Kallie's First Time in The Ocean

Hopefully this video works.  Kallie's first time in the ocean and the little danish girl that we met. She comes to play with Kallie pretty much every time we go in the ocean!

The weather has been great here on Koh Chang.  We are really enjoying our time here again. This year is not as hot as most according to the locals but it is plenty hot for us!  Today is election day so some of the locals have gone back to their home villages to vote which means some of the resturants are closed because their cooks are gone. But there are still plenty open.  Joel flyings into Bangkok tonight and then out here tomorrow.  We are looking forward to him coming.  Here are some pictures of the past few days.

Ducky in her ducky.

Pancakes! 

Thai people love Kallie and she loves them too.

Brett and his mango-Stein. It is a funny fruit, it does taste good except it looks like brains.  

This is a picture leanne sent. She took it at the Calgary airport as she dropped us off. 

We've made it!  Sorry that it's taken so long for us to get a blog post up. The internet hasn't been great and we haven't had much sitting around (inside) time.  Here are a few pictures of our trip so far.

 The Plane ride over.  Kallie was an absolute champ, I don't think she cried even once.

They gave us this little bassinet that sits on a table that folds down from the wall in front of our seats. It was SO nice. She slept so well!  And so did we!

Some of the protestors in Bangkok.  They were in the area where we were staying by the mall.  We tried to get to one part of the mall but it was impossible, the crowd was too thick so after over an hour of trying we finally gave up and went to a different mall. 

Taking the train to the airport to catch a flight to the island.  Kallie loves her stroller.  She likes to look at all the people and they like to look at her too! The Thai people are so friendly, especially with her!

In her island duds.

Had a quick cat-nap before heading to the beach.

First time in the ocean! It was a great success.

Our bungalow

Her favorite set of beach duds.

She loves her ducky that her daddy bought her. She loves swinging her legs around and bobbing with the waves.

Me and my girl.

Videos from around the Island

As you may have noticed we've sort of slacked off in picture taking but we've pretty much taken pictures of most things on the Island.  Here are a few videos from around the Island - nothing special and its very hard to be steady but we tried. 

We've spent the last few days just hanging out - going to the beach and buying a few things. I insisted we buy a new mosquito net for our bungalow because ours had a hole in it and I couldn't sleep. So we did a little upgrade for them :) We have some friends in our bungalow - lizard things - they freak me out. They live in between the walls.  And the termites - that was what was crawling on me in my sleep the first night and another one yesterday. Yuck. Anyway, the new mosquito net makes everything OK.  Tomorrow Brett is going with a couple of the guys here on a fishing trip in a little boat and then we will have a BBQ back here.  Hope all is well back home.

Fishing Trip

Today we went on a snorkel/fishing trip with the dutch people that own the place where we are staying and bunch of their family and friends.  We've gotten to know them over the past week and a bit so they invited us along.  Was a really fun time!  Brett is hoping to find a spear gun for rent here and go with a couple of the guys out and do that in the next few days.  Now we are back at the guest house having a feast of fish (well I'm not because they have eyeballs - but everyone else is). Was a really good day!

Leaving the bay for the snorkel/fishing trip

Our boat

snorkeling/relaxing in the water

The beach at the national park Koh Rang

Brett and Robert in their matching tacky tourist fishing hats

Reeling in the big catch....

You may not even be able to see it its that big.

Arriving back to the bay close to sunset

Kayaking in the mangroves - Koh Chang

Yesterday was a bit overcast but we still managed to get sunburned.  We decided to take a trip to the other side of the Island to the fishing villages where there are mangroves that we could kayak through.  Ended up being a neat trip.  Today we just took it easy so we don't have any pictures - sorry. I noticed I had some really weird bites on my arms so I decided to use good old google - turns out they are jellyfish bites.  I have 3 of them and judging by the pictures it could be A LOT worse - mine our pretty minor but they really hurt when they sting!  And they're itchy as ever!  Anyway, I think I'll survive.       

A cool old plane along the way

The fishing village and start of the kayak trip through the mangroves.

More of the mangroves. These groves are trees that grow in the water and there are many river ways leading to the ocean.  This is one of the few areas where these trees are able to survive.

Another semi-floating fishing village inside the bay at the edge of the ocean

A close up of the root system of the trees in the mangroves

The typical fishing boat here

We went on a longer drive today - explored some construction sites - saw some progress from last year.  As you'll notice Brett got a hold of the camera later on so I apologize to all females for the boring pictures.  Apparently they are pretty funny - I don't know.

Minor damage - not enough to stop the delivery truck

The area at our bungalow to relax - where we write the blog etc.

This is the handy-man or groundskeeper who keeps everything tip-top shape. Essentially this is the Grandpa Barry of the place. 

This is the high quality security on our bungalow

Home sweet home. 

This is for Robert - the mobile coconut ice cream stand

Here's some impressive Thai concrete artwork

Here's some impressive Thai building - we were surprised how it turned out because last year we were taking pictures of the sketchy scaffolding and dodgy concrete work. 

Speaking of dodgy concrete work we toured an interesting construction site today.  As you can see the concrete work gets pretty good once its above the back fill level.

Much more re bar than what we're used to seeing here in Thailand

The extended shoot

This new age welder for welding the re bar 

The ground cable is a chunk of re bar extended out and grounded to the re bar in the wall.

Tied on tight for a good connection

Thai bracing system

All in all the finished product is pretty good!

The view from the above hotel

5 of the 7 puppies on the road up to our place