Belinda And Marcus On-Tour

Sweden - The Road Trip (part 2)

2007-07-02T10:59:00.000+02:00

We arrived in Stockholm late on Friday afternoon to meet up with Jon and Beatta. Marcus went to school with and lived with Jon's family for a year or so when he was young. We parked the husbil bedside his apartment block and thought it would be ok. A few hours later there was a 300 kronor fine attached to the windshield. Oh well. We stayed there for the night anyway. The next day we headed into the city. Stockholm is a confusing array of small islands... It's really hard to get your bearings, luckily we had guides (Jon and Beatta). We went to a lovely little coffee shop in the city and then onto a great lookout spot over the city.

As I really wanted to see some of the Swedish animals we all went to one of the largest open air musuems in Europe called Skansen. Fanatastic. We managed to see almost all of the animals. I was especially impressed with the size of Elk, I think I could comfortably walk upright under it and not touch it's belly! They are massive. We also saw the brown bears, wolves, deer and other random animals. There were also historical bulidings and we particularly like the painted horses.

After all that walking around we decided to head to the pub. Not just any pub, we headed into the gamla stan (old town) to find a particular pub. We met up with some more of Marcus' friends. The old town has wonderful cobblestone streets and ancient buildings. During a time of civil unrest the square was a place of a massive battle. There is even a cannonball lodged in one of the walls. I'm sorry I just had to put the speed bump sign in, please read... And then we left Stockholm, we will be back. many thanks to Jon and Beatta for their hospitality

To break up the drive back to Gothenberg and to make a visit on the way we stopped in Karlstad to visit Jonathon and his family. His beautiful family live out by the lake in absolutely stunning settings. We had dinner on the canal, and it was freezing, luckily restaurants provide blankets, another excellent idea. The sunset over the lake was spectacular, one of the best I've ever seen. Mind you when I say sunset it was 11:30pm and the sun doesn't really set, it just sort of hides for a few minutes and then comes back up. We only stayed for the night and then headed through the wildflower filled fields back to Gothenberg. And then we had to say goodbye to the beloved 'husbil'.

Sweden - The Road Trip (part 1)

2007-06-20T22:29:00.000+02:00

On Monday morning after a few initial hiccups, we set out in the campervan or husbil. Our first destination was Malmö, with a brief stop at the beach at Tylösand. This beach was packed with sun loving Swedes, I was the only person wearing a hat for kilometres. I love their idea of lifesavers, an old fashion life preserver hung on a white post. The beach looked lovely, though the smell was of something potentially from the toilet block located near by. I was also educated in the ways of 'half specials', these miniature style hot dogs piled with powdered mashed potatoes, gherkin relish, mustard and sauce. Interesting to say the least.

Our first night was stopped in a camp ground in Limhamn on the outskirts of Malmö called Sibbarp. We aren't so familiar with camp grounds but this one we thought was great. It was on the water and beside the bridge that goes all the way to Denmark. Pretty amazing, the bridge becomes a tunnel about halfway and in total it is about 30 kilometres. We were lucky we were watching the signs as our exit was the last one before the bridge, we quite easily may have ended up in Denmark. But we didn't. We had a little fun navigating the automatic petrol stations though. Somehow or another we got charged 3 times for our petrol, there wasn't much information in Swedish let alone English, not that I was much help. We spent the next day wandering around Malmö. We went on the canal tour around the town and had lunch in the lilla torget or the little square. Then we moved on to the neighbouring university town of Lund. Beautiful old city. We managed to find the church, the main university campus and a lovely coffee shop on the stor torget, the big square.

I managed to navigated us out of Lund and onto Ålmhult the birthplace of IKEA. Sad I know but fun. We camped outside the town at the lake and were promptly visited by a family of ducklings. They may have been babies but they weren't shy, I think their mum was pimping them out to each campsite in order to get food. The lake we camped on was beautiful and icy cold. The sunset was amazing. So peaceful. We headed out in the morning full of excitement to see the IKEA museum, Hotel and Restaurant. Well we were a little disappointed as the museum didn't open for the summer season for another 3 days... We weren't going to wait around for that. So we shopped in the first IKEA instead. We headed off with our purchases and after an 11am hot dog towards the Glasriket (Glass Kingdom) district of Småland. We stopped off at Boda of the Kosta Boda glass brand, even though they are separate towns, they have joined forces. Boda is not quite what I would call a hub of activity. I think there were only about another 3 cars in the town and the glass blowing warehouse was closed for renovations. They did have a small display of amazing glass work though. Just mad the things they can do. With no shopping and no glass blowing demos we headed off to Orrefors. We looked through one the stores and around the area for a bit and then tried to get on a tour only to discover that they finished up for the afternoon half and hour ago. Not having much luck with this tour thing. The staff in the Orrefors store put a DVD about it all for us, it was informative but not quite the same as standing beside a furnace. Did manage to do a little shopping though, retail therapy perhaps. Revived from the shopping frenzy we piled back in the husbil and headed for Öland. We crossed a 7km bridge to Öland to a world of stone fences, cows and many wooden windmills.

Sweden offers many different landscapes and Öland did not disappoint. We supposed that Öland must be a windy place as it had so many windmills. The old one are not longer in use, but the guide suggests that you can play out your Don Quixote fantasies with abandon here, they weren't kidding. We stayed on the island at what they call a beach, not so nice. Plus it was a bit cold, didn't help, oh and the wind chill. We cooked our first dinner of prepacked meatballs, and powdered mashed potatoes with all the trimmings! It did taste good, even though I couldn't read what was in it or how to cook it! We explored what Öland had to offer the next day. We stopped at a few windmills, the church, the ruined castle and the royal summer house. I guess I prefer my castles with their roof on, but it was interesting none the less. Oh and another fun thing is that you can buy strawberries (jordgubbar - translation is actually old earth man?) just about anywhere. Side of the road, middle of town, train stations etc.

Back across the long bridge back to the mainland Sweden to a town called Kalmar. It has a wonderful old castle that dates back to the 11th century. It was one of the highly fought after areas in Scandinavia, lots of battles, prisoners and royalty all in the same place. It was also the birthplace of the Scandinavian Union founded by Queen Margaret I. We wandered through the castle, unfortunately you aren't allowed to take photos, learning a lot about the history of the castle and the surrounding lands. They also had a two prisons, men's and women's. The punishments at the time were also described. I'm happy I didn't live there 6oo years ago, that's all. Not that we would be in jail of course.

Kalmar was also the home of a little food education for me. I discovered that instead of fries or chips with burgers, you get mashed potato! It looks like ice cream, you get scoops in a little dish and then cover it with mustard and sauce. Strange customs. After a somewhat filling meal we hit the road north towards Linköping. We discovered the the old town there and lucky for us there was a chocolate shop! We bought some of Marcus' favourite chocolate bars Plopp (yes plopp) and a few others to sample for cheap. Marcus decided to chase down the poor guy dressed as the olden days policeman for a photo.

Onto the church, one of the most ornate and beautiful in Sweden. There was actually a service going on in one of the wings of the church and the hymns made the church really spiritual and eerie. Initially we didn't realise that the service was on, that's why it was eerie. The church has a copper roof and is well known for that.

We had lunch in the stor target and over the last two weeks Swedish high school kids and university students have been graduating and it's called Studenten. They spread the graduation over a few weeks otherwise the cities would be clogged with trucks and tractors towing trailers of drunk screaming kids wearing white. They parade around the main city streets in these trucks decorate with birch trees and signs about their class and how excited they are to be unemployed! The people line the streets and shout back at the kids. It took us 20 minutes to get out of the town, and it's not a big town either.

Sweden - The Second Week

2007-06-19T18:24:00.000+02:00

On Friday we decided to visit the best amusement park in Scandinavia, Liseberg, which fortunately is located right in the centre of Gothenberg. It may be small in area but big on fun. It has so many rides packed into a tiny area, I've never seen anything like it. Our favourite was the Balder, a genuine wooden roller coaster. It looked a bit rickety to me, but I think that added to the excitement. It almost brought my lunch up. They also have these stalls where you can win 3 kgs of chocolate or chips, not really ideal if your diabetic. We tried a couple of times as you get a few free goes with the ride coupons but to no avail. Only disappointment on that front, probably for the best, we haven't been shy about sampling Sweden array of chocolate bars anyway. The rides made up for it. We went on a few rides even the Ferris wheel to get a better view of the city. Fantastic day out all round!!

We also managed to see a little more of the town. There is a building dubbed the lipstick, it is still debated whether it is a eye con or an eyesore... We were lucky enough to be around when the 'Gothenburg Ship' came to port in the city harbour. The boat is a replica of the original 'Gothenberg' and it has been sailing around the world for the last 18 months following the original journey completed a couple hundred years ago. I guess it's Sweden's version of the Endeavour for Australians. It was a big day for the Swedes, they packed the harbour in their hundreds of thousands.

On the weekend we went out to Sonia and Joseph's, Marcus' Aunt and Uncle at Kullavik. It's a little seaside type town with beautiful and massive house with expensive cars parked out the front. The gardens were lush and blooming and the sun was out and warm. We had afternoon tea in the garden with the family and then walked through the neighbourhood and the woods to the beach. When I think of a beach, it think of something different but it was beautiful in it's own way. No sand, just rocks, and plenty of blonde children. That's another things I've noticed about Sweden, all the children are blonde. It's like Hitler's prefect Arian race in this place... The rocks provided wonderful ledges for everyone to jump of. Marcus and I are seasoned Australians (Marcus is a citizen now!) and there was no way we were getting into the water, it was refreshing to say the least. Sandra and Indra had a dip, we were more than happy to sit in the sun and watch.

Sweden - The First Week

2007-06-05T19:19:00.000+02:00

Seeing as it was the first time for Belinda in Sweden, it is fitting to see it through her eyes. We flew with Ryan Air to Gothenberg, Sweden. It's Sweden's answer to Virgin Blue. It was even worse than Jet Star, no allocated seating or prior boarding for elderly, those with young children etc. Bit of a fight to get on board. We were grateful that our luggage came with us (apparently that can be optional for Ryan Air).

Beautiful country side, green everywhere and so many Volvos and Saabs. Apparently the Volvo factory knocked off at the same time we were driving home. The fields are full of yellow wild flowers and the weather was lovely. We arrived at Marcus' dad's (Hans) place and we have a little room to ourselves. He lives almost in the middle of the city and everything is within walking distance. I have noticed that Swedes have a love of boiled hot dogs that are almost miniature in size, instead of pubs on every corner as it is in London, it's hot dog stands. You can get potatoes in a bottle and wine in poppers, wonderful place.

Almost everything is available in Tetra pack it seems. I have trouble telling whether I'm buying fresh milk or sour cream! Apparently the guy who invented Tetra packs is Swedish, they are certainly showing their support. Oh and the most important tetra pack is the one that contains wine. Fabulous idea that is. We went Sandra's (Marcus's sister) housewarming party and met some assorted people. She had the party in the courtyard of her apartment block. We have also caught up with some family too. We saw Helene (Marcus' cousin) and her daughter Nina. She's getting big and Marcus is sure she'll be a heart breaker a bit later on. Helene and Nina live only minutes from the city near a quaint little village of typical Swedish houses.

We have met a few of Marcus' school friends down at the "Avenue". Pretty tree lined streets lead the way to the avenue that ends with a fountain of Poseidon. We went to a couple of cafes and pubs along the avenue, nice. In Sweden they have this crazy tradition called Studenten where when high school students graduate they all get drunk and climb into dump trucks decorated with tree branches??? They even have a DJ on the back of truck and all the kids are screaming and chanting, while the trucks circle the mian city streets. Apparently there are quite a few injuries around this time as some kids are so drunk that they fall out of the trucks or cars! All a little bizarre but amusing to watch.

London Town

2007-06-02T11:12:00.000+02:00

After the heat and humidity we thought we would be relieved to reach London. We were over it pretty quickly. It was 10 degrees, windy and raining for our arrival early on a Sunday morning. Our hosts Rebecca and Chris picked us up, took us home and made us a cup of tea to revive us. Freezing. Not quite summer, though the conversation always rolls around to the weather and how great it was just before we arrived.... We arrived on Chris' birthday and there was a big party on that day. We were very proud, we managed to stay up until 7:30pm before crashing that night. Party was fun, met lots of new people and had some great food and drinks.

We only a had few days in London and we thought we had better have a look around at suburbs to see what we like before settling in one. Our expeditions didn't last long as we weren't really equipped for the wind and rain. Soaked and freezing we only lasted outside about 3 hours before buggering off back the warm house for a nap! We ventured back out on Monday night to meet Warrick, Lawrence, Matt and Starsia to go for a curry on the infamous Brick lane. It was an adventure just deciding which place to go into. The staff barter with you to make you come in to their restaurant, free drinks or discount on food. The more people you have the more you can play. So we got a round of beers for the boys and a bottle of wine for the girls for free and a top meal for pretty cheap. Getting home from North London was a bit of a trek, considering we got on the wrong tube and went the wrong direction. After an hour and a half and about 4 or 5 tube changes we did manage to find our way home.

Tuesday we all meet up again and went to Windsor Castle. We caught a train which took about an hour from Clapham. The castle was great, the history is amazing. Though the most fun was taking stupid photos with the beef eaters or guards of the castle. We were a little afraid that he might shoot us, but it didn't deter us from having a go. In a mad dash we headed back to town to meet Rebecca, Jill and David and Piccadilly for drinks. We thought we would try to find this pub that a mate, Murray worked at. We only had a name and a vague area, not helpful. We wandered around the Strand and Trafalgar for about 30 minutes before stumbling across the pub. Only to discover that Murray was off sick... We were still glad to stop off for a drink.

On the Wednesday we amused ourselves running around St Pauls and Oxford st. We had a look at the cathedral and popped into the pub that Belinda worked at about 8 years ago. Very ye oldie English type pub, still a smoky, dodgy hole. It was really. We had a ale (not good) and there wasn't anyone familiar so we left. Then we met up with our brissy friends again and went on the 'Jack the Ripper' London walk at night. The guide walked us through the streets where the murders occurred and told us about them. Little gruesome, but interesting. We really enjoyed it. We might do a few more London walks, it's nice to wander around and learn about the history. That's all we had time for and it was off to Sweden.

Koh Samui

2007-06-01T23:31:00.001+02:00

After Bangkok, we spent 4 days in Koh Samui. Koh Samui is located in the gulf of south Thailand. We arrived on a hot and humid day, not unlike every other day in Thailand. Our place of residence over the next few days was fabulous except for the the fact that they lied about how far away from the beach it was and that room service gave Marcus food poisoning. Otherwise beautiful, with the motto "where nothing happens", they didn't lie about that....

First night on Samui we found the beach and a cheap bar and made use of the $2 cocktails! Then Belinda ran off and had her first experience of a Thai massage and left Marcus to have a swim in the tepid waters. The massage was like no other massage she'd ever had. They contort you into all sorts of positions, some I didn't think were possible. We retired to our villa and Belinda was so exhausted from the massage that she pretty much fell asleep then and there, but Marcus' appetite was not satisfied. He ordered a club sandwich from room service. Big mistake. That we discovered at about 3am. Marcus became very friendly with the toilet for the next 12ish hours. And that was the first day we spent on Koh Samui. He survived. New rules were made. No more room service and no more western food in Thailand. Day 2, much more fun, and much less bathroom, we went on a tour in the afternoon on ATV (quad bikes) and elephant trekking to Namuang Falls I. We had a tonne of fun and got rather muddy. We swam in the waterfall along with all the other tourists... We also hired a moped for $6 a day, Belinda ended up driving as Marcus had a go and we were almost cleaned up by oncoming traffic and he took off almost half his toe. We thought it safer to let Belinda drive, as women are better drivers, ask AAMI (insurance company)

We tried to book a kayaking tour of the marine park but it was cancelled and as the planets aligned (with Julia's advice) we went on a Mr Ung's safari tour! It was an excellent day all round. Insane perhaps, life threatening potentially, though heaps and heaps of fun. We saw rocks shaped like genitals, commando trained monkeys (that knock down coconuts), rubber tree plantations (or happy trees as they are referred to as they are used to make condoms), elephant trekking to Namuang falls II, a magic garden on the top of the mountain, a mummified monk (creepy, he was wearing Ray Charles sunglasses), a massive golden Buddha and plenty of bush bashing through the rainforest in an open jeep. We actually sat on top of the jeep for some of it and it was the best fun we've had so far! We had a crazy little Thai guy as our guide and they would just stop the jeep and run out into the forest and find a snake, or a humongous spider or cut down some flowers for the girls. Certainly was different. That night we also discovered Chaweng Beach. And we managed to fit in a little shopping. Well Marcus did, he loved bartering and ended up buying things we didn't really need, just because we could. It was fun. It was a shame that we only just discovered the area and we had to leave the next day. For the remainder we just hung out at Lamai Beach near our accommodation.

Thailand - Bangkok

2007-05-22T16:08:00.000+02:00

After a somewhat sleepless night, we got on a plane heading for Sydney to eventually catch a flight to Bangkok, Thailand. Due to some "outsourcing" issues between Qantas, British Airways and the seat allocation company (?!?) we were under the impression that we were to be separated on the Bangkok flight but after a bit of persistence we got on the plane and ended up with 4 seats to ourselves, which was a nice start to our holiday.

Getting off the plane in Bangkok is an experience in itself. The heat, humidity and asphyxiating smog hits hard and almost knocks you out although it was 11 o'clock at night. The experience reminded me of stepping of the plane in Brisbane 6 years ago, coming from winter in Sweden to summer in Australia (except the smog part). We got ripped of catching a fixed price taxi to our hotel for 800 baht (about 30 AUD for 45 minute ride), not that we really cared after a 9 hour plane trip.

Bangkok's skyline is a contrast of very old, dirty and run-down buildings in-between the new, "clean" and modern high-rises. The massive high-ways are always packed and traffic appears chaotic to Westerners. Despite traffic being very heavy and cars, moped and tuk-tuks (3-wheeled golf buggy driven by people with a permanent death wish) are zooming in and out of lanes, few vehicles seems dented or scratched and road-rage is non-exist ant. People just do their "thing".. Fascinating and scary at the same time.

Our hotel - The Indra Regent (my mothers namesake) is located walking distance to the market district and more importantly close to the largest IT Mall in Thailand, an IT-nerds paradise (as Belinda so eloquently puts it). Six floors of hardware, software(pirated), music (pirated) and anything related to computers. The hardware was from what I could work out not a lot cheaper than what we usually pay (but I could be wrong about this).

We took a City and Temple tour, visiting the lot of Buddhas: The Golden Buddha, The Recling Buddha, Sitting, Walking, Standing Buddhas and just every other Buddha known to man. Shame we're not Buddhists.. After a few they all pretty much all look the same.. Most impressive was the Reclining Buddha, it's 15 meter high and 46 meters long. We also got dropped at the Gem Gallery (The largest in the world) were we where put though some hard-selling for everything that we looked at. The jewellery is all handcrafted and very exquisite and cheap (comparably??).

Random cats and dogs seems to appear everywhere in Bangkok, they tend to just sleep all the time. We also got lost on the back streets of the shopping district and took a Tuk-Tuk back to the hotel. Even though we were about 2 blocks away (or so), the driver took us a circle around the district, through alleyways, back-streets, markets and probably backyards. It was pretty exciting considering we had a fixed price of 100 baht. He probably would have done it for 10 but we didn't see the need to argue.

Links to Gallery

Next day we flew to Koh Samui.

Farewell Dinner at Depot

2007-05-19T07:25:00.001+02:00

On Friday the 18th of May we had one last dinner with friends. The location was meant to be Wagamammas in the Emporium but due to being fully booked we ended up at the Depot next door.

The turnout was quite good with about 20 people showing up to send us off, which was very nice. We all got stuck in to the cocktails and the fabulous food. Afterwards the people that were still around went to Freestyle for some late night treats.

Photo can be found here

Welcome to our Blog!

2007-05-19T07:09:00.000+02:00

Hi and Welcome to our Blog!

The intention with this blog is to keep our friends and loved ones up-to-date with our travels. We'll try an post photos and information about our latest adventures!

Cheers,
Belinda & Marcus