Thailand – Treasures of gold and friendship

The more I see the less I know for sure. – John Lennon

On this trip we predominantly visited places we’d never been before, but Thailand was one we loved in 2002 and we were anxious to see how it had changed.  We chose to kick it off in Phuket.  We’ve always heard mixed reviews about Phuket and this was low season due to rain, but at this point we’ve learned that every place has lovers and haters so we focus on what experiences it can give us rather than if folks loved it.  A lot of conversation in southern Thailand is about the diving.  We had filled our bucket in that department in Malaysia and Bali – and will top it off in Australia so we were looking beyond that.  Kayaking into sea lagoons only accessible through a cave and seeing the water glow at night seemed to fit the bill.  In a lot of ways for planning this trip we like to find a substitute experience for a favorite memory from 2002.  This kayak sounded like a replacement for Halong Bay in Vietnam where we boated among towering limestone pinnancles and glowworm tubing in New Zealand.  And this special experience landing on Father’s Day was perfect.  Thanks to our friends at Tripadvisor we also found a great inexpensive hotel in Phuket.  So, that is the backstory for how we got there.  As usual we could have spent more time.  We loved relaxing at the hotel and the beach had wonderful waves for the 3 kids to play in (Yes, Chad is a kid).

The Father’s Day kayak was a hit as well.  We cruised in a big boat through the limestone islands and my shutter finger was working doubletime.  When we got to the cave we transitioned into inflatable kayaks.  The sea gives a narrow window to do this – low tide and you can’t float in, high tide and the “door” is flooded.  Once inside it was like being in a secret garden.  We saw an amazing fish that has both gills and lungs.  It looks like it was frozen in the evolutionary process of fish becoming frog.  And Liam got to hop out of the boat in the silt and he got a taste of how quicksand works.  The more he struggled to free his feet the deeper he sank.  We debated, but in the end we let him use the kayak to pull himself out.  We checked out a couple different lagoons like this and ate a very nice buffet on the big boat.  While waiting for sunset we did a craft with our guide to make a Krathong. The traditional Krathong is made from a cross-section of a banana tree trunk, which is then elaborately decorated with folded banana leaves and flowers in intricate towering designs.  There is a festival here where these are launched at night with candles and are launched with prayers and wishes.  Our visit didn’t coincide with the festival but this gave us a nice taste of it.  Chad and Shia’s guide was eager to show them how to do it and let them go.  Liam and Heidi’s guide was very proud of his record of having the most beautiful Krathong, so he let us contribute the bare minimum.  Which was in itself pretty endearing to see how important this tradition is to him personally.  (Although, Heidi still wants to make a bird from an orchid someday).  At sunset we paddled back into the biggest cave to get complete darkness.  We launched our Krathongs inside with our prayers and wishes.  Then we blew them out and played with the phosphorescent plankton.  When we disturbed the water it glistened like it was filled with tiny blue firefly mermaids.  They said it was plankton, but it was probably tiny mermaids.

Next stop was Bangkok.  As we’ve mentioned before, in 2002 Bangkok was our oasis.  We used it as a hub and we would look forward to going back each time because it was inexpensive, fun and super convenient.  We found a place to stay in the area that we remembered, not the same place since we now like luxuries like Air Con and a pool.  Our hotel was nice enough.  The pool was nasty, our room reeked of smoke, but the decor was all nice, it was clean, and the location seemed great.  We even saw lots of other families so we didn’t feel like bad parents in this sea of 20 year olds.  Chad and I were eager to meander and as we turned the corner of our sweet little alley it became so familiar.  We sat for a big beer Chang, which in ’02 was $0.75, now it was closer to $3.  Okay, that’s changed!  And we looked up to see the familiar sign of our old guesthouse.  Memories flooded – Oh, this is where we watched movies at night, I wonder if it’s the same lady doing laundry at that spot, look the VW van bar is still there but now it has a flat screen TV.  It hadn’t changed nearly as much as we had feared.  As we walked to Kao San Road the main hub of this backpacker mecca we saw more changes.  Lots of US fast food, street food of Western tastes replaced the dominant sale of wok fried insects, which is a Thai snack to enjoy with beer.  We did eventually find the insects but they got smarter.  Now they charge to take pictures of them since there are so few takers.  Thais are smart, their profit margin in backpacker mecca has definitely gone up.

After three days in Rambuttri Alley, AKA memory lane, we faced the gauntled of selfie sticks, umbrellas, and herds of tourists at the Grand Palace.  Our heads would explode at the chaos of people, the heat and the magnitude of gold and sparkle so Heidi focused on small areas of the incredible art, Shia turned her brain off, Dad found a nice shady mural, Liam sought hidden treasures in Amazing Race fashion using his map.  Less is not more here, but it was stunning when we looked at the details. Then we shifted to a nicer hotel to meet up with our friends who were wrapping up a tremendous journey of long flights and long layovers to come from Denver to Bangkok.  We were blown away by the charm of this hotel.  It was hidden at the end of an alley and in this neighborhood we didn’t really see many other westerners.  It was a great change of pace.  We were so in love with the hotel we spent the whole first day soaking it all in.  We just keep moving around different areas to soak up the ambience.  The walls all had amazing unique murals and being a lover of murals again Heidi’s shutter finger was getting tired.  It was a fascinating blend of old Thai, mid century memorabilia, and art.  Hanging out here we counted the hours until our friends arrived early in the morning.

It was like Christmas morning, Heidi and Liam were up at first light to await our friends.  They were a bit delayed so we got to practice our patience.  The Conn family are friends from our neighborhood at home.  Finn is in Liam’s grade, Atticus is in Shia’s, and Ella reminds us of Shia’s very cool older cousin.  It was exciting that we could overlap with their summer vacation for 5 days.  We wandered the streets together and tried whatever street food looked tempting, and found a fresh market where there were buckets and buckets of living writhing aquatic edibles freaking out the kids with their looks and aromas.  At one point Liam and Finn were a bit startled by a bucket of squid up closer to eye level.  Their reflexive pull back caused Liam’s flip flops to slip and slide and he fell.  On his way down his elbow landed in the bucket of squid and his bum in the wet mess of ?#@! below.  He got up with respectable swagger and kept his cool.  We were proud of his response to the unfortunate event, but he doesn’t think Squidward is a good nickname.  We ended this day back in Kao San Road and the incredible energy surge of our jet lagged friends came to an end.  And thank goodness, it meant we had to splurge on Tuk Tuks home.  Which turned out to be the most fun we’ve ever had in a three wheeler!  I love it when we can’t fit into one Tuk Tuk because as they weave in and out of traffic it is like the horse race ball game at carnivals with the lead constantly shifting.  We call it dueling Tuk Tuks and 3 tuk tuks made it that much more fun!  Add to that the tricked out nature of our Tuk Tuks.  We learned in Sri Lanka that Tuk Tuks are made simple and as the owner can, they add embellishments.  Well, I guess when your customers are foreigners you can afford all the bells and whistles!  Neon lights, ornate metal work, custom paint/upholstery, and the best was that our drivers were having a blast along with us.  At the end the second and third place drivers popped a wheelie to add some flamboyance to our arrival.  So dang fun!

We booked an overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. One of Liams most favorite activities on the trip has been overnight trains (I know, crazy), so what could be better than an overnight train for Liam? An overnight train with friends from home, thats what.  One of the great luxuries of travelling with the Conns for this group of weary travellers is that Mandy did much of the legwork.  So, on the train she knew that we would have a food service representative, and this person would lie to us and say there is no restaurant car, but there is.  However, if we use it she doesn’t get commission, so she won’t admit its presence.  Unfortunately, we didn’t read that they will trick us with a fake welcome drink that cost us a pretty penny.  After that burn we didn’t want to buy a darn thing on the train.  Which made her sales pitch at 15 minute intervals all the more annoying.  It was also fortunate that the Conns are from Georgia and their southern charm never waned no matter how annoying she was.  We did particularly enjoy the picture Mandy took of her hanging out the window the restaurant car that she swore didn’t exist on our way down the platform as we were leaving.  We then had one day in Chaing Mai so we visited a mountaintop temple with wonderful cool mountain air.  It was so nice to enjoy a temple without sweating buckets  or burning our feet.  And then it was finally time for the kids to enjoy a pool together.  Meanwhile, we lifeguarded… our frozen beverages from the pool edge.  At dusk we visited the Night Market where we froze still along with the rest of the crowd for the playing of the Royal Anthem honoring the King.  We recognized it pretty quick since the movie Finding Dory in Bangkok also began with everyone standing for the Royal Anthem.  Then we milled around snacking our way through the food stalls and parking our bums in chairs for foot massage.  At the end we came across a stage show of girls doing a song and dance performance that was a fun window into Thai life.

The Elephant Nature Park was a highly anticipated event for us.  This is a sanctuary for elephants that were forced to work despite injury.  The sanctuary buys them and allows them to live a life of leisure, to find love and friendship (or not), and live a life as wild as they can within the confines of the sanctuary where they can be kept safe from theft or harm.  People pay to come and visit and learn about the hardships of domesticated elephant training and the work elephants are forced into.  Our opening quote came to mind here as the energy at the ENP was so black and white that we are good and all ‘those people” who sit in chairs on the back of an elephant are bad.  That is not something I know for sure.  We’ve been in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand that ALL have domesticated and wild elephants.  They are all endangered, they all have high demands for space, food, etc. that our growing populations threaten.  Prehistoric rock art shows that domesticated elephants in India go back to 6,000 BC.  In these countries domesticated elephants are deeply embedded in their cultural traditions and identity.  We are not experts here, but the more I know, the less I know for sure.  I’ll pray for them.  I love them.  I will learn more about them.  And I am deeply honored to have met their gaze, stood in the river with them to give them a moments of comfort in the heat by splashing water on them (and Liam in the process), put my hand on their surprisingly sensitive skin to feel their energy, and prepared a soft meal for them to enjoy in old age as their teeth have failed.  Two days here were magical.  Keep up the good work Elephant Nature Park.  One of the staff had a shirt that read “Saving one elephant will not change the world, but surely for that one elephant the world will change forever.”

Back to the notion of replacing favorite memories from ’02, we hadn’t relived our amazing treehouse experience.  In ’02 we stumbled into it in Uganda.  Without modern day communication we arrived at the eco-lodging at the National Park with chimps without a reservation and a hunk of faith.  We knew they had some campsites, some tents with gear to rent, and a couple of treehouses.  We trusted something would be available. We scored an amazing treehouse.  Now it was essentially a gazebo in the top of a tree surrounded by jungle with our only protection being a mozzie net.  But, for me, it has always been a treasured memory.  We’ve had our eyes out for a treehouse and finally, we scored the moment!  This place about an hour outside of Chaing Mai began when the retired architect owner built a treehouse for his family.  I like him already.  I hate to stereotype, but I find many Asians aren’t huge fans of ‘touching nature’, so this guy is totally our kind of people!  Now he has a bunch of them and they are all different.  Some have buckets to haul up stuff on a pulley, others have a swing.  Some are high to feel the gentle sway of the tree at night and some are lower for those afraid of heights.  Add in the exceedingly sweet cats and dogs, the gentle flow of the stream, the bamboo hammock in the trees, and the presence of our friends from home and this was heaven.  Somehow Liam and Finn bamboozled their way into the ‘crow’s nest’ private room atop the Conn’s treehouse and Shia hijacked a cat to be her book buddy the whole time.  I let it go when I saw her take a potty break and the cat followed her to the al fresco bathroom and back.  This was the grand finale of our time in Thailand and with the Conn family and it was GRAND.

One thing that has been reinforced in our minds while traveling is that you have to experience things for yourself rather than taking someone else’s word for it. We have gotten numerous recommendations from other travelers on where and where not to go, what and what not to do, but we have learned that everyone is different, has different interests, different needs, and we just have to experience it for ourselves. So, now we are trusting our instincts and putting less stock in recommendations from others. Preconceived notions we once had about places and things have changed as we get more exposed to them.

The more you learn about something the more complex it can become. Its easy to read about something and have your opinion easily swayed to one side or the other and its easy to make judgements but most things are not that clear cut. The more we see, the more our preconceived notions are challenged and the less we know for sure.  We have seen that the world in general is getting more polarizing, and not just back at home. Its unfortunate because rather than trying to understand and appreciate peoples different beliefs and living situations, it seems we have less patience and less understanding.   Modern society doesn’t encourage moderation,  you have to pick sides and stay on that side for every issue. But issues are so complex, its not that simple and open discussion and friendly debate seems no longer possible.

Here’s an example, trash burning.  Our hostess and guide for the tigers in India was telling us how they have gotten a few bad reviews from travelers and is denied a environmental stewardship certification because they burn the trash. This couple are ardent conservationists and for the national park nearby they are the most invested.  Staff at the park service come and go, locals don’t care, but they monitor, document, and advocate for the animals year in and year out. Burning trash is not what they would prefer to do, but its the only option as there is no trash pick up, no sanitary landfill where they are in India, so she composts meticulously and burning her remaining trash is the best alternative. Its easy for people to throw stones, but until you live in someone’s shoes you don’t appreciate or understand their situation.

Needless to say, we enjoyed the conversations with our friends.  Boy do we miss friends and family!  Mandy asked me an interesting question “Will you ever be able to go to a zoo after seeing what you’ve seen?”.  I will always do whatever I can to support animals born free remaining free and safe.  I pray that their little remaining habitat is fiercely guarded.  I hope animals that are not born free are rehabilitated to repopulate their wild habitat.  But, we all can’t visit these shrinking wild places, and when we do they certainly lose some of their wild.  The tigers know the schedule of game drives.  They nap when the people are there and come out to be wild when they are gone.  It’s hilarious.  Apparently the best game drive is the one day each year when they shift the schedule by an hour.  So, if we can’t all see them in the wild we need to see them in zoos.  To appreciate their beauty, strength, rarity, and amazing uniqueness.  Also, IMHO we need those diverse genes as an insurance policy. I hope as society modernizes our zoo enclosures all get bigger and more authentic.  And we all learn what we can from the majestic animals with which we share our planet.  Becuase the more we know, the less we know for sure and maybe that is the source of the creativity we need to solve our global problems.

Southeast Asian Highlights

Liam

• Snorkeling, on the Perhenthians in Malaysia
• Diving – Wreck dive in Bali and in the Perhenthians
• Phuket – great waves to play in
• My Birthday – read my blog
• ESCAPE adventure park, OK it’s like elitch’s meets a ropes course x10
• Knolls Knine, Friends!!!! finally
• Treehouse, hanging out at the top of the canopy
• Waterbom water park, I finally brewed up enough courage to go down a drop waterslide
• Lowlight – Saying goodbye to the Conn family

Shia

• Water activities – snorkeling, diving, parasailing, riding in boats, swimming, tubing, and beaches
• Wildlife  – Orangutans, sea turtles, sharks, monkeys, fish, and reptiles
• Legoland Hotel – particularly the elevator and themed rooms
• Knolls Knine- Being with friends from home and having an excuse to stay at fancier places
• Lowlight – Injuries, self inflicted and otherwise. Lets start with the mosquito bites…they are highly annoying and my obsessiveness with them causes me to scratch them until they bleed, which delays the healing process. I also got long, deep cuts on my legs from climbing the coconut palm at ESCAPE. They still haven’t healed yet. That was two weeks ago. Last, but probably not least, is my knee. It started bothering me last year during gymnastics and I thought it would get better on the trip. Not. It most bothers me going up and down stairs. And there have been a lot of stairs.

Chad

• Bali – Beaches, food, architecture, monkeys, jungle, diving, water sports. Much to do and very easy to travel.
• Borneo – Navigating through the jungle in our own private boat from where we could see Orangutans and other diverse wildlife, all while having great service, food, a knowledgable guide, and overnight accomodation. Stopping at feeding stations and getting within feet (sometimes inches) from these huge animals. This was not possible with the much more aggresive and violent chimps.
• Perhentian islands, Malaysia – Island with no roads, only foot paths and water taxi’s. Great swimming and the best snorkeling we’ve seen yet. Oh, and a beach front hut.
• Rendezvous in Thailand with our friends from home.
• Lowlight – Crossing the border from Singapore to Malaysia. There are two border crossings and the day before we successfully crossed one of them with the little info we could find on doing this independently (essentially no info was found in guidebooks or the internet). So, the next day, after taking a day trip back into Singapore, we simply asked our cab driver to take us back the way we came. He gladly obliged and dropped us off without bothering to mention that it’s not possible to cross at this checkpoint by foot or by taxi. As we walked towards the immigration office, in clear sight, we were stopped by the border patrol and told we could go no further and that the only way to get to immigration was by public bus and that we need to go back to a far away bus stop to catch the bus.  We found a local bus to take us to this bus stop and after waiting in a huge queue of commuters we eventually boarded the bus back to the border, and about 2.5 hours later we were near where the cabbie had dropped us off originally, but now we were on the correct side of the fence. A very frustrating waste of time and money.

Heidi

• Bali – I loved the indoor-outdoor living & the diverse array of options for food and activities.  We did so many great activities – mother daughter spa day, cultural bike tour, wreck dive, yoga class, dolphin visit, waterpark.  The ever present faith and arts also inspired me and filled me with joy.
• Art – After months of joy and inspiration through nature and experiences I was over the moon at our Batik class in Penang to have an outlet of my own.  And seeing each of the kids get so engrossed and creative was exciting.  I loved that experience and will treasure each of our creations.
• Treehouse & Friendship- Who doesn’t love a treehouse?  And sharing the experience with friends took it up a notch or two.  Along the river in the jungle sharing stories with friends from home I was enchanted by the entire experience.  It was the icing on an amazing five days hanging out with our friends.  (The trees in our yard suck, if anyone has a treehouse worthy tree and is looking for a partial owner, let’s talk! )
• Kayaking in Phuket – I love the massive rock outcrops that are found in this part of the world.  We loved HaLong Bay in 2002 and this was our tribute to that fond memory.  Doing it on Father’s Day was perfect, because this family has an exceptional Dad that I adore. The sunset that night was beautiful.  After dusk we lit and launched our wishes on floating offerings.  The sunset was gorgeous and seeing the phosporessence in the sea glisten like underwater fireflies was magical.  Loved it.
• Lowlight – The red eye flight with a crying baby to Australia  was a close second but the winner is from Bali.  I got a bit of a stomach ache on the Gili islands and wanted some Pepto.  Sadly, we had run out so I went to the pharmacy to find a substitute.  After searching the pharmacy the closest thing I found was called Herbavomitz.  Needless to say it wasn’t Pepto, but at least it lightened my mood with a healthy dose of laughter.  And this, combined with a drought of beer in the Muslim countries, kicked off “The Biggest Loser” portion of the trip for me.  I don’t mind the loose clothes but I do miss my kickin’ taste buds.

Tuk Tuk Duel:

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