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Photo Friday: Ella Gap, Sri Lanka

Fri, 11 May 2012 22:54:58 +1000

After such an amazing train ride to Ella, we were initially a little disappointed in our destination. I'd read about Ella on various travel forums. Everyone raved about how relaxed and laid back this small village at the edge of the highlands was, claiming it was much nicer than Nuwara Eliya. Considering we'd enjoyed Nuwara Eliya so much we had had high hopes.

Driving down the main street (which takes 1 minute) it felt like we were in a village that solely existed for tourism. Lots of simple restaurants serving banana pancakes and guest house after guest house. It was certainly a sleepy, relaxed, beautiful place but it wasn't really what we were expecting.

Our disappointment disappeared the instant we saw the view of Ella Gap and the mountains. Wow!

The photo really doesn't do justice to the view.

We didn't have accommodation booked ahead, just the names of a couple of places we wanted to look at. Arriving at the train station, we grabbed a tuk tuk and headed into town (which is right at the train station so if you are staying in town don't bother with a tuk tuk!). We saw one place in town and then headed up a steep dirt road just outside town to check out Mountain Heavens, a small hotel that was supposed to have the best view of Ella Gap.

We were sold on the views. The rooms were nice (although if you are after nicer family rooms with a view that's almost as good check out Zion View) and we chose one that opened right onto the gardens for an uninterrupted view. Noah really got into drawing from observation while we were there and spent most of his time camped out on the lawn with pencils.

We spent one night there enjoying the view and talking with two ladies who were also staying there over beers during a fantastic thunderstorm. Yes the week long nation-wide beer ban was finally over!

While in Ella we visited the nearby Ramboda Falls, the 11th highest falls in Sri Lanka. Considering how high they are I'd like to see the highest falls. They really are stunning. The falls cascade in a number of stages down the mountain with a swimming area about halfway down.

We had a quick swim but they're not the most little-kid friendly waterfall. Too many opportunities to fall over the edge! We went at 5pm so the falls were filled with locals taking a bath. It was a good chance to chat ... and hear all the stories of people going over the falls. 38 deaths apparently!

We only spent one night in Ella. For couples or families with older children who can go hiking, sitting back reading books while enjoying the mountain temperatures or spend more time exploring waterfalls without so much fear of falling, Ella would be a wonderful place for a week. Laid back and plenty of chances to hang out with local kids. But for us there wasn't quite enough there to do with young children. Internet and phone reception wasn't that good either - only a problem since Colin suddenly got contacted by several clients with requests for work. So after one night we left for Galle on the south coast.

It was really worth coming to Ella just to enjoy the view. Even given we didn't stay long, I'm glad we made the trip just to spend a night and morning with that view. We could probably retire here just for the review. And it was certainly worth the journey for the train trip!

This post is part of Photo Friday at Delicious Baby.

On the train to Ella

Wed, 09 May 2012 21:54:36 +1000

Catching the train to our next stop in Sri Lanka, the small village of Ella was the most fun we've had in our travels in a long while. It's certainly up there with driving a campervan around parts of Australia, theme parks days, Halong Bay and the bamboo train in Cambodia.

The train takes three hours to go Nanu Oya, just outside Nuwara Eliya to Ella. In actual kilometers it's a pretty short journey but the train has to cross a lot of mountain ranges and descends from 1800m down to 1000m, passing through tea plantations, eucalyptus forests, mountains, villages and more tea plantations. Much of the track snakes it way along the edge of the mountains overlooking huge valleys of firstly tea plantations and small villages, then forests and waterfalls, before crossing to the other side of the range and being greeted with more valleys of tea plantations and small villages.

The scenery was stunning. What makes it even more amazing is the 3 hour journey cost us $1.50 ... that's in total. Not each! In total.

The part that made it fun ... well I'm getting to that ...

Time to leave

Last year I remember reading the blog of friends, With 2 Kids in Tow, it's Backpacking We Go, who were in Sri Lanka with their two girls and had taken the train to Ella. As soon as I read about the journey it was something I wanted to do in Sri Lanka.

Nanu Oya is only 6km from Nuwara Eliya but it's a winding bumpy road so it took 25 minutes. We almost didn't make the train. I did a double take when our tickets were handed over and the price came to a grand total of 180 rupees - 60 rupees for adults and 30 rupees for children. No seriously?

"Is there AC on this train" Noah asked hopefully as we climbed onto the train and he pulled out the iPad ready to relax. We just laughed at him ... and then thought we should explain that this was a third class local train before he got offended at us laughing at him.

Third class in Sri Lanka is pretty much what you would expect - wooden seats, peeling paint, concrete floors, no toilets. I wouldn't call them dirty but you certainly wouldn't eat off the floor. They're very local but that really made the journey I think.

We were initially disappointed that because we arrived late the window seats were all taken - the whole point of this trip was for the view.

But then we decided to do what the locals do and take turns sitting in the doorways.

And, to unashamedly sound like a big kid, it was the best fun ... ever!

The train goes quite slow - at a guess 15-25km/hr. So sitting or standing in the doorway of the train didn't feel that dangerous. Obviously we made sure we had a good grip on the kids as we sat there swinging our legs out pretending to try to touch trees, eating snacks and chatting about the view ... but it felt really safe.

And a lot of fun.

It was one of those "this is why we're doing this" moments, along with lots of "we could never do this back home, western countries are so over-regulated" moments thrown in. And a whole lot of "weee this is so much fun!"

The best part was going through the 21 narrow tunnels as we passed through the mountains. There was that adrenaline rush you normally associate with waterslides - a little bit terrifying but a lot of fun - as the train plunged into complete darkness, with the deafening sound of the train echoing and the tunnel and you knew the walls of the tunnels were just an arm length away.

Apart from the thrill of just sitting back watching the countryside roll by beneath our legs, we met some lovely people. For most of the trip we were the only foreigners on the train so it was a good chance to talk to some local families, share snacks (turns out ginger-nut biscuits are too spicy even for Sri Lankan children who like spice!) and even cuddle adorable babies!

About the train

There are several trains a day that pass through Ella, departing from Colombo or Peradenyia (near Kandy) and terminating at Badulla. You can find the timetable on the Government Information Centre website.

Note: For Nuwara Eliya, the train leaves from Nanu Oya. On the timetable website Ella is written as 'Elle' and Nanu Oya as 'Nanuoya'.

For Nanu Oya you buy tickets at the station. Everyone we spoke with in Nuwara Eliya recommended that we catch either the 9.30am or 12.30pm trains. The 9.30am is a local freight train with two 3rd class carriages and a 12.30pm train which has more classes of carriage.

We decided to take the earlier train as it is supposed to be less crowded and less hot since it's earlier in the day. Apart from between a few stations where the train was a major mode of transport for locals wanting to go from one village to the next, the train was really quiet. We had a seat (or doorway) to ourselves for the entire ride.

There were no toilets onboard but we stopped at a lot of stations along the way. On a couple of occasions people jumped on selling samosas and ice creams, but it's a good idea to bring your own drinks and snacks.

Three hours was just the right length of time with the kids. It's been one of the highlights of our trip, if not close to the highlight. If you find yourself up in the highlands I'd really recommend it. How often do you get the chance to hang out of a train watching amazing views roll by?

This post is part of Budget Travelers Sandbox Travel Photo Thursday roundup. There are some amazing photos there this week so be sure to take a look.

Enjoying the Sri Lankan Highlands: Nuwara Eliya

Mon, 07 May 2012 01:26:02 +1000

After Colombo our next stop was Nuwara Eliya, a town in the central highlands of Sri Lanka. We had been hoping to go to Galle but May is the start of the monsoon in that area and while there was little rain yet, if the seas around Colombo were anything to go by the beaches near Galle wouldn't be nice for swimming so we decided to head to the mountains instead to enjoy some cooler weather. Being 1800m above sea level, Nuwara Eliya is generally between 10-25 degrees year round - after the heat of Colombo and Penang that sounded perfect!

Train is by all accounts the best way to reach Nuwara Eliya but unfortunately being the Wesak long weekend (and us being so disorganised that we only tried to book a day or two in advance), the train was fully booked. We thought about changing destinations but eventually opted for a bus to Nuwara Eliya.

Sri Lankan Buses and getting to Nuwara Eliya

There are a few classes of buses available in Sri Lanka. They're bright and colourful, but make even the buses in Laos look luxurious.

The standard local buses are very cheap but old, overcrowded and without AC. We're happy with that for a few hours ride but Nuwara Eliya was 6 hours away so we opted for the semi-luxury bus. All that means is it's 30 years old not 50, has AC and doesn't tend to get completely oversold so you and the kids will generally have seats to yourselves provided you pay for them. These buses are usually only available between major towns, and in Colombo they leave from the 'Private' bus station 500m from Colombo Fort train station on the same side of the road. It's the bus station that all the white buses leave from, not the other bus station on the opposite side of the road where all the red buses leave from.

Buses to Nuwara Eliya seemed to leave 90 minutes or so - or at least they did on the day we were there. We caught an 11am bus. One also left at 9.30am and there was a bus leaving a few hours after ours. You can't buy tickets in advance - just show up an hour before and when the bus shows up grab your seat. Seats come on a first come, first served basis. It pays to board early and claim your seat.

Tickets for the semi-luxury bus to Nuwara Eliya cost 450 rupees ($3.45). The standard bus is about half this price.

Hold on tight kids ...

The drive is only 180km but it takes 6 hours. This is because the first 3 hours are spent in heavy traffic between Colombo and Kandy where it's best not to look out the front so you don't see the crazy overtaking that your driver is doing in close proximity to oncoming trucks. The second three hours are spent going up steep winding mountains filled with hairpin turns that leave you alternating between being awed by the scenery, wondering if you should write to the guys at Top Gear to tell them this drive should be their next adventure and planning your will!

If you've never introduced your children to the game of corners, this is the drive to do it!

The scenery during the second half of the drive was stunning - pine forests, tea plantations, creeks and mountains. And funnily enough a lot of Australian gum trees. I keep expecting to see koalas. The tea plantations went on and on, making Cameron Highlands in Malaysia look like a hobby farm.

We stopped once for lunch and a toilet break 3 hours into the trip. Apart from plain rice, all the food on offer was spicy so it's worth bringing lots of snacks for your children. Noah's discovered a love of curry puffs and devoured three along with a bottle of water to ward off the spice.

Right on 6 hours we made it to Nuwara Eliya.

The town itself isn't that interesting apart from some lovely colonial buildings. It's really the setting that is lovely. Cool temperatures, green parks, lakes and mountains. Being a long weekend the town is filled with families on holiday and there are festivals everywhere.

The guesthouse we'd called in the morning (The Trevene), and then called back on the drive to confirm we were coming suddenly turned out to not have a room for us. But they owned another house, Park View, that had a spare room. The rooms were clean enough that we were happy and the view overlooking Victoria Park in the centre of Nuwara Eliya was stunning. The terraced flower gardens that were enough to convince the kids we should stay.

We've spent the last two days enjoying being outside in the sun without breaking into a sweat. Mornings and nights are cold enough for jeans and jumpers but by lunchtime we're back in shorts and shirts. It feels just like Australia in June. The gum trees everywhere help with that notion!

The highlight of Nuwara Eliya was Victoria Park. Right in the centre of town, this huge park has a large playground, children's train and acres of wide green spaces. In May it's filled with so many flowers you would swear you were in a fairy garden.

Entrance is a little expensive at 200 rupees for foreigners and children over 5 (it's only 30 rupees for local adults and 15 rupees for children!) but it's well worth the money. Noah and Hayley could have happily spent an entire week visiting the park. The train costs 100 rupees per person, even for locals. It wasn't that exciting but the kids enjoyed it.

We took colouring and a picnic blanket with us and had a wonderful morning out. Of course being a long weekend the park was filled with local families on holiday so the instant we sat down we became an instant tourist attraction. At least 80 people stopped to look at us during our picnic. At one point we had 25 people surrounding us all at once asking questions and taking photos. But everyone was so lovely. And it was a great way to meet people -on three occasions we had other families sit down to colour with us and talk.

Apart from visiting the park we've had a lazy time in Nuwara Eliya just enjoying the cooler temperatures. The kids have been playing in the flower gardens making potions. We visited nearby Gregory Lake and rented bicycles for 100 rupees per person. We were going to rent paddle boats but being a long weekend prices had gone up from 500 rupees to 2000+rupees! We were hoping to visit a tea plantation but they are shut for the long weekend. Hopefully next week when we're in Kandy we can come back up this way to visit one.

We discovered a nice vegetarian restaurant on the main street where a lunch of thosai, curry and local breads costs 250-350 rupees for four people. Otherwise food hasn't really been that great, although we did discover the cafe at the Grand Hotel where you can eat western food in a 4 star setting for under $20 for the family. The most expensive dinners out we've had in Sri Lanka but how often do you get to dine in a restaurant that nice for under $20!

Eating there has also given us the chance to walk back past the Buddhist temple at the edge of the park at night when it's all lit up and decorated for the holiday. It's one of the prettiest sights in town.

Tomorrow we're off to the train station to go to Ella. Assuming we can get tickets! Fingers crossed. Otherwise I guess it's the bus again and some more nail-biting games of corners on the winding roads!

Tantrums and adventures in Colombo

Fri, 04 May 2012 01:36:59 +1000

On our second morning in Sri Lanka, Colombo and I didn't get off to a good start. I woke up with a migraine. I've had a lot of migraines lately so having yet another one didn't impress me, and it certainly didn't impress the rest of the family. By the time we all got ready to head out for breakfast I'd hit my 'I must have food right NOW or my head will explode' phase. Again, that really didn't help the mood of everyone else.

It was about that point that we realised Colombo, or at least our neighbourhood, doesn't have the same eating out culture as Malaysia. Not every second building sells food! In fact, in comparison to South East Asia, there's a decided lack of road side stalls and hole in the wall cafes.

We set off in one direction but gave up after 5 blocks and flagged down a rickshaw with the super helpful request of 'Take us to food please!'.

The driver looked at us perplexed for a few seconds and then announced 'ahh McDonalds'.

We protested for all of three seconds, assuring him no we weren't the type of westerners that just wanted McDonalds, before going 'Yep screw it, take us to McDonalds.'

That was when things really went downhill because it was at this point that I discovered McDonalds in Sri Lanka doesn't have black tea, only milk tea! I'm in Sri Lanka, home of more tea plantations than anyone can count and I couldn't get a decent tea? What? How the heck am I supposed to function on a migraine day without tea?

I sulked my way back to the table pouting at my crappy cup of frothy milk tea. It took me a few minutes, and a little laughter from Colin, to realise I was pretty much being a spoilt brat. Here I was sulking because things weren't like back home when I should be grateful that not only am I getting the chance to see Sri Lanka but that I can afford my less than ideal tea when the person who collected the tea leaves on the plantation probably earns less in a day than my cup of tea cost ... somebody slap me please.

From there the day went uphill ... thanks in part to headache drugs finally kicking in once food hit my stomach but mostly because I got over my 'woe is me' tantrum, ordered a second milk tea and decided to embrace the little challenges of Sri Lanka and appreciate the fact that I was actually here spending time in a new country.

And that's exactly what Colombo has been for the last few days - little challenges.

It's different to anywhere we've been but it's a manageable different. It's fascinating and at times things aren't easy but it's not overwhelming. Not like I've always pictured New Dehli or Beijing to be.

The old centre of town is dusty and crowded but it's not dirty, nor is it so crowded and chaotic that you feel afraid for your life. The bus and train stations are a bit of a culture shock but once you get over that you can easily negotiate your way around them. Between police, miliarty and security guards, Colombo has a huge security presence. If felt strange for the first hour but after that, somehow seeing so many guys with guns just doesn't feel as threatening as it has when we see guards with giant rifles at airports or embassy's. Maybe because there are so many of them that it becomes common place. More likely it's because they are always smiling and chatting to you as you walk past.

Most of the buildings are faded and crumbling, but no more than in any other city in a developing country. Besides the streets are clean, if pot-holed, and the temples and heritage buildings are gorgeous. There are wide green streets, sporting fields and with the Buddhist festival of Wesak this week every street and corner has lanterns, flags or streamers.

Sitting in a tuk tuk in the middle of downtown traffic is the best way to get dizzy from inhaling exhaust from the stationary vehicles but once you pass the outskirts it's exhilarating and fun. Unless of course your driver decides to play frogger with 6 lanes of traffic like ours did. Seriously, 6 lanes of traffic and he decides to not bother waiting for the lights and instead cut across it all. I think I may have squealed a few times!

There are certainly challenges but they're the kind of challenges that make a trip to Colombo a fun adventure not an overwhelming experience.

A female friend was here last week by herself and initially found Colombo to be really in your face. As in men staring at her ... and not necessarily at her face ...all the time and being just a little too forward. We've had completely the opposite experience - because we had kids with us. Honestly, our children get so much attention the only time I get noticed is when someone wants to smile and compliment them, which tends to happen every two meters. Mum with blonde child = invisible!

Walking the streets men certainly seem to outnumber woman at least 3-1. The few times I went out by myself it did seem confronting to see only men but everyone was so friendly. It's like there is this rule that if eye contact is made you have to smile. Maybe I still had some residule 'mum' vibe.

But honeslty, Colombo has been one of the most friendly cities we've visited. Everyone wants to say hello and ask where you are fron. Every time we've ended up somewhere confused about where to go next, someone will approach us and help us out.

With how friendly everyone is we keep expecting it to be like Vietnam, southern Thailand or touristy beaches in Europe where someone is always trying to scam you into paying more for a service than you should or sell you something, anything, from noisy toys and fake watches to Algarve properties for sale. Or people with promises of 'come with me, my friend's guesthouse is good', 'you like golf? I help you book your golf Thailand holiday', 'that place is shut, I can show you a better restaurant' but so far we've struck nothing but polite, helpful, friendly people.

Even the tuk tuk guys that don't use a meter and want to overcharge you will help you flag down a metered tuk tuk when you politely refuse their ridiculous fare.

So getting back to that tantrum ...

Thanks to a tip from friends who were here last year, after breakfast and schoolwork we went to Odel, a large department store with a free supervised playground. Nothing like the kids being happily occupied under someone else's supervision while there's a good coffee shop with WIFI near by to cure a migraine and temper tantrum!

And yes the coffee shop proper tea and was next to a swanky Dilmah stand selling more varieties of tea than I could drink in a month.

And it could be worse - Colin has just discovered that since this week is the Buddhist festival, Wesak, there is a national wide week long ban on alcohol. So while I'm finally enjoying some of the best tea I've ever had, Colin is beerless for 7 days.

The next morning we went the other way from our apartment and quickly found two local restaurants serving breakfast (and decent tea!). They bought us several mixed plates of food filled with things to try and only charged us for what we ate - our breakfast ended up coming to less than $3 in total.

Good Morning Colombo

Tue, 01 May 2012 20:10:03 +1000

Yesterday we flew to Sri Lanka for what we're hoping are going to be 20 fabulous days, 10 of which will be spent with Nanna and Poppy (aka Colin's parents).

Of course flying out a 6am wasn't the best start. A 6am flight didn't sound so bad when we were booking our cheap AirAsia tickets. It was a good sale and the 6am flight was the cheapest. It made sense when we were booking 6 months ago!

The airport is almost 1hour outside of Kuala Lumpur so catching a 6am flight meant getting up at 3.15am. Ouch! And with the time difference we arrived at 7.10am into Sri Lanka, ready to 'start' the day when we'd already been up for 7 hours and had a one hour drive to reach Colombo. Our room wouldn't be available until 1pm ... which seemed a very long long long way away!

Even seen through bleary eyes Colombo is already growing on us.

What's not to love about a city where every second back street seems to turn into a street cricket venue each afternoon!

The drive in from the airport reminded us a little of Bali - lots of green trees, shops selling pots, building supplies, carvings, motorbike repairs, incrediably poor streets only a few suburbs from giant office buildings and hotels. The traffic was a little different to Bali - less bikes, more tuk tuks and buses. The three wheel tuk tuks weave in and out of cars at surprising speeds while buses painted bright colours with murals down the side racing down the road as if they own it ... with the speeds they go I'm not going to argue that fact.

Colin is in love with the buses here - he's mentally bought at least 5 different makes to convert into his motorhome. I'm waiting for him to actually try riding on one before I get on board with his latest scheme!

We saw cows, a couple of goats, giant puddles covering an entire lane on the road from a recent storm and children running down the street on what appeared to be a cross-country event. Shirtless, shoeless and running through puddles next to busy traffuc as they're cheered on by crowds of onlookers. Just a little different from cross country events back home!

The city itself is beautiful in a somewhat run down way. Looking around you can picture what the buildings would have looked like 50 or 100 years ago when new.

All in all, Colombo had a slightly neglected, chaotic feel that wasn't too neglected or chaotic. It felt wonderful. And clean. It's one of the cleanest city we've visited in developing country.

It probably helped that yesterday was a public holiday (May Day) so the roads were relatively quiet and unchaotic. This morning things are certainly little crazier. The bright buses, tuk tuks and cars race down Galle Rd near our apartment today. Yesterday it was easy to cross anywhere on the street. Today it's a bit like playing frogger if you were a suicidal frog.

From our balcony we can see the Indian ocean and the local train running right at the sea's edge. Yesterday the trains seemed empty, with just a few people standing at each door (see picture below).

This morning during peak hour they raced along with people hanging out doors and peering out every window.

Colombo by tuk tuk

Yesterday we hired a tuk tuk to take us around for an hour while we waited for our room to be ready (this was after already killing two hours in a McDonalds colouring and playing while Mum and Dad drank ridiculous amounts of coca cola to stay awake). We found a really nice, honest tuk tuk driver (most of them seem to be actually!) so one hour of sightseeing with several stops along the way cost us just the meter price (50 rupee per kilometer) - under 500 rupee.

The driver seemed a bit baffled by our 'we don't know where we want to go, just drive us where you think for one hour' plan but he soon got into the swing of things and took us around the south end of inner Colombo. Past Galle Face Green where we plan to go back tomorrow to fly kites in the strong breezes that mark the start of the southern monsoon season, along the edge of the Fort area with it's modern clean buildings, pelicans atop each light pole and couples enjoying their day off on benches at the edge of the Indian Ocean sitting together under bright umbrellas.

It's been a while since we were in a tuk tuk - we've forgotten how much fun it is to ride in one!

We're quickly coming to the opinion that driving a tuk tuk in Colombo is 6 parts confidence, 3 parts mad tetris skills and 1 part luck.

After Galle Face Park our next stop was Beira Lake.

We passed where it spills into the sea and stopped to check out a giant lizard lazing on a patch of sand before going to the other side of the lake where a suspension bridge joins an island and swan paddle boats can be hired. The kids were too tired to get out of the tuk tuk so it was just a short stop. I'm sure we'll be back - the bridge was bouncy enough that I'm sure the kids will love it when they're not ready to fall down from lack of sleep.

We were hoping to visit a playground in Viharamahadevi Park, the largest park in Colombo but the park was shut due to May Day gatherings. Instead our driver just drove us past so we knew what was there and took us to the nearby Gangaramaya temple where a ten year old elephant was getting a bath.

That got the kids out of the tuk tuk!

It's hard to say what the life of this working elephant is and what treatment he receives but his baths certainly seem good! The bath involved vigorously scrubbing him with a brick and a coconut husk.

Yes a brick scrub! I guess a pumice stone just doesn't cut it when you have skin as thick as an elephant. It looked like hard work! Even standing in water the man giving the elephant the scrub was covered in sweat.

The kids quickly settled in at the edge of the pool where they didn't move for the next 15 minutes. You can't complain with watching an elephant taking a bath as a way to fill in time while you wait for your room to be ready! Who needs to pay for an expensive wild life safari to Yala National Park or Canada wildlife holidays when we can get this close to such a big animal for just 250 rupee (and of course the obligatory tip for the guy that looked after our shoes while we were in there. Actually maybe it's not obligatory - we're still trying to figure out tipping and begging in Sri Lanka so that we know what is a scam and what's legitimate).

At the end of the bath the elephant came over to say hi to the kids. He was so curious and friendly ... a little too friendly at times as Hayley discovered!

The temple itself was stunning. It looked quite uninspiring from outside but every inch of the temple grounds was crammed with amazing sights. The statues, paintings and carvings in the central temple where like a page out of Animalia or one of those hidden object puzzles where you need to stare at it for ten minutes to spot the one deer carving hiding amidst 3000 other objects.

Even Colin was impressed and he usually doesn't get wowed by temples.

We didn't make it around the rest of the temple. We were all too tired and hot after such a long day but I've heard it's fascinating. Gangaramaya temple run a lot of charity and education programs so if we take Nanna and Poppy back to see the elephant before we leave Sri Lanka I'll be finding out more about those.

Finally 1pm rolled around and our room was ready.

The apartment we're sharing is on the top floor of a five story building just 50m from the Indian ocean. We're staying in one of their three bedroom apartments with Colin's parents that is much nicer and more spacious, but for now we're in a single room that is fine for us. Our apartment is never going to be awarded a Quality Villas France award but it's clean, has AC, WIFI and a 180 degree ocean view only obstructed by one other building and the regular trains running 1m from the ocean.

By 2pm we were all asleep to the sound of the ocean crashing and the train chugging past.

Kuching, a lovely surprise

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:01:27 +1000

"We're off to Kuching next"

"Oh you'll love it. It was one of our favourite cities in Asia"

That's the response we got countless times from friends when we mentioned we were heading to the capital of Sarawak, Kuching. The response surprised me - Kuching isn't really a destination you hear a lot about but every single person we spoke too seemed to love it. What would it be like?

Flying in I didn't really know what to expect. When I pictured Sarawak I thought of rivers, jungles, long houses, tribes, orangutans, more jungles. If the guide books were right, boats are the preferred mode of transport. The view out the plane's window as we flew seemed to support this - outside the window were more rivers than I've ever seen. The whole landscape was covered in snake-like tributaries. How did this quaint modern city with a wonderful balance of the old and new that everyone raved about fit into this landscape of jungles and rivers?

After three nights staying in the jungle at The Kebun we moved into Kuching to spend two nights exploring the city. And quickly discovered we loved Kuching. Just as everyone had predicted. Beautiful historic buildings, wide green streets and a gorgeous riverfront boardwalk to explore. It was modern and clean, but lacked the polish of Kuala Lumpur or Penang. Easy to walk around, friendly and peaceful. Quiet and unassuming but developed enough to be comfortable. It was Malaysia and yet different from any city we'd visited in Malaysia.

It's hard to put into words why we liked Kuching but we did.

We decided to really splurge for the first time in two years. After three nights sleeping under mosquito nets and trekking to an outhouse toilet it was time for a fancy hotel, swimming pool, buffet breakfast! We chose the Grand Margarita Hotel, right on the riverfront at $100 for a family room including breakfast. It was honestly one of the best hotels we've ever stayed in.

The view was lovely too ...

The kids were so tired after three days of tours and playing on a farm that we didn't end up seeing a lot of Kuching. We missed the weekend night markets, the boat cruises and the cultural village. But we did wander along the waterfront at sunset looking at the stunning buildings, eating ice cream, chasing bubbles in the night markets and watching boats ferry people across the river. Bubble chasing was the highlight - I'm not sure how we got away from those markets without having to buy bubble blowers!

We explored the oldest streets of Kuching filled with their run down Chinese shop houses and stunning temples. Sarawak certainly knows how to design beautiful temples.

On our last day we visited the Sarawak Museum and got up close with some of the old colonial buildings. The museum had some very interesting artifacts and the kids enjoyed the models of traditional houses but we wouldn't list it as a 'must see' attraction. If you have the time and nothing else to do it's free and interesting but it certainly wasn't the highlight of our trip. The kids probably enjoyed seeing the giant trees and the old buildings more.

And there you have our time in Kuching. We were pleasantly surprised at how much we enjoyed this small city ... just like everyone said we would. It's definitely a lovely place to visit with children for a few days.

Hanging with Orangutans at Semenggoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:30:47 +1000

Ever since our first trip with the kids to Asia in 2009, Colin has dreamed of seeing orangutans in the wild. We visited Kota Kinabalu in Sabah on that first trip but the kids were so young and tired from the heat, and the travel distances were so long that we decided wait until the children were older and settle for seeing orangutans at the zoo. And it wouldn't be right for me to mention that zoo trip without taking the opportunity (again) to mention that during that visit Colin matched his strength against a young girl orangutan in a coconut opening contest and lost badly. If I didn't tell you the kids would!

As soon as we decided to go back to Borneo our 'one thing we must do' was to see Orangutans in the wild.

On the outskirts of Kuching, 30 minutes from the centre of town is the Semenggoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, established to care for wild animals which have either been found injured in the forest, orphaned, or were previously kept as illegal pets. The centre cares for a wide range of native species, but it's orangutan program is what makes it famous.

The centre aims to rehabilitate animals in order to release them into the wild. The orangutans that visit the centre were originally animals that were in their care and over a period of several years were taken out every day by the centre's staff to suitable places in the surrounding forest where they were taught to forage for food, climb trees and swing ... all the essential skills they need to survive!

Once they are able to fend for themselves they are released into the surrounding forest where they spend most of their time living in the jungle but they do occasionally return to the centre for the twice daily feeding the centre runs. They don't always show up ... which is actually great as it means they are supporting themselves in the wild, but if fruit is scarce they will usually drop by at least once a day.

We were lucky enough to visit during the season where there is very little fruit on the trees in the jungle. Lucky because this meant that 6-7 orangutans had decided to visit the centre for morning tea! We were so busy being in awe of being up close to so many orangutans we lost count!

The feeding stations are set up close enough to the edge of the jungle that visitors can see these amazing creatures up close but far enough away that they don't feel threatened. Most of the time we were withing 10 metres of them.

It was amazing. They were really active, alternating between eating, climbing and swinging across the suspended ropes between the trees.

Which is a hazard in itself - we just missed getting peed on from a great height by one of the young males! Noah thought that was hilarious. He probably wouldn't have if he'd been peed on!

Ritchie, the dominant male was there. He's simply huge. And strong. Seeing him smash open a coconut in about three seconds flat certainly leaves you with no doubt who would win in an arm wrestling contest. I don't know if having the longest body hair is important in the orangutan community but if so he wins that too.

He arrived halfway through the feeding session and it was fascinating to see how his presence changed every other orangutan's behaviour. The mother and bub disappeared into the nearby trees until he had finished eating. The younger males all hung back or quickly got in first and ran off into the trees with their stolen fruits.

Visiting the Centre

Semenggoh is 30 minutes from the centre of Kuching and holds two public feeding sessions each day - 9-10am and 3-3.30pm. The staff are fairly stict about pushing people on the door once the session finishes to ensure the animals don't get too overwhelmed. Actually they were quite strict during the whole visit to ensure public safety and the safety of their orangutans. But they were also very friendly and happy to chat or share information about each animal and the program. The morning session is supposed to be your best option for seeing orangutans, so that of course means it's the most popular one. This was the session we attended and there were approximately 100 other people there.

Entry costs RM3 (1USD) for adults, while young children are free. We were told by our driver that if you are unlucky enough to not see orangutans during your morning visit you can return in the afternoon and reuse your ticket for no extra costs. Or if you just want to see them a second time! You could easily go to the nearby crocodile farm or Annas Rais Longhouse, have some lunch at a nearby restaurant and return to the park for the afternoon session.

Public bus number 6 runs from Kuching to the Centre but it's a long walk from the front gate to the viewing area - it looked like a 20 minute walk with kids along a winding, hilly road. If you go by car or taxi they will drop you inside the park right outside the viewing area.

Don't bring any food into the park. Apart from the fact that it's one of the centre's rules, we've come off second best in a food fight against 10kg macaques so I honestly don't want to think about what would happen if a wild orangutan decided it wanted my apple!

You can buy drinks at the information and souvenir shop close to the feeding area but no food. There are plenty of shady spots to rest ... or nap within the grounds if the heat gets too much.

See the last point on the sign - Gambling is also prohibited within the park. We weren't able to figure out exactly why they felt the need to stress that point. We liked to imagine that part of the rehabilitation program was teaching the orangutans to play blackjack and now they're all addicted to gambling so they're asking visitors not to gamble in front of them.

As good a explanation as any I think!

This post if part of Delicious Baby's Photo Friday

Headhunters and turkeys: Jungle hideaway in Sarawak

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 22:14:25 +1000

Skulls hanging over an open fire of burning coconuts husks to ward mosquitoes. The kids play in a hammock and I relax on the woven floor-mats that cover the wooden slats of the longhouse floor trying not to think too hard about what's coming next - the nightly journey to the outhouse with a large broom to ward off 8 legged foes that are much larger and more numerous in my mind than they are in reality. In the background we can hear cicadas, seeds dropping on the tin roof before rolling down, the trickle of the nearby creek and the strange garbles of turkey's and geese echoing across 10 acres of farm and jungle.

And a whole lot of silence in between.

No we haven't gone native in Borneo and become head hunters. Although wouldn't that make an interesting turn for our travels! I can just imagine explaining that one to our friends and family back home over Christmas lunch.

We've been staying 40 minutes outside Sarawak's capital, Kuching, on a small organic farm in the jungle. Our accommodation is a longhouse, a traditional wooden stilt house that many native tribes in this region have used for centuries as communal homes.

No AC, hot water, TV or WIFI. Just a small wooden room with simple beds and mosquito nets opening onto a large shared balcony that runs the full length of one side of the house. It was rustic but great. Everything was basic and it times it felt like camping in the jungle without the tent ... but that's what we were expecting.

Well apart from a small 6 year old who didn't realise that jungle farm stay meant no WIFI to watch minecraft videos with.

A year ago ludicrously cheap $5 return flights were available through AirAsia so we booked the tickets with the intention to research Sarawak a little closer to the date. But then came Europe and settling back into Penang. Then there were the homeschooling dramas, house guests and an impromptu trip to the Perhentians. Suddenly our trip to Sarawak was a week away and we didn't have any accommodation booked.

When I finally started looking for somewhere to stay I came across The Kebun. The owner seemed friendly and honest, and the reviews were great. Noah and Hayley had never been on a farm so they were excited. The Kebun have two farm houses but we were interested in staying in their longhouse. Sure the farm houses are much fancier if you appreciate some comfort or internal bathrooms but how often do you get the chance to stay in a longhouse?

We also wanted to challenge ourselves a little - we usually tend to stick to towns where we have WIFI, AC and corner stores. But we'd like to change that ... well occasionally anyway ... and it seemed ludicrous to come to somewhere like Borneo and only stay in a city. We wanted a bit more of a jungle experience! So we booked in at The Kebun for the first three nights of our stay in Sarawak.

The longhouse we slept in wasn't an actual real longhouse in the sense that it was never the home of an extended local family. It was the farm's goat shed. You'd never know that though. It's been painstakingly converted, including replacing all the floorboards and any wood that was too ... well umm goaty. It felt incrediably authentic.

The owners have done a great job of making it look and feel just like an actual longhouse, a really nice longhouse but a longhouse all the same. We really liked the eclectic collection of local artifacts all over the veranda. Crocodile skulls, animal skins, wood carvings, woven baskets and musical instruments. The human skulls weren't real ... at least I don't think they were. They looked ceramic but convincing. Still we saw more local artifacts here than at the Sarawak museum. We've stayed in a lot of places over the past two years and this place definitely takes the prize for having put the most thought into decor and creating a realistic atmosphere. Anything modern like fans and lightbulbs are retro ones.

My personal favourite was the mix of mid-20th century advertising posters that adorned the walls alongside artifacts and photos of local tribes. Not that authentic but they certainly set the atmosphere.

What's that hiding behind the basket? Yes it's exactly what it looks like - a baby drinking 7-Up.

The text reads:

"For 7-Up is so pure, so wholesome, you can even give it to babies and feel good about it. Look at the back of a 7-Up bottle. Notice that all our ingredients are listed .... By the way Mom, when it comes to toddlers - if they liked to be coaxed to drink their milk, try this: Add 7-Up to the milk in equal parts, pouring the 7-Up gently into the milk. It's a wholesome combination - and it works! Make 7-Up your family drink. You like it ... it likes you"

Anyway ...

The Kebun has a working organic farm as well as the accommodation. As guests we weren't required to help out on the farm but as we walked to our longhouse from the front of the property we passed chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, fowl and even goats. And dogs of course!

We were keen for the kids to experience some farm activities though. They lent us fishing poles so we could take the kids fishing for the first time ever in the farm's dam. The staff set about digging up worms for the kids and we set out with rods, buckets and worms in search of fish.

We caught a lot of weed, a stick and a tree when Colin's cast went wrong before finally Colin landed a fish.

The kids weren't that excited about fishing but they did have a lot of fun chasing geese, playing tag in the orchard, throwing rocks in the creek on a hot afternoon and collecting Turkey eggs. The staff left a couple for the kids to collect one morning so after breakfast they could collect them.

Of course Dad had to get involved when the kids discovered that farm eggs are a lot pooier and muddier than they are in shop cartons.

So there you have it - our Sarawak farmstay.

We had a great time, well except that it forced me to remember just how much I hate spiders and bugs. I did get better as the days went by but I'm so not a farm girl! Cobwebs are just freaky, you can never tell whether that damn spider is on you or not! If jungle outhouses are not your thing either bring a big stick or a husband that's more sympathetic than mine - although admittedly he handled my middle of the night "there's a cobweb on me get it off GET IT OFF!" freak out with minimal laughter!

All in all, it was probably one of the most enjoyable experiences we've had during our travels. Between the setting, the longhouse stay and the staff it's hard to fault anything.

The only thing we'd probably do differently though is take a better look at a map first and plan our tours better. Being outside of Kuching, the Kebun is closer to some of the national parks but it's a lot further to places like the Cultural Village, Annas Rais longhouse and the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. If we had our time over we would stay in Kuching first for three nights and do most of our tours there, then head to the Kebun for 2-3 nights to just hang out at the farm. We did a lot of our tours through the Kebun (which were all great by the way) but we ended up spending more time in the car tripping around Sarawak than we did on the farm.

And yes we're not ashamed to admit that after our stay we checked into a hotel with a pool, WIFI and a buffet breakfast to give ourselves some luxury after hanging out in the jungle!

FYI: I'm writing this post about the Kebun because we felt it was a fantastic place to stay with kids and the whole experience was brilliant. We didn't receive any discount on our accommodation in return for a review. We just really liked the place and wanted to share our experiences there.

In search of Rafflesia - Gunung Gading National Park

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 14:47:25 +1000

"Two rafflesia are in bloom right next to each other. It's very rare to see this. You really should go and see it" Adrian, the owner of The Kebun where we were staying for our first three nights in Sarawak announced as he picked us up from the airport.

"They are close to the edge of the park, only a 20 minute walk. I have two other guests going on a tour at 11am to see it. You could join them and share the cost."

It sounded fabulous. Rafflesia, the worlds largest flower are rare. The last few times we've been in an area where one was flowering they were at least a 1 hour hike into the jungle so we've always passed on tours to see them. A 20 minute walk sounded much more doable with young kids. And there were two flowers next to each other! Definitely an opportunity we shouldn't miss.

The problem was we'd just arrived in Kuching after waking up at 4.30am to catch a 7am flight from Penang. We'd arrived at Kuching at 9.10am and since the drive to the Kebun was 45 minutes from the airport that would only leave us with an hour to relax before heading off on our tour to Gunung Gadang National Park, over 1.5 hours drive away. We were hesitant. We were all tired, especially the kids, so the trip could easily go horribly wrong, as long car trips tend to do with over-tired kids (and over tired parents that are a little less tolerant than usual!).

But in the end we decided it wasn't something we could miss out on. So after a brief rest we set out in search of Rafflesia.

The drive was fascinating. Apart from Kuching itself which is quite modern, Sarawak is the most undeveloped part of Malaysia that we've seen. Driving past the small villages and long stretches of jungle we were reminded of Cambodia and Laos. The small villages are better developed than in those countries and the roads are certainly better but Sarawak is a totally different world to the west coast of the Malaysian peninsula.

The car ferry over a crocodile infested river was the highlight for the children. Our driver's tales of 19ft salt water crocodiles certainly made the ferry crossing a lot more interesting!

We stopped for lunch at a small local restaurant opposite one of the prettiest Chinese temples I've see in a small town near the entrance to the National Park. Lunch came to RM20 for four adults and two kids!

And then it was onto Gunung Gading National Park. Our driver arranged our guide and off we set in search of the biggest stinkiest flowers in the world!

Thankfully, as promised the two rafflesia were just a short 15 minute walk into the forest. We were relieved - so often in Asia we've been told something was only a ten or twenty minute walk to discover it's actually closer to one hour. Half of the trek was along a well-paved path, the other half through a muddy side trail with a creek crossing.

The trees in the park are amazing and we spotted a giant millipede along the way.

Hayley found the walk pretty challenging as it was raining so there were plenty of slippery spots and puddles to negotiate. There were a few slips and one grazed knee but we got there.

And then there was the first flower half hidden under a huge boulder. The second flower was on top of the giant boulder. We could see it from afar but even mountain goats wouldn't be able to get up to it so we had to be content with just seeing the first one up close.

There are several different species of rafflesia and this species certainly doesn't live up to it's stinky reputation. We really couldn't smell anything. The flower wasn't as big as I was expecting either. But you can see in comparison to Colin's size 11 foot the flower was huge.

Noah tells me, after listening to our guide give a talk that I missed out on while trying to distract Hayley from her tired 'when can we go home' complaints, that this is because we saw the flower on Day 5 of it's 6-7 day life.

"Day 2 is the best day to see them Mum. That's when they are the largest. By Day 5 they are getting smaller. The one on top of the rock was Day 2 but it was too hard to climb up to it".

Just nearby our guide spotted 4 buds that hopefully will become rafflesia. A good thing he saw them as we certainly wouldn't have spotted them. The buds are tiny and well camoflagued. These buds are around 2 months old and it will take another 7 months before they flower ... assuming they do flower. The chances of a bud being pollinated are only 20-30%.

If your children are interested in knowing more about rafflesia flowers, this site has a nice simple over view and some interesting facts.

On the way back we took the coastal road past fishing villages and then back across the crocodile ferry, but not before stopping to check out a fishermans catch!

Seeing Rafflesia at Gunung Gading National Park

Gunung Gading National Park is 2.5hrs from Kuching. Our guesthouse was between Kuching and the Park so it only took us 1 hr 45 mins. It's was an easy drive on a good road. You can take a bus from Kuching but it's a bit complicated and involves two buses plus a taxi - but if you want to try it this website will give you details of how to get there.

Entrance to the Park costs RM10 for adults, children are RM5 or free if less than 6 years of age. A guide for the Rafflesia walk costs RM30. I'm not usually one for recommending a guide - I'd rather do it myself most of the time. But in this case I think It's actually worth paying for the guide. The flowers aren't on the main path and we would have completely missed spotting the tiny buds of new rafflesia if it wasn't for the guide. He was really informative and interesting, and helped us get the kids over some of the trickier spots on the path.

The is no store at the park selling drinks or snacks - bring your own or pick them up in the town just before the park.

If you really enjoy hiking we're told there are some lovely waterfalls and trails in the park. For those you really wouldn't need a guide - the main path looked well signed and easy. You can also stay overnight inside the park. The accommodation is simple, ranging from an entire house to bunk beds in a shared dorm. To enquire about accommodation or make a booking, contact Sarawak Forestry

Hiho hiho, it's back to the Perhentians we go

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:50:34 +1000

"Let's drive up to Phuket and go to Phi Phi to visit friends"

After a month of being stationary itchy travel feet struck. Yep we lasted a month in Penang before talking about going away again. That's pretty sad right? But it's hard to ignore the lure of snorkeling, diving, Thai curries and hanging out with friends on the beach! Part of our reason for choosing this lifestyle was that if we want to impulsively head off for a week to Thailand we can ... well provided our credit card isn't maxed out!

The problem was our last road trip into Thailand didn't really go to plan. An 8hr border crossing that should have taken three and the kids getting really high fevers when we only enough paracetamol for half a child. This of course was when we learned that Hayley + high fevers + car trips = projectile vomiting. Exactly what you want your car to smell like with several days of driving still ahead! And of course there were the usual parental arguments over navigation leaving Colin and I not talking and Noah convinced a GPS is smarter than his mother. He may honestly have a point.

Finally our road trip ended when the radiator blew up in Surat Thani.

With all that stacked against us, we weren't that confident that we'd actually make it to Phuket if we tried another Thai road trip.

So that's when we settled on the Perhentian Islands, our favourite place in Malaysia! Situated just off the north-east coast of Malaysia close to the Thai border, the Perhentians are closer and less developed than a lot of their Thai neighbours. We even knew people who were currently there doing their diving course so maybe we could squeeze in a couple of dives with friends. Another travelling family, Mary, Jeff and their three boys from Bohemian Travelers were in Penang and they were keen to join us for an island escape somewhere. Children for Noah and Hayley to play with and adults for us to talk to! This was shaping up to be a great holiday.

Of course we had to get there first, which meant a 5+ hour drive with 4 adults, 1 teen and 4 kids under 8 in our minivan.

You can probably imagine just how fun the drive over was.

We started out well - two toilet stops before we even left Penang! This was going to be a very long drive!

In the end it wasn't that bad. There was the usual squabbling and bickering, the bi-minutely queries of "When are we going to get there" and far too many hours spent with little children sitting on laps. But the kids were great and we made it to the Kuala Besut where the speed boats for the islands leave from with 5 minutes to spare before the last ferry for the day left.

Our last speed boat to the Perhentians was a leisurely affair on calm seas where we felt like every bump was washing away all our stress and cares. This time ... in the words of Noah and Hayley: "THIS IS THE BEST ROLLER COASTER RIDE EVER!!!!!"

The seas were big and the driver seemed rather keen to get there in record time. We all got wet. The bags got thrown around a lot, and so did we. My back and butt took a lot longer to recover than my pulse from that trip.

But we made it ...

Ahhh bliss ...

Our first stop on the Perhentians was two nights at the Flora Bay Resort on Teluk Dalam on Perhentian Besar.

Resort is probably not the right word to describe Flora Bay but it suited our needs. Simple A Frame cabins a few steps from the beach with AC and hot water. It was exactly what we were expecting and why would you need anything more when you have this 2m from your front door ...

Teluk Dalam beach was idyllic. March is still low season in the Perhentians so it was deserted and felt a million miles from anywhere. Dotted along one of the largest beaches in the Perhentians were around 6 resorts and restaurants. Flora Bay and a small roti restaurant right on the sand were the only places down the far end of the beach, the rest were all grouped at the other end. The kids ran and played. Flora Bay was undergoing renovations so they had three piles of dirt the height of two adults ... you can probably guess where the children were when they weren't on the beach.

In the afternoons we walked down to the other end of the beach for dinner and walked back along the pitch black beach with torches watching the stars. It would have been more idyllic if there weren't fights over how got the best torch of course! Apparently when you are packing torches it pays to check that both are identical in every way!

Snorkelling and diving time!

Being the end of the wet season the seas around the Perhentians were still a little rough. The waters off Teluk Dalam were too choppy for snorkeling. And while the restaurants on Teluk Dalam were the cheapest we've seen anywhere in the Perhentians, Flora Bay was quite expensive for what you go. We paid RM140 for one double bed with AC and hot water. We bought our own beds for the kids with us. A family room was RM185. So after two nights we decided to move to another beach.

Our favourite beach last time was Tuna Bay Beach. It's perfect for snorkeling with young kids as the coral is just 3m off shore and was a lot more sheltered from the rough seas.

After checking out a couple of places we settled on New Cocohut at the far end of the beach. Since we were two families and it was mid-week they gave us two rooms with two double beds in each, AC, hot water and breakfast for two adults for RM130 per room. That's actually a really good deal - the Perhentians aren't cheap for accommodation, particularly if you want AC as everything runs off generator.

New Cocohut had a great restaurant area for Colin to work when he needed to and a huge shady beachfront area where the kids could play all day in the shade. The beach right out front wasn't really suitable for swimming with young kids and there was a small seawall between us and the beach, but it was a great spot and only a 2 minute walk around the main part of Tuna Bay.

We spent 3 nights at New Cocohut having a fantastic time. Lazy mornings for Colin and the kids while I went diving. Then afternoons spent snorkelling and playing in the sand with friends while Colin worked. Early dinners on the beach that were only mildly chaotic thanks to tired kids ... most nights anyway ... and early bedtimes for everyone.

I love the Perhentians. There's so little to do there except swim and sit around talking while the kids make friends and play. I usually struggle for the first morning or two with the need to go do something. Anything, just something! But by the third morning you get into the swing of things, find a hammock and teach the kids how to play beach cricket.

Perhentians in March? Is it a good idea to go in low season?

Well we certainly had a fantastic time. I'm not sure there is every a bad time to go to the Perhentians.

The water wasn't quite as clear as during our last visit. We were here in August last time, the height of high season, whereas March is right on the end of the wet season. We saw very little rain but the seas were a little rougher than last time, reducing visibility. It was still stunning though. It's just not quite as great as high season ... but it's still clearer than any other island we've visited in South East Asia. For snorkeling the visibility was easily 5-8m depending on where we went. On my dives the visibility ranged between 8-12 m. In high season it was closer to 15m on a good day for diving.

If you can afford to go in high season I'd really recommend it, but Perhentians are a relatively expensive place for budget travellers so March isn't a bad compromise - low season prices but if you pick the right beach the water is certainly clear enough for fantastic snorkeling.

This post is part of Delicious Baby's Photo Friday series.

Photo Friday: Ice paleontology and trampolines

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:20:10 +1000

11pm. Two fans and one glass filled with iced water. And still the sweat is dripping off me. My legs are stuck to the chair. I think it's safe to say that tomorrow is going to be just as hot as today ... and yesterday and the day before.

Our first few weeks back in Penang were the end of the wet season. Daily storms and a few days each week that were overcast with occasional showers. These are the days I love in Penang. It's cool, the air is fresh and the thunder is amazing. Walking in light rain when it's 28 degrees feels so good. But the past two weeks have marked the start of the half a year in Penang that's hot and generally pretty dry. This week has been worse than the normal. Those -25 degrees Celsius European winter days are starting to feel pretty nice about nice.

Noah wrote this a few weeks ago to a friend (under protest of course!) while it was still raining most days and bearable. That pretty much sums up my feeling at the moment. How can it be so hot at 11pm?

So what do you do when you have a really hot spell in the tropics to keep the kids occupied? A lot of indoor play, swims and visits to the mall! And anything that you can think of that involves ice or water.

The other day I saw a blog post for a fantastic idea of something to do with kids on a hot day - excavating toy dinosaurs from ice. I called Noah and Hayley over to show them. They made it as far as the first photo before they were out in the backyard with every dinosaur they owned, several large tupperware containers and hoses. I guess they liked the idea. Another travelling family is staying at a guesthouse on our street this week. We messaged them and sure enough their two youngest boys wanted to try it too.

I soon had a freezer filled with containers of water and dinosaurs. Good thing I haven't been grocery shopping this week and my freezer was practically empty!

The next day when it was nicely frozen we tipped out our giant ice cubes on the driveway and the kids set to work with every tool they thought might be useful. Ice cream scoops, spoons, spatulas, hammers, salt and warm water.

Hammers were the best tool for the job, although we had to have a discussion about why you wouldn't use hammers is this was a real dinosaur dig!

Half an hour later we had the dinosaurs freed and a drive way covered in ice.

There was only one possible progression from here - collect all the ice and tip it onto the trampoline for some icy jumping fun!

In case you'd like to do this too, here are the steps (although it's pretty obvious!)

1) Direct your children to find dinosaurs (or other plastic/metal toys) of various sizes and weights. You want them to be different sizes as you have to use different techniques to get a smaller toy free of the ice than a larger toy - that adds to the challenge and prolongs the activity! Different weights helps ensure that some dinos will float to the top and some will stay on the bottom when you add the water - that way the dinos are distributed all throughout the ice, not just floating on the top or bottom.

2) Select a large plastic container and add your toys. It's a good idea to have one container per child. Fill it with water and make sure you are happy with the arrangement of dinosaurs. Place it in the freezer and leave overnight.

3) The next day tip out your ice and set about collecting every kitchen/garden tool you think might be useful. Ice and water is going to go everywhere so make sure you have a large area outside to work. We did it on our driveway but the original post we read suggested completing the activity inside a small plastic wading pool.

And there you have it - a great solution for keeping kids occupied on a hot day in the tropics. Icy paleontology fun!

Thanks to Delicious Baby for another Photo Friday.

I knew I spoke too soon!

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:35:14 +1000

Three weeks ago I made one of the most stupid announcements ever. "Wow, since we've been back in Penang I haven't had a migraine."

I really was asking for it wasn't I? The next day I woke up with a migraine. Since then I've maybe had three headache free days in three weeks.

Saying these things is the quickest way to jinx yourself. It's like saying "We never get sick" - by the time those words are out of your mouth someone will be sneezing. By the end of the week the whole family will all be guaranteed with guys in hazard suits serving you soup behind plastic screens inside a bubble house. At least I was smart enough to make my headache declaration in a country with freely available over-the-counter migraine medication.

Will I never learn? Probably not!

Take the whole schooling fiasco.

Last week I stupidly wrote that we felt like we'd finally found the right solution for us. After a few years of feeling like we were struggling to do a decent job of homeschooling the kids, really affordable distance education seemed like the answer to all our problems. Sure we knew there would be challenges but to have help and a program to follow would be worth it right?

Friday afternoon our distance education shipment arrived. Three boxes to cover the next 6 weeks.

Three really big boxes. Not teeny tiny shoe boxes. 40cm x 40xm x 50cm boxes. Oh boy ...

What on earth had they sent us? One of the boxes was almost big enough to fit a set of golf clubs in it. Did they think we were off on a Spain golf holiday and they thought just maybe the kids needed their own clubs? Had they sent us microscopes and a full encyclopedia Britannica set that were expected to cart around with us?

Of course, the kids were just excited to have boxes with their names on them hand delivered by a courier. The biggest box was NOT filled with encyclopedias - it was crammed full of craft supplies. Hayley and Noah were in heaven. Of course it wouldn't be a postal shipment if one of the packets of paint hadn't burst open and coated every craft stick and googly eye contained in the same small packet would it?

You can fix that mum while we open the other boxes. Please?

Friday night I sat up late trying to get a grip on it all. Teachers guides, workbooks. lesson plans. It was thorough and despite feeling a bit overwhelmed I was happy. The program looked fantastic - a really great mix of creativity and formal lessons. In the first week Noah got to build a bird garden and make bird seed to attract birds for him to write about in a journal. Hayley got to cook her own playdough and design a cubbyhouse. On top of a lot of writing, reading and maths of course.

It looked exactly like what I was hoping for.

Except...

Except there seemed to be three times as much work as I would have thought necessary for six weeks worth of work. I've been in primary school classrooms. I know how much kids actually get through in a day and this seemed like a lot more. A lot lot more. Maybe I was reading it wrong.

Over the next few days we sat down to give it a go. On the first day we spent five hours and covered less than half a days work. The second day was the same. How are we going to do this while we're travelling? Noah, our reluctant learner extraordinaire, was melting down over the amount of work he was expected to do, even when we were only aiming to do half of it each day. Hayley ... well Hayley was over the moon. She loves schoolwork and keeping busy so she was in heaven. Or course hers was mainly cutting and sticking so who wouldn't be excited!

I started chatting to homeschooling friends that have been doing this a lot longer than us and friends who are teachers, showing them the kids schoolwork and schedule. They all agreed the amount of work was crazy. That made me feel a little better.

But it still left me with the dilemma of what to do now. And kicking myself.

This was obviously all my fault. I said we had found a solution. I was just asking for it all to go pear-shaped the instance I said that!

I've spent the last few days looking researching other options. Books that are available here in Penang or online, after-school classes and sport that could suppliment homelearning and full homeschooling curriculum's like Sonlight that wouldn't tie us into such a strict timetable but still give us a framework. And of course speaking to the school about a less intensive, more flexible schedule, which they were happy to accommodate but we're still not sure if it's for us.

And a lot more time spent talking to other homeschooling families about what they do (thanks Alison, Tina, Dana and Amy!).

We've also been doing a lot of soul searching. We've been lucky enough to have another travelling family who have been unschooling for years in Penang this week to discuss our situation with. Which has been so fantastic. Thanks Mary! She's actually written a very helpful and fantastic article on their blog about commonly asked homeschooling/unschooling questions.

Talking with them has made us think about WHY we felt homeschooling wasn't working for us.

The kids have certainly learned a lot in the past few years. Hayley is ahead of where she 'should' be, Noah is ahead in most areas except literacy. After focusing on reading a few books every day over the past two weeks he's made some huge improvements with his reading but he still doesn't enjoy it. Writing ... he's just not interested but it's really the only area of the school curriculum that's a problem. If you give either of them the choice of video games Vs having a story read to them, video games will always come off second best. We've gotten to the point that we can't beat them at memory or go fish anymore. They've learned to swim, snorkel, ski and Noah's quickly picking up badminton thanks to afternoons spent at the neighbours. They've learned how to make roti canai, peel veges, slice anything that doesn't need too sharp a knife, put together a salad and make a fantastic Anzac biscuit. They realise there are a lot of languages out there and know how to say hello and thank you in eight languages, and a bit more than this in German and Bahasa Melayu. They have friends from all around the world and can make a new friend in under 3 seconds. Both kids are happy, confident and sociable.

When you think about it, homeschooling clearly hasn't been a disaster for us.

So why don't we feel it's working for us?

You might have noticed in that last paragraph that I kept using the word 'ahead' - comparing the kids with where they would be at if they were attending a school.

That's 95% of our problem right there! We're stuck with our perceptions of what education should look like and how it works. Colin and I both attended traditional schools and had a normal, happy school experience. Everyone we knew did the same and were now sending enrolling their kids in school. Which is fabulous, I'm just pointing out with all this is it surprising that when we think about schooling we picture a typical 9-3 school experience with grades and in some way try to model and compare our homeschooling against this?

When we were first trying to figure out this whole homeschooling caper and exactly what to teach our children it made a lot of sense to look at the grade they would be in at school and see what children in that grade are expected to achieve. Obviously we knew that in K-2 children weren't expected them to be able to do long division or calculate the compound interest on a property for sale in Algarve on a 20 year loan Vs a New York apartment on a 30 year loan, but we did want to see at what age things like time tables were introduced, how many sight-words a Grade 1 child would be expected to know Vs a Grade 2 child.

That seems reasonable, so what's the problem?

The problem is we've chosen to live this flexible life that isn't the traditional the 9-5 work life. Our life isn't 'normal'. Our children's life experiences and opportunities are different to what they would be if they were living in suburbia in Australia so why are we trying to constantly compare the kids education against regular schooling? I guess it's just what we know but it's this comparison that's causing us to feel like homeschooling isn't working - all because Noah is 'behind' in literacy where he 'should be' if you compare him to his Grade 2 peers back in Australia.

The question is, is that really such a big problem?

I was reading Jennifer McGrail's post 'So you're thinking of homeschooling' and something she said really struck true with me:

Some of the true beauty of homeschooling is that it can be – and should be! – 100% unique to each family. You do yourself and your kids a great disservice if you try to model your homeschooling experience after a school. You opted out of school for a reason; don’t bring it home with you! In order to successfully homeschool, you have to learn to be flexible. Flexible in both thought and action, and flexible enough to admit that you’ve made a mistake.

The past few years has been a gradual shift in our thinking. I've always believed that play, every day life experiences and museums hold more educational value than sitting down to do maths sums, and we've seen how true this is firsthand. We know kids learn at their own pace and that Noah is still really young. But in the back of our minds is still that little voice saying 'what if he's behind because of our teaching or lifestyle, not because of him?'

That's really why we were worried about being disorganised and wanting someone to help us. Problems with behaviour and sport and socialisation can all be remedied in other ways. We can choose to be more organised if we need too without external help. It won't be easy but it's ultimately up to us. The true heart of the distance education decision was that nagging 'what if our disorganisation is part of the reason he's behind' voice.

And to be honest it probably isn't helping! It's something we've decided to work on.

Over the past few days a number of fabulous homeschooling friends have made the point to us that when the kids have a reason to learn about something they will learn it.

It's made us realise that this is Noah's problem. We've tried everything we can think of to encourage him to write. We've made it fun, we've made it boring. We've done it with chalk, paint, foam, sand, whiteboard markers. We've picked things he's interested and given him the choice of writing topics. If he wants to write a story about zombies getting destroyed by a snot volcano then that's fine by me.

But Noah still doesn't see a need for writing so why would he want to learn it?

If he had of been in a classroom filled with other kids all writing and reading the last few years maybe he would already see a need for it. Maybe not. One day he will see the need. He'll have a cousin who sends him an email and he'll want to reply. Or a friend to send a postcard too. Most likely his will see his sister writing to her friends and cousins, and he'll suddenly go 'hey wait a minute she's younger than me!' Whatever the reason, one day he'll see the need and want to learn to write. And being older he'll pick it up quickly and catch up to his peers. In the meantime he's two years ahead in maths, loves science, will happily spend a day at a bookstore being read too and lives in a house that is pretty much a library.

Is being behind where he 'should be' really such a problem? Do we really want to try to force him to learn something that at the moment makes him miserable just so we need validation that we're doing the right thing. Or worse so we don't feel like we're going to be judged as bad parents for keeping our kids out of traditional school to travel? And do we want to force ourselves to stick to someone else's curriculum in order to 'catch-up' if it means missing out on educational outings or the flexibility to let a morning session of building playdough charaters morphs into learning about animation and movie making because that's where the kids want to take it? What are they going to learn more from? Writing a book report or exploring a museum?

Maybe it's our attitudes and beliefs that have to change.

Homeschooling is working for us. It's not perfect but maybe it doesn't need to be, so long as the kids are happy, engaged and progressing at their own pace. They certainly prefer homeschooling to any other option available to them in Penang. We're still not 100% sure what we're doing, and even if we were I wouldn't be proclaiming it for fear of being struck down again by the 'we never get sick' curse!

But we are starting to realise that part of homeschooling your kids is a gradual shift in attitudes and beliefs that takes years and we're only two years in. Like Jennifer said, we opted out of school to travel for a reason - because among other reasons we thought that travel and more time with us would give our children a better education. Maybe it's time to just go with the flow, trust in ourselves and our kids and take the time to find what works for us ourselves. Because for the most part it is working, we just need to take the time to realise it more!

And take the time to get a little more organised of course!

Photo Friday: No parking ... donkeys?

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 23:34:09 +1000

We've seen some hilarious signs during our travels. Toilet signs in Penang illustrating how to sit on a toilet properly and how to check if your poo is healthy. Translations gone completely wrong like the sign in a washroom in KFC on the Thai/Malaysian border stating "please don't abandons paper rubs the hands dry to appeared the lavatory, thanks You!". Umm what?

But a 'No Parking Donkeys' sign along a busy main road in Heraklion, the largest city in Crete, perhaps wins the award for best sign.

Mainly because Heraklion seemed to be quite lacking in donkey's.

Despite a wonderful old world feel thanks to the preservation of so much of the city's history, Heraklion has all the trappings of a modern city. Walking along the waterfront you can see the cities history peeled away in layers - Roman ruins, the Venetian waterfront and harbour, the old fort, the old tunnels from World War I. It's stunning and fascinating. But you'll also see motorways, shopping malls, Starbucks, McDonalds and a bustling shipping port. The drivers and their attitudes towards parking in Heraklion rival downtown Hanoi.

But no donkeys. Not a single one despite several days exploring Heraklion.

This post is part of Photo Friday at Delicious Baby. And thanks to Theodora from Travels With a Nine Year Old for being my Greek translation friend and confirming that we weren't just misinterpreting the sign!

The ongoing dilemma of schooling while travelling

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:57:31 +1000

We've officially settled back into life in Penang. It's been quiet so I haven't had much to blog about. Apart from trying not to overdose on butter chicken, our biggest challenge over the past few weeks has been trying to sort out Noah and Hayley's education for the next year or two.

Two years ago when we started travelling Noah was only 4.5 years old. His birthday fell two days before the cutoff for starting Kindergarten that year so we could choose to start him that year or wait till the following year. Since the first year was play-based there wasn't much that we couldn't easily cover through life experiences, play, museum visits and a little bit of phonics/writing/maths practise. He wasn't interested in learning to read and write at the start of the year so we held off figuring that worst case scenario we'd look at school next year. When we decided to stop for a few months in Penang we enrolled him in a local daycare that covered all the literacy he would have encountered in Kindergarten in Australia and half of Grade 1 maths.

Last year Noah still wasn't that interested in reading and writing. By a couple of months into the year we'd decided to return to Penang and we knew he'd catch up if we enrolled him in a local daycare. Which is exactly what happened. The kids went to a different daycare closer to our new home and he quickly caught up to almost where he should be in reading and writing. A few months behind but we weren't too worried as he was doing fine in other areas and he was still very young by Grade 1 standards.

And of course Hayley was too young by Australian standards to attend school.

And then there were two ...

This year things are a little different. Technically Noah should be in Grade 2, where he really should be able to read and write more than one sentence without it seeming like Chinese water torture. And with her 5th birthday coming up in three months Hayley would be eligible to start Kindergarten in Australia this year. After a couple of years of attending daycare in Malaysia where even young children do 'schoolwork' she's more than ready for Kindergarten. Unlike her brother she thinks writing and reading are fun!

We could continue homeschooling the kids ourselves but we've come to the realisation that it's currently not working for us. It's not that we don't think homeschooling is a good option when it comes to education. Homeschooling has some amazing benefits and we've gone from seeing it as a means to an end to allow us to live this lifestyle to seeing it as a really great option for our family for so many reasons. That's been a really big shift in our thinking because Colin and I both had great experiences in mainstream schooling so we both always just pictured our kids having the same experiences. But the more we travel and learn and experience the more we see the benefits of homeschooling.

To quote that overused breakup line: it's not homeschooling, it's us.

Our life is really interrupted. We weren't the most organised people before travelling but since hitting the road it's gotten worse. Every day is a little different because we are always somewhere different, so it's hard to get a routine working.

Fitting in things like museum visits and science centres is easy. Actually remembering to sit down to write or read something on a daily or even weekly basis ... that's a challenge. When we're stopped somewhere for a month or more homeschooling is much easier. It's when we're on the road that we struggle.

We can see that lack of routine is starting to affect the kids. Particularly Noah. He's always been an energetic, easily distracted kid that looses motivation quickly. Unless it involves an iPad! He needs to stop for a while and have structure, as well as sports and the same kids to play with week after week so he can learn to sort out all those inter-personal issues that only crop up when you see the same kids week after week. Even just in the three weeks we've been back in Penang we've noticed improvements in his behaviour and ability to concentrate.

The older Noah gets the more I realise how similar he is to me. He learns best when he's in a classroom environment with other children all doing the same thing and he can get the instant reward of doing well in front of his peers. Provided he's not sitting next to his best friend. Then he just wants to chat - that he gets from Colin! With just us, even when it's something he's interested in like zombies or volcanoes he quickly looses attention. Homecshooling like we've been doing just doesn't seem to motivate him. We've tried different approaches, different methods, different topics. It's not that we're not making the work exciting enough or offering him enough opportunities for authentic learning or working on things he's interested in. It the fact that it's just us, not a classroom. And our vagabond lifestyle really isn't helping with that whole attention thing!

Since we're spending a lot of the year in Penang we've taking the opportunity to try to figure out what works for us when it comes to the kids education and get into better habits for next year when we hope to be on the other-side of the world travelling for at least half the year.

So if we don't want to 'homeschool' what are our options?

Since we have decided to spend most of this year in Penang, apart from a few trips, it makes sense to enrol the kids in some form of education here. That provides them structure, friends and time in a regular classroom environment.

But we also need to come up with a long term solution that will work while we travel, regardless of whether we're RVing around the USA or trecking around Africa on a wildlife safari holiday. Or hanging out in a ski resort in Bulgaria, enjoying a French villa rental or a houseswap in China.

The tricky bit of course is figuring out what.

In previous years we've relied on daycare here in Malaysia. It's inexpensive and the daycares are generally flexible about absences. The books they use can be found in the bookstores here so continuing the same workbooks while we travelled is easy ... that is if you aren't too disorganised to actually get out those notebooks! This year Noah is technically too old to attend a local daycare. The daycare the children originally attended, which was fantastic, was happy to enrol him and just set him harder work but that would mean he was essentially working through paper and pencil notebooks by himself while the rest of the class did their work. We ended up deciding that for a boy that's not motivated and prefers to work with peers it's probably not the best choice. It also didn't really cover what he would be learning if he was in grade 2 back in Australia, nor provide a long term solution.

Enrolling the kids in a local primary school or international school for the year was another option. Penang has some fantastic international schools with really great teachers and programs. The fees for Primary school are reasonable, well by international school standards anyway, but the problem for us is the start up costs. Enrolment fees, placement fees, deposits, materials deposits. To start both kids in an international school this year would cost us over $8000AUD. And that's just to start them and cover the first term.

Add in the fact that we're going to be away for at least a month each term and the fact that we're not even sure that we're going to be here next year and that seems like a lot of money. If we knew we were going to be in Penang for the next 5 years then investing that kind of money into the kids education would be something we'd be happy to consider. But for just one year it seems excessive!

There are good local primary schools but a lot of them require students to be permanent residents. There are schools that will accept the kids without residency but then we have the next challenge - finding a school that is happy for us to have the kids away so frequently. Considering how seriously they take schooling here in Malaysia a lot of the schools would have problems with this. And while we're really happy with the level of education offered in local schools in Penang the discipline and attitude towards education is not what we believe in. Even at daycare the kids were coming home with homework every day. Art and creative thinking isn't a vital part of the program and based on our experiences at daycare even playtime seems to be pretty regulated. Discipline is strict, and not in a good 'Super Nanny' way. The cane is still commonly used in schools. Not every school of course but a lot still use it.

If the children were older we'd be happy that they could distinguish between what happens at school and what we think is right. We'd chalk it up to all part of the cultural experience, discuss it with them and enrol them in a local school. But at 6 and 4 we think they are still too impressionable. We've already seen the negative affect this has on the kids from their last daycare. Their last daycare used the cane, despite telling parents it was just for hitting the table with to make a loud noise to shock the kids. It wasn't until several months later after the children come home every second day saying 'such and such was hit today' or 'I got hit today' that the teachers finally started telling us they were hitting the kids. With even just a few months at the school we noticed a huge change in the kids behaviour. Always yelling at each other. Hayley's imaginary role play as the teacher suddenly turned from a caring, nurturing teacher into spanking her teddy bears for not listening and yelling at them.

Perhaps it's a complete over reaction on our part based on a bad experience. I'm sure there are fantastic local schools but even then we'd need to find the right school that would allow the kids to attend without being residents and not mind that we will be away for at least one month each term.

And it still doesn't really solve our problem of finding a way to educate the children while we travel that works for us.

The final decision ...

... has been to enrol Noah and Hayley in a distance education school in Australia. We've done the paperwork and are just waiting on their first lessons to arrive in the mail. We've looked into distance education previously but had decided against it as the state in Australia that we were residents of was actually really expensive to enrol in distance education and trying to organise dispatch/shipment of learning materials when we had no clue where we were going to be seemed like a nightmare. Now that we've decided when we do return to Australia we'd like to live in another state for a while we are eligible to enrol in that state, where distance education is almost completely government subsidised. Of course we have to cover the cost of postage back to Australia and I have no idea how we're going to deal with receiving materials next year but we have a year to work it out!

So far the school has been fantastic. We have a teacher, regular correspondence and online support. The enrolment took less than 24 hours to organise, from initial inquiry to assigning a teacher, without a single phone call. Once we have the kids lessons we'll be taking part in weekly online virtual classrooms. The school seems very flexible and happy to teach each child where they are at rather than a 'you are 6 so you should be doing this!' attitude. They also seem to appreciate the benefits of learning outside of pencil and paper. Looking at photos of other students it seems that the school considers cooking and digging in the garden just as important as doing maths and writing. Which fits in with our views and lifestyle. At least those are our initial impressions - lets hope they're true.

In the meantime we're doing our own schoolwork. This week's highlights - write the recipe for Anzac biscuits and make them without Mum's help (except for the hot stuff), planting our own seeds to learn about plants and a game of monopoly as a maths lesson. There's been a lot of reading too. Homeschooling is so much easier when you have access to a house full of stuff, bookshelves stocked with books, a kitchen and yard!

I'm really looking forward to being answerable to someone else to force us to stick to some sort of schedule. I'm sure we're going to struggle to fit it in at times and rue the decision but I think we need this kind of discipline for a few years for all our sakes. We're already getting more organised in anticipation of 'school'. We have a whiteboard where we decide together what we will do today. Of course whether we actually get half that stuff done and don't get distracted by something else is another thing altogether. Or end up rubbing off the schedule to draw pirate and princess maths problems. But the kids are already starting to plan and organise their day better so it's a step in the right direction.

I'm also really excited to experience someone else's curriculum for a few years. I was halfway through a teaching degree before leaving Australia and had spent a few months in classrooms on prac but I'm under no illusion that I have this whole teaching thing sorted. I'm hoping that this experience is going to teach me a lot and hopefully set us up better to continue homeschooling if we keep travelling. And we also know that at some point we'd like the kids to physically attend a school back in Australia so it's going to be nice to see how they fit in!

At the moment the kids are also attending a local after-school program at Apple Tree daycare in Penang where they can meet and play with other kids. We'll see how it goes! Over the next few weeks we're hoping to enrol them in something fun like music or sport. One of the reasons we love Penang is there are a lot of great options in Penang for this. Just down the road from us we have several after-school tuition centres that not only run maths and language classes, they also offer arts and Tae Kwon Do. For less than $3 a lesson!

One of the international schools, Dalat also offers a distance education support group where homeschoolers can pay an annual fee of roughly $200 so that the whole family can access the school library, education materials and after-school sports. We're off to check that out next week.

We've also spent some time making friends with our neighbours who have similar aged children and discovered that while we were away another homeschooling family with childre has moved in across the road. And we're developing a good network of friends in Penang that also homeschool or do distance education so hopefully we can do some more socialising and fun co-op activities with them.

And so that's where we're at. Fingers crossed it all works out! If not we seem to be getting pretty good at coming up with plan D, E and Z!

Enjoying Penang ... again

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:03:57 +1000

We've been back in Penang for two weeks. It feels like we've been away for a lot longer than three months and after finding so many places in eastern europe that we loved it feels a little less like home, but it's lovely to be back catching up with friends, sleeping on our own pillows and with more than 5 sets of clothes.

And we're enjoying seeing all those familiar sights of Penang again. The beaches, the orange glow of sunset that seems to last for hours and the thunderstorms. The old heritage buildings. Many are being restored (some for better, some for worse) but I love stumbling across ones that have been left to quietly decay as well.

Heading to the markets and supermarkets here is an adventure. More and more western products and organic products are starting to appear but the stores and shopping experience is still so different from back home. Did you know you can by MSG by the bag?

These fish heads and stingrays weren't on display at a local wet markets. This is the giant supermarket chain Tesco. There's something wonderful about going into a big international supermarket and coming across something you wouldn't see back home.

Of course the kids just wish the supermarket had less smelly fish.

And then there are head-scratching bewildering sights that I don't think anyone who didn't grow up here will ever understand, but are just one of the fascinating things about living in another country ...

Like Sweet Corn ice cream. You can even get it in a triple pack along with Durian ice cream and Red Bean ice cream. Hmm ... I think I'll stick with chocolate thanks.

And the bathroom instruction signs!

I still laugh every time I walk into a toilet in a shopping centre or restaurant to discover the seat covered in footprints. Asian squat toilets are common and many people are more comfortable squatting than sitting so when faced with a western toilet ... I guess squatting on top of it makes sense.

But it still gives me a giggle to see footprints on a toilet seat! All I can say is these woman must have better balance than I do trying to hold up long skirts while teetering on the edge of a toilet.

Of all the sights in Penang though, this is my favourite.

The old public school buses that time forgot. This one is actually one of the newer buses. Most are smaller with a lot more rust and dents, quite possibly held together by sticky-tape and a fair amount of luck if the outside appearance is anything to go by.

With all the massive new apartment complexes, shopping centres and land development going on in Penang, it's easy at times to forget you are living in a developing country. The local kampong housing and old apartments are still here but they are gradually being replaced, painted, overshadowed or developed in front of. There have been huge changes even in the two years we've been coming here. Like the replacement of the 1960s public buses that struggled to make it up the hills as you sweltered on the cracked plastic chairs. Now there are brand new AC buses. Some even have WIFI. No more wondering if your bus is going to die 6 times on the way to the airport forcing you to claim on your backpackers insurance for missed flights.

But for now the old school buses remain ferry children back and forth to school. I like seeing them as a reminder that not everything here is shiny new million ringgit apartments with ocean views and swimming pools.

Thanks to Delicious Baby for another Photo Friday!

Photo Friday: Walking the streets of Sofia

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:17:28 +1000

Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, gets a bit of a bad rap in comparison to other cities in Eastern Europe. It lacks a scenic riverfront to walk along and enjoy. Thanks to the unimaginative grey-brown communist apartment blocks that fill the inner city after widespread destruction during World War II, vast sections of the city appear very drab and monotonous. It can be hard to tell one street from the other. Many of the footpaths are so filled with broken tiles you may start to wonder if you've taken a wrong corner on one of the uniform streets and ended up back in Asia.

But some of the streets and buildings are just breath-taking. I've yet to visit a city that has so many gorgeous temples and churches. Every second corner seems to house a church, each one not just a building but a work of art. Alexandar Nevski Cathedral is the most well know and it's breath-taking (photo above) but even the 'smaller' churches are still fabulous. The pre-communist era buildings that remain are grand, ornate and make one feel about the size of a dwarf walking past them.

If you are travelling around southern-eastern Europe or just passing through on your way to Greece or Turkey, there's a pretty good chance your path will take you through Sofia. It's a transport hub for the area. And if you have the time, Sofia is definitely worth stopping for a few days. It might not steal your heart the way Prague or Belgrade does but we really enjoyed Sofia. The people of Sofia are amazingly friendly. In summer there are stunning parks with great playgrounds. In winter there is ice skating and the fabulous indoor playground of Capella Play a The Mall (not the Mall of Sofia, just 'The Mall'). Just outside the city on Vitosha mountain there are gorgeous little towns, hiking, skiing and forest to play in.

It's also an easy place to get around with children - taxis are very cheap and trams are easy to navigate. But of course the best way to enjoy the gorgeous buildings is to take a walk.

DIY Sofia Walking Tour

There are a lot of great walking tours in Sofia. Hostel Mostel, where we stayed, has a fabulous free map that outlines them all.

During our first visit there Colin took the kids one morning so I could wander the city with my camera. My path - from Sveta Nedelia Square down Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard to Alexander Nevski Cathedral. From Alexander Nevski Cathedral I wandered the side streets to Graf Ignatiev Street and walked back through the fruit and book markets to the main shopping area. The walk took a few hours as I was stopping a lot to take photos. You could do it with kids as there are plenty of coffee shops, restaurants and of course the markets along the way.

I was lucky enough to be exploring on the last sunny winter's day before it started snowing in Sofia. And here's what I saw:

St Nedelya Church

Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard

Church of St George

Considered to be the oldest building in Sofia, this 4th Century church is hidden inside the Sheraton hotel at the start of Tsar Osvoboitel. Well worth stepping inside to see.

Archeology Museum, inside Sofia's oldest Ottoman Mosque

Ruska Pravoslavna Tsarkva

This Russian Church was one of the smallest churches I saw in Sofia, but it's not far behind Alexander Nevski for awe-inspiring beauty.

Alexander Nevski

This building is enough to make any art history student or architect weep. It's pretty impressive and well worth going inside to see the ceiling and the giant candelabra suspended from the dome. Sadly no photos allowed inside.

Sveti Sedmochislenitsi Church

Street Markets

Being winter decent fruit was a little hard to find in Sofia, but the fruit markets were fantastic.

OK now I'm going to cheat a little - I didn't make it past these buildings on my walk but saw them the next day, covered in snow. Definitely worth the detour. They should be at the start of the walking tour but it snowed overnight so there's no way I can hide the face that I'm cheating ... so here they are at the end.

Bayan Bashi Mosque

Church of St Petka

The second oldest building we saw in our walks around Sofia was the 6th Century Church of St Petka. It's now half hidden in a underpass between two lanes of road.

I hope you enjoyed this Photo Friday walk around Sofia.

Paris, you stole my phone not my heart

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:59:57 +1000

Dear Paris, It's not you, it's us. Well OK it's a little bit you, but please can we still be friends? If only we had of met 10 years ago on summer holidays it might have worked out differently. And did you really have to take my phone?

The final stop on our three months in Europe was four nights in Paris, one of which just happened to be Valentines Day. How amazing would it be to spend Valentines Day in Paris? It sounds like something out of a movie not real life (well unless you happen to live in Paris and then it's just the norm I guess).

We were excited. I'd never been there before, Colin only a few times when he was young. When we were first planning our trip, finishing in somewhere as exciting as Paris sounded like a great way to finish. Notre Damn, the Louvre, walking along the Seine, staying in Montmartre enjoying coffee shops and cobbled streets ... what a great way to finish our trip.

But in reality...

Going to Paris at the end of our trip wasn't the best decision we've ever made. We were so exhausted after three months of constant travel we didn't make the most of our time. We were staying in the heart of Montmartre and what did we do each night? It certainly wasn't going out to enjoy the coffee shops. We put the kids to bed and went to bed ourselves.

The final few weeks of our trip also coincided with a cold snap. Two weeks where the temperature never got above -15 degrees and a final week of -10 to -7 days. Being outside was just not enjoyable. Once we got to Paris the cold snap had finished and it warmed up to 5 degrees but it was a wet, rainy 5 degrees. The bright shininess of 'lets do Winter in Europe' had worn off. We were over the cold so walking around for hours in Paris just wasn't something we wanted to be doing.

And then Colin's iPhone was stolen.

It was a simple enough case of complacency on our part. Two years of travel and we'd never had anything stolen from us.

Colin was working in a corner at a McDonalds. I had his phone and put it on the table before taking the kids to a nearby museum. But I carelessly put the phone on the table behind his laptop screen where it wasn't in his line of sight and didn't tell him it was there. He didn't think to ask where I had left it. A few hours later a beggar came by asking for money. He had a laminated piece of paper that he put on the table. Colin thought it odd at the time the way the paper was held and left there for so long but not knowing the phone was there he was so busy keeping an eye on his wallet he didn't think anything of it. Colin gave the beggar some euro and he left with a pocket full of change ... and an iPhone.

That was pretty much the final straw for Paris as far as Colin was concerned. He was cold, tired, over seeing parks and old buildings ... and sans one iPhone. Days of facebook updates "Paris sucks! You took my iPhone"

We went to the police station, filed a report and found an app that we installed on the iPad that allowed us to remotely delete the information from Colin's phone to avoid any identity theft or potential account hacking. A quick check of our travel insurance soon showed us why the policy we went with (World Nomads) was so much cheaper than policies offered by other travel companies. $2500 cover for theft but only up to $250 per item. We could have specified the phones on our policy and received more but we'd reached our specified limit insuring the laptops and camera. Take out the $100 excess and replacing the phone was going to cost us a lot.

Lesson learned - our old travel insurance policy might have been $400 per year more expensive but they would have paid $800 to replace the phone. It's definitely worth looking at the fine print of what's paid out per item!

So ... Paris you suck!

Well that was Colin's tune anyway.

And you can't really blame him. Tired, cold, sick of travel, client emails starting to pour in as clients check their calendars and realise he'll soon be back in Penang ready to work ... and no phone.

Oh OK Paris you're not that bad ...

Of course the kids and I still had the museums, gallery's and sightseeing to look forward to. We'd never been to Paris before so even despite our tiredness it was still all bright, shiny and beautiful.

Even riding the metros were a big adventure. Paris's metro system makes Paris the easiest city to get around with kids that we've ever encountered. The train network is so comprehensive that you never had to walk more than three blocks, usually one. The average time we spent waiting for trains was 3 minutes, the most we ever waited was 10. It was perfect with the kids. Of course Hayley was still recovering from her adventures in Athens (as were the rest of us) so there was a lot of hand holding and talk of what to do if we got separated.

We visited the Musee d'Orsay and had a wonderful morning. The museums were fantastic, particularly the Museum of Comparative Anatomy and Paleontology. We went to the Natural History Museum twice, once to the main exhibit area and once to the children's museum. Both were fantastic.

The main museum would be perfect with older children who are interested in conservation and the impact of humans on the planet. They have a wonderful section that illustrates all the way humans are affecting animals. It was really comprehensive and listed a lot of causes that you generally wouldn't think of. The signage is mostly in French but it's not hard to work out the displays from just looking at them.

The children's museum at the Natural History Museum was good but not great. If you strike a wet day in Paris with nothing better to do it's worth going to, but otherwise save your money and head to a park. The kids will have just as much fun.

Valentines Day in Paris ... not quite like in the movies

So ... Valentines Day in Paris with tired kids, cold wet weather and your husband minus his iPhone ... you can probably guess just how romantic that turned out to be!

Still we did have a good day. A visit to the Musee d'Orsay in the morning before a walk across the river where we discovered one of Paris' love locked bridges. For the last few years couples have been leaving locks with their names inscribed on them on one of several of Paris's bridges in the hopes that it will help them live happily ever after. That's romantic right?

Then a quick walk through a park laughing at people who learned the hard way the perils of eating and walking in Paris when there are seagulls around ...

After lunch we went home for a rest (that yes included watching the Doctor Who episode where they take Vincent Van Gogh to the Musee d'Orsay) before enjoying our one night out in Paris. Pizza and pasta in Montmartre before catching the metro to see the Eiffel tower at night.

Which was fairly spectacular. And of course incredibly hard to take a decent photo of in the cold without a tripod! (All credit to Colin for the one shot that wasn't blurry)

I have to admit, I've watched one too many Hollywood movies because I was half expecting the Eiffel tower to be lit up pink or have a fluoro heart attached to it or something. That's always in the movies right or is that just me? Anyway, no pink hearts. Just golden lights and flashing sparkles. Definitely worth keeping the kids up late to see.

And that's it for Europe ... for now. Back to Penang for a few months of a break from living out of suitcases. Well until April when we head off to Sarawak for a few days and then spend May in Sri Lanka ... so OK a few weeks of living without suitcases. But we're looking forward to them!

The Bone Room: Museum of Comparative Anatomy Paris

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 02:38:54 +1000

I love museums, with or without the kids. But when it comes to natural history museums, is it just me or after visiting the first few do they all start to look the same?

So perhaps it might seem a little strange that I'm recommending another natural history museum, but we've just visited the Museum of Comparative Anatomy and Paleontology section of the Paris Natural History Museum and it was amazing. It's definitely up there with one of the most unique museum's I've ever seen.

Anyone who has visited a natural history museum in recent years has probably come across rooms filled with taxidermied animals. A long line of cases filled with genus' from mammals to reptiles or perhaps something like this one at the Natural History Museum of Paris ...

A huge procession of stuffed animals showing the evolution of life as we know it.

Now imagine that same procession but in bare bones, with not only modern animals but their ancestors alongside. Row after row of bare, gleaming bones lining the walls, floors and even the ceiling of a long 19th Century building.

Dinosaur bones, primate bones, whale bones, fish bones, mammoth bones, reptile bones. Giant bones larger than an adult human. Tiny bones so fragile you can't imagine how they ever preserved them in the first place.

Along the walls, glass cabinets are filled with an astonishing array of hip bones, thigh bones, teeth, hands and skulls from just about every species you can imagine. My favourite was the shelf of sabre tooth tiger teeth. Cause one set of sabre tooth teeth just isn't enough!

Speaking of teeth, I wouldn't have liked to come across this guy in prehistoric times. The head was as long as your average ten year old is tall.

Chomp!

And how about these eggs ...

The display of bones at the Museum is a little macabre, as are most Natural History Museums. I usually walk out of them feeling a bit depressed but this one was fascinating.

There are so many bones it stops being macabre and ends up somewhere between fascinating, art and just a little obsurd. And a lot more educational in my opinion than rooms of stuffed animals.

Being a comparative anatomy museum, the bones are arranged in species groups, then in larger genus and family groups. Seeing the bones of an African rhino next to an Asian rhino next to an ancient ancestor and other modern related species makes it fascinating. And a great way to show the kids the similarities between animals. Mammoths next to modern elephants, giraffes next to horses ... spotting the similarities and differences is easy when the bones are side by side.

The second floor has a great collection of dinosaurs, megafauna and even a pterosaur. Noah was a bit upset there was no trademark T-Rex but the Allosaurus was an acceptable second best.

Visiting the Museum

The Museum of Comparative Anatomy and Paleontology is located at the riverfront end of Jardin des Plantes, a 5 minute walk from the main Natural History Museum and the Metro.

Entry is free for anyone under 26 years of age. For adults it costs 7 euros per person, or 5 euros if you have visited another museum within Jardin des Plantes and can produce your ticket (same goes for tickets from here - just show it at another museum and you will be given discounted entry).

The Museum is open from 10 - 5 daily, except Tuesdays and May 1st.

Signage is all in French but it's not hard to interpret most of the displays and maps in English are available.

There is no food or drinks for sale on-site, but the museum is next door to a McDonalds, a bakery and a number of restaurants.

Paris with Kids: Musee d'Orsay

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:02:09 +1000

We're finishing our time in Europe with four nights in Paris before we fly back to Malaysia. Not a bad way to finish a European trip! After years of studying art in school, there was no way I was coming to Paris without visiting some of the most important art galleries.

Today the kids and I visited the Musee d'Orsay, housing one of the best collections of impressionist and post-impressionist art works in the world. Noah and Hayley were really eager to visit an art gallery so rather than going by myself I took them along hoping that they would enjoy it and not go too crazy.

We ended up having a great time.

The kids really enjoyed looking at the impressionist artworks. Renaissance classics, religious art, photo-realism ... these works are beautiful but I don't think they are as appealing to young kids as impressionist works of art. Impressionist art has colour and movement. You can see the brush strokes; sometimes long swirls of colour, sometimes short strokes, sometimes pointillism. The kids can look at each artwork and see how the artist actually painted it. Often the works depicts every day life - what do you think kids would rather see - a beautiful building or portrait, or a colourful painting of families and life 100 years ago?

Highlights:

Cezanne, Renoir, Monet, Manet, Courbet, Degas ... their works were all there. Seeing so many artworks that I'd only ever seen in text books was fantastic. But the highlight for all of us was Van Gogh.

Sadly the kid's knowledge of Van Gogh and his art comes from watching Doctor Who ... but we were all still pretty excited to go to the gallery that the Doctor took Vincent Van Gogh too to see his paintings ... and having the kids excited about going to a gallery even if it's thanks to science fiction is still a good thing right?

Some of the more important works weren't on display (Starry Night, the Sunflowers) but we were still impressed with what we saw. It's hard to beat Van Gogh for colourful paintings that will capture the attention of kids and adults alike.

And yes we checked Van Gogh's Church At Auvers to make sure there was no monster in the picture, like there was in Doctor Who!

See no monster!

The view from the top floor of the Musee d'Orsay and getting up close to some of the amazing giant clocks wasn't bad either! Certainly a nice break for the kids to look at these after so many paintings.

Another highlight was on the ground floor at the back. There is a glass floor with a huge model of Paris and a giant model of the Paris national opera building. The detail is amazing. The kids spent ages looking at it all.

The other thing I really enjoyed were how friendly and relaxed the staff were. After visiting the Acropolis Museum in Athens and numerous museums in Australia, I was expecting a museum with so many important artworks to be filled with guards 'shhing' and scowling at me for daring to bring kids to a museum.

But everyone was great. The kids were pretty well behaved but lets be honest - no 4 and 6 year old is ever going to act in a gallery the way they probably should. They hid behind walls, crept under stairs, skipped, got too close to paintings (no touching ... just) and spoke to loudly. The only time we got in trouble was when they had a screaming match over a chair.

How long to allow:

We spent two hours in the Gallery and saw most of the artworks.

With older children I would probably allow 3-4 hours as you'll stop longer at each painting, but two hours was a good length of time with young kids. We had enough time to see everything and have a rest at the coffee shop. By the last 15 minutes the kids had lost interest and wanted to run around. I resorted to 'lets find the biggest painting' to make it around the last few collections.

Even chasing after two kids I felt like I had seen enough in two hours that I wasn't disappointed to leave (although I probably could have enjoyed another hour there by myself).

Lining up and buying tickets:

Arrive early is my biggest recommendation!

We arrived at the gallery just after 10am on a Tuesday and even then the queue was huge. We went on a Tuesday, the one day of the week that the Louvre is closed so I'm guessing Tuesday's are the busiest day at the Musee d'Orsay. By the time we left at 12.30 it was so long people would have waited hours to go in.

If you can buy tickets online I'd recommend it. This allows you to bypass the main queue and go in through the Group/Disabled entrance. But it's still worth going early as by lunchtime even this line was 45 minutes long.

Since we were visiting with young kids, the museum guards directed us to go through the shorter queue at the Group/Disabled (C) entrance. We only waited 10 minutes. Wasn't that nice of them!

Admission for adults was 9 euros and free for anyone under 18 years old.

Tickets are single entry only - you can't go out to get lunch and come back in. But there is a restaurant and cafe inside. The cafe prices were quite reasonable - cheaper than many restaurants we've seen.

If you are planning on visiting a lot of galleries and museums in Paris, check out the Museum pass. It may be worth purchasing it for the adults in your party.

Cloakroom, prams and disabled access:

The cloakroom is free but by lunchtime they were no longer accepting coats/jackets, only backpacks as they were too full. Another good reason to go early if you are visiting in winter!

The museum also had prams and wheelchairs for loan. Large prams have to be checked into the cloakroom but you can then borrow their smaller prams. You need to leave identification with the cloakroom as security for the pram or wheelchair.

As far as disabled access, the museum is well laid out. Every area we saw could be accessed via ramps or elevators.

Getting there

The Musee d'Orsay is located along the Seine almost opposite the Louvre. There are several metro stations within a 5 minute walk so it's very easy to get to.

After you finish at the museum be sure to walk across the Passerelle des Arts bridge just outside the museum. Thousands of padlocks line each side of the bridge with peoples names on them as a symbol of love. Directly opposite is Jardin Des Tuileries, a huge park that is perfect if your kids need to run around after being so well behaved in the gallery.

Budget Family Ski Holiday: Bansko, Bulgaria

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:07:53 +1000

Skiing is a fabulous family activity. There's something amazing about a sport that the whole family can do together and that kids can easily keep up with adults (or overtake them thanks to lack of fear!).

The problem is one week in a ski resort in Canada, USA, New Zealand, Australia or Europe can put a serious hole in your bank account.

Does anyone else find it ludicrous that lift passes for a family can actually cost more than a trip to Disneyland? I know I do.

But here's the good news: there are a lot of countries where you can still ski for a 'reasonable' price. Sure spending time in these resorts is not as cheap as chilling on the banks of the Mekong in Laos, but it's not going to see you breaking into the kids college funds to cover your expenses.

Japan, Greece and South Korea are cheaper options, although not dirt cheap. China and India are two of the cheapest, although the facilities at their ski resorts also reflect this. The other problem is that getting to these resorts can take several days of travel and getting information on them outside of the country (or outside of the resort itself) can be difficult.

Eastern Europe is another great option. Romania, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria ... just to name a few ... all have ski resorts. The facilities and prices vary greatly but that just gives you the option of whether you want to do a super budget holiday or have the same facilities as a resort in Western Europe at half the price, or somewhere between the two. As opposed to resorts in China and India, it's a lot easier to find information online about resorts in these countries.

Bansko, Bulgaria

After a lot of research and debate over budget vs facilities, we ended up choosing to go to Bansko - Bulgaria's most developed, and therefore most expensive ski resort. Initially we planned to spend 10 days there. That was extended to 15, and even then we had to drag ourselves away.

Bansko, simply put is fabulous.

From what we've seen and heard, Bansko also looked like a great place to spend time in summer. Lots of hiking and lakes. For the kids the alpine woods looked like great places to play hide and seek in.

Getting there

Located at the foot of the Pirin Mountains 1000m above sea level, Bansko is 3 hours from Bulgaria's capital, Sofia, 2.5 hours from Plovdiv (Bulgaria) and Thessaloniki (Greece).

There are direct buses from the airports in Sofia and Plovdiv although expect to pay 19 euros per person, including children over 3. Alternatively there are buses from Sofia for 16 lev (8 euros) for adults and 8 lev (4 euros) per child over 6. Buses run almost every hour, sometimes half hourly, although they alternate between leaving from the Central bus station and the Ovcha Kupel bus station. Both bus stations are a 10-15 lev taxi fare from the airport or 5 lev from the town centre. For more information on the buses (and trains) check out ATVgari for timetables in english.

Buses also run regularly from Plovdiv and Thessaloniki. Check the above link for details.

There are also daily trains between Sofia-Bansko-Plovdiv but they the journey between Bansko and either city takes over 5 hours. It's scenic but long. Check out Theodora's report of the train ride from Bansko to Plovdiv for more information.

The bus and train station in Bansko are at the edge of town. Taxi fares in Bansko are triple what you'll pay elsewhere in Bulgaria. Expect to pay between 10-15 lev to get from the station to your hotel.

For cheap flights, check out Wizz Air which flies into Sofia from a number of European capitals.

Accommodation

For shorter stays expect to pay 30-50 euros per night for a 1 bedroom apartment with a sofa bed that can sleep 4 people. 60-100 euros per night will snag you a three bedroom apartment 500m from the gondola.

Otherwise there are a huge range of hotels with spa facilities where you can rent a typical hotel room with breakfast for a reasonable rate. If you are planning to stay at one of the premier hotels, check to see if they allow you to use the 'Season Pass' queue for the gondola. Some of the hotels have an arrangement with the gondola staff that allows you to use a special express lane that bypasses the queue.

If you want to stay a month (or six) Bansko is incredibly cheap. A 2 bedroom apartment less than 500m to the gondola will cost less than 150 euros per month. If you are prepared to be over 1km away from the gondola you can get even cheaper rates. We used to dream that we might buy property in Spain, now we are thinking a Bansko chalet is a better investment. Half a year in Penang, half a year skiing!

Where we stayed:

3 bedroom apartment sleeping 10 at The Monastery for 70 euros per night. Self contained with kitchen, although no washing facilities on-site or WIFI. We booked through Ski Bansko
1 bedroom apartment with bunks in the living room at Kandahar apartments for 35 euros per night. We highly recommend this location - less than 100m to the gondola, the apartment was gorgeous and the manager very helpful. There's also a great English pub downstairs, as well as Method ski school and a creche. They also have two bedroom apartments but I'm not sure of the rates.

Lift Passes

Lift passes is what makes Bansko more expensive than other resorts in the area.

Single day lift passes are 55 lev (28 euros) for adults and 38 lev (18 euros) for children. A pass to just use the gondola return is 20 lev (10 euros) for adults and 13 lev (7 euros) for children. Three day, 6 day and 9 day passes etc are available.

For current prices, check out the Bansko Ski website.

If you are used to lift pass prices in Europe or the USA this might sound cheap but it's worth noting that other resorts in Bulgaria are at least half this price. For instance, at Vitosha mountain on the outskirts of Sofia a one day lift pass costs 22 lev. Of course the other resorts have a lot less runs and facilities than Bansko. And in the case of Vitosha the lifts weren't even running this year thanks to a dispute between the company running the lifts and the government.

Lifts and runs

Bansko has a gondola, 14 lifts and 18 runs. The mountain is really suited best to intermediate skiers and snowboarders - anyone who can handle challenging blue and red runs. Check this site for a map.

You'll see on the map that everything is graded either blue or red. The grading of the runs is a little different here to other resorts we've seen. A blue run at Bansko can either be a long green run with just a small section that's really a blue, or a blue run with one slope that probably should be classified as a red. Red runs are either true reds or cleverly disguised blacks trying to trick you into giving them a go. Ask around and you'll soon figure it out.

For beginners there is a great nursery area with two magic carpets and two short lifts that lead to 100-500m short easy runs. The 'ski road', otherwise called Run 1, is an 8km green run with a 2km section that's a bit more challenging - steeper and narrower than you'd probably expect on a green run. But it's not too bad - beginners should be able to handle it after three days of lessons and the steep sections are broken up by regular flat spots that you can stop and prepare yourself for the next part.

There's also a fantastic section at the middle gondola station for beginners who can handle green runs - but you need to go down the ski road to get there or take a lift in reverse from the middle gondola station as the only way to ski there from the middle station involves going down a black run.

There are also several blue runs that, while a bit challenging, are wide and don't remain steep for long. I'm not a 'thrill seeker' by any imagination and managed them quite well after three days on skis. Both our 6 year old and 4 year old went down them, although the 4 year old only went with an instructor.

For advanced skiers and snowboarders the choice and variety is a bit limited. But there are some fantastic red and black runs, and being an alpine forest there's a lot of tree run possibilities. A lot!

In comparison to a North American ski resort, the number of runs and variety of runs has a bit to be desired ... but you are also paying a fraction of the cost. The amount of snow is fantastic, the runs that are there are great and there are some fabulous tree runs. There are also 160 snow making canons if the season isn't great.

Equipment hire

Equipment hire prices range greatly. It's not a bad idea to arrive early and have a look around. For adults, daily hire of ski/boots/poles costs between 20 - 30 lev. Prices for children's equipment is between 10-20 lev per day. Prices drop the longer you rent them for of course, often to half the initial price.

A helmet will cost you 40 levs for a weeks hire.

Expect to pay a bit more if you'd like to rent better equipment more suited to advanced skiers/snowboarders.

We had no problem finding equipment for our 4 year old. Most places had ski equipment for kids as young as two.

Who we rented through:

InterSport: Prices are a little higher than Ski Mania, but the staff were nice and they had some good lesson/equipment packages. They offered good rates for longer hire periods and their kids ski boots were possibly better than Ski Mania.
Ski Magic: Bansko Ski Magic had the best prices we saw on the mountain. 10 lev per day for children, 20 lev for adults. They also had fantastic systems in place for gear storage - drying racks, everything labelled, staff dedicated to just manage this section. Once you had your gear hired, going in each morning to pick up your gear was fast and painless. Other places we checked out put your gear back on the same shelf as all the other gear and it took a lot longer to find all the stuff each morning.
Ulen is another option - we didn't rent through them but their prices are good and they are located right at the gondola. They run a kindergarten up the mountain and have a lot of kids equipment so if you have very young children and can't find equipment to fit them elsewhere try Ulen.

Most places did not offer the hire of ski clothes and gloves, particularly for kids. Buying ski clothes/gloves up the mountain is more expensive than in Sofia, as you would expect. We purchased ski pants, jackets and gloves for the kids in Sofia. Prices were quite reasonable - 60 euros per child for pants, jacket and gloves.

Instruction and group lessons

The cheapest option we saw was through ULEN. They run group lessons for children for as little as 30 lev (15 euros) for two hours or 50 lev (25 euros) for 4 hours. Classes can be large and are only for children over 7, although they were willing to let Noah at 6.5 years join the class. From what we saw I probably wouldn't recommend these classes for beginners. They are really best for kids that can get on and off a lift without much help and can manage a green run.

I had lessons through Pirin 2000 ski school. The instructors were all fabulous and all seemed to be locals that had lived at Bansko their whole life so they really knew the mountain. The cost was 55 lev for a two hour group lesson or 85 lev for four hours. I had 6 hours of lessons and an instructor to myself each time even though I paid group prices.

The children had lessons through Method Snow School. Their prices were a lot more expensive but we spent a lot of time checking out different schools in Bansko and the instructors at Method seemed to not only be the best, but also great with kids and native English speakers. If Method's prices are a bit too expensive for you, the instructors at Pirin also seemed to be excellent with young children.

Tip: if you are looking for lessons for your kids, hang out by the nursery slopes watching the classes until you see someone who would suit your children. Otherwise head to Harry's Bar under Kandahar Apartments where many of the instructors spend time after work and ask around to find someone who is great with kids.

Childcare and Kindergarten

Many of the large hotels and apartment complexes offer childminding facilities. Blue Kangaroo looked excellent - their staff spoke a wide range of languages, including English and Russian. The facility is more suited to younger children though - over 5 year olds would probably be quite bored. But for babies and toddlers it was great.

We used Ulen's Ski Kindergaren at the top gondola station up the mountain. The prices were the cheapest and being up the mountain it was easy to check in on the kids or take them out for lessons to play with us. For 60 lev per day (150 lev for three days) the price included lunch, gondola passes (you bring them up the mountain and back down though), and supervised skiing/snow play time on the nursery slope (equipment included, no need to hire).

Personally we liked the option of having them in the Ski Kindergarten up the mountain better than having them all the way down the mountain - it meant we could put them in the kindergarten for a few hours while we skied then take them out with us on the mountain in the afternoon. We could say hi as we skied past and stop to play for ten minutes before skiing off again. A great mix of 'us' time and 'family' time.

About Bansko town

Bansko is your typical well developed ski resort town. Tonnes of accommodation, spa hotels, restaurants, corner stores and ski rental shops. There is one large supermarket, a very small shopping centre, lots of ATMs (although some seemed to have problems with UK cards. We had no issues with our Australian ones). Not all establishments accept credit card for payment. ATMs only allow 400 lev (200 euro) withdrawals at a time so expect to be visiting the ATM every second day!

Overall the town was lovely. Located at the base of the mountain, most of the streets are flat and major roads are regularly cleared of snow. We saw a number of people getting around with prams quite easily. It was a very easy ski resort town to get around with kids.

Of course the negative of being at the base of the mountain is that everyone is using the one gondola system to reach the slopes. On weekends and around 10am most mornings queues were long. During the week, early in the morning and later in the afternoon it wasn't too bad. Between the queue and the gondola taking 20mins to reach the top, allow at least an hour to get up the mountain each day.

Eating out

Considering iBansko is a ski resort town, eating out was quite reasonable. You pay 20% more for a meal than you would elsewhere in Bulgaria but it's a ski resort! For a family of four, expect to pay between 25-35 euros for a nice meal with a couple of drinks.

Up the mountain food and drinks are obviously more expensive. A coke or coffee will cost 2 euros. A giant slice of pizza or hot dog - 3 euros.

Supermarket prices varied greatly. It's definitely worth shopping around. Many of the mini markets were ridiculously over priced with items costing three times what they would in Sofia. But the main supermarket and several of the mini-markets were quite reasonable - 10-20% more expensive for items than you would pay in Sofia.

Overall Daily Budget

We averaged 180 euros per day when we were buying lift passes for the whole family, or 140 euros per day if we only wanted gondola passes. This inclded everything - accommodation, food, passes and gear hire.

We ate breakfast at home, took our own snacks from home up the mountain, bought drinks and a light meal like a slice of pizza while skiing and then ate an early dinner when we got down off the mountain. Cooking dinner at home and taking your own food up the mountain would save you a lot of money, but we weren't ever organised enough to have food at home to cook dinner and buying food up the mountain gave the kids the chance to be inside out of the cold for a little while.

It's best to pay in the local currency but most restaurants, hotels and ski hire stores will accept euros at a decent exchange rate.

Spending a week at Bansko isn't going to be the cheapest holiday you ever take. Relaxing on the islands in Asia or cheap Menorca holidays are certainly going to be friendlier on your wallet. But in comparison to the ski holiday alternatives we think Bansko is worth it - it's more expensive than other resorts in the area but the facilities are better and it's still a lot cheaper than anywhere in Western Europe, Australia, NZ, Canada or the USA. A LOT CHEAPER! We'll definitely be heading back there one winter soon.

NOTE: All of the Bansko accommodation, hire companies and schools that we have mentioned in this article are our own opinion. We weren't provided with any discounts or incentives to review them.