Turnbull Family Pacific Tour 2015

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 s...

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 ...

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...

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 wo...

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 La...

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 constituti...

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 dro...

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 ...

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 ha...

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 ...

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 w...

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. ...

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 Th...

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 ...

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 w...

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 mak...

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 lef...

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 ov...

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 ...

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...

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...

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 be...

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 pe...