We got up early Saturday morning and visited the South Melbourne Market, a 10- minute walk from our apartment.  It is a market like no other with what seemed like acres of gorgeous fruit and vegetables with many fresh fish and  meat markets along with fresh baked goods..  All the food is from local farmers, artisans and producers.   It is obvious why it is a favorite among the locals; as it is simply the best market we have ever visited.   It is truly a foodie’s paradise. There were markets that specialized in chicken only (offering many different parts and attractive pre-prepared items)and other markets showcasing certain cuts of beef and lamb-only markets with hanging whole lambs.    It was difficult to select which fish market to buy from; as, all the fish was “sparkling” and gorgeous.  We finally decided on purchasing swordfish which, we prepared  that night.   The swordfish tasted so fresh.  It was divine.

Melbourne has been known to be one of the world’s most “livable” cities and we absolutely agree!  It is also a terrific city for walking and tram riding.   Melbourne has the world’s largest tram system – 250km of double track.   There is also a free visitor’s tram which goes around the entire central business district.  This tram can get a bit crowded as locals tend to use this free service as well.

After brunch in the CBD, we headed over to The old Melbourne Gaol (jail).   We entered the Police Watch House and experienced a “real life” encounter of what it would feel like to be arrested and locked up in a police station which only closed its doors in 1994.  We both (under alias names) were thrown in separate small dark cells.  Very scary!  Lesley  was “accused” of stalking and David was “accused of DWI!  We then had the opportunity to view the creepy cells of Australia’s most notorious criminals.  A fun outing!

We enjoyed a 3 hour walking tour of Melbourne on our 2nd day.  The city is clearly the café capital of Australia which you see as you wander the streets, and the famous lanes and alleyways.

Melbourne’s street art varies from high quality paintings to basic graffiti.  Permits are required except that some alleyways are open to anybody.  In that case, the street art may last a few hours or months depending upon the next artist.

Music is also a big part of the Melbourne scene.  Musicians on the street are common – the difference in Melbourne is that the musicians must audition for the opportunity – if they are good enough for a citizen panel, they are issued a permit.  We heard some fantastic music while walking along Collins Street, Melbourne’s traditional main street.

The gold boom of the mid-1800’s brought tremendous wealth to the state of Victoria. Interestingly, gold was discovered just 1 week after Melbourne and the state of Victoria became separated from Sydney.  Had that separation not occurred when it did, the gold wealth would have been concentrated in Sydney.  At the peak of the gold boom, Melbourne was the 2nd richest city in the world (behind London).  A great building boom occurred subsequently when the children of the gold minors spent their inheritance wildly.  Many of the buildings of the late 1800’s are absolutely stunning.

Another unique feature of Melbourne is the “loop turn”.   If you want to turn right (remember they drive on the left), you pull over in the left in the middle of the intersection.  When you can, you hang a right across the traffic lanes into the left lane of the perpendicular street.  Quite an interesting experience to watch.

We also visited Queen Victoria’s (aka the Queen Vic) Market which is the largest open air market in the southern hemisphere (17 acres). You can buy tools, clothes, groceries, souvenirs, etc.  It was pretty typical of most such markets.

On Thursday,  we started our Great Ocean Road Tour at 7:00 a.m.(returning to Melbourne 13 1/2 hours later).  This long (originally single lane) 151 mile Great Ocean Road was built by hand over 13 years by the returning World War One veterans.  The road was built to connect small farming and resort towns.  We traveled along the coast with rocky cliffs that follow the Great Ocean Road where it has been carved out of the edges of the Otway ranges.  The views were absolutely spectacular and the road was very curvy as we had previously read.  The road features the contrast between ocean beaches on one side and mountains and forest on the other.  We were very happy that we did not attempt to drive this ourselves.  Also note, Aussies drive on the wrong (left) side of the road; so, this drive would even been more challenging for us.  We also visited Bells Beach which is famous for it international surfing competition;, and it’s  featured in the movie, Point Break.

We had our first koala sighting sleeping in a tree at a “bird stop” along the way.   Apparently, Koalas sleep almost 23 hours a day.  (An animal lazier than our Maggie dog!)

A visit to the rainforest called Maits Rest was our next stop.  It was a real surprise to discover a rain forest near the GOR. We walked under canopies of Myrtle Beach, gigantic Mountain Ash and Blackwood trees ( up to 300 years old) along with huge tree ferns and mosses.  It was very beautiful and lush.

The highlight of our tour was seeing the Twelve Apostles.  The original name of the Twelve Apostles was the “Sow and Piglets”.  This name was changed in 1922 to the Twelve Apostles to attract more tourists.   These ever changing sandstone stacks along the Great Ocean Road is a photographer’s dream!  Although the name says “12”, there are currently only 8 stacks since the last collapse was in 2005.  The relentless work of waves and winds will inevitably lead to more collapsing stacks.  This area is called Shipwreck Coast for the large number of shipwrecks that occurred in the 1800’s.  We actually were able to walk down to the beach only in one area of the beach called the Gibson Steps.   Almost the entire coastline has massive limestone cliffs making it impossible to enter any beach area.

The final stop was London Arch, formally know as London Bridge.  In 1990 half of the bridge collapsed into the sea and left a sightseeing couple stranded on the other half surrounded by ocean!  Apparently, this couple had to wait a few hours to be rescued by helicopter. (What an amazing vacation story.)

We covered the entire Great Ocean Road.  While it was a very looong day, it was a great adventure.

We just arrived in Melbourne this morning after an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur.   We are renting a very modern apartment with a terrific view right by the Yarra River and a short walk to all the main attractions.  After six weeks+ of hotels, it is nice to not have to eat three meals a day in restaurants.  Melbourne is an absolutely lovely city.  Tree-lined streets abound and the central business district has many small alleyways and laneways filled with an abundance of  all types of ethnic cuisine, electric  bars, cafes and specialty shops.   It is a mix of 1800’s architecture (there was a huge gold boom in the mid-1800’s) as well as very modern (and sometimes ugly) structures.

Art, whether street paintings, statues, or other pieces, is present throughout the city.  There aren’t too many central business districts that are as charming as the “CBD” in Melbourne.  It is a thriving artistic and cultural center buzzing with activity and university students.  Melbourne is known for one of the world’s great street art (graffiti) capitals for its unique expressions of art displayed on approved outdoor alleys and other locations throughout the city.  Some of the art is really quite good; and, in some alleys, the art works changes on almost a weekly basis.

Melbourne offers great retail therapy!  The city has tons of wonderful shopping from small boutique- type stores to upscale department stores.  Unfortunately, with limited space in our carry-on luggage,  items have to be shipped back or worse yet-not purchased!

We have fallen in love with Melbourne on our very first day!

Our last full day in Bangkok took us to Pratunam Market which is  Bangkok’s largest wholesale/retail market.   This crazy market was on either side of some narrow streets as well as inside some buildings.  It was shear chaos and quite dangerous with motorcycles (spewing fumes) going through the narrow isles of clothing inside the buildings!  It certainly was an interesting experience; but the clothing was poor quality.  Having custom clothes made in Hoi An, Vietnam turned out to be a very wise decision after all.

We then  went on to China Town since we never made it there on our first day.   It was a very busy and vibrant section of Bangkok and another “experience” not to be missed.  Stores, street food vendors and people crowd this 1 kilometer strip of land.  It is a culinary feast with loads of street vendors cooking up some wonderful looking Thai food.  Once we saw them cleaning the pots, pans and dishes (no paper plates) on the street, we were very reluctant to indulge in the China Town street food.

We then worked our way over to The Golden Mountain temple (Wat Sake) which sits high above the city.  The real star of this temple is the manmade “Golden Mount” on the top of the temple.  We took the many steps to the top where there was a fantastic 360 degree of the city.  We decided to hail a cab rather than walk back to the hotel due to  a very black sky.  The taxi cab driver quoted us 400 baht ($11.36 USD) rather than a typical price of between 68-75 baht ($2.13).  Wow!  Another potential scam.

We decided to pass on a gourmet restaurant for dinner and, instead, visited a restaurant that had a huge waiting line (all Asian/Thai folk) outside the night before.  Because we wanted to have a real Thai food  experience with the natives, we opted to forgo one of the other top 10 restaurants in the city.  It was probably the worst meal that we had in 6+ weeks!  A cross between fast food and a cheap sit-down restaurant with really poor service led us to the street venders after the meal for fantastic barbequed squid.

Leaving for Melbourne on Tuesday via Kuala Lumpur.

Another early morning pickup (6:20 this time!!!) took us south to Bangkok’s “floating markets”.  In Vietnam, the Mekong Delta floating market which we visited had boats selling fish & vegetables to others for distribution or selling in their own store or restaurant.  Bangkok’s floating markets is focused strictly on  tourism.  The tourists are “floating” in a series of canals with locals selling the same cheap trinkets, clothes, etc. as every other vendor.  Insert a few locals selling food on boats and you have a very crowded canal.

The Death Railroad and historical  “Bridge over the River Kwai” was, as are all historical war sites,  interesting and depressing.  It is located in Kanchanaburi near the Myanmar border.  It is about 77 miles west of Bangkok.  The broad river has been commercialized by the restaurant trade who have built their facilities on large barges that are towed in the river while serving lunch/dinner.  There were probably 50 barges on the docks.  We can’t imagine how crowded it must be in the busy season.

We then visited the nearby Kanchanaburi War Cemetery were around 7,000 POW’s, who sacrificed their lived in the railway construction, are buried.

We were picked up at 6:45 (whose idea was this?) to visit the Summer Palace as well as a few other historical sites in Ayutthaya.  The king, who built the palace in the 1800’s, was heavily influenced by his education and living in Europe.  The architecture has a significant European influence.  The king also returned to Thailand (Siam at the time) and changed clothing styles.  Men changed from sarongs without shirts to westernized pants & shirts at the King’s insistence.  He foresaw that eventually Siam had to be integrated with the west and their traditional ways had to change.

Tuk-tuks are also different in this area which is about 1 1/2 hours north of Bangkok.  It has been fun to see all of the different versions.

We visited the ruins of the former Siam capital and the original large lying Buddha.  (The gold one in Bangkok is a “replica”.)  A pleasant 2 hour lunch cruise back along the Chao Phraya River brought us back to Bangkok.

That evening we had what was probably our favorite dinner so far on our journey.  We dined at one of the top 10 Bangkok restaurants, Issaya Siamese Club, owned by  internationally renowned Thai Chef Ian Kittichai .  The food is thai-fusion and the chef uses all fresh herbs from his garden and seasonal ingredients.    David had the signature curry lamb shank which was out of this world.  Lesley had the  salmon. The flavor and combinations were extraordinary.  Our meal was finished off with “Broken Balls”, a desert and show all in one.

We arrived in Bangkok late in the afternoon and faced a  major traffic snarl into the city.   Traffic during rush hour comes almost to a complete halt.  Often, it can take hours to go 5 miles.  We were surprised to see that there weren’t nearly as many motorcycles, scooters and tuk tuks swarming the streets compared to Vietnam.  Our hotel was stunning and in the heart of the upscale shopping district.   The views from the top outside deck bar in the evening were magnificent.  Bangkok certainly doesn’t look nearly as “third world” as Saigon, Hanoi, or Phnom Penh.  Some of the buildings are quite spectacular.

On our first full day in Bangkok, we started by visiting the Grand Palace complex (almost 2.4m sq. feet) along with a 1000+ of our best friends.  It consists of not only the royal residence and throne halls, but also a number of government offices and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The entire complex is quite an impressive walled facility and the Emerald Buddha is magnificent. (no pictures allowed!)

Next stop was Wat Pho the largest reclining Buddha around which is also know as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha.  This was our favorite attraction of the day.

After our temple excursion, we wandered around and were looking for a place to have lunch.  (While at the Krabi airport, we were reading (and chuckling) about all the crazy scams that happen to tourists visiting Bangkok.)   A very friendly gentleman, who spoke good English, came up to us while we were looking at our map outside the Grand Temple.  We told him we were looking for the street toward China Town.  He told us that there would not be much activity during early afternoon in China Town and that he could have a taxi “show us around”.   If you fall for this scam, the taxi takes you to a watch or silk shop and often the doors are locked once you step in if you refuse to make a purchase!  Fortunately, we were on our guard and didn’t fall for it.

We then headed over by taxi to the MBK retail/wholesale clothing market.  Taxis are incredibly cheap in Bangkok.  A 20 minute taxi ride costs around $3.50 USD!  The market was enormous with many floors of crappy clothing.  Nonetheless, it was interesting to see the enormity of this market.  There were six huge upscale shopping centers near our hotel.  We were perplexed how Bangkok could support all this retail when the prices were equivalent to US prices.  The vat tax reimbursement to foreigners might be the only explanation.

Our final destination of the day was the Jim Thompson House and Museum.   Jim Thompson was an American who decided to settle down in Thailand, where he dedicated over 30 years to reviving Thai silk which was then a dying cottage industry.  Thompson introduced Thai silk to the world’s most respectable fashion houses and catwalks in Paris, New York, London and Milan.  HIs downtown Bangkok home consisted of six teak building which represented the best in traditional Thai architecture.  Most of the buildings on site were at least two centuries old and were easily dismantled and brought over from other regions in Thailand.  The tour of his home and antique collection was very interesting.  Jim Thompson mysteriously disappeared while on a visit to Malaysia.  Not a single valid clue has ever turned up in the ensuing years as to what might have happened to him.

We flew to Krabi on the coast in southern Thailand.  After now traveling for over one month,  it was nice to relax at a beautiful resort on the coast.  It is still “officially” rainy season here; although, in 4 days we have had only short periods of rain (primarily at night).  Unfortunately, the haze has not burned off.  The rainy season also limits the number of tourists – our beachfront hotel, a “small luxury hotel of the world”, (SLH.com  ) is only about 20% occupied.   The staff is very friendly and have been extremely attentive to our every need.  The food at the hotel has been so delicious that we have enjoyed very romantic evenings dining at a table just a few feet from the ocean.

On Tuesday, we took a one hour long-tail  boat excursion to the Hong Islands   It was enjoyable but we made one big mistake – we should have rented a private boat which actually was less expensive and more under our control.  We spent too much time just hanging around.  It was a long day; and in retrospect,  we should have visited the Phi Phi Islands. We had read that the Hong Islands were the most beautiful of all the surrounding islands; however, there is  far more to do visiting the Phi Phi Islands.  The Hong Islands were very small with tiny beaches and no commercial business. Some island didn’t even have a beach; so snorkeling was just off the boat.

Yesterday, we ventured into Ao Nang which is about 12 kilometers away from our resort and is the major tourist town in Krabi.  It was filled with touristy shops filled with trinkets and cheesy looking restaurants!  We couldn’t wait to tuk-tuk back to the resort!  The actual town of Krabi is about 45 minutes away and is where the airport is located.  Most tourist stay around the Ao Nang area since the actual town of Krabi  is not supposed to be that interesting.

Lesley has enjoyed having one+ hour foot massages here every day; and, we both have enjoyed spending time reading and relaxing by the pool.

Thursday, we head to Bangkok for 5 days.

As we always planned, many of our days are not focused on “tourist activities”.

Today (Saturday), we walked 2 miles in very hot weather (for the exercise) to a vegetarian restaurant for lunch; and in the process,  stumbled upon a very striking temple, Wat Suan Dok.  It is an open temple with a larger “cemetery” than we have ever seen (Buddhists are cremated so that we have never seen these type of monuments).   At lunch at Pun Pun, Lesley had her most spicy meal ever!   David’s vegetarian dish was more subdued.  The lunch was a whooping $3.84!  With the exception of a few gourmet Thai meals at the hotel, we have tried to search out authentic local Thai restaurants.

The afternoon was spent having a two hour kind of “painful” massage for Lesley & haircut (cheaper than Patsy in Kamas) for David.   Our dinner, in a  charming street café, was very good and included excellent South African red wine.

As we have watched a limited amount of TV (CNN International, BBC) during our travels, the interesting sport has been rugby, as the World Cup is ongoing.  It has been very exciting and I wish the US had a greater interest in the sport.  It is tough, very challenging and actually, more physical than US football.

Another insight (not new) that has come out at our small (45 room) fabulous boutique hotel in Chiang Mai is the importance of employees.  Substantially all of the employees know us (name & room #) and are very positive and friendly.  In discussions with them, they love their work.  They have 2 days off weekly (vs. local hotel standard of 1 day a week), are provided good benefits and free  meals.  Most employees  are long-term employees (some for 20+ years) and rave about the owner who also has a beautiful hotel in Krabi named Rayavadee which is a Leading Hotel and has earned many awards.    The environment, because of the employee attitude, is incredibly pleasant and has made our stay outstanding.  The importance of treating employees well is something we sometimes forget.

On Sunday, we have a relaxed day by the pool before flying to Krabi, Thailand for 4 days of beach living.