A couple of weeks in Koh Samui...

After a few days in Bangkok just getting ourselves together we again boarded a plane to get to Koh Samui. Koh Samui is a muddled mess of people trying to make a living, but is, if you look through the mess, a beautiful place. We had arranged to meet our friends Scott ( met at university 25 years [ouch] ago with the same hedonistic values) and Jody and their kids Sophie and Kyle at a nice resort. First night spent as old mates do, long island teas and tall stories...pretty slow the next day - no sympathy of course. Melded quickly into the island lifestyle of eating drinking and swimming. Hired a scooter to get to and from the laundry, washed and pressed and smelling great for $1.20 /kg. Our clothes aren't very used to getting ironed, surprised they didn't fall apart. We looked pretty smart though.

We quickly discovered that Harry Potter was flavour of the month in Koh Samui and funnily enough he was travelling with us, a product of my loins. Poor Angus was subjected to being man and woman handled and called 'Harry'. He got jack of it pretty quickly and a few poor souls copped a croc in the shin. We could understand his frustration after a while and were going to buy him a tee shirt with 'My Name is Angus Please Dont Touch Me' - Angus liked the concept.

We moved to less celubrious, but quite nice, accommodation just down the road. An apartment for half the cost of the resort. No beach, granted, but a nice pool and the luxury of putting the kids to bed and keeping the lights on so we could actually have a chat and watch a DVD or two. The women that ran the place took a shine to the boys and treated us really nicely. There was even a fishing pond in front of the restuarant where the boys caught their first fish - a red letter day in their dads book. Angus the pacifist wouldn't let the women keep the fish and demanded release. Archie was happy to knock them off and eat them raw.

Getting Away

After a couple of years of planning the Clearys have packed up and headed off to spend some time together and have a big adventure. First stop Thailand. We thought that would be a nice place to unwind and avoid the August crowds of Europe...but more importantly to break the trip up so we only have to endure short [er] legs when the kids lost the plot - and yes they did, but generally they weren't too bad.

It felt good to finally get away as the to do list just didn't seem to get shorter before we left. Packing up was always going to be a bit tricky but we knew we'd make the plane. Thanks to eveybody that is helping us out with stuff at home, in particular Kay and Neil, Jon and Jenny, Jennifer, Tracy and Michael and Aubrey. And our apologies to Dot and Dave for leaving you, we miss you lots.

So the idea is to have some time off work and clear our heads for the next bit of life. More importantly to have dad spend time with the boys as well as try to show them a bit of the world. As I am only starting this blog one month into the trip I can already see that they have learned a lot just from being in a different place and culture. The truth is that I (Andrew) am learning more about the boys than I have in the past due to my prior position as weekend dad. There are days of incredible satisfaction and days of incredible despair. Thankfully the former outweigh the latter. Most importantly we are all in it together and this will be part of our lives that we will never forget.