Surprising Sri Lanka

It's odd, really.

I expected Sri Lanka to be exactly like India. But it wasn't. That shouldn't really surprise me (it's a different country, after all), but it did. Odd. (How is it different, you might ask? Lots of ways: the clothes, language, customs, food, history, etc. Go to both countries yourselves and then we'll discuss it!) :)

Anyways, Sri Lanka was fascinating and, since I'm behind on blogs again, I'll let the pictures do the talking! Here is our week in Sri Lanka:

We didn't do too much sightseeing in Colombo--but we enjoyed the food...and the ginger beer! Especially the ginger beer! :)







There was security everywhere--especially at the big tourist attractions like this temple. It's nicknamed the "Temple of the Tooth" because there is suposedly a tooth of Buddha inside. (and, no, I wasn't supposed to take pictures of the military...) The picture isn't straight 'cause I was trying to hide the fact that I was taking a picture!


Traditional Sri Lankan Dancers in the old captal of Kandy. They also had fire swallowers as part of this show--it was awesome!






Sigurya is this amazing palace built on top of a mountain. Originally there was a huge lion statue with the entrance to the mountain through his mouth. This picture is taken from the top of the Sigurya.





Monkeys in a row! :)


Aren't they cute? we saw monkeys everywhere: big monkeys, little monkeys, sitting monkeys, runing monkeys, even swimming monkeys!

Adam's Peak supposedly contains the footprint of Adam (if you're talking to some Christians or Muslims), Shiva (according to Hindus), or Buddha (or so say the Buddhists). We never saw it, but we did see an amazing sunrise after waking up at 2 am and hiking the 5 + kilometres to the top! I took the picture on the way down--it was too dark at 2 am!

The aformentioned sunrise...

The other amazing view from Adam's Peak is the perfectly trianagular shadow it casts in the morning. Can you see it between Amanda and I?

Note: I thought that it would be warm enough since we were in a tropical country...IT WASN"T! I hadn't brought a coat either--the one in the picture I borrowed from another hiker who took pity on me!

Rice paddies.

Beachcombing at the beach in Negombo. It was nice to relax on the beach after our strenuous climb up and down Adam's Peak!

Here we are on the way to the airport from Negombo...when our tuk-tuk got a flat!

That's it for Sri Lanka--a short blog on Abu Dhabi is coming next! (P.S. - you can always find more fun pictures in our facebook picture files!)

A quick KL trip

Our four days in Kuala Lumpur (commonly called KL) were great! We wish we could spend more time here. Many things surprised me about KL--the cleanliness, the minimal number of motorbikes and taxis, the fact that everyone speaks English... We drove through the suburbs when we first arrived and it reminded me a lot of rural LA. We made one quick stop for food (Our first Malay food, which was fabulous--but very similar to Thai).

So, here's the rundown: Sunday we went to church at 11 am. The church we went to had a guest speaker from Ghana--he was speaking on prayer and giving based on the beginning of the story of Cornelius in Acts. We went to church with a friend of a friend of a friend! :) He works with the Iranian immigrant community, so we ended up going to lunch with a group of them and then they invited us over for dinner. (Next two meals in Malaysia: Mediterranean and Persian.) It was a great evening/morning...it started after 9 pm and ended about 1:30 am! They were really a fun bunch though--now we think we'd like to visit Iran...

Monday we toured the city with Joshua--the friend of a friend. It was great to have a personal driver and tour guide! Joshua is very knowledgeable about KL and Malaysian history--it was fascinating. Now we think we'd like to come back here for longer... (Are you sensing a theme? ) We started at the National Monument, then went to see the Hornbills in the Bird Sanctuary, and next a stop for lunch was important (Next meal: Chinese). After lunch we visited the new and the old KL. First the Petronas towers and then the old British administration buildings. I'll spare everyone the exhaustive historical accounts--though you really SHOULD be interested--it's fascinating!

Monday evening we met up with an Iranian friend for dinner (we had Indian). It's just the end of the Indian New Year Festival of Deepvali, so we were given so much extra food. IT was all delicious, but we just couldn't finish it!! And I'd like to know how I've survived until now without eating cheese-garlic naan--it's amazing!

Okay, sorry, but a bit of history. Malaysia is very much a country at the crossroads of many others. Because of that, it's ended up with a lot of immigration and influences from neighbouring countries. Currently the population is about 60% Malay, 30% Chinese, and 10% Indian. Therefore the celebration of Deepvali and the prevalence of a variety of food makes sense...

Tuesday we also did a mixture of new and old. We started off the day in one of the newer areas called Putra Jaya where all the government building are built. It was very nice: beautiful gardens, shopping, fountains, an impressive mosque, and a huge "office" for the Prime Minister. Interestingly enough, the Prime Minister's building is nicer than the palace (in our opinion, anyways!). Next came lunch--it was a noodle soup that was considered Malay I think... Good too!

After lunch we reached the old port town of Malacca. This was the town that ruled the sultanate of Malacca and commanded considerable trade. It was captured in 1511 by the Portuguese--who burnt the old town to the ground. Then in 1641 it was captured by the Dutch who basically tore down the Portuguese town. In 1824 the British arrived (after it was ceded to them by the Dutch in a territory exchange treaty) and they stifled most of the trade so that Malacca wouldn't interfere with their formerly established towns of Singapore and Penang, turning it into a forgotten backwater. The current town is a fascinating mix of Malay, Portuguese, Dutch, British, Chinese, etc. influences in the architecture, food, and history. When I return to this country, I'll definitely need to spend more time there.

Wednesday we went back to nature! :) After sleeping quite late, we drove up to FRIM (Forestry Research Institute of Malaysia). While there, we spent several hours hiking through the jungle. It was beautiful! The highlight was the canopy walk though. It was awesome! Close your eyes and imagine a line of old weathered 2x4's strung out end to end...several hundred meters off the ground! At chest height there are ropes to hang onto and the area between the boards and the ropes were covered in netting. I'm not really sure the netting would have held the weight of a person, though, if someone tripped and fell. Needless to say--it was AWESOME! The pictures make it look way too safe though...pity! (Lunch: chinese).

That was just about it for Malaysia--except for our night in the airport! We were planning on sleeping in the lounge but it turned out the whole airport was closed from 10:30 pm to 4:00 am for pest control! So...we slept outside the airport on hard plastic seats... Not the best night's sleep I've ever had, but, oddly enough, not the worst either!

Good-bye Malaysia! We'll be back...

It's sad to say good-bye, but...

..as Christians we never truly say good-bye!

We left Bangkok in October, which was very sad--but on the plus side, it allowed us to have all sorts of parties in the last few weeks! There's always a silver lining... :)

Seriously though, we leave behind so many good friends and we WILL miss you guys!

Thank you to Christ Church first of all for taking in the two girls that randomly showed up last November with no organization and no contacts, looking for things to do! Thank you for warmly welcoming us to your church family and making us feel so much at home. Thank you for allowing us to serve with you and to learn from you and to meet so many wonderful brothers and sisters! Thank you for allowing us to share your kids (I miss my own nieces, nephews and cousins , so teaching and playing with your children was like adopting a whole church worth of honourary nieces and nephews!) and to share your lives.

Special thanks to the staff: all of you! Panjit, Manita, Opat, Pete and Ineke, Harry and Deanne, Ross and Sonia, Matt and Cathy--we love you guys for so many reasons: guitar lessons, Christmas dinner, coffee times, emails, prayer meetings...for everything! Thank you! It's been so wonderful to be part of the team...

Another special thanks to our small group! Food and fellowship--it doesn't get much better than that. We'll miss our Wednesday nights --it was always a fun and funky time. Keep in touch! Extra-special thanks to two very special people from our "original" small group who took two strange girls (emphasis on strange) into their apartment and into their lives! We will really miss you Gary and Claudia!

XOXO

L&A

A few small vacations...and one long one!

Our summer this year was very hectic--but fun! However, we were looking forward to a little r&r come September.

As September began, we managed a few small excursions--the first was to Ayutthaya with Bernice, a friend from church. Ayutthaya is the old capital of Thailand that was destroyed by the Burmese in 1767. I'd been before, but neither Amanda or Bernice had--and I'm always up for visiting ancient sites again! It's not hard to get to Ayutthaya--it's only a few hours by train from Bangkok, so we decided to go there just for the day.

The fun started with the train ride (see previous picture)--we bought third class tickets (of course) which didn't come with seat numbers (naturally)...and just few other people seemed to have followed suit! Oh, and we were late (go figure...). After literally jumping on the train seconds before it left (it's always a bad sign when the locals are also running for the train--not just the foreigners) we found the third class section. According to the guide book, "Don't bother booking ahead--just show up and get a third-class ticket--there's always lots of seats."

Right.

There was one third class car and it was packed!!! We ended up sitting on the floor surrounded by crowds of people. Despite being squished in and sitting on the floor though, our friend Bernice managed to fall asleep for the entire journey...

As soon as we arrived, we jumped onto the little foot ferry to get across the river and then rented bicycles for the day. Thankfully Ayutthaya isn't too hilly--so most of the ride was quite leisurely, despite the heat. It was fun: temples, palaces, and more temples--all in ruins since the city was sacked by the Burmese--but still impressive. It's interesting to me that a Buddhist country (Burma) can attack a Buddhist country (Siam) and the Buddhist attacking army feels the need to sack the Buddhist temples and lob off all the buddha heads....? It seems weird to me. Some really beautiful sites there though--if you consider crumbling ruins beautiful like I do. :)

Our next "vacation" wasn't so much a vacation--but it was so much fun!!! It was called the Vertical Marathon. The tallest building in Bangkok is called the Banyon Tree and every year they have a charity run--straight up! :) Sixty-one flights of stairs, over 1000 steps, to the top. I ran it in under 15 minutes which put me at about 200 of 400 people. Amanda was just under 13 minutes! It was tough--but not as tough as I thought...and the view from the top was incredible!


Like the Vertical Challenge, our next bout of time-off also took place in Bangkok. Liz, a friend of a friend, came to stay with Claudia (we lived with Gary and Claudia for part of our stay in Bangkok) and she really wanted to go to the snake farm. We decided to tag along, 'cause snakes sounded kinda fun! It was great! They had a snake handling show where they brought out cobras and pythons and other deadly snakes and showed them off. The highlight was getting a python wrapped around our neck though--that was cool.

Finally we come to our "long" vacation--still not too long, but longer than most we've taken. At the end of September we took six days off and headed to one of the southern islands: Koh Lanta. It was beautiful! It was still off-season which was great because there were very few people. Unfortunately the reason it was off-season was because it was monsoon season--but what the heck. We're not made of brown sugar... Actually, we missed out on water sports, which was sad, but we also got to enjoy a stormy sea which strongly reminded us of the beach off the Olympic Penninsula in Washington where we spent lots of great time as kids. Really! It was like Kalaloch with palm trees. How awesome is that!?

The other fun part of our trip was the accommodation. Some friends of ours gave us a voucher for a stay at a 5* resort! It was amazing--I've never stayed at anything like that before. It was only for two days though, so we went from the cheapest place on the beach--to the most expensive place--to something mid-range (the picture is the balcony of our third "home.")! It was kinda fun. Since it was a smaller beach and off-season, the people at the restaurants and hotels recognized us as we popped in and out of several different places. They thought we were rather strange...

Despite the lack of water sports we still managed to swim in the ocean everyday and when I say swim I mean play in the waves! We did swim in the infinity pool when we were staying at our 5* resort though! We also did other necessary beachy things--built a sand castle, went beachcombing and took long walks. Actually, the end of the beach was blocked by a rocky point and we really wanted to see what was on the other side, so, one day we went trekking over the point and along the coast. It was fabulously beautiful and good fun--even if we never found the secret beach I was hoping for!

Our beach vacation took us to the end of September. We spent the next two weeks madly scrambling to get everything done and saying good-bye... God really does work in miraculous ways--we were in Bangkok eleven months even though our plan was to stay only five weeks! It was hard to leave Bangkok... We met so many awesome people there. I can't believe we were there almost a year! However, more of that in the next post.

Summer Holiday Clubs

During the summer in Thailand...

hmm...

Actually that statement "summer in Thailand" doesn't make much sense... There isn't really a "summer" here--in fact there aren't even four seasons--there are three: Cold (November-February), Hot (March-June), and Rainy (July-September). And yes, the hot season could be summer--but it's not the same period that I'd call summer at home. What I would call summer back home is actually the rainy season... though, as noted in the last post, it hasn't really been that rainy this year.

However, I am digressing (Can you digress before you've even started?--I'm sure you can.)...this post is supposed to be about the Kids Clubs we helped with in July and August...not the weather!

July and August were busy--but fun! We had three separate kid's camps to plan and run. One was for 4 1/2 days with 10 kids, the next was for 2 1/2 days with 30 kids, and the other was the 10 Sundays throughout the summer with between 12 and 40 kids!

During the first conference we focused on some of the parables. We had great fun exploring the parable of the two houses by building sandcastles on the beach, discussing the parable of the leaven by baking bread, and learning more about the parable of the mustard seed by examining actual mustard seeds. We sang songs, played games, studied the Bible, and generally had a great time. The first picture in the post shows our yeast experiments that we did when we talked about the parable of the leaven. We were trying to help the kids visualize what yeast actually did in bread dough so we added warm water, yeast, and sugar to water bottles and put balloons over the top to catch the gases.

One of our favourite moments was when one of the three-year-old attendees was explaining the parable of the two foundations to the adults during our presentation. He saw pictures of what we had done come up on the powerpoint and his eyes lit up and he stepped up to the mike and explained the whole story. It went something like this: "There was a man. And he built his rock up on a rock. And then it rained and the house was okay." It may have been this picture that triggered his memory! We were checking to see what happens to a sand house when water is poured on it. After watching the house collapse, we all decided that sand would make a bad foundation.

The second conference was more challenging not only because there were more kids, but also because not all the kids spoke English. During that conference we decided to focus on just one Psalm--Psalm 148. We read the psalm, and then over the three days we explored how awesome God's creation is! We tried to keep things really visual so that even kids without much English would still understand. We talked about volcanoes--and then made some. We discussed stars and planets--and then did some experiments with gases. We learned about sea creatures--and then painted out own pictures of them. The program worked really well with the group--and we had lots of fun learning about Psalm 148 with the kids. The picture shows one of the activities we did. We were talking about how diverse God's creation was and how he created some animals with amazing camouflage. Then we put gloves on and tried painting them to match a picture to see how camouflaged we could make them.

Our third club wasn't so much a club--it was a special Sunday School program for the summer. As in many churches, many families are on vacation during the summer, so there were a lot fewer kids around. So, we joined the five classes at the church together and did a special program based on the stories about the Israelites' journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. Each week focused on a different story--and each week focused on a different attribute of God. So, the first week we looked at the story of the Call of Moses and remembered that God is holy, another week we talked about the parting of the sea and remembered that God is our protector. Like the other programs, we had a brilliant time planning and running this Holiday Club.

It really is so much fun working with kids! Often they teach us more than we teach them. On the last week of the Journey-themed club, we were talking about how the Israelites finally reached the Promised Land and then we talked about our Promised Land--heaven. Their activity was to paint their view of heaven. While they were doing that, Amanda asked one of the younger groups of kids, "Who do you think we will see in heaven?" One little girl's eyes lit up and she waved her hand in the air and said, "Me!!"

Rainy Saigon

Several weeks ago we took a quick six-day trip to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). We went for several reasons. First, we wanted to meet a friend of ours who lives there (Tuyet), and second we had to leave Thailand to get new Thai visas, and, of course, neither of us had been to Vietnam!

It was great to finally meet Tuyet. We've been corresponding somewhat irregularly (my fault) for about a year. Unfortunately we were only in Vietnam from Monday to Saturday and she works those days, but we did meet several times for lunch and coffee and she was invaluable in procuring us transportation back to the airport (she actually chased down the bus we were riding on, on a motorcycle, to make sure the bus was heading to the airport-- it wasn't so she found us a motorcycle taxi instead). Good times!

The most striking thing we remember about Vietnam, however, is the rain! Now, supposedly we've been in the rainy season here in Bangkok for the last few months. However, that's generally meant it rains every day for a few hours--but often it's in the evening so it's not really disruptive of our day-to-day life.



It's also the rainy season in Saigon, but, based on our Bangkok experience, we weren't really all that concerned--or prepared!

We arrived in Saigon in the morning and the rain started on the bus ride from the airport. Actually, strike "rain" from that sentence--it was more like a torrential downpour! However it stopped long enough for us to find our hotel--and then started up again while we were having brunch.

It didn't stop.

Our first purchase (besides brunch) was a couple of ponchos--which we almost immediately donned for our walk across town to the Thai Embassy. Luckily, the rain only lasted a few hours that first day and we didn't need to use use our ponchos again.




The next few days, though, the rain started and just never stopped! We needed to return to the Embassy and we kept waiting for the rain to at least slacken off--it didn't! When we finally flagged down a taxi the water in the street outside our hotel was lapping over the sidewalks. In the center of the street motorcycles were stalling out because their engines flooded--it was insane.

This was a rainy season!


We went touring in the rain, walked to the Thai embassy in the rain, walked to the Canadian Embassy in the rain, walked to our hotel in the rain, walked back to the Thai embassy in the rain (yes, we spent a fair bit of time at the Thai embassy!), took motorcycle taxis to a school where we volunteered to teach English in the rain, went shopping in the rain...I think you get the point!


The rain was lovely, but I am quite glad to report that it did stop for the last two days we were there (mostly). That was lucky, 'cause we went out of the city touring that day. We went to the Chu Chi tunnels--tunnels used by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. The tunnels were really interesting--they've been enlarged twice, but as still so small that I don't know how people could have used them!

As per usual, we have lots of great food memories from Vietnam. We went out for lunch twice with Tuyet and had some AMAZING food. Fish wrapped in thin rice paper, shrimp cakes, Vietnamese pancakes, papaya salad...yum. We also went out with Gavin, a friend from Australia, and had barbecued beef and, while thinking of Obelix, wild boar! The boar was fun to try, but the beef was better. :) The food in Vietnam is an odd mix actually. It's quite Asian in many ways, but there's an odd French influence too. Baguettes and soft cheese, for example, are very prevalent!

Our two most interesting food memories were chicken eggs with partially formed chicks in them and dog (sorry Lindsay!). We bought the eggs off a small street stand down the road from our hotel. A friend from the States, Teddy, was planning to try them so we joined in (see previous picture)! Tuyet helped us buy them, showed us how to eat them, and then laughed at our faces while we ate. :)

The eggs weren't all that great, but, sorry to all dog lovers out there, the dog was actually quite tasty--as long as it wasn't dipped into the shrimp sauce that is. There's a whole street of little local restaurants where dog is the only thing on the menu. Luckily we were having lunch with Gavin who speaks Vietnamese, so we easily ordered some barbecued dishes with pepper sauce. It tasted a bit like lean beef... It was alright! Oddly enough, while the rest of the city has stray dogs and cats, we never saw any around that street of restaurants at all...

Don't pet the wild elephants

Seriously, isn't there anything anymore that's just common sense?

Who would try to pet a wild animal that weighed almost 100 times more than they did? Obviously enough people do, because we were told by four different people in less than 24 hours not to pet the wild elephants because they're dangerous! I worry about the future of humanity if that many people need to be told... Okay, in the defense of humanity, as Amanda says, tame elephants are rather prolific in Thailand and EVERYONE pets them...or rides them or teaches them to play soccer and paint...so maybe it's not surprising that people figure wild elephants are docile too...

Actually I wasn't really that surprised--mostly I just wanted to name the post "Don't pet the wild elephants" 'cause it sounded cool, so I thought I should comment on the saying! :)

Actually the thing that WAS surprising about our May visit to Khao Yai National Park in Thailand was the leeches.

Pop quiz: Do leeches live on land or in the water?

Now, being Canadian, the only leeches I'd come into contact with lived in the water. If you go swimming in the Northern lakes, there's a somewhat decent chance you'll come out of the water with a leech stuck to you. But if you stay away from water, no problem! So...when we arrived and asked the rangers about good hikes, we assumed their recommendation to buy leech socks was a bit of a tourist scam. Note: Leech socks are just like linen bags worn over your socks and pants. They can be seen in the picture as our friends Xavier and Marie-Aude were not so skeptical and they bought some. We, on the other hand, thought, "Right, 'leech socks'--those are important! Or, we'll not wade through the water and we'll be fine!"

We weren't.

It seems that tropical leeches live on land--and there's LOTS of them! Unfortunately, we didn't notice them until after they found me. After hiking for just over an hour, I looked down and wondered why there was blood on the bottom of my pant leg... It's lucky we had matches, as that's one of the best ways to detach leeches--it worked great this time too--but the wounds didn't stop bleeding for a good 40 minutes and I got to hike around for the next day and a half looking like I'd been in a war zone cause I didn't have another pair of pants with me!

All fun and games though, I suppose! :)

In addition to wild elephants (which we never actually saw) and the leeches (which we definitely saw), we also saw some gorgeous waterfalls, lots of amazing jungle scenery, several gibbons and monkeys frolicking in the trees, a porcupine and some deer (while on night safari), and two crocodiles (seen in the picture). It was a fun day and a half of hiking. Well, minus the leeches it was! Check out our Facebook albums for more pictures.

We stayed right in the park, so we didn't have to waste time commuting to the closest town. We stayed in some very upscale bungalows. And when I say "upscale" I mean you have to scale up a steep hill to reach our rather dilapidated dorms... They were large single rooms with two large wooden bed frames and...actually there's no "and." That's it. We did manage to wrangle some bedding out of the camp staff, but between the hard beds, the frolicking monkeys and the Thais having a party next door, I think we were all happy that we could buy espresso at the food hall in the morning!

Let me finish this blog entry with a great opportunity for anyone who might like to travel here to Thailand. The guides at Khao Yai would like someone to stay for several months to teach them English and help with research...leech research. All you'd have to do is let the main researcher attach leeches to you to test various things!!! :) So, let me know if you're interested and I'll pass along the info!

Okay, I lied. In actuality, the researcher has already finished his leech research and just needs someone to collect data on snails...