Thailand Wrap Up....

So finally here is our last blog of our Asian Adventures.....We spent 50 days, stayed in 8 major towns, flew around 3000 kms, went on a few mini bus and train trips, rode what seemed like a million kms on mopeds and push bikes, once again walked countless kms and ate from at least 250 different food outlets....so now we will highlight a few things that we have loved on our journey through Thailand. We travelled from Bangkok to Chiang Mai to Pai back to Bangkok to Kanchanaburi and ended in Phuket (staying in 5 towns there)....... There are so many cool things to do and see in Thailand and obviously we didn't do half the things we could have. So I guess we will just say what we think are must do things.... 1. Eat street food. 2. Ride a moped. 3. Learn some basic Thai words and talk to the locals. 4. Ride at least one old train. 5. Go to Cabbages & Condoms in Bangkok & have the whole Tamarind Fish. 6. Go on a non touristy jungle trek. 7. Go to the war cemetery in Kanchanaburi. 8. Fried chicken from a street cart is awesome and will make you wonder why anyone would eat KFC here. 9. Do a cooking class. 10. Go to night markets....and barter. 11. Get blessed by a Monk. 12. Wats, Temples & Waterfalls....but as beautiful as they are, you can O.D on them. 13. Go into little side streets....you will find cool things. 14. 7-11....just go there. Must see places: 1. Chiang Mai 2. Pai 3. Kanchanaburi 4. Nai Yang Beach....... After 73 entries we are a bit blogged out and are having trouble remembering everything we did so sorry this is a bit short....but I am sure if any of you are going to head over you can ask us anything you like and we will try and help you out. Spending 10 weeks in developing countries is certainly an eye opener and something that we are really glad we did. Backpacking and staying in the places we stayed is not for everyone but it gives you a much better insight into their way of life. As you know, Vietnam is not somewhere we will return to but Thailand is definitely going to see us again..... Thank you for reading our blog....we hope you have enjoyed it as much as we have..... Until our next adventure..... Alvo & Tanya xoxo

The Journey Home....

Today is "D" day....departure day that is. This morning we walked on the beach for the last time here in Nai Yang, again found a restaurant to eat breakfast in and an Asian breakfast seemed fitting so we ordered it. It consisted of rice porridge, tea and fresh fruit. After breakfast we stayed in our room until checkout time and then headed to get our nails done for the last time. Alvo got a french polish while I just got a nail cut etc. We wandered along and found a place that does waxing and Alvo got her eyebrows and lip done too. We had already decided to have Indian for lunch and sat for most of the afternoon in the one and only Indian restaurant in Nai Yang chatting with the owner who was, funnily enough, a Pakistanni lad. We spoke of travel and society in general, the conversation was very interesting and enjoyable. He offered us Chai Masala tea which is not on his menu but an offer of kindness and we certainly took part in the little tea party after devouring delicious curry and the biggest naan bread that we have ever seen. We left with a sense of fulfilment and happiness and headed to get our taxi to the airport. It was only a short drive there and we were sitting at the boarding gate in no time. We wanted some internet so had to buy the most disgusting hot dog to get it....oh well. We contacted family to let them know we were on our way. Getting to KL was a sinch and then it was only a short wait to board for the long haul to Sydney. The flight to Sydney consisted of two small children sitting in the seats behind us misbehaving and a parent that, as usual, didn't care. I politely asked the father to make his children sit quietly and stop kicking the back of our chairs.....that lasted about 5 minutes so I took matters into my own hands and told them to sit up and be still.....argh.....bloody kids on planes, should be banned. We have arrived in Sydney and are waiting at our gate when a text from Qantas comes through telling us our flight has been cancelled....great, oh well I guess we weren't meant to be in the air at that time. We are on the next flight at 3.40pm so it is at least the same day. Everything happens for a reason right. We will still be home this arvo. Maybe they might give us wine........ We will be posting a final blog of all the highlights from our Thailand adventure so stay tuned.

Perfect End to a Perfect Holiday....

This morning I got a beautiful wake up call from Alvo letting me know that Mum was online so after rubbing my bleary eyes we chatted for a while which was really nice. We took our walk on the beach and stopped at a restaurant on the sand for a breakfast omelette and some coconut water/shake which was nice. Today the sun is shining so we walked back to take up our position on the sun beds outside our hotel. We saw the massage ladies on the way and organised for them to come back and give us a foot scrub and massage when they get a chance. We headed straight for the warm tropical water to cool off before kicking back under an umbrella which by the way does not prevent sunburn. It wasn't long before our massage ladies arrived and my lady started madly scrubbing the dry skin off my feet while Alvo enjoyed a relaxing massage due to having perfect feet with no dry skin.....blah. After they were done we sorted manicures with them for tomorrow and headed back to the water. Thailand has turned on the weather for our last full day here that is for sure. Relaxing, reading and a few drinks were had before heading to the room to get dressed before lunch which we had on the beach. I broke all my eating rules and had a cheeseburger....yep, I had a craving and I am all for listening to your body so I did. Alvo had papaya salad but after seeing my cheeseburger ordered one and enjoyed it. Back to our room for a rest and man was I exhausted.....my system is sooo messed up right now. I fell asleep and Alvo went to lay outside again, I don't need any more sun. What.....dinner time already, geez. I struggled to wake up but am so glad I did, we found the bar that has half price cocktail happy hour and a beautiful view of the sunset and settled in. Pina colada and mojito for starters followed by chicken satay sticks and prawns wrapped in rice noodles, it was a great start. The sun was setting and it is perfect weather for it, so happy that our last dinner has been such a special one to remember. One more drink and a massive prawn cocktail before we set off a lantern in memory of Nanny, Dad and Grandad.....special times. We bartered with a fireworks bloke and set some of those off too, it was cool. Time to walk along this beautiful beach back to our room to call it a night. Leaving tomorrow seems surreal but we are ready. Tanya xxx.

Soi Dog Volunteering....

Tanya felt alot better this morning so we decided that we would go to the Soi Dogs and help out for the day. It was raining lightly when we set off walking to where we were being picked up from about a kilometre away but by half way there it was coming down quite hard. We got to the meeting place and waited and in typical Thai fashion they were about 20 minutes late. It is about a 15 minute drive and by the time we got there it was raining quite heavily. Soi Dog is an organisation that rescues injured and sick street dogs and cats and treat them until they are well enough to be adopted. They also collect healthy street dogs and desex them and then return them back to the street. It relies on donations and volunteers to do the work they do which the majority of comes from overseas. So we were given a tour of the place in the pouring rain and shown all the dogs and cats that have been rescued. It is pretty sad seeing the state of some of the dogs and how poor they are but they are looked after well and are happy. We were sort of left to our own devises and told where and what we could do and as it was raining so much going in with the dogs was not very appealing so we decided that hanging out with the 5 cats in a nice indoor room was a much better idea. The cats were so friendly and so damn cute that we wanted to take them all home. The 3 legged one was definitely the most active and has already been adopted and is waiting to go to Holland. The rain only stopped for about an hour all day so we did get a bit bored as there was so little we could do. Anyway we have done something we wanted to do but we are not sure it is something we would do again but we did meet some nice people which is always good. We had to wait till 5pm to get taken back to Nai Yang which seemed to take forever and were glad to have a warm shower when we got there. We had a bevvie and then went to have dinner at the place that gave me the rice last night. Back to the room for relaxing, a drink and t.v watching. Can't believe it is our last full day here tomorrow....let's hope for a nice day. Alvo xoxo

A Day On The Beach....

We had a bit of a lay in this morning till 9am. We both had a bit of a belly ache but just put it down to something we ate last night. We went for a walk along the beach for about an hour and were wondering if the dark clouds were going to go away as we had planned to lay on the beach all day. There is a lovely lady right out the front of our hotel on the beach who has a little hut bar and hires sunbeds and umbrellas. We had a great conversation with her yesterday and she told us she has had the hut for 15 years, and on the day of the Tsunami was not on the beach. But she did tell us all about it which was really fascinating and how very lucky she was that day. So we set up on the lounges and were glad the clouds were disappearing. Tanya said she was feeling really tired and not well so she slept on and off for a couple of hours while I read and swam. She did come in for a swim and ate a couple of mouthfuls of rice but then decided she needed to go inside where it was cooler and have a shower and sleep. I stayed on the beach reading, drinking a beer and snoozing....ahhhhh it is absolute heaven here. By 5pm I decided it was time to go in. Poor Tanya had just woken up and was feeling worse and even though we were in the shade the whole time we have both gotten really sunburnt so that has probably made her feel even worse. As Tanya was not able to eat I went out and got dinner for myself but when I got back I decided that I would go to the chemist and see if she needed some drugs. The chemist was really good and gave me 3 different lots of tablets, including antibiotics and some electrolyte drink....A 10 minute conversation and $10....I love Thailand. He said she needed to eat something with the tablets so I went to a restaurant and asked for a little bit of boiled rice. The ladies were really nice in there and wouldn't let me pay anything....again I love Thailand. So I have played nurse and administered all the drugs so hopefully they will start to work and she will feel better by the morning. We are meant to be going to the Soi Dog Organisation tomorrow to volunteer for the day but we will have to see what happens. Alvo xoxo

Last Stop Nai Yang....

We called into Graham and Severin's place this morning to say goodbye as we are going to Nai Yang for the rest of our time here. Tamara was up and about too as she is going to stay with her friends in Kata so we said a final farewell to her aswell. Helen came to pick us up at 9.30am, she has been kind enough to offer to drive us to Nai Yang. We have offered to pay for an extra room for her and Megan, her daughter, to stay for the night but she needs to get home and do some jobs so she has decided to come back tomorrow instead of staying. The offer stood all day as she changed her mind a few times and almost came but it wasn't to be, it will be great to spend the day with them tomorrow. We checked into our hotel and the room is quite big, plenty comfortable for the two of us and we rested and watched some TV before deciding to head out for something to eat. In usual fashion, just as we stepped out it started raining so we went back to our room and had some left over fruit and sweet sticky rice instead. It wasn't long before the rain stopped and the sun came shining through so we walked up the beach street of Nai Yang. It is a very small and quiet place here, just how we wanted to end our time in Thailand. We checked out some restaurants, bars and massage places then decided that the weather is too good to pass up and headed back to put our bathers on and hit the beach. The beach is just a few steps away from our front door, the view is beautiful and there is hardly a breath of wind accompanying the bright blue sky. We set our towels down and ventured into the warm calm waters that make up our perfect beach here. I was snapping a couple of photos when I felt something brush past my leg and a stinging feeling. I walked back to the sand and had Alvo look at it, she pulled off tentacle kind of things. I can't be sure but I think it was some kind of jellyfish. My skin was stinging and burning so I headed to my towel, bugger the water......sunbathing it is. I felt so tired and feel asleep on the beach under the watchful eye of Alvo of course. Alvo had a beer, read her book and swam some more before we decided to head up to the Saturday market. It is a short walk away and well worth it. So much delicious food, oh the smell.....and some clothing stalls. We looked around and first stop was the pork stick lady and oh man were they good, the best ones yet and then we tried a steamed fish curry wrapped in pandanus leaves which was really good, a little spicy for Alvo but the flavour was great. We saw some fried fat noodles and laap so bought some of each along with some sticky rice and little coconut deserts for later. We wanted to eat at the market while our food was hot so sat at a little bar and enjoyed our goodies. They were all great and we decided to grab some fried chicken and mango sticky rice to take away. We walked to the edge of the market and I found the type of shirt I had been looking for everywhere and it is pink so had to buy it. Time to head back, on the way we noticed a lot of old style classic motorbikes being ridden by guys with leather vests on. They headed to a campground where we are guessing there is some sort of club get together. Some of them are very noisy. We noticed the beautiful sunset and couldn't pass up the photo opportunity and a walk on the beach. We have not seen many sunsets since we have been away but when we do see them they are beautiful and worth the effort to get out with the camera. Back at our room we settled in for the night and are relieved that we do not have an alarm to set for the morning. Tanya xxx.

An Amazingly Humbling Day.....

Today we are heading off with Tamara to look around and also visit a friend of hers (Sue) near Phuket Town. She picked us up at 9.30am and we found some breakfast on the way. The friend of Tamara's is a Thai lady that she met a long time ago through Soi dogs when she took her sick dog there and Tamara was volunteering. They became friends and Tamara helps her whenever she comes here by buying her some groceries & clothes, putting money in her kids school lunch accounts and taking them out. She has 2 boys who she told us are 7 & 8. When we arrived where Sue lives, which is down a few back roads in the middle of a very poor area, the kids came running out and were hugging Tamara like a long lost sister. It was really sweet but when Sue came from another direction it was a very emotional reunion as she was so overwhelmed and happy to see Tamara it was hard not to shed a few tears. Sue did not let go of Tamara for ages and spoke a lot but she doesn't speak English so was a bit hard to work out what she was saying although Tamara speaks Thai quite well and filled us in most of the time. She asked us to come into her house, which was down a lane and on a swamp. We walked across a makeshift ramp and past a lot of rubbish and entered not what we would consider a house. It was like a tin shed with about 6 rooms and a walkway in the middle. Each room was where each family lived. Sue & her 2 boys live in one together which is one room with a small separate room at the back with a toilet in the ground and a tub for bathing. The whole space is smaller than a single car garage. There is a single mattress on the floor that they all sleep on. I can not tell you how overwhelmingly saddening walking in there was. Sue's job is recycling and she earns about 6000 baht ($200) a month and has no husband to help her as he was killed in an accident several years ago. We all sat on the bed & floor and Sue showed us pictures of her dog and kids and just kept hugging Tamara and thanking us for coming. The kids sat on the floor with 2 of their friends, eating donuts that Tamara had bought, and they were so well mannered and beautiful. As little as they have, Sue still sent someone to the shop to get us a bottle of water each. Sitting there with this family was probably one of the most amazing experiences that we have encountered for a very long time and we felt privileged to be spending time with this beautiful family. After living in Alice Springs and working closely with our Indigenous people on remote communities, I can not help but think how shit house our government is in giving so many handouts and how abused our system is. These people get absolutely no assistance at all and if they don't work they don't eat....simple. The conditions they live in are appalling and poor does not begin to describe their lives. But still they smile and would give you the shirt off their back. Our lazy dole bludging society, black or white, need to see how other countries governments treat them and maybe they might be a bit more grateful. Please do not be offended by what I am saying and if you are reading this then you should know me well enough to know I am not being racist at all, just realistic. Rant over.....So we spent about an hour there and then took them to lunch in Phuket Town at The Pizza Company.....somewhere they would never be able to afford to go to normally. The eldest son disappeared so he didn't get to come so it was just the 5 of us. The youngest one was so well behaved and quiet while we were out it was amazing. Both of them did not eat much as Sue said they were too excited. So many leftovers were taken home for Sue to have for dinner with the kids. We stopped off at a large wholesale supermarket on the way back to Sue's to get some things for her and then headed off to drop them home. After many hugs and more tears we said goodbye to this beautiful family and her pet pig.....lol. We spent the next few hours driving around looking at some lovely spots near the beach and went to a restaurant for a look that overlooks the ocean which was absolutely breathtaking. It was time to head home as we need to get ready to go out for dinner. Tamara came back to get us at 7pm and we amazingly found our way to a really cool restaurant in Phuket Town called "The Natural Restaurant" which is a bit hard to explain so just Google it and you will be able to read about it plus I put photos on Facebook last night. We had a beautiful meal which consisted mostly of seafood and met the owner who was really nice. We left there and headed into Patong as we wanted to take Tamara to a lady boy show. We were a bit early for the Kiss Bar so we went into one next door that was starting and ended up staying there for a couple of hours. Let's say that even though it was a male gay bar, Tamara was still very popular and had the attention of a few of the dancers although they are also prostitutes so it made for some amusing antics. Also see pics on Facebook :) It was after midnight and as we all had to be up early decided to call it a night. On our way out of the car park Tamara and the security guard had a bit of an argument about paying for the parking but it was only because he didn't understand what she was asking him but we did get a bit worried for a minute imagining getting arrested for not wanting to pay....lol. I got to have my first car driving experience in Thailand which wasn't half as scary as I thought it would be and in no time we were all home safe and sound. We are moving on in the morning so till the then....goodnight. Alvo xoxo