Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Every good thing must come to an end
After almost 5 months, 6 countries, 13 flights and numerous rented vehicles the time has come for us to finish our trip and come back home. In other words, we totally ran out of money. Although we didn’t get to all the places we wanted to get to (Fiji, Laos, Vietnam) we don’t look back in sorrow, we rather see it as opportunity for a trip to come.
In the past 5 months we got to do a lot of things for the first time in our lives: We were at an NBA game, played golf, drove in a snowstorm, scuba dived, flew in a chopper, hiked on glaciers, watched whales in nature, hand fed a kangaroo, circled the world and most important of all got married (a first time for half of us).
Needless to say, this is our last blog post (at least till the next time we feel like traveling), we thought that it would be nice to close it with a few things we learned along the way:
1. No matter where you go, it will always be full of Asians.
2. The Japanese among them will be ordered in groups holding cameras and watching their guide (the only Japanese not holding a camera).
3. There is a direct proportion between the sizes of the country to the size of its cucumbers.
4. In Australia & New Zealand the salt & pepper cellars will always be upside-down, meaning that the cellar with the many holes will hold the pepper and the cellar with the single hole will hold the salt. WE HAVE NO IDEA WHY.
5. Our country (Israel) is ugly, anyone saying otherwise is either lying or a complete fool.
6. But no one make Hummus like we do, not even the Arabs.
7. Just like in the Simpsons, the salesclerk in every seven-eleven will be Indian.
8. And the salesclerk in every dry cleaning / laundry shop will be Korean.
9. Mexicans in Vegas will assume that if you are out on the street and not inside a casino, it must mean that you are looking for a whore.
10. Overseas countries have much more interesting road kills.
11. The fact that English is the native tongue does not necessarily mean that the people are technologically advanced. Don’t be surprised if while in New Zealand you’ll run into people using cell phones that will give you flashbacks of the 80s.
12. The bigger the surf waves are, the bigger the sharks waiting behind them.
13. For some reason Australian calls pubs hotels, that could be quiet frustrating when looking for a room.
14. In some countries street signs are luxury.
15. Forget about models, football players & movie stars. The most photographed person in the World is the king of Thailand.
16. There is a heaven on earth, it is called Bora Bora.
Doron & Gali
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Scuba diving in Koh Tao
Hi all,
The course was very funny. The instructor was an Israeli so the course was in Hebrew, besides us there were 6 more people. A couple that seemed to share a brain (I think they didn’t understand a single thing during the entire course), another couple of “semi arsim” that were great people, and 2 guys that were more into making jokes than into learning how to dive. According to what we have learned, in a dive you are in charge of two things: your air and your dive partner. These two guys managed to lose one another and run out of air on the same dive.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Koh Phangan & Koh Tao
Hi all,
The trip to Koh Phangan was an experience. To travel from island to island here you buy a combined ticket that includes a pickup from the hotel by a “taxi” and a ferry ride. The taxis they use here are pickup trucks, the driver sits inside and all the passengers sit outside at the back. Our driver managed to take an amazing number of 16 people. The ferry pier was build from bamboo sticks and looked like the outcome of a boy scouts camp. It didn’t seem like anyone ever tested if it can hold the weight of the dozens of people that were currently on it. Fortunately it did.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Bangkok & Koh-Samui
Hi all,
Our next stop after Koh-Samui is Koh-Phangan.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Singapore
Hi guys, we are now in
Monday, June 4, 2007
Perth
Hi All,
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Melbourne
Other than that incident, Melbourne was really nice, though not as pretty as Sydney, it is still very cool place. We did "just a bit" of shopping and purchase a new apple MacBook (the coolest laptop there is). It's just that the price went down and we couldn't resist the temptation.
We left Melbourne today and started our drive along the "Great Ocean Road", it is known as one of the prettiest coastal drives in the world and for what we have seen so far, it is indeed so.
Most important of all - Tomorrow is Gali's birthday (which she's already got some gifts for) so don't forget to send gifts. Since the weddings checks were lost in the mail, you can deposit them directly to our bank account (-:
Doron & Gali
Saturday, May 19, 2007
The Gold Coast
It has been a while since our last post. Many things have changed since then. We rented a car at Sydney and drove to Canberra (general direction south) which is Australia's capital city. It reminded us a bit of Washington D.C, a lot of "important" buildings to see and monuments but nothing much to do. Canberra is also where all the embassies are located, there are ~30 embassies located within a 3 blocks area. Each embassy decorated in a matter that resembles its origin, most of them have security lesser than an average mall. The Israeli one was very easy to find, it was the only one surrounded with roadblocks, high fences and armed police patrols. We would have taken a picture but we were too afraid to be shot.
After one night at Canberra we headed back toward the coast (still south to Sydney) and stayed the night at some small town. It was that night that we decided that the south coast is boring and we much rather travel the east coast instead. We made the necessary arrangements (rental car drop off location, flights, etc.) It's unnecessary to mention that this sort of change required a whole day drive and more than 500 KM. The same drill for the two following days.
The visit to Port Macquarie (a city just north to Sydney) was a special one. We finally got to pet a Koala. We went to a Koala breeding center. We arrived there at 17:00 so the petting hour was over. We were very disappointed so we had to spent the night in the city and return at the following day. Finally on the next morning we got to pet a Koala and even hand feed some kangaroos.
We visited some cool beach towns and rested at a place called Surfers Paradise (You can imagine the waves there) for 2 days.
The most exciting thing we have to tell is about our visit to theme park named "Dream World". It's the most (or the only, we don't really know) famous park in Australia. We (or at least Gali) went on all the rides in the park and it was a great fun.
We arrived to Brisbane at the same day and found a nice backpackers to stay at. We spend there 2 nights, we didn't like Brisbane very much so we continued north to Harvey Bay. Today we took a day trip safari to Fraser island, it was very nice but a bit too mature ("Gil Hazahav") and cost a lot of money.
In 2 days we are flying to Melbourne.
Gali & Doron
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Sydney - Australia
Hi all,
We stayed there a whole week splitting our time between lying at beach and touring the city.
After a week here we rented a car and started our ride along the south coast.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Christchurch
We are writing this post from
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Queenstown & Dunedin
Hi All,
After Queenstown we headed east to
Now we are at
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
Te Anua and Milford
After Wanaka we headed south to Te Anua, the starting point of the Kepler track and many other trips and attractions in the Fiordland area. During our three nights stay there we encounter some bad weather (rain and some snow) for the first time in
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Greymouth & the Glaciers
First of all I must apologize to my wife for causing numerous people thinking she is pregnant. She is not!!!
BTW - I am getting better at Golf, I hardly ever miss the ball (-:
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Abel Tasman, Lake Rotoiti and Westport
Hi guys,
BTW, we bought an inflating mattress with an electric inflator / deflator that connect to the car 12v plug. Along with the DVD player we have in our laptop (We are now into “Desperate Housewives”) and the cooking facilities we bought, we only need a portable swimming pool to reach a 5 stars hotel class.
After the Abel Tasman area, we started to head south towards
Doron & Gali
Friday, March 30, 2007
Hag Sameach
It is very beautiful here and on Sunday we are going for a 3 days track called "Abel Tasman".
We want to wish you all the best holiday, try to have as much fun as we are having here.
Think of us when you dine well in the "seder" while we are eating canned food.
Tomorrow we are uploading some new pictures from Wellington area (BTW - I rock in golf) so make sure you check them out.
Once again, HAPPY HOLIDAY!!!
Doron & Gali
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Hello From New Zealand
Auckland is very nice and is not that different from any big western city. We spent most of our time shopping for camping gear (tent, sleeping bags, gas cooker, etc.) and the rest of it just having fun (Starbucks and Cinemas). We even got to see Saint Patrick’s Day which seems a bit like our Independence Day eve only in green.
We debated a lot whether to buy / rent a vehicle and should it be a private or a van / campervan. Eventually after checking all sort of options we find a really good deal for renting a Mazda Demio 1997 for only 20 NZ$ a day (that’s just under 60 NIS).
After four days in Auckland we started heading south, we decided to tour the south island first and then to come back for the north one since the winter get to the south island first.
The minute you get out of Auckland you start to see sheep by the hundreds, they are everywhere!
On our first day on the road we stop at a camping area near some hot springs and Gali got to sleep at a tent for the first time! The next day we continued to Hamilton which is a medium size town south to Auckland, we bought some stuff that we were still missing and continued to Waitomo caves. Waitomo is a very small village that is known for the many caves that surrounds it, the special things about those caves is that they are filled with glowing worms (kind of like fireflies only much cooler). We spend the night at a nice B&B motel and at the next morning Gali did some extreme cave touring that included rock climbing, snepling and crawling in small places at the dark. I passed on that one for the sake of my back and did some hiking routes instead.
Now we are at New Plymouth heading toward Mount Taranaki.
Doron & Gali
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Bora Bora – a.k.a. Heaven
Hi guys,
Our honey moon was AMAZING!!! Though we haven’t been in all the places on this planet (you have to admit that we are working on it) we can say without a doubt that there is no place prettier than
Our flight from Los Angles landed in
Our overwater bungalow was very cool, and had a glass floor which you could see the fish through. Each bungalow has a porch and stairs going into the lagoon, the color of the water in the lagoon is the brightest possible.
We spent the first few days snorkeling, kayaking and just hanging out at the pool or on a hammock (Arsal) near the beach eating cocoanuts.
The day before we left we took a boat to the main island (only 6 minutes cruise), rented a bugster (some kind of very small jeep) and tour the island. The main island is very small (its perimeter is about 40 kilometers) it’s basically a mountain covered with a tropic jungle and two small villages at the shore at the opposite side to our hotel.
- Dinner at the hotel’s buffet costs 80$ a person!
- It is owned by the French.
Friday, March 9, 2007
San Francisco
Hi Guys,
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Las Vegas & The Grand Canyon
Hi all,
We took a taxi down town to the marriage license bureau. Things went really smoothly. They didn’t ask for any of the translated papers we brought from home (and cost us a lot of money). Afterwards we headed to the court house to get married. On the way, few people bothered us on the street and offered us to do the ceremony at their chapel.
When we got to the court house, we realized that we are short of a witness. We started asking people around if they mind, all as a matter of fact did mind. Some because they worked over there and some just because they are asses!!!!!
Finally, Doron found a man on the street (Jonathan). I though it was very generous of him to help us but when the whole thing was over, Doron told me he paid him 20 bucks. And I say….”where is the love”?
Anyway, back to the ceremony…
A woman was sitting in the front desk and asked us for all our papers. Afterwards we entered the chamber with Jonathan and waited for her a lifetime…
Finally, she arrived and the ceremony began. We stood one in front of the other and took our oaths. Doron found it a bit funny and I must add that it was a bit absurd but we got married J.
The rest of the day was casual…we took a taxi back to the strip and continued our touring. I’m taking comfort in the fact that next week we are going to our honeymoon at
We found a “holiday inn” on the next town and spent the night there.
The next day we went seeing he
On Monday we are flying to
Gali & Doron
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Boston & NY City
Hi all,
That’s it for now, check our blog next week to see how much we took Vegas for
Doron & Gali
Friday, February 23, 2007
Toronto & Niagara falls
Hi guys,
Today we arrived to
The flight to
We took a taxi to the hotel and went straight to bed. The next day we took a decision to spend another night in
The next morning (which was very snowy) we rented a SUV and drove to the
.
Make sure you take a look at our web albums.
We’ll write some more next week,
Doron & Gali
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Our first posting
The plan is to keep it updated as our trip progress.
First real update should be in a month or so.