Adventures of Ed and Lou - Galavanting around South Asia: April 2015

Hard to believe that we have hit the six month mark and yet when we think back we have, yet again, packed in so much in a relatively short amount of time.

We have had visitors from home! Steve and Julie, Kaitlyn and Lee, Rick and Linda and of course the Walton/Joel group. From the end of January till the end of March we were happily hosting our friends and visiting places that we hadn't gotten to yet. Phuket, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai (coming in new posts!). We played tourist here on Lanta with them and went to restaurants that we hadn't been to yet as well. Lots of walks on the beaches, some snorkeling - lots to do here. And there are more visitors to come in the fall. (Canadian fall - no such thing here) It meant/means so much to us to have that contact from home!

Julie and I in Old Town,

Steve and Ed comparing bugs!

Kaitlyn and Lee

Linda & Rick celebrated, with
us, on our 23rd Anniversary

Leaving boat at Phi Phi for Phuket

The Three Kings
Lumpy, Bumpy & Stumpy!

The girls
Calm, Cool & Collected....

Speaking of home, we are looking forward to our trip in the summer for a visit. Tickets are booked! There are things that you just can't get here and need to stock up on for round two. Tahini, black licorice, almonds, pecans (our friends so graciously brought them for us and we have been hoarding them like we live in the 1930's!). Funny how much more delicious things are when you can't have them all the time.

Things that I miss aside from family and friends?? Campfires in the backyard, boating in the Broken Group Islands, walking the Wild Pacific Trail and coolness. The only fire I see is when Ed lights up the coal in the BBQ. Boating has been by long tail boat, we have to pay for it and Ed is not driving. There is nothing comparable to the Wild Pacific Trail here, but we do have long sandy beaches, although, we don't walk on Long Beach at home. And coolness - it never, ever cools down. We try to stay away from air con as much as possible and then only set it to 26 degrees in the bedroom for sleeping. So looking forward to a boat ride, having cold air on my face and crammed down my throat!!

We have met and made some great friends here! I am learning two languages Thai and Italian! Probably won't have much use for either one once we are done here but hey - why not? It's stretching my brain.

Ed, Maureen, myself and Alex!
The usual suspects.

I am learning a new way to cook. Ed's just excited that I'm cooking! Still hope to get a couple more classes under my belt before we head home permanently.

I miss my garden. I know I would be planting vegies if I were at home and weeding the flower beds. I've seen the great weather at home in Western Canada and know that I would be outside so much. I have some flowers here but no vegies and the flowers are potted.

I miss pouring a cold glass of water out of the tap. We buy all our water. It's cheap but we have to buy water that has minerals in it to drink as the drinking/cooking water is from reverse osmosis and there is nothing left in it by the time we get it. So water for the garden, shower and toilets. Water for cooking and water for drinking. I like it when it all comes from one place!

I love the Sunday morning market in Old Town. We try to get there as early as possible for fresh seafood, vegetables and homemade curry paste - yummy! People have started recognizing us so the price goes down. That's always fun. We're watching children here growing up - a new born now sitting on her own. Also fun. Three brothers learning to speak English.

We have gotten to know the owner and he is wonderful.
Patu - everyone calls him.

And my favourite place of all here is a restaurant that is open whenever, sometime in the afternoon. The menu is whatever, depends on who is cooking that day. It is the last building on a dead end street on the water side of Old Town - east side of Koh Lanta Yai.

View is the Straight of Malaca

Random inside shot.

My sister would love the naturally
distressed furniture!

Sitting on his deck, the sun going down on the west side pinking up the clouds and sky on the east side and the moon rising just in front of us. Watching lightening over the islands and mainland Thailand - so it is - 'life on another edge'. But we are Canadians, in a foreign land that's mystical, aromatic and the culture we've only read about. Visited sites that are amazing! But we do miss home........on that other edge.

Whoa Nelly - now here's a Cosmopolitan city! The mixture of old and new architecture is something to behold. While the skyline doesn't compare to say Vancouver's,

Kuala Lampur's has its own uniqueness.

We arrive in Kuala Lumpur!

We were pretty excited to see the Patronas Towers and they didn't disappoint. This structure is 452 meters high, has 88 storeys and a walkway between the towers on the 41st floor. The Skywalk - it is aptly named. Although we didn't go up - we both do not like heights - we were part of the group straining our necks below to look up. Both towers are clad in stainless steel and stand there glistening and at night - oh my - they are gorgeous! We were able to see them from our hotel room. When we go back - and we will go back - we will go up! Just saying that makes my tummy flip:)

From our hotel room.

From a few blocks away.

Us straining our necks!

The city itself was extremely easy to travel in. There are free buses, hop on hop off buses and a monorail. Ed was horribly confused about the buses. Kept trying to hop on the free bus! These three work only in the core of the city and are for schlepping tourists like us to and fro. We were fortunate as our hotel, the Concordia, had a monorail station just outside the front doors. And a Hard Rock Café so we were able to add to our ever growing shooter collection! Priorities, priorities!

I should note that there was some strange Japanese hero convention going on while we were there.

At first we thought it had something to do with New Years Eve, but no it was a convention!

Very Odd.

The girls were cute!

We took in China Town - craziness, just plain craziness, some of the high end shopping malls - just dreaming, the sights, sounds and aromas of just walking around and the Bird Sanctuary -

noisy and hot - but some beautiful birds.