New Zealand: North Island (part 2)

After we hung out there for a couple of days, we headed down to Lake Taupo. On our drive down we stopped in Rotorua (lots of thermal activity here...stinky) and at Huka Falls, where we watched kayakers shoot off of the 9 meter high falls...very cool.

The area surrounding Taupo is beautiful, mountainous and very volcanic. There are active volcanoes surrounding the area, and Lake Taupo itself is actually the crater of a super volcano that is also still active...kind of frightening as the lake is massive - 30 miles long and 20 miles wide and 610 feet deep at its deepest point (my own historical facts...are you impressed?). We spent our time exploring the town and sitting by the lake. We stayed in a decent hostel that made yummy, cheap chili for dinner.

The next day we decided to do part of the Tongariro Crossing trail. We were so bummed when we found out that we could have done the entire hike in one day. We had read in our guide books that it was a four to five day trek and didn't find out until late the night before that there are vans that will drop you off early in the morning at one side of the best part of the track and pick you up at the other. We weren't able to do that because we didn't know about it until super late, so we just hiked in as far as we could in one day and back out.

The reason we were so bummed is because it is supposed to be one of the best day hikes in New Zealand with volcanic and nearly other-worldly terrain, icy blue and emerald green pools, and huge craters and mountains. We hiked for a few hours to the first crater, but had to return because of the weather and the time and didn't make it up to the pools. It was still an amazing hike. The terrain reminded us a bit of parts of Iceland. We kept passing signs that explained what to do in the event of a volcanic eruption and told us that we were walking at our own risk which seriously began to terrify us after a while. But we made it in and back out without any any encounters with deadly lava...thank God.

(starting out the trail)

(at the bottom of the valley)

(warnings showing us all of the different ways the volcanoes could explode and kill us...and Tongariro volcano looming on the right in the distance - this area was also the set for Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings)

(halfway up the mountain...we hiked from way down at the bottom in the distance...hardcore)

(the first crater at the top of the mountain...it was huge)

(the blue pools we didn't get to make it to...so sad! this picture is from the internet...)

Driving around the north island was so beautiful...I took so many pictures out the window and made Nathan stop the car often so I could get out and snap pictures. The sky is SO incredibly blue here and the grass is SO green...the colors are incredibly beautiful and vivid. There are wildflowers scattered along the rolling hills and dairy cows and sheep (and the occasional horse) everywhere you look.

After Taupo we drove south to a cute little town called Ohakune which is a busy ski town during the winter and is quiet and mellow (and cheap!) during the summer. It is right near Mount Ruapehu (another volcano) and was very beautiful. We stayed in a great hostel here and made a yummy dinner.

(Ohakune downtown)

(Mount Ruapehu)

The next day, we headed down to the Namba's...our wonderful friends who allowed us to stay with them over the holidays. The Namba's are our friends from Santa Cruz who moved out to NZ earlier this year, and they have three precious little boys who we had SO much fun playing with while we were there. We spent a few days with them, including Christmas, and it was great. We relaxed, chatted lots and caught up on life, watched Twilight #1 movie!! (which we hadn't seen yet...fabulous), blogged, Skyped with family, went box sliding with the kids, chased sheep, played with Legos, listened to Christmas music, ate yummy food, and just had a blast. It was wonderful and MUCH needed after our long time away from family and friends.

(Rob and Eliot)

(Dillon being adorable)

(Legos...Corban, the oldest, was buried in them the whole time! So cute...he's such a builder)

(Nathan with Rob and Jen and their wonderful friend Gail)

On the 27th, we headed down to Wellington (with Rob) and explored the city, went to the Flying Burrito for super good, but ridiculously expensive (albeit worth it and necessary), Mexican food, then went and saw Avatar that night. Great movie. Rob left that evening and Nathan and I stayed in the city for another day and night. We did some more exploring on our own, went to the free local museum, which was great, and went to another movie the second night...Sherlock Holmes. Another great movie. We got into a bit of a movie streak there...so fun! I think we've seen more movies in theatres on this trip than we had the entire year before at home!

On the 29th, we hopped on the ferry to get to the South Island!

New Zealand: North Island (part 1)

From Sydney, we flew to our LAST destination on our big adventure…New Zealand.

We started in Auckland and stayed with a friend of a friend for a few days. We visited the different cute districts and neighborhoods around Auckland, went up to Piha and Kerikeri beaches (which were stunning…reminded us a lot of Hawaii), hiked up to a waterfall and spent time planning for the rest of our time in New Zealand.

(the view over Piha Beach)

(the path to Kerikeri Beach)

(black sparkly sands at Kerikeri Beach)

After that, we drove our rental car (finally had a car to get around and it was wonderful) around the Coromandel Peninsula to Hahei. The drive follows the peninsula along the coast and is really beautiful. It passes through a few very cute towns…our favorite was Coromandel. They are known for their smoked fish and mussels, so we went to the local fish smoking shop and got ourselves the best smoked salmon and garlic smoked mussels...amazing.

(excited to have a car!)

(pretty coastline at Coromandel Peninsula)

(cute Coromandel town and the fish smoking shop)

(best smoked fish, ever)

We finally made it to Hahei and stayed in a great little hostel there. The area around Hahei is really beautiful...it is lush and tropical and near the coast. There are beautiful plants and flowers and tons of gigantic wild hydrangea bushes everywhere...very pretty.

Nearby Hahei is hot water beach, where you can dig a hole in the sand and it fills up with super hot water from an underground spring and then you sit in it like a hot tub. We went and did that until the tide came in and washed our warm little pool away. We also hiked to Cathedral Cove which is a beautiful secluded (actually, quite touristy...but you still have to hike to it) beach and hung out there, worked on our tans some more, and I immersed myself in Twilight novel #4 (almost finished with the series...so sad!!).

(cathedral cove)

(more of cathedral cove)

Sydney

We headed out from South East Asia to make our way to New Zealand, but first...we had a three and a half day layover in Sydney, Australia. Although we didn't have much time, we explored all that we could and just loved it here. We stayed in a cute hipster neighborhood that had great shopping, antiques and thrift stores (too bad we are "going broke" and couldn't afford to buy anything...so sad) and great pubs and restaurants. We wished we could have stayed and explored longer!

We spent time exploring downtown and around the harbor, walked through the botanical gardens, laid out at sunny Bondi beach and worked on our tans, walked the long coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee Beach, explored some of the different neighborhoods, and had some of the best nights' sleeps we have had in a long time.

(at the harbor in front of the Opera House)

(at the botanical gardens...notice the HUGE bats hanging in the trees?? Disgusting! They are everywhere...they are called Flying Foxes and there are approximately 20,000 hanging from the trees in the botanical gardens. So disturbing.)

(beautiful Bondi Beach)

Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur

After Melaka, we headed up to Kuala Lumpur as we were scheduled to fly from there to Sydney a few days later. Kuala Lumpur really surprised me…it was very clean and there was so much new construction and new buildings. Everything is kind of over the top…HUGE malls are located just blocks away from each other and you can find every chain store you have ever been to in your life…High end, mid-range, European, American…it was great. Too bad we were too poor to buy anything.

We did hang out at the mall though and ate at Carl’s Junior (so nice to have bad American fast food after nothing but Asian food for 5 weeks), we went and saw Couples Retreat at their gigantic theatre, bought vanilla iced blendeds at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (my favorite thing about KL!), and visited their over the top Christmas display at the mall. This was the first time we saw anything Christmas throughout all of South East Asia and it was really fun…in super hot KL they had a whole section of the mall that was a winter wonderland with real falling snow!They had HUGE Christmas trees, fully decorated, Santa in his sleigh with his reindeer flying through the sky, elves, everything Christmas you could ever imagine…it was better than how Will Ferrell decorated the mall in Elf; it was crazy.

We didn't just hang out at the mall while we were there, although we did go there twice...it was just too cool. Other than that, we visited their huge street markets, went to the night bazaar at Little India, walked through China Town and ate the last of our authentic South East Asian food.

(the famous Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur)

(the night market with the KL towers in the background)

(nathan enjoying an iced blended in the winter wonderland at the mall)

Malaysia: Cameron Highlands and Melaka

After a long day of travel on boats, in vans, and across borders, we finally made it into Malaysia. Our first stop was Penang (because that is the furthest we could get in one day). Unfortunately, we only had one evening there because of issues with buses, so we didn't get to explore it during the day as we would have liked. The next morning we made our way to Tanah Rata in the beautiful Cameron Highlands of Central Malaysia - another LONG day of travelling and crappy buses made better only by the next Twilight novel (#3, the one i had lost)...I bought a counterfeit copy of it in Vietnam.

The main draw of this tiny town is the tea plantations that cover the hillsides. One of our books said that it looks like velvety green corduroy covering the hillsides, and it does. It is stunning. One of the days we were there, we bussed and hiked up into the hillside to go to one of the tea plantations for a tour. It was a beautiful hike and we drank (and bought) some yummy tea. The town is also known for its fresh fruit and vegetables, so we visited a strawberry farm and bought fresh strawberries and homemade strawberry ice cream.

Other than that we just mulled around town, and ate lots of local food (there is an infusion in Malaysia of Indian, Chinese, and South East Asian cuisine). We watched as our hostel owner turned up the tunes and danced to an entire song - like really got down - next to his tiny radio near the computer we were using. At one point, we thought we were going to die when out of nowhere, a fighter jet came screaming over the tiny town...truly thought this was one of my last moments. Don't know what they were doing but it was crazy loud and super close to the ground and we both cowered in the corner of the store we were in, waiting to die. When the jet had passed and we realized we were still alive, we went out and watched it circle around the town a few times, then fly away. We asked the locals if this was normal and they just shrugged like they had no idea what was going on. Hmm...

After the Cameron Highlands, we headed down to Melaka. A relic of European colonialism, Melaka was a primary trade center between the East and West. First settled by the Portuguese, then taken by the Dutch (and then the British), Melaka is now known for its active pirate community and for being a UNESCO World Heritage City. [can you tell this part was written by nathan? love his historical facts] We stayed in a great hostel where the owner cooked us yummy homemade breakfasts each morning. We toured around the town and checked out the beautiful, colorful, old buildings and pagodas, walked through the night markets, and my favorite...went to a huge, modern theater and saw....New Moon (Twilight movie #2). Amazing. And my wonderful husband went with me...love him. :)

(Jonker Walk in Melaka)

(the crazy "taxis" in Melaka...as you can see, they are all very colorfully decorated and they all BLAST music as they drive you around the old town)

Thailand: Beaches

After Hoi An we had a long travel day/night with an overnight train ride up to Hanoi (yes, we opted for the train...MUCH better choice, was comfortable and we actually got some sleep!), then a flight back out to Bangkok. We stayed in Bangkok one more night - at our favorite hostel that makes the best iced coffee ever - and then made our way down to the beaches...

The coast in Thailand is so beautiful...there are huge limestone karsts rising up out of the sea and scattered along the mainland with jungle-y vegetation and gorgeous turquoise water. The only thing that is a bit of a bummer is the hoards of tourists and the jacked-up tourist prices. It was definitely the most expensive part of South East Asia that we experienced. Even still, we really enjoyed our time and soaked up a ton of sun, read lots of books and just did nothing for a week or so...

First, we spent a few days in Krabi, which is gorgeous. We stayed in a lovely place with a huge pool, and swam in the evenings after our days at the beach. We had a few days there and basically all we did was lay out in the sun, tan our bodies, eat yummy Thai food, shop, read and swim in the warm water. It was great. One day we took a long tail boat out to Rai Leh and relaxed there...it was beautiful.

(beautiful Rai Leh beach in Krabi)

(nathan rocking a dirty stache with the reflection of beautiful Rai Leh beach in his lenses - artistic or creepy?)

(long tail boats - main form of transport)

Next we headed down south for a more "deserted island" feel. And getting there definitely made it feel deserted...it was a long bus ride down to the port where they drop you off to find a boat to your selected destination (there are a few islands off the coast here). We chose the one that seemed the cheapest, the most mellow and least known for crazy partying. After waiting most of the day for our "speed" boat ride out to the island, we were finally walked down to the port - with one other traveller, our friend Jim - and put on a tug boat. Honest to God it was just some random local fisherman's boat and we tugged slowly along to our island for about another hour and a half. Once we got to the island, we had to wait for a long tail boat to come out and pick us up to take us ashore. By this time the seas had definitely gotten a bit rough and lets just say we were happy that we made it to the island...we were being tossed over huge waves, swells coming into the boat, we were soaking wet (along with our bags), and we kept checking to make sure our driver was still on the back of the boat and hadn't gotten tossed off! We were glad that at least one other tourist had made the trip with us or we would have been wondering what the heck we had gotten ourselves into. Although, once we made it to shore (after a long day and looking very disheveled), it was actually a beautiful and quite peaceful little island. We ended up getting a little bungalow right on the beach and had a few days to just chill and do nothing on our island paradise...it was wonderful.

Some favorite moments....

1. Pineapple pancakes with honey syrup for breakfast on the beach.

2. Finding our friend Jim on the beach in a tiny black thong a few days later...awkward...we all averted our eyes and pretended not to see each other.

3. Phillipe...Phillipe looked like he was in his 50s or 60s, was dark and leathery tan, had long greyish-blonde hair, wore cut-off short jean shorts and no shirt every day, and looked like he had gone to visit the island sometime in the 70's never to return. He had a hammock that was permanently set up on the tiny beach and a sign that read "Phillipe" over an entrance into the jungle where he apparently took up residence. He knew everyone on the island (i think the population was under 50) and tromped up and down the beach staring at the tourist girls in their bikinis. Creepy, yet entertaining.

4. Amazing Thai food at our resort - the last for us since this was our last stop in Thailand!

5. Our cute little bungalow, complete with mosquito netting over our bed and sea breeze coming through the walls...it was perfect!

(our cute resort)

(our bungalow on the beach)

Vietnam: Hue and Hoi An

Once we finally recovered from our bus ride to Hue, we set out to explore the town. As we were trying to figure out the best way to see everything, since it is a bit spread out, a man on his motorbike stopped to talk to us and tried to convince us to go with him and his friend on their bikes for an all-day tour around town. At first we objected, but we got to talking to him and he pulled out some official-looking brochures and totally charmed us and we thought, what the heck?! So we did it! It was SO much fun. I should also mention that this is not in the least bit uncommon...there are motorbikes in nearly every town in Vietnam that act as taxis or tour operators, so it is relatively safe (don't worry parents...we are not in the habit of taking rides with strangers). Besides, even the "official" tours, taxis and bus rides are not even close to what we would consider official, professional or even safe...it's always an adventure. So all this to say, after talking to him and his friend for a while, we decided to hop on the back of their bikes for a tour of Hue. It was one of our favorite things that we did! We got to see so much more than we would have if we were on foot, and they gave us history lessons and local stories about the places we saw and visited...so fun!


(motorbiking through Hue)

(hiding out in a vietnam war bunker)


(ruins and pagodas around Hue)

(another Hue pagoda)


From Hue we headed via train and taxi to Hoi An, which ended up being probably our favorite stop in Vietnam. Hoi An is a beautiful little town south of Danang, located on a small river...we LOVED it here. The town is a protected world heritage site and is beautifully preserved. The buildings are colorful and bright and there are no cars allowed in the main town center.

We stayed a few days here...one day we rented bikes and rode out to the beach...a beautiful drive along the river and next to rice paddies with water buffalo grazing in them. We soaked up some sun at the beach and ate at a little riverside cafe on the way back into town...it was so peaceful and relaxing.


(riding our bikes to the beach with the locals)

We also spent time wandering the local produce markets (which are huge and have tons of fresh fruits and vegetables...the food in Vietnam, especially Hoi An is amazingly fresh and flavorful, so good).


(bananas at the market)

We did lots of people watching...people biking by with their entire family on board (even infants - no helmets in sight), or with their bikes loaded sky high with bananas or produce or even baskets full of live ducks! We woke up at 5am one morning to check out the early morning fish market which was CRAZY...so fun to be there to observe the scene...people pulling fish off the boats, market and restaurant owners trying to buy up the best catch, people yelling and running around everywhere, fish flopping around in baskets, so much going on in the early morning light.


(early morning at the fish market in Hoi An)

We explored the tiny, colorful streets and gawked at the old eclectic architecture, and we even stayed in a preserved traditional old home one night which was rustic for sure, but a great experience...views over the center of town and so neat to stay in one of their "ancient" homes (as they call them). We stayed in a bigger hotel the other nights that had amazing free breakfast and a huge pool, so we did some swimming and laying out in the sun as well. One night we treated ourselves to a fancy dinner overlooking the river...grilled local fish (amazing!) and fresh banana coladas...heaven!

Hoi An also has some local food specialties, like Cao Lao, which we loved and ate every day...super cheap, super fresh, and amazingly good.


(Local specialty, Cao Lao - the yummiest and cheapest dish in Hoi An)

Hoi An is also known for its clothing...hundreds of shops line each street and make custom clothing for a pretty decent price. You can get custom suits, shoes, shirts, jackets, dress shirts...you basically point to a picture in a magazine, pick out your fabric, they take your measurements, and the next day they have it laid out for you and ready to go. I got some skirts and nathan got a few shirts, all for under $100!


(fabric at the clothing markets)

On our last evening there we took a boat tour down the river and along some of the "residential" areas and farm land surrounding the tiny city...it was at sunset and was such a quiet, peaceful experience. We got to see locals fishing and throwing their nets off their tiny boats, which was super cool, but then we realized it was all a show when our boat went up to theirs and they asked for money for the little show...can't get away from it in Vietnam, but it was still neat to see!



We just loved it here...amazing town, amazingly kind people, we were sad to leave.