Hair Do Terminology

Bryttain rarely lets me do anything with her hair, it then also takes immense cajoling and bribery to leave her hair in place for longer than five minutes. After I had put her hair up tonight for her first evening at AWANAs, Arran came running in to tell me that

"When you put your hair in one in the middle it's called a ponytail and when you put it in two, on each side it's called dog ears!"

The last of Thailand

Well as of this evening, we have been home for a week. The jet lag has been brutal, to say the least. If it had just been us, I am sure it would have been easier, but with jet lagged kids, if they are awake at 3am, which was the first three mornings, there is not much you can do to persuade them to go back to sleep. They are awake and that is that! Never mind their poor parents who would gladly take the extra sleep, thank you very much.

Anyway, rather than post more wonderful tales of our time in Thailand, because I am far too tired still to do that and time is slipping away, here is the final slew of photographs.

Our last Saturday, the two families went to Horizon village and botanical gardens.


Our good friends, Mark and Josie Plummer.






The trainee monks who ran us out of the park - not deliberately of course, but when all forty, or fifty of them descended on the park, it was rather overwhelming.


The two families headed out for our last supper. Not the greatest photo...there was not enough light and my camera is perched precariously on the seat back of one of the seats in the minivan, but we'll look back on this in years to come and it will bring back fond memories.

Proof!

You can just barely see Arran's head peeking over James' arm, but here we are, all five of us and our guide. It really did happen.

Charlie's

When you're in Chiang Mai and you've finally reached the point of not wanting any more Thai food. When you're a Brit who has lived in the States for ten years and not found ANY good fish and chips, one of the places definitely worth checking out is Charlie's fish and chips. It was a bit of a pain to find, but was such a welcome change. The chips portions were a little on the skimpy side, I have to say, but were very good, especially once I'd added salt and malt vinegar and the fish was fantastic.

Who would have thought that all the way in Chiang Mai, a man from Blackpool would start a fish and chip 'restaurant'?

Yum.

Mosquitos

Poor little Bryttain has become the mosquito buffet. While Arran and Asia remain untouched and James and I have a light smattering, Bryttain seems to be the victim of choice for these local mozzies. Arran has explained to us that this is because Bryttain loves to eat so much fruit that she tastes sweet, whereas he is too fast for the mosquitos to catch and bite him and Asia is too fat and that the mosquitos would hurt their noses trying to get through her!

He's full of wisdom, our little boy.

Date night

On Friday night James and I got to go out on our own. This rarely even happens at home, so to be able to do it in Thailand was a huge bonus and totally unexpected. I had really wanted to get to go to the Night Bazaar to buy a few souvenirs, but we had both known this was probably not going to work with three kids in tow and so I had pretty much dismissed the idea. It would just be too late for them and there was no way you could maneuver a pushchair, let alone a double one between most of those stalls.

Step in our wonderful friends Mark and Josie, who offered to babysit our kids while we went out. It was great! Just to be able to wander freely, hand-in-hand and not worry about which direction one of our little ones had just run, or what someone may have just picked up and put in their mouth, or knocked over or...or...or. Just to be free to browse to our hearts' content, without being on duty.

I have been so grateful on this trip for James' ability to communicate out here. He is able to do way more than just 'get by' and the Thais seem equally impressed and surprised at times. I think it also got us further with the haggling at the market. I just can't do it, but James is able to turn it into a game of sorts and have fun with it. Of course there wasn't enough time (it would have been lovely to stop and get a $3 foot massage for half an hour) but it was fun nonetheless.

What an adventure

Ever since we arrived in Thailand, Arran has been asking when he could ride an elephant and we decided that today would be the day. The friends we are visiting here have very kindly let us use their car when they have not needed it, which has made a huge difference for us. As we were looking at the map to try to decide where to go, the decision was made to go to a non-touristy elephant camp, because after all, we were not going on an organized tour and could go wherever we wanted. So off we set for Mae Wang Elephant camp, we drove and drove and drove. The roads did not seem to match the map too well and James stopped on a number of occasions to double-check that we were still on the right track. Amazingly we only needed to turn around once!

We finally arrived...in the middle of nowhere. I am serious. We drove all the way down a mud track to find a couple of shacks and the river with some elephants doing their thing. A little man ran up to us, with his own hand rolled leaf (as in a green leaf from a tree) smoke of some sort, looking slightly glazy eyed.

This obviously was not a big tourist destination, which normally would not be a big deal, had it just been James and I, but to be there with our three precious little ones, did not feel quite so comfortable. Anyway, I decided to trust my husband as he made all of the arrangements. We were quoted 800B to ride two elephants between us. I later, when we got back home, found out that James had also felt rather uneasy with this guy, and had taken all of his cash out of his pocket and put it in the boot of the car,

"Just in case our rider decided to rob us half way"!!!!!

Yes I am glad I did not find this out at the time as it was hard enough for me to fully relax.

As our guide was busy preparing the first elephant, James decided to ask for us all to ride one elephant instead of two, but he offered to still pay the original price. So we clambered aboard and started our trek, straight down, down into the river. I was holding on for dear life, with one hand I was clutching Bryttain in my lap, and in the other my precious Nikon D80. I suddenly had a paralyzing fear as I pictured in my head, our elephant deciding to take a swim. I held on for dear life and literally started praying out loud! "Jesus please protect us!" I was deathly serious, not one to pray much aloud or in public, at times of great need, I know where to turn to first :)

Our guide actually turned out to be a nice guy and between his basic English and James' Thai we found out quite a bit about him. He has a ten year old son, but his wife died in the Tsunami so his parents look after his son, so he can work. He loved the kids and was concerned, especially about Asia being hot, with her fat rosy cheeks and intermittent crying. Every now and again, our guide would wack his poor elephant with his very mean looking stick with a spike on the end and as we gasped each time he would laugh and say

"It no hurt! Elephant like Thai massage"

then he would prod and poke the poor elephant as if to prove to us the truth in his statement. The elephant never flinched actually, but it did seem harsh to us. Of course, as he reminded us, elephants have very thick skin.

A baby elephant had been born just twenty-eight days prior, so the two older kids got to go see that too, which was very cute, although it did involve James having to wade across the river with them both. And the one other down side was the fact that the air is so polluted here right now and everything everywhere is totally hazy.

Taking photos was almost impossible as it was a one-handed job, I could not risk loosing my hold on Bryttain for one moment as there was no bar or reinforcement in front of us at all and we were tipping slightly from side to side with each lumbering step. They DID do one touristy thing for us, which I actually did appreciate and that was to take a photo of us all on the big girl, which I will post at a later date, as I of course do not have a scanner with me.

These really are such magnificent creatures and it is such a privilege to see them so close and personal and outside of a sad zoo setting. We talked with the kids several times today about how fortunate they are to be doing these things. How many kids by the time they are five or three can say that they have lived in the United States, visited England, Mexico and Thailand and have ridden an elephant?

On to Chang Mai

Sunday morning we packed up early and headed off to the 'old' airport to catch our flight to Chang Mai. The predicted two hour drive in the taxi, actually ended up taking only half an hour, which ended up being a very good thing as...we had gone to the wrong airport! The moral of this story, is that if you ever buy internal flights in Thailand, on a website and are only given the choice of one airport to fly from (despite your repeated attempts to book the other airport which would be much more convenient), don't assume that you will actually be flying out of said airport!

We had to book another taxi to then drive us forty five minutes to the other airport. What a hassle and inconvenience, plus wasted money on unnecessary taxi rides.

The flight itself was uneventful, and relatively easy, with both girls sleeping the whole hour which was lovely. Such a nice short flight after last week's travels.

I have to say that Chang Mai feels so much nicer than Bangkok, which to me felt dirty, noisy and rundown. We were also dealing with jetlag and had all five of us cramped into one hotel room, with our hotel in the middle of nowhere.

Here we met up with our lovely English friends Mark and Josie Plummer, who moved out here last October (with their three kiddos, Jack, Eddie and Evie). They arranged for us to rent a house two doors away from them, so we can be close but not on top of each other - how very considerate. It is so nice to be able to spread out and for the kids to have room to play again. We have three bedrooms and two bathrooms and it's only costing us $20 per night, just perfect.

More mall time

Saturday afternoon we met up with Doug. Doug Wagner came out on our team, ten years ago and loved it so much he moved out here five years ago to work with YWAM Bangkok, and hasn't looked back. I'm sure he did not realize what he was signing up for, meeting with us at a mall, with three little jet lagged kids. Our hotel is in the middle of nowhere, so first we had to get a taxi, which the kids think is "So fun" and yes they have told me that EVERY time, because not only are they not in car seats, but most of them don't even have seat belts. Rather nerve wracking for mom. Then we got on the Sky Train, for another ride to the mall.

We ended up bowling with the kids, we come all the way to Thailand and do one of the most American things out there. It was new to us though, as we have never bowled as a family before, plus, being in a mall we were kind of limited by choices of fun things to do with the kids.

By the time we sat down to eat, the kids should already have been in bed and were a mess. During the course of our meal, both Arran and Bryttain managed to spill their drinks, all three kids managed to cry about something, things were thrown on the floor...it was a circus. We are actively adding to the negative overseas image of Americans....good times!

Water water everywhere

I feel very fortunate that the weather has not been nearly as extreme as we had expected. It is very warm and humid, but certainly not in the 90s which we had been trying to prepare for. Yesterday afternoon we paid a visit to Leoland, a water park on the roof of a nearby mall. It was perfect for the kids and they had so much fun. A lot of the larger chutes were not operating, which would have been disappointing if our children had been any older, but at this age, it wasn’t an issue. It was probably best that we did this on a weekday as I can imagine this place packing out on weekends.

I am very grateful for James and his Thai skills, not only does it make me feel a little less vulnerable, but we scored today. There are two entrance rates to Leoland, one for tourists and one for non-tourists (which of course is more expensive). Well we were charged the non-tourist rate, which I can only put down to the fact that James was speaking in Thai, because he did tell them that we were from America. Maybe they just appreciated his effort, or maybe the girl behind the counter had a crush on him (even though he had his wife and three kids in tow), I guess we will never know.

Yep - I really was there too!

We are in Thailand!

We have internet connection here at the hotel, which we just have to pay for, so I will try to write some short updates, while we are here, but do not think we will have it in Chang Mai, from Sunday, unless we go to internet cafes.

We’re here! After a very long twenty five hours total of traveling (which included our door to door and layovers) we arrived, hot, sweaty and exhausted, at our hotel in Bangkok.

The kids had not settled down nearly as early as we would have liked, being far too excited and way too overtired, but they did finally crash - Bryttain at 12:38am(!) and Arran, sometime after 1am, slouched over in those torturous airline seats. They really did so great on the whole, but it is such hard work to travel with little ones, especially when one does not have her own seat!

Asia has been a huge hit, everywhere we have been. Our little chub though, has been throwing people with her rather large belly, people must think she is malnourished, I assume, as every time she would cry, someone would want to feed her! Snacks, candy...she would cry and the Asian moms (who were obviously much better prepared than I) would reach into their bags and produce one goody or another. Or maybe, they just wanted to shut her up as she was so freaking loud and they need to be able to sleep.

This morning at breakfast time people were flocking to her. Never mind that we were trying to eat, they all just kept taking turns to come and talk to her, pat her cheeks, touch her hands...seriously, just at breakfast time around thirty people did this. Arran’s theory is that she must be the only baby in Thailand, whereas I have come to the conclusion that the people here see her belly and she reminds them of a little Buddha or something! (Yes, I am kidding, the Thais apparently just love babies) I just had not realized that it would be quite to this extreme.

We are currently battling the jetlag full force. We finally got to our hotel room at 2pm yesterday afternoon (middle of the night back home) and all took naps, but then we forced ourselves to get up after three hours (four for the kids) and then went back to bed at 11:30pm. The kids were up this morning by 5am and we went down for breakfast at 6:15am, then spent some time in the pool, which the kids had been dying to do since last night. By 10:30am, as I type this, it feels like it should be late afternoon and we now have a whole day ahead of us.