Thailand: Bike Ride to Koh Kret

I woke up early one morning to go on a bike ride with my dad.  We were going to visit a small island across the river called Koh Kret.  The island is small -- about six miles around.   On the island is a small pottery village.  The people make the most beautiful clay pots and vases.  During the floods a couple months ago the entire island was covered in water, and the people are still recovering. It was dry for our bike ride, but we could still see the water lines.

The top right picture is the "ferry" we took to the island.  We just stood with our bikes on the very front of the boat.  I wish I would have taken more pictures of the village, but it's hard when you're on a bike.  Most of the ride was along skinny paved sidewalks right through where the people lived.  It was humbling to see how they lived (plywood-wall one-room houses or worse....which had recently been flooded for weeks), and yet how happy they were.  They all waved, smiled, and said "hello" as we rode by.  There was something rather sweet about the simplicity of their lives that I almost envied.  It was a memorable experience for me.

Thailand: Chinatown

Bangkok is a insanely busy city -- cars and people everywhere and Chinatown is probably the busiest place in the city, but we braved the insanity it one day with visions of cheap jewelry swarming around our heads.

I didn't take many picture (I was too busy bartering), but I'll just say that Austin was a little celebrity.  I guess they don't see to many blonde haired white babies in Chinatown.  People were touching him, taking pictures with him, trying to hold him.  They were obsessed!  I probably could have made some serious money if I'd charged 50 cents a picture.

Midway through we rewarded Austin with a donut and the remaining time in Chinatown sans clothes.  It was a hot and sweaty, but GREAT, day!

And, I walked away with a $6 purse and some great jewelry!

Thailand: The Aquarium

One of the best things about Thailand was that getting pampered was dirt cheap: hour-long massages for $6, mani and pedi for $10, eyebrow wax for $3.  So, we pampered ourselves...a lot!  In fact, our theme for the vacation was "treat yo self."  Of course we couldn't exclude Austin from a little pampering.  He got his first professional haircut.

After his pampering, Laura and I took him downtown Bangkok to the aquarium.  It was actually a pretty impressive aquarium.  Austin made us cruise through it pretty quickly though.   Our favorite part was where you could walk through a glass tunnel through the aquarium where the sharks are.

Austin was so fascinated with the big fish.  One was swimming back and forth along the glass wall and Austin just kept following...running back and forth.  It was so cute.

Austin checked out what life would be like as a fish and chauffeured a shark around in a tuk tuk (a three-wheeled taxi).

Thailand: At The Zoo

It's 1:30 am.  Austin and I are watching Sesame Street and eating scrambled eggs.  We're jetlagged.  We arrived home on Friday evening (after an absolutely heavenly flight experience, thank you Austin) and headed down to Portland on Saturday to pick up Baxter (thanks Grandma and Grandpa Forsberg for the long babysitting job).  We came back today and, needless to say, we've all had a hard time adjusting to the time change and eventful traveling.  Toren and I have been averaging about 3 hours of sleep at night.  And Austin, well, he sleeps for a few hours every few hours.  It's like having a newborn again.  I know things will be much better in a few days, so I might as well take advantage of the house and update my neglected blog.  We have had the most incredible vacation!

With my Dad and Laura at work and John at school, we decided to venture out for a day at the zoo in downtown Bangkok.  There's a much bigger zoo a little further away, but this one was the perfect size for a couple hours.  Austin loved it. 

The best thing about the zoo is that they seemed to be much more relaxed about the distance between the animals and the humans.  We could have reached in and touched many of the animals if we tried (we didn't).  Even the crocodiles were behind just a 5-foot glass fence with a sign posted that read: do not reach arm in crocodile cage or accident may occur. 

Anyway, despite the warm weather, all the animals were out and about. 

We saw some insanely huge hippos (notice Austin's feet dangling just feet from the hippo's head).

Austin got to feed a baby goat.  It was so cute.  The little goat must have been hungry, though, because he kept ripping the bottle out of Austin's hands.  It only took about a minute for the goat to scarf down a whole bottle.

My personal favorite was the giraffes.  They are just so spactacular to see.  We got there just in time for feeding time, so the giraffes were pretty lively (as lively as a giraffe can get, I guess).  The male was particularly curious about us. He kept leaning his head down to us.

We planned on ending at the elephant exhibit.  when we got there, however, we saw no elephants.  We were quite disappointed...until we discovered that the elephants were actually on display for people to feed them.  It was a little sad to see them all chained up, but I loved feeding them vegetables.  Austin was a little scared (but, as you'll see in a later post, he eventually fed an elephant himself).

Thailand: Bored to Death Having Fun

There's a mall just a quick golf cart ride from my parent's house.  It has 6 floors and is filled with all variety of stores (from upper-end to the kind you barter at), a movie theater, karaoke rooms, tons of restaurants, and some pretty sweet arcade rides.

I'd been trying to get Austin on a normal nap routine and really needed to keep him up for at least one more hour.  He was completely exhausted, so we decided to distract him with those pretty sweet arcade rides.

And as promised in my previous post, you won't find one smiling, or even somewhat happy-looking, face on him in these pictures.  I kept thinking that maybe he was just unimpressed with the rides, but when each ride ended he would  beg to go again.

I just chalked it up to his tiredness, but who really knows.  I know they're all a little redundant, but these were the best ones.  At least maybe you can enjoy a little chuckle out of them...

Maybe that very last one has a hint of a smile???

Thailand: Around and About

As with childbirth, our laborious journey was totally worth it.  Since we arrived, we've been having the time of our lives enjoying the warm weather and the love of my family.

It took Austin at least the first full week to adjust to sleeping here (he even ran a 102 degree fever for a few days), so we kept our activities fairly low key to help him catch up on his missed sleep.

My mom (Austin's Nana) has taken Austin out for a jog nearly every morning.  I know it gives her quite the workout pushing the stroller in the hot, humid weather, but Austin absolutely loves it.

My family has to have a native driver to get them around outside of their community (all the signs are in Thai and if they were to get in an accident the protocol is that "the white people pay"...no matter what).  It's quite nice to be able to sit back, relax and let someone else worry about the traffic.  Carseats are unheard of over here (though we do have Austin ride in one) and only the front passenger and driver are required to wear a seatbelt.  So, last week when we were headed home from the Zoo (post to come) and stopped in city traffic, my mom let Austin check out the sunroof.

When the driver is gone, we're limited to only a couple other modes of transportation: bikes and a golf cart.  As you would imagine, Austin loves them both.

My dad bought an infant seat for one of the bikes so we can drive him around.  Isn't he so cute in his little helmet (also optional)?  I've taken him on a few long bike rides (as has Nana, as you can see) and whenever we get back he always says "go." He just can't get enough of it.

I bet you're wondering why he looks so grumpy when all I've sworn is that he absolutely loves riding on the bike.  It's nearly impossible to get this boy to smile at the camera anymore.  Just you wait until I blog about our trip to the fun kiddie rides at the mall....imagine dozens of pictures of the saddest little boy you've ever seen on a carousel.

But the crème de la crème is the golf cart. Austin could probably ride on it for hours at a time. We have to take turns taking him out throughout the day (this time it was Aunt La La's). It's a pretty convenient way to check out all the parks throughout the community though.

Note,mostly for my husband will see this and worry that our son will turn into a "pansy": He doesn't usually wear his helmet on the golf cart.  He had just finished a bike ride and demanded a golf cart ride before bed. Could you say "no" to that face?

 And, speaking of parks, we've sure spent our fair share of time at them lately. Austin is turning into a little thrill seeker.

Thailand: The Arrival

Well, it's official, we are never coming home.  Never.  And you probably think it's because Thailand is so breathtakingly exotic that I could picture myself living here for the rest of my days.  It is, but we are never coming home because I will NEVER get on an airplane with Austin again.  Never. It may have even been worse than childbirth.

The first leg of the flight, from Seattle to Taipei, is 13 hours.  We were an hour late taking off (after we had already boarded the plane), which made it really 14 hours.  Austin slept for 4.  Yes, FOUR of those hours.  And it is nearly impossible to keep a toddler busy on a crowded airplane for TEN hours.  If someone had given me the option to jump off of that airplane I probably would have done it.  I brought tons of think to entertain him, including a DVD player, and lots of snacks.  It was all totally useless.  He did want to do anything but run around.  Needless to say, we spent a lot of time in and around the bathrooms and walking up and down the aisles.  It was brutally painful, but we survived that leg.

Our layover in Taipei was a little stressful because Austin was so incredibly exhausted that he had a million times more energy than normal.  Luckily we found a nice Hello Kitty play place that he ran around on for a good hour.  The next flight, from Taipei to Bangkok was only 3.5 hours and he slept for 2.5 of those.  I didn't sleep during either of the flights, but I was finally able to enjoy the in-flight meal and watch The Help (amazing, by the way).

After our 22-hour trek we were finally reunited with my family.  I admit, I bawled my eyes out in relief and exhaustion.  But it was over and I had a month of upper 80-degree weather days to look forward to.