Turnbull Family Pacific Tour 2015

On our first day in Australia I walked down the street from our apartment in Sydney and stopped in at a 7-eleven convenience store to grab a sandwich. The attendant was chatty and after discussing his trip to Vancouver Island, he talked up their coffee maker and suggested I try the coffee. I wasn't expecting much from a 7-eleven but thought what the heck. I was confused by the options though. Did I want a long white or a short black? I went for the long white - whatever that was. It was very good and tasted much like a latte. By contrast the next day we visited a Starbucks and I didn't find the coffee as good. Australians are not a pretentious bunch, but they could be about their coffee. It's excellent and they're willing to pay a few dollars more to have it made to order. No ready to pour drip coffee pots are to be found here. Starbucks tried opening up some stores in Australia but most of them closed down a few years later. It turns out Australia already had great co...

Yesterday we went snorkelling on a glass bottom boat. The wooden boat was pretty basic with a couple of glass boxes covered in algae which prohibited much of the view. And I wasn't impressed when we were more or less crammed in with 50 other people, but all was forgiven after we arrived at our first snorkelling site. We were diving in the middle of the ocean between two Gili islands, drifting with the current. We followed our guide, who was an expert at spotting turtles on the sea bottom that I couldn't spot. He would then dive down 20 or 30 feet to nudge the turtle, who would slowly swim away. What a thrill to swim with the turtles. Sometimes they would swim to the surface to catch a breath, and one time John was able to touch one and then swim along with it. We went to two locations before lunch and two places in the afternoon. At two locations we searched and found turtles, who rested deep down on the seabed. The other two times we saw some spectacular coral and fish. The co...

Our train from Bangkok last night ran south along Thailand's peninsula en route to the coast, across from Koh Samui, which was our final destination on this leg of our journey. We could have taken the plane but we wanted to re-live the overnight train experience we had on our first visit to Thailand. On the train we had a couple of small private cabins where we were served a good meal and where the steward later converted our seating area into bunk beds. While an interesting experience, I'm not sure anyone had a truly restful sleep as the train bumped and clattered along from stop to stop throughout the night. I was almost fooled again as I was on this same train trip years ago when I thought there was only a squat toilet on the car - Thai-style. The kids were kind enough to inform me that there was also a western style toilet around the corner. A squat style toilet is not your friend on a moving train. We arrived in Suratthani before dawn where we had to wait a few hours bef...

Thailand is part of the developing world so it's easy to focus on the negatives - too crowded, too disorganized, too poor. But we've been to Bangkok a couple of times before so we know what to expect, and we wouldn't have come back if we were focused on the down side. Rather I think Thailand is just too special to avoid if travelling to this part of the world. The food is on par with the best cuisines, the people are friendly and welcoming, and it's just a unique place so different from the West. The kids seem to be focusing on the positive too for the most part. Case in point, John and Elizabeth ordered green curry and rice for breakfast. Way too hard core for me but they seemed to enjoy it. The first thing I always notice when I come here is the Thai's reverence for their King and royal family. There are pictures of the royal family everywhere - some covering whole sides of skyscrapers. The monks in orange robes are also a striking site which always remind me we a...

It's our first day in Bangkok and we're settling into our new surroundings at a privately owned condo. I'm relatively adventurous when it comes to lunch and dinner, but not so much for breakfast. I was disheartened as I made my way to the street early this morning with John and first spied a street vendor cooking whole fish - for the breakfast crowd presumably. I next went into the local convenience store to find that the coffee on offer consisted of hot water with packs of instant Nescafé. This wouldn't do. But I felt better later on when Catheleen and I strolled a while down the street to find a bakery serving banana bread and coconut flavoured treats, and a street vendor who made us fresh coffee with her espresso machine. Problem solved for breakfast. We enjoyed the morning pool-side along the Chao Phraya river. The kids skipped their Woboba balls across the pool, and Catheleen and I watched the boats pass to and fro along this slow moving river. In the afternoon w...

I'm not a big fan of organized tours in general. You're always being shuttled and corralled along on tight intervals, and this tour was no exception. However I was encouraged as the elderly and heavy-set tourists started to slowly lumber onto our bus - clearly there would be no hiking or undue walking today. After a few days of strolling around Tokyo streets and riding the subway standing much of the time, I would enjoy the relative rest and relaxation of this sightseeing tour. As the guide started the trip by singing the praises of the driver in a heavy accent while the air conditioning kicked in, I readied myself for the day ahead with WIFI on the bus and tour ads on the monitor above. Our guide even attempted to sing a song that presumably all Japanese know - I'm glad this didn't lead to Karaoke for all comers. Actually the guide was very good and provided some interesting information along the way. She even had us make miniature origami warrior helmets along one str...