Kanchanaburi

It took a few weeks, but I think we're finally feeling settled and at home.  Of course, that means that it's time to go on vacation, right?  We did a lot of research before deciding on our first Thailand trip.  Most of our friends have gone to the beach for their first trips, but we're not really beach people, so we wanted something a little different.

In the end, we decided on Kanchanaburi, a province best known for the River Kwai, as in the bridge over it.  There are lots of hotels and "resorts" along the river.  We chose the Dheva Mantra resort, because they have a family room with a king size bed and a twin bed already in it, plus plenty of room for the baby's pack and play.  The pool also looked like fun, and I knew Vivi would enjoy it.

Those tiny people in the picture are Vivi and Jeff.  I took the picture from the balcony that looks over the pool and to the river.  As an added bonus there was even a little playground.

After all the fun we've had with the car, we decided it would be safest to hire someone to drive us there.  We made good time, had lunch, and then headed out on our first excursion.  The hotel helped us arrange a boat tour down the river, stopping at the bridge, the JEATH War Museum, and a wat with a beautiful view.

The boat was not exactly what we expected.

There were some cushions, but we were basically sitting on the bottom of the boat.  Vivi and I sat in the back seat with Elena in my lap, and Jeff sat in the front with the camera to get good pictures.  The hotel brochure said that the boat could hold six people, but I think six people would have sunk it.  We decided to just enjoy it, and the views were beautiful.

Our first stop was the bridge.  Friends had warned us not to get too excited about it, since it really was just an old railroad bridge. 

Jeff really likes the movie though, so he was excited.  It was quite crowded.  There's a little electric train you can ride across it which looks like the big brother of the standard mall train.  We didn't take a ride, but we walked along the bridge and got some good pictures.

Then we got back in the boat and went down the river a bit further to the JEATH War Museum.  JEATH stands for Japan, England, America, Australia, Thailand, and Holland.  It was a pretty grim look at how the POWs lived while they were working on the railway.  Vivian was a bit upset by it, but luckily I think a lot of it was over her head.  If we had it to do over again, we probably wouldn't have brought her there.

By the time we got back in the boat, we were all getting tired, but we pressed on to stop three.  Elena, however, was so tired she fell asleep in my lap with the motor roaring and the wind blowing.

Elena and I stayed in the boat at the wat, while Vivian and Jeff climbed the hill to see the big Buddha and take in the view.

We were all very ready for bed that night, but unfortunately I had committed a cardinal mommy error.  I forgot to pack Vivi's blankie.  I felt doubly bad, because I think the reason I forgot it is that I was so worried about making sure I had everything the baby needed.  Vivi cried, and I almost cried too I felt so bad.  Luckily, we had some extra baby blankets, and there was one that Vivi deemed acceptable.  She was so tired that she managed to fall asleep fairly quickly, but I felt awful, and I am not going to make that mistake again.

The baby woke us all up ridiculously early the next morning, but it was okay, since we had planned an early start anyway.  Vivian was thrilled with her breakfast of waffles, bacon, and orange juice, and decided that the pool and the breakfast were the best parts of the vacation.

The hotel had arranged a car for us at 7:30 to drive to Erawan Falls which is about an hour north west of the town.  The whole drive to Kanchanaburi had been along fairly built up roads, and I was a bit disappointed since I thought we were going to get to see more of the country.  The drive to Erawan was much better.  We drove along the river valley and got closer to the mountains.

At one point along the road there were a series of places selling huge rock sculptures.  We assumed that there must be quarries in the mountains, and our driver didn't speak much English, so we couldn't ask him about it.  A lot of the shapes seem to be naturally occurring with just a little human help and polish.  I really liked them, but given their size and weight, all I could bring home was pictures.

At the entrance to Erawan National Park we showed our diplomatic residence cards to get resident price, which was about $3 for all of us.  The tourist price was about $6 per person.  The park looked lovely and would probably be worth a return visit for more exploring.  For our first visit though, we went to see the waterfalls.  There are seven of them along a meandering, climbing path.  We figured that with the kids in tow, we could safely make it as far as number four.

Vivi was fine walking,

but Elena rode in style.

The first part was pretty level, and we easily made it to number one and two.  

Lots of people were swimming in the water, but there were a bunch of fish in there.

The fish are supposed to eat off any dead skin you have, a sort of natural exfoliation.  We figured we'd pass.

After that the path got a little trickier.

Unfortunately, Vivi miscalculated on one of the steps and scraped up her shin.  This picture was taken after she insisted that I document her boo boo.

It happened on the way to waterfall number three, and for a while she decided she simply couldn't go on, so she and I sat and rested at number three.

Jeff and Elena climbed up the side of a hill to get to number four.

After some self pity, Vivi pulled herself together and decided she could make it to number four too, so she and I clambered up the hill and watched people sliding down the rocks and into the pool below.  She ended the trip quite proud of herself and was rewarded with some ice cream.

After such an exciting morning, we decided to have a chill afternoon.  Elena napped in the room, and I stayed with her to do some school work.  Jeff and Vivian went to enjoy the pool some more.

Once Elena woke up, we all went to hang out in the lobby lounge.  Jeff read his book, Vivi played on her iPad, I did homework, and Elena was worshipped by the hotel staff.

It was a nice relaxing way to end the vacation.  We headed home the next morning, but we'll definitely be back because there are a lot more things to see there.

Tires, pictures, and a birthday party

It's been quite a week.  On Tuesday I put Elena in the car and drove Young to the fruit and vegetable stands.  After dropping her off, Elena and I went to the Nichada office to pay a bill.  On the way back to pick up Young, I accidentally bumped the curb in front of the Nichada Starbucks.  I don't know if it was the way the curb was built, the way I hit it, or the quality of the tire, but the tire shredded and was almost instantly flat.  I managed to hobble-drive to the Club parking lot and got out to assess the damage.  This is a picture of the tire after it came off the car.

One of the guards came by to check on me.  He didn't speak much English, but he knew the word wow.  I think that sums it up.  I have bumped many a curb and flattened many a tire, but I've never seen anything quite like this before.

My biggest immediate concern though was that Young was waiting for me to come pick her up, which I now could not do.  Luckily, I was still in Nichada, so help was just a phone call away.  Two of my neighbors came to rescue me and Elena, and then we all drove to get Young.

One of my friends has a guy who helps her with car troubles, so I gave him a call.  He put the spare tire on, brought the car back to our house, and gave us his assessment.  It turns out we had one kind of tire on the front of our car and another kind on the back.  My new tire friend gave us some replacement options, and once we had decided what we wanted, called his friend who has a garage to make an appointment to bring our car in the next day.  He showed up again the next evening, took the car and brought it back with four new tires.  The good news is that his services cost about $15.  The bad news is that he said our brake pads are down to 20%, so we'll need to use his services again to fix those.

After all the excitement Tuesday, I was hoping that Wednesday could be a calm study day.  No such luck.  We had people coming by the house all morning.  They were coming to do helpful things like fix a broken bathroom fan, measure the stairs for a baby gate, and hang our pictures, but it felt like I barely sat down before the doorbell rang again.

After doing some picture hanging research, I found out that our moving company would send people to hang the pictures at no additional charge.  One of my neighbors used them and said they did a great job, so I scheduled an appointment.  Three guys showed up, a manager and two workers.  They were awesome.  The manager spoke English, so he helped with interpretation and picture height.  The other two did measuring and banging.  They did a great job centering the paintings and putting them at the heights I asked for.  They also had the special drywall screws for some of the heavier pictures, and they popped them into the wall, no muss, no fuss.

After they left, I golf carted it over to the mall to get cash for my fabulous new tires, and then met up with the magazine editorial crew for lunch at ISB.  By the time I got back from lunch, I just wanted to lay down and take a nap, but Vivi got home from school and tutoring needed to happen, so I pushed on through.

Thursday was a perfect studying day.  Young took over Elena care, and I just worked on my week's readings and response assignments.  It was heavenly.

I was hoping today could be like that too, but we had to go to the grocery store in our car with fancy new tires, but not so fancy brakes (I left plenty of space between me and the car in front of me for gradual deceleration).  That always takes a chunk of time out of the morning.  

In the afternoon, when Vivi got home from school, she told me that I had forgotten that today was library day, and so she hadn't brought back her books and wasn't allowed to check out new ones.  I pointed out to her that she was the one who went to school every day, not me, so she should be the one to remember library day.  Despite my outward firmness, I felt bad.  There's no school next week, and I wanted to make sure she had books for vacation, so we collected up her library books and got in the golf cart to head back to school.

It actually ended up being a fun Mommy Vivi outing.  We went to the snack booth and I got a chocolate chip cookie for her and a strawberry banana smoothie for me (of course she drank most of it).  We also stopped by her classroom because she had left one of her library books in her reading bin.  While we were there, she proudly showed me the stories she has been working on.  Then we went to the library to get new books.  She had to take a moment to enjoy the circle windows, so of course I had to capture it.

Once we got home, we had to get ready for one of our neighbor's fourth birthday party.  His mom had told kids that they could wear their Halloween costumes, so Vivian had on her Elsa costume and left a trail of glitter wherever she went.

Most of the neighborhood kids were there, so Vivi had a great time playing, and I had a great time talking to the other parents.  I had to take a picture of the cake.

When I showed it to Jeff, he declared it awesome, so I guess it's a guy thing.  It tasted good, and everyone had a great time, so it was definitely a successful party.  It was a nice way to end a crazy week.

Last AtB Outing and Halloween Prep

Today was the final After the Boxes outing.  This one was to the Christmas Store and then to the River Tree House for lunch.  I didn't want to miss it, but I also didn't want to totally ditch Jeff who was off today for Columbus Day.  Luckily, we found a good compromise.  We did a morning walk together, and then Jeff rode with another embassy husband and met up with all the shopping ladies for lunch.

Obviously I enjoyed having Jeff's company on the walk, but I was also really glad that he brought his phone with him and could take pictures of some of the Halloween "decorations" that have been up around Nichada since the beginning of the month.  Some of them are only vaguely disturbing (note that there are eyeballs mixed in with the candy).

But they get progressively more disturbing.

Yeah.  That last one is on the road near the school.  Apparently these are the tamed down versions, and there also used to be scantily clad lady ones.  These would be fine for a frat party, but really seem out of place in what is essentially a kid friendly suburban neighborhood.

It was a cool 77 degrees and there was a bit of a breeze, so Jeff and I had a lovely walk during which we discussed whether or not the zombie rabbit had been cannibalized by another zombie rabbit.

After the walk I headed over to the church to meet up with the AtB ladies and shop at the Christmas Store.  It turns out that the Christmas Store is not actually called the Christmas Store. 

They also sell decorations for most major holidays, but it's Christmas that hits you in the face when you walk in.

They had some Mardi Gras looking decorations mixed in with their blue Santas.

In the second room they had more fall and Halloween decorations.

It was fun to walk around and look at things, but it took a couple passes to really process it all.  I ended up getting a fancy Christmas wreath, a decoration for the golf cart (since Vivi has been complaining that everyone else's golf cart is decorated and ours isn't), and a fun Halloween headband for myself, so that I can be kind of dressed up for Halloween without actually having to dress up.

After shopping, we headed to the River Tree House for lunch.  There were helpful signs to get you to the parking lot,

and of course, there was a wat.

But after the parking it got a little trickier.  The restaurant is on the Chao Phraya river, and you have to go down this little alley to get there.  There are complimentary motorcycles with seating attached to take you there, but I opted for walking.

The restaurant is lovely during the day, and at night I'm told it's all lit up and is even prettier.

The menu is like a book.  Luckily, one of our group leaders had preordered a sample of dishes for us to try.  It's typical in Thai restaurants to eat family style, which works well when there are so many exciting options.

Jeff and the other husband showed up right after the food did, and we had a great time eating and talking about the spiciest foods we'd ever tasted, both on purpose and accidentally.

We walked back to the car since we were so full and thought it would help.  As soon as we got back home, I tied the witch hat with legs onto our golf cart, so that it would be waiting for Vivi when she got home.

She was satisfyingly thrilled.  She also like my headband, but I only let her try it on, since I'm afraid she'll manage to dismantle it if I let her play with it.  

I'm determined to make the best of Halloween, no matter how scary it gets.

Roof Top Dining

One of the required Bangkok experiences is to sit on the roof of a ridiculously tall building at night.  You can just have drinks or you can have a whole meal, while you enjoy the breeze and the view.

As far as I can tell, most of the nice hotels have at least a roof top bar, so there are lots of choices.  The roof top experience was on our list of things to do, so when our friends offered to have their driver take us all downtown for the night, we were in.  They're new too, so we weren't really sure how to pick a place to go.  We used the Bangkok Guide, and ended up at the Vertigo Grill which is in the Banyan Tree Hotel and also has the Moon Bar.  The two parts take up pretty much the entire roof of the building. 

Unfortunately, it's not covered, and it was raining when we got there, so they seated us downstairs for a while to start.  I ordered a caipirinha, and I had a moment where I worried I was drunk before I had even started drinking.

After some initial teasing, the rest of the group confirmed that my glass was slanted on the bottom, causing the whole drink to tip precariously.  Not sure about the motivation for doing this, other than the tipsy factor.

We stayed downstairs for appetizers,

but then our highly energetic waiter came to enthusiastically tell us that we could now sit on the roof, since the rain had stopped, and they had dried everything off.  We ditched our downstairs table, which only had a view out a floor to ceiling window, and headed for the roof.

Our waiter had to slow his pace, because as soon as we got out there, we had to stop for photo ops.

The food was fine, but way overpriced.  We decided we didn't mind for this time, but next time we would just do drinks and munchies at the Moon Bar.  It was hard to mind about much of anything, since we had good company, good drinks, and a fantastic view.  On the way home we all agreed that this was the first of many roof top nights out.