New Zealand - Wellington

We had a great time in Wellington seeing everyone, staying in a lovely little house in Seatoun and just catching up with Wellington and family.

Rita, Tim and Grace at Central Park

Tim and Judi at Chocolate Fish Cafe

Lawrence, Awatea, Grace and Alex

The Seatoun house, right across from the sea



Judi, Jasper, Tim and I went for a trip to Kaitoke Forest Park

Thailand - Bangkok

So after our relaxing time on the island we still had 5 days left in Thailand. We decided not to go anywhere else, but stay in Bangkok. The weather was going to be pretty wet everywhere in Thailand.

We did a bit more sightseeing around, we took the public boat down the river to Chinatown, and walked around for a while. We stopped to look at the biggest golden Buddha sculpture in the world (it weighs over 5 tonnes). We also treated ourselves to an Indian meal to make up for not going to the country itself.

5.5 tonne solid gold budda, assorted crabs in Chinatown.

We did lots of shopping for presents, both in the markets around where we were staying, and at the Chuta Chuk market where we had been on our last visit. Its the huge market with thousands of stalls selling anything you can imagine. There are lots of really cool clothes, and we managed to find some awesome ceramics for ourselves. the weather was incredibly hot, (it has been the whole time in Bangkok) after about 4-5 hours we were exhausted, and drenched with sweat, so happy to hop back into the air-con skytrain home. Also we bought some more jeans from one of the big shopping malls.

We moved over to the other side of Bangkok for a couple of nights to be closer to the public transport. We also got to stay in a nicer hotel. It was cool to stay in another part of Bangkok, but everything was much more expensive.

During our time in Bangkok we have been filling up on all the yummy foods that we are going to miss when we leave asia. Lots of fruits, noodles, shakes, omelet over rice, and mango sticky rice.

Awsome Thai cusine.

Tuktuk rides, and Bangkok street stalls.

This is the last international post of our blog. Its back to New Zealand now, but we still have nearly 1 month before we plan to start work. Hopefully the shock of going back to the real world wont kill us.

Thailand - Koh Chang

After a painless and uneventful flight we arrived in Bangkok, and spent a few days settling in. We were very jet lagged, and it took us ages to get into the swing of things.

After that we headed straight to Koh Chang (the same island we visited last time we were here). The weather in Thailand was not the greatest for hanging out on the beach. We had tropical down pours at least once a day, and the water was a bit murky, and often rough. despite this we spent 11 nights relaxing on the island. For the first seven nights we had a very nice room with air-con, tv, and dvd player. This filled the rainy periods well.

The weather did give us some good afternoons at the beach, when the sky cleared, and we could swim, and lie on the beach for a few hours. The waves also meant that we could have a few hours of body surfing.

We were planning to go to at least one other beach in Thailand, but with the poor weather, and a 12hr bus journey each way, we decided it wasn't worth the effort.

So after thoroughly relaxing we headed back to Bangkok for a week before flying out.
We cant wait to be back in New Zealand and see everyone.

England - Bath

We went back to Newent to collect the last of our things and say goodbye to the Blisses. We had planned to stay there for 3 nights but ended up staying for 4 and going to visit Bath for a day with Steve and Teresa.

Bath is a very old spa town dating back to the Romans. The water comes from a thermal spring (very rare in England), and is quite warm, and very green. It is said to contain healing minerals.

The cathedral behind the baths, a roman priest, and Rita.


You can sample the healing waters from this fountain. It's all warm and gross ...

... and served by this tasteless fellow.

We had a pub lunch, looked around the baths (they have a very in depth exhibition), and then drove around to see some of the cool period buildings in the area.

On the way home we drove through the countryside. It was lovely to see the change that spring has on the landscape. England looks much more appealing in fresh green colours rather than bare trees of winter.

Blue Bells in bloom.


Tim amongst spring growth around the Newent lake.

We bought cheese, and wine over from France, and made a big lunch of pizza, pasta, and chocolate mousse. We also had a chance to meet Elli and Chloe's new boyfriends. It was very sad to say goodbye to the Blisses who have done so much for us during our trip. We hope to see them some time in NZ.

England - London

We stayed with Tim's cousin Kate in London which was cool. She has just recently got engaged, we took over a bottle of champagne (not the proper stuff as it was too expensive but a nice substitute) that we bought in Paris, and also crossiants and pain chocolate that we got in Paris.

We had planned to go to the Victoria and Albert museum, even though we were exhausted from not much sleep on the way over from Paris, we went anyway, but didn't take much in. We saw a fashion exhibition, some photography and some traditional Asian arts, but then had to go back to Kates and sit and do nothing, it was all we were capable of.

France - Paris

We organised to stay with Elise, a girl we met in Laos for our time in Paris. We stayed with her and her family which was really cool. Also we met up with Constance who we also met in Laos.

It was great to have two Parisian girls to show us around a bit and give us pointers. On the first day, we arrived in the afternoon and went for a walk around Paris with them. We saw a cool old church which had an amazing imprint of the shroud of Christ. Lots of famous academic, cultural, political buildings. We went to a couple of cool parks, saw the Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Louvre and other places we would go the next day, and ate macaroons.

At the park with Elise and Constance. There were so many people there hanging out, and lots of kids playing with boats in the pond.

We went to this famous macaroon store. They were very tasty, we had pistachio and violet cassis

We had such a great day together on our first full day. In the morning Elise's father gave us a lift to the Louvre. It is an amazing building and houses some amazing art! It is the biggest museum we have been to, with over 35,000 pieces of art, we did not attempt to see them all. We saw the Mona Lisa, the sculpture Venus de Milo, amazing furnishings in Napoleans apartments, and so much more.

We spent a few hours and then had a break for lunch. There is a lot of turkish and greek food around paris and we found it a cheap food to get. We went to the Notre Dame cathedral which was pretty cool, but not the best interior that we have seen. The exterior was great, recently cleaned (sanded) so looking really spectacular, and the gargoyles of course were cool to see. We didn't see quasimodo, but there were lots of gypsies begging around paris.

We went back to the Louvre for another few hours, then walked up the Champs Elysse, a big boulevard where we passed the La Concord, Grand Palais, more parks, and ending at the Arc de Triumph.

The Arc de Triumph

A cool art nouvelle house that we saw

We had a picnic that evening in the park under the eiffel tower which was very nice. After dark the tower lights up and looks very cool. We had such a busy but really good day. Lots of sightseeing!

Once we got back to Elise's after our huge day we met up with Constance and the girls took us on a night tour of Paris. We drove past some of the more out of the way sights, and the ones that look particularly impressive at night.

The Moulin Rouge and a famous cafe in the Parisian red light district that we saw on our night drive

On our second day we didn't feel we were up to quite so much sight seeing. So we slept in a bit, then took the Metro to Monmarte for a relaxed day of looking around, having coffee at a street side cafe (we couldn't find the Three Windmills from Amelie), and reading our books in the park near the Monmarte Church.

This is the park that was used in Amelie

The metro signs in Paris are all in this cool style

In the afternoon we met up with Constatnce and she took us on a walking tour around some areas of Paris that we hadn't seen yet. We saw a really cool street preformer, the out side of the modern art gallery, a snail restaurant, a horse butchers, trendy shops, cool cafes, and some more parks.

Snail restaurant

Typical Parisian cafe

That night we had a picnic dinner with Elise and her sister on the arts bridge in front of the Louvre. Its cool that people have picnics all over Paris in the evening.

The river Seine, taken from the Arts bridge where we had an evening picnic with Elise and her sister

On our final day we went to the Musee D'orsay. It's another art gallery, that has many famous paintings, but more recent works rather than all religious art (by recent we mean 18th 19th and 20th century). Some of the highlights included a section of Art Nouveau, and the below pictures.

A painting by Jules Bastien-Lepage of his Grandfather

That night we ate with Elise and her family before catching a gruelling night bus over to London.