Sticking with the theme of Thailand which I have certainly been thinking a lot about the past few days if not writing about it here is a video of Katie in Pai in the northern part of Thailand. This video holds a particularly special sentimental value as we went to Pai on a whim as I’d been told the food was good, and wherever there is good food I’m there! We also were shown the most tremendous amount of hospitality there when Katie and I found ourselves at 10:30pm totally starving with no bed for the night and two lovely local guesthouse owners and a bunch of friends on holiday from Bangkok for the weekend helped us out. I will be writing about what happened in Pai when I was nearly floored in amazement at the kindness of strangers as part of the ‘It’s Not What You Do – It’s Who You Meet‘ series.
I’ve been feeling like a fish pulled out of the sea and dumped on to strange land. Since the Uruguayans arrived Spanish has been the main language in the apartment. Everyone has been speaking Spanish, including the long-term French couchsurfer Lison, and another French couchsurfer and her English friend who were here last week. They all speak Spanish which is fine, I understand that, but I don’t. I know enough to say that I do or don’t like something, or order food in a restaurant, and make myself understood in day-to-day life. But I can’t hold a conversation and I am unable to pick up on a thread of what they are saying so I can at least try and figure out the topic. Continue reading →
Dinner in West Hollywood with my couchsurfing hosts, Pattie and Garrett
Our first stop in the U.S. leg of our trip was L.A. It was also where we had our best couchsurfing experience. We surfed with a wonderful family, Pattie, Garrett and their daughter Shea.
It was a mixed bag arriving in the U.S. It was mine and Katies’ favourite country (though now it’s a close run thing between the U.S. and Mexico) and so we decided to end our trip there, making it the last country of our trip and having a grand finale in New York, our favourite city, before flying home to the UK. However things had changed and it turned out that it wasn’t our last country but we didn’t know that when we arrived. We were excited at finally having arrived but sad, knowing, or at least at the time thinking, we would be going home soon. Continue reading →
Katie with some of her new friends on a day out with the summer camp
There is actually one more week of summer camp but as we are moving to Oaxaca this weekend Katie will be missing it, so for her last week was her last week. Unfortunately she will be missing the end of camp show next week and won’t be able to appear in it but I am sure in a city as large as Oaxaca that there will be other summer camps that will still be running for another week or two that I can enroll her in.
The summer camp here has been amazing find for us, Katie has had a wonderful time and as already mentioned in this blog it has been the first time for her since leaving England when she has been able to regularly interact with other children. Continue reading →
A lovely Thai girl we met, shame about the blonde in the front!
Aurelie, the couchsurfer who stayed with Ana and I three weeks ago, who we went to Teotihuacan with, returned on Wednesday briefly before going to the airport for her flight back to France.
She was talking about her experiences in S.E. Asia and the usual stereotype of Thailand being the ‘Land of Smiles’ came up. She told of being on a bus and strangers insisting on sharing their fruit and of how friendly, and, well, smiley everyone was. But is Thailand really the land of smiles? Continue reading →
Two Uruguayan couchsurfers, Pablo and Michaela, arrived last week. I took them to the Zocalo in the heart of the Centro Historico, in the exact same way, Lison, a French couchsurfer, had taken Katie and I on our first day in Mexico City.
I took a slightly different route once we got off the bus, walking down a road that ran parallel to the one we usually take. We passed a bakery and Michaela wanted to look at the pastries, however, much to our delight we ended up walking into a veritable confectionary wonderland. I have never seen such cakes, some towering higher than six feet tall and over 110 kgs! Continue reading →
Lillia tucking into a taco in Reforma, Mexico City
Ok, if you think the title of this thread is weird, you should have tried being in my shoes yesterday!
I went back to Reforma on Monday morning to see if I could find the restaurant where I met Liilia in case she was there again. Now it is one thing when you don’t know an area and you stumble on a place, it’s not so easy when you try to find that exact place again. After walking in circles for nearly an hour I found the restaurant and true enough, Lillia was in her usual spot watching people pass by and engaging a young French student and a Spanish guy in conversation. Continue reading →
I found this fantastic educational game online the other day while browsing through the internet. It is a great introduction for children to culinary etiquette from several countries around the world. It’s called Don’t Gross Out The World and Katie loved it. It’s a cute way to introduce children to other countries, purely for education, fun or in preparation for a trip.
Couchsurfing Meet in Kota Kinabalu, Borneo. This is one of my favourite photos of the entire trip.
I found a great new blog today run by an American ex-pat who has been living in the UK for the past nineteen years. Michelle is running a series about How to Learn to Love the Host Culture and in the ninth article she talks about how to be a good guest. It is one of the most comprehensive guides I have come across, even more comprehensive than the guide I have read on Couchsurfing‘s own site. The blog and article is aimed at ex-pats but it can be applied when couchsurfing too. Continue reading →
When I travelled to Mexico I decided to forego carrying around a heavy guidebook which had been one of the biggest trials of the trip. When someone told me that I could just purchase and download only the chapters I required from Lonely Planet’s website I thought I would give that a shot for this leg of the trip. It has been ideal, rather than spend the full amount for a book, when we wouldn’t be needing half of it as Mexico is a huge country and we will not be travelling all around it, I ended up saving money and I don’t have the pain in the neck of hauling a big book around with me.
