Australia Day 2006

There are certain things we miss about Australia. For Dennis, it's salt and vinegar chips and Coopers beer. Together usually. Andrea misses the dry heat. Australia Day 2006 was spent reflecting on our homeland far away whilst getting drunk in a bar, for what could be more Australian than getting drunk and obnoxious? Well, maybe patting a tiger would be pretty Australian. Not as Australian as wrestling the tiger, but patting one comes a close second. Maybe visiting the Bridge on the River Kwai would be pretty Australian. I reckon walking over it on Australia Day would rate pretty bloody highly on the Oz-Meter. So we did. And it was bonzer!

Bye Bye Paradise

What do you call a place where the object most likely to kill you is a coconut? Ko Phangan, Thailand is the answer. Although the coconuts are vicious, it's a small price to pay. Compared to Australia, there are very few creatures here that deliberately set out to extinguish human life. I will even go so far as to say that to die here, you'd have to be extremely unlucky, or stupid, or both. I hope that statement doesn't come back to bite me on the backside. This place is pretty cool. We head off today for an overnight bus trip back to Bangkok before exploring the mainland further. We will both really miss the sleepy days, the bath-warm water, the sun-drenched drowsiness that this place brings. If we don't leave now, we may never have the willpower to do it later... bye for now.

Ko Pha-Ngan

Pronounced "Kopanyan," this place rocks. We are currently situated in this tropical paradise in the Gulf of Thailand. This is our fourth day here and we are now officially certified SCUBA DIVERS!!! We have been busy. It took us three days and 4 open water dives (down to 18m)to become PADI certified Open Water Divers!!! This is the life. We have spent the last couple of days on a boat chilling out and learning how to dive. It's a truly amazing experience to see the world from the other side. It is like swimming in a tropical aquarium. The water is about 27 degrees and crystal clear - just like the postcards and tourist brochures. We dive in comfort as we don't have to constantly watch our backs for sharks and other nasty critters. We now plan just to relax on a golden beach for a day or two, and then we're heading north to Canchanaburi to pat some vegetarian Buddhist tigers (not a football team!) and see the River Kwai. Having tonnes of fun and don't want to leave this place. Others have come for a week and never left (our divemaster is one of the many examples), so we must leave before we are bewitched into staying for life.

Thailand

Well, we have survived the first part of our first week in a strange land, Thailand.
Welcome to Bangkok; dirty, smelly, and polluted. But apart from the poisonous atmosphere and that pesky case of the black lung, we find ourselves having a good old time.

So, from the beginning...

Thursday saw us endure an uneventful nine hour flight from Sydney to Bangkok, where we had to wait a nervous 40 minutes before Ron (Andrea's brother) turned up to pick us up. We walked out of the airport into a balmy 29 degree Bangkok winter night, where our lungs clogged up with the pollution, our noses twitched at the smoke and fumes and smog. Our taxi driver showed us the laws of the land - lanes and speed limits seem non existent. Tuc-tuc's, motorbikes, cars and buses speed along without a care in the world! It's pretty amazing that we have not yet seen any accidents in this chaos. Trying to cross the road on foot is almost Mission Impossible (should you choose to accept it).

Our first real day in Bangkok had us out seeing the sights. We caugt a public boat down the river and went to visit the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Awesome.... Gold encrusted temples, shrines as far as the eye could see, demons and monkeys, extravagance on a grand scale. Some think it's over the top, others think it is a fitting tribute to the former residence of the royal family and an Emerald Buddha centuries old.

Then we walked further along to Wat Pho, where the world's largest Reclining Buddha resides in a room which is just big enough to fit the big man in. He is a monster. He is 46m long and 15m high, covered in gold.

Nighttime was spent combing the markets of Khan Sao, the seedy tourist hub of Bangkok.

What a weekend was to come. We spent the whole weekend combing the Chatachuk markets - the biggest markets in the whole wide world. An awesome sight to see. Ornaments, clothes, shoes, food was crammed into every last nook and cranny. A shoppers delight.

Monday was spent scouring China Town and purchasing tickets for the next stop on our journey; an island off the east coast called Kho Pha-Ngan, where we plan to recover from Bangkok. The pace of life here is furious and amazing - a massive contrast to our quiet country bumpkin lives in Broken Hill. Apologies for being unable to post any photos at the minute. We have a technician trying to solve the problem. We hope this post finds you well,

Dennis and Andrea.

Happy New Year

Another one has come around (way too quickly for my liking!) and we are counting down to our date of departure. We hope that everyone has a magnificent 2006 full of laughs and lovin', and we'll see you all in 2007.