Bangkok, then home for Christmas

First night in Bangkok, we met up with our friend Patinee at the highest restaurant in the city.

Unique dinner experience.  Street vendor meets buffet meets dim sum.  Also, they gave us a bonus rebate if we ate all the food we ordered.  What a great idea, and good food too.  Anyway, great experience!

Ready for what Bangkok has to offer!

The next day we headed off for some touring.  The boys picked up some sunglasses the night before.

You must cover up when entering the palace grounds.  Both shoulders and knees!

Statue outside of the temple.  As I recall this is a demon from Thai mythology.

View of the temple, very ornate.  I some some jade and mother of pearl inlay work that was stunning.  Unfortunately, no pictures allowed inside!

The old palace, now basically used for foreign dignitary visits.

Ro was the only one up for a photo op with the royal guards.  He's always game when the king is involved.

Whew, it was a hot one!!!

Love it.

We hopped on a long tail boat after the palace.  Note the size of the engine driving it!

View of a passing long tail.

Monitor lizard sunning itself.  Four or five feet at least.  There were two more under the trees.

As long as it can hold up the satellite, the home improvements can wait.

Gambling?  Hmm, wonder how much he lost before the clothes came off???

Punks or monks, you be the judge...

There was a collection of royal barges we thought was really cool.

Reid shown for scale.

Laundry, about $.38 per pound.  That's what I'm talking about.

Thai boxing gym.  Just on the side of an alley, no doors.  In other words, the real deal.

The boys weren't all that excited about the class as it was very hot.  That all changed when the hand wrapping began.  And yes, I was keenly aware the little guy could whip me without much effort.

Front and center, Ro and Riley were really into it.

Want to know what an "overhand elbow" tastes like?  Yeah, that's what I thought.

Fear this.

After an hour and a half (including a few minutes in the ring).

Next day we hit JJ market with another couple of friends.  Spent and having spent, we needed a massage.

Upon pointing this picture out, my friend stated the obvious that it beats the opposite.

I like the sentiment here.

Returning home, we learned first hand the difference between 35 degrees Celsius and 35 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Sweet gift from a friend commemorating our Chiang Mai time.

The next day: Christmas fritatta.  Chorizo, potato, roasted red peppers.  These are a few of my favorite things.

Sporting the Thai ties for church.

Nice little tiny tree.  Nothing like opening gifts on New Years Day!

Patinee came to China not too long ago with a few gifts for the boys.  These are now wardrobe staples.

Except the hair, he is all business.

A few days after returning home I get the following text from a friend and neighbor:  "After about 10 minutes taking tree decorations down, he [Rowan] looks up at me sincerely:  'Oh this is hard work, I think I need a massage.'"  Two hours later:  "My dad always sends me for massages because they are healthy, especially with fruit."  Yeah, Rowan's lifelong addiction to massage has begun.  Join the club son, join the club.

Chiang Mai, Thailand - Part 2

While in Chiang Mai Christmas week, we were able to do some traditional holiday things - not!  First up, fishing for the mighty Giant Mekong Catfish.

Here's Reid ready to land the big one.

OK, so it was more than he bargained for.  This was better, brace strapped on and seated.

Booyah!

Booyah #2!

"Daddy, can I have another cookie pleeeeeeease?"

Ro's turn.

Yes, it was bigger than him and weighed more!

Riley's was too.

Afternoon spent walking around, love the "Merry Christmas", now let's watch people pummel each other.

We decided to hit a night market, which ended up being too crowded, and a bit overwhelming, for our crew after a long day.

Waffles for dinner though.

These ornaments were yarn wrapped tennis balls, pretty cool!

Christmas Eve morning, we "unwrapped" the big present.

Kick the tires (or basket) and light the fires!

Almost ready...

Dawn over Chiang Mai.

Another balloon being blown up below us.

Merry Christmas!

Bec snuck this one on me, I didn't see it until I downloaded pictures.

They let the boys help pack up the balloons.

For the second balloon, they let the boys guide it on to the tarp as they let the air out.

Jumping right in there!

The drive from the rice field back to the launch site.

Receiving our certificates!

Off to play with tigers.  Ro refused to touch the cub, and I couldn't bear the thought of him not getting the most of the experience.  So here I am shielding his hand in case of an attack.

Merry Christmas!

These were actually some of the favorite parts of the whole trip for the kids.  About $1.5 per 10 minutes.  Wish I'd have know that before the balloon ride.

Massage #2 of the trip.

Someone fell asleep.

Ready for our Thai cooking lesson.

Prepping the steamed fish.  The boys have hours of video to put together, maybe at some point we will have it all edited into one movie...

Christmas Day was a smelly one: on an elephant.  Overall, we were surprised at how hard they were hitting the animals to get them to obey.  It wasn't terrible, but we did feel uncomfortable.  I'm guessing it was because the elephants were bored, walking the same route every day, so the handlers were using discipline to encourage them.

Trying to sneak a bit of sugar cane, which we had for motivation.  One thing I noted was that they didn't have sores or anything like that under the chain, hopefully indicating treatment was OK.

How can I sneak her through customs?  Rebecca trying to bargain for souvenirs in a hill tribe village.

Interesting foot bridge.

Now this is a real bridge!  Right out of Indiana Jones!

During the day we stopped by a waterfall to relax.  I love the interaction between Reid and Ro in this picture.

Picture taken from a raft.  Hopefully these are pump houses, sucking water instead of depositing something else...

I thought it interesting that they disassembled the rafts to get them back upriver.

Upon arriving back to the guest house, our sweet hosts presented us with a Thai lantern.  Basic premise is to send your wishes to heaven.  We were amazed at how fast it rose in the cool night air.

The next day I wanted to get another data point on the elephant treatment.  So, we headed out to an elephant rescue camp.  Let me just say the place was awesome.  Even the monks agreed and pulled out their electronics for pictures.  I don't get the "Milk" on the car behind them...

We all got to "hand" feed the elephants.

A baby trying to escape.  It was pretty cool seeing the mom grab him, pull him out of the fence, and then boot him away.  Cute stuff!  Overall, the jury is still out on the treatment issue.  I will say that these elephants did everything by voice command with gentle prods here and there.  My conclusion is that the elephants enjoyed the interactions and were highly engaged in this camp and that they were bored out of their minds in the other one.

At the umbrella factory.  I'm so proud.

Rowan thought it was cool, oh the power of big brother influence.

The boys were all bitten by the "must buy something everywhere we go" bug.  They tried and tried to get me to buy them an umbrella.  Almost got me on this one.

Here's a shot of the process.  Everything was done by hand.

We then went to a wood carving shop.  Here is a column where you can see the chalk outlines being converted into the sculpture.

An elephant of elephants.

Yeah, shame on me for A) not noticing the elephant had something other than a photo op on its mind, and B) zooming out to catch the full scene.  The subsequent pictures of Reid and Rowan are zoomed in, I can assure you.

Not wanting to leave you with that, here is a "surprise" from Riley's camera:

Seriously, I couldn't end with that!  Here's Reid with his thank you note to our new friends at Baanbooloo Guest House.  He drew our little house and Google translated a thank you note in Thai.  Yes, he is still available for marriage contract for those of you who have daughters.  The price is going up though!