Bangkok, Thailand!

Incredible! I would show you lots of pictures, but our camera dissapeared from Mike's bag earlier in the week...a tragic occurance since we still hadn't quite uploaded all the pictures from New Zealand. Also, the pictures from our first few days were insane...so that's sad. But we'll do our best to make up for it from here on out.

We arrived late at night Friday and managed, with the aide of the Lonely Planet Southeast Asia and a smidgeon of luck, to find a hotel without a big to-do. We're staying on Khao San Road, a popular place for backpackers...because it's cheap and bustling at all hours. We are staying at a hotel for $350 Baht a night, which equals about $5.00 a person...not too shabby. It even has air con and a "shower", which the first day consisted of squatting under a dripping faucet.

Our first day here was Saturday so we caught a train up to Chatuchak Market, a weekend market with around 15, 000 stalls and 200,000 people a day. It was a pretty good introduction to Thai culture and people. Oh, the pictures we took! Just to give you an idea, everything from the typical clothes, shoes, household items, and handcrafted goods, to rabbits in dresses, a cock fighting ring, hedgehogs, and lots and lots of delicious smelling, if unidentifiable, foods are available to buy. We ended up buying a few things here and there and experimenting with bargaining...an apparent fact of life here. The market was a sensory overload; the smells of grilled and fried meats, fresh fruits, insense, and stir fried vegetables; the heat of tiny halls packed arm to arm with people; the sites...the colors! I've never seen such a colorful place. The taxis and tuk tuks (little motorized carts) are all kinds of pinks, purples, oranges, yellows, greens, and blues. After the market, we came back into town to try and get tickets for a Thai boxing match, which would have been incredible, but was a little too expensive since they jack up prices about 5 times for tourists. Instead we walked to a nearby night market and watched a Thai pop band under a huge beer garden tent and ate a delicious 3 course meal for about $3 each from the stands nearby.

The second day we woke up early to try and see some of the Wat, or temples, before the hourds of tour buses got there. Wat Pho and Wat Phra Kaew were two of the temples we saw, one on the grounds of the Grand Palace so pretty impressive.

The 43 meter long and 15 meter high reclining Buddha statue is the main draw of Wat Pho. The other buildings looked beautiful but were under a ton of construction so we couldn't get the full picture of those.

The view from the feet of the reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. The detailed designs along the feet are 120 mother of pearl images depicting the 120 different characteristics of a Buddha.

Wat Phra Kaew, on the grounds of the Royal Palace, is also known as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, because it houses the much revered jade Buddha statue.

Chedi, or bell shaped monuments that typically were used to house remains or relics of a king, are all over the place in the many Wats of Thailand.

The enterance to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

The Emerald Buddha. The king dresses the Emerald Buddha in one of three different outfits according to the season.

We spent the other days buying a new camera, exploring the endless day and night markets (no pics...booo), dabbling in the Bangkok public transportation system, wandering through neighborhoods, eating amazing food off the streets, and trying to make ourselves understood with a mix of bastardized Thai and pidgin English. It's been amazing, but we're anxious to get out of the big city and head north to the mountains! We'll be back in Bangkok before we go, so expect more pictures later. For now, to the north we go!

Last days in New Zealand

The last few weeks have been a blur of trying to find closure for our New Zealand adventure and prepararing for our next adventure in SE Asia. After three weeks of apple packing we drove down to Christchurch to drop Mike off at the airport; he is currently playing in the Australian National Ultimate Championships in Melbourne, Australia! I leave in two days to join him in the Sydney airport, before promptly heading off to Bangkok, Thailand! There's still so much to do here that we didn't have the time or money for, but that gives us a good excuse to come back some day!



Ashley, Mike, and I on payday!! The New Zealand 100 dollar bill is an especially colorful fusia color...a beautiful contrast to my peach skin if you ask me. We celebrated that night with falafels from our favorite kebab place in Motueka.







Feeling lonely without our constant companion, Ashley and I decided to hit the track one more time before I leave this dear land. We went to Arthur's Pass National Park to hike the Avalanche Peak track, a popular one day tramp up to the ???m Avalanche Peak. We decided to make an adventure out of it however, and extend the trip a bit since we weren't ready to stop hiking. "Experienced" trampers with "orienteering abilities and general badassness" can continue down the backside of the mountain on an unmarked route to a backcountry hut in a remote valley. We figured we were experienced and badass enough...

First we climbed the relentless uphill 3 hour track to the top of Avalanche Peak. At first it was shrouded in clouds and we were afraid we wouldn't be able to continue on down the backside of the peak. Since the trail off the back is unmarked, you need to be able to see landforms for orientation purposes... you'd have to be a crazy person to do it in low visibility.

We waited out the clouds and started on our unmarked adventure. It turns out that in some places, there is a visible trail from the footsteps of previous trampers even though the route isn't marked with arrows or signposts.

The main reason this track is so dangerous is that you have to find the right way down, and there is only one. All the other ways end in sheer cliffs. So we hiked until we found the right pile of scree (pile of rocks on side of a mountain from rockfalls, glaciers, etc.). The only way to get down is to slide/ski down almost a kilometer of rocks. It was insane. Every step you take you cause a mini avalanche in the near vicinity. That's me in the bottom middle...Ashley had to wait to go down so that she didn't cause an avalanche of rocks to fall on me. It was the most ankle breaking and unstable hiking I've ever done. It was only a short hike down a dry riverbed to Crow Hut, our five star resort for the night.

We woke up early to take a side trip to the terminal morraine of Crow Glacier. It's a hanging glacier, so it's way up the mountain, but we didn't want to get too close anyway, so we just hiked to the morraine. That's Crow Glacier in the top right corner.

There was a mini glacier at the bottom of the Crow Glacier...I had to touch it.

We went back to the hut for lunch before heading out through the Whangakiriri Valley and back to a main road to hitch a ride back to the nearest town to our patiently awaiting car, Fanny.

Next we headed towards to Akoroa, a little French settled town on the Banks Penninsula. The backdrop is set admist huge rolling hills dotted with sheep and narrow inlets from the bay. We stayed at a sheep farm/hostel up in the hills...Okuru Farm Hostel...incredible! This was the view from the porch at sunset.

Today, April 25th, is ANZAC Day, a very important holiday in Australia/New Zealand commemorating the Battle of Gillipolie and other ANZ fought battles in the World Wars. To celebrate, we stopped at a Pumpkin Festival in a little town on the way back to Christchurch. I almost entered my butt into the widest pumpkin competition. =)

We spent the afternoon in Christchurch getting things organized and doing some much needed interneting. ChCh is a great city to walk around in, and this is a piece of art hanging in one of the courtyards in the Art Centre.

We're staying with our friend Spencer again so Ashley, Spencer, and I get to spend some QT together before the group breaks up for good and everyone goes their seperate directions. I can't wait to meet up with Mike in Oz to continue our adventures together, and I wish Ashley the best on her future travels in this enchanted land.

Blocks of Ice, Beer, Beaches, and Billions of Apples

The last two weeks have been a blur of all of the above. First we hit the west coast glaciers of the south island, moved along to tour our favorite beer factory (Monteith's), hiked along the beach heavy Able Tasman National Park Coast Track, and worked in an apple orchard to make some money to fund any further explorations. Here's the lowdown in easy to follow picture format.

Fox Glacier from further away. Ashley took a tour and got to walk/climb/explore around on top of the glacier.

















Fox Glacier again, but up close. It's absolutely huge...I am really far away.












The rain started and we continued north to Greymouth, an industrial city and second biggest city on the south island. We stayed nice and dry by touring the Monteith's Brewery, an independent NZ brewery that makes excellent beer...our favorite here so far!








Pounakaiki, or "Pancake Rocks". They haven't quite figured out exactly what caused the rocks to form in this way, but it looks like huge stacks of pancakes...really cool up close.










Caitlin, Ashley's friend and first official non ultimate billet (place to stay)! She lives in a quaint little cottage in the hills north of Motueka (Marahau), right along the coast and sandwiched by hills.









Caitlin's place was a very short walk to the beach. At low tide, you can dig around with your feet anywhere along the beach and find cockles, golf ball sized bivalvｅｓ (like clams or oysters). We collected a few and cooked them up one night to try some of the local fare.








Sunset on the beach at Marahau after collecting some cockles.

















In the interest of life experience, the steady deterioration of savings accounts, and the feelings of general uselessness and boredom that spring from not working for close to 6 months, we decided to get jobs. It's apple season in NZ and Motueka is known for their apples. If you are buying Braeburn, Gala, or Eve apples from a tray that says, Mr. Apple, there's a small but realistic chance that I or Ashley have intensely studied, quickly rotated, and gently boxed your apple or that Mike has loaded your apple onto a loading crate to be delivered to your local market. Crazy, eh?

Our pad, or bach (pronounced batch), as kiwis call it. We are living on the apple orchard while we work in the packing house. It's a pretty sweet place to live, although it constantly smells like rotting apples or cider.









Mike, being a manly man, is a "stacker" instead of a "packer" and spends all day lifting hundreds of boxes at the pack house.











Ashley and I, being non manly-men, work as "packers".

















We got the weekend (Friday and Monday!) off for Easter so decided to take advantage of it and drove north to Able Tasman National Park, right at the northern tip of the south island to hike the AT Coastal Track (the most popular tramp in the country). It was the perfect tramp: relaxing, easy, and beautiful. We saw heaps of hidden beaches and coves, seals galore (even babies!), sunsets and sunrises, etc.

Ashley and Mike on the Able Tasman NP Coastal Walk Track.












Snuggling on the trail.













Due to being a track along the coast and all, the way you hike is highly dependent on the tides. You must carefully plan exactly when you will arrive at a given tidal crossing since you only have two hours either side of low tide to cross certain sections of the trail. One morning we had to wake up at the crack of dawn to cross an estuary at low tide. This normally would be full of water.
Interesting fact: This part of NZ has some of the most drastic tidal changes in the world...ranging from 4 meters, up to 6 meters difference between high and low tide. That's why you can't mess around on this trail.

We got to see a wicked sunrise as a present for getting up early.












We will continue to pack and stack for the next few weeks, until Mike leaves for Australian Nationals and I join him a week later to continue our adventure in more exotic locals...we start in Bangkok, Thailand.