Arvo & Christiane's Travel Journal

Building continued...

2009-05-14T11:02:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

it is time for an building blog update.

I will make it short and let the photos do the rest. I know how precious time is getting.

It is funny Arvo's body is acing working all day physically on the workshop and my arms and back are hurting from being all day on the Internet ordering material and spending money.

I think we got a lot accomplished the last weeks. So all the framing is up, rough plumbing is in, building is wrapped and the windows are in. I was surprised how fast we installed the windows. It is really paying of not going with white vinyl windows. The dark brown is blending in with the cedar siding that Arvo started.

The metal roof was installed in 1.5 days by our roofer really fast. Makes you think how fast your money is going out of your hands.

But before we where able to start on the siding the stair needed to be completed. It was a long process but it came out great. For Arvo who has never done anything complicated like a stair- I think it is the most difficult part of framing- did a great job. No shortcuts and did not complain about my designer wishes to make it look nice.

The cedar siding is going on vertical after staining it on both sides. You can see for yourself.

Electrical wiring was up next. We need electrical inspection before we can do much more on the inside. Stopping on the siding Arvo had his hands full of cable salad. This is a German expression. What a difficult task. It does not go smooth through the walls. New tools have been invented like a plastic spoon feeding a fish wire through the Styrofoam. Lots of wholes needed to be drilled but he is not giving up-almost over.

We are hoping for inspection the end of this or beginning of next week and have our drywaller started on the interior. Home stretch I hope!!!

All the bathroom tiles are ordered, flooring and bathroom fixtures are here and lighting and paint colours are next. But these are the obvious things you will see later but there is just so much hidden items you need to buy I never thought of.

Sepit is in. The excavation crew was so lucky placing the tanks. Couple seconds after both tanks were in the sides collapsed on them. The hole is over 8' deep. Long trenches were dug and more lines placed underground. Don't fool yourself how much stuff is underground we don't even know about it.

The propane is next. We postponed our OC trip for a couple of weeks. End of May beginning of June. We need to close the building before we take off and move all our other belongings in there..

Please take a look at the photos.

Take Care and keep us updated on your lifes.

Hope to see most of you soon

Arvo and Christiane

MOVING ALONG

2009-02-16T17:00:00.001-08:00

Greetings from Sequim,

It seems so long a go that I wrote the last entry and a lot has happened but when I look outside most of the work we have done is underground and not visible to the eye.

We laid power to the well and waterlines to the workshop so finally we have water. Finishing our overflow-drainage for the future pond and drainage for the roof to the dry creek.

Almost through with the drainage but not quite.

The footing and the stem wall were poured in two steps with compacting the fill in between. We had to make sure all the house connections are in before the stem wall is poured. It never hurts to have one or two empty sleeves to much. There might be always a service line you want to add later.

We had three building inspections of the footings and the last one delayed our slab by three days.

So far the weather was really good sunny but cold and of course today we had our SIP panels delivered and it started to rain overnight. Just a little muddy and wet in the morning but I was afraid about the delay of the concrete tomorrow. But we are still on schedule.

SIP are Structural Insulated Panels, just imagine pre cut pieces of Styrofoam with OSB laminated to it.

According to the manufacture it is easy to unload the 80' truck with a forklift. Sure if they would have done a better job of packing. Small pieces on the bottom and larger on the top. Anyone who was bad in physics will get that part, not the most stable way to stack large panels which are much heavier then expected. Of course the first one close to the ground tumbled and I had just enough time to jump away. We were so lucky our neighbour Kevin was driving by and did not mind to jump in and give us a hand. As well our friend Mark from Sequim came to help and it was much easier.

Now we have four large stacks of panels all are mixed, it will be like a big puzzle to put the workshop together. Hopefully that will start Thursday with Kevin and a friend of his.

In the mean time we had the base of the road extended all the way in front of the workshop. Almost out of the mud.

Windows are here as well and more wood.

We have not even started much above ground and the days are getting longer and busier.

Arvo and I have met in the last month so many nice people and everybody likes to help in one way or the other.

Take Care Arvo & Christiane

Sequim 2009

2009-01-20T22:05:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to Everyone,

We hope you had a great start into the New Year and exciting things are coming your way. Let’s hope the economy and the new president elect will do well this year.

As for us we left Southern California for good and moved shortly after Christmas our few belonging to Sequim WA. Our good friend Mark helped us driving our caravan north. At this point we have a FJ cruiser, a Ford Truck and our new Motor Home, currently our home.
We moved up from homeless to white trailer trash as we are kidding around.

Hiding the road just right we did not encounter much of the winter storms all roads and passes were free. But of course this is the coldest winter in Sequim since 10 year and we just arrived in it.
Freezing temperatures each morning but for the most part clear and dry. The blue whole holds its truth at least for couple of days. We had wonderful views of the surrounding Olympic Mountains. Hope the photos will show. One reason we decided to live here and bought this piece of property. We dropped Mark off at the airport in Seattle on the 31st but due to heavy fog his detour to Vegas turned into a layover. But he made it save and sound.

Just to give everyone a quick info on our construction:
We have a 5AC site here in Clallam County, City Sequim what stands for ‘Calm Waters’. We are planning to build a workshop first and after this is completed we are starting the main house shortly after. We applied a building permit for the workshop only. The main house is still in the works. The site is pretty much flat facing the Olympic Mountain to the south and west - Perfect for a passive solar house.

With just view days in town I picked up our first building permit, we got the shipping container on site delivered (storage for building materials), Larry our building contractor arrived from Blyth and Arvo started to put in the silt fence. For those and most are not familiar with those technical terms, a silt fence controls runoff from construction sites. I great idea in city and urban areas but on a flat site as ours the trenching did more damage to the land than good to the surrounding creeks.
After those nice frosty days it started to get warmer and the rain arrived. At this time it is raining 24h straight again really unusual for this area. Well we will make up our own mind and let you know what is really going on here.

The Public Utility Company arrived yesterday morning to install our transformer on site. The evening before we opened the road to get the power lines connected. We are glad not to encounter a high water table but of course after a big bang we cut through an old irrigation pipe. It wasn’t too much water in the trench but enough to make us worry.
I’m sure this will not be the last time just when you think something goes right for sure it will go wrong. No one in town had a stopper for this unusual pipe size and we just plugged it with a rag and a stone. Psst don’t tell anyone. To our luck no one is using this irrigation system anymore. But we needed to get up at dawn rent a pump and make sure the trench is dry. It was a muddy experience and as I mentioned the rain started and it got more down and dirty. To be honest there was not much to do for me but watching other people work from a warm motor home and this is just not my thing but better to get wet and cold just watching.

The next thing is getting water after having power. We need to hook up the well to the switch panel (already installed) and we are of for the next round. Not to mention more frequent showers.

So back to the rain. It might be not a bad thing that it is raining like crazy it shows us were our low spots are and what we need to do to stay out off them and preventing water to even get to our building pads. This will be the job for the next days. Digging drainage ditches.

Thanks for reading and staying in touch we will try to update as often as we can Internet and Fax is on the list.
Photos will be posted on the flickr site so don’t miss them.

2.nd entry

Due to Internet shortage I just continue to writing our building report.
After a short workweek with our contractor we decided to go different ways. It was for the better and we are moving on with local help which turned out to be really good with friendly people around us. No more head banging at least for now.

Some facts on the rain. We had this month 1.82” of rain and the normal average is 0.52”, more than 3 times as much. I just mention this again because we are still fighting the consequences of an open building pad with a high water table site. Unfortunately it is never good to over excavate more than you really need so keep that in mind, we are paying for it now. But it is getting dryer and we cannot wait to get out of the mud. The footings are next. Hopefully in two weeks we have a nice concrete building pad and can start the framing.

Lot’s of neighbors are coming by and wondering who is so courages or stupid to start this time of the year but if you are living in a motor home it gives you a lot of motivation.

Arvo is learning to drive the backhoe, digging trenches and learning all the verbage on different gravel fill. I cannot believe how many option you have. I’m trying to get material quotes and material coming and in the left over time to finish the design foe the Main House to get it to the building department.

Take Care Arvo & Christiane

Greece

2008-07-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone and greetings from Germany,

We have to admit it has been a while that we updated the Blog and the pictures. I guess we have been to busy with all the traveling.
We are currently in Germany and spending time with my family and friends. Due to so much time has passed I will divide our last adventures into Greece and later I want to report about our time in Africa. Otherwise the blog will be endlessly long.

So but let’s start were we left off.

After we left China taking off in Beijing from the new airport we arrived in Doha, Qatar for a stopover. Qatar is a desert state on the Arabian peninsula. We had a good hotel and food for free to our surprise. Qatar a 5 Star airlines keeps it promises. So I guess over 24 h later we reached Athens.

This time we had no guide book just our tips from the Internet. The next morning we started to explore the city, Acropolis and other historic sites and ruins that are scattered throughout the city. How much this city has changed. I have been here 15 years ago and couldn't wait to get out of it but today it is much cleaner, public transportation is good and all new. In this regard the Summer Olympic 2004 has helped the city tremendous to change for the better. The Euro of course was the only downside. The people are really friendly and the food was good.

We decided to rent a car for 6 days and took off towards the Peloponnese. We drove past Corinth famous for its canal built in 1893 between the main land and Peloponnese. We continued all the way to Sparta were we stayed two nights. We just hit the time of Greek- orthodox Easter and possessions were hold in the evening to late into the night. We explored the coastal areas and made the mistake to postpone the visit to the Byzantine Mistra to the next day. But we got rained in not just a little rain it was raining hard and impossible to get out. I was impressed and have to admit I did not know how much mountain region the Peloponnese have. We even saw light snow fall high up in the mountains after that big rain.

Greece has so many historic sites to offer that it is hard to make a pick. After visiting a historic site in the region of Messenia we continued driving further north and found a hotel in Olympia for the next nights. Due to Easter Museums and historic sites were closed the next two days. So we relaxed and enjoyed the warm days and blue skies. The historic Olympia finally opened and again we were impressed with so much history and old ruins.

We left early afternoon and drove all the way to Delphi. It was a special place in ancient times and considered the center of the known world, the place where heaven and earth met. This was the site on earth where man was closest to God. If you want to know more please visit www.greecetravel.com/delphi/

The site is located high in the mountains and the view is fantastic no wonder they were thinking to be closest to the gods. At this time of the year the tourist season is starting and a lot of tour buses arrived. It was nice, warm with blue skies that we missed for the last two month.

Our car rental time came to an end and we drove back to Athens that same afternoon we hopped on a ferry to Paros which is part of the CycladeIslands. We arrived after dark so we explored the town after breakfast the next morning. Parakia the town we stayed in offered beautiful and typical for the Greek islands white and blue houses that are connected with small alley ways. We rented a quad bike and explored the island for the day. Nice beaches, windy corners and small fishing villages like Naoussa with delicious fish was on the list.

I believe the next was the day the worth nightmare for a photographer can happen “ERROR 99 “ what ever that might be. Sure enough an error that Arvo could not repair himself and it needed to be serviced. But of course we were on an island 4 hour away from Athens and we had reservations for Santorini the most photographed island in Greece. The mood was down but nothing we could have done. The stores could not help. So we left for Santorini via ferry and Arvo had only my camera to take photos. It was sad to see him with a small camera.

We arrived sailing into the giant crater and it was a magnificent view from the sea to see the steep cliffs of Santorini. We liked the quads so much on Paros we rented one here for two days and drove around the island the next day. We arrived in Thira before the sunset. The most famous town and spot on Santorini. If you see photos from the island they are all shot here. Beautiful setting with a steep price for food and accommodations. Prices for a room at €300 is not uncommon. Tour groups arrived only for the sunset and the small village got crowded. Driving back on our quad in the evening was a cold experience. Jacket and long pants was a must. The island has more to offer than just Thira, the north side has beaches and restaurants and more historic sites. It was to bad that the water was still to cold to go swimming.

Of course we had to figure out what we wanted to do next. Continuing to Crete was out. We could not find any Canon repair center. So we decided to take the ferry back to Athens. We got the last overnight cabin and off we went into the night to Piraous the harbour in Athens. We could have stayed longer in Santorini but the photographers heart needed his camera which I can understand.
Back in Athens I cannot remember how we found the Canon center but they needed to long to repair the camera. So we left and Arvo though about buying a new one. Remember Dollar versus Euro not the best choice but Africa and safaris were on the next itinerary. We needed to solve the problem fast. Out of the blue we found a repair place and the next day we picked up the camera as it was new. Arvo was relieved and happy but what to do with the rest of the time. Going back to Santorini did not make sense. So we rented a car again at the same place and drove this time further north.

We had around 4 days and drove past the famous site where the Spartans fought against the Persians. I' m sure a lot of you have seen 300 and the scene is right next to the water but today the land is encroaching further into the sea around 2km away.

We spend two nights in Volos. The city of Volos is located at the foot of the peninsula of Pelion at the centre of Greece. We visit the next day the brick museum an old family owned brick factory. It was really interesting to see how bricks are made and especially the old kilns. Volos had a nice tranquil atmosphere and the promenade was lined with cafes and Greeks enjoyed their Sunday. Historic sites all around us but we decided to drive inland toward Meteora.

Meteora is famous for its Monasteries siting on top of outcropping rock formations. It is quite impressive if you consider the difficulty to built them. The area of Meteora was originally settled by monks who lived in caves within the rocks during the 11th Century. But as the times became more unsure during an age of Turkish occupation, brigand and lawlessness, they climbed higher and higher up the rock face until they were living on the inaccessible peaks where they were able to build by bringing material and people up with ladders and baskets and build the first monasteries.
Due to construction on the roads we were limited to visit only few monasteries but for sure the views were spectacular and we found a nice lunch spot.

Rain caught us again on a stroll though the town and the next day we left for Athens.
We drove past Athens toward Cape Sounion at the southernmost tip of the attic peninsula. It is renowned for the ruins of the ancient Greece temple of Poseidon, the god of the sea in classical mythology. Again a wonderful view over the Mediterranean sea specially in the evening light.
Spending our last night in Greece outside the city center of Athens before we caught the flight to Cape Town, South Africa the next day. Of course we were not looking forward to spend so many hours in the air but we were excited to start an other journey through the African continent.
But more about this later.

Take Care and see you soon.

Arvo & Christiane

P.S. We are on our way to the USA.

China

2008-04-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone again,
We are still in China and we have 10 days left before we are heading into Europe, Greece.
I have to say this will be the most difficult Blog to write for me. I have mixed feelings toward China and of course the Tibet and Olympia situation has added a twist to our traveling here. You have hopefully seen my photos from HongKong.

I have to admit it seems so long ago that we have been there. The city is divided by the Victory Harbor Kowloon on the main land and HongKong Island on the other side, of course not to mention the other islands around. The first nights we spend on the Kowloon side and moved later over to the HongKong island. The city has a wonderful night laser show across the Victory Harbor at night and not to mention the night skyline itself. Famous high riser bundled together, shopping malls, the longest escalator in the world that brings you to the higher levels of HongKong were you have a good view of the expanse of the island and the density that it has. Western food next to Chinese restaurant and markets in the smallest possible alleys and they are even supplied by trucks. The famous antique street that makes you wonder are those real antiques or fake copies. The city itself has to deal with smog issues as well as other high density cities and it is even more special when you can see the sun. By the way one of our only days in China with a fairly blue sky and we could see the sun. We visit the flower market, gold fish market and Lady market. The last one gave us a good idea how over priced the items are for tourist. On our last day we visit the largest Buddha in Asia on Lantau island at the Po Lin Monastery, a nice relaxing day away from the big city.

The next day we left for Mainland China. Guangzhou is the closest largest city to HongKong and it had to stop for our further excursions. We did not get a good start. To be honest we should have known better after so long traveling but we still got scammed even by the tourist office at the train station. We ended up in a hotel much further away from the location we planned to stay and were wondering why everybody is looking at us because we were not in a tourist area. But I have to say Guangzhou is not for tourist at all. The city is the third most polluted city in the world. The live expectancy is 52 and you never see the sun. We left that city with sore throats by train at the most crowded train station that we have ever seen. The train itself was nice even we did not have the soft sleeper (first class). As we email our friend the next day and told him about the city we were in he was quiet shocked because he knew the city himself. But we were off to Guilin and hoped for better. We had rain the next days and our trip to the world famous rice terrace was lost in fog. We stopped at a minority village. While I saw the traditional wedding Arvo wondered around to see the traditional food. All the dogs in the village were bred for meat supply. They were so cute – but other countries other traditions. We met Colin a nice Chinese guy who showed us the city of Guilin. Colin who was actually an owner of a tea shop. But as of today we are still not sure of his intention. We learned travelling in China that “Hello where are you from” means “I want to sell you something.”
From Guilin we took the Chinese Cruise boat to Yangzhou on the Li River. Again it would have been a fantastic cruise if we could have seen the mountains not just trough a thin fog layer. Arvo and I were the attraction on the boat because we took as mentioned the Chinese tour, a much cheaper tour because no English tour guide needs to be paid.

Yangzhou is a beautiful little town with small alleys surrounded by karst peaks that have all kinds of funny names. We hired Sherry a 19 year old tourist guide for the next day for a bicycle trip into the countryside. It was beautiful and even the rain stopped for us. Sherry helped us buying tickets for our other activities and we still don’t know how the price system works. Everywhere you get different prices for the same tickets and of course they are government regulated prices. So how does it work? I will leave that up to you.
Sherry our tour guide was only 19 and supporting herself solely from the tourists she finds on the streets-no doubt a tough business with a lot of competition. It was hard to get a smile on her face and sad to see how serious a 19 year old already is.
The light show at the lake was fantastic with around 600 actors in colorful traditional costumes. The cormorant fishing at night was as well a highlight. The bird is getting a string tied to its neck and cannot swallow the fish it catches. After a couple of fish the fisherman catches the cormorant and empties its throat, back in the water the fishing continuous.
We took the bus back to Guilin and an overnight train to Kunming, 18h. We stayed overnight just enough time to explore the city and to catch the night bus to Lijiang. At that time we both did not feel good I got worse every evening and I was not looking forward to the bus ride. It is hard to describe the bus journey. It was the worst journey in our travel history. The beds are stacked two high but built for midgets. People were eating all sorts of weird food that smelled terrible and believe it or not smoking and spitting. The road was bumpy and I had to hold on not to fall out of bed. I really felt like a giant. Arvo could not stretch is legs either do to his large camera bag he had to hold on to. But at least we arrived at 6:00 am in the morning. The weather was crisp and clear and we woke up pretty quick.

Lijiang lays in the Yunnan Province and is the main region inhabited by Naxi Group, one of China's 55 minority ethnic groups. It has the best preserved ancient town in China – the old town has been listed in the World Cultural Heritages by UNESCO in 1997. The Naxi Group is a matriarch system. Man and woman can live together and have children without being married but if they had children and the relationship breaks apart the mother is solely responsible for the child.
We needed to rest up and explored the town is an unusual slow pace. It was a beautiful little town with a lot of traditional houses and small alleys. Of course the Chinese tourists have found this place as well. Chinese are early risers and at 8:00 am the town is crowded with tour groups.
We saw the most western tourist in this little town. Unfortunately the day we left the skies were clear and blue and we were able to see the snow covered mountains in the distance.
We hoped to take the good weather with us to Dali 3h further south, another old historic and intact town surrounded by a city wall. The area is surrounded by mountains on the east, west, and south, and has the Erhai Lake in its center. Here you will find 25 ethnic minorities, which have created a unique cultural heritage amidst the area's picturesque surroundings. We took a full tour around the lake with our private driver. I have to say no need to plan to much in advance drivers and other tour guides are always waiting for you, even at the breakfast table. We had a nice day. Maybe I'm repeating myself but weather is really important for us and the sunny days are counted on one hand on our China tour so far and it will not change much. Lots of people are working in the fields. It is hard labor with no machinery everything is done by hand or by Ox. Each individual town relays on the sale of their produce to sustain the village like a coop system. Batik is famous for this region and we bought too many table cloth.
Back on the road again we took the bus to Kunming were we had to stay the night again before we caught a flight to Nanjing.

Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province known as the Capital City of Six or Ten Dynasties in China's history and has a brilliant cultural heritage. Our hotel which promised central location on the web site was too far out of the city and a minimum taxi ride of 20 to 30 minutes to the city center. Do not believe all you read in reports on hotels in China. There are not many individual tourists here and a lot reports are written by members of tour groups who have always transportation and don’t need to relay on their feet or public transport to much.

Here comes the part that will describe my view of a lot of China and its people. We were tired of a lot of things.

The weather for example. It is always cloudy, never real blue sky and the sad part about this, it the air pollution. I don’t think the Chinese even know blue skies anymore. I would have not believe it myself if I haven’t seen it with my own eyes. No city is clear and we are on our second round of soar throats and colds due to air pollution. It influences your mood more than I ever expected.
Next is the food. First of all it is challenging for us to order to due our lack of Chinese We can only blame ourselves for that but the dishes as well can be challenging. I don’t mind eating vegetable and rice even if it is not really warm but for Arvo it does not work over a long period of time. Most dishes include weird animal parts we don’t want to try but we have explored the chicken dishes in all the provinces. Our final result is not order chicken if you want to have only bones with no meat. The flavors are a different story. They are great and it is really tasteful but if you leave a meal hungry because you could not find any meat in the dish it will drag down you as well. Here are thousands of KFC's in China and we came to the conclusion if you do want to have chicken meat go to KFC's they are always full with locals. Oh yes I forgot to mention that the Chinese food is really greasy everything is deep fried or cooked with so much oil that our cholesterol level must be super high.
The next thing is that we are tired of being stared at. Everywhere we go we are looked at. Not just a short look long glaring lasting looks again and again including laughter. Of course we do not understand but what should we make out of. This gets very old quick, because they are not usually friendly looks and if you smile or wave you get no response. Maybe we stand out for some reason being not part of a tour group, but I do not think so since even in tour groups people have time to go on their own for short periods.
The crowds are tough. It is hard to walk side by side, every moment you have to step out of the way and find the best route possible. China has 1.4 billion people and we can feel it every day. It has been the most stressful traveling for us yet due to language barriers and crowds. They push and shove there way in lines on buses, train, everywhere. Its sad to say but we now do the same thing or we would not get anywhere. We will have to break this habit when we leave China. The last thing I have to mention before I continue with Nanjing is the Chinese habit of spitting. Maybe someone can explain to me why they have to spit everywhere they go. Do you want to have details? You have your own imagination but at this point I do not want to put any luggage on the ground or get close to a trash bin. I’m quite sensitive in this matter.

Okay back to Nanjing. We did not stay long. Travel tired we were searching for the oasis that we were looking for.

We left for Suzhou it is praised as the “Oriental Venice”. The city center is interwoven with small canals and historic houses. We liked it a lot and stayed four nights. Suzhou is famous for its embroidery work that has been given down by the women from generations to generation. We contacted a sales person and we spent a full day with him to learn more about this craft. He took us to the country side and we met the young women working on the fine embroideries. The work is incredible. The finest thread of silk is worked into a piece of art that looks like a photo from far. Of course we had to buy some for our house to be built. We past the Taihu Lake on the way, it is one of the four largest fresh water lakes in China, with East Hill, West Hill and other scenic spots in its vicinity. The government puts a lot of effort into the shore to make it visitor friendly and I think it will be a great place for the locals to stroll and enjoy the lake - the next tourist destination in the making.

Next stop Hangzhou with its famous natural beauty and cultural heritages, it is one of China's most important tourist cities. We had a hotel right next to the beautiful West lake. We took a full day walking around the lake and did not see all the historic building and sites it is just too large. Again we were the highlight for tourist groups specially the young teenage girls. We walked around the city and we found nice green niches for strolling around a change to other large cities.

We left the next day and arrived after a short bus ride into Shanghai. We just wanted to spend two days here because we knew we are coming back to meet our friend Mark who will be here on a business trip. We strolled around the city center with no specific place to go. We checked out the Bund late in the evening with the Pudong skyline across the Huangpu River. The next day we visit the historical area that includes the Site of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China we located in the two two story brick buildings and had lunch at the famous German Hofbraeu Haus. Lots of Germans and foreigners were around us.

Writing this I have to admit we jumped around a lot and are already in Beijing. We booked ourselves into a nice hotel but too far away from the city center. We spend a total of 7 night in the Olympic city with construction and road improvements on each corner. The Olympic park was not much accessible and the construction is in full swing. I hope they get it done in less than 120 days. There is a lot of work still to be finished. Beijing is large and I mean really large. Nothing is close in walking distance. Taxis are a good alternative, the metro system is good but with this large amount of people using it it is quite challenging. We had a great time and did a lot of shopping that we did not get done in Shanghai. Of course we visit the Forbidden City and the Tienanmen square. For sure the large crowds get lost in both and it felt quite empty and spacious. The Forbidden City is incredible the palaces and the garden and the temples. It is just amazing what has been built for Emperors and their wife’s and concubines. Of course the temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace are impressive and falls into the same category.
The city is growing in every direction and so many great buildings are being put up in an incredible pace. I just hope the workman ship underneath is as good as the facades. We really can see why China is eating up the steel and other construction materials. We left out the Great Wall for next time in Beijing just one week later. We had to be back here for our flight to Greece. So off we went and got an early morning flight to Xian-Terracotta Soldiers. At 10:00 am we were in the city center and just had to find a hotel. It was the first time our strategy failed and it took quite some walking around before we found a hotel that we liked. It was nice and warm and the sun tried to come through. Xian is one of the birthplaces of the ancient civilization in the Yellow River Basin area. The next day we took the local bus to the Museum of the Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses . Altogether over 7,000 pottery soldiers, horses, chariots, and even weapons have been unearthed from these pits. Most of them have been restored to their former grandeur.
It is really a sensational archaeological find of all times. It was listed by UNESCO in 1987 as one of the world cultural heritages. Excavation is still going on and it quite amazing how big the whole area is.

As well on our list was the Bell Tower the geographical center of the ancient capital, the Drum Tower as a counter part, the City Wall surrounding the entire old city and the Big Wild Goose Pagoda Square a well-preserved ancient building and a holy place for Buddhists. All site were part of the highlights of our trip in Xian. Our last week has started and we took another flight back to Shanghai to meet our friend Mark.

Late in the evening we arrived in Pudong International airport another outstanding piece of architecture. We took the fastest train in the world into Pudong itself and lodged our self in the apartment that Mark organized for us. The biggest place in all our travel history.

Unfortunately Arvo caught another sore throat and we took it easy. It was raining anyway. As Mark arrived we had perfect weather for a trip to the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. We had a great view from the upper level and as far the eyes could see and pretty far that day we saw high riser on after the other. I have never seen anything like it in my life. And I'm still not sure if I liked it or I'm more shockt about it. New York is a small city in comparison. Our time came to an end here as well and it was good catching up on real life in Orange County and to see an familiar face after such a long time. Mark was our camel home he carried a big suite case of stuff we bought and did not need again. The night train took us into Beijing a second time. A really good way of traveling. We were lucky to check into our hotel at 7:00 am in the morning because it was down purring rain all day. But the next day we had to go to the Great Wall there was no way around. By the time we reached it late morning it cleared up and the sun came through. Due to the weather we choosed Badaling as the location. It is the most visit tourist location in the World. It has a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. And we felt like in Disney Land to get up to the wall. A little plastic bob sled like train pulled us up and down. We did not have enough time but we were still amazed of this site. An incredible workman ship in this mountain region. It was steep in certain parts and I believe other areas are even steeper.

So the next day we left for Greece or better that night. The flight left at 2:00 am in the morning. After long 24 hours in planes and airports we touched down in Athens. Hello Europe again.

But this is another story. I will keep you up to date.

Take care Arvo and Christiane

2nd Part of South East Asia

2008-04-03T03:34:00.000-07:00

Ni hao,
as they say Hello in Chinese. We have arrived in China two weeks ago but before I will comment on China let me try to search in my memories about our last days in Thailand and our adventures into Laos, Cambodia and Japan.
Thailand
We spend our last day outside Chiang May in the mentioned Nature park for rescued elephants. A highlight for us. The elephants were so cute and the stories behind them so sad. After feeding and bathing them we heard their personal stories. And today we have a better understanding how sensitive elephants are and how poor their are cared off. All the support for this organization is coming from private money and it is sad to mention that the Thai Government does nothing to help to protect the Asian elephant, an endangered species and their national symbol. If you want to know more here is the official web site http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/
Laos
So our next stop was Luang Prabang in Laos. A world Heritage town and a city with a wonderful atmosphere and warm light located at the Mekong and Khan River. Surprisingly expensive for hotels due to a lot of tourism from around the world.
We got up early the next morning to see the morning procession for the monks. At that procession we really saw how many tourist were in town. Tourist arrived by the mini bus load (Due to a UNESCO City no bldg taller than 3 levels and no big buses are allowed). Just after sunrise around 200 monks dressed in their famous orange ropes come to accept their daily offers. I think the tourist nubers in the 1,000's. We assume this will be the food for the day for them. It was one of the highlights in Luang Prabang. After strolling the rest of the day around town and climbing to the city hill top we were surprised again how many people wanted to see the sunset. We gave up of getting a good view and got diner in the town. The next day we decided to visit the 1000 Buddha cave. Not a bad idea at all but due to a weather change we spend two hour in a long tail boat in summer clothes. Everyone was an ice block after this trip. The cave was not worth it in my opinion but the boat trip was. Of course you never book a single trip at once so the bus was waiting for us in Luang Prabang after return for our afternoon excursion to the famous waterfall. Even with the cold weather and no sun in sight we were highly surprised. It was not just one large waterfall but many levels of water pools flowing into each other with turquoise water. We were reminded of Plitvitch National Park in Croatia. Defiantly a place to spend a whole day.
In our last day we saw a traditional opera play and spend our money at the night market. By the way US$ is the most liked currency. Luang Prabang was our only stop in Laos and we would like to come back and spend more time here. The people are nice and friendly and have a charm about them to bargain with you. Laos is a place we want to come back to and spend more time.The next morning we left for Cambodia by plane.
Cambodia
After a short flight we arrived in Siem Reap. I was already impressed by the airport and it showed us of how many tourist come here to build such a nice and modern airport. We had a total of five days in Siem Reap and were hoping that this would be enough time for Angkor Wat. We stayed in the heart of town and tried to get our bearings the first afternoon. Shorty we met Eng our Tuk Tuk driver for the next days. Almost everyone speaks good English and endless restaurants of local and western food are easy to find. Sorry I have to say we had Pizza that night and it was good after so many weeks of rice and noodles. But before we relaxed that evening we decided to watch the sunset inside Angkor Wat. There are three day passes available for a steep US$40 per person. Sad to mention the company who controls the entry fee is a petrol giant and only 25% or so goes to the restoration but it is more than it ever has been. Did I mention tourist in Laos but here were even a bigger crowds. In Siem Reap we have seen the most Chinese and Japanese tourists. The tour groups are always too big, too loud and sorry always in the way for photos. In some of my photos you cannot see the ruins because of the amount of tourists. Of course we are one of them. We had a wonderful first day. We started with Angkor Thom one of the temple ruins. It included Bayon the most famous part after Angkor Wat. The temple area with the many faces carved into stone. It is said to be a portrait of the features of the ruler and Buddha in one. It was just amazing. They are big and so many. Each tower had four faces all around. If I remember right I read that they are around 2000 faces in that temple complex alone. Soon we started to realize how big the whole area around Angkor Wat is. It is hard to fathom that such civilisation and culture existed in the beginning of the 10th century and we have never had any education in school. The workmanship and the sizes of each temple are massive. Each new ruler decided to built their own administrative and worship complex. That’s why today we see so many different sites of importance. It started to get hot in the afternoon and we enjoyed the end of the day at Angkor Wat including sunset. Angkor Wat covers such a big area as well with a giant mount around its territory. Inside the walls were actually living quarters and markets.
The next morning we started with Angkor Wat for sunrise. The crowds were already getting bigger for this spectacular event. Surprisingly after the sunset we had the grounds almost for ourselves. Maybe most of the people needed breakfast. It was nice and peaceful and again we were impressed by the workmanship of the Mural's facing all four compass orientations. We had to go and meet Eng for our short ride to Ta Prohm . Most people remember the movie Tomb Raider, it was the film location for the movie. It was hard to find your way through this spectacular ruin. Large tour groups explored the ruins as well. But the trees were just unbelievable. The places they grew in; on top of roof and the root system exposed and wrapped around walls . A guide told as in the beginning the trees were a hazard for the structure but today the root system is actually holding the building together. We moved on to other sides the afternoon. I will not describe every ruin we visit. I will lose you reading the travel report to quick. But at our last day inside Angkor, Eng our driver brought us to a much further ruin. The journey to get to it was rewarding. We had to wear face mask for the amount of dust we traveled through. Here we saw the real part of how Cambodia is today. A true third world country. Dirt roads, family living with no electricity and sharing a well as their water supply. Kids playing on the street and waving hands. I really enjoyed seeing this part of Cambodia.
Our plane was leaving in the late afternoon the following day and we had some time to visit the floating village on the Tonle Sap lake. Again we drove through the poorest part of Siem Reap. Later that day we found out that all the wells donated by westerners we saw did more harm than good. The wells were not drilled deep enough and the water is actually contaminated. We enjoyed the boat ride and were amazed how people life on the water. Each house was floating by itself. After leaving we visit the local children hospital which was started by a Japanese photographer. It is self funded and is supported by donations only. Cambodia has the highest infant and under-five mortality rates in the region, at 97 and 141 per 1,000 live births, respectively. The child death rate in Cambodia is as high as in parts of Africa. (http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/cambodia_2190.html)
We visit the local silk factory. Each meter of silk is handmade and takes an incredible amount of hours and labor to produce but the prices are still affordable. The same is to mention for the stone craft. Hand carved Buddha figures and more. The local crafts are trying to promote their skills for the tourist in order to sustain a living and a future for themselves. Young people are trained and provided a future through this programs. (http://www.stay-another-day.org/ or http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/mekongpsdf.nsf/Content/Feature12 for more tourist information on Cambodia and Laos.)
Because of our driver(Eng) we paid the fair prices that locals pay but even that I found expensive. For example four small baguettes cost US$1 but the average income of our driver is US$3-5 a day. A lunch meal for them as well cost one dollar. It is like a jackpot for any driver to get a couple like us who are paying around US$20 for a full day. The competition is high in any job and it is hard to find a good job if you do not have any connections at all. Eng was money well spent and we enjoyed him as our driver. Him and his wife are expecting their first baby. Eng driving us to the airport and said our goodbyes with warm hugs, we hope to keep in contact with Eng it will be hard as he has no internet, but we will try.
We are leaving Cambodia with a lot of different impressions, the incredible Angkor and its surroundings and the friendly people. And not to forget the children. Working during the day to make some money to pay for their school. They were so charming that it was hard to get by them without buying anything. At the end of the day Arvo emptied his pack and I discovered how much he actually bought. He was always surrounded by them and I guess he could not say no.
Bangkok
In the evening we arrived in Bangkok. Again I was amazed by the modern airport. It is just a year old and quite far outside the city. We had a hotel reserved close to the Bangkok river. It was a nice hotel. I just mention it because we used it as our sanctuary away from this crazy city. I started to get a real bad stomach bug that lasted for days. Bangkok was dirty, loud and crowded. We got around good but got fast annoyed by the constant approach from people trying hard to sell you something. To make it short we did not like it at all. We saved the Grand Palace for last and it was rewarding check out the photos. But we were glad to leave after three days.
Japan
Through the time delay we arrived early morning in Tokyo. We did not get a hotel in time so we used the airport tourist office to book one. We found a typical Japanese hotel a Ryokan. Japanese style rooms are large and like a living room with tatami rice mattresses and in the evening the tea table is moved aside and the futon is rolled out. Quite different and we liked it. We arrived by train in the city of Tokyo. We dropped off our luggage and started to explore. We walked to the Imperial Palace Plaza and the first thing I noticed was the atmosphere and the layout of the city blocks. It was cold and the wind was icy but is was so quiet in the middle of the city. Cars driving by and buses but is was still not loud. It was so relaxing after that chaotic city of Bangkok and the street edges gave a sense of order. Our three day in Tokyo were cold but the city is amazing. Tokyo has different city parts almost each area is a city in itself. The train stations are gigantic crossings points for millions of people every day. They include shopping centers restaurants and much more. The city is for sure for shopping and eating. The bad part was that after South East Asia and the dollar at its lowest point the prices are just really steep. We knew Japan is on the higher side but it is still a little shocking seeing it for ourselves. Nevertheless we enjoyed every day. We left for Kyoto. Of course the weather changed and we drove through white scenery and the next day we woke up with Kyoto covered in a thin layer of snow. We were not quite equipped for snow so we wore all the layers of clothes we had. The public transportation is great and we reached our first shrine of so many ‘The Golden Pavilion’. Kyoto has so many different shrines and pagodas from different dynasties that I will not list them all. Kyoto is like an open air museum even in two weeks it would be hard to cover all the sightseeing points. Old and new is city parts are close together and interwoven with each other. Behind a high rise building is hidden a temple and stepping into it will make you forget that you are in a hectic and large city a little oasis. We were too early for the cherry blossom season but we tried to imagine how it could look. It must be really special to see it. The cherry trees are large and so abundant especial at the Philosophers path along a little canal. We were lucky to see Geisha's strolling through the old streets of Kyoto and got some photos. The next stop was Nara only an hour train ride away from Kyoto. We spent two nighst in this smaller city. Nara is known for its wild roaming deer in the park. They know they are getting fed by the tourist and are quiet aggressive and even eat your sleeves, maps or anyhing they can get and ramming their heads hard into your butt to get your attention. We visited the giant Buddha. The building is a replica including the Buddha and only 2/3 of its original size. It is the largest wooden structure in the world but it is already really large. Another area of the park is covered with hundreds of lanterns and it must be a great sight to see them lit at night. It only happens for special occasions. The timing was right for a annual celebration that did not make alot of sense to us. It happened in one of the 700-800 year old completely wooden temples. It was at night and on the 3rd story of the temple they let these huge balls of straw attached to a pole on fire and then ran around the temple 3 stroies high with sparks and flying embers going everywhere. I could just imagine this historic building going up in flames. They said they have been doing it for several hundred years, sounds risky to us, but was a site to see. Our time came to soon to leave and we took the train back to Tokyo. The train system is incredible as well. Fast, efficient, clean and relaxing. We had only one night left in Tokyo and strolled around the shopping areas. I took a lot of great impressions away from Japan. Travelling in my opinion is to get inspired by people, cities and landscape. Japan inspired me in all aspects. The people are so friendly. Even with little or no English they talk to you as you could understand every word and are helpful as much as they can. School kids often approached us for practicing their English and giggling around you. The service staff was always friendly and all of them greeted you and said goodbye in a canon. Really funny. Of course the architecture, old and new was fascinating. The heritage was treated with great respect and kept up impressively well. So much detail in every corner. Starting from the entries to the gardens. Clean lines and a lot great workman ship. Of course the houses were small but that showed even more how use full every inch or centimeter is used. As well I was surprised of how much mountains are around Kyoto. The shrines were beautiful set into the hills. All of the impression that we have today from Japan just makes us wanting to go back and see more. I think I wrote enough and will let you go.
We hope you enjoyed my summary and we will let you know how our adventures continue in China.
I have to admit we are starting to miss talking to our friends in person after such a long time traveling.
We hope you had a good Easter Time.

Take Care Arvo & Christiane

South East Asia #1

2008-02-07T19:17:00.000-08:00

Sawatdee Kaa,

Hello from Thailand.

It is Christiane writing again and we have just reached the nothern city of Thailand Chiang Mai. But before I will tell you about our adventures in South-East Asia let me just finish with some things we saw at the North Island of New Zealand.

Yes, the North Island is different than the south but mostly due to its lack of high mountain ranges and rainforest dropping into the ocean. But it still has a lot of nature to offer and pretty sceneries.

After we left the rainy city of Wellington. We had a change to see the rarest birds in NZ. Sad only in controlled nature habitats. We took a Whale Rider Tour at the nothern Coast. For anyone who has not seen the movie it is woth while to watch. We had the opportunity to here the real story behind it and how Maori live today. After we got to smell the sulfur in Rotorua, a thermal area with active geysers that reminded us of Yellow Stone just a lot smaler we headed for one of the best day hikes in NZ. I'm sure almost everyone has seen "Lord of the Rings" and we hiked at the base of the Volcano that was Mount Doom and Mordor in the movies with spectacular turkois lakes. In the nothern part we hit a lot of the Kiwis traveling themself for their big summer/christmas break. It was packed and hard to find even a campground for a reasonal price. We left the crowds behind and spend some time in Auckland. And tried to lighten our pack for Asia. We knew we will not have a car and lighter is better in this case.

One impression to NZ I have to mention is that I have to say I'm disappointed of how much native forest is left in NZ. When people first arrived in New Zealand over 80% of the land was covered in native forest – and the 20% that wasn’t covered was mostly mountain tops. Now there is only about 23% of New Zealand covered with native vegetation. Not to mention the introduced mamals to are causing a lot of destruction today. NZ did not have any mamlas on the islands before even the Maori arrived. Today so many birds are endangered and lost their habitat. Just as an example the possum- introduced for their fur. In one night 70 million possums chomp their way through about 20,000 tonnes of vegetation - that is equal to about the same weight as 190 million burgers! That means that in one year 70 million possums eat nearly seven and a half million tonnes of vegetation.

So much to NZ.

We touched down in Singapore and for Arvo and myself it is the first time in South East Asia. I was excited to leave the english speaking countries behind. But english today is spoken everywhere. Singapore is a clean city. Already at the airport we saw people cleaning at 1:00 am louvers in doors with toothbrushes. Of course no chewing gum, spitting and so forth. We were impressed how close different coultures and religions life together and all the different ethnic groups have to speak english with each other. Realy interesting. We saw a Hindu temple next to a budist temple and not far away was a mosque. The city is a shopping paradise for shoppers with deap pockets. We could not fathom the size of the shooping malls, like little to big cities in itself. AND... I have to mention the food. Food smell is filling the air of the streets. So much different tastes of food. I heaven for me. I read that it is impossible to have the same type af meal in a whole year and you still would not have tasted all the different dishes available. China Town was in full colour for its New Year coming up three weeks away.

After 4 days in Singapore we headed to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia a 6h bus ride away. What a hussel and buzzel that city is. Traffic jam as we arrived and nothing moved. We reached our hotel and spend the first night with no water due to a public water pipe break. But luckly the next morning it was repaired. Of course our first stop were the Petrones Twin Towers. The highes "TWIN" towers in the world. A great destination for architecture, outdoor spaces, food and shopping-specialy at night. We were drawn like mooth to the shiny towers. I have never seen such a sparkling building. Stainless steell from the top to the bottum; a magnificant sight.

Leaving KL we headed to the oldest rainforest in the world. Part of the journey was a 3h ride in the traditional longboats up the river to reach the National Park. You are sitting just a foot above the waterline with your head and the boat is realy narrow and tipsy. Quite a journey. We saw all the weired insects like the stick insect up close at night that we only knew from the Zoo. The short dschungle walk the next day left us soaked in sweat. Impossible to keep up your hydration.

The next highlight and stop were the Cameron Highlands. A agricuture area for fruits and vegetable but for us visitors we are coming here to see the rolling green hills covered with tea plants. It looks like a gigantic carpet covers the hills. Spectakular. You can check out the photos. We had a short stop and night in Georgetown and decided in the next morning to jump on the ferry to Langkawi to relax at the beaches. Langkawi is the most nothern island in Malaysia on the western side close to Thailand. We meet so many nice backpackers along the way and heard so much about differnt places that we started to realize our time frame is just not long enought. We were torn what to do next. Everyday we wanted to go in different directions. It sounds kinda rediciolus maybe for you guys but it is hard to make a decision if you have so many oportunities to choose from.

We decided to travel into Thailand and see what will happen next. We had a wonderful time in Krabi region. We enjoyed the beaches with stunning cliff formations and did some island tours before we moved on to Bangkok by night train. Thailand has much more to offer than beaches and we needed to move on. Trains are not run like the ones in Switzerland and we had a 3h our delay. But that is part of the adventure. We only stopped in Bangkok to change train to head to Ayutthaya. Ayutthaya was a Thai kingdom in 1350 and had a lot of Wat (temple) and palaces. It was destroyed by the Burmese 1767 and is today a UNESCO Worldheritage site. Impressed by al the temples and ruins we did not stop sightseeing even the temperatuers were high and the feet tired.

Where to go next? That was the big question. The next day at the bus station we made up our mind to go to Ciang Mai instet to visit Sukothai. After 10h in the worsthed bus you can book we checked in into a nice hotel. It was a treat. After so many month we finaly had our own bathroom and a bed that we are getting lost in. Now we each have our own space but feeling lost being so far apart. You start realizing how many month your are traveling when you are running out of toothpaste and need to get a haircut.

Chiang Mai has around 127 temples and one is nicer than the other. I'm amazed of how much detail is in each building. The city is realy clean and one of the few cities in Thailand with a recycling program. And of course there is the night market. Even I become a shopper. Sometimes it is hard to bargain because the prizes are so cheap but this is part of the deal. I'm amazed how much colours are around us. The temples blinking in gold and colourful banners are everywhere and of course the thai dresses and fabrics. We are going to leave Chiang Mai on the 10th and decided to go to Laos, Luang Prabang and flighing from there to Siem Reap-Ankor Wat. We heard so much about it and I'm ecxited. It supposes to be jaw dropping special the sunrises and sunsets over the temples.

But before we leave we have a day spending time and taking care of elephants in a naturepark recommended by Joyce.

We will keep you posted on the next leg. After Kambodia we are arriving in Bangkok again for 4 days before our plane leaves to Tokyo.

Of course we are hoping everybody is doing great and please let us know what is happening in the rest of the world.

Take Care Arvo and Christiane

New Zealand #3

2008-01-13T15:32:00.000-08:00

Our Next adventure took us on a two day trek on the Kepler Track, we decided with our new friends from the boat trip just to do the best part of the Kepler. That being the mountain and valley parts, the weather and scenery were perfect as well as the company. We finally got our clear skies and endless views, which were rare on the Routeburn Track. We also did a little cave exploring, venturing 800+ meters into the darkness armed with 3 flashlights for the four of us. We went until we could not go any further, with the lights turned out it was complete silence and darkness. The next stop was the Milford Sound ,we wanted to see for our self's which was better Doubtful or Milford. The weather once again turned and was rain off and on, we did a day trip on the Milford. They said in any weather it is good with rain you get more waterfalls and volume of water that comes down them, so we left hoping maybe for hard rain. the Sound like so many things, is not better just different, Milford was smaller, with more sheer cliffs and many more waterfalls then Doubtful. Each one had it own unique qualities, which were both very impressive. The main highlight on the Milford was the moment when they guided the bow of the boat under a very large waterfall with dramatic music on the speakers. Those that wanted could put raincoats on that they had available and go play under the waterfall getting a free shower. Before we even reached under the falls Christiane was already in the rain gear ready to get wet, I think she is part fish. Of coarse I stayed back trying to get photos, but still getting wet from the spray. It was truly a fun experience. The rain started as the cruise was ending and on the drive around the Milford you could see a big difference in the amount of water coming down the different waterfalls throughout the valley and the increase in the number of falls. I,m sure during a really hard rain it must be even more incredible then it was, hard to imagine.

With rain forecast for the next few days around Milford, we decided to head north hoping to avoid the rain. We went towards the Glaciers, Fox and Franz Joseph, hear we did a little hiking to and around the Fox Glacier, but headed for Franz Joseph to do some Glacier walks. As we booked the all Day glacier walk the forecast did not seem so bad for the next day, but later that day the forecast changed from partly cloudy and chance of rain to rain to hard rain. The trip was already booked so the next morning we got up to do the glacier walk and as predicted it was raining pretty hard. The company gave everyone clothes to wear and we headed off towards the glacier. The going was slow at first since the guides were still trying to cut steps and some footing on the ice since most have been was out with the rain. Even though it was wet it was still great being on the ice, climbing, squeezing and walking on the frozen ice thousands of years old. The color of the ice was amazing, but unfortunately because of the hard rain we were unable even to take out cameras out for photos. So they are etched in our memories, giving us both a desire maybe to head to Antarctica or Greenland one day to see natures ice sculptures. It was wet cold and we were surprised they actually take people out in that weather, but it was worth it, even with all the wetness and no photos. Once again trying to escape the rain we headed North along the west coast and eventually headed inland to Nelson Lake region. Nice but rainy still after a couple of days we head north to Abel Tansman area, where we planned to do a three day kayaking trip. The coast was beautiful and even though we would be on our on kayaking, which we both like starting in one point and being picked up three days later further north, the weather forecast was not good for the next 3-4 days. Neither one of us wanted to kayak in the rain for three days and really did not feel like just hanging around around hoping the weather would change, we left. Maybe if time permitted we would come back in a week if the weather improved for the kayak trip. So we headed for Picton and Queen Charlotte Sound. Here the weather was better and we decided to take a boat that dropped you off and you hiked down the coast and were picked up later that day. The next morning we caught the boat and headed off, 20 minutes later the boat was having problems and we were going really slow. They said we had to turn around and get another boat, but then we could not do the hike we wanted, Not enough time. Fortunately for us and there was a Dolphin tour boat close by, and there said they could take 11 of us up to the area we needed to go. So in addition to being able to still do the hike we saw Dolphins on the way as well. The hike and weather along the coast was beautiful and the weather was great. We finished the 17 kilometer hike faster then we thought and had time to relax before the boat pick us up.
Since rain the rain forecast for the Abel Tansman area and kayaking was not improving we decided to try and catch an earlier Ferry to the North island. We lucked out and as we arrived in Picton after visiting some wineries in the Marlborough area we were able to change our tickets that were booked for next week and catch the ferry leaving in half an hour. So we jump on the ferry and headed for the North Island of NZ. Christiane will pick up our next part continuing on the North. We are a little behind on our reports and are now writing from Singapore, where we arrived early this morning. We will try to get caught up and keep you all posted. Everyone take care and See Ya

Arvo

New Zealand #2

2008-01-12T14:24:00.000-08:00

I will try and keep the post shorter then last. After the sledging we stop by the bridge Bungee Jumping was invented, an old historic bridge 43 meters above the rushing river. We thought about jumping after watching for a while, but the thought of having a young kid strap rubber bands on our ankles, probably hungover(Queenstown is a party town) and then jumping off a perfectly nice old bridge did not make alot of sense. Also they charge $160 for this 4 second fall. Maybe another time or not.
We next set off for Glenorchy where we were do meet Michael and Anja our friends from Germany who we met in Australia for our 5 day hike on the Routeburn Track. We arrived a couple of days earlier and spent that time driving dirt roads looking at filming locations from Lord of the Rings, they are all over NZ.
We started our hike not in the best weather, but we are getting used to it. The scenery was great when we could see it we all were taking many pictures. the highlights of the trip other then just being outdoors amongst great scenery were our trek through a Fairy Tale like forest. Complete with greens are every color, huge old trees, moss growing and hanging from every where and streams all around. The next highlight was hearing a waterfall through the forest and getting louder as you grew near. Coming out of the forest and seeing a huge waterfall dropping 50-60 meters and massive across, creating its on wind tunnel. You had to struggle to keep your balance walking 20 meters away from it due to the wind and the spray of water completing trenching you in a matter of seconds, amazing. We spent the days walking and the nights cooking and playing games, it was a very good trek. We felt lucky to have shared this Trek with our new friends, not knowing when we would run into them again. After stopping for a night in Queenstown to spend the night and take our first shower in 5 days we headed southeast.
We ended up in Dunedin for a couple of days visiting the Albatross Colony an incredible bird that soars above and only when its close or another bird is next to it flying can you truly see the size of these birds. We also visited a Yellow Eyed Penguin Colony, one of the rarest, we got extremely close to some and had one that we had to wait until it waddled off the path. Very comical bird, not so graceful on land, but at home in the water.
Next we headed along the south coast and eventually when the road headed north we followed, towards Doubtful Sound. Some books say Doubtful Sound is better then Milford Sound a little further north, so we decided to take an overnight boat trip on the Sound. Here we met another German couple Markus and Katherine whom we enjoyed late night game playing, star watching and decided to meet up for part of another NZ Great Walk. They also entertained us by getting trenched by a wave breaking on the bow. The next mourning the boat turned into a side arm of the fjord, we stopped the engines and they asked for complete silence from everyone. As the waves of the boat drifted to the shore the water turned into a mirror or water with us floating the mountains and trees reflecting and the only noise being the cascading water and the birds. I think everyone needs more moments like these. A great boat trip, wthe four of us said the boat dream is over. Also we entertained by Bottle nose Dolphins(Flipper) putting on a show of jumping and wave riding the bow of the boat for our pre dinner entertainment. Thanks you for your comments , till next time see ya

New Zealand 11-2007 - 01- 2008

2008-01-10T14:49:00.000-08:00

I hope this update finds everyone well.
Our adventure in Australia has ended for now, but a new adventure awaits us in New Zealand.
We arrived in Christchurch, NZ on Nov 6th and met up with the new friends from Germany we met in our Australia journey. We talked over pizza about what we might be able to do together in NZ and decided on one of the great walks of NZ, we would meet up in a couple of weeks.
We pick up our camper van, similar to the one we lived in while in Australia and headed north along the east coast to Kaikoura. Do to the formation of the ocean bottoms and depths in this area it was known for much marine life, including dolphins which you could swim with. We decided to take the 5:30 A.M. boat for a half day trying to find some dolphins, this is the best chance to find them and swim since there are just coming back from feeding and are happy and playful. The weather was cold and cloudy as well as the water being cold and not to inviting, but the thought of being able to get in with the dolphins warmed us up. After a half an hour of searching we came across a quite a few Hector Dolphins, Eureka that is what we were looking for. Having a full wetsuit, fins and snorkel we eased off the back of boat into the water. Looking around searching for the dolphins they came out of nowhere like torpedo's but avoiding you at the last second, it was amazing. They would be below you and if you were able to move in circles they would mimic you going faster with each circle you until you gave up, I think 3-4 circles is the most I was able to achieve before I had to stop from being dizzy. At that point the dolphin figured he won and sped off. The other thing they seemed to like is if you would dive under the water and they would swim along you looking at you till you had to surface, They are a very graceful,playful, curious and amazing animal. I think Christiane would like to do this everyday, it was hard to get her out of the water. A great start to our NZ adventure. The one thing I forgot too mentioned is that the boat captain said to attract them you had to make noises and at times it sounded like a heard of buffalo's on the water with people making noises through their snorkel, at these times I went under water playing with the Dolphins.
Next off to Hamner Springs to warm up in the Hot Springs. After warming up we decided to do an all day Whitewater rafting on a Glacial melt river, the Rangitata, labeled as the best one day whitewater in NZ. With class III-V rapids it should be an exciting time, it rained all night before the trip and was just a little better the next day. Again we were dressed in thick clothes and gortex, knowing we would be getting wet both from the river and rain we ventured off. Did I mentioned glacial melt, COLD
The excitement once again kept you from thinking about it and enjoyed the thrill of paddling through the rapids. Each boat had six of us paddling and one guide, our guide has been doing it for over 20 years and I think he got his kicks by seeing how close he could get the raft to flip or get sucked back into a rapid. It was all great fun and added the extra level of excitement.

The water adventure over for now, we headed for Mt Cook the highest peak in NZ. The weather held for a couple of days and we were able to do some nice day hikes in the area, very rugged and beautiful area. Did I mentioned the Maori name for NZ is land of big cloud, a very proper name as they thickened and started to rain we left Mt Cook.
On towards Queenstown where once again we decided to do another water activity, sledging. This is a where you put on a wetsuit , fins and hang on to a bogey board going down the rapids. As I write this it does not sound like a smart thing to do, but it was a blast. Did I mention glacial melt, COLD. The rapids started off as class I then progressed to class II and III. Rapids are classed I to VI with class VI being unrunnable. The rapids ranged from whirlpools that spun you circles until you kick your way out to 3-5 foot waves you could ride and on to roller coaster bobbing like a cork going down the river. One section the guide told us about as we neared was a spot that because of the sheer wall, depth and volume of water though a small channel, that if you timed it right and tried you could push your bogey board down, hanging on and the water would push you down and under the rapids 3 to 4 meters. At that point you would be in a flow of water that you could ride and then it would push you up to another level about a meter under water again riding the flowing water until it finally pop you up to the surface. The record was 12 seconds that someone was under. Sounds fun right. The guide was leading into this spot and missed the timing I followed behind him and either luckily or unluckily I timed it just right and was pulled under to 3-4 meters and was riding the river underwater, after a few seconds it pushed me up and to the second level and continued for a few more seconds then it pushed me to the surface and I popped up right behind the guide and in surprise he said did you just come up. I said yes and he said how cool, I think I was under for around 10 seconds but seemed longer. when I first went in Christiane said one moment I was in front of her the next I was gone as she rode the river above me she was probaly thinking of the life insurance, but then I pop up down river about 50-60 meters and was behind her, she seemed to be happy ?. We rode the 6 kilometer of the river a second time, but I was unable to repeat the ride the second time, I guess was lucky or stupid since I was the only one who got to experience this ride. Not that anybody else wanted do other then the guides. Great fun, at the end of the second run we were extremely cold and realized how hard work it was trying to stay somewhat in the right place in the rapids, a good leg workout for sure. Signing off till the next update

Arvo & Christiane

Summary of Australia

2007-10-06T00:16:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Greetings from Down Under.

We are back in Sydney and I (Christiane) have to try to give you a taste of our last two month here in Australia. Tomorrow we are off to New Zealand.

First of all we are so sorry no pictures again but this time it is a real dilemma. We are having computer problems and hopping to solve them soon.

As a summary we have seen the most amazing beaches, oceans from underwater and from the sky, travelled endless roads (even USA cannot compete with), touched Aboriginal ground and tried to understand their culture, heard dreamtime stories, seen the desert with its wonderful reds and greens, yes green as well. We had animal encounters from the cute Koalas to reptiles in baby size and in full size, kangaroos alive and dead, emus, platypus, snakes, wombats, echida like a porqupine ? and the worst off all flies and mosquito's.

This country is amazing and hard to describe in the few English words that I know.

Hope you remembered we left for our sailing adventure. The boat was not what we expected but we made the best out of it. For me it was one off the highlights. I always wanted to learn to dive and here I had the opportunity. Off course with a guide and only to 10 meters. But now I'm hooked and want to explore more. It is just a different world down there.
We had wonderful coral formations the colors are not as strong anymore due to ocean pollution and warmer climate but it was great.

We did not have enough off it and explored it as well via helicopter without doors and had wonderful views of Whitsunday Beach, the heart reef and the outer Great Barrier Reef.
We had to say good bye to those wonderful water playgrounds and decided to head to Alice Springs and not to go to Cairns. After 1500km of endless roads with running out of gas experience we reached Alice. It was hot. Alice Springs lies in the center of Australia and really not much around. Before driving to Uluru and Kata Tjuta (Ayers Rock) we explored the west MacDonnell Ranges and the Art Galleries. What we already did in Sydney but we wanted to learn more about the Aboriginal culture.

Uluru was another 3-4 hours away and we arrived in the afternoon. The rock is just amazingly big and the landscape around it is just flat with slight rolling hills. If you walk around Uluru, what we did instead of climbing it (The rock is sacred to the tribe and it would be like crawling over the alter in the St. Peters Dome if you attempt to climb it.) is hard to imagine that 2/3 is under the ground and only we see is 1/3. The sunset bathed the rock in that wonderful red color that you see in the postcards.

The Kata Tjutas (Many Heads) are 40km away from Uluru and are as well rock formations with most of it underground. The rock itself is much harder and darker in color. We got a little bit in trouble with the park ranger due to our miscalculating leaving the national park. The roads are used as a warming ground for the animals in the evening and the rangers just want to protect their inhabitants.

After 3 days in the National Park we had to leave and drove back to Alice. I was kinda sad to leave Uluru it is just a different place to be.

A quick stop in Alice and the Art Galleries we headed back north where we came from. We tried our luck as fossickers(searching for gemstones)... little luck before we arrived in the northern part of Australia.

Explored Kakadu National Park where most of the Saltwater Crocodiles live. So absolutely no swimming at all and you cannot even get close to the waters edge. Took a day trip into Arnhem Country, Aboriginal territory where we heard the dream time stories. This place most be amazing to see in the wet season. So much territory is under water and the flora and fauna are bursting to live. For tourist almost impossible to visit in that time most roads will be only accessible by air.
By that time we had made up our mind to do the full loop. We knew it will be a lot of driving but we wanted to know what the west coast is made off. We heard so much about it.
It is hard to describe there are only view place along the coast and so far spread out. You see it on the map but only start to realise it when you see the prices of food and fuel. Everything needs to brought into the remote areas like Broome at the north west coast.
Wonderful wide beach like California has but the water is much warmer and has camel rides to offer. I don't think I even have seen any horses in Ca at the beach. And from here are coming the worlds largest white pearls.

Ops, almost forgot to mention our trip to the Bungle Bungles. They are part of the Kimberly's in Western Australia and only accessible by 4WD or air. We took the 1h flight. It just just amazing to see nature from the birds eye. Bungle Bungle are rock formations that look like beehives from the air and have horizontal stripes like a tiger. The park was only discovered 1986. That gives you a little bit off understanding how big this country is because nobody lives there. Of course Aboriginals have known about but it but nobody listened. The rock formations are made out of sand and if you walk on it it falls apart, really fragile so it is protected by the UNESCO World heritage.

After Broome we drove further down the coast and discovered the 80 mile beach. Endless long as long the horizon reaches and wide and uninhabited. At this point we have collected way too many shells, but they are so nice.

Than there was Exmoth and the Ningaloo Park with its famous whale sharks. It was not the season for it but we still explored the waters and turquoise coloured beaches. Here we learned that most of the wonderful fish that is fished goes overseas. The prices are better and Australia imports other cheaper fish from Vietnam and other Asian countries.

A long way away from Perth with not much in between we drove along the coast. To many roads are only made for 4WD and we had to skip them.

We heard so much about Perth but I have to sadly I was disappointed. It was small but besides shopping streets and the Mint not much to see. Freemantle a town at the waters was much more alive mixed with cafes, markets and bars and a nice Maritime Museum.

Leaving after couple of days we had only few stops left before heading east.

Esperance on the south coast was a nice surprise it greeted us with rain but it cleared and the national park Le Grand was grand. The beaches so wide the water so clear like glass and the sand like silica soft and white. It was still to cold to go swimming but this did not stop me to take my feet for a nice cold bath. Arvo could not stop taking photos and I did not want to leave. The waves were strong and big. I think he got some good photos off it.

The next day we left for the Nullarbor. That is the road connection between west and east coast in the south. Nullarbor means no trees. There was only a stretch 100km with no trees out of the over 2500km we had to drive. It is kind of bizarre but not as bad and boring as this road is described. Believe me we have seen more boring stretches of landscape. The coast was right of the road but you could not see anything because it was made of shear cliffs. The weather was not promising by the time we reached Adelaide. Again not much to see besides its famous market. But how much can you really eat and buy, special if it is forbidden to bring any fruits and vegetable into different states and agricultural areas.

Off to Kangaroo Island we took the weather with us. But we were reworded with Koalas on our campground in our tree. Rolling green hills meet turquoise beaches on one side of the island. Learned much more about wool industry - 100 million sheep in Australia compared to 60 million in New Zealand.

Saw the 12 Apostle, now there are only 11 one collapsed. The Apostles are rock formations of the south coast off Victoria that are eroded over the long period of time and now are free standing rocks. They were called The sow and the piglets but I guess nobody came and visit them. Marketing is all. Really amazing coastline sheer rugged cliffs and water.

Short stopover in Melbourne. We were so sorry not be able to met our new friend from our Art Gallery tours in Alice Spring due to a family matter.

Canberra the capital got as well our attention and we took the parliament tour. Wonderful building with a lot of nice details as well the whole city planning is based on circular pattern with view axises.

Back in my favorite city, Sydney we are getting ready for New Zealand. We had the last good fish and chips at Bondi Beach, that is like Santa Monica to L.A. with lots of flesh and big waves with surfers.

So I hope I did not write to much and you are able to read all. There is so much I could write about different little places and experiecnes we had , people we met. These are only some of the highlights of our time in Australia.

It is nice to hear that you are following our journey. Australia was the first country on our non stop tour and Arvo and I cannot believe it is already over. Quite a change from our 7 months traveling Europe

We are exited to explore new territory. We keep you posted and cross your fingers we can sort out the photo problem. We have our good friend Brett working on it in OC.

And a big thank for Mark who is keeping track of our shipments that reach the California coast to often.

Off course we hope everyone is doing fine and is not stressing out to much with the up coming holidays. We hpoe none of our friends or there families were effected by the tragic fires we were following here.

Take Care Arvo & Christiane

Greetings from Australia

2007-09-06T19:40:00.000-07:00

Hi Mates,
As you can tell we are in Australia. We made it across the big Pacific Ocean with a 4 night stop in Fiji, Nadi.
In the four days in Fiji we had the chance to relax from the last couple of weeks planning for the next year. I know what you guys are thinking how hard is it to plan for vacation while you are trying to keep up in the daily rat race. I have to admit I feel really lucky and fortunate to be able to see so many different things and can take so many memories with me.
Okay back to Fiji. We notice that the Fijian Island are really geared towards the Australian and the Kiwis. I guess for us you can compare it to Hawaii or to Mallorca for the Europeans. The beaches on the water was great. The food to expensive but good especial the fish.. The snorkeling was okay we did not go out to far to the coral reef. But we are making up for it here in Australia.

Most of you know I'm (Christiane) a city person and was fascinated by Sydney. What a beautiful location. So much water front. I felt it is a mixture between Seattle and Vancouver with the Aussi flare and Asian influence. The opera house could not be on a better location. A lot of the old waterfront have been remodeled or are under way. Beautiful housing directly at the water edge with your own boat slip. You can image prices have been going up here as well.
We were lucky and found fast a camper van. Just imagine a bigger van you can stand in and cook. We call it home until November. Leaving Sydney and learning to drive on the wrong side of the street. The road is endless long and the distances are really deceiving. The country side has a lot of cattle to offer and further north sugar cane after sugar cane fields. Did I forgot to mention sugar cane. And signs for Koala Bears but impossible to see them. The first kangaroos we saw excluding in the Zoo were the dead once along the highway. It is life threatening to drive at night so we don't do it.
We landed in Redcliff a small town in the Mortem Bay. Great place for Whale watching. We had so much fun we did it again in Hervey Bay couple days later. We tried to get the southern Humpback whales in one picture. But they are so big and beautiful impossible if they are close to the boat. We were lucky to hear their sound get wet from their breath and be seen by their eyes. Are you interested to see hundreds of photos and an hour of video tape?
The next day we spend two days on Fraser Island. Fraser Island is offshore Hervey Bay and the biggest sand island in the world. So the biggest sand box for adults and kid a like.
The beaches are so nice wide and long but guess you are not allowed to put your food in it. First of all the blue jelly fish it burns -no bare foot. The current is so strong and if yo are lucky to survive it you will be eaten by the sharks. Non of the above sounds great to me. But the fresh water lakes are amazing. It looks like you are in the South Pacific. All the fresh water lakes are created by the rainwater and there are a lot of lakes and streams but is does not mean it is raining a lot. We spend the two days with a tour group and the majority of the people were Germans. What a surprise. We meet one couple they are touring for a year around the world but going the opposite direction. But is is really strange they have the same time available in Australia have a Wicked Van (a rental van that is painted all over and a mile away to spot) and leaving on the same day as we are same flight to New Zealand and Christchurch. As I'm writing this email they are doing the same. Arvo thinks they are stocking us. :-)
But back to Fraser Island. We left Hervey Bay further north to Agnes Water and 1770 this is the first point Captain Cook landed in Australia. Here starts the lower Great Barrier Reef and a unknown secrete for snorkeling and diving. But the weather was bad and they canceled the trip we scheduled for Lady Musgrove Island and the boat to another island is under maintenance. So we left and headed north. That is where sugar cane is big. So many kilometers and nothing in between but we reached Mackay as a starting point for finding Platypus and Rain forest. We found the rain forest but not the Platypus. We spend the night at Cape Hillsborough- the Kangaroo beach. We meet our German friends again and woke up for the sunrise to see the kangaroos who like to watch the sunrise. Or I guess it was feeding time. Baby kangaroos or Joeys whom mothers were killed on the road. They were really cute and we could pet them as well.

Finally we are here in Whitsunday Island-Arlie Beach where I'm writing this email. Tomorrow the four of us are leaving on a big catamaran for the islands and the Great Barrier Reef. 3 days 3 nights including snorkeling and diving. This will be my first diving experience. I'm not certified but Arvo is. I will have a buddy dive. I guess it will be similar to buddy skydiving.
So that is it for right now.
Pictures we will post later we need to find out how to shrink them for the internet. But we promisse they will be posted.
Please let us know if you are unable to see the link and all of you are doing well

Take Care Arvo and Christiane

Start of 3rd leg our trip

2007-08-19T01:06:00.000-07:00

Bula as they say in Fiji,
I hope everyone is in good health and spirit.This is Christiane writing.
This is the 3rd time we are leaving California for a longer period of time. This time for a full year.
We left August 14th to Nadi Fiji as a 4 day layover. As I'm writing I'm sitting in the Internet bar in the Sheraton Hotel.
Tomorrow we are leaving to Sydney. We allowed our self around 3 month to explore this big continent. After Australia we are heading for New Zealand again 3 month and than we are going to continue to Asia, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, China, Greece, South Africa, Morocco, Italy and again Germany before we are coming back to LA.
We book all the fights in advance to get the best possible deal for flight rates. I have to say this was quite nerve recking to book something that far in advance and knowing you not going to see familiar territory for quite a while.
Arvo and I tried to pack as light as possible but all the extra stuff besides clothes adding a lot to the weight.
We are sorry that we were unable to meet a lot of you in person before we took off again. The time flew by and the to do list was endless.

I will give you more details as we go. Cross your fingers that we are able to buy a car in Australia which will be our home for the next month.

Please fell free to email us back we loved to stay in touch and hear news from the other side of the world.

Take Care
Arvo & Christiane

Last Report Europe

2007-08-14T16:29:00.000-07:00

Hi to everyone,

Hope this email finds everybody doing well back in the States and Germany.
I left off at Madrid, since we have been a little lazy with email it seems like a long time ago. Leaving Madrid looking for a little quiet we headed to the north coast stopping in Sergovia for 3 nights. This is a wonderfully preserved Medieval town, great castle and Roman Aqueduct that was still in use until the 19th century bringing water to the town, amazing something going on 2,000 years old and still working. I'm not sure of too many things that is built today and will function 1,000 or 2,000 years into the future. We did a day trip to another great medieval town Avila enclosed by the most intact wall in Europe, I believe. We walked around the town on the wall for great views and spotting Storks on every church steeple and roofs, this is a fairly large bird and looks cool seeing them, but they must be somewhat of a nuisance having one on your own roof. I believe that the wall had 20 towers and was 4-5 kilometers that encircled the town. Leaving Sergovia we headed towards the north coast stopping in Salamanca a nice university city and then a stop at Cueva De Velparques a amazing cave with Stalagmites, Stalactites, underground river and waterfalls in the wet season. The caverns had so many different formations of the limestone carved by thousands of years of dripping and running water. Being in these caves reminded me of Jules Verne book "Journey to the center of the earth" there must be still so many things we have yet to discover under the ground we walk. As amazed with all the great man made structures we have seen, to me it does not compare with what nature has created on the surface, under the surface of the crust and in the waters, its truly remarkable. Enough of my philosophy onward with our travels. After crawling out of the earth we headed for the mountains for some hiking. Since the cattle is all free roaming you come across many cattle and sheep, this is okay as most cattle are milking cows. We happened to be coming up a trail and standing in the middle of the trail 30 yards ahead was a very large bull snorting and protecting its harem and not too happy to see us coming. We waited for 5-10 minutes hoping it would head off the trail and we could pass, Christiane did not want to go near the bull, which started to get me a little concerned about passing by it. So we decided to head up the side on the hillside bushwhacking out of the bulls direction. Finally catching the trail up the hillside we continued watching the bull move off the trail and harass the females, I guess it was mating time. It was an exciting way to end the days hike in a beautiful setting. The next day found us taking a tram up to an area where you could hike to the most remote village in Spain. It was a nice peaceful setting for the village along a clear river where you could see a couple of ladies cleaning their pots and pans. There were probably 20 stone houses or so with the traditional slate roofs, you could have just step back in time a couple of hundred years in that setting. We decided to pick a trail that went to a mountain ridge that would give us great views. We reached a fork in the road early and someone wrote on the trail head sign pointing to a different direction then the sign showed. We decided to follow the signs direction not the hand written one. As we followed the trail up the mountainside it got smaller and smaller until there was no trail, just thick brush. At that time I figured it must have been a old sheep trail we were following that was no longer in use, most trails are on old animals trails, in this area sheep and goats. In stead of back tracking, we could see if we headed down through the brush it should come out somewhere near a old shack we could see. After fighting the thick brush we found the correct trail. Enjoying the nice scenery we finally came to a waterfall, after taking some photos it looked like the trail headed up the side of the waterfall. Other then the one first trail sign we saw nothing showing any indication you were on the correct trail or not. I said to Christiane that I never seen such poorly marked trails and we headed up the side of the waterfall reminding Christiane to make sure each step and hands were secure. After about half way up it became quite clear that this was not the trail and that we were in a little predicament. I looked down at Christiane and all she said is that "I am trusting you that you will get me down here later". We were at about 90 degree climbing the side of the waterfall, at this point I knew it would be more dangerous going down then up and we headed up the remaining 30 feet or so. After getting to a safe spot to stand Christiane said that fortunately we have quite a bit of hiking experience, but people with not much experience should be warned at the trail head about the difficulty of the terrain. After searching for the trail and not finding a safe way to continue up we sat on the the side of the mountainside on a rock eating our lunch. As we sat looking across a small valley to the other mountainside we saw some hikers and decided after lunch that was the direction to head down then cross the river and back up hooking up with the trail. We arrived at the other side with no mishaps, we got to area of winter mountain shelters on a beautiful mountain top with views of all the higher peaks around and relaxed for a hour or so. We made it back to the base of or nightmare waterfall seeing that the trail we should have taken was just to the left of the waterfall going back a little around a rock outcrop. I guess we were so excited to see the waterfall we missed that turn off and made a difficult hike much more difficult then it had to be. Wishing everyone well,

Arvo

Update from Spain

2007-08-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

Hi to everyone and best wishes from afar,

I will try and pick up from where Christiane left off. Leaving Peniscola on the coast after a few days we headed for La Mancha region where Don Quiote fought with the windmills. We had a nice place in a small town Criptana de Compostela where we could walk 5 minutes and fight with the windmills our self, unfortunately the windmills won every time. It was a peaceful setting seeing the images of the windmills and picturing times past, we spent 3 days exploring this area and enjoyed the slower pace of the smaller town. We spent a day visiting the Medieval town of Morella with a Grand setting of a walled town setting on top of a craggy hill top. This was like taking a step back in time, being so well preserved and missing the crowds of tourist buses that I,m sure head here in the Summer. We could have spent a couple of more days here, but other parts of Spain were calling. We headed down the coast towards Valencia, stopping by Delta D´ Ebre a large reserve for lowland and birds and miles of rice fields, here we walked along the beach hunting seashells and battling the howling winds along the coast. Enough sand pitting our flesh we headed to Valencia to see one of Christiane´s architecture buildings that is on her list of buildings to see, Calatrava´s Convention Center and Imax buildings. these were pretty impressive buildings, surrounded by a shallow pool of water. We were sitting having some lunch on a bench next to the water and were talking how hard it most be keeping the water clean when a young guy hopped in the knee deep pool with a mask and started throwing some chemical granules with a scoop as we looked around we saw a few others doing the same in the other pools. Even with a few people doing it I´m sure it took half a day, I´m not sure anything I have to wear a mask for I want to throw around by body, but the water looked clean and no birds. Madrid was calling load and clear I do not think I have ever been in a city that I think is inhabited by vampires, they do not sleep at night and finally decide to go to bed as the sun is coming out. I guess it did not help we had a place for 4 days on a busy street, but it seems as if every street is full. This may sound like I did not like Madrid, but this is not true, I´m not keen on any big city in general they all have great things to see, but are a little to hectic and crowded for me long term. Saying that we enjoyed 4 days seeing Madrid´s sights, museum´s and street life. It was funny to see the tourists lined up waiting to hop on the city tourist buses as we headed for the city metro to do on own sight seeing. Madrid is a very lively place with more restaurants, bars and shoe stores then I have ever seen. Thank goodness Chrisitane did not have a urge to go shoe shopping we would still be their. We latter read that Madrid has more shoe store then any other city, every block was 4-5 shoe stores. I´m not quite finished with my segment yet but I think it is long enough now. Thank you for your interest in our travels. Adios

Arvo

2007 2nd Europe Trip

2007-08-14T16:23:00.000-07:00

¿Hola, que tal?
this is Christiane writing from Peñiscola in Spain at the Costa Dorada.
But I should start from the beginning.
We left at May 4th for an other Europe trip. This time we are travelling France, Spain and Germany again.
Our trip almost got canceled due to a misplaced Passport. Always keep in mind to take important papers out of the copy machine after you are done. It just added a little stress to the last hours of our last day.
But we left finaly and landed in Dublin were we had a layover for two night. Do to the weather the city was a little gloomy but the Irish like to party and fill the streets no mater what weather. I guess they are more used to it than us.
We continued our trip to Paris were we stayed for full four days. But we could not leave the rain behind us. Still the city is amazing. old buildings, bars cafes and crepes everywhere and of course the Eiffel Tower. To many places to visit in such a short time. We just arrived at the time France was voting for their new president and the streets were filled with polices escorts and other festivities.
At the last day we picked up our new Peugeot and left for the Normandie.
On the way we stopped at Monet's Garden in Giverny. It looked just as in his paintings.
The rugged coast had old fishing villages to offer us and for me the Moules frites (Mussels). The rain changed into a thunderstorm but left us a crystal clear sunny afternoon.
Further along the coast we explored the more famous beach/ fishing villages and the famous Omaha beach with the American cemetery close by. The beach is beautiful today and does not give a hint of what happened at the end of WWII.
The cemetery shows a different picture. Endless rows of white marble crosses.
We visited another beach, the name I just cannot remember, it still had the floating harbors that the Alliance built from over 60 years in the water and stranded at the beach.
\n\u003cdiv\>That was quite a bizarre site.The rain still has not left us so we kept on continuing to St. Michael a Castle/ medieval Town built on a peninsula that is surrounded by water at high tide and dry by low tide. St. Malo is already located in Brittany which has the highest high and low tide - 18 meters. (54 feet). \n\u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>I think we were already more than two weeks into our trip and had enough from the rain. Both of us did catch a little cold and we headed south into the Loire Valley. Known for its wine and Castles. We rented a nice little room in a 500 year old house that was renovated by a Parisian couple. We had some nice evening conversations with them and some wine of course.The days went by to fast. By that time Arvo received the good news that there is a buyer for his fathers house. Nothing easier than that just go to an American Embassy and get a Notary Public. We drove to the famous caves in Lascaux. (The earliest dated cave paintings so far found). Do to so many visitors they closed off the original cave in the 70ties and built a copy of it close by. It was quite amazing as well the cave Peche Merle in another valley that showed a human footprint over \n10.000 years old.We headed towards Toulouse for the Post station of the American embassy. We knew we needed an appointment but still tried our luck. But I guess they did not like to see someone out off their schedule. They did not let us even in. Begging did not help so we had to cut our France trip short and drove all the way to Barcelona. Which was not that far away but we had to leave out a big part of France. Never arrive in a City at night without a map. Didn´t I write this in one off my earlier emails? I guess we did not learn. But we got a place right in the heart of Barcelona. The first thing on the news that night were the flooding in certain part of Spain. No!! rain again. But it stayed dry.We visit the famous houses that Gaudi built and his cathedral. I did not know that the Cathedral was never finished even today. After 120 years they are still working on it and creating the choir after Gaudis plans which looks like the under side of interlocking trees a walk in the forrest. They are doing an amazing job but you only can imaging how it will look like after the scaffolding is being removed.",1]
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That was quite a bizarre site.

The rain still has not left us so we kept on continuing to St. Michael a Castle/ medieval Town built on a peninsula that is surrounded by water at high tide and dry by low tide. St. Malo is already located in Brittany which has the highest high and low tide - 18 meters. (54 feet).
I think we were already more than two weeks into our trip and had enough from the rain. Both of us did catch a little cold and we headed south into the Loire Valley.
Known for its wine and Castles. We rented a nice little room in a 500 year old house that was renovated by a Parisian couple. We had some nice evening conversations with them and some wine of course.
The days went by to fast. By that time Arvo received the good news that there is a buyer for his fathers house. Nothing easier than that just go to an American Embassy and get a Notary Public.
We drove to the famous caves in Lascaux. (The earliest dated cave paintings so far found). Do to so many visitors they closed off the original cave in the 70ties and built a copy of it close by. It was quite amazing as well the cave Peche Merle in another valley that showed a human footprint over 10.000 years old.
We headed towards Toulouse for the Post station of the American embassy. We knew we needed an appointment but still tried our luck. But I guess they did not like to see someone out off their schedule. They did not let us even in. Begging did not help so we had to cut our France trip short and drove all the way to Barcelona. Which was not that far away but we had to leave out a big part of France.
Never arrive in a City at night without a map. Didn´t I write this in one off my earlier emails? I guess we did not learn. But we got a place right in the heart of Barcelona. The first thing on the news that night were the flooding in certain part of Spain. No!! rain again. But it stayed dry.
We visit the famous houses that Gaudi built and his cathedral. I did not know that the Cathedral was never finished even today. After 120 years they are still working on it and creating the choir after Gaudis plans which looks like the under side of interlocking trees a walk in the forrest. They are doing an amazing job but you only can imaging how it will look like after the scaffolding is being removed.
We had a chance to see a concert in the only concert hall in Europe that has natural lighting.Wonderful Latin American songs.Now we are as I mentioned at the coast and had relaxing days including sunburn.Lots of German and French tourists. The amount of accommodations give us a hint how crowed it will be in the peak time in summer.Tomorrow we are leaving a little further south before we loop back to Madrid. I hope everybody is doing great and we will keep you posted on the next stretch coming up.We will try to attach some photos next time.

Hasta luego!

Arvo & Christiane

Last Report 2006

2007-08-14T16:16:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone,
This is Christiane writing again and this is the third and last email of our Europe Journey.
I noticed we stooped reporting after we left Budapest so I hope I will not take to long to describe the last places we have been to.
As a side note from me about Budapest, it reminded me of my time as I lived in Berlin, special the apartment we stayed in.
So we headed towards Vienna. Both of us had been there before but I have to admit I did not recognize to much from my High School time.
A short advice for tourists with cars; take a good map with you before you enter the city Vienna itself or you end up driving in circles as we did for too long (Ringstrasse) and know where to park or you greet the towing company at the outskirts of Vienna. But beyond all this the city has its fascination with all its historic and new buildings, concerts and endless museums that were not managable even in 6 day we stayed there.
On the way to Salzburg we spend time in Melk. An old Monastary that is know from the book 'name of the rose' and a boat trip to Krems.
We stayed in Mozarts birthplace, Salzburg for 3 days. We relaxed and wondered around the streets.
Outside of Salzburg in the 'Salzkammergut' you can catch a tram to overview the valley and Salzburg itself. On a good day you might see even to Königsee and Berchtesgarden that are around 20km away on the German side.
We had to leave and headed towards Czech Republic with a short night in Linz. Hopefully we got some great night shots of the Museum of Modern Art at the riverbank of the Donau with a glowing night sky as a backdrop.
The first stop in Czech was Cresky Krumlov. The second most visit city after Prag. And it is worth it.
The river Moldau is winding around the Mideval town which gives it a fairytale charm.
The weather was perfect but cold. Wonderful reflections in the river with its fall sun and the gold colored leaves are the perfect conditions for a photographers heart. My heart opened as I saw an old building at the riverbanks next to a little dam. It was just waiting to be brought back into its old glory. Perfect spot for a hotel and restaurant. Is anyone speaking Czech?
But don't miss the short tour to the oldest private theater in the towns castle. You can make thunder, rain and wind with old historic machines and explore how they changed the backdrop in seconds even in olden days without computers.
We were sorry to leave but were exited to see Prag again. The weather was fair and cold. We hiked along old streets we remembered and discovered new passages in a different kind of weather. Last time we saw it in snow. The cathedral is a must even we had seen it before. We climbed the stairs of the tower only to notices a storm moved in and it was pouring down. We still managed to catch some views of Prag from high above as all of a sudden the sun came through and showed off with a wonderful double rainbow. Lucky Arvo had is camera ready and was at the right spot. There is a new passage down the hill through restored gardens from different time periods which we enjoyed late in the evening.
The weather was going to change and we left to Dresden back into Germany. Dresden wants to be Cultural City of Europe in the year 2010 and is getting ready for it and is ahead of its schedule. The bombed and rebuilt 'Frauenkirche' (church) is finished, the 'Zwinger' with its museum is a must and the 'Semper Opera' know here in Germany mostly from a Beer Commercial right next to it. By the way this is how we educate our self here-Beer and Culture. J
I got some great photos, how to modernise facades of old 'Plattenbauten' (Old prefab apartments out of concrete mostly built in East Germany).
We thought we are going to head further south to Bamberg or Nürenberg, got stuck in the first snowstorm and decided to go to Bamberg. A nice little town but so cold. Nürenberg was not much warmer and we were to early for the famous Christmas Market. The weather did not changed but we had another week before we dropped of the car. So we decided to relax at my parents house for couple of days outside Berlin. We needed to drop of the car in Frankfurt 600km (360miles) away not a distance in good old USA but here we connected the trip with a stop in Hamburg and Köln. We both agreed to come back to Hamburg a nice city but we did not have enough time.
We spend the weekend with friends and had to say goodbye to soon. Now here in Schulzendorf (Berlin) with my parent we had some relaxing time and were able to catch up with the family I have not seen for a while.
We visit Berlin and saw Moore Rubble and Yudells (Santa Monica Architects) housing project in Tegel, Fosters new 'Double Shell Bubble' Library behind the Rostlaube (university).
Monday we are going to hop on the plane to L.A. The Russian Embassy does not like to give out visas in couple of days so we shortened our trip. No need to force going somewhere in the not friendly winter months in Europe.
And it is a good time to reflect all we have seen and can share it with friends.
We have to apologized that we did not send some photos along. But we noticed as we looked at our pictures we need to be better of documenting ourselves and not only the cities and landscapes we have seen. We promise as soon we have computer connection in OC and were able to weave through all of the photos we will send some via email to you.
We hope everyone is doing good in the last month of this year and
HAPPY THANKSGIVING !!!
P.S. We will be in OC to the middle of January and hope to catch up with most of you before we start our Asia Adventure.

Arvo & Christiane

2nd update of Europe Trip

2007-08-05T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

I figured I would try to write this email since Christiane wrote the last one. First Thank you for the response from our email its good too hear from friends, we know its not easy with everyones hectic schedule. A quick few lines for a couple of friends, 1st we hope the fund raiser for "Kids of Kilimanjaro" that George started a couple of years ago was a great success. A great cause that will always have our support. Also to our friends back in Tustin we hope that the new neighbors who bought our house have not completely replaced us. Also Mark who has his hands full with remodeling his house, a thank you, for taking care of our boat. To our friends who somehow managed to deplete the OC deer population by one, we are glad you are okay. A special thank you our German friends Bernadette & Olli and Barbara & Ulli who welcome us into their homes and made us feel like part of the family.Now to the update !!!!!

I think Christiane left off as we were in Kocula, Croatia Our little Peugeot next took us to Dubrovnik in Croatia. One good thing about driving a French car with a French license plate is that when we make stupid driving errors, stopping where we should not, turning down a wrong street, going to slow or to fast and so on is that the people are not getting mad at a German or an American driving in Europe they are getting made a cursing the French. Upon reaching Dubrovnik we got situated and headed to the 'Old town' I think its the largest completely enclosed city in Europe. It is pretty remarkable, even more so since as the early 1990's it was held under siege and bombed with rockets, after declaring Independence from the ex Yugoslavia. It was held with out food and water and bombarded for months. It was the same thing that happened hundreds of years ago in seiges, instead of Catapults firing on the city though its was missiles. Most of the damage has been repaired and few damaged buildings beyond repair still remain. It was a great visit with really good weather. After 3 days we decided to head north, there was a national park we wanted to see in northern Croatia, so we got an early start. I apologize that I cannot remember the name of the park, this does not reflect our opinion just the difficult name. this was truly an amazing park, it was a series of 5 lakes each one situated lower then the other. The water cascaded from one lake to the next in incredible series of waterfalls, some big and powerful others spread out over a large area finding their way down. the water had beautiful colors and clarity along with the way the water went from one lake to the next was almost fairytale like. After a great day of hiking we spent the night in Zagreb, Croatia our last night in Croatia before heading to Budapest, Hungary. We both enjoyed our time in Croatia, which was not even planned to visit this time around, we could have spent more time but the weather is getting colder and we still had quite a few places to see. After a quick stop in Graz, Austria, Christiane had a couple of buildings on her Architecture list she wanted to see in Graz. We stayed out side Graz before another early start to Budapest, another unexpected place we had not planned to visit. Thank goodness for flexibility, Budapest is a wonderful place to see. There are to cities that over time grew together Buda and Pest, We had a great apartment on the Pest side Great old building with a great location. many great buildings, statues, baths and streets we had a great time in Budapeset, the people were super friendly and this is another place we could have stayed longer and will probably come back. Christiane just looked at the email and said remember people have to read this, its pretty long so I think I will have to cut it off here and Christiane can pick it up on the next email.
I will steal something from David Letterman and give my top 5 places so far, I'm sure mine will be somewhat different then Christiane's
5. Frankfurt & Munich Because of our friends whom we visited
4. Aletsch Glacier & Interlaken, Switzerland ( sheer beauty and size)
3. Dubrovnik, Croatia ( The great old town and what the recent history)
2. Budapest( Great city and people)
1. National Park in Croatia with the 5 lakes(Truly amazing)
I'm sure it will change as our travel progress.

Take care Arvo & Christiane

I will steal something from David Letterman and give my top 5 places so far, I'm sure mine will be somewhat different then Christiane's

5. Frankfurt & Munich Because of our friends whom we visited
4. Aletsch Glacier & Interlaken, Switzerland ( sheer beauty and size)
3. Dubrovnik, Croatia ( The great old town and what the recent history)
2. Budapest( Great city and people)
1. National Park in Croatia with the 5 lakes(Truly amazing)

I'm sure it will change as our travel progress.

Take care

Arvo & Christiane

Our first leg in 2006

2007-08-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Croatia, to everyone,
I just would like to apologize for the sparce travel information we have send out so far. But leaving the country on the day the escrow of our house closed and having other business not completely solved leaves only the Internet to communicate. So no energy was left for travel reports.
But I will try to give you all a short summary of our travel adventures so far.
After we left Germany we had a two day stay in Strasbourg. The weather was fair but the city as I remember it form a school trip has still its charm. Small alleys and little cafes, local markets with cheese and bread.
We visit the European Parliament on the way out.
Next stop was Switzerland. Arriving in Neuchatel located on its lake with the snow covered alps far in the backdrop. The rowling hill had a lots of cows and sheep.
After a couple of days we headed to Montreaux, the Jewel of lake Geneva. Freddy Mercury called it as well his home town. Leaving the lake area we drove further into the alps with a short stop over to Mont Blanc in France. Fascinating glaciers and snow covered peaks. Hang gliders took of on top of Mont Blanc; what a vies that must be...
And of course the Matterhorn. Its peak lonely by itself, we had to see more. A 5H hike to a high glacier point. I knew I was not in shape but it dawned on me as an older couple in their mid 60 passed us or better me on the steep climb up. Let's blame it on the altitude...the last leg we took the train. What a luxury. Arvo on my side carrying his heavy camera bag did not show any signs of being tried and I'm not exaturating. He is the strongest person I ever seen and of course I'm really proud of him.
But the panorama.. was more than rewarding. I did not stop videotaping it is to nice to describe it with words. A MUST see.
We headed further in land and stayed 5 days in Grindelwald with a direct view of the famous Eiger Nothwall.
We took the next day the train, yes the train to one of the highest peaks in the alps the
Luzern has a beautiful old town and Jean Novel cultural center on its lake. If someone says again we cannot built a cantilevered roof please let them have a look at this one.Zurich was a little disappointing so we did not stay long. I have to admit the Swiss live on a wonderful piece of land that is worth visiting despite the high cost of everything. We continued to Innsbruck, Austria with three days of rain. I guess we saw every museum there was. It cleared up the day we left to east Tirol. The mountains are not as steep but again glaciers and wonderful landscape around us. We tried Salzburg but due to a bike race the inner city was closed and we left frustrated and drove the Berchtesgarden, Germany. We learned about salt mining and about the dark history of Gemany. This area was one of Hitlers favorite places to meet and make \npolitics.We stayed in Germany and saw the famous Neuschwannstein Castle by rain to Arvo's disappointment the 2nd time by rain. The rain did not stop o we continued to Munich to meet with old friends of Arvo which he had lost contact for a while. I guess it was meant to be for him to see his old friends again. We skipped the Octoberfest and went to Dachau instead. The first KZ which was opened in the 3. Reich. Unbelievable must have been those times. Arvo caught up with his old friends and I had to see the Olympic Stadium. The weather was beautiful as it was waiting for us.The weather for cast for the next days did not sound so good so we drove the Bled, Slovenia. A beautiful small spa town on its lake.We rested for couple of day due to a little cold.Today in Croatia we enjoying the Mediterranean sun. We drove along the coast saw pretty villages on the water and arrived late at night in Split. Hotels are way overpriced. But with a little luck we found a small affordable place to stay. The car ferry left the next morning to take us to Hvar were we are right now. What an island. No sandy beaches but lots of sun and crystal clear water with a charming town. Who has thought Croatia has such beautiful places.
Jungfraujoch.Lucky we choose this day the other days were cloudy. The view again fantastic glaciers the biggest of it the Aletsch. A snow hike finalized the day.
Luzern has a beautiful old town and Jean Novel cultural center on its lake. If someone says again we cannot built a cantilevered roof please let them have a look at this one.
Zurich was a little disappointing so we did not stay long.
I have to admit the Swiss live on a wonderful piece of land that is worth visiting despite the high cost of everything.
We continued to Innsbruck, Austria with three days of rain. I guess we saw every museum there was. It cleared up the day we left to east Tirol. The mountains are not as steep but again glaciers and wonderful landscape around us.
We tried Salzburg but due to a bike race the inner city was closed and we left frustrated and drove the Berchtesgarden, Germany. We learned about salt mining and about the dark history of Gemany. This area was one of Hitlers favorite places to meet and make politics.We stayed in Germany and saw the famous Neuschwannstein Castle by rain to Arvo's disappointment the 2nd time by rain. The rain did not stop o we continued to Munich to meet with old friends of Arvo which he had lost contact for a while. I guess it was meant to be for him to see his old friends again.
We skipped the Octoberfest and went to Dachau instead. The first KZ which was opened in the 3. Reich. Unbelievable must have been those times.
Arvo caught up with his old friends and I had to see the Olympic Stadium. The weather was beautiful as it was waiting for us.
The weather for cast for the next days did not sound so good so we drove the Bled, Slovenia. A beautiful small spa town on its lake.
We rested for couple of day due to a little cold.
Today in Croatia we enjoying the Mediterranean sun. We drove along the coast saw pretty villages on the water and arrived late at night in Split.
Hotels are way overpriced. But with a little luck we found a small affordable place to stay. The car ferry left the next morning to take us to Hvar were we are right now. What an island. No sandy beaches but lots of sun and crystal clear water with a charming town. Who has thought Croatia has such beautiful places.

That is all of our adventures for today. We will keep you posted on our next happenings.
Take care Christiane and Arvo.