Jim Thompson House

My fall classes officially start on Tuesday, but I can access them starting tomorrow.  I know I'll look at them tomorrow and start stressing about the work I have to do, so I decided that today was my last day of freedom, and I should use it well.  I wanted to do something downtown, and all the guidebooks recommend the Jim Thompson House, so I decided that would be my something. 

I knew it would be more fun with friends, so I talked two of my neighborhood friends into coming downtown with me.  One of them had a husband who was driving in, so they gave us a ride to the embassy.  The Jim Thompson House isn't too far from the embassy, but definitely too far to walk, so we needed a taxi.  Using the training I got from my friend the last time I explored downtown, I looked for taxis with the red light in the front, and I waved towards me rather than "hailing" with my hand up the way you would in the States.  Sure enough, the first taxi I tried it on, put his hazards on to show that he saw me and stopped and picked us up.  Yay!!  I said "meter" he said "ka" and nodded.  Then I said, "Jim Thompson House?".  That was not as easy.  I could tell he wanted to say yes, but he wasn't sure what I was saying.  We tried a couple more times, until I think he understood us, then we got in.  I used the power of Google to pull up a map, and used it to double check that we were going the right way, which we were.

There was a ton of traffic, so our crafty cab driver cut through a Tesco parking lot to go down a side street and avoid a major intersection.  That involved getting a ticket to get the barrier to go up, driving through the parking garage, and then giving the ticket to the person on the other side, so that we could get out.  I'm sure he saved us quite a bit of time, but I was really glad I had my Google maps up to let me know that he was on the right track.

After slogging through some more traffic, he stopped in front of a little alley and pointed down it.  We figured he knew what he was doing, so we got out.  A tuk tuk driver was sitting in the alley and offered to take us to the Jim Thompson House for free, so we said sure and hopped on.  It just took a minute or two of going down the alley to get there, but it's definitely one of those places that if you didn't know it was there, you would never be able to find it.  As is to be expected, the tuk tuk driver offered to wait for us and then show us around the city, but we said we were fine and gave him a tip.

The house and the gardens are an oasis in the crazy, crowded city.

We decided to have lunch first.  There is a lovely restaurant there, right next to a pond, and we had some delicious food.  

I especially enjoyed the Mango Tango, which was a yummy mango smoothie.

After lunch we looked around the store, which had some beautiful things (no pictures allowed, sorry), but the prices were quite high.  There are also Jim Thompson outlets, so I'll need to get to one of those.

The tour was about 40 minutes long and very interesting.  There are no photos allowed in the house, so I can't share those, but the Jim Thompson website has some pictures.  Jim Thompson came to Thailand and started a business exporting Thai silk.  He had a background in architecture and used it to collect traditional Thai houses and combine them into one luxurious house.  He then disappeared mysteriously while visiting friends and was never heard from again.  It was a beautiful house with a great story.

Once the tour was done, we took a golf cart ride back to the main street, quickly found another taxi (yay, two for two!), and got back to the embassy.  We had a little bit of time before the family shuttle left, so we did a quick trip to the commissary and then headed back to Nichada.

Tonight was also Vivian's open house / back to school night.  We got to go and hear her teacher talk about what they would be learning this year.  They have writing workshop, guided and independent reading, and they're using Investigations for math.  Overall, it sounds like they'll be learning a lot and I"m excited for the year Vivi has ahead of her.

It was a great day, and I'm so glad I got to go exploring with some wonderful new friends :-)