Turnbull Family Pacific Tour 2015

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...

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...

We started off our day with a visit to Bridal Falls .   The waterfall was nice but what I liked the most was the short hike through the forest. It's not like anywhere else I've been with its huge cedar trees covered in moss - reminds me of some kind of a cold jungle. We poked at the big slugs along the way and the kids made their way back and forth across the creek along fallen trees. In the afternoon we headed for White Rock for lunch with relatives and some time along the ocean front- the kids made a geocache find near the beachfront, which they were quite excited about. Later we had a farewell dinner in Abbotsford with my parents. I like this picture with Catheleen and Elizabeth walking ahead while the train whizzes by along the White Rock shoreline. There's been talk for years about moving the tracks elsewhere which would be good, but for today we felt the rush of the train rolling by at close quarters. We packed in a lot of activities for one day. We're goin...