Bangkok Blur

Wow, the trip was definitely a blur. Some of it was because I was so sick while we were there, but mostly because it was just crazy busy. We leave in the morning for Northern Thailand for three days so I figure I'd better write about the Bangkok before I have another trip to write about!

Wednesday morning before we left we visited Payap University. It was fun to see the office Damien will be working in. We came back, had a quick lunch and then left for the airport to catch a 4pm flight. The flight down there is 1 hour long so it felt super quick compared to our last few flights. The kids have really come to love all of the people in our class and Orin calls them “My adult friends.” The boys have also become pretty attached to an 8 year old boy who is the child of the other family. They were having a blast on the plane. We got into Bangkok around 5. The airport is HUGE. Bangkok is a city of about 15million people so it needs to be huge! We caught the Sky Train which is pretty much like the "L" in Chicago. The airport is in the south of the city and we were going to the North so I think our train trip took longer than the actual flight. And it was pretty crazy b/c the trains were jammed packed. We got off the trains and got a quick taxi to the Alliance Guest House where we stayed for two nights. Our family was in one big room with 3 beds and a crib. We shared a bathroom with one other room. The guest house provided dinner that evening and then we crashed for the night.

Friday started bright and early with breakfast, then a 2 hour lecture from the SIL folks who are in Bangkok. Their main job is to keep a good relationship with the government as well as create awareness of the need to study and preserve the culture and language of minority groups in the country. We then took Taxi’s to the SIL office to tour it. Keep in mind the kids were with us the entire time. They hung out with the kids during the lecture, but they were with us for the office tour which wasn’t necessarily fun for them. But they did fine and the highlight for them was an aquarium with one fish in it. :-) Then we took taxi’s to the “Thai Naval Officer’s Club” where they had a nice lunch of lots of different types of Thai food waiting for us. Then we walked over to the Grand Place. You can also read about it here. It was incredible. The kids really loved it. It was 2 hours of walking but everyone did great. Then we took a water taxi (basically a Taxi that is a boat on the river). That was interesting to say the least. We picked up the sky train again and walked to some other interesting places and then finally took the train back to the guest house, right in time for dinner. And then we crashed…

Day two. We were scheduled to go to Chitralada Palace and also to tour the Royal school. It’s a very sacred place, so the kids couldn’t come. Amazingly, I have a friend who lives in Bangkok, and when I asked if she knew of any babysitter we could use, she offered to watch all 3 kids for us. Otherwise, I would have had to stay at the guest house with them and missed the trip. Thanks so much Kristen! We left at 6:30am, took a taxi for 45 minutes to her house (a gorgeous house by the way) and then we rushed back to catch the vans at 8am). Luckily, taxis are much cheaper here in Thailand or we would have spent a fortune. We drove to the Chitralada Palace and had a tour of the Royal school which was pretty cool. One of the SIL wives actually works there which is pretty rare and also a great way to meet government people. Around noon Damien went with the rest of the class to Mahidol University (which is the first University in Thailand that SIL partnered with about 30 years ago). I took a cab to pick up the kids and went back to the guest house which took about 2 hours. I was feeling pretty miserable so we all took naps until Damien came back around 4pm.

At 5pm we headed to the train station to catch the night train back to Chiang Mai. I was pretty nervous. It takes about 12 or 13 hours. It leaves around 7pm and gets in around 8am. Now, this is a really old train. I had no idea what to expect…especially overnight with the kids. We almost actually missed the train because our Taxi driver kept trying to take short cuts around the traffic and going to dead ends. Anyway, about the train. There are three different classes. Third class is like just the regular seats on an Amtrak train. Well, ok, not exactly. Remember, this is Thailand. There is no AC. Let me just say I wouldn’t want to sit up there. Then there is 2^nd class. Each little area is 2 benches facing each other. They fold out to make bunk beds. So it’s sort of like a bunch of people in a train car all sleeping in little beds. All of the class besides us and the other family stayed in 2^nd class. We were put in 1^st class because we had kids. It is similar to the sleeper cars on Amtrak. Now you may think, ”Wow, first class, you’re really splurging,” but I think our tickets cost $30 each and the boys were even cheaper. This was much cheaper than flying. We had two little room (aka closets) that were actually adjoining. The kids' couch folded to a bunk bed and then ours did the same. (you can watch a video if you want - the people are actually in adjoining rooms.) Sora slept with me. It was certainly an adventure. I was trying to expect the worst…and thankfully it didn’t meet my expectations. We had only one roach which I was happy with. J The boys slept well. It’s an old train to say the least so there is a lot of bumping and swaying going on. But I found it to be really relaxing…so even though I woke up about 10 times during the night it was so nice. Not necessarily restful, but I imagine it sort of like it feels to be in the womb).The most exciting thing about the train is that there is one shared bathroom with those all so fun “squat” toilets. But let me tell you, it’s not easy to use those when you’re bumping and swaying all around. They get disgusting pretty quickly since people “miss” a lot. The kids haven’t used any yet (other than to pee) so we actually bought a $4 kiddie toilet and packed it in our suitcase so they could use it if need be. Luckily we didn’t need it. J We got in to Chiang Mai at 8:30am…exhausted. But overall, I am so glad we took that train. The boys thought it was a blast. Not only for the experience for us and the kids, but we saved quite a bit of $$$$ by not flying.

We spent all of the weekend just laying around. Actually, I did about 8 hours of laundry, but other than that, we tried to make up for lost sleep. And after this weekend of rest I’m feeling so much better.

A few observations:

It was a crazy 50 hours but I’m so glad we went. It was great see some of the city and to meet our coworkers who are working hard down there.

Wow, am I thankful we’re called to Chiang Mai! With 15 million people you can imagine the traffic. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. While Bangkok is a beautiful, amazing city, I’m glad we’re living in a smaller one. J

I’m seriously so amazed how generous people are. I haven’t seen Kristen in 2 years and she gave up her day to take great care of three kids! It was a huge blessing.

It’s worth the extra $5 to stay in 1^st class cabin on the night train. J

Don’t leave your camera in a random Taxi …you’ll never get it back L

Don’t ride in a Taxi with us in Bangkok – we had three different drivers get lost on 3 separate occasions!

When you see sand bags piled up everywhere and laugh and ask each other, “What are they expecting a flood?” you’re probably right. It rained and rained the first night and I think the guest house would have had water on the ground floor without the sand bags.

If you’re at Chitralada and looking at the royal cows, be sure to stand back or you will get splashed with something brown and your clothes will be “spotted” for the rest of the day.

If you walk around the city with a baby on your back for 8 hours you WILL be sore.

It’s amazing how Bangkok drivers can turn a 3-lane expressway into 4 lanes (but still, the driving there is nothing compared to Chiang Mai).