on a Bali beach with Bob's parents

We've been in Bali almost two weeks now, mostly reading, eating delicious Balinese food, hanging out with Bob's parents Rob and Carolyne, and relaxing by the pool. Karen and Bob remember the pool from 10 years ago but the rest of the small resort that we stayed in then has since tumbled into ruins because the owner went bankrupt. We're staying in a very small resort (5 rooms) that is adjacent to the decrepit ruins and encompasses the original infinity pool, the only portion of the old resort to have survived. We had a particularly spooky arrival. We recognized the small backstreet leading to the place where we had previously stayed but when we got out of the taxi all we saw was ruins. We barely recognized the tumbledown remnants of the reception area and the beach bar. But there were new banners blowing in the ocean breeze and as we stumbled through the site, wide-eyed, a resort employee approached and helped us make our way through the ghost-resort to the new bungalows. After Bob's parents arrived and had a few days' rest, the four of us hired a car and driver for a daylong tour of the northeast corner of Bali: spectacular rice-terrace views, a beach mostly known for snorkelling, a drive along a narrow winding road past fishing villages and a visit to a royal water-garden. The four of us have also enjoyed going to local restaurants and having barbecued fresh tuna at our resort. There are lots of shopping opportunities for lighter-weight clothes to help us cope with the heat and humidity. The plan is to move from here (just outside Candidasa) to the relatively cooler altitudes near the dormant volcano at Bedugal, and then spend about a week in Ubud (more window-shopping of Balinese artwork) before Bob's parents leave. Hopefully, the world-wide air traffic problems will have cleared up by then.

A slice of Pai

We picked a bit of an unfortunate time to visit northern Thailand; it's the end of the dry season and all the small farmers are burning off their fields of stubble (somewhat understandable) as well as any leaves that are lying around, and since this is jungle country there are lots of leaves lying around. The mahogany leaves are huge, up to half a metre long, and when they litter the forest paths it's hard to walk, so that's why they burn them off, but it sure makes a mess of the air. We've been known to lay a napkin on top of our beer glass to keep the black snow (corn stalk ash) from landing in our drinks. Nothing stops us from drinking lots of beer, however, except if Bob has a nap in the early afternoon heat. We just got back to Pai from a four-day sidetrip to Sappong, an even smaller town about 40 km away on a hilly road full of major switchbacks. Our bus was so old the driver was weaving from side to side on the steepest uphill bits of the road, sort of switchbacks on switchbacks, just so the bus could keep climbing. Our home in Sappong (the Sappong River Inn) was one of our favourite places yet (superb room with a deck over a ravine; great food) and we had a fantastic day trek, hiking for three hours up into the hills to a Karen hill-tribe village. (That's Karen the ethnic group, not Karen the blogger.) During the hike we spotted a lot of orchids growing in the crotches of trees. That was a bit of a surprise because an earlier visit to a Chiang Mai orchid farm led us to believe that orchids were rainy season plants, but some of them thrive in this dry heat. In the village, we met a few of the Karen people and bought a few pieces of weaving from some of the women. Our wander through the village was fun, going through their yards and seeing some of the women actually doing the weaving, chaffing the rice, doing the laundry or embroidering their fanciest clothe. We took a different route out of the hills by following a stream back down to Sappong, crossing through the ankle-deep water dozens of times in our squishy hiking boots. At one point we met some village men with small nets working in the stream. They showed us a shopping bag filled with their catch - a few crawfish, lots of giant tadpoles and a handful of wee silver fish, actually all about the same size. Apparently, they eat them all. We've been in Thailand (and especially the north) for so long now that we're getting quite used to the mixed ethnic makeup of the country and little really grabs our eye. At breakfast today, we were eating at a sidewalk table and motorcycles went by with the strangest things - a guy selling a dozen ladders; a trio of Muslim women veiled all in black except for the eyes; colourfully clothed Lahu families of mom, dad and two small kids; whole restaurants built onto complicated tubular sidecars. It eventually dawned on us to take a few pictures, but it was the not noticing that was the most striking part. On our way out of Thailand we plan to visit one more major site, Sukkothai, an ancient capital full of spectacular architecture. That should be enough to get us shooting a flurry of photos. After Thailand is Bali. Oh that sounds good. We hope Bali will be less hot, wtih more refreshing air. And of course we really look forward to meeting up with Bob's parents. It's been a long, long time since we saw a face from home.

off the beach and into the mountains

We finally overcame our extreme lethargy enough to get moving again. We passed through Bangkok's airport before the weekend protests and spent a few days in Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. We stayed in Chiang Mai's old town, which is surrounded by a moat and throbbing with a backpacker vibe. There are guesthouses everywhere and if you wander down the alleys they get cheaper, if a little dingier. We finally got out at night and saw a few Thai cover bands doing mostly old rock tunes. It's easier to name the tune from the melody line than the lyrics because the singers' accents are usually quite odd to our ears. They mostly advertised as jazz but we never did find any. Karen took a daylong cooking class and learned how to make a few of the dishes we've been eating. The leftovers were tasty, although she needs a little practice rolling the springrolls. We should have a good variety at our next dinner party at home. The biggest disappointment in northern Thailand has been the air quality. Chiang Mai has a lot of tuktuks and rental scooters, not to mention the badly maintained cars, trucks and buses. Add to that the soot from the burning crop stubble and the air was quite hazy and gross. We've since left Chiang Mai and are staying further north in Pai where there's less exhaust but more ash, so the haze level is still high but the air seems a bit more breathable. The van ride from Chiang Mai to Pai was more strenuous than we anticipated with hundreds of sharp curves (the T-shirts say 762 curves) in the last two hours of a three-hour drive. We are definitely in Thailand's hill country where there are quite a variety of small-population tribes, each with different languages and traditions. It's part of what every backpacker comes up here for, but we have yet to get out of Pai to see the villages or the waterfalls or the hot springs. You see, Pai is another chill-out place and that's all we've managed so far. Besides there's about five hours in the middle of the day when it's too hot to do anything, but drink beer and read. Yesterday, we over-exerted ourselves walking out of town towards a waterfall but didn't make it due to the heat. We did manage to hitchhike back to town and got a ride in the back of an empty construction truck that was filthy with concrete dust. Got quite a few odd looks from other backpackers who didn't expect to see westerners jumping out of the back of an obviously working local truck. We changed from one guesthouse to another this morning because the first bed was too hard and managed to save some money as our costs dropped from 500 baht to 400 baht a night, that's about $17 to $13 Canadian a night. Everything is so cheap that Karen is having difficulty restraining herself from buying. But who can resist a 70 per cent pashmina and 30 per cent silk scarf for $3, or earrings for half that? That's enough for now. If we sit in these leather chairs much longer Karen's prickly heat will flair up again. It has become our major consideration at dinner - what kind of fabric is on the chair cushions. And because Bob can't sit crosslegged, we can't sit on the floor cushions. We have put up a few pictures of our beach adventure in southern Thailand and will add a few from the north soon. Hope all our new backpacker friends are doing well, we'll try to round up all your email addresses soon and send out a few messages. Thanks especially to Daniel for the comment. Of course, it's always good to hear from home. Miss you. Bye from Pai.

a month on one beach - are we nuts?

Bye bye Koh Phangan, we're back in the Cactus Bungalows on Koh Samui where there's an immigration office and we can extend our visas. We're still undecided on our next stop, however, as we continue to watch the Thai political situation. We are extraordinarily cautious and could just go back to Koh Phangan if there's a safety concern. We sure did love Than Sadet beach. It's the first time in our life that we've stayed in one place for a whole month. We weren't bored, although we did very little except read and eat and play in the waves. Even Karen played in the waves. We spent a lot of our time reading in the hammock so we're not as tannned as those who lay on the beach all day. We met millions of Germans. It was weird - 90 per cent of the tourists were German. It got so we could tell the Swiss Germans from the regular Germans and our own English picked up a bit of German phrasing as we spent so much time talking with them. Going to Thailand to learn German, who would have thought? All the Germans were remarkably friendly and welcomed us into their social circles. In smaller groups, they would all talk English to include us. Even when they had a big birthday party, we were invited and although they talked German among themselves, there were always a few talking English with us, late into the night. We exchanged emails with dozens of them and have even thought that we might go west through Germany to return to Canada instead of going east - it's about the same distance. Drinking beer in the ocean was fun and seemed to be the spark that got the Germans interested in socializing with us. The jungle wildlife freaked us out occasionally. We had our own gecko in our room so it's a bit surprising how many insects we had as well. The gecko was the big kind, a foot long, with a head bigger than a golf ball and he was a bright baby blue with orange spots. The thunk, thunk, thunk as he ran across the wall from one corner cranny to another was always worth a smile in the early morning hours. Still, there was other wildlife in our room. Cockroaches, of course, and Bob screamed like a girl when he found a huge millipede when he picked up a Tshirt from the floor. Then there was the hairy spider the size of a hand that kept us on alert when we entered our bathroom. He was actually only there for a few days but our spidey senses were on alert for weeks. Karen had a succession of small health issues, including both kinds of tummy troubles (too fast, then too slow), a wicked fever in between, and a bruised toe that she smashed between the dinghy and the ferry when she was boarding the ferry in high waves. She's all better now, but that was a bit of a bad end to her four-day solo visit to a yoga retreat at a beach a few kilometres down the coast. She went to yoga classes twice a day and ate lots of healthy vegan food, but despite a mostly positive experience, still wanted to reunite with Bob after four days. See, we're still getting along well after all this togetherness. Sorry our last picture is still from Christmas. Soon, soon, we swear.

in case you are worried about Thai protests

We have been on Than Sadet beach on Koh Phangan island in southeast Thailand for a month. You can't get any safer than that. We are avoiding Bangkok where protests would concentrate. Meanwhile, we are thinking of visiting the far north of Thailand. Fortunately, there are direct flights that don't connect through Bangkok. On March 1 we plan to go back to Koh Samui to extend our visa. We'll have more to say once we get back to the land of high-speed Internet.

Even paradise has internet access - if infrequently

Now this is a real time limit. The generator only runs till 4 p.m. and it's 3:34 so we'll see how far we get. We've crashed at Than Sadet on the east coast of Koh Phangan where the roads are horrid dirt tracks through the jungle and most transport is by rickety ferries or (even scarier) long-tail boats. We seem to have caught the "don't wanna leave" fever that everyone gets here. There's not much to do but we're coping. It seems we pushed ourselves a little harder than we thought for the first five months and now we're just resting. Plowing through books like mad. Lying on the hammock deciding which restaurant to eat at. We are on a small cove. The beach is lovely, 200 paces long and capped at each end by huge, rocky headlands with bungalows scattered all over them. Climbing up the stairs seemed excessive for us (Karen's legs were wrecked) so we grabbed a bungalow 10 metres from the beach. Actually, our first bungalow was 20 metres from the beach but we moved over one when our German neighbours moved up the hill. Did we mention we're paying $13 a night and we can watch the sun rise over the ocean without getting out of bed. Actually, we hardly have to lift our head off the pillow -- a good example of how we're living here. Just heard that Bob's mom and dad are going to Bali in April, so we're sorting out what bits of southeast Asia to see before we visit them and what bits to see afterwards. But more and more we're talking about coming back here. We swear we'll post some pictures soon but we have to arrange to be at the computer when the power first comes on, not when it's about to shut down. Met our first Canadians in a long time when half the town of Campbell River, B.C., popped in for an afternoon. That brings to mind our other major hobby - watching the ferry plow into the sand and calcuting the net gain or loss among long-time visitors leaving and arriving. The day-trippers don't count for much as they only crowd up the beach for a few hours. Two dozen people on the beach is a crowd. Often there are a handful or less. Food is great but we have to keep it down to one wonderful but extremely hot curry at a time. We don't miss the hawkers on the beach (none here) nor the restaurant touts trying to drag you inside (none here). Bob had a great birthday a few days back. Beers, swim, walk, whole fish dinner and a birthday cake ordered special from the big town on the other side of the island. The generator's about to shut down so we will as well. Good to hear from anyone who leaves a comment. Anyone who doesn't leave a comment is

My mouth is on fire and I have no beer

It doesn't matter how good the Thai food is, you have to switch to club sandwiches and burgers every week or so, if only to let your lips have a break. No tummy troubles either. Still, we've had remarkably good food here on Koh Samui. The three flavours shrimp dish (sweet, sour and spicy) and the chicken with cashews are favourites but we've tried a dozen or more dishes, usually two shared per meal with rice and beer. Most meals have been on the beach or overlooking it. One lunch was on a boat when we did a tour to Angthong Marine National Park. Oddly, we went to the marine park to go hiking. While other people were kayaking (too hard on Bob's back) or snorkelling (Karen can't swim) we were climbing nasty slippery rock trails to great heights for the spectacular views. As usual, the photos will have to wait until we bring the wire connectors with us. Sorry. Our stay on Koh Samui stretched a week longer than we anticipated because of a bit of a miss-step - Bob left his ATM card in our Bangkok hotel's internet room, we think. The bank was quick to cancel it and send out a replacement, but the rush emergency delivery took nine days. Actually, the replacement card didn't work today but Karen's card worked so the cash-flow is fine. It was interesting to stay long-term in a short-term place as we made a lot of friends and soon saw them off. There was Rich and Bec from Brighton going to a wedding in New Zealand; Ian and Colleen from the Okanagan in B.C. who kindly used their rental car to haul us all over the island scouting out yoga studios and to see a mummified monk; and Simon and Jacqueline moving back to Australia from England and their friend Peter who seems to be able to meet them anywhere in the world if there's beer available. Hi to all of them. Hope you see this and leave a comment (Rich and Bec did already, keeners). Other than that our news is a little weak because all we've been doing is reading, playing pool and getting massages (every second day). Tomorrow we take a ferry to the island of Koh Phangan where most tourists will be hurting themselves at the Full Moon Party. We're going deep off-piste to a beach with no roads to it and no pier. We have to jump off the boat into the shallows. Guess we'll be packing our hiking boots and wearing our flipflops. This also means there may be no internet. This part of the world is developing rapidly so that may no longer be true. If you don't hear from us before March, don't worry, we've found an even cheaper beach paradise with no internet.

Now this feels like a travel adventure again

Strange delay getting to Bangkok. Our flight from Sydney was 18 hours late taking off because of the bad weather in London, where the plane originated. Not a big deal, though, because the airline put us up in an airport hotel and chitted us for dinner and breakfast. It's not like we were in a hurry. Probably saved a few bucks on the dining. Prices are brilliant here in Bangkok, and this is the expensive part of the country. We bought airline tickets to Ko Samui and fly on Wednesday. Cost about 5,200 baht which, let me think, works out to $150 one-way for both of us. See. Cheap. Can't wait to hit a beach cause we are badly in need of an ocean breeze. God it's humid here. It's 10 p.m. and we're still sweating. Can't complain though, it's not as crappy as Europe or North America. We're sending heat vibes to all our friends and family in our thoughts. We are definitely leaning towards the "lucky us, pinch me, I'm really in Bangkok" end of the "how's it going" scale. No question. We felt a little homesick in Australia because things kept reminding us of home. That's gone now. Nothing here reminds us of home, especially not the tall cockroaches. Not only are the cockroaches long, but they are TALL too. Yikes. We spent this afternoon (about 35 C) wandering around the Grand Palace, which is really a walled area of the city, sort of like Beijing's Forbidden City, but with many huge domes plated in gold. Many photos later and we were suffering from dehydration so for a late lunch we ordered two huge bottles of water and two huge bottles of beer, just to get started. Total bill for the meal and drinks was 461 baht or, let me think, $14. And that was the most touristy part of town. Our local street food, half a block from our hotel, is better food and cheaper. Yesterday we had hour-long foot massages for 250 baht a person or about $7. Equal parts relaxing and painful, and Bob had to go straight to bed afterwards. We might try it again tomorrow after we visit a few more Buddhas - standing, reclining and marble.

Keep those cards and letters coming

First off, we wanted to let everyone know how much your comments and greetings meant to us as we tried to get through the holiday social season without our friends and family. We kind of knew it would be hard. It was.

Back to the bloggy bit. We wrapped up Australia with a week in Sydney, mostly because we had to hit the Thai embassy, but also because we wanted to see the New Year's Eve fireworks at the Harbour Bridge. That was fun, if a bit weird. Sort of like one of those big all-day rock concerts - without the music. For us it was 12 hours of waiting around, drinking expensive beer and chatting with lots of other foreigners. I think most locals decided been-there-done-that and the crowd was tourists, just like us. All that waiting and spending $120 on beer seemed like a lot for 15 minutes of fireworks, but it was quite a spectacle. Our favourite bit was the hundreds of little rectangles of blue light underlining the splashy lightshow on the bridge as nearly everybody filmed it with a cellphone or camera. Us too. We'll post a photo if we hit a better internet cafe. Other than that big night out, a twisted ankle has forced us to take it a little easy in Sydney. However, we did manage a bit of sightseeing and ended up at the oldest pub in the city, Lord Nelson's Brewery Pub, where we tried many of their made-on-premises pints and got a little looped. We shared a table with a really nice bunch of Aussies - hi Steve, Steve, Steve*, Stephanie*, Sequel and their friends whose names we drank from our memory. (Actually, Karen might remember a few more names, but, unusually, Bob is writing this post alone while Karen rests her sore ankle.) When some of the Aussie gang first sat down half of them were named Steve so we just called them all Steve. Double-clinks to Steve and Steve. All in all, we're a bit down on big-city Australia (except for our drinking pals) because it's so much like big-city Canada. Bangkok will certainly be a change. Wish us luck.

Our Own Oz Odyssey

We've been bouncing around Australia for a few weeks, with no plans to do the Big Three touristy bits - Ayers Rock/Uluru (too far), the Great Barrier Reef (Karen can't swim) or climbing Sydney Bridge (too costly). Instead we visited the Blue Mountains outside Sydney, the Adelaide Hills and Tasmania, which allowed us to focus on hiking and wine-tasting, two of our favourite activities. Australia has not disappointed us on those counts, with lots of information about shorter hikes (4 hours max) and wine regions we weren't previously aware of, both of which we have found in Tasmania. Even though we never saw the mountain at Cradle Mountain, and it rained (again) most of the time, we enjoyed the hike around Dove Lake in the drizzle and took lots of macro shots of flowers whose names we have no idea of. That's another thing about Australia: the flora and fauna are completely different. We feel like idiots. We had a fit of giggles the first time a wallaby hopped across the road in front of us - a bit of hysterics over not creating a roadkill mess with our first wildlife encounter. In Adelaide, we had the great fortune to be able to rest at the home of a couple we had met in New Zealand. Thanks Angela and Simon. They had offered their trailer and we had meant to take them up on it for just a few days, but Karen caught a cold and the timing was perfect for her to rest up with short forays into the Adelaide Hills to visit an animal sanctuary and a few wineries. The sanctuary protects native wildlife from imported predators and we hand-fed some eastern grey kangaroos. My, their muzzles are soft. We also spotted a few koalas and heard our favourite quote (from the night-walk guide): "Please don't step on the bandicoots" as the cute little buggers ran around our feet. Tasmania is a small place with oddly long stretches of driving. They warn you about that, but it's hard to believe until you actually drive across the island in one day. It was something like 300 kilometres in 8 hours, with a few stops, obviously. The scenery is so sprawling it's hard to fit it in a photo and outposts of civilization are so small you can stroll through whole towns in less than an hour. Bob splurged in Bridport after we discovered a golf course rated 7th in the world among public access courses. He started early enough in the day that there were wallabies munching on the first five fairways and he didn't see another golfer until the eighth hole. Karen spent the same morning hiking along the coast, shooting photos of the beach boulders covered in orange lichen and losing her way on the poorly marked trail. We are staying through Christmas on a working farm overlooking the Tasman Sea a couple hours north of Hobart. Yesterday we spent a whole day in Freycinet National Park, hiking over a steep mountain saddle to the iconic Wineglass Bay beach. We bought enough groceries and wine to get us through the holidays, which is good because then we don't have to drive that winding gravel road in the rain. There are hikes near here, books to read and wine to drink. Not Christmas as we know it, but not a bad substitute.

New Zealand - the lost bits

We were a little rushed on the last blog post . . . prepaid Internet connections always have a very annoying timer ticking away while you are busy trying to be fun to read. So, in our rush, we missed a few bits about New Zealand, like the wildlife. Which they don't have any of. See, when the Europeans arrived, New Zealand had no land animals other than a few types of bats. Sure there were sea lions and otters, but no raccoons, porcupines, skunks or bears, the kinds of things we worry about when we are camping in Canada. It was really jarring for us to watch Kiwi campers leaving their food about and not packing everything up at night to keep the animals out. I explained to some of them (all google-eyed) that when we camp for real, we don't wear the same clothes to bed that we wear when we are cooking. And you need a long rope to tie your food bag up in a tree. But New Zealand does have a wide variety of bird life, so all of our walks involved a lot of pausing to listen to bird songs . . . bird-watching is such a pain, you hardly ever see the smaller ones with the most exciting bird calls. But our last night of rural camping remains a highlight because of a single bellbird. You see, these birds are supposed to have a remarkable call like a bell, but we could never be sure if we were hearing one. Until we camped in a remote Department of Conservation site off a gravel road near Fairlee. It was a rainy, cold night and our van Syd was the only vehicle there. While we were cooking up pasta under a big sheltering tree, we heard the sound of a blacksmith's anvil. Now this was weird because we were nowhere near anyone, much less a blacksmith, but we supposed it might be from a nearby farm. But that didn't seem right, this was a single repeated CLINK like a hammer hitting an anvil, but not from very far away. We walked towards the sound and it seemed to be quite close overhead. Then we heard slight variations in the CLINK sound and it dawned on us . . . now THAT'S a bellbird. And there were no other campers to tell. One other item . . . dining. Dining was an odd affair for us in New Zealand. We were kind of camping, so there was a lot of campfood . . . dried pasta mixes with tuna or veggies added after the cooking, soup mixes (ditto), cheese and pickle sandwiches ("pickle" is more like a chutney; we bought rhubarb raisin pickle and tomato clove pickle from a nice old Kiwi couple at Jack's Blowhole), peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, muesli breakfasts and occasionally some sausages or meat that had to be bought and eaten in the same day because Syd the van's plastic food cooler was so small. (I really should post a picture of Syd.) But every now and then we ate out, and since most of our dining on the road was low-end, we splurged at the restaurants. In particular, in Kinloch, we stayed at a Department of Conservation campsite for $14 a night but ate at a lodge next door where our bill for the night was $188. That's Kiwi dollars, but still. Spectacular food and drink in a superb setting. If it wasn't for the rain . . .

NZ and a wee bit of AU

Everything in New Zealand is an acronym, thus the title of this post. We spent 20 days touring the South Island in the rain in a van. We kept saying, over and over, "I'm glad we're not in a tent." After so long in the van, however, things were awfully cramped, our belongings were a mess and everything was a bit smelly. Let's not even talk about the claustrophobia that Bob suffered with his head wedged into a back corner and his feet shoved between the front seats. Karen had a cold the whole time. Yet we loved it. We hiked every day (well, one hike was cut short by a bathroom emergency, but we survived). Some of the campsites were spectacular Department of Conservation areas where you paid $5 a person and parked on the lawn adjacent to mountains, lakes, rivers and sheep farms. Others were more like trailer parks where we crashed when we needed hot showers. Sometimes there were hottubs, but these places cost up to $40 a night. Still, the ease of just pulling in and making yourself at home was remarkable. At the south end of the the South Island, we decided not to go to Stewart Island because of the six metre swells. And after a couple of rainy weeks, we wrote off the West Coast because it's the rainy part of the country and that just seemed like a bad idea. Our one extravagence was a cruise on Doubtful Sound which is further south, more remote and much bigger than the more popular Milford Sound. The wee cruise boat we were on was only half full so the trip didn't seem so touristy, but the guide running the show was great . . . he got a handful of people up to the bow of the boat as the captain slowly creeped up under a waterfall. Karen collected a cupful of falling water to drink while I kept the camera dry. We were fortunate to have cruised Doubtful Sound because when we got to Milford a few days later it was socked in with fog. The hundreds of wee waterfalls on the road in were cool but it wouldn't have been worth going on a cruise under those conditions. Our biggest hike was up to the Rob Roy Glacier near Wanaka. Even the hour-long gravel drive to the trailhead was amazing. We crossed 9 fords (you know, water running across the road) and 9 cattle stops (metal bars across the road). Bob even took his shoes and socks off at one ford and waded in to make sure the water wasn't too deep for Syd the van to traverse. The drive and long hike was worth it to get up into the glacier valley and watch bits of the ice calving off and tumbling into the valley. Chased after some alpine parrots, too. Since NZ we've had a couple days in Australia, and went straight from Sydney where hotels are pricey to the Blue Mountains for some more hiking. Yesterday we were out for 6 hours. Gaa. Lovely clifftop hikes, looking across at other cliffs, all looking down on eucalyptus trees that make the distant hills look blue, really. The 900 stairs down and up were a bit much, so we're taking a rest day today. Karen ate kangaroo steak last night so we really must be in Australia. Hard to believe.

Thanks

We appreciate all the help. We've found just the right place to stay, so no more suggestions are needed. Now, back to our blogging.

Any ideas?

Camping in New Zealand is awesome. But we are having an awful time getting something organized for when we arrive in Sydney on Dec. 30. Everything is $600 a night for New Year's Eve and usually sold out through Jan. 1, 2 and 3. So . . . any ideas out there? We're stumped.

New Zealand is Wicked

We had to go indoors today because of a downpour, so we are hitting the Internet for the first time in weeks before heading off to a few pubs in Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand. A quick catchup on our adventures before arriving here: Just before we left the Cook Islands we did a four-hour cross-island trek that climbed to a height of 300 metres for a spectacular panoramic view across the jungle to the ocean. On the same day, we walked across the lagoon in waist-deep water to a wee island where we spotted a shockingly blue starfish with arms almost a foot long. Then we flew the next day (Guy Fawkes Day) into Auckland (actually, we left on Guy Fawkes Day and arrived four hours later on the next day -- man that Date Line is confusing) where we watched neighbourhood fireworks displays all over the city from the airplane. Quite surreal. We shortchanged the North Island by only visiting Rotorua and the Coromandel Peninsula but what highlights those turned out to be. Our campground in Rotorua had free hotspring pools to soak in after spending each day hiking. The Coromandel has some of the most crooked coastal roads we have ever driven. On the South Island we rented a Wicked van, the mention of which brought guffaws from all the Aussies and Kiwis we talked to back in the Cook Islands. (Big hello to those people. Hanging out with you was a real highlight. Sorry, our North Island stay was shorter than we thought.) Turns out our Wicked van is painted with the Sex Pistols on the side and a nasty slogan about university education on the back. Still, it's a bit of a fraternity as every other Wicked driver gives us a wave as we pass them. Our first three nights of van camping cost us $0, $15 and $24, the third night cost more because we needed a shower. The first night we just parked in a roadside picnic stop, which is allowed here unless otherwise posted. We did our own variation on the ski-and-surf-in-one-day trick -- we hiked to a glacier in the mountains and watched penguins on the coast in the same day. Oh yeah. Several people commented on the Moai statues on Easter Island asking about their size. The smallest was about 1.5 metres. Many were about 5 metres tall. The tallest erected statue was 10 metres tall and one unfinished carving would have been 21 metres tall if completed. I see sunshine now. Must be time for a pint of Speights. Bye.

Living . . . on . . . island . . . time

Slap our wrists, we've been lolling around on our third island in a row doing mostly nothing. Well, eating, sleeping and strolling the beach, but the strolling part has only been here in the Cook Islands. Before that we luxed out on Moorea, the second main island (after Tahiti) in French Polynesia. On Moorea, we substituted watching the fish instead of the strolling. And there were lots of ways to see fish . . . best of all was the glass window in the floor of our overwater bungalow. Even if we weren't hunched over it staring into the coral, we would just make sure to glance at it as we passed by on the way to the deck or pool or bar. Basically, we lived above a tropical fish aquarium for four days. There were many tiny fish -- iridescent blue, yellow and black stripes, white and black stripes, and something we called saddlebacks because of the weird blob of colour on their mid-back. Bigger yet were the big blue parrot fish up to two feet long that would occasionally cruise by. I once saw something that looked like a red and black spotted snake, but it was gone real quick. We still haven't got the hang of the French Polynesian language. Barely know hello. The problem is the vowels . . . there are too many and they say every one For an example, the capital city (Papeete) has four syllables and the airport (Faaa) has three syllables. But everyone speaks a form of English and are all extremely friendly so there are no problems. We did manage to go for one walk on Moorea and met a woman outside her souvenir black pearl shop. After less than five minutes of conversation about her family, she offered us the use of her car, ideas on what to see nearby and where to buy a three-pack of really fresh, juicy pineapples. The Cook Islands is in many ways similar with the same tropical volcanic reef fringed with coconut palms and the same outrageous prices. At least here in the Cooks we're in a simple self-catering unit so we don't have to eat in restaurants all the time. In Moorea, the restaurant main courses were $30 to $45 so Karen's first bit of home-cooking in two months is a welcome respite from the price shock every time we got a bill. Besides, she missed the cooking and the meals are a lot simpler with less creamy sauces. Another pleasant aspect of life here in the Cooks is the chance to meet a sympatico bunch of Aussies and Kiwis all staying in the same group of bungalows on the beach. Every evening we get together for a few hours to drink and gab before the mosquitoes chase us inside for dinner (our dinner, not the mosquitoes). We don't really see the sunsets because of the orientation of our beach but the sunrises are spectacular. We got up so early yesterday for the sunrise that we put in a five-hour walk before noon. Good thing too, it was bloody hot by then and we had to drink several buckets of water back at the bungalow. If all goes well here at the Internet cafe, we hope to get caught up with our picture posting. Pricey though, $2 for the first 10 minutes. Gah. Can't imagine posting again from the Cooks so our next contact will likely be from Auckland after we fly on Guy Fawkes Day, Nov. 5.

Tuna, Moai and squishy boots

We leave Easter Island late tomorrow but most shops (including Internet) are closed on Sunday so this is our last shot before Tahiti where it is too expensive to do anything but breathe. Easter Island just barely tops Machu Picchu in the cool factor. It is quite a memorable place to drive, hike or just sit and watch the waves behind a Moai (you know, the big statues with the red hats). Our favourite part was the full day we spent driving around the coast, stopping every 5 kilometres or so to crawl out and wander around a bit of parkland surrounding another amazing archeological site. Even the increasingly heavy rain could not stop us from getting out and ogling the statues, platforms and stone rings. This morning was our first real bit of sunshine, so we took two cameras and two water bottles and hiked for two hours up a west coast trail where there is no road, mostly because of the millions of lava rocks scattered across the countryside. Several times the trail crossed lava tubes or more sizable pyrochlastic flows (guessing on the spelling). We had set a two-hour limit on our hike because we had to come back and figured it would be during the hottest part of the day. Wrong. The rain came back and we slogged our way home along a dirt trail of a road that included several places where we had to ford across the orange stream of rushing rainwater crisscrossing the track. We squished home completely soaked and our hiking boots are drying on the verandah of our guesthouse, unless the rain picks up again while we are out for dinner. We did not bring the camera with us for our afternoon beer so it will be awhile before we can post a Moai picture. Loved the tuna sandwiches here - a slab of fish bigger than a paperback book, about an inch thick and cooked fresh on the grill. Ummmm, dinner beckons. Probably more tuna.

Chile: wine surrounded by mountains

We did mainland Chile in two hits: three days in Santiago followed by six days in Santa Cruz. Both were about the right duration for two people travelling without a car. You should double the time if you've got a car and can wander about the countryside. The central part of Santiago is reasonable for exploring on foot, though the distances are a bit long. We spent one day climbing a mountain (okay, it's a hill) in the centre of the city. There were spectacular views of the sprawling city of 5 million people, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, followed by a funicular back down to the drinking and dining neighbourhood. We loved the logo for the Escudo brand of beer ... "more beer" ... because it's cheap at $2.50 a litre. No subtlety there. Our other days in Santiago were also filled with hiking, eating and drinking, although we stuck to level ground. The city has one astonishing museum absolutely loaded with pre-Columbian art. Before visiting Peru, we had no previous knowledge of most of those cultures and now we have a stronger sense of the sophistication of the pre-Columbian (even pre-Incan) peoples of this continent. After the big city, we jumped on a bus to Santa Cruz where we enjoyed the opportunity to take another break in a laid-back small town (not a surf town this time). This was a wine town. Some days we took a taxi to the outlying vineyards. Other days we just wandered the streets until we ran out of streets. Finally got a beautiful sunset shot from the edge of town toward the snow-capped mountains on our last day. After the food extravaganza of Peru, where every level of dining was quite special, the Chilean food is quite stratified with fabulous fine dining at the top end and particularly boring hotdogs and sandwiches at the low end. Much as we enjoyed the food and atmosphere in South America, we'll be happy not to mangle Spanish anymore. Our bags remain packed after our return bus to Santiago and we should go to bed as we have an early flight tomorrow to Easter Island. Strange thing about our bags: they keep growing more loosely packed even though we haven't used up much of our necessities other than a small bit of toothpaste and a handful of pills from Karen's naturopathic pharmacopia (sorry, tired of pidgin English, just had to use a few big words). PLEASE NOTE, the previous post is also from today.

Small points about Peru (a week old)

Getting back on track with a few funny or weird things about Peru.
* Taxis and buses -- Every single time one passes by, the driver toots to see if you are interested. One tooted at us while we were in a restaurant. When we settled in the small fishing village of Huanchaco for two weeks, the same taxis passed us several times a day and tooted every time. Stop it. Now.
* Adobe -- Peru's key archeological sites are badly decaying, centuries-old mud brick pyramids. It's a photographer's nightmare, except for a few fragments of coloured wall.
* Surfing in Huanchaco -- The only place we've ever seen where surfers ride parallel to the beach, then get out and hike back to catch the next wave. The best rides were at least a kilometre long.
* Balloon tit and ass man -- This was one of the strangest marketing gimmicks we've seen. He was selling candy on the beach.
* Starch -- Most meals had three: rice, potatoes and yucca, which resembles a potato, but is not related.
* Potatoes -- Dozens of varieties were in the markets. With such variety, Peruvians are able to perfect various cooking styles, including mashed and french fries.
* Chicha -- Often translated as purple corn beer. When we finally got around to asking if it contained any alcohol the answer was "not ours" so I suspect some versions did contain alcohol. It would explain the slurring. Every batch tasted different. If the chicha wasn't loaded with cinnamon and cloves, it tasted a bit like purple grape juice.
* Scallops -- I've eaten scallops for decades but only recently discovered what the shellfish actually looks like (the Shell Oil logo). I was dumbfounded when I dug a scallop (still attached to the shell) out of my seafood pasta. Did I mention that the seafood is shockingly good in Peru?
* Chicken -- The first time we saw chicken priced for whole, half, quarter or eighth, we laughed. An eighth of a chicken? After neither one of us could finish our quarter chicken, we quit laughing. The chickens in Peru must be huge.
* Blogging etiquette -- We were a bit surprised when our hostess thanked us for calling her hotel the best in town. We didn't remember writing that. So this is a reminder to ourselves to be careful what we say. And I'm going to go back and edit that post to insert the name of the hotel (Club Colonial in Huanchaco, Chile).
Enough about Peru. On to Chile.

Grieving

Please imagine a thick black border around this post. We arrived in Santiago, Chile, last night only to learn of the death of a dear friend back home. R.I.P. Bill Mainprize, 51. We had planned a collection of weird and funny moments from our month in Peru, but do not feel capable of delivering light and bright at the moment. Maybe after a few days of grieving.