Christmas eve

Merry Christmas to our family and friends where ever they are in the world.

For us here in Malaysia our Christmas will start hours ahead of time in Canada. It is 1400 hrs on the 24th and we will be celebrating this evening with a big dinner at the resort with three other boat crews at our table. It will be a lot of fun although we will be missing not being with our family and especially the grand children. We will have Santa here 16 hours ahead of Vancouver time so will make sure he doing ok. On Christmas day we will be having a big buffet lunch and I imagine there will be a lot of yachties there.

This is a little offering to the three other boats we are having dinner with. Apologies to the original author.

                                               CHRISTMAS 2013

 

Tis the night before Christmas and all through the marina not a yacht was stirring not even Tahina.

The yachties were all sipping beer with hopes that Saint Nicholas would soon be here.

Sea Mist was rolling in when there was such a clatter that we all jumped up to see what was the matter.

Up in the rigging it did appear, there had been a crash with a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rain deer.

Callisto and Kilkea II rushed to see what was the commotion as they knew they were not on the ocean.

There were no clouds and up in the shrouds a little elf did appear.

Tangled in all the gear he showed no fear and with a wink of his eye and a touch of his nose up the mast he arose.

All was well and seeing no swell he jumped in the hack to try another approach to Rebak.

He said “All done, had fun,” and headed west to see all the rest.

We heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

pictures of Siem Reap

                                                  Buddha

Me in front of Angkor Wat

Marian with Lion at Angkor

faces at Angkor Thom!

one of the thousands of carvings on all of the temples

Angkor Thom with its many faces of king number 7

Tuk Tuk

the many types of rice

Almost Christmas

Well it has been a long time in getting down to do this blog again. No real excuses other than just being lazy. I guess it goes with the climate here as nothing happens fast.

We did go to Cambodia in November and enjoyed a week in Siem Reap. We enjoyed seeing the old temples of Angkor Wat and many others having a driver and car for a couple of days and then using Tuk Tuks the rest of the time. The Khmer people had a rich culture back around the 1200 year mark building all these temples which are huge with motes around them that must have taken thousands of men and elephants years to complete if not generations. The countryside is just full of rice fields around every corner with some big and some very small in home gardens. The people are poor and with the genocide of the eighties the country will take a number of generations to get back on its feet. We did not go to any of the killing fields but it does seem to be a tourist attraction that we did not want to see. We had a very nice hotel to retreat to every day and enjoyed it very much along with dinners out in the most unlikely locations with our tuk tuk driver taking us down through very dilapidated areas to find a real nice fancy restaurant. It was interesting to see the temples and country side but a week was enough.

After getting back we have been just relaxing at the pool and doing boat jobs. Still trying to get the electrical problems fixed but as most things here it takes patients and it is probably best to get anything major done in Phuket Thailand. We hope we can get most done before we go up there in January. Marian had a fall last week and probably broke some ribs but is still managing well but not sleeping great. We did manage a visa run (17th-19th) to Penang and spent two nights there enjoying the bigger city with much better shopping than here in Langkawi.

Well Christmas is just around the corner and this will be the first one we will have spent away from Canada. It will be great to have a warm (hot) time here with many of our cruising friends. We have decided to stay at Rebak as it is a five star resort island with all the amenities. We will have a big Christmas eve dinner at the resort and then on Christmas day either a big brunch or dinner also done by the resort. It should be very nice but not as good as being at home with the family. I am sure that we will have a busy social time through to the New Year. Then we leave for Thailand for two plus months of cruising. About time as we have not moved Kilkea II since last April.

We wish all our friends a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.