Angkor Wat has evoked stories in my head since I first heard those words as a kid. Now here we are, stepping out from the coolness of the Airbus on to the tarmac at Siem Reap airport. Dragging two preteens who are no more excited than if they had landed in Cleveland.

The next morning at 07:00 sharp I got a WhatsApp message from our guide, Jack (whose real name is Hun). He was at the lobby ready and waiting for us. We stopped in town to buy our tickets to Angkor Wat (they are like mini visas and even have each of our mugshots), and then we headed off to Angkor.

Jack had three qualities which make him a good guide. First, he likes to talk. That is good because I have a lot of questions. We quickly got done with the historical facts associated with Angkor Wat.

The Khmers built Angkor between the 8th and the probably up to the 15th century. During its peak, Angkor was one of the largest cities in the world with a population of one million. The temples, palaces, and monasteries are what we see. The surrounding city has been reabsorbed into the jungles. There are more than 300 temples in the complex which stretches over 400 square kilometers. Angor Thom and Angkor Wat are the bigger and more well known temples.

I’ve added this photo of Angkor Wat reflecting in the lotus pool. People wake up at 4:00 am to get here by the thousands at sunrise to capture the dawn sky and the sun rising from behind the temple. On equinoxes it’s even crazier because the top tower of the temple is directly lined up towards the east with the rising sun. My photo is a lazy 9:00am attempt on a random non equinox day with the light in the wrong place and a haze hanging in the air. It will have to do.

The temple of Angkor Wat was built by a Hindu king Suryavarman II. It is dedicated to Vishnu. Cambodia is almost completely Buddhist now. Over time, Hindu idols have been altered into Buddhist ones. Like the eight-armed statue of Vishnu that has a Buddha head on it and it worshipped by Buddhists today.

We enter Angkor Wat through the gate that was reserved for brahmins in the old days and Jack is excited to learn that we’d be welcome through this gate even back then. Oh, the privilege of caste!

The myth of a French man walking into a jungle and discovering the Lost Temple is apparently just that. Angkor and the Khmer Empire, probably due to floods and then droughts, disintegrated in the 15th century. The majority of the population died or left. Small groups of villagers could not maintain the vast facilities but they lived amongst the ruins and worshipped there till the said French man discovered them.

The immensity of the temple and the beauty of the sculpture are breathtaking. As we visit some of mankind’s most sublime works around the world I’m selfishly glad that through the history of our species we have been suckers for religion. Our best art and architecture are in service of our gods.

I thought it would be really crowded here with 2.5 million annual international visitors. But the temple is big enough to accommodate us all and Jack is able to steer us down almost deserted paths most of the time.

Vivian and Evan seem interested enough and the weather is comfortable – so no one complains. But I have no doubt that if they had been offered their iPads and the option to stay at the hotel instead, they would have been all over that.

We left Angkor Wat awe struck through the back gate facing east and drove to the next temple on our (Jack’s) list – the Tomb Raider Temple.

All roads to south-east Asia lead to Singapore. And Bangkok. So though we only plan to visit Cambodia and Vietnam, we got Bangkok as a bonus. That and because our dear friend Ami gave us her condo in Bangkok to stay at.

The flight from Christchurch to Singapore was long – ten plus hours – the same as Dallas to Frankfurt. But it didn’t feel bad – even the kids thought it was a breeze. At Changi airport our inter terminal train gave us an opportunity to gawk at the circular waterfall from the ceiling into the domed rainforest. Then, a short flight and we stepped out into the stifling steamy humidity and heat of Bangkok. It was a bit of a shock after New Zealand.

It took us several minutes to get signed in at Ami’s condo. But by the end of the process my thumbprint was registered to let us in. How cool is that! Here’s a pano view from the 25th floor balcony at dusk.

Bangkok feels like an in between city. It has good roads, an underground metro, an above street train system, a river transit system on the Chao Praya river, and is much cleaner than Cairo or Kolkata. The taxis are good. You don’t feel like you’ve got to look over your shoulder. But it isn’t an sanitized as first world cities usually are. It’s no Singapore.

Food, especially street food is cheap. Foot massages even at nice places are very reasonable and professional. Traffic is awful. One evening while returning from a dinner date night with Jo we saw someone who could be a prostitute. That’s the extent of what we saw of the sleazy side of Bangkok that you hear about.

The next morning we went to see the palace. It was crowded and hot and Vivian and I had to buy MC Hammer style pants to cover our unsightly knees. The pants were conveniently sold right there at the palace and they were cheap, but they only made us less cooler (in all possible ways).

The palace and the surrounding temples especially the Temple of the Emerald Buddha were beautiful in a pretty gilded gold mosaic way. Our entry tickets entitled us to a free traditional dance performance at the National Theater and after finishing our palace tour unexpectedly (we took an exit without knowing) we hopped on a free shuttle to the theater.

We saw a dance enacting a portion of the Ramayana, the epic from ancient India. The rulers of Thailand going back several centuries were Hindu. Their capital city was named Ayutthaya after Ayodhya, Rama’s kingdom in India. Though modern Thailand is predominantly Buddhist, the current king of the country is Rama X, the tenth consecutive Rama. In the Ramayana, Rama is the son of the king of Ayodhya. His scheming stepmother (the king had three wives) gets him exiled from Ayodhya for 14 years and her own son on the throne. Another one of Rama’s step brothers, Laxman, and Rama’s wife, Sita join him in exile. At one point Sita is abducted by Ravana, the ten headed demon king of Lanka (Sri Lanka). Hanuman, the monkey prince joins forces with Rama. His army builds a land bridge to Lanka by tossing boulders into the sea. Sita is rescued, Ravana is killed. Rama returns victorious to a welcoming Ayodhya and becomes king. Incidentally that day is celebrated as Diwali, the festival of lights. Here you see Rama and company from the left approaching Ravana and his demon army who are on the right. Our kids got a free cultural class.

The day after that we flew to Cambodia. Two short days in Bangkok – just enough to give us a flavor of this ancient and modern metropolis.

Christchurch hasn’t recovered from the big earthquake of 2011. Jo and I remember the beautiful square in front of Christchurch Cathedral vibrant with life from our last visit that was pre-earthquake. Now the square is dominated by the fence that surrounds the damaged and partially demolished cathedral. Downtown or CBD as they call it still has a lot of buildings are boarded up and there are many empty lots where buildings once stood before the quake. One afternoon we walked along the shores of a volcanic crater that opens out into the sea near the town of Lyttelton. We tried to rent kayaks but they weren’t any rentals anywhere close. It was the weekend and families were coming in with grills and coolers and watermelons, ready to spend some quality outdoor time.

Utsa flew back to Wellington. We enjoyed her short visit. In a few days we will go to Bangkok, and onwards to Cambodia, Vietnam, and Japan from there. We are excited but we will miss so many things about New Zealand. Of all the places we’ve visited I think the Long White Cloud may be the hardest to say good bye to.

From Abel Tasman we first went to Nelson and then took a longer less mountainous route and quite suddenly found ourselves in Marlborough Valley and had to stop for drinks. We liked the Moa (named after the giant extinct Moa bird) brewery which served a range of ciders and stocked Allen Scott wines from next door. Which suited Jo and me!

We stayed at the town of Picton in a hundred year old house built and owned by an Italian family (so I learned to make a nice cup of latte). The house had a great view of the sea front which is the gateway to the lovely Marlborough Sounds.

We explored trails and walked along the sea and Evan accidentally turned over a rock to discover the fascinating ecosystems of tidal basins. Then it was hard to get Gunaraj and Evan away from the tidal pools. They must have turned over a hundred rocks between them.

I savored the two prized products of the Marlborough Sounds and the Marlborough Valley – green lipped mussels and Cabernet Sauvignon – at every meal, and eventually combined them to cook a nice dish of steamed mussels in wine broth.

We said good bye to Rajeeta and Gunaraj and they headed back to Austin. We enjoyed our time with them. Lucky for us along with farewells came hellos and Utsa, my cousin, dropped in for a few days from Wellington where she lives.

We stopped at the St. Clair family estate with Utsa, enjoyed some great wine and food among the vines, and then set off on a seven hour drive to Christchurch.

Abel Tasman was the first white man to find New Zealand. He was Dutch. The Dutch were like the Xerox PARC of the 16th and 17th centuries. If they could have held on to what they found, New Yorkers (New Amsterdamers), Australians (New Hollanders), South Africans, and New Zealanders would be all speaking Dutch today (many Capetonians do speak Afrikaans, a version of Dutch, but you get the idea).

The bit of land protruding out between Golden Bay and Tasman Bay along the north coast of New Zealand’s South Island is a national park named after Abel Tasman. And this was my destination. Because it’s where a lush rain forest descend from green mountains to meet the aquamarine seas on golden beaches.

We reluctantly left our beach house and drove off towards our next destination – the Abel Tasman National Park. Along the way we stopped and zip lined over the Buller River and then at a small town called Murchison in the middle of nowhere we ran into Rajeeta and Gunaraj while we were filling up on petrol.

We set up camp at a nice newish Airbnb house on top of a hill near the town of Motueka with great views of Nelson bay and the town of Nelson on the other side. The mountains above Nelson and the constantly changing colors of the bay provided foregrounds for dramatic sunsets and moonrises (and I guess sunrises and moon sets too but I wasn’t up early enough for those).

One day we visited Te Waikoropupu, a spring popularly called just Pupu. Contrary to the name, this spring produces some of the cleanest water on earth. When scientists tested how clear this water is, they found that the only water optically clearer is in a deep well in Antarctica. Pupu spews up 14,000 liters of this ultra pure water per second. Back when white people first came here they discovered gold. At that time they used the spring water to separate gold from the ore. Today’s environmentally smart Kiwis value the clean water more and you aren’t allowed to swim, boat, wade, touch, or dip a container into the springs.

New Zealand in recent years has tried more than any other colonizing white people to try and keep the indigenous culture alive. Maori is an official language and towns, mountains, rivers, and lakes often have Maori names. But it’s hard to say if it’s a token gesture or the real thing. Kia Ora is used often and is the NZ version of Aloha, and says just about as much or as little about New Zealand’s Maoriness. Maoris are hard to spot in places where tourists go. Someone told me that at their hotel the night porters are Maori. We could tell from government messaging that drugs and alcohol were issues in the Maori population. Which are probably all indications that, as much as New Zealand respects Maori culture and the All Blacks do the haka before international rugby tests, the Maori are still a ways from being masters of their own fate in their own lands.

We continued northwards from Pupu and ended up at Golden Bay in a small town with a beach and we saw the most amazing rainbow. Rainbows usually seem so distant. This one was right there. One end looked as if it had plopped down on cows in a pasture. You could literally see cows walking through rainbow light. The other end was on the beach. Evan ran through it (from our perspective, though for him the rainbow would appear to keep moving further away).

We get our kicks where we can. An unexpected rainbow is just the kind of thing you can’t plan for. As our year goes on, I believe that as long as the big things are okay, it’s the little things that brings a smile on our faces.

For our last two days on the Wildcoast, we stayed put by the beach in a remote house, an old timber-frame building with hand hewn beams in the middle of nowhere with a small lawn and a bay all to ourselves.

We cooked (luckily, no grabby odors this time), ate, drank wine, read, explored, sketched, studied, and rested by the thundering waves crashing on black rocks, the sound of the ocean, and the rise and fall of the tides. I could have stayed here for a week or a month.

From Haast we drove north along the coastline toward our next night’s destination, the tiny town and glacier named Franz Josef.

Along the way we saw dozens of construction projects where they were fixing the highway from the recent floods. Torrential rains and raging flash floods had washed away sides of mountains and sections of the highway as it wound its way past rocky cliffs and over creeks. The Kiwis call these slips. As in “[orange triangle with exclamation mark] Slips Ahead”. These and traditional one lane bridges where you wait for oncoming traffic to clear kept us entertained and me wide awake at the wheel.

We took a slight diversion to visit the famous Lake Matheson, the most photographed lake in the country. On a good day the snow clad Mount Cook rears up dramatically over the lake and at an even better moment the lake obliges by being perfectly still to create a beautiful mirror-like reflection of the mountain. No such luck with mountain or lake but we took a beautiful walk around the lake and a very nice lunch at the park cafe. And I got a really nice photo of a fiddlehead!

Had we been more dedicated and luckier, like Gary, here’s what it could have looked like (thanks, https://garyhartblog.com/2017/07/22/it-takes-a-little-more-than-just-showing-up/a7riinzjul2017_dsc5337lakemathesonreflection_screensaver/)

Franz Josef Glacier was impressive, not because of the bit of craggy ice on the mountain side slowly succumbing to gravity but because of how pitiful it looked compared to a few years ago. Long before Vivian or Evan bring their kids here, this glacier will be just a memory and a few old signs with photographs of what it used to look like. A glacier museum like a museum for dinosaur bones.

We spent a few hours hiking up a long and wide glacial valley to the receding glacier – a few decades earlier we could have been lazier and just looked at it out of our cars in the parking lot.

On the walk back we admired the steep sides of the valley. The kids horsed around on rocks beautifully eroded by the glacier. And Evan made us trek down to the stream of ice melt, almost white as milk to see if it really was cold. It was.

Later that night we went to the woods to see glow worms, came back to our Airbnb and cooked salmon, and spent the rest of the night and next morning ridding the house of the smell of cooking salmon. The house, for some strange reason, really grabbed on to cooking odors like Trump on pussy, in spite of being surrounded by large windows that opened to a beautiful yard. Jo finally won, as she usually does. Her secret? Slow-brewed cranberry tea with fresh lemon.

We checked out of our Airbnb and drove to the beautiful little town of Arrowtown just north of Queenstown and rented bicycles. For the next two hours we rode along a dirt track that traversed the Arrow river 4 times, two of them on dramatic narrow suspension bridges called swing bridges here.

Vivian took a dramatic tumble off her bike when she went around a corner too fast and ended up head first off the trail. But luckily she got away with just a bit of road rash. In the last picture she’s pointing to where it happened. The ride ended up being just a tad long for Evan but he powered through and we rewarded ourselves with a great lunch at The Fork and Tap, a lovely old stone pub. Then we headed off to drive around the South Island for the next two weeks.

First stop was a tiny settlement called Haast. To reach it we drove past dramatic lakes and blue pools of glacial water, and followed the winding Makarora and then the Haast rivers through dense temperate rain forests and stands of fern trees, arriving there just before sunset.

When we landed in Queenstown airport and stepped out on the tarmac and gazed around at the green meadows and the jagged peaks of the Remarkables rising up above us, Vivian took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then she said “If Australia is Tom Holland, then New Zealand is Chris Hemsworth”. Pause for five seconds to look around in awe again. Then “which is ironic because Chris Hemsworth is Australian.”

If you didn’t get that and I wouldn’t if Vivian hadn’t trained me, it means that Australia is nice to look at and New Zealand is gorgeous.

We spent two days in Queenstown. Our Airbnb apartment that I booked just before departing Sydney had an amazing view of the lake and mountains in front. We met Rajeeta and Gunaraj for dinner. The next morning we drove up to the two nearby ski places for the view. The wind almost blew us off Coronet Peak and it snowed on us at the Remarkables. The kids found it hilarious that this was summer in New Zealand. That evening Evan convinced us to spend some time in a fully immersive VR game where we shot zombies.

We could have spent a couple of weeks in Queenstown. And we didn’t venture towards Milford Sound, New Zealand’s most picture prefect spot, because we didn’t have enough time. You travel for a whole year and still your most scarce resource is time.