Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Sunny Sly Siam

On the 10th November, we left NZ for Hong Kong. We flew into Thailand via Hong Kong, as our Air NZ flight back to London stopped in Hong Kong, so we just extended our stopover so that we could have 10 days in Thailand, and then return to Hong Kong, to continue with the remaining leg of our journey, back to London.

We were surprised by our first impressions of Thailand – it really isn’t an outstandingly different country, there are very few high rise buildings, and they are all very spreadout. In many ways Bangkok is quite similar to Cairo, but without the sleazy men :o) It felt like a mix between Egypt and Fiji.

However one of the first things we did notice, and were quite surprised by, was that everyone has new cars over there – these people earn very low wages, but can still afford new cars – according one of our tour guides, a nice car is a big status symbol for Thais.

On arrival at the airport, we quickly found the bus we needed and transferred to Koh San road – this is the main tourist area of Bangkok, and well worth a look!

A tuk tuk zapping by

Khaon San Road, Bangkok

It is very busy, has lots of T shirt and souvenir stalls, basically a big street market, with heaps of people dying to bargain with you! I was impressed at the range of goods, as in Egypt they had a lot of souvenir sellers, but nothing I really wanted to buy. I think one of the best bits about Thailand is they always have the things you want to buy, for example when you are in a hot country, you want cool drinks and juicy tropical fruit. These are all available in Thailand – we honestly ate so many fresh pineapples and watermelons we lost count, because for 50 cents NZD you can buy half a pineapple, precut and cored! Delicious!

Bev demonstrating how delicious the pineapples were - just before he dropped it on the pavement!

We also enjoyed the cheap vendor food – Noodle soup, fried rice and pad thai could all be purchased for $1.50 NZD, and this was enough for your lunch or dinner – it tasted fantastic, and the best bit was we didn’t get sick from eating the local food like we did in Egypt.


Yummy noodle soup cart
They also have Scottish restaurants in Thailand - With Double Filet of Fishes and Double Big Macs!

We found the people selling stuff at the market good in terms of engaging you if you appear interested but not harassing you (again like we had in Egypt – no one would leave you alone, and it really put you off bargaining with them). They did however get offended when you tried to barging too low with them, but I got over that and just tried low anyway :o) There are quite a few places in Thailand that you can get suits and shirts sewn for you for really cheap prices. The people however seem to never have enough business and it is these people that tended to try the hardest to get you to purchase something from them.
They were very clever at getting your attention; I think their tactic was that as soon as they engaged you in conversation they have you. One guy was particularly clever, as I walked past with this delicious pancake that a street vendor had made me, the guy (it wasn’t immediately obvious what he was selling) goes – “Pancake”, and pointed at my pancake, and I said “yeah, nice pancake” and gave him a big smile, he then gave me an even bigger triumphant smile and said “Nice suit” – damn it how do they do that! He had me sucked in over a conversation about a pancake! Haha impressive!

We meet up with Bev’s cousin Dee and her fiancĂ©e Mark at Koh San Road, and got a room at the hotel they were at – at a mere $25 NZD a night it was excellent – a decent bed, air conditioning and a bathroom (with western toilet) is all one needs in Bangkok. We didn’t have hot water, but in that heat, it is an unnecessary luxury, and the fact that the shower is above the toilet seems to be common practice – weird (just had to remember to take the toilet paper out of the bathroom before showering, otherwise soggy paper!).

We explored Bangkok a little, the first night we happened upon a cool market full of the locals (no long noses were around, as Mark and I decided to call our fellow europeans), they say that Thais no longer eat at home anymore because buying food off the street vendors is just as cost effective as making it at home, and this was definitely noticeable at the market – everyone was buying all sorts of cooked delights, including deep fried locusts, cockroaches, frogs on a stick etc.

Mmmm fried bugs

Sausages and toads for dinner anyone?

We weren’t so game as to try these local delights, but we did try a couple of less risky items, such as a sweet meringue wafer type sweet, and the best thing we tried was this lime leaf wrapped morsel, that included a wedge of lime, some peanuts and tamarind sauce – very delicious mix of sweet and sour. We later read in the Lonely planet that they recommend trying these because they are so nice! There was a real carnival atmosphere at this market, and you could pay to play a few games, such as shooting balloons with a bow and arrow, throwing a ball at a level which made a thai girl fall into a barrel of water etc.

We also saw a few temples, however we weren’t terribly interested in these, and there were a lot of locals around because the Thai King's sister had just died, so they were all paying their respects. In some ways this was kinda cool though, because the locals were all making these cool floating flower displays out of flax (or something similar, maybe palm leaves) and arranging flowers on them, they were then placing them in the river, it was very interesting to see this custom – so very different to our own.
Floating Flower Arrangement

The second night that we were in Bangkok, we arranged for an overnight bus to Phuket. In hindsight, we should have read the lonely planet before booking transport, because this will have told us that booking overnight buses from Koh San road is not a good idea, as these buses are actually illegal, and they often don’t take you where you want to go! We had looked into getting a train down to Phuket, but the problem is the train only went 2/3rds of the way to Phuket and then you had to get a bus from the train station in Surat thani to Phuket – however, we found ourselves stranded in Surat thani nonetheless, despite many assurances from our travel agent in Koh San road that the bus was direct to Phuket!
At 6am the driver’s music blared on the bus, and we awoke to a Thai guy asking us which location we were heading to, we said Phuket and he said off the bus! So bleary eyed we collected our stuff and hopped off the bus in the middle of nowhere! There were 7 of us, all hoping to get to Phuket, and we were loaded into a little tuk-tuk truck and taken to a travel agents. We were told that our connecting bus would collect us at 7, 8…..anyway whilst at this travel agents (owned by a woman and her sons), the owner returned to her shop on her scooter, but as she was about to hop off her scooter, the adjacent travel agent came running out of his shop with a broom handle and sconed her one on the head! They then had a rough and tumble scrap right in front of all of us on the road outside the shop! We had no idea what to do or even what it was all about.
The lady was a lot stockier and bigger than the guy she was fighting, so she was clearly dominating the fight, had she not been “winning” so to speak, we might have been more willing to step in and break up the fight. However all of the locals came out to have a look, but nobody stepped in to separate the pair. Eventually the ladies son came out and jumped on the mans head (not pleasant) and the man retreated. A car then arrived with a Thai guy, wearing an English football shirt carrying a very large gun – we started to dack our pants at this point – what the heck! But it turned out that this was the local policeman! He sauntered around, putting on his Khaki jacket, and making play for his gun when the travel agent lady didn’t play ball! The next thing we know, another tuk tuk arrives to pick us up, and takes us to yet another travel agency.
By this time we were getting extremely agitated - so much for our direct bus to Phuket! The next travel agent basically said that she had been asked to have us in her office because of the fight that took place – I am guessing the Policeman told them to get rid of us, (protecting tourism and all that), but this second agent didn’t want anything to do with us, but couldn’t tell us when our bus was coming. In true dodgy Thai styles, she said that for a further 300 baht each ($15) we could have a bus immediately. Now I know $15 doesn’t sound like much but, basically it is the principle of the whole matter, we had already paid for a direct fare from Bangkok to Phuket, yet this lady was trying to wheedle another $15 out of us each!
So we refused, and kept hassling her – Mark and this other British girl even got to the point of sitting right in front of this lady and telling her that if she didn’t arrange for our bus they would be “best friends” for the next couple of hours, and when she ignored them and pretended to write, they asked her “What are you writing”.
I am not sure whether it was this persistent hassling or whether by luck our bus did arrive within 10mins of this constant harassment! But by this time it was around 9.30am! What was interesting was when we hopped in the mini van, there were two Brits already in the van and they had travelled by train (as we had considered), and had been also waiting hours for their bus which they had paid for, but they had buckled and paid the $15 each for an “instant bus”, only to find us joining them! Dodgy thais!!
Another couple we were with had their bags gone through overnight, where the lonely planet had also noted this to be common occurrence while the travellers were sleeping in the upper deck. We decided after this experience that Surat Thani would be our new word for something crap! For those of you who want to avoid this rigmarole I suggest either flying from Bangkok to Phuket (or directly into Phuket from outside Thailand), or they recommend booking your own bus tickets from the national bus terminal.

Anyway eventually we made it to Phuket town, we then caught the local bus (a truck with a crate on the back) out to the beaches. We settled on Karon, which is south of Pattong beach. By this stage we were shattered – we had been up since 6am after sleeping on a bus overnight, we had only had a few snacks such as chips and peanuts that we could buy from a service station to eat, and it was about 2pm, and stinking hot! We found somewhere to sit down and have a meal so that we could try and think straight. After lunch we dragged our luggage along the beach front until we found a place to stay. Mark thankfully negotiated a good price for two rooms for us.

We were surprised at the beaches in Phuket – we had thought they would be crystal clear like the beaches in Fiji, but they were no different to say the Mt in NZ – the water wasn’t a really cool blue, and it wasn’t crystal clear, however it was really warm – just like a bath – it was so nice to go swimming after more than a year!

We had expected to see heaps of lady boys, and young thai girls with crusty old European guys, and we did see a few, but not as many as we had thought. That whole industry is really disgusting, and it is so sad that it is Western men driving the trade - enough said. We were trying to work out how it is one picks up a thai girl, because it wasn’t immediately obvious, but we decided it probably started by asking for a massage or a massar (said really nasally by the thais).

One thing that was particularly funny however, was that the Thais thought Bevan and Dee were thais also – I guess both have quite tanned skin for Chinese, so I assume people thought Mark had picked up a thai girl for “companionship” whilst in Thailand, but what they must have thought of me I am not sure – a crusty European girl picking up a thai boy?? Must’ve thought I was a bit strange! Haha
Mark and Dee and us sitting on Karon Beach in Phuket

We did a day trip out to Phi Phi Island which is off Phuket (an island itself), and has the crystal clear waters that I had assumed Phuket would have. It had absolutely gorgeous beaches, and some of the movie “The Beach” was filmed there.

Phi Phi Island - absolutely gorgeous beach

We feed some monkeys some bananas, and Pepsi (prob not the best idea) and did some really cool snorkelling both off the boat and off the beach– a great day out and well worth it. The day ended with an elephant ride – which I must say was a real highlight for me, they are so incredibly smart. You could buy a plastic bag of small bananas for your elephant if you want, so I did, and of course the elephants know what is in the bag, completely conditioned to the sound of the bag rattling I am sure! So our elephant wouldn’t walk more than a few steps without reaching its trunk backwards for another banana haha! I’m sure it probably knew exactly how many were in each bag too!

Overall we had a great time relaxing in Phuket, it was really nice to lazy at the beach on the deck chairs and under the umbrellas that are all laid out for you to sit on (at a hansome sum of $5 each per day!) I even managed to get a tan! Although not terribly noticeable when positioned next to Bev as he just went super tanned!

The next day we returned by overnight bus again (this time we followed the Lonely planets advice and went to the national bus terminal) to Bangkok. We could tell that the bus was not a scam because it was just full of locals, and the hostess couldn’t speak english! Mark and Dee then left for Chiang Mai, and we had a few more days in Bangkok. We did two day trips, one to Ayattaya – an ancient city, which was once the capital of Thailand, with lots of cool ruins etc. This was great, because as luck had it, we were the only ones on the tour, so we got a guide all to ourselves.

Ayattaya - Ruins

Boat trip along the river in Ayattaya
The other day trip was to the floating markets and Tiger Temple. We thought the floating markets were a bit touristy and tiger temple was very much exploiting tourists for their money, but both were worthwhile, and I am glad that we went.

Aww nice Kitty

Hmm, even nicer Kitty


Us squinting into the sun at the Floating Markets!


Elephant kisses!

We left Thailand on the 20th November, for a one night stay in Hong Kong, and then on to London on the 21st November.
We returned to the UK substantially browner and with full Vitamin D stores!
Lots of love
Jam and Bev

Friday, December 19, 2008

Home Sweet Home

Hi Everyone,
Well yet again we haven’t been very good at keeping our blog up to date, but hopefully this will change!
The last time we wrote, we were in the count down for going home to NZ.
So I’ll pick up from here.

In the week leading up to leaving for home we had to figure out a way of getting rid of the bed that we bought for our UK flat – as the flat wasn’t furnished when we moved in, which is quite unusual over here. The bed was just a cheapy that we picked up out of necessity, so we were quite happy to be getting rid of it. We thought we would donate it to the British Heart Foundation shop down the road from our flat, so Bev went down and asked if they could come and collect it, and they said they only take beds that have a special fire retardant sticker on them – yep you can’t even donate something without there being a rule associated with it! – we had no idea as to whether ours did or not, so we started to sweat about what we were going to do in the event that it didn’t have a sticker (we couldn’t just burn the thing in our back yard like at home) – we had visions of us doing a midnight run down our street with the bed in tow and dumping it in front of someone’s house – maybe in Palmerston North…..anyway we were pleased to discover the bed had the required sticker, so we avoided having to proceed with the midnight plan.

I managed to convince my work to hold my job open for me for a three month period (in the process of gaining a promotion!), however Bev decided he wouldn't push for his job to be kept, and given the banking climate in London it wouldn't have been possible.

Following a 24 hour flight with a 2 hour stop over in LA again, we reached NZ at 6am in the morning, to be met by Mum and Dad and my Auntie, Uncle and 3 little cousins. We knew we were back home in NZ when the baggage claim guy announced the broken conveyor was fixed over the loudspeaker by saying “Your bags is ready now”. LOL
It was nice to see nothing had changed since we had left, and it felt like we had never left, it really felt like our year in London was a dream.

There were a few things that we noticed about being back home though – no one walks anywhere, there is only one or two people walking past your house a day, I didn’t remember my parents kitchen being so large and spacious, and sunshine comes in through the windows – which is so nice.

My parents have a spare car, so Bev and I used this as our car whilst home which was great – I so miss the independence having a car brings me. On the first day home, we went to use the car, but because mum and dad don’t use the car very often the battery gets a bit flat, so we had to in true Rangi kiwi styles push it down the street to get it to start haha only at home in NZ!

The one thing we miss about NZ in the UK is the lack of customer service, and we weren’t disappointed going home – every shop that I walked in to had a pleasant shop assistant that wanted to know how I was, what I was up to, what the name of my great grandmothers pet cat was etc.

We arrived on a Tuesday morning, we had an appointment for our visa biometrics in Auckland on the Wednesday and intended to travel to Wellington to hand in our application on the Friday. On the Wednesday we got to our biometric interview half an hour early, and instead of turning us away and making us wait for the half hour, as it was her lunch break, the nice lady said that she would see us straightaway and just have her lunch break after us! Only in NZ! As the biometric process was compulsory for anyone applying for a visa, we found it quite hilarious that the method of confirming that we had our biometrics taken was a flimsy blue post it sticker in each of our passports – no official stamp or anything! Good Ol NZ. We managed to get everything signed and sealed that needed doing, and got to Wellington at 1pm on Friday – only to find out that the visa office closed at 1.30pm on Fridays – good thing we didn’t muck around on our way to Wellington! Whew! The guy told us the visa, if straight forward would take 20 working days to process, and he was pretty accurate, it arrived on my parents doorstep 18 working days later!

We really appreciated NZ food! You forget how huge our portions are when eating out. On the 2nd day we caught up with Bev’s sister and went to a Chinese restaurant and ordered 1 dish each thinking it could feed us perfectly, but we forgot how huge the portions in NZ were and ended up with twice as much as we thought! We have notice that kiwis are generally noticeably more stocky and round compared to people on the otherside…much more noticeable. We found that the NZ lifestyle was a lot more of an American lifestyle, such as driving our bigger cars around, living in spacious bungalows. It was so nice to have a spot on coffee and perfect steak again, the Brits just don’t do good coffee or steak. All we seemed to do at home was eat - mmm nice NZ food!

Mmmmm NZ Lamb Roast - the best!

Appreciating NZ food - Dinner at Mission Estate in Hawkes Bay - mmmhmmmm!

Bev was missing London soon after leaving the UK, worried that we wouldn’t be able to come back, but soon forgot about London when he felt completely relaxed setting foot into wide open spaces, As soon as we hit NZ we just felt our stress levels drop instantly. Space is a premium in London, so being crammed up for a year and suddenly arrive home, you’re amazed at the vast amount of space we have, from seeing lot of horizon, to how wide the roads are (misjudging them too when you almost get run over because you forget how wide they are), to the size of mums kitchen bench! We were so surprised to go to Queen street and central Wellington to find then to be much smaller that we remember…as if they had shrunk – it was like “where is everyone?”

It was so nice that everyone could understand us and it’s so easy going and everybody’s laid back and efficient! You notice the kiwi accent A LOT when first arriving back. You can really hear it (terrible in some cases). It was really hard getting used to Kiwi accents again from hearing the odd kiwi every now and then to a whole country of kiwis especially the high question mark endings that we tend to do. Bev even had to secretly watch some Coronation street just to get his British language fix! (Weirdo!) NZ is not stressful at all in comparison, everything is so much easier and life doesn’t feel like consistent fire fighting.

The weather at home was sooooooooo NICE! Even though it was unsettled spring weather, it was extra nice when the sun came out it was just clear clean blue full horizon days. The days were far nicer than the majority of summer days we had seen in London! (What summer days!). We weren’t use to squinting so much arriving back into the country. And even when it did rain, it was nice to hear some proper heavy rain on the roof again, and plenty of it (and not be worried that we would be caught in it).

The feeling of experiencing what you really appreciate and what you missed for a year is just awesome. After a month you get use to everything again, as if you never left. So going back to London it is a nice feeling to think that everything will be the same when you return again, that looking forward to experience that feeling of appreciation again. The feeling we got from tasting that first service station mince and cheese pie,

Screw the jet lag, a pie will make it all better! Bev after less than 1 hour on NZ soil!


fish and chips and being able to see stars brightly, being the only one at the beach, biting into the tender NZ steak, finding a sock that you missed putting in the washing machine, and being able to lift the lid on the washing machine and drop it in and sitting on the sand at the beach at sunset. Ahh heaven!

Aw and how could I not write a whole blog on what it felt like to see my cat Jess again!

"Ohh people to play with me again - excellent!" Jess playing with a toggle

I was sure that she would take one look at me and snub me – but she purred really loudly and gave me lots of smootches and to further dissipate my insecurities, she sleep in our bed with us for the first few nights of being home – the most high honour of them all (considering it took her a whole year to feel comfortable doing that when she first started living with us) – she remembers us YAY! Much to my dad’s disgust she picked up with us as if we had never left, with my dad being the convenient feeding human thing, and me being her mum again – aw but to have to leave her again was extremely hard!

It was so nice to go home and just have what felt like an unlimited amount of time to trip around and do heaps of things we had been craving over the last year. Bev really wanted to go Snowboarding so he went up Whakapapa for a couple of days,

The gorgeous weather Bev got whilst up the Mountain!

whilst I really wanted to see Gisborne and East Cape as I had never seen that part of NZ. So me and my brother went on a road trip around Gisborne – it is so pretty, I can’t believe how gorgeous our country is and how spoilt we are, and how accustom and how much we take it for granted because we can see it everyday, any day if we like. We also went to Cape Kidnappers while we were in Hawkes Bay, it was such a beautiful day - and the Gannet Colony is just amazing!



Gannets Smootching



Cape Kidnappers



Ah East Coast Beaches!

We also went to a wedding while home, which was really cool, just hanging out with friends (Bev’s high school friends) some of which we hadn’t seen in 4 years!



One of the hugest blessings we had whilst home was that both of us were able to pick up three weeks worth of work – Bev at my parents work helping with their company website, and me with my old buddies at LIC. It was so nice for me to work back at LIC again, because it was an easy way to catch up with all of my friends – esp since they were all working, so I got to spend more time with them then I would have not working, and also it showed me what I could have been doing if I stayed – a bit like the movie sliding doors really, not to mention having an income to spend whilst at home! In addition, an opportunity has arisen for me to do a PhD in animal behaviour and welfare in Hamilton- which I have always wanted to do so this is extremely exciting! The details will need to be decided over the next year, so watch this space :o)

Catching up with Corey at Burger Fuel....mmmm Burger Fuel! (Thanks to Jamie for taking the photo!)

It is funny the hankerings you get after being away from home for a year – one of things that I really wanted to do while home (and did) was to mow a lawn and do some gardening – I am the lawn mower and gardener in our household, and I guess it is things like these that you just do every couple of weekends that you don’t realise how much sanity they bring to your everyday life, and more importantly stress release.
There is something so simplistically satisfying about mowing a lawn – my dad always says that he missed collecting firewood when he moved to town for the same reason!

Anyway this is turning into a novel, so I will end it here by saying going home was so refreshing for us both, and really put us in good stead to come back to the UK. We really needed a relaxing holiday where there weren’t any unknown variables and we could just enjoy all the things we love about NZ. The weather was also fantastic, so we truly felt like we had had a summer by the time we returned to the UK (two weeks in Thailand helped too). Once our visa came through we pretty much booked everything we could straightaway - so to those of you we missed catching up with - sorry! But we'll probably catch up with you in a year anyway :o)

We left NZ on the 10th Nov, for two weeks in Thailand – see our next blog for this!
Lots of love
Jam and Bev