urbaneer: Forward to the past: A day of winter amidst time travel to Tahiti

Vientiane - Bangkok - Sydney - Tahiti: 18 July - 22 July 2014

Leaving Vientiane on the overnight train to Bangkok was probably one of the train journeys we slept on the least thanks to lots of noisy stops through the night disturbing our slumber. We arrived in Bangkok early in the morning and checked into the Shanghai Mansion in Chinatown. After a little snooze and tasty Dim Sum, the first since the day we left HK, we ventured out and finally made it into the Royal Palace. We had an unsuccessful attempt in one of our previous visits. As Bangkok was our ‘last’ Asian destination Ian declared the temple a ‘good final Wat as far as Wats go’ – he was right – it was very pretty. We then stopped off at the Khao San Road to see what had changed since Ian’s last visit 14 years ago. It has gentrified significantly with the big-name fast-food joints now represented but still has enough of the eateries, bars and market stalls to retain its backpackery flavour. We then headed to our favourite Bangkok restaurant, the ‘Erawan Tea Room’ near Central World Mall. In a stroke of luck Central World mall provided both replacement phone batteries and a rain jacket for Astrid, after rigorous tests under the shower it seems to be an improvement over the previous edition!

The next day we flew to Sydney on the red eye flight. We checked into our budget accommodation in St.Peters, a strange and almost deserted nowheresville near Sydney airport, and headed straight back out for sight-seeing as Astrid had not visited to Sydney before. We took the obligatory photos of the Harbour Bridge behind us, marvelled at the Opera house, wandered around ‘the rocks’, ate by the waterfront and strolled through the Botanical gardens. There were many people out running and exercising for a seemingly normal Monday! All in all a very nice day in a beautiful, sunny but cold wintery city.

Early in the morning of the 22^nd of July we headed back to the airport to catch the flight to Auckland. From there we flew in the afternoon onward to Tahiti where we landed in the evening of the 21^st of July. We arrived the day before we left. We mastered time travel! Crossing the dateline is a funny thing J For us in 2014 we will have had two July 21^sts and 22^nds. We relived the 22^nd of July by waking up in our beachside bungalow in Tahiti. The second 22^nd July ’14 was definitely more enjoyable than the first!

Train ride: