So, I'm back from my travels. 15 days, 3 countries, 6 planes, 70 hours of travelling, a few gin and tonics and a very bizarre New Years Eve later.
The trip was brilliant. I had a fantastic time, but I'm now sitting on the sofa, watching films and pondering the English rain battering our windows, wishing I had another week to sit on the lovely beach of Ko Samet and relax... instead of doing my washing and thinking about going back to work on Monday. Anyway, before that, a few thoughts on the trip:
New Zealand
Getting there in the first place proved to be a bit of a challenge, what with the lost passport and all (haven't found the old one yet - probably the first time ever anyone has been pleased not to find their passport!) And then the fog delays at Heathrow weren't looking too promising, but, thankfully, they were prioritising long haul flights, and mine took off only two hours late, which, in the circumstances, was pretty good going! The flight therefore totalled 29 hours on the plane (save for an hour and a half going through transit in LA - you have to clear US immigration even though you're not staying there, which seems a bit mad!) and I wasn't sure how I'd cope with being in such a confined space for such a long time - but, it was fine, and arriving a bit late in Auckland actually helped I think because it meant I was able to adjust to local time straight away. Air New Zealand are very good at what they do - the plane food was good, there were lots of films to chose from, and, most importantly for me - there was lots of leg room!
Met up with my parents at the hotel, and spent the next few days exploring Auckland and the surrounding scenery, 'enjoying' the New Zealand weather (which changes every 15 mins it seems), eating lots of nice food, and generally catching up with each other. Christmas Day was a bit weird as it was so unusual - we went out exploring in the car, had a paddle on the beach (well, Mum did anyway!) and then had dinner at the hotel in the evening... and then an early night for me - although I adjusted to the local time straight away, I was getting very tired in the evenings, which is slightly bizarre!
We went to the Coromandel peninsula on Boxing Day (a stark contrast to the usual walk on St Catherine's Pier or St Ouen's Beach!), which was astoundingly beautiful - and then had an excellent meal at Soul, on the viaduct harbour waterfront. If only they'd made the Jersey Waterfront more like that...
You won't be surprised to hear that will all those sights to see, and a new camera, lots of photos were taken (500 over the course of the whole trip). The decent ones will be on Flickr, but in the meantime here are a few for a flavour of New Zealand:
Christmas Day on the beach
One of New Zealand's national flowers, known as the Christmas Tree
Sheep!
So, that was more or less the end of a quick visit to Auckland. It was enough to give me a flavour of the country - and I definitely want to go back. All the stuff in the South Island which my parents were going off to see and are currently exploring sounds fantastic. Definitely worth going all that way, and it was great to catch up with my parents and hear about their travels so far, and their plans for the next part of their visit - but then, it was on to Bangkok...
Thailand (briefly)
I flew from Auckland to Bangkok with Thai Airways. Their service was as good as Air NZ - apart from the fact that there was absolutely no leg room under any of the seats... although I managed to get the only seat on the plane which had an empty seat next to it, so I was at least able to stretch out a bit! So, arrived in Bangkok after having had a reasonable amount of sleep, and was reunited with John, which was fab. We spent a very short time (about 7 hours!) in Bangkok before flying to Siem Reap - although though we did manage a quick wander round and a drink at Cheeky Charlie's Bar on a side street - a very surreal experience!
Cambodia
We flew straight in to Siem Reap... and then embroiled ourselves in some confusion. To cut a long story short, when John booked the hotel and told me the name of it, I Googled it, and it came up with a match for the Sofitel. So, I thought that's where we were staying... after a hotel arranged cab, a free drink and cold towel, and some confusion, it was revealled that we were actually at the wrong hotel. How embarrassing!
We then went to the right hotel, which was just as nice, and then straight out to see the temples.
I'm not quite sure what to say about them... they are just awesome. The first glimpse of Angkor Wat was striking, and the others just followed on from that. Over the course of three days we did nearly all of the temples in the immediate area, including some of the older and slightly further away ones. John was an excellent and knowledgable guide throughout, and we were ably assisted by a tuk tuk driver from the hotel - Pros. The whole place is just inspirational - the Cambodian people are lovely, and I spent most of my time just absorbing everything. The food is lovely and consistently good - and cheap. The sights speak for themselves - and there is something very special about being able to climb all over the temples and get to the top and experience the views. I can't help but think that that won't last very long though as the number of tourists there is massive, and increasing all the time, and it can only be a matter of time before it's thought that all the clambering is causing damage to the temples.
We went for sunrise at Angkor Wat on New Year's Eve, and although it was definitely worth doing (and very eerie) we both felt that it would have been so much better without the coachloads of tourists! We did manage to get to two of the more out of the way temples that day though, and because we were about so early, we had one of them to ourselves, and at the second, although there were one or two people there, we were rewarded with the tranquility and time to absorb the surroundings that they deserve.
One of the non-temple highlights was a trip on the river, through the floating village to the lake - which was topped and tailed by a very interesting and slightly hairy journey across a sand dune like path on the back of motorbikes! The floating village was just awesome - especially seeing pigs in floating pens!
Floating Pig!
Unsurprisingly, I took a LOT of photos, and the story of the temples, the order in which we saw them, and my thoughts on them will follow on Flickr, because it seems to make sense to let the pictures do the talking!
A little taster though:
To finish off the trip, we spent New Year's Eve at a Gala Dinner at the hotel - which was certainly interesting! It was the first time the hotel had done the event, and they had tried very hard - there was about 250 people there for dinner around the pool, a lot of nice food, and plenty of booze (although that wasn't included in the price, which was slightly disappointing!). A lot of our fellow party goers were Japanese, Korean or Taiwanese - and I think they just didn't get it, because most of them went to bed well before midnight!
That meant that we at least had some peace to see in the New Year - and we spent some time chatting to an American couple and an Italian couple, seemingly the only Westerners in the hotel apart from us! Midnight came and went, although it was weird not hearing the bells of Big Ben, and we saw in 2007 in a very surreal and weird, but fantastic way!
Thailand
New Year's Day bought the inevitable hangover, and we were flying at 10am, back to Bangkok. I struggled for a few hours feeling very green, but recovered ok. We were due to spend that night in Bangkok, but we found out whilst waiting for the plane that there had been 6 bombs in tourist areas there on NYE, and the FCO were warning against all but essential travel there. We ummed and ahhed for a substantial amount of time about what to do - the chance of there being more bombs seemed slim, and when London was bombed we all showed resilience and got on with our lives, so we thought perhaps we should carry on with our plans... but, on the other side, there was the consideration that the bombers had targetted tourist areas, that it is a strange city to us, and that we had another option easily available to us - go straight to the island... so, on a finely drawn balance, that's what we decided to do.
An air conditioned limo and a strange boat journey (the slow boat to the island - rickety old boats, used for people, livestock, food and all manner of other things!) later and we hit Ko Samet, the island where Jago worked for 8 years. He was most surprised to see us as we bumped past him in a pick up truck taxi! We'd overlooked the fact that the Thai Bank Holiday was still running, and there wasn't any beds to spare on the island, but then Jago and Sue sorted us out a bed at a 'concept relax' hotel - it was rather more than we were looking to pay, but turned out to be by far the best thing to do - we had a very restful night's sleep after a BBQ meal on the beach and a few beers, and then spent a morning relaxing on the beach.
Then, it was off to Pattaya, which is quite frankly the most bizarre place I've ever been to! It's a holiday resort on the coast, full of ex-pats either looking for or securing Thai brides, revolving bars, ladyboys, Irish bars, groups of British lads, families, and all manner of other things and people. We had an odd but good night out - and then John and I sought out Greg's Kitchen, a traditional English breakfast (for him) and burger and chips (for me) beckoned! We also got pie... mmm, pie!
A return to the island that afternoon, and pie and mash for dinner - at a beach bar! Again, a surreal experience, but all part of the wonderful life of Ko Samet. The following day, and my last day, a trip on the speedboat to an island I now can't remember the name of, for some excellent snorkelling - and eating fresh-out-of-the-water fish for lunch. Fab. On the way home, we went to the fish farm... which reminds me to comment on the fact that I found myself doing things I never thought I would do on this holiday - like scrambling over one boat to get to another, and walking round on very thin and wobbly planks along the edge of pens of big fish and sharks!
And then, my last night party - a nice Thai meal, and a few beers and cocktails. Maybe a few beers and cocktails too many given my 8am departure time...! A great night though - and certainly a night to give me a flavour of why the island draws people in to stay there for a prolonged period of time. A number of Jago's mates from his time there, both those who live there and those who were visiting, were around, and it was great to be out in a group and great to get to know them.
When I left, with the inevitable hangover, I had the overwhelming feeling of wanting to stay - I so could have done with an extra week lying on the beach (not least because John and Jago had an extra day there!) but, my time had come to an end. It's a place I've a feeling I'll return to one day!
And now, home. Work is going to be a bit of a challenge over the next few weeks, so I'm trying to prepare myself for that with a relaxing weekend... but there are also plenty of things to look forward to - house hunting in Blackheath with John being top of the list... and planning more trips for Easter and the Summer!
I've also been thinking about the results of last year's New Year's resolutions, and pondering some for this year, so there will be a post on all of that soon.
In the meantime, some more sleep for me I think!
