Sunday, August 10, 2008

10/8 - The End

Hi All,

Well, we are a bout to finish our long journey and it is a good time to try and summer it up.
It is hard to believe but this year is soon to be over, we have been through a lot this time, although it went so fast for us, time is truly a relative term as Einstein once said.
During this time we missed things you probably are taken as for granted: good and homey food, tasty coffee, and of course our family and friends.

So how did we spend our last year ?
We admired the variety landscapes of New Zealand: Snow capped mountains, Golden sandy beaches, Sand dunes, Forests and more.
We got lost in small alleys and in fascinating street markets in the old city of Kashgar in North West of China.
We have seen the real and unfamiliar Thailand when we tour ourselves out of the bitten track.
We crossed the Australian remote dusty outback with our van.
We loved to experience the Fijian village lifestyle and its exotic beaches.
We observed and learned about life and death on the banks of Ganga River in India.
We have been blessed meeting Ausie and Kiwi families who were willing to host us.
We lost ourselves in the big metropolitan of Hong Kong.
We drove along the wineries, the cheese and chocolate factories and walked along the beautiful beaches in Western Australia.
We like to see the simple village lifestyle in northern Vietnam unlike the aggressiveness of the people in the Capital - Hanoi.
We trekked with heavy backpacks, experienced with extreme sport like skydive, and improved our shape in New Zeland.
In China we met some minorities ethnic groups we have never seen anywhere else.
The differences between the simple quite village life and the urban big cities appeared to us all the time in south east Asia.

We discovered new worlds, met different cultures, heard a variety of languages, learned history, tasted local food, experienced, found out, checked, seen, heard, sensed, laughed, cried, went up and down and all on a shoe string.
The numbers speak for themselves: 16,000 photos, 160 video clips, 124 posts in the blog, hundreds of e-mails, several journals which were written with passion, and lots of lots of new interesting experiences.
Finally we realized we have a lot more to learn and discover about the unfamiliar world which we live in.

We already have plans when we arrive back to Israel, we made a long list of all the things we would like to do after we land, but we will take our time slowly without any pressure, like Karl Sagan once said: "Before baking an apple pie, you have to create the universe first".

When we come back, we will make our wishes come true, we will have a wedding to arrange, we will find a job, a place which we can call - home with a cat and a dog, we want to go to Jamaica for our honey moon, and of course keep on traveling in our little own country.

During the past year, we have been through some changes, Yoni turned to be 30 years old, and lost almost 24 kg, Efrat came one step closer for her 30's when celebrating her birthday recently.

We would like to thank from the bottom of our heart to those who logon to our blog and kept up to date in our journey, for all of those who watched our photos and movie clips, for those who worried about our safety, kept in touch and for all of those wonderful people whom we met along our journey.

Our flight will depart at 12th of August from Bangkok to Tel-Aviv.

We miss you all, and hope to see you soon in Israel or any other part of the world.

Here are some photos we picked from our journey, just to let you see a bit of what we have been through the past year:


















































Have fun,
Efrat and Yoni Flenner.

Friday, August 8, 2008

9/8 - Last Time Bangkok

Hi All,

We are about to end our long trip, and there is no place like Bangkok to end it properly, with it's so many shopping centers, street markets, food stalls in every corner and much more.
Here we met once again Gilad and Yair (from Lijiang in China) and another partner - Tomer,
Obviously we spent good fun with those guys, wondering around in the city's remote streets.

MBK - Shopping Center:


Our last days we dedicate for Shopping, Thai massages, eating local food, moving our bodies in night clubs and shop a little more.

No doubt its a great place to relax and enjoy our "freedom" atmosphere for the last few days.

Food stalls in KaoSan Street:






Have fun,
Efrat and Yoni.

Our New Photo Album: http://picasaweb.google.com/yoni.efrat
Our Old Photo Album: http://picasaweb.google.com/yonifln
Our Movie Library: http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=yonifln