Happy New Year from Chang Mai, Thailand

First let us say that we are sorry that we have been out of touch the last few days during the Tsunami distaster in Asia.  We put our Xmas message on the blog, talked to our families and thought that everyone was informed that we were in the mountains of northern Thailand and happily went off to Cave Lodge (www.cavelodge.com) in Soppong where there was neither cell phone coverage nor internet access and hiked and caved to our hearts content.  We feel bad that so many of you were trying to reach us and we apologize to everyone and thank you all so much for being worried about us.  We really appreciate all your love and concern for us!

 

So we are fine and happy and in Chang Mai now at a wonderful place outside of town where we will spend New Year's eve (www.infothai.com/jaiya).  The authorities here have for obvious reasons called off the scheduled municipal party plans due to the suffering that is going on in many places but the family that we are staying with is hosting the guests and a few of their friends to dinner.  One of the guests was in Koh Phi Phi during the distaster and is lucky to be alive so we will be toasting him and thanking God for his life. 

 

We do plan to fly to Phuket tomorrow and will stay with our friend Katie Day there.  She lives on the east side of the peninsula and has told us that everything is fine there.  There is a mountain range that divides the area and those to the east of that range were fully protected and all is normal there.  Food and water are not a problem and you would not really know that anything happened until you cross the mountains.  She has been helping out in refugee centers since the disaster.  Everything is very well organized and a lot of people are helping out.  We will spend a few days with Katie and then probably head south.  We have called a few places there and all is OK in the region.  We do not plan to take the dive trip as that was cancelled and even though the company plans to try to take a trip out around Jan 7 we think that we will stay on dry land for now and do some diving when we get to Australia. 

 

We will stay in touch and post notes here about where we are and will have our phone (66 50481420) for the balance of our stay in Thailand (probably until around Jan 13 or 14).  We will then be without a phone until we get to Australia on Jan 17 - only a few days.  We can receive text messages on the phone (thanks Greg and Margie we got yours as we left Soppong - hope you got our reply).  Also we should have better access to email as well.  When we get our new number in Australia we will post it again on this site.

 

So that is it from us now.  Thanks again for all your concern.  We thankfully had a wonderful Christmas and holiday week here in Northern Thailand - beautiful country!  We highly recommend the Cave Lodge to all our friends!  It is really beautiful and very reasonable and is great for families as well - there were a number of people with young kids when we were there.  Rafting, caving, elephant riding, minority village treking and kayaking are all out the front door!  Check it out. 

 

We'll update you more as we go along!  Hugs to all and Happy New Year!

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