Roy and Ania

Photos: India: Mumbai and Ellora cave temples

royandania — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 01:11:00 GMT

Photos: Roy's Thai massage course in the hill tribe village

royandania — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 17:59:00 GMT

Photos: visa run and the white temple

royandania — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 17:55:00 GMT

Photos: Com Peung

royandania — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 17:36:00 GMT

Photos: ComPeung Life

royandania — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:46:00 GMT

Photos: Art event at ComPeung

royandania — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:42:00 GMT

Artist's Recidency outside Chiang Mai

royandania — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:48:00 GMT

After quite a few days in Chiang Mai trying to sort out what our next move was going to be, we finally moved on. One day we rented a motorbike and drown up to an artist's village where artist could come to do artists residencies. We arrived unannounced, but about 10 moths ago I had been in contact with them to try to sort out a residency for me, so after some chatting I was accepted to come and stay since they had space for me.

Now I have been here for just over a week, and part from me and the lovely host Ong (who is Thai) I am here with a British girl that is from the north-east of England (from nearly the same area where Roy comes form, Newbiggen) who is a visual artist and a Canadian woman who is a dancer and performance artist. It is such a luxury life I lead here. I wake up and go for my morning run before the heat gets too bad and then I paint and get fed, three meals per day of the most wonderful Thai food. The afternoons get really really hot, about 40 degrees in the last few days, and it is quite hard to keep the work up, so often that is the time for the siesta, and then a bit more painting before darkness.

The houses on the piece of land that make up ComPeung, the artist village, are all build by Ong himself (I am well impressed) in alternative building styles with stacked sacks filled with dirt form the land and with roofs of the dried grass and leaved that have been growing on the grounds (see photos). The house that I live in is double story and the walls are about one meter thick. There are no straight angles and no flat walls and it is the most charming house I have ever lived in! ComPeung is located in the middle of nowhere where western looking people are rare and when Ong come dragging with 3 of us girls we get stared at. There is a temple and a lake nearby and although there is not much happening around I am surprised about the noise pollution in the area. There is always either dogs howling or barking, rosters going cock-a-doodle-doo at any time of the day and night, the ice cream tuk-tuk (a 3 wheeled moped with used for any kind of business, like taxi or transportation) with its audio logotype-song, or some kind of singing or prayer in the morning and the evening coming through some amplifier across the land. It is a bit crazy really, but I love it.

While I have been here Roy has been up too some other exiting experiences: A mountain bike off road day, apparently it was quite challenging but he says it was a good laugh. A 3 day and 2 night jungle trek with additional elephant encounter, tribe village visit and crazy temple party to get funding for the temple. (see photos). Right now he is doing a 12 day Thai massage course in a jungle village. I am looking forward to meeting him and being a tester person for his new skills :)

love

ania

Photos: Anias Artist's Recidency: ComPeung

royandania — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:20:00 GMT

Photos: Roy's jungle adventure

royandania — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:13:00 GMT

Photos: Cooking course etc in Chiang Mai

royandania — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:35:00 GMT

Photos: Bangkok: Chinese new year celebration

royandania — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:30:00 GMT

chinatown in Bangkok

Photos: Bangkok

royandania — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:42:00 GMT

visiting our first buddhist temple

Thailand: we love it!

royandania — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:59:00 GMT

Bangkok:
So we are now in Thailand, Bangkok. Our days in this country so far has been a time to get used to many things: The heat for a start (I read somewhere that it takes about 2 weeks to really get comfortable with the heat, and so far we have been so grateful for the air conditioner in our room). An then it is the Thai culture, not knowing the language and all. But people are so friendly, to the point of annoyance actually sometimes. As soon as we stop in a street corner to check where we are on our map, we have a swarm of kind helpers around wanting to know where we want to go. But they are all so nice and I actually feel more safe here than I did in Buenos Aires, although the size of the city is the same, 10 million people. And the food…Oh,my God, it is wonderful! On most streets there are numerous food stalls that even have chairs and camping tables set up along the pavement for the guest to sit on, and they cook on simple gas stoves and the food is just amazing. Everywhere you can buy fresh tropical fruit and ice coffee and drinks and in the evening there are simple provisional bars but up that sell beer and spirits etc. The streets are such centre of commerce, it just varies in what is sold at different times of the day.

Our time in Bangkok was partially about doing the touristy things, visiting the old town with its markets, taking a river boat, visiting tempels, exploring the sky train that runs above the city, and partially about running around in the vast shopping malls and centres looking for clothes and electronics. We bought one fancy posh music machine for Roy to replace the one that was stolen in Argentina, and a ipod nano for me that was a copy (we knew it was) but it turned out not to work. When we retuned to the same place the day after, the stall was closed because it was Sunday and then we had to fly out of the city, so now we are hoping get it fixed elsewhere.

Another interesting Bangkok experience was that we where told that since it is Chinese new year and a public holiday and a lot of people are going for holidays in different parts of Thailand, we definitely should book our flight tickets right away. A local Thai lady put us in a tuk tuk (a moped taxi) and sent us to a centre that was supposed to be a governmentally run agency the would definitely not want to rip us off, like the other agencies would (we where told). When we arrive the lady offer us to help us plan our entire visit in Thailand saying that she can arrange accommodation and activities to prices lower than we could ever hope to get anywhere else, but we had to do it quickly because thy where selling out. Without having planned what we wanted to do beforehand, we sort of went with her suggestions and booed a flight, a cooking curse with accommodation, a trek in the jungle etc. As we did not have all the money with us, we where meant to come back the day after to pay the remaining money after we had paid the deposit. Once back in our hostel Roy went online and compared prices and availability, and found that everything she wanted to sell us could be found at a lower price and there was not problem with availability at all. There was quite some anger in our reactions to this, and the next day Roy want back and pulled out from most of it. But he had to see the manager for that "discussion". In our lonely planet book it says that the scams that you are most likely to come across is to be charmed off off you money, and we nearly where...

Chiang Mai:

We are in Chiang Mai, the north part of Thailand. We just finished a 3 day cooking course lead by a woman called Meow (pronounced mjau) with a lot of knowledge and quite a sex orientated sense of humour. On one of the days she had the entire group of cooking students all embarrassed when we where making green curry paste and pawing it rhythmically in a mortar, asking us to show off "our moves" to the rest of the group.

Each day started with a visit of a local market where fresh produce was for sale. Things that i saw on that market i have never seen before, like egg plans that actually looked like eggs, brown chicken eggs (I later found out that they where cooked with soya sauce for 30 minutes and that is why they where brown), Different herbs and vegetables, fruit and spices that where completely new to me. Some of the things on that market i would never ever eat, like the ant eggs (with some ants still crawling on them). Apart form that they had tons of chillies in of different kinds and sizes, tofu, meat, fish (that was still moving, some where even alive)etc. Yes, it was deficiently an experience to walk around that market.

The little cooking school was guarded by a small white poodle that became our friend after a few days. Each day we cooked 6 dishes and eat them, both me and Roy where astonished by how easy (and fat) Thai cooking is if you only have the access to the right ingredients. We made all the curries, green, red and yellow, papaya salad, spring rolls pad Thai noodles, and my favourite: the Thai fish cakes, and I finally found out about the secret ingredient that made me fall in love with them in the first place: the Kafir lime leaf cut in small pieces that is so fresh and lemony in its flavour.

Another thing about the Thai food is the spiciness. Of course. As a pathetic westerner that does not even drink coffee because i my heart starts racing, i stared off with adding one quarter of a chilli in the dishes i cooked. By the end of the 3 days i had advanced to half a chilli. Roy started off with one chilli and by the end he proudly announced that he was enjoying the food with 2 chillies in. When we asked the teacher how many chillies the locals would put in a serving for one person she replied 10! That is serious cilliness, that!

Adventures on the South Island, NZ

royandania — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:21:00 GMT

We have been on the south island for many weeks now and it has been so intense so I have not prioritised to write for the blog. Since we had to be in Christchurch about a week before our departure from NZ in order to sell the van, we only had about 10 days to actually travel around the south island. Although it was a bit rushed, we definitely made the most out of it.

The South Island is very different from the North Island in our experience. It is much less populated and more wild nature in general. The nature is more spectacular and it is much easier to find places to free camp (to our great happiness). The north of the island, as we drove from the ferry port in Picton towards Nelson, we saw endless rows of wines and the vineyards where so many we could not see were one started and the next one began. Our plan was to go via Nelson and drive down the west coast with it scenic coastline. Roy bought himself a boogie board and if he could he would have liked to surf the waves all along the west coast down towards Qeenstown. The beaches in general along that coast are not safe to swim in, the current is very strong and it gets very deep right away as you get in the water, so if he lost control and was swept away he probably could have. Luckily he kept safe and stayed with me. We had a deal that I would not let him out of site when he was in the water (we were often the only ones on the beach), and he would try to keep track of me every so often and come back as he was moved along the beach by the current. It was well worth sitting on in the cold wind on the pebbly beach because I have seldom seen a more shiny and happy Roy then when he got out of the water with his boogie board.

In the town of Westport, still at the top en of the west coast, we started to have problems with our van that altered our rout a little. There was a problem with the the alternator in the engine. It was Friday afternoon and none of the garages in Westport could help us so we had to drive to the next town, Graymouth, and hope for some help there before the weekend. If we could not find any help, our plan to drive full day Saturday and Sunday to reach Queenstown would fail and we might not see all we want to see within the time we had available. 4.15 on the Friday we rolled into a garage and was met by some lovely local mechanics that went out of their way to get us back on the road in one piece before the weekend begun. That was amazing and we were all happy as we rolled out from Greaymouth that evening.

So we could continue down the coast, see some funny “pancake” rocks that looked like giant piles of stacked pancakes. When the tide was high the water bowled and splashed through eroded holes in the rock and made some amazing fountain effect. We missed the high tide, but saw a small fountain and could admire the rocks anyway. A few hours drive down the coast, via a free camping spot by a lightly turquoise glacier river with endless swarms of evil sand flies (they are mosquitoes, but much smaller, and they take a good chunk of the flesh when they bite) that we had to escape from without breakfast since they would not let us live, and headed towards the Fox glacier, the second of the two glaciers available for easy access on the coast. We walked to the glacier and could see it close up but where not allowed to walk on top of it since we did not have an authorised guide. I learned that the glaciers are very slow rivers moving 100.000 times slower than a normal river, but it is still water making its way to the sea. The glacier we visited was moving quite quickly for being a glacier, about 50 cm per day, and that made it very dangerous to be on top of it if you did not have the right knowledge or tools. It could collapse at any time and it changed shape any time. It was a mighty sight and we where lucky for the sun to come out just was we here about to start our walk back to the van and light up the glacier in a glorious way.

The further down south we got the more astound we where with the nature. The mountains where so beautiful and between climbing up zig zagy roads where our van had to struggle, we where down in agricultural valleys with setting with cattle etc. We where lucky with the weather and it was all so beautiful. Finally we ended up in Queenstown, a town with a young vibe where the main attraction and activity was adrenalin sports. Jumping out of air planes, bungy jumps, etc. Roy did an canyon swing over a deep drop, 109 meters, over a glacier river. (I was on a platform further away, taking photos and not being able to breath out of nervousness.) Roy did two jumps, one to proof to himself he could and the second one to enjoy the experience, he says. We also did a jet boat trip that was like a roller-coaster ride on the same river, the river Dart, that Roy jumped over. I walked up a small mountain and enjoyed a spectacular view and had a chat with some local ladies on their after work walk. I also did half a day on horseback in the scenery of the Lord of the Rings filming sites. The horses had also been in the films, so that was quite cool.

When we had spent a lot of money and had a lot of fun in Qeenstown we headed towards Christchurch to sell the van. It turned out to take more time than we thought. We spent 2 days cleaning and painting the van and by the time it came to sell it it looked much better than it had when we bought it and during the time we used it. We made a flyer and drove around most of Christchurch's hostel to put it up. People called us, some looked at it but no one seem to want it fast enough so we got a bit despondent. We ended finding this backpackers car park where we sat together with a lot of other backpackers trying to sell their cars and cans and after 2, 5 days we sold it to a couple from Holland and finally we where free! It took us 6 days to make the van beautful and sell it. Not much time perhaps, but since we only had 2 months in NZ, it was quite a significant time for us.

We changed the date for our flight to Thailand so that we had time to go to Kaikoura for a few days and swim with the dolphins. It was an amazing experience, flavoured in my case by sea sickness, but still, it was a very unique feeling to be amongst 200 wild husky dolphins as they made their acrobatic jumps all around us. They swam under water sometimes as close as 10-20 centimetres. An unbelievable experience.

In Kaikoura we also visited the seal colony and did some off road mountain biking that was quite tough.

Finally we made it back to Christchurch and flew to Bangkok via Singapore.

Photos: NZ Kaikoura

royandania — Tue, 9 Feb 2010 20:54:00 GMT

Photos: Horseback riding Queenstown

royandania — Tue, 2 Feb 2010 12:18:00 GMT

Photos: NZ South Island

royandania — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:50:00 GMT

Photos: Retreat at Te Moata Retreat Centre

royandania — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:43:00 GMT

7 days of meditation in silence...

royandania — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:23:00 GMT

Our journey into the spiritual, the meeting yourself without excuses, has started. We dove right into the deep end of it by attending a retreat called “The way of mindfulness” for 7 days. We where not really prepared for what that meant as we signed up for it and we both got a bit of a shock when we arrived at the retreat centre, located in the middle of the bush on the Coromandel peninsula, and was told that we would be completely silent and meditate for about 6 hours per day starting at 6 am each morning! OK, here we go!

We where given some advice on how to deal with the week as a couple, the teacher said that people who did not connect with each other verbally during the retreat had reported deeper experiences that when they had done so. Roy and I said god bye and moved into tot the separate ladies/men's dorms, and the small booths with a bed and a window (true monastery style, but very nice in my opinion).

The very second I saw our teacher I became hopeful about the experience to come. He is a tall Englishman (funny, we have come all around the world just to be taught by an Englishman!) with an aura of humour, playfulness and pleasant presence. There was no sense of authority or “you must do things my way”- attitude. What a relief! Each evening he gave talks that where so genuinely human and wise with a great edge of humorous distance to the spiritual profundity that he spoke of. Every evening there would be a gem or two that went straight to core of my being, turning my perspective of the world up side down once more, and leaving me with knowledge that cannot be unknown. A bit like the Matrix, once you have taken the blue pill (or was it the red, I don't remember), there is no turning back. It is irreversible. My notion of the reality of what it means to be a human is changed completely. In some shape or form I have heard it all before, but Stephen (the teacher, I cannot even spell to his Buddhist monk name) made it all come alive and confirmed it all for me again.

I guess that Stephens words affected me deeper also because they reached me after hours of meditation. How does one describe meditation? I am not sure I know how to. On the one hand it is about spending time looking inside, looking at the relationship I have with myself, see patterns of thoughts, emotions etc. On the other hand (or maybe it is a part of the same thing) it is about practising single focus and notice how the attention habitually flutters around and lingers either in the past or in the future, rather than being in the now. The concept of meditation (in my understanding) is that it is only by being in the present moment , with whatever is there, that one can commune with the truth of what it is to be a human being. On the retreat there was nothing to do but meditate. We where cooked for (wonderful vegetarian food with vegetables from the centre's garden) and all excuses for escape into some kind of activity or conversation where stripped away. So there we where. Oh, my god, I never thought doing nothing could be such hard work! Although I have some experience of meditation from before, it has never been taken to such extremes, and it sure was fascinating and intense.

Both me and Roy experienced the week as challenging process and we both had deep experiences of different kinds and flavours. I am pleased to say that we left each other to our own individual paths without connecting and speaking with each other until the end of the 6^th day!

We are both moved by this intense experience and at least I would recommend it to everyone.

Love

ania

New years festival and volcanic experiences

royandania — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:19:00 GMT

We spend new year at a 5 day hippie festival at a retreat centre called Prana, in Coromandel, North Island. It was small, just 500 people, but really nice and lovely. The whole event was (nearly) drug free and family-friendly with a open and friendly atmosphere. In the day time there where 20-30 different workshops to choose form, everything form afro gospel singing, chanting, African dance, samba dance, capoeira, contact improvisation and yoga, to workshops on relationships, different aspects on spirituality, meditation, film showings etc. In the evenings there where concerts and shows of different kinds.

The weather was fantastic and it actually even got too hot most of the days, but despite of that there was a lot of dancing, drumming and singing. Since the festival was located by the beach, we got to swim everyday, wonderful!

Although the festival was maybe more my type of event, I believe Roy enjoyed it (certainly the swimming part) and he got to do a capoeira workshop amongst other things, and when he was drinking the beer that he smuggled in I can say for sure that he even enjoyed it a lot.

One of my favourite moments form the festival was when Roy and I danced tango to trance disco music, that was great. It was actually the first tango we have done since Buenos Aires...it has been too long without dancing really.

After the five days of glorious sunshine at the festival, it started to rain and fortunately that was the day of departure. We drove the Underbite (our van) down to the Bay of Plenty and the Rotorua area where we chilled for a day while we did some admin work and washed all our clothes after all the dust and sand from the festival. We bought some exotic local fruit that I have never try before, some orange type fruit, yellow kiwi fruit, and a two-in one fruit : apple and pear ( I know they exist in Europe as well, but this tasted different an was extremely juicy).

The flowing day we had the whole volcanic experience. We camped at a spa with natural hot pools that where up to 40°C. Campers who stayed at the site got to use the pools for free. It was an amazing experience sitting in one of the hot pools looking out over the valley with the cow greasing and seeing puffs of steam coming from the hot water springs amongst the bushes. It was a like a sauna experience and we got all relaxed afterwards.

Next morning we went to the Geothermal Wonderland Park (see photos) and although the photos we took capture the extraordinary of the features, they do not capture the “rotten egg” smell. You are lucky, because it was quite strong and disturbing.

So far, during our 4 weeks or so of travelling in NZ we have been stopped by the police twice an Roy, who has been driving, have had to do a alcohol breathing test. They are quite serious here, Roy says it has never happened to him in the UK, and he has had his licence for over 20 years...

Roy and Ania

Photos: India: Mumbai and Ellora cave temples

Photos: Roy's Thai massage course in the hill tribe village

Photos: visa run and the white temple

Photos: Com Peung

Photos: ComPeung Life

Photos: Art event at ComPeung

Artist's Recidency outside Chiang Mai

Photos: Anias Artist's Recidency: ComPeung

Photos: Roy's jungle adventure

Photos: Cooking course etc in Chiang Mai

Photos: Bangkok: Chinese new year celebration

Photos: Bangkok

Thailand: we love it!

Adventures on the South Island, NZ

Photos: NZ Kaikoura

Photos: Horseback riding Queenstown

Photos: NZ South Island

Photos: Retreat at Te Moata Retreat Centre

7 days of meditation in silence...

New years festival and volcanic experiences

The weather was fantastic and it actually even got too hot most of the days, but despite of that there was a lot of dancing, drumming and singing. Since the festival was located by the beach, we got to swim everyday, wonderful!

Although the festival was maybe more my type of event, I believe Roy enjoyed it (certainly the swimming part) and he got to do a capoeira workshop amongst other things, and when he was drinking the beer that he smuggled in I can say for sure that he even enjoyed it a lot.

One of my favourite moments form the festival was when Roy and I danced tango to trance disco music, that was great. It was actually the first tango we have done since Buenos Aires...it has been too long without dancing really.

Next morning we went to the Geothermal Wonderland Park (see photos) and although the photos we took capture the extraordinary of the features, they do not capture the “rotten egg” smell. You are lucky, because it was quite strong and disturbing.

So far, during our 4 weeks or so of travelling in NZ we have been stopped by the police twice an Roy, who has been driving, have had to do a alcohol breathing test. They are quite serious here, Roy says it has never happened to him in the UK, and he has had his licence for over 20 years...

Now we are off to a meditation retreat.

Love

ania