Christmas 09 (finally)

One thing Kuala Lumpur has over the Kootenays is thunder storms. I sat on the deck for over half and hour this evening watching one pass by.  The sky would flare up and thunder would crash about every 20 seconds or so.  I was literally in the middle of it all.  This is a fairly regular occurance, a bit unnerving but quite spectacular.  And then the rain.  The sky literally opens up and it comes down in sheets.

Cole and Alana have been gone for three weeks.  So much anticipation, a blur of activity, and now it is a memory.  It was great to have them here. We had a wonderful Christmas together. Cole arrived on the 14th of December, about a week before Alana.  He hung around with us for 4 days and then took off to Yogyakarta, Indonesia's cultural/spiritual centre.  From all accounts he enjoyed his trip throughly.  He spent a couple of days visiting the temples of Prambanan and Borobudur. 
Alana arrived in December 21st.  Unfortunately her plane was late and she had traveled for over 31 hours so our plans to show her the town didn't materialize.  We left early the following day for Bali where Cole met us.  This is our third trip there and we sort have things figured out for us.  We drive past Kuta, the Aussie party beach, as fast as we can and head for Ubud, which is the art/cultural center of Bali.  We stay at the same hotel and do some of the same outing.  The bike ride down from the volcano is wonderful.  Another of the Canadian teachers working at the school joined us and she commented that this was the highlight of her trip to Bali.  Cole and Alana went on a rafting.  We figured out which dance performance we like best, the Kecak.  Our favourite activity though is just to walk in the countryside through the rice fields.  It is so beautiful.

We traveled to Lovina Beach in the north for a few days around Christmas.  We stayed at a very nice boutique hotel.  It really is unbelievable what something the price of a Quality Inn will get you in Bali.  The hotel had 8 rooms and only one other was occupied while we were there.  It was fully staffed with reception, chef, service staff, bartender, garden and pool staff, and security. Interestingly enough the other room was occupied by Grace and Ken Wilson's ex-son-in-law.
Lovina was wonderful but the ecomonic crunch and lack of tourists has really hit there.  It was a little sad on Christmas Day evening walking to a restaurant we had chosen and to pass many others that were fully staffed, bands playing, and not a soul in them.  The owners would be waiting expectantly with Santa hats on at the entrance for potenial clients.
Far too soon after we returned to Ubud Cole had to leave to head back to Canada.  We stuck around another day and left with Alana to return to KL.  We spent New Year's Eve with some friends in an area near our school.  We went to dinner at the biggest buffet thing I have ever seen.  It was all Japanese and although it was buffet style everything was prepared fresh.  You just went up and told them what you wanted and they cooked up and delivered to you.  Incredible.  Alana did have a 4 am start to head back to Canada so we did have an early night.  Fireworks are really big here so it was impossible to sleep when midnight hit so Maureen and I watched them ignite the sky from half a dozen different venues from our condo.
After Alana left was spent a few quiet days in Kuala Lumpur before heading for Langkawi, an island in the north of Malaysia not far from the Thai border.  We spent our time reading, lounging on the beach, and exploring the island a bit.
We did manage to spend some time with Pat Dooley who was here attending a conference.  She took a couple days after the conference and we headed to our favourite town in Malaysia, Malacca, to show her around.  It was nice to touch base with her and get caught up on Nelson and the school district.
School is always busy but rewarding.  The students here are really nice.  Last weekend was the night of the brewery tour.  One of the dads from the school is the brew master at the Heineken brewery and he invites the teachers to the brewery once a year.  He gives a tour of the facilities and access to the brewery pub.  Heineken brews Heineken (of course), Guiness, Tiger, Ankor and a number of others.  Opening the taps for teachers is kind of a dangerous thing to do but everyone behaved him/herself.  He also puts on a buffet supper and at the end gives a goodie bag.  This year there was a shirt, some coasters and other stuff I didn't really take note of.  Quite nice.


I've a number of pictures that follow.  They are a bit out of order but I will try and caption most so you have an idea of what they are.
Sorry for this line thing but I couldn't figure out how to turn off.  It is actually driving me crazy (not that it takes much)







Langkawi





The top photo is from lookout at the top of the cable car ride in Langkawi.  The views are incredible and the karst outcroppings are spectacular.


Sun set on the beach we stayed at in Langkawi.


The old man a the top of cable car ride in Langkawi.

 Maureen on the beach at Langkawi.  It is nice.  The water is ok for swimming.  You just have to watch out for the jelly fish.
The next two photos are from the cable car itself.  It is quite the ride up.  The vertical seems about twice that of Grouse Mountain.  If you look really carefully at the mountain behind Maureen on the beach you can see the cable car platforms.




Sunset on the beach at Langkawi.  This is right out in front of our hotel.


Bali
The following pictures were all taken on our trip in Bali.


Maureen came running back from the washroom for the camera.  Everything in Bali is presented so nicely.  This was the view from the toilet seat in a restaurant.


 We watched these girls play a game with their shoes.  They were so happy playing with nothing.


The following shots were all take on the bike ride down from the volcano.



This shows some of the hazards you have to watch out for on your ride.  The Balinese, as well as everyone else in South East Asia, pack every thing on their scooters.
Below is a picture of the gang.  We were all Canadians, us, another teacher from MKIS with her daughter and friend, as well as couple of nurses from Ontario who were working in Australia.


After the bike ride the spa was in order.  Alana is here in a flower bath taken after a full body massage.


Cole in the market.  Maureen has bought a few baskets from this guy.  The photo of the baskets that come later were taken at his stall, which is the market in Ubud.

Cole in the monkey forest in Ubud.  He had a banana in his pocket (really Mae West) and the monkey would take it from him

 Walking in the rice fields, while taking a break from the bike ride.

Cole with a rice field worker.  He really wanted his photo taken with Cole for some reason.  Probably because of the 'stach'.

One of the stops on bike tour is a family compound.  We found the children having fun playing in the yard.

This a view of the walkway at our hotel in Ubud in the early evening.  It is very beautiful.

Cole and Alana in the market above.  The aforesaid baskets at Ubud market.

At the Lake Batur temple on the way to Lovina Beach.

We stopped at the top of the climb up the mountain on the way to Lovina. For $2 Cole got to have his picture taken with a giant bat, a big snake, and a lizard, much to his mother's disgust.

At the hotel in Lovina Beach, the north part of Bali.

The hotel pool.  All to ourselves.

We resisted going out to see the dolphins until the last day.  Every second male asks to take you out to see the dolphins in the morning.  They come to feed in the shallow waters off Lovina Beach.  It is a bit of a gong show.  They take you out in these little narrow boats with out riggers.  The four of us plus the captain filled the little boat.  You are about 700 meters off shore with about 60 others filled with tourists waiting for the dolphins to appear.  When they do all of the boats chase them down to get a closer look.  Our captain seemed to have a better knack thank goodness.  He would predict where they would surface next and then take us out to wait for them quietly.  In many cases he was right and we did get some nice close up views of them surfacing.
The top photo is of some fishermen heading in from their early morning fishing trip.  The bottom is one of the dolphins surfacing.

Sri Lanka

The Blue Lotus is the national flower of Sri Lanka. It's beauty and uniqueness reflect the qualities of the country it represents. Sri Lanka is a country of stunning beauty. It is lush with enchanting beaches, mountains, and people. We spent 2 short days there, recognizing that we will be back for a longer and closer look.
The flight from KL to Columbo is 3 hours. We arrived in Sri Lanka at 7:15am on Friday. Hikkaduwa, our destination, was about 120km south of the airport. In my travel plans that distance would take about 2 hours and I estimated we'd arrive at our hotel by 10:00am. I forgot to take into account we were travelling in a third world country. We arrived dusty and weary about noon. We spent our first day at the beach soaking up the sun, the r and r, and the beauty.

The next day we hired a tuk-tuk driver, Anura, to show us around a bit. We went to Galle to see the largest European fort established in Asia. It is a world heritage site and sits right on the southern tip of Sri Lanka. It was established long before the Europeans came though and was a major trading center for the Chinese, Arabs, Malays, and Indians. The Portugese, Dutch, and English all realized the importance of the fort as center for the spice trade and took turns ruling until the British were finally kicked out in 1947. It was then that the island replaced its colonial name, Ceylon, with Sri Lanka.
After a good look around the old fort and parts of the city we checked out some gem shops. Sri Lanka is renown for gems and so we looked through piles of sapphires, agates, and other precious and semi-precious stones. Weary from this we headed to another beach a little south of Galle for a swim and lunch. The beach at Unawatuna is a little smaller than Hikkaduwa but better for swimming. We spent a couple hours hanging out both on the beach and in the water.
After the beach we tootled on a little bit farther to visit a tea plantation. It was a small operation but specialized in white tea, which is a delicacy. We were the only visitors and we were treated like royalty tasting tea in an old colonial home on the hill overlooking the plantation. We got to see the whole operation. It was a mixed farming affair with a few mango and papaya, as well as rubber trees mixed in among the tea bushes. The machinery they used to dry and crush the leaves was ancient, dating back to the mid 1800's.

It was nice to get to know our driver, Anura. Like most of the folks along the coast he had a sad story to tell about the tsunami. He lost his home and meager possessions when it hit in 2004. Pretty well all the local fishermen and villagers who lost their homes were forced to relocate in land after the tsunami hit. They were told it was too dangerous to go back and it was a condition for aid. It didn't take long however after the locals left for the multinational hotel chains to scoop up the best beaches, after they were cleaned up with aid $$, for development at bargain prices.



This ox and cart was on the streets of Galle. I think this fellow must have delivered those sacks of cement you see in the background. He was rather ripped.


Picking tea at the White Tea Plantation. Apparently the first time a human actually touches white tea has is with the lips when drank. The Chinese emperors had their pickers use gold scissors to harvest. I don't think they had those here. We sampled some and it tasted delicious, smooth but we didn't want to sell our house to buy some. Apparently they get regular orders from Middle Eastern royal families.


The fishermen here are tidying up their nets after a day on the sea. When we watched the sunset and sat on the beach in the evening we could see hundreds of fishing boats out on the ocean. It is called the highway to India as they stretch from the south of Sri Lanka to the Indian coast. Many of these fellows went out in wooden catamarans with one pontoon.

A women selling her mangos on the side of road.

The streets of Galle were full of market scenes like this. Lots of produce and fresh produce for sale.

This snake had Maureen excited. It was scurrying through the newly planted rice field. It was about 4 ft. long. According to Anura it was a harmless one.

Vietnam

Almost two months have gone by since the last post. Hmm... time is slippin' away.
Shirley and Maureen returned in the wee hours from Hong Kong on October 5th. Things have been pretty hectic since then. The highlight of our time (except for the company, of course) was the trip to Vietnam.
We had a week long school break in October. We flew to Ho Chi Minh City(Saigon) right after school ended on Friday October 9. It is an incredible place. The city has a flow and buzz to it that never stops. It is a city of 7 million residents and 10 million motorcycles. The roar and flow of the bikes is the first thing we noticed coming into the city but everything is a feast for the senses. There is a unique mix of new and old, poor and affluent. There are modern highrise buildings and butchers cutting up meat on the street in front of them. Old ladies, like the one above, in traditional hats and baskets full of goods for the markets with chic ladies in BMW's roaring by.
We spent our first three days just exploring and looking around. We visited many of the war museums and got the 'other side's' view on things. A highlight was a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels. The Viet Cong had built an elaborate set of tunnels to provide communications and supplies to the resistance. They were incredibly small and deviously constructed with traps for the enemies and escape routes for themselves. They did demonstrate the tenacity and craftiness of the Vietnamese. The farm boys from the Midwest and the poor boys from the projects did not stand a sniff of a chance against them.





After a couple days in city we flew to a much quieter location, Hoi An. Hoi An is an old trading town smack in the middle of Vietnam. Most of the buildings date from between the 15th and 18th century. It is most famous presently for its abundance of tailors plying their trade for tourists. There are about 150 tailor shops in town who can whip up pretty well anything you want from any fabric you desire for next to nothing. We arrived about 10 days after the typhoon had ravaged the area. The famous Japanese bridge in town, for example, was completely underwater after the typhoon. We did do our part to help out with the recovery by employing a few tailor shops. I came back with a suit and numerous shirts and pants, all custom fit and made. You can only imagine what Maureen and Shirley did. We did manage a couple excursions while we were in Hoi An. We went on a cycling/fishing trip. We got to see both farmland and fishing villages with this. We also took part on a motorcycle trip in the countryside. The story behind this adventure is much too long for the blog though.
The next two photos show a couple market scenes from Hoi An.


This photo was taken at the temple on top of Marble Mountain in Danang.


We returned to KL on Sunday, October 18th. Maureen and I were busy with work while Shirley toured around Malaysia a bit visiting Cameron Highlands, a hill station/tea plantation in the middle of the country and Malacca. Maureen took off at the end of the week to go on a build with Habitat for Humanity in Kuching on Borneo. This was a trip she thoroughly enjoyed both the experience of building and the Kuching and region. Shirley left on Monday, the 26th. A couple days after that Guy and Pam Woods arrived for a visit. We got to tour them around a bit but they were independent for the most heading off to Bali and around Malaysia while we worked on report cards and kept busy with coaching and other work commitments. It was nice to connect and see them and provide some tips for travel around the area.

Our next break is this coming weekend. We took advantage of yet another Air Asia sale and have booked to go to Sri Lanka for the three days. We've found a nice place to chill out in Hikkaduwa.
We are really looking forward to Christmas when both Cole and Alana join us. We are off to Bali with them to spend part of the Christmas vacation and can hardly wait.



An international squad from Switzerland, Singapore, India, Peru, Malaysia, the US and Canada.

My girls' soccer season wrapped up last week-end with a tournament. We play 7 a side which makes for a bit of a change from the regular game. Maureen's basketball season will start up shortly after the Christmas break.

Thoughts about Padang

We were in Padang one week before the earthquake hit. My thoughts keep returning to the sights and memories our experiences which seem so different from the images plastered on the television. In my last entry I did mention that Padang had a real 3rd world edge to it. A little dirty and run down, garbage all over. One night as we walked from the restaurant where we dined to our hotel we caught a cat and rat duking it out over some trash. The rat was literally as big as the cat.
The landscape and the people though were beautiful. I've provided a link to a little BBC news clip in which the reporter discusses the search efforts on the Ambacang Hotel, the place where we stayed while in Padang. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8286833.stm) I can't help but wonder what happened to the people we met who worked at the hotel. All of them were so friendly and helpful. I wonder what happened to the cute little desk clerk who had just finished studying English at university. She wore beautiful traditional clothes that Maureen really liked and desperately tried to find while we were there. Her dream was to save up a enough money to travel to other countries, something that she didn't know if she would ever be able to do. I wonder what happened to bell boy that bent over backwards to help us with anything we needed. He was a bit of an oddity in Indonesia. At 6ft 3in he was a giant in a land where even I am taller than most people. I wonder what happened to all the staff, the cleaners, food service, doormen..... The hotel offered swim lessons in their pool for some of the local children. The lessons were happening Wednesday afternoon when the quake struck. I've included a few pictures of happier times in Padang.


This picture was from our room in the Ambacang Hotel. I had to take it. Seeing the KFC bucket in the foreground and the tradtional Minangkabau buildings in the background typified the dilemna faced by developing countries. How do they maintain their own culture with the pressures of the western multi-national corporations? The KFC was located in the side of the hotel and was always packed. I can only imagine that it was full when the quake struck. Looking over the building you can see the Indian Ocean in the background.




The main market in Padang. Everyone was in a celebratory mood when we were there during Hari Raya.

We had a snack on the second floor of a little restaurant and watched the sun set into the Indian Ocean. The setting was gorgeous. Across the street and on the edge of the ocean little stands like the ones you see here sold local food.

The people of the area were so relaxed and happy. They love music and it seems every young man plays a guitar. Like most people in third world countries they have much less but seem to be very content. Living on the 'ring of fire' perhaps gives them a special way of looking at the world and enjoying each day.


We drove to a little bay on the out skirts of Padang. This was a view looking at Padang through it's harbour. The main part of town is hidden by the rise on the left.This is a view down the food stalls that line the ocean. Unfortunately the beach area in front of these was usually full of plastic and other trash.


The streets and market were full on the eve of Hari Raya. The oplets (the vans here) were jammed packed full of people heading home with their last minute purchases at the market.
I have seen a more recent photo of this area and all the buildings were destroyed.



Deepavali--
We have one more week of school and then a week off for a fall break. It ends with the Indian celebration of Deepavali. Below are photos of some of the Indian mothers in the school creating these beautiful rice decorations on the floor outside the elementary school entrance.
It really is rather nice to celebrate and learn about all these cultural celebrations from other countries. I had Chinese children bring moon cakes to school for the Moon Festival on Saturday. A Korean mom brought me some glass noodle dish on Friday in honour of Korean thanksgiving (the name of which it forget now).
Maureen is in Hong Kong picking up Shirley Neil this weekend. From the text messages I'm getting it sounds like are having a blast. I went to the Malaysian Open tennis tournament last night and got to see the semi-finals where Gonzales played Verdasco. It was an incredible match.
Next weekend we are off to Vietnam for 10 days or so. We had planned to visit Hoi An and Hue in the central part but they are still mopping up from all the flooding that occurred from the typhoon so we may have to do some adjusting. I guess I'll report in my next post.

West Sumatra

The cries of ‘buleh, buleh’ followed us wherever we went in both Padang and Bukittinggi in West Sumatra. Literally it means blue eyes but it's a term the Indonesians use for all foreigners. The kids all seemed to look carefully at your eyes to see if they really were blue, though. The people of West Sumatra were very friendly and very happy we were visiting their area. They don’t really get a lot of tourists other than aging, rich surf bums (all males from what we could see) passing through to catch the monster waves of Menawati Islands.
We were visiting during Hari Raya, which signals the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting. This was probably not the best time to pick to travel in the most populous of all Muslim countries. Everyone, it seemed, was on the road heading off to visit friends and family or heading off on some vacation. The highways were very crowded and trips that should have taken us 2 hours took 4 and many restaurants and shops were closed up for the holiday. The flip side of this was that we got to see how the holiday was celebrated. On Sunday morning, the first day of Hari Raya Puasa, we watched throngs of people streaming out of the mosques as we headed from Padang to Bukittinggi. Everyone was beaming because the fast was finally over and proudly wearing the new clothes that everyone buys for the celebration. The women were all wearing the traditional headwear with long flowing dresses and the men were in their sarongs, batik shirts, fez type hats.
We arrived in Padang early on Saturday and planned a snorkeling trip with Losman Carlos. This turned out to be a bust as the boat were heading off on broke down after we barely got out of the bay. We did manage to watch the village fishermen haul in their nets and saw some beautiful scenery on the way to the beach. The island of Sumatra has a string of volcanoes(most of them active) running down it’s spine with rice field and rainforests spilling out into the ocean. All in all it is very stunning. After our misadventure on the ocean we headed back to Padang. Padang is the capital of West Sumatra and has a bit of an edge to it. Things are rather dilapidated and garbage abounds. It is right on the Indian Ocean but our walk to the beach was rather disappointing as the ocean is treated by the locals rather like a landfill site. Being the day before Hari Raya it was very busy. The holiday is much like Christmas is for us and everyone was shopping for new clothes to wear or for gifts for the children. It was a feast for the senses and we walked through crowds taking in the sights, sounds, and smells. They have these most amazing ’pimped’ up Suzuki vans called oplets which work as private buses. You can stop one at any point on the street and ask to go to your destination for very cheap. This is great but they usually pick up a dozen or more people on the way and they were all jam packed. Everyone honks their horns in Indonesia and so the streets are full of the sound of blaring horns.
Padang is known for its spicy food. We found a great seafood restaurant to eat at. When they take your order they bring out a tray full of fish, live crabs, prawns, and octopus. You pick the one you want and the style you would like to have it cooked. We grabbed a red snapper and had it grilled with coconut sauce. Delicious!! Everything has a kick to it in Padang and so we had to cool things off with a couple bottles of Bintang.
We hired a car and driver to take us to Bukittinggi the following morning. Self-drive is not really recommended in Indonesia and it is easy to see why once you are on the road. Everything is optional; using lanes, stopping at red lights, and other rules of the road we follow at home are considered only suggestions here. It would be rather nerve-racking to try this on your own. Attempting to navigate the road system and find your way from point A to point B would drive most folks to suicide. Hiring a really nice car and driver for the day comes to a grand total of about $40 and so is a much more sane option.
The drive to Bukittinggi was beautiful. Being in the mountains it was much cooler here. We spent the day exploring the town with a little side trip to a small village of silversmiths. The main square in Bukittinggi was packed with the holiday crowd. The Dutch were the colonial masters of Indonesia and many of the building around the town reflected a Dutch style with shuttered windows and bright colored paint. The square boasts a Dutch clock. We walked to the zoo for a quick visit but it was a rather sad affair with animals caged in very confined areas. We found that we became an attraction as popular as the animals as people kept asking us to have their picture taken with their families. (Buleh, buleh) We also had a tour through the Japanese caves. The Japanese built an elaborate system of caves here (I should say made the Indonesians build). No one is really sure of the purpose but they did this all over lands they occupied in South-East Asia during the Second World War. The Japanese still are not too popular with the Indonesians as a result. When we asked directions to the caves they would draw their fingers across their throats in bayonet fashion and then spit on the ground. The Japanese killed all the labourers who built the caves after they were completed so the ‘secret of the caves’ would not get out.

The architecture in West Sumatra is quite incredible. The traditional homes were built with roofs that were to represent the horns of the water buffalo. Many of the government buildings in Padang were built in that style but in Bukittinggi many homes and other buildings also used this design. The people of the area are Minangkabau and have a strong cultural heritage. The clans are matriarchic which seems to go against what most Muslims practice but they have blended the two heritages quite well.
On Monday we hired another driver and went to Lake Minanjau. The lake is a crater lake. Descending to it was spectacular. There are 44 hairpin curves to navigate and the roads are really narrow. According to our driver there usually are no other cars on the road but during Hari Raya it was packed. At the lake we hired bikes and pedaled off on a very quiet road. Winding through small villages and rice fields was very peaceful. We only wished that we were able to spend more time there. We did have a nice lunch on the shore of the lake. The owner of the restaurant is also a guide. He heads up wild boar hunts in the jungle. I just added that to my ‘bucket list’. Hunting wild boar in the jungles of West Sumatra seems like an adventure that can’t be passed by. We went back to Padang that evening in order to catch our flight back to KL the next morning.
We have a three day work week this week and we both wish they were all like this. We’re off to a Black-Eyed Peas concert on Friday(who the heck are they anyway?), we have a dodge ball tournament on Saturday, and a tennis match with folks from the Canadian Association of Malaysia on Sunday. Next week Maureen is off to Terrangannu with the Grade 9 students for their Malaysian Studies trip. On Friday of next week she will also head to Hong Kong to meet Shirley Neil. Shirley is coming to join us for October and on our 10 day trip to Vietnam over the fall break. Never a dull moment.

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is in northern Thailand. Maureen and I took our 'personal' day off of school on August 21st and headed there with Maureen's sister and Len. We stayed the weekend while they lingered on for a bit more before heading down to Bangkok for a visit there.
Chiang Mai is an ancient town and regional headquarters. The central city is surrounded by a moat and there still are remnants of the walls around the city and grand gates to enter it by. Most people go to Chiang Mai for a short visit to the city and then to head off into the country-side to trek or have some adventures with elephants and other such things. We spent the weekend exploring the city and some of the hundreds of wats or Buddhist temples in the city. The grandest wat of all, Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, is situated on a hillside some 15 kilometers out of the city. Legend has it that around 1300 the builders sent an elephant off with a Buddha strapped on it's back and chose the site when the elephant stopped at this point and died. The site apparently does offer some wonderful views of the city and countryside. Unfortunately the weather was rather socked in for our visit and we couldn't see to much. The temple though was amazing and we spent a long time exploring and viewing.
Another highlight of Chiang Mai is it's markets. They have a night market that sells many local hill tribe crafts as well as thousands of other trinkets that can be found all over South-East Asia (I think we have one of each of them by now). Shopping and the food were both great. We stuck to Thai food although the first night we ate in a British pub style place. Most of the tourists around us were gobbling down french fries but that seemed sacrilegious to us. The food where ever we ate was incredible.
We left Jan and Len in Chiang Mai and headed back to KL to work. They continued to have great adventures both there and in Bangkok. After there return to KL and pretty well one month after there arrival they returned to Vancouver. The time certainly flew by quickly and it is hard to believe that one month of work has also gone by. 9 more to go in this school year.
We are back into our schedules here. I have started coaching soccer this week. We still manage to get out to play some tennis a couple times a week. Maureen starts her coaching later on in the year but will be heading off with a group of students on a Habitat for Humanity project to Borneo for a week. In the mean time she keeps the social schedule busy. We're off to some grand opening of some club downtown on Thursday with folks way younger than us and Saturday, I think she has us lined up for two events. Somethings never change.

Kids dressed up in traditional costumes at the entrance to wats. Helping with the family income.



Umbrella maker we saw at factory we visited. How could you not buy one?

Monks in prayer and meditation.