Melissa and Klas's Journey: February 2008

New Zealand is "Good Fun"

It's now been more than a year since we've worked - I know you feel sorry for us. I used to have a letter up at my desk from my little cousin, Jake (although he's not so little anymore), that said "I had a pirate day at school. It was good fun." The term "good fun" is the appropriate Aussie way to describe our time so far in New Zealand.

We've been on the north island the last two weeks. Our travels are definitely weather dependent. We have had to be more flexible with our schedule than what we were throughout Europe - this has been a bit challenging for us :-) but we've actually been OK not always knowing which town we'll sleep in next.

We've been able to do most of the things we wanted on this island. We've missed out on a couple of places and activities due to rain. However, it's been a blast so far. I'll summarise the highlights through the photos below.

Sky Tower in Auckland - Klas stands on thick glass at 192 metres above ground. I think he looked a little timid here, don't you?

90-Mile Beach at Ahipara - The beach is actually 64 miles but I think New Zealand just wanted to have a beach that was considered longer than any beach in Australia

Cape Reinga where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman Sea as you can see in the background

Play this video to see Klas sand-tobogganning down the sand dune

Coromandel Peninsula - look at the colour of the water

Beginning of our Tongariro Crossing hike...18.5 kilometres in 7.5 hours...This is Mount Ngauruhoe, which served as Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings movies

Red Crater at the Tongariro Crossing

Emerald Lakes at the Tongariro Crossing

Klas relaxing at the Emerald Lakes

Blue Lake at the Tongariro Crossing

Lake Rotoairi near the end of our hike at Tongariro Crossing

White water rafting on the Kaituna River - We are at the front of the raft about to go down a 7-metre (about 23 feet) waterfall

Klas and I ended up under the water but we were safe and it was so much fun

Zorbing (or is it zorbbing?) down the hill in Rotorua - this was a zig zag path that we each went down in our own zorb. Water is put into the middle ball with you and you slosh and bump around down the hill. This was an awesome activity.

I tried to post videos of our zorbing but I'll have to try again another time

Kerosene Creek - thermal creek where it feels like you are in a spa/hot tub

We will catch a ferry to the south island in a couple of days. More later...

P.S. It was my (Melissa) 31st birthday on February 28th. Thanks to many of you for the phone calls, text messages, emails and Facebook posts.

Island Hopping & Busy Bangkok

We have spent most of the time since the last posting island hopping on the west side of Thailand. The first stop was Phuket, which was very touristy. We stayed near a popular beach called Kata Beach. Apparently this area is very popular with the Swedes, which we soon realized since I (Klas) believe more Swedish is spoken here than in Sweden. Just kidding, but only a slight exaggaration. Kata beach was great except the fact that my back got really sunburned. For the people who know me, you are probably wondering how this happened. Well, let me tell you - the sunscreen must have been absorbed by the travel towel I have been using. I will definitely not use it again without reapplying sunscreen because I have a section on my back which mirrors the width of the towel. Very attractive if you can imagine.

The next stop was Phi Phi Don island, which is a smaller island with no cars. This island was hit hard by the Tsunami a few years ago. I could still see some of the effects it had on the island. We spent 3 nights on this island. One day we went on a snorkelling tour, or "snooking" as the tour guide pronounced it. The snorkelling was awesome and Bamboo Island (see photo below) had the best sand. On this tour were two girls from Northern Ireland and, believe it or not, they were so white that they made me look like I have a great tan.

After Phi Phi we went to Koh Lanta for 2 days. Here we met up with Mattias, who is a good friend of Pelle's, and his girlfriend Camilla. We spent the day relaxing on Klong Dao beach. It was great to have someone to hangout with for a change. While we were on Koh Lanta we rented a scooter, which I don't think Melissa's Mum would have approved of - however, we were very careful.

The last island we visited was Railay. We didn't stay on this island, but day tripped from Ao Nang. This island was also very nice, but our favourite so far in Thailand has been Phi Phi.

The last few days we have spent in Bangkok visiting temples, seeing lots of Buddha statues and doing some shopping. Since everyone has to take their shoes off before entering the temples, there can be some serious odor problems. I'm not kidding, but in one temple we almost passsed out.

Altogether, we spent almost 3 weeks in Thailand. Originally Thailand was not included on the list of countries to visit but a friend convinced us that we should stop here on the way to New Zealand. Thank you Mattias. People here are very friendly, the beaches are great and the cost of things is very cheap. However, I could do without all the people trying to sell a suit to me - they are everywhere.

Today we leave for New Zealand which is number one on my list of countries to visit, so I am pretty excited.

Kata Beach, Phuket

Lunch on Long Beach, Phi Phi Don

Long Beach, Phi Phi Don

Bamboo Island near Phi Phi Don

Sunset at Phi Phi Islands

Motorbiking on Koh Lanta

Dinner by the beach, Koh Lanta

Sunset Koh Lanta

Klong Dao beach, Koh Lanta, with Mattias and Camilla

Change of Pace in Thailand

We arrived in Chiang Mai (via Bangkok), Thailand, last Wednesday. Our experiences this last week have been very different from those in Europe. Our first excursion was finding lunch when we arrived. We ended up at a nearby market where we had a plate of fried rice, noodles and a drink for 60 Baht, which is about US$2 - very good for our budget!

We visited many temples the first day. We were also approached by several 'nice and friendly' locals who we figured out were just trying to politely get us to a tailor and help to bargain for 'the best price' for some suits.

We spent a day touring Chiang Mai Province where we rode on an elephant, visited tribal villages that looked very primitive and went bamboo rafting on a river.

We have spent the last few days on the island of Koh Samui. Klas's sister, Karin, and her friends, Joyce and Lina, were also here so we were able to relax together on the beach and enjoy some very good Thai food. Yesterday we toured the Ang Thong Marine National Park, which involved kayaking, hiking, snorkelling and swimming. It was very beautiful. We sadly said good-bye to Karin last night.

We head to Phuket tomorrow. Now we are going to the beach to enjoy a Thai massage...