Thailand is punishing me for having so many kids

Trying to book hotels for our trip to Bangkok this week was an interesting and frustrating experience. Apparently we have the most kids out of anyone in Thailand, because it is next to impossible to find hotel rooms that can accommodate us. When booking a room, you get a choice of bedding configurations -- one king size bed or two twin beds. Okaaaay. Are there really so many platonic friends taking buddy road trips together that hotels all over the country need rooms containing two twin beds?

The other option is to book a triple room, in which case you get three twin beds. This still isn't enough beds for us, but our only other choice is to book two rooms, so triple rooms it is. Yesterday we went to the mall and bought two pool mattresses. Hopefully the kids will see this more as "fun sleepover" than "mom and dad are too stingy to get us our own beds."

The hotel-booking websites are a good source of amusement for their interesting spin on the English language. One hotel, for example, claims that the "secluded surroundings will lure you with fresh air and wind." Well, a nice stiff breeze is pretty damn alluring. If that wasn't enough already, this particular hotel also has a "self dial telephone" (oooh, very Jetsons!), a check-in time of "01:00 Noon" (wait, when is that, exactly?), and a "late cheak out until 15:00." They also promise to "pay meticulous attention from every corner of Your Room to every aspect of Your Need." I think we made the right choice, don't you?

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Popular with the ladies

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Mae Sa Elephant Camp

Two weekends ago we visited Mae Sa Elephant Camp, and it was awesome! We watched an elephant show and then just wandered around the camp, checking things out and marvelling at the fact that we were sharing the paths with dozens of elephants.

The show is pretty amazing. The elephants play soccer, throw darts, paint pictures, and eat snacks out of your hands.


Dave wrapped in trunks


Dave feeding elephants


Elephant performing


Elephant painting


Isabella with an elephant-painted picture


Walking with elephants


Elephants bathing


Dave and Isabella with baby elephant

After the show we made our way to the Mae Sa Craft Village and Resort, which Liv pronounced "the nicest hotel I have ever seen!" She was pumped that the rooms came with the use of slippers -- "Mommy, these are much warmer than my regular feet!"


Our resort


Our bungalow


Me, Dave, and William in the sling


The pool

After the girls and Dave took a icy cold swim in the pool, we had supper at the resort's restaurant (plates and plates of different Thai dishes) while my dad sat in the corner by himself doing a phone interview with the director of his new school in Poland. Later, after the girls had finally worn themselves out and gone to sleep, the four of us grownups sat out on our little bungalow's balcony and enjoyed some chips, beer, and Phase 10. That was the fun part of the evening, the rest -- not so much. The bungalow had two single beds and a small cot. Olivia was on one bed, William and I were on the other, and Isabella was on the cot. In the game of musical beds, Dave was out. First he tried bunking with me and William, but he found that a quarter inch of mattress simply wasn't enough space for him, imagine that. He moved over to Liv's bed, but since she was quite adamant that she WAS NOT going to share, he had to kind of curl up at the bottom and try to cover up with a little piece of her sheet. Add to this the fact that these mattresses were as hard as planks of wood and you have all the ingredients for a miserable night of sleep. I kept waking up every hour or so just wishing it was morning so I could get up already. Luckily the resort had a resident rooster who was happy to wake us up at 6 am.

All in all, it was a really fun experience, though. It's not every day you have to look out for elephant poop when you're walking down the road!

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Triple Trouble

People here like to count our children as we walk by, so wherever we go we hear "nung, song, sam" (one, two, three in Thai). People almost always stop to talk to the girls, and they will even come running from across the street to peek at the baby in his sling. The girls are so used to getting their picture taken that it doesn't even phase them anymore. It's getting to the point now where if I walked by someone and they ignored us, I would probably be ripped off, like, "What's wrong with you? You don't think my kids are irresistibly cherubic? Come on, get your camera phone out! You know you want to!"

They are pretty darn cute, though.


Nung


Song


Sam

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Let's play a game!

Can you guess what's going on in these pictures?





Answer: They're spraying for mosquitoes using some kind of chemical mixed with diesel! The entire street was filled with smoke, and the guy spraying it wasn't even wearing a mask!

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Best Pool So Far

A couple of weeks ago we visited a place called The Laguna Homes Exclusive Club House. According to their brochure, the "residents is only club house comprises of an adult's swimming pool, a children's swimming pool with 15 metres long slide, a tennis court, a basketball court, and a knock board court." Wait a second, a knock board court? What the heck is knock board? We're still trying to puzzle that one out.

Anyway, the pool was gorgeous:






The club house has a few rules, which we did our best to follow "strichtly," as requested in the brochure:

1. Please always wear swimming costume and trunks before get in the pool. (For lady please use swim cap)

2. Please take a shower before get in the pool.

3. Please lay all of bags and clothe in the place, that we prepare for.

4. No pets.

5. Please keep all of your assets in locker.

Also, if you decide to use the "suana," you should be aware that "the blood pressured and heart disease person can not sauna," and "if sauna with normal Cloths, they will easy make rancid and fungi." So let me get this straight, if I wear my normal "cloths" into that sauna, there's a chance I'm going to come out with fungus growing on me? No, thanks! I also feel bad for all those heart disease people who not only have heart disease, but now they find out they can't even relax in a (potentially rancid) sauna.

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Our First Wat

306 steps to the top

We visited our first wat, or Buddhist temple, last week: Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, founded in 1383. It's located on Doi Suthep mountain, about 15 km out of the city. Apparently there is a gondola that will take you to the top, but we never saw it. We walked to the top, me carrying William, Dave carrying Isabella. Olivia blew by us and was casually waiting at the top when we finally arrived, sweating and out of breath.

Some of the temple rules are that you must remove your shoes, you have to keep your head lower than the Buddha images, and, judging from the illustration on the poster we saw, you can't have a mullet or wear hot pants. Darn!














The view from the temple


Eating waffles outside the temple. They are quite fond of waffles here.


Mom looks friendly, doesn't she?

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Flower Festival (And Adventures in Toileting)

The first weekend in February is a time when Chiang Mai, the "rose of the north," showcases its wide variety of flora during the annual Flower Festival. We missed the parade (it was being held at the ungodly hour of 7:30 AM), but we made it down to the southwest corner of the moat later in the day to see the amazing displays. Each float contains hundreds of thousands of flowers, from orchids and chrysanthemums to Damask roses.





After viewing as many floats as we could in the huge crowd, we veered off into a gorgeous public park, where we enjoyed iced coffee and spring rolls, as well as a disastrous trip to the bathroom. For some reason, they are just not into regular toilets here; they’re all about the squat toilet. I really can’t understand the appeal at all, especially since I regularly have to assist two very small people in using them. This doesn’t tend to go well, and on this particular occasion, it was really not fun.

The cost was three baht each to use the bathroom, plus an extra baht if we wanted toilet paper. People too stingy to spring for the paper (a small package of tiny pink napkins) either drip dry or splash themselves down using a bucket full of water drawn from a mildewy trough of water next to the toilet. After waiting in line for a much longer time than was necessary, due to the Thais’ complete lack of a “first-come, first-served” mentality (i.e. they just butt right in front of you without giving it a second thought), we finally got up there and crammed all four of us (Liv, Bella, and me with William in the sling) into the tiny stall. While I was messing with the door lock, trying to get it to stay closed, Olivia dropped her dress right to the floor, soaking it in inch-deep, dirty water. After that I was ready to go home and boil both ourselves and all of our clothing, but the deed had not yet been accomplished, so we had to soldier on.

The toilet was raised on a platform about six inches off the ground. Liv climbed right up and let ‘er rip, spraying both me and Bella in the process. I myself was merely grossed out, but Bella went into hysterics, howling, “there’s pee on my shoes! There’s PEE on my SHOES!” The pee kept flying for what seemed like an eternity, more than long enough for me to calculate the odds that I would be able to get Bella to go (slim to nil). I decided I would go next, to show her that it was indeed possible to use a squat toilet without baptizing everyone within a five-foot radius. I had to get Liv to hold the door closed, since the lock was out of commission and it kept popping open. She didn’t perform this task with as much zeal as I would have liked. I had to balance as best I could with the baby in the sling on my front while still managing to shoot my arm out and pull the door closed each time it opened, lest some overzealous, line-jumping Thai decided we were finished and busted in on us.

Next up was a wrestle-mania-style struggle to get Isabella to pee. She was very against this proposition from the get-go. My arms were shaking and sweat was pouring down my face as I held her over the toilet, still also carrying the baby in the sling and monitoring Olivia’s door holding. There was much howling and gnashing of teeth. Finally, FINALLY she gave in and went. We emerged from that bathroom looking like we were coming out of a war zone and were greeted by a huge line-up of people staring at us curiously. The upside is that the squat toilet has now become an effective means of coercion, i.e., “Isabella, do [insert hated task here], or else I’ll make you pee on a squat toilet!”


In case you needed a visual

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Oops!

While wandering around in Tesco Lotus (a little mall with a Walmart-type store in it) today, we got hungry and decided to try out this restaurant. It was a mistake! We got inside and were seated, and we realized we had no idea what we were supposed to do. There was a hot pot in the centre of the table, and the waitress handed us menus and then stood right there hovering over us while Dave and I snuck desperate looks at each other from across the table. We literally had no idea what was going on. We couldn't even take some time to spy on the other patrons because the waitress just stood there waiting for us and trying to suggest things for us to order. Things like duck feet and squid and many different varieties of shrimp. I should have known it wasn't our kind of restaurant when I saw a sign advertising their current promotion: little heart-shaped pieces of salmon called "Fishy Love." Have I mentioned we don't like seafood?

We told the waitress we wanted chicken. Just chicken. She suggested we also get some vegetables, so we ordered a "vegetable set." A few minutes later, she brought us two plates of raw chicken and some very strange looking greenery. We dumped it all in the hot pot, still not knowing whether we were making soup or what. The waitress, who by now had called over a couple of her waitress friends to enjoy the show, continued to linger near our table. After stirring the food around in the pot for a few minutes, we tried it. It was surprisingly not terrible. It came with some peanut sauce that was really good. The waitress suggested we get some pieces of salmon in the shape of little fish for the girls:

We cooked those up in the hot pot as well, but they were absolutely hideous. They had the consistency of rubber erasers. We also tried some little bun things -- one with a red-bean filling and one with a cream filling. The cream filling one tasted like an undercooked doughnut, and the girls really liked it. The red-bean one was spicy, and I didn't really care for it, but Dave liked it. Isabella started feeling sick, so we decided to leave. The waitress had placed bills for each individual item we purchased underneath our table, so those had to be added together before we could pay. It was a pretty expensive meal, by Thai standards, and we didn't even like it, so I think it's safe to say we won't be going back there anytime soon!

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Posted in: Food

Not heart healthy

We went to a pizza place for dinner tonight and had this:



Not only is the crust stuffed with cheese and full-sized hot dogs, but the entire pizza is also sprayed with a coating of delicious grease to give it that special sheen. Mmm, yummy! Our arteries loved it.

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Posted in: Food

Delicious Discovery of the Day

Roti


We arrived early for Olivia's gymnastics class yesterday, so we went out to the row of vendors that line the street in front of the school and had a snack. The first cart we passed was selling roti, a flat bread made from wheat flour. Roti is cooked on a flat iron griddle called a tawa and spread with ghee (clarified butter) and other toppings, such as strawberry jam and chocolate sauce, or rolled up with fillings like eggs, corn, or bananas. We ordered a strawberry one and a chocolate one, and after adding those toppings, the vendor also drizzled on some cream and sprinkled them with sugar. VERY good!

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Posted in: Food

Relentless Leisure

Who'd have thought that having no obligations whatsoever would ever be difficult? It is strange to feel (and be!) so unproductive. We wake up every morning knowing that there is nothing we have to do, and so we have the wonderful (and at times challenging ) experience of being able to do anything that we want.

This morning I woke up and saw the girls sitting on the edge of our bed quietly dressing their dolls. The sun is shining, as usual, and we can hear the usual soundtrack of construction noises, birds chirping, and dogs barking. I got the girls some cereal, which they ate before settling in to watch Shrek for the fortieth time. While they were doing that, I baked some muffins, and Dave wandered around the house listening to a Learn Thai audiobook. It is strikingly normal, and yet it's not, for everywhere we look we see things that make us laugh or stare or shake our heads.

In the search to find a way to structure our weeks, we signed the girls up for some classes. Liv is taking gymnastics, and both girls are taking ballet. Gymnastics is on Tuesday afternoons, Liv's dance is Thursdays at 4:30, and Bella's dance is on Saturday mornings. Both girls have really cute dance outfits to wear. The instructor let Olivia take Bella's class on Saturday because the class is so small. Bella was not all that impressed and says she wants to do her class by herself next time. (P.S. Those red spots on Bella are mosquito bites. Poor girl gets eaten alive.)


Beautiful ballerinas

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The Chiang Mai Zoo

Last week we decided to visit another local attraction in our quest to check out all of the places listed in the Sanook Book, a guide for families in Chiang Mai. We picked the zoo and managed to find it quite easily, despite forgetting the map at home, as usual.

This zoo is huge! Thank God one of my mom’s coworkers was kind enough to lend us a stroller, because Isabella wouldn’t have lasted five minutes at this place without it. The first thing we saw was the giraffe exhibit, where for 10 or 15 baht you can purchase snacks to feed the giraffes. Olivia and Dave were right in there feeding them, but Isabella was pretty scared.





Next we wandered passed some ostriches and emus (and this weird bird we called a peacock/ostrich/dinosaur):



before finding the jungle-cat section, which contains tigers, leopards, and jaguars. Really cool, but a bit scary in light of the incident at the zoo in California. It really seemed like the cats could get out if they truly wanted to. Olivia was too scared to look, but Isabella liked it and was even willing to pose for these pictures with this creepy stuffed tiger (although not until after I knocked vigorously on its head to prove to her it was fake!)





Next we were on to the hippo exhibit, just in time to watch the workers using brooms to herd the hippos out of the water. There are three hippos, and we were able to get close enough to their pool to narrowly avoid being sprayed by poop when they let it fly in the corner. Lovely!



We were wandering around looking for the next exhibit when we came across a six-month-old lion cub roaming freely around the zoo. Even though he was small, he was still pretty darn intimidating. Even more intimidating was the sight of his anxious mother staring at us from inside the lion “cage.” I use the word cage loosely because there was really just a skinny moat and a small fence separating us from the lions. Olivia was way too scared to get anywhere near it, so she was effectively trapped on the path between the lion area on one side and the freely wandering baby lion on the other. The worker accompanying the lion cub got a big kick out of Olivia standing there shaking in her sandals.

We stopped at one of the many places to eat and had some Pad Thai, which Dave said was “tainted” by the presence of tiny dried shrimp. The girls were getting really tired at this point, so we quickly checked out some monkeys and then headed home. We didn’t even come close to seeing everything the zoo has to offer and will definitely have to head by there again sometime soon.

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