A Thai Hi!

We've now been in Thailand for over a week.  We've made our way from northern Chiang Mai to central Bangkok and are continuing to work our way south.  It's been fun to experience a culture quite different from the previous ones, experimenting with new foods and all things Thai.

Here are some of our highlights:

Songthaews are the vehicle of choice in much of Thailand and work out great for our family of six, especially when we have our luggage with us.  We were transported from the airport by this cute couple who worked in tandem:  he drove and she wore the fanny pack with the money.

Chiang Mai was a huge change for us.  It's filled with lots of tourists and backpackers so it was refreshing to blend in a little more.  This was also about the first time we started to hear American accents.

We visited the "sticky" waterfalls.  The rocks have a lime deposit on them that makes it easy to climb up.

This family was on holiday from northern Thailand.  We were amazed at what a Thai picnic looks like!

We stopped for lunch at a very local place near the waterfalls.  One of their offerings was a "feathery" egg--they steam an egg after the chick is partially formed.  Even Mike wouldn't try that one!  

This was our room in Chiang Mai--together, yet separate.

We went to a night market and ate at this food stall after.

Trina was pretty successful with the chopsticks!

And in Chiang Mai, I was able to cross "Thai massage" off my bucket list!  Women imprisoned for minor crimes, nearing release, are able to be trained in massage.  We went to a place where these women are hired after their release.  The girls and I each got a massage.  Someone described Thai massage as yoga where someone else makes your body do the movements.  There was some traditional massage but then she would crack all my knuckles and stretch my body around.


From Chiang Mai, we took a bus south to Sukhothai, which is considered the first capital of Thailand. The place we chose for dinner after arriving made for one of our funniest experiences.  This was our menu--no English, no pictures:

We asked around but no one knew English, except one brave girl who gave us all the words she could--noodle, rice, meatballs, fish.  At least now we knew some of the offerings.  But we still couldn't figure out the process for ordering.  Other people were waiting in line to order but the man told us to sit--and we sat and we sat.  Finally Faith suggested we just go tell them what we want and that's what she did (she's hidden behind Mike, among the staff, pointing out the ingredients that we want!).  We ended up with a really good noodle soup :)

The next day we tackled Sukhothai Historical Park.  There is a large area containing numerous ruins and temples so the modus operandi is to bike around the area.  Thinking back to the day, I just start to giggle.  It was SO HOT!  Yes, I realize that may be rubbing it in to all you snowbound people, but it was SO HOT--93 degrees+!  And the girls were so grumpy about more temples.  And the bikes were pieces of junk.  And many of the people biking around may very well have been trying it for the first time.

Mike and I appreciated the beauty of the place...

...and some impressive architecture.

And this is how the girls spent much of the day!

Sukhothai is also the first place a tooth was lost (I'm assuming there will be others)

As expected, the tooth fairy delivers baht when in Thailand

From Sukhothai we continued to Bangkok by overnight bus.  It was a rough arrival at 4 a.m.--impossible to find a vehicle big enough for the 6 of us, then took a long time to get settled in two taxis, then were informed halfway to our place that *someone* had left her phone on the bus, so another taxi right back to the bus station, and (what I consider another amazing blessing from God) the phone was found!

In Bangkok we had our first hostel experience and it was a really good one.  We had a six bunk room to ourselves and the hostel served all you can eat coconut ice cream in their common area!

While here, we were able to Facetime the Lanser cousins during their ice fishing weekend.

We had one day in Bangkok and we made the most of it.  We took a canal boat into central Bangkok, did some walking around and eventually ended up on Khao San Rd., known as one of the original backpacker hangouts.  This is where the girls got their long-awaited fish spa.  They say it feels like when your feet fall asleep.

Bangkok is known for its glitzy, huge malls (and it was our anniversary), so we ended our day with dinner and a movie at the biggest and glitziest of them all.

Outside the mall, this Chinese New Year show was being performed.  The start was delayed until apparently they ushered in some Thai royal.

Fun to see Bangkok, but we were ready to leave the hassles of the big city.  This time we chose a train to take us to Hua Hin, on the eastern coast of Thailand.

The train station

Traveling third class, non a/c was the cheap way to go and gave us more of the Thai experience.  The open windows kept it bearable.

As I type this, we're relaxing on a beautiful beach just south of Hua Hin.  Southern Thailand is known for its beaches and islands, so we're hoping to visit two or three as we make our way south to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sri Lanka Wrap Up

 I'm falling behind in my posting!  We're now in Thailand, but we won't soon forget Sri Lanka.  Mike has a friend who lives in Colombo and kept encouraging us to visit for its beautiful beaches.  We were certainly not disappointed--in the beaches or in the rest of this beautiful country.

My one disappointment is that I couldn't find my Sri Lanka Starbucks mug here!

Sri Lanka is usually romantically referred to as the teardrop of India, but I'm proud of my Dutch ancestors who replaced that silly nickname with a much more practical one:




This was kind of a soft exit from India.  Many things in the country are similar to India, but with a Sri Lankan flair.  As the Asians would say "Same same, but different".

In my last post, I mentioned our time first in the hill country of Kandy and then in the east coast beach town of Passekudah.  From there we traveled further down the east coast to one of the top surf spots in the world--Arugam Bay.

The view of our cabanas from the beach.

A nice shady spot in the daytime--with its porch and hammock...

And cozy at night too--if we could just get those pesky mosquitoes to stay away.

Yet another beautiful beach discovery

Rihan ran the cabanas where we stayed.  For some strange reason, the girls were immediately excited about the place Mike had chosen for us :).  The place was very low key in the off season and he was also the chef for most of our meals, so we had lots of time to talk with him about Sri Lankan life.

This little bread truck comes by each day and Rihan would just buy what he needed.

Our 2+ weeks went by so quickly and it was time to travel back to Colombo.  Even though it's a much bigger city, we enjoyed it more than we thought we would.  We had dinner at a Sri Lankan restaurant with an uncle of an acquaintance--he spends 6 months in Toronto and 6 months in Sri Lanka.  And then we connected with Mike's friend and his family for lunch the following day.

Galle Face Green is a well known beachfront walkway in Colombo.

On a Sunday evening, nearly all of Colombo was here!

Mike's friend Suranga, his wife Lakshika and family.  Very fun to be able to meet his family.

And I try my best to ignore these, but it's SO HARD:**

Sri Lanka, you're killin' me!!

**Disclaimer:  Let me be very clear that if I were trying to write anything in Sinhala it would be so much worse, so please know I do this in fun!

On a more serious note, whenever we travel to a less familiar place I'm struck by the hardships that have happened that we haven't a clue about.  Two life-changing events for any Sri Lankan, which we heard about frequently, were the tsunami in 2004 and the civil war which lasted for 30 years and just ended about 5 years ago.

Three quarters of the island coastline was significantly damaged by the 2004 tsunami.  A train traveling to Colombo was hit by the wave and 1000 people died.  Island-wide, there were 31,000 fatalities.  Many people on the east coast told us very matter-of-factly about the people in their families who had died in the tsunami.  One man was 11 at the time and lost 18 of his classmates.

The civil war was fought between the Sri Lankan army and a rebel group, the Tamil Tigers.  There are basically two groups of people in Sri Lanka--the Buddhist Sinhalese and the Muslim/Hindu Tamils (with some overlaps).  Sounds like the war was more cultural than religious, but the Tamils were feeling discriminated against and were fighting for a northern independent territory.  Passekudah, the more NE beach we stayed at, was being newly developed after being devastated by the tsunami and also much fighting that took place there.  There were some resorts previously but most were destroyed by the Tigers so the Sri Lankan army couldn't use them.

OK, already probably too much info, but this is just a nutshell of what we learned.

Next Up:  Northern Thailand

Surfin' Safari

Spent the night flying from Sri Lanka to Thailand and have just arrived in Chiang Mai.  I'll write more about our time in Sri Lanka, but a highlight was a surfing lesson.

And the bloopers: