Pai Time

We waved goodbye to Sarah after a big night out in Chiang Mai for our last night together, ok, we were still in bed by 11pm, but we had splashed out on a fancy hotel.

After 2 months on the road, we decided it was time for a little "holiday" Ha! A chance to actually have a bit of R&R and not do much - seriously, it's a hectic life as a traveler!

We headed to Pai which is a charming travelers haven in the hills in Northern Thailand for 2 days. Despite the slightly tortuous drive up winding roads in our minivan and a quick flat tyre stop (and we're just so glad we were at the back of the bus and didn't get to see most of the hairy overtaking on blind corners), the scenery was divine - green lush hills, brightly colored flowers....

We chose a nice guest house where we had our own bungalow by the river (for under $20USD per night) with hot water and our own deck. The plan was to do very little for the 2 days here, and we succeeded. The first day saw some ambling around the market, followed by coffee and cake at the muslim cake shop, followed by more ambling in the night market followed by a superb dinner at the Curry Shack where we had (surprise, surprise) a lovely curry and beer (yes, Caroline is drinking beer too now!)


Our second day saw us getting up early(ish) for a light breakfast overlooking the river, before heading off to yoga (yes, Gary agreed to come too, after some persuasion and promise of cake afterwards). It was a lovely session in a yoga pavilion by a pool, enjoying a gentle breeze through the 2 hour session.

The afternoon was spent with a little pampering - Thai Massage and mani-pedi - with everything so cheap here, it seemed rude not to indulge just a little.

3 day Hill Tribe Trek

It was with some trepidation that we set off on our 3 day hill tribe trek. We got such a cheap price (equivalent of less than USD $20 per day each including all accomodation, food, transport and activities) we wondered whether it might be a dodgy deal. It turned out superb! The first day of our trek we hiked about 8k in the hot steamy weather into the hills, and arrived at our village for the night in late afternoon. Our accomodation consisted of our own bamboo hut for the three of us, sleeping on bamboo platforms (I won't even get into the bedding, but it was a good thing we all brought a sleeping bag liner and sweater in lieu of a pillow). Our hosts, the long-necked people, who have made thailand their home after leaving Burma as refugees, have apparently found a much better life here, and are able to sustain their village life (no TV, no electricity, no running water except the river) with the help of tourism and selling handicrafts (Sarah and Caroline bought lovely bracelets). We opted to have a pig BBQ - which consisted of some serious hunks of pork on bamboo over a large fire - truly delicious!

The second day, we hiked about 10k down through lush scenery to our next village, where we arrived early afternoon. After a swim and hairwashing in the river to refresh ourselves, we settled into a relaxed afternoon of reading and playing cards. A curry dinner was followed by traditional dancing and music by the village folk.


The final day of our trip saw us hiking a short distance to the place where we did a charming elephant ride - it's a little scary when the elephant goes up and down steep banks as you are riding quite high, but other than that, it was great fun to feed him bananas and bamboo and enjoying the slow plodding pace. Next up as white water rafting, with much very little of the "white". As its the end of the dry season, the river was pretty low, and so not much adrenalin was firing up. That was followed by a gentle amble down the river on a bamboo raft. With our bad track record with rafting (remember the sunk raft in the Amazon in the piranha infested lake before Gary learned to swim?), we were glad to get back to dry land and the ride back to Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai

From Sukhothai, we took another 5 hour bus journey up to Chiang Mai, a very charming city that is the base for hill tribe trekking, Thai cooking, and Thai massage schools and more besides.
Our first day, Sarah and Caroline went to an exhausting 2 hour Ashtanga Yoga class - while Gary toured some sights (more Wats). Sarah and Caroline both suffered from various aches the next day since it had been a while since the last Yoga session. We spent the rest of the day walking the city until our little feet were exhausted, and settled down for a fabulous early dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant for Meze. Fully revitalized, we hit the Sunday Walking Market which is an extensive weekly night market - so we all stocked up on cheap linen shirts and jewellery.


One of the real highlights of our stay in Chiang Mai was the Thai Cookery Class. We chose a one day class which was held on an organic farm in the countryside outside the city. Firstly, they took us to the market where they told us about Thai herbs and rice and sauces etc. On sale in the market were such delicases as fried Beetles, Grasshoppers and Worms - Gary bravely ate a Worm - he said it tasted of "Fried". Then they took us out to the farm and showed us the herbs growing and told us what each was used for. Then we set to work cooking! You could each choose different dishes, so between the three of us we learned a number of different dishes including: red, yellow and green chicken curry, Tom Yam soup, Pad Thai, Spring rolls, Mango with sticky rice, and bananas in coconut (and others too). we had a leisurely lunch enjoying what we had each cooked, followed by afternoon cooking. We were in a great group of about 8 people and enjoyed hearing travel tales from all the other travelers about places they had been and where they were going next. They gave us a cookery book so that we can re-create the dishes back home, however, without the lovely people to do all the shopping, prepare the ingredients, and clean up after us, I think it will be quite a bit more hard work!

Sukhothai - Old Royal City

We took a VIP (aircon and toilet on board) bus from Bangkok to Sukhothai, which is a 7 hour journey into Northern Thailand. We were staying in a lovely room (with hot water and TV!) in a beautiful lush green courtyard by the Dream Cafe where we had the best meal that we've had yet in Thailand (with some pretty gross red wine though).

Sukhothai is the place of the old royal city dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries. Much of it is in ruins and has undergone restoration, but the place is truly amazing. There are hundreds of temples, in various states of repair, and many beautiful buddha statues, and chedis in both hindu and buddhist style. We hired bikes to cycle around the city which was really pleasant as it was a very hot day. We decided to stay to see sunset which was absolutely stunning, and then having revitalized ourselves with a beer, we came back again to see it after dark lit up. Unfortunately, the promised light show failed to materialize, and since we were the only people wondering around the ruins in pitch black (with a few flood lights) it was all quite spooky!

We were staying in the New Town, 12km away from the old city and as luck would have it, we missed the bus back, but the kind local policemen flagged down a passing long distance bus for us, and got us safely onboard back to the bus station, followed by a tuk tuk ride with the flower delivery driver to our chosen restaurant for dinner: The Poo Restaurant. As recommended by lonely planet, I'm glad to report that it did not live up to its name!

Bangkok - Wat, Wat

We stayed for 3 nights in Bangkok at the supposedly "notorious" Malaysia Hotel - we only found out that it had this reputation per Lonely Planet after booking our accommodation, but it was very pleasant anyway and made for some highly interesting people watching. We also met up with Sarah, a friend of Caroline's from the UK, who would be travelling with us for the next 2 weeks before she heads off to New Zealand.



The three of us set off for a whirlwind tour of Bangkok Wats by day, and bars, markets and entertainment by night. There are over 300 Wats (Temples) in and around Bangkok and the first and unmissable stop was the Grand Palace - many Wats, galleries, Buddha statues etc of golden opulence that is quite stunning. Every view and angle begs to be photographed and simply cannot do it justice. We continued to tour further Wats interspersed with fabulous thai food and a bit of Market shopping until we were quite Watted out. We spent one evening at Patpong Road where many people are apparently table tennis experts and wanted to show us their skills and soaked up the bangkok nightlife and haggled away for cheap T-shirts and jewelery.

One thing that quite surprised us was how clean and relatively hassle free the city was - Gary recalled a previous visit to Thailand when it was famous for constant and persistent salesmen trying to get you on tours, in tuk tuks, buying cheap goods, stallside food or anything that can be shifted for a few Baht. It appears that perhaps sales techniques have changed, and we enjoyed the freedom to peruse the stalls etc relatively unhassled.

After having filled our quota of Wats we decided to take in some of the views from the canal and waterways of bangkok. You can hire a longboat for a few hours and after some expert haggling from 3,500 Baht down to 1,200 Baht for the boat (it would not be the only time someone tried to con us with an extortionate first quote)we enjoyed 2 hours meandering along the backstreets seeing the city from a different vantage point.

After the rather costly but enjoyable weeks in New Zealand it is highly comforting to see how far the Dollar still stretches in Thailand. Accommodation can vary from around $3 to $10 pp per night, fabulous food rarely cost us anything more than $10 for food and beer, and we've had some excellent main courses for less than $1.

With stunning temples on almost every corner, excellent cheap food and very friendly people - we think we are going to enjoy Thailand a lot.

Melbourne: the last port of call before Asia

We have spent a very relaxing week with our friends Steve and Sally in Melbourne staying in their beautiful home in the suburb of Kew (see bottom picture). We visited a couple of modern art galleries, including brunch at the lovely Heide Gallery and sculpture garden. We enjoyed an excellent performance by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at a free outdoor concert at the Sidney Myer bowl.

We also spent a couple of very fun days visiting with Caroline's former neighbours from Harpenden, Nibs and Dicky, who showed us the Great Ocean Road and regaled us with many fascinating tales of their years living in the Sudan, Somaliland, Zambia and more.....

We are preparing ourselves now to head off out of the comfort of the Western world conveniences of hot water, air conditioning, safe food and water, and lack of disease-ridden mosquitos, as we head to Bangkok and onto South East Asia for 3.5 months.

The Milford Track

The Milford Track is one of New Zealand's most famous and most stunning multi-day hikes (called Tramps). It is a fairly pitiful 33.5 miles over 4 days, and the path is beautifully maintained. Our friends Steve and Sally who live in Melbourne came out to join us for this tramp, and despite numerous injuries, illnesses and general complaints between the lot of us, we survived this relatively easy hike and had an amazing time enjoying the beautiful scenery. The hike is one of New Zealands 'Great Walks' - which means that we had to book our space on the hike several months ahead of time, and stay in the huts (which were very well equipped with mattresses and cooking gas).

Day 1 starts with a boat across from Te Anau and then a short walk through ferns and riverside to Clinton Hut. The first thing we noted was the very flat and manicured path - such a huge difference from Nelson Lakes. As we arrived early, we had the full intention of spending a leisurely few hours at the swimming hole near the hut - however this was quickly curtailed due to freezingness of the water and volume of sandflies - Caroline did a good Jackie'O impression in a headress attempt to protect against the little devils. Later the hut gardian (no longer called wardens as this is too prison like), gave a helpful tour of surrounding flora and fauna.

Day 2 was a pleasant walk as the water turned from green to blue as drew closer to the glaciers and our first views of the McKinnon saddle.

Day 3 was the most impressive (and difficult) day of the hike - in the morning, we made our way up through the forest up over the saddle. As we reached the saddle, the morning mist cleared to reveal a clear view of the valley that we had hiked up the previous day. The views at the top of the saddle were spectacular, and sadly followed by the knee and ankle jerking 1000m (that's about 3000ft) hike back down to the Sutherland waterfall which is New Zealand's highest. Gary braved the drenching route to go round the back of the falls.

Day 4 required an early 5.00am start and a few grumbles from fellow hut occupants as we started off in the dark in order to accomodate our leisurely pace and arrive in time to catch our boat at the Sound. The bonus was seeing the sun rising and the hues on the mountains as the sky turned from red to blue. Second breakfast was at the beatiful Mackay falls, lunch at yet another spectacular falls and we arrived at sandfly point with some bite anticpating nervousness in plenty of time. Fortunately the wind was up and the sandflies we're nowhere to be seen. We finished off the day with a boat tour on Milford Sound, awed by the immensity of the surrounding mountains which plunge at about 70degrees into the water. To get back to Te Anau we took a 2 hour bus journey through further stunning scenery which we only saw in patches between grunts and snores as we all passed out exhausted

Summary - A fabulous walk that has been very well maintained with excellent huts and superb views. Thanks to the limited number of people that can walk the trail each day we were able to see all this in relative solitude and enjoy 4 days without rain, very rare in the 2nd wettest place on earth.

Rob Roy - Day hike from Wanaka

This very pleasant day hike is a 1 hr drive from Wanaka, which soons becomes a gravel track road with fords to cross (a 4x4 is recommended). The drive to the head of the track passes through some stunning scenery, many sheep and cows and gradually forges deeper into the valley and up close to the Mount Aspiring national park. The walk is a fairly easy 4 hours return track starting alongside a glacial river, heading up a gorge and finally emerging below the Rob Roy glacier. Lunch is taken with a troup of Kea's constantly probing the perimeter for weaknesses in our food security.

Overall this is a fabulous walk - one recommendation is to hire a car to get there early (around 9.00am) before the bus from Wanaka arrives and also to get the best light for photos of the valley

Road to Heaven ?

We appeared to have entered a fairy tale world as this road was next to the Honest Lawyer pub !

Wanaka

Pics of Lake Wanaka - commentary to come