Summer Roadtrip Part 2: Romania to Odesa (through Moldova) and Then Home

Day 5 of our roadtrip was all driving.  Google Maps announced a 9-hour trip ahead of us when we set off (amid heart-felt but pitilessly ignored pleas from our children to take the resident dogs along with us), but it ended up taking even longer.  If we thought the roads in Western Ukraine and Northern Moldova were bad, they were nothing compared to those we found in Southern Moldova and Southern Ukraine!  But first, we enjoyed story-book perfect winding roads through Romanian forest.

It was absolutely breath-taking.  We rolled down the windows to let the cool, fresh mountain air wash over us as we sang along to our now-repeating playlist.

At one point, the GPS suggested leaving this beautiful road to cut through a village, allegedly cutting 45 minutes from the trip.  We decided to try it and soon found ourselves at the top of a steep dirt road along a village cemetery.  Luckily, we have 4-wheel drive.  The locals looked at us driving by as if we were aliens.  We drank in the colors and authenticity of the detour.

But then we were crossing into Moldova and the roads got worse.

We opted to skip Transnistria this go around (it would have added time to our already way-too-long drive, and who knows what other inconveniences if they decided to stop us to try to extract bribes), and soon we were at the border crossing to leave Moldova and re-enter Ukraine.  At the border, the guards stopped us and asked, "Are you sure you know where you're going?  Romania is the other direction."  Perhaps that should have been our first clue, but we decidedly did know where we were going (Odesa) and as much as we loved Romania, we couldn't go back.  So they processed us through, shaking their heads in wonder.  And then the roads really disappeared.  There were more holes than asphalt.  At the same time, we were hit by a torrential downpour, so strong it was hard to see out at all and the depths of the potholes were completely masked.  The road was also surprisingly busy so we had to be careful about large trucks suddenly veering wildly to avoid a hole.  The rain was so loud it was hard to hear the audiobook we'd turned on (Boys in the Boat--a great book!).  But My Man is a masterful driver and white-knuckled us through.  As we approached Odesa, the rain cleared and the roads improved and we arrived at our apartment in time to take a walk around the city, which was nice, with lots of parks and monuments.

The next morning, we headed to the beach.  I'd forgotten that it was a Ukrainian holiday, and was a bit overwhelmed by the masses of humanity joining us on our beach adventure.

Still, we found a nice little beach hut right at the water to make a basecamp.  My Man, Young Man, and Darling Daughter read most of the morning, with the waves crashing lightly on the beach right outside their hut.

Funny Guy was interested in some more excitement, however, so we headed out to see what else we could find.  He was not disappointed.  There was a huge inflatable waterslide, so high and fast that it continually launched him several feet in the air!  He loved it.

Too soon, it was time to head back to our apartment for a late lunch, check-out, and the drive home.  The roads home were much better, though there were still some rough patches, and we made the drive in record time, a couple hours to spare before bedtime.  We were glad to get out of the car, but I'm already busy planning our next roadtrip through the Carpathians in Western Ukraine, and maybe another one to Poland.  Even though we spent more than 30 hours in the car over 6 days, it was great, definitely a trip to remember.

My Big Fat Greek Adventure, Part 1: Thessaloniki, Mt. Olympus, & Meteora

We weren't planning on traveling for Spring Break, afterall, it feels like we just arrived to Kyiv! But then there was a crazy deal on airfare and a bit of research showed that spring in Greece is the best time to visit (if you want to avoid the heat and crowds), not to mention that Funny Guy is a walking encyclopedia of Greek mythology (thanks Rick Riordan), so we decided, why not?!

Athens is less than 3 hours from Kyiv, but it took us a bit longer to fly up to Thessaloniki where we rented a car to drive down to our Airbnb rental in Leptokarya, at the base of Mount Olympus.

We stopped for dinner on the beach before heading to the house for bed.  That was when we discovered that Darling Daughter had forgotten to bring her sweatshirt.  And I had grossly underestimated how cold the wind chill would be.  Still, it was beautiful and we soaked in the waves, the castle up on the hill, the sunset.  We were really in Greece!

The next morning, we split up.  We dropped My Man off to meet a group of paragliders, then the kids and I drove up into Mt. Olympus National Park to hike part of the Mt. Olympus summit trail.

 The weather was cool and threatening rain, but we set off anyway, undeterred.

Originally I'd hoped to hike from the trailhead in Prionia down to Litochoro, but realized that might be too ambitious for the younger kids.

Instead, we opted to hike from Prionia on the E4 trail to the old Monastery and then back.  It was perfect and allowed plenty of time for stopping to climb rocks, look at bugs, and take pictures.  (For someone with even smaller hikers and two adults, it would be possible to drop off hikers at Prionia, then drive back down to the monastery and leave the car there, hiking up to meet the rest of the group to make the hike even shorter.)

The trail was gorgeous, along a raging creek, through forest, with lots of rocks to climb and flowers to admire and interesting terrain.

By the time we got to the monastery, sadly ruined by Nazis in WWII, but undergoing some renovations now, Funny Guy was starting to tire and the rain that had been threatening all day began to fall more seriously.

Cold, wet, and a little tired, we opted to head back on the road for a shorter trip and were rewarded by seeing several dramatically colored newts (which Young Man gallantly scooped from the road to save from unhappy martyrdom by the cars).  One was so grateful for the help that he climbed right up Young Man's leg.

The kids were real troopers and didn't complain at all in spite of the cold rain.  I guess it was a small price to pay to hike on Zeus' mountain.  It may have helped that we played one million games of I Spy and Contact and laughed and laughed and laughed.  I may also have resorted to a super secret stash of Cadbury chocolate eggs, AKA energy capsules, to help ward off melt-downs.  By the time we got back to the car, this was our view:

Still, when asked if they would do it again, all three kids gave a resounding "YES!" and so would I.  In fact, I hope I have the chance to go back some day and hike the full trail, hopefully not in the rain.  

Meanwhile, the weather hadn't cooperated for My Man either.  He and the other paragliders had a chance to check out the launch and got one quick flight but then the rain interrupted any plans to fly more so My Man was forced to enjoy a delicious lunch with a gorgeous ocean view.

By the time we got back home, though, the sky was starting to clear, so we joined My Man to head back up to the local paragliding launch.  At the top of the hill there is an old church, more than 600 years old actually.  "That's older than the United States!" My Man exclaimed.  His instructor laughed and said, "Everything in Greece is older than the United States!"  As if to prove the point, My Man ran off the mountain, then flew off toward the beach, circling around a beautiful old castle along the way.

That evening, Funny Guy and I took a walk to the beach, where we spent the rest of the evening watching the sun set and practicing skipping rocks into the calm water.  It was beautiful.

The next morning, the kids and I had to leave before the crack of dawn to drive inland to Meteora, a collection of old monasteries perched dramatically and sometimes precipitously on giant rock outcrops.

After some interesting GPS instructions, we managed to arrive just in time to join our hiking tour.  It was fantastic.

The guide had grown up in the area and knew every legend, story, and trail.

He pointed out interested old trees, told stories about the wild boars in the area, and pointed out good photo ops.

He put up with the sibling squabbling that accompanied our three kiddos and told so many good stories that Funny Guy forget to get tired until the 5-hour tour was finished.

We saw several of the old monasteries and went inside the Great Meteoron Monastery.

Although I probably would have explored more extensively if I'd been there on my own, the kids were ready to head home after our tour, understandably tired out after two days of hiking.  It was a great outing, though, and we all highly recommend the Visit Meteora tours.  The day was beautiful, warm and sunny, no evidence of the previous day's rain, so after we got home, we prepared an early picnic dinner to eat outside.  After a few minutes, we heard My Man.  What?  The kids started looking around to see where he was.  I looked up.

Sure enough, there he was soaring high above our picnic on his way to a beach landing.  Funny Guy and I hopped in the car to go pick him up.  Incredibly, he was finishing an epic cross-country flight from the other side of Mt. Olympus!

It was the longest flight of his career, and arguably the coolest.  I couldn't believe that he managed to fly directly over our house from so far away!  And landing on the beach, with the beautiful red poppies waving in the breeze and the beautiful blue ocean behind was really the perfect ending.

My Man pointing to Mt. Olympus (where he started the flight) and then to the beach where he landed.

Sadly, it was the last paragliding day until the end of the trip, but it was a flight to remember.

That evening, My Man and I visited Platamon Castle, then ate out at a traditional Greek Taverna with the other paragliding pilots who were visiting from Switzerland.  Just bring us your very best, they told the restaurant owner when he came to get our orders.  What arrived was a sampling of mouth-watering salads, cheeses, and meats.  The five of us feasted and feasted and still couldn't finish it all.  It was the perfect ending to the first segment of our Greek vacation.  If we had had to leave Greece and go home right then, it would have been worth it.  Lucky for us, however, we still had almost a week left!

The next morning we drove up to Thessaloniki, traded our rental car for a spot on the train, and headed down to Athens for our Big Fat Greek Adventure, Part 2.  

Exploring Paradise: Family trip to the beach (Koh Samet and Rayong)

Today we returned home from a wonderful, almost perfect (easy, cheap, fun, & memorable!) family beach vacation.  Why we never heard of Koh Samet until now, with only a few months left in our time here in Thailand, I do not know, but we will try to fix that for everyone else by sharing how wonderful this little gem is.  First of all, you have to realize that we are just comparing it to our beach trips in Railay (Krabi), Langkawi (Malaysia), Chumphon, and Rayong.  Koh Samet wins when you compare ease of getting there, overall price (including transportation, accommodation, activities, and food), beach, ambiance, etc. (though Railay still wins hands down if we are talking about a parents-only trip in the off-season).

This past weekend, we were able to fly from Chiang Mai (CNX) to U-Tapao Rayong-Pattaya (UTP) for less than $45 RT per person.  The flight is just over an hour long, easy-peasy.  Even Funny Guy can read quietly the whole time without getting bored!  Once in Rayong, there are taxis to the pier (1400 to 1800 THB one way for private taxi) but we opted to rent a car so we had more flexibility.

First, we headed to the beach near the paragliding training hill.  The little restaurant isn't much to look at but has fantastic fried rice, spicy cashew salad, and icecream.  And it's right on the beach.  The beach itself is beautiful from a distance, and grossly dirty up close.  I would have liked to organize a beach clean-up but we didn't have time.

(Koh Samet is visible from the mainland, so I worried that the beach there would be similarly dirty--I needn't have feared as it was pristine.  But more on that later.)  We spent most of our time in the shade of the restaurant enjoying the ocean views and breezes, though the kids did go exploring enough to start the trip with a thorough sunburn (oops).

My Man took his wing up to the top of the hill, but the wind was unpredictable and gusty.  It picked him up and threw him into the bushes while he was trying to kite.  Undeterred, he tried again and got a dramatically fast flight all the way down the beach and just out of site.  It wasn't perfect, but it was enough to sate his flying thirst.  We packed up and headed to Baan Phe pier to catch a ferry to the island.  The car ride was just long enough to finish our family read aloud (Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children).

The ferry ride is only about 40 minutes, much to the chagrin of our children who absolutely loved it.  Funny Guy enthusiastically announced, "I've finally discovered the most ideal form of transportation!"

We spotted lots of jellies as we went, so I was nervous about the beaches but it turns out our beach was jelly-free.  Our snorkeling trip was not, but more on that later.

After checking into our hotel (Samed Pavillion, a beautiful resort with a nice pool, gardens, huge buffet breakfast, easy walk to the beach, about 10 m on a private path, and a fantastic deal on agoda), we hit the pool for a nice swim, My Man getting into the action with chicken fights and antics.  For some reason, even though there were lots of swimmers when we got there, it cleared out fast.  :P

Finally, we wandered out to the beach to see about dinner.  We sat at a table on the sand and ate while we watched our kids laugh and play and swim in the ocean as the sun set.  Really, I don't think there is anything better in this world than that.

The next morning I headed out to explore the beaches on our side of the island.  It was beautiful, so clean compared with the mainland, and almost completely deserted.

I would have liked to stay out all morning, but by 8am it was already murderously hot without any shade to be seen.  I wimped out and escaped to our room.  We passed the worst of the heat playing Phase 10, beginning an epic game that would last beyond our weekend trip even though we played during all our downtime!  We headed out at just after noon for lunch and a pre-booked snorkeling excursion to some nearby islands.  Unfortunately, the tour left early and our food took too long so only Funny Guy got any food.  Young Man and Darling Daughter were good sports about it.

The snorkeling was OK, just.  I have found that snorkeling trips are really hit or miss.  The one we took from Railay was a disaster (almost no actual snorkeling and a crowded, noisy boat).  The one in Langkawi was fantastic (fish, sharks!, coral, clear water).  This one was in between.  There were some cool fish, ok visibility, and decent snorkel gear provided.  The boat was fairly small (though there were about three times the number of people we'd been promised was the max size) and we didn't have much travel time between spots.  There was a lot of variety between snorkel stop.  The main downside was that there were so many jelly fish!  At first it was almost like a game, spotting the jellies and keeping away.  Young Man ran into one but bounced off the top, Dory-style.  They were cool to see but visibility at the first spot was low, so we ended getting out pretty fast.  The second spot was better visibility with more coral and fish.  Also, more jellies.  There were also a lot of little stinging things we couldn't really see.  Funny Guy was a good sport, but ended up getting stung on his face by a jelly we didn't ever see, and that was the end of snorkeling for him.

Poor guy.  Young Man stuck with me through the other two stops but each time we got in, swam around the boat, enjoying the view and scrupulously avoiding tentacles.  The last swim was the best by far--great visibility, some good corals and fish, but also, the biggest (and smallest) jellies.  There were pink ones, blue ones, red ones, and more, all sizes.  Thrilling, but also made me happy to climb out of the water unscathed.

On the way back to our beach we stopped off at a little beach cafe for fresh fruit, showers, and puppies (not an official part of the itinerary, but the rowdy new pups and swing were definitely Darling Daughter and Funny Guy's favorite part of the trip!).

After we got back to our beach, we stayed out for a few hours, enjoying the perfect time of day when the sun is low enough to bathe everything in magical light but not strong enough to burn.

The kids built sand castles and played in the ocean (miraculously jelly free!), we enjoyed burgers and Thai food and icecream sundaes, and everything in the world felt right.  As darkness fell, we left the beach, stopping at the pool for some more fun, laughter, and night swimming.  Finally, wiped out, we tucked the kids into bed.

I wasn't quite ready for bed, so My Man and I headed back out to find some fruit smoothies and enjoy the ocean breeze.  As soon as we got back to the beach we saw fire dancers and I ran back to drag the kids out of bed.  Alas, the show finished right as we got back out (leaving Funny Guy non too happy about getting dragged out of bed).  Oops.  I took them back, tucked them in again, and promised we'd be sure to catch the fire show the next time we make this trip (hopefully there will be another trip before we move!).  My Man and I walked along the beach, enjoying the cool breeze and live music from various cafes.  We did catch a later fire dance (videoing it for the kids) and My Man walked under a flaming fiery limbo bar (gutsy!).

The next morning, sadly our last on the island, the kids and I headed to the pool for a few hours after breakfast, then just as it was getting too hot, we got out, squeezed in a couple more rounds of Phase 10, checked out and headed back to the mainland.

The kids surprised me as we were conducting our trip review by claiming that of everything for the trip so far, the ferry rides to and from the island were in their top three.  "Even better than swimming in the ocean?" I asked incredulously.  "Hmm, that's hard, but I think so," Funny Guy seriously replied.  OK, then.  Looks like we need more ferry boat rides in our future!

Our next stop was the Royal Pala Cliff Beach Resort in Rayong, an interesting stop to be sure.  We'd picked it wanting to be near the paragliding hill in case the wind cooperated (it didn't).

It was an incredibly beautiful hotel in some ways (nice views, right on the beach, the biggest swimming pool we've ever seen, nice large rooms, a beautiful lobby) and a complete disaster in others (the decking around the pool was in dangerous disrepair, the pool was dirty and smelled bad, the beach was clogged with garbage).

We ended up spending most of the time in our rooms, enjoying the beautiful views, playing games, and watching silly YouTube videos.  We weren't there long anyway, so it was perfect for us.

We stopped by a cute little burger place on the way to the airport.  It had a huge friendly dog and a swing, so the kids were instantly enamored.  It had terrible burgers but a wonderful chicken steak, which My Man was wise enough to order, and the chocolate shakes were delicious.  It was the perfect end to a perfect family vacation.