Angkor Hot!

Today we went to Angkor Wat which was amasing. The heat and humidity was almost too much to bear though. As you can imagine there were acouple of pictures taken. Once we get back to Kevin and Lori's we will upload a few of them. Tomorrow we are going back to the ruins of Angkor before we catch our flight back to Vietnam.

Siem Reap is a nice city to wander around in. We spent a few hours doing just that yesterday. The market is about a 5 minute walk from the hotel. For some reason almost everything costs one dollar.

War Museum

Yesterday we spent the afternoon in the war museum.  The museum had some US tanks, planes and helicopters on display.  They also had many pictures of events that happened during the Vietnam war.  It was very interesting as you got a look into how the Veitnamese looked at the war.  Today we are off to Siem Reap in Cambodia to see the ruins of Angkor.

Pictures

I have uploaded about 50 pictures to picasa.  Use the "pictures" link on the right hand side to view them.

We spent the day in HCMC wandering around the downtown area with Kevin and Lori.  Travis was happy as he finally was able to get the movies he was looking for.  Kailey and Gabby found some shoes and I picked up some shirts.  The market area was definately neat.  Today we are going to head to the war museum and do some more wandering in the city.

Vietnam

We have arrived in  Vietnam and are happily settled at Kevin and Lori's place.  I will fill in the rest of the Phuket gaps tomorrow when I have more time.

Kayaking

We went Kayaking yesterday in the Adaman Sea. It was amasing to go through a cave and into lagoons that are inside the islands. From the Ocean you would never guess that you are able to kayak through the caves. In the first lagoon we were fortunate to see the monkeys in the trees. The older monkey watched us more then we watched them. We also saw mudd fish in the mangrove trees. We were able to Kayak on our own that did not last long as Travis and Mum kept doing circles. So back on the boat and Travis started to jump off the boat from the top. This boat was not as tall as the one in Australia, but none the less he had fun. Kailey on the other hand was the same only off the back of the boat. We watched the sun set behind the islands which was alright. The sky was pretty but that was about all.

In the evening we made floating flower offerings to Budha. We went into another lagoon in the dark to let them out. Gabby and Kailey got theres back. Were Travis and I lost ours to the shallow waters. On the way back out the kids were able to see the plankton glow at night. They were not sure what the were so Gabby gave them the Sponge Bob version.

After the hour boat ride back and another hour car ride we made it back to the hotel. The Kids are wipped out today and back in the room relaxing. Travis also has a new nickname "Crack" pictures to follow on the weekend when we make it to Kevin and Lori's.

Beach

We have spent the last few days wandering aimlessly around Kata beach in Phuket. It has been overcast and extremely humid. Yesterday morning we had showers for about an hour which really didn't help the humidity situation out.

This morning we headed to the beach as the sun was shining. We lasted about three hours before the sun got the best of us and we had to retreat back to the hotel. The hotel we are at gave us a complimentary 30 minute Thai massage. We all went for our massage in the afternoon which was interesting with the sun we had in the morning.

Yesterday while playing keep away with a volleyball in the hotel pool I managed to get close and personal with one of the statues they have around the outside of the pool. I am not sure if I have broken my hand or just strained it. It doesn't hurt unless I make a fist and it is swollen at the top knuckles.

Tomorrow we are going sea canoeing and then on Wednesday Travis and I are going fishing. Kailey has managed to get everyone's attention at the hotel. They have asked if they can put her into a traditional Thai outfit and take pictures for their website. So while the boys go fishing Kailey is going to get this done.

Phuket

We have arrived in the hot and humid Phuket. The resort that Gabby found is absolutely amasing. It is hard to believe that we are stying in suck a nice place for so little. A number of people we have talked to have recomended a sea canoeing trip here so we will check it out in the next few days.

We had Indian food for dinner and it was one of the best meals I have had in a long time. The options for food seem to be endless here. Hopefully we can get Travis off his rice diet. If he continues on his Asian diet he will be half the size once we get home.

Zip Line

This afternoon we went zip lining about an hour outside of Chaing Mai. All four of us had a blast. We have some good video of all of us sailing from tree to tree that we can show you all once we get home. Our guides made the trip that much more memorable. They were continually playing tricks and pulling ranks while at the same time keeping everything safe. Tomorrow we are off to Phuket early in the morning for some beach time.

Chaing Mai

This morning we had so free time so we decided to wander around Chaing Mai. Gabby and Kailey went and had pedicures done. Then we wandered around to find a place to get our laundry done. We have been looking for Thai street food since we got here but we have had a hard time finding it. Today for lunch we finally found some! I am not exactly sure what we had but was it ever good. Even Travis ate off the carts. We are now waiting for the shuttle to pick us up for our zip line adventure in the jungle.

Elephants

Today we went to the elephant nature park. The shuttle picked us up around 8:00 from the hotel for the 90 minute drive. We stopped at the market to pick up the elephants bananas, watermelon and pumpkin.

At the park we fed the elephants and then we got in the river and bathed them. It was quite fun to interact directly with the giant animals. The kids were very apprehensive at the start but as the day wore on the became more comfortable around the elephants. There were 2 baby elephants there. Watching these baby elephants stumble around was quite amusing.

The neat part about this park is that all of the elephants have been rescued from logging camps, street begging, circuses, smugglers and various other abusive work. The park is also trying to bring awareness to the brutality that a lot of the elephants endure to become tame.

There should be some pictures up of us at the park. Just use the pictures link on the right hand side to see them.

Thailand

After a long flight we arrived in Bangkok without our bags. Luckily our bags arrived on the next flight from Hong Kong. The flight out of Vancouver was delayed by 90 minutes which eliminated our layover in Hong Kong. After another short flight we arived in Chaing Mai in the afternoon.

We checked into the hotel and decided to take a nap as we were all very tired. Our "nap" ended the next morning around 3:30. So after everyone showered and changed it was 5:00 and we decided to take make a trip to the 7/11 as we were all hungry and the restraunt in the hotel didn't open until 6.

We spent the morning visiting the many temples of Chaing Mai. We started out walking between the different temples and then the tuk tuk curiosity got the best of Gabby and we ventured onto our first tuk tuk. At one of them temples we lit candle, incense and laid flowers to bring baby anushka luck.

The day was starting to warm up so we decided that it would be a good time to take a river boat ride. The boat took us 8 km up river to a "farm" house. The farm house had a bunch of different crops native to the area in a little garden area.

Once we arrived back at the temple the boat left from we were shown the "good" shopping areas outside of Chaing Mai. I felt like I was in India all over again. We were taken from one overpriced tourist trap to the next. With some convienent reasons for the tuk tuk driver to stop to get us into another store. Needless to say we didn't buy anything. The kids did get a couple of neat painting done on their shirts.

It has been quite the eventful start to our trip and we arelooking forward to more interesting events.

Asia 2008

Well we are only a few days away from leaving so it is time to start up another blog for our adventures in Asia. We are leaving on Saturday for a month in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. We hope that you enjoy following along as we make our way through Asia.