litvinland.com - Thailand Vacation

Beginning December 18, 2004 we will attempt to document our visit to Thailand. We will update this page as Internet access permits. We are thankful to Cam's cousin Darrell for making this trip possible and to his family for including us in their vacation.

Thursday Dec 16 - Saturday Dec 18: We left on schedule at 7:15pm from PDX Thursday evening. Our plane's captain was Denny Flanigan. He talked to us before leaving, saying the plane was in great shape and he was in good shape. Expected a quick flight to SFO of 1h:10m. I think it actually took about 1:22 minutes, but otherwise was un eventful:

Here is a picture taken from the Window of our plane as we were waiting to leave PDX.

At San Francisco, we weren't sure quite were to go to catch our SFO to HK flight. Cam had looked online and new the terminals were suppose to be next to each other so we went in that direction and finally found the gate for our Singapore Air flight. Had to go through Security again.

Here we are waiting for the HK flight. Cam is talking to his mother on the cell phone.

This is Sunrise from the plane window as we are descending in to HK International Airport after a 15h:15m flight from SFO. We arrived at 7:10am Saturday morning. Our next flight to Bangkok was to leave at 8:00am. We had no idea where the terminal for it was. Fortunately we saw what we thought was the connecting flight information, took a tram to that terminal and it was the right one. We found a Thai Airline check in counter and the receptionist called us by name, so they were waiting for us. This turned out to be great as the general seating was filled so they upgraded us to Business Class and we got two seats in the front of the plane. They also had the best food, a vegetarian Thai dish that was pretty good. We arrived at 10:10am local time, about 24 hours exactly from the time we left. We expect that the rest of our party was leaving PDX about the time we arrived.

The red line is our approximate flight path. The interesting thing to me is that we flew over China, very close to Beijing.

Had dinner at a Thai restaurant at the hotel. It was very nice. Jeri had a curry dish and Cam just had some spring role appetizers. Probably will not have another update to the webpage for several days. Internet connection is $16 a day, so will hold off a few days before spending that much again.

Just finish a MSN Messenger contact with Jeri's folks. It is great to have a online conversation with them. Here are a couple pictures I just took from our hotel room window.

This picture is of the Hilton Hotel, across the river from our Sheraton Hotel.

I think the most surprising them to me so far is the amount of river traffic. There are boats going everywhere all the time.

This is the Thursday Dec 23 update. I did not have the full day of Internet Access that I expected. Instead, I had to purchase time at 5 baht per minute or 300baht or $7.50 per hour. That means I have to setup everything before making a connection to maximize my time. Anyway, I will give it a try and see how it works.

Currently we are in Chang Mai. Arrived here Thursday afternoon about 2:30pm local time. We will be here till Sunday when we fly to Phuket. We are in the Chang Mai Sheraton tonight, but Beng, Darrell, Hana, Jeri and I move to another hotel close by tomorrow. Check out the itinerary for exact information.

So now to catch up with what we have done the last few days!

Here we all are, on a long boat, out on the river heading for a tour through a canal.

Here is a video of that trip and the hill tribe village we visited a few days later. The video can be viewed using Windows Media Player and should automatically open when you click on the link. The file is 4.5mb in size, so it may take a while to download. Link to Video

This lady was selling all sorts of stuff on the river. The shopping begins…

A typical home along the canal.

Another typical home but one of the much nicer ones.

Our group at the Temple of Dawn

This is the Royal Palace. We spent about an hour here.

Monday afternoon we caught a 5:15 flight to Chiang Mai, where there was a driver with van waiting to take us to Ang Khang Nature Resort. That was about a 3 hour drive. We arrived at the resort about 10pm. Darrell had warned us it could be cool there…and it was. Nightly temperatures got down to the upper thirties. Normally not a big deal…except this hotel room, was not heated. Also, though the room was nice and there was a heater for the shower water, it was a on-demand heater and it didn’t really work well. Fortunately during the day, the weather did moderate and it was quite pleasant. Now on with the pictures from this location.

This is the grounds of the Ang Khang Nature Resort. As you can see the grounds were very well kept and attractive.

This is our bungalow. There are actually four units with two accessed from one side and the other two accessed from the other side.

Some flowers on the reserve.

A very nice waterfall. I would like to have one like this at home!

The flowers were blooming everywhere.

A hill tribe woman selling her wares.

A view of the valley on our way to the Thai, Myanmar border and hill tribes.

Some of us with a few of the solders at the border. Just an FYI…their uniforms had US Army on them!

The border. About in the center of the picture are the guards from the Myanmar border post.

Jeri had the time of our life, giving some of the people, tooth brushes and combs that she had brought with her. She then would take their picture.

This was a market in the village.

This is the hill tribe village. The thing that impressed me the most is that though there were pigs all over and these are primitive people, there was no smell.

Davy, Hana, Darrell, a local boy who was selling hand made bracelets and Matthew.

A typical mode of transportation.

This is Noi, one of the school children that guided us around the village.

Jeri is showing the kids how to play tic, tac, toe. I believe she didn’t have much success!

Bang, Darrell and Hana riding a elephant!

Here is Jeri driving the Elephant! You can see by the smile she having a grand time! Marlene Dietrich is right behind Jeri.

We also stopped at a Orchid farm.

There was also a Butterfly farm.

Well, that’s it for now. I don’t know if I will have access again till next week. Should have it between Monday and Wednesday, depending on how much it costs. I may have it just one day. - Cam

Monday December 27 on Phuket - The Day After...

We are all fine here at the Marriott. No More Tsunamis. Thanks to all of you for your prayers. We have truly felt the presence of God here. We are at peace and have comfort. We pray for all those people that are here that unfortunately went through this ordeal yesterday morning. Please pray for all of them.

The Thai people are wonderful. We thank them for their efforts to help all those in need.

Today I will have a few pictures and a video of the Elephant ride, taxi ride in Chiang Mai and a couple clips I took this morning of the tidal wave damage just a 100 yards or so from where I am working on this webpage.

The courtyard at the Rachamanka Hotel. Our room is on the right side of this picture.

After Dinner at the Rachamanka Hotel restaurant Christmas Eve, each of us got to choose a gift from under the tree. We will show you what we got when we get home!

A hill tribe woman Jeri found in downtown Chiang Mai whom she did some bartering with.

This is the waiting area at the Chiang Mai airport as we wait for our delayed flight. It finally left at 5:15pm Thai time. By the way, for you techno buffs. If you look on the upper right corner of this picture, about an 1.5 inches from the top and an inch to the left, you will see the wireless access point that I used to send out email that we were safe in Chiang Mai. It cost 100baht for 20 minutes access time, purchased at the Coffee Corner in the back of the picture.

That's all I have for today. Here is a link to the video of the Elephant Ride, Taxi ride and damage here at the JW Marriott.
Today's Video

Monday Dec 27 -

We arrived at Phuket on Sunday evening Dec 26. We came down having contacted our Hotel and their informing us that they were open and that the only problem they had was debris in the pool. We had no idea of the extent of the devastation to the surrounding area or to this part of the world. We had felt the earthquake in Chiang Mai Sunday morning. It was just a little shaker. We had no idea until after waiting for our delayed flight from Chiang Mail to Phuket that there had been problems with a tsunami in Phuket. As I said, I expect we would not have come down, except that after contacting the hotel, they indicated that they were expecting us...so we got on the plane and went down.

Here are some pictures of the tsunami destruction that we observed on Monday! This hotel (JW Marriott) was very fortunate. They only had minor damage. The hotel is about 150 yards from the ocean and there is a rise of 20-30ft. That means the beach took the brunt of the wave. If the hotel had been lower like other resorts in the area, they would have had far more serious damage and I'm sure injuries. We heard today that Khao Lak, the location Darrell and the rest of our group had planned to go to, had been hard hit with major damage and many deaths (the number I heard was *200, though that is unconfirmed.) *Note: We have since learned that there were many more deaths and missing at Khao Lak. The numbers have been estimated to be in the thousands of dead and missing. The grandson of the King of Thailand was among the dead at Khao Lak. We even understand that he and his mother were staying at the same hotel that Darrell's family and the Dietrich family were scheduled to stay at. If we would have arrived 5 hours earlier or the quake and tsunami had occurred 5 hours later, our safety may have had a completely different result.

That is me down the path. There is actually a railroad tie walkway here, but it is covered with sand. The path is about 100-150ft from the ocean.

This is the pool, the ocean is behind me. I would expect that normally there isn't this much sand here or at least it is not spread around helter skelter.

You can tell the plants just don't look right, they are all flat. However, this is the extent of the type of damage at our hotel.

More of the same flatten ground cover. The hotel is behind the trees. The ocean is behind me about 25-40ft and down 20-30ft.

A view of the beach. The hotel is to the right about 150-200 feet from this location.

The beach again.

The beach looking south.

A good example of the the flattened plant life.

This is the swimming pool. I would expect that normally the water would be very clear, however you can see it is quite dirty.

Notice the debris on the floor. Jeri thought this was an interesting shot, with the chef gazing out to the ocean with his restaurant in ruin.

Dec 30 -

We all know now that this natural disaster has turned into one of a magnitude no one can barely even imagine. To be in the middle of this, is overwhelming. However life goes on. For us, Jeri, myself and our family. We will leave here tomorrow and in a few hours be back to the safety and normality of our regular lives. Unfortunately, there are many foreigners here in Thailand, many locals and an enormous amount of others from round the Indian Ocean who will not have regular lives for some time or if ever again. All changed in a blinking of an eye.

I wish I could explain why such disasters happen, why so much suffering happens. I don't have an answer other than to say, it is an opportunity for us to help those that do survive. There are many ways to help. The simplest thing to do is to pray. Having been here this week and experienced personally the power of prayer, I am full of thanksgiving. When I heard that all of our family and friends have been praying for us before and after this disaster occurred, I am a firm believer in prayer. Thank you to our family and friends. Your prayers have been answered.

A few of the none human casualties of this disaster. These fish are about 2-3 inches long. This group was located about 250 yards from the ocean. It appeared that the water had pooled at this spot for a short time resulting in the grouping of these fish.

Jeri with a Phuket sunset. Even after all this carnage, there is still beauty!

We arrived on schedule in Singapore. Current time is 4:54pm Friday afternoon. Our plane from Phuket was surprisingly empty. I expect it was just a 3^rd full. Already, we are impressed with the city/state of Singapore. Very clean city, beautiful roads to downtown, lined with trees and flowers. Our room overlooks many skyscrapers and a river. We are on the 14^th floor. Darrell, Beng and Hana are right next to us. The Dietrich’s left Phuket at the same time, but flew to Bangkok. They leave tomorrow as well and we both arrive in San Francisco Saturday evening about an hour apart. We go on up to Portland, they have to spend the night and arrive Sunday morning.

This is the view out our Ritz-Carlton Hotel room in Singapore. The construction in the middle of the picture is the new underground (subway).

Here we are in front of the Fountain of Wealth, New Years Eve, 2004. We hope it works.

We arrived in Portland at PDX at 9:45pm Saturday night. We got a flight out of SFO a little earlier than scheduled, thanks to Darrell's familiarity with flying and how to get things changed around. We all went on standby and there were available seats on a flight that left at 8:10. All our flights were on time on our way home today.

We want to take this moment to again thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers. The Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami events of the past week and the fact that we were in the midst of it is overwhelming. We are thankful that our party is safe. However there are millions of people that have been effected. There are two things we can do for them One is pray for all these people. I can tell you that prayer works. We felt results of everyone's prayers for us this last week. Second is donate to a disaster relief fund of your choice. Money to good organizations can provide the basic necessities and get them to the people who need them, to rebuild their lives. In closing this has been an experience of a life time. When we left on this trip, we had no idea what the experience would be. Cam having never traveled to a international location, was a little concerned, but went. The experience has been good, aside from the tragedy.

Thailand Diary 2004