Day 080 of Our Winter: I put Grab, a major Uber-type ride share app, on my phone again this morning. We used it a lot during the winters we spent in Malaysia. It will be useful in Thailand. It has the biggest share of the ride hailing market in SE Asia.We also packed again. We do seem to be spending a lot of time putting things into and taking things out of bags. Sri Lanka is our 'base' for this 2025-26 winter. We are lucky fellows.
Jay and I got here in November. However, we packed up with Jay's sisters and went to Dubai in December. We got on a cruise there and stopped in Qatar, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, and the UAE island of Sir Bani Yas. We got off the ship and stayed another week in a hotel on the Deira side of the creek. We all returned and unpacked, near the end of that month.
We had just a little packing and unpacking for New Year's eve when we stayed in Colombo to be close to the festivities on the Galle Face Green.
Today, we put things in our luggage again. Jay, his sisters, and I will head to Thailand on a flight in the early hours of tomorrow morning. We start with a ride to the CMB airport at around 10:00 pm. We have a full three nights to start off in Bangkok and then go to Pattaya for another three. From there, we go back to BKK and take Asia Air to Chiang Mai, Thailand too. We have five nights to explore the city in the north. Lastly, we return to Bangkok for a final five nights. We are due to return to Colombo on February 6th, where we unpack yet again.
Lastly, Jay and I shall start to pack up for our journey back to Canada on February 27th. However, we pack and travel just to Hong Kong for a few days. That allows us enough time get a glimpse of things after many years and board our Holland America ship bound for Japan. It stops at ports in the Philippines, Taiwan, and a few southern Japanese islands. We have a hotel in Tokyo for just three nights. We transit to YVR through Taiwan. When we get home, we will unpack for the final time this winter. That should occur on March 18th.