The Musée des Dinosaures, Savannakhet

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Fergus

When we arrived at the Musée des Dinosaures in Savannakhet, I wasn’t expecting much. It warned our guide book that there were just a couple of rooms and the whole place was obviously underfunded but that it had displays from several local digs where they’d found bones from t-rexes, spinosauruses, several sauropods and even a newly-identified species found only here in Laos.

Personally, I’m fond of small museums. They often have a bit of character and can generally be relied upon to throw up some surprises as the curators struggle to fill them up. Plus you don’t risk the kind of foot-punishing, brain-numbing museum fatigue delivered by bigger places. And sure enough, the exhibits were limited to several bones from a sauropod, together with a fairy-lit outline on the wall to show how they fitted together and a dozen or so display cases of other finds, together with some unusual rocks and a meteor.I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a fragment of the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs but, hey, who can argue with seeing a meteor.

Anyway, it was all interesting enough and with half an hour or so killed in discussing paleontology and meteors, we were ready to leave… when the curator stepped out of a doorway, somewhat like the shopkeeper from 70’s kids’ TV show Mr. Ben, and asked if we would like to see some more bones.

“OK,” we replied, so he opened a drawer.

“This bone from Tyrannosaurus Rex,” he said, lifting a cannon-ball sized lump out of the drawer. “You want to hold?”

And that was it. I had in my hands a real T-Rex bone. Not a plaster-cast replica. The real thing.

I couldn’t believe it. A 65-million plus year old relic of another aeon. In my hands.

And then it got better. He took us into the back where they clean their finds and showed us more bones, letting us hold them each time. He showed us the plaster casts they were making for a Thai museum, the tools they use and the display they were putting together for their newly-identified species.

But through it all, and long after we left, it was the T-Rex bone that I kept thinking back to. The museum here may be tiny, but you don’t get experiences like this at the Natural History Museum.

I Love Savannakhet!

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Janet

We’ve been in the sleepy town of Savannakhet for 3 nights now, and I love it here!

To the untrained eye, it may seem as though there’s not much to do here. It’s hard to believe it’s Laos’s second largest city; it’s quieter than Horsforth, the suburb of Leeds, UK, where we live.

But having come from some of the most hectic parts of Thailand, it’s a tonic.

Reasons to love Savannakhet:-

Virtually no tourists – you can see the ‘real’ Laos going on around you and it’s lovely
Virtually no traffic
130 years of French rule have left behind some beautiful colonial architecture
Our guest house, Leena, has the biggest and nicest area we’ve had all trip for doing our morning yoga
The years of French rule have also left a culture of French cuisine mixed in with the traditional SE Asian mainstays; so you can buy fresh baguettes with spicy Thai-style Som Tam for breakfast
There’s an EXCELLENT French restaurant where you can get a 3 course set menu with beautiful house wine that you’d be happy to be served in Paris…and all really good value…Daosavanh
You can get your Thai and Vietnamese Visas here without queuing
All the above is a fraction of the price of being in Thailand
And best of all…there’s a DINOSAUR museum…with real bones found locally. We’re off there right now, can’t wait!

Happy days.

Travelling with Triplets

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Fergus

A surprised double take. Wide eyes. “Fet Sam?” (That’s “Three twins?” in Thai. There’s no special word for triplets. I guess they’re too rare.)

I smile proudly. “Fet sam.” (“Yes, three twins”)

A closer look, one girl at a time. Then awe-struck agreement. “Aaw! Fet sam.”

She looks around, wondering who else to tell. A thrilled whisper follows if there’s someone nearby but if the nearest person is over the street, a discovery like this is too exciting not to be shouted across. “Fet sam!”

And it starts again. The newly-engaged stranger widens their eyes. They double take. And, disbelieving: “Fet sam?”

“Fet sam,” the woman confirms.

They turn to me. “Fet sam?”

I confirm it, too. “Fet sam.”

Wonder! “Aaw! Fet sam!” And a look around for someone who hasn’t yet heard the news.

Another shout to another stranger. “Fet sam!”

Another double take. Another query, first to their informant, then the general public around them, then me.

“Fet sam?”
“Fet sam.”
“Fet sam?”
“Fet sam.”
“Fet sam?”
“Fet sam.”
“Aaw! Fet sam.”

There’s no need for conversation starters when travelling South-East Asia with triplets. Wherever we go, they’re a sensation. But somehow, it never feels intrusive. No one stops us if we’re in a hurry. The wonder is genuine.

And when you’ve come to stare at someone else’s country, it’s only fair that they look back, too.

Out of the Frying Pan and into Pattaya

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Janet

It’s great to be escaping the crowds on Koh Tao. As lovely as it still is, the island is just too busy right now (at peak season, to be fair) and I was starting to resent the crowds and the lack of any Thai people, culture, or even Thai food. A particular low moment was Fergus proudly ordering our food in Thai, only to be told by the waiter, “Sorry, no speak Thai!” You know you’re in a tourist trap when…

However, before we can hit that traveller vibe again, we are off to two of the most touristy places in the whole of Thailand: a night in Khao San Road followed by 3 nights in Pattaya.

Khao San is the notorious hang out for backpackers that’s developed into a kind of hotbed of youth culture, with cheap clothing, knock-off CD’s and DVD’s (it was tapes last time we were there, I feel old) and huge number of bars, nightclubs and late night eateries.

Pattaya is the jewel in the crown of Thailand’s seedier beach resorts, with a propensity to attract middle-aged, overweight Western men. The beach is supposed to be fairly ropey, but the local tourist office has been trying to redevelop the town to attract older couples and families, so it will be interesting to see it.

Our motivation for making this 2 day journey? We are going to meet an old friend of Ferg’s who’s just got married here and is having a honeymoon in Pattaya. I can’t wait to meet him having heard so many stories from childhood, mostly about catching frogs under the school they went to in Malaysia. Khao San is a natural break in the journey; our bus drops us there at 9pm tonight, so we might as well stay there.

It’s not what we’d have planned to do, but it’s been a fun journey so far and I’m sure the kids will enjoy the experience, plus there’s a pool at our hotel in Pattaya, which guarantees good times for us.

Let the holiday continue!

Bubblemakers

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Janet

Learning the “everything OK” sign

Ready to go diving

As babies, we enrolled our children in the Waterbabies swimming lessons. The course culminates in you plunging your offspring into the water for a Nirvana Nevermind style underwater photo. I didn’t realise then that it may have been the start of a long line of underwater experiences.

Coupled with being strong swimmers and a burning desire to “see tropical fish” – plus of course wanting to be like Daddy who’s doing his PADI certification, the girls were desperate for us to enroll them on the ‘Bubblemakers’ kids scuba diving course that you can do here in Koh Tao.

So today, after much excited anticipation, they finally got to don wetsuits, flippers (well, Scarlett only got one flipper – she still has a plaster cast on her broken leg) and a full-on scuba diving vest with attached tank of air, regulator and weight belt, and had their first underwater adventure.

I came along and snorkeled in the water behind, helping Scarlett with some of the bits that are a bit tricky with a broken leg (like climbing up step-ladders onto boats…hmmmm). It was terrifying to attach heavy weights to your children and watch them jump in the sea. Very counter intuitive. But they got the hang of it straight away, breathing through the regulators face down and doing the ‘OK’ hand signal to the instructor. They looked like miniature cool scuba diving surf babes. Perhaps a glimpse of things to come.

I loved seeing the girls’ excitement at seeing the deep, deep water and the schools of fish. We had one little bit of a problem when Scarlett felt a bit panicky about how far we’d swum, and how far we had to go back, and somehow convinced herself that we were going the wrong way. But a cuddle from mummy soon sorted that out. It’s nice to know that they are still my little babies, even though they look like mini cool scuba diving surf babes.

The verdict when asked about it later was very positive from Jemima and Evie, who want to use some of their Christmas money to do another dive, but Scarlett thinks once is enough, bless her.

Reliving Our Youth

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Janet

It’s our last night on Koh Tao, where we’ve been for a week over New Year. We visited 13 years ago in our ‘youth’; the island’s much busier and built up now, it’s gone from ‘backpacker’ to ‘flashpacker’ with budget accommodation very hard to come by. Yet the natural beauty is largely intact, the waters are still crystal clear and turquoise, and we’ve had a great time. It feels a bit like we’ve had a package holiday away from our backpacking lifestyle!

For the most part, this visit has been a very different experience to last time around. Up early, out on the beach trying to catch children and apply sun cream before they get in the sea, blowing up lilos, fetching various goggles, snorkels and other swimming paraphernalia to and from our beach bungalow, sweeping endless sand out of said beach bungalow (I don’t remember that every being a problem pre-children) and playing hours and hours of swimming games and card games to keep everyone happy.

It’s a stark contrast to the lie-ins, the afternoon sleeps on the sand, and the bar-hopping and late night drinking of last time around. Actually, now I come to think about it, I’m not sure what we did all day without children. But that applies to life both at home, too.

We had a nice opportunity to reminisce last night after Fergus finished his PADI diving course. It’s been 3 full days of him off diving and me entertaining the troops, so to celebrate his new status as a qualified scuba diver we stayed up late, sitting on our verandah, and drank a Thai classic cocktail from back in the day – Sang Som rum, M150 and Coke. It felt good to have come full circle.

Island Hopping

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Fergus

by Scarlett

Although we’ve only done a little island hopping before going back to the mainland, I have experienced a lot. In going from one island, Koh Samui, to another island, Koh Tao, my opinion has changed to think that island hopping is great (apart from the bumpy ferries).

I like it because of the quiet little bungalows next to the beach so we can go in the sea every day. These bungalows are nearly always on the edge of a small group of shops and ATMs so we can get new money out easily and spend it in the shops.

This is so different to Nepal because Nepal, with its stinky smell and gardenless hotels is not inviting (the mountains are an exception), whereas here I feel free. Nepal’s towering mountains are not as beautiful as the sea and you can’t go swimming in them!

We spent New Year’s Eve in Koh Tao. Unluckily, I fell asleep for the fireworks.