Berk’s Blog

We made it! Other than a few crying and kicking kids on the long flight from Bangkok, all went well, and we are now safe at home with the animals. Figgy and the cats were very excited to see us, and Figgy is still underfoot after us being here for a whole 90 minutes – he usually gets bored of us after 90 seconds.

And, of course, it’s cold and rainy. Didn’t miss that…

In the next few days I’ll be posting some trip pics to my flickr site. Have to get rid of the jetlag first, plus get through all of the unpacking, laundering of my soggy luggage contents (it wasn’t *that* humid over there, was it??), and otherwise catching up on other matters after having been gone for three weeks. Shouldn’t be long, though.

Finally, a huge thanks to my wonderful wife Nell for singlehandedly planning our wonderful trip. She did a super job in setting up all of the travel, lodging, and activities for all of our Far East destinations. Given the number of hops and stops on our three week trip, nearly of all of which went flawlessly, she deserves a huge public hug and thank you from me. I had an awesome time, and the credit is all yours, Nell!

To her credit, had I been allowed to help in the planning, we’d have gone to Montreal instead, and diving and beaches would have been replaced by skiing and NHL. Maybe next year…

Nell and I have finally arrived at the “honeymoon” part of our honeymoon holiday at Sayong Beach Resort on Koh Lanta.  Both the resort and the island are similar to those in the Caribbean, but the resorts are more modest here, and the locals seem to live a bit better, no doubt from the budding tourism in the past five years.  As a result, travelling around the island outside the resort is also much safer than doing so in many Caribbean countries, or at least we thought so.

 Our lodging is a nice little bungalow with a (remote) ocean view from our small but not tiny front porch.  The room has a nice poster bed that is decorated in Thai orchids each morning by the cleaning staff.  The bathroom is one of the nicer ones we’ve had on the trip – an open shower with sea rocks embedded halfway up the concrete walls, with imprints from large sea plant leaves on the upper half.  While certainly rustic, the bungalow is also, comfortable, clean, and quiet.  The perfect surroundings after nearly two weeks of air, land, and sea trekking around Southeast Asia.

So far, we’ve mostly been relaxing with walks on the beach or sitting and reading wherever we can find some shade.  We did, however, do a few excursions so far as well. Yesterday morning, we did an hour-long elephant ride through the mid-island jungle, the middle of which featured a steep uphill ascent (pretty hairy when on top of an elephant) that culminated in a very nice view of the surrounding valley.  Following that, we did a two-hour long jungle hike and cave exploration expedition.  Koh Lanta National Park features a cave that consists of a number of underground passages of all sizes, some the size of old bank lobbies, and some that you really had to squeeze to get through.  Luckily, we managed to fit through the smallest of passages presented, so the diet appears to be going well. 

Tonight we are taking a Thai cooking class where we will prepare, then eat, our own Thai meal featuring green curry and fresh spring rolls, along with a few other treats.  Then tomorrow, our last full day here before returning to Patong Beach in Phuket, we are planning to do some kayaking through jungle streams to the sea.

That’s all for now… we hope your 2008 is off to a great start!