Golden Monkey of the best country :
It has to be a tie between Laos, New Zealand, Tonga and Bolivia ... fantastic places where we would love to go back.
Special Monkey of the Jury of the best country :
We are still quite (extremely) fond of Australia!
Golden Monkey of the best food :
China, without a doubt, for diversity, cheapness and abundance (food is EVERYWHERE!)
Silver Monkey of the best food :
Street stalls around the world : Bahn Mi (baguette sandwiches) in Vietnam, Rotis in Malaysia, Empanadas in South America... cheap, cheerful, and as fresh as it comes!
Golden Monkey of the most breathtaking moment :
Puerto Madryn, Argentina, where we watched some whales splashing around a few metres away from the beach... unbeatable...
Silver Monkey of the most breathtaking moment :
The Milford Sound, New Zealand, where after 4 hours of driving in torrential rain the clouds parted just as we reached our destination to let a single ray of light in and create the most amazing black and white scenery.
Bronze Monkey of the most breathtaking moment :
Another cloud story... Machu Picchu in the thickest fog, which dissipated itself just as we reached the lookout at the top of Waina Picchu!
Golden Monkey of the near death experience :
The ferry from Tongatapu to Eua, Tonga... the worse bit was when all the locals started singing hymns. We were all mentally typing our wills!
Silver Monkey of the near death experience :
Buses in Andean countries... especially the trip from Villazon to Uyuni, Bolivia, and all the buses in Ecuador. They were all in the nail-biting/hair-raising category.
Bronze Monkey of the near death experience :
A 500 metre trip on a motorcycle taxi in Beijing, China : the driver loaded us and all our gear on the tiny platform at the back of his moped and proceded to ignore a red light and cross a dual carriageway driving on the wrong side of the road to drop us off at the train station...!
Golden Monkey of the best train trip :
The Transmongolian across Russia, Mongolia and China... Six days of first class treatment whilst watching the silver birches, lake Baikal and yurts drift past... fantastic...
Silver Monkey of the best train trip :
In Vietnam, from the Chinese border near Sapa to Hanoi, 12 hours to go 200 km, following the red river, the banana plantations and rice paddies, and sampling all the delicacies and snacks sold by the hawkers walking through the carriages.
Bronze Monkey of the best train trip :
The Ghan and the Indian Pacific in Australia : top notch comfort across the Australian deserts.
Golden Monkey of the craziest trip :
Mount Ringwood Station, Australia, where the only way to cross the river which had cut the access road (in typical wet season style) was to cross it in the tractor : 6 people and a dog in the cabin... a tight squeeze and a memorable few minutes!
Silver Monkey of the craziest trip :
From Sihanoukville, Cambodia, to Bangkok, Thailand. 18 hour trip on 6 buses, two barges, on foot, and in car and motorcycle taxis. We reached Bangkok at half past midnight, our rucksacks infused with fish juice, only to find out that all the hostels were full!
Bronze Monkey of the craziest trip :
A boat trip from Siem Reap to Battambang, Cambodia. It was the dry season and the water level was rather low... for most of the 10 hour trip we were slaloming between weed patches as the bottom of the boat was scraping on the riverbed.
Golden Monkey of the best hotel room :
Yangshuo, China : a room with balcony, marble bath suite with the biggest shower head you have ever seen, tv and dvd player, for about 7 pounds a night!We ended up staying a week, and Pete pretended to be ill so he could stay in bed all day!
Silver Monkey of the best hotel room :
Sapa, Vietnam, a room with a huge terrasse/balcony overlooking the rice paddies covering the surrounding hills, for 5 dollars a night!
Golden Monkey of the best place in the world :
The island of Ko Tarotao, Thailand, almost deserted with its endless white beaches, its turquoise sea and its hordes of crab-eating macaques and spectacled langurs.
Golden Monkey of the worst place in the world :
Kunming, China, the bus station toilets. Just don't go there. And you even have to pay to use them!
Golden Monkey of the cheapest country :
Vietnam, by far : no "foreigner prices" like in Cambodia or Laos, tourism there is easy and affordable.
Golden Monkey of the most expensive country :
Australia, where prices have rocketed since we were last there, partly due to the massive mining boom going on these last few years in Oz.
Golden Monkey of the nicest people in the world :
All our friends in Australia who welcomed us with open arms, and the people of Tonga, the "friendly islands" according to Captain Cook!
Silver Monkey of the nicest people in the world :
Loads of people everywhere : a taxi driver in Xi'an, China, who taught me how to say "train station" in Mandarin ("hua-cha-zhan"), a left luggage attendant who kept our bags till past his knocking off time with a smile and for no money in Ji'nan, an English couple met in Sapa, Vietnam, with whom we shared travel anecdotes and a curry, a group of Vietnamese people who came to chat with me on Christmas day in Saigon, while I was waiting for Pete, a young man at the Angkor temples, who arranged a meal for us for 1/2 a dollar a head (25p!) in exchange for an opportunity to chat and practice his English, a National Park employee in Ko Adang, Thailand, who showed incredible patience whilst helping us to organise our departure for Malaysia, an Australian who helped us to get fit for the Overland Track in Tasmania, a Kiwi-Chilean couple we met in a remote hostel in Southern New Zealand who gave us tips about travelling in South America, our hostess in Eua, Tonga, who welcomed us in her hostel as though we were part of her family, the lovely Chilean girl who helped us with our Spanish on the freezing cold farm in Puerto Montt, the Argentinian family we stayed with in Bariloche who made us feel at home and encouraged us in our efforts with the language, our guides in the salar of Uyuni and Northern Chile, and especially our guide to Salkantay and Machu Picchu, who was a model of devotion and culture, and of course all those I have forgotten to mention!
Special Monkey of the Jury of the nicest people in the world :
All of you who followed us round the world via this blog, thank you so much for your support, comments, reactions and advice. Your encouragements helped us to persevere with the blog, and the trip! Thank you!
FAQs :
- Is it hard to come back to a "normal"life ?
Yes and no. We are glad to be back, to catch up with everyone and enjoy a bit of stability and comfort. However the lack of flexibility of our administrations, the cost of living and the ****y weather were quick to get on our nerves!
- Are you going to go travelling again soon ?
Not for a while (we seriously need to earn a bit of money, and settle down for a while) but travelling gave us ideas of other places we would love to visit one day. There are places we would like to go back to, or to explore a bit more in depth.... maybe one day....
- Do you use an automated translation webiste to translate the blog into english ?
Hmm.. no. Why? Because this is what it would give you:
I n' do not dare to imagine what a kind of translation Ca would give! mine n' is not perfect but at least Ca should be about comprehensible!
that meant : I can't imagine what sort of a translation it would come up with. Mine isn't perfect but at least it is (hopefully) understandable! (actually the website translation wasn't as bad as I had anticipated... may be I shouldn't have bothered doing it myself!)
If you have any more questions please pass them on!
So there we are, the end of an adventure. We are going to try hard and remenber all these wonderful moments, and also all these people who aren't as lucky as us : the mothers who work 12 hour days with their babies tied to their back, all these people who aren't allowed to express their opinions for feared of being jailed or worse, those who have to save for months to afford a bus ticket to the nearest town, and those who will never leave the village they were born in, but who may be touched by modern life in the form of busloads of tourists or petrodollars... And the day we start to think that Europe is a rubbish place to live in we will have to go and see elsewhere again to remind ourselves of how lucky we actually are!
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