Maria - World Traveler - Student Adventures

Maria, Southeast Asia, New Zealand, Argentina

Maria graduated from Cox School of Business at SMU in May as an accounting major. But before settling down to work she is traveling the world. She is meeting SMU friends along the way and finishes the trip with her brother in Argentina. Buckle your seatbelts and travel along.

August 27, 2006: Wait! There's More

You might think that after arriving on a 12 hour flight from South America I might be a bit too tired to head on out on another trip less than 24 hours later. But then that wouldn't make me Maria Lambert would it?

So the day after the end of my 'Circle the Pacific' trip I jumped into our new trailblazer (I can't leave my dad unsupervised for even a few days-- he can't control his car buying frenzies) and headed out to West Chester, PA with my mom and my dad to attend my favorite cuzzy Claire's engagement party.

The 5 hour drive shouldn't have felt like much after 22 hour bus rides to Bariloche, Air Asia crash landings, wild Thai taxi trips, 3 meter swells boat journeys, and everything else I'd already endured this summer-- but then again my dad was driving. Which meant him talking to himself, 'entertaining himself' by making flatuence sounds with his mouth, singing Christmas songs ('I'm dreaming, of a white, Christ-mas') etc. That made it probably the longest 5 hour trip yet. God love him.

We did make it there, in spite of my dad's failure to take our exit (Dad: Laurie, Maria, Claire, Melissa, and Heidi 'I was talking! I didn't notice!' - Mom: 'Don, you complain about backseat drivers, but this is why you have them! You've been taking this exit since the 70s!') Arriving at the farm was like coming home, as always. It was great to see Grandma and Lisa, and always fun of course to lapse back into spanish with them. Vlad-ee-mehr! (aka 'walter') and Carmen were there too. Even better I found out that Claire didn't know I was coming still-- oh how I love surprises!

At around 6pm the party got started-- all the family minus the Wesley clan was there and Claire was pretty excited to see me (I hid behind Willy). She looked absolutely beautiful-- so chic! (very cute shoes Claire). And all the other bridesmaids were there--Heidi and Melissa who I'd met before plus Laurie who'd I heard loads about but never gotten to meet. Sean and his family were there too of course.

The party was at the pool house and catered by the Jim Barnes and Friends down at the Dilworthtown Inn. Which meant that Uncle Phil's order of 'heavy appetizers' turned into 'heavy appetizers' and full out dinner. And dessert. And extra booze. It was pretty spectacular.

During dinner I somehow wound up at the castellano (spanish) only table with longtime Argentinean friends the Bennatis, abuela, Lisa, and Carmen. Very entertaining. Probably the best part however was Uncle Phil's toast to the newly weds-- so sweet (even though Lisa did provide comic relief as always by stepping into the limelight mid-speech). Another great moment was that Laurie's 'got any more chocolate back there' teasing to the waitstaff resulted in them going back to the Dilworthtown and bringing back the most delicious serrano pepper chocolate truffles (spicy, sweet, salty-- MMMM) and a pretty damn good chocolate torte with raspberry sauce and madeleines. It was like magic.

And this was only the start of the evening.

At around midnight we changed out of formal attire and headed over to Claire's friend Liz's who was having a birthday party. It was pretty entertaining (especially watching Roger sing karaoke with Marines) (oh and making towers of plastic camels--don't ask). At around 2:30 we headed back and made a midnight snack of the leftovers from the catering (YES!) before super partiers Mel, Heidi, Roger and I walked back up to the pool house.

Actually I was planning on going to sleep, but Lisa 'somehow' locked me out of the main house (my mom only reminded her about 5 times to leave it open). Around that point it started to rain. So we just so happened to get 'trapped' in the pool house with all the leftover booze. HA!

What ensued was some pretty hilarious story telling with shoes as props and running around waving an American flag yelling out 'FREEDOM' in some sort of yankee-William wallace enactment. Around 4:30 ish (waaaay early by Argentinean standards-- we'd only be going to the bar at that point) we headed back home to Claires. Somehow I snagged the couch which made a nice sleep for about 5 hours before it was time for Heidi to go catch her plane.

The morning was spent reliving the night before, eating semi-stale Lucky Charms (okay that was just me-- and I swear I like them better just a little stale, yeah I know that's gross) before dropping Mel off at the train station and making a soft pretzel stop at WaWa.

Somehow I got out of going to church which was quite the relief actually since it's always chaos in the moments leading up to getting out the door and Lisa could always just randomly have a leg cramp or something mid-mass which is actually funny albeit embarrassing since my Grandma and Lisa always sit in the front row. But my mom was there to play good Catholic daughter so I got out of it and instead got to facebook stalk and read glamour. Clutch.

We left later than we'd planned---as always, a heavy-handed (yet completely unintentional) dosage of Argentine-Catholic guilt from my grandmother held us up. But finally we got going. This time some Dramamine helped me maintain my sanity while being subjected to my dad's vocalized stream-of-consciousness ramblings. Around 10 pm we were back having only been gone for 36 hours.

And for my next trip? Well it's down to Dallas next week for a mad-moving-in decorating blizt on my new apartment before starting work Sept 18. Should be fun.

August 14, 2006: Back to Balcarce

Patrick and I arrived in Argentina on a Thursday. For me, it was a very long Thursday. I started leaving NZ at around 9am and eventually made it to Buenos Aires at around 4pm. Doesn´t sound too bad except that I crossed the date line so if you do the math (which I haven´t bothered to) it was a very long day for me. But I was very happy to finally be here and of course Pat was overjoyed.

But we didn´t have long to get to know the lovely capital since we were invited to hitch a ride along with Tio Paco and Tia Lia back to Balcarce the following day. Winter vacations had already started for all the students meaning that everyone had the next week off (except poor Maria Lia who was stuck in BsAs working) so Balcarce would just be a week of hanging around, going to the boliches, and eating. Just what we´d hoped for.

The next morning we literally crammed into Paco and Lia´s VW Golf. Fran came too making it a very tight squeeze already for 5 people. But of course we had luggage. And because the car runs on natural gas, the gas tanks in the back don´t really leave much in the way of trunk space. Which meant that for the 5 hour drive we had bags on our laps and bags on the floor and bags crammed between the driver and passager seats. Forget about seatbelts (which Argentineans do anyway) --in the event of a crash we were going nowhere. It was quite humorous.

Balcarce of course was everything I´d hoped it would be and just as I remembered. It didn´t feel like a whole year had gone by since I was there last--more like a month or two. Of course we had planned to stay for just 4 days but ended up there for a week and a half. Balcarce is kind of like that. Time just passes slowly. Since I don´t feel like writing a novel, I´ll just hit the highlights of the trip...

cousins only asado at the laguna
boliche thursday, friday, and saturday nights
waking up at 4pm every day
watching LOST until 6am with patrick
almuerzos with all the fam
visit to the Cerro
laughing at drunk fran forget where he parked his car
saying a cake had preservativos (condoms) instead of conservativos (preservatives)
having an entire roast pig for dinner
mar del plata mario tryst
about a pint of baileys on the rocks for just 4 bucks
family!!!

August 14, 2006: Bariloche!!!

Well first off apologies for not having written in what seems like forever (actually just about 2 weeks). I´ve been in Argentina of course, hanging out with the family and as always sitting in front of a computer has been the last on my list. Especially since everything that I wrote in my blog last year about Argentina pretty much still holds true. Just change all the "Ana Emilia, Maria Lia, Fransisco, Lia....(long list of family members) ....Pablito, Rocio and me" to "Ana Emilia, Maria Lia, Fransisco, Lia....(long list of family members) ....Pablito, Rocio,'PATRICK and me" in my entries and you´ve pretty much got it.

But we did take a very nice trip to Bariloche this year which was something new so I´ll comment on that.

Much to the chagrin of my Dad who´s already a nervous wreck from all my New Zealand adventure activies, Patrick and I decided that we did want to send ourselves barrelling down the Argentinean Andes on skis. Even better Fransisco and Ana Emilia decided to come along too. Never mind that Patrick was the most experienced of all of us having been skiing about 6 times, we were ready to go.

Somehow our aunts talked us into taking the colectivo (the bus) instead of flying. Yeah it was cheaper, but the bus would take us about 20 hours to get there. I figured it would be worth it though if Fran and Ana could go with us though which might not have been possible if we´d flown. So colectivo it was.

Last Wednesday we set out from the BsAs bus terminal at around 1pm. The first 6 or so hours on the bus weren´t actually so bad. They played some movies, we read, slept etc. Then we got bored. Finally we stopped at around 9:45 for dinner. Thank God we were out the bus. Fran was especially desperate having spent the last 9 hours sans nicotine. Unfortunately the dinner was less than stellar. Cannelonis filled with mystery vegetables, rice, and who knows what else. Suprisingly picky-eater Patrick (who to his credit has not been picky whatsoever this trip) really liked them. Go figure.

Back on the bus we tried to get some sleep. Even though our seats reclined way back until we were almost horizontal, the blindingly bright TV screen and unnecessarily loud audio from the video made it rather hard to sleep, even with ear plugs and a face mask. I did get a fairly good nights sleep considering, even though now that I think about it, I did pop two dramamine right after dinner.

Finally the morning came and by around 10m we were at our hotel in Bariloche. We had just enough time to change and then by 11am we were off for the ski slopes. By noon we were getting fitted out for skis, boots, ski pants, etc. Fran got a pretty rocking ski jumpsuit that made him look like he was getting ready to fix someone´s air ducts or plumbing system. The snow was really coming down outside--so much that you could hardly make out where the lifts were. We got our passes, a few maps, and then made our way to the practice area. It was time for instructor Patrick to make his Spanish ski lessons debut.

Even though both Fran and Ana had been to Bariloche for their senior trips (a tradition in BsAs for graduating high school ´egresados´) they didn´t have any skiing experience since most of the senior trip, unsurprisingly, was spent rip roaring drunk. Apparently for the egresados (who we did see a lot of that weekend) the fun is more in throwing snowballs, going out to the boliches (discoteques) at night, tackling one another in the snow (we think we saw some guy get his collarbone broken by his buddy by accident), and other similar drunken schnannigans. So we were starting from scratch.

As best as we could, Patrick and I then tried to explain how to ski in Spanish which was pretty damn difficult considering I didn´t really have much of a ski-savvy Spanish vocabulary. And I didn´t know what I was doing either, having only been skiing twice before, and one of those times was when I was 15. But somehow we made it work, and Fran and Ana were soon going down the baby slopes. Patrick finally convinced them to try a green ´beginner´slope and although they were scared at first, I give Ana and Fran a lot of credit for pushing on. They didn´t even fall too much. Unfortunatley it was snowing like the dickens and you really couldn´t see ANYTHING which made it especially scary for beginners. The best part of that first day though was witnessing Fran and Ana both wipe out completely into a deep snow bank. Of course Pat was right behind them and they were fine, but it sure was hilarious.

July 25, 2006: So we picked up a Scot...

This morning was stressful. Our ferry started boarding from Wellington at 7:55 a.m. and we were to drop our car off at Nationwide by 7:30 a.m. Didn't seem like it would be too difficult. We left the hostel with plenty of time to get gas and make it to the car return place...well plenty of time if you don't plan on getting lost. Which we did. Why doesn't NZ mark their crossroads! In a nutshell we got stuck on the highway, had to ask for directions twice and finally got it to the ferry station where we asked the parking attendant where the Nationwide return was. He tells us that if we give him $5 he'll return it for us. Sounded sketchy, but seeing as we didn't have too many other options and he looked legit, we went for it.

Fortunately we didn't have a long walk (about 100 feet) to the Interislander check in because we had a lot, and I mean a lot of stuff. I had my big pack, a big bag, my small daypack, and our mini ice cooler and 5 bottles of wine to carry. Blake had his ginormous 70L bag, his stuffed to the gills backpack, his Vietnamese rice paddy hat (yes, still), 5 bottles of wine, a couple of plastic bags, and our huge bag of groceries. We made two trips. We checked as much as we could and were still struggling with the rest, but at least we were on board.

And the ship was huge! I've never taken a cruise, so it was definitely the biggest boat I'd ever been on. It had 10 decks and its own cinema. After resting a bit and having some breakfast, we took the elevator up to the look out deck. There we met the nicest Kiwi family-- young parents with two hysterical young kids. One 11 months and the other just 2. The 2 year old kept trying to run off with our cooler which was pretty funny. The little klepto in the making got away with it 3 times before having to be put in time out. The dad used to be a tour guide in the south so he was helping us plan out part of our route and telling us of some nice out of the way places to go. We were having a nice chat and then the 2 year old randomly attacked his sister and all hell broke loose. It was pretty funny actually and quite hard not to laugh. More time outs and then tearful, forced apologies from the kids. Very amusing. Well then the family decided it too cold to stay up there much longer so we said goodbye to them.

Then just Blake and I were left enjoying the sunny morning view of Wellington when another traveler asked us to take his picture. We did, and then got to talking with him. He was from Scotland and on a similarly short holiday through NZ. We talked about our trips, jobs, blah blah the usual. Then we found out he was going to Franz Josef as well, but couldn't get out there until the following day because the bus left too early to catch it this morning. Well we chatted some more before Blake and I decided to go inside to escape the cold. As soon as we'd left we both turned to each other and said,'think we should invite him to ride with us?' (not actually in unison, but close to it) we'd both had the same idea but didn't want to invite strangers into our car without asking the other first! I thought it might add some amusement to the trip myself so Blake went back up to invite him, but alas he was gone.

So we took to napping and reading when there's the Scotsman again! I extend the invitation to him and he readily accepted since it would save him wasting a day in Nelson (not to suggest that all days spent in Nelson are wasted; rather just that he was keen to get the Franz Josef asap..) Then I remembered I didn't know his name! It was reminiscent of a some sort of post one-night stand can't-remember-anything scenario in terms of awkwardness I'd imagine (I promise I'm not speaking from experience). His name was Neil which I thought was funny because we'd already met another Scottish Neil in Halong Bay. We introduced ourselves as well and carried on.

Off the ferry I went to pick up the car since it's in my name. Unfortunately the car is actually smaller than the previous Toyota and I'm thinking erg! how are we going to all fit! Ha! But we managed to squeeze in, with me driving and Neil in the back. And then it was just fun from there on out. We had a long drive that day, about 7 or 8 hours worth so having the added entertainment of a Scotsman stereotypically full of amusing and outlandish stories was quite nice. We all enjoyed the scenery and stopped for pictures many times. The roads were just as nice as on the North Island but with even fewer people and cities along the way. In fact it was one of the more rural areas I've ever been in. Which is why it was so surprising to see Asian tourist trying to hitchhike alongside the road in the middle of nowhere.

But there he was, beladen with two backpacks, the larger one on his back and the smaller in his front, in the characteristic fashion of student travelers. We passed him and then almost immediately saw an abandoned car just past him. We drove a little further and then we started feeling bad that we'd passed him. We didn't have room and he could be crazy or something, but what if his car had broken down? We saw a hotel just up the road and made a u turn at least to offer him a call on one of our cell phones. We reach him and I get out to ask him if his car broke down. He obviously didn't speak much English but said 'Yes, cahr!!' very enthusiastically. I asked if he needed to call someone, using the appropriate gestures to make it rather clear but he looked very confused. I tried to ask him again if that was his car down the road, gesticulating rather wildly to the abandoned car, but he remained clueless. So just asked 'what do you want?' and he said 'Hitchhike'. Hmm no. I told him we didn't have room and were really sorry but I doubt he caught much of that either. Not wanting to leave him completely in the lurch, I said 'HOTEL' and pointed down the road and held up my open hand '5 minutes' and then in a manner that dive master Dave with his continual hand signals would have liked, I pointed to my watch and made a walking sign with my index and middle fingers. He got that alright though he did look sad because we weren't giving him a ride. But we surmised that to have arrived that far out in the middle of nowhere without a car he would have had to have been dropped off by someone else. And to just leave him there? Well he must have just been annoying, crazy, smelly or something else similarly distasteful enough to warrant giving him the boot. We did feel a bit bad though especially because after the lone hotel, there was nothing for a few hours.

In fact the countryside was so bereft of signs of life (except for sheep, naturally, which were everywhere) we were hoping that we'd find a gas station eventually. Even when we did happen upon the small town, we were lucky to strike upon a few houses. The scenery was, as you'd imagine, beautiful and unspoilt. We continued along, jabbering away and listening to music until we finally did come upon our 'stop' in Panakaika or something like that where tour guide on the ferry had suggested we stop. We had made it just before sunrise so that we could catch the rare geological formation of these 'pancake' rocks and blowholes. Blake was rather keen on taking what would be an unquestionably lewd photo with the blow holes and we were curious as to what pancake rocks were. Well a short walk through the woods and to the beach and we were a little disappointed to just fine some large protruding rock formations with horizontal lines on the sides. They were supposed to look like stacks of thin pancakes, but I didn't see much resemblance. Luckily we walked a bit further because it got better--at the second lookout point there were huge formations of these rocks and the waves had carved out interesting caves and holes, and gorges. We still hadn't seen any blowholes until we came to the largest part even further along. Turns out the blow holes are massive holes that blow out water from the surging waves below like geysers. Unfortunately the tide wasn't high enough or something to cause them to really 'erupt' but it was still interesting although Blake could likely climb down over the cliff to access them! Photo ruined. Ha. My favorite part was that they had this funny sign that said 'Nature's Secret Pancake Recipe' (and yeah 'secret' was in italics) and then explained how Mother Nature had 'whipped up some geological pancakes' through millions of years of sedimentary stereolineal blabbady blah blah geological-term babble build up. I thought this was just rather funny and a good example of good ole Kiwi sense of humor.

Having exhausted the lovely photo opportunities of the pancake rocks and a sunset seaside view, we carried on. Fortunately we arrived in Greymouth, a bustling metropolis of maybe a few thousand people, where we could get gas. We also found an Irish pub (they are everywhere) and ordered up some dinner. My lamb chops and mash were to die for and even better the round of beers Neil had bought for us as a way to say thanks. We had a nice meal and enjoyed the break before heading back in the car to get to Franz Josef. Nothing too remarkable happened those last few hours except lots of jokes and teasing. Around 9-ish we made it to the YHA in Franz Josef and literally crashed. So tired. I tried to write this update actually, but almost fell asleep at the computer. So I headed off to bed.

Luckily Blake and I had a twin room (I steal covers and he hits people in his sleep...among other things...) so we turned off the lights but of course, Blake being 'one of the girls' wanted to have 'pillow talk' and make fun of me some more for wearing my retainer and for asking too many questions about logistics on the trip. It was funny. But then sleep finally overtook us and we caught some shut eye so that we could wake up refreshed for our glacial hike tomorrow!

July 24, 2006: Geronimo!!!!

Today was the big day! Around 10ish Blake and I arrived at the Hastings Aerodrome so that he could take a flying lesson and I could do my first sky dive! The weather was perfect for flying-- sunny, cloudless skies. While Blake took off for his first piloting experience, I arrived at 0800 Skydive, a small hangar amongst other small hangars at the small aerodrome. I met Marty the skydiving instructor, Lars the pilot, the videographer, the booking guy, and the resident hangar cat. All of them (even the cat) were very nice and very reassuring, not that I was really nervous at all. They equipped me with a jump suit and harnessed me up real tight then gave me a quick sky dive lesson.

The sky dive would be at 10,500 feet and it would be a tandem jump. So I would be strapped into Marty who would take care of the parachute and all the other details. All I had to do was lean my hips forward and head back and keep my hands on my shoulder straps and elbows in and fall out of the plane. Seemed easy enough. Then we would free fall for about 37 seconds before Marty would pull the chute and then a nice easy 6 minute descent until we landed back at the airfield.

The videographer took some pictures and then we loaded into the tiny two seater plane (one seat was removed of course so we could jump out properly). I sat behind the pilot and Marty and the videographer crouched on the other side. The ride up couldn't have been smoother and the view was spectacular. You could see all the way to Mount Igmont and the Tongoriro crossing that we'd just hiked 2 days before. Marty said that we had exceptionally clear skies, since you can hardly ever see Mt. Igmont. About 20 minutes in the air we reached altitude by which time Marty had already strapped me into his harness very securely. Then it was time to jump! The videographer opened the door and whoosh! the wind whipped in! He climbed out first and hung around to the side so he could capture the exit. Now it was our turn: I scooted towards the door, sat on the edge of the plane and then on Marty's command leaned out!

Geronimo! What a feeling! Jumping out of the plane wasn't scary in the slightest-- the ground was so far away that it didn't feel as if you were really that high up. Very surreal. The force of the wind pushed against me strongly (we were plummeting at around 200mph...) but I could still easily move about and looked up to see the plane rapidly disappearing. I even saw the videographer next to us and gave a nice big thumbs up and smile for the camera! Before I knew it the 37 seconds was up and Marty had pulled the parachute. We jerked back and immediately slowed. Then I could really take in the scenery and the view was indescribably great. It truly didnt' feel as if we were actually that high up! You could see, talk, hear, just as if you were on the ground. Very strange. At this point Marty and I were in a seated position and gliding. He let me have a go at controlling the descent for a few turns, then took control again and did some very fun 360 spins in either direction. Now it was finally time to land and he positioned us so that we'd come in right in front of the videographer who'd already landed a few minutes prior. Marty told me to keep my knees up at we'd land on our bums. Actually those last 100 feet were probably the scariest because all of the sudden it seems as if the ground is just rushing towards you... but honestly even that wasn't scary. I was smiling the whole ride down. We landed very smoothly-- I couldn't believe it! And there was Blake who'd just arrived and had been taking some pictures of my descent. I was quickly unstrapped, smiled some more for the camera and stood back on solid ground! Marty said I did a great job for a first timer and was really impressed at how calm I was. Guess I'm a natural. Who knew I had such an adventurous streak. The whole experience was so much more serene than I'd have expected--the bungy was far more nerve racking. I could see how you could easily get hooked on sky diving--Marty had started in 1970 and the videographer in 1966! Too bad it's an expensive sport!

But even with the 260 NZ$ price tag, I still decided to buy the photos/dvd which, Mom and Dad, should be in the mail in the next week or two. On the other hand, the skydiving crew did give us directions to Wellington, the address of a place to see kiwi birds, and some polish to remove the lovely blue 'racing stripe' I put on the side of the car the other day while trying to squeeze into a very very tight parking space.. whoops.

By noon we were back on the road, but not for long! We had to stop to take pictures 3 times-- it was that pretty-- until we said enough and just kept driving. We stopped again a few hours later when we chanced upon the Tui Brewery. Tui's a local brew here and rather good so we popped in. We bought some souvenirs, laughed at the farcical Tui 'his-tui-ory' and Blake sampled 3 of their brews. Tui has some pretty brilliant marketing slogans which gave us some good laughs... Back on the road we had some more great driving until arriving at Mount Bruce Wildlife Park where we could see real life Kiwis, NZ's national emblem. The park was nice and it just so happened to be kaka feeding time so we managed to catch that. Kaka are a type of parrot indigenous to NZ and don't think for a second that we didn't make several fourth-grade level jokes about 'kaka'. After watching the kaka, (ha), we moved on to the Kiwis.

Now Blake was really excited about the Kiwis and had been talking about them for the whole trip. Kiwis are nocturnal and endangered making them next to impossible to see in the wild. So he was really excited about this. The 2 kiwis at the wildlife park live in this artificial landscape indoors which is darkened during the day to simulate nighttime so they'll come out. At night, artificial lights come on so that the kiwi will sleep while there aren't any visitors. We were lucky and got a good close up view of both of the kiwis---and they are funny funny little birds! So round and so fat with this strange strawlike long pointy beak. And they wobble! They actually looked quite tasty... Once we got tired of watching them waddle around, we moved around to the interactive exhibit which Blake had a little too much fun with. More walking around outside and finally we were off, once again back on the road.

Oooh NZ driving. How I love it. Luckily it was still my turn at the wheel as we approached Wellington at sunset coming through the mountains. Kid you not, it was by far the windiest road I've ever seen. Ever. We must have looped around for about 30 minutes. So much fun. I've got to get me a sports car and come back and have a go at these roads!

Well now we're in Wellington and have just had some great Mexican and Indian food (2 restaurants, long story) and are not looking forward to getting up early to catch our 7:55am ferry to the south island. But the ferry crossing is supposed to be beautiful so I suppose we'll make it! Tomorrow is just a lot of driving down to the Franz Josef Glacier and then the day after we hike the glacier. And then it's time for me to go! I'm so sad-- I love it here so so much. It's definitely been a highlight of my entire travels. Sure it might not be as exotic as Thailand or 'nam, but it is wonderful in its own right. Definitely coming back. But it's alright that I'm leaving since I'm going to Argentina next and that means family and familiarity. Besides I've been blowing through my money and don't really have any other adventure sports I'd like to try (base jumping? luging? bob sledding? Blake and I were trying to think of some others...). Still can't get any pictures up, but don't worry, I'll get a bunch up in just a few days once we get to BsAs!

July 23, 2006: Just call me Wino

Well if you've read my latest blog and my plans to sky dive, you'll know that today was the big day. I got up ready to leap out of a plane strapped to a stranger at 12,000 feet. The skydive service picked me up and I had the nicest chat with a girl my age driving the car. Halfway to the site though she gets a call: no sky dive. Apparently there were too many clouds to jump right then-- I was so bummed out! So I did the only natural thing to do when your sky dive gets canceled: bungee jump.

Taupo is really a great little adventure tourism town and I had heard good things about the bungee as well so I readily signed up for that as well. Blake was still packing and checking out, so I went by my lonesome. After signing my life away and emptying my pockets, my weight was written on my hand and I was sent over to the cantilever platform to make a leap of faith. I was the only jumper (it was a Sunday morning) so I didn't have to wait at all. Two girls quickly rolled up my jeans and attached the straps to each ankle, efficiently calling out the checks to one another on the carabiners, etc. And then came the bungy cord, an impressive mass of tiny rubber strands all bound together. They hooked me in, performed the final checks, and positioned me at the edge. I looked down at the calm blue water just 47m below and psyched myself up to jump. I smiled quickly for the camera, one girl told me to lift up my arms and then jump. So I jumped.

And then I screamed. Jumping was the easy part but as soon as I'd left the platform I couldn't keep from screaming out for dear life! The drop was such a rush and zooming towards me was the water! I recoiled just before I hit the water and I was back up again, probably around half the distance I'd jumped. By that time I'd stopped screaming and was just laughing primarily because it was fun, but also because my shirt had creeped up, exposing my stomach and the hood of my jacket had come over my head. I bounced up and down about 4 more times and then I deftly (if I say so myself) grabbed the extended pole offered to me by the bungy-collection boat man. They pulled me down, told me to look at my feet and calmly laid me down in the boat. Very fun. Back to shore and all I had to do was enjoy a nice walk back up to the office which was easy considering I couldn't wipe the smile off of my face.

Back at the office I talked myself into buying the pictures they'd taken which were quite good. They were running a special, so along with the pictures I also got a free DVD of the whole thing which was pretty darn hilarious. I knew I had to get it when they got the pre-jump part in, with me asking about how it works etc. Especially because Gnarls Barkley's Crazy (which Blake and I have deemed the theme song of the trip) was coincidentally playing on the radio just before I jump. I was actually rather impressed with myself after watching the jump because it was far! My parents are going to flip out when they see it...

After the bungee we were off on a mad dash to Hawke's Bay for our wine tasting. I got to drive and the roads again were more than ideal and about an hour and a half later we were at our next YHA hostel and ready to go wine tasting. We checked in and then Grape Escape came to pick us up. Again being winter, there were only 4 of us on the tasting van instead of the usual 10 or so. Our guide Greg took us first to Trinity Hill winery which Blake and I took to be a good sign since our favorite Irish Pub hangout in Dallas is Trinity Hall. I tasted some really great Merlots, Chardonnays, and Cabernet Sauvignon and by wine number 9 I was starting to feel it, and starting to wonder how I was going to keep this up for the next 3 or 4 wineries! I bought a very nice Merlot there that will probably go to Adriana and then we took off for the Ngatarawa winery. This place was really nice--an old racing stables that had been converted into the office. The staff was funny (or maybe it was just the wine..) and again about, oh, 9 tastings later I was finding myself reaching for the crackers by the handful. There we tried some really nice Chardonnays again, which I got a very good 1994 Reserve for the white wine mama of mine. Hope she likes it!

Next on the list was Sileni Estates which actually now that I think of it I'm having a hard time recalling...oh yes. The cheese. At this place we had some lovely cheeses-- a very soft bleu cheese that was to die for. And gouda. Mmmm. The wine was great too. There I bought a very nice Pinot Noir-- probably the best I've ever tried. Last on the list was Matariki winery where I bought the nicest dessert wine that I've ever tasted. Not too sweet and very crisp and clean. I ended up getting two bottles-- one for me and one for one of the cousins perhaps.

Well by the end of that you can imagine the state we were in. Rather inebriated. The guide dropped us off at our hostel and after a brief pillow fight, we took a much needed 2 hour nap. We woke up, somehow convinced ourselves to get out of bed, and grabbed dinner. Feeling loads better after having eaten and had some water we then went to the supermarket. Which brings us right up to the present.

So what's on tap for tomorrow? Well sorry parents, but tomorrow morning I'm trying round 2 of sky diving. Unfortunately it's a bit more expensive here, but I've really convinced myself I want to do it, and you know how I get once my mind is set on something. Blake isn't jumping (he's already done it--and no, he didn't put me up to this) but he is going in a little plane which he is going to get to help fly a bit. I predicting an Air-Asia triple-jump esque landing and take off for him! After our aerial adventures we're just driving down to Wellington. And that's it! Seriously things are great here. I've overcome any latent fears of heights, closed in spaces, falling, driving fast, and flying already on this trip. The only thing left to work on is my discomfort at being naked with Asian women which thanks to the onsen, Thai oil massage, and Vietnamese sauna is much better. But you've got to have something to work towards.

Alright--ciao!

July 22, 2006: Tongoriro Crossing

Hey all! Just got back from a very exciting day out at the Tongoriro crossing. Blake and I arose bright and early this morning to catch the Tongoriro Expeditions bus out to the mountains at around 6:20am. Unfortunately, at around 6am we realized that all of our food was locked in the hostel kitchen! Since we would be spending the entire day out in the blustery cold on the mountain, we were really wishing that we could get at our food... but we figured that the bus could probably just stop at a gas station.

Well that would have been a good plan if the bus had just been for a few people-- instead it was crammed full of 20-25 year olds all being picked up from hostels and hoping to get a real life Lord of the Rings Experience. And we were headed straight for the mountain.

Immediately the commotion of getting ill-equipped backpackers fitted with adequate winter clothing and hiking gear for the 17km trek all in the aisles of an already very packed bus. Luckily Blake asks if we could stop at a gas station real quick since we have no food and not enough water, and they oblige. 20 NZ$ later, I've got some sandwiches, granola bars, H20 and red bull to keep me going. Back in the bus the struggle of changing pants, finding a coat, etc ensues. Fortunately my run to the Warehouse days before has me with more than enough winter clothing. All I needed was a pair of crampons (for my boots on the ice) and the rocking water proof boots they lent us all.

Eventually we all arrive at the Tongoriro site and already the view is amazing. The mountains (which are volcanic) rise about 2700 m high and are covered with snow. We'll be ascending to just around 1800 m today from 1100 m but it was going to be tough in all the snow! We set off along the easy bit towards the mountain and already I'm feeling like I have on too much clothing which is a good sign. An hour or so later we arrive (all 30+ of us) at the omenously named 'Devil's Staircase'. Our guide led the way, toeing in a path into the fresh snow and we snaked our way up a very steep hill. As we're sinking the snow, trying not to topple down the rather steep slope, and doing our best to follow exactly in the footprints of the fellow in front of us, 3 men just blaze by us with skis attached to their packs. Josh, one of our guides later tells us that they are going to be skiing down the 45% incline. Crazy Kiwis.

After a lot more of inching our way up the icey slope, we make it to the top. Of the rim. A quick break to catch our breaths and we're back off, tramping through knee high snow across a beautiful snowy plain towards the next ridge. With Mount Doom on our right, we can just make out the volcanic steam emerging from the top. This image coupled with the periodic grumblings carried forth by the wind from afar makes me wonder just how likely Mountie Doom is to erupt at, oh, any minute...

But we keep trudging along, feeling like moon walkers because of the giant strides we're taking, leaping forward just to sink down again slowly. Just as I'm getting rather knackered, we reach the next incline and we're off over the crest of this rim. And it's absolutely wonderful. You can see for forever in either direction. Behind us in the very far distance lies the Mt. Fuji-esque Mt. Irod or something like that, while in front of us below lies an entire mountain range. Beautiful. After many pictures (snow angels, 'ah i'm falling', pretending a rock is a bucking bronco etc) we all continue, yes, upward, yet again up a steep and icey bit. I'm wondering if we should be putting our crampons on yet, but Josh seems pretty confident and finally around noon we reach the summit!

At the summit, sulphuric gasses are rising up from the peak which heat the ground just enough to melt the snow and make quite a nice warm seat to sit down and eat lunch. Marveling at the view (which has only gotten better) Blake pops open his champagne that he bought in Bangkok to celebrate. Some people congratulate him for his dedication to the bottle ('you're a legend!') but most just give him the eye and silently declare him an alcoholic. Me, I know that it's his 22nd bday and this has been planned out for weeks and that we both expected it to just be us two and a guide, but it was funnier leaving the rest of the trekking group in the dark about this. After a lot more funny pictures involving Blake's cheap (and none too alcoholic) girly champagne (which not only had roses on the bottle but came with a heart pendant..really), it's time for us all to start the descent. And what better way to do it, than to slide down the mountain.

While I'm sure most of us thought Josh was joking when we he said we were to slide down, sure enough he just sits down and takes off towards the flat part of the crater below. Following suit I plop down and zoom down. It was incredible. Thanks to my ski pants I flew down the hill, so fast that I kept pushing the Brit in front of me forward with my legs as I ran into him. But it was cool since I caught his jacket when he lost it mid-slope (he was using it as a seat.. didnt' work). At the end we were all snow covered and a bit wet but couldn't have been happier. The icing on the (birthday) cake, was seeing Blake come down, champagne bottle in hand, drinking. Fantastic.

Exhilerating sledding ride down, we tramp onwards yet again across the flat cratery bit. As we're walking I talk to a Canadian guy who is working here at a sky diving place in Taupo. Which gets me thinking.. I was already considering doing a bungy in Taupo (47m opposed to the crazy one Blake is doing at 200+m) but sky diving sounds even better. By now I'm pretty much over any kind of fear of heights I might have had having tackled the 100m abseil the day before, so this really does sound like a good idea. Upward along the path, we reach another crest of a hill and there below us is Lake Taupo and in the distance the East coast of the island! You really could just see forever. From there, more descending (weight in your heels!) until we reach a rather dodge bit that's fairly icey and with quite the rocky slide down to the gulley that I'd rather not try out. Moving carefully along, we all snake our way around until.. yes! another slide down the mountain!

And this one was even better. Having gotten the hang of it the first go-round, I really zoom off this time, winding in and out of the channel made in the snow. With the wind rushing past my head I can just see the hut down below which is our next stopping point. I manage to make it all the way down with just one quick stop where I ran out of momentum and had to walk. More of a rest and then the real descent, back down to 700m. Blake and I talk most of the way and an hour and a half later, at 4pm we're finally back at the car park (not the same one mind you) and there's our bus! We return our borrowed equipment and hooray! we get free coke and beers! Once back on the bus we all chitchat before getting really sleepy and then once we're back on the road, they stop for gas and then come back with bags of chips (french fries) piping hot for all of us! Too bad there was no ketchup.

So here we are back at the hostel and yeah we haven't had really much internet access at all, let alone time, so I know I'm behind on my updates. Hopefully I'll get a chance tomorrow to catch you up... especially since tomorrow I will be sky diving! Yea! Don't worry parents, it will be safe and by the time you read this it will already have been done. Love you!!!!!!!!

July 21, 2006: Caving Adventure

Today was amazing- one of the best experiences so far out of the trip. Spelunking, pot-holing, caving... whatever you call it, it was cool. Blake and I had planned to do the 7-8 hour adventure to the Lost World cave in Waitomo which included a 100m abseil down to the cave, bouldering into the cave, and then jumping into the waters and following the river up stream for several hours. Unfortunately, because of recent rains, the water level was too high for the long adventure and they told us we'd have to do another 4 hour 'wet' adventure in another cave that would give a similar experience and then we could still do the abseil and glowworm viewing bit of the Lost World cave for a few more hours. Not having much other options, we said alright and they sent us off with just one other tourist, a Brit named Helena and two guides Brad and Neil in a pink school bus towards the first cave. Little did we know how lucky we were that the big cave was flooded out..

After a quick bus ride and get-to-know-you chat among all of us we arrived at a shed where we would be equipped for the wet part of the cave. In the very very cold winter weather (naturally the shed wasn't heated) we stripped down to our bathing suits and put on some damp (why are they always wet!!!!!) wetsuits. Next came rock climbing harnesses and then gum boots (wellys) and as a final touch the caving helmet complete with head lamp. The three of us newbies then walked outside into the very cold weather yet again and practiced on a hill with a rope how to abseil down a bit. It wouldn't have been hard at all except for that my hands were frozen. Neil kept assuring us that it would be warmer in the cave, but we were pretty skeptical about that, especially since we'd be getting wet. After practicing we descended towards the cave and prepared ourselves for the first abseil. Brad went first and then one by one we followed, descending 30m into the dark cave below. It was just a bit scary at first especially with the water splashing down upon me as I lowered myself down with my frozen fingers but once at the bottom it was rather exhilerating. Then we were supposed to sit in the water and scootch into this tiny hole and slide down like a water slide. It looked dodgy but I followed Blake through and there was Brad on the other side. Next came two more abseils, shorter than the first but far wetter with water crashing down on us.

We waded through the water ducking under rocks and trying to keep upright and then it was time for Brad to lower us down on one more abseil. Of course he turns off our head lamps just as he's about to lower us down and goes 'geronimo!!!!!' I thought it was going to be this huge drop, but actually it was just 10 feet. Pretty funny. More clambering over rocks and wading through the water which had surprisingly warmed us just like the guides had said that it would. We worked our way through the caves like this, squeezing in between crevices, laying down in the water and crawling forward in low spots and having a wonderful time. So much fun. The best part was when we got the chance to 'sump' which is when you have to completely submerge yourself in the water in order to get through an opening. Of course Brad was on one side and Neil on the other so it was safe especially since the wall separating the two coves was only about an inch thick meaning you had to duck under for just a second. It was still pretty crazy though!

Another great moment was when we turned off all of our headlamps and learned about the glowworms hanging above us. Glowworms exist only in New Zealand and thrive in wet caves like the ones all over Waitomo. They're not actually worms, but rather the pupae form of maggots and the bit that glows is just their digested food (yum...) sitting in their intestines. The light attracts other insects (primarily the flies that these maggots will one day become) which get caught in these little silky lines that they let down from the ceiling of the cave where they reside. Once the maggots become full on flies they live for 2-3 days at which time, as Brad so eloquently put it, 'they find a nice friend, have a drink or two, head back home and basically have tantric shagging for 2 days after which the male leaves all discombobulated and sees a nice little light flies up towards it and gets eaten by his breathren. The female just lays a bunch of eggs and meets the same fate as the male. Tough life.' Not the best set up, being a glowworm I suppose.

We really lucked out on this bit of the caving adventure because there were only 3 of us so we had gotten through the caves very quickly. So at the point where they usually exit the cave, we had the opportunity to carry on further for another half an hour before turning back. And then came the best part: we got to rock climb up the walls. Don't worry parentals, we were secured by a top rope which was good because it was a challenging climb with the water coming down atop our heads and trying to get a toehold while wearing mud boots. But it was exhilerating. After another 2 climbs and a ladder ascent we reemerged and found that the drab winter morning had miraculously turned into a lovely, sunny, winter afternoon. Then came the hardest part of the entire adventure: climbing back up the huge hill towards the shed with mud filled boots! But we made it and after a nice hot shower we dressed and then set back for the office in town.

Blake and I still had a dry caving adventure left that afternoon so we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed off just the two of us with a very funny Brit named Rob that was to lead us into the Lost World Cave. We had a nice drive over to this particular cave which was only discovered in 1905 by some railroad surveyors that must have been rather astonished to come upon a 100m deep cave whose roof had fallen in making a spectacular 'Lost World' of sorts.

Immediately I was happy that it was just Blake, Rob and I because we were using lobster claws or cowtails (two carabiners attached to ropes and attached to us) to hook into a series of ropes just as an extra safety as we approached the cave opening. At least one lobster claw has to be hooked in at all times so you can imagine that switching from one rope to the next in series would take a group of 12 quite some time. But as a small group, we could move quicker because there was no one to wait for. Finally we come upon the chasm where we'd be doing the abseil. Still hooked into the safety lines with our lobster claws we inched out onto the suspended platform. Looking down, it didn't even appear to be 100m. Rob did a few safety checks and soon we were ready to get strapped in. We were using the 'rack' again, a metal device used for abseiling that uses friction to keep you in place. Rob assured us that we wouldn't be going too fast since the rope was so heavy because of its length but warned us that as we descended the rope would get lighter and we would have to use a leg wrap (wrapping your leg around the rope) to slow ourselves further. I wasn't worried at all because after all my rock climbing I've become comfortable with trusting ropes and we were all descending together and we had another automatic locking device in the event that one person lost control. Rob saw that we were ready to go, and after a few more practice leg wraps we all started to go down together.

And it was fantastic. The weather was clear so we could actually see straight down to the bottom which Rob said it rare this time of year. As we moved further down we joked around, talking casually, which we found rather funny in itself considering we were more than 300 feet up in the air, dangling on a rope. When we felt like we were about 3/4 of the way down, Rob told us we were only halfway-- funny how the perspective messes with your perception of distance. As we looked up at the now rather distant platform above you could see individual water droplets falling down from above, seemingly suspended in the time it took for them to finally reach us. Around us you could really differentiate between the layers in the rock and could see just how enormous the cave was. After a few more minutes we finally came upon solid ground and very ready to give our nether regions a break from the harness! Next came bouldering and inching along rocks again, more glowworm viewing, and lots of joking around with Rob. It was great but not as adventurous as the morning because the spaces were more open meaning it was more climbing rather than squeezing and crawling. But still lots of fun. Actually one of the better parts was climbing up this great 30m high ladder (we were hooked into a safety line) which is far higher than you'd expect, even looking at it. Standing at the bottom the top just disappeared into the dark above. More ladder climbing and climbing in general and an hour later we were again back on land, out in the middle of a pasture. It was so surreal thinking that we'd just come through under that pastureland in a huge cave--you'd never suspect that something so incredible could be lurking below, just underneath grazing sheep.

So that was the caving day. Absolutely one-hundred and ten percent wonderful and one of the best days yet. After that full day we then drove off into the sunset, headed for Taupo..

July 20, 2006: Can you say ARRRR!!!!!!!!

ARRRRRR from Auckland! Yesterday, as I was thoroughly enjoying the hot water in the shower, a great idea came to me: we could easily stop to watch Pirates of the Carribbean 2 in Auckland on our long way from Tutukaka to Waitomo. Now Blake has been talking about Pirates of the Carribbean for months already so when I suggested this idea he was all over it like white on rice. With that plan in mind, we headed out from Tutukaka back to Auckland, the great metropolis of 1.4 million, which is nearly a third of NZ's entire population. Crazy.

Up until this morning, Blake had driven the car, but now it was my chance to try my hand at left of the road driving. As I pulled out onto the main road I kept chanting to myself 'keep left! keep left!' and after a bit of hesitation and trying to find my place in the lane, I got the hang of it. 10 minutes down the road, and I was a pro, zipping around curves and over hills with no problems. And a lovely drive it was. My dad would love it. I only wish we'd had a proper sports car instead of our toyota, but it was still very fun. Well paved, well marked, and windy windy roads through breathtaking scenery made it one of the best drives ever.

By around noon we'd arrived in Auckland and set off to do our errands: see about changing flights, eat lunch, buy a waterproof case for Blake's camera, and of course Pirates. By 5pm we'd accomplished all of this, and I'd bought a pair of jeans. And let me tell you, nothing felt more luxurious than putting on a pair of jeans. I hadn't even realized that I'd been missing them until I got to a place where people were actually wearing them. As for the Pirates, well the movie was pretty good and Blake was happy, even though it doesn't end proper which was annoying. Still, well worth the detour.

With everything accomplished we were about to be on our way to Waitomo which we'd figured would take around 3 hours. But then the camera store man bursts our bubble by informing us that it would take around 5 hours. What! We weren't psyched for that kind of a drive, especially at night but having no other options we took off. And then we promptly got stuck in traffic. Perhaps leaving at 5pm from NZ's only big city wasn't the best idea. The bumper to bumper wasn't too bad though and soon we were off. We stopped for gas a little ways out at around 6:30 where we met a huge Cowboys fan (Kiwis watch football?) who told us his dream was to drive through the American south. Funny. Anyway, he gave us a better route to go, but told us that we wouldn't arrive before 10pm. Hearing that, we slapped together some sandwiches and resumed driving. Many kilometers of windy roads snaking through the middle of nowhere and several ipod playlists later, we figured out we were really close to Waitomo. We made it there by 8:45pm in the end, just in time to check into the hostel. Since we made the entire trip in under 3 hours instead of the 4-5 suggested by the other 2 locals, we concluded that 1) Kiwis must drive rather slow 2) Kiwis must take a lot of rest stops 3) Kiwis just don't have any real concept of time. My bet's on no. 3. Especially since whenever we tell a local that we're here for just 2 weeks, their eyes about bug out of their head. Anything less than 5 weeks apparently is just unacceptable.

So there we were, safe and sound in Waitomo and in our very comfy, warm beds we quickly fell asleep.

July 19, 2006: From Bangkok to Tutukaka

Yesterday, after a very very long day of traveling, Blake and I arrived from Bangkok via Sydney to Auckland New Zealand. For all of those (ahem, Americans) who might need a geography refresher, NZ is pretty bloody far from Thailand. We left 6:30pm and arrived about oh 15 hours later very very tired in Auckland. After renting our car (white toyota corrolla) we headed straight towards 'the wearhouse' which is like a lower end 'tar-get' where we had a winter clothing spending spree. Blake already had some clothes from Australia, but the warmest garments I had were a $2 pair of fisherman's pants, flip flops, tee shirts and a fleece. Not quite enough for snowy, wintery New Zealand.

After dropping about $200 big ones, I left with the works- long underwear, fleece, snow jacket, snow pants, tennis shoes, long sleeve tees, scarf, gloves, ridiculous looking ski hat, and loads more. The exchange rate is in our favor here making everything rather inexpensive. Next, we headed over to the supermarket and stockpiled on some groceries. Then we were off.

After a minor wrong turn, we were headed off north on Route 1 towards Tutukaka. It was already dark unfortunately, so we missed the scenery along the 2 1/2 hour drive, but it was still quite fun especially because the roads were well-paved and windy. And it was so liberating to have a car! And normal food! And English!

So Blake and I were quite content, listening to our ipods, munching on sandwiches, sipping red bulls, and cruising through rural NZ. We only wished that we had a nice little sports car to really whip around the corners.

Eventually we arrived right at Tutukaka, and found Malibu Mal's, our accommodation. We saw a white board outside of the house telling us welcome and to make ourselves at home in our 'unit.' We open the door expecting twin beds in a small room but instead found a living room with TV, kitchen, bedroom with a huge, very comfy looking bed, another room with not one but two bunkbeds, and a bathroom. All for us. We even had complimentary cereal, milk, coffee, etc. Nice.

We watched a bit of TV (only 4 channels unfortunately) then I claimed the big bed, and Blake happily climbed into the bunkbed with the elephants on the bedspread. (what a goob). The only problem with the place was that it was FREEZING! I don't know if they didn't have the heat turned on or if it didn't work, but it was cold there. I slept with not just my fleece (which I have already been mocked incessantly for because I wore it in Cambodia one night--hey the AC was on full blast and it was cold..) but also threw on the long underwear, hat, and contemplated gloves and the scarf. I may have looked ridiculous, but I slept like a rock--a very toasty little rock.

The next morning after a quick breakfast, we headed round the corner to Dive! Tutukaka, the dive operator for our two dives. There were only 5 of us going out that day, Matt, a Brit, Alex, a Dutch guy, and Sten some Dane. The weather wasn't looking good, and the two instructors weren't too happy about the 3m swells on the sea, but they said we'd get in the boat and give it a go. We packed our gear up and headed out.

The boat was far nicer (and smaller) than the one in Thailand, but no surprise there! We also actually had life jackets and a quick safety run down on this boat. Without wasting too much time, we took off for the 1 hour ride to Poor Knights' Island. And a bumpy ride it was.

I'd been in choppy water once before, on the way to Chumpon pinnacle last week and even though this weather was worse I felt safer. Maybe it was the life jackets, maybe it was a nice looking Kiwi skipper named Craig instead of a bare-chested, tatooed, chain smoking Thai, or maybe it was just because I've gotten some sea legs finally. Whatever it was, even though we were literally bouncing all over the place, I felt fine. Of course I didn't take my eyes off the horizon line pretty much the entire ride out.

Despite the very rough seas (winds moving at 35 knots---don't really know how fast that is but it sounded bad), we did make it out the islands which are protected now by the government and no one is allowed to step foot on. Apparently some of the native Maori people used to live there prior to the 1800s, but a huge massacre by Captain Cook took place there (I think) so they moved everyone and made it a protected site. Now there are about 100 dive sites surrounding the place and because the islands are volcanic formations and there's a warm current running through, there is loads of sea life to see. Even before we got in the water we saw furry seals laying on the rocks and birds in the water. Luke, our other skipper, also showed us some pictures of the humongous bugs that live on the island-- crickets as long as your forearm. Gross. But we were really there for the water so braving the cold, we quickly stripped down to our bathing suits and put on our wetsuits which of course had gotten soaked by the freezing rain on the ride over. Brutal.

But once the wetsuits were on, we were actually pretty warm. The only part of me exposed was my face, but I still was hesitant about jumping into 16 degree (celcius) water. With everything hooked up, and us anchored in to calmer waters (thanks to the shelter of the island from the winds) I did the giant stride entry in and whooo! what a shock to the system! It really wasn't that cold, but I could feel the water seeping into my wetsuit--brrr. Everyone else followed me and after a quick buoyancy test to make sure our weight belts were heavy/light enough, we descended.

It was cold, but beautiful. The surge was fairly strong so we really had to hold on to the kelp growing nearby (very sturdy). The coral just keep getting lovelier as we descended down to 18m. Immediately there were just tons of fish everywhere as well as the strangest looking creatures growing on the coral. We had time for a swim through (swimming through a coral hole), and then just exploring. Because girls don't typically use up as much air, I got to stay down the longest because the boys all got low on air (50 bar) way before I did. So while Blake only got 37 minutes down there, I had 48 and got to just go along with the guide Luke so we saw quite a lot of cool nubibranches (some type of sea cucumber thingies--tiny) and moray eels, and other fish.

After ascending with Luke, I realized just how cold I really was as I emerged from the water. My feet were like ice blocks. They hurried to take off my equipment and then I got coffee and a hot shower (mmmm). Next came lunch and a bit of a rest and looking at seals until we changed spots. The next dive at Dutch Cove was with the other guide Craig. Again I lasted way longer than all the guys, so by the end it was just Craig and I down there and then we saw the coolest thing I think I've seen yet--- a mosaic moray eel close up. Craig had it in his hands and I got to touch it! It was so cool. Even better than seeing the shark from a ways off in Thailand. 50 minutes under the water and I resurfaced with Craig. More hot shower and then changing out of the wet suit and we were headed back towards land.

Of course we were expecting yet another bad bumpy ride because the weather certainly hadn't gotten any better, but almost immediately into the ride back, we realize it must have just been Craig's driving because with Luke at the wheel it's not nearly as bad! An hour later we return, have our log books stamped, then head back to Malibu Mal's for some hot cocoa and a nap.

Around 7pm we head out in search of internet and a place to eat, but according to the woman upstairs (who we assume must have worked at the place...still not sure) there is no internet in Tutukaka. Ha. And there are two places to eat. One is expensive and the other is a pizzeria. Except the pizzeria isn't open. So we opt for the Tutukaka Deep Sea Fishing Lodge that has a cafe.

We walk in and it's 2 older guys and a well-seasoned bar gal in there with two chefs in the back. That's it. It look a bit dodgy but we decided to give it a go. We ordered up some beer and burgers and sat down with the locals. And these two guys were hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. Like the 2 old Irish guys you would find in some non-descript pub in middle-of-nowhere Ireland. Except Kiwi of course. And the burgers--- delicious. Heaven on a bun. With cheese. We were laughing hysterically. It was everything that we had hoped for from New Zealand. Yes. Of course the place shut down around 8:30 so it was an early night for us. A bit of TV watching back at the guesthouse, and some laundry and well we called it a night. And so will I now!

July 17, 2006: Back to Reality :(

Back in Bangkok. Blech! I don't even know where to begin on the last few days. Basically they included the following activities:

Diving
Lounging around on the beach
Lounging around looking at the beach
Drinking banana shakes and looking at the beach
Eating Pad Thai and looking at the beach
Lounging around at Master Divers
Sleeping
Sleeping at Master Divers
Playing Settlers of Catan (YES)

So basically it was great-- except for the most nerve racking 'taxi' ride yet-- we were late for a dive and our driver was booking it. I won't go into details but we were in the back of a pick up truck zooming around on dirt roads. And the diving was wonderful. Lauren, the two Austrian guys, Luca and Philipo, the two Quebecoise Marie-Eve and Julie and moi are all advanced divers. We did 5 dives in two days which included a night dive, a 30m deep dive, a navigation dive, a buoyancy dive, and a cave dive. Very very fun and we got to see SHARKS! They were about 2m long grey reef sharks and they were right there! Philpo was so excited he almost swam after one. We also saw puffer fish, moray eels, blue spotted sting rays, and a school of barracuda. I really wish that we'd had time to do our rescue course as well where you learn any emergency skill you could think of. Oh well maybe another time.

But now I'm in Bangkok with Blake and we're getting ready to try and send some of our many purchases home. After a ferry ride and another bumpy landing on Bangkok Air we've made it to good ol' Bangkok where we had to leave Lauren at the airport to catch her flight back home to America. I'm rather sad and it still hasn't hit me that she's left. I'm not sure exactly when I'll be seeing her again which really is unnerving.

Blake and my flight is at 6:15 p.m. and after a mere 9 hours in the air we'll arrive in Sydney where we get to wait around for another 3 hours before a 6 hour flight. Lovely. I'll definitely have to update more when we get there, and pray that there is an internet connection where I can finally upload some pictures! But for now it's buh bye to South East Asia....

July 17, 2006: Well at least I got a free taxi ride

Argh! I HATE Bangkok! This city frustrates me endlessly (save the lovely frappaccino on Bangkok pass through number 3). I just got back from a taxi trip from hell--the guy had no idea of the city and I had to give him directions in the end!!!!!!!

The ride should have taken just under 10 minutes and cost 35 baht like it did when Blake and I took it this morning so we could go ship our package to the states. But oh no, I happen to pick the one taxi cab driver that has no idea where anything is in Bangkok. It was quite simple really. He picked me up by Khaosan Road, the one road that everyone, even people who have never been to Bangkok, knows. Then I asked him to take me to the Shanti Lodge. I showed him their business card, which has the address in Thai. And a map on the back. And the map shows Khaosan Road and the hotel which is right next to the river and the National Library. A monkey could have figured it out. But instead he has us going all the way down one road the wrong way I'm telling him this is wrong but he keeps insisting he knows where it is (or at least that's what I assume he's saying). At one point he goes 'sri ayutthaya' and stops the car. Although it is in face the street I need, he is in no way close to my hotel. At this point he jumps out of the car to ask a police man for directions. The police man, as I'd predicted points emphatically in the other direction down Sri Ayutthaya, the way we'd just come. Now I'm still mad because this guy is wasting my time, but assured that now that he's gotten directions and I've shown him yet again on my map where the hotel is I stay in the cab. Now he's driving in the right direction at least but yeah he still manages to screw it up. About a block from where we need to be he takes a left instead of a right. Now at this point I'm about to lose it. With a lot of yelling and finger pointing I convince him to circle the block and take a right. He looks at me skeptically and at this point I'd just like to slap him. Finally, thanks to my own directions, we arrive at the hotel. I jump out without paying, and luckily I think he was expecting this because he didn't even argue. All in all the trip took a solid 50 minutes and the meter had run up to 115 baht. Just one more story of why Bangkok blows!

But hey at least I'm leaving.

Oh just a few more funny things: this morning Blake and I passed by more than one 'ID' services on Khaosan. For just a couple hundred baht you can buy student ID cards, diplomas, Teaching English as a Foreign Language degrees, and probably loads more. Now that's what I call sketchy. Equally sketchy was the designated sand-filled container with the words 'Clear Guns Here' printed below what we assumed was a space to fire your loaded weapon before going through airport security in Koh Samui last night. But on the upside, just after security Bangkok Airways provides all of its pistol packing customers with complimentary coffee, tea, cookies, biscuits, internet, etc etc. Bizarre.

July 17, 2006: Asian Adventures Highlights

Since I'm just killing time at the Shanti Lodge in Bangkok while Blake showers, I thought I'd list out a few of our Southeast Asia highlights:

Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang, Thailand
Learning to scuba dive on Koh Tao, Thailand
Hanging out at Hoa's Place at China Beach, Vietnam
Exploring the World Heritage temples in Nikko, Japan
Riding on a motorcycle around rice paddies by Marble Mountain, Vietnam
Wandering around Angkor Wat and Ta Prom in Siem Reap, Cambodia
Crawling through the Cu Chi tunnels outside of HCMC, Vietnam
Eating sushi at Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, Japan
Discovering 12 cent beer at Bia Hoi in Hanoi, Vietnam
Dancing in the 'party car' on the night train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok
All 6 of the nerve racking Asian airways landings...
Finding missing passports, etc in Koh Tao, Thailand
Snorkel Test at Master Divers on Koh Tao, Thailand
Halong Bay junk boat cruise in Halong Bay, Vietnam
Cheap massages in Hanoi, Bangkok, Sukothai, Chiang Mai, Koh Tao, Koh Samui, etc.
Much much much more...

Now onto New Zealand

July 13, 2006: So Lauren's Passport Was Stolen . . .

Yeah kind of worst case scenario. I suppose we'll just have to start from the beginning...

Tuesday we had our final day of diving to receive the open water certification. Big black storm clouds were on the horizon and the wind was stirring up some waves so we couldn't go out to Chumpon pinnacle so instead we headed for Twin Peaks which was still great. We had 2 good dives and were really excited to have finished everything. When we got back it was time to pay 'beer fines' the beers we owed Dave because we'd had our masks on our head instead of around our neck during the dives since the former is an international sign of distress. So we all rejoiced in our open water certification by having a beer and filling in our dive logs. After about an hour we got to watch a dvd of ourselves in the water which was fun to see but too expensive to buy. We hung around the Master Divers' shop for some time after that and finally headed back to Sairee Beach at 8pm. Lauren and I changed out of our bathing suits then met Ashley our instructor, and Marc, another diver at the AC bar. We played pool for awhile (Lauren really held her own) and sat by the beach for even longer. Well it was sometime while I was talking to Cosimo, this half French half Sicilian guy and Lauren was talking to Ashley that Lauren's bag was stolen.

She set it down, turned her back and it was gone. Passport, wallet, ipod, razr, credit cards. Everything. We searched everywhere but it was gone. We hardly slept at all that night (like an hour) and then as early as we could the next morning we went back with Ash to the bar, but it wasn't there. Searching around alleys and combing the beach ensued, but to no end. Several international phone calls later we realized this meant completely curtailing our vacation in paradise. Because Lauren's flight was Monday morning at 6:30am from Bangkok,, something she'd definitely need a passport for, that meant that if we left immiediately we might have just enough time to get to Bangkok by Thursday morning before the embassey there closed at 2pm so that we could bribe them to please process the passport in one day instead of 3 (of course the place is closed on the weekend).

So we were very upset. Leaving for Bangkok was practically unfathomable while sitting on the deck looking out at the azure ocean and feeling the coolness of a wonderful beach breeze. Getting on a ferry, running to catch an overnight bus, Bangkok traffic, embassey lines, tuk tuk drivers surrounding you... and no advanced diving--well our reservation in paradise had just been changed for one in hell. Sorry mate, out of room here. Try the shite-hole up the way. Definitely not how we'd envision the end of our wonderful trip.

So we're sitting here wallowing in self pity, looking mournfully at the water when I decide to check train and ferry times at the place down the way leaving Lauren and Ash behind. I almost duck into the first place I come across but something made we walk just a bit further. Then I passed the AC bar, where the purse was lost. For whatever reason I though, oh I'll just look one more time. I made a quick tour of the bar, but no one was there, the upside down bar stools resting on the counter making the floor look especially empty and devoid of any waylaid personal belongings. I was walking around looking for anyone to ask about the purse when I passed the adjoining dive shop. Just for the hell of it, I turned around and asked unethusiastically if anyone had found a purse. I told them that I really just neede the passport and would even pay for it, no questions asked. The guy said he didn't know but he'd check and then went and asked an Australian girl sitting behind a desk and she goes yeah someone did turn one in this morning. As she reached down for it I peered over her shoulder fully expecting to see random purse, but there it was. Lauren's bag. With the passport. And even her credit cards. I was so stunned that I just stood there for a few seconds with my mouth open before 'ohmygoodthatstotallyherpurseicantbelieveitthisisincredibleshesgoingtobesohappy' just flew out. I almost kissed the girl who handed it to me. With the biggest smile on my face I tried not to run down the path to where I'd left Ash and Lauren. I put the purse behind my back as I walked in and tried to muster my best poker face.

'Lauren, the next ferry leaves at 2pm. But I don't think we should take it.'

Lauren, practically too exhausted and self-pitying to argue just replies 'why?'

'I just really don't think we should go to Bangkok today. Or even tomorrow. I think we should just stay here and do our diving certification.'

Just before she got really confused from my sudden lack of camraderie, I whip out the purse and with my face beeming, announce 'because I found your purse!!!!!!!!!!!!'

Equally stunned Ash and Lauren didn't even react for a moment. Lauren goes 'What?' then sees it, jumps up and kisses me. Ash just says 'you're joking- you're joking' about 5 times before Lauren exuberation confirms that yes indeed this is the said purse and opening said purse reveals lost passport. American passport. So no Bangkok, no walking down the overcrowded, dirty streets, avoiding men that smell of homelessness and curry. No bustling around, worrying about Monday morning, no queues. Instead we were given our paradise back. We didn't have to go anywhere. And we could dive tomorrow if we wanted. The other things lost didnt' matter because we'd gotten back all we really needed, our chance to stay here.

It really was magical in a way. So just when everything looked like it was hopeless, it turned around. Even funnier was that if she'd just had her ipod, phone and cash stolen she would have been furious but since she'd thought she lost everything when she got back just some of her things, we were all overjoyed. And that's how the worst day suddenly became the best day. But it wouldn't have been the best day if it hadn't been the worst day first. There's a good life lesson in there. And now Lauren knows that I wouldn't let her go to Bangkok by herself even when I really really really really didn't want to go, and that nothing is more important to me than her (not even diving). I suppose you could say we were being tested in some way, seeing if we'd all do the right thing even when we didn't want to, seeing what would happen when the proverbial shite hit the fan. Maybe you just think it's blind luck, but I think for Lauren and me, we'll just call it a gloriously answered prayer.

July 12, 2006: Just ex-laxin'

Mmm so after the worst day turned into the best day we just sat around for a few more hours smiling and drinking banana shakes (okay so Ash was drinking beer) until we went back to the dive shop. Of course we told everyone the shortened version of the story and surprisingly no one really understood how very happy we were to have gotten the passport back. They could only seem to focus on the lost ipod, phone and cash. 'well at least you got the passport' was more of just a sympathetic I'm-trying-to-make-you-feel-better response when actually I especially was feeling invinceable for having achieved the impossible by retrieving the unfathomable. oh well. we were happy.

Then we were TIRED. we still hadn't slept at all, so we took a nap for a few hours before meeting up with Ash for dinner at 8. But Ash was no where to be seen. So we walked down the Italian restaurant we had planned to go to but still so sign of him, so we ordered up some pizzas. They were surprisingly amazing--akin to the random deliciousness of the gelatto in Hanoi or the hotdogs in Copenhagen. Better than pretty much any pizza I'd ever eaten (except Naples). Except unlike Naples we had a clean very posh decor in the restaurant instead of a view of a trashy street and Italian prostitutes wearing 'skirts' and boots up-to-there. Unfortuately we were a bit full so we took it to go and walked back. Still no Ash, but we met up with Marie-Eve and Julie for awhile before going to bed insanely early.

This morning, we woke up rather late (for here) and had breakfast at our favorite place, In Touch where we've been lounging about (literally--we've taken naps here) for the past 5 days. After a few hours on the deck reading, we decided to walk to the Master Divers shop to see what time we needed to be there tomorrow morning to start our advanced certification. During the walk we shared slang phrases in English and French and some how in explaining about chill-axing (chilling and relaxing) we got to ex-laxing. It was pretty funny at the time and even funnier since no one's dared to define it quite yet (probably for the best).

On the way to Master Divers we ran into Ash, who as we'd figured, fallen asleep and stayed asleep for way too long. We did make plans to meet up with him tonight though. At Master Divers we settled on our dives for tomorrow--buoyancy and naturist for dive 1, navigation for dive 2, and night dive for dive 3. And we found out that Dave is cooking up a barbecue tomorrow evening after the night dive. Excellent. And everyone who did the open water certification is doing the advance, plus Julie, so it's going to be very very fun.

Next we grabbed a cab to Freedom beach while was lovely and remote and read some more. Then it got a bit stormy so we walked around to a restaurant and who was there but Cosimo-the French-Italian guy! He was in on the whole passport loss, so he was really surprised to see us here--we explained that we'd found it and also tried to make plans to meet up later. Crazy. Koh Tao really is a small island I suppose. Then a late lunch, a taxi ride and here we are!

So most def the last few days have been 'absolutely mental'... and who knows what will happen when Blake arrives!

July 9, 2006: I am so Scuba Steve

Today was my first day ever scuba diving and it was the best experience. Well except for right at the beginning when I felt like I was going to ralph on the boat ride over to the dive site. It was super choppy plus I hadn't really eaten breakfast so when you put the two together I wasn't feeling so hot. It worked in my favor though because by the time we did reach the dive site, I didn't hesitate for a moment about being the first one in (after our instructor David of course). Thanks to the screwy laws of physics, even though I weighed about 70 pounds extra with the tank, wetsuit, weight belt, etc etc on, I floated right up to the top of the water as everyone else entered.

After all 5 of the newbies had gotten in the water, David and our other instructor Ashley led us a short surface swim away to chest high water where we could practice. Today we learned how to breathe underwater (very easy--easier than snorkeling for sure), and then how to recover our regulator (what you breathe out of) if it comes out, how to defog our masks, remove and put back on our masks, etc etc. We were out in the shallow water for about an hour just getting comfortable and everything went very smoothly. So far Lauren and I are just very impressed with the course and Master Divers. They take safety very seriously and are really professional, but still joke around and make sure we're having a good time. I only wish we had an extra day or two to do our advanced certification!

So after getting accustomed to being underwater, we then went on our first dive all together first at 3m then increasing slowly down to 7m. I stayed with my buddy, Lauren, of course the whole time which was a little bit strange because sometimes she'd be above me or behind me and I'd lose her for a second. I suppose I'm not used to searching for people in 3D. We saw a fair number of fish (trigger, parrot, sargent major, bat) and coral of course. The whole time I did feel like scuba steve just gliding through the water but horribly awkward on land.

The whole scuba process is actually much more mathematical than I'd realized. You have to use these 3 charts to calculate ascent speeds and how soon you can dive again after resurfacing. It's fairly complicated but luckily we just have to follow David's lead. David said that decompression risk is real, but in 4500+ dives in his career he's only seen it once from a bloke who dove after having partying until 6am with a 7:30am dive. Not advisable. The guy just had to go to the decompression tank for awhile to recover. Also we learned our 4 emergency resurfacing options although again David said he's never had to do anything other than a normal ascent in all of his dives. No worries.

Tonight is the world cup finals but Lauren and I are feeling quite tired so I think that we are just going to go to bed early and then enjoy the morning off tomorrow. We don't dive again until 12:30 and this time we'll be practicing basic skills again and then going down to 12m. The deepest we'll go during our open water certification is just 18m. 30 m is the recommended limit for recreational diving.

On another note, we've spent some more time hanging out with Marie-Eve and Julie, the quebequoises. They're really nice and it's great for me to practice my French again. It's come back surprisingly quickly. It helped that I've been reading a book in French these past few days.

It really doesn't even feel like we're in Thailand here, except for that the wait staff don't speak the best English sometimes. 99% of the people you see here are western, usually Brits, and the Brits seem to run most of the dive shops. I'm quite glad we did go to the North of Thailand because if we had only gone to Bangkok and the islands I don't think we would have experienced much Thai culture at all.

It's hard to believe that our trip is winding down. Lauren leaves in just a week. I'm going to miss her tremendously. Especially when she leaves me alone with Blake-- ha! Blake has been fun to travel with though, even if he does tend to run late in the mornings and stop every 2 feet to take a picture of something. I'm glad he's going to have a chance to experience the islands as well when he meets back up with us at Koh Pha ngan.

July 8, 2006: One Night (Day) in Bangkok . . .

We've just arrived in Ko Tao (Turtle Island) today in the south of Thailand on the eastern shores after a very long day of traveling. We departed Cambodia yesterday morning at around 11am and were rather surprised to be taken to a different airport than the one we arrived at---no worries it was only because they opened up the new airport the day before. It was really nice too-- reminded us of a resort airport. We were pretty excited about our flight too on Bangkok Air which is "asia's boutique airline" instead of having to fly crummy Air Asia or Air Vietnam. Well that is until we saw the plane. It was a turbo prop and painted pyschedelic Austin-powers style. Lovely. The take off was smooth though, the service was great, and the food superb (especially for a one hour flight). Things did get turbulent however, though it wasn't as worrisome as on the other flights. Probably because you expect some turbulence on a prop plane. When it came time to land though I did resort to my 3 point de-panic technique which includes 1) close eyes 2) breathe deeply 3) pray to St. Christopher et al. It worked like a charm because even though we were landing at mach 4, our triple jump landing was smoother than any of the other ones. I actually started laughing when we landing part out of anxiety and part out of the hilarity of asian air travel.

But we were there safely. We then hailed a cab and were off in search of "shanty guesthouse" that someone had recommended to Blake. The name did raise a few eyebrows (namely Lauren's and mine) but the place turned out to be "shanti" and actually quite nice and not like the squatters' bamboo shack that I had envisioned. Blake reserved a room for the night and then lo and behold I got to leave about 10 kilos worth of stuff with Blake because they have storage at good ol' shanti meaning I don't have to lug around any souvenirs or tailor made suits until I return to Bangkok on the 17th.

Then I was met with the conundrum about whether to extend my New Zealand trip 3 days. The extra time would give me time to hike the glacier, do a jet boat (meh) and do a 200 m bungee all for just $500. For some reason I was seriously considering this and Lauren and I went all the way down to the other side of Bangkok on the river boat (just 25cents to ride!) to get to the STA office so that I could change my flight to Argentina for the later date, when I realized that I didn't really want to do a bungee and the other things didn't matter that much to me. Plus it would be nicer to arrive when Pat does. So standing there almost to the STA office but now not needing to go, just on the verge of frustration, Lauren and my eyes zoom in on a familiar green beacon of normality in the midst of yet another frantic asian city-- yes, it was a Starbucks. My gaze met with Laurens and without even needing to communicate it, we started moving towards it, pulled in by the sheer Americanism (and need for caffeine) of it all. Stepping inside was like being transported right back to our own culture. Light carmel and java frappaccinos in hand, we plomped down on some very familiar bordeaux colored arm chairs and revelled in the rare moment of serenity found from the last few days.

Unfortunately that serenity only lasted until we'd finished our drinks down to the last slurp. Then we were back on the streets of Bangkok (in a completely non-prostitute way), haggling with tuk tuk drivers for a fair price, side stepping shop vendors touting their wares, and avoiding suspicious looking street vendors for fear of inhaling the odor an unwelcome "treat" cooking (dried squid anyone? ) But for 20 minutes we had bliss from overpriced specialty coffee drinks. On one hand it was sad that a starbucks even exists in Thailand, poised to become another omnipotent westernizing force like mcdonalds or the 7-11s we see on every corner; but on the other hand it was wonderful to have it there.

Lovely coffee break aside, we didn't have time to do much else in Bangkok. We rushed out of Shanti leaving blake behind (he's going north, we're going south) and walked down the street to hail a cab. Except for some reason, the traffice gods were not with us and every taxi we tried to hail was full or just sped past us. I was incredulous. Every 2 steps we get hit up for tuk tuk rides, taxi cabs, moto (you wan' moto lady?) pineapple, cold wata' and the like but here the one time we need a cab to get to the train station we can't find one. And it's not like we didnt' look like we needed one. With our backpacks and white skin it was pretty clear we were on our way somewhere and in need of a ride. On the verge of desperation we hailed a tuk tuk and we he told us 100 baht we jumped in. At that point it started raining (hey better than before) and thankfully tuk tuk man took us through all the backalleys so we made it there in record time. Even though it had cost us more than a taxi (not much) we were so thankful that he'd bailed us out and not haggled us that we tipped him 20 baht. He was smiling like a fat little buddha and frankly so were we.

At Hualampong train station safely, we had plenty of time to buy books and snacks for the train ride. About 45 minutes later we borded our night train and only 45 minutes after that we were off (it was late-- thai time). After a not so memorable dinner, the gay train attendant (what is it with the homosexual train attendants!!) came and pulled out our beds. I of course was fascinated by the precision of it all. So I timed him (yes this is nerdy I know). Out of three tries, his best was 2 minutes 45 seconds to undo and make 2 beds although he did ours in just under 3 minutes and that included putting up our table too.

Seeing as we had to get up at, oh 4:30am to get off at Chumpon, we pretty much crashed. Well except that the train was really jostly and without the sleep aid of intoxication like on the last night train, we kept waking up. But actually that was good because at 4:45 we arrived at Chumpon and Lauren and I had just enough time to collect our belongings and get out into the pre dawn light. There we easily met up with our ferry service which bussed us to the waiting office where a bunch of backpackers were passed out in a 'sleeping room' which basically consisted of mats on the floor while we all waited for the 7am ferry.

Finally 7am came around and we were off on the ferry which took about 3 hours. So there you have it, about 24 hours en route and there we were finally at Ko Tao and on the beach.

July 8, 2006: Welcome to Paradise . . .

So here we are in paradise a/k/a Koh Tao. It's just lovely here-- everything you'd want in a beach--clear warm waters, white sandy beach, idyllic palm trees and teak wood restaurants with wide decks overlooking the ocean, cheap but good food, and a great night life. oh and some of the best diving too. after immediately arriving Lauren and I easily found Master Divers, the same diving company that Emily Gipple used and we readily signed ourselves up for SSI (scuba) certification that includes classroom instruction, 5 dives, accommodation and transportation too for just over 200 dollars. quite the steal. Along with us in our ferry are two quebequoises one, Marie-Eve, who doesn't speak a whole lot of English but who needed to do the certification test as well. The other, Julie, spoke great English but was signing up for the advanced certification. So Marie-Eve was pretty nervous about doing the certification by herself until she found out I speak French! So in our certification class is Lauren, Marie-Eve, two Austrian guys, and me. We first were taken to our bungalows at Ocean View up on Sairee Beach which is pretty much where all the backpackers are. The rooms weren't fantastic but we didn't care because we'll be outside all the time! After a quick lay out on the lovely lovely beach, we were picked up to attend our first day of instruction which was classroom only. We met Dan, the same instructor that Emily had and loved last year, teaching our introductory class so I was quite excited. And I can see why Emily recommended him. Not only is he rather attractive with his British accent and California surfer look, but he's funny and he really knows his stuff. Nevertheless, it was still a long day considering how early we'd all gotten up and by the 3rd video we were pretty whupped. Tomorrow though we'll be going into very shallow (waist deep) water to learn how to snorkel and scuba. Then more classroom time, then dives. No worries parentals, everything does seem perfectly safe, completely legit, and lots of fun. We're very excited.

The rest of today we just spent reading on the beach and then having a yummy dinner at Flower restaurant. It sure does feel good to be back in Thailand. Well that's all for now, I'm going to attempt to study my diving stuff. Check back later

July 6, 2006: Lady you want ten postcar' one dolla'

Somehow we dragged ourselves out of bed around 4:40 this morning and hurried to get ready to go view the sunrise at Angkor Wat. At 5:05am Luis was no where to be found but it was starting to get light out. Luckily he showed up a few minutes later, apologized (he’d been up until 3am—I swear people don’t sleep here) and raced us to the temples. We arrived at around 5:30am. Lauren ventured inside, while Blake and I camped out with some other tourists by the reflection pools. The sunrise didn’t look like it was going to be spectacular, but we got wooed into staying by a woman selling hot coffee. For $1 she brought it over to us along with plastic chairs to sit in. Excellent. We captured a few good shots and then met back up with Lauren and headed back in the temple. The third level was pretty vacant and Blake and I took some funny shots of him jumping and pretending to play paintball in the columns.

After Angkor Wat it was still very very early, so we had Luis drive us over to Ta Prom which was devoid of tourists and overgrown with jungle. Huge trees had grown atop many of the walls and much of the temple was in ruins which made us really feel like jungle explorers. Well except for the local Cambodian guy probably trying to score a buck that would just make an “uhhhhhhhhhhhhh” noise to get our attention to show us something. Not quite as useful as Art somehow. We spent a good hour just exploring around there which was really cool and much more of the jungle ruins experience we’d been seeking. After Ta Prom it was time for one more temple Preah Khan (not much to report) before heading back to the Jasmine Lodge for a much needed 3 hour nap. So that brings us up to speed. This afternoon we’re heading over to the floating villages on the lake and Blake is going to get his shadow puppet souvenir (don’t ask). Tomorrow morning we just might head back to Angkor Wat one more time for sunrise pictures and then we leave on our flight at 11am to Bangkok. From Bangkok we’ll split up—Blake going north, and Lauren and I heading south. Lauren and I have a night train and then a very early morning ferry before we god willing arrive on Ko Tao. Wish us the best of luck!

July 5, 2006: Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom

Temples, temples, and more temples.

For our first day in Cambodia at Angkor Wat, we decided to continue our flash-packer tradition and hire a taxi driver (Luis) for the day, as well as a guide to show us around. We also decided to be lazy and didn’t depart until 9:45am finding the 5:00am sunrise option not much of an option given our weary state. First on the list according to our guide Art (not real names obviously) was Angkor Thom, a walled city that once housed 1 million people in the 11th century. Surprisingly, it’s bigger than Angkor Wat in terms of area size, but that’s because the King actually lived at Angkor Thom whereas Angkor Wat was only a place of worship.

At the entrance we immediately were confronted by hoards of small children and women offering bracelets, cold water, food, tee shirts, postcards ( ten for one dolla’...) and the like. Politely saying no or even just walking away didn’t work. These kids were persistent. Somehow we managed to make it to the causeway leading into the main gate which were lined with gods “churning the water" by holding a serpent along one side and with the demons doing the same on the other side. The main entrance was topped by a huge Buddha head with faces facing each of the four cardinal directions. On either side were three headed elephants holding lotus blossoms. The lotus blossom is a symbol of Buddhism while the three headed elephant is a symbol of Hinduism. When the King built Angkor Thom, he wanted to unite the 2 religions so that is why the two symbols were paired together.

We passed into the temple walls underneath the towering Buddha heads and made our way over to Bayon. The King commissioned this temple in order to remind the people of his bravado—there are 54 towers (one for each province at the time) with each tower topped by 4 Buddha faces, one facing each cardinal direction, and all the Buddha faces apparently look similar to the king’s own image. We got some great explanations of the bas relief work carved into the stone on the first gallery from our guide Art. Some of the things included in the very intricate 3 layer reliefs? Army processions, throwing dead bodies to crocodiles, battles, smoking marijuana, and monkeys getting it on in the trees. Ha.

After exhausting Bayon we were off to other temple inside Angkor Thom where you could climb to the top and view the rest of Angkor Thom. Like most of the ruins, the stairs were steep and in disarray making climbing rather precarious. Still, we were all feeling very Lara Croft tomb raider and scampered up to take pictures. Rain looked like it was on the horizon and I started to wonder how we could possibly climb down without falling to our deaths on the slippery stones but the weather held out.

More walking around the huge complex of Angkor Thom brought us to the pools used by the King and his Concubines, as well as more ruins of walls and smaller temples. Continuing onward we reached the Leper King Palace which is believed to have served as the site for crematoriums. Creepy. We looked at yet again more bas reliefs (interesting, but seeing as it was so hot, we were getting a bit bored) and then on to the Elephant Terrance which was really long and had lots of elephant carvings. It was also where the King would observe kick boxing matches.

By this time we were pretty ready to move on but not before stopping to buy some tee-shirts which were going for $1 to $1.50. Blake also bought about 15 bracelets off of a kid for just $1 which actually turned out being pretty cool. We then headed back towards Angkor Wat to break for lunch throwing back some bowls of noodle soup before heading back out (fighting the pestering children touting post cards, books, etc at unreasonably low prices the entire way). We then finally came upon Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious site, and one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world.

Angkor Wat is surrounded by a massive moat—so big that it looks like a river at first glance. You have to cross an equally massive causeway to even make it to the first entrance to which there are three levels—the center and highest used only for the King, the flanking entrances slightly lowered, reserved for the High priests and Brahmin, and the furthest out and ground level entrances used only for the commoners. We entered through the high priest doors mainly because it was less crowded and finally you could really see all of the Angkor Wat skyline.

Angkor Wat has 5 towers: 4 are arranged in a rectangular shape on each of the four corners while the 5th is in the center of the rectangle. Viewing the temple from straight on, you only see 3 towers because the two back corner towers are hidden. Walking to the side slowly reveals the other towers. After taking more than a few pictures, we then headed over to the reflection pool to take pictures of the five towers reflecting in the water. We then headed inside where we were given even more history on bas relief used in this temple. Angkor Wat was built by the King who preceded the king who built Angkor Thom (around the 10th century) and was a Hindu temple. With the exclusion of Angkor Wat, none of the temples were used much after being abandoned in the 13th 14th century. Angkor Wat was used in the 16th century however by Buddhists which was when the reliefs decorating the first level were added as well as the Buddha statues. The French found pretty much all of the temples in complete abandon (look at pictures of Ta Prom for an idea) in the 19th and early 20th centuries and so a lot of clearing out overgrowth and restoration has taken place.

We were really surprised that we could pretty much just wander anywhere we pleased within the temples, including Angkor Wat. We could even climb up a very very steep “staircase”to the third level which historically only the king could access. From there it was like being transported into another era (minus the tourists) and we had a great time trying to photograph monks wearing their bright orange robes and just enjoying the cool pre-storm weather. The whole place was incredible especially considering it was built by hand and from stones hauled about 55 km away from here by elephants.

By this time we’d been walking around all day, so we had just enough energy to climb the 100 meter hill up to yet another temple just outside of Angkor Thom where you could view Angkor Wat 1.5 km in the distance. This was accomplished in sprinkling rain on the verge of a thunderstorm and I kept thinking, why am I climbing to the highest point during a t-storm? But we weren’t struck down by lightning although we were getting pretty tired by that time, so we descended, being very careful not to break any ankles on the extremely unkept stone stairs. Back in the cab we then returned to the lovely Jasmine Lodge where it was time for an internet cafe break before Lauren and I went to a traditional Cambodian dance performance paired with very tasty buffet dinner while Blake slept. The dance was interesting—coincidentally enough I’d already seen one or two of the dances they performed done by the SMU Asian Council at the Talent Show a few years back. The best dances though were the all female slow dances that made ‘lotus blossom' hands and then hand movements that just completely entranced Lauren and me. Trying all the different foods was fun too. We really like papaya salad, fish amok curry, fried noodles, and the strange gelatinous desserts. Not so popular were the fried bananas which weren’t sweet, and odd doughy custard cakes dipped in some sort of cream fish sauce. No clue.

We finally returned at around 9:00pm to find Blake still asleep. We woke him up and we all joked around for an hour or so before heading directly to bed since we had decided to get Luis to pick us up at 5am the next day in order to view the sunrise.

July 4, 2006: We survived Vietnam Airways... again

I seriously want a t-shirt that reads "I survived Vietnam Airways". Today was risky flight numero quatro and although not as bad as what we like to call the "hop, skip, and a jump" method of take-off and landing that we experienced on Pacific Airways, it was still a harrowing journey. We actually left on time from HCMC which was so surprising that I had to slurp down piping hot noodle soup. Oh wait that was the last Vietnam Airways flight from Da Nang to HCMC. I getting them all confused!!! No this time they made about 15 announcements that we had to get to the boarding gate even though the plane didn't board until 30 minutes later and then so run through security to the gate and guess what no ones there and we just have to wait. Mind you, this is separate from the exorbitantly priced cafe. Lauren hadn't gone through security yet so she kindly snagged a $4 baguette sandwich for us to share. Once on the flight we were okay until we got to Siem Reap 45 minutes later. At this point we