We were supposed to be in Thailand now.  Well, actually, we would have been in the air to Thailand now.  But the king and the commander in chief of the military decided they didn't like the billionaire prime minister anymore, so the military booted him while he was in New York for the UN gathering.

Even though there was virtually no violence, a number of services closed down including the banks and ATM system.  This would mean possible trouble and delays for us and since we were only going to be there a few days we didn't really have the time to mess around with such things.  Not only that, but with martial law and the streets full of tanks, it wouldn't really be an indicative time to go there.  So, we decided to stay longer in South Africa.

We got a great three-night package at Phantom Forest.  We were lucky to get one because this is a three-day weekend for the country.  Laurie had stayed here before, so we knew it would be nice.  The rooms aren't really rooms; they are small cabins.  And by small, I mean large enough to live in for a short period.  There is a large bathroom with nice, two-person bath and large glass windows.  A living area with some nice chairs and windows and a bedroom with a nice, soft bed.  The deck has a fridge and hot water pot. 

The weather here is wonderful, even though it's basically a rain forest. The drive down was a bit long for me given everything we've been doing.   Laurie had to drive a little.  She ended up having a couple of long waits for road construction, too.  She has much more practice with driving on the "other side" of the road than me, so I've been doing much of the driving here and in Kenya.

I've been resting for a few hours.  Travel is always so much more tiring than expecte.  This extra time in South Africa is nice we get to relax and the package comes with massages.  Laurie is now resting.  She had gone through a bunch of the pictures we've taken.

I'm now trying to sort through various notes and such to get some blog posts up.  We've been so disconnected that even writing anything down for a blog post has been difficult.  There has been power everywhere, but finding the time and energy just hasn't happened.  That means that the last few posts or so were (or will be -- time is strange when talking and past things that haven't happened yet) summaries and afterthoughts of things that have already come to pass.

This lodge (eco reserve) has wifi in the lounge.  It's slow (only around 80kbps) but works just fine.  That's been great for checking in on things a little more frequently.  We also had WiFi at our previous location (a Sheraton of sorts) which allowed us to check in on bills since we didn't have any sort of connection while in Kenya.

Things like work are starting to enter my thoughts a bit more since we only have just over a week left of our trip.  Although I have a rest day before returning to work, I imagine it'll be fairly busy with unpacking and sorting through things.

We've been trying to send out post cards regularly, but it's been difficult.  In Kenya, we only knew how many stamps to put on a normal sized post card and almost every card we got was a large size.  If you haven't received a card from us (and expected to) we apologize -- finding posts and being ready for them has been a bit more difficult than expected in the previous countries.

Well, I better get back to the past posts before that doesn't happen, once again.  Until before now... ;)

Posted by Shane on September 22, 2006 5:54 AM | Permalink