Cape Town!!! - 33,850 miles later

The journey home to Cape Town lasted almost 2 days. 9.30am flight from Phuket left us with a 16 hour stopover in Singapore. Hmmmm, what to do? We had visions of doing a bit of Xmass shopping but after closer inspection this is NOT the city to be spending your pennies. Lets use a pair of Levi's (501's) as a gauge for what things cost in Singapore - 300 POUNDS! ....that would be Sterling!! After a few more stops in the retail world that requires platinum cards only we thought it best to do something simple - Lunch and a movie - the new Bond was on. Killed some time at the airport reading the paper and browsing through the duty free and eventually boarded the plane at 1am.

Landing in Cape Town was a really weird experience. Kimmy and I spoke at length about the mixed emotions we both felt. Sadness, Relief, Nerves, Joy.....and a lot more variations on all of those. I guess the sadness came from the realisation that our adventure was coming to an end, we were also landing for the 1st time in 7 years with no immediate plans to go back to London....this was permanent?! The nerves have to be put down to the fact that we're now gonna have to join the real world again and as Dave put it politely in an email the other day, "get used to the idea of doing some work for a change!" Mr. Meehan, that's next year's problem. We've already been back for a week but it still feels like we're traveling, all our bits and pieces are still in storage so we're still living out of our backpacks. Apparently the summer only started in Cape Town the day we arrived. Perfect timing then, the skies are BLUE, the sun is out and the Mother City is better than it used to be. The vibe is unbelievably positive, people are friendly, service is good and a drive to Theewaters to go skiing and camping is just over and hour away. Debs and Al are talking about spending a couple of weeks in Namibia next year in August so the 1st vehicle purchase is gonna have to be a 4x4 of some description. Let's hope we have jobs by then! 

We've had and amazing 7 months traveling the world, meeting people and experiencing a variety of cultures and attitudes. The dominant lesson I think we will both take from this experience is witnessing how some cultures seem satisfied and at peace with so much less. South Africans in particular are so blessed with what we have and the potential for improvement is immense. Every country you go to has its problems, ours just seem to be more publicised - maybe because the 2010 WC is around the corner.....so in summary, you could call our trip a humbling learning curve. Certainly not what we were expecting but, I think we're more appreciative of what we have and how we have been brought up.

We were originally expecting to cover about 29000 miles to Cape Town but, after closer inspection and a lot of Googling in the maps section it transpires that our meandering and fly by the seat of your pants attitude has added another few thousand yards. Almost 5000 extra miles has seen us cover 33, 850 miles across 4 continents and 10 different countries. If we had a favourite place or places to go back to then we'd have to say that the Rockies in the USA and the south coast of California would be top of the list - breathtaking scenery and chilled people. We've met a number of amazing people and families on our travels that have added to our education and it wouldn't be proper not to give them a mention:

1. The Thornton's in California, thanks again for restoring our faith in the American folk.

2. Neil, Mich, Penny and Mike - drinking tequila just won't be the same again, thank you so much for your hospitality.
3. Stef and Darren (our traveling buddies from Ireland - who are now expecting their 1st child!! Too many cocktails in Bali?!)
4. The Roach's in Auckland, thanks for the laughs, the Saffa reminiscing sessions and your constant support on Facebook and our blog.
5. Mike, Orla, Cam and Johnboy, Frazer Island just would not have been the same without you!
6. Chris, Rachel and the Irish lasses on the Raggamuffn II
7. Emma and Matti - thank you for one of the most memorably funny days of our adventure on a rainswept day in the Singapore rain forests, hope your travels are still going strong.

All of you have, in your own way made our experience that much more special - we think about you all the time and I know we've said it before but, thought it would be worth a mention again, when you guys finally make it to South Africa then please remember mi Casa su Casa. Just don't all arrive at once during the Fifa WC otherwise you're gonna be fighting for camping space in our back garden!!

One adventure is behind us now and a new one begins as we settle in Africa. Things are changing here, you can just feel it.......good things are going to happen.

Koh Phi Phi and Koh Hong (Last days of the 29000mile adventure)

Officially named Koh Phi Phi Don, this is a set of 2 small islands about and hour's ferry trip west of Phuket Town in the Andaman Bay. These two islands were completely devastated by the Tsunami 4 years ago - much has been rebuilt so it all has a newer feel than the rest of Thailand, the crowd is much younger and there is a conspicuous absence of dirty old men looking for young Thai ladies of leisure. Although the weather has been fowl again! for the reasons mentioned above, this has been my favorite part of Thailand by far. We only had 2 days in Phi Phi but if the urge ever grabs us to come back one day, this cute little piece of paradise will be high up on the list.

Our last day in Thailand was spent touring the islands around Koh Hong. The sublime scenery that greeted us in this nature reserve is best known as the scene of the ‘baddies’ den in the 1974 Bond movie, “the Man with the golden Gun” - Because we’ve been starving our faithful followers with a lack of visual material of our last few weeks we thought it best to limit the written mumbo jumbo about Koh Hong and put in some photo’s for a change. Mostly because I’m lazy but, also because I think the omniscient guy upstairs seems to have been reading our blog too. As if knowing that it was our last day of the 29000mile adventure, he parted the gloomy clouds for one last day and provided us with blue skies and a day to truly remember in Thailand.

Kata and Patong (Phuket West Coast)

Kata and Patong (Phuket West Coast)

Posts are going to be coming thick and fast now as we have generally
been about 2-3 weeks behind but, as we're almost at the end of our
journey it's time to play catchup. Can't believe how the time has
flown - we're actually back in Phuket today packing our bags for
tomorrow mornings flight to Singapore and then off to off to home
sweet home tomorrow night.

Apologies, but the last few posts are going to have to be photoless.
Thailand's 'high speed' ADSL works at the pace of milk turning to
cheese and to prevent Kimmy from developing a rash from the her close
proximity to anything electronic we have decided that the uploading of
our pics will need to take place when we get home at the end of this
week - after the jet lag.

Thailand has redeemed itself..... a little. The journey from the east
coast to the west of Phuket was a mere 30 min by bus but what a stark
difference. Busy, touristy, neon lights all over the place and for the
first time in weeks a little bit of sunshine! We spent 2 days in Kata
before moving further north to Patong. When the sun reemerged we
wasted no time in venturing off to the beach. Our days have been
filled with bats sessions, lazing on the beach chairs, Subways for
lunch and Thai for supper. Walking the streets at night is an
experience (freak show), you can't move 5 steps without being
harassed by a desperate vendor trying to sell you a 'massaaaaaaage',
rolex (uh-huh!), t-shirts or pretending to be your best mate when the
reality is that they're not in the slightest bit interested in you
more than they are in the colour of your money!

The minister of Finance tells me that our decision to come home early
(arrival in CT will now be on the 15th nov) has revived the budget. We
now suddenly have a surplus so have decided to tour some of the
islands around Phuket before we head back to Singapore for the flight
home. Koh Phi Phi Don and the islands off the Phan-Nga coast seem to
be the most scenic so we're gonna give these a bash in the next few
days - let's hope the whether holds! Watched the bokke on the weekend
against Wales in an Aussie bar, too tight for comfort but pleasing
none the less. My longstanding pick for the no.10 jersey seems to be
coming good. Lets hope sense prevails and Ruan gets an extended run
where he belongs.

Post blogging note: Off to Koh Phi Phi today - weather is looking grim
again!

Congrats to Shazzie and Kieran! Will be seeing you guys soon.

Jo: you left a comment on the blog but no return address?

Myanmar Visa Run

Because of our decision to skip Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia we were
always going to have to leave and re-enter Thailand before the 30 day
visa expired. So after arriving on the mainland from Koh Tao the next
step was to figure out which border to cross to get our extention. The
Lonely Planet guide suggested Myanmar or Malaysia but as we are closer
to the former it made sense to go that route. The backpackers in
Champon conveniently were able to arrange a 'visa run' for about
500Baht which included a minibus ride from Champon on the east coast
to Ranong on the west coast, a boat ride over the Chang River into
Myanmar and a helpful guide that directed us through all the
neccessary checkpoints. We left at 5.30am the following morning and by
10.30am we'd crossed and recrossed the border with our visa extentions
without much hassle. The plan was to make our way down the west coast
to Phuket over a couple of days but when the guide dropped us off in
Ranong it didn't take us long to make the desision to keep going south
the same day. Ranong, quite simply put, is the a*sehole of the world -
a dirty, grimmey, smelly one-horse-town ....and the horse is dead and
decaying somewhere on the main intersection.

As luck may have it, the 6 hour bus ride from Ranong to Phuket was
leaving the same day at 12.30 so we only had to wait a couple of hours
to keep moving on.

To our surprise we discovered that Phuket is actually and island
roughly 50km long. We arrive in Phuket Town around 7.30pm and walked
about half an hour to find the Phuket Backpackers, along the way
passing the On-and-On backpackers where Richard meets Daffy in the
Beach - if memory serves, the rooms looked dodgy in the movie so we
opted for another Lonely Planet recommendation.

We woke the following morning to the really surprising sound of yet
another thunderstorm and litres of water falling out of the sky. It's
probably at this point that Kimmy and I decided that spending another
month and a half in Thailand was not our idea of fun especially when
we could be lazying on Clifton, sucking on a few cold ones at Cafe del
Mar and reintroducing ourselves to our golf clubs whilst probably
spending less money! In truth, watching the Currie Cup final on tv in
our room in Koh Tao has also made us homesick so we've decided to come
home earlier than expected. Took a txi to Singapore Airways (in the
rain) and changed our flight home to the 19th November - exactly 1
month earlier than anticipated. We're genuinely excited about being
home again in the African sun but, knowing our luck, the sun will
decide to shine on Phuket and the rest of the andaman Coast in the
next few days. Hopefully it will so that we can at least take if few
pic home of that picture postcard beach that we were expecting to find
here in Thailand.

Sent from my iPod