Ahoy India

We have just recently arrived in India. As we were leaving Sri Lanka the airline gave us the option to stay an extra night on them in exchange for free tickets or duty free vouchers. The flight was overbooked and they needed some folks to sit out. Being the kindhearted and selfless people that we are, we took them up on their offer and spent the night at a five-star and left this morning for Bombay. We got handed a twisty route that took us through the Indian domestic flight alley, but it was alright in the end and a few hours ago we landed here in Bombay, aka Mumbai. Take the confusion of Colombo, multiply by a few, and swap the Sri Lankans for Indians and you have Bombay. Oh yeah, and throw in a few elephants and holy cows. We haven't seen much of the city so far, but what we have seen is pretty crazy. We checked in to our hotel and while it looked spiffy on the Internet, it is many things but not spiffy. We are there for two nights before catching the train out east, so it will have to do.

That's the latest for now. More to come soon.

E

Sri Lanka Update

Hello hello

I'm writing from a gloomy little internet cafe in Kandy, a city 110km west of Colombo. Since I last posted we've been on a 600km loop around the southeast of the country. As you could tell by the last post, we weren't quite sure what to expect. We definately couldn't forsee the events of the last few days. First, and most importantly, we were all quite safe and even enjoyed ourselves. And continue to be safe. There were quite a few roadblocks with mean-looking soldiers with even meaner looking weapons, but they were there to protect people like us, not harm us. We did get stopped once by the police, but they were just doing their job and checking on the registration of the van we were in. It was all good. Here's a quick reel of the last few days.

Saturday: We pack up and drive out of Colombo and down the east coast. Toward the end of the day it's time to find a place to stay. Our driver takes us to a place called the Lighthouse. It was perfect; we loved it. It was available for the low low price of $400(US) for the night. We left a patch of rubber on the parking lot and made our way to the beach. There we found some bungalows for a fraction of the aforementioned price. It was perfect. We had a quiet dinner sitting at a table in the sand. It was picture perfect(picture to come...)

Sunday: We regretfully leave the beach bungalows and make our way further down the coast. As we are driving we can see signs in front of new buildings and building projects noting that these are reconstruction projects in response to the tsunami disaster. When I thought tsunami I thought Indonesia, but this coastline was damaged quite seriously as well. Throughout the day we see evidence. Toward the end of the day it's hotel time again. Driver takes us to a safari camp. It's really posh so we start to get nervous. The nice man at the counter says that this place is only $300 for a night and I smile and we burn out of there too and I think scare some of the leopards and water buffalo in the bushes. There is this guy who has been following us in his Range Rover telling us that there is a place he knows that is affordable. He is persistent and so we follow him through the park and along the fenceline of another reserve. It was hot and long and all, but we did get to see some elephants 'in the wild' and more of the water buffalos. (We sang the VeggieTales song about Zebus as we went on our way.)Dude in the Rover was right. He did know a place and we did stay there. It wasn't the Taj Mahal, but hey, we're not in India yet.

Monday: We start driving inland. For some reason this makes me nervous. It may have something to do with the fact that everything looks a bit like Vietnam with rice paddies palm trees and my imagination starts to get the better of me. But it is actually OK. At noon we arrive at a reserve for orphaned elephants. 'So cute!'(not my words, mind you) Feeding time was just over so we saw them from a distance, dodged a few more guys trying to get us to join overpriced safaris and headed for the hills. On the way we stopped at a beautiful waterfall whose name escapes me, but it was a really cool place to check out. There was an ice cream man there, too. It was perfect. Now it is almost dark and we are driving and driving and go higher and higher and quite suddenly we are in Bavaria. Three hours ago it was monkeys and huts and now there are gabled houses and hotels and cliffs and the air is clean and cold and I am really confused. We are in the town of Nuwara Eliya in the heart of tea country. The elevation is almost 7000 feet and the whole place looks like a ski town out of the Alps. We checked into the Alpine Hotel and had dinner at the Collingwood. I'm still confused but not complaining. The exchange rate is very much in our favour so we are staying at a four star for $25 a room and a steak meal is $4. Yes. After the Collingwood, we sit on our huge beds and watch American TV piped in via dish and it's not really feeling like Sri Lanka at all. It feels like Colorado.

Tuesday(today): We stay at the hotel as long as we possibly can. We check out just in time to dodge the late fee and load up in the van for a twisty ride back to the foothills. I was still in awe as we were driving. It was terraced hills as far as you could see and waterfalls and blue lakes and huge forests. If you had told me I was in Alberta, I would have bought it. But that wore off. Now we are back in the city and it is loud and crowded and there is lots of fresh exhaust to breathe in. We are catching up with e-mail and I am doing the update, then we will get some dinner at the Pizza Hut across the road and then back to our guest house for the night. Tomorrow we have a plane to India to catch. It leaves at 4 in the afternoon. We have a bit of a drive to get there from here, but the roads are good from here on out. Most likely the next time you will hear from us will be from India. Before I sign out, I wanted to say thanks for all the e-mails that have been filling up our inboxes from people letting us know they are thinking of us and holding us in their prayers. This trip is by no means safe and we appreciate your support very much.

Over and out,
E

Sri Lanka

Hello from Colombo

We arrived here two nights ago and have been staying at the 'AAA' Guest House here in Sri Lanka's capital(although we may rate it just one A.)

Yesterday we got in at 2AM and crashed hoping to sleep off the jetlag of the flight from Bangkok. At 7 there was a knock on the door. It became more persistent. Must be important. Hilko pulls himself out of bed and there was a girl at the door with our tea. Hilko smiled and took it, put it on the table and was asleep in a few minutes. It wasn't long before there was another knock with the same vigour. This time it was our breakfast. We were running out of room on the table. Thankfully, we were not bothered again and slept into the afternoon. After getting up and watching a few rounds of the English Asian news, we caught seperate tuk-tuks(they have them here too) into the city. Hilko and GE's decided that he needed some gas so he stopped off to fill up and completely lost us. A few hours later, after looking around the city to no avail, we doubled back to the hotel to find Hilko and GE waiting for us. We discussed the pointlessness of trying to find eachother in the market downtown. First of all there are hundreds and thousands of tuk-tuks and they all look about the same. Second, Colombo is so confused and busy and crowded that it makes Haiti look like Switzerland. I guess I thought I had seen busyness but this city sets a new standard. Thankfully, we did find eachother. It was a tense moment since I was the one with the money and the passports and all the information. If they would have had to find their way back to the hotel without any help, things could have been pretty desperate. Thankfully, it didn't come to that.

By the time you read this, we will have checked out of the 'A' Guest House and will be on a five-day tour of the southeast coast of the country. Sri Lanka is on the brink of civil war and as such, heading north from Colombo is unsafe for travellers. As I was checking out websites before we got here, there were things saying not to go north because the roads are mined(as in there are explosives there, not they are digging for buried treasure) and the north is were most of the tension is. Everywhere we go there are signs calling for peace. And rightfully so. This place has a very distinct feeling of unrest. Today I glanced at the calendar here in the office and beside the number for car accident services is the number for bomb disposal. This is definately not Thailand anymore.

Back to the tour. Mostly we will be seeing the coastline but toward the end we will head inland to see Kandy, which is a holy place in Sri Lanka and is famous for its temple. Should everything go as planned, we will be at the airport on Wednesday in time to fly out to Bombay, India. Your prayers for our safety are coveted as this will be by far the most dangerous leg of our trip. We don't anticipate any of the tension up north to come our way, but 'on the brink of civil war' usually means that it can strike any time, anywhere. We hope to give updates as we go, but aren't sure if Internet will be as easily accessible on the countryside as it has been here in the city. Ideally, we will be able to post some text and maybe even some photos. This country is one of those places you have to see to believe. More from us soon.

Cheers,
E

Snapshots

Good-bye Australia, Hello Thailand

Erick here.

Too long since I last posted. More than a few times this week I have sat down at the computer and thought that it was time to write new post and then I would decide that it didn't feel right. Like I needed a certain vibe to produce a quality entry. I think probably it was more like I was procrastinating and coming up with a fancy excuse. No more. Now I write.

My last few weeks in Australia were a bit different than H,A, and GE. While they were in Brisbane for the holidays, I spent my time working at a camp in Victoria, specifically the Gippsland Lakes region. The camp was called Cooinda and went for nine days.
Cooinda is a camp for teenagers (mostly from Melbourne) and has been running for more than forty years. It is a water based camp, meaning that the majority of their activities have to do with...water. Things like sailing and kayaking and the like. The basic structure of the camp is that the campers are divided into groups of about ten, called patrols, taught about camping, sailing, etc. and then taken out on multi-day expeditions on the lakes surrounding camp. Most of the travel is done via canoes, but there was a patrol that used kayaks and even one that was ferried out on a motorboat. Almost all of the activities are done as a patrol and the camp staff use the patrol as a platform to teach(and learn) about relationships and teamwork and so on. That is Cooinda at a glance. I spent my stay there as the canoe instructor, which was a really good time. I wasn't sure what to make of the whole Cooinda thing at first as I am used to working at stricter, more regimented camps, and this one was far more laid back. But I came to find out that laid back is OK and that you can run a safe and fun and adventurous camp this way. By the end of my time in Gippsland Lakes, I had made some good friends and had some cool adventures as well. It was time well spent.

Following my time at Cooinda, I spent the weekend with Lou and Kelly, who I met at Cooinda. My plan was to spend the weekend in a hostel in Melbourne, but Kelly got wind of this and brokered out Lou's spare room and it was an offer I could not refuse. Both Kelly and Lou have been, at one time or another, involved in the Melbourne arts community, so the weekend took on a bit of an arts theme. The highlight would have to be the masterminding of my debut as a stage actor. Explanation: on Friday night, Kelly got a text message asking if she wanted to help with the rehearsal of a upcoming play called 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee'. I can't say that I am much of a play person, but apparently this one was a runaway success on Broadway and so now it was time for it to have a go in Australia. Anyway, the writer of the play set it up so that every time the play is on, four people from the audience volunteer upon arrival to act a small role in the play as schoolchildren at a spelling bee. As this was a rehearsal at the company warehouse, there was no audience. Enter Kelly, Lou, and Erick plus a fourth volunteer. The idea is that because you are a volunteer you have no idea about what you are supposed to say or where you are to stand or sit and so the actors sort of rally around you and whisper in your ear and drag you around the stage and this adds to the...umm, randomness of the play. The actors were well-known (but not to me, save the lady who played Mrs. Hoggat in 'Babe') and to say I felt out of place on the stage with them would be a bold understatement. I would like to think that I am pretty calm and smooth up in front of people, but about the time I was dancing in a big circle with a bunch of adults pretending to be children, there was no more smoothness. If ever I thought that acting might be a way for me to forge a living, my experiences last Saturday with the actors of the Melbourne Theatre company put that to rest.

(I'm just now realizing that I've written two sections about two events, one that lasted two weeks and one that lasted an hour and a half.)

Thanks, Kelly and Lou(and Header the cat) for a great weekend and an unforgettable way to spend my last few days in your beautiful country.

Following my adventures(and misadventures) in Victoria, I caught the overnight train to Sydney and met up with the others at the airport. We spent the afternoon catching up and then boarded the flight to Bangkok. Leaving Australia didn't feel as significant as I think it should of. I think that this may be because somewhere in the back of my mind I suspect that I will come back again one day. Whatever the case, I didn't have much time to process because in a few hours the plane touched down and our next objective was to find our way to our hostel in Bangkok. This was accomplished after we caught an outrageously overpriced cab. I think maybe the cabbie is now staying in the beach house next to ours.Forever.

We spent our first two days in Bangkok. It is crowded and smoggy and loud, but for all of those things, it still has some charm to it. I think it is the kindness of the people. I think GE mentioned this, but I am still blown away by the Thai people and their respect for eachother and everyone around them. I know that it is part of their Buddhist religion, but kindness to others is a fundamental of Christianity and we Christian countries aren't doing so hot. I have seen a sort of kindness before in the way that locals deal with visitors, but it is the kind that has strings attached. Here I am convinced that there are no catches; people are kind and serving and the fact that you are a customer or whatever has little to do with it. Even the people on the street greet you and offer to help with advice and little bows and smiles all around. I still don't really get it. Maybe it's not always like this. Maybe this is 'Be Kind to Foreigners Week' or something. I can't get my head around that the Thai community is always this way. But I'm willing to accept it and it is really refreshing.

After our time in the capital, we arranged to catch an overnight train and then a bus and a ferry to our ultimate desination of Ko Samui. The islands are the California of Thailand, where people come for sun and beaches and so on. We've rented bungalows with a view of the ocean for what wouldn't even get you a cheap room at a Motel 6 in the States. (The exchange rate is now our friend.)As I am writing this, we are at the halfway point of our stay on the island. On Tuesday it's ferry, bus, train to Bangkok and then off to Columbo, Sri Lanka. But that is still a few days away. Until then we are enjoying our time in paradise.

One more thought: as we have been here, I have been doing a lot of thinking as to the whole morality of tourism. I see a place like this, a beautiful island getaway since tourism has been introduced now the streets are full of sunburned, hung-over tourists and there is a McDonald's and Internet cafes and anything else that might be of interest to a paying traveller. On one hand, the tourism is good. It generates income for the country, it brings infrastructure to faraway places like this that may not have had it otherwise. I haven't seen anyone, Thai or otherwise, who isn't well-fed, well-dressed and taken care of. The Thai people who live and work here have a very high standard of living. But on the other hand, tourism has a dark side to it as well. Probably the most vivid example of this is the sex trade. It is rampant here. I remember in the DR we would catch glimpses of it and you knew that it was going on, but here it is wide open and in your face. Every hotel and restaurant and train and bus and whatever else, almost invariably, has had some white guy with a very young Thai girl on his arm. Part of me would like to pass it off to a lame excuse, like that they are friends or that they have noble intentions, but there is far too much of it to play that game. My heart goes out to these girls and I am scared to know the sequence of events that led to the life that they are now trapped in. The police have little or nothing to do with the trade and so it goes along unchecked. And there is more than just the prostitution. More than a few times I have seen Thai people being bossed around and mistreated by pushy selfish tourists and then I am ashamed for us.

So I guess that you can see that there are good but also bad things that come with tourism. I think that it should happen, that people should be free to travel the world and that they should take advantage of that freedom. But I think that as a traveller you are still an ambassador for your country and that should a country open its doors and allow you to explore what is theirs, it should be enjoyed in such a way that enhances the country and the people in it and does not detract. You owe that to people who let you come and be a guest in their country. I think about what it would be like if masses of cash-strapped Thai people started coming into Canada and pushing around my countrymen and using Canadian girls as prostitutes whenever they pleased and I know that no one would stand for it. So it goes without saying that I am at a loss when I see the way these kind, quiet, and polite people are being taken advantage of. Reslolution? At this point, my resolution is to be the type of traveller that adds to the country he is visiting and gives a positive impression of the country he comes from. Things like leaving tips and thanking people and respecting their customs. Ideally, I would like to boot out every rude and selfish and inconsiderate tourist in the entire country, and give away their money to the Thai people to say sorry for all the terrible things that have happened, but of course this is unrealistic and impossible. I am thinking of the quote that says, "If a man is to change the world, he is first to start with himself."

These are my musings and the events of the last few weeks. A quality entry. And I didn't even feel like it.

Tailor of Thailand

Perhaps several of you have heard us liken Australia to Canada. Thailand, we have agreed, reminds us of the Dominican Republic. In all fairness we have only been in Bangkok so our opinion could change over the next few days.
Our Thai experiences thus far have been, in a word, refreshing. I wondered how the language barrier would affect us but up to this point our meager attempts have been, at worst, effective and, at best, comical. My particular favorite was this morning when Erick was attempting to direct our taxi driver to the travel agency and he kept saying, "I have no idea what this guy is saying." We laughed as the driver impressed us with his own collection of English phrases including "Lock and Loll" (rock and roll), and "Tlaffeek Yam" (Traffic Jam). Rest assured, communication is much more than simply talking.

Another Thai highlight is the Tak Tak . We soon discovered that our driver's definition of 'city tour' was different than ours. We had two options, with consequences we would realize too late. The first was to pay 10 baht <50 cents> for a guided tour of the city and the second was a free ride around the city with a few stops. Naturally, being the dutchies that we are, we opted for the second choice. We must have stopped at 10 shops with vendors eagerly waiting to sell us a wide variety of rings, knives, silk, watches, carved works, sunglasses, and much more. Our driver would then receive 5 litres of gas for every shop we spent at least 10 minutes in. It was quite an effective plan and made for a different, yet enjoyable, morning.




Apparently, Thai tailors are the rage. It did not take long to catch the guys interest, especially with several weddings in the near future. Hilko has ordered a pin-stripe black suit and Erick is getting one black and one grey. They took measurements yesterday morning and by 8 that evening, their suits were ready for fitting. Impressive....



Thai ethics are noteworthy. In each circumstance we have encountered respect for your time, genuine interest in your comfort, and pursuit of customer preference.
They bow when they greet you and serve you with dignity and humility. They have a greatness that I have seldom seen or experienced. Needless to say, Thailand has left a great impression on us. For all of you travelers, this is a country you have to check out~*

Enjoying Brisbane

a random bloke who wanted to get his picture with us on New Year's Eve

Sydney

Onward March

With two days left in Australia, we find ourselves flung into a set of routine sentiments. There is, naturally, the recurring question, "Can our time really be nearing an end?", the highlights (and "lowlights"...), and the feeling of bewilderment at where the next few weeks will take us. Although days seem to have mysteriously faded into months the time in Oz has been well spent.

Erick is currently in a suburb of Melbourne volunteering at a Camp where he is, inevitabley, enjoying time outdoors but more importantly, time alone. Personal space and the freedom to be alone is something of supreme value to us now. "There must be spaces in your togetherness" is a wisely coined phrase.

We are in Brisbane and are scheduled to fly down to Syndey on Monday morning. We will, Lord willing, meet up with Erick there and fly out to Bangkok, Thailand that evening. We have often joked that this trip feels like an episode of the "Amazing Race." Timing is everything!

Naturally, Thailand is a thrilling destination. We would be lying if we did not confess that one of the main attractions is that it is affordable! After Thailand, our last 4 weeks will be spent on a whirlwind tour of Sri Lanka, India, UAE, Scotland, and Canada.

At the onset of each new country there is a thrill about what new discoveries will be made, the strangers who will soon be considered friends, and how our perspective will change when confronted with yet another entirely new culture. When considering the remaining countries, I do not think we will be disappointed.