Plastic stools and independence day

Over the last couple of nights in Hanoi we've walked around the local night market, where the neighbourhood had cordoned off some streets for pedestrians only. What a treat to walk around with some room around us, rather than being cheek-to-jowl with so many scooters and people. Most people were eating outside on the sidewalk on tiny plastic stools about a foot high, at little plastic tables about knee high. There must be at least seven million of these little stools in the city, one for every person.

So the last couple of nights we joined the crowd of locals with a smattering of tourists at one of these outdoor places, and had our dinner on small plastic stools like everyone else. All the locals were out, some dressed well and others more casually. Small bones were on the ground from all the happy customers who had come before us and enjoyed some pidgins I believe, which were a speciality there. I gave that menu choice a wide berth along with frogs and other exotic items, and we settled down for a good meal on our little perches, with a good view of all that was going on around that particular street corner.

The country is gearing up to celebrate their 70th anniversary of independence on September 2nd. Here's a quick history lesson. Japan announced its surrender, ending World War II, on August 15th, 1945. Quickly afterwards, the Japanese forces handed over power to Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader of the resistance, and his supporters. He then declared independence on September 2nd, hours after Japan's official surrender. Thirty years of war followed with France, the U.S., and then the southern Vietnamese forces before the fall of Saigon in 1975, ending any remaining resistance to the northern communist forces.

We've seen trucks rolling around with loudspeakers manned by officials in uniform announcing something related to the anniversary. Last night we saw a patriotic dance and singing performance on a street stage with ladies in red dresses with a big yellow star on the front dancing with uniformed men. Since this anniversary marks a new decade, we're told the celebration will be bigger than normal. We're leaving town tonight so we'll miss the fireworks display and the big gathering of crowds.

Yesterday we went on a walking tour with a couple of Vietnamese students from a local university. It's a program whereby students get a chance to practise their English and we get a chance to speak with some locals and tour around. Surprisingly it was free, and the students wouldn't even accept a tip afterwards. Frankly their knowledge of the sights wasn't the best, but it was great to walk around with them and chat.

Eng still has one year left before completing her degree in administration. Kim just graduated last week with a accounting degree and will be starting with the firm KPMG in October. He completed an internship with the company last year. He hasn't travelled much within Vietnam or left Vietnam but hopes to do some travelling in a couple of years. He indicated he might like to work abroad for a few years if he can arrange the work visas. 

I asked him what Vietnamese people thought about the West, and the French and Americans in particular. He said that some older people still talk about the wars and still had strong emotions about past events, but young people were not alive at the time and feel no ill will to the West. He explained that it is important to remember the past but also important not to dwell on it but rather focus on the future. Wise words.

Here's the back of Elizabeth and me working our way down a side street with father, mother and a kid with a mask and toy on a motorcycle coming the other way.

A Vietnamese story - living and working in Hanoi

At our small hotel we interacted mostly with Bella, who spoke English pretty well and who provided us with friendly and efficient service throughout our stay. She also told me her take on life in Hanoi and Vietnam. She started off with a history lesson of the last 150 years in Vietnam and then moved on to a dissertation on their oral and written languages, both modern and ancient. A bit dry and along party lines no doubt. She eventually confided on daily life here.

Her biggest concerns are the high cost of living relative to wages, lack of government services (especially health care), and graft - what she called black money. She revealed that the official monthly salary for all government workers and government funded private companies started at $200 USD per month, with increases over time based on seniority. But she said it is often hard to find these jobs and black money plays its role. She said everyone knows about black money but nobody is supposed to talk about it.

She told a story of her friend who did well at university and earned a teacher's degree. Afterward she thought she had secured an entry level teacher's position at a high school, which would have started with a $200 monthly salary. She was offered two options - either work as an unofficial teacher indefinitely for $100 per month, or secure an official government recognised teacher's position starting at $200 per month. The problem was to secure the official position, she needed to make a one-time black money payment of $10,000. She said the money would be parcelled out to the senior teachers already there, with the most senior people receiving the most. I didn't ask what her friend ended up doing.

Most people must pay for all health care expenses themselves, plus additional black money to nurses, doctors and anyone else involved to ensure reasonable health care services. Government workers or companies supported by government funding would normally receive some health care benefits to pay 20 to 30 percent of these costs. 

She recounted another story about her niece who recently lost her hearing and will remain deaf if she doesn't have an operation costing $25,000 per ear. I asked why the operation was so expensive and she said there is no expertise to do the operation in Vietnam, so experts would need to come from another country. Doctors trained in Vietnam often leave the country for higher paying positions elsewhere, which exasperates the health care situation in Vietnam. They often leave because of low salaries, and some leave to avoid the endemic black money system. Bella said they are now planning to pay to have the operation for one of her niece's ears, but they will need to borrow heavily to do so.

She had fairness issues with landlords, who rent out their properties to businesses and those who live above the shops. Land values have risen so much in recent years with the booming economy that the rents are high for businesses in particular. Many of the landlords of expensive properties were able to avoid paying rental income tax in perpetuity with one-time black money payments to officials, something unavailable to the average worker who must pay income tax on their small income. For example, the landlord who owns the hotel property rents it to the hotel business owner for €10,000 per month, and pays no tax. I don't know what the landlord had to pay to avoid taxes, but I'm sure it was worth the official's while.

On another note, she said the property next door to the hotel is filled with around 50 renters living in crowded and squalid conditions, all sharing one toilet. The government wants to move them all to better subsidized housing on the outskirts of the city but most don't want to leave. These are people at the bottom of the economic ladder who beg, sell donuts on the street, or who have other low paying pursuits. While the government would pay them some money to relocate, most don't want to leave because they don't believe they could earn anything on the outskirts.

While we were speaking an old lady came into the hotel lobby asking Bella for money. Bella told her no, and explained to me that she would give some money to someone who was disabled and obviously couldn't work, but not this elderly person who could still work. Her view was if she gave money to this person she would need to give money to a vast number of other people in a similar situation.

Bella completed a degree in tourism some time ago and currently earns a salary of $200 per month. She pays some income tax and then pays $100 per month in rent, which doesn't leave her a lot for everything else. She told me that it would be impossible for her to afford the purchase of an apartment within commuting distance of work. She hopes a sky train will be built soon which would allow her to live with her parents in her ancestral village, which is 70 kilometers and two hours away from work by bus. A sky train would cut the commute down to 20 minutes.

She is happy to be working at her job in the city, especially in comparison with the pay and conditions of factory workers in the outlying areas. She has done some travel to Italy, Germany, Singapore and Thailand, and has a visa to travel to Australia soon. She said it is very hard for Vietnamese people to travel abroad, not just because it is expensive for them but because many countries are concerned they will stay for better opportunities, which many do. She is considering moving to Singapore to join a friend working in the hotel or tourist industry for first world wages, but is torn because she would be leaving her family behind.

Here's John at a lake where we searched for a geocache. The pillars are part of an unfinished sky train planned to pass through the city. It's unknown when work will be completed after some Japanese funding dried up last year.

Hungry ghosts and the emerald island

Yesterday we went to see the National Museum of Vietnamese History. The building itself was an elegant, ochre-coloured structure completed in 1932 by the French, and incorporated a blend of Chinese and French design elements. Some of the museum covered ancient history but we went through the recent history exhibits which described the French colonial period, and the wars and insurrections with the French, Japanese, French again, and Americans. The exhibit had a large collection of artifacts over this period, including the flight jacket from a U.S. F-4 pilot named Colonel Norman Cagadixo who was captured when his fighter jet was shot down on May 12th, 1967. I found this disturbing and tried looking him up on-line to see what happened to him, but I couldn't find any information.

The Vietnamese people I've interacted with fall into three groups so far - people beeping at me to get out the way or at least not veer into their vehicle, hawkers trying to sell me something which I don't want, and a number of some female staff at hotels and restaurants who speak English very well and who are very friendly and helpful. I don't know if it's the culture or just good business acumen - probably both - but we've had a number of friendly encounters which have made for a pleasant time. They are often particularly interested in John and Elizabeth, and seem to really love their hair.

We've seen a lot of burning of paper in the streets the last couple of days. I thought this was just mad, considering how smoggy and hot the city is, and considering what a hazard this practise must be to people and property with all the floating embers flying about. I learned this is not an everyday event but is instead part of an annual Buddhist "hungry ghost" ceremony to feed and care for ancestors by providing them with paper forms of necessities in the afterlife. Necessities include paper models of cars, houses and cell phones. I saw one person today burning money, but I'm pretty sure is was fake money.

We walked around with a guide on a food tour today, and we stopped at a half dozen places along the way to try various dishes. At one place we watched the restaurant staff cook rice paper from rice milk, which is made from cooked rice pressed through cloth. The rice milk was spread out on a hot plate and covered briefly to cook. The paper was then used to roll some spiced pork, dried fried onions and other ingredients for our dining pleasure. Very good.

Joining our tour were a couple of young women from Ireland, who were taking a year off from teaching to travel around the Pacific region. It was an enjoyable day talking and eating with the guide and people from Ireland. The kids were interested in Ireland and the ladys' accents. The Irish girls complained about their cool and wet weather in Ireland and we reciprocated with stories of long cold winters in Canada. Then our guide Joceline piped in to complain about the Vietnamese cool and wet season in January and February, when nothing dries out for weeks at a time. What would we talk about if we couldn't complain about the weather?

Here's a picture of paper burning in the streets.

Next stop - Vietnam

We flew from Vientiane to Hanoi yesterday. After sorting out our visas with some difficulty at the airport, we purchased new SIM cards for our phones and took a taxi to our hotel. My first impressions of this city of seven million were of a new clean airport; impressive highways without much traffic; beautifully landscaped surroundings along the way, tended by workers in straw cone hats; flags flying over billboards celebrating the 70th anniversary of the communist party's declaration of independence; and a fabulous modern bridge on our way into town.

Then I saw a different side. I noticed a heavy smoggy haze hanging over the city. As we drove onto the smaller streets, I saw brightly coloured colonial buildings in various states of disrepair. and packed crowds of scooters and people making their way along crowded streets.

This city is so different from my experiences. The shops along the streets are often six or eight feet wide with goods spilling out of them. People work and eat on the street in front of their shops, and live in the two or three stories above their shops. The neighbourhood is seething and pulsing with people living and working in packed quarters. In the morning I saw people working in front of their small restaurants preparing fish, making dough, washing seafood and other tasks. In the afternoon and evening the spaces were filled with people cooking, and restaurant patrons or staff sitting on plastic stools and chairs eating, drinking and smoking. There are sidewalks, but they are mostly filled with endless scooters parked or parking. So we would inevitably end up walking along with a traffic. Items large and small are transported by scooters and small motorcycles, and ladies are sometimes carrying vegetables and goods in two large wicker baskets, carried by their shoulders by a stick and rope.

I learned in the short time we've been in Hanoi that if you want to cross a street, you need to move slowly across with confidence and faith that the maelstrom of scooters around you will make adjustments to your presence. Such is the traffic system here, or lack of a system. The only traffic rules I can see in this city largely without traffic lights, stop or yield signs are to stay to the right and not hit anybody. Somehow it works and it's a wonder to watch, although unnerving as a participant.

After settling in to our hotel, we went to a restaurant around the corner for a great introduction to Vietnamese cuisine in this town. We ordered a few dishes similar to those we would order at our favourite Vietnamese restaurant in Canada, and they tasted similar but different; as they say on tee shirts around here, same-same but different. It was very good; I have a feeling the food will be a highlight over the next few weeks in Vietnam.

On our way back to the hotel this afternoon, while waiting to cross the street, a street vendor was able to extract a few dollars from me in an interesting and exasperating interaction. John and I were offered a small round donut each. Being naive newcomers to the city, we took the offering (mistake #1). They weren't bad, but a bit chewy. I indicated they were good out of politeness (mistake #2). She next filled a bag with donuts and passed it to me and asked for some money in return, but I didn't understand how much she wanted for these things, worth less than a dollar I'm sure. I would have paid a few bucks to end the exchange but she started quoting the equivalent of about 10 dollars for the sad donuts. I tried to return the bag of donuts back to the basket they came from but the lady kept arresting my hand and lowering her price slightly each time. I took out my wallet, put down the donuts, and offered her two and then three dollars. She kept asking for more money and I just had enough so I just walked away without the donuts. She took half of the donuts out of the bag and handed them to John. What a crazy bargaining experience for a few little donuts I didn't want.

So as I was walking away John called me back because he was only wearing one shoe. While I was dealing poorly with the donut lady, the shoe guy next to her had applied some glue to the front of John's shoe while he was wearing it, and had somehow talked John into taking off his sandal. When I came back the guy was in the middle of stitching the front of John's sandal with this yellow thread that didn't match the black colour of the sandal. I told him to stop and return the shoe, which he reluctantly did - while asking for money of course.

I'm not sure what the lesson is here. Maybe don't take free donuts and keep your shoes on your feet? Or maybe laugh more and go with the flow. These people clearly don't have much and were only trying to make a living as best they could. Catheleen laughed afterward since she was the one who needed a few stitches in her sandal.

Here Elizabeth and I are at a park in the city.

Buskers and bargaining

We visited a Belgian restaurant last evening which served a hundred different varieties of expensive beer to go with steamed clams and fries. Come to think of it, we've been eating western food for quite a while now. I think partly as a change of pace from local Asian cuisine, and partly because the recommendations we get on-line tend to favour western style restaurants.

We mixed it up for lunch and dinner today and ate some local Lao style meals. One of my meals came with some tasty fat mushrooms I couldn't identify, which reminded me that I've seen a large variety of mushrooms on offer in Laos. Back in Luang Prabang the locals would pick wild mushrooms and sell them in the market, either fresh or dried. The first time I walked down to one of the main street corners in Luange Prabang I had to watch my step to avoid the mushrooms laid out on the sidewalk to dry in the sun.

We were walking around the night market last night and we spotted the first busker I've seen in Laos. The guy was rolling a crystal ball around his hands and arms, and he kept the ball so still in reference to the ground that it looked like it was floating. We also saw two women with white robes and shaved heads. I hadn't seen that before and learned later that they were Buddhist nuns.

We're arriving in Hanoi tomorrow a day earlier than indicated on our visas, and we discovered we needed new visas or we would run the risk that the airline would not allow us to board our flight. It all seemed designed to extract as much money as possible before we entered Vietnam. Oh well, lessen learned I guess - finalize your plans before purchasing visas.

While Catheleen sorted out our visas I took the kids on a bike ride along the river on the only bike and walking path I've seen in this country. Along the way I saw some floating shacks on the river next to a number of long narrow fishing boats I often see on the river. I wonder if people live in these shacks as their home or if they are used for fishing or some other purpose. After our bike ride we ended back at a French cafe we have visited often, which lured me in again with its good iced coffee and air conditioning. We heard many people speaking French here and elsewhere. I did a little research and discovered more French nationals visit Laos by far than any other Western nation. I don't know why but I would guess it has something to do with the country's colonial past.

Travelling abroad often involves bargaining for relatively small items, something I'm not used to or find particularly appealing. I wanted a piece of luggage and stopped in at a store to enquire about a piece of luggage which looked okay. The lady quoted an initial price which was much more than what I would pay in Canada, which seemed much too high to me. I countered with a much lower price, and then she lowered her price slightly and showed me some other cheaper pieces. At that point I walked away with the lady chasing me to make another offer. I declined, for no other reason that I just don't like the hassle of bargaining for small items. Catheleen has agreed to take on the job - I think she enjoys the process.

Here are some of the shacks I saw on the Mekong.

Newspaper articles and beer

I've tried reading the main English language newspaper in Laos called The Vientiane Times once or twice. There are many reports of meetings of government officials either praising other officials for improving infrastructure or occasionally criticizing others for not making enough progress. There are articles trying to encourage or educate people on something; one article provided a case study on a rice farming family that became more prosperous by learning how to grow vegetables. Another article provided some statistics on progress made to eradicate poverty by 2020, where poverty is defined as adequate food, clothing, shelter, clean drinking water and access to health care. One last article on the post and telecommunications sector "stressed the importance of imbuing civil servants and workers with stronger political ideology to ensure the successful implementation of the ministry's plan in the coming years." I'm not making this up. Apparently the Laos constitution allows for a free press, but it is also illegal to criticize the government. I guess if you can't criticize, the articles above are about all you're going to get. It's meagre stuff.

I forgot to mention that when we were zip-lining a couple of days ago we went swimming in the stream and pools. Almost everyone was in a life jacket in the pools, and when I asked why, I was told they were all Koreans and so couldn't swim. I imagine some Koreans can swim but not the group of 30 or so we were with.

We enjoyed our time in the small but growing town of Vang Vieng with its red muddy roads, chocolate brown and fast flowing river, blue/green streams and pools, white and black limestone cliffs, and misty green hills. But it was time to go.

We left yesterday morning by private van, passed by endless rice fields, and listened to our driver swear in Lao every time he hit a pot hole he couldn't avoid. Along the way south we passed a town every kilometre or so, with the same yellow sign at the front of two or three stores or restaurants with a picture of BeerLao and the name of the establishment. For the first two weeks in Laos we thought there was only one type of beer for sale, which is almost true. At one point we needed to stop the van to allow a gaggle of geese to waddle past.

It's now our second day in Vientiane and I'm sitting beside the pool at our hotel after another hot and sweaty day of activities seeing the sights. Catheleen and I went for a walk around town just after 6 AM this morning to beat the heat of the day, but it was already a hot and humid 26 degrees Celsius and rising. We had a nice walk along the boardwalk though where hundreds of stalls had been set up last night selling clothes and other wares. Everything was cleaned up and removed by the morning. There were a few brave souls going for a run along the river and we saw some aerobics enthusiasts exercising in the park to a dance mix of George Michael.

This town is much bigger than the other towns in Laos we've visited. Luang Prabang has about 50,000 people and Vang Vieng has about half that. The capital of Vietiane has a population of 700,000, and boasts infrastructure we haven't seen elsewhere in this country like street lights, some side walks, a park and an actual mall. I smelled garbage almost everywhere we went. I didn't know why since I didn't see much garbage in the street and Catheleen didn't smell it. It turned out to be dried fish, which is sold everywhere, and used for soups, pho, and probably other purposes.

Here are the kids at the Lao version of the Arc de Triomphe called the Patuxai. It's a war monument built between 1957 and 1968, dedicated to those who fought in the struggle for independence from France. It's ironic to me that the monument is in the French style, albeit with heavy Lao influences. To be fair though, the French borrowed the arch war monument style from the ancient Romans.

Zip-lining and kayaking

Start by cooking a crepe, slice a banana on top, fold it, spread it with Nutella and drizzle condensed milk on top. Cut into bite sized pieces and serve. They call them banana pancakes. We've had them in Thailand and now in Laos at stands on the side of the road. What could be better for a late night dessert.

We went zip-lining yesterday morning. I started off in a foul mood after a long ride over muddy, bumpy  roads in the back of a truck. But once I saw people zip-lining through the trees over a 100 feet above us I perked up. The climb up the hills over jagged rocks was maybe not as safe as it could have been, but the zip-lining itself was well done with good equipment, trained staff, and well built zip-lines and platforms. What a thrill to cross from one tree to the next through the jungle! We rode along about ten zip lines, and then came the finale. We needed to drop down on a line about 100 feet from the last tree platform to the ground below, what was called the spider drop. Elizabeth was the first to drop down, and as she hung on the line she asked "what do I do?". Our guide told she needed to do nothing  and let her fall with a "goodbye". She, and then the rest of us, one by one, would drop in near free-fall before the person at the bottom applied the brakes to arrest our fall. This was the only part that I was a little concerned about, since we were relying on the person at the bottom to arrest our fall correctly. But it all turned out fine with lots of thrills and screams.

In the afternoon we went kayaking for about eight kilometres down the Nam Song river. With a guide in his own kayak, John and I were a kayak and Catheleen and Elizabeth were in another, we passed a few small rapids along the way, which we aimed for when we could. We also passed below one shear white limestone cliff after another, each stained with black moss and partially covered in trees which somehow managed to cling on. Later on the route we joined up with some people tubing, and passed a few bars along the river with music blasting and signs trying to lure us in for a drink. 

Most of the tourists we see along the way, at least the non-backpackers, are Asians from other countries including Korea, China and Japan. This was evident for breakfast at our hotel where many of the food selections look to me more like lunch or dinner rather than breakfast. The kids were more adventurous than Catheleen and me and have enjoyed noodle dishes and curries on rice for breakfast. I usually just stick to the omelettes and toast.

We've rented bicycles for the day a few times.  Sometimes we rent three and Catheleen lets one of the kids ride on the back of her bike. It a great way to get around but we usually come back from our rides pretty hot and sweaty. I'm getting better at putting the chain back on a bike when they occasionally fall off.

We've been relying on recommendations from on-line sources when picking a restaurant. My main motivation is not to get sick eating something that's off, but it has resulted in some good meals here in Vang Vieng. We've been to a German place for Schnitzel, an Israeli restaurant for shish kebabs in pitas, and a French restaurant for beef bourguignon and goat cheese salad. All were good. In all cases it seems the restaurant operator is making do with simple ingredients, or else making their own products, like goat cheese. I understand it is prohibitively expensive and sometimes impossible here to import many of the products easily acquired where we live. 

First day along the Nam Song

More on the kids adventure last night. We were at a restaurant about 50 meters from our hotel, and after dinner we let the kids run off to a nearby stand for a banana pancake. They somehow managed to get lost after getting their dessert and wandered a few blocks the wrong way. They eventually stopped in at a resort lobby to ask for directions, but they couldn't remember the name of our hotel. They did remember it had a pool, so after describing the pool the lobby staff identified their hotel and arranged for someone to give them a ride on the back of a motorcycle. This was Eilizabeth and John's first time on a motorcycle, and without helmets too. John said he was on the back holding on and hoping he wouldn't fall off, with Elizabeth in the middle. Not great parenting on our part I suppose, but it all worked out. We'll spend more time at our next stop ensuring the kids are oriented and know the name of our hotel.

Vang Vieng is a small and relatively peaceful town, which is great for us. About as much excitement as I've seen in this sleepy place was a cock fight out on the main street last night, which was strange to see as I passed by. Vang Vieng had a notorious reputation as a backpacker's party town, but the party scene was shut down by officials three years ago after a number of party goers drowned in the river. It was a raucous place, maybe what the world would look like if teenagers were in charge. A typical day would involve a tube ride down the river with a plastic bucket filled with Red Bull and whiskey. There would be stops at dock bars along the way of course for more drinking and possibly a makeshift zip line ride down into the river. Restaurants along the river would openly sell shakes, pancakes and omelettes laced with magic mushrooms, opium, or weed. The lack of adequate medical attention in the area at the time I'm sure also contributed to the death rate.

We rented bicycles and visited the local caves across a walking bridge over the Nam Song river. The caves were pretty cool with good pathways leading into caverns. Water was dripping on the stalagmites and stalactites, so they were still actively forming. The kids drank out of coconuts, which a vendor cracked open just enough to get a straw in. Later John and I rode far in search of a geocache, but in the end we realized the cache was on the other side of the Nam Song river. There was a zip line at the river with people zipping over and John thought we could use that, but I pointed out it's a one way zip line with no way to get back to our bikes. John wanted to ask around to find a boat ride across but that was the end of the line for me, so we headed back.

I noticed a lot of construction going on, and some very strange trucks used to haul construction material around. They consisted of rough wooden trailers around 8 x 12 feet, pulled by what looked like an oversized motorcycle with tractor tires, with long handles so the driver could sit farther back.

Arrived in Vang Vieng

Our four hour drive south from Luang Prabang offered stunning views of the mountains as we climbed above the clouds and then back down again. I think our driver was in a hurry and was going too fast so we had to hold on to something on occasion as we veared around corners, cows, small children crossing the road, and the occasional rock slide. We climbed in low gear up though the mountain pass where the air was cool and then back down again to the valley and village below. I don't know why the guy was in such a hurry, but we eventually stopped for lunch at a small place where the driver said we had "ten minutes". We were pretty hungry by this point and I wasn't going to settle for a bag of chips for lunch. So we ordered off the menu and ten minutes later the guy sat across from us and sighed a bit while we finished our meal. On the way to our new location we were stopped by an army checkpoint where someone in uniform checked the driver's papers. Seemed odd - I have no idea why.

We are now in our hotel in Vang Vieng with a beautiful view of the Nam Song River and the shear cliff mountains in the distance. It really is picture postcard perfect. It rained for a few minutes while we looked at the view, with big rain drops bouncing off the river - very beautiful.

For dinner we went a few steps down the road to a Laos and German restaurant. It was a one-man restaurant owned and operated by Katz, who was born in Bangkok as a second generation Chinese immigrant, lived and married in Germany, and now serves shinitzels to tourists like us. We had a good chat after dinner and looked at his artwork on the wall. I told him it was a very good meal but we did have to wait a very long time for dinner - it was just him cooking and serving. He said he could use the help but couldn't hire anyone else, especially anyone Laotian, since they wouldn't care like him, or know anything about German cooking. He was an interesting fellow who really cared about his craft and business. We'll be back.

While we were chatting with Katz we sent the kids off to get a banana pancake at a nearby store. They has quite an adventure and ended up getting a motorcycle ride from a nearby resort down the street. More on that adventure with my next post.

Last night in Luang Prabang

I caught the news today that there was a bombing of a temple in Bangkok; 20 dead and 100 injured. We are far from Bangkok now, but it was shocking to hear of this incident in a place so frequented by both locals and tourists. The world has always been a dangerous place at times and it looks like it's not going to get any safer anytime soon.

It's our last night in Luang Prabang and we took a different path than normal, looking for a new place for dinner. We went down a street with some more upscale restaurants and saw a small gym in a building with no wall facing the street, with a few Lao men working out. That was a first. And on the way back I saw some teenagers on motorcycles having a good time laughing together and then zooming off, with the guys driving their bikes and the girls on the back - I guess they can have fun here like everyone else. At the hotel restaurant for dinner we talked to Tok, our waiter, who spoke English very well, which a rarity here. He wanted to tell us all about the area. He mentioned that last January was unusually cold with night time lows of 4 degrees Celsius. The hotel was not set up for this kind of cold; visitors would order a lot of soup and the restaurant staff would drape them in blankets. He said March is not a good time to visit here also. It is very hot with temperatures near 40 Celsius with a great deal of smoke in the air from the farmers burning their fields. He had nice things to say about the town too, being a great place to relax and take it easy. This theme has some up a few times around here.

I had a business meeting with someone in Canada via Skype; I conducted the call from my balcony to get the best Internet reception. I called him at 7 PM my time which was 8 AM his time. While we chatted the dogs were barking, the motorcycles were zooming by, and the Lao people below me were talking about whatever soap opera they were watching at the end of their day. I hardly noticed the noise but I guess it was a bit unusual for my counterpart, who called me from his quiet office into the depths of South East Asia. He kept laughing at all that was going on around me.

Down by the river on a bike ride I spotted something new. It looked like a carpet cleaning robot, but its job was to keep cutting a small patch of grass in the only park-like setting I've seen around here. I think the park is associated with an adjacent restaurant near the river, but we checked it out anyway. As we strolled around the small collection of pathways, grass and gardens I spotted a fisherman on the river. He was on a tributary next to the main Mekong River and was casting a net from the bow of a small boat common to this area. The boat was like a canoe really, very low to the water but square and I assume more stable. He expertly cast the ten foot square net into the water and then pulled a line to try to catch whatever was below.

But it's time to move on. We'll take a van down south tomorrow, about a five hour drive.

Alleyways and French cafes

Laos is a place of good and bad food choices. A good choice is to get a restaurant recommendation from a travel guide. A bad choice is to pick a random restaurant with a view of the river with no other patrons present. Catheleen's meal was clearly not edible and she wisely chose not to eat it. This should have been a clue to me not to eat mine, even though it did appear okay. I was a bit off for a couple days after that, but nothing too bad. I'll try to make better choices next time.

There is an alleyway near the night market full of food vendors. It's about 100 meters long, has no exits except at both ends, and is covered along its full length with low hanging blue tarps, plastic sheets, and corrugated steel roofs to protect the vendors and patrons from the weather. Inside it is packed on both sides with food vendors cooking and selling all sorts of items. A popular choice are the all-you-can-eat buffets along the way, where for the equivalent of $2 you can fill a bowl with as much as you like, choosing from a variety of cooked meats, vegetables or curries. The alley is chock full at night with backpackers and tourists, along with the locals. I don't think I'm claustrophobic but this place makes we question that. The food looks good but I need more ambiance than a long, crowded alleyway. Nearby exits wouldn't hurt either.

Early in the morning as I ran though the streets with wood smoke coming from kitchens along the way, I saw steam rising from the jungle, like little clouds nestled among the hills. It was a reminder that I'm in a foreign land. I'm amazed at how many dogs just lay on the main street with motorcycles and tuk-tuks driving around them. I guess it's not busy enough here to cause the dogs much concern.

We travelled back to the waterfalls yesterday by local taxi, which involved bouncing around in the back of a small flatbed truck with a roof of sorts to keep the rain off. It was quite a ride as the truck twisted and turned its way around the valley for the better part of an hour. The driver had to slow down a few times along the way to let the water buffaloes pass by; those things are huge. The waterfalls were impressive and fun, and it was weird and slightly concerning to the kids especially when we finally realized we were being constantly nibbled by little fish in the pools.

This morning we talked to our hotel neighbour Martha, who just arrived from Saskatchewan. She is here for a month to help set up a lab at the children's hospital nearby, which is the first children's hospital in Laos. She said she was surprised at the level of effort that will be involved to bring the hospital up to reasonable standards. She noted the child mortality rate during the first five years of life is around 80 deaths per 1,000 births, which is very high compared to the developed world.

Today we went for a walk to the old part of town near the row of Buddhist monasteries, filled on the other side of the street with shops and French-style cafes in ageing colonial buildings. When you throw in the communist party flags flying everywhere, it's an eclectic mix I wouldn't expect to find together. In the heat we didn't stroll for too long before stopping into an inviting outdoor French cafe with tablecloths, good coffee, and cool fruit shakes. My cappuccino was made well with real milk here, but we usually end up having Laotian coffee by necessity, which is a strong brew mixed with condensed milk. Not a great substitute for milk in my opinion, but they probably use condensed milk since it can be transported here easily without refrigeration.

Behind the scenes - communicating abroad

Having Internet access abroad has been great. We brought some devices with us, and doing so has allowed us to stay in touch with family and friends, post our blogs regularly, do Internet banking, and conduct research and online booking of accommodations and transport. It has even provided for entertainment, including Netflix, which is great when watching a movie in Japanese or Lao just won't do. We've had a couple mishaps though. One of the kids dropped Catheleen's phone, which trashed the screen. The screen was replaced for a good price in Luang Prabang at a pseudo-Apple store. John also left his iPad behind on an airport bus in Tokyo. Thankfully for John Catheleen tracked it down and had it shipped to Luang Prabang.

Wireless Internet access has been pervasive on our travels abroad so far through Japan, Thailand and Laos. Free WIFI was available at every hotel we've stayed at, and has been available at most cafes, restaurants, airport terminals, train stations, etc. We've stayed at a couple of private residences that we booked online, and we've found the WIFI at these places offered the best service, because the WIFI was dedicated to us.

As for communicating with each other, we have purchased SIMs and pay-as-you-go plans with talk, text and data for our phones in Thailand and Laos without any problems. We did need to provide a passport in Thailand to register our SIMs though, which the lady at the 7-eleven did for us when we made the purchase. The costs have been minimal so far. Japan was a problem though since they have an incompatible system for their phones, so we couldn't purchase SIMs there. We relied on WIFI, which was available almost everywhere, even including subway stations. We also could have rented a WIFI hotspot which was the size of a hockey puck and fits in your pocket, but we didn't bother.

So far we haven't had any problems charging our devices, since the receptacles here handle the North American plug and the devices can handle the voltage differences.

So here's to our electronics - we'd be lost without them. Right John?

Marigolds and moon landings

There's an old French colonial saying, "the Vietnamese plant the rice, the Cambodians tend the rice, and the Laotians listen to it grow". This was not intended as a complement to the Laotians, but perhaps it should be. The Laotians are pretty laid back and daily life runs at an easy pace around here, which isn't a bad thing in my view.

Last night on the way to the night market I saw a large number of vendors along the main street selling strange items to the locals that were unfamiliar to me. They consisted of cones made from banana leaves, with orange flowers like marigolds placed with toothpicks on the apex and around the base. Earlier in the day I had seen rice shaped into flat circles and left to dry in the sun, and we finally connected the dots. The rice circles are used as a base for the cones with flowers, and sold to the locals for use as offerings at spirit houses. The locals have the same type of spirit houses as most of the businesses and homes we saw in Thailand, which are used to calm the local spirits and bring good luck.

Daily life here starts pretty early. I went for a run yesterday around 6:30 AM before the day heats up and the streets were bustling with people going about their day. I believe they wrap it up early at night too. We're not exactly night owls but we did try to enter a local café around 9 PM the other night only to discover it was just closing up.

We went to the national museum yesterday. It included the Royal Palace where the royal family lived until the last king abdicated in the '70's when the communists came to power. The Palace was well preserved with much of the furniture remaining and many artifacts of regalia and coronations, including gold trimmed benches used by the King for elephant riding. There was one room with gifts from various governments to the royal family. I most liked those given by President Nixon in the early 1970's, which included a model of the Eagle moon lander, a small Laotian flag that travelled to the moon and back, and a moon rock. The gift from Canada on display was a plate, which wasn't as impressive by comparison. Is that why Canadians are charged the most for a visa to enter the country?

We rented bicycles today with working brakes, which was a bonus, and rode down along the river to catch a breeze and enjoy the view. We rode down a few kilometres so John could find the last geocache around Luang Prabang, which he did at the end of a lane near the river. Here we spotted six small kittens, and the kids fawned over them for some time. One of them had worked its head and front legs into a small piece of a plastic bag so we freed him. The kids were concerned since the mother cat was nowhere in site but the kittens did look healthy. We left the kittens with the hope that the mother was out hunting and would soon be back.

Today we also visited wat row, which is a long series of Buddhist monasteries along the river fronted by gardens and palm trees, one after the other. We started with Wat Xieng Thong, which is the most well known, and worked our way down the street. Along the way we sighted young monks in the wats going about their business in their saffron robes, and we observed a couple of novices being taught something at a table outside. I understand it's quite the site at dawn to see all the monks leave their monasteries en-masse to collect alms from some of the locals who kneel in a long row with their sticky rice in bamboo baskets, placing clumps of rice in each monk's alms bowl. It has turned into a tourist attraction unfortunately, with tourists interfering with the practise with their presence and cameras. So I'll pass on being a spectator.

Here's Catheleen at Wat Xieng Thong, modestly yet stylishly attired, thanks to the lady attendants at the entrance who insisted on the shawl and skirt additions.

Behind the scenes - planning the trip

We had been thinking about taking a break from work for a long time to do some travelling. We agreed that the kids, who are now ages 10 and 12, were about the right age for an extended trip. Any later and we felt we would be impacting their studies too much. I must admit that Catheleen was the main driver for this trip, but I came around soon enough.

A question I get often is how did we plan out the trip? The short answer is just ensure your spouse likes planning trips and just let her do everything. But even so, it took some stages of planning and the input from everyone, including the kids, to help ensure a viable and enjoyable trip for all.

We first thought to take a year off and go to France where the kids could go to school, and where we would be able to travel around Europe on weekends and school holidays. But we found it too difficult to arrange for a year long stay in France or other European countries, especially with the kids. The rules for France indicate a concern that we could be trying to establish residency. We also looked into house swapping with someone else in the world but found this hard to arrange for a whole year.

So we settled on a six month trip from July though December, with stops of a few weeks at a time in a range of countries. This would then fit easily within the maximum visit length for tourists for each country, and would mean less time out of work and school.

We confirmed the home schooling regulations for Ontario, and later sent letters to the school board to inform them of our plans. For home schooling, we plan for the kids to blog their experiences regularly to practise their writing, and complete a math syllabus for their grade level.

We agreed on the countries to visit based on our interests and the weather mainly, and we created a budget. Star Alliance is a consortium of airlines which provide planning and pricing tools online, which we found very helpful to book most of our international flights around the Pacific; they also offer around-the-world tickets. We worked out when we could end our employment and we budgeted for a reasonable period of time upon return to find work. We purchased most of our international flights three months in advance, and budgeted an allowance for food, accommodation, additional travel expenses, and activities in each country. Travel books were a good source of information. We considered renting our house, but we doubted we could rent it for only six months. In the end we decided to save ourselves the hassle by arranging for house sitters instead. We included budget to pay for house expenses, insurance and other expenses while we were gone, and arranged for travel medical insurance.

Since it would not be high tourist season for any of the countries we planned to visit, we are doing much of the remaining planning as we go. This includes booking locations and accommodations to visit within a country, and booking land or air transport between these areas.

Thanks to Catheleen for doing all the planning and booking. I'm just along for the ride.

Driving a motorcycle with a parasol

From what I've observed the Thai people are more outgoing than the Laotians, and more likely to smile and say "sa-wa-dee-kah", which is Thai for hello. The Laotian people appear to be more reserved and less likely to look you in the eyes and say "sa-bai-dee", which is Laotian for hello. Maybe they are too polite - a flaw shared by both Laotians and Canadians?

In the country-side yesterday I saw farmers and villagers living and working in some pretty basic conditions. People carried bundles of sticks on their backs, I suppose as fuel for fires. Farmers worked the rice fields wearing iconic straw hats shaped like cones. Women carried two straw baskets attached by rope to a wood stick that rested on their shoulders. There were many muddy roads, small one-room houses with corrugated steel roofs, and an abundant use of simple bamboo structures and platforms to keep people and goods off the muddy ground. Despite the modest houses, the wooden doors on the buildings were often ornately carved with various images. Of course every other person had a cell phone, which seems to be a basic necessity of life these days, no matter what your circumstances.

I wonder if I can gauge the development of a country more or less based on the locals' preferred mode of transportation. In this area motorcycles are abundant, as in Thailand, but I see more locals here in Laos on bicycles. I'll hazard to guess that as your income goes up, you start with a bicycle, then purchase a motorcycle, and then a car. I see very few cars around here in Laos.

It's curious that we hear western music everywhere. Even in the countryside the music is often emanating from 1980's or 1990's nostalgic music stations, but without the DJs. I have heard some traditional music, but infrequently. We always get a kick when we hear Canadian artists. On our first visit to a restaurant here in Luang Prabang we heard a long string of songs by Bryan Adams and Celine Dion. Did they know we were coming?

The people in town drive pretty slow, which is a good thing for pedestrians. I regularly see ladies riding their motorcycles at a relatively slow speed with an umbrella in one hand to shield them from the sun. Sometimes the parasol is held by a lady passenger riding side-saddle.

There are flags flying on many of the businesses in town, usually in pairs with the Laotian flag on one side and the communist party flag on the other. The party flag hosts a large hammer and sickle, usually in the middle of a red flag. It looks like the USSR flag but with a bigger hammer and sickle.

Last evening we made it to the night market for some outdoor dinner fare. Most of us went for baguette sandwiches with various fixings, which was a nice change of pace from our usual rice or noodle based meals. Just after we made it back to the hotel the skies opened up in an incredible torrential downpour that lasted for a couple of hours. It was a truly awesome display of nature, but I understand it's quite commonplace here, at least for this time of year. By the morning there were few signs of the rain. The roads and ditches appear to be well designed to handle the flow of water.

Here's Catheleen near the royal palace today. The site was closed for a two hour lunch so we missed our opportunity. Maybe we'll see it tomorrow.

Monk school and birth control

Last night we went out for dinner for local Lao food. The meals we ordered tasted similar to Thai food but with some variations - less spicy and sweeter. We'll need to try some more dishes to form a better appreciation. I want to try something called riverweed, which I'm guessing grows in the Mekong river.

There was a storm last evening that cut our plans short to visit the night market with the kids, and lasted through most of the night. Between the storm, someone coughing up a lung next door, and a rooster that should get his eyes checked if it thinks 4 AM is anywhere near dawn, it was tough for everyone to get a decent night's sleep. I did for the most part though, thanks again to earplugs. We enquired whether the person next door with obvious health problems had checked out - he had. I hope he went to a clinic, although I understand they are hard to find in this part of the world.

Today we took a tour. Our first stop was XangHai village which was billed as a whiskey making village. It seemed to be a very poor town that was selling many of the same handmade textiles and souvenirs that we've seen elsewhere. We tried the whiskey, which was good. It was made from white or black rice which was pulverised and fermented. The resulting product was either clear or red in colour and close to wine in taste and alcohol content. They also distill the product into a 100 proof spirit that tasted much like vodka.

More interesting than the whiskey to me though was our guide Phong. I don't get a chance to talk to many locals so guides are always a good choice, since they really don't have much choice but to talk back. As we were the only participants for this part of the tour and Phong spoke English fairly well, we were able to pepper him with questions. It turned out Phong joined a monastery at age ten by his own choosing and spent the next ten years at the monastery's school learning to be a monk. A typical day for Phong started around 4:30 AM with prayers and preparations for the day. He would then go out at dawn to collect alms, and return to offer blessings and support to those who came to the temple. Next he would have a communal breakfast with the other monks, as the first of two meals in the day. I didn't get a sense of the rest of his day other than he would go to school, but he did mention he would get pretty hungry sometimes between his second meal of the day and the next day's breakfast.

He said he was no longer a monk for the time being and was instead occupied as both a guide and a student at the university in Luang Prabang, where he has completed two years of a five year program. I don't know at what level of schooling he was at but he said he was studying mathematics, English, and Buddhism. His goal was to become a monk again in a year, finish his university program, and then teach Buddhism to young monks at the monastery. I understand that as a monk his university tuition would be paid for. I didn't ask if that fact played a role in his plans.

He said his family lived in a village in the mountains about four hours away by bus, followed by a two and a half hour walk. He would visit his parents at the village every month or so, and stay for two or three days at a time. His parents have a farm, which consists of a rice paddy field, pigs, chickens, corn and vegetables. He has 16 other siblings and when I asked him why his family was so big, he said that everyone had big families since 'medicine' for birth control was only recently made available. I asked if there was a hospital in town and he indicated there was a clinic at the next town where pregnancies could be monitored.

I saw rice paddies everywhere on our travels today. The locals grow a sticky rice here, which is more glutinous than the rice I'm used to. They grow one rice crop a year, planting it in May and harvesting the rice in December. The rice paddies look like wet and muddy pools, with narrow causeways of grass dividing up the muddy fields. Sometimes the fields are terraced, with pipes overhanging the terrace to allow the water to flow from a higher to a lower level. The rice plants looked something like bunches of green onion or thin grass shoots, spaced neatly in rows like solders on parade.

We joined some other tourists at the Manifa Elephant Camp. At the camp we were able to get close to the elephants. Tourists were riding the elephants, two on a wooden bench on the elephant's back, and one on the elephant's neck. There must have been a train of about ten elephants. From what I could tell the animals looked healthy and well taken care of. We were allowed to pet the elephants and feed them bamboo. They felt quite rough with spiky hairs.

Our next stop was the Pak Ou Caves, on the other side of the Mekong River. The caves were not that interesting frankly but the trip across the river was. We needed to cross the mud flats of the river to get to these very narrow but long wooden boats that were very low to the water and sat one person abreast on a small wooden plank. With no life jackets present, we crossed the wide river in a fairly strong current to the caves on the other side. If you could ignore the obvious safety concerns, it was a fantastic ride across the brown muddy river with majestic cliffs above. The cliffs had black streaks running down the beige vertical stone, with trees somehow managing to grow sparsely in places up the vertical face.

In the afternoon we made it to Tat Kuang Si Waterfalls, which were something special. The water was as cool as a lake in cottage country on an early summer day, and was the colour of milky light blue and green like Lake Louise in Banff. Maybe we were just hot when we arrived, but they were a beautiful sight to behold with terraced waterfalls around every corner as we walked our way up the path. We enjoyed our time soaking in the water and sitting on the terraces with the water running over us.

Here we are walking over to the boat on the way to the caves, across the Mekong River.

Thank god for the French

I am enjoying the local Asian food. We have only weakened and had a western meal a few times - usually to the disappointment of whoever ordered it. Almost every meal I've had since we arrived in Asia has been good to great. But last evening at the local night market I stumbled across fresh baguettes and I couldn't help but think, thank the heavens for the French influence here! I've tried not to focus on the bread since it's been non-existent to poor throughout Japan and Thailand. Think wonder bread in all its variations - toasted or not, with or without crust, fresh or most likely not. How fresh can wonder bread be anyway? Now we're hitting two former French colonies, Laos and Vietnam, so I'm expecting big things in the baguette department - a little butter wouldn't hurt either.

This morning John and I took bicycles out for a spin around the quiet town of Luang Prabang in search of a geocache. It would have helped if I had checked the brakes before we left, but I didn't, so we took it slow and I used my flip flops to stop; not a lot of treads on flip flops by the way. We eventually needed to leave our bicycles behind to walk through a road-grading project, but we eventually made it to the small temple that hid the geocache. The monks who lived there were supposedly fine with the geocache location, and so we were free to look around for the cache. I noticed young monks or novices no older than John going about their business, dressed only in orange coloured trunks because it was so hot I suspect. The cache was near a small stupa, which I learned is a Buddhist monument commemorating some event or marking a sacred spot. John eventually tried lifting the spire from the stupa's hemispherical base. When he did so, small ants poured forth in all directions. He reached in and found the small cache consisting of a film case. He was so excited to find the cache that he didn't notice all the ants crawling up his arm until I mentioned it. John must have thought of himself as Indiana Jones finding the holy grail or something.

The afternoon was very hot by my reckoning, but perhaps not so much for the local workers next door to our hotel, who were renovating the nearby property. They had bamboo scaffolding up which looked to be doing the job fine, but what surprised me were two workers doing hard manual labour in black jackets. I don't know if it was cold for them or whether they were protecting themselves from debris as they mixed concrete, but I was hot just looking at them from a partially air conditioned hotel room. I wonder if they would feel the cold bite of a Canadian winter more than me? Or maybe they are just tougher. Probably the latter.

This country seems less developed than just about anywhere else I've been, with the possible exception of Cambodia. We took a taxi to the local swimming pool this afternoon. The taxi looked like someone tried to attach a flat bed from a mini pickup truck to a motorcycle. I wonder who would manufacture these contraptions. I suppose they are much cheaper than a car.

The pool we visited this afternoon was just what we needed to get out of the hotel but still stay cool. I think it was the only pool around and pretty full up with tourists mostly who must also have been there to beat the heat and have some fun like us. The pool would have been fairly big if it was someone's back yard, but not so big compared to a public pool. It was wild west at the pool with many safety violations, like kids and adults jumping from a platform into the shallow end with no lifeguard present. But there was a pool bar and the water wasn't too warm. We had fun.

We went back to the hotel to relax and wait for the sun to go down and the temperature to drop a little before we ventured out again. On the way in I saw a couple of the hotel staff playing a game of hacky sack of sorts. They were keeping a shuttle in the air with their feet, which consisted of something with shortened rooster feathers attached to it.

Here's a dragon at the entrance to the local temple with the geocache. Looks like a snake to me.

Next stop - Laos

Our last night in Thailand was low key. We picked up some take-out from the local markets and relaxed at the hotel. Elizabeth spent some time after dark flashing lights on the pond frogs and trying to spot the geckos in the trees that were so loud and sounded very odd. I spotted a gecko in the kitchen as we were getting ready for bed but I didn't want to cause a stir by mentioning it to anyone. I don't think the creature caused a ruckus during the night.

We had an early start from Koh Samui in the morning to catch our flight to Laos via Bangkok. The Koh Samui airport was small but scenic. My favourite part was the aquarium fish tank above the urinals in the washroom. The flight over was uneventful, although the duck for breakfast was an interesting choice for Bangkok Airways. I think I was the only one to try it.

In the afternoon we arrived at our hotel in Luang Prabang along the Mekong river, which snakes its way along the border with Vietnam for part of its course. Flying over the river on the way into the airport, it looked like a huge reservoir of chocolate milk. On our approach through the remaining clouds, the surrounding land was covered in treed hills, and John wondered where we could possibly land. I guess the Loatians found a piece of flat ground to put this former capital and, more recently, the airport.

Here's a quick history lesson of our new destination. Laos was a French colony starting in the late 1800's, changed hands many times during World War II, declared independence from the French in the 1950's after a war, was heavily bombed by the U.S. during the Vietnam war, became a communist country in the 1970's, opened up somewhat to a market economy the last couple of decades, but is still quite poor. We are in Luang Prabang because it was the capital of this area for many centuries and so has a lot of cultural heritage worth exploring, including some culinary highlights.

On our way through customs and immigration at the airport, we needed to purchase a visa that cost a certain amount per person, depending upon which country you were from. I was intrigued that Canadians were being charged more than any other country's citizens. We didn't have enough cash to pay the visa so I was asked to go outside the airport to find an ATM. I was surprised that the officials allowed me to leave the airport to get the money and then let me waltz back in through the security checks without anyone paying much attention. I wasn't quite sure how much Kip I needed, which is the Loatian currency, so I took out a couple million Kip. I thought this was a lot but it turned out to be only about $200 U.S. I don't think I've ever had so many bills in my wallet. So we paid the bill and ended this odd experience that resulted in a lighter and thinner wallet. How nice of them to relieve me of my overly thick stack of Kips. I wasn't about to do anything but comply and smile a lot.

It reminded me of the time we passed through the Siem Reap airport in Cambodia years ago. The official who was about to stamp our visa first asked us if we needed a taxi ride from his brother. I recall feeling it was a good idea to say yes to the taxi, and I then eagerly watched the stamp come down on our visa, sealing our entry into the country.

Playful statues and the Thai's love affair with Bob Marley

Yesterday in the early evening Catheleen and the kids went for another Thai massage down the street. I understand John was well known to the Thai ladies who work in the shop. John has passed by a few times by himself, usually on the way to a gaming shop next door that would let him play video games on desktops for about a dollar an hour. John has been quite friendly and has chatted with the ladies a few times. Perhaps it was his crazy hair that attracted attention. I also suspect the ladies were a bit bored at times and were looking to chat with whomever passed by on the street.

We went to the Friday night market last evening, packed with people eating, drinking, shopping, walking and talking. This is one of the few places I know where you could just stroll along the street with a beer in hand. Our beer came in paper bags, which I'm assuming were meant to keep our hands from getting cold and not because we were doing something nefarious.

On the beach I saw a restaurant had set up huge brightly coloured lounge pillows for the patrons. People were lying down on the pillows facing the ocean with drinks in hand and food on small tables. Some of the food at this market was served on wooden sticks so you could walk and eat at the same time. Elizabeth and I had some corn on the cob on sticks which were cooked on coals, and later Catheleen and I had broiled squid tentacles on sticks, dipped in a sweet and spicy chilli sauce. John was adventurous and had some sushi - one roll with fish eggs, one with red snapper, and one black roll with squid dipped in squid ink. Way too crazy for me but he seemed to like it. Later Catheleen and I had scoops of coconut flavoured ice cream added to a half coconut shell that the vendor had split in half on the spot, with the white coconut flesh shaved up on the bottom. It reminded me of our first visit to Thailand years ago when we asked to purchase a coconut from a coconut milk producer on the street, who had a machine to process coconuts into coconut milk for use in Thai curry dishes mainly I imagine. He just gave us a coconut - I guess not too many people had made the same request and our request was just small potatoes.

There were performers everywhere along the way, a few singing Bob Marley tunes on guitars with thick Thai accents. Some performers were connected with cocktail vendors who were selling drinks out of old style Volkswagen vans converted into bars with multi-coloured lights emanating out of the vans. There was a group of Thai dancers in a square in traditional costumes performing traditional Thai dancing as far as I could tell. The costumes were ornate with a lot of gold trim, head dresses that looked like little temples, and fake nails on their hands that were around six inches long and curled backwards.

I went for a run this morning, which I hadn't done since I had access to a treadmill in Bangkok about ten days ago. Typically the morning temperature will start around 28 degrees Celsius and go up from there. This morning the temperature was around 24 so I was out of excuses. I ran along the main road that circles Koh Samui against traffic. The motorcycles are the worst hazards, since they zoom in and out, many rode by tourists. I finished my run a bit hot but none the worse for wear. Maybe I'll try again in a couple days.

I like our quaint hotel. The dark wood deck outside our room is flanked on both sides with ponds holding lilies with purple flowers. Elizabeth discovered the ponds were filled with tadpoles and spent some time catching them and letting them nibble on her fingers. We heard some strange noises last night, which we think came from the pond frogs. There are flowers everywhere, including many varieties of orchids attached to the trees in little pots. I enjoyed looking at the beige stone statues lying around or attached to the walls. There were Thai style dragon heads, playful monkeys spouting water from their mouths at the pool, and stylized small statues of people, flanking each of the room doors.

I don't know what style this person is - maybe Cambodian inspired or just playful.

Spirit houses and the sailing business

We enjoyed our time sailing over the last few days. It was interesting to get to know the skipper and crew, as was inevitable really since we were living together in close quarters for a few days. I suspect that if you live with just about anyone for a little while, and show some interest, you'll get their life story soon enough. The skipper Kunta was the German business owner of the boat, who also owned a couple of catamarans and one or two smaller mono-hull sailboats. He was a little older than us and has been in Thailand making a living ever since he arrived as a backpacker in the early '90's.

He is now married to a Norwegian gal and his kids and wife are currently back in Norway for the summer break. He has a staff of about ten Thai employees who skipper and crew the other boats. The first mate Dont is a typical example of his staff. As Kunta explained it, he can't advertise in the newspaper for a qualified employee, and he needs to hire Thai people. So through word of mouth he would ask for referrals for someone with potential. Dont was hired five years ago at age 16 and didn't speak any English or have any sailing experience. Nor does Kunta speak much Thai, which he said is very difficult to learn. I'm told most Thais do not finish high school, so Kunta usually ends up hiring those without a great deal of schooling.

Now Dont skippers one of Kunta's other boats most of the time and is completing his high school education on the side. Kunta said he invests so much time in each employee that it is very disruptive when one of his staff leaves. It was quite interesting to interact with a young Thai person and get some glimpse into his world. If Dont were to improve his English some more and continue to apply himself, I'm sure he could run a business like Kunta's one day. I think as I get older I think more about the younger generation and wish them well as they start their careers.

We woke up today in a hotel after a restful sleep with fresh sheets and towels. What a treat. I like our bathroom, with its bathtub exposed to the the sky. Once I cleared out a few leaves which fell into the tub, I enjoyed a relaxing soak with the birds chirping. I think I also smelled marijuana wafting by, perhaps from a neighbouring bathroom. This is a very small resort with one small pool which we have to ourselves most of the time. Catheleen and Elizabeth went out for pedicures and to drop off the laundry, John went along the beach for an adventure, and I enjoyed some time by the pool.

By the pool I noticed yet another spirit house - they are everywhere. Most Thai houses or buildings have a house of spirits. Every morning the owner is supposed to feed the spirits of the land, to calm them and assure good blessings for the owner of the house. At these places you usually find all sorts of things for the spirits including incense, flowers, food, drink and little figurines representing servants to serve the spirits, dancers for entertainment, and elephants and horses for transportation. This one has all of the above.

Fish caught by light bulbs and chill lounge music

The first mate Dont was kind enough to interact with our kids throughout the sail trip. Last night he took the dinghy over with John to a fishing boat in our cove to drop off soft drinks for some of the crew. There were about 20 fishing boats in the cove. Many of them were banded together in groups of four or five, all with their bows facing the same way. The boats were about 40 or 50 feet long, brightly painted in light blue or aqua with orange or red trim, all looking like miniature paddle wheel boats without the paddle wheels. Other fishing boats had long booms stretching out 40 or 50 feet on both sides of the boat, about 20 feet above the water. These boats had light bulbs attached all along the booms. I understand the lights are used for night fishing, and all manner of fish are attracted to the lights and so into the fisherman's nets.

On the way to dinner Dong brought the kids to the local 7-11 store, which are everywhere, to pick up some banana pancakes for dessert. The Thai-style pancakes are a special treat and there are little pancake stands everywhere, consisting of not much more than a fancy wheelbarrow cart with one heat plate to cook up a crepe. The crepes are filled with bananas and Nutella, folded and cut up into squares - very tasty.

It was a restless last night on the boat as the winds picked up with light rain falling. The anchor chain clanked against the hull, the halyards hummed in the breeze, and the lines bashed and battered about. Catheleen and I both slept well with earplugs and the careless responsibilities of passengers. The skipper and crew, on the other hand, felt the weight of responsibility for the boat and all aboard and so did not have a restful sleep. I later heard they were up top a few times throughout the night to check that the anchor wasn't dragging, wrapping the lines and what-not. After breakfast we sailed over to another cove and then hiked up to a small waterfall. I say hiked because that is what the skipper was expecting, based on his last visit. It turned out that nothing stays static here for long as an asphalt road and stairs had been built since. It was just as well since I was in flip-flops. The water was cooling, and we all enjoyed putting ourselves into the flow of the waterfall. John was concerned about the anaconda situation but he was assured that we wouldn't see any big snakes in the little stream.

I knew lunch would be special when we arrived in the Haan Yuan cove and started our way up the bolders and cliffs to the Bamboo Huts. We first passed a bamboo tattoo hut. Next up the bolders was a juice hut, and then we passed a hot-rock massage hut. After walking up along wooden walkways made with rickety sticks for posts and leftover wood for planking, we arrived to the sounds of chill lounge music in the air. With a large poster of Bob Marley on the wall, I knew this place was a bit different. In an open area there were some people lying down on mats and pillows enjoying a juice smoothy or just meditating. There were others at tables having something to eat or staring into the sea. With all the tie dye, sarongs, and young & tanned people around, it did have the feel of an updated and international dropout scene. I was told that there are many backpackers and other guests who stay here long term. Some are involved taking or teaching yoga or meditation. We had lunch on the floor on pillows at a short table, and enjoyed a great meal. This is the first time we've had brown rice rather than white jasmine rice with our meal. It was actually reddish in colour and worked well with the Masaman curry and other dishes. We were served by Burmese staff, some of whom wore yellow paste on their faces. I inquired and was told that the yellow paste is traditionally used for sun protection, and is also used for show. One young man was wearing the paste on his face in stripes like I imagine a Native American warrior might look. After lunch and beach time we popped champaign that the captain brought along for our final voyage, had a toast, and then left Mae Haat with a strong breeze on a starboard tack for our way back to Koh Samui. We had a great time on this sailing trip and I was sad to see the trip end.

Komodo dragons and steering the boat

In the evening we had dinner in the same bay in Koh Tao where we were yesterday. The kids befriended the local dog named Durian. He was a big dog with black and white markings that looked like a pit bull, and the kids fawned over him shamelessly. I wonder how he got his name. We suspect he likes to eat Durian.

I think we all slept well on our second night on the boat, either because we were tired or because we were more used to sleeping on the boat. In the morning after we woke up it rained for 20 minutes or so and we needed to batten down the hatches to keep the rain out. We spent the morning in the cove paddle boarding and snorkelling. Somehow Elizabeth and John talked the first mate Dont into giving them joy rides on a paddle board behind the dingy. John would stand up on the paddle board, holding onto a rope attached to the board for balance.

For the afternoon we sailed back to Koh Pha Ngan and I steered the boat for much of the way with the wind running perpendicular to us on a beam reach. It was good fun and I really enjoyed it. This is how John described the 'ordeal' (he commandeered my iPad when I wasn't looking and wrote this):

"Hello it's John's ambush of doom here. I just want to tell you that I almost died at the hands of Dad after he dramatically drove the sail boat. Let me back up to explain how he actually got the right to get his hands on the fate of my life, that is, how he got permission to drive the sailboat. He got bored, straight up, and the captain let him steer the boat. As you can see, I already had the urge to strand myself with a Bengal tiger watching the entire ship sink before my eyes (Elizabeth being the Bengal tiger and in the scene of the movie 'Life Of Pie'). First of all I can already say that the waves were over the top for another stupidly Dad crazy reason! He got hungry and so he was fed by mom with some papaya, which is a tasty treat AWAY FROM THE STEERING WHEEL! SO THAT WE CAN ALL ENJOY IT OURSELVES! That's what I wanted to say."

We last ended up at a beach near the Panvaman Resort, where we stayed the last two times when in Thailand. The last time we were here we walked down to the beach from the cliffs where we had our meals at the Star Huts. This was a low key place where you could rent a hut with a sand floor and order from a restaurant that also had a sand floor. I think I managed to make it for almost two weeks in bare feet. The first time we stayed at the Panvaman we watched large lizards (something like Komodo dragons) roam at the bottom of the steep slope from our hotel. Sadly no Star Huts or Komodo dragons this time. The beach was transformed into a series of resorts, but was still fabulous with its white sand and views of the hills.

Here are the kids on the dingy on the way to the Panvaman beach.

Snorkel till you drop

Last night we had dinner at the only restaurant in this small cove. We took the dingy from our sailboat to the wharf, which consisted of two floating docks with a four foot gap between them. It was dark and at first we weren't sure how to cross the space. Elizabeth quickly discovered that there was a rope which joined these two docks, which she pulled to close the gap. So we all leaped over, with Elizabeth keeping the open water at bay like a little strong man. As we walked the remaining way along rickety decking, I imagined we were on an adventure passing obstacles like tests to be overcome.

We slept onboard in the cabins below, one in the bow and one in the stern. I don't think anyone had a really good night's sleep except perhaps for the skipper and crew, who were used to sleeping on a boat. I was told that conditions for sleeping were near ideal for this part of the world, with a fresh breeze blowing and the boat gently rocking through the night. I did find it very peaceful though to be lulled to sleep by the ebb and flow of the boat movement, with the sound of water lapping against the hull.

We started the second day on the boat with a morning of snorkeling and paddle boarding. We then slipped our moorings for our day trip to circumnavigate Koh Tao and return to the same place we started off our day. Our first stop was Shark Island for face time with the sharks, which were supposedly one meter long with black fins and not dangerous. As we snorkled around the small island, we unfortunately did not see any sharks. We did however have some difficulty crossing over one point as we tried to make our way around a rocky outcropping. As the small waves rolled in there was just enough room to float over the rocks to the other side. I should have turned around, but I didn't, and so we did get a few cuts crossing and then returning. After feeling the sting of cuts in salt water, we returned John and Elizabeth to the boat and then Catheleen and I continued on. The coral life and fish are so varied and interesting it's hard to describe. You just have to see it for yourself.

We stopped at a few other alcoves and beaches along the way around the island of Koh Tao. Mid-afternoon we stopped at the only town on the island called Mae Haad where the ferry crosses over from Koh Pha Ngan. The main street was bustling with activity as young backpackers made their way around, some looking for accommodations and some waiting for the ferry. It reminded me of Koh Pha Ngan years ago when it was filled with backpackers, Catheleen and I among them.

We then stopped at one last beach before we made port for the night for more snorkeling. The skipper said we would snorkel till we dropped today and we certainly had our fill. Catheleen and Elizabeth saw a large school of parrot fish, and I saw a school of small fish which was so large and packed together it looked like a moving black swarm. I swam through schools of small fish today and it was interesting how they would divide up and then meet back together after I was clear of them, like Moses parting the red sea.

The skipper was then concerned that a storm was approaching, but after a few minutes it became clear that the storm would miss us. We did experience the remnants of the storm on the way back to our mooring with some gusts and big waves that made for a fun ride. John and Elizabeth rode at the front of the boat, which received the most movement as the boat rose and crashed in the rolling waves. The skipper had to turn around a one point so we were head to wind as a gust and wave approached. It was quite a ride.