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June 30 Train ExplorationWell, if I never ride in another songthaew, that will be just fine with me. These trucks/taxis are kind of like riding around inside an exhaust pipe, or maybe if you had a pickup truck at some point in your life, put the cover on the back (not sure what that's called), and then funnelled your exhaust into it. And then sat in it. Phew. I'm sure it's just because they are semi-open, and there is so much exhaust fume here, but it is pretty terrible. Not to mention that when you sit in it, you are too high to look out the tiny windows, so it's a bit like being in a coffin. Let me just tell you, yesterday we took one up a very steep, windy mountain to a mountain temple called Doi Suthep. While the temple was quite beautiful, as you can see from the picture, the ride speeding up the mountain, round many curves, in a songthaew, was less than appealing. I was lucky to get up and down without tossing my cookies. I can't imagine living here and taking these things on a regular basis. The tuk-tuk are okay (I'm including a picture this time, because I realize that I keep referring to them but some people might have no idea what they are), mostly because they are small and pretty much entirely open to air, so you get some air flow. They are also a bit more private - you're not crammed in with 6-8 other people. They also don't stop along the way - the songthaew are always picking up or dropping off passengers. Whew. Anyway, I haven't written in a couple of days, because we've been out later than normal. Brie doesn't really like going to sleep, so it helps to have two of us for the effort. Two days ago (Sunday) was a relaxed day, because we had planned to visit the Sunday Walking Market, which started about 4 pm. We took a slow walk around the moated area of Chiang Mai, visiting a few little temples and just wandering. Then we visited the market, which was quite fun - there are people playing music in the middle of the street (they close off the street for the market), stalls along the sides with all sorts of things for sale, and then, my favorite, a little food area, like a food court. It had probably 30 different stalls with different sorts of food, including my favorite (think I mentioned this the other day...), the shaved ice with syrup and condensed milk. The way the guys here grind the ice is hilarious - the machine looks about 50 years old - but I've seen them for sale in the shops, so they must be fairly recent - the large block of ice gets put on the machine, and then ground into shavings. Ah, here's a link to a tiny picture of one, if you can see it. We also happened to sit next to an American family with four (!) children while there, one Brie's age, so it was nice chatting with them for a while. After walking around the market for about an hour, it started to rain a little bit, and then the heavens opened up. All the stalls had to cover their wares with plastic, so it was hard to see - we personally love the rain and don't mind walking in it, but everything else kind of closed down. At that point we walked back to our hotel (or, hotel/house, as Brie calls it) and had a lovely sleep, listening to the rain. As I said, yesterday we headed up to Doi Suthep, which is a lovely, very gold, temple in the mountains. I wished we had had a car or motorcycle to explore the surroundings a bit - it's in a national park, and it looks quite beautiful for hiking or camping. Someday, when the kids are older. Last night, we traveled again to the night market to finish our gift shopping... Today, instead of heading back to the hospital, I decided to act the nurse that I now am, and take out Brie's stitches. While I thought about bringing a suture removal kit from the hospital with me, I decided against it, now to my chagrin. We went back to the pharmacy and bought more gauze and tape, but for some reason the only scissors any pharmacy seems to carry are blunt-ended kids' scissors. (???) Strange. So, I had a lightbulb moment and thought, what about the hardware store? Of course. The hardware store to get scissors for removing stitches. :) We found some smaller scissors with a sharp(er) end, and came home with those. I cleaned those and my tweezers with alcohol (good thing I brought that) and then removed her stitches, to save the trauma of the hospital. She was actually really good about it - even better after she saw the first one after I took it out. Then she kind of understood what was happening. It didn't take long, she did great, and her wound looks beautiful. Now we just let it finish healing and then she can swim in the ocean in a few days! We're off in a few hours on our adventure to the ocean in Cambodia. As I've found conflicting information online about whether or not we can get the Cambodian visa at the border, keep your fingers crossed for us. I don't want to have to go back to Bangkok for 4 days to take care of it!!! Hopefully the next time I write will be from Cambodia... June 28 TodayJosh and I have been commenting on how we should have rented a motorbike/scooter to use while we're here. It's hilarious in Bangkok and especially in Chiang Mai how many scooters you see - you'll see an entire family on one - dad driving, baby in the middle, and mom behind. I'm also amused by the families where mom and dad or mom and grandma are wearing helmets but baby (maybe 1-3 years old) is not. Hmm. Kind of makes you wonder about the importance of helmets, or maybe the importance of baby. :) You can rent scooters here, usually 150 cc little ones, for about 10$ per day. Seems that many of the tourists have them - it's a great way to get around town. Even though people tend to drive like maniacs here, Chiang Mai is small enough, and people drive slow enough, that it's manageable. Ah, how different our visit might be without a child! I'm kind of jealous of the people zipping around on their scooters when we're trying to haggle with a tuk-tuk driver. Today we had a lovely day. It seemed to be a nice blend of activity and rest. We went on a trek up into the "jungle," where we first rode elephants for about an hour... not the most comfortable thing. You ride atop a little platform put on the elephant's back... and then the guide rides up front. at least for a while. Our guide got off about halfway through - I decided I would try to ride on the elephant's head..; then I understood why the guide preferred to walk. It was not so comfortable. The elephants LOVED their snacks of bananas and sugar cane (well, who doesn't love sugar cane, really?) - we bought two rounds of it for our elephant, who was quite greedy. He (she?) kept reaching his trunk back over his head to "ask" for more treats. It was quite amusing. Brie did NOT like it at the end when she had saved one banana for herself, and after we got off, the elephant was fishing around her legs trying to get that last banana. She was not keen on that. :) From there, we took the truck again to our "hiking" spot, where we got out and walked for about an hour (Brie was a trooper, she led the pack much of the way and enjoyed walking, walked the entire way) through the jungle. The weather was great, a bit overcast and thus not too hot. We ended up at a beautiful swimming spot at the base of a smallish waterfall, where we were able to swim/rest for about half an hour. Brie liked sitting in the water - Josh tried to swim against the current to actually get to the base of the waterfall, but was unable. Too bad. It was a lovely break, and a great site. From there, we walked up some STEEP stairs (no one told me about those when I signed up - don't they know I'm pregnant???) back to the bus... which we took another short stint past some beautiful rice pastures, to a small Karen village. Karen people are immigrants from Burma/Myanmar - read about them here. Brie especially liked their pigs and chickens living under the houses. We got to see some traditional weaving. After seeing the village, we ate some yummy lunch, then headed to our last stop, rafting on a bamboo raft down a little river. It was beautiful, the water was lovely, and we could just relax. Well, Josh had to stand on the back and steer, but Brie and I got to relax. :) We rafted for about an hour, past some beautiful scenery, and then got off, soaking wet, and returned to the city. It was a lovely day, probably one of the best here. Glad we splurged on the trip - 1600 bhat ($45) seemed like a whole lot at the time. ;) This evening, nothing much. We were going to go back to the night market to finish our shopping, but it's been raining a bit, so we decided to walk around close to home. There's also something called a "Sunday Walking Market" tomorrow that we're going to check out, so maybe we'll find better gifting things there. If not, we will likely head back to the night market tomorrow or Monday night. If, and only if, we can keep track of what day it is!!! On a side note, I keep meaning to comment about our electronic babysitter. It's funny because I made it a point to borrow a power converter from a friend at home so that we could charge Brie's DVD player for our long trips. When we arrived in Taiwan for our plan layover, I plugged it in and tried to get it set up, and couldn't get it to work. Of course then, and only then, did I look at the power cord for the DVD - of course, it says "accepts 100 - 600 watts" or something like that. So even though here they run on 220 and at home we use 110, I didn't even need a converter. Not only that, but I guess here you can use American plugs,which I didn't remember from before. So, I don't even need a cord converter. Whew, what a relief. Thus, Brie has been able to watch movies every few nights when we get tired of hearing her whine... what a nice break for mom and dad. Lazy? Maybe.... June 27 Zoo? More like a trek!Yesterday I forgot to imclude in my update Josh's fun with durian. For those of you who haven't tried durian (I imagine most),here's a little about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian. You should also check out the picture - doesn't necessarily look like something you should be eating. But then again, neither do rambutan or many other of the spiky fruits you see in the market. Anyway, I told Josh even before we left on this trip that he would have to try it - my first experience with it was in Thailand many years ago, and I didn't have good memories, but I was willing to try it again. We walked past a couple of stalls, more smelling them than seeing them... for some reason it didn't really smell bad to me any more. But... we bought a small amount for 30 bhat (this is quite a lot, really, for fruit here... the durian is probably the most expensive fruit you can buy in Asia) and brought it back. stuck it in the fridge, thinking we would save it for morning. Bad idea. When we returned about an hour later, the entire room stank, and when you opened the fridge, woo! I decided maybe it was best to just "enjoy" it then and there and then get rid of the rest. We definitely didn't want our room stinking of smelly feet the rest of the trip! So, we opened it up... I had a little bit, not too bad. Definitely better than I remember. The consistency is quite strange, almost buttery - reminds me of avocado almost. The flavor is strange, though, kind of fruity followed by what I would describe as an oniony aftertaste. I'm sure each durian is a bit different, but I was not down with this onion flavor. Brie gave it a touch of her tongue and that was enough. Josh, though, took a small amount, put it in his mouth, and almost immediately gagged. It was funny to watch. He had to go in the bathroom and rinse his mouth. Guess it wasn't as big a hit as I imagined. At least Josh is a good sport. :) Now we'll see if I can get him to try any of the little dried fishy snacks you see sold everywhere!
Today we woke up late - probably the latest Brie has ever slept - 8:45. Whew, guess we tired her out yesterday. We ate breakfast and then caught a tuk-tuk out to the Chiang Mai Zoo. It turns out it's not so much a zoo as a huge jungle with some animals in it. I thought the Phoenix Zoo was large until we came here. It's huge, and not only that, but it's set on mountainous terrain, so it's (it seems like) all uphill. Fortunately they have a little tram that rides you around from thing to thing. We probably only saw about a quarter of the zoo, but we saw the panda bear, monkeys (they were REALLY loud, putting on a show for the people), some other animals, and a seal show. We also got a bit of refreshing rain. It was a fun day for Brie, and the enclosures were surprisingly nice for the animals - most zoos I have seen in foreign countries are a bit sad. This one was nice, and Brie enjoyed seeing the animals. We also saw A TON of schoolchildren, which Brie also enjoyed.
After about 3 hours at the zoo, and lunch there, we took the red open truck - Songthaew, to the train station to book our tickets for Tuesday. It's funny b/c we have totally lost track of what day and date it is now - we've have to check at the train station to make sure we're booking for the right date. This time around we booked in first class (whew, fancy!) for about $40 per person. Since we've got another 4 hours to the border city of Trat after the trip, and then will be spending the night there before crossing into Cambodia (to get to the island where we're going you've got to get an early border crossing, then a boat at 8, so there's no way to do it all in one day)... we figured we could use a bit more sleep and this way we get our own "cabin." Seems like quite a bit more $$, but realistically it's not. Hopefully it will be nice. Tonight maybe the night market again... tomorrow we go on a day trek with elephant riding!
Best to all! June 26 A less exciting day....... but good nonetheless! After writing the update last evening (I try to do this here earlier in the day because the one computer is in the main lobby, which doesn't have a/c, and thus has the doors and windows open at all times... this seems to be the only time I am bitten by mosquitos. I am averaging about 3 bites per posting. Hope it's worth it! :)) we headed over to the Chiang Mai Night Market, for a bit of shopping and dinner. We took along what we thought was a lot of money (1000 bhat, sounds like a lot, and they make a big deal when you try to spend it, like it's a $100 bill... but then you have to think and realize it's only about $30), but spent it fairly quickly. The dinner was interesting, another food court where you buy coupons and then have your pick of many different ethnic meals. There was also live music and a little Thai girl doing dancing. Lovely evening activity, with tuk-tuk there and back. I don't believe we'll head there again tonight, but maybe tomorrow, to finish our gift shopping. We figured even though we have another month left, if we get most of our gifting out of the way here, then if we decide to spend the next month exclusively on the beach, we won't be pressured to get anywhere to do any more shopping. They have a lot of nice things here, so it seems a fitting place.
This morning we woke up and did breakfast on our own here again. After that, and trying to phone home unsuccessfully, we walked to a nearby Wat (temple), Wat Chiang Man, which was very pretty and had another golden buddha. They all start to blend after a while. From there we decided to take a tuk-tuk to yet another temple; the tuk-tuk driver told us he would take us to both of the others and a handicraft center, along with a nice drive to the "country", for only 100 bhat. I figured he must get something out of this, but it seemed nice enough for the day, so why not. We also negotiated a lunch stop in there, as it was already 10 am. We went from that temple to Wat Phra Singh, and then to Wat Chedi Luang, which was the most interesting of the three, as it's in partial ruins and quite an interesting sight. Oh, and we also had some really yummy shaved ice there - copied some little young monks (probably about 13) and just asked for what they were having. For 5 bhat we got shaved ice with some pink sweet syrup, and then some condensed milk on top. Here, condensed milk is good for any dessert. :) It was, as Brie put it, "really yummy." She said that about 10 times. Guess we found one thing she likes here!
After the temple visits, we headed out of town a bit to multiple "handicrafts centers", where we were able to see how they weave Thai silk, carve Thai figurines out of jade, form silver jewelry, and make umbrellas. It was all for tourists, and the actual purchasing is quite overpriced. It was also a bit long to be shopping with Brie, but it was also interesting to see. So, you weigh the good and the bad. In any case, it was nice to do something a bit different, and towards the end, it started raining; a nice break from the heat. We headed back after that for a little nap. Now it's hot again, so much for the cool rains! Tonight we'll see, and tomorrow I think it's time for the zoo for Brie! June 25 A Visit to the Thai ER...Well, it's happened, our first mishap of the trip. In all my years of travel to over 25 countries, I can't remember once having ever necessitated medical care. Once, when scuba diving in Ko Phi Phi, I did develop a bit of an ear "thing," but only went to a local pharmacy and got some medicine and it was fine after. My parents might correct me, perhaps something happened when I was a child, but I have no recollection of it. I suppose this is one of the exciting things about traveling with children - things happen that wouldn't otherwise happen if it were just two adults! Now I can imagine how my parents felt when we returned home from Jamaica when my brother was quite small and found out that he had worms tunneling under his skin...
But, back to the excitement of the day. We woke up and showered this morning, and then while getting dressed, Brie walked (well, her version of walking) from the room into the bathroom, and slipped on the wet bathroom floor (remember my email from yesterday and the way the shower is set up!). Josh figures she must have hit her head on the little step between the bathroom and bedroom - quite hard and slippery tile. We didn't realize that at the time - he picked her up and was comforting her when he said "oh crap, she's bleeding!" Sure enough, there was blood on her back. For anyone who's had or seen a head wound (Julie, this is for you!), there is blood. A lot of it. Before we even saw what had happened to her head, we saw tons of blood. Fortunately dad is calm and mom's a nurse. Finally, after calming her down and cleaning her up a bit, we saw that she had a pretty good gash in her head. I was unsure if it was worth stitches, so I gave it a few minutes to clot up so I could see how bad it was. It stopped bleeding pretty quickly, but still looked pretty big. I asked the guy at the desk about a nearby clinic, which he said didn't open until about 9. It was only 7:30. I was a bit nervous about going to the hospital because of safety/costs, but I referred to our book and we chose one. Brie wanted to eat first (:)) as I did I, and I figured it wasn't bleeding any more, so she was in no immediate danger. WE cooked up our eggs and toast, which she ate with relish (the gash on her head fazed her very little) and then took a tuk-tuk (our first ride!) to the nearby hospital. The cheaper of the three. It was actually quite pleasant - they got us right into the ER, checked her out, and then the doctor came and sewed her up - 5 stitches. What an interesting experience for a nurse from the US. The ER was kind of like what you see in older movies from the US - nurses in uniforms, some in dresses, and all in actual nurses' hats. The ER itself fully stocked with the same supplies we use (well, the needles are what we used until about a year ago when we upgraded to safety needles), but quite old and dingy. It was quite an interesting experience. I told JOsh it is convenient to go with something obvious - it was obvious what was wrong with Brie and what she needed. Had we needed to describe a problem, we might have been in trouble. :) After the treatment (holding her down was quite fun), we sat and waited for our checkout ($) and medicine. I was nervous, having no idea how much it would cost. As it turned out, it was only right around 1300 bhat, or about $40. That included her antibiotics. Hmm. Makes me wonder about the US. We have to go back the day we leave to get the stitches out, but she will live. :) She dealt with it quite well - now I just need to get her to let me change the gauze once a day!
That little morning adventure didn't put too much of a kink in our daytime activities... she was fine afterwards. We decided to still go visit the forest temple we had planned on, so after we got back and got cleaned up a little, we took a tuk-tuk to Wat U Mong, a neat little temple in the forest. It wasn't too far out of Chiang Mai, but a nice change from the city. Even cooler and breezy and shady there, for a change. It was very nice. Our tuk-tuk driver waited for us while we wandered for about an hour, and then we drove back here and had lunch before naptime. Now we're just waiting a few more minute for our laundry to be done (it's 25 bhat for a kilo of laundry - definitely beats handwashing in the sink. After a week we have about 5 kilos - phew!) and then we will likely head to the night market tonight for dinner and a bit of wandering.
To the grandparents - we're not killing your grandchild. She will be fine. Life is all about the little bumps and bruises along the way, right? June 24 Two Days' Worth...Hello! Here we are in Chiang Mai. I missed my update on Bangkok last night because we left directly after our day to take the night train to Chiang Mai. It doesn't really seem like a night has passed, but indeed it has. Yesterday was a really nice way to leave Bangkok - we were able to see a different side of the city, like maybe how it would be if we stayed in a $400+ per night hotel and only shopped in expensive areas. What a different view of Bangkok. As it is, most travelers to the city see what we might consider the "ghetto" - while you can take a day trip to the wealthy, business area, it isn't really realistic for people like us. You see more Westerners in suits, ties, and business attire - most likely there with a company working. We took our little boat taxi late morning down to the Sky Train stop and rode it to one of the larger shopping malls in Bangkok - called MBK - quite huge. It's 5 floors of shopping extravaganza - not actually that much larger size-wise than American malls, but the ceilings are about 15' high, rather than probably 40 in American malls, so you get more crammed in one space. Lunch was quite interesting - they have a food court where you get a little debit card when you enter; you have a choice of about 15 different ethnic "booths" and then you pay on the way out. We had some pretty amazing dim sum. I really enjoy good Dim Sum. Then we wandered the mall a bit before heading back to the sky train to visit the city's largest park, Lumpini Park, so that Brie could hang out and play. We expected to sit by the lake and watch birds, but surprisingly (you don't see many here), there was a kid's play area, which she really enjoyed. Too bad it's so humid; she was also dripping with sweat, but didn't seem to mind.
After leaving the park, we took the sky train and boat back to our hotel, where we collected our luggage and flagged a cab to the train station. The first cab decided he didn't want to use his meter (200 bhat)... a big scam with westerners. He completely refused to use the meter instead. So, we got a second cab who used his meter - I think it ended up being 51 bhat. You can see why he would prefer not to use the meter! We got to the train station about an hour and a half early after planning for possible traffic, so we laid down on the cool floor with all the other travelers and had a little snack. About 7 pm we boarded our train, and then left around 7:30. Brie fell asleep not too much later, so they changed our seats into beds first in our train car. It was not at all what I was expecting - check out the link to the picture in the previous sentence. the bed was pretty comfortable, but Brie didn't sleep all that well, what with all the noise and movement of the train; along with another new place to sleep. Anyway, we got the bottom and Josh had the top. We "slept" on and off until about 5 am, when she was pretty much done sleeping. I utilized our "babysitter" DVD player to get a bit more rest, and then we finally converted back to seats at about 7:30. We had a bit of breakfast at our seats on the train (they take your orders the night before and then deliver breakfast in the morning) before arriving in Chiang Mai around 9:45. Whew, what a trip. If they had some high-speed train like the TGV in France, you would probably be able to do the 14-hour trip in about 6. It was quite slow, with lots of stops... an experience.
One in Chiang Mai, we took a taxi to our Hotel, the Trigong Residence. It's definitely not as nice as the 2400 bhat place we stayed in in Bangkok, but for 650 bhat ($20), I can't complain. We have a smallish room with teak furniture, quite a comfortable mattress (they advertise Serta :)), and most importantly, a/c. I will take some pcitures of the bathroom - it's one of the classic Asian features with the shower just kind of in the corner of the bathroom - no enclosure or anything. Gets the entire bathroom, including toilet, soaking when you take a shower. :) They even brought us a little mattress for Brie while we were out at dinner tonight, which is nice. So... we don't have to share our queen bed with our bed-hogging child. We went to dinner and got some food for breakfast on the way back - we may or may not be able to use an outside kitchen they have, so we'll kind of play it by ear. :) We do a lot of that here. Tomorrow I'm not sure what we're up to. There's lots to see and do in Chiang Mai so we need to plan out attack plan. HOpefully at least 3 of the 7 days here will be out of town, and a bit cooler locales. I'll keep you updated! June 22 Thailand gourmetWhen asked what her favorite part of the trip thus far had been, Brie told us "Milk." Uh, okay. I can see we're really expanding her horizons. When prodded a bit more, she conceded that she did enjoy the boats. Perhaps that was just because that was the most recent thing we had done. :)
This morning after breakfast we walked down to the river and hired a dragon boat/longtail boat to take us to the floating market and on a tour of the canals. A lovely hour and a half was passed touring the canals, enjoying the river breeze, and wandering the floating market - the less touristed floating market. We bought some rambutan, which taste to me a bit like lychee - for those of you who haven't tasted either, it's kind of like hard clear jelly with a subtle sweet, fruity flavor. Hmm, that doesn't make it sound very good. I guess you'll have to try it yourself.
After the boat ride, we walked back and bought some "smoothies," really just fruit blended with ice and a bit of water. We bought one watermelon, one passion fruit, and one pineapple. Ah, I just realized when looking up the picture to link to for Passion fruit that that's the green, lumpy fruit I have been seeing in all the fruit stands. Guess you learn something new every day on the computer! :) We enjoyed our refreshing drinks, then headed out for lunch around the corner from the hotel in a little narrow alley. It was actually quite good, and I was surprised to find that the place had a menu in English. Surprising that a little hole-in-the-wall outside someone's house would get enough international traffic to need an English menu. I guess it saves them some explaining when and if they do get tourists. I was talking to Josh about how strange it must be to live here and have so many people around that speak not a lick of the language. Well, maybe, like me, many can say hello and thank you. Some, like my friend Ami who I traveled with before, can even bargain in Thai. Amazing!
After lunch we came back for another long afternoon siesta (I could get used to that! Though, I do feel kind of guilty coming across the world and then hanging out in our hotel room for hours on end... I just can't justify being outside in the heat of the day, especially while pregnant!). We decided as the sun was going down to head back to the busy tourist area for dinner and people-watching... I have to admit we cheated a bit and had Western food for dinner. Albeit not that good. I feel something is lacking in my diet - my stomach just isn't what is should be. Good thing I brought vitamins along, at least. I think it's hard on your body to adjust to a completely different way of eating. I'm hoping that once we're at the beach and out of the city we will get some better fruit and maybe some fresh fish.
Now we're back for another early night. Tomorrow we check out of the hotel and then head to the train station for our 7:30 pm train to Chiang Mai . We're considering just taking the sky train around tomorrow, maybe checking out some of the fancier shopping areas to burn our last day here... More to follow from Chiang Mai. June 21 I did it. I splurged.So much for being cheap! Today I decided to splurge and get myself an hour-long Thai massage. Some of you might be thinking that it would be a lot of money, but au contraire... my hour-long massage was 160 bhat ($5) and I tipped (not ordinary here, but I kind of felt like I was ripping them off!) the guy the remaining 40 bhat of my 200. So, a total of about $6.50. Not too bad. If we're back here tomorrow afternoon around naptime again I will likely get another tomorrow. I'll call it my treat for taking boards and passing. :)
This blogging thing is kind of neat, as it keeps me keeping up with our trip. It will make it a lot easier for me to go through pictures and figure out what we have taken pictures of! I've never been too good about keeping a travel journal, but this seems to make it easier for me. And hopefully some people back home enjoy reading about our exploits...
Today we decided to take an easy day, as yesterday was quite busy and we were tired. We woke up early with Brie, had breakfast, and then on the suggestion of Lonely Planet, headed to the Thonburi boat stop to feed the fish. We purchased a bag (HUGE) of bread crusts and began throwing them in the water - it was an amazing feeding frenzy mass of what I think were carp. I understood from a woman there with her daughter that this is a common pastime of the monks - must be why there were thousands of fish there waiting for us! This is what it was like. From there we decided to take the river boat taxi again, and rode all the way down to the end and then back. Brie fell asleep and had a nice little nap for about half an hour, maybe more. We got a lovely river breeze, and some quite lovely river spray (I don't imagine the river is very clean, what with tons of longboats spewing their diesel into it, and as I saw a few outpipes from factories/homes dumping something dirty into the water... it looks like the Colorado for anyone who's seen it). Mostly, we had a nice little break from walking. From there we decided to get lunch. We tried to go to a place by our boat stop recommended by the Lonely Planet, but we were either too directionally challenged, or the place is no longer there. My vote is for no longer there, as the book made it sound quite easy to find. Therefore, we had to find another place for lunch... we found an outdoor cafe which was surrounded by greenery - still a bit hot but not too bad. I had a "salad" (in quotations because calling it that is a bit of a stretch, but it did have some cucumber, tomato - no salmonella, I hope - some tofu, and a bit of iceberg lettuce) and Brie and Josh had rice and some curry. We headed back for naptime after that, and I had my massage. Tonight we walked over to Ko Sanh Road to try another restaurant recommended by the book - this time for Israeli food. It was hidden in a little alley off Ko Sanh, so not too loud or crazy. The food was good, and then we wandered over to Ko Sanh to get a crepe with banana, chocolate, and condensed milk - one of my favorites here. I'm sure not very Thai, but good nonetheless. I always like to splurge on sweets when I travel, because they are so different everywhere, and always my favorite thing. We've definitely been eating much less here - with the heat and humidity you don't get hungry like you would elsewhere. Maybe this trip will save me from gaining too much weight during this pregnancy! :) Now we're off to bed - hopefully Brie will sleep later than 4:30 tomorrow morning - we're making progress, at least! June 20 Who Would have known?Guess political violence doesn't always affect travelers - you would have never known there was a massive protest going on in this city yesterday - the only sign was the lack of taxis due to police shutting off streets...
Busy Day in BangkokWhew, what a day of walking and spending - and it's only 4:30! Seems like all we did today was spend money - let's count it up. I think it seems like more because every time we spend money, it's a large amount, which is kind of misleading. So... 100 bhat ($3) for Wat Pho, 15 bhat ($.50) for feed for the birds, 100 bhat ($3) for Wat Arun, 14 bhat ($.50) for the ferry crossing, 36 bhat ($1) for the boat trip up the river, 70 bhat ($2) for lunch, 150 bhat ($4!) for drinks from the store... I think that's about it. Oh, and then we booked our train to Chiang Mai, which did break the bank - a 14-hour overnight sleeper for all of us for 1900 bhat - about $60. At least we save on hotel accomodations! So, let's add all that up, not including the Chiang Mai train, that's $14. Okay, I concede, not that much. Sure seems like a lot when you're constantly shelling out hundreds of whatever... :)
Back to what we did today. Brie didn't sleep all that well overnight - woke up a few times - every time I heard her up it seemed like she was crunching on chips. Guess maybe she should have eaten more dinner! She woke us up a few times but we all ended up sleeping until about 6:30. Then we had some time to lay around before breakfast at 8. We had a lovely, albeit American, breakfast here at the hotel, including some great fresh-squeezed orange juice. Seems like orange juice is everywhere - they must get some local oranges or something. It's much sweeter than what we get at home - very good. Funny, considering the oranges are quite green when you see the bags of juiced rinds in trash throughout the city! After breakfast we headed out to do our sighseeing for the day. I had originally anticipated taking the water ferry down to the temples, but turned out they only run limited hours - rush hour, and then the tourist boat doesn't start until 9:30. Being as it was 8:45 when we were there, we decided to just walk. The map was a bit misleading - turned out to be quite a long walk. Brie did great keeping up with us, even though it was already very warm and humid. We walked to the Grand Palace first, deciding not to pay to get in, as it is about $9 PP there. Cheap I may be! We walked around and took some pictures and then walked from there to Wat Pho, quite a beautiful temple that houses the largest of Thailand's buddhas, I don't know about the world. It is amazing - huge and gold and kind of non-buddhist in its showiness. Hopefully we have some decent pictures. From there we walked (again!) to the water, through a lovely-smelling fish market - not fresh fish, but all dried and pickled and reminding me of Andrew Zimmern on Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel. Actually, much of the food here reminds me of that. Most of the stuff I won't try, anyway. :) There were also a lot of interesting-looking shops with medicinal herbs, or at least that's what I assumed they were selling. Maybe it was medicinal "herb..."
From that side of the river, we took a water ferry across to Wat Arun, a very interesting temple with very steep steps climbing the towers. Made me a bit nervous, Brie really enjoyed it. I was a bit chicken and didn't go all the way up, but we did go 2/3 of the way. After spending some time walking around there, we ferried back to the "mainland" and then hopped a boat to come back up towards our hotel. A much better way to travel Bangkok than tuk-tuk or taxi... with a lovely breeze blowing. And, theoretically, for about a dollar, we could ride around all day! We rode for about 15 minutes back to our stop, then walked back to the hotel and grabbed some lunch before going down for a nap. Oh, and I splurged in two pairs of Thai Fishermen Pants, great for pregnancy but I think they should come with an instruction manual. Seems like a two-person job to put them on. Check it out. I then thought we had to go to the train station to book our tickets to Chiang Mai... but after trying to negotiate with a cabbie to take us to the station (he didn't want to use the meter b/c he said there was a lot of traffic), the guy from the hotel came out and suggested we might want to try a travel agency instead. We went down the road, and for 200 bhat more (about $8, probably less than what a cab to and from the airport would have cost us), we got our tickets booked. So, now we're set to go to Chiang Mai. Truth be told, I was a bit nervous about booking because the book said that the overnight sleepers booked early and that we should have done it weeks ago, but I guess we got lucky...
Now I think we're off to walk over to Ko Sanh Road, since we didn't actually get there last night, I think. This time I think we're going to try braving the city with Brie's stroller, as we both got a bit tired of carrying her today. I would prefer to just sleep, but I think we would all like to sleep tonight, so let's try and stay up a bit longer. Can't keep fooling our bodies for much longer! June 19 Here we are!!!Well, we've done it. We've braved a 26-hour trip with a 2-year old and have arrived in Bangkok. At least I wasn't that woman on the plane traveling alone, sharing a seat with her 1-year-old! I must say, the trip overall was much easier than I had anticipated - I think I ran out of patience at about 24 hours, but Brie really did quite well, considering, on the trip. We left from Phoenix at around 10 pm on Tuesday, and arrived in Bangkok at 11 am today (Thursday). Brie probably slept about 5-6 hours on our longest flight (13 hours from LA to Taipei), and maybe a smidge here and there on the other flights... she was in a surprisingly good mood for having that little sleep - much better than mom and dad! We were lucky in Taipei to find a kid's play area, so she could burn off a little bit of the steam that had been building since Phoenix. She watched "Horton Hears a Who" twice on our long flight (what did people do before DVD players and in-seat movie players??? :)), along with the TV show "Madeleine" about 4 times. It's much easier for us now that she can be amused by movies/TV. She did, though, seem to enjoy the books and toys I brought along - everything was new to her. Without TV/Movies, though, I really can't imagine having to entertain her for the entire time! Once we got to Taipei we were all starting to tire a bit... she got some attention from a large group of Taiwanese women (seems the norm over here - already in the few hours we've been here I think three women have hugged or touched her. Funny, I think, because I'm always saying how cute little Asian babies are... and they seem to like my little white baby...).
Anyway, after Brie had been busily wearing on our last nerves, we finally arrived in Bangkok, took a toe-curling, hair-raising drive to the hotel (no seatbelts, so I hung onto Brie for dear life... sure is good we brought that car seat... ;)), and arrived here at our hotel. Our hotel is quite lovely (Baan Chantra, a "Our Pick" from Lonely Planet) - much different than the kind of place Ami and I stayed in years ago in Bangkok. It's full of old, dark wood, traditional jewelry and dolls in cases, and a number of open-air patios. It also has a/c, which is kind of a godsend here this time of year. However, with the high humidity, it's kind of a balance for me - I'm often either too hot or too cold - I seem to get cold a lot quicker here than at home. Any of you living in damp climates might not understand, but when you've lived somewhere dry, you get used to that weather.
After we arrived, we walked across the street to 7-11 (for those of you who haven't been to Asia, there are TONS of 7-11's, seems like on every street corner) to buy some water, some milk for Brie (yes, we found whole milk, which she will love...), some snacks, and a couple of beers for Josh. It's hard for me not to spend a lot of money here - it's so cheap that I feel like I want to buy more. Even with the dolllar weakening and allegedly food prices going up, it's still pretty darn affordable. the hotel is quite expensive as Thailand goes, but it will be worth it for a few nights of uninterrupted sleep, a safe street, and warm, clean shower. Anyway, we got our snacks and then took a little (3-hour!) nap. I woke up and wanted to keep sleeping, but figured if we didn't get up, we would wake up around 3 am and be totally screwed... So. We took a shower and walked over to the tourist district of Ko Sanh Road, where we picked up some Pad Thai (yum!) on the street and sat out and ate it. Brie rejected it - think she's a bit too tired at this point. She had some soda, that's a healthy dinner, right? Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, as it's cool outside now!) the skies opened up right as we stood up to walk back, so we walked back in a deluge. Guess that's monsoon season for you! It was kind of funny, our trying to run from awning to awning to stay partially dry. I don't mind the rain, just unfortunate that our clothes will never dry. :) Brie and Josh just headed up to bed (it's 8 pm here, for those of you looking at the time stamp on your email and wondering what the time difference might be) and I thought I would let everyone know we are safe and sound and getting ready for a fun trip. Brie keeps saying "Let's go home now!" and we have to keep explaining that we're going to be on an exciting trip for a while...
Hope everyone is well! More updates to follow - we're going to try to stay in places with free internet, so we can stay in some semblance of touch while we're gone. June 17 Yay!!!
June 12 Kefir - Yummy!Well, either my midwife recommended it, or I saw something on the Travel Channel or the Food Network - seems like my brain can't keep things straight. I think it was recommended by my midwife as a healthy snack to keep my blood sugar regulated during pregnancy. In any case, Brie and I were at Sprouts and I found Kefir - came right home to try it. This company makes various versions - plain and flavored "smoothies". We tried the peach smoothie - it is so yummy! I love drinking yogurt anyway - used to drink a lot of Yop when I lived in France, but it was always a bit too sweet. This stuff is great, no artificial sweetener (most importantly, no corn syrup!) and supposedly it's even better for you than normal yogurt. I'm sold! Now I just have to try the plain, maybe with a bit of honey. Plain yogurt with honey, sometimes with a bit of fruit, is my new favorite snack. June 10 First Baby Kick...or more gas?Okay, I swear I felt the baby kick for the first time last night. I feel I'm better prepared to know what I'm feeling this time around - got to know the difference between gas "kicking" and real baby kicking. :) When I layed (laid?) down last night right away I felt a little kick in my lower abdomen; I swear it was baby JJ getting comfy. At 14 weeks the baby is about 4" long - that's kind of tiny but who knows. It was a tiny kick. Anyway, by the time we get back I'm sure he/she will be kicking up a storm. I should have known from Brie's interuterine movement that we were in for trouble! Hopefully this one will be a calm one. June 09 Neglecting Baby JJ?I feel kind of badly, realized that Brie gets all the attention now and I'm not blogging at all about this pregnancy. It's just not as big a deal the second time around - kind of an old hat now - once you know what to expect. I love reading our friend Jill's blog about her pregnancy, and I did all that the first time... just don't have the same draw to blog about the experiences this time around. Maybe it's good that Brie's getting all the attention now - goodness knows she will lose a lot of the spotlight as soon as there's a cute little baby joining our household. On a side note, Josh was talking yesterday about painting Brie's new room pink when the baby comes - PINK? Hmm... June 08 The Countdown Begins...well, we leave on our big adventure a week from Tuesday, meaning it's down to the wire now with preparations. I've thrown what little I'm taking into a bag (not really too worried about wrinkling, as I figure it will get messed up as soon as we start wearing it all anyway...), and have started sorting through what Brie needs to take, and what toiletries we need. Now I just need to make my run to Target for those last essentials (massive sunscreen purchase!) and get everything organized. I packed Brie's bag for the plane - it's a bit heavy with all the books we're taking for her, but she can tough it out. :) I'm getting excited and nervous all at the same time -throwing a child into the mix of a big adventure changes a lot. If it were just Josh and I going I wouldn't be worried at all, but just not sure what to expect with her. It will be an adventure, that's for sure... June 03 Brie's New ClassBrie moved up to her 2's class yesterday - a new classroom and new teacher, and even a bunch of new kids! We didn't really get an update at the end of the day, but the big positive about her new class is that they actively participate in potty training, meaning they have a mini kid's toilet and take the kids to go regularly. Brie came home in the same outfit and panties she went to school in, so that was a bit breakthrough. It's funny now that Brie talks, because you never know what to believe - she told me yesterday that she went poop in the potty at school (she pooped twice in the potty this weekend, which was a HUGE breakthrough)... but then she proceeded to tell me that she got a shot at school. So, that negated me believing the poop story. :) Haha. Now I can't believe anything she says! Anyway, I'm excited about the potty training going so well - that bodes well for not taking tons of diapers on our trip this summer!
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