Life's a Beach

We are staying in Koh Lanta one of the Islands of Thailand ... Rosie recommended it. This island is beautiful and relaxing as we imagine most of them are. We have not been to Bali, which looks pretty nice in Dean & Carly's photos, we have been to Hawaii, we like Thailand as a romantic destination. We originally thought that we would do a bit of island hopping, but we arrived here and have stayed. We don't have the energy to shift and we like it here. We have been staying in a great hotel, we had a big room, air con, great wifi, warm water and we are right over the road from the beach. We are spending our last 4 nights on Koh Lanta at a resort which Pete managed to get for half price. A nice way to end our time here. It is on a part of the beach which we both like and there are lots of families ... we really enjoy watching the little children playing in the sand and the ocean. The ocean is great but without sounding pretentious ... I think the Mediterranean is my favourite swimming ocean of all.

We don't do much with our days. Wake up, get up when we feel like it, there is no hurry, eat breakfast, go for a ride on our scooter to a beach, swim, sunbathe, maybe buy a fruit shake or fruit juice, come back to our hotel room to rest and change and then go out for dinner. It is very exhausting work sunbathing and swimming day after day. We found a really good massage stand on the beach and they are doing wonderful things for Pete's sore shoulder, which has been causing him some discomfort at times. I make the odd visit to a yoga class or do some in our room. I guess this is what a holiday is like. Doing nothing but what we want, everyday, we can't remember ever having a holiday like this. It has taken a bit of adjustment, but we are getting used to it.

I think we have really needed this break ... doing nothing. Travelling is exciting and interesting but also very tiring. Having this time in Thailand to do nothing has been very relaxing for us. We have been able to talk about what next when we get back to Christchurch, which is getting closer. We've discussed what we would like to do with this next part of our lives and think about some goals for our future and for 2015. I am pretty clear about what I want to do. Pete is not so sure and feels pretty burnt out from his time at Canterbury and would like to approach his work differently. Its been a great opportunity for us to reflect. Thailand has been a really good place for us do that, no pressure, slowly, slowly as our guide GS would say.

Anyway here are some photos ... This is what a romantic holiday looks like. 

The King of Thailand. He is loved by the people and it is a criminal offence to say anything bad about him, I think I may have mentioned that in my previous post. Apparently Thailand is under Martial Law as the result of a Military Coup last year. Which might be one of the reasons why the tourist trade is slow here this year. Whenever we talk to a westerner who lives in Thailand they mention the political corruption here ... we have not noticed it, but we are tourists.  

We took a scooter ride to Old Lanta town on the East side of the island and had breakfast. There are always yummy fruit platters to start your day. The West side is better for swimming and has beautiful sunsets with wonderful light. This is the side of the island we are staying on.

Morning yoga at the beach. How can yoga not be relaxing and therapeutic when looking out to the ocean to start your day. Location, location, location is everything.

Gasoline for scooters is bought by the bottle. There is the odd petrol pump on the island for cars, but scooters usually buy from street vendors like this one. I thought these were bottles of homemade spirits being sold on the side of the road for a while.

This photo cost us $B10 ... there are roasted silk worms, beetles, praying mantis, some of the bugs I could identify. It would have taken someone paying me more than $B10 to even try one of these. Apparently they are a delicacy. I am not sure I would buy anything from this lady ... she was not very friendly. 

A piece of family nostalgia ... I do have to mention that our VW Kombi never looked as good as this one!

Peak Cafe is right across from our hotel ... a western fix for us tourists. They make yummy sandwiches and great homemade muffins and cookies. It is run by 2 sisters, they do yummy breakfasts as well. We have made ourselves known here. Pete buys a muffin from them nearly every day. We went in for a sandwich for dinner the other night and one of the sisters said she had just taken muffins out of the oven and they were cooling down, waiting for him to purchase.

They also make quite a nice hot chocolate ...

Good to know danger is restricted ... I can approach the cliff edge with confidence.

Taken at Koh Lanta National Park ... the bottom of the island. Imagine day after day after day of sunny hot weather ... 

The remains of tourists ... they recycle all their plastic bottles and cans. 

I like Bamboo Bay, but it is not a good swimming beach. We made a couple of visits here, swam and ate and then went back to our hotel for the evening. I thought lucy might like this photo, she likes Thai food, do you recognise the salad? We have a choice of restaurants on the beach every night. 

Sanctuary Bay ... this is a really nice beach. I attended a couple of yoga classes here and we had a meal, which was not that nice. This is one of the nicest bays on the island I think. These resorts are so romantic.

  

We did 4 Island tour in a long boat. We did some snorkelling, swimming, visiting  Emerald Cave and then home again. Can you see a pattern here. 

Pete was fascinated with these longboats and their engines, a diesel turbo. Anyone who knows Pete well will know how much he loves cars and is always interested in their engines, speed, how they handle on the road etc. When I met Pete I didn't really pay much attention to cars at all, of course his influence has rubbed off on me and my experience of cars and driving has completely changed in the last 35 years.

Bat rock ... I am not sure if you can make them out, but there were at least 100 of them hanging of this rock face. I found this really freaky ... I have never seen a bat before and I was surprised to see them hanging of the side of a rock in the middle of the day. 

We stopped of at  Emerald Cave as part of our tour ... there were 2 boats full of Muslim school girls, about 600 of them, they were fully clothed, with their head scarves, wearing life jackets clinging on to the ropes you can see, working their way into the Emerald Cave. 

Emerald Cave ... we had to swim through the cave and came out onto a beautiful small beach which looked like a scene from Jurassic Park. I thought of Cave Stream when we were swimming through the cave in the dark, with life jackets on ... good memories.  

Thai long boats ... we stopped here for a swim, sunbathe and drink. As you can see by the colour of the ocean this is high tide, I love the contrast of colour in the ocean.

Our hotel room ... one of the best rooms we have stayed in since we have been travelling and it costs us $NZ40 a night.

Sunset on Long Beach ... every time I see colours like this I think Monet. We never get tired of going down to the beach and watching the sunset, the light is amazing.

Night, night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite.

A Rob moment. He did a great bonfire. 

This is what happens when Pete has nothing to do ... he gets on Trade Me and finds a car for us to buy ... a Peugeot 206 GTI. He even rang up about it and then asked Gail to go and test drive it which she did with Kieran. We didn't buy it, thank goodness.

Then he found this very cool turntable that is made in Wellington. He rang up about this as well. Something for us to look forward to buying when we return to NZ.

We took Alice's advice and booked our last 4 nights on Koh Lanta at Thai House Resort which is right on the beach ... this is our chalet.

The view from our room deck ... what is not to like here in Thailand.

On Wednesday we fly out to Cambodia, starting with a 5 day yoga and meditation retreat. 

No 2 Son ... Happy Birthday Mackenzie

Mack's Graduation in Dunedin

Mack was born on January 12, 1987 @ 131 Somerfield Street, he was our first home birth. I had wanted to have Mike and lucy at home but Pete was reluctant, when I got pregnant with Mack he changed his mind. We had an amazing experience with the home birth community, we met some fascinating people and had a wonderful midwife, Maria. Being a midwife in 1987 was an occupation of love, they got paid very, very little and we needed to have a GP at his birth. By the time Alice was born the whole midwife and home birth movement had changed, their pay went up dramatically, possibly 300-400% and they no longer needed a GP at births. 

Mack was born about 8am, Mike, lucy, Pete, Marg, our midwife Maria and a GP present. I had a short labour, I remember it being about 3 hours from start to stop. Mack was born quickly and easily. It was a wonderful experience and we were thrilled to welcome Mack into our family. He had a headful of dark hair that stood up and has done so ever since ... there is little that can be done with Mack's hair but to keep it short. Some people were concerned about Mike and lucy being present at his birth, concerned they would be traumatised by the experience, they weren't. I remember Mike looking at Mack not long after he was born and saying, " I would never do anything to hurt him Mummy." That lasted a little while.

I think I got into my stride as a Mother when Mack came along. I had had the experience of Mike and lucy. Poor Mike spent the first few weeks of his life starving because I didn't feed him properly, thank goodness for Plunket who helped to rectify the situation. I was worried about lucy being brain damaged because she slept so much and made very little noise. I would often hover over her cot checking to make sure she was breathing. We found Mack an easy and delightful baby. He was always happy, he sucked his thumb, a great way to self soothe and he was adored by his family and older siblings. He was a wonderful baby and little boy, we got so much pleasure from him and his first few years were idyllic. 

He was a very active child and  highly accident prone, a broken leg at about 2, a smashed cookie jar on his head, being hit between his eyes with a golf club, just some of his injuries before he turned 5. He loved to smash things, play a lot  and he was always dirty. Sitting still was very, very physically hard for Mack. If he was born now he would have been diagnosed as ADD or ADHD, I just thought he was a wriggler. We learnt over time that the more he wriggled and fidgeted the more he was listening. He had a bad temper ... I made him green shorts and sweatshirt when he was about 3 years old and we have vivid memories of him in this outfit with a bright red angry face. He looked like a cute green leprechaun. 

Mack had a great new entrant teacher at Somerfield Primary school. I remember a parent/teacher interview with her, she said Mack had a different style of learning from everyone else and he may take longer to learn things, but when he arrives at that point he will have learnt a lot more along the way. She was right. Mack had some reading problems at school so we decided to get him into sport, which he excelled at ... swimming, rugby, rock climbing (he was very gifted), cricket, underwater hockey (not a good spectator sport), basketball and mountain biking, to mention a few. To round his education we enrolled him in guitar lessons for a while ... it didn't really work.

Mack loves sport, he loves rugby, he is a BK man to the bone, he loves his Sunday roast and could eat a whole tray of roast potatoes, there have been many tense moments around Sunday roast when Mack was unsure there would be enough potatoes. He loves my chocolate chip cookies and chocolate self saucing pudding that he now makes himself. He is loyal to his friends and to his family. What you see is what you get with Mack ... we really like that about him. He is honest, he was a dreadful liar as a teenager. He is a hard worker, reliable and responsible. Mack is a very spiritual and faithful man. What he loves most in his life is Ite and Elizabeth. We have loved watching the gentle side of Mack come out more and more through his relationship with them. He is a very attentive and supportive husband and an adoring Father. Mack is a people person and easily makes conversation with people and has done so since he was a little boy. He is handsome and he is the tallest in our family of short men and does not have sticky out ears. We always feel like Mack has our back.

He loves cars and there have been many competitive moments between the men in our family around cars, their make and how fast they can go. Cars have been one of the ways of bonding for the men in our family. Mack owned a Toyota Corolla FXGT that he was very proud of. Pete gave him the modified engine out of his Lotus to put into his FXGT. I have vivid memories and photos of Pete, Mack and Allan Prouting doing the very delicate operation of transplanting the engine from one car to the other.

Mack is the kind of man you want when you are in a dark alley. I remember an incident a few years ago ... Mack was about 17. There were a group of teenage boys playing basketball behind our house at 29a and they were hassling us from over the fence. Pete decided to go over and try to reason with them to tone it down. We watched Pete go over and the next thing he was surrounded and these young louts were throwing basketballs at him. Mack was standing at the kitchen sink, just out of the shower and all I heard was 'right!' and of he went to get dressed and he and lucy stormed over together to rescue Pete. Mack really bore down on these guys and they got scared and ran off. I was so impressed with how quickly he and lucy went to the aid of Pete and how Mack was able to deal to them. He said very loudly ... "I know who you are. You had better watch your back" and that was enough to stop them misbehaving. I think Mack learnt how not to be intimidated from playing basketball where he was the only white boy in the team ... I used to love teasing him and would say, "but Mack, white men can't jump."

Mack served a great mission in the Singapore Mission which he financed by working night shift at the freezing works. After his mission he went down to Otago University where he got his undergraduate and post graduate qualifications in high performance sport, an area that he loves. Mack's university qualifications have been a huge achievement and a real indicator of his intellect, discipline and perseverance. He has had leadership positions at church throughout his time in Dunedin and has always done his best to fulfil his callings. This is where he met Ite the love of his life.

Mack was a wonderful boy and has grown into a fine man. He is gifted in the areas of sports performance and development and has a great career ahead of him. He is a wonderful husband and father and a man of complete integrity and authenticity. Mack has great discernment and we value his opinion and judgement. He is completely honourable and trustworthy and always puts his best effort into whatever he does. Mack has grown into a man of great character and we think that Grandma Marg would say that he is a "fine man" which was the highest praise that she would give.  

My four most favourite men in the whole wide world.

Mack, Ite and Elizabeth. Ite captured Mack's heart. I can't imagine him with anyone else. They are such a good match in every way.

Mack's little Princess ... we love this photo of Mack and Elizabeth. Ite and Elizabeth had been away for a few days and this is what Elizabeth did as soon as she saw Mack on their return home. These two are best friends.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MACK ... We have had a wonderful 28 years with you, we love you and are incredibly proud of all that you have accomplished in your life.

Thailand a Western Fix

Old Phuket Town 

We are on the island of Phuket ... it is hot, hot, hot we are not complaining though. The last time we were in Thailand was in the early '90s and only to Bangkok. Arriving here has been a bit of a culture shock for us. We have been travelling through third world countries now for nearly 4 months. When we arrived here we were really surprised at how Western it is, how quiet the streets are, how few people there are, no tooting cars and how clean and green everything is. We have seen a couple of rather large rats, they looked a lot healthier than any rat we saw in India. There are only cars on the roads and the dogs seem to be looked after. Whenever a taxi driver calls out to us asking if we need a ride I go tense getting ready to be hassled. I guess India was tougher than we realised.

Every country and culture is so unique and interesting, their food, their landscapes and their lifestyles. We generally find that we take a few days to get used to a new country and currency. The Thai people seem to be easy, like the Nepalese. We are not hassled by vendors and if we are approached and we say no we are left alone. Which is a relief. I have found it quite restful here. I remember meeting a young man on the Annapurna who had spent about 4 months in India and he mentioned how stressful India is. I did not realise it while we were there but now we are in Thailand I get what he means.

I thought I would post a few photos of our first few days in Thailand ... we are of island hopping and I am not sure how accessible we will be to internet/wireless. 

This is what we left behind in Delhi ... the fog was really, really thick and Pete was convinced that our plane was not going to leave on time. It left about 30 minutes late.

We spent quite a bit of time wandering the streets of Old Phuket. We loved it. It is being done up as a tourist spot and is very trendy. There are some beautiful old buildings in this part that were built by, or influenced by the Portuguese. I love the colours and design of this lampshade.

We did the tourist thing and rented a scooter for a day and had a great time riding round parts of Phuket Island. Like a lot of Asian countries there are heaps of scooters on the road. Those of you who have visited this part of the world will be familiar with scooters lined up in large numbers at the lights waiting for them to change and then they charge of altogether, well that was us! The roads were particularly quiet because of New Years holiday. 

We found this little beauty parked on the side of the road. We are a VW family. We had a VW Kombi when our children were in their teens. I loved it. The side door would come off regularly and it was freezing cold in the winter. I remember lucy saying one winters day as we were driving in our very cool Kombi, 'I don't know of any other family that needs to wear a hat and gloves inside their car!' Anyone who has owned a VW will know that their weak point is their heaters ... but there is so much coolness about them to make up for the loss of heat. My Grandad owned an orange VW beetle with a small back window, when I was a young girl. I remember sitting in the gap behind the back seat, under the small window and would love to look at the stars at night. We have seen very late model cars here that are very well looked after. It would appear that fast cars and bikes are popular. While wandering round Patong we saw a late model Nissan March with false eyelashes over the front lights.

A sample of some of the old buildings in Old Phuket Town.

Still Old Phuket town ... looks like Count Dracula's residence.

Pancake stand ... these are cooked over hot coals. They are yummy! They do all sorts of fillings, we tried Nutella and banana.

This gangster van was turning in front of us and we thought this could be a good replacement van for Tom & Jonelle ... what do you think?

The back of the museum in Old Phuket ... I love the way the doors open up to the interior of the house.

We rode up here to see the Giant Buddha along with every other tourist in Phuket. This is for you Mack.

lucy loves Pad Thai and this was a particularly good one with a watermelon slushy on the side.

We caught an air conditioned bus to Patong for a couple of nights ... air conditioning are the fans on the ceiling of the bus. 

Mike said we would be sending boxes of the things we have bought back home. Here is another box of things we posted to Jakarta, to Pita and Tasi's.

lucy and Mike told us to get smoothies from a street vendor. Here is mango ... I like watermelon better.

While walking along a lane we came across this ... naughty is nice! Thailand is known for its sex industry and here in Patong it is really obvious. We have seen a lot of women who look like men and men dressed as women. There seem to be a lot of older western men with young Thai women walking the streets of Patong.

Have you ever ... not sure if this is a bar or a hotel or both?

Pete has broken his vegetarian fast ... BK got the better of him!

A few shots of Old Delhi ... Our last Day

I am thinking that some of you will not be interested at all in these photos, but I could not resist taking them and sharing them with you. We had a great last day walking round Old Delhi. I got so excited by the old streets, the people and the busyness of it all. It was packed here! There were many vendors selling ribbon and braid like I have never seen before, puts my haberdashery experience into context. I could not help but think of Cheryl Larson, Chris' Mum, who I am pretty confident would be able to make some thing really beautiful and creative with all of these ribbons and colours. This market is a craft queens dream. I remember seeing ribbon and braid a little like this in Marg's sewing room ... she collected it, I think she would have loved seeing all of this.

There was shop after shop of these ... 

The detail and the glitter is beautiful!

Even boring old gold looks beautiful.

Here they are rolled out in their glory.

So beautiful ... now when ever I see fabrics like this I have a place in my life where they fit. India! Shopping in these small shops is quite different to  shopping in NZ. Firstly you take of your shoes before you enter. There are soft covered mats over the floor and you sit down with the shop attendant who has an assistant show you their wares ... some shops like this one that we went in to would have fabrics all over the floor that people were looking at with the purpose of purchasing. I have never seen anything like the colour of fabrics, ribbons and braid like I have seen in India. 

These are sweets. I love them ... they are delicious and super sweet. I think they are deep fried ... very fatty! 

We are now in the Spice Market of Old Delhi ... the smells are delicious. there are vendors selling all kinds of spices and yummy food. A food lovers delight! 

I love these colours together ... Tumeric and Chilli. Even their food is colourful ... 

We came across a roadside dentist on our walk to Old Delhi ... he was working on someones teeth ... looked like he was extracting something. 

A sculpture of the Bodhi Tree ... tree of enlightenment, outside the art gallery that was closed unfortunately.

I had to put this in ... a cow walking along the walkway by the Ganges River with everyone else feeling right at home and no one is taking any notice. We would often see a cow walking along the road of a city like Delhi, if they got in the way of traffic or people they would be tooted at or pushed and the cow would move out of the way. I found these sights funny and so out of place ... cattle living side by side with humans ... literally.

Happy New Year to all our family and friends ... where ever you are, who ever you are with and what ever you are doing, we are thinking of you. Have a wonderful and exciting 2015.