Thailand: Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai

After Pai we plan out our next destination: Chiang Rai, and after reading a few guides and blogs we feel prepared and decide to spend no more than 1 night in Chiang Rai, because lots of places state that there isn't that much to do besides the White temple and the black house.

But before heading to Chiang Rai we have a one night stop at Chiang Mai, otherwise we would arrive way to late in Chiang Rai to see anything. On top of that, it's Sunday! and in Chiang Mai there seems to be a very nice Sunday night market, so we plan towards that.

But just a few hours before reaching Chiang Mai it starts to rain slightly, we don't give it to much attention and check in in our hostel. We drop of the bags and want to head out to have a little drink but then we notice. The rain that we didn't pay attention to before had escalated into a greater storm and made it close to impossible to head out. To kill some time we decide to play a few games of pool and wait for the storm to blow over. Eventually the rain stops and we manage to catch a glimpse of the amazing Sunday night market.



The next morning catch the Green bus to Chiang Rai. It's cold so we are really dressed appropriately, I even had to get my wollen pull over. Once in Chiang Rai we check in in our hostels and don't really do to much more because of the bad weather. We end up hanging around a bit in my hostel meeting some more people and playing a bit of pool.
The sun sets and we head towards the Chiang Rai night market, a big disappointed if you compare it to the one on Sunday in Chiang Mai, but the cold might have added to this experience.

As soon as we woke up the next morning we had a look at the local transport to head to the White temple. The weather had become worse over the days and it was very, very cold today. With 2 pullovers we get on the bus and we still manage to feel cold. I have to say that the white temple is amazing though, and if the weather is nice it is probably something very impressive to see. But with the cold we didn't really appreciate to much of it, we rushed the visit a bit, and the main thing that we wanted to do: Entering the white temple, was something that we couldn't do, the inside of the temple was closed for an unknown reason. A big shame, because it seems that the inside of the temple is decorated with various western movie/comic characters.

The black house is something we ended up not visiting, because it was the other part of town, which ment more than an hour drive from where we were, and we really found it too cold. But it seems to be a museum of a local (rich) artist, that decided to expose his work in his own gallery due to the vandalisation of his pieces in public galleries. This is said to occur because of the style that the artist has, he seems to make art that is very death related, and it seems that the Buddhism community doesn't appreciate this to much.

On our way back to Chiang Mai we decided what our next destination would be: Ayutthaya.

Thailand: Pai

On my way to the market

I arrive at Pai around 4 p.m. and head towards the hostel to check in, after settling I head towards the tiny city centrum to meet Paul, and just as I reach the centrum I get to see how they are setting up a little night market, so as soon as I found Paul we went to have a look at the market.

The first stand that catches our attention is a tea stand where you can various kinds of tea served in a bamboo stick, and after getting the bamboo stick you can have it refiled for 10 bat. That’s like 25 cents!!

The best thing about the Pai night market is all the street food, probably 40% of the stands that you had on the market where just food, so many different things to try. You had Thai cuisine, Chinese cuisine, Indian and even Italian! There was a little stand serving lasagne and cannelloni. We end up getting a noodle salad which I think was Chinese style and something that looked like a pancake, but fried and served with condensed milk (sometimes even with egg, cheese, banana and condensed milk, just in case that you feel like trying a strange combination.

To end the night we find a little local bar that claims to do 16 different kind of mojitos, interesting, so we have a look, it ended up being 16 different kinds but all with almost the same flavour. Mojito with passion fruit that tasted a bit too much like a regular mojito because of the amount of mint used, and one with mango that didn't seem to be all that different. Anyway, the music was good and there was a nice atmosphere, which is nice.

The white Buddha 

The next morning we got up pretty early because Paul said that the motorbikes would all be gone by 7 a.m. which I later found out wasn't really the case. We got the motorbike and decided to explore the surrounding of Pai.

The first waterfall was kind of a disappointment, when we got there there was barely any water flowing down the river, a tiny bit of water following its path down the rocks. We continue towards a little natural park nearby, a park that would lead to the hermit caves, but after an hour drive we didn't seem to get any closer, and on top of that, the road was becoming a gravel road, so we decided to head back to have a look at the famous Pai Canyon, the so called Grand Canyon of Thailand.
But on our way there we got distracted by a massive statue of a white Buddha that we could see up in the mountains, so we absolutely decided to have a look there. The walk up to the top resulted being quite long and exhausting but it was well worth it once we saw the scenery available from up there.

We then continued to the canyon and with the views being this incredible we decided to come back for the sunset.


After the canyon we proceded to the nearby strawberry farm, which is something that I think is extremely over hyped, because all you could really see where a few miles of strawberry bushes, but people seemed to think that it was very special, because they where all taking tons of pictures.  

We continued towards the second waterfall as it wasn't too far from where we were, just to have a look at it. So once we got there, even though that we weren't expecting much, we still managed to be a bit disappointed, the river was dry, all we could see was a bit of water running of the wall, even less than on the first one.

So on our way back to town we take a moment to visit the land split farm. It once was a regular farm but because of a split that occurred in 2008 his land became imposible to farm, so the owner decided to make it a tourist attraction where he serves his own drinks and fruits, and then it's up to you to leave a little something to help the family.

By the time that the sun started to fall we grabbed a bear an headed towards the canyon. The view of the sun setting with the canyon on the foreground and the mountains in the background made it ideal to take some amazing pictures.
And on our way back we noticed the stunning full moon which gave some incredible pictures as well.
We ended the night in a very nice bar with live jazz music and Thai rum.

Thailand: Chiang Mai

In the bus I met a Dutch traveller called Paul who had been travelling for over a year already, we got to talk and when we got to Chiang Mai at 6 a.m. we figured out that we could as well visit the town together, we dropped off our backpacks at my hostel (because the one where he was staying didn't feel like opening his doors) and wandered in the city.

The Temple where we joined the monks

At the time though, everything was closed, so instead of having something regular as breakfast we had a Thai noodle soup together with a cold drink, not what you would call continental breakfast, but it had to do. Luckily we found a little car-bar that served coffee, we had a few cups to get some energy (because you know… sleeping on a bus is not really easy) and got the chance to join some monks in their prayers to Buddha, it was a very relaxed experience, honestly, nothing like going to church in Europe, where you feel pushed to donate money, feel uncomfortable with the accusations of the priest, etc. Okay, it might be because we didn't understand a thing of what the monks where saying, but still, I found it very chill. 

We continued the walk and found so many amazing temples, I even think that I saw more good looking temples than in Bangkok, and for sure if you compare the m² that I walked in Bangkok with the m² that I walked in Chiang Mai.

One of the waterfalls at Doi Inthanon

By lunch time we headed to our hostels to check in and met a big group of people that were studying in China but decided to go on holidays in Thailand for the end of their semester. They said that they were going to visit a mountain at the Doi Inthanon National Park, where apparently at the top (that seems to be the highest point in Thailand) you can find a very impressive temple.

So we rented a little scooter and joined them on the adventure, on our way there we stopped for a quick lunch and to get some water, snacks… It was something of a 2 hour drive to get to the park’s entrance, and it would be another 2 to get to the top. But before heading to the top we went to visit one of the waterfalls that you can see there, one of the rivers pass by, and a little town that we found there. Then the sun went down and with it the temperatures started falling very quickly, of course I wasn't prepared for this, being the fool that I am I thought that we would be back before sunset and didn't think about bringing a jersey or anything to cover me from the cold. So I had to stop at little store in the town we found to buy a sweater before continuing to the top. And even with the sweater it felt extremely cold. As we approached the top everyone was freezing, even with sweaters, and the worst part was, we went through all of it in vain, because the temple was closed, they close at 6 p.m. well, that was a little waste, but anyway, it was a cool journey and I had a good time.

Once we got back in town we just crashed, because of the lack of sleep it took me no time to fall asleep.

The next morning I would be changing to the hostel where Paul was staying, but before moving I wanted to return the scooter, but of course, the scooter wasn't starting, I think that it’s because of inactivity but I’m not much of a mechanic so I couldn't tell, after a little while of trying I got it to start twice, just to have if fall out again as soon as I stopped. But the third time I got it going and I managed to get to the place where I rented it, before returning it I tried to start it again and it went fine, that’s why I think that the reason of its malfunction was because of inactivity. Anyway, once everything was settled I grabbed my luggage and continued to the next hostel, checked in and went to have some lunch. In my search of a place to eat I found a little place that did cooking lessons, so I signed up to do that the following day. After lunch and after getting back to the hostel I regroup with Paul to go and visit the Tiger Kingdom of Chiang Mai.

The tigers there are trained and raised to get used to people, it’s not the same as in South Africa and they are kept in little cages when there are no tourists to visit them, but it was still a worthy experience, it was my first time seeing a tiger and I got to ouch it as well, we posed for some pictures together and eventually had to say goodbye. It was a sad to see how they proceeded to lock away the animal after we left, but well, the people here do everything for money.

Back in town we headed towards the Chiang Mai Night Market, we got told that it was something spectacular to see but when we got here I didn't find it too different from any other market that I had visited up to now, lots of souvenirs, fake t-shirts, sunglasses and little statues made out of tin cans, so a bit disappointed we headed back to the hostel.

There in the centre of the hostel you have a little centre where you can sit to relax a bit, and we gathered there, there were some other people and we ended up talking all together, there were some girls from South Africa, a girl from Switzerland and the group we met yesterday and joined up to the mountain.

My red curry and spring roll 

Wat Chedi Luang 

The next morning I decided it would be my last full day in Chiang Mai, I headed towards the cooking school and had an amazing time, made Pad Thai, red curry paste, the red curry itself a spring roll and sticky rice with mango. And the best part of all is that I got to eat all of it. It was awesome.

After the cooking school I started searching for the biggest temple of the town. When I found it I was amazed, and even more because I had already seen part of the temple when we were walking through the town for the first time, but somehow managed to miss the spire which amazing and massive part, the temple was called Wat Chedi Luang and dates all the way back to the mid-15^th century. Back in the hostel I booked the bus to Pai, a little city west of Chiang Mai where you can do loads of outdoor activities and where the river Pai passes. During the evening I just did the same as the night before and hanged out at the centre of the hostel, met some different people this time but enjoyed it as well, because everyone has a different story to tell and different experiences.

And now I’m here, in the mini bus, heading to Chiang Mai, they told me that it’s going to be a bumpy ride uphill and it might take up to 4 hours to get there. But everyone adds that it’s completely worth it. 

Thailand: Bangkok

I wake up early in the morning to make the most out of my day, I know that I'm going to change to a different hostel, to one which is closer to Khao San road, you know, the popular backpackers road that appears in "The beach". Anyway, you can't check in until 2 o'clock usually so I decide to visit the weekend market, for real this time. It was huge, I think I spent 3 hours walking around only to later find out that I missed loads and loads of parts, you can literally buy everything there, from fake clothes and sunglasses, tattoos, and second hand shoes to pets or worse. I even found a little restaurant selling paella!!! where will it end?

I have a curry with rice in one of the little food stands at the market and continue to have a look at the little park which is just north of the market and then head back to get my luggage. 

After a little walk and eventually a tuk tuk ride I arrive at Khao San road, it's just like you would imagine, thousands of people walking around, the same amount of Thai trying to scam you, lure you to diamond shops or sell you whatever they are trying to sell. My hostel is a few roads further so I continue my walk, in the 5 minutes it takes me to get to my hostel they only tried to sell me 5 suits, 6 buses to anywhere I want, and a few precious gems. 

The hostel was a nice place with western staff, had a nice little garden, I met a lot of nice people and head to have dinner with someone that was fluent in spanish, german, italian, english and french being only 19 years old, incredible. After dinner I end up talking to a Norwegian guy that lived in Torrevieja for a year!! My god isn't the world small.

Big Buddha 

The following day I had a look at what my next destination would be, I thought that Chiang Mai would be cool, but I wanted to stay one more day at te hostel, because the mood was nice. I checked for a room and they said that there was nothing available that night, so change of plans, I booked the night bus with destination Chiang Mai, so I had the whole morning to wander a bit more in Bangkok.

The disappointing China Town experience 

I started the day walking direction of the Grand Palace, and one he way there I saw a few Tuk Tuks offering a little town trip for just 30 bat, of course this tour will include a fake tourist info and a visit to a suit salesman, but I thought it would be okay, they don't force you to by anything, just to walk around and check out the place where they bring you. I visited the Big Buddha, a Buddha statue that is up to 41 Metres high, and that in middle of the city, after this one I went to a very local temple which was only open because it was the "sunday" of the Buddhists, there was a little statues of a black happy Buddha, and a local told me that they pray to him for luck and happiness. After these I went to the obvious tourist scams, the tourist info and so further... Anyway, after the little tuk tuk drive I get dropped of back at Wat Pho, and after visiting that temple I decided to have a look at china town.

I was quite hungry by the time I arrived at the Chinese streets so I searched the market for any food stand, I had a Thai noodle soup in a stand that seemed to be very popular among locals. I continued my walk around china town and have to admit that I found it quite disappointing, at least during the day, nothing to typical or special. Then again, I heard that it’s really impressive if you go during night time, when all the Chinese billboards and lights get turned on. On my walk back to the hostel I found a few more temples and parks which were quite nice to see. Once I got back I just had to make my luggage and wait for the bus to pick me up. A 12 hour bus ride was awaiting me.

Madrid + Thailand: day 1

There we go, leaving for my two months of travelling on my own.

Plaza Mayor

I get dropped off at the trainstation in Alicante by my grandparents, because they had to go to Alicante anyway. There I find the people who would be taking me to Madrid, a couple from San Vicente which where going to Madrid and made a BlaBlaCar advert for it, the funny thing is, as we start to talk I find out that they are going to Bangkok as well, and decided, just like me, to spend a night in Madrid to have less of a hassle during they day of the flight.

Anyway, I get to Madrid and start looking for the hostel, which I found pretty quickly. I check everything in and decide to go and have a look around the city.

The weather was awful, it was raining slightly and cold, I wandered without a real objective in Madrid and found a few famous places, the Plaza mayor, the Basilica de san Miguel and a few more places.

Morning arrives and I get the underground to the airport, check in and go through to the gate, and look at that, another A-380, awesome, and even more when I find out that this one has wifi on board! you should have seen it, the whole upper floor was ment for first class and business, and it looked incredible, the first class had it's personal bathrooms with showers and everything, a masseuse, a bar, heck, everything you can imagine.

After travelling for 22 hours (with the time changes included) I finally land in Bangkok, I get myself a sim card to have internet during my stay (and use Google maps,, I'm not gona lie) and leave to my Hostal, I take the first underground from the airport to Phaya Thai, the centre, here I change to the SkyTrain and head towards my hostel. After dropping everything off and taking a much needed shower I head towards the city to explore, my plan was to go towards the weekend market, but I got distracted on my way, and heck, I would have time tomorrow to visit it. What I found especially amazing is how during the day you see tons and tons of souvenir and amulets shops. But as soon as the sun sets this changes drastically, every store that you see takes out a portable kitchen, some tables and starts serving food like any regular restaurant. After having a nice pad thai I head towards the hostel to get some well deserved rest.

South Africa: Last days in Cape Town

The first place in Cape Town was a little guest house at the northern part of Cape, with views over Robben Island. It was just next to the beach and had a massive swimming pool of 25 metres. The owner was a German who decided that he had enough of Germany and the cold. I have to mention that we got here after the wine route morning, so everyone felt sort of tired, nevertheless, I had a look at the beach, which was full of kite and wind surfers.

The next morning we started early and left to visit the cape of good hope, which was once believed to be the point where the Atlantic ocean meets the Indian ocean, later they found out this isn't completely true, but it doesn't take away the majestic views that you have once you are on the cape.
The cape also had a nice view over a little beach where the Portuguese used to come on land to take a little rest in their voyage to the far eastern lands.
On our way back to town we also encountered a little beach on which they claimed there to be penguins, so we decided to go and have a look. While dad looked for a parking place we went down to the beach, which was very, very crowded, though this didn't scare the penguins away, the reason being that there was a ranger with them when I found them, to protect the penguins from wild tourists or locals who would love to have their dream of swimming with penguins come true.

After the penguins we headed towards the last place where we would stay, a little BnB in the wind free zone of Cape Town, which is also known as the most expensive area to buy or even rent properties (that explains the massive amount of people who try to make a little more money doing a BnB or a Guesthouse).

So on our way to the BnB my dad's friend informed us that another friend of his had arrived at the Cape Town port with his catamaran, seeing how odd the chances of this where we decided to pay him a visit. We went to the Waterfront (which is the 2º biggest tourist attraction in whole South Africa) and on there, next to his boat we saw a big group of Sea Lions playing on the docks.
We had an interesting evening with a few beers and some wine glasses, and we agreed to see each other for dinner before leaving.

For dinner this evening though we had no idea where to go, everything we checked was fully booked, for the whole week! so we headed towards the centrum. There we entered a restaurant specialized in, yea, you guesses it: Steaks. But it was even more here, to our surprise we got no menu, as the only thing you could order was steak frite with salad, unless you where a vegetarian of course. Anyhow I have to say, yet again a lovely lovely steak.

And then it arrived: The last full day we would spend in South Africa, we got up early to get on the city sightseeing bus, what? isn't that something every tourist does??!. With the bus we got to the first stop we wanted to do: Cape Town's symbol: the table mountain, one of the new 7 wonders of nature, and not in vain, as it is impressive. Once at the top: which is 1026 km high we had a marvellous view over the whole city, we also saw why Cape Town is considered the perfect feng shui city (it has something to do with the town being surrounded by the 3 big mountains which make it sort of a chair )

We got down after an hour or two of walking on the mountain top and hopped back on the bus. My oldest sister got off at the stop close to he BnB because she was feeling unwell. After that we continued our city sightseeing. We continued towards one of the cities "townships", the wind free beaches and the lovely city centre, I have to say that I think Cape Town is amazing.
By the evening we got ready and headed towards the boat of my dad's friend. We managed to get a booking at a Belgian restaurant and once we saw the menu we bursted into tears: On the menu they had descriptions in Dutch, and these where so funny, for example, you had a rabbit stew, and the translation said: My neighbours cat drowned in "kasteel" beer (which is a strong Belgian beer often used in stews)

South Africa: Day 17 & our wine route

We only had two more cities to visit, and now that I come to think about it, the two best cities.

Today we would head towards Stellenbosch, one of the well known wine areas.

One of the bays in Hermanus

So on our way there we did a little stop in Hermanus, a town known for being a whale magnet, as this is where the whales come to have their babies, the Indian ocean, but without being to far away from the Atlantic ocean.


Sadly, we spotted no whales, though we didn't expect to see many whales to be honest, because the season where they come to deliver their babies is between June and November. On the other hand though, we had a wonderful view over the bay.

We arrived at our guest house and I was stunned since the beginning. It was a little viognier (vinegar farm) You could walk around the terrain to see the various animals, they had a few alpacas, horses, cows and a very, very fat pig.


It was a very long trip today so we didn't really have time to do much more when we got there.

 

We jumped in the pool to freshen up and the headed towards one of the wine farms of the area to have an aperitif during sunset the wine estate was called Delaire Graff Estate which we latter found out was one of the most luxurious wine "farms". It was massive!! And beautiful.

After the wine we headed towards the towns centre and ended up entering a wine restaurant, how suiting.

The morning after we decided to do some more wine estates, since we had such a nice experience with the first one.

Whilst checking out, the manager (who was amazingly friendly) offered us a little taste of the vinegar that they produce. And honestly, I had never imagined that I’d like vinegar that much at 10 in the morning. We left Rozendal with a very good feeling, and very happy with the treatment we got.

Spier's little souvenir shop

Our first wine estate was Spier (that’s already making wines since 1692) as recommended by the manager. And I’ll start off by saying that it was incredible, truly superb wines. My dad and I took the decided upon their first option: their 6 most awarded wines (3 red and 3 white) and their best wine to be produced, Fran K Smith. My mum and sister on the other hand selected option 2 which was a combination of wine tasting together with their signature wines (including 2 or 3 of the awarded wines as well)

 The second wine estate we visited was one my mother found in the rough guide, supposedly being very well known for its cheese platters in combination with the wine tasting. It was a bit underwhelming, obviously far less organized, because instead of having a tasting we just had a few glasses poured in and we got left alone. 

Anyway! Once finished out little wine tour (which was too short in my opinion, but heck, it just means that I have another reason to come back) we left towards our last destination: Cape town

South Africa: Day 16

We Heard that around Mosselbay you had a few places where you could do sand surfing, which I thought sounded pretty cool. So when we got there we were decided to find out how and where we could do this. But first, coffee we wanted to go somewhere at the front-line and ended up in a very local “braai plaats” you could say that it’s a local barbecue, people queue up to order food from the barbecue, if you really want to do local that’s probably the place for you, but the sun got to hot for us and we decided to continue our quest to find the sand surfers.

After a few searches on internet and driving through town we found out that the store where they organized the tours had closed, but he still organized tours by phone or mail, I guess it made things easier for him. 

My dad on the other hand insisted and we found this backpackers lodge that also organized day excursions of different kinds. We asked her and she organized a trip to the dunes to go sand surfing for tomorrow morning, actually she just called the number and gave my dad the phone, but it was fine, we had something organized.

When we finished everything we had to do in Mosselbay we started heading towards our lodge, it was another game lodge, but our expectations for this one were quite low (coming from the really wildlife part of the country to the part which was better known for cities, it makes sense, no?) But once we got there we were surprised. A giraffe was lying down, resting, just at the reception of the lodges!!! We got to touch it and everything.

During the lunch they explained us how the dinner was going to be served. I know that I talk a lot about food, but from what I've seen the South Africans just go from one meal to another one, not really giving any time to rest. Anyway, back to the explanation. They told us that the dinner was going to be a braai ( a barbecue) they would come over at our lodge at around 5:30-6 to light out fire and bring our food, to leave us alone for the rest of the night.

The warthog sneaking in our room

As we expected the fire took a while to eventually turn all the wood into charcoal, and once it was charcoal we were ready to braai, we had a lovely family time during that braai and really enjoyed being able to do some things ourselves.

And yet again we got unexpected visit after our dinner. Not to long after we finished out last steak we heard some noises: a dog and a WARTHOG were running towards us, not looking at other lodges, not casually walking by, no, straight up running towards our lodge.

As it got there it jumped on our terrace and just started to walk around us looking for something to nibble. We gave it a bone but the dog started a fight with him over it and ran off with it, so the warthog decided to have a look in our lodge, we had to rush and close everything to keep it out and eventually it got bored and left, but again, it didn't leave towards another lodge, no, as soon as it left our terrace it left towards the exit of the little park, tell me that’s not crazy.

South Africa: Day 15

We started off quite early in the morning, or at least, as early as we could, towards Wilderness, Before Wilderness we would make a stop in Knysna and drive by Plattenberg first.

View over the whole bay 

Whilst driving through Plattenberg we found that it was a very nice little town, cosy and enjoyable, with lots of places to visit, but due to the lack of time, it would be no more than a drive through town, once outside though we noticed the real big contrast, all around the outskirts of the town you had the “townships” which is how they call the slums in South Africa, it was especially something remarkable because the distance between the town and the township was quite short, just being a single road in some places.

Shopping plaza at the waterfront of Knynsa

In Knysna on the other hand we did have a little stop, we walked around a little shopping centre to have a look around and found a nice store where we could get some plain shirts for less than the cost of dry cleaning the dirty shirts that we had in the luggage.
 When we got out there it was close to lunch time so we headed towards the seaside where we found a little boulevard with tons of tiny souvenir shops and restaurants, there our eyes fell on a place called “north” 34, where they had lots of fresh fish and other delicatessen, the menu was huge, really huge, I remember having a book of 30 pages to go through for my main course, we got some oysters and a few little things to share, we weren’t going to eat too much, because that night (new year’s eve) we would get plenty of food.

Once we got in Wilderness we had a quick look at the beach and went to check on our booking for the night, at the restaurant, we managed to change our booking from 6:30 (which in our opinion was waaaaay to early, but the only table they had available, or se we thought) to a table at 8:30 outside, which was a great improvement in our opinion.

So the time to go for dinner had arrived and we got at the restaurant, and as soon as we got there the host told us that there would be a table available inside in a few minutes if we’d like the offer. We gladly accepted and thought to ourselves that we had wasted too much time and effort stressing about the evening. We had a wonderful dinner with lots of wild meat like ostrich, springbok and wildebeest. And to top it up, at the end of the night we had a wild Genet come in the restaurant, apparently it had been sneaking in for the last few weeks (they told us that they were going to catch it and release it in the forest in the short future).

After dinner the waiters invited us to join them at the sister restaurant which had a very nice balcony to celebrate the new year, and this is where we did wrong, we kindly rejected their offer as we had made plans to join our BnB host in the other house where he told us he would be serving tonight. 

Don’t get me wrong, the house where we went was beautiful, really astonishing, and front line, with incredible views. But it was dead, when we got there everyone seemed to be half asleep, I think some people where really already sleeping and the mood was very awkward.

Anyway we made the best out of it, had a few glasses of bobbles with the host and ate our 12 grapes during the 12 last second of the year, well, at least I did, I can’t speak on behalf of the rest of my family.

South Africa: Day 14

After waking up two or three times because of Sofie deciding to kick her legs on my head I decided it was about time to get up.

Today we were going to visit the Stormsriver mouth in the Indian Ocean, we headed down to the nature park where the river ended and after a good while of waiting we got in.

The park was apparently known for camping as well, as we passed a few camping spots before getting to the end of the road. Once there everything would be done by foot.

We started walking towards the hanging bridge where you had the best view over the mouth. On the way there ( it was about a 1 km walk) we saw a few very nice bays, but all natural ones, which they probably want to keep that way as there was no one on them. We got to the bridge, which was very unstable, and had a fantastic view over the river colliding with the sea, as well as tourists, lots of tourists.

Little hidden beach

After getting back to the initial bay we went for a swim and then we continued to the next beach, on this net beach there was a well-known beach restaurant, so well-known that he had a waiting list of about an hour, we were in no rush though. 

We had a walk around the beach while waiting and then we got told about the red water that they recently had (which caused dolphins and whales to stay away of the coast side). 

This red water incident occurred when a special kind of algae (sea weed) started over producing the nutrient that it usually produces, the reason being the temperatures being too high or something similar. This caused a lot of fish to die due to the lack of oxygen and well, it sort of formed a vicious cycle. The name comes from the water staining coper brown or reddish because of the nutrient of the algae.

Towards the evening we returned to the BnB and got some rest at the pool, only to get ready shortly afterwards for another early dinner. Today we were dining at a little bistro which was actually a polo club during the vast majority of the time, during our dinner the light went out, first for a little instance of 2-3 minutes but afterwards it looked like it had gone for a good while, so we took the opportunity and left (not without paying obviously)