Koh Samui

Some of the most beautiful beaches in the world are in Thailand. We knew that we wanted to include a Thai beach during our trip, we were just concerned that because we were going during the summer months we might encounter some rough weather. Not just rain but it can get fairly windy and if the water and tides were too rough, we wouldn't be able to go in the water, snorkel or even take a boat trip. We had read about lots of trips that are canceled during the summer because of rough weather or seas. Probably one of the most famous beaches is in Phuket. But Phuket being located on the coast is very susceptible to bad weather. So after a bit of research we decided to go to Koh Samui . Koh means island in Thai. It is in the Gulf of Thailand and a bit more sheltered. We could possibly encounter rain and wind but if there was a chance we wouldn't, it would be here.

We had an interesting flight to Koh Samui on Bangkok Airways. It was the first time the kids had ever been on a plane with a propeller. They were a little taken aback. Kiki & I were sitting next to each other on the plane. Right after they started the engine, I asked her if she had seen the guy go out there and start the propeller with his hand? It took her a moment before she realized I was kidding. Even though the plane was pretty small, it was an uneventful hour long flight. An hour long flight that included a meal. . . wait - don't get me started on those airlines again.

Samui is beautiful. As a family, we really love beautiful beaches, decent hotel rooms and great restaurants that are within walking distance of our hotel. Samui had all of those. Our hotel was really nice, the pool area was great with little cabanas available for those who needed some relief from the 100+ degree temps or didn't necessarily want worry about sand everywhere. I loved these little elephants at the pool that shot water all day long. When we weren't at the pool we spent time at the beach. The beach is where it is at in Thailand. You can lay there and soak up the rays, drink fancy "umbrella" drinks from the bar, people and shop!! Perfect day. You don't even have to go to the stores, the vendors come right to you. Dresses, t-shirts, massages, jewelry. What's not to love. This is the view from the chaise lounge. One of the nicer things about traveling with teenagers (and quite frankly, one of the annoying things) is that they have in their mind what they would like to do and sometimes that doesn't coordinate with what you want to do. Chizz and I were really up for a snorkle trip, but Kiki & Snake were not feeling it. Kiki wanted more sun time and she has never been wild about snorkeling and Snake was a bit concerned about jelly fish. So Chizz and I went to Koh Tao, a short 1 1/2 hour boat trip away. We left them at the hotel with strict orders about how much they could order on their room tab. They are actually pretty responsible and we have never had a problem with that, which makes me proud. It was kind of nice. Since our nest is close to emptying soon, we are envisioning what our life will be like in a few years without the kids. If we use this trip as a guide, it will include daiquiris, snorkeling, beer and boat trips! Sign me up. Here are some photos from our trip.







So Koh Samui certainly hit the "beach" spot. That isn't to say we didn't have a spot of rain here and there. Like most tropical locations, Koh Samui can have short, incredibly powerful rain showers for about 45 minutes or so. Then it clears up and it is absolutely beautiful. The rain also cools it down a bit. We can heartily recommend Koh Samui. Next stop, Cambodia!!

Five Nights in Bangkok (and the World's Our Oyster)

Bangkok was the first stop on our Asia trip, and our third and our fifth! We stayed a few days and then used Bangkok as our base when we went on some other trips. What makes Bangkok interesting is that it is both a big city and small village at the same time, a paradox of sorts. There are many different angles to this city and we got to see just about all of them. This photo represents some of the different sides of Bangkok, where we see a religious building in the center, in the forefront a small river house, and in the background a more modern office building. Multi-dimensional.

Whenever we have travel involving crossing more time zones than you can keep track of, we like to try and emerge ourselves in whatever time zone we are in at the moment. So that meant the minute we got to our hotel, we dropped our bags and went right out to explore the city. Bangkok is built on a river, the Chao Phraya and there are many canals that branch off it. We decided that we would take a boat tour down the river and through the canals, sort of an overview. It was a great introduction to the city, the culture and some of the things we had in store for us over the next few days.











The next morning we went over to the Grand Palace complex. In addition to the palace itself, there is quite a bit to look at in the complex, many statues, buildings - all incredibly ornate. The Palace isn't used as a royal residence any longer but quite a few of
the ceremonial events and royal rituals (coronations, weddings, funerals etc.) are still held here. And as with any palace, no matter how ceremonial, there are guards to make sure that everyone stays where they are supposed to and doesn't touch anything they aren't supposed to. Apparently these guards are ceremonial too, as we noticed there was no ammunition clip in the gun. I guess they don't expect any trouble!!

The palace grounds are full of statuary, each more interesting than the next. Looking at some of the statues I think I see an inspiration for some Disney characters. Don't some of these guys look Disneyesque?






Also on the temple grounds is the Wat Pra Kaew. Basically, a wat is a monastery temple complex in Thailand, Cambodia or Laos. In its strictest definition a complex can only be called a wat if it has a minimum of 3 resident monks. No trio of monks, no wat. However, over the years the term has been used to generically describe just about any temple in these countries, sometimes even temple ruins in which obviously no one lives. We saw many, many, many wats (both real and faux) in our almost 3 weeks here. Much like churches and temples, I am fascinated by them. This particular wat housed a very famous Buddha statue, the Emerald Buddha, thought to be nearly over 2000 years old. There are very strict rules when visiting a wat; usually no speaking, no shoes, you are not supposed to stand in the presence of the Buddha, you can either sit or kneel and when you are sitting or kneeling, the heels of your feet cannot face the Buddha. It is considered a huge insult to show the bottom of your feet. It is really tricky to sit down "Indian style" or crossed leg and not point one of your feet to the Buddha. You have to be pretty aware. This particular wat did not allow photography inside so I had to take the photo outside of the temple doors, which explains the fuzzy focus. It is interesting to remember that while many of us are sightseeing and touring, these are still active places of worship for many local citizens. We came across quite a few people praying and making offerings to the Buddha. It is important to maintain a respectful distance while people are worshipping in the place we are traipsing through.

Pretty much right next door to the palace complex is Wat Pho. It is one of the oldest wats in Thailand and houses the very famous (and very large) Reclining Buddha. Wat Pho is also the original birthplace of Thai massage and even before its founding in 1788, it was center for Thai medicine. You can still see some tablets on the walls that depict different muscles and bones in the human body. The reclining Buddha itself is pretty amazing. It is about 150 ft long, approximately half a football field long.a The bottoms of its feet are inlaid with mother of pearl.

Bangkok is a city struggling with its image. It has so many incredible historic and religious sites yet it is quite well known for it's tawdry side. In the evening we went by several bars that seemed only to have Western men as their clientele, apparently waiting for special "company". We often saw much older, less attractive men with very, very (very) young beautiful women. Chizz and I had quite a few discussions on whether these were two adults indulging in consenting behaviours or examples of desperate people being taken advantage of, on both sides. We never solved it. One evening, late, we were walking back to our hotel(remember,every vacation with Chizz contains at least one leg numbing walk or most likely several) and we walked past a bus stop. Snake pointed out that there seemed to be quite a few people waiting for the bus that evening. When we looked over, we saw probably about 20 mostly young women, in very short skirts and even higher heels. They could have been waiting for a bus, but I don't think so.

One evening we went to Cabbages & Condoms, a local restaurant in Bangkok. It is owned by the former minister of health in Thailand. A percentage of the profits are given to a non-profit organization that promotes birth control, aids awareness, rural development, and environmental conservation. While I think the food is passable, it's decent,not knock your socks gourmet, but good, you don't really go there for the food you go there for the other stuff. Such as "condom man", this man in a suit made of condoms! I am not sure what his super powers are, or at least I don't want to think about it.



They even used condoms in decoration, like this tabletop.


Or this lamp.


They also give out lots of free condoms. In very inventive ways.





If you have older kids, it is definitely worth a trip. If you have younger kids, unless you want to explain LOTS of things, you might want to save it for another time.

All in all, we enjoyed Bangkok and learned something from all of its various aspects. Next stop! Island hopping!!

Asia, Part One!

I have been dithering in my mind the best way to go about documenting our Asian Adventures in a logical fashion, when the trip itself was a bit scattered. When you travel on frequent flyer miles (thank you very much Chizz and Chizz's company) you fit your travel ideas into the limited frequent flyer allotted seats on each flight. So when we booked our main tickets to Bangkok and Hong Kong so many, many months ago, we hadn't really fleshed out our entire trip. We knew we wanted to go to a beach in Thailand, we weren't sure which one. We wanted to try and fit in a trip to Cambodia but we were uncertain whether to fly or go by some other method or really whether it was safe because of rising tensions between Thailand and Cambodia (it was). We ended up using Bangkok as our base and we went back and forth from there. Bangkok to Koh Samui (the beach) back to Bangkok. A few days more in Bangkok, then Bangkok to Cambodia back to Bangkok again. We wanted to go to Hong Kong, we knew, but ended up staying a bit longer because of the frequent flyer situation. So rather than tell a completely chronological story, I think I will break it down a bit by location.

But before I do that, let me tell you a bit about the actual travel. As I mentioned, Chizz had a gazillion frequent flyer miles. When we were booking the trip, we tried to do the whole thing business class but at that time the airline would only allow 2 FF mile seats awarded in business class per flight. So although we had enough miles and the seats were available, we had a quandary because there were 4 of us flying. I have loads of friends that routinely travel in business class and put their kids in coach. I just couldn't do that, Chizz was silent on the matter, so we all flew coach. It took us about an hour to book it over the phone. We booked on the phone because we had multiple locations and it was fairly complicated. When we finished, we ended up with a route that looked like this:

Leaving: We went from San Francisco to Singapore, 5 hour layover in Singapore and then Singapore to Bangkok, all on Singapore Airlines. Our trip from Bangkok to Hong Kong was on Thai Airways.

Returning: We went from Hong Kong to Vancouver on Air Canada (more about them later) and then from Vancouver to San Francisco on United.

In Between: We flew from Bangkok to Koh Samui and Cambodia both times on Bangkok Airways (more about them later but simply said my FAVORITE airline of the entire trip)

Okay, when we arrived at the airport in SF we found that our flight was actually going to make a short itsy, bitsy stop in Korea which we hadn't known about before. The kids were excited, hoping to get a Korea stamp in their passport (they didn't) but I was thinking that it would make the flight longer which is just what we needed since it was already about 30 hours of travel time. Actually it was just fine, we were just there long enough to get off the plane and stretch our legs, walk a bit and get right back on.

Let me say a thing or two or twenty seven about Asian Airlines in general. I think I am qualified now because I flew 3 different Asian airlines during this trip. They are flippin' phenomenal. You don't realize the difference in service between American based airlines and Asian based airlines until you have experienced it. And I am not talking about the ingratiating, over-the-top, somewhat annoying in your face kind of service. I am talking about genuinely nice flight attendants. The attitude was "I am glad-you-are-here-because-I-recognize-without-passengers-taking these-flights, I-wouldn't-have-a-job" kind of nice. I didn't see one attendant lose his or her cool during the entire 14 hour first leg of our trip. In fact I didn't see any attendant lose their cool or speak in any kind of a snippy tone until we were flying back. Every single flight we took on an Asian Airline served a meal of some kind and free drinks. Every single one, the 14 hour flight, the 5 hour flight, the 3 hour flights and the 4 slightly less than one hour flights we took. Some of the meals were more elaborate, some were sandwiches. But the point is every one of them served a meal, at no extra cost. And even though we didn't pay for the longer legs of our journey, we did pay for the shorter flights to Koh Samui and Cambodia. I know the price points, and they were right in line with what we pay in the US for short hops. In fact a few of them were cheaper.

This is the part whereI had inserted my rant on US airlines and unions and such but I have changed my mind about including it. I have already ranted so much about this in the past few weeks, that my kids start convulsing when they hear me go off. And I already bored just about every member of my family with this story one, two or maybe 16 times. So I am going to leave it alone. However - if you would like to hear it, give me a call I will be happy to go on, and on and on about it!!

When we were coming home, flying on Air Canada, I had a rude reminder that we weren't on an Asian airline anymore, Toto. It was about 2 hours before we were to land and the flight attendants were serving breakfast. I had noticed one woman sitting in front of me, kitty cornered. I noticed her because for a majority of the flight, she had her laptop out and was working on her photos of the trip and her photos were beautiful. I don't think she was a professional photographer but she was sorting them, deleting the duds, etc and I enjoyed watching the show. She had a set of headphones on that I have seen people wear before, the noise cancelling ones that have pretty big ear pieces. So the flight attendants were coming through and offering people their choice of eggs or congee. Congee is a sort of loose, milky, soup like rice porridge or cereal kind of thing. We saw it in just about every hotel we stayed at. Not my cup of tea but since this flight had about 90% Asians on it, quite a few of the passengers were making that choice. The photo woman didn't hear the flight attendant because of her head phones, so he tapped her on the shoulder and kind of gave her a "what do you want" look. The woman took off her head phones and said "excuse me?" and the flight attendant yelled "EGGS OR CONGEE, WHAT DO YOU WANT???" and I mean he yelled it at her, with such a nasty tone. She was embarrassed and I was embarrassed for her. The guy was a total jerk. Two rows up, one of the passengers asked what congee was. The same attendant said,very sarcastically, "some kind of Asian crap cereal" and rolled his eyes. All in full view. I was mortified. Even if this guy had had the worst possible day, it was no excuse for his attitude. I think it is very typical of the western flight attendant attitude: "You-are-so-lucky-I-am-here. It's-not-about-the-passenger,-if-you-are-lucky-I-might-allow-you-to-buy-a-$7-bottle-of-cheap-wine-from-me. But-only-one-don't-ask-for-another! " Or something like that.

Okay, that turned into a mini-rant - sorry. The flight over went pretty smoothly, although it was pretty long. I think the kids said we were traveling about 30 hours and that was about right. The toughest part was the Singapore layover. This is one of the nicest airports ever, it includes a swimming pool, about 50 restaurants, quite a few shops etc. We were there 5 hours, but it was from 2 am to 7 am so nothing was open. So close yet, so far. We did see the Butterfly Habitat, which we could walk through. I tried to take a photo but my lens fogged up. So we hunkered down in some pretty comfortable chairs next to the Koi pond. Easily the biggest Koi I have ever seen in my life. But I thought what was really funny was the sign next to the Koi pond, warning you in order (1) Don't try swimming with the Koi (2) Don't feed the Koi and (3) Don't try to catch or eat the Koi. Really? I can see that people might try and feed the koi but have they really had problems with people trying to swim or catch the Koi? Wow!

There was also free internet and terminals at the airport, so the kids and I surfed and sent emails while Chizz caught up on some sleep. At one point we were all kind of sleeping except for Kiki, who, which should be a surprise to no one who knows her, was still kind of playing around on the internet. The police approached her and she was ordered to show her passport, her ticket on the upcoming flight and the ticket for the flight we just took. Of course she had to come over to us, police in tow. They also checked our documents as well. It was interesting. Chizz thought they did this because the airport is open 24 hours and Singapore isn't too keen on vagrants sleeping in the airport. We noticed them asking for papers from everyone in the seating areas next to us as well, sometimes waking folks up to see their documents.

After 5 hours, we were on the plane to Bangkok. Uneventful flight. The nice thing about a 12 hour flight is that is makes 3-5 hour flights seem like a piece of cake. Which they are!

So next report, Bangkok!!

Home, Sort Of.

Okay, we made it home last night but we are wiped by the travel. Or at least Chizz & I are, old people have a harder time rebounding. So I will catch up the blog as soon as I download the photos and can stay up past 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon (OMG- Do you think I have crossed over to the "wake-up-at-4:45-a.m.-go-to-sleep-at-4:30-p.m." type of old person now that I have reached that birthday? Maybe I will never go back?? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!)

Anyhoo, here's a little commercial that we love in our family to amuse you until I get my act together. If I get my act together. . . . .

Wat You Said???

So sorry WTFers to be away from the blog for so very long. It has been so very crazy here. Kiki graduated from high school earlier this month and the hoopla surrounding that event has taken up just about every moment of my existence over the past few months! And besides that I haven't really had much to say. But feeling refreshed, I am going to try and comment more often, for my own sanity rather than anything else!

Right now, the WTF family is in Thailand. I may have hinted that this was a momentous year for us. The aforementioned graduation, the previously mentioned 25th wedding anniversary and the never to be mentioned again birthday I will be celebrating in a few weeks. So Chizz and I decided we should do something special. We cashed in quite a few of the frequent flyer miles and booked our trip. 30+ hours of flying later and we land in Bangkok. We had a few days to see some of the sites there when we moved on to Koh Sumai, a wonderful little island nearby. I will blog in detail later with pictures. So far my first impression, there are quite a few temples (wats) in Thailand. I have also discovered that in addition to my affinity for churches, which I dragged my family into every single one we came across in Europe, I kind of like wats as well. So we will be seing quite a few of those.

I promise to blog all about our trip when we return in about two weeks or so! Until then, hugs!

Wendy and Her Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I had a very bad day today. Not anything particularly life threatening, but just a yucky day. I spent about two hours today with my phone company, trying to pay my bill. Shouldn't be that hard, right? After all I signed up right away for the paperless billing. Supposed to be easier and good for the environment as well. Every month, my phone company sends me an email telling me my bill is ready for payment. Usually I go to the website, put in my ID name and password in and my bill pops up on the screen. A quick click on the pay button and it is all done.

Except today. Couldn't get in the website. It didn't like my ID name or my password. Tried changing my password, that didn't work. Signed out of my browser, tried it all over again. Still wouldn't work. So I did what I thought I should, called the company. That is where the frustration set in. I explained my situation to the operator. She transferred me to the correct department. Not really. The department I got was in Texas and apparently since I am in California, the Texas folks can't log in to see my account. So she transferred me to the correct department. Not really, again. I got the internet department. My phone company also has internet service. So she transferred me to another department. Not really. Actually I think she just transferred me to the department again, her own department!!! But not knowing that again, I explained my problem. This operator seemed particularly focused on my email address, finally telling me that I couldn't do the online billing without an address from their company. What??!!?? I lost control and demanded to speak with a supervisor, who listened to my ranting for a few minutes. Then told me the best solution to my problem would be to go online and use their email system to email a request for help. Unbelievable. The long and short, but actually the long and very long, of my story is that I was transferred I think 8 times. I lost count. It was minimally 8 times, perhaps 9. I NEVER received a solution to my problem. I received another supervisor who told me he would check into and have someone call me tomorrow. By this time, I was pretty much beaten down so I agreed.

So, I am a little hesitant to mention the name of this company but it rhymes with AT&T (oops, sorry but not really). It is unbelievable to me that a company the size of AT&T couldn't handle this question. It seems really simple to me. I probably need to get my password or ID name re-set in some manner. But I couldn't get through the maze of AT&T bureaucracy to find that department. No one seemed to know where to send me, so they just sent me. I don't have any confidence I will get a call tomorrow so I think I will have to go at this again next week.

After all of this, I went to our local grocery store chain to pick up some stuff for dinner. I don't usually like going on this day because it is senior citizen day, all seniors get a 5% discount on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those seniors really like their discounts so the store is usually much busier on that day. But I have to go because for some reason, my unreasonable kids like to eat EVERY day. I am kind of beat, watching the young 22-23ish checker check my items through. Then I notice it. He gave me the senior citizen discount!!! I am outraged! But you want to know the worst part? I didn't say a thing, I took it - the whole $1.87. I would like to think that I don't look quite senior citizenish yet but I believe that my experience with AT&T this afternoon aged me. I just hadn't realized how much!

Deja Vu All Over Again

Kiki left this morning for 5th grade camp. Wait, a minute - - what year is it? Isn't she going to college next fall (hopefully?)? Yes, yes she is but this week she is returning to her elementary school alma mater to serve as a camp counselor for 5th grade camp. All of the 5th graders in our town go away for 5 days to a camp where they learn all kinds of things about nature and science. Kiki and Snake both went when they were in 5th grade, what seems like a million years ago. Seniors in the local high school can apply to be counselors for the week. Ever since Kiki went in 5th grade, she said she wanted to be a counselor her senior year and luckily enough she was chosen. So I drove her to the school parking lot this morning to get on the big bus to the camp. The bus blocked me in, so I had plenty of time to ponder all that was going on around me.

It really seems like forever ago that Kiki & Snake went to camp. Neither one of my kids were big on sleep away camp when they were younger. They just weren't ready. Now, I think they would sleep away all the time - if allowed! You could tell the kids that were a little nervous, clinging to their parents, not really joining in, not getting on the bus until the teacher absolutely made them. But for the most part, these kids will love the experience. I think Kiki will be sensitive to those kids. I guess 10 times more girls volunteer to be counselors than boys, so the girls are asked if they would be willing to take a boys cabin. Kiki definitely said she would. She felt glad that her experience with Snake would finally pay off in something!! I did give her a little refresher course in 5th grade boys; preparing her that they most likely won't shower if given a chance; forewarning her to be on the lookout for when they when they antagonized the girls and the teachers; reminding her that this was the one opportunity that her "outside voice" could be put to good use and encouraging her to let them have fun within reason and to be a good counselor, not a stick in the mud! I think she will be a great counselor.

So as all the kids were filing onto the bus, I saw Kiki look up and spy my car still here. She rushed over. I thought to myself, "maybe she is coming back for one last hug, one more goodbye or tender word". She opened the door, leaned in and said "Mom, don't beat my WII Fit Scores."

It brought a tear to my eye.