debi zyx

As I mentioned in my last post - it's taken 14 months to get back to this. So, I'm going to shorten the rest, and try to get the rest of our trip onto one post. Friday, day 4 - Today was our day for more modern Thai history. We spent the morning at the Vimanmek Mansion, and the Royal Carriage Museum and Abhisek Dusit Throne Hall in Dusit Park. The mansion was lovely, as was the Throne Hall. However, the most amazing part was the display of a collection of fabulous artifacts, in gold, silver, precious stones, needlepoint, and many other traditional handicrafts, that were created by local craftspeople. "In 1992, on the occasion of Her Majesty the Queen's sixtieth birthday anniversary, His Majesty the King gave his permission for the renovation of the Abhisek ... read more

Today was all about Gold. There was no shortage of other precious metals and stones, but nothing could outdo the Gold. We started the day at the Grand Palace and temple of the Emerald Buddha. Next was Wat Pho - the temple of the huge reclining Buddha, after which we took a boat trip past Wat Arun (had wanted to see it from close up, but it was on the other side of the river, and we were told that it looked better from the river). Words cannot describe the grandure of the Palace and the Temples - they are really beautiful, and Jerry (our guide from the previous day) gave us some excellent explanations. When we were finished at Wat Pho, we walked to the place where the late Princess Galyani, the King's sister, was ... read more

Our wake-up call was promptly delivered at 05:30, as we were going to be picked up at 6:00 by Jerry, our guide for the day from Tour with Tong. We had chosen the Floating Market and Fishermen's Village tour: "Designed for ones who want something different. Go to see the REAL local life where river and sea meet together. Touch the way how fishermen earn for their living. Visit his farms and feed wild monkeys…lunch high in the middle of the ocean". The evening before, Jerry had called and left us a confirmation message with his mobile number, which we found very reasurring. As I mentioned, we were actually "hangers-on" for a tour booked by Renate and Alex from Australia. Since Tong's tour prices are per tour, having a 2nd couple on the tour meant that ... read more

OK, so it's Saturday night, and we're having a wonderful time, so a bit of a delay in writing this all up ... And pictures will come later, since I'm using the hotel computer for this, and it's rather slow (in fact so slow that David has been trying to get on-line for about 1 hour, and not managing ...). We left Tel Aviv on Monday evening with a 20 minute delay (at 22:30), and had a reasonably decent flight, considering that it was 10.5 hours long. We had dinner and breakfast (both edible) on the plane, and landed at 14:00 on Tuesday afternoon. We didn't have to wait for baggage since we always travel light - what doesn't go into our hand baggage doesn't go with us, at least on our way TO our vacation. ... read more

Of we go again. This time it's 2 weeks in Thailand. Our choices were Bangkok and the North, or Bangkok and the South. Luckily I had just taken a class on Thailand at the Israel School of Tourism, and I also know that David, my husband, doesn't like going on beach-type holidays (he says that the best relaxing holidays are at home, with take-away, large-screen tv, and no sand!!). So, Bangkok and the North it is (at least this time). My resources were: My notes from the class I took, the Eyewitness guide to Thailand (the best!!), the TripAdvisor Thailand forums, the amazing PaknamWeb sites by Richard Barrow, and many other websites on Thailand, Bangkok, etc. Keeping Kosher in Thailand isn't so simple, I'm told, as oyster... read more

Day 6 - today we were supposed to have a whole day in Marrakech, leaving the hotel at around 17:00, to catch our flight out at 19:10. But, as I told you on day 5 - Iberia screwed us again, and we had to leave our hotel at 12:00, so basically the whole day was shot. We wanted to make the best of it anyway, and enjoy the atmosphere and smells till the last second. So, we made an early start, to see the sights that we had not seen on Friday (remember? we went into the Souks and almost never left?) - so that meant the Saadian Tombs, El Bahia palace, and Palais Dar Si Said. We left the Riad, and looked for a taxi, but there were none to be had. Now, do you ... read more

Day 5 - This was going to be another day with too many hours in the jeep, but we had been told that Marrakech to Essaouira (which means "beautiful picture", and is the modern name for Mogador) would be about 2.5 hours, and completely straight with no twists and turns and no ups and downs. In fact, that was correct, and we didn't really suffer on the way, except for my poor husband, who really got bad food poisoning the previous night. We got off on the left foot, as I received a phone call at 8:00 in the morning. Who was it from? Can you guess? Yes, it was Iberia again - telling me that tomorrow's flight home from Marrakech to Barcelona had been cancelled, and they were putting us on a flight out of ... read more

Day 4 - it was Saturday, so a "day of rest" for us. But with the Souks so close by, we had a great time wandering around, knowing that we couldn't buy anything (see explanation on day3). We had bought tickets to the Marrakech Museum and the Medersa on Friday, so we spent the morning visiting these very interesting places. Definitely not to be missed. Back to Mrs. Peretz for lunch, and then another walk around the Jemma El Fna, this time during the day. There were a few snake-charmers around, but not so many - maybe because it was November, and there weren't many tourists? Saturday evening, we had booked tickets to Ali's Fantazia. Again, everyone was very accommodating - the owner of our Riad had very decently driven over on Friday to book a ... read more

Day 3 - and we had planned to go to the souk for just a couple of hours, HA HA HA. So, we started off a bit later than planned, since we were just dead from the previous day. Two of our party wanted to buy leather jackets, so our first stop was a leather goods factory about 1 minute walk from our Riad. As I've said before, there was 6 of us, and we ordered 11 items of clothing - mostly jackets and skirts !!! Now, it was Friday 11:00 when we finally left the factory, they don't work on Sundays, and on Monday at 12:00, they were all ready, even after last minute adjustments. The prices were more than reasonable (590 Euro for 2 jackets and a suede skirt), we got exactly what we ... read more

Day 2 - Jeep trip from Marrakech to the Tizi-N-Tichka pass, Telouet, Ait Benhaddou, Ouarzazate, and back .... Off we went on our jeep trip into the Atlas mountains. We discovered quite early on that sitting in the back of a 7-seater jeep, travelling at 80 kph, is not a huge lot of fun, so we had quite a lot of stops for changing places, and for getting rid of our breakfast, snack, lunch, etc. .... As I say, this trip is not for the faint-hearted. The views are amazing, and if you are into narrow trails on the edge of a ravine, with two-way traffic - then this is JUST what you want to do for a day or two :-) We were told that this trail is part of the Paris-Dakar race, and now ... read more