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Thai me up, Thai me down

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:29:16 EDT

Asia keeps surprising me.

The diversity is not, perhaps, on a par with that of Europe. But this is my third (fourth if you count India) trip here, and I'm starting to appreciate the subtle nuances in flavour across the continent. However, there is a generic feel to most large Asian cities - hectic, smoggy and noisy, with personal space at a premium (except for Tokyo, where no matter how many people are around you, you always seem to feel utterly isolated).

Not Bangkok. Apart from that peculiar sticky city climate which is ubiquitous in this part of the world, the place could not feel more different from Beijing, Ulaanbaatar, Hanoi et al. It took me a while to realise that I wasn't being deafened by constant hooting, and the simple reason for the comparative silence is the Thai attitude. The people here are famous for their laid-back approach to life, and yet their friendliness and enthusiasm means that this never descends into lethargy. The whole feel of the place is just infinitely more relaxed, and this rubs off on the visitor. If you want somewhere to ease you through the worst stages of jetlag, you could do a lot worse than Bangkok. The fact that you can wander along street markets and browse at your leisure, without being accosted every thirty seconds, removes that element of bewilderment which is so often a feature of the first few days spent acclimatising to a different culture and a different timezone.

The architecture is also vastly different from that of the Far East, yet you can still detect that region's influence. Thailand's geographical location is evident in the appearance of its buildings - the style is a true collision between Chinese and Indian, and the result is phenomenal. The intricacy and perfection is awesome, and the visit to the Grand Palace was a spectacular start to the trip. Everything sparkled, whether from gold leaf, glass inlays or glazing, and to boot, the gentle sound of chimes constantly filtered through the air, as hundreds of tiny bells hung from the edges of every roof.

Unfortunately I have to curtail this as the hotel charges by the minute for internet access and I'm in a race against my wallet...so there's just time to recap the first comedy moment of the sort that only seems to happen when you're far away from home. On a plane, somewhere between Dubai and Bangkok...A large woman is sitting next to me, sleeping 'loudly'...as I rise to go to the toilet, a barely audible sound issues from the back of her throat, she shifts slightly and then punches the video screen on the back of the seat in front of her. I'm still not sure whether she was awake or asleep at that point, but she sure as hell had a mean right-hook.

Lao is on the horizon...

Day One - Touch down - not the Mark Holden Variety

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:23:15 EDT

Well I'm here safe and sound. Today has been my first full day in the UK. It is much better than I anticipate. Yesterday (on arrival) is was quiet low, sad and irritable. I think that this was mainly as the result of only getting three hours of sleep in a 40hour time frame - add the stress of almost missing one of my connecting flights because of a landing delay and you can see why.

The people here have been pretty nice - the were some people that let me push in for the passport line at the airport so that I didn't miss my flight, the street vendor who gave me a hot dog for lunch ande charged me a pound less because I mixed up all of the Australian coins with the UK coins in my wallet - I think he did this because we were both confused - the Australian dollar looks very similar to the UK one pound and finally my room mate for the first night - I was tired and was expecting him to come home late, drunk and wake me up - but he didn't and he was nice, helpful and friendly - well done to you Chris.

So far I have only noticed a numbver of differences between here and home. They include:

1. There are a lot of pay phones here - which is completely different to back home

2. Everyone here seems to read the paper on the train - from children to old people

3. The busses are double deckers

4 The 2 pound coin is bigger than the 1 pound coin - if you compare that to the 2 dollar coin being smaller than the 1 dollar coin back home - this systems semms to work much better.

Egypt - Part 2

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:40:07 EDT

After having a great time in Dahab it was off to Cairo by bus. The buses were in a really good condition and the trip took us about 10 hours. Just when we thought that we had left all the police checkpoints in Israel, we encountered the same treatment in Egypt. Apparently Egypt has had many attacks and there are police checkpoints all over the place. On the way to Cairo we managed to see a massive cargo ship crossing the Suez Canal. This was a very strange sight to see a ship crossing the canal which is surrounded by desert, so it looked like the the ship was cruising in the sand.

We arrived in Cairo 10 hours later with the hope of buying a train ticket to Aswan the same day, which is the second most southern town in Egypt. Luckily we managed to get a ticket as the trains get very full. It was another 5 hours wait until we got onto the train at 10pm. While waiting for the train we noticed a couple that we had seen on the bus from Dahab. Turns out that these were also South Africans and this is the start of a couple of great days together. When we asked them where they were from, they answered saying that w wouldn't know where it was, it turns out they are from Tzaneen but have been living in the UK for the past few years. The train journey was a total nightmare and it felt like we were in a fridge for the entire journey and that made sleeping almost impossible. 14 hours later we arrived in Aswan. We were on the road for a total of 24 hours and we were totally exhausted.

The next day we took a 3 hour journey to Abu Simbel to see the very famous Great Temple of Abu Simbel. All the buses had to travel in convoy due to past terrorist attacks on tourists. In fact, all tourists have to travel in convoy throughout the whole of Egypt. We left at 4am and arrived in Abu Simbel around about 7am. The temple was amazing and it was astounding to think that the entire Great Temple of Abu Simbel and the Great Temple of Hathor were moved in its entirety to higher ground. The reason for this was due to the building of the Aswan High Dam which would have flooded the temples if they were not moved. The Temples were moved in pieces.

The next day we left for our 3 day Felucca cruise along the nile with our very good South African friends to Kom Ombo. As South Africans, we had to prepare for our trip by ensuring an adequate supply of alchohol and we were off. It was excellent cruising at a snails pace along the Nile with really good quality friends and seeing great scenery along the river. It was nice to hear the word "Gatvol" and "Lekker" coming from other people. Our captain promised to take us to his village along the Nile for dinner at his home. We were quite chuffed and entered the village to see hundreds of people all together having what seemed to be a "moerse" party. The adults were very welcoming. However, we noticed that all the kids were armed with plastic guns and thought to ourselves that it was very strange. We continued on and suddenly we were bombarded with pallets. The kids were shooting us from all directions. It felt like we were in a war situation and we were totally outnumbered and retreated back to the boat. The captain came to fetch us and escourted us to his mother's home where we enjoyed the most delicious dinner. We were treated like royalty while at his mother's home and also had the opportunity to use a very fancy toilet. After dinner we continued on with our trip where we had our first sleep on the boat but not until we finished all the alchohol and had a lekker jol. The trip was definitely unforgettable and we are still with Nick and Gina our "ultra cool" SA friends.

After arriving at Kom Ombo, we then took a taxi to Luxor and visited some really old ancient Egyptian Temples. The journey to Luxor was hair raising. Like we said before, all foreigners have to travel in convoy. So whoever in the convoy drives the fastest, will set the pace of the entire convoy. Flying at speeds of 140km/h in a taxi that resembled those in SA was very nerve recking. We warned the driver a couple of times but he still continued and even the police were also driving like maniacs. The Lonely Planet has made a very good comment. Why is it that all vehicles have to drive in convoy? This makes it just easier for the terrorists to attack as they have everyone in one place at the very same time as convoys have to start at certain times. Strange, dont you think? Anyway, we got to Luxor in one piece.

Luxor is famous for the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens amoungst other things. We managed to do a tour around and saw some very detailed and enormous tombs that were found around this area. So far around 63 royal tombs were found as this was a place to bury royalty. Most of the mummies were taken to the Egyptian museum. One mummy was still left at the Valley of the Kings and it was the mummy of King Tutankhamen. We managed to see his mummy and his entire body was still in tact. A tiny man who ruled for about 2 years and died at the age of 18. The strangest thing was to see his enlongated head which was a sign of royalty. His entire body was covered in tar and you could still see his toe nails. The ancient egyptians really mastered the art of preserving bodies for such a long time. The tombs were lavishly decorated and with very colourful art work on the walls that still kept its colour for many thousands of years. Unfortunately we could not take any photos. Another cool place we saw was the Funerary Temple of Hatshepsut which was a place that was used to mummify her body, a process that took about 70 days. So the whole place was only used for 70 days.

We checked out the Luxor Temple and the Karnak Temple which were both extremely impressive. The size of the columns were just mind boggling. The ancient Egyptians were really geniuses and to get the columns built in those times was truly an engineering masterpiece.

Egypt's past history is fascinating and it is very hard to beleive that so much stuff happened and was built so many thousands of years ago. It will take many years of studies to understand this very advanced culture but what this trip has done for us is to open our minds to to do more research and reading on ancient Egypt. You have to see this for yourself.

Just when we thought we had left all the dodgy characters in India, we find ourselves in the same situation here in Egypt. The whole of Egypt functions on "baksheesh" which means "tip". Everything revolves around this word and it is quite annoying to avoid the dodgy characters trying to rip you off all the time or trying to get money out of you. It is so difficult to think that Egypt was once a strong and very advanced nation but it seems to have gone totally backwards. They say that Egypt's Gross Domestic Product is about 350 billion US dollars and most of this money comes from the revenue from the Suez Canal and tourism. Even though Egypt's bread and butter comes from their tourists, it does not seem like they get treated very well. This has been our experience and many other people we have met have shared the same sentiment. We have found another way of retaliating against the very dreaded word "baksheesh". Before someone asks us for "baksheesh", we say the word first and this just keeps them walking away from us.

The infrastructure of Egypt seems to be very old and run down. What is happening with all the money that is collected everyday from the thousands of tourists visiting all the sites and boy are there many tourists. By far the most tourists we have seen on our trip and this is only the low season.

Its off to Cairo and then we hope to fly to Nairobi in a few days time. Look out for the final part of Egypt.

Take care and loads of love.

The out of world- oklahoma city

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:11:22 EDT

Oklahoma city is the capital of Oklahoma State, USA. It is a terrific city. Most of the locations consist rolling hills, low trees, along with hedge plants, kinds of grasses, and forest flowers. Amazing parks, wide growth garden, memorable locations, cheap hotels, beautiful river and huge variety of things to do located there. The city river Canadian is located in north side. An original Oklahoma City zoo has consisted river water. Every year flood comes in north side of this city. City built of more water dam so his water flowing to downtown and made tree lakes. All lake has gathered more rushes of tourist. Some are boating in lake and fishing also. One of the best lake “Lake Heffner” is famous all tourists. It was sensational sunset moment at evening. This city is growth city so there are kinds of cheap hotels. All hotels are famous and luxury also. His services are so great and remarkable. We visited last month there and truly say to you, fabulous hotels, city places and hotels foods are so delicious. Hotel features free high speed Internet, and breakfast. Rooms available with microwaves and refrigerators (Upon request), coffee makers and hair dryers. Seasonal pool open from May to September. Cheap Oklahoma City hotels are one of the best deals to his clients so famous all ways. Secondly if you want to enjoy there then I suggest go at lake points, his historical places, or if you want riding then go head. Boating, fishing and more things to do done by tourists. Shopping places are so gorgeous. Markets of this street are so cheap and best. Downtown of Oklahoma City sight is so terrific. There is more art gallery, museums, you can see here. Myriad Botanical Gardens is located at Crystal Bridge. It is famous park to everywhere. Water stage is located at parks. In middle of park, a lake exists. I was enjoying there much more. Surfing at Oklahoma river number of time, It is a great and fabulous journey to me. I like his cheap hotels because they are luxury but lowest prices. River bank is so nice. I hope I will come there again and again.

Itinerary

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:00:23 EDT

Well, just 3weeks and a few days before we go! Lots of details sorted, still a few to sort out. Can’t quite believe it’s come round so quickly! The itinerary is:-

                   Hong Kong 3 days

                    Vietnam    12days

   Western Australia     12days

            Melbourne          5days

             Sydney              7days

            New Zealand       3 weeks (not sure how long in

                                                      Each place yet)

               Tahiti               7days

                Mexico             7days

Thoughts at the moment: Wonder what the mix of people will be like in our group in Vietnam – we’ll be spending 10 days together, there’ll be between 8 and 15 people. Interesting!

                                           Will M. enjoy Vietnam, or will I regret booking it. (Will I enjoy it as much as I’m hoping?)

                                             Will we survive without any sudden illnesses!!!!

                                            What will the weather be like in Australia and NZ?

                                            Will we become fed up of planes and airport lounges?

                                              How on earth will we manage without family – especially grandchildren – for over 10 weeks!!!!!!!!!!

                                            WILL WE COME BACK STILL MARRIED OR ARRANGE A QUICKIE DIVORCE IN MEXICO AFTER SPENDING SO MUCH TIME TOGETHER!!!!!!!

Well, let’s watch this space!