Hi Everyone,
Well here we are in Phuket, relaxing, reading, sleeping and enjoying life.
We thought we'd send a final update to let you know what we've been up to.
After we emailed you last time we checked out a few of the sights of
Bangkok. We caught a crowded river ferry to the Grand Palace, which is
amazing with its shining gold tiles, manicured gardens and ornately
decorated buildings. We then walked over to Wat Pho, where we saw the
enormous golden reclining buddha with mother of pearl decorated feet, then
headed for a massage at the Thai Massage School. For those who've never had
a Thai massage, we'll try and describe it for you; a petite masseur digs his
or her strong and bony fingers and elbows into muscles that you never even
knew you had. By the end of this pulping experience you actually come away
feeling relaxed and have the most restful of nights sleep.
We also tried out shopping Bangkok style at Mahboonkrong (MBK), buying
clothes then dining at the shopping centre food court with a difference.
Here you're given a schlage card upon entry, you select which food you'd
like from about 20 different mini restaurants (which all have extensive
menus) and they cook the food to order. There are 800 seats in the food
court, also a stage set up for a band tp play. The mini restaurants swipe
your card, then after eating you pay for all of the food and drinks you've
consumed.
When we caught the taxi to MBK and walking around the shopping centre we
noticed that there was an extroadinary number of people wearing bright
yellow polo or tshirts. Apparently the King was born on a Monday so Thai
people wear yellow every Monday as a sign of respect. We've also since been
told that the Queen was born on a Friday so this is blue shirt day.
On the 12th Dec we flew down to Phuket, where we're now enjoying ourselves
people watching, drinking cocktails and having a daily prawn eating fest.
We're also enjoying eating bananas as we've heard they're still expensive at
home. We've observed the following at the resort:
*Leopard skin print bikinis and matching sarongs seem to be favoured by many
of the sun loving over 50 ladies
*There is a Scandinavian couple who only wear white - they change their
clothes at least twice a day but must have a huge and glarey wardrobe in
their room - they look so clean and fresh that they could be in a Norsca ad
*Throngs of people attack the brekky buffet daily with vigour as if its
their last meal (well at least until lunch time!). You almost have to get
your elbows out in order to even get near the food
*The Australian Network is fantastic - we've missed out on a lot of TV over
the last 7 or so months and have been able to see Denton, Australian Story
and Karen even got to watch Carols in the Domain live on Sat night
We had massages the other day and the smell of tiger balm brought back
memories of Vietnamese vendors saying 'Tiger balm, tiger balm, 2 for one
dollar......you buy from me, you make me lucky.....why you not buy from me?'
We've checked out Patong which is very touristy, we also did an island tour
but have been happy to mainly just chill out around Kamala Beach. Its quite
strange walking into the restaurant area in Kamala Beach though as its full
of tailor shops (kind of like Hoi An in Vietnam) and touts who stand out the
front and try to shake your hand saying 'Hello friend, where are you from?'
to which we think, 'We're not your friend, we've never seen you before in
our lives.'
Tomorrow we'll do a snorkelling trip to Phi Phi Island which should be
great. We'll then relax a bit more and then fly back up to Bangkok on Thurs
and then HK on Friday and home overnight arriving Sat morning.
We've been incredibly lucky over the past 7.5 months, we've seen so many
truly amazing places and met some great people along the way. On the other
hand, unfortunately we've also missed out on some special occasions with
family and friends at home. Our travels have confirmed for us just how
wonderful a country Australia is and have made us realise that from a young
age at home we've been given opportunities that we previously took for
granted, things that children in other countries can't always count on like
3 meals a day, going to school and a roof over our heads. Our trip has just
scraped the surface and there are so many more places we'd now like to visit
or revisit to explore more extensively.
We'd like to wish you and your families all of our very best for a wonderful
Christmas and Festive Season. We'd also like to thank you for replying to
our emails and those of you who've kept us up to date on happenings at home.
Merry Christmas and see you soon!
Karen and Paul
PS 5 sleeps to go till we're home
PPS Thought you might like to read (and have a bit of a laugh at) a bit of a
list on what we'll miss / won't miss and what we are/arent looking forward
to when we get home
We'll Miss:
*Visiting and learning about new places
*Meeting new people
*Tasting new foods
*Not knowing what day or even date it is
*Waking up without an alarm
*Seeing old stuff which is over 200 years old and walking on worn stone or
wooden steps
We Won't Miss:
*Spending thousands of dollars on drinking water......and ironically toilets
*Waiting in queues
*Wearing money belts
*People smoking in enclosed places near us eg buses
*Public toilets, be they of the western, squat, train or just plain feral
variety!
*Being asked by vendors to buy their wares
*Stomach bugs
*Eating bland food just because you're hungry and there just isn't anything
else
*Having to pack and unpack our packs every few days
We're Looking Forward To:
*Catching up with family and friends
*Our bed and pillows
*Our bathroom - our clean toilet, shower with a shower nozzle which is
actually attached to the wall at a reasonable height (which means you can
wash your hair without difficulty), hot water that is hot every single time
you turn it on - can't wait
*Brushing our teeth under with tap water
*Coles and Safeways - we'll probably walk around for about 2 hours just
looking at all of the foods you can buy on our first trip there
*Food - Mum and Nick's roast, brown bread, pumpkin soup, shepherd's pie,
some golden circle beetroot and salad in a roll, cherries, cereal for
breakfast, a choc malt milkshake, a cherry ripe, a nice big juicy steak, and
sad but true - deep fried ice cream (you crave strange things when you can't
have them)
*Having more clothes to wear so that we don't feel like we're wearing
uniforms
*Seeing and smelling the Australian bush - seeing that hazy bluey green
colour of the hills in the distance and smelling the eucalyptus up close
*Getting used to waking up knowing exactly where we are
*Opening all of the packages we sent home and seeing our purchases
*Using sharp cooking knives, hostel knives are just the pits
*Having spell check and a dictionary at hand
*Being able to pat animals again
*Planting a garden
*Being at home next time we're sick
*Getting fit again
We're Not Looking Forward To:
*Filling and painting all of those skirting boards
*House cleaning
*Looking for work then working full time (we are looking forward to earning
money though)
...... and probably heaps of other things that we can't think of right now
Bye for now,
K &P
|
