April 18

We are writing today from Nakom Pathom, west of Bangkok.  We are now travelling with dad Kipp and Meng, our friend and former exchange student from Thailand. He has shown us great things and taken really good care of us, not to mention being extremely generous as he says is the Thai custom...(?) Thanks Meng! The place we just left (Koh Samet) deserves a photo as we have never seen so many people fit onto a stretch of beach for a BBQ.

The overnight train to Chiang Mai was lots of fun, sleeping in bunk beds and travelling for 14 hours north. We were meant to have a cabin for 4 but arrived and found our beds had been double booked. Apparently this happens frequently in Thailand, the other couple had the previous date written on their tickets without realizing and the train guy wanted them to get off the train telling them through hand gestures that it was their own mistake. We all sat tight and insisted we share the space together knowing the couple would never find another seat due to the Thai New Year. After 15 minutes of this trying to communicate and refusing to get off the train, the train guy gave in with frustration and the 6 of us shared the four beds to the north. As a result we have 2 new German friends and the train worker returned all jovial a few hours and a few whiskeys later!

The water festival was incredible. It lasted all week in various parts of the country, we celebrated first in Chiang Mai then here in Nakom Pathom. It is to celebrate the New Year of 2555. To summarize, we put our money in plastic, got the waterproof camera out, carried buckets and water guns and headed onto the street. For hours and hours, day after day all the people in the street have garbage bins full of water,  hoses running to fill vessels and trucks loaded full in the back of people with their water, driving the speed of the walkers through the traffic jams. The driving vehicles and the people walking all take part in dumping containers of water on each other, spraying each other and spreading clay/flour onto each others faces. Silas and Orrin engaged fully taking every possible chance to retaliate and spray water. Eventually Orrin was being swarmed by locals touching his face and needed to get onto Meng's shoulders for a break from the insanity!

We were taken to see elephants and tigers, very interactive to be able to ride the elephants and pet the lazy tigers. I thought the tigers must be drugged but the man working with them said they were not, just in the day are less active and well trained. There were signs everywhere warning of the dangers and not to approach from the front or touch their faces or front paws. The workers were very careful to keep everyone safe. Dad and Meng were brave to pet the biggest tiger and Silas was disappointed to only be allowed with the babies!

The elephants were a highlight for Orrin, he was so happy to be able to feed them sugar cane and bananas and the elephants looked so proud of themselves when they showed us their tricks.

Our other big splurge was the jungle zipline. Here we flew from station to station and had a few drops through the trees, the largest drop was 40m. This was a favorite for me and Martin! This was all Chiang Mai, a holiday within a holiday and a great way to celebrate the New Year and joining together our travels with dad and Meng. I only hope when I am almost 70 I can still do what my dad can do, he is amazing and as adventurous as always!

Now in Nakom Pathom (Meng's hometown) we are spending time meeting his family, eating delicious foods and wandering through markets. Another very interesting aspect of Thailand is the floating market, a series of boats and stalls along the canal with most of the shoppers travelling by longboat throughout. A tropical Venice I suppose... Here we bought mango, coconut and roseapple then stopped along the side to watch coconut sugar being made and to have a taste.

Soon we head to the Islands in the south, wish us well and hope for the earthquake and tsunami events to quiet down please!!! It's all pretty minor and random says dad...

April 9 2012

We left Bali and headed to Malaysia to stay with an old friend of Martin's in Penang. Christian, Ni and baby Jenesta showed us around and gave us lots of good advice and ideas before we headed to Kuala Lumpur for a few days. While we were there we also noticed a world music festival was happening so spent an evening listening to great music from Asia, Ireland and Indonesia. Being at a music festival felt like being at home and made us excited for summer and good friends!

Malaysia was a big change from Bali and we were suddenly immersed in city life, huge buildings and bustling streets. Also came a change from Hinduism to Islamic and we had the opportunity to visit the central mosque dressed in full gear! We were so hot I started to feel a bit dizzy and stood mostly by the fan. The twin towers were a highlight for Silas and looked especially impressive at night.

We left for Bangkok after only 5 days in Malaysia and stayed for 3 nights on Khao San Road, a crazy street full of vendors and tourists that doesn't quiet down till 4:30am. We had a nice quiet room when the air conditioning was on to help the kids sleep but on the night that we let them stay up later they had a blast, making dogs and swords from the long modelling balloons and giving them out to people on the street. Silas just wants to go back there and do that again.

We also treated the boys to a fish foot spa for only two dollars each for 5 minutes. They laughed so hard while the tiny fish ate all the dead skin off their toes and tickled their feet! The prices here are unbelievable. We ate most of our food from street vendors as was often suggested to us by other travellers and usually spent only two dollars each for most meals.

We travelled around the city by either tuk tuk ( a little cart driven by a man) or a boat for just dollars a trip while we saw the giant reclining buddha, china town and an amazing procession of 1500 monks walking the city street on rose petals. We were given petals to throw as they walked the 10km through the streets toward their gathering place.

Now we spend a few days on the island of Koh Samet before heading to meet dad and Meng in Chaing Mai for the water festival. We are so excited to see grandpa and have a local Thai friend show us the ropes!  The water festival will be nice to cool off as the sea water here is like bath water and we are hot again by the time we dry off... It is the peak of the hot season now in Thailand and holiday season too so it is hard to find somewhere to stay without spending too much. Thanks for the advice Meng to book the transport and accommodation ahead of time for our stay with you. A funny little thing...Orrin has learned how to say no in Thai since he is stopped many many times a day to have his cheeks pinched or photo taken by locals amazed at his blonde hair. He is getting tired of this and will now be seen in albums across the continent!

We are all well, missing friends and family of course and look forward to seeing you soon!

March 28 2012

Only 2 more days in Bali, the last few we have spent on Lembongan Island, about an hour boat ride off the main island of Bali. Here the sun shines a lot, the water is the perfect blue colour and we can see a great view of the big volcano on mount Batur in Bali. Silas and Orrin have been talking about people at home a lot and the cats but especially miss home the most when we relocate. Tonight will be our 4th night here so they have settled in well. Yesterday they found some boys on the beach and asked if they could join in their game of soccer and have talked about that ever since.

 A highlight yesterday was riding scooters around the island and doing some cliff jumping into the sea...Silas and Orrin both jumped the 7m cliff while I waited to receive them with an inner tube down below! A nice local guy hangs out on the cliff waiting to show people the ropes and sell them a beer, warning each jumper when is a good time or when to wait for the next wave to pass.

  

Wow Lembongan was truly beautiful!

Seaweed farmer at sunset.

Forgot to mention we spent Balinese New Year in Ubud (1934 in the Balinese Hindu calendar) and watched the locals carry large Oga Oga's (big figures depicting evil) through the streets, playing loud drums and Gamelan. At the end of the evening before 12 midnight they were all burned in the Monkey Forest.

March 19

Well, can't quite believe it has only been 9 days in Bali. Just left the Green School yesterday where we did a weekend family workshop. The green school is an environmental school all built handmade out of bamboo. It is set in the jungle of Bali near Ubud and has almost 300 students from grade K to 12 from all over the world. Our weekend was led by 3 young indonesian instructors that shared so much of their local knowledge such as curing Martin's Bali belly with young guava from the tree, green coconut water and coca-cola (east meets west)!

We took part in sessions on making chocolate straight from the bean, hats out of coconut leaves, offerings such as the ones the Balinese use to place flowers on and give to the gods, played soccer and played in the mud!

We slept in yurts and one night had to scream out for help with an extremely large spider on the bed....Wayan just came in and picked it up confidently and took it away! The next day he told us his father used to have him eat these spiders as medicine. This guy could also climb the coconut tree in seconds and cut down a coconut for us to eat. Another highlight was Mr.Cobra who took us a night jungle hike searching for snakes and chameleons, knocking them out of trees with long sticks of bamboo. This guy has become immune to snake bites by being bitten as a child and now apparently if the snake bites him the snake will be the one who dies from his anti-venom! Silas and Orrin held these amazing creatures with his help and instruction.

It was hard to leave after 2 short days, especially the boys who had made some really fun friends. We set off to Amed on the east coast of Bali for a couple of nights. It is really rainy here (we came in rainy season) but our goal was to do a bit of snorkelling so this morning we caught a bit of sunshine and jumped into the sea.

In Bali: March 12

So we made it through the 3 flights lasting 1.5 days that landed us in Bali... the first night here we went to bed at 8 pm with the kids and we were all awake again by 2am! Although Martin and I could have fallen asleep again the kids bodies and brains were sure it was morning.  I couldn't find the lavender, was wishing I had borrowed Mira's melatonin, couldn't get the television to work with multiple remotes and satellite set up so we sat on the porch for a few hours and headed to the market here in Ubud at 5am. The streets were packed with motorbikes and scooters, women carrying large loads home from market atop their heads and the market was swarming with buyers and sellers of mostly fruits I had never heard of. Small fruits were being torn open for us to try and different men and women of Bali were interrupting each other with the next offering to us hoping for a sale. We spent about 5 dollars  (45,000 rupiah) and came home with days worth of fruit including a couple of coconuts which were first handed to us with straws to drink the water and then hacked open and flesh removed from the shell for us.

The boys have been amazing! We told them there is no fighting in Bali and we expect the same from them. So far so good, Silas is missing his friends but mostly is just into the present moment as there is so much to take in. This is the most beautiful place I have ever been. The people here are very kind and there are offerings of flowers placed on banana leaf left everywhere in the streets on the sidewalks, temple doorways, the steps to our accommodation, really just everywhere.

The most incredible thing has been the monkey forest where we walked among pathways literally surrounded by monkeys. We entered with bananas purchased at the enterance but very quickly learned to keep them in our bag and only offer one at a time to a lone monkey. As soon as any monkeys spotted a banana they were at our feet, trying to climb our legs and grab them, each of us even had one or two jump onto our backs unexpectedly!

 Tomorrow we will head to the coast, a place called Lovina. Love to family and friends and thanks for checking in with us xx Cathy

How does the mother not mind this?? Ouch.

March 7- Toronto

Home: as we left it this morning

Well here we go. Fly out tomorrow to Bali from Toronto, flying over the North Pole and back down the other side! The four of us; Martin, Cathy and our two boys on an adventure of a lifetime. Everything is in order, bags are packed and lists of things to organize before we go for 4 months done. Even tried to think of things to think about and could find nothing. Soooo nice!  We will head to Bali, Malaysia, Thailand, Italy, England and back to Canada.

Cathy!

The new Toronto subway trains

A quick game of hockey with friends in Toronto

The boys love getting together with their friends in Toronto; a group of 5 boys each one a year younger than the next followed by 3 girls. We visited also to be able to meet a new baby in the family of friends...another boy!

So off we go, will update now and then to let family and friends know where we are!