Vacation Recipe

Recipe for a perfect vacation. Take almost constant sunshine, miles of white sand beaches, clear water and friendly people — now add to that mix some family to share with and it just doesn’t get much better than this. It seems as though the boys just arrived and now it is nearly time for them to leave. We did have a lot of fun.

The boys arrived at Karon beach about 12:45 in the dark of night. Now the beauty of having company is that it gives Bonnie a reason to plan things to death, followed immediately by a reason to worry yourself sick that the planning was less than perfect and everyone wouldn’t be totally thrilled. Such was the case with the rooms we had arranged for in Karon, and we ended up changing in mid stream. That, in itself, would not be much of a problem other than this middle of the night arrival. As the boys had already left Seattle by the time we made this change, we had no way of letting them know, and having them bashing on the door of a place where we were not guests seemed in poor form. We elected to stand on the street and wait. Now this was the night of a downpour and although it was prior to our sojourn, had little effect on us, it did curtail the street activity earlier than usual. All is well that ends well and indeed we did meet the lads and were able to lead them to their new digs.

It really is a small world. Took a scoot up to Bang Tao beach area to see a longtime family friend. Kevin Haglof was just wrapping up a business tour, and we got to spend an afternoon with him. He and Troy have been close since school days in good old Dawson Creek. In fact, both families have been pretty tight so it was really great to have this time. Kevin and his family now live in California and we got to hear about his growing family as well. Got to reminisce over a few “wobbly pops”, and time just flew. Imagine, you have to travel half way around the world for that moment in time when paths will cross with the past. Too weird.

Took the night tour into Patong under the guise of a change in dinner menu. Does seem to have the market on night activity in the beach area. They close off some of the streets to traffic and it becomes a sort of a giant mall. You can buy copies of almost any brand name item you might fancy, and some of it might even hold together long enough to get it home, but the beauty is you can haggle to your hearts content. Serious haggling must be very thirsty work, as along with all these stores nearly every second place is a watering hole of some sort. Now one would think that this sort of night activity would mostly involve the younger set, but no, there were numerous old gaffers with their young lady guides. In fact, there were spare guides lined up in the streets (mostly in front of the aforementioned watering holes). It seemed that there were so many of these good Samaritan ladies, prepared to look after the old and infirm, that there weren’t sufficient young ladies left to participate in some type of dance review. However, the show must go on and they managed to fill the spots with young fellows dressed like girlies. Uncertain as to how much of this wild night life we wished to expose our children to, we taxied back to the quiet of Karon.

Off to Phuket town for some much needed shopping. Bonnie suffers too severely from withdrawal pains if she is deprived for too many days. She managed to find a silk bed cover she had been looking for all over Thailand. Now when we were in Chiang Mai, we went through a facility that told us all about the manufacture of silk. How the silkworms are raised until the cocoons are formed. The cocoons are then boiled and unwound and the approximately 5 kilometers of ultra fine silk is separated. This is then spun into usable thread, dyed, and woven into cloth. Truly amazing, but the part that really puzzles me is, how did this all start? Picture this — “Hey dude, look at all these cocoons man. I bet if we could cook these little critters, they’d make a great snack.” “Well gnarly, just toss some in this boiling water, dude. I was just about to make some organic tea” “Hey man, just look, if I grab this itty bitty string, I can unwind this sleeping bag like a spool of thread.” “Outta sight dude — hey take a hit of this man, look at all that colour. You know, if we dyed this string these rainbow colours we could make some brilliant pantaloons for the fat man at the temple.” Maybe not exactly like that, but I ask you — who has enough time on their hands to find the starting end of a cocoon?

The ferry ride is next, but that is another day.
TTFN (ta-ta for now)
T

More Travel

I know, I know, I have been very remiss in updating my blog and I apologize to those of you who have been sitting on the edge of your seat, with bated breath, awaiting the next thrilling episode of “old people traveling in Thailand”. I know that those nasty butt welts, caused by the edge of a chair, can be very aggravating. I would like to place all the blame on sketchy internet, but in truth, lethargy might enter into the picture.

At any rate, we left Khao Lak by car and traveled to Phuket airport. About an hours drive and 600 bht.(about $20.) Traveled through some major rubber plantations. Now when artificial rubber was developed about the time of WW ll, a high percentage of raw rubber was used in the manufacture of surgical gloves. One would have to wonder where all those proctologists might be working — but then, just think of all the politicians we have, just awaiting their service.

Traveled from Phuket to Bangkok in a 737, about an hour, for $100. US. Does not remind me of my travels to Dawson Creek in I think maybe a DC-3, via, I believe, Great Vulture Airlines, for about $800.US. Oh well.

Actually had quite a good time in Bangkok, did a lot of the touristy things and one of us managed to have our hair properly pouffed. The other of us doesn’t have enough hair to worry about. Took a tour to the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew temple. Established in the 1780’s the palace is mostly ceremonial, but the temple is still active. Now it would seem that the monks have an aversion to hairy white legs, and as I fell into this category I was loaned a pair of brilliant colored pantaloons. It would seem that they take no offense to a good sense of humor, as I looked just like Bozo the clown. There was, of course, no one who enjoyed this more than Bonnie, and she was quick to point out that the rest of our tour group were also enjoying this situation. In their defense, they, at least, didn’t point their fingers and laugh out loud. At this point I would like to confirm that there is indeed a God, for on the following day we took a tour of another palace and yet another temple. On this occasion they not only took offense of the hairy white legs, but also did not care for exposed, fleshy shoulders and yes, they made Bonnie wear a table cloth and a brilliant yellow shirt. At this point she could have had a choice of continuing with the tour, or becoming a street vendor. She chose the tour, which may or may not have been the best choice. After looking in the royal digs and noticing the elevated temperature with the layered clothing, Bonnie took it upon herself to expose not only her legs, but her shoulders, for a walk about the grounds. She was soon set upon by the clothes nazi, who spotted her from a distance and soon overtook her on his bicycle. He stayed right there while Bonnie covered up the offending flesh. The bright red face which I displayed, was no indication of a pending cardiac situation, but was, in fact, the result of my trying desperately to stifle raucous laughter. Remember that not poking the bear bit? Of the 40,000 temples in Thailand, I suspect that we have seen most of them, so that when we head south I suspect that we will go to a mosque. Wait until they try to dress Bonnie in a burkha.

Also took a river trip in Bangkok on the Mae Nam Chao Praya river. You can say it in Thai. It sounds a great deal like clearing your throat several times. This is the largest river in Thailand, and is inter-connected with numerous canals or klongs. This accounted for Bangkok being known as the Venice of the east. Now this boat trip was aboard a long-tail boat. This is a rather long, but narrow vessel, capable or carrying probably twenty people. At the blunt end of the boat is a rather rickety frame to which is attached a used engine from a 1976 datsun pickup. On the transmission is a bloody long shaft with a two bladed propeller. On the fan end of the engine is another long shaft which a skinny little Thai helmsman swings on. It is his function to pivot this entire contraption from side to side in an effort to control the direction of said vessel. Either that or he is desperately hanging on to prevent being dumped into the klong, which can become somewhat odoriferous in spots. Did I mention that we also got to go to the day market, the night market, the weekend market and several large malls. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

Back to Phuket Island on the 737. Cost only $50. US on the return trip. Downhill I guess. Time to prepare for the much anticipated arrival of Troy and Chad, but that is another story, and another day.
T

Sun Worship

I keep having this recurring dream, no, nightmare, where I Am basking on the beach and this rather large Japanese fishing vessel tries to harpoon me. Were it not for the timely intervention from some members of Green Peace, I might well be just another statistic. As I am about to express my gratitude to my rescuers, these peaceniks had the audacity to try rolling me back into the water. Message to self — stay away from the beach.

It has been said that youth is wasted on the young. The same can be said for the perfect tan. There is something different about a tan on smooth young skin, where it all attains a golden glow, without the splotches and creases found on the Geritol set. It begins to look as though everyone over twenty starts to take on the appearance of a sun-dried tomato. The other day, while on the beach, [I just don’t learn] I determined that it would be possible to make Bruschetta for a lifetime from that beach alone.

Add to that feeling old thing, we have reached a milestone in the Roberts clan. Our first-born grand daughter, Brooklyn, is now sweet sixteen. Beauty and brains, what a wonderful combination.

Our time is very nearly finished at Khao Lak. It has certainly been relaxing — very nearly too much so. The sun comes up to start another gorgeous day, we eat some more delicious Thai food at one of a number of nearby restaurants, we walk on a soft sand beach and view another beautiful sunset — repeat as required. I understand that we are now off to Bangkok for a few days so that should be exciting.

I will update again as we have wi-fi access.
T

Thai Massage

Here I am — on solid food — both in and out. Quite a treat. One thing about the “zoomers” is I probably peaked athletically during this period. I certainly matched, or possibly bested an Olympic time for the 100 yard dash, and that was with my legs tightly crossed.

Must tell you about my Thai massage. All along the beaches, and in the towns, for a very modest sum you can procure a Thai massage. Bonnie has been threatening to have one since we arrived, but in our pressing schedule, hasn’t been able to squeeze it in — until now! Not only did she want a massage for herself, but was quite insistent that I should have one too. Now the very idea of lying semi-naked, on a bed, while a young lady had her way with me, had absolutely no appeal, let me assure you, but as Bonnie had already made the appointments, who was I to argue? Off to the beech we go, to some little open-air cabanas with a mattress and a masseuse. I was met by a young lady about 5 feet tall and as big around as one of my legs. After she washed my feet, [they really weren’t that dirty as I have showered since we left home] she got me to lie face down on the mattress. As I closed my eyes in preparation of this gentle massage of this old tired body, I was beset upon by a very large Sumo wrestler, in cowboy boots, who commenced to kick me in every muscle group that my body ever had. My immediate impulse was to scream out in pain, but I didn’t want to do anything that might encourage him, so I just lay there and quietly whimpered to myself. My only hope was that he would tire himself out before I lost consciousness, and I could make my escape. Actually, my time started to run out and the voice of the young lady asked me to lie on my back. I was somewhat surprised that my body would even respond to mental commands any longer, but as I rolled onto my back imagine my surprise to see that my giant Sumo wrestler had morphed back into my little Thai masseuse. I fail to understand how someone who weighs less than 100 lbs soaking wet, can exert 400 lbs of force against muscles that have comfortably atrophied for decades. After stomping, poking, prying, stretching and pinching [the lady has the hands of an iron worker] the remaining bits of my body, my hour was up. After all that,I was the only one sweating. All of this for 300 baht — 10 bucks — about what it costs to “biggie size” at Mickey D’s . Boy, I wonder what’s the better value. I did awaken this morning, knowing that my tan would be replaced by colorful green and purple welts, but not a bruise to be seen — aaand, I feel remarkably good. I may have to try this out another time or six. Scientific research you know.

Nuff for now.
T

Another day, more sun

Well here we are in Khao Lak. This is the area that was most seriously hit by the tsunami, but it shows the resilience of the people here as they are building some very nice resorts. As a plus, the resorts are trying to encourage visitors and we got a 4-star at a rather frugal price. Left Karon Beach and went into Phuket town for an overnight. Thought we had taken a wrong turn somewhere and had landed in Beruit. Finally figured out that all the gunshots were really fireworks as we had arrived on the first day of Chinese New Year. The “year of the rat”. Let me see, — yes I should fit in well.

Took a government bus to Khao Lak. Got the spiffy one with air conditioning. Had our choice of that or the non air conditioned, or the open air with the goats and chickens. Well you know Bonnie, air conditioned it was.

Now for the good news — two of our sons are meeting us over here for about 10 days. It initially was going to be a surprise, but as they couldn’t figure out where we were going to be at any given moment, they had to spill the beans. It was that, or we could compare notes when we got together back in North America. That’s what happens when you have parents who don’t know where they are at, or what they are doing. When they are here, I am going to find out how you post pictures to the blog. You don’t have to be smart when you have smart kids, {and grand kids}.

Being at the resort [Briza], gives us ample time to sit around and work on our tans — that and make the 100 yard dash to the hopper. It appears as though Montezuma was a bit ticked that we didn’t vacation in Mexico, and exerted his influence all the way over here. On the upside, people can no longer say that I am full of it!

We have a tame elephant in front of our resort. At least it hasn’t eaten or stomped anyone to the best of my knowledge. Apparently the trained ones stay with their trainers, like 24/7. Sort of like taking the company truck home every night. Hopefully they are not afraid of the dark as I think that they may be a bit ungainly as a house pet.

Well I believe that someone is possibly suffering shopping withdrawal as the suggestion was made that we could take a tuk-tuk into the actual town tomorrow. As, I believe, the only item we have on our pressing schedule for tomorrow, is to pick up our laundry. In Chiang Mai we found a coin operated laundry. Good washers but they dryers were a tad slow. Took pretty much all the 10 baht coins we could get. When we got to Karon, low and behold, we again had need of a laundry. After trudging all over town in the hot sun, dragging a suitcase of dirty clothes, all we were able to find were drop-off services, which were everywhere. However, as we are doing this “on the cheap” we wanted the pleasure of doing these ourselves, and Bonnie asked some obvious tourists where we could do laundry. In the happiest of terms, they expressed how they just take theirs to a laundry service, and for a meager sum they come back clean and folded. Going with the flow, we trundled back to a “laundry” near our hotel. Turns out they will wash, fold and package for 50 baht per kg. That is about 35 cents per lb. Hell, I wouldn’t even bury those clothes for 35 cents per pound, and after opening our dirty clothes suitcase that was seriously considered. At any rate, Bonnie is checking rates with DHL to figure out just how big a laundry parcel she would have to ship from Canada to make it worthwhile.

Enough for now, more to follow.

More on Thailand

Well, after all my gloating on our perpetual sunshine, the heavens broke loose the other evening and gave us a thunderstorm. Lots of lightening and a five minute downpour. I don’t know if the rain just turned to steam and evaporated or what, but the ground scarcely got damp.

Must tell you about the transportation here in Thailand. The roads are in relatively good condition, but quite narrow and very twisty. The road is divided by a solid line, which appears to mean nothing. There are no stop signs or yield signs and very few traffic lights. Now on this traffic system, there must be a Brazilian motor bikes and scooters, as well as trucks, taxis, tuk-tuks and the usual cars and pick-ups. Now the bikes and scooters are used as a means of transport by tourists, a way to get to work for the locals, and a family sedan for the locals without a car. It is certainly not uncommon to see three adults traveling about on a scooter, and I have seen a mom and dad and three children a number of times. Of course, no one wears a helmet of any kind. The cars and trucks are just that, and are used for car and truck type things. Now none of these modes of transportation appear to be older than five years and I wondered if perhaps they did not allow vehicle traffic until five years ago. This seemed unlikely, as there does not appear to be too many used ox carts about either. Then I remembered a taxi ride from Patong to Kata, and thought that the vehicle life expectancy is maybe five years. This seems more likely, but will require further study. It is interesting to note that not only are the vehicle drivers required to hurl themselves down the wrong side of the road, with reckless abandon, but as an added handicap, they have installed all the driving equipment on the wrong side of the car.

Now I previously mentioned the solid white line in the approximate center of the road, and have come to the conclusion that it is to be used only as a basic guide. You are quite entitled to cross the line at will. On a blind corner you should also reduce speed slightly when passing. Now as there are no stop or yield signs, traffic just merges as it meets. No fuss, no bother. Now imagine, if you will, dumb schmuck tourists throwing themselves in front of oncoming traffic, while gazing stupidly in the wrong direction. When this happens, as it frequently does, traffic grinds to a halt while the guilty party scurries across the road. As this is taking place, the pleasant nature of the Thai people really becomes apparent. No waving of fists or fingers and no laying on of horns. Just patience and a pleasant smile. New York it aint.

More to follow.
T

Our Weather is Better

In the immortal words of Robin Williams ” It’s hot, damned hot, — hotter than a snake’s ass in a wagon rut. ”

I had to throw that in for the benefit of those of you in the Pacific Northwest, and your minus 4 degree C temperatures. Now for those of you in Ft. McMurray and your minus 44 C —– ha ha. Oops, that should have read — awe bummer! If you are able to unclench your frozen fingers you could dial-up your local travel agent and join us here. We have lots of warm sun, and we are willing to share.

Funny thing about this warmth, it seems to have changed me into a reverse reverse-osmosis water maker. I take in huge amounts of potable water and force it through my hide. At the same time I manage to change it into something totally unfit for human consumption. However, it is a boon to the general economy as the bottled water required to feed this machine necessitates frequent supply runs to the local Seven Eleven. Oh yes, Seven Elevens are everywhere in Thailand. Speaking of Seven Elevens, I was in one the other day and spotted an old acquaintance — Johnnie Black. Must get together with him some evening for a lively discussion.

Poor Bonnie, all this time I have been speaking about the pleasant, friendly nature of the Thai people and didn’t realize that Bonnie harbored mixed feelings about the women. She does not think that it is fair that all the Thai women share Bonnie’s tall stature, but the heaviest one would only weigh 97 lbs., and they all have perfect figures and posture. I tried to explain to Bonnie that all Thai women are 19 years old, and Bonnie, being in her very, very late twenties, was put to a disadvantage. That seemed to work until yesterday when Bonnie purchased new swimming attire, and was compelled to buy a large. She strongly expressed to me that this was an obvious conspiracy as the same size suit in Canada would be a small. That is probably true, — or maybe too many ” sticky rice with fresh mango.”

On the subject of swim suits, I did not realize that there was so much poverty in Thailand. Just the other day Bonnie and I were on the beach, and I noted that a very large percentage of the ladies on the beach were unable to afford tops for their swim suits. This quite amazed me, in a country where everyone seems to work so hard. I was prepared to sacrifice my time by studying this problem, but Bonnie, knowing how open displays of poverty upset me, got us new accommodation away from the beach.

New digs are actually a resort and spa, nearer the mountains [tall hills], with a squint of the ocean. Bonnie quite likes it and all of the amenities, a sit-down toilette, air conditioning, a spa and many Thai employees to cater to your every beck and call. Much like having another husband. Does have wifi at any rate. Hotel seems to be mostly filled with Europeans and Scandinavians. You know what they say. ” You can always tell a Norwegian — you just can’t tell him much.”

Still pondering the poverty problem on the beach, I realized that this was not a local situation as the women without tops were obviously visitors [you can tell by the eyes] . Now if you can afford to vacation, how can you not afford both parts of a swim suit? Perhaps this was just a matter of choice, and they were really taking the twins for a walk in the sun!! My, my — as I live and breath.

All this clear thought and not any help from Johnnie.

Enough for now, more to follow.
T

Update from Thailand

Well we made it south from Chiang Mai to Phuket. Just when I was gloating about our air flights we booked passage on one who was trained by Air Canada. Air Asia must be the local low-cost airline as it was certainly more of what we have become accustomed to. No food, no movie, no sodas, no tiny bag of pretzels, no nuthin’. Oh well, we landed in one piece and on time. Actually had to fly with them twice as we had a connecting flight in Bangkok. Thought that we might find our next accomodation in a Bankok prison as we had to re-check our luggage for our connecting flight and the silly twit in security didn’t believe that the 10 oz. bottles of Bonnie’s special shampoos complied with the airlines 20 ml regulations. He was, however, clever enough to realize from the look in Bonnie’s eyes, that you don’t poke the bear. He finally let her transfer the aforementioned shampoos to smaller containers. On to Phuket.

From Phuket we caught our car to our hotel in Patong. Patong is on the northern end of the west coast beach area near Phuket. Quite busy in Patong as it seems to have one of the higher populations of the beach areas, Also has some shopping. Oh woe is me. They must get a large number of single male tourists in this area, as you constantly see them in the company of young Thai ladies. Have not yet figured out why all the tour guides are young and female. Certainly nice that they will take the time to help these poor old chappies find their way about.

After three days in Patong we moved a little south [about 10 km], to the Karon beach area. This area is rebuilding after the tsunami, and we were fortunate to get a room in a new resort, just off the beach. So new in fact, that it is still under construction and one of the items not yet in place is the elevator. Strange how the luggage seems much heavier having a local lad lug it up three floors to our room. I worked up quite a sweat just watching him. Gave him 40 B [baht] for a job well done.

Now let me explain a bit about the Thai monetary system. Firstly, it is all kinds of funny colours, much like our Canadian funds, and a twenty baht bill is about the same size and colour as a Canadian twenty. At that point the similarities end as it takes about 30 baht to make one loonie. Add to this the fact that you are expected to barter fiercely for an item that is underpriced by our standards, and you can see the difficulties. Never having been particularly good at bartering I had to finesse this skill as we went, and became particularly adept when I self rightiously haggled a tuk – tuk driver down from 120 baht to 50 baht. The last 10 baht he was quite reluctant to part with, but he eventually succumbed to my skillful endeavor. As he was driving us the several kms back to our hotel I figured out that I had slyly dealt him out of amounted to about 30 cents. Enough for now, more to follow.

Goodbye winter

Well—to start at the beginning we left Vancouver at 0 dark hundred on a Cathay Pacific 747, bound for Hong Kong. Cathay obviously did not take their air operations training from Air Canada as the stewardesses were actually quite pleasant. Not only that but we also received not one, but two hot meals during our flight. Add to this, the no charge headphones and a selection of probably a dozen different movies and suffice to say the trip was very pleasant. Took a stop over in Hong Kong for three days and quite enjoyed our short stay. HK is very clean although I believe that the city planner laid out the road system by following his favorite goat about the mountain side. Little twisty roads scattered about in all directions. The high rises were built to follow the roads so you end up with beautiful tall buildings looking off in all directions. Hong Kong is also very vertical and I do believe that if we had spent our entire holiday in HK I would probably look like a Whippet. On the upside we did manage to eat dim-sum every day. Thank u J & K. Took a harbour tour at Aberdeen (other side of HK island). Very interesting. Many live-a-boards in many variety of vessels of varying sizes. For example, if u took a dinghy and covered it with a red, white and blue plastic tarp, you would have a dandy little accomodation for one or two. Made “Tawny Port” seem good. Carried on to Bankok via Cathay and yet again, another hot meal.

Did not stay in Bangkok as we intend to stay a few days at the end of our vacation. On to Chiang Mai with Thai Airways and lo and behold yet another hot meal. Maybe it is an Asian thing.

Sawasdee krup. This is the all around general greeting in Thai. It means Good morning, Good afternoon, Good evening, Good bye and probably several other goods that I am not yet aware of. It is generally given with the warmest smile. Very friendly and helpful peoples. Got to our hotel, nice and clean and has a sit-down toilet. It’s a happy Bonnie. The only slight draw-back is that I believe that the interior decorator may have been the Marquis de Sade, as the bed is just slightly harder than the floor. The Thai are a very hard working and industrious people, usually working 12 hour days and often 7 days per week. Then again, it may be that their bodies cannot take any more of the bed and if they are going to be about, they may as well work. Took a tour out to the manufacturing area of Chiang Mai. Big mistake. Too many beautiful items — bad place to take Bonnie. Oh well, they will deliver. Took another tour to the elephant farm. Very enlightening. They put on quite a show, ending with several of the elephants painting pictures. Some of the pictures actually quite good. We also took a ride on the rascals. Much like riding in a 1956 International Harvester 1/2 ton. Definitely an experience, not the smoothest.

Bonnie is off at the market, (go figure) and tomorrow or the next day we are heading south to Phuket, but we will update this from time to time.Oh yes — hot, hot, no wind and no rain. Ya gotta luv it.