Lao Lao

We have been having a great time in Vangvieng! It is a really great outdoors place to hang out with the town situated in a valley with a lovely river flowing through the town and steep cliffs bordering one one side.

We met up with a great group of people and spent a few days tubing the Nam Song river (which seems to be what most people who go there do).





For a small fee the locals provide you with a tractor tube each and arrange for you to be dropped a few km's up the road from where you can float back down the river to town for the day. Along the riverbank there are small stalls set up selling beers and food, and some have even been set up with bamboo platforms with ropeswings and flying foxes that you can use. Great fun and theres nothing like a little bit of danger leaping off a 7m high platform drunk whilst in a remote SE Asian town :) Thankfully no accidents for anyone we knen :p



We are back in Vientiane today and have booked a posh lunch in a hotel here for Christmas lunch. I had better now go and feed Ange as she is 'starving to death' as I write this...

Loving Thailand!

Still alive and enjoying Thailand - so much that we're leaving today for Laos (we need to renew our visa so perfect timing!)

Claire Kettle is on her way over here for 2 weeks - arriving on the 27th. Looking forward to having a proper drinking buddy (Ainsley and I have lost our form - if I ever had any - I get boozy on one Chang!) She doesn't know what she's getting into really - have already convinced her to cancel her 1 hour flight to Samui so she can join us on the overnight bus instead - ha ha. Am sure she will have a much better time. So much for her relaxing 2 week holiday!

Am a little bit concerned that Santa won't be able to find me here in Thailand (or Laos as not sure where we will be then - but have lovely woolly socks purchased in Turkey so will try hanging one out on Xmas eve and hopefully will be rewarded with a packet of Oreos!

Hope you are all enjoying your Xmas party season - I am a little jealous but then my life is pretty fantastic right now so not to worry!

Go Deeper

Ange and I finished our PADI scuba course a couple of days ago and have had 4 dives around Koh Tao. Really, really good fun with so much to see. Also really looking forward to trying out scuba back in NZ around Coromandel and the Bay of Plenty.

We are leaving to Laos tomorrow so tried to go out for another days diving today but missed out as we'd forgotton to book yesterday. Instead we got a local guy to take us to a few snorkelling spots around the island for a few hours. Really nice visibility (10-15m) we spotted some big barracuda, lots of coral and anenomies.





Looking forward to Laos but at the same time loathing the 2 or 3 days of travelling we have to do to get up there. A lot of bus riding!

Life on the islands

The islands of Thailand are going great!

We travelled from hot, sweaty Bangkok down to the quiet, honest little town of Krabi in Thailand's south-west coast and spent a night to chill out. In Krabi we found time to relax and cool down after Bangkok and enjoyed great night food markets with the Thai food that we'd been missing all that time in London.



From Krabi we splashed out on a tour (our first ever proper tour I think)


The tour went to Koh Tapu (better known as James Bond island as featerd in the man with the golden gun)


and to go kayaking in mangroves


and later riding elephants. A busy day but really fun!


We headed from there off to Koh Jam, a tiny island on route to Koh Lanta - in the Andaman Sea. The island is so small and non-touristy you have to stop from the ferry and be picked up at sea onto a small longtail boat to make the 15 min trip in to the island. It was truly chilled with mostly fisherfolk and farmers.
Check out how nice the beach is here!


This little bar in the picture below was called "FUBAR". Unrelated to the Queen St DNB club of course but a nice spot for a few beers looking out to sea...


From Koh Jam we headed to Lanta - also chilled and cheap and spent days doing absolutly nothing. Getting a bit lazy with regards to laying about - reading so much - although have been excercising daily so not lazy in that respect.



I almost had a nasty nasty accident and thought I'd broken my leg. Oh my gosh. Luckily it was ok just sore and my ankle sprained. That'll teach me to climb dodgy trees :(

Sadly the diving was not so good as the visibility wasn't so good thanks to the winds and waves etc.

Next we went on to Phi Phi - bit of a shock to be had here. Day tourists aplenty and paradise that once was. Saying the place has changed since the tsunami is an understatement. Thousands of people to battle to see the idyllic island although you can still see its beauty and we visited the outer islands with a day boat trip with lots of snorkelling.







Everybody but us on the boat got sick because the wind was up. Lucky escape. Some nice diving and saw some interesting corals, moray eels, lots of butterfly fish and the usual exotics. No pictures as I lost the underwater camera I bought in about 5 mins from taking it into the water :p 1st prize for dopyness there I guess :o

We shot throught from Phi Phi pretty snappy and over to the other side of Thailand to the Gulf of Thailand to Koh Tao. Here it is perfectly chilled, hardly anyone around, still sunny and the diving is superb straight off the beach or rocks wherever you are.

Today we started a PADI course which is cool, so far so good. Had a nasty run in with a local red curry but back in the game now, luckily. Being much more careful now so definitely no broken legs or sick bellies.

Planning on being here for another 5 days or so before heading up to Laos then back this way to mee the Londoners for NYE...

Hope y'all well!

We are in

Qatar and it seems pretty cool here. The flight was really good across from Istanbul with great service and nice food and lots of space in the Airbus A330. I was enjoying the latest Die Hard film until we ran out of time and landed but plenty of time to finish the moving when we fly out in an hour to Bangkok. Free Internet in the airport even...

We bought a carpet!

Of course we did! Its beautiful, and after shopping for 10 days (well, almost) it was a real bargain. So many shops, so much apple tea, but well worth the energy - it will look fabulous on our new floor (I hope it will fit as we still haven't seen the floor....)

I don't have a picture - he wrapped it very quickly so we couldn't change our minds - but its Buhara similar to this one, only much nicer!

Istanbul, not Constantinople!

Well Istanbul has been amazing! I have built my turkish delight tolerance up from a couple of pieces a day, to eating for breakfast, lunch and after dinner. Oink, oink! Well, our hotel DOES serve it at breakfast, and just when I was getting sick of the same thing every day, they have added the pistachio flavour - how could I refuse. Oh yeah, Ainsley is the real fan - I only eat it so he doesn't feel bad.



Did I mention the marshmallow flavour? Yum!

Istanbul Pictures & The Bosphorus

Check out more Istanbul pictures here





Today we took a trip to the mouth of the Bosphorus to the edge of the Black Sea. This is the view to the Black sea from the ruins of a castle atop the peninsular.



Just inside the mouth of the Bosphorus seems to be perfect fishing grounds. I counted 22 big fishing boats using nets to fish today just nexdt to the Black Sea. There are also numerous cargo ships passing by.



Thankfully this area of the Black Sea does not seem to be affected by the tankers run aground yesterday in the storm. Let's hope the spillage doesn't change direction!

Gallipoli

This week we took an overnight trip from Istanbul to Gallipoli and then onto Troy for the second day.

It was really great to get to spend some time at Anzac cove and learn about the history and spare thought to the young soldiers that passed through that area.

The picture below is the view east back along Anzac cove where the Anzacs landed on April 25 1915. It is very steep and the beach is quite small?!



The cove has a nicely kept cemetary and memorial site which looks out over the beautiful Aegean Sea. Its so surreal to think to the many dead and ironic that all this took place in such a beautiful setting.





Both Australia (above) and NZ (below) have memorial sites above Anzac cove with brilliant views out to the Agean Sea and Dardenelles...



Very sad to visit but really pleased to have been to see this site that is such a part of Anzac history.

Good food

Wow the food on Crete was lovely! Malt rye bread rusks fresh tomatos and cucumber in the greek salads, and tasty pies ( you all know how much I like pies ) with egg plant and feta or mince and feta (the ones in bread cuumbs).



The food in Turkey also looks to be pretty good although we are yet to have a full dinner meal. Turkish bread and pide are a welcome dish which we used to love in Sydney. Turkish delight, called Lokum, is exquisite! Made with nuts inside in a range of flavours...

ps this post if for you Gilly :)

East meets West

Istanbul is so far working out to be great!

We arrived in very early on Friday morning on the overnight train from Greece and checked into our hotel. We seem to have done very well with our hotel having been upgraded to a suite which is really lovely.





The markets are amazing with so many cool handcrafts and fabrics to look at. If we can figure out how we could get things home there could be some shopping to be done here!

Yesterday for my birthday we went out for cakes and sweets and had turkish tea and shisha pipes. It was nice and chilled and very Turkish I think.

This morning we have visited Hagia Sophia, and some of the other famous attractions including an incredible mosiac museum with mosaics found from a palace that existed around 3rd century AD.

Happy Anniversary!

Well - we celebrated our 8th anniversary on Monday. Had fab day on the beach (yep, another one!) and then off shopping to spend all of 8 euro on presents! Its the most shopping Ainsley has let me do all holiday! Check out our great matching tattoos - how romantic. Cocktails (on the beachfront of course) to follow... yay for us.

Hello mainland

Back on the mainland after the past three and a bit weeks on the islands we are bound for Istanbul on 2/11. The islands were G R E A T!!



It's not too hard to see why this has been Ange's favourite beach!


There are more photos up on flickr which you can view from this link. I will be back to write some more later...

Antiparos Caves

After hanging in Naxos for a week or so we headed off to the neighbouring island Paros.

The weather wasn't quite so good here unfortunately and because it was getting later in the season we had to stay in the main town (port town) rather than at the beach as we had done in Paros.

Paros Town




Still nice though, we rented a moto and adventured around the island.



It seemed to be sunny every day until around 3pm and we managed to find beaches shared with noone else most days.

The snorkelling was great. Just like looking into an aquirium!! Probably 25m visibilty I guess. I saw some interesting creatures, some corals and tried to wrestle a big octopus but had to leave him be.



We also went accross from Paros to the tiny Antiparos island and visited an ancient cave which you decend 100m into the mountain to see. Some amazing stalectites and stalecmites which were truly impressive!



View from Antipartos restaurant (Taverna)

Windsurfing in the storm

Had a couple of really fun sessions windsurfing whilst on Naxos.

One evening a storm blew in bringing with it some of the craziest lightening and thunder and howling winds. I woke up the next morning knowing that it was a windsurfing day.

Possibly not the brightest idea given not having done it for about 10 years but it all went well and despite falling off loads I managed to blast around and have an ace time!



I would highly recommend this place as a windsurfing destination with a constant northerly blowing about 6-10 knots most days. Naxos, Cyclades, Greece!

(the pic above is the day after the storm left)

Crete and onwards

So far the islands have been A M A Z I N G!



For a place that i've been dreaming of for so long it's still surprising how stunned i am to be here and by how idyllic this place is. just incredible.



We spend a few days in Malia, Crete (think Malaga) which is a English package tourist destination - as our old friend the kid was working there.



Here is us with some cats we met out there. Good times out at the bars in Malia :)



Nice as it was we headed east to Vai beach which is a stunner. Hanging all day on our own little cove, the diving was incredible with practically unlimited visibility!

It has been eash to get around with local public transport (buses) and we ventured to Sitia and also to Agios Nikolos both on the East/NE side of Crete.



Food is great and still easy to find cheap, traditional cuisine. I love the meze snacks, tzaziki (spelling?) and the squid is as tender as you could dream of.



Vai beach was a stunner! It's the beach used in the bounty bar advert... Great snorkeling...




Even the port towns are beautiful and the water relatively clear. Lovely colourful fishing boats...



Fast ferry to Crete. We shouldn've taken the slow boat to have time to soak up the beauty of the place :)



We then left Crete for Santorini where we now are chilling out in a lovely oceanside apartment complete with pool.



We've rented a moped to buzz our way around as needed. Yesterday we did a big trip around snapping photos of all the beautiful church buildings set with the perfect blue sky backdrop.

Here are some of our favourite pics so far from Santorini!





Tomorrow we head out on a boat trip to visit the volcano and the hot pools in the island caldera...