Dion & Marcia's travel blog

Leaving Dublin and coming home

2010-03-18T15:01:00.000+02:00

It's lovely to get away but it's always so nice to get back home.

Usually the moment I start to pack my mind goes into home mode.

This time I was well aware that I'd literally arrive back in Johannesburg, have about an hour (enough time for a decent cup of tea) at home and then literally have to leave to go to a team workshop, away from home for another two days when all I wanted to do was veg.

Anyway, such is life when you want to save R2 000 per ticket.

This time we were packed and ready to leave for the airport early so that we wouldn't have a repeat of last year and another missed flight!

Quite honestly I don't think I would have coped with any drama being 23 weeks pregnant!

So we left early and made it in good time to check in leisurely and still have a good chat to Craig and Jo before boarding.

As usual, the Dublin-Abu Dhabi leg of the trip was just awful. Packed with screaming, misbehaving kids, no stretching, food not great, etc.

There was ONE great moment.

A little girl a couple of rows in front of us asked her mother for food.
The mother pointed to the food cart waaayyyyy in front of us and said something
like they are serving the food, they'll get to us eventually.

She then says loud enough for our entire section to hear.

BUT I'M STARVING NOW!

I sooo got that girl :)

Our flight from Abu Dhabi to Johannesburg was delayed so in typical D&M fashion, we were taking our own sweet time at the airport when Dion had an urge to go look at the boards.

Sure enough, suddenly our "delayed" flight says "now boarding".

Do you know what we looked like "running" through the airport? "Running" as only a pregnant woman can.

We were the last ones but the stewardesses said they would have waited for us. Hmmm.

Fortunately the aircraft was empty again so could stretch out and sleep.... BLISS.

Landing on South African soil is always bittersweet - sad that another holiday is over but very, very happy to be home amongst our very friendly people.

Visit to Steve, Portia and gorgeous Kai

2010-03-16T12:52:00.000+02:00

Sunday 3 May 2009

Craig and Dion were up at the crack of dawn (6.30 and 7:00) and spent some good quality boy time chatting .

I then woke and joined the boy chat.

It was raining so lovely to laze around in pajamas, having tea with good friends.

Aside from Craig, I (Dion) have another friend I know from Repteens living in Dublin: Portia. Repteens is a youth theatre group we attended in Zimbabwe, where we made many great friendships. Portia and her Irish hubby, Steve, both architects, had just given birth to a son, Kai, so we were quite keen to visit them.

Eventually we firmed up plans and set out to go over to Portia and Steve's house to see their newest addition, gorgeous Kai.

Jo decided that she needed alone girl time so the three of us set off.

On our way, we detoured via Penney's (where I bought the babies the softest blue and pink teddies I have ever felt), HMV and then grabbed some SuperMac chicken burgers since it was lunch time.

We met up at their house and for me (D) it was like it always is when meeting old friends: a few more wrinkles on both sides but everyone is still the same in personality.

So it was great catching up with Portia, meeting Steve and getting to cuddle Kai all afternoon! His name is Scandinavian, I believe. This was the first time I’d held a baby so it was quite nerve-wracking. But Kai was kind to me!

BTW, they’ve got a sunroof in their bathroom (trust architects!) so don’t go to GoogleEarth or anything! ;)

Craig with Kai

Steve, Portia and Kai

Gorgeous, tiny Kai - 6 weeks old

Craig, doing the thing he does so well, listening

Dion and Kai

cute baby hands

and cute little feet

Group pic time - Dion, Steve holding Kai, Portia, Marcia

and this time with Craig

Dion's night out at an Irish pub

2010-03-16T10:54:00.002+02:00

Saturday 2 May 2009

After lazing around in the evening, eventually C, J & Dion decide to go to a pub to listen to Irish music. Since they only left home at 10 pm, I was simply not up for any more activity and decided to have a sandwich, shower and bed.

The tradition is alive and kicking!

I wanted that traditional experience of the vibe of an authentic Irish pub in Ireland: the music, the singalongs, the camaraderie. I don’t drink alcohol so I was a little apprehensive about how this would turn out. After all, in South Africa, there’s no such thing as going to a pub if you’re not drinking; it would be like going to a steakhouse for the salad (which Marcia does, BTW!)

So I put in my request with my friendly neighbourhood travel guide, aka my friend Craig. He’d heard about a good place on the opposite bank of the River Liffey to the pubs and restaurants of the more well-known Temple Bar district. We went looking for the place. It was around 10pm, nearly my bedtime, so this was an adventure for me. Living recklessly, on the edge.

Craig parked in Dublin and, like a bloodhound on the trail, led us (Jo and me – Marcia tiredly stayed home) through a few streets straight to it: a little corner pub. And it was just like you picture it. Cosy, packed full of people, chatting and laughing, their cheeks all a little red from the Guinness and other drinks! We squeezed through the throng, down the narrow section between the long bar and the little tables and chairs. Space was at a premium. After a few minutes, a couple left their barstools and we slid in to replace them. The Cokes started flowing. And I dived right into two packets of peanuts (as we hadn’t had supper yet!) I’d been hoping for a ‘pub lunch’ meal but this pub didn’t serve food.

The roaring in my stomach was soon forgotten, though, when the music started. Again, it was just how you’d imagine it: your toes start tapping as those Irish violins, pipes and drums energetically filled the place. Only four musicians created this full sound from their demarcated seating area near the front of the pub. We listened for hours and hours – it’s just that sort of music. Jo’s friend joined us and we all chatted away to the soundtrack of authentic Irish music.

This is something you just have to do in life.

Beautiful (expensive) streets

2010-03-16T10:46:00.000+02:00

Saturday 2 May 2009

We were supposed to go to Howth today but Jo had gone with a friend the day before so obviously that was pointless.

So D and I were having breakfast when Craig woke up and said, "let's go out for breakfast".

As a pregnant lady with a mad appetite, I continued to eat and finished my breakfast, not knowing how long it would be and I didn't want to feel sick from not eating.

D decided to only have half his portion to tide him over.

We all went by car to St Patrick's hospital (Craig's work), left the car and took a bus into the city.

Then got out to walk.

Hectic - trying to keep up with normal healthy people while hugely pregnant.

After much wandering about, C & J finally decided to stop at a nightclub for PIES (for breakfast at nearly 1 pm). The pies eventually arrived after nearly an hour. BTW, they were 11 euro each.

Well, about 15 minutes later I'm hungry again so I was left at the Metro Cafe for scrambled eggs (okay, not great) while C & J went to buy a sheet at Penney's and D went to HMV on Grafton Street to look for a John Barry compilation CD (who on earth is John Barry?!) and the Once soundtrack.

They all met me back at the Metro Cafe for muffins and coffee and then we all went home to rest.

Beautiful Dublin skies

2010-03-11T13:46:00.000+02:00

Friday 1 May 2009 (Worker's Day in South Africa)

We did our usual lazy morning, sleeping-in thing.

Eventually got ourselves dressed, fed and got the bus into the city centre.

For some reason we didn't have the correct change but the Dublin bus drivers are unforgiving - they do NOT accept anything less (on some weird level you have to appreciate the NO COMPROMISE attitude).

Instead of kicking us off the bus, he told us (in front of the ENTIRE silent bus) to ask one of the passengers for change.

What can you do but obey?

Can you picture an exasperated, heavily pregnant lady saying to the lil old ladies? "do any of you have change for 5 euro?"

Fortunately a lovely lady right near the front had change for us.

It's those moments that make me appreciate South Africa so much.

Anyway, departed the bus at the usual spot in front of Abbey Court and did a book crawl.

Bookworm, Easons and then Penney's.

The River Liffey

Then lunch - bagel with chicken and cheese for D and chicken burger for me

I happened to have a conversation with a pregnant lady in Tesco who told me there was a maternity shop on Talbot Street.

Rubbish... or else it was so hidden even two highly visual people couldn't find it.

We walked and walked and walked.... and still nothing.

Eventually at 3:30 we did our Hop On, Hop Off Bus Tour but poor D, I was so exhausted that I couldn't even get on and off so we just went round looking through the bus windows.

Saw Trinity College, St Patrick's Cathedral, Christchurch Cathedral, the Guinness Factory and Phoenix Park.

When we boarded the bus to get us back home, who do you think was driving it?

Yes = same bus driver as in the morning!

Rested at home for a while and eventually after much to and fro, decided to have supper at Eddie Rockets, an American-style diner, with Craig and Jo. We had burgers, fries and shakes which in true Dublin style set us back to the tune of......... R500!

Wicklow Tour - part two

2010-02-28T21:25:00.000+02:00

Inland we passed a burial site that Germany actually owns! Apparently during WW2, some German pilots lost their way in trying to bomb London (now that's really going off course) so the Irish, being friendly hosts, gave them some ground to bury their dead.

You can see acres and acres of turf or peat collecting, which is basically cakes of mud they cut from the ground and use for fuel. Amazing.

We passed Loch Tay, which is apparently part of the Guiness Estate. These Guiness people own a lot round these parts.

This is the famous part of Wicklow, Sally Gap, where P.S. I love you was filmed. I literally gasped when I saw this breathtaking view for the first time.

This sight never fails to amaze me - WOW - I don't think any pics do it justice

Absolutely magnificent and ICE cold wind in the cheeks

not looking too great but I didn't give a hoot

I wasn't paying too much attention to the tour guide at this point - churches, cemeteries and such simply are not my thing :)

This is the little bridge I crossed going back to the hotel for tea while Dion went to see the lakes.

There actually should be a part 3 as Dion did the last section of the tour by himself. I was knackered and elected to have a nice cup of tea at a nearby hotel while the fitter members on the tour hiked an extra 30 minutes to see some lakes.

A beautiful tour. We got back in the evening and ate late (for us): 10pm. Risotto & chicken. Mmm. No hard and fast plans tomorrow - but, of course, one thing leads to another...

Tour to Wicklow - Dun Laogharie leg

2010-02-28T21:24:00.000+02:00

Thursday 30 April 2009
Wild Wicklow

Ok, so Marcia insisted we tour Wicklow by coach - even though we successfully self-drove through it the previous year. Hmmph.

Got a lift to Heuston (?) station with Craig and took the LUAS into the City Centre as the tour left from a hotel whose name escapes me at the moment.

The Irish boys are not as South African, well-behaved boys are - it's strictly each man for himself even though there's a HUGELY pregnant woman on the tram. Grrr. Not impressed.

STOOD all the way and then had to run/ walk fast to the departure point all the while thinking, "was this a bad idea to do this tour? I am pregnant, after all."

Just about made it in time and off we set.

Our guide was Kevin Murray, who shared wonderful anecdotes as we rode towards the coast and headed south.

We passed Blackrock Boys College - now, doesn't that sound like the perfect training ground for Irish bad boys? Well, actually it's quite a larney place, with a price tag of some 30 000 Euros for a year's education, 50 000 for boarders.

Drove on Merrion Road where the houses go for some 30m Euros. Sounds like a status tour but anyway, we'd soon get to the rocks and waves and stuff. We learned that Bono (u2 lead singer) started out somewhere around here as a petrol pump attendant.

We also passed St. Vincent's Hospital where apparently 50% of the nurses are Philippinos, for some reason.

Finally we reached the coast and got out to stretch legs and take some landscapes and self-portraits:

hmmm, gorgeous grey skies

Marcia says the photo's terrible so I have to take it again (this kind of thing goes on all the time thru out trips - I'm sure we could see double the sights if we didn't spend so much time redoing photos):

Marcia in her element, grey Irish skies above, cold nipping at her nose, colourful Dublin doors on the sea-facing houses:

Ugly night shots of the city

2010-02-23T19:11:00.000+02:00

Anniversary supper at Saba, Dublin

2010-02-23T19:09:00.000+02:00

these two horrible shots taken by Niall the waiter :)

this one taken by Dion :)

So Craig and Jo dropped us off at Saba for our anniversary Thai meal.

Clearly a very hip and happening place as we waited 40 minutes (40 minutes!) for a table. While we waited, D had a coke and I had a lemonade.

Eventually a table was ready and we took our seats.

Saba was very loud, edgy, and not really romantic. The food was very, very good though.

We had a starter to share with chicken satay, and a few other nibbles - I think we had 4 pieces each. Then for mains I had a Thai Mussamen curry (my favourite Thai dish) and Dion had Pad Thai. D had a brownie for dessert, and we had a tea (me) and Americano coffee (D) afterwards.

All of that came to 71 euro or R850!

(Here in SA, it would have cost about R220 :)) That is our most expensive meal ever. None of the South Africans could believe it when we told them until I hauled out the bill!

Also, waiting time plus eating the meal took less than 90 minutes!

Imagine how surprised C & J were to get a text message so quickly saying, "we're done" :)

Our 14th wedding anniversary and 22 weeks pregnant

2010-02-23T19:08:00.000+02:00

Wednesday 29 April 2009

As is our custom, lazed in the morning and hung around some more in the afternoon with Craig and Jo until time to go to Craig's appointment.

On the way, we were involved in a bumper bash which felt worse than it was because of the way the Irish people drive (similar to Joburg drivers). However, the "baby girl" (who we now know as Kendra) stopped moving for a good few hours. I had to threaten her with a doctor's visit if she didn't move by a certain time and she then co-operated.

Meanwhile, we had the bright idea to amuse ourselves at the shops while Craig was working.

Except everything was closed except Tesco.

Well then, Tesco it is. Stocked up on chocolates, biscuits, hot chocolates - things we can't get in South Africa.

that jacket could just about button up...

look at those gorgeous grey skies behind gorgeous D

Meeting up with Jo in Henry Street

2010-02-23T16:30:00.000+02:00

Tues 28 April 2009

Dion and I woke at 8.30 but we're so slow that we only left the flat at 12.00.

Showers, eating, faffing around, unpacking, then a last little snack before we left.

Yes, that's how we roll.

Funny when we arranged to meet Jo at 2 pm under the Spire at Henry Street (I get a kick out of that - have always wanted to meet someone at a landmark - is it weird?), we thought it was very late.

Turned out we had to do quite a bit of rushing around to make it on time!

Took the bus into the city and walked up O'Connell Street while detouring into Penney's.

We found each other easily. Notice the spire in the background and the Penney's bags. No, I don't know who's the guy on the right of the picture.

Jo insisted on a pic without the guy...

Some more pics, this time with Jo

After a bit of shopping, we decided to get some tea and scones. Quite honestly, any excuse to rest my pregnant body which was not used to all the city walking.

doing one of my favourite things in the world - eating tea and scones (this was at Brambles) and talking!

We then went to book our tours for the rest of our holiday. We LOVE tours without which we do a lot of faffing around and no real holidaying.

The three of us then took the LUAS to Craig's work where we detoured via the canteen for the most delicious chocolate doughnuts ever. Seriously. We'd been dreaming of these doughnuts for a YEAR and they did not disappoint. Also had a chance for a quick catch-up with Colette.

Then went home for supper. Dion's note in the book says "helped to make Chicken Korma". I don't remember the helping part but maybe Dion helped and I vegged?

Dublin city pics

2010-02-23T16:29:00.000+02:00

It used to seriously annoy me when Dion would stop in the middle of nowhere to take city pics until I saw the Singapore night city pics.

So now I know that even though it is still sooooo frustrating when I want to go go go, it'll be worth it afterwards.

And it always is.

Look.

look at that blue building to the right of the pic. That's where we're supposed to get off the bus. This time (our first to the city in about a year) we forgot which is how we ended up here.

Here's that blue building again

And here's a close-up of the blue building, taken by me from below. I've a slight obsession with windows and doors.

Arrival in Dublin

2010-02-22T14:14:00.001+02:00

Monday 27 April 2009

Well, we arrived in Dublin to......... wait for this........... 5 degrees Celsius weather.

I put my jacket to use immediately.

The taxi set-up is really great - you simply queue and as taxis arrive, you jump in. Very organised and soooo not South African. I also loved the way the rates are plastered up everywhere so you know what you're in for before you even get into the taxi.

So we took the taxi to Chapelizod - 40 Euro. I hyperventilated just a little bit :)

After checking at the pharmacy and calling our friend, Craig, we eventually receives the keys from the guy at the Spar in an envelope marked with our names but also with the exact address of his place.

Again, a realisation that we're not in South Africa as the flat would have been burgled and stripped bare!

Hauled our luggage in and immediately went to sleep (Dion). I had to eat (remember, babies!) first so I quickly had some cereal and then went to sleep.

Around 11-ish, Craig phoned to say he'd bring us the car so we could get around.

Lovely thought but not happening as we were still recovering from the flight. The flight from Abu Dhabi to Dublin was quite terrible - naughty children, full plane, no stretching out, bad food, etc.

Craig eventually popped in around lunch time, we briefly caught up (Dion's still sleeping through all this commotion) and off he went back to work.

Jo then arrived at around 3pm so we finally met in person and got to catch up with some nice girl talk until Dion woke at about 4pm.

Craig arrived from work proper sometime later and off we went to the Spur (the Spur! in Dublin!) for a buy one, get one free chicken meal.

So ends day 1 and the slothfulness.

Desperate smokers in Abu Dhabi airport

2009-05-10T22:55:00.000+02:00

Sunday 26 April 2009

We flew Etihad Airlines as they were the cheapest flight to fly directly to Dublin and bypass Heathrow. Being 22 weeks pregnant with twins, I knew one thing - I did NOT want to go anywhere near the madhouse that is Heathrow. So Abu Dhabi airport it was.

The aircraft itself was beautiful and the stewardesses were friendly and customer-focussed. BUT and this is a big BUT - the food was terrible and there really wasn't enough choice.

E.g. When I was pregnant I couldn't eat mayonnaise at all and all their sandwiches had mayonnaise on WHITE bread no less (I also don't eat white bread) so I couldn't eat them, well unless I wanted to puke it all out. Um, no!

It seems the twin-ness of my pregnancy was a novelty as I had many people checking on me all the time. I got extra blankets, pillows (just not food!), and lots of enquiries throughout the flight.

Leaving Joburg on our last pre-babies trip

2009-05-10T22:50:00.000+02:00

Sunday 26 April 2009

This is our luggage, ready and waiting to go to the airport.

I am finally that person I've always wanted to be.

Dion's is the bigger suitcase and mine is the smaller blue hand luggage piece, a whole 9.8kg. Yesssss!

Aside from this, I carried my jacket (under no illusions about Dublin's weather) and my handbag - that's it!

Blogger doesn't want me to change dates - this was 26 April 2009

Day 9 - The Lake District 3

2008-05-11T19:04:00.000+02:00

Pics taken once the rain stopped

So I'm starving and we decide to get out the car and find some food. Shouldn't be too difficult, right?

WRONG.

We go to cafe after cafe and they all only have sandwiches that have been made hours earlier (I don't eat sandwiches that haven't been freshly made because I hate soggy anything; Dion's not fussy, of course). Their kitchens are all closed at 4:30 in the afternoon - what on earth?! In a tourist destination!!!

And here's another difference between South Africa and England.

If you walk into a restaurant here and the kitchen's closed, they'll usually say "try so-and-so, they only close at ______" which is normal South African helpfulness. You might even get the person walking you to the place.

Over there, it was just "sorry, the kitchen's closed" with a "you can like it or lump it" expression on the people's faces. Okay then!

Eventually I remembered "that lovely smart place we saw driving in" and we went to see if their kitchen was open. Indeed it was - happiness is... I mean, look how happy I am just to be warm and about to be fed :)

And then while they were making the food, I took pictures of some of my favourite things - trees!

This is what the hotel looked like from the outside

To date, the most expensive sandwich ever. We paid about 13 pounds for this (R200 - in South Africa, you'll pay about R25 - R30 for the same ham and cheese, and you'll get chips with it)

The tea was delicious and more importantly, hot! And those 6 chips were the entire portion - I think it cost about 3 pounds (R50)

And then we set off for Edinburgh!

Day 9 - The Lake District 2

2008-05-11T19:00:00.000+02:00

More pics driving through the rain...

Look at the car's display. 4 o'clock in the afternoon and 18 degrees.

the rain's finally stopped and it's time to get some food!

Day 9 - The Lake District 1

2008-05-11T18:52:00.000+02:00

It was pouring with rain when we got to Lake Windermere so the Dry Macs came out to play.

I was amazed at how rude the drivers were (compared to the courteousness of drivers on the "motorways" in the rest of England), hooting at us if we even dared to roll down the window to take a pic or two (which is why the angles on some of these are so weird) in the rain.

And I thought Joburg drivers were aggressive!

Day 9 - leaving Birkinhead on the way to the Lake District

2008-05-11T18:33:00.002+02:00

Only South Africans will really "get" why I took this picture. We are so lawless that we dump our trolleys anywhere we feel like so to see people actually putting their trolleys back where they belong deserved a pic :)

This one too! hello - we don't have these in SA and I don't think they'd work either because remember, we see people parking in disabled spots all the time without being disabled, in case I didn't make that clear!

look at those cute, fat sheep

on the English highways (or as they say, motorways), it all looks like this - green, lush vegetation

driving into the Lake District - don't these look so charming and oh so English?

Day 8 - Hanging around Birkenhead (near Liverpool)

2008-05-10T21:50:00.001+02:00

I love this set of pics - they are some of my favourites from the entire trip!

Dion was still not better the next day; in fact, he was worse and then I started to get a glimpse of why it had not been happening accommodation-wise in the Lake District.

Meanwhile, we were getting the MOST wonderful “text” messages from our friends. Maybe they were concerned that we’d get lost in England (impossible)??? I don’t know. I loved David and Victoria’s messages which usually started like this - “Poor D” and of course, Poor D loved being poor D because men do love being taken care of, don’t they?

Anyway, so after showers and breakfast, Shereen and I left Dion sleeping. I told him that we were going to Tesco and that when I returned from buying up the whole pharmacy, he needed to make a decision – stay for another night (S & S kept offering but we didn’t want to intrude) or suck it up and drive to the Lake District. The weather was warm at around 22 degrees Celsius.

Now, Tesco. My word – it was one of those mega-stores. And the accents of the people I was hearing???? You’d swear I was in a foreign country. I had to ask the cashier to repeat herself so I could REALLY focus on her words.

They have this weird system where they won’t sell you more than 2 boxes of tablets. We’re from South Africa where we can buy 4 bottles of Panado if we want, and I do when these things are on special. But not in England.

Dion gave me a whole list of cold and flu medication which I dutifully threw into the basket but the cashier then told me (a couple of times because I couldn’t understand her accent!) that I could only have 2. So Shereen had to buy 2 for me too. Crazy!

I also took the opportunity to buy a couple of notebooks and plastic envelopes. They had the most gorgeous 5-section project notebooks 

Once we got back, D decided that he really was not well enough to drive anywhere that day so we just took it easy. Dion did a lot of sleeping while Steve and Shereen and I chatted while pottering around, reading, computing, doing laundry (do you know how happy I was to do laundry?!!!), eating, etc.

We also phoned our friend, Wendy, in California and it was just LOVELY to talk to her after nearly 7 years.

We then had a delicious supper of chicken, mashed potato and creamed veggies. Took lots of photos, went to pack and then went to bed.

And that was Saturday 10th May.

Day 7 (ctd) - Wirral, Birkenhead

2008-05-09T21:33:00.000+02:00

So we left Ps Dave and set off for Steve and Shereen’s place in Wirral, just outside Liverpool, about a 45-minute drive away. Ps Dave insisted that we phone Steve when we got nearer because “you’ll never find their place otherwise”.

Okay then.

Driving in England is SOOOOO easy and so different to driving in South Africa.

For one, the roads are clearly marked and there are plenty of signboards.

The weird thing is …not that they call their highways “motorways” or that the exits are called “junctions” but that EVERYONE knows the number of the exit. They’ll say “take junction 5” or whatever, and sure enough, junction 5 is the correct exit. Here in South Africa we say “take the Edenvale offramp” and I’d have to search long and hard to find a person who knew if it was the 3rd, 4th or 10th exit off the highway. All we look out for is that “Edenvale” sign.

Nevertheless, I digress… but this kind of weirdness is what I LOVE about travelling and this is my blog, so I’ll ramble on.

The second thing that’s so different about the driving is that everyone is so courteous, again, VERY different from the aggressive driving style native to most Johannesburg drivers. People obey the rules of the road and it’s actually a pleasure to drive and as a result, not very stressful at all. Even for us foreigners.

We’ll get talking about driving in Ireland later in this blog because that, dear friends, is another thing totally.

Of course, I had no idea of distances because I’m used to kilometers, and not miles.

Anywayyyy, when we started seeing signboards close to our “junction” ;) I sent Shereen a “text message” to let her know we were close. She, in turn, alerted Steven who “rang” me to give us directions to some gigantic hardware outlet (something like BBQ, maybe BRQ?) just off the “motorway”. Okay, I’ll stop with the “ “– I can’t resist.

Clearly Steven moonlights as Speedy Gonzales because he was there waiting for us when we arrived. To my question, how will we find you, he said, don’t you worry, I’ll find you. And he did ;)

After all the kissing and hugging (Marcia) and shaking of hands (Dion), we followed him to their flat which did not look like it was that difficult to find. But our friends obviously don’t think much of our navigational abilities.

We spent a lovely hour drinking tea and chatting while we waited for Shereen to get home from work. Their home is lovely and comfortable and feels very “Shereen” to me LOL

As an aside, I must say it is so easy to get into the whole English tradition of drinking tea. That suits me down to the ground and was a habit I adopted very quickly and happily.

Both Shereen and Steven sounded EXACTLY the same after 8 years in the UK. Steven is English so that’s understandable but I was surprised by Shereen. Although I did catch her saying “yeah?” a couple of times. I love hearing that and even now, it still makes me smile ;)

It was like we’d seen them just last week the way all of us just slipped right back into our friendship and chatted and chatted, and then chatted some more about serious and silly things. Lovely!

We went out to supper to Queen’s Hotel (Dion’s notes in my journal say “overlooking the River Mersey”) where we had a delicious carvery. Yummy!

When we got back we did a very un-Dion&Marcia thing and phoned some B&B’s on the spur of the moment to find accommodation in the Lake District for the following evening. Everybody was very English (no problem with being rude) and said “no, we don’t have place for just one night; we only rent rooms for two nights or more, and no, I’m not prepared to change that. Alright then, bye!”

You’ve got to have a grudging respect for them setting such good boundaries though.

We then decided to really just BREAK LOOSE, drive up there and just look for accommodation willy-nilly. I don’t do willy-nilly but both Dion and Steve & Shereen were quite comfortable with this devil-may-care attitude so FINE!

And that was Friday.

Day 7 - Llangollen (Wales) and Chester (England)

2008-05-09T17:52:00.012+02:00

Ok, before I forget, here's Ps Dave and his daughter, Jade (all of 18 and making plans to get married!)

By morning, things had changed for the travellers. We had agreed on an early start for us - 9am. We'd left the warm sun behind and it was now raining. Also my sore throat from the previous day had developed into a head cold. Yuk.

Anyhoo, we left with Ps Dave and a church buddy of his, Brian, to go into Chester, which is just inside the border of England. We were treated to a tour of the cathedral there - but Marcia was kinda bored so forbade me from publishing all the pix of the arched ceilings and decorated columns. Still, the outside is not bad:

Then we walked through the streets of Chester, looking for signs of the old Roman city. It's full of cute streets like this:
You can see all the Tudor style buildings on the main street (note how each storey up leans out further):
The place was actually packed so I'm not sure why they weren't working! We also saw several people dressed to the nines. Turns out a day at the races had just ended and they had come into town. So the 5-star hotel wasn't exactly enthusiastic about hosting us for 'morning' coffee, as it's called, but Ps Dave has never suffered from shyness so we pushed our way in:
Our Chester visit ended with a walk down to the river, where you can always count on prettiness:
(The bridge is not too bad, either, what say you?)

From there we drove into the Northern Welsh countryside to see Llangollen (a gutteral sound that just has to be heard!)

But first we made a quick stop to see Ps Denise as she zipped in from one job to another.

We drove up into the mountains up to Horseshoe Pass, where we stopped at a restaurant-pub for some lunch (time for me to get some long-overdue fish 'n' chips!)

Sheep are everywhere - these playing around nearby. Mother let me get this close before she got her lamb out of there.

Check it out, here's some Welsh for you:We drove past the village of Llangollen, which is so cute:

I mean, how cute can you get:

Then we went over to the aquaduct, where they hire out barges large enough for family holidays. Here's what I assumed to be a typical Welsh villager (but for all I know, he could be some German tourist waiting for his barge to be repaired):

Each barge has several rooms, including separate kitchens:

Apparently you can travel all over Wales and England by barge along a network of canals. Here's what the barges look like:

Now the barges can go across the narrow aquaduct - and there's even a walkway:

We went halfway along the aquaduct's walkway to see the views. To the right:

And to the left:

Here's what the aquaduct looks like from the side. You can see a barge crossing and some people walking:

We certainly packed in the sights today! After a cuppa tea at 4pm, we had to pack up and head out.

From there it was only a 45-minute journey north to Birkenhead, just south of Liverpool, where we were to stay with Shereen and Stephen Arbon (friends from S.A.) We filled up on a traditional roast buffet at the Queen Hotel, on the seafront overlooking the River Mersey. And chatted. And laughed. And chatted...

But lurking in the background, a malignant force was digging its dirty claws into our wonderful time, ready to pounce and spread its contagion...

Day 6, Thursday, London to Stonehenge, Bath & Wales

2008-05-08T15:35:00.000+02:00

Feeling a bit sad to be leaving David and Victoria's place, we packed up and left at our usual lunch-time(!) Our train ride to Fulham on the other side of London was actually the easiest of the lot. Once there, I was surprised to see Stamford Bridge, the (stadium) home of Chelsea Football Club right there. Two streets away we found our car hire place. Dismissing an over-attendant helper, we jumped into a shiny, silver, 3-week-old Peugeot 206 - mmmm - and started driving out of London, something I was a bit apprehensive about.

In no time at all, we had hit the motorway and began our car trip in the beautiful English countryside. Aside from the greenery, every so often you see fields of yellow: rape seeds. After about 90 minutes, suddenly by the side of the road we saw the infamous circle of stones we had targeted:

Truth be told, we just leaned over the fence to get our few snapshots, rather than pay the 7 pounds. Besides we were running late. So it was hit the road, Jack. Getting closer to our destination, we were delayed by a road diversion. The plus was that it took us through Bradford-on-Avon and other quaint little towns like this:

The downside was that by the time we got to Bath, it was after 7pm and the Roman baths had closed for viewing (something that was becoming a theme on the trip!) Still, we wandered around the place a bit and soaked up its beauty:
"Oh, gorgeous! Beautiful! Wish you were here!" I mean, we could be someplace in Rome or something:
This must be nice to stay for a night or two and take a romantic walk by the river:
But enough of all this gorgeousness: it was getting late and we still had a few hours to drive to make our stop for the night in northern Wales! Good for us, it's really easy to find your way on England's roads as everything is marked very well. And our map book was accurate. Still, we had tried as usual to do too much in one day, esp. leaving late, so we arrived at Dave and Denise Kelly's (pastor friends from South Africa who had moved) at... 10.30pm! Think twice before you invite us to stay! Bless the man, he had a huge helping of Chinese takeaways ready for us and a nice cup of tea before we hit the sack...

Day 5 London sightseeing

2008-05-07T22:03:00.002+02:00

Wednesday 7 May

We woke to find more welcoming notes and breakfast laid out by our kind hosts. And another gorgeous sunny day. We were being blessed everywhere we turned. We made our usual way into London - to do our city tour by bus - now looking like pros: Marcia with her magazines to occupy her and me with my MP3 player, pretending to shut out all those pesky tourists. We got out at Tower Hill, to be greeted with the sight of all the London workers taking lunch on some lawns:

Making our way across the street to The Tower of London, we started snapping away - especially by Tower Bridge (*not* London Bridge! My mom says when the Americans wanted to buy it, they asked for London Bridge and were then surprised to find the less spectacular bridge shipped out to Arizona!) Apparently it's an ordinary steel bridge, which they dressed up with a bit of stonework to look pretty:

Across the Thames River, you can see this strange-shaped building (although this particular angle I shot from the side during the bus tour). Believe it or not, this is where the mayor works from! Not quite the civil servant buildings we're used to.

Across from The Tower of London (around which they were hosting some running race) we found a scrumptious and healthy sandwich bar called EAT. We grabbed baguettes - roast ham, brie and cranberry for M. - and went to catch our bus. It's a hop-on, hop-off affair with buses every 15 minutes or so. Then we were off! Madly snapping away at anything that looked cultural. Here's a shot from one of the circuses (traffic roundabouts) - Oxford, I think - showing some of London's famous red buses and Big Ben. That cream and red bus is like the one we were on:

Westminister Abbey (careful not to pronounce that second "i") follows with other famous sights amazingly lined up by the photographer: London Eye, Big Ben, some dude on a column - he didn't command the navy or lose valuable limbs so he remains nameless at this time.

St. Paul's Cathedral (no time to visit the awesome whispering gallery inside the base of the dome) follows. Christopher Wren designed it and its distinctive dome - you can see smaller trial runs of the dome scattered around the city.

This is how many London city girls dress in Spring ('scuse the window reflections):

We passed a street where a well-known law enforcement agency used to be housed. Although the agency has moved on, you can see it got its name from the street name, which is still called: Great Scotland Yard:

Here's Lord Admiral Nelson on top of a column in the middle of Trafalgar Square (I guess I always have a connection to him as my primary school, Admiral Tait, had a whole navy theme):

Of course, on the tour you pass abour 347 other interesting sights, each with its own story, the original Twinings Tea shop, which has been around forever. The ride took almost exactly 2 hours - well worth it, ending at the Tower of London.

Cruisin'

From the Tower, we walked down to the River Thames and hopped on a boat that would take us on a cruise down to Greenwich. This was free when we bought the bus ticket. We love our cruises (although we haven't been brave enough to try one on the ocean. More about Titanic in later blogs.) We enjoyed a leisurely pace on the river, passing under Tower Bridge. The banks are lined with four-storey apartment blocks, the ones on ground level going for 5 million pounds!

Out of time at Greenwich

Arriving at Greenwich, we were told the next boat back leaves in 30 minutes at 5:25. So we made hasty tracks up the hill to see where East meets West. But we didn't count on it being more than 15 minutes away and the hill to be so steep. We found ourselves trying to run up at a 45-degree angle. Pain! Then at the top we were told that the building housing the clock and the East-West line had closed half an hour before! Emotional pain! Imagine Jack & Jill running up the hill only to find no pail of water anywhere in sight. What next? Cinderella's step-sister finds that she can actually fit into Cinderella's shoe?

Anyway, we had to race back down... and saw our boat sailing away from the jetty. Frustration all around. We had to wait for the 6:10 (not to Yuma, but to Tower.) When the boat arrived, we could at least sit back and relax, me with a steaming styrofoam cup of coffee.

Canaries and Bengals

We arranged to meet Dave at the Tower Underground station. He decided to take us on a walking tour of a part of London, regularly consulting his map book. As we set off, Dave pointing out some interesting things like old Roman walls, a lady came up and asked if this was the Jack the Ripper tour! Dave must have sounded like he knew what he was talking about!

Then we took the Underground to Canary Wharf, the financial district, where we met up with Victoria at the Bengal Quay restaurant. Delicious Indian food, white tablecloths, fantastic company. Afterwards, we took a stroll up to the Millennium Dome, where they've got a bunch of restaurants and a whole lot of neon lights - and even a South African Spur Steak house!

After the late train back home for coffees and teas, we had to say our goodbyes for the next day. That didn't stop Dave & I talking until 2.30 - just like ole times!

Day 4 London

2008-05-06T22:00:00.000+02:00

Day 4 - Tuesday 6 May (continued)

Hot in the city
Midday was practically sweltering as we boarded the train from Hornchurch into London. At 25 degrees Centigrade, we appeared to be the only ones at home in the heat: everyone else was fanning themselves and puffing out their cheeks. On the platforms we passed, it wasn't uncommon to spot a young guy in his jeans and shirtless.

This ain't no ride through the Andes
At one of the stops, an intriguing guy boarded and flopped down in front of us. He kind of looked part Greek and part Peruvian, well into his fifties and overweight. He wore dark grey cargo pants, a dirty red plaid lumberjack shirt over a dark t-shirt and ported a no-frills shoulder bag. His hand wrapped in a grimy bandage, he leaned on his walking cane. And sweated. Boy, could this guy sweat. Station after station, I had front row seats to him mopping his forehead with a rag that was once a light handkerchief. And he couldn't stop fidgeting. Removing the sweatband from his greasy taupe locks; replacing it; removing it. Parts of his body were always in motion. And the more he fidgeted, the more he sweated. I've never seen anyone so uncomfortable in his body. I hoped for his sake that it was just because of the heat. Somehow I don't think so.

Making plans
We rode the Underground until we could get off near Leicester Square. We had a plan. We checked out the prices at the "TKTS" booth, saw no discount was available, so found cheaper prices at another stall. We booked ourselves into the theatre show we wanted to see later that evening: Billy Elliot. Then we purchased tickets for the next day on a city tour by bus: the "Original City Tour". Plans set and mucho money spent, we grabbed a quick bite at Burger King overlooking the square - "filthy bathrooms", Marsh said; I don't notice these things. Especially since I don't go into the Ladies'. We priced souvenirs at a nearby shop...

Where the streets all have names
Then it was off into Chinatown, on foot:

Oh, ho, Soho
A left, a right, a left and we were into Soho, full of interesting little shops, restaurants and quirky people, to say the least. We passed two giant males, all buff and muscles bulging out of skin-tight t-shirts... and daintily holding hands. We stopped over briefly in an interesting shop of music and magazines going back a few decades:

Drama onstage - less drama offstage
After the debacle the previous day where we were late and rushing for our London Eye ride, we decided things would be different today with getting to the Billy Elliot show. So we made our way with plenty time to spare… except that our bus was halted by ‘rush hour’ traffic gridlock! It took us 45 minutes to traverse Piccadilly Circus. Stress again! Still we found the theatre opposite Victoria station in enough time (that's what they call "Little Ben" in the foreground):

Let the show go on!
In the hour or so before the show was due to start, we wandered around the W. H. Smith bookshop, Marcia adding to her giant collection of stationery (folders!!) Then it was off to the theatre, something I'd been dreaming about since I was about 13. As we made our way inside, they gave many of us a free upgrade to better seats. I like. And the show was magnificent, truly awesome. They really put on a show in such style, whether it's the actors, the innovative stage design, the costumes or the songs.

Remember it's about a boy in a mining town who wants to do ballet. (The entire audience was treated to Marcia's gasps upon hearing 5-year-olds on the stage swear!) It took about 3 hours, ending at about 11pm, so we had to race to catch the last train back to Dave and Victoria's – apologising for not being able to see them that evening. In bed after midnight. Smiling after the fulfillment of a dream.

Day 3 - around hornchurch

2008-05-05T22:22:00.002+02:00

How long do you think it took us to get yoghurts for breakfast?
After the crazy rush-around day yesterday, we woke quite late - 10am - to a sunny, warm day. Went to the Tesco supermarket to buy yoghurts for breakfast. Half an hour later we had chosen our yoghurts - we're not used to all that choice, people; first there are all the flavours, then you get 4 for this price, but 6 for that.

And another 15 minutes to get through the check-out! It was our first time at an automated teller - they trust you to pay for everything you've chosen! In South Africa, the store would have been cleared out in 20 minutes - and they wouldn't have received much remuneration.

It's tickets for you, Punks!
So after checking out of the Travelodge, we made our way to David & Victoria's (Whisson) place in Hornchurch, a village to the east of London. At the Underground station, we were deciding what tickets we should buy when an older Spanish couple popped up in front of us and started gesticulating passionately (waving their hands around!) Not the thing to do to a couple of street-smart and slightly jumpy South Africans. Did they want money? Was this a mugging? Watch out, people, we're from Johannesburg - we'll take you out and ask questions later.

Turns out they were offering us their Underground tickets, which they were finished with for the day. So we learned people can actually be kind and thoughtful - well, foreigners anyway.

On the Underground and on the run from the law
We only got lost a little on the Underground so it took us 50 minutes to get to Hornchurch. Only thing is: we realised our tickets were valid only for Zone 1 - 4. Hornchurch was out in Zone 6. We were illegal immigrants, living on the edge; the Law could be ready to nab us as soon as we set foot on our destination platform.

All the way there and nobody home
Obviously no-one could care less so we stepped off at Hornchurch, birds twittering and not a peep from anyone. Only problem was, we couldn't get past the turnstiles. And there was no-one working behind the ticket window at the station.

What to do? I considered the height of those turnstiles; I could make it but Marcia has shorter legs. We were rescued from plunging deeper into a life of crime by some kindly gent who used his (Oyster) travel card to let us through.

Relaxing
Outside the station we found ourselves facing a quiet English village. We breathed out the tension of travelling in the big city. As Marsh crossed the road to buy a cell phone SIM card from the convenience store, I reflected on how different things are here: I don't have to worry about being attacked and our things being stolen. You can literally feel the absence of fear in the air. The peace was like - my shoulder was roughly yanked back and a gruff voice hissed in my ear something like " Give me all your money!" My heart hammering, I whirled around to face my attacker... a smiling familiar face - my friend Dave and his wife, Victoria. Ruffian. I still owe him for that.

Well met
Marsh returned, hugs and kisses all around - a happy reunion. All of us chatting non-stop while walking 5 minutes to their flat. It was like the Famous Five meeting up for the first time in "the hols"! We plonked our bags down and expressed how grateful we were to be able to rest in one place for a while. And their place was so warm and welcoming; they even put us in their bedroom:

The local pub
After many minutes of chatting in the corridor, we realised we have to decide on a place to sit. Dave wisely recommended we sit at the local pub, where we could get some lunch at the same time. It was opposite the rail station and a quintessential English pub: locals gathered at tables, talking and having "half a pint" (of beer), pictures of the countryside on the walls...

Treated!
They treated us to a lovely chicken sandwich (D) and a baked potato with cheese and baked beans (M). Mmmmm. After that it was back to their place where we just had such a wonderful time talking while the afternoon faded into evening. This was the first time we'd been able to spend such a lot of quality time among just the four of us. Excellent. It was a Bank Holiday (public holiday) and Vic had taken leave to be with us.

Just when we thought we couldn't be spoiled any more, Dave made a satay stir-fry for supper - we thought it was chicken but apparently it was quorn - followed by some homemade apricot biscuits and the world's best banoffee tart. If we had died then and gone to Heaven, I'm not sure we would have been able to tell the difference.

Tuesday 6 May -
Lazy stroll around Hornchurch
The next day we slept late, found our breakfast crockery laid out and a welcoming note from Vic to make ourselves at home. These people know how to make you feel special. No, I'm not giving you their address. After dressing, we took a stroll through the village, while the sun warmed our backs. Marsh was finally able to get the Orange SIM card to work so we could FINALLY use our cell phone. This is a quaint garden restaurant we passed...

All the houses look exactly how one imagines England...!

But much as we wanted to, we couldn't laze there all day: we had places to go, things to do. London was calling...

Day 2 - the rush to the London Eye

2008-05-04T19:26:00.002+02:00

So after church, we parted ways with Karen and went to Leicester Square. We were going to meet up with Karen at Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Beckenham at 4pm.

Since there are no shows on Sundays, we went to an internet cafe to book tickets for the London Eye, and do some banking.

After lots of walking and taking pictures and people-watching, we started making our way back to Beckenham. At Victoria Station we realised that we were never going to make it back by 4pm so phoned Karen to give her new times.

I won't bore you with another one of those waiting-for-the-train pictures because that's what happened then and of course, Dion has LOTS of pics of the back of me, rushing off somewhere :)

Got back to Beckenham, had a delicious satay burger with Karen and Lara (one of Karen's housemates) and rushed home to pack.

We had to say our goodbyes while the cabbie was waiting (on the bright side, no chance of long, drawn-out farewells) and then rush to the station, rush to Travelodge in Liverpool Street, all with those bags that, even though were by now slightly lighter (because my method of baggage control is throwing away my clothes - yes, really), felt GINORMOUS on the underground and along the streets.

We dropped the bags and rushed straight out to the underground station again where we travelled to Tower Bridge. We were SO late as they say you have to be there 30 minutes before your booked time. Our time was 7.30pm and we only got there at 7.40pm but stormed into the office where a nice man said that we could still go.

As we were rushing there, I was thinking, "if we just THROW £23 (R370) down the drain, I'm going to be SO cross".

So the first few minutes were spent calming down from the SPRINT and then we started taking some gorgeous pictures.

This is one of my favourite pictures of the London Eye

I took this one - I feel like a "real" photographer when I take pics like this

Now this amazed me - look how dirty it is. Not a bin in sight, so people just leave their rubbish wherever they want

Afterwards, took some more pics and then went back to Liverpool Street. Had a quick burger at McDonalds and then back to the Travelodge where I TOTALLY collapsed with a headache, sore body and sore feet.

And so we finally realised what everyone else tried to tell us - that we were trying to pack in too much. So we made a new rule - only one or two activities every day because we are not as young as we used to be!!!

Day 2 - Hillsongs with Karen

2008-05-04T12:16:00.000+02:00

We decided to go to Hillsongs church with Karen. Karen doesn't normally go there but very kindly decided to go with us to show us the ropes.

We left at about 9.30 to make the 10.30 service and amazingly enough, we were actually early for church! In London! Where it takes forever to get you anywhere! :)

So we decided to go to Starbucks - Dion had his usual, a latte, I had a caramel hot chocolate (yummy!) and Karen had a mango raspberry fruit drink. I'm not up to date with all these new-fangled drinks so I don't know the correct names or the Starbucks lingo :)

Karen pioneered that mango raspberry combo and the people working there kept checking, "are you SURE you want that? We've never done this before so we don't know if it'll be good together" and she was, "yeah, it'll be fine" And it was delicious. So if you're at a Starbucks, get them to make you a mango raspberry fruit drink, a la Karen Stally :)

So here we are in front of the theatre where Hillsongs has their services. I love that there's Queen stuff on a church building - so cool.

Karen and Dion and London's famous red telephone boxes

The underground station right THERE at the church - how convenient

Karen and Marcia in front of Bar Salsa - the place you must NOT go to if you want good food at great value...£25 each - enough said :)

Now my impressions of Hillsongs
Loved...
Big church with lots of people
Wonderful worship and sound
Let you take Starbucks into the auditorium
Excellent greeters and ushers
How soon they start marketing their events. We were there on 4 May and they were already marketing a conference a year away!

Not great...
Bad directions when I needed to get to the loo which was like 2 flights up and FAR, far away *grrrr*

Anyway, there was a guest speaker, Priscilla Schirer, who spoke on hearing God's voice. This was just outstanding and I took pages and pages of notes. The only thing keeping me back from buying CDs and books was the dreaded baggage allowance...

Day 1 - in London with Karen/ Repteens reunion

2008-05-03T18:46:00.000+02:00

Clearly we were very good at following directions because we got to Karen's at 9.15 and woke her when we rang the bell :)

After a quick run to Sainsbury's for some staples, we had grilled cheese on toast with tea/ coffee and settled down for a good few hours, catching up.

view from Karen's window while she was preparing the food

- we were taken with how very English everything looked :)

We then had a few hours' sleep and woke, showered and went to a ridiculously expensive place called Bar Salsa, the venue for the Repteens reunion. There were 5 hen nights happening that evening therefore lots of women with bunny ears, etc. :) I danced with two men - the first one was okay but the second one was getting too feely so I left the dance floor before I had to slap him and embarrass the group :)

The cover price including food was £25 per person (R400) and the food was not that great! Somehow, there was £25 too much after we'd settled the bill so we were given the money.

from left to right - Dion, Marcia, Karen, Natalie, Keir and Darren (Rivca taking pic)

Marcia and Karen

from left to right - Keir, Marcia, Rivca, Natalie, Dion and Karen (Darren taking pic)

It was so lovely to meet new people and for Dion to reconnect with old friends. We left at 10.30 but only got home at 12.00 because of all the trains.

Realising it is a whole long story to get anywhere in London because it is so BIG!

Arriving in London

2008-05-03T18:22:00.002+02:00

We arrived at London's Heathrow airport on time, shortly after 6am. We went through customs and baggage collection without any problems despite what we'd heard about the English giving South Africans a hard time....and fortunately didn't need to produce the letters from work saying we'd be back on 26th.

I was amazed at how organised the airport was. You have to be really stupid to get lost in there :) I popped into a Marks and Spencer just to have a look at the prices and Dion decided to take a picture of me but was stopped by a policeman who told him they don't allow any pictures in the airport. A big difference from KLIA in Malaysia where we snapped away without anyone giving us a second look :)

We bought our travel cards from the machine for zones 1 - 6 (£7 each) as instructed by our friend, Karen, and followed her (very detailed) directions to the house.

This is me resting on the underground... it's so easy to fall asleep especially after a 10 1/2 hour flight with only 4 hours' sleep!

and this is me waiting for the train at Victoria station - these trains leave EXACTLY on time. Our train this particular morning left at 8.51 and the minute the clock clicked to 51, the train pulled off. Very impressive!

Don't you love this picture? The blue and grey bags are mine and the others are Dion's.

The last time we weren't rushed on this trip

2008-05-02T17:58:00.000+02:00

Our British Airways flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow was scheduled to leave at 8.15pm which means check-in opens at 6.15, right?

Well, Dion being Dion wanted to leave our house for the airport at .......wait for this.........2pm but his mom and I spoke sense into him and we left just after 3pm.

Still ridiculously early because we arrived at OR Tambo in record time and had HOURS to kill before we could check in.

Anyway, eventually checked in (there was a Scottish man behind us in the queue which I got a kick out of) with a combined total of just 33kg! A record for us - we have never travelled this light before, even on domestic flights.

Went through security and afterwards, went to have some potato wedges and a chicken wrap (shared both), with tea and coffee. I think we paid R100 which was also the least amount of money we paid for a meal the entire trip :)

Browsed a couple of shops and eventually boarded the plane. We had lovely seats (thanks to Dion's online booking the previous night the minute online booking was available) - a two-seater where I was on the window and he had the aisle seat next to me.

Thank goodness the plane left on time because I always get really hot before take-off.

I had chicken stirfried with noodles and D had some beef dish for supper. We'd just eaten when we had quite honestly the most terrible turbulence ever. Oooh - I shudder now just thinking about it - so I didn't feel like watching TV and really just browsed one of my magazines until I felt better. And then I watched The Commitments (had to get in the mood for Ireland) before having a few hours' sleep.

Coming back home - plane pictures

2007-11-04T02:43:00.000+02:00

Driving around a rainy Cape Town - spot the odd one!

2007-11-04T02:37:00.000+02:00

Just LOOK at the gorgeous skies!

The Old Mill House - 3 Nov 2007

2007-11-03T02:24:00.000+02:00

We came here because we heard that they had an organic food section and then I discovered the Bead Merchants of Africa where I went WILD. Dion took these pictures whilst I was otherwise occupied :)

After this, we drove through to Wellington to meet up with Tracey Foulkes of Get Organised and her lovely family.

Waterfront - part 3 and how to INSTANTLY identify a tourist

2007-11-02T02:14:00.000+02:00

I made Dion take this picture because this is how you instantly identify tourists to Africa - khaki clothes! :)

Waterfront - part 2

2007-11-02T02:06:00.000+02:00

This is so cool - a siren sounds and then this bridge swings open so that the water traffic can cross over. Watch carefully how it moves...

I love these things! Singapore - I miss you!

Here are the hordes of people who had to wait while the bridge swung open.

these guys were so good!

Harrie's pancakes - all the way from Mphumalanga (whenever we're in Graskop, we go there)

Waterfront - part 1

2007-11-02T01:51:00.000+02:00

Cape Town - 1 November 2007

2007-11-01T01:04:00.000+02:00

Dion's work banned all of them from taking leave for the whole of September and October so in typical Dion style, he decided to take leave on the next available opportunity!

We decided to make a trip of it and fly to Cape Town for a long weekend.

I was not impressed by the cold, sterile atmosphere of Imperial Car Rental, especially after Avis's wonderful, warm service the last 5 years. Anyway, here we are in the rental car driving out of the airport.

on the way to the hotel

After we checked in, we decided to drive down to the waterfront and have a coffee. It was getting a bit chilly and you can see the mist rolling in from the sea...

After this, we went back to the hotel to change and then headed out for supper to Chef Pon's Asian Kitchen. If you're in Cape Town, go eat there - you won't be disappointed. Their telephone number is (021) 465-5846. Their business card says, "best Thai and Asian foods in Cape Town" - I must say, I totally agree!

back to PE - Plettenberg Bay & Monkey Land

2007-05-01T11:25:00.000+02:00

Driving back to PE, we stopped at Monkey Land.

and before that, at Plettenberg Bay

I thought this one was also taken in Plett but Dion says it's also from The Heads at Knysna

George, Oudtshoorn and the Cango Caves

2007-04-30T11:10:00.000+02:00

After I sent off my monthly newsletter at the internet cafe (it was all prepared and in my drafts folder on my blog - I just had to publish), we set off for George.

It took us over two hours to get to the Cango Caves and fortunately, we made it in time for the last tour at 4 pm.

On the road... beautiful view and I quite like car shots

Mountains in George - beautiful!

We took this picture of the cows firstly, because my sister LOVES cows (why, I don't know) and secondly, because they were totally surrounding our car...only in SA

Caveman and his woman (can you see this is Dion's caption?!)

inside the Cango Caves

they call this stalagtite formation "organ pipes"

On the ferry and around Knysna Heads

2007-04-29T11:33:00.000+02:00

Taking a boat trip on a body of water is definitely our thing. It's the one thing we can always agree that we want to do - like the Yarra River in Melbourne, trips to Phang Nga in Thailand, etc.

So because the weather was good (this is a relative term; I mean that it wasn't raining), we decided to get in our ferry trip before the weather worsened. This is the John Benn; it was lovely and warm inside the cabin and we also had great views.

Dion's pretend holiday home

This is the left part of the Knysna Heads. I don't know how true this is but the tour guide (again, a very loose term) told us even Lloyds of London won't insure any boat wanting to traverse through this point. Apparently very dangerous!

After the ferry, we took a drive to the top of the Heads where Dion took this picture.

and this one. Can you see how cold I'm getting here? I'm like, "get this over and done with so I can go have some tea?"

We went to a place called Paquita's for supper. Dion says the waiter was "off" with me - I don't know why. All I asked was for my food to be warmed ;)

The anniversary

2007-04-29T00:07:00.000+02:00

After putting first things first (going to church), we socialised for a bit with some Zimbabwean people who were Very Excited to hear that Dion was also from Zim and then headed for the waterfront.

We wandered around a bit in the very-welcome sunshine, snapping away wildly like the tourists we were. Although we didn't wear khaki.

Then after we bought our ferry tickets (R90 each in case you're interested), we took a drive on Leisure Isle.

One of my Most Favourite Things to do is to look at beautiful houses and if the owners aren't looking, take pictures.

I LOVE this house. It is exactly the style I like with the cottagey look, lovely garden (although we do not have a green finger between us) and look. That little balcony is just gorgeous. When I see that, I already imagine sitting out there with my book and a glass of water with lots of lemon in summer, or a nice big mug of tea in winter. Either way, the book and I are there.

Oh, and it's called Dieudonne.

Here's another house I liked. More modern but also beautiful.

And yet another. I love these windows and the balcony going right around

This is my attempt at an arty shot. Look past Dion at our shadows on the ground. Cool...

Where we stayed in Knysna

2007-04-28T10:52:00.000+02:00

Dion was tasked with finding us a place to stay so he narrowed the numerous options down to 3 and then sent them to me. I happened to like the look of one particular room (yes, that's all I made my decision on) and so we booked Protea Guest House.

D and the landlady were chatting away and they mentioned church and would you believe it? She goes to the church of a pastor, Ps Jerome Nel, who often visits our church. So when we confirmed our dates and what-not, I emailed her and told her we'll be coming with her to church on the Sunday.

Anyway, aside from the Christian connection, it was a lovely place. She was extremely hospitable - I'll give you one example. After the first night, she saw how cold we were (not used to Knysna cold) and had an oil heater sent up to our little house.

Look at this view - is it not stunning???

So of course we took breakfast outside the one day when the weather was not too bad. That's me in the picture - I told Dion that he was not allowed to take a picture of my face looking horrible from sleep.

Storms River Mouth & highest bungee jump in the world

2007-04-28T00:17:00.000+02:00

When we left Port Elizabeth, it was cold and rainy. Not unusual weather for the time of year, but unusual for us, being used to Jhb's cold, dry winters.

The rain eventually cleared up about an hour outside of PE so we decided to stop and take some pictures at Storms River Mouth.

My Dion - isn't he gorgeous

As you can see from my ice-cold face and my hair blowing in the wind, it was absolutely freezing.

This was taken on the one side of the bridge...

and this was taken on the other side

This is a picture of Bloukrans bridge. At 216m, it is officially recognised by the Guiness book of world records as the highest bungee jump in the world.

I saw all the signs but I must admit that I wasn't sure if they were just saying that as a gimmick so of course, I googled it. And it is correct!

It is much more impressive in real life. And we amused ourselves there (still in the cold) watching about 5 or 6 people "face their fears" as the poster dared them to do. There was actually a lovely vibe because they play loud thumping music; I suppose it's to get the people in the mood.

A 5-year-old watching with us said, "Daddy, they go like this" and she demonstrated beautifully how they free fall. Hmmm - I'd keep a close eye on her.

Ready, steady, go

2007-04-27T00:11:00.000+02:00

There - my bags are packed and we're ready to set off on holiday.

We'll be married 12 years on Sunday and we're heading off to Knysna (after flying into Port Elizabeth) to celebrate at the coast.

Stay with us as we take you along for the ride...

Blog update!

2006-12-30T11:23:00.000+02:00

Hi everyone

I have now written and posted everything from the Thailand holiday.

Still have to do Malaysia!

Edited to add
Malaysia is also now done!

Before and after

2006-12-15T14:01:00.000+02:00

Check this out!

Before the holiday - horrible picture but check out the lack of tan!

After the holiday, tanned Marcia (I'm wearing the elephant necklace)

and tanned, relaxed Dion

What I used to capture all the memories

2006-11-05T21:59:00.000+02:00

What to pack for Thailand

2006-11-03T16:23:00.000+02:00

Thanks for all the luggage tips from Meg and Nikki F.

(As I type this blog post, I am eating an apple I bought at Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur).

Literally, this is all you need, even if you like to be prepared like me.

Bathing costume - useful for lying around at the pool, on the beach, or for wearing with shorts.
Short shorts
Flat strappy thong sandals - lots of them
Sleeveless tops. No T-shirts (too hot for them) or if you insist, then just take 2 or 3.
Cap or hat
Lots of sunscreen
Capri pants for evening. Still wear with those same sleeveless tops in the evenings.
Short pyjamas
Magazines and books

Since being on holiday, I'm grateful for small things

2006-11-03T16:16:00.000+02:00

I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment because there is SO much to blog but if I don't start it will only get worse so here goes.

Cool weather
After the heat in Thailand and Malaysia, I am loving the cooler weather here in Jhb. We literally lived in shorts and skimpy tops with slops. I walked out of the airport building on Wednesday and revelled in the cold! Lovely.

Drinking water
Those of you who know me well are aware that I drink at least 2L a day. It is so, so nice to just open the tap to get water and not have to buy bottled water.

People that understand me & who speak English
The Thai people speak very, very limited English (and understand, I'm being very generous here). The Malaysians were a tad better but I found them unforthcoming. For example, here is a typical conversation:

M: Are there any ATMs here?

Malaysian: Yes (that's it - not yes, they're right over there)

M: Where will I find them?

Not having to do sums before shopping
This is to work out the cost of the item in Rand. In Thailand, R1 bought about Thai baht 4.70 on average. And in Malaysia, R1 bought about RM0,45 (ringgit)

Brown bread
My mother-in-law bought us some brown rolls and I swear, they tasted like a gourmet meal after having being starved of fibre for 2 weeks.

Muesli & other fibrous cereals
At both the hotels, there were only kiddies cereals like Coco Pops, Rice Krispies, etc. (in other words, non-healthy stuff). We craved All Bran and Weetbix and on our first morning back, Dion had a huge bowl of fibre sticks (I don't know the proper name – Fibre something – I call them fibre sticks) and I had All Bran.

I'll add more as I think of them!

Our last day in KL - 31/10/06

2006-10-31T11:00:00.000+02:00

We had a lovely late morning – went to breakfast late and took our time eating and then coming back to the room. Went to use the hotel’s internet facilities (big mistake – very expensive!) Had showers as late as possible (because our flight was only leaving at 1am and then we still had to travel 10 hours.

We then checked out and left our bags with the concierge and caught the hotel shuttle to The Curve, yet another shopping centre. It would return at 9pm which left plenty of time to get changed into flying clothes before our taxi collected us at 10pm.

We got to the Curve and drew some more money. Before hitting the shops, we found a public phone so that we could confirm our taxi and flights with our tour operator. All fine. Then we tried to phone Carey-Anne so that we could perhaps meet up for supper. Each time we’d hear her say Hello? Hello? And when I spoke, she couldn’t hear us and put down the phone quite quickly too. After the second call, I just left it. It seemed like too much hassle and I was getting stressed. So that’s it.

We were then hungry for lunch (this was about 3:30) so we went to Thai Express and split a curry because we wanted to save ourselves for supper. Delicious!

We then happened upon Borders and I’m not joking, spent the next couple of hours in that one store. Well, it is the biggest bookshop I have ever seen (like Macro, but for books) with two floors. You know this is heaven for us. We loooove bookshops. We spent some money there and much later, went to have a quick supper before the bus arrived. Got some pastries from a bakery for dessert and left. My one regret there is not going to Ikea – I read such a lot about Ikea from American blogs and then I was within walking distance of one and didn’t go. Oh well.

Things to do when next in Malaysia
1. Get new specs made
2. Go to Ikea
3. Take taxi to KL tower

We got back on time and we were so exhausted that we decided to go up the road to the KFC for a quick coffee. There was a lady in a wheelchair outside who was making personalised keyrings out of metal. Very pretty and I got one. However, I have since bashed the little ball to smithereens because the little tinkling was driving me battyJ

When we got back, the taxi driver was waiting. Since he was early, we quickly changed and then left with him. Remember the airport’s an hour away, even with no traffic at that time of night (10pm).

There were no problems checking in so we strolled around the airport for a bit, had some more KFC and then waited for our 1am flight.

I can’t even remember much of the flight back because I was exhausted and slept a lot but I do remember that we watched Click together and it was very good.

I love to be away but I’m always very happy to get home too. So on the flight already, I’m thinking that I have to do this and that when I get back.

Oooh, it was so good to get back.

And the weather was nice and cold which I love!

Suria KLCC and walking the city - 30/10/06

2006-10-30T12:25:00.000+02:00

This is the Suria KLCC shopping centre at the bottom of the Petronas Towers.

This place was amazing. About 6 floors of gorgeous expensive shops like Gucci, Prada, Gorgio Armani, Marc Jacobs, Burberry, Escada, Hermes, Chanel, Cartier and Nina Ricci.

We walked a lot and just window-shopped but we bought some Burger King food here (interestingly, at this Burger King, the dispensers have tomato sauce and chilli sauce for the chips – nice) and a delicious cinnamon bun. That’s the bun you see in the bag I’m holding. Yum! I totally indulged in cinnamon buns in Malaysia – so many places do the most beautiful cinnamon buns (I love everything with cinnamon).

I also bought these two watches and I now regret not buying more because they are lovely and weren’t badly priced at all (30 ringgit for two).

We then decided to walk to the KL tower since the information desk told us it was only 10 minutes away. Well, we walked and walked and walked and still no sign.

Eventually I was so hot and bothered and thirsty that I didn’t care if I ever saw the tower or not. Dion agreed, more for my sake than for his, and we decided to take the monorail back to our street, Bukit Bintang. After we bought tickets (they were 2.40 ringgit for both of us, per stop), we got some water at the shop. I swear that was the best water ever! I still have that water bottle and whenever I look at it, I remember that day.

We took the monorail and got off near one of the plazas. We went in and because of the gorgeous blast of aircon, we got our second wind. We bought ourselves MP4 players and lots of books, CDs and a new Bible for Dion at Chosen Treasure, a Christian bookshop. We stumbled upon it quite by accident trying to find a particular technology store. This place had such wonderful stuff and again, we regret not buying more, because of baggage restrictions.

And then we really were ready to go back to the hotel. We ate lunch at Burger King quite late so didn’t want a proper supper – Dion went to get a bun from the 7- 11 and I had Tesco Ritz biscuits (like our bacon kips here in South Africa) for supper. We then packed our bags (mostly) because although we still had a full 25 hours left in Malaysia, we had to check out in the morning. I later managed to arrange a late check-out for us at 2:00pm.

Kuala Lumpur city tour 2 - 30/10/2006

2006-10-30T11:51:00.000+02:00

The National Museum was not very impressive (old and some parts very dirty) and museums are not my thing at all. The only reason I went is because we were in Malaysia. By this time, due to the extreme heat, I was ready for the loo so went in search of a toilet. When I discovered that they charge to let you in, I had to find Dion to get some money. They also charge for toilet paper! I don’t mind paying to pee BUT then the toilets must be clean and they were not. I will just say that my thigh muscles received a nice workout because I could not sit on those filthy seats. At one point I left Dion looking at museum-type stuff and I went to the shop (much more my style) where I got us some wooden bookmarks with pewter animals inlaid. I felt like a real fuddy duddy in the shop at one point because there were like stacks of children and they were all making such a noise and I found myself involuntarily saying “sshhh” to which they all went “sshhh” to one another (is there an echo in here?)

The war memorial however was probably for me the best part of the tour. First off, it is housed in absolutely beautiful gardens so you have to walk quite a way to get to the statue. I could easily have spent another 30 minutes there, just looking at that beauty.

The memorial itself is in the middle of a pool with lots of Jacuzzi-like jets of water spouting periodically. Absolutely gorgeous.

I love running water, any running water. In fact, right now I’m typing this on my laptop next to the pool where our water feature is providing the perfect accompaniment to this beautiful day – okay, I just took a picture now to show you).

We took some nice pictures and our Sri Lankan friends took this weird picture of us. He was into strange shots and I must say this turned out well.

(There were old people on the tour with us who couldn’t walk very much and after about an hour of on and off the bus, they just sat on the bus. I found this quite sad because you save up your money to visit other countries and then you can’t even appreciate the country properly because of health issues, SO take care of your health!)

I can remember virtually nothing about this part because it is blocked out because I was so cross. The bus stops somewhere. The guy said we have 10 minutes before we move on – fine. Dion and I cross the road and walk around taking pictures (oh, now I remember – it’s where the two rivers meet – that’s what Kuala Lumpur means) and I then said that we’ve got to get back so we can get there in the 10 minutes. The robot took forever so we were a little bit late but the guy saw us standing and waiting for a green light.

Two Rivers meeting

Then we get to the bus and he shouted and screamed at us all the way about how we were late and we must do things like that on our own time! We were both shocked and absolutely gob-smacked. (I just asked Dion why we didn’t say something – he says it’s because it was so unexpected and we couldn’t believe it). That guy could learn a thing or two about hospitality from the Thai people.

On the bus, he publicly berates us again but like this…you don’t go off and do your own thing blah blah blah. Then and this is the best bit – he says we can be dropped off either at our hotel or somewhere along the way. So he goes up the aisles asking each couple where they want to be dropped off and when he gets to us, he ignores us totally and moves onto the next couple. Amazing! So childish and unprofessional. You can believe that if I’d been in Jhb, I would have given him a piece of my mind. Being half way around the world in a not-very-friendly city I just shut up counting down the minutes till we were off that bus and away from Mr Congeniality. Fortunately after about 10 minutes we were dropped off outside the Petronas Towers shopping centre, or Suria, the proper name

Detour into the weirdness of people
It’s sort of unspoken but when you’re on a tour, you sit in the same seat throughout. You adjust the airflow to your liking, fix the curtains on the windows and so on. Well, there was a certain couple who didn’t care about tour bus etiquette. We were sitting in the 3rd or 4th seats from the front. We got off at the first stop and got back on only to find that our seats had been taken. Fine, I thought, two can play at this game. So next time we left the bus, I made sure they were off first before us and I put my top and water bottle on our seats. Well, that worked – when they came back, they went to other seats and we had our original seats again.

However, they again took other people’s seats. And I heard the one lady mutter something, so when we stopped before we got off, I said to her, “they did the same thing to us. Put something on your seats – should keep them for you”. She had some stuff from the shop so she left her parcel and that seemed to do the trick.

I suppose I’m a bit of a saddo because I felt really vindicated by this J

some architechture in KL...

This was probably the worst city tour we’d ever been on, due to the tour guide’s abysmal behaviour and the fact that I felt cheated since they rushed us at some of the most stunning places and yet we could easily have spent an extra 10 minutes here and there if the tour itself was the 3 hours they said it was.

Kuala Lumpur city tour 1 - 30/10/06

2006-10-30T10:26:00.000+02:00

Well, since Dion was now fine, we could at last go on the City tour (3 days into our 4-day stay).

We made sure we were earlier for breakfast but seems like the whole hotel had the same idea so there was even more of a queue. At least it went fast so we had a lovely breakfast and were back in the lobby by 8:40 for our 8:45 pickup.

They were very late – only arrived at 9:00 and they didn’t seem to know about us so good thing I had our receipts because of course, the concierge who we booked with was not working that shift.

We went on the bus to a central point where they split us up depending on what tour we’d bought. Got our yellow stickers and we were on our way at about 9:25.

First stop was the Petronas Towers.

The bus parked in such a position that we could get good pictures of both the Petronas Towers and the KL Tower.

That was quite cool, especially since we weren’t stopping at the KL Tower on this particular tour. We also met a Sri Lankan couple (both of them very good-looking) and he showed us how to take different shots with our digital camera so that we could get interesting shots of the famous towers.

Next we visited an arts and crafts centre. They mainly had batik crafts and pewter in there. We had a demonstration of the batik artists. It was amazing how the guy draws all these flowers and leaves completely freehand. What was even more amazing is how the second guy then colours in the material - not a drop of paint outside the lines. (one of my weird things is I can’t colour inside the lines – don’t know if it’s lack of patience or what – but I just can’t do it).

There are 25 million people in Malaysia and they are mostly farmers – top exports are rubber, palm oil and tin (pewter is an alloy of tin). So at this craft centre, there’s a huge pewter selection of goods and of course, we were encouraged to buy, buy, buy. I’m not one for ornaments though so thanks very much but no!

We then went to the King’s Palace and took pictures with the guards, in front of the very impressive gates. Some years on a particular holiday (I think it’s Diwali) the King opens the palace and you can walk through. The guide said that on those days everybody goes through because it’s for free!

Kuala Lumpur - still no city tour 29/10/06

2006-10-29T14:09:00.000+02:00

And incidentally, our 11 1/2 year anniversary!

We’d booked places on the City Tour through the hotel’s concierge the previous night so we had to get up nice and early to get breakfast and be ready for collection at 8:45.

Well, when we got to the dining room, there was a queue of about 6 people before us (it was a HUGE hotel and obviously everybody decided to get breakfast late like us). We were just about to be seated when Dion realised that he forgot the breakfast tickets in the room, so I was seated while he went up.

I waited for a reasonable time and then I went to start getting food. You feel weird just sitting there “taking up table space” when you can see the queue of hungry people, staring at you! Eventually Dion pitched saying that he was sick and nothing was staying inside (must have been the beef hot pot). I felt quite pleased that I had Imodium (and all the rest of the little medicine bag I take everywhere when we travel) and for once, the stuff was being used. He couldn’t have any breakfast so he went back to the room to take the pills and rest. Meanwhile I finished my breakfast (no sense in both of us starving, now is there?!) and then explored the hotel a bit – gym, swimming pool and so on. I had to also tell the concierge that since D was sick, we wouldn’t be able to take the City Tour and would have to postpone.

I checked on D where I found him battling to concentrate on his book because of two very naughty boys in the room next door. You could see that their mother was all out of ideas so she just let them run loose. They were banging on the interleading door and running around their room making a noise. They left soon after I got back so we left it for the moment.

I grabbed my wallet and went to the plazas. I went to the Low Yat Plaza, Sungei Wei Plaza and many others. The strange thing with these malls is they are all inter-connecting. Basically you walk from one mall right to the next. The only way you know that you’re in another mall is that the tiles in one mall would be, say brown, and the tiles in the next mall are green. I only figured this out after a couple of hours when I started feeling lost and didn’t recognise shops and so on. Eventually I had to ask someone for the nearest exit to the street. He pointed it out to me and when I got outside I was like waaayyyy down the road, far from where I’d gone in. It’s actually a miracle I even knew where I was with my warped sense of direction. Although there were lots of food shops which are always good landmarks for me!

Side note – in Thailand, I knew exactly where we were at any point by our proximity to the Dunkin’ Donuts J

I bought a Brian Tracy book (Eat the frog) that I’d wanted for a long time but that I never saw in SA, a Malaysian magazine, two gorgeous silver rings and some keyrings.

By this time I was hungry so went back to the hotel to see if Dion was feeling any better. The little boys were back and the noise was not better so we decided to move rooms. Because they’d upgraded us, we had to take the normal room that we booked and paid for, which apparently had a not-so-wonderful view. We were totally fine with that because of course we’d already taken our pictures!

So we moved rooms and boy what a relief that was! Dion was also feeling better so we went out together again. He was still not well enough to eat though so I decided to have a small burger at KFC. Delicious! When we were walking through the hotel lobby, all the porters, concierge, etc. kept asking Dion how he was feeling. He felt like quite the star!

I then tried to find some shops again that I’d seen earlier when walking around, almost to no avail. It was only through my photographic memory that we eventually found the place. But at that point, we decided that if we saw anything we wanted, we’d just buy there and then as there was a good chance we wouldn’t find the shop again. Remember the street we were on (Bukit Bintang) is called the Shopper’s Street of Malaysia as there are 8 malls next to each other in less than 1km. And each of those malls has 6 to 7 floors, each of which is like one of Eastgate’s floors. Crazy!

So Dion bought me a beautiful leather bag at House of Leather. I liked a particular style but they had it in the wrong colour, so the assistant phoned around and said they’ll get it from another store. I asked how long it would take thinking a couple of hours but she says…10 minutes. Sure enough – 10 minutes later, we went back (not daring to venture very far in case we got lost) and bought it.

For some reason, the specs and sunglasses are really, really cheap. I bought this pair for 120 ringgit. If I’d had normal weak eyes (my eyes are both outside of the range, so they charge me extra for my lenses, and that’s besides all the other stuff I usually get added, like anti-reflex and hard coatings, etc.), for lenses and everything they would have charged 250 ringgit, which is R550!!! Cheap as anything – we would have paid at least R1500 here. Anyway, I wasn’t prepared to pay for everything since the medical aid probably wouldn’t refund us for the specs, so I just got the frame. In retrospect, I should have just had the specs done, because with all my fancy stuff, just the lenses will cost be between R1800 and R2600. So I’ve said to Dion that next time we go east, I will take those very frames with us, and get them to make my specs.

Well we were exhausted after trawling the malls and went back to our hotel for some tea and reading, and then decided to walk to China Town. We’d heard such a lot about it but it was quite disappointing. I found it extremely dirty and not very exciting at all.

We had to buy something after that loooong walk so I bought a watch and two apples and Dion bought some roasted chestnuts.

We then had a very late supper (10pm) at Nando’s!!! We were very excited to see a little bit of home.

And that was day 2.

Walking around the city 28/10/06

2006-10-28T23:30:00.000+02:00

Beautiful street shot

Dion loves to take street shots and while we're on holiday, I don't much care for all the stopping and snapping. I want to move, move, move! However, when we get back is when I start to appreciate these because they are just beautiful and you get a real sense of the place, looking at the people, buildings, shops, etc.

I've always wanted to take a shot like this. Next time I'll look for an escalator that's not moving!

This is the place where we got supper (that made Dion sick).

Check this out - my hands are the same size as Demi Moore's

Arriving in Kuala Lumpur 28/10/06

2006-10-28T22:53:00.000+02:00

When we arrived in Kuala Lumpur, we made our way through customs and found our tour operator very quickly. It is amazing how quickly all the taxi drivers zeroed in on us to try and get us to take their particular taxi into the city.

We waited around for the rest of our party but ended up in a taxi all alone as the other guys had too much luggage so there wasn’t enough space for us.

Our taxi driver spoke very good English which was a refreshing change from the ones in Phuket. We got chatting (as is our custom) and found out the prices of everything from burgers to taxi fare. It took about an hour to get into the city to our hotel, the Royale Bintang.

We arrived at about 2pm, checked in and found that they’d upgraded us to some deluxe room. At this point it was raining and Dion got right to it – taking pictures from the room’s window.

I unpacked quickly and then was dying for a cup of tea so got going with that and then carried on reading my book (The Broker – John Grisham, if you’re interested).

Meanwhile ... Dion’s still snapping away.

After Dion unpacked, we went exploring. The weather was amazing – very, very hot and then sudden rain. It then stops just as suddenly. Weird.

We drew some money and then went to get some food. The food courts in all the plazas (shopping centres) are laid out in exactly the same way. You enter on the ground floor and go down one floor and the entire bottom is food. Of course Dion and I do our usual thing which is to look at each and every place before deciding where to eat. We decided on a hot pot meal.

Now that I’m thinking about it, it sounds quite disgusting but when in Rome… and remember, we were starving. The last time we ate was on our 10:30 flight and it’s about 5 – 6pm.

They do a stirfry-type thing with beef/ chicken, mixed veg, noodles, and then they add two soup ladles full of a soya sauce-type liquid and cook it all up. And then get this – they fry an egg on top of the sauce.

Anyway, after watching all of this, I could only eat about half of it. Dion ate his and mine. We had the most delicious pastries for dessert, all 1 ringgit each (R2,20).

Then we went walking through a plaza or two until we happened on a stunning bookshop, called MPH (Malaysia Publishing House). We happily spent an hour or so just in this one place as well as about 47 ringgit.

On our way back to the hotel, we got some ice-cream cones (delicious) and of course, water, at the 7-11 a few shops away from our hotel.

That’s it for day 1.

Something we noticed in the plazas…there are so many job vacancies in all the shop windows. Coming from South Africa where unemployment is rife, we were absolutely amazed. I don’t think there’s any reason you need to be unemployed in Malaysia!

Leaving Phuket 28/10/06

2006-10-28T10:33:00.000+02:00

After a quick breakfast, we were ready for our 7.30 pick up. We were collected on time but it still took an hour and a quarter to get us and the 2 other couples to the airport.

When we were in the queue waiting to check in, we noticed that we were behind yet another two Aussie girls. We picked our queue well because these girls had bulging suitcases so after them, our luggage would actually look normal.

The four of us chatted about whether they'd charge us anything extra but all that paranoia was in vain - the lady hardly batted an eyelid.

We bought a coffee at the Burger King and then changed the rest of our money to Malaysian Ringgits. Now here's where the problem came in.

We asked her what the R/ Ringgit exchange rate was and she said R100 buys you 33 Ringgit. So the whole holiday we assumed that it was the same. When we got back to SA, we discovered that the exchange rate was R2,12 to the Ringgit.

What does this mean? We could have bought a lot more in Malaysia. Aarggghhh!

Oh my word but that airport was packed - I was very tempted to jump into the Singapore queue.

Our flights were late but eventually we boarded the aircraft and flew out of Thailand.

Introducing Kata Kitchen's new sales reps...

2006-10-27T13:41:00.000+02:00

When we went back to this place, another couple was looking at the menu and we said, "don't even bother to look, just go in and eat. We liked it so much last night - we're back for the second round."

And they were sold!

Our last day on Phuket - 27/10/06

2006-10-27T13:30:00.000+02:00

Rene's birthday today - Aussie neighbour

Woke up late, had breakfast where we met a South African couple from Cape Town, Weston and Isla (Hi guys).

We went straight for massages after breakfast - Dion for the Thai massage - and me for a 9-step facial that lasted 1 ½ hours. It was DIVINE. While the specific treatment is on - let's say the cucumber - the lady gives your arms a massage. Next treatment she'll do your legs, etc, etc. No waiting around idly. So I got a head, neck and back massage too. Well, well worth the 550 baht (R115).

After the massages, we went to read in the room and then down to the pool. Spent some time chatting to Weston and Isla.

When we eventually were ready for lunch, we went to a place overlooking the beach. This was our most expensive meal in Thailand at 410 baht (R85) and not for the food, but for all the delicious drinks. I had a chicken baguette, coconut and pineapple shakes and D had a prawn cocktail and papaya shakes.

Then Dion went for a swim while I people watched (one of my favourite things to do). We saw some cute little boys whose parents had bought them miniature dusters for the beach chairs. These little boys were eating, drinking, undressing but they would not let go of those little dusters. Too cute.

Here's a picture of a big boy with the duster :)

I also bought two bracelets for 100 baht (asking price 150 baht each - yes!)

Back to the room for showers - while Dion had his shower, I crossed the street with wet hair to have it blowdried for 200 baht. We then met in the hotel lobby for drinks (like we were dating).

Can you see why I called this (the place on the right) the Happy Restaurant? This photo doesn't do it justice but all those lights are just so pretty at night.

Went back to the Kata Kitchen where I had sweet and sour chicken, and D had Thai red curry with chicken.

Afterwards we went for massages again - this time oil massages - variation of Thai massage but not so sore. Of course, then came the worst part of all - trying to pack everything back into those same suitcases.

Monkeys, water buffalo and coconuts

2006-10-26T17:46:00.000+02:00

They also showed us how they train the monkeys to pick coconuts. They reward them with cute little bottles of milk. Here is the monkey getting his reward for getting the coconuts.

Then we watched a lady demonstrate how to cook a Thai curry. They were selling curry paste afterwards and, of course, we bought some.

Next, the water buffalo.Those who wanted to could take a picture on him.

This is Wi, our tour guide, showing us how it's done. Now amazing thing about stereotypes – two of the three make-up girls actually got on that hot, smelly beast to have their picture taken.

Dion and I, being the adventurous sorts of people we are, decided to rather take a photo next to him. The water buffalo's coat is hard, bristly and sweaty. Quite gross actually. We also took a ride on a wagon pulled along by this water buffalo.

They also showed us absolutely everything to do with coconuts - how to de-husk, how to get the water/ juice out, how they make dessicated coconut, coconut milk and coconut oil. These people do not waste anything - the husk is used as a sort of chocolate flavoured topping for cakes.

Then we went to lunch where we sat with a New Zealand couple, Duncan and Rebecca (by the way, they didn't have the strong NZ accents). They also got married at the end of April like we did and this was their honeymoon on the way to England where he was being transferred for a year.

We were also in the same transport to the drop-off point and back to our hotel - this is how I could get all the details!

At the hotel, we rested for a bit, then changed and went to the pool. At 4.30 it looked like it was going to rain so Dion packed everything up and we went back to the room. I sat on the balcony updating the journal for about an hour and then spent some time chatting to our Aussie neighbours, Rene and Maria.

After showers, we set off for the Happy Restaurant which is actually called Kata Kitchen. It had bright pink and blue tablecloths and lots of lights, hence the nickname. This one had free rice and soft drinks. D had pad thai with seafood and I had THE MOST DELICIOUS MEAL EVER - chicken with cashew nuts and pineapple.

Afterwards, I stopped by an internet café for 45 minutes. Dion went off in a sulk because I was taking too long and wouldn't come for a massage. So I went on my own - independent Marsh strikes again.

Well, that was my first and last Thai massage - it was very sore although to be fair, some of it was very nice.

Elephants! 26/10/06

2006-10-26T17:16:00.000+02:00

After the rubber tapping, we saw a baby elephant show. Very, very cute. I won't even try to upload the video we took because my dear friend blogger lost an entire post earlier and I'm not messing with fancy stuff.

We took photos with them and some of the tour group fed them fruit. They charged 50 baht a basket.

This is the platform where you get on the elephants. These are the 3 make-up girls!

Dion and Marcia just setting off

Then we went riding on the elephants for about 40 minutes. We had what we call a Jhb elephant who kept overtaking the slower ones. My kind of animal. When we started out, we were number 6 or 7 in the queue. Because our elephant was having none of this slow stuff, we ended up number 3.

The view was beautiful and we enjoyed the ride thoroughly.

I bought an elephant necklace for only 80 baht (R17) at the elephant compound. Stuff was amazingly cheap at this place, especially so because it was a real touristy place.

Siam tour & rubber tapping - 26/10/06

2006-10-26T16:00:00.000+02:00

Woke up early again as the tour pick-up time was 8.30. Had hard-boiled egg on toast and fruit salad.

We were collected at 8.50 and the guy then hurtled through the streets to the Siam Safari meeting point. There were these 3 very young girls in the Jeep with us - you couldn't find people who looked less like they were going on safari. A modeling shoot - yes, but safari, no. These 3 were doing their hair and makeup like you cannot believe. Now remember it is BLAZING HOT and after the first day, I didn't even bother with eye pencil, let alone make-up. A quick dab of lip gloss or lipstick is about all you have the energy for. I thought I was the only one shocked at these girls but once we got there, the other people were all, "can you believe those girls?!" Too funny.

The Thai people seem to focus only on the actual start of the tour, and not at all on the beginning and end bits. There is absolutely no communication whatsoever and lots of disorder until the ACTUAL START. I always itch to get involved at this point and I really have to remind myself that it's not my business and to butt out. But it's difficult, people.

Like this morning. We're all dumped there; we get out of the Jeeps and all sit/ stand around. No-one knows what's going on. Fortunately or unfortunately it's too hot for us to really care enough to do something about it. Then we're taken to the Elephant Centre for more hanging around. Turns out that there are too many people to start the tour at the scheduled beginning so we're going to start with the rubber tapping. They book people on the tours who all pay beforehand so surely they should stagger times or something? Anyway!

Anyway, we learnt how they tap the trees for rubber for only 2 - 3 hours a day at around 3am because the sap doesn't flow when it is hot. We got to touch the sap - it is white like glue and when it dries, it peels right off.

They then mix it with water and some acid (I didn't catch the name) and roll it to make a tiny little rubber mat. V. interesting.

You all know what they use rubber for... yes, that's right - car mat and, of course, condoms.

Tesco Lotus - Wed 25/10/06

2006-10-25T22:51:00.000+02:00

Another lazy morning.

Today I decided to ask for what I wanted (novel idea!) at breakfast. So I asked for banana (they brought 3 of the cutest little bananas I have ever seen - about 10cm long and 2cm in diameter) to cut up in my fruit salad and yoghurt, and a boiled egg. I had a delicious sandwich of wholewheat toast with sliced boiled egg and tomato. Yum! I love this combination.

We then read at the pool, sunbathed and swam until lunch time. Back to the room to change and then to Tesco. (They all say TescoLotus like it's one word - because it's at a shopping centre called Lotus Centre)

The hotel taxis are 50 baht more expensive than the ones on the street but we usually tried to get them down another 50 baht from that. So, the hotel rate to Tesco is 400 baht so we paid 300 baht. Thank goodness the car was airconditioned because it was very far.

This picture is actually from the Burger King at the Phuket Airport but it's the only fast food one I could find so there you go!

We got there at 4.30 and first walked around the food court to check menu, prices, etc. before settling on KFC. We shared both a zinger and a chicken tortilla. The zinger was lovely but not the tortilla - too much creamy sauce. Then we went to Dunkin Donuts for dessert before hitting the shops.

I am only slightly embarrassed to say that I went a bit wild - 2 handbags, 2 pairs shorts, 2 capri pants, 2 long pants, 6 t-shirts, some baby things for my sister, notebooks…and that's beside Dion's things. All that came to …wait for this…2089 baht, or R435! A bargain!

We also bought some toiletries at my favourite health & beauty store, Watsons (like Clicks, only better) and an Amy Tan novel. And then I spent the equivalent of about R50 on some glass rings and about 4 bracelets from a lady sitting outside one of the shops.

We were so tired of walking that we were happy to rest for supper at the Santa Fe Café for chicken before going back to the hotel. The taxi again wanted 400 baht but this time we paid 350 baht.

All in all, a very, very nice day.

Blame it on the rain

2006-10-24T22:39:00.000+02:00

okay, blogger was messing me around again in that previous post.

When we were on the island, we saw this rain waiting for us back on Phuket.

This picture was taken from one of those small boats.

Phang Nga tour - part 2

2006-10-24T22:07:00.000+02:00

Next, we travelled for about 1 ½ hours to a secluded beach for swimming. Isn't it beautiful?

This is the small boat that we used to travel to this island.

The locals charged 100 baht for beach chair rental which of course, I wasn't prepared to pay for just 1 hour. So I sat on Dion's beach towel, chatting to Jan, while Dion and Mick had a swim. We stopped there for an hour.

You can see the beach umbrellas on the right of this picture

While we were waiting for the small boat to arrive to take us back to the big boat, all of us had a weird/ interesting discussion about what a miracle a long-lasting marriage is, and how so many people don't even bother to get married these days but just have kids. Apparently the average length of a marriage in the US is a mere 26 months. Very sad.

We were all very quiet (tired out from the day in the sun) on the way back to hotel where we set off from. Amazingly, those floating blue things were now on the sand because it was low tide.

The guy showed us the pictures he'd taken of us in the morning when we set off - very nice one of us, but we didn't buy it at 150 baht, and I was tired of bartering for the day.

We went to the loos, and then back to the hotel. Sad thing is we didn't get to say good-bye to the Australians but we did with Mick and Jan since we traveled back with them.

Overall, a very nice day - especially chatting to people who could speak English!

Funny thing happened on the boat - Jan started chatting to the Australians and she said, "oh by the way, we're from England". Now Jan speaks in a very English accent so it really is obvious. But Anthony says in a real deadpan way, "yes, we gathered"

Jan & Mick were from Windsor, England. She'd worked for British Airways for 39 years and just retired at the end of September. She was at home for 2 weeks before getting bored, so she got a part-time job working in a dept store two days a week. Mick retired 7 years previously and now works from 3 - 6pm 4 days a week as a bartender.

The other Australian couple, Lee-Ann and Anthony, was from Melbourne. She's an ex-chef turned office worker and Anthony is an interior designer. She stays in Richmond and he in St Kilda. The cool thing is we've been there - we had a whole story to tell her of how we got lost in Richmond.

It rained heavily once we were back for about 3 hours (most it ever rained while we were there). We tried waiting for it to stop but eventually at 7.30 we set out with our umbrellas. And you know what? The rain was lovely - warm and tropical and actually quite pleasant.

We ended up at the Kata Café (opposite Natalie's) where we had spaghetti marinara (D) and carbonara (me). We didn't enjoy it very much, not so much for the food (although the portion was really small - fine for me but not for D) but for the attitude.

Free salad with some bread but you have to pay for the butter. You pay for ice, etc. so it's almost like are you charging me for the glass and cutlery too?! In the end you're too scared to ask for a wedge of lemon or a serviette in case she says 10 baht, which was the answer for any extras.

Phang Nga Tour - 24/10/06 part 1

2006-10-24T16:26:00.000+02:00

A quick breakfast before we were collected. We were the 3rd couple on the minibus and we then went to collect the 4th – Mick & Jan from Windsor, England.

We were all taken to a central hotel together with all the other groups from Tour East where we had a quick tea/ coffee/ water (us) before setting off.

We walked on a water float (v scary as the whole thing moves and I'm NOT a water person) to get to the big boat. We were 11 people besides the 2 guides.

We saw beautiful limestone cliffs on our way.

Our first stop was James Bond Island. !

Obviously not it's real name but since the making of The Man with the Golden Gun, that's what everybody knows. We transferred to a smaller boat and because of that, we had to wear life jackets

After the guide did the talk, we were allowed 30 mins for photos, hiking, shopping, etc.

We took photos mostly and watched Japanese tourists setting up tripods to take a picture. Weird. The photo in our profile was taken by an interior designer, Anthony, from Melbourne, Australia. Just thought you should know that!

We then went to a Sea Gypsey Village for lunch – rice, prawns, omelette, crab, soup. I didn't really enjoy it because it was too oily for my taste. Dessert was fresh pineapple which I always enjoy. However, the company was lovely. At our table, Jan took charge and made us all introduce ourselves – Jan & Mick from England, Lee-Ann and Anthony from Australia, and Dion and I from SA.

Then we went "touring" through the village – all suspended on water, families living in shacks, people selling things, people cooking all around. Terrible place to live but I suppose they don't know anything else. This is what I said to another English girl who looked quite traumatised at the thought of kids living there.

I was also inspired by Aussie Anthony who paid just 100 baht for a necklace where the asking price was initially 750 baht. (this was before this tour). So! I bargained a lady down from 150 baht to 25 baht for a glass ring.. Cool.

Stay tuned for the rest of the Phang Nga tour!

Lazy days at the pool...

2006-10-23T16:04:00.000+02:00

Had a lovely lazy day today.

Woke up late again but we'd put out our clothes and bags so it wasn't too bad.

By the time we got to breakfast, there was no more cut tomato (my morning veg) to have with my wholegrain bread and eggs so I asked for a few slices and I get a whole plate full.

Same with the fruit. The waiter asked what I'd like, so I said a little bit of each and he brings a HUGE plate of watermelon, pineapple and papaya. D and I did our best but we couldn't finish.

This is exactly the view I had most days. The building directly opposite is called Mali Spa - the ladies used to do poolside massages over there. In the left corner, you can just see the waterfall. I love the sound of water falling - it is so soothing...

We then went down to the pool for reading and dipping legs (me) and swimming (D). At 2:30 I went back to the room to cool off with a bit of aircon and update the journal. D had left hours earlier for the same thing.

For supper, we went to Natalie's for the second time where we had Thai Mussamen Curry – D had beef and I had chicken. As usual, it was delicious!

After detouring to the 7-11 for water (as is our custom), we went to the hotel. Early to bed because tomorrow is a 7.45 pick-up time!

Patong Beach

2006-10-22T16:58:00.000+02:00

Absolutely geared for tourists. But too much, you know? We were so glad our hotel was away from all the bedlam. Just one street alone had about 20-30 eating places. Crazy.

We found a dept store called Ocean Plaza with aircon (heaven!) and you could not pry us out of there for a good few hours. When we were done there, we decided to get something to eat and then to head back because our feet were sore from all the walking on the tour, and then some more walking around the shopping centre.

We heard that there was a McDonalds around and since I was craving "normal" food, nothing would stand in our way. Thankfully, the directions were accurate and it was only 5 minutes away.

That McChicken meal was the best burger I have ever tasted! Fresh roll, succulent chicken patty and fresh lettuce with mayo. Yum - I could have another one.

While we were eating, I noticed two people with Watsons carrier bags. Now Watsons was one of my favourite shops in Singapore (after the bakery) so we decided to take a short walk to see if it was anywhere close. Close?! It was two shops away from McD.

We quickly popped in (30 minutes) and came out 742 B poorer. Watsons is a bit like Clicks, only better. I bought a bag there which I then used every day for the rest of the holiday because of all the pockets.

While walking, I saw a vendor with T-shirts that said, NO THANKS, I don't want a massage, tailor, tuk-tuk or anything else. That pretty much sums up life on Phuket Island.

Got a tuk-tuk taxi back to the hotel where we vegged out, showered and watched "Meet the Fockers" on HBO. We were too full to go eat supper after the big McD "lunch" at 4:00 so we had 2 ProVitas each.

****************************************

By the way, this was taken at Natalie's - the place where we first had supper.

Introduction to Phuket - city tour

2006-10-22T12:22:00.000+02:00

Today was our first tour - I couldn't wait. We mixed up the pick-up times of two of our tours so we were ready at 7:45 for a 9:00 pick-up.

We realised when we were still at breakfast so Dion went up the million and one steps back to our room to get our books so we could read. It was lovely - reading while gazing out on a tropical paradise with the sound of the sea and an occasional bird chirping.

At 9:00 we left as we were the 3rd out of 4 couples to be collected from our hotels, and the only SA couple amongst Australians from Sydney. They were all honeymooners (2 couples had just got married the previous Saturday, and the other two weeks prior to that) and of course, we were old hands at this after 11 ½ years. Too funny.

Our guide was called Bee and she promptly handed out stickers which we had to wear "so that you all get on the right bus". Good plan!

We went to various lookout points - absolutely beautiful unspoilt beaches.

Hard to think that a natural disaster happened less than 5 years ago.

We asked Bee about that and she said that most of Phuket was rebuilt in 3 months! They were forced to work quickly because tourism is the main industry. I was amazed at the resilience of the Thai people. I'm sure here in SA it would have taken us a lot longer to get over all our victim mentality, but that's another post!

When we booked the tours I was warned that I wouldn't be allowed inside the Buddhist temple in skimpy tops because shoulders have to be covered, but Bee told us that this temple is very touristy so they don't mind our naked shoulders. The Thai people set off firecrackers to celebrate good things and also to ward off evil spirits so one way or the other, the firecracker industry does well. LOL.

The Buddhist temple

Dion and I hurried through the Buddhist temple (I'm not particularly interested in sights like that - I just go because it's there) to get to the market opposite. Our guide told us that we would get t-shirts and the like much cheaper than anywhere else so we were quite eager to check out the selection. Dion got some shorts and a t-shirt while I bought… yes, you guessed it…souvenirs.

Next stop - cashew nut factory.
It is amazing how much work goes into producing a single cashew nut. The ladies sit and remove the shells from the nut, one at a time. They have three bowls - one for perfect nuts, one for nuts that break but are still good, and one for the bad nuts. They don't throw anything away - absolutely everything is used. It was a real eye-opener, especially what those ladies get paid, something ridiculous like R20/R30 a day.

Notice the three piles of nuts. This lady's eyes must be so sore from all that concentrating every day.

All of us bought quite a lot of stuff there - personally, I felt guilty and that I had to support those ladies. Dion and I got sesame & honey, and chocolate cashew nuts.

The last stop on the tour was the Gems Gallery (all along we thought she was saying James Gallery). Very nice if you're into jewellery (I'm not) and only one piece really interested me - string of pearls but it wasn't very practical so I left it. The one Ozzie girl then bought it.

Interesting how everybody is sooo quiet at the start of the tour and as we all start taking pictures of one another and commenting on various things how people start to loosen up. Of course, I was talking the whole way through. At the Gems Gallery, people really started talking properly about jobs and all sorts of things, and after that, we couldn't shut the one girl up. We still didn't find out her name so I dubbed her Kylie, and she was all Ben this and Ben that. She and I got through her whole holiday to Vietnam - flights and everything - in a 15-minute drive to Patong Beach. I rest my case.

Dion lurves street scenes. I must say I can never see what the big fuss is about while he's snapping away, but when we're back home, they always do look stunning. Well done, Sweetie.

Please note - left of picture, there's a red tuk-tuk taxi and on the right side, you can see two tailor shops.

We could decide where we wanted to be dropped off if we didn't want to go to the hotel. We decided on Patong Beach to save money on taxi fare. Any taxi to virtually everywhere is 350 - 400 Baht (R75 - R85) one way, so at least this way, we only had to pay to get back to the hotel.

And that's all for now - these pictures have taken AGES to download.

Things I loved about the hotel pool/ Sat 21st

2006-10-21T22:29:00.000+02:00

The pool was the place where I caught up on writing in my journal, read, read and read some more.

What I loved about the pool besides the stunning view overlooking the beach:

1. An abundance of (Dion says clean) lounging chairs
2. A table with lots of beach towels
3. An umbrella between every 2 chairs
4. A little table between every 2 chairs for my book, suntan lotion and water
5. The waterfall
6. The greenery

7. Jacuzzi jets

8. A bar in the pool with underwater barstools

Saturday 21 October (my father's birthday)
Breakfast
After a late start (I only woke at 9.50), we had a breakfast of cornflakes and yoghurt, slice brown toast, omelette, bacon, tomato and pancake, and of course, pineapple. They do the omelettes like little anteaters (Melody, please tell me the proper name in the comments)

Pool
This is what we did the whole morning after breakfast before our meeting with the tour guide.

Tour guide
We had an appointment for 13:45. This is where they reconfirm flights for you and try to sell you lots of tours. Not a very difficult job with us because we love tours.

Within just a few minutes, she'd racked up Thai Baht 7400 worth of sales (about R1600). It amazed me how easily she did it considering she was not in the least bit pushy. However, she listened well, considered our needs and honestly told us what she thought was best for us. And she was very professional which always impresses me.

Of course our DiscoveryCard was not acceptable (surprise surprise - we've had so many problems with this card because the numbers are not embossed like "normal" credit cards) so I used the Absa Mastercard.

We signed up for an Introduction to Phuket, Phang Nga (James Bond Island) and 4-in-1 elephant, rubber tapping, buffalo and gibbon tour for Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday respectively.

After the meeting we were both much more relaxed, the task-structured people that we are, knowing that we had some planned activities.

Lunch
We walked on the beach a bit after discovering that it costs TB 200 (R45) to rent a lounger for the day.

Had lunch at a plact right on the beach. There was no brown bread on the menu and I couldn't explain health/ whole wheat bread to the waiter so I ended up having a chicken salad. Dion had a tuna roll and we shared a pineapple pancake and icecream for dessert. This was the oiliest pancake ever! So we decided not to go there again.

Back to the hotel for showers, changing, reading and sleeping, and then out in the streets, window-shopping.

By this time, I'm too full to eat proper meals all the time so decide that a nice cheese and tomato on brown bread is just the ticket.

Except there is absolutely no brown bread in any restaurant and nobody speaks enough English to suggest an alternative.

Stay tuned for the next exciting post featuring........wait for this........the Tomato Restaurant (I kid you not)

Tomato restaurant - supper Sat 21st

2006-10-21T22:16:00.000+02:00

We walked and walked the streets because the sheer choice of restaurants overwhelmed us.

Eventually we decided on Tomato Restaurant (no the, just Tomato!). I thought about getting some Western food but eventually went with Sweet and Sour Chicken. Dion decided on chicken with cashew nuts.

They had some games on the table so we played two games while we waited for the food. We each won 1 although I suspected that D let me win the 2nd game. (Dion says he was sleepy and overconfident).

this is a picture of Dion's watermelon shake. You can see the game we played on the right.

The meal was okay, not great, but after that I was tired of all the Asian food so vowed to eat nothing for the next 2 days.

We stopped by our favourite jaunt, the 7-11, on the way back to the hotel to get water. However, we got sidetracked as we usually do, just gazing at all the different things that they have and we don't (in SA). Dion looks at all the snacks - chips, chocolates and so on, and I look through books and toiletries usually. We're a sad pair, aren't we?! Eventually we bought the water and left.

I decided to send an sms via email for my father's birthday since the phone calls to South Africa were so costly from the hotel.

20 Oct 2006 - Arriving in Phuket

2006-10-20T17:06:00.000+02:00

Arriving in Phuket
The flight to Phuket was uneventful except for this momentous thing that happened – Dion spoke to his neighbour. This is ground-breaking news because he likes to be left alone to read – I'm more the socialiser.

When we arrived at the airport, I was very pleased to see that there were ATMs in the airport building so I immediately withdrew 4000 thai baht (with the exchange rate, this worked out to about R900).

The tour operators (Tour East) were easy to find outside the terminal building in their navy pants and green and white shirts. We'd been told on our itinerary to look out for them.

Unfortunately, all the smokers were also outside. I keep forgetting how many people smoke because at home, we're very rarely with smokers. None of our friends smoke so it's really weird for me. Anyway, we set off shortly in a lovely air-conditioned minibus with 2 other couples.

Some parts of Phuket reminded us of Margate in KZN. Typical beach resort town.

Hotel
Our hotel was aptly named Tropical Garden Resort. It looked like we lived in the jungle. Lots of beautiful, lush green vegetation everywhere with big palm trees and lots of brown wooden furniture.

The showers around the pool are covered by ferns and so are all the pipes and equipment so it's as if the pool was just built right in the middle of a tropical jungle. Lovely.

We were escorted to our room which was 6 floors up (but first there are a couple of staircases anyway so who knows how many flights of stairs in total). Those poor porters deserved a HUGE tip after hauling our luggage up all those steps.

It turns out that the gorgeous green suitcase is not very practical. While it is smallish in dimensions, when packed, it is very high so looks quite fat. Thank God for the wheels on that thing.

Room
The room was just as beautiful as the pictures I posted earlier on the blog. It had a tiled floor which was lovely and cool to walk on.

Our perfect timing ensured that we arrived smack bang in the middle of a power outage on the main street so we had no aircon.

I was so hot and tired that I unpacked, undressed and (Dion says) fell asleep for 3 hours. He also slept for some of the time.

When we woke, we showered, dressed and attended to our priorities – buying our internet card so we could do banking and pay some money into the credit card. I couldn't do it from home because I was so busy prepaying bills like Telkom, water and lights, etc that I exceeded my balances on the payment limits.

That done, we had cash, stocked-up credit card and we were ready to shop!

Walking around on the first afternoon & evening
It was very clear that we'd need more shorts because it was so hot. I'm not a person who gets hot easily but I was sweating buckets! However, everything was name brand and I'm just not a name brand kind of gal. I know I'm weird but that's me. I actually don't like the look of names on clothes unless small and discreet. Very.

So the search continues.

We bought lots of water, purple-sequinned slops (look very glamorous) and some souvenirs. We made a list of people while we were waiting for supper to arrive and very quickly we had 40 on our list.

Speaking of supper, literally every 2nd or 3rd shop is a restaurant. The hostess stands outside trying to get people to come in and eat, or at least come look at the menu. Aside from restaurants, the main businesses are massage parlous, tailors and clothing stores.

On our walk through the town, we identified a number of places we'd like to eat at – a place right on the beachfront and another place I called the Happy Place (lots of lights and bright coloured table cloths).

Supper
We eventually decided to eat at Natalie's – I was sold the minute the hostess said "free salad and fruit between 6 and 10". We had salad with lettuce, cucumber, cabbage, tomato, carrots and pineapple (M only). For main course, D had beef noodles with soya sauce and I had Thai style rice with chicken. Both delicious.

We had Fantas – strawberry and orange – and fresh pineapple and watermelon for dessert. Lovely and healthy.

Entire meal cost us Thai Baht 280 (about R60)

On our way back, we collected lots of tour brochures. I read through each, noting down all the salient points, so that we were prepared for our meeting with the tour guide the next day.

Airport photos

2006-10-19T22:01:00.000+02:00

Blogger won't co-operate as I try to put these pics in the old posts, so here goes.

Dion enjoying his pain au chocolat (sp?!)

Marcia enjoying her chocolate croissant (can you believe R14 for one?!)

A bit blurry but can you see how tired I am? The go in go-getter is almost gone! And notice the World's Best Airport in the background. What a joke!

Flying to Kuala Lumpur from Jhb

2006-10-19T21:54:00.000+02:00

Dion and I consider the whole experience part of a holiday so I'm blogging everything from the airport - if you're bored, skip this post.

Dion's mum dropped us off at the airport at 11.40. We bought two locks for Dion's luggage and then checked in.

My bag only weighed 15kg - this is a personal miracle for me. Dion's weighed 17.8kg.

We looked around at the shops for a bit and then had one of the best chocolate croissants ever at Caffe Ritazza. We then boarded the plane. We were seated in the middle four seats, Dion on extreme right, me next to him, empty seat next to me and someone else to the left of that.

The flight, although scheduled to leave at 13.40, left at 14.00.

We were served supper at 15.00 our time - I had Tandoori Chicken, rice and chickpeas (absolutely delicious) and Dion had Vegetable Lasagne (apparently also very good).

Then we got to the fun bits and our favourite part - the in-flight entertainment. We watched Dharma and Greg, and Friends, and then I watched The Devil Wears Prada (I was disappointed as I didn't feel it was very good at all… 'bout a 6/10) while Dion watched Collateral.

In between all this watching, I read two of the four Shape magazines I'd brought along to catch up on. I also slept a bit.

They served us "breakfast" at 9.30 our time - very weird. Anyway, this was the usual omelette, sausage, mushrooms, hash brown, tomato, yoghurt and fruit, etc.

The flight landed at 11.40 our time, which was 5.40 local time in Kuala Lumpur. Very smooth flight and landing.

After I mailed my list from the free internet stations in the airport, we rode the express train for a bit to take pictures of everything.

We were desperate for some coffee (D) and water (me) so we went in search of an ATM to draw some local currency.

Guess what? In "the best airport in the world" (I don't know who they bribed to get that rating), there was only 1 ATM which was out of order. Wonderful! However we have credit cards aplenty but……. Yes, you guessed it - none of the food places accept credit cards. So here we are, parched, tired and grumpy and NOT IMPRESSED. By the way, Singapore's airport beats it hands down - it is the best so far out of 8 airports I've been at.

I found the staff very quiet (not forthcoming) and unfriendly.

So we took a few pics and decided to check in for our next flight to Phuket and then find a quiet place to read. At least the seats were comfy.

I force myself to try and find something positive about everything so here goes……. the toilets were spotless. D didn't like the square toilet seats though J Oh, and the trolleys were really cute and easy to steer. There were also lots of cute kids running around.

Aren't I doing well?!

Some of my favourite travel tips

2006-10-15T22:39:00.000+02:00

1. Start making lists ahead of time. These can include lists of things to pack, things to do, see, eat, etc. Download my travel checklist

2. Always take extra plastic bags for dirty laundry, shoes, etc.

3. You don't have to plan out each and every day but at least if you have a rainy day, you can look on your list and choose an indoor activity.

4. Count on buying things while you're on holiday so plan for this and take less with you. Our baggage allowance is 25 kg (hold & hand luggage) and I'm planning to take 18kg or less!

5. Decide on a colour scheme and stick to it… well, mostly. For instance, on this trip, I'm going for autumn (fall) colours like brown, yellow and orange, and also taking some clothes in military green.

6. Count the number of days you'll be away and plan just enough sets of clothes, remembering that you need more tops than bottoms. You won't use all so make a note of what you didn't use so that you don't overpack next time.

7. Pack travel size toiletries or if you have some old hotel toiletries, use those. I actually keep my toiletry bag permanently packed with everything except my Speedstick. Whether we're away for a long weekend or a long holiday, all I have to do is grab my Speedstick and I'm ready.

8. Take a backpack. There is a reason why these are so popular with tourists - your hands are free to eat, browse, carry your water (okay, that's for me), etc.

9. If you read the Bible, next time you go away, don't take the whole Bible. Simply go to http://www.zondervan.com and print out a chapter for each day you'll be away. You can try a different version of the Bible you usually use for added variety. The added convenience is that you don't have to bring these pages back with you.

10. Whether you're flying or driving, take any magazines or ebooks that have piled up around your house. You can catch up on your reading and again, leave the magazine or ebook in the airport lounge. I have about 4 Shape magazines to catch up on and yes, they're already packed.

Go here for more organising tips

Places to see in Malaysia

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Look at this wonderful email I received from Karen (fellow consultant). She mentioned that she had a friend who lives in KL and I asked her to find out what she (the friend) recommends.

Hi Ps M...

Below is a list from my friend over in Malaysia...

Hope this is useful & just in case i don't see or speak to you again before you leave..i hope that you guys will have an absolutely awesome trip!

So here is what she (carey anne fron Maylasis) has to say:

Ok, a list of things to see and do in malaysia...hmmm,thats tricky, there is sooo much!!!Ok well sights to see:

Around KL:
Batu Caves
Fireflies in kuala selangor (this is a 2hours drive from KL, but apparently its well worth seeing)
Chinatown - petaling street
Petronas towers and the fountains and gardens outside KLCC
Menara KL (tell her the R40 to go up this tower is well worth the view from the top!)
Also, she should do the forest walk to get up to the tower, its a little tiring, but its really beautiful.
Lake gardens (behind KL sentral) It's a beautiful park very very nice
Pasar Malam (night market)
Merdeka Square
Bukit bintang for shopping
National Mosque

Food to try:
Satay (chicken is best)
Mee goreng
Nasi goreng
Nasi lemak
Wan tan mee
Laksa
Ais Kacang (its an interesting type of desert they serve here)
Roti Bon - delicious indian type of chelsea bun (although it doesnt have raisins)
Tosai masala
Singapore fried mee hoon
Baked cheese rice and ying yong drink (she must must go to Kim Gary and have the baked cheese rice set - it is sooo delicious) Tell her if she has a free day she must let me know and we can go to kim gary together! I definitely think I will take her up on this.
Naan bread with mint sauce - she must ask for the mint sauce

Places outside of KL
Islands:
Perhentian
Tioman
Redang - these three islands are said to be the best in malaysia. However if she is here after november these ones will all be closed, so she wont be able to go to them.
Penang - northern part of Malaysia - its lovely
Cameron highlands - tea plantation in the mountains - the air is clean cool and crisp, and the strawberries are great!

there are just soo many places, i think its better if she sends me her itinerary and i will advise her what is best to see from there :)

Enjoy your day!

Karen

10 'Must See & Do' Attractions in Phuket

2006-10-04T21:52:00.000+02:00

This article is from this website

1. Sightseeing: Laem Phromthep
Ok, everyone goes to this hilltop viewpoint but it doesn't make it any less spectacular. Fabulous views over the ocean.. stretching as far as Phi Phi Island on a good day... Promthep Cape Restaurant right after sunset offers the perfect place to end the day with a cool breeze and excellent Thai Food.

2. Experiences: Muay Thai
Rapidly gaining popularity all over the world Muay Thai is an exciting spectacle to watch. Visit Saphan Hin Stadium in Phuket City to see regular matches with well-trained martial arts experts. Or try Patong Beach, where to you also see the skill and dexterity of these martial arts experts.

3. Culture: Thalang and Dibuk roads
Sino-Portuguese splendours and funky shops in the most unlikely places will surprise and delight you in the heart of Phuket's sleepy provincial capital. Phuket town offers much more than you think with some excellent restaurants and local sights.

4. Entertainment: Simon Cabaret
An evening of glitz, glamour and gorgeous 'girls!' Flamboyant sets, outrageously gorgeous costumes, snazzy dance routines. Hollywood glam at its best! An unforgettable experience.
See photo of Simon Cabaret in Patong Beach, and find more in our Patong Nightlife guide.

5. Indulgence: Spa Treatments
Total indulgence or absolute necessity? Probably both. The Asian Spa is an experience not to be missed. Relax in air-conditioned comfort with a traditional Thai massage or exotic body wrap made from natural ingredients. Or go local and try a beach massage under a shady tree with the sound of the waves ...

6. Action: Snake Shows, ATV's, Go Karts
Can a King Cobra be charmed? A hair-raising experience for young and old alike. Looking for more adrenaline pumping experiences? Ride an all terrain ATV through the jungle, or get into top gear around the go-kart track. You'd never do it at home!

7. Jungle: National Parks & Waterfalls
Head for a lovely waterfall and cool off in Phuket's National Parks. Take a walk on the wild side at Khao Praew Thaew National Park or chill out on the beach at Sirinath National Park.

8. Culture: Wat Chalong
One of Phuket's most important temples and visited by thousands over each year. Beautifully decorated with infinite reflections from hundreds of tiny glass pieces. On special holidays Wat Chalong hosts "country fairs' with a real local flavour.

9. Experiences: Phuket FantaSea show
It's wacky but fun and very professionally done. Ariel trapeze artists, elephants on stage, pyrotechnics combine in a Vegas style show. You'll see nothing else like it anywhere on the planet.

10. Memories: The Andaman sunset
Totally tropical. Best experienced at any beach along the west coast; and we've heard it looks even better while sipping a cocktail. (Beach info)

Travel itinerary

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We leave Johannesburg on Thursday 19 October and fly to Kuala Lumpur.

Arrive next morning and have a 3-hour stopover before flying to Phuket.

Arrive in Phuket Friday 20 October and stay at the Tropical Garden Resort (see previous post) for 8 nights until 28 October. This is where we'll sleep off the jet lag :)

We then fly back to Kuala Lumpur and stay at the Royale Bintang Hotel for 2 nights.

Here is a view of the pool

here is the room

and here is the hotel.

Our hotel in Thailand

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We'll be staying at the Tropical Garden hotel in Phuket.

It is a deluxe room which means that we get a sea view. We are apparently 100 m from the beach (1 minute)

We're off to Thailand & Malaysia

2006-09-02T02:10:00.000+02:00

We tried booking a holiday to Thailand in June this year but unfortunately, the specials didn't work out with Dion's work schedule.

However, I got Flight Centre to put me on their mailing list. This time, when I saw the advertised specials in their newsletter, we didn't hesitate. Even Dion. And you guys know how D likes to think things through. I was very impressed!

Anyway, after a number of phone calls and emails between Nicole (flight centre consultant), D and I, Dion comes home two weeks ago and announces that "we are going in there tomorrow to sort this out once and for all". Impressive! So after belly dancing, I collected him and off we went.

Long story short (because everything is a long story with all our fussiness), we managed to book the flights there and then.

We're flying to Thailand first and then spending some time in Malaysia on the way back.

It's all paid for now and our savings accounts are a lot leaner, but we are big with anticipation!

D bought me a beautiful lime-green suitcase (it is stunning - I fell in love with it the minute I laid eyes on it) and I got us some backpacks, so we are ready!