Off to London

Well I have left Africa and arrived in London, got in late last night. Last I wrote Eric and I were about to go to Botswana to meet up with his friend Sean. We were in the capital Gaborone for three days and it was a lot of fun. It rained a lot of the time there, so we didn't do that much out doors, but I liked the town a lot. Sean is there studying for the summer so we got to hang out with him and some of his classmates, we went out one night which was a lot of fun. We also checked out some of the local museums and went to a village that wasn't to far away. After Gaborone we drove back to Joberg, returned the rental car and hopped onto our flight to Victoria Falls town in Zimbabwe! I wasn't sure what Zimbabwe was going to be like since they have had a lot of trouble there lately, but in Vic Falls town it seems very safe. They really only take US dollars there now which is a pain, but other then that, and it being pretty empty, it was a nice town. The falls were amazing! I couldn't believe how much water was coming down every second, it was crazyness. And just standing somewhat near them was like being in a rain storm! So much water. We also crossed the border to Zambia and saw the falls from that side, where the views are maybe not quite as good but you can get much closers which is fun. We also rafted the Zambezi, the first time i'd ever been rafting, so much fun. The water was very high still so only the haft day trip was open, but I thought it was great. And Eric went bungee jumping! That was crazy, but he seemed to enjoy it.

After a quick three days in Zimbabwe we flew back to Joberg so eric could get his flight back home. The Zimbabwe airport gave us hand written plane tickets, haha, i'd never seen that before. Back in Joberg we did a tour of the Cradle of Humankind, which is a cave were they have found lot of old human remains and stuff like that. It was a good tour but way over priced for what it was so we were a bit grumpy after that. Oh well. Afer Eric left i took the bus to Durban which is on the east coast. I still had 5 days before my flight and it seemed like the most interesting city that I could get to in one day. I really liked it, but i was there during a huge rugby game so it was packed! Like every room full everywhere I called, so i was luck to find a dorm eventually. It was a fun few days hanging out on the beach, and I went to this water park with a girl I met at the hostel. The only bad thing was that once I got to London I realized that someone had stolen all of my credit card numbers. I think it was from the hostel which I locked up my money belt in their safe while I was at the beach. I still have the card but all of them have been used in Durban in the last few days so I had to cancel them. A bit of a pain, but luckily nothing else was taken and I can get them replaced. So now I'm in London at Pieter's family's house and my parents arrive tomorrow!

Old Pictures

I know these are quite old, but I never got a chance to put them up while in Africa.
My sister arrived in Thailand. This is in Ayutthya.

Squeezed on a motorbike with Erica!


Then we met up with Pieter in Hua Hin.

At the beach in Hua Hin!

The view from our beach hut on the island of Koh Tao.

Anjali and Pieter, Koh Tao.

Me, Koh Tao.

All over Africa

Well I've been a lot of places since I last updated from Nelspruit. We went to Mozambique for a few days which was great. Driving was a bit crazy, in the cities there were people everywhere on the streets, but outside of there cities it was really empty. We went to Xai-Xai beach which was really beautiful, but a bit cold for swimming. The beach was completely empty tho which was fun. I guess it gets crowded during the holidays, but it was fun to basically have a whole beach to ourselves. After that we went to the capital Maputo, stopping at another beach on the way down that was equally empty. Maputo was cool, we had some good Indian food and went to an art museum. The food so far in Africa has been alright, but not great for vegetarian options. Lots of french fries and cheese sandwiches so it was nice to find some good Indian. The art museum had some crazy art in it, but unfortunately the power went out in the middle so we couldn't see all of it. Oh well, we left and that gave us time to check out a huge market which is always fun.

Next we crossed the border into Swaziland, which is a tiny country. We basically drove across the whole place in about two hours. Its a cool place tho, very rural and desert like. We went to a cultural village and saw how the Swazi people used to live and also saw some really fun traditional dancing. The dancing was possibly made better by there being about 100 Swazi highschoolers there who got really into the dancing. It was quite entertaining. On our way out of the country back to the South African coast we ran into tons to road construction, but eventually we made it to the coast at St Lucia. There we did some more animal park driving stuff and saw rhinos, hippos and lots of different types of deer. We also went to another beautiful beach full of awesome shells that I ran around collecting. Then we took an afternoon boat tour and saw so many hippos, it was great. The boat tho broke down at the end of the tour and another boat had to come rescue us, haha, but it all worked out.

Then we slowly made our way back to Joberg to pick up a bag that had been left at the hostel in Maputo. A nice guy was coming this way anyways and brought it with him, that way we didn't have to go all the way back. On the way we stopped in Ladysmith (the place the band Ladysmith Black Mumbasa is from) and Kestell. Kestell is on the edge of the Drakensberg mountains and we were going to do some hiking but it rained and snowed all day so that didn't work out too well and we could stay any longer to wait out the storm. We picked up the bag today and tomorrow we head to Gaborone, in Botswana for a few days to hang out with a friend of Eric's which should be fun. Some of my later plans have changed a little bit, I'm heading to London on June 24th now. My parents are going to meet me there and we plan to go to France for a few days as well as traveling some in the Uk, which should be nice. My trip is almost half way over, its crazy how fast time goes, but the last five months have been great!

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat pictures.




Angkor Wat just after Sunrise


Bayon, one of the other temples.

Look at the awesome faces up close.

Yay elephant statues!


Tree roots taking over the temples.

Laos pictures again

I have so many good pictures of Laos!

Erica teaching Pieter to ride in Vang Vien.

Looking for caves!

Gas station.

Fisherman in Vang Vien.

Crazy sculptures in Vientiane.

More sculpture.

Anne and I having fun at the temple.

Pieter in Savannakhet where I was sick forever.

Bubble tea!

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!

Cambodia and back to Thailand

Last time I updated I was slowly making my way to the Cambodian border. Well I took a few more buses and mini buses and finally made it to the border that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. There were no foreigners and very few people over all crossing there, which was both good and bad. Good because they didn't try to scam me out of any money like i have heard at some other borders they do, but bad because there were no buses or anything going anywhere. Eventually I found a taxi to drive me and three other Cambodians towards Siam Reap which was 5 hours away, half of which was very bumpy dirt roads. Also all along the side of the road there were signs that said 'caution land mines' which i knew was going to happen, but it was pretty crazy to actually see. Luckily I didn't need to get out of the car on the side of the road for anything. So I made it to Siam Reap and signed up for the 5am sunrise at Angkor Wat the next day. It turned out to be a really great day. I decided I only had time to do one day at the temples, so i hired a motorcycle to drive me around to save some time. We started at the actual Angkor Wat temple for sunrise, which was pretty awesome. Its huge! Then while it was still early we went to Bayon, which was by far my favorite one. Its not as big, but its full of carved faces all over it, which I just loved. There are a bunch of small temples all around so I spend the morning looking at them, had some lunch, and then in the afternoon saw Angkor Thom, which is cool because there are all kinds of trees and roots taking over the temple. I think it was definitely worth all the hassle of getting there, even just for one day at the temples, they are truly amazing.

After only two full days in Cambodia, I took a bus to the Thai border and then a train back to Bangkok so I could get some errands done before my sister arrived. I spend almost an entire day getting extra pages added to my passport because I realized I only had three full pages left, which isn't very much. They give you more pages for free at the US embassy so it all worked out. And then Anjali arrived! She is here until I leave Thailand, which is very exciting. She is actually here longer, but I'm leaving on the 18th to head to Africa. So the day she arrived we did the Grand Palace in Bangkok again, which was a big crowded but still very nice. Bangkok was soooo hot that we didn't want to stay in the city for too long, so we took a train to Ayutthaya which is 1 1/2 hours north and full of old templs and huge Buddha statues. We saw the largest bronze Buddha and also a 23 meter high one which was cool. After a few days there we took a train back to bangkok and then a bus to Hua Hin to meet Pieter who was staying with Lindy, who we meet in Laos. She is actually house sitting for a family whose daughter she tutors here so we are all staying in a really great house at the moment. It has a pool and AC and its nice to be staying in a real house for once. The plan is to hang out on the beach here today and then start to head more south tomorrow to one of the islands on the east side of the peninsula.