Phuket - Initial Observations

Initial observations of Phuket: From Clara and Silas: It looks cleaner and there are fewer motorbikes. The houses look nicer. From Sharon: Wow! We haven't gone this fast in a vehicle since we left Maine. From Hal: There are actual rules of the road being followed here, and our driver is going too fast! Our driver tells us that if you can drive in Phuket you can drive anywhere in the world. What can you do except laugh after that and tell him to visit Ho Chi Minh City....

We're staying at a fabulous resort- The Movenpick Resort & Spa Karon Beach. The amenities, rooms, service, food and landscaping here are incredible. Our fellow guests hail from Korea, Australia, France, Germany, and England near as we can tell. The retailers in the small town next to our resort feature restaurants, tour operators, massage, pedicures, manicures, and soap carved into flowers, colored, and displayed in a cute little box. Popular tours include a giant buddha (200' x 300') which sits atop a nearby mountain. You can also snorkel, scuba, ride ATVs or elephants, and visit temples and monkeys. Golf and shopping are also very popular.

The first day on Phuket (pronounced poo - ket) Hal headed off to work and Silas, Clara and I spent the day trying out two of the three swimming pools and spending some time at the beach. So much for cultural enrichment...Yesterday we booked a tour to Phi-Phi Island (pronounced pee-pee). The tour started with a 40-minute speedboat ride out to a group of islands in the middle of the Andaman Sea. We saw the lagoon and beach where they filmed the movie "The Beach", fed some monkeys at another little inlet, passed near the caves where birds nests were being harvested for birds nest soup, snorkeled in several limestone-enclosed lagoons, and ended the day with a rough ride back to a beach to chill for an hour before returning to the marina. Although the day was a little frantic, what can you expect when you are LIVING the discovery channel?

Obama Tuesday Morning

We listened to Obama on the BBC this morning - CNN is not reliable here and usually comes through in digital fragments. So refreshing to hear America's problems enunciated in plain English and not disguised as poli-speak. He speaks of "crisis turning into catastrophe" but I wonder if the folks in the Midwest would agree - they may feel they are already in catastrophe. Also good to hear him speak of repairing infrastructure and healthcare. Of course, the money has to come from someplace but I have always said that I would be willing to pay more for healthcare if I thought someone was getting a benefit from it! And the ancient school he spoke of down south is just one example of how we are failing our future. We don't pay too much more per student for the school over here than what the taxpayers spend per student in Maine, yet the school day here is longer and the math curriculum more rigorous. And all the kids speak two or three languages. There has to be a way to transfer the quality of this experience to public education if we want our kids to succeed in the global marketplace. Let me know when you figure it out!

We have a great group of residents in our building. On Sunday there was an Argentinian bar-b-que (or should I say meatfest?) in the common area. Most of the families here work in shipping or the oil and gas industry. The host of the bar-b-que hails from Colombia, then lived in Mexico for 6 years (three different cities) and now is here. Another neighbor began in Aberdeen, moved to Houston, and are now here. The shipping couple started in Denmark, did 6 years in Namibia before coming to Vietnam. It is a whole corporate lifestyle that you choose - apparently you fill out a personal profile which helps the company decide where they are going to put you so there is some choice involved. There are also different pay scales and benefits packages depending on where you are posted. For example, if you are motivated by money you can make a ton of it if you choose Angola! None of the wives would do that - when you go there you live in a military compound and can never go anywhere. If your husband has to go out he is escorted by the army. The family who came here from Mexico said things were getting pretty bad there too - a lot of kidnappings and a lot of increased armed security anytime they wanted to leave the compound. A British/Vietnamese family is here while they apply for dual citizenship in Vancouver - apparently the economy is pretty bad in England too though the BBC doesn't speak of it like they do the economy in America. They applied in the US but the legal process was too daunting.

More later. We're off to Phuket and Bangkok on Thursday.

suoi tien waterpark!

Hello everyone, Silas here! We went to the Suoi Tien water park on Saturday, It was pretty cool. First we went to the water park. The walk over was interesting, with tons of fake Vietnamese dragons, and temples decor, fake but really cool. The water park was awesome. there were three main pools The first at the top, was the deepest with a bunch foam floats that were so buoyant you could stand on them! There was also a bunch of little green circles that were attached to a rope with starting and landing floats that were bigger. What you had to do was get onto the big float (that spun on the water on the rope) and skip across the little green ones as fast and lightly as you could. I only got to 7 steps (not even halfway) and fell off the spinning green floats (though i tried time after time to get farther). The next pool was less deep with one of the lame water slides in it and then the next pool was a little kids water jungle gym. so that was pretty cool.
Next we went to the actual rides, basicly the swings, hall of mirrors, the swinging boat thingymajig, a thing that makes you go in upside down in circles, and a lame roller coaster.
So basically the park was only half as good as fun town splash town (all the Maine people reading this will know what that is) probably not even, but it was fun anyway!
Silas.

Cash, cash, cash, and adventures at Metro Cash and Carry

Have I mentioned that it is primarily a cash society here? For example, on Thursday I had my first lesson in Vietnamese - needed to pay the instructor for two weeks up front in cash - 500,000 dong to be exact. Went to pay the bill for our coffees - 72,000 dong cash only. Then it was off to the International Ladies of Vietnam Tea (ILV)- 100,000 dong entrance fee. I thought I had over 200,000 in my wallet but it turns out I only had over 20,000 dong. The 10,000 and 100,000 are almost identical except that the 10,000 is slightly smaller. The same applies to the 500,000 and 50,000 notes - just ask Hal about that sometime! Anyway, the ILV ladies wouldn't take 82,000 or US dollars (you'd think they would give the newbie a break!) so it was off to the ATM. Oddly enough, they did accept and prefer that the membership fee (20) be paid in US dollars. All the big numbers still freak me out even though they aren't that big when you convert them to US dollars.

Around our second week here I went to a large store called the Metro Cash and Carry. It was a fiasco! I needed my passport to apply for a memebership card so I had to find a taxi to return back to our apartment then go back to the Metro. Once I got there I didn't end up buying anything because it was incredibly busy with folks buying supplies for Tet and the checkout lines were astronomically long. I did a walk through and left! Today I made Hal go back with me. I used the same card they gave me January 15 and we picked up the usual range of grocery items - and a bunch of pork and beef. They don't have pork and beef at our local so that is really the biggest reason to go the the Metro since we haven't found it anyplace else. So, we load up, get to the check out and discover that the produce needs to be bagged and priced in the produce department. Hal grabbed a cart and took it all back to the department where an Aussie took pity on him and showed him how the system worked - drop it onto a conveyor belt and walk to the other side of the department where it comes out bagged and priced. Meanwhile, I was taking care of the rest of the cart and bagging it all up. Then, oops, turns out the card they gave me in January was a temporary, one time only card. I just looked at the guy, looked at the groceries that we just paid 2,700,000 dong for, and said what am I supposed to do? Unbelievably, he took pity on me and said the cashier could finish the sale. Now, you must understand that none of these transactions took place in a common language - it was all a mixture of body language and a few common words here and there! So, we head for the door, receipt in hand, where we discover that no one bags their items until they get out the door because the store has employees who take your receipt and check each and every item in your cart. This time Hal was in the lead and the door lady took pity on him and let us leave without a third thorough accounting of our groceries. Whew. This is why I made Hal go with me. Who wants to have this kind of fun on your own?

Midweek Ramble

Friday will mark 1 month since our arrival - three weeks of it spent in Vietnam and one in Bali! It has been strange to be in a new place with few responsibilities. Let me re-phrase: in a new foreign place with a lot of time. Hal has his work and the kids are busy at school - just like in Maine. My work - looking after the house, sewing, volunteering, etc. - stayed in Maine, with the exception of looking after the family.

The first few weeks here were spent adjusting: to the climate, the people, the apartment, the currency, the neighborhood...you get the idea. Then we went to Bali - and I know this may sound strange but that was a vacation. If we were in the states for a school break it would have been to see my parents in Florida.

Now we settle into a real routine. I am finding a few things to do to keep myself out of trouble - a cooking class yesterday, the International Ladies of Vietnam Tea on Thursday mornings (1st one tomorrow) and I just cold-called Mr. Huong, whose name I found in a magazine, for lessons in Vietnamese.

When we went to Bali one of our scuba companions was a former UN employee who ran the refugee resettlement camps for Vietnam and Cambodia during the Vietnam War. He is Indonesian, lives in Java and has a summer home in....New Hampshire! Just over the Maine border. We left him Hal's card so that he could send us some underwater photos he took. I hope he sends them so that we can reach him to invite his family over for lobster in Maine because I would love to hear more of his stories.

We went bowling at the Diamond Plaza Shopping Center on Sunday. The folks on the lane next to ours were from San Diego. The woman we spoke with had left Vietnam when she was five years old and this was her first time back. I wonder if our friend in Bali "resettled" her? As a parent it makes me wonder how you decide when it is time to leave everything you know and love and move to another country? Have conditions in your country declined slowly over time is their a defining moment? I don't suppose you can ever know unless you are forced into that situation.

On a lighter note it is quite tricky re-thinking currency. For example, In Vietnam $1 US dollar equals 17,440 Vietnamese Dong. In Bali we used the Indonesian Rupiah - $1 US dollar = 11,675 rupiah. Next week we will spend some time in Thailand where $1 US dollar = 34.95 Thai Bhat. Cheat sheets converting 25, 50, 75 and 100 are helpful but I should probably learn to do it in my head. Who knows, maybe by the end of April I will have learned to think in Vietnamese!

Hi from Silas!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)

Hello everyone!!! I'm here to update you on MY Bali experience. First of all, scuba diving. This is one of the BEST THINGS EVER and i recommend it to anyone whether in the frozen 3ft of snow confines of Maine to Bali. It was sooooo much fun!!! we put on our wet suits,skin tight may I add, the our scuba shoes (those to), then our regulators, extra regulator, water gauge, PDF inflating devise, PDF and oxygen tank all on one vest/PDF. And once we got into the water with 50 pounds of gear on my back, we got on the flippers and goggles. It doesn't sound like fun until you get into the water, then you actually have the time of your life. Basically its like floating in zero G's while thousands of fish swarm down in the coral reef of the WWII shipwreck. What happened to the ship was a Japanese torpedo hit a U.S. container ship and the captain drove it up onto the shore. Then tremors from an eruption of the nearby volcano shook it back into the water where it sank and turned into a coral reef! So we explored the ship wreck for a while and saw tons of cool wildlife. My favorite part was the bow which stuck out of the drop off, It was BIG.
Another thing we did was white water raft. That was fun to but scuba diving is better in my opinion. We went on level 2 rapids, but i like 3 better. the water bas murky because rainy season washed in the mud from the banks.but that didn't matter. we went off waterfalls and hit the sides of the gorge a lot. Whenever we were about to hit something we yelled BOOM BOOM and held onto the ropes on the side of the boat!
All of our hotels were awesome!!!!! The first two had private pools and the first had a toilet that could massage, heat the seat, and more. The first was the dreamland villas, that was the one with the toilet. the second was the Arma. This one was interesting because it had a outdoor balinese shower, that is basically a square pond with stones to stand on with a mossy stone shower that drops a stream of water onto you. There are also coy fish in the pond. Another INTERESTING thing about it was we had a gecko in there about the size of a MONSTER TRUCK! actually it was about 6 in long and tubby.
O.K. thats all I have to say for now!
silas

Bali

We spent a glorious week in Bali - one island of many in a chain that comprises Indonesia. Bali has a primarily Hindu population of around 2.5 million people and is about the size of Prince Edward Island in Canada. Here is a link to a map of Bali.

Our stay began at the Dreamland Villas in Jimbaran Bay. Since the 2002 terrorist bombings at nearby Nusa Dua, security is a priority in this area of Bali. Our hotel was gated and our taxi was checked with mirrors (for the underside) and some type of wand that detects metals or weapons (inside) before we were allowed to enter the villa complex. We spent the first day getting our bearings by sleeping in and body surfing at the Dreamland Beach at Jimbaran Bay.

Day two was discover scuba day. Wow! We took an introductory course through Bali Scuba. After a stop at their storefront to pick up the gear - wetsuits, tanks, regulators, masks, fins, rules- we headed for Tulamben. We learned to scuba around the USAT Liberty which was a WWII freight ship sunk by a Japanese sub in 1942. After she was hit, the crew ran her aground at Tulamben. In 1963 an eruption of nearby volcano Gunung Agung slid her into the sea where she has become a beautiful coral reef and fish sanctuary. I can't say enough about the experience that Mark, Bert and Tok from Bali Scuba gave us. We did two dives with them, they were fabulous instructors and we are now all hooked on the sport and want to learn more!

The next day was golf day at Hal's client course - New Kuta Golf Club. Hal and Silas played the back nine while Clara and I drove the golf carts and enjoyed the ocean breeze and exotic scenery. You have to watch out for the cows, chickens, lizards and dogs when golfing in Bali! Silas scored his first par on the 15th hole.

The residents of Bali are mostly practice the Hindu religion. They believe everything has a spirit - cars, plants, animals, buildings, humans, rocks... and there are many ceremonies and celebrations that take place as part of the religion. Our host at our next stop in Ubud- the Arma Resort and Cultural Center arranged a sunrise purification ceremony for us at Mount Agung. A local priest came with us and purified us at the temple after we watched the sunrise, then we went down the mountain to the high priest and he purified us as well. Our host explained that the many shrines and temples you see in Bali mean different things. Most homes have shrines to the parents of the home, and to the three primary deities needed to maintain harmony: Lord Brahma is birth, Lord Wisnu is life and Lord Iswara is death. The Arma Resort is connected to a local museum and you could spend a week there taking all the courses they offer! Wood carving, cooking, dance, batik, intro. to Hindu, history of Bali, etc...

We polled our scuba companions on what to add to itinerary for our last day in Bali, they said a not-to-miss was rafting down the Ayung River. We met up with the Sullivan Family and had a fabulous day on a class 2 river trip.