Day 1: We arrived in Bangkok after one of those long overnight flights. The girls did well but we were still pretty tired by the time we finally arrived at our hotel. We learned a few lessons right off the bat: 1) USA Passports should not follow the "Visa on arrival" sign. Instead, with your children prominently displayed in front of you, push through the mass of people and head to the 'fast track' lane in immigration. Not sure if this tactic will work for people that don't have small children. 2) Bangkok highways are fast and busy, a lot like Houston, but not nearly as reckless as Saudi. We had decided against bringing a bulky car seat and I kind of regretted this. Since our travel agent had arranged drivers for us in all locations, it wouldn't have been that hard to store in our hotel room and at least one of our kids would have been a lot safer on the road.
Hanging out in the kids club at Istanbul. Love their love.
After a long flight and wait through immigration,
Lucy did NOT appreciate her safety vest!
We were very pleasantly surprised with the two bedroom suite we had booked in our hotel. It had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a small kitchenette complete with stove top, sitting area, and balcony with a lovely view of the Chao Phraya river.
Both girls napped in the car on the way to the hotel, so our first order of business was to check out the pool!
Water baby
This may have been the first time we let Ellie wear "Arms" and she was SO HAPPY. We ordered a few appetizers (yes we will have the pork skewers and ham pizza, thank you very much!) and drinks and we were set for the afternoon.
We had agreed to meet my mom's college friend for dinner at 7:00, so after pool time we cleaned up and some of us took a much-needed nap. We had not met Tippi before, and the only picture I had seen of her had been taken back around 1975, so it took a little while to find each other! We had a buffet dinner in the hotel restaurant and enjoyed the first of many delicious thai dishes for the week. Afterwards, the girls entertained the outside restaurant crowd by playing a back and forth game of tag, although I'm not sure they were following standard rules.
We had a great time meeting Tippie!
Day 2: Friday was the first of many whirlwind tour days we experienced in the "Land of Smiles". We were able to book a tour through our hotel that consisted of the Royal Palace, several temples (including the most popular Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Arun and Wat Pho) and a river tour in a longtail boat. The ENORMOUS reclining Buddha at Wat Pho was a highlight- it measures 49 feet tall and 141 feet long! Wat Pho also contained about 400 other (much smaller) Buddha statues, surrounding a couple layers of inner walls.
Temples at the Royal Palace. Busy!
Jeanette's award winning photo.
BIG Buddha
Lucy checking out a few of the
400+ Buddha statues housed at Wat Pho
The river tour was a blast. We weren't sure what the girls would think of the longtail boat, but they loved it! I had previously thought that the scariest boat I would ever ride was the Dubai water taxi, but this trumped it! (This realization came when the driver asked me to scoot over a few inches before he took off from the pier, so our weight was properly centered!) We rode down the river, past the hospital where the king now resides- he is 87 years old and has reigned for nearly 70 years- and down to a spot where a woman sat, selling bread. We weren't sure what to make of it until she threw a piece in the river and literally hundreds of fish went after it ravenously! Lucy had so much fun tearing the bread to pieces and throwing it in the water... I am afraid feeding fish off the dock at Murjan won't be the same for her any more. Another highlight was buying goodies from a "river vendor", an elderly woman who came paddling (and peddling) up to us. Travis got a beer and Lucy got a fan. They were both happy!
With our Bangkok tour guide, Lek
Lucy loves her fan!
Feeding fish. Even the picture can't do justice
to the number of fish going crazy in the river!
After the city tour was over, we spent a leisurely afternoon back at the hotel pool, then were surprised by a text from one of Travis' former bosses who now lives in Singapore saying that he and his wife were in town. (We stayed with Dirk and Ruth when we visited Singapore last year... that blog is STILL in process... don't worry, it will get posted eventually!) We quickly called the front desk for babysitting service, and met up with the Perrins for dinner and a night on the town. Walking around the Patpong area was quite the education and we got to see 'real' Bangkok that night.
Muy Thai fight, anyone? Sure, why not!
This was actually on Travis' Thailand bucket list.
The fighter in our corner lost.
Notice his kid standing at the turnbuckle...
Jeanette and Ruth scoping out some quality handbags.
Travis was more interested in the amazing fluorescent tiger
velvet painting in the background.
I think Dirk approved...
Unfortunately when we returned back to our room at 1:30 am the babysitter was falling asleep on the couch and LUCY WAS STILL AWAKE. The one specific direction we had given her was to get the girls to bed by 9:00 at the latest. I know Lucy can be difficult to put to bed, but in what universe is it okay for a 3 year old to stay up past 1 am??? We were livid that the babysitter allowed that to happen and as we were checking out the next morning (and Lucy was a MESS) the hotel promised us they would upgrade our room for our stay at the end of our trip to try and make up for the snafu. At this point I didn't feel like anything would help since there was no way to make up for Lucy's 5 hours of missing sleep, but we accepted and moved on to the airport for our flight to Chiang Mai.
Day 3
We had an early flight out of Bangkok to Chiang Mai. For better or worse the plane was delayed an hour, but I was okay with this because we had skipped breakfast at the hotel. The airline then unexpectedly gave us vouchers for food at the airport! When was the last time a domestic American airline gave you a breakfast voucher for a flight delayed one hour? After breakfast we made our way to the gate, where we discovered that all the domestic Thai airlines have lounges for their passengers to hang out in before their flight complete with food, drink, and play room. Two big thumbs up for Bangkok Air from us!
Our tour guide met us as we exited the airport in Chiang Mai. Originally we were supposed to go straight to a tour but since our flight was delayed we opted to go straight to the hotel and rest up.
Pool at Chiang Mai Shangri La. Nice elephant in the background.
We met our guide at 5 to go up the mountain to visit Chiang Mai's most prized temple, Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. I really enjoyed seeing the temple in the evening light. The weather was perfect and the crowds were thin. I'm not sure how often the monks say their chant, but it was beautiful and a neat experience to be there to hear it.
A long staircase leads away from the temple area down the mountain to the road. Our guide seemed a little unsure whether we could handle the 300 steps down. If you read our Greece post you might remember that we hiked both up and down a 900 step fortress there, so going down 300 steps didn't sound bad at all! And it wasn't. We really enjoyed seeing the temple and countryside from this perspective. And I had a chance to practice some new photography skills. But please don't judge hardly, it's really hard to take good pictures with a baby hanging from your front, punching you in the neck, and pulling your hair.
300 steps? No big deal...
Our guide suggested a restaurant called "Whole Earth" for dinner. I'm not sure we would have chosen it on our own, as it does cater to tourists, but it was an excellent suggestion. The restaurant was beautiful, the evening ambiance amazing, and the food was fantastic. We ordered the "Tom Koh Gai" soup (or something like that), a soup of chicken and vegetables in a coconut milk broth, and it was the best soup we've ever had! So delicious! We also had the best pork satay of our entire stay. The only thing that soured our experience at all was a crotchety elderly American couple nearby kept loudly judging our parenting since we were letting the girls play with the iPad and our phones. Then when we started chatting with them we learned they were from Colorado... but they didn't know where Kansas was. I realized my 3 year old knows more about geography then they do. But I'm still a little miffed. The moral of this story is: Don't judge other parents!!!
View of the Whole Earth patio from our seats.
Beautiful and delicious!
Day 4
After a lovely signature Shangri-La breakfast (extra crispy bacon! made to order omelets!) our guide took us on a tour of Chiang Mai. First stop was the local fruit, vegetable, seafood, and takeaway food market. I'm not sure of a better way to describe that! The variety was amazing! We didn't buy anything since we'd just eaten breakfast but really enjoyed seeing everything that was for sale.
Sawadika from Shangi-La!
Small part of a massive market... I can smell it now...
Two sleeping babies, and one lady on a motorcycle.
Next, our guide took us to a few temples in Chiang Mai, including his family's temple! It was neat to see something so personal for him. It was really hot and I couldn't stand the thought of wearing anything more than shorts that day so I didn't get to see the inside of most of the temples, but Travis took some good pictures:
For lunch our guide again took us to a more touristy restaurant, but the food was delicious and they had spaghetti on the menu which thrilled our daughters who subsist on a diet of spaghetti and ice cream. (Judgey parents take note: exposing your children to a variety of food early on apparently has NO impact on how picky or not picky a child will be. A three year old tends to act like a three year old regardless!) The restaurant had an outdoor eating area that surrounded a pond. Both girls really enjoyed walking around the pond. The highlight was definitely when a restaurant worker brought out some leftover bread to throw to the fish in the pond. What a thrill!
After lunch our guide took us to the "Heritage Village", an area where local artisans display their talents at making silver jewelry and silk. Unfortunately the silversmiths were not working on Saturday, but the silk loomers were! They had a really neat display with moths laying eggs that turn into silk worms, that build cocoons. Then a worker unravels the cocoon and turns it into a skien of silk yarn, where other workers can weave the silk yarn into fabrics. Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me so no pictures. But take my word for it, it was cool to see! Ellie was taking her best nap of the whole trip at this time too so sadly I couldn't try on any of the amazing silk clothes they were selling. We opted to head back to the hotel at this point and relax before the guide picked us up again to go to the night market.
The night market was overwhelming in every direction. So many people! It was blocks and blocks of stalls selling everything you could imagine. I wish we could have taken more pictures... but there was too much going on (and i was still getting punched in the throat by the toddler on my front) to be able to take some good ones. Travis did get a few on his phone. We had a nice dinner at a restaurant on the street, again recommended by our guide (sometimes the street food can be of questionable quality I suppose) and after that we were ready to call it a day.
Once again... small part of a massive market!
This one was several streets wide and long.
Day 5
We woke up to the smell of a campfire and a very hazy day! We learned that this time of year the hill people to the north in China burn their hills and fields and smoke encompasses the entire region.
Our flight to Krabi didn't depart until around 6 so we had a mostly free day. We had a leisurely breakfast, packed our bags, then hired a babysitter so Travis and I could get one of those famous Thai massages and lunch. The going rate for the massage parlors on the street was 200 Baht for an hour, which is about $6! The massage was a lot different than what we'd experienced before but it was very good. It was so nice to get all those knots worked out of my legs from carrying Ellie around all week! Wish we could have done this more often but we packed way too many things into our itinerary for this.
After our massage we stopped at a local restaurant for lunch. Again the food was amazing and not very expensive. We learned from another diner that the chef had previously worked for a large hotel and decided to open his own place, and we were glad he did!
Anything drank straight from a coconut is good.
Forgot to take a picture before consuming his leg. Oops!
After lunch I took the girls to the playroom for awhile until we were ready to catch our flight.
This time we were flying Air Asia. We didn't have very high expectations as we knew this was the budget airline for the area (and we tried to push all of the recent tragic crashes out of our minds), but they were sufficiently lowered when we received our boarding passes... that we couldn't distinguish from a receipt!
The flight was fine and comparable to any domestic US airline where you have to pay for your snack. At least we didn't have to pay for our bags! We arrived at our hotel in Krabi about 8:00, giving us just enough time to order some room service for dinner and bathe the girls before we crashed into bed.
Day 6
We had one more tour arranged, this time to see the town of Krabi and surrounding area.
Lucy and the Krabi crab. Look out behind you!!!
Ellie fell asleep in the carrier again so we opted out of walking around the town (it was hot!) and went to the natural landmark the area is known for, a bed of freshwater fossils on the edge of the sea.
Believe it or not, each of these rocks is actually made up of fossils.
Pretty incredible sight to see!
Just a pretty piece of Thailand
...and that's our Ellie. :)
Our guide took us to the town of Ao Nang for lunch, an adorable little beach-side town with lots of shops and restaurants. We took the guides recommendation for a restaurant and also ordered what the fellow at the door recommended. Again we felt like this was some of the best food of the trip! The beef with basil was incredible!
After lunch we headed back to our hotel for some much needed downtime. We stopped to see some elephants but Lucy had fallen asleep. We took a couple pictures from afar and our guide said we could come back on our way to the airport. We sent the girls to the kids club and Travis and I headed to the pool to float around by ourselves for a couple hours. I especially liked they let us take our drinks on our float! So relaxing!
We headed into the town of Nong Thale for dinner, and again had a delicious dinner. It was a little too far from our hotel to walk, so we took a Tuk-Tuk back to the hotel. And naturally all Lucy cared about was playing the iPad!
Day 7
This was our only free day of the trip... and crazy us thought we hadn't been busy enough, so we booked the kids club for the girls and Travis and I took an excursion to nearby Hong island for some kayaking, snorkeling and sun. Hong is very popular with tourists coming in from Ao Nang, but thanks to our resort being located so nearby we were able to beat the crowd and stay after most had left. We really enjoyed our down day and made some new Chinese friends.
The interior parts of the island had a lot of monitor lizards.
Got to keep your eyes out!!!
Picturesque view from the beach.
This is before most of the tourists made it in from Ao Nang.
Kayak ride to the secret lagoon? Why not!
Friendly folks on a longtail boat.
"Sure, we can make it under there... no problem!"
This is the face of a man who is relieved that he was not just
simultaneously crushed and drowned.
LOTS of fish... and definitely not scared of people!
Some kids were feeding them hot dogs.
The girls were really happy to see us after we got back from the island, and even though we had spent all day in our swim suits we had promised the girls we'd take them to the pool. The girls enjoyed the kids pool, especially when we let them eat some chocolate ice cream at the pool bar. They have no idea how good they have it!
"One tall Chang and one small chocolate milk, please."
Sharing, actually sharing, ice cream!
Ellie having a blast practicing her back float
We decided to stay in and eat at one of the hotel restaurants for dinner. Lucy was so tired she almost fell asleep eating the bread! After dinner we got the girls ready for bed and then started packing as we were scheduled to be off again the next morning.
Day 8
Unfortunately our check out process took longer than expected so we didn't have time to see the elephants. We were back on Bangkok air for the last leg of the trip and arrived at our hotel by 2pm. They were serious about upgrading us--they moved us to a 2 bedroom, 2600 square foot suite on the 35th floor! The view of Bangkok from all FOUR of our balconies was incredible. At this point in the trip it felt like the babysitting snafu that made this room possible was worth it.
That one on the verrry top? Yeah, that's ours.
We took the girls to the pool for awhile and decided since we had a whole dining room the best thing to do for dinner would be to order room service!
After dinner we were planning to meet up with John and Shelly, friends from Saudi, at the SkyBar (made famous in the movie Hangover 2) but unfortunately Travis started feeling sick so we decided to stay in. But if there was ever a place to be sick on vacation, this was it! We enjoyed a relaxing evening watching a movie on our TV and I attempted to take some night pictures of Bangkok.
Day 9
Travis was still feeling sick in the morning so we had to scrap our plans for a bike tour of the city. Instead we had a leisurely breakfast and continued watching movies. Now this felt like vacation! The Auzennes joined us in our hotel room for the afternoon and Travis was feeling well enough we decided to go souvenir shopping. We didn't find much but we learned that Bangkok malls are much bigger and crazier than how we normally shop! We headed back to our room and ordered room service again to take advantage of dinner with a view. We had a really nice evening with our friends and capped it off with a drink at the club lounge. The Auznennes were flying out to Phuket that night and we were leaving Bangkok early the next morning. It was a really nice way to end the trip!
In the mall... Yes, that's a "Star Back" right next to the Starbucks.
Chon gaew!
We really enjoyed Thailand. All the people were extremely friendly, the food was amazing and extremely cheap. Room service cost on average $7-9 a plate! Street restaurants were even cheaper. I think we tried to pack too much in to our trip, as we were pretty exhausted most days from all the touring around and sight-seeing, however I'm not sure what we would have cut out because I feel like we have a much better understanding for the 'real' Thailand than if we had stayed on a beach all week. I would like to go back, but on a much slower pace and timeline!
In case you're interested in planning a trip like ours, here's the links to our hotels:
Ladies and gentlemen, Travis at the keyboard here. I generally provide input to the blog, but it's rare that I write a post of my own. So, lucky you!
A couple months ago, one of Jeanette's best friends announced that she was going to have a family only destination wedding in Iceland. So, she was inviting her close friends for a weekend-long celebration and bachelorette party in San Francisco... "Can I go? Please, please, please can I go???" Or something like that. Jeanette told me that she could get one of the Philippino housemaids to babysit the girls on the three workdays, so all I would have to do is take care of them in the mornings, evenings and the weekend. How hard could it be?
Jeanette did a great job of setting me up for success. She laid out a schedule for activities, meals and clothes, and even got their outfits ready for me. She knows where I would fail, left to my own devices...
Schedule for the week, including what to cook. I might not have followed that to the letter...
More tips. Good wife!
The car came at 7:00 Wednesday night to take J to the airport. When it was time for the girls to say bye to her, Ellie laughed and repeated, "No bye bye! No bye bye!" She was sure this must have been a joke. Fortunately the rest of that night went easily for the most part, since I usually do the bath time and bedtime duties anyway.
Thursday morning I stayed home until the babysitter (Love) got here to take care of the girls. I normally leave the house at 5:30 or 6:00 so I got up at normal time to get myself ready. The girls woke up at about 6:00 and Love got there at 6:25. I started to put on my nomex to make the 6:30 bus to the plant, but as soon as I did Lucy's bottom lip shot out and she started crying. I told her I could wait until the 7:00 ride. :) I have to say... eating breakfast at my own pace, enjoying my coffee and being able to spend some time with the girls before going to work was amazing. I might have to find a way to do that more often!
That night we went to Chili's for dinner with the Clarks and Copelands. It was a pretty normal dinner ("You asked for chicken nuggets. Why do you want macaroni now?" "You said milk, so I got you milk." "We are never going out to eat again.") but there was one significant highlight: For the first time ever, Lucy went poop in a public bathroom! I was equally proud and disgusted... could have picked a better place than the men's restroom at Jubail Chili's for such a milestone.
(Somehow I never had time to take pictures of dinner... any idea why???)
Friday morning was a repeat of Thursday, then Lucy went to Shenkir's to play with her friends, and we hung around for lunch. (Thanks!) That afternoon was the Murjan easter egg hunt and potluck, so it was good to take the morning easy. The 0-3 year old egg hunt started at 4:00, and (as every mother in Murjan can tell you) we showed up right on time. As in, NOT late. Both girls did pretty well hunting for eggs and ate entirely too much chocolate.
Princess Lucy over at Shenkir's. High heels too...
Down to business at the Easter egg hunt. Lucy had to scope out the contents of each egg before putting it in her basket. Only the good stuff!
The potluck was a fun event, with plenty of folks around to give the girls attention. I was mostly able to keep track of where they were, and Ellie only fell off a table once. (It wasn't as bad as that sounds... I promise!)
Saturday morning can be summed up in this Facebook post that I wrote on Jeanette's wall:
It's 8 AM. Here's the day so far:
5:30- Ellie wakes up. Loudly. Lucy is quiet so I'm not moving. Don't want to get up.
6:15- Lucy opens the door. Very sweet and happy. I go get Ellie out of bed, bring them back to our room for some sweet snuggle time.
6:16- Snuggle time over. I let the girls play while I try and convince myself to get up. Ellie keeps bringing me random gifts, like a sock, a toy and a used Kleenex. Thanks.
6:30- I'm up. Girls need cough medicine.
6:31- Ellie has taken her cough medicine, asking for more. Lucy doesn't want anything to do with it.
6:32-7:00- World War III with Lucy. Threats about no Frozen party, no daddy/Lucy date, no hot cocoa, whatever else I can come up with. Wailing and gnashing of teeth.
7:00-7:05- I finally convince to take her medicine, one drop at a time. 5 mL is a lot of drops.
7:05- Go downstairs, set the girls up with cereal.
7:15- Pour my cereal, start to make coffee.
7:15-7:45- Respond to demands of the girls. Bowls, spoons, cups, feed me, I can feed myself... You know the drill.
7:45- Girls done with breakfast. I let them run around. I finish making my coffee.
8:00- I sit at the table with my (somewhat) hot coffee and my soggy cereal. Girls are watching YouTube commercials on the iPad in the kitchen, and I think eating goldfish out of the bag.
Love you! I know you're missing all of this...
The iPad- the great peacemaker.
After that, the morning was reasonably tame. We had to watch Frozen, of course, to get ready for Lauren Daugherty's birthday party. Lucy loved dressing up like Elsa. After a whirlwind weekend, we chilled out that afternoon and evening and just enjoyed some daddy-daughter time. And Ellie walked around roaring like a dinosaur. Just because.
The two Elsas
"I've got the eye of a toddler... and you're gonna hear me roar!"
Sunday morning came all too fast, as it usually does. When I got the girls up I noticed that they both had a bit of a cough and felt a little warm, but they didn't have a fever. I asked Lucy if she wanted to go to school, and she said no, so I told Love to go ahead and keep the girls home. I got to work at 7:30 and had meetings at 8:00, 9:00, 9:30 and 10:00 (which lasted until 12:15... Mind you I missed my 6:00 and 6:30 meetings!), then as I sat down to lunch at about 12:30 I got a call saying that both girls were running fevers and I needed to head home. Sigh. Thankfully by the time I got there both of their temps had started going down, so we never ended up going to the hospital. I have to say thank you to the Murjan wives (aka Night Ninjas) who helped out with the girls and made sure I was contacted just in case we did have to go!
Sunday night... Sunday night will go down in infamy. Sunday night was the Tylenol war. Again, we turn to my Facebook feed:
45 minutes to give Lucy 5 mL of Tylenol. FORTY FIVE MINUTES. FIVE MILLILITERS. AND IT WAS BERRY FLAVORED. I remember when medicine tasted bad. You have no excuse! After literally holding her down and force feeling her with a syringe, I asked her how it tasted. You know what she said? IT TASTED GOOD. Jeanette, come back. You've proven your point.
Monday- Not a whole lot to say. I could tell as soon as I got the girls up that it was going to be a sick day. Thankfully Love did a great job taking care of them, as always. When I got home, it was all about eating, getting ready for bed and waiting for mommy to get home! I set up the monitor with the iPad so some friends could watch the girls remotely, and went to the airport to get Jeanette. Her flight landed at 21:45 so I was hoping we would be home by 23:00, until I got this text: "Long line at customs :( You may want to go back to the car and take a nap. I'm nearly at the back of the windy line. I'd estimate about 80-100 people in front of me." Thankfully, miraculously, mercifully, it only took her about an hour to get through. And... she's home!!!
We survived!!!!! And for Mother's Day, the Night Ninja Husbands and I were crazy enough to buy our wives a weekend trip away to Dubai. Without the kids.
The girls were really happy to see us after we got back from the island, and even though we had spent all day in our swim suits we had promised the girls we'd take them to the pool. The girls enjoyed the kids pool, especially when we let them eat some chocolate ice cream at the pool bar. They have no idea how good they have it!
