chillin out in our little paradise...

been having a nice relaxing time here on iboih, aside from the fact that it seems we all got really sick from staying in that moldy room in bandah aceh. we all have really bad coughs and colds. there was a retired child's doctor staying here on vacation, and he did not think zoe would get better without antibiotics, but sure enough, that tough little monster surprised him. she is definately on the mend, though thomas is still having lots of sinus problems, which means not much diving for us. i did finish the dive course with per and karin, it went really well, we even managed to see manta rays on the course. today we found a new place to stay that is a huge house for only $5/night. great to have some space for zoe to run around. she has been great. in k.l. we managed to find a bit of playdoh, travel size, and when we arrived her she got it as a treat for being such a good girl, and not having her binkie for a whole week. (she still has not had one since farmor and farfar left, so i think we are finally completely free of them! yipee!). anyway, she has been loving her play doh.

and here she is pretending to be a ghost, cannot say she was very scary in a tropical sarong though!

the other end of indonesia...

so we are back in indonesia, but this time on the other end. pulau weh, the most north-western tip of the indonesian islands. our trip here was uneventful really, we took a taxi from the hotel in k.l. to the airport. we had a hard time at the boarding gate getting on the flight as the people were already lined up for the next flight and would not let those of us flying to bandeh aceh through. really odd mentality. anyway, then when we finally got on the right plane, we had a nice flight, thomas and zoe stretched out in one row and me in another. we had a bit of a wait to get through immigration, but finally it was our turn. we had somehow ended up last in the queue. they were really friendly and even told our taxi driver for us that we needed to stop at an atm as we had no rupiah. so we hopped in a taxi and headed to the town. it was a surprisingly long ride, we drove through some gorgeous countryside for about 45 minutes in a very fancy suv for only $7. arrived at a hotel, dropped the bags and headed out for a walk about. ate some gado gado, and asked about a million different people when the ferry went the next morning. funny enough, not a single person answered the same time. went back to the room where we realized there was a horrible mold smell that thomas was already having an allergy to. we asked to change rooms, but they were all the same. so we were stuck there, luckily it was only for one night. the next day we took a taxi to the ferry, which we guess went at 1100, as the website and the travel agent had said, but no, it was not until 1400, so we had a bit of a wait. apparently we were not the only ones who had been misinformed. two swedes ended up waiting almost as long. after talking to them a bit, it turned out they were heading to pulau weh to do their dive course, and as it turns out, they would prefer to do it in swedish. so when we turned up, we asked the diveschool here, and they said no problem. great! zoe entertaining us all with papa's sunglasses while waiting for the ferry.

stopping on the road to iboih to feed the monkeys.