This is a new blog for family travel in Europe. We’ll cover family-friendly destinations in every European country.

Despite the summer feeling so far in the past, we’d thought we’d share with you some fantastic artwork by our illustrator Sim Marriott!

Sim was commissioned by Cedar Communications to produce a front cover based on an article about travelling to Sardinia, Cyprus, New York and the Dominican Republic with kids!

The character design on the cover is fantastic and took over a week to design – we really recommend you click on the image to check out the larger version!

While Thewet is probably the most kid-friendly part of Bangkok, and Banglampu has the best family-friendly budget accommodation, we also had fun staying off Sukumvit Road and exploring the downtown attractions with Tash on our last visit to Bangkok in January 2009.

We stayed at the Federal Hotel in Sukumvit Soi 11, which has been around forever – or at least since the 1960s – where Roo and I had stayed long before Tash came along. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s good value and in a great location. The pool is pleasant, though you’ll want to turn a blind eye to the pink-skinned men breakfasting poolside  on Singha beer from about 10am.

Staying near Sukumvit and surrounds puts you near the Skytrain and Subway, both of which are great for getting around, although be warned that the many stairs make it a hard slog for little legs and pace yourself accordingly.

The Siam Skytrain station is the jumping off point for Siam Square, home of our favourite ‘old school’ coffee shop, the New Light; and the Siam Paragon shopping complex, which houses Siam Ocean World in its basement, the largest aquarium in the southern hemisphere. Ocean World is not cheap but, as described here, it’s an entertaining way to spend an afternoon with kids; the food court on the ground floor is good value, too. And there’s usually something kid-friendly going on around Siam Square: in our case it was a Snow White-themed Christmas display (best not to think too hard about it).

Both the Skytrain and Subway will take you to nearby Lumpini Park, which is about as kid-friendly as it gets in downtown Bangkok. The park has several kids play areas side-by-side: as the equipment is modernised, it seems that rather than replace what went before it, a new play area opens up. The park is Bangkok’s largest and a great place for picnics, Tai Chi, outdoor gym, and that rarest of commodities in the Thai capital, peace and quiet – if you’re not accompanied by a small child, that is.

We hired a pedal boat shaped like a duck to cruise around the lake for 30 minutes or so. The pedalling was bloody hard work but worth it as the lake is brimming with wildlife. We saw fish, turtles, eels and monitor lizards so large we almost mistook them for crocodiles.

The best food find of our time in this part of Bangkok was the Rosabieng bar and restaurant at 3, Sukumvit Soi 11, just down from where we were staying. Rosabieng is the Thai word for the dining car on a train, and there’s one in the restaurant’s leafy garden, as well as a working model train in the air-conditioned interior. The Thai food is sensational, with an exciting selection of dishes. I could have eaten there every night. Tash was made to feel very welcome – she even managed to crash the birthday party of a group from the wonderful Mrs Balbir’s Indian restaurant one of the nights we were there.

Sukumvit also has the advantage of bookshops and department stores where you can stock up on toys for the plane, train and/or beach. Asia Books has a good selection of English language kids books and colouring books; there’s one at Siam Paragon, another at 221 Sukumvit Rd, just past Soi 15.

Hello Roamers,
Today some information for readers with children.
Save 50% on a child ticket when travelling with an adult
Travel with Greyhound Australia this summer and save. Book an adult and a child express ticket online and save 50% on the child ticket. So stretch your holiday budget further for your family and travel with Greyhound to over 1,100 stops, Greyhound Australia can take you anywhere in Australia!
This offer is available on all Greyhound services, but on a limited number of seats on each service so it is advisable to book early and save.

Also a website

http://www.kidswelcome.com.au

That’s it for today
John
Go-Roam Australia!

http://roamersclub.com

http://grey-nomads.org

Shledáte se s námi na Svatováclavských slavnostech, v sobotu 26.září 2009 od 10:00 do 18:00.

Jako obvykle na vás v mimibaru čeká klid, pohoda a odpočinek během hektických slavností ve chvílích, kdy si vaše miminko žádá přebalení a nakrmení.

Jestliže Vám bude scházet plena či něco podobného, nevadí.  Máme dostatečné zásoby všeho, co si Vaše miminko žádá, a navíc naši ochotní dobrovolníci Vám pomohou s téměř jakýmkoliv problémem.

A winter weekend in Warrnambool might seem a strange choice for tropical heat lovers like us, considering the Antarctic winds that buffer this booming town in Victoria’s southwest. But on Tash’s advice, we packed raincoats, gloves and boots and braved the elements for a weekend away.

The tourist brochures say Warrnambool is 3 hr and 15 min drive from Melbourne, but with a 3-and-a-half-year-old in tow and a partner with a penchant for op shops, our trip took closer to 5 hours.

At our first stop we enjoyed excellent coffee and cakes at the Winchelsea Larder; I was only sorry we weren’t there at lunchtime for what looked like a great Ploughman’s Platter (AUD$12.90), plus kid’s menu version ($5.30); a genuinely kid-friendly venue with fabulous food and produce.

We lingered longer in Colac, first at the adventure playground situated on the edge of the lovely Botanic Gardens overlooking Lake Colac (follow the signs from the highway down Queen St and turn right into Fyans St; the playground is opposite the caravan park). The park has everything from a wheelchair-accessible swing to an old-school roundabout and half-dome climbing frame. Our personal favourite was the boat on a spring overlooking the lake, which fitted all three of us.

We had lunch at the Botanic Cafe, situated at the opposite end of Fyans St from the playground, also overlooking Lake Colac. Kid-friendly, good value and picturesque location.

Then it was on to Warrnambool, where we stayed with our friends Tam and Bill in a house overlooking the Hopkins River. It was raining when we arrived but as soon as it cleared, we headed to nearby Logan’s Beach for some whale watching. We got lucky: the mother and calf hanging out in the area showed their heads and tails, and at least one of them was blowing while we watched. It turned out to be the one and only time we saw whales in three visits to the viewing platform. Then again, Tash was more entertained playing with Tam’s “binnochios” (binnoculars) than she was by the distant whales.

Sunday, on Bill’s advice, we headed for Tower Hill Reserve, a lush wildlife sanctuary inside a dormant volcano that collapsed in on itself some 30,000 years ago. We parked by the Visitor Centre and within moments we were getting up close and personal with a couple friendly emus, and spied four koalas in nearby trees. We also saw black swans by the lake and a kangaroo in the wetlands area.

Tower Hill has a fascinating history. Despite being declared Victoria’s first national park in 1892, the area had been virtually clear-felled by the 1930s. Restoration work begun in the 1960s, based on a detailed painting of the Tower Hill in 1855 by Victorian artist Eugene Von Guerard. As the In The Artist’s Footsteps website notes, “It is the classic example of where a painting, by a realist artist, at a time when photography was in its infancy, can be a very valuable conservation resource.” These days the conservation efforts are so effective that koalas have to be periodically relocated from the area to prevent them from taking over.

From Tower Hill we drove to Port Fairy and would have meandered longer around this pretty town except that the port area was closed off for a bicycle race. We opted instead for lunch at Time & Tide, as recommended by Tam, a cafe with gorgeous sea views and even more gorgeous cakes. My smoked salmon fritta was truly delectable and the coffee good, too. No kids menu but they were able to rustle up a kid-friendly dish or two ($4.50), and Tash’s hot chocolate came out with a smiley face sketched in chocolate syrup. The gallery setting means it’s better suited to immobile babies than active toddlers. The turn off to Time & Tide is after the Catholic church and just before the water tower; follow the signs down the unsealed road to the beach.

Rain ruined our plans to build sand castles on the beach out front of the cafe. Instead we drove back to Warrnambool, put on our raincoats and went out to play at the Lake Pertobe Adventure Playground. The playground is a fabulous feat of engineering, built on a former swamp whose “pestiferous exhalations” were the subject of written complaints as early as 1879. (The name ‘Warrnambool’ allegedly derives from a Kuurn Kopan Noot Aboriginal term, meaning ‘two swamps’). Nowadays the park is 20 hectares of lakes, lawn and playgrounds and home to abundant bird life.

Having become playground aficionados since the birth of our daughter, I reckon Lake Pertobe is one of our best finds, not least of all because it caters for adults as well as kids: the highlight for all 3 of us were the flying foxes, one for under-12s and another for over-12s. (We were having too much fun to take photos, but there are some here). To find the flying fox station, head right from the main car-park past the maze.

What worked for us over our weekend in Warrnambool was to come equipped for inclement weather, make the most of fine spells to get out and about, and not to be deterred by a shower or two. We had a busy, fun time and I felt we’d only scratched the surface in terms of what the region has to offer.

Also worth noting for the trip back is the castle-like Apex Playground in Terang, which has low doorways hazardous to unsuspecting adults and was a bit slippery in the wet, but is beautifully located overlooking the croquet club and has everything a would-be princess needs to fire her imagination.

Other recommended food stops are the Cobb Loaf Cafe in Camperdown, and Cafe Gravity in Colac (impressive kids’ menu with $7 dishes), both on the main street/highway on the right side heading towards Melbourne.

Tash and I celebrated NAIDOC Day on 9 July 2009 at the Collingwood Children’s Farm in Abbotsford, an event organised by Aboriginal Housing Victoria.

NAIDOC stands for National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee and NAIDOC week is an opportunity to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and the contributions of Indigenous Australians in all walks of life.

The event was brilliantly organised and included a traditional music and dance session where an Indigenous elder and young dancers invited kids in the audience to learn to dance like emus, kangaroos and eagles. There was also a dance symbolising fishing and the celebration of a good catch. Tash was too shy to join in the dancing but was rapt to witness the didgeridoo played live (she’s only seen it in books and heard it on CD).

My friend Helen alerted me to the NAIDOC Day event and we met up with her and her 2+ year old daughter Iris, sister Genevieve and her 4 kids for the celebration. We participated in a smoking ceremony, where the kids had their faces painted with ochre, followed by a boomerang painting session that all the kids got into.

There were drinks, fresh fruit, cakes, damper and barbequed sausages/vegie burgers in bread–all free, thanks to Aboriginal Housing Victoria and the fabulous volunteers at the Collingwood Children’s Farm.

It was wonderful to be around so many Aboriginal families and kids having fun.

The Farm itself was a great venue, the landscape forming a beautiful backdrop to the ceremonies, and lots of farm animals on hand to entertain the kids afterwards. For Tash the highlight was hand-feeding fresh grass to a white horse; I was rather taken with the 10-day-old black piglets.

We last took Tash to the Collingwood Children’s Farm when she was just under 18 months old, thinking that because she enjoyed reading about farm animals and emulating their noises, she would enjoy seeing the real thing. In fact, most of the animals–bar the ducks and chickens–scared the hell out of her. This visit was much more successful.

I’d always thought the Children’s Farm, whilst wonderful, a bit expensive to visit at $16 per family; but entry was free on NAIDOC Day and Helen tells me it only costs $2 per adult on Farmers’ Market days, the second Saturday of every month, which is great value.

I forgot the camera, but Helen took some great photos, including the one above of the white horse kissing Tash.

I hope to make NAIDOC Day at the Children’s Farm an annual event – even if it means skiving off work to be there.

Oh, the places you’ll go this week celebrates 10,000 hits. We named the site after the classic children’s book by Dr Seuss, with a clue in the URL ‘great balancing act’ as to what it was all about.

We started blogging 18 months ago as an on-line diary to keep friends and family up to date with our travels during our ‘year off’ – though it would be more accurate to call it a ‘year on’. A year when the work-life balance was tilted very much in favour of life.

The photo above shows Tash asleep in her father’s arms at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, just before our flight to Cambodia, our home for the year. It was as if Tash had already absorbed the ability of Thai people to sleep anytime, anywhere, after only a few days in the Kingdom. It was the first of many instances where she slipped with apparent ease into a strange and wonderful environment.

As we wrote on during our months away, it emerged from our ‘blog stats’ — the figures that tell you what search terms people use to find your site and what links they click on when they drop by — that the site was filling a gap in terms of upbeat information on travelling in Southeast Asia with small children, especially in countries like Cambodia and Laos. At least one of our readers says she was inspired to take the plunge and head off travelling with her small son on the strength of our posts — which is about as good as it gets in terms of compliments!

This has inspired me to keep the blog going as a guide to travelling with children, wherever we are in the world — a reminder to recapture the spirit of travelling even at home. To slow one’s pace. Take in the sights. Be in awe and appreciation. Take joy from watching a child experience the world in all its glorious diversity.

Thanks to everyone who has followed our travels and visited our blog. Keep on dropping by and feel free to leave comments.

Oh, the places we’ll go…

Today we went to a crocodile show at the Melbourne Zoo called Crocodilia. Almost five months ago to the day, we went to a crocodile show at the Phuket Zoo in Thailand. Can you spot the differences?

I know, I know, it’s easy to see: at the Melbourne Zoo, the keeper is handling a juvenile American Alligator, whilst in Phuket, the keeper is handling a full-grown Asian crocodile.

Seriously though, there were also differences in what we learned at the respective shows.

At Melbourne Zoo, we learned that crocodilia have evolved with five key characteristics that have enabled them to survive for more than 2 million years: the ability to be submerged but breathe above the water; the capacity to draw energy from the sun through their backs; a rudder-like tail that propels them through the water; estivation, or the ability to hibernate during hot, dry times of food scarcity and re-emerge once the rains come; and being communicate with their young, even whilst the babies are still inside the eggs. A mother crocodile may use her teeth to help a baby having trouble breaking out of its egg.

In the first photo, Tash can be seen far right standing next to the zookeeper and holding a megaphone to ‘demonstrate’ a baby crocodile communicating with her mother. And because she was part of the show, she got to pat the American Alligator afterwards [photo 3].

At Phuket Zoo, we learned sometimes a crocodile will simply not be roused, no matter how many times it is poked, prodded and dragged by the tail [photo 4] — and even when someone lies on top of it [photo 3].

The Crocodilia show is part of Melbourne Zoo’s school holiday program and is on at 11am and 1pm in the marquee next to the Carousel park.

The Crocodile Show at Phuket Zoo is a feature attraction and can be seen at various times throughout the day.

Exploring the temples of Angkor with young children can be challenging. But it’s also rewarding to see these wonders through your child’s eyes, as Angela Savage reveals.

I first visited Siem Reap and the surrounding temples in 1992. Back then, the United Nations was running Cambodia, civil war was still raging in the countryside, and there was just me and my partner—literally. We barely saw another living soul.

Sixteen years later, we returned with our nearly-three-year-old daughter to a town that had changed so much it was unrecognisable, and temples crowded with foreign tourists. It was a very different experience but equally worthwhile.

The first thing that struck me about visiting Angkor with our daughter was that what excited us was rarely the same as what excited her. Exploring the jungle-covered ruins of Ta Phrom might be fun, but what really had her riveted were the tiny frogs and giant snails that shared the stones with her (we were warned against touching the snails as they can cause a rash).

While she showed mild interest in the carvings of the apsaras at Angkor Thom, she was thrilled by the group of apsara dancers in traditional costume who posed for photos with her for a mere $1 donation.

Another friend’s kids most enjoyed the grassy expanse in front of the Terrace of the Elephants, and watching the real elephants ferry the tourists around Angkor Wat. The horses, too, are popular with the kids.

But visiting the temples themselves can be boring, if not gruelling for a toddler. So here are a few tips, gleaned from a number of families, for making the trip as enjoyable as possible for everyone.

1      If your back is up to it, consider carrying your child in a baby/toddler backpack. If you live in Phnom Penh and don’t have your own, someone on the Yahoo group Cambodia Parent Network might lend you one. Contact cambodiaparentnetwork@yahoogroups.com

2      If your toddler is too heavy or active to be carried, make sure they have decent walking shoes that don’t cause blisters (seems like a no-brainer, but we got caught out on this one).

3      Be realistic about what you can achieve: visiting 2 or 3 temples is probably enough for one day.

4      Hire a guide: in kid-friendly Cambodia, a good guide will be sensitive to kids’ needs, such as pointing out all the fantastic animals to be seen on the bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat and the Bayon. Ours even carried our daughter up the steeper staircases so we could all enjoy the view.

5      Stay at a hotel with a pool and make the most of it to take time-out between tours.

Some midrange, kid-friendly hotels recommended by resident expats are the Auberge Mont Royal d’Angkor, the Borann l’Auberge des Temples and the Pavilion d’Indochine. All have pools, gardens and kid-friendly touches. The Majestic Angkor was also recommended for older children (pool but no garden).

If you really want to enjoy the temples at your own pace, consider travelling with another family or other adults and taking turns at childcare and temple viewing.

That said, seeing the temples through the eyes of a child can be an enriching experience. While I remember the breath-taking grandeur of the temples on our 1992 visit, travelling with my daughter made me appreciate the details.

Amongst our friends, the jungle temple of Ta Phrom seems to be the biggest hit with the kids. Visiting early around 8 or 8.30am will get you there ahead of the tour buses.

In Siem Reap, the Butterflies Garden Restaurant is worth a visit. If the butterflies don’t keep the kids occupied, chances are the ponds, bench swing and garden will.

There’s plenty for kids to see at the enclosed Night Market, too, and the juggling cocktail barmen at the fabulous Island Bar in the middle should keep them distracted long enough for you to enjoy a cool drink.

Also recommended are the traditional dance shows. The Apsara Theatre (also referred to as ‘Angkor Village’) on Wat Bo Road has a 6.30-8.00 pm dinner and show—free for toddlers—which our daughter found captivating.

This article was written for an AsiaLIFE guide to Siem Reap.

Earlier this week, while we were in London, we overheard a group of young mothers talking about travelling with small children.

One of them said that her own mother had given her a tip to stop children suffering from car sickness, which is to make them sit on a pile of newspaper.

“I know it sounds daft,” she said, “but honest, it really works.”

Next time we have to take our cat to the vet, I’m going to try it on him, because six times out of ten, he pukes.

Léto se blíží a v Českém Krumlově vše rozkvetlo. Je čas příprav na Slavnosti pětilisté růže 2009. Organizátoři mimibaru mají plné ruce práce, aby včas stihli připravit místo klidu a odpočinku pro vás a vaše nejmenší ratolesti.

Až se budete cítit unaveni festivalovým děním, přijďte za námi, do našeho malého ráje uprostřed klášterních zahrad. Obstaráte tu vaše ratolesti – nakrmíte, nakojíte, přebalíte nebo si jen pohrajte – a především si odpočinete!

S věcmi k obstarání vašich nejmenších si nedělejte starosti, máme vše potřebné. Zdarma vám poskytneme plenky, pohodlí, vodu a vše další co potřebujete pro vaše nejmenší. Pokud budete cokoli potřebovat, neváhejte a obraťte se na dobrovolníky mimibaru. Těšíme se na vaši návštěvu !

Najdete nás v klášterních zahradách,  pár metrů od zámku, v blízkosti pivovarských zahrad.

Provozní doba:

So    10:00 – 20:00

Ne   10:00 – 16:00

P.S. Budeme rádi, když se v Mimibaru zastavíte na kus řeči, i když děti nemáte nebo jsou již odrostlé!

Last stop on our Asian adventure of 2008-09 was Phuket, Thailand’s most populous island and amongst its most popular with foreign tourists. I didn’t really warm to Phuket, and in a bizarre way I was grateful for that: it made it easier in the end to go home.

That said, it wasn’t all bad. We stayed at Kata Lucky Villa, which I’d happily recommend (the photos on the website don’t do it justice), and Kata beach was nicer than I’d expected. The sand was clean and soft, the water calm and clear, and the banana lounges only two-deep. We spent most mornings there, surrounded by Russians and Northern Europeans who, as Roo pointed out, must think it’s Paradise. There’s also a decent place to eat at the southern end of the beach called Kata Seafood, right next door to a bar built beneath a sacred tree.

We visited old Phuket town a couple of times. Established by Chinese traders and tin miners, and there are some well preserved shophouses and other buildings from the 1900s up to the 1960s, especially on and around Thalang Road. We had a great curry lunch at Aroon Restaurant at 124 Thalang Rd; and the shophouse at the China Inn Cafe (also selling textiles and antiques) at 20 Thalang Rd was particularly beautifully restored. We also visited the Phuket Provincial Hall, the setting for the US Embassy in the film The Killing Fields. There’s a terrific walking tour guide available here.

Phuket’s other prime attraction (at least in my opinion) is its drag shows, the most famous and polished of which is Simon Cabaret. The intrigue starts with a line on the brochure, “She is more of a man than you will ever be and even more of a woman”, and I’m willing to bet there are audience members who leave without realising all the performers began life as men.

Simon Cabaret is energetic and great fun, with over-the-top sets ranging from Ancient Egypt to Imperial China, Brazilian Carnivale to a faux rainforest. Numbers are sung in Chinese, Japanese and English — Dreamgirls providing rich material — though surprisingly little in Thai, apart from a traditional Issarn song that starts out as a slapstick by a large, mannish, middle-aged kratoey but ends as a rather poignant performance of ‘I Will Survive’. That performer danced among the audience and planted a sparkly kiss on Roo’s cheek, and for once Tash was not the main attraction in our family.

For her part, Tash was rivetted by the show and all the ‘princesses’. “That was really fun!” she said, as we piled into the minibus to go back to our hotel.

Tickets were 750 baht including door-to-door transport and we felt we got our money’s worth. The showgirls are happy to pose for photos outside after the show, but be aware you have to pay a 100 baht tip per performer in the photo. The most popular performers pull the lesser stars in so they can get tips, too, and it’s wise to be gracious about this. They’re only looking out for each other.

On our last night in Phuket, we watched a captivating sunset over the sea — a novelty for us who live on the southeast coast of Australia — then chanced upon the swanky Kata Beach Resort and Spa offering a buffet dinner in a garden overlooking the beach. This in itself was lovely, especially with Tash on her best behaviour. But we really hit the jackpot when the keyboard player/songstress duo pumping out the slow rock classics gave way to a group of performers I could only describe as ‘Simon Caberet rejects’.

The open-air show was cheesy beyond belief, with performers out of step and wardrobe malfunctions all over the place. But we all loved it! Tash alternated between emulating the dance moves of the ‘fairies’ — there was an excess of feathered wings, headdresses and tail pieces — and sitting at the foot of the stage, absolutely captivated.

It was the perfect last night.

Tash got to choose the destination for our last morning in Phuket, and we spent it at Phuket Zoo. It was pretty ordinary as far as zoos go, but four months later Tash still remembers the dodgy show we saw there and the man putting his head in the crocodile’s mouth.

I wonder how much else she remembers.

We flew home from Phuket via Sydney to Melbourne, arriving home just in time for a heatwave, followed a week or so later by terrible bushfires. Both Roo and I started new jobs within weeks, fortunate to find work and to find employers flexible enough to let us work four days per week, giving us both a day each at home with Tash.

It was never going to be easy settling back in at home. Our year in Cambodia saw the work/life balance tipped very much in favour of life. Back in Melbourne, the scales seem tipped to the other extreme.

But we are trying to keep alive the spirit of The Great Balancing Act by making the most of our days off with Tash and doing our best to get out on the weekends, too.

And so we’ll keep this blog going, with a shift in emphasis from Asia to Australia.

At least for now…

With Krabi province offering such gorgeous beach destinations, some might not see a reason to venture into Krabi town except in transit to the coast. But there are at least five good reasons to make the trip.

1 Night Market – Top of the list is Krabi’s riverside food market, an area beside the port that fills up with rot ken – vendor carts – in the evenings, selling delicious local food. Atmospheric, highly affordable and packed with locals, the night market alone is worth the trip into Krabi town. In addition to all the vendor carts, there’s a fold-away restaurant, Nong Eang, where you can sit down to fish fried in garlic and pepper or duck soup with noodles, and cold Singha beer. Tash tucked into the local biryani. There’s also carts selling Issarn favourites such as som tam – spicy green papaya salad – dried beef and sticky rice, sweet roti or ‘Thai pancakes’ and every imaginable snack on a stick. There’s a toilet block (squat-style) costing 2 baht to use. The night market is on Thanon Khong Kha, a 5-7 minute walk towards the river from the main songtheaw stop on Thanon Maharat.

2. Neanderthal statues holding up traffic lights - What genius came up with the concept of cavemen carrying traffic lights? Krabi province is the sight of some ancient human remains, but putting that minor point of interest together with traffic control takes special talent. According to one website, “Traffic lights have never been fun, and they rarely qualify as points of interest. Krabi Town saw that as an opportunity.” I can’t believe we didn’t get a photo of them, but there’s one here on the aforementioned website. The traffic lights are on Thanon Maharat at the intersection with Thanon Sukhon.

3. Fortune telling machine, Vogue building – Vogue on Thanon Maharat is Krabi town’s only department store (not counting Tesco Lotus en route to the airport), a quaint collection of clothes and accessories stalls. But the real attraction is on the landing between the first and second floors: an old-fashioned, coin-operated fortune telling machine. Five baht will set the Wheel of Fortune turning; inside a rotund Buddha raises a branch above his head and brings it down on a numbered groove on the wheel. Your fortune is on the corresponding slip of paper in the numbered pigeon-holes in the base of the machine. You’ll need someone who reads Thai (or Chinese) to translate for you. If your fortune isn’t so lucky, roll the slip of paper into a strip and tie it around a tree to alleviate the bad luck. (I was advised to do this, though it didn’t prevent the accidents I’d been warned about: beware of the slipperiness of the freshly mopped tiled footpaths in Krabi town!).

4. Day/night market – on Thanon Sukhon, the main day/night market is a great place to shop for fresh food and to eat lunch or dinner. Try the fantastic geng pum pla, a spicy fish soup typical of the south, made with pumpkin, potato, pear-shaped eggplants and dried fish. The phad khi mao, a stir-fried dish of bamboo shoots and fish balls with chilli is mouth-numbingly good. The most authentic and exotic food in Krabi.

5. Toy shops, Thanon Maharat – one for the parents of infants and toddlers. Krabi’s main street hosts several toy shops with all the things you need to buy ten minutes of reading time. The large newsagency in the same strip has a fabulous selection of colouring-in books, too, some in English, most in Thai–not that it matters, if you’re just buying them for the pictures!

There’s an unofficial hierarchy when it comes to island hopping tours in Krabi. First you do the ‘4 Islands’, followed by the Phi Phi Islands. Then if you still have time, throw in the Hong Islands or ‘5 Islands’ tour. I wonder if there’s a subtext in the tourist information: stay long enough and get rewarded with what is possibly the loveliest of all the island tours.

We returned to Barracuda Tours to cruise the ‘5 Islands’ by longtail boat. First stop, Koh Deng, is a rocky red outcrop where Roo snorkelled and Tash fed green, black and white striped fish from the prow of the boat, sitting with our otherwise purely decorative guide Em.

Next up was Pakbia Island where we had a swim and collected huge shells to decorate the sandcastle built by Canadian twins Roya and Yasmin, whom Tash had befriended on the boat. The twins’ parents Christina and Nadim were taking the girls on a year-long world tour. Watching them made me realise how much easier it is travelling: a) with two children; b) with eight-year-olds. I can’t remember the last time I got to read on the beach!

We stopped for lunch on Lading Island at a small idyllic bay called Paradise Beach where five Thai police were stationed to protect the resident swallows’ nests (a kilo of which fetches 100,000 baht on the export market). These were the most laid-back Thai cops I’ve ever met, which is not surprising as this must be the cushiest police posting in all of Thailand. There was just enough infrastructure on the island – rough-hewn wooden tables, benches and a huge swing – to indulge in the three most important traditional pastimes: eating, sleeping and sanuk (having fun).

Then it was on to the main attraction, Hong Island. Hong meaning ‘room’ in Thai refers to the lagoon in the middle of the island, accessible only at high tide through a narrow chasm. Inside the hong, surrounded on all sides by limestone cliffs, it felt like being let in on a wonderful secret.

To one side of the same island was an exquisite beach: soft white sand, aqua water (‘aqua’ in Thai is si far talay, literally ’sea-blue colour’), limestone outcrops and tropical fish to gaze upon – with or without a snorkelling mask. Tash found a ‘baby pool’ in a cleft among the rocks and Roo and I took turns at swimming with her and with the fish.

Apparently there is an walk that shows how far a boat was tossed inland by the December 2004 tsunami, but we were too enchanted by the beach to drag ourselves off to see it. And true to form, we were having too much fun to take photos – although there is a good one of the beach at Hong Island on Christina and Nadim’s travel blog.

Tash slept wrapped in a towel on my lap during the ride back to Ao Nang. It’s hard to know at times if she really enjoys what we plan for her, or whether she feels obliged to enjoy it because of our enthusiasm. So it was a great moment, as we got off the boat, to have her come out unprompted with, ‘That was fun!’

[As I write this, almost three months to the day since we took the 5 Islands Tour of Krabi, a State of Emergency has been declared in Thailand and parts of Bangkok are on fire. Krabi is a long way from Bangkok, but concerned travellers can check the Paknam Web Thailand Forum Q&A site for updated information on the security situation].

‘Island hop til you drop.’ Normally a tourism website slogan like this would leave me cold. But in Krabi province, I felt compelled to answer the call. We did three island-hopping tours in the space of a week, visiting around 13 islands. And I’d do it all again tomorrow!

First up was the ‘4 Islands Tour’ by longtail boat, starting at Phra Nang (‘Princess’) Beach near Railay — strictly speaking not an island, though it feels like one as it’s only accessible by boat: limestone cliffs bar access from the mainland. Princess Beach is an exquisite crescent of gold sand and aqua water overlooking a bay studded with limestone islands. We fell in love with the place and subsequently made it our regular morning swimming beach, travelling there each day by longtail boat from a ‘taxi stand’ at Ao Nang.

At Princess Cave (Tham Pranang) at the end of the beach, locals pay homage to the spirit of an Indian princess believed to have perished there in a shipwreck in the 3rd Century BC. Fishermen pray for a good catch, while women pray for a good catch of another kind, leaving offerings of flowers, food and phalluses to the princess spirit; the cave is full of graphically carved wooden penises, some almost as tall as me.

Next stop after Phranang Beach was Poda Island — more gold sand, aqua water — where schools of green, black and white striped Admiral fish swarm in the shallows to eat bananas offered by tourists. Then we cruised around Chicken Island — named for a rock formation which does look remarkably like a chicken — and snorkelled in deep water off the boat. Despite having Tash on my back (both of us in life jackets), I managed to see some Moorish Idols, parrot fish and purple-lipped clams, while Roo saw an octopus.

Last stop on the 4 Islands Tour was Tup Island where a sandbank appears at low tide, connecting it to Chicken Island and another rocky outcrop. When we arrived, people were wading knee deep between the islands, but by the time we left, the sandy bridge was fully exposed and we could walk from one island to the other. Tash and Roo made sandcastles while I went for a solo snorkel, the highlight of which was spotting three families of False Clown Fish living in wavering pink anemones.

Our second tour was to the Phi Phi Islands, this time by speed boat. It was enough to convince us to take a longtail boat next time around. The ride might have been less wild and bumpy if bare-chested young Thai men weren’t at the helm — everyone on board was soaked by the spray — though in their defence, the sea was choppy. Get fitted with a life jacket before embarking and take towels for protection if you choose to go by speedboat.

First stop on the Phi Phi Islands tour was Bamboo Island for rock-pooling, then a long trip to Phi Phi Ley, a rugged, uninhabited island of limestone cliffs. We toured Pi Leh Lagoon, a secluded bay enclosed by sheer rockface, then stopped at Lohsamah Bay for snorkelling. Tash freaked out in the choppy water so we contented ourselves with feeding bread to the fish from the boat while Roo snorkelled.

Then it was on to Maya Bay, insanely popular because the 1999 film of Alex Garland’s novel The Beach was filmed there. It is a lovely beach — white sand, aqua water, limestone cliffs on three sides — but it loses some of its ambience when there are 24 speedboats and 10 longtail boats moored in its relatively small bay — and that’s in a low year!

Lunch was at Ton Sai Beach on Phi Phi Don, the main tourist island. The Lonely Planet describes Koh Phi Phi’s beauty as a curse and I could see what they mean. The beach was built up, wall to wall, with bars and restaurants all advertising parties at night — you could imagine the din as they all competed for customers. Koh Phi Phi’s beaches were flattened by the December 2006 tsunami. Sadly, rather than take the opportunity to question the scale and impact of unbridled development, the place was simply re-built as it was before. Some say it’s even more ‘developed’. Pity, really, because the beach is lovely.

Last stop on the Phi Phi Islands tour was Monkey Bay, my favourite of the day’s destinations. A crescent of white sand so soft my feet sank into it like sponge. A bay of turquoise water fringed with a coral garden alive with colourful fish. Kid-friendly pools and shady trees. So picture perfect, I enjoyed it too much to take any photos.

I’ve been meaning to write a post or three about our beach holiday in Krabi Province in southern Thailand. I was having way too much fun to blog about it at the time — which speaks volumes — and settling back home in Australia and starting a new job has left me with little time or energy for blogging. But at home on a (welcome) rainy day on (unwelcome) sick leave, I’ve been sorting through hundreds of holiday photos and reminiscing…

Andrew and I couldn’t believe that in all the time we’d spent in Thailand, we’d never been to Krabi province before. But over 10 days in early January, we realised what we’d been missing. My journal entry at the end of our first day at Nopparat Thara Beach begins, ‘Today has been close to a Perfect Day’ and ends ‘…this is just the holiday destination we needed.’

Nopparat Thara is about a 45 minute drive from Krabi Airport, west of Krabi township. Through the helpful website www.yourkrabi.com, we’d booked a bungalow at the family-friendly Sabai Resort and arranged for a transfer from the airport. The Lonely Planet guide Thailand’s Islands & Beaches is a bit disparaging about Nopparat Thara Beach, but it was ideal for our ragtag little family.

Nopparat Thara is a stretch of shell-studded sand with calm, clear water overlooking limestone islands — some close enough to walk to at low tide, others beckoning from the distance. The beach is ideal for small children to swim and build sand castles and popular with Thai families who swim fully clothed to avoid their skin going darker, and gather on the weekends for picnics in the stretch of green that runs alongside the shore.

Women spread out plastic mats, unload rice cookers, home-cooked curries, som tam (spicy green papaya salad), hard boiled quail eggs, pots of tea. They hang caged birds from the trees overhead and wrap newborn babies in towels to protect them from the ‘cold’. Children cajole their parents into buying pinwheels, inflatable toys and fluoro-coloured fairyfloss. Men sit around drinking cheap whisky mixed with lemonade.

Vendors walk around with baskets over their shoulders selling snacks on sticks or fresh fruit. And out of towners like us simply order a feast from one of the nearby restaurants to sai thoong (literally ‘put in a bag’) and eat on the grass. We bought fried chicken and a whole fried mackerel, som tam, and sticky rice for about AUD$10 (270 baht). The meal included the loan of water glasses, a tray and an ice bucket, and we ate in the shade in view of the beach and islands.

For desert there were pancakes/roti sold from vendor carts and topped with unimaginably sweet stuff — think jam and condensed milk and sugar — and long thin icy-poles on bamboo sticks. A woman in a sequined hijab gave Tash a red icy-pole and made her day.

A great place in Nopparat Thara in the evening is at the other, eastern end of the beach, a seafood restaurant on the sand called the Wang Sai — recommended by Tina, Chai and Apple, the friendly and helpful staff at the Sabai Resort. Although the Wang Sai appears to be entirely staffed with drama queens, the Thai food is good and the views of the sunset sublime.

On our first night in Nopparat Thara, we celebrated Andrew’s birthday with dinner at the Wang Sai. At one point during the meal, a man appeared on the beach below our table selling large paper lanterns — the kind they send up into the sky at the Loy Kratong/Yi Peng festival in Chiang Mai to take away bad karma. I bought one for Roo and the three of us walked down on to the sand to set it off.

It was a beautiful sight, watching the red and white rice paper lantern inflate as the man lit a flame beneath it. We helped with the launch and the lantern rose rise like a star and floated through the sky. We watched until it disappeared behind the headland. Magic!

The following article first appeared in the ‘Next Generation’ column of the January 2009 issue of AsiaLIFE magazine. Photos are the author’s own and did not appear in the original article.

Playing indoors

Only as a last resort, on a rainy day in the middle of winter, would any self-respecting Australian choose an indoor play centre over a park or playground. But a year in Phnom Penh with a toddler has given Angela Savage new appreciation of the merits of playing indoors.

A list of ‘Instructions for the Tourist’ in English at the entrance to the Paragon Centre’s indoor playground warns “If the tourist has heart disease, infection disease, psychosis disease, stupid disease, any disease is forbidden to play in it.”

It’s one of several gems guaranteed to entertain you while your children entertain themselves in ‘Toys Land’, one of several indoor play centres Phnom Penh has to offer.

Coming from part of Australia known as the ‘Garden State’, I was skeptical about taking my child to play inside an air-conditioned shopping mall. But with limited options for entertaining an active toddler, especially during the hotter months, I had nothing to lose.

What won me over was seeing how much my daughter enjoys these places. She can interact with local kids her own age and easily play for an hour or more without getting bored. ‘That was fun!’ she told me after a recent foray-high praise coming from a nearly three-year-old.

Sometimes known as ‘Naughty Palaces’, indoor play centres combine brightly coloured, padded vinyl climbing equipment and slides with tunnels, suspension bridges, obstacle courses and the highly popular pen filled with coloured plastic balls, which kids can jump and/or slide into.

The play areas are fully enclosed and make the most of limited space by extending up several levels, like a three-dimensional game of snakes and ladders. They are cleverly designed for children to safely explore and practice a range of motor skills-climbing, balancing, rolling, crawling-and they are more likely to get ‘stuck’ than hurt. Most centres have employees who will come to a child’s rescue, but you should also expect to supervise.

Toys Land on the second floor of the Paragon Centre is among the cleanest and quietest places in town and costs 2,000 riel (USD 50 cents) per child.

When it comes to the Naughty Palace at the back of Pencil Supermarket, getting there is half the fun. Tickets cost 2,000 riel at the check-out counter at the rear of the supermarket. Then go out the back door, up the stairs on the left, through a dimly lit bar called Mr M Café, through another door at the rear of the bar and up another set of stairs to the play centre. The Naughty Palace is popular with local and expat families and contains a trampoline and some fun obstacle courses, as well as the usual slides, tunnels and pen full of coloured plastic balls.

The first-floor playground at the Sydney Shopping Centre on Kampuchea Krom (2,000 riel) has room to run around. In addition to a jungle gym, a free-standing unit with four slides, caterpillar-shaped tunnels and a helicopter, the playground contains two deep tubs of plastic balls for jumping into. There are also small seesaws and rockers. A section next door offers video games and toddler-friendly rides, including an incongruous Mickey Mouse armed with a pistol. Tokens-actually old 50 cent coins from Hong Kong-cost 500 riel at the ticket window.

The ‘Space Ship Zigma II’ upstairs at the Big A shopping centre on Monivong Boulevard (1,000 riel) has seen better days, though its pint-sized patrons didn’t seem put off by either the shabbiness or the smell. In a variation on a theme, the entire floor is covered with coloured plastic balls.

Supermarkets and shopping malls are not the only options for indoor play in Phnom Penh.

The playroom at the Living Room café contains a doll’s house and toy car-park, books, blackboard and chalk, and pencils and pictures for colouring in. There’s a change table for babies, plus a footstool in the toilet to help toddlers reach the seat.

Children are made to feel welcome at Annam Indian restaurant, where a staff member is generally on hand to play catch the ball, balloon or inflatable animal in the air-conditioned playroom. Our toddler likes to watch her dosa being made in the glass-fronted kitchen.

City Suki on Monivong Boulevard has a jumping castle netted off at the front of the restaurant, though this was deflated when I went to inspect it.

Fresco on Street 306 has a room at the back for kids, with beanbags, books, puzzles, a magnetic whiteboard and a large flat screen TV and DVD player. Popular for ice cream.

Annam
#1C, Street 282, open 11am-3pm, 6-11pm. Closed Tuesday.

Big A Superstore
#266-272 Monivong Boulevard. Open 8am-9pm

City Suki
Around #400 Monivong Boulevard

Fresco
Cnr Streets 306 and 51. Open 7am-7pm

Living Room
#9, Street 306. Open 7am-6.30pm Mon-Thur, 7.00am-9.30pm Fri-Sun

Paragon Centre
#12 Street 214. Open 9am-9pm

Pencil Supermarket
#15, Street 214. Open 8am-9pm

Sydney Shopping Centre
139 Kampuchea Krom (St 128). Open 8.45am-8.00pm

I’ve received an email from a friend in Ghana who’s just got a new job, six or so months after graduating with a Masters in Engineering. It’s great that he’s got a good job and in his field, especially as it can take a very long time to get work apparently, but I confess I was shocked by the wages.  I knew the per capita income was low in Ghana, but still, I was expecting a graduate to do better:  it equates to around AUD$550 a month (US$360). Yikes, that’s less than I earn in a week, part time.  And I don’t have a Masters, just a BA. It shows up the gap, once again, between our countries and economies.

Compared to many of his countrymen and women, my friend Kwesi is doing well. And compared to a very small number of others, not. Only this morning I discovered, thanks to Qué?, a blogger in Accra, that outgoing Ghanaian President Kufuor has a retirement package worth literally millions more than that of outgoing US President Bush – in a country where the average per capita income of US$1,400 is just 3% of the annual US PCI. Shocked again.

Thinking about these inequities brought my mind back to the day, a few months ago, when I calculated just what it had cost me to live in Ghana for 3 months. It averaged out around AUD$75 a day, which at the time was about the same in US dollars but now is more like US$50. This comes in at AUD$525 per week, a little less than Kwesi’s new monthly income.

AM and his cousin Owuraku working on the dog house.

While travelling I met some Australian girls who’d come to Ghana for three months as volunteers on their gap year between high school and Uni. Travelling in a group of six, sharing beds in cheap hotels, eating street food and travelling in tro tros,  they got away with spending less than AUD$15 a day. Be warned, if you are going to Ghana because you are visiting your in-laws, and with a child or children, you will not be able to do the same. For a start, comfort, safety and familiar pastimes become more important if you have your kids with you, and that will add to your costs. But more significantly, your money is no longer your own.  Well, it feels that way.  As a rich westerner who is part of the family – and you are definitely rich by local standards - you have obligations.

• Food – including hotel meals, street food, fruit, birthday cakes and party food, and giving my sister-in-law Serwaa GHC5 – 10 each day so she could cook a morning meal not just for us but for everyone else as well (DadaK footed the bill for the evening meal). One time I tried to save money by going with Serwaa to do a bulk shop at Kejetia market. This did not work out as I’d hoped, she still wanted money every day for the little things we hadn’t bought, like tinned fish and tomato paste.
• Gas for the gas cookers. DadaK paid the elecricity costs.
• Filtered water, including both bottles for the water cooler and for sachets before we got it working. DadaK paid for the rest of the water that was bought from a neighbour who had a bore.
• Mosquito net, pillows, toilet paper.
• Gifts, gifts and more gifts for all the family in Kumasi, the village and Accra, and a few neighbours, including cloth or clothing for everyone in the Kumasi household, occasional treats such as chocolate or bread or soft drinks, exercise books and pens for everyone under the age of 25, rebuilding the roof of AM’s cousin Afia Serwaa’s hair salon, and of course cold hard cash (which in Ghana is limp, crumpled, dirty and even sometimes counterfeit).
• Travel within Ghana, by tro tro, taxi or private bus service for long distances.
•  Cloth, clothes and souvenirs for me and AM and for family and friends back home.
• Mobile phone and lots of credit – mostly so AM could call friends in Australia on a regular basis. I gave the mobile to Maame Yaa when we left. It’s hard to believe, but AM is one 14 year old not addicted to online chat, messaging, Bebo etc. I, his middle aged mum, am the one who does that kind of stuff (not Bebo, ok, I use Facebook). So he had to be able to make calls, in order to get some respite from his culture shock.
• A new laptop cable that I promptly lost after spending weeks trying to find one to buy. This included a tip for the guy who helped me locate it. Luckily the old one held out until about two weeks after we  got back to Oz.
• Swimming pool entry occasionally, internet cafe charges, books, DVDs (they’re very cheap there).
• Timber for AM’s woodwork project – a dog kennel, and money well spent in spite of the fact that the dogs didn’t want to sleep in it.
• Payment for the lost-wax bronze casting workshop AM did at Kumasi Cultural Centre. Ironically, he mostly created nasty weapons which we didn’t try and bring back to Australia, but gave back to the bronze boss, who incidentally turned out to be married to one of DadaK’s in-laws. In Australia, this would earn you a discount. In Ghana, it seemed to mean we ended up paying more.
• Paying all the expenses of everyone who accompanied me anywhere, with a few notable exceptions, like my engineering friend above. This is one of the reasons we didn’t travel around very much.
• A few nights hotel accomodation when we went on our trip north.
• Medical expenses when AM was sick. Not enough to bother the insurance company with, but it all adds up.
• Nana’s wheelchair.
• Dash (tips).

It did not include:

• Air fares, vaccines, anti-malarials & other meds, visas, travel insurance.
• Getting all my photos developed back home and posted back to family and friends in Ghana (don’t laugh!).
• The interest on the debt I managed to accrue while away – surprise, surprise -  and am still paying off.
• The cost of all the clothes, shoes, books and other items I left behind or gave away.
• Postage on a couple of small stools I got sent back to me in Australia – aaargh! Never again.

My expenditure has no doubt been good for the Ghanaian economy, albeit in a small way. It was certainly good for the family and for Nana, although I think it gave them a vastly inflated concept of how much money I actually have.

One Ghana Cedi, featuring past Presidents. The bottom one is a fake that our neighbour got in her change one day.

Financial obligations play an important part in family relationships in Ghana, and probably much of Africa and the poor world. It’s interesting to note Barack Obama’s Kenyan relatives’ expectations. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that “in Kogelo, birthplace of President Obama’s late father, many hope the inauguration in the US of a Luo will bring running water, a paved road and a police station. Tribal tradition dictates that those who find wealth or power should share it with their clan.” I can’t help wondering in what ways exactly he will fulfill his obligations and at what point, if ever, enough will be enough. (And also whether that’s a reason why Kufuor got such a massive payout – for all the rels. Still doesn’t justify it, though, in any way.)

DadaK has been sending money back to his mother ever since leaving Ghana in the ’70s, and it seems like the money has mostly vanished. Apart from the house we lived in, and perhaps a few nephews’ improved education at boarding school, there’s nothing to show for it. Family members to whom he sent the money almost always seem to have had different agendas to him for how it would be spent. I don’t find this surpising but he finds it infuriating. As well as that, his cattle all died (allegedly killed by eating  from the village dump); the well he built was neglected because his brother wanted to charge the villagers for access, then was superseded by a new government well; and the gun he bought so they could hunt bush meat was used to pay someone’s debt.

Periodically I’ve helped out, usually when Nana’s been ill; I haven’t financed any money-making or philanthropic projects. My latest donation was for Nana’s funeral expenses. I don’t expect it to be my last, however. Apart from anything else, one of AM’s cousins has been named for me, so I now have an obligation to send gifts to her.

This financial drain can cause conflict in mixed relationships if it’s not carefully managed, and it can become even more stressful if you actually go and visit the family. DadaK was constantly worried about money while we were there, because he felt that the family were expecting total financial support from us but not being completely open about their own sources of income. I was worried about money too, but of course I also had white guilt to contend with, which made it harder to be firm about what I was prepared to give. Knowing that the average weekly wage was less than I earn in an hour, how could I not share generously with AM’s blood relations?

My namesake in Mensakrom, in a dress I bought for her.

However as the weeks in Ghana passed and my bank balance dwindled I too started to get tetchy about money, to the point where I was only half joking when I called myself the Obruni Bank. (Obruni means white person/foreigner). The family found the term hysterically funny, probably because I was naming the truth. In fact Obaapa almost beat me too it a few years before, by nicknaming me Afia Sica (Afia=Friday-born female, Sica=money). I’d just like to say for the record here that my income is pretty average and I probably earn less than most Ghanaian-Australian taxi-drivers. Perhaps that’s why I don’t find this nickname as amusing as the one I invented myself.

White guilt reality check: no matter how much money I pour into my Ghanaian family, it’s not going to change the global economic system and power structures that create such inequality – and I have my own life to support here in Australia, where my weekly rent costs about 30% of the Ghanaian PCI, and almost half of my weekly wage (which is why I have a flatmate!).  I need to also remember that although sometimes it looks like they only want me for my money, there are real bonds of love and friendship between me and my Ghanaian in-laws.

I’ve written all this because money’s  often an issue in mixed relationships where the partner’s from a poor family in a poor country, but it doesn’t get talked about much at all. I strongly encourage non-African partners /parents to go to Africa and meet your in-laws, especially if you have children, or are planning to have them. It’s a wonderful, rewarding thing to do that will give you great insights into your partner’s culture, values and family idiosyncracies. But you do need some warning about potential challenges, and the money stuff is definitely a big one. Don’t let it hold you back.

I also wanted to give you some idea of what the real expenses are, of this kind of travel. I suggest that if you are visiting poor relations in Ghana – or probably anywhere in Africa: examine your budget carefully, establish early on how much you are able to afford to fork out in expenses and gifts, make that clear to the family, and staunchly ignore any twinges of guilt about your little forays to the pool or lashing out on souveniers. That’s what I plan to do next time – I wonder if it will work?

24 hours from now I need to be parking my car at the Albuquerque airport.  There’s alot that needs doing before then.  I’m going to settle for only 29 hours of work this week so I can get by the bank, gas station and vet’s office after work today.  I’m already starting to get the body rush of insanely trying to get everything done.  I’ve also got a pile of work on my desk here I’m supposed to finish before I go.  Oh yeah, and I have to remember to print out all the stuff for our e-tickets after clocking out and before leaving.

Those are my large, imediate worries.  The smaller worry is that my kids are getting into the habit of crawling into bed with me.  I’m sure that they’ll want to sleep with me while we’re traveling so I’ll try to re-train them after we get back.  Last night I’d just dose off when poka-bear woke me up by climbing over me.  He says “mama,Ii wanna snuggle.”  I say, “go back to bed sweetie.”  He says “but I wanna snuggle!”  I say, “no, get back in bed!”  He says “may I please have a snuggle first?”  I cave and let him stay.  At least he remembered to whisper and be very quiet so as not to wake baby-bear.  Of course, she wakes up and ends up in bed with us at 2am.  Atleast she went right back to sleep this morning.  But I’m really starting to want my bed back to myself.  Also, one of my friends let her kids sleep with her as babies and still can’t get the youngest into his own bed.  Her older one refused to leave it untill he was almost 5 and got pushed out by the younger one.  I really don’t want to see the day that I have a kindergartener insisting on sleeping with me everynight.  By then I might have recovered enough to want to share my bed with a man again…. 

For now I’m totally thrilled to be single (most of the time).  After survivng one abusive relationship and then ending up with a total dead-beat I can’t, at the moment, imagine ever falling in love again.  The burns are still weeping pus.  But someday I’ll be healed enough to take another chance.  My boss took 14 years to get back into a realtionship….  There’s alot if wisdom to that.  Maybe if I’d taken more time after the first one I wouldn’t have gotten involved with the second one.  Granted, I got two beautiful kiddos I wouldn’t trade for anything, but I still wonder how my life would be if I’d taken other paths.  For now, I’ll just take my time and learn to love where I am.  Recovery’s a hard thing.  And sometimes I want a grown up in bed with me, sometimes I realize I can’t remember the last time I had sex….  At times like those I try to remember my list of the ways parenting alone is easier: I make all the rules, I never have to check-in with anyone else, I don’t have to explain my reasons, I get to be the sole-recipient of my childrens love, I can let the kids come to bed with me and no one complains, we can eat mac & cheese three nights in a row, my money is my money.  Granted, there is a flip side to all of these, but that’s not the point today. 

Today I’m trying to perk myself up a bit before biting the bullet and spending all day driving, negotiating airports, and survivng flying, with two small kids and one old man.  Deep breaths.  I’ll make it, one way or another, I’ll make it.  I”m already predicting that by the time we get home next Tuesday I will never have been happier to see my own bed.  Which reminds me, I need to remember to lock the bed room door so the cats don’t leave me “we missed you” presents on my pillow.  They don’t mean to be disgusting, they just want me to understand that they don’t like it when I go away. 

And I’m out of time already… 23 and 1/2 hours left….

A few days out from departing Cambodia we managed to pull off one more trip, to a province we’ve wanted to go to ever since arriving – Kratie (pronounced kra-che).

A small town on the banks of the Mekong in central Cambodia, Kratie is best known for its proximity to one of the last remaining groups of fresh water Irrawaddy dolphins left in the river. They are under threat, not least of all due to the Cambodian government’s plans to dam the entire width of the Mekong about 35 kilometres north of the town, but more about that later.

Kratie is six to seven hours by public bus from Phnom Penh. It is actually not nearly that far but instead of going in a straight line, all the buses detour from Kompong Cham to Snoul on the border with Vietnam, which adds a couple of hours.

Aside from dolphins, Kratie is well known for its kro lan, sweet coconut flavoured sticky rice sold pre-packed in bamboo tubes from street vendors along the river front.

It also has a couple of other unique features.

There is some fantastic architecture, a lot of it in quite good nick due to Kratie being spared from much of the US bombing that devastated much of the rest of the countryside in the early seventies. These buildings, mainly congregated around the central market, include Chinese-style shop houses and French villas. On the side of one abandoned pre-war style building it is still possible to make out the words Banque Commerciale D’Etate (State Commercial Bank) in French and Khmer.

Kratie is still a great place for traditional Cambodia poster art, the oil paintings of motorbikes, telephones, electrical appliances etc, shopkeepers use to advertise their business. Good examples of these are increasingly hard to find in big cities like Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.

The town’s other quirk is more barbers and hairdressers per metre than any other place we have been to in Cambodia.

Then, of course, there’s the Mekong. There are a number of small open air bars along the bank, the perfect place to sit back with a cold beer and watch the sunset. At night the river and opposite bank is almost completely bathed in darkness, occasional engine noise the only indication you are overlooking a river.

There are a number of hotels and guesthouses to choose from. We stayed in the Heng Heng II guesthouse on the bank of the Mekong, which although not particularly ambient is quite good value at US$7 a double a night.

One thing you don’t go to Kratie for is the food, especially not at places catering to tourists.

Uttong II has ok fare at moderate prices. Red Sun Rising is also quite good value, although its hours are erratic: basically whenever its owners feel like opening from what we could tell. As the guidebook says, Mekong Restaurant is a hole in the wall with good local food. Angela said the sweet and sour fish was particularly good.

But the main reason to visit is the dolphins. If you are lucky (we were), you’ll be able to see them swimming in rapids about 15 kilometres north of the town.

Tours to see the dolphins are advertised in every hotel in town, including travel to the site and a boat to take you out to the section of the river where they live. My only advice is to shop around. We took the first tour offered to us but could have got the same deal for half the price.

One of the last pockets of these creatures left in the Mekong, some estimates say there used to be a thousand dolphins in the river before the war. But the last few decades have seen their numbers decline to around 80-100 due to rising pollution levels and dynamite fishing.

But the most serious threat they now face is the government’s plans to build a dam that would block the entire width of the Mekong at Sambor about 35 kilometres north of town.

Fisheries experts and critics of Mekong mainstream hydropower development are scathing of the dam’s potential impacts.

“Devastating, the worst possible dam currently planned along the mainstream of the Mekong,” was how one informed observer I spoke to assessed the impact.

The dam would block fish migration, isolating fish stocks from historical spawning and rearing areas, with effects far upstream to southern Laos and beyond, and on Cambodia’s Great Lake [Tonle Sap] fishery. The Tonle Sap contributes almost two thirds of Cambodia’s annual fish catch, largely comprising migratory fish species.

The World Conservation Union has also identified the dam as a serious threat to the habitat and movements of the endangered freshwater Irrawaddy dolphin. The stretch of the river between Kratie and the Lao-Cambodian border, one of the most important in terms of deep pool habitats along the Mekong, is a crucial dry season refuge for the dolphin.

The Sambor project is part of a major push by Cambodia to develop its hydropower potential for internal use and export to neighbouring countries. Only 20 per cent of Cambodian households currently have access to a reliable supply of electricity, a figure the government wants to raise to 70 per cent by 2030.

Five dams are currently under construction in Cambodia in addition to the two currently operating, and over 20 are being studied in partnership with private companies, most Chinese.

While observes agree steps need to be taken to improve Cambodia’s access to power, not all agree that hydropower is the best option and say national energy policies should prioritise innovative renewable and decentralised electricity technologies that are now available and cost competitive.

For better or worse, Kratie, like so much of Cambodia, is set to experience great change as the government makes up for lost time, trying to cram decades of development into a few short years.

Get there while you can.

Roo has reflected elsewhere on the delights of Khmer food and how much it has changed in the 10 years since we last visited Cambodia.

Like other forms of cultural expression, the local cuisine–not to mention the food supply–was decimated during the Khmer Rouge period. Eating Cambodian food has an added pleasure in this respect: a celebration of Khmer resilience and survival.

Of course, many people in this country survive on a subsistence diet of fish and rice, while years of scarcity–and sheer necessity–have also given local people a taste for unusual (to a Western palette) sources of protein, such as deep-fried tarantulas, crickets, ants and bee larvae, some of which is actually quite tasty.

Also, little is wasted in Cambodia when it comes to food. Whilst not quite as extreme as the Laos where ‘if it grows or moves, you can eat it’, it’s common for people to eat animal and plant parts that we’d discard without a second thought. Lotus stems, roots and seeds, banana flowers, fish heads, pigs eyes–these are just a few examples. Even the rice that gets cooked on to the bottom of the rice cooker is soaked off, dried in the sun and sold as pig feed–though I have seen desperately poor people eat this, too.

On a good day at Boeung Keng Kang Market, in addition to a plethora of fish, meat and poultry, you can find frogs, crabs, snakes and eels.

Anyone’s list of favourite restaurants in Phnom Penh is bound to be subjective, even controversial. But for what it’s worth, here is ours.

Top Cambodian Restaurant:

Boat Noodle - corner Streets 288 & 63 for authenticity; at 8B, St 294 for the beautiful wooden house setting. Low-cost, authentic food, the spicy soups are particularly good.

Breakfast:

Malis – 136 Norodom Bld. High-class joint with reasonably-priced traditional breakfasts in lovely garden setting.

Seven Bright – opposite the GPO; what was Gerard Depardieu’s bar in The City of Ghosts is now a hugely popular place for breakfast noodle soup and good local coffee.

Dosa Corner - 5, Street 51. Cheap dosas, idlis, vada and other Indian delights.

Stir-fried lort (caterpillar shaped noodles) from numerous vendor carts around town. At 2,000 riel (USD50 cents), probably the cheapest option. Enjoy on the footpath with tuk-tuk drivers and school kids.

Other highlights:

Tom Yum Kung – 10, St 278. We’ve probably eaten here more often than anywhere else in Phnom Penh. Great Thai & Lao food, including larb and sticky rice. Try the yam ta krai pla tod (spicy lemongrass with fried fish and herbs) for a real treat. $8-$12 for a  2-person feast!

Romdeng - 74, St 174. I like this place more than Roo does. Gorgeous villa setting, good local food and it supports vocational training for former street kids. Great place to take visitors, especially during tarantula season!

54 Langeadh Sros – 15a, St 178. Bustling Cambodian beer garden where you can DIY BBQ over a gas jet on your table, or order cooked food like prawns with black pepper or beef with black ants. Beer can be ordered by the ‘tower’ for USD$5. Lethal.

Annam – 1C, St 282. Excellent Southern Indian food, genuinely kid-friendly, great lunch thalis. Not to be confused with…

An Nam – 118 Sothearos Bld, another kid friendly option where you can eat a wonderful variety of delicious Vietnamese food. Not cheap but dessert is free.

Singapore Kitchen – 110CD, St 360. Tasty Singaporean and Malaysian food at bargain prices. Good mee wan ton, sambar, laksa, etc.

Suzume - 14 AEo, St 51. Affordable and delicious Japanese food.

Le Cedre – 1, St 360 (near Norodom Bld). Never though Brunswick locals would be impressed with Lebanese food in Phnom Penh. Great for take-away.

Diplomat’s Bar/Sarika – 69, St 566 (Tuol Kork). A recent find: bar in a romantic wooden Khmer villa, a former diplomatic residence, above a garden restaurant. Huge, tasty entrees – try the pork sausage with crispy rice and herbs.

Honorable mentions:

Living Room – 9, St 306. Tash’s favourite place for breakfast pancakes. A community hub in a beautiful villa. I’d like to live there! Award for the friendliest staff in Phnom Penh would be a toss up between here and…

Le Jardin – 16, st 360. Serving home-made ice-cream in a lush tropical garden, complete with sand-pit and cubby house for kids, day-beds for grown-ups.

Van’s Restaurant – 5, St 102 (next to GPO). A must for lovers of French food, in an exquisitely restored 110 year old colonial building. Cocktails on the rooftop are recommended.

There are more I could add, but maybe I’ll throw open that challenge to my readers…

This post is dedicated to my foodie friend Yee Khim Chong.

Travelling with tots……..

It was a brisk, clear winter morning. As we load the car with suitcases, food, toys and 3 pint size tots paranoia sets in. Have we forgotten anything? Quickly, excitement grows and the unnecessary fear is gone. If we did overlook something we can always buy it when we get there. This is going to be great! Our first “roadtrip” with the kids. We get in the car and hop on the highway on route to our family 5 hours away.

I turn around from the passenger seat and see our oldest child, our daughter, sitting in the middle surrounded by the boys on either side of her. I quickly realize that this was our first mistake. As the boys hit and tease each other, our daughter is instantly caught in the crossfire. Twenty minutes have passed, I’ve managed to calm them down. Unfortunately a new problem has emerged “Are we there yet?”

”I’m hungry!” A loud, penetrating shriek pierces my ear. But this is no problem, I’m prepared. I have packed travel sized sandwiches, potato chips, juice boxes and just in case someone would like to actually eat healthy, fruit and nuts. What seemed like a sound plan is quickly revealed as a mistake. The potato chips leave crumbs all over and the juice boxes have turned into the current weapon of choice. After all, pointing them in the right direction and squirting can assault your opponent with amazing ease!

That was many years ago. Today there are so many products available that help make travel easier, quieter, and more enjoyable.

-A safe travel mug such as the Avent 12oz Super Sport Cup for Toddlers. The easy-sip, non-spill Magic™ Super Sport Cup is just right for active toddlers on the go

-Ever heard the saying, “Music soothes the savage beast?” Okay, so a child is definitely not a beast, that is, at least not until you start travelling. Name your tune has personalized music that your child can sing along to. Take a cd player (or Mp3?), put those earphones on (not too loud) and your child will happily hum along. Name Your Tune Digital is available online at www.petiteposh.com
If old enough, give your child a road map and a marker to track the progress of your trip. An inexpensive way to keep them amused but make sure they are the non toxic Crayola Pipsqueaks

Remember, if you daughter can play at home with her Groovy Girl for hours and you son can stay entertained with his Fisher-Price Kid Tough DVD Player, it’s a good bet that these toys will keep them busy for hours on the road.

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Almost 16 years to the day since our first visit, Andrew and I returned last weekend to the temples of Angkor.

This time we our daughter Natasha, Roo’s mother Judie and his sister Barbara in tow. While Tash has more foreign visas in her passport than she’s had birthdays, Roo’s mum and sister had arrived in Cambodia via Singapore for what was their first trip to Asia.

Much had changed. Sixteen years ago, the civil war was still raging, the UN was running the country, and Roo and I had the temples virtually to ourselves. This time around, there were way more tourists, less jungle and more scaffolding around the temples. De-mining and better roads have made more temples accessible, but restoration and concerns about the impact of tourism have made parts of individual monuments off-limits: for example, you can no longer climb to the top of Angkor Wat.

But in many respects, it was as if we were visiting the temples for the first time all over again: they lost none of their allure on a second viewing, and being with Tash, Jude and Barb gave us a fresh perspective, especially seeing the temples through Tash’s eyes.

We visited Ta Prohm, a sanctuary dedicated by prolific builder Jayavarman VII to his mother, which has largely been left as it was when ‘rediscovered’ in the nineteenth century. Encircled with the roots and branches of spung and fig trees, the stone looks as if it is slowly being crushed by the jungle.

Jude and Barb were suitably impressed. Tash seemed more taken with the tiny frogs that lived among the piles of ancient stone than Ta Prohm itself, though she showed some interest in the carvings of apsaras-defined in one guide book as ‘mythological celestial nymphs’ and by Tash as ‘dancing princesses.’

Next stop was the former royal city of Angkor Thom, another legacy of Jayarvaman VII, with the ethereal temple of The Bayon at its centre. Huge faces smile serenely from all four sides of each of the Bayon’s 49 towers, the effect mesmerising. No one knows whose face this is-our guide Chamrong put in a plug for the Buddha-a mystery that only adds to the allure.

Bas-reliefs at the Bayon depict military and political history and daily life in exquisite detail. An abundance of animals, particularly crocodiles devouring fish and humans, kept Tash amused. But the real highlight of the Bayon for her were the dancers in traditional costumes-apsaras, demons and monkeys-who posed with her for photos.

Our last stop on day one was Angkor Wat, a holy city built in the early twelfth century by Suryavarman II, and a structure so significant in Cambodian culture that it features on the national flag. We had a wonderful, leisurely stroll around the complex, the inner courtyards of which feature some of the finest apsaras of all, and much to Tash’s delight, encountered another photogenic group of traditional dancers on the way out.

Minutes before boarding our minivan, I was hit by a gust of the coldest wind I’d felt in Cambodia and the heavens opened. Undeterred by the rain in the presence of two enthusiastic babysitters in Nana and Auntie Barb, Roo and I hit the town of Siem Reap for a pub crawl. For what it’s worth, my recommendations are:

• Dead Fish, Sivatha Boulevard: former crocodile farm turned bar/restaurant still housing eleven of the original residents in the basement, this eclectic venue has great atmosphere and horrifying health and safety standards. Best as a first stop.

• Island Bar, inside the Night Market: great décor and performing bar tenders; think Bryan Brown and Tom Cruise in Cocktail, only with more talent and better weather.

• Funky Munky, Pub Street: balcony seating in old French shop house; movie posters, cool music and potent cocktails.

The Hotel Borann L’Auberge des Temples is a great place to stay: family-friendly, lovely rooms, good pool, tropical garden; quiet part of town 10 mins by tuk-tuk to the action.

Day two took us to the tenth century Banteay Srey, ‘Citadel of the Women’, the only temple built in pink sandstone, also renowned for its deep carvings. Scenes from the epic Ramayana – called the Reamkeh in Cambodia – predominate. Tash was a bit bored here though perked up when she recognised Ravanna, the ten-headed demon from the children’s version of the Ramayana we read to her [Rama and the Demon King, Jessica Souhami, 1997, DK INK, New York].

After stopping off at the Landmines Museum, we visited Banteay Samre, a less glamorous but more accessible temple where, in the inner sanctum, you can make an old man’s day by slipping him a dollar to bless you by tying a red string around your wrist.

We’d taken the boat from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap across the Tonlé Sap Lake, not as scenic a trip as I’d hoped, and marred by grumpy Europeans who kept giving Tash the evil eye – such a contrast from travelling on public buses full of Cambodians who make travelling with a small child a pleasure.

So for the return trip on Monday, we hired a minivan, steeling ourselves to idle in traffic in the build-up to Bon Om Touk, the three-day Water Festival that is Phnom Penh’s biggest party of the year, when literally millions of Cambodians flock to the capital. To our surprise and relief, we breezed through, with more than enough energy to take to the streets that night and join in the celebrations.

But the Water Festival – still going strong at the time of writing – warrants its own post.

[More photos to follow...]