Friday, August 29th – Paris, Ontario, Canada

We are back in Canada, safe and sound after a lovely flight home.  Cathay Pacific is now my favourite airline, every part of the flight experience was perfect.  We were picked up at the airport by my brother and sister-in-law and it was nonstop chatter the whole way back to Brantford, where we went over to my in-laws house for a visit.  They were so, so happy to see the kids!  It sounds like it was a very long and dull summer for them being without their grandchildren.  The kids were happy to see everybody and were feeling pretty good to be home.  After we had exited the plane and were walking up the ramp to the gate Magnus turned to me and said, “You were right Dad, I have to admit it – it feels nice to be back in Canada!”

We let the kids stay over at their grandparents for the first night and we were home shortly after midnight.  Yes, it would have been a great idea to go to bed but we weren’t tired so instead burst into a frenzy of unpacking, laundry and cleaning the house.  By about 4:30 or so we were finally getting tired so went to bed, but were back up at 7:30 so that we could go back over to the in-laws for breakfast.

We spend our first full day back in Canada shopping for school supplies for the kids, school clothes, getting groceries and taking care of a few administrative things.  We bumped into our friends Justin and Heather so asked them over for dinner, along with Ana’s folks.

After ten weeks of rice and noodles our first dinner back home was heavenly.  Grilled chicken and pork, with fresh garden potatoes, tomatoes, onion, basil and peppers.  Our guests brought dessert so we had an apple crumble, blueberry crumble, and a big ice cream cake for the kids birthdays!  Though I loved the food while we were away, the meal last night was simply amazing.  Man, it is nice to be home.

So, here I sit.  I was in bed by 10 pm but at 2am my eyes shot open and I was awake.  I laid in bed for at least half an hour trying to get back to sleep, but no luck.  So I admitted the Zombie Walk was upon me so I made a cup of peppermint tea then headed downstairs to the office and decided to put together a financial summary of our trip (it’s the Finance guy in me).

The trip of a lifetime cost us $218 per day.  That includes absolutely everything – all flights, visas, hotels, meals, transport, entrance fees, souvenirs, gifts, and even the extravagant catamaran trip.  If you exclude the catamaran then the daily cost is $198.  That works out to $50 per person per day.

Is this a lot of money?  Well, considering all the amazing things we did and saw, the special moments we shared as a family, and the amount of ground we covered, I would say it is quite reasonable.  With that budget we were able to stay in top quality hotels, do three internal flights on top of our main flight there, and really not have to scrimp too much along the way.  Our goal for this trip was to do all the things we wanted to do, as opposed to trying to cover as many miles and countries as cheaply as possible.  I consider every penny of it to be money well spent.

So after 70 days, 7 countries, 5 flights, dozens of bus, taxi and tuk-tuk rides, and countless miles by foot, there remains only one thing left to do to complete this epic journey...

Begin planning the next one!

Thursday, August 28th – Bangkok to Paris, Ontario, Canada

With our summer family adventure coming to a close, where does that leave us?  Within a week we will be back into the same routine, settled comfortably into our normal life.  But what is a normal life?  For some of the people we have seen on this trip, normal life is waking up on the street in pain, getting your begging bowl in front of you, and sitting at the steps of the subway station asking for money.  For others, it is waking up in a monastery, putting on your orange robe then spending your day in meditation.  Others yet will wake up, have breakfast, drive to their job in an office, work hard, then come home at the end of the day and spend time with their family.  The point is, a “normal life” is simply what you choose to do on a regular basis, and is the result of many past decisions you have made, your circumstances in life and, in no small part, some measure of luck or chance.

As an adult, I have tried to make my normal life as interesting and as varied as possible and strove to make decisions that would enable me to keep doing new and interesting things.  When I met Ana I realized she had many of the same values as me so we were able to partner up and continue on with living a varied and colourful life.  When the kids came along, we knew right away that we wanted to pass these values onto them, and that is what we have tried to do since they were infants, so this latest endeavor is just the latest (though probably grandest!) in a long series of smaller decisions we have made to pursue this goal.

When traveling through other countries, you get to see and experience so many things that force you to question and re-evaluate your own convictions.  There are things that are done better in Canada than in Asia, but the opposite also holds true.  In Canada, we over-regulate everything.  We allow and even encourage people to shirk personal responsibility and let them blame the “system” for all their problems.  We make concessions that give priority to personal beliefs instead of the common good.  Small interest groups drive public policy and politicians cave in instead of making the tough, right decisions and sticking up for Regular Joe who simply doesn’t want to cause any trouble.  We don’t just tolerate other cultures and religions – we often allow ourselves to be held hostage by them at the expense of the public..  And we tolerate so much stupidity and small mindedness instead of using common sense and simply saying “No” sometimes.

But we do get a lot of things right in Canada, and that is why Canada is where we choose to live, raise our children and call home.  But travel is a big part of our lives, and I expect that our “normal” will always include spending a significant part of our time exploring other places, learning from them, and bringing those lessons home to help make Canada a better place.  And other people should do that to – especially those in roles that determine public policy so that they can see there are many different ways of getting to the same end goal.

See you on the other side.

Wednesday, August 27th – Bangkok, Thailand

This was our last day in Bangkok, our last day of the trip, our last day spending 24 hours together as a family and our last day in this amazing part of the world.

We did practically nothing of interest, and I think that is the first time our whole trip I have been able to say that.  Though this was not news to me, our family is not good at down days and we tend to move through things at a fairly aggressive pace.  But this day we were truly trying to wind down from the trip so we had a nice breakfast then spend a couple leisurely hours at the hotel pool.  The kids swam, Ana and I read and sunbathed and hopped in the pool to play with kids when we were getting too hot.

We went out for lunch at a Japanese restaurant chain we had last visited back in Kuala Lumpur, and it was superb.  By now the kids are pretty versatile with their foods so have no problem with miso soup, sushi, salads and different sorts of sauces for the fried chicken and pork curries.  After this, we went to McDonalds for the final round of ice cream cones (they are 30 cents each so we have been visiting there frequently) then stood outside under the canopy to enjoy the “Daily Douche” - half an hour of intense rainfall during the mid-afternoon which we have enjoyed, and sometimes had to walk through, every day we have been here.  But with all the street food vendors, open sewers, and trash bags, if Bangkok did not get the Daily Douche I just can’t imagine how terrible it would smell.

We had some cash left over so walked through the market and Ana picked up some nail grooming equipment and the kids each got a set of super premium chopstick, so that they could continue their Asian eating tradition when we get back to Canada.

The rest of the day we lounged around the hotel room, I did some writing, we watched tv, Magnus practiced some moves with his new sword, Stella read, Ana creeped Facebook (and found a lot of people dumping buckets of ice water on their heads for ALS research!), we snacked, and so on.  Basically, it was pretty much like any Sunday afternoon in February back home at the Olson ranch.  We didn’t even leave for dinner, choosing instead to eat up the rest of the food we had in stock, making it the final backpacker dinner, and a very satisfying one at that.

Before bed, Magnus balked one more time at having to go back home, looking for any possible way to extend the trip.  He makes out like he just loves it here so much that he doesn’t want to go back to Canada, but I think the real reason is that he doesn’t want to go back to school!  It seems strange - his final report card was fantastic, and he enjoys school once he gets there, but like a true boy he would just rather be hanging around with no fixed agenda, which is pretty much what backpacking is all about so this lifestyle suits him perfectly.  Stella, on the other hand, is simply satisfied with everything.  She loves the traveling, but is also excited to get home to see her grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and also to get back to school to reconnect with her friends.  About halfway through the trip, there was a bit of homesickness for both of them, which was short lived, but since then they have not once asked to go home.  I guess they realized that home is still there, and always will be, so instead they returned to enjoying each day and being constantly enthralled with all the new things they were seeing and doing.

Am I ready to go home?  I would say yes.  In fact, I think I am simply saturated with new experiences.  Seeing and doing so many different things every day does eventually wear you out and you reach a point where they start having much less of an impact than they did at the start.  This is a good signal that it’s time to go home.  I am looking forward to sitting in our familiar backyard, under the canopy, enjoying a fire and a glass of red wine.  Ana has also requested that we go to the local butcher and pick up a round of the biggest, best steaks they have for our first meal.  The beef in this part of the world simply isn’t very good (unless you go to a top class restaurant and drop some serious cash) so that is one thing we are really looking forward to.  But during this time away we have realized that we can happily live on a lot less meat than we normally eat at home, so we are going to try and adjust our diets a bit.  But nothing too drastic – after all, we are Canadian so meat and potatoes will always be there on the table!

I forgot one thing.  Since we were so bored today I thought it would be a good time to get a tattoo arm sleeve.  I thought it would be a nice way to commemorate our amazing adventure.  And, along with my overgrown facial hair, it makes me look real tough.

Tuesday, August 26th - Bangkok, Thailand

For our final days in Bangkok we decided to keep it simple.  So today we began with a long, long walk to and through Lumphini Park, which looks to be the largest park in the city.  We meandered through a couple markets, down a few busy streets, packed with traffic, across a footbridge, then hopped Frogger-style, across a crazy busy street and finally arrived to the green oasis.  The park itself had quite a few people there – many bikers, locals doing Tai Chi, backpackers strolling around, families having picnics and a lot of folks just sitting around, enjoying the sunny day.  There are several small lakes in this park, so we headed towards one of them, and as we approached saw something long swimming through the water.  As it came close we realized it was a monitor lizard!  And he wasn’t the only one, as we walked we saw dozens of them, some smaller ones who were on land, digging in the ground for worms, and some really big ones who stayed in the water and on the banks, and eyed us warily as we passed by.

We found a big playground so the kids played there while and Ana and I sat on one the benches, discussing our impressions of this city.  Bangkok is truly a world class city and really has something for everybody.  Besides the many rats Ana has seen lurking both day and night around the outside food vendors (she HATES rodents, like I mean she has a spaz attack when she sees one), she has really liked Bangkok.  It is quite clean, very cheap for a major city, has so much variety, great shopping, cheap markets, great food, and so much to see and do.  The air pollution is quite nasty, but that is probably unavoidable with all the two stroke motorbikes buzzing around and all the other millions of vehicles belching their exhaust into the air.  I think it’s a place we could easily live in for a while, perhaps a future contract here when the time is right?

After touring the park (and on the way out passing by an outdoor gym with the oldest and rattiest fitness equipment you could imagine) we walked back through the congested city, passing by Patpong road and an awesome open sewer river that smelled so bad it made my eyes water.  At the end of this long, sweaty walk was the Neilson Hays library, located right beside the British Club, and keepers of the largest English book collection available in Thailand.  Whenever we travel I like to visit libraries, and this one was especially fantastic as it was in the middle of a ferociously busy area, but was nestled away behind a barrier of beautiful trees and offered a peaceful, quiet refuge.  We each found a book to read and collapsed on the bean bag chairs and read for a couple hours.  They had an area with books for sale so we also picked up some reading material for the long plane ride home, which was fast approaching.

Beside the library was a café so we had lunch, then walked back to the hotel and spent the rest of the day and evening chilling out.  One day left…

The Selfie Shaft

The first time I ever saw what I call the “Selfie Shaft” was a Facebook posting by Adam, my cousin Megan’s boyfriend.  Now Adam is a right cool dude with a fine beard and seems to be set firmly on the path to Olsonhood.  Just keep on doing whatever Megan tells you to do and things will work out fine buddy!

Adam posted a picture of himself and Megan hanging out the sunroof of their car, cruising the desert somewhere, and was a bloody stunning photo.  But the strange thing was the shot was from overhead, which made me wonder how the hell he was able to do that.  Did he set the camera timer, fling it up in the air and hope it spun into the correct position at the exact moment the shutter goes off?  Unlikely.  Was there somebody else standing on the hood of the car taking the photo?  It seemed a romantic moment, so that too was unlikely.  So I looked closer at the bottom of the photo and noticed that he was holding something like a stick, which I finally deduced must be attached to the camera.

It stuck me as pretty cool, but I simply assumed it was a high tech, expensive piece of gear that only a camera nerd would buy.  But as soon as we landed in Southeast Asia ten weeks ago, I learned I was wrong.  So wrong.

Everybody here owns a Selfie Shaft.  Backpackers, package tourists, locals - hell I even saw a homeless dude with a Selfie Shaft snapping a photo of himself lying on the sidewalk, doing a thumbs-up with a hundred baht note he had scored.  After seeing everybody walking around with one of these, I easily found one in the market and had a closer look.  It is basically a telescoping plastic rod with an auto-closing mechanism at the end which you can slip your smartphone into.  It comes with a small, round, cheap, plastic device with a button that triggers the camera shutter via a Bluetooth connection and takes a photo.

What is the benefit of using a Selfie Shaft?  Well if you are all by yourself, and want a nice photo of you with that big, beautiful Buddha in the background, then it is an awesome tool.  But in tourist land it is used for a different reason; you no longer have to rely on strangers to take a photo of you.  Which brings me to the point of this little essay – how gadgets like smartphones and Selfie Shafts have turned backpacking from the most social, life-changing, mind expanding adventure shared with new friends into a mostly singular exercise, documented precisely with a never ending series of status updates with staged selfies, and automatically touched up photos.

The smartphone is the ultimate digital Swiss Army knife, capable of replacing a dozen other devices and fitting easily into your pocket.  Of course, people don’t put them in their pockets because they always have them in their hand, looking at them.  Or holding them up in the air taking a selfie (if they are barbaric enough to have not yet picked up a Selfie Shaft in the market).  Or talking into them.  Or being talked to by them.

The great irony about the smartphone is that the social media apps inevitably installed on them, meant to build an ever-present, online, omnipotent, connected community has done exactly the opposite – driven us into a self imposed solitude and prevented us from living in and enjoying the moment.  It has given us the ability to construct an instant, invisible fortress of solitude around ourselves, because no real life person standing near one absorbed in their smartphone dares initiate a conversation.  It is the ultimately anti-social device, masquerading as a great societal connector.

Imagine this scene.  Actually, you don’t need to imagine it, and neither do I, because we all see this anytime we step into any public place where people used to go to visit and talk.  In Khao Lak a few weeks ago I was by myself in a bar in a crowded market enjoying a beer while the rest of the family was shopping.  Four young backpacker girls walked in talking to each other and laughing, then ordered drinks at the bar and sat down at a table.  Bing, the smartphones were instantly pulled from pockets or bags and the conversation stopped dead as the four of them stared zombielike into their phones, thumbs rapidly scrolling across the screen.  Nobody talked.  Once in a while one of them would giggle to themselves.  They periodically reached over, picked up their drink with their free hand, took a sip, and then placed it back on the table.  After twenty minutes, one of them actually put her phone down and looked around, remembering for a fleeting moment that she was in a tropical paradise.  She actually appeared interested in talking to her friends, but as none of them would raise their eyes from the hypnotic, tractor beam of their devices, she simply picked hers up and got back to telling her online friends how much she was enjoying the sights in Thailand.

In a McDonald’s on Khao San Road in Bangkok this week I watched two young guys in a restaurant order their food, eat their entire meals, drink their drinks and not once did they say a word to each other.  Their eyes and full attention were glued to the smartphones in their hands.  They may as well have been sitting in the janitor’s closet.

Are we so bored with each others’ company that we can’t be bothered to talk to each other anymore?  Is it not an insult when we are sitting together in a restaurant and I spend the entire time with my face in my phone instead of talking to you?  Based on what I’ve seen, it sadly seems to be the case that this has become quite socially acceptable.  But how strange.  And how sad.

The advent of the built in digital camera with a zero marginal cost of taking pictures has greatly contributed to our newfound inability to live in and appreciate the moment.  Before digital cameras we used to have to buy film, load it in the camera, take a specific number of photos (12, 24 or 36 from what I can remember) then remove the film, take it to a film lab, and then come back a few hours later and pay for your developed pictures.  Most of them would be crap, but there would usually be at least a couple gems.  The point is, there was a tangible cost every time you hit the shutter release button.  Because of this, when that adorable monkey popped his head out from the tree canopy to look down, you would take a picture or two and hope you got lucky.  Now, with the smartphone digital camera, you take fifty haphazard, thoughtless photos in the hopes that one turns out, then you simply delete the other 49…if you get around to it.  If not, who cares, computer memory is cheap.  The marginal cost of taking a photograph is effectively zero so people feel happy (and even compelled?) to constantly have a smartphone directly between themselves and whatever it is they came to see.

Are there benefits of having a smartphone while backpacking?  Of course!  Being able to book accommodation, look for things to do, research things online and keep an eye on email for any emergencies back home.  Yes, they are invaluable tools, but this tool comes at a price if you do not put it in its place.

Things have definitely changed, for the better in many ways, but for the worse in others.  The last time I backpacked, if I wanted to get a photo of just me, then I’d simply ask somebody nearby to take it.  Sometimes that little bit of human contact would turn into a short term friendship which would initiate the discovery of an interesting coincidence, or provide me with a useful piece of advice, or in most cases, just give me somebody to talk to for a few moments.  If I was curious to know about a potential day trip, I’d ask around the hostel to see if anybody had done that particular trip yet, and see how they liked it.  I wouldn’t generally book any accommodation ahead of time, so when I arrived at a new place I’d usually team up with any other independent travelers I could find and try to hunt down a decent hostel together.  All this extra contact with strangers, some who parted ways as strangers and others as friends, was a significant and enjoyable aspect of the journey.  I’m not sure if it happens this way anymore, and that makes me a little bit sad.

Maybe I’m just getting older, or perhaps crankier.  But honestly, what does the future hold for us if we continue to use technology to replace human contact?  I think there is a way to use the technology properly, but it comes down to each individual to do that and, more importantly, ask it of others.

Monday, August 25th – Bangkok, Thailand

Today, I took the kids to Kidzania, which you have probably never heard of but I can assure you it is an incredible place and a very unique concept.  It is a relatively new company and they only have a handful of locations around the world (mainly in Asia) but keep your eyes open as I fully expect they will start popping up in Canada and the US soon.

Kidzania is a miniature city where kids get to experience working in different jobs, take short courses and training, deliver artistic performances and learn real life skills like counting money, making decisions, time management and budgeting.  Each child gets a cheque for 50 “Kidzos” which is the currency used in the Republic of Kidzania.  They take this to the bank and can either cash it or set up an account, deposit it and get an ATM card they can use to withdraw their funds at any of the several machines scattered around the city.  It looks like a miniature version of a real town and has restaurants, a newspaper, a radio station, hospital, dentist, airline, courier company, veterinarian, theatre, construction site, sports stadium, car dealership, gas station, music academy, institute of interior design, Coke bottling factory, convenience store, milk factory, restaurants and so on, many of them branded with real companies.

Kids are free to roam around the city as they please and participate in whatever activities they want to.  Adults are allowed in, but are not given access to the actual stores or offices where the kids go.  Kids are able to try out careers where they are given a fixed salary to do a particular job for a particular length of time.  For example, Stella got to be a dentist, veterinarian, courier, gas station attendant and a few others, and then was paid a wage.  She then used her money to enroll in training and she did short classes to be a McDonalds burger assembler, magician and one or two more.  There are staff in each venue who run the kids through what they need to do, or teach them skills, or help them out.  It was an incredible learning environment and a perfect example of learning by doing.  Magnus’s jobs were gas station attendant, television reporter, courier, construction worker, mechanic and was even the judge in a legal case!

The kids were there for five hours and were still not ready to go.  They made it through only a small fraction of all the activities which were available.  So if you are ever in a city that has a Kidzania, make sure you take your kids there – it is an incredible, unique experience.  The best thing is that your job as the parent is to basically stay out of the way and let the kids do it all on their own.

After Kidzania we met up with Ana, who had spent the day finishing up the shopping we wanted to do and, for the first time in my life, heard her say that she was “shopped out”.  I could barely believe it as I did not believe she had any limitations when it came to shopping.  So we returned to the hotel for a couple hours of chillout, then went back to our favourite Mexican restaurant, stuffed ourselves with tacos and burritos then turned the page on another lovely day in Bangkok.

Sunday, August 24th – Bangkok, Thailand

My sweet daughter Stella turned eight years old today!  So the plan for the day was really up to her, and what she wanted to do was to see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.  So after she woke up to a hotel room decorated with balloons and Happy Birthday messages, she opened her presents and got hugs from everybody.  We then went down for breakfast then walked to the Skytrain and rode to the shopping behemoth known as the Siam Paragon and picked up tickets for the 15:50 show that afternoon at the Paragon Cineplex.

That meant we had about five hours to fill.  Our initial idea was to go to this place called Kidzania in the interim, but when we got there we found out it was very expensive and is really meant to be a full day activity.  And it took us about an hour to find the damn place as it was expertly hidden in a practically inaccessible location of the mall.  So then we followed some signs to the lowest level of the mall which housed Siam Ocean World, an enormous aquarium eclipsed only by the enormous entry fee – enough to cover another month of backpacking Southeast Asia.  The next option was to simply wander the Paragon and check out the shops.  But after passing several car dealerships – Rolls Royce, Maserati, Lotus, Lamborghini and Aston Martin, I realized I didn’t have the budget to support this retail environment.

So then we tried to find another shopping place we had heard about called MBK and we ended up wandering outside in the heat for a while and found a few places, but not that one.  By this time we were all getting cranky, irritable, and generally annoyed so in times like that all you can do is eat.  We tried to find a restaurant outside of the malls (as I refused to go back in), but could only find food carts.  So I relented and we went back in the Paragon and the family pack had lunch at McDonalds while I picked up a grab bag of local food, including these nice looking sausage balls that had a hidden cache of garlic that completely polluted me and would leave me reeking of garlic for three days.

Though I’ve often lectured the kids on never using the term “kill some time” it seemed in this scenario that is exactly what we needed to do.  So we made a concerted effort to find the MBK mall and we finally did and were able to hang out there until movie time.

When we entered the movie complex there was this horrible, high pitched screaming sound and we really had no idea what it was.  But as we neared the main area and the sound grew, in fact so loud that I had to physically cover my ears, we ran into a massive throng of young Thai girls and realized there was some sort of band getting ready to play and the girls were going wild.  Now Thai girls have an extremely high pitched voice when just talking normally, so imagine the piercing sonic assault of two thousand of these neon beauties screaming at a boy band.

We got out of there as fast as we could and into the movie theatre.  Stella loved the movie and the rest of us liked it too (yes the plot was riddled with holes, but it was what it was) and after we returned to the hotel for a little break before going out for her birthday dinner.  But after a couple hours we realized everybody was out of gas, so instead we had a backpacker dinner, watched another movie and chilled out in the room.

It was not the most exciting birthday for her, mainly due to our lackluster planning, but it was just that kind of day.  We told her we’d take them to Kidzania the following day so that could be part of her birthday celebration, and she was pretty happy with that.