The last one!

This last post is for all of you that are still checking this, in hopes of getting one more post. Firstly, we'll say, thank you to everyone who read this, and for all your comments and emails. We had fun writing this, because we knew you were reading it!

Now that we've been home for two weeks now, our trip already feels like it was a long time ago! Brian's into the bees, and I've been at work for a week already too. And, the house renovations have started already as well. (It's not a nice surprise coming home to find you have to put a new roof on the house!)

But, as for Asia, we're so thankful for the opportunity we had to go! Coming home and looking through our pictures again, we realize how great of a trip it was!

Thailand: By far, the most modern country we visited. The things that stand out are the food, the cleanliness, the hordes of tourists, the huge, elaborate shopping malls, and amazing people God is using to change Thailand.

Cambodia: Although it was the dirtiest country we visited, the food wasn't the greatest, and we got sick here many times, Cambodia tops the list in terms of our favourite country (with Vietnam a close second). We can't put our finger on exactly what it was about Cambodia that we loved....it was just great! We definitely felt very challenged in Cambodia with how to deal with poverty and people who have so much less than we do here. We're still struggling with how we can help now that we're back home.

Vietnam: Vietnam stands out as the most beautiful country we visited, with beautiful mountains, coast, and a combination of the two....Halong Bay. Climbing Fansipan was another highlight, as was traveling through the Mekong Delta. The Vietnamese people are very strong people and have built for themselves a strong identity after fighting off the Chinese, the Japanese and the United States.

Laos: As we mentioned in our earlier blogs, it's easy to catch on to the slow pace of low. After busy Vietnam, Laos is like sitting down and catching your breath. We hope this won't change too much as tourism is booming in Laos and already changed the country to a large degree.

We're still processing our trip, and love reliving some of the great times we had out there. Although Southeast Asia didn't get into our skin in the same way Africa did, we loved travelling there and are so thankful we had the opportunity!

Paradise

We don't have much to say, other than that we're having a great time! The weather is hot and sunny. It's perfect for lazing around on the beach or by the pool...although our skin is looking a little redder than it did a few days ago.
We've been dining on some great food here as well. We found some great steak, and some great seafood, and as always, the fruit is awesome! It's a good alternative to rice!
Tomorrow is our last day here and then we take a night bus back to Bangkok for our final few days.

On the Home Stretch

Good company!

We've made our way down to Phuket again. We took a great, roomy, VIP bus overnight last night and arrived here at 5 am. The best part of the day was meeting my parents who are joining us for our last week here in Asia. We spent a great day catching up over some good eats and also spent some time enjoying the pool.

For all of you who have been missing our food pictures....this was my AMAZING steak dinner. What a treat!

We decided to splurge and are staying at the very posh Sugar Palm Grand (where we stayed last time we were in Phuket). It's great to have a beautiful place to stay, complete with great pools, airconditioned rooms, and comfy - bedbug free beds!

We plan to spend the next few days relaxing by the pool and at the beach, so that we will have enough energy to hit up the shopping malls and markets when we go back to Bangkok. As of today, it's officially ONE WEEK until we come home!

Downtown

MBK, the biggest shopping mall in Thailand

After some unventful, but long bus rides, we've arrived back in Bangkok! We actually weren't the biggest fans of this place last time we were here. But it's starting to grow on us now.

Yesterday afternoon, we headed downtown to Siam Square. We had an awesome time! We knew that Bangkok is huge city and has some big malls, but we really weren't prepared for the scale of things that we saw. is that sweet or what!

Siam Square is the main shopping district in the city. It has everything. From a massive discount mall filled with teenage Thais, to high-end Europeon Fashion, to a huge mall complete with an IMAX, bowling alley, and luxary sports cars.

The food options were endless...I don't even think I could make an estimate as to how many dining options there were. Funny enough Erin and I ate at the Hard Rock Cafe...it just seemed like the thing to do! We spent the afternoon. just milling around, looking in all the different malls. We spent most of the time with our jaws dropped actually. Everything is so huge and so clean.

sporting the new cut at the Hard Rock.

In the mall with the Gucci, Armani, and Hugo Boss etc, is where the sports cars were also. At first we thought that the Lotus', Ferraris, Bentlys, and Lamborginis, were just on display, thus we took a couple of pictures through the glass. We soon realized that you could enter the show rooms and that these cars were all actually for sale. In the Lamborgini shop, we were followed in by a man obviously from a gulf country. He walked right up to one of the cars for sale and opened the door, ingnoring the DO NOT TOUCH sign. A salesman came over imediately and told him not to. Something very interesting them happened. The guy bought the car. Really. He discussed things with the salesman, while his wifes in burkas looked on. He talked about it a little with wife #1 and then went over to the counter to sign the deal. We were blown away!

the Diablo in the backgroung is the one purchased by the Arab guy. You can see him at the counter in the left.

Lotus

We finished off the night by watching Revolutionary Road in a theatre with 10 other people, and hundreds of empty seats. You were right Elena! You can sit in a couch a the theatre! Before the film started we were instructed to stand for the national athem, to honour the King. The shown pictures of him on the screen and it made him look like a god or something. It was actually really funny.

Tonight were headed south to Phuket to meet up with Erin's parents who are currently with some friends from home in the south. It should be a good way to end the trip!

Bolivan Plateau

Yesterday we rented a motorbike for perhaps the last time in southeast asia. We didn't crash so I guess we're doing pretty good.

We drove 85km out of Pakse to a village called Tadlo. It was a really great trip, and a real nice place to visit. To be honest we didn't do too much. We spent some time swimming in the amazingly clear and refreshing river, and just sort of wandering through the village. (it was really small).

The swim was the highlight! There's a waterfall right in the village where lots of locals we're swimming, bathing and spear-fishing. Had I been one of the naked local kids splashing about, I'd find it a little unnerving that the older guys were poking around with their spears while I swam in the buff. I'm not a naked local kid, so this wasn't a worry of mine.

So the swim, it was great! It's still so hot here. It's easily 35c or more during the day in the shade, and there hasn't been much of a breeze. So naturally the cool water was a nice relief from the heat of southern Laos. We actually walked a little upstream to get away from the spears, and came across a second waterfall. This one was even more beautiful than the first, and was occupied by only a handful of local boys (who were also naked, or wearing only briefs) just having a blast splashing in the water.

Some of the kids were jumping of the falls. Of course I wanted to give it a shot, and the kids were happy to show me the trail to the top. It wasn't that big of a jump, but it was fun none the less.

Today we return to Pakse, and are just hanging around and sweating it out. The food in Pakse has been top notch! There's a really popular Thai/Italian restaurant! Wouldn't that be an interesting combo in Canada. However, the place is consistently packed with Thai tourists, and Erin and I have had the chance to eat there twice. They've got the best pasta we've had in Asia thus far. It's really good! (sorry Jim no picture of it.)

Tomorrow we board a bus to Bangkok! We've gone full circle.

Sweating in Pakse

The further south we go, the hotter it's getting. We're sitting in an internet cafe...it's 8:30 in the evening here and still a hot, humid 30 degrees. Multiply that by 2 and that's how hot it felt on our bus, on the way here.

We boarded a bus in Savannahket this morning at 10:30 and began the long 277 km trip to Pakse. As we've learned, 277 km doesn't sound like a far distance, but on a local bus, anything can happen! We settled into our seats as best we could for how ever long the journey would take, armed with the knowledge it would probably take a long time.

The bus ride proved to be pretty typical, and fortunately not to eventful. It was more cramped than many of our other bus rides have been. Brian couldn't put his legs straight out in front of him because the space between the seats was too small. We lost track of how many times we stopped to pick people up along the way, after we hit 15, only 10 km from Savannahket.

As expected, the bus aisles filled with people on plastic stools again....but fortunately we weren't near any kids with sick stomachs! We also learned that buses are used as moving vans for people. We picked up a few people who seemed to have all their belongings with them (including baby chickens, and their motorbike which was piled into the back of the bus), perhaps planning to move to another city.

All in all, the trip wasn't too bad, and only took 5 1/2 hours. We're in Pakse now and even after showering of all the sweat from the bus ride, we're soaked again. It's so hot here, you sweat sitting still.

We plan to rent a motorbike tomorrow to head into a town called Tadlo in the Bolaven Plateau. We'll spend a night there and then head back to Pakse again to catch a bus back to Thailand. We'll most likely be without internet for the next day or so, so it'll be a surprise for you if you hear from us!

Ya Dinos!

We'll we went to the largest dinosaur museum in Southeast Asia this morning...and it was, well, pretty much what we expected. OK, it was what I expected, Erin sort of thought that the building was going to have to have 20 ft. ceilings to be able to contain the complete t-rex skeletons that she pictured.

There were no tall ceiling and no complete dinos. But they did have around a dozen really large bones that have come from the 5 dig sites throughout Laos. They also had some neat fossils and some other assorted small bones. It was just one small room. We spent about 15 mins there, and had a good laugh. At least it was only about $0.60 each....it was worth it just to escape the heat and be in an air-con building.

this was pretty much it. I loved the big dino made out of rope lights...even though most were burned out.

Tomorrow were heading south again to Pakse. It's an area called the Bolivan Plateau. It's the main coffee growing area in Laos...so it's worth checking out.