Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody from myself and Su! It's raining here today in Hastings so it's going to be a day in front of the T.V, with myself and Su cooking everyone a beef and Guinness casserole later. Then it's off to a pub in Havelock to bring in the New Year! Hope ye all have a good one!

On a Mission to The Mission

Martin and Catherine got us a voucher (100 dollars!!!!) for The Mission Winery for Christmas so we thought that today would be the perfect day for a nice lunch (well, it has been overcast and raining for the last few days). We've been visiting a few wineries over the last few days (it's free booze basically - all you have to do is pretend you're interested in how it's made and stick your nose in it before you drink) and The Mission winery also has a very nice restaurant overlooking the vineyards - lunch came to 106 dollars so 6 dollars for a nice lunch (it'll be the last time we go out for lunch in a while I reckon), was exceedingly good value :)

The winery used to be a really bonefide Mission in the late 1800's - I think - something like that. Anyway, we both had Ostrich - like little medallions of steak really - very tasty. Between the bottle of wine we had and the dessert wine (I had ice wine and Su had their Gold medal Semillon) we were nice and toasted. We still had room to share a dessert between us. Yum!

  

Chocccccclatttte!!!

Christmas in Hastings, New Zealand

First of all we'd like to wish a belated Happy Christmas to everyone back home and abroad! The last few days have been been very busy and boozey so I've been a bit lazy with the blog - however here's a quick update of the last few days. We started Christmas with a lovely Christmas breakfast on the patio in the sun. It's was fantastic! Pumpkin fritters with bacon, poached egg, tomato, and hollandaise sauce - as Su says "To die for!".

Definitely the first time we've ever had Christmas dinner on a patio! We could get used it...

We exchanged gifts and we made out like bandits - woohoo!! We bought Baby Sam a Huge Hefner style silk dressing gown (smoking jacket really) from Thailand. He'll be the man about town next time he's at Mother and Baby group. I think Sam has eyes for Su - he keeps smiling at her - that won't do. Here's a photo of the Christmas tree with Sam's smoking jacket hanging up. I think his Dad was a bit jealous he didn't get a bigger one for himself. In fact, I might get one next time we're in Thailand.

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the gifts we've received - both the Christmas gifts and the going-away gifts. We've made out like bandits and we appreciate it a lot. You're all too good. We'd also like to thank everyone who made it to our going-away bash - with people making it from as far as Athlone and even Spiddal! Fair play to all of ye - it really meant a lot. There is far too many people to thank individually but we must thank our parents, both Su's and mine for all they've done for us leading up to this - you've been outstanding!

A Whole lotta shakin going on

We were sitting down to a nice dinner of nachos, chilli, guacamole and sour cream two evenings ago. It was Dads first time eating chilli in... well.. ever.. when the whole house started shaking. It lasted for about 30 seconds and it turns out that we had just experienced our first ever earthquake, and quite a large one at that - 6.8 on the richter scale - about a 10 on the sphincter scale. The epicentre was about 50 miles offshore of Gisborne, which is north of Hastings (where we are). There were no casualties in Gisborne although there was 30 million dollars worth of damage - but I've taken some before and after photos of the mayhem in Hastings.

Brace yourself now...

My mother commented that that was the last time that Dad was going to be allowed to eat chilli.

Napier

We took a trip to Napier the day yesterday to have a quick look around. Napier is the nearest seaside resort to where we are staying in Hastings. It was devastated by an Earthquake in 1931 and was rebuilt in the Art Deco style that was popular around then.

 

Today was spent by the barbecue - eating burgers and drinking beer with some of Martins friends. We then played poker and I got my ass kicked. Rain is promised tomorrow so it could turn out to be an Irish Christmas after all!

Auckland

After a 12 hour overnight flight we arrived in Auckland in the evening time. We were pretty wrecked so we didn't get to see much. We had a quick wander around, had a beer, bought some wine and went to bed. We did manage to snap a photo of the Sky Tower in Auckland before getting the Naked Bus to Hastings the next morning:

You don't actually have to be naked to take the Naked Bus - it's just a cheap way of getting around New Zealand. We had an 8 hour bus journey to get us to Hastings but with the scenery on the way, and the frequent breaks in every major town and city on the way, the time flew.

We arrived in Hastings to stay with my brother Martin and his lovely wife Catherine, along with their new baby Sam and Bodhi the dog.

After a lot of beer and even more sleep we woke today refreshed an raring to go. This didn't last long as the jetlag kicked in but we all managed to hop into Martins car and we took off to Te Mata Peak. We say Tomato, they say Te Mata. The view from there looks over Hawkes Bay (nice wine region) and was just spectacular. Here are some photos from Te Mata peak:

On the way home we stopped to have a beer (yes we drink a lot of beer) and also stopped off to a place called the Strawberry patch where you can pick strawberries if you feel energetic. We didn't, but they also do ice-cream cones with fresh berries mixed in which we indulged in. So sightseeing, beer, and ice-cream all in one day - pretty good.

East Railay and Tonsai

Active morning today for myself and Su. We took at walk to East Railay today. East Railay isn't as idyllic as West Railay but it's a bit cheaper. It doesn't have a sandy beach but has a mangrove swamp - which makes chilling by the water a more difficult experience. It's still very picturesque though as can be seen by this lovely photo taken by the even more lovely Su:

After wandering around East Railay for a while I found what I had been looking for since getting to Krabi.You can't stay in Thailand for any length of time without seeing places like the place we found, but the prices vary from place to place. I think the photo explains nicely what I'm talking about:

2 Baht a minute is great value for Happy Special Time, although I reckon if you were to spend a lot more time looking you'd find it even cheaper. The only possible drawback is that the minimum time is 10 minute - not a problem for me. 10 minutes flies by for my Happy Special Time. All in all, that place was the cheapest internet cafe we found.

After getting back from East Railay we took a sea kayak and paddled our asses out to a nearby beach called Tonsai. A lot quieter that Railay, Tonsai attracts a lot of backpacker climbers. Very nice quiet beach and to prove there are climbers - here's a photo!

 

There! And you thought I was lying.

Nothing much else to report really - paddled back to West Railay, had something to eat and tried to lay on the beach before it started to rain again. Apart from our first evening here, it has rained to some degree every evening. We actually went to get dinner with an umbrella. In all fairness, if we wanted rain we could have stayed at home. I'll have to write a letter to the man in charge. On the upside we spent the rest of the evening watching movies and drinking cans of Chang so how bad?

Ao Nang

We left the comfort of West Railay beach today and ventured out by longtail boat to the wilds of Ao Nang (about 10 minutes away) to do some shopping. Longtail boats are called longtail boats because of the long propeller at the back. They are very loud and bellow black smoke but they look really nice.

We got a photo leaving West Railay beach so you can get an idea of the size of the surrounding cliffs - the area is very popular with climbers - we saw some guy clinging half-way up one of the cliffs today - he didn't get too far before he saw sense.

Not much to say about Ao Nang - lots of shops selling t-shirts and souvenirs. It also rained A LOT! Heavy showers which didn't last too long but would drench you if you got caught out in one. The only sensible thing for us to do was to find a restaurant and have lunch - the cheapest one we've had yet! Lunch over, we hit the beer and sat there drinking, chatting, and making plans until the rained stopped (a few hours later!). It eventually stopped as the sun was setting so we hopped on the boat back to Railay.

Bangkok and Krabi, Thailand

Our journey begins! Up at 4am after about 2 and a half hours sleep we got a lift to Dublin airport from Su's brother Pete (fair play to him for getting up!) and we boarded our flight to Heathrow and then to Bangkok. I don't know if it was the boring 10 hour flight but after a while you start to people watch (well I do anyway) and we couldn't help but point out the dodgy looking characters that looked like they were on their way to Bangkok for only one thing (and we're not talking about the cheap tailoring). There was the guy beside us who only started talking to Su as soon as I got up to go to the loo (after about three hours on the flight), there was the guy in front of me who looked like he was hooped up on goofballs, and then there was the guy across the aisle from me who stank of booze (nothing wrong with that) but had the blanket over his head for most of the flight. I assume he was trying to sleep but the inflight movie was Ratatouille and Dad pointed out that maybe he was afraid of rats. Made sense. Anyway, we finally got to Bangkok airport (the new one - it's amazing!) and after a big wait at immigration we got our shuttle bus to the Novotel airport hotel (2 minutes away). My parents who joined us on the first leg of our journey were staying there and flying out to New Zealand the next day so we thought we'd join them and fly out to Krabi the next day. The hotel was pretty impressive but also pretty expensive for Thailand. Still, after 10 hours on a flight with little sleep on the flight or the night before, it was great to get to the room, open a bottle of wine, drink it and crash for a few hours. That night we met up with the folks and went to the Oriental hotel for the River Terrace barbecue. I'd highly recommend visiting the Oriental hotel just to see how plush and impressive it is - I'm sure it must cost a fortune to stay there and the Riverside Terrace barbecue isn't cheap either (I think it was about 40 euros per person) but it's a fantastic experience. Make sure you go hungry though as the amount to food you can eat is astounding. I did make a pig of myself, having a starter, sushi, a fish dish, a plate of meat including duck, lamb, steak, and chicken. And about three desserts. I could have had more but I didn't want to embarrass myself...

Next day we hung around the pool back at the airport hotel for a while before checking out and heading to the airport for the next part of our trip. We got my folks checked in to their flight to New Zealand and boarded our flight to Krabi.

As you can see from the photo, I still have the paunch from the night before - normally my belly doesn't look like that - I swear!!!

It was dark by the time we arrived in Krabi (only and hour and a half flight from Bangkok) and we had a driver pick us up from the airport - just as well we organised that as it seemed pretty remote. He took us to a port and we hopped into a longtail boat which took us directly to West Railay beach and our hotel. It was such a shame it was dark as it would have been a fantastic photo coming in on the boat, and seeing the beachfront directly ahead surrounded by cliffs. Here's a photo of the beach during the day with the longtail boats waiting to talk people to the surrounding resorts:

and here's one of the cliffs on the other side of the beach:

We were welcomed to our hotel, The Sand Sea resort with a nice chilled glass of apple juice and shown our hut which has a lovely fan and a loo with a hose to clean yourself with after using it.

Here are a few more photos - one of the path to our hut and one of the pool (it's shaped like a foot!).

Well, that's it so far - got nicely burnt today by the pool so the bluey white glow from my skin should be gone in no time. I'm drinking about 3 or 4 litres of water a day (on top of the beer) just to replace the sweat that has been bucketing out of me since getting to Thailand. Chang beer which is the cheapest is about 6.4% alcohol and very drinkable, especially after the 3rd one. Our plan for this evening is to eat. The pressure is killing us. More later!