Tan lines

…in places I’ve never had them before!

Just to let you all know…

in case you were wondering…..

Mon Repos Turtle Rookery

27th January 2011

Near the city of Bundaberg, on the East coast of Australia, is Mon Repos Turtle Rookery. This stretch of beach is a nature reserve, specially protected because it is used by hundreds of turtles each year for their breeding season. Turtles are sea-based creatures but they come ashore to lay their eggs – normally over 100 at a time – in the sand in a carefully dug nest. They are then left by the mother who returns to the sea.

When fish attack…..

The day started nice and early… we were pumped, primed and most importantly briefed and kitted up for our dive. We were bunking  on a lovely boat floating in the waters of the  Great Barrier Reef. Simon and I descending down the line to 6m where we caught our breath before finning over the wall to descend to 18m.  On our mission we were observing the reef wall, teeming with life.  There were lots of different types of coral, sea anemone and other structures and then there were the fish. There was one fish, two fish, blue fish, red fish, parrot fish, black fish, clown fish, yellow fish and rainbow coloured fish. It was amazing. 

The day the trees attacked

For the first time ever we woke up before 6am. We were picked up unexpectedly on time and arrived at the Flight of the Gibbons venue by 8. It was real cold this high up in the mountains.

Flight of the Gibbons is a bit like Go Ape in the UK but without the climbing up trees and bridge-less crossing. Check out link  http://www.treetopasia.com/thailand-holiday/chiang-mai/. The zip lines were across Gibbon territory and the longest one 800m. We even go to see a Gibbon female with her baby – and here I was thinking that they would be in Thailand somewhere not the jungle we were in.

The zip lines were awesome, the forest below amazing. On the longest zip lines, the trees laid in wait and as I zoomed past they attacked. They managed to scrap along my left leg, from mid calf to ankle and grabbed my shoe. I looked on in horror as my left shoe plummeted to the jungle floor. Bye bye shoe. I arrived at the station less a shoe but the kind guide receiving us gave me his left shoe so I could at least finish the course 🙂 In the next one the trees attacked again this time trying to take out my ankle – I fought vigilantly and only came away with a bruised and slightly scraped ankle and both my shoes (one being the guides).

By the end of it we had done 18 zip lines over 2km, two abseils – one a 40m drop at the end and a couple of stair cases. Even came away with a left flip flop in my size.

Now for shoe shopping as walking around wearing one flip flop and one walking shoe looks plain weird.

In Thai Food Heaven

Today we attend our Vegetarian/Vegan Thai cooking class at May Kaidee cooking school and Vegetarian Restaurant…

We started the day with a trip to the market to see and buy some of the ingredients for the dishes we would be making. It was just Simon and me with Deving our Cooking Instructor (Sister of May).

Journey to Chiang Mai

the ending is a happy one the journey interesting.

The plan from the reclining Budha take a taxi to the Central train station (Hau Lamphong), take a train to Don Muang Airport, catch flight to Changmi. We made it to the train station and caught a train due to depart in 5 minutes.. YAY!! but then it stopped, we just didn’t anticipate that it would be late…. but eventually we made it to the Don Muang station. This is where the fun begins, we followed the signs for the airport and it lead to a dead end, and no one on the platform seems to know how to get to the airport. The seed of panic starts to grow as we are due to check-in in 5 minutes. We check the dead end again, it’s properly dead with the access door bordered up and the other door locked. So we take the stairs down to the freeway… and walk up the freeway and follow signs to the airport. By this point we’re starting to job… eventually we come across what looks like a ghost airport, all building no lights. Bit further down as we see a light – all is well!! NOT!!! at this point the guard informs us that the airport is about 1 km in the direction that we came from. We are now at 40min till take off. We start up in a faster jog/run/fast walk (not at peak performance here and it shows) and make out way past the dead terminal, it’s dark and their isn’t a lot of light, we also pass a previous train stop. 30 minutes till take off and we can see the glowing lights of what is no the Domestic Terminal. 25 mintues till take off and we manage to get into the airport and check-in… why were we running again? 19.15 and we’re off.

Moral of the story: Always check how to get to an airport especially if it is an ex-international airport converted to a domestic airport. Or better yet – catch a cab!

Phuket Diving

2nd – 3rd January 2011

We did two days of diving with Thailand Divers – they have a normal schedule of day trips, three dives per day around various sites. We were picked up early and shuttled to the marina for the 2-hour transfer to the dive sites.

Phuket, Thailand

31st December 2010 – 5th January 2011

So later than expected, we hopped on our flight to Thailand – first time in ages I’ve flown in a plane with propellers! Got out of the airport and checked in to Bodega in Patong by about 3pm on New Years Eve. Nice bar/cafe on one side of the road, and rooms on the other, in a quiet side street away from the noisier and seedier parts of Patong, but a short walk away from it all.

Happy New Year!

We made it to Phuket and had a bit of a wander about. There’s a big stage on the beach on the beach already pumping out music and the bars are starting to fill up. On our way out now for some dinner and to see in the New Year – have a good one, wherever you’re celebrating it!

ps. want Yashoda to write some posts? Email her and ask her to write some instead of devoting all her time to Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on the DS!