Red Dao Tribeswoman Courtesy of Burton

The next day I visited some factories including the biggest custom surfboard factory in the world where 2500 workers are making nothing but surfboards. That evening we checked out some kick boxing and then ate with a factory owner at a local restaurant called The Seafood Market. This restaurant was huge (about 700 seats) and it was basically a food store set up cafeteria style. You would take your shopping cart and your waitress would come along while you filled it the cart with all kinds of fresh seafood (much of it still living), raw meats and uncooked vegetables. You would then tell her exactly how you wanted everything cooked and she would take it to this outdoor kitchen with 20 chefs lined up to receive the food and the instructions. Ten minutes later it would start showing up at your table exactly as you ordered it. It was insane. We had not had a home cooked meal in a long time, and this was as close as we would come to getting one for a while.

After a couple of more days in Bangkok checking out the floating market, the Grand Palace and some huge Buddhist temples, we headed up to Northern Thailand to cruise through Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai. We saw way too much stuff to mention it all, but this is an insane part of the world. We started out at the Golden Triangle where Thailand, Burma and Laos all meet. Until recently (1980s) this is where the bulk of the world's opium and heroin supply came from, and it was all controlled by a big time drug lord. They have remarkably cleaned the whole thing up, and the locals now survive on other crops and some tourism. We had a local guide who took us right into these tribal villages and the people were super friendly. We cruised south from this area staying in small hotels along the Mekong River. Sometimes we traveled on the river in these 'longtail boats' which are essentially an oversized canoe with a diesel truck engine on the back. On one side trip, we traveled on mountain bikes and once we even traveled by elephant, right up the river.

"We saw some crazy wildlife: fish with legs (mud skippers), crab eating monkeys and some huge lizards."

We learned a lot about Buddhism which is a religion that makes a lot of sense to me, and we ate some very good local food at ridiculously cheap prices. Speaking of cheap prices, if you are into cheap t-shirts or DVD's, the local night markets are the place to get them. There are no real trademark laws here so everything is knocked off. For $5 you could pick up a couple of fresh tees (any brand you want) and two or three movies that are just coming to theaters. We saw Matrix-3 for sale before we knew it had come out. Timmy (7) is too small to fit into Gravis shoes or clothes, but we found a vendor with bootleg Gravis polo shirts in kid's sizes. When negotiating with the guy to buy one for Timmy, I said "but we own the company." He just laughed.

From northern Thailand we flew to Phuket at the southern tip of the country. We stayed on the beach for a night but unfortunately there was no surf. We then headed out on a three day sea kayaking tour in the Indian Ocean. We checked out some awesome islands and caves. Many of the islands had water in the middle of them (the island being shaped like an angel food cake with water in the center) and to get to the middle, you would have to lie down in your kayak and push your way through these very low caves. If the cave was too tight, you had to get out of the kayak and walk the kayak through the cave. The bats, which were everywhere, were tolerable, but when Donna, our resident researcher, informed us (from a guidebook) of the existence of 10 meter (33 feet) long snakes in the caves, getting out of the kayak became a more stressful option.

	Kayaking off Phuket Courtesy of Burton

When in open water we had a perpetual game of sea kayak tag going on and some races as well. We were fed excellent meals by our guides and we slept in tents on the beach. We saw some crazy wildlife: fish with legs (mud skippers), crab eating monkeys and some huge lizards. This was definitely one of the more memorable experiences of the trip.

From Phuket we flew through Bangkok to Hawaii. Taylor has always had this attraction to Hawaii and seeing as none of us had ever been there, we decided to spend Thanksgiving in Hawaii on the island of Kauai, home of the Irons brothers and Bethany Hamilton, the girl who just lost her arm in a shark attack a few weeks prior to our arrival. The whole time we were there the surf was going off. We got our asses kicked on many occasions, but we all progressed, the kids especially. Our days were simple: surf, eat, surf, eat, sleep, surf, eat. Thanksgiving Day was epic. I cooked the turkey and the whole time it was cooking, the surf was going off right in front of the house. I would surf for an hour, then come in and baste the turkey and head right back out. As hard as it was not to be snowboarding at home which is what we usually do on Thanksgiving Day, surfing while cooking the turkey, and eating our Thanksgiving meal out on the deck overlooking the ocean was a very different, and cool experience.

We were in Kauai during the rainy season which made for some interesting times. You would be sitting out in the ocean just talking to each other while waiting for waves, and all of a sudden it would just start pouring. I'm used to rain like that being accompanied by lightning, and getting out of the water, but that was no concern. So you are sitting there getting pelted and trying to have a conversation while you wait for the next set to roll in. The rainy season is a good time for surf and consequently they hold the Vans Triple Crown event around that time. We flew up to Oahu on our way out and spent a weekend there checking out the action at Sunset Beach. It was raining pretty hard the whole time, but we saw Occy and others get barreled in some pretty big surf.

On Oahu we stayed on Waikiki Beach in the middle of the Honolulu tourist scene. We went long boarding late one afternoon on a reef which was just a 15 minute paddle from our city hotel. The surf was super fun and we stayed out well past sunset. It wasn't until I ran over George's leg (in total darkness) on 9 foot board that we went in, headed straight to the emergency ward and got him stitched up. I'll never live that one down.

From Oahu, we flew to Japan to finally kick off our northern hemisphere snowboarding season. We missed a lot of summer in that we were in the southern hemisphere for July- October (their winter), but we got our fill of warm weather in southeast Asia and Hawaii. All of us got more into surfing than ever before, and that was really cool, but December had arrived and our board bags were waiting for us in Tokyo.

Jake

— Jake Burton, Burton Snowboards