Bangkok and Beyond

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Hello, hello one and all.

Hope you are all doing well. We have now arrived in Bangkok after an arduous 11/12 hour trip. But what did we do before we got here?? Well i should tell you shall i, else i'm just going to be rambling on and not really taking this post anywhere except to lead you all to extreme boredom and wanting to know if i will just get to the ruddy point! That sentence could probably do with more punctuation but i'm feeling decidedly lazy today 😊

So, the last few days in Australia were spent whale watching and going to Australia Zoo (Steve Irwins zoo).
The Whale watching was amazing. In Hervey bay is apparently one of the few places they stop in their yearly migrations south to the feeding grounds. I'm struggling to put into words what it was like being so close to such immense animals. At first when we went out we were only really seeing small specimens. Mothers and calves and most of that was fairly calm as they swam past and around us and some of the mothers also did what was termed as down face feeding (basically feeding the calf) whilst leaving their tales suspended out of the water. However as we progressed through the morning we came across a pair of juvenile adults in the full glory of their curiosity. This was the closest i think we could have possibly gotten to the whales, they were coming up to the boat and almost knocking it as they came up on one side and then submerged to come up on the other side - apparently just as curious in us as we were with them. It was amazing, especially when we saw the calf that had obviously just learned to breach the water and so did it time and time again in quick succession with no real sign of relenting.
The zoo was also nice - although it was a really hot day so it kinda sapped the energy out of you. It focused mainly on Australian wild life, e.g. kangaroo feeding and holding koalas etc. But had a good message to send across as well - especially with the Asian tigers they had there. The display trying to discourage people from was quite something and should have deterred a lot of people from purchasing many products that are illegally produced and farmed.
Then we returned our dear julie to the grumpy guy who didn't want to give us our deposit back because we hadn't cleaned the windows.. but apparently we had been given the wrong forms so he couldn't do anything about it - which of course made him all the more grumpy but not a lot we can do about it 😊.

Then where??

Asia! - The final leg of our trip (I guess that means Australia was the torso.. should stop thinking too much about this sort of thing)

When we arrived in Kuala lumpur we spent a few days there getting used to the whole atmosphere of Asia again whilst David came and visited Kate on his way through to Shanghai. What followed this was a very long, and very tiring journey up through Malaysia for about 8 hours then a further 5/6 hours in a minivan up through to Don Sak to catch the boat across to the tropical isle's of the east coast of Thailand.
Unfortunately it is really the wrong time of year to do such things with Monsoon about 2 weeks away so it was a bit cloudy and not the crystal clear skies that postcards are made of. I managed to get my Tattoo modified so it looks more like it blends together rather than 2 tattoos coupled together with an effect i am pleased with - it is still healing at the moment so i can't quite see the finished effect but i am happy with what i have now as opposed to what was there before. Whilst i got that sorted Kate spent a few days getting a cloud tan (given there was no sun..) on Lamai beach on Koh Samui. This area has a bit of a reputation for what most guides term "Girlie bars" - you can basically guess what type of bar they are.. and needless to say there were quite a lot of dirty old men walking around with young Thai girls on their arms for the duration of their holidays. I like to think i'm not one to judge to fast... but sometimes it's just obvious! Following this (when we deemed i could easily carry my bags) we moved on to Koh Pangnan to a place called Bottle Beach. I think, definatley on this side of the world if you want a secluded beach this is about as close as some of us come to finding it. You have to catch a taxi over to the far side of the Island and then a boat for a further 15mins or so to get to this beach. It was really pretty and to some extent a shame that we haven't seen it in peak season as i'm sure it would be amazing. Unfortunately because i had the Tattoo amended i can't go in the water (or the sun due to putting baby oil on it to help it heal) so i spent most of my time on the veranda of our beach hut (read quite luxurious by our standards house on beach side). This place is the home of a cheeky Toucan.. so if you ever come here random readers.. beware!!

And here we are - in Bangkok.. and have just read if we caught the train then well.. it got derailed in last nights rain and 7 people died.. the difference a choice makes as we nearly caught it (thats a bit of a grounder isn't it?!) Luckily we took the highly uncomfortable bus.

So now we are trying to decide - do we head to Cambodia or Laos first. I'm thinking Cambodia is most likely as there is less to see going east out of thailand than there is in the northwest if we went to Lao first. For any of you watching the news - we are not going anywhere near the border dispute are so don't worry. Whilst there we'll be going to Angkor Wat and Phnom Phen to give you and idea of our current direction.

Hope all is well

Pete + Kate

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