Travel Day 269: Days in Thailand wind down and we are still safe

We have now swum on two sides of the Indian Ocean. That sounds exotic and it is. I guess I shouldn't take it for granted. Our stay in Phuket is coming to an end. We have had fun and toured a little, made some friends from all over the world, and have some great memories. Sights we saw include Koh Phi Phi, made famous as the location where the Leonardo di Caprio film The Beach was filmed. It's a much smaller island about 50 km to the east off of Phuket between Phuket and the mainland. It's reachable from Krabi as well. Our day trip included snorkeling and swimming, lunch on the island and some sight seeing.

We walked the beach twice today - my favourite thing to do. We went for an early morning walk with Tesco, a local soi dog from the foundation that stayed with us for the weekend.

And then later this afternoon, I did what I have often done, sit in the shade of an umbrella at a Thai beachfront stand, share some spring rolls with Kathi (her favourite), and watch the sun go down over the ocean. The surf was up and Mitch got to do some body surfing and tubing.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the Thai New Year. It's called Songkran - the Thai New Year Water Festival. We think this tradition has to do with the Buddhist notion of being cleansed for the new year. The celebration lasts for a few days and involves getting very wet. That shouldn't be too hard since we have been getting wet every day in the pool or ocean. Songkran has evolved over the years into a fun time of dousing people with water in the streets, appropriate with this being the hottest time of the year in Thailand. Thai's wander the streets with buckets of water dousing passersby, spraying people with water guns or even garden hoses. All good fun and the kids can't wait to join in tomorrow.

We plan to spend our last day here at Bang Tao beach at our local haunt called Nok & Jo's (where we got to watch a few hockey games along side our Canadian host). We'll be joining in on the festivities before catching our flight to Bangkok in the evening. In Bangkok, we won't be shopping for last-minute souvenirs in good old Khao San Road area. We have heard it looks like a war zone after the escalation of violence last Saturday. Hard to visualize since it was such a lively, safe place to hang out before the anti-govenment protests turned ugly. Instead, we plan to stay close to the hotel that is situated near to the airport. Japan is calling and we will be there on Thursday.

Our odyssey: We live and learn and experience and learn some more. We can be - as we are - halfway around the world from home, and communicate with home as easily as being across town from friends and family. This is something so radical that we could not have done in as little as 20 years ago.

TE

Things You Don't See in Canada and Some Musings on Hate

Here are some things you won't see everyday in Canada.

First is skin cream to make your skin whiter, seriously. As someone with dry skin who shops for lotion regularly, I've seen these products in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and all over Thailand as well. I don't get it. Asian people have gorgeous skin so why try to whiten up? The products are bogus obviously. They claim to make your skin "whiter" yet there's no SPF mentioned. The locals seem to buy these, yet most of the foreigners are laying on beaches trying to get dark. A bit of incongruency. Maybe someone should've told Michael Jackson about these so-called skin whiteners when he was around.

Motorcycles with sidecars zooming down the beach:

Elephant crossing sign:

Road signs are often mispelled. In their defense, however, I'm sure we would completely butcher road signs if we tried to write them in Thai. Forget the signs, it's the driving that's the real problem: Something else you may not see in Canada, meals that look this for only a few dollars:

And now for some philosophical musings on hate. Kids often use this word to discharge strong emotions as in "I hate you so much!" yelled at a sibling, for example. It's an awful word, so strong, and almost always used way out of proportion to the situation. We've been continuing to visit the Soi Dog Shelter, walking and playing with dogs. One of the last times we were there, we bought a DVD called "Soi Dog: The Movie". It's an excellent documentary about the work they do, their history, their challenges, etc. They sell them as part of their fundraising efforts and so we bought a copy. Watching it back at the apartment, the kids were disturbed to see how abused some of the dogs have been. The dogs we've spent time with look pretty good because they've been cleaned up, had surgery if needed, and given the things they need to thrive. But in the movie, you see the dogs at the point of rescue. They might have been hacked with a machete, poisoned, completely neglected, or even shot.

At the end of the movie, Jackson announced "I hate Thai people!" We were shocked. How can you hate an entire race and why? We didn't take our kids around the world so they could develop prejudices, quite the opposite. We want them to become more tolerant and accepting and focus on similarities we share, not differences. He said he hates the Thai people because they hurt dogs. So we watched it again, this time pointing out all the Thai people in the movie who were helping - the vets, the dog rescuers, many of the volunteers. Then we reminded him that animals get dumped, abandoned, hurt and killed in Canada just the same as in Thailand. So, in the end, he came to realize it's not a certain race of people he hates. It's people who hurt animals. That's better. Now we have to work on disliking those people instead of hating them.

Happy Easter ... and sorry for the prank!

Happy Easter everyone! All our good Catholic friends will be going to church for the second time this year (just kidding!) We have found a church to attend here in Phuket. It is called "Hope of Phuket International Church" located in the otherwise (supposedly) seedy district known as Patong Beach. Last time we were there, we met two Aussie ladies who made the trip to Thailand to have a bunch of dental work (not liposuction:) done. They told us the money they were saving paid for the trip! We'll visit this church again tomorrow but it won't be the same as our Ottawa church, The Met. I'll miss the part where Pastor Rick says, as he does every Easter, "He is risen" and we all say back "He is risen indeed!"

Okay, so I guess apologies are in order. Wow, we got a ton of e-mails and several comments about our little April Fool's joke. I didn't think it was all that convincing but apparently it was! Listen people, anyone who thinks I would voluntarily go under the knife and let someone stick a vacuum hose into any sites of fat deposit I might have clearly doesn't know me very well.

Actually, it could have been worse. Mitchell's idea was to write a post saying Ted was in a Thai prison for defacing a poster of the King. Now that would be truly scary and it has in fact happened in recent years. A Swiss man was sentenced to 10 years in a Thai prison back in 2007 for that exact crime. We didn't write a post like that because I do want my mother-in-law to still speak to me when we return. No, you don't joke about that here. For example, if you drop a Thai coin, you do not stamp your foot on it to keep it from rolling away because you never step on the King's face.

I saw a good Canadian April Fool's joke when I logged out of Hotmail on April 1st. When you log out, a MSN newspage comes up and there was an article about Canada buying half of Hawaii. You can read it here. Good one. I liked the quote from the government's Chief Island Procurement Officer. It added a nice touch of authenticity. Can I have that job? Then, in the corner of this particular MSN newspage, was the Ottawa weather forecast and it was calling for a high of 26. Hah, that's really good, I thought. As if it could ever be 26 at the beginning of April in Ottawa. Apparently only in the one year we decide to be away. Sigh. No joke.

Anyway, despite any feelings of Schadenfreude people may have had but won't admit to, we are all well and happy and most definitely looking forward to seeing Japan next. This 6-week beach break has been paradise. Despite wearing # 40 sun block, the boys are very brown, happy and run around shirtless all day in a slightly frightening Lord-of-the-Flies kind of way. They've made some good friends, although they always end up having to say good-bye sooner than they would like. Tomorrow, an Aussie couple that we've enjoyed getting to know over the past two weeks, Robyn and Mark, are leaving. Their two sons are ages 10 and 11 and our boys have had a blast with them.

We also met a great couple from Brampton, Max & Mary. Mary, a retired teacher, collected sand and dyed it all different colours so the boys could do sand art. Which they did after I literally twisted their arms to do so - we won't speak of the sand art episode again. Her daughter, a teacher at the International School in Bangkok, came down to visit her parents, and I learned from her description of the school that they have a Smart Board in every single classroom. Amazing! This is Thailand remember.

Another family, Dave from England, his wife Ada from Hong Kong, and their little toddler Austin, have been fun to get to know. He is an architect who just completed about a decade working in Dubai. They don't know what they'll do next but probably travel will continue to be a part of their lives. They are also big movie buffs and we've been trading DVDs back and forth.

And Ray and Rita also just left. They're an older couple from England who have been coming to Thailand every winter for years. They know all the best places to see around here and we had many great chats with them by the pool. We also met a family from Leduc, Alberta who have been travelling for years with their three kids. The parents are both teachers and have taught in the Honduras, Sudan, and Hong Kong as well as other countries that I'm probably forgetting. I think they said Malaysia is next. They were here from Hong Kong this week on a school break.

All these people are leaving because we are now entering the rainy off-season and most peoples' school holidays are drawing to a close. Every afternoon - and you can set your clock by it - there's a huge downpour. Yesterday the temp was 39 and the humidity felt like 110%. We have only about 10 more days here and these final days will likely be very quiet around here. We'll miss meeting all these interesting people and hearing their stories, the best part of travel hands-down. And that is no joke.

Callum and Tyler (from Australia) and our guys getting ready to go-kart (or as they would say gyo kaht):
Jackson is a bit apprehensive but determined to keep up with the bigger guys:

He takes the corner nicely:

Trying to sell us another elephant ride - the kids want to give it a pat anyway:

We went to a "Sea Turtle Release" event at Bang Tao Beach - the sea turtles will meander their way down this stretch of beach and hopefully find a peaceful long-term home in the Andaman Sea:

We get to peek in the tub to see the turtles before they're released:

Each one has some kind of device to track them to see where they end up nesting next year (I think):

Sand sculptures of turtles were made for this event:

Nok & Jo's Restaurant - I wrote about Jo before, he's a Canadian ex-pat and always plays the NHL games on his big screen:

Mitch with Aiden, Tyler and Callum, all Aussie blokes, playing pool at Nok & Jo's:

Enjoying a snack with Max and Mary (Canadians) at the beach:

Time to Come Home

A bittersweet moment. . . Ted e-mailing our travel agent to finalize changes to our RTW tickets: This is a very difficult post to write, mainly because this has been a very difficult decision for our family. This may come as a bit of a shock to our family and friends, but we have decided to come home early. We have contacted our travel agent, Laura, in Ottawa and she has made the necessary date changes to our Round-the-World tickets so that we now fly Bangkok-Hong Kong-Vancouver-Ottawa commencing on April 15th. We will leave Phuket on April 13th and spend a couple of days in Bangkok before we bid farewell to this wonderful part of the world.

Of course, we are deeply disappointed to miss the experience of touring Japan not to mention Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Samoa but we felt we had no choice in many respects. Without going into too many personal details, there are certain family issues that are pulling us back to Canada. This, coupled with the boys' increasing homesickness, have been leading us to the conclusion that now may be the time to return. I guess the clincher was some recent ill-advised surgery I had while here in Thailand that has gone wrong. It's probably well-known in Canada that plastic surgery is relatively inexpensive here in Thailand. Long story short, I made the decision (stupid decision in hindsight) to have some liposuction done and it did not exactly go well. Because of some complications and the poor healing that I've experienced, I would feel much better seeing a Canadian physician for some follow-up. Ted has been in touch with his employer and may return to work as early as May 1st.

For me in particular, I have wrestled with the fact that perhaps a year was too much to bite off, especially with children in tow. Right now I'm too emotional to post a lengthy blog on all the things we might have done differently. Suffice it to say, I hope our traveling days as a family are not over. But this particular adventure must wind to a close - it has been a great trip - no regrets!

And, in closing, just two words -As. If. Check the date. Gotcha!!

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. We really have too much time on our hands these days.

Soi Dog Foundation: Jackson & Mitchell

Trying to be lazy no more, we have upped the homeschooling to all morning and have begun volunteering a couple of times per week at the Soi Dog Foundation. They are a wonderful organization that cares for the 20,000 stray dogs here on the island of Phuket. Probably the most important thing they do is spay and neuter all these homeless dogs, as well feed them, clean them and house them until they are restored to health. They welcome volunteers of all ages, so it is a perfect fit for us and our dog-loving boys. You can read more about the great work they do by clicking on the link above.

Here's some more details from Mitchell and Jackson. . .

Mitchell: We heard about a foundation called "Soi Dogs" here in Phuket, which means "street dog" in English. They rescue stray dogs there, and they give them a home and take them off the streets. They also let people come and walk dogs, so the dogs get a chance to run. around and socialize. We came one day, and Jackson and I got to walk dogs. I picked a nice golden dog named Tesco, because she was found in the parking lot of the Tesco Lotus supermarket. She has a big scar around her mouth, because she had a bad owner who wanted to starve her, so he tied a wire around her mouth so she couldn't eat or drink. Jackson picked a white dog named Shirley. We walked them to the end of the street and back. Since. it was very hot outside, we couldn't walk very far without getting very hot quickly.

For that day, we only walked those two dogs. But the next time we came, we walked Shirley and Tesco, with another dog that had bad fur who looked like he wanted to walk, so we took him too. After we took them, we brought them back and took another group of three dogs for a walk. This time, Jackson took a big brown and white colored dog, I took a big black dog, and Dad took a big German Shepherd-looking dog. Mom didn't walk a dog because she carried all the supplies and water bottles. The dogs were really big and hard to control, but they were nice dogs. After that, we went back home and are looking forward to going again. I like Soi Dogs because I think it is a good foundation and it was fun to get to walk dogs.

Jackson: We found out about Soi Dog Foundation, where they keep stray dogs and sometimes cats from the street. They take care of them and you can play with them. We became volunteers and we go two times a week to walk, brush, and play with the dogs. We took a dog named Shirley and a dog named Tesco each time and some more dogs. It's fun doing it.

Jackson has a special fondness for this fluffy white dog named Shirley:
Brushing Shirley:

Mitchell taking Tesco for a walk:

We all have a soft spot for Tesco - explained later:

Soi Dog Shelter, there are a couple of these kennel areas on the grounds:

Impossibly clean kennels at the shelter - dog waste is scooped up regularly and the floors are hosed clean several times in a day. I think we've stayed in dirtier hotels, believe it or not:

The founders had areas of shade constructed within the kennels; they have thought of everything for these dogs:

Time to give some other dogs a turn for a walk and a brushing:

Beautiful Tesco - notice the scar across her snout. . .

Tesco's scar - someone wrapped a wire around her jaw which prevented her from eating, drinking, or barking. She was found emaciated in the Tesco Food Store parking lot and brought to the Soi Dog Shelter. We will all miss her when it's time to go.

Travel Day 212, (Sunny and 36 degrees) in Thailand

Spilt Blood and We are All Safe: Ted.

If you haven't heard there has been some political turmoil in the streets of Bangkok. We reside in the south very far from anything that would resemble social unrest. There are a number of Thai people who resent the current government and consider them to be illegitimate. More to the point they are ardent supporters of a former Prime Minister, Thaksin Shiniwatra. He was ousted in what might be considered a political coup by the military for so-called corruption and abuse of his powers. He went into exile at the time in 2006 but subsequently returned. The government of the day under new leadership functioned for a while but parliament was dissolved and a new unelected government was formed in January 2008 under the current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

The protestors go by the name of United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship or more popularly the Red Shirts. These current demonstrations and protests in the streets of the capital stem from a recent court judgment at the end of February that convicted the former PM of certain charges from his time in power where they found that he unlawfully profited from his position. It was closely watched and big news here in Thailand as everyone expected massive disruptions and protests by his supporters.

He (Thaksin) was already very wealthy and companies that he owned benefited from government policies and decisions that were made at the time and he personally benefited financially as a result. In the end, in a February 26th Supreme Court decision, they stripped him of about $ 1.5 billion in assets that had been seized. He already has been convicted on other charges related to abuse of authority in a land deal and sentenced to two years in jail, but remains in exile. He left Thailand before the previous charges had reached court. His wife was convicted of tax evasion in 2008 and they jumped bail at that time. He resides in Dubai. We didn't pay him a visit while there. We weren't invited.

Regardless, it seems that the publicity of the protests is far greater than any real clout or support for those who are protesting. Things have been relatively peaceful as the group indicated that they wanted to operate within the law. Mostly there have been traffic annoyances. They have used measures such as throwing donated blood on the gates of government property and the prime ministers residence. The police were going to allow it to go this far but as things opened up some in the group threw blood on the house and the roof. It's some kind of ritual, supposedly placing a curse on the current government. I suppose it's also a show of defiance but other than that I'm not sure what it does. It's been widely criticized for a number of reasons including the wastefulness of a precious human resource, and how it reflects badly on Thailand as some uncivilized country that practices "black magic". Not to mention the unsafe and unhygienic conditions that were created.

The current government is standing firm and not caving in to unrealistic demands. The local consensus is that that can only be good for democracy. In addition, it seems to be reacting in a reasonable manner as well by keeping appearances of armed might low key and avoiding the escalation of conflict. From what I can gather there is more support for the current government and the Thai people feel that the country has fared better with them. They do look forward to the chance to vote in upcoming elections sometime in the future. Mostly, the majority of people are just going about their business of trying to work and make some money and provide for their families. They are friendly and appear grateful for those opportunities.

There is another protest planned by the Red Shirts for March 20th in the capital. We'll see what happens as, hopefully, law and order continues to prevail.

We are so lazy

We are so lazy right now, I'm embarrassed. We haven't posted a blog for over a week because, truthfully, we haven't done much. A typical day here in Phuket: we rise, eat breakfast, squeeze in an hour or so of homeschooling, swim, eat lunch, swim again, read by the pool or at the beach, watch TV while snacking (oh it's bad, I know, so lazy), then go for a walk which usually ends up at a beachside restaurant which just happens to be having happy hour, then walk back home, make supper, eat supper, clean up all the dishes that have accumulated over the day, watch a movie (we don't know what to do with all these channels, more channels than we ever had back in Ottawa), and then eventually retire after another slothful day. Some days hold a slight variation, such as when we need to re-stock on groceries or visit the laundry. Also, I forgot to mention Internet surfing, which we all do. One cannot live like this for long, I realize. I am actually forgetting how to construct complete sentences. This could be very bad for my return to work. Perhaps this is travel fatigue. Perhaps this had to happen. I promise the next post will be courtesy another family member . . . something with actual substance.

Big waves at Surin Beach - the boys like this beach better than Bang Tao because of the excellent "body-surfing" they're trying to do:

We made a chore chart for while we're here - Jackson's turn to wash:

The boys have created a game from these poolside rocks. The idea is to toss an increasing number of rocks into the pool, then dive underwater and gather them in one breath. Kind of reminds me of jacks when I was a kid. Onesies, twosies, threesies, etc.

Jackson leaping in:

Ted taking the plunge - the observant reader will notice how I have carefully avoided any photos of myself in a bathing suit from appearing on this blog, so there:

Surin Beach:

Oh yes, and homeschooling . . . the best part is being able to work in your PJ's: