The Briggs in Malaysia!!!

2011-02-24T23:53:00.000-08:00

We actually spent a great deal of time in early 2011 in Kuala Lumpur. Van was not able to dive for 10 weeks due to his recent bout of decompression sickness, so we have been hanging around town for a change which is new to us. Below is a collection of shots from/of our new apartment at Hampshire Residence on the 32nd floor and Kuala Lumpur. It's interesting to note that we learned that the ladder truck for Kuala Lumpur can only go up to the 14th floor. I'll pray for no apartment fires, or at least us not being there if there is one, ha.

Isham, front left was our PETRONAS counterpart and team member for almost 2 years. He has been working in another country and stopped by to see the new GTower office and all of us. It was great to see him. Left to right front row: Jamie Ford, Noorha Wahab, and Isham bin Isnin. Second Row: Jill Engel-Cox, Van, Glen Engel-Cox, Jerad Ford, Ken Bergsman, and Theresa Bergsman.

Sunrise on our morning walk to work. The taxis and buses were all lined up ready for the morning commuters.

During the Chinese New Year there were lion dances everywhere. This one was almost across the street from us at the Chinese Consulate.

Storm coming. View from our apartment windows.

I liked this view of the PETRONAS Twin Towers complete with sign.

The Prime Minister Najib and his wife Rosmah watched the lion dance at the consulate. Here Rosmah shakes hands with the ladies in the crowd.

Nice, mask. You can also see Van's butt in the background. He is trying to get the shot. Ha.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib shakes hands with those in the crowd. It was amazing to be able to get this close to him.

Nighttime view from our dining room table. It's really fun being on the 32nd floor.

This is the pool in our new apartment. The worse thing is that the sun only shines on the pool a couple hours a day which makes the water (which is unheated) rather refreshing.

Our combination living and dining rooms. We love the windows and the open concept.

The Olson's came over for a turkey dinner and a game of Monopoly. John and Anders are having a great time!

Olivia and Alida Olson. It was girls against the boys and the girls won - of course!

Sunrise from our apartment. The colors were beautiful.

Believe it or not, we normally do not see the moon. It is usually covered by clouds which build all day long and obscure it long before we ever get a chance to see it. This is very rare in KL.

Sunrise over KL.

More sunrise.

I've been trying for a while now to get a photo of lightening. This one is my first. There are many opportunities as the lightening storms are quite something and very frequent.

Storm coming. Check out the cars caught in "the jam." I can't tell you how nice it is to be able to walk home from work and avoid all the traffic. I love it!

Khao Lak and Similan Islands Thailand

2011-01-20T20:06:00.000-08:00

When we got back from Boracay we were in Kuala Lumpur for three days before leaving for another trip. While the company and client try to negotiate another contract, we were encouraged to take vacation while it is quiet. They didn't have to tell us twice. We made arrangements to stay in Khao Lak (the place in Thailand that was hit the heaviest by the tsunami in 2004) for five days before getting on the MV Nautica for a six day, six night liveaboard cruise to the Similan Islands, Surin Islands, and Richelieu Rock, Thailand.

After the small troubles we had on our last trip to Boracay, we were looking forward to a nice uneventful vacation. Sadly, that wasn't meant to be. On day 4 of our liveaboard, Van came down with an undeserved hit of decompression sickness and had to be evacuated by speedboat (1.5 hours), taken by ambulance to the hospital in Phuket (1.5 hours), and had a five-hour session in the decompression chamber. Thankfully, it was a mild case and he recovered nicely after having oxygen and just one session in the chamber. Others are not so lucky and require more than one visit to the chamber. Unfortunately, he couldn't fly for 72-hours after his last chamber treatment and had to stay for a couple more days. I had to go home as planned without him to get us moved into our new KL apartment.

While we were diving, we saw some really incredible things. It was hard for both of us to cut our trip short, but we were both glad nothing worse happened - smile. We are both very glad to be back in KL, moved in, and back to work!

Great visibility and a big school of glass fish on the reef.

Seeing one of these giant mantas (25' wing span) is like seeing a big grizzly bear in Yellowstone Park. Just amazing! We got to see the two very friendly mantas on two separate dives to the same place. They are just incredible to watch. So big and graceful.

Beautiful fish on the way up.

Steve was our Tour Director and Master Diver. He was wonderful. I can't tell you how safe we felt under his care when Van got decompression sickness. Steve was amazing. A great dive master and friend. Here he is blowing air rings while we pass the time at our safety stop. I call them halos as he really is an angel.

Sunset as we come up from one of our later dives.

Coming up the buoy line.

A file fish.

Another view of the manta and the remoras hanging on for dear life.

He went that close right over the top of me - no zoom.

Another view. Magnificent!

You can kind of get an idea of his size in comparison to the divers below.

A lion fish under a rock that bounced my in-camera flash. The colors are amazing. It makes me wish I had more external light for underwater photography.

The colors and textures are wonderful. It's brilliant!

My first sea snake. It was hanging around the entrance to one of the swim throughs.

Sea fan. Awesome graduated colors.

This was my favorite coral. The colors were hot pink and purple. Truly the brightest colors of coral I have seen so far.

A rockmover wrasse. Gerard held his flashlight on it at just the right time to show the colors and detail. Beautiful.

A clown trigger fish. The patterns and colors are a incredible.

This eel seems to be very photogenic with his buddies the cleaner shrimp. Funny!

First adult box fish I've seen. It said, she you later alligator, I'm out of here!

A pregnant giant puffer. Check out the little lumps on her stomach.

Titan Trigger fish getting cleaned. It lays on the rocks while "things" clean it. It looked like it was dead. I came up behind it and snuck around the front to get a photo of it's teeth. They have been known to attack divers when they are nesting.

Beautiful reef formations.

Diver through a giant Georgonian Sea Fan.

Those things sticking up out of the sand are eels. They hide in their holes when you get close. Otherwise, they are sticking up like blades of grass.

See through.

Beautiful colorful anemone.

Nice coral grouper.

Beautiful juvenial box fish.

Van in the Phuket decompression chamber jsut before they closed the door for 5 hours. Lee was the outside attendant making sure he was comfortable.

The outside of the decompression chamber - looks just like the photo in the PADI diver's manual.

The lounge area of the MV Nautica liveaboard boat we were on. It was great! Highly recommend the boat and diving with them! Most excellent!

You can get a more realistic color closer to the surface. These soft corals were stunning!

Coral!

Giant moray eel. They come out at night and hunt and if you are on a night dive, they smart ones will eat the fish that you blind with your flashlights. Sneaky!

Is she looking at me? I don't know. Don't make eye contact. Soldier Fish.

Donald Duck Bay, Similan Islands. One of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen.

Water Donald Duck Bay, Similan Islands. WOW!

Sunset, Khao Lak, Beach at Bangsak Village Resort.

This great bug loved me. I was getting a foot massage and it landed on me. I put it on my hand and it crawled around. When the store owner grabbed it and held it, it made a screaming sound. It was awful.

Nature's Etch-A-Sketch. The sand on the right was after a rain storm. The sand on the right, smooth from the waves washing on shore.

Van having his second (or third) beachside massage in Khao Lak. They were the equivalent of $20 USD for a 90 minute massage. No wonder!

The pool at our hotel, Bangsak Village. Four days of lounging by the pool - heaven!

Shells littering the beach.

We had a wonderful time. Hope you enjoyed the photos. We are hoping we have many more opportunities to travel while we are in Malaysia.

Boracay, Philippines Christmas 2010

2011-01-20T18:19:00.001-08:00

This trip didn't really start out the way we planned. Air Asia was 3 hours late leaving Kuala Lumpur so we missed our connecting flight to the islands from Manila (which happened to be the last flight of the day to the islands). Laine had to go on without us and spend her first night in Boracay alone and we had to spend the night in Manila. We took the first flight out in the morning and were met by her smiling face at the hotel. Almost the first words out of her mouth were, "can we open Christmas presents now."

The waters of Boracay were amazing. Clear, blue, and beautiful. White Beach, the most popular on the island and where most of the hotels are located, is a long, long, stretch of the softest white sand imaginable. Besides the people, it was lovely.

Fresh spider lobster. We've seen these in the sea living, it was hard to see this one dead. :(

The sunsets were amazing from the rooftop at the hotel we stayed at, the Lingganay.

The boatman for the shuttle boat to the para-sailing boat took Laine and my photo. The para-sailing was really scary, but really fun, too. The scariest thing was that when the wind gusted it buffeted us around. I didn't like that much. Especially, after Laine commented on how high up we were and that if we fell it would be like landing on concrete!

Para-sailing - look how high we are! The boat was a tiny speck!

I bought Laine this custom painted Nemo t-shirt. Sometimes, I forget she's not 5 any longer. Nice Nemo face, Laine!

Laine and Van reading a book on the rooftop as the sun slowly sinks into the horizon.

The view of our hotel's pool and the beautiful sea beyond. We watched kite boarders from the pool. The hotel was on a hilltop on the south end of the island, away from the busy beach, and with beautiful views in all directions.

Local map of Boracay. It's about 7 km long. Not very big, but very busy during the peak holiday season.

Laine and Van at Willy's Rock on White Beach. Willy's is a shrine to Virgin Mary. It was early in the morning our first day and if we had been there four hours later (when the island woke up after a late night of partying) you'd be hard pressed to get a photo without a bunch of people in it.

Laine talked us into opening her presents about 10 minutes after we arrived. She loves to open presents. It was fun. We opened them right away and had a blast doing it. Of course, it made Christmas morning a little anticlimactic.

Sunset and para-sailing. I bet the people on board had a beautiful view if they were afraid to turn around and look.

We rented scooters on Christmas morning. I had a wee wreck first thing and didn't get on them the rest of the trip, but Laine and Van had a fantastic time!

The Briggs Family sand castle on Christmas Day. I didn't help too much due to the amount of Margaritas I had consumed and the pain from my scooter wreck injuries.

Laine's most excellent bandage and the medicine that worked better than iodine.

Storm on the way, but amazingly it never rained. The colors were a beautiful contrast. White beach, blue water, and dark clouds. The island where it is raining is Caticlan (where the closest airport to Boracay is).

There was no lack of exciting activities. Here Laine smiles after her Zip Line ride. There were two lines and we were supposed to go together, but my harness got held up at the top and she went first without me. It was a screaming good time!

White Beach and a local boat. Beautiful.

Another beautiful sunset from the rooftop of our hotel looking towards White Beach.

This local boy gave Van the "thumbs up" on his curly locks - much like his, only a little lighter in color.

A local sailboat on Puka Beach. Laine and Van took a short sail on it. Puka Beach is on the north end of the island, more remote, and certainly not as crowded.

The view from our hotel balcony looking towards the kite surfing beach and the north part of the island.

White Beach from the boardwalk looking towards the water.

View from our hotel balcony looking south towards Caticlan Island. The small island with the white sand beach is called Crystal Cove and you can rent it for weddings and special events.

White Beach at sunset.

We took a day excursion to Ariel's Point. About an hour's rough sail from White Beach. It's a cliff diving/jumping paradise. Laine and Van were the jumpers of the day. I took the day off from screaming!

Christmas decorations at the Shangri-La Resort. We ate there for Christmas dinner and the buffet was amazing. We also tried their Italian restaurant one night and it was really good, too. It was an amazing resort. I wished we could have stayed there, but they were full when I was making reservations.

Van and I at the end of the Zip Line.

During the trip, both Laine and Van came down with food poisoning or some kind of virus and both had a doctor house call complete with IVs. That kept us pretty low key for a couple of days, but we made up for it when they were both feeling better.

It was so good to see Laine for Christmas, but we all wished Joe and Blair could have been with us. Family at Christmas is a really wonderful thing. It really made me miss my own family. I hope you and your families had as much fun as we did. After almost two and a half years in tropical climates, a little snow and a fireplace have a certain appeal to me.

Sipadan Borneo Malaysia and Our 100th Dive

2010-11-08T21:14:00.000-08:00

With our latest (and second) diving trip to Sipadan, we have both logged over 100 dives in a year and one half. We love it and the more you go, the more you want to go. Almost every dive we see something new. This trip was no exception. When you go to the east coast from November to May, you always run the risk of less than sunny weather. Sipadan is such a wonderful place to dive, the one day you get to dive there due to restrictions on the number of divers each resort can have per day, is much anticipated. This trip was no exception.

Above a banded pipe fish.

Above a very friendly sea turtle. I love turtles and there were so many it was hard to spot them all! Our eyes were everywhere discovering hidden treasures of marine life and corals both soft and hard alike. Sensory overload is Sipadan - there is so much to see.

A local handmade boat on Siamil Island near Sipadan.

Look closely on the left side of the coral - that's a frog fish - see the little toes on the far left. His camo is great. He looks like part of the coral, doesn't he? We also saw a black one. Amazing!

A friendly Bat Fish.

A flounder. Another master at disguise! This one was buried in the sand and you could tell him apart from the sand that surrounded him. He moved and we saw him, otherwise, we'd have swam right on by. See the two eyes on top?

We met some great people on this trip. Two of our favorites were Michael (pictured) and James. They were from Hong Kong and Atlanta. Wonderful people to dive with makes it so much more fun. Here Michael checks out the herd of Bump Head Parrot Fish cruising by.

Jack Fish sneaking between divers.

Sea Turtle diving into the blue.

A huge Georgian Fan. It gets it's food from what sifts through the intricate fan. This one was about 6 feet across. A large specimen for sure.

No trip is complete without many spottings of "Nemo." It's hard to get their photo because they are camera shy, but honestly, there is nothing cuter than a really tiny Clown Fish - about the size of a nickle.

View from the dive boat with the underwater camera. Yes, it rains in paradise, but the good thing is it's still really calm down below. You look up and see the rain pelting the water and it's hard to make yourself leave the warm tranquility below the surface.

On one dive we dove beneath an oil rig that has been converted into a hostel. It was fun. It's also the first time I heard a "big boom" under the water. It was a local fishermen dynamiting. I didn't like to hear that.

Storm coming our way. It didn't take long to reach us, but we were done diving for the trip and just playing Canasta as we waited for our ferry to Semporna.

We were playing cards and failed to notice the storm sneaking up on us. Van ran back to the room to get the BCD's (Bouyancy Control Devices) we were trying to get dry out of the rain. It was a "two umbrella" excursion.

Van checking for messages from work on his Blackberry. Not a bad office if one has to work!

Local Semporna kids cooling off on a hot day. I wonder who taught the one on the left to flip us off?

Here we are with our 100th dive certificates that the resort gave us upon completion of our 100th dives. Van is four ahead of me and got his first. I got mine on our fourth dive at Sipadan.

These chairs on the deck are calling me back and I haven't even been home for a whole day yet!

Sunrise from our bungalow deck. Kapalai is a very nice resort that is well run and kept up. They do a really nice job taking care of you, especially the dive shop personnel. George, our dive master was top notch!

Sunrise over the bungalows looking towards the dive shop and house reef.

Sunset from the bungalow. Beautiful!

Sunset over the Kapalai water village.

Harlequin Sweet Lips on the stairs leading to the House Reef. They love it there!

Gigantic Moray Eel. This eel was so big it was unbelievable! I've never seen one this big before. He was a good foot from bottom to top and at least five feet long. We saw him twice and both times Van found him. He lives at the Kapalai House Reef.

Our friends James and Michael. It was really fun getting to know them and diving with them. James and I gave Michael and Van a "thrashing" at Canasta! It was great fun!

This was a great relaxing trip. We were able to get 15 dives in during our stay of four nights and five days. Since we can't dive 18 hours before flying, I'd say we did really well getting that many dives in. I'd recommend the Kapalai Resort to anyone who wanted to dive Sipadan. If you are free in January, it's the slow season at Kapalai so it's possible to get three days diving at Sipadan instead of one if you stay for a week. Sipadan is fantastic. No wonder it's in the top 10 dive spots in the world. I can see why it's listed.

Part 2 of Our European Adventure

2010-10-03T04:37:00.000-07:00

If you didn't read part one first, please do as the trip is in chronological order. To continue... we arrived in Rome and met Van at our wonderful Bed & Breakfast - The Fellini Inn. It was in a great location and you could walk to almost every major attraction from there. The service was excellent and the rooms were great. The biggest drawback was the elevator that only fit one person and a big suitcase. The five flights of stairs were exhausting after a day of walking or a night of drinking, LOL, but we managed. We spent three whole days in Rome and saw the major sites. Our biggest disappointment was not getting to see the Sistine Chapel as it was closed on the day we intended to visit. It never dawned on any of us that it would be closed at any time let alone when we were there. We saw many wonderful things and I would highly recommend the Hop On Hop Off bus that picks up near the hotel. It helps you get the lay of the land and get from attraction to attraction very easily.

Van and Joe in a ray of light inside one of the cathedrals.

This artist was doing a chalk drawing on the slate tiles. I marveled at his talent and willingness to spend time on something that would ruined as soon as someone walked over it or it rained. I think I would want to save it for always.

Joe and van glued into the tube with their "mini and mega" beers at one of our rest stops - a pub that sold naval flags. We purchased one from Denmark that Van Sr. can fly at the cabin. Briggs is a Danish name you know. So is my maiden name of Sorensen.

Laine was asked to get her Dad and brother a Gelato. Too bad it was a hot day and by the time she returned she was covered in a melted mess. It's the thought that counts, Laine. Besides, the Italian Gelato was SO GOOD, I'm sure they didn't even mind a little melting. We judged our days by the number of Gelatos we had... it seems like it might be a two Gelato day.

The view of the bridge over the Tiber River in front of the Castle Sant Angelo. It was a beautiful day and there were many people enjoying the sunshine.

Joe and Laine on the Hop On Hop Off Bus. We were cruising by the Coliseum after drinking a bottle of Chianti we purchased in Tuscany.

What flavor of Gelato do you want? Well, the choices were overwhelming, but my very favorite was lemon!

The Coliseum at sunset - beautiful!

Our hotel was only about a 10 minute walk from the Trevi Fountain. Here, the rays of the setting sun are shining on the water.

The Italian flag flying in the breeze from the Victor Emmanuel II Monument.

A lighted stand near the Trevi Fountain.

When we left Rome we headed toward the eastern coast of Italy and Bari. This was the view from the turn out about 100 km north of Bari.

We took the overnight Superfast Ferry from Bari, Italy to Patras, Greece. We were planning on camping on deck, but drunk truck drivers throwing chairs over the railing made us nervous. We purchased a cabin for the night and slept in four single bunks. It was one of the best nights sleep we had. Must have been the gentle swaying of the boat. The photo above is of the sunrise from the deck.

Once we reached Patras a truckers strike had us heading south. We rented two small cars and split up for our tour of the Peloponnese Region of Greece. We camped the first night and decided a day of rest the next day was in order. We were going to camp again, but Laine found a sign that said "Navarino Dunes" and it turned out it wasn't sand dunes, but a brand new 5 star resort complete with 18 hole golf course. We checked in and stayed the night. We swam in the Mediterranean, I hit the spa, we rented bikes, had dinner under the stars while a movie played on the screen of the outdoor theater, etc. http://www.starwoodhotels.com/luxury/property/photos/index.html?propertyID=3290. Check out this link for photos of the resort. We could have happily stayed there longer. It was amazing!

Above, we stoped at Olympia the site of the very first Olympics and looked around - fabulous!

We watched a storm brewing over the rental umbrellas and chairs on the beach. However, the rain never reached us.

We stayed on the beach in tents one night on the southern coast of Greece and this is the site that greeted us in the morning.

Once we returned the rental cars to Patras, we headed north to Athens via the bus. We met Lee and Kerry at the airport and rushed on the last metro into Athens to have dinner at Strofi's. Joe's friend John made the arrangements for us and we were seated on the rooftop that overlooked the lighted Acropolis. Dinner was wonderful. We had a chance to catch up with Lee and Kerry, then headed back to the airport hotel for 2 hours of sleep. We had a 5:30 am flight to Santorini the next (same) morning to catch. We arrived in Santorini and spent the day on the beach killing time until we could check into our hotel. Naps and beach side massage (along with some really great pina colladas) made the lack of sleep more bearable.

While on Santorini we rented ATVs for the day. Laine gave Kerry a ride and had a little accident. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt. Here is Laine sporting some road dust. Her shorts were ripped to shreds. Good thing they had liners or she would have been arrested for indecent exposure. Ha.

Lee with his new shades and Kerry with her "pouty" lips. We did a sunset cruise on a catamaran and it was a really great time. Lee got his sailing fix, we swam, drank, and relaxed the day away.

Joe in the blue waters of Greece. He swam out to see what kind of fish were making the sea churn with fish trying to escape. The skipper thought it was tuna. Joe didn't get close enough to see, but enjoyed the exercise.

A familiar site on Santorini. The famous donkeys. I must say they leave quite a mess on the walkways down to the harbor.

Bells were everywhere. This one caught my eye with the caldera in the background. If you ever go to Greece, the one thing you must do is make sure your villa has a view of the caldera for the most amazing sunsets.

Churches, domes, temples, crosses, bells and blue doors were everywhere in Santorini. It was a really beautiful place.

Sunrise our first morning in Santorini. We were having breakfast at the only restaurant open. If I had a choice, I'd love to have had a Gyro. I have never tasted a chicken sandwich in pita bread that tasted so good! They were reasonably priced, too!

The streets of Santorini were a maze of steps, alleys, and alcoves. It was really fun to walk around and discover things you missed the first couple of times you went by.

The view of the harbor from the turnout where Laine and Kerry wrecked. We went by here when we were on the catamaran and wanted to see it from the shore. We had an early lunch of calamari here. Seems Lee really likes calamari and I think he had it for every meal as long as it was on the menu - ha.

Sunset over the harbor as we returned from our sunset cruise. Amazing sky!

Sadly, all trips must come to an end. Here is Joe and Laine's plane leaving the gate. Van and I were supposed to leave at 6:15 am, the kids at 7:15 am, but fog in Amsterdam delayed our flight from Madrid for four hours. We had a connecting flight in Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that we missed by about 10 minutes. There were 20 KLM flights cancelled and the lines to change your tickets were 500 deep. Luckily, we were flying business class and could get to the front of the line faster. We had a 9 hour layover in Amsterdam, but used it to catch up on emails and such. We arrived home and were at work the following day - exhausted.

It was a trip of a lifetime and I am so thankful for the many blessings given us all so that we could spend that much time together with family and friends in such wonderful places. I wish we had more time in a lot of places, but we made the best of the time we did have together and that is what counts. Thank you Van, Joe, Laine, Kerry and Lee for the amazing memories. You are the best husband, son, daughter, and friends I could ever ask for. I am so blessed.

Part 1 - Spain, Switzerland & Italy

2010-09-29T17:35:00.001-07:00

I am truly blessed! I got to spend a whole three weeks with Joe and Laine in Europe. Sadly, Van couldn't join us until we got to Rome, because of some work commitments, but we made the best of our time both with and without him. This was a family trip of a lifetime - amazingly wonderful!

We started in Madrid Spain. The streets were beautiful and the buildings magnificent in their ornate detail. What I marveled at in Madrid was only trumped by what I saw later in Italy, but I'm getting ahead of myself. One of the main streets of Madrid pictured below.

On the way north to San Sebastian (on the coast near the southern border of France), we stopped in Burgos to get gas and look at the Burgos Cathedral. It was so beautiful both inside and out. We took the time to tour it and were happy we stopped.

Joe and Laine in front of the Burgos Cathedral, Spain.

Except for the clothing, Joe had a striking resemblance to the knight depicted on the mural in the cathedral.

The interior of the cathedral was splendid. The ceilings, alcoves, organ, and artifacts were incredible. It's hard to describe the feeling you get when looking up at all that magnificence, but you definitely feel closer to God for sure.

San Sebastian was a beautiful location in the north Spain Basque country. The town, the water, the people all made it a favorite spot we all wished we could have stayed in a little longer. Laine met some friends from San Sebastian in the US over the summer and wanted to see them in their home town. That was the reason we went north and it was lovely. Unfortunately, she only got to see them for a short time before their other commitments got in the way.

Sunset by the harbor. It was a beautiful evening and the sunset was glorious!

Catching this sailboat's shadow in line with the setting sun makes this one of my favorite photos.

The cathedral in San Sebastian at sunrise. Joe and I got up early (while Laine slept - smile) and walked through town. San Sebastian is quite a party town and we marveled at the amount of people who were just ending their night of partying and how the city employee's "washed" the streets from the night before.

The cathedral spire reflected in the newly washed early morning streets.

On the way to Barcelona, we stopped at the Montserrat Monastery. It was a great winding road and the rock formations were incredible. We took the train to the top of the mountain and would have hiked around if we had more time. Seems to be a recurring theme - needing more time!

There were so many prayer candles lite at the Monastery, the temperature was easily 30 degrees warmer in the hallway where they were located.

From San Sebastian we drove south to Barcelona. We had a dinner of snails and baby pig and woke up early to catch our flight to Milan. Once in Milan, we headed north towards Switzerland and stopped at Lake Como for a "really cold" dip and our first "real" Italian meal. I was the first in the water because I just knew the kids would splash me if they got in first. It was much colder than the water I am used to swimming in and I was freezing!!

Once we left Lake Como we started climbing into Switzerland. We went over some really amazing mountain passes and we had to stop about every 5km to take a photo. It was breathtakingly beautiful. I think the kids and I liked this part of the trip the best. I guess we are mountain lovers at heart!

Our first tent site was on Grimsel Pass. We asked in the restaurant where to camp and they said anywhere. So we picked an easy spot (the parking lot) where I could stay in the car with the heater on high while the kids put the tent up and warmed my sleeping bag - it was about 40 degrees colder than I am used to in Malaysia. I must admit, they took really good care of me in their Dad's absence! The view was fantastic!

In the morning we drove into Grindelwald and took the train up to Jungfraujoch "The Top of Europe." It's the highest train in the world and the upper elevation is 11,700 feet! It was a very pricey ticket (471 Euros for three tickets), but it was one of the most enjoyable days we had and worth the expense. When we got up to the top, we took a hike in the snow blown peaks (total whiteout) to a hut to have some local cuisine. The whole time we were hiking I kept thinking we were crazy, but making it, having a warm meal, and getting back safely just made it a great memory of an adventure. When we got back we toured the Ice Palace made completely of ice, too. It was so fun to be in snow again! I forgot how much fun it is to feel the cold wind on your cheeks!

Joe and Laine near the trains part of the way up. We stopped and shared a yummy grilled sausage and fried potatoes. We also shopped for some souvenirs and took more photos.

This was Joe's "double cheesy" meal at the hut! It was an interesting concoction of bread and cheese with a fried egg on top. I think he was thinking grilled cheese when he ordered. Nevertheless, being cold and hungry, made everything taste better.

Here's Joe and Laine at the "Ice Window" in the Ice Palace. They are so adorable!

This was the view from the train about half way down from the Top of Europe. In the background you can see the green valley of Grindelwald where we got on the train. It was spectacular.

The sunset in the Grindelwald valley as we were leaving reflected in the train windows.

The beautiful blue, blue skies and green, green grass of Switzerland. Lovely!

The mountains near the border of Italy and Switzerland. It was home to the St. Bernard shelter and we stopped to pet the dogs and buy some real Swiss chocolate before we left Switzerland.

After we left the mountains, we headed south toward the coast so we go to Cinque Terre (a group of five small coastal towns on cliffs). We drove through Genova during rush hour and finally got to LeSpezia around nightfall. From LeSpezia, we needed to board a train for a ten-minute ride to the southern most town of Riomaggiore. We got on the train and when the ticket taker came by she told us we were on the wrong train and it would be an hour before we stopped in Genova (which we had driven through 2 hours earlier) and could get on the right train. We laughed and spent the extra time on the train writing postcards and learning Italian. When we finally got to Riomaggiore, it was 1:30 am! We didn't have a hotel reservation and walked up and down the steep roads and walkways trying to find a place. When we were deciding if the park bench looked safe for the night, we decided to try one more steep road first. Laine saved the day by learning "do you have a room" in Italian while we were on the train. The woman who answered her phone did not speak English and understood Laine's request enough that she let us in. It was the matrimonial suite with one bed, but it was the best hotel room I'd ever seen.

In the light of day with the waves crashing on the breakers in Riomaggiore.

We were going to walk to the next town, but the storm clouds came in fast and we decided it was best to take the train (the right train) to the next town, Manarola.

We beat the storm to Manarola and had beautiful sunny skies. Manarola was just as breathtaking as Riomaggiore. We wished we could have seen the other three towns, but we just didn't have enough time. So again, we left somewhere that we would have liked to have spent more time exploring.

From LeSpezia after visiting Cinque Terre, we headed towards Tuscany. Specifically, the Chianti Trail for some wine tasting. We stopped at Castello Gabbiano and tasted and bought some wine. It was really fun.

It was nearing harvest time and the grapes were colorful and lovely. From Tuscany, we headed to Rome a day early to meet Van. It was a long trip and we were all tired, but the best was yet to come. For more, please see Europe Part 2.

Dive Trip of a Lifetime - Sipadan Kapalai Resort

2010-06-09T03:56:00.000-07:00

Diver's paradise, looks like this. This is a small island called Siamil that we took a break at between dives. It amazed me that all the little islands (including Sipadan) had military presence. It wasn't till after we got back that I heard about the 20 divers that were taken hostage from Sipadan in 2000. I would have still gone even if I had heard that before. This amazing place is worth the small risk.

I never thought it would be possible to think that you were seeing too many turtles, but on this trip, you kind of get numb to them after you see your first three before you ever put on your mask and hit the water. Amazing and they were "very" friendly. At one point, I was wondering if they ever ran into divers and if it hurt. LOL.

A close up of those neck wrinkles - wonderful!

The trees and beach on Sipadan Island. Diving Sipadan is controlled. In the three days we dove, only one was on Sipadan. Permits are required and one day in a three day stay is about the norm. We took full advantage and made four dives before 2:00 pm. The boat left the dive shop at 5:30 am. The early hour was made easier by an incredible sunrise complete with the full moon setting. Quite a visual feast for tired (but excited) eyes.

Beautiful white tip shark. It was pretty overwhelming with the amount of things you had to look at. If you looked somewhere for more than a minute you missed something else over your shoulder. I found that for the first 10 minutes I didn't know what to look at first. I remember the first thing I saw when I went under were two big, beautiful lion fishes. Incredible.

The military changing guards at Sipadan. Sipadan is very close to the Philippines and supposedly they are protecting the islands from illegal immigrants.

My first school of Chevron Barracuda. I can't tell you how wonderful that is to see. I could have stayed there and watched them longer if the current wasn't so strong.

Another shark swimming along the "drop off" looking for tasty morsels!

Another Cuddle Fish. I love them. They look like they are smiling and they "hover" through the water.

Sunrise the last day of our trip. It was beautiful and the dive boat seemed to have the perfect spot to enjoy the view.

Sipadan Island in the background. Notice how calm the water is. It was honestly like a pond. It was so fun to come up to such tranquil water. No fighting the current and waves, just casually swim over and climb aboard.

This HUGE turtle cruised right over the top of me. I felt like a plane was flying overhead. The sun was blocked out and I looked up and WOW!

The only thing wrong with the Kapalai Resort (all on stilts) that we stayed at was there was no air-conditioning in the rooms. There was a fan and you could open all the windows, but it was still really hot. As the days went by we got used to it, but there were a lot of nights of tossing and turning first.

Reef shark cruising Sipadan.

Check out the moon setting in the midst of the pink cloud from sunrise. It was amazing.

Chevron barracuda schooling.

Fred, the resident house reef barracuda. Van saw him when we were doing our safety stop after our house reef dive. We were hanging onto a rope. I had him hang onto me and I got as close as I dared. His teeth were sharp and pointy. He was magnificent! I saw him several other times from the walkways between the dive shop and the over water bungalows.

A napping turtle with cleaner fish giving him the once over.

Another Cuddle Fish. It actually reminds me of Sesame Street's Snufalufagas (spelling?).

The water was the clearest I have seen since coming to Malaysia. It was gin clear! Reminded me of really clear mountain lakes or streams in the US.

The Drop Off Sipadan. It was pretty incredible to swim out over the edge of the reef and see down about 500 meters through deep, deep blue water. Sipadan is a sea mount and the island drops off straight down to depths of 700 meters. It gave you kind of a free falling feeling to sail out over the edge.

The full moon rises over the water each night were so romantic. Van and I took a stroll to the end of the pier to check it out one night. We had the whole place to ourselves. It was lovely.

Van, taking a breather after the sunset dive on the house reef. It was our fourth dive that day, so there was plenty to be taking a breather about.

View of the dive shop as we came up from the sunset dive.

These Many-Spotted Sweetlips were congregated underneath the dock by the Dive Shop. They were the most amazing fish. Their mouths were huge.

This anenome had "glowing" ends. The photo doesn't do it justice.

A local fishing boat on the island of Siamil.

We had a really nice time. Probably the best diving I have had since we became certified one year ago. It was a little better than the Maldives (and I thought the Maldives was fantastic). I would highly recommend Sipadan to anyone. Although the Kapalai Resort was nice, I might consider a liveaboard next time. I hear that the liveaboards can get you onto Sipadan more frequently than the resorts. Not sure if this is true, but it would be worth it if you could dive Sipadan more. This was "THE BEST" dive trip we have had so far. Wondrous!

Advanced Open Water Dive Certification Lang Tengah

2010-05-25T01:25:00.001-07:00

One of the joys of scuba diving is that there is always more to learn. We can get every certification under the sun, but probably won't - smile! We did however, decide to get our Advanced Open Water Certification which gives us some more skills that will come in handy like night navigation and deep water diving.

We love D'Coconut Resort on Lang Tengah. Probably the biggest contributor to that love is the man responsible for the dive shop - Don! What a wonderful man. He has a heart as big as Texas and a smile that would melt anyone's heart. He was our instructor for the course and it was fun and meaningful. Learning a lot is easy when you have Don at the helm. Even for us "old farts" as my husband would say.

Clown fish are one of my favorites. I guess it's because of Nemo. They are difficult to get good photos of because they are always darting to hide in the anenome. One day, I'm bound to get a good one that's a keeper.

Van and Don (Dive Master Extraordinaire) do their safety stop at 5 meters. We followed the buoy line down (the new one). The old line was full of "growing things."

Fish everywhere. I love looking up to see what is above us. It's easy to get mesmerized into looking down, but up has some beautiful things to behold as well as down.

A beautiful sea fan. Their job is to filter food that is passed through their "fan" by the current. They are big and beautiful and usually in the open so where there is more current.

Lang Tengah is on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia and one of the best and closest places to scuba dive. It has some big spiders, but luckily, they are pretty much off the beaten path!

On the other side of the island is a new resort and this is their brand new dock at sunset. We walked over to see the sunset and check out the new resort. It is really expensive and we have no plans to stay anywhere but the D'Coconut.

It was nice to see the other side of the island. The clouds were big and beautiful over mainland Malaysia. Over the islands, they weren't so big or threatening.

Before sunrise on the bay near the new side of the D'Coconut Resort. We have stayed on both sides, but prefer the older side closest to the dive shop.

The water is beautiful and the rocks are marvelous. Underwater, you are treated to some wonderful coral and swim throughs associated with rocks like these.

I love the clouds in the tropics. They build and build then you have a fantastic thunder and lightening storm that turns the skies dark as night in the middle of the day.

Another view of the bay in front of the resort. Litter is always a problem in Malaysia. Van and I grabbed a garbage sack and picked up the litter on the beach. We decided we were going to do that everywhere we went. Maybe we'll help, just a little bit at a time.

This was airbrushed on the side of one of the buses transporting people to/from the jetty. I liked it. It reminded me of what I would have looked like underwater had I started diving in my twenties instead of fifties! LOL.

Sri Lanka January 2010

2010-02-10T03:30:00.000-08:00

We decided since we had the weekend off before the liveaboard in the Maldives that we would spend it in Sri Lanka. Of course, we had to pick the weekend before the election of a new President. We got all sorts of warnings from the US Embassy to stay away from political rallies as there was a possible threat of violence between the two political parties. I must admit that the presence of the military everywhere in Colombo was a little scary, but things went fine and we were indeed glad to get on the plane to the Maldives vowing that we didn't need to come back to Sri Lanka anytime soon.

Van instinctively chose the right lane at the Sri Lankan Airport in Colombo.

These Arabian women we on the beach in full burkas. You could only see their eyes and I kept imagining how hot they were completely covered in black from head to toe.

This soldier was patrolling the Galle Green water front across the street from our hotel. They did not like the photo being taken so I had to wait until their backs were turned. When we took the Tuk Tuks in Colombo, they would stop us and our driver would have to pull over. They took one look at us and waved us on, but we saw them giving native Sri Lankans more than a cursory look.

Soldiers and inflatable beach balls. Not the combination that we were expecting to see on the waterfront.

Local Sri Lankans enjoying a walk on the beach. It was interesting that most of the people playing on the beach were fully dressed. No one was in a bathing costume and this young lady in her Sari even had high-heels on. I don't know if the lack of swimmers was because they don't know how to swim or because it is not an accepted practice in Sri Lanka.

We went to Buddhist temple that this reportedly 89 year old male elephant called home. His tusks were magnificent. They must have been almost 5 feet long. We got to pet him and feed him food and that was thought to bring us good luck and fortune. We both love elephants.

Here is one of the beautiful bronze statues at the temple.

Van was attracted to this statue. It must have been the bee hive hair do, don't you think so? Ha!

When we stopped to view a building, a young man with a basket started playing a flute and this beautiful King Cobra came out and started swaying to his music. Apparently, they take the fangs out so the snake can't kill the charmer with his poison venom. It was really fun to see. I like snakes.

We took a tour on Sunday to the interior mountainous city of Kandy. Here is a busy city street on a beautiful day. The military presence was not as prevalent in Kandy and for that we were very thankful.

This sweet old man was working at the Hindu temple. It amazes me that you don't see very many Indian people with gray hair. It seems that they are very old to have gray hair.

Here is the detail of one of the thousands of sculptures found in the temple. It is amazing how everywhere you look there is something you hadn't noticed before.

Here is the golden roof at the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, Sri Lanka. It is said that the tooth of Buddha is in the temple. Once a year the tooth is put on display and worshipers can make flower offerings to it. This Temple was bombed about six years ago. The security was very tight with frisking of all people entering the temple grounds.

Another view from the inside of the Hindu temple located in downtown Colombo.

Here is the view from the hilltop looking down over Lake Kandy which is right next to the Temple of the Tooth. It was actually quite a pretty town compared to Colombo.

In Colombo, I took this picture in which I thought "paradise gone bad." A beautiful resort pool and above it is a military tower complete with guards and machine guns. It is the security tower for the British High Commission Consulate Building which is right next door to the resort.

In Kandy we stopped to see the Big White Buddha on the hill. Our driver could give us no other information.

Here is the flag of Sri Lanka flying over the Parliament Building in downtown Colombo.

Here is the view from the pier looking towards the harbor in Colombo. In the evenings there were big political rallies near the waterfront. It was hard to sleep with all the noise and campaigning going on so close.

All and all, our trip there was informative but disappointing. It's probably the least favorite place we have been since living in Malaysia. We will not go back anytime soon. We might wait until they have been a free country for longer than 30 years. It might improve the treatment we received and the tourist amenities.

Maldives January 2010

2010-02-08T00:08:00.000-08:00

Our trip to the Maldives aboard the diving liveaboard, the Black Pearl, was one of the very best vacations we have ever had. It was our first liveaboard experience - where you stay on the boat for the entire week and dive, sleep, and eat. I must admit that we felt a little overwhelmed with the advanced experience level of the rest of the divers on board and the technical aspect of the diving - lots of current due to tides, but thanks to Ismail and Ali, the dive masters onboard, we learned to be more comfortable and really stretched the horizons of our diving skills. If the terrific crew, wonderful food, and excellent diving wasn't enough, we even had the joy of spending a whole week with some really awesome people. Everyone was a joy to behold and we felt blessed to share our vacation with them.

Male, the capitol of the Maldives (pronounced MAUL-DEEVES) is a bustling city on a separate island from the airport. This is the view from the harbor at the airport to Male. The water was so incredibly blue. It made my heartbeat slow down and relax just looking at it! Talk about a natural stress reducer!

Mike, Chris and Paul who I nicknamed "the boys of summer" were from London and we had such a good time slinging crap back and forth all week. Mike and Chris are brothers and Paul is Chris' best friend. I have to tell you, the camaraderie between the three of them left us wiping the tears from our eyes from laughing too hard. What a great trio of men! Interesting that all of their last names are Lewis.

Detlev and Antje were from Germany. Antje was a diver and Detlev was our master snorkeler. They were a lovely couple and even though Antje did not speak much English, she spoke volumes with her beautiful smile, eyes, and contagious laughter. Both of them were a joy to have onboard. Very nice, wonderful people to get to know.

It was really hard to do justice to the wonderful shades of blue in the water. It went from the deepest blue to the lightest blue and every beautiful shade of blue in between. The islands we saw were indeed amazing. I don't know how you'd be able to pick a resort without feeling like you might be missing out on another lovely location. It's so beautiful.

Another view of the beautiful water and islands we passed on our seven-day diving excursion.

Ismail, or Issy, who was the boss of the boat introduced his crew as the "Lovely Boys." I agree whole-heartily. The whole crew was absolutely amazing! Here three of the "lovely boys" dock the boat for the evening.

The sunsets were magnificent and ever changing. Here the rays of the sun extend way up into the heavens and beyond.

Van and I "unda-the-sea" on one of our trips. We dove in the morning early, mid-day, and again in the afternoon. It was easy to develop a rhythm of get up, dive, eat, nap, dive, eat, nap, dive, drink & eat. No one had an alcoholic drink until after we were done diving for the day. It was great. You got lots of exercise, ate great food, sunbathed, napped, and dove. I can't think of a better way to spend a vacation. Of course, the drinking in the evening was fun as well!

Ali Baba, our very special dive master. Ali was the rock that we clung to in times of stretching our diving horizons. Honestly, if it wasn't for his assistance and kind manner, we would not have learned as much or had near as much fun on the trip. Thanks, Ali for being so good to us!

Our home on the water for the week. The Black Pearl. We lounged on the front deck, had dinner all together on the back deck, and used the upper sundeck. Detlev and Antje even slept out under the stars on the upper sun deck most nights.

One of the beautiful sunsets. Everyone stopped what they were doing and just watched as the sun slowly set into the water. It was my favorite time of the day.

How could you ever grow tired of this.

A very friendly Rock Fish. We were hanging onto the reef in the current looking for sharks when this friendly fellow stopped right in front of me. If he didn't swim to me, I would have had a hard time telling him from the coral and rocks. Amazing natural camouflage.

Another sunset.

And another. This one was on our fishing night. We took the dive boat out to a thila (pinnacle of rock) and tried our luck. Local knowledge won and one of the lovely boys caught the most fish. I have to add that I was the winner in the tourist category with 3 Red Snappers. I outfished Van and even Calamari Man! We ate them Maldivian style the following evening for dinner - delicious!

This photo proves that Ali is an angel! See the halo!

Detlev and I snorkeled to this beautiful sand bar in the middle of the reef. The water was so amazing. I wish I had thought to take the waterproof housing off before snapping the pics. There were water spots.

Here is the whole crew. Front/Center; Doris & Robert from Germany, Blue Shirt; Antje, White T-Shirt Right Side, Richard from London; Left Front, Pavela from New Zealand (her husband Pavel was taking the photo); Back Left; Me, Paul, Mike, Ismail (Issy), Van, Ali, Detlev & Chris. What a wonderful group of people. There were tears when we said good-bye.

Doris took this great photo of a bat fish. They were huge and we saw a lot of them.

Doris also took this great photo of an anemone and Nemo (a clown fish).

I had never seen a tuna before this trip. They were really shiny and fun to watch.

The fish were everywhere. I can see why the Maldives is known for its fish. This is a good example of how there were so many fish it was hard to focus on just one.

Doris took this photo of two Hawksbill Turtles. The lower one was pulling on the other turtle's foot. He seemed to be saying "come on, wake up, it's time to play. You've been napping long enough!"

This is the Black Pearl Dive Boat. It was great. You put your gear on the dive boat at the beginning of the trip and left it there until the last day. They filled the tanks away from other boat so the noise didn't disturb us and gave you a basket for all your dive equipment. It was a truly great way to dive.

Oh, the crowning jewel of our dive trip. We got to see a Whale Shark. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. You cruise around in the boat trying to spot one under the water. There are several other boats looking as well. When a boat spots one, everyone jumps off with their snorkeling equipment and the race is on. Honestly, it reminds me of the start of the swimming portion of a triathlon. It's pandemonium. Totally worth it though to get a chance to swim along with these huge creatures.

Doris took this beautiful photo of a school of giant Manta Rays. This is another reason to dive the Maldives. They were the most incredible things to behold. Since we saw them soon after the Whale Shark it really was a pretty awe inspiring day.

Here is another photo because one just is not enough.

We saw lots and lots of sharks. Here is a pretty large White Tipped Reef Shark. In order to see most of them, we would cling to the rocks in the strong current and watch them come in from the deep blue.

Oh, Doris and Robert. If anyone on the trip made us feel like we had been friends for life it was these two lovely people. They are from Munich, Germany, and it is our sincerest wish to visit them there. Robert will forever more be known as Calamari Man. I never would have thought we could make so many comments about Calamari, but we managed in spades. What truly wonderful people and we were lucky enough to share our vacation with them. They were the lucky ones who still had another week in the Maldives at a resort. Honestly, it was very tempting to say the heck with work and join them. We easily could have stayed another week.

Another view of the reef and the beautiful and abundant fishes!

One last sunset. Perfection. Go to the Maldives. Live aboard the Black Pearl. Meet people who you want to be friends for life. Enjoy the magnificent views above and below water. Have the time of your life!

Christmas in Bali 2009

2009-12-28T01:26:00.000-08:00

We spent a wonderful ten days in Bali on the North Shore, South Shore, the Island of Lombok and Gili Tarawangan over Christmas. The kids were not with us for the first time in the Briggs Family Christmas history and we really, really missed them. I hope this is the last Christmas we have without the kids. As a way to get through without them we went back to Bali. It was wonderful, but it would have been more fun with the kids. I had some trouble loading photos to the blog so they aren't going to be in any particular order. Sorry about that - enjoy anyway.

Sunset in Lombok at the Qunci Villas. These candles were on the beach and I couldn't resist a photo.

View from the airplane flying in on the puddle jumper from Denpasar (main Bali airport) to Lombok Island. It was only a 20 minute flight, but was the worst part of our journey. The airline would win the award for the most disorganized airline. Unbelievable. That combined with 8 drunk Russians was almost more than we could handle. We were sure glad to get there.

We dove with Tarawangan Dive on Gili Tarawangan and had three wonderful dives. If you ever have a chance to dive in the Gili Islands, use Tarawangan Dive and ask for the manager Amy! They do a great job and are wonderful, wonderful people.

This camera did not do justice to the color of this anemone. It was the brightest pink I have ever seen.

The dive princess with her matching scarf to keep my hair out of the way!

Sunset in Lombok from the Qunci Villas.

This is the outdoor shower at the Qunci Villas. It was wonderful. It reminded me of the outdoor shower my folks have at the ranch in Carey, Idaho, but the air was a balmy 90 degrees.

The bed and room at the Qunci Villas. Wonderful.

The wonderful Amy, the manager of Tarawangan Dive on Gili Tarawangan. She is a good friend of our friends Kerry and Lee. We met her briefly at Kerry and Lee's wedding. Who would have thought we'd see her again half way around the world. She's a jewel and her family is lovely.

This is the sunset overlooking the pool from a fabulous resort we stayed at on Lombok. It's called the Qunci Villas. I would highly recommend it to anyone. The rooms were awesome, with a private outdoor shower, and the food and service was top-notch. Very reasonably priced for what you got. You could even rent a villa with a private pool.

This is the Ayana Resort (Denpasar Bali) that we stayed in on Christmas Eve. It was the most amazing place I have ever stayed. It helped that when we checked in they said they were upgrading us to a suite!! Oh, how the other half lives.

Here is Van at the Rock Bar (which is perched on the rocks so you can watch the waves crash below you. It was an extraordinary place to have a few Christmas Eve cocktails. Here's Van taking a hit off his cigar! Notice the reflection of the sunset and pier in the glass.

One day in Lombok we hired a driver and went to see some of the island. We stopped at Kuta Beach to see what it was like. It was probably like Bali used to be 15 years ago before it was developed. On the way back through the little town a woman was selling smoked fish.

On our way to Kuta Beach on Lombok, I had the driver stop. This darling native girl was having a bath in a barrel. Her parents gave me permission to take her photo, but she was really shy. How fun to take a bath in a barrel.

We stopped on our way to Kuta to see the textile weavers in a small town. They work on the cloth for months and months. We bought a hand woven table runner that is really beautiful. It was nice to see how it was made so we can appreciate all the hard work that went into it.

Not a sight you see every day. These women were planting a rice paddy. I couldn't be in water, bent over, doing what they did all day that's for sure. My back aches just looking at them.

Here is the view from the front of the Qunci Villas to the pool and ocean. The beach was really rocky and shallow. We went out to swim and ended up deciding it would have been easier on our feet with dive booties. We spent most of our time cooling off in the pool.

Here is the view from the cliff looking down at the Indian Ocean from the Ayana Resort. The water was beautiful and we had a nice sunny day - Christmas Day.

View looking south from the edge of the cliff at the Ayana Resort. The rock bar, another pool, and a restaurant were below and to the right. You can see the pier that was reflected in the photo of Van smoking his cigar in the middle. You could arrange to have a romantic dinner on the end of the pier.

Ahhhh... Christmas Eve cocktails at the Rock Bar Ayana Resort. I had the mango/peach daiquiri and Van had the blueberry mojito! Both were cold and delicious!!

Santa made his appearance at the Rock Bar and we had our photo taken. His mustache was falling off and he was a little darker than your average Santa, but it was fun to see him on our side of the world.

One of the pools at the Ayana resort. This pool cascaded into another pool below it. Both were beautiful. The poolside food was just like American food. They even had pork sausage! Woo hoo!

At the Ayana when you picked a chair by the pool, they laid out your two towels and brought you a tray with an ice cold wash cloth and spray bottle and a dish of snacks.

The Ayana had an 18-hole putting course that Van and I played twice while we were there. He kicked my butt both times. At one point, I almost won when he had a 10 on a hole, but the bugger birdied the next three holes. It was totally unfair. I'm sure he cheated - LOL.

Here is the lower pool that the pool above spills into. You could walk underneath and look through the falling water.

When we checked into the Ayana early on Christmas Eve morning our room wasn't ready yet so they upgraded us to a suite and it was SWEET! It's the most beautiful room I have ever stayed in. Here is the living room.

Here is the view towards one of the two bathrooms.

Our bed - the first time I've ever slept in a bed with a canopy over it.

Sunset on Lombok Island.

A horse pulled recycling truck on the way to Kuta Beach, Lomkok Island.

Statue in a Bhuddist temple in North Bali.

North Bali had a hot springs that we went to. We never got in the water because we were already hot (and it didn't look that clean), but we stayed long enough to have a drink.

We stopped and hiked to a waterfall in North Bali. These two boys (complete with Spidy Man underware).

We stopped by a roadside stand that had bats, an iguana, mongoose, snakes, etc. Here Van is holding a very, very cute river otter.

This python was beautiful about 6 feet long.

Here is Van holding the bat! The girl clipped the bat's claws to Van's sides and handed him the wings to hold. Interesting...

I loved holding the iguana. It reminded me of Joe's pet iguana Iggy! When you touch his sides, he leans into your hand for a nice pat. I wanted to take him home. Van was set against it!

Here is Van with the mongoose! I've never seen a mongoose before. They were quite wonderful.

Ulun Danu Temple is a Balinese Hindu Temple located in Beratan Lake of Bedugul Bali. It was a beautiful site and well worth the trip to see it.

Here is another part of the same temple.

This very cute Balinese boy was dressed up to visit the temple and found time to play on the playground at the temple.

Another view of the temple with a nice bed of Salvia in the foreground. The grounds were beautiful.

The lilys were magnificent and with this one I caught a bee going in for some pollen.

Chiang Mai Thailand

2009-11-24T02:13:00.000-08:00

Our long time friends Steve, Nancy and Shawn came for a visit from Boise, Idaho, and we spent a nice, long weekend in Chiang Mai, Thailand, celebrating the Lantern Festival and Loi Krathong. This old festival is held on the full moon night of November and is said to be the most charming of all festivals in Thailand. In Chiang Mai, a procession of floats with beautiful maidens sitting on them goes through the city to the bank of the Mae Ping River, where hundreds of people assemble to float their banana-leaf containers (krathong) decorated with flowers and candles onto the river to worship the Goddess of Water. Moreover, Lanna-style hot-air lanterns are launched which are believed to help rid the locals of troubles. It was great fun. Above a group photo op at the Mae Sa waterfall park.

Chiang Mai is a fairly large city with its full compliment of scooter traffic. I do believe the scooter drivers here are less reckless than their Malaysian counterparts.

New to us were the Tuk Tuks which were a three-wheeled motorcycle-type contraptions. As you can see, the only way Van fit was to lie down. Even at that, it was very hard to see what was going on around you which was a little frustrating when you want to see and experience a new area. It is not the preferred mode of travel for BIG people!

Our hotel, The Chedi, which means spire, was absolutely one of the best hotels we've ever stayed in. The atmosphere was one of luxurious peace and calm. The water, lighting, colors, harmony, and balance were perfect. We were welcomed with lemongrass scented cold wash clothes and their own special blend of iced tea to drink. There was no standing at the counter to check in. We got to sit on these comfortable cushions overlooking the candle lit reflecting ponds.

The rooms each had an outdoor area with a small table and a cushioned lounge for two. At night they lit the floating candles and it was breathtaking.

Ah, the pool. Each lounge chair had "two" long plush towels, an adjustable cushion for your head, and they brought you cold wash clothes and ice water with fresh sprigs of mint in it. Awesome!!

Another view of the pool with its surrounding lily ponds.

On our first night we had dinner at the Chedi restaurant and got to witness a wedding below us near the pool. Here is the beautiful new bride. It was a good reminder to us of the words we spoke to each other almost 30 years ago.

Surrounding the pool were lots of water lilies. In the morning sun, they were fully opened and stunning, but as the day got hotter, they'd close up and hide.

Van perched high above the jungle on Poos Alot his own private elephant. Poos Alot lived up to his name and I got a birds eye view since my elephant walked behind Van's almost the whole way. One really outstanding thing about the Mae Sa Elephant Camp is that the trainers grow up with the same elephant from the time the elephants are babies. Some trainers have been with the same elephants for almost 40 years. That's longer than most marriages!!

Laine thought we were kidding when we said the elephant above painted the picture below, but it is absolutely true. You could buy this elephant's original work of art for 2,000 Thai Bhat. (about $50 US).

Amazing - an elephant painted this with a brush held in his trunk!!

We stopped at Mae Sa Waterfalls, the largest and most spectacular series of waterfalls in the Chiang Mai area on the way back from visiting the elephants. This multi-tier waterfall system tumbles over no less than 10 levels, some of them small and private near the top while others are large chutes of water that even look great from the lookout point near the car park. It was a good hike that kept us all sweating as you can only do fully while hiking in the tropics.

The fresh fruit at the night market was amazing. We had a great time walking around checking out all the local wares for sale. Van was the king of bartering. At one point, he realized he was bartering over 10 cents! That brought it all into perspective.

Here is one of our lanterns going up with our wishes and prayers. They were really quite large and fun to send up. There were thousands of them that lit the night sky. It was one of the most amazingly beautiful things I have ever seen.

Van and Steve found a fireworks vendor on the street and bought the Thai version of our Roman Candles along with some mortars. I must admit that they looked like Malatoff Cocktails and with the language barrier I wasn't entirely sure what they were buying. All went well. Only one exploding mortar that sent Van and Steve running for cover - the tube to launch the mortars blew up from too much use. The only thing missing was our other pyromaniacs Laine and Joe. Above is one of the prayer flags on the dock illuminated by the sparks. Very pretty.

We went to play with the tigers. Van got to hold the three month old baby tiger which was much more fun than petting the sleepy adult tigers. Van doesn't like cats, but really has a thing for tigers.

When we went to Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep temple, there was a beautiful native girl doing a traditional Thai dance.

Wat Phra Thart Doi Suthep temple is set amongst the peaks of Doi Suthep. It has a lovely setting with a panoramic view of Chiang Mai and the Mae Ping River valley. Although Wat Doi Suthep is the most recently built of the temples dating from the Lanna Thai period, it is the symbol of Chiang Mai. The site was selected by sending an elephant to roam at will up the mountainside. When it reached this spot, it trumpeted, circled three times, and kneeled down and thus interpreted as a sign indicating and auspicious site. The temple had the most beautiful statues and was built in 1383.

We purchased bells with hearts on them, put our name on them, and hung them up in the temple. Here is Van and my heart/bell. His name is on one side and mine is on the other.

Here is a beautiful statue that contrasts with the gold leaf adorning the temple facade. They were doing some repair work and there was scaffolding set up all around the chedi (spire).

You can see all the rafts floating in the water and the reflections of the lanterns floating in the air. It was a beautiful night.

Our hotel had an amazing show complete with fireworks and lanterns. It was really a lot of fun and the food was excellent as well as the entertainment.

Up, up and away. Our lanterns take flight.

The inside of our lantern as it takes flight.

It was a great trip and I would really recommend it for someone that wants to get a really good taste of what a Thai festival is all about. It was utterly amazing.

Phi Phi Island Thailand

2009-09-21T20:34:00.000-07:00

Laine, Van, and I spent five wonderful days on Phi Phi Island in the Andaman Sea off the western coast of Thailand. It was just the most perfect vacation ever. The weather was great, hot, and sunny and the accomodations were wonderful. If we had to spend five days on an island, I think we did a great job picking the right one! Diving, beautiful water, shopping, drinking and eating. Paradise found!!

Our first octopus! We saw two of them. It was really great when they swam away from us. I was hoping we'd "get inked" but we were never that threatening to them that they felt they needed to "ink" to get away!

Between dives we have to spend some time on the surface to help prevent nitrogen loading. In between the first and second dive we had this view to enjoy as we ate pad thai and jumped off the upper deck of the dive boat.

Laine and van being perturbed over the fact that I wanted to get a photo of them. Can't tell, can you?

Local long tail boat heading out into the harbor. This was the view we woke up to every morning from our hotel room and got to enjoy as we sunbathed by the pool! Paradise, truly.

One of my personal favorites - a Lemon Yellow Box Fish. It's so dainty, cute and shy.

Laine getting ready to descend into the deep blue at the dive site Bida Nai. It's a beautiful rock reef around a huge rock island. We rented an underwater camera for the trip. It was great!

The fan coral was awesome, but we never did see the sea horse that was on our list of things to see. this trip. There is always next time. That's what makes diving so fun, you never know what you are going to see. The visibility on the first dive wasn't the best, but it was still very, very beautiful.

These tubes of coral are really fun to look in to see what's hiding. They come in fascinating shapes and sizes.

We saw not one, but several very friendly leopard sharks. This one was so friendly, a man in the other group got to pet it.

Laine, unda the sea! She looks so relaxed and at home here. I hope she gets lots of opportunities to enjoy this marvelous sport. It amazes me that 70% of the Earth is ocean. We have a lot to explore!

A rather large Undulated Moray Eel. He was just sitting there minding his own business opening and closing his mouth. He was a beautiful blue green color.

We saw a lot of sea stars on this trip. This bright blue one really stuck out on the reef. If you look closely, you can see the darker blue spots on the sea star's body.
Beautiful and colorful fish were all around us. This pair of Redfin Butterfly Fish were amazing! I must tell you, it is a lot of fun to look up their names in our reference book.

We saw a school of Chevron Barracuda. They have really sharp teeth that look scary!

We also saw this little anemone fish - relative to Nemo! I love these fish. They are so friendly (most of the time). Laine got attacked by one when she was checking out the Flounder! It was protecting it's babies.

We are so happy that Laine can scuba with us, now we just need Joe and Blair to learn how, too. Then it will be a family event. Hugs from Malaysia.

Trip to United States for Home Leave

2009-09-15T02:19:00.001-07:00

I should start off with the most important event of our trip to the US first! The graduation of our son Joe from Western Washington University! Here is almost the whole klan. Grandma Doris, Grandpa Van, Joe, his friend Ryan (his beautiful wife Laura is taking the photo), Mike Hamm (all the way from northern Idaho), Joe's beautiful girlfriend Blair, Van, me, Laine, Grandpa Joe and Grandma Barb. One big happy bunch! We are all so proud of Joe and his accomplishment. We know it took hard work and dedication and wasn't always easy, but he did a great job! Way to go, Joe!

Joe being congratulated by his sweet sister Laine. Hopefully, in a couple of years we will be enjoying the same event for her!

After we got off the river, I had a very few days to spend with my family at the ranch in Carey, Idaho. My sister was trying out her granddaughter Katie's Barbie Fishing Pole. Here she is pulling off a bunch of water-cress. Apparently, the pole has special powers, but only for Katie and John!

I had absolutely the best day fishing on Silver Creek that I have ever had! I caught 50 fish in three hours on a Dave's Hopper flyfishing. Here is one of the beauties a nice German Brown Trout. I stopped long enough to snap a shot, but was in a hurry to get back to fishing. It was a marvelous day!

While I was there my sister, Nancy, Laine and I camped each night in a tent by the falls pictured. There is nothing like the sound of falling water to lull you to sleep as long as you didn't have too much water to drink before bedtime! But, if you did have to get up, the stars were incredible!

Here we start the photos of our trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon in Idaho. It is a wonderful float and was made even more special by the fact that Laine and Joe were with us, Grandpa Van showed up for a couple of days, and our very dearest friends were there as well. The fact that we started each day with a shot of espresso and Bailey's Irish Creme added that "bit of warmth" to get you going! What a fantastic time we had!

The river canyons are so amazing! You can see why they call it the River of No Return! The best thing was no cell phone service and no Blackberry's (so no work was allowed). Of course there was work to do, but it was fun compared to answering emails and updating schedules! It was a true "no work allowed" vacation. That is what Van and I really needed!

Gus (or Jeff) cruising into a rapid. Pure skill!

View down river from the pictographs that were on an amazing solid rock wall! See below.

Looks like a man to me!

The wall the pictographs are on! It was so amazing. I could see how the Indians would want to paint something on such a sacred place as this.

Here is Joe and Grandpa Van shooting through House of Rocks. They made quite a team. Van is 85 years old and it was his first trip down the river! Amazing! Way to go G-Man! We are so proud of you! Joe, thanks for rowing him safely down the river!

Appetizers - hand-rolled spring rolls! Steve and Rob did a marvelous job of cooking for us. After a hard day on the river it was food like rack of lamb, mushroom lasagna, big juicy steaks, ... I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. It was AWESOME!!

One of our camps. Terry fishing in the foreground and our sandy beach in the background. All of our camps were special. My favorite was Sheepeater because we had a hot springs before bed and when we woke up!! Can't beat that in my book!

Laine cruising into camp after a long day rowing. This is her second time down the river and her second time rowing all the way (well, this year she did have some help from Max who was a rower in training).

More beautiful scenery. You never tired of looking. There was always something beautiful to marvel at. It made it hard to keep one eye on your fly. I lost a few fish because I was gawking and not paying attention!

Cliff jumping is one of the favorite past-times of the younger rafters. Here Matt does his thing as Todd waits in the water after his successful jump. Laine is the only "lady" jumper! I was like that even younger than she is so she comes by it naturally - honest!

Todd, Laine and Matt. The cliff was "really" high!

Here's Laine in Tappen Falls. She busted an oar at the top and successfully negotiated the rest of the Class IV rapid with one oar! Way to Go!

Steve gives his boat a good washing (along with everyone in it). He hit it right on and just kept going!

Jeff, Trey and Terry hit Tappen Falls - Woo Hoo!!

Laine, listening and learning from the pro "Gus." That girl knows who to learn her amazing skills from that's for sure.

Shawn and Nancy sitting pretty!

Mmmmm, breakfast. Hashbrowns, coffee, eggs.....

Steve with his "river smile" on. Bet you don't look this happy during tax season!

The dish and hand washing station. Can you think of a more beautiful place to wash dishes or your hands?

On Laine's 20th birthday (on the river) she was treated to licking the utensils covered in chocolate! Jeff was seen licking the chocolate off Gus's hat (which Laine was wearing). Priceless!

This is Dagger Falls. It is above the put-in at Boundary Creek where we camped the first night after rigging all the boats.

Ponderosa Pines, my very favorite. These two majestic beauties were spared by the fire.

Multi-use river. Both wranglers and floaters can share!

The fire burnt one tree on left, but saved a couple on the right. No rhyme or reason, just the luck of the draw.

Laine showing Max her "river moves." Max was a great learner. She must have had a great teacher!

The put-in at Boundary Creek. Boats rigged and ready to start the 110 mile journey!

Gearing up in the morning. Here, Todd shows us how it's done!

Shawn showing his patriotic spirit on Barney the purple boat.

Say "Cheeeeeesssssseeee, Laine!"

On our way to the US we stopped over in Seoul and spent the day checking it out since we had a long layover. Here is some creative graffiti that caught my eye.

Trinkets at the street market. We could have spent hours looking around, but had to get back to catch our plane. The airport is an hour from downtown Seoul.

At one of the temples near the Battelle-Korea office, the patrons hung these latterns with their wishes/prayers. They were everywhere and very beautiful. I wish I could have read them.

One of the doors to the temple was decorated with this beautiful painting. The whole temple was a marvel of carved and intricately painted wood.

We had a marvelous trip. It made me more home sick to come back to Kuala Lumpur after being in the US. I'm about over it now. Laine is visiting and will be here for another 10 days. I am going to enjoy every single minute. We leave for Phi Phi Island in two days. Stay tuned for more happenings.

Dive Trip 2 Lang Tengah Island

2009-07-27T03:31:00.000-07:00

Well, Van and I are definitely addicted to scuba diving. We had a wonderful dive weekend on Lang Tengah Island (between Rendang and Perhential Islands). We got to experience two new dives. We did a night dive (my first and Van's second). We also went on our deepest dive so far (25 meters or 75 feet). Both were a great experience and something that can be credited toward our advanced open water certification if we choose to pursue it. This blog will kind of be a hodge-podge of photos.

Left. Sea Turtle tracks where she hauled her heavy bottom up the shore to lay her eggs in the sand above the high tide line. She was a very old and large turtle judging by the width between her flippers. The eggs will take about 2 months to hatch and then the babies will have to run the gauntlet of predators to make it to the ocean where they will face more predators. I love sea turtles and can't wait to see a baby!

Left - Very creative use of old fins!

This is Kamal our master diver on most of our dives. On Sunday Van and I got to go out with just Kamal. We saw Giant Grouper, Sea Turtles, Trigger Fish, a Giant Puffer Fish, etc. It was one of the best dives ever. Kamal calls Van and I "Mom and Dad" and constantly gives us hugs!

It made us miss our kids (Joe and Laine) even more!

The beaches are beautiful and I enjoyed walking in the white sand collecting "heart shaped" coral.

Oh, a cute little green crab playing on the rocks!

The beautiful clear blues and greens of the South China Sea. We are so blessed to live by such wonderful places. Every time we go we meet people from all over the world. They marvel at our good fortune to live so close to all the places they can only visit on vacations.

So, the bathrooms have plants growing in them and you have to pay 30 sen to use the open-doored tandas. As I was lining up this shot, a guy came around the corner and started unbuckling his pants. I was polite and turned around until he was done. I don't think he ever saw me he was so intent on the task at hand.

Oh, my nieces would be so excited to see "Little Nemo's" in the ocean! This photo was taken by Kelvin who was in our group and was nice enough to share his underwater photos with us. Van and I haven't invested in an underwater camera yet, but we are planning on it soon. Kelvin gave us some great suggestions on what to buy. Thanks, Kelvin. You are a great man!

Part of the fun is learning to really look for stuff! It's very easy to look right at something and not realize it's alive. This "Rock Fish" was well named.

This is a Leopard Shark! It was our very first Shark siting! It was amazing! We are busy learning all of the hand signals for the different types of fish. A shark symbol is holding your hand up on your head like a fin! It's quite fun learning underwater sign language!

Here we are the happy diving couple! Van never wears a wet suit and I usually don't, just happened to have one on because I thought I might get cold on our deep water dive earlier in the day. It was cooler for sure, but not cold at all.

Here is a yellow margined Moray Eel. How cool is that? I love them. This one is purple with kind of yellow gold markings. They are very hard to see and like to hide in cracks and crevices. They are nothing like they were portrayed in the movie "The Deep" that's for sure. I think they got a bad rap!

Here is a small blue spotted ray. It was very shy. This is one of the smaller ones we saw, but we did see some that were a lot larger.

Here is a little cleaner shrimp. The colors on his pincher's were beautiful.

Oh, here is a beautiful Hawks Bill Sea Turtle. It wedged itself in beneath the rocks and was taking a nap. I'm sure it was resting and getting ready to lay it's eggs soon.

Here is a very fuzzy hermit crab. If I didn't see the eyes (which look like candy cigarettes) I never would have thought it was alive!

And, last but not least, I saw this sign and truly felt that it was listening to my soul. I love pictures and I love leaving only bubbles!

Until our next dive trip...

2009-07-19T04:01:00.000-07:00

We've arrived. Tioman Island. Theresa, Ken, Robert's Mum, and Robert disembark the Berjaya Airlines Dash-8, that safely deposited us on the island.

The Berjaya Air plane leaving. It makes you want to shout "the plane, the plane" as you see it exiting. The plane flies straight at the jungle hillside and makes a 45 degree turn to the right to land. Also, if you don't stop in time, you run into another hillside at the end of the runway.

Traveling by shuttle bus to the Berjaya Resort, you pass the staff apartments. It seems to me scooters for the 3 miles of road on the island and TV dishes for entertainment are high on their priority list.

I saw this sticker and thought of my son Joe. He loves pirates.

For the shuttle to the dive shop, they crammed us in a really ancient van. The doors wouldn't open except from the outside and barely closed. When it started up the hill the driver burned the clutch out and it was smoking like crazy and smelled hot. I pictured the contraption starting on fire and us burning to death stuck inside. I wanted out and with the language barrier the driver just wasn't getting the fact we were serious. He finally figured out that we meant business when we started exiting via the windows. We laughed about it after, but it was a very uncomfortable trapped feeling while it was happening.

Although I don't particularly like cats, this one had the most amazing gold eyes. Cats here are treated very well. I try to take photos of the more unusual ones.

Melang Rock is another dive location we explored. It was amazing to think about how such a large rock ended up perched perfectly balanced on the rocks below it.

We have to spend so much surface time in between dives to get the excess nitrogen out of our systems. While you are sitting there waiting there are any number of things to do to while away the time. Here, Robert, out dive instructor, makes masks out of watermelon rinds. Robert is hilarious. He makes the surface interval time go amazingly fast with his antics.

This is the view of Melang Rock from Coral Beach. Coral Beach is one of the most amazing places I have ever been. The water is gin clear, a beautiful blue, and has the whitest sandy beach. I would love to camp there some time.

Our dive boat waiting while we made a quick "pit stop" at Coral Island.

Life at Charlie's age is all about discovery. If you ever feel like you've lost the curious part of your nature, all you have to do is spend some quality time with a two-year old at the beach. We were so lucky to be able to watch Anne and Mike Schultz's boys (Charlie and Thomas) while their parents took a diving lesson. What beautiful children. It made us long for the day when we'd be grandparents, but I think Van and I would both like our kids to get married first. In the meantime, we will treasure our time with TT (Thomas) left and Charlie (above).

This beautiful example of a monitor lizard was sunning himself after a brief downpour on the driveway pavers. He had some pretty nasty looking claws. Good thing I had the long lens on the camera and he wasn't moving very fast.

The sunsets were beautiful. This sailboat was moored off the beach for several days. I envied the skipper that was sitting on the back dangling his feet in the water watching the sunset. Every night the masts would be lit with lights and it was awesome to see.

Ruben our happy dive master. It seems all dive masters here smoke like chimneys before and after each dive. It's crazy. I don't think I've had a dive master yet who didn't smoke. This location is Labas Island. There were a bunch of swim throughs, but Van doesn't like them since he is about 1.5 times the size of everyone around here, he's worried he'll get stuck. We swim over and watch the bubbles escape so we know where they are below us. It's fine with me even though I actually like swimming through most of them. Since Van and I are dive buddies, we stick together. That means if one of us doesn't swim through the other one doesn't either. It's a good system designed for our safety and we honor it.

Well, as the sun sets on our last night it makes me marvel at the beauty we've seen since coming to Malaysia. We are truly blessed with great abundance and beauty.

Until the next adventure...

Open Water SCUBA Diving Lang Tengah

2009-05-21T04:36:00.000-07:00

Ahh, the wide open azure seas and cooling breezes as we make our way on the boat to D'Coconut Resort on Lang Tengah Island for our first open water scuba diving adventure. Jan is smiling in the middle, but it's hard to imagine Jan without a smile! Jan started diving less than a year ago and already has almost 100 dives under her weight belt! She's my idol! The ferry boat we are on doubled as our dive boat. The resort was probably the smallest I've been to and catered to divers.

We've arrived at Lang Tengah which means "Middle Island" because it is between Prehentian and Redang. Everyone was excited to see where we'd be diving. I don't think anyone was disappointed. The water was a beautiful aquamarine, clear, warm, and welcoming. I love the South China Sea.

Jaime, Jerad (on crutches because he sprained his ankle), Eileen, Carlo (taking a photo), our dive instructor Robert, etc. It was a beautiful day and the seas were calm for the crossing which took about 45 minutes.

I haven't thought much about how clouds form over land since science in high school, but when I looked across the still waters and saw these clouds forming over the islands in the distance it came flooding back. Looking back toward Kuala Terengganu, near where the ferry departed from, the whole mainland was covered in clouds as well.

Here is the view looking towards Perhentian Island. Perhentian means "stopping place islands" and is a much larger island than Lang Tengah. The green and hawksbill sea turtles (my favorite) lay their eggs there between May and September when the bay is closed to visitors.

When I was snorkeling near the rocks I found a sea turtle and followed him all around the lagoon. It was amazingly fun!

Here Van and I are at 16 meters "unda the sea" just off the island of Lang Tengah. After a anxiety filled couple of dives, I was finally able to relax and enjoy the newness of being underwater and not drowning! This photo is from one of the "four" required open water dives that needed to be completed before I could get my PADI certification which will allow me to SCUBA dive without an instructor anywhere in the world. We had to do stressful things like take your mask off underwater, put it back on, and clear the water out of it so you could see again. It is a little scary, but once I learned to let go and relax, it really is quite easy. I stuck with it because I knew our instructor wouldn't let me graduate unless he was convinced I was comfortable. It took some good positive self talk to keep me under the water when every instinct told me to swim to the surface. Thanks to my daughter's words of wisdom, I was able to stick it out and graduate. Now, we can't wait for the next dive!

Carlo (Van's boss) was my "dive buddy" for most of the dives because Van already has his certification. Carlo was so nice to me. It was a big stretch for me to trust someone other than Van under the water, but after a few minutes with Carlo and his wonderful protectiveness, I was almost as comfortable as I was with Van. Carlo can be my "dive buddy" anytime.

The resort had two locations. Were the lagoon is where we got off the boat is the older part of the resort and down a jungle path around to this side of a cove is the newer part. This view is from the newer location looking down the beautiful white sand beach.

This is the infinity pool at the newer side of the resort. We managed to swim in both pools to cool off when we were relaxing between dives.

Here is a view of the dock at the lagoon.

You know, I can honestly say that I have never noticed webs and spiders in the jungle before this trip. I don't know if I never noticed them before or if the island just had a lot of them. I decided that I never ever wanted to be lost in the jungle because if I ran into one of these in a web I'd be so freaked out!

Jan took this photo of a sea turtle. We aren't allowed to carry cameras until we finished our course work, but Van and I are already looking at what kind to buy.

I love the sea turtles the best. They are so wonderful. I could follow them around for hours (if I had enough energy and air)!

Jungle vegetation. You never really realize how much things grow until you stand and look at the jungle around you. Some leaves are as large a two-year old children! It's amazing. Just imagine how many spiders (not to mention other things) are in this jungle - yikes!

Tanks, tanks, and more tanks!

Here is a side view of Mr. Spider. He was an armor plated monster. Honestly, he was as big as my closed fist if you included his legs! I understand from the dive shop boys Kamal and Eddie that there are no poisonous spiders on the island. It's a good thing, too, because I saw these same type legs on the inside window of Eileen and Dennis' bathroom!

Another photo of the sea turtle! Isn't he magnificent! It's amazing how well he blends into the bottom when you look at him from above.

Chinese New Year in Phuket Thailand

2009-01-27T02:00:00.001-08:00

One of the nicest things about our life in Malaysia is we have learned we can be super spontaneous and still go to some really wonderful locations close to home. On Friday morning, the day before our four-day long Chinese New Year holiday, we decided to go to Phuket, Thailand. I did some checking online and found a hotel and flights that were very reasonable. We left work at 1:00 p.m., went home and packed, drove to the airport, had a 1.5 hour flight, and at 7:30 p.m. we were landing in Phuket. It doesn't get much more spontaneous than that.

We lucked into a sweet deal at the Indigo Pearl Hotel. The hotel overbooked their standard rooms and we got a free upgrade to a Plantation Villa (see photo to left) with our own private outdoor tub and sunbathing area. It included breakfast, too. WOW! The hotel was impressive especially if you like contemporary architecture (which we do) and the food was to die for. Honestly, we never ate anywhere except the hotel because the food was so good, there was no reason to go anywhere else. Let me just say.... Thai food in Thailand - there is nothing better!

The hotel boasts three pools. The one to the left is the adult only infinity pool. It was so relaxing not to hear kids screaming and the swim up bar was amazing! They make the best Mai Tai I've ever had.

This pool is the main pool and it was beautiful as well. It had graduated colored tiles that started with a light blue and got progressively more green. The effect was beautifully serene and very well done. The hotel also has fantastic aromatherapy soaps, shampoos, conditioners, lotions, oils, etc. The bed was heavenly and the room was divine. It's one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed in.

We both had a lot of work we brought with us and it was quiet and relaxing.

One one of the days we took an all day boat excursion to Phi Phi Island which was made famous by the movie The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio. To the left are the rugged mountainous islands that we passed along the way.

This is Phi Leh Cove which was the lagoon in the movie. There were TONS OF PEOPLE on boats and I couldn't help but think that with all the people going there, it wouldn't stay beautiful for very long. I was glad to see it in my lifetime. It's really, really incredible. It was just as beautiful as it was in the movie.

Van relaxing on the boat ride with the wind in his face and nothing work-related on his mind. We pinch ourselves every day because we are living in such a wonderful part of the world and seeing things that we never thought we'd see in this lifetime. We are blessed and know it. Sometimes it just doesn't seem real.

Long boats are the local form of boat transportation. We were wishing that we would have hired one for the day to take us around. We would have had more freedom and less of a commercialized experience. The motor set up on the boats was interesting. The long shaft had a propeller on the end that the driver could raise and lower as needed to negotiate the shallower waters.

Ever wonder where the birds nests come from in Bird's Nest Soup? Some from right here. They harvest the bird nests on the scaffolding in these caverns. I thought it was an archaeological dig! The birds are a special kind of cliff swallow that uses their saliva to make the nest and apparently it is very sweet. The soup isn't on my list of things to try while I'm here.

Beautiful, clear, clean, warm, refreshingly wonderful Andaman Sea water.

Here is one of the impressive cliffs that lined the lagoon. The reflection off the water gave a blue green cast to the rock. We stopped here for swimming. The white sand bottom at Phi Leh Cove was wonderful. With no white sand beach, it was just a nice spot to dive in and get cooled off.

Long boats parked along the shore in the lagoon. They tie colorful sashes on the front for good luck and decoration.

One of the altars on Phi Phi Island. It was near Phi Phi Natural where we stopped for a buffet lunch of Thai food on our excursion day.

These guys used the tractor to unload supplies that came in by speed boat. The tractor was driven out into the shallow water. We didn't think it would last long with that kind of salt water abuse.

When we were on Khai Island we saw a storm blowing in. The sky turned dark, but the sun was still shining. The light was fantastic. The beach was too commercialized for us, but it was beautiful with the storm coming. When it finally hit, it was raining buckets. 30 minutes later the sun was shining.

Another long boat parked on the shore before the rain hit.

There isn't any surf to speak of on the beach by the hotel. It's beautifully clear with white sand that is like talcum powder it's so fine. This native woman was fishing. She had a beautiful smile and was obviously having fun. From the beach you could walk out forever before the water was up to your neck.

There is a boardwalk and road between the hotel property and the beach. There are stands with food, souvenirs, postcards, you can get pedicures, rent scooters, etc.

On the last afternoon, we negotiated with a local fisherman who couldn't speak any English to take us out fishing. It was hilarious, but the universal language of fisherman (complete with hand signals) worked like a charm. We caught several smaller fish (that we were going to use as bait for the bigger fish) when the wind started blowing so hard we were afraid the boat was going to capsize. We were worried about how often he was bailing the rear end of the boat with a bucket. Funny, there weren't any PFDs and he used plastic water bottles for bobbers, but all be damned if he didn't have an expensive fish finder hooked up to a battery. He had his priorities straight! Boy, did we have a chuckle over that.

We also found it interesting the flavors of Lays Potato Chips they had available including the ever popular Nori Seaweed Flavor. Yuck!

Well, our trip was fantastic and we have plans to go back again with our friends Nancy, Spence, and Shawn when they come to visit us in November. There is elephant trekking, white water rafting, repelling down waterfalls, and checking out the city life yet to do there. It's comforting to know that about the distance Seattle was from Sequim, we can be in a beautiful relaxing place. We feel especially blessed.

One final artistic shot of a long boat. They were fascinating in their uniqueness.

Briggs Family in Bali, Indonesia for Christmas 2008!

2008-12-31T01:56:00.000-08:00

After a fun-filled, exhausting, wonderful, memory packed week in Bali, there isn't too much to say except we can't wait to go back! We rode camels, basked in the sun, played in the pool, went down the water slide, drank at the swim up bar, had snacks, treats, and drinks in our rooms, saw the Balinese native dances, ate suckling pig, had beginning surfing lessons, got tattoos (Laine and Joe), and generally didn't act our ages (Van and Sandy) for a full week. I have so many wonderful photos and memories from our week in Bali, that it's hard to organize them into a package. So, I'm going to break from the norm and just describe the photos for you. Here goes...

The trip started off with fun at the Singapore airport. They actually had liquor taste testing at the Duty Free store. Here we are trying the different flavors of Absolute and Bailey's. I love taste tests!!
Laine and Joe ordered a "Waterfall" in the airport restaurant. It's a towering flaming drink! The only problem was the bartender only had one tall bottle so she decided to "build" another tall bottle out of spoons and glasses. We watched with fascination (secretly making bets when it was going to crash and fall). See photo below titled "before."
Guess this would be titled "after." Laine is choking on her drink because she is laughing so hard! We provided at least 10 good minutes of solid entertainment for the staff and patrons of the restaurant.
If we were sending out Christmas cards this year, this would be the photo we'd use. It was taken on Christmas Day after watching the most incredible native Balinese dance at Pura Luhur Uluwatu which is perched 330 feet up on a dramatic cliff side. Uluwatu is also a surf Mecca where to get to the surf you have to go through sea caves. Apparently, it is not for beginners because you can get pounded against the rocks.
Here is the Nikko Bali Resort, the hotel we stayed at. It was wonderful. I'd love to go back. The food, service, rooms, everything was top notch! It is on a cliff overlooking the beautiful waters of the Indian Ocean.We decided not to wake the kids up the first day and went down to the buffet breakfast without them. Little did we know that they ordered room service and were enjoying it on their balcony overlooking the water. Can you spell "spoiled"?
Here is the oldest temple in Bali at Uluwatu. It is thought that this temple and it's statues inspired much of the temples and statues that followed and are such a rich part of Balinese culture.Sunset at Uluwatu. Joe took this beautiful photo. He's an amazing photographer! You can tell that he loves taking photos.One of the many statues that grace the island. This one was at the entrance to our hotel.On a rainy day Laine, Joe, and Jamie rode what is called the "Flying Fish." It was really fun to watch. The lighter the occupants, the higher it seemed to fly! Here Laine and Jamie are airborne!
Christmas lunch consisted of native Indonesian fare at a restaurant in Tanjung Benoa. There was even a Christmas tree near our table for us to enjoy. Our driver, Ketut Kardiana, was born in Tanjung Benoa and lives with his wife and daughter there still. To have a driver in Bali for an entire day was only $60 US. There was also a one bedroom room for rent for $100 a MONTH!! Joe is getting started on his tattoo! Laine is watching with butterflies in her stomach. It was nice of her "big bro" to go first! They both got tattoos. Laine's dream was for all of us to get them, but Van and I decided that it was a better bonding experience for the kids than for us - LOL! I guess they will always remember the tattoo they got on Christmas Day in Bali!
Sunset from the observation tower at the Nikko Bali Resort. The colors were so amazing! There is nothing better than a tropical sunset to make your heart smile.Van, doing what he needed to do on vacation. Lay back in the cushioned lounge chair, on the beach, with a hat to shield the eyes, and a good book. He was in heaven!Ah, the beginning surfers before taking their first lesson. Insurance required that they all wear helmets. You can understand it when you see all the surf boards flying through the air. I hurt my arm earlier in the week when I suggested we do the "Briggs Family Train" down the water slide at the hotel pool. Van was behind me on the train and we got separated half way down. Unfortunately, he caught up to us right as we entered the pool. He careened into me and I hurt my arm!Joe taking a tumble, but that is good because it meant that he got up! The Rip Curl Surf School guarantees that you'll get up, or they keep giving you lessons for free until you do. The school was at Kuta Beach which had great waves that were breaking pretty close to shore. The only problem was the garbage floating in the water that kept sticking to your body. It was gross!
Laine's up, then she's down!

Laine and Joe after a successful day surfing!

Brother and sister "high five" each other congratulating themselves on a fun filled day of surfing!
Laine practicing her lessons at the beach at the Nikko Hotel the next day!

This Russian (yes, there were a lot of Russians at the resort) got water in his ear and was jumping up and down in his Speedo to get it out. I couldn't resist a photo! View from the beach looking toward the new St. Regis resort. On either side of the hotel were Balinese families living in tin covered shacks. Their livelihood was from fishing and gathering and farming the seaweed that washed up on shore. The seaweed is used for cosmetics and is a valuable natural resource. They gathered seaweed all day and into the night.This old woman was amazing. She was bent over all day long harvesting seaweed and when she smiled, she had two teeth. Her eyes were wise and knowing and truly a portal to her soul.The seaweed farm near the resort. This is a younger version of the woman above. In my imagination, they were related.Joe decided to let Laine "shave" his head before we left for Bali. Here he is sporting a peeling sun burnt head! Go figure! Close up of the rice growing as the sunset was reflected in the water. It was so amazing to see rice paddies! One of our favorite spots was Ubud which is a Mecca for crafts. We bought a painting, wood carvings, and marveled at the rice paddies which were the most beautiful green you can imagine. Statues at Benoa. They were lined up on the fence pillars that were on a wall surrounding a hotel.Laine and Joe "captured" Van and held on to him so they would be washed ashore with a big wave. They tumbled about, got sand in every orifice possible, then washed back out. This went on until they were completely exfoliated! It was much cheaper than the spa treatment!Another photo of the spa treatment above. I had to put the camera away and join them they were having so much fun!Ketut (our local driver) took us to the Blue Marlin Cafe where we had a table on the beach, watched a dinner show of fire jugglers, and got to pick how much fresh seafood we wanted by the kilogram. We went into the kitchen, picked it out, and they grilled it. It was great fun and it was a beautiful, star-filled night with a cooling light breeze. It was perfect. There are more scooters than cars in Bali. We marveled at the number of people that could fit on one scooter. Here is a family of 4! Whenever the Balinese people see a camera, they smile. This Dad even pulled up his visor on his helmet so I could get a good shot. We were driving in the van with cameras and heads hanging out the windows. Sacred cow (Balinese people are Hindu) near a soon to be sacred temple. They were just building this temple so we had the opportunity to go up on it and look around. It was very beautiful and was done with great craftsmanship. We were not allowed to go into any other temples. Suckling pig at Ubud with the whole crew. There were three families from Van's work in Bali. We spent the whole day together and suckling pig was tops on the agenda. We were seated at a table that is a couple feet off the floor and the pig was AWESOME!These kids were in a "pack" down the road from where Laine and Joe got their tattoos. They were so happy and such "posers." It made us happy just to take photos of them.Lots of Balinese women carry things on their heads. It's amazing! Here is one of the masons who was working on the new temple. She had a bucket full of grout. I can't imagine how she could support it, let alone balance it. Here are the boys that were part of the cliff dance. Each one of them made a separate sound that when combined with all the others was like listening to an orchestra. It was the highlight of our trip and we saved it for the last day there - Christmas Day.Sunrise from our deck at the hotel. It was always cloudy when we woke up, but it cleared up later in the morning on all but one day. This young mother and her little daughter were near the seaweed farm. The cute little girl was amazing with her ski hat on. It wasn't a cool morning by my standards - it must have been a fashion statement for her. There was a Balinese Santa Claus in the surf shop on Christmas Day! He seemed a little short surrounded by Laine and Van. Laine not really sure about how much excitement there is in feeding camels. We were on the half-time break from our camel excursion. The funniest thing was that the guide said "let's GOT it on!" when we were ready to go. We cracked up at that and used it many times later in the week! I never thought we'd be riding camels on the beach for Christmas Eve.
The camels wanted us to know how they felt about having such large riders upon their backs. They took one look at us and starting making the most horrible noises! This one looks like he's dying!

The lounge chairs on the beach at the Nikko Bali Resort. They were as wonderful as they look!Each morning at the beach, the men dug holes and buried the seaweed that washed up on the beach during the night so it wouldn't rot and stink. It looked like a lot of work, but I was glad it didn't smell in paradise. However, it does give you a new appreciation for what goes on behind the scenes to give you that perspective of paradise. We see many strange things being transported on scooters in Malaysia and Indonesia, but this was truly funny. It's a pot-belly statue covered in plastic. We haven't seen that before! All the children in Bali were beautiful and had the warmest smiles imaginable. It was truly a blessing to see the people of Bali smile. It was contagious. This one sported a Harley hat!It rained pretty hard one day and the streets were flooded. Yes, it does rain in paradise, but fortunately for us, it wasn't very often. The water lilies at the hotel were beautiful! The would only open up fully in the early morning. Laine in her Balinese sarong doing some bartering with a local woman over a dress that caught her eye after our snorkeling expedition. We went snorkeling on a day trip to Mushroom Bay. There was a storm rolling in, but it didn't rain as hard as it looked like it was going to. Sunrise from our porch at the hotel overlooking the Indian Ocean. It was so nice to hear the waves crashing onto the shore all night long. I slept really, really, well the whole week.
Here is the pool from our balcony. It was fun with the water slide, swim up bar, organized games, and full-pool basketball. I was in the finals for the chip the tennis ball into the open umbrella competition. I was narrowly defeated in the finals! Part of the dance at Uluwatu involved fire! It was amazing to see them dancing barefoot through the flames. Joe took this great photo of one of the dancers leaping bare-footed through the flames. It was a classic dance of good versus evil. There was no declared winner.
Another character from the dance. Two princesses from the dance. The way they moved their eyes and hands was unbelievable. There were monkeys all over the place at Uluwatu. Our driver told us to make sure we took off our earrings because they'd pull them right out of your ears! We saw one lady crying "ouch" as a monkey tried to make off with her hoops. Scooters are used in many ways. Joe got this photo of a wheel barrow being pulled behind a scooter.Another view of the lounge chairs in paradise. I honestly can't wait to go back. Just looking at the photo relaxes me. The white umbrellas came in handy when you got your quotta of sun and needed a little shade.
Here is a view of the country side. It was incredibly green (as you can imagine a tropical place would be) and there were beautiful flowers everywhere.I have a bunch more photos, but the blog is giving me fits because it's so long. So, I'll close for now knowing that the Briggs' spent the most exciting, wonderful, fun, and fantastic Christmas ever in Bali. We hope that you and your families will have the best New Year and that every happiness you could imagine will come into your lives in 2009! We are enjoying our journey and marveling at how much of the world is really out there for us to experience.

Joe and Laine Arrive in Singapore - First Day in Kuala Lumpur

2008-12-18T10:44:00.000-08:00

After a gruelling drive and border crossing from Malaysia to Singapore for me, the kids arrived at 1:00 a.m. at Changi Airport. We drove from Singapore back to Kuala Lumpur (KL) and arrived home at 5:00 a.m. in time to wake Van up and give him big hugs, have a homemade "Momma" breakfast of fried potatoes, bacon, and French toast, jump in the pool when it opened at 7:00 a.m., and hit the streets of KL for some sight-seeing. We decided it would be better not to sleep and just "power" through the day! Joe and Laine arrived at Terminal 3, which was brand new and immaculate! They even had a napping station where you could take a shower, nap for however long you wanted, get a drink, access the Internet, etc. It was really quite nice.
Changi Airport (Singapore) Departure Gates in Terminal 3 pictured above. I had some time to kill (about 6 hours) so I took the MRT (Municipal Rapid Transit) train into Singapore and had a little photo safari. Singapore is a very clean and beautiful city. Below are some photos. MRT above. Notice how clean the floors are. There are sizable fines for eating or drinking on the train. Judging from the clean floors, I'd say it's a rule that everyone seems to follow.
St. Andrews Church. Amid the tall sky-scrapers of Singapore, there is a whole fenced block that houses the church. It was very beautiful and the grounds had old trees and a huge expanse of lawn.
The church was lit by flood lights and it really was quite beautiful and very fun to photograph.
Kiddie-corner from the church was this beautifully decorated building complete with a double-decker city bus cruising by. We went to several malls in KL to look around. The Christmas trees are incredible. The one in KLCC Suria (which is adjoining the Twin Towers) is 7 stories tall! It's not real, but it pretty amazing. See photo below. The tree at Times Square was about half as tall, but was very impressive. It's nice to see Christmas decorations in a place where most of the population doesn't celebrate Christmas. Of course the main driving force is retail sales, but I'm willing to overlook that because it makes Malaysia seem a little bit more like home.
We stood in line for our chance to take the elevator up to the 41st floor (the sky bridge of the KL Twin Towers) and take in the view. It was a beautiful day in KL and the view was wonderful. Below is the view as you stepped off the elevator. This is the view you'd have if you worked in the towers.
The sky bridge is a stainless steel marvel. The reflections in the steel of the ceiling was marvelous.
Here is a view from the sky bridge looking at the mosque that is near the towers. The prayers can be heard over the loud speakers from at least a mile around the mosque.
We leave on Friday for Bali. We are all excited and can't wait to get there. I can tell right now that the time is going to pass way too quickly. My goal is to enjoy every single minute of it to the fullest.