Europe trip 2023

The last long drive of our (continental) Europe trip took us 738km from Billund, Denmark through Germany (where we stopped in a city called Hamburg so of course we had to have a hamburger! Ha!), and into The Netherlands to a place 40 mins north of Amsterdam. We stayed in a cabin which they had described as located in a recreation park. I wouldn’t call it that. I was amused to see a flock of sheep out my bedroom window.

After a big supermarket shop, the first two days were rest, I wasn’t feeling well as I had picked up some bug somewhere. A highlight for the kids was watching BK start up the charcoal BBQ and giving them sticks with marshmallows on the end to roast, YUM!

On Tuesday we got up early and went to the biggest flower market in the world, Flora Holland, Allasmere. They auction flowers off between 7am and 9am. It’s hard to explain but the whole process of the flower market really tickled the logistical lover in me. The flowers came into the market on big trucks then through the auction room, then onto little scooters which towed mini trailers (where all the flowers sat), to be put in to buyer sets ready to be sent out to the buyer/customers. I could have stood and watched them for hours. I took a video on my phone which I’ll post it on Facebook, it’s total organised chaos!

We then went to IKEA for brunch (cheap food in their restaurant!) and to buy BK a thermos as the one he bought in Italy had fallen off a bench and smashed. Once we were tanked up again we went to a place called Zaanse Schans, it’s old time Holland in action. There were lots of clogs and lots of proper working windmills. We also saw a timber mill in action, which was so fascinating.

This was followed by another 2 days of rest and not feeling well, then it was off for a day in Amsterdam. BK did some research and found it would be a whole lot cheaper if we arrived after 10am, so we visited Edam first, and yep we ate Edam cheese in Edam. Then we went into Amsterdam, their Park and Ride system worked well. We arrived just in time for our canal cruise around the city sights. Boats seem to be a recent theme for our sightseeing adventures. The audio guide for this boat was much better than the Berlin one, and they also had a pirate channel for the kids to listen to. After that it was a bite of lunch that we’d brought with us. Once we had people watched for a while we rented bikes, BK and R went on a tandem one made especially for 1 child and 1 adult, C and I had our own bikes. We cycled around the big park in town called Vondel. There were lots of groups of people just hanging out with their bikes around them. With cannabis tolerated for personal use in this country there was a distinct smell wafting around! Then it was back to Rouge and back to our cottage and into bed for me.

So a relaxed week for everyone thanks to me not feeling well. I didn’t manage to pass on whatever I had which was a good thing.

Till next time,

Claire

 

Budget update

The Netherlands : $392 under

It was a smooth drive out of Berlin and up to the coast to catch the ferry to Denmark. We arrived early checked in, lined up with everyone else, boarded quickly and early, parked, and went upstairs quite pleased with ourselves and the boat for the efficiency. Within a few minutes of being on board we glanced out the window and saw we were already departing, a whole 30 minutes before our sailing. We panicked slightly that we were on the wrong ferry! Where are we going? But we soon realised that while we were not on the ship that we were meant to be on, (it had a different name to the one on our tickets), but that dock only sends boats one place! So all good and it put us 30 minutes ahead of schedule. It was a quick 45 minute crossing with unloading being as efficient as loading was.

We arrived at our Airbnb which was a cute little cottage by the water about 45 mins north of Copenhagen. It was a very limited information check in which turned out to be too minimal when later we went to leave and realised we had no key to lock up! 😮 I sent a quick message and she came by to tell me it was in the garage on top of a fridge, I was never going to find it there!!!

A rest day of school work and laundry – where I got an electric shock from the machine! Ugh!

The next day it was off to Malmo, Sweden via some time in Copenhagen. I had booked us cheap bus tickets to Sweden a few months ago. We drove into Copenhagen and got a park right opposite where the bus left from and it was free because it was Sunday, score! In Copenhagen we got some snacks and visited the Hans Christian Andersen museum which had scenes from lots of his stories. The kids watched and listened to Thumbellina, The Little Match Girl, The Swinehead, The Emperor With No Clothes, and of course The Little Mermaid.

Soon it was time to get on the bus. The kids were stoked it was a double decker bus and we got on quickly and scored front row seats at the top. The drive to Sweden should have been about 50 minutes long. The bus took us through the Drogden Tunnel, which is 4km long under the water, then we popped up on a man made island and then we went on the most epic bridge, Øresund Bridge. It’s 8km long, very tall and it’s quite the experience to travel on the top deck of a bus on a calm day, I bet a windy day it would be awful! We then got to border control, they got on the bus and checked all our passports. three people got escorted off the bus, one was allowed back on but the bus driver was soon instructed to carry on and had to leave a young couple behind!

We saw some paddle boats as we drove into Malmo so as soon as the bus dropped us off we headed to them for a 30 minute thigh workout..I mean a leisurely paddle on the river! BK also saw a brew bar on the way in so he went to that while I watched the kids play (in their clothes) in a fountain with other kids. Strangely, they managed to stay quite dry!!!?? The 28 degree day helped dry them off as we headed back to the bus via a store to pick up a magnet and Swedish chocolate! It was only a few hours in Sweden but it was lovely. Back over the bridge, through the tunnel, and into Copenhagen and it was fantastic to have Rouge parked where she was as we got in and quickly hoofed it up the motorway back to our cottage.

The following day was another work/school/supermarket day. The weather finally cooled off a bit to 24 degrees. Everyone was glad for the rest.

We were up early the next day and back into Copenhagen for a walking tour. We couldn’t work out why the car parking machine wouldn’t accept our cards. I am carrying three types and it did not like any of them. So we wrote a note to the parking warden – in English – and left it on our dash. True kiwi styles! It turns out it was the Danish National day so parking was free! The tour guide was born and bred in Copenhagen and had a real love for Hans Christian Andersen and the Danish Royal Family. He had so much information in his head and one of our kids said to me “How does he know all this?!” Haha. “It’s his job” I replied. 1.5 hours in the group stopped for a coffee break, we’d seen an ice cream shop selling Copenhagen cones about 2 minutes back so while the rest of the group (which included some girls from Rotorua!) did coffee and sat and chatted, we walked back to get ice cream! $33 NZD later, all of us enjoyed a Copenhagen cone in Copenhagen. 🍦 We continued on the tour and saw HCA’s house, the new harbour, the Opera House (which was paid for by Mastek shipping, apparently a proud Danish company, the owner wrote off the cost of the opera house against his tax bill – smart!!!) and of course we finished at the Royal Palaces.

Little Miss R wanted to see the Little Mermaid statue, so we walked an extra 10 minutes up the harbour to see her. Finally we found the Little Mermaid after a few, “have we walked past her?” moments. We waited our turn for a photo, it was very slippy and the girl in front of us fell in, whoops! By this time it was 2.30pm, 28 degrees and we were done so it was the loooooooong walk back to the car.

Another rest day, (washing, school and work again) we did get out in the middle of the day to explore the northern coastline. Found a famous northern arctic explorers home. Looked right out onto the North Sea. Can imagine it’s quite awful in winter but the day we were there it was a perfect blue sky day.

Then it was a travel day west to the city of Billund! The home of…..LEGO!!!

We dumped our gear and BK at our Airbnb and the kids and I went off to explore the Lego house. It took us a while to move past the Lego shop on the ground floor, we had fun looking at lots of Lego sculptures and then went up to the roof and played on the multiple playgrounds, all in the Lego bright colours. We found out there was a class at 4pm so quickly nipped to the supermarket across the road for drink and ice creams, (at 1/4 of the price they cost IN the Lego house!) While we waited for 4pm I decided we would all make Lego mini figures. I carry a mini figure in my hand bag for THOSE moments when my kids are melting down and I just need them to hold out a bit longer. I’ve also lent him out to other kids on planes etc when I can see other parents at their end of their wick!! He always gets handed back which I’m thankful for. So I made him a wife 😄, the kids made a ninja and a princess – I’m sure you can work out who made who! 😛. When the class started we got given a Lego pack and built a little small fish with a surfboard, then we got to take it home – for free! Whoop! (I paid for the mini figures)

 

The following day was a much awaited for day and will get its own blog post.

 

Till next time,

 

Claire

 

Budget update.

Denmark : $64 over!!! 😲

It was an easy drive back out of Croatia, we passed through border control, made a quick stop to buy a vignette, (which is a sticker that goes on your windscreen, we think it’s instead of tolls), then onto some beautiful big highways which we found totally bizarre because on our way to Croatia we had already driven through Slovenia and the main road was like a rural back road in New Zealand so we were surprised to find highways here after that.

 

We were only the second Airbnb guests our hosts had hosted so I had been hesitant to book there with no reviews to go by, but it turned out great. They had kids the same age as ours and they all had fun playing together.

 

We woke up to a beaut day and even though it was Sunday and we had been warned it would be busy we headed up to Lake Bled anyway. We went early and got good parking which is key. Then we walked around the lake, and what should have taken an hour took two thanks to a few stops to watch rowing competitions, the inevitable loo stops, and photos galore.

 

After we’d finished walking we had a rare occasion, we ate lunch at a restaurant! We got a magnet (for our collection) then headed to the capital city, Ljubljana. After driving around for awhile looking at things we decided to cruise back to our apartment but not before a stop at the beer fountain in Zalec. Yes, you read that right. A beer fountain! You can buy a mug for €8 which has a microchip on the bottom which  allows 6x 100ml fills. You put the cup under the pourer and it gives you 100ml of that type of beer. There were 6 types of beer to choose from so BK sampled all 6. R played on a nearby playground and made some little friends. C and I wondered around. There was a band playing and I hope to put a video of it on Facebook to show you.

 

The following day BK took the kids to see a castle, they clambered round it. I stayed home and enjoyed the silence! More packing and playing with the host’s kids then it was bedtime!

 

A quick trip but a good one! In hindsight we probably should have stayed longer but oh well!

Country #17 ✔

 

Till next time!

 

Claire

 

Budget update :
Slovenia : 316 under
Total budget : 1228 under

 

 

After our friends left for London we stayed in Split but moved a little further south of the city on the coast. The views and sunsets were amazing. We spent a few days catching up on laundry, schoolwork and rest.

 

We found a fortress high high high on a hill. We decided we’d climb it, so off C and I climbed while BK got left behind helping little R. A looooong 45 minutes later we reached the top. After a quick stop to take photos we headed back down again to the car where we had left the water and snacks.

 

After 3 weeks in Split it was time to move on. 3 weeks is the longest we’ve spent anywhere since moving out of our home in mid December. We headed to the south of Croatia but as we went we had to drive through a small part of Bosnia to get to the back into Croatia. Bosnia was beautiful, a lot of people (including me) still have pictures in their minds from the media of war torn Bosnia, but the small part we saw was really not like that. We stopped and had a picnic lunch, then carried on our way. Our passports were counted as we went into Bosnia but they didn’t even open them to check they were actually OUR passports. However on our way out BK’s passport was stamped, I assume it was because he was the one driving.

 

We arrived at our destination of Cavtat, pronounced ‘sarve tat’, it is a bit south of the city Dubrovnik and a bit north of the country Montenegro.

 

Our first day there we ventured to Dubrovnik. BK had been told by a colleague in Split to expect it to be like Disneyland and yep it sure was! If you weren’t a tourist you were selling to a tourist.

 

C and I walked around the city walls, it was expensive, but great to have some one on one time with him plus the views were amazing. We reunited with the other half of the family and had a picnic lunch overlooking the cute little harbour and a bit of walking around the streets, hello Christmas shop! BK went and retrieved the car from its parking spot faaaaaaaar away so the rest of us didn’t have to do anymore walking.

 

That evening we went into Cavtat and walked around the old town as the sun was going down, it was very pretty.

 

The following day we drove south to Montenegro. Luckily Peugeot Eurolease had given us the correct paper work when we picked up Rouge because they wanted the car’s papers plus our passports to get in. As we were following our GPS, it wanted to put us on a ferry to cross a small patch of water! After a quick check we were allowed to put our car on a ferry and checking the price I drove Rouge onto her first ferry ride 😎 only a short 7-10 minutes then it was off to the city of Kotor! After another few hours of walking the old town I was officially done with ‘old towns’ so we headed back to the ferry via a picnic spot for lunch and headed home. We had purchased a pre-made lasagne for dinner and BK encouraged C to take care of the family dinner and offered to be his sous chef. It was a great dinner of lasagne and home made garlic bread. Well done C!

 

So that was the south done in record time and it was time to start the journey north. The next stop was Zagreb, which is the capital of Croatia. We arrived at our Airbnb with the actual host being the daughter of the family however she was out of town for two days so she had left her parents to look after us. They lived downstairs and were amazing. On the first day they helped us move in and answered all my questions, when their dog got too excited and jumped up little R, she burst out crying and the Mum rushed out with a banana for R. On the second day the Mum made us homemade buns with chocolate or marmalade inside them! Team Knowles scoffed them down in a split second, yuuuummmmm! On the fourth day the Mum brought up my washing for me.

By this time the official host was home and I happily told her if she was missing parents at the end of the week they were packed in my bag and coming home to NZ with me! Haa!

 

In Zagreb I took the kids to the zoo, it wasn’t world class but for NZ$11 for all 3 of us no one was complaining. I also took them to a technical museum, I thought of my Uncle Tom the whole time. It was full of engines from marine to aircraft to mining. It showed how solar power and wind turbines work. Amazingly fascinating! I even saw an iron lung (which is a thing polio survivors lay in to breathe).

 

The last full day we walked around Zagreb. We went on a funicular, otherwise known as a cable car, it’s the shortest one in Europe, it took a whole 40 seconds 😄😄😄. We walked through a tunnel built during WWII, saw a few churches, had some bakery food and an ice cream…healthy! Then we bought some flowers for our amazing hosts and headed back to our apartment. Our host made us fudge and a chocolate cream cake on the day of our departure. Yum!

 

It was the most amazing month in Croatia. Everything we had dreamed of and more. We are so glad we went to there to rest before carrying on with our trip. Such kind people, so many supermarkets and the scenery, just stunning! We lived like locals and apart from a couple of days when we paid for big toll roads, we lived on the same budget as we did in Asia. BK achieved some good project work and topped up the bank account while he was at it. I also booked and paid for our flights home later on in the year so we now have an end date to work toward.

 

Now, the budget. Obviously Asia and Europe costs are VERY different but if I’d worked on my new Europe budget per day I would have come out at $3404 under budget for the month in Croatia, pretty ridiculous! Mid month BK and I realised we didn’t need the full Europe per day amount so decided that we’d do it on the Asia budget so…the official budget…

Croatia – $404 under
Total budget – $912 under

Lets just say the spare happily paid for our flights home.

 

Till next time!

 

Claire

We picked up our 2018 Peugeot 208 in Geneva, Switzerland and started driving. Wow the highways here are expensive but amazing! Europe appears to be just one big never ending highway. On our first day of traveling we spent NZ$153 on tolls, half of that was to go through the Mont Blanc tunnel. This is an amazing engineering feat which is 11.6km long and has a ton of rules including the slowest speed you can do (50km/h) as well as the fastest speed (70km/h). There are also blue lights along the walls to show you what they expect your following distance to be (150m).

 

At 2pm we stopped at a service center and booked accommodation for that evening, yep that’s the latest we’ve ever left it but we didn’t know how far we’d get that day. However we turned up to find the host had not got the Airbnb email to say we were coming so we prepared the apartment together. She suggested a pizzeria down the road for dinner and we are so glad we took up that suggestion. It was amazing pizza!

 

After a good night’s sleep and brekkie provided it was back on the road. We weren’t far away from the border to Slovenia and everything looked very Russian to us. We had our passports stamped into Croatia, got back on the highway and headed down the coast, Salmonella Dub cranking. Then our GPS directed us inland which we thought was odd but we didn’t have any better ideas so we followed it and as we went more inland we went up and up and up and the snow got thicker and thicker and thicker and our speed came down as we crept along a big snowy highway. We made it to a service center for a nice lunch then carried on as the road looked ok but after a while we saw signs saying the highway was closed. So we get off but the GPS got confused so we had to manually navigate, oh what a hard life to have to use a map!!! 😄 We continued on our way and saw a truck tipped over, literally centimeters from falling down a very high cliff, luckily we were up against the bank. On our way we go again and soon we noticed the traffic coming to a standstill at the bottom of the gully but didn’t think much of it as we were due to turn back onto the highway before then. However it turns out the highway is still closed and another truck has tipped over, so we wait 2 hours for it to be cleared (by a digger shunting it, which takes 5 minutes once it gets there!) By this time we’ve well in truly missed the check in time for our Airbnb and low on petrol so we stop at the next petrol station, send a quick email our hosts to explain our situation and we are on our way to Split, Croatia! An hour later we are checked in. The next morning we’re told we were lucky to get in as they closed the roads behind us.

 

We spend the next 6 days resting and relaxing. We do school work and take walks to the park. BK and I practice our suburban driving on the wrong side of the car and on the wrong side of the road. We take naps and I do lots of laundry. BK find an amazing co-working space and gets some solid days of work done.

 

We then move into central Split and I collect some friends from the airport who’ve flown in to spend Easter with us. We explore the old town which has the oldest cathedral in the world that’s still in use and has not been completely rebuilt over the centuries. We were very fortunate to come across the starting of Catholic mass on Good Friday and saw boys and men singing through the streets (which are actually very small walk ways between buildings which a built quite close together!)

 

We also explore the Krka National Park and wander our way around the waterfalls for a few hours. I got my first injury, I slipped on some stones and grazed my knee! We also spend some time stuck at our Airbnb because it rained and everything was shut for Easter!

 

The day before our friends left, the sun came out and it was a beautiful day.

BK kindly offered to stay home with the children while the rest of us went to Brac Island which was a sleepy little island as the summer season hasn’t quite started yet but it’s very pretty. We found a restaurant, have lunch then made our way back to the mainland. 7 glorious hours away from our kids was just what I needed. Being with them 24/7 can be quite challenging.

 

After that it’s time to say goodbye to our friends, they’re off home to London but we’ll see them again in Rome.

 

Till next time,

 

Claire

At stupid o’clock (4.30am) we got up and headed to the airport to depart Sri Lanka. The process was slow going, we arrived 2 hours early but only got checked into our flight 50 minutes before it departed.

 

We were happy to arrive in Dubai and celebrated that we had come so far under budget in Sri Lanka by getting a taxi to our accommodation. We arrived too early to check in, so we took turns staying with our gear and taking a kid exploring around the area.

 

Once we actually got into the accommodation, we dump our gear and go for a walk to the beach. On the way back home we see a very talented hang drum player. A beats festival had just started so even though we are hungry and thirsty we stand and watch for a good 10 minutes. (I’ll put video up on Facebook). That night BK cooked dinner in our apartment.

 

The following day was a Friday, we head to the MRT, only to discover that at 9.45am the trains aren’t open yet…how do you operate a city with no trains before 10am we think??!! Turns out their weekend is Friday/Saturday! When the trains start running we head to one of the biggest malls in the world, the Mall of Emirates. After a look around we head back to our apartment to get ready for the Desert Safari.

 

We are picked up right on time, collect two more passengers then head out to the desert. After a pit stop to give us the opportunity to ride quad bikes which we decline we head to some dunes for ‘dune bashing’. I enjoyed it for approximately the first 2 minutes but after that it wasn’t fun for me, we got stuck in the sand a couple of times and by the end I’m completely over it. All the others enjoyed it though!

 

We headed to our ‘desert camp’ to have a snack and we get to hold a falcon and ride camels. (On a side note, since we were ethically opposed to riding elephants I wonder if we shouldn’t have ridden the camels…) We watched a dance show and ate dinner both of which were amazing. We got back to our apartment at 10pm, fall into bed for two hours, then get up and go to the airport at 1.30am!

 

Our flight was meant to leave at 4am but ends up leaving an hour late. We originally had 2 hours to connect to our next flight in which I had great ideas of eating a Turkish Delight in Turkey and having a lovely time but in reality we now only had one hour and we’re tired so we speed to our gate instead. Nice to see you quickly Turkey! We stepped on your ground outside so you are officially in the country count!

 

We have a quick flight to Athens, check in to our accommodation with no issues and sleep the afternoon away. The next day we wake up and are ready to explore! We head to the Acropolis, to see the ancient sights. Our kids can’t understand how old all this stuff is so BK gives a small history lesson.

Bk also leans over a rocky wall at the top of a cliff to take a photo, at that exact moment a gust of wind comes and blows his (very expensive) sunglasses off his shirt and they join the ruins.

To be honest it was a little underwhelming for us. We only spent 2 hours there and everything is fenced off. I think we were a bit spoilt by the ancient temples in Cambodia which you can clamber through.

 

After a nap for R we head out to Plaka, otherwise known as old town Athens, we wander through little streets with gelato in hand. It seems that every corner you turn reveals more ruins fenced off. Lots of stores were closed as it was a Sunday. Even the supermarket was closed!

 

The next day everything burst into life. We went to the Acropolis Museum, there are no photos allowed inside so I can’t show you but take my word for it, it was AMAZING. The actual building was beautiful too. (If you’re reading this Rose, you would have loved it.) It has won many awards. The floor was glass and we looked down to the excavated ruins. Some were quite far down so it is not for the faint hearted.

 

We found a baby store and purchased two car seats ready to put in our car which we are leasing from Peugeot. The afternoon is spent resting, in hindsight we probably should have explored the waterfront or something!

 

Countries 11/12/13✔

 

One more flight, and then we pick up our Peugeot and start exploring Europe on 4 wheels! Hope we remember how to drive after 3 months of not driving! 😄

 

Till next time,

 

Claire

 

Budget update :
Dubai/Istanbul/Athens – $146 over!! (This was purely the Desert Safari pushing us well over)
Total budget – $508 under (Thank goodness for that buffer I’ve built up!)

We find out that social media has been cut off due to an incident in Kandy while we were there, a small truck knocked off a wing mirror of a tuktuk. The truck driver was very sorry and gave money to repair it, but one was Muslim and one was Buddhist, and so started riots and not very nice things. Therefore the government locked down social to stop incorrect info and scare mongering being spread.

 

At first I thought my phone was having issues so I updated my apps, I swapped wifi networks, then I googled and found out it wasn’t just me! Quite a step to take by the government, pretty much crippling us tourists connecting with home. Luckily my mum has an iPhone and the iMessage was still working so I could quickly inform the Mothership of happenings, and that we were safe. Fortunately email was also still working.

 

The social media drama aside, we still got out and about. We visited the Halpewatte Tea Factory where BK drew comparisons to how they process hops for beer brewing! It was very interesting to have just seen the tea being picked by the tea pickers to then see it get processed ready to be shipped out in big bags. The building was very tall, lots of up and down steps during our tour!

 

After that we transferred to Tangalle, on the south coast. Our driver, Saman, was very informative and stopped to let us see a waterfall, a pepper tree, get some curd and honey, and a bathroom/iceblock break. He also drove us through a ‘nature road’ where we saw lots of wildlife. Finally we were at the coast and glad to be even further away from Kandy. We settled in and went for a walk.

 

We were staying right by the beach so the next couple of days included walks on the beach, laundry, supermarket, buying new jandals for me since mine broke, plenty of local food and generally lazing around.  We had a particularly good lunch experience at a place called Dream Family restaurant. The Dad catches the fish, the Mum cooks it, and the son serves it. The food was delicious, and they gave us free ice cream to finish up, ice cream always goes down well!

 

Another fun experience I had, when going to the beach to look for the rest of my family who were, supposedly there, was getting convinced to help pull in fishing nets with the fishermen, there were 8 guys tugging, and weakling me it was quite fun, but I was too preoccupied in my mind looking for my family to fully engage and see the net 100% pulled in.

 

We tried to see turtles but the only option was going out in the dark at 8:30pm, to hope to see a Mummy turtle lay eggs somewhere between 9pm – 11pm, just too late for us so we skipped it.

 

Then it was time to move on to our next stop. We went by public bus. Bus drivers here are crazy! But we loved being with the locals and R had many admirers. All up travel cost NZ$11 for all of us to travel 2 hours west along the south coast.

 

We all still had energy when we arrived so BK and C went to the shop and little R and I had a swim at the beach. That evening BK wasn’t very well so not much sleep was had!

 

After a quiet morning and afternoon, BK felt well enough to go out so we chose to go to a turtle hatchery. It was amazing to learn about the different turtles, we saw some injured ones that fishermen had brought to hatchery to recover. Then we got to release a baby turtle which was only 1-2 days old! I placed it on the sand and it found its way to the water and a wave came and scooped it up and pushed it out to sea! He was so little I didn’t dare ask what the survival rate was…

 

After a good solid sleep by everyone we were picked up by our driver and taken to Galle Fort, it was so interesting to see a museum full of Portuguese, Dutch and English artifacts. We saw the wall that was supposed to have stopped the Tsumani in 2004, but the waves came through an open gate and flooded the place out anyway.

 

Our final day in Sri Lanka was spent on a 2 hour train trip beside the ocean to Colombo, we got a group of 4 seats together but a few stations later a monk got on, and it turns out the sign on the wall above R’s seat says its for ‘clergy’ and he wants to sit there, so we all reshuffle and then the monk gets a lesson on hatchimals, care of little R and her toys! After getting off the train It was a bit of a mission to get to our accomodation. Our host had told us to ask the bus driver to drop us in a particular, random, place. Several people around us tried to speak to us in their language and make sure we were sure that’s what we wanted, once we were dumped on the side of the road with our gear we realised what they were trying to say! Fortunately I was in constant contact with our host who within a few minutes came and got us and took us to where we were staying. When we got there we realised how much we had been compromising on our accommodation in Sri Lanka. This place was lovely and the attention to detail was much appreciated. Even though we were only there 13 hours it was the best place we stayed at in the whole country! It was NZ$33 per night, and we got two rooms so a total cost of NZ$66. We had a lovely dinner by the lagoon as the sun was setting which finished off the day perfectly.

 

We did awesome on the budget. The only thing we didn’t do which would have taken a big chunk of money was a safari, but after reading you ‘only’ see elephants, birds and lizards we decided a safari could wait for an African trip. Also our Thai experience with the elephants was more than enough to help with the wait.😎

 

Sri Lanka – $435 under

Total budget – $654 under

 

Now we head North West, one more stop then we arrive in Europe!

 

 

Till next time,

 

Claire

 

P.S. Social media still wasn’t back on when we left, lots of embassies were making noise about it damaging tourism and business etc. so I think it was due to come back on in the next couple of days. I was very thankful for our VPN that allowed me to tunnel through the Internet and make it look like I was in Australia, therefore staying in sporadic contact as I had to be on reasonably fast internet to get the VPN to connect. All a bit of a challenge!

Leaving Hong Kong was an experience.

We found the same express bus back to the airport, got our transport cards refunded then checked in. I was given a map of some kind with my boarding passes but took no notice of either the map or the boarding passes. We then proceeded to try to find our gate…

Turns out Hong Kong is a massive airport. We cleared immigration then found ourselves in an underground train station, um? Is this where we are meant to be? We didn’t miss a turn did we? We got on the train and went to the next station to find it was another terminal which still didn’t have our gate number, so it was back on the train to the next station/terminal. Yes, gate 203 was here, a very long walk away, we walked, and walked! When we finally got to our gate we discovered the seats all have plugs and USB ports so we pulled out all of our electronics and topped up their charge. Very handy.

 

As I was walking toward the plane I finally bothered to look at the boarding passes and map, ahh I see why they gave me a map now, but why are all 4 of us sitting in random spots and not together? I complained to the flight attendant and she managed to seat one child with one parent.

 

We had a few hours in KL to eat and mill around before we boarded another Air Asia flight, the final flight I had booked with them and had a great flight to Sri Lanka. We got a visas on arrival which was not a speedy process, found our luggage (hurrah it did it’s transfer in KL), made it to our accommodation, checked in and fell into bed, our bodies thought it was 2am 💤

 

The following day was pretty much a write off, we were staying by the beach so we had a small walk, ate at the same restaurant for lunch and dinner and were early to bed. After a day of rest we were ready to move inland. A NZ$2 Uber to the bus station, a NZ$4 bus to Colombo, and a NZ$5 train to Kandy, we’d arrived at our next city. NZ$11 total travel cost for all 4 of us for the day wasn’t bad. It was mine and BK’s 11th wedding anniversary so that evening we went to a cultural dance show and had paninis and chips for dinner.

 

The following day BK did some work and I took the kids to the botanical gardens. We saw a tree that had been planted by NZ’s Former Prime Minister John Key in 2016. We also saw the largest fig tree in the world. The gardens were really impressive to me but the heat got too much after an hour and the kids weren’t having fun so it was back to our hotel. The kids then proceeded to play quietly on their beds for an hour+ (!!!???) maybe drawn to the cool air conditioning? Maybe still tired? We’d later be thankful we stayed away from the city centre that day.

 

The next day it was up early and on the train for one of the most beautiful train rides in the world. We had a plan…I’d get on with R and find us seats then BK would ferry the luggage between C on the platform and me. The train arrived, I threw R on the train, uh oh, no seats!!!! Not even one! Back on the platform, BK wants to bail, he can’t even get our gear on. Someone tells him to go to 3rd class. I get on to the 2nd class carriage with R and sit on the floor, (this is becoming a pattern I think to myself). The train departs. I hope like heck BK got all our gear and C on.

 

As the train goes inland we all find our space, a few people get off and it becomes a little easier to move.

We meet a French family, a Chinese couple, 2 young female British doctors and have plenty of chat. R likes the two doctors and sits between them on their seats and plays games on her tablets. R also sees a little Sri Lankan boy get on the next carriage at some point and waves at him as he stares at her. She decides she wants to give him some stickers (I’d purchased kiwi pens/pencils and stickers for each of the kids to share during our trip) so cue me opening my big pack in the middle of the carriage to make this happen. She walks over gangway to the next carriage (I hold onto her firmly, Mum!) and he receives the stickers with a smile. Love our girl’s kind heart! He gets off a while later and furiously waves at us as the train pulls away from the station.

 

The train comes to a stop a while later, 40 minutes pass…one of our new friends asks a train guard why we are stopped, apparently a tree fell on the track. We eventually start going again.

 

Our new friends watched ‘the baby’ (little R) while I had 5 minutes to myself. I spent some time hanging my legs out of the carriage door watching the views go by.

The seeing tea plantations and watching the tea pickers was amazing. The 6 hour journey turned into 7 hours thanks to that tree so we are glad to arrive in Ella. (Train NZD$4 for all of us). We walk in the light rain to our guest house and dump our gear and go out for dinner, showers, bed.

 

The following day our host cooks us the most amazing breakfast, we eat a days worth of food then set off on a hike up ‘Little Adam’s Peak’ we wind up through tea plantations and up some stairs to the top. It takes us about 45 minutes. The kids are excited to see a snake charmer along the way! Beautiful views and drinks of water at the top, we also see our Chinese friends from the train. We find a light lunch and have a rest.

That afternoon Facebook, Messenger, Whatsapp and Instagram stop working…

 

To be continued…

Our time in Hong Kong started with a very smooth travel day from Taiwan. We took the train to the airport, checked in (both very efficient) found our gate, sat around, loaded onto a plane, ate lunch (thanks Cathay Pacific!) arrived into Hong Kong, processed through customs, got cash, got a SIM card, found a bus that was express into the city, got dropped on the side of the road (got to love those times when we land on the side of the road with all our gear), walked 4 mins to our hostel, the receptionist/owner gushed over our kids and gave them Chinese New Year ‘lucky money’ each (HK$20 = NZ$3.50), were shown to our room and wondered how the day had been so simple!

 

So, still having energy and with dinner time approaching, we went for a walk, and found a park with a lovely aviary. Then we kept walking and found the ocean! It had been 6 weeks since we’d seen the ocean so we just stood and smelt it. Ha!

 

The following day we spent the morning resting while BK worked across the road at Starbucks. We were staying next to a school so we spent a lot of time peering out the window at it. Turns out a school is a school is a school. School Mums stand at the gate with their Mum friends chatting, little boys come up with crazy silly games and there are after school activities galore.

 

One thing I noticed about this school that kiwi schools don’t do (as far as I’m aware), is take all the kids temperature (by zapping their foreheads with no touching of the child) as they enter the gate, then gave them all a squirt of hand sanitiser. It’s winter in Hong Kong at the moment so every second person is coughing or sniffing. Anyway they processed the kids really fast and I think it would be an excellent way to attempt to keep the school as bug free as possible, catching out those ‘she’ll be right’ parents.

 

**I know you’re reading this Marcus, I thought it was an excellent idea for terms 2 & 3! Difficult to manage the 3 entry points to our school though.**

 

That afternoon we did some more exploring and I got distracted at the Sketchers shoe store…Budget? What budget? 😛 New shoes for me and little R ✔ My runners were falling apart and her feet are growing! Funnily enough R is able to walk much further in her new shoes without complaining so maybe I was a bit slow in realising she was growing.

 

Wednesday was spent waiting for BK to finish off some work and calls in the morning then it was off to Hong Kong Island. We crossed on the star ferry which had been operating for 100+ years, cheap too! 50 cents for each adult and 30 cents for each kid (NZD). It was fun to get out on the water and see the city from a different angle. We then found the central mid levels escalators, which are 800m of escalators! No, not all one escalator, wouldn’t that be an engineering feat if it was. Lots of separate ones that all joined together by 2-5 metre gaps. Fun times!

Up up up we went!

 

Then along to the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanic Gardens, which were beautifully maintained and free! I saw my fave scarlet ibis birds again, they had a lovely enclosure there. Also there were very active monkeys! Then it was onto the Peak Tram, us Kiwis would call it a Cable Car, it works exactly the same as the one in Wellington, but it is twice as long, and much steeper. (If you’ve been to the Blue Mountains and seen that tram/cable car it was almost that gradient!) We were propelled up the hill to ‘the peak’ which had magnificent views of the whole city. We found a playground and had a nice sit in the sun.

 

Back down the cable car and MRT’d back to our hostel but not before stopping off at a ‘Mammys Pancake’ for a bubble waffle. Yum is all I have to say, I’ll put a photo up on Facebook to show you what it looked like, but let’s just say I didn’t share very much of mine with the fam.

 

On our last full day in Hong Kong we took a ferry (Kiwis – think those fast/comfortable/look like an aeroplane inside ferries to Waiheke) to another country, Macau. It was meant to be a 50 minute dash but due to very thick fog it was more like 90 mins, which obviously we were fine with, preferring to be alive and not in a ferry crash!

 

Once we got advice on which bus to take from the ferry terminal we were off to the Main Street, it had beautiful Portuguese architecture which was lovely to see. Also there were a lot of Catholic Churches rather than temples, a nice change! We went up to the fortress, where I had read there was meant to be 32 cannons, but we only found 23 so that was a fail! We also saw China mainland. I couldn’t quite believe it so asked a security guard and yep that was definitely China. We would have popped across if it wasn’t for the NZ$160 visa cost, each! Under the fortress we went to the Museum of Macau which had free WiFi (our HK sim didn’t roam in Macau) and aircon…oh and some interesting things to look at. We also attempted to go to the Grand Prix museum, only to turn up to find it’s closed and has been since July 2017. That’s the second time this year we’ve tried to go to a museum only to find out its shut indefinitely! (The King’s residence in Bangkok being the other one)

 

I had also read that egg tarts were a must try in Macau so we scouted out the best price and got a couple to share, very nice, it had something like baked custard on the inside and lovely fresh flakey pastry on the outside, it wasn’t sickly sweet either.

Then it was back to Hong Kong, we caught the ferry with a minute to spare. This time it took about 70 minutes as the fog had lifted on the Macau side but still a bit low in Hong Kong.

 

So Hong Kong, you’re expensive but a great stop over, you’ve got some good free things to enjoy. I enjoyed Macau a lot, it was $221 for all 4 of us (return), not cheap but worth it I think 🙂

But we managed to scrape in just under budget! Whoop!

 

Till next time!

 

Claire

 

 

Budget – $11 under!

Total budget – $219 under

• Disclaimer – Does not include $160 spent on shoes 😎

It was a smooth travel day between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, having no border to cross helped! We even managed to do a load of washing and started the process for getting our visas for Vietnam on the same day.

 

The following morning I went outside to hear some beautiful singing, in English! A home church was straight across the road. They sung 3 songs and I knew them all from the 90’s.

 

That day and the next were just rest days for us. In the evening we went to the river to go on a lovely sunset cruise. It was a late evening and then an early start, as we went back into the city centre to catch a bus over the border to Vietnam.

 

After the bus hitting a motor cyclist on the way out of the city I was slightly concerned about the driver’s abilities but he was turned out to be fine. A good run up to the border, stamped out of Cambodia with the luggage staying securely on the bus, lunch in ‘no man’s land’ then back onto the bus, luggage off, stamped into Vietnam, our luggage scanned and back onto the bus. Quite simple really.

 

A looooooong ride into Ho Chi Minh city with gridlock traffic and then unceremoniously dumped on the side of the street. We did a quick dash to an ATM then purchased a new SIM card and then we were in an Uber heading for our apartment.

 

We stayed in the beautiful Vin Homes Central Park, by the river but not in the very central city. It was a mini city in itself actually with a good 10 buildings each 49 floors tall with 8 apartments per floor, a lot of people, but what I liked the most, lots of families!

 

By the time we got there and unpacked it was time for dinner, there were lots of restaurants around so we found a pizza place, and an Australian family! We got chatting and it turns out they were doing a year similar to us so we connected on Facebook. We made a plan to go to a water park with our new friends the following day and then on a tour to see the Cu Chi tunnels together the day after.

 

The water park was great, BK was working so just me and the kids went. The Dad from the other family took their boy and Connor on all the slides they were tall enough for. I stayed with the Mum and our girls. I enjoyed the ‘lazy river’ the most, sitting on a tube being pushed round by quite a strong current!

 

The trip to the Cu Chi tunnels the next day was amazing, made even better by our tour guide, Tang. He was fighting on the American side during the war. How he can go back and take tourists to a place he saw so many awful things I’ll never understand. He was keen to tell us ‘2 stories’ what they want you to know and how it actually was! The tour was a bit fast for my liking, it could have done with an extra 30 minutes for wandering around but we saw everything and it was good.

 

So that was Vietnam. The budget got a bit of walloping thanks to the $252 the visas cost…for only 6 days 🙄 I’m regretting the week in Bangkok and wishing I’d shortened it and spent the time in northern Vietnam.

 

It’s their new year holiday called TET here now, everything is closed so a bit difficult for BK to find a place to work the last couple of days, but today we are out of here.

 

Onward we go!

One more flight east before turning around and heading west.

 

We’ll be back Vietnam!

 

Till next time,

 

Claire

 

Vietnam – $21 over

Total budget – $261 under