What's on the agenda for 2024...?

I noticed that our friends Linda and Steven over at The Chouters posted their upcoming plans for 2024, and yesterday was a quiet day for us so I thought we'd take this opportunity to do the same.

Our plans are always pretty flexible though, so don't take all of this as being written in stone! 

The original plan for the current winter was to tour Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. But that has already been disrupted by a somewhat last minute decision to fly to Kuala Lumpur on the 30th of this month. So, we'll be starting 2024 off in Malaysia.

And we're not even sure how long we'll stay there. However we do plan to be in Vietnam for the month of February. And then Laos and into Cambodia in March, however we have no idea how long we'll be in each country, or if we'll even make it into all of them. 

First of April, we have tentative plans to head back to Istanbul. Our friend Cheryl who is a teacher there has a dog Gus, and she is on school break the beginning part of April. She wants to go away somewhere, and we have offered to house and pet sit for her. Then we would take another couple of weeks and head down to Antalya for a check up with our ophthalmologist. 

Long time readers know that we've spent quite a lot of time with Ruth's cousin Helen and her husband Tony. We're going to be headed to England to visit with them during the month of May, and their son Stuart is getting married during the month, so we've got a wedding to attend as well! Hopefully we'll finally make it up to the lakes district for a holiday with them. We've been wanting to visit that area for a long time!

We've been wanting to do the Peaks of the Balkans hike for a couple of years now, and June is the perfect time of year to do it. So we want to do the ten day self guided hike through the mountains of Kosovo, Albania, and Montenegro during the early part of June. While we're in the area, we hope to do a couple of weeks in Serbia, the one country of that area that we have not been to.

For July and August, we're thinking Japan! Our original plan was to climb Mt. Fuji, however now that I've done the research I've decided it's not something I want to do. Far too many people doing the same thing! So many in fact, that you have to book accommodation etc a full year in advance! Maybe we'll climb the second highest mountain in Japan instead. 

In early September, we'll fly to Calgary. My sister moved there this past spring, and we're looking forward to visiting her. Also, flying to Calgary from Japan would mean that it is the first time ever that we will have flown around the world!

Then to Ottawa for our annual friends and family visit there. No idea how long we'll stay, but probably a couple of weeks there, and a trip down to cottage country to see our son Alex, then a couple more weeks in Nova Scotia with daughter Lindsey and family.

Nothing firm after that! However a return to Mexico is somewhere in the back of our minds, and making its way to the front! We have a lot of friends in Mexico and haven't seen them since the winter of 2019-2020! We also need to explore central America. While keeping in mind Sri Lanka with friends Bob and Denise for early 2025! Lots of things on the agenda!

So, that's all pretty exciting!

In the meantime, back to Thailand. We had a relaxing day yesterday, even sitting out by the pool for a while although neither one of us got in. The water is pretty cold, and the temperature sitting outside was comfortable.

They make delicious breakfasts here. How about this fruit bowl?!

Breakfast is included with our room rate.

There is an evening market on the weekends, and it's very popular with both tourists and locals. It was packed! We managed to have a couple of snacks trying some of the street food, and didn't really need any dinner.

On the way over there, they had the full Christmas and New Year lighting display up and running.

The moat around the central area.

This phone/camera takes really nice night photos.

Traffic in Chiang Mai is absolutely terrible.

Pedestrian traffic isn't much better!

Anyone for a snack?

We bought some of these little sweet potato pancakes and coconut pancakes.

The yellow stuff is some kind of shredded egg yolk.

Busy street food market.

Tuk tuk toys made out of drink cans.

Pretty cool!

Temples are usually well lit at night.

Fancy!

Another fancy one!

Real tuk-tuks.

Yet another temple.

Today, we are definitely headed into the mountains for a hike!

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