Butler Family Travels

It was strange for me to be driving down the Jordan Valley last week in my mom’s car… on the Jordan side looking back across at Israel! From our house in Poriyya, I grew up looking out across the valley at Jordan, but it was forbidden for us to go there – until recently. My mom (who now regularly flies from Amman, Jordan to Africa) treated us to 5 days in Jordan. And what a treat it was! We stayed with her good friends (and their 3 kids who are the ages of Rebekah and Levi) in Amman the first and last nights. In between, we all traveled south together on the Desert Highway to Al Karak and Wadi Rum. Then (without our hosts who returned home to Amman) we headed to Petra for 2 days and nights. Al Karak, one of the largest, mostly-intact Crusader Castles in the Middle East was actually built by Payen the Butler (we’re pretty sure an ancestor of ours…). Lots of tunnels and passageways to explore! Wadi Rum in Southern Jordan was definitely a highlight, and, just in case you were wondering, it is for good reason that Petra is one of the Seven Wonders of the World! I must add that a large part of our experience in Jordan had to do with the crazy driving. Besides the fact that lanes and their lines don’t mean anything and everyone drives like crazy people, we survived driving in every weather condition imaginable. I really mean it when I say we survived. Rain storm, hail storm, snow storm, wind storm, sand storm, flooding, and dense fog. Each one came with such incredible force. Large shipping containers were flying off their trucks and sliding down the highway. Little trucks and cars were flipping. Plastic bags and garbage were flying through the sky like flocks of birds. We even saw a full rainbow at one point. Jeb also did a fabulous job of slowing down in time for the intermittent speed bumps that appear suddenly on the highway and are especially hard to see at night. We were happy to make it back across the border and back to Granny’s house.

Uncle Jeb is the hero tonight. Shalev, my adorable 17 mo. old nephew, is sleeping peacefully and it all went down without a hitch thanks to  tiny paragliding videos on an iPhone in a dark room. Noam, Rinah, and Asjer are also all in bed now and the house is quiet and clean. We are getting to babysit! My brother and his wife are out on a hot date (literally) at Hammat Gader, an ancient hot springs and spa in the Golan. We arrived safely in Israel a week ago.  We hit the ground running with 5 days of Hanukkah left to celebrate, projects to help with, out-of-town family to see, jet lag to fight, and Hebrew to remember. We’ve been busy! The kids and Jeb are happy to be settled somewhere for the next little while. I’m happy to be “home”. Good excuses for our lack of blogging, don’t you think? We will do our best to blog at least weekly for our time here in Israel. Maybe just check on the weekends for the next little bit?! We do have a few posts left from our time in Thailand that we would really like to share. I will do my best to post those tomorrow. For now, I’m going to bed, R and L are watching Leverage, and Jeb is doing I’m not sure what. Good night!

Getting off the island of Kho Tao was easy enough and we knew a little better what to expect this time. In Thailand, it is common for tourists/backpackers to use local agencies to book one’s travels from one place to another since there can be so many awkward connections. If you aren’t aware of a needed transfer and fail to arrange it ahead of time, you can end up paying as much for a little 5 kilometer taxi ride as it cost to ride a ferry and a bus for 8 hours. This particular leg of our trip involved an 8 hour night ferry to Surat Thani, a 20 min. minivan taxi, a 2 hour bus ride to Krabi, and a 15 min. long-tail boat. Agencies are not always the least expensive way to get it done, but in this case it was both convenient and inexpensive, so I was glad to be able to use a travel service. They give you a sticker for each leg of the trip that you wear on your shirt. As you can imagine, these little bright stickers adorn many walls and bathroom stalls. We arrived in Railay (Tonsai, to be precise) before lunch. It is nice getting to a new place during day light hours. It allows you to get your bearing and find a place to settle. Tonsai and the surrounding area is basically nirvana for climbers. It was fun to see Rebekah looking around in awe of her surroundings! “Krabi’s fairy-tale limestone crags come to a dramatic climax at Railay, the ultimate jungle gym for rock- climbing fanatics. The atmosphere here is nothing short of laid-back Rasta-Thai haven.”-Lonely Planet guide book.

We headed to the west side of the island for our last days on Koh Tao. As we walked along the beach we found ourselves deeper in Gilligan’s camp. This is where we would spend Thanksgiving. You will see from the pictures that they (or maybe I do) have a thing for swings.

WiFi is spotty at best where we are and we’ll be lucky to get this one post off to you. Thanks to all you faithful friends and family who are following. We haven’t forgotten you. We have a lot of stories to tell and pictures to show, but they will have to come all at once a bit later when we get to a better connection. Sorry! We love you all… Later then?!

Eating out in Thailand is incredibly cheap, easy, and the food is delicious, but even that gets tiring. So a quick trip to town on a moped or a walk up the road solves the problem. What do the Butlers buy when they can’t handle any more gourmet food? Peanut butter, bananas, quality bread, jelly, muesli, and boxed milk. Plastic kid cups for 50 cents double as bowls. That was easy!

20 years ago, when I was 18, my parents, brother, and I were in Thailand. We went in search of an island that would be off the beaten track to relax and explore so we took a ferry to an island called Koh Phangan (further out than the more touristed one called Koh Samui). There was a third island a bit further away but we were told, “Don’t go there. There is nothing there; no good way to go.” We did the next best thing. There were no roads, so we hiked to the other side of Koh Phangan where we did find a secluded beach. We slept in bamboo bungalows over the water, made sand castles, and ate rice with coconut milk for every meal. It was amazing! Some local Thai guy even climbed a coconut palm, brought me down a coconut, and proposed to me. I said, “No thank you!” 20 years later… I am swinging in a hammock on a little bungalow porch hanging out over the rocks overlooking a tiny bay called Tanote. We hiked here over the mountain this morning! It was hot and beautiful with a steeper-than-Cascades trail, palms, jumping-tree squirrels, and views. We could’ve taken a taxi truck or rented motorcycles and come on the road, but that would’ve been going against tradition. There are tourists here, and there are no more islands off this coast. Something is here now! Koh Tao (That tiny third island – “Turtle Island”) is 19.2 sq. kilometers (about the size of Lake Wenatchee) and more scuba divers are certified on this island annually than anywhere else in the world. There are shops in the town and little resorts scattered in every little nook and cranny around the island, but that is OK. God’s striking beauty is still all around and I got to come back and share it with my own family! P.S. For your sake, we’ll ease up on the pictures of us in hammocks in the future. We’ve just needed to keep convincing ourselves that it is true.

Getting around Thailand would seem to many a logistical nightmare, but it really isn’t if you just go with the flow and have no deadlines or itinerary. We left the beach in the back of a truck (Sofa, the owner of Lola Bungalows gave us a ride to town) and hopped on the next train south to the city of Chumphon. Once there, we rode 12 km in a funny, open taxi to the shores of a river. We planned to hitch a ride at midnight on the open deck of a fishing boat for 250 baht each, but learned that that boat was ‘having problems/broken’. So we went down the way and found another boating company. There were boats docked around that looked decent so we paid 300 baht each for a birth. We waited until 11 at night and then were led onto the unlikely barge/boat that was loaded with supplies – literally beached and partially on its side. There were a handful of other foreigners with us. This must be normal. Dark out and calm, we watched and waited from the roof of the boat for about a ½ hour while they worked  to motor off the sand. Once free, the boat leveled out (a good sign) and began its way down the river to the Gulf of Thailand. The smell of fish was strong as we passed by miles of fishing boats at their docks. We were on our way to Koh Tao… finally. This was the “slooooow boat” so the sun was rising as we arrived at the pier. What a night! Travel Tip #2 – Don’t have any expectations! Click on the first picture here to see the story unfold.

“Once you settle into a simple beach-front hut, you probably won’t need shoes and the days will melt away.” Lonely Planet pg. 530. It’s true! We’re not exactly sure how many days we’ve been here. However, we are rested and ready to move on. Leaving Lola Bungalow this afternoon for Ko Tao, an island south of here.

Our friends, the Harkins, were so gracious to pick us up at the airport and let us stay with them while we dealt with jet lag and explored the city a bit. On day 2, we purchased day passes for the river boat so that we could easily get around. The contrast of very old and dirty and shiny, modern new was stark.