Leaving Asia, On to Africa

I'm in Africa! I know its been forever, the end of Thailand was quite busy and now internet is less available here. When I last posted I was still traveling with my sister and Pieter. We stayed in Hua Hin for two days which was a lot of fun. It was cool to stay with people who actually live in the city who could show us around. We saw some good beaches, a monkey temple with really fat monkeys, ate some good Thai food. After Hua Hin we took the train to Chumphon and then a night ferry to the island of Koh Tao which is the closest one on the east side. The ferry was pretty cool, lots of beds all in a row on a little boat. We arrived early in the morning and then walked around for a while before deciding where to stay. We ended up on one of the smaller beaches, which was really nice. We got a very small bungalow with a beach view and everything, it was great. The bathroom didn't have a door, haha and it only had one double bed, but Pieter had his sleeping mat so it worked out and was a great price. We stayed on the island for three days, swimming, snorkeling, eating, reading on the beach, getting sunburned. Over all a very nice and relaxing time, except for the sunburns, haha.

After that I left Anjali and Pieter to head back to Bangkok. They continued south to do some crazy jungle trekking in Malaysia, but I haven't heard how that went yet. I took the night ferry back and then a long train ride back to Bangkok. I had a weird situation with a Thai man on the ferry which made me not feel comfortable falling asleep on the ferry again, but apart for the lack of sleep the trip went well. I arrived in Bangkok in the rain, with no map (I had left the guide book with my sister) at a station I had never been to, but managed to find my way back to Banglampu by taking a tuk-tuk, a river taxi and a local city bus, it was a bit of an adventure. Then in the morning I did my last minute shopping for Africa, brown clothes for wildlife parks, binoculars, that kind of thing, and then I was off to the airport.

The flights went well, Cathey Pacific is a very fancy airline, I watched too many movies and didn't sleep enough, but thats what always happens. I had a short layover in Hong Kong and arrived in Johannesburg on time. The hostel I booked had airport pickup which was nice and then Eric arrived with the car we rented later in the day. We stayed two days in Joberg doing just a bit of sight seeing, its not really the kind of place you want to spend too much time in, although the area we stayed in was alright to walk around in the day time. We did the Apartheid museum one day and went to a Lion park outside of the city one day. The line park was a bit touristy, but we could pet baby lions (so cute) and drive around with lots of big lions. One even came up to the car door on my side and graped the handle with his teeth and tried to open the car door! I pulled it closed, haha, and we drive out quickly. Having a car is really nice, tho eric has to to all the driving because I can only drive automatic cars. But it gives us a lot of flexibility which is great. Oh I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff so read Erics blog for more details: http://www.daberic.blogspot.com/

After Joberg we had a booking at the biggest animal park in the country, Kruger Park, so we started driving up that way. We stayed a day in Makahdo which was a cute little town near some nice mountains and did some hiking. It worked out well because at the B&B we stayed in we met the son of the owner and he offered to let us stay with his family in Nesbruit when we passed through which is where we are staying now. It turns out Africa is a bit expensive, and the rand keeps getting better as we are here which is bad for us traveling. We stayed three nights at Kruger and did a hike which was great. It was similar to what I did with my parents three years ago and lots of fun. Its so much better then just driving through the park. We stayed in a bush camp each night with no electricity or anything (but fully catered) and did a hike each morning and afternoon. There were eight of us and we decided as a group do do some of the harder hikes which took us to some really beautiful landscape, like a huge canyon and a baobab forest. On foot we saw some animals like giraffes, zebras, elephants, impala, kudu, nyala, klipspringer, daci. We also saw tons of buffalo, zebra, impala, elephant, wort hogs, baboons, kudu while driving in the park. Then after the Kruger we stayed in a smaller park for two nights and saw rhinos and baby giraffes! We also went to an animal rehabilitation center where we say baby rhinos we could pet, which was very exciting. Yesterday we drove to Nelsbruit along the Blyde River Canyon which is the third largest canyon and had some really nice views. We plan to do some hiking here this afternoon, and watch a rugby game with our hosts tonight, haha. Then tomorrow we drive into Mozambique!