Dans les dernières années, on a eu l’habitude de regarder les Olympiques d’hiver et d’été. Donc, on a décidé d’en faire autant en voyage. On a ici tout.tv sur l’iPad et, après nos devoirs, on en regardait un petit peu.
J’aime beaucoup regarder le patin de vitesse parce qu’il y a beaucoup de différentes épreuves dans ce sport. Dans le patinage de vitesse, il y a la longue piste et la courte piste. Moi, je préfère la courte piste parce que c’est plus stressant quand ils commencent à quatre et j’ai peur qu’ils s’accrochent et tombent. L’autre sport que j’ai trouvé cool était le snow cross. J’ai aimé la stratégie de comment réussir à dépasser les autres.
Le sport que Benoît a aimé regarder le plus était le bobsleigh à cause du départ. Ils commencent tous en même temps en sprintant et poussant le traineau. On en a juste regardé à la fin des olympiques.
Elsie a évidemment préféré le hockey comme quand on regarde les Canadiens de Montréal. C’était surtout parce que Suzuki est sur l’équipe Canada. Malheureusement, l’équipe Canada a perdue en prolongation de la finale. On a vraiment aimé regarder tous les sports et on a déjà hâte aux prochains Olympiques à LA. Mais avant, il y a la Coupe du monde cet été!
After a double-decker overnight bus from Bangkok and a somewhat chaotic minibus transfer, we pulled into Ao Nang one fine morning. Ao Nang was bustling, with lots of tourist shops and restaurants, and a stunning backdrop of the sea with karst islands in the distance rising vertically out of the ocean. So we were starting to wonder if we had erred by booking accommodations in nearby Krabi Town instead. This doubt was reinforced further when our transfer dropped us off on the dusty outskirts of said town. Our driver had offered to take us directly to our hotel… for an exorbitant price. So we instead found a taxi driver who seemingly had nothing else to do that day, and haggled down to a reasonable price.
We had a few days in Krabi Town and we ended up loving it. There was lots of local life, including a bustling market where we stocked up on bananas (one dollar for a bunch) and dragon fruit, a great Thai coffee shop, but also a good number of tourists. Our evenings were spent wandering between a few night markets, which allowed everyone to find the exact food that satisfied their cravings.
Our new favourite coffee joint in Krabi.
To get out of the town, we took a longboat to Railay Beach, one of the spots that Claire was most looking forward to in Southern Thailand. It did not disappoint! It was very much resort-land, and the vibe was very chill. There are a few beaches here nestled among the dramatic karst mountains. We spent the afternoon chilling on one beach until we decided to walk to another beach, or watch some rock climbers, or grab some food, or watch the monkeys/water monitors, until it was time to catch our longtail boat back into town.
Mackaela picked up some hitchhikers….
The next day we booked an island-hopping tour out to Koh Phi Phi and the surroundings. This was our third such excursion (after Fiji and El Nido) and they’ve all been great. Personally I love jumping straight off the boat into the water without having to ever deal with wet sand… it’s paradise!
We started with a quick stop to jam-packed Maya Bay, which was beautiful, but mostly seemed to serve as a staging area for Instagram photoshoots (kids these days… amirite?) since we weren’t allowed in the water in order to protect shark breeding grounds. Next, there was a stop at a nearby lagoon for swimming, and then we were off to snorkel. Of our three excursions, this was the top spot for snorkelling, and we were the last ones back in The boat. There was coral, clams, sea snakes, and all sorts of tropical fish. My favourite was a large purple one that overdid the makeup a touch that morning with its orange lipstick and green eye-liner.
Maya Bay.
Interestingly, our fantastic tour-guide, Kong, was quite safety-focused. He told the whole boat that we HAD to wear a life jacket while snorkelling, which quite surprised us. In the end, we went up to him after to see if we REALLY needed to, since we are strong swimmers. and he quickly told us not to worry about it. We realized that in the south of Thailand, there was tourism from lots of countries, and at least half of the people in our boat (and others) didn’t know how to swim.
The many life jackets of Bamboo Island.
We saw this at our last stop as well: Bamboo Island. The island is a national park and there was a ranger with a megaphone patrolling the beach announcing the rule: you need a life jacket while swimming or there is a stiff fine! This seemed a bit much to us… so Claire took a little walk and discovered that off of the main beach there were tons of beautiful spots where people (mostly westerners) were swimming without life jackets. So we joined. And the rangers patrolling nearby did not even care.
Finding some calm off the main beach at Bamboo Island.
In Port Barton, our first activity was on our last day there. In Puerto Princesa, Ben was wearing a Habs T-shirt. A man saw the Canadiens T-shirt and it turns out he was from Quebec, so he came over to talk to our family. We told him that we were going to El Nido and Port Barton. Alain said that he had a chalet near Port Barton and that we could go there when he was there.
On our last day In Port Barton, we went to Alain’s chalet. That morning we left at 9:45. We went on the beach to look for a boat to bring us to the little village of Bunuangin. A man asked if we wanted to go to White Beach and we said no, but asked how many pisos it would be to go to Bunuangin. He said that his boss would tell us the price. He said 3000. But we found another boat for only 2000. When we arrived, we visited the village. After we went on the neighbour’s boat to go to the net to catch some fish and some crabs for lunch. We caught 6 crabs, 7 fish, one ray, and one squid (he had so much ink). We came back to the chalet to eat. We learned how to eat the crab and left the fish and ray for the neighbour.
El Nido is the main tourist draw on the island of Palawan, and for good reason: the dramatic landscape is full of beautiful karst mountains and islands rising nearly vertically out of the sea. The town is also set up for tourists, so it’s easy to find an island-hopping tour that will take you to some spectacular spots for swimming and snorkeling. It’s definitely a touristy spot, where pasta restaurants abound, and not some hidden gem, but hey… we are tourists after all!
Beautifully dramatic El-Nido.
Traveling for eight months is sure to have its ups and downs; sometimes those ups and downs all occur within a few days. Henri just posted about the ups of our wonderful day of island-hopping, but let me also describe the downs that book-ended that day.
The day before island-hopping started wonderfully. We headed down to the beach (Corong Corong) to get a little physical activity: a relaxed soccer game on the sand that was the very portrait of family bliss. What better thing to do after the game than to wade into the water to cool off? Well, in hindsight, it would have been better to do practically anything else!
Claire and the kids headed out first into the water, and then I followed. Just as the water reached my thighs, I took a step and put my foot into what could best be described as an electrical outlet. By reflex, I pulled my leg out and my left leg went into the outlet next. I jumped back, cursed a few times, and yelled to the family that I got stung by a jellyfish and started back to shore. Now, I have a pretty decent pain tolerance (I once broke my tibia playing soccer, and then watched the second half of the game before going to the hospital), but this definitely… hurt. This wasn’t the kind of jellyfish you find at Parlee Beach.
Claire managed to lead the kids back to safety, avoiding a few other stingers that she managed to spot in the water. Once on the beach, I wandered up to the nearest bar to ask them if they had any… vinegar. The nice folks at the bar had a bottle ready just for this, and sprayed my legs (to disactivate the stinging cells) and we removed the tentacles from my burning skin. When I noticed a few locals gathering around to see what was going on, and the barman talking about how it can be dangerous if you get stung near veins I suddenly thought: “wait, are these those tranparent box jellyfish… you know, the kind that sometimes kill people?”
It looks like the answer, after a bit of googling and AI, was “yes!” Fortunately, I was stung (rather than one of the kids) and I didn’t have any worrying symptoms (shortness of breath, heart palpitations, or … death). I just had to deal with my skin burning for the rest of the day, and some sensitivity afterwards.
My hopes of being a leg-model are dashed.
Needless to say, this encounter made us a little anxious for our island-hopping the following day. But, we went ahead, with caution: we put our rashies on, brought a bottle of vinegar, kept our eyes open for jellyfish, and let others go into the water first!
And we never saw a jellyfish! It was a great time.
To be fair, there are warnings about jellyfish. But I’m pretty sure it’s the winter…
And the day after island-hopping? Well, that’s when I got gastro. And then everyone got gastro. No need for further details there…
Once in a while, you find yourself walking down the street, not even realizing how bad you need it. But then you round the corner and you see that stand selling fried banana on a stick. And then, for a few minutes at least, the universe becomes orderly, and everything in life makes sense. All of that for 25 cents.
One of the main reasons we ventured to the north of Luzon was Claire’s desire to see the rice terraces that have been carved into the mountain-side there over the past 2000 years. So, after Sagada we headed to the city of Banaue, which, for tourists like us, serves as a jumping-off point for seeing the surrounding terraces. But how to get there? Well, the easy option would have been to take a coach bus. But Elsie really wanted to ride in a jeepney. We saw tons of these colourful, converted jeeps transporting people around Manila, but were a little too-intimated to try to take one. So we crammed like sardines with a bunch of filipinos into the back of a jeepney in Sagada, headed for Bontoc. Much like a can of sardines, the jeepney had minimal suspension, and the ride along the twisty roads was a little rough on everyone’s stomach. I also hit my head on the roof a few times, to everyone’s amusement. But we made it. From Bontoc, we caught a very comfortable minibus to Banaue, and along the way were wowed by the views as the road twisted and turned. As we approached the city, we caught more and more views of rice terraces.
The family crammed into a jeepney.
From Banaue, there were a number of possibilites for an excursion to the nearby rice terraces. We opted for just doing one, because we are on a budget and also because have been exhausting the kids! So we headed out on a private jeepney to the Hapao rice terraces, where we met up with a local guide (mandatory) who took us on a trek through the terraces that surround the village, with a well-deserved stop at the local hot-springs.
The Hapao rice terraces, view from above.
The walk was beautiful, and it was impressive to imagine how much work went into altering the landscape to suit agriculture (and to see the effort it took to work the fields). What made this tour even more amazing was our charming guide Joseph, who told us stories about his ancestors (a house adorned with the skulls from tribal warfare!), local customs, and growing up in the village, and answered all of our questions about how to actually grow rice. It was really fantastic!
On est allé à la Sumaging Cave. Les roches étaient très glissantes et si on n’avait pas de lampe frontales on serait tombé. Les chauve souris avaient un nid au plafond. Il y avaient des formes dans la roche comme un lion, un gateau, un crocodile, et des dents. On est passé dans des petites rivières, mais on n’avait pas nos maillots. Pour remonter, on a utilisé des cordes à deux endroits. C’était le fun!
Claire nicely summarized our harrowing escape from Manila in her blog post, and Henri found a way to nicely summarize our subsequent 11 hour bus ride to Sagada by, upon exiting the bus, leaning over to throw up on the side of the road!
But from that point on, everything picked up!
Claire had picked Sagada, tucked away in the Cordillera mountains, as a destination, but I admit that I hadn’t really looked into it at all. We will be doing lots beaches, so I just liked the idea of something a little different. After spending a few days here though, I think it will end up on the highlight reel of our trip.
One of the things I liked most about the town is that it’s certainly set up for tourism, but didn’t feel overly “touristy” in that negative sense of the word. Upon arrival, we registered at the tourist centre, where we paid a fee that goes into keeping up the local infrastructure, and got a pamphlet outlining the main tours, treks, and such. It included the tourist agencies where we could find an accredited guide, and had all of the prices listed clearly. For someone who wasn’t all that prepared, it made things easy!
We opted for one hike per day while we were here, and they were all fantastic! The kids will go into a bit more detail about each of these in upcoming posts: Day 1 was a hike near town past some the hanging coffins, local coffee plantations, and along a river that passes through a cave; Day 2 was an exploration deep (but not too deep!) into Sumaging Cave; and Day 3 was a trek with 850 m of descent past terraced rice fields to the ice-cold Bomod-Ok falls and then with 850 m of ascent back up. The kids did great on all of these, and had a blast. It may have helped that I promised ice cream at the end of each (I think they teach this in Advanced Parenting).
There are hanging coffins found all over the region. If you live long enough, you get the privilege of carving your own coffin and then being buried in such a spot. I like it.
At first, I felt a little dépaysé-d, but the town itself was also very cool. Being in the mountains, the geography made for an interesting layout and it was easy to find great views. We got used to perusing the shops and restos up and down the main road, which somehow takes two-way car traffic and pedestrians despite being only slightly larger than the sidewalks on our street back in Montreal. I even found a bit of a hipster cafe (Tam Tam) along the main road that served great coffee sourced from right in the hood. One afternoon, we felt adventurous and ventured off the main road, and wandered among some of the narrow walkways that snaked their way through whole neighbourhoods that are disconnected from the road.
After an amazing few weeks in Oz, it’s time to embark on the next stage of our family adventure: South-East Asia.
I’ll readily admit that I was feeling a bit nervous about this transition, after such an easy time in Australia. Claire and I have traveled in the region before, but that was over a decade ago. Things went pretty smooth back then, but I am the kind of guy who’re likes his routine, and knowing generally how things work. I knew this would push me a bit out of my comfort zone… but that was always part of the point.
So after an eight hour flight, and many, many movies (I finally saw Barbie!) we landed in Manila. We managed to get our bearings pretty quickly, make it to our hotel, and grab some delish Filipino food nearby. After just a couple of hours amidst the bustling streets, the smell of street food, and the thrill of crossing the street without getting run over, I can say that the nervousness has shifted to excitement!
Our first resto, and hotel in Makati City (Manila).
This morning we woke up with the sunrise and the meowing of stray cats, and headed out the door to explore. I’m happy to say that the kids have fully bought-in to what will surely be our new routine: wandering around the streets trying to find the best cart or hole-in-the-wall serving something that will function as breakfast.
Early morning street-food breakfast. This hole-in-the-wall was bustling.
As an aside: how did people travel before smartphones? I mean, we did it going around the world back in 2012, but how? Was it just using those grainy maps in the guidebooks, our own wits, and the kindness of others? This time, upon landing in Manila, we got a SIM card at the airport, and hailed a ride with Grab (think Uber). It sure did seem to make things easy!
Nous avons passé une semaine à visiter Sydney avec nos cousins et je vais vous parler d’une des journées. Nous avons commencé par aller à la plage Bondi.
Quelques minutes après qu’on soit allé dans l’eau les sauveteurs nous ont changés de place parce que la partie où on était avait trop de “rip”. Nous avions amené des boogie boards et des lunettes de nage avec nous. J’ai beaucoup aimé le boogie board.
Donc, nous sommes restés pour à peu près deux heures avant de partir en voiture pour Clovelly. C’était une plage faite de grosses roches. Ce qu’on a trouvé drôle c’était que les poissons venaient manger la peau morte de nos pieds! Après ça, on est allé marcher sur le long de la côte jusqu’à la prochaine plage . La marche était vraiment très belle.
Quand nous sommes arrivés à la plage nous avons décidé que deux personnes devraient aller chercher les voitures. Les deux autres adultes nous ont acheté des crèmes glacée. Après nous nous sommes baignés jusqu’à ce que les parents reviennent avec les voitures. À cette plage il y avait encore plus de “rip” et de grosses vagues!
5 billets SVP 