sAWadeeKA,
Yep. I am one of those annoying tourists that insists on massacring the local language with a strong Aussie accent…
Canadian Joe and I have just left Thailand after an excellent three weeks of non-stop eating and thought we should blog, just to break-up the Hewitt fest.
We were in Bangkok for Chinese New Year and Joe was very disappointed, Rowan, to find out you had lied to him and it was in fact the year of the Rabbit… And Jake, thanks to you, Joe has travelled the last three weeks saying “Hey apple…apple…hey apple…”
We spent one week in big, crazy Bangkok, another week in the very tranquil Chiang Mai and a week trying to ignore the tourists in the completely over-run Koh Phi Phi and Koh Lanta.
I have been writing travel stories for a couple of NZ publications, and one of the more interesting articles is an interview with a Thai Monk who explained, amongst other things, that when he needs to break one of the 254 rules they have (like touching money) he “just breaks the rule and then goes to confession afterwards”…. I had to explain the “dodgy” award to him.
This is a temple. As most of you know, there are many.

This is a waterfall. In Chiang Mai.

One of the highlights for us was diving off Koh Lanta.
Milly, we burst out laughing when the diving instructor showed us the hand signal for “look, there’s a turtle” – it’s the exact same as the awkward turtle sign!

Look closely – that’s not a rock…

It’s on to Austria now, with much colder weather and a more crippling exchange rate, but it’s been great keeping track of everyone via the blog and we will see many of you in the near future.
- Kate
PS. Nome, do you have my shoes?