Butler Family Travels

As you might remember, the Butlers flew away from our good home, the USA, and due to that marvel, the International Date Line, arrived in Thailand on Election Day. Of course, we are in the future and so you all had to wait another day for the big event. (Technically, so did we, but whatever. As you will see that doesn’t matter in my la la land. ) Now, I know some of you all can’t imagine what might be behind such foolishness, but I set a goal of remaining ignorant of our President’s identity for as long as possible.  Seemed like a fun game. My family participated to varying degrees.  Rebekah wasn’t about to skip out on Facebook over something so stupid, and so I believe she learned pretty quickly.  Who won the election wasn’t part of the plot in Levi’s book, so he remained ignorant.  Then he started another book.  Happy moron! Sarah was guarding our backpacks out on the sidewalk on day 2 while I changed money in a bank when some Thai lady in a business suit walked out of the air conditioning and attempted to confirm that Sarah (Obviously an American, I guess) was so relieved at the outcome.  Sarah was disappointed that she now knew, and I imagine the lady might have had a different interpretation of her disappointment, but language barriers make political discussion even less appealing than they are anyway, so Sarah let it go.  I remained the Lone Ignoramous for another week (well, so did Levi.  His book still didn’t include any of this in its narrative arc), until we were waiting for the boat to Kho Tao and I overheard some other travelers from Utah discussing their thoughts.  I made it ten days and, I guess, it turns out, “nothing changes on election day”.  –Bono, U2.   Wait, no, he sang that about New Years Day.  

So Thai don’t wear their shoes indoors, including at shops and restaurants.  In a practice quite counterintuitive to the usual travel security, everyone just leaves their flip flops out on the street while eating or shopping.  Sometimes this leads to involuntary participation in the traveling flip flop game.  I was privileged to join this game when, upon leaving the best restaurant that I have yet encountered in this world, I found that my super nice Olukais had wandered on down the street.  A pair of decent, but not Olukai, slippahs were left in their place.  This sent Sarah into a treasure hunting frenzy.  She loves shoes and a treasure chase, so checking out every pair of feet going by on the street was no chore for her.  Alas, we have left the island and I am still the, not so, proud new owner of a pair of Thai flip flops.

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?!

We are grateful for all of you. It is weird to celebrate Thanksgiving Gilligan-Style, but we will do our best and love it. Happy Thanksgiving!

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.

Jim (English) and Martine (French) retired from the advertising worlds of London and Paris at the ages of 45 and have been traveling the world ever since. They spend their summers in Paris and travel around to warm beaches in Thailand, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, etc. the rest of the year. Jim, a famous art director in his day, feels he doesn’t have anything more to offer the world, but is still full of opinions about it. We really liked talking to them; easy-going as it gets. They sure know how to not do much!

I’ll tell you where we are. We are waiting for the night boat to Koh Tao. Can you guess what in the world Rebekah’s problem is? No, it is not the food. She likes it. Be creative, people.

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.

It sounds like it. Coconuts fall from the trees all the time here. At least 3 fell from the tree by our bungalow. We had fun with one of them. Interesting fact: About 300 Thais (mostly workers) die each year from falling coconuts.