photos and other things…
Todays post is dedicated to the memory of the little paper roll guy.
We would take turns in the household hiding him in different places where people would find him and say “whats he doing there”. I ‘smartly’ took him on holiday (packed secretly in the other half’s luggage), only to have the cleaners ‘steal’ him the second day in Thailand when they cleaned our room. 😦
This is the last recorded sighting of him. Have fun in Thailand little guy!
So our time had come to an end. The Holiday was over. As mentioned yesterday, we got up before the crack of dawn and began our journey home. After the initial travels, we found ourselves on a plane to Thailand. I followed with interest as the plane made a 360 turn in the middle of the ocean, and then later was notified as we went further North to wait for our landing opening (they never mentioned the full circle!?)
With time to kill (3-4 hours) I endlessly wandered Bangkok airport. As far as airports go, its a pretty nice one. Stretching for seemingly miles, outside is decorated with various giant model/display areas. The architecture reminds me of the framing I made in old balsa planes (all skeleton like).
And then we were in the air. Our last Thailand Sunset. We’d been up for around 14-15 hours at this point. Being I dont sleep on planes, and we had ~12 hours to go in the air (and a stop at Australia yet), I prepared for a long day.
Landing back in Auckland, New Zealand was both a nice feeling, and a bump back to reality. I’d been awake about a day and a half, most of the time spent sitting in a plane, followed by sitting in a van, followed by sitting in airports. It took a few days to actually ‘land’. Here we are landing in NZ…The photo actually makes me look better than I felt!
And thats Thailand!
Ive got a few novelty pictures yet to post, but the travel novel’s over.
Catch you tomorrow.
Our last day in Thailand was a long one. I forget exactly, but wakeup was something like 4.30 am to begin our escort from Ko Lanta to Phuket (and then from there to Bangkok to Australia to New Zealand). Our driver was a great host and put on some mostly English western music. The one issue being, it was a 3 hour van ride, and the music was no more than 40min long per repeat. Crossing over on a car ferry off Lanta we watched a glistening sunrise as our time away took its final leg.
Up in the plane it was a fairly clear day. I didnt have the window seat, and my 28mm lens is less than idea for capturing the awesome view down below, but I still captured a few images I am happy with:
Our last night in Ko Lanta, we arrived early and got some good viewing seats at the corner of the resort. It was claimed to be one of the best spots to see a sunset in all of Ko Lanta. We had been previous nights, but unfortunately the weather had not been in our favour. Today still had a low set of clouds as the sun edged towards the sea, but the sky colours afterwards were certainly beautiful.
It was our last proper sunset for Thailand actually. in 24 hours time we would already be flying away from our holiday!
I love the colour the sky became as all around fell to night. Isn’t nature just awesome!
As with all holidays, they come to an end. I’ve got a few selections left to share over the coming days, bit as I look over my holiday snaps, the bottom of the pile is looming.
Not one for just sitting and basking in the sun, I went for numerous walking outings whilst we stayed at Ko Lanta. Here are some shots from the second to last day we stayed on the island.
“No Parking On Uneven Days” – surely that causes confusion at times?
Just a series of random shots from various walkabouts on Ko Lanta.
In Ko Lanta, you have the choice of petrol from your general gas station (as above), or…
By the bottle is slightly cheaper! (and you get a bottle!!!)
There is also a local movement to stop the development of a coal power plant back in Krabi – places like Koh Lanta and their marine reserves in the transporting way. Its a tough one for a country both so dependent on tourism, but equally, with massive power demands (and outages). Unfortunately, we all say ‘not in my backyard’…but who’s, or what alternatives?
A few facebook links regarding the protest:
https://www.facebook.com/NoCoalLanta
https://www.facebook.com/SayNoToKrabiCoalPowerPlant
After a ~2 hour boat trip we landed in the sunny (really really hot) Ko Lanta. Spending the rest of the day at the hotel area, it was like its own little village (much larger than our other temporary homes). An interesting observation (perhaps) also that it was the most English-western of all stops in Thailand based on both things like the music at the resort, and the general accent of the tourist staying there.
MikeHawkey.com 