Star Trekkin across... some hills...

Bonjour!

Since we last met several important events have occurred. Firstly; our voyage to Chiang Rai where we slept soundly in our very first 'homestay' minglin' about with the locals and generally sticking out. Secondly; we bought a new bag. Thirdly; Ashley got to play around with some trad. Thai instruments (he now wants one of each.... Santa?). Fourthly (is that a word?); We set off on a 3 day trek, a mere 25km journey which we approached bustling with confidence and mocking the seemingly insignificant distance...

Well....

The trek was fantastic, it was spread across three days and we were lucky enough to visit three remote hillside villages and stay in varying degrees of accomodation (from; a bit chilly and uncomfortable to; a bit more chilly and less comfortable). The hiking itself required us to lug our, thinned down, 10kg bags (again.... HA! no worries) through jungle, woodland, up and over a number of big 'ills past some luscious scenery (including coffee plantations, kay 'the eternal barista' was in her element). Turns out that 25km of hills is tough going for two unfit city dwellers... however we made it and seem a little more prepared for the trekking potential of the big NZ.

We're still awaiting a suitable place to upload some images on the cheap to show that we aren't actually just sitting in an internet cafe in Blackpool....

We've got to go and pack up now, we're back in Bangkok after another delightfully cockroach ridden nighttrain and we're heading for Singapore in the early hours...

If anyone knows of any 'must-sees' in Singapore then please give us a shout as there is too much to do in too little time.... Christmas soon eh!

We'll write again before then,

loads of love
x x x

Water time

Word Up!

We are in Chiang Mai at the moment... um... we set off from Bangkok on Monday on a 'long-tailed' boat passing the floating markets, big fish and huge scary monitor lizards. We caught a few more impressively large religious things (our enthusiasm now starting to wane somewhat... temples, temples, shrines, temples, big Buddhas and temples). We headed on to Kanchanaburi and grabber a samlor (single seater bike style rickshaw) to a neat little guesthouse on the River Kwai. On tuesday we visited the cemeteries and a museum for those who gave their lives during the construction and subsequent demolition of the 'Death Railway'. We also took a stroll across the infamous bridge over the river which has been reconstructed. Later that day we visited the Erawan national park for a dip in there seven waterfall pools. This is a must for everyone although it takes a while to get used to the gangs (youths) of fish that start attacking you and trying to rid you of your skin (apparently only dead skin but I'm not sure.... you give an inch...). We also went canoeing along the river for 6km, Kay and I hopped in a double canoe. This is now Ashley's favourite persuit as we both make a crackin' team and flew past other canoe-ists in style... sort of.

At night we hit the night markets and witnessed a sound and light shows where they re-enacted the story of the bridge over the river and it's demolition by bombers (for this they used remote controlled planes with fireworks attached and the wizards behind the show went a bit pyro seemingly setting fire to parts of the bridge to convey the attack.

The next day we set off on a barge cruise down the river stopping off at a few more temples and heading out to a more peaceful Thailand. We stayed on the boat over night, sleeping outside isn't really a worry though as the temperature stuck at 18 degrees celcius anyway.... it's a hard life.

The next day and a few bus rides later we reached Ayutthaya from where we caught an overnight train up to Chiang Mai for a day off bamboo rafting, elephant riding, walking and more night marketing. That's about it from the last few days, it has been pretty hectic. Now we are going to go for a stroll into town as rumour has it there is a pub that sells strongbow... cider?! I can't wait.

Catch you in a bit. Love to everyone,

xxx

Thailand

So wat dii!

"Hot, Humid, Busy, Loud and... um... Hot" are just a few words that describe Bangkok. We had a few issues getting here due to the international airport being closed, but we managed to wrangle a route through an airbase which left us with a 200km bus ride into the city centre.

Banglamphu (our initial area of residence in Bangkok) is a bustling, touristy, student-esque place full of very cheap rooms, foods and stalls selling all kinds of wares. It's a great little festival spot for a day or two with bars and live music venues dotted all over the show. However; sooner or later you'll end up getting fed up with the mardy British 18-30 boys on tour who seem to spend the days drinking in bars and then the nights shouting at Thai women or taxi drivers.

In the immortal words of Deffee 'Get the Northerners out of here'.

Day 2 and we realised we had fortuitously stumbled across a national festival to celebrate the King's birthday and being the generous King he is we were treated to seeing local cuisine (deep fried cockroaches, massive crickets, grub things...), to see the King's parade which was stunning, to hear a million Thai patriots sings the national anthem whilst lighting candles in the local park and to witness a Thai fireworks spectacle... and boy it WAS spectacular. The evening soon segued into a massive concert with several stages ranging from old Thai crooners through to trance raves, here we were able to witness Thai teenagers dance, someone needs to step in and teach them some moves I feel. We also watched the Thai kickboxing final where I'm fairly sure some hardnut Thai kid kicked the life out of a British guy... anyways...

Yesterday we hopped on the ferry to asia's biggest market which was clearly too big, we didn't even make it out of the pet section, then on to Silom road for some temples and religious dancing things. Silom is also renound for its Patpong Sois where all manner of strange Thai business goes down. We have yet to explore that end of Thailand.... We spent the rest of the day with a day pass for the pretty smart skytrain, and got to grips with public transport and the sights and smells of Thailand.

As per usual my time is up at this internet cafe so we'll write again with more exciting adventures soon.

Lots of love to you all and I hope you're all on top of your Christmas shopping. 18 days to go?!...

xxx

Due North

Namaste!

Here's what we did for the last 12 days or so....

Saturday we spent the day in Delhi exploring the city centre and trying to avoid shoe shiners and ear cleaning street merchants, needless to say we both have very polished flipflops now. We started to get to know our tight little gang of fellow travellers, they are a great bunch hailing from all over the world and we could not have dreamnt of a more fun bunch to travel with.

At 10pm we hopped on an overnight train to Kathosomethingsomething. Overnight trains are fun if not a little hard to sleep in, 6 single beds are crammed into little seperate compartments 3 beds high. As a group we spent the hours really getting to know one another, Roy, if you ever read this, it was a pleasure to learn of your interest in stockings.... Our guide at this point took it upon himself to reveal that on his previous tour train trip the carriage he was in derailed and many of the occupants were rushed to hospital.... fun fun fun. Anyways we made it and spent Sunday driving through the hills towards Almora. The roads were like something out of a Bond film with sheer drops and blind corners taken at pace by our jeep. When we reached Almora we spent the day in this tiny town being stared at and taking in the stunning views of the Himalayas. We were only the second bunch of westerners to stumble into this town so it was interesting as we were photographed, followed and also invited to a wedding. This was an invite we could not refuse (free food innit) and our part in the wedding was commenced when the girls from our little gang were asked to dance before dinner, Kay rocked the place up with some reserved English dancing... we blended in. During our stay we visited a bunch more temples, markets and a weaving house. It is important to point out that at this point it had gotten very cold, and we had further north to travel.
From Almora we visited Jageswar, this place is home to an 8th century complex of temples which were quite stunning to visit, certianly one of the highlights so far. From here we travelled to Ranikhet, now this really may be one of the most stunning places you could stay. We had our own little wooden hut with views of the mountain ranges, this hidden little gem is miles away from any major cities and we were treated to our first clear night of stars out of the city smog (along with bonfire and beer). It is also important to add that although it was very darn chilly up in the hills we could warm ourselves up with a serious table tennis tournament, of course.

Wednesday - Corbett National Park safari.... bit lame, didn't see any tigers, did see other animals, elephants and deer mostly.

Thursday - We headed to the Ganges and got dropped off on a little secluded beach for a night of camping, beach football and more bonfires. This was the calm before the storm with an early start on Friday seeing us clamber into a raft and hit some amazingly fun class 3 rapids. White water rafting is now one of my favourite things, although I wasn't sure that Ash should have been placed at the front. Kay bravely took her camera (in it's waterproof case) for some photographs and handed the camera to Ash so she could have a little dip in the river, photos on route to you!

Great fun!

We arrived downriver into Rishikesh, hippy capital of the world. The place the Beatles stayed during there India days. We loved it. Drinking chai, sitting on cushions, Kay did some intense yoga, Ash stared at sitars. Fun fun fun.

On the saturday we visited Haridwar, a very holy city. It was busy, smelly and seemed to be aimed at making people feel uncomfortable. But still the images of shiva and vishnu were stunning and the fast flowing ganges run straight through the centre of the town where people descend steps to wash away there sins... luckily we are sin free as the river looks cold.

Finally we zoomed back to Delhi on a day train which was again more comfortable than I imagined, certainly more comfrotable that a long plane journey...

Anyways we are still trying to sort out our flights to Thailand, no one wants to give us any updates on the situation so we will, no doubt, report back when we know what's gwarning.

Big love
x x x x

A-OK

Hello there,

We're alive! Kay and I have been on a 12 day tour of Northern India which has been jampacked with adventures and excitement. Unlike Delhi, Agra, Jaipur... the North is a colder, less stressful and vastly (vastly vastly) more beautiful region of India. However to go into detail will take sometime and once again Kay and I are on the move so this is just a quick note to say that we are both doing well, far away from the attacks and that we miss you all. We will be heading to Thailand this week (as soon as we can confirm some flights) so once that has been settled (hopefully tomorrow) we will update you with where we are...!

Thinking of you all, loads of love

Ash'n'Kay