Homeward Bound and Home at Last

We're now safe and sound in our not so little home in Winnipeg. It's -30C and fluffy snow has coated the cars and fence posts. Greg and I have enjoyed home brewed coffee just the way we like it with some Tall Grass cinnamon buns--a few of the things we dreamt about while we politely tolerated a few unsavoury hotel breakfasts consisting of instant coffee(with coffee whitener) and greasy fried eggs with white bread. Don't worry, we also recall some lovely tropical breakfasts as well:). The boys are settled back into their school and extracurricular activity routines and are very happy making up for lost time with their buddies.

 Our trip has officially ended. However, we feel we owe all our loyal followers one last blog about the last days of our sojourn. Well, that and writing it allows us to indulge ourselves once more in memories of warm sunny skies and turquoise beaches, free from piles of laundry, heaps of unread mail, and red-looking bank balances...

 January 6th: we flew out of Hanoi in northern Vietnam and were keen to trade the cool grey skies for some sunny beach weather. Destination: Koh Lanta, an island in south Thailand. On the map below I've dropped a red pin.

We had already spent some time in Northern and central Thailand at the beginning of our trip but never spent any time on the famed Thai beaches of the southern peninsula. We also were eager to revisit some good Thai delicacies like green curry and mango sticky rice.

 Unfortunately, our timing for a beach holiday was not great as we arrived in the peak tourist season. Alas, many of the highly recommended backpacker(or "flash packer" as we are more aptly described) budget accommodations were full on the more popular destination of Koh PiPi island. Koh Lanta island is a less glamorous cousin but still warm and welcoming. We settled into our little beach side huts but it was hard to hide our disappointment in the beach itself. At low tide the rocky sea bottom was unwelcoming and the boys complained of water bugs that nipped at them underwater.

 However, our search for the idyllic beach experience was not in vain when we shelled out some cash for a one day snorkelling tour to Koh Rok.  We can say without a doubt that we found the ultimate beach experience on this little island that is a Thai national nature reserve and hence has been spared any commercial development. The snorkelling was fantastic too! We didn't spend much time taking pictures, so its hard to do it justice.

An unexpected highlight of Koh Lanta Island was an excursion to a pet rescue/shelter for dogs and cats. We were surprised to find that a visit to the shelter was the #1 rated activity in the area on "Tripadvisor"(our web best friend throughout the whole trip). The shelter was started by an American-Norwegian restaurant owner who took pity on the stray, and often detested, dogs in the area and soon was taking on more pets than she could really handle.

The shelter was then born and has been running for several years on donations, volunteers and the proceeds from her restaurant,"Time for Lime".

I'm putting in the link to the shelter because if any of you readers are ever looking for a great 1 month volunteer opportunity in Thailand you should really check this place out! Our family had a tour of the facility and then took a mama dog with her two grown-up dogs for a nice walk. http://www.lantaanimalwelfare.com/

After our stint in Thailand we headed back to Singapore to spend our final days in Asia with Rob, Anjali and Fischer(Cynthia's brother's family). Once again, we marvelled at the clean orderly city and revisited some of our previously enjoyed sites: "Sticky", the home made candy store, cycling along the beautiful East Coast Parkway,and a feast of chili-crab at a Hawker stall.

Naturally we felt the need to unwind by the pool and de-stress from all the strenuous travelling we had done... ...of course, I say this tongue firmly in cheek. Now that we've been back into the swing of work and Winnipeg life in - 30 weather I find myself just shaking my head at my former self :"really Cynthia....travelling was stressful at times was it...oh yeah, having to agonize over whether to wear your sun dress or your Thai fisherman's pants was hard work wasn't it?" Or those tough choices of whether to order the red curry or the green curry--as if I was caught between a rock and a hard place.

 Ah well, we had our fun and now the filtering of memories and nostalgia has begun. There were times of yearning for the company of friends and family, times of feeling like we fulfilled every stereotype of the stupid white backpacking foreigner(every country has a slang word for that you know)who doesn't know how the microsystems of the community worked. And let's not forget the literal pains of lugging around backpacks full of sweaty clothes and souvenir trinkets and manoeuvring through crowded buses, trains, taxis and planes. I don't miss all that.

 But the unsavoury memories have already started to dim as we recall the highlights: scaling medieval castles in Europe, trekking up hundreds of step in bare feet to reach towering temples, and hiking through lush thick jungles. We mud bathed with elephants, had some mean encounters with monkeys and fed a ridiculous amount of semi-domesticated animals in urban zoos. We visited no less than 5 UNESCO world heritage sites and  can tell a funny story about experiencing an earthquake.

 But the good times, the family bonding moments were often had during those less sensational moments in between: evening walks beaches dodging the waves as they curled onto shore, seeing the women in the markets smile at our enjoyment of ripe mangoes with juice running down our hands and faces, wandering in big cities with the boys scampering around us doing parkcour moves on benches and monuments of boulevards attempting to be grand( the boulevards and the boys!), the collective pride and joy we all felt when we found good food at little restaurants off the tourist track(we'd often go back again and revelled in being recognized as return patrons!), Christmas morning when we took turns unwrapping our $5 gifts to each other wrapped in newspaper. Those were the good times we will never forget. And the good part is we get to enjoy those moments from the snugly comfort of our home and our own beds. Perhaps the best part of trip has only started.

 As a final farewell, we bid you adieu dear readers. We have been touched by all the positive feedback we have received about ricewhine and are touched that so many have taken an interest in our little adventure. (Incidentally, Greg should take credit for the majority of photos, I rather lazily let him take charge of this aspect of our trip with frequent casual commands of "get a shot of that will you".)  I will admit, writing the blog entries was occasionally a chore but now I think it's quite possibly the best keepsake we have of our "trip of a lifetime".

 If any of you are ever planning a trip to South-east Asia, we are more than happy to don our "we are travelling experts" caps and go into a lot more detail about our experiences. Actually the mere mention of anything remotely linked to SE Asia will likely get us us started so just give us a signal to quit....after an hour or two.