As mentioned, we started off in Wroclaw, at my Grandmas.

A tribute to my deceased uncles at Grandmas, both passed at a very young age. My grandma and all relatives say that i remind them of my Uncles.

Kitchen table at Grandmas, many excellent meals were eaten here

One of many gothic churches in Poland

We visited tourist sites of the city, the architecture and overall lifestyle here is a lot different than in Canada. We came from Asia wearing t-shirts and shorts, over here everyone was dressed up nicely wearing leather jackets, jeans, nice shoes. We felt really out of place.

Burial for one of the deceased kings

The park where i would feed swans as a kid by Babcias. I remember it very well.

Visiting with Grandparents

After spending a couple of days in Wroclaw, we decided to go an visit some of the cities further south. We decided to go to Krakow first (old Capital city with a fortress), once there we would be able to visit the famous Auschwitz death camps, and the Wieliczka salt mines.

Me enjoying a pretzel on the way to main square in Krakow

Famous church in the main square in Krakow

The polish eagle

Candice posing

Posing by the smok Wawelski (Wawel dragon).

The tale of the smok Wawelski is very popular and tells the story of people in the town of Krakow and their battle with the dragon. The king hired the best knights to kill the beast but no one would be able to defeat the dragon, it would always be eating the towns livestock… Then one day, a clever sheppard killed one of his own sheep and filled its stomach and insides with match heads. He left the sheep outside the dragons lair, and the dragon fell for the trap and ate the booby trapped sheep and combusted from the inside out.

  In one of the towers in the city a soldier plays the trumpet (?) every hour. The tune cuts out sharply to replicate the sound when a soldier in the past was hit with an arrow through his throat while giving the warning signal.

The following day we went to the famous Wieliczka salt mine, back in the old days, salt was used as currency as it was the only way to preserve food. The kings had a monopoly of the salt mines, and this one was one of the biggest in eastern europe. Inside there is an entire church made out of salt, everything from the tiles to statues and the roof.

Walking through the tunnels

Old gear/ pulley system used to transport salt. Horses would live down here indefinitely.

Another beautiful Asian Sunset as we arrived on our island, Dom Det

The view from our breakfast table the following day

On day, we rented push bikes (they were on the verge of falling apart, especially on the terribly rocky roads, but that was just part of the adventure), and explored two of the connected islands.  We also hired a guy with a boat and headed out to go look for the Irrawaddy Dolphins, one of the rarest dolphin species in the world, of which we spotted quite a few.  Good day!

A waterfall we came across on our bike ride

Tom and I enjoying our boat ride!  It was so hot, so the breeze on the water was much appreciated!!

 Our guide.  He didn’t speak any English, but we managed to understand each other well enough

This isn’t our picture (we weren’t able to catch them on film), but here’s a pic from the internet of the dolphins there.  Pretty cool to be able to see!

Our time on Dom Det ended quickly, and soon we found ourselves on a bus again, heading for Vientiane, the capital of Laos.  The plan was to explore the capital for a day, but when we arrived, we were both like, meh, let’s keep going.  So we hopped on another bus, and headed up to Vang Vieng.  But side note: our last day in Dom Det marked the first day of the Laos New Year (they celebrate over three days) which consists of a lot of partying, drinking, and a massive, three day water fight!  Kids would line up along the side of the road with hoses, water guns and massive buckets of water to soak any hopeless passerby.  Tom and I were basically soaked for three days straight, haha (usually it was great, because of the heat, but not so much fun when you’re dripping wet on a bus…).  Once or twice we fought back, taking over our own bucket, but most of the time, we just took what we got, and would get a beer out of the deal, lol.  We meant to buy some water guns, but never got around to it!  Anyway, it was a fun, happy time in Laos.

Tom, dripping wet after one of many attacks.  They also sometimes get you afterwards with some talc powder (take a closer look at tom’s cheeks)

Now Vang Vieng is this backpacker town famous for the party tubing it provides.  As you float down the river, you have these bars along the side, beckoning you in with free shots, and throwing a rope out to you to drag you in.  Quite fun!  We also stayed in this beautiful guesthouse for a pricey 50,000 kip (the equivalent of like $6).  Good times!

Me drifting towards one of the many river side bars

Beautiful backdrop

Our sweet tubes!  (we were  too cheap to pay for the real ones – they were more expensive to rent than one night lodging!! plus a huge deposit!)

Free shots!

I had originally planned to head more north from Vang Vieng, and then cross over to Thailand up there, but while in Vang Vieng, I took a closer look at the guide book and found that the trip to Chang Mai in Thailand through the route I had originally planned would take way too long (There aren’t any roads up there, so you have to take a slow multi-day ride down a river to the border).  So, sadly, we ended up having to turn around and end our time in Laos, and start the journey to our next destination, Chang Mai.

Chang Mai is the main city of Northern Thailand, and a big tourist destination for all the different trekking activities, elephant riding, animal encounters, etc.  It always sounded so great that I was worried it wouldn’t live up to the hype, but I can gladly report that, for us at least, it did and more.  We had a blast in Chang Mai.  And since it was our last major stop in Asia, we decided to go all out, and do whatever caught our eye!

We arrived in Chang Mai late morning, and checked in to this fantastic guesthouse called Julies, that had huge socializing areas for backpackers, trendy music, great staff, and they recommended and booked tours for their guests with fair prices.  I usually don’t dwell on the guesthouses, but we were just so impressed!  Here’s tom playing some free pool there.

After settling in to our rooms, we ended up renting a scooter so we could tour ourselves around Chang Mai (it’s hard to pass up $5 to rent a scooter for 24 hours!!).  Our first stop was this place called Tiger Kingdom, where they raise tigers from infancy, and then let tourists go inside the cages and play with them!  We had heard positive reviews from various backpackers around Asia, so we were pretty excited to give it a go!  We had the option to play with the baby tigers, but it was double the price for half the time, so we decided to go for the big guys!  It was such a cool experience!  They were massive, and could rip us apart if they wanted, but they just chilled, and let us pet them and cuddle them.  They were just big puddy cats!  And so soft!  Anyway, here’s some pics!

After playing with the tigers, we stopped at a lake on the way back to Chang Mai.  It was really beautiful there, and cool in the fact that we never saw any tourists, only Thai people, enjoying the lake and playing in the water.  It was refreshing to see, but because of that I opted not to go swimming so I didn’t offend anyone (Thai people are very modest, and swim in their clothes, and bathing suits are considered way to revealing).

Our sweet scooter

 More paradise

Now, our new German friends from Siem Reap were supposed to be in Chang Mai the same time we were, but it was quite difficult to meet up with people when neither of you have a phone, have limited internet access, and are each busy doing your own activities.  Fortunately, the next day, we ran into them eating breakfast at our guesthouse (they were staying there too!)  And funny enough, they had the exact same plan as we did: scootering to the top of the mountain to check out the famous temple Doi Suthep.   The trip up the mountain ended up so much fun: the five of us dodging through the madness of Chang Mai streets, then following the twisty roads up the mountain together!  Very fun.  I think tom and I enjoyed the trip to the temple more than the temple (not to belittle the temple, which was very beautiful).

  Tom proudly sporting my sunglasses!

Dusan, Stephanie and Peter sharing the road with us (the other two of the original group were off training elephants)

One of the many smaller temples on Doi Suthep

Beautiful golden buddahs

The inside of the main temple (unfortunately it was under construction)

Sadly, our new found friends were heading back to Bangkok to catch their flight the following day.  So it was a quick visit, but pretty cool to run into everyone again!

The next day, Tom and I did one of the things I was most excited about in northern Thailand: we played with elephants for a day!  We joined one of the elephant mahout training programs, which taught you how to take care of an elephant that is “yours” for the day.  Now, I was really worried about this program, because of all the tails of elephant abuse you hear, but I really wanted to give riding elephants a try… i really hope we weren’t fooled and supported something bad, but as far as I could tell, everyone was well taken care of where we went.  The guides gave us sticks to control our elephants, but you only place the stick in various places, kind of like reins on a horse, not using all that much pressure that would hurt them (it wouldn’t even hurt a person, let alone an elephant).  And the guides didn’t even use sticks, they controlled the elephants with voice and knees (it’s impressive to see the control they have over these towering giants with just the power of their voice).  They were also still teaching a younger spunky elephant (she was 18 compared to the others 40-50 years).  It was so funny to watch!  They were trying to teach her to lift them up, but she just kept on dropping them, and being like ‘what the smack are you crazy little men doing’.  Anyway, no violence there, and tourists are there 24-7 (people in longer programs live there), so I think it’s safe to say the elephants at the Jumbo elephant camp are well taken care of.

Anyway, more about our experience!!  So, first off the four of us in our group were taught the basic voice commands for starting, stopping, backing up and turning.  Then, we went to meet our first elephant, and feed her a ton of bananas (maybe not quite a ton, but being these elephants eat 250kg/day, we fed her quite a bit!).  Then it was up on her back to see if we remembered the commands we were taught!  So much fun!  Haha, I had trouble getting onto her though (she lifts her leg up, and you have to step up on her knee, then scramble up onto her neck… I was so preoccupied with the thought of her putting her foot back down onto my foot, that I didn’t get too far up at first haha).  Anyway, after we each took her on a couple figure eights multiple times, it was time for lunch already! Morning flew by! 

  The first elephant we met, Diamon, getting her bananas!

Anyway, after a break, we each got introduced to the elephant we were going to be riding through the jungle, then hopped on and took them for a drink at the watering hole (i think my elephant sprayed me more than she drank – I was soaked by the time we started away, lol)

Me and my elephant, Kung Po, on the far right, and Tom and his elephant on the far left

Then we were off on our jungle trek!  It’s amazing the steep, rocky hills that these elephants can maneuver!  They climbed over boulders the size of me with no problems!  They moved very slow of course, but it was still impressive.  And whenever huge tree branches were blocking our path, a guide hopped on tom’s elephant with him, and got her to clear the path with her trunk.  Really cool.  I’m not going to lie though, towards the end of the hike, I was more than ready to get off of Kung Po!!  (my legs were on fire!)

Then, after all that walking, it was time to bath our elephants!!  Armed with our buckets and brushes, we hopped into the water with our elephants, giving them scrubbing them, dosing them with water, and giving them messages.  Haha, so fun!

What an amazing day!  We also planted sugar cane for our elephants, and then went to a elephant dung paper factory (yes, they actually made paper out of poo!).

After gobbling down some food (we were starving after such a day), we decided to stretch out our aching legs and go for a temple walk around Chang Mai.  Then it was an early night!  I think we were both asleep before our heads hit the pillow! 

The following day we were catching a night bus to Bangkok, but we still had time for one more thing: cooking course!  Maybe not as exciting as training elephants or hugging tigers, but I really wanted to learn the secrets of making this delicious food we’d been consuming for some time now.  And I’m so glad we did, because we had a blast!  Our instructor, Meow (as she says, like the cat) was one of the funniest people I ever met (she had us all in stitches so many times), and an amazing cook to boot!  We first went to the markets, got introduced to the various different ingredients (some more scary than others… the scary ones weren’t on the menu for us today though, because, as Meow says, we have stomachs like babies, which I’m sure any backpacker in Asia can attest to… oh the food poisoning stories).  Then it was off to her cooking school, where we made so many different dishes (I was permanently stuffed, but it was all so good!)  Very good day.  Unfortunately ended not the best, as the bus to Bangkok was probably the most sweaty, uncomfortable ones yet, but oh well, that’s what you get for 300 baht for a 12 hour bus ride (the equivalent of $10)

Thai Chilies!

Our beautiful fruit carving

Playing with fire!

Me cooking yummy food

Whoosh!!  Definitely not something to try at home!

Well, that’s about the end of our adventures in Asia.  We went back to Bangkok to pick up our sweet tailored suits, then caught a train to KL, so most of the last few days have been travelling south so we can catch our flight.  We arrived into KL a couple days early, so have been taking it easy, and shopping shopping shopping!  We’re having way too much fun bartering with the guys on Petaling St, where all the rip-off brand name goods are sold in the streets.  Tomorrow (April 28) we fly to London, then are off to Wroclaw to visit Tom’s family.  Anyway, we had an amazing time in Asia, and are sad to be leaving, as we feel were rushed the whole time and missed so much!  Oh well, there’s always next trip (whose in??)

Alright, well, this blog was probably way too long, and I’ve probably bored you all enough!  I hope this blog finds you all well!!  One good thing about Asia being over, is it means only one more month till we see our friends and family back home again!  We miss you guys, and hope you haven’t forgotten about us!!  And I am officially declaring wings night, June 2 in Edmonton, place TBD – but be there, or be square!!

Luv Tom & Candice

All right, i just read Candice’s last blog and thought it was great, so hopefully you guys enjoyed it as well. We are still behind on the blog entries, we are in Chang Mai right now and its April 20th, but hopefully we can catch up a bit more with this entry. We are in our cozy little guesthouse right now, and i am feeling pretty energetic so hopefully we can get lots in. Ok here we go!

Scam bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap:

We decided to leave Bangkok on the 8th, got our bus ticket booked to Siem Reap which should be a piece of cake getting across the border into Cambodia, and then… we read in the guide book not to book the “Scam” bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap. Too late!

Basically what ended up happening is that the bus came late, air con was not working, and they crammed a whole bunch of people on the bus to head towards the border. The whole point of the scam is to make the ride/process of getting your visa into Cambodia as long and miserable as possible so that you just ^%$# it and pay and agree to there “deals” on getting it faster. Now instead of driving to the border, letting everyone off and letting them get there passports stamped/pay direct to the border to get your visa, they drop you off at some restaurant 10 km from the border. They then make up some bs that you can pay 1200 baht to get “VIP” minibus to the border to take care of your visa for you. Some people fell for it and paid, and were taken on the shuttle while we had to wait for them. (Immediately it doesn’t make sense because sure they might get there visa first, but the stupid shuttle has to come back to this point and they have to wait for the rest of the people to get there visa anyway). The “bus guide” would pick of single people one by one and convince them, but me and Candice and a group of about 10 other travelers decided to stick together and fight the scam. We became pretty rude, and very direct in that we wanted to go straight to the border. Within 5 min, he got us on a shuttle to go to the border.

So we drive to the border and i can actually see the border, and then the shuttle turns left right before it and goes down this street towards a restaurant. The guy says he knows a “police officer” who will do our visas for us for a special price. Right away, alarm bells are going off in all our heads and we tell the guy no way. His friend comes in plain clothes and shows us some piece of paper, clearly printed with a home printer and laminated, which is supposed to be his ID. He tells us we can get our visas for 800 baht (hmm 400 cheaper already than what the VIP people paid). We knew the real cost is $20 US, which should be about 650 baht, and we didn’t trust the authenticity of this guy so we ended up harassing our guide to take us direct to the border so we can do it there. Long story short, we got to the border and waited in line, and actually seen the VIP guys right in front of us (sucks for them), got our visa’s and went to board the bus with our very upset guide since he has made no commission. Finally he attempts a deal, he tells us that we can get our accommodation, tuk tuk ride there, all for 100 baht each ($3). At this point we are pretty tired, pissed off, and are most likely aware this is another scam, but we decide to take his deal. It ended up being legitimate and we stayed at a very nice and fancy place for less than 3 dollars. Point of the story, if you are heading to Cambodia from Bangkok, do not book the “Direct” bus to Siem Reap. Once we got unpacked, our new friend group decided to go out for drinks and supper, so we did and had a great night.

Our new friends, the survivors of the Siem Reap scam bus!

Note to Ola (hopefully you read this): You might want to make sure that your Adam is real and that he is not somewhere in Asia. Guy on the right, in the back with yellow shirt, sure looks a lot like Adam. refer to pictures below also.

Temples at/around Angkor Wat:

Now probably the most important tourist attraction to the city of Siem Reap, are the many ancient ruins and temples such as the famous Angkor Wat temple. They are about 5 km from the city and cover probably around 100 sq km of jungle and various temples and ruins. You can bike around or ride in a Tuk Tuk like we did

Please don’t mind the many pictures, we took hundreds of them, so enjoy.

Me and Candice in the back of a Tuk Tuk (for those that dont know what a Tuk Tuk is, imagine a wagon with seats in the back which is pulled by a scooter. It is good for short distances, basically like a taxi)

Up at sunrise to see the Angor Wat temple

Sun rising behind Angkor Wat

Some detailed carvings on the walls of the many temples. Many portraying animals, elephants, monkeys, people in war, tigers, etc…

Entire walls that go on and on filled with detailed carvings

Another ruined temple near Angkor

 

The top peak of the building in the previous picture. You climb many segments of extremely steep steps, if you fall you will fall far and hard and probably die.

The steps are too small for your feet, you have to walk up sideways. Very steep segments one after another to very tall top.

View of side of Tuk Tuk about to go through the “gates of hell”

ps. they are not actually called gates of hell, i just joke. They just lead to another temple.

Another temple

   

Another temple / ruin

More Temples!

        

Walking towards the jungle temple

  

Inside the doorways

 

One of the posts of Angkor

   

Inside walls of Angkor gates

  

Another temple

At many of the temples, because it is a tourist spot, there are these really really young kids that follow you around at the entrance and beg for you to buy their goods. They are really good at it, and pretty annoying, and we know they are probably hired by their parents to do it….This one girl in particular got me to buy some of her postcards “Sir please just one dollar. Sir please buy post cards, you can see temple and history and very nice. Sir please just one dollar x 10.” It was the same as the other children but then she said something like “if i get some dollar then maybe i can go to school”, and she just made this sad face. Damn it, i gave in, she was too cute and what she said is probably a lie or part of the act but i bought stuff from her. Then the other kids seen i bought something so i had a swarm of like 5 kids following me around for several minutes…. Its hard with the kids. Anyways, here is more pics.

   

Another shot of Angkor

I apologize for the many pictures, and most are probably not even the good ones. I just randomly selected a whole bunch, but its good enough to give you the idea. It is very cool and was really interesting going through the many temples. Just to give you an idea, most of the temples are from the 9th century. A lot of the damage done to the temples is due to erosion and weather, acid rain, etc..the other types of damage, mostly on statues of warriors/tigers etc are result of invasions and war.

Towards the end of our first night visiting the temples, our Tuk Tuk driver said that he will take us for free drinks and free food. Right away our alarm bells are going off and we are thinking, damn it another scam coming. We told him no thanks and went to go see another temple. After the temple he asked again if we would like to go for free drinks and food to celebrate the new year with him. We were hesitant, but we repeatedly asked and made an understanding that we are not paying anything or buying anything from wherever we are going (drivers get commission when they take you places and you buy goods, the store person secretly raises the price on you to pay for them). Anyway, we decided to go and it ended up being totally legit. He was just being a friendly guest and wanted for us foreigners to experience what New Years is celebrated like in Cambodia with his family and friends. We got beer and beer after beers for free, tons and tons of really amazing food, and like he promised it was all free. We felt bad and insisted on paying, but they would not take any money. We had an amazing night, and all of us including our friends from the scam bus got invited out.

 

Mr. Crazy Bean, myself and Candice, our Tuk Tuk driver, and one of his friends at the bottom (Mr. Bean seemed to really like Me and Candice in particular, he filled our beer glass the most out of everyone)

Our German friends, Ola look at Adam in the middle with a cigarette!

Cheers to a wicked night celebrating with the locals and there friends!

On our last day in Siem Reap, we decided to go visit the “floating village”, which to us at first, sounded like it was going to be a really nice and pleasant touristy experience. When we got there and paid for the boat ride to the village, our captain informed us that the floating village is the poorest place in the city, because people cant even afford land so they have make shift houses that float on a lake. The view from a far looks pretty impressive, but when you get up close it shows a whole different story.

View of beautiful floating village, only beautiful when the shadows cover up the truth

Up closer, you see the true side of it. This is more of a real Cambodia which you don’t get to see when you are in the nice city of Siem Reap. Most of Cambodia is extremely poor, so although we were disappointed this didnt turn out to be some amazing touring spot, we got to see a bit more realistic and harsh look into how some people live and it made it worth it.

A floating shack which a family consisting of up to 10 people would call a home. Many cant afford drinking water, so they drink from the lake which is nasty. There is diesel, human waste, and lots of other nasty stuff in it. Then they get sick…

One of the floating shacks has alligators which they grow for some leather probably to make some money. They eat whatever is left over.

Some random girl walking around with a half dead snake asking for some donations

Lots and lots of poor kids live here

While we continued our tour of the floating village, our captain asked, well more like insisted, that we go to the market to buy some notebooks and pencils for kids. He told us that school is free, but most kids cant afford notebooks to write in or pencils to write with. We thought this probably is a scam, and it could have been, but me and Candice decided to spend $20 and buy a big stack of notebooks and stacks of pencils for the kids. We then got to go visit the school and drop off the supplies to the teacher, it was a real small school. We just hope that goods we bought are legitimate and actually are given to the kids…

That concluded our last night in Siem Reap, and we decided that we would make our way up into the country, Laos. If we had more time, we would have loved to go to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, and look at all the museums and learn more about the history. For those that don’t know much about Cambodia, here is a bit of information from what i have learnt from the locals and a book i just read recently “First they killed my father”.

Cambodia is probably one of the poorest Asian countries because of its very horrific and very recent history. In 1975, a group of radicals called the “Khmer Rouge”, basically took over the entire country and for the next 5 years would perform an almost ethnic cleansing. The group was formed by mainly rural people who felt Cambodia had been infected by western influence, and they wanted to restart the country. Anyone with any education, doctors, scientists, teachers, politicians, or anyone that lived in any city, was basically killed off either in torture cells, worked as slaves on farms, or executed some other way. They wanted people to live like in the old days, so people that grew up and lived on farms were given superior status and for the most part, safe from being killed off. It was really terrible, and somehow, thought i cannot be free from judgment, nobody really knows about it.

Now before i continue on with the blog, i would like to take a little side step. Those reading the blog probably have a bad impression and it seems like everywhere you go and everyone you talk to is trying to scam you or something in Asia. I will just say that yes, there are lots of people and scams and ways you can get ripped of in Asia. Most of the time thought, it is over something like 1 or 2 dollars though. And one other thing too, the only places you really are in “danger” of being scammed, is just at the big tourist spots like Bangkok, Siem Reap, or other major hot spots. If you go a bit away, maybe even a couple blocks away from the big popular destinations you get a totally different perspective. The real people, the ones that don’t work in these tourist trap spots, are very very polite, courteous, honest, and would never try to cheat you. They are so generous, we have met so many people that would offer us things even thought they probably barely could afford it. Many times we had little girls or ladies from shops chase us down the street to give us back 1 baht, or 1 kip (less than one penny) which was our change from a transaction that we didnt bother taking. That party in new years, we probably drank and ate over 100 dollars worth, about 3 months of work for these people, and they would not even accept a single dollar for it all. Anywhere you go I’m sure, whether its some popular street in New York, Paris, or wherever, i am sure there will be the same type of people and same type of scams waiting there for you too. So hopefully nobody has been given the wrong impression about Asia, it really is a wicked place to visit.

Ok, back to the blog. So we caught a bus and started heading into Laos, which we have been told to be the most relaxing of countries to visit. The guide book makes a funny comparison, i thought i would throw it here for jokes:

“If travelling in countries was like a tuk tuk driver, the Thai one would drive you around from shop to shop hoping for you to buy something before getting to your destination, the Vietnamese would probably try to drive you over, and the Lao driver you would probably have to wake up and convince him to do some work to get you somewhere”

It goes something like that, i thought it was funny because for the most part, it is kind of true. Well unfortunately it is April 20th, and it is 10:49 pm right now, and i am starting to get sleepy. We were on a bus all night last night, so it is starting to hit me… I think i will end here, and hopefully we can post this online soon, and maybe Candice will continue over for Laos and maybe we will catch up to the current day. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it, let us know if they are too long and we will cut them down.

 

Take care!

Tom (& Candice, but she is already sleeping)

Miss everyone!!!! We really do keep on talking about things we will do/ppl we want to visit with, etc once we get back to Canada. We miss it! We also really miss everyone we know in Australia too though!!!

April 5 to 8 – Koh Phi Phi Don

So, morning of April 5 we hopped on a ferry ride that took us up to Koh Phi Phi.  It was a very beautiful trip through the Islands of Thailand, but it got a bit long towards the end so we were quite excited when we saw the lights of Koh Phi Phi shinning in the distance.  Here’s some pics of the ferry ride:

Me sporting my brand new “Gucci” sunglasses.  Haha, they even bothered to stamp it with a “Made in Italy” label

Not even sure what Island this was, but it was pretty!

Tom,with his fancy “Oklies” (which sadly broke later on the trip due to a head hitting/person not looking where they are walking/sunglasses underfoot incident)

Pretty picture No. 1

Pretty Picture No. 2

Now, on the ferry, we were like the last two people on for a good 2 hours or so.  Some of the Thai guys started talking with us, one in particular with better English.  We were asking him about Thai food and stuff, and he offered to go out for food when we got to Koh Phi Phi.  We thought that would be pretty sweet, because we figured he’d show us the good things to try… but when we got to the island, we of course had to find accommodation first to put our bags down, and of course he wanted to show us the best place to go (alarm bells ringing for anyone whose travelled in asia yet??).  Anyway, because we were talking to him for so long, tom and i both didn’t know if he was a scammer, or just genuinely nice, but sadly soon found out that he was just trying to scam us for money.  Anyplace we went to with him, we had to place an extra few hundred baht, because the owner has to pay him for taking us there.  Disappointing, but oh well, we told him to get lost, and found a cute little guest house with the nicest lady who owned the place, and best of all, kittens!!

They were so cute, they kept on running into our rooms to play, and the owners kept on apologizing, and dragging them out, but next thing you’d know, they’d be back!  Which, or course, tom and I encouraged by using a nice little piece of string, hehe.  Anyway, enough about kittens, and more about Koh Phi Phi!  After having a quick shower, and ditching our bags, we headed out for a late supper, and then toward the beach, where the bars were.  On the way there, there were these girls handing out a bunch of flyers.  Each bar gives out free “buckets” (imagine a sand-bucket type thing you used to play with as a kid, with ice, some coke, and a bunch of alcohol), at different times!  SCORE!  So tom and I went place to place drinking our buckets, didn’t have to spend a baht, and watched the guys performing their fire show on the beach (i guess we did spend money tipping them, but that was about it.  solid night!).

Tom lovin’ his free bucket!

These guys were crazy good with all this stuff, and very entertaining to watch dance.  There were also some fire games, which were sooo dangerous when inebriated (apparently the biggest injury for tourists on Koh Phi Phi is fire burns).  There was fire skip rope, fire limbo, and jumping through a burning ring of fire.  Entertaining to watch, but we saw a number of people that will be hurting the next day!!

The next day, we had a nice, quiet morning enjoying the tropical paradise, then we went on a snorkeling trip around Koh Phi Phi Leh (a small island off of Koh Phi Phi Don, famous because it is where Leo Dicaprio’s The Beach was filmed)  in the afternoon.  Not quite as good coral as Koh Lipe, and much much busier, but still quite enjoyable.  Here’s the pics!

Seal faced puffer fish – I could never manage to get a face on shot, as they are pretty shy

Sea Snake!!

Snorkeling in Paradise

Monkeys!!  Although we had just heard a story about a monkey biting though a girl’s Achilles tendon, so we made sure to keep our distance!

More Monkeys!

Recognize this beach anyone??

How about now?

Another picture perfect sunset

The following day we had a scuba trip booked, so no free bucket crawl that night, we just had a couple drinks at a restaurant, then headed to bed pretty early.  The following morning, we were up bright and early at 6 or so to get ready to go scuba diving.  Not much later after we got up, there was a frantic knock on the door.  It was the owner of the guest house, and her family seeming to tell us we had to leave and go with them some where.  Now tom and i were like, sorry lady, we can’t go with you, we have to scuba dive, but she was so insistent, saying no no, it’s same as December 2004, we have to go up… now tom and i were really confused, and had no idea what was going on, and why they were waking everyone else up in the hotel room.  We tried talking to her again, this time with another guest, and we finally understood: Tsunami warning – an earthquake had occurred in the exact same spot in Indonesia as in December 2004 when Koh Phi Phi Don, along with so many other places in Thailand, was completely devastated, and thousands of people were killed…  Freaky thing to hear at 6:30 am, let me tell you!!  It took the news a minute or two to sink in, when tom and i went back to our room, and started packing our bags, but then we were like, what are we doing, who cares about clothes, we have to get our behinds up that hill!  When we went out onto the street, there were crowds of people following the tsunami excavation signs up the high hill, and we joined them.  On a side note, it was a pleasant little hike, but it didn’t really register at the time.  Once on the top, we sat on rocks, and waited with other backpackers, who were all as worried as we were, and like us, most worried about one thing in particular: we prayed our mom’s weren’t watching the news and hearing about tsunami warnings in thailand (isn’t it funny that we weren’t so concerned about our own well being, just that we didn’t want our parents to worry… silly isn’t it!  shows how much we love our mommies and daddies!!)

Well, long story short, nothing happened, not even a little wave hit the island.  We just got to go sit on a big hill for a couple of hours and enjoy the view in the end.  Sorry if I got a bit dramatic up there, but we were legitimately worried, especially with some of the locals freaking out, so that gives me a right to be dramatic!  Lol’, anyway, here’s pics of the pretty view, check it out!

So after everything was for sure ok, tom and i went rushing down to the scuba shop (we were around 2 hours late!!).  Fortunately nothing was cancelled, just delayed a couple hours, so we grabbed a quick fruit shake for breakfast (probably the thing i’m going to miss most from asia – they are soooo good, and cheap!), then we were off on the boat!  Unfortunately we don’t have any pictures of the diving, but it was really good.  We saw huge morray eels, octopus, cuttle fish, ghost pipe fish, cool little crabs and shrimps, and seahorses (full sized ones this time!  So cool).  Great day of diving!!  That night, we got to enjoy a few more free buckets, then it was off to bangkok the following day, where we caught a night bus, and arrived the morning of April 9.

April 9 – Bangkok

Now, just before heading to Bangkok, we had read Damon’s warning about the protests, but we were like, meh, it’s about government, not tourists, so we will be fine.  So we get off the bus right near Koh San Rd, and first thing you hear is this guy on a loud speaker talking angrily in Thai.  All down the street, you see people in red shirts, living under these temporary tent shelters, protesting the government.  But other than angry voice on load speaker, it all seemed relatively peaceful, and other thai people and tourists didn’t seem bothered by the protesters, so we figured it should be ok as long as we were careful.  So we grabbed a room at a guesthouse, had a nap (sleeping on buses arent the most restful of nights.  Unfortunately we could still clearly hear angry thai protester guy from our room, so it wasn’t all that peaceful there either), then decided to head out and explore!  Unfortunately, the protesters were right where we needed to go to see the main sights of Bangkok, and there were so many scammers and tuk-tuk drivers trying to lead us elsewhere, that we, especially I, got frustrated, and said screw it, let’s go shopping on Koh San Road instead (where tom and I both ended up buying fancy tailored suits, haha).  I was disappointed that I let myself get deterred so easily, and felt like a weak traveler, but it might have been a smarter idea than i realized.  The following day (we were off to Cambodia by this point), the protest erupted into violence, and protesters and military alike were injured and killed.  Of course, no tourists were involved, but we are still thankful we were not on that street when things went crazy.

Anyhow, here’s a couple pictures of Koh San Road and us with our backpacks.

Anyway, I’ve probably rambled on enough, so I think I’m going to cut the blog off here, and Tom is going to write another one on Cambodia and Laos.  That way, you have morning, and afternoon coffee breaks!  And again, we both love to hear from you guys, and what’s going on back home in Canada, or in Australia, or wherever you may be at the moment.  None of you keep blogs to keep us updated, so let us know what’s up!!  We miss you all, and can’t wait to get home in June.  Haha, I think we talk more about what we’re going to do when we’re back home, and seeing everyone and such then on planning the rest of our trip (Europe is still completely unplanned as of yet other than our flight to Poland!).  Shows how homesick we are I guess.

Lots of Love!

Candice

Kuala Lumpur & Area, Malaysia

Flying into Kuala Lumpur, we had no idea what to expect. Will people speak English? How do we get around? How much do things cost? It was pretty exciting, this was going to be a very different kind of travelling to what we got used to in Australia and New Zealand.

Once we got there, i found that things were fairly well organized and people spoke English very fluently to my surprise. It was easy to find our way around and organize our travel accommodations. It was a lot of fun wandering around the first night and exploring the Golden Triangle area in Kuala Lumpur, things are so much different here. Scooters are all over the place, the drive on the right side of the road, drive onto oncoming traffic, drive on the sidewalks, park wherever they want… Its crazy! Passing a couple of small markets, people come and try to get you to buy there goods. “Sir do you want a watch? Some sunglasses? DVDs? Come come i show you” . At first its kind of exciting and fun, but soon it gets a bit old as almost everyone does it around the markets. We had a relaxing night at our guesthouse and decided to explore the famous towers around KL the next day.

In the morning, outside of our guesthouse, there was a monkey. Apparently its normal maybe?

We walked through downtown area, through the crazy traffic towards the towers…  There was a big line up and we had to wait a long time. Eventually we got up there… Here are some pics:

 

Later we went to the famous markets on Petalling St in Chinatown. This is the motherload of markets with everything you could possibly want. Lots of designer shirts, pants, perfumes, glasses, purses. And its all really really cheap which is awesome, we bought a couple of shirts and shades!

Here in the markets you have to barter with the people. They will yell to you 80 rm ( $26 ) for some really nice Billabong board shorts or glasses or whatever, so you yell 20 rm. Then the guy goes something like “ok ok i give you special price, you first customer, good luck customer, 40. 40!” Because we walked up and down the streets we knew what prices to expect so you say “no no, someone else sell for 10 rm (i made it up), and then he finally sells it to you for 20 rm ($7). Anyways, its alot of fun and we plan to go back there to buy our whole new wardrobe before we fly into europe. We went to explore the towers at night again, and then went to Bathu Caves the next day, i will just post pics:

KL twin towers at night

 

KL Tower at night

Entrance to Bathu Caves

Around caves entrance

 

Climbing up hundreds of stairs

Went to go see many temples inside the caves

After some more exploring, we decided to book our train north into Thailand since we don’t have too much time in Asia

Ko Lipe, Thailand

The train ride north was pretty long and we got into border city at night. When we booked our ticket in Malaysia, the lady would only give us a ticket to the border and said we get other ticket later. At the border, we got our passports stamped and asked where to get the next ticket, but they just waved at us to get back on the train. Once on the train, i tried to explain to the ticket man on the train that we only have a ticket to the border. Long story short, he pulls us aside beside some cops and writes some numbers down and basically we ended up bribing him to let us stay on the train haha. It was cheap so no big deal, but pretty funny experience. We stayed in Hait Yai for the night and then took a bus towards the ocean so that we can get onto the islands!

The drive to the coast was crazy, as we found out later, that almost all forms of transportation in Asia are crazy. Asian drivers, no offense, are crazy! While driving, it is normal for your driver to go onto oncoming traffic even if there are cars heading your way, they just keep honking and magically the two lane road can turn into a 3 or 4 lane road and oncoming cars will pass you by going into ditch or shoulder. Scooters again are all over the place, cutting in and out of everything. You will have an entire generation of family on a scooter, a grandpa, his son, and his two grandchildren on a tiny 50cc scooter, and no one wears a helmet or any kind of gear. You have pickup trucks filled with 30 people in the back, some hanging off the side of the bed, some hanging off the windows, and some are just “surfing” on top of a hay bail which is on top of the roof. This is not some rare occurrence, it is everywhere and you see it constantly. It surprises me that in all this chaos, somehow, people are not crashing and killing themselves at every intersection or turn. (Actually much much later on in the trip we got to witness 3 bodies on the road from a scooter crash, there was no way they were alive). Ok, enough about crazy asian drivers, we made it to the coast. We got on a boat and took a taxi boat and finally arrived in paradise!

 

Basically for the next 2 days, we stayed in a nice bungalow on the side of the beach, as usual, ate great food for every meal and went snorkeling daily literally right of the beach which has some amazing coral. There is not much more to say than that, it was great and really nice and relaxing.

Picture of a water taxi

Eating supper on the beach as the sun starts to go down

 

Excellent sun sets

Sea Urchins

Lots of Coral

Clams clams clams

Clown fish everywhere

Crystal clear waters

Rainy afternoon

Laying on the beach

 

Our Bungalow

Taking water taxis

More beach time

Romantic suppers on the beach

Fun restaurants

Candice all happy

Paradise

Paradise underwater

Well, it is April 18th and we are currently in Laos right now and about to leave so we are posting this blog a bit late. We will try to write the rest of the blog until the current day and post in a couple of days. Expect April 5 – 18 very shortly!!

March 19 – Drive towards Dunedin

Not all too much to report here.  We were still on the Southern Scenic route to Dunedin, and it was quite pretty.  We stopped for some short walks, waterfalls, caves, etc.  Nothing too crazy, but all quite pretty.  The pictures speak more than my words can here!

March 20 & 21 – Dunedin and Meeting Kasia & Lech

The following day we headed into Dunedin, a pretty little University city, where we met Tom’s cousin Kasia and her husband Lech.  They were so awesome with us!  We were expecting maybe going out for a coffee or something, but they ended up having a full day planned for us!  We went out to the Otago Peninsula to try to spot albatrosses, went for a walk among the sand dunes and spotted seals and penguins from the beach.  Otago Peninsula was very beautiful, and Kasia and Lech were great company!  (We even got pancakes in the morning!!  And a night out of the van, which is such a luxury for us!)

March 22 & 23 – Drive to Christchurch and Meeting Jacek & Meg

Now, we were supposed to be all energetic on March 22 and climb up Mount Summers.  We were all prepped, slept right by the hike so we’d be able to start bright and early in the morning and everything… but when the morning came we ended up feeling on the lazy side, and decided to have a chill day instead and headed up to Hamner Springs.

The following day we met up with Tom’s other cousin, Jacek, and his wife Meg in Christchurch.  Unfortunately we were there during the week, and they had to work the following day, but we still had a great time meeting up with them over dinner, then tea until late into the evening (Hopefully they still got enough sleep before work!).  Oh, and Christchurch was a cute little place.  We enjoyed going through the art district, looking at the galleries and such (or at least I did, and Tom just put a good face on it!).

March 24 – BABY SEALS!!

By now, I’m sure you’ve seen the video on youtube long before reading this, but we saw some baby seals playing in this stream near Kaikoura.  Soo adorable.  It was really funny, because there were hoards of tourists stopping at the seal colony further up the road, but no one checking out this waterfall hike where the babies were (we only new about it from this lady we talked to a few weeks prior who told us not to miss it).  Anyway, these baby seals hop up this stream to a waterfall, where they play with eachother without the adults around.  Which meant we could get super close to the babies without mama seal getting mad at us   Anyway, enough chat:  Here’s the pics!

Now, the last couple days we had in New Zealand were basically just driving up to Auckland to catch our flight… Sorry, I don’t have any pictures to jog my memory, and while it hasn’t been that long ago, I still can’t really remember… Sad I know, but oh well!  Must be not that interesting!

March 29 & 30 – Last Night with Aussie Friends, then off to Asia!!

Because we pre-booked our flights to Asia before we ever left Canada, they were actually flying out of goldcoast instead of New Zealand, which worked out fine for us, because we could have one last night with our Brisbane friends before leaving the area!  Unfortunately we were there on a Monday night, so everyone couldn’t make it, but some people were awesome, and braved a tough Tuesday morning to come chill and drink with us.  We had an awesome last night with you guys, and are going to miss you tons.  You all better make it to Canada one day, but if not, Tom and I are totally going to be knocking on your door the day we make it back to Aus.  All the best!

Alright, well I’m going to end this blog, and Tom’s going to write another one about our adventures so far in Asia.  Miss you all!!

Candice

March 19 – Drive towards Dunedin

Not all too much to report here.  We were still on the Southern Scenic route to Dunedin, and it was quite pretty.  We stopped for some short walks, waterfalls, caves, etc.  Nothing too crazy, but all quite pretty.  The pictures speak more than my words can here!

March 20 & 21 – Dunedin and Meeting Kasia & Lech

The following day we headed into Dunedin, a pretty little University city, where we met Tom’s cousin Kasia and her husband Lech.  They were so awesome with us!  We were expecting maybe going out for a coffee or something, but they ended up having a full day planned for us!  We went out to the Otago Peninsula to try to spot albatrosses, went for a walk among the sand dunes and spotted seals and penguins from the beach.  Otago Peninsula was very beautiful, and Kasia and Lech were great company!  (We even got pancakes in the morning!!  And a night out of the van, which is such a luxury for us!)

March 22 & 23 – Drive to Christchurch and Meeting Jacek & Meg

Now, we were supposed to be all energetic on March 22 and climb up Mount Summers.  We were all prepped, slept right by the hike so we’d be able to start bright and early in the morning and everything… but when the morning came we ended up feeling on the lazy side, and decided to have a chill day instead and headed up to Hamner Springs.

The following day we met up with Tom’s other cousin, Jacek, and his wife Meg in Christchurch.  Unfortunately we were there during the week, and they had to work the following day, but we still had a great time meeting up with them over dinner, then tea until late into the evening (Hopefully they still got enough sleep before work!).  Oh, and Christchurch was a cute little place.  We enjoyed going through the art district, looking at the galleries and such (or at least I did, and Tom just put a good face on it!).

March 24 – BABY SEALS!!

By now, I’m sure you’ve seen the video on youtube long before reading this, but we saw some baby seals playing in this stream near Kaikoura.  Soo adorable.  It was really funny, because there were hoards of tourists stopping at the seal colony further up the road, but no one checking out this waterfall hike where the babies were (we only new about it from this lady we talked to a few weeks prior who told us not to miss it).  Anyway, these baby seals hop up this stream to a waterfall, where they play with eachother without the adults around.  Which meant we could get super close to the babies without mama seal getting mad at us   Anyway, enough chat:  Here’s the pics!

Now, the last couple days we had in New Zealand were basically just driving up to Auckland to catch our flight… Sorry, I don’t have any pictures to jog my memory, and while it hasn’t been that long ago, I still can’t really remember… Sad I know, but oh well!  Must be not that interesting!

March 29 & 30 – Last Night with Aussie Friends, then off to Asia!!

Because we pre-booked our flights to Asia before we ever left Canada, they were actually flying out of goldcoast instead of New Zealand, which worked out fine for us, because we could have one last night with our Brisbane friends before leaving the area!  Unfortunately we were there on a Monday night, so everyone couldn’t make it, but some people were awesome, and braved a tough Tuesday morning to come chill and drink with us.  We had an awesome last night with you guys, and are going to miss you tons.  You all better make it to Canada one day, but if not, Tom and I are totally going to be knocking on your door the day we make it back to Aus.  All the best!

Alright, well I’m going to end this blog, and Tom’s going to write another one about our adventures so far in Asia.  Miss you all!!

Candice

Hello everyone, back with another blog entry! This one will hopefully be short and sweet, depends on how soon i will get tired. We are parked on the edge of a cliff at a nice cheap campsite (1st time we have paid for accommodation in NZ, damn we are good , and are going to be heading off this evening to watch some yellow browed penguins come back from their daily hunting activities… This time there wont be any Nazis patrolling for people with cameras, so hopefully we will get some good pictures and video!

March 14: Skydiving and drive to Rob Roy Glacier Hike

We started the day off with a short drive to Lake Wanaka, where we would be doing some skydiving! We ended up jumping from 12,000 ft, which gives you about 45 seconds of free falling and then about a minute or two of gentle and peaceful soaring with the parachute open. Obviously since we posted this, we are fine and the jumps went ok (Don’t worry parents…). Unfortunately, the people at the sky dive area didn’t let us use our cameras, for safety reasons, which is obviously complete BS since they want you to buy their $170 DVD footage… Oh well, here are some pic’s that we snapped. I have some cool footage too, but probably wont post it for now.

Man i look like an idiot in that suit…

The jump was awesome, wicked, sweet, and probably one of the coolest things i (and probably Candice will agree too) in my/our lives. It is definitely something that everyone should (actually MUST) do at least once in their life. I know my parents, and probably a lot of people have the attitude that its not safe or something… but i disagree. When we went, there was a plane with about 7 people leaving every 30 min to do a jump. They do this every single day. Some of the instructors there have been doing this for over 15 years, you do the math.

The actual jump was really cool and happened very quickly. The plane climbed pretty fast to about 12,000 ft and then the side door opened. Within seconds i watched as Candice and her instructor sat on the edge of the plane, and then ploop. My girlfriend fell out of the plane and i watched her drop so quickly towards the ground so far below. I think she made a little yelp of excitement as she jumped… Then it was my turn, and before i knew it we were out the plane. The instant acceleration and wind just hits your face, your inside guts get pushed a bit upwards and you feel this tingly nice sensation as you accelerate to the ground at 9.81 m/s^2  .That was probably my favorite part, that initial feeling which some people might not find very comfortable. I loved it. Within about 10 seconds, we have reached terminal velocity of about 210 km/h. By this point it is extremely windy, a bit hard to breathe in through your nose, but feels very pleasant. You no longer feel the acceleration, just feel like you are floating and enjoying the amazing view. Mountains all around, glaciers, lakes, and farmers fields. The instructor would spin me about to show me a 360 degree view, then i stuck out my hands and tried to spin us. It was soo cool, i wish that it would never end. Felt so calm and peaceful, nothing to think about or worry about, just pure happiness. Then i get a tap on my shoulder and the chute opens, you get a nice upward lift and you feel the awesome power of the chute as it slows you down to a almost non existent speed. The wind stops. You take off your goggles and enjoy the birds eye view, perfectly quiet and peaceful. I talked to my instructor and got to take control of the chute, got to spin us around and do little twirls and turns, was a lot of fun. Before you know it, we land on the ground and all that’s left is the adrenaline still pumping through your body and a big ass grin. There only maybe 1 or 2 other things in life that give you that kind of grin… So in summary, if you haven’t already tried sky diving, then you should DO IT! Your life is incomplete without it (not really but just peer pressuring you). I will probably do a solo course when i get back to Canada. Ok, i must take a short break to go watch the penguins returning from the sea…

Ok, i am back from the penguins!! They were awesome, i will post pics below… Anyways, so skydiving was wicked. After that we started to drive a bit north towards the Rob Roy Glacier track. Here are some pics from the drive:

 

Lots of Deer!

 

Perfect blue crystal clear rivers!

 

Awesome sunsets!!!

March 15: Rob Roy Glacier Track & Driving West!

We woke up bright and early in the car park, ate some breakfast, and started our 4 hour hike to the glacier! The hike was really nice, good trail, perfect temperature, waterfalls, beautiful rivers… Not much more to say, here are some pics!

 

Me pointing at our “Camp Ground” Freedom camping!!

Icy cold glacier streams!

Made it to the Glacier face!

  

Excellent panoramic shot by Candice.

Follow the stream back to the car!

Candice all smiles after a good hike!

Me all smiles too! Good hike!

After this we drove some more, visited couple small towns, and found another great camping spot on the edge of a glacier lake! We are just way too pro for free camping, we should write a book!

March 16: Te Aneu and drive to Milford Sounds

We were supposed to go on the Milford sound cruise this day, but it ended up raining so we cancelled it and rescheduled. We spent the morning using free wifi from the public library, and skyped with several people! Its nice to catch up with people, we miss everyone back home and are excited to come back. Anyways, in the afternoon/evening we drove to the Milford sounds. Here are some pics!

 

Using the libraries free wifi in the parking lot, thank you!

Entering the mountain range!

 

Nice sky!

Getting closer!

Getting higher!

Lots of fog!

And it is starting to get dark by now, so we go and find a perfect spot to camp! We have some friendly neighbors who we end up hiking with the next day!

March 17: Milford Sounds Cruise & Routburn Apline Track

Nice and early we got on the cruise! We got a wicked 2 for 1 deal, so we got to go on this fantastic cruise into the Milford sound (actually a fiord) for only $55. Wicked!! For those that don’t know what a fiord or sound is, i will pretend to be intelligent and explain. A fiord or sound is a channel that is the interface between the ocean and land, the big difference is that a ford is carved by glaciers, and a sound is formed by rivers (at least that’s what the guide told us). Once again, here are some pics!

Our vessel into the beast!

A view of the Sounds before heading onto water!

Candice all smiles!

Me getting soaked by the huge waterfall! Aaaahhh

Jumbo sized!

 

Lots of waterfalls!

View facing the back of the boat!

Me enjoying my free coffee & Muffin (muffin has already been eaten, it was good)

 

 

 

The cruise was really cool, the pics just don’t show it how it was… Was way better, just like it always is.

After the cruise, we went for a couple hour hike!

 

 

 

 

   

The hike was lots of fun and like i mentioned earlier, we made some new friends from Sweden and Austria! Might go visit them once we are in Europe, wicked!

After the hike we started driving further south, found a nice rest stop for the night and went to sleep

March 18: More random stuff and Penguins!

Ok right now it is March 18, 10:31 pm, and i am sitting in the van writing this blog. My butt is getting sore, it is dark, Candice is already asleep, and its getting chilly not being under the blanket. I must continue in the morning – Goodnight!

March 19, 9:57 am – Good morning!  Just had a nice big breakfast, walked on the beach for a bit, and waiting for Candice… so i will continue the blog. Yesterday was not too exciting, it was raining most of the day and we mostly did some driving through the South Scenic Highway (wasn’t as scenic as the stuff we seen before..) , and then stopped in town for a $1 shower which was excellent. Towards the evening we stopped at a campground in the Catlins bay region, and went out in the evening to watch the penguins come in from the sea. We did get to see 4 of them, and the park ranger lady was real cool and let us take pics and video as much as we want. She did ask us to keep a decent distance from them though, which is ok…

You can see the penguin just over Candice’s shoulder, he’s easier to spot if you just click on the picture and open the full size one.

It was hard to get clear shots of them since i had to zoom in all the way, and the sun was setting…

In case you are wondering about their size, these ones were pretty big compared to the previous penguins we seen. This guy standing straight up would probably be up to my knee (40-50 cm tall?). You will also notice they are very chubby, this is because they are fattening up because soon they will not be going into the ocean to hunt for fish…They will stay on land for a couple of months and rest. They will molt (lose their feathers, and cant go in water anymore) till they get a new coat for the next season.

The penguin is waving good bye because this is the end of this blog! Good bye!!

We miss everyone back home! We also miss our friends in Australia, cant wait to party up with you guys in a couple of weeks! Well Candice is back now, and i think we are going to keep on driving and exploring. Till next time…

Tom & Candice!

March 8 – Forgotten Highway & Mount Taranaki (still on the North Island)

Not all too much to report on these two.  The forgotten highway was this sweet highway with a bunch of historic tunnels and stuff, and beautiful views.  The beginning of the highway was where tom left off after we, uh… cough… bathed in the river… I know, it’s shameful!!  Some canoes came, and I ran into the bushes to hide (I was so embarrassed about it), while tom just hopped deeper in and pretended to be swimming.  Anyway, it’s all good, we were clean after, and that’s all that matters, right?? (Sam and Damon, you’d understand how difficult it is to come by showers when you’re living out of a vehicle!!).

So anyway, on to more pleasant things.  Mt. Taranaki is this big mountain that we could have climbed, but we were lazy after all the hiking covered in the last blog, so we just snapped some pictures and moved on.

March 9 – Interislander Ferry & Marlboorough Sounds

So, the next day we caught the Interislander ferry between the North and South Islands.  Pretty sweet views.  We came in through the Marlaboorough Sounds, which were very beautiful, and Tom was as handsome as ever with a pretty view in the background.

So, after the early ferry, we spent the rest of the day driving around and taking in the beautiful views at different locations.

March 10 – Kayaking the Abel Tasman

The Abel Tasman is this sweet area of coast, which actually has one of New Zealands great multiday walks going through it, but you had to spend $100 just to get onto the trail to hike back, so we figured, instead of hiking, we were going to go kayaking!!  We were going to go for a full day, but we ended up reaching the full day length limit and back in half a day, so then we just chilled out and checked some other areas out (or maybe we just found a library and were on the internet for the afternoon, I’m not sure…).  Anyways, here’s some pics, as usual!

(This one’s a bit crooked because it was over my shoulder, but still a good picture!)

(I was getting pretty tired by this point!!  Arms are def not my strong point!)

(Some cool rocks.  We were tempted to try to slip through the gap, but the tide was a bit to low)

(This silly seal was chillin’ like this, but we were worried he was injured, and all concerned about him, but he just ignored us, then eventually decided to swim away)

(Tom being sexy and posing with a kayak)

(T

March 11 – Maruia Springs & Waterfall Walk

Bright and early the next morning, we went to Maruia Springs (we actually go there the night before, but they were closed).  There are natural hot springs, full of minerals and such.  Amazing way to start the day!!  Except for the bloody sandflies everywhere!!  They swarmed our heads until I went running back to the van and grabbed some bug spray.  It was still really cool though.

We then started the drive back to the coast.  Here’s pics of a waterfall hike along the way, and the sunset off the road where we stayed the night.

March 12 – Oparara Basin & Cape Foulwind

Now, we almost didn’t go to the Oparara Basin, because it was further north of us, and required a bit of back tracking, and no one at information had really said much about it… but then we were like screw it, we should still check it out, and man, I’m glad we did!  Oparara Basin has the largest limestone arches in Australasia, in addition to a bunch of caves that you can go exploring without a guide! So sweet!!  We had an awesome time in the area, and highly recommend it to any other travelers who think it might be a bit out of the way.

After an eventful morning, we headed back down to Westport, where we were finally able to upload the wicked campers video we had been working on a bit in the evenings the prior nights.  On a side note, the video is now on youtube, check it out if you haven’t already!! 

  We didn’t put all that much effort in it, and the netbook can’t handle much video editing anyway, but it’s still a little entertaining.  If we win the contest, we get half of our rental money back for the wicked campervan.

But anyway, I digress.  We then went to Cape Foulwind, which is aptly named, let me tell you!!  I thought the wind was going to blow us over!  But there was a sea lion colony right off of the trail, which was pretty cool. 

March 13 – The Pancakes & The Glaciers

Today we went to the Pancakes.  And no, I’m not referring to the food!  They’re limestone structures, with these cool blow holes that the ocean sprays water through at high tide.  We should have stayed longer to see it at full high tide, but they were still pretty impressive when we were there.

And I know when I started this blog we were driving to the glaciers, but I got car sick on the winding road, and had to take a break (it’s now dark out, and we’re chilling in the van, killing those damn sandflies that managed to sneak into our van.  I’m covered in bites at the moment and bitter if you couldn’t tell!  But I will have my revenge!  Die fly die!!!!!!)

Anyway, the glaciers were pretty cool.  Franz Joseph Glacier and Fox Glacier were the ones we visited, and you can walk right up to them, but need a gear and experience on ice or a guide to climb on them (which I had to repeatedly tell tom to keep him off of those things!!  They’re dangerous if you’re unprepared and don’t have the gear.  People die doing silly things like that)

Alright, well, I may have taken you past your 15 minute break!!  Hope you enjoyed my ramblings (and rantings when it comes to the sand flies).  Miss you all, and hope all is well.  Can’t wait till I see you all again!

XOXO

Candice & Tom

Hello everyone! Back with another blog entry of our latest adventures. I just finished another nice 8 hour long hike, had a sponge bath in a river on the side of the road, and now, will write about the last couple of days. Just so you know, i am sitting here at a wonderful rest area where we will be sleeping for free, as always! Incase Candice’s friends are thinking that this might be Candice writing and they are disgusted with her for bathing in a river , don’t worry, this is Tom. (btw Candice also ended up bathing in the river too!)

We left off at Perth, so i will just continue from there. Perth is a wonderful city, it is like a small town, but is a big city. You have farms and vineyards literally 10 min drive from the city center, and its part of the city. Very cool place, but wont talk too much about it. We dropped of our van and headed to the airport. Our itinerary wasn’t the most exciting… We left Perth at 11:50 pm, and flew into Sydney at 8 am. The flight kind of sucked, was not very comfortable and did not get much sleep at all. Once in Sydney, we went to transfer our bags for the next flight to New Zealand only to find out the flight has been delayed by several hours. We would be waiting till 3:20 pm to fly out, and finally arrive in Auckland at around 8 pm. We pretty much spent 24 hours at airports, not good! We got a shuttle to the hostel, and went straight to bed!

Next day we picked up our new set of wheels for the rest of New Zealand, a Jucy van!  Below is the lovely Candice modeling it for us… We pretty much left Auckland right away, and headed somewhere! Just out of the city!

We headed South and into the Coromandel Peninsula, it was very pretty. Along the way we found a very cool hike which we would do the following day, so we kept on driving.

Some first observations of New Zealand: Its a very beautiful country and best of all, everything is so close together. You literally go from beach to rainforest to farms to rolling hills to dry regions within minutes, everything changes every 50 km or less. It is a nice change of pace from Australia where you drive for hundreds of kilometers and many hours… Food here seems pretty cheap, but fuel is very expensive! It averages at $1.80 per liter! Anyways, we kept on driving and exploring till we arrived at Hot Beach:

Just in the back section of the beach, you enter a thermal zone. You basically go here and dig a hole for yourself to sit in, or dig a small pool for multiple people and you sit there. There are geothermal pools below which heat the area, and the water becomes very hot and you just sit in there, just like a hot tub! It is very cool, but in some areas the water gets to 60 which burns you pretty quickly! As we were waiting in the parking lot, wondering about where we will be staying the night, a very friendly gentleman approached us. We talked for a bit and he ended up being the owner of several wineries and invited us over for drinks and pizza, and he let us camp in his parking lot for free. So that is what we did! We got to try some wines, alcoholic cider, pizza, and hang out with this guy and his workers till 1 am. It was a lot of fun! Great start for New Zealand!

The following day we woke up a bit later, and headed right to Coromandel Pinnacles hike! This hike was amazing and it kicked mine and Candice’s butt, we were pretty sore after hiking very steep sections for 8 hours. It was well worth it, the views were beautiful!

Hiking through the lower level of rainforest, this section had some nice rock stairs

View from half point looking up at the pinnacles, a long way to go still!

Standing on one of the pinnacles and looking at the other one, nice view

 

Very cool terrain!

Me sweating like a pig, was pretty hot out that day in the sun! This apple tasted amazing, i never had a better apple! Probably because i was getting dehydrated… Such a good apple.

 

Almost at the top, got to get to that pinnacle.

The hike was a lot of fun, and me and Candice made a pact to keep on doing more hikes! As many as we can in New Zealand…

The next day we were really sore, so we headed to the volcanic regions in the centre of Northern island of New Zealand. We did the Wai-o-tapu thermals, Haku falls, and Craters of the moon. All of these were wicked little hikes through active thermal regions with geysers, mud pools, gas offsetting craters, and acidic pools! Some of them looked awesome, but they smelt terrible! Here are some pictures!!

Very hot acid water!

Entrance to lava flowing hell!

Mud bubble just about to burst!

Boiling mud pools!

Lots and lots of sulphur!

 

Care to swim in 80 C water?

Very shot drive from Wai-o-Patu, was Haku Falls: Very nice!

 

 

And another very short drive from there was the Craters of the moon!

The entire place was steaming, me and Candice were worried the place was going to blow up and start pouring lava everywhere… – haha – just trying to scare the parents. Don’t worry, the regions fairly stable. After all of that we made a little drive towards the next region which has a very famous hike which we would be doing the following day. For the Lord of the Rings fans, if you know the Mt. Doom, then you will be pleased to know that me and Candice hiked through it, and fyi it is actually called the Tongariro Alpine crossing:

Feb 7: Mt. Ngauruhoe Hike

We started bright and early, woke up at 5:45 am, after a lot of complainig and grumbling one my part . I am not a morning person! We would embark on a long hike into the dangerous region!

This region is the most active, and has had recent eruptions. One in the 70s and one in the 50s, which is pretty recent when speaking in geotechnical terms! But do not be afraid! There is a trusty sign which tells you “What to do” when lava is flowing towards your ass at 100 km/h. No worries!

As i said before, we started off nice and early:

Temperature outside was probably around 12 C, which is pretty damn cold when you leave Australia which was 45 C in some areas. The winds were howling away, we had to dress up because it was very chilly, 80 km/h gusts of wind…

The Mt. Doom is just the one slightly on the right, the distinctive hole in the middle of the mountain is more apparent from a different angle. Much more visible at higher elevation.

All dressed up! Ready to keep climbing, here are some pic’s along the very very long hike and steep sections.

Climbing a bit higher, can start to picture Mt. Doom!

We keep climbing and climbing, seems like the peaks are always around the corner and then BOOM.

A lovely sign to tell you to walk further!

Keep on walking…

 

And walking through a big crater where lava once erupted probably…

   And then you get to the top to see the red crater, emerald lakes…

View of the red crater behind us, will see another close up…

 

 

Hundreds of huge boulders created from rapidly cooled flying chunks of magma in the air.

Overall, wicked past couple of days! Will keep up to date and write another blog soon! Miss everyone!!!!

Tom & Candice