now no hope of ever catching up . . .

• we've been back in attapeu for a few days now, but with one thing and another, i haven't done much blogging . . . to be honest, there's not a lot to report about life in attapeu. it's REALLY hot pretty much all the time - 85F in the shade at 7.30 am - and of course there's no air conditioning, just fans. heidi has introduced me to the local sugar cane stand just around the corner from her house where we go for cold drinks every couple days. the woman who runs the stand crushes the sugar cane in a machine in her front yard - the sticks go through like cloth through a sewing machine - and the juice is caught in a pitcher below. she pours the juice into a little plastic bag full of ice, puts a straw in it, and for just 2000 kip (about 25 cents US) you've got a cold, tasty drink made to order. she adds fresh lime juice to the sugar cane for a little zip, so the drink is tangy as well as sweet - perfect for the hot steamy afternoons here.
• just now the dry season is ending and the rainy season is on its way. we've had a couple of tremendous electrical storms since we came back though no rain until yesterday evening, when finally the dark clouds dropped some cooling showers on the area. we're back to heat and humidity today, though - and the sky is clear blue. although heidi and i sometimes go to the market for vegetables around lunchtime, hardly anyone else does. most people seem to stay indoors or in the shade during the hottest part of the day and do their shopping early in the morning. in fact, early morning is the only time you can buy cooked food in the market - soup, barbecued meat, etc. i guess it's too hot to cook out in the open the rest of the day.
• yesterday a lao friend of heidi and micah came over to fix and eat lunch with us. she made a salad using carrots, onions, lemon grass, a kind of thinly sliced sausage, lime, chili, and - the main ingredient - a sort of sponge that grows in rivers. she bought it dried in the market early that morning and soaked it in water before slicing it into the salad bowl. it vaguely resembled the beef brains in the meat case at my grocery store - yellowish white and honeycombed - but it had a crisp, slightly chewy texture, almost like thin cabbage, and the flavor was extremely mild. it was actually pretty good, better than i expected after hearing heidi describe it as a kind of algae or fungus collected from local water sources. i'm pleased to say that's the strangest thing i've eaten this trip - no barbecued dogs so far.
• well, i'm being antisocial now, shut up in the office with heidi's laptop, so i'll end for now and go see what's going on downstairs. it might be lunchtime . . . .

brief update

• hey guys, i just wanted to let you know i've been without internet for over a week now - that's why i haven't been posting. we've been traveling in champasak province, in the south of laos, and this is the first chance i've had to check email or anything. at the moment we're in pakse, the largest city in this part of the country. micah is sick, so we're staying in the city for a few days to give him a chance to rest in the air conditioned hotel (there's no air conditioning at their house, and it's been something like 98 F in the shade).
• so, we've been to see a huge waterfall and the ruins of an ancient wat (temple) which was part of the angkor kingdom, and also we stayed a few days on the mekong in a nice little floating cabin. we went swimming in the river two or three times a day - i'm horribly sunburned - and frances met some kids who came down to play in the water with her. so far, so good. i'll write more and post some pictures when i get back to attapeu - shouldn't be more than a couple of days.

new photos

• hey, just wanted to let you know i finally got around to adding a handful of new photos to some of my older posts - look at the ones from wellington, picton and qeenstown. enjoy! sorry i haven't put many pictures up - it takes forever.

vientiane

• well, i'm no longer counting bug bites on my fingers . . . but that's getting ahead of myself. there's not a whole lot to say about vientiane in terms of what we did - we stayed in a nice hotel with air conditioning, went to markets, and attempted to escape the heat with fresh fruit shakes at an assortment of cafes. we stayed through tuesday evening, when we boarded a 'sleeping bus' for the long trip to pakse. but i'll fill you in on that in a minute.
• vientiane is the capital of laos and really the only major city, but that doesn't mean it's anything like i would ordinarily think of as a major city. there are no skyscrapers - the tallest building is probably no more than ten stories, and it's not an office building, it's a luxury hotel by the mekong river. the main roads in town are paved, and there's lots of traffic, but at least half that traffic is motorbikes, usually carrying two or three people each, and not always traveling in the same direction as the rest of the vehicles. otherwise you see all kinds of suvs and other four-wheel drive vehicles, some cars and trucks, and loads of tuk-tuks, a kind of taxi that usually consists of a sort of mini-cab built onto a motorbike. in laos you drive on the right side of the road, but motorbikes making left turns often drive a ways on the left margin of the road until there's a break in the stream of traffic and they can dart across to join the people going their direction. add to this pedestrians, cyclists, and people pushing carts of goods for sale, and you have an idea of what a mess the roads can be. and off the main roads, the smaller more residential streets are often unpaved tracks in the dirt swarming with small children, chickens, dogs, cats, and the occasional goat.
• markets are also unlike anything i've ever seen at home - rows of vendors selling just about anything you can think of: cell phones, small home appliances, pirated movies, jewelry, fresh fruit and vegetables, clothing both made-to-order and off the rack, ready-made snacks, baskets, furniture, toiletries, raw meat, fresh fish, books, spices, cold drinks, school supplies . . . really almost anything you can think of. usually the stalls are laid out under a series of tent-like coverings to shade shoppers and shopkeepers from the sun, but recently a 'mall' was built in vientiane, complete with airconditioning and the country's first set of escalators. the areas surrounding the 'mall' is a market as i've described above, but inside there's an area for performances, a public toilet, and some food stalls and jewelry stands on the first floor. each of the three or so levels has food stalls, coffee stands, and an assortment of tiny shops, many not much bigger than the stalls in the market below. the indoor shops sell most of the same sorts of things as the outdoor stalls, though i don't recall seeing meat or produce indoors - mostly clothing, shoes, electronics, dvds, and jewelry.
• i didn't buy anything but cold drinks, but heidi bought a sin - the skirt most lao women wear around the house. it's a long strip of thin cloth about three and a half feet wide, which you have sewn into a tube, often at the shop where you buy it, but not always. you wear it sort of like a wrap-around skirt, folded over and tucked in at the top. since most lao people bathe outdoors, it's usually long enough to serve as a kind of cover-up. once the person is done washing, a clean one slips over the top, and the wet one drops to be rinsed and worn another day. also, since they're much wider than a western-style skirt, women can comfortably sit cross-legged on the floor without flashing the public.
• frances is home from her babysitter's house now - she goes out to play most of the day - so i'll sign off now and tell you more later.

now that i'm over a week behind . . .

• sorry guys, i've been mostly away from internet access for the last several days. now that i'm at micah & heidi's house, i can post more often, at least for the next few days until we travel over lao new year.
• so i think i left off with leaving new zealand - en route to bangkok, i stopped over in sydney for a long layover and spent the afternoon hanging out with andrew, a friend from chicago. he was vacationing in australia at the time and was in sydney for a few days, coinciding with my seven-hour layover. he met me at the airport, and though the woman at customs and immigration insisted i really didn't have time to leave the airport, we took the train into the city and then a ferry across the harbor to manly island, where we ate lunch near the waterfront. unfortunately the weather was terrible - we narrowly avoided getting soaked over lunch at the outdoor cafe - but i did get a nice view of the famous opera house from the ferry. and, as we waited on the ferry to begin the trip to the island, we noticed a massive cruise ship docked nearby. turns out it was the rhapsody of the seas, the same ship i'd seen in doubtful sound a week earlier! crazy. also the ferry was moderately exciting - crossing the open part of the harbor, the water was rather rough. andrew enjoyed it so much he said he planned to go again just for the ride after i went back to the airport. in spite of what the immigration officer said, i had no trouble at all getting back to the airport on time, and in fact it took less than twenty minutes to get through passport control, customs, and security, which meant i had an hour and a half to kill before my flight. i should have stayed out longer.
• the rest of the trip to bankok and vientiane was pretty uneventful. i arrived in bangkok in the middle of the night, got some baht, found the meeting point for my hotel, and was quickly shuffled onto a bus and off again into the hotel lobby. even late at night, the heat and humidity felt like a slap in the face with a hot wet towel after weeks in cool, mild new zealand. the next day i took a taxi to a big shopping mall, hoping to find an optometrist - and right there, four shops in from the entrance, was a place with shelves and shelves full of contact lenses. i was out of there in fifteen minutes with a month's worth of dailies. if i'd known it would be so easy, i wouldn't have extended my stay in bangkok for three days - i kind of expected i'd have to look around a bit to find them. i had all day to kill, and the mall was airconditioned, so i poked around, snacked my way through the various food stalls, used an internet cafe (i think that's where one of my more recent posts was typed) and got sort of lost in some of the off-the-main-walkway market areas. i bought a pair of capris - as i flipped through the rack at a tiny market stall, the proprieter said, 'i have size for you! large!' i've never been a large in my life, but in southeast asia, i'm kind of oversized, so . . . i swallowed my pride and bought the large. the woman was right, too - i put them on at the nearest toilet, and they fit like they were made for me.
• i stupidly decided to leave the mall around five that afternoon, which of course was rush hour - it took twice as long to get back to my hotel, and by then i was exhausted and pretty much ready for bed. next day i was a little sick and didn't feel like doing much, so i ate the 'american breakfast' included with my room (two fried eggs, one slice of ham, two cocktail-sized hot dogs, two slices of white-bread toast, and a cucumber/tomato/iceberg lettuce/shredded carrot salad with sickly-sweet salad cream) and hung around the hotel all day. i think i would have preferred fried rice or something - 'american breakfast' is the default morning food served to white foreigners at most breakfast-included hotels, but it's not much like what i usually eat at home. also the 'orange juice' is usually orange kool aid. but whatever, it comes with the room, so i eat it.
• and friday - i think that was the next day - i packed up my stuff (again) and headed for laos. the hotel staff seemed eager to get rid of me - they kept putting my luggage on the airport shuttle at every scheduled trip time starting at 9.30, even though i didn't need to be at the airport til late afternoon - so after a few rounds of this, i gave up and just went along with it. i spent several uneventful hours moseying around the international airport and had a delayed, though uneventful flight to vientiane. it took over an hour to get past passport control - first you wait to hand in your documents and apply for the visa, then you wait to get your passport back, then you wait to pay for the visa ($35 for americans, but it varies by country - and no matter where you're from, they only accept us dollars in cash, though i did see a few people successfully pay with thai baht). and then you get in another line and wait to get your passport stamped. by this time the luggage has been sitting in the baggage claim for ages - no waiting! - and the military police smile and wave you through customs and out into the lobby.
• heidi, micah and frances were all waiting for me when i arrived - frances, of course, did not remember me from my visit 18 months ago (she was under a year old at the time) and acted very shy at first, though she's certainly warmed up since then. (actually, early this morning she escaped from her mom and wandered into my room stark naked, demanding to know: bef! what you do? she seemed shocked that i was sleeping when she was ready to play.)
• this post is getting cumbersomely long now, so i'll have to fill you in on the last few days later - but now you all know i'm still alive and well and i can still count the mosquito bites on my fingers, though i suspect that won't last long. also the heat makes me awfully sleepy and lethargic. time for a cold drink.

kaikoura to christchurch to auckland

• so sunday morning i took the bus from kaikoura back to christchurch for one more night in dreamland . . . and a quick trip to the antarctic center. christchurch is the jumping-off point for most antarctic exploration so they've built a little museum where you can learn all about life in the big deep freeze. the museum has this room where they keep the temperature at 8 degrees C and then blow some fans through to make the wind chill something like -18 C - they provide coats and overshoes so people can experience antarctic weather. i skipped that experience since i just survived five months of chicago winter. i always suspected chicago was as cold as antarctica - we had weeks and weeks of that sort of weather. i think -18 C is about 10 or 15 degrees F, pretty balmy compared to some of the weather we had this winter.
• the other exhibits were pretty cool, too - info on which countries have stations and where, and pictures of the animals that live around the continent. seems like nothing really lives on antarctica itself - it's too cold, and surprisingly, too DRY. i'm still unclear on how a place with so much ice is dry - i guess the ice is just really, really old, and they don't get any precipitation to speak of, and of course it's never warm enough for the ice to melt. very strange. as intriguing a place as it is, i have no plans to visit. dad, if you're reading this, i don't know how you survived a whole year there. sounds miserable, though the penguins are pretty cute.
• oh, and the antarctic center has a bunch of penguins, too, mostly little blue ones with some kind of injury: broken wing (is it a wing or a flipper or what?), blind in one eye, missing toes, etc. these penguins are native to nz, so they can have a partly-outdoor, partly-indoor living area - no need to keep them on ice all the time. they're really small - no bigger than a cat (and i'm not talking about MY freakishly large cats, i mean no bigger than a NORMAL size house cat). and they really are kind of bluish, dark and shiny like a blueberry. they weren't doing much when i saw them, just huddling in one corner and occasionally waddling around a bit - pretty cute anyway.
• next morning (monday) i mailed a box of stuff back to chicago - no need for me to lug my shoes, wool socks, fleece tops, and assorted souvenirs around southeast asia. r2, if you're reading this, it should arrive at our house in a few weeks, probably by 21 april. can you let me know when it comes? then it was off to the airport again for the last leg of my nz trip - back to auckland for one night, and then on to bangkok.
• i didn't do too much in auckland that afternoon - looked around at the harbor, which i saw on my first day in nz, but was too jet-lagged to appreciate. also i picked up a few things i'll need in laos: extra strength insect repellent, check! can't have too much of that. i was pleased that i remembered which bus to take back to kitty & tim's house - no trouble getting there at all. i arrived just in time for dinner (lucky timing for me).
• so, it's off to bangkok next, with a quick stopover in sydney. more to follow!

comments welcome

• hey, i figured out why you all couldn't comment . . . for some reason, i had this thing set to accept comments only from people registered with blogger. that should be fixed now, so it's open season! be nice.

queenstown to christchurch . . .

before i go on, here's the view from the porch at the place i stayed in queenstown. the accomodation itself was nothing to write home about, but the view was to die for.

• this was basically an all-day bus trip, beginning at 7.30 am . . . i cannot stop torturing myself with early starts. the highlight of the drive was a stunning view of aoraki - mt. cook from tekapo, where the lakes are a shocking shade of turquoise - all natural, the driver assured me, caused by some kind of sediment run-off from the mountains. very weird looking - like no water color i'd ever anticipated seeing in nature - but stunning.
• on the recommendation of a woman at my hostel in queenstown, i booked a bed at dreamland, this out-of-the-way backpackers place in christchurch. i wasn't up to finding the place and lugging all my stuff twenty minutes' walk out of the city center, so i took a cab - they have these 'green cabs' in christchurch (also auckland and wellington) - the standard taxi in their fleet is a toyota prius instead of the usual gas-guzzling towncar. the place was worth traveling to - a small, quiet, super clean hostel with a friendly proprieter, cheap laundry facilities and 10mb of free internet included. i wished i could have stayed longer. if you are ever in christchurch, try to stay at dreamland - it's terrific, and apparently no one knows about it, because i had just one roommate in a five-bed dorm, and there appeared to be no one else there.
• next day i took the bus to kaikoura: destination whale watching. it only took about three hours to get there from christchurch, so i went straight to the i-site to book a spot on a whale watching boat. unfortunately, though i got a spot easily enough, the whales had moved out of the company's operating area, so i had to eat fish & chips for lunch, loaf on the beach and go shopping instead . . . too bad.
• i did manage to get on a whale watching trip the next morning (saturday), and just a few miles off shore, we saw a sperm whale. kaikoura is ideally situated for whales because it's near the edge of the continental shelf and a place in the ocean where two major currents converge, which brings a lot of tasty whale treats to the area. apparently it's a popular spot for adolescent male sperm whales, who spend about twenty years stuffing themselves before they reach sexual maturity and grow large enough to attract the females. the sperm whale we saw was familiar to the tour guides; they call him tutu. he was taking a breather on the surface - we could see his exhalations from half a mile away. after a short time, he dove for a feed, and we saw his tale flick above the surface: HUGE! and he's nowhere near full grown. tutu was the only whale in the area (they were listening for whale sonar with a kind of underwater hearing aid) so we hung around for an hour or so til he came back up.
• meanwhile we were taking in the scenery: blue sky, darker blue/green ocean, and lots of birds, including several species of albatross, one of which was taking a bath not far from our boat. apparently the albatross spends nearly all of its life at sea and even drinks sea water - it has its own water filter built in to remove the salt. amazing.
• we got to see tutu one more time - he came up for another short breather before diving again. on the way back to the marina, we also saw a huge pod of dusky dolphins - close to two hundred of them playing around the boat. they're much smaller than bottlenose dolphins, but still a lot bigger than people. i sort of can't believe i actually saw a sperm whale. you read about this stuff - whale hunting in the old days, the pictures of these massive animals dwarfing the whaling boats and yet somehow no match for the harpoons and the boiling pots. i'm not exactly a rabid environmentalist, but i can see why people go nuts trying to save the whales. they're magnificent.
• nothing else in kaikoura could really top whale watching, except maybe swimming with dolphins, but i got back from the whale watch too late for that, so i had to spend another afternoon walking by the beach. i'm having a rough vacation, let me tell you. do you feel less envious if i tell you the beaches in kaikoura are really rocky, not much sand at all? probably not. i'm just rubbing it in, so i'll have to close for now . . .

now, where was i?

• oh, yes, doubtful sound . . . a week ago. or more. so i decided i wanted to see the fiords (incorrectly named 'sounds' by the earliest european explorers - a sound is an inlet carved by the mouth of a river, whereas fiords are created by retreating glaciers), and i had time for just one, a day trip from queenstown. i picked doubtful sound over milford because it seemed more remote and less trafficked - a bit more expensive and time-consuming to get to, but well worth the effort.
• so the tour company sent a cab for me at 6.30 am - can't get away from those early mornings - and on the way to the departure point, we picked up a handful of other tourists. the coach ride was a good two hours (those of us going to doubtful sound had to get off and join up with another coach at a 'designated meeting spot' which appeared to be in the middle of nowhere) and then we took a sort of large water taxi/ferry for an hour-long ride across lake manapouri (sp?), where we were met by another coach for a twenty minute drive to the ship that would take us out on doubtful sound. meanwhile we really hadn't seen any other people besides those who worked for the tour company, and no homes or businesses - 'remote' was no exaggeration.
• the ferry ride across the lake was beautiful - calm water, little green islands all around, and so quiet, except for the sound of the boat's motors. unfortunately it became overcast and started to rain part way through the trip, though this wasn't entirely unexpected. the fiords are located in a temperate rain forest of the kind only found below 40 degrees latitude - they get something like 260 days of rain each year.
• the misty weather created a surreal atmosphere - when we left deep cove (where the tour ships begin their cruise of doubtful sound) i felt as if we were leaving the known world and entering some enchanted place - avalon or something. i wished i was on a much smaller, quieter boat - preferably a sail boat - because only the roar of the ship's engines broke the stillness, which was otherwise a deep silence punctuated by occasional bird calls. i'm not even sure how to describe doubtful sound other than isolated and surreal and enchanted - we saw just a handful of other water craft (a few kayaks, one or two motor boats, and closer to the tasman sea, a gigantic cruise ship, the 'rhapsody of the seas'). all around the granite walls of the fiord towered over us, nearly vertical but somehow still covered with lush vegetation: mosses, lichen, and trees all clinging to the sheer rock face. in some places, long scars in the greenery marked where a tree near the top of the cliff had fallen, causing a rockslide and tearing out all the vegetation below on its path to the water.
• we spent three or four hours on the water and cruised all the way to the tasman sea, where we saw a colony of nz fur seals sunning themselves on a rocky island - well, i guess they weren't sunning themselves, since it was still overcast, but they were resting after their night-time feeding excursion. on the way back to deep cove, we pulled into a little inlet and the captain shut down the motors and communications system for a few minutes so we could hear how quiet the place was - aside from the people rustling beside me on the prow of the boat, i heard nothing but a few birds and the breaking of waves. i've never been anywhere so quiet and dreamy and apparently untouched by civilization. it was a real highlight of my trip and kind of made up for the whole canyoning fiasco.
• unfortunately, it took as long to get back to queenstown as it did to get to doubtful sound that morning. . . i guess that's how it usually works. after the previous sleepless night, i was exhausted and slept most of the coach ride. i was thrilled to see that the sonorous sleeper had been replaced by a small, quiet-looking german girl. she said she didn't snore - what a relief. i slept like a baby and was out the door at dawn the next day for the next-to-last leg of my trip: christchurch and kaikoura!

the dates are all wrong

i knew it, the dates on this blog are all wrong - they're listed as the date/time in chicago at time of posting rather than the date/time in new zealand. no wonder it looks like i keep posting in the middle of the night. my last post says thursday, 26 march, 11.00 pm, but it's actually friday, 27 march, 6.00 pm - ignore the dates/times, i guess. i don't know how to fix that.

forget about the dates, i can't remember

• so after kayaking half the day, i was exhausted - the next day was sunday, so i went to a flea market and then to church at the anglican cathedral in nelson - a gorgeous building on a hill overlooking the city and surrounded by gardens. the service felt very familiar, though it's been years since i attended the anglican church in northern ireland.
• i wasn't feeling very well, so i lay low for most of the day, did a little grocery shopping, and read for most of the afternoon. in the evening i had dinner at the stingray cafe, a place recommended by the kayaking guide - quiet, dim, low-key, off the main restaurant/cafe strip and not too crowded. the bartender was quite friendly (i was the first customer of the night) and a couple of kiwis came in after me - we joked about charging to each others' tabs. i was so comfortable and cozy there, i didn't want to leave, but i had to catch a flight at 6.50 the next morning - somehow i've convinced myself on this trip that i'm a morning person, but i don't expect it to last. next stop: queenstown!
• i should have reversed my plans for the south island, because you can't fly directly from nelson to queenstown - you have to go through christchurch, which i was planning to visit anyway. i don't remember why i decided to stick with my nelson-to-queenstown plan, but anyway, it was still a lot quicker than taking the bus: three hours versus two days. when i arrived in queenstown, i booked myself a few activities: gondola, luge, haka show, canyoning, and - the best part - a trip to doubtful sound. i was running around pretty much the whole two and a half days i was there.
• when i got to the backpackers where i was staying, i rooted through my luggage to find my contact lenses (i always wear glasses when i fly) - and i didn't find them. i tore through everything twice, and then i realized i must have left them in nelson. what i had to say about that is not the sort of thing i can record here for public viewing. the guy at the reception desk was really nice about the whole thing, helped me call the place i stayed in nelson, and was very sympathetic when they said they looked around but couldn't find them. he even found an optometrist for me in queenstown, though i decided it would be too expensive and time consuming to try to replace my contact lenses in nz. so any pictures of me from this point forward - i'll be squinting through my glasses, or awkwardly wearing my sunglasses OVER my glasses . . . good thing i got a small frame.

• monday afternoon, i took the gondola to the top of the hill overlooking queenstown and lake wakatipu - gorgeous views of the remarkable mountains (that's the name of the mountain range, the remarkable mountains - and they are, too) and the deep blue lake. the gondola is kind of like a ski lift, but with enclosed cars that look a bit like space-age bubbles. it's a steep ride; i tried not to think about what it would be like if the cable broke! at the top, they have this luge track - like a sort of go-cart ride. i figured i'd give it a try, and it was heaps of fun: you get in this little three-wheeled cart and hurtle around the track, controlling speed and direction by pulling on or turning the bicycle-style handle bars. i went five times - it was a short track, once just wasn't enough. then i went to the kiwi haka show, a short maori cultural presentation - hard to describe, really, not like anything i've ever seen before. there were five people presenting, traditionally dressed and tatooed (or made up to look as if they were tattooed) and chanting examples of maori challenges, music and story telling.
• tuesday i went canyoning - i really didn't know what i was getting into, because i'd only read a short description in a tourist brochure about queenstown. the brochure mentioned abseiling (rappeling) and swimming and climbing, all of which sounded like fun to me . . . either it wasn't mentioned or i missed the part about jumping . . . anyway, there were seven of us, three germans and four americans, plus two guides and a photographer. after driving about an hour, we wriggled into wet suits and diving boots and hiked twenty minutes or so across a stream, through the forest, and into routeburne canyon. the forest was beautiful: green and lush, with both pine and deciduous trees - it looked just like that part in lord of the rings where the elves are leaving middle earth, walking single-file through the forest to the grey havens.
• i enjoyed the day quite a bit, initially, but then we got to the canyoning part . . . sliding backwards down a fifteen or twenty foot natural rock chute into an icy river pool wasn't so bad (we wore helmets), but then we were supposed to jump a good twenty feet or so into another pool (land on your bum in that narrow spot between the white water and that big rock or you'll break something, was what the guide said) . . . i didn't jump, i went down on a rope, but i knew i was in trouble at that point. i'm afraid of heights! i had no idea what i was getting into! i should have known, queenstown is the adrenalin capital of new zealand, probably the adrenalin capital of the world (did i mention the numerous bungy, sky-diving and hang-gliding options in town?).
• the rest of the canyoning trip was partly fun - rappeling, climbing, sliding, and one short zip line (they call it a 'flying fox' here in nz) and also partly awful - i felt like a real pansy. i just couldn't make myself jump farther than four or five feet, but a couple times i didn't have much choice (no rope option - or they let you down part way on a rope, but drop you a good ten or fifteen feet above the water). luckily there was one other woman who was almost as chicken as i was (i take it she didn't know what she was getting into, either - she did the first jump, which i refused, but she was shaking like a leaf for a good half hour afterwards, and she protested all the others). the german guys (three of them, all about 21) went twice off some of the jumps. crazy kids. i think i'm just too old for that sort of thing. 'course i wouldn't have done it at 21, either, so . . . maybe i'm just a pansy by nature.
• i survived the canyoning trip in spite of my embarrassment, but i wish i'd caught the bus out there and gone hiking instead. it was hard to enjoy the gorgeous surroundings while trying not to wet my wet suit. but, now i know - i don't like canyoning.
• i was really glad to get back to my room that night . . . unfortunately, the population had shifted, and it was now occupied by me, an english woman, a young dutch guy, and a middle-aged man of unknown nationality who went to bed at 8.30 and snored like a freight train going through a tunnel all night long. i'm pretty sure he was the only one who got any sleep - in the morning, the other woman and i compared notes as we were leaving for the day, and she said he'd kept her awake even through her ear plugs. i could hear him loud and clear over U2 and the cranberries on my i-pod, which i played for five hours till the battery burned out. i was never so glad for morning to come - and it was an early one, i got up at 5.45 for my doubtful sound trip.
• well, you're probably getting bored with my long post, so i'll leave doubtful sound for the next one . . . i'm still having a good time, in spite of having lost the most expensive thing i brought with me, scared/embarrassed myself silly, and lost a whole night's sleep.

what day is this, anyway?

• ok, i have a little more time now, though of course i forgot my card reader, so there might not be any photos, but here's what i've been doing the last few days . . .
• anyway - i enjoyed staying at that place. oh, except when i first arrived, i was tired and sweaty from traveling, so i dumped my stuff in my room (a six-bed dorm) and went straight to the shower. i came back wrapped in my towel to find a french guy sitting on the bed! i think he was as surprised as i was. i'd thought the room was all women. needless to say, i grabbed my clothes and went straight back to the bathroom.
• 
• friday i did get up early and go for a hike before i got on the bus to nelson. it took me a while to find the trailhead - things like that don't tend to be very well marked here, and though i had a map, the streets weren't all signposted, either! i didn't see anyone else on the way up, and the views from the top were terrific, looking out over picton, the harbor, and marlborough sound, which i'd passed through two days earlier on the ferry.
• there's nothing to say about the bus ride to nelson, except that it was shorter than i expected - never a bad thing. the bus conveniently dropped me off right in front of the i-site, which is where you can find all kinds of tourist information and book activities, travel, and accomodation. every town seems to have one, anyway, all the towns i've been in. it's a great service.
• so from nelson i was hoping to get to the heaphy track - but there was nothing going that worked on the time i had, and i was kind of disappointed. it turns out you can't really just go and come back in one day - i mean, i knew it was a four to six day walk to do the whole thing, and for that you book in advance, but they don't really have day-hike options, which is what i wanted. i was kind of bummed about that.
• however - since that didn't work out, i said to myself, my dad would never miss a chance to get on a boat! so i booked a water-taxi and sea-kayaking trip in the abel tasman national park instead. that was all day saturday - the bus picked me up at 6.50 am (yeah, that's right, ten to seven - i got up, voluntarily, well before dawn). it was loads of fun. we took the bus to the beach in kaiteriteri (a good hour-long drive) and from there a water-taxi to another beach where we launched our kayaks.
• it was a tiny group - me, the kiwi guide, and a german couple. we used double kayaks, so since i was traveling by myself, i ended up with the guide, who was very friendly and kind of flirty with me all day (i tried to enjoy the attention, but i'm not so good at that sort of thing). we kayaked for some time, towards a tiny bay where we found three baby seals playing among the rocks and tide pools. i got some good pictures - they were right next to and swimming under the kayak! that was a real highlight.
• after some additional kayaking, we stopped at a beach for lunch - i was pretty cold even sitting in the sun, i guess from stopping the hard work of paddling - but it looked like something off a postcard: golden sand, sparkling blue water, the occasional small island visible here and there, and hardly another person in sight. the place was gorgeous. after lunch, we paddled a short way back to the beach we started on, where we waited a few minutes for the water-taxi to take us back to kaiteriteri and the bus. i was really tired and my left arm was so sore - like tennis elbow or something, from paddling - but i'd had so much fun.
• and - that's all for now folks, i'm pretty much out of time . . . more to follow.

short update!

• hey guys - i broke down and bought a card reader today, since i'm having trouble finding internet cafes where the computers have sd card slots. i just added a few photos to my earlier posts, so you can go back and check them out. uploading photos takes forever, so there's not very many yet - i'm running out of coins for the internet. more to come, though - enjoy! i've taken hundreds (well, a little over 200) so you'll have to wait til i can put them into a slide show or something to see them all - if i put them all on this blog, it would take forever to load. and it's only been a couple weeks . . .
• so, still having a good time here. i'm in nelson now. yesterday i went on a sea-kayaking trip up the coast of the abel tasman national park. we saw a bunch of baby seals - so cute! i'm really tired after the kayaking and begin out in the sun all day, so i didn't do much today.
• right, i'm out of time, so . . . til later!

days eleven, twelve & thirteen (i think!)

• i'm totally losing track of time here - i think that's a good thing, so long as i don't miss my bus to the next town.
• so tuesday - day eleven - eilidh and i went to te papa, the national museum in wellington. they have exhibits on new zealand geology, wildlife, and natural distasters/events, including a simulated earthquake in a model house. my favorite parts were the exhibits on the maori people and also the more recent immigrants to the country. the maori exhibit is really cool - all kinds of things on the history of the maori in new zealand complete with canoes, an assortment of tools, and displays showing the routes through the pacific that these first settlers likely used. the section on more recent immigrants told a number of moving stories about all the reasons people have come to new zealand, among them chinese gold miners who left their families to try to work their way out of poverty and european jews fleeing the holocaust. i wish we'd had a couple of days to look around the museum - we only saw maybe a third of the exhibits, and i could have spent more time at most of what i did see.
• wednesday - day twelve - eilidh and i headed to town again so i could catch the ferry to picton (on the south island). the ferry hauls everything you can think of - trucks, cars, buses, even train cars - i've been on some big ferries in the seattle area, but i think this one has those ones beat. the trip is a little over three hours, most of which i spent out on the observation decks taking in the cook strait and marlborough sound. the last hour or so - through marlborough sound - was the best part. the sound is pretty narrow in places, with smaller green islands dotted all around and coves and bays tucked here and there - beautiful, like a little slice of paradise. we left wellington in the sun, but it was overcast and rainy by the time we reached the sound - the weather and the views reminded me of ferry trips in the san juan islands. of course, walking to my hostel in the rain wasn't ideal, but it wasn't too far, and if i'd been thinking, i could have called to have them pick me up . . .
• today, thursday - day thirteen - i've been taking it easy. i slept in a little, did some laundry, booked the next few legs of my trip, and walked around town for a while. picton is pretty cute, and as usual, the people are friendly and helpful. tonight i'm going to make some soup for dinner (there's cooking gear in the hostel kitchen) and repack my bags.
• tomorrow i'm planning to get up a little earlier and take a long walk around the outskirts of town before my bus ride to nelson. i hear this is the best way to find out about the heaphy track, which was my dad's favorite place in new zealand when he was here back in the seventies. i don't have time to walk it - five days! - but i'd like to see the trailhead, at least. maybe when i come back to new zealand, i'll make sure i have the time and equipment for that trek. yeah, i'm already thinking about how to get back here; there's so much to see and do that i just can't imagine feeling like i've finished with the place after three and a half weeks. i can see why people move here.

what, no comments, people?

hi again - will fill you in later as i'm running out of internet time just now and need to hang up my laundry. short version: have been enjoying myself immensely, wish i could extend my stay in nz several months longer.

days nine & ten!

sunday - day nine, first day in wellington! here's a shot of the city from the ferry terminal - i took this as i was leaving. that evening, we went to karori wildlife reserve, not far from where david & eilidh live. the reserve is a heavily protected area where conservationists are working to increase the populations of nz's endangered native birds and lizards. it's surrounded on all sides by a two meter, tightly-woven mesh fence to keep out predators - new zealand has no native mammals, so many of the ones that have arrived in the last two or three hundred years are unwanted pests: mice, rats, rabbits, ferrets, possums, cats . . . even cats! people have cats for pets and they seem to run wild in many areas, but they're dangerous for the native birds, and the conservationists do what they can to keep them OUT of the wildlife reserve. we spent a lovely evening listening and watching for birds: tui (an excellent mimic), shag (cormorant), ducks, and kaka (a noisy kind of parrot) among others. the reserve has kiwis also, but you don't get to see them generally because they only come out after dark and they're very shy.

• yesterday (monday, day ten) david went to work, and eilidh and dorothy (their black lab/saint bernard mix) and i did the city-to-sea walk around wellington: a six-hour scenic trek all over the place. we went by the botanic gardens, through forested areas, along streams, in and out of more urban areas, around a golf course, through a maori reserve area, and down to the beach at last . . . and it did take us just about six hours for the official trek, though we walked almost ten hours altogether: it took a good 45 minutes to get to the starting point and almost three hours to walk home again! let's just say my feet are still swollen more than twelve hours after we got home and after a good long night's sleep - dorothy, on the other hand, appears to be fully recovered and antsy for a run.

• the walk was beautiful - i felt like i got a great view of wellington city and harbor. we hiked over numerous hills, each of which provided a different vantage point. i'd wanted to do some hiking here in nz, and i certainly got my wish! today the plan is to take it easy. i want to go to the te papa museum, and i've already decided to sit in front of all the exhibits!

days six, seven & eight!

• have you been missing me? i've been busy these last few days! on thursday (day six) i went on an all-day whirlwind tour of the northernmost part of the north island - saw a small stand of kauri trees, visited cape reinga where the tasman sea meets the pacific ocean, went for a short swim on a white sandy pacific beach, tried sandboarding on the dunes, drove down ninety-mile beach (more like ninety km beach) and had fish and chips for dinner - all in one day. needless to say i was too tired to blog after all that. here i am on the beach just before my swim . . .

• we had a clear sunny day for most of it - got drizzled on in the kauri forest and again a the beach (a few pansies went back to the bus rather than swim in the rain - go figure). sandboarding was pretty awesome - after a steep trek up the dune, you go hurtling down face-first on a sort of body-board thing. the first time down i let go somehow and caught my arm underneath - got a bit of a sandburn - but i went a couple more times anyway. actually i would have kept going, but everyone else was all tired out and heading for the bus. it was good fun - like sledding, but warm!
• i've been wearing sunscreen pretty religiously since i got here, but i must have missed the backs of my hands, because i've got a pretty bad case of sun allergy bumps. i forget about my sun allergy every year, and every year after my first long day out, it takes me by surprise - this is the first year i've had it as early as the first week of march! luckily i brought some hydrocortisone cream with me - i was thinking i'd need it for bug bites, but no, i'm using it all up on what looks like foot-and-mouth disease on the backs of my hands. gross. at least i had my arms covered most of the first couple days.
• and - here i am in a cave! muddy up to my neck (and this was before crawling through what they call the "pig wallow")! friday (day seven) i got back on the nakedbus, passed through auckland, and stopped in hamilton to spend the evening with lydia and seth (i'd met them earlier in the week - they took me to hobbiton). they plied me with new zealand candy - lollies is what they call it - and then we went caving. i don't think i'd ever been in a cave before. it was pretty intense. we wore nasty old clothes (i borrowed some off lydia's younger brother dan) under what looked like mechanics' overalls, and we had helmets with lights on the front - i felt like a miner. the caves were pretty sweet - limestone formations everywhere, mud and cold water and glow worms and tight places to squeeze through. all that yoga i've been doing came in handy - strength and flexibility helped me brace myself between walls and swing my leg up to the next foothold, which sometimes was up near my shoulders! turns out i'm not as claustrophobic as i'd thought, and even though it seemed like i could see my breath in the light of my lamp, i didn't feel too cold - until we got home and i was waiting for the shower! i slept like a rock that night and woke up stiff and covered with bruises. caving is hard work, but i really enjoyed it. lydia said i did great for my first time. she should know - she's been leading caving groups for years.
• yesterday (saturday, day eight) i took the overlander train from hamilton to wellington. it's a long trip - something like ten hours - but it's a great way to see a slice of the north island. the train passes gorgeous snow covered mountains, hillsides full of sheep, sleepy little towns . . . i was exhausted and slept a few hours here and there, but every time i woke up there was something beautiful to look at. the train also features an outdoor viewing platform, a kind of tiny balcony between the baggage car and the first passenger car. i can't imagine this being allowed on an american train - seems very unsafe - but i loved feeling the wind and sun in my face while we zipped along between hills and over rivers. the scenery was worth the length of the trip.
• when i arrived in wellington, david and eilidh (friends of my sister from college) met me at the station and we went up to their house - a good half hour walk, at least, through beautiful hilly wellington. some people compare wellington to san francisco because of the steep hills and the lovely views of the harbor. the train driver also mentioned that wellington has more clubs, bars and restaurants per capita than new york city! pretty amazing. here in wellington, i'm hoping to visit te papa, new zealand's national museum, and do some walking - eilidh has a walk marked out that she's been meaning to do, so i'm hoping to accompany her.
• well - that's all for now. i'll fill you in on today's adventures tomorrow night! for now i'll just tell you new zealand seems like a great place to live.

day five!

• big fun today - i went on a dolphin-viewing boat ride around the bay. we were out on the water for most of a beatiful sunny afternoon and saw two separate pods of dolphins. we couldn't swim with either one because they had babies along - cute, if you can use the word cute about a baby that's four feet long and weighs hundreds of pounds. the dolphins swam right up to and all around the boat, sprayed in our faces, and played jumping and chasing games. i've never seen anything like it - several times, they were so close, if i'd stuck my leg out a bit i'd have kicked a dolphin in the fins. the boat operators knew many of the individual dolphins by name and pointed out some they'd seen grow up in their 10 or so years on the bay. the ride wasn't exactly cheap, but i'd do it again if i was going to be in paihia even one more day - it was that great. i almost booked again for tomorrow, anyway, but i decided to see cape reinga instead - where the pacific ocean and the tasman sea crash into each other.
• josiah, if you're reading this, another thing i forgot was my zit cream - but don't bother bringing any along on your trip to america. even with the exchange rate in my favor, it cost me twice as much here as it would in chicago.
• i'm staying at a different place tonight and tomorrow night - just as clean, much cheaper, and with three friendly roommates: one from ireland, one from scotland, and one from england. we compared notes on what we've seen so far in new zealand, and we all agreed it's a great place. the irish woman is travelling alone like me and the other two are together. it's been fun to meet people from all over.
• ok, the cafe is closing, so i'm off to sleep now - tomorrow's another big day.

day four!

• ok, i just wrote a longish, funny post and then lost the whole thing . . . this next won't quite measure up to the first, but it will have to do.
• this morning i actually woke up after sunrise - new and exciting! perhaps i'm returning to my pre-jet lag sleeping habits at last. i spent the morning getting to and looking around at kelly tarlton's, this aquarium in auckland. it's a bit small for the price, but what they have is pretty cool. i arrived as the penguins were being fed - fat little black and white water birds are so cute! one of the more unique features of the place is its "antarctic experience" section, which has a model of the huts used by the earliest explorers in antarctica and brief descriptions of their travels (and for some of them, their untimely deaths). fortunately for me, the experience did not involve antarctic temperatures.
• this afternoon, i took a four-hour trip to paihia with a company called 'naked bus.' (in spite of the name, it's not a clothing-optional ride.) it was a pretty drive through green and hilly country with flocks of sheep, herds of cows, and - what do you call a bunch of deer? it seems that deer are farmed here much like sheep and cattle; they graze in the same sort of pastures all over the place. oh, and at one point, i'm pretty sure i saw a bunch of llamas, too, or maybe they were alpacas? i can't tell them apart.
• anyway, i'm here in paihia now, and it's time for me to book some fun for tomorrow . . . i'll let you know what happens. thanks for reading!

days two & three!

• yesterday was sunday. i visited kitty & tim's church, which they described as "charismatic lite" with a decidedly international twist. most of the people are not native new zealanders - i met people from maylasia and the philippines, among other places. then, after a stop at a sort of lunch counter (curry steak pie - buttery, flaky goodness) kitty and i drove to matamata where their son seth and his wife lydia live. for you spanish speakers out there, matamata is maori and the first and third syllables are pronounced like the last syllable of doormat - has nothing to do with death and destruction.

• here i am in a hobbit-hole! lydia and seth live just down the road from where hobbiton was filmed for lord of the rings - they took me on the tour. it's not well kept up - new line cinema owns the rights to the place and had it pretty well torn up by the time the family who owned the farm was able to salvage a bit for tourists, and by agreement with new line, the tour operators aren't allowed to make any improvements to what's left. they do their best to put on a good show - starts off with sheep shearing and lamb feeding (it's a working farm with thousands of sheep - smells like it, too) and then the guide takes the bus over the hills to the sites where she points out where the set was. and that's mostly it - the party tree is easy to pick out, and a handful of hobbit holes are still there (without their brick facade) - the rest of the tour went something like this: see that blue peg across the gully? that's where the bridge started. see those yellow pegs below? that was the village centre with the pub and market. i rather enjoyed it anyway, though i wouldn't recommend it to someone who wasn't crazy about lotr.
• last night i got some good tips on travel around new zealand from lydia & seth and josiah (tim & kitty's youngest son). they recommended a cheap way to get around and pointed out some good stuff to see throughout the country. i booked bus tickets - i'll be back in their area friday night to go caving! i don't know that i've ever been in a cave before! should be fun. also i got to hear seth and josiah sing music they'd written themselves, good stuff, too bad it's not out on cd.
• today i visited lydia's class of nine-year-olds: thirty kids who had made group projects about tourism in new zealand to show me. they were adorable. they told me what they liked about new zealand and asked me what i thought of the place (terrific) and if i'd seen an assortment of kiwi television shows (never heard of them). they were also quite impressed that the entire population of new zealand could fit in chicago - twice over!
• i'm not really over the jet lag yet, as i've been droopy by mid afternoon but wide awake well before dawn. (rebeccas 1 and 2, perhaps this trip will make a morning person out of me! don't hold your breath, though - i'm awake but not exactly chipper, so i doubt it will last.)

nz day one!

• i'm off seeing the world now . . . first time ever in the southern hemisphere. the flights weren't bad - i slept through the majority of the long one - and my lovely hosts kitty & tim were waiting for me when i exited customs. none of the customs people seemed in the least bit surprised that i was accompanied by a harp - they didn't even want to open the box! i guess that's what x-ray machines are for.
• so far as i can tell, my new camera is vastly superior to the old one. i can't seem to get my sd-hc card in the card reader on this pc, but i'll give you a little summary of my day and hopefully upload some photos later.

• this morning, after my 6.00 am arrival, we went to downtown auckland and mt eden to look around - beautiful views of the harbor and city. it was hot and humid but felt terrific after a long chilly chicago winter. after lunch (which included a delicious tomato-feta salad - yes, alyson, my first meal in nz was cheese-based) i took a nap and then kitty dropped me off in devonport for the afternoon. i walked by the harbor, watched the sailboats, visited the naval museum (dad, you'd love this town) and got takeaway fish & chips for dinner, which i ate on top of mt victoria while enjoying spectacular views. all of auckland is built on a bunch of volcanoes - makes for interesting and varied terrain. this photo is of auckland from the harbor in devonport.
• now all i have to do is stay awake until a decent hour . . . and try to sleep through the night. day one of my adventures has been lovely.

travel plans

• so here's my plan so far: three and a half weeks in new zealand, followed by five weeks in laos. in new zealand, i'll visit auckland, the bay of islands, matamata, wellington, and . . . some places on the south island, as yet to be determined. i have plane tickets for the major moves: chicago to auckland, auckland to bangkok, bangkok to vientiane, bangkok to chicago. as of right now, i'm planning on trains and buses for most of the rest of the trip, except that i'll probably want to fly between (somewhere on the south island) and auckland so as not to burn up too much time in nz with back tracking on the way to laos.
• also, i got a new camera - the battery is charging now. once it's ready, i'll post some photos of . . . my luggage? there's not much in my apartment that i'd care to photograph and then plaster all over the internet. let's just say i didn't do all the pre-trip cleaning that i would have liked.

last day at work

tomorrow! i'm almost there . . . i hope the day doesn't drag too slowly.

making lemonade

• so as of 4 march 2009, i'm officially unemployed . . . i was laid off as part of a series of budget cuts - the non-profit sector isn't doing very well these days. i'm feeling pretty calm about it now, though my body is still stressed out: exhibit a, the massive crop of acne on my face; exhibit b, my digestive system has gone on strike. probably too much information.
• anyway, i'm doing what i can to see this as an opportunity and take advantage of the "time off." after i finished my master's degree last may, my parents gave me some travel money. (thanks mom & dad! you know what makes me happy.) now that i don't have a job to hurry back to, i can make the most of their generosity by leaving the country for months at a time! between the lay off and the graduation present, i've got the ingredients for a terrific batch of lemonade, as my yoga teacher put it last night.
• i'm starting this blog so that you, my friends and family, can keep up with my adventures - i don't want to clog your inboxes with photos, but i know you'll want to see where i've been. i'll post as often as i can so you'll know that i'm thinking of you, even though i'm far away, and also so you'll know that i haven't been lost at sea, trampled by a flock of sheep, or laid low by some tropical disease . . . ha, ha, ha. mom, don't worry, i only got food poisoning once last time i was overseas.
• so, welcome to my travel blog, and i hope you enjoy my posts!