Hell everyone!
Well, unfortunately, not too much report about my last week in New Zealand. After my last post on Easter weekend, the infected insect bite took hold and spread through my foot and started to make its way up my leg, to the point where I could no longer hobble around on one foot, let alone walk. So I spent East Monday night at the A & E in Wellington. When I first hobbled through the door, the Nurse said they may have to admit me and put me on drip, which scared me quite a bit, I hadn't really realised how serious it was, but in the end they decided to manage it with regular antibiotics, patched me up and sent me home again, asking me to come back the next day for re-assessment. With a total of 4 visits to the doctor over the last week/10 days, and the various tablets, lotions, potions and bandages, I am currently running at a total of $450 in costs, so lets hope my travel insurance will admit the claim on this little episode! I have spent majority of this week watching films and reading books, which all sounds quite nice, but if you've ever stayed in a hostel, you'll know they are not really designed to spend time in during the day and are really just for sleeping in, so it has not been the most enjoyable end to my trip.
So seeing as I don't have much else to report about the week, I've put together a few 'top 5's' about my trip as a whole. So in the words of Davina MaColl, here are my "best bits";
What would I do differently for the trip;
1. Buy single one way tickets when I ready to leave a country and move to the next rather than booking a pre-defined around the world ticket. Qantas and BA have made a mint out of me changing my mind, I have spent about 50% of my ticket price again of changing dates and destinations!
2. Bring a Netbook/laptop - it seems to be the essential travel accessory, I feel very old fashioned writing my journal, to do lists, notes etc in a note book with a pen!
3. Maybe have done the itinerary in a different order, doing SE Asia first was a big culture shock and it took a lot of adjustment to get used to being away from home, travelling and the different culture all at once. It may have been a more gradual introduction if I started in NZ.
4. After working about my budget, TRIPLE it, and then I would be somewhere near how much money I would actually need for the trip! It has pretty much wiped out all my money and then some, but I didn't want to come all this way and leave wishing I had done more.
5. Try not to cover so much ground in such a short time and stay longer in some places. In NZ it has been good to spend several weeks here allowing me to really get to know the country. But there are some parts of Asia that I feel I just travelled through, rather than actually experiencing them.
What have I missed/ looking forward to when I get home;
1. Real towels - I'm fed up of trying to dry myself with a travel towel which can only be likened to a shammy leather
2. Single story beds - no one fidgeting above or below me!
3. Seeing all of you! You meet a lot of people when you travel, which is one of the best parts, but no one ever really knows you. I miss just hanging out with people, who you don't have to make an effort with, because you just know each other, inside and out.
4. New Music - I have bored myself with the selection of music I have on my MP3 player. New Zealand is not really the place to hear new music either, when the Kiwi's get excited on the dance floor about a 'new track' my general response is ' it was new about 3 years ago'. I probably would also download some audio books on my MP3 to help entertain me.
5. Clothes shopping!
What have I learnt;
1. I can make decisions without looking for reassurance that I have made the right choice from family or friends before committing to them. When you are travelling, every day you have to make decisions, some significant, some less so, but ultimately you have to make that decision alone and you are responsible for it. Most of the time this is quite liberating, but at times it can be quite draining.
2. I am a little bit material. Most people finish their travelling experience saying they are not material as they thought they were. Sorry, but I am, I do like some of the finer things in life. Although I haven't put it in the list above (mainly because it would be a boring read), some of things I missed the most are material.
3. I don't get homesick - I really though I would, as usually I can go on holiday for a week and get homesick (but maybe that says something about the holidays I went on previously rather than me!) But I haven't on this trip. There have been times where I haven't enjoyed what I am doing, or the people I am with, but instead of getting homesick, I have just wanted to be moving on to the next thing to get myself out of that situation.
4. It isn't the constant temptation of cakes, sweets and treats we have in the office that make me fat that I normally blame- it is me! Where ever I am in the world I have an ability to continuously eat and display no element of self control(especially in New Zealand, they have really good independent bakeries everywhere here and I have tried the full range of goods on offer, the carrot cake is particularly impressive, of which I am not normally a fan).
5. I have learnt so much about about different cultures, environments and people. I have seen so much, but also been on so many tours etc where I have been given so much information. At the time of hearing it, I always find this information really interesting, as that is what I am here for, to learn. But I think I would be lucky if I could remember one tenth of it all - my brain just doesn't have the capacity to store everything I have heard in the last 4 months.
High-lights
1. Sky Dive - Lake Taupo NZ
2. Kyaking with Suzie - Ao Nang Thailand
3. Junk boat ride - Ha Long Bay - Vietnam
4. Visiting the killing fields - Cambodia
5. Barrytown NZ
Before I left, people told me that I will change as a result of travelling, or have asked ,while I have been away, if I think I have changed.........fundamentally, the answer is no, I haven't really changed at all, I am still me (apologies if you are not that keen on me and you thought a new and improved Katrina may return, prepare yourself for disappointment. I'm still selfish, stubborn and too loud & brash on occasions, although I am a bit more tolerant I think, but just a wee bit, so don't get too excited! :o) ). Before left, I also hoped that somethings would change about me, but I think instead of changing, I just have more self awareness of elements of my personality and perhaps have learnt to accept some of them rather than want to change them. This opportunity for reflection has meant that there are changes I would like to make to my lifestyle in the UK in order to live life to the full. I'm not going to write about these changes on here, as some of them are personal and others are more obvious/practical, but I am really determined to make them work. It is so easy to be out here in this alternate reality and say 'when I get home, I will.....' so I have written them all down each with a date of when I want to achieve it by in the hope this means I actually do it! Ask me in six months how it is going and we'll see how easy it has been to stick to! I'm prepared for the challenge!
Although I have identified things that I would do differently or change during the trip etc, these are not regrets, they are just lessons learned really. But, I do have one regret during my trip. I'm not going to share what it is, but what I will say it is a regret about something I didn't do, not something I did do. The phrase that you "only regret the things you don't do" is sooooooooooooo true, I don't regret anything I have done in the last 4 months, even the things that haven't worked out so well. So if you are considering trying something new, changing something or going somewhere different, just do it! I really hope that this is an attitude that I can bring home and maintain. I think once I get back into the old routine at home, that will be easier said than done, but I am at least going to try, and I am going to try and regularly remind myself of it.
Before I left, a few people said they hoped I would 'find whatever it is you are looking for' on this trip. Well to those that have asked if I have, the answer is a resounding yes! I just hope I can bring 'it' back with me and it isn't something that is exclusively with me while I am away.
So that's it, the big adventure is over. It is with mixed emotions that I head home, but I really am looking forward to seeing you all. Tomorrow I will be heading to Auckland Airport to get on a plane back to Heathrow via LA (I wish I had the time and money to stop there for more than the 10 hours I will be spending in the airport!). I won't quite be heading home just yet though, I'll be extending the travelling by heading to exotic Norfolk for a week to see my family and friends up there before handing back to Southampton for the big wedding (I know, Wills and Kate have already got hitched, I am referring to the big wedding in my social diary, which is way more important to me than the Royals which I couldn't give a monkeys about, it is the Fisher/Baynes wedding).
I have worked out, that without any delays, I should be walking through the front door at my Mum and Dad's house in Broome just a mere 46 hours after leaving my hostel here in Auckland, that is just going to whizz by isn't it?! When I do finally make through the front door, I'm looking forward to having a shower in a bathroom that isn't a breeding ground for athletes foot, with a nice fluffy towel, followed by a jacket potato and beans and big pint glass of .......orange squash. Mum/Dad, I appreciate you are on a water meter, and no it isn't necessary for me to stay in the shower as long as I do, but if I could have an untimed shower on my first day back that would be amazing........you can start reminding me about my excessive water consumption on the second day!! :o)
So by the heading, you can probably guess, the 'final chapter' is my last blog post! You know me, modest to the end, but there has been some suggestion I should continue the blog once I am back in the UK due its pure entertainment value ;o). But I think it is always best for things to end on a high, so this really is the end, sorry blog fans (Mrs R in particular! :o) ). In addition, I do not wish to further fuel the comparisons between myself and Bridget Jones which seem to be becoming more frequent - I cannot think why this comparison is made!!! :o). On a serious note however, thank you to everyone that has taken an interest in what I am doing by reading the blog and/or sending e-mails or facebooking me. When you are this far away from home it really can make your day when you hear from someone at home, like I said above, someone that you knows inside and out.
So for the last time, lots of love to you all, and I'll see you soon. x x x
Take care
Over and Out.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Really Wild
Kia Ora!
Its been a while! I haven't forgotten you, I've been travelling around the 'deep south' where normal facilities such as the Internet are pretty sparse! In addition to lack of Internet and phone signal, it is bloody cold in the south so I'm glad to have now made my way a bit further north back to civilisation and warmth....well I say warmth, I mean you can get away with just a t-shirt, jumper and coat, rather than the scarf and gloves too! So I'm a little jealous to be reading on face book how you are all having lovely sunny bbq's for Easter weekend! My Easter weekend has been a bit uneventful due to a run in with one of New Zealands finest, the Sand Fly. He won and has left me with one very gammy infected foot. Despite persevering for the last week, I've had to give in and on the advice of the pharmacist (who was very helpful, as you would expect from a Kiwi, and basically gave me a GP consultation for free) and stay in my hostel for a couple of days to rest my foot. Ideally I need to take some antibiotics and it would clear up pretty quickly, but I'm not allowed to take them due to lack of Iron I have at the moment. Grr, very frustrating seeing I am in the beautiful town of Kiakoura where there is so much I wanted to do! Luckily my hostel is right on the beach so I was able to hobble out there for a few hours this afternoon and enjoy watching the crashing of the waves, but that is as much excitement as I have seen on this fine Easter Sunday.
So, I'll stop harping on about that, and tell you what I have been doing pre-mobility issues! So on leaving Queenstown, I headed south to Milford Sound. This was only about 80km from QT, as the crow flies, but due to the mountains regions and lakes we had to drive over 300km to get there. So there was a lot of time spent on the bus on this day, but the views out of the window on the way were pretty special so this was ok. On arrival at Milford Sound, we jumped onto a boat to be able to views the sounds from the water, this is really the only way you can see them. If you have seen any pictures of Milford Sound, you'll know it is a stunning area, and you have also seen about as much of it as I have. I'll just have to believe that what is on the postcards is what was hiding behind the cloud on my trip there. I'm sure it really is, I just wasn't to see it. So I haven't posted any pictures of Milford Sound on facebook for you, as pictures of some grey clouds, really won't impress you at all! We were lucky enough to have a pod of dolphins play along side the boat most of the way though, and they put on quite a show with their acrobatics. Apparently this doesn't happen very often, so we should be grateful for that.
After leaving the cloudy sounds, we headed to our accommodation for the night in the national park area, which is described by the Lonely Planet guide as 'ultra rustic', and I can confirm that! It was essentially a series of sheds, each sleeping 6 people. The 'cabin' I was in was very close to the river, so I was hoping that we didn't get too much rain in the night. Thankfully there was a fire in each cabin to keep us warm, but we had to keep topping it up every hour. Larissia took charge of this in my cabin, and I was a bit worried we may suffer from smoke inhalation when she pretty much dumped all the wood on it in one go before we went to sleep to try and keep us warm in the night. I didn't make too much of a fuss though, she is German and they generally win, so there is no pointing discussing it! She is the funniest German I have ever met and went on to become one of my main travel buddies for the deep south. She is the only person I have met who dislikes her own nation so much, and was moaning about Germans more than anyone else. It was so funny. It is worth saying at this point that there are Germans everywhere here. On the bus through the deep south, it was 80% Germans and I was the only British person. Anyway, back to the sheds, with no electricity, we were all tucked up in bed by 9.30pm, which is probably a good thing seeing we had to leave at 5.30am the next day to make it to Bluff to catch the ferry to Stewart Island.
I have never suffered from any kind of travel/motion sickness......until the crossing to Stewart Island. Stewart Island is the furthest point south on my trip and is probably about as far away from the UK as you can get. After Stewart Island the next stop is Antarctica. As the 1 hour boat ride crossed the choppy seas I have never felt so ill in my life, I wasn't the only one, the sick bags were made good use of that day. I kept looking at my watch thinking, "it must be over soon" and thinking, "I am gong to have to live on Stewart Island, I can't get on this boat again". Stewart Island is NZ's 3rd largest island, and 98% of it is national park, there are only 300 people that live there. I would have made it 301 if I hadn't successfully persuaded myself to get back on the boat again the following morning. Anyway, Stewart Island is famous for its bird life where you can find many species that are extinct on the main land. I have to say, I didn't overly enjoy Stewart Island, I felt so ill when I got there, I was tired from getting up so early, and it was grey and rainy. I did venture for one walk for a couple of hours and did a bit of ornithology, but that was about it. Apparently if you are going to see a kiwi (bird) in NZ, this is the place to see it. Although according to 'Seagull' the driver for the deep south, you have more chance of seeing the Queen giving a blow job, than you have of seeing a kiwi. I didn't see a kiwi on Stewart island, and thankfully, I didn't see the Queen either.
So I made it back from Stewart Island (thankfully the seas were a lot calmer the next day) and the next stop was Dunedin. The deep south is all about the wildlife (there aren't many people) so we took the scenic route along the coast to make some stops to spot sea lions, dolphins, albatross etc. We didn't see any. Not a great day given it was supposed to be all about the wildlife. So we left the wildlife hiding and made it to Dunedin, civilisation again. I decided to hop off the bus here and spend a few days here, its a good thing I did as one day in Dunedin was taken up with a hangover. We may not have had a wild (life) day on the way to Dunedin, but we did have a wild Saturday night in Dunedin. I didn't expect much from this student city, but it was actually a really good place. On arrival we headed straight to Speights for the brewery tour, this was pretty boring to be honest, although our guide was the great grandson of the founder of Speights so that was a nice touch, but the best bit was the sampling at the end. Although I'm sure that's ll people ever go on brewery tours for. After the tour, we had an awesome night out /early morning in Dunedin. A couple of the people I was out with were staying on the bus and leaving Dunedin on the Sunday morning, we got back just in time for them to jump on the bus at 7.30am and after waving them off, I went straight to my bunk for a snooze. In the afternoon, hangover in tow, those of us that stayed in Dunedin, headed to the worlds steepest street and climbed up there. It was pretty steep, but to me the pictures of San Fransisco look steeper, so I not sure of the authenticity of this fact!
Having been let down by the lack of wildlife spotting's on the way to Dunedin, I went on a tour to the Dunedin Peninsula, which thankfully provided an abundance of wildlife spotting, seals, sea lions, penguins, albatross the lot. This was a great tour, as included access into a protected area of coastline owned by a farmer, where only a few people are allowed to go a day. We were stepping into the natural environment of all these animals which was great. The tour guides were so good and gave us so much information about all the species, I just wish I could remember it all! We stayed out on the tour right until dusk where we sat in a little shed on the beach and watched the penguins come home from their day at sea, trying to avoid the sea lions lazing on the sand as they waddled across the beach. This was a real treat. I was a bit scared at times though, as we walked along the beach were all the sea lions are and they are so big, and they don't have lion in their name for no reason, they can be aggressive! Apparently they can also 'run' at 20km/h!
Dunedin is also home of the Cadbury factory for New Zealand, so of course I had to go on the factory tour. Oh my Buddha, they give you sooooo much chocolate as you go around, and of course, I took every piece offered. If you attempted to answer a question the tour guide asked, you even got a chocolate as a reward. There was no shutting me up! I did suffer from a chocolate hangover later in the day. Oh man, that was a good day though, even if the tour guide was dressed like an umper lumper and sounded like an American squirrel on helium. I'd like to say the experience put me off chocolate, for life. It hasn't. I got over the chocolate hangover pretty quickly and got back on it the next day.
After Dunedin, we headed to Mt Cook. There are some pictures of facebook. This was absolutely stunning, not a cloud in the sky this time! Here I took a boat trip out on a glacial lake and had a tour of all the icebergs floating in the lake that had broken off the glacier, I even tasted one! This again, was a really good tour (it included a speed boat which gave it extra points!) and again a really good guide who gave loads of information. This guide was from Ipswich, and I don't like it when we get English/American/Canadian guides, I prefer to have someone local, but this guide made up for it with his knowledge and enthusiasm, top marks awarded. If you get a good guide for a trip, it really does make the experience, I know from being a trainer that repeating the same thing day in day out can be boring, but the ones that make it sound like it is the first time they have said it are great.
After Mt Cook, we spent a night in Rangitata. I'm not going to say much about this place, as it was pretty much a 'nothing' stop. And I resent having to pay $26 to stay in a 10 person dorm with triple bunks (yes triple) when I can pay the same price for a 4 person dorm somewhere else. They might try and call this one 'rustic', I call it taking the pi$$. I'm nearly 30, I don't need to be climbing to the top of triple bunk bed!!! To the American girl who screamed in excitment at the triple bunks and how it was just like a slumber party, "no it is not 'cute'"
On leaving Rangitata, we by-passed Christchurch and headed straight to Kiakoura. This is a beautiful seaside town again, which again, is all about the wildlife. Before the foot got the better of me, I was able to fit in a whale watching trip, where I saw 3 sperm whales. Apparently most countries in the world have sperm whales, but Kiakoura is special because it is one of the few places in the world to have such deep water so close to shore, which means you can get to a whale feeding environment very quickly. The water is up to 2km deep in some places - needless to say, you can't go swimming here! On this 2 hour trip I also saw dolphins and albatross. It really is great so see so much wildlife in such an unspoilt part of the world.
Other than the whale watching, Kiakooura hasn't been a a great place as I've had to say goodbye to my two 'deep south' travel buddies, Larissa and Syibelle who I have had so much fun with , and have had to spend two days doing nothing in the hostel. It is very nice hostel, but with no TV and being located 1k from the town centre, it is not the best place to be with a gammy foot.
Tomorrow I head back to Picton and leave the South Island and jump on the ferry back to the North Island, so that is the South Island done. It has been awesome, I have looooooovvvveeed every minute of it. I cannot explain how amazing it has been.
Right, I think I might hobble over the convenience store over the road and treat myself to an Easter egg.
Happy Easter everyone, enjoy the days off and sunshine.
All my love
Katrina x x x x x x
Its been a while! I haven't forgotten you, I've been travelling around the 'deep south' where normal facilities such as the Internet are pretty sparse! In addition to lack of Internet and phone signal, it is bloody cold in the south so I'm glad to have now made my way a bit further north back to civilisation and warmth....well I say warmth, I mean you can get away with just a t-shirt, jumper and coat, rather than the scarf and gloves too! So I'm a little jealous to be reading on face book how you are all having lovely sunny bbq's for Easter weekend! My Easter weekend has been a bit uneventful due to a run in with one of New Zealands finest, the Sand Fly. He won and has left me with one very gammy infected foot. Despite persevering for the last week, I've had to give in and on the advice of the pharmacist (who was very helpful, as you would expect from a Kiwi, and basically gave me a GP consultation for free) and stay in my hostel for a couple of days to rest my foot. Ideally I need to take some antibiotics and it would clear up pretty quickly, but I'm not allowed to take them due to lack of Iron I have at the moment. Grr, very frustrating seeing I am in the beautiful town of Kiakoura where there is so much I wanted to do! Luckily my hostel is right on the beach so I was able to hobble out there for a few hours this afternoon and enjoy watching the crashing of the waves, but that is as much excitement as I have seen on this fine Easter Sunday.
So, I'll stop harping on about that, and tell you what I have been doing pre-mobility issues! So on leaving Queenstown, I headed south to Milford Sound. This was only about 80km from QT, as the crow flies, but due to the mountains regions and lakes we had to drive over 300km to get there. So there was a lot of time spent on the bus on this day, but the views out of the window on the way were pretty special so this was ok. On arrival at Milford Sound, we jumped onto a boat to be able to views the sounds from the water, this is really the only way you can see them. If you have seen any pictures of Milford Sound, you'll know it is a stunning area, and you have also seen about as much of it as I have. I'll just have to believe that what is on the postcards is what was hiding behind the cloud on my trip there. I'm sure it really is, I just wasn't to see it. So I haven't posted any pictures of Milford Sound on facebook for you, as pictures of some grey clouds, really won't impress you at all! We were lucky enough to have a pod of dolphins play along side the boat most of the way though, and they put on quite a show with their acrobatics. Apparently this doesn't happen very often, so we should be grateful for that.
After leaving the cloudy sounds, we headed to our accommodation for the night in the national park area, which is described by the Lonely Planet guide as 'ultra rustic', and I can confirm that! It was essentially a series of sheds, each sleeping 6 people. The 'cabin' I was in was very close to the river, so I was hoping that we didn't get too much rain in the night. Thankfully there was a fire in each cabin to keep us warm, but we had to keep topping it up every hour. Larissia took charge of this in my cabin, and I was a bit worried we may suffer from smoke inhalation when she pretty much dumped all the wood on it in one go before we went to sleep to try and keep us warm in the night. I didn't make too much of a fuss though, she is German and they generally win, so there is no pointing discussing it! She is the funniest German I have ever met and went on to become one of my main travel buddies for the deep south. She is the only person I have met who dislikes her own nation so much, and was moaning about Germans more than anyone else. It was so funny. It is worth saying at this point that there are Germans everywhere here. On the bus through the deep south, it was 80% Germans and I was the only British person. Anyway, back to the sheds, with no electricity, we were all tucked up in bed by 9.30pm, which is probably a good thing seeing we had to leave at 5.30am the next day to make it to Bluff to catch the ferry to Stewart Island.
I have never suffered from any kind of travel/motion sickness......until the crossing to Stewart Island. Stewart Island is the furthest point south on my trip and is probably about as far away from the UK as you can get. After Stewart Island the next stop is Antarctica. As the 1 hour boat ride crossed the choppy seas I have never felt so ill in my life, I wasn't the only one, the sick bags were made good use of that day. I kept looking at my watch thinking, "it must be over soon" and thinking, "I am gong to have to live on Stewart Island, I can't get on this boat again". Stewart Island is NZ's 3rd largest island, and 98% of it is national park, there are only 300 people that live there. I would have made it 301 if I hadn't successfully persuaded myself to get back on the boat again the following morning. Anyway, Stewart Island is famous for its bird life where you can find many species that are extinct on the main land. I have to say, I didn't overly enjoy Stewart Island, I felt so ill when I got there, I was tired from getting up so early, and it was grey and rainy. I did venture for one walk for a couple of hours and did a bit of ornithology, but that was about it. Apparently if you are going to see a kiwi (bird) in NZ, this is the place to see it. Although according to 'Seagull' the driver for the deep south, you have more chance of seeing the Queen giving a blow job, than you have of seeing a kiwi. I didn't see a kiwi on Stewart island, and thankfully, I didn't see the Queen either.
So I made it back from Stewart Island (thankfully the seas were a lot calmer the next day) and the next stop was Dunedin. The deep south is all about the wildlife (there aren't many people) so we took the scenic route along the coast to make some stops to spot sea lions, dolphins, albatross etc. We didn't see any. Not a great day given it was supposed to be all about the wildlife. So we left the wildlife hiding and made it to Dunedin, civilisation again. I decided to hop off the bus here and spend a few days here, its a good thing I did as one day in Dunedin was taken up with a hangover. We may not have had a wild (life) day on the way to Dunedin, but we did have a wild Saturday night in Dunedin. I didn't expect much from this student city, but it was actually a really good place. On arrival we headed straight to Speights for the brewery tour, this was pretty boring to be honest, although our guide was the great grandson of the founder of Speights so that was a nice touch, but the best bit was the sampling at the end. Although I'm sure that's ll people ever go on brewery tours for. After the tour, we had an awesome night out /early morning in Dunedin. A couple of the people I was out with were staying on the bus and leaving Dunedin on the Sunday morning, we got back just in time for them to jump on the bus at 7.30am and after waving them off, I went straight to my bunk for a snooze. In the afternoon, hangover in tow, those of us that stayed in Dunedin, headed to the worlds steepest street and climbed up there. It was pretty steep, but to me the pictures of San Fransisco look steeper, so I not sure of the authenticity of this fact!
Having been let down by the lack of wildlife spotting's on the way to Dunedin, I went on a tour to the Dunedin Peninsula, which thankfully provided an abundance of wildlife spotting, seals, sea lions, penguins, albatross the lot. This was a great tour, as included access into a protected area of coastline owned by a farmer, where only a few people are allowed to go a day. We were stepping into the natural environment of all these animals which was great. The tour guides were so good and gave us so much information about all the species, I just wish I could remember it all! We stayed out on the tour right until dusk where we sat in a little shed on the beach and watched the penguins come home from their day at sea, trying to avoid the sea lions lazing on the sand as they waddled across the beach. This was a real treat. I was a bit scared at times though, as we walked along the beach were all the sea lions are and they are so big, and they don't have lion in their name for no reason, they can be aggressive! Apparently they can also 'run' at 20km/h!
Dunedin is also home of the Cadbury factory for New Zealand, so of course I had to go on the factory tour. Oh my Buddha, they give you sooooo much chocolate as you go around, and of course, I took every piece offered. If you attempted to answer a question the tour guide asked, you even got a chocolate as a reward. There was no shutting me up! I did suffer from a chocolate hangover later in the day. Oh man, that was a good day though, even if the tour guide was dressed like an umper lumper and sounded like an American squirrel on helium. I'd like to say the experience put me off chocolate, for life. It hasn't. I got over the chocolate hangover pretty quickly and got back on it the next day.
After Dunedin, we headed to Mt Cook. There are some pictures of facebook. This was absolutely stunning, not a cloud in the sky this time! Here I took a boat trip out on a glacial lake and had a tour of all the icebergs floating in the lake that had broken off the glacier, I even tasted one! This again, was a really good tour (it included a speed boat which gave it extra points!) and again a really good guide who gave loads of information. This guide was from Ipswich, and I don't like it when we get English/American/Canadian guides, I prefer to have someone local, but this guide made up for it with his knowledge and enthusiasm, top marks awarded. If you get a good guide for a trip, it really does make the experience, I know from being a trainer that repeating the same thing day in day out can be boring, but the ones that make it sound like it is the first time they have said it are great.
After Mt Cook, we spent a night in Rangitata. I'm not going to say much about this place, as it was pretty much a 'nothing' stop. And I resent having to pay $26 to stay in a 10 person dorm with triple bunks (yes triple) when I can pay the same price for a 4 person dorm somewhere else. They might try and call this one 'rustic', I call it taking the pi$$. I'm nearly 30, I don't need to be climbing to the top of triple bunk bed!!! To the American girl who screamed in excitment at the triple bunks and how it was just like a slumber party, "no it is not 'cute'"
On leaving Rangitata, we by-passed Christchurch and headed straight to Kiakoura. This is a beautiful seaside town again, which again, is all about the wildlife. Before the foot got the better of me, I was able to fit in a whale watching trip, where I saw 3 sperm whales. Apparently most countries in the world have sperm whales, but Kiakoura is special because it is one of the few places in the world to have such deep water so close to shore, which means you can get to a whale feeding environment very quickly. The water is up to 2km deep in some places - needless to say, you can't go swimming here! On this 2 hour trip I also saw dolphins and albatross. It really is great so see so much wildlife in such an unspoilt part of the world.
Other than the whale watching, Kiakooura hasn't been a a great place as I've had to say goodbye to my two 'deep south' travel buddies, Larissa and Syibelle who I have had so much fun with , and have had to spend two days doing nothing in the hostel. It is very nice hostel, but with no TV and being located 1k from the town centre, it is not the best place to be with a gammy foot.
Tomorrow I head back to Picton and leave the South Island and jump on the ferry back to the North Island, so that is the South Island done. It has been awesome, I have looooooovvvveeed every minute of it. I cannot explain how amazing it has been.
Right, I think I might hobble over the convenience store over the road and treat myself to an Easter egg.
Happy Easter everyone, enjoy the days off and sunshine.
All my love
Katrina x x x x x x
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
To the point......
Hi blog fans, and those that are not so keen on the blog.....
I've got wind of a vicious rumour that my blog posts are too long, with me writing too much....... I believe the phrase 'you can write for England' was used. To protect their identity, I will keep the source of this rumour anonymous, and I will endeavour to keep this one as 'concise' as possible. It is a lucky co-incidence that it has been a pretty quiet week, so there isn't too much to report anyway!
I have spent the last week in Queenstown, the adventure capital of the world and the party capital of New Zealand! I have certainly participated in the later, but not so much the adventure side of QT. The most adventurous thing I have done in QT is a game of 'frisbee golf', (which did unexpectedly have some risk associated with it!). I know, I know, how can I be in QT and not throw myself into a Canion on an elastic band? Well as I have said before, a bungy jump does not appeal to me at all, and having already done a sky dive etc, I have kept myself busy with the tamer side of QT. Although there must be something about QT which I have fallen for, because I was due to leave of Sunday, and on this sunny (but cold) Wednesday afternoon I'm still here. I am leaving tomorrow though, after a week in this glorious town, having only planned to spend two days here.
So what have I been doing to keep myself busy here? Well after a long 4 days apart, I met up with some of the girls from my previous bus (plus Rocky who is an honoury member of the 'bimbettes'), so of course we were obliged to have a reunion night out to celebrate being together again. QT did us proud and really did provide us with an awesome night out in the party capital of NZ, I particularly like the 'tea pots' served in the World Bar...in Asia drinks were served in a bucket, but a tea pot is just so much more refined! I also dragged a couple of people out who I had met at my hostel, who will be referred to as 'Essex' and 'German' (they are ok with this!), I'm not sure they knew what they were letting themselves in for when they agreed to come out with me, but a good night was had by all, which was rounded off nicely by the legendary 'Fergburger' on the way home. Pictures of face book.
So back to the adrenaline activities of QT, myself, Claire, Gemma and Essex participated in a game of 'frisbee golf'. Yep, as it says on the tin, a 18 'basket' course, set within the beautiful QT botanical gardens, each basket has a par, in which you need to get the Frisbee in. I not sure it was supposed to, but for us it provided hours, literally, of entertainment. The course should be completed in a par of 58, I got 115! Myself, Claire and Gem were all in the region of 110-120, and Essex improved on this taking the game with 87, but still quite an abysmal performance all round I would say! We had to keep stepping aside to let the more able play through! It was a lot of fun, and one of the highlights was Claire chasing her Frisbee down the hill towards the lake as it just keep rolling and rolling further away from us. My sides were hurting I laughed so much.
I have also taken a trip up the 'Skyline' Gondola which provides amazing views of QT (pics on Facebook), and I am embarrassed to say, this sedate journey which does not count as one of QT adrenaline junkie sports, did make me a little nervous! I know, I have thrown myself out of plane, but the cable car, did give me a funny feeling in my tummy.....in my defence I did go on quite a windy day so it wobbling around quite a bit!
I have also been on a couple of walks/hikes as well, one to the summit of one the mountains which QT is nestled beneath, and one along the lake to the next town. You can walk anywhere and be presented with stunning scenery, particularly this time of year where the trees are turning for Autumn, so there are so many different colours, the sun is shinning and the mountains are all snow capped.
QT has also been the venue for karaoke event number 2, yes, that's right we did it again! I am embarrassed too, particularly when we put our next request in and the DJ said "are you sure you really want to sign again?" and encouraged others to perform by saying "you can be any worse" than us! How rude!
So I have stayed here for 6 nights and that is the longest I have stayed in one place since I left Southampton(well there was one room change involved, so almost the place same for 6 nights, which was caused by a high tension incident between myself, 3 Chinese ladies and a lot of plastic carrier bags, but I won't dwell on that). It has been really nice to spend a bit longer in one place to feel the atmosphere in the town and get to know people and make friends in the hostel etc. Although you know you have spent too long in one place guy behind the counter in the off license says, "you have been in a few times now, do you want to get a 'locals' card?". Time to leave QT I think!
Lots of Love
Katrina x x x x
I've got wind of a vicious rumour that my blog posts are too long, with me writing too much....... I believe the phrase 'you can write for England' was used. To protect their identity, I will keep the source of this rumour anonymous, and I will endeavour to keep this one as 'concise' as possible. It is a lucky co-incidence that it has been a pretty quiet week, so there isn't too much to report anyway!
I have spent the last week in Queenstown, the adventure capital of the world and the party capital of New Zealand! I have certainly participated in the later, but not so much the adventure side of QT. The most adventurous thing I have done in QT is a game of 'frisbee golf', (which did unexpectedly have some risk associated with it!). I know, I know, how can I be in QT and not throw myself into a Canion on an elastic band? Well as I have said before, a bungy jump does not appeal to me at all, and having already done a sky dive etc, I have kept myself busy with the tamer side of QT. Although there must be something about QT which I have fallen for, because I was due to leave of Sunday, and on this sunny (but cold) Wednesday afternoon I'm still here. I am leaving tomorrow though, after a week in this glorious town, having only planned to spend two days here.
So what have I been doing to keep myself busy here? Well after a long 4 days apart, I met up with some of the girls from my previous bus (plus Rocky who is an honoury member of the 'bimbettes'), so of course we were obliged to have a reunion night out to celebrate being together again. QT did us proud and really did provide us with an awesome night out in the party capital of NZ, I particularly like the 'tea pots' served in the World Bar...in Asia drinks were served in a bucket, but a tea pot is just so much more refined! I also dragged a couple of people out who I had met at my hostel, who will be referred to as 'Essex' and 'German' (they are ok with this!), I'm not sure they knew what they were letting themselves in for when they agreed to come out with me, but a good night was had by all, which was rounded off nicely by the legendary 'Fergburger' on the way home. Pictures of face book.
So back to the adrenaline activities of QT, myself, Claire, Gemma and Essex participated in a game of 'frisbee golf'. Yep, as it says on the tin, a 18 'basket' course, set within the beautiful QT botanical gardens, each basket has a par, in which you need to get the Frisbee in. I not sure it was supposed to, but for us it provided hours, literally, of entertainment. The course should be completed in a par of 58, I got 115! Myself, Claire and Gem were all in the region of 110-120, and Essex improved on this taking the game with 87, but still quite an abysmal performance all round I would say! We had to keep stepping aside to let the more able play through! It was a lot of fun, and one of the highlights was Claire chasing her Frisbee down the hill towards the lake as it just keep rolling and rolling further away from us. My sides were hurting I laughed so much.
I have also taken a trip up the 'Skyline' Gondola which provides amazing views of QT (pics on Facebook), and I am embarrassed to say, this sedate journey which does not count as one of QT adrenaline junkie sports, did make me a little nervous! I know, I have thrown myself out of plane, but the cable car, did give me a funny feeling in my tummy.....in my defence I did go on quite a windy day so it wobbling around quite a bit!
I have also been on a couple of walks/hikes as well, one to the summit of one the mountains which QT is nestled beneath, and one along the lake to the next town. You can walk anywhere and be presented with stunning scenery, particularly this time of year where the trees are turning for Autumn, so there are so many different colours, the sun is shinning and the mountains are all snow capped.
QT has also been the venue for karaoke event number 2, yes, that's right we did it again! I am embarrassed too, particularly when we put our next request in and the DJ said "are you sure you really want to sign again?" and encouraged others to perform by saying "you can be any worse" than us! How rude!
So I have stayed here for 6 nights and that is the longest I have stayed in one place since I left Southampton(well there was one room change involved, so almost the place same for 6 nights, which was caused by a high tension incident between myself, 3 Chinese ladies and a lot of plastic carrier bags, but I won't dwell on that). It has been really nice to spend a bit longer in one place to feel the atmosphere in the town and get to know people and make friends in the hostel etc. Although you know you have spent too long in one place guy behind the counter in the off license says, "you have been in a few times now, do you want to get a 'locals' card?". Time to leave QT I think!
Lots of Love
Katrina x x x x
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Burning the candle at both ends.......
What a busy week it has been, it has flown by! So, the last time I posted I was in Wellington at the south of the North Island, and since then I have crossed the water to the South Island, the larger of the two islands, yet it is the lesser populated. In order to make the crossing it was a case of getting up at 5.30am to catch the slow ferry with all the lorries,cars and goods containers etc, boarding this a foot passenger was cheapest way to make the crossing, rather than flying etc. This was about a 4 hour journey, and it was sooo pretty, especially going through the sounds as we approached the Picton terminal. I wasn't really looking forward to this journey expecting to be crammed in with all the cargo and not much to look at, but it turned out to one of the most scenic parts of my trip, I even got to see some dolphins swimming along side the ship. And it was the most funny part of my trip to date I think. When I wanted a break from standing outside on the observation deck taking in the sights (it was freezing cold), I went into the onboard cafe which was a bit like a road side truck stop, but the Kiwi working behind the counter was so funny he provided me with a good couple of hours of entertainment. It was a kind of 'you had to be there moment, so I won't waffle on about it, but it was better than any onboard film those flying to the South Island would have had! As I've mentioned several times, the locals really are so friendly, you'd be hard pushed to find a Kiwi with a bad attitude, I haven't found one yet. In fact, an example of this, before I left Wellington, I spent an afternoon walking around the city and chilling out on the harbour, soaking up the atmosphere etc, and to have a break on from this busy schedule of mine, I thought I'll have a little lay down on the quay wall for a quick power nap before continuing on. A couple of minutes after I had shut my eyes, the boatman from the shed behind me, came over and offered me a yellow pages to use as a pillow to make me more comfortable! How kind is that?! But he was then superseded by his colleague who brought me over an upgrade from the yellow pages, he gave a soft and squidy life jacket to lay on! This was very sweet of them, but I only planned to stay there 10 minutes, but after the trouble they went to, I felt obliged to stay a bit longer to use the life jacket pillow!
Anyway, back to the South Island. So once I had made the ferry crossing, I hopped onto the bus to make my way to the Abel Tasman National Park, where I stayed for a couple of days in a barn. It was here that myself and 5 other girls met and this night set the president for the next week! Some people on the bus have our coming together like a solar eclispe......its quite rare, it doesn't happen very often, but when it does, you don't want to look at it! After completing a tough day of sea kayaking, sailing, hiking and seal spotting, we heard a rumour from the guide about an Open Mic night at the local bar, which sounded like fun so we thought we would give it a try. The 'town' we were staying at had just this one bar open after 8pm, so all the locals hang out there, and apparently 'open mic Thursday' is the new Friday, and having attended I would probably agree.....it beats most Friday nights I have had out in Southampton! If you place 3 Brits, 2 Germans and 1 Canadian in an open mic night in a real small town, playing a game of 'fives' to help the evening along, a few rounds of jeager bombs, you end up several hours only the kind of dancing you would never dream of seeing in the UK, one awesome night and multiple hangovers the next day. I have to say though, the pain the next day was totally worth it, we had a great time through the Kiwis hospitality.
From the National Park we headed down the 'wild west' coast town to the legendary Barrytown, or more affectionately known as 'Baz Vegas'. There is only one thing in Baz Vegas, and that is the hotel that we stayed at, so it is a case of making your own entertainment! So the bus collectively decided on a 'pimps and ho's' themed evening with a difference, the guys were the ho's and the girls were the pimps. On arrival we were presented with a box of old clothes that smelt like wet dog to create our outfits with. I'm not sure that any of us actually ended up looking like Pimps or Hos. I would say we more looked like a group of people that had picked a load of mismatched clothes from an old box that smelt like wet dog. I'm not going to say much else about what happened in Baz Vegas, because there is code of honour that you agree to when you enter Barrytown, "what happens in Barrytown, stays in Barrytown". All I will say is this..........when you wake up in the morning with eyeliner drawing and writing all over your face, having slept on the floor, still in the smelly fancy dress outfit from the night before with your pajamas over the top of the smelly fancy dress outfit, and only a travel towel covering you as blanket, as this was the only thing you could manage to find in the dorm of destruction when you went to sleep at 4.30am.......you've probably had a good time! I'll add some pictures to FB for your entertainment.
The bus journey leaving Baz Vegas was very quiet needless to say, and I'm not sure we'll all look at each other in quite the same way again.........ha ha ha. So putting that behind us, it was on to the Franz Josef Glacier where we had an early night to prepare for our glacier hike the next day. We wrapped ourselves up in several layers in preparation for this Arctic trek, where we climbed about 10km over the glacier. Unfortunately I was a little underwhelmed by the glacier and the hike. Yes, it is amazing to see such a vast scale of ice nestled between 2 mountains in a temperate climate, but it wasn't the crystal sparkling structure I had expected, and once you have walked 1 km on ice, it started to get a bit boring for the next 9 looking at the same thing. I plodded along thinking, my walk to work back in December when the roads iced over in Southampton was a bit more exciting than this, and I didn't have to pay someone $100 for the privilege. After the ice hike, we went to the local bar to warm up by the fire and have a chilled out evening, which you can probably guess, didn't turn out to be quite as chilled as intended, and once again ended up being another 4am-er.
The following day we headed to Makarora, which the Lonely Planet guide quotes as having a population of 50 people......so when our bus of 43 turned up, there was pretty much a ratio of 1:1 for local to foreigner. Again, it was a case of making your own entertainment, just like in Baz Vegas. And it was here in Makarora, that I broke my karaoke virginity. I can't count the number of times I have said, "no matter how drunk I get I will never do karaoke". Well here in Makarora, I lost all remaining dignity and self respect (there wasn't much left after the last few days) and let the world hear my special voice for the first time. Several times. Yes, people, I did it more than once, about 7 times all in all I believe. However, there were no solo numbers involved, I'm not sure the world is ready for that so it was always in a group. However, I am encouraged that me and the girls won the prize for the free bar crawl in Queenstown, so I am encouraged by my ability!!! Although in reality I think that it was awarded to us, to just get us off the stage and give everyones ears a break.
New Zealand has a population of just 4 million people, and majority of those live on the North Island, despite it being the smaller island. There are just 1m people living on the South Island. Because the towns are so much smaller and remote, we really have mixed more with the locals here which has been great, that is what travelling is all about, so it was good to enjoy the company of some non-europeans. Although this blog sounds a bit like an extract from a new student at Freshers week, I've had an amazing time with girls that I was fortunate to meet on this leg of the trip and the best moments have been hanging out with the local people. Having managed to fit in glacier walking, hikes, kayaking and sailing along the way, we really have been able to burn the candle at both ends to see and experience the best parts of New Zealand. However I think for the benefit of all other travellers on the bus, my bank balance and the locals in New Zealand, as I head on to Queenstown, myself and girls have now gone our separate ways, so it will be back to business as usual of me being the boring oldie, having her 'I'm almost 30 crisis' who is the first to bed every night. It was nice to have a week off though. :o)
I hope everything is good with all of you love. Think about you all everyday.
Lots of love
Katrina x x x x x
Anyway, back to the South Island. So once I had made the ferry crossing, I hopped onto the bus to make my way to the Abel Tasman National Park, where I stayed for a couple of days in a barn. It was here that myself and 5 other girls met and this night set the president for the next week! Some people on the bus have our coming together like a solar eclispe......its quite rare, it doesn't happen very often, but when it does, you don't want to look at it! After completing a tough day of sea kayaking, sailing, hiking and seal spotting, we heard a rumour from the guide about an Open Mic night at the local bar, which sounded like fun so we thought we would give it a try. The 'town' we were staying at had just this one bar open after 8pm, so all the locals hang out there, and apparently 'open mic Thursday' is the new Friday, and having attended I would probably agree.....it beats most Friday nights I have had out in Southampton! If you place 3 Brits, 2 Germans and 1 Canadian in an open mic night in a real small town, playing a game of 'fives' to help the evening along, a few rounds of jeager bombs, you end up several hours only the kind of dancing you would never dream of seeing in the UK, one awesome night and multiple hangovers the next day. I have to say though, the pain the next day was totally worth it, we had a great time through the Kiwis hospitality.
From the National Park we headed down the 'wild west' coast town to the legendary Barrytown, or more affectionately known as 'Baz Vegas'. There is only one thing in Baz Vegas, and that is the hotel that we stayed at, so it is a case of making your own entertainment! So the bus collectively decided on a 'pimps and ho's' themed evening with a difference, the guys were the ho's and the girls were the pimps. On arrival we were presented with a box of old clothes that smelt like wet dog to create our outfits with. I'm not sure that any of us actually ended up looking like Pimps or Hos. I would say we more looked like a group of people that had picked a load of mismatched clothes from an old box that smelt like wet dog. I'm not going to say much else about what happened in Baz Vegas, because there is code of honour that you agree to when you enter Barrytown, "what happens in Barrytown, stays in Barrytown". All I will say is this..........when you wake up in the morning with eyeliner drawing and writing all over your face, having slept on the floor, still in the smelly fancy dress outfit from the night before with your pajamas over the top of the smelly fancy dress outfit, and only a travel towel covering you as blanket, as this was the only thing you could manage to find in the dorm of destruction when you went to sleep at 4.30am.......you've probably had a good time! I'll add some pictures to FB for your entertainment.
The bus journey leaving Baz Vegas was very quiet needless to say, and I'm not sure we'll all look at each other in quite the same way again.........ha ha ha. So putting that behind us, it was on to the Franz Josef Glacier where we had an early night to prepare for our glacier hike the next day. We wrapped ourselves up in several layers in preparation for this Arctic trek, where we climbed about 10km over the glacier. Unfortunately I was a little underwhelmed by the glacier and the hike. Yes, it is amazing to see such a vast scale of ice nestled between 2 mountains in a temperate climate, but it wasn't the crystal sparkling structure I had expected, and once you have walked 1 km on ice, it started to get a bit boring for the next 9 looking at the same thing. I plodded along thinking, my walk to work back in December when the roads iced over in Southampton was a bit more exciting than this, and I didn't have to pay someone $100 for the privilege. After the ice hike, we went to the local bar to warm up by the fire and have a chilled out evening, which you can probably guess, didn't turn out to be quite as chilled as intended, and once again ended up being another 4am-er.
The following day we headed to Makarora, which the Lonely Planet guide quotes as having a population of 50 people......so when our bus of 43 turned up, there was pretty much a ratio of 1:1 for local to foreigner. Again, it was a case of making your own entertainment, just like in Baz Vegas. And it was here in Makarora, that I broke my karaoke virginity. I can't count the number of times I have said, "no matter how drunk I get I will never do karaoke". Well here in Makarora, I lost all remaining dignity and self respect (there wasn't much left after the last few days) and let the world hear my special voice for the first time. Several times. Yes, people, I did it more than once, about 7 times all in all I believe. However, there were no solo numbers involved, I'm not sure the world is ready for that so it was always in a group. However, I am encouraged that me and the girls won the prize for the free bar crawl in Queenstown, so I am encouraged by my ability!!! Although in reality I think that it was awarded to us, to just get us off the stage and give everyones ears a break.
New Zealand has a population of just 4 million people, and majority of those live on the North Island, despite it being the smaller island. There are just 1m people living on the South Island. Because the towns are so much smaller and remote, we really have mixed more with the locals here which has been great, that is what travelling is all about, so it was good to enjoy the company of some non-europeans. Although this blog sounds a bit like an extract from a new student at Freshers week, I've had an amazing time with girls that I was fortunate to meet on this leg of the trip and the best moments have been hanging out with the local people. Having managed to fit in glacier walking, hikes, kayaking and sailing along the way, we really have been able to burn the candle at both ends to see and experience the best parts of New Zealand. However I think for the benefit of all other travellers on the bus, my bank balance and the locals in New Zealand, as I head on to Queenstown, myself and girls have now gone our separate ways, so it will be back to business as usual of me being the boring oldie, having her 'I'm almost 30 crisis' who is the first to bed every night. It was nice to have a week off though. :o)
I hope everything is good with all of you love. Think about you all everyday.
Lots of love
Katrina x x x x x
Monday, March 28, 2011
River deep, mountain high
Hi!
After a couple of days relaxing after the sky dive at lake Taupo, it was time to attempt the Tongariro crossing....to quote the lonely planet guide 'this walk should not be taken on lightly'.......having done the 'walk' I would fully agree with them! I was almost beaten by this one! So we left lake Taupo bright and early at 6am to arrive at the National Park at 9am to give us the full day to venture across this alpine terrain. Before we could make our way to the start point of the crossing, we had to check in at the activity centre to ensure we suitably attired for the crossing and also register ourselves to do the hike, so that the police could be called if we did not make it to the other side by our finish time of 5.30pm. The good news is I was one of the few given the all clear as being suitably dressed for the occasion, saving myself several dollars in equipment hire......see Stew, I told you carrying that woolly hat and fleece top around in Asia would be of a benefit to me at some point! When everyone had the correct gear on, we hopped on the bus to be taken the start of the crossing. Before the bus set of, we were advised of any medical conditions we should make known now, and also had the key 'danger points' identified to us.......e,g here is where people faint.......the most common illness at this part of the crossing is heart attack.......when you cross this point you will be in alpine conditions and the weather will be very cold and poor visibility....people suffer from altitude sickness at this point.........if you loose the trail you will get lost etc etc.....With all the other activities I've filled in the 'helath/disclaimer' questionnaire without too much importance thinking it was the Kiwis being a bit over cautious, but this one was starting to worry me a bit......was I really fit enough for this?!
We got to the start of the crossing and headed off about 10.30am. I looked around at the other people from the group who looked quite fit and raced off at quite a pace, and I thought I'm going to have to do some work here to keep up! I don't want to get left in the cloud and be the one they call the police for! So I stepped up the pace and positioned myself about mid-way in the group. I kept loosing position though in order to stop to add/remove layers....this was hard work in the gusting wind! We had been given a timetable of where we should be at marker points to know if we were on schedule to make it for the lift back at the other end.....there was a $200 fine for being late (or the 20k walk back!), so that was motivation! I made it to marker 1 on 1 hour and 15 mins, and the schedule gave a target, hour and a half, so not too bad. I was already exhausted by this point though, the wind was so strong, the terrain was bare, rocky and steep and I wondered if I should turn back or keep going. I persuaded myself to keep going, and ended up chatting to a couple of other girls from the bus, one Canadian and one Swiss, and the 3 of us went at a similar pace, and completed the rest as a group. We made to the summit in about 3 hours, 1/2 ahead of schedule. I'd love to say the effort was worth the views, but all I can tell you was that I was in the middle of a cloud which made me wet and cold - pictures on Facebook. The climb down wasn't really any easier that the climb up, as the first part was very sandy, which was quite slippy, which was a wee bit scary at that point. After the initial steep decent, the terrain became more gentle and we stopped at a little hut for our packed lunch that we had taken with us. We had stepped up the pace and arrived here about 1.15 mins ahead of schedule. So we decided to have a good break here before carrying on to the bottom....after all we would only have to sit and wait for the bus to take us back at 5.30pm, and I'd rather sit with the brilliant views of lake Taupo than in the car park. We discovered there was actually a 'hut warden' who lives up on the mountain, 5 days on, 2 days off. He was a guy from LA and I spent some time quizzing him about how he keeps himself entertained on a mountain side for 5 days! Anyway, he was waiting for the chopper to land and bring him gas canisters and toilet roll. This was a bit like Christmas for him, so we stayed to hang out with him and join him for his Christmas celebration! After this excitement we headed down further down the mountain, about every 20 minutes the landscape, climate and terrain seemed to change, we saw lots of different eco-systems as we headed down the mountain. The accent was tough on the lungs, but the decent was tough on the knees! The last two km felt like they went on forever, and I was getting soooo tired, we had walked/climbed 19.5km in Alpine conditions. But we made it to the end and I felt so proud we had done it, given I was thinking about turning back at one point, and we made it with half and hour to spare, but this excitement was short lived though. There are only 2 events that have made me angry in the whole trip and this was one of them. When we got the the bottom the rest of the group had all completed it and where waiting......when we got to the bottom, they clapped us saying 'you finally made it' because we were last. We explained that we knew we were ahead of time so stopped at the hut for a while so we didn't have to wait at the car park. One of the girls from the group said, "yeah but we've been waiting for over and hour' we've already called the bus and it is on its way". This really pi$$ed me off, as I didn't think it was very team spirited for something that was quite a challenge for us all, and that everyone should be congratulated for completing. Calling the bus to come and collect the group when there were 3 people still walking, is not nice in my books, especially as at this point they didn't know if we had stopped or were struggling to get back. We had been told at the beginning, there is no point racing off if you have long legs, enjoy the crossing as you will only have to wait for in the car park at the other end. I was so mad, I decided to stay an extra night at the National Park hostel so I didn't have to get the bus with these people the next day, and joined a new group! We had actually deliberately taken our time and stopped, but if they had given that reaction to someone who had struggled with the walk, it would have been even worse. Anyway, rant over! For those who want to know the second thing that made me angry, it was a slightly less significant event involving a cup of tea and the bus driver telling me I couldn't take it on the bus. I understand why he doesn't food and drink on the bus, but there was a lead up to this event which I won't go into which made me question I don't know why I bother helping out other people and being considerate to others, when it does me no favours in return. I wanted to say to him 'stop telling me what to do'!!!! Anyway, I've calmed down now. Dinner and few beers in the hostel after the walk, (not with anyone from the group needless to say, but someone else I met at the hostel) helped calm me down and ease the aching muscles from this 20k hike!
OK, so having had an extra day at the National Park, where I didn't do anything as it bucketed down with rain all day) I got the express bus to windy welly....NZ's capital, Wellington. It rained for the whole journey and I have hear this is typical Welly weather, but as soon as we got here, the clouds cleared and the sun shone, it was a beautiful welcome to Welly, so I spent the afternoon walking around the quay, soaking up the sun. I also got another unexpected welcome in Welly, I headed out in the evening to find a coffee shop to while away the hours, and as I was walking along the high street at about 10pm I herd someone picking up pace behind me, I thought uh oh, maybe I should be walking in this part of town, and the next thing I know, some one has grabbed my arse, and said 'hey Karen, good to see you'! You can imagine the surprise on his face when I turned around and he saw it was Karen, I'm not sure who was more embarrassed.....it was funny though......maybe I should have even pretended to be Karen!
Today in Wellington I had planned to go the art museum and gallery, but it was such a lovely day again, I decided to do some outdoor activities and save the museum for a rainy day. I decided to wonder up Mt Victoria to get some 'awesome' views of the city as suggested to me by the hostel receptionist......I maybe should have told him I completed the Tongario crossing a couple of days ago, this 400m climb was not kind to my calves and I think they will hate me forever. I can verify the views were 'awesome' though, so it was a good recommendation, I'll put some pictures on FB. In the afternoon I took his second recommendation and took the cable car up to the Botanical Gardens, which again had some 'awesome' views. I found a nice sunny spot and sat down whilst taking in these awesome views. It was at this point I was almost unknowingly recruited to become a Mormon! I think maybe since travelling I have become less aware/observant as it took me almost 15 minutes to notice the 'Elder Nelson' and 'Elder Finnigan' name badges, with the slogan 'beleive in Christ' printed on the two guys that approached me. I thought they were just nice people wanting chat. I can see why they approached me though.....they were probably looking for someone who.....
1. Looks like they are lacking a bit of direction in life - tick
2. Someone sitting on their own with too much time of their hands - tick
3. Someone who has a confused look on their face caused by the epiphany they have just had which conflicts the last, and the one before that, and the one before that etc etc -tick
4. Someone who is sitting on a monday afternoon trying to come up with a 3 year plan on the back of a serviette - tick
Meeting all the criteria above, I can understand why they chose me as their prey. Once I realised their mission I explained that it was only me, and me alone, that can ensure the 3 year plan is achieved, I don't think God will fix it for me. They tried to tell that God could support me in this and offered me a copy of their bible. Eamonn, I wanted to say yes and bring it home as a souvenir for you, but I didn't think it was wise to encourage them further! So we agreed to disagree and I made my down another mountain side out of the botanical gardens. Random.
Anyway, I think that brings you all up to date with the random events of the week from the North Island of NZ. One more day in windy welly and then I head to the South Island....its time to wrap up, winters coming!
Love you all x x x x x
After a couple of days relaxing after the sky dive at lake Taupo, it was time to attempt the Tongariro crossing....to quote the lonely planet guide 'this walk should not be taken on lightly'.......having done the 'walk' I would fully agree with them! I was almost beaten by this one! So we left lake Taupo bright and early at 6am to arrive at the National Park at 9am to give us the full day to venture across this alpine terrain. Before we could make our way to the start point of the crossing, we had to check in at the activity centre to ensure we suitably attired for the crossing and also register ourselves to do the hike, so that the police could be called if we did not make it to the other side by our finish time of 5.30pm. The good news is I was one of the few given the all clear as being suitably dressed for the occasion, saving myself several dollars in equipment hire......see Stew, I told you carrying that woolly hat and fleece top around in Asia would be of a benefit to me at some point! When everyone had the correct gear on, we hopped on the bus to be taken the start of the crossing. Before the bus set of, we were advised of any medical conditions we should make known now, and also had the key 'danger points' identified to us.......e,g here is where people faint.......the most common illness at this part of the crossing is heart attack.......when you cross this point you will be in alpine conditions and the weather will be very cold and poor visibility....people suffer from altitude sickness at this point.........if you loose the trail you will get lost etc etc.....With all the other activities I've filled in the 'helath/disclaimer' questionnaire without too much importance thinking it was the Kiwis being a bit over cautious, but this one was starting to worry me a bit......was I really fit enough for this?!
We got to the start of the crossing and headed off about 10.30am. I looked around at the other people from the group who looked quite fit and raced off at quite a pace, and I thought I'm going to have to do some work here to keep up! I don't want to get left in the cloud and be the one they call the police for! So I stepped up the pace and positioned myself about mid-way in the group. I kept loosing position though in order to stop to add/remove layers....this was hard work in the gusting wind! We had been given a timetable of where we should be at marker points to know if we were on schedule to make it for the lift back at the other end.....there was a $200 fine for being late (or the 20k walk back!), so that was motivation! I made it to marker 1 on 1 hour and 15 mins, and the schedule gave a target, hour and a half, so not too bad. I was already exhausted by this point though, the wind was so strong, the terrain was bare, rocky and steep and I wondered if I should turn back or keep going. I persuaded myself to keep going, and ended up chatting to a couple of other girls from the bus, one Canadian and one Swiss, and the 3 of us went at a similar pace, and completed the rest as a group. We made to the summit in about 3 hours, 1/2 ahead of schedule. I'd love to say the effort was worth the views, but all I can tell you was that I was in the middle of a cloud which made me wet and cold - pictures on Facebook. The climb down wasn't really any easier that the climb up, as the first part was very sandy, which was quite slippy, which was a wee bit scary at that point. After the initial steep decent, the terrain became more gentle and we stopped at a little hut for our packed lunch that we had taken with us. We had stepped up the pace and arrived here about 1.15 mins ahead of schedule. So we decided to have a good break here before carrying on to the bottom....after all we would only have to sit and wait for the bus to take us back at 5.30pm, and I'd rather sit with the brilliant views of lake Taupo than in the car park. We discovered there was actually a 'hut warden' who lives up on the mountain, 5 days on, 2 days off. He was a guy from LA and I spent some time quizzing him about how he keeps himself entertained on a mountain side for 5 days! Anyway, he was waiting for the chopper to land and bring him gas canisters and toilet roll. This was a bit like Christmas for him, so we stayed to hang out with him and join him for his Christmas celebration! After this excitement we headed down further down the mountain, about every 20 minutes the landscape, climate and terrain seemed to change, we saw lots of different eco-systems as we headed down the mountain. The accent was tough on the lungs, but the decent was tough on the knees! The last two km felt like they went on forever, and I was getting soooo tired, we had walked/climbed 19.5km in Alpine conditions. But we made it to the end and I felt so proud we had done it, given I was thinking about turning back at one point, and we made it with half and hour to spare, but this excitement was short lived though. There are only 2 events that have made me angry in the whole trip and this was one of them. When we got the the bottom the rest of the group had all completed it and where waiting......when we got to the bottom, they clapped us saying 'you finally made it' because we were last. We explained that we knew we were ahead of time so stopped at the hut for a while so we didn't have to wait at the car park. One of the girls from the group said, "yeah but we've been waiting for over and hour' we've already called the bus and it is on its way". This really pi$$ed me off, as I didn't think it was very team spirited for something that was quite a challenge for us all, and that everyone should be congratulated for completing. Calling the bus to come and collect the group when there were 3 people still walking, is not nice in my books, especially as at this point they didn't know if we had stopped or were struggling to get back. We had been told at the beginning, there is no point racing off if you have long legs, enjoy the crossing as you will only have to wait for in the car park at the other end. I was so mad, I decided to stay an extra night at the National Park hostel so I didn't have to get the bus with these people the next day, and joined a new group! We had actually deliberately taken our time and stopped, but if they had given that reaction to someone who had struggled with the walk, it would have been even worse. Anyway, rant over! For those who want to know the second thing that made me angry, it was a slightly less significant event involving a cup of tea and the bus driver telling me I couldn't take it on the bus. I understand why he doesn't food and drink on the bus, but there was a lead up to this event which I won't go into which made me question I don't know why I bother helping out other people and being considerate to others, when it does me no favours in return. I wanted to say to him 'stop telling me what to do'!!!! Anyway, I've calmed down now. Dinner and few beers in the hostel after the walk, (not with anyone from the group needless to say, but someone else I met at the hostel) helped calm me down and ease the aching muscles from this 20k hike!
OK, so having had an extra day at the National Park, where I didn't do anything as it bucketed down with rain all day) I got the express bus to windy welly....NZ's capital, Wellington. It rained for the whole journey and I have hear this is typical Welly weather, but as soon as we got here, the clouds cleared and the sun shone, it was a beautiful welcome to Welly, so I spent the afternoon walking around the quay, soaking up the sun. I also got another unexpected welcome in Welly, I headed out in the evening to find a coffee shop to while away the hours, and as I was walking along the high street at about 10pm I herd someone picking up pace behind me, I thought uh oh, maybe I should be walking in this part of town, and the next thing I know, some one has grabbed my arse, and said 'hey Karen, good to see you'! You can imagine the surprise on his face when I turned around and he saw it was Karen, I'm not sure who was more embarrassed.....it was funny though......maybe I should have even pretended to be Karen!
Today in Wellington I had planned to go the art museum and gallery, but it was such a lovely day again, I decided to do some outdoor activities and save the museum for a rainy day. I decided to wonder up Mt Victoria to get some 'awesome' views of the city as suggested to me by the hostel receptionist......I maybe should have told him I completed the Tongario crossing a couple of days ago, this 400m climb was not kind to my calves and I think they will hate me forever. I can verify the views were 'awesome' though, so it was a good recommendation, I'll put some pictures on FB. In the afternoon I took his second recommendation and took the cable car up to the Botanical Gardens, which again had some 'awesome' views. I found a nice sunny spot and sat down whilst taking in these awesome views. It was at this point I was almost unknowingly recruited to become a Mormon! I think maybe since travelling I have become less aware/observant as it took me almost 15 minutes to notice the 'Elder Nelson' and 'Elder Finnigan' name badges, with the slogan 'beleive in Christ' printed on the two guys that approached me. I thought they were just nice people wanting chat. I can see why they approached me though.....they were probably looking for someone who.....
1. Looks like they are lacking a bit of direction in life - tick
2. Someone sitting on their own with too much time of their hands - tick
3. Someone who has a confused look on their face caused by the epiphany they have just had which conflicts the last, and the one before that, and the one before that etc etc -tick
4. Someone who is sitting on a monday afternoon trying to come up with a 3 year plan on the back of a serviette - tick
Meeting all the criteria above, I can understand why they chose me as their prey. Once I realised their mission I explained that it was only me, and me alone, that can ensure the 3 year plan is achieved, I don't think God will fix it for me. They tried to tell that God could support me in this and offered me a copy of their bible. Eamonn, I wanted to say yes and bring it home as a souvenir for you, but I didn't think it was wise to encourage them further! So we agreed to disagree and I made my down another mountain side out of the botanical gardens. Random.
Anyway, I think that brings you all up to date with the random events of the week from the North Island of NZ. One more day in windy welly and then I head to the South Island....its time to wrap up, winters coming!
Love you all x x x x x
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Adrenalin Junkie??
Hi everyone!
My time in New Zealand has been action packed since I last posted. New Zealand is the home of adrenaline junkies, and I have to say I am getting quite a taste for it! The faster, the higher, the louder, all the better! Although it is quite an expensive habit to take up, so I think I may have to going start cold turkey soon.
From Auckland I headed north to the appropriately named North Land, and more specifically, the Bay of Islands. On route, I stopped at a marine reserve to view the under water world from a glass bottom boat which was really cool. The water was so clear. We didn't get to see the abundance of wildlife that are normally seen in the area as the tides and fish were behaving 'unusual' due to the tsunami causing surges. You might think what the hell is she doing getting on a boat when the tsunami is around, but you really couldn't notice these so called surges unless you were an expert. Anyone expecting to see a giant wave approaching would have been disappointed. By the way, thank you all for your concern, about my well being during the tsunami, but it had no affect here really and I knew nothing about it until I woke to a worried text from my Mum!
So the Bay of Islands is where the adventurous activities begin. I took a trip called 'dune rider' to the very far north of Northland to Cape Reinga. In order to reach this we travelled along '90 mile' beach on the big 'dune rider bus/lorry hybrid'. The beach is actually 64 miles to be specific, but named 90 miles as the best estimate by farmers who used to transport their sheep along this stretch of beach which took them about 3 days. In the bus/lorry hybrid, it only took us about 1.5 hours, but despite the rather overcast day, it really was an awesome drive, the beach was really wide and it just stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. At the end of 90 mile beach a set of massive sand dunes were waiting for us to 'board' them. This was so much fun, although I only managed to go 3 or 4 times as the climb to the top of the dune carrying the board made your legs and lungs burn, it was hard work! To dune board, you take a mini surf board, lay on it on your front and some gives you a push and off you go down the steep dune using your feet to steer and brake. My first run involved me getting rather wet as I had a bumpy landing into the stream at the bottom, but for the attempts after that I soon had the art of elegantly aquaplaning across the stream to see how far I get my board to go. I did pretty well I think, although the driver kindly informed me, some people have an advantage over others, and it may not have been my skill to do this, but more that I had a bit of weight behind me!
While in the Bay of Islands, I also hoped on a boat to swim with Dolphins. Finding the dolphins was pretty easy, but keeping up with them in the water was real hard work. When I filled in the usual disclaimer at the beginning of the trip to sign my life away with no responsibility on the organiser, I ticked 'yes I am a confident swimmer'.....I'm not great, and can't do front crawl, but I thought I'm sure its the just the usual over cautious questions and I'll be fine. Turns out they ask that for a reason, snorkeling out in the open sea with no life jacket, chasing dolphins and working against the waves the boat is making, wearing flippers is pretty hard work! Especially when my swimming style tends to be to kick with one leg and do frogs leg with the other....Jodie and Lucy, stop laughing.....I'm still scared from the mocking!!!
I finished my stay in the Bay of Islands with a 15k walk to see Haruka waterfalls which turned out to be not all that impressive as the river was quite low, but it was still a nice walk anyway. Then it was time to head back South to Auckland and begin my travelling around the North Island.
The first couple of stops around the North Island were to beach towns. The coastline here is absolutely beautiful and stunning to look at. I've only stayed one night at each of the beaches as these are more appealing to surfers. Whilst I'm up for doing all the adventure stuff, I'm sticking to things that require no skill and only need a pair of balls, so to speak. I don't think I'd stand much chance at being able to stand on a surf board. Especially seeings as I got taken out by a unexpected wave and saw my life flash in front of eyes whilst I was just paddling in the sea at Raglan!
On leaving Raglan, I headed to Waitomo caves where I signed up to the Tumi Tuni Toobing adventure. Seeing as EVERYONE goes toobing in Loas and I didn't, I was well up for this to make up for it, and I think was a much better toobing adventure! It was great fun! The hardest bit was probably getting into the wet suit, and once this was achieved, the adventure began, looking super stylish of course! We ventured down into the caves and spent about 2 hours navigating our way around with just the glow worms lighting the way. We walked through sections, swam though sections and laid on inner tubes through sections. The most fun/scary part was climbing up the cave wall and launching me and my inner tube into the water by jumping backwards from about 5ft up. The guide said I had a good technique but he was laughing as he said it, so I'm thinking it was more like a drowning blimp technique!
Yesterday I arrived in Lake Taupo and I decided to stay here a couple of days as I wanted to ensure I had a good weather day for the ultimate action adventure.......yep today I went up 15,000ft into a plane and launched myself out of it.....a sky dive. This was the most amazing thing I have ever done, it felt brilliant. Quite literally a 'I'm on top of the world feeling'. As soon as I had done it, I wanted to do it again and again. For those that are interested, I have posted the DVD of the dive on to Facebook. If you ever get the chance to do it, you really should, nothing else in the world feels like it.
I'm absolutely loving my time in New Zealand, the Kiwis are so friendly, there are so many activities to do and the landscape is spectacular. I'm also enjoying doing my own thing and not being part of a tour group anymore as it enables me to have so much more independence with how long I want to spend in a town, what hostel I stay at etc. I've posted several photos on facebook, but these, and my blurb above, really don't do NZ justice. It is a great place, and I have done and seen so much in the couple of weeks that I have been here, that I can't talk about it all! Its great!
So that's a little snippet of what I have been up to....hmmm what shall I do tomorrow....? Urm, I think some white water rafting tomorrow, and then time to do something more sedate on the next day....I think it will be the 17KM hike over the Tongariro crossing!
Take care everyone. Sending lots of love to you. Keep letting me know the gossip.
Love from
Katrina x x x x
My time in New Zealand has been action packed since I last posted. New Zealand is the home of adrenaline junkies, and I have to say I am getting quite a taste for it! The faster, the higher, the louder, all the better! Although it is quite an expensive habit to take up, so I think I may have to going start cold turkey soon.
From Auckland I headed north to the appropriately named North Land, and more specifically, the Bay of Islands. On route, I stopped at a marine reserve to view the under water world from a glass bottom boat which was really cool. The water was so clear. We didn't get to see the abundance of wildlife that are normally seen in the area as the tides and fish were behaving 'unusual' due to the tsunami causing surges. You might think what the hell is she doing getting on a boat when the tsunami is around, but you really couldn't notice these so called surges unless you were an expert. Anyone expecting to see a giant wave approaching would have been disappointed. By the way, thank you all for your concern, about my well being during the tsunami, but it had no affect here really and I knew nothing about it until I woke to a worried text from my Mum!
So the Bay of Islands is where the adventurous activities begin. I took a trip called 'dune rider' to the very far north of Northland to Cape Reinga. In order to reach this we travelled along '90 mile' beach on the big 'dune rider bus/lorry hybrid'. The beach is actually 64 miles to be specific, but named 90 miles as the best estimate by farmers who used to transport their sheep along this stretch of beach which took them about 3 days. In the bus/lorry hybrid, it only took us about 1.5 hours, but despite the rather overcast day, it really was an awesome drive, the beach was really wide and it just stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. At the end of 90 mile beach a set of massive sand dunes were waiting for us to 'board' them. This was so much fun, although I only managed to go 3 or 4 times as the climb to the top of the dune carrying the board made your legs and lungs burn, it was hard work! To dune board, you take a mini surf board, lay on it on your front and some gives you a push and off you go down the steep dune using your feet to steer and brake. My first run involved me getting rather wet as I had a bumpy landing into the stream at the bottom, but for the attempts after that I soon had the art of elegantly aquaplaning across the stream to see how far I get my board to go. I did pretty well I think, although the driver kindly informed me, some people have an advantage over others, and it may not have been my skill to do this, but more that I had a bit of weight behind me!
While in the Bay of Islands, I also hoped on a boat to swim with Dolphins. Finding the dolphins was pretty easy, but keeping up with them in the water was real hard work. When I filled in the usual disclaimer at the beginning of the trip to sign my life away with no responsibility on the organiser, I ticked 'yes I am a confident swimmer'.....I'm not great, and can't do front crawl, but I thought I'm sure its the just the usual over cautious questions and I'll be fine. Turns out they ask that for a reason, snorkeling out in the open sea with no life jacket, chasing dolphins and working against the waves the boat is making, wearing flippers is pretty hard work! Especially when my swimming style tends to be to kick with one leg and do frogs leg with the other....Jodie and Lucy, stop laughing.....I'm still scared from the mocking!!!
I finished my stay in the Bay of Islands with a 15k walk to see Haruka waterfalls which turned out to be not all that impressive as the river was quite low, but it was still a nice walk anyway. Then it was time to head back South to Auckland and begin my travelling around the North Island.
The first couple of stops around the North Island were to beach towns. The coastline here is absolutely beautiful and stunning to look at. I've only stayed one night at each of the beaches as these are more appealing to surfers. Whilst I'm up for doing all the adventure stuff, I'm sticking to things that require no skill and only need a pair of balls, so to speak. I don't think I'd stand much chance at being able to stand on a surf board. Especially seeings as I got taken out by a unexpected wave and saw my life flash in front of eyes whilst I was just paddling in the sea at Raglan!
On leaving Raglan, I headed to Waitomo caves where I signed up to the Tumi Tuni Toobing adventure. Seeing as EVERYONE goes toobing in Loas and I didn't, I was well up for this to make up for it, and I think was a much better toobing adventure! It was great fun! The hardest bit was probably getting into the wet suit, and once this was achieved, the adventure began, looking super stylish of course! We ventured down into the caves and spent about 2 hours navigating our way around with just the glow worms lighting the way. We walked through sections, swam though sections and laid on inner tubes through sections. The most fun/scary part was climbing up the cave wall and launching me and my inner tube into the water by jumping backwards from about 5ft up. The guide said I had a good technique but he was laughing as he said it, so I'm thinking it was more like a drowning blimp technique!
Yesterday I arrived in Lake Taupo and I decided to stay here a couple of days as I wanted to ensure I had a good weather day for the ultimate action adventure.......yep today I went up 15,000ft into a plane and launched myself out of it.....a sky dive. This was the most amazing thing I have ever done, it felt brilliant. Quite literally a 'I'm on top of the world feeling'. As soon as I had done it, I wanted to do it again and again. For those that are interested, I have posted the DVD of the dive on to Facebook. If you ever get the chance to do it, you really should, nothing else in the world feels like it.
I'm absolutely loving my time in New Zealand, the Kiwis are so friendly, there are so many activities to do and the landscape is spectacular. I'm also enjoying doing my own thing and not being part of a tour group anymore as it enables me to have so much more independence with how long I want to spend in a town, what hostel I stay at etc. I've posted several photos on facebook, but these, and my blurb above, really don't do NZ justice. It is a great place, and I have done and seen so much in the couple of weeks that I have been here, that I can't talk about it all! Its great!
So that's a little snippet of what I have been up to....hmmm what shall I do tomorrow....? Urm, I think some white water rafting tomorrow, and then time to do something more sedate on the next day....I think it will be the 17KM hike over the Tongariro crossing!
Take care everyone. Sending lots of love to you. Keep letting me know the gossip.
Love from
Katrina x x x x
Friday, March 11, 2011
Beanz Meanz Hienz
Hello again!
I realise it has only been a couple of days since the last post, but I am aware it wasn't my best work......so now I'm over the jet lag and found my bearings in New Zealand, this is my attempt to redeem myself! :o)
Since arriving in New Zealand I've had a pretty chilled/quiet time just to re-energise, do and bit of thinking and prepare myself for the next leg of the journey. During my hours of wandering around Auckland with little purpose or direction, I started thinking about what I will miss about South East Asia and what I am will not miss so much! So here they are *.....
*every country in South East Asia is very different from its neighbour, so these are a bit of a generalisation, but you'll get the idea.
Things I will miss about South East Asia:
1. About 2.5 weeks into SEA, I had the art of eating with chops sticks down! Wahoo!! By week 3, I had lost it again, it never came back. If anyone finds my ability to eat with chop sticks anywhere, please send it on to me, it wad last seen somewhere around Hanoi, Vietnam. I will miss being able to use chop sticks as an excuse for spilling food down my clothes....."its not me, its the chopsticks..." I would use in defence...." I can't use these plastic ones, they are too slippery, I need the wooden ones!".
2. Tinglish - This is the word our Thai Tour Guide, "Little Chicken" used to describe the language she speaks with.....English but with a flavour of Thai words and accent. I'm going to extend this term to cover the whole of SEA, as each country we visited had its own form of English, and learning how to speak 'Tinglish' in each country was a lot of fun. One of my favourites, was when I asked in a shop "how much"? to start the bartering process and the answer was '20 much". Other examples include, 'happy room' which is toilet and 'same same but differnet' is a particular favourite which has wide usage. After a while you start using 'Tinglish' as well to communicate easier with the local people....I now need to remember I'm back in the western world and need to stop using tinglish as it can come across a bit rude to English speakers!
3. Things will happen when they happen, and it generally works. When I first arrived in Asia, I thought it was chaos and that nothing would ever get completed. Nobody writes down your orders, you don't get receipts, you can't phone to reconfirm a booking etc.......but you know what, it actually works. I can't claim to understand it, but there is actually a lot of organisation and logic in restaurants, hotels, public transport and shops, that you can't really see, but all comes together in the end. Things might not always happen on time, but if you just trust that it will happen and the person providing you with a service won't let you down, it works out fine. I'll miss this culture of not worrying about the time, just waiting, be patient and it will come together in the end.
4. Family loyalty and respect - the family is a unit throughout life, one family can live with 4 generations in the same house. Businesses are run as a family. Social time is spent as a family. As a result, you don't really see any homeless people. Yes, you see a lot of poor people, but everyone is looked after and supported by their family throughout their life. We travelled by boat from Loas to Thailand for two days. The boat that took us there was run by a family, and although Granny didn't do any work on the boat, she sat in the corner and came with us on the whole boat trip, because everything was done as a family. She wasn't to be left at home on her own.
5. The challenge...because SEA is so culturally different, every day was a challenge and you have to have your whits about you, and you are doing something different every day. By comparison, New Zealand feels a bit tame......so I'll just have to do lots of adventurous activities to keep the challenge there!
6. Regulalry being told how beasutiful my white skin is........here in NZ, I just look like an Albino
Things I will not miss about Asia:
1. Brits/Europeans/Americans moaning about squat toilets, cleanliness of rooms, quality of transport, quality of food, not being understood by locals in english, refusing to speak 'tinglish' to help the communication process, moaning about food being brought out at different times, food too spicy, blah blah blah.......this is the way things are done here......embrace it, or do us all a favour and stay at home! If you want European standards, its best to stay in Europe.
2. Spending time picking out 'complementary meat' from my food and all my food having a 'meaty' taste due to the oil etc it has been cooked in. There isn't really an understanding of vegetarianism in this part of the world, which is fine, but it did mean I had to be quite cautious with what I tucking into at every meal.
3. Carrying litres of water absolutely everywhere, it makes you appreciate, just being able to get water out of the tap. Water wasn't expensive, but you just had to be organised in making sure you always had plenty available, dehydration is the last thing you want.
4. Lack of high fibre foods - nuff said
5. Being offended every time I want to buy some clothes. I've lost count of the number of times when I have been told I have to pay more because the garment needs more material for my big arse. The last item I bought ( 7-11 t-shirt!!! Loser-ville or what?! :o) ), I was browsing through the rack of clothes, picked it up to have a look and before I even said anything the stall holder said "it ok, it stretch for you".
Ok, so that's Asia wrapped up. So I had a brief visit to Melbourne. I was only there 3 days, so I can't tell you much about it, other than it seems like a pleasant place, very European and has nice beach. The only thing of interest I did while in Melbourne was to attend an event to celebrate 'world women's day'. This sort of thing is not normally my cup of tea, but the hostel lured myself and another girl, Sandra, into going with two free tickets and the promise of free champagne and nibbles, deal! We turned at the town hall in our 'smart evening wear', well as smart as you can get from the contents of a back pack. Looking very out of place, we dived into the free champers, and having not eaten all day the bubbles went straight to out head. As expected this evening was filled with speeches about the achievement of women, what we are proud of and how difficult it is for women to make it in certain careers blah, blah balh. The only notable point of this evening was when a lady mid 30's came and introduced herself, we had a nice chat, she was a lawyer, 2 children, on maternity leave, enjoying a night of etc.etc....she then proceeded to ask about us, we explained we were travelling, both 29 so it leads to some extra challenges when you are staying in hostels with younger people etc. Following our description of what we had been up to, her first questions was...."but when do you want to have children"?? So, at an event, where the message is be proud of who you are and what you have achieved, she only furthers my belief that it is still not yet socially acceptable to be a woman and not follow the route of 'get married, have kids, be a house wife" etc etc by the time you are 30. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a raving feminist, I actually think it is important to appreciate the differences between the genders, and I think family values are essential in society, but that route, doesn't work out for us all so we have to take other paths. So needless to say, I was a bit surprised by the first question I was asked at the celebration of international women's day! It is almost on a par with when I told one of the ladies at Tesco's about my travel plans, and the first question she asked me was "are you going to buy Ugg boots in Australia?" and then said nothing else. But I'm going to leave her in the category or 'sweet/cute'.
So then it is on to New Zealand. Having survived a rather severe grilling (in my opinion) at customs, with a free lecture about drugs smuggling from Cambodia, I made my way to my 'shabby chic' hostel in Auckland city centre. This is quite different to what I have been used to Asia, but I think I will have to get used to it! In Asia, the accommodation was actually ok, because everything is so much cheaper there, you can get a pretty decent room on a budget. But for the same money here, you have to drop a few classes in terms of the standard of what you get. So I had booked a 4 person all female dorm, but due to a booking error I'm in an 8 person mixed dorm, and the only mixed part of it is me! The rest are all men. But it is working out ok. As long as you don't mind walking through dirty water on the floor to get to one of the 2 bathrooms all the way down the corridor, the toilet seat falling off, some suspect marks on your sheets, windows that don't close and food all over the kitchen floor, bed springs and a mobile phone hitting you on the head from the person in the top bunk during the night, its all fine! What can you expect for $20 (10GBP) an night. In all seriousness, it is one of the grubbiest places I have stayed at, but probably the most enjoyable, it feels like a bit of a uni house, but it is quiet, everyone is friendly, most people are a bit older than the average back packer and it is in a good location. And although I got put in a mixed dorm in error, I might request this more now, as it seems more friendly. In the female rooms you tend to get groups of girls travelling together which can be a bit clique, but in mixed it seems you get more people travelling on their own.
You know you are a seasoned traveller when you can handle this kind of accommodation, there have been a few people that have arrived and left very quickly due to the standard while I have been there, but I'm just taking it as it is. Other things that make you know you a traveller rather than a tourist are:
1. You get excited about going to the airport or a shopping mall because you will be able to spray some perfume on from the sample section
2. You have to walk into the newsagents to look at the newspaper, to check what day it is ( I had to do this today, is it Saturday or Sunday. If it is Sunday I have missed my bus!)
3. You have too much time on hands because you stop to chat to the guy trying to sign people up for charity subscriptions in the high street, rather than my usual response of "no, I already give to two charities, I can't to any more! I have to get to work!' as I walk through Southampton high street with purpose of a lunch time.
So I don't have too much to tell you about Auckland itself, like I said, I have just been taking it easy. It seems to be a nice city, although quite similar to Southampton actually, even the Oriana was in the dock yesterday to make me feel at home!
So tomorrow I hop on the bus and head to the very top of New Zealand. Apparently not many people visit this part of the island, so I'm looking forward to being one of the ones that does. I've got plenty of time here now I have skipped Oz! I'm looking forward to doing some cool activities here, a guy I was chatting to in the hostel last night as sold practically every adrenaline activity to me...sky diving, glacier walking, zorbing etc etc, I want to do it all! Except bungee jumping. Don't worry Mum, I'll ensure I have ample insurance!
Right, if anyone is actually still reading this blog and I haven't bored you to tears, I have to go now and do laundry. Oh, this is the other sign you know you are a traveller. I was ambling along the harbour in Auckland yesterday and a guy turned around and stopped to talk to me. Tall, good looking, visiting Auckland on a business conference, spends half his time in Oz and half in Europe......oh 'ello, this is promising I think to myself as I gaze off planning my dual life in Oz and Europe until he asks where I am staying...I snap back into reality and tell him about my hostel...he doesn't look overly impressed, then he looks down at my top, and sees the baked bean juice I spilt at lunch time and decides he suddenly has to leave. Darn it! I wanted to say, 'come back, I'm not normally a skank!', well most of the time anyway. But instead I skulked off, head down in shame. It wouldn't have been so bad, if the beans I had so been looking forward to were any actually any good. I was quite disappointed to discover that baked beans in New Zealand taste a bit like sausage.
On that note, I'm off to do my laundry.
Love you all
Katrina x x x x
I realise it has only been a couple of days since the last post, but I am aware it wasn't my best work......so now I'm over the jet lag and found my bearings in New Zealand, this is my attempt to redeem myself! :o)
Since arriving in New Zealand I've had a pretty chilled/quiet time just to re-energise, do and bit of thinking and prepare myself for the next leg of the journey. During my hours of wandering around Auckland with little purpose or direction, I started thinking about what I will miss about South East Asia and what I am will not miss so much! So here they are *.....
*every country in South East Asia is very different from its neighbour, so these are a bit of a generalisation, but you'll get the idea.
Things I will miss about South East Asia:
1. About 2.5 weeks into SEA, I had the art of eating with chops sticks down! Wahoo!! By week 3, I had lost it again, it never came back. If anyone finds my ability to eat with chop sticks anywhere, please send it on to me, it wad last seen somewhere around Hanoi, Vietnam. I will miss being able to use chop sticks as an excuse for spilling food down my clothes....."its not me, its the chopsticks..." I would use in defence...." I can't use these plastic ones, they are too slippery, I need the wooden ones!".
2. Tinglish - This is the word our Thai Tour Guide, "Little Chicken" used to describe the language she speaks with.....English but with a flavour of Thai words and accent. I'm going to extend this term to cover the whole of SEA, as each country we visited had its own form of English, and learning how to speak 'Tinglish' in each country was a lot of fun. One of my favourites, was when I asked in a shop "how much"? to start the bartering process and the answer was '20 much". Other examples include, 'happy room' which is toilet and 'same same but differnet' is a particular favourite which has wide usage. After a while you start using 'Tinglish' as well to communicate easier with the local people....I now need to remember I'm back in the western world and need to stop using tinglish as it can come across a bit rude to English speakers!
3. Things will happen when they happen, and it generally works. When I first arrived in Asia, I thought it was chaos and that nothing would ever get completed. Nobody writes down your orders, you don't get receipts, you can't phone to reconfirm a booking etc.......but you know what, it actually works. I can't claim to understand it, but there is actually a lot of organisation and logic in restaurants, hotels, public transport and shops, that you can't really see, but all comes together in the end. Things might not always happen on time, but if you just trust that it will happen and the person providing you with a service won't let you down, it works out fine. I'll miss this culture of not worrying about the time, just waiting, be patient and it will come together in the end.
4. Family loyalty and respect - the family is a unit throughout life, one family can live with 4 generations in the same house. Businesses are run as a family. Social time is spent as a family. As a result, you don't really see any homeless people. Yes, you see a lot of poor people, but everyone is looked after and supported by their family throughout their life. We travelled by boat from Loas to Thailand for two days. The boat that took us there was run by a family, and although Granny didn't do any work on the boat, she sat in the corner and came with us on the whole boat trip, because everything was done as a family. She wasn't to be left at home on her own.
5. The challenge...because SEA is so culturally different, every day was a challenge and you have to have your whits about you, and you are doing something different every day. By comparison, New Zealand feels a bit tame......so I'll just have to do lots of adventurous activities to keep the challenge there!
6. Regulalry being told how beasutiful my white skin is........here in NZ, I just look like an Albino
Things I will not miss about Asia:
1. Brits/Europeans/Americans moaning about squat toilets, cleanliness of rooms, quality of transport, quality of food, not being understood by locals in english, refusing to speak 'tinglish' to help the communication process, moaning about food being brought out at different times, food too spicy, blah blah blah.......this is the way things are done here......embrace it, or do us all a favour and stay at home! If you want European standards, its best to stay in Europe.
2. Spending time picking out 'complementary meat' from my food and all my food having a 'meaty' taste due to the oil etc it has been cooked in. There isn't really an understanding of vegetarianism in this part of the world, which is fine, but it did mean I had to be quite cautious with what I tucking into at every meal.
3. Carrying litres of water absolutely everywhere, it makes you appreciate, just being able to get water out of the tap. Water wasn't expensive, but you just had to be organised in making sure you always had plenty available, dehydration is the last thing you want.
4. Lack of high fibre foods - nuff said
5. Being offended every time I want to buy some clothes. I've lost count of the number of times when I have been told I have to pay more because the garment needs more material for my big arse. The last item I bought ( 7-11 t-shirt!!! Loser-ville or what?! :o) ), I was browsing through the rack of clothes, picked it up to have a look and before I even said anything the stall holder said "it ok, it stretch for you".
Ok, so that's Asia wrapped up. So I had a brief visit to Melbourne. I was only there 3 days, so I can't tell you much about it, other than it seems like a pleasant place, very European and has nice beach. The only thing of interest I did while in Melbourne was to attend an event to celebrate 'world women's day'. This sort of thing is not normally my cup of tea, but the hostel lured myself and another girl, Sandra, into going with two free tickets and the promise of free champagne and nibbles, deal! We turned at the town hall in our 'smart evening wear', well as smart as you can get from the contents of a back pack. Looking very out of place, we dived into the free champers, and having not eaten all day the bubbles went straight to out head. As expected this evening was filled with speeches about the achievement of women, what we are proud of and how difficult it is for women to make it in certain careers blah, blah balh. The only notable point of this evening was when a lady mid 30's came and introduced herself, we had a nice chat, she was a lawyer, 2 children, on maternity leave, enjoying a night of etc.etc....she then proceeded to ask about us, we explained we were travelling, both 29 so it leads to some extra challenges when you are staying in hostels with younger people etc. Following our description of what we had been up to, her first questions was...."but when do you want to have children"?? So, at an event, where the message is be proud of who you are and what you have achieved, she only furthers my belief that it is still not yet socially acceptable to be a woman and not follow the route of 'get married, have kids, be a house wife" etc etc by the time you are 30. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a raving feminist, I actually think it is important to appreciate the differences between the genders, and I think family values are essential in society, but that route, doesn't work out for us all so we have to take other paths. So needless to say, I was a bit surprised by the first question I was asked at the celebration of international women's day! It is almost on a par with when I told one of the ladies at Tesco's about my travel plans, and the first question she asked me was "are you going to buy Ugg boots in Australia?" and then said nothing else. But I'm going to leave her in the category or 'sweet/cute'.
So then it is on to New Zealand. Having survived a rather severe grilling (in my opinion) at customs, with a free lecture about drugs smuggling from Cambodia, I made my way to my 'shabby chic' hostel in Auckland city centre. This is quite different to what I have been used to Asia, but I think I will have to get used to it! In Asia, the accommodation was actually ok, because everything is so much cheaper there, you can get a pretty decent room on a budget. But for the same money here, you have to drop a few classes in terms of the standard of what you get. So I had booked a 4 person all female dorm, but due to a booking error I'm in an 8 person mixed dorm, and the only mixed part of it is me! The rest are all men. But it is working out ok. As long as you don't mind walking through dirty water on the floor to get to one of the 2 bathrooms all the way down the corridor, the toilet seat falling off, some suspect marks on your sheets, windows that don't close and food all over the kitchen floor, bed springs and a mobile phone hitting you on the head from the person in the top bunk during the night, its all fine! What can you expect for $20 (10GBP) an night. In all seriousness, it is one of the grubbiest places I have stayed at, but probably the most enjoyable, it feels like a bit of a uni house, but it is quiet, everyone is friendly, most people are a bit older than the average back packer and it is in a good location. And although I got put in a mixed dorm in error, I might request this more now, as it seems more friendly. In the female rooms you tend to get groups of girls travelling together which can be a bit clique, but in mixed it seems you get more people travelling on their own.
You know you are a seasoned traveller when you can handle this kind of accommodation, there have been a few people that have arrived and left very quickly due to the standard while I have been there, but I'm just taking it as it is. Other things that make you know you a traveller rather than a tourist are:
1. You get excited about going to the airport or a shopping mall because you will be able to spray some perfume on from the sample section
2. You have to walk into the newsagents to look at the newspaper, to check what day it is ( I had to do this today, is it Saturday or Sunday. If it is Sunday I have missed my bus!)
3. You have too much time on hands because you stop to chat to the guy trying to sign people up for charity subscriptions in the high street, rather than my usual response of "no, I already give to two charities, I can't to any more! I have to get to work!' as I walk through Southampton high street with purpose of a lunch time.
So I don't have too much to tell you about Auckland itself, like I said, I have just been taking it easy. It seems to be a nice city, although quite similar to Southampton actually, even the Oriana was in the dock yesterday to make me feel at home!
So tomorrow I hop on the bus and head to the very top of New Zealand. Apparently not many people visit this part of the island, so I'm looking forward to being one of the ones that does. I've got plenty of time here now I have skipped Oz! I'm looking forward to doing some cool activities here, a guy I was chatting to in the hostel last night as sold practically every adrenaline activity to me...sky diving, glacier walking, zorbing etc etc, I want to do it all! Except bungee jumping. Don't worry Mum, I'll ensure I have ample insurance!
Right, if anyone is actually still reading this blog and I haven't bored you to tears, I have to go now and do laundry. Oh, this is the other sign you know you are a traveller. I was ambling along the harbour in Auckland yesterday and a guy turned around and stopped to talk to me. Tall, good looking, visiting Auckland on a business conference, spends half his time in Oz and half in Europe......oh 'ello, this is promising I think to myself as I gaze off planning my dual life in Oz and Europe until he asks where I am staying...I snap back into reality and tell him about my hostel...he doesn't look overly impressed, then he looks down at my top, and sees the baked bean juice I spilt at lunch time and decides he suddenly has to leave. Darn it! I wanted to say, 'come back, I'm not normally a skank!', well most of the time anyway. But instead I skulked off, head down in shame. It wouldn't have been so bad, if the beans I had so been looking forward to were any actually any good. I was quite disappointed to discover that baked beans in New Zealand taste a bit like sausage.
On that note, I'm off to do my laundry.
Love you all
Katrina x x x x
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Rules are made to be broken........?
Hello all!
I must apologise if this is not very succinct, but I will do my best. Pops, I have a small confession.....I haven't completed my journal for over a week! After the years of training you gave, it all started so well, but in the last week, I haven't written in at all,.....eeek! Given I usually use this as my prompt for the blog, we are just going to have to base this one on memory which could be a little sketchy!
So my final stop in the Asian tour was Singapore......it was awesome, I loved it! Singapore is packed with rules and regulations for all sorts of things from jay walking to not flushing a public toilet and there are heavy fines for breaking any of these rules. As a result, for some people this is a good stop over city where you can do a bit of shopping for a couple of days, but that is about it. Not for me! Singapore and I were meant to be together!! Rules, rules, rules, lead to the cleanest place I have ever been, thee most well organised place I have been to, the easiest place to navigate, everything is in perfect order! For some people this can mean the city lacks character, but to me, the rules and heavy fines, just make sense! :o) With fines of around $500 and armed police, rules are not made to be broken in Singapore, they are made to be followed! I like it! If I was primeminister, I would do the same in the UK :o)
So what did I do with my time in this orderly city? Ate a lot of food! The 'food courts' or 'hawker centres' are the cheapest place to eat, the food is really good and there is a variety of cuisines to suit everyone. At the Kopotiam centre where we dined for nearly every meal, there were lots and lots of Singaporeans eating there evening meals there, so you know it is good. To eat anywhere else in Singapore, would take my weekly budget. This is one very expensive place to live, eat and drink.
We did enjoy one evening on the town in Singapore, which started with a cocktail at the Raffles Hotel, where the Singapore Sling originated from. Whilst this set us back a whopping $30 each, it just has to be done while you are in Singapore. And it tasted all the better knowing it was from the original venue! I also particularly enjoyed shelling the peanuts and woofing a few of those down, to then join the other patrons in just throwing all the shells on the floor. I didn't really expect the floor of the hotel, where a drink costs $30, to be littered with nut shells, but it kind of worked! Although not too good for my room mate Suzie who has a nut allergy!
I also went to the night safari, which was a little disappointing for me. I didn't think it was going to be like going on a real safari in Africa, but I did expect it to be more like the Longleat experience, but it was a bit of a zoo really. I think I need to stop going to animal based attractions as I am always disappointed, I need to just realise, I'm always going to think it is like a zoo and stop trying to enjoy them!
Although Singapore was awesome, it did mean I had to say a sad goodbye to Suzi, Andy and Charlie who were my buddies for this leg of the tour. Thank you guys for making it such a great two weeks, particularly to Chrlaie and Andy, who are just 19, let an 'oldie' tag around with them!
On leaving Singapore, next stop was the land down under. However as many of you know, I didn't spot for as long as planned, my 4 weeks was reduced to 3 nights! I'm running out of internet time, so I will update you more on this next time, but I've gone straight to New Zealand. I've only been here about 8 hours, but so far so good. I'm liking New Zealand.
Sorry, not much in this one, I promise to make the next one more interesting!
Take care
Miss you all lots!!!
X X X
I must apologise if this is not very succinct, but I will do my best. Pops, I have a small confession.....I haven't completed my journal for over a week! After the years of training you gave, it all started so well, but in the last week, I haven't written in at all,.....eeek! Given I usually use this as my prompt for the blog, we are just going to have to base this one on memory which could be a little sketchy!
So my final stop in the Asian tour was Singapore......it was awesome, I loved it! Singapore is packed with rules and regulations for all sorts of things from jay walking to not flushing a public toilet and there are heavy fines for breaking any of these rules. As a result, for some people this is a good stop over city where you can do a bit of shopping for a couple of days, but that is about it. Not for me! Singapore and I were meant to be together!! Rules, rules, rules, lead to the cleanest place I have ever been, thee most well organised place I have been to, the easiest place to navigate, everything is in perfect order! For some people this can mean the city lacks character, but to me, the rules and heavy fines, just make sense! :o) With fines of around $500 and armed police, rules are not made to be broken in Singapore, they are made to be followed! I like it! If I was primeminister, I would do the same in the UK :o)
So what did I do with my time in this orderly city? Ate a lot of food! The 'food courts' or 'hawker centres' are the cheapest place to eat, the food is really good and there is a variety of cuisines to suit everyone. At the Kopotiam centre where we dined for nearly every meal, there were lots and lots of Singaporeans eating there evening meals there, so you know it is good. To eat anywhere else in Singapore, would take my weekly budget. This is one very expensive place to live, eat and drink.
We did enjoy one evening on the town in Singapore, which started with a cocktail at the Raffles Hotel, where the Singapore Sling originated from. Whilst this set us back a whopping $30 each, it just has to be done while you are in Singapore. And it tasted all the better knowing it was from the original venue! I also particularly enjoyed shelling the peanuts and woofing a few of those down, to then join the other patrons in just throwing all the shells on the floor. I didn't really expect the floor of the hotel, where a drink costs $30, to be littered with nut shells, but it kind of worked! Although not too good for my room mate Suzie who has a nut allergy!
I also went to the night safari, which was a little disappointing for me. I didn't think it was going to be like going on a real safari in Africa, but I did expect it to be more like the Longleat experience, but it was a bit of a zoo really. I think I need to stop going to animal based attractions as I am always disappointed, I need to just realise, I'm always going to think it is like a zoo and stop trying to enjoy them!
Although Singapore was awesome, it did mean I had to say a sad goodbye to Suzi, Andy and Charlie who were my buddies for this leg of the tour. Thank you guys for making it such a great two weeks, particularly to Chrlaie and Andy, who are just 19, let an 'oldie' tag around with them!
On leaving Singapore, next stop was the land down under. However as many of you know, I didn't spot for as long as planned, my 4 weeks was reduced to 3 nights! I'm running out of internet time, so I will update you more on this next time, but I've gone straight to New Zealand. I've only been here about 8 hours, but so far so good. I'm liking New Zealand.
Sorry, not much in this one, I promise to make the next one more interesting!
Take care
Miss you all lots!!!
X X X
Monday, February 28, 2011
A week of firsts......
The last week has raced by and has been a lot of fun. Needless to say I was excited about this tour beginning and heading out of Bangkok to southern Thailand. For this leg of the journey I'm with a new group of people and using my 'travel experience' I reassured my new friends that the overnight train we were boarding out of Bangkok was absolutely fine and there was no need to worry, I have now done 5 of these, and all bar one, were clean, tidy, comfortable and easy to sleep on. I ended up feeling a little silly, how wrong was I?! Worst nights sleep I have had since leaving Southampton.
Our overnight train took us to the beach town of Ao Nang. As we arrived at Ao Nang, there were many familiar sights.......Starbucks, MacDonalds, 7 Eleven, Subway, Burger King, Pizza Hut etc etc.....not the cultural centre of Thailand, but after previous month of mainly rice and noodles in other parts of Asia, these were a welcome sight. I have taken full advantage of these 'facilities' and for the last week have lived on a diet of Starbucks and fast food. I'm not sure why I have found a sudden obsession with these, as I don't eat them a lot at home! Staying in Ao Nang for 3 days did feel like I was cheating a little from the 'traveling' thing and was on more of a holiday. But I did have fun, and did some things for the first time that I have never done before.....
1. Kyaking - This was great fun......for me and my room mate Suzie anyway, I not sure the other 15 people in our group got the tranquil morning through the mangrove river that they expected! This 'beginners' tour, was probably a little advanced for us, and having only know each other a couple of days, we probably hadn't quite figured out how to work together as a team yet! Once we got into the rhythm, we were ok at going in a straight line on the wide sections of the river, but once we went off into the mangrove and caves, this was well beyond our abilities, and lead to a number of crashes and lots of laughter in addition to slowing down the group. For the benefit of everyone else, I think it was best that we were this asked to split up and join the instructors kyaks. This then enabled us to take in the sights as we paddled through the mangrove and caves and I'm really pleased we did this, as you would not be able to see the beautiful scenery any other way.
2. Snorkeling - A four island tour allowed us to do some snorkeling, which was amazing, once I had gotten the hang of not trying to breath through my nose! The water was beautifully clear, warm and the sands were white. It really was just like paradise, we even visited the appropriately named 'Poda Island' which translates as Paradise Island. This was a great day, although we did all end up a little red being on the water the next day.....I probably had the luckiest escape, by just getting a little red rather than burnt, but the rest of my group are still shedding skin one week on as they got so burnt! Jodie - even my legs got a bit of color, that never happens!
After 3 days in Ao Nang, we head to the boarder to cross into Malaysia. Malaysia feels very different to Thailand, it is much more developed and Westernized and it is easy to see there is a lot more money in this country. The first stop here was Pennang, but I can't really tell you much about this as I was feeling a bit poorly so spent most of the time looking at the hotel walls. I did venture out in the evening though, which provide first number 3.......being asked to provide 'services' to a man, which was a little surprising seeing as I was stood in the 7 Eleven at the time, carrying several liters of water, sweating like a pig and eating an ice-cream!
Next stop on the itinerary was Cameron Highlands, this was a welcome relief from the heat in Malaysia, as it was a mere cool 25 degrees. This is quite a small area, which grows a lot of fruits and vegetables which cannot be grown in other parts of the country due to heat. In Cameron highlands we went up to the highest point in Malaysia, I'd love to say the views were stunning, I have no idea, it was cloudy, but we'll assume it was amazing. We also visited a butterfly/reptile centre and a strawberry farm. The locals in the Cameron Highlands are very proud of their strawberries, merchandise everywhere. Having spent 8 weeks one summer getting up at 5am to go strawberry picking, I wasn't quite as excited to walk through poly-tunnels looking at the strawberry plants. Also visited a tea plantation, were I learnt a lot about tea, which is good seeing I love to drink so much of it at home. This also provided 'firtt' number 4....I had a tea-chino.....like a capouchino, but made with tea.....surprisingly good. Deac's, I think you should recommend this for the SKP restaurant, I think you would love it!
I'm now back into the sticky heat of Malayisa in Kuala Lumpar, I only got here yesterday afternoon, but so far this city seems to have a good vibe. Unlike Bangkok it is easy to get around on the public transport, there are pavements to walk on, it is clean, and the signs actually make sense! I like it here, but I'm not sure we really have enough time to see everything here, so maybe it is a place to come back to in the future. Last night I went and saw the famous Petronas Towers, which looked great with all the lights on at night.
With just two more days in Malaysia, then a couple of days in Singapore (very excited about this), this time next week, I will be in Australia! I have my first three nights booked in Melbourne, but after that I'll see what happens/where I go. Whilst the tours have been great, as I wouldn't have been able to get myself around Asia on my own, I am looking forward to having a more flexibility, choosing myself when to stay longer /move on. I have enjoyed Thailand/Malaysia, but I'm pleased I have also visited Cambodia/Vietnam/Loas, as I don't think the places I have visited in Malaysia/Thailand have been particularly representative of South East Asia. It has felt like I have been on a bit of a holiday here in Thailand/Malaysia, but that might not be a bad thing before I embark in Australia, which will be the real test, as I'll be going it alone!
For those of you asking for photos, I hope to get some online soon, but am having trouble uploading to face book for some reason. Hopefully I'll get it sorted when I get to Austriallia.
Thanks for all your e-mails/messages, it is good to get them as it makes me feel closer to home.
Hope you are all ok, and miss you lots
Love Katrina x x x x
Our overnight train took us to the beach town of Ao Nang. As we arrived at Ao Nang, there were many familiar sights.......Starbucks, MacDonalds, 7 Eleven, Subway, Burger King, Pizza Hut etc etc.....not the cultural centre of Thailand, but after previous month of mainly rice and noodles in other parts of Asia, these were a welcome sight. I have taken full advantage of these 'facilities' and for the last week have lived on a diet of Starbucks and fast food. I'm not sure why I have found a sudden obsession with these, as I don't eat them a lot at home! Staying in Ao Nang for 3 days did feel like I was cheating a little from the 'traveling' thing and was on more of a holiday. But I did have fun, and did some things for the first time that I have never done before.....
1. Kyaking - This was great fun......for me and my room mate Suzie anyway, I not sure the other 15 people in our group got the tranquil morning through the mangrove river that they expected! This 'beginners' tour, was probably a little advanced for us, and having only know each other a couple of days, we probably hadn't quite figured out how to work together as a team yet! Once we got into the rhythm, we were ok at going in a straight line on the wide sections of the river, but once we went off into the mangrove and caves, this was well beyond our abilities, and lead to a number of crashes and lots of laughter in addition to slowing down the group. For the benefit of everyone else, I think it was best that we were this asked to split up and join the instructors kyaks. This then enabled us to take in the sights as we paddled through the mangrove and caves and I'm really pleased we did this, as you would not be able to see the beautiful scenery any other way.
2. Snorkeling - A four island tour allowed us to do some snorkeling, which was amazing, once I had gotten the hang of not trying to breath through my nose! The water was beautifully clear, warm and the sands were white. It really was just like paradise, we even visited the appropriately named 'Poda Island' which translates as Paradise Island. This was a great day, although we did all end up a little red being on the water the next day.....I probably had the luckiest escape, by just getting a little red rather than burnt, but the rest of my group are still shedding skin one week on as they got so burnt! Jodie - even my legs got a bit of color, that never happens!
After 3 days in Ao Nang, we head to the boarder to cross into Malaysia. Malaysia feels very different to Thailand, it is much more developed and Westernized and it is easy to see there is a lot more money in this country. The first stop here was Pennang, but I can't really tell you much about this as I was feeling a bit poorly so spent most of the time looking at the hotel walls. I did venture out in the evening though, which provide first number 3.......being asked to provide 'services' to a man, which was a little surprising seeing as I was stood in the 7 Eleven at the time, carrying several liters of water, sweating like a pig and eating an ice-cream!
Next stop on the itinerary was Cameron Highlands, this was a welcome relief from the heat in Malaysia, as it was a mere cool 25 degrees. This is quite a small area, which grows a lot of fruits and vegetables which cannot be grown in other parts of the country due to heat. In Cameron highlands we went up to the highest point in Malaysia, I'd love to say the views were stunning, I have no idea, it was cloudy, but we'll assume it was amazing. We also visited a butterfly/reptile centre and a strawberry farm. The locals in the Cameron Highlands are very proud of their strawberries, merchandise everywhere. Having spent 8 weeks one summer getting up at 5am to go strawberry picking, I wasn't quite as excited to walk through poly-tunnels looking at the strawberry plants. Also visited a tea plantation, were I learnt a lot about tea, which is good seeing I love to drink so much of it at home. This also provided 'firtt' number 4....I had a tea-chino.....like a capouchino, but made with tea.....surprisingly good. Deac's, I think you should recommend this for the SKP restaurant, I think you would love it!
I'm now back into the sticky heat of Malayisa in Kuala Lumpar, I only got here yesterday afternoon, but so far this city seems to have a good vibe. Unlike Bangkok it is easy to get around on the public transport, there are pavements to walk on, it is clean, and the signs actually make sense! I like it here, but I'm not sure we really have enough time to see everything here, so maybe it is a place to come back to in the future. Last night I went and saw the famous Petronas Towers, which looked great with all the lights on at night.
With just two more days in Malaysia, then a couple of days in Singapore (very excited about this), this time next week, I will be in Australia! I have my first three nights booked in Melbourne, but after that I'll see what happens/where I go. Whilst the tours have been great, as I wouldn't have been able to get myself around Asia on my own, I am looking forward to having a more flexibility, choosing myself when to stay longer /move on. I have enjoyed Thailand/Malaysia, but I'm pleased I have also visited Cambodia/Vietnam/Loas, as I don't think the places I have visited in Malaysia/Thailand have been particularly representative of South East Asia. It has felt like I have been on a bit of a holiday here in Thailand/Malaysia, but that might not be a bad thing before I embark in Australia, which will be the real test, as I'll be going it alone!
For those of you asking for photos, I hope to get some online soon, but am having trouble uploading to face book for some reason. Hopefully I'll get it sorted when I get to Austriallia.
Thanks for all your e-mails/messages, it is good to get them as it makes me feel closer to home.
Hope you are all ok, and miss you lots
Love Katrina x x x x
Friday, February 18, 2011
The milky bar kid and stamp collecting
Hi everyone!
Quite a lot has happened since I last posted. I've travelled through a whole other country (Loas) and am now back in Thailand (trying my hardest to) give Bangkok a second chance!
Having said I didn't anticipate on finding love in my previous blog, I think I have! (No Eamonn, not with a Vietnamese chap, they really just aren't tall enough), I'm in love with Loas! I knew nothing about this country before coming here (didn't even really kow where it was), but it has been the hi-light of the trip so far. The landscape is absolutely stunning, it has not been over commercialised by tourism (yet), it has a small population (just 6m in the whole country) and the people of Loas do not live their lives around tourism. If you want to visit Loas then you will be welcomed, but the people don't really speak much English just to accommodate us Westerner's. In all the other countries I have been to, everyone believes the only way to make money or get a good job is to speak English so that they can be involved in the tourism, and they are all giving attention to the Westerners to try and make money. In Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, local people always make a comment about how pale my skin is, they always say "white skin, white skin" as they stroke my arm! In Loas, not one person said this to me, they don't really mind whether we are there are not, they just continue to go about with their daily life. Just to go back to the white skin comment, in Asia, it is the opposite to Europe. Everyone wants to have pale skin as it is linked to the class system. If you have dark skin, you are poor because you have a manual job outside. So all the local people are always covered up head to toe to avoid catching any rays. Based on the the colour of my skin (I haven't changed colour since I left) , they must think I am up there with the Beckham's in terms of wealth! That is probably why local people always approach me in the group, if only they knew the truth!
Crossing the boarder into Loas was quite eventful. After the 9 hour drive to the Vietnam/Cambodia boarder, we reached the boarder at about 3.30pm, in plenty of time before it shut at 5pm, or so we thought. We all duly handover our passports and the usual $1 'fee' and the immigration officer starts stamping away.....until he gets to Ben's passport. It turns out when we entered Vietnam, the immigration officer failed to give Ben an 'entry' stamp, so effectively it appeared as an illegal entry. The officer ordered him to go back to the boarder we came in on to sort it out, it was 10 days of travel since we were last there! The rest of the group had all now been given 'exit' stamps from Vietnam, so could not re-enter and were in no mans land until we could enter Loas, Ben was stuck on the other side, with the tour leader in the middle trying to negotiated the situation, which he had never come across before. Despite only all knowing each other only a few weeks, we really came together to try and help each other, there was no way we would continue without Ben, so we all just sat on the steps in no mans land and waited. After some tense negations, calls to embassies etc (quite difficult as we speak no Vietnamese and English at the boarder was limited) Ben was given an exit stamp. By this time, the Loas border had closed, so we had to pay some additional 'overtime fees' to the officer to all get through. It was quite a stressful day, so we all certainly deserved our first 'Beer Loa' once we got to the first town across the border, where we ate a restaurant called 'the only one', it is as it is exactly called. As I said, the people of Loas don't make many additions for tourists, they live on about $1 a day, so do not go to restaurants, so there are not many available. Lesson learned, I will always check for an entry stamp when going through a boarder from now on. To Ben's credit, he handled the situation really well and played 'the game'. If it had been me, the thought of having to make my own way back across Vietnam, on my own, would have had me in crying hysterically I think!
The elephant riding, (and falling off!) was quite an experience. I was really looking forward to this, but felt a little sad after. Despite being told this was the best place to do it, in terms of animal welfare, I wasn't comfortable that one elephant had to carry around 4 adults on its back (including two "fat girls.....you not thin...."......yes, one of them was me) and plodding round the same route 3 times a day. I also get the feeling they may have been sedated also.....so to be honest, I don't really blaming the elephant for getting a bit agitated and throwing me off, I wouldn't want to carry around 40 stone in 35 degree heat.
Since entering Loas, our group size has reduced from 15 people to 8 which has been really nice. Travelling with 15 is just too many, it takes an age to do anything and make a decision. So in Loas we have bonded well as a group and had a few good nights out drinking the famous 'beer loa'. Our tour leader, who is Australian, lives in Loas and is married to a local lady so one evening we were lucky enough to go to his house and see how a real Laos family live. 8 people in a really small house, with not a lot of furniture, and the house also doubles up as tehir way of making income with the sister operating her hair dressing business and the brother operating his goldsmith business. This was great as it was not something many people have the opportunity to do. They were very hospitable, and shared their 'rice whisky' with us. This is drunk by the locals as it is very cheap, and is real potent stuff. It is fair to say there were several headaches in the group the following day.
So to sum up, I'd like to recommend Loas to all of you, but I'm not going to! If it starts to make its way on to the tourist track, it will totally loose its appeal.
So I'm now back in Bangkok, and the answer is no, I don't like it much more the second time round. I've just said goodbye to the group I have been travelling with and join a new group tonight so spend two weeks making our way down to Singapore. I'm now 1/4 of my way through the trip. Despite the first week or so going slow, the last couple have zoomed by.
Lots of love
Katrina x x x x x
Quite a lot has happened since I last posted. I've travelled through a whole other country (Loas) and am now back in Thailand (trying my hardest to) give Bangkok a second chance!
Having said I didn't anticipate on finding love in my previous blog, I think I have! (No Eamonn, not with a Vietnamese chap, they really just aren't tall enough), I'm in love with Loas! I knew nothing about this country before coming here (didn't even really kow where it was), but it has been the hi-light of the trip so far. The landscape is absolutely stunning, it has not been over commercialised by tourism (yet), it has a small population (just 6m in the whole country) and the people of Loas do not live their lives around tourism. If you want to visit Loas then you will be welcomed, but the people don't really speak much English just to accommodate us Westerner's. In all the other countries I have been to, everyone believes the only way to make money or get a good job is to speak English so that they can be involved in the tourism, and they are all giving attention to the Westerners to try and make money. In Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, local people always make a comment about how pale my skin is, they always say "white skin, white skin" as they stroke my arm! In Loas, not one person said this to me, they don't really mind whether we are there are not, they just continue to go about with their daily life. Just to go back to the white skin comment, in Asia, it is the opposite to Europe. Everyone wants to have pale skin as it is linked to the class system. If you have dark skin, you are poor because you have a manual job outside. So all the local people are always covered up head to toe to avoid catching any rays. Based on the the colour of my skin (I haven't changed colour since I left) , they must think I am up there with the Beckham's in terms of wealth! That is probably why local people always approach me in the group, if only they knew the truth!
Crossing the boarder into Loas was quite eventful. After the 9 hour drive to the Vietnam/Cambodia boarder, we reached the boarder at about 3.30pm, in plenty of time before it shut at 5pm, or so we thought. We all duly handover our passports and the usual $1 'fee' and the immigration officer starts stamping away.....until he gets to Ben's passport. It turns out when we entered Vietnam, the immigration officer failed to give Ben an 'entry' stamp, so effectively it appeared as an illegal entry. The officer ordered him to go back to the boarder we came in on to sort it out, it was 10 days of travel since we were last there! The rest of the group had all now been given 'exit' stamps from Vietnam, so could not re-enter and were in no mans land until we could enter Loas, Ben was stuck on the other side, with the tour leader in the middle trying to negotiated the situation, which he had never come across before. Despite only all knowing each other only a few weeks, we really came together to try and help each other, there was no way we would continue without Ben, so we all just sat on the steps in no mans land and waited. After some tense negations, calls to embassies etc (quite difficult as we speak no Vietnamese and English at the boarder was limited) Ben was given an exit stamp. By this time, the Loas border had closed, so we had to pay some additional 'overtime fees' to the officer to all get through. It was quite a stressful day, so we all certainly deserved our first 'Beer Loa' once we got to the first town across the border, where we ate a restaurant called 'the only one', it is as it is exactly called. As I said, the people of Loas don't make many additions for tourists, they live on about $1 a day, so do not go to restaurants, so there are not many available. Lesson learned, I will always check for an entry stamp when going through a boarder from now on. To Ben's credit, he handled the situation really well and played 'the game'. If it had been me, the thought of having to make my own way back across Vietnam, on my own, would have had me in crying hysterically I think!
The elephant riding, (and falling off!) was quite an experience. I was really looking forward to this, but felt a little sad after. Despite being told this was the best place to do it, in terms of animal welfare, I wasn't comfortable that one elephant had to carry around 4 adults on its back (including two "fat girls.....you not thin...."......yes, one of them was me) and plodding round the same route 3 times a day. I also get the feeling they may have been sedated also.....so to be honest, I don't really blaming the elephant for getting a bit agitated and throwing me off, I wouldn't want to carry around 40 stone in 35 degree heat.
Since entering Loas, our group size has reduced from 15 people to 8 which has been really nice. Travelling with 15 is just too many, it takes an age to do anything and make a decision. So in Loas we have bonded well as a group and had a few good nights out drinking the famous 'beer loa'. Our tour leader, who is Australian, lives in Loas and is married to a local lady so one evening we were lucky enough to go to his house and see how a real Laos family live. 8 people in a really small house, with not a lot of furniture, and the house also doubles up as tehir way of making income with the sister operating her hair dressing business and the brother operating his goldsmith business. This was great as it was not something many people have the opportunity to do. They were very hospitable, and shared their 'rice whisky' with us. This is drunk by the locals as it is very cheap, and is real potent stuff. It is fair to say there were several headaches in the group the following day.
So to sum up, I'd like to recommend Loas to all of you, but I'm not going to! If it starts to make its way on to the tourist track, it will totally loose its appeal.
So I'm now back in Bangkok, and the answer is no, I don't like it much more the second time round. I've just said goodbye to the group I have been travelling with and join a new group tonight so spend two weeks making our way down to Singapore. I'm now 1/4 of my way through the trip. Despite the first week or so going slow, the last couple have zoomed by.
Lots of love
Katrina x x x x x
Monday, February 7, 2011
Eat Pray Love......?
Hey blog fans!
I've just finished reading Eat Pray Love. For those of you that have read the book, or seen the film (I haven't seen the film so I'm not sure how it compares), you'll understand that I can closely relate to Liz Gilbert's story. Having said that, I think it is unlikely that my travels through South East Asia will lead to 'Pray' and 'Love' like Liz, but boy can I compare myself to the 'Eat' section of this story. Since significantly loosing my appetite in the first week, it is back with avengance now. For the last week I seem to be constantly eating, just sitting around on busses all day the pounds are piling on. The clothes are getting tighter instead of looser, so all those people that said 'you will loose weight when you are travelling' are wrong so far! I must commence a diet...tomorrow! It probably doesn't help that I have the opposite problem to everyone else in my group. While my fellow travellers are taking their daily dose of immodium before getting on the bus, I am munching into my bran flakes. I must be the only person to travel South East Asia dragging a box of bran flakes around with me all the way!!! I don't think it is a common problem here! Ha ha ha.
Anyway, back to more interesting things and some of the highlights of my time in Vietnam. My advice to anyone thinking about travelling to South East Asia, is don't come during Chinese New Year! Everything closes down so we have missed out on some things, and you have to pay an extra 20% for everything to cover additional 'staff costs and market prices'. It has been good to see the celebrations locally, but it is also very frustrating that things close for about 2 weeks. I guess that'll teach me for not doing enough research before I left!
On arrival in Nha Trang, we all went for a mud spa.....just to add to our general grubiness of travelling! This involved all 16 of us sitting in a mud pool for 20 minutes, and then getting into a bath of water at 40 degrees. Whilst this was a good experience, it isn't really my idea of fun to scold myself in baking hot water....I don't like baths at the best of times! Mum, I reckon this would have been about right for you given how hot your bath normally is! :o) Nha Trang is a coastal town so we also spent some time relaxing on the beach and even had a quick paddle, although the water was a bit chilly.
Departure from Nha Trang was another sleeper train, this was not as nice as the first one! When we got on the train there were locals lying in our beds trying thier luck to get a cabin so we had to throw them out and try and make some kind of clean-ish area to sleep on - Aunt Ange, the 'dreamie' was my saviour in this situation, thank you! On this 16 hour journey we had to share our cabin with cockraoches, lots of smoke from the other carriages and had to experience blocked toilets for several hours. All part of the expereince I guess.
The good news is this train takes us to the town of Hoi An, which is a pretty quaint town with french influence. In this town we counted down to see in 2011 for the second time this year! Chinese New Year is very different to new year celebrations in England. There was a firework display in the town, but this must be the queitest it has been since I have been in Vietnam. At 12, there is no cheering or drinking, everyone stands sliently in the street, motor bikes switched off, just looking up at the sky watching the fireworks. On the way home residents have tables of food outside to offer to the spirts and burn incense sticks (although I don't normally like the smell of these, it makes a nice change to the smell of fish guts you normally get as you walk through these towns!). All the local people were wishing us happy new year, I did my best to reply is Vietnamese, but judging by their reaction I don't think it was very accurate!
In the town of Hoi An, I also have my first bartering expereinces. Unless you are buying food from a supermarket or resturant, you have to barter for everything. You start at about 50-60% of what they are asking. My first purchase led to a saving of 10,000 dong (this is about 50 cent!), but my latest purchase I bartered down by about 50,000 dong ($2.50) so I am getting better at this! You just have to be prepared to walk away, and the seller will soon chase after you.
On leaving Hoi An, we continue north to Hue, the scenery in northern Vietnam is beatutiful, and exactly how I pictured it to be. The weather hasn't been great here (jeans and jumper most days!), so mist/fog does sometimes spoil the views but it is beautiful none the less.
At Hue, a few us decide to get a taxi to visit a toomb. We order the taxi at reception, and it all seems quite simple as we pull up to a building and the non english speaking taxi drivers signals for us to get out. A couple of us comment that this wasn't quite what we were expecting, but we diligently get out anyway. We wonder looking a bit lost and some children run out and beckon us in, we tentatively follow, and some other members of the group play with the children. I'm nervously hanging back thinking, this doesn't look like the pictures in the rough guide'....then a couple of nuns appear, and the taxi starts to pull off. As a group we have a sudden realisation that we might be victims of some kind of scam here, and I leg to get the taxi driver to come back. In very broken english we discover he has brought as to an orphanage on route, and they would like a donation! Pleading he doesn't speak english we manage to persude the taxi driver to take us where we supposed to go.
Next stop is Ha Long Bay. Thankfully the train for this 20 hour journey was back to the standard of the previous one! Ha Long Bay has been the highlight of Vietnam for me, it is absolutely beautiful, just like you see in the pictures. Whilst it is not quite as serene as the Top Gear episode suggests, with hundreds of other tourists there, you cannot help but be amazed by this natural beauty. Whilst the floating houses of the people that live there are a state of poverty, they probobaly wake up to the best views in the world every day.
That pretty much brings you up to date. I'm now in Hanoi, and tomorrow we depart for Loas, which I am really looking forward to. Whilst I have enjoyed Vietnam, I have been surprised by how developed and commercial it is and I'm looking forward to getting back to some less spoilt areas of South East Asia.
So far I have been travelling with a group of about 15 people. Tomrrow, about half the group leave and just 8 of us go in Loas. We get on well as a group, but majorotiy of people here are in their early 20's if not younger, so I have gone from feeling like quite a 'young' 29 year old at home to ancient here. I think they think I am a bit old and boring, but they don't really realise that I have 10 years on them and have done the drinking games, the painful hangovers, the lobster red sun burn, all many times before, and don't need to spend every night here discovering that again! So I'm looking forward to getting to Oz and NZ where hopfully I'll be able to be around other 'oldies' :o)
I hope everything is well with everyone. Love you all.
Keep me up to date on the gossip!
Katrina
x x x x
I've just finished reading Eat Pray Love. For those of you that have read the book, or seen the film (I haven't seen the film so I'm not sure how it compares), you'll understand that I can closely relate to Liz Gilbert's story. Having said that, I think it is unlikely that my travels through South East Asia will lead to 'Pray' and 'Love' like Liz, but boy can I compare myself to the 'Eat' section of this story. Since significantly loosing my appetite in the first week, it is back with avengance now. For the last week I seem to be constantly eating, just sitting around on busses all day the pounds are piling on. The clothes are getting tighter instead of looser, so all those people that said 'you will loose weight when you are travelling' are wrong so far! I must commence a diet...tomorrow! It probably doesn't help that I have the opposite problem to everyone else in my group. While my fellow travellers are taking their daily dose of immodium before getting on the bus, I am munching into my bran flakes. I must be the only person to travel South East Asia dragging a box of bran flakes around with me all the way!!! I don't think it is a common problem here! Ha ha ha.
Anyway, back to more interesting things and some of the highlights of my time in Vietnam. My advice to anyone thinking about travelling to South East Asia, is don't come during Chinese New Year! Everything closes down so we have missed out on some things, and you have to pay an extra 20% for everything to cover additional 'staff costs and market prices'. It has been good to see the celebrations locally, but it is also very frustrating that things close for about 2 weeks. I guess that'll teach me for not doing enough research before I left!
On arrival in Nha Trang, we all went for a mud spa.....just to add to our general grubiness of travelling! This involved all 16 of us sitting in a mud pool for 20 minutes, and then getting into a bath of water at 40 degrees. Whilst this was a good experience, it isn't really my idea of fun to scold myself in baking hot water....I don't like baths at the best of times! Mum, I reckon this would have been about right for you given how hot your bath normally is! :o) Nha Trang is a coastal town so we also spent some time relaxing on the beach and even had a quick paddle, although the water was a bit chilly.
Departure from Nha Trang was another sleeper train, this was not as nice as the first one! When we got on the train there were locals lying in our beds trying thier luck to get a cabin so we had to throw them out and try and make some kind of clean-ish area to sleep on - Aunt Ange, the 'dreamie' was my saviour in this situation, thank you! On this 16 hour journey we had to share our cabin with cockraoches, lots of smoke from the other carriages and had to experience blocked toilets for several hours. All part of the expereince I guess.
The good news is this train takes us to the town of Hoi An, which is a pretty quaint town with french influence. In this town we counted down to see in 2011 for the second time this year! Chinese New Year is very different to new year celebrations in England. There was a firework display in the town, but this must be the queitest it has been since I have been in Vietnam. At 12, there is no cheering or drinking, everyone stands sliently in the street, motor bikes switched off, just looking up at the sky watching the fireworks. On the way home residents have tables of food outside to offer to the spirts and burn incense sticks (although I don't normally like the smell of these, it makes a nice change to the smell of fish guts you normally get as you walk through these towns!). All the local people were wishing us happy new year, I did my best to reply is Vietnamese, but judging by their reaction I don't think it was very accurate!
In the town of Hoi An, I also have my first bartering expereinces. Unless you are buying food from a supermarket or resturant, you have to barter for everything. You start at about 50-60% of what they are asking. My first purchase led to a saving of 10,000 dong (this is about 50 cent!), but my latest purchase I bartered down by about 50,000 dong ($2.50) so I am getting better at this! You just have to be prepared to walk away, and the seller will soon chase after you.
On leaving Hoi An, we continue north to Hue, the scenery in northern Vietnam is beatutiful, and exactly how I pictured it to be. The weather hasn't been great here (jeans and jumper most days!), so mist/fog does sometimes spoil the views but it is beautiful none the less.
At Hue, a few us decide to get a taxi to visit a toomb. We order the taxi at reception, and it all seems quite simple as we pull up to a building and the non english speaking taxi drivers signals for us to get out. A couple of us comment that this wasn't quite what we were expecting, but we diligently get out anyway. We wonder looking a bit lost and some children run out and beckon us in, we tentatively follow, and some other members of the group play with the children. I'm nervously hanging back thinking, this doesn't look like the pictures in the rough guide'....then a couple of nuns appear, and the taxi starts to pull off. As a group we have a sudden realisation that we might be victims of some kind of scam here, and I leg to get the taxi driver to come back. In very broken english we discover he has brought as to an orphanage on route, and they would like a donation! Pleading he doesn't speak english we manage to persude the taxi driver to take us where we supposed to go.
Next stop is Ha Long Bay. Thankfully the train for this 20 hour journey was back to the standard of the previous one! Ha Long Bay has been the highlight of Vietnam for me, it is absolutely beautiful, just like you see in the pictures. Whilst it is not quite as serene as the Top Gear episode suggests, with hundreds of other tourists there, you cannot help but be amazed by this natural beauty. Whilst the floating houses of the people that live there are a state of poverty, they probobaly wake up to the best views in the world every day.
That pretty much brings you up to date. I'm now in Hanoi, and tomorrow we depart for Loas, which I am really looking forward to. Whilst I have enjoyed Vietnam, I have been surprised by how developed and commercial it is and I'm looking forward to getting back to some less spoilt areas of South East Asia.
So far I have been travelling with a group of about 15 people. Tomrrow, about half the group leave and just 8 of us go in Loas. We get on well as a group, but majorotiy of people here are in their early 20's if not younger, so I have gone from feeling like quite a 'young' 29 year old at home to ancient here. I think they think I am a bit old and boring, but they don't really realise that I have 10 years on them and have done the drinking games, the painful hangovers, the lobster red sun burn, all many times before, and don't need to spend every night here discovering that again! So I'm looking forward to getting to Oz and NZ where hopfully I'll be able to be around other 'oldies' :o)
I hope everything is well with everyone. Love you all.
Keep me up to date on the gossip!
Katrina
x x x x
Monday, January 31, 2011
Travelling on the Vietnam Express......
I'm now in country number 3 of my 'big adventure'! We have crossed the boarder from Cambodia into Vietnam. This boarder crossing was a very different experience to the entry into Cambodia. Surrounded by lush green padi fields, this boarder was a simple shed on the side of the road a barrier across. The crossing was simple and once we had each paid out $1 'fee' to the immigration officer to get our passports stamped, we were in Vietnam. The change between the two countries was immediate. Vietnam is green and lush, the houses are empty with everyone out working hard on the padi fields, and the roads and pavements are cleaner. All the roads, gardens and fields are set out in very neat well maintained rows. Above all, Vietnam is more developed than Cambodia and heck of a lot busier!
At our first night in Vietnam we stay at a small boarder town as it is too far to drive to Ho Chi Minh City in one day. Whilst Ho Chi Minh City is not the capital of Vietnam it is the main city, with 8 million people living here. With a population of 8 million here, there are 6 million motorbikes in the city, I think I have seen 5.5 million of them while I've been here, this city is so busy. The traffic is constant. Crossing the road is a mission, I think from now on I will on go to places on the same side of the road! The advice is to step out into the moving traffic and walk slowly and confidently through it, and they will go round you! This totally goes against what your brain wants you to do, which is get out of the way of the traffic, given they use the horn as a subsitutue brake. However, I have to say, it does work, they do go round you!
Whilst in Ho Chi Minh City (previously Siagon), we took a trip to see the underground tunnels that the Viet Cong used used during the 'American War', as it is called here. There is a huge network of these tunnels underground with make shift schools, hospitals and kitchens too. We went through a 100 meter stretch of the tunnels, which have supposedly been made wider since they were used by the Viet Cong. I have to say that I still struggled to get my 'western' hips through, they are very narrow!
Whilst we are in Vietnam, it is the Chineese new year, which is celebrated here. This means that most people leave the cities and return to thier families in the countryside. A lot of things close down during this time, so it could be quiet for the next 2-3 days. There are lots of decorations everywhere for the new year which make the cities look very pretty.
We are in Ho Chi Minh for just one night, and then we head to Nha Trang, on a sleeper train! We are all quite excited by this as we never have been on one before. I was pleasently surprised by the standard of the accommodation, and it is wasn't too difficult to get to sleep after taking a few minutes to get used to the rocking motion of the train. I did wake up frequently during the night though, checking the other 3 people where still in the cabin and I hadn't sleep through our stop! There are no announcemnets on the train, so it is a bit of a guessing game as to when you are approaching your stop!
We arrive in Nha Trang early in the monring after our nights sleep on the train, although not as early as planned. The train was due in at 5.45 am, but we arrived about 8.30am. Apprantly that is a pretty good time, and not much of a delay! The difference in temperature in this coastal town is noticable, I even had to wear jeans yesterday! The waves are crashing in at the moment, so there may be storm appraching. At least that will keep the mosquitos away from me for a couple of days!
Well it is on to another sleep train tonight to head to Ho An, hopfully I won't wake up so many times in the night this time!
I hope you are all well. Keep in touch and let me know what is going on with you.
Lots of love, from Katrina x x x x
At our first night in Vietnam we stay at a small boarder town as it is too far to drive to Ho Chi Minh City in one day. Whilst Ho Chi Minh City is not the capital of Vietnam it is the main city, with 8 million people living here. With a population of 8 million here, there are 6 million motorbikes in the city, I think I have seen 5.5 million of them while I've been here, this city is so busy. The traffic is constant. Crossing the road is a mission, I think from now on I will on go to places on the same side of the road! The advice is to step out into the moving traffic and walk slowly and confidently through it, and they will go round you! This totally goes against what your brain wants you to do, which is get out of the way of the traffic, given they use the horn as a subsitutue brake. However, I have to say, it does work, they do go round you!
Whilst in Ho Chi Minh City (previously Siagon), we took a trip to see the underground tunnels that the Viet Cong used used during the 'American War', as it is called here. There is a huge network of these tunnels underground with make shift schools, hospitals and kitchens too. We went through a 100 meter stretch of the tunnels, which have supposedly been made wider since they were used by the Viet Cong. I have to say that I still struggled to get my 'western' hips through, they are very narrow!
Whilst we are in Vietnam, it is the Chineese new year, which is celebrated here. This means that most people leave the cities and return to thier families in the countryside. A lot of things close down during this time, so it could be quiet for the next 2-3 days. There are lots of decorations everywhere for the new year which make the cities look very pretty.
We are in Ho Chi Minh for just one night, and then we head to Nha Trang, on a sleeper train! We are all quite excited by this as we never have been on one before. I was pleasently surprised by the standard of the accommodation, and it is wasn't too difficult to get to sleep after taking a few minutes to get used to the rocking motion of the train. I did wake up frequently during the night though, checking the other 3 people where still in the cabin and I hadn't sleep through our stop! There are no announcemnets on the train, so it is a bit of a guessing game as to when you are approaching your stop!
We arrive in Nha Trang early in the monring after our nights sleep on the train, although not as early as planned. The train was due in at 5.45 am, but we arrived about 8.30am. Apprantly that is a pretty good time, and not much of a delay! The difference in temperature in this coastal town is noticable, I even had to wear jeans yesterday! The waves are crashing in at the moment, so there may be storm appraching. At least that will keep the mosquitos away from me for a couple of days!
Well it is on to another sleep train tonight to head to Ho An, hopfully I won't wake up so many times in the night this time!
I hope you are all well. Keep in touch and let me know what is going on with you.
Lots of love, from Katrina x x x x
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