Turnbull Family Pacific Tour 2015

I have to admit we haven't done too much since we arrived in Nelson New Zealand, on the northern end of the south island. We're staying in a really nice place on top of a ridge with a great view of the ocean. I find when we are at a particularly nice place, I feel like staying close to home base and just relaxing. So without many recent activities to describe, here's a list of random things I've learned about New Zealand since we arrived on the South Island. 1. What a beautiful place. Everywhere you go the views and vistas are amazing. 2. Driving on the left is tricky. I keep walking to the car to get into the driver's seat on the wrong side, and I still think the turn signal should be where the windshield wiper controls are. Then there are the ever present round-abouts - ugh. I attempted parallel parking once with some success, but I kept shoulder checking over the rght shoulder. It's confusing. 3. There really are more sheep than people here. Something like...

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...

Admittedly I'm not actually starving on this trip. In fact, I've probably gained a few pounds, unless my clothes have been shrinking every time they come back from the laundry. But it does feel like I'm often staving off hunger between each meal. Yes it's a personal problem but I feel like sharing. Catheleen mentioned yesterday that I am always talking about food. I think it's true. I usually start off by asking Catheleen whether she wants to go for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Then there's often the need to research restaurants in the area for good ratings, since apparently we can't keep going back to the same restaurant for all our meals. Next we decide when to go and whether everyone wants to go. Then there's the time needed for everyone to get ready. I'm not naming names, but let's just say some people take longer to get ready than others. Then we need to walk there, order, and wait for the meal to arrive. All the while I'm starving, o...

We're taking it pretty easy for our last few days in Bali, before we head off to Sydney Australia on Saturday evening. We thought about going to the beach today at the end of the strip but we heard there were a lot of hawkers there. So we're spending another day at the resort by the pool, near the ocean. I really like this spot near the pool, next to the seawall. It has some beach sand in a contained strip, with some beach chairs and umbrellas setup here. It's like we're at the beach, without being on the beach. Very nice. It seems to be low season here with few tourists. Sometimes we're the only patrons in the restaurant. Even so, there are many hawkers on the street as we walk to local restaurants and shops. As we stroll along, we are invariably asked every 50 or 100 feet whether we want to purchase sunglasses, whether we need transport, or if we want to go snorkeling. It looks to me like a great number of Balinese men around here are idle without much to do, at ...

The seafood is very good here in Gili Air. Yesterday we had excellent fish tacos, and the night before Catheleen had Mahi Mahi in a garlic sauce which she said was good. Today before the sun had set we went out to get some gelato ice cream. Along the way we saw today's catch on display for dinner at one of the restaurants. The seafood included multi-coloured parrot fish and bright red grouper fish. We've done some snorkelling off the beach over the last couple of days and I'm pretty sure we saw similar fish while they were alive. Catheleen said she wasn't interested in eating the fish after seeing them swim among the coral, but don't think I mind. This afternoon we witnessed how some of the fish are caught as we sat on the beach enjoying lunch. About six men, each with 25 foot poles, waded out about 100 meters through the shoals up to their waists and cast their lines into the deeper blue water. This is the same place we were snorkelling earlier and the fishermen we...

Last night we had a great meal at an Italian restaurant, although we may have eaten too much. The portions were much bigger than we thought. No worries, we had left over pizza the next day. After dinner Catheleen and I wandered around. I don't know how many Hindu temples there are here but they are everywhere. It's an interesting mix to see restaurants and shops squeezed in on the street between temples. We definitely had the feeling that we were far from home, but yet we had a sense of relaxation. Today we visited the Bali Bird Park . It was an excellent day where we saw up to 250 species of tropical birds from Indonesia and around the world. Many of the birds we visually stunning with such brightly coloured feathers. But the best thing about this place was the close interaction we had with the birds. Something I suspect would not be possible in Canada for health and safety concerns. I think the locals are less fussed about that here. Upon arrival we had a chance to hold some...

One reason I like to travel is to confirm that Canada is the best country in the world to live in. Kidding aside (sort of), when I travel I do try to keep an open mind to how others live, and then ask myself if they are on to something. For example, throughout the world I'm often impressed with the food on offer and wish we Canadians would pick up a few lessons from abroad. Maybe a few less hotdogs and fries and a few more fresh tasty meals instead - just a friendly suggestion. After enjoying another great meal at a mall food court in Singapore, jammed packed with the locals, I have to chalk one up to the Singaporeans. Great food, variety, quality and prices - and even a beer stand to get a bottle. Would it be so wrong if we could get such treatment in Canada? Cleanliness? Have to give Singapore another point. Yes Canada is pretty neat and tidy when we're not dealing with 'snirt' - that's my name for the mix of snow and dirt that we drag into our malls and busines...

Last night as we walked around the old city after dinner we saw a game of Bai Choi being played in a square. It was a bit like bingo but with music, singing and dancing. Each contestant received cards with Chinese chess pieces on each card, and the dealer randomly drew bamboo sticks from a box which bore the name of one of the chess pieces. The dealer or his assistant would then sing a folk's song about the piece.  I learnt later that the songs conveyed values like love, friendship or patriotism but with some fun mixed in. When a contestant had a match they called out and received a yellow flag, and when someone was the first to receive enough flags they won a small prize. The people playing the game seemed to be having fun and it was quirky to see the performances. There was another game down the street that anyone could play since it needed no Vietnamese language skills. Players would put on a mask so they couldn't see and would take a whack with a stick at a small hanging...

Yesterday we flew south from Hanoi to Da Nang and took a taxi to Hoi An , which is a much smaller place than Hanoi or Da Nang. The town name translates to "peaceful meeting place". It's a UNESCO world heritage site for its well-preserved South-East Asian trading port dating from the 15th to the 19th century. Not too many of these old cities remain that haven't either been rebuilt as a more modern place or destroyed by one of the many wars. The reason for its preservation is a combination of factors, including the silting up of the local river, which made the city a sleepy place for a couple of centuries. On the way to our hotel by taxi from Da Nang, I spotted locals harvesting rice from the paddy fields. The fields were golden coloured from the ripe crop and had been drained of water to make for an easier harvest by people and machines. The machines on the field were being used to cut the stalks, and the people were carrying large bundles of yellow stalks laden with...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

Last night we had dinner down the street at a family run restaurant. The father and mother had two kids, boy and a girl, who were about five or six years old. They both took turns bringing us our menus, drinks and meals under the supervision of their father. They did run around a bit when not employed in a specific task, but they did a good job, and they were cute. We all high-fived the boy on our way out, who was by then in his super hero PJs. John had a new curry for dinner called Panang curry. It was red but tasted much like green curry but with some additional Indian spices. The varieties of curry pastes the Thais use in their dishes seem endless - it was worth it trying a new one. This morning we started a four day sailing trip on a Whitby 42 foot sailing boat, with our German skipper and Thai second mate/skipper in training. We left Koh Samui in the morning, had lunch at Bottle Beach on Koh Phan Ngan, and moored in Koh Tao for the night. The wind was strong on the way over a...