We have had two weeks of family, lake, and moments of Adirondack bliss at our cabin/camp, Okwariga. Happy to be home in the states and finish off the summer in one of the most special places on earth.
More pictures of Thailand, Okwariga and other Carson Adventures, look here to see a window into our crazy and mostly happy life. Adventure on.
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Hotels:
Bangkok-Our first 4 days we stayed here. (Marriott Executive apartments, Sukhumvit Park)It was GREAT for our family of 5. The had a tuk tuk shuttle to the sky train which was fun to take- AND air conditioned. It would have been fun to stay next to the river though- but this worked for us really well. Chiang Mai- We stayed here at the Shangri-La. It was a pricer choice but the pool was amazing and the staff was beyond wonderful and helpful! I loved it here. Last night in Bangkok- We stayed at the La Meridian. Mostly cause I wanted a Marriott based hotel for points and I have some status with them. I didn't want to buy two rooms, and I didn't have to because of that! Restaurants: ANY night market! Don't be afraid of street food! Jai Fai in Bangkok. To get reservations do it 2 months (to the day) in advance. Email here: [email protected] Savoey in Bangkok near our hotel. Super yummy food! Nics Restaurant and Playground in Chiang Mai. A little out of the way but worth it! I used "Grab" the "Uber" of Southeast Asia. The House by Ginger. Our last night in Chiang Mai and it was amazing. Get reservations! The River Market Restaurant in Chiang Mai was suggested to us by the hotel and it was very pretty and did not disappoint! Right near the night market. Places/Tours: Expique Tours: This was the tour that was amazing with kids. So worth it! (They have great ones for adults as well! I really like this company) Elephant Jungle Sanctuary- There are a lot of these in Chiang Mai and this one was great for us! Monk Chanting Private tour- This was so much fun- and having it be private was so good for our crazy family Thai Akha Cooking School in Chiang Mai. Kyle and River loved it! Elephant Poopoo Paper Park- Awesome for kids and very interesting! So I've been home for a bit now and I always seem to suck at writing my last few posts- so I'll do a quick low down of our last 2 full days in Chiang Mai.
On Sunday, Kyle and River had quite the adventure going to a Thai cooking school. I kept getting texts from Kyle during the day saying that River was being a wimp and not trying anything, like bee larva,pig testicles, and an egg soaked in horse urine for 100 days. Um, I'm totally okay with that I guess. But take a wild guess who DID try all those things? Yes, the guy I sleep next to every night. Not only did they eat weird things but they made some yummy stuff. Pad Thai, papaya salad and other scrumptious dishes. Hopefully these lessons find there way into our kitchen... The girls and I, on the other hand, went and got our nails done and I got a Thai foot massage. It was a fun morning pampering ourselves and then playing in the pool with Autumn's new friend Emily who we met at the hotel. That evening we went to the Sunday night market which was PACKED with locals and tourists. We pretty much finished up our shopping, ate a street food dinner and enjoyed just being somewhere so different and beautiful. Truly, Thailand was an amazing place to be. The next day, which was our last full day in Chiang Mai we decided to do something that was suggested to us as more of a family adventure. We got a car and headed to the "Elephant Poopoo Paper Park". Yes, you read that right. It is an interactive park that teaches you how they create paper using a environmentally sustainable resource- Elephant poo. It was fun and interesting and at the end we got to make our little pads of paper (not the very beginning part of the process- that would be too messy:) so it gave the kids a little time to be kids and do crafts. After that little adventure we went back to the hotel and played in the pool again (it was truly a great pool for the kids!) and the headed out to dinner at a place that was suggested to us by our tour guide from a couple of days back. We had to get reservations and were so happy we did since it was a really neat place and somewhere you couldn't get in otherwise. (It was called "The House Ginger" and I highly recommend it!) After enjoying ourselves we counted our blessings and hopped a tuk tuk ride back to the hotel to pack and relax before heading to Bangkok the next day and then home the day after that. I can not be more thankful for our time in a country that is so different and so, so beautiful where the people are kind and everything is a little chaotic. Just as I though- a perfect place for my family to discover. After all of the fun we had had the previous two days we thought a little down time was in order. After letting the kids sleep in (well, letting Autumn sleep in till around 9:30 when we woke her up for breakfast) we hung around, played at the pool, and generally relaxed until our scheduled tour in the evening.
That night I scheduled a tour of Doi Suthep (an incredibly beautiful temple) that overlooks all of Chiang Mai to listen to monks chanting and then finish off the evening with what I keep calling “a Thai luau” at the Chiang Mai cultural center. I went to the temple around 15 years ago when I was here last and it was more beautiful than I remember! The tour guide was amazing, and gave us a lot of great information on Chiang Mai and the temple. I feel like we have gotten really great tours since we have arrived! Listening to the monks chanting was a beautiful and mesmerizing experience. Our guide spoke of how young boys- as young as Autumn can come to study Buddhism for a few hours a day. They called them “little monks” and it was encouraging to see so many. This trip has given us many opportunities to speak about the history and beauty of Buddhism- which has so much to offer my little people, and all people for that matter. When the sun had set and the monks were done giving us their blessing, we headed down the mountain to the cultural center to our dinner and dance show. It was fabulous! The Thai dancing was beautiful and highlighted many of the hill tribes surrounding Chiang Mai, and the food was just as good. We were able to sit on the floor “Thai style” and enjoy the food and show. Bonus was that the show totally “fit” my family since people were talking and kids were running all over the place, so when meadow had her little break down we weren’t the only ones! I love Thailand! While in Chiang Mai we thought we would appease the kids and go check out some animals together- hoping to rectify the situation that happened the previous day at the “activity center”. So the first full day in Chiang Mai we headed to the Zoo after a very filling breakfast at the hotel.
It was hot! We took a red truck taxi to the zoo, and started walking around. It was weird because when we first arrived it was so empty and the whole zoo looked like it was under construction. We thought it may be a joke to us foreigners who pay for a ticket but don’t get to see any animals. Alas, soon we happened upon the African animal section where we got to feed giraffes and gaze at the zebras and other African animals. When the giraffes seemed pretty full, we headed down the empty road and found where the pandas were located. We paid a little extra money and went inside the air conditioned area to see the pandas. And boy was it worth it! Not only for the air conditioning break, but the animals were super cute too. After watching the pandas have a lunch break we headed out to view the aquarium and penguins. Both were just okay (and weird since we were pretty much the only ones there) so then we headed back to the hotel. That night we took suggestions from the professor that introduced me to Thailand in the first place- Mike Lemming, and headed to Nic’s for dinner. It was slightly out of the way so we took Thailand’s version of Uber, and it was fantastic! It was international cuisine (so the kids got a little taste of home) and there was a playground that was HUGE! (And very Thai- think bamboo and ropes) It was truly a success! The next morning we got up super early to go play with some elephants. From the recommendation of a friend that traveled here in March, we chose a Elephant sanctuary where we could interact with the elephants but not ride them. It was such an amazing experience! After learning about all of the different animals and their personalities, they gave us a big bunch of bananas to feed them. They were so fun! They loved the bananas and then later switched to stalks of corn. We went down and bathed with them in the river and gave them a mud bath! We were very careful not to get any of that water in our mouths- since my friend told us that one person in her party got a little sick after that experience since it may have gotten in her mouth! Ew! The water was so full of elephant poo so I’m not surprised! Probably one of my favorite parts was watching the kiddos with the elephants. Especially River- I haven’t seen him smile like that in a long time. He glommed on to the youngest 3 year old elephant- named “naughty boy”. There was a time at the end where naughty boy and river were messing with each other- seriously! The baby elephant was punching river in the gut with his trunk. Probably one of the funniest things I’ve seen in awhile! Soon after that “naughty girl” a little older elephant who was rescued from a show came up to me and with the end of her trunk gave me a slimy full-face trunk kiss! (They warned us earlier that if she likes you she may do this!) No one caught that one camera though- but it seared in my memory! It was awesome! Begrudgingly we got back on the trucks to head to the hotel where we played in the pool for hours, went to the night market for some street food, buy more crap, get a fish massage for our feet (due to Autumn’s request!) and then back for sleep. That was a fun day! With the nonstop action that we partook in during the last few days we decided that the next day we wanted to be a little more relaxed. Not making any decisions the night before, in the morning on the third day we got up, had breakfast and decided to go to the floating market. It is also a Buddhist holiday so supposedly there wasn’t supposed to be as much traffic... ha! ya, right. With the help of the concierge we booked a driver to take us out to one of the floating markets near Bangkok. After a 2 Hour drive (that was supposed to be a 1 hour drive) we got to the market with some sleepy kids who napped along the way- a good thing for all of us!
The market was quite the experience. Lots of the same stupid crap that you can buy at normal tourist markets in Thailand, but you do it all from a boat. Because of that, it’s a little bit more of a stressful experience. You’re always thinking about if what you see is something that you want - and you can’t come back to get it since you’re not the one driving the boat! It was about an hour and a half boat ride through many different canals with shops along the route. The kids had fun looking at things and picking one small trinket each that they could take home, and we had fun watching the people and experiencing the chaos that was seemingly organized. After our boat ride checking out all of the vendors and the canals, we got back to our tour guide who took us over to an activity center. The “activity center” was more sketchy than I was imagining because of the amount of caged animals It had. It was hard to see a baby elephant who looked more than traumatized running around and the people trying to make us take pictures with it and then get money for it. There was even a tiger that was uncaged that we could’ve taken a picture with if we had given them 700 bhat! I have to say my carnal instincts told me to run in the opposite direction from the tiger that was 5 feet away and not caged up. So, after feeding a few fish we quickly left the activity center and headed back to Bangkok. Another two hour ride with not as much sleeping (unfortunately) we got back to the hotel and played in the pool where we hung out and relaxed since we wanted to save our energy for our dinner experience later that night! Back story- A couple months ago when I was teaching I showed my students a video that was from Netflix called “Street Food”. We watched the first episode which was about Bangkok and about a famous street food vendor whose name is Jay Fai. I thought it might be fun if I could figure out a way to get into her restaurant knowing full well that it should be pretty impossible since she has a Michelin star. So I emailed her and got incredibly lucky getting a response saying that I could have a reservation — but kicker was not until 9:30 at night. So, come 8 PM I rounded up the kids (and Kyle since he had been sleeping all afternoon) and we headed by taxi to Jay Fais restaurant. We got there a little early but they were able to seat us a little early since they only have one reservation per half an hour. If you want to get in the restaurant, typically what you have to do is start standing in line 3 hours prior to opening to get on the waitlist. I knew I wasn’t going to do that, So I am very thankful for getting the reservation! The food was fantastic and we got to see her at work. She cooks every single dish that is ordered in the restaurant which is why the restaurant is so tiny and difficult to get in. It was quite amazing to see this 70 something-year-old woman with huge goggles on her face creating these dishes that tasted so amazingly good! It was a great experience. We were all so tired after that so we crashed until around 8 o’clock the next morning. Thank goodness. The next day was a travel day since we left Bangkok and headed to Chiang Mai where we got to our hotel and played in the pool all afternoon. The hotel got has a great slide and some fun kids activities which was part of the reason I chose it! I have realized that if I want to travel to a different country with these kiddos - having a pool is something that is almost a necessity. Later that afternoon we ventured out into Chiang Mai since right down the road from our hotel is in the night market. We found a restaurant on the river and then walked around and shopped in the market afterwards. When we returned to the hotel, we realized how thankful we are for air-conditioning -where we crashed and burned once again. A great start to a beautiful city! Non-stop... Sometimes we may push a little too hard with these 3 kiddos, but... Thailand... am I right? 😊
Day 2 in Bangkok was a fun one that was incredibly eventful. In the morning we felt the need to go back near the Grand Palace to Wat Arun and Wat Pho. Both temples are insanely beautiful with much history, but the highlight came when we crossed the river specifically to see Wat Pho. Inside this temple is a reclining GOLDEN Buddha that is HUGE. I will post some pictures below so you get an idea! We had some talks while at these temples about Buddhism and it’s practices, hoping to share the idea that mindfulness is an important part of Thai life. I believe this is is something we can all strive for as Americans... ESPECIALLY my kids. Then we went back to the hotel to get a little rest before a scheduled afternoon tour. After some time at the pool relaxing we met our tour guide for one of the most family friendly tours I’ve ever experienced. During the tour our super kind tour guide, “P” took us on a canal tour, to an arts building where the kids painted masks and made bracelets, then went to the Bangkok flower market, a tuk tuk ride to a temple on a mountain (Golden Mount) where we got to experience a true monsoon while walking up it, and then to dinner. Needless to say both girls were asleep on me in the tuk tuk on the way home (had to make sure they didn’t fall out!) and we all went to sleep deeply and peacefully after a good shower at our hotel. Then, of course, we were back up at 5am ready to go some more. You might just see this momma as a puddle on the floor when she returns to the US. Big, sloppy puddle. :| If you want more pics just look at my Flickr site, but here is a taste below! Oh sleep! How we miss you! After over 24 hours of travel we finally arrived. At around 1:30am Bangkok time we arrived at our Marriott Apartment hotel (which is fabulous for our family of 5!) and with a little time (and calming of children) we went to sleep. Then of course....at around 6:30 the tv was on and the kids were ready to head out so that was what we did. Watch out Bangkok, here we come!
After putting ourselves together and getting some fabulous breakfast we figured out how to get to the grand palace. It was quite an adventure getting there- since it took 2 sky trains and a boat, but there were lots of nice people trying to help along the way (well, sorta, since most of the time they were just trying to get us to take their taxis or tuk tuks.) The palace was just as I remember it- incredibly beautiful- and HOT. We got a guide outside the gates which was great since we got some good insight from a local about politics and Bangkok today. After touring and seeing the shiny, stunning palace and temple, we got the kids some ice cream and took our first tuk tuk ride to the famous weekend market where I gave the kids 200 baht each (around 7 dollars) to do with what they wish. I encouraged bartering but they were a little hesitant this first day. Hopefully I can rub off on them and by the end of their stay they can muster up some courage to negotiate! A few little trinkets were purchased and the kids were tired, sweaty and ready to play in the pool. So that is what we did, and now that is where we are. Soon, our next adventure is going to find some good Thai food for an early dinner and then bed. Feeling pretty good about day 1... If you want to see more pics look at my Flickr site here... Ugh. Getting these last few things together is quite exhausting! I do appreciate that I am a teacher and it is summer time. I know that this is something that I would still do if I had another job- but these days make it much easier. The kiddos are not much help, and I’m tired of having to THINK so hard. (Remember— Teacher/Summer). Also, getting ready for a trip like this with a child who has type 1 diabetes means I have a roller carry on bag with only her supplies. Every one is carrying on their own roller bag with their stuff and my clothes get checked in since having access to her supplies is a absolute necessity. They can NOT get lost in the shuffle of an airport or be gone from her side just in case we need something out of it. But yes- this is all worth it. (Well, talk to me later if my bag gets lost.)
Today we are enjoying (well, the kids are) their last morning at home and I have my list a mile long to get through before we hop on a plane to Tokyo, and then Bangkok tomorrow afternoon. I hope all of my loved ones are having the greatest and most adventurous summer yet! Talk with you soon! Here we go again! In the next week we will be adventuring in the wonderful world of Asia. Thailand is a place that I was able to explore when I was around 24 and always wanted to bring Kyle, and since having kids, my children to this magical place. Thailand to me is full of beauty, kind people, adventure, with a dash of chaos- which will work well with my chaotic family right now. :) So far, this summer has been eventful and exciting. We have traveled a little bit and the kids have been having fun at camps, with family, and around the neighborhood. Below I will link some of our pictures from our summer shenanigans. See you on the other side! Our summer adventures so far River and Erin's Washington DC pictures |
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