Gunn Family Travels

Adventures in Rotorua

2008-06-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

Rotorua is famous not just for all of the adventure possibilities but for the fact that it is situated in an area of large Geothermal activity. Some of the adventure stuff is based on this Geothermal activity and one of those places is Hell’s Gate. Hell’s Gate has pathways through an area that is filled with steam vents that are spewing sulphur-filled steam and mud pools that bubble at high temperatures. There is also a waterfall that is 35C. At the end of the 2 km walk, you can rest with your feet in a hot mud bath. Michelle and Cathy and I do this while Dave and Paul and Anna get a carving lesson from the Maori guide Ben. John orders a carving to add to his collection.

From Hell’s Gate we head all the way around to the other side of the lake to play a round of minigolf. The highlight of the golf was the little dog that the manager had named Holly. It was a mix between a poodle and some breed we’d never heard of. They had piped in bird calls and it took us a while to figure out the birds weren’t there.

The next day we played some tennis at Ken and Shirley’s, do 5 loads of laundry and then headed out to go zorbing. Zorbing is a uniquely Kiwi activity. They drive you to the top of a hill and put you in a huge plastic ball with warm water in it and push you down the hill. The boys said it felt like a really long waterslide.

From zorbing, we head to the skydiving place so that those who did not skydive in Queenstown in the South could try it here. Anna is totally game to go, as is John. Cathy is unsure but when I agree to go, she changes her mind. Anna and John go from 12,000 feet and we tell Cathy we will go from 9,000 (but really we tell the pilot to go to 12,000 – I mean really, once you’re jumping out of a plane, what is an extra 3,000 feet?!) John and I did a static line jump from 4,000 feet in 1991 before they closed Beiseker down for safety reasons!! I didn’t really think I’d be skydiving ever again, but what we don’t do for our kids?!

Anna and John appear as tiny dots in the clear blue sky and after about a minute they are more recognizable. They come in right over us and land in the field in front of us. Anna wants to go again right away and John has had a rather hard landing and would rather wait a few days!

Cathy and I climb into the plane and sit on the floor with our jumpleaders. The plane is really just a hollow that we can only sit in with a sliding window that doesn’t get closed right away. Once we are taxiing down the runway, Cathy’s jumpleader closes the door. The view is quite amazing from the plane with all of the sheep appearing as little white specks. There are numerous lakes and the view is unreal with the bright blue lakes and green hills.

It is finally time for us to jump and Cathy goes first. She disappears and very quickly I am up. I jump on command and the wind hits me very hard. My ears won’t pop and I feel every bit of liquid escaping my face and I realize why my instructor right behind me (we are attached by harness to them) is wearing goggles! I remember Cathy’s instructor telling her to remember to breathe and if she forgot then to scream. I don’t need to scream but I do have to remember to breathe. It is actually quite cold at that height and I can hardly wait for the freefall to end. After what seems like forever, he pulls the chute and we slow right down and drift slowly over the landscape. Things are now quite enjoyable and I relax and take in the view. It takes us a few minutes to drift down to the airport and then we can see everyone and he tells me to lift my legs up to my chest and we drift in for a very gentle landing on our butts. Unlike Cathy who is ecstatic and not at all mad about the extra 3,000 feet, I am sure I will never be doing this again!

The next day we head out to go whitewater rafting. We are picked up by another dreadlocked adventure dude named Nigel. They bus us back to Hell’s Gate and get us all kitted up in wetsuits and booties, fleece shirts, spray shirts and lifejackets and helmets. You are supposed to be 13, but we assure them Paul will be right in there no problem. This is the place that our Kiwi friend in Wellington told us to go to as they take you over a 7 meter waterfall. We head out on the river and he talks to us about paddling together. This is what we will be doing this summer when we canoe the Bowron Lakes Circuit so it is a good little start.

Our first corner takes us immediately onto rapids that are bigger than anything we have ever seen. We then do a 2 meter waterfall and then more rapids. We are in a dark narrow highbanked river gully covered in rainforest. It is quite a sacred place to the Maori as there are eels in the river that they ate. They also used to bury their dead in the splits in the rock and we say Maori prayers several times along the river. Next up is the big 7 meter drop and he teaches us how to drop down into the boat and tuck our chins so we don’t smack our heads on the helmets of the people in front of us. We have to paddle hard to get us into the waterfall and then we drop down into the boat and it throws us sideways and fills with water. This is the moment of truth as if we are going to flip it will be now. I hold my breath and we pop out at the bottom right side up!! I guess these things do tip about 1 in 4 times so it’s great to be still in the boat.

We then proceed down the river and there is a thermal spring that heats the river. Dave and I jump in and take the next waterfall holding onto the side of the boat. The water is really warm. We then do some surfing where he drives us right into the waterfall and then the front ends goes under and soaks the people in the front We all take turns and then we round the last bend and get out. The next bend after that would have been over a 9 meter waterfall that has killed many people!

Our adventures over, we head back to the cabin at the Top Ten to do a couple of days of homework.

The Road to Rotorua

2008-06-16T18:35:00.000-07:00

Dave is up early and tackling Science at 7:30 AM. He can see the light as he is making great progress in Physics. John is tutoring him and is able to incorporate everyday things that we are doing and seeing into the lessons.

We head into Napier to see the artdeco buildings. The entire town was destroyed in 1931 by a 7.9 earthquake and when they rebuilt the town, they had some fun making sure all of the buildings are painted in great colors and shaped in different ways. This is a great tourist attraction. We stop at a toy store and buy a Frisbee and Boggle. We have great fun in Gabriola with Boggle and it, along with Scrabble will keep our minds happening on the boat. We also hit a great bakery and buy desserts for tonight as we will be having dinner with Ken and Shirley and Michelle at their condo in Rotorua. We also find a second hand bookstore and the girls buy The Queen’s Fool by Phillipa Gregory and I buy Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (he has just written the sequel but I can’t remember the story). One more U-Turn as we have to get gas and it’s on the other side of the highway ad it’s off to Rotorua.

We follow another winding road and end up at lake Taupo. It looks like the Shuswap but is even bigger. There is quite the breeze coming off the lake, so we don’t stop for long. We hit Rotorua at rush hour and it feels like Kelowna. Rotorua is the adventure capital of the North Island like Queenstown was in the South. Ken and Shirley are on the North end of the lake and we enter from the south. Another 30 minutes of winding and very narrow roads has us looking at Shirley who is flagging us down on the road.

Our total reward is a great roast lamb and chicken dinner complete with mint sauce and every vegetable under the sun here in NZ. They have a 3 bedroom place and John and I get to sleep with a roof over our heads as he has a 3AM conference call with the boys at Tango. He has had several of these over the course of the trip and this one should be easier than the one at the base of the Himilayas!

Napier and Hastings

2008-06-16T18:32:00.000-07:00

In the morning we ask a Kiwi couple we have met, where they would recommend going. They say Napier so we head off to this famous art-deco town via wine and orchard country. We hope to get to the Gunn Estate winery near Hawke Bay at Hastings, so we head to the information place in Hastings. All over NZ they have signs posted with a single small i that you can access 7 days a week. They have every pamphlet imaginable for both islands and also serve as a travel agent for booking tours as well as ferries and accommodations. Unfortunately for us, the Gunn Estate is closed for the season, though. The gal does give us some information on places to go including a cheese place and a honey place.

We are surrounded by beautiful orchards as we find our way to the honey place. The apples are just being harvested and there is one called Pacific Rose which is the best tasting apple we’ve ever had. They are twice the size of any apple at home, red on the outside and white on the inside. They are hard and crunchy like a granny smith, but sweet and juicy like a Fuji. We buy them by the huge bagful for the rest of our time here in NZ. We also pass by little fruit and veg stands like you see in the Okanagan and can buy organic cauliflower, avocado, carrots, broccoli and potatoes, as well as pears and apples. At one such stand we cross the street to watch the sheep as they eat the detritus under the vines of the grapes. We do see this everywhere now, where the grapes are done, and the sheep are on cleanup duty.

We find the Araki Honey place and it proves to be a great science lesson. There are all kinds of interactive activities and microscopes as well as a live bee hive pressed between 2 panes of glass. They have tagged the Queen who is triple the size of the other bees. There is also a tasting station, where you can taste any one of about 10 different varieties of honey. The taste differs according to the flower that was used to get the nectar from. Some, like clover, are very mild, while others, like Tamarind, are much stronger. The average harvest from a NZ hive is 30 Kg of honey and for each kg the bees fly the equivalent of 3 orbits around the Earth. Each bee may make one teaspoon of honey in its lifetime. The most bee stings survived in one session was over 2200!!

We head off to the cheese place and see the process in action. There are hundreds of wheels of brie ripening in one room. We try all the different kinds, and the kids are even brave enough to try a mild blue – a couple of them don’t even spit it out! We also encounter feijoas for the first time. These are a small green fruit about the size of a small pair. Inside they have seeds like a guava which you eat and they are quite tart and slimy. They make feijoa jam and smoothies, but we pass. We stock up on some of the different cheeses as the kids now have much better palates for more obscure foods from all of the exposure from the traveling.

We leave Hastings and go up the highway winding through lots of grape country to the town of Napier. Yes, once again it is raining and we can’t find the campground. Luckily, we have put a SIM card in John’s Blackberry to communicate with our friends Ken and Shirley who have arrived from Gabriola to come sailing with us in Tonga. We phone the campground who give us directions that we never would have found otherwise. We do a fairly comfortable 2 bedroom house for the night complete with electric blankets!

Off to the North Island

2008-06-16T18:30:00.000-07:00

Off to the North Island

Having booked our ferry tickets online at Donegal House we take a drive along the coastline up to Picton, the town that the ferry leaves from. The weather is still unsettled (a word we will come to loathe in Tonga) but it allows for streams of light through the clouds that light the waves from a back angle. The waves are immense and very powerful, which pleases the surfers that we see along the way. There are also seals in various places and finally some bird life.

We arrive in Picton with an hour to spare so we go to the grocery store for snacks. Our favorite snack for on the road is pretzels as they take the edge off but give us a bit of salt. Added bonus, everybody likes them. They are hard to find though and today I strike out. With total lack of exercise, the only vice we have had is L&P Soda (which is a lime based carbonated drink found only in NZ) and these huge bars of Cadbury chocolate. There is a crunchie type, Big Turk type, Fruit and Nut and Caramilk like one. We allow ourselves a few squares with lunch everyday, as lunch is usually some kind of sandwich on the road with Gherkins, sandwich meat and whole grain mustard and tomatoes.

We decide to go check in for the ferry, but , after getting a bit turned around and taking the long way around, we find we are booked on the Wellington to Picton ferry not the Picton to Wellington. She says she is sure they are full but to go back from whence we came (the getting lost part) and see. No Pain in trying, so we return to the main office and are immediately booked on today’s boat – time taken, about 10 minutes.

The seas are listed as heavy which is not a good sign for Cathy who hates boats on the ocean at the best of times. We spend the first hour of the trip in very protected waters in the Queen Charlotte Passage, but then they call everyone inside and we hit the open water of the Cook Strait. It is indeed very heavy with waves crashing over the bow. In one hour though, we reach the protected waters on the other side and glide along for another easy hour.

We arrive just as darkness is falling and now have to find the Top Ten in the dark and along the freeway. Our maps are good for the first bit but become a bit elusive as we near our target. It only takes one wrong turn to really mess us up as it is really hard to crack a Uball in Ruthie (as we would learn later). We do take one wrong turn but get lucky and pop out the other side right on the bridge we need to be on. 5 minutes later, just as it starts to rain, we are tucked nicely into the Top Ten.

We hit the communal kitchen and meet a great Kiwi who describes all of the adventures he’d had near Rotorua. I think he was a little lonely and he entertained us with his pictures for a while. It rained off and on all night.

Hanmer Springs and Kaikoura

2008-06-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

This was the night that we realize they don’t have much in the way of blankets on the beds in NZ as every bed has an electric blanket! We head out the next day to a famous place called Hanmer Springs. There are hotsprings here and they have many different pools of differing temperatures. It is absolutely pouring rain while we are there, but the sunshades also act as rain shades.

We sleep in Ruthie and head out the next day to try to catch the whales in a place off the northeast coast of the South Island called Kaikoura. On our way out of town we find a great little woolshop and pick up a Merino wool sweater for my Dad and another great zip up sweater for John – the first thing other than masks that he has bought since Cambodia. I am navigator and take us on the most winding road we have been on yet. We arrive in Kaikoura about 11:30 for our 12:45 time but the seas are too rough for the whale watching.

We go for lunch at an Irish pub called Donegal House and there is a huge fire in the hearth and all kinds of old pictures of the original Irish family on the walls. We ask about rooms and get the winter rate that includes breakfast and free wireless internet. This is great news as David is now full bore into Physics and Cathy into her last bits of Math.

We have supper in front of the roaring fire with a DVD on the screen with a guy by the name of Danny O’Donnell singing all kinds of songs that my Dad has sung all of my life. A little karaoke is all we need. Dave and John finally get to have some lobster. It is horrendously expensive due to all of the limitations and quotas that have been introduced in the last 10 years here.

The next morning we dodge the resident peahen and her piles of poop and the ducks and stare in wonder at what this place would be like in the sunshine of summer. I am going to try to convince the Rice’s to come in the summer and stay here.

The next day our whale-watching is cancelled again, so we buy the great fleece-lined coats they have and head for the ferry for the North Island.

Franz Josef Glacier

2008-06-15T18:41:00.000-07:00

The next day is a huge driving day where we travel for 10 hours from the town of Te Anau to the Franz Josef. Again, we leave the kids sleeping and spare them the twisting turning road on the way back to Queenstown. We continue on and stop at a lake for breakfast. They are big on quiches and pies for breakfast and we also manage some pancakes with whipped cream!

We arrive in glorious sunshine at the town of Franz Josef at about 3:30 and decide to reward ourselves with a hotel for the night. A look around, though, yields nothing very good for a family of 6. We go to the Top Ten campground and ask the manager about a little room like we have seen at all of the campgrounds we have been at. He hums and hahs and then shows us to a 3 bedroom 1100 sf house!! It is absolutely fantastic and gives us the chance to have a bit of our own space. There is a door dividing the sleeping areas (3 bedrooms sleeping for 9) from the living room too, so if anyone is up early they can read in quiet and not disturb anyone else. There is a bathroom with a bathtub too!

We book a hike on the glacier for the next day through the manager of the Top Ten and go to the grocery store for fixin’s for dinner. The highlight of the night, though, has to be the near double skunk in cribbage by John of me where I escape by a single point!!

The next morning brings a bit of cloud, and a final mark of 82% in English for David!! We are off to climb the glacier but John stays behind as he is now going under the knife this summer for his knee.

The rest of us are picked up by the typical adventure guide that seems to exist in these adventure-based towns throughut NZ. Dreadlocks and all. We go don all of the heavy wool socks and rain coats and are given a fanny pack with crampons in it. They drive us as far as they can and then we start walking up a fire road. 200 meters up we branch off into the forest and are completely engulfed in forest. It is easy to see how the Israeli girl perished near Queenstown a month before and they didn’t find her body for the entire month even though it was 60 meters from the hut. Soon we are on the moraine and walking by a river. We have to climb up ladders and ropes and over all kinds of crazy terrain in order to get to the actual glacier.

This glacier along with the Fox a few miles away and one in Patagonia are the only glaciers in the world in the tropics. 2 km later and we pause at the base to don our crampons. The guide is worried that Paul won’t be able to keep up, but very quickly figures that Paul is the least of his worries. There are other guides carving steps for us and it takes a while to get used to walking in the crampons. The ice is amazing and every shade of blue. NZ is in a drought now and that will affect the glacier 5 years from now. There are little rivulets of water everywhere and the sound is thunderous. We spend about 2 hours on the glacier and then retrace our steps back through the moraine and the ladders to the bus. John has a fabulous chicken stirfry ready for us at home.

Doubtful Sound

2008-06-15T18:34:00.000-07:00

We are now going down to an area of the South Island known as Fjordland. It is just like the fiords in Norway, deep high steep sides going way down into very deep water. All of these are etched from ancient glaciers. We leave Queenstown in the early hours and let the kids sleep as we drive what feels like the Sycamuse south along the lake route.

We have to take a first boat across the second deepest lake in NZ, Lake Manapouri at 420 meters. On the other side we load onto a bus and receive a lesson in the native vegetation of NA. There are 200 different varieties of fern in NA and 199 of them are on our route today. The fern is the symbol of the All Blacks or rugby team of NZ. This is because it the Maori, the fern is very important. The silver fern, when turned over, reflects the light and guides warriors to their destination and the last warrior merely turns it back over and nobody is ever the wiser for them being there. Young Maori children are taught that if they get lost in the woods that they should turn the fern over and it will guide their elders to where they are. It also means the achievement of a goal.

Steve our bus driver explains about stoat and the problems they are causing in NZ. Originally plagued by rats that had come off the ships from Tasmania, the NZers brought in rabbits to help feed the people. The rabbits took over so they introduced possums. The possums killed the rabbits but then took over. The stoats were brought in to kill the possums but found bird’s eggs more to their liking. There is now very little bird life in Fjordland and they have traps every 200 meters that they change once a week. In 2 years they have seen a 30% increase in the bird life.

We start our trip into Doubtful Sound at a place called Deep Cove. This is where some of the students from local schools come for retreats and the Captain jokes that it is great but very stressful for them as there is no cell coverage there! We are so lucky to not have rain as it rains 260 days of the year and about 6-8 meters.
We spend 2 hours going out into the fjord and it is breathtakingly beautiful. It is so quiet and we are the only ship out there. At one point they turn off all of the engines and generators and we are perfectly still and not moving at all. We can hear a waterfall as if it is 100 meters high in the silence. We look and it is about 6 meters but is so loud in the quiet.

On our way back, we stop and do the same trip. We get off of the bus and go into a power plant. Originally, they had wanted to raise the height of Lake Manapouri by 30 meters and would have buried many villages. There was a petition and 275,000 people signed it is the early 70’s. They then decided to drill underneath and created a tunnel deep under the ground that spiraled down to drop 180 meters to Deep Cove. It was a huge coup for the environmentalists and is used to provide power to an aluminum plant

Queenstown and the Adventure Capital of South NZ

2008-05-30T21:20:00.000-07:00

We left Mt. Cook and travelled the winding and twisting roads for most of the day. On these type days we take the Thermos that the woman in Christchurch had given us and fill it up with hot water from any of the boiling water bibs available in the campgrounds or resting places. This enables us to have a hot drink throughout the course of the day.

We arrived late in the evening to a very nice campground just outside of Queenstown. There was even a cat that looked like our cat Verbal. We arrived in time to set up camp and have a glass of New Zealand wine before putting some steaks on the Barbie and also making Greek salad with foccaccia. All of these places have open BBQ's which you just fire up and use.

The next day we are off to go Jet Boating on the Dart River south of Queenstown near the town of Glenorchy. Much of the filming of Lord of the Rings was done in this area and we see the Misty Mountains, the tower of Isengard, and the mountain where Gandalf fights the Belrog. The jet boating is great as the boat needs very little water to run on and he does complete spins when we get to places that are deep enough. The water goes through the handles that we are holding on to, but our feet freeze. We share the boat with an Indian family from Mumbai and if we think we are cold, they think they are dying!!

The greatest adventure happens the next day, though, as we put the girls on a bus to do a whole day ride along the river and a bit more LOTR's stuff. They see where the Fellowship run into the Elf Queen and where Boromir dies. The boys are off to go skydiving. We watch as they jump out of the plane at 9,000 feet and go through the clouds getting pummelled by ice crystals. They jump with an instructor, but still freefall for about 30 seconds at the speed of 200 km per hour. They are so excited when they finish and beg to go again. We instantly make the rule that there are no repeats on adventures.

David is then off to bungy jump the second highest jump in the world. It is 134 meters high and he has pictures to prove it. We weren't allowed to go so he bought the pictures to show us. The girls come back all excited from their ride and we go up to the top of the Gondola to do some luging.

Luging here is a cart that you sit on and you have handlebars that you pull part way back to release the brake and all the way back to stop. You go down a concrete track and then take the chairlift back up with the luge attached. This is definitely something they could do at COP. We all take a few runs and go home to prepare for Doubtful Sound tomorrow.

Nz's most famous beekeeper

2008-05-30T21:05:00.000-07:00

Edmund Hillary was born in 1919 and grew up the middle of 3 children in a small town. His father was a beekeeper and Edmund did some beekeeping in his life too. When he reached the age of about 11 he had to go to school in Auckland. There he was put in the group of misfits in PE class as he was so small and scrawny. By the time he was 15, he stood over 6 feet and went on a ski outing with his school. He fell in love with snow and started on his way to mountaineering. He and his friend George Lowe found themselves on many an adventure together, none bigger than Everest. Hillary and Tenzing Norgay had already climbed Mt. Cook in 1948 and Hillary found himself on a British team trying to climb Everest in 1951. This expedition failed and they thought they would climb it in 1952. The Swiss, however, had the mountain booked that year, but Lowe and Hillary still went to the mountain to take a look at it from all sides. They went to base camp to find out that the Swiss had failed.

They were part of the 1953 expedition and Hillary chose Norgay as his partner. They were the 2nd summit team and only tried for the summit when the first team failed. Hillary reached the top on the same day that Queen Elizabeth II was enjoying her coronation. She knighted him on the spot and he found out on the radio that he now held the title of Sir. This had been a British expedition and when the very proper leader of the group asked Hillary if they had made it to the summit, instead of some proper response Hillary merely said "Well, we knocked the bastard off!".

Hillary would return to New Zealand and marry his Australian wife and have 3 kids. They would all return many times to Nepal. On one of these trips, the plane crashed and Hillary's wife and his youngest daughter were killed. He was devastated and spend many years trying to come to grips with his grief. He was to go to the Antarctic on a trip but a friend went instead. This plane also crashed, leaving Hillary and his friend's wife to find each other. June Hillary was his second wife and together they travelled the world and he became ambassador to India.

Hillary died this past January at the age of 89. We just missed meeting June Hillary who arrived at the Hermitage days after us to open the new Museum. There is a lifesize statue of a young Hillary with old-fashioned climbing equipment facing Mt. Cook.

Mt. Cook

2008-05-30T12:56:00.001-07:00

The next morning we head out up the road and are now into rolling hills and beautiful green pastures. We see a few herds of deer and then realize that they are actually fenced in. We also start to see Elk that have obviously also been domesticated. Add this to the goats, pigs and beef cattle and you have NZ meat industry. We stop at a cute little at the base of a huge Lake called Lake Pukaki and get our first glimpse of NZ's highest mountain.

We decide to do the deviation up along the lake to see Mt. Cook closer up. It is a beautiful sunny day and the larch trees are all orange and about to lose their needles. We start to encounter the one way bridges that are everywhere in NZ. They work like a charm now and usually have a sign designating who has the right of way. I can't imagine what it must be like in the summer, though, when the tourist traffic must be huge.

We have to slow to a stop as there is a herd of sheep going up the road. It feels kind of like going west of Bragg Creek towards Elbow Falls where there are Texas Gates and cattle on the road. This herd has a fellow with the ever present rubber boots and a couple of sheep dogs trying to get the sheep over the bridge and back into the ditch to let us pass. The dogs are working from small calls and hand signals. One of them is the traditional black and white sheep dog and the other one looks like a small Rottweiler. They are running from one side to the other and collecting the strays.

We arrive at the Hermitage Hotel which was first built in the 1880's but was wiped out by a flood. They changed the location and rebuilt, but that one was destroyed by fire in 1957 (along with many items of Hillary memorabilia). This new one was built in the 1950's and added on to for the millenium. There is a museum dedicated to Hillary, but it is closed due to a power outage. We don't want to miss it and 2 nights has been enough for now in the campervan, so we check in for the night. It is great to be here in the off season as they really work hard to give you a good rate.

Mt. Cook is 12,316 feet high and was first climbed in 1884. It is called Aoraki in Maori which means Cloud Piercer. A woman by the name of Freda du Faur became the first woman to climb it in 1913. Hillary climbed the southern ridge in 1948.

We watch the sun go down over Mt. Cook and go for a great meal in the dining room. Amazingly, all of the kinds of animals that we had seen in paddocks alongside the roads are on the menu! We then go star-gazing with a guide and we get to see Saturn through a huge telescope, complete with rings! We also see the craters of the moon and a cluster of stars that formed part of the galaxy next to us. It is quite cold, but there is a propane heater.

In the morning we sit in the Museum and watch a fascinating film on Hillary.

On the Road in Ruthie the RV

2008-05-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

Our first night was surprisingly comfortable in the RV. John and I are up above and the boys are on a bed in the dining area and the girls at the back. It was a little cold as we turned off the heater for the night. We had to put our luggage in the bathroom and when they described the process for cleaning out the holding tanks, all we could imagine was Robin Williams in the movie RV. We decided that with the great setup in these campgrounds that we would not even use the bathroom or sink.

NZ is divided into the North and South Islands and it is now Autumn here so we decided to do the South Island first and hopefully move north as the temperature fell. There is every type of topography imaginable and lots of adventure stuff. We headed out after provisioning Ruthie to a place called Fairlie which is halfway between Christchurch and Queenstown. Queenstown is where all the bungy-jumping and sky-diving etc. is and the boys wanted to get there fast!

Along the road just west of Christchurch we see the first of about 50 million sheep. They have huge hedges about 50 feet high and trimmed off in a square shape and amazingly enough looked to be made of pine! We also start to see lots of dairy cattle which is the new business here. Apparently the Chinese are buying up all of the NZ milk and putting it into powder form so they can get it out to all of the villagers in China. This has had a huge effect on the Sheep industry which is in dire straits.

A quick night in Fairlie which is just a bump in the road but has a campground with all of the amenities including wireless internet!! We are hoping this is a pattern that continues. We are using a series of campgrounds called Top Ten and they provide you with a map and you just travel from one to the other. There are many other campgrounds available, but once you get onto the Top Ten you kind of get hooked in. They also have little cabins that they rent by the night. These are very basic and the price is basic too. About $15 per night per adult and you use the kitchen and bathroom facilities of the campground.

Holly

Our arrival in New Zealand

2008-05-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

A quick 3 hour hop over the Tasman sea has us in NZ! We had repacked our bags in the hotel last night thinking that they may have the same regulations as Australia on not bringing in any food or wood or anything that might have mites or bugs. I had put all of the stuff in one bag and thought we would cruise right through as I didn't think I had anything contraband. Wrong! I forgot about the honey. there is a mite here called the Varroa Mite which is endangering the bees here (I'm not sure if it the same one that is hurting them at home but I know we have a problem too). 2 hours later all of our bags have been checked, the honey confiscated and we are ready to proceed. The customs people were actually great and said they were the guys checking for bugs. David asked what the other people were doing at the table beside us and our guys said they were checking for something that rhymes with bugs!!

Out in the arrivals area we picked up a SIM card for John's Blackberry and lots of pamphlets and books on things to do and see. I am happy they have lots of forests here as everywhere you turn there are brochures on every kind of activity imaginable. NZ is really set up for tourists and adventurers alike.

Many of those people opt like we did to travel in campervans. These are like small Winnebagoes (not "Meet the Fockers") and are self sufficient. We picked up Ruthie our RV and headed out with a Thermos a lady gave us from their trip and went to the "campground" right in Christchurch. We went the wrong way and were now negotiating things in the dark in this big vehicle that was right hand drive and left hand manual. It was raining which meant that John had to operate all of the switches and gear shift in a new vehicle in a new city in the dark and everything was backwards!! We did arrive safely and were stunned by the setup in this place. There was a full-fledged travel agency, full heated kitchen (did I mention it was cold and we could see our breath for the first time in 5 months?) hot showers, games room and lounge. Now this is camping! We walked to dinner and then crawled under our duvets for our first night in NZ.

Holly

Book Review

2008-05-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

In Perth I managed to read "Freedom at Midnight" which is about the independence of India and Pakistan. I had no idea there was the bloodshed that happened and wish I'd read it before we had gone there.

Philippa Gregory has another book out called "The Other Queen" which is written following Mary Queen of Scots through her imprisonment. It is good, but not as god as her others.

"Holy Cow" is another take on India. This one is quite funny and makes light of all of the idiosyncrasies of India and is well done.

Mao's Last Dancer is an excellent book and a true story. It is an autobiography by Li Cunxin who is a peasant boy in China who goes on to be one of the world's most famous ballet dancers.

Holly

Off to New Zealand

2008-05-28T13:28:00.000-07:00

Our adventures in Australia end with a last game of minigolf on Hamilton Island and a quick hour and a half flight over to Brisbane. We have to spend the night in Brisbane and get a great 2 bedroom suite and walk down to the pedestrian mall for dinner. Again we do the order and deliver to the table thing, but this time there is Thai, Pizza, Steak or country fare or salads. Dave and I opt for Thai and he actually remembers how to say thank you in Thai. You say it differently if you are a male versus a female and he has the gal giggling in no time.

We pick up a few souvenirs on the way back and go back for a very shortened sleep. 5:30 comes early and our same cab driver picks. us up. Remember how we had stored our bags with Sunsail? I remember at 4:30 AM that we have left one there and we will spend lots of time over the next few weeks trying to get it sent to Calgary.

On the flight over to Christchurch we watch one of the better movies I have seen. It is called Dan in Real Life and we name our RV Ruthie.. It is from the funniest scene in the movie and I look across to Dave and Paul and they are crying they are laughing so hard - watch it and you will see.

Holly

Mother's Day

2008-05-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

It is Mother's Day and Cathy surprises me with a couple of scarves that she had bought for me back in Perth and hidden all of this time. They are just the right colors for her and me! The other kids bring me breakfast and we enjoy a leisurely hour or so before it starts to rain. We aren't due back in the Marins until tomorrow, but it is a little miserable and all I can think of is getting the laundry done and the boat packed up in a leisurely fashion, rather than thrashing about in one day.

John relents and takes us back to Hamilton Harbor where it is sunny and calm. I do my 4 loads of Mother's Day laundry and have a hot shower! We head back to the Fish and Chips place for the little crunchy chicken things that we had before and then back to unload the boat.

Supper is at a steak place overlooking the Marina. What they do here is you go up to the till and order from them and pay then. They give you a number to put on your table and they come and deliver your meal. You then go to the bar and do the same thing but carry your own drinks back. We have one of the best steaks I have ever had in my life and on the way home there is live music again. Cathy and I stop and take in some of the music and then listen to it for a few hours more back at the boat.

Holly

Cid Harbour

2008-05-28T13:11:00.000-07:00

Tongue Bay has found us on the north end of Whitsunday Island and our route today takes us back around to the other side of Whitsunday to a calm place called Cid Harbour. Getting there is anything but calm though. We put up the jib and before we know it we are doing 7.9 knots with just the jib. Cathy has the best view, right behind the second wheel and on the high side. We are practically dipping the BBQ in the water and are as far over as we have ever been. I am having to intellectualize the keel and all its weight and the fact that we can't tip over. The boys are oblivious to anything and are lying on the bench on the low side. Paul even stands up to take a pee off the side - it isn't a long way down.. We try to put up the mainsail, but the sheets are very sticky and one of the battens falls right out of the sail. It is a dicey moment for all of us as we can barely get the furling and main halyard to move as they are so sticky. I leave it to John to once again be calm under pressure and we are not dashed on any rocks and are on our way again to safer calmer seas.

Cid Harbor is a welcome refuge and we drop anchor next to several other boats and open the wine and fire up the Barbie for some Kebabs. The kids go to the beach to play frisbee but are driven back by the sandflies. We spend a beautiful calm, candlelit evening on the boat and have our best sleep yet.

Holly

Australia - Whitsundays - Whitehaven Beach

2008-05-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

Whitehaven Beach is an anomoly found nowhere else in the world. It is a beach made entirely of silica sand and is very fine and well sorted. It is great for grinding and polishing and it is used by NASA to make the glass for their telescopes. It is 5 km long and has the consistency of shortbread dough made with rice flour (see Nanny's Shortbread in Aces of the Best of Bridge series). It even squeaks when you walk on it. It is blindingly white and we are happy to have polarized lenses in our sunglasses.

We see some of the big boats that we saw at Airlie Beach and they are full of 29 something's being dumped off for a few hours at the beach. There are more turtles here too and at our mooring in Tongue Bay. We spend a night here and then head around to a calmer mooring at Cid Harbour.

Holly

Australia - Whitsundays - Cataran Bay and Turtles

2008-05-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

A bit easier night was had by all, but we wake up to all 3 of our toilets being out of commission. Good thing we are from the country and a little expedition to shore is in order. On our way back, we see all kinds of flying fish. they are the coolest things with little "wings" on the side. We had seen them last night in the fading light, but up close they are about 8 inches long and clear about 8-10 feet in a leap.

We pull out of the Bay and motor over to the next moorage at Cataran Bay. It is across a large open patch of sea and with this our toilets work again. Cataran is another exposed moorage, but is supposed to be the most spectacular snorkelling in the area. The Whitsundays are just inside the Great Barrier Reef, but if you can get there by boat, it is just as spectacular. As we pull into Cataran, we manage t grab one of only 3 mooring buoys. Unlike in the Gulf Islands which is the only other place we've sailed, there aren't any marinas. This means you have to take all of your own food and you must moor or anchor every night.

We plunge off the boat and over to the beach from where we can access the snorkelling. Anna and Paul and I are just heading back in after some fabulous coral sighting when I hear Anna barking into her snorkel! Has Elvis followed us? No, but there is a turtle - a huge 4 foot wide turtle looking right at us! It is more curious about us than we are of him, but he stays very still and we back up and swim around him so as not to frighten him (or have some part of us bitten off is all I'm thinking!)

We spend a verrry rocky night after our evening Scrabble game and head out the next day to see Whitehaven Beach.

Holly

Australia - Whitsundays - Elvis

2008-05-07T12:44:00.000-07:00

We spend a very rocky night at our outside mooring buoy and first thing the next morning move in to a closer one as soon as someone leaves. It is a beautiful bright sunny day and we look around this beautiful backdrop and are thankful for all we have around us.

We all head in to the water to do some snorkelling. We head to the west side of the bay, but it isn't very good as it is all windblown. Dave and John and I head back to where the kids were last night. Here they have marked the edge of the reef with markers, so we can see where it is and the boats can't get in there. It is a bit of a swim to get over there and we can't see the bottom at first. I don't like it when I can't see the bottom and I have to make myself continue. We finally get to where we can see it and are rewarded with more kinds of coral than I have ever seen before. There are fans and brains and things that look like 5 foot clams with purple lipstick on! We even see Nemo! There are great amounts of fish too. Foot long bright blue beefy ones and little yellow ones and big Angel fish. By this time I am cold so I swim back to the boat.

As I am getting closer, out of the corner of my eye I see a huge fish. It is all I can do to keep from screaming, as I know it is Elvis, but I'd rather be looking at him from in the boat, than in the water. I do not pause, but summon all of my now defunct training and burn it back to the boat. I also see the bottom churning with sand, that prior to Steve Irwin's demise, would have had me thinking - oh it's just a stingray! Now it is a man-killer!

Later in the day, we take the zodiac back to the coral and Dave and Anna get in and see Elvis again. Dave dives down to see him even closer up and says he is closer to 5 feet long! I am safe in the 10 foot long piece of inflatable plastic!

Holly

Australia - Whitsundays - Butterfly Bay

2008-05-06T12:28:00.000-07:00

On our way back over to the islands, we do manage about 6 knots with only the jib up and it is very consistent wind so we can get ourselves as comfortable as possible. There are definitely a few white knuckle moments for those of us who are new to this (all of us but John) as we have never had this much wind in the Gulf Islands. There is a certain tinge of green to Anna, Dave and me, but once I take the wheel, I feel better. Anna just glues her eyes to the horizon.

It is a bit nerve-wracking to be in unknown waters and we go way out and around a marker to get into a little exposed mooring at Langford Island. We hope to see the turtles here. It is our first try at catching the mooring buoy with our hook. At home, you just hook a little hook on the top of the buoy and it comes up real slick and you then hook your bowline through it and carry on with your day. Here there is a huge rope 3-4 inches in diameter that is waterlogged and heavy. All of this in an unprotected area and Dave and I miss it the first time. I am not tall enough to reach it so he is there to reach it (yes he is 5'10" these days) and I am going to grab it and neatly wrap it around the cleat - right? - wrong! Our second try we manage to get it but can't hang on as the wind is blowing the boat away and poor John can't see what we are doing. Anna dives in to get the hook that is now in the water and on our third try we manage to hook it again. We drop the hook stick again and by now John is wondering about his crew for sure. Anna is in again and finally we manage to get ourselves tied off.

We take our Zodiac in to the shore with our snorkel gear and a few brave souls go in (it is cold and windy). There aren't any turtles but some amazing coral and other fish. Cathy and I beachcomb and look up to see that the marker that we had gone way out to sea to go around, is now on land. It is always good to follow your charts!!

We head out around the North end of Hook Island and into an amazing bay called Butterfly Bay. It is so called as there are groups of butterflies that arrive out of nowhere. There are also bommies or rocks just under the surface that are nt marked, so Dave and I park ourselves up front again and watch for them. It is still a little breezy, but in front of the other 8 boats, we manage to grab our mooring buoy first try. Dave and Paul and Anna are immediately in the water and over to the reef to see some amazing fish life and coral. there is rumoured to be a big 4 foot long fish named Elvis here that is very friendly and will come up to the back of your boat.

Holly

Australia - Whitsundays - Our sailing adventure begins

2008-05-05T12:18:00.000-07:00

Bright and early the next morning, I am up and finishing off the last of the laundry. I am awake so early that I actually watch the sun come up and the birds appear out of nowhere right at 6AM. The birds that we think are so great and cute are real pests here. The purple crested Lorikeet that looks like a small parrot and the grey headed Gallahs can wake the dead along with their friends the crows!

Our briefing with Sunsail over and our extra bags stowed with them, and it is off to Airlie Beach to provision the boat (without mortgaging the house). Our boat does not have GPS in the cockpit or a radio so it is all about the charts like in the good old days. there is a book called 100 Magic Miles that is all about sailing in the Whitsundays and is like the Bible out here. It does a bit of talking about all the jellyfish and which ones need immediate evacuation and which fish not to touch and it is enough to make you not go in the water! It is, of course, a bit of a CYA so that we are aware and can't say we weren't. We could buy jellysuits to protect us from them, but we are told it is the wrong time of year for them and that we likely won't see any.

Over to Airlie Point we put up both the jib and the mainsail and enjoy a great sail all the way there. We pull into the most amazing harbour with huge boats and we feel a little bit like the SS Minnow next to them. We find out later, that many of them are boats that go out for 2-7 days with backpackers and anyone who wants an adventure on the open seas.

We had hoped to provision and make our way to our first anchorage all in one day, but it is May 5th which is the Aussie Labour Day. We opt for a roast beast dinner instead and go back for our first of many Scrabble Games and our last of any quiet, calm anchorages.

A quick couple of hours in the morning have us all provisioned up and we head out away from the mainland and to our first destination at Butterfly Bay.

Holly

Australia - Whitsundays - John is back!

2008-05-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

After a couple of days playing minigolf and toodling around the island in a golfcart, we get our Captain back as he steps off the plane on May 4th. He is stunned to think that 24 hours earlier he was sitting at his desk in downtown Calgary looking at the snow swirling around him!!

We take him back to Chillie, our 47 foot Beneteau and let him unwind. We take him up to One Tree Hill to watch the sunset and then go back to the marina where there is a band playing and a good old fashioned Aussie BBQ happening. It very much had the feeling of a long weekend in May at Windermere as kids. John did very well to stay awake until 9 PM.

Holly

Australia - Whitsundays -Off To Hamilton Island

2008-05-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

On May 2nd in the wee hours, we set off from Perth to Brisbane on Qantas airlines. Qantas has not been very good to our family so far, having delayed a flight so my Dad missed his connection in Sydney and telling John his bags would go through to Calgary only to have him notice at the last moment that they were on the carousel in LA. So it was with much trepidation that we got off the plane in Brisbane. Our fears were well - grounded though as Cathy's bag did not show up. After so much traveling, though, she had everything she needed and couldn't replace in her carry on.

We had a few hours to deal with so we filed our report and then went off to eat at Subway for breakfast and then off to Hamilton Island.

The Whitsundays are locates just off the East Coast of Australia and north of Brisbane. They seem to be a little bit like Hawaii to them and certainly felt like that as we landed to the small airport with the luggage carousel outside. We had charted a boat for 10 days and were picked up by Sunsail and off to the boat. The first thing we noticed is that there were very few vehicles and mostly golf carts (called buggies) on the island. They also have 2 routes of a free shuttle bus which helps cut down on the pollution.

We drop our bags and head out to explore the island on one of the buses. We go over the hill past the apartment building where Nicole Kidman and George Clooney each own and entire floor to the hotel on the other side. There is internet there so we update John to look for our bag when he comes through in 2 days time. We then head up to watch the sunset from One Tree Hill. It looks just like the Gulf Islands off the coast of Vancouver Island with many islands as far as you can see.

Next comes the Fish 'n Chips place for dinner and the Bakery for dessert. It is a real little resort place where you can walk everywhere and there is everything you need. I ask where the key to lock the boat for the night is and they look at me as if I have 2 heads. "This is the Whitsundays" they say and admit that none of them have locked their doors in all of the time they have been there. Who am I to argue, so we hunker down in the boat and do a bit of Prison Break. We got hooked on this show when we were in Perth and the kids had bought the first 2 seasons when we were in Asia.

Holly

Australia - Perth - Quirks and Quarks of Australia

2008-04-25T18:52:00.000-07:00

The American girls were keeping a list of the funny sayings of the Aussie's and now I will try to remember a few.

Of course they end everything in a Y Barby, Cozzy (swimsuit), Esky (cooler for food and beverages)
Their cell phones are mobiles and you" Ring them On" not phone them at the number
In Perth, they have turtle and bird crossing signs where wildlife are breeding
The Aussies are a very honest group and say naughty for even really bad things
Tea or coffee is white or black and so you order a flat white
Green peppers are Capsicum
Hello is how are ya going? You're welcome is "No worries"
They say "heaps" a lot
They have roundabouts that work like a charm and I don't know why we don't have more of them!
They have 2 lanes that become 1 and people just let each other in
You pay for parking everywhere with the ticket thing like at MEC
They drop off their kids to go surfing after school just like we do for swim lessons

Holly

Australia - Perth - Our last days in Perth (boohoo!!)

2008-04-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

These last days are spent really doing lots of homework with the kids. David goes on an essay-writing marathon for both his English and his Social and is cross-eyed at the ends of most days. He is also doing Science with a great tutor from across the street. Anna finishes up her Math and then we are told she has to write a Final!! Luckily there is a teacher across the street and it isn't any problem for her to do the test. Cathy is almost done Math, but wants a little more help from John when we meet him in Brisbane.

We had thought we were so smart when we booked our tickets to Brisbane as John would be arriving within 20 minutes of us from Calgary. This was until we read the fine print on his ticket and found out he would be arriving 2 days and 20 minutes after us. This meant we would be on the boat in the Whitsundays 2 days before him. Oh well, not much we could do about that.

We go for a final day at the beach and the waves are huge. We actually don't go in at Scarborough Beach which is up the coast, but back to our beach right near our house. Even though it is Fall, it is still about 25C and great beach weather.

Anna has some baby-sitting down the street and earns her first cash on this trip. I convince her to save it for NZ where we get 25 cents on the dollar. Karen and David have us all over for dinner on the last night and Sijka the Teacher (Dave's tutor) is there as well as Jill and Charlie her Dad and stepmom. They are a riot and I wish I'd met them earlier.

Thank you so much to our friends and hosts in Perth, Karen and David Brooks and Joy and Gordon Lucas!

It's off to Brisbane and the Whitsunday Islands!!

Holly

Australia - Perth - Let the Games End!!

2008-04-22T18:33:00.000-07:00

For our last game of the round robin, we have to play the UWA 45+ team that has an overlap of 6 players with the tam that I play on. Today, only 2 of those players are available and so we play 8 aside and it is a very close match. In the 3rd quarter, I get the chance to shoot a penalty shot which is something that I rarely do and I even hit the net! I wanted Pam to shoot it, but was voted down on that one. We end up winning the game which means we finish in third in the round robin and will play Dolphins Deja Vu to see who goes for the Gold. We actually hold our own for a while and are 2-2 after the first quarter. We lose this one though and so do our 45+ team so we play them for the bronze. We end up with the bronze and all in all it was a great experience to add to my travels in australia.

On the final day, the kids put aside their homework and come down with me to watch some of the other events. We watch a men's heat of 400 Free and they are all in their 80's. There was a women's heat where all 6 gals were in their 90"s!! We watch some 70 year old en diving and then some of the synchro.

there were a few people who actually died during the competition which is something that we hadn't even thought about. 3 waterpolo goalies had heart attacks (and lived) but I guess they average 6 deaths every time they have this (which is every 2 years.) When I spoke with one of the Calgary guys who is a doctor, he said if you looked at the ages of the athletes and what they are doing, it really is within the curve of who would die out of the 5-10,000 athletes. Unfortunately, one of the fellows who had a heart attack was a guy that we met at Stanford the last time and he now has to stay in Perth and have a quadruple bypass and rest here for the next 2 months.

It is not the best note to leave the competition on, but he is hoping to be in Sweden in 2010!!

Holly

Australia - Perth - BBQ Perth Style

2008-04-22T18:14:00.000-07:00

I have invited the Calgary mens team for a BBQ at our place this evening, but I also need to be officiating at the pool all day. I leave the kids with strict instructions to do their homework and then to make all of the salads and appetizers for dinner and to clean the house. I head off to the pool for the whole day and hope for the best.

We play another tough match against a team from Queensland (the State that has Brisbane in it on the East coast) which puts us at 2 and 2 for our games so far. I end up having to work the games right up until dinner time and I arrive home and the place is spotless. The boys have followed the recipe for the dip and made it as well as the Greek Salad and dressing. The girls have done the other appetizers. This is how far they have come on this trip and it allows me to have a great evening with the guys from Calgary. I am so thankful to Ron who brought David's English text which as it turns out he needed to complete his course.

I guess we had become complacent about the view of the river from our place and the huge deck and outdoor kitchen. We had a great evening and the guys did all of the BBQing and then we did the old "I wonder where so and so is" conversation for a good portion of the night. It was an early evening as we both had tough matches the next day.

Holly

Australia - Perth - Okay we're blogging again!!

2008-04-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

Yikes, it has been quite a long time since we did any blogging. It has been a bit of a blur and I will try to do a few here to catch everyone up to where we are. We are actually in New Zealand now, but I will back up and finish off Perth first.

When I last left you, I was in the middle of my water polo competition and the kids were in the middle of their homework marathons. It's a good thing that I am also keeping a journal as it will help me to do this update.

As of April 20th I had played the first two games of the tourney and then the competition got really tough. Sunday the 20th dawned grey and cold and my Dad and I headed to another one of the dedicated waterpolo pools called Claremont. It is the home pool of the Pink Panthers and also the team we are playing today called the Deja Vu Dolphins. The deja vu part is because lots of these girls played together years ago on the National team and also all of this year in the league. My Dad huddles under the rain cover with one of the husbands of the girls on my team and despite a valiant effort we lose this one fairly convincingly.

I drive Sue and Pam and Deb (from SA) back to their places and take my Dad home and then head over to UWA and watch our 45+ team win their first match. I then am asked by a number of the American girls if they can catch a ride to Bicton. I want to watch the Calgary guys there so off we go. Our guys come second again, but I manage to take a bunch of pictures of them.

I grab groceries and walk in the door just as a friend from home's brother and his wife come in. this is Gord's brother and we have a great visit and Jill tells us her story of coming back from being a total quadrapalegic with Guillaine - Barre (sp? ) syndrome. After they leave, we order Chinese food for my Dad's last meal and drive him to the airport for his long journey home. It has been so great to have had this time with my Dad and for the kids to have the good solid time with him.

They have the greatest system for dropping people off at the Perth airport. Yu pull off the main road into an angle parking and as soon as you drop off your passenger, you just pull straight ahead back out onto a lane that accesses the main road again. David took my Dad in and got him settled and we will cross our fingers for his safe journey home.

Australia - Perth - Let the Games Begin!!

2008-04-19T04:33:00.000-07:00

Well the excitement has started and the athletes have arrived and there isn't a hotel room or rental car available for the next 10 days in Perth. It is amazing to see what happens when so many athletes descend on a place, like they did in Calgary those 20 years ago. It can be a bit of an organizational nightmare which the first day of these games was. It was a very hot first day when most of the athletes stood in a 2-3 hour long accreditation line-up, but they were given water in line and spent their time meeting and making new friends with those around them.

I got lucky and went first thing the next day and was in and out in 15 minutes. I went back an hour later after helping out a bit in the water polo office and hoped to meet up with my Captain Betty. Well, if she wasn't in line right in front of the guys from Calgary!! It was so great to see the familiar faces. Some of these guys that have come to play in the Men's 50+ division were coaches of mine way back in the early 80's and one of them coached David a bit during his brief water polo career (today he asked David to come back and play).

Our actual competition started yesterday and we are in a pool with 6 teams, 2 very strong with ex-National team members from Australia, 2 medium with overlapping members(that will be my team) and 2 that are weaker and here for fun. On the 50+ team are some gals that I played against in 2004 when the first Splash international trip took place in Long Beach California in that 30 meter pool!!!

My team consists of 4 girls from South Australia who arrived the day before the competition and who I played with for the first time in the first game! The other players are from the UWA 45+ team from which 6 of the players are playing for both teams!

Our first match was fortunately against a weaker team which gave us the chance to attempt to get to know each other. They were a really fun team from right here in Perth called the Pink Pointers. Well, you should have seen them all dolled up in their black bathers with pink writing on them, pink caps and mouth guards and long robes with pink writing. Their fans were waving pink things everywhere, and the post game feast was champagne and pink cakes!! They have the right idea about having fun!! We were fortunate enough to win that one.

Last night, Captain Betty had a team party for the 22 members of both teams. It was a great affair and a good opportunity to get to know a few of the girls better. I drove 2 of the South Australian girls back to their hotel and our goalie Sue would be most qualified to deliver a baby if any of us still had any desire to have one (ObGyn) and Pam could protect us against evil forces outside the pool (police officer). Then Pam goes ahead and tells us that the game she had played that day was the first game she had ever played!!! You would never have known it, she really held her own!

Today we played the 50+ team from the States and once again came away with the win. We played the first half with only 2 subs, but it felt good to get in some good consistent time in the pool. We were starting to talk about getting the ball to Pam so she could score a goal, when out of nowhere, she burns up the pool and pops one in having done all of the work herself!! I think she even got a hat trick in only her second game ever!! Sue, when not delivering babies or investigating the mysteries of women, must have been doing some great training as she is very steady in net with an arm that can toss the ball 3/4 of the pool!

Tomorrow we have an early game against a tough opponent! Our men have a very difficult draw and are 0/2 at this point. We went over to Bicton to watch them today. It is a beautiful dedicated water polo pool right on the banks of the river. We were the only Canadians to cheer, so I hope it helped a bit. There was actually a charity massage therapist there, so I watched the game while having my shoulder worked on. I think I will find time tomorrow to watch another game from the old massage table!!

The 800 Free was also yesterday and an 84 year old man broke the 14 year old record in his 80-84 age group swimming it in 13:29 and change!! In the women's 90+ group, there is a 94 year old Japanese woman who is taking everything. She won the 800 Free in about 18 minutes or so. I can't believe she could even make the trip! I hope to get down and watch some of the diving as well. There is an 80+ age group in that also. Carol Fitzsimmons from Springbank is here to compete in the synchro and I have run into her here as well.

I will keep you posted, Holly

Australia - Perth - Paul's perspective on Perth

2008-04-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

One of the first exciting things we did in Perth was we went to the old prison. It was cool we saw the gallows, and the person who was insane. He couldn't talk all he did was paint his cell. We also saw what happened to the vicious murderers who didn't calm down within a few days. They'd be moved into a cell with no bed no desk nothing but a bucket for u knowwww........

Another fun thing we did was I went for a drive with my mom and my grampa. To originale some really cool rocks but then we ended up going for a drive thru the country. And we drove through a few (blink and you'll miss it) towns. We ate lunch at a bar. Which had really good food. I ordered a ceaser salad which was bigger than me. Then we drove back which was a 3 and a half hour drive. We watched a movie and went to bed

By,Paul

Australia - Margaret River - Our Trip South

2008-04-14T17:03:00.000-07:00

What better way to start a 3 week holiday with the Gunns than an event filled 2 day tour through the Margaret River country. MR is in the SW tip of Australia that receives more rain than any other area of the state and is ideal wine producing country. They now have 60 wineries versus the 3 when I visited in 1995.

After a 3 and a half drive south from Perth, we arrived at our temporary home in the sea side town of Dunsborough. The house had 4 bedrooms, a wood-burning fireplace, carport and backyard "Barbie" and was about 300m from the beach. The house belongs to friends of Gordon and Joy (Gordon is the brother of one of the gals at BarKayCee) and they have been most helpful to the family while they've been here.

Our first day touring (April 13) started with a visit to a riding stable to arrange an evening trail ride for the 3 girls the next night. Next we stopped at the MR Chocolate Factory where we had to drag the ids to get them in!!(ha ha)! What temptations! Then on to the MR Cheese Factory where we each selected our favorite small cheese (which we sampled for dinner that night).

We next called in at the Eagle Heritage site where we were just in time for a flying and static display of fork - tailed kites. The kids each took turns holding a female kite on a glove on their arm. We then saw owls, kites, a very large wedge eagle and the weirdest looking bird called frog mouth.

After a brief top at the Karri Forest which is a site that can't be described but I'll try. The Karri trees are a very hard tree and their trunks are whitish in color. When we rounded the corner, the vista was the sunlight gleaming in every color imaginable off the trees as far as the eye could see. We drove from there to Hamelin Bay for a picnic lunch that we carried in our Esky (Aussie for cooler).

At the Bay, there were 3 stingrays that had come right into the shore and were there for the girls to pet. Anna, especially, was fascinated and rarely left the rays even to eat. The next attraction was the Jewel Cave - a fascinating underground tour of stalactites and stalgmites formed in a limestone cave. This cave is one of the youngest in the region and is over a million years old. The water has stopped flowing in the cave, but the evidence is all there. There are tiny "straws" from the ceiling that look like tiny icicles about 1cm in diameter. They hang for metres in length and one little touch would end hundreds of thousands of years of their forming one tiny drip at a time. In the cave there is also the fossilized remains of an Australian Tiger and a possum from eons ago. These animals would have fallen into the cave and without an exit or food, perished there.

Our last visit of the day was to the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse built in 1895. Only John had the energy to climb the 200+steps to the top and reported the fantastic view. The lighthouse is the southwestern most tip of Australia and is the site where the Southern and Indian Oceans meet. Back to Dunsborough one hour away and a BBQ dinner with the possum in the trees above us.

The second day, another warm sunny one, we started at the Wardan Aboriginal Cultural Centre - very enlightening. The aboriginal people share many of the problems that our own indigenous peoples do. Close by, we stopped at the Knee Deep in MR winery. We were entertained by the hostess explaining operations at their new facility (opened in 2006) over samples of their product. We bought a bottle of the Shiraz. Our next stop was at another beverage producer The Bootleg Brewery. On the road near the entrance was a sign, it said - WERE Wine (as this was the name of the winery) with the arrow pointing right and THEY'RE BEER pointing left - very ingenious. John bought a sample tray with 6 glasses of the various beers. I even had a sip of each even though I'm not a beer person (Bundy rum is much tastier). It was quite amazing to taste the subtle and not so subtle differences between an ale, a pilsener, a light wheat beer,an amber, and the Raging Bull stout.

To illustrate the versatility of the area, our next stop was at an olive soap factory. Very interesting - they grow their own olives but import the rest of the ingredients. So many different fragrances and bath and beauty products. In fact, olives have become big business here as the region is very conducive to their growth.

After a picnic lunch in a nice park in Cowaramup (means purple crested lorikeet - a type of bird in the Aborignial language) plus a stop at The Candy Cow - the local cndy store for tourists, we made our way back to Dunsborough. While John got ready to cook steaks on the barbie, the girls went for their hour long ride in the bush on the horses. The boys went and played tennis and for a swim in the little pool.

Our MR adventures ended the next morning with our drive back to Perth so John could pack for his trip back to Calgary.

Poppa/Ron. (Holly's Dad)

Australia - Perth - A Twilight Tour of the Swan River

2008-04-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, we headed down to the Fremantle Yacht Club with Karen and David from next door as well as Karen's Mom Yvonne and a colleague of David's from Argentina, Fabian. We boarded their big boat and headed out for a cruise up the Swan River. It was just sunset as we headed into the river mouth and we got to see the Maritime Museum as well as the Port from the river perspective.

I really had to pinch myself!! How was it that we had met such great people? My Dad came along and had no difficulty whatsoever climbing up top to the flybridge to sit in the very comfortable salon area and put back a Bundy Rum or 2. The kids had lemon squash (which is like lemonade and we threw around a few pumpkin jokes) and Karen made Greyhounds (vodka and grapefruit juice) for us and Champagne (a very popular drink with the ladies - Auntie Vonny you're in girl!!) for her Mom.

The river winds around and at our place is about twice as wide as the Bow and crystal clear and blue green in color. As we got further upstream it widened out into what they call the Melville waters which is very large (bigger than the reservoir) and they run sailing races there. There was a huge sandbar that I wondered how we would deal with that in the dark!

We passed under the Narrows Bridge right at what they call the City (which is downtown). It was an amazing sight from the water. We then went back and pulled up to the jetty at the Old Swan Brewery for our 7:30 dinner reservation. This was one of the more amazing things from this trip. This big 46 foot power boat just parking at the dock and us hopping off carefree to go in to an amazing meal at a very nice restaurant. We enjoyed Margaret River wine from the Were Estate. We had been to the Brewery right across the road from this winery on our trip to Margaret River and the sign said Were wines pointing to the vineyard and They're Beer pointing to the Brewery across the road!!

After a fabulous meal (gotta love those mashed potatoes Cathy!) we headed back in the pitch dark to the boat. I am not sure how David managed to see the blinking red and green and white beacons but he did! Here it is the opposite again of home and you keep the green on your left as you are headed out and the red on your right. The white meant danger and to be avoided.

All in all a fabulous evening and experience from our great landlords and friends.

Holly

Australia - Perth - 2008 FINA Masters Games

2008-04-11T16:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, I finally have a confirmed team!! Some of you may remember that 2 years ago I went with my Calgary Splash team to Stanford to play in the FINA Masters Games in water polo. We had such a great time and were fortunate enough to medal as well. When we were planning this trip, I found out that the 2008 version was to be held in Perth, one of the cities we wanted to spend some time in.

I contacted the organizers a couple of months back to see if there was a team that needed an extra player. They said they would put my name in the mix. When I arrived here a month ago, I started to swim and train for the first time in 9 months. I didn't have a team, but was put in touch with a great gal by the name of Betty Anderson. She is 57 and was with the Aus National team and captained it in the late 70's. She is a phenomenal gal and very fit. She said her team was full but welcomed me to train with them.

There were a couple of other players from the US and the Eastern Aus states that were in the same boat as me - orphans so to speak. Betty took things a bit further and suggested that we combine with those girls and have a few of her members play both 40+ and 45+ and as long as we registered as the same club things would be just fine. I just kept on swimming and training and hoping for the best.

Well finally, with a week to go before the games start, we do have an official team entered and we are the UWA (University of Wester Australia) Composite 40+ team. It has been very hard these last 2 weeks to be training and not sure if I would even get the chance to play. The bonus is that I have found out that Calgary is sending a men's 50+ team which has a bunch of guys that I played at the same time as in the early 80's and one of them is even Cathy's coach from her Atom years. It will be nice to see some familiar faces after all of these months.

So this afternoon we have a "scratchy" which is Aussie slang for scrimmage against the City Beach Dolphins 45+ in the full pool. This will be gut check time as we normally scrimmage cross court. I know a few of the girls on my team are like Jane on my Splash team and just go and go. This will help for those of us who may be sucking wind in the back!!

The opening ceremonies are next Thursday. This is a huge event with thousands of swimmers (there are 500+ in the women's 45+ 50 Free) and synchro and diving up to the 80+ category. Those events are great to watch and the kids are keen to see them. I think our kids will also be minor officials as they are short on those too, even though this is the 2 week Fall break for schools here.

Holly

Australia - Perth - One P Eng for Another

2008-04-11T16:27:00.000-07:00

After spending almost one month here in Australia and numerous months on the road together, that dreaded moment arrived. John was to go home for a month!! But, all was not lost, as we just replaced one UofA engineer with another! My 79 year old Dad arrived on April Fool's Day. He looked a little worse for wear getting off that big 747 from Sydney, but by the next day had perked right up. We really threw him, though, as we headed down to Margaret River and the Dunsborough area as soon as he arrived. This was because, John and he had only 5 days that overlapped and we wanted to get as much done as possible. He will be our guest blogger and will write the blog detailing all of the things we did down south.

Holly

Australia - Perth - Under the Sea!

2008-04-10T03:20:00.001-07:00

We have been living next to the ocean/river now for about a month and we have spent much of our spare time just staring at it. Well yesterday we decided to go to the AQWA Aquarium to see what went on under the sea. We had an amazing time from the beginning looking at the beautiful and majestic creatures that populate the ocean. The aquarium was phenomenally well done with the animals split up into different categories in different wings of the building. Some of the categories were Danger zone, perth, and stingray bay. We started by looking at some unbelievably beautiful sea-dragons. These creatures look like sea horses but they look like they have strands of seaweed attached to them. At first we couldn't even see them! Next came the most amazing part, an i-don't-know-how-big tank (it was huge) surrounded by a moving belt that you rode through see through tunnels all the way around. In this monster tank were sharks, fish, turtles and stingrays bigger than you! We rode this belt around twice in awe, amazed at all that was going on around us. We saw the bottom of stingrays an arms length away and had sharks staring us straight in the face! There were fish as big as my dog and just the most amazing things! After we needed a few minutes for all of that to settle so we went for milkshakes and fries. Here you even have to pay for ketchup! It's like $1.25! We backtracked from there and hit the danger zone to check out the killers in there. Did you know that puffer fish are deadly to eat? Chefs in Japan have to train for 2-3 years to prepare this delicacy and at the end they have to eat there own food as a test! In that area I had to face my worst fear, water snakes!!!! I took one look at these terrifying snakes and took off shaking. We then saw a place where you could take a magnifying glass up to the tanks and look at things like sea horses, moray eels and clown fish. It's way different up that close! Not much stood out in the next bit but some big tanks full of beautiful jellyfish. After the jellies we headed outside to the touch pool where we could touch the small sting rays and some cool fish. This was my second time touching a ray but nonetheless it was exhilarating. My first time was down in Margaret River when the wild ones were by the shore and I ran in to see them. They have this amazing way of moving where they almost do the worm or fly in the water. When you feel them sometimes they do this on your hand! Their underside is like jelly! There are amazingly friendly animals that seemingly love attention. To get attention they sometimes bring their side out and wave it. After we had enough of that we checked out the two seals at Seal Island. Now those two were cute! They constantly just sped around the water putting on a show for the spectators. You could either watch them from above where they came up every once in a while to breathe. Under you could watch how acrobatic they really are. To finish it off we went to Stingray bay to see what they had there. It was a cute little pond that was filled with rays of all different shapes and sizes but we had to go so we didn't spend long there. All in all it was a worthwhile visit that was phenomenally well done! Now when we look at the river or ocean we'll know a bit more about what's in there. We just need to push the animals of Danger Zone out of our minds when we're swimming!

anna

Australia - Perth - Driving on the other (wrong) side

2008-04-08T17:14:00.000-07:00

I had eluded earlier (way back in Bangkok) that at some point the reality of driving a right hand drive vehicle would come into play. That time is now!! It is amazing how strong my instincts are and I have to fight them every step of the way in order to keep from getting in an accident.

This starts from the moment you approach the car - from the wrong side. You then get in and reach to the wrong side for your seatbelt. Adjust your mirrors- with the wrong hand!! Back out of the driveway - well the mirrors are in the wrong place and send images that don't register properly in my brain so I slam on the brakes just to realize that it is my own car's image that I am afraid of hitting!

I must say though, that after 3 weeks of driving I no longer hit the windshield wipers every time I want to turn on my turn signal and it has been an equally long time since I turned on the back wipers to turn on the headlights. I am now even getting comfortable on the 5 lane freeway that I take at 100km per hour to go to water polo practice and return in the dark.

I am so impressed with the Perth road system. This city has doubled in size in 10 years, yet the many freeways and large roads still manage to carry the traffic. They have an interesting thing here where two lanes will all of a sudden merge into one lane without either party having the right of way. They just speed up or slow down and all happens easily. I shudder to think how this would work at home.

The main problem is trying to keep myself far enough over to the right. You do tend to drift left and so I drive as if I am right on the line to my right and this keeps me in the right spot. It also makes my fellow front seat Canadian passengers feel less like they are going to get taken out on a pole on their side. If I do drift then there is that annoying reminder from those little bumpy things that divide the lanes in these places (like California) where they never see or have to plow snow. The noise they give off when you hit them is enough to send you scrambling back into your lane.

One last funny thing that happened on the road the other day. My Dad is here for a couple of weeks and we were driving south of here touring the Margaret River region (yes lots of vineyards). We pulled on to a road that was under construction and had a speed limit posted at 80 km per hour. The road was pretty torn up and my Dad said he sure wouldn't want to be going down that road at 80. I said the first thing that came to mind which was "Well Dad, it's a good thing you're only 79!!!"

Bye for now, Holly

Australia - Perth - Paul's Update From Australia

2008-03-14T03:02:00.000-07:00

We are now in australia. Well Perth is great. There's beautiful beaches. So in case you didn't know the Rices came to australia(friends). So today they left and I already feel sad. Tomorrow my mom and John are going to take us to an amusement park. They've had enough of us,I think tonight finally did it. My sister was really mad and a huge fight broke out and ugh. My brother and dad maybe me are going for a walk/run/swim tomorrow ill keep you posted

andddddddd
bye,paul

Australia - Perth - Our "Landlords" Karen and David

2008-03-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

I call them landlords loosely as they have done so much for us in the first few days to make us feel at home. Karen on our second day here takes us on a 3 hour drive around to orient ourselves without us having to worry about the driving. She shows us a couple of bike shops as we want to rent bikes to travel some of the endless bike pathways that exist in and around Perth. Her husband David, is also a bike enthusiast and has John all geared up to go on his weekend jaunts along the Swan River.

Karen has us over for dinner and introduces us to Kate, her 15 year old daughter, who is every bit the gracious hostess that her mother is. She takes the kids down the path along the river to what they call the oval. Ovals are playing fields that are everywhere for everything from Rugby to Aussie Rules football (Footy) to field hockey. Tacos for dinner helps up our intake of red meat. That month in India has us down by about 30 days on our intake of red meat!!

Holly

Australia - Perth - The Australian Sun

2008-03-10T18:19:00.000-07:00

You can't spend more than a few days here in Australia without becoming very aware of the strength of the sun. A number of years back, they started a "Slip,Slap,Slop" campaign to help curb the skin cancer rates. This means slip on a shirt, slap on a hat and slop on some sunscreen. They have now expanded it to 5 things, shade, sunscreen, hat, clothes, sunglasses. We have bought a big vat of sunscreen with a pump that sits on the counter. We have also bought SPF rashies for the kids for boogie-boarding which also save their skin from the unforgiving sand. Most people here also wear big bucket hats or wide-brimmed sun hats and always sunglasses. This is all in an attempt to lessen the incidence of skin cancer. The rates here are 10 times anywhere else in the world and 10 minutes in the sun here is like 30 minutes in the sun in Mexico. All of the swim teams and waterpolo teams have sunscreen right on deck for anyone who doesn't have any. The kids on the swim teams also quite often swim with sun shirts on.

Holly

Australia - Perth - Our Easter Surprise!!

2008-03-09T18:13:00.000-07:00

For the last couple of months, the Rices and John and I have been figuring out how to have them arrive in Perth and spend their Easter vacation without letting our kids know. I had been a little gruff with our kids any time they would try to read my emails over my shoulder. This all was easily explained when we told them we were going for dinner "to a colleague of John's from Calgary who is now working over here" and when the door opened it was the Rice kids!! these are great friends of ours from back home who now live in jakarta. Their place in Perth is right by Scarborough beach, one of the most beautiful beaches in Perth. The kids have been spending their days boogie-boarding and I have even figured out to do it myself.

Holly

Australia - Perth - The Waterside Apartment

2008-03-08T17:51:00.000-08:00

Much of our spare time in the last few months has been spent trying to find us accommodations in Perth. We had decided to spend 7 weeks in Perth to give the kids time to catch up on their school work and also for me to hopefully be able to find a team and play in the FINA World master's Games. All this sounded so great until we found out that Perth is like Calgary 2 years ago and in the middle of a boom. There were literally no places for rent for less than 6 months and we spent some part of every day trying new websites. Out of nowhere on March 3rd, come Karen from the Waterside Apartment. Over the next couple of days she becomes more of a friend that a landlord and we secure our digs for the next 7 weeks. The apartment is on the north side of the Swan River in the area of North Fremantle. 3 bedrooms and a study that has converted into a 4th, 3 bathrooms and a deck that is about 350 sq feet with an outdoor kitchen and we are set. Down below us is a green space and a basketball hoop and then the river.

When we arrived at 3 AM on the 8th, Karen had stocked the fridge with some essentials for breakfast and we dropped off to spend our first night in Australia. Coffee and tea in the morning were spent on the deck watching the people kayaking and the pelicans fishing and the dolphins frolicking down below. We could also watch the parade of boats as they head out to the ocean. The river is the most amazing color of blue and people swim in every day.

Holly

Australia - Perth - Oy Mate!

2008-03-07T18:34:00.000-08:00

Well landing in Australia was quite the culture shock. We landed at like 1 in the morning and it took about 2 hours to get through quarrantine. It cost a lot for a cab, well a lot more then the 3$ tuk tuks. We are staying in a place called Fremantle which is like 15 mins outside of Perth. We soon found the apartement. It is really nice and big enough for our family. For the first few days we were enjoying lazing around. We have been going to the beach to getting wrecked by the waves. Our friends suprised us from coming over from Indonesia. And were getting used to mom yelling in the car " get over to the right John!"

Cathy

Australia - Perth - Our First Day

2008-03-07T18:00:00.000-08:00

After breakfast of toast and our own stash of peanut butter, it was time to figure out where we were and to go about renting a car. John had a van before the rest of us could even unpack. We spent some of the rest of the morning unpacking fully for the first time in 2 months!! Laundry - oh yes the laundry!! - was started and I was reminded of the time spent here in Dec 2001 with my sister and hanging laundry on the line for the first time in my life! Karen gave us the orientation and showed us where the grocery store was.

Off on the wrong side of the street to Woolworths which is a grocery store here. Prices are almost double what they are at home and the Aus dollar is at about 95 cents to the Canadian dollar. We managed to find just about everything we needed and headed back for a good old steak dinner. Karen and her husband David came over for some great Austalian red wine (Liquorland even had a convenient 20% off sale just in time for us to stock up for the duration of our stay)!!

Holly

Cambodia - Anna's 14th Birthday in Phnom Penh

2008-03-06T15:41:00.000-08:00

Our final days in Asia were spent focused on Anna's 14th birthday. We checked into a fairly decent hotel and the kids and I headed off to eat at - where else- Friends restaurant!! We hired a TukTuk driver namely Soupy (sp?) and he took us to Friends and then to the Central Market for a quick look around and then dropped the boys back at the hotel with John's bowl of rice. We girls then headed to the massage place he recommended and we enjoyed our $8 massages. Okay, I cheated a bit and for $14 I had a fellow massaging my feet and legs and then a gal doing my head, neck and shoulders at the same time!

We arranged for Soupy to spend the entire day with us the next day, march 6th - Anna's actual birthday. He would take us everywhere all day and night long for the going rate $20.

The next morning we had a great buffet breakfast with John joining us and then off to both the Central and Russian markets to pick up last minute things. We knew that our friends the Rices would be surprising the kids in Perth, so we wanted to pick up a birthday gift for Sydney (March 4th). Lunch was at a French restaurant and then we girls went back for one last massage. When we came out of the massage place, it was absolutely pouring rain! Soupy was kind of covered by the overhang of the TukTuk and we were zipped inside like in a plastic tent. By the time we arrived at the hotel, he was absolutely soaked, so I ran upstairs and got him a towel and retrieved the boys to g for birthday dinner. The rain stopped while we were at dinner. This was only the 3 but of rain in almost 100 days of travel! We paid Soupy $30 which is about what many Cambodians make in an entire month.

Back at the hotel was the surprise that we had been working on for weeks for Anna. My Dad had taken his Macbook computer to the Middle School where Anna's teachers and AP had organized an iChat session with us in Phnom Penh. This meant that she could not only talk to her friends, but actually see them too. We crossed our fingers that they would appear on the screen at the appointed hour and a big thanks to Larry, Donna and Max who made it work!! It still seems a little out of Star Trek for me. Anna couldn't quite believe it and it brought tears to most of our eyes!!

Holly

Cambodia - General Pictures, We're off to Perth

2008-03-05T20:58:00.000-08:00

Cambodia - Another News Article from The Cambodia Daily

2008-03-05T17:45:00.000-08:00

Here is one more from the Cambodia daily newspaper just as we were leaving for Australia.

FAMILY PET NO MATCH FOR SNAKE

Sydney - A five-meter python stalked an Australian family's dog for days before swallowing the pet whole in front of horrified children, local media said Wednesday. The python devoured the silky terrier-chihuahua Monday night in Cairns as two children aged 5 and 7 watched in horror, the Cairns Post newspaper reported. The body of the family's cat had been found a few weeks earlier looking as if something had tried to swallow it, and Sunday a smaller python ate the family's pet guinea pig, the newspaper reported. Zoologist Stuart Douglas said pythons usually ate wallabies(animals resembling small kangaroos) but turned to pets in urban areas. " The family...had actually seen it in the dog's bed, which was a sign it was out to get it," he told local media.

So, it's off to Australia!!! Holly

Cambodia - News Article from The Cambodia Daily

2008-03-04T17:28:00.000-08:00

Just a little bit of news from Cambodia. As a preface to this article, remember that Indian toilets are squat toilets and on the trains, they are just a gaping hole onto the tracks!

QUITE A WELCOME FOR BABY GIRL

Ahmedabad, India A newborn baby girl survived an ignoble birth after slipping down the toilet bowl of a moving Indian train onto the tracks when a pregnant woman unexpectedly gave birth while relieving herself Tuesday. "My delivery was so sudden,' said Bhuri Kalibi, mother of the infant, who was born two months prematurely. Kalibi, a a 33 year old woman from Rajastan, fainted after the birth for a few minutes before waking up and alerting her family. "They stopped the train and ran on the tracks to find the baby," she said. Railway staff at a nearby station were alerted and soon found the baby lying uninjured on pebbles by the track. She is now in intensive care because of her premature birth, doctors said.

Holly

Cambodia - General Observations

2008-03-04T16:17:00.000-08:00

As we have traveled through this country here are a few notables:

-license plates appear to be optional
-in one of the markets I saw fish jumping from one basket to another for freedom
-they don't bring you the bill in restaurant until you ask for it - too polite
-you see very few baby strollers only babies on hips or in hammocks
-you can be transported lying across a moto with an IV in your arm
-there are way fewer dogs than India
-they wear masks like the Japanese tourists at home on their motos and bicycles
-they drive on the same side as us but cars are both left and right hand drive
-boys are encouraged to spend some time as a monk
-plastic is a huge garbage problem here
-Paul has mastered chopsticks after one day of using them like knitting needles
-houses in the countryside are built on stilts with a dugout pond in front for water, ducks, fish and for the cows to drink from
-in front of the village leader's house will be a sign indicating which political party he supports (there appear to be 3)
-in 2 weeks I have seen 3 kids with helmets on although they are still in the ejection seat on the gas tank of the moto
-they drive much more like India here and the shoulder of the road is just where the pavement ends and the dirt begins; still a great place to drive
-when their vehicle breaks down, they use tree branches or rocks for pylons
-I haven't seen any bald people and they seem to go grey much later than us
-in the villages, they bring the chopsticks (or utensils if you're lucky) in a mug of boiling water - you pick them out and dry them to use
-they come around at restaurants with a big bucket of ice and replenish your ice quite often as it melts quite quickly here
-in the village restaurants, they throw their paper napkins and empty cans on the floor under them
-I saw a 6 year old girl on a little tiny bike like our kids would use for training, without training wheels but complete with her 2 year old sister on the back

Holly

Cambodia - Siem Reap to Phnom Penh - the boat ride

2008-03-03T15:00:00.000-08:00

We bid farewell early in the morning to our host Brandon Ross at Journeys Within where we had spent a great couple of days in our own villa by the pool. We had met a wonderful couple from England who were in the villa across from us. We thank Catherine for all of her homeopathic help for our various medical issues that loomed in the background during our stay there (and we hope the Elephant Woman look is gone for her!).

Our friends the Rices had been in Cambodia at Christmas and had described this fabulous lazy boat ride that they had taken from SR to PP meandering through villages along the way. We must not have been on the same cruise even though it was arranged by the same people.

Our drive to our boat was very interesting in that the road followed the "river" (non-monsoon it was more like a creek) that feeds into Tonle Sap Lake. On the one side of the road was relative opulence from the Cambodian standard and on the river side were total shacks built on stilts positioned above the garbage infested waters. As we got closer to the port things deteriorated further until the shacks were a mere 3meters x 3 meters for an entire extended family without walls and merely a thatched roof over their heads. This is all fine and dandy now, but when the rains come in the monsoon in May they will have little or no protection and the waters will rise about 3-4 metres and be right at their feet filled with who knows what!

As we arrived at the port, we were accosted by porters and women selling bread,cheese and water for the 4-5 hour trip. It was really a miracle that all of our bags somehow miraculously arrived at the other end. We had been so good early in our trip at only having our backpack on wheels ( really not much larger than a large daypack) and a small backpack for our daypack. However, this started to change in India when we shopped a bit to support the local economy and added a bag, and then one more in Thailand and a third in Cambodia. This with our mosquito net bag and our 6 backpacks gave us 10 large bae and about 10 carry ons with computers, cameras, volleyball, waterpolo ball, lunch bags etc.

Our boat was a long torpedo shaped thing that carried about 75 people and we were seated in airplane like seats deep in the bowels of the boat. We were pulled by another boat for the first hour of the journey so the kids and I climbed up on the roof with a bunch of other people. This was done by walking along the 12 inch deck or gunnel that went all the way around the boat and then climbing up these very precarious stairs to the top - handrails - huh!! not likely! John had a recurrence of his bad belly and was lucky to have 3 seats to sleep on. Unfortunately the number of seats he had was triple the number of bathrooms available for him and the others in his same condition on the boat!

Once our boat hit the Tonle Sap lake things changed very quickly. The TS lake is the largest freshwater lake in SE Asia and goes on for a very long way. It covers 2500 square km in the dry season at an average depth of 2 metres. From mid May to the end of October it swells to 13,000 sq km at a depth of 10 metres. The fish it produces is absolutely remarkable and in the port we saw all of the kinds flopping in the boats of the early morning fishermen and women (and children). Once on the lake we passed a floating village which is just that, a complete village entirely comprised of houseboats and market boats and schoolboats. We then picked up speed and scrambled off the slippery roof, down the slippery stairs and along the very slippery gunnels And back into the relative safety of the inside of the boat. I did the miraculous head count as we got inside and breathed a huge sigh of relief when we numbered 5 and John was still where we had left him.

Our 4-5 hour trip was going along well as we cruised at warp speed across the lake. However, once we hit the Mekong river on the other side of the lake, we lost our rudder and drifted aimlessly for a couple of hours until they fixed it. From there it was an agonizing 4 more hours down the river to Phnom Penh, to make the entire trip 8 hours. The gal meeting us at the other end was some kind of pissed as we arrived so late; we were just happy to get there.

Holly

Cambodia - Siem Reap - Journey's Within (the new place) By paul

2008-03-02T16:48:00.000-08:00

So after the luxiourious ANGKOR PALACE we are now staying in a place where we have our own villa(two story condo) with a pool,DVD player,nice beds,and a free miny bar.On the menu they even have subs!!The other day I finnaly satisfied my craving with a 250g bag of skittles. I also rubbed them in my brothers face alot.(he can't eat candy this whole trip. Because then my mom will buy him a sheepskin jacket.!!)I think I might have a hard day with the palace and temple.

Bye.. paul

Cambodia - Siem Reap

2008-03-02T16:37:00.000-08:00

Siem Reap is the site of many many temples in Cambodia. By far the most famous is Angkor Wat built between 1112-1152. It is an absolutely massive enclosure which was always a temple. We cross a bridge to get across the moat which is 190 metres wide and forms a giant rectangle 1.5km x 1.3km wide. The most famous thing are these bas reliefs depicting a story about a King and his battles - all fictitious. Angkor Wat was discovered overtaken by the jungle in 1860.The temple itself was piled metres deep in bat guano (poop). It was short-listed for the new 7 wonders of the world. Unfortunately, the temples in Cambodia are built largely of limestone and are starting to fall apart. We feel fortunate to have seen them.

We also visited Angkor Thom which is another temple but inside these walls there was an entire city. Unlike Angkor Wat, we could climb into this temple and the light was amazing as it was late afternoon. We did the setting up of the photo so it looks like we are kissing the Buddha. Next we went to another temple where they filmed Lara Croft and The Tomb Raider. This temple has been taken over by these huge trees and the trees have poked their way through the foundations of the temple to the point that the trees themselves now hold up the temple walls. Our guide this time had been born in 1981, the youngest of 9. His entire family had survived the KR except one cousin and a grandfather. The family unit is so strong here that this would have been horrendous for his family to incur such losses.

We returned to our hotel which had a great 30 m pool and got our first exercise in a long time. Anna and John had slowly recovered over the course of 3 days.

Holly

Cambodia - Battambang to Siem Reap

2008-03-02T16:24:00.000-08:00

We left Pursat with another driver who spoke absolutely no English. This makes things very interesting when we need to stop or to do something that is outside of the set program. More on this later. We headed north to the second largest city in Cambodia called Battambang. During the Khmer Rouge days, this was the last refuge for many of the KR as it is the closest large city to the Thai border.

18km outside of Battambang on a rutted bone-jarring road are the Killing Caves where Pol Pot made his last stand. The caves are up in the hills and we hired motorbikes to take us there. What this meant is that a young 16 year old kid with a great entrepreneurial spirit intercepted our vehicle as soon as we stopped. He offered in very good English to be our guide and to get a couple of motos for us to ride on. Next thing, we are 3 to a bike, 2 of us and a teenager driving it. Up a steep hill and off to a monastery first. Next came the caves themselves. Here the people had been lined up and pushed into the pits where if the 100 foot drop did not kill them then they would be beaten by someone who went around and came in the bottom of the cave. Children were also killed here, usually by other children. The skulls were once again in evidence and our guide described how his grandfather had been killed by the KR and his father had survived being shot by them. It is just below the surface for everyone here.

John was hit very hard by some belly bug and shortly after we left the Killing Caves, Anna was also wiped out. We had to travel the 113 km to Siem Reap which we figured would not be a big deal, but as soon as we left Battambang the road went from being pavement to a rutted totally under repair dirt track where we averaged 40km per hour. We had to speak sign language to our driver to get him to stop along the way as nature necessitated it. 5 hours later we arrived at our hotel in Siem Reap. It was Feb 28th and Paul's 11th birthday.

Holly

Cambodia - Dining With a Cause

2008-03-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

Just a few short months back, I didn't know what the 3 letters NGO even stood for. Non Government Organization and there are many of them have now become a part of our lives and of the lives of many people that we have encountered in our travels.

In Phnom Penh there are many people trying to help this country rebuild and we encountered 2 of those in Phnom Penh. One was a restaurant called "Friends" where we ate dinner all three nights we were there. This is a place that takes street kids and teaches them the hospitality end of the restaurant business as well as how to be a chef if they'd like. They go through 2 phases of training off site and then the 3rd and final phase is actually working in the restaurant. It gives them a chance to improve their English also, the key to success in a country where tourism is becoming a vital part of the economy.

At Friends, there are lots of servers, but if you look closely at their shirts, some have Teacher on the back, and some Student. There was also the opportunity to buy a brick to help them buy the property the restaurant sat on and the cookbook. We did both, although I'm not sure I'll be cooking up too many fried tarantulas - one of the many recipes in the book. The food was some of the best we've had anywhere on our journey, ravioli, greek salad, roasted red pepper hummous, hawaiian pork meatballs and lemon meringue pie to name a few!!

Holly

Cambodia - Pursat and Sustainable Cambodia

2008-03-01T16:01:00.000-08:00

On Feb 25th we left Phnom Penh and went to the town of Pursat in Pursat province, one of the poorest areas of Cambodia. We were here at the invitation of Sustainable Cambodia(SC) an NGO sponsored by Rotary International and on the biosand filter side by the downtown Rotary Club of Calgary. We found ourselves at the Sylvia Lasky Memorial School where the poorest of the poor can go before and after the hours of State School.

What this means is that they go to the SC school from 7-9 AM and then to State School until 3pm and then to the SC school again until 7Pm or so. In Cambodia the teachers are not paid very well (some things are consistent worldwide!) and make extra money in two ways. First, they give extra classes early in the morning and late in the afternoon that only the more wealthy kids can afford. Second, they let the kids cheat and are paid to look the other way. This puts the poor kids way behind, so the SC school helps them by offering the supplemental classes at no charge.

We had a little impromptu Q&A with about 60 of their students ages 13-19 (some kids start school later in life) and those who could speak English clambered to be right at the front. There were several who asked lots of questions and their entire focus was on getting a good education and learning English. These are the keys to getting further in life in Cambodia. Our kids had an eye-opening experience comparing how kids at home just take education for granted but here it is their entire focus.

We went out for lunch with 4 of the kids ages 16-19 and it was the first time they had ever been out for a meal. They had to contact people to go to their villages to tell their parents what they were doing. There is much respect for families here. There was not a word of English spoken by the waiters and when we returned that evening for supper, it was quite the comedy of errors trying to order what we had for lunch.
I actually went into the kitchen (invite of course) and was doing a tour of the various pots trying to identify these fish things that we had for lunch. We were still being careful about eating raw foods so everything I was looking for was deep fried or grilled.

Our hotel was a bit of an experience in Pursat and as in every hotel we had been at breakfast was included. Breakfast was a whole new experience and the safest bet was fried rice with veggies or just plain rice with a chili sauce on it. I actually stooped so low on the last morning as to have french fries for my breakfast.

SC is doing much in the town of Pursat and surrounding villages to try to further the livelihoods of the people here. They are into microfinance where even just a few dollars help the (mostly women) people get a little further ahead. They also run programs on various trades which diversifies their pursuits.

Unfortunately, Anna and John ran into a few health problems after a few days in Pursat and we had to leave early.

Holly

Cambodia - Observations re Biosand Water Filters

2008-03-01T01:54:00.000-08:00

So the issue in central Cambodia, Pursat Province, is convincing the villagers that the water is actually making them sick. Add to that an element of skepticism about the biosand filter (concrete and sand?) and a healthy dose of poor education, and you've got a formula which currently spells out poor adoption rates and low utilization. We heard comments like 'my mothers spirit looks after us', which is very much a Buddhist karmic line of thought, and it's very hard to argue with that embedded cultural thought pattern. After all, who are we, the 'wealthy' westerners, who drop into their lives for a short period of time and try to teach them a better way about sanitation and water treatment. Being here for such a short time makes it virtually impossible, but the two way transfer of information will undoubtedly be a positive thing; not to mention the money we will leave behind which will go to developing infrastructure for the biosand filter.

The filter appears to be a greater success in Kolar (India) than in Pursat (Cambodia) so far.

John

Cambodia - The Dark Years - 1975 to 1979

2008-02-29T18:09:00.001-08:00

It’s hard to believe that only a few short years ago, Cambodia (then Democratic Kampuchea) was reeling under the communist Khmer Rouge who systematically oversaw mass genocide against it’s own people on a scale similar to Nazi Germany during the 2nd World War. It is estimated that 2 – 3 million Cambodians died during the 4 years of Khmer Rouge rule, prior to the eventual Vietnamese intervention during 1979. During this period of time, the cities were emptied and a mass ruralisation took place, with forced labor in the fields and rice paddies throughout the country by the entire populace. People who were educated or skilled above the level of a farmer, or associated in any manner with the previous military or government under Lon Nol were executed. Survivors worked 20 hour days, with essentially no food, and existed in work camps which housed thousands of people living like wild animals in the open. Families were split apart, most to never see each other again as death from starvation, disease, and execution became the norm. It has been estimated that the mortality rate was between 50% and 70% of the population! And all by Cambodians against Cambodians with different ideological and religious beliefs. The Khmer Rouge were essentially hill people led by a small group of local reactionaries (Saloth Sar or Pol Pot and his pals) who filled a power vacuum caused by American carpet bombing in eastern Cambodia and the subsequent influx of Vietnemese military forces. They were backed by China, who provided weapons, machinery, and support for the Mao style communist revolution in Cambodia, which was in China’s best interest as well.

It would be easy to go on and on about the causes and effects of this dark chapter in Cambodian history, however many good books, documentaries, and films have been created which tell the story well. One of the best is ‘Survival in the Killing Fields’ by Haing Ngor, who won the Academy Award for his role as Dith Pran, the Cambodian journailist in the movie ‘The Killing Fields’. I highly recommend this book for those who want to learn about what really happened during these tragic years.

As far as our learning here, we visited the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center where 8,000 skulls are collected and displayed in a memorial stupa. As well, the mass graves (pits), execution trees where children were smashed, and other grisly reminders are presented for all to see. One cannot visit this site without feeling nauseous, totally speechless, and very confused. I think it’s the physical evidence of all the helpless, innocent souls – civilians - men, women, and children of all ages - and the eerie feeling of so many ghosts everywhere.

Our next visit was to the Tuol Sleng prison (formerly the Tuol Svay Prey High School ) which was used as a torture and interrogation center by the Khmer Rouge. Of the 17,000 people who were processed and detained there, 7 survived because they were artists capable of documenting what was happening through their artwork. The Khmer (pronounced hard c like in cat and then my) Rouge painstakingly documented all of the histories of the people they killed and had these 7 people paint and sculpt works that immortalized their atrocities. Their paintings and artwork provide the graphic detail about really happened there. The endless rooms filled with the photographs of the inmates as they were being admitted is haunting beyond words. All the children…

Our last visit was to the Killing Caves (Wat Phnom Sampeau) in Battambang, enroute to Siem Reap from Phnom Penh by car. Here we witnessed more grisly evidence of the mass killings of innocent civilians.

Anyways, it’s all really sickening and very upsetting to see just how awful human beings can be to each other. One of the hardest things to come to grips with is that we, human beings, never seem to learn as a race from the past – genocide has been happening for so long and continues today – just different countries, races, religions, and politics - all the same victims, primarily
innocent men, women, and children.

It just doesn’t make any sense.

John

Cambodia - Crossing the Street

2008-02-29T02:10:00.000-08:00

So what happens when you take 4 kids from the city on a world tour? They really learn how to cross the street. Back in Europe we tended to cross a bit en masse and held the kid's (at least the younger ones) hands. The other morning in Phnom Penh was a whole different story. Out the hotel door and 2 blocks to the market. Piece of cake right?

The first key is figuring out which way to look. After 6 weeks in countries where they drove the opposite to us had us kind of trained to look right - but not really as the traffic could be coming from the left if it was just doing a "it's shorter to go the wrong way and easier too" move! So, we look both ways and then try to figure out how to cross the 3 lanes that will take us to the middle of the road where there is a concrete barrier which should mean we'll be safe and can reassess for the next 3 lanes.

The key is to cross when the motos are coming as they can move around you more easily than the cars. So, you spot your opening and warn everyone that it's coming and then cross one lane at a time. If you stand still after each lane or don't make any too sudden moves then it's pretty easy. No holding hands here as you really have to assess for yourself.

So, all 6 lanes successfully crossed, we move onto the sidewalk on the other side. This actually isn't possible though, as that is where they park their cars and motos. You walk a bit on the road and wait for the honk that tells you to squeeze over a bit. Next, we came to an intersection that had 3 roads joining together, but they were all at least coming from our left. We could see the market (and smell it) across the street, so we felt almost home free! We used tourist trick number 2 - cross at the same time as some locals and put them in between you and the traffic so you can watch them react and buy yourself a split second extra time. The traffic was busy at this point so the crossing was quite easy and we plunged into the market, not realizing we were in the stinky food section - but Cathy covered that part!

Holly

Cambodia - $6 foot massages

2008-02-28T05:46:00.000-08:00

After a long day of running around Phnom-Penh seeing the sites, and of course seeing the markets, our feet really start to hurt. The people of Cambodia have really figured out how to fix our problem, $6 foot massages. So as we returned to the hotel, the boys went inside and we three girls ran across the street to the Royal Massage store. There we walked inside, took off our shoes and were immediately sat down in three comfy leather chairs with our feet in warm water. In the store were about 10 girls all sitting around, practicing there massages on each other, waiting for customers. The women started out by exfoliating our feet before starting our massage. They first massaged our feet before doing our calf and thigh. Cathy couldn't stop laughing as they did her feet so therefore the women couldn't stop laughing. She squirmed like crazy as they cracked our toes. All of this was repeated over and over again over the course of about 50 minutes. The last 10 minutes were spent on our neck and back. All of this for $6!

Cambodia - Central Market, Pnom Penh

2008-02-26T16:45:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Pnom Penh, and the day after we walked down to the central market. A smell soon came to our noses that was so grose we all barfed in our mouths. When we entered the market we found out what the smell was live and dead flopping, blood pussing fish being chopped up. Ya not very pleasent at all. Better then Bali though cause in the markets they overed us cow eyeballs.

So we walk quickly through the food section breathing through our mouths. We get in the middle part of the market where the electronics and clothing and jewelery etc. We bought my dad a watch and then headed over to clothing. We bought some clothes and are having trouble fitting them in our bags.

Cathy

Buying Petrol in Cambodia

2008-02-25T16:40:00.000-08:00

As you travel along the roads in Cambodia, you don't really see many petrol stations. What you do see, especially out in the countryside, are racks of old Pepsi bottles filled with what looks like apple juice. Some of them also contain what looks like a diluted Orange Fanta. Most often, there is someone sitting there and you will also spot a funnel. I finally figured out that this is how they buy their petrol. The driver of the moto or car or Tuktuk will just pull up, open their gas tank and the person will come over and empty the one litre of gas (or I presume the fanta is diesel) into the tank and for 3000 riel (about a dollar) they are back on the road again!!

Holly

Cambodia - First Impressions

2008-02-24T03:05:00.001-08:00

With long faces and sad hearts we left our shangri-la at Hua Hin. The brand new airport in Bangkok was a dream and we even had time for a quick last meal in the airport that was western or Asian as you desired.

Our one hour flight to Phnom Penh was spent filling out our 3 forms per person that were required for Visas and entry into Cambodia. We had been warned that Cambodia is a place of total corruption and to watch yourself and your belongings at every turn. After this long on the road that is always second nature anyways.

Cathy and I quickly got off the plane and beat the crowd of over 100 people to the Visa Application table. We had been told this process could take upwards of 2 hours, but they had 5 people processing the applications and Dave and Paul quickly joined the line to retrieve our passports. We were in and out in 15 minutes.

Of course it was a cash only situation, and John had $40 American, I had $20 American and various amounts of Canadian and Australian. The Visas were $20 each and when they called our names one by one, I pulled out first $40 Am and got the first 2; then $20 Canadian but he saw the Australian so he grabbed the $50 and then gave me 2 more and then for the next one he gave me back $15 from the Am $20 and then in the end he took the $20 Canadian. It was quite comical actually because there wasn't exactly a calculator being pulled out ever and I was doing rough conversions in my head and smiling the whole way knowing that I would never even open my mouth as it was pretty close to the right amount.

We were picked up and taken to our hotel that was a mystery to us. Queen Sofia from Spain was visiting so hotel rooms were hard to come by. Our Hotel Villa had definitely seen better days but was a step up from Woody's. We negotiated our way into a 3 bedroom, 3 bath, 2 sitting rooms and a kitchen situation for $200 a night and we were being taken at that. It was okay for 2 nights but really quite loud with street noise.

Nevertheless, we are here and safe and it is good to see these people are building a new modern city with lots of tourist dollars. We have moved to a brand new hotel called the Hotel Castle and it has a pool! As I say that, though, there is still a deep level of corruption (all the government officials drive brand new Lexus SUV's) and the drug and sex trade is everywhere (below the surface though) the kids don't see it.

We will be touring the Killing Fields and the Museum where they housed a lot of the prisoners before sending them to be executed. This is heady stuff but as it is going on in present day Sudan on some level that is similar, it is important that we all see it. We will also be going shopping though, which will be on a more positive note!!
Holly

Thailand - New Pictures Throughout, New Format Too!!

2008-02-19T17:04:00.000-08:00

During our one week stay here, we have had great access to the internet from right in our room. This has given John the opportunity to play a bit with the blog. You will see a new format and lots of new pictures! He has added pictures right to the beginning of the trip in Paris. I know some of you have been asking for more pictures, so here they are.

Holly

Thailand - The Sheraton Hua Hin - Heaven on Earth!

2008-02-14T01:17:00.000-08:00

So after the two days on the river Qwai with 6 hours of sleep and about 200 international kids. We finally came to the luxurious sheraton hotel!! Today David and I had a table tennis tournament. And a great dipped in peanut sauce kebab lunch. My dad is now in town cause we've been here 12 hours(you know what that means CABIN FEVER) And there is great food here. We went to dinner last night I probably had five(chocolate fountainised)fruit kebabs. A beautiful whipped cream coated in chocolate piece of cake. Last night I had a awesome sleep and this morning I got up and did some body surfing(wish they sold boogey boards here! cya, Paul

Thailand -The River Kwai - A dark chapter in history

2008-02-13T05:01:00.000-08:00

After our brief stay in Bangkok where I felt like a woman who had left one lover (India) and quickly taken on another (Thailand), we headed out in our immaculate large van complete with DVD player for the River Kwai. I am totally ashamed to admit that this is a very dark chapter in the history of the world that I knew very little about. The River Kwai and the building of the Death Railway is Vimy or Dieppe to the Aussies and Dutch as well as many British.

In June of 1942 following its decisive defeat at Midway Island, the Japanese decided to build a railway linking its remaining strongholds in Burma and Singapore. The British had previously surveyed the railway but gave up on the possibility of constructing it due to the tough terrain and endemic diseases and monsoonal rains. To Japanese planners studying the route in Tokyo, however, the 415 km railway seemed an obvious solution to supplying the army in Burma and thus avoiding the hazardous sea route around Singapore and through the Straits of Malacca.

Accordingly, the Japanese took captured POW's from the States, Netherlands, Australia and England and put them in cattle cars (like the Germans to Auschwitz) and sent them on the 4 day trip to Kanchanaburi. They also offered Asians work through advertisements in Malayan newspapers seeking labourers for up to 3 months work in Thailand. These workers were offered free rail travel, housing, food and medical services together with pay of one dollar a day. The responses were negligible, so instead they offered free picture shows at the various movie theatres and when full, the doors were locked and all males in the audiences were put aboard trains and railed to Thailand.

What really complicated matters, is that the Japanese General who was charged with turning the dream into a reality was killed in a plane crash while surveying the route along with all of the experienced and skilled engineers. The route was then determined by inexperienced junior Japanese army officers using a 19th century map and their own educated guesses about where the track should run.

Construction of the railway commenced on Sept 1, 1942 and was completed on Dec 25, 1943. It was nicknamed the Railway of Death as 16,000 prisoners of war and 100,000-200,000 Asian labourers died completing it. The really amazing thing is the conditions they were forced to work under. They suffered from cholera, dysentery, beri-beri,malaria and tropical ulcerations of the skin which led to massive infections. They also suffered beatings and tortures such as having to hold a large stone above their heads and if they let it down they'd be beaten, or kneeling on a bed of nails with a log jammed behind their knees or having to swallow water from a hose and then being punched in the stomach to vomit it up. To add insult to injury, near the end, their camps were bombed by the Allies and many died near the end at the hands of their own forces.

We visited both the bridge over the River Kwai which was a strategic completion of one of numerous bridges they had to build and also a place known as Hellfire Pass. Hellfire Pass was a cutting through rock in 2 parts. The first was 450 meters long and 7 meters deep and the main one was 75 meters long and 25 meters deep. By this point the railway was way behind schedule and was into its Speedo phase, This meant they worked sometimes nonstop for 18-24 hours at a time and worked by the light of fires which cast shadows on the walls that looked like the fires of hell.

We were so amazed by the whole process and by the fact that so many people died under such atrocious conditions. We bought the movie The War To End All Wars and watched it in the van. At the end, 2 of the main characters meet at the Kanchanaburi cemetary and we had just left there.

On a lighter note, we also climbed the Erawan Waterfalls. I had always wondered where our good friend Cathy Gotfried (remember our trip to Bali and the gals trip for me back to Bali?- she was the one who organized it all). Her company is Erawan travels and Erawan means elephant in Thai - I think. These waterfalls are amazing and there are 7 steps to them. We climbed all the way to the top and enjoyed absolute privacy for about half an hour before anyone else arrived. We swam in the pools at the 7th,6th and 5th levels. It was amazing. there were little fish that would nibble at you and our guide told us that this was one of the only natural cures that the prisoners working on the railway had to clean out their festering wounds. The fish would eat the dead flesh and leave the living flesh.

We stayed for 2 nights on a floating hotel on the River Kwai and sat out at night in our lightest of clothing to watch the sun set and the moon rise. It is really a great pleasant temp at night here. There was also a pool that was long enough to swim lengths in!!

We are now south of Bangkok in a place called Hua HIn. Our hotel has one long pool that snakes its way around the property and is continuous for 200 meters with 2 big pools at either end. The kids are in the pool right out our deck door right now enjoying a post dinner swim. We will spend 7 nights here and I don't think that's going to be too difficult. Just in case we are missing India there is an Indian wedding here going on for the next 4 days (they are large and long affairs) and there is Indian music accompanying it. The waves at the beach are perfect for body surfing and the water is the warmest I've ever encountered at a beach.

By the way, if any of you ladies want to join Cathy on a trip to Bali, she is hosting another one in May. It is an amazing adventure like nothing you have ever done before. She has been there 17 times and holds your hand the entire way. It is a great break for you and a girlfriend ( it's ladies only at this point). Let me know and I'll forward you the information.

Off for a swim, Holly

Thailand - Riding Elephants

2008-02-13T02:10:00.000-08:00

On the day we left Bangkok, before heading to the hotel, we stopped at an elephant camp. When we arrived the lines were huge so we decided to go on a bamboo raft ride first. That was pretty fun and took about half an hour. When we got back the lines were way smaller so we got in the "queue" (as they call the line here). We had to wait for a bit but finally reached the top. We were going two to an elephant with the pairs being me and my mom, Dave and Tommy ( a Thai guy who was a friend of our guides and traveling with us) and Paul and Cathy. My mom and I were hoping to get an elephant with a baby and it looked like we were going to when some elephant budged in front of the one with the baby. There were about 3 or 4 elephants with babies about the size of a sheep. They were adorable! As soon as we were around the corner and out of sight of the other guys we asked the driver if we could actually ride up on the elephants neck. He of course said yes ( all he was thinking about was how big his tip would be!). My mom went first and drove the elephant for a bit while our guide was using the cameras on the ground. Next I went and I'll just say it's wwaaayy different from riding a horse! It's actually, to be honest, really uncomfortable with the shoulders jabbing you in the behind, and after a while your hips start to hurt because they're so wide. Once we got near the water the guide finally realized that the hand signals I was making was not the Makarina dance and that I wanted him to take the elephant through the water. Oh and by the way if it sounded like we were actually steering the elephant it was just walking behind the driver, I have no idea how they steer them. We then went through the water which was no problem for the elephants because in case you didn't notice they're huge. It was a bit of a problem for the little baby in front of us because it had to actually swim! On the other side the driver stopped for a couple of minutes to roll a smoke while my mom got back on. We then walked through the jungle for a bit and I got on before we found David, Tommy, Cathy and Paul. Their elephants were all eating and ours tried to but it got in trouble and we had to keep walking. This time back through the water I rode it and it actually wasn't that bad. The only reason why I actually did it was because I don't know how to stop the elephant. All in all riding elephants is pretty awesome!

Anna

Thailand - The bike ride i forgot to mention

2008-02-13T01:29:00.000-08:00

Before the Sheraton we went for a nice bike ride. At first we were on the main highway. Which was scary. The only thing that went wrong was I stepped in a bag of poo when we were riding thru one of the slums and I almost got bitten by a fhew street dogs(sketchy). We got to ride on a boat to a Island where we did most of the biking. In total we were gone about 5 hours. And after I was treated to anice cool orange fanta.

Paul

Thailand - Bike touring in Bangkok

2008-02-10T23:33:00.000-08:00

This is now our third day in Bangkok and today we did a 5 hour bike tour. As this is my first time in Thailand and I didn't do any research before we got here (unlike some of you very well travelled people), I had no idea that Bangkok stood on so much water!!

We went to Recreational Bangkok Biking (www.bangkokbiking.com) and were presented with a great selection of mountain bikes. I chose a more upright model and a "big girl" seat rather than one of those skinny Lance Armstrong ones - a decision that would prove most fortuitous several hours later!! We asked about helmets but that didn't happen. At this point we didn't know how sketchy things could be (for those of you younger than 25 sketchy means dicey and for over 65 it is a cross between dangerous/unsafe and unknown).

We headed down a quiet residential street and then straight into Bangkok morning rush hour traffic(quite sketchy),This was our first foray into the wrong side of driving where we actually had to do something. I have to admit that it will be nice to have been a passenger on the right hand driving for a couple of months before I have to attempt to drive in Australia. My sister did fabulously during her tenure at Oxford and also in Perth as did my Dad, so I hope there is some genetic predisposition that will enable me to master it as well!

After a few blocks in traffic, we headed into quite a nice neighborhood. At one point, we were stopped by a crossing guard who was helping about 12 little preschoolers in their bathrobes cross this pristine clean laneway from their school to the swimming pool. This was contrasted sharply in the next block when we hit a slum area. Our guide who really was a Pet (actually that was her name) said that these were the working poor and not people who were into the sex or drug trade.

We stopped at a kindergarten where there wasn't a shoe in sight, but the kids had great big smiles and said lots of "Hellos". They were all dressed in yellow shirts as this was the color of Monday - the day the King was born. He is 80 years old and is very loved. He has been ruling for 60 years and is the longest reigning living monarch. The other colors are Tues-pink;Wed-Green;Thurs-Orange; Fri-Blue;Sat-Purple; and Sunday-Red. I don't have any idea what day I was born, but here it is all important.

We then continued on through these narrow little alleys that had people doing all the facets of life around every corner. Cooking, laundry, hair-straightening, shops, watching TV and various kinds of repair shops, grocery shops and food vendors. We started to feel sprinkles of rain - only the third time in this entire 76 days of travelling so far. Unlike in Rome and Greece, however, this rain was quite a relief as it cooled us a bit and the humidity is always good for making a gal look younger!!

We started to see more water and canals and found ourselves riding alongside a canal. At one point one of our family members stepped in a puddle and right onto a "flying toilet" that had burst open. This is a term that 3 months I was unfamiliar with. Through my training at CAWST (www.cawst.org) for the biosand filters, I learned that a flying toilet is essentially when someone poops in a bag and then it flies as they throw it out!! It is a well intentioned gesture, but they just tend to lie around and then burst in these slum areas.

We stopped and had to cross the river. We did this on a longtail boat, bikes and all!! On the other side we entered into a great park which went on forever and gave you the feeling that you were in the country, rather than a big city. We stopped and bought some fish pellets to feed the fish and they swarmed everywhere. There were some great big catfish that the kids had never seen before. We were all by ourselves in this park and it was very surreal. Somewhere around us were the 7 million people of Bangkok!

Next, we went into a large coconut plantation where there were big, beautiful villas mixed in with complete hovels. We were on a raised bike path that consisted of a concrete platform about 1 meter wide - very sketchy indeed!! On either side there was about a 4 foot drop to some brown water and we overheard our guide Martin saying that there are 3-4 meter long pythons in the jungle in Thailand. Was this considered jungle? Needless to say, it was great incentive for staying on the path. There were quite often some of the more mangy looking dogs that we see everywhere blocking the path. Pet would ring her bike bell and they'd disperse. The bikepath network went on for kilometer after kilometer until we popped out onto a main road and stopped for lunch.

We "washed our hands" with water that they poured out of a bucket. We had to presume it was safe and sat down and enjoyed the absolutely most delicious chicken and shrimp Pad Thai that I've ever tasted. They made it right in front of us and we washed it down with cold Fantas and Cokes - I know you have to have a coke every once in a while. I don't want to say anything about how hot it is but about 33C and humid is the answer.

We got back on the bikes and wound our way past temples and under the most incredible bridge I've ever seen. It looked like the one that fell in pieces during the San Francisco earthquake in the 90's except it had 3 or 4 branches and was gold in color and went on forever. I really can't describe it. We went past stupas where the Buddhists bury the ashes of their dead and again through all of these alleys that were the main road system for many of the houses and shops around us but were only a couple of meters wide.

We found our way back to a water Taxi stand and climbed in bikes and all to head back to the bike rental place. Again we wound our way through back streets, alleys, main streets and even through the parkade of a big shopping store (covered parkade), We went up and down a pedestrian ramp under a main street which was really quite fun. The kids did really well as it took a great deal of balancing on all of the narrow places. We covered about 25 kilometers in all and we absolutely loved it!

This day will certainly go down as one of the highlights of the trip so far as we not only got close to the people, but could see and smell Bangkok as well as say Hello to all the people who were so happy to see us go by!

We will now take a well-deserved break by the pool.

Holly

Thailand - First Day - It's all about the Food!

2008-02-10T23:26:00.000-08:00

Okay, I have to do another blog about the food. After our great experience with the early am buffet, we went across the street to the department store and found a Thai Food Court in the basement. The kids were pulling us towards McDonald's, Starbucks and Subway, but we wanted Thai Food. We got it too. Once we figured out the pre-buying of the coupons and pointed to what we wanted, we ended up with various pork on noodle, chicken on rice, noodle soup and spring rolls. It was great!! We also hit the supermarket next door for some good Oreos as well!!

The girls and I spent the afternoon shopping and found stuff that just fit great. We were then ready to go out for a nice meal at the hotel. We went to the Italian restaurant and had beef lasagna and pork tenderloin and red snapper and gelati for dessert!! The lasagna was as good as the place in Venice.

There is a gym here that we will try to find too!! Holly

Thailand - Culture Shock!

2008-02-09T17:54:00.000-08:00

We arrived yesterday morning to the brand new airport in Bangkok. What a contrast to India!! Not just the lack of people, but the lack of cacophony. I guess after one month in India we had become kind of immune to everything around us. I just had an iChat with my Dad and sister from our hotel here in Bangkok and described what we had for breakfast the morning we left India and the breakfast we had yesterday here in Thailand.

At the SN Tourist Resort in Kolar (which my Dad said sounded 5Star from the blog entry but was only amazing because it was clean and new but would be about 2 star) our problem was breakfast. The only thing we could get that wasn't too spicy was plain dosa. Dosa is like a big crepe. We would order dosa, go outside the hotel to the canteen and buy 10 little fresh bananas (45cents) and then spread the dosa with some of the peanut butter stash that we had for just such emergencies and then slice banana and roll it like a tortilla. This was breakfast and had to suffice until we could get the not too spicy drumsticks of chicken for lunch.

So, like a herd of elephants we arrived at the buffet at 5:30 AM yesterday morning here at the beautiful Dusi Thani Hotel in Bangkok. We had checked in at 4:30, had our first baths since Canada (only Indian bucket showers had been available in India), pulled out our cleanest and least wrinkled clothes from our packs and headed down just as the buffet opened. Dave grabbed 2 granny smith apples and had eaten them before we even found our seats!! Our bums hadn't even warmed the seats when we bounded off to grab our favorite things.

I had a salad with mixed greens, sprouts, corn, salami and blue cheese covered in balsamic and olive oil. Paul had a plate of crispy bacon and waffles, and the girls had waffles. Dave had bacon and pancakes and John sushi. We are in the land of Asian tourists again, so there is a large presence of Asian foods for breakfast. This adds even more things for us to choose from!!

Our next load on our plates was from the fruit section where there was pineapple, watermelon (cut into heart shapes) honeydew, papaya and peeled grapefruit!! Needless to say we thought St Peter was the host who seated us!!

Speaking of breakfast, everyone has gone down for this morning's buffet so I'll go and catch up. We are then off to explore the wonders of Bangkok for the day.

Holly

India - Final Thoughts and Musings

2008-02-08T20:41:00.000-08:00

On our way out of India we spent the last day in Bangalore. Our host Mr RamaChandre had unfortunately been hospitalized with gall stones and we were left a little loose without a translator. On our way into Bangalore, we witnessed a fellow getting a traffic ticket. We looked at each other and laughed - what could possibly constitute a traffic infraction in India? Could it be an illegal U-turn - not likely - U-turns are very much a part of the driving scheme here. Or was he was going the speed limit of a car and he was a truck? - the limits are different for differing vehicles. It couldn't be for not wearing a helmet as although they are more prevalent in the cities, they are not mandatory and more often than not appear as a fashion accessory draped over their arm like the Queen carrying her handbag. Maybe it was because he was going the wrong way up the road - Naw if it's faster or easier to do that then the cars and bikes and Tuk Tuks will just move over and you can make your way. Driving on the sidewalk? Well it really is just a widening of the road and in most places is dirt and part of the road - a quick honk and the pedestrians move over and create a new lane for traffic!! Had he run the traffic light (which are few) - no, because you can watch the seconds count down and know when it's your turn! Child falling asleep on the front bar of his handlebars of his moped? - totally acceptable. Maybe he didn't see the Speed Breaker, Dead Slow sign (those are speed bumps). So, we don't know what he did wrong and never will.

Other quirks and quarks: all of the bikes have this little triangular thing on the back wheel that we finally figured out is the kickstand. Most Indians are Vegetarian (that we encountered) and if Non-Veg they will take meat (never beef or pork) on Tuesday and Saturday or Sunday. In deference to the Muslims, meat is never eaten on Friday. The men are quite slim and I'm not sure if it is the veg diet. I saw an Indian Hybrid - they opened up the back of the big truck (like a gravel truck ) and there was a board dividing top from bottom- the top was filled with men crouching on their haunches and the bottom was filled with goats!!

The Hindus shave their kid's heads 3 times before their 3rd birthday and they believe it makes their brains grow bigger and they have such beautiful thick hair that it must make their hair grow faster and stronger. They also speak a mix of whatever their language is ( Hindi in the north, Tamil in other places) but as many different languages as there are states - and English which gives you a guess at what they are saying.

You see swastikas everywhere, but it is a Sanskrit(the oldest language in the world) symbol of good luck. The biggest vehicle rules the road and we rarely saw road rage. Yesterday, however, we were trying to pass a large vehicle and honked to pass just as it pulled out to pass someone else. We pulled back in behind it and at the next opportunity, pulled out to pass. He went wide again, which forced us to now go 3 wide and onto the shoulder of the opposing traffic all the time honking and glaring at the driver and saying prayers to whoever was listening.

Cricket here is religion not sport and yesterday we picked up some cricket equipment for a village we toured. You always see kids playing pickup cricket in empty dirt lots along the way. The paper is filled with all of the cricket scores for page upon page. Other things in the news are: water issues - there is an outbreak of cholera in Bangalore as during some construction they broke a pipe and it spilled sewage into the drinking water pipe. Issues on keeping girls in school or opportunities for girls/women are also quite prevalent. They have handed out water testing kits to all the kids in Tamil Nadu (one of the states) to raise awareness. For the entire time we were in India there was the news of a kidney racket headed up by a doctor from Canada (of Indian descent). He would take poor labourers and promise them 5000 Rupees(minimum daily wage is 50Rps) and then take them for a medical test. He would remove one of their kidneys and send it to Europe. They caught him in Nepal just before we left.

Some final favorite sights: Laundry hanging on the median to dry in the big cities; a father driving his 15 year old daughter and 3 of her friends to school on his moped ( a total of 5 adults-the most I ever saw); a man carrying a goat across his lap on his motorcycle; women carrying huge bundles of wood down the streets (even in the cities) that totally obliterate their faces; men digging a trench by hand to lay the new fibre optic cable in Kerala (another state).

So my final sign that I saw in India and I can't remember where but for India and its steps forward it seems appropriate The Journey is the Destination.

Holly

India - Kolar, Woody's and a Family Room

2008-02-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

For our entire trip in India, Woody's had loomed large. We knew that we wanted to go to the SAPWII biosand filter project in Kolar, but with it came the only accommodations available - Woody's. We had been warned that Woody's on the star scale was a zero and to bring our own mosquito nets. Kolar is about 70 km east of Bangalore and although Bangalore is considered the silicon valley of India, the Kolar region is one of the poorest in India.

We arrived in front of Woody's and it didn't look too bad. Inside, though, it was very dirty and dingy, but we knew we had to do this and that it would be a great experience for the kids. We put our own pillow cases on the pillows, tried to ignore the fact that the sheets didn't appear washed, ordered up towels, soap and toilet paper and rolled over and tried not to imagine that there were bugs in the beds.

Breakfast was another grotty experience and it was where I figured that we would be getting sick if we got sick anywhere. We did take Dukoral for traveller's diarrhea which may have helped ,as to this point, we hadn't been really sick at all.

After visiting the Kolar project we asked Mr Rama Chandre where we should have lunch and he said the best place around was Woody's. I was shocked, but that made it more apparent where we were. His daughter though, suggested this new place that had just opened up. It had Veg and Non-Veg food. When we arrived at this new restaurant, it was attached to a huge new Tourist complex.

We did a tour and saw there was a swimming pool - 25 m in length and clean!! There was also a brand new gym setup and an Ayurvaedic Massage and health centre. We asked to see the rooms and were shown one with 4 King (or larger - they looked like custom mattresses) beds, 2 bathrooms (one for boys and one for girls in our family) and a sitting area as well as 2 TV's. It was pristine clean!! A total bonus is the room cost 2000 Rps per night (37 Rps = $1 CDN)

End of story is that we spent the last 3 nights like kids at Brownie camp in Our Family Room and we managed to work out and swim for the first time in India.

Holly

India - Kolar, CAWST, and South Asia Pure Water Initiative

2008-02-07T03:21:00.000-08:00

So tomorrow we leave for Thailand after an incredible month in India. To say that India is a country of extremes is an understatement - such diversity, beauty, opportunity, need, and above all friendly people. We could go on for hours about all we've seen but suffice it to say that we all feel blessed to have had such a rich experience here (and no one has been sick).

Our last 3 days have been spent in a town called Kolar where we have been introduced to the South Asia Pure Water organization, which has been responsible for putting together an integrated program for the production and distribution of biosand water filters into the most needy villages in this area. We have been so impressed at the quality of the process and the dedication of the people involved. We have seen first hand the effect these filters are having on the health of the families using them, through stark reductions in water borne illnesses such as diarhea, worms, bacterial and parastic infections, as well as osteo issues caused by the high levels of flouride in the water. Mike Lipman and Cathy Forsberg, from Hamden Conneticut, as well as RamaChandre from the local Rotary Club, have been the driving force behind this initiative, and we commend them for the amazing work that is happening here, over 2000 filters employed in only two years ( which impacts in excess of 10,000 people). Also, CAWST in Calgary must take a bunch of credit, as it is the CAWST training program and technical materials which form the backbone of the very effective filter design. How could we leave without sponsoring another village (we have agreed to underwrite another 100 filters, in concert with our partner Springbank Middle School in Calgary)?? There is such need here, and so little can do so much for the impovisherished families who do not have options. Their very clear and present issues involve finding ways to care and provide for their loved ones day by day. Basic survival.

At the school in the village today we observed a grade 1 - 5 class of 33 kids who were crammed into a small, lightless room, sitting on the floor. They were dutifully reciting English words and numbers, dressed in identical clean(?) blue uniforms, which I'm sure are the best clothes in the village. Most of the local people barely had rags to wrap themselves in, and essentially no one wore shoes. When asked about their sports during recess, we received blank stares from the teacher who explained that the village did not have sports. No one could afford to buy a ball.

Our first stop in Bangalore tomorrow will be to a sporting goods store, where we plan to buy a cricket set and some balls which we will send back to the village with our driver after he drops us off at the airport - it may cost us $25 Canadian (1000 Rs) - so little for so much............. John

India - driving, road signs and signs

2008-02-07T03:13:00.000-08:00

I really have to do a blog about these things before we leave. With one billion people, many jobs that at home would be done by machine, are done here by hand. Today we saw women with large stones in front of them and with a hammer they were breaking them up into gravel!! We would then see loads of this gravel by the sides of the road where the human bobcats would move it by having one person sccop it onto a basket that is then placed on the head of the next person in line. This was generally done by men as it is pretty heavy. They would dump it further down the road where the large rollers (girl squashers is what my parents called them as when we moved to Calgary in 1964 my sister and I were 3 and 6 and they were paving the roads in Kelvin Grove - the term girl-squasher was a great incemtive to stay away from them!!) would flatten it before the women would come along and sweep any stray bits back in!!

Some of the road signs we saw were also great!! These are all as we saw them including spelling errors: Whisky is risky with driving!, Don't Die Like Fouls, Obey Traffic Rules, Mind the Signs, Pay Less Fines, and my favorite, Drive Slow, Reach Safe!

There was another sign that we saw for advertising a fiber-filled cereal Eat Rusk, Be Brisk!! I'll leave that to your imaginations!!

Holly

India - getting glasses in Madurai for Dave

2008-02-03T02:48:00.000-08:00

There is something in the air here that has been a little irritating to our eyes, and most of all to David's. In fact, he needed to ditch his contacts for the time being and get glasses. I told this to Mr. Bharathi, who says that Madurai is one of the top places in India for eyes and medical tourism in general. Attention all those potential hip replacement candidates!!

Whenever I ask Mr. Bharathi something he does the little Indian shake of the head (think bobble heads at home from side to side) which indicates yes and says "No problem". This was the case for the eye appoitment for Dave. We were in the next state (called Kerala - worth a google for all of you who are craving the beach and massage) and had to come screaming back here in order to make it to our 7:45 PM appointment last night (that will be Saturday night). I think I left a few years of my life attached to the bus that we nearly hit (I'm sure our driver would say that's normal) as it was dark and you just can't see the people on bikes etc. on the road.

We went into the "hospital" which was really an office on the ground floor of the building. It was quite hot in there but there were fans. They did a manual exam right away and then put drops in his eyes that he had to keep shut for 50 minutes. This was an experience in itself as when was the last time you absorbed everything around you without opening your eyes for almost an hour?

We were then moved into another room which was about 20 feet by 15 feet and had 3 benches in it and about 30 people. We waited here until we were the last people. At that point, the director of the hospital came in and was aghast that we hadn't been given priority (note we were the only non-nationals in the place). We said that was fine we would wait our turn. We were bumped anyways and bypassed the next room which contained all of the same 30 people in the same size room as the previous one.

We were now in the last room which was the Dr's office and had air conditioning. There were about 15 people in there and his machine that you put your chin on and he looks at your eyes was in the corner. Beside it was a desk where his nurse sat. He would call your name and then you would give him a brief description of your problem and then he would briefly examine you and give you instructions and perhaps a prescription.

We were in this room for about 20 minutes and at one point were told to sshhh as the patients needed to hear what he was saying and we were all in the same room. When it was our turn, he had already seen about 8 patients in the 20 minutes and briefly looked at Dave's eyes gave us a prescription for eyedrops for his contacts and a prescription for his glasses.

We left the room and paid our 70 rupees (yes that's $2!!) got our receipt and went down a few doors to get his glasses picked out. At this point it was 9:45 on a Saturday evening. We found some frames he liked but he didn't want to get photogray as he wanted to have separate sunglasses. We were at an impasse until I found out the whole shot with photogray would be $20 at which point he chose another set of frames and by Monday at 1pm he will have 2 sets of glasses-one fiber with photogray and the other glass without. All in - appointment, 2 pairs of glasses with frames and Tuk Tuk ride home 1670 rupees or about 45 dollars!!!

What a place this is!! Holly

India - biosand water filters, Springbank Middle School and a Village

2008-01-31T00:37:00.000-08:00

Today, we told Mr. Bharathi about the money that the family raised at SMS and by topping it up a bit we have sponsored a village!!! This means 100 filters from SMS and because they pay 30% themselves (this makes them more empowered to use them and look after them), the 100 becomes 130 filters.

We saw 2 homes with filters in them yesterday and in one home, the woman showed us the open water that she got her water from. She then showed a cheesecloth that she used to strain out the worms!!
There were children around with the big bellies from malnutrition and diarrhea (not hers!). When I took the biosand filter course from CAWST I learned how diarrhea works. I didn't know that if the body senses a pathogen it immediately flushes everything from your system. In this way it rids itself of the pathogen, but in so doing, it also rids the body of any nutrients it might have taken in. The problem is not food, therefore, but because of diarrhea, there is no intake of nutrients. We have also seen lots of men with bowed legs which is another sign of a waterborne illness.

The women who had the filters said that their main problem before was constant throat infections and coughs, as well as diarrhea and now they don't have that anymore. We are going to meet some high executive from DHAN to make the presentation of the money as that is what Mr. Bharathi would like to do. Our program that he has set up here has been amazing and way better than in the north as he is a part of it. I would highly recommend this type of travel to see the real people and make a difference doing it!

We will find out the name of the village on Sunday and pass on that information then. Thank you again to everyone who contributed to this success. I can't even begin to describe the looks on the faces of these people who now will have a chance to see their children grow up and not die because they happened to be born into a place where clean water is not available.

Thank you again, Holly

India - attention all hormonal women!!

2008-01-31T00:33:00.000-08:00

On our way to the yoga this morning, Mr. Bharathi explained why we see all of the women wearing flowers in their hair. In a very matter of fact way (and you would have thought this would be quite a taboo subject for a man to discuss with a woman over here) he explained that the Indian people understand totally how women are ruled by their hormones. This resulted in much laughter from the others in the vehicle and I didn't bite anyone's head off!!

The flowers they use are a very scented jasmine flower that acts as aromatherapy to keep the women "cool" and thereby calm their hormones. He went on to explain a bunch of things about their medical system here (a root canal costs $50) and they are way ahead of the game. They have public free health care and private and even more private for the VIP's.

The hormonal one in our family

India - Developmental Tourism and DHAN Foundation

2008-01-31T00:20:00.000-08:00

We are hosted in the south here in Madurai by a Mr. Bharathi from the DHAN foundation. The DHAN foundation is a huge Indian run organzation helping Indians help Indians. They are starting with developmental tourism in the south encouraging people to come and stay in the renovated mansions in the villages and buy some of the goods produced by the local people directly from the local people. this way they are empowered and avoid the middle man. I can't remember if I wrote about this before(I am keeping a jopurnal at the same time so I lose track of whether I've typed it or written it in the journal).

Unesco has sponsored 75 villages in southern India to help preserve some of the amazing mansions that are over 100 years old. We stayed in one in Chettinaid and it had cast iron pillars, tile floors, zinc and copper ceilings and 126 rooms of which 11 were hotel rooms. The grandson of the builder and original owner now lives there and he and his wife spent time visiting with us. Our meals were served on banana leaves and they ate with their hands.

We visited women weavers and the girls bought sarees. 3 days work weaving one cost us $10. We also visited a tile place that puts by hand, paint on a glass plate and then sand and then cement. One man can produce 150 a day and is paid about $12 to do so. The kids were allowed to make their own as well which they really enjoyed. They are really trying to focus on fair trade and so at both the weaving place and tile place, our offers of donations were turned down. These are an amazing people as they are learning proper practices and greed would never enter into it.

Mr. Bharathi has been an excellent host and even organized some yoga for us. We went to an actual medical clinic and were taught by a doctor. He did lots of explaining of breath and the benefits to quieting the body for studying for the kids.

It continues to be hot and humid here and we have bought saleer kameeshes to wear like the locals as they are cooler. Last night we ate up on the roof of our hotel in the cool breeze. I do hate to talk of weather but I think it has warmed a bit there.

All for now, Holly

India -Southern India!

2008-01-30T00:06:00.000-08:00

We are now in the village of Chettinad, in the state of Tamil Nadu, along the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. My dad forced me to write that part! Moving on, we have just come back from making tiles, in the traditional way. The are actually really cool, for the first bit we watched the guy there make them and then we made our own. I personally think mine was the coolest. We are staying in a pretty nice mansion that was changed into a hotel. The only thing i don't like about it is a lot of bugs and mosquitos!
I don't like southern india as much as northern, because down here its too hot! I guess opposite then Calgary right now! Burn!! At this hotel our french is coming in handy since there are lots of french people her, all very nice. Paul is wondering if anyone of his friends have e-mail. Miss y'all, Cathy

India - Thanks for responding!!!

2008-01-29T23:52:00.000-08:00

I think it's time to get out of India. I've lost a few pounds. Whan i weighed myself At the airport it was all normal...... but then i took a huge ---- and i knew that i really had lost weight that was just the weight of the ----. The people here are really nice and some of the food is great.

In the south it is scary because if you get bitten by a mosquito you can get Milaria or Dengua fever.My dads bad luck in airports and train stations continues. He already had a knife and his whole shaving kit in his carry on. So the other day i had my first Twinkie. I got to see/make tiles. Isaw how the water filters worked.Were stanying in a palace that was changed into a hotel. There was a gecho in my room so my brother and i woke up my sisters at two in the morning dragged our matresse into they're room and slept there.

sincerly,Paul

write back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

India - The beautiful Indian people!

2008-01-29T23:41:00.000-08:00

I really must write a minute about the people here. they are such a gentle and humble people - very reminiscent of Bali and I presume the common denominator is generally the Hindu religion. Those are generally the people we have met here.

The other day we left our B&B to go to catch our 1pm flight. We left at 11:30 and nobody seemed in the least concerned that this was late or anything. At 12:15 we were stuck in traffic and again Lal, our great driver wasn't worried! At 12:25 we reached the airport, presented our tickets at the door (as nobody without a ticket even enters the building) and ran to get our bags scanned. Here they scan and seal your checked baggage before you even hit the ticket counter.

We arrived at the ticket counter at 12:30 and the kindest most gentle woman assuaged our fears - no problem, all is well. I'm not sure what they worry about here if they don't worry about arriving for a flight 25 minutes before it leaves!! We proceeded through security which is divided into ladies and gents. the ladies go one by one into a curtained off booth and are patted down. the men have this process done in the open. At the same time your cary on luggage is being scanned and a tag that has been affixed to it is stamped. John didn't get one of his stamped so when we finally were called to get on the bus,(yes in most of the airports other than in North America you are loaded onto a bus and driven out onto the tarmac to the plane) John had to go back and get his tag stamped.

Again, nobody seemed to worry. It's not like at home where they might just say it was your fault and leave you stranded; the rest of us loaded on the bus secure in the knowledge that John would arrive safe and sound which he did.

We are now in the South near Madurai and I hate to tell you that it is 30C and humid as all get out. I know you're all freezing in Calgary and schools are closed so we'll send warm thoughts your way.

The kids would love to hear from their friends on these blogs if they could.

Namaste Holly

India - Paul's musings...

2008-01-27T21:30:00.000-08:00

i hate making these blog posts and i want you all to know that right now i could be watching pirates of the carribean but instead im making this post. umm so im really sick of curry and rice and could go for some american food. we just went up to the gangis and got some massages and were staying right on the big river. we were taking rickshaw rides everywhere whch is really fun and yea.

cya

India - Holly's musings...

2008-01-27T21:19:00.000-08:00

How does one describe the last week in India? I think I’ll have to break it up into little bits. First, it is about the people and with over a billion of them that’s a lot to talk about. All of these people seem to be on the move and the number of ways they can do so is incredible. Rarely do you ever see any mode of transport with only one person on it. Quite often you’ll see a moped or motorcycle with a complete family onit. Mom is purchased ever so daintily sidesaddle on the back with the baby on her lap and Dad is driving; the two year old is taking it all in like a dog with its head out the window while seated up front on the gas tank between Dad’s arms. Even on the ever present bicycles, the girls ride sidesaddle on the back. We have seen camels pulling wagons, or donkeys or horses (small compared to ours with bushy manes) and in Jaipur there were elephants on the streets as well. It was not unusual to see herds of goats or sheep on the side or crossing the roads. When it comes to larger vehicles, there are trucks that look like our gravel trucks and some say goods carrier and some say personal transport. These will be filled to overflowing with people all hanging off the sides. We were feeling quite cramped in our Toyota SUV which seats 7, but every other vehicle like this would be carrying 10-15 people!!

The driving here is not for the faint of heart, and we have been doing lots of driving. The major highways are divided 4 lanes but that is loosely describing it as they are constantly under repair and at any time you can look up and see traffic coming towards you. They honk to ask you to move over and sometimes they pass on the right (it is right hand drive here left over from the British) and sometimes they pass on the left. Our driver Lal is fantastic and we even survived a couple of hours of night driving last night. Most of the time we are on one lane roads and trying to pass as we honk to get others to move over. The little kids (2 years old) play by the side of the road with the cars and motos whizzing past. Oh, don’t let me forget the cows. They are everywhere and just wander freely and people honk and go around them. They are not for eating, only for milk. In the North here we do see them pulling carts.

Delhi is an amazingly green city, in fact the second greenest capitol in the world after London. There were acres and acres of unexpected parks and the one with the Mohatma Gandhi memorial had lots of huge trees.

India is truly a secular country and all of the religions coexist quite nicely. They honor each and every religious holiday which is very refreshing. They are predominantly Hindu (75%) 12% Muslim and also Buddhist, Christian, Sikh, Jain and others.

The people are indescribably warm and you feel like you never want to make any large gestures or even raise your voice. In Punjab we saw more Sikhs and now we are in the far North headed to Buddhist country.

I think the highlight so far must be the rickshaw ride on the second day through the markets (narrow alleys) near the big mosque in Delhi. We were up high enough to be able to see, and every other sense was on overload. There were people selling everything imaginable out of little tiny kiosks along the way. There were big vats of things boiling and people lined up for samosas and some kind of bread. Kids were coming to and from school in their uniforms along dust covered alleyways.

Amazingly, they really do try to keep their own little piece of real estate clean with brooms. They sweep their area while crouched on their haunches (that little move we try in Yoga that hurts so much is how they sit all day long). They are also very personally clean and there are always people getting their hair cut or shaved in little kiosks by the side of the road or sitting on the steps of the building. Every chance they get, they pour buckets of water over their heads to bathe themselves.

That’s enough for now, but suffice to say that you need a lot of time to see this country. Today we fly south to Madurai where we will link up with the first of the 2 NGOs that we will be working with here in India.

Stay warm at home as we see it is cold there, Holly

Holly

India - Pragpur, Mcleod Ganj, Haridwar

2008-01-26T23:03:00.000-08:00

How do I describe the last few days here in India? We left Delhi and drove up to the first Heritage village in India called Pragpur. On the way we experienced our first night driving. This means that all of the crazy things that exist during the day - the dogs, the people walking with great bundles on their heads, the sheep, the goats, the bicycles with 1 or 2 or 3 people on them and even the motorcycles with complete families are still there but now are invisible in the dark!! I'm not sure how Lal our trusty driver did it what with the oncoming traffic flashing their brights constantly as they got to within 25 metres to tell him to go back onto his side of the road!! The road by the way was like some backwoods thing you've never seen before!

Our destination the first night was Kikar Lodge and we turned off the main goat track and onto a smaller goat track and we had no idea what to expect and neither did Lal. Finally we reached Kikar and it was dark so we went to our little cottages. It was very cold and they brought us hot water bottles for our beds!!

In the morning we awoke to frost but a beautiful landscape with 20 cottages on the hillside and 2 pools (cold). We had our first Ayurvedic massages and were covered with oil and tried to keep warm in the cold rooms. They were good, but the quadding that we did through the 1500 acre park after was the best!! Lunch was Moussaka and Chicken a la King with Garlic toast which was superb.

We then headed back on the road to Pragpur. We stayed at an old Judge's residence that they had converted into a hotel and his old court was the restaurant. There were 2 cute little puppies there that the kids really enjoyed. One looked just like Tipper Di!

The next day we watched the sunrise over the Himalayas and then headed up to Mcleod Ganj which has been the exiled home of the Dalai Lama since 1960. He was actually there which is rare! We think we saw him on his terrace as we sat and ate our lunch in the sunshine across from him compound. The plight of the Tibetan people is very sad and the Chinese Government is now putting political pressure on the Indian govt to kick him out of India! There was a very Tibetan feel to the place and we 3 girls bought ourselves wool shawls that we have lived in ever since. It is the coldest here in 60 years which means near freezing at night and 15 or so during the day.

Af ter one more night in Pragpur we returned via plane from Chandigargh to Delhi. This cut out 5 hours of the driving, but we missed doing McDonalds and Big Maharajah chicken burgers again!! There is of course no beef anywhere here and the meat is mutton or chicken.

We are now in Hardiwar which is a Hindu holy city North of Delhi. It is a strictly vegetarian place with no alchohol!! Our terrace of our hotel looks out on the Ganges which is as wide as the Bow at its widest and very fast flowing. We watched them bathing in the Ganges the other night and putting lit offerings to float down the river.

We have had great Ayurvedic massages here and it is a bit warmer. The people are amzing and the rickshaw rides are really fun. In fact, we were picked up from the trai station in a rickshaw.

Back to Delhi tonight and then we fly south.

Holly

India - Anna's musings...

2008-01-24T07:54:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! We are now back in Delhi after driving up to Dharmsala and McCleod Gamj. Up in Dharmsala we stayed in a place called the Judge's Court that was absolutely beautiful with two little, adorable puppies that we named Bailey and Bear. We stayed there for three nights and one day was spent sitting around reading, playing badminton and taking walks into the village. The next day we took the treachorous drive up to where the Dalai Lama lives. By treachorous I mean that every turn you are looking over the edge of a cliff that has no barrier. Not to mention the fact that the road is only big enough for one so every time you have to pass it feels like you are going to fall down the cliff! I thought I was going to puke! When we reached McCloed Gamj our driver Lal dropped us off and we just started walking down the street. I wasn't sure what we were going to do but as it turns out it was easy to become occupied! Immediately I could tell that we were in a different culture. Everyone looked different from just down the mountain. Also the landscape looked a lot like home nestled in the Himalayas. By the way the Himalayas are huge! We walked around for a while looking at the village before going to a Buddhist temple. We were hoping to go in to look at what it was like but as it turns out THE Dalai Lama was giving an audience to new monks so no one was allowed inside. As we were leaving we met a lady from BC who was staying up there and offered to take us on her little walk to look at another temple. We went with her and saw a temple, some prayer wheels and prayer flags. The walk took probably about an hour and we got a wonderful chance to see the mountains. On the way back we had lunch at a beautiful hotel where we could see the Dalai Lama's house. After a couple of hours we started walking back down to the car. On the way we bought a couple of hats and blankets. So far the trip has been amazing and we are missing you all so much! love, Anna

India - The Golden Triangle - Delhi, Agra, Jaipur

2008-01-19T17:21:00.000-08:00

The last 5 days have taken us to Agra, Rhanthambore, and Jaipur. The driving has been amazing and impossible to describe. The roads function with essentially no rules, laws, or enforcement other than pure survival and mutual respect. Of course cows rein supreme and next to the elephants, camels, pigs, and people they have the ultimate right of way. Vehicles travel at high speed throughout the constant flow, dodging in and out of available spaces, with horns constantly blaring. Our first full day of this experience had us shaking our heads at the end of the day after at least 20 near misses, by our standards. The truth is that our 'near misses' are normal driving tolerances for the Indian drivers, most of whom could successfully compete at any Formula One event back home. At the end of the day, we have had to close our eyes a lot and try to rest during our road journeys, and pray that everything will be fine. So far so good.

Seeing the Taj Mahal in Agra was worth the trip to India by itself. It truly is an awe inspiring, unbelievable set of structures with beautiful surrounding gardens. It's easy to see why it is one of the wonders of the world. Rhanthambore brought a safari into a wildlife reserve famous for it's tiger populations. We did not see tigers but were fortunate to spot leopard which apparently is even rarer! Our next stop was Jaipur, which is the sister city to Calgary. An eye hospital was built here by Rotarians in Calgary which apparently is state of the art. There are many high end medical facilities and wellness retreats in this city.

Today we head north to the Himalaya to spend time in Dharamsala. We are very much looking forward to experiencing the Tibetan culture, who knows maybe we'll have tea with the Dalai Lama!!

That's all for now, we miss everyone back home lots....John

India - with love from Paul

2008-01-13T20:36:00.000-08:00

Paul losing weight!!! I' ll tell you what the good thing about india is the Firecrackers. The bad thing is the food' the homless' the transportation' the water' the wakeup times gtg

India - Cathy's musings...

2008-01-11T23:51:00.000-08:00

Well yes after some good travels(wink, wink) we are here in India! I actually really liked Germany for the 2 hours that we were there, mostly because of there efficiancy meaning no lines. There food was also amazing!! The no lines thing soon changed when we got to India, as soon as you walk down the escalator there is about an 100 person line. That took us about an hour to get through, by the time we got to the baggage claim it was about 2:00 in the mornin(yawn). Well lets skip the next half an hour of trying to find our baggage.

In no time we were at the place we were staying, which is a beauitful appartment, with a plasma tv in each room. For some reason i wasn't tired at all at 2:00 in the mornin o wait thats because its 2:00 in the afternoon to me! So we watched TV for a while and don't worry yes it was english! I didn't get much sleep but no worries i can always nap!

Cathy

India - Holly's first impressions

2008-01-11T23:28:00.000-08:00

So here we are in India but I'll backtrack and describe the journey. Our flights were totally packed and oversold. I ended up with a Lebanese fellow beside me who took up more than his allotted space and I had to deliver a bit of an elbow a couple of times during the night!! Luckily Anna was on the other side of me so I could lean a bit that way.

Okay, for the squeamish or sensitive of stomach - skip this paragraph. I have sometimes felt sick on aircraft, but have never puked. Anna woke up not feeling well and I managed to get a plastic bag under her while she was sick. I felt badly for having elbowed Mr. Lebanese as he passed over the kleenexes for her to wipe her mouth. Within minutes, I too knew I'd be sick!! Now whoever invented the airsick bag really did their homework as they have to durable, the right size so as not to splash, waterproof with a convenient closing top (think Oreo cookie bag) and able to resist force (they don't call it hurling for nothin'!!!)

Enough about bad experiences though, as the rest was great!! The German efficiency machine was well-oiled in Frankfurt as we breezed through and collected our luggage and checked in for Delhi. We watched Stardust which was excellent and an Indian movie (think Miracle on Grass) called Chak De about the Indian Woman's Field Hockey Team.

Our arrival in Delhi was calm although we did spend an hour getting through customs. Lal our driver took us to Alsabah House. This is an apartment with a bit of a bed and breakfast element to it. We have 3 bedrooms with bathrooms that are nicer than ours at home!! Ishwar is the fellow who provides us with our meals and we had omelettes for breakfast.

We will go for a tour this afternoon and meet with our travel agent and try to find a yoga option for later in the trip. Holly

India - Paul's first impressions

2008-01-11T14:18:00.000-08:00

Thats right im in india im watching my satelite tv in my room right now its sweeeeet how s everything back there??
You should have seen Germany i had a good suculent salami sandwich if my freinds are reading this respond quikly please...

Calgary - John's musings...off to India in 72 Hours!

2008-01-07T22:04:00.000-08:00

So we've been back in Calgary now for 8 weeks and have almost fallen back into all of our old routines! We've had a great time touching base with our family and friends, getting back to work (read paying the bills), and buckling down to some serious home schooling - all in order to prepare for the real thing.... off to India, Thailand, Cambodia, Australia, New Zealand, and Tonga over the next 5 months or so. Holly and the kids will travel on despite John's necessity ro return to Calgary for work (read paying the bills). Everyone is very excited about this phase of our travels as we attempt to align ourselves more closely with the needs and issues of the people in the countries that we visit. We feel very blessed to have such good friends and family that we love so much, and to have good health and the ability to venture out a bit into the world and (hopefully) attempt to develop a broader social conscience in the process. The least we can do is try...stay tuned, John

Egypt - Time to go home, 24 hours to snow, aaahh!!

2007-11-05T02:17:00.000-08:00

Just a short entry from me as we pack our bags, preparing to check out and leave for the airport on our 3 flight, four airport journey home over the next 24 hours or so. Egypt has been a wonderfully complex mixture of experiences which will no doubt gell for all of us over the next few months. Our hosts have been kind and accomodating without exception, providing us with a very positive introduction to Muslim culture and hospitality. Fortunately (or unfortunately from the kids perspective) our hotels have not been five star tourist accomodation, rather an Egyptian 2 or 3 star level (which in Canada would be 1 maybe 2 star) and have been much closer to the pulse of real Egyptian day to day life. We have had to venture out to provide for ourselves many simple day to day necessities such as water, food, and toilet paper of all things! My journeys to the local internet cafes have been especially interesting ( 'internet broken' in each of our hotels except one) as I have had to venture down many dark back alleys, up dilapidated stairways in crumbling buildings, in order to find the local internet hangout. Invariably these cafes have been busy with chain smoking teenagers doing full multimedia social networking, just like at home. But always friendly and helpful, despite my obvious lack of Arabic language skills, with most making every effort in English to help me. It is a fair comment to say that I feel safer here than I do along the bike path around Fort Calgary back home!

Anyways, this has been a great trip for our family as we have taken on many new challenges together and have strengthened bonds between us. New awareness and appreciation for foreign cultures, and different people, has certainly been the greatest benefit for the kids, in my mind. All for now, ma'a salaama...John

Egypt - home from Cathy

2007-11-05T01:38:00.000-08:00

Well interesting trip this has been. Between the visit to the giza pyramids to david going out partying. As fun as this has been its time to come home. We are all really tired and not looking forward to the 24 hours of travelling ahead of us. Gosh, we will be eating salad for all three meals everyday for at least two weeks for the loss of vegtables has been a tragic one. I think we will be spending a week apart from one another for not seeing anyone but your family for six weeks is quite enough. Cant wait to see all of you!

XOXO,

Cathy

Egypt -end of the trip from Anna!

2007-11-05T01:21:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody!

As you know we get home tomorrow. It's been a really nice trip and we've all learned a lot but it's time to come home. We've been away for six weeks and visited France, England, Italy, Greece and Egypt , which were all tons of fun. I must say, it was a little hard living with my family for an entire six weeks. We did have some rough spots like Davids' party night in Paris, our goat head night in Egypt and let's not forget the $90 soup! But we all pulled through and cannot wait to see you all at home! Anna

Egypt - coming home! from David

2007-11-05T01:02:00.000-08:00

After staying in some crap hotels my parents had enough and told our guide that we were changing without theyre permision. They walked down the street and found a hotel called the Steignberger (believe it or not its really nice despite the name) and got us into a beautiful room with a big balcony and everything we need for our last night. We've seen WAY too much to handle and have woken up at 3 in the morning 3 out of the last nine days so were obviously ready to come home, not too mention I'm getting sick of everyone hahaha. We've seen all the major temples and went on Faluka (sail boat rides) on the nile. We've also spent a vast majority righting in our journals I better get some credit at school for that. But I'm done with this trip. Bye from David....

Egypt - hi everybody!

2007-11-05T00:44:00.000-08:00

As u can see from the first picture i have become part cat. That was wen i was sick. I was throwing up and having dierria for 24 hours. I made a pretty interesting journal entry on that day. We were at luxor temple the second picture. And the third i hadn't eaten in that day. Annnnnnnnnndd i was offered a meal which took away my appetite. O if you feel sorry for cathy when you saw her face when she was offered the goat. I being such a nice brother ate it for her, not the brains tho... Paul

Egypt - Various Pictures

2007-11-05T00:13:00.000-08:00

Egypt - Cairo, Aswan, Luxor, Valley of the Kings

2007-11-04T20:57:00.000-08:00

I'm glad that I'm doing this entry after having spent a week here as now the overall attack on the senses has become a bit more charming. Entering Egypt through Cairo is amazing as you are instantly immersed in a very bustling Arab culture. Cairo has 20 million people with an additional 3 million commuting daily. They say that breathing the air in Cairo is the equivalent of smoking 30 cigarettes a day!!

Our initial experience was with a horrible hotel but we were moved first thing the next day and from there could start to witness some of what is Cairo from the relative comfort of the Swiss Inn. Right next door to this very modern hotel there are animals on the rooftops. The donkey carts share the road with vehicles and it was not unusual to see a herd of sheep or goats go past the hotel down what would be Bow Trail!!

The driving here as throughout Europe is amazing as they have few traffic lights (in Cairo they use traffic police) and the cars weave in and out like a school of fish totally ignoring the lines on the road. We were told the lines are really for decoration!!

Our guide Mohamed took us to his flat for a meal on the first day and very proudly presently a BBQ'd goat (complete with head and eyeballs) on a bed of rice. The look on Cathy's face said it all!! It was actually very good and tasted like turkey.

We started our touring the next day on camels and donkeys at the pyramids of Giza.(Giza is actually a suburb like Midnapore - no delineation from Cairo). I can't believe that I came all the way to Egypt to have a horse lay down on me though - I think the poor thing was just so tired! The pyramids represent Cheops the father and Chephren and Mycerinus, 2 of his sons. We came from the desert side and it was truly an amzing sight to behold. Cheops rises 136 metres in the air and took 30 years to build. Some of the stones weigh 15 tons and there are 2,300,000 of them.

Our next day in Cairo was spent at the Egyptian Museum where you can do a trip through time and start to orient yourself to the various Gods and their symbols. The girls both have a very good grasp as to who is what and why!! The second floor is mostly dedicated to the treasures taken from Tut's tomb. His funerary mask weighs 11kg and is solid gold!

We also spent a morning where we did Coptic Cairo (the old Christian faction), a synagogue and a mosque all in 3 hours. It is quite a trick to keep all of the time lines of the Kings here in order and also to be able to identify the Gods. It would really be worth your while to get a grasp on these things before arriving and carry something with you as a remeinder. Here they like to speak of the Dynasties of which there are 30 and not of the year.

One of the churches we saw (St. Sergius) had a crypt in the basement where the Holy Family spent 6 months as they fled Herod and his killing of all the babies.

We left Cairo on a 10Pm flight to Aswan and were picked up by a very elderly gentleman and piled into his equally old Peugeot station wagon (it even had fur on the dashboard!) It is amazing how we have become quite accustomed to hopping into a vehicle without seatbelts! This old fellow took us to our hotel with our luggage bouncing around untethered on the top of the car. We slept for about an hour and then we got up and drove 3 hours to see the magnificence of Abu Simbel.

Abu Simbel is the site of 2 temples that they moved when they built the High Dam. The first one is to Ramses II which they moved in 807 pieces and the second is to his favorite wife (and mother to some of his 150 children) Neferteri. They moved it in 245 pieces. These Temples are the ones you see with the colossal (22 metres high) statues of RamsesII. It was very busy and very hot despite being only 9AM. These tombs are of course not air-conditioned and it is like walking into a sauna in many cases. The average tourist gives off 2.8 kg of sweat and they are trying to figure out how to save the treasures from the damage that this and the CO2 that we give off poses.

The next day John, Dave Anna and Cathy went to the High Dam and the amazing Temple of Philae while Paul succumbed to tummy troubles and pure fatigue from the day before and stayes with me at the hotel. Everyone by this point was a little iffy in the belly and in a land where there is very little toilet papaer and you have to have some kind of small change to pay for it.

Our train ride to Luxor that night was quite magnificent in big comfy easychair type seats that lay back. The other people on the train and at the monuments are mostly French at this point as it is their All Saints holidays.

Luxor is a dream with very clean air and right on the Nile (okay so 78 of the 80 million Egyptians live right on the Nile!). We spent our first night in a quite nice hotel and then got up to see the most amazing Temple in Egypt - the Temple of Karnak. This temple was built over the course of 1500 years and added on to by several different Kings. The middle hall contains 134 huge (15-22m high) columns that are decorated and some still have their original coloring of orange and blue.

The second temple of the day was the Luxor Temple which is smaller but still overwhelming in the detail. It seems like every wall and every column in every direction is carved with depictions of the Kings and their travels and conquests and offerings to the Gods and of course the Gods themselves.

Every day has included some kind of luncj for us. Most of these have been in restaurants with a buffet on the Nile. There really is some great food and lots of cooked eggplant tomato, zucchini and potato. Their favorite meal is called Koshuri and is a mixture of pasta, rice, lentils and onions on which you can put any one of a number of sauces. It is quite delicious and filling. We have avoided anything uncooked or without a thick skin (we have eaten the bananas which grow here). There is always chicken and beef and of course no pork (Muslim country).

Tthe real key here is to get the early start before the 35C heat of the day. The real busy season is starting and the busloads of tourists is really quite overwhelming. We got a 7AM on the next day and crossed the Nile to go from the East (or first life ) side to the West (or 2nd or afterlife) side. About a 30 minute drive from Luxor up into the hills lies the Valley of the Kings. This is where they have so far discovered 63 tombs (the last being KV 63 discovered last year), the most significnt being that of King Tut. His tomb survived intact as it was beneath another tomb until Howard Carter stumbled upon it in 1922. His mummy was held inside a solid gold sarcophagus which lay inside another gold sarcophagus which then lay inside 4 other boxes inlaid with varying degrees of gold. It only makes you wonder what the tombs of some of the greater Kings would have held!

This was a very strenuous day as the tombs are built up in the hills and then a big climb down (ducking your head during the climb)the shaft into the tomb. We saw Ramses IX and Tuhmosis III (whose stepmother Queen Hatshepsut was the only woman to rule Egypt as Pharaoh).

We left the Valley and went to Queen Hatshepsuts Palace which is this huge 3 levelled place carved from the side of the mountain. There are 3 large terraces and it was on one of these that 58 tourists were killed in 1997 (we didn't tell the kids this). Security is very tight everywhere you go and even in the hotels you walk through medal detectors as you enter the hotel.

We decided to change our program and not go back to Cairo and spend 2 days in a van to see the desert and camp out. In stead we had to switch hotels in order to stay in Luxor. Our next hotel was not very nice but we had to stay there as Luxor is so full.

We took a horse-drawn carriage to the night market and spent an hour or so looking at the spices and cotton as well as all th e usual tourist stuff (fake this and that). We had spent some time this day at an alabaster plaace where everything is hand carved from the various kinds of stone (Onyx, moonstone, greenstone, and of course alabaster).

Yesterday morning we took things into our own hands and walked up the street and booked ourselves into a 5 star hotel for our last night. It is kind of like going from a rundown Best Western to the Ritz!! (our hotel is actually called the Steigenberger and is worthy of every star). We made a deal with the guy at the desk (they love their Baksheesh or tip or bribe) and scored a Suite and the room next to it overlooking the Nile with huge balconies, as well as dinner, 2 breakfasts and a late checkout! I don't think our guides were very happy that we'd taken things into our own hands, but I am sitting in my big fuzzy robe in my room with the computer and over my shoulder there are hot air balloons taking off on the other side of the Nile. I can see the feluccas starting for the day (we took 2 felucca rides - they are sailboats - which was definitely a highlight) and hear them setting up breakfast on the terraces below.

This is a good way to end our trip as we will be rested tonight as we start our 24 hour journey home through 4 countries. We are all craving fruits and vegetables and a big 'ol salad!! The people here have been amazingly kind and we will remember several of them with fondness (and hope they don't die of cancer as their cheap pastime is smoking (a carton of cigarettes is $1)

It is now 8Am and the pool is opening and the lounge chairs are beckoning!! Holly

Egypt - Our first hotel!

2007-10-28T02:16:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Cairo at 3 in the morning and everyone was really tired. This country already seemed different and everyone was a little edgy I don’t know if it was the time of day or the fact of all the arabs around us eying our bags. We met our guide “Mohamed” who was extremely kind and basically held our hands through the airprt. He explained a bit of the history to us on the way to our hotel which took about half an hour. It was amazing how everyone was driving so well to help everyone else and Mohamed explained that Cairo has very few car crashes compared to the other cities of the world. We got to the hotel, the Cairotel and it was a piece of junk, I hate it. The rooms are worn down with pieces of the wall on the floor and you cant tell the color of the original carpet. As soon as we lay down in our beds Paul yelled theres gingerale stains in my bed (I’m pretty sure its seimen. I hope we leave the hotelas soon as possible. This is from David!!

Crete Today, Egypt Tomorrow

2007-10-27T07:54:00.001-07:00

So it's Saturday night and we're packing up after yet another great day at the beach on Crete. The Weather here has been perfect, 22-25 degrees Celcius, with no wind, cool nights, and no people since the tourist season wound done a month or so ago - although officially everything will be shut down on Oct 31st. Tonight we're off to the airport for a quick one hour flight to Athens and then a connection to Cairo, arriving at 3 am local time. It sounds like temperatures are 30 C or hotter so the next week in Egypt will be spent trying to enjoy and store as much heat as possible before our return to Canada in 10 days.

Greece has been fabulous primarily because of the people who are so warm and hospitable. We have felt very safe here and certainly rank it as the number one country so far on our list to return to (sorry Italy and France!). All for noew as we're off to work out at a local hotel which is essentially deserted, John

2007-10-26T08:29:00.001-07:00

The train travel in Italy has been interesting, as other than on the super fast Eurostar, we are in a compartment with 6 seats that we can pull together that form a kind of bed where we can all stretch out and try to sleep. It is a bit of an art, but with little sleep the night before, it becomes a little easier.

We arrived by train in Milan and then had to take a 1 hour bus ride (we didn’t know it would be this long) and then arrived at the airport 1 hour before our international flight to Athens. The Italians, like the French, are very sticky when is comes to rules and we were afraid we wouldn’t be allowed to board. All went well and other than John losing his bottle of Italian wine, corkscrew and Leatherman at security, all went well. Out of all those items, the one we would miss the most was the wine!!

Arriving in Athens was easy and after the Olympics, the legacy of trains, freeways and Metro are next to none. Our place was about one hour northwest of Athens near Corinth and the famous Corinth Canal.

The Corinth Canal was started in 67 BC by Nero using slaves to extract the rock by hand. It was finished in 1893 just after the Suez Canal along his original route. It is over 6000 metres in length and bisects small strip of land that divides the Peloponnese from mainland Greece, saving sailors some 200 miles. The canal is very narrow and the ships are pulled through by tugs.

We spent our first day in Ancient Corinth and went to the Temple of Apollo. Paul thought it was just another bunch of rocks and it is pretty hard to imagine what must have been there. In Athens as in Rome we used these little overlap books that showed the past and present, which we could have used here.

We indulged ourselves in Greek food with fabulous Greek Salads with a big chunk of feta on top and souvlaki pita for every meal for the first three days in Greece (okay, not breakfast!)

Our second day we go in to Athens taking the new train and went for lunch at the Plaka and then up to the Acropolis. It is truly an amazing sight to behold and they are further restoring it. There are 4 “buildings” up on the rock (called the Acropolis – think outcropping) and they are the Temple of Athena Nike, the Propylaia (or entrance), the Erecthion and then the Parthenon or the building that everyone thinks of when they see the Acropolis. They have made a new Acropolis Museum and they are moving the antiquities using a 3 crane system from up on the Acropolis down to the ground level.

We met up with the father of one of Dave’s friends (Foti) and his mother-in-law Sherry and we went and toured the Monostiraki or shopping streets and then went to their travel agent and firmed up our travel plans to Crete and Egypt.

We scored a couple of more books at the place we are staying and will leave some of the ones that we’re finished when we leave. It’s nice to have something to read on the trains and planes and for the beach.

It is nice to leave Athens as it is starting to rain and we are hoping to catch some better weather in Crete. We leave in decent time for the airport and are happy that it is Sunday as there isn’t any traffic. We will leave behind the fabulous hotel that we had found and could get our first consistent internet since McNaughton’s place in France.

Off to the beach in Crete and a week of relaxation!! Holly