The main objective: To go and visit our homestay student Khanoon, and her parents, in Bangkok.
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| Boarding the ferry from Koh Phanagan |
(I must give Bangkok Airways a mention, they changed our flight to an earlier one - no problem - to save us hanging round for a couple of hours, they provide enormous meals for short flights, and are the only airline I have ever been on which offer a selection of food and drinks in the departure lounges to all passengers.)
Since we anticipated spending quite a while in a car in Bangkok traffic over the next few days, we decided to catch a train from Bangkok airport to our hotel. It went smoothly, with one change, and it was quick. Some hauling of our one big bag was required (thanks Mike!) as a lift wasn't apparent at every flight of stairs, so we were glad to be traveling light for this leg of our trip. And our hotel was right next door to a station, so all very easy.
By midday we were checked into our hotel and were trying out the pool, which was surprisingly chilly compared to the water we had been in for the last week or so. We ventured out for some lunch and all had a bit of an afternoon nap to recover from the early start, then got ourselves a little bit smartened up, for pick up from the hotel at 5pm by Pairoj, Montatip and Khanoon.
We felt we knew Khanoon fairly well after having her to stay with us in Auckland for a month and I had a significant amount of email correspondence with Pairoj during her stay, and in planning our visit. So it was great to meet & see them in person. Our communication skills improved during the course of the few days we spent together but it was certainly a little stilted to begin with. We had only a few basic words of Thai, so we were completely reliant on their English, which was very good considering I don't think they have cause to use it very much.
(We were asked to call Montatip by her nickname Tip, although spelled Jib. And Khanoon is actually a nickname - Yanisa is her given name.)
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| About to embark on the river cruise with Pairoj, Montatip and Khanoon. |
To start our visit, Pairoj and Montatip invited us on a river cruise as a thank you for having their daughter to stay with us. It was a lovely evening - the boat was less traditional than some, drawing up to the dock with a Titanic refrain blaring out and the uniformed staff standing to attention saluting the shore - the kids loved it !
We had a buffet meal with a wide selection of Thai dishes, many of them quite spicy. We watched a Thai dance performance and then afterward sat outside to see the river-side sights of Bangkok lit up - The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew being the key ones - both are almost completely covered in gold, shining and bright. (Mike and I had toured around both of them on previous trips). It is so warm here in the evenings, even at 9pm with the breeze created by the boat, it was amply warm.
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| Wat Phra Keaw |
What a day we'd had ! It had started at 6am and we collapsed into bed about 11pm. We had been in two cars, a taxi, 2 trains, 2 boats and a plane ! And spent a lovely evening getting to know our delightful Thai hosts.
Pairoj and Montatip had kindly decided to take a day off work on Friday, so they picked us up around midday, and first up was lunch at a local noodle shop. Somewhere we would probably never have tried without prior knowledge - there were only about 4 things on the wall-menu, even if we could have read it. But smiling bravely we all discovered that while the plates put in front of us looked quite unfamiliar they tasted delicious. This restaurant is a favorite of theirs and I could see why - apparently the King's nephew dines there sometimes.
Conversations with Pairoj and Montatip made me realise how revered the King is here. His photo is everywhere, he does many, many good works, is progressive and a humanitarian. They talked about holding him in their heart and mind, Montatip said she would cry if she saw him, it is such an emotional connection they have with him. Pairoj, wishing to share his pride and love of his King, presented Mike with a 400 page hard cover book about his life and works.
After lunch we went and visited Khanoon's school - Chulalongkorn University Demonstration Elementary School. It is a large for a primary school, by our standards, with about 1200 pupils - about 30 students and 2 teachers in each class. It is 2 to 3 storey buildings, with most of the ground floor being open air, shaded space for assemblies, the school cafeteria and so on. The newer built classrooms have aircon, the older ones do not. The children are given milk at morning tea and lunch is provided also. Another difference with our NZ schools is that many children will hang around at school after classes finish, perhaps just for a short while, however apparently Khanoon would sometimes be there until 5 or 6pm when Pairoj finished work. We didn't actually see the school in progress as it was a holiday day.
I hadn't really appreciated what a prestigious school it is (THE school in Bangkok, I believe), there are about 200 children in each year group and about half of those are children of staff of the school or the University. The remaining 100 or so places are selected through an entrance exam, which about 3000 students take ! And they took a further selective test to be selected to come on the NZ exchange.
We also saw the Professor who had visited Remuera Primary School with the exchange, and had a conversation about the proposed reverse exchange. More on this at a later date.
Next on our itinerary was some shopping - MBK shopping mall - truly huge, and one of many. We were looking for a present for Matthew's birthday, an all important replacement for our camera battery charger (which we had left in NZ & my phone had died, so no photos for a day or so here), a few DVDs and Matthew wanted to spend some pocket money - which he did - on a car, with some good bargaining. The kids were most engaged when playing on the iPads in the Mac store and a huge ice cream sundae at Swensens - some things are constant whatever country you are in!
We had planned to go back to our hotel for a swim, however traffic from the annual University graduation ceremony had much of the area gridlocked, so we went direct to Chinatown. The children were very keen to have a tuktuk ride so the 7 of us we went around the block in 2 tuktuks - the drivers racing each other in and out of the cars - quite a hair raising experience. Montatip said she hadn't been in one for 20 years - I can see why as the fumes were quite horrendous in that traffic and the risk of an accident seemed quite high - I too would probably choose the calm, cool safety of a good car.
We wandered along the street of Chinatown sampling from various snack stalls - a fried long donut type thing (the name I have forgotten), which you dip in a sort of green jam. Also my first ever try of the fruit durian (famed for its sewer like smell), the taste itself was not unpleasant however it wouldn't be one of my favorite tropical fruits. We stopped in the busy street and sat at a kerbside table for a meal where Pairoj ordered various dishes including sharks fin soup which was another first. We had a discussion about the ethical issues surrounding this dish.
Just to explain the Chinese influence here - Pairoj's grandparents came from China.
Matthew, and Annabelle particularly, were rather disturbed by the beggars in this area. Many of whom had 2 or more limbs missing, and moved about on a sort of board with wheels. This was their first up close experience of such poverty and misfortune - Matthew came to terms with it all by giving them money, while Annabelle tried to look away.
Annabelle and Khanoon were loving their time together, after an initial shy start. Sharing the back seat of the 7 seater car, and holding hands as we wandered around. Matthew was enjoying having someone with more knowledge of Thailand than us to throw his multitude of questions at.
Another long day and we headed back to the hotel and bed.
The next day we had planned a daytrip together to Amphawa Floating market, then on Sunday we were planning to start our journey South again by catching a train down to Hua Hin, about 2 hours away. We hadn't been able to book this first leg of the train trip with the agent in Phangan, but with Pairoj's help in Bangkok we also discovered that while there were seats available, we could not get 4 sitting together. Pairoj then very kindly offered to drive us. However, we came up with another plan, that instead of this very long day for him - we would check out of the hotel a day early, go to Amphawa for the afternoon/evening and all travel on to Hua Hin after that. Mike would organize the hotel for us all to stay at in Hua Hin for the night and they would return to Bangkok on Sunday.
A testament, I think, to how much we were enjoying each other's company that we agreed to go 'on holiday' together !
So, on Saturday morning we packed up and checked out, but before we set off - more food ! Pairoj & Montatip took us to a Blood Group restaurant - which subscribes to the theory that your blood group should guide your diet. None of us could remember our blood group, so we just enjoyed the light, healthy meals made from good fresh produce. Then we were on the road for about 1 and 1/2 hours to Amphawa - this is the non-touristy floating market - or at least the non-farang (Westerner) tourist market - I think there were plenty of Thai tourists there.
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| Longtail boat on the Amphawa river |
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| One of the river-side Wat |
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| Mike enjoying the river |
We first took a longtail boat trip upriver to a visit two Wat i.e. Buddhist temples. Montatip talked and walked Annabelle and Matthew through each step of practising the appropriate simple rituals at one of the temples, which was completely enclosed within the trunk of a huge sacred tree. I didn't get the opportunity to fully understand what each step signified, but it involved removal of shoes, kneeling, lighting incense, gifting money, and shaking some fortune-telling sticks.
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| Choose your meal |
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| Barbecued seafood |
Then back on the boat to the small tributary (via a small and somewhat distressing 'zoo') which held the floating market. It was made up of a pathway along each side of the waterway with many shops and stalls alongside, and boats pulled up to the pathway all serving food to be eaten at tiny tables. Mike was very impressed by one of boats cooking up the biggest prawns on a grill that we had ever seen - at least 30cm long !
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| Vendors pass the food from the boat up the steps to the small waterside tables |
We wandered along, sampled various foods including some coconut ice cream - in a sundae created with the addition of chilled coconut flesh and peanuts, served in a coconut shell. Then we sat down to dinner - more food, right on the edge of the water - in fact we had to put adults at the end of the bench seats to avoid the likelihood of a child falling in. The sights, sounds, smells and atmosphere was amazing - I hope to have some great shots, especially as the sun was setting - it was voted our best day yet in Thailand.
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| Pairoj and Montatip |
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| Dinner at Amphawa floating market |
Sometime getting on for 8pm, we returned to the car for the drive south to Hua Hin and the children all fell asleep before we arrived about 10pm. So much time in the car over these few days was great for chatting and getting to know each other, so we were finding it easier and easier to communicate, and so much of that longer trip was spent on the advanced conversational topic of Thai politics and corruption !
We stayed in a lovely traditional small hotel, each room a bungalow with its own in tropical gardens, surrounding the pool. The manager had gone to school in NZ. I wished we had had longer there to enjoy it, but checked out again in the morning, as while we had another couple of nights in Hua Hin with just the 4 of us, we couldn't stay on at this place. However the kids managed a swim before we left, and for them, the hotel breakfast was memorable because it came with a pot of jelly and a mini-pack of cookies !
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| Khanoon and Annabelle in Hua Hin |
We spent the morning visiting a previous King's Summer Palace, which was interesting, to see a little of how the Thai royalty lived in the past. Before leaving the hotel. I had checked with Montatip that my shorts and top would be appropriate attire, and she had said it would be. However on arrival the staff thought otherwise and I had to don a sarong and shawl over the top - I was so hot the entire way round, that I have to admit I could not wait to leave ! We all hired bikes to make our way from the road to the palace gates and explored a little on nearby tracks which was great fun for all. Unfortunately they didn't have any Matthew's size, but the bikes had seats for passengers !
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| Annabelle biking with Mike and Matthew in the background |
We lunched (at 3pm) at a beachside restaurant with delicious food, the highlight was the tamarind prawns and our hotel had booked us into the aircon dining room which for me at that time, on that day, was bliss ! We checked into our new hotel and the girls had time for another swim before Pairoj, Montatip and Khanoon had to make a start on the drive back to Bangkok for school and work the next day.
Farewells were made, with tears from Annabelle and Khanoon. Khanoon apparently cried most of the way back to Bangkok. Annabelle's tears are much noisier so after a while I distracted them with an ice cream sundae.
As we said goodbye there was hope that we will meet again. Perhaps they will visit us on Kho Phangan before we leave, and perhaps Annabelle will take part in a reverse exchange from Remuera Primary School back to Thailand. At this point both are uncertain.
We had another 2 nights and a day in Hua Hin before catching the train further south to the port from which the boats go to Kho Samui and Kho Phangan. After a busy few days, we felt like we needed a quiet one, so we played on the beach, swam in the pool, had a 'family massage', did some shopping and some much needed laundry.
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| Soccer on the beach in Hua Hin - the ball we found is small, light and made of bamboo. |
Hua Hin is quite a big town (about 100,000) and is a weekend retreat for many Thais from Bangkok - so quite a lot of tourism, but mainly Thai tourism. The highlight was the night markets - selling all sorts of things, and with food available too.
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| The night market in Hua Hin |
The Sunday night market was quite the best we had been to - certainly the most attractive - being laid out around a park (rather than on a street), all the stalls under white canvas, and with several sparkling clean food stalls to choose a cooked-to-order meal from, and then take to eat at tables in the centre. I had my first try of green mango - I have a couple of recipes at home which call for green mango but have never had access to any, so have always used ripe mango. It is quite tart when green, and they dip it into a sticky, spicy shrimp sauce - an interesting combination of flavors !
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| Hua Hin train station |
On Wednesday morning we had been advised to be at the train station at least half an hour early, so we arrived via tuktuk (the kids' preferred mode of transport - quite enjoyable in a less polluted environment than the Chinatown ride, and also more spacious than the Bangkok ones), only to find that the train was running half an hour late. So we had an hour to kill at the train station - we got talking to another couple, from Holland, traveling with their 6 year old son. On the train the children were entertained with a stock of games I had brought with me and so played with me and each other, wrote their diaries and postcards, read a little and finally watched a DVD and played on the iPad. The time passed quite quickly, although I didn't have much opportunity for looking outside at the countryside rolling past.
We had chosen the slow route back (train & boat) to Kho Phangan to re-visit a little of our backpacking days, and to have the kids experience a little more of traveling than just planes and taxis. But the train trip was much less 'colourful' than we anticipated and much of the journey unremarkable, apart from the fact that I managed to avoid going to the rather revolting toilet for the entire trip.
However, at what we judged to be about 10 minutes out of Suratthani, our destination, we came to a halt with many people going up to look out of the front of the train, some smoke visible ahead, lots of conversations (in Thai of course), mobile phone calls being made and some people getting off the train. After some time of this we were able to work out that a train, some distance up the line ahead of us, had hit a car. For several kilometers before this point, we had heard the train horn sounding frequently, each time we passed a track or road crossing the railway lines - no lights, bells or booms roadside, of course - just the train to announce its own approach. We could not do much except wait, and after quite a while the train which had been coming in the other direction came alongside us apparently undamaged, and we proceeded on the single track. We soon came past a large crowd of people around car which had been shunted quite a distance from a road crossing and off to the side of the tracks, completely smashed in. No sign of any emergency vehicles, just the locals covering what was left with sheets. Quite sobering. Annabelle and Matthew fortunately at that point had their head buried in a game and didn't see any of it.
Not long after, we pulled into Suratthani and upon alighting, were somewhat distracted from the sight we had just passed, by the clamouring of taxi-touts, and so quickly negotiated a 'taxi' to our hotel. The taxi turned out to be a sorng-taaou (basically a ute with bench seats in the rear and a roof over the top) with 9 of us in the back, plus bags. Then the driver and his sidekick managed to cram another 7 into the double cab with more bags on top of the roof ! The ride wasn't too long so the discomfort didn't dampen our sense that we were having an adventure, and while Mike and I were familiar with this sort of travel from backpacking days, the kids thought it was a great new experience and lots of fun ! Tuktuks, sorng-taaous and our jeep here, which they love, all have one thing in common - they are open air and so, the wind rushes past you giving you a sense of speed as you drive along - and the novelty of not being completely enclosed in a controlled aircon atmosphere. We must be acclimatizing as we craved the air-con to begin with.
We overnighted in a Suratthani hotel that was unremarkable except for the fact that we had to have two separate rooms - Annabelle and I in one, and the Mike and Matthew in another. Since we arrived about 7pm and left again about 12 hours later, we didn't even get time to check out the pool.
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| Waiting for the bus at Suratthani |
We then hopped on a pre-booked connecting bus which took us to the ferry terminal about an hour away. Annabelle made friends with a Dutch girl, so they played for the entire bus and ferry trip. I enjoyed just looking out the window at the daily life going by. The very decent, high speed catamaran ferry was about 45 mins to Koh Samui, with a short wait dockside and then a further 30 mins to Koh Phanagan. It passed quickly - largely to a showing to TV Bloopers and a read of my book!
On our last day in Koh Phangan we had found a house that seemed like it would suit us well, and we had been negotiating the price and dates en route. We had hoped to move in on the day of our return, however unfortunately this was not to be, so were put up in the nearby Milky Bay resort, which also manages the house. In fact it wasn't till after 4pm the following day that they managed to get rid of the problematic Israeli group that had been renting it - we tried to drop some bags off earlier as we had been hanging around waiting for so long - and had the misfortune to briefly meet this rude group.
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| Breakfast, before the first day of school, at the Milky Bay Resort |
So now after 4 weeks in Thailand we have reached the place where we are going to stop for a while. I am looking forward to getting to know one place and perhaps some people a little bit better, having a bit of a routine back, starting some exercise, having a space to call our own for a while and for some 'us' time and 'me' time while the kids are at school.
Now we have stopped moving, there will be more on the house, school, and exercise to come, very soon !
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