We Wander — Mark & Meghan's World Travels

Yesterday morning we piled into vans and drove out of Swakopmund and into the dunes. It was time to try some sandboarding! There were about 12 people from our truck that went, half of whom did stand-up boarding (on snowboards) and half of whom did lie-down boarding (on thin pieces of plywood). The snowboards were slightly modified for sand: the base was covered over with a slippery, more durable material, and they required a quick polish with wax after every run to keep them fast and smooth. The downside of sandboarding is that there is no chairlift, so you have to walk up the dunes after each run. The upside of sandboarding is that it’s AWESOME!

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Yep, that’s me. More on that soon…

I’d like to start off by declaring it a huge honour to be given posting privileges by wewander hosts Mark and Meghan Gosen. For those who aren’t familiar, myself (Mike Davis is my birth name) and Sarah Davis (my begrudging wife) are long-time bridge partners of Mark and Meghan, turned friends. Since Mark and Meghan left the soils of North America, the friendship has made a transition to more of a stalk-er, stalk-ee relationship. Until February 17th…

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My 29th birthday was spent relaxing in paradise. We woke up and scootered into town for a delicious, huge english breakfast at Zest Café. Mmmmmmmm…delicious eggs, bacon, toast, beans, tomato, sausage and hashbrowns. It may sound run-of-the-mill to those of you who can get that any day of the week, but it’s a pretty rare thing to find a good Western-style breakfast in this part of the world. What you often get is white bread, hotdog posing as sausage, and weak, thin strips of bacon. Not at Zest Café! A brilliant way to start a birthday.

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Great big blog birthday wishes to my partner in wanderings. The day will be spent scooting an snorkeling around Koh Tao. If our new power adapter comes in from Bangkok what a birthday it shall be.

Also happy birthday to my wonderful supportive Mother Goose who turns 60 today.

The hardest thing about following the Vancouver 2010 Olympics (besides the fact that hardly anyone here ever thinks about snow) is the 15 hour time difference. We did manage to find a bar called Choppers here on Koh Tao that was playing Olympic coverage on a Hong Kong feed of ESPN, and we successfully watched Canada beat Slovakia in men’s hockey the other day.

We were determined to watch the gold medal game as well, except that the time difference meant that Canada would face the USA at 3:15 a.m. local time. Unfortunately, our gecko-inhabited beach hut is sans-satellite TV, so we asked Choppers bar if they might consider keeping some unusual hours for the sake of us obsessive hockey fans. It seems that enough people must have asked the same thing, because sure enough, by mid-afternoon the day before, the big game was written on the chalkboard outside: “Olympic Hockey, Gold Medal Game, Live at 3:00 a.m.”

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Our wonderful kindred couple friends Mike and Sarah have come all the way to Bangkok to visit us! We are beyond excited to see them. After allowing them some time to recover from their 25 hour journey, we’ll be heading over to Cambodia to visit Ankor Wat. After that we’ll be parking it on a beach on Koh Tao for a couple weeks. Beaches, bridge and Mike and Sarah: our most favourite things in the world. Life is good.

One of my favourite aspects of travel is that it helps me to appreciate where I’m from. Mobile phone rates aside, I am so proud of my home and native land.

Mark and I were feeling especially proud after having watched the Olympic opening ceremonies. Our dear friend Rachel generously gave us a night at her fly guesthouse in Vientiane and our room had a t.v. for us to watch it on. We both got goosebumps and all teary-eyed for home while watching.

We’ll be following the action as much as possible and wishing we were at home to be a part of it.

THE thing to do in Laos, on the backpacker circuit, is tubing in Vang Vieng. It’s not just backpackers making their way here, it has become a Euro/Aussie spring break destination as well. It’s a freakish sort of adult fantasy land with bikinis, booze, adrenaline and breathtaking scenery. As odd as it felt to find this party vibe in the middle of rural Laos, we couldn’t miss out and allowed ourselves to have a fantastic time of it.

The idea is to gently float down the Nam Song river, stopping in at riverside bars along the way to become completely inebriated on buckets of alcohol and beer whilst enjoying and/or injuring yourself on the multitude of slides, swings and ziplines into the water.

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After nearly two weeks of working in Sungai Geringging, the time has come for us to carry on with our travels. As I wrote before, it was an incredibly inspiring two weeks for both of us. The work that HODR is doing is fantastic, and we are especially appreciative of their approach to volunteer work. Unlike so many other organizations, HODR doesn’t ask for money when you volunteer. Although this creates some operational difficulties, it makes the organization much more accessible to people who might otherwise not get involved. Being on a tight budget as we travel, it’s quite likely that we wouldn’t have shown up at all had it cost us anything. I believe it’s a wonderful approach to take, and I hope that they are able to continue on this way indefinitely. It is a wonderful cornerstone to the approach HODR takes to volunteering.

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