Sleepless in Siam

Here we are in are in Bangkok, 4 days after arriving and Lisa and myself still havent adjusted to the new timezone. Last night I got 3 hours sleep and the night before I couldnt sleep till 6am. Oddly, I dont feel too bad but I am hoping for a major catch up tonight. Yesterday we toured the canals and river in a longboat and did the night markets. Today we went to see the Grand Palace but it was shut till 1 for some religious ceremony, so we jmped in a tuk tuk and zoomed around the city. Great fun if your not easily frightened. We went to the Palace but it was too hot to enjoy it fully. Came home for a swim then Lisa and myself went and had a Thai massage for 2 hours (tough gig, i know).. Off to the monster weekend markets tomorrow, then home Monday arvo. We are definitely ready to come home, even though we have been taking things easy since arriving in London. Pat will pick us up (hopefully) at 6.30am Tuesday and we will head to his place. We will rest up and head to Port Wednesday. We will need to hire a car since us, our gear and the dogs wont all fit in one. Looking forward to talking to everyone soon.

Thailand

We have arrived. In less than a week we will be home. It is currently two in the morning here and Eamon and I are watching TV. Rob and Riley are having great sleeps so they will wake up in Thailand morning time and their body clocks should adjust easily.

The apartment we are in feels like luxury. The boys think they are in heaven. A pool on the next floor down. They hae their own bathroom and a TV in their room and the most important thing is they are not sharing a bed. Full pay TV so to many channels for the boys to choose from. The TV in the loungeroom has a separate Pay TV link so we do not have to watch cartoons all the time.
The boys converted their savings to BAHT and are very excited to have 5000 in their wallets. Riley I think is going to be a shopalohic. All he wants to do is get to the markets. Today we will head out and look at the sites so their should photos coming soon

Lisa

London

We are back in London, actually Greenwich. The unit we is great. separate bedrooms for the boys and us. We feel like we have a lot of space. The area itself is a little rough. However, good for the boys to see all sorts of life. We have decided to take the rest of the trip pretty easy. Today we went and saw The Lord of the rings theatre show in London. This was very good and the boys liked it as well. Tomorrow we are going to see Spamalot. A London production based on some Monty Python films. As you could imagine the boys are excited. Personally I will wait and see.

Not a lot of photos as we are not really sight seeing at the moment. The boys are definitly over any sighting seeing and for us it has to be something very different. We are quite enjoying just looking around at the different type of life.

We leave for Thailand on Tuesday. I am sure there will be more photos again.

Lisa

Disneyland

Paris_Eiffel Tower

Carcassonne

Carcasonne

We have arrived in Carcasonne. It has an amazing history. If you get the chance there is a book out at the moment by Kate Mosse called Labrinyth. A really good read and story, however, throughout it give a lot of history without seeming like a text book. An easy read.

Carcasonne is lovely. We are staying at a lovely hotel. We decided to get a nice room as we had been so cramped for a week. The boys have enjoyed the freedom to stay in the hotel if we decide to go for a walk. We are only a five minute walk to the walls of Carcassone. They are both tired and are over ruins castle and anything to do with history. However, they are in for a treat for the next two days. http://www.futuroscope.com . The park sounds amazing. Have a look at the web site.

Tuesday

Woke up to much rain and it looked very set in. Decided to travel to some caves. On the way the rain cleared, so we stopped along the way for a walk around fairy chimneys (similar to the ones in Turkey, but sandy and no-one living inside them.) Went into the caves not expecting too much (after the cave we saw in Ireland), but it was really impressive. After the cave, the weather was great so we went into the near by town Villafrenche and looked around. A beautiful old town with mountains on all sides some still with traces of snow on them. Although the town is a tourist town now, it still had a lovely feel.
Came home to find our toilet still not fixed. The plumbers were arriving at 8.30am. We meet the Scottish family holidaying upstairs when went to borrow a plunger. They were alao having the same trouble. Apparantely with all the rain the small towns sewage was not coping.
After dinner we went to a local restaurant/bar to watch France play Italy on a knockout game of the Euro cup. We were expecting all the locals to be out doing like wise, but the only ones that seemed interested were us and the Scottish and the Bar man. Italy won 2-0.

The boys walked home early in different directions, but it is a small village. Lisa went home shortly afterwards to check on the boys and I stayed and drunk pints and a wee dram of scotch with my new best friends from Glasgow.

Cheers

Rob

France

France so far has been an adventure. After Ireland for nearly 4 weeks and becoming lazy with an English speaking country and relatives to tell us everything we were back into thinking mode again. We arrived at Toulouse airport France with no dramas. Then began the thinking again and deciphering signs and trying to figure out where our luggage would come from. Finally arrived at belt 3 and waited and waited and waited for luggage. The only relief was half the plane was waiting for their luggage as well. While I was doing the luggage thing, Rob was organising a hire car. After all the discussions and ready to pay both our visa cards were declined. None of the car companies take cash. Managed to ring Australia Commonwealth bank, to find out that they were doing maintenance. and we would not be able to use our card for up to another 4 hours. While having a small panic attack, Rob was ringing hotels near the airport for us to stay at. Our luggage had arrived by this time although we had to wait for another flight to get their luggage first. Just before we went to book the hotel Rob had chosen, Rob went to the car rental to check one last time if the cards were active again. Hooray, maintenance had finished. We hired the car and of we went to our place in the hills of the Peyreneens. We finally arrived about 10.30pm. We had arrived at the airport at approx 4.30pm. All in all only a very small disaster.

The apartment we have is basically a granny flat underneath another place. Very small. We had to do a lot of creative storing of clothes etc, including, the use of the back of the car. just so we could have a bit of room.
There will be no lazing around this place for a day, we would drive each other nuts. Or should I stay the boys would have great fun driving us crazy.

On Monday we set out to look at two old defence castle. Both were a short drive of here. In fact one could walk to one chateaux from this town. Only if you had good walking shoes etc. Both were fantastic and the views from the top was amazing. Both had good hill climb to get to the top. Good exercise consisting the lack of activity we had in Ireland. Rob and I both had wobbly legs by the end of the day from all the steps. As a Scottish person had written in the visitors book OHS has not yet reach France. He was very correct. In Australia also this type of site would have railing everywhere and concreted steps etc. It would have taken away from the beauty of the place, however I am sure there are many injuries each week.

Dublin

We went into Dublin today. We are staying at Rob's cousin house, Mary (Casey) and Paschal. We did a viking bus tour. Also meet up for lunch with another cousin Lucy (Cummins). This was lovely. Unfortunatly, she had to work, so only caught up for lunch. Also visited a museum about Medieval and viking history. Overall a good day. They boys are enjoying hanging out with more biy cousins who are similiar ages.

Mirrir Mirror

mirror mirror on the wall, who is the ugliest of them all

Birthday Update

My 40th birthday has been a fantastic day. Began with a sleep in at Trish and Brian’s place in Galway (they were away but we had spent the night before there with them and aunties May and Carmel). Eamon made me some beautiful scrambled eggs, then we packed up and went into Salthill (the main seaside strip of Galway Bay). We blew at least 60 Euro at a games arcade having a great time. We then headed into the heart of Galway and wandered through the pedestrian malls, enjoying the sunshine and the shopping. Chose a pub at random for lunch which turned out to be one of the most amazing interiors I’ve ever seen (the Skeff hotel). After a lovely feed we rambled our way back to the car and set sail for our home base about 2.5 hours away. We checked out some local hotels for live music tonight, but the few that have it are starting a little late and I’m feeling pretty settled in after a few Carlsberg’s. We have been flying kites that Trish bought the boys and watching movies/tv since getting back to base (still a real treat for the boys after Spain and extensive relative visiting here in Ireland).
Thanks for the birthday texts, emails etc. Thanks Bert and Rach for your present; I think I’ll put it towards buying a camping swag when I get home. The shirt you gave me Dee and the Irish jersey from Carmel and Liam are my new favourites and have seen plenty of daylight already.
We have a few more days here before we head to Dublin to catch up with the 2 Mary’s (nee Casey and Toohey) and Lucy Cummins. Hope you all are happy and well’
Cheers
Rob

Robert turns 40

Don't you just love the hat? Funny thing is it actually suits him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROBBIE

LOVE LISA, RILEY AND EAMON

Visiting more relatives in Galway

On Friday we travelled to Galway to visit Trish (Rob’s Cousin) and Brian. Rob’s aunties (May- Bernie’s sister who lives in Ireland and Carmel- Bernie’s sister who is visiting from Australia) were visiting as well.
We had a lovely dinner out with everyone. Trish and Brian had given the boys a kite each. They both loved the kites; however Eamon was busting to go fly his kite straight away(Which of course we did). The next morning we went to the beach and flew the kites again. They both did very well. In the afternoon we went to the movies. We thought we would try to something a bit normal, have a break from the tourist thing and the sights. The boys wanted to see the Indiana Jones movie. The boys liked the movie. From an adult point of view, it is one of the worst movies I have seen lately. It was so bad you could only laugh.

Burren

This is thousands of years old and still does not leak. It is in the middle of property, although fenced off.

Another day was towards a place called the Burren. We went to the Ailwee caves. These were nice, but once you have seen Jenolan caves, most caves do not compare. Part of the complex also has a bird of prey enclosure. When we arrived, we were able to get the second half of a bird display. Eamon was lucky enough to be selected to feed the bird. The enclosure had some amazing owls. The burren area itself is amazing.
There is rock everywhere. It looks so barren; you would not think it is part of Ireland.