Ross and Wyn Davies Travel Blog

We didn’t get to Franz Joseph on New Year’s Eve. We stopped at the DOC camp at Lake Paringa and liked it so stayed there the night. We managed a swim in the lake before the sun went down. Midnight came very quietly, most of the camp were asleep. Next morning was still fine and we headed north. We visited Lake Mathieson for some reflections but the mountains were clouding over by that stage. We had a fun day playing tourists and eventually parked for the night beside the road south of Barrytown. This was beside the sea and we watched the sun into the sea – a nice way to end the day. Continue reading →

We hope you had a merry Chistmas and are looking forward to a good 2012. We had a lovely family Christmas in Dunedin and have enjoyed a relaxing few days beside Lake Dunstan. The weather has been great and all is well.
Today we’re off to the West Coast, probably Franz Joseph – heading to work in Westport on 2 January.
It must be time to work out New Years resolutions – a list to feel bad about not achieving. Can you have a resolution “Not to make resolutions”?

This blog has been nominated for Worst Blog in the World. Good blogs should get updated at least daily. Not blogging for two months is not a good look. I apologise to anyone checking to see what became of us. And I’ll find out where you can vote for be for Worst Blogger. Apparently if we do well enough in the Worlds then we are in the running for Worst Bloggers in the Known Universe.
We are still alive and well. We survived Laos and then Vietnam and then Cambodia and then Malaysia and now New Zealand. We’ve been busy working and catching up with family and friends and working. And sorting out a zillion photos from our travels (Wyn said I can’t post 2,700 on the blog whether I think they’re great or not!)
So I’m busy culling them down and figuring out how to get them into the stories we’ve blogged so far. Then there’s a few tales of the rest of our Asian adventures.
One day …

Oh Oh! Over two weeks and no posts. This is because we’ve been busy/exhausted/without internet access etc. But we are alive and well. We’re now three countries away blobbing out at a lovely beach in Malaysia. I might have to write less?

So we finally arrived in Luang Prabang in Laos in the evening on Friday 19 August. We found our Manichan Guest House in a maze of lanes. The bad news way that he’d assumed we were not coming and had given our room away a couple of days later. The good news was that nobody had turned up looking for a room for that night so we still had one to crash in. The lack of walk-ins may have been because the main road south had been blocked for 24 hours1 The surprising thing was that this didn’t seem to be news in Luang Prabang. Continue reading →

Pickup from our guesthouse in Vientiane for our overnight bus trip north to Luang Prabang was 6.30pm. This was by minibus to get us to the bus station which was about 4kms away for our big bus due to depart at 7.30pm. Or something like that. You can never be 100% certain about anything with these transport arrangements. We were the first pickups and we must have past our guest house three more times as we circled around gathering more passengers. Continue reading →

We woke to our first morning in Vientiane in Laos in our dingy room at the Vyakoorn Hotel. And resolved to find somewhere else. It had rained a lot in the night and there was still light rain in the morning. We walked a few hundred meters to the Mali Namphu and secured a nice room there – overlooking their lovely courtyard. Then it was back to the Vyakoorn to check out and a short trudge back to the Mali Namphu to check in. The room was not good in some respects but the lights were enough watts to brighten up the room. It made it totally different. Continue reading →

Tuesday 16th was moving-on day – across the border to Laos and up the road a few kms to Vientiane. We were in no hurry to pack up but were finally ready to leave. Wyn mentioned having her passport photo ready for the border and I remembered I hadn’t. So started a search for my passport photos. Suffice it to say it was fruitless and extensive. I don’t know what I did with them – they’re probably on the bench back home. Continue reading →

We woke on Sunday 14 August in the train from Bangkok. It was just light by the time we pulled into Nong Khai. Nong Khai is at the north east end of Thailand at the Mekong River. Across the river is Laos. Many people just plough right on over the border and the 22kms further to Vientiane in Laos. But we decided to stay a while before meeting another city. We’d stayed longer in Bangkok than we’d meant to and Bangkok requires a rest after it anyway. It was short and relatively expensive tuktuk ride from the station to Mut Mee Guest House. Mut Mee is beside the Mekong – like you could spit a prune stone from the patio. Continue reading →

We started our third day in Bangkok. Wyn wanted something simple for breakfast so had a pancake at the Lamphu Guesthouse. I went back up the road to the el-cheapo muesli place. Here I met a young guy from Palmy North who had cycled through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. And back to Bangkok. Now that’s keen. We checked out of the Lamphu where we couldn’t stay any longer and took a taxi to Wendy House. Which is run by a wonderful woman called Wendy. She is a real treasure who devotes a lot of energy to making sure everything is right for her guests. Continue reading →

This evening we’re leaving Vientiane by overnight bus for Luang Prabang in the north. We’ll be there for 4 days and fly from there to Hanoi next Tuesday. See, I said I’d be brief 🙂

Wednesday we had a leisurely start to the day, with breakfast up the road at a street stall with nice muesli and yoghurt and fruit. We set off again to walk to the Grand Palace. Like the day before we were offered information on it being closed for the morning and had we seen the Giant Buddha etc. We just kept on. Continue reading →

Our waking was all a bit rushed on the train to Bangkok. There was time for a cup of tea as we approached the city. Life in the suburbs looked interesting. Once at the station we took stock and had a cup of coffee and psyched ourselves up and sorted ourselves out. We made a plan to head to the Banglamphu area, the tradional backpackers hangout. Our book suggested Soi Rambutri for a quieter corner which sounded like us. At the station exit there was a rush of touts asking if we wanted tuktuks or taxis – tuktuks are the three-wheel motorkike taxis. Continue reading →

On Monday we were up early again for our final swim on Lemai Beach. Just for a change we tried breakfast at the restaurant next door – we didn’t want to get in a rut 🙂 We packed up and farewelled our lovely room that I’d have eaten my breakfast off the floor of. It was time to say goodbye to the nice Amity Bungalow that we’d been taken to by our taxi driver a few days before. Continue reading →