Thailand Part 1

The next leg of our adventure got off to a horrible start when we were delayed for 3 hours in heathrow. First of all engine no. 4 didn't work and had to be jump started. Then whilst on the runway a man had a seizure and so we had to go back to the gate for the paramedics to get on! Arriving into Bangkok went a little more smoothly until we had trouble getting a taxi and then communicating with the driver, who's english went as far as "Bangkok....good shopping!" Luckily for us our mood was brightened by the comfy, air conditioned Nap Park Hostel. We spent 3 nights in Bangkok where our days were spent wandering one of the most famous backpacker streets in the world, eating phad thai and chatting to other travellers whilst lying on the padded floor of the hostel! 

We also decided to take a day trip outside of Bangkok which included visiting Dumnoen Saduak Floating Market. This is Thailand's biggest market and it takes place in narrow wooden boats on a series of waterways. We took one of the boats through the market passing stalls selling everything from tourist souvenirs to everyday items for the locals. Some of the women were even cooking using a gas stove on the boats. We had our first successful barter and tried some weird and wonderful fruit. 

The day continued to a zoo where we saw elephants doing tricks and a man stick his head inside a crocodiles mouth and then finished with a visit to the Rose Garden where we saw some Thai boxing and dancing. 

After the busy, smoggy city of Bangkok we were happy to move north to a place called Chiang Mai. We took an overnight bus for 12 hours (which exceeded both our expectations as we were given food and a blanket!) and arrived at a very multi-coloured hostel. A Thai cooking class was the first activity on the agenda, which turned out to be on of the best nights so far. We met our teacher at a local market where she taught us about the different ingredients we would be using and the alternatives we would need to use at home as many of the ingredients we had never heard of! It was then off to the kitchen where we made 4 dishes each, such as chicken in coconut milk soup and sweet sticky rice with mango. 

Before...

...after! 

Having eaten more in one night than ever before we headed back to the hostel for a lie down before hitting the night bazaar. This market is open every night till midnight and sells everything from souvenirs to knockoffs. Along with two Americans from our hostel we wandered around and ended the night with a foot massage at midnight when they were supposed to close however they kept it open for us for only £2! 

"buses" in Chiang Mai

Having a whale of a time!

Having lunch with our franklin friend (bird)

Our last week in South Africa we spent in true style. While we were in Botswana our wonderful grandparents arranged a trip around the southern peninsula with a family friend that runs a tour company. Blair, who's usual clients have an average age of 65, had to put up with us for 5 days but what an amazing 5 days they were! We travelled for three hours along the coast to a nature reserve called De Hoop which in Afrikaans means "the Hope". The reserve covers an area of 34000 ha and includes a Marine Protected Area (you biologists out there should know what this is!). Within its grounds are endangered species such as Bontebok and the Cape mountain zebra which are thriving due to the lack of large predators. Also, luckily for us this meant that we could wander around the grounds without worrying about coming across anything more scary than baboons, and anyone reading our blogs knows that we have had plenty of experience with baboons already! De Hoop is famous for its stunning coastline with vibrant fynbos vegetation and towering sand dunes, so the first thing we did was head for the beach. It was at this point that we discovered another attraction of the site....whales! At this time of year Southern right whales can be spotted near the shore in the crystal blue/green water, and they are even more obvious when they fling themselves out of the water to breach. We spent hours on the small beach resulting in bad tan lines but we had a whale of a time (ha get it?).

First whale sighting!

Bontebok and baboons

De Hoop sand dunes

Blue crane- national bird of South Africa

  The next leg of our journey took us round the coast to Stanford (including driving through a wee village called Beard Cutting Forest. There are some weird names in Afrikaans). We drove through the shark cage diving capital of SA while Katie closed her eyes, and despite the flooding in the area we finally made it to Mosaic Farm. The lodge is usually on a peninsula which sticks into a lagoon behind Walker Bay where sharks, whales and seals can be spotted. However when we arrived the peninsula had become an island due to the flooding and we were transported from the main house to our lodge in a military vehicle called a unimog. While we were being tossed around in the back of the vehicle we were reminded more of a theme park ride than a ride to a luxury lodge. And that's exactly what it was...luxury! Our beds were turned down every night, with a chocolate on our pillow and glasses of Amarula waiting for us. As we headed out of our lodge for the first time we noticed a visitor, who was from then on called Jerry. Jerry was a fairly large mole snake who often blocked our path to the diningroom. We decided for the sake of our rumbling tummies we would leave our lodge in a mad dash every morning.

Sundowners on Walker Bay

Can you spot Jerry?

Mosaic Farm from the sky- check out the flooded road! 

miserable weather in Hermanus

waving hello!

Other than a little swimming and quad-biking our time was spent looking for whales. This was done during a sunset trip to the beach with a couple of drinks and also during a small plane ride over the bay. This plane ride was more successful than the last one in that Katie didn't chunder (hurray!) and our pilot was very friendly. We saw so many pairs of mothers and calves, including a white whale, which are just not visible from the beach. We are really struggling to describe how amazing this was so just take a look at the pictures below.

white whale lying on its back

The story of a white girl in a township

Whilst Sarah was playing with fish I travelled down the coast a little to a place called Kommetjie Road. On this road is basically a hostel and a township with the little town of Kommetjie at the end, this became my home for two weeks.

View from my hostel

In the township of Masiphumelele is the Sinethemba Special Care Centre which is a day centre for children with disabilities. They provide care for children from two surrounding townships- Masiphumelele which is a black township and Ocean View which is a coloured township. I stayed in the hostel, which got rather lonely as I was the only person staying, whilst working at the centre during the day. The bus driver, Albert would pick up all the children in the morning from both townships. For the two weeks that I was there Albert became my personal chauffeur and would let me sit in the front with him, which was apparently a great honour!
My day would start at 8am, once we arrived at the centre the kids would all go to their classrooms. The classes are split by the needs of the children- for example there is a class of high dependency children and a class for all non-verbal children. I was put in a class with 7 kids, all very verbal and all semi-mobile (some had to crawl around as they cant provide wheelchairs for them all). I soon had a favourite called Leo. He is 8 years old and has Down Syndrome. From the very first day he was calling me his girl friend and soon became very protective of me, he even kicked one of the other volunteers when he joked I was not Leo's girl friend but his!

Jody and Liyabona

Leo

Inati (girl), Inati (boy), Batibile and Leo

Although I mostly spent my time in that class it was nice every so often to escape the noise and spend time with some of the other kids at the centre. I would always end up in Bella's, one of the carers, room as she was in charge of the baby room. Unfortunately these kids are suffering from conditions such as cerebral palsy  and so they can't play as much as other toddlers might and so I learned how to do massages on them to help relieve the tension built up in their muscles.

One of the classrooms

Unlike any of the experience I had had before with special needs kids, I was just thrown straight in to being a carer and so was often left with many kids on my own which was challenging at times however I soon learnt the best way to distract each kid from causing more chaos! For example Mlungisi (yes most had tricky African names!) would love to bounce on the trampoline whereas Batibile could sit for hours chatting on the play phone.

Like most of the carers and staff my favourite time of the day quickly became 1 o'clock. This was when the kids would go to sleep and the staff could have their lunch. Our lunch hour would consist of us all squishing into the tiny staff room to chat or more often than not snooze until inevitably the children would wake up and demand you push them on the swing or read them a story.

On the Saturday between my two weeks of work the staff and children put on a school concert. The children were all in costumes and would dance along to the songs whilst the carers sang. It was such a fun morning which all the kids loved as the whole week after they would ask to sing the songs over and over!

School concert

Inati as Peter Rabbit

Singing in the rain!

What would always pull on my heart strings was when Albert and I would drop the children off at their "houses". Many of these disabled kids who face so many challenges already in their day are living in what we would call a shack- many with no running water or electricity. Despite this the children always had the biggest smiles on their faces and would never complain.  

Where do you work when you have a fear of fish? The aquarium of course!

The Two Oceans Aquarium is at the waterfront and very easy to get to using the new bus system in Cape Town. As an intern I was allowed to help out with pretty much anything, whilst signing absolutely nothing ie. no health and safety. 

Just chilling with Hopper

Week 1 was spent with the penguins, 11 African penguins and 7 Rockhoppers. Let me just say there was a lot of dead fish involved but now, at the end of my two weeks, it doesn't phase me at all. Chopping up pilchards and stuffing prawns inside squid seemed a fair price to pay for my penguin experience. The rockies were the friendliest and on my first day I was asked to literally p..p..pick up a penguin! You bend down with your hands outstretched and they jump on so that they are lying with their belly on your hands. They are also very happy to hop onto your lap if you sit down in their enclosure. I was totally in my element! My other tasks included weighing a chick, which was a ball of warm fluff, and even feeding the rockies on my last day. I figure that leaving Two Oceans with this experience and all 10 fingers still intact puts me in good stead should I ever want to work with penguins in the future.

Rockies on a walk through the aquarium to their outside enclosure

Diesel looks a bit scruffy during her mault

Two week old African chick

Zuki taking part in a radio interview

For my second week I worked with aquarists (yup, I didn't know what that meant either, basically they are the ones in charge of the fish tanks). I did my fair share of tank cleaning but had a great time with everything else. I fed tiny pieces of fish to baby sharks using a skewer, fed eels using some tongs and fed the nemos with...my hand! They literally form a ball of fish around your hand but they were so soft. I am definitely well on my way to curing my ridiculous fish fear hurray!

Even though I was kept busy, there was plenty of time for me to wander. A couple of other interns and I loved to sit and watch the predator tank but there was a slight risk of snoozing since it was so relaxing, especially when they started playing Enya. 

Looking into the predator tank from the roof- wouldn't want to fall in there!

Cannelloni training to eat in a cage so the sharks won't bother her

Large sting ray in the predator exhibit

Tiny baby sharks

 I don't want to bore anyone with too many aquarium stories but I do have to tell you about one more sighting. While on our way out for some drinks, friends and I were confused by a lot of people milling around on the street. Then all of a sudden we worked it out- it was a small film set, and guess who was filming? None other than the biggest crush of my teenage years, Orlando Bloom! I slightly embarrassed myself in front of these people who I had only known for a short period of time, but I don't care. I even managed to snap a photo. Best evening in Cape Town by far!

Orlando Bloom!!

Being proper tourists

Waterfront and Table Mountain

Having had a full on busy month in Botswana we arrived in Cape Town with only one plan for the first week, to visit Robben Island. Luckily it was a sunny day although quite windy which meant the ferry crossing was a little bumpy! Robben Island is situated 8km off the coast of Cape Town and before we arrived we didn't know much about it other than Nelson Mandela being imprisoned there. When we first arrived on the island we went on a bus tour which took us through residents houses which are still inhabited by ex guards and ex prisoners. We also saw a leper graveyard filled with hundreds of graves as they were housed on the island until 1930. At this point the lepers were removed and all the existing buildings were burnt. The only building that survived was the church , which is apparently one of the cheapest places to get married- for a measly R80 (£5.80). 

Quarry and Cave where prisoners worked

Cape Town from Robben Island

We then visited the high security prison which was used for political prisoners while the medium security prison was used for the criminals! Our guide around the prison was an ex-political prisoner who spent 7 years on the island. For the main talk we sat in the cell in which he was imprisoned which meant he could describe exactly how life was, including how terribly the blacks were treated even compared to the coloured prisoners. The food rations were tiny and they were forced to wear shorts and a t-shirt with no shoes or jacket all year round. The treatment of one political prisoner was particularly interesting. Most people have heard of Mandela however we learned more about Robert Sobukwe. He spent many years on the island after leading protests against apartheid laws. The government feared that he was particularly influencial and so imprisoned him in solitary confinement. He was allowed no contact with anyone, even his guards, but was given plenty of tobacco to smoke in the hope that he would die from it. The fear the government had for him lead to the Sobukwe Clause, this meant they could keep him imprisoned for as long as they wanted and it applied only to him.
On the ferry back we froze our buts off sitting on the top deck although it was worth it for the view of Cape Town ahead of us and Robben Island retreating in the background.

Communal cell

Sobukwe's House

Our ex-political prisoner guide

The corner where Mandela hid his book from the guards

Mandela's cell

Maximum security prison

Prison and penguins on the same island?!

Penguins with their nests

Another opportunity arose for us to be tourists when we headed south to stay with friends. We visited Boulders Beach which is the home of a wild colony of African penguins, appropriately on International African Penguin Day. The weather was gorgeous and so we hung out on the beach after watching the penguins. We also visited the oldest vineyard in South Africa- Groot Constantia. We had a gorgeous lunch and sampled one of their wines.

Just chillin!

Unusual sign! 

Boulders Beach

Main house at the vineyard

Where we ate our gorgeous lunch

The next picture is irrelevant to the rest of the post however we had to put it in...

Amusing shop on the way to the bus stop (for those who don't know we live on Midmar Gardens!)