October 23, 2005
Rotorua
Auckland, Rotorua, Queenstown, Wanaka, Bay of Islands, North Island, South Island, snowboarding, mountain biking, swimming, walking, talking, rain, sun, wind, snow, parties, barbeques, beer, wine, cars, planes and a bit of everything else. Well it’s been a while, what’s the excuse? Well you know how it is - we’re still in Auckland working, living and generally enjoying New Zealand. The months just seem to be flying past. We’ve been away 10 months now.
Posted by jon jack at 10:58 PM | Comments (5)
July 25, 2005
Whitianga and the Coromandel
If rugby is the national sport of New Zealand, then tailgating and crazy driving are up there in second place. We took a trip out of the city last weekend and, after a white knuckle drive on the country roads of New Zealand we got to the Coromandel Peninsula. Coromandel sits on the Pacific Coast a couple of hours’ drive from Auckland.
Posted by jon jack at 12:16 PM | Comments (2)
June 24, 2005
Birthday White Russians
Birthday was cool, with added bonus that I could stretch it out for 36 hours because of the time difference at home. “But it’s still my birthday” - you know how it goes. Abby and I went out for a meal at a Brazilian restaurant called Wildfire. Very meat-based; not so great for the vegetarians but it’s great. Basically you sit there while waiters come round with skewers loaded with different barbequed chunks of meat.
Posted by jon jack at 07:26 AM | Comments (4)
June 21, 2005
Day 10 in the Big Brother house
Someone stole my f**kin biscuits. Ahhh - the joys of shared accommodation. We’ve been living in Auckland for over a month and things are going good. The area we live in is cool - loads of trendy bars.
Posted by jon jack at 11:02 AM | Comments (3)
June 02, 2005
Arriving in Auckland
So, as you may be aware we’re kind of running a bit behind on the old weblog. Our last update was the 15th of May. The hustle and bustle of finding a job/flat/furniture has taken over a bit. When you rent a room in Auckland it comes unfurnished, so we’ve had the pleasure of tracking down beds etc… New Zealand is cool; it’s been raining like crazy though. ‘Four seasons in one day’, hmmmmm - sounds like somewhere else I know.
Posted by jon jack at 03:40 AM | Comments (4)
May 15, 2005
The Blue Mountains
As we’ve said before, sometimes places you’ve been looking forward to seeing fail to live up to your expectations, either because they’re really not all that good or just because you’re over-excited about it.
Posted by jon jack at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2005
The smell of Sydney
“Can you smell that?” “Smell what?” “Exactly.” The first thing we noticed getting off the plane in Australia was the smell, or lack of. Everywhere in South East Asia your senses are assaulted by scents of all kind. But nothing more so than the smell of the streets. It’s very odd to be somewhere very westernised, and sanitized.
Posted by jon jack at 11:06 PM | Comments (1)
May 10, 2005
Disco taxi, Bangkok
“There's been a load of compromisin'
On the road to my horizon
But I'm gonna be where the lights are shinin' on me
…doo doo do do doo do”
Posted by jon jack at 10:25 PM | Comments (2)
May 09, 2005
Southern Thailand and Ko Samui
So it’s all been a bit of a blur since Frank arrived, lots of playing pool and lots of drinking beer and cocktails. Three points for guessing what cocktails I’ve been having - so predictable I know. It’s pretty touristy down here, but the scenery is great. We have dinner sitting on the beach each night; you pick your food from the iced tray of seafood then it goes on the barbeque.
Posted by jon jack at 09:59 AM | Comments (3)
April 29, 2005
Cambodia and the Temples of Angkor
Temple then another temple then another temple then another temple and finish with another temple. We were staying in Siam Reap; this town seems to be booming from the close proximity to the Angkor temple area. This boom in tourism inevitably brings a lot of poor people flocking to the city to try and cash in. The evidence of Cambodia’s chaotic past is clearly on show, every street corner has landmine victims, young and old.
Posted by jon jack at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)
April 24, 2005
Sapa
An optimist might believe that Sapa is the place to come to wander amongst terraced rice paddies and happen upon a remote hill tribe or two. The reality is slightly different. Although the scenery is absolutely stunning, the ‘remote hill tribes’ are now found outside all the tourist hotels, clamouring to sell you silver jewellery and cushion covers.
Posted by jon jack at 04:29 AM | Comments (2)
April 22, 2005
Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island
Do you remember the Moomins? Halong Bay looks like the place they went to where the freaky wee hippo things sailed around in the funny wee boats. Remember? All those pointy blue islands?
We went to Halong Bay for a few days and took a boat to Cat Ba Island. There are over three thousand islands in the Bay
More...Posted by jon jack at 04:25 AM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2005
Hanoi
There are approximately four million motorcycles in Hanoi. We had a one hour flight from Laos to Vietnam, much better than a twenty-five-hour bus trip we calculated. Hanoi makes Bangkok seem chilled out and slow paced. Everything moves at a hundred miles an hour. Trying to cross the street is crazy - you just have to step out, walk slowly and somehow you get to the other side unscathed as the traffic zips past in all directions. We spent the first night in the historic ‘Old Quarter’ and it’s enough just to stroll the narrow streets to get a good feel for the city. The buildings all seem to be piled on top of each other with no sense of town planning at all.
Posted by jon jack at 01:26 PM | Comments (1)
April 14, 2005
Kayaking to Vientiane
We kayaked to Vientiane from Vang Vieng. We had the option of a three hour bus trip or to kayak part of the way and drive the rest. It still amounted to three hours on the bumpy roads though. The kayaking was good. This is probably the most dangerous trip I’ve done so far. Not really because of what we were doing, but in terms of the instruction. This consisted of five minutes of ‘this is how you hold a paddle, make sure you have your life jacket on’ and the guide waving his arms about in a paddling motion and that was about it.
Posted by jon jack at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)
April 11, 2005
Vang Vieng
Vang Vieng, the tubing capital of the world. We got here after a five hour bus trip from Luang Prabang on the infamous Route 13 road. ‘In February 2003 an attack on a bus near Vang Vieng killed 13 people including two western cyclists. Two months later, another bus was attacked, killing 12 and injuring 31, confirming fears that government assurances over the security of the road were badly misplaced.’ (Lonely planet, South East on a shoestring, 2004). Thankfully nothing happened to us, your risk is significantly lower if you don’t use government buses and stick to private cars or tourist minivans. We did see four separate groups of armed men on the road, not one of them looked very official.
Posted by jon jack at 01:17 PM | Comments (0)
