Bangkok Round 2

The last time we visited Thailand was in 2005, our first international trip together when we came to teach English in NE Thailand and then travelled for a month after as well. There was a huge culture shock the first time he came but now that we knew what to expect, the novelty has worn off a bit. The transvestites, the women lining the streets waiting to be "chosen,"  the smells (good and bad), the multitudes if street hawkers, fearing for your life as you walk across the street, etc. Bangkok has changed a lot since we were here last and there are a lot more American . There are a ridiculous amount of tourists here compared to Tokyo and you can reasonably expect that a Thai person working at any establishment knows English which really surprised us. We would ask questions in broken English but get responses in grammatically correct sentences, which was strange.  We loved the hotel we stayed at -  Crowne Plaza Lumpini Park Hotel, which also had a great location close to a sky train station. We didn't realize it at first, but our hotel was close to the Pitpong, which is the red light district of Bangkok. We got asked a million times if we wanted to see "a sexy show" or a "ping pong" show, as we heard it.  This time around we are just enjoying the city - eating and shopping with out scrambling to the tourists sites since we did them all the last time around. Again it was a short visit but we will be back later in our trip. Loving the fruit especially mangosteens and passionfruit, especially since you can't get good quality ones in Canada. Of course, I have a food report in every post! Had awesome cheap Thai food at a hole in the wall called P Kitchen (tripadvisor recommendation) and yummy Indian food at Indian Hut - both recommended! Our next stop is Nha Trang, Vietnam, which is a beach town north of Ho Chi Minh City. It's a bit strange to take Turkish airlines on a flight from Bangkok to Ho chi Minh.  We have a flight almost every 3-4 days for 3.5 weeks- Adam's nightmare unfortunately.

Merry Xmas from Tokyo!

We are just on the train ride back to Narita airport in Tokyo - next stop is Bangkok, Thailand! Although we barely scratched the surface in what there is to see in this crazy city, we are looking forward to the heat! Tokyo was so chilly and Adam and I really don't do well in the cold especially since we didn't want to lug jacket around for the rest of our trip. Tokyo is an extremely lively city - its like New York on steroids! There are so many people at any given time, wherever you are, but despite the  population, we were amazed how polite and orderly people are. There are organized lines for everything and its not chaotic at all unlike other populated places where people push and shove to get where they wanna go without care and concern for others.

People are extremely fashionable here - its too bad Tokyo was our first stop because it would have been nice to shop here. There are stores everywhere and within a 3 block radius in just one area, you will be 3 LV stores, 3 Zaras, etc - makes it hard to use landmarks to retrace your steps! In our short time, we explored several  areas of the city. We stayed at Shibuya granbell hotel, which was a decent hotel for our purpose but nothing fancy. The important part is that it's extremely close to Shibuya metro station, which is the only way people get around here. A taxi from the airport, for example, costs over $300 USD, so you cone to learn the subway system quickly, which is so efficient. We also visited the Sen-ji temple, the oldest Buddhist temple in tokyo dating back to year 628 in the Akasura area of the city, roamed around the Shinjuku area, visited Tokyo Sky tree, which recently opened and is one of the world's tallest buildings at 634 meters high! We didn't have great luck with food in our short time here unfortunately and we all know how important food is for me! The problem was the lack of English menus and the abundance of pork in their diet. With sushi we were safe! We had probably the freshest sushi possible at the Tsukiji fish market. However, it was hard to describe that we just wanted rolls and salmon sashimi so I thought I'd go out on a limb and do the set menu at a famous but small sushi restaurant called Daiwa. Although the restaurant seems to have a name, majority of restaurants names have Japanese characters which  really doesn't help unless you ask and get lucky if you find someone who speaks enough English to help you. The fish market is a popular tourist attraction for a "sushi breakfast" and some people come at 5 am to watch the live tuna auctions. We were not that hardcore and arrived at 8 am instead as we were a but jet lagged but not enough to come at 5 am! We tried to find highly rated restaurants on tripadvisor but since there are restaurants and shops every few feet, we could never find the ones were looking for or if we did the line up was crazy long. We would definitely  love to come back and explore Japan better but when it's warmer - perhaps in cherry blossom season! Now that we know it's only a 11 hour direct flight away, it's definitely on our "return to" list - could probably come back with our future kids since its so safe and orderly!

South Africa's Capital

We were in johannesburg for 1 day and 2 nights before the safari with Nadia and hussein and came back after the safari. Adam and I were not the biggest fans of joburg. A lot of people opt to skip it altogether because of its reputation of being a very dangerous city. Google maps always gives you the weirdest directions to get from point a to b and sometimes makes you go through sketchy areas which put both of us on edge. We are a lot more cautious after we were jumped in Peru a few years ago and sometimes probably overly paranoid.

There are extremes in this city and all through out south Africa. The rich are very rich - you will even find Aston Martin and other high end car dealerships here that we don't even have many of in north America. The only areas of the city I left comfortable in were Melrose arch, sandton and rosebank. I quite liked our hotel in Melrose arch called Protea fire and ice - very trendy and good nightlife right in our hotel which was great because there was no way we felt safe driving around after sunset in joburg. We were stopped once by a traffic cop for a routine drivers license check but thank god he wasn't asking for a bribe or making our lives difficult. We met up with Alia and hussein twice in joburg which was nice as well. The part we don't like is that these areas are almost like gated communities and do not really represent the rest the city.

We went to the gold reef city theme park and had a tour of an old gold mine which was interesting and then went on a few rides. It was somethig to do but not sure if it worth what we paid to do it. Today Adam and I went to the Sunday market on the rooftop of the zone mall in rosebank, which was good for souvenir shopping and cheap eats followed by a visit to the Apartheid museum which was very educational - we read about the life of nelson Mandela and the whole apartheid history in south Africa. Unfortunately you weren't allowed to take pictures in the museum. The stories are very sad but you realize how and why Nelson Mandela is considered a Demi god to most south Africans and why he is a Nobel prize winner. There are streets, hotels and restaurants named after him and his pictures and statues can't be missed. During the apartheid, even the Asians, which would have included us if we will there, were discriminated against. It was an official white vs non-white policy. Although the apartheid was dismantled in the early 1990s, there is still a huge economic disparity between the black and white population, which I found was most apparent in Cape town. Hopefully the next time we go back to south Africa, probably in a few decades, it will have changed even more.

Kapama Game Lodge Safari

I started composing this post while relaxing by the spa pool after my divine body wrap and massage treatment. The spa here is absolutely beautiful! From this pool, i have a view of the game park where I can 6-8 warthogs and there cute "bambinos" or baby warthogs as our ranger would say. Even though most people would probably say wart hogs are kinda ugly, I love them because they always remind me of pumba from lion king! The wart hogs are taking a dip in water to cool off since its probably 35 degrees today. I am dreading coming back to -30 degrees in a few days! That will be a 65 degree swing! As you may have noticed from this post, I am so incredible relaxed right now and just loving my surroundings. Nadia - wish we had done the safari together so we could have gone to the spa together! Although Adam usually enjoys the spa, he opted out this time due to his sensitive skin and heat rash.

Yesterday, we were at our favorite lodge of the 3, Kapama Karula, which is considered the boutique lodge of this game park. Again we stayed in a luxury tent which was a nice experience but there were a few more bugs than the night before that we didn't love. The best part about the room was the outdoor shower! Loved it but would be too scared to go at night! The food was fancier here and communal areas were very chi chi considering you are in the bush.

Today we moved to the Kapama river lodge which is more of the east African style sopa and sarina lodges - more of a large hotel. Also very nice but I think prefer the other 2 places we stayed at. Our guide Nelson at this lodge was so hilarious and we were sharing a safari car with a brazilian couple and a group of friends from India! Although we didn't see as many animals with Nelson, it was by far the most entertaining. In the changani culture of the people in this area, the men often have more than 1 wife and a lot of kids, where the multiples wives and respective children all live together! Our Rangers family consisted of 3 wives and 17 children! He says birth control in some cultures is still not accepted but he thinks that will change slowly as more people get educated. Unlike the other guides, he was sponsored to take a tourism course in London, Ontario and has travelled a bit. Some of the other rangers have never even been to Johannesburg even, which is 500 Km away from their home towns.

By our fourth game drive, we were lucky enough to have seen all of the animals we wanted to including cheetahs, leopards, white rhinos and more lions! We even got to see a baby cheetah that still had blood on it's face after a kill although we didn't get to see the kill itself! Safaris are a lot of fun and the lodge was great but the down side is that there are so many creepy crawlers that just cannot be controlled especially if it has rained recently! You will see the ugliest spiders and a million spider webs! You have to be careful not to run into the spider webs on the morning safari drives because the spiders will sometimes make webs that run from one tree to the tree on the other side of the dirt road or they will make webs from the grass on the ground to the trees above! Wiping spider webs off and ducking under them is something I will not miss, lol!

Lion King Live

Wow! What can I say! We are now on our safari and absolutely loving it! It is so peaceful and beautiful here but I am getting so black! Adam is usually fully clothed because of his sun allergy but so far no bad blisters or burns or black peeling lips like in East Africa!

We are staying at the Kapama Game lodges in greater Kruger National Park, which was a 5 hour drive from johannesburg (can also fly).  Kapama is a private game reserve which probably has both pros and cons. 

Pros - you drive around in an open top car in a               
Square meter park, you can off road, drivers can correspond with each other to find all of the big five and the drivers seem to known the behavior of most of the animals whereas there have been numerous incidences of cars being pushed over by elephants or rhinos in Kruger proper. 

Cons - they control exactly how many animals for the ideal environment (can also be viewed as a pro) and there is likely a larger area that you can drive through although anyone can drive through Kruger if you pay the entrance fee whereas you can't here so fewer cars driving around. 

Initially we were booked for 2 nights, one night in a luxury tent and one night in a safari lodge but after Nadia and Hussein got back from their safari, we decided to add on a night. Fortunately we are staying at a different "camp" every night. Unfortunately, that means we have to move every day. Last night we started at Kapama buffalo camp which was fantastic! There were only 13 guests - food and service were great and I loved our "tent" with a balcony overlooking the game park. Some of the guests saw baboons and monkeys from their balconies! Will post pictures on Facebook when we are back!

The schedule here is much different than the East African safari we went on several years ago. First of all, I've never been happier to wake up at 5 am to depart for the morning safari by 545 am! The Safari drive is 3 hours, then breakfast and rest time, followed by lunch and more free time, followed by High tea at 4 pm and another 3 hour safari drive when the sun sets so you can find the cats! Then of course dinner and an early sleep - Adam and I were in bed by 10 pm! It is smoking hot here during the day so i can see why it's this way. In east Africa, you took a packed lunch and your safari drive was 6-8 hours during the day but it wasn't as hot there and got cold at night.

So naturally you must be wondering what we've seen - so far we've seen hippos, impalas, kudus, zebras, wildebeests, elephants, warthogs, giraffes, and of course rhinos and lions! One of the lions got so close to our car that Adam was pulling me back away from the edges of the car as i was trying to get some good shots of them! Loving our new SLR! 

I love that I was fortunate enough that my parents took us on a safari asa family, I get to experience it again with hubby and I hope Adam and I will be able to take our future children!

Cape town Cont'd

We arrived in Johannesburg last night after a few more days in cape town. Cape town is overall an awesome diverse city because it has a mix of beautiful beaches, good food, modern infrastructure, and is fairly safe.

On Friday, we drove back from Gansbaii, went to khane (mosque) in cape town where there were about 12 people in total! Nadia has met the kamadiani maa (mosque leaders) in joburg so she had encouraged us to come. After khane, we drive up to signal hill which gives you the most amazing views of the city with the water on one side and table mountain on the other. We went back to Camps bay that night to one of my favorite restaurants in cape town - cod father sushi and seafood! There is no menu and you just order the seafood you'd like to eat from a cooler. Hussein and I were the adventurous ones who went for it while adam and nadia stuck with sushi. I have never had such good seafood! We tried a bunch of local fish and big mother prawns from Mozambique called langostines that are even tastier than the freshest lobster!

The following day we finally got a chance to go to table mountain which is a national park with a mountain that is flat at the top. You can either take a cablecar up to the top or hike up. We wanted to hike but it was 30 degrees and too hot to hike! At the top, again there were outstanding views of the city and various hiking pathways. The day was a perfect beach day so we also spent a few hours at Clifton beach! The houses and condos you see along Clifton and camps bay are just insanely beautiful and are insanely expensive! This is the area where you will see more ferraris, aston martins and other nice cars driving around! Some properites are rented for $10 000/night!

Our second last day in cape town we did the cape peninsula tour with a driver. We stopped at Boulders beach to view some cute penguins, then to cape point and peninsula which is where the Indian ocean meets the Atlantic ocean and also the most south westerly point of Africa! On our drive back to cape town, we stopped in Hout bay for the most outstanding fried fish, prawns, calamari and chips at a hotspot with locals called Snoerkies! We waited in line for over an hour in a fast food type place but well worth it!

The food in cape town has been fantastic! Other noteworthy restaurants are La columbe in the Constantia area. You cannot get dinner reservations here for months so we opted for a Monday lunch to try it after recommendations from the Benguala owner/chef in Gansbaii. It was fantastic food and impeccable service! It's number one on trip advisor and rated one of the top restaurants in the world!

Another interesting restaurant was Carne which is known for game meat and steaks. It was good but the boys still thought Alberta beef was better in some ways. So far on this trip, I've had wildebeest, ostrich, kudu, springbok, and other venison meat which were all enjoyable and fun to try! Riyaz virani, who we call Victor, and two of the friends he made at his hostel, also joined us for dinner at carne which was good times!

We also went to savoy cabbage on our first few days in cape town which is also highly rated - it was very good fine dining but not as memorable as La columbe, codfather and snoekies!

Jaws of life on the Garden Route

We had a few relaxing days along the garden route, which is a scenic drive east of cape town. If I had to compare, the garden route is similar to the great ocean road drive in Australia but so far we have had better weather and better accommodation than the spider infested b & b last vacation! We stayed at 9 on Heron bed and breakfast in a town called Knysna. This b & b was very cute and the owners, who we think are a lesbian couple, were fantastic hosts with a very inventive breakfast for our non-pork eating group! I don't think i've had bruschetta and feta for breaky before! Along our drive we stopped at mossel bay and we went to Plettenberg bay for some sun bathing and pure relaxation along the white sand beach!   Knysna heads is a beautiful lookout point that is definitely worth visiting also! Very picturesque! Sunset cruises on the lagoon are popular here but it was very cloudy the day we planned to go so we passed on it. 

We left one day unplanned with no accommodations booked so that we could have some flexibility. We decided to visit a super cute town called Gansbaii which is the area where you take Shark diving tours! I don't think they do these tours anywhere else in the world! Our b&b (roundhouse) had the best view of the sunset on the ocean from our rooftop hot tub! What a greatbview! One of the nicest sunsets we've seen! The best meal we have had so far in South Africa was in Gansbaii at a place called Benguela! My mouth still waters thinking about the Chile and lime prawns and the moist steak! 

Shark divining was one of the most intense things any of us had ever done! The thrill seekers in the group are hussein and I but adam and Nadia had the most terrifying experience! Don't worry - we are all safe with all of our limbs intact! Basically what happens is the company (White Shark adventures) parks a boat in the ocean a few kilometers from shore and 6 people at a time go into a metal cage that is attached to a boat. We saw several sharks when we were on the boat but when it was our turn in the cage, one of the sharks came directly head on into the cage and managed to get his nose into the cage right in front of Adam and Nadia! They both saw the sharks jaws wide open as he tried to catch the fish bait. Nadia said its teeth were as big as her head!

It was the scariest experience! As the visibility wasn't that great all I remember is seeing the shark and then his fins and tail flapping at the cage as I tried to come up for air but couldn't for a few seconds because Nadia had freaked out and basically sat on me under the water! Hopefully the other guy in our group got good underwater shots of the whole incident! Adam and Nadia got the hell out of the cage but Hussein and I stayed for a few more shark sightings. I have never felt so sea sick on a boat even after taking a Gravel, so much so that i actually threw up off the boat.  It was super gross especially because all the fish tried to eat it! 

We are now back in Cape town for a few more days! 

Cape town to the garden route

We had quite the random few days in Cape town! New years day was a bit of a write off because we slept in and then had the most random experiences all day - some will just make the 6 of us look silly so they aren't even worth mentioning!  We seem to have spent a majority of our time at the beautiful V & A waterfront, which is likely one of the nicest waterfronts I've seen even when compared with Sydney, Australia! It's lively with lots of restaurants and shops! We went to the Two oceans aquarium and went on the Robben Island tour which is where the prison that Nelson Mandela was kept for 27 years. It was interesting to see but the whole tour could have been done a bit better. On Jan 1 or 2 every year there is a parade that is often compared to Mardis Gras or Carnival in Rio. We caught a few glimpses of the parade with colorful costumes and performers of all ages! Historically it was the few day(s) that the slaves were free and it evolved from being a big party to a colorful spectacle on the streets of Cape town! Cape town boasts to be the best city in Africa! Although I've only been to Tanzania and Adam has been to both Tanzania and Egypt, so far we would have to agree! South Africa is so different from East Africa so far - much more modern and efficient! Although you remember you're in Africa when people are trying to sell stuff while you're stopped at a light or seeing people walking along the sides of the highways.

So far we have felt safe but are taking precautions. Alia and Hussein's trip started off on a sour note when their camera and camcorder were stolen from their carry-on bag that they were forced to check in because it was overweight on Mango airlines. Luckily we are only taking Star alliance flights this trip and minimal internal flights.

We are off to the Garden route today for a few nights and then back to cape town for a few more nights! 

Ringing in 2012 with Family across the World!

Happy new year everyone! Its been a great start to our trip but so different than our usual vacations where it's just Adam and I.

Starting from the beginning, thank you Aeroplan! It was our first time traveling in business class and I can't even describe how much more comfortable it was especially for such a long journey! Smoked salmon for an appetizer followed by beef tenderloin with truffled potatoes followed by apple tart and fruit plate! The Ac "pods" were definitely my fav with the fully reclined chairs that turn into beds! The next best thing about business was having access to the lounges on our stopovers - the bmi star alliance lounge in London was beautiful where they had food and drinks including a full bar (if you drink). Although Adam and I slept most of the stopover, it was much more comfortable than I remember my last 7 hour stopover in London! The problem is - we will probably avoid the long journeys until we can go business again because it will be so hard to go back. I know - sounds bratty but it was so nice!

When we finally arrived in cape town, my sister, Hussein, Adam and I went to the wineries in stellenbosch, 30 min drive from cape town. Even if you don't drink, they were beautiful, with breathtaking scenery! We went to Delaire graff and topaka? Delaire graff was my fav! NYE was awesome being able to hang out with family and familiar faces! Me also met up with my cousins Alia and Hussein from edmonton and Riyaz virani from Calgary and managed to meet other Ismailis from now live in Johannesburg (Joburg) or Angola, another African country, who were partying in cape town! We went for dinner at Tuscany beach and then to a posh beach club in the camps bay area called St Yves where Bottle service here probably costs what it does in Vegas! Overall a great night! Hope you all enjoyed your NYEs as well back back home! Will write again soon about our first few days in cape town!