Last day

Hua Hin, last day - Here it is, the last hours of our great Asia escapade. We've enjoyed a wonderful last couple of days. With full mobility of our motor bikes, we've explored the downtown and side roads. Yesterday our focus was souvenir shopping, which we did at the market and the mall - yes, there's a mall. It's all so westernized, from Dunkin Donuts to Starbucks, your average North American or European tourist is well looked after. 

But the real Thailand is not too far away, as we discovered this morning on our elephant trek. We found Elephant Village just outside of town and once there, it felt as though there wasn't a city within hundreds of miles. Surrounded by Buddist shrines, temples, graves and monks, the village is the habitat of 14 elephants and their mahoots. Everything is very rustic and the care of the elephants was a bit questionable but what do we know about elephants and their needs. So we just went on our ride, had some fun feeding them and dutifully bought the overpriced souvenirs (we've been ripped off in Thailand more than anywhere else this trip, or at least it feels that way). Jo even sloshed around in the elephant muck for awhile but we'll save that story for when we get home. 

We've also learned about silk worms and the intricacies of Thai silk, and then we discovered "tailor's row," where you can get a suit made for less than the price of a good meal at home. So we did. Len and I each got a custom-tailored suit, mine of Thai silk, Len's of cashmere. I think Len has discovered that shopping really can be fun. 

Through all this we've met many Thai people. They have a great sense of humour, even when there is no language to share (the guy at the front gate of the Sheraton gives a little bow and a grin every time we pass) and they are all quick with a smile. Unlike the Chinese or Vietnamese though, they are not at all chatty. In our experience, it's hard to get any information from the locals and everything is very laid back. As the guy who runs these condos told Len, "You're in Thailand now, no need to book anything, just show up." 

We finished our travels by dressing up and going to a fancy dinner at the Sheraton. There were over 2o desserts on the buffet and among us, we tried every one of them. It goes without saying that we all felt sick when we got home. 

The girls and now in bed and that's where I'm heading too. Our taxi arrives in 5 hours to take us to Bangkok to get our flight home. The girls are reluctant to end the journey but we're all beginning to feel a little homesick. It'll be good to get back. It'll also be good to get out of this weather. Today on our mopeds, it felt like we were driving through a wood stove. Rain, drizzle and fog will, for once, be a relief. 

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Hua Hin, Thailand - Talk about culture shock. We've arrived on a resort where the living is far superior to home. From squat toilets to this, it's almost too much to take. We have a beautiful condo contained within the Sheraton resort. There's a pool that runs around the condominiums like a moat and our balcony extends out over it. It's like Florida, except better. 

As nice as it is, though, we couldn't let go of the excitement and pace of the past 2.5 weeks. By noon yesterday, less than 24 hours after our arrival, we were bored. It doesn't help that it's well over 30 degrees here, no breeze and just a constant state of stickiness. So around 2 pm, we got a taxi to the town of Hua Hin, 10 km down the road, and rented mopeds. 

Equipped with our own mode of transport, we took the nearest road our of the city and made our way to a little look-out point that features monks, a Buddist temple and monkeys. These free roaming monkeys were everywhere! We fed them and in return they entertained us. The highlight was when we left the moneys (or so we thought) to walk to the look-out point and out of the bushes swung a monkey with his eye fixed on Julia's can of Fanta. Inside two seconds he leapt up, grabbed the can and rushed up the road to put the can to his lips and chug it back. The only thing left was the look of shock on Julia's face!

After a bowl of ice cream back in the city, we made the long drive home and jumped in the pool to cool off. It's almost as hot when the sun goes down as when it's up. Julia got her first sunburn and spent the evening nursing it with aloe vera. I think this confirms her dislike of tanning, for sure. 

The highlight of the day for all of us was making a supper of pork chops, baked potatoes and corn on the cob. I've never seen Jo down a meal as fast. With butter dripping down her chin and corn kernals in her lap, she looked as content as I've seen her look this vacation. I'm beginning to think that all parents need to do to solve the problem of picky eater kids is take them to Asia for a few weeks. It seems to be doing the trick for us. 

Today, we're going to see elephants and then on to a dinner theatre tonight, where we will see Thai culture in action on the stage. 

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Flight to Bangkok – I’m writing this as we take an Air Asia flight to Bangkok, where we will connect to our next stop in Hua Hin. No worries…we do not go into the city of Bangkok at all, and in any case, the news over here reports that all is settled down in Bangkok at the moment.

Our day in Ninh Binh yesterday was stellar. Len says it was one of his best days yet.

We awoke to heat like our family has never seen. Even the Renaults, who spend much more time than us in hot weather, found the Vietnam heat overwhelming. It was the first time in my life that I dripped with sweat. There was no time to complain though. After a breakfast of banana pancakes and baguettes (yum!), we hopped on mopeds and tackled the busy streets – trying unsuccessfully to act as calm as the locals - before reaching the wide-open countryside. Lisa and I each had one child with us on our motorbikes while the guys had two kids each – one in front and one in back. Compared to the locals, who travel on mopeds with babies on their laps – this was tame.

We cruised through back lanes and along dirt roads that weaved through the mountain valleys and past miles and miles of rice fields. The rice paddies, which grow in a few feet of water held a lot of surprises: water buffulo sloshing around with just their heads above water, and women up to their necks tending the plants. From the road all you could see were their cone-shaped Vietnamese hats.

We had lunch in a village hotel. Again, it consisted mainly of chicken and rice. We realized that every day our main meal has been chicken and rice (with the new addition in Vietnam being spring rolls and pha ). The children are adamant that when they get home, all rice will be thrown in the garbage. The adults agree.

After lunch we visited a shop where women were embroidering linens and making silk clothing. We picked up a few souvenirs and treats – handsome red pyjamas for Levi, charming silk PJs for Lauren and Julia, a Vietnamese dress for Jo. After we made our purchase (a great amount for this shop I think), we were asked to sit and have a drink and chat with the young man who appeared to be the manager. He spoke decent English and we enjoyed an interesting conversation. Lauren has become very comfortable talking to the locals and she had many questions (and answers) for him. He seemed to envy the children’s height and told us that he is looking for a wife who is tall since he wants his children not to be short like him. I doubt he is looking for a wife quite as tall as me or Lis since we are giants in this place where the women are all the size of Lauren or smaller.

As we made our way back to the hotel around 5 pm, we crossed paths with hundreds of school children just getting out for the day. They were so beautiful on their bicycles, all wearing white school shirts and red scarves and waving and calling to us with great excitement.

There are many things that stand our about this country: the beauty, the poverty, the kindness, the garbage, the happy children, the bright spots of colours, the lush greenness, the beautiful girls, the animals everywhere – chickens, ducks, cows, water buffalo, leashed cats, and roaming dogs. With dog being one of the main dishes of Vietnam, the sight of dogs in every street, home, shop and field, was slightly disturbing. They were either older dogs, mostly pregnant or nursing, or puppies. Few looked healthy and all looked hot and dejected. 

At 6 pm, we all left Ninh Binh, in a mini-bus, bound for Hanoi airport. Our time with the Renaults was happily extended once again, as they changed their plans from taking a bus to Hoi An to taking a flight instead. For the three-hour journey (covering only 123 km), the children took advantage of their last hours together, creating a small riot of fun in the back seats of a mini-bus about half the size of the average North American van. I think the girls enjoyed having “brothers” for 2.5 weeks, and I’ll go out on a limb and say the boys will miss having three “sisters” too. 

And here we are today, on our own for the first time this trip. We miss our friends already but are looking forward to our weekend in Hua Hin, where we will hopefully meet some elephants, enjoy the beach, eat something other than chicken and rice, and do some last shopping.

‘Til Thailand…..

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Cruising through Vietnam

Ninh Binh – It’s been several days since I wrote last. We spent the whole time in Halong Bay, mostly on Cat Ba Island, where there was limited Internet connectivity. The good news is that Internet was one of the very few limitations of this area, which was breathtaking. In fact, it looked even better than the tourism pictures we had viewed online, which we all know is a rare thing.

We spent 12 hours of insanity in Hanoi; none of us enjoyed the city at all. Even at night, this city rocks in the way that George Street does at midnight on Mardi Gras. The streets are packed with people, Vespas (mopeds), street vendors, cars, and dogs. There is garbage everywhere, horns honking constantly and it feels like every step you take is a risk. That all said, we suspect that our negative feelings about Hanoi have much to do with the fact that we are a group of 10, including six children, and our nerves are a little on edge keeping everyone safe. We’ve met other travelers who enjoyed the Hanoi scene so it all depends on your perspective I guess.

So we were all happy to leave Hanoi by bus, destined for Halong City, where we boarded one of the many “junks” in the bay. These boats are wooden cruisers that, collectively and from a distance, look like a fleet of pirate ships. That analogy got stronger when we were pointed to our boat, aptly named the Black Pearl. Onboard, we moved into our cabins, all lovely, and settled in for lunch as we cruised out the islands of Halong Bay. This place is definitely worth the visit. Three thousand high, rounded islands stand like pillars in the bay and they create a backdrop that almost feels fake. The air here is hot and still so there’s not a ripple on the water.

During our day on the junk, we kayaked and swam, hiked to an amazing limestone cave that looked like something out of Indiana Jones, sunbathed on the top deck of our junk, and spent the evening chatting while Len played and sang in the background. The next morning, everyone was up early for breakfast at 7:30 and we spent another day on the bay and the islands. The highlight was a bike ride and trek around Monkey Island, where a local man took our tour group into the jungle and to a cave where locals hid during the Vietnam war. 

Around 4 pm we were dropped off on Cat Ba Island, where we moved into our “deluxe” hotel for the night. After a questionable supper (unless gelatinous seaweed soup is your cup of tea), we rented bikes and cycled around the town, which is anything but your typical North American tourist town. In Halong Bay, people live and work on run-down boats. Even in Hanoi, it was evident that work and family life blend into one, with people wearing their pyjamas and walking the busy streets with their babies late in the evening. There was much to catch your attention on the streets of Hanoi’s old city at night – things like old bent over women washing dishes on the sidewalk. They actually set up their dish pans next to the road and crouch next to them to wash dishes – since there were so many dishes, we guessed they were from the restaurants. It’s all very, very different.

Back to the “deluxe” hotel (a joke among us because we had paid for the upgrade to a deluxe tour)….during our bike ride around Cat Ba, we stumbled on the area’s true deluxe hotel, a gorgeous resort on a secluded beach, with a pool and an outdoor bar and patio. We all salivated and after a quick conversation with the manager, Len and Steve got us a good deal for two nights. We hightailed it back to the other hotel, cleared out of the rooms, collected our passports, and made a bee-line for our new accommodations. Within a half hour of finding the place during our bikeride, the children were in the pool thoroughly enjoying their new digs.

What we didn’t count on was the reaction of our tour company to our spur-of-the-moment move. We basically jumped ship on the tour, since it was a package deal that included everything up to our return to the hotel in Hanoi. To make a long story short, abandoning the tour was an insult to the tour company and also a worry since we were in their care. We had not given any thought to this and realized that even though we meant no harm in leaving our tour early (and did not ask for any money back), our behaviour was not the thing to do in this culture. Lesson learned. (but we still had an awesome time in Sunny Cat Ba resort!)

So we reluctantly left Sunny Resort early this afternoon and got the bus and ferry back to the mainland. We arranged a driver to take us by mini-van to our next stop: Ninh Binh, which is only 140 km from Halong Bay, but it took 3 hours to get here. The driving is wilder than China. Cars, buses, motorcycles, cows, donkeys, and pedestrians weave their way among each other and from the front seat of a vehicle, you constantly feel like you’re about to have a head-on collision. The funny thing is, though, there really is a system to this madness. We’ve seen only one accident and all drivers seem to understand the code of conduct on the road. It seems to work around here, partly because you can never really get up much speed. The fastest our driver went today, for example, was 70 km/hour.

Tonight we’re in Xuan Hoa Hotel (more like a hostel), where we just had a nice supper that involved cooking your own meat on little grills at the tables. The children had the biggest meals they’ve had since McDonalds in Beijing. Tomorrow we’re renting Vespas and cruising around the back roads of this town. It will be our last day together with the Renaults.

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Arrived in Vietnam

Hanoi - Just a quick update to let everyone know that we arrived here safely. Crossing the border from China to Vietnam was an experience, to say the least. Guards and police everywhere and hoards of people.To top it all off, there was torrential rain.

Hanoi is a city that defies all imagination. Toronto is like a country village in comparison. It feels like all3.5 million people who live in this city live within 2 square km. This morning we are getting another bus toHalong City, where we will join a 3-day tour in Halong Bay. It's a bay filled with 6000 islands and we're traveling aboard a "junk" (Asian river boat) and then to Cat Ba island in a hotel.We will likely be out of communication for the next few days.We are all safe and well and happy.

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Nanning...almost to the border of Vietnam - It's turning out to be a little more difficult than expected getting to Hanoi. We left Yangshuo this morning by bus. (We ended up trekking through town with our packs on since the "pick up" arranged by the travel service was actually a person arriving at the hotel with an umbrella and walking us all to the bus stop 10 minutes away.)

The bus ride was bumpy, noisy and smelly but we all arrived here in one piece. At the station, the guys found two english speaking locals at the KFC, which is as commonplace as Starbucks in Vancouver in the cities over here, and they took care of finding us a hotel and taxis when we learned we couldn't travel any further south today. They were incredibly helpful, as the Chinese have been throughout this trip. We can't say enough good things about the people. So, it turns out that we are now enjoying an unexpected stay in Nanning ... and an unexpected stay in a 5-star hotel! The kids swam in the pool, we just had a great (western) meal and everyone is now tucked into their cozy duvets and special scented pillows. It's just the best service - they bring you a pillow depending on your ailment - lavender for insomnia, green tea for stress, etc. 

The new plan is we're getting the bus at 8:30 tomorrow morning for Hanoi. We should arrive around 4 pm. 

A word about the kids on this journey. It may sound unbelievable, but there hasn't been a hitch. The six of them are getting along really well and barely need the adults around. And they've been troupers every step of the way, living on bread and peanut butter when there's nothing else, and humping their packs down alleys and up hills. I think we'll all - adults and children - miss each other when the time comes in a few days to part ways. 

Til tomorrow.

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Yangshuo, southern China. Another spectacular day. This beautiful little town is certainly touristy - a bit like Banff, for example, but it is the off-season so there are no crowds and we had all the wonderful views and activities to ourselves. We are nestled in the mountains and staying at the Magnolia Hotel, which is pure luxury after the string of hostels we've had. The rooms are large with high ceilings, there are big white duvets on the beds and the bathrooms have western toilets!

Yesterday we strolled through the shops and the guys played ping pong in the park (a popular activity here). Lisa sat with a local young man and helped him learn English and Gina watched a school class play basketball. For supper, we gave up on Chinese for a bit and had pizza and ice cream. Such are the benefits of visiting a tourist town. 

This morning we awoke to pouring rain - "cats and dogs today" they said at the hotel front desk. Many locals learn their English from movies - we cracked up during our taxi ride yesterday to the Li River ferry; the cab driver carried on an entire conversation in cliches and movie lines.

Anyway, this morning the rain almost put us off our plan to tour the area on bike and bamboo rafts but by 10, the weather let up a bit and the ten of us and our guide hopped on bikes and headed for the hills. She took us through back roads, farm paths and muddy tracks, with many sights along the way, such as a 300-year old house where the 13th generation of the same family still lives. The place looks like it probably did 300 years ago. They still pump water in from the well, grind their own soy beans in the courtyard, cook on the stone slabs and the chickens run around the yard. And we learned about another Chinese tradition: buying your casket well ahead of when you need it. In this house two beautifully carved caskets sat in the front room waiting for their big day. It seems to be a source of pride rather than dread. Anyway, we did see one big There's one big difference though: There's a big TV sitting in the middle of one of the stone rooms. The contrast is incredible. The room has a well in the stone floor where you light a fire to heat yourself, and that's where you sit, beside the open fire in the floor, and watch TV. Wow.

Along the bike tour we met up with a man on a cart bringing straw hats to the market. We bought them all and made his day. 

next stop - bamboo river rafts. With rain coming and going, our raft guys took us down the Li River for over an hour. Len bought a beer from a raft and the Renaults bought photos from another raft that had a complete photo studio set up on it. Another amazing contrast. Paddling along on homemade rafts, passing people cooking on open fires, there's a raft with a Walmart-style photo studio. 

After the river, we rode our bikes (delivered by a cart) to Moon Cafe, where we had AN AWESOME LUNCH!! For the equivalent of $10 each (50 yen) we had a feast laid on outdoor tables with a fire lit right beside us to dry out our wet clothing. We had orange chicken and lemon chicken (very fresh; the chickens ran around beside us as we ate), mango shrimp, mushrooms and vegetables, crispy duck and the best ginger tea ever. Yum yum. 

It took us about an hour to ride back to the hotel, stopping along the way at the market for fresh oranges and the ingredients for ginger tea.

It's now 6 pm and in a few minutes we're going to do a calligraphy class followed by a tai chi class. It doesn't get any better. 

Tomorrow morning, we're leaving this beautiful place and taking a bus to Hanoi. The fun continues. 

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