I’m back in the motherland for good this time.  Or at least for the foreseeable future.  During my 6 week holiday I visited 3 countries, took 11 plane rides, drove 3000 KM and read 10 books. If it seems like I’m showing off, I totally am- it was an awesome holiday and I probably won’t have one like it for a long time.

One of the reasons this holiday was so awesome. Ignore the fact that this looks like a weird awkward family photo.

But I think it’s time to say goodbye to Places I left my wallet.   I blogged to stay in touch while I was away, and to give anyone considering the move to London some been-there-done-that advice.  (To summarize, this advice mostly boiled down to: ‘Estate Agents are annoying, English bureaucracy is ridiculous, and London is rad enough that it’s worth it.’)  But those days are over and a blog about my days spent job-hunting at my computer just isn’t quite as enticing.

I’ve learned a lot in the past two years, especially about the intertubes and how to use them.  I learned enough about the intertubes to know that I mostly did it wrong on this blog, but I also learned enough about blogging to know it helps me become a better writer. And that I like it enough to try it again elsewhere.  What opinionated person doesn’t love having a personal, uncensored soapbox?  While this soapbox still exists, let me highlight some of my favourite posts and memories:

Lifting the veil on the life of the unemployed
Contemplating my head-suit for the Henly Royal Regatta
Sharing what Oktoberfest is like after a few liters of beer
Accidentally getting a mullet
Meeting the Queen (sort of)

Living in London was a lot of fun and so was writing this blog.   Thanks for making so many of my days just a little bit better with your comments; I hope your travels are exciting and your eating is delicious.

Much love from your wallet-losing friend,

Rachel

The end of a holiday is always really sad for me.  The husband would say that I am a bit melo-dramatic about this, but he is wrong and probably doesn’t have any emotions.  To combat the end-of-vacation blues I usually save something I’m really looking forward to doing until the end of the trip, and in this case it was a visit to Sydney.

It was everything I hoped for: I loved Sydney so much I think I want to live there (Don’t worry Dad, this falls into the category of ‘someday’- no plans yet).  Sydney’s harbour is insanely beautiful, the food is awesome (if very expensive) and the gorgeous beaches are a short bus ride away.   For absolutely no good reason I assumed that Sydney is the same size as Vancouver, but it’s not even close: Sydney is a huge city with proportionately awesome people watching and culture.  It somehow also retains the natural beauty usually observed in smaller cities and the only downside is that Sydney is filled with Australians (If you are Australian I’m probably not talking about you….it’s the other Aussies that are loudly talking about their drunken fights and how great they are at everything).

We spent a couple days exploring the city and eating its insanely priced food (Good news, it was $10 beer night every night!)  and a couple days exploring the nearby city beaches.  Bondi beach is famous for it’s surf and it’s beautiful people, and indeed- it is full of really good-looking people surfing.   Manly beach is a little further away and a little more my style- laid back and full of food. On my last full day of holiday I ate a basket of seafood while looking into one of Manly’s pristine beach bays and wondering if my life had already peaked, because… How could it get better?

How happy am I to be in Sydney? VERY HAPPY.

How happy is Chris? Happy enough to do a weird dance in front of the harbour bridge.

To me, this is the nicest modern building in the world.

Boulevard and church.

Park

From the top of the harbour bridge.

Gorgeous South Head.

Busy beautiful Bondi beach. Alliteration!

Lunch at Manly

Life could be worse.

And now the holiday adventure is over and I’m back in Vancouver.  I’m not sure when I’ll have another six week holiday so I’m trying to appreciate the fun I had instead of moping that it’s over….though I am moping just a little.  I thought I might get a little antsy on a long holiday and start yearning for the routine of regular life but I didn’t: I now know that I could probably just holiday forever.  I’m extremely good at vacations.  Unfortunatley this skill doesn’t look so great on a resume, so I’ll focus on reversing my jobless status and remembering all the fun times.

Rachel

We’ve been on the road in Australia for 2 weeks and will finally arrive in Sydney tomorrow (I can’t wait!).  We’ve done some cool stuff along the way and here are the best bits:

1. The Fraser Coast.   After sailing in the Whitsundays, the weather continued to play nice while we headed south to Yeppoon, Hervey Bay and Rainbow Beach, all small beach towns along the coast.  I love small beach towns, but I don’t love the giant Australian bugs that exist in outdoor restaurants in these particular towns. The bugs were insane and my flailing attempts at protection from what felt like certain death-by-bug ended with nightly dining embarrassment.  On the plus side….I was dining Al Fresco and just look at the beaches.

Hervey Bay

Rainbow beach

Happy

2. Fraser Island. This is the world’s largest sand island and it has some crazy cool ecological features (fresh water lakes, a rain forest built on sand and Australia’s purest wild dingos).  We took a tour on a crazy 4WD bus with the most stereotypical Australian tour guide (‘G’day mate,’ Aussie hat etc.) and saw a pack of dingos on the beach.  Pretty freaking cool.

Fraser Island 75 mile beach.

Lake MacKenzie- Fresh water lake on a sand island.

A cool freshwater creek on Fraser Island

Wild dingos! The purest dingos live on Fraser Island

3. Australia Zoo.  The husband has a weird obsession with zoos and aquariums and Australia has an unusually high number of animal attractions.  Early on in this trip I conceded: ONE zoo while in Australia.  After thorough research on his part, we went to Australia Zoo, owned and maintained by the Irwins, of Crocodile Hunter fame.  Despite my reticence this was a good day because I got to cuddle a koala, feed a kangaroo and watch a crocodile show in a stadium called The Crocosseum. Cuddling the koala was one of the best things I’ve ever paid $20 to do and I have spent far too long admiring the photo of my cuddling experience.

At Australia Zoo, almost like a member of the Irwin family

Australia zoo kangaroo feeding.

I cuddled with one of these!

4. Brisbane.  This is the first city sized place we’ve been in Australia and I love it.  Great food selection (I tried Nepali food for the first time here!), a lovely city skyline and a city centre lagoon make Brisbane a rad city to spend a few days exploring.

Brisbane. Looks like Vancouver minus the mountains. And with a much nicer climate.

City swimming lagoon

The Brisbane walkways are nice.

I also like the night time sky.

5. Surfer’s Paradise.  This was a short day trip from Brisbane but it felt a world away.  Where Brisbane was quaint and lovely, Surfers was ostentatious and soul-less.  The beach was gorgeous and indeed probably a paradise for surfers, but the waves were big and we later learned that a 14 year old boy died in a competition on the very day we visited.  The high-rises cast a shadow over the beach by mid afternoon and when the gold-bikini clad meter maids failed to save us from a parking ticket (missed feeding our parking meter by 6 minutes!) we ended off our journey to Paradise.

Paradise

The Strip

My days on the road end tomorrow when we return the car and explore Sydney on foot.  This is the last stop before I head to Vancouver and real life starts again, but I’m excited enough about Sydney to put that out of my head for at least 4 more days!

Rachel

Or truth be told, not even glamorous at all.

If you have ever ridden on a boat with me I will most certainly have done two things:
1. Tell you how much I love boat rides
2. Sing Andy Samberg’s ‘I’m on a boat!’ while doing faux rapper moves*

What I’m trying to say is that I REALLY like boats and I was extremely excited about sailing through Australia’s Whitsunday Islands.  So I was pretty disappointed to arrive in Airlie Beach and find that the rain had followed us.

I want to be the kind of person who has a good attitude and thinks of a 3 day boat trip in the rain as an adventure but I will admit that in real life I’m the kind of person who gets sad and sulky about my holiday being ruined.  As it turns out, my holiday wasn’t ruined, but just take a look at these photos of Airlie beach before we left and compare to the photos at the end.

Airlie beach in the rain.

The lovely Airlie beach lagoon.

Sailing on the Condor: Rain jackets on, sailing and soaked to the bone.

Everyone including the hotel staff, the boating agency, and the boat captain told us to cheer up and think of it as an adventure because the forecast called for rain with really heavy rain at times and stormy patches for at least a week (is there anything more annoying than someone telling you to cheer up when you’re sulky?).  But they were wrong.  After the kind of wet day that makes you think you’ll never be dry again, we woke up on the boat and the clouds were lighter.  And then as we sailed blue patches appeared.  And then the blue patches kept getting bigger until the next morning it was crystal clear and gorgeous.  I rejoiced!

As I said, I enjoy boat rides a LOT, but I enjoy sharing a boat with 30 other people and one shower much less.  I should have thought of this ahead of time (next time it’ll be a private yacht charter for sure).  It turns out that sleeping below deck is stuffy, our first day wet clothes didn’t ever really dry and everything (and everyone) smelled pretty terrible. The Whitsundays are amazingly beautiful, the close quarters were mellowed by copious amounts of goon (goon = cheap, terrible, boxed Autralian wine) and we had fun, but we were pretty relieved to have some personal space (and internet access!) once off the boat.

The husband after the rain stopped. Improvement.

The Condor. Home for 2 nights.

Arrive in Chance Bay

Whitehaven Beach

Mandatory stinger suit, AKA, supersuit.

We got nachos on the boat. This was the best part.

Evening sail

Sailing in the sunshine, hooray!

Airlie Beach lagoon in the sun. I almost didn't recognize the town when we got back.

So it wasn’t glamorous and the weather meant we didn’t quite get the picture perfect views and beaches we hoped for (google Whitehaven beach to see what the brochures look like), but the islands were gorgeous and I couldn’t be happier that the weather turned around for us.  I’m continuing to head south and writing from Brisbane, where it seems like most restaurants are BYOB.  I love it here.

Rachel

*PS-Because sometimes it’s worth watching again.

While we were in Southeast Asia the temperature remained at least eleven-ty billion degrees at all times, and I had the foolish thought that it might be nice if it were cooler and perhaps even a little rainy in Australia.   But this thought was a bad idea because Cairns was having an ususually beautiful non-rainy rainy season until literally the day we arrived, when it proceded to pour forth the entire season’s worth of liquid during the next four days.  This is not an exaggeration- we lucked out by being almost the last people to leave Cairns before the roads to the south were shut down due to flooding.

So the weather had a rather major affect on our stay in Cairns, but good times can always be found when on holiday.  We took a day trip out to snorkel out in the outer portion of the great barrier reef, and away from the mainland we were almost totally rain-free during the day.  There were fewer fish and other sea creatures than usual- typical in bad weather- but the great barrier reef is famous for a reason- it’s seriously epic.  I have snork-ed in a lot of cool places but I’ve never seen anything like the giant corals in this reef.  They are huge, colourful and unusual enough that I felt like I was staring straight through my snorkel into another planet.  Major life long to-do item checked.

We also managed the rain by renting a car, in which I’ve already driven 1500KM south of Cairns (OK, I’m not driving, but I’m in the vehicle, navigating my ass off).  The Daintree rainforest is an hour long drive from Cairns, so we headed out to a place called Mossman Gorge, to see the rainforest in the rain, what’s more legit than that?!

You know what else is totally unaffected by bad weather?  Food.  We ate at one of Cairns’ best restaurants (Ochre) to sample Australian cuisine at its finest while the rain raged on.  I ate yet more crocodile (still not sold), wallaby and kangaroo.  I don’t know why this isn’t on more Aussie menues; kangaroo is tender, flavourful and delicious and I encourage you to order if you are ever lucky enough to see it on a menu.

Rainy, but lovely Cairns in the evening

Lunching in rainy Port Douglas on the way to the rainforest

Rain breaks for a minute- must take photo of viewpoint!

A little sad about the rain

Flooded road on the way to walk through the Daintree rainforest means we left the car and waded because we're hardcore like that.

Mossman Gorge-this river is usually peaceful

Looking dapper in the rainforrest

A plate of kangaroo and wallaby for dinner. Yes please.

After 5 days of non-stop torrential rain the weather has become my friend again.  I’m now in beautiful Rainbow Beach where a pre-dinner bottle of wine is ready to drink and those rainy days feel like they happened a year ago.  I wish I could be on vacation forever.

Rachel

Everyone goes to Siem Reap to see the temples of Angkor and I was no exception. The town itself boasts good food, culture and a really gorgeous riverside promenade, but the temples are often referred to as the 8th Wonder of the World, and their existence was the reason I wanted to go to Cambodia.  Temple viewing was a priority.

The temples are  spread out over a few kilometers, making them difficult to view on foot so we decided to get a little bit of exercise by renting bikes and cycling between them (this sounds like a nice idea, right?).   The beat on the street was that Angkor Wat is especially beautiful at Sunrise, so we got on the bikes at 5AM to get there in time.  How many other crazy tourists do this?  Apparently thousands!  I was shocked to see so many other people awake at such a hideously early hour (and on vacation!) but I’ll always remember watching the sun rise over Angkor Wat.  It was pretty freaking cool.

The best part of riding bikes in the early morning was that it was less than 30 C outside at the time.  The worst part was that it was pitch black, there were no street lights, and we didn’t have reflectors or helmets.  Seems dangerous now, but it all worked out.  After the sunrise at, we explored the other major temples including Angkor Thom, Bayon and Ta Prohm (where Tomb Raider was filmed) and despite the oppressive heat were impressed with the scale and natural beauty of the site.  This place is pretty amazing.

Unfortunately later in the day my body decided to reject the heat and shut me down.  Although riding the bike felt great because it created a cooling breeze, it turns out I am not made of stern enough stuff to ride a bike in the hot jungle.  By the time we dropped the bikes off in the hot afternoon, I was covered in a fiery heat rash, had a pounding headache and almost fainted.  After a cool shower, some water, and a nap, I read that heat exhaustion typically affects infants and the elderly, but I would also like to add weak sauce Canadian girls who suck at temperature management to the list of those affected.

Done with temples, we also visited the floating villages on the Tonle Sap lake, walked up a hill for a view, ate snake and crocodile (snake- surprisingly tasty, crocodile- not so much) and went on a self-conducted pub crawl.  A very nice conclusion to our visit to Cambodia.

Siem Reap

Pre-dawn

Angkor Wat right before sunrise

Proof- we were at Angkor Wat for Sunrise.

Gate to Angkor Thom

Bayon

Ta Prohm being overtaken by massive trees

A floating garden in the floating village

A floating school.

A pretty nice view.

Grilling exotic Cambodian meats for dinner.

I’m now in Cairns, Australia, where I am safe from heat exhaustion because despite the warm jungle temperatures it has rained torrentially for three days straight. Hoping for a little break before we spend 2 days on a boat.

Rachel

My knowledge of world history, culture and politics is pretty crap, but every time I travel somewhere new it becomes slightly less so; one of the many great reasons to keep travelling.  Cambodia has been an excellent history teacher, though I wish the content was less sad.  I’ve spent most of my time in Phnom Penh visiting memorials and museums dedicated to ensuring we don’t forget the horrors of Pol Pot’s genocidal regime and  though it wasn’t fun, I’m glad I did it.  [Before this visit my knowledge of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields was vague at best.  You're probably better informed than I was, but in case we share a cultural ignorance it's worth reading about it here).

Phnom Penh has a pretty shiny veneer left over from the days of French colonialism, and its riverside would't look out of place plunked down in Nice's Promenade Anglais.  The beautiful parts are extremely beautiful, but Cambodia is an impoverished country and if you look down the avenues off the lovely riverside, the garbage and the slums reveal themselves.  The major city sites are memorials to victims the Khmer Rouge regime and our touristing was a little depressing.

But it wasn't all grim!  I think I've had more genuine smiles from Cambodian strangers in the past few days than I received in my entire two years in London.  This is a wonderful open culture.  And the food!  Why aren't we all eating Cambodian food yet?!  Although influenced by cuisines from Thailand and Vietnam, Cambodia has a delicious food all its own; a very happy surprise!  Less spicy, with a huge emphasis on fresh herbs and fruits, I am in love with Cambodian food. I sincerely hope that as development continues we will get to enjoy it more often.

Some of the poverty

Some of the French loveliness

Tuol Sleng Prison Memorial

A few faces of the victims

The Killing Fields Memorial

Real skulls from the killing fields at Choeung Ek.

The Royal Residence.

Two very hot, sweaty travellers on a boat ride.

The Tonle Sap looking lovely.

I’m writing from Siem Reap, of Angor Wat fame…..obviously I have something to say about the famous temples.  But tomorrow I’m leaving for Australia.  Australia!  It’s a long travel day and a whole new continent.  I’m kind of too excited to sleep.

Rachel

I now realize that I forgot to mention all the things I wanted to rant about in Thailand.  So I’ll do that now:

What’s the deal with gringo pants? Why do westerners who otherwise dress normally all of a sudden start dressing like idiots in Thailand?  Weird patterned hammer pants (see below for an example) top my list of stuff that no Thai person would ever wear (nor would a Westerner once back home), but somehow Thailand is filled with tourists donning these hideous pants. I found this amusing article, which is a backpackers guide to dressing normally once back home from a holiday.  And to which I say: just don’t start dressing like an idiot in the first place.

Going for a short walk in the jungle is not a Trek. One of the many popular activities in Chiang Mai is jungle trekking.  The trek usually lasts a few days and includes a guide, who will take participants through a well marked trail, stop at pre-destined camps and cook them food.  Often an elephant ride is involved.  This is a marketing ploy and obviously it works, but  I’m really not sure we can call a regularly organized tour that includes a little bit of walking a ‘trek.’ Just saying.

Disappointing food culture on the beach.  This isn’t just Thailand; I’m pretty sure this is most beach destinations.  It’s not that the food was bad, it’s just that it was decidedly less good and more expensive than elsewhere.  Somehow food goes from being interesting and delicious to generic, Westernized and expensive when beach is involved.  What’s up?  Surely there is a market for delicious affordable beach eats?  When this exists I’ll take a table for two please.

Why are the napkins so small?  Every restaurant in Thailand has a napkin dispenser on the table, and every napkin dispensed is a maximum of 3 inches square in single ply.  As an admittedly enthusiastic (aka: messy) eater, I end up using 10 every meal. Can we import some sturdier napkins please?

Your crazy dark tan/burn isn’t attractive.  After two weeks in the hot sun I have a bit of a tan (hooray!), but I am still one of  the palest people on the beach.  Thai beaches are home to some of the scariest looking tans I’ve ever seen.  This is not a good look for anyone whose skin is naturally white. It is 40 C in the middle of the day and getting one’s skin to turn that colour takes a serious committment to sitting in that heat facing precisely the direction of the sun.   This is what people choose to do on holidays?

These rants should in no way indicate that I’ve not enjoyed my time in Thailand: Thai people are generous and kind, Thai food is crazy delicious, and Thai culture is interesting.  I just needed to get these things off my chest.

Rachel

What is there to say about a tropical island holiday?  All holidays of this nature are lovely, relaxing, warm and basically the same so I don’t think there’s much more to say about my visit to the Thai gulf islands.  But in case I’m wrong, I’ll add more anyways.

We spent half of our time on Koh Phangan, best known for Full Moon party debauchery.  Alas there was no full moon during our visit so we missed the party, and I can now admit to being slightly relieved to have had a good excuse not to party until the sun rises. [For those unaware: Full Moon parties happen every month on the night on the full moon on Koh Phangan's Sunrise beach and feature up to 40 000 people partying on the beach until the sun rises.  The parties began in the late 1980's for reasons that aren't really clear, but the entire island is now devoted to ensuring revellers can have buckets of booze when needed.]

Excused from partying, we relaxed at our resort (Surikantang).    It was especially nice and the beaches were lovely, though our first day on the beach resulted in pretty epic sunburns that for some of us (this means the husband) are still in the process of healing.

After a short ferry ride, we arrived at Koh Samui, which is to me truly a beach paradise.  The sand is white, the surf is turquoise and the beach is enormous.  Yes, Chaweng beach is busy and touristy, but I don’t know that I can think of a beach with better people watching, massage offerings or food options and I will never tire of splashing in the clear ocean waves.

Koh Samui is a boat ride away from the Angthong Marine Park, a protected site with specatular views.  Although we got stuck with a tour guide who was so stereotypically annoying that he actually started singing kareoke on the boat, this was easily the highlight of the island holiday and the pictures will really say it all.

Welcome to Koh Phangan. Things have been worse.

And the sunsets are pretty nice too.

Sunrise Beach at night: But where will I find a place to buy a bucket of booze?

When in Rome....

On the boat to Anthong Marine Park.

Angthong Marine Park

Freshwater Emerald lake inside a sunken volcano

General loveliness of the marine park.

I’m writing this from a preposterously gigantic hotel room in Bangkok (Sidenote: although this gorgeous room is bigger than the London flat, I’ve just had the sickening realization that it would be cheaper to live here than it was to rent the flat), but will be saying goodbye to Thailand this afternoon to head to Cambodia. A whole country is checked off of this trip itinerary- why does time go by so much faster when I’m holiday?

Rachel

Despite a night of not sleeping on the sleeping train, we were ready to explore Chiang Mai as soon as we arrived.  Just as hot in the day, but delightfully cooler in the evening, Chiang Mai is slower paced, hippy-ish and surprisingly touristy.

The day after our sleepless train night we wandered around visiting ancient Wats and eating the epic food in a mostly empty city.  Turns out most tourists go on ‘activities’ during the day and then hang out at rasta bars pretending to be hippies in the evening.  I have no chance of pretending to be a hippy, but I love activities.  Sign me up.

Activity one was a Thai cooking class, during which we visited the market and then cooked up a delicious 6 course Thai feast.  It was basically 6 hours of straight eating, and I now have a recipe book and a certificate declaring my new skills.  Following the feast we accidentally napped for 4 hours, but herein lies the glory of vacation: 4 hour afternoon naps are OK.  In fact, they’re absolutely divine.

Activity two was an elephant farm visit.  I’ve been beside myself with excitement over elephant-riding for a couple of years and yesterday when it actually happened it didn’t disappoint.  It was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done. All of the elephants in this farm had previously been rescued from circus-y shows, and we had a chance to feed, bathe and ride them.  Bathing was easily the best part.  You can’t really see from my pictures, but they were rolling around, splashing and playing with us and I can’t say enough how amazing this was.  If I had a few extra tons of baggage allowance (and Vancouver had an appropriate a climate, and I had a suitable space and a bunch of other things that will never happen), I would definitely take an elephant home with me.

Shopping for the feast

Cooking the feast

Next time you visit me (when I eventually have a place to live) I will probably make this food for you.

More Wats.

Walking to a waterfall

The elephant park. I was just way too excited.

Putting on Mahout clothes

Feeding an elephant for the first time

I'm a combination of extreme excitement and utter terror here

From terrified to, 'let's ride an elephant'

Look at the husband riding an elephant

I'm just about to ride an elephant here. Pretty happy.

This is pretty cool.

Elephants taking a bath.

GIving her a good soaking

Today I took a tuk tuk, 2 airplanes, a bus, a ferry and a taxi (with a driver who I’m pretty sure was trying to kill me) to get to Koh Phangan, an island in the south.  So….not as fun as the time I got to play with elephants, but I can see the beach and I know I have a day of snorkelling ahead of me, so more fun awaits.

Rachel