Canada part two (the quiet bit)

After saying goodbye to Nick's family and driving back to Calgary we took a remarkably scenic flight to Victoria on Vancouver Island. Most of the short flight is spent flying over mountain ranges. It's only from the air that you can really appreciate how vast a landscape British Columbia has. Just mile upon mile of rugged white mountain ranges with only a smattering of remote communities. Descending into Victoria is no less spectacular, with the surrounding ocean dotted with thousands of small green tree covered islands. We stopped briefly with friends in Victoria before hiring a car and driving across to the west coast of the island to a small town called Tofino. Driving across Vancouver Island is pretty much like everything else we saw in Canada, huge forests, huge mountains, lots of open space. Makes you feel healthy just driving through at it! On route we stopped at a place called Cathedral Grove. A collection of paths and walkways that wind through immense 800 year old cedar trees. Apparently this is one of the many sites where people have been protesting the massive amount of logging that's destruction is evident all over the island.

Tofino is a small community that is set at the end of a long peninsular that shelters the Clayoquot Sound. This sleepy little town has now become a haven for surfers and wildlife lovers in the summer and storm watchers in the winter. If and when I set up a home, I'd kinda like it to be somewhere like here. With quite a large 'First nation' community there are local style art galleries everywhere and it has some really nice restaurants and bars. We stayed in a beautiful mezzanine studio with a deck overlooking the water and islands. For my birthday we went out whale watching and were lucky enough to catch up with 6-8 migrating grey whales. They were a reasonable distance away most of the time but we did get a couple of close encounters. We even got covered in whale snot at one point when one surfaced after going under the boat. We then went to explore one of the many immense white sand beaches before heading out for dinner at a really cool surf bar/restaurant. I'll make it back to Tofino one day just so I can eat there again. It was quite an unforgettable birthday.

We really didn't want to leave Tofino and I wish that we could have stayed longer. It wasn't just that it's such an amazingly peaceful place to explore and you have nature right on your doorstep, but also as we had arranged to go diving with our friend in Victoria. The weather was great while we were in Tofino, but not great enough to make me think I was ready to jump in 7 degree water. Our plan for Victoria was to get back there in the afternoon and meet up with a friend at the local dive shop and after having a brief on land induction, hike our way along the breakwater in front of the shop and drop right in. Now anyone who's been in a drysuit is probably thinking that it sounds pretty foolish to drop straight in the ocean without getting used to it in the shallows first. But hey, come on, as an instructor and divemaster we were both kind of thinking 'how hard can it be...?'. Getting ready for a warm water dive takes around 5-10 minutes going slow. It took us 3 hours to get our stuff together, talk about the gear, get into the gear and get ready to hike. We set off rather hot and harassed in our 3 layers of fleece and thermal under our restrictive spaceman like drysuits, carrying 35 lbs of weight plus the extra weight of the tanks, all the way a long the concrete blocks that make the breakwater. It took us about 15 minutes to walk about 500 metres to the drop in point. By this point our thermals were damp with sweat and our knees were shaking from the weight.

It is quite a strange feeling to prepare yourself to jump into really cold water fully clothed. It is even stranger to hit the water and have the majority of your body stay dry. The only part of you that is exposed to the water is your hands and your head. When the water works its way through the hood the sensation is not really one of cold, more like someone slapping you repeatedly round the ears. Although as the water in your hood warms up this feeling eases. Diving normally in thin wetsuits, you get used to complete freedom of movement. In a drysuit every time you move your head or neck the chances are you'll let water in, also the huge hood you wear will move your mask and you get a face full of icy water. Turning around is obviously a skill that takes a bit of practice. When I took my drysuit off at the end of the dive I had to pour water out of my boots. Getting water in the suit means that all the insulation is lost and you just get cold. As well as being cold, I don't think I've felt that uncomfortable in the water since the start of my Open Water course. I felt like a student all over again. You have so much weight and air around you that you haven't a hope in hell of controlling your buoyancy. I must have looked like an overweight cruise shipper in the water, constantly going up and down and crashing into things I couldn't see (remember, no turning around).

The whole reason for getting cold and wet in the first place was to see one of natures more unusual creatures, the wolf-eel. This eel like fish has to be one of the ugliest animals on the planet, but it is also one of the friendliest. They often swim out and wrap themselves round divers, they just want to be loved. From the picture you can see why, not the most attractive of faces! Luckily we got our wolf-eel encounter before we gave up and called it quits. 3 hours to get ready for a 22 minute dive. Not only that but we ended up with a longer walk back with the added weight of the water. This dive was meant to be the warm up for 2 more challenging dives the next day. Needless to say I for one was definitely not up to that challenge and so we opted to stay dry and warm for our last day on the island.

The boat trip from Vancouver Island to the mainland has to be one of the most scenic routes taken by a huge car ferry. You wind yourself in and out of the small surrounding island and get to check out all the beautiful houses dotted a long the shores. We were lucky to pass a pod of killer whales feeding in the ripping currents that run between the channels of the islands. They were the last on the long list of stuff we had hoped to see so it was really cool. All in all while in Canada we saw wolves (sadly only in a sanctuary), grey whales, killer whales, eagles, seals, sea lions, a sea otter and Nick even saw a grizzly bear.










When we got to Vancouver city we decided to check into a hotel for a few hours before our late night flight home. After a very brief Internet check we opted for what appeared to be a nice reasonably priced hotel in a place called East Hastings. No doubt all our Canadian friends will be chuckling right now. We got to the hotel and spoke to the guy at check in about walking to the trendy Gastown area that was nearby. He recommended walking the back way to avoid the main street which apparently had 'a lot of poverty'. Following his advice we set off along a rather dodgy route past lots of prostitutes, homeless, and quite a few people who just stood on their own in one spot rocking. Vancouver is one of the wealthiest cities in Canada and this area seemed more third world. Getting to Gastown it's strange to see such obvious wealth right next to such poverty. However, we still got hassled by some rather aggressive beggars. Having explored a little bit and wanting to head back before dark made the area a whole lot worse, we decided that regardless of what the guy at the hotel said, that the main road must be busier and seem less threatening. Not sure if it was a result of the recent mugging attempt but I was feeling decidedly edgy. Walking along the main road in East Hastings is like being dropped into the middle of a movie set in the Bronx. There must have been a few hundred homeless people hanging around on the street. We were without a doubt the only people (other than a photographer) who had somewhere warm and clean to go to. Canadians call this area 'ground zero' or 'needle park'. Because Vancouver is slightly warmer than most other areas of Canada, and because East Hasting has Canada's first safe injection program, the area is a mecca for every drug user in the country. Two Canadian friends of mine said that when they visited the city and were driven through East Hastings they were told 'lock the doors' and they drove straight through. Feeling like we so obviously stuck out on the street was quite scary for me, but more than that it was quite depressing to see such a concentration of poverty in an otherwise wealthy city.

Considering that we were only in Canada for around 2 weeks, and that it is such an immense place, I feel very privileged to have done and seen so much (at times possibly more than we bargained for!). By the time we got on the flight to come home we were absolutely exhausted. Luckily we had 4 seats each to ourselves. A big thumbs up for China Air!

Canada part one (the cold bit)

After much hanging around and waiting bored at school without the kids, we finally finished our school year and got to leave for Canada. The route from Bangkok to Calgary isn't one of the easiest or cheapest to do, but where there's a will there's a way and all that. Because of the fact that we were going through 5 different time zones and crossing the date line, and because our airline failed to state how long any of the flights took, we decided to set a stop-watch going when we left the apartment at 11.00am on Friday the 21st as we had no idea actually how long we'd be travelling for. Our first flight took us to Hong Kong with a brief stop of one hour. We then flew to Taipei for another short stop. From here we had the long flight on to Seattle before a very quick and harassed shuttle through the airport (stupid American immigration process...) to catch the final flight. By the time we reached our hostel in Calgary we had been travelling for nearly 27 hours and awake for 37, and it was still only Friday the 21st. It really was the never ending day.

Waking up early in Calgary and dressing again in our lightweight travelling clothes, we thought we'd be alright to walk the two blocks to the car hire place. Now the blowing below zero degree winds that whistle through Calgary must feel bad to just about every visitor, but having come from Bangkok's 36 degree humidity, it was rather a shock to our systems. This is just one of the many extremes of Canada. It is definitely a country of huge and dramatic proportions in every sense.

The drive from Calgary to Lake Louise is quite spectacular. Endless flat parched brown plains stretch as far as you can see before the mountains suddenly loom huge and white in contrast along the horizon. Once into the mountains the massive 18 wheeler 'muscle' trucks seem dwarfed by the 'awesome' scenery (sorry hate that word, but you find yourself using it a lot driving around Canada). Lake Louise, the first resort area we were staying in, is really just a small collection of hotels set back from the main road, 5 minutes drive away from the slopes in one direction, and 20 minutes away from the actual lake and the famous chateau that is perched at its edge and is surrounded by more mountains and a glacier. Once settled in we headed up to the slopes to meet up with Nick's dad and the rest of his family, and to be laughed at by them as we attempted to get the hang of snowboarding again. Now I had really hoped that as this was now my third holiday snowboarding that I would find it all really easy to get the hang of again and I would get on to tackling bigger and better things this time. Wrong. As always, we had to start with the humiliating experience of going up and down the nursery slopes with us sliding and falling as a battalion of 3 and 4 year olds cut us up and whizzed past. This was probably more humiliating for Nick than for me, he's a very able skier and it must be quite hard to cope with doing face plants in the snow again.










While Nick soon got the hang of it and although I started well, my Lake Louise snowboarding experience wasn't the best. I have huge issues with pointing myself downhill and picking up speed. Bit too much of a control freak I think. It's one of those things that if you don't fully commit yourself to the direction you're going then you're gonna wipe out and hurt yourself. As the days went on I had more falls and less confidence which of course equals more falls. It got to the stage where I thought I should just give up. I felt like I was spending most of the time feeling half terrified. I'd watch kids being towed up and down the slopes by their parents with the kids crying "I don't wanna/don't like it/can't do it" and that's exactly how I felt. Only it's alright to do that when you're under 10, it's not so acceptable for a 28 year old to do it. You just have to keep quiet and kick your own butt back up the mountain.


My experience improved quite dramatically when we move on from Lake Louise to Kicking Horse Mountain Resort. This small scale resort with quiet slopes was absolutely amazing. Considering the fact that everyone I had met had told me it wasn't a place for beginners and was 'such a big mountain', I think it's a pretty fantastic place. The busiest slopes will only have a handful of people on and there is so much space. I was also fortunate to have an instructor who with one simple change of stance completely changed my way of boarding. Managed to do so much more as a result.










The main reason for our trip to Canada was so that Nick's dad could celebrate his birthday in style with his whole family. It was kind of cool for me to be away with such a large and close family group. There were 11 of us in total. This could be a bit overwhelming at times, and often an organizational or logistical nightmare. However, it meant that there was always someone new to chat to and everyone was really good fun. We had some great nights out and went to some amazing restaurants, the best being for Eric's birthday at 3777m in the stunning Eagle's Eye restaurant. Log fires and 360 degree mountain top views make for a pretty unique dining experience, and the pitch black gondola ride back down the mountain at the end of the night was not something I'll get to do too often.
All in all, what with the setting, the company, and all the fun and games, the whole experience was one I'll never forget.

A rather disturbing experience...

Nearly every person who has ever been to Thailand is likely to agree when I say that it's one of the safest places in the world to live and visit. Apart from rumours of petty theft in the busy markets you don't often hear about crime. I have lived here for over 4 years and have never felt at risk.

Just before we left for Canada, myself and Nick were walking back to school after going home for lunch. We had been enjoying the lack of students and taking 2 hour lunches by the pool. It was about 1.00 when we walked our usual way to school, along a quiet soi near our apartment. I was walking between Nick and a wall when we heard a motorbike approaching from behind, this soi is usually quite busy with bikes and tuk tuks so we didn't pay it much attention. The next thing I knew I felt someone grabbing me from behind. My first thought was that one of my friends was trying to surprise me and I stopped and turned around expecting to see someone I knew. It was therefore a huge shock to turn and see a stranger and it was only then that I realized the 'friendly grabbing' was him trying to pull by handbag off my shoulder. Nick hadn't realized I had stopped and thought I was just behind him to let the bike pass, it was only when I started screaming that he turned and saw me clinging onto my bag as the guy tried to take it off me. As soon as Nick started yelling and running at the guy he let go of my bag and started to run towards his mate who had turned the motorbike around and was waiting to drive off. Nick ran after the guy who ran out of his flip flops and fell over his feet. He received a good kicking before he managed to get up and climb on the back of the bike. They tried to drive away as we were chasing them but over balanced and crashed into the wall before disappearing.

Apart from being really shook up, we definietly came off better than our assailants. I had some pretty bad bruising on my arm and Nick some cuts on his hands and a saw ankle from all the kicking, they smashed their bike and one of them will have been hurting for quite a while. I only hope that they think twice before doing it again. I still can't believe that they chose to do it at 1.00 in broad daylight. Unfortunately it has somewhat reduced my feeling of security in this country.

T.I.T

So… here’s just a couple of examples as to how frustrating or amusing (depending on how long after the event you think about it) living in Thailand can be.
A while ago a few of us got together for a curry on a Sunday night. We were supposed to be going out but decided to order in from the Indian place just down the road. Now this being Thailand we already know that it’s pretty pointless to do a large order over the phone as it’s likely that under 50% of it will arrive correctly, so it seemed the sensible thing to walk round, place the order then walk back and collect and the order. Quite a pain for take out, but from experience it is the quickest way to do it in the long run.
When we got the food home, after reading through the receipt carefully at the restaurant, we realized that 3 dishes were missing. After a further 3 person, 10 minute conversation on the phone they sent the food around. We then had to explain to a very confused delivery guy that we had already paid for the dishes. He went away without any money scratching his head and then came back ten minutes later, still scratching his head with 150 baht change (about £2). We were not quite sure what that was for but took pity on the guy and gave it him as a tip, which confused him even further.

The next incident occurred a couple of weeks ago when Nick and I invested in a Cross Trainer (Elliptical Machine). We were both needed to get in shape fast before our trip to Canada. We went to the local store and ordered one to be delivered the next day at 16.00. The next day we get a call from the store saying that the machine couldn’t be delivered that day as the truck was broken. Again from experience we had expected something like this. We were advised that it would be delivered on time the following day. Around lunchtime the next day we got another call saying it couldn’t be delivered that day. When quizzed as to why they eventually admitted that they didn’t have the model we ordered but it would be with us the next day. Now I still have Western expectations of customer service, so I kicked up a bit of a fuss over the fact that apparently they had the model the day before but the truck was broken, and now the truck was fixed but they didn’t have the model. At this point they offered to deliver a better model for the same price at 16.00 that day. Obviously they didn’t like being asked difficult questions.

By 18.30 that evening when we were supposed to be out, it still hadn’t been delivered. When I called to check what was happening they said it would be arriving around 21.30. When I asked why the guy said he’d check and call back. He called back to say it was ok, it would be delivered at 2.00. When I asked if this was 2.00 in the middle of the night, he said yes. While he was saying this the cross trainer arrived. Obviously a missing link in the communication somewhere, very very typical for here.

Unfortunately this long story doesn’t end here. When the men put the machine together they found that a small unimportant piece of plastic was missing. They advised they would come back the next day with the part. The next day the came back with not just the piece of plastic, but an entire new cross trainer that they had to put together.

Stuff like this happens daily. If you go by the logic that you have grown up with then it can drive you insane. I often lose it and have to keep reminding myself of that famous saying, T.I.T, This is Thailand, get used to it. If there is a difficult or illogical way of doing something then you can guarantee that this is how it will be done.

EIP Variety Show

One of the major events on the BCC schol calendar is the English Immersion Program Variety Show. This is supposed to be a chance for all the students to show of their English, acting, and musical talents.

I remember last time I was working here, that the Variety Show ended up taking precedent over everything else. Learning and teaching becomes overlooked in favour of putting on a good show. 4 years ago I did a greatly simplified version of The Jungle Book, and it turned out to be a time consuming nightmare of reheasals with sixty 7 year olds, prop making and trying to work out how to create costumes for 12 elephants, 8 monkeys, a bear, a tiger and worst of all a snake (a rather embarrassing outfit that somewhat resembling a giant green stripy condom with a hole for the face).

This year I figured it would be easier to steer clear of the animals and go with a people based story. Here lies the problem of the slim picking of stories for a cast of only boys that have not been done in the previous few years. After a bit of mind changing we decided to go with Pinocchio. Now I've never been much of a fan of this particular classic but we figured it to be an easy option what with all the characters being male (I conveniently overlooked the technical nightmare of an expanding nose, dancing puppets on strings and a segment of the story taking place in a whales stomach).

Getting ready for the plays seem to take over the majority of Semester 2, and when we came back from Christmas we began with our auditions and practices. This is always a little time consuming as every parent wants their precious little Faberge Egg to be a star but you have to give out the roles according to ability and character. Of course the annoying little 'know-it-all' who keeps running off and never does what he's told was forever destined to get the part of Pinocchio. It's quite hard finding roles for 60 boys just to keep the parents happy, especially when some of the boys are more likely to be able to stand on thier head than say the simple 3 word sentence you've given them.

We practiced nearly everyday for a month, and as a result I now have one or two more grey hairs and highly strengthened vocal cords from all the screaming. We only just managed to get everybody to remember their cues and lines in the final rehearsal, but on the day they couldn't have done it better. I have keep reminding myself that these are 6 and 7 year old boys who are performing in a languague completely unlike thier own in front of around 600 people. To be able to pull off an 8 scene 20 minute show is pretty amazing.

I didn't get to take many pictures, the ones I have were taken back stage while we were waiting to start.

Similan Islands

If you've been reading this blog and keeping up to date with what we're up to then you know one of the best things about teaching is the holidays. While they may not be quite as long as those had by teachers back home (what with half term, Whit and all that) we are in a very good place to be able to take advantage of even the short breaks.

This Christmas we actually had a decent length holiday. Even though we work for a 'Christian" school, Christmas isn't really a big deal and they will often make you come into work for boxing day and other days between Christmas and New Year. This year because of the good timing of the elections we actually had ten uninterrupted days to play with so we decided to take the time to do a liveaboard round the Similan Islands.

Since before I first came to Thailand I had been wanting to visit what is definitely Thailand's best dive zone, not only for the diving but for the spectacular hilly green islands and very unique aquamarine waters that surround them. These islands look like someone has played a game of giant marbles and have huge smooth and rounded boulders cascading into the sea. I had actually managed to get out there 4 years ago with Nicole, but we never had chance to experience the beauty of it as it rained for the 5 days we were on the boat.

This time we were forecast good weather thanks to the wind. Now as most people now already, I'm not the best person to be around on a boat, and truthfully proclaim to getting 'seasick in a hammock' and needing one foot on firm ground when on anything that's moving. Wind is about the last thing I need when doing a long crossing. Needless to say, the journey out to the islands was somewhat messy, and seemed to go on forever. I think I went to sleep at around 1.30 in the morning after trying to sit upright and keep line with the horizon for 5 hours. I spent the night on the deck and was woken at 5.45am by a painfully jolly and awake lady testing out her night-vision mode on her camera and taking photos of me. I was far from eager for my first days diving.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about the diving, which was at times fantastic and at times terrible as is always the case, Nick's blog has more detail if you're interested http://www.nickjhealey.blogspot.com/. But briefly, as I mentioned before, the Similan Islands have some of the best diving in Thailand and unfortunately are going down the same path that parts of Belize and Egypt have. There is a huge number of dive shops that send out both liveaboards and day trips and you often find yourself surrounded by boats on the surface. Underwater in places, the term 'flies on something brown and stinky' comes to mind. Richelieu Rock has to be one of the most incredible places I've ever been, but unfortunately, similar to the experience I have whenever I visit Ras Mohammad in Egypt, the diving is being completely ruined by the dive shops. You have divers picking things up and putting it in their pocket to take home, other divers bouncing up and down on coral while posing for photos. The site is so busy and the guides so familiar with it that they just swim from place to place where they know the cool stuff will be. This leads to queues of divers waiting to see the seahorse or the Harlequin shrimps. I gave up on this after politely waiting my turn to take a picture and the being rudely pushed out of the way by some queue jumper. The guides can be lazy and don't need to look for anything, they just wait to see a pile up of people and they know they've found the right spot. We found this game quite entertaining after a while and would cluster round something and show it great interest before swimming off and leaving the waiting queue of people wondering why we got so excited over a star fish. Some guides and instructors were obviously very good, but with the risk of sounding like a 'dive snob', there really needs to be some kind of vetting that goes on before the guides take their divers there. With the prerequisite simply being the basic ability to dive. A dive site like this should not be treated as a classroom.

Other than this slight stress the trip was great, we got an all to brief glimpse of a manta, and we even had roast turkey dinner on board on Christmas day. Also, there is nothing like spending a year in the Caribbean to make you appreciate large schools of fish. It seemed like every dive site we went to was a haven for fish. Another highlight of my trip was bumping into a certain videographer friend underwater, who I've not seen in over 4 years.

The pics are my first attempt with my new camera (cheers for the Christmas pressie mum!)

A rather late house warming party

Leading up to Christmas we figured it would be a good time to finally get everybody round for a pre Christmas and somewhat late house warming party.

We decked the place out with cushions, lights, alcohol and more glasses than Sundowners had. We had a constant supply of quesadillas and I had loads of fun playing bar tender and making cocktails. Seemed to work as I had one of my rare nights where I wasn't the one to get too drunk and throw up. Using that as a measure of success though, 5 people were sick (or admitted it st least). Not so many of the pictures came out so here are a few of the best from other people. The first pic was taken at 4pm before we'd even had a drink yet...some of us looked worse for wear already, and those who were on the balconies somehow managed to escape embarrassing pics all evening.

The 2007 Bangkok Marathon

I decided a while back that I needed some kind of incentive to get me fit. Working the hours that we do and spending most of the day standing up and running around after a bunch of hyperactive 7 year olds doesn’t do much for your motivation, so I decided to try and get ready for one of Bangkok's biggest sporting events. Every year around 50,000 people take part in either the full length marathon or the slightly more sensible quarter marathon. As this year is commemorating the King’s 80th birthday, it promised to be a big one.

I started running 3-4 times a week in July but my training ground to a halt about 6 weeks before the marathon as I tore a ligament in my knee. Somehow stupidly, I managed to do this by turning and walking into a chair that I had left in the middle of the classroom. So much for me shouting at my kids all the time to keep their chairs under there desks, practice what you preach and all that.
Anyway, after a very frustrating month of limping and failed attempts to get going, I finally managed to start running again about 2 weeks before the marathon.

The marathon started in front of the Grand Palace at 6.45 on a Sunday morning. I suppose this was to try and let the pollution settle and in the hope of it being a little cooler. Me and a couple of friends started together but had soon lost each other amongst the crowds. People had said to me beforehand that running the marathon would be easier than running on my own, that the adrenalin from running with so many other people would keep me going. This was definitely true at the start where it was quite incredible to see a mass of yellow bouncing up and down in front of you as far as the eye could see. By the end however, after running on raised highways with the sun on us, the novelty had worn off. If it hadn’t been for the little Thai guy who ran next to me most of the way and gave me loads of encouragement then I would’ve gone a lot slower.

We were all pretty much wrecks at the end of the run, where we were met by those who had stayed in bed before getting a taxi to the finish line to get some pics (not mentioning any names...). The annoying thing was, that the person who looked freshest was the one who had just run 26 miles (42 kilometres) in a rather brisk 3.45 hours.

Although it was exhausting I was really pleased to have been able to run and am now looking for more mini marathons to do here. Not sure how beneficial it is to run in all this pollution though, seem to have a permanent cough.

Touristy Bangkok

Well, it's only taken over 4 years of living in this country, but I finally had to succumb and do the rather embarrassing thing and become a Bangkok tourist. There are so many things to do and see in this city yet I have done so few of them. I suppose it's always the case that when you live somewhere you'd rather not spend your free time traipsing around in the heat, with crowds of often irritating and ignorant tourists who just add to the Thai understanding of foreigner equals stupid person who's easy to rip off. Also it's very easy to put these visits off when you are tired and you know there's always going to be another occasion to go.

Saying all this however, when Nick's mum Val came to stay we felt that it was the perfect opportunity to see some of Bangkok's best sites. We were on holiday at the time so figured we'd have more patience for the whole malarkey, not having had to shout at kids all week.

From the morning Val arrived we had a jam packed itinerary planned. Not sure how it happened, but it seemed to revolve more around eating than anything else. Eating with the odd temple and a fair amount of shopping thrown in. Val landed at about 7.30 and after getting a taxi back to the apartment and barely having chance to get her bearings we were out and on our way to a huge plant market that specializes in orchids. Now I've never been much of a flower person, but the colour and shapes of the masses of orchids that are hung in shops at head height are an incredible site. It's also pretty cool to wander through the jungle of plant shops there. After lunch out we headed home to rest up before going out again for dinner.

The next day was the one I had been dreading most. We were going up to the grand palace and this meant lots of tourists, touts and the annoying fact that we had to wear closed shoes, long sleeved tops and cover our knees, all in midday sun. The day didn't really start that well with us being misdirected a number of times by 'helpful' locals telling us that the palace was in fact closed today and was only open to Thais, or that the palace was open but not for the next hour as it was lunchtime. Although I've learnt to not listen to strange people who pull you over in the street and tell you things like this, it did get quite annoying listening to all the excuses as to why we couldn't go in and peoples 'helpful' and 'innocent' range of suggestions as to where we should go instead. Eventually though we found the main entrance, clearly distinguished by the heard of 'farangs' or 'white people' going in. Beside the entrance there was a huge information sign, at the bottom of which it stated in bold writing 'beware of wily strangers'. Getting into the grounds of the palace was just the start. Once there we found that while girls could in fact show so much leg they couldn't really call what they are wearing 'a skirt', guys had to wear long trousers. Nick's 3/4 length trousers didn't make the grade so we had to wait while he went in and borrowed trousers. Now most people don't know this but in Thailand they have something we call 300 % employment, meaning they have 3 people to do one person's job. Nick had to go in, get a slip of paper off one person, pay money to another person, collect trousers from another person and then hand in the slip elsewhere, or something to that effect. Obviously when you add in the number of people queueing to get clothes, it only takes one confused person to send the whole thing into chaos. As you can imagine by the time we finally got into the palace we were more than a little harassed and Nick was most definitely not in the touristy mood.



I am pleased to say though, the Grand Palace was well worth all the hassle of getting there. It is like walking inside a life size jewelry box. There is more bling than you can imagine. What was most surprising, is that after getting around the first corner, you can find whole areas without a single person to walk across your pics which is usually the norm in places like this. As you can see by the photos, it really is quite amazing.


The next thing we had planned was slightly less touristy. We had arranged to do a bike tour of a part of Bangkok that is actually on an island surrounded by the Chao Praya River. This island has been made into a kind of nature reserve, with few roads and many raised narrow walkways. To get to the island we had to first ride along and across 4-6 lanes of traffic, getting up close and personal with Bangkok's unpredictable truck and taxi drivers. We then put our bikes in a long tail boat and went across the river to Bang Kra Jao. We then followed our guide along quiet leafy lanes and then rather precariously along paths about 3 feet wide and up to 7 feet off the ground. Now biking has never been one of my stronger skills and when you combine this with the fact that I have appalling balance when standing on two feet let alone on a bike with a 7 foot drop on either side, I spent the whole time praying that I'd not end up in the canal or swamp below. Thankfully though, I was spared this embarrassment, and it was the rather arrogant stockbroker from Sydney who came off his bike instead. And he was riding along a flat bit of road. (And yes, I know I look stupid with a cycling helmet, but I have learnt the hard way about not wearing protective headgear for sports I'm not that good at.)










Some of the other things we did included eating and shopping at the night market, eating and shopping at the weekend market, visiting Khao San on a difficult 'bag with bells' shopping quest, visiting the giant reclining Buddha at Wat Po, going on a much more enjoyable dinner cruise along the river, eating at the famous Blue Elephant restaurant and a rather eventful trip to the Sky Bar where my first aid skills were called into action when the Thai girl next to me hit the deck and blacked out for a couple of minutes. Still not sure if it was the height, the alcohol or just a way of escaping her date, but it was a rather surreal experience anyway.


All in all, it was a very hectic 10 days. Thanks to Val we had the motivation to go and do both the usual and unusual sights in Bangkok, and I would be happy to do it all again. We did however decide that it would be quite some time before we ate out again, and maybe we'd done enough shopping to last us a while.

As far from relaxing as a trip can be...

After a most enjoyable diving trip to Lembeh we decided that it would be a waste to go all the way to Sulawesi and not see some of the sites above water.

We arranged to go up into the highlands to stay in the 'picturesque' town of Tomohon. Advertised as a peaceful retreat in a quaint town famed for its flowers and greenery, on the saddle of three volcanoes, a short 70 kilometre drive from the Airport.

That short 70 kilometre drive must have been as the crow flies, and seeing as 70 percent of our journey was up and along some of the windiest roads I've ever been on the 'short' journey took us a queasy 2 and a half hours. Also, when we arrived to Tomohon, we found that the 'quaint flowery town' was a sprawling and rather unattractive concrete mess.

We found all the afore mentioned flowers and greenery at the home stay we had booked in at. Set in a lush and pretty garden, it is a small home stay with only 4 'deluxe' (basic) bungalows. We even had a pond with fountain outside our room. Once upon a time our bungalow would have had volcano views, they just happened to be obscured by trees now. It seemed pretty laid back when we arrived, but after the long drive there we were happy just to kick back, relax and enjoy the peace and quiet.

I'm not sure if, in all my years of low budget traveling, bad locations and noisy generators, I have ever experienced a peaceful place that was so incredibly noisy. As soon as the sun went down the cicadas started going. They were soon to be completely drowned out by the frogs, who seemed to be in residence in our pond. Not content with all the noise, the neighbourhood dogs would also take their turn and begin howling at regular intervals. At some point they must have all quieted down enough for us to get some sleep as we were woken up at 4am by rather aggressive lecturing in Indonesian over a loud speaker. This went on, along with bouts of singing, at full blast until about 6 am. We then drifted back to sleep to be promptly woken again by oxen clattering along with rickety carts up and down the bumpy lane directly behind our bungalow.

Feeling far from fresh we weren't inspired to do much on the first day and only drummed up the enthusiasm to go for a wander late afternoon in search of some local delights for a late lunch. Within about 10 minutes we were caught in a torrential downpour and had to shelter in a plant shop on the side of the road for about 15 minutes. The rain let up enough to get a taxi van and we made it too a local supermarket (also noisy with music on so loud the staff couldn't hear you) to pick up some supplies. The rain started again so we admitted defeat and went next door to KFC for lunch. So much for sampling the local delights.

Thankfully the next night was slightly quieter, with the church preaching only going on till about 10pm and not starting again until about 7am. The next day we had arranged to hire a motorbike from the home stay and so we could do a bit of exploring. When the bike arrived we ended up with 3 different people telling us how to use the bike and deal with it's completely backward way of functioning. Of course when people are watching it always makes things harder and it took is a very frustrating 20 minutes of being told different things in different languages before we eventually got going. Due to the fact that the bike was finally started and seemed to stall when going below 20 kilometres an hour we we didn't dare stop for over an hour, by which point we'd realized the map we had been given was very inaccurate, we had forgotten to bring a camera and our bums were completely numb. Getting a bit lost was probably the best thing we could have done. We eventually found one of the big lakes we were looking for, but took a very winding route around it. We went past endless quaint, peaceful and flowery villages where it seemed that every man, woman, child and dog were in their Sunday best and either in church, on their way to church, or finished in church and on their way to the communal lunch gathering. I don't think I've ever been to a more religious place, even the smallest villages have a minimum of three churches. People seem to be praying morning, noon and night quite literally, not to mention in full voice at 4am.

Apart from the noise and the incredibly temperamental bike, the trip did end up being quite relaxing. There was a lot of time for reading, sudoku, and losing at backgammon. We never did manage to get the camera out, so the pics are from the home stay website.