What a very special posting this is, KK. It tikked ALL the right boxes for me. There was a bit of everything--street scenes, sites of interest, airport scenes and of course the food in all of it's variety and presentations. There seemed to be a thought-out method in your presentation--a sort of logical development reflecting how your vacation went. Boy, oh boy...you really had some very nice food there. The dishes were good and the presentation on the plates were also quite nice. I liked the market and river scenes, they gave me a feeling that I was right there with you.The wood carving, elephants and crocs were fun to see as well. The temples and regular street scenes were also interesting to see. ---All those wires above ground. I have seen that in many countries and am so amazed that they have not yet begun to place those wires underground where they would be protected from hurricanes and so forth. I think that the cities would look more attractive as well. I have seen some wiring situations that look co complicated that it difficult to see what is old and what is new and what still works and what doesn't. I can recall when travelling in India once I was staying in a guest house that looked down on the roofs of dwellings and I noticed all the wires and all the monkeys cavorting around on the roofs, power poles, laundry lines and water barrels. One day those monkeys were so frivolous that one of them made a miscalculated spring and got caught-up in the wires and was electrocuted with enormous display of sparks, smoke and lines that went orange and melted, spewing more sparks until that section of town went dark. What a show. Anyway mate--this is a wonderful posting and I, for one really appreciate you taking the time to put it all together and posting it. You obviously had a lot of fun there....do you have plans for next years' vacation?
Glad you enjoyed the trip to Bangkok with me Sojerd. That poor monkey, I think those wires hanging around in Bangkok are safer because they are all insulated to ensure such incident would not happened. Next year? Yes plans for next year vacation is confirmed and tickets are already bought :-D We are heading to New Zealand and Australia for a month long vacation in March/April.
Boy, oh boy...I sure did the trip with you and your family. It was especially enjoyable for me on several different levels. It was an absolute visual pleasure. Yeah, the poor monkey...Some of the wires in India are obviously bare, but I think that some are insulated as well; however, I don't doubt that the insulation does wear thin here and there. Wow--next year to Oz and Kiwi-land. That is an excellent choice. I have spent quite a bit of time in those two countries myself and I was very pleased with the visit. I almost skipped over those two countries once because I thought that they would be too ordinary". Ordinary in the sense of being too "western". Coming from a western culture I thought that everything win the two countries would be nothing new for me. In the end my travel partner and I were sitting in a losmen in Indonesia and deciding what country to visit next. In the end, neither one of us had been to Oz or New Zeeland before and we thought..."Ach, we are in the area, maybe we ought to take a look". We discovered that one could not just arrive at the airport and gain entry to Australia....noooooo, one had to first visit the Australian embassy and have an interview with a worker and then write (on the spot) as paragraph of why we wanted to visit Australia and how long we would like to visit. We did this and were accepted on the premise that we did not seek work. We agreed. It was a pity, because working there for a couple of weeks here and a couple of weeks there would have added to the cultural experience. I could think of a few things that would have been very interesting to me. Oh well, I gave my word that I would not work and I stuck to it. Well, what I am getting to is this: I said that I was luke-warm about visiting these two countries in the beginning, but KK--let me tell you in no uncertain terms that I so thoroughly enjoyed my time there and saw such natural beauty, plants and animals that I had never before seen that it became one of the absolute highlight of that trip that I was on then. Australia and New Zeeland are quite different in terms of just about everything, in my experience--the animals, the people, the climate and ....just the "feel" of being in the two countries. When I arrived in Australia, I arrived in Darwin and after about three days I immediately looked for an auto. I bought a VW camper and travelled throughout Australia for a period of six months. I travelled 26.000 Km . I met some of the most wonderful folks on that trip and sold my camper in Sydney at a special place where one can buy or sell autos. It is especially for tourists. Had I landed in Sydney, I would have bought one there. New Zeeland was quite different--not as "wild", so to speak. I did mostly a lot of hiking and visiting of the various sites that one could see. I took advantage of the "Magic Bus" system there and it gave me an enormous amount of freedom to travel both islands, getting off and staying as long as I liked then calling them up and getting back on the bus and continuing the journey. The bus stopped by "sights of interest" along the way, and of course "ice cream stop". Hahaha. I like those. So then KK-- I hope that you can realize your plans to visit these two countries, I cannot imagine that you would be disappointed. It is a pity that you cannot go away for longer than one month. One month for both countries seems to me to be waaaaaay too short a time. hahaha. Good luck mate.
Sojerd thanks for sharing your experience about going “down under and younder” We are really looking forward to this trip somewhere cool unlike the always very hot weather here. I hope I can get to see and play in some snow too. We had been to Perth, Australia before with a tour group and it is rather unsatisfactorily. The time is really short and our meals were all miserable tasteless Malaysian Chinese food ….yucks!!! and double yucks!!! Guess we got rip off by the tour company which is no longer in exsistence. This trip is going to be on our own and I believe it is going to be enjoyable. We are going to meet up with some of our very long time friends over there. Visa application is very much simple now and it can be done online. We just received our visas through e-mail and no need to write a story . Yes I do agree that being able to work and travel around would be great. Nice to know that you and your partner had a wonderful time in both country. Yes I wish I could spend at least 6 months in Australia and 3 months in New Zealand ……. anyway I’m going to make sure that our visit this time is going to be great even though it is short.
