We celebrated the New Year in Thailand at an old historic mansion, in downtown Chiang Mai. There was an outdoor dinner which was all the fantastic Northern Thai food you could eat for about $7.

The dinner was followed by a series of cultural dances, which our kids copied on the sidelines, to the delight of many other viewers. Bence especially can certainly shake it with the best of them!


After the dinner and show, we went back to their house and did the traditional Thai thing; light lanterns and let them float up to the sky. The kids love this.


Some people even attach fireworks to them so they are trailing fireworks as the float up. There are hundreds going up all night long, quite a sight. If there are hundreds of lanterns, there are thousands of fireworks, and it is quite an amazing sound both near and echoing off in the distance.

We wish all of our friends and family a wonderful 2011; may it be filled with love and laughter!!

One of the crazy things they have for tourists here is the opportunity to see and be right beside a tiger. At first I was not too thrilled, all I could picture was the freak accident that involved one of us. However, these animals have lived their whole lives in captivity and are remarkably tame. It doesn’t hurt either that they are mostly nocturnal and we are visiting them in the heat of the day. The little cubs are the absolute cutest!


The girls even got to feed the baby tigers, they are about 3 months old.


After that Simon and I got to sit with the adult tigers, there were 3 of them. Each male weighed from 150-200 kg. When you are sitting next to one, they are huge! It was a pretty cool experience!

We are spending the holiday week in Chiang Mai with our Revelstoke friends who are living here for a year and a half. Our kids are similar ages so the house is full of action.
We visited the zoo one day.

We also went on a nice hike to a national park to see a set of 10 waterfalls.

It is always more fun for kids to hike together, it keeps the motivation going. Here we are at the top having a break:

Christmas this year was spent in the tropics of Thailand visiting with our friends from Revelstoke; Gary, Gabriella, Bence and Lutza. It was a little strange getting into the Christmas spirit amidst palm trees wearing shorts and t-shirts. There are several Christmas decorations on the nearby houses though. On Christmas eve we went carolling with 3 Americans and their Thai families. Carols were sung in both Thai and English. It was fun.
Santa did manage to find our kids and it was a happy Christmas morning for the kids.

Happy Holidays to all!

After Kuala Lumpur we flew into Krabi for the beginning of our Thai vacation. Since we had a spare week before Phuket we decided to go to the remote island of Koh Jum. We took a 40 minute longboat ferry to the island which was a new adventure for the girls.

We stayed at the Oon-Lee Resort, a beautiful place owned by a Thai/French couple Oon and Valerie. It was recommended by our friends Richard and Kim and we pass on the high praises to anyone else. They have built 9 bungalows set in the jungle with beautiful gardens throughout.



With a Thai chef and French influences the food there was also amazing; a step above.

Our bartender, Enda from Ireland, was always good for a chat and a cold beverage.


We had many days on the beach with turquoise waters and white sand. We hiked to ‘Magic Beach’ and had the whole place to ourselves one afternoon. Maddie loves being buried in the sand, as you can see.


Simon went deep sea fishing with Oon one day, no big fish but lots of smaller ones were caught. The kitchen staff made a wonderful fish ceviche appetizer for all with some of the catch that night.
We both had our first Thai massage which was very luxurious, and only $12 for 80 minutes. I needed it because our bungalow was up the equivalent of 6 flights of stairs.

I really enjoyed our week ‘unplugged’ from society, relaxing in a hammock or playing in the sand on the beach. It hardly gets any better than that…

We had a great visit with our friends, Fong and Elaine, in Kuala Lumpur. Simon and Fong played in a band together in Fort Smith, when we lived there 4 years ago.

Our first outing was to a Hindu temple set inside a huge cave. It was quite impressive as were the long flight of steps leading to the cave entrance.


Also up there were a few hawkers with their Burmese pythons, available for photographic opportunities. Maddie was instantly interested; Emily needed a little more coaxing, but eventually both sat with a snake on their lap or around their shoulders.




Fong knew all the hotspots for eating to take us to, they were all amazing! Malaysia is a country filled with a huge variety of peoples; Indian, Chinese, Thai, Indonesian and other southeast Asians, as well as the local Malaysians. A result of this is a huge fusion of foods with many enticing flavours. We ate Malaysian chicken ayan goreng rempah, which is fried chicken with coconut rice; Indian parathas with wonderful curries, served on a banana leaf; Japanese sushi, Chinese dim sum and even more. Our tastebuds were overjoyed!

We went on a Sunday outing down to Malacca, a old Portuguese port. The girls enjoyed climbing around in an authentic ship just like little pirates and going up a scenic ride high in the sky.

At the downtown Central Market we found some pretty dresses for the girls, henna for their hands and the oddest exfoliation method I have ever experienced. As I submerged my feet and lower legs into this pool, hundreds of small fish suckered themselves onto me and ate away all my dead skin and increased the circulation. It was the strangest feeling!

Malaysians are also big fans of shopping malls. We visited several, to get supplies for the trip ahead of us and some exercise at the numerous kids playgrounds. I was amazed at the amount of Christmas decorations in a largely Muslim country. I guess commerce is commerce, and Christmas at a mall is all about the shopping enticements.

Here are the famed twin towers of Kuala Lumpur, and Emily striking a ‘fashion girl’ pose in her new dress, as she would call it. Kate Moss look out!