Thailand, 4x – Along for the Ride

Around midway through the trip, Theodore asked me for the three thousandth time where we were going (more annoying than “are we there yet?” and repeated almost as frequently as “I need to pee”), when I gave him a withering look, and it finally clicked.  “We’re just along for the ride.”  Exactly, son!  Theodore, Catherine and I were just passengers, backseat riders to our Thai-talking drivers who would take us somewhere, letting us know when we arrived, ordering food for us, picking up snacks, talking about us without our knowledge, and expecting us to enjoy it.  Which we usually did.   

Omicron, what were we thinking?

For my fourth trip to the land of smiles, my first in a foursome family, Theodore’s fourth international trip while only in his fourth year and Catherine’s first foray outside USA, we would be fortunate to be able to arrive at all, for the fearsome forces of Covid, version O were everywhere. 

Thailand had a very stringent plan to prevent the spread of Covid, requiring extended quarantines upon arrival.  While the wife really wanted to visit her family, neither of us could fathom a week or two cooped up in a hotel room with two “energetic” children.  So when things seemed to be going better and Thailand reduced its quarantine requirements to a single night at a select hotel, we jumped at the opportunity to take the long overdue trip.  Last Christmas we missed my family because Catherine caught Covid from daycare and we were all on quarantine at home.  This year, we’d spend the holiday in transit, but follow that with Sai’s family finally seeing baby Cat in person, since our youngest was born at the beginning of Covid in the US, and it did not make sense previously for us to travel to Thailand nor for her family to travel to us. 

Shortly after we started making our arrangements (by we I mean she, seeing as Sai will let me plan parts of trips to other places, but when it’s her birthland, I am left on the sidelines), we started to hear rumblings of another variant on the rise.  Japan was suspending travel.  No problem, since Japan and Thailand are not the same place, except when our flights connected through Japan, it raised a question of whether or not we’d be able to pass through unfazed.  Would they even keep all of the flights on the board if people planning to visit Tokyo were (temporarily) no longer welcome?  One of our return legs was canceled (well in advance of the trip), leaving Sai to find alternative options to get us home.  [I would have helped, but see sentence one in this paragraph and remember that I am powerless against the little lady.]

Sai woke me up maybe ten days before the trip to find my passport, which was not where it was supposed to be.  Once I located it, we found that it expired in just over six months, which is problematic for some countries.  From what I could find online, it looked like Thailand “recommended” six months or more from the date of arrival, not from when we would be leaving the country, which meant that we had eight days to spare.  If we could not fly because of Covid and needed to push back our trip, I would likely be unable to go… Passport renewals seemed to be on the order of 8-10 weeks, unless you expedited in the case of emergency, which would shorten this timeframe.  Arguing imminent death at her hands if I couldn’t fly might qualify, but hopefully we wouldn’t have to try.

Sai ordered the Thai Pass, registering our family trip, arranging the special quarantine hotel, etc.  Days later, Thailand suspended the program because of Omicroncerns, so we just made the cut. 

Friday, two weeks before the trip, I attended a meeting in the office and sat near someone who tested positive for Covid a few days later.  That same day, Catherine attended daycare with a boy who tested positive for Covid a few days later.  Negative results for us, but that was close!  Test #1.

Friday, one week before the trip, I attended another meeting in the office and sat near someone who tested positive for Covid a few days later.  Monday morning, I was told I needed another Covid test because of the Friday exposure.  We had already booked our pre-flight tests for Tuesday night (needed to be within 72 hours of our Friday morning departure), so I was encouraged to work from home while awaiting results.  By this time Sai had opted to keep both kids home from Pre-K and daycare, mistrusting anyone and everyone as potentially giving us Covid just to screw up her plans.  We would bubble up until heading to the airport. 

Sai and I are both fully vaccinated, including boosters.  Neither of our children are of age to receive their own vaccines yet.  The kids have already had it once and were lucky not to have serious symptoms.  We do not want to expose them to high risk, but at the same time, they needed to see their grandparents in Thailand.  Sai’s family is fully vaccinated.  Just wanted to establish a few facts before you judge us; now feel free to be judgmental.

Tuesday night’s tests led to Wednesday night assurance that we were still clear.  Test #2.  Time to start packing!

I packed my bag early on Thursday after having laundered everything I might need the previous weekend.  Sai started packing after both kids were asleep, finishing her last load of laundry sometime around 3 a.m.  Who needs sleep to wrestle with two restless children in 20+ hours of flights?  I do, and I was not enjoying the three hours of sleep before our airport transport. 

We were fully loaded with three large pieces of luggage (all carefully weighed to hit right at the 23 kg weight limit), with multiple carry-on bags, two strollers, backpacks and snack packs.  The luggage was loaded with Costco brand contraband (vitamins and chocolates and pistachios are apparently better in America) to be gifted to her family.  We also loaded in a couple of manageable gifts for our own kids’ Christmas, which they would miss due to the chaotic nature of time zones.   More on that later.

It was enough of a load to somehow cause someone’s left elbow to buckle like a weak joint (weak analogy*), and to hurt throughout the rest of the trip, particularly when one or the other or both kids would demand to be picked up, which happened several times per hour.  *[I almost made a tasteless John McCain joke about having a useless arm after landing in Southeast Asia, but what kind of monster mocks our veterans and American heroes?]   

Covid in Thailand

Thailand seems to take Covid seriously.  Yes, there are a lot of tests required for travelers, as I’ll describe throughout this report.  There was the extensive quarantine requirement before our trip and reinstated after our brief Thai Pass window.  But mostly there were people wearing masks, everywhere.  It is hot in Thailand.  Damn hot.  Masks make it hotter.  Nonetheless, everyone wears a mask!  Outside, alone, speeding by on a scooter, homeless and panhandling, it didn’t matter.  Every establishment had thermal scans and handwash stations outside.  When you went to a restaurant, they placed your meal in a KN-96 feedbag that you strapped to your face as you horsed down your delicious Thai food.*  Clearly everyone in Thailand was trying to stick it to the conservatives in the US, unless maybe they just didn’t want to catch Covid?  *[I may have exaggerated that last part].

I checked a stat on infection rates to compare the US to Thailand.  At the time of our trip, the US was averaging approximately 1,671 cases per 100,000 people per day.  Thailand was around 78 cases per 100,000.  In other words, we were over 20 times as likely to catch Covid in the US than in Thailand! 

Flying

I anxiously watched over my shoulder for the air marshal to announce himself and detain the rambunctious boy who would not stop stomping his feet while shouting “I need to peeeeeee!!!”  Despite my pre-flight pee-prep pep talk to Teddy, he forgot to tell me when he might need to urinate until it was a desperate situation, unsurprisingly timed to find the lavs all occupied when he needed them most.  His little pee dance would have been almost cute or at least less concerning if it wasn’t beside the emergency exit, well-lit for everyone to see the toddler’s tantrum.  If you’ve ever been a guy in a busy sports bar with an insufficient number of urinals, you’ve likely felt the boy’s pain.  Or I guess if you’ve ever been a woman in any bathroom line, then you know the feeling.  Alas, an opening, and Teddy was able to unload instead of explode, as midair explosions are never a good thing.  And we were able to resume our day and nightmare flight around the world.

Flying from DC to Tokyo takes approximately 14 hours.  Tokyo is also 14 hours ahead of EST.  This means that the flight causes 28 hours to elapse, give or take by the chronometer.  (This same phenomenon was unexplained, along with everything else, in the movie Contact.) Traveling with Theodore and Catherine, on only a few hours of sleep, it feels like longer.  Somehow the time warp caused Teddy to revert to his terrible twos too, making the layover a battle not to beat the brat in public. 

Adding to the time lapse mysteries, I somehow lost my watch on the first flight.  It was my cheap, digital running watch, and I took it as a sign that I was not meant to run at all on this trip.

The second leg from Tokyo to Bangkok was half as long as the first and picked up two hours (12 ahead of EST).  This feels like another 14 hours, give or take.  Again, I can’t explain the physics behind it, but flying with kids for a long time feels even longer.  The return flights would pick up a couple of hours in direct flight times due to some jet streams or tailwinds or something, and we’d gain the twelve hours back from Thailand in total… but who’s counting?  Watchless, not I.   

We had the bassinet seating area, which is the row of seats facing the backside of the mid-plane attendant station, looking at a wall instead of seats in front of you.  If your baby is small enough, they can hook a bassinet into the wall to cradle your baby for you.  We’re not into wind instruments and Catherine was a couple of pounds overweight (how dare I say such a thing about my daughter!), plus she’s insanely fearless and would jump off the platform like an uncoordinated high diver.  So the row did not give us relief from holding her, but it meant that no one would lower their seats onto our laps and afforded us more legroom for Sai and the kids to fill with tons of stuff that I would have preferred to remain stuffed in the overhead (or better yet, checked luggage if it wasn’t already maxed out with nutty Costco gifts; best yet would have been to leave some of the stuff at home for the wet bandits to take.  Instead, it was a triple-wide tripping hazard, to be buried beneath mounds of wrappings and napkins and crumbs.

The first flight was fairly empty, which gave me more room to run around as I tried to cajole Catherine to sleep.  Our seats near the emergency exit were way too well lit, but there was an open black row in the back.  That almost worked for distracting her for a few minutes.  At one point as I was making my rounds around the plane, I heard a guy nearby sneeze.  He was obviously American, wearing his mask as a chinstrap, and I caught Sai’s look of horror before I hurried away with our unvaccinated daughter.  Clearly I had ruined the trip by allowing Catherine to become infected midflight, and we would spend the next two weeks locked up in a Thai hospital.  I cozied up to Teddy’s air marshal for protection so that Sai could not kill me.

We had a couple of plans for dealing with the children.  One may have involved OTC “medications” to treat their cold-like symptoms of wakefulness.  The other was a barrage of inflight entertainment to make up for the limited amount of television they are allowed at home.  Fourteen straight hours of the small screen might scramble their brains a little, but kids are resilient!  Plus, I could use the opportunity to catch up on movies myself. 

Theodore fell for the trap at first, becoming mesmerized by the mapping feature on his personal viewing platform.  It worked for a good hour or so, before he demanded more.  For some strange reason (Satan?  ADHD?) he refused to sit through any kids movies, instead insisting upon short cartoon episodes that only tied up fifteen minutes of his time, before he demanded something new. 

Catherine just wanted to climb.  Back and forth from mommy to me, stepping on Teddy in between.  The extra legroom gave her space to step on toes and another area to spill whatever food or beverage was nearest, as a nice alternative to spilling on me again. 

The kids conveniently took turns having meltdowns, rather than both losing it at the same time.  This way we were assured that at pretty much most times, one of them would be keeping us busy.  Perhaps the worst may have been when Sai asked me to help her change Catherine’s diaper and Teddy lost his mind screaming for us to come back.

Despite these obstacles, I am proud to announce that we muscled through over 40 hours of flying (to and fro) without drugging our children.  As for drugging ourselves, it was limited to a couple of Japanese beers for me and a single glass of wine for Sai.   

Both coming and going, I saw the flight boards at the airports littered with red, for cancellations.  Between Covid and severe weather, travel plans were being dashed across the board.  We were “fortunate” to have had no such cancellations or even delays in our itineraries, beyond the cancellation a week in advance of departure.  Fortunate is a subjective term when it relates to subjecting yourself to such miserable flight companions.

And in case you’re wondering what it feels like to wear a mask for more than a day straight (with minor breaks to wolf down airplane food), picture Michael Madsen dancing along to Stealers Wheel (“Stuck in the Middle with You” was an apt song for flying with the family) as he applies a straight razor to your ears…   

Whoops a Daisy

First, Sai packed up our dog and delivered her to Uncle Kevin.  Kind of like a cross between sadistic Cousin Kevin and perverted Uncle Ernie from The Who’s Tommy album, who better to fiddle about with our little puppy?  Poor Daisy, may she rest in peace.  She’s not dead!  In fact, she was probably enjoying herself more than being chased by kids and chastised by their parents when she chewed the wrong toys that looked strikingly similar to the right toys.  And how come the kids could play with her toys but whenever she touched theirs, it was verboten?  Total double standard.  Life’s a bitch.

While we were off enjoying not having to pick up doggy poop, Kevin was quarantining / convalescing with his own case of Covid, trying to take care of himself and our Daisy in the cold, harsh Omicron environment of America. 

Existence is Futile (The Star Trek Bord)

I spent almost ten hours on the first flight trying to watch a two-hour movie.  Approximately every five minutes, the wife or one of the children would interrupt, I’d pause, try to appease, and later resume watching for another five-minute segment. 

Free Guy may be a good movie.  It might be highly entertaining.  But taken piecemeal, it was not enjoyable.  Ryan Reynolds in a recycling video game existence, trying to break the loop and establish control of his world…

On the second flight, I watched Palm Springs.  The kids actually slept more on this flight, and I managed to watch it in only double its running time.  This is the Andy Samberg Groundhog Day story where he is trapped in his own temporal loop. 

I selected both movies above because I wanted simple in-flight entertainment but didn’t feel like watching another Marvel movie.  However, as I was slowly digesting the end of the second flick, I started to connect (the very obvious) parallels between both films, in how their protagonists were battling existential dilemmas in their day after day being the same day, and I wondered if I subconsciously selected this theme because of my own boring life?  Aside from being trapped in an aircraft with two antsy children and their angry mother, am I also struggling with a midlife (as if I’m on pace to live that long) crisis, yearning to escape this mundanity?  Deep thoughts for a sleep deprived brain.  I gave up on it and decided that as long as I didn’t have to relive this flight day after day, things would be okay.

[On the return flights, I watched Tenet (again interrupted repeatedly, which did not make it any easier to follow), and F9, which reset my brain to its usual thoughtlessness.]

Bah Humbug!

I mentioned earlier that the magic of our spherical shaped flat earth worked weird ways on our watches, kind of like the time shifts forward and backward in Tenet.  We left our house on December 24^th.  We arrived in Japan for a couple of hours before the next flight.  That second plane landed us in Bangkok just after midnight on the morning of December 26^th.  We skipped Christmas!  The layover is only timeless, placeless limbo, since you’re not really landed or in that particular country; just in an undeclared space like international waters.  Until you clear customs and leave the building, you’re not technically there.  We weren’t really in Japan and we weren’t welcome there anyway.  So from the time we left the US until the time we arrived in our destination, the 25^th of December had passed us by. 

Perhaps Santa might have alit on a wing and dropped some gifts if the kids had been better behaved.  Better luck next year!

Welcome to Thailand

Our more crowded second flight arrived in Suvarnabhumi, and the childless people bolted like lightning to escape our annoying kids.  I don’t know how it happened, since Sai is militant about forcing me off the plane as quickly as possible, but we found ourselves socially distanced to the extreme. 

It was at this point that the Thai people swooped in like the least frightening army imaginable, with three people for each of us to check our papers and usher us through the different stages of protocol to clear Covid and customs.  I had not seen such an overabundance of staff since South Africa.  [One episode from our 2016 trip to SA was a German woman commenting about how the South African restaurant had ten people working where a more efficient German establishment would only need two]. 

Everyone wanted to help, and they were all charmed by Catherine’s cute smile (no one else could charmingly smile because we were all wearing masks).  Now the baby she-devil from the past 28 hours decides to be a sweetheart? 

At less than two years of age, the masking requirement for Catherine was a little looser, though we tried repeatedly to get her to wear one throughout the trip.  The girl refused.  I fear she may be a Republican.

We cleared customs and walked to the Covid cab stand that would take us to our Covid hotel.  Sai pointed out that we could have easily just exited the airport on our own because it was a bit disorganized at this point.  Despite all of the people processing our paperwork earlier and all of their good intentions, they really were just cheap labor unlike the more efficient Germans would have been.  But Thailand has also never tried to take over the world, so there’s that.  But Germany has much better beer.  We’ll call it a draw.

Covid Hotel

Our special cab dropped us at our special Covid hotel, where we had to take our arrival Covid tests.  It was around 2 a.m. local time (mid-afternoon Christmas day with creepy Kevin for poor Daisy), and we were given Test #3.

Despite the late hour, the hotel offered a dinner delivery to our room.  Sai ordered for the rest of us, which would be a recurring thing.  Ordinarily I do not enjoy showers in Thailand because the hot water is too inconsistent, the drainage is poorly located, the shower heads are too low, and I like to complain about silly details.  But this shower was fantastic!  I felt like I was washing away days of stress.

The door to our room had an alarm that would go off if the door was open for more than a few seconds.  I guess they couldn’t lock us in because it would be a fire hazard, so the alarm was a way to tell us that they knew we were attempting to escape.  Though it seemed like you could just quickly open and exit before the alarm triggered if you really wanted to.  But I didn’t want to.  I just wanted to sleep in a clean bed while we waited for our results to set us free the next day (really just hours later). 

Here’s a conundrum – we arrived on 12/26 (by a few minutes past midnight), and were tested on 12/26 (around 3 a.m.), and were cleared from our tests on 12/26 (the bastard sneezer must have missed us after all!), did we spend a night in the hotel?  Did we somehow pick up another day so that despite landing on 12/26, we were back in business for a fresh day once we were cleared late morning on 12/26?  Seems silly, but the discrepancy by our next day clearance being the same day we arrived would somehow screw us up a week later. 

Sai’s brother (Uncle Id) and his girlfriend (Auntie Aey) picked us up shortly thereafter in two cars; one for all of the luggage and the other for us. 

Lap Dancing

Let me just get this out of the way now – we did not use car seats on this trip.  I know, we are horribly irresponsible!  But if Catherine could safely fly on our laps, she would hopefully safely ride the same way.  Teddy could lap belt it like on the plane. 

What’s worse than driving all over Thailand with an unrestrained infant?  Doing it with one who sometimes gets carsick, but for some reason only when she’s sitting with daddy.  My little girl rode more laps than a Vegas stripper during a builders’ convention, which is a comparison I never wanted to make.  But I can pick on her since her political leanings broke my heart a few paragraphs ago. 

Day 1

Our first official day in Thailand entailed arriving at our home base in Bangkok and crashing.  I recall we stopped at a mall between the Covid hotel and the home base (Sai is not one to pass up a chance to shop; it is a Thai pastime).  Beyond that, it was a blur.  My sea legs from the planes settled down on the ground, and sleep was good. 

Day 2 – Mueang Boran

Grandmom (Yai) and Grandpop (Pop, as Catherine christened him), were ready for us when we awoke.  The in-laws (to me; outlaws to Sai?) drove us to a locally touristy trap known as Ancient City.  Billed as the world’s largest outdoor museum (a specious claim but I was not prepared to challenge it), the admittedly large park housed scaled replicas of many of the culturally significant sights of Thailand.  The giant reclining Buddha of Bangkok?  They had one of those, but he was a big recliner this time.  Floating market?  Sorry, closed for Covid.  So many chedis and stupas it was stupid.  This was Catherine’s first exposure to Buddha, and she quickly got into the game of pointing out every statue for the next three weeks.  “Buddha!  Buddha!  Buddha!”  Any gold figurine fit the bill; even if Sai said she was wrong, I gave her credit for her enthusiasm. 

We toured the massive place in an expanded golfcart driven by Sai.  Luckily, this would be the only time she drove on the entire trip.  I’m not saying my wife is a bad driver.  I’ll leave that judgment to you in a moment.  I did once nearly flip a golfcart at a corporate event on the first tee, and I hadn’t even cracked my first beer yet, so I am not the best judge of bad golfcart drivers unless you believe that it takes one to know one. 

If you’ve ever been to Mini-Europe in Brussels, Mueang Boran is kind of like that, except nowhere near as lame.  These were some massive replicas!  Some of the sights I recognized from previous trips to Thailand, but that’s what you get when you’re an expert like me. 

Two highlights:

1. There was a cool looking building with a giant lion head in front.  The sign advertised a ghost museum inside.  Sai’s dad (Pop) opted to rest in the golfcart while he could (you can’t rest while Sai is driving the damn thing), and her mom (Yai) wandered off somewhere else with Uncle Id and Catherine.  Sai, Teddy and I headed to the entrance of this space, with our son super excited to see what awaited us.  We started into the dark, cavernous interior, and fifteen steps in, the boy announced “No, I’m not going this way” and turned and speed-walked away.  I had to run to catch up with him to figure out where he was going.  The Ghost Museum may be super cool, but I couldn’t tell you because Teddy was having none of it. 

• There were some native animals found throughout the massive (I’m still not acknowledging its superlative claim) park, including some buffalo that you could feed.  But where were the elephants?  We were dizzy trying to find our way out of the place when I finally eyed the pachyderms and pointed Sai in their direction, not expecting her to play a game of chicken with them!  Say what you will about my driving record, but I’ve never tried running down an elephant (or two).  “Whoa, whoa, close enough!!” we shouted to get her to stop a socially acceptable distance away (the wild animals were the only ones not wearing masks – which explains Catherine’s reluctance).  I really was worried that the full-sized beasts (not scaled replicas) might charge as we invaded their space, until I saw the chains on their feet keeping them where they were.      

The Ancient City is a great way to see the cool sights of Thailand without traveling all over Thailand, but it felt like a cheap hack to doing the real thing.  Still, not a bad introduction for the newbies (unlike me).

We followed it up by stopping on the way home at some isthmus roadway that was under attack from thousands of seagulls, like a Hitchcockian nightmare for an ornithophobe.  There were ten birds for every person, and there were a lot of people enjoying the spectacle.  At the end of the road was a huge, open air restaurant on the water, where I was mightily dismayed to learn that they were not allowed to serve alcoholic beverages because of Covid… (insert angry face here).

Beer Stops

The first time I came to Thailand in 2008, I was dismayed when I went looking for refreshment in Kanchanaburi and was told that they were not allowed to serve beer because it was election time.  Now there were some adorable workarounds, but it was still a horrible policy. 

On my second trip a couple of years later, after I’d met Sai in the US, we visited Thailand while Bangkok was under curfew because of the riotous disputes between the redshirts and yellow shirts (google it – difference of opinion in politics, nowhere near as vitriolic as the current state of affairs in the US).  This meant no nightlife. 

Third trip to Thailand, I was there for a wedding, and my bride preferred that I not get lost to Bangkok. 

Now, on my fourth trip, Covid was interrupting my binging… And Sai wants me to retire in this beerforsaken place?!?!

I’ll have further beer complaints later, but I wanted to vent on Day 2.

Days 3 – 5 – Yippee Khao Yai, Motherf*cker!

I need to speed this up or we’ll never get through this three-week vacation.  Because I’m a Thai expert (hardly) and because we didn’t want to fly all over (Covid and kids on planes both suck), we intermixed our Bangkok base with road trips to other destinations. 

First, instead of Chiang Mai, the beautiful city in the mountainous region in the north, we started off our third day by driving out to Pak Chong, a resort town near the Khao Yai National Park, a few hours northeast of Bangkok. 

We stayed at a beautiful private home owned and loaned by a family friend in the middle of the mountains (more like molehills really, but still pretty) in a place mostly unlike the hustle and bustle of Bangkok.  The only similarities were the wild street dogs in both places, and the people speaking Thai wherever you went.  The temperatures were much cooler, with highs in the low 80s (27 degrees C) as opposed to the low 90s (32 d C) of Bangkok.  This is their winter, you know.

On our first day we didn’t do too much.  Shopping (of course), at a Sam’s Club-type warehouse where I was excited to see more than three types of beer!  Usually it’s Chang, Singha and Leo, unless you find some overpriced imported beer like Heineken or Hoegaarden.  But I found Black Dragon Celtic Amber, which just sounds more exciting than the bland staples.  At first sip, it was less than delicious.  But by the third bottle, you’re kind of into it!

We stopped by some kind of little farm attraction, where the kids got to ride horses!  Okay, it was really a pony, but they don’t know the difference.  In a shocking surprise, Theodore was cool with it, and Catherine was terrified!  This was only day 3, and it was the last time that big brother would be the braver of the two.   

We drove to the national park the next morning, with the locals pointing out that my gray / blonde hair and pasty skin and complete inability to pronounce even the most basic of Thai phrases meant that they* had to pay the tenfold farang (foreigner) premium for my park entrance.  

*[It’s really weird traveling with Sai and her family.  I am not supposed to pay for anything, which almost seems nice, except then I feel cheap, (and I am), so I’ll offer to pay and Sai will say that I can pay her back directly, while she has some kind of settlement deal with her family that leaves me feeling like I am somehow being taken advantage of.  During the course of the trip I stopped at an ATM twice to have some carrying cash, and each time I would end up just giving it all to Sai.  The few times that I actually bought anything, I was more often than not shortchanged on the change; but I didn’t expect the same opportunism by my beloved…]

Khao Yai National Park is like a hotter version of Skyline Drive in Virginia, except they have monkeys!  It’s a beautiful mountainous traverse, with trails you can explore along the way.  We did one fruitless long walk to a lookout point where we saw nothing (not the right time of day, though supposedly you can sometimes see elephants they say).  At another stop we crossed a cool rickety bridge over a stream where I spotted some kind of large, slithering creature swimming upstream of us.  I couldn’t tell if it was a snake or an alligator, and only Yai confirmed the sighting, but she wouldn’t tell me what the hell it was.  [I know this seems like a trivial detail, especially when I said that I was speeding things up, but bear with me. I think I found this same sea creature later.]

A few of us (Sai, Id, Theodore and I) walked to a waterfall, where I am proud to say that my son was quite the scrambler!  He Teddy-goated his way over the boulders like a champ, declining my helpful hand at every step. 

Before leaving the park, we embarked on a nighttime safari, which we had booked hours earlier.  There were some 80 other pickup trucks doing the same, with a driver in the driver’s seat (duh), a spotter behind the cab with a spotlight, and our family riding behind him in the bed, with Catherine and Teddy fighting for lap space.  Sai and I had fallen in love with the South African safari experience years ago, and this one… did not compare.  We saw some deer, two porcupines, one fox, and a lot of crisscrossing headlights from the other vehicles. 

At first the kids were fully engaged, shouting out “deer!” (like they were Buddha statues) and pointing with the rest of us at each stag, and enjoying the cool, open air breeze of the back of the vehicle, but after forty-five minutes, both were out cold.  From the flight to this night I found that tired kids are a pain in the ass, but exhausted kids are a breeze. 

We awoke the next morning to some roosters and wild dogs, competing to disrupt our sleep.  Before heading back to Bangkok we visited a nice feeding zoo with all of the exotic animals that you can see on the real safaris in South Africa, only this time they are in cages and you can give them carrots. 

Aside from Catherine vomiting on her father, the car ride back to Bangkok was uneventful.

Days 6 & 7 – Happy New Year!

Back in Bangkok, we celebrated New Year’s Eve by dissing the kids for a couple of hours so the wife and I could get some Thai massages.  In Thailand, there are a few must-dos – good food* (unavoidable), diarrhea (also unavoidable), Buddhist temples, boring beer, and Thai massage. 

*[I could write page after page describing the delicious dishes we devoured during the course of our many days in Thailand.  Except I don’t have specific restaurant names or even menu items to list since I was “just along for the ride.”  The food is exceptional and cheap and everywhere.  Having locals escorting you and ordering for you makes it harder to take note of what it is you’re eating, so it’s impossible to recall or record for this record anything helpful.  But trust me and anyone else who has been to Thailand (except for my father who is incredibly boring in his meal selections), the food is amazing.]

In our defense, the grandkids really needed to spend more time with the grandparents, since that was a big point of the whole trip.  Stop shaking your head and calling us selfish…

Theodore (as I mentioned before) is already quite the world traveler.  But he has not seen his mom’s parents since our trip to Greece in 2019.  Catherine was born during the first days of the Covid lockdown, and she has never met Yai and Pop beyond facetime, which doesn’t count.  Sai’s parents came to the US to celebrate T-dog’s arrival.  However, Covid and some serious health concerns prevented a similar visit for Catherine.  We’d been planning this trip for some time, waiting for a safe moment to escape because we do not know how many more chances our kids will have to see this side of the family.  Why else would we endure such a hellish pair of flights?

But back to us!  Sai and I and Id and Auntie Aey were on our way to our 2-hour Thai massages.  Don’t shortchange yourself with a shorter one.  Aside from airfare, everything is so much cheaper in Thailand that even if you’re overpaying for a Westerner-welcoming type establishment, it is still so much less expensive than what you’d pay for a knockoff version in USA, that you have to go the extra mile. 

For some reason Sai went her separate way, while Id, Aey and I shared a large room for our treatment.  Because the Thai people would rather not get or spread Covid as a political statement, we wore our masks the entire time while our masseuses wore full face shields.  Thai massage is deep tissue, muscle pulling, contortionist stretching, personal treatment.  But it felt far less personal with the face shields separating us.  It was like having Darth Vader (less the heavy breathing) playing Twister with you. 

I opted to close my eyes and ignore the impersonal nature of our new normal.  It also helps to close your eyes to hide your discomfort when the tiny Thai girl pushes you beyond your weak point of comfort and you don’t want to see her seeing you wince like a big wimp. 

Two hours later, I felt like a million baht, until I embarrassingly couldn’t tell apart my masseur from Id’s when we were leaving and I was trying to tip my girl.  I’m really not that stereotypically American where I see all Asians as looking the same; but with the same uniforms and the face shields and the fact that my eyes were closed for most of my treatment, I couldn’t tell the two (probably sisters) apart.  So I opted for the safest bet and just gave the money to Sai instead.  (I was really embarrassed when Aey asked what I was doing because I mistook her for my wife.)

We arrived home to our eager children who must have realized how much they loved the parents they’d been tormenting non-stop for the past week (plus the pre-flight years of their lives).  Apparently Catherine played it cool for the first 1.5 hours, but lost her shit after that (not literally, though I’m sure she loaded her diaper during this time too), and started wailing for mommy while waiting by the door before we triumphantly returned.  Two important messages were hopefully taught by this experience:

1. Hey kids – You like us, whether you like it or not.
2. Remember kids – We will leave you here.

For our wild New Year’s Eve, we visited a couple of expat friends who had moved back to Thailand a few years ago (though she was originally from Siam, so not really an expat, but a repat?).  Bam and Tommy were living large, having built a multi-unit condominium in the heart of the city.  They boasted of their nannies, in-house private tutors for their son, personal drivers, et al.  Worse, Tommy teased me with a fridge full of Singha soda waters when I thought I’d get a beer before complaining about how tired he was from having gone out drinking the evening before.  New Year’s Eve and no one was drinking?  What a waste. 

Theodore loved playing with Brin, who played the big brother admirably and shared his toys.  Catherine clung tightly to Sai or me, making up for the few lost hours while we were earlier massaged.  Tommy made Teddy self-conscious by mentioning his Asian eyes, which I had to later explain was the subject of a classic Eagles song (“There ain’t no way to hide your Asian eyes…”) and was mommy’s fault.  Sai enjoyed catching up with her friend Bam.  And I lamented the fact that it was New Year’s Eve and no one (especially me) was drinking. 

At home afterwards, Sai offered to watch a movie with me to ring in the new year.  She selected it, and proceeded to fall asleep during its opening credits, while I tried to drink as many Black Dragons as I had left from Pak Chong, though I fell short before falling asleep myself.

What a World!

New Years Day, sadly unhungover, we went to Siam Amazing Park and Water World, where we watched a sad Kevin Costner post-apocalyptic flick and realized that Teddy and Catherine were both too small to enjoy most of their attractions.  In the main theme park the kids did a couple of low-key rides like the carousel and a cheesy space simulator capsule (did not seem like a safe ride from a social distance perspective…).  There was also a fun safari-style ride through an animatronic dinosaur exhibit that they really liked.  Theodore asked later in the trip if we could return, but I told him that I had no control over our itinerary and we’d just have to go along for the ride, wherever that took us.   

The water park was refreshing on another hot day in Bangkok, even if my albino complexion and hard-earned beer belly stood out like a fat American in a skinny Asian country.  Catherine clung to me like I was her mommy, except when she let me toss her up and catch her in the water.  Theodore was a little less adventurous, freaking out in the wave pool (which proclaimed to be the largest wave pool in the world, if you can believe that), and acting like a little bitch in the lazy river.  If Sai and I were paying attention, we would have noticed not to expend the effort to try to get the kid in the water in the wild if he struggled in this tamer environment… [Is my foreshadowing working?  It’s hard to tell because I already know what’s coming.]

Days 8 – 10 – Dam Good Times!

We started off with a drive to the hospital to take our next Covid tests.  To stay in country, we had to pass again six to seven days after our arrival or after our previous test, or six to eight days after something.  Confused?  Me too.  I had earlier asked Sai when we were due for our follow up tests and she told me to shut up and go along for the ride (I’m paraphrasing here).  The staff at the testing station thought we’d missed our testing window and wanted to charge some crazy amount for tests that should have been gratis or at least prepaid under the Thai Passes we already had.  No one really knew what the repercussions were for missing the test – should they lock us up in another Covid hotel?  Deport us?  Ignore us?  Smile and wai?  Sai and Id argued with everybody they could find and called every bureaucracy in anyway affiliated with health, travel, tourism, etc., and none of these people knew anymore than the hospital staff.  This wouldn’t have happened in Germany…

After close to an hour of trying to keep the kids entertained while Sai drew diagrams and astronomical clocks to explain the timing of our visit, and dozens of people were processed smoothly past us, someone came up with the brilliant plan of just testing us today and sending us on our way.  Test #4.  Seriously, what else could they do?  [For the record, I thought we were due for the retest the day before, but Rule #1 in our house is that Sai is always right.]

Id picked up Auntie Aey and we were on our way to the next destination. 

Kanchanaburi

Kanchanaburi is a small town a few hours west of Bangkok.  I spent a couple of days here during my first trip to Thailand, for Erawan Falls and the Bridge on the River Kwai.  Maybe this time would be different?

Elephant World!

Our first stop in Kanchanaburi was neither Erawan Falls or the Kwai Bridge, so it was new territory for me.  We arrived mid-afternoon at Elephant World where Yai, Pop and Yai’s good friend who we called Pom Yai or Yai Pom (I could never keep it straight) were waiting for us.  Pom is the friend who owned the house we’d stayed in in Pak Chong.

One of my few prerequisites for the trip was the chance for the kids to ride an elephant.  And this was that chance!  Sai and I and Theodore and Catherine climbed the stairs to the loading platform and hopped aboard Ganjana, an overweight 28 year old who had prematurely grayed, or maybe that’s just because she’s an elephant.  A tiny Thai guy led the beast on its circuit, taking us from the platform, down the road, past a dozen other elephants of all sizes, and into the river.  Id and Aey followed on their own animal.

Catherine and Theodore were cool customers, while Sai seemed as nervous as Catherine on a pony.  Ganjana (which apparently means golden, not marijuanana as I’d assumed) lumbered along, swaying dramatically from side to side with each stride for a very bumpy ride.  We ascertained her name and age by me peppering Sai with questions that she would pose to our coachman in Thai, then translating back to English his answers.  After enough annoying inquiries, the guide hopped off and darted ahead of Ganjana, leaving us to fend for ourselves.  I heroically grabbed the reins and saved the day.

Ganja-boy (sorry, he hopped off before I could ask Sai to ask his name so that I wouldn’t be forced to assign him an unfortunate nickname like Ganja-boy) did not fully abandon us, but instead took my camera and snapped dozens of shots of us atop the gray lady.

Elephants are the official national animal of Thailand.  In Thai, Chang means elephant, which is why Chang Beer is made from elephant piss.  Some westerners tend to judge the way the majestic animals are treated in Thailand, feeling like they are being exploited.  My kids are half-Thai, so it is their birthright to abuse these animals.  I was just along for the ride, and to provide a lap for Catherine since we still did not have a car seat. 

After the awesome ride (glad the kids weren’t told they were too small for this one, unlike at Siam Amazing Park (that place is for SAPs)), we bought some bananas to feed Ganjana as thanks for her servitude.  It was the least we could do.  I wanted to tip Ganja-boy because overtipping is my subtle way to try to dissuade people in foreign countries from hating me on the basis of my USA evilness.   However, since Sai didn’t let me keep money, I could only throw extra bananas at him. 

We then headed to the Srinagarind Dam, where Pop managed to get us an inside tour of the hydroelectric facilities!  It was an impressive setup, but I won’t bore you with any of the technical details because our guide only spoke Thai and no one felt like translating for me.  Pop had worked at this dam place for several years, and our tour guide was at one time his underling.  He gave the guide a wet willy and a wedgie to reestablish dominance, as all good bosses do. 

We were staying on the reservoir side of Srinagarind, with our backyard being the high side of the river a short distance upstream of the dam. 

Erawan

The next morning we headed to the nearby Erawan Waterfalls, which as I’ve mentioned before, been there done that.  But whereas last time I was young and single and solo, this time I was old, married, and with two kids in tow.  So we were a little slow.  There are seven tiers of falls throughout the popular park.  But when you’re wrestling with little ones, there’s less chance of seeing them all.  It seemed to me that the park was commercialized and modernized since my last visit (which is very likely in the last 14 years), with more places to pee (good for Teddy), and buy things (good for Sai), and change (no dice for me – I’ll never change).  The farang rate of entry is again ten times the Thai price, but I still refused to try to blend in since I wasn’t paying for anything. 

You walk up and up and up past cascades heading down, down, down, with certain points allowing swimming in the clear waters.  We’d rented life vests as the signs told us we had to do (they didn’t rent vests the last time I was here), so there was nothing to fear but fish themselves.  There are a bunch of little (and some not so little) fish that will nibble at your feet.  My always ugly feet were particularly nasty on this trip and I’d mentioned to Sai that I might want to do one of the Thai foot massage fish treatments while we were here.  Well here we were, with free (except for the entrance fee) fish to chew off all of the dead skin! 

I remember the fish nibbling from last time, and thought it kind of tickled.  But this time, whether it’s because I had fonder memories than reality, or because the gentle fish had been infiltrated by piranhas, those slippery fuckers kind of hurt!  You could handle it for a second or two, but then you’d have to start dancing away before they could take a toe. 

For some reason, Theodore did not take the bait and enjoy this magical experience.  Instead, he basically lost his mind, screaming for the safety of the logs or rocks above the water.  Catherine coolly let us carry her wherever, but the boy wanted no part of it. 

It was at this point that I realized that my son is a chicken-shit.  Granted that is a lot better than elephant feces.  Those things can unload!  Sure, Teddy took off like a man possessed to escape the ghost house in Mueang Boran, but I assumed that he had some childlike extra-sensory perception that told him it was bad news.  Yes, he was a bit of a bitch at Water World, but I could kid myself into almost believing that is was because he was disgusted by the fact that he knew we were in the water with everyone else’s urine (I blame Sai for telling him that).  This time, when every other kid was having a blast letting little fish attack their appendages and Teddy was the only one screaming like a brat out of hell, I admitted it.  The boy’s a wuss. 

I thought about asking Sai for the Thai words for chicken and pussy so that I could tease Teddy in another tongue, but I feared mistaking the two terms and accidentally ordering the latter when I wanted the former at a restaurant.  There are certain places in Bangkok where both are on the menu… [Chicks and Chickens, if you will.]

After the disappointment of the falls (we never made it past level three), we revisited the same restaurant from the night before for our only repeat of the trip.  This outdoor dining room entertained the kids because of the little geckos climbing the walls and ceilings around us.   

Bridge on the River Kwai

We packed our bags and headed back to Bangkok, with a quick stop to see the Bridge on the River Kwai.  How can you make a quick stop to watch a 2.5+ hour classic movie, you might wonder?  We were passing by the real thing, because Auntie Aey had never been.  How can that be, when a farang like me had already done it?  I guess I’m more of a Thai expert than some of the Thai people by now.  The classic movie stretches the true tale of the WWII POWs forced to build the bridge to allow better access to the Japanese forces crossing between Thailand / Siam and Myanmar / Burma (whatever names they used at the time).  The Death Railway was real, with tens of thousands of casualties in its construction, but the movie exaggerated everything else, including the bridge’s destruction, since it’s still there today. 

However, as with Erawan, today it feels much more touristy than it did a little over a decade ago when I first visited this quiet town.  Today, despite the toned-down tourism during Covid, there were vendors galore hawking everything imaginable at the base of the bridge.  I remember no such nonsense back in ’08, but this might just be a sign that I am getting old and forgetting things. 

Let’s move on and go back to Bangkok.

Microbrew at a Macroprice

Arriving back in the big city, I told the little lady that I wanted to hit the town for a change.  Not that I don’t love hanging out with her family (I don’t), nor love the limited selection of cheap Thai beer (nope), but there are places in this metropolis where a guy like me can interact with similar sounding Caucasoids and drink better brews than the Black Dragon (whose twelve pack I still hadn’t finished in the week since I’d had it bought for me). 

Sai said no way.  Bangkok is too big and dangerous and I was too white and wimpy.  She called her mom and brother and the State Department to ensure I did not venture out into this urban deathtrap for farang.  Despite my protestations that I was pretty sure I could handle a cab ride, she roped Id and Aey into taking me out instead. 

Uncle Id (bro in law to me) took me to a neighborhood beer bar where they had a multipage menu that was more than just repeats of Chang, Leo and Singha.  My eyes lit up when I found some hops, and I immediately ordered the Brewdog Punk IPA! 

Look, Singha is an okay beer.  Chang is better than the elephant piss I recently compared it to.  Leo is somewhere in between.  They are all serviceable.  Better than PBR but worse than Yuengling.  I’m not a hophead or a cicerone, but I can be a bit snobbish.  I’m at a station in life where I don’t need to order the cheap shit sixpacks and can get something stronger. 

Brewdog is a Scottish Indian Pale Ale, or a SIPA?  It had more mouthfeel than the local bottles, though it couldn’t hold a candle to the kind of offerings you can get at a Total Wine & More (shameless plug) in Northern Virginia.  God I love that place! 

So Thailand has the three main beers, repeatedly decried and derided.  I continued this disparagement with Uncle Id, who is kind of Cliff Clavinish, even if he has no idea who that is.  Id and I had deep discussions of beer back when we hung out for a night in Tokyo a few years ago.  I continued the convo again because I have limited interests and may be an alcoholic.  But that’s beside the point.  Id explained that the reason there were so few options in Thailand is because the big beer companies were big rich families and had such strong influence in the country that competition was not allowed.  Can you imagine such a society where the rich and powerful had such influence on the government to dictate… sorry, not going to fall for it.  We’re staying apolitical on this trip. 

Brewdog was a change of pace.  But it was also something like 300 baht!  That is approximately $10 US, which is an outrage for a cheap person in a cheap country!  I was determined to pay this evening, since I had unwittingly forced Id and Aey to forego any fun they had hoped to have sans my family to instead babysit this lush.  Still, I couldn’t justify continuing to drink the same overpriced mediocre alternative to the subpar offerings otherwise always on the menu.  So I asked for the next Brewdog offering, a different IPA with a name not quite as cool as Punk, only to find that it was out of stock.  Their next selection was similarly unavailable, and I was forced to play the guessing game of which of the many beers on the menu were real versus bogus names on paper?     

It’s kind of a cheat to boast a big beer menu only to actually offer very few of those listed (but this would not be the only place to play this game I would later find).  Still, I was out and about after hours, instead of nestled into bed with two kids who love to spin and kick all night. 

Id and Aey were very sweet for supporting my bad habit.  Aey stuck to Coke, while Id appreciated a German import (he’d developed a decent taste for real beer during his time living in Amsterdam).  Still, I noticed the Thai people around us were all drinking the same big three beers in bigger bottles for about half the price (cheap college kids).  This local hangout allowed me to keep drinking, but I was as outcast as everywhere else with the family, longing for some similarly lost souls.  [By the way, as I typed away at this portion of the report, I was three deep into some tasty Three Notch’d Brewing Co’s collection of IPAs.  Eat your heart out Brewdog!]

Days 11 – 12 – Bangkok Blues

What happens in Bangkok stays in Bangkok.  Sai ran some personal errands on our next full day, leaving me to entertain the kids alone at home while the rest of her family went about their normal lives.  I cannot tell you what Sai was doing, because she threatened to hurt me. 

Did you know that Thailand has very cheap medical facilities and top-rated surgeons?  Eyebrow-raising rates I hear.  Sorry for the non-sequitur. 

Snakes!

Together again, our fourfold family cabbed it over to the Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute to see some snakes on slithering display.  I’d seen a snake show in Chiang Mai on my first tour, but snakes are cool and the kids hadn’t been, so let’s see some more. 

King Cobras are big!  Thai spitting cobras aren’t quite as impressive alone, but the double handling by a single handler was a nice dangerous touch.  [Nothing compares to the cheesy melodrama of my first snake show, where the announcer pronounced that the very deadly snakes could kill in ten minutes, while the nearest hospital was twenty minutes away.]  

When they rolled out the giant yellow python and invited kids to come up and hold it, I carried Theodore to the front of the line for the opportunity to overcome his cowardice for a change.  And… he made me go first.  Fine, I’ll step in front of all the other little kids who want to play with the cool constrictor, just to prove to Teddy that it’s safe for him to touch snakes that can easily swallow him whole like a live chicken.  Catherine climbed on that snake and rode it like a rodeo clown… It’s okay; my boy is smart.  He is risk-averse.  You are what you eat and he loves his chicken nuggets.

Tuk-Tuk

Teddy may not be one for snakes or for flesh-eating fish or for swimming in pee, but he is willing to throw caution to the wind to ride in a tuk-tuk!  He’d been clamoring for the chance to risk his life in one of these things for as long as we’d been in Thailand.  I don’t know how he even learned of the three-wheeled, gas-spewing, disgusting deathtraps, but he insisted.  The only advantage of this machine is that it is windowless, suggesting the open air is less likely to transmit Omicron, if you’re tracking such a thing.  Tuk-tuks are actually a lot of fun.  Tuk-tuk drivers get a bad rap because they are crazy and can sometimes try to take advantage of farang.  But if you can look past their crazy driving, the lack of safety features in the speeding vehicles, the likelihood that the operator will shortchange you on your change, and the possibility that you will die, then you can sit back and enjoy the ride.  Hold on, because if you’re not paying attention, he’ll hit a bump and you’ll bang your head on the oh-shit bar above you.  But Teddy enjoyed it.

Days 13 – 15 – Hua Hin

Sai’s father, also known as Pop, has been undergoing ongoing treatments for a serious blood disorder.  Part of our motivation for traveling during these dangerous times is that we do not know how many more opportunities we’ll have to see him, since he is unable to travel himself in his present condition.  But while we were doing our secret and snake things in Bangkok, Pop was receiving his rejuvenating treatments to energize him for the next excursion. 

Hua Hin is a quiet beach town a few hours southwest of Bangkok.  It is on the Gulf of Thailand, across the waterway from the much louder Pattaya party beach.  Picture a perfect triangle with Bangkok at the top, Hua Hin down left, and Pattaya is bottom right. 

Swallow Spit Houses

For the drive to the beach, we split into two vehicles with Yai and Pop in one and Uncle Id, Sai, the kids and I squeezed into the other.  Most of the ride consisted of Sai and her brother jabbering in gibberish while I tried to entertain the youngsters when I couldn’t coax them to sleep.  But somewhere along this way, the Thai Cliff Clavin pointed out a series of large, concrete buildings with small openings in them.  Some kind of data center?  A Nike sweatshop?  I was quickly out of guesses.  No, apparently there is a demand for the nests of swallows, which Id described as constructed of spit up bits from the birds.  The crazy Chinese will pay top dollar to eat a swallow’s spit, in case you were wondering.  

I was only wondering how I would go about drawing the cheap comparison between a swallow’s spit house and a blowjob bar, which is (allegedly, I’ve heard) a thing you can find in Bangkok.  Neither place should have large windows.  You feel dirty in either.  Both are for the birds… Insert your own cheap shots, if you will.    

Thar be Sea Dragons!

Along the way we stopped of course for another meal.  I’m not complaining because I recognize that food is kind of important, and truth be told, I am a fat pig.  But really, it seemed like most of our adventures were really just distractions between meals.  I’ve saved you from most of the details because I don’t know what we were eating.  But this one was worth further exposition.

No idea where we were, beyond somewhere between Bangkok and Hua Hin (past the blowjob birdhouses), when we went to a waterfront wharf to wolf down lunch.  The food was of course excellent, but otherwise unremarkable.  What stood out at this place was that you could purchase fish food, buying cups of pellets that you’d dump over the restaurant rail to watch the schools of catfish swarm to swallow your droppings.  These catfish are always entertaining, especially for the kids. 

But you can see these catfish everywhere in Thailand.  At this place, they also had a pet sea dragon, slowly coasting back and forth before the rail.  What was this giant, swimming reptile?  It was not an alligator, nor a snake, but a big ole lizard!  This is what I’d seen in the distance back in Khao Yai, nine days prior, when I was struggling to identify the creature.  He (because who ascribes a badass sketchy sea monster to the female gender?) made his rounds around our area, while I stared dumbfounded (as I’m often found), with the kids equally intrigued.  The stars aligned (or the sea equivalent) and our pellet-dumping, catfish-calling timing met the monster’s, and he darted through the water, grabbing a giant fish and carrying it away in his dragon jaws!  That was so cool!

[Google Thailand sea lizards and you’ll find the Asian water monitors if you want to see for yourself.]    

Beach Bums

While I wanted to watch our four-legged sea serpent all day, we instead continued on our way to Hua Hin, where we checked in and went to check out the beach. 

I’ve been to Phuket, Phi-Phi, Koh Samui, and Koh Tao, and can confidently say that Thailand has some gorgeous beaches.  Hua Hin doesn’t hold a candle to the other islands, but it was less densely packed than my (pre-Covid) trips to Phi-Phi and Phuket, and was still nice enough.  The water lacked the beautiful blue hue of the other locales (though as always, it may be memory embellishing), but it was warm and inviting to everyone except for my son. 

Maybe we shouldn’t have warmed him up by showing him scary sea monsters. 

Teddy wanted no part of the water.  The waves were weak and we could walk out a long ways with it still shallow.  Didn’t matter.  Catherine let me carry her out to the depths of my limits (I’m what you’d call a weak swimmer, if you’re being kind).  Theodore freaked as if his feet were being attacked by hungry fish in the falls.  “I need land!!  Take me back to land!!!” was his refrain, despite the fact that he wore a flotation device and was in water no deeper than his waist.  No amount of coaxing could convince him to come back out once he kissed the dry sand, so we left him to safely build sandcastles instead. 

Another Horse Ride?

Along our short stretch of beach there were nearby touts offering jet-skis, boat tubing, and beachside horse rides.  Sure Catherine cried when we put her on the pony, but that was a long time ago (over a week).  Should we try again?

Sai and I were walking up the beach to inquire about this activity, when we heard a yell, followed by some crying, followed by more yelling.  We turned to see a small child on her back on the beach, screaming out, while an empty-backed horse raced toward us.  The horse handler, now empty handed, seemed to be struggling to figure out if he should be helping up the dumped girl or chasing his spooked steed.  The wife and I sidestepped the charging animal and opted not to use that service.  The screaming girl seemed to be alright, other than a little upset that her beachside stroll ended with her tossed aside like a worthless banana tip.    

Perhaps Catherine knew early on that ponies were dangerous, and tried to tell us.  Likewise Theodore anticipated that hungry sea lizards patrolled the waterways.  And the oblivious parents kept trying to push these smart kids into stupid situations.  Will we never learn?

Where’s the Beer?

The next day in Hua Hin, we went to a mall because you may have noticed by now that Thais like to shop.  I searched in vain for a bottle opener, because I’d struggled twice now to find creative ways to crack open my store-bought bottles of beer in houses that lacked bottle openers.  At this particular department store, I found every kind of home good I did not need, but no way to cleanly open my cheap Thai beer that I’d drink alone in the room after everyone else fell asleep.  Then, as I wandered the aisles of the mall grocery store, I found another expanded beer selection, with cans!  Not only could I drink something other than the big three, but I could do it without damaging the place to uncap the swill! 

At an impasse at checkout, Id intervened to explain to me that there was some stupid rule that prohibits the sale of alcohol between the hours of 2 and 5 p.m.  The cashier could not get this inanity across.  This is yet another reason why I keep telling Sai that her home country is stupid!  I left my illicit cans of beer at the counter and tearfully left the store.     

We tried again to entice Teddy into the water that afternoon, with the same results.  Maybe the beach is not for him.

After dinner, I escorted the kids to bed so Sai and Id could check out the nighttime Cicada Market.  Besides eating bugs (I assume), Sai bought a bunch of clothes that she assured me meant that she’d saved a bunch of money.  She’s the one with an accounting background and the enforcer of the aforementioned rule about always being right, so I didn’t question the math and went back to sleep.

Talk to the Palms

On the way back to Bangkok the next day, we stopped at a palm tree plantation, where they harvested, processed and sold palm juice, and I have to say, it was freaking sweet.  That stuff is unbelievable.  We bought several bottles, half of which we drank on the premises before continuing on our way.        

Days 16 – 20 – Home Stretch

One night in Bangkok…

 …And the world’s your oyster.  Murray Head seemed to diss the dirty city in his song about chess?  What a nerd.  But after full time kids while Sai went about without us for different adventures, she agreed to let me out to where “the bars are temples but the pearls ain’t free” while she and a group of friends stayed out for a late dinner.  When I left them, the kids were running around like runaway ponies at the beach, as I cabbed it to the less local and more touristy side of town for some respite. 

The driver dropped me at the entrance to the Radisson Hotel where the desk jockey directed me to the elevators to take me to their rooftop.  Brewski boasts an impressive view of downtown Sukhumvit, along with its deeper taps of real beers.  However, did you know that during Covid, the bars were not allowed to sell alcohol after 9 p.m.?  This was news to me and disappointing since I happened to have arrived at 9:15.  I dejectedly snapped a few photos of the city before snapping at the downstairs dude for not having told me that detail before he sent me to a rooftop bar that couldn’t sell me beer.    

First I found myself at a restaurant where they couldn’t sell beer at all because of Covid.  Then a grocery store couldn’t sell beer between the hours of 2 – 5 p.m.  Now a beer garden couldn’t pour after 9 p.m.  For a place that is supposed to have a seedy reputation, why was it seeming worse than a dry Muslim country?    

I walked a few blocks to a place called Otto Bar, which some reviewers said had the best cover band, playing classics like AC/DC and Metallica.  It was about the farthest thing from the weird music we’d hear in Pop’s car or the pop music in Id’s.  (Id had tried playing music I enjoyed at the beginning of one of our drives, but Sai quickly quashed that).  Otto offered an open-air tiny bar advertising 100 baht beers ~$3).  Surely, I would have gladly paid considerably more for something better (that’s a lot of adverbs!), but I was just glad that they were open and allowing me to drink.  But where was the live music?  Apparently that only happens on Fridays and Saturdays.  Instead, they had a computer hooked up to a TV and were playing the song selections of a friendly enough bloke from Sweden.  Not quite the GnR covers I’d expected, but at least I wasn’t being kicked in the head in the bed with two kids who can’t even be still in their sleep.

Every bar review you find (at least the ones in English) have a quarter of the customers claiming that it’s the best bar in town; an equal batch bitching that the beers are overpriced; another quadrant noting that there are bargirls bothering you relentlessly, and the last set saying that it’s a laidback place where you’re left alone.  In other words, your mileage may vary.  Covid restrictions may be changing the dynamics completely as well, with a lot of places temporarily closed. 

Otto is a dive; the street view of Sukhumvit sucks compared to the rooftop vista; but they brought me beer when Brewski wouldn’t.  I enjoyed the friendly conversation with the Swede who bragged of his position with an important international firm that I had to pretend I’d heard of.  They’d sent him to Bangkok three years earlier and he was loving the life.  He tried to convince me to delay my return flight to see his band play on Sunday night, but ABBA sucks.  Did you know that Swedes say Skoal to toast their beers?  This was a highlight learning experience for me.  Why toast to a disgusting chewing tobacco?  I guess the Swedes are gross.

I then got roped into conversation with a Brit and a Scot, and despite my bringing up of Braveheart, I couldn’t get them to fight.  I complained about the beer selection and mentioned that I’d imbibed a Brewdog a few nights earlier, and the Scot thanked me because he has stock in that shite.  Around this time Bar Otto broke the news that we had to step outside, where we were still allowed to finish our drinks.  And then the bartender came around and subtly transferred our bottles into non-descript cups, I guess as a workaround to serving us well past the 9 p.m. restriction that scared off those Brewski pansies. 

Scott (for lack of a real name that I can recall) expressed his admiration for an American to be traveling so far abroad.  He said that he’s found the few of us he’s encountered to be better than the redneck morons that they generally assume we’ll be.  This is the image of America they get from TV.  I pointed out that we did elect Trump in 2016 (but not in 2020, yet), and he countered with BoJo (Boris Johnson).  Yeah, “what the hell were you guys thinking?” I asked.  Apparently the UK follows the US lead on these things, such that when we elect a jackass, they feel like they have to follow suit.  I was so proud to hear that we are such leaders!  If only we led with a better message.  Mai pen rai.

The Gas Leak

When I arrived safely back at home as I’d promised Sai I would, I was immediately alarmed at the strong smell that hit me when I entered.  I told Sai that I thought I smelled gas, and she said she’d noticed it earlier too… shouldn’t she have done something about it then?  I raced to the kitchen and twisted the nozzle on their undercounter gas canister.  Opened the doors and windows.  Tried to figure out what else to do to avoid blowing up the house or poisoning the sleeping kids.  That’s when Sai said something and I realized my folly.  “Were you eating durian?”  The stink-fruit that is often prohibited, as it should be, had befouled our premises.  I quickly went back to the kitchen to turn off the gas that I had mistakenly turned on in my rush to save the night.

Malled by Dinosaurs

The next day we were picked up by another one of Sai’s friends who took us to a mall (of course), where we had a long lunch.  As the wife and company continued to catch up, I was tasked with taking the kids for a walk after eating.  There was a large dinosaur exhibit in a central atrium, and they could freely run around like velociraptors, clawing and biting strangers who were too slow. 

Sai was happy to see old friends.  The kids were happy to see dinosaurs.  And I was recharged after having a night away from Thai speakers and the kids.  Life was good.

Behind the blow up display of dinos was a SuitCube, the popular store where we’d bought online suits for my brother’s wedding a few months prior.  We had tested their virtual sizing app and determined that Thai tailors have no idea what American asses look like.  Every groomsman in the wedding party received a well-fitting jacket but pants that squeezed the shit out of us (not literally).  I considered entering their establishment and dropping trou to show them how big of asses we Americans have (are), but the kids required too much handholding and didn’t want to leave the dinosaur games to watch their dad moon a bunch of strangers.    

Farm Life

Early the next morning, another of Sai’s friends arrived to take care of us.  Uncle Joe (not his real name) came to the house and distributed Covid spit tests.  Test #5.  Joe’s kids have to take at-home tests twice a week, so he had a bunch to spare before we could share his air.  Again, we passed with flying, spitting colors.  Joe also had car seats!  What a boy scout, prepared for anything.  Joe drove us to the outskirts of the city to a field where no one would ever find the bodies.       

An older drill sergeant approached us and immediately put the kids to work.  “Now you catch bugs” (as translated by Sai).  They were given nets and sent into the fields.  Then Sai handed me mine and told me that I was not allowed to laze about while there was work to be done.  Uncle Joe was there with a camera to document if we slacked.  This was not what I had signed up for! 

Before we’d nabbed our fourth butterfly fast enough, she ushered us into the next field and told us that grasshoppers were our new target.

Then we had to feed the ducks, paint the fence (actually figurines), fly a kite, release the bugs, cook some food, make some soap, harvest duck eggs, plant rice, and then play in the duck-poop-filled pond.  Farm living is intense!  This time I did not begrudge Theodore for not wanting to wade into the water. 

I was hoping that this was some sort of Miyagi-style trick to train our bodies in the martial arts of Muay Thai, but when I tried to kickbox a random stranger later that night, the old lady kicked my fat American ass. 

Uncle Joe drove us back and brought us to a restaurant where we met up with his wife, kids and nanny for more delicious food; for dessert we had sticky rice and mango drenched in sweet coconut milk, one of my favorites!  The kids then got to play with Joe’s kids toys back at their house before we were chauffeured back home.  All in all, a successful day if you can overlook the exploitation of child labor…

Chon Buri Aunts

Down to two more days and out of people we could recruit to take us around, Pop and Yai picked us up and took us to Chon Buri, about an hour outside of Bangkok.  We met up with a couple of Pop’s sisters, great-aunts to the kids. 

Belly Dancing for Pizza

Back in Bangkok in the afternoon, Sai had an errand to run in town and I happened to find that it was down the street from a place called Beer Belly… a name near and dear to my heart, though with every year it seems to stretch farther south of the bloody pumper.  Any chance to mix it up and pay too much for different drafts you have to take, and Beer Belly did disappoint.  My first selection from their page long menu was unavailable.  As was my second… The server then listed the handful of beers that were options and I made do with a Belgian brew.  Good stuff, but the fact that yet another place purporting to have plenty to offer was mostly a bust.  We were outside in an inner courtyard as the only customers in the early evening hours.  I ordered a pizza.  Sai did not approve.  Not that she objects to the cuisine in USA (or Italy), but how dare I order farang food in Thailand?  I was not supposed to have any authority in terms of meals, but I was emboldened by my big Belgian beer.  Plus the kids seemed excited when I mentioned the prospect of pizza, which only added to mommy’s anger. 

The pie was not bad as far as normal pizzas go, but after weeks of only Thai food, it was a delicious divergence.  Theodore and Catherine agreed, eating more than me, while she-boss stared daggers and refused a slice. 

We met up with yet another friend of Sai’s for real dinner after our appetizing pizza, eating our penultimate dinner at a fancier restaurant than I would have wanted to take a couple of wild children to.  Whether it was Covid or because the easily obtained Thai street food is so tasty and cheap, the restaurant was not crowded enough for the kids to bother too many people.  Great food, but I could have just as soon settled for another pizza if anyone was asking. [They weren’t]. 

The Last Day!  

We’d been to the beach, mountains, waterfalls, and shopping malls.  We’d seen snakes and elephants, geckos and sea lizards.  Sai actually asked for my suggestion, and I proposed taking the kids on a water taxi on the Chao Phraya River, Bangkok’s Mississippi. 

First we had to take our pre-flight Covid tests because it was within 24 hours of our departure.  We cabbed it to a clinic, passed our exams, and packed our papers to present at the airport the next morning.  Test #6, the last we’d need to end the trip and get back to the Omicron-infested America, where tests are so much harder to come by.    

Asiatique is a riverfront mall that neither Sai nor I had been to before.  It was not around the last time I toured the river a decade plus ago.  This is a nice development, though most of the shops were closed when we were there, either because of Covid or because it was early in the day.  The one place Sai thought we could join the crowd to eat was actually a vaccination site; Sai had just assumed that when you saw that many Thai people in a place, there had to be good food involved. 

We found a small café instead that was just opening for lunch.  Sai ordered a couple of dishes and dashed off to shop while I waited for our food.  Spaghetti and (spicy) meatballs!  Sai must have been craving my kind of food.  Or it was just because of the limited menu options at this particular place.  Regardless, I questioned the spicy part of the meatball description, but the boss assured me that she was told that it is not that spicy and would be fine for our kids. 

Spicy Rule

I’ve said before that Rule #1 is that Sai is always right.  I also pointed out a moment ago that Sai almost had us eating extra boosters for lunch because it looked popular.  I won’t say that she was wrong about the spicy meatballs, but there is an adage (that I may have just made up): “If a Thai person tells you that something is not that spicy, don’t believe them.  If a Thai person says it is spicy, you better believe them.”  We couldn’t down our waters fast enough to douse the flames in our mouths. 

We ran to the water’s edge and almost drank the dark and dank polluted pool (except for Teddy, who I’m afraid will be afraid to go in the bathtub after this trip, crying for dry land).  Instead of ingesting liquid death (probably still better than Leo), we hopped on a boat cruise to take us upstream. 

We’d seen plenty of temples during our tour of Thailand.  I might have mentioned a few but stopped short of trying to list them all because one Buddha blends into the next when you’re agnostic.  Theodore (Greek for gift from God) seemed to enjoy the glitzy houses of prayer, suggesting that maybe the apple can fall far from the tree. 

Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn or mid-afternoon in our case, is a good one to see.  I’d been before, but made an exception for this impressive array of ornamented edifices.  It’s also a nice boat trip up from Asiatique, taking us past some nice city views along the way.  Icon Siam was one of those places that stood out; this massive, high-end mall was another newer addition in recent years.  If we had more time, I’m sure Sai would have made us check it out.

The kids did well with their last temple visit, until Teddy had a meltdown when I removed his mask for a picture.  You may have noticed that many of our pictures in this report show several of us maskless.  This was always a momentary removal for quick pics before we civic dutifully restored our coverings.  Theodore often preferred to keep his on; you may not have known that the boy even had teeth.   

With our fill of godliness, we made our way back across the ironically dirty river to Asiatique where things were starting to open up a little more.  Our main attraction was the Ferris wheel.  Theodore had asked for it before, and for his last day, Sai let him go along for this ride.  Poor Catherine slept through the experience, though she’s young enough that she’d probably forget it by the next time she visits again anyway. 

On our last evening together in Thailand, we were enjoying a low-key dinner with the family at home, and I was happy to polish off my last couple of bottles of beer before leaving here early the next morning for our 7 a.m. flight.  I poured myself a big glass of Singha, which Theodore then knocked over.  My mellow mood went from good to gone in an instant, and I was ready to be done with this whole family trip.  Take me home!    

Synopsis

“What did we learn, Palmer?…  I guess we learned not to do it again.” [Burn After Reading, which is good advice if you’ve made it this far.] Ben has a drinking problem.  Teddy is a chicken.  Catherine is a cutie.  Sai is always right.  Covid can be better contained if people actually wear their masks and take reasonable precautions and lots of tests.  Grandma (Yai), Grandpa (Pop), Uncle Id and Auntie Aey were awesome hosts who will hopefully get to see their grandkids / niece and nephew again before too long.  And Thailand remains an everchanging land of smiles, with wonders to behold and bad beer to boot.  Some things never seem to change.

Skoal!  Chaiyo!