Phu Quoc, Vietnam (October, 2013)

Traveling from Kuala Lumpur, we were headed to Phu Quoc, which is a small island off the southwestern side of Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand.  We had heard great things about Phu Quoc and didn't make it there last year, so we were determined to get there this time.  It is a little inconvenient since you pretty much have to fly from and back to Ho Chi Minh City to get there.

The travel times were tight, so instead of going all the way from Kuala Lumpur to Phu Quoc, we decided to stay the night in Ho Chi Minh City.  We stayed at the Sheraton Saigon Hotel and Towers, redeeming 11,000 points/night (33,000 points total for 3 rooms) for club rooms that got us breakfast (that we didn't use since we were leaving too early the next morning) as well as drinks and appetizers in the lounge.

We pretty much hit the lounge for appetizers and then went to bed.  Cody and Kip went out wandering in Ho Chi Minh City to some of the shops, but didn't really do anything.  We woke up early the next morning, headed to the airport and the next thing we knew we were sitting right on the beach in Phu Quoc just outside our bungalows at the Sea Star Resort.  We booked 3 water villas right next to each other just steps from the ocean for $85/night which included breakfast and airport transfers.  We spent the rest of the day by the beach in the resort getting $5 massages, pedicures, braids put in hair, and lounging by the beach.  We had some pretty good Vietnamese food at the hotel restaurant...the pork and vegetable spring rolls and the butter curry were the consensus favorites.  A huge storm had just blown through over during the past week and there was a lot of wood, coconuts, and stuff on the beach.  The kids loved picking up all of these collections and building sandcastles and structures with them.

Cody and Scott paid $2 to rent a moped for an hour and rode into the town, primarily to get some money from the ATM, but they ended up taking a wrong turn or 2 and riding on narrow back roads that were going right through people's homes, and trying to have the front tire span canal after stinky canal.  At one point we broke up a cock fight where all the men were gathered and excitedly getting ready to have 2 roosters go at it.  When we drove up, they all backed away, guiltily and rushed us past them so they could get on with their business.  Luckily, we made our way back to the main road and bought some Mangoes and Pepsi to bring back to the bungalows.

We decided to get out and explore the next day so we booked everyone on an all day tour that had us visiting a pearl farm, touring a rehabilitated Vietnam War prison turned into a museum, hanging out at an awesome beach, taking a private boat excursion out to do snorkeling, swimming, fishing, and jumping off the boat.  We also went to an amazing beach - Sao Beach and hiked to a waterfall and had a swim.

 The kids, posing on the top deck of the boat.

 Eliza, pulling in the first catch of the day.

 Sawyer, with her first catch.  Excited, but not wanting to get any closer.

 Ryder, throwing a 360 off the top of the boat.

 Sawyer, with the nose plug 360 from the top of the boat.

 Daddy and the boys swimming in the river below the waterfall just after dusk.

 Hiking back down the jungle trail from the waterfall in the dark.

 Nash got to ride in style from the waterfall.

 Sawyer, doing gymnastics at Sao Beach.

 Sawyer, getting a pedicure on the beach.

 Mommy, getting a pedicure on the beach.

 Leaving Ho Chi Minh City early to get to Phu Quoc Island.

 Playing on the beach in front of our villa.

 Daddy and Zander, playing on the beach.

 Sawyer, getting better at her back handsprings with our beach villa in the background.

 Ryder, chilling in the hammock on the top deck of the boat.

 Ryder, not sure what to think after the locals gave him a live crab to hold.

 Nash, enjoying the breeze from the top of the ship.

 Catching some rays and some breeze from the front of the boat.

 The kids, looking off the top deck of our chartered boat.

 Mommy, helping Zander catch fish, Vietnam style.

 Nash, checking out his catch.

 Ryder, teasing Sawyer.

 Getting ready to snorkel.

 Zander, staying dry.

 Lunchtime on the boat.

Nash, jumping from the top of the boat while Daddy watches from below.

Ho Chi Minh City and Cu Chi, Vietnam (October, 2013)

Ryder, making his way through the Cu Chi tunnels.

Ryder, at the bottom of the tunnel.

Ryder, coming out of the tunnel.

Uncle Kip, crouching in the tunnel.

Walking around outside the Cu Chi tunnels.

Moped traffic in Ho Chi Minh City.

Mopeds in Ho Chi Minh City.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (October, 2013)

We had a little bit of a hiccup in Singapore at the Changi airport.  We were flying Jetstar, and had done so many times before.  I had neglected to put Zander and Cy on the tickets and was planning on doing them as 'infant in arms' with no charges.  We've done this before without a problem and done it with Jetstar.  This time they charged us ~$40 each to hold them in our laps.  It was a bit hard to swallow since we had only paid about $30 each for the tickets in the first place.

We stayed 2 nights at the Doubletree Kuala Lumpur.  We booked 3 rooms there using 4,000 Hilton Hhonors points + ~$37/night which was a steal considering how nice the hotel was.  Our Hilton Gold status got us lounge privileges which included appetizers from 5-7pm as well as a great buffet breakfast and free soda and water all day long.  For a group of 11 people, that's a pretty huge benefit.

Getting to the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) area where the Doubletree is located was a bit of a challenge.  The traffic is pretty bad, especially when we arrived and the public transportation is not integrated (there's like 7 different, separate trains that run through the city).  We set out from the airport to get to KLCC and 3 train transfers later we were close enough to get a taxi.  It was good because we got to get a feel for the city, but it was a little exhausting doing that travel with 5 kids.

We finally made it to the hotel and we were treated with the signature Doubletree chocolate chip cookies.  We were thirsty, so we plowed through like 20 sodas in the lounge as well.  We took a stroll around the hotel to check things out before heading off to bed.

The next morning we had our free breakfast buffet, then we made our way to KLCC and the famed Petronas Towers.  We wandered through the mall for a bit and then ended up at Petrosains Science Discovery Center.  It was pretty awesome for a science center.  Since it's sponsored by a Malaysian oil company, most of the exhibits revolve around industry and engineering.  The undertones of radical environmentalism and anti-capitalism were nowhere to be seen.  It was pretty refreshing to hear about technology and science in a positive light.  The kids were occupied with the interactive exhibits for hours and nobody was bored.

When we were done at Petrosains, we had some lunch at Chilis and then headed back out to the park behind the towers for a stroll and to snap some pictures.

We had dinner in the lounge and went to bed.  The next morning, another huge breakfast and mostly hanging out at the hotel.  The kids spent most of the morning at the hotel pool, and we had to leave early afternoon to make it to the airport for our flights to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

The kids and Dad in an artificial wind tunnel that simulates what a tornado feels like.

Nash's internal project manager came out on this exhibit.  Once he figured it out, he was bossing all of the other kids around and telling them how to effectively get the dirt from one side to the other.

Nash, operating the tractor.

Walking across the bridge from the DoubleTree hotel to the train station.

Petronas Towers just before the rain chased us away.

Singapore (September, 2013)

We met up with Cody's brother Kip's family (Kip, Emily, and Cy) and Cody's parents (Toni and Scott) in Singapore to kick off our two week adventure in southeast Asia where we would visit Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam.  We went on a similar vacation last year and loved it so much that we wanted our family to experience some parts of it.  One of our takeaways from last year's Vietnam trip was that there was so much more of Vietnam that we wanted to see, in particular, we weren't able to visit Phu Quoc Island and Halong Bay last time and we were not going to miss them again.

Kip's family's airline tickets were a continuation of the tickets that they had for his Salt Lake City to Auckland flights in April, 2013.

Instead of booking a traditional roundtrip and flying Salt Lake City to Auckland, New Zealand and back to Salt Lake City, we were able to create an itinerary where Auckland became the stopover city (and the family stayed there from April to September, 2013) on the itinerary and Singapore was the destination in September, 2013.  Kip, Emily, and Cy were able to fly in economy class from Salt Lake City to Auckland, NZ (stopover for 6 months) then from Auckland to Singapore (vacation for 2 weeks), then back to Salt Lake City for 80,000 US Airways miles (plus $157.50 in taxes) each (160,000 miles + $315.00 total).  Kip did have to pay an extra $150 for Cy's infant ticket from Auckland to Singapore.

Toni and Scott were able to redeem 120,000 US Airways miles (plus $53.56 in taxes) each (240,000 miles + $107.12 total) to fly in business class from Salt Lake City to Singapore and return from Hanoi, Vietnam (the end of the 2 week journey) back to Salt Lake City.

Cody, Eliza, Sawyer, Ryder, Nash, and Zander paid cash ~$1500 for 6 one way tickets from Perth to Singapore (not a great deal, but not terrible either) and redeemed 22,500 British Airways miles + $24.16 each (total of 135,000 + $145.00) for the Hanoi to Perth one way at the end of the trip.

Toni and Scott arrived to Singapore on the 27th and stayed at the Crowne Plaza Changi hotel at the airport.  Kip and Emily arrived at 6:00am on the 28th and we arrived around 2pm on the 28th from Perth.  We stayed the next 2 nights at the Holiday Inn Singapore Atrium for about $150/night which included a pretty good breakfast buffet.

After we were done chit chatting and getting reacquainted in the rooms at the Holiday Inn, we decided to go to the hotel pool instead of making the trek to the water park, since it looked like it was about to rain.  The kids were able to burn off some energy and reunite with their cousin, Cy.

After swimming, we got cleaned up and headed out towards Clarke Quay and Chinatown on foot.  It was a bit of a walk with 5 kids, but we enjoyed ourselves and although we ultimately never made it to Chinatown, we ended up hanging out in Clarke Quay and having fun in the lights and water in the fountain.  We had some 7-11 Slurpees, Kebabs and Mcdonalds for the kids for dinner, then headed back to the hotel.

Sunday morning we got up, gorged ourselves on the hotel breakfast buffet (as we are prone to do), and then headed to church and were locked out of Sacrament despite being there during the Sacrament Hymn...I guess it's a cultural thing not to be late in Singapore.  We met some of the members of the ward we attended, then headed off to do some Sunday-ish activities.

We went to a place called Lockdown, which essentially is a puzzle room.  They blindfold you, lock you in a room, and you have 1 hour to get out.  There are clues, puzzles, riddles, combination locks, etc. throughout the room that you have to figure out.  The room we did was called "Kidnapped".  The theme was that we had been kidnapped and locked in a basement.  We were confident that we would get out in time, but our confidence proved to be unjustified.  We spent too much time figuring one of the clues out in the beginning and were under the gun from there and we didn't make it out in time.  Regardless, it was awesome, and a great activity, especially for us since it could accommodate our group of 11 (6 adults and 5 kids).  Lockdown has 2 other puzzle rooms, allegedly "Bailout" is slightly easier and "Top Secret" is much harder than "Kidnapped".  We were told that the success rate for "Kidnapped" was around 20-25%...that made us feel a little less stupid.  We would definitely go back to Lockdown.  ~$18/adult and kids free was a good deal in Singapore.

We went back to the hotel for naps and games.  The kids played a Book of Mormon character charades game with dad, grandma, and grandpa while Eliza, Kip, and Emily had a nap.  When everybody woke up, we headed into the city to the Marina Bay area to check out the Gardens By the Bay and the Super Trees, the Waterfront Promenade, and the Helix Bridge, which all surrounded the amazing Marina Bay Sands Hotel.  Unfortunately, we didn't stay there this time (we stayed there last October and had an amazing time swimming in the infinity pool on the 57th floor both at night and during the day).  It's expensive though (and they are pretty strict about how many people are allowed to stay in each room), and the group voted to have another night at the Holiday Inn.  Scott and Toni did pay to take the elevator up to the top and check out the pool and views without being able to get in and swim the day before everyone else arrived.  We had dinner at one of the cafe's by the Super Trees, then headed back across the bridge through the Marina Bay Sands to catch the 9:30pm free Wonderful Light & Water show.  We ended up on the far side of the bay, away from the Marina Bay Sands, and there we had a great view of the lasers and lights, but it wasn't ideal to hear the music and see the water show (for that you want to be on the Marina Bay Sands side of the bay on the Waterfront Promenade).  We were exhausted after so much walking around Marina Bay and it was late by the time the show ended and we went back to the hotel to get some sleep.

Supertrees.

Very super.

Walking to Clarke Quay.

Posing by a footbridge.

We're a bunch of idiots for not figuring out the puzzle room.

Lock Down is a "must do" in Singapore.

Monday morning we woke up, snarfed down as much food as was humanly possible at the breakfast buffet, and headed to Sentosa Island.  We wandered around Resort World for a bit, then made our way to the water park that is inside of the aquarium (Adventure Cove).  It's a pretty good water park that definitely has some unique features including the lazy river that weaves its way in and out of some of the aquarium exhibits like the sting rays, sharks, and large fish.  There is another area where you rinse the chlorinated water off yourselves and they issue you snorkel masks and put you in a tank full of exotic, colorful fish and an artificial reef.  Pretty cool for those who are afraid of the ocean.  There are watersides and a wave pool as well.  We spent a few hours at the water park, then had to rush out to catch our flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Margaret River, Western Australia (September, 2013)

Cody surprised Eliza for her 29th birthday and got a babysitter for the 4 kids and we went to Margaret River for the weekend.  It was a pretty quick trip, but was great to get away for a while.  Margaret River is only 3 and a half hours south of Perth and is a huge change of scenery.  September is still late winter/early Spring in Perth, so it was still slightly cold.

We hadn't booked a hotel, we just thought we'd figure it out when we got down there.  We ended up stopping at our friends' (the Hannans) house in Busselton and chatting for a bit, so by the time we got into Margaret River, it was nearly 10pm.  Almost everything was closed, but we managed to find a place in the middle of town (Margaret River Hotel) that was still open and had vacancies.  They only charged us $110 for the night and it was clean, so it did the job.

We woke up and headed south from Margaret River out towards Redgate Beach.  The Margaret River scenery is unique for Western Australia, everything is much greener than it is in Perth.  There are farms and vineyards all over the place and it's very quiet...not a lot of people.  We watched the surfers at Redgate Beach for a bit and wandered around on the rocks, then headed back to the car to head further south.

We stopped at Calgardup Cave on the way and paid the $15 each for a torch (flashlight) and headlamp.  The tours are self-guided (you're on your own) which is what we prefer anyway.  We were the only ones at the cave the whole time we were there and apparently this was one of the only "natural" (unlit) caves in the area.  We wandered through the cave for the next 45 minutes.  There was a place to do abseiling (rappelling) from a small hole in the top of the cave to a platform at the bottom of the cave...that would be fun for next time…we'd have for sure done it if we had known it was there.

 Eliza, coming up the steps from the bottom of Calgardup cave.

 Wandering along the rocks at Redgate Beach.

 Calgardup cave with a camera flash.

No people, just sheep.

We headed further south to check out the Boranup Karri Forest and drive to Hamelin Bay.  There was not much to see at Hamelin Bay, but the forest was pretty.  We were able to drive some dirt trails through the forest and were pretty much the only cars on the road.  It was relaxing to have a drive with just the 2 of us.

We headed back up towards Margaret River for a lunch we had booked at Voyager Estates.  We wandered around the well-manicured grounds, rose garden, and restaurant area for a while, then headed inside for our "wine tasting".  Since we don't drink alcohol, we tasted the sparkling grape juices.  An interesting fact that we learned was that the founder of Voyager, Michael Wright, also didn't drink alcohol and was adamant that Voyager always have non-alcoholic options available.  We were grateful for that.  The wine tastings are free at Voyager, and it's worth a visit to just check out the grounds.

 We took the scenic route through the Boranup Karri Forest.

 Michael Wright's winery.

 Viva Australia…er, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie…Oi, Oi, Oi.

 Our non-alcoholic wine.

 Endless fields of vines.

 The hot spot in Margaret River.

The lunch was not our cup of tea...we aren't really fancy food people.  $35/person for the "large" lunch was about what we're used to for Western Australia and the atmosphere, but Eliza doesn't like steaks that aren't cooked at least to medium-well and they refused to cook it beyond medium (we have found that several restaurants refuse to cook it beyond medium...a bit snobby, if you ask us).  The portions were quite small as well.  Cody had the sampler plate that included chorizo, chicken pistachio sausage, duck pate, some small fish dish, and bread.  The only thing worth eating was the chorizo.  We're sure the lunch was really high quality food, we just don't appreciate that kind of thing...probably would have rather had some Whoppers from Hungry Jacks (Burger King).

After lunch, we headed back to Margaret River to the Fudge Factory and sampled 9 different kinds of fudge (strawberries and cream, cherry coconut, mango, mocha, chocolate orange, chocolate chili, chocolate ginger, caramel cashew, and apple pie), buying some to take home to the kids.  We had a little wander around Margaret River and then headed east to Jesters Flat for some horseback riding.

Jesters Flat was a pretty cool place.  It was just the 2 of us with a guide and we were able to trot and canter with the horses.  It was unique to be riding horses among the kangaroos and eucalyptus trees.  $55/person for an hour was not a bad price.

We then made the three and a half hour trek home.

Bali, Indonesia (May, 2013)

We booked the Stones Hotel in Legian (Marriott brand) near Seminyak for 3 nights using cash.  We didn't use Marriott points since the hotel was relatively inexpensive at ~$200 per night which included $50/day in the hotel restaurants in addition to the free buffet breakfast that came with our temporary Platinum status.

We walked around Kuta a bit during the afternoon and got 90 minute Balinese massages (~$12.50) in the evening.

The next morning we booked a private car to take us whitewater rafting and to the Bali Zoo to hold some of the animals.  The rafting was pretty cool...mostly mild, but we got wet and our guide kept paddling us under waterfalls to soak us.  The scenery was beautiful...very green, tons of waterfalls and cliffs.  We got out and snapped some pictures of the waterfalls, and the highlight of the trek was at the end of the journey we got to go over a 12 foot waterfall in the raft, which was fun.  By the time we got to the zoo, bad weather was rolling in.  We got about 3/4 of the way through the zoo and it started to pour down rain.  We did get to hold monkeys, exotic birds, and huge lizards, but we rushed out to get out of the downpour and back to the hotel.  We had dinner in the hotel, swam in the pool, and watched a couple movies in our room before going to bed.

The next day we slept in and then went to Waterbom park for some waterslides.  The highlight was "Climax," a slide that is nearly vertical and starts with you standing on a trap door and a voice counting "3...2...1..." before opening the trap door and dropping you into a free fall inside of a closed tube before you go into a full loop before plunging into the water at the bottom of the slide...good ride.  After leaving the park, we wandered around the shops in Kuta before heading down to Kuta beach to watch the surfers.  We had another relaxing evening eating dinner by the pool and watching a couple movies in our hotel room.

We didn't go to Ubud or Nusa Dua this time around (we spent all of our time in those 2 areas the last time we visited Bali in May, 2012).  We were missing the kids so bad after 14 days away and getting anxious and excited to see them the next day.  We took our $60 Jetstar flights home from Bali (Denpasar) to Perth and arrived home to our excited kids.

 Eliza after dropping from the near vertical "Climax" water slide at Waterbom Park.