Ok, most of you know we are actually back in Australia now, but we aren't done with Thailand stories, so let's pretend... When we last chatted we were in Phuket, looking forward to getting the hell out. It was nice to be at the beach and all, but everyone else was there, too, from tourists to hawkers, and we didn't have much peaceful-beach-time. We did, however, have some nice parasailing-time and viewing-of-transvestites-time, so it wasn't a complete waste. Parasailing was fun. It was a running start from the beach, and you trailed around the boat in the bay for a few [View Full Entry]

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It was actually three nights but that doesn't make a good title. And we are going back for more, out of necessity for the most part (we'll get to that) but also to do some shopping. Here is the story: On our arrival in Bangkok airport (it seemed like an eternity since we left Cape Town!) we were surprised at how nice the airport was... clean, modern, easy to navigate, friendly and so on. After clearing customs, finding a bathroom, and pulling some Baht out of an ATM we were ready to negotiate a taxi fare to the hostel we had [View Full Entry]

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I am re-publishing this post without the map for those of you who had computer problems when trying to open it last week! Tomorrow morning, at the ridiculous time of 3:00 am, we leave Sasha's house to begin a long journey to Thailand. It is crazy to think we are leaving tomorrow after an amazing 3 weeks in South Africa, and I think we are a bit shell-shocked by the idea, but excited all the same to go to another very different country. Here's how we spent the last week or so of our lives... On arriving in Cape Town we [View Full Entry]

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*I don't think the map feature is working since it kept crashing Firefox... be warned! Tomorrow morning, at the rediculous time of 3:00 am, we leave Sasha's house to begin a long journey to Thailand. It is crazy to think we are leaving tomorrow after an amazing 3 weeks in South Africa, and I think we are a bit shell-shocked by the idea, but excited all the same to go to another very differnt country. Here's how we spent the last week or so of our lives... On arriving in Cape Town we took some interesting highways to get to our [View Full Entry]

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It's been a long time comin', and no thanks to slow internet connections and flooding internet shops (see below) we can finally tell you about South Africa… what can we say? Well, a lot, so let’s get started. We arrived in South Africa at Johannesburg airport early in the morning. After getting our rental car we headed straight out of town. No one wants to spend too much time in Johannesburg, what with the highest crime rate in the WORLD, even though the travel guides swear you should give it a try. While Chris remembered how to drive on the left [View Full Entry]

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I am going heavy on the pictures, light on the content this time, folks. Here is the Reader's Digest update: Spent a few days in Santorini, Greece, rented a 4-wheeler and didn't kill ourselves even with Chris at the wheel (or handlebars). It was only a 50 cc and I'm pretty sure my parent's neighbor's 6 year old son has one that powerful. We were CRUSIN' uphill. Came to Naxos and almost didn't get off the ferry. We are talking a BIG ferry and they almost couldn't put the ramp down on the pier due to winds and turbulent seas... Seriously [View Full Entry]

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As we sat by the Red Sea last night eating dinner we decided that Egypt is definitely on our short list of must-come-back-to-this-place places. How did this leg of our journey begin? Well, with complete and utter chaos as mentioned in a previous posting. It ends as we sit here trying to stay awake after packing so much into such a short time. Our flight to Greece leaves at 3:45 am (again, you get what you pay for, right?), which is a fitting end to a week that has included hot desert sun, nice and not-so-nice trains, 19 hours on a [View Full Entry]

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Forget everything you learn in America.. the whole "pedestrians have the right of way" thing is not going to keep you alive. One of the first things we have to do in any new city is to figure out on which level the pedestrians fall on the person-bike-scooter-car chain of command. In some places, like Brussels, we were pretty confident crossing the street. In Paris we just had to watch the crosswalk signs. In Prague we only occasionally feared for our life at the start, but got good at knowing when you could cross even if there was no little green [View Full Entry]

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Just a quick note because I don't know when we will be connected again... We arrived in Austria today. The train ride was lovely (even though we went second class... we are getting spoiled with our first class tickets!). Vienna is a nice city, even though it is cold and windy and a bit rainy. No pictures right now (though I have a few) but a few thoughts and one request... *it's really cool that there are so many dogs in Europe, and that thez can pretty much go anywhere. It is really not cool that there is a lot of [View Full Entry]

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Yes, we love Prague. Everyone we talk to has, and does. Here are some reasons why: *You can not take a bad picture. See the examples I have included. *beer is cheaper than soda. And I'm talking about a large beer and a small soda. *everything is cheap in general. The fist night we went out to have a small dinner. We got four beers, two orders of garlic bread and some lovely duck pate thing on toast. It was less than $10. *walking is way more interesting here than in any city I've been to. We keep pointing and saying [View Full Entry]

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