It was K the travel agent vs. the International Date Line.
No, it really can’t be blamed on that… It was the confusion of bringing five
people halfway around the world from three places on different days, with a
scheduled overnight for Ben in Hong Kong to be able to rendezvous with
Margaret, who left San Francisco the 17th but apparently should have
left the 16th because B reached destination Kuala Lumpur a full day
before she did. Oh well, Margaret managed very
nicely without the escort, and we all made it in due course. 25 hours for K
&T, something similar for the US contingent.
***
Starting in Penang, an island home to a delicious mix of
Chinese, Malay and Indian culture, many colonial buildings still in tact and
lending charm. Fantastic food. Ben and
Tom and I take what we think will be a short trip to Penang Hill, by bus and
funicular railway. Wrong—crowds and traffic take the better part of the day,
but it is fun and we get a beautiful view of the island.
Aunt Margaret arrives
the next day, and Cam the next, happily connecting in the KL airport. Below we are at the foot of the very tall
Petronas Towers in downtown KL.
And outside KL, a cave temple, and a trip to the Forest Research Institute in a rainforest, where we had hoped to do a canopy walkway but it was closed due to...rain
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| peeping Tom (sorry so blurry) |
On to Thailand, and Khao Sok National Park, about 3 hours’
drive north and east of Phuket. Christmas in a cozy treehouse in the jungle. Mmmmmmm. We meet up with dear family friend Kevin and his
lady Mandie and share an amazing Christmas Eve adventure and Christmas day with
them.
Christmas Eve: We arrange to go to Cheow Lan Lake in the park, having seen
pictures of it’s incredible scenery, water surrounded by dramatic karst towers.
We ride in a van decked out for karaoke (alas, no music) about an hour to the
lake, then climb into a long-tail boat for an hour’s journey across the lake,
oohing and aahhing at the scenery. We had been told that we can kayak or go to
a cave, and we had all opted for kayaking, the cave sounding dull. Our guide
has limited English, but it is clear he is disappointed with our choice. When
the boat reaches it’s destination, a restaurant with a few huts for overnight
stays, it is clear we cannot kayak, as all the boats seem to be in use, so after an
awesome Thai meal we follow our friendly guide on a hike to the cave, with a sort of ho hum feeling.
It turns out to be a fine hike along a jungle path, for another hour. He has
told us that we can’t wear flipflops, should wear bathing suits, and should
leave all excess belongings behind, but nothing has prepared us for what we
would encounter. The cave is, of course, dark. It has a rocky floor, and we have four
headlamps between the seven of us. That isn’t so bad, but it does add to the air
of adventure. So does the sudden plunge—following the guide's warning—into a waist-deep pool
close to the entrance of the cave. Woo hoo. We
travel all the way through the cave, which takes about an hour. Near the
entrance there are a couple of “rooms” with bats on the ceiling—two different
types of bats—but fortunately (for me anyway) we encounter no bats further
inside. On we move, plenty of head room
for the most part. Then the guide takes our cameras and files them in his dry
bag, and he climbs halfway up a wall onto a narrow ledge, leaving us to
navigate a narrow, steep chasm with water rushing below, a real Indian Jones
moment. We exclaim and giggle and laugh as we somehow make it through and down,
grabbing a rope mounted at ankle height as we descend abruptly into the water at
the foot of the chasm. Cam is impressed that his near 59-year old mother has
managed. We are all a bit dumbstruck and giddy. Fun! There is one more neck-deep pool at the end,
daylight in view. We then hike and boat and van back to our treehouse haven.
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| Cam and old friend Kevin, in the treehouse |
Christmas in the treehouse
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| K showing off the iPhone given to her by her boys |
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| Tom utterly surprised to receive coffee |
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| Tom and Cam with Chang beer shirts from Kevin |
Christmas Day a visitor: a viper (maybe)! K had been hoping for
gibbons and their once-familiar sound, but the snake is pretty cool, and there
is one troop of smaller monkeys.
We say goodbye to Kevin and Mandie and head for the coast to
be ready for a 3-day 2-night boat trip to the Similan Islands.
Southern, coastal Thailand: we stop and consider that all
constructed buildings we see in this area are post-2004 tsunami. Stunning to
consider the magnitude of the loss of life.
We are told that the elephants knew the wave was coming and broke free
of their massive chains to head inland. Afterward they returned, each to their
homes, their mahoots, and even helped with the massive cleanup, doing work they
wouldn’t have touched normally: moving
concrete rubble and even bodies.
***
The boat takes 4 ½ hours to reach the islands, and some of
the best diving in the world. Ben will dive and hopefully so will Cam, who is not
certified but has been diving a number of times. The rest of us will snorkel. The
boat is comfortable; we share it with 9 other people, all divers, four diving
staff, two deck hands, two cooks YUM!, and the captain. There are 7 cabins, and
seating in both sun and shade, and plenty of Dramamine, set out in cups on the
table with the salt and pepper. The dive company, Wicked Diving, proves a class
act—very well organized and showing real concern for both safety and the
environment—bravo.
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| Everyone on board |
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| Ben |
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| Ben's lion fish friend |
Snorkeling is amazing.
Dozens of different types of fish—schools
of Moorish idol, butterflyfish, triggerfish, angelfish, crocodile needlefish—wild
colors and shapes, aqua blue, yellow, spotted, pointed. We are intruders in an aquarium, floating about. The water is clear and
intensely blue. Cam spots three octopi, two that are fighting and changing
colors. Later, from the boat Ben spots a jumping
marlin as we sit at lunch. On a dive, he goes face to face with a
huge moray eel and a lion fish with large, pointy spines. Eight dives/snorkels
in three days. There should have been nine dives, but for a rule that one
cannot fly within 24 hours of diving….he misses the last dive, to the wreck of
a tin processing ship :-(. Cam misses diving altogether :-( :-(, as his shoulder becomes
dislocated while pulling on the air tank! Tom and the divemaster help him to pop it
back in while Mom frets.
We leave the ship amazed and contented, the snorkelers among
us sporting not only red spots from tiny stinging jellyfish but a remarkable and
quite peculiar snorkelers' sunburn from mid-thigh where our wetsuits ended to the
ankle, on the back side of the legs only, and on the elbow.
***
K finds select words of Thai, buried under 27 years of
memory cobwebs, emerging. With Cam, shopping for flipflops, the words for “larger
size” come to mind. It is only several days later she recalls the more useful “How
much does it cost?”. Oddly, “yes” and “no”
remained elusive, while, in Bangkok “traffic jam” and “the weather is hot” came
to mind.
Bangkok for New Years’ Eve. We try to go for a drink at the
fabled Oriental Hotel on the Chao Phrya River. We are turned away by a
doorman who gently points out that not only are our shorts and sandals not up
to their dress code, but that the place is full of people who had reserved long
in advance… He suggests another place
that turns out to be perfect. New Years’
Day is Cam’s last before returning to NY and school. He picks a Lebanese
restaurant for dinner and we have a most wonderful feast there, stuffing
ourselves contentedly with familiar mezze dishes, on a soi (street) in a
neighborhood that could have been one of K’s old haunts—she doesn’t recognize a
thing in the city really, after 27 years.
T & K, Ben and Margaret leave for Baku, via Colombo and
Dubai. Colombo is because we take Sri Lankan Airlines, which treats us to a
night in the city because the connecting flight to Dubai doesn’t leave ‘til
morning. K had thought they would put us up at a less-than-wonderful place near
the airport, but to our surprise they drive us all the way in to downtown, and
put us up in the Galadari Hotel right on the seafront. Fabulous buffet dinner and
breakfast with food to please Sri Lanka, Japanese, Indian and Western tastes—must
have been 30 different cooked dishes.
Then Dubai and a layover long enough for Ben and Margaret to
dash into the city on the Metro and see the Burj Khalife building, tallest in
the world.
In the aiport loo we trade shorts and sandals for jeans,
tights, sweaters and sneakers—and are off to Baku.
Back in T&K’s Baku world: the internet has been cut off,
the telephone doesn’t work, and while one can now book train tickets online, we
learn that you have to enter the names of the travelers in Russian… Our snorkeler’s sunburn, has been reduced to
massive peeling, and the memory of the incredible fish life we saw now
dream-like.
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| Ben tackling kinkhali |
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| Bread in the train--yum! |
Less than 48 hours later we board an overnight train to
Tbilisi, Georgia. Our guests are treated to Tom’s 5-star walking tour, and
introduced to Georgian culinary delights of kachapuri and kinkhali.
Sigh. Lovely
time with the boys and Margaret.
