Aitkenvale
September 20, 2024 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C
This is our home. Less than 4 months before we leave for our Gap Year! We can't wait!!!
Aitkenvale
November 4, 2024 in Australia ⋅ 🌬 30 °C
We are 2 months off our big adventure!!!!
This is the project for 2025: leaving from Townsville in Australia, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, India, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, France, UK, Italy, Peru, Ecuador, New York, Canada and back to Australia.
Obviously, things can change, but this is the initial plan.
We have some of the main things taking care of now: the house is rented for when we are leaving, we have the backpacks and most of what we'll need.
This is exciting, a bit scary, we can't quite believe it is actually happening!!!
MelRead more
One week to go! / Plus qu'une semaine!
December 28, 2024 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C
That is it. We are almost there! This project has been on preparation for 10 years! When I (Mel) was pregnant with Andrew, 10 years ago, I said to Kev, I want to do a gap year with this little one. I want my child to see the world!
I’m not sure he completely believed me at the time!
Being a backpacker, I have always loved traveling. When I was around 25 years old, I realised I wanted to travel. I moved from France (I am from Paris) to the UK when I was 26, but it wasn’t quite enough. I saved money and bought a single ticket to Malaysia and travelled in Southeast Asia for a year when I was 30 and arrive in Australia with a work holiday visa for a year. I worked for the second year of work holiday visa and that is when I meet my now husband, Kevin, in the tiny town of Cloncurry in central Queensland.
Now 10 year later, we are married, and we have 2 beautiful children: Andrew 9 and ½ years old and Emma, 8 years old. And in just one week, we are starting our gap year! The plan is to touch every continent (except Antarctica).
We are starting in Cambodia, then Thailand and Laos. After that, we will be moving to India, then change of continent, to Africa where we plan to visit Zimbabwe, Zambia and Namibia. We will them move to Europe (France, Italy and UK), then South America (Ecuador and Peru), and North America to finish. This is the plan now, but we all know how plan can change!
The feelings are mixed:
I am excited and a bit worried of course. This will be very different from my first travel experience, where I was by myself, doing what I wanted, when I wanted! This time, they will be 4 of us to take in consideration. But I believe, it will be such a wonderful experience for our family.
Kev doesn’t know what to feel. He is not a traveller as I am. This is very outside of his comfort zone, and I am very grateful he accepted to follow me in this crazy adventure.
Andrew is happy and excited. He is looking forward to trying different food. He loves going into plane because he loves watching the lights outside the window plane and he can watch a lot of movies!!!
Emma is happy, sad and worried. Happy because she can’t wait to see the different places and the different food and spend time altogether. Sad because she is going to miss her friend and family and her dog. Worried because she is scared of plane.
During the trip, we will have the four of us writing about our trip, so we can keep track of our experiences with 4 different set of eyes.
We hope you will enjoy reading about our adventures.
Nous y sommes presque ! Ce projet est en préparation depuis 10 ans ! Quand j'étais (Mel) enceinte d'Andrew, il y a 10 ans, j'ai dit à Kev que je voulais faire une année sabbatique avec ce petit. Je veux que mon enfant voie le monde !
Je ne suis pas sûr qu’il m’ait complètement cru à l’époque !
J’ai toujours aimé voyager. Vers l’âge de 25 ans, j’ai réalisé que je voulais voyager. J’ai quitté la France (je viens de Paris) pour le Royaume-Uni à l’âge de 26 ans, mais ce n’était pas suffisant. J'ai économisé de l'argent et acheté un billet aller simple pour la Malaisie et voyagé en Asie du Sud-Est pendant un an quand j'avais 30 ans, Je suis ensuite arrivée en Australie avec un visa vacances-travail pour un an. J'ai travaillé pour obtenir ma deuxième année de mon visa vacances-travail et c'est à ce moment-là que j'ai rencontré mon mari Kevin, dans la petite ville de Cloncurry, dans le centre de Queensland.
Aujourd'hui, 10 ans plus tard, nous sommes mariés et nous avons 2 beaux enfants : Andrew 9 ans et demi et Emma, 8 ans. Et dans seulement une semaine, nous commençons notre année sabbatique ! Le plan est de toucher tous les continents (sauf l’Antarctique).
Nous commençons par le Cambodge, la Thaïlande et le Laos. Après cela, nous irons en Inde, puis changerons de continent, pour l’Afrique où nous prévoyons de visiter le Zimbabwe, la Zambie et la Namibie. Ensuite nous irons en Europe (France, Italie et Royaume-Uni), puis en Amérique du Sud (Équateur et Pérou) et en Amérique du Nord pour terminer. C’est le plan actuel, mais nous savons tous à quel point les plans peuvent changer !
Les sentiments sont mitigés :
Je suis excitée et un peu inquiète bien sûr. Ce sera très différent de ma première expérience de voyage, où j'étais seule, faisant ce que je voulais, quand je voulais ! Cette fois, nous seront 4 à prendre en considération. Mais je sais que ce sera une expérience tellement merveilleuse pour notre famille.
Kev ne sait pas quoi ressentir. Ce n'est pas un voyageur comme moi. C’est très en dehors de sa zone de confort, et je suis très reconnaissante qu’il ait accepté de me suivre dans cette folle aventure.
Andrew est heureux et excité. Il a hâte d'essayer des plats différents. Il adore prendre l'avion parce qu'il aime regarder les lumières à l'extérieur du hublot et il peut regarder beaucoup de films !!!
Emma est heureuse, triste et inquiète. Heureuse car elle a hâte de voir les différents endroits et les différents plats et de passer du temps ensemble. Triste parce que ses amis, sa famille et son chien vont lui manquer. Inquiète parce qu'elle a peur de l'avion.
Pendant le voyage, nous allons écrire tous les quatre sur notre voyage, afin de pouvoir suivre nos aventures avec 4 paires d'yeux différentes.
Nous espérons que vous aimerez nous lire.Read more
Je pense que vous allez vraiment découvrir des belles choses 😘 [Emmanuelle Laguzet]
Our first few days in Cambodia.
Jan 4–9, 2025 in Cambodia ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C
Our first few days in Cambodia
After a long night and day in planes and airports, we finally arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We were all tired, but glad to be here. We took a taxi to go to our hotel and went straight to bed!
First a little bit of geography about Cambodia (for those who are not sure where it is!): Cambodia is in southeast Asia, with Vietnam to the east, Laos to the north and Thailand to the west. There are plains in the centre of the country, and mountains in the north and west. The capital is Phnom Penh, where we currently are.
The next day, we started our adventures with a walk around the city and a visit to the royal palace.
The first impression of the city is how crazy the traffic is!! Crossing the road is an adventure: you hold on to your lucky cricket and start walking when the cars and motorbikes go around you without slowing down much!!! The first few times are a bit scary, but we got used to it!
The royal palace is huge and beautiful: Temples, mural painting, statues... there are a lot to see.
The rest of the day was spent walking around the city to soak into the Cambodian way of life. This is so good to have the freedom to do what we want without having to stick to a schedule.
We, of course, ate Cambodian food: we really enjoyed fried rice and noddles with all kinds of meat and vegetables. So far, we love the food!
Monday being my birthday, we were lucky to stubble upon a cake shop, with delicious cakes, so we indulge ourselves.
We finished this first day, by having an hour-long cruise on the river Mekong at sunset. It was a great way to finish the day.
For our second day, we decided to do a bit of history learning, and we went to the killing fields. We were not quite sure if it was good for the kids, but we thought that they need to learn about history to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
For those who don’t know the recent history of Cambodia, here is a quick version of it: in 1976, Pol Pot seize power in Cambodia. His army was made of poor peasants, often pretty young, uneducated and living in very poor condition, Pol Pot promised them riches and a better life. His ideology was a very extreme version of communism, and he decided to kill anyone who might be against him: educated people, city people, people wearing glasses or with hands too soft… They were sent either to work in the countryside or to be killed. Many died in the countryside as they had no food and not training on how to grow food. An estimated of 3 million people were killed under the rein of Pol Pot who was overthrown in 1979 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and put an end to his reign.
The killing fields were the places where prisoners were sent to be executed: men, women and children. Even babies were killed as they didn’t want to leave anyone who could seek revenge. The ways of killing were horrible. The bodies were then thrown into big holes with hundred of other bodies. While we were visiting the killing fields, we had an audio guide with explanation and stories of survivors. It was heart breaking. I cried several times during the visit. It is insane what human can do to each other.
We didn’t let the kids listen to all the stories as they were too hard to listen too, but we wanted then to know about the history and especially how it all started.
As it was a hard morning, we went for a fun afternoon: we find a huge and fun water park, with massive slides, pool and water games. It was a good balance to the heaviness of the morning. The kids loooooooved it!
Today (our third day), we visited the Cambodian museum, with a lot of statues dated from the 6th century up to more recent one, writing carved in stones, and lots of artifacts dated from many centuries ago. I wish there were a bit more explanation as it was sometime hard to know what the statues or object were, but it was still interesting to visit.
We are now all writing about our experiences, and we hope you will enjoy reading about it!
Mel
Before the travel started, I had a lot of feelings. Feelings I'm still not sure I understand but have worked a few things out. I was scared, scared about leaving our house to people we don't know (this is my home we're talking about, a big thing for me). I was worried about things that may or may never happen on our trip.
I'm not sure I ever felt excitement, I think it was squished down under all the other feelings. Close to go time, I'm not sure I was feeling anything.
Now that we have landed in our first destination and I have spent some time away with my family, there is some excitement, and a lot of worry has lifted.
4.1.2025. First plane.
Planes f****ing suck. Flight companies f***ing suck. We had to fly south (Melbourne) to then go north (Hong Kong), past our destination. Only to fly south to Cambodia.
5.1.2025. Landed in Cambodia.
Was happy to be on the ground. Saw very little of the country as we hopped a taxi straight to our hotel to sleep.
6.1.2025. Mel's birthday. It was stated very clearly that we would be in a different country for Mel's birthday, and it worked out that way (because Mel organises everything).
First impressions of Phnom Penh? Busy, smelly, dirty and completely foreign to me.
The people seem friendly, the tuk tuk drivers are a bit pushy but that's their job I suppose.
After a short walk, we found somewhere for breakfast. Followed by a visit to the royal palace, which is something to see. A rest was needed and then lunch found. Followed by cake for Mel's birthday.
We walked along the river front and was pestered into taking a ride on “party” boat. Lots of lights and loud music. Was pretty fun.
7.1.2025. This morning, we rode in our first tuk tuk. Very exciting and scary. If you know Cambodian traffic you know what I mean. Our destination? The Killing fields. Where we learnt of Pol Pot and his regime. Saw mass graves, bones, skulls, teeth and scraps of clothing. We learnt of things carried out by members of the group the Khmer Rouge through a headset as we walked around the site. Some truly chilling things, things you wouldn't believe people could do to others. I understood perfectly my feelings this morning. Sadness, revulsion, confusion and utter disbelief.
After that we felt something nicer was in need, and Andrew had been annoying us about it since he learnt of it. So we went to the water park! Lots of fun, once we finally convinced the kids to ride the bigger slides. Emma did not want to ride anything! I did!! After seeing me trying things Mel had a crack and soon after Andrew was into it. Emma took a lot longer but eventually she had a go. Turns out she loves slides; she thanked me later for helping her release her dragon spirit.
Another rest and then dinner at a local night market.
8.1.2025. We visited the museum. Fascinating. We spent the whole morning walking through it looking at relics and artifacts. Then fed some goldfish in the small lakes inside.
To be continued. Later.
Kev
I just want to tell you what has happened so far. On Monday it my mum’s birthday so we had cake. Obviously. Then we went to the Royal Palace. In the Palace we saw beautiful paintings. After that we went on a night boat and saw gorgeous lights. On Tuesday we went to the Killing Field where lots of people died. The whole idea was from this man called Pol Pot. He killed people who did not like him, and he also killed people who wear glasses. Which is sad. But to brighten our day, we went to the water park. We also went on our very first tuktuk. On Wednesday we went to a museum, there where loads and loads of sculptures, paintings and metal displays.
Emma (8 years old)
It is me Andrew, I’m back! I am in Cambodia its quite different here (p.s I got to watch a lot of tv on the airplane). The airport is way bigger than Townsville’s and they have these three wheeled cars called tuktuks that we pay for and the owners of them will drive me places. Its faster than walking. Theres lots of different foods here like noodles and rice, its actually pretty good. The people here are not very good drivers: the speed limit is sixty but nobody respects it, they go as fast as they want unless there’s a police around.
On the first day it was my mum’s birthday so they, my mum, decided what we do: we walked around for a bit then we went to the royal palace, walked around the place looking at stuff and taking pictures. They had lots of gold and jewels. The palace and the garden where huge and had lots of gargoyles things on the roof. When we were done with the palace we went out for something sweet: I got an Oreo cake then we went back to the hotel.
On the second day we went to a really big water park that had huge slides and it was so fun it had forty meter long sidles. I went on it about twenty times I didn’t have enough time to do any more but I would have done a million times more. My dad did this superfast one and hurt himself and the line was really long on every ride so I couldn’t do that many. Anyway it was very fun.
On the third day we went to a museum it had a lot of sculptures, metal art works, statues and paintings, they had statues of gods and people, there was also some animals to.
They were big rocks that had a lot of ancient writing on it. The place had a pond and me and my sister were feeding the fish. There was about thirty huge gold fish swarming me. It was crazy.
Next few days coming soon.
Andrew (9 years old)Read more
Merci pour ces quelques jours au Cambodge avec vous, c'est super d avoir le regard de chacun 🤩 continuez de partager, j adore. Bisous à tous les quatre 😘 [Celine]
Silk Island and Battambang
Jan 9–13, 2025 in Cambodia ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C
Our last day in Phnom Penh, we went to visit silk Island. We took our regular tuktuk driver (it is funny how we get use to things quickly: Juan has been driving us around for a couple of days and he is now “our” tuktuk driver!) to go 20km out of the city and visit silk Island. This is a place where they farm silkworms to make silk dresses, scarves…
The process is very interesting. They have moths which breed (for 10 hours and then the male dies!) and make eggs, then the worms come out and get bigger. When they are ready, they put them in branches for them to do their cocoon. After a few days, they pick the cocoon and boiled them (and yes, the moth is still inside and dies in the process). They keep 20% of the cocoons to live to be able to breed the next worms.
Then they grab one tiny strand of the cocoon and spool it on a wooden instrument. They need 20 strands for one thread. They can get 800 meters of strand with one female cocoon (500m for a male as they are smaller). Then they dry them, clean them in water mixed with ashes to make them smooth, color them with only natural ingredients (dragon fruit for purple, mulberry leaves for green, yellow is the natural color of that type of silk…). Then they can make fabric, scarves, dress….
Only woman wove and each woman know only one pattern. It is passed on inside the family. They will only learn that one pattern and do the same one as long as they work there. It looks very complex: they have one “pedal’ which does the background color and several “pedals” who do the design. The women working there are so use to it, that it looks easy but I’m sure it took a while to learn!
Emma bought herself a blue scarf and she was very happy about it.
The afternoon was spend in our room, resting and playing games.
The next day, we left Phnom Penh for Battambang, a city in the west of the country. We took a bus for around 6 hours. We found out that Emma can not read in a moving bus! We know now.
Battambang is the second biggest city in Cambodia, but it looks less busy and less crowded than Phnom Penh. After a warm shower, we took a stroll into the area. This is one of my favorite things to do. I love people watching, take on the smells, the sound, the colors of an unknown area. It seems than in Cambodia, there is food everywhere you go. Carts, little restaurants, street sellers, selling all kind of food and other items. Money is constantly being exchanged!
One of the things to learn when you travel, is to convert money. Here in Cambodia, it is a little more complex: the money is Riel, but they also take US dollars. 1 US dollar is 4000 riels. But when you pay in one currency, you can receive the change in the other money. And then, we have to add around 30% on the top to have the value in Australian dollars! It is a very good math exercise for the kids (and us!!!).
On Saturday, we did a tour of Battambang with a tuktuk (our guide was Tah). We saw a lot!!!!
The morning was spend going around the smaller villages around Battambang where we saw different type of livelihood: a blacksmith, someone making sticky rice, banana chips a lot of different way (barbecue, sundried, fried…), rice paper. We tried a lot of those different food (Yum!). We also visited a couple of temples and some killing fields. They are everywhere here in Cambodia.
Our guide told us about his family’s story: he was a baby when the Khmer rouge seized power, his family flee to Thailand, but it was dangerous, because of the Khmer rouge and land mines. When they came back, they try to find his mother’s family, but the never found her parents or siblings again. They will never know exactly what happen to them. We could see that it was difficult for him to talk about it, but he said several times, that this part of the Cambodia history can never be forgotten, so we need to teach it to the children and remember, so it can never happen again.
In the afternoon, we went onto the smallest baboo train. It was used to transport goods on the railway, but now it seems to be a tourist attraction more than anything, but it was fun!
We could see the beautiful landscapes of Cambodia: rice fields as far as you can see, green, yellow, brown, depending on what stage of growth they are.
We finish the afternoon, at the killing caves (yes again) where people were simply push in a couple of caves and left to die at the bottom of it. It was cheaper than using weapons. There is now, statues of Buddha, Stupa (monument to remember the dead), and a lot of offering place. There is also a big temple at the top of mountain where the killing caves are. We had to walk up a pretty steep road (tuktuk can’t make it!): it was very good exercise! Emma was not a fan! On that mountain, we saw a lot of monkeys, but we had to be careful as they can be aggressive if human come to close, especially of there young ones. It was exciting and a bit scary to see them! At the top, we had beautiful views of the landscapes around. We came back down by the stairs which we pretty steep too!!! My knee wasn’t too happy.
The day finished with watching millions of bats coming out of the bat cave. It was pretty cool!
We came back at the hotel, pretty tired but full of images, sounds and smells in our heads.
We had our first movie night of the trip. Yeah for internet and Netflix!!!
Today, Sunday 12/01, we are doing a lazy day, writing our blog, resting, reading, playing games to rest our tired bodies (especially Kev and mine, the kids are fine!).
Mel
9.1.2025. Tuktuk to silk island. Fascinating stuff, we saw some massive fish. Guide called them dragon fish, I know them as Arapaima. Close to 2 metres long. He fed them a fish each, scared the crap outta Emma when they ate. They eat like a barramundi, by creating a vacuum when opening their mouth.
Was interesting to find out how they use the silk moth. They let some live so they don't die out but boil most of the moths in their cocoons.
We saw how they separate and spin the silk. Saw women using the silk to create dresses and scarfs. Each family has one pattern that only they do.
10.1.2025. Packed up and got ready for the next part of our journey. A bus trip to Battambang. After arriving we had a walk around. While being the second biggest city in Cambodia, Battambang was very different to Phnom Penh. Bigger roads, smaller buildings, more dogs.
Found out later had eaten something dodge, spent most the night going from bed to bathroom.
11.1.2025. I am now quite sure I could shit through the eye of a needle at 10 paces. We had a full day tour booked so had to do my best. Though I never missed an opportunity to use a toilet if I saw one.
A very interesting tour with a guide (Tah) who was born right in the middle of the genocide. We later found out that his mother had lost siblings, with no knowledge of where or how. We saw a 75 year old local blacksmith, making tools for the farmers. Lots of local markets and tried bananas prepared so many ways (I didn't try much). We visited Battambang’s oldest temple, built in 1707 if I remember correctly. Which was also used to hold prisoners before execution. More mass graves.
Onto to bamboo railway, kinda fun but a little too quick for my liking. Small bamboo flat carriages powered by small Honda motors that zip along the line. We had to get done in time because the big train was coming through. No rules here. Off we went in the Tuktuk again, this time to a temple on top of a mountain. A steep walk, I had to push someone most of the way up. The mountain is full of caves, and bodies. They marched prisoners up the mountain and pushed them in into the caves. We didn't venture too far into the caves as there is only so much we want to see. Monkeys! Bloody monkeys, I don't like monkeys. Don't like them, never will. Weird me out with the teeth and claws and screeching. We didn't have any trouble but some people brought food, bad idea. Walked down the “short cut”. All steps, steep steps. Only went arse up once. I am not flexible but managed to almost do the splits. At least I didn't shit myself. Waited at the bottom for the for a nightly show, bats millions of bats. Small insect eating bats that live in the caves. Was impressive, thousands of bats coming out for over an hour. Of course bozos feeding monkeys too. May have mentioned, don't like monkeys.
12.1.2025. First solid food for a day, though I only borrowed it temporarily. Now resting and doing blog. That is all.
Kev
It is me, I am back again, I want an applause NOW! Whatever, onto my blog (another applause).
On the ninth we went to a place called silk island. It was about how make silk, it looked hard but to make it harder they did it with hand not machine. There was also huge fish called arapaima, they were about a meter long, and if someone chucked in a fish, they would jump out and eat it. The workers would use the cocoons of the silkworms to make the silk and then, they would make it soft and neat then they would sew it together.
On the tenth, we went on a six-hour bus. It was very boring. The bus was going to Battambang, our next destination. When we got there, a tuktuk driver took us to our hotel. It was 9pm, so I annoyingly had to go to bed. Nothing else interesting happened other than my attempt of staying up all night.
On the eleventh, we had a tour. At the start of the tour, we went to a market, there was a blacksmith and it was interesting. I watched him make a blade. Then we went to a place where we could try lots of different types of cooked banana, we also ate sticky rice, it was very good. We also went to a few different temples, and we saw a huge statue called Dambang Krognuing. There were also big buildings. After that we went to a bamboo train, it is the smallest train in the world but it was going fast. Technically it’s just a moving platform on a train track. After that, we went to a mountain and climbed up it, at the top there were monkeys, monkeys and more monkeys and a temple. We looked at it and then went down. We waited at the bottom because at night, a colony of bats fly out of a cave in the side of the mountain. They were micro bats, but there were millions.
On the twelfth I sat at a table writing my blog and then you read it.
The End, for now
Andrew the great (9 years old)
Applause applause clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap
Hi, it’s me Emma. Today I’m going to tell you about the last three days. On Thursday, we went to silk island and they farmed lots and lots of silk worms that make cocoons. But the cool thing about the silkworms, is that they silk for our cloths. At silk island there was also this big fish called arapaima and it gave me a heart attack, when it jumped up and made a big noise. Now moving on to Friday. On Friday we went on this big, long and boring bus. Do you know why it was big, long and boring bus: because I spewed most of the way. And on Saturday we went on a tour. First on the tour, we went to a blacksmith and saw fire. Then had Bamboo sticky rice and it was very yum. Then we ate some banana chips. After that we ate some rice paper and some spring rolls. Then we had lunch. Then we looked at some French buildings and then we went on a Bamboo train. Then we hiked a long steep hill and I almost did not make it up alive. At the top of the hill there was a temple and MONKEYS! Then we walked all the way down to see bats. When we saw them, they were tiny and very very cool. They kept swirling like a tornado in the sky.
Aurevoir sucker see you soon.
Emma (8 years old).Read more
Well done everyone writing your blogs. Hope everyone feeling well. Love to all [Vicki Bridson]
7 days in Siem Reap
Jan 13–20, 2025 in Cambodia ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C
Hi everyone,
Last time we wrote, we were in Battambang. To get to Siem Reap, I thought it would be fun to take a boat. The boat part was pretty fun. What we didn’t know, was that the river was too low to use for a part of it at the beginning, so we would have to use a car. When we saw the car, we thought it was to take us to where the boat was, like a 10 minutes ride. We were happy to sit at the back of the 4 wheels drive: a new way of transportation we hadn’t tied yet. But the ride was over one hour on a very bumpy road… It was less fun after 30 minutes! But we finally got to the boat on the river, and it took us for another 5 hours to reach Siem Reap. On the way, we saw some fish (to the kids’ delight), some floating villages all along the river. During the rainy season here, the river can go up several meters, so most of the houses have big barrels attached under, to be able to float when the water rise.
It is amazing how everyone here in Cambodia, adapts to any situation. This is by necessity of course, but it reminds us that we can always find solutions to any problem we are faced with.
We arrived in Siem Reap and quickly, it is very noticeable that this is where the money is, because this is where the tourists are. It is very different from when I came here 13 years ago. Apparently during Covid, as there were no tourists, the city got a massive “facelift”. They redone a lot of the streets, and it looks a lot more modern. And of course, it is very touristy. This is where the Angkor temples are, which are the main reason why a lot of people come to Cambodia. Angkor Wat is on the Cambodian flag, and this is the only flag with a monument on it.
Siem Reap is located on the north of the Tonle Sap, which is a big lake in the middle of Cambodia.
When we arrived at our guesthouse, we were pretty tired, so we did a bit of walk around to situate ourselves, but after a quick dinner, we went back to our room to sleep.
On the Tuesday, we went to visit the National Museum. This is obviously all about the Angkor period which run from the 9 to the 14th century. Angkor was the capital city of the Khmer empire. In this area, there are more than a thousand temples, some very run down and some still standing. They are protected as a UNESCO Word Heritage Site. The museum was a good introduction to the history and to have an idea of what those temples were about and what to look for when visiting (symbol we could recognise and so on).
We then went to Khmer cuisine class, and it was amazing! We had to choose a starter, main and desert (we each tried a different one, so we could taste it all!) and we cooked it. Our teacher was brillant a showing us what to do, but without doing it for us (especially with the kids). We learn to use some of the spices to make some delicious sauces. I love watching the kids doing it by themselves and enjoying it! Then we got to eat the dishes, and they were all amazing! It was an excellent experience that we will try to do in different country.
After that, we walk around the tourist area and because Andrew and Emma really really really really wanted to do it, and Andrew paid for it, we got a “feet massage by fish”: you know those tanks where you put your feet in it and little fish nibble on your dead skin. It was fun. If we had listened to the kids, we would have stayed there all afternoon! After that Emma treat us all with a full body massage (everything is cheap here). It was a remedial massage, and those masseuses are strong and work your body hard! They were nicer on the kids though! We all enjoy it (not too sure for Kev!) A bit more of walking around and back to bed for a big day of walking the next day.
Wednesday was temples day. We choose to do a tour to get some information about the history and the details on the temples, but I am not a big fan of tour and will try not to do them in the future. The bus picked us up from the guesthouse with other travelers and of to the temples. To buy tickets, they have now a massive building with easily 30ish ticket boots and they were all with a line (there is so many people visiting the temples). After buying out tickets, we started with Angkor Wat, but we stopped so many times to let people took selfies and group pictures, that really got on my nerves! I am a pictures person, but how many pictures of yourself in front of something do you need! Anyhow, the guide was given us good information about the temple we were seeing. Angkor wat is beautiful, but it felt less magic that the last time I went there. They are doing a lot a reparation on the temple to make them look better, but I feel it is taking the magic away a bit. I want to see rocks that have been carved several centuries ago, not a new rock carved in the 21st century. They even put platform at different places for people to take selfies…. They took a lot of the statues away to expose them in museums. They are also, according to our guide, planning on removing some of the massive trees which have grown between the rocks as they are moving them and destroying the temples. I found it sad, as for me it is part of the beauty of this place, how the nature mixed with those beautiful temples. Anyway, it is still a wonderful experience to visit and look at the carvings on the walls and walk into hallway where people lived in 1000 years ago.
There are a lot of temples to visit at Angkor and we visited a few of them: Angkor wat, Ta Phrom, Baphuon and Prasat Bayon (I’m writing the name as just the names sound magical!).
We saw some monkeys and those were friendly. They were young and climbing on people playfully. I wasn’t too comfortable (they are wild animal!) but the kids loved watching them play.
We finished the day watching the sunset on the hill of Phnom Bakheng. Some of the temples where you can climb at the top are not for kids under 12 years old. Which means that Andrew and Emma missed climbing up a couple of the temple, which was a bit sad. It was the case for the temple where you can watch the sunset from, but to be honest, it was nicer as we watched the sunrise from the hill slightly lower than the top, but it was still beautiful, and we were not stuck between thousands of tourists! We were exhausted by the end of the day, but it was an amazing day.
Thursday was a bit more restful. We drove one hour and a half to the Kulen mountain, which is one of the most sacred mountain in the Khmer culture. There is a reclining Buddha carved at the top of a massive rock at 8 meter high and a river with 1000 carvings of yoni and lingams which are representation of the feminine (yoni) and masculine (lingam) symbols to invoke fertility in the riverbed. You can see the carvings just under the water. We also saw a source a water and we loved watching the water coming out of the sand at the bottom of the source.
On that river, there are a couple of waterfall and we had a lovely time picnicking near the river and the kids splashing in the very cold water of the river. I had a couple of very brief dip!
On the evening, we had dinner in a restaurant who has Apsara Dancers. Apsara dancer are traditional Khmer dancer. All their dances have a story. The women dancers use the position of their hands with very precise movement and position which each have a meaning. It was a great evening and I highly recommend finding a show of Apsara dancers if you come to Cambodia.
Friday was Aquarium day. This is a new aquarium in Siem Reap and it was actually pretty good. We are going to do aquarium when we found one as the kids, especially Andrew, are obsessed with fish! It was a lovely visit. Emma ate something that upset her tummy the day before, so she was feeling a bit poorly, but she was all back to normal after a nap in the afternoon.
In the evening, we went to see the Phare Circus. Because they are such a wonderful organisation, I want to do an entry on our blog just for them. So you can read it on our next post.
Saturday, we went back to see more Angkor temples. This time, we just got a tuktuk to take us around the different temples, not a guide tour. And there were less tourists, as those are less known. It was really fun. The kids are getting a lot more confident and went by themselves around the temples. Some of them were a fair size and it was such a great time getting lost in them, and looking at the carving, the statues, the trees which grow in them (the one still there). We also played “spotted” with the kids. When one of us could spot the other first, we said “spotted”. It was a great time. I think we all enjoyed ourselves.
The Angkor temples are amazing. I am a bit worried about the way they “restore” them. I feel that some of the magic is already gone with the removal of some of the massive trees which grow in the temples (even if I do understand that those trees are damaging the temples). I think it is a difficult line to walk between saving the magic of those old temples caught inside a forest and keeping the temples intact.
If the Angkor temples are on your list of things to see, don’t wait too long to come and visit. I’m not sure what will be left in 10 years!
Today we are having a rest day as it was a very busy week. We are writing our blog and not doing much!
See you next time! Mel
13.1.2025. Off to our next destination. A boat ride from Battambang to Siem reap. Found out because the river is really low we need to go by car for a bit first. After an hour or more in the back of a Hilux we found a boat. Looks nothing like the picture but hey! As we ventured further down the river towards the lake known as the Tonle sap, the river became deeper and wider. Small villages on the riverbank popped up, shops and schools. People living on the river. Cruising around in boats like we do in cars.
14.1.2025. Off to the museum! Get some info before stumbling around the ruins. Useful idea, great museum.
Mel's idea next, we went and did a cooking class. I was skeptical as my insides are still not happy with me. Turns out I'm a pretty good authentic Khmer chef. Food was bloody great, we all had a go at each other's dishes. If you ever get a chance to try fried banana with passion fruit do it, trust me.
What do you do with yourself after a massive meal? Stick your feet in a tank full of hungry fish to nibble all the dead skin off is what. Followed by a proper massage of course.
15.1.2025. Angkor Wat. An extraordinary series of temples and buildings surrounded by a huge moat. Abandoned and lost to the forest for centuries, only to be found again by a French explorer when they occupied the area. Kids had their first real contact with monkeys here. The guide was playing with some and one climbed on Emma and gave her a playful bite. Freaked out a little she did, but so would I.
We explored Angkor Wat for a whole day, but it was nowhere near enough time. There is so much to see here. Finished with watching the sunset after walking up a bit of a mountain.
16.1.2025. Car trip to Mount Kulen where we saw a huge lying Budda carved into a massive rock, walked up and down a river and checked out the 1000 lingas carved into the river bed. From there we went to a waterfall. Before anything else tho we had to eat. My appetite was somewhat back so I grabbed some chicken on a stick. Or so I thought, was actually chicken livers on a stick. Still pretty good but that first bite was surprising. Deep fried battered banana was next, yum. The water was lovely tho freezing . We went a little up the river and the kids played in the water for ages, while we sat and watched. I got in for a bit but not too deep. Emma doesn't seem to notice the cold. Andrew did but he played shivering anyway.
Back in Siem reap, we walked around the city centre a bit, had a couple beers in a bar (nearly nodded off). Then went for dinner at Robam, an place that offers a free Apsara show with dinner. Good food and a great show, kids were buggered but wouldn't leave until the end of the show.
17.1.2025. Aquarium day! Emma spewed twice during the night! We're all buggered straight up! Except Andrew, who is as annoying as ever (kidding). Was a pretty reasonable experience with a free return bus. Met a few Aussies there. A dad, daughter and grandson. Saw otters, Otters! Everyone loves Otters. They're bloody loud when they know the foods coming tho. Saw tigers, at an aquarium that's right.
After that, we had lunch back in Siem reap. Fried chicken and rice. Yep my appetite is back. Back at the room, Emma is asleep (she had a rough day but did so well) and the rest of us are blogging.
It's the evening and we're on the move again. Tuktuk to the Circus! Dinner and a show. What a show! The youngers kids gave us a glimpse of their talents during dinner. Was great. Didn't know what to expect of the show, certainly didn't expect it to be as good as it was. Language barrier didn't matter, you could follow the storyline through the actors. The acrobatics were impressive. So much energy. Home late, straight to bed.
18.1.2025. We decided to do more temples, but not with a guide or group. Had breakfast and found a Tuktuk driver who would take us around for the day. Mel didn't like the guided tour earlier, this allowed us to explore at our own pace. It was like a green light to Andrew, we let him off on his own as long as he was careful. Not a single square inch of that first temple was left unexplored by Andrew. He loved the freedom. Emma is still crook, so she stuck with me for the first part of the day. She got better during the day and more confident with going off on her own a bit. Mostly following Andrew. Five more temples explored today I think, or was it six. Dinner and bed.
Kev
Hi it’s me Emma. On Monday, we took a car to a river and then a boat to Siem reap. On Tuesday, we went to a museum and saw thousands of Budha statues. Then we went to a cooking class and learnt how to cook. After that we went to a massage where fish nibbled dead skin off our feet, then we got a full body massage. Then we walked around the tourist area and then walked back towards the river. On Wednesday we did a tour with a guide to temples. First we visited the Angkor wat then we looked at sculptures. And after that we went to Ta Prohm Temple then the Angkor Thom with monkeys. Then last but not least we walked up a hill to watch the sun set. On Thursday we went and saw a laying Budha on top of a big rock. After that we saw the 1000 Linga river and then we went and played in a waterfall. After that we had a great dinner because we saw an Apsara show. On Friday, we went to the aquarium then we had a afternoon rest. After we went to a circus and it was a must see! On Saturday, we went on a tuktuk to MORE temples but without a tour guide which was good because I think he took to long taking selfies.
Emma (8 years old)
It is yet again the amazing, the awesome, the great, drum roll.
ANREW BRIDSON
Please enjoy.
On the 13th we didn’t do much we were supposed to go on a boat to go to Siem reap but a bit of the river was dried up, so we had to go on a car for a bit. After a while we reached the bit where we could go on the boat, there were lots of fish, like eels, little fish, big fish, catfish there are lots of catfish in Cambodia. When we got there, we walked around a bit to look at the place and to find dinner, we found a good restaurant had dinner then to the hotel.
On the 14th we went to the museum it had a lot of artifacts and paintings, but it also had some swords and armer which was interesting. There were also canons and ships it was cool there were lots of jewels and valuable stuff if I sold everything in there, I would be a millionaire. After that we went to something called a cooking class someone taught me how to cook a bit of Khmer food, I learnt how to cook spring rolls, curry, and these little white desert balls. After that we walked around for a bit and then I saw this tank of fish that I could put my feat in and they would nibble all the dead skin of my feet. Then we went to a massage. After that we walked around then went back to the hotel.
On the 15th we went on a tour to Angkor Wat and a few other temples, Angkor Wat is a temple. Most of the temples had bits collapsed and there were lots of different broken sculptures plus there were lots of passageways. I walked around but I had to follow a tour guide it was annoying I couldn’t go where I wanted. In one of the temples there very friendly monkeys, I could stick my hand out and they would jump on me. I didn’t do it because there was three and is one jump on me the other two would jump on me too. At the end of the day, we went up a hill too watch the sun set we waited for while so I climbed some trees. I got told to slow down did I listen, NO. Why would I? I only stopped when I hurt my hand swing around the tree trunk. When we saw the sun set it was lovely. Then we went back to the hotel.
On the 16th we went to a mountain that we climbed up it was not that much of a climbed a car drove us most of the way. At the top of the mountain there was a statue of a Budha (an important person in a religion). After that we went to a river that had sculptures in it so I couldn’t swim in it after we went to a waterfall it was COLD, plain old cold, stupidly cold. VERY COLD. After a while I got use to it and it got fun, I caught a lot of water spiders with my own hands after that I tried to catch fish, they were only about a centimetre long but I couldn’t catch it. When we went back it was dinner and I was hungry, my mum wanted to see apsara dancers and there was a restaurant with an apsara show so we went to see it. Its slow dance and I can’t explain it its complicated after we went back to the hotel to sleep well, I tried to stay up it was a big failure.
On the 17th we went to an aquarium well it’s a zoo and aquarium it was awesome it had tigers, otters, snakes, scorpions, sun bears, crocodiles, birds, spiders, lizards, turtles and porcupines, and that’s just the zoo sections. In the aquarium section there were arapaima, sting ray, sea horses, archer fish, mud sipper, sharks, barramundi, big cod, trevally, Mekong catfish, moray eel and a lot more don’t know their name. When we went back to the hotel we rested for a bit and then we went to the circus it is unexplainable except one part IT WAS AMAZING. It was funny it was stunning the music was great if you every go to Cambodia go to Siem Reap the circus is called the Phare circus it is a must see. After that I went to sleep.
On the 18th we went to some different temples without a tour guide so we could go were every we want, the first temple was really fun there was passageways everywhere I ran around discovering new passageways. And then I sneakily followed my mum around for fun till they saw me when we went to anther temple, we moved around by tuktuk. We went to a lot of different temples we also saw some monkeys it was a tiring day I was exhausted at the end of the day then we took the tuktuk home.
Today I wrote my blog sent it to my mum then they posted it on the blog platform and you read it.
To be continued……Read more
The Phare circus in Siem Reap, Cambodia
January 17, 2025 in Cambodia ⋅ 🌙 25 °C
I wanted to do a separate entry for this because, first it was an amazing show. But more than, that the Phare organisation does so much to help Cambodia get out of poverty and to empower people to have a better life.
Those line are from their website; I am just copying it here:
“Phare artists are students and graduates from Phare Ponleu Selpak’s (www.phareps.org) vocational training center in Battambang. The association was formed in 1994 by 9 young men coming home from a refugee camp after the Khmer Rouge regime. They were greatly helped during that time by an art teacher using drawing classes as therapy and wanted to share this new skill among the poor, socially deprived and troubled youngsters in Battambang. They founded an art school and public school followed to offer free education. A music school and theatre school were next and finally, for the kids who wanted more, the circus school. Today more than 1,200 pupils attend the public school daily and 500 attend the alternative schools. Phare Ponleu Selpak also has extensive outreach programs, trying to help with the problems highlighted in their own tales.
Phare The Cambodian Circus offers these students and graduates somewhere to hone their skills and a place to earn a decent wage. Money that will take them out of poverty and give them self-respect and freedom.”
The people working for Phare get a above the normal Cambodian wage (which is incredibly low: the average in between US$150 and US$200 monthly. This is very variable depending on the region and the industry).
Now to the show we saw: the story was about various people meeting in a rock pub and looking either for trouble, love and all in between. The show was modern and fun. Both adults and kids laugh during the show. The artists are multitalented: music, acrobatics, acting, dance… all was there.
The music was live during the show: using traditional and modern instruments, the music is an active part of the show and made it so lively.
Before the show, you can grab a bit to eat. There are several different types of food you can choose from and all we had was very good. The deserts were awesome.
There was also a pre-show of some of the children learning in the program. They did three Apsara dances and they were great.
This is a MUST SEE show when you are in Siem Reap. If you don’t/can’t come in Siem Reap, you can donate to that wonderful organisation to help kids and artists get a better life in Cambodia. https://phareps.org/donate/#makeadonation
By the way, the pictures aren't great, but I was so captivated by the show that I didn't try very hard to take any good one!Read more
Kratie (Cambodia)
Jan 20–24, 2025 in Cambodia ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C
When you travel, you meet people. Some you chat for a few minutes, some a bit longer, some you end up traveling (I did that a fair few times when I was traveling by myself). When we were ordering some coffee at a street stand in Siem Reap, we start talking to a family with 2 kids around Andrew and Emma’s age, a Canadian mum and a French dad! They are doing a gap year traveling: just like us, except that they have done 6 months already. We got along well, so we exchange contact details and on Sunday evening, after our lazy day, we end up having dinner together. It was super fun chatting and exchanging tips and stories! This is one of the parts I love about traveling. The people you meet; it is usually not for very long but it is almost always really good. The kids (after a few minutes of shyness) had a lot of fun with the 2 kids and all we could hear were giggles and laugh from their end of the table!
Anyway, the next day was travel day again. We took a bus to Kratie, a small town toward the East of the country, which is famous for the Irrawaddy dolphins. This was around 6 hours bus trip, not super comfortable but not horrible either! Our guesthouse is the nicest one we had so far.
After unpacking, we took a walk in the town but it looks like one of the main street (the one we took) is being redone and all we could see for a long while was dust, roadworks and no pathway and no small food business either (which are normally everywhere!). So we walked back toward the more touristic area to get some food and then back to the room for our weekly movie night (thanks to good Wifi)!
On Tuesday, we took a Kayak tour on the Mekong River. We saw some underwater forest. As the river is low at the moment, we could see the top of the trees and paddle between them, that was pretty cool! We also saw some watermelon growing on sand island. Yep, watermelon growing in sand!!! And we tried one, it was delicious!
And of course, we were very lucky to see some dolphins. There are only 105 Irrawaddy dolphin left in the world and they are in the Mekong River. Those types of dolphins are pretty shy and have no nose like the sea dolphin. Their faces are more round. There are very few left, because of dynamite fishing done in the past. Those methods aren’t use anymore, so maybe they will be able to grow their population again.
It was magic to see the dolphins popping around (not too close as they are very shy) and to hear the ’Pshhh’ of their breathing.
I have to say, that my arms were jelly by the time we finished as we paddle for around 11 km. I was with Andrew in the kayak, and he really impressed me! He paddled a lot and very well.
After that, we had a bit of a rest!
The next day, we rest a fair bit, as Kev is still not 100%. Nothing much happened. The only thing we did in the afternoon, was going to see a temple around 15 minutes drive from the city, Phnom Sombok. It is a lovely temple with a million steps!!! Lots of statues and a really calm atmosphere. I really enjoyed this temple.
The next day, we went to a small island on the Mekong River, just across Kratie. The island is called Koah Trong. We rented some bikes and went around the island. It was nice and relaxing and lovely couple of hours (despite Emma having a couple of stacks! She is fine though).
We are now doing the blog and won’t do much this afternoon. And tomorrow we are on the way back to Phnom Penh for a couple of days before going to our next country Thailand!!
Mel
19.1.2025. Lazy blog day. Pack for next destination.
We met a family when we were getting coffee. Found out they're doing the same as us, but 6 months in. We exchanged details and decided to have dinner with them. All 4 kids are close in age and after 20mins of silence they were talking and eventually playing up. They have done a couple countries on our list already, so we got some insights. We will all be in Laos at some point, maybe we'll see them again maybe not.
20.1.2025. Bus trip to Kratie. Pronounced Krah-Cheh. Fun getting tickets when you don't pronounce names right. Got picked up from the guesthouse by Tuktuk, dropped off at a “bus stop”. The “bus”, which was an 11 seater I think (got 19 in there including 2 babies). One person had a motorbike, plus a lot of bags from everyone. What the driver did with the bike and bags on the back of this “van” was a work of art. Didn't notice when we first started but he even had tyres pilled in there. There is a picture I took which will be on Facebook or attached to the blog. We even had packages around our feet. Highlight of the trip? About 4 hours into the trip, there's this box in the aisle next to Andrew. Pretty ordinary looking box, nothing unusual. It started crowing, bloody rooster in a box in the middle of the bus! At first I thought someone had an amusing ringtone, then it dawned on me. The bus as a collective had a good chuckle. Ah Cambodia, full of surprises. We walked around Kratie for a couple of hours, checking the place out. Had dinner and went back to the guesthouse. Wifi is great here, so movie night (my neighbour Totoro, kids first studio Ghibli).
21.1.2025. Early start, upstairs for a morning briefing then set off in the back of a truck. What are we doing? Kayaking the Mekong River. We travelled around 11klm down the river. Stopping at one point on a sandy bank where a local was growing watermelon in the sand. Quick swim, sticky rice and black beans in bamboo (kids love it), bananas and some of the guys watermelon and we're off again. Travelling with the current, slipping between small islands and trees. Navigating some small rapids and rocks. Then came out into a wide open area, to find…. Dolphins!! Mekong River dolphins. I had Emma with me and Mel had Andrew. Andrew as always paddled from start to finish, the boys battery never runs out. I had Emma cause apparently I'm the stronger kayaker. She surprised me today, yes she had breaks, yes I heard my “my arms are tired” quite a few times. But there was no complaining, no “I don't wanna do this anymore”. She pushed through and paddled way more than I thought she would. Both my kids made me proud today. These are the experiences that make the trip worthwhile. To see you children grow to a challenge not shrink away from it. Made my day more than the dolphins did. Now here we sit, in our air-conditioned guesthouse resting and writing our blogs. Our guide is off again to take more people down the river, and I'm thinking about having a nap.
22.1.2025. Spent another night going from bed to dunny, bugger all sleep. Did some stuff early on in the day then back to the room where I slept for a few hours. Bought some drugs from the chemist, then took a Tuktuk to a temple. Stairs, lots of bloody stairs and more monkeys. We were heading up the first set of stairs when our driver sang out and handed us a length of bamboo. For the monkeys he says, great. Anyway no incidents, just tired legs at the bottom.
23.1.2025. Hopped on the ferry and headed over to an island. Rented some bikes and off we went. Emma had about 4 stacks, other than that pretty uneventful. Saw a big tree, lots of chickens, dogs and cows. Visited a tiny temple at the tip of the island and saw a snake. Dunno what type, the slithery scary type. Kids played in the sand while we waited for the ferry back to the mainland. Soon as we got back straight into the shower. Now resting again, blogging again and soon packing again. Back to Phnom Penh tomorrow.
Kev
On Sunday, after we wrote our blog we went out for dinner, with some friends we met while we were waiting for coffee. The sad thing about that was there was a chance we may never see them again, but the good thing about that night was that Eva and I spent all night laughing at what Andrew and Owen were doing. On Monday we went on this long boring bus that lasted six hours (with food and drink stops.) We went all the way to Kratie from Siem Reap. Then we just had a rest. I think the bus was very very very very very very very very very very boring. The next day we went on a kayak looking for dolphins and we saw lots and lots of them. From what I saw they had a round head and made funny noises like ppsshh. We spent most of the day cruising around the river. We spent most of the next day at the hotel because dad was sick but after that we went out to a temple. The temple had lots of stairs and lots of monkeys. I hated how many stairs there was but otherwise I liked it. The next day, we went on a boat to an island and rode bikes around the island. My butt was aching by the time it ended and it still is. After that we just came back in the room writing our blog.
Bye see ya.
Emma (8 years old)
On the 19th, after I wrote my blog, we went to see a family that we met before, the kids were crazy it was fun. We went to a nice restaurant I had food, Emma had food to we all had food it was nice and then, we went crazy laughing telling stupid stories inventing stories. I all so invented something called, drum roll please, THE FIRE SLIDE. It is a slide made out of easy to burn metal that continuously pours oil down and then someone lights it with a lighter and people slide down it while it’s burning it very crazy invention. The slide is made out of easy to burn metal because people will slide down melting metal. I AM CRAZY (Mum edit: I assume this was a story they were telling with the other kids!). After that we went back to the hotel.
On the 20 th we went on an extremely long bus it was going to Kratie it was boring and long it was six hours I nearly died by boredom, I only survived because of my kindle it is a device that I can read on. I don’t have much to talk about, not very much happened. When we got there, we walked around for a while, there are lots of long streets. After that we went home.
On the 21st we went on a kayak to see dolphins, the river was calm and a few little rapids we didn’t see any fish but we saw dolphins. We also went to a sand island it was very fun I slid down the side of the sand island because it was very steep, when we left the sand island I raced the other people kayaking,
it turns out I’m pretty good at kayaking because I won. The dolphins that we saw were pretty shy they just came up a bit then went down but they were really cool. When we went home, we ate dinner and went to the hotel.
On the 22nd we did not do much we stayed at the hotel most of the day playing on my computer but at the end of the day we went to a temple. It had lots of stairs and monkeys and there was about a million statues, I can’t explain it, after that we went home.
On the 23rd we went to an island that had lots of trees and huge beaches, there were also lots of animals as well like, chickens, cows, and dogs. We hired some bikes to ride around the island, there were also huge trees but surprisingly no monkeys. When we went back to the beach to wait for the ferry to go back to main land I built a little dam in a little river running to the ocean.
Then we went on the ferry we went back to main land we went to the hotel.
The end
Andrew (9years old)Read more
2 days in Phnom Penh doing kids stuffs!
Jan 24–26, 2025 in Cambodia ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C
We are back to Phnom Penh for a couple of days, before heading off to Thailand.
As often now, we took yet another bus from Kratie to Phnom Penh: a short one, only 4 hours ish! Pretty uneventful.
We are staying in a different area of Phnom Penh this time: a lot less touristy, which mean a lot more busy traffic wise (we got stuck in traffic jam a few times in 2 days in tuk-tuks and this is another experience!)! But also, we discovered some area a lot richer, with relatively big buildings and bigger, cleaner walkways. But which is weird is that those streets are right next to smaller streets with street sellers everywhere and with less riches if that makes sense. There are also a lot of building being built around, a lot of noise and dust.
We spend the weekend doing fun stuff for the kids: we went to shopping centres where we found some really fun playgrounds (some free, some for a fee). We also find a small fair where the kids had a ball on bumper cars! I was super happy that Andrew and Emma played with several kids in those different places, even if they couldn’t speak the same language. This is definitely something I wanted them to experience.
Nothing super exciting to share, just a couple of easy days, before going on a long night bus Sunday night, to cover around 650km, but it should take around 10 hours I believe.
Next time we blog, we’ll be in another country: Thailand. As we are leaving Cambodia, I just want to write my experience of it. The first impression is the insane traffic; but saying that, in 3 weeks, we have not seen an accident (while in 2 days in Townsville, you are sure to see at least a couple!). The noise is always on, car, bikes, klaxon, music (they only know one level: very loud!). The smells: good and bad, you always smell something as there is always some food being cooked somewhere! The food is great here. The “hello” from children passing us with big smiles, especially in the countryside. Temples, temples everywhere: which always make me wonder if they could spend less money on temple and more on people…Obviously Angkor is a most see in Cambodia as it is beautiful. The friendliness of people: we never felt scared or uneasy here. I do think we got over charged a few times, but not very often and not by a lot. We had some interactions with super friendly and helpful people here, that were more that happy to hear us trying to speak Khmer (with more or less success!). Overall, a great country to visit, that I recommend to see.
Mel
24.1.2025. Early start for our bus. Not as packed as the last one and no chickens. We got to a different part of Phnom Penh, seems newer and way busier. We couldn't check in yet, so lunch and coffee. The room seemed really nice when we first got there. Yeah, turns out probably the worst room we've had so far. Won't go into the details but it's shit. Had no idea what to do, then decided to add to Emma's Pandora collection. First mall we went to(walking distance) only had one Cambodia themed charm, so we thought we would try a larger mall. Short Tuktuk ride and we find out that mall only has the same charm, yay. Did have a kinda cool playground on the top floor so the kids had a great time. What to do next? Oh yeah we drove past a fair in the bus earlier. You got it, Tuktuk ride to the fair. A fair few rides and bloody loud(Cambodians like loud music). Kids wanted to have a crack at the bumper cars, why not. Everyone was just driving around all calm and whatnot, until my lot got in there. Straight away, ramming people. Now these bumper cars aren't like the ones you see in Oz, big rubber cushion all the way around. Nah these have a 15mm thick foam stick on but round em and most of that is gone, so, when you hit you hit. There were a few weird looks at the kids, then what do ya know everyone is doing it, including a couple of the guys(teenagers by the looks) working there. 5,000 riel or about $2 in Oz for 1 car and it felt like they rode for a good 10mins or more. They had so much fun, hearing Emma's evil laugh always brings a smile to my face. When we left the workers waved and said goodbye. I think they had fun too. Ate food there, nothing to write home about, couple more rides and one more Tuktuk ride and bed. Goodnight.
25.1.2025. Late start, worked out more the room is shit. Decided to have breakfast here, won't do that again tomorrow. Took a… you guessed it, Tuktuk ride. To an even bigger mall, bloody huge. Why? Cause there is an indoor playground there. Slides, trampolines, climbing things, rock walls, elevated obstacle course, a flying fox thing, games and all sorts of stuff for the rats. Probably felt like a few minutes to the kids but we were there for around 5 hours. Late lunch early dinner then back to the room. Pack a bit and some relax time before bed.
Kev
(The kids are having a break about writing for the blog for today: they'll be back next blog entry!)Read more
5 days in Bangkok, Thailand
Jan 27–Feb 1, 2025 in Thailand ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C
Hello everyone,
We are in a new country, Goodbye Cambodia, hello Thailand, or to be more precise: hello Bangkok. We are doing a very quick trip in Bangkok for 5 days, just because I like Bangkok the last time and I wanted my family to experience it.
Thailand is on the west of Cambodia and is a fair bit richer that Cambodia. This is still southeast Asia but more modern and cleaner and with big buildings.
To arrive, we took a night bus. It was a sleeper bus with bunk beds. Each bed just big enough for 2 persons. The kids were incredibly excited, and it was fun to watch! They kept comparing it to the night bus in Harry Potter! Anyway, I didn’t sleep that well, as the bus stopped a lot on the way to pick up people, and nobody seems to know how to talk quietly! Also the driver (like every other driver here), use his klaxon a fair bit to let people know we were passing them (very common practice here!). We arrive at the border and it was such a weird experience. Nothing was clearly signed, and there were a lot of people. We must have looked a bit lost as several people showed us the way! But as I said, not much sign, people going everywhere and in different direction… we finally went through the border, with no issue, but yeah… weird! Then onto another bus for 4 hours and here we are in the middle of Bangkok, the capital of Thailand.
Around 9 million people live in Bangkok and that is obvious! A lot of traffic and traffic jam! Compared to Cambodia though, it is easier to cross street: there are more traffic light, which make it easier!
On the day of our arrival, we walked to find our hotel, settle for a bit and then had a walk around to find our bearings. We went to Khaosan Road, which is THE tourist street! A lot of bars, animation, restaurants, street cart food… Anything to keep tourist happy! As it is almost Chinese new year, we saw lion and Chinese dragon dances and it was pretty cool!
The next day. we went to the Grand palace, which is similar to the palace in Phnom Penh, but bigger, richer, better kept. It is very shiny, colourful and with a LOOOOT of people! But this is something to see. I wish we could visit the inside of the buildings more , as most of them, you can only see the outside. But overall, this is a beautiful palace. Andrew loved the murals and spent a fair bit of time looking at details in the pictures. I love watching the kids discovering and finding what get their interest.
We also went to see a 30 minutes show with traditional dancers: it was similar to the Apsara dancer we saw in Cambodia, but there were a whole story told this time and the theatre was bigger with beautiful backgrounds.
In the evening, we went back to Khaosan Road and Emma got colorful hair extension, and she was very happy!!! It does suit her very well. She sat like a champion for 3 hours with no complaint, which is funny because I can’t brush her hair for 2 minutes without a complaint!
Wednesday was Chinese New Year. We are in the year of the snake now. There were a lot of people wearing red in the street as red is a lucky color for Chinese people. Not everyone celebrates the Chinese new year here (it is not even a public holiday) but as there is a big Chinese community, there are a fair few celebration around.
We start our day by taking a public bus to get to a shopping centre to get Emma, her Pandora charm from Thailand (she is getting a new one in each country that has a Pandora). The shopping centres are all pretty massive here and it is easy to get lost in. They also have a lot of awesome decoration due to the new year.
After that, we went to the Lumphini park. This is a massive park, with small lakes and a lot of water monitors: they are huge lizards and they are everywhere! But as long as you don’t get in their way and bother them, there are fine. It is still unsettling when one is walking toward you though! We also did some peddle boat on the lake and it was a fun moment. We spend a while in there as it was nice being in “nature” in middle of this big city!
We finish the day with a new year celebrations show outside one of the big shopping centre. It was a mix between traditional story (told in Thai, so obviously, we had no clue what was happening) and modern boy band, plus dancers. It finished with a Thai boyband singing a few songs. We were a big far away for the stage, but as there were big screen, we still could enjoy the show. We end up dancing with the kids on the music and I actually really enjoyed myself. It is funny what you do when nobody knows you and you don’t care what you look like! We got back to our hotel by underground, and it was free! Don’t know why, but I am not complaining!
Thursday, we visited Wat Phro where the big laying Buddha is. This is one of the Buddha everyone come to see in Bangkok, because it is massive (46 meters long!) and beautiful. But there is so much more to see there. Wat Phro is the oldest temple in Bangkok and was a university where they study the body and traditional medicine. This is where the traditional Thai massage was studied and developed to help cure disease and help having better health. Traditional Thai massage, or Nuad Thai, is on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage. In the temple, there are also beautiful garden with statues depicting yoga position and massage position. It is a lot less crowed than the Grand Palace and a wonderful place to spend a few hours. If you ever come to Bangkok, this is a must see.
After that we were pretty hungry (well I was!) and went in search of street food (as it is a lot cheaper), but it seems that around the touristic area, there is almost none! It took us a bit to find something, but we finally came across a some and I got a full vegetarian meal and it was delicious! It feels harder to find vegetarian food in Thailand than it was in Cambodia. Everything has chicken or pork in it!!! Back to the hotel for a bit of rest and blog before we go back out again for dinner!
Friday was museum day: we went to the National museum Bangkok. It is a big museum. We arrived at the opening at 8.30 and left around 3pm! There is a lot to see!!! From buddha statues to modern visual art, to massive palanquin and painting in a temple with the explanation on the story told (Andrew’s favorite), porcelain and puppets…. This is a full day of discovery Thai culture and heritage. This was a very interesting day. By the end, our feet were a bit sore, so we end up having a feet massage and it was divine!!! Thailand is well known for their massage. and it is deserved!!! We didn’t want to leave! We followed that we a couple of drinks and dinner in a restaurant with a pound and some fish in it, to the great pleasure of the kids! And to finish our last full day in Bangkok, we took a tuktuk for one hour to take us around the main sites. Tuktuk here are at another level: some of them have light and big speaker and you can Bluetooth your phone to listen to your favorite music and that is what we did! We loved it!!!
Today is packing day again (we are getting faster at it) and tonight we are taking a night train this time to get to our next country, Laos! See you there!!!
Mel
26.1.2025. Packed up and went out for brekky. Found the bus station and dropped off our bags. Walked to a coffee shop with wifi and sat there most of the day, planning more of the trip. Walked, walked some more. Then we we walked a bit more. Finally ended up at the bus station again. Had some dinner there and waited. Never been on a night bus(hotel bus in Cambodia) except bloody Greyhound that goes overnight and most of us know how shit they are. On we hop, no seats. Small beds like bunks both sides of the bus top and bottom. Mel and I were a squeezy fit but we made it work as the kids want to be together. Didn't think it was gonna happen since the bus driver was all over the shop with the accelerator and I felt like a bloody yoyo, but I slept pretty good.
27.1.2025. Woke up, still on the bus. Got told we were near the Thai border and would be stopping soon. We had no idea what was going on and there seemed to be very little help. Showed our tickets again and we're given ID tags and told to “go that way”. Off we went, like tired zombies wandering aimlessly. We must have looked lost because locals kept helping us. “Up”, “that way”. Glad they were there cause there's stuff all signs anywhere. Found passport control, hey we're in Thailand. No we're not this was just to get out of Cambodia. Followed people across a bridge to a huge waiting area, no clue where to go next. Cue foreign lost face. “Hey! Up there”. Cheers buddy. Through to passport control, this time Thailand. Hey, we must be in Thailand. When did that happen, maybe the bridge. Security was the quickest part, offered to show my bag and got waved through. Now to find our guide, the guide who would take us to our next bus, the bus upon which we would get to Bangkok. As expected, he found us. Lost foreigner face to the rescue. Free coffee and wifi on a pretty comfy bus. Get to our next stay, check in and it's way better than our last one. Four bunk beds in our room but no complaints. Went out to check the place out, at night found the tourist district. Had a couple Thai beers, can recommend a couple. People trying to sell you everything including cooked scorpion, snake and tarantula. Settled for Padthai and some crumbed chicken and prawn.
28.1.2025. Today we visited the royal palace. My pants weren't long enough, I had “shame face”, sure mate whatever. Bought some new pants. Right there at the palace, almost as if this happens alot. Anyway, they're super comfy, light and breezy and may end up in my rotation. One pocket though, what's with that? I'm a cargo pants type of bloke and have all sorts of shit in my many, many pockets. To go back to just one felt, wrong. Oh yeah the palace. Shiny, tall gold and other multicoloured buildings. People bloody everywhere taking photos for instaface, showing people how happy they are being here. I worry about this next generation, go to some place special and all they do is pose with stupid faces and get in others ways. Entitled is a word that comes to mind, I got asked to move so someone could take a photo. Sure, why not, not like I payed to be here. I know, we take selfies and no doubt you've seen a few. But I'm not gonna set up a tripod in a busy area and pose and jump on each other for ages. Me, me ,me. Tourists have and always will piss me off. I know I know, you are a tourist Kev. The irony! I guess there's lots of good ones, Mel was and still is, though sometimes they annoy me(kidding if you read this). Alright rant done. The palace was nice, Andrew's favourite thing to do at palaces is to look at all the wall paintings, and here there was lots. We learned that with our tickets we could get a free shuttle to a theatre and see a Thai show. Not bad, very similar to Cambodia with the Apsara dancers but with a story. Found some lunch, now blogging.
Emma really wanted to get her hair done, so that's what happened. She sat for around 3 hours, no moaning no complaints while she had her hair pulled and braided and who knows what else. Never again is she allowed to whinge when I brush her hair. Took that long to do I had to fetch some grilled chicken on a stick for her dinner. Home late sleep.
29.1.2025. Off again in search of a Pandora charm for Emma. Found a really nice one she liked. Decided we didn't want to spend the rest of the day in a mall so off to the park. Great idea, lots of area and as we found out there were water monitors everywhere. Big ones! Some maybe close to 2m long. So, we looked at some lizards. Paddled around in a duck on a lake for half an hour. Played in a playground. Looked at some lizards again, realised there was lots of fish in the lake so we looked at them for ages(and rested in the bank). Kids climbed a tree to see fish better, tried to feed them dirt and grass(we don't feed wild animals) which worked better than you think it would, guess the fish are used to being fed. After that Mel had found a mall with a park area that had a Chinese new year thing going on, so we went for a look. Took a bit to find, but we managed. Had some dinner then watched a bit of a show about the new year. Then what I assume was a somewhat famous Thai group(2 people) sang a few songs. The locals seemed to love it and we got into he spirit and had fun. Took the underground for the first time on the way back to our room, late! Time for sleep.
30.1.2025. Visited another temple today, Wat Phro. For me it was a highlight so far. The palace I thought was too gaudy, too shiny. This temple, however had lots of nature themes. Softer colours and flower mosaics. With small waterfalls, miniature statues and buildings. Arranged amongst small trees(bonsai like maybe) and rocks. I think I took the most photos today, I prefer nature to cold stone and brick. Though there was still lots of that. Massive pillars reaching 42 metres high, identical heights for the 4 kings at the time. A huge building housing a 46 metre long laying Buddha. We read about how traditional Thai massage helped with the health of the body, the intangible. That this was a place were alot of it started and has been kept alive. It's the national headquarters for Thai massage and traditional medicine. Fascinating stuff, we wanted to get a massage there but it was very busy. Something for another time. After all this walking I could use a good Thai foot massage. We had lunch, found the river, then headed back to the room for a rest and blogging.
31.1.2025. We went to the museum today. Spent the full day there. A highlight was that they have explanations for the paintings in the temple and the meanings behind them. Was interesting reading. Kinda over looking at Buddha's. Luckily there was lots else to see. Weapons, puppets, elephant saddles and massive carts people would drag along with the king sitting in. By the end we were all spent. We decided a foot massage was in order, so that's what we did. Had to walk a bit to get there but it was worth it. We looked for new shoes for Emma but had no luck. Found some banana/Nutella roti for the kids instead, loved it. Mel had some sticky rice with mango and coconut. I had a beer. Found a place with its own waterfall, so we sat there and had a couple beers relaxing. Had dinner there and decided to have our first Thai Tuktuk ride. One hour for 500 baht just driving around. Guy had a speaker box set up with Bluetooth and flashing LEDs, so we cruised around blasting our music. Saw some more Bangkok then back to the room to finish our movie and sleep.
Guess whose back it ANDREW, now enjoy (and clap).
On the 26th we went on a night bus it’s a bus that drives through the night and has beds instead of seats, its bumpy. The bus was going to Bangkok in Thailand. A good thing about it is that I slept next to a window so I can look out a window while going to sleep it’s pretty nice. I played with Emma till 12 o’clock then I looked out the window for a while I couldn’t get to sleep then somehow, I did.
On the 27th we hadn’t got off the bus because it was a night bus, around 2 o’clock (mum edit: it was around 7am) we got to the border where we had to show our passport then we could go in the country. When we got to our hotel, we dumped our bags and walked around near the hotel we had some lunch and went back. I played on my computer and read on my kindle till dinner, when we went there, it was a street called Khaosan road we had Pad Thai. There were people on the side of the road that were selling cooked spider like tarantula but also centipedes, frog, snake, rat, cockroach, and many other bugs. We didn’t eat them though. When we went home, we slept, good night.
On the 28 th we went to see the royal place there was lots of buildings it big and I can’t explain most of it plus it was very shiny there were statues, and more statues. The buildings were very big, we did the same thing for a while so I’m not going to write much. When we went to the hotel, I wrote my blog but didn’t finish it so I did it another day.
On the 29 th we went to look for pandora for Emma, pandora is a bracelet thing. We looked for it in a big mall thing, I like going to malls here because in lots of them there are huge playgrounds that are really fun but my mum wouldn’t let me in for reasons, they cost money, and we were going to a park. The park was a huge park but only had a really small playground, the rest of the park was pond, grass, and walking path. In the park there werehuge lizards called water monitors they were everywhere, they were about a meter long. We went to a place where I could ride a duck boat around, I did it for a while then I went back to the bank. When we left the park, we went to another shopping centre where there was a Chinese show, it was Chinese New Year on the 29 th there was dancing, music, and singing. After that we went home.
On the 30 th we went to a temple that was huge it had lots of things like statues, big things called stupas, most of the statues were of Buda. There was a huge lying Buda it was forty-six meters long and it was made of gold. We did the same thing for a while so I’m not going to write much about it but I’m going to write about this. When we left, we went to another park, and guess what, there were water monitors there to. We walk around a bit then we went home.
On the 31 st we went to a museum and do I make myself clear when I say this, IT WAS HUGE. It was so huge that it had to be divided it to thirteen parts, and that means there were thirteen buildings and some of those buildings were divided into more parts. We went to most of the buildings but eventually, we got bored of it. But forget that, time to tell you what’s inside there was modern art like sticks, and other stuff that I don’t think is art. They had lots of paintings and thousand year old carvings. When we left my dad’s feet were sore so we went to get a foot massage, we had a foot massage for thirty minutes, it was good. When we left it was nearly dinner time my mum bought me and my sister roti, it’s a type of bread that you put toppings on like Nutella and chocolate, I had Nutella, it’s delicious, its cooked so it’s warm and the Nutella’s melty. When I finished, we went to a really nice restaurant, it had a pond with 20-30cm fish in it there was also a miny waterfall. We had dinner, went back, and slept.
Today we are leave Thailand and go to Laos I also wrote my blog
The end, Andrew (9 years old)
On Sunday night, we went on a night bus which was fun and boring. It was fun because we got to stay up a lot, but the bad thing was that at some point we had to sleep. We arrived at Bangkok in the afternoon and walked around a bit. The next morning we went to a palace were there was lots of clothes from kings and queens.(which was fascinating.) We also saw an emerald Booda (which was tiny.) and lots of temples. We spent most of the day walking but other whys it was fun. Then we had a late lunch and came back to the hotel. In the afternoon we went to get my hair done. The next day we went to a pandora shop to get charms for my bracelet. Then we went to a park with big water monitors. There was also duck boats we got to ride on. Then we went to a mall to watch a show, and I liked it. There was a dragon and a few lions as well which I liked. Then we went back to our hotel and slept. The next day we went to a temple with a ginormous laying budda and lots of other stuff. Then we went to have lunch and thought about going to the museum but in the end we decided to go back to our hotel. The next day we went to the museum for the hole day but at the end of it our feet were acing. So we went to the masseuse for a massage on our feet. After that we went and our parents had a few beers. While we were there we had dinner and then went around looking for a tuktuk to take us to see a bit more about Thailand. Today we are going but I think it was amazing.
Emma (8 years old)Read more
Vientiane, Laos
Feb 1–7, 2025 in Laos ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C
We are in Laos and to be more precise, in Vientiane the capital, right at the border with Thailand.
After spending Saturday afternoon at the train station (as when we have to check out of our hotel with our bags, it is hard to do anything else!), doing their first official homeschooling work on their math books, and playing card games to pass the time, we took our first night train to go from Bangkok to Vientiane in Laos. It was NOT comfortable! I couldn’t get beds tickets, so we had seats, which were not very comfortable and the light in the carriage stayed on all night…. We did not sleep well (the kids better than us apparently). When we arrive at the border the next morning, I had previously organised our evisa and I thought it would make it easier. It didn’t! I thought I read all the information properly, but apparently not as evisa cannot be used through the entry by train. We had to take our bags off the train, take a tuktuk to the Thai border, pass the border, take a bus to the Laos border, pass the border after writing an entry card for the four of us, and take a tuktuk to our hotel. It was supposed to be easier than that. Anyway, we also have trouble with our bank cards, and we couldn’t find ATMs that work for us and we had a fair bit of trouble getting Kips (which is the Laotian money). Luckily, we had some US dollars left, and we use that to change them to Kip.
After settling in our hotel, we had our regular walk around to discover our area. It was a bit underwhelming, maybe because we were tired, or frustrated due to the issues of the day. So back to the hotel for a good night sleep.
The next day we walked a lot along one long street full of temples and small museums. The temples here are Buddhist as it is the main religion (as Cambodia and Thailand) but they are more recent, as a lot of temples were destroyed during the 20th century due to wars. We found one old temple. It was a lot of walking, but the kids did great. We also visited the COPE visitor centre.
COPE stands for Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise. “It is a local non-profit organisation created in 1997 by a group of non-governmental organisations, in partnership with the Lao Ministry of Health, to support the Centre for Medical Rehabilitation and help ensure that people with physical disabilities have local, affordable access to quality, nationally-managed rehabilitation services” (taken from their website).
I didn’t know much about the history of Laos to be honest. There were a lot of war in during the 19th and 20th century. Civil war, independence war, the Vietnam war.
“The Laotian Civil War was waged between the Communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government from 23 May 1959 to 2 December 1975. The Kingdom of Laos was a covert theatre during the Vietnam War with both sides receiving heavy external support in a proxy war between the global Cold War superpowers (Russia and USA). The fighting also involved the North Vietnamese, South Vietnamese, American and Thai armies, both directly and through irregular proxies. The war is known as the Secret War.” (from Wikipedia).
From 1964 to 1973, the US dropped over 2 million tons of ordnance over Lao in 580 000 bombing missions: the equivalent of one planeload every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day, for 9 years… Please read the last sentence again and let it sink in.
Out of all those bombs, between 10 to 30% did not detonate. With means that since then, people have been stepping on them and lost a limb (or several) or died. COPE helps cleaning the country of all those bombs and help people who need prosthetics. They don’t only help people who get hurt from UXO (unexploded ordnance) but everyone who need prosthetic for whatever reason.
They obviously need funding. If you feel like it, here is a link: https://copelaos.org/donate/. This is a worthy cause (it will become one of our regular monthly donations when we come back).
It was a heart wrenching visit, but an important one. Traveling shows us how lucky we are to live where we live. Not everything is perfect, but we have to count our blessings and help the less fortunate one when we can. It is a lesson that I hope Andrew and Emma will take with them and hopefully their generation will take better decisions.
The next day, we went to visit Buddha Park. I was a bit hesitant to visit yet another place with Buddha statue, as we have seen a lot lately!!! But it was a lovely place, outside, with a lot of pretty impressive statues. It was worth a visit.
Then we had to spend some time doing some school work. But I love how different it is from normal school work: doing research about what we see, writing about it, using math to count different money and how much it is in Aussie dollars. So much more interesting!
In the evening, we found a small fair and the kids (well Andrew as Emma got hurt a little bit and got out of it quickly) had fun doing dodge car.
Our next day was a bit different. We want the kids to learn about history and culture, so we often do museum, but we felt that we had done a lot lately, so we found something a bit more fun: it is called the ‘Trick art museum’. It is not a museum. It is in a shopping centre and it is a place with a lot of 3D paintings and you can take pictures in front of it and it looks ‘real’. The kids loved it. We took what feel like a billion pictures! After that we walked our way back and we walk through the normal Vientiane (as opposed to the tourist Vientiane). Laos is richer that I thought, and we saw some really nice houses. And it was not like in Cambodia where you see one really big and lovely house in the middle a lot of poor one. The average cost of living is a fair bit higher and that surprised me (I should have done my homework!). This is great for the Laotian people of course, but it means that things are more expansive here than expected (still very much affordable though compared to Australia!)
We spend the evening sipping on a bottle of red wine at a lovely pub while playing board games with the kids, which was really nice.
Thursday we had a computer morning, doing blogging and school work and a bit of work for me.
After lunch we had a Laotian massage. It was tough!!!! The kids had it nice, but Kev and I had the full experience and well, it was at my limit of tolerance! I think I will get a relaxing massage next time. Don’t get me wrong, it was good, but they try to stretch your body as far as it can! One of the position is: you are laying on your front, the person doing the massage has one foot on your back and lift your legs as high as they can go.. That was an interesting feeling!!!
In the evening, we went to the Blues Box: this is a bar which play blues music. But that night, there was a band playing guitar and singing. They were awesome. Really calm bluesy vibes. The atmosphere was so peaceful relaxing. We got a couple of cocktails, which were delicious, for very reasonable prices. This is a hidden gem in Vientiane and if you are in the area, go check it out (the Blues Box near the Nam Phou fountain).
Then today is packing day again as we are going to Vang Vieng (2 hour bus ride)! See you soon!
Mel
1.2.2025. Stayed in the room all morning, then took a bus to the train station. We had planned to see some stuff around the station, but were unable to get storage for our bags. So, 6 hours or so at the train station. Hopped on the train around 9:30 and off to Laos. The train sucked. The seats were shit(couldn't get a sleeper), it got bloody cold and they never turned the lights off all night. The kids slept ok but it was a rough night for Mel and I.
2.2.2025. Another messy border crossing, had to get off our train and cross by foot, even though it was an international train supposedly going to our destination. More time and more money. Anyway, we made it to our hotel which seems nice. Had a look around the place, decided on a pretty nice restaurant for dinner since the last couple days had been shit.
3.2.2025. Late start after trying to sort some stuff out. Visited a few temples within walking distance and then the COPE visitors centre. Not everyone knows about the “secret war” in Laos, I certainly didn't. During the Vietnam war Laos was on the receiving end of enormous amounts of bombings(1 full plane load of bombs every 8mins 24/7 for 9 years), a total of 2 million tonnes of ordinance. Of which they believe 10-30% never exploded and are still a danger. The Americans bombed Laos in an attempt to disrupt Vietnamese supply lines. To this day there are still unexploded ordinance causing casualties in Laos, though through extensive efforts there are fewer each year as they painstakingly remove them. To see photos of innocent people many years after this war still being hurt or worse by this is heartbreaking.
Emma was in need of new thongs/sandles, they kept slipping off causing her to drag her feet and by the end of the day her feet were disgusting. We found a mall not far and had a look. Got some snazzy looking ones with something at the back so they won't slip off, looks like a proper backpacker now! Found somewhere dinner, really nice Lao curry. Better yet, found my first dark beer. Was a dark larger, nowhere near a Guinness but it was probably the best beer of the trip so far. There will be pictures of all the beers I try at some point.
4.2.2025. Hired a Tuktuk to take us to Buddha park. I'm about Buddha'd out, but this park was pretty nice. Lots of different statues amongst pathways with trees and flowers. Now back at the room, blogging. We went out later looking for a few drinks and later dinner. Found a nice rooftop bar, tried a few more local Laos beers while watching the sunset. I found something called “the walking market”. Small rides and some dodgem cars. Kids had a go at the dodgems, no seatbelts and they are a bit small so it was tough on the big hits. Emma had a head on with a guy who apologised alot. I think she hit the steering wheel with her chest and got a bit scared, so that was enough for her. Came to the side and stopped. Andrew lasted alot longer but eventually it got too much for him too as we noticed he was avoiding alot of contact and only hitting from behind. It cost us 60,000kip for both of them to ride(about $4.40) and it lasted for ages, they only stopped it because a girl busted her lip. Andrew later told us that the accelerator pedal did nothing, the car was always on. After that we were hungry, so we ventured further up the walking market. Found some food, pretty ordinary, wrong food twice. They tried to charge us for what we didn't order. So overall not a great experience food wise. We've had way better food for much less. See what happens when I find something to do.
5.2.2025. Tuktuk to a shopping centre to have a look at the Trick Art museum. 3d paintings on walls and floor to take photos with. Wasn't sure what to expect but we weren't disappointed. Took 100’s of photos each and all had fun. After that we found a small arcade and changed some money for tokens. After that Mel was especially hungry and we had noticed a cafe next to the shopping called “The Mystery Cafe”. Really nice place, great decor, food was really nice. I had a beef stew, bloody terrific. We all had a dessert afterwards and left full as googs and very satisfied. Highly recommend if your ever in Vientiane. Walked back to our room because we're trying to save a bit of money on Tuktuks and get a bit more fitness. Took around an hour and a half to get back. Shower, cause we all smell, especially the kids(they stinky). Andrew is becoming more happy with beef noodle soup, it's not usually spicy. Emma just wanted steamed rice, and suprise suprise she was still hungry after. Finished off Andrew's soup. Mel was craving a glass of wine(it's been ages). We found a nice bar, picked out a very nice Bordeaux and enjoyed that together. The kids got nothing!! Hahahahahaha!!! That's it for today, stay tuned for more.
6.2.2025. Planning a slow day today. Had some breakfast, which for the last 3 days has been 3 cups of noodles for the kids and I and the free breakfast sandwiches for Mel. Free coffee and hot chocolate for the kids. Kids did their school work and blogged a bit then were allowed to play a bit. We realised it was after 12 when my belly growled at me. Put everything away and found a nice little restaurant for lunch, delicious. Andrew has taken to beef noodle soup, safe bet it won't be spicy. After lunch we went for what is becoming a tradition in this family. We all had a full body local massage, we slipped up in Thailand and only had a foot massage. Going ahead, it's only full body massages from now on. Tropical north day spa should take note, if they weren't so bloody pricey we'd go there way more often. I had a sneaking suspicion the bloke was trying to break me, never copped that many elbows in a rugby maul. After this massage I really felt it, my calves were given a real work over. 60mins seemed to fly by. We returned to the room and did some research, compiling information on where we have been. Headed out for some dinner, burgers and chips. Then off to “The Blues Box”, a blues bar we had found in our wanderings earlier. We decided to go Thursday night as live music was advertised. It did not disappoint. The trio sang in English and played guitar. The music was great and the voices superb. Coupled with a dark, relaxed atmosphere and some very well made cocktails, created a wonderful end to our night. We did not want to leave, but we could tell the kids, who have been great and not once whinged were getting very tired. Today was one of my favourites of the trip so far. We didn't see any temples or museums. We didn't go to any playgrounds or amusement parks. We just spent the day together, as a family. That is what this trip is for me.
7.2.2025. Guess what! We're packing for our next destination, yay! Talk to ya later.
Kev
On the 1st we waited in our room for a while because we were leaving on that day, but it was in the night so we had to wait. We waited in the hotel for a while, I played on my computer for a while but I don’t remember what the others did, but soon I ran out of battery.
When we left, we went on a bus that took us to the train station, (the train was going to Laos) we are going on a night train in case you didn’t know, so what ever. When the train left it was around eleven o’clock at night (Andrew edit: there’s going to be a mum edit because it’s probably the wrong time I didn’t check) (Mum edit: it was actually pretty close: we left at 9pm). When I fell asleep it was twelve and I was still on the train.
When I woke on the 2nd it was 7am, when we got to the border, our visa wouldn’t work because it was an evisa and they didn’t accept it. My mum had to fill out some paperwork so we could get through, when we were finished, we went into Laos. We went to find a tuktuk to drive us to our hotel, and we did. When we got there, we dumped our bags and walked around like we always do, it wasn’t that interesting it’s just streets. When we came back to the hotel we slept.
On the 3rd we walked around a lot looking at temples, it turns out there are a lot of temples in Laos. There was old temples and new temples, lots and lots of temples. Guess what we did after that, we looked at another temple, bet you weren’t expecting that. When we finally stopped looking at temples, we went to a war museum thing, it was about the secret war. I’m not going to talk about it for reasons.
On the 4th we went to the Buddha Park, it’s a park that has a lot of buddhas, it was big and old, I don’t have much to talk about, other than it was so cool. There was this huge circle thing about 35 meters tall called the giant pumpkin (it looked nothing like a pumpkin), there was also a big lying buddha, it was 40 meters long. There wasn’t just that there were also 200 smaller statues about gods, demons and monks. When we left it, we went to a place called walking street, it isn’t really a street, it’s more like big walking path that has rides and food. Sadly, the only ride we went on is bumper cars, but they had big crashes and sometimes a bit of the back of car would lift of the ground. It was rough. When we finished, we went home.
On the 5th we went to a place called the trick art museum, it was a place that had pictures that we could stand on and they were 3d. So, we took pictures of ourselves and on the pictures it would look like I was at the place. I can’t explain it at all but it was awesome. We went back to the hotel and put a way our stuff and went to a restaurant. When we finished, we went to the hotel to sleep.
On the 6th we stayed at home and wrote our blog and my mum said if we be good, we can get something, and I’m still trying to find out what that something is, I hope it’s something fun. When we left for lunch, my mum gave me a hint that pretty much gave it away, they said it’s going to be relaxing not fun, we were going to a massage. I like massages because I just lie down and people massage me (plus it’s cheaper than Townsville) the sad bit about that is that we had to eat lunch before and I’m very slow at eating (so is Emma, she’s even slower than me). But when we were finished, we went there, it was nice it was an hour long and it only cost $35 AUD, for the four the four of us, very cheap. When we were done, we went to the hotel and worked on our blog for a bit then we went to dinner, we went to a jass club the music was nice and the place was fancy, it was nice. When we left we went back to the hotel and slept.
On the 7th we wrote our blog and packed up because we were leaving to go to Vang Vieng, we are rushing because we are leaving very soon and I still have to get ready. So, I’m rushing to write my blog but the only problem with that is that I like to write a lot. I’m about to finish, look, it’s the end.
The End. Andrew (9 years old)
Saturday the 1st, we stayed in our last room till midday. Then we went and took a bus to the train station and did our very first homework of the year. Around 9 o'clock we got on the train and we were off. To be honest I didn’t really like being on the train because it was uncomfortable. Sunday the 2nd, we arrived in Laos BUT WE HAD TROBLE AT THE STUPID BORDER. We dropped our bags off at our new hotel and walked around a bit. Monday 3rd, we visited lots of temples and a COPE building. The COPE building was all about a war. Some Laos people were fighting other Laos people. And the bad thing about that is the US bombed most of Laos, and lots of people got killed or badly injured. It was so hard to listen to, I cried. I felt so so sad for them. We donated money to them, to help them get better. After that we went and found me new shoes. (which are comfy)
On Tuesday the 4th, we went to the Buddha park and saw lots of buddhas. At the buddha park there was this ginormous pumpkin. I am sad we couldn’t go in the pumpkin. But I’m happy I got to see everything else I did. I also saw a big laying buddha. it was about ten cars long. Wednesday the 5th, we went to a trick art museum, where there was lots of pictures that looked 3d: like for instance on the ground there was a picture of a vine with a hole under it, and on the wall behind it was a jungle. It was fun doing all those funny poses. Our, well my, legs were hurting by the time we got back. They hurt and I could not take a tuktuk which made them hurt EVEN MORE!!!!!!!!!!! (by the way, don’t you dare laugh at me or I will get very angry the next time I see you! I heard that. Opps I almost forgot to put on the bracket.) HEY!
Thursday the 6th, we had breakfast then we did school work and blog. Then We went and had lunch and then we had a massage. After that we had dinner, dad, Andrew and I had burgers and mum had a pizza. Then we went to the blue box were there was live music and I got a mocktail. I loved the live music but what I loved more was being with my family.
Emma (8 years old)Read more
Vang Vieng, Laos
Feb 7–14, 2025 in Laos ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C
We took the shortest bus we had so far. A couple of hours between Vientiane and Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is a small town, known to be the party town. Several years ago, it was known to have several accidents a year with tourists intoxicated doing dangerous activities. But the authorities decided to take actions, and it seems to be better now. It is still a party town but with a bit more rules. The town is very touristic, with guesthouse and restaurants everywhere, and place to book tours. A lot of buildings are being built as well, and I am wondering if the nature, restful, fun vibes are going to stay for long here or if it is going to become a town with big, massive hotels (as there are already a few).
But we did not come here to party, but to see the beautiful landscapes around and it did not disappoint.
On the first day here, we did our regular tour of the area. For dinner, Emma did some research on her computer to find a vegetarian restaurant, find where it was on the map, she memorized the way and took us there, all by herself. She did excellent! And the restaurant was delicious with a huge vegetarian selection! I love watching them being more and more confident. I love the learning that they are both doing.
The next day, we booked a tour (again, I don’t know why because I don’t like tour!!!). But it does show us some of the things we can do around.
So on that day, we went cave tubing: imaging yourself on a big floatie on a river which run under a mountain, you are holding a cable to pull yourself along and float around the cave. It is fun, but it was pretty short. We did that for 10 minutes max, so I was a bit disappointed. I love cave and could have stay longer.
After that we saw a small cave with a “elephant shaped’ stalagmite. Cute but yeah, could have done something else.
Then they took us ziplining. Well we were supposed to go the 4 of us, but after a steep walk to get to the beginning of the zipline high in the mountain, Emma realised she couldn’t do it. It was way too high for her. After a little bit of talk, she said it was above her limit and she couldn’t do it, so Kev and Andrew went, and Andrew loved it! He is an adrenaline seeker!!! Emma and I went back down to wait for them. We might try again another zipline but not as high. To be honest, being scared of height, I was fricking out too, but was keen on trying. Maybe the lowest one will be better for me too!!
Then we went kayaking. It was a bit more dangerous that the last time we did kayaking (in Kratie, Cambodia looking for dolphin). As I said this is a party town and one of the activity, is to float around the river on big floaties while drinking some beers. So when you are kayaking, you need to go around them. I am not bad at kayaking but this is next level!!! A bit too stressful for me. Then we went to one of the blue lagoon (there are several around) to have a swim in blue water, a bit cold but fun! But there again, obviously there are a lot of people. But we still have fun.
The next day, we rented a buggee to be able to go where we wanted and it was one of the best day of the trip for me. We drove to one of the viewpoint. The hike was hard, steep, and I was huffing and puffing, but when you reach the top: it is so worth it! The views are magnificent. For some reason, there is things at the top where you can take pictures on with the view behind you. The first one had a motorbike. The second one we went, had a plane! I don’t know how they brought it up!!!
The kids amazed me during the hikes. Andrew as always has limitless energy and was pretty much always at the front. Emma, despite it being difficult for her, powered on and made it to the top with no complaint. I am incredibly proud of her.
On our second hike, we found caves on the way up. When I was a child, I use to do summer camp and always tried to have some caves exploration in them because I love caves! It was so nice doing that again. Caves are magical, beautiful, secretive, filled with discovery. It was the best time of the day for me.
The next day, my body reminded me of some muscles I forgot I had! A little bit in pain but it was so worth it. But yeah, rest day! A bit of school work, blogging, and rest! Well this is what was planned! During the day, I started feeling pretty bad and ended up being sick all day long: my day was spent spewing on the toilet, have a shower, rest in bed for a bit and repeat! Not my best day. I supposed it was a stomach bug, as Andrew spewed a couple of time during the night before, but he, being young and healthy, was all better by the morning!!! This is also part of traveling: you are exposed to bugs your body is not used to!
On the next day, I was feeling better but pretty weak as I didn’t keep any food in the day before, so we did an easy day. We just walk around the town, booked activities for the next couple of days and our next train ticket for our next adventure and that was it. Kids had lots of computer time and they loved it!
Wednesday we were back out again: caves exploring. We went to Loup cave and Hoi cave which are right next to each other. We had a tuktuk booked to get there as it is a bit far out of town to walk to it. We arrive around 8.30am and nobody was there. We could enjoy the caves all by ourselves. It is magical walking through the caves, looking at stalagmites (they go up) and stalactites (they go down), pigmentation of the rocks changing with the different minerals brought by the water, hearing the drops falling and knowing you are hearing those beautiful formation are being formed, turning all the lights off and being in complete darkness… and so much more! I love caves!!!
The 2 caves we saw were pretty different from each other: Loup Cave is full of rock formation and small hole you can try to squeeze in. Hoi Cave is a long tunnel with stalactites, we don’t know how far it goes as we didn’t quite reach the end (it was getting pretty tight, so we didn’t want to risk it!). It was awesome being by ourselves in those caves. We only saw one other tourist in the first cave. We truly enjoyed ourselves.
Then back to the hotel to deal with reality as our house, back in Townsville, has water damage due to the heavy rain there. It is hard to deal with insurance and stuff when we are far away, but we’ll manage!
Thursday, we went on a hot air balloon trip!!! Wake up early (5.15am) to be pick up by tuktuk before the sunrise. When we arrived where the balloon was getting ready, it was a bit chaos. Several balloons were being set up next to each others. I think there were around maybe 15 hot air balloons! A lot of people setting everything up and then we had to hope in the basket. Being scared of height, I was a bit apprehensive, but if I didn’t look down too much and more watching forward, I was fine. The landscapes were great. We didn’t go too far as the wind was pretty calm and stay above the town a fair bit, but the views of the mountains around were beautiful. We also saw the sun rising out behind some mountains and that was amazing as well. We stay up for around 40 minutes. It was definitely an experience. Emma said it was one of the best days of her life, despite being a bit worried before, so that is a very big win.
After that, we had a lovely breakfast and played some board games at a coffee place.
Now we are blogging, and the kids will have to do some school work at some point! Not much plan this afternoon apart packing again, as we are off tomorrow on our last stop in Laos, Luang Prabang where we will stay for 10 days.
See you there! Mel
7.2.2025. Guess what! We're packing for our next destination, yay! Talk to ya later.
Got to Vang Vieng. Looked around, had some dinner( a restaurant Emma found on Google maps and led us there). Watched a movie and went to bed.
8.2.2025. We organised a tour for today. Some tubing in a cave(very short, kinda lame), some zip lining(was too much for Em she couldn't do it), then had lunch. Did some kayaking, was the highlight of the day but chaotic as we got close to the party area. People swimming/tubing and lots of kayaks made it a bit stressful towards the end. Last part of the tour we were taken to a lagoon. Was nice, but bloody cold and people everywhere. Overall we weren't that impressed with the tour and decided we would organise our own things. When we got back to the room, we organised with the guy running the show to get a buggy tomorrow. We'll see how that goes.
9.2.2025. Picked up from our guesthouse(most companies will do that for you in SE Asia) and taken to get our buggy. You’re not allowed to drive them through town, it's ok out of town to get to hiking trails/waterfalls/lagoons. A small drive and we were at our first spot. Hiked up a mountain to the tippity top. There's a motorbike up there(how'd that get up there). Obligatory pictures and some bad commentary on my behalf and we were on our way back down. Seems harder to go back down as it's pretty steep. Once we were at the bottom we grabbed some drinks and lunch. I have had a couple of avocado smoothies now, today's was the best so far. The sandwiches we had, not so great. Back in the buggy and off to the next spot. We had planned to do a bigger, harder trail but after the first one we ruled it out. We picked another shorter one that was supposedly “moderate” with some caves. The cave was pretty good and we all enjoyed it. Now to climb to the top. This mountain has 2 peaks each with their own “thing” at the top. We decided to go up to the peak with an aeroplane first, the other has a Pegasus. After getting to the peak, having a rest and waiting to have a picture taken in the aeroplane, we decided we were too buggered to do the Pegasus peak(even Andrew) and made our way back down. Our day had slipped away, time flies when having fun and with good company. We drove our buggy the rest of the way around the circuit and back to the hire company. A little early but we didn't mind, also right on time to be dropped back at our guesthouse as the driver was dropping off more people. Time for a hot shower as we were all very dirty, especially Emma. Rested, then headed out for dinner.
10.2.2025. Today we decided to do a rest/planning/school work/blog day. Was timed well as Andrew was unwell during the night and Mel not so great today. I did some laundry and watched the Superbowl highlights with the kids. It's now lunchtime but nobody is hungry, we'll see where the rest of the day takes us.
Mel is still pretty ordinary, not hungry whatsoever. I took the kids out for a walk and some food while Mel rested.
11.2.2025. Did bugger all today as Mel is pretty crook. Organised some stuff for the next couple days and did some trip planning. Later had a nice dinner at a Frenchie restaurant.
12.2.2025. We had organised a Tuktuk(small truck with a cage and seats in the back so they can take lots of people/kayaks) to take us to some caves. A short drive later we had a cave all to ourselves(Loup cave). It started small, but soon opened up to a large cave inside with lots of stalactites(some which had fallen). We had a fair bit to explore as this cave was reasonably wide in places and with the stalactites there was more than one way to go. About 50m from the entrance of the first cave there is another(Hoi cave). We noticed alot of beehives built high above the entrance to this one, we counted 10 or more. As we entered the second cave we noticed it was very different. More narrow, and went on for ages into the mountain. It's fascinating that two caves so close to each other could be so different to each other. Later we had a nice dinner, a couple drinks(beerlao is pretty good, especially the dark) and wandered back to the room as we have an early start tomorrow.
13.2.2025. Early start today, yay! What for you ask? Hot Air balloon!!! First time for three of us. Emma was a bit worried but that didn't last long. Was fun, we were in the air for around 40mins or so. Hit a tree(gently) on the way down, and everyone had fun. It was kinda cool, not as exciting as I was expecting. To make it exciting we may have lost 1 or 2 people I suppose. It's not a buggy after all. Anyway we all had something to talk about as we walked to find somewhere to have brekky. Now back at the room, blogging and school work. Oh yeah and packing for our next destination again.
Kev
Hello people I apologize for not making crazy entrances like this all the time I post my blog, so here is a crazy entrance. I’M BACK I hear you all clapping in whatever country you are in, well thank you it warms my heart, so clap louder!!!. I can hear you but I want it louder, good, you’ve learnt how to clap properly. If any of you people out there are telling me to get to the proper part, (don’t deny it I know you are) I’ll say to you, I’ll hurry up, now enjoy. (You better).
On the 7th we went on a bus that took us to Vang Vieng, it was a very short bus, only two hours, short compared to a fourteen hour one we took to Bangkok earlier in the trip. Whatever, my mum told me that I’m going to enjoy it in Vang Veing because it has a lot of fun things to do in nature. Those fun stuff are, ziplines, hot air ballons, waterfalls, kayaking, caves, cave tubing ( cave tubing is where I hop in an inflatable donut and pull yourself with a rope throw a water cave). When we got there we found our hotel then went to find some dinner, (it was 6 o’clock), we had dinner then went home to sleep.
On the 8th we went on a tour that took us to a few different places, the first place we went was to a cave where we could do cave tubing. We didn’t go all the way to the end of the cave because it was so long it would take two days to finish it. After that we went to a cave it was a dry cave not a water cave it was pretty small so we didn’t spend much time there, after that we went to the zipline. When we got there we got into the harness and began our climb up the mountain, when we got to the top we hopped on the zipline and of we went. Sadly, Emma got a bit to scared and went back down instead of going on the ziplines but I did, it turned out to be very fun there and there wasn’t just one zipline. There was a bunch of small ziplines that connected and I went on every single one of them. After that we went to a river that we kayak in, the river was shallow and there were lots of rock me and my dad were in the same kayak and we nearly flipped over but we didn’t. After that we went to a lagoon that was very crowed so we didn’t stay there very long. When we went home we ate dinner and slept.
On the 9th we rented a buggy so we could drive around and look at mountains and stuff at the top of a mountain there was a motor bike that I can sit on and take pictures on the top of another mountain there was a plane that I can take pictures of to. I can’t explain that much about it because we did the same thing for most of the day. After that we went to the hotel and slept.
On the 10th we didn’t do much because my mum was sick, they spewed a lot, bad juju. All I really did was, write my blog, play on my computer I also was a bit sick in the night, I spewed twice. We didn’t do much so on to the next day.
On the 11th, we walked around a bunch of different streets we hadn’t been in yet, we walked around near the river pretty much we just walked around, that’s pretty much all we did. we walked a lot can’t explain much about today either. When we went back to the hotel we went to sleep.
On the 12th we went to two caves that were next to each other, well actually just the entrances where next to each other the paths inside both went in a different direction. We never actually got to the end of any of the tunnels they where both very big. Inside the caves there were rock formations everywhere it was so cool, in one of the caves, when it is the rainy season the cave fills up whit water, I could see where the water left marks. When we finished we went back to the hotel and we slept.
On the 13th we woke up very early, the reason we woke up early is because we’re going on a hot air ballon!!! It is so exiting, I’ve never been in a hot air balloon, when we went outside we got picked up by a tuktuk that would take us to the hot air balloon place. When we got there I could only see two ballons but when I was up in the sky I could see about fifteen balloons, at least. The flight lasted forty-five minutes but I wish it lasted a bit longer, that would have been better but whatever, it was still super fun. When we went home we worked on our blog after that we posted our blog and ate dinner and did what any other human child would do at night, beg there parents for a movie, oh I forgot, after that sleep.
The end 😊😉😊😉
Next episode coming sone (hopefully)……………
Andrew (9 years old)
On Friday the 7th we took a bus to Vang Veing, but it was short one this time. When we got there, we had a little walk around, I found a restaurant on my computer and led us there by myself. On Saturday the 8th we had a tour. We went cave tubing which I got a little scared about doing. We went to the elephant cave which wasn’t really a cave. we did ziplining which was terrifying, so I ended not doing it. Then we went kayaking through the river with strong currents. I think the people in the river were more dangerous than the actual river. They were just bobbing along while watching us crash into each other and rocks. After that we went to the blue lagoon and played in the water for a bit. On Sunday the 9th we rented a buggy and went to two maintains. We hiked both all the way to the tippity top. At the top of the first one is a motorbike and at the top of the second one was a plane. On Monday the 10th we did our blog and our schoolwork. Then mum got sick, so we played on our computer. Then we did some board games after. Tuesday the 11th we walked around a bit in town and looked at the lake. We didn’t do much that day. Now moving on to the next day. Aham. (Preparing to say the words.) Wednesday the 12th we went to two caves. The 1st we went to was complicated because it had lots of tunnels and we had to remember the way. The 2nd we went in was cool because it was only one tunnel but there were animals as well. This is the last day I am going to tell you about this place. Thursday the 13th we went to the place where there launch hot air balloons. I was scared when I first saw the blue flames IT SCARED THE LIVING S**T out of me. (note to parents please read the blog before showing kids.) But when we were in the air I felt completely safe. It was a joy being in the air and when it was time to get off I was sad. 😉😊
Emma (8 years old)Read more
Super les grottes, j adore aussi ! Le vol en ballon devait être magnifique 😻 [Céline]
Luang Prabang (part 1)
Feb 14–19, 2025 in Laos ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C
Hi everyone.
Last time we blogged we were in Vang Vieng. From there, we took the new fast train to go to Luang Prabang. This train is pretty recent and I think was mainly built to go to China as Laos as a border with China and a lot of tourists come from there.
They overdid the security at the train station a bit too much I think. As we were entering the station, we had to put our bags in a scanner like the ones in airport and same as an airport, we found out that you can’t have a spray deodorant or scissor. Again this is a TRAIN station! It is not like you can checked bags! You have your bags with you and we have everything in our bag that we need to live at the moment. So, we end up loosing our deodorant and a small pair of scissors that Kev had to trim his beard… Slightly annoyed!!!! Anyway, we get in the train, there are people in our seats, no staff to help us there… language barrier is strong. We end up seating on other empty seats with our bags.. not comfortable but it is only for one hour ish.
Finaly, we arrive at Luang Prabang. A bit of history and geography first:
Luang Prabang is located in the central north of Laos and seat on the river Mekong. The town was established by the end of the 8th century and was named Xieng Thong. Around the 12th and 13th century, the Khmer kingdom extend all the way to Xieng Thong and brought Buddhism and the name was changed to Luang Prabang, after a statue of Buddha, the Prabang (a gift from Cambodia). The town grew in wealth as it was well positioned on the silk road.
During the 19th century, due to dynasty struggles, the Laos kingdom fell apart and Luang Prabang region became its own independent kingdom. Then in 1893, Laos became a French protectorate and Luang Prabang was the religious and royal capital. Laos gained its independence in 1953.
Today’s Luang Prabang reflect a strong influence of the French protectorate but also kept the traditional Laos architecture. There are also traditions, like the alms giving ceremony to monks, which are still very much alive. This is why the area became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995, the city is recognized for blending traditional Lao architecture, European colonial buildings, and over 30 Buddhist temples. And that is it for my lesson.
On the day, we arrived, we did our regular setting up into our room and walk around the area. The town is very lovely: there is no big building, it has a small town feeling with beautiful architecture. We found the night market, where lots of textile products are sold (as it is a big trade of the area). We had a couple of drinks and called it a day.
The next day, we went to visit the museum, which used to be the royal palace. It was my turn to be told, I couldn’t get in with my shorts, even if there were under my knees: I was made to wear a traditional skirt (that you paid a small fee to rent obviously), which was very restricting to walk in!!! I do not like skirt, so I was already annoyed to have to wear one, and they stop you taking big steps. I apparently take bigger steps that the average Laotian woman, because I kept getting restricted by that bloody skirt! Anyway!!!! We visited the museum, which I enjoyed as it was still set as the palace was, with the king and queen rooms and reception hall, and it was very nice to visit. The walls were decorated with glass decoration depicting the traditional Laotian life. I really enjoyed it. I was glad to give this stupid skirt when I was done though!
We kept walking into the town and visited several more temples, all very beautiful. It is funny because, even if there are Buddhist temples, and we have seen a few by now, we noticed differences, for example in the Buddha positions, or the colors of the Nagas (big seven headed snakes), or the way the walls are decorated. Here there are a lot of those colorful glass decoration. It makes it still interesting to visit.
On Sunday, we took a couple of classes at the Ock Pop Tok living craft centre. We started the day with a natural tie dying class. We learnt how to make colors out of natural ingredients: indingo leaves for blue, wood of the Sappan tree for red, seeds of the Annatto tree for orange, turmeric roots for yellow and plenty more. We cut and crush what was need and throw them in big pot of hot water. Andrew was so at ease; he loves the hands-on workshop and seems to really enjoy every steps. Then we choose the patterns we wanted to do and learn how to fold and use pegs or bamboo to create our patterns. After that it was dying time (the messy and fun part)! Some of them had to be washed in ash water to change the color, some had to be put in 2 different colors. It was really nice to see the color developing on the fabric and the final result. As we had another class in the afternoon, the lunch was included and often, it is a simple meal in those situations. Not this time: it was a wonderful meal made with local delicacies: dried river weeds (our favorite), fish salad (tofu for me), bamboo soup and seasonal fruits: amazing!!! I also tried one of their special tea: as they have silk worm here, to do their weaving, they have silk worm poop tea! Yes you read that right! It was not bad!!! In the afternoon, we took an artisan class where we learn to do dream catchers that is often put up in temples or houses. It was a couple of hours learning how to make them. Emma seems to really enjoy this one and took to it very well. She was the first one to finish her dream catcher. After the class, the kids did a treasure hunt organised by Ock Pop Tok and they loved it: clues were all made of wood (puzzles, codes and more) and it took them through the whole centre, giving us time to enjoy a cocktail! We stayed for a while longer, as a group booked one area of the restaurant and had traditional musicians and dancers. It was a perfect way to finish the day.
I highly recommend this place if you go in Luang Prabang; either for a class or two, for a drink or food or just pop in the shop as they have some quality products made by local people.
The next day, we went to visit the Lao Buffalo Dairy. We learnt that Laos people thought milk was coming in a box. In this country full of buffalo and cow, Laos people did not milk their animals! They usually raise them for meat. When 2 friends (one from Australia and one from America) arrived in Laos with the idea of opening an hotel here and realised there were no local milk, therefore no local cheese (gasp!), they decided to open the first buffalo dairy farm! They work with local farmers and rent their buffalos to milk them and use the milk to create delicious cheese and yogurt. They also teach farmer how to milk their animal. Buffalos produce way less milk than cow, but the milk is delicious and a lot more nutritional than cow milk. We learn a lot during the tour. We also got to feed grass to the buffalo and milk to the young one, we brush and wash them. We also got to milk a buffalo! It was relatively easy. There was a cat which knew exactly what was happening and didn’t not stop meowing until we gave it the milk we manage to get!!! On the farm, they also have rabbits, goats, pigs (which lay down to get pats on their belly!). It was a very fun and interesting tour. We ordered a picnic to bring with us for the rest of the day. I really appreciated that it came in reusable containers that we had to drop back in the afternoon.
We took our picnic in the tuktuk we rented for the day and went to the Kuang Si waterfall. On the way to the waterfall, there is a butterfly park. We stopped there to have our picnic, which was delicious: salad and cheese made with buffalo milk, desert as well… amazing! The butterfly park was nice to walk in and had an explanatory booklet about butterfly which was full of knowledge: for example, how butterfly know which plant to leave their eggs on; they have taste buds on their feet to recognise the host plant (each species has a different host plant to leave their eggs on). Science lessons as so easy and interesting.
After that we went to the waterfall, which is one of the landscape tourists come to see in Luang Prabang. One thing in South-East Asia is that tourists are a main source of income, so you have to pay for everything. For example, we paid to enter the area of the waterfall, we paid for the butterfly park (which is in that area). When we arrived at the waterfall, which is breathtakingly beautiful, there are very long stairs (542 steps to be exact) to go above the waterfall. I assumed that at the top, we will be able to see the waterfall from above. We did the climb, painfully! At the top, you can not see the waterfall! There are viewing platform, that you need to pay to go on, we paid, you still can’t see the waterfall for there!!!! The only way to see the waterfall from above, was to do some ziplining (that you need to pay for obviously). Which is not for everyone, like Emma or me! Kev and Andrew did it and had lot of fun (this is rapidly becoming Andrew’s favorite thing to do). The view was great from the zipline! Thanks to Kev, Emma and I have a video to look at.
We went back downstair to have another look at the waterfall, which is truly magnificent. Emma really wanted to have a swim, but by then it was getting close to the closing time and we had to go back to the dairy farm to give the container back from our picnic and have one last ice cream (made of buffalo milk: yum!). We will go back to the waterfall to have a proper swim during the next few days.
Today is schoolwork and blog day. Tomorrow we have a cooking class booked: excited!
Mel
14.2.2025. We're off again, this time by train. Tuktuk to the station then through, security? X-rayed our bags and found….our deodorant can. Nope can't have that, chuck it in the bin. Need to check your bag sir, tiny pair of scissors I trim my beard with, nope can't have that. It's a fucking train, what am I gonna do? Steer it into a building? If I rummaged through my bag and pulled out my tiny pair of scissors and used them “threatingly” I'd be laughed at and then probably subdued. Anyway, we weren't happy with the tighter than an airport security for a bloody train.
Hey, we're in Luang Prabang. Found our guesthouse, had lunch at a nice little restaurant 20m up the street run solo (took a bit to get food). We settled in to our guesthouse, our biggest so far and our longest stay. Later we had a walk around and checked out the night market.
15.2.2025. Up early today, off to the morning markets. Mel found some sweet sticky rice with coconut and other stuff for breakfast, nothing appealed to me, Emma however bought a tray of strawberries. Off to the museum, formerly the royal palace. Saw a cafe close to that and Andrew noticed pain Chocolat. Emma had to have one too.
Into the museum. Mel had long shorts on, not long enough apparently and had to put on a long wrap skirt. Was not happy. As a person who likes their freedom of movement also I could understand. Made it difficult for Mel to go up and down stairs, let alone just walk. Anyway, the museum was ok. Was a bit smaller than we thought it would be after what we have seen so far. The rest of the day was spent walking and talking and looking at temples. We over templed ourselves again. At some point it goes from interesting to “yep that's another temple alright”. Seriously, there were 4 temples in a row on the same street. Then we found the one we were looking for. The SE Asian people are proudly religious, but I can't help think if they just put a small amount of the time, effort and money they put into temples everyone here would be much better off.
16.2.2025. We loved the cooking class in Cambodia, so we thought we would try some more classes here. We booked a natural dye class and an artisan class with a local group(Ock Pop Tok) that works to empower women and continue to keep textile traditions of Laos alive. I really enjoyed the natural dye class. I picked red for my scarf, blue and green for my placemats. We got to fold our things and use bamboo and string to tie them into patterns.
I split some wood, then boiled it for the red colour. For my placemats, I had to soak them in “indigo”. A brew of fermented leaves and wood and probably other things I can't remember. The indigo looks green, but after being exposed to oxygen and washed it turns blue. To get green, after the indigo we soaked it in turmeric “stew”, wanted a curry after that it smelt so good. The turmeric is yellow which turned the blue to green. Everything turned out great, I especially liked Andrew's shirt and Emma's scarf. Because we booked a full day (2 classes) we got lunch provided. A set menu of Fish salad, delicious. Bamboo shoot soup, bloody delicious. Some dried river weed, looked like sea weed a bit but was the best thing on the plate and some rice. Chock a block after that and wanted a sleep. No rest for the wicked, onto our next class. Artisan stuff. We made “dream catchers”. Was fun, with bright coloured threads made there with all their natural methods. After that we had more stuff to cram into our backpacks. The whole place is on the river, very relaxed and peaceful. The kids saw that they did a treasure hunt, so we signed them up for that. Took them a good while to work out all the clues, enough time for the adults to peruse the cocktail menu and have a couple that looked interesting. We were getting ready to leave when they started setting up for a blessing ceremony with live Laos music. Featuring bamboo organs which we had been meaning to listen to for a while now. So we sat, listened to some music, watched a ceremony followed by some Apsara dancing and Hanuman and monkey dancers. I had a beer, becoming fond of beer Lao, Mel and the kids had some dessert. All the while the sun had set and we needed to get a Tuktuk back to our guesthouse. Thankfully, with the classes, pick up and drop off from the store in town was included. We all had a fantastic day.
17.2.2025. We had a Tuktuk organised for the whole day and first stop was “Laos buffalo dairy”. We had booked a tour and picnic basket for the day. Tour first. Fed some pigs and rabbits. Scratched some pig bellies, they seemed to really like that. Milked a buffalo, brushed and washed some buffalo and fed said buffalo. Saw goats, talked to our guide, a young local who spoke reasonable English. Fed some younger buffalo milk. After our tour we spoke with one of the managers and was given our picnic basket, styrofoam box full of goodies. After the dairy we were off to Kuangsi Falls. Where we found out our Tuktuk was not allowed in, we had hoped to have our picnic lunch at the falls, but instead settled on having it at the butterfly park close to the bottom of the mountain. The Tuktuk was allowed to go that far, wait for us to have our lunch and then get out. The butterfly park was nice but not the same as having it at the falls we think. The picnic was really good. Pesto chicken salad(marinated feta for Mel). Carrot and cucumber stalks with dips, yum. Cheese platter and some cake, all made with buffalo milk. Was terrific and we are now all very full. We did the butterfly park, good information and a nice little jungle walk. Afterwards we walked up the mountain, then we walked up the stairs, 542 of them. Got to the top and…you have to pay for the viewing platform. Mel commented “we’re just wallets to them” and it can feel that way. It does add up, and is frustrating. We payed to enter the park. Then we payed to enter the butterfly park inside the park. Then we had to pay to go up the viewing platform only to find out that you can't even see the waterfall from it. Anyway, we had promised Andrew when we found some ziplines we would let him go, so we payed some more for that. Couldn't let him go alone and Mel doesn't do well with heights so I had to step up. Father of the year, sacrificy sort of stuff. I take all forms of alcohol and money as awards. Andrew loved it. The longest single zipline was just over 350m long. Our way down the mountain was fun and easier. By then the day was getting over pretty quick. Emma was a little upset because we had planned on swimming at the waterfall and Andrew had gotten what he wanted, but we had run out of time. We had a little talk, and were sorry we had not been able to do what she wanted. My girl is amazing, she was upset but after a small amount of reassurance that we would indeed swim another day she was ok. Both my kids are amazing, and the longer I get to spend with them the more I realise it. We paid our Tuktuk and went up to our room. Showered and rested. Mel found an activity that evening, a cooking class. Where we get to eat what we make for lunch and has Tuktuk pick up and drop off. After which we have access to dah, dah, dah…a waterfall for swimming. Keeping promises is what builds trust and makes a strong family. I feel it helps our kids feel heard, understood and secure. I am starting to feel more and more thankful to Mel for kicking my arse to get things done, planning everything with little to no help from me and dragging my arse along on this so far awesome trip. I know Mel will read this, so thank you sweetheart. That's enough from me for one day.
Kev
On the, wait I forgot to do an entrance, the one that you all have been waiting for well clap your hands for me because its about to happen. Wait pretend you never heard that, the entrance was meant to be a surprise but to late so who cares, so it’s about to happen three two one.
Scene one: (Andrew runs on stage and everyone claps), I’m back, and this blog is going to be my longest because were staying here for ten days and I write about 100 words per day (I think). So please enjoy. For it is about to start, (the stage slowly starts going darker and darker and darker and darker.)
On the 14th we arrived at Luang Prabang by train, the train was a nightmare we booked the cheaper part of the train and it was packed, people everywhere, it was chaos. There were also people in our seat so we had to discuss whose chair it is and the seating wasn’t that comfortable. Luckily, the train was only two hours long which is good, if there is anyone who likes personal space, I’m glad they were not on it. When we got there, we went around looking at a few temples, I’m not that much into it, I’m here for the ziplines. When we came back we went to sleep.
On the 15th we went to a museum that was once a palace. The museum had stuff that kings and queens had, it showed their bedrooms and other rooms. The palace was huge it was really big. It also had other fancy stuff like hats, pipes and bowls. Everything looked fancy, very fancy. After that we went around looking at temples. It was interesting. We went up a hill to see a temple: at the top it was three hundred and twenty eight steps up. The hill was called Phou Si hill, it was high and I hadn’t eaten much so it was even harder for me. When we went down we went back to the hotel and slept.
On the 16th we went to a place called Ock Pop Tok. It’s where we did classes on different things like bamboo weaving, embroidery, tie dye, looming and dream catcher making. We did dream catcher making and tie dye. I tie dyed a shirt and two napkins, I made them have different patterns and colours, it was actually pretty fun. The dye was made from natural ingredients that we had to make ourselves, it was fun. Some of the ingredients were berries, bark and roots. That’s very natural, but we still have dream catcher making to do. When we went to do it, it turned out to be very frustrating, tying the string around the little sticks a million times it is very annoying but whatever I’m still alive. When we went back to the hotel we slept. Night night.
On the 17th we went to a place called the dairy, it’s a farm but they mostly have buffalo, they only have the buffalo to milk and for tours like we did. When we got there, we waited because we arrived early. When it opened we went in to start, we had some buffalo milk cookies they were round and soft but delicious because the buffalo milk is creamy and thick. When we finished we went to see the pigs (fun fact: there is three types of pigs in Lao: black pigs, wild pigs and pink pigs) then we went to see the rabbits (fun fact: baby rabbits are very fidgety). When we left we went to the buffalos, they are very big. First we had a turn milking them, it was a bit scary being that close but I did it, After that we washed them it was very fun, then we fed the Babys milk. We went to the water fall it was on a mountain so we had to climb up, it was hard but I made it up. Emma wanted to go swimming but we went to the top where they had a zipline. Emma didn’t want to do it and mum wanted to but they were just a bit too scared so they didn’t do it but me and my dad did. It was really fun, and I could have done it a million times more, the scariest bit was where they attached us to a rope and let us down fast, it was nearly free falling. When we went back to the hotel we slept.
The End
Andrew (9 years old)
Hello people, I am going to tell you about our ten (well this is the 1st section) days in Luang Prabang.
Friday the 14th we went on a train. It was just over an hour to get there. When we got there, we had a little walk around because our room wasn’t ready.
On Saturday the 15th we went to the museum. There were glass sculptures all over the buildings. It was so amazingly beautiful I did not want to leave. but the best part was inside the buildings. It used to be a palace but now it’s a museum. And it’s loved by me.
Sunday the 16th we went to Ock pop tok. You are probably wandering what that is. It is a place where you can do different things. Like for instance there was bamboo weaving and tie die. We did tie die but not do bamboo weaving. Instead we did an artisan workshop where we had to make a dream catcher. I loved it so much I did not what to leave and when I had to go I was really sad.
Monday the 17th we went to the buffalo dairy. First, we went to see the pigs and got to feed them, second, we went to see the rabbits. After that we went to see the buffalos and you should have seen their face, drumroll please. They were adorable.
Tuesday the 18 we are just doing homework.
Emma (8 years old)Read more
Luang Prabang (part 2 by the adults)
Feb 19–24, 2025 in Laos ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C
We are up to Wednesday the 19th of February! We have been on the road for a month and a half already! This year is going so fast!
On that day, we did a cooking class. We really enjoyed our last cooking class in Cambodia, so we wanted to try one in Laos. This one was a bit different: we cooked different dishes for us to share after. It was a bit less organised than our last class. We were given things to cut, crush and mix without knowing too much which dish we were making. We still had a lovely time picking up some herbs as they are growing their own, cooking on traditional wood stoves and discovering Laotian recipes. I particularly enjoyed cooking some blue flower to color the sweet sticky rice blue (and it was delicious!). After we finished cooking, we sat with a beautiful view of the mountains in front of us to enjoy our very enjoyable meal. We were so very full by the end of it.
The class was in the Nahm Dong Park, so we walked along the river and small waterfalls there. Emma had a swim in the cold water as she loves it. The walk was good to work out our big lunch!
In the evening, we went to see a small show of storytelling in English, with one musician playing the Bamboo organ. It was very interesting: the stories were about legends from Luang Prabang. One man was telling the stories, his delivery was very interesting and different from shows I have seen before. The stories were supported by the second person in the act playing Bambo organ, which sound a little bit like a harmonica/tiny organ. I enjoyed this show as it was different from what we have seen before. After that, we had dinner at a restaurant nearby and back to our room to sleep!
The next day was a different day. We visited the Big Brother Mouse book shop. This is a book shop created in 2006 by a retired American publisher and 2 Laotian man with a passion for teaching. When they started, they heard a lot: ‘Laotian people don’t read’. And it is true. 50% of 10 years old children can not read a simple Lao sentence. At Big Brother Mouse, they create fun books, to make reading a fun and enjoyable thing. But they wanted to go further and created the Big Sister Mouse school in Luang Prabang in 2016 with only 13 students. They now have 7 schools and 2300 students. They ask for volunteer to come and read, play games and talk in English with the children. And that is what we did.
It was very challenging: we were expected to help teachers, but no. We were sent into classrooms, sat on the floor and each of us (including Andrew and Emma) were sent a small group of kids to talk and play with, with pretty limited resources. The younger ones were preschool kids and knew only a couple of words, if any. We had cards with animal and objects and were trying to teach them those words. Each group stayed with us for around 20 minutes and then we had another group. Some kids were pretty kin on learning, but other just wanted to snatch the cards and mess around. With us not knowing Laotian, it was hard to communicate. We worked with primary school kids and it was a bit easier as some knew a bit more English. We also got to talk and play games with 9-10 years old kids, and it was fun as their level of English was much better. Kev asked one of them if they often have tourists coming and apparently this is a regular (almost daily) thing. I think it is very good for the older kids who have learnt some English and can converse and get better at it, but I am not sure we did any good for the younger one. There was not structure and no support from the teachers there, so it felt more like babysitting. But saying that, some little ones were very happy when they got the right color or the right animal’s name, so maybe it helped a little bit.
Pretty often between “classes”, the kids danced on a couple of songs, and due to my work, I know all about the importance of movement for children, so it was nice to see them moving (even if I wanted to do even more and have them cross their midlines and do more movement, but it was a start!). The school system in Laos is in a pretty bad shape and organisation like Big Sister Mouse are trying to help and make a difference. But obviously they need funds, so if you feel like helping, here is a link: https://www.bigbrothermouse.com/literacy/donate….
At the end of the day, we were pretty tired! But it was a great experience. Andrew and Emma both got a new appreciation for teachers as they saw, firsthand, how hard it was to get kid’s attention and to teach things! I am very proud of both of them, as I watch them sat in the middle of children, trying to teach them words and did not give up for the whole day.
On the evening, we walked around the night market, to find our Laos magnet (we collect one magnet per country!) and a few postcards.
The next day, we went back to the Kuang Si Waterfall, as we promised to Emma. It is truly a beautiful place. I enjoyed taking some pictures of it. The blue-green color of the water and the formation of the waterfalls are truly amazing the see. Emma loves swimming in the waterfall, and she did just that! Andrew does not like cold and evidently, the water was very cold, so he just walked in shallow water and built some little dams. Emma is growing more and more confident and jumped (with Kev) from a tree, 2-3 meter above the water into it. She was very proud of herself and she should (Andrew would have done it too, if the water was warm!)! Both Kev and I had a swim and yes, it is cold when you get in, but you get used to it pretty quickly. The thing I didn’t like was if you stay still for too long, little fish come to nibble on your feet, it made me jumped every time!!!
Near the waterfall, you can also see some moon and sun bears which have been rescued from illegal trafficking. Those bears were used in bile farm (bile from their stomach was use in traditional medicine). They were kept in tiny cage for years with tube inserted in their stomach. Near the waterfall is a sanctuary for them (there are several around Laos, Thailand and Cambodia). Unfortunately, their natural habitat is disappearing fast and there is no protected area for them, so they are safest in those sanctuaries. The aim is to release them somewhere safe, but it can’t be done at the moment. ‘Free the bear’ is an association which rescue bears, take care of them, educate about them and protect them. This is another organisation that you can support: https://freethebears.org/pages/donate.
After that we went back and had a rest at the hotel, then we went to a pub with some nice music and had a game night. Nothing fancy, but those moments are some of my favorite.
Saturday was a school day for us. Kids worked on their math, and we added some information on the document we are creating about the countries we visited. They are learning how to research information and learning about the countries.
In the afternoon, we took a sunset cruise. The river becomes very busy around that time with boat filled with tourists admiring the beautiful Mekong River as the sun slowly set. It sounds peaceful, but there are a few party boats amongst it, with loud music and even some karaoke! But it is still a really nice experience. Our boat was a quiet one and we enjoyed this lovely moment. As the light of the sun disappears, the electric lights on the bank of the river start to appear and it is also amazing to watch.
Today is a blog and packing day, as we are leaving tomorrow for a whole new adventure. Tomorrow we are flying to India!!! Exciting!
We are all a bit sad to leave South-East Asia. Luang Prabang was a lovely place to finish this part of the trip. I am very excited about India as I have always wanted to go there. I am also a bit apprehensive, as it will be completely new to us (I knew South-East Asia a bit). New culture, new food, new challenges and new discoveries are coming our way. We are ready!
Mel
18.2.2025. Blog day and school work day. All day, nothing else. Not very exciting but necessary. On to tomorrow.
19.2.2025. Today we were off to Namh Dong park for a cooking class. It was different to our last cooking class. The previous class we each picked 3 dishes and we worked only on our food. This class we picked less meals and worked on them together. The feeling here was more of a traditional family meal, we all sat around and shared after. It was delicious. I especially liked the salad with an egg yolk sauce the kids made, something I will remember and make at home. They hard boil the eggs, remove the white and slice for the salad. They mash the yolk and mix with mayonnaise, sugar, lime juice and a little water. The yolk made it all creamy, bloody good. Though I will not use much sugar when I make it as I don't like too much sweetness. After we had all eaten, we made our way down to the river for some swimming. It's smaller than we had hoped, with little falls and pools. Emma swam a bit, by herself it was bloody freezing. Andrew does not do cold, so he splashed a little in the shallows making dams. We hiked a little, walked across a small, bouncy suspension bridge and saw some more of the country side. We stopped at a school and picked up the drivers kids on our way back to Luang Prabang (this may not seem important information now but just you wait).
20.2.2025. Mel had heard of a community program that helps Laos kids learn to read. The Big Brother Mouse was created in Luang Prabang, when it was noticed there were no books in Laos and that “Laos people don't read”. Big Brother Mouse helped locals learn Laos and English, often by inviting tourists to come and have conversations with the locals in the evenings. Vastly helping locals learn both. In 2019, a study showed that only 50% of 10 year olds in Laos could read and understand a simple Laos text. Big Sister Mouse was created. This program saw books, created at BBM, sent to schools outside the Luang Prabang area. Tourists are also encouraged to visit these schools to spend a day with the kids, talking English and hopefully helping. We paid a small fee (used to create more books as BBM is a not for profit) and we also bought some books to take with us for the school library. Off we went in the back of a Tuktuk. To the school from yesterday. Us 4 and also someone from Hong Kong and another from France. The only pre-requisite, be able to speak reasonable English (I just made the cut). It was not what we were expecting, at all. We were kinda thrown into it, sat down with a group of preschoolers and given some games. We all know what preschoolers are like, then throw in a language barrier. The little ones didn't know much English(understandable) but were able to say alot of the English words of animals and other objects. It was just a fight to keep all the cards and sheets to myself. By lunchtime, we had sat with around 6 groups of kids and I was mentally stuffed. An hour break was welcomed. We worked a little with older kids at the end of the day, much easier. Kids are kids, non matter where you are. Emma was with me and we had alot of fun with the last group(10-11year olds), we were able to talk and play. But best of all, we were able to laugh and have fun. I think that's were learning becomes easier, if I'm wrong let me know teachers. After we returned, we had made another travelling friend and chatted for a bit over coffee. Later, we hit the night market for postcards and a Luang Prabang magnet.
21.2.2025. We decided to head back to Kuang Si falls, as the swimming would be way better there. We negotiated with a van driver to take us there for half a day and ended up splitting the cost with a couple from England who had the same plan as us. Once at the falls we found a nice spot to swim. Bloody cold, I mean seriously bloody cold. I promised Emma I would go in with her and so I did. Voice got a bit higher when I got in. We had a bit of a swim, it's hard swimming up to a waterfall. Even a small one, as it's always pushing you away. We decided to move up the River a bit and try another spot. We found a bigger area with more tourists, just as friggin cold tho. I noticed I couldn't feel my left heel and the tips of my fingers. Numbness was setting in. There was a huge tree with a cut off branch sticking out that a guy was jumping off. I'm doing that!! I did that. Stubbed a frozen toe on a rock, the fun continues. Emma wanted to jump off the branch. I thought, “she's not gonna do that”. But, she did. Once again Emma surprised me. I helped Emma out to the end of the branch, and we jumped together. After that the adrenaline monster had sunk its claws. We jumped together two more times. Andrew wanted to jump, but not more than he wanted to stay warm and dry. By then everything was numb and I was shaking. That's it, I'm done. Good thing too as we were quickly running out of time. We grabbed our things and set off to the biggest waterfall so Mel could get some pictures. On the way back we checked out the bear sanctuary. A place near the waterfalls for moon bears. Saved from cages where they had their bile harvested. Not enough natural jungle to release them, so here they are. Safe and looked after, but not free. After that it was time to head back to our van, 3 hours flew by. Got some food and relaxed. I was stuffed, I think being frozen must really take it out of you. Later that evening we found a relaxed bar playing some blues and old school music. Had some beers, couple plates of hot chips and played some card games. A good day spent with family.
22.2.2025. Ah good old blog day. Bit of a sleep in, followed by making a cup of coffee and get back into bed to write. After blogging a bit, we packed a small bag with stuff we brought but have now realised we're not gonna use and should never have brought with us. The plan? Send it home. The problem? Even though on the website it says the post office is open, it's not. Any way, we sent some postcards we had and went to find some lunch. We had decided to do a sunset river cruise this evening, so we headed for the river to suss out the options. Too many options, boats everywhere and people selling all sorts of rides and features. We settled on one, “Coconut Cruise”. The kids went on for free and it lasted 2 hours with a drink and snack. After the cruise was sorted we had some time to kill, so headed off looking for a cafe to play some card games. Found one, Melisa Cafe! Nice coffee and really nice desserts. Time for our cruise. We got our drink and snack(Mel and I), the snack was fried river weed. It looks a bit like the seaweed they wrap maki rolls with but it tastes way better, imo. Fried with thinly sliced garlic and sometimes tomato. Sprinkled with sesame seeds. This one had a smoky, peppery flavour to it as well. Well worth a taste if your ever over this way. The sunset was really nice, disappeared behind clouds then a mountain, only to come back and disappear again as we went further down the river. Emma was starting to feel pretty crook, little temperature but mostly tired I think. Maybe yesterday was taking its toll. We walked back to our guesthouse and Mel took Emma up for a shower and bed. Andrew and I went next door for some food. Then up to bed.
23.2.2025. It's our second last day in SE Asia. Can hardly believe this part of our trip is almost over. I am going to use today's blog as a bit of a roundup of my thoughts and feelings of the place. What do I think of Cambodia, Thailand and Laos? I'll start with Thailand, as we only stayed in Bangkok and didn't see the more rural areas. Big, loud music/people and bright lights. Typical of what you would expect from a big city. We will have to do Thailand again but next time leave the big city.
Cambodia and Laos were similar in a lot of aspects. There is poverty, out on display. You can't not see it. People of all ages, working hard every day of their lives. Rubbish, everywhere. We talked to some other tourists and they commented on it, saying why do we bother recycling when they don't. Because “we“ can, is the simple answer. These people don't have any other choice except to use what is available to them and plastic is the cheapest option for them. I'm hoping one day soon this will change. Theres also wealth, hard to miss. Brand new Lexus and EVs and every other major car brands top of the line option. Massive mansions built amongst the forest, behind closed gates. SE Asia has shown me beauty. Beauty in its landscapes, beauty in the faces of its people. I have heard people say they try to rip you off (Tuktuk drivers), they don't. They give you a number, you give a smaller number and usually meet somewhere in the middle. On occasion we were happy with their first offer and took it. They're just trying to provide for their families, and we're only talking the difference of a few dollars. We came across charities and outreach programs doing great work here. We learnt of atrocities that happened in these areas, some not so long ago. I have seen and read things that blew my mind, and disturbed me to my core. I have tried new things and witnessed my kids experience things for the first time. I have felt an inner glow watching my kids grow. I have felt heartbreak after seeing a young child asleep on the footpath trying to sell bananas to tourists when they should be at home in bed. We don't buy from children, no one should. SE Asia has shown me it's best and it's worst.
So after all that, here are some things that I will always remember. Luang Prabang is my favourite place here. It is beautiful, lots to do and the rubbish is better taken care of as it is more of a family area not a party area. Tourists and tourism is the best and worst things for the area. It provides an income for families here, and lots of tourists like to give back during their stays. Then there's the arseholes who think the world is made just for them. Trying to get that perfect photo for social media, but just being a nuisance. Taking selfies with local kids who clearly look uncomfortable but they're too focused on themselves to notice anything going on around them. Being videoed and photod while I helped my daughter overcome a fear and jump out of a tree. I try to exclude others from my photos where I can. I have met a few really nice travellers so far. Tourists annoy the shit out of me. Or as my dad says “bloody terrorists”. In my 7 weeks of travel so far I have learned one thing that will stick with me forever. I am not a tourist, I am a traveller, and that makes a huge difference. Goodbye SE Asia, we will be back.
KevRead more
Luang Prabang (Part 2 by the kids)
Feb 19–24, 2025 in Laos ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C
HELLO, I’m back. In case you didn’t know, it’s part one and part two because were staying here so long that its two parts. So we’re still in Luang Prabang. Prepare to be amazed.
On the 19th we had a cooking class, it was really fun, we got to pick some herbs and other things to cook with. We thought we would make our own dishes, but we all worked on each other’s. It was actually pretty fun in the end. My favourite dish was probably the fried spring rolls, they were really good, I could have eaten them all, but sadly I ate a few other things before, so I was full before I finished them. I really enjoyed it, I like doing cooking classes, it’s something I really like doing. After we ate our food, we went to a river that had a bunch of small water falls on it. I enjoyed it, Emma was actually the one who did the swimming, I built dams. We walked along the river for a bit but it was getting late so we had to go back. When we went back, we went to a story telling place, it’s were they told ancient Laos stories. They also had a bamboo organ, it sounds really nice when it’s played well. When it finished we went home and slept
On the 20th we had one of our hardest days so far, we went to a school to try to teach the kids English, it was very hard. I will go a little easier on my teacher but not too easy, I still like being a bit of a challenge. Wait, I forgot to tell you that the youngest we were teaching were about 4 to 5 years old, they were extremely difficult. We had sheets to help us try to teach, but the kids just kept on trying to steal them. Luckily near the end of the day, we had older kids like 9 or 10 year olds. It was way easier, they actually knew a bit of English, not like the younger ones. The funny thing about that is that I was teaching people who were older than me, it was crazy. But at least I could talk to some people near my age. When we left we went back to the hotel, well not straight back, we went to a bread shop first and I got a croissant, it was yum. After that we went to have a look around at the night market, it is a big place. We went there to buy magnets and post cards. After we got some we went home and slept. Sleepy sleepy.
On the 21st we went to the waterfall, it was fun at the start but then I got too cold and I really don’t like cold water (if only waterfalls were heated). So, I stayed out of the water for the rest of the day. Emma on the other hand was swimming for the whole day, I don’t understand how Emma can stay that long in freezing water. We went to a few different places there, all of them we could swim in. In one of them there was a big tree that people were jumping off, about 2 to 3 meters above the water. I would have done it but I was too cold to do it. So what ever, when we went back to the hotel we slept and slept and slept and slept.
On the 22nd we did not do much at all, all we did was do schoolwork and blog, the only interesting thing we did was the sun set cruise. When we went to go to do it, it turned out not to be that long of a walk, so when got there we had about an hour to wait, so we went to a little coffee shop. Me, Emma and my mum didn’t have coffee only my dad did, I had an ice cream, Emma had a cake and mum had an ice cream toast, it was yum. When the time to go on the boat came, we packed up and waited there for about 5 minutes, then we went on, it was very nice, the sun set was beautiful. When we came back we went to the room and slept.
On the 23rd we did not do much, all we did was blog and pack up because this is our last night here.
The End…
Andrew (9 years old)
Hello, it’s me Emma, bonjour. I’m going to tell you about Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednesday the 19th we did a cooking class. My favorite meal was the fried spring rolls. They were fresh spring rolls but fried. I really enjoyed cooking, and we even got to pick our own stuff. (Because they grow them.) But the confusing thing was that we didn’t know what we were making. I mean we were making each other’s meal. Well, anyway, after the cooking class we went down to the river and I swam. It was cold at first but when you get in your body gets use to it. Mum and dad sat together on a rock watching me swim. While Andrew made a dam. In the afternoon we went to a place where there was someone who told stories. At the end of the last story the person said something I did not like. What pissed me off was that the man’s head was at the woman’s feet, and apparently the gods switch it because the woman can’t be at THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY!!!!! I loved the rest of the stories, and we finely got to listen to bamboo organ.
Thursday the 20th we spent a whole day at a school. We went to teach them to speak better English. The good thing was that some of them could talk a bit already. Now I know if you are a teacher how hard it is being one. We had card games, but it was hard to make them follow the rules. But I guess some of them were only 4 to 5 years old. I really liked to see them learn a bit from us. The funny thing was that when some of the kids saw me, they came rushing over. I am going to tell you a story about me, and a bunch of kids who wanted to be with me. Ones upon a Thursday there was me inside and a whole class outside. A few kids caught my eye and gasped. As soon as they were allowed in, they raced to me. But I was too close to another person I got moved. They watched exactly where I went and as soon as I sat down, they followed me. The end.
Friday the 21st we went to the waterfall. It was f***ing freezing. Even if I’m apparently the most resistant to cold water, I still think it was cold. After a while Andrew got too cold, he decided not to swim any more. So, it was only dad, mum and I. Then I saw dad jumped off a tree 2 to 3 meters above the water. Mum wanted to try but they were not comfortable walking on a tree with nothing to hold onto. I decided to do it. I was scared the first time but then I realised how fun it was. So, I did it again and again up until my 3rd turn. I was sad when we had to go. When we were walking down the hill, we went to the bear sanctuary where there was moon bears. I was sad when I heard there were kept in cages. They had a cage we could go in to feel what they felt.
Saturday the 22nd we did schoolwork and blog. In the afternoon we went on a boat for 2 hours to see a sunset cruise. It was beautiful. I loved seeing the reflection of the lights on the water. I also loved the way we could see the sunset. The way the sun hid behind the clouds was so gorgeous, I wish the cruise went for longer 2 hours, I wish the cruise went for 3 hours long. (if you have not realised yet the cruise went for 2 hours) Sunday the 23rd we did not do anything interesting at all. We did blog and that’s all.
Emma (8 years old)Read more
Cochin, Kerala, India (By Mel)
Feb 24–Mar 5, 2025 in India ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C
We are in India!!!
For our last evening in South-East Asia, we had a lovely time watching the sunset on the Mekong river (again!) while enjoying a couple of drinks, then we had a good dinner. We were all feeling a bit sad to leave, especially Luang Prabang as it is such a wonderful place. We all said we would like to come back.
The next day, we were off again. One plane to Bangkok first, around 5 hours waiting in Bangkok, then another plane to Cochin, India. We arrived around midnight, so I was a bit worried about getting to the hotel, but it was easy. I booked an hotel near the plane station (as Emma call it), we got a taxi to get us there (it was 10 minutes driving at the maximum). We arrived, did all the booking formalities and straight to bed (it was around 1am by then!).
There we are! In India! I have always wanted to see India. We are starting in Cochin (or Kochi, there are several ways of spelling it). Cochin is in the south of India, in the state of Kerala.
The next day, we didn’t do much. As we were near the airport, there isn’t a lot to do for traveller. But we still tried our first Indian food from India! For breakfast, we found a coffee type place and tried different samosas and sweet treats. It was good! Back to the hotel, the kids did some research about India and I plan the rest of our India trip: I found all our accommodations and bus and train tickets. So that is done! It always takes several hours to do that and I am always happy and exhausted when it is finished!
For dinner, Kev found a lovely restaurant. The kids don’t do to well with spices, so we ask if the butter chicken was spicy: “No it is not”, great then, we’ll have two. Apparently, not spicy for Indian people, is spicy for us! The kids had problem finishing their meal. It is going to be a long 2 months for them food wise!
The next day, we took a taxi to a homestay closer to the centre of Cochin. It is not the touristic area, but it is just a tuktuk drive away from the main sights of Fort Cochin. After putting our bags down, we did our regular walk around the area to find ATMs and food! We walked a bit that day. We are used to Southeast Asia where a lot is catered towards tourists. Here it is not: food menu with no pictures is a bit harder for us as we had not idea what we were ordering! We really need learn what is what in the food area.
ATM was another issue. Google map was noooo help! We finally found a few, but the first few didn’t work for us. We found out that if an ATM is a bit old and you are using a newer card, the security on the card can’t be read by the ATM and it won’t work for you. It made some of our first day in country pretty stressful, but now we know. We finally found one which worked, so that was good. Another thing I am going to have to get used to is the heat! I know we live in North Queensland where the weather is very similar, but I don’t like it there either!!! It is hot and humid and I sweat a lot and I don’t like it! We often walk around with our small backpacks to carry water bottle and camera and things we need during our daily expedition, so my back is wet all the time! We are planning on going north and I hope it is going to get better!
The following day was visit day. The driving here is even more insane than southeast Asia. It feels like everybody is in a hurry and they all tried to overtake everyone all the time. Pedestrians are not priorities, and you need to make sure you are sticking to the side of the road or you get beeped at very quickly!
We started our visit with the Bastion bungalow which was built during 16th century by the Portuguese when they arrived in India. We learnt about the history of the region which is closely link with the spice trade and European countries trying to get their teeth into this very profitable trade. First the Portuguese, then the Dutch, the French as well and obviously the English. And most of the time when a new ‘conqueror’ arrived, they destroyed what was there before and built their churches and bastions. On most of the building we visited, was written: it was something in that year, then got destroyed and become that, then destroyed again to become this…. Humans are dumb.
Vasco de Gama was the first Portuguese who arrive with 3 ships to India (in the Kerala region) to develop trades and introduce the Catholic religion which worked well, as there is a lot of churches around the town. It seems to be the main religion around here. This surprised me: I was expected to see a lot of Hinduism temple, but we have not seen one yet, only churches.
After that we visited the Indian naval maritime museum. It was all about the weapons and submarine and ships that the Marine use. I did not like it: the energy, resources and ideas that people use to create weapon to destroyed other people… Would they be better used to solve hunger, clean water and things like that. I don’t get it. Why did we go to that museum? Not sure: I think I was hoping for more historical information (which there was a little bit). Anyway, after that we had a few cold drinks (I love Lassi: this is a drink made out of yogurt, fresh and delicious) because we were way too hot. The place we found was own by someone who plays violin. He was playing when we arrive, so we chatted about the fact that Emma is learning violin, so he let her have a try of his violin. It was a bit big for her, but after being a bit shy, she gave it a small try. We had a lovely moment there.
The kids wanted to walk on the beach, as there are a couple of them in Fort Cochin, but we went on it 2 minutes and it is cover with rubbish. We saw everything and anything on the sand, needles including. We left as it didn’t feel safe. This is one the hardest thing that we notice since we have been traveling in Southeast Asia and now India: rubbish is everywhere. They have other issues to deal with first (food, clean water, having a decent place to stay and more), so the environment is not the priority. Coming from a rich country where we can think about that, it is hard to see all that rubbish washing in the ocean and on the beaches.
We then went to see a Kathakari show. This is a traditional form of Indian dance, mixed with storytelling, theatre, costume and make up. They use intense facial expression, body and hands movement to express ideas and stories. No words are used. Before the main show we got to watch the actors (which are traditionally man. They only recently accepted woman in that art) put their make up on. It took a good hour! I wish they explained a bit more what they were doing and what they were using, but it was interesting to see them getting ready. Then the show, started with a demonstration of all the facial expressions and eye movements they use in the show, and it was amazing. The actor showing us had such a range of facial and eye movements, it was very impressive. This was a great experience and something to see.
After that, we were done, so we found a nice place to try some Indian beer (Kingfisher, not my favourite) and then had dinner, and yes the butter chicken was still a bit spicy!
One thing I wanted to talk about, is how we take for granted things that plenty of people don’t have. Water for example. You have probably heard that if you travel in India, you can’t drink tap water as it can make you really sick. So we don’t drink tap water, or if we do, we filter it before. We have to constantly think if we have enough water with us. We buy bottled water too, but even that, comes with the guilt of using plastic. And some bottled water are not safe either, as they can be fake reused water bottle with bad water in it. How easy it is at home to open the tap, fill up your reusable water bottle, chuck it in the fridge and enjoy cold water whenever you want. Not everybody can do that.
The next day, after doing a bit of laundry and school work, we went to the Kerala folklore museum. This is a museum with over 40 000 artifacts!!! This museum was created by an art dealer who wanted to collect and save the knowledge of Indian art. There is so much to see in this museum, you could easily spend a few days there to look at all of it. It is very crammed, and not easy to move around, but we really enjoyed this place.
After that, off to lunch. We are getting a bit better at finding a place to eat and are a bit more comfortable ordering. We just have to remember to ask what is not spicy for the kids! And we also are getting a bit better at eating with our hands, as it is normal here. I really enjoyed India as a vegetarian: there are a lot of vegetarian restaurants or there is a lot of vegetarian option on every menu. This is so nice!
We then went to visit another museum: the Hill Palace museum, where the Maharajah family of Kerala use to live. It was nice seeing the building, which is very beautiful, but there was very little left in it (furniture or items). There was however a lot of writing with a lot of information. I might say too much information. We out-museum ourselves on this one. There is a lovely park all around the palace with swing hanging from trees to the delight of the kids. There is a giant dinosaur statue as well… Not quite sure why! They also have some deer, not free or wild, but in a big enclosure. I’m not quite sure why they are there, but the kids were happy to be able to see them from close.
The cities being huge here, nothing is really walking distance, se we are taking a lot of tuktuk around. They are so very cheap and easy to use. They are on Uber: you can select taxi or tuktuk, which I must admit, is very easy and we use it a lot. I love traveling in tuktuk as you can watch the lives around you and take in all the smells (good and bad!), all the sounds (a lot of car horn) and just take it all in. But you also have to hang on tight as they are driving like lunatic!!!
The next day we went to another part of Cochin. We wanted to have a look at a couple of Hindu temples. Some were closed, so we could only admire the outside, with all those colours and statues. I really wish we could have gone in! We also got invited in one of the temples, to come and eat with them, but as we just had some food, and I think we got a bit shy, we didn’t. I wish we had, it would have been a good way to talk with people, but well, next time. After that, we went to a couple of parks. Well, we had to wait as it was not open until 2pm. A bit odd to open so late for parks, but well. We found a kid’s park, that you had to pay to get in (100 rupees, the equivalent of $2). It was a bit old and most of the ‘attractions’ were close or broken. Luckily there was some playground that the kids enjoy playing on. After that we went back to the other park as it was now open, and it was really pretty. Flowers, trees, a more playground equipment to have fun on. The kids even played with some kids, which made me happy as I was a bit worried about them missing on socialising, but they have been playing with other kids regularly, which is good.
We finished the day, walking along the ocean walk, where it seems a lot of people socialise there as it was busy. We saw on the map about a rainbow bridge, so we wanted to go see it: a little bit disappointed, a nice bridge but just a couple of coloured light changing colour every now and then… After that, it was getting late, so another tuktuk ride back to our place and sleep.
Sunday, we went to visit the Mattancherry Palace. This palace was built and gifted by the Portuguese as a present to the king of Cochin, around 1545. It was built to appease the king after they plundered a temple nearby. What a nice gesture!!! The building is very nice, but the best are the murals inside representing religious stories. We are finding some similarities with murals we saw is Southeast Asia. Andrew still loves those! There are more portraits of the different kings of the area, more artifacts from the 16th-17th century. I loved the little seats on each side of windows that are built in the wall. I can very much visualise, people sitting here, chatting in the breeze from the window, while watching outside. It felt very frozen in time moment for some reason.
Under the palace is a Hindu temple, that only Hindu people can go in, as apparently, they had trouble with tourists in the past (I don’t know the story!) The interesting fact is that one of the wall is communal with the synagogue, which is situated right next door.
Kerala is a region which have been dealing with foreigner for a very long time, due to trade. There is a lot of different background and religions here, and they all live here, together with no issue. As I said before there is a lot of churches, but also synagogues, Hindu temples, mosques, and I’m sure I forgot some. They live in harmony it seems. Some people could learn from that.
The palace is situated near Jew town, which as the name says, is where the Jew community used to live (and I am sure still is). This is a lovely area, with a lot of art shops (we end up having tea and cake in one, as they had a sign at the front saying best café in town, but miscommunication, got us tea and some homemade cake!). The synagogue can be visited, and I admit, it was the first time, I think, I went in one. It is very clear and bright. The walls have no painting or pictures on it, as it is a sin in Judaism to represent God. This is very different from all the other place of worship that we visited so far where wall, ceiling and floor can be covered in pictures or statues. The porcelain tiles in this synagogue were beautiful, handmade, representing landscapes, each slightly different.
I love the fact that during our travel, we are exposed to a lot of different cultures, religions and way of living. I hope Andrew and Emma will keep those learning.
Andrew and Emma both got a little souvenir each: Andrew is collecting coins and we found some old coins from India. Emma got some strawberry essential oil from a museum/shop. We got to smell what feel like a hundred of them!
We got a few drinks and played cards game to rest for a bit. Then in the evening, we went back to the place where we saw the Kathakali show a few days before, but this time to see a martial art show and some classical Indian music.
Kalaripayattu (also known simply as Kalari) is an Indian martial art that originated in Kerala, around 2,000 years ago, dating back to the 3rd century BCE. It is very impressive to watch. We had demonstration of movement that they practice and also weapons they use, like bamboo sticks, knifes and a type of whip made of steel! We also watch 2 of them fighting and I promise you, it was not pretend. They obviously did not hurt each other, but they were not holding back. It was very impressive to see.
After that, we enjoyed 1 hour of classical Indian music with 2 artists: one was playing a type of sitar with I think, 26 strings and the other, playing Tabla, a pair of hand drums. It was enchanting to listen. The Tabla could produce so many different sounds, depending on where and how it was hit. The sitar with 26 strings, some smaller under longer one on the top, is captivating.
The following day was fun day! Andrew while doing some research about the area, found out about the Wonderla park, which is an amusement park. It has some dry land attraction, and some water attraction. We started with the dry one: Andrew and Emma were too short for some of them, but I think there were fine with that, as some of the attractions were a bit scary! Kev did a few. I didn’t: scared of height, vestibular system not working properly, those are not for me!!! The kids went on some of the smaller rides and had fun. We then move to the wet area after changing into our swimsuits and again some of the rides were not accessible to the kids as you had to be a certain height and weight, which they were not! But we could do some of them and we had a lot of fun, going doing slides on mat on our tummy, or on big floaties going down fake river and slides. It was a fun day!!!
Today is our last day here in Cochin as we are moving to Allepey our next stop tomorrow. Today is blog, video game day (as the kids are missing it a bit) and packing day.
MelRead more
Cochin, Kerala, India (by Kev)
Feb 24–Mar 5, 2025 in India ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C
24.2.2025. We're off to the plane station(Emma couldn't remember airport). First plane to Bangkok. Tried to exchange our Laos kip to rupees. Nowhere takes kip, worthless outside of Laos. If anybody needs just over a million kip, going cheap, give us a call. Amused ourselves for 5 hours, then in the next plane. India here we come. We got there really late. Grumpy taxi driver to our guesthouse, sleep.
25.2.2025. Tried to sleep in, didn't work. So we headed out to get some breakfast. Found somewhere not far, we had no idea what we were ordering. Just pointed and asked if that was spicy. The guy spoke ok English, but I'm having a lot of trouble understanding anyone here. We had a nice breakfast, the coffee is really good. We spent the day organising stuff, tried to get the guesthouse staff to arrange a taxi for us but they couldn't work it out. Mel found out that the uber app we use at home works perfectly well here. Organised it ourselves. Had a really nice dinner at a very nice restaurant, we ordered and ate too much, but that's what we do when we eat Indian at home. We're gonna get it everyday so I think we'll slow down pretty quick.
26.2.2025. We got to our new guesthouse, not as great as we'd hoped but it was pretty cheap. Sorta settled in, then we went looking for an ATM that will work for us. We walked for ages and India is quite a bit warmer than SE Asia. Stopped for lunch where we hit a language barrier. Luckily there was a guy there that could speak quite well and helped us out. Pretty tasty and we got some more water. The search for an ATM continues. Finally found one that gave us money, so we hit it hard. Punjab bank ATM works for us. Got back, payed for our room and had a shower. We have come to the realisation India is pretty big, much bigger than SE Asia. Walking anywhere takes a lot more time here. Had dinner, some chapatti and dips.
27.2.2025. First real full day out in India. After yesterday's effort, we ordered a Tuktuk to take us to Fort Kochi. Visited the Bastion Bungalow, there was lots of information about Kochi and its rich history of trading with its neighbours. Was only when Europeans got involved, did they start to get occupied. Apparently pepper was called ‘black gold’ and was worth more than gold and silver. We went to the maritime museum, was hoping for more history stuff but a lot was newer. We did find out though that Vasco de Gama (if that's how you spell it) a Portuguese guy that “first” found India had a lot of help from a bloke who he picked up in Africa. Indian's, African's, Arab's and all sorts of others had been freely trading for hundreds of years. After that the Portuguese occupied them, the Dutch occupied them and finally the English. After the museum's we found a small cafe and had some drinks. The guy who runs the place plays violin and was very interested to find out Emma plays too. Emma had a little go on his violin but it was too big. He played very nicely while we had our drinks. After, we went to a place called Kathakaly. A local performance and arts centre. We watched the actors put on their makeup, bit boring at the start. Then we had a demonstration of all the hand and facial movements. This sorta traditional stuff has no dialogue so they portray it through their gestures and face. It was alot like sign language. After that we were hot, so we found a bar. A/C and our first Indian beer. Kingfisher Ultra. Was ok but not my favourite of the trip. We finished at a nice restaurant where we dialled back on our ordering. The kids got butter chicken, was told not spicy. Apparently still spicy to them. Mel thinks that the sauce always some spice and they just add more if you want it hotter. Might be onto something. Anyway, not spicy here is still too spicy for my kids. I had a medium spicy potato and cauliflower dish. Spot on. Couple bowls of rice and a few naan and we were done.
28.2.2025. Kids did some school work this morning and we blogged a bit. In the afternoon we tuktuked it the Kerala Folklore Museum. A private collection of pretty much everything. Something like 40,000 pieces in there, even the roof was brought in from somewhere. Lots of artefacts from all religions from the area. Throw in some weapons, toys, puppets, lamps, palanquins and some old “books” written on dried banana leaf. All in all was very interesting. After that we tuktuked to The Hill Palace Museum. A massive area built on a bit of a hill, hence the name. In here was lots of information about the royal family and Cochin through the many years. Lots of pictures and reading and walking. We walked up to a room with police outside, through a massive thick door which I thought “that looks a bit like a vault door”. Yep, in here were some valuable jewellery including the crown. The crown has something like 40 diamonds, 120 emeralds and 240 Ruby's or something like that. I understand the big door and guards now. After our visit we walked around outside. The kids played on a swing in a tree on the grounds. We noticed there was quite a few swings set up. Walked some more, found a massive dinosaur. Walked some more, found a pen with heaps of deer. We had had enough and the museum was closing so we headed back for the entrance. There is a playground near the entrance, so we let the kids have a play. Back for dinner and bed.
1.3.2025. Off to a late start, did some school work. Off to a couple parks we found along the river. Visited a Hindu temple first cause it was on the way, very different from all the others. Wanted to visit the first park but found out it doesn't open until 2pm. So we went to the second park. Small fee to get in, small fee for nearly everything in here actually. Kids played for a bit then Andrew asked if he could ride a bike. They had quite a few in here. After a small fee to rent one he was off. Emma borrowed it a bit and they swapped out often after a few laps each. A couple hours had passed and we moved on back to the other park. This one was bigger with free entry. Lots of space and playgrounds. Played for a bit, then had coffee and icecream (in the park), then played a lot more. Kids found a couple kids who spoke some English and played with them. Afterwards we walked along the river, we found somewhere to have some dinner and play some card games. Walked back along the river to look at the rainbow bridge. Kinda disappointing, but hey not everything is gonna blow my mind.
2.3.2025. We visited the Mattancherry Palace. Which was built and gifted to the king as a sorry by the Portuguese after they pillaged a temple. There is a synagogue built right next to it so we visited that too, never been in one before. After that we walked along Jew road in Jew town. Lots of shops selling stuff, pretty touristy. We looked at all sorts of things, instruments, games, fabrics, clothing, art, everything. We found a collection of old Indian coins that we bought to add to Andrew's collection. We went inside a “perfume museum”, lots of essential oils distilled from everything. My favourite was the coffee oil. Smelt like coffee liqueur. Andrew's favourite was vanilla. Emma's was strawberries, and we grabbed a little roll-on bottle for her. Mel wasn't sure what the favourite was, just sure we need to give our noses a break and get back outside. We stopped at a place overlooking the water, had a drink and played some cards games. Decided we would walk to our next destination, about 30-35mins. Our walk took us right through the middle of typical Indian streets, busy and bustling. We got used to walking busy streets in SE Asia, but India is something else. After our walk, we found some dinner near our destination. Emma had been asking about these things called Momo's, they were on the menu so she had some. Looked like dumplings, chicken filled and steamed. Emma likes! After that we went and saw a couple more shows at the Kathakali performance arts place. We first saw a martial arts demonstration. Tiring looking stuff, they used different styles and weapons. Unarmed combat, knives, bamboo sticks, swords and lastly something that looked like a very thin sword that rolled up. Impressive stuff, a little nervous since we were in the front row. After that, we stayed for a classic India music show. A guy with two small drums and another playing something that looked a bit like a guitar but had like 26 strings. Really enjoyed the music.
3.3.2025. So, the plan today is to go to… Wonderla!! An Indian amusement park. After an hour taxi ride(about $10) we were there. Tickets acquired and in we went. They have a land side and a waterpark side. Decided to do the land side first for a few hours then change and hit the water. Started with a very small rollercoaster. Then some other little rides. Neither of them were tall enough to go on the BIG rides, not that they wanted too. I did! After a few other small kiddy rides we finally got them to try something a little bigger. Guess what, they loved it. We saw a 3d movie then had some lunch. The time had flown by and it was time to hit the water. The kids are more used to water rides as we had already done a water park in Phnom Penh. The trouble here was finding one they were allowed to go on. Too short for this one, tall enough but not heavy enough for this one. Was a little disappointing but we found a few we could all ride, and we did, a lot. It was getting late so we decided to change and if there was time hit some more land rides. After that we rode a Tuktuk back to Fort Kochi to a restaurant I had wanted to go to. The place was packed, what? It's Monday night what the hell. We ordered, took forever to get our food. Emma was hungry as and tired as, so after everyone else had gotten their food and she hadn't, we got a little upset. I asked where our last meal was and hey presto look at that it turned up. Kids were hungry all right, I barely got any left overs.
4.3.2025. Blog day. That's it, probably some food at some point and a little bit of packing since we're off tomorrow.
KevRead more
Cochin, Kerala, India (by the kids)
Feb 24–Mar 5, 2025 in India ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C
Hello, I am, thinking of cool entrances, it is harder than you think way harder I can’t just keep say I’m back. I got it, I will say, (cue dramatic music) I will say, I’M HERE. That’s it, I’m a genius. Okay I’ll do that next time, now enjoy.
On the 24th, I was very excited because we were going on a plane to India. First of all, I love going on planes. Second, I love watching tv on planes. The bad thing about that is that there were no tv on the plane, sad. But at least I got window seat on the first plane. First plane? Sorry, I forgot to tell you that we took two planes, one to Bangkok and one to India. We had to go to Bangkok first because we needed to go to a bigger airport so we could get an international plane. When we got on the first plane, we waited for a little bit for the plane to start moving. When it did start moving I got very happy because I love the feeling of taking off, it is very fun. Skip one hour and thirty minutes in the future to when we landed. When we landed we got off the plane and guess where we were, we were in Bangkok (not India yet, that’s for the next plane). We had to wait for a while because the next plane was in 5 hours, now that’s annoying. When we got on the next plane it was in the night so we had to sleep. When I woke up we were getting close to landing and it was nearly midnight so we went to the hotel and slept.
On the 25th we went out to breakfast, our first Indian breakfast. We had Indian treat things some were spicey and some weren’t, I am doomed because I don’t like spicy stuff, it burns my tongue. When we finished eating we went back to the hotel where I did a bit of research, then video games. At the end of the day we went to this very fancy restaurant I got butter chicken it was delicious but a bit spicy I didn’t finish it, it was too spicy for me. Then we went to the hotel and we slept.
On the 26th we went on a taxi to go to the centre of the city, thats because our old hotel was in the outskirts of the city, not near the middle of the city. When I say old hotel it is our actual old hotel because were moving to another hotel closer to the middle of the city. When we got there we walked around looking for an atm because we didn’t have much cash, and cash makes it easy to pay the tuktuk drivers. But whatever, when we got some money out, we went over to a wall at the ocean trying to go to the beach. When we went over the wall yay, there was no beach just water. We could see a beach further up, so we went up there looked at it for a bit then went home to sleep. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
On the 27th we went to go visit fort cochin, it’s a touristy place. But it has a lot of museums and good restaurants. We went to a restaurant, it was very fancy and I like fancy. Me and Emma had a share plate it was huge it had lots of stuff on it and it was delicious. When we finished it, well we didn’t finish it, it was way too big. When we were done with it, we went to see the Chinese fishing nets, they’re these huge, big bamboo nets that they lower into the water then pull it up. Then they see if there are fish in it, if not they lower it in again. When we finished looking at that, we went to the bastion bungalow. It’s a museum cross fort, a bit of each, when we went inside it we figured out that it was manly information not sculptures. There were a few things that weren’t info, they were stuff to look at, but mostly information. It was cool, when we left we went to another museum, it was about war and weapons, in it there was missiles, guns and models of ships. I like models of anything so I liked the little ships. There was also a proper helicopter it was about twenty meters long. When we left there we went to have a few drinks, I wanted a Pepsi but my parents said no so I had to a juice instead. I want a daily soft drink, whatever! After that we went to a show, well actually it was more like a play. The play was about gods and demons. The show was really interesting. At the start they put makeup on, on the stage: they had lots of colours on their faces. When they finished their make up the play began. At the end of the play, we went home and slept.
On the 28th we went to another museum it was very cool though: the place had forty thousand artifacts, some dated back to the 8th century and some from the15th century. There were all sorts of kinds of stuff. It had three floors, all covered in old stuff. There were some things for sale, I wanted to buy some old coins for my money collection, but I had nowhere near enough money to buy it. There were swords, old parchment, statues, jewellery and old clothes. There was loads of stuff on every floor, there was a lot. When we left guess what we did next, we went to another museum. This one had a lot to read about and it was bigger. I don’t remember much about this museum my brain was tired of too much information. When we went out into the museum garden (the museum has a very big garden, I forgot to tell you) we went to a swing where we played on the swing for a while. Then my mum told me that there was a big fake dinosaur in the garden, so we went over there and it was huge like 50 meters tall (mum edit: it was more like 15 metre tall!) (Andrew edit: I couldn’t remember I’m innocent). Then my mum told me that there were a bunch of live deer, so we went there. We found out that there was about a hundred deer. After that we went back to the swing and swung a bit more then went home and slept. Good night.
On the 1st we went to two parks, but they’re not any average park. The first one was about 500 meters long, the second one was about kilometre long it was huge. There is a bunch of separate playgrounds: little one and then bigger ones. When we got to the swings me and Emma made up this crazy game. So, we would swing with our thongs on and then kick them of and see how far they would go. It was surprisingly fun, after that we started walking along the river side. Then all of a sudden we heard a BOOM, we didn’t know what it was, so then we kept walking. Then, we heard another and another we looked across to the river and guess what, it was FIRE WORKS. We sat on a bench for a bit watching them, when it finished we walked a bit longer, then took a tuktuk back to the hotel.
On the 2nd we visited a palace, I’m not going to write much because it’s just another museum and I’ve written about a lot of museums. But I’ll talk about a little bit, in the palace there was a lot of wall paintings. On this journey I’ve discovered that I like wall paintings, I think there interesting (I don’t just think they are, I know they are). After that we went to a street called Jew Street. In that street they sold lots of artifacts and perfumes. We went to a perfume museum, it was sort of like a museum, more like a shop. It was free to come in and I could smell them for free. Emma bought a strawberry perfume, it cost $9.21, very cheap, when we left my nose felt like it could fall of. After that we went to have dinner, we played a few card games as well, it was fun. When we finished dinner we went to another show. This show was about martial arts. It’s an Indian sport they used proper weapons, still sharp and made out of metal. They did not go easy on each other, amazingly nobody got badly hurt (I think one of the fighters got a little hurt). When it finished we went to another show, this show about music, can’t explain much about this one, I can play music but not explain it, explaining is my weakness. Whatever, when the show was over we went to the hotel to sleep. (sadly, no movie, it was late at night, 10pm). Sleepy time.
On the 3rd I had the funnest and annoyingest day in India so far. We went to an amusement park. The rides were amazing, it was so fun I could have stayed there all week. There was also a water rides section, that was the annoying bit. It was annoying because of the F***ING weight limits, most of the slides were 30 kilos or 40 kilos up and I’m annoyingly only 27 kilos, I’m very light. I could do some and they were really fun but a weird thing is, there was this cone one that I couldn’t do. But the funny thing is that I did one exactly like that in Cambodia, the only difference is that the one in Cambodia was bigger. Now where does TRALOA (The Rights and Laws of Andrew) come in? TRALOA should be respected globally. When we finished we went to the hotel and slept.
On the 3rd we blogged and blogged and blogged and blogged, then guess what we did after that, we blogged and blogged and blogged a bit more then we slept.
The end… to be continued (duh duh duhhhhh)
Andrew (9 years old)
Hello party people. I am here to tell you about India! Two thing you need to know about India is that they are crazy drivers, and you can’t drink tap water. (Oh wait, my mistake there is three thing you need to know about India, and you already know two of them.) so I am going to tell you about the other one. It is BOILING!!
Monday the 24th we took two planes to India. On the first plane we went to Bangkok. On the second plane we finally arrived in India, it was around midnight. when we arrived at our hotel we went straight to our bed and slept.
Tuesday the 25th we had our first breakfast in India. It was good but some of it was spicy, so I needed to drink lots of water. After that we stayed at our hotel and then we did some research, then we showed mum and dad our work. For diner we went to a nice place. Me and Andrew got a butter chicken each and it was too spicy, so we did not finish it.
Wednesday the 26th we took a taxi closer into the centre of Cochin. I have told you a little bit about how they drive but now I shall tell you more. This is the way they drive. Fast fast fast fast fast fast. BRAKES. Beep beep. Gosh they are noisy. After that we walked around to find an atm and some food. After we went searching for the beach. We found a beach but guess how beautiful it was. It was a disgrace. It had rubbish all over it. Then we had dinner. For dinner we had chapati with sauce. It was good but it was not my favourite.
Thursday the 27th we went and had a fancy breakfast. Me and Andrew ate it easier because it was not spicy. Then we went to the Chinese fishing net. IT WAS HOUMUNGUS!!! It was big bamboo pieces, but then they joined them together to hold up a big net. They lowered it in the water let it sit there a little bit and then they pull it back up. After that we went to see bastion bungalow. We were too early like always, so we walked around a bit. When we were allowed in, we saw a few maps, some boats, and some statues. Next, we went to the Indian naval maritime museum. It is an army museum. It had missiles, it had guns, it had helicopters and boats. After we were finished there, we went to a place with a violin player. I was shy at the beginning, but when Mum convinced me, I took a little turn on the violin. I didn’t have much of a go as it was too big for me. We had a few drinks and left for a church. After we went to kathakali show. It was really good. We got to watch them put on makeup and see them dance. I loved it we had dinner went back to our hotel and slept.
Friday the 28th we did schoolwork and blog in the morning and went to the Kerala Museum in the afternoon. There were around 40 thousand sculptures, masked, belts, (with bells on them.) and clothes. (don’t worry, it isn’t 40 thousand per thing. Its 40 thousand altogether.) it was amazing. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about something. There were three levels of stuff. There was a mini chess board. I think that is my favourite thing. We visited the hill palace museum, there was lots of writing and stuff. Then when we got tired of reading, we went and walked around the park. We found a swing set. We swung for a bit. There was a place where there were deer. Some of them got really close. Then we took a tuktuk for dinner. Then home and bed.
Saturday the 1st we went to two parks and played on both playgrounds. then we went to walk along the river and saw the rainbow bridge. (PS, wasn’t Actually rainbow at all.)
Sunday the 2nd we visited the Mattancherry palace. It on Jew Street. Then we went to the synagogue. the synagogue is something like a church. Then we went to this scent shop thingy. Anyhow I found one I really liked. It was a strawberry scent. It smells beautiful. Then we had some drinks and played some boardgames. After that we saw some martial art. They used swords, daggers, bamboo sticks and a whip. There was music as well. They played three songs. I liked the sound from the guitar thing.
Monday the 3rd we went the Wonderla park. it had land rides and water rides. First, we went on the land rides because the water rides were closed. (Well, they were not closed closed, but they were not open for the morning.) My favourite ride in the dry section was the kangaroo one (It goes up and down a bit like you are freefalling). My favourite ride in the wet section was the water coaster (It is a rollercoaster that goes up a hill, and then down and makes a big splash of water).
Emma (8 and half year old today)Read more
Allepey, Kerala, India (by the adults)
Mar 5–10, 2025 in India ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C
Hi everyone,
Last time we blogged, we were in Cochin. On Wednesday the 5th of March (it is March already!!!), we took an Uber to go a bit more south. We drove to Allepey (or Alappuzha since 2012) in the district of the same name in the state of Kerala (south India). The drive took us around 1 and half hour and during all this time, there were no interruption of houses on the road. The cities seem to never end, when one finish another one starts, but there is also a lot of trees and bits of nature as well, merge into it. It is hard to describe!
Allepey is know as the Venice of the Eastern world, because of its many canals, backwaters, lagoons and beaches.
We arrive to a lovely guesthouse with a room much bigger than the last one, which is nice and with AIRCON!!!! I try not to use aircon too much at home (back in Australia), but here it is very much appreciated as it is so hot and humid! We did our regular walk around, had a lovely lunch (in a vegetarian restaurant: I think I said it before, but I love how many vegetarian options there are!!!) and we had to buy Andrew some new shoes, as his were broken down. We are staying in a homestay, so there is a family living here with a 6-year-old boy. The kids have a friend to play with. It didn’t take long for them to play foosball, hide and seek and other games with him and to be invited to play cricket later in the afternoon when it is less hot (is it ever?!). We’ll go play cricket another day for sure (edit: we didn’t manage to find the time to do that.). This is one of the conversations we have the most here: when people found out we are from Australia, cricket!!! After that we went to the Alappuzha beach. I was a bit hesitant with the experience we have from beaches so far, but this one is good! It is massive to start with (1.5km) and relatively clean. We saw a few rubbish but not more that we would find in Australia (unfortunately, still too much). The kids had a ball playing on the sand and getting their feet (and legs and shirts) wet. This is a popular spot so there is a lot of people, but as the beach is big, it is not overcrowded. After that, it was dinner near the beach and back to the homestay for a movie night.
On the 6th of March, we went to visit the lighthouse of Allepey. It was build in 1860 and was the first of its kind in the Arabian sea coast of Kerala. With its red and white colours (it used to be white but got repainted red and white in 2000) and the well maintain garden at the bottom, it is a very pretty sight. Inside there is a wooden staircase with 105 steps which will take you to the top to enjoy view of the beach and the area around. I was surprised by how green it is around. From the top of the lighthouse, you can see construction everywhere but also lots of green. I am sure plenty of forest got destroy to build the cities, but coming from big city, I know it can be way worse, and it is nice to see so many trees around. The kids were delighted as we saw 2 trains passed while we were at the top.
After that, we had a quick snack made of samosa and other deep fried delicious things that I don’t know the name of!
In the afternoon, we went on a trip on the backwater. Tuktuk drive for 45 minutes to get away from the city. We arrived at someone’s house, Valentine, a very chatty and friendly individual who organised our afternoon. At the back of his house is a small canal with a long thin canoe and hop we go. No motor on that boat, just a nice fellow, named Mr Cullen, with his paddle. We went around the canals, some small one and some a bit bigger. It was nice floating on the water and looking for birds, especially the kingfisher. It was enjoyable being in nature, but there is always a couple of houses around. It is never completely in nature. But it was nice watching the lives along the river: women washing clothes or doing the dishes in the river, people taking their shower in the river as well, women with their beautiful, coloured saree (traditional Indian clothes) walking along the river to do their errands, groups of man chatting after their work day next to the river, just everyday lives here, a little bit different than ours.
Around 5pm, we meet with Valentine again for an afternoon snack on the side of the river, made of fried bananas, samosas, coffee and tea. After that, we are off again to a bigger part of the river until the sunset and into the night. It was a bit different floating on the river with very little light, but luckily there are no crocodiles in that part of India (I asked), so it was pretty safe! Around 8pm, we got back to Valentine’s house for a homecooked dinner made of grilled fish, rice, a lot of different sauces and little side dishes, bananas and delicious pineapple, and even a few chips for the kids! We were very full by the end. Tuktuk back to our homestay and we were exhausted, despite doing nothing but sitting on a boat all day, so quick to bed!!
The next day, we spent some time doing school work: the kids wrote their blog and did some research on things for the day before. We saw a lot of rice field and we even stopped to look at the rice grain, so Andrew did some research about how rice grow and the type of rice that grows in this area and Emma did some research on the birds of the area that we might have seen during our boat trip.
After the hard work, the fun part. We went to a small park with a small zipline, pedal boat, rope bridge. The funny thing is Kev and I weren’t super impressed by it, as it is not super well kept and relatively small, but the kids loved it. I have to remember to keep my child eyes on a bit more often. Andrew as usual loved the zipline. Emma is still not ready to do it. I think she is like me and height is not her friend. But she is learning to push herself a little bit every time. She started the rope bridge and did the first obstacle and that was enough for her. But we are very proud of her for it.
After that, we promised the kids that we could go back to the beach and they could get as dirty as they wish! And they did. Water, sand and waves, is all they need to have fun. We spent a couple of hours watching them play in the waves. After that back to the homestay for a clean and back out again for dinner. It was a relax day, but we need those sometime!
The next day was museum day (we haven’t had one for a while 😊). We visited the Revi Karunakaran Memorial Museum. This is a private museum with an amazing private collection. Revi Karunakaran, died in 2003 (I think) and his wife decided to create a museum in his honour to display the art and antiques that her husband (and his father and grand father before him) collected. The collection is insane: it covers antiques furniture, artwork from all over the world, crystal piece of art (a lot of Swarovski), jade pieces, painting, porcelain, sculptures… and many more!! I unfortunately have not photo, as it was forbidden to take any. What surprised me is that we visit museums often, and none of the public museum we saw, have been that well kept and abundant. This is things you can do when you have money…
After that, we went to the coir museum. What is coir you might ask? I didn’t know either. Coir, also known as coconut fibre, is a natural, coarse fibre extracted from the outer husk of coconuts, used for various applications like mats, ropes, brushes, and mattresses. I had no idea that this was used! This is a big trade in this area, hence why the museum is here. The museum explains the different way to extract it (traditional and more modern) and how it is transformed into thread and then into products. It was super interesting, especially the room with around 15 to 20 looms and other machines (to do door mat for example). We really enjoyed ourselves in this museum.
Dinner in the evening was lovely except for the mosquitos. This is one of the things here which I struggle the most with, and the heat of course!!! But anyway, we are getting better at knowing what we like and to eat with our hands without making too much of a mess!
The next day and our last full day here, we went to the Kumarakom bird sanctuary. Andrew saw that when he did some research and as he loves watching animal, he asked to go there. So we went. It was a bit underwhelming. To get there, we took one tuktuk, then a ferry, then another tuktuk. At the entrance was a map of the park, where we saw written “otter watch”: the kids got super excited as they looooove otters! We start walking the trail, trying to spot birds (as it is a bird sanctuary), which was a bit hard, but I was hopeful as there was 3 watch tours on the map. We got to the first one, on the other side of the small river we were following with no access to it. Great, we keep walking to the second one. One the way, we spot of few fish and turtle in the river, and a fair bit of rubbish too. The second tower came into view and yes, we can reach, but there is a sign on it saying, “under maintenance”. Okay… That’s ok, we keep going to the 3rd one, yes, this one we can reach and climb on! We manage to see a fair few painted storks from it, but not much else. While walking the trail, we were trying to see how to get to the “Otter watch” area… not accessible from the park…. Very disappointed. Why put something on the map that you can’t access!!! After a few hours of walking and trying to spot wildlife, we get hungry. After lunch, we decide to rent a boat to go on the other side of the park on the lake side to try to spot some otters. We had to convince the driver of our boat to go that way, as normally he takes people on the river way to see canals (but we already did that a few days ago). After a bit of chatting he took us toward the lake. We manage to see more birds than in the park! But unfortunately, we didn’t spot otters. But it was still nice as we got to see some wildlife and enjoy a boat ride! Tuktuk, ferry and tuktuk back to our homestay for a rest before heading out for dinner.
Today is packing day again. Tonight we will take our first night train to go to Mysore. I am a bit apprehensive as we never took a train here, even less a night train. I am not quite sure what to expect. We have to leave our room, but we are allowed to stay in the homestay, so we don’t have to look for a place to stay with our bags all day. That is great. We are going to spend time doing school work and blog. I’ll let you know on my next blog how was the train!
Mel
5.3.2025. Finished packing and hoped in the taxi Mel organised. Hour and a half later and we're in Allepey, think that's how it's spelt. We checked in to our guesthouse and are shown to our room. Well not our, the room next to it. Our room is getting a new toilet, so we're spending one night in this room then switching tomorrow. Anyway, whatever, we'll just not unpack too much. We need lunch, so we're off in search of sustenance. Found an ATM, holy crap the first one we tried worked (we've had our troubles with ATMs). Walked for a bit in the direction the guesthouse owner said and found a vegetarian restaurant. Good food and a coffee, that's me sorted. Andrew's Aussie thongs keep blowing out, so we have a new mission. Find our little bloke some new foot falcons. Tried one shop, no luck, but they pointed me in the right direction. Walked for a bit, that's what you do when you’re traveling, walk. Found the appropriate shop, found the appropriate footwear, Andrew sorted. On the way back to the guesthouse we dropped into a small supermarket and grabbed some supplies, water and breakfast nibblies (plus some lollies). We had a chat and organised a trip for tomorrow afternoon with the owner. We decided to have a walk down to the beach. Much nicer than anything you will find in Kochi, way cleaner for a start. We stayed there for a bit, and watched the sun go down. Found a restaurant near the beach, had some good food and tried another Indian beer (Kingfisher, but different type). Back to the guesthouse, shower, movie, bed.
6.3.2025. Had some of our breakfast nibblies and set off for a lighthouse. 32m high and we got to climb all the way to the tippity top to have a look around. There's also a little museum with some old school ways they used to light it up. Including LPG, petrol and lots of big bulbs. They stopped the bulbs pretty quick as it was very expensive. Found some snacks on the side of the road on our way back. Now waiting for our afternoon trip. Picked up by a Tuktuk and set off to our destination. A small village away from the city, surrounded by rice fields. We met up with the owner of a homestay, Valentine and his boat paddler Mr Cullen. Quick introduction, hop in the big canoe and Mr Cullen paddled us around the backwaters. We were off, starting in a small canal? I guess you would call it a canal. As we travelled further, the canal began to open up, getting bigger as we went. We hit some river plants that blocked off the whole canal. Mr Cullen was having trouble paddling, so he handed up a smaller paddle and asked the kids to “push” river plants away from boat. The kids relished this, they love helping and being involved, especially something new. We cruised along, looking at birds and whatever else we could see. We saw Kingfisher’s, some kind of woodpecker, lily walkers and egrets. We saw rubbish, lots of it floating in the canals (nowhere near as much as in the city). We saw that there are no natural sides to the canals, maybe there never was idk. It's completely lined with rock and concrete. After floating for a couple hours, we made a stop at the bank of a church. Where we met up with Valentine, he had brought us some fried bananas and samosa, tea and coffee. After a bit of a chat we were off again. We travelled further, into bigger channels. Almost saw the sunset, clouds got in the way. OffWatched a guy climb a coconut tree so easily, collecting coconuts for what they call “toddy”, a sort of coconut wine. Apparently it's sweet and refreshing as is, they also ferment it to give it some kick. We finished back at the homestay, where Valentine had prepared a tasty dinner for us. Tuktuk back to our room and bed, cause its late.
7.3.2025. Had a late start as we had a late finish last night. Did some school work, blogging and laundry. Kids prepared and delivered a presentation on some research they were asked to do involving India. Andrew was asked to research rice types and how long it takes to grow. Emma was asked to research birds of India. Both delivered a great presentation, Emma's written and Andrew's a slideshow on his computer.
After that we headed out for some lunch and adventure. We ate, then walked to… Seaview Park! Kerala's only adventure park apparently. Zipline, paddle boat, suspension rope walk stuff, kayak, swing and some dodgy looking playground stuff. They both did the cable car. We all did the paddle boat. Then it was time to zipline! Andrew has no hesitation in regards to ziplining. Emma however, still did not want to do it. Which is a shame because we're sure she'd love it, just taking that first step off a secure platform is scary. Next was the suspension rope stuff, two layers of equipment and you start from the top. Andrew blitzed through it (Andrew slow down you only get to do it once so enjoy), Emma was more hesitant. The first obstacle was a series of steps hung from ropes around 10m above the water. Even though your harnessed up and clipped on, it was still a lot for Em. She got 4 steps out and frozen a bit. Took a lot of encouragement to go 2 more steps, then froze again. Poor little lady, I feel for her. Mel got harnessed up and went up to help, which was a big thing because Mel don't do heights and was almost brown trouser time. With mum's help Emma got to the other side of the first bit. Had a look at the next bit and said, NOPE! Worked her way back across the first bit and came down. A bit upset and pretty sweaty, I gave her a hug and told Emma I was proud of her. I don't have a fear of heights, I can't imagine what it's like, but I know she took a big step today. Not in conquering her fear, just not letting it control her so much. Had a go on a two person swing after that, getting pushed by a bloke that works there. Emma had no problem with that, even though the kids were getting swung out over the water pretty high up. I think it's because Emma had something solid under her. Kids seemed to have fun, but to me the park was kinda lame. We left the park and wandered back along the beach road. We had decided to let the kids play in the ocean as much as they wanted today, regardless of how grotty they got. Man did they get grotty, sand everywhere. We took the swimsuits but there was nowhere to change, so in they went in the clothes they're wearing. After a couple hours and a bit of a chat with one of the local lifeguards, it was time to take the wet rats home and try to clean them. Hosed down in the front yard before allowed inside, then straight to the shower. Rested a bit before heading out for dinner. There is no way we could afford to eat out twice a day in Australia, be broke as a joke. Had a couple more Kingfisher Strong Malt beer, my favourite so far. The adventure continues tomorrow.
8.3.2025. Visited a couple museums today. First one is a private collection, accumulated through three generations of the same family. They made their money through exporting coir products. Coir is what they call coconut husk here. They separate it, spin it and then weave it or use it in looms. This museum had nothing to do with coconuts, just a huge collection of antiques, paintings and artwork from around the world that this family had acquired over the years. Amazing what you can do with money. The next museum was a museum about, don't spill your drinks, coir making and it's history!! We learnt about how it first was made and the advancements made in the technology through the many years. Was interesting to see how they made improvements to the process. I watched the kids as they checked out the machines, trying to understand them and tell me how they thought they worked. I have pretty cluey kids, sometimes. We wandered around the museum, stepped through a door and we're in a huge room with 15-20 looms and other equipment. We had a look around, quickly working out that they were all still in use. We assume nobody was there working because it was Saturday. We weren't sure we were supposed to be in there, but we were gonna check everything out we could before we got kicked out. Nobody came to get us, pretty sure they didn't really care where we went in the place. Safety is not a top priority here, WHS would lose their shit. We found a small house inside that was pretty much made from coconut. Pressed husk makes boards for walls. Husk in bedding and pillows. Think that's enough about coconuts today. Back to our room, aircon on and relaxing. Dinner later, another day done, that's it.
9.3.2025. Today we got up a bit earlier and made our way to Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary. Rode a Tuktuk to a ferry terminal, then ferried across the lake to the sanctuary. Payed our fee and off we went. We could hear birds, spotting them was another matter. They have three watch towers, only one is accessible towards the end of the walk. Went up it and saw some nesting storks. We made our way back to the entrance. It was nice and the kids had fun, but, we saw bugger all. For a “sanctuary”, it was not maintained great and there's lots of rubbish. We walked across the street and had a nice lunch. I'm really starting to like chicken biryani. We went back to the sanctuary as we had seen they do boat rides as well. Hopped into a boat and set off. We had a look around the lake and saw so many birds. We were hoping to maybe see some Otters, but that didn't happen. The guide pointed out lots of different birds for us, answered our questions and generally made it a nice ride. After the boat trip, we made our way back to the ferry and waited to board. Back at the room, shower time then head out for dinner.
10.3.2025. Packing day, yay. Blogging day, yay! We have to check out at 10-11 and our train isn't until 7:30 tonight so we weren't sure what we were gonna do all day. We talked to the guesthouse owner, who said we can leave our bags here during the day and he'd be ok with us staying in another room. So hopefully that sorts that problem. Working out what to do all day with all your bags. More to be written later.
KevRead more
Allepey, Kerala, India (by the kids)
Mar 5–10, 2025 in India ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C
I’M HERE!!! I told you I’d say it in my last blog, you didn’t think I would remember did you, whatever, I did, now enjoy.
On the 5th we went on a taxi to Allepey. The taxi was nearly two hours long, I didn’t feel so good, but not so bad that I was going to spew, just a little bad. On this trip, sometimes I’ve goten car sick, but it’s weird because I never got car sick till we started this trip. When we got there, we didn’t go to our proper room because they were installing a toilet, so we had to go to another room, but still in the same hotel. So we put our bags in the room and went down to the beach. My parents didn’t allow me to take of my shoes, because last time we went to a beach, there was crap everywhere, I even saw a light bulb. But when we got down to the water, they let us take our shoes of because it was way cleaner. Me and Emma liked playing this game, and this is what we did, we would get very close to the water, then when a big wave would come, we would attempt to outrun it. When we were done, we went to have dinner and then went to the hotel and slept.
On the 6th we went to a light house, it was really nice, at the bottom of the light house there was a nice garden and a little playground. We checked out the garden and then went up to the top of the light house, it was one hundred and five steps up, when we got to the top it was an amazing view. From up there, I could see, railway tracks, a highway, the beach, trees and a helicopter landing platform. We were up there for a bit, and then I noticed the boom gates were down on the railway tracks, so we waited because I wanted to see the train, then I heard the train horn. The train was a passenger train, it had 11 carriages and 1 locomotive. When we were about to go down, I noticed that the boom gates were down again, so we waited, this one had 16 carriages and 1 locomotive. Finaly we went down and swung on the swing in the playground a bit, then went for lunch. We had a few Indian snack things, and then after that, we went back to the hotel to do our blog. We also had to move to our proper room because they should have finished the toilet by now, nope, they hadn’t so we had to stay in the room a bit longer. When we finally moved to the next room, I played a bit of computer because I had done what I needed to do in my blog. We were also waiting for a tuktuk to come and pick us up and take us to a place. That place was where we would go on a boat, and we would go around in the water, then come back to the place. When that tuktuk came it drove us to the place and we hopped in the boat and started our trip. It was a very nice trip, there was lilies and floating plant things, don’t know what they’re called. We were on that boat till 8pm, we got off at 8pm (and we got on at 2pm). When we got there, the person who owned it gave us diner, it was delicious, I would have eaten more but I was full. After that we went to the hotel and slept. Night night.
On the 7th we started our day by doing schoolwork, not a very interesting subject. We also did a bit of our blog, I enjoy doing my blog, it’s interesting plus it’s on computers. We started trying to do the blog every day. By the time we finished our blog it was lunch time, we went to a garden restaurant. Emma and I had burgers. Mum calls it a cheat lunch because were in India and we should be eating Indian food. After lunch we went to a park. In the park there were ziplines, cable cars, rope bridges, peddle boats and canoes. I did everything, sadly Emma didn’t. The only thing Emma didn’t do was the rope bridge and the ziplines. After that we went down to the beach played a little then went back to the hotel and slept.
On the 8th we went to a museum, (again), but this museum was different, all the things were collected by one person. Their name was Revi, they owned a coir factory (will explain what coir is later). Whatever, they got rich and started a collection of artefacts. The artefacts weren’t old, they were actually relatively new, they had some glass sculptures only dating back to 2011, but Revi died in 2003. I think that people in his family started collecting for him after he died. My favourite artefact is a one that has corral and fish, it looked amazing: they had scales on the fish but the scales were made of little gems, I really liked it. Some of the stuff were worth over $50,000, so if all the stuff in that building were sold, they would have about $10,000,000. When we left that place we went to yet another museum. This museum was about coir, (see I told you I’d tell you about coir). When we got there, we figured out that coir is coconut husk, but put in a machine and made in to ropes, mats and other stuff: here are some of the other things, pictures, sculptures, walls, WALLS? They make the walls by compressing it so it gets hard, they actually made an entire house out of it, it was amazing. When we went home we slept. Night nightzzzzzzzzzzz
On the 9th we took a tuktuk to go to the ferry to go the other side of a 4 kilometre long pond, just to take another tuktuk to go to a bird sanctuary, a lot of things to ride in. The good thing about that is I learnt how to signal a tuktuk driver to pull over: all you need to do is stick your hand out on the side facing the road, you’d think I’d have figured that out a while ago. When we got there we paid to go in, then went into the bird sanctuary, we didn’t see that many birds, mainly because the migratory bird are coming back at mid-March, and it’s not mid-March yet, so there not here yet. There still were some bird there, there were these really big stalks called painted storks, there were also some rivers in the place so we saw some fish. I had something called Plan A and Plan B. Plan A is when I sneak up to the river and see if I can see any animal. If not, I activate Plan B. Plan B is where I do a big jump and see if anything moves. And if it doesn’t work, I walk away disappointed. After that we went on a boat trip a little bit around the lake then came back to the front of the bird sanctuary, then took a tuktuk back to the ferry, to take a tuktuk back to the hotel (and sleep). Good night.
On the 10th we finished of our blog and packed our bags because we’re leaving today: we’re leaving (not early at 7:30pm), we’re taking a night train, it’s going to be tiring. I hope I sleep well. Whatever, I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog.
Andrew David Bridson (almost 10 years old), 10 times Nobel prize winner, leader of TRALOA (The Rights and Laws of Andrew).
The end, to be continued…
Hello again, I am here to tell you about what we did on the 5th to the 10th of March.
On the 5th we took a taxi to Allepey, and it took just under 2 hours to get there. It was long and I didn’t feel that well. so, I looked outside for a bit. Anyway, after that we went try to find lunch. Then once we found some food we headed down to the beach. It was so much cleaner than the last one we saw. This one didn’t have hardly any rubbish. Andrew and I played in the water lots. We got soaked and in trouble by mum and dad. So, we apologize lots, and they forgave us.
On the 6th we visited the light house and boy did it have lots of steps. I thought I wouldn’t make it, but I surprisingly did (For your information there was 105 steps). At the top of the lighthouse, we could see the train tracks, the boom gates, houses and the river. It was beautiful. We saw two trains passing through. After, we went and played on the playground at the bottom. There was a swing set, a slide, a spiny thing and a seesaw. Andrew and I had a match on who could stay on the ground the longest and I won. Then we went back home and relaxed a bit. After a while we had a tuktuk take us to a boat place because we had booked a boat ride. Me and Andrew got a job where we got a paddle to push the leaves away. It got boring in the end. So, Dad gave out the goggles. We spotted a few birds; we saw king fishers and woodpeckers. They were beautiful. We saw billions of rice plants. It was lovely.
On the 7th we did some schoolwork and blog. Then we went out for lunch. We went to a place that was called The garden café. It was lovely. It had plants everywhere. Then we went to a park that had canoes, peddle boats, swing set, playground, rope bridge, (which I had a melt down on) and a zipline. I refused to go on the zipline. I tried the rope bridge, but I failed badly (mum edit: but she tried very hard and we are very proud of her for trying). After that we went down to the beach for a swim. We got sandy and disgusting. We played for about three hours. I loved it so much.
Saturday the 8th we visited two museums. At the first one there were lots of glass sculptures and furniture. It was amazing. My favourite piece of furniture was a treasure chest thingy, and my favourite in the glass ones was two dolphins swimming together. There were also stuffs made from diamonds and gems. It was a wonderful experience. Then we visited the coir museum. (fyi, coir means the inside of a coconut). It was a museum were there were statues of fake people, who were showing you how to make stuff out of coir. they made lots of different stuff.
Sunday the 9th we took a tuktuk to a boat station all the way to the other side of the lake. Then we took a tuktuk to the bird place. We saw birds, butterflies, turtles and fish. It was fun especially when dad put on a bet. Who ever saw a bird first would get a mentos. There was one thing that could been better and that was there could have been more birds. After that we went on a boat ride to try and see otters. I liked it and I learnt some new bird names.
Monday the 10th we did are blog and waited for our night train.
Emma (8 year old)Read more
Mysore, Karnataka, India (by Mel)
Mar 11–16, 2025 in India ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C
Namaskara (Hello in Kannada),
We are in a new state in India. We are in Mysore (officially Mysuru) in the southern state of Karnataka. The main language is Kannada (in Kerala it was Malayalam). I thought that Hindi was the main language in India, I could not be further than the truth. India has around 200 languages spoken. Some people also speak Hindi, but not everyone. Some also speak English, but not everyone either! We like learning the basic in the language of the country we are, but here, when we just get the hang on how to say Hello, we go to another state and we need to learn a new one!
Anyway, to go from Alleppey to Mysore, we took our first Indian train, and even better, our first Indian night train. I was apprehensive, as I’ve read some bad stories about train in India, but you know what? It was easy as! We got to the train station early (because I am always early everywhere), check that the train wasn’t cancelled (just in case), and where the wagon was going to be on the station, as you only have a few minutes to get in, so no time to run the whole length of the train when it arrives. We waited a bit in a paid aircon waiting area (because it is hot, it is India after all!). When the train arrives, we were exactly where we were supposed to be, hop in the train, find our seats. Well it is not really seats, as it is a night train. There are 3 sleepers (a low, middle and top one). The top on is always open, the middle one is down during the day, so people can sit on the lower one. We had 2 middle and 2 top ones. After eating our dinner and agreeing with the couple that had the 2 lower sleepers that it was time to lay down, we just needed to lift up the middle bed, hang it from the top sleeper (I’m not sure how to explain that part) and we were ready for the night. The kids were in the 2 top ones, and they loved it. Kev and I were in the 2 middle ones. We got given bed shits, a pillow and a blanket, so got ourselves comfi, read a bit and after a little while got to sleep. I didn’t feel the train moving that much. Sometimes there was a bit of a rumble but not that much. A few people were snoring around, but honestly, the experience was so much better that I had imagine! We were on the train until 11am, when we finally arrived in Mysore.
Mysore seemed a bigger city than Alleppey, with a lot of cars and tuktuk driving crazily around! We got a taxi to our room, which got changed at the last minutes, for a bigger one at the same price: we got a 2 bedrooms appartement, which is great! One room for the kids, one for us, a living room and a small kitchen! This is luxury! We unpack and grab straight away a tuktuk to see the Palace. The current structure of the palace was constructed between 1897 and 1912, after the Old Palace burnt down, the current structure is also known as the New Fort. Mysore Palace is one of the most famous tourist attractions in India, after the Taj Mahal. This is the main attraction in Mysore. The palace is impressive from the outside. It is big, with arches, dome like roofs and colours. We got our tickets: tickets are almost more expansive for foreigner, we are used to it, but this time it is 8 time more! It is still cheaper than Australian prices obviously, but still. Kids are fee, that helped! The palace is huge and the rooms are impressive: big, almost princessy castle feeling! The down side was that, plenty of area were roped off: for example, the first massive room we got in, has a beautiful dome with painted glass, and it was not possible to get under the dome to really appreciate it. Several areas were like that, which was a bit sad. But we still enjoyed it.
One of the things we have a bit of trouble getting used to here, is the way people move in crowd: everyone push pass everyone, personal space is unknown, waiting to take your turn doesn’t seem to be a thing… This is a different way of doing thing and we feel a bit lost sometimes! Also as white people, we are a bit of an attraction in some places and we are often “asked” if people can take pictures with us: when I say ask, is more like someone stand next to us and says “picture?” with their phone already out ready to take the picture. We did say yes a few times, but if we feel like we don’t have a choice, it kinda rub us the wrong way and we say no, if they leave us the time, especially when the kids are involved. It is tricky to navigate. I know as a traveller, I take pictures: but I am trying to be a lot more responsible than I was before and if I take a picture of someone (as a close up), I make sure to ask before and wait for their answer. People are not commodities or monuments; they are people and they should have a choice about their image.
Anyway, after the visit, we went back to our place to have a quick shower and a rest (the night in the train was not completely restful), then we went back to the palace for the light show. I will be upfront; it was not the best! It is advertised as a light show, but it is more a sound with a few lights added. We pick the wrong day and the story told, was in Kannada (English was another day), but I thought, that’s ok, we will still enjoy the lights… Well nope: the show was around 50 minutes and only the last 5 minutes, the whole palace was illuminated with different coloured lights. The rest of the time, it was a light here and there. But well, we might try to go back on an English day if we find the time!
We have all heard about stories of cows walking around in India, but until now we didn’t see it that much. Here in Mysore, there are cows everywhere, walking in the middle of the traffic, laying down on the side of the road. We even saw one that just gave birth on a side road. Andrew is not super comfortable waking next to them. As he says: “I love observing the animals, but not from too close!”. Emma is more scared of the dogs, which are everywhere too, as we got barked at a few times when we were walking around. It makes our walks even more interesting!
The following day, the kids (but especially Andrew) were very excited as we went to the zoo, then an aquarium. I am not a big fan of zoo, but the kids have been wanted to see animals for a while, and I looked at some reviews of the Mysore Zoo and they were good…. I don’t believe reviews anymore: the zoo has a wide variety of animals for sure. It was good for that. But the condition the animals are kept in, are far from being ideal. Enclosures too small, no visible access to water (while it is very hot here), animal clearly depressed, trying to get back in their inside area, but all doors were closed, a lot of lonely animals included those who are known to be sociable like monkeys and such. And what top it up for me was the elephants: 3 of them at least, had chains on their legs, so they could not run, they could only take small steps. To sum up, if you are in Mysore, please DO NOT GO TO THE ZOO!!! This is not a good zoo. It got me very sad and guilty that I gave money to a place such as this. We decided as a family that we won’t go to zoo anymore and we will try to see animals in the wild where they belong.
Andrew being crazy about fish, we followed that visit with the Aquarium. It was better than the zoo, but just. Again, there was a good variety of fish, but some of the tanks felt a bit too small for the massive fish inside. I know less about fish behaviour than other animals, but still…It didn’t seem completely right to me. The kids enjoyed themselves and found a “pet” fish friend, that they called Dooby, that they follow around the tunnel for a bit and it was funny.
The next day was another type of experience. I’ve seen picture of a Hindu temple on top of a hill that looked really nice and I wanted to go and visit. We did. Took a tuktuk, he dropped us at the bottom of the hill, we had to go through a maze of small market type alley full of small stands selling everything and anything. A lot of people were there pushing their way pass. We wrestle our way following the crowd, assuming they were going to the temple. We arrive at the temple: it is called Sri Chamundeshwari Temple. It has a beautiful tower with a lot of statues representing diverse deities. We decided to go in, but maybe we shouldn’t have. It was overcrowded and you need to follow the line, a bit like in Disneyland with the rails on each side, and for some reason, we had to rush, everybody was rushing. We got 5 seconds to see the inside and we were out! That was it. We still had no idea why people were such in a rush, maybe that is what happen in Hindu temple, we are still not sure!!
After that we walked around, find a path to the viewpoints to see the whole city. It is big! We can’t really see the end of it. We also found a massive statue of a cow, which represent Nandi, who is the bull of the god Shiva. It was a nice, but hot walk! Ha yes, and monkeys! Again! Monkeys trying to steal stuffs from human! We don’t like monkeys too much. They are a bit scary! After that pretty confusing experience, we went back to our place and did a drawing competition, drawing each-others, to keep ourselves entertained (Emma won!).
The next day, we visited a cathedral, St. Philomena's Cathedral. This is a catholic church built in 1933 and is one of the tallest in Asia: the spires reach 53m high. I like visiting all type of places of worship and learn about the different religions, their difference and similarities.
After that, we went to the regional museum of natural history. This is a free museum: it has a great display, is well organised and well explained and is interesting. We were very nicely surprised as we didn’t find that place on any of the things to do in Mysore lists. Kev just saw it on Google map and we decided to give it a try. We have seen bigger and better museum (we went to the Louvres for example), but it was interesting. We spent a couple of hours reading about evolution of the planet and the animals on it. 2 hours well spent! The museum has a gate open to a park, so we spent the next few hours walking around this park, which is right next to a lake. It was relaxing and we couldn’t hear the city, which was a nice change (the city is noisy!). One of the most exciting part was that, at the museum, we learnt about the grizzled giant squirrel who lives in the area and while in the park, we saw one!!! There is a huge population of regular squirrel here in Mysore (the kids love spotting them around the city), but we had never seen or heard of a giant squirrel before. It was funny that the day we learnt about them, we saw one! We also saw more birds there than in the bird sanctuary back in Kerala! The funny thing about that park, was that we realised when leaving it, that we were supposed to pay for it. The entrance was at another place than the entrance we used (from the museum) and we think it was supposed to be closed. As it was half ish open, we thought we could get in! It was an honest mistake!
The next day was for me one of the best we had in India. It was Holi. Holi is a major Hindu festival to celebrate the love between of the deities Radha and Krishna. It also celebrates spring, the triumph of good over evil and it is also an invocation for a good spring harvest season. I was hoping to see a big celebration of it, but it seems to be more celebrated in the north of India. I still find tickets for a Holi celebration. Tickets included one drink each, food and some coloured powder. I really didn’t know what to expect. We got a taxi to get there as it was a bit outside of the city. The entrance was a bit messy, everyone trying to get their tickets to get in and their free drinks. It seems pretty typical here! We got in! Yeah! It was on a big open area with loud music. In the middle was a structure with water, showering whoever was under dancing. We stand around for a bit taking everything in. Pretty quickly, we were dancing and the kids asked to use the coloured powder we got. As some people around were already covered in it, we said why not!!! In a few minutes, we were all colourful. We then went dancing under the water as the sun was hot (as always). I forgot to say that this event started at 11am, so right when it is getting super hot! Some food was available, so we had some. It was such a fun experience. A lot of people wished us happy Holi, while putting colour on us. We took a few pictures with different groups, and it was fun. We had a really good time dancing, making connections, laughing and overall just enjoying the moment. After maybe 3 hours, the kids (and us too to be honest) were getting tired, so we left all those happy people dancing their day away and went back to our apartment for a good shower. Even after that we still had some tinge of colour on our skin!
Today is our last day here. We have a train just before midnight to go to Udupi. We’ll see you there!
MelRead more
Mysore, Karnataka, India (by Kev)
Mar 11–16, 2025 in India ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C
11.3.2025. Continuing on from the 10th, we got on the train no problem and some stress got relieved. The train set off and we settled in. People walking up and down the carriages selling coffee/tea and biryani. Yep we'll have some of that. Set up the beds after dinner, lights off and tried to sleep. Woke up a bit during the night, people snoring and carriages making noise. I will say the trains here seem pretty smooth. In the morning we set the beds back to seating and ate/talked/played games until we got to Mysuru. Grabbed a taxi to our new guesthouse, 2 bedrooms, 2 showers and toilets. We may not see the kids for a few hours! We talked about that before we left. If one or the other needed a break from constant parenting we would work something out. Hasn't been needed so far, we still love them. Anyway, we chucked our bags in the room, searched for an ATM, grabbed some lunch and headed to the Palace. Chuck in a couple Tuktuk rides as well. The palace was beautiful, though lots of it is roped off and you can't see everything. There's a huge main hall with massive pillars and stain glass dome at the top, but you can only see a bit from the side because it's roped off. Otherwise it was pretty nice. There's also a museum here that we searched for unsuccessfully, only to find out later that it's “closed for repairs”. We still payed full price to get in though. They don't miss you here, pay for frigging everything. We payed 1000rupees each to get in, then had to store our shoes before we could go into the palace, fair enough. The guy taking our shoes, who I am sure is being payed to be there asks “tip”? Mel reminded him we just payed 1000 rupees to get in and did very well not to tell him to “f off”. I could see it in Mel's eyes. Tip for what? For putting a bag on a shelf and giving us a piece of paper with a number written on it, no harm in asking I suppose. Anyway, I'm rambling now. After the palace we went back to the guesthouse, I dunno what anyone else did cause I fell asleep for a bit, was a long night. Woke up and back to the palace for a sound and light show. Payed again, this time a lot cheaper tho. Went and sat in some chairs set up in front of the palace and listened to a story, I'm sure it was a good story, it wasn't in English so I missed a most of it. We could tell there was fighting and horses and swords and other stuff. People walking around and talking as the lights lit up different parts of the palace and it's surrounds. Was a truly mesmerising story I'm sure. Anyway, right at the end the lights really danced along with some music and then the whole palace lit up, saved the best till last. Found a nice restaurant, had a beer, Tuktuked to the guesthouse and crashed.
12.3.2025. Zoo day!!! Kids are happy, yay! Aquarium day, yay!! Had a small fight getting into the zoo, language barrier and me being somewhat simple-minded. I thought they weren't going to let me in with our lollies and Mentos (some days you just need sugar), but they just want to mark them with a sticker. For each sticker it was 10rupee, refunded when we left to make sure we took out the plastic we brought in. Makes sense I guess, it just took me a bit to catch up. Inside the zoo, was a different story. We saw quite an array of animals. We started to feel that a lot of the areas for the animals was too small, and seemed to hardly have any water in them. It's India, it's kinda hot here, dunno how much water they need but some didn't have any. They're not dead I guess, so they haven't stuffed up too much. Then we walked past some Asian elephants, their front feet were chained together, they could only walk slowly. WTF is this shit! Really put a sour taste in our mouths. We decided we may as well finish our visit, but we had lost a lot of enthusiasm for this zoo. Andrew loves Otters, who doesn't right! Guess what? No Otters, cracks in the glass and the area closed. Yay. We finished the zoo, less happy than when we started. I'm having a little trouble with the locals, the stares are getting to me. I get it, we're a white family travelling through India, but my kids got more stares then a lot of the animals. Some think it's ok to just try to take photos of us, most ask and I say no. The kids don't like it. There's stares and some touching, it's a different culture but that doesn't make it right. I can honestly say I like the food here, but India is not my favourite place. I just have to get used to the people here, they're loud and pushy and sometimes seem completely in their own world, and that everything is put there for them. That's my impression for now, maybe that will change, maybe it won't. After all that, the aquarium. Didn't know what to expect, wasn't great but it's better than any aquarium in Townsville! Fuck me!! Totally done with the selfie people. Race ahead, look at F all, stop in the way for a shit load of selfies only to race through looking at F all again except another place to take selfies. I guess they can look at all the fish at home on their phones. Ah the fish! There was some tanks FULL of fish! Some big tanks had one little one all by itself. We got to the “tunnel”, thinking it's a massive tank with a tunnel running through it. Nope, it's a tunnel with a tank built around it, some places not even thick enough for the big fish to turn around. Still better than anything Townsville has. After that, back to the guesthouse to do maths and blog. The kids seemed to enjoy their day, and I can't speak for Mel but the day was somewhat spoiled for me. I spent a lot of the day grumbling and Mel tried to cheer me up, love them for that. Im still with my family and maybe tomorrow will be better.
13.3.2025. Lazy start to the day. Blogged a bit, kids played on their computers while we tried to plan a bit for Africa. Around midday we'd had enough of being inside, so we tuktuked it to a temple on a hill. Sri Chamundeshwari Temple to be exact, had to copy and paste the name. 1062 metres above sea level. Not a huge temple inside but a pretty big decorated, ornate front part. Andrew saw a cow lightly headbutt someone to get them out of the way. He was already feeling a little uneasy about big animals after almost getting his foot stepped on by a buffalo in Laos, this didn't help. Wasn't sure what to do at the temple, lots of stainless steel fencing around the front. After storing our shoes and walking across the hot road, we found the way in. Busy inside, didn't get the chance to see much as it was rush rush and we didn't want to get in the way of the locals who actually visit to pray or be blessed. The fencing pretty much led you through a part of the temple with a bit of a squeeze, get your blessing and out the door. We figured out it may have been a bit more busy because it was closing soon, so people were in a bit of a hurry. No problem, I had a quick look and went through. We walked around the other side for a photo of the temple then made our way back out the fencing. On the outside there was this guy dressed up in some stuff, I dunno feathers and colourful fabrics, bonking people on the head as they passed. Bonked all of us as we passed even though we all tried to avoid him. Anyway that madness had passed, now it was time to eat something. Found a small restaurant on the hill and ate “Thali meal”. A selection of small sauces with rice and poppadom. We added butter roti (fried flat bread) to our order. Delicious, the kids had some rice or something idk. Our bellies full, we went for a walk. Down some steps, around the hill and found a huge cow statue. Also found monkeys, you know how I feel about monkeys, I don't like them! Weird little long legged rats with big teeth, and people feed them so they expect food from everyone. Signs around the place about pickpockets and monkeys. More worried about the monkeys. We made our way back along our path and back up the stairs. Not sure if it was the full belly or being 1klm up, but we all struggled a bit going back up the stairs. Was hot too. Found a shady spot to rest while we looked at Google maps to see if there was anything else to check out. Nope we're done with this hill. Ordered a Tuktuk (uber is good for that here) and went back to our room, where Mel came up with the idea of a drawing contest. One which some of you recently voted on, or voted for all of them because you couldn't decide, talking to you mum! Watched a bit of tv, kids are liking Blown Away on Netflix. We tried Indian tv, but that didn't work.
14.3.2025. Mel wanted to see St. Philomena cathedral, so we went and had a look. A newer cathedral, built in the 1930’s. Still don't know who St. Philomena was or what they did, might look into that one day. I found The Regional Museum of Natural History just looking around google maps, we decided to have a look. Nothing else doing today and it's only a 35-40 min walking distance, we set off in foot. Not sure how many Tuktuk’s we turned down, but it was lots, and one guy would not take the hint. Know it's how they make their money, but it seems if they pester you enough you're going to give in. Nope just kept on walking, he eventually buggered off. We stopped about 2/3rds the way through our journey, hunger was setting in and there was a nice looking restaurant on the side of the road. We ordered some dosa for everyone, a different fried flat bread with some dips. Emma's was stuffed with potatoes, Mel's was like a wrap with potatoes and stuff inside and mine had onion fried into it and placed atop a small pile of potatoes. Andrew just had plain dosa, which he enjoyed. I tried everyone's, they were all good but I think mine was the best. Back on the road, 10 more minutes of walking and we had found the museum. Free entry, bonus. We didn't know what to expect here, all of our searches of “things to do in Mysuru” not once had this museum came up in a list. Well, what a nice surprise. The displays, while maybe a little old were well put together and had lots of information in English. It covered rivers, mainly the Cauvery, one of the sacred rivers. It covered lots of animals, including a giant squirrel species we didn't know existed. Lots of info about the different types of environments. There was lots of pictures of Indian tribes that still exist today and how they dress. Finally there was an exhibition on how the world started, from being a ball of hot gasses to becoming a planet. A timeline and information about all the periods in time and the animals that existed during that time(Jurassic eg.). It was an interesting museum, and needs to be advertised more as a place to see in Mysuru. I found there was a butterfly park next to the museum, so afterwards we headed there. There was a gate near the back of the museum we headed through (found out later we were supposed to pay to enter the park, oh well). We found ourselves on a nice path through some forested area near a lake. We walked along and found the butterfly park, on a small island we accessed with a small bridge. Flowers and of course butterflies. We saw many other plants and animals on the small path around the island. There was an aviary and playground on the other side of the park, so we walked for a bit. On the way, Andrew saw there was a watch tower. As we were walking towards the tower, something crossed our path a little further up. Something that I thought looked like an otter at first, but it's tail was bushy. We got closer and had a slightly better look. It's a giant squirrel!! We just found out and read about them and now we've seen one!!! We knew it was not a regular squirrel as we've seen hundreds of those, maybe thousands and it was 5-6 times larger. It disappeared into the forest and we climb the tower. Once up the tower we saw another giant squirrel!! Lots of birds too, but that couldn't compare. We found a nice place to sit and rest a little, it was nice to get away from people and the noise for just a little bit(even with two kids). We enjoyed listening to the birds and the wind in the trees. Also we saw a monkey!! It wasn't that close so everyone was ok. We kept walking around the lake and found a fenced area for peacocks. The zoo should take note, this aviary was huge, at least 15m high with lots of room for bigger birds to fly if they wanted, the big birds in the zoo were basically in a shoe box compared to this. We found a nice playground where the kids used their muscles for an hour or so. The playgrounds in India are pretty good(when you can find them). Slides, swings and monkey bars. There was a rope bridge obstacle course the kids liked most. After all that, we left through the front entrance (without paying) and tuktuked it back to the room. Played some games while we rested, then later went to a cave themed restaurant for dinner. A good day.
15.3.2025. We're going to a Holi Festival today, not sure what it's all about but we're gonna have a go. A short taxi trip to the outskirts of Mysore, we were there. We got our wrist bands and our free drink, Andrew got two cokes since Emma doesn't like soft drinks and there was no other choice. Mel and I got a beer each. The music was pumping, geez it was loud, or I'm old. There's this big framework setup in the middle with sprayers pointing down, soon after it all started they turned the water on. I never got completely drenched, but the water was nice against the Indian sun. We were given bags of colourful powders to chuck around at each other. Holi is a Hindu festival celebrating the beginning of spring and other things. We had a few people put colours on our face and wish a “happy Holi”. It was a fun atmosphere, people dancing and singing and just enjoying being with each other. I had fun, I think the kids did too. They danced with us, with each other and with some of the locals, though they needed a little encouragement. There was a buffet set up, all included with our tickets which really wasn't much. We had a few photos taken, which I didn't mind here, as here we were part of the people sharing something. We were all getting buggered, so we ordered a taxi and left the locals to party. We got back and went straight into the shower, the colours took a lot of washing off. We rested then played some games. Went out for dinner later and found a shop selling lots of Indian sweets. Mel and the kids bought a small selection to try. Had some as a dessert while watching an episode of blown away. Bed time.
16.3.2025. Do some blog, pack and move out.
KevRead more
Mysore, Karnataka, India (by the kids)
Mar 11–16, 2025 in India ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C
Welcome to Andrew’s blog, please enjoy.
On the 10th we went on a night train to Mysore. I am going to have fun at Mysore because my mum told me that there was an aquarium and a zoo. I like going to aquariums and zoos because I like looking at animals. In the night train, we had a little bed each, me and Emma had beds high up but they were so close together that I could just step across to each other’s bed. I did not sleep well, I’m not sure any one did. All I know is that I fell asleep somehow.
On the 11th ,we were still on the train, we were getting off at 11am, and it was 7am, 4 more hours. When we did get to the place, we went to our hotel, Yashita mansion (it wasn’t actually a mansion it’s just a big hotel). When we got to our room we loved it, it was huge, and it had a kitchen (I’m missing food from home). There was two different rooms to sleep in, (I like that because me and Emma can stay up as long as we want without being told to go to bed). I liked the hotel, it’s probably the biggest we’ve been in so far. When we settled in we decided to go to the palace\museum. On the in website it said that it would cost 120 rupees to enter (rupees are Indian money) (10 Australian dollar is 547.30 rupees). It cost 120 for someone who lived the, but it cost 1000 for a foreigner, but that’s still only 18.27 Australian dollars, not very much. When we got in, the palace was huge, I really liked it, but they didn’t have many artifacts, it was manly just showing the palace the way it was. At the end of the day we stayed there because there was a show called light and sound, to be honest it was mainly sound. But whatever, you came here to hear what I have to say, so I’ll tell you. They were shining lights on the palace and there were speaker talking, the bad thing is that it was not in English, sad. When we went home we slept.
On the 12th, today is the day, were to the aquarium and the zoo on the same day, it’s going to be great. I woke up early so that I’d be ready to go when we needed to go, problem, I woke up about two hours early. So I got ready, and began my two hour wait. Two hours in the future, we were about to leave, I am very excited, were going to the zoo first, I can’t wait. When we got there we tried to buy our ticket, but they had to check our bags why, I will explain shortly. To force people to not litter, we had to pay ten rupees to bring each plastic item in, and if we bring them out, we get a refund. When we finished all of that, we went in. The place was huge there was loads of animals there were some I never have seen before, it was cool. Here are some of the animals we saw, rhinoceros, elephants, giraffes, deer, horn bills, lions, tigers, monkeys, snakes, turtles, zebras, cheaters, black panthers, squirrels, wolves, gorillas, chimps and bears etc etc. A lot of animals, we saw all of them and even more. On the sign it said there was otters, and I really like otters, but when we got there, there was no otters, sad. Whatever the animals were cool, after that we went to the aquarium. The aquarium was pretty small I have to admit, but it's better than the Townsville aquarium, they had some pretty cool fish. They even had a tunnel, but the bad thing is that the tunnel was tiny, well it was long but the water was skinny so the big fish couldn’t move around that much. There was a toad fish that I named dooby, me and Emma were following dooby around were ever It went. You can see dooby in the pictures. There were also arapaima and alligator gar, they were big. When we finished we went home and slept.
On the 13th we played on our computer then we did our blog till nearly lunch, then we got a tuktuk to a temple. The temple was on a hill, it was a long drive from our hotel, and to be honest, the temple wasn’t really worth it. We came at lunch time and the temple was closing soon, so everyone was rushing, there was lots of people, and we were being rushed, so we didn’t see much at all. It was in, look for 0.01 of a second and then out. As I said, it was lunch time so we had to get some lunch. When we went to lunch, we didn’t know what we picked, when we got our food, it turned out it was rice with stuff in it. We ate it then went to find stuff to do. After we finished we searched up stuff to do near us, dad found this cow statue thing, we didn’t know what else we would do so we went there. The path to go there was long and had lots of monkeys, especially at the statue, when we got there we looked at the statue, it was huge, like 100 times my size, it was ginormous. After that we went back to hotel to sleep, and sleep is what we did.
On the 14th we decided to go to a cathedral, we took a tuktuk to the place. When we got there it turned out to be worth it, the cathedral was huge, it wasn’t that old either, it was only made in 1933. I can’t explain much about it because it’s hard to, I’m not good at explaining these sort of things. After that we decided to go to a museum. We wanted to get some exercise so we decided to walk there (well actually mum wanted to, I didn’t) it was a 45 minute walk. The museum was called the regional museum of natural history, this museum was different than any others we’ve been to so far. It was about the evolution of the world and animals, not that much about humankind. When we got there, it turned out to be free to get in, yay, and it was a really good museum. In the museum they talked about giant squirrels, I like squirrels, so of course I wanted to see them. When we left, we went to a walking path along the river, while walking along we came up to a bridge, the bridge was leading out to an island that had a butterfly park on it, so we went there. It was a really nice place, there were butterfly everywhere, it was cool. When we went back down the bridge, we kept walking, we walked for a while, and then I saw a watch tower that we could go up and look for birds. We started walking towards it, then we saw an otter on land, then I noticed three thing, one, its tail looked different, two, it was too far out of the water, three, IT WAS A GIANT SQUIRREL. (😊😊😊😊😊). This is amazing, the day we find out they exist, the day we see one, that’s crazy. There about as big as possums, but they look exactly like a squirrel, after that we kept walking. We found a little place to sit down it was nice, then dad saw something moving in the tree, these were dad’s exact words “I see a monkey,” it took me about ten minutes to see it, but eventually I saw it. It was a big monkey ,we looked at it for a bit then went back to the hotel to have dinner and sleep.
On the 15th I did my blog for a bit then I played for a little bit, at 10:30am we ordered a taxi to take us to a Holi festival, my mum will explain what Holi is (I think). I’ll explain I little bit, Holi is where you chuck coloured powder at each other and party. When we got there it turned out to be very noisy, we went in, got our powder, and the fun began. I scooped out some powder and chucked It at my mum, then I just kept chucking and chucking. When we were out of powder we started dancing because there was music blaring out from everywhere, it was loud but fun. We danced for hours, it was fun, I was buggered at the end. After a while, we decided to go to the hotel, so we ordered a taxi and waited for it to arrive then promised we wouldn’t get the taxi dirty because we still had colours on us. When we got home, we had dinner then went to sleep. Night night.
On the 16th, we started the day by finishing our blog because were leaving today, well tonigh, were leaving at 11:40pm, it’s going to be a long day. We’re going on a night train it going to be tiering. So, we did our blog for a while, when I finished I played on my computer, then packed. Where going to go to Udupi.
Andrew, World renowned for blogging and videogaming, leader of TRALOA, ex world ruler, wanter of lollies and money.
The End
To be continued…
Hello again peeps. I am here to more about the trip.
Monday the 10th we took a night train to Mysore. We had one bed each. There was someone who slept with us. They slept under us then it was mum and dad. At the very top Andrew and I were sleeping. It was like a triple bed instead of a double bed. I did not sleep well at all. It took about three to four hours to get to sleep. There was someone on the other side of the wall I was. Either they were banging on the wall, or they had a bag rubbing on it.
Tuesday the 11th we finished our train ride and went to our hotel. I love the room. it is ginormous. Then we went to the palace. It was big and beautiful. I was expecting it to be bigger. On the inside there were lots of pictures and paintings. There was an outside place were there where llloootttsss of plants. Then we went back home to rest a little. Then we went back to the palace. Again. Because there was a light & sound show. To be honest, it was not the best. I think there could have been better. There could have been more lights on it. Because they were not all on at the same time. The last 5 minutes were the best. My favourite part was at the end where it all lit up. All of it.
Wednesday the 12th we went to the zoo and aquarium. at the zoo. We saw giraffes and elephants. The giraffes were roaming around and eating. The elephants had chains all over their legs so they could barely walk. It was horrible. I feel so sorry the animals. That zoo gave them no space. Some of them had no water at all. There were gorillas and monkeys as well. I got to see a meerkat for the first time. There were also hippos. Andrew told you all most all the animals, but he missed some. Then we went to the aquarium. There were ginormous fish and tiny fish. It was awesome but small. Then we came across a fish that we called dooby. Dooby was a great fish, we followed him around the aquarium for a while. I love dooby with all my heart. (PS I miss him already). It was a wonderful experience, but I still feel very sad for the animals who didn’t get treated well. Then shopping. We got pasta, egg, yoghurt, chocolate. Ehh, and other stuff that. And as you would probably guess we had pasta and egg with a good old lot of cheese for dinner.
Thursday the 13th we did some blog, then we played on our computer. In the afternoon, we went to a temple, and it was packed. We almost got split apart. It was almost closing time, so everybody rushed. Then we walked around a bit. There was a big cow statue, so we went to see it. My biggest fear was all the monkeys around it (if you did not know yet, I hate monkeys a lot). After that it was home and games. We did the drawing contest. It was fun but stressing. It was stressing because we only had two minutes (mum edit: we had 20 minutes). But in the end, it was fun.
Friday the 14th we went to a big cathedral. When I say big, I mean big. There was the story of Jesus on the wall. But there was also an underground area called a crypt. The crypt is where they kept important stuff for the religion. Then we went on a long walk all the way to a museum. I am going to tell you about it soon but first I shall tell you about how much cows there are. There are lots of cows. There are cows on about every street. Now on to talking about the museum. There were two paths, so we decided on one of them. It was so hard to decide so we called on the magic finger. The first tunnel we took was all about fish and under the sea stuff. It was cool. In the second tunnel, it was all about how the world stared. I would tell you more, but I have a bad memory at this sort of stuff. There will probably be a mum edit saying something like this: she has an incredibly good memory especially at the memory game (mum edit: very true!). But does not have a good memory when we are playing remember how the world started game. Surprising there was not. Then we went to a park, because there were one right next to the museum. We saw lots of birds. it was cool. We saw a giant squirrel. There about the size of a possum. We played on a playground we saw. Then back home.
Saturday the 15th we went to the Holi celebration. It was amazing. I loved it. I got dirty as. We threw lots of colours at each other. My shirt is still stained. Good-bye.
Emma (8 years old)Read more
Malpe, Karnataka, India
Mar 17–20, 2025 in India ⋅ ☁️ 32 °C
Hi everyone,
Last time we blogged we were about to leave Mysore. Our last day there was a long one. We had to leave our room by 11am and our train was at 11.40pm! Luckily near the train station, where we could leave our big bags in a cloak room, was a train museum. It was pretty big with a lot of well-maintained trains that we could climb on, information about the evolution of the train system in India and artifacts related to train. We spend a few hours there, killing time while having fun. After finding some food, we stayed in the train station, keeping ourselves busy reading and chatting until our train arrived. This time we travelled in 1st class, which was pretty nice: we had a closed compartment with our 4 beds, a bit bigger that the last train we took. The kids fall asleep quickly and us not far after as it was midnight by the time we settled! The night was uneventful and we arrived in Udupi around 10am the next morning.
Our hotel is in Malpe which is right next to Udupi but closer to the beach. That is the main activity here in Malpe: the beach. After settling in our room, we went to the beach which is beautiful: big, nice sand, beautiful water. We walked along, stopping in places for the kids to play in the water. We again had issues with people wanted to take pictures: a couple of guys asked Andrew and Emma (not us seating 3 meters from the kids) to take a pictures with them, Andrew said no pretty clearly and repeat it a few times, but one of the guys was still trying to take some, we intervene and they were still trying to take pictures, despite us being very clear that we didn’t want to. We had to move further to stop that situation. I know we are a bit of a rarity here, hence why people want pictures, but when the kids are involved, it feels creepy! It is not always easy to navigate those situations. Anyway, outside of that incident, we had a good time.
The next day, we visited Hasta Shilpa heritage village museum. This is a village where they rebuilt or transfer some typical houses and temples from the area. It is very well done and presented. Some of the houses are breathtaking, with amazing ceiling, carving, furniture… I really enjoyed walking around that reconstructed village, where some different types of shops were reconstructed with all the tools and utensils. I always love this kind of place: I love seeing how it was and what is still the same and what change. If you are in the area, this is a very good place to visit. After the visit, it was incredibly hot, we are all struggling, so we came back to the hotel to rest. I developed a really strong headache and was out of action for the rest of the afternoon. Kev found a pharmacy and got me some painkillers, but the afternoon was ruined for me!!! Kids did some school work.
The next day, I was better, so we decided to go to a small island near Malpe. We walked to the sea walk, a small walk with some statues that finishes at the ferry going to St Mary Island. After 20 minutes on the ferry, we arrived at the island to find out that we only had 1 hour on the island (we had to go back on the same boat apparently, not another one) and we could not swim! On an island!!! Anyway, the island is pretty, with some rock formation made by very old lava, the water is beautiful. We went around the island, which is not too big: the kids wanted to swim, so we found a beach on the other side with nobody checking on us and let them play in the water. The hour went fast, we took the ferry back to the other side, had lunch and went back to the hotel to escape the heat!! We’ll go out later when it is cooler! That is for this blog, tomorrow we are moving again. Malpe was just a quick stop to get some beach time.
See you In Goa!
Mel
16.3.2025. Do some blog, pack and move out. Got to the train station, found a cloak room to store our bags and off to the Railway heritage museum. It's right next to the station, so an easy walk. An interesting museum, kids liked that was a few old steam locos they could climb into and have a look. There is a small train that goes around the place, you get one ride with your ticket. We had a look at everything, climbed on everything, even had lunch there in an old coach converted into a cafe(food was ordinary tho). We still had a lot of time until our train, which was at 11:20pm, we thought we would go sit in a restaurant and have a coffee and play some cards and after get some food. We got some drinks and started playing, got told we're not allowed to play cards here, so we left without getting any food. Found a bit nicer of a restaurant, even tho the place was empty, still felt rushed. C'mon, order, eat and get out. After all that we headed back to the station. There's almost nowhere to check on your train, like nowhere. There's one screen that shows the next train, if yours, like ours, is in another 4hrs, you have no idea. Anyway, we sat at the station for ever. My arse went numb a couple times on the bench. Mel had checked online and found a website that tracks the trains, sort of. It told us that our train should be platform 1. 5 mins before the train and announcement, our train was coming into platform 5. Grab all the bags, start heading off up the stairs and over a bridge to find platform 5. The rest is history, kids got to sleep just before midnight, I had a shit night's sleep.
17.3.2025. We got to Udupi around 11am. We had been using uber to order Tuktuk's and taxis, doesn't work here yay! Went to a prepaid taxi rank and got to our room. Organised with the driver to pick us up tomorrow and take us to a heritage museum. Checked out our room, looks ok, a bedroom with a huge bed two small beds in the living area and bathroom. Bloody hot, we're right on the top floor and the sun here is brutal. Fans are on flat out but there's stuff all windows, so it's still bloody hot. The main bedroom has an aircon, guess we're all sleeping in there. Went for a walk later down to the beach. It's nicer here than in Allepey, the kids played for ages in the water and sand. After that we found some dinner, played some games and went back to the room.
18.3.2025. Taxi picked us up at 9:30, off to Hasta Shilpa Heritage Village Museum. Say all that fast three times. A not for profit place that has moved and rebuilt some of the old structures of the area. Lots of old pieces including horse carriages and old cars, to pottery and cooking equipment. Interesting, but eventually with the heat we'd had enough. Taxid back to the room and put the AC on. Mel maybe got a bit too much sun or heat and was not great that Arvo. Paracetamol and a sleep sorted it out though. Kids got time to catch up on their blog and play a few games on their computers. Later we went out for some dinner, then watched a little tv and went to bed.
19.3.2025. Today was supposed to be an early start, kids still asleep at 8:30, we had to wake them up. Swim suits on and were planning on hitting the beach, but since the later start we headed straight to the ocean walk and ferry terminal. Hopped the ferry to St. Mary's island, where we then got told the ferry would be back for us in 1 hour. What, that's not a lot of time. The island isn't very big but we still wanted to have a decent swim here. Nevermind, no swimming signs everywhere. Was not happy, but the swell and pull was pretty big I had to admit. Climbed on some old lava rocks, got a little wet splashing about a bit. I think I did a hammy chucking rocks, probably pull up sore tomorrow. An hour was up in no time, hopped back on the ferry and made our way back. Bloody hot still, grabbed a Tuktuk to take us towards the restaurant area of the beach, had lunch and now we're sitting in the AC in the room blogging again.
Kev
Hello people,
are you ready, yes you are, well on your marks, get set, READ!! On the 16th we did our blog for a while because today is our last day here, were leaving today, where going to go on a night train to Udupi. But that’s in in the night and it’s around the middle of the day, so we still have time to waste. We decided to go to a train museum, the train museum was right next to the train station, they did it on purpose, it’s no coincidence. When we went in it turned out to be a really cool, there were lots of old locomotives and some carriages, we were allowed to go in them. I went in them and then I would see what stuff moved or stayed still. There was also a track that someone was driving a little train around, we went on the train once. When we left it was dinner time so we had to go get dinner, when we finished dinner we went back to the train station. We waited for a while, then when the train arrived we hopped on and went to sleep. ZZZZzzzzzZZZZzzzzz On the 17th we were still on the train, we were going to get off the train at 11am it was 7:30am, still a while to wait. 3 and a half hours later, when we arrived, we went to our hotel. Our room has a few rooms but only one of them is airconditioned, and sometimes the power goes out. When we finished organizing our bags we went down to the beach this time with our swimsuits on, I went out to a good depth where my feet could still touch the bottom, and then when a wave comes along I would jump over it. I did that for a while, then I decided to make a sandcastle. Emma was helping to, the castle we made was made to last, it had 3 protective walls and 3 motes around it. When we finished it we took a picture of it then went out to find dinner. We went this place called Nemos we started with a few drinks, mum and dad wanted me to have something with fruit in it like orange juice, I wanted a soft drink. I ended up choosing a mocktail that had fruit juice in it, but also had Fanta, it’s a win\win if you ask me. After that, we ordered dinner, ate it, then went home. And to sleep. On the 18th we went to a village museum thing, in the place it was like a recreation of a village from the past there was a market and lots of houses it was really interesting, there was even furniture. There was lamps, pots, tables, painting and lots more, even the way they build the house were cool there were wood carvings on the house. It was amazing. I can’t really explain much because that’s what we did till lunch. When we finished we came back to the hotel, then went to have lunch. We went to a place that was close to the hotel, the food was good we ate it then went back to do our blog. On the 19th we wanted to St. Marys Island, so we did. We walked over to the ferry, it’s about a 25 minute walk, when we got there we got our tickets hopped on the ferry the ferry was about a 20 minutes. When we got there they told us that they were going to pick us up at 12:15 and it was 11:15, one hour is not enough. We went to the beach on the island only to find out we weren’t allowed to swim, apparently the currents were too strong. We were allowed to splash around a bit but no proper swimming, f**king rules. We went a part of the beach were there was nobody around it was pretty peaceful, we played a bit in the water, then moved on to another part of the beach. At one part we skipped some rocks on the ocean, it was fun, but then it was time to go. When we got back it was lunch time so we had lunch went back to the hotel and did our blog. We did our blog for a while then went to have dinner then to sleep
Andrew (9 years old)
Welcome back people. Wahahahah!!!!!!! I am finally getting use to spicy ness. anyway.
Sunday the 16th we visited the train museum. We had 12 hours plus it was close to the train station. When we were done, we waited for the train to arrive. It arrived at 11.40 pm. We slept in the train because it was a night train. We were in 1st class. So, we got a tiny bit better room.
Monday the 17th we arrived in Udupi. Took a taxi to our hotel and rested. After that we went and played on the beach. It was really fun. We went out deep and jumped over waves. Built a sandcastle and chased crabs. Then we had dinner. We went to a place called dah dah dah. Nemos. It is near the beach.
Tuesday the 18th we visited the heritage village museum. We saw pots, tables and other stuff you would see in a house. It was really cool. There were stained glass and wood sculptures. It had a market and for people who love sewing, there were lots of sewing machines. Then we just had dinner.
Wednesday the 19th we did a sea walk and then took a ferry to another island. Don’t freak out, we only spent one hour there. WHICH I STILL DON’T THINK IS LONG ENOUGH. We went there to swim, but we weren’t allowed to. I hate stupid f***king laws like that. (Andrew edit: it’s not a law it’s a rule, crazy Emma). It was still fun. After that we went home and played on computer.
Emma (8 years old)Read more
Goa, India (By Mel)
Mar 20–28, 2025 in India ⋅ 🌙 28 °C
Namaskar (Hello in Konkani, the language of Goa),
Our last blog, we were about to leave Udupi. Our last day there was Kev’s birthday. I didn’t plan that very well! In the morning the kids had drawings, poems and power point presentation for him. It was adorable! We had our train in the afternoon, so we pilled up in a tuktuk with all our bags (we managed to fit everything in, but it was a bit tight!) and took off for the train station. We waited there a long time! Our train kept being delayed and delayed and delayed. The kids did great, they read their kindle, Emma did some drawing, we chatted, not too much complaint, they are amazing. After more than 2 hours, our train finally arrived. We got in all good, but it kept stopping at more stops than planned, we think to let other train pass, as most of the place, there is only one line. Anyway, we arrive around 9.30pm instead of 7pm, so my plan of finding a nice restaurant for Kev’s birthday got thrown out and we went straight to the hotel and got to sleep!
The next day, we slept in a bit and then went to discover our surrounding. We are in Benaulin, in the state of Goa. It is very nice here. There is lots of trees and it doesn’t feel city or even town at all. We around 20 minutes walking from the beach and when walking around, there is houses in the middle of what is left of the jungle. I like the feeling. We walked to a busy intersection as we were looking for shops to buy a bit of food. We are staying in a 2-bedroom apartment with a small kitchen, which is nice as we can cook and keep food. We found a shop which sell pretty much anything you need. I like those small shops as I never enjoyed massive supermarkets as we have in Australia (probably from my Parisian upbringing). After shopping and lunch, we went back to the room to settle in and Kev and I did some planning for the next week and also for our next big part of our trip in Africa (planning takes a lot of time and energy!) The kids enjoyed their big rooms and played board games and did some drawing and juggling. I love the fact that they are so good with each other, even after more than 2 months being with each other all the time!
In the evening, we find a nice restaurant to celebrate Kev’s birthday one day late. We enjoyed some good food and the local beer, called People; this is only sold in Goa and is really not bad. We also tried the local spirit, called Feni, made of cashew apple (If you don’t know what it looks like, check it out!). For me it tasted a bit like Calvados (for those who tried it): I liked it! I’m not sure Kev liked it too much.
The next day was waterfall day. I saw pictures of this beautiful waterfall and thought it will be nice to spend the afternoon there. Yeaaaah, I forgot that we are in India and nothing is that easy! The waterfall is called Dudhsagar falls. It is one hour and a half driving from where we are, so we booked a taxi online (uber doesn’t work here). We booked the taxi for 9am as I wanted to get some work done in the morning, but it arrived at 8.20am: great!!! We rushed outside and got going. When we arrived 12km before the fall, we got stopped as apparently only Jeeps can take us there (the taxi booking system did made me pay all the way to the waterfall but ok!). The fall is in a national park and you need to pay to get in. Fair enough. The taxi park somewhere, where we got asked to pay for that, Ok fine. Then we go to the ticket office, except that you can only book ticket online: Ok, but online you need an Indian phone number to receive a one time password: well, we don’t have one! Ok, got to the ticket office, someone will help. The guy at the office book us online with the taxi driver’s phone number and we pay the entrance, plus the mandatory life jacket: I’m sorry what? Yes it is mandatory, even if you can swim… ok…. Then you go to the next office type thing, where surprise.. you need to pay for the jeep to take you up there….. It is getting pricy to just swim in a bloody waterfall! We pay that, getting “slightly” annoyed. Got into a jeep, and stop one last stop, at the entrance of the park to pay for good knows what! By that point as was very over it and ready to go back to the hotel, but well, we paid so let see this bloody waterfall. We drove a very bumpy track and arrive in the middle of a lot of other jeep and the driver tell us to come back in 1 hour and 15 minutes. Sorry what?: yes you only get a limited amount of time as there is not a lot of space for all those jeeps, so you can only stay one hour at the waterfall!!! We got all that way, so we went to the waterfall, which is beautiful. There was a huge amount of people there floating around with their life jacket (we left ours in the jeep, nobody said anything to us). We did some splashing around; the water is not that cold once you are in it! I do enjoy swimming, so it was nice. Emma did a bit of swimming too and she is getting better at it. Andrew doesn’t do cold: he tried to get in, he really did, but no. So he did one of his favourite thing, watching and trying to catch fish! There was a fair bit of them in the water and they were pretty big and colourful. If you stay to still, they nibble on your legs. Also, there are monkeys around. Despite signs everywhere that say, “do not feed the monkeys”, near the ticket office, there a fair few people selling bananas to feed the monkeys. The monkeys know and they are around. But to be honest, they are not aggressive and just look around for whoever have food to give them. We were a bit worried at first, as we have seen aggressive monkeys, but those were ok. We obviously had no food for them, as we never feed wild animals, so they left us alone and they had plenty other people to check! On our way back, we saw our jeep driver looking for us, as we were 5 minutes late! We drove the bumpy track back down, find our taxi driver who waited for us and drove back to the hotel.
The waterfall was very pretty, it was nice to swim in, but have I known the price and time it costs us for only one hour in it, I might not have gone there.
I have been craving live music for a while, so I investigated it and lucky me, there was a rock ‘festival’ in a bar near us. That evening, we went to the beach to the Tikibab bar to have a few drinks (unfortunately no local beer on the menu) and listen to some rock band. On the poster I saw, it said ‘start at 7pm’, so we went there at 7pm (a bit earlier, to find a good table), but they only started their warmup and testing at 7pm. They actually started playing properly around 9pm! We still got to listen to some music. The kids love playing on the beach and did just that. Around 10pm, we could tell they were getting pretty tired, so we got back to our rooms and went for a good sleep. It was a very lovely evening.
Sunday is the day we tried to call people (when we remember it is Sunday!), so we did that. We video called some of our best friends. The kids are missing their friends a lot sometimes and they were very happy. It is nice to have internet for that: being able to see familiar and loved faces. After that, we were off for another museum, that is a 3 in one museum, The Goa Chitra museum is a private museum: it has 3 parts to it: one part was dedicated to the traditional tools and utensils used in Goa, one part was dedicated to the Portuguese influence in Goa and one was a lot of different carriage and coaches. It was interesting. We had a guide (mandatory) who gave us some good information, but we did feel rush a few times. We are the kind of people who like to take our time in museum: hence why we normally do not take guide or tours. But it was interesting nonetheless. We saw some artefacts that we never saw before like coconut grater, a coconut press to get some coconut oil, some musical instruments (one drum type one made of monitor lizard skin). In every museum, there is always something new and interesting. We love when we can make connection with something else similar that we saw somewhere else. After the museum, we went to a small street restaurant which was not bad. But for me, what made the experience was a woman who was cooking there. She was watching us a lot with a big genuine smile on her face. I’m not sure if it was because we are white people in her restaurant or because, we tried to eat with our hand like most of the Indians do (we are getting better at it), or because she could see we were enjoying her food… I’m not sure but she had a beautiful smile and it made my day. I wish we could have talk together but we didn’t speak the same language.
After that we went back to the appartement as the kids needed to do some schoolwork and some blogging (this is their English assessment this year! You are, by the way, really welcome to mark them in a comment under this blog!) Then easy evening, cooking pasta and watching a movie.
As we are world schooling the kids, we try to find places where they can learn things. That is why the next day, we went to the science museum in Goa. It was amazing. There was a lot of hand on learning, with object or visual that the kids could interact with and the explanation on the scientific concept. There was a lot to do. It is not a super new museum, but almost everything was in working order, well explained and interesting. There was also a planetarium with a movie about the sun, which was relatively well done. I asked the kids to find one science concept to really learn about, so they can explain it in their blog, and they will have to do extra research later on.
After that, I had a list of churches and temples I wanted to go see, but I forgot how everything is far in India. We walked a lot longer that expected to find the first temple on the list and it was hot. Like sweat running down your face and neck and back and everywhere hot! When we arrived at the temple, it was a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be and not really exciting. We took off for another stop I had on my list: the immaculate conception church, which is a beautiful big white church build by the Portuguese (like most of the old church around here). The only thing is, when we got there, we couldn’t get in, and not just that, we couldn’t get close to it! The church is roped of, so you can only see it from down the big stairs at the front of it… We were a bit dishearten by then! It was getting late in the afternoon, we were tired (did I mention hot too!), so we called our taxi (we finally find a taxi: it has been more complicated than we thought too) and went back to the hotel.
Next day, we decided to try visiting churches again and this time we could go in! With our lovely taxi driver, Raza (when we got one, we don’t let him go!), we went to Basilica Bom Jesus, built at the end of the 16th century and is the only church in Goa to have the original stone unplastered which give it a distinctive look in Goa. It is a massive church with impressive art inside. We then went across the street to visit the Se Cathedrale. Yep across the street: for some reason in a that small area called Old Goa, there are a lot of massive churches or cathedrals. The Se cathedral is one of the biggest one in Asia, built in the 16th century. This is another massive, white cathedral: it is very impressive walking inside those gigantic building with such high ceilings. I am not religious, but I am always amazed by the religious sites and the effort human put into them. Next to that cathedral is a small museum where there are a bunch a portrait of all the Portuguese governors and viceroys, that we went to see. Not the most interesting museum, but it fun to look at the evolution of the fashion. After that, one more church (they are all next to each other for once!), but this one is in ruin, called St Augustine tower, as it is pretty much the only thing left from this church. Andrew said it was his favourite! The boy loves his ruins! And I have to admit, it was pretty cool: as you walked into the ruins, you can let your imagination run wild and build the place in your head. After churches, we went to see the Aguada fort, built by the Portuguese in 1612. The name come from a freshwater spring within the fort providing water supply to the ships that used to stop by, as Aguada means watery in Portuguese. After all that learning, we decided to take a dolphin tour. We took a small boat to go around the coast and try to spot some dolphins. We were lucky as we spotted a few, but Kev and I kept wondering how stressful it was for the dolphin as every time they were coming out, several boats zoomed towards them to see them closer. We are trying to be as conscious as we can with animal but sometimes, we are not quite sure what is ok or not. I might have to do more research on that. It was nonetheless a good moment for us (Andrew was a bit disappointed as the dolphin kept coming on Emma and Kev’s side of the boat, so they saw more. He did handle it very well though).
Wednesday was cooking class day. After Cambodia and Laos cooking classes, we wanted to try Indian cuisine class! It was a great day. Except that when we arrive, they were surprised to see us. I said that we exchanged by email a few days ago to book the class: Yes the lovely Rita said (the owner of the place), but you booked for April not March! And yes, I checked my emails and I did write April!!!! Anyway, they were super nice and ask for 30 minutes to prepare, while providing us with snacks, tea and coffee. We received a short lesson about spices (there are soooo many!) and how to prepare a masala tea, which I was very happy about as I developed a taste for it since we arrived in India. We then started cooking: we prepared a mint and coriander chutney sauce to eat with samosas. We learnt how to do the dough for the samosa, for the paratha and the poori (2 types of flat bread) and how to cook them. We cooked butter chicken and tofu chicken for me. We did a desert named Kheer, a type of Indian rice pudding. It was fun, delicious, interesting. The kids love this kind of hand on experience and are more and more keen to do things by themselves. Cooking classes are becoming one of my favourite things to do when traveling: not because I like cooking (because it is not really my thing) but because the kids love them and really get into it and learn from it. We obviously ate after cooking, and it was delicious! We are pretty good cooks when we are told what to do!!!
On the way back, our lovely taxi driver told us about this new Indu temple completely made of marble which was on the way back. We stopped there and it was worth it! It was a beautiful white temple, with a ceiling in shape of a flower and beautiful latticed walls. Then back to our rooms for a bit of blogging and rest.
Today is packing day again. We are leaving on a night train tonight to go to Mumbai. We are going to spend the day finishing our blog and play games while we are waiting to go the train station this afternoon. See you all in Mumbai.
MelRead more
