Sasa & Mato around the world

The flight to Cape Town was not too bad, since we managed to sleep the most of the trip

Everyone is surprised, why we loved going to South Africa so much... Well, go there, and you will see What a lovely place to go! Maybe having our great friends there helped a bit too, but the country itself is pretty amazing!

The first time ever, after such a long flight, we dropped our bags and left to town without even trying to shower - GROSS! Way too excited to be with the guys we worked with, to see the little university town called Stellenbosch and just BE in Africa! It took us few days to actually believe it, since it has been our dream for a while. We were pretty tired, so had a bit of trouble to even remember first few hours there... Didn't take too long to have a famous national BRAAI, which everyone else calls BBQ. All that food and beer and wine... jet lag... we managed to shower finally and hit the night streets of University Town. Too overwhelming for someone so tired. Too much experience for such a short time
If that wasn't enough, we didn't even know, how many hours of traveling in car we had ahead of us! Our friends had a wedding in Knysna/Brenton on Beach and 4 of us decided to drive there for 6 hours. BREATHTAKING 70% of the Garden Route. We just just made it to Bachelor/ette night, so we dropped our bags once again - but this time we showered too )) The parties were awesome and the best part was to merge these two parties into one )

Knysna is a cute town with some cafes and shops and malls.... So if you don't go surfing to the Buffalo Bay, you may as well do a bit of shopping

THE WEDDING-was absolutely cool. The bride looked like a princess, groom was all smart and a bit nervous The wedding venue was called Villa Castolini - Brenton on the Beach and everything to the last detail was perfect. Just like one wedding should be.... fun fun fun...

Since few of us were busy next few days, we had to go back... and to Stellenbosch to explore a bit more. Lovely guest house was our home for few days (a bit better than a house of 5 guys/students). This area is very famous for its wine routes all over the place, so we went to taste some wine. Did a trip to few of them, tasted wines of all kinds and maybe got a bit tipsy ) Never thought how exhausting it is to do a wine tasting. Something must be done right if you bring few bottles home.

Being in Africa makes you very curious about the animals - of course.... So as we downloaded a SA App, we read about the Lion Sanctuary that was near us. What an experience This is a retirement home for abused lions from all over the world and this is the place, where we found out, how cruel people can be... awful things they do to these animals... Terrible... many of them hate people and other lions because of their trauma from before... Just crazy!!!! And very sad... but makes u think... and hopefully a better person... The worst part of it is, that we are not educated enough about all this cruelty around the world.. and it is not too difficult to help...

The next stop was the Cheetah Outreach, where they started few programs to save cheetahs and we were lucky to touch one for few seconds-lovely experience We also held some eagles and found out so much about them... What a great way to LEARN!!!

Our trip continued to Cape Town!!!! The very first attraction we didn't wanna miss was the Table Mountain - where we met our "just married" friends and their family Went up with a cable car, had a great view at the whole city, walked a bit.... Both of us love to do the "Sightseeing Tours" on big red busses So we hoped on and off at the Waterfront! Lovely place to spend a sunny day, have a lunch or dinner, do a bit of shopping, see some african dances, hear songs, buy souvenirs (overpriced or just walk around and soak the atmosphere!
On the bus we got a chance to see the best of the city and we split it to 2,5 days. Very interesting was South African Museum, The Castle of good hope, Gold Museum...
Also didn't miss out on stories from Robben Island, where we took a trip as well. Place for political prisoners... One of the most famous prisons, the one, where Nelson Mandela spent years of his life. Terrible racism and big differences were going on at the time... and we went in, got a feeling... All the countries were mentioned in the stories by our tour guide. The place is deserted now, only visited by students and tourists and history writers....
If going to Western Cape, one of the MUST DO is Kirstenbosch Gardens, which are stunning!! We also went to the World of Birds and saw like hundreds of all kinds of birds!!! Some of them lovely, pretty, loud, ugly, colorful, beautiful,.... but all of them catch your eye.... The funniest experience was to play with little monkeys, that were jumping at people, trying to take stuff from them, or just hanging out... ) They are just like people, but smaller and cannot talk absolutely adorable!!!!
Finally we hired a car and took off again. Went to the Cape of good hope, where the view sucked :D couldn't see anything!Cape point and the Light house road... Since Martin loves his Lighthouses... Stayed in Bredasdorp in very pretty guesthouse Quiet location, which worked great for us after busy Cape Town. Booked the Shark Cage Diving for the next morning - which was fun! Martin went into 10'C water, but I like warm water, so maybe next time :D There was a 5m shark they haven't seen for months, so that was cool )
Another cool place is the Southernmost Point of Africa, where 2 oceans meet - and we went into actual Lighthouse in Cape Agulhas too
To keep our hearts beating, we also went to woods on Quads and got to see some wild baboons on the rocks + checked out some flowers ))
Since we liked Stellenbosch so much, we decided to spend our last 2 nights there. The best for the last... AQUILA SAFARI - never been so close to wild lions, zebras, elephants, buffalos, hippos,..... Luckily we got lost with our GPS and missed the first group trip, because we had a private ride around just 2 of us! It wasn't Kruger (this time) but we loved it!!!!
That would be the best way to finish the trip to South Africa... Our plans were a bit different, but we had the time of our lives there! Didn't like to say good bye again to our friends... but as Mandi says: "dont spend too long looking at the door closed behind you or you fail to see the doors opening in front of you ;o)"
And there it is.. new doors opening..... )

Finally we had a chilled morning before getting to the airport…
Usually we have to wake up like gazillion hours before our flight, since our home town is 3 – 5 hours from the international airports.. In Sydney we had 2 train stops… Our friend freaked us out about the visas to Thailand and how difficult it was supposed to be… It turns out, it wasn’t a mission at all… We got our pictures ready and once we made it to Bangkok, we applied for our Visas on Arrival. Well, if we were a bit smarter, we could have done it at home and have them for 3 months… the tourist ones on arrival are just for 15 days.. oops… Luckily we got all the information about over staying and very nice lady on the counter said to go to embassy in town and apply or just overstay and pay a fee of 500 Baht a day.. SWEET!!! No jail :D
Once we have done all the immigration annoyance, we were pleasantly surprised to be offered great deals on day tours, trips, etc… These guys celebrate like all the holidays form all over the world, so we were pretty stoked… Chinese New Year gave us a great and most importantly CHEAP tour around the Bangkok. Private TOUR! Normally you pay about 100 EUR, but we got to pay only 15!!!! CRAZY COOL!!! Our tour guide was there only for two of us, so we could ask her anything we wanted to know about Bangkok/Thailand. If you ever go to Bangkok, your trip isn’t completed unless you see WAT TRIMIT (The Temple of Solid Gold Buddha), WAT PO (The Temple of the Reclining Buddha) and WAT BENCHAMABOPIT (The Marble Temple). That day we also managed to go on the boat and see the city from the water in canal. It is pretty amazing, how these people live their simple lives…They swim and bath in the dirtiest water we have ever seen.. Well, as long as it works for them… ☺ You also get to see them doing their laundry, getting stuff ready for the market…
We drove (well not really us, but a driver) past salt fields and rice paddies… Went to check out their very famous Floating Market, Elephant show, Crocodile show, Cobra show, and also we experienced a beautiful tropical garden, which they have developed into a typical Thai Village. There was a show which included folk dances, Thai wedding ceremony, famous Thai boxing… It was pretty interesting ☺ To top our day and exhaust ourselves totally, we went to a Calypso Cabaret show with LADY BOYS ☺ Those “girls” are so pretty… :D
That was our short visit of Bangkok! Next stop was Phuket… The flight wasn’t that long… We already had a guy booked to pick us up, so he drove us to the MOST AMAZING BOUTIQUE HOTEL called Sawasdee Village… The whole place was like a little dream/heaven. Especially the location was like a joke. You wouldn’t even notice this place on this busy – smelly street. (Smell is one thing you need to deal with… EVERYWHERE)
And again, trying to see where were, we managed to get a guy who was driving us in an old MEREDES around Phuket. Real fun ☺ View point, Cashew factory, Jewelry Factory, Souvenir Shop, Fun park, DENTIST (orthodontist in Phuket is awesome!! I got the prettiest elastics ever ☺ ) What you really wanna do in Thailand is getting massages, manicure, pedicure, relax on the beach, drink cocktails… And that’s exactly what we have done there. Here and there a little bit of shopping – dirty CHEAP! Also one needs to be bloody careful there, so many idiots riding scooters and they are just too retarded… I almost got my hand fucked off by an idiot, that doesn’t know, how to use breaks…. ALSO, everyone is trying to sell you a suit, massage, tuk tuk…. Every single day they see you and offer the same shit… Gets pretty annoying after 3 days of polite NO THANK YOU…
To complete our little mission of THAILAND MUST TO LIST, we have booked for a real Muay Thai Box. Got a ring side seats, so we had a pretty good view…. There was few groups.. from little boys to older guys… yeah… beating each other.. Some of the little boys also cried…-what is so cool about it???
After exhausting relaxing in Phuket we moved to Phi Phi Island. Unlucky us.. we chose the worst seats in FERRY… There was a group of Russians, about 2pm, WASTED!!!! Pissing me off from the beginning.. LONG STORY SHORT… 2 of them managed to get all our attention.. The girl was pissed… and was leaning over the guy.. wearing her bikini and just a top… as she leaned over, he decided to show us her VAGINA.. yes… and than to keep it more interesting (as if it wasn’t already), he actually started to finger her IN FRONT OF ALL THE PEOPLE, winking at Martin, saying COOL, HEY? Yeah, very cool.. looser!!! They had few rounds of moaning and “touching inappropriately”… HONESTLY PEOPLE!!!! So that’s how our trip to Phi Phi started…
Our accommodation was …. Alright… although we could imagine something better for the money we paid… but.. SHIT HAPPENS…. As we were so disappointed we had a need to drink a LOT OF BEER… A LOT! And few buckets ☺
We also spent our Valentine’s Day there… wouldn’t even know.. NOTHING SPECIAL…They have all kinds of parties going on in bars, so we managed to see the fire show.. like every night :D
This island is overpopulated with CATS and kittens! They are so cute…. ☺ just hanging all over the place. Most of our days were about beaches and food ☺ Not a big fans of Thai Food (the joke is on us), but we managed to have some great dinners.
There is no cars or even roads on the island, all they use are TUK TUKS to bring your bags to your bungalow. You walk everywhere or take a bicycle. It is quite funny, because some resorts are only accessible by a boat and they are on the hills too!!! But there is no problem, long tail boats are everywhere and resort tuk tuks as well.
The night life was getting quieter every day, only few people are out after 10pm, restaurants and shops close by 10pm too. There is a loud music at some places, but we must have been “lucky” to come at a quiet time…
Our bungalow has been shared with loud geckos, that were pretty annoying, sometimes some stupid insects would come in… yeah.. at least we had a sea view! Did I mention, we have flushed one gecko?? :D
We also took a long tail boat for 6 hours to see both PP islands, went to “THE BEACH” – Maya Bay, fed monkeys on the Monkey Island, Swam with some beautiful fish ☺ Had a great day, even tho it was one of the roughest days on the sea :D OF COURSE…. Down side of this place is, there is WAY TOO MANY TOURISTS HERE.. OVERCROWDED…. It is almost impossible to find a quiet place which brings me to a very slow TIOLET SYSTEM, that has a trouble to “digest” everything and it SMELLS!!!!
But sure enough, we have had a great time, have seen a lot (even like the lowest low tide ever)… and another place to tick off ☺

New Zealand was so much fun! After such a long time we have done something absolutely different to our usual schedule, which worked just fine ☺

Once we have said our last good bye to Christchurch, it didn’t shake just our hand, but the whole bloody airport!!! Stupid earth quake is the last thing you need @ 5am… So after all that nostalgic time we were pretty happy to leave ☺ (just kidding)

Lucky for us, we have a friend in Sydney and she sent us a manual for idiots – How to get to train station for dummies… ☺ We made it to the station we were supposed to and she was ready to show us the city! (at least the most important part of it…) Once we had a bit of an idea, what and where, we went to buy a universal train/bus/ferry ticket and we were using it the whole time in Sydney… We have managed to do all the fun parts, like Climbing the Bridge, Helicopter ride, Sky Tower, Wild life park (loved koalas, hated spiders, snakes and insects), Ocean world, Maritime museum, parks, beaches….

We also met with our very good friend, which was a great fun too!!! (Miss her already)… Got to meet great people…. And even if we didn’t really get to travel Australia, we have definitely done the best in Sydney.

Our stay could be described as an endless walk around the city. We have walked every single day, even if it was the hottest time of the summer. Of course.. We went to Coogee Beach, and also did a famous walk to the Bondi Beach, which was absolutely stunning. We had a great sunny day with heaps of breeze and that was very much appreciated ☺ We did it with our friend from back home and a friend from Sydney. ☺
One of the fun things to do in Sydney is definitely the Bridge climb!! So worth your money and also a great view with some stories about bridge involved (.
Another MUST DO is a Helicopter ride. As we are lucky, it was just two of us for one helicopter, had a great weather and the whole Sydney underneath us… breath taking…
Another dream to come true…. KOALAS… Wild life park gives you a chance to experience all kinds of horrible snakes, spiders, the biggest roach on the planet.. but after all this, you get to pat a Koala and have a picture taken with it.. Being from Europe… you only get to see these lazy creatures only in TV, so it is as awesome to see them as seeing SKIPPY ☺
We have also experienced the Australia Day… big fire works, parties and bbq everywhere.. definitely great celebrations!
When in Sydney, don’t ever miss the biggest IMAX 3D theatre!! We actually went there like 4 times ☺
If you don’t have to, don’t even bother going to the Ocean World in Manly-it SUCKS big time, choose the Sydney Aquarium instead… But in Manly there is a great opportunity to walk on the massive beach and you have a great view point there too. Both of us love to have a look from the tallest buildings (haha, just kidding, Martin hates it), we also went to the Sydney Sky Tower ☺ U can also have a dinner there, while you move slowly and watch the night lights of the city.
Overall we had a great time… Even a crying baby of our friend couldn’t spoil it ☺ ☺
Since we didn’t have so much time in Australia, we chose to see one place and we did a good choice ☺

Thailand is our next STOP!!! Pretty excited!!!!!

Very early morning again, to catch 2 hour flight to Christchurch… Once we landed, we hoped to find a hotel (of course we did) :D The information centre offered us the best deal ever in the center of Christchurch for a price, that you just cannot say NO to… Once checked in, we went to celebrate such a win to a pub with few glasses of wine and fish and chips!!!
Christchurch is pretty amazing… there is no doubt about English influence that breaths from everywhere, especially streets and parks, where we took a nice walks. There is this great restaurant we had dinner at.. Called BANGALORE POLO CLUB – definitely have to go there, when u make it to CH-CH. The funny part of this place is, that you get peanuts in shells and when u peel them, you just throw the shells on the floor – HOW COOL IS THAT??????? ☺ Crazy place ☺
The south is really different to the north, because up in Auckland you see mostly Asian places, Asian food and the whole place gives you the idea of Australasia ☺ Down here you definitely feel like in England!!! (never been there, but I can tell you for sure)
So there was THE BIG DAY!!! After wonderful breakfast we needed to leave a luxury hotel to pick our SPACESHIP up!!! And an adventure could BEGIN!!!!
Of course we were a bit worried, because we have never done such a road trip and certainly we have never slept in a car. It took us a while to escape from the big city of Christchurch, since our GPS was in DUTCH LANGUAGE!!!! We fixed it.. but there is another WEIRD THING.. these people drive on a WRONG SIDE of the road!!! :D Haha
You get used to it in 9 hours… We have seen South Alps – breath taking.. and all the lakes and rivers.. wow… Shame, we didn’t get to see the MT. COOK.. It was really bad weather and overcast…. Our first trip took us to Queenstown, where we headed straight to TOP 10 HOLIDAY PARK, where they had last place for us!!!! We were pretty lucky… The first night in the car>>>>>>excuse my language… FUCKING COLD!!!!!!!!! It was 3 degrees Celsius thank you very much!!!!! We survived ☺ ☺ ☺
The next morning we took a bit of a walk, went to see the town and booked some activities (Skippers Canyon Jet Boat and Milford Sound). Jet boat was pretty amazing… they showed us the old skippers road in Queenstown – one way road….not maintained at all…and really high…and scary.. On our way down we had about 0,5m on one side of the bus and on the other side there was just big hole! If our driver wasn’t as good as he was, I don’t think you would be reading this now ☺ At the place of happening we got life jackets and we were ready to JET!!! We had no clue what to expect, the fear was a bit stronger than it should have been, but it was just silly feeling beforehand… DEFINITELY WORTH THE MONEY!!! Once we finished, we picked the biggest/flattest stone we could find… and we went to the first BUNGEE BRIDGE in the world to throw it down 79m! We actually made a wish, before we chucked it down, so HOPE IT WILL WORK...
The next day we had another early morning, so we were ready to take another day tour. On our way to Milford Sound we stopped in Te Anau and we checked cool Mirror Lakes-wow-spectacular!!!! In Milford sound we boarded on a boat and took about 1,5 hour cruise around the fjord. The wind was blowing around 100 km/hour, which didn’t look cool at all. On our way back we got a chance to get into a waterfall that will make you look10 years younger once you get splashed by it! We actually got really wet and next morning we looked just about the same as the day before, so this tale was a bull shit :D
The longest day ever was ahead of us!! About 13 hours of driving from Queenstown to Westport. We made a stop at Puzzling Town in Wanaka , which was pretty interesting and cool and we also stopped at the Fox Glacier – amazing place… I actually got to drive for the first time… You wouldn’t be able to put a needle up my bum… We enjoyed a sunset on the west coast . Since we didn’t book anything, we always hoped for the best and for the place to park our little house ☺ As it seems, we were pretty lucky, because every time we had a camp ready for us and the owners were waiting with their arms spread and red carpet and so… ☺ ☺ ☺
On our way to Nelson we have stopped at the Seal Colony place where we could see a bunch of seals hanging out on the rocks… Took a few pictures and ran back to the car, because it started to piss down a lot…. Again… We also went to the biggest swing bridge in NZ.
Little walk in Nelson made us think, there is not really much to do there.. Maybe because it was pretty late or it is just not happening right now… Many of the locals were telling us, the season isn’t as busy as usually…
Hanmer Springs didn’t keep us cool ☺ Especially the road, that actually brings you there… 10 000 serpentines, when even a driver gets sick while driving… The raining morning told us to go to the HOT SPRING POOLS!! 2 hours in a hot pools, while it is raining at you is an awesome time ☺ We actually really enjoyed it, because it was one of the few days we just relaxed… It was great times for sure…
2000 kilometers later, after seeing amazing-breath taking country side of New Zealand, we are back to Christchurch getting ready for our next little journey to Australia. It has been awesome 9 days in our little sleeper van, and we were a bit sad too, when we had to return it… Thanx to our spaceship, we got to see the most beautiful scenery, that we knew only from pictures, magazines and TV. Both of us did a great job not to kill each other and we are excited to see our friends in AUSTRALIA!!! All this needed to be celebrated, so we had a nice bottle of wine and went to the movies ☺ BYE NEW ZEALAND!!!!! It was great meeting you!!!
NOTE: The weather has been really funny... sunny, cold, hot, rainy, windy... we actually got to see all of it ) We also met bunch of nice people and we can tell you for sure, this is the way to do it!!!! And don't be shy to do it for longer than us!!! Next time, it will be at least a double of time )

Once we finally came to Auckland, we went to check in to the hotel… Since our room wasn’t ready yet, as we arrived really early, we have put our bags away on the reception… Martin was getting his stuff from the bag and he managed to BREAK… and when I say break, I mean to tiny little pieces… like million of them….his cover on camera lens!!! Both of us almost got heart attack, but lucky Martin has another one ☺
We tried to spend our time wisely while waiting, so we decided to go to the SKY TOWER! Elevator took us to the Main Observation Level 186m/610ft. The view was just STUNNING! We could see about 80km around if we were lucky enough to have a good weather… instead we had a bit of everything. Rain, sun, overcast, ….On the very top, which is about 220m /722ft we had a bit of view, but there is definitely missing a glass floor, as they have on the main level ☺ That is pretty cool… Than we walked around a bit, but got really tired, so we went back to hotel and had a LITTLE NAP… well.. we planned a little one… ☺ hope 18 hours of sleep wont leave any kind of damage on us :D We woke up next morning at around 6!!! With a little break at 1am-our neighbors were a little loud…
Just so you know, the SKY TOWER is the tallest man made structure in New Zealand, lifts go as fast as 18km/h and you definitely don’t want to take stairs to the main level ☺ it is 1029 of them!!!!
So now that we slept enough, we had to do something and the HOP ON –HOP OFF BUS is never a bad idea… We went to all the coolest places in Auckland… The best out of all of them was definitely the AUCKLAND MUSEUM, where you get a chance to get the idea of the history and present of New Zealand, they show you the art, bugs, animals… everything you should know about it. We also took a Satellite Bus to few places, but the great one was MT EDEN-what a view!!!! Volcanoes and Craters.. Welcome to NEW ZEALAND!!! Kind of tiring day, so after dinner we pretty much just fell to bed ☺ (of course we did) There is plenty to see and to do in Auckland, and such a short time.. We managed to see a bit of the city, but you get tired of it, so we booked a trip to ROTORUA… What a cute little village!!!! I don’t know, how we do it, but this one was pretty early one ☺ They picked us up at 6.30 am and there was few more people to take a tour with us. The bus was full (read 8people + driver). There was an old couple from Australia, and together they probably had around 187 years of age-they were in charge of AC in van – HOLLY SHIT, THAT WAS A COLD RIDE!!! Than we had an Australian guy (not very clever) – most likely single, he was hitting on the most annoying Polish girl and those two had the worst meaningless conversation the whole time!!!!! (for example – HIM: how do you make those pictures so small??? Asking about pics on some business card… HER: I don’t know, company printed them out like that… OMG, did I tell you I was everywhere in the world already???).. We also shared the van with a girl from Brasil, she came to NZ to study English,… and a British woman, that couldn’t stop talking to our originally German driver…
Rotorua is an old town with HOT SPRINGS and we actually went to their very original village called Te Whakarewarewatanga O Te Ope Taua A Wahiao. They have muds there and thermal waters, they use for cooking and bathing… We got to see a little show-songs and dances of old Maoris, heard few stories, had an original Maori lunch and went off to see some KIWI BIRDS!! Yes, they exist… but I would probably pass on that one (had to drive forever to see 2 of them…) We also went to watch some people ZORBING (for those of you, that have no idea what I am on about.. google it :D … haha… it is a big plastic/rubbery ball you crawl into and you go down hill in that ball for 15 seconds… )
It was a long day, and we hardly have seen any sheeps!!!! But I can tell you, they have like a million cows… There are farms everywhere!!! Milk, cheese, milk, cheese, milk….. Ok… there was like 7 sheeps, but that’s it! ☺ We had a great time in stinky Rotorua and also on the road.. The guide was pretty funny and we enjoyed every little bit of our day.
That would be our NORTH EXPERIENCE ☺
We have already started to work on our SOUTH PART OF THE STORY, SO STAY TUNED!!!!!
NOTE: White T-shirts don’t make you look any good on pictures if you’re a bit overweight as in my case… Just remember it… ☺