real reminder of gliding along under water.

Note that these are not our pictures, but were given to us from other photographers. The link can be found under the 'Photos of Thailand' link.

15 minutes in Myanmar

2007-07-13T06:41:00.000Z

Well not much has changed here really, except that a few days ago we realized our 30 day visa for Thailand was a couple of days from expiring. We asked around about what to do, and checked out some of the 'official' resources on the matter. It turns out that the visa situation is a little bit odd and we basically told that we have to leave Thailand and then come back in to renew our visa.

Here on the island of Koh Tao some people we met have lived here for over 12 years that have been making a monthly trip out of Thailand to renew their visa (what a pain). It is sort of a strange situation, the government here makes no money from the visas since they're free, the travel agencies that sell 'visa runs' however, they make a nice little profit. We signed up for the trip to Myanmar (Burma) to reset our visa, the other popular option from here is Malaysia, but that trip takes 4 days. To add to the confusion, one can only renew a visa 3 times by crossing into a particular country, which means that every 4th month people from here will make the longer trip to Malaysia. We were given another option, but with some questionable legality. It was offered to us that we give our passports to a guy who disappears with them and returns with fresh stamps 3-4 days later, a lot of people that work here go for this option since it does not require them to take any time off work, the cost however is the same as if you personally leave the country. Using this option your passport will come back with new stamps that could be from anywhere, we heard of one guy whose passport came back indicating he had been to Cardiff, Wales and then returned to Thailand, funny! The not so funny side of this way of renewing your stamps came from a couple we chatted with whose friend ended up in an awkward situation doing this. He had given his passports to someone who would have them stamped, everything seemed fine, except that this guy got caught by the police with dozens of Farang passports (Farang is what the Thai's call foregners). The police then rounded up all the people who the passports belonged too and the Thai guy who had them and everybody ended up in jail. Most of the people who use this 'send it off and get it stamped' system are actually working in Thailand illegally. The ironic reality is that without the illegal workforce the Thai tourism industry would collapse. You see it everywhere, the majority of workers at the hotels and restaurants here for example are actually Burmese and not Thai, it is a little bit like the Polish in England for those who are familiar with that situation, only here the Burmese are not legally in Thailand. This leads to some strange situations between the local Burmese and the local police. Some people might pay the police not to be reported (and deported), others might be told they are never allowed to leave the beach they work on, and essentially become prisoners of their work. Many of these Burmese do not have passports either as it costs over 300 pounds sterling (about $640 canadian) to get a passport. Myanmar is not a country where the people have very much money and i don't think it would be out of line to suggest that the cost for a passport is more than most peoples annual income. The government there basically prevents anyone from traveling legally by making it impossible to afford a passport. Anyway, lets get back to our 'legal' situation of renewing our visa.

Two nights ago we boarded an ant infested night boat to Chomphon on the main land of Thailand. The boat had a large open area of dirty mattress' and pillows, the air was stuffy and humid and then of course there were the ants. We were the only Farang on the boat, the others mainly kept to themselves paying no attention to us (which has been the case with most Thai's so far, unless they are trying to get money from you, ironic since Thailand is supposed to be the 'land of smiles,' but this is another story entirely and our opinion on this will be best left until we are finished with this country and have a more rounded opinion of Thai people as a whole). The boat rolled over the waves for about 6 hours, fortuantely Steff had gobbled down a couple of effective motion sickness pills. We arrived in Chomphon port at about 4am. We stayed on the boat until a small van pulled up near the boat, it was still dark and there was an eerie quiet in the port, we were the only ones around. The van sped off, picked up a few others and we made our way across the width of the Southern peninsula of Thailand to a place called Ranong. We went to a small office, got stamped 'out of Thailand' and then got back in the van where we driven to a small gurney alley between some buildings. We were told to hand over our passports and some money ($10 US each) and then walk down the alleyway, one of the girls in our van voiced her suspicion and was basically just told to do what she was told (we had remembered from our travel agent, who organized the trip, that she had informed us to just do exactly as we were told). The alleyway ended up at a small pier behind the buildings and our passports were handed to a totally baked teenager sporting a giant pot leaf on a satchel which he loaded our passports and money into and told us to follow him, the girl who was already visibly uncomfortable once again started asking questions, we told her to relax and go with it. Our boat steamed off into the large inlet from the Andaman sea and made the choppy 20 minute journey across to Myanmar. We got off and everything went fine. We got stamped in and out of Burma and were given 15 minutes in the town. We were offered a plethora of pharmaceutical drugs, you name it, they can sell it to you, and all this before we left the immigration office. Outside the immigration the closest shop, just past a large sign that reads "Let us all cooperate for the eradication of narcotic drugs", is a drug store, with a few more punters hanging about, truly astonished that we had no appetite for at least some Vallium. We had a quick walk around the town, the people seemed very open and genuinely friendly, much more so than Thailand. It was more run down, definitely poorer, but in a strange way we felt very comfortable, it reminded us a little more of India.

After our flirt with Myanmar we headed back to the boat and did the whole trip in reverse. So, after 17 hours we were are back on Koa Tao, 2 motorcycle rides, 4 boat trips and 2 van rides later, all for a little dated stamp in the passport(!). We are finally getting ready to make our next move. We are thoroughly relaxed now having spent 3 weeks in our little bungalow, it has been nice to stay put for a while, get to know people, figure out all the best restaurants and do some work. Yes, belive it or not we have been chompoing through a bunch of work while we have been here too, which has been good. The last thing we want to do here is a stock photo shoot with a girl we met who should be perfect for what we have in mind. Because the weather has been very poor we have two sets of shots to work on, one set for good weather and one set for poor weather, my guess is that we will end up doing the poor weather shots. But once we that is finished we will be off to the next location...

... Lots of love to all our family and friends, we are thinking of you! xox

Still on Koh Tao Island

2007-07-05T15:05:00.000Z

Well we are still enjoying the slow pace of island life here on Koh Tao. We've spent plenty of time underwater, which has been great. It has been really nice to get out diving again, that feeling of weightlessness as you glide through the alien under water world, its like visiting another planet, right here on earth. So far we have done six varied dives, all within an hour of the island by boat.

Some of the highlights on the dives have been swimming through short underwater caves, hanging out with the huge range of colorful fish and coral, sometimes on reefs or in a field of life covered boulders, and other times swimming around giant pinnacles of rock (usually granite) that push up from the ocean floor. We also saw a larger shark on a dive this morning to Chumphon Pinnacles, pretty amazing.

Chumphon is full of life, it's pinnacles reach as high as 14 meters below the surface of the water. The location is 11km out from the island in fairly deep water, the site is teaming with schools of fish. We were greeted on our decent by a school of bat fish, each the size of a large dinner plate. They were totally unconcerned about the 5 of us bubble blowers descending, i assumed they were the pinnacles welcoming comity, funnily enough they were waiting for us at the end of the dive too. The big highlight of the dive was our shark encounter, we figured him to be about 3 meters long, he was a beauty. We were at a comfortable distance and he didn't seem to interested in us, which might be a good thing. We have actually been told that the sharks are quite scared of the bubbles we blow out, its crazy that these sleek underwater hunters are scared of a few bubbles! the rest of the dive we saw the greatest concentration of see anemones, along with their resident matching coloured fish, that we have seen yet. The nicest looking residents are the clown fish, each with its own anemones. We saw a cute family of clown fish today, mom, dad and a little one, all hanging out in their anemone. Just to mention, if you are not sure of what the clown fish look like, just think of the movie ' Finding Nemo.'

Anyway, so the diving is really nice, i will hold off on giving a description of each dive however, in order to preserve your sanity and consciousness. We have been out and done a few great snorkel trips, that has also been really nice. We decided to pick up some basic snorkel gear as it will be useful now for the remainder of our trip. So what else have we been doing? Relaxing, a lot. Reading books, enjoying a bit of meditation and of course eating. The food is still excellent and our bodies seem to be cruising along without any food caused illness, which is fantastic. And thats about all for now. Unfortunately we will be uprooting from here soon, but only to another warm tropical island, so i am sure we will be just fine.

Also we have added a few new pictures into our Thailand gallery, located in the link top right of this page.

Lots of love to all our family and friends...

Storms, Sharks and Sunburns...

2007-06-29T04:18:00.000Z

Well, we are still on Koh Tao here in Thailand. We are enjoying relaxing, eating and snorkeling, Our bungalow has been great, the weather however, well that is another story.

As i am writing this to you now, Steff is reading using a head lamp and i am sitting illuminated by the laptop screen, the only other signs of light are intense flashes of lightning outside the window. We did have a bit of a wind storm, which is now being followed by a thunder storm with some spectacular lightning and unpredictable fits of rain. Anyhow, the wind storm uprooted a full sized palm tree a couple of hundred feet from our bungalow and dropped it down on the power lines leading to us. So the power is going to be out for a while. Mind you, the nice folks at the front desk supplied us with a lantern, which on the way up to the bungalow leaked fuel all over me, interesting. I am scared to light it, certain it will burst into flames shattering its delicate glass all over the deck and turning the bungalow into a burning inferno of holiday nightmares.

Since i am on a bit of a 'negative-nellie' rant at the moment i should tell you about my snorkeling experience yesterday. Steff decided to stay at the bungalow and do some work on putting together our new portfolio for the wedding biz, i decided to go out for a snorkel. I walked down to the water and then hopped in for a great little snorkel session where i saw lots of different types of coral and fish, the visibility was ok but not great, due to another severe storm we had yesterday. When i returned to the rocks i set off from i found that someone had stolen my flip-flops and t-shirt! What is the world coming too when people are stealing your 2 year old flip-flops?

We did have a great day today though. We went and cruised around the island a bit on the off road motorcycle that we've rented, that was great on some of the steep, rutted, and occasionally washed out dirt roads. We spent a couple of hours this afternoon snorkeling in Shark Bay, which very happily lived up to its name, we swam with a shark! Ok, he was a small guy, maybe only a little more than 2 feet long, but he was very cool. He was pretty interested in us too, he swam about 5-6 feet from Steff and then circled around us a few times. He was the highlight to a truly spectacular snorkel. We have been left with more than just a great memory of the day though, Steff has a spectacular sunburn on her entire back side, from head to toe, despite lathering on copious amounts of sunscreen! You may be somewhat familiar with the notorious fake products coming out of Asia, well we are now fairly certain that our Banana Boat 30spf sunscreen is not actually real, the packaging is however, very convincing.

Tonight was supposed to be a good night out with some friends we met; a good meal up on Sairee beach followed by drinks and hopefully dancing at a bar that has a DJ spinning house music, but it's all become a wash out. Not to worry, we can hang out here, in the bungalow with no power, maybe for a bit of entertainment we can light up the lantern and see what happens, perhaps the fire dancers (usually out on the beach when its dry) staying somewhere across the bay from us can watch in envy at our very own pyrotechnic display.

Thats all for now, lots of love to our family and friends. And don't worry, we've been told that the monsoons don't hit this side of Thailand(!)

Koh Tao, Thailand

2007-06-24T14:25:00.000Z

Ahhhh, Paradise!!! We have finally arrived at the beach with our cute beach bungalow on a quiet little bay at the south end of the island of Koh Tao. The picture above is the view from our bungalow which is raised up over the beach. It really is lovely, pretty much perfect, well almost...

What you can't see in the photograph is the ANTS! Argh! We spent about 4 hours this morning clearing out thousands of little red ants (with black bums) that were swarming through our backpacks and clothes. We finally got rid of most of them and then talked to the guy at the front desk who came in to our bungalow and nuked them with some seriously toxic spray. Anyhow, that was about 10 hours ago and we are happy to report that all is well, no ants, in fact no bugs at all. Hmmmm.

So, we are just getting our selves settled in here and slowing down to an island pace. We have been looking around for some snorkeling gear to go out and explore some of the many reefs around the island. The island is surrounded by dozens of dive spots. We read a fact that states 40 percent of the worlds divers now get certified on Koh Tao, hard to believe seeing the size of this 21 square Km paradise. Starting on tuesday we will go out and do some proper diving, beginning with a dive spot called the South West Pinnacles. The dive begins with a decent to 35 meters and then you slowly climb up while you swim around the pinnacle of your choice. The peaks of the pinnacles sit just 5 meters below the water. It sounds like there are plenty of great things to see in the water, we are keeping our fingers crossed to see one of the whale sharks (that thankfully prefer plankton to people), and they can grow up to 12 meters long! Steff is a little less excited about seeing one than i am, she is a bit more interested in the clown fish (the 'Finding Nemo' type fish). Hee hee!!

Well that is our quick update, we will post some photos of the island once we get a few together. In the meantime we will be kicking back, taking it easy and enjoying life on the beach...

...Lots of love to all our family and friends and we hope that you are all ding well. Justin and Steff oOo