All the Parisian shiny things

A thick line of traffic welcomed us to the outskirts of Paris. We crawled our way into the central city and marvelled as we drove by Notre Dame, Place de le Bastille, Arc de Tromphe and the beautiful sparkling Eiffel Tower. No matter how overrated I thought Paris would be, the Eiffel Tower took my breath away.

We checked into the best hostel we stayed in, St. Christopher's and grabbed a cider and a bite to eat. We had an early check out in the morning, and walked to our next hostel which was this strange hippie hostel/ bar run by a guy stuck in the 90's. 

Paris called for typical tourism, so we headed for Notre Dame and met up with two Aussies we'd met in San Sebastian. They were headed for Notre Dame too and thus joined in on our renditions of Quasimodo and other cliches. We passed on the ludicrous cue to get to the viewing deck of Notre Dame and headed for the Latin Quarter for lunch, stumbling accross a gorgeous quirky little kebab cafe.

Once refueled we walked via the "Sex and the City" bridge to the Louvre, we hung out there for a few hours mocking all the people taking the typical Louvre photos (yes, I can totally believe you are holding that enormous glass pyramid between your thumb and forefinger, no I have never seen anyone do that before. No offense.) and bombed a few tour groups for information.

The next day we strolled through one of the many markets and then went to the Catacombs, one of the few things we did line up for an hour for and treaded through the creepy underground mass grave. Incredible what they made of it, and how old the remains are! 

After downing some delicious overpriced coffee we headed for the Arc de Triomphe. Unfortunately I got a bit snap happy in the Catacombs and used all my battery from the flash on my camera and it died after I took one photo of the Arc de Triomphe. Nevertheless it was awesome, and we spent ages drinking in the engravings and such.

Then it was time... by day, once again the Eiffel Tower was the taker of our breath. 

Astounded by how cool it was we slowly made our way from Esplanade du Trocadero through the gardens and across Pont d'lena (bridge) to finally stand underneath the Eiffel Tower. As the sun went down we had a rest in Champ de Mars gardens and casually gazed at the tower, ahhh so cool. We took the time to process what we had experienced in Paris and talked about what we were expecting of the next season of travelling (settling in the Netherlands). We called it a day and headed back for our hostel to pack everything up to head to Amsterdam. Thankfully nothing went wrong at the dodgy hostel and at the end of it we left with all our gear and organs.

Paris was incredible, I am sure we will be back to revisit some of the sites, and to explore some of the sites we didn't get to enjoy. All the ado about Paris is present for a reason.

Xx Jaz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

French indulgence and door curtains.

Leaving Spain was really difficult, after spending a good 5 weeks, covering not even a third of the country, we did not want to leave! Adding salt to our wounds, we had to go back to those French jerks. Basically, we had really low expectations and so we were pleasantly surprised by the power house town that is Bordeaux, France.

We spent a few nights there, and went on a rainy day trip to St. Emelion with a few fellow travellers we had met on the bus trip over. The journey out there was a beautiful winding road that took us through some small French towns, amazing to see the architecture incomparison to a bigger city. My favourite thing was spotting all the curtains that they put on the outside of their front doors, still can't figure out what purpose it served, but it kept me amused the full hour journey! Once in St Emelion, we indulged in some wine tastings, a few sneaky macaroons and crepes so delicious we were almost in tears. 

The next morning we prepared for Paris, oh the anticipation!

Xx Jaz

Dream cellar much!

 

30+ hrs overland travel - AKA - Worst Travel Fail Ever

It's been a while since we've posted... We spent two solid days on the road travelling up to Cambodia!

And when we say two days we mean it. We got on the ferry at Koh Phangan at 12:30pm to go back to Bangkok the onto Cambodia.

After about 3 hrs on the ferry, we landed at Surathani and then carried on by bus to a meal break at the bus company headquarters, where we had to change bus. We ate 40baht Pad Thai and waited for the next bus to arrive. About 6:30pm that bus left for Bangkok, this would be home till 6am!! Some sleeping, Kindergarten Cop and another Leonardo DiCaprio movie, lots of iPod games, some more attempts to sleep, another movie (probly with Leonardo DiCaprio), and we arrive 18 hrs since we left Koh Phangan!

Turns out it's actually 4am, a bus two hours ahead of schedule in Asia that unheard of. "Lucky" for us we can try catch the 6am train to Cambodia. So we Tuk Tuk across town from Khao San Road to Hua Lumpong Train station to find the ticket station closed till 5:30am. So some more sleeping in a huge open station room with hundreds of locals from whole family's, fluroesently safron colored monks, business people and stall owners with all their goods waiting. We grab our tickets, oh did i mention it's 3rd class only, with air conditioning Thai style.. (windows) but they were 48 Baht each for a 5 hr trip!

The train was actually quite enjoyable, and no doubt would have been much more so; if we hadn't already been non stop travelling for 20 hrs at this stage!

A lot of bumps, a lot of people, a lot of stops and 6hrs later we arrive at Aranyaprathet which is the last Thai stop before the border. We jumped in a Tuk Tuk and headed for the Cambodia Border!

Ciao for now!

Rick