Time for Vacation!

Yes, the semester is done and after we finish our weekend classes this Saturday and Sunday we'll be headed off to Sumatra, Indonesia. Sumatra is a big island right on the equator, but has fairly mountainous terrain so we may be in for a little bit of refreshing cooler weather. This is one of only two places in the world where Orangutans still live in the wild so we're really hoping for a sighting. There is a national park where apparently sightings are very common so we are definitely heading there for a visit!

We'll try to update while we're there but aren't sure about the internet access so it might have to wait.

If you're interested, more information on Sumatra can be found here and here.

My Baby Brother in Thailand

His visit might have been short but we got a lot done! Tim arrived on Saturday night and we took him shopping to shake off the jet lag, then sent him off to Rayleigh on Sunday for a little time on the beach. After the beach it was a night at pub quiz, and some celebrating my birthday.

Good times were had by all!
The next day was snorkeling. No pictures there, we forgot to put a memory card in the camera! We took Tim to our favourite restaurant for a birthday dinner and then ice cream for dessert.

On Friday we spent the morning at soi dog walking THREE pens of dogs! So many happy tails.

Next it was time for a surf lesson! Teacher Shane took Tim out to the beach to teach him to surf. Tim did great and even managed to get onto a few waves on his first day!

The last stop on our whirlwind tour of Phuket was the big buddha. They are building this monument on the top of one of the mountains here in Phuket. In order to help fund the project they let you buy a square of marble and write a message on it; then they use the square to continue the mosaic on the buddha. Tim took this opportunity to get a little thank-you gift for Aunt Barbara who generously helped to fund his trip!

We were sad to see him go! Luckily I will get to see everyone VERY SOON when I come home on October 6th!

Monsoon Racing

In Phuket, monsoon season supposedly runs from April-October. We were a little apprehensive when we moved here, picturing rain all the time for six months. However, it turns out that for most of monsoon season it is actually pretty damn sunny... until the last few weeks.

All of a sudden, our tropical paradise has turned ugly. The rains come often, they come fast, and it rains really hard! I don't know about rainfall in other parts of the world, but if you took the average Ontario rainstorm and multiplied it by 5 you wouldn't be far off.

Unlike rain back home, which warns you with days of gray skies before anything actually happens; Thailand's rainstorms come within a few minutes. Today's rainstorm went like this:

I drove back from the apartment under partially cloudy skies.  (Neither blue nor gray skies seem to be an accurate predictor of good or bad weather).

I called Shane to ask where he wanted to go for lunch. "Soup place sounds good Shane, I see a big cloud coming over Monkey Hill... it's about to start raining I've gotta go!" At this point I figured I had maybe 2 minutes to get indoors.

I started walking down the sidewalk. Suddenly I heard a "whooshing" noise, it sounds a lot like wind but we've been here long enough that I knew to turn around. I saw this...

Monkey hill and our apartment building were already being poured on. There were 100 metres between me and the motorcycle repair shop (which has an awning over the sidewalk) and of course I was carrying my laptop in my backpack. I started to sprint...

The rain was chasing at my heels but I managed to make it... until next time monsoons.

A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Rental Bike

Today's post SHOULD have been full of adorable pictures of our dog-to-be and his friends. Today I was headed to the north end of the island to the soi dog shelter, but Shane needed to head south to go surfing. Our solution was to rent a bike from the place down the road, not too expensive and then we could both go where we needed to. Or at least so we thought...

I headed up the highway and stopped to fill the bike up with gas. After filling it wouldn't start! The nice guys at the gas station helped me kick start it (the electric starter was dead) and I was off.

Fifteen minutes later I was driving along when I heard a "pop" and suddenly the engine was revving but the bike wasn't going anywhere. The belt had snapped :( I called Shane and he gallantly came to my rescue at a TINY repair shop in the middle of nowhere (a cow across the road was roaming around eating grass while my bike was fixed). We switched bikes so he could take the broken one back (and then head out south to the beach) and I could still get to soi dog since I was halfway there.

I headed off on our bike, and arrived at soi dog just in time to answer my phone. It was Shane "arrrrrgh the belt broke again, I am stranded on the side of the highway". I quickly explained to the soi dog staff the reason for my super quick visit, and headed off to rescue Shane.

After I found Shane on the side of the road we went back to get the original mechanic, who talked on the phone to the rental place. The rental place said they would come get the bike, of course this is Thailand so they didn't exactly jump on it and we waited from around 11 to 2 for someone to show up. Too late to go to soi dog we headed home...

What a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad motorbike!