Banana Pancakes

Here we are in Bangkok again. So far we have had massages, manicures and pedicures, shopped and seen the taylor. We had a fun ride from the island on the first class train. When we arrived in Bangkok I left our most important bag with all our passports and cameras and ipods in it on the train. After a very embarrassing tackle of the nice train man we got it back ok. Today we are going to have some lunch on khoasan rd and then head out to one of the huge malls here to make our packs even heavier.
-Alice

I personally haven't had any manicures.. Only massages. I love this city, it's not as dirty as I remember it (I think that's because now I've been to much dirtier places) and I am in love with the food stalls. They make such good food from such simple ingredients. I think we're going to do a cooking "course" to learn some of it I hope. Only a few more days, then to Sydney with Sophie & Aidan then home. At least I don't have a job to go back too!
-Andrew

Some of my memories

Our Aussie friend Gordon who we have been hanging out with a bit since we got here left today. Kinda feels like the end of an era of this trip. We leave tomorrow night on the stupidly expensive first class overnight train. I guess we left the booking too late. Anyway thats ok, first class over here isnt quite as fancy as our normal train. Thismorning we had breakfast at Seatanu, our old abide, with Gordon and then made sand castles, well actually Andrew made a big sand hole and planted a coconut. I have seen already today 3 different sized crabs, 2 schools of tiny see through fish, 2 lizards and a frog. The other night there was a huge storm here. You pretty much couldnt go out of your room and you could feel the rain pelting on the ground on the other side of the road before it hit you on yours. It was insane, it caused a huge landslide, well actually sand slide, down a hill about 1m away from our previous hut. That evening there were so so so many frogs out and the sound of them was deafening. Everynight so far we have sat and watched the sunset and nearly everynight we see a lightening storm on other islands dotted around us. Its a pretty magical place here, you feel like you are so far away from the rest of the world. You learn how the beach works, and how the people here live thier everyday. The Seatanu girls watch their thai soaps from 3-5, so watching a movie is out of the question. The Haad Chao Pao family send their son to care in the day then in the evenings they take turns to look after him and run the resturant, he has a wee nap in the hammock around 4. The paragon people all sit and play on the computer all day. The pool filter is broken so everyday the pool gets scummier and scummier until now we cant swim in it. At the resturant across the road the 2year old daughter brings us the menu when we arrive. You will always always get something cheaper than the tag. The guy selling fishermans pants on the beach imports them from the north of thailand and only sees his young family only 1-2 a year(or at least thats what he tells you!).
Anyways, just wanted to write down all these special tings I have learnt about this place. Tonight they are having a party at the pirate bar (the coolest bar Ive ever seen) so we will be dancing on the sand till morning.

Not long to go

We have been here in our paradise for a week now and I almost cant imagine leaving. Everyday has been filled with beautiful sunsets, watching fireworks on the beach, drinking pina coldas, midnight swims, exploring the beach and jungle and making new friends. The people here are so lovely, and getting to know us now. We would love to stay for 6 months and become part of this place. We have moved back into luxury though, the heat here is insane right now and both Andrew and I were overheating alot. Now we have a nice pool to dunk into and aircon to get us to sleep. I think we will stay settled here until its time to leave and then just a couple of days in Bangkok.
We are looking forward to some home cooked meals and practising our cooking skills too.

Slumming it

We have finally, after extending our stay here in luxury by 2 extra nights have decided we have to move back out to the real world of backpacking. Have found a lovely place just down the beach with bungaloos for $6 a night and a great vibe. I have fallen in love with a wee puppy dog who has been following us everywhere for the past few days. He is homeless and so far has figured out how to charm the tourists to feed and play with him. I really want to take him home. He is the cutest wee thing!! I suspect I will have my heart broken. Havent got much snorkelling in the last 2 days, visibility is pretty crappy, but it looks like the tide is coming in all the time so we might get some done in the next couple of days.

Thailand

Well it seems this is our last big stop now. Tried to change our tickets to go back to the Philippines but no luck so we're making the most of our last couple of weeks here. Right now we are on Koh Pangang, a small island in southern Thailand famous for its full moon parties where every backpacker in Thailand congregates to drink buckets on the beach. We arrived on the black moon party night so stayed for a night in a scummy hotel in Haad Rin and then decided to move out to the beach. My how things have changed since we were here last. Our sleepy wee beach that had a shop and fruit stall now has a pharmacy, 2 bookshops and at least 5 general stores for our shopping pleasure. Our wee beach hut has been ripped down to make way for airconditioned condos that cost about 10x as much per night. We are embracing the new wave of aircon and pools though, we are even splashing out on the $3-4 meals. Havent decided quite what else we'll do yet, perhaps move somewhere a bit cheaper tomorrow.

Koh Samui

Well, we're back in Thailand, we got a flight directly to Koh Samui (one of the islands in the gulf) instead of to Bangkok, and it's been great. The airport on Samui is like a beach hut without walls, last time we came here it was nice, this time, it was unusual to go through immigration in a beach hut. But I have to say I love it here, I did last time, and have been reminded of just why. It is still really cheap, and the weather is awesome, and the beaches are beautiful. Tomorrow we move to Koh Phangan, hopefully find an even cheaper hut and spend the next couple of weeks on the beach relaxing and whatever else we want to do. We managed to find an awesome Thai restaurant, it's pretty budget looking, no A/C or anything, and it's cheap, but the food is simply awesome and it's open 24 hours so it doesn't really get much better than that. 4 meals at the same place in the last 2 days..

I wasn't quite sure how my impressions of this place would have changed after seeing a lot more of the world and maybe it only seemed so amazing since it was the only other place I'd been apart from NZ/Australia, but no, it's still just as good, it's still one of my favorite places I've been. I was surprised that the price hadn't really gone up, and I'd heard that since the Tsunami on the other side of the country that the tourism from there had come here, but it doesn't seem to have changed all that much. I don't remember getting so many insect bites last time though, I have like 20 or so at the moment, it's frustrating, but then again, the pharmacies are dirt cheap and sell anything over the counter, so maybe I'll get something treat it. It's a shame we're only here for a month really. We're also thinking we might go to the Phillipines after this for a couple of weeks too. Better get off the internet and go do something not so nerdy.

Stuff.co.nz

Today we slept in again because we are so jetlagged, so we will again burn the candle at the other end tonight to make up for it. Thats whats so cool about Hong Kong, it never sleeps, much more than anywhere else we've been.
So we got our luggage back nearly 30 hours after we arrived. Its a shame we spent all day wandering around in our track pants when we could've gone shopping on the insurance for 3G. So anyways...
I was catching up on the news today and I read an article about concerns over the quality of babies being born in our country. The professionals are concerned that uneducated people are having all the babies. They want to put contraceptives IN THE WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Every time I go away our country goes bananas. Please please please NZ DO NOT let this happen. How can it even be suggested is beyond me. Why not just castrate all the ugly people at birth? Or abort all unplanned babies. I find this terrifying.
-Alice

Laters Europe

It's a sad time, but we're finally off the continent of Europe, and back onto the same big old piece of land that is Asia

After Florence we took our last train to Rome, to stay at a camping ground and visit the city of Rome.

We stayed in a camping ground, in a little cabin, about 30 mins bus/metro from Rome, and it was probably one of the coolest places we have stayed in. On our first night, we met some Canadians, and they were painting t-shirts because it was Canada day, and there was a pub crawl "Blame Canada for this party" it was called, and so we decided we'd join because it sounded like a fun night. We somehow became half-honourable Canadians for the evening, and got Canada and colours painted on us. It ended up being quite a patriotic night, with Alice and I being the only Kiwis so we had to single handedly support NZ and I think we did a pretty good job of it because somehow we became the most remembered people of everyone and other people came up to us the next night and told us that they'd heard of our legend..

We spent only 1 day out of our 4 in Rome actually seing things, and man it was hard, we saw basically everything there is to see except the Vatican City, and we spent from 10am to 9pm doing it walking around in the obscene heat (the weather was exactly like a real hot day back in chch) and it was pretty cool, my favorite thing I think was the Trevi Fountain, it's just amazing, and the Collessuem was pretty big and awesome too.

We had 2 flights to our current location of Hong Kong, we had to switch planes in London, and our first flight was late so our bags didn't get transferred, and so when we landed they told us and now we don't have our bags, but they should be here tonight, hopefully, because it'd be really nice to change because we slept in these clothes on the plane ride and then another night, and it's so hot and sticky here in Hong Kong. It's great to be back in Asia though, we were starting to get real tired of travelling around I think, but this has renewed us. There is so much shopping here (it's not that cheap though, same as home) and the amount of buildings and how big they are, makes NY look a little long in the tooth. They have massive over-the-harbour laser light shows and fireworks with the buildings, so I'm looking forward to that tonight. Soon back into Thailand, can't wait.
-Andrew

Well we are coming to the last leg of this journey now, seems hard to believe. We had fun in Florence watching the illegal imitation bag sales men running from the police and watching a beautiful open air classical concert. Our hostel was one of those lock you out during the day and make sure your all tucked in by 2 places. Rome was so much fun, mostly thanks to all our new Canadian buddies who took amazing care of us. We will never forget your help Brad and co seriously!!
Like Andrew said its great to be here in Hong Kong. I had forgotten that feeling of arriving in Asia. Its like walking into a bath going outside and everything is so organized but chaotic all at the same time. We are doing a tea appreciation course on monday as part of a festival they have here at the moment.
-Alice