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After arrivivg safe and well at home, and havivg a good night sleep to fix the lag, I here briefly summarize my happenings of the last two weeks, and let you wait for the publication of the pictures in stead of posting them now.

The massage course (10-14/11) went well, and it turned out to be a nice way to pass the time in Chiang Mai while the Loy Krathong festival was going on. We made our own Krathong during lunch breaks in the course, and went together to the river to float it at night time. In the evenings when I did not go to see the parades, I allowed myself to dine in nice restaurants, and have an easy time before embarking in shopping strolls around the city's night bazaars. In my last day in Chiang Mai (15/11), after the course was finished, I spent the day only strolling around the old part.

On the way to Bangkok by train, I broke the journey in Phitsanulok (16/11), where I went to the Buddha foundry, and then proceeded to make a day trip (17/11) back to the ruins of Sukhothai, to complete the visit in the Historical Park. In Phitsanulok I observed the outdoor activities in a typical Thai city in the evening, while killing time before the departure of my sleeper car in the train to Bangkok.

In Bangkok (18-21/11) I joined the organized group tour with my parents, and left them to continnue to the north, while I stayed one night in the middle of Thanon Khao San, the biggest travellers ghetto I have ever seen; bigger than the one in the old part of Chiang Mai, that is. On the last day in Bangkok (22/11), I went to the Pantip Plaza shopping arcade, where, unlike MBK's one floor for electronics, the whole arcade is dedicated to electronics, mainly computer hardware, but not limited to. I did my last shopping, and resigned to my room, only to get up the next morning (23/11), have a shower, a breakfast, and head to the airport, where I had 4 hours before the flight, which went just fine.

First week summary

Today I took the 6 hours bus ride from Mae Sot and arrived in Chiang Mai at noon. Yesterday I took a little bit of relaxing and planning time, and decided to book a 5 days Traditional Thai Massage course in Chiang Mai, because I felt sick of traveling in crowded songtows through mountain curves and bumpy roads. A quick summary of my happenings alone in Thailand thus far follows.

My first day alone in Bangkok (2/11) was dedicated for shopping. My list of things to buy still had items in it when I finished, but I felt sufficiently stocked and ready to move on. Then I started to look for a nice place to eat and talk on the phone, but had no luck with the buses and with finding the tourist information office, and I also ran out of money without paying attention. So, by the time I came back to the hotel to pick up my luggage, I was desperate to leave the city and begin with my actual trip.

I ended up heading north to Lop Buri, town of monkeys and old ruins. I spent the night there, and in the morning of the following day (3/11) I went to wander in the town. See if you can find me in the picture (I will not tell you which one). I really enjoyed the ride on the commuter train, even though I bought a ticket for standing in a 3rd class car, and had to change places twice on the journey. The thing that made the most immediate impression on me was the warmth and the people's will to help. Thais are simply nice and helpful people!

Still on the same day, I boarded a train out from Lop Buri to the town of Phitsanulok, this time on a 2nd class car, with an assigned seat and lunch included, which I did not know of in advance. My original plans of staying in the town and visiting its little museums were altered when I met two couples from Spain and Italy and decided to join them, heading on to Sukhothai. We stayed together in a guest house in the new city, and on the next day (4/11) I went by myself to the old city, where I wandered on rented a bicycle between the old ruins.

I stayed for the night in the old city, and the next day (5/11) found me on the bus to Tak and on with the minibus (crowded van, actually) to Mae Sot. There is practically nothing to see in Mae Sot as a tourist, only a border town with Westerners who are here on NGO missions, but it is here, in Dave the Canadian's restaurant, where I met my first ravel buddies, a couple from Poland.

With my new travel buddies, I set off in the morning (6/11) on the 5 hours songtow ride to Umphang. As you can see in the picture, a songtow is a converted pickup truck with two benches in the back and a platform for luggage on the roof, on which people are often seated also. The road to Umphang is very scenic, and the views are dramatic, with the green country below, the clouds touching the mountains above, and the occasional Karen village with its wooden huts.

In Umphang we were joined by a couple from Greek and Turkey, and tailored ourselves a trek to Ti Lor Su waterfalls. The standard programme of all the trek organizers in Umphang includes elephant riding, camping overnight near the falls, visiting a remote Karen village, and staying overnight in their homes, in addition to what we did in our trek, which was riding in the trunk of a pickup truck, going to the falls, trekking in the jungle, and rafting down the river. The ride (7/11) in the trunk was bone rattling, as it went through rough terrain and muddy paths. In the falls themselves, we climbed barefoot right to the base of one of the bigger falls, where the water hits you like hail on the back. The trek in the jungle was 3 hours of climbing and then descending up and down muddy paths, occasionally sinking ankle deep in it. The Thai slang word for this mud is as same as for shit, no kidding. Then the rafting was a relaxing time after the trek, before riding in the trunk again.

We had to stay one more night in Umphang, and then took the first songtow in the morning back to Mae Sot, where we arrived yesterday (8/11) and said our goodbyes.

8 Oct Melbourne

Today we took an afternoon/evening trip to see the Penguin Parade & Australian Wildlife. The trip started out with a visit to a working farm that has Emus and Kangaroos you can feed and touch and Wombats that that come with a warning that they may bite.

Here is a shot of me feeding an Emu part of a muffin, one thing to keep in mind is that they are very fast, and have long necks. These mean that they are more than capable of reaching over the fence to take the bread out of your hand before you even realize they are there.


Here is the warning and a photo of a Wombat.

Further along Amir got comfortable with one of the kangaroos (one of our tour mates has titled this shot should be called “brothers”).

Also, Arbel was able to get one of the more shy kangaroos to take food from him.

Afterward we were taken to a Koala sanctuary on Phillips Island that was set up by the same trust that manages the Little Penguin sanctuary on the island. Here we were able to walk up a raised walkway that allowed us to get to Koala height in the Eucalyptus trees.

In one case there was a mother and child in a tree that was less than a meter from the walk way (the rangers had roped off the end so that we could not get too close, but we were still very close). Sorry I could not get a clear shot of them so here is the sign that was next to them.

Then we went to the Little Penguin sanctuary.Unfortunately, at the Little Penguin sanctuary there is no photography allowed as the penguins are very skittish and can easily be scared back in to the water.

As we sat waiting for them, we had to wait until the sky had darkened enough for them to feel safe. Then we were lucky enough to see one swimming just where the waves broke. It walked up onto the beach a little, seemed to find itself alone and went back into the water where it waited for several others to join it. Then as a group of about 7 they started up the beach to their burrows. Each time they would start up, they would look around and if any of them got frightened and went back into the water then they all followed. Eventually this group made it off of the sand into the grass with another group following close behind. Once in the grass they would move up little paths to where ever their particular burrow was located. In some cases there was already a female and chick waiting for them in the burrow, where they had hidden all day. As it as very cold, we waited to see several groups cross the beach and then we split up as we went back to the visitors Center. Along the way we walked on boardwalks over the penguin’s path and along side them as some of them walked quite far from the beach. In fact the car park has a warning sign:

Here is a photo I took in the visitor center of penguins so you can see what they look like.

The Little Penguin is the smallest species of penguin being about 43 cm (16 in) tall.

Filling in the missing days

Although I am a bit behind in posting these entries, I have been asked to post each day separately and to not waste time on all the meals we had (some great others only ok) and the mundane details of our travels, but rater to go over the fun and interesting parts with comments that are useful for future travelers.

So as I start in each city I will give a little overall impression of the time we spent there and the first entry about what we did.

It should be noted that we took several “day tours” with Gray Lines while in Australia (2-3 per city), in most cases (Little Penguins being the exception) the definition of day tour was a little exaggerated as these trips often required 200 – 500 KM (125 – 310 miles) travel each way. Thus we would drive for 1 – 3 hours with a break just to get to a site and then get up to an hour at the site to see it before driving back.

Melbourne – Impressions.

Unlike many other cities I have visited, Melbourne is a city that was predominately designed and planned. This means that, although some of the original roads had to be incorporated in the design (mostly diagonally to the rest) the city is set in a nice and easy to understand grid. Overall Melbourne is a very nice small city, with one end very much a University town and the other end a commercial district. The Queen Victoria Market was a lot of fun, and the tours that we took were wonderful (even if they were a bit colder than we anticipated).

7 October Melbourne

Today, while Ramit worked the rest of us went out to see the city. First, I left Marva and Amir at the Queen Victoria Market while I took Arbel to visit the Games Workshop store where I left him for a few hours of reading and learning. Then I went back to join Marva and Amir. Here is Marva with the various stuffed animals that were available at the market.

When the market closed, we went to pick up Arbel and to look around the mall where the store is located. The store is located in the Melbourne Central (the train station is on the lowest level of the mall. This mall was built around the old shot tower, yes this is where they used to make the shot used in the guns by dropping molten lead from a height of 50 meters into a trough of water and then sorting the round ones from those that were deformed. The mall was built around the building with a conical glass roof over the building.

In the evening we all went to have dinner at the college where they were having High Table, if you know the Harry Potter films it is sort of like that. All the students are at regular tables wearing robes while the faculty (and senior level guests) are sitting at the long table (usually on a raised platform - which is why it is called high).

Ramit and I got to sit at the high table while the rest of the group sat with students. Here we are all in our (loaned) robes after dinner.

Just saying Hi from Thailand

I hope to be able to update here more often than not. Right now I am not in the mood for writing a complete post, so accept the photo in stead. (Okay, you ask who all these nice girls are.. Well, their English Report assignment from school was, apparently, to approach tourists and ask them questions, and then take a picture.)

Melbourne and Sydney

This entry is being written in Sydney airport, while we wait for the flight to Perth.

We spent the last 3 weeks in Austrlia's 2 largest cities - a week in Melbourne and 2 in Sydney.
I must admit I have enjoyed these weeks much less than expected. First, we had VERY cold, and very often rainy weather, during most of our time in Melbourne and more than half of our time in Sydney. Nothing like the warm weather that they had here in the weeks previous to our trip (we have followed the weather forecasts here to know what to pack). The days in which we had scehduled organized tours were - obviously - the worst weather-wise. In spite of the cold, the two trips we took from Melbourne - the "Penguin Parade" and the Great Ocean Road tour - were worth it, because in the first one we got to see a lot of local wildlife (overfed kangaroos, sleeping koalas, and penguins that can't decide when to get out of the water) and in the second one the landscapes were beautiful. I can't say the same about the trips we took from Sydney - the blue mountains were not blue, but covered with mist, and we got rained on in the very short time alotted for the visit there, and the trip to the Hunter valley was also much less interesting (for me) than expected. One problem with all these tours is that you spend hours on the bus (and when it rains, there is almost nothing to see) and the breaks for actual sight-seeing are always very short - an hour at most, except in the Hunter valley gardens, where they give you 3 hours which is much more than the gardens really merit.

Oh well, never mind the tours. I am a city girl anyway and more interested in whet the cities have to offer. Cousin Michael is probably right in saying that Sydney may be more dramatic in its views but Melbourn is more livable. It is indeed a very pleasant city, also for visitors. There is a free hop-on-hop-off tourist tram and a free shuttle bus circling the city, in which you can listen to information as you go along and easily get to the most interesting museums and sights, as the city's historical, cutural and commercial center is very compact. One more thing that was partcularly pleasant is the fact that we stayed in the University College, in which the staff were very hospitable and helpful. Meals were included, and we got to participate in the High Table Dinner (see our photo in the college robes). Eric and I sat at high table and the kids sat with the students - and saw that, in contrast to what they may have been led to expect from Terry Prachett's books on Unseen University, the professors do NOT hold food fights during these dinners.

Sydney, on the other hand, was a lot less interesting and lively than we expected, people were a lot less friendly, and the service in various facilities was not half as good as you would expect from a developed country. In spite of all that, we did manage to see all that we were interested in, until I at least got tired of sight-seeing and by now feel ready to go back. The best times for me were those spent with relatives and collagues - and this after all was one of the main reasons to take this tour.

This is almost the end of the vacation part for me - as next week I will be participating in a conference in Perth, while the family keeps touring. So I shall leave it to them to describe the rest of the tour.

A bit more on Bangkok

In spite of what some people said to us before the trip, I found Bangkok to be clean (at least where we stayed and toured) and very pleasant. People are nice, polite and helpful, and the market was charming. I enjoyed very much this first taste of Bangkok and will definitely want to return and explore it more.