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Published: August 9th 2008
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Well we are back on the road again after what seems like a long time of work - 3 months to be closer to the mark!!
Off to Thailand for a few weeks of sun, sand and surf which in fact as been closer to rain, clouds and indoors. The weather has been pretty average but we have manged to see some pretty cool stuff again and it has been really relaxing for the first part of our trip.
Our arrival into Thailand was pretty typical, and one that Kris enjoyed as we have landed safely again and didn't die on the flight. Took a cab from the airport to Karon Beach on the South Western side of Phuket island where we stayed in a fantastic hotel that was in the middle of the bush, but had great views of Karon beach. We spent three nights here, and was a bit of a treat for ourselves. We hired a jeep and cruised around for the day, checked out a few of the other towns around us and generally had a merry time.
Spent a lot of time on Patong beach - the main beach in Phuket and manged
to get a few hours on the beach where we both came out looking like lobsters.
Agreeing a time with a local tuk-tuk driver for our transfer to Liem Hin pier for our next stop, and the travel curse rears its ugly head again so back to the bartering of other drivers. Made it to Leam Hin peir where we had a private boat waiting to transport us across to Coconut Island. We were extremely lucky to have been given the opportunity by the parents of a child that I teach in Singapore to use their holiday home for a few nights. It was a beautiful 3 bedroomed home with open living plans and a fantastic swimming pool that we lived in for three days. There was no television, the rain came down so we had a good time relaxing, unwinding and reading for the entire time. The village is still under development so it was practically deserted so was great. On our departure we met a real estate agent who was visiting the island to see if it was up to Kate Moss's standard of a place to call home for a few days!
After leaving Coconut
island we transfered to another pier for a boat to Phi Phi Island. Having thought we could get tickets cheaper at the pier than in town we went down with a lot of confidence only to pay 200 baht more than prices in town. Never mind.
Boat ride to Phi Phi took a couple of hours, and got quite rough towrds the end. Found a hotel wandered around for a bit. Phi Phi was devestated by the 2004 Tsunami and you can still see the reminants of this today with large areas of waste land, and lots of building still going on. Watched the All Blacks lose to the Aussies and drowned our sorrows.
With little sun again and and patches of ran thrown in we signed up to a boat cruise that took half a day in a traditional long tail to do some snorkelling, visit monkey beach and feed them (we stayed in the boat for this one after the last incident to do with these type of animals) visited an inlet and finally we were supposed to get to visit Maya Bay - the place where the movie "The Beach" was filmed. After leaving Phi
Phi Phi Lei inlet
Where we took shelter from the rain Phi Lei inlet the rain came in a torrential downpour, the wind picked up, the waves picked up but the faces of our other travelling companions dropped into something that said "We are going to die on our way to 'the beach'". With a few head signals and little moans our captain courageous decided to turn the boat around and seek shelter in the inlet we had just left. 30 minutes later, and with only light rain we trucked on towards the beach. We came to another inlet where there were ropes leading through a small hole that leads to what was now becoming a magical, mystical place. Two of our companions took the risk in huge swells as we watched children trying to get through this opening and getting hammered into the rocks. On their arrival many questions were thrown at them and their response: "It wasn't worth the effort." Not so gutted, but to us "the beach" remains a mystery.
Back to the mainand where we got an overnight bus to Bangkok where we chilled for a few days before our flight to Hanoi, Vietnam. Flight from the new airport in Bangkok was a pleasant and was
packed with new shops that we couldn't afford to look in.
Kristyn survived another flight with pressure point lotion and rescue remedy mouth drops and we were in Hanoi. A really pleasant city with lots of bikes and the old quarter where we were based is a great place to explore. All of the street names describe what type of things it sells so we walked from street to street that sold everything from herbs to shoes to tin to going past blacksmiths banging out their trade. We took a cab to one of the temples in Hanoi and asked the driver to put on the meter as we didn't trust his inital price. Well a 2 kilometre journey ends up as 13.5km on his metre and more expensive as the orignal price he asked for!! It would just tick over like seconds on a clock. Needless to say we had a few words with him on arrival at his dodgy metre and left him to think about what he had done! (apart from making a killing off one journey)
Mostly wandered around the old quarter, then headed to an Irish Bar to watch the All Blacks second
Bia Hoi Junction, Hanoi
A glass of beer for 25 NZ cents. By day an outdoor shop, by night kegs on the street! game. Met up with another 3 Kiwis and we continued to get louder and louder until we danced all round and took over the pubs I-Pod until we had to leave at the ungodly hour of 7:30pm to board a train to La Cai in the very North of Vietnam - on the Chinese boarder.
Feeling ill and very under the weather we arrived at 7 am the next morning and jumped in our transfer for a 30 kilometre, very winding journey to Sapa. A quick breakfast of fried noodles and we donned our trekking shoes for a 2 day, 1 night trek through the hills around Sapa and a visit to the villages of the minority people of Vietnam where we stayed in a home-stay overnight. We had a great guide who belonged to one of the tribes. Only 17, she considered herself already too old to get married as the females of the tribes usually marry and have children around 15 or 16 years old.
The walk was great and the weather held off for the first day and the walk through the terraced rice fields was really beautiful. We had faithful "assistants" from fellow tribes
All Blacks Win!
Us and our Southland brothers! and they follwed us, using their skills pressed us to buy things since they had walked with us for 4 hours. The home stay was plesant and the food fantastic and had to try some of the locals "happy water" at the beginning of dinner. Still feeling a bit rough I took one for the team and toasted our homestay family. Second day saw constant light rain which made the mud tracks difficult to pass at times and few laughs watching other arse over.
We board a night train tonight back to Hanoi where we get picked up and taken over the Halong Bay for a 3 day, 2 night cruise around the bay. Hope all is well with everyone.
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