The post to end all posts.... almost

Jason and Larissa are proud to present "Around the world in 4 months" awards and statistics! As we traveled, we kept track of many interestings tidbits that we thought we would share with you. We also wrote down some awards we would give if we were in a position to give awards. I have been looking forward to this post for awhile now because it will hopefully answer those "So...what was the favorite part of your trip?" questions that everyone seems to ask. So, without further ado, and in no particular order, here are our stats and awards....

Statistics

Total hours spent in airports: 90 hours!

Longest time spent in an airport during a single layover: 14 hours in Seoul, South Korea

Total time spent in airplanes: 119 hours!

Longest flight: 13 hours from Singapore to Paris

Total number of flights: 25

Countries visited with a stay of longer than two days: Palau, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Lesotho, South Africa, Slovenia, Hungary, The Netherlands, The Netherland Antilles (Bonaire).

Awards

Cheapest place to buy avocadoes: Cape Town, South Africa, 30 cents each

Cheapest place to eat out: Vietnam, avg meal for two $4.00


Cheapest hot meal: Kao San Road, Thailand, Veggie Phad Thai for two 75 cents

Most expensive diving: Palau, $100 per person for 2 dives

Cheapest place to dive: Bonaire, under $10 per dive

Best public transportation: Singapore

Worst public transportation: Palau

Friendliest people: Lesotho, Africa
Best scuba diving: Palau

Cheapest place to grocery shop: South Africa

Fastest internet: Cape town, South Africa

Slowest internet: Johannesburg, South Africa

Cheapest internet: Vietnam, 25 cents/hour

Best dessert: Kremna Rezina (cream cake), Bled, Slovenia

Best pastries: Hoi An, Vietnam
City with most haggling: Hoi An, Vietnam

City with least haggling: Ljubljana, Slovenia

Best bang for your buck suvenior/treasure shopping: Hoi An, Vietnam

Best in-flight magazine: South African Airlink

Most expensive internet: Bonaire, $8.00/hour

Best single dive: German channel, Palau

Worst single dive: German channel, Palau (different day)
Best produce: Central market, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Best airplane meal: KLM from Amsterdam to Bonaire

Least expensive island: Koh Tao, Thailand

Most comfy bed: Jason says- Patong towers, Thailand Larissa says-Farm Frcej, Slovenia

Best shore diving: Bonaire

Best outdoor market: Ljublijana, Slovenia

Best indoor market: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Most photogenic people: Lesotho, Africa

Most photogenic daily scenes: Vietnam

Best airline service: Air France

Worst airline service: Northwest

Scariest airplane landing: Bonaire

Dodgiest boat ride: ALL of them!

Most overpriced, boring, ugly airport: Charles de Gaul airport; Paris, France

Dodgiest airport: Yap, Micronesia
Creepiest food moment: "Vegetarian snails", Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Larissa's top three favorite countries on this trip: 1. Slovenia 2. Palau 3. Lesotho

Jason's top three favorite countries on this trip: 1. Palau 2. Slovenia 3. Lesotho

Most evil gem store: Piyamanee; Bangkok, Thailand


There ya go! If you are going to be traveling to any of these places and want advice whether it be about hotels or cities, we would be happy to share our knowledge! One more post left....

Bonaire the Beautiful...

I am happy to report that diving is going well. We completed 4 dives today, which brings us up to 19 total dives for our time on Bonaire. Larissa has been good about supporting my insatiable appetite for going underwater. We have not had one day yet without going on 3 dives with the exception of the one day we skipped diving entirely. Today we got into the water, put on all of our gear, put our heads under water and only then realized that we were in a huge school of jellyfish. We froze immediately but we hadn’t been feeling any stings so we went down anyway. Swimming through the jellyfish was a different story. I guess they have motion sensors in them because as soon as we started swimming, we felt the stings. They didn’t do much but really annoy us though so we swam downward until we could look up and see the huge field of them. It was disconcerting knowing that we would have to swim through them on the way back as well. Unfortunately, it was a very large school of jellyfish because we had to endure them on every dive today. Hopefully they will be gone tomorrow. We have seen some pretty cool things underwater though. Here is Larissa and a turtle:

This is one of my favorite fish. There are a lot of these around.

We haven’t suffered anymore break-ins, probably because we have been leaving all of the windows down. We have been diving stress free, with the “club” locked on the steering wheel and the car free of valuables. We have been leaving some cookies in the car for a thief that comes by and really wants to steal something. We took the day off from diving yesterday so that we could explore the island a bit. It turned out to be Dia Del Rincon, a day that celebrates the oldest town on Bonaire. We enjoyed going to the celebration but didn’t see much besides some booths

and the forming of a parade:

People in Rincon love to celebrate.


We read that the town, while not Bonaire’s largest, tends to be the place to be for partying no matter what the holiday.
We wanted to check out the national park, just north of Rincon. It boasts a good population of donkeys, pink flamingos,

and cacti, but it was unfortunately closed due to the holiday. We did get a chance to enjoy the parks bathrooms however. At first I didn’t know which one to go into, but then I realized that they had used unconventional signs for designating which bathrooms were reserved for which sex.



We drove back to Kralendijk for lunch, scouting dive sites and watching lizards along the way. After hanging around for the early part of the afternoon, Larissa decided that we had better do some more exploring. We decided to take the road around the southern part of the island. The eastern coastline of Bonaire is jagged and barren

but beautiful in places. Larissa admits that she cannot appreciate desert beauty, which Bonaire is.

In fact, it is so much of a desert, they make their fences out of cacti.


She got more excited than she had been all day when we came to a beach almost completely covered with trash that had washed ashore. While I saw an unsightly beach, she saw an opportunity for a treasure hunt. She immediately announced that we would have a competition to see who could find the most unique object. We went off on our separate ways. I noticed a lot of shoes and plastic bottles, among a lot of uninteresting trash. I lost interest rather quickly, though I was mindful of Larissa’s clever attempt to keep my attention by making a competition out of it. I decided, hard as it was, that I would lose this competition. A short while later Larissa arrived with her treasures. Two matching baby stroller wheels found on separate sections of the beach, a high quality toddler’s shoe and, a compact hairbrush and a toilet seat.


I told her that I had seen the toilet seat but had had no interest in picking it up. As we were pulling away from the beach Larissa commented, “…And you know what I’m pissed about? Out of all those thousands of bottles on the beach, not one of them had the decency to be a message in a bottle.”

At the town house, we were inside watching TV when we saw a green flash on the porch. We went outside and found a HUGE iguana.

We had only seen little iguanas up until then but this one was a monster. We fed him bits of bread and tons of other little iguanas came to feast as well.


Well, we have really loved Bonaire but tomorrow is our last day. I think Larissa will let us dive four times as it is our last day and everything. Keep your fingers crossed.