Thailand!

afterwell, i wanted adventure!

and i have to say i got it.

there have been many moments during this trip where i just stop and think "what is my life that i am in this situation?"
Since I've been in Thailand there have been too many of those to count.

we ended up booking a hotel online for our first night in Thailand. a guy we met hitchiking in nz recommended it to us since its 500 meters from the airport, and since our flight got in at like 9pm and we were both so exhausted and sunburnt with no idea how long customs would take ( it ended up being quite easy - a joke compared to nz where they took my shoes away and washed them for me) we paid $50 which seemed reasonable for a hotel...now that seems like a joke. We got a better hotel the next day for $25, the night after that we payed $15 and now we are paying $16 for a beach front room.

Anyway we came out of customs thinking we were ready to deal with the onslaught of taxi drivers wanting to help.

"Hello Sir! Where you going? Taxi Car?"

This call is forever burned into my brain. They have a cool bird here that can imitate most sounds and I'm surprised most of them don't say that because that's most of what you hear walking down any city street during the day here.

"Taxi car? Taxi boat? Where you go? Koh Phi Phi? 500 bot."

So with helpful directions from the tourist police we braved the 600 meters in the dark to our hotel. The tourist police are a really cool thing they have here, if you run into trouble with the real police (who can apparently be a bit corrupt sometimes) you can dial 5522 and the tourist police who speak English will come help you. There are signs that say "tourist police, your first friend" they even have an app.

And i have finally learned what it is to deal with the frustration of not speaking the language of a country you are in. I'd made sure to learn at least a boched version of thank you and hello before I got here, and i even covered my hand in phrases like where is the bathroom, etc. Thai is tonal like Chinese so there is an extra dimension of being able to say things completely wrong. Definitely asked for the toilet one time and had the girl look really embarrassed, tell me "no, no" before I guess realizing what I had meant to say and pointing me the right way. Who knows what apparently weird thing I asked her for. The phrases on my hand were handy a few times, and helped me be more polite, but common phrases sure doesn't help much when you need to buy contact solution and can't find it in a store, and good luck getting a sim card set up for your phone! Phone data here is by time not by MB, so you buy hours of internet on edge, edge+, or 3g which is confusing enough in English. And in the entirety of Phuket we found not one proper store for any phone carrier, just privately owned shops and 7-11s where you can buy sim cards. On the most part people were nice to me as I struggled, but a language barrier is a language barrier and of course I'm in the wrong here by not speaking Thai.

By our second night in Phuket I got a message from a Russian guy living in Phuket on couch surfing who said we could stay with him, so we headed over to his house. Had a relaxing day getting to know Sasha and the house mates (all also Russian - and some who didn't speak English) funny enough they had lost their water bill last month and so the water had been turned off so, they were waiting for monday to call the water company. No stress, we were planning to eat out anyway, and we headed off to the night market. The night market was really neat, stopped and checked out a soccer game on the way, grabbed some food and a coconut with a straw, attempted to haggle for a taxi but ended up walking and dodging cockroaches all the way home - I'm slowly getting a lot better at not being deathly afraid of the stupid things.

Well something I ate at the market wasn't so good later that night... and no water means no flushing toilets. It wasn't very pretty. But they came and turned on the water the next day and I can say I survived. Spent another night at Sasha's  and cooked them the most simple American meal we could think of - grilled cheese and tomato soup. We even found Annie's tomato soup at the store, Tesco Lotus. We are now promised Borsch if we ever go to Russia or Serbia. One of the guys let us borrow his scooter and we took our lives in our hands on the crazy roads here. Don't think I mentioned it here yet, the roads are kind of a free for all where people TEND to the correct side of the road and TEND to stop at red lights, but only when there is other traffic around. It is perfectly acceptable to go into the wrong lane to pass someone in the middle of a city, as well as drive on the wrong side completely if there is no other traffic around. In the words of one of the Russians, "I think you don't need licence if you going short distance." Riding along with Dar was definitely more fun than scary and I even drove alone myself when we rented a scooter a few days later on an island. It was a bit of a skill avoiding (or at least going really slowly over) the sewage overflows which run from time to time across the street. I will really love going back to non open air sewers.

And its worth noting what an amazingly hard habit refraining from throwing toilet tissue in the toilet after you wipe yourself is. The number one rule in south east Asia is no toilet paper down the toilet. This wasn't clear to me at first because signs said "don't throw paper towels" or "don't throw garbage" down the toilet and I was wondering who was dumb enough to need that sign. Me. Apparently the sewer lines aren't large enough so they actually explode underground when people flush toilet paper. This is especially bad on islands where the sewer lines are under the beach. Don't want to hurt the beautiful fishies! The locals use little spray nozzles like for a kitchen sink.

The food here is really really super yummy. I tried the spicy papaya salad tonight for dinner. They toned the spicy ness down pretty much completely, so I got to really enjoy the flavor. Yum. And I finally got my mango and sticky rice fix. They throw sweet condensed/coconut milk over the whole thing. And the curries. Wow. I think the average Thai spicyness is just right for me because its always just perfect. And the portion sizes leave you just perfectly satisfied and not bloated. But the one thing that stands out is that while the real Thai food is certainly delicious, but its not really all that far above what I get at Thai restaurants in Eugene, or a particular yummy one Rob & Sharon take me to in AZ. I think we are pretty spoiled with the Thai food we get in the states. Its pretty damn close to the real thing! The one thing they have in almost every restaurant here though, that I haven't seen before, is a dish called "no-name chicken/pork/vegetable" - a friend ordered it today and she got a deep fried fritter/tempura like pieces of chicken & veggie mix with sweet chili sauce for dipping. She said it was yum so I'll have to try it myself before we leave. And the fruit shakes! It seems every street there are at least a few stands with fresh fruit which you can also have made into delicious shakes. Just fruit and ice and yogurt if you want. Not to sweet, just perfect. And the coconut shakes are served in a coconut shell. And they cost like $1.20

So after we left Phuket we headed straight for Koh Tao, an island off the East coast in the Bay of Thailand. The island is well known for being a great place to learn to dive, and we decided Thailand would be a really great place to learn! We started our open water course a few days ago. Its been a blast. We chose a really really great school, Impian Divers. The coolest thing about going there is since the water is so calm here, the two confined water dives which are usually done in a swimming pool, you get to do in the ocean! And wow the ocean here is incredible. We were in shoulder deep water and had schools of all types of fishes, sea cucumbers, and corals all around us on our first dive! Our actual open water dives were out of control. Christmas tree worms, clown fish and their (huge!) host anemones, schools of parrotfish and wrasses, angelfish, gobies and blennies, fish that glow, brain corals the size of a car -OK so things in water are actually 30% smaller than they appear, but still! It was such a treat for me after having only seen these creatures small and in stores, to see them happy and healthy in their natural environment - and therefore HUGE since they live so long here.

We are almost done with our diving certifications. We finished all the theory and tests, have 2 open water dives under our belt and just 2 more open water dives with a few exercises to go! We went to 12 meters yesterday, and next we go to 18. Would be done today but Dar got a bug so we are waiting a day to see if he improves so he can go too. No worries if he can't because then he will just have to go in Hawaii XD

Well I think thats about it! Will take the night ferry back to the mainland tomorrow and head up to Bangkok. We leave the 2nd for Tokyo! Planning to go with Takako to Kyoto for a few days and stay with Michiko in Tokyo when Takako goes back to work. Can't wait to see Takako again :) and also have plans to meet up with 3 different friends in Seoul, so looking forward to that as well.

The Australian whirlwind!

Im sitting in the Gold Coast airport waiting for our flight to Malaysia, then to Thailand. The past week has been incredible, and I know for sure that I absolutely have to come back here, maybe even to live for a bit. What a crazy great place! The first few days were a little meh, staying at overly crowded party backpacker hostels but once we got out of those and headed to Brisbane to couch surf, the whole experience changed. Brisbane is a really amazing city. They have these ferries called city cats which are part of the public transit system so you can take them across the river which winds through the city just across the river or down the whole length for the 'backpacker tour of Brisbane' for just a few dollars. We had a really great time riding those around, and checking out the amazing public parks full of rainbow coloured birds and big lizards. The coolest place we went though, was a nature conservation park which also had a koala center with rescued koalas in it! It took 4 bus rides and a train ride for 3 hours each way to go see, but was so worth it. (Especially compared to an entire day of train and bus flowed by 15km walking only to find ourselves hitchhiking in the dark on a freeway on ramp with giant spiders, poisonous frogs, and whatever other dangerous critters we didn't see just feet from us - saving the tour of the outback for when we come back with a car! Eeek!)
Anyway, the koala centre was amazing.  They are so cute its ridiculous! And as if seeing the koalas wasn't enough, we walked out into the park after and we found a wallaby couple! Incredibly tame too, everything in the park is protected so they had no fear of humans at all. AND THEN: as I looked closer at the lady wallaby I noticed her pouch looked kind of big, and it started moving. I saw a baby wallaby poke out its little red face - I think it was eating grass or something. The cute and incredible factor was off the charts.
The next day we went with our couch surfing host for a surf lesson! We went to Byron bay. The only place ive ever seen that in more funky than Sedona. We met a lady earlier in the week telling us about the 3 crystal lines that meet in Byron bay and thats why its such a magical place. This for some reason discouraged us from going at first... snark snark... anyway it was an awesome trip, Beautiful waves and I actually stood up on the board once! Unfortunately there is no photo proof but dar and keith (our host and surf instructor) will vouch for me! I even ended up paddling fast enough to catch the wave myself at one point. Woo hop! Hope I don't become too much of a beach bum! But I would love for the next place I live to have a good surfing beach.
So, here we are about to check in for our flight. I put on sunscreen twice yesterday and I am still burnt to a crisp!  :( maybe the Thailand snorkeling will have to wait a couple days or I can buy a wet suit instead. We are also both utterly terrified. We have been so babied by first world countries for the past 8 months it is sure to be a shock!

Couldnt ask for more...

Today marks 2 years of love, adventure, and fun together. No one makes me smile, laugh, and live in the moment more, and there isn't anyone I'd rather share this adventure with. 2 years and counting <3

Southland and Fiordland Adventure Zone!

Hey there!

There are two more updates on my phone, including some fun pictures, but looks like the internet is too slow so my phone isn't going to publish them.s So I'll steal some pictures from the internet XD

It's been a fun few days. We've been hitchiking so we have met some pretty amazing, crazy, awesome people.

After a few days of exploring Dunedin, we headed South to check out the Catlins. We had a bit of a hard time finding a ride after a misunderstanding of the local bus system which left us at a pretty bad hitching spot. We ended up getting picked up by some super sketchy guys - after we got in the car we saw "Mongrel Mob", the local gang tatooed on the back of one of their necks - but they took us to a better spot and were nice enough, so I'm thankful. Ended up being picked up by a really nice dairy farmer who went out of his way to show us his farm, and then dropped us off at the door of our hostel in Invercargil!

We got a ride from a Chilean guy, and then a couple of German surfers into the Catlins, where we ended up staying at an amazing hostel called "The Lazy Dolphin" There was one of the only remaining pods of the worlds most rare dolphin who lived in this bay,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector%27s_dolphin and that night we only saw their fins far out in the bay, then we headed over to a different area to watch another rare animal the Yellow Eyed Penguin, play around on shore before roosting for the night. We met an amazing Kiwi couple and chatted till dawn about NZ politics, building regulation, and the future of humanity.

But the next morning was beyond incredible. I woke up early, grabbed a cup of coffee, and headed out to the beach to look for the dolphins. I didn't see any until as I headed back to the hostel, I looked out one last time far out into the bay, and saw them jumping!  It was so magical. And then later, when I was back up in the hostel eating breakfast, I saw they had come up to shore and were swimming around a group of people just 10 or 15 feet in the water. It didn't take me long to be in my swimsuit and down there with them. They came right up to me, only 4 or 5 feet away!

I finally got out of the water after I started to not feel parts of my hands and feet anymore, and we caught a ride out with a really nice German couple (headed to Oregon in a couple months, so we might see them again!)  We had a tea break at a beautiful lookout point, and checked out Nugget Point together.

Later that day we caught a ride with a businessman from Auckland, he picked up another 2 hitchikers not 1K after picking us up, and we all headed together for Queenstown. We decided to cook dinner together - he was from India, and I'm never going to pass up an opportunity for real curry, neither was anyone else in the car. It was way yum, but whether it was the real intense spice, or the excessive amount of boxed red wine we all had that night, the following day was a day in for me. Watched Lord of the Rings finally!

We headed back for Fiordland the next day, caught a ride in one of these...

They are all over here, and fun fact, they come with a matching blanket!

Another fun fact, the slugbug game we play in the states is also played in NZ but with tractors instead of VW bugs, and points instead of hitting. Also you get 3 points for a moving tractor.

And the next day we got a ride into Milford sound from a couple in ANOTHER Juicy van, and headed out for a boat ride which took us all the way into the Tasman Sea. I didn't take this picture but this is really what it looks like out there in Milford Sound. It's stunning.

 And if we couldn't get enough of that, our ride back was headed for Manapori, a town we'd hoped to go to, but didn't really consider it possible. It was amazing luck. And on the way back we ran into some Kea. They are the world's only Alpine parrot. I'd seen them before at the aviary in Dunedin, but these were wild. And this was exactly what they were doing. 

 They love chewing on rubber apparently.

We found ourselves that night in Manapori, a small town south of Te Anu, the jump off point for Milford Sound. The lady running this campground was really cool, she must have been 90 years old, still doing all the cleaning and caring for the campsite herself, making beds in cabins, etc. She was originally from San Fransisco, but left during the Vietnam war because she disagreed with the US politics so much. A strongly opinionated Atheist (or Secularist as she preferred) we had a good time talking about the US and New Zealand, as well as Richard Dawkins. She set us up with a cute little cabin for the night, and a tour of the Manapori Power Station for the next day.

The Manapori power station was pretty cool. It was build underground next to a lake in the 60s to provide power for an aluminum smelter near Bluff (which they are thinking of closing in the next few years)  They let the water fall down from the lake, turn turbines, then the water empties into the ocean. If the smelter was closed it could easily provide power for the entire South Island. Pretty incredible.

We also got to see a glimpse of Doubtful Sound, which was also really beautiful.

The tour driver was nice enough to drop us off at the driveway to our hostel for the night, unfortunately the only food we had was flour, cheese, and oil. So we got creative and made homemade noodles and cheese sauce with some milk powder we found.

And that night we tried to use the internet. The thing is, as we've been traveling around Southland, and anywhere outside a city, there is only roaming data, we don't have any laptops anyway, so we have been unable to do any of the basic internet things we are used to. On top of that, buying internet is INSANELY expensive here. Like as high as $10 for 30 minutes or $1 per 10MB (Full resolution on that Kea picture is 1.2MB) So, we compiled this list of internet things to do, bought a bit of internet, and found in front of us a late 90's Gateway computer that took 3 minutes to open a Firefox window. We had made only 3 CouchSurfing requests for Australia when we realized 2 hours had gone by. I am REALLY going to appreciate American internet when I get home. It's going to be like upgrading from dial up all over again!

Then we get to today! We'd planned to head |North for the Glaciers, then the first ride we caught (the first car that came by! - we were waiting less than 3 minutes!) was with a couple Otago Uni students who had been to Te Anu for a road trip and were planning to take the scenic route back to Dunedin. We'd been to Dunedin only 3 or 4 days before, but we loved it, and after learning you can't even go up and visit the glaciers without paying for a tour (which in the guidebook from 2001 said was $35pp) we decided we'd follow the wind, which was blowing to Dunedin! We had a really amazing day with these two guys, learned a lot about the life of a Kiwi Uni student - they party a lot harder than us.

We stopped by Bluff and had NZ famous Bluff Oysters with Fish and Chips on the beach, and they dropped us at the hostel we'd stayed at before in Dunedin. I bee-lined it for Countdown, the local grocery store to see if there were any Easter chocolates on sale, and it was my lucky day when I found an entire tub of chocolate labeled "Free Customer Chocolate" - And it WASNT an April fools joke. It was the broken chocolate bunnies they couldn't sell. Score! It's the simple things like chocolate :D

So tomorrow I either sleep in since this post has taken so long to write up, or I show up at 10:30 to release baby butterflies from their cages at the museum. And later we go op-shopping (thrift shopping) to find Dar a pair of pants that doesn't have a 6-inch diameter hole in the crotch!

Until next time!