Some final thoughts on Thailand

Arachnophobe Warning: First picture is a big spider picture.

Toilet paper is not de rigueur in Thailand. In a lot of the hotels and restaurants in the more developed areas you don't have to worry about it, but the farther out you get the less likely you are to find A) toilet paper and B) actual toilets. Instead they have a hose hooked up next to the toilet, so it's not like a bidet set-up, it's more like the little sprayer hose that you have on your kitchen sink. This concept of cleaning with water instead of paper is OK, I get that, but then you're still walking around all drippy from the water. Lesson: Carry toilet paper.

If you walk into a ritzy hotel and go to their spa for a bikini wax, and you walk into your treatment room and find two ladies there, don't get excited and think, Hey, this will go fast! Instead, ask, "Is one of you a trainee?" and then send that person out of the room. Lesson: Trainees are OK in some instances, like when you are ordering a burger and fries. Not so much in others, like when you are getting a bikini wax in a nation where nobody has any body hair.

Thailand has some big spiders. Lesson: Pay attention when walking through the jungle.

Beds in Thailand are hard. The beds we slept on in Pattaya actually did not allow us to sleep on our sides because our hips would dig into the mattresses. Lesson: Check the beds before you commit to a hotel.

Haggling is a common practice in Thailand. Lesson: Do not depend on me to get you a good deal in Thailand.

Sometimes food is prepared differently than you are used to. In an attempt to not be rude to your hosts, you should try it. Lesson: This fish was pretty good even though we all felt weird about it looking at us.

We had a fabulous Italian dinner on Koh Chang at a little restaurant called La Dolce Vita. I don't know how they did it, but they had amazingly fresh goat cheese and mozzarella cheese for their salads, and their lasagna was to die for. Cheese dishes are difficult to come by in Thailand (Asians are largely lactose intolerant) so this was quite a find for us. Lesson: If you want good Italian food in Thailand, the trip to Koh Chang is worth it.

We stayed on the western side of Koh Chang, roughly midway down the coast. We rented scooters one day and drove down the coast, toward the southern part of the island. This was one of the best parts of the trip. We got out of the city and started getting into some much prettier, more relaxed areas. There was actually one point on the drive where I physically felt the shift in atmosphere. I know that sounds kind of crazy, but all of a sudden the buzz and the activity and the noise of the city was gone and I could relax and exhale, and it's not like the city is this huge bustling metropolis or anything, but it's just not relaxing. While I liked our hotel, I would have really preferred to be out of town. All the town areas of Thailand that I saw really reminded me of China Town in Honolulu-everything packed close together and claustrophobic and that feeling of not having anywhere that you can really just sit down and relax. I know some people like that, but I don't. I also know it's largely a matter of efficiency and not wasting space, but I like my space. Lesson: Get off my lawn!

If you stay at the Sabai Empress hotel in Pattaya, you can go next door and get a massage at the bowling alley. This is...probably about what you'd expect of a massage at a bowling alley and also probably not as bad as you'd expect for a massage at a bowling alley. Lesson: If you like the soothing sounds of thunder, you just might be lulled to sleep during your massage by the sounds of the bowling alley below.

You know how restaurants always have at least one table that's all wonky, and you spend 10 minutes stuffing matchbook covers or coasters underneath the feet trying to stabilize the table? Forget it. Use an oyster shell. They are highly effective stabilizers. Lesson: Use an oyster shell-that was the lesson.

When you're in a foreign country, and you don't know any of the music that's being played and you're not really sure that you dance the way they dance, get up and dance anyway. Lesson: The bride's family will appreciate that you tried.

Thailand-Koh Chang

After all the zip-lining and partying and early morning wedding ceremony...ing, it was time for a bit of an actual vacation. We all loaded up into a van for a 4-hour trek to Trat where we took the Centre Point Ferry over to the island of Koh Chang, which basically translates to Elephant Island. We had reservations at the Paloma Cliff Resort, which looks lovely here, but it's not. Our first clue should have been the stagnant green water in the dolphin fountain to welcome us at the front of the hotel. Our next clue should have been the broken cooler sitting in the lobby, adding an air of apathy and neglect to the place. Our final clue should have been, and finally was, the overwhelming smell of mold that hit us in the face when we opened the door to our room. This hotel was probably a beautiful place in its hey-day, but it appears to have suffered from years of neglect.

We started walking up the street to check out other hotels, and we finally walked across the street to the Keeree elé Hotel, which is brand new, did not smell like mold, and has a super-cute logo! It's so new, in fact, that they were still working on the elevators, which was kind of a bummer since we were on the fourth floor, but we were willing to overlook that bit, even the one of us that was coming off of recent knee surgery. I mean, look how cute it is! These pictures are of the hotel lobby/entrance area. It's kind of hard to tell here, but the butterflies and birds on the trees are three-dimensional, which adds a rather unique touch. You can see some better pictures at their on-line gallery. To be fair though, I wasn't getting paid for my work!

The staff at the hotel was very gracious, and were clearly trying very hard to make a good impression. There was only one person on staff who spoke English; he seemed to be the manager, and we found him sleeping behind the front desk one night. Whether this is because he didn't have anywhere else to sleep or because he was trying to be available in case we needed him, I'm not sure, but it wouldn't have surprised me to find out that it was the latter.

We only ever saw a few other guests at the hotel, and we more or less had our pick of rooms. Our rate was 1500 baht/night (about $45), and that included breakfast every day, and I mean an actual breakfast that you could order off a menu, not just some bagels and toast. I wish I would have taken some pictures of our rooms, but I forgot. Luckily, their photographer did a better job than I did in that department too. They were quite spacious, and if you looked straight out from the balcony, the view wasn't bad. I wouldn't recommend looking at the area actually surrounding the hotel though-it's a bit industrial junk yard-y. Just gaze out toward the horizon and you'll be fine.

The only real complaint I had was that every time you used the water, the bathroom would smell like sewer. It wasn't that the water stunk, it was just that sewer gas was coming up from somewhere. I'm not sure if that's something that they can/will fix or not, and yes, it's off-putting, but...it was still better than the other places we looked at.

We got settled into our rooms and relaxed for the rest of the day, and the next day, we went for an elephant ride at Ban Chang Thai! See? I'm still working through my list, which leads us to this:

I'm riding an elephant!

Heehee! That's us on An-na. Isn't she cute? We went on this jungle trek which ended at the river, where the elephants dumped us off in the water, and then we got to play around in the water with the elephants which was way cool! They were trained to do tricks too like lift us up in their trunks and stuff, but my camera died before we got to that part. =( The staff did take pictures though, and we bought some before we left, so I do have a picture of me sitting aloft in an elephant trunk. If you click on the Ban Chang Thai link above you can see pictures of other folks doing this to get a better idea of what's involved.

Our guides on the trip sat on the elephants' necks to "drive" the elephants, and at one point we looked back to see my brother-in-law driving the elephant. Later his wife got to take a turn, so they thought that was pretty neat!

Getting dumped off of an elephant into a river is a little unnerving. Elephants are really steep when they want to be, and I got a little bit freaked out because I didn't know if I would be able to stand up or not, and I'm not so good in the water, and I can float in the ocean, but this wasn't the ocean, and I wasn't sure how deep the water was, and, and, and! See? This is why I'm not good in the water. If I'd thought about it, I would have realized that the elephants were standing up in it before they dumped us off, and it really wasn't all that deep; but I forget to do things like put my feet down and try to stand up. Also, I was trying to avoid the elephant poo. The elephant ahead of us found the river extremely relaxing, apparently, and then our elephant started getting steep, and I was busy trying not to slide off my elephant into the unknown depths of the river long enough for the other elephant handler to pick up all the poo and huck it onto the river bank. After that it was fine. I still have a weird scratch on the back of my leg from where I tripped over a branch that seems like it's taking an awfully long time to heal completely, but I'm sure it's fine.

After we got done playing in the river, we got back on our elephants and rode back to where we started. We disembarked and found some tables to sit at while we waited for our pictures. Fruit and water were provided, and they also had food available for sale, for us and for the elephants. They had little bitty pineapples that you could feed the elephants, so we bought some of those and had fun feeding the elephants. Walking back to our table I got attacked by a monkey, but it was pretty small and on a leash, so I was able to bat it away and redirect.

I know it probably sounds kind of terrible, what with the pooing elephants and the attack monkey and all, but it was actually great! When we first started talking about our trip to Thailand the one thing I really wanted to do was go visit the painting elephants of the Asian Elephant Art Conservation Project, but as far as we knew they were all in northern Thailand, and after making it to Pattaya and then to Koh Chang, I was not about to do the traveling required to get back up north. So, this was a fine substitution. Looking at the site now, it appears that there's actually a painting elephant in Koh Chang...I'm going to assume that that information is out of date and that the elephant probably has not actually been there for about five years. That's probably the case, right?

The next day my plan was to sit by the pool and make people bring me drinks. Everyone else agreed with me that that was a fine idea until the next day when everyone was going to rent scooters and go to one of the nearby waterfalls. I was done. I just needed some down time. I already had a plan, and it was to sit by the pool and make someone bring me drinks. So, everyone else went off in search of scooters and a waterfall, and I got my bathing suit on, went down to the pool, walked over to the bar to ask if I could get a piña colada and would it be OK to just charge it to the room. About two minutes and 12 staff members later, the English-speaking manager finally showed up, I gratefully explained to him that I wanted a piña colada and just wanted to make sure that it was OK to charge it to my room. That's when I was informed that they don't have a bartender. So, I ordered a Sprite and walked like Droopy Dog over to the pool. To his credit, the manager did come over and offer to run next door and get me a piña colada from the neighboring bar. I'm not gonna lie-I thought about it, but in the end, I thought that would just be a little too desperate. So, I sat and drank my Sprite and read my book (Same Kind of Different as Me) and realized that there are a lot worse things than being stuck by a pool without a piña colada.

Thailand-the wedding (and our hotels)

Alright, well you've heard all about my exciting (really?) travels to Thailand, my exciting (really!) treetop adventure in Thailand; now it's time to answer another burning question, namely:

Why are three grown women dressed like they're going to prom?

First, a little more information about our stay in Thailand. The first night we arrived (me and my husband, his two brothers and their wives), we landed in the Lido hotel (not to be confused with the Lido Beach Hotel), which was clean but sparse. When I say "sparse" I mean there was no plumbing connecting the sink to the drain in the floor, so when you'd brush your teeth, you'd spit in the sink, run the water to rinse out the basin, and then end up with toothpaste on your toes. On the other hand, it was only like $15/night. So, whatever. My toes are washable, and even if I do a poor job of rinsing them off after 20+ hours of traveling, they'll be minty-fresh in the morning, which is more than I can say for them most of the time. My BIL had made the reservations for us, and he wanted to find us clean accommodations that wouldn't break the bank since he didn't really know what our budgets were, and to that end, it worked out great. Not having to worry about finding a place to stay upon arrival was a God-send. I don't really have any more info than that for you-if you'd like to stay there, it's owned by the same guy who owns Tony's gym...other than that, I'd have to get in touch with my BIL for any additional information, but I'd be happy to do it if anyone wants it.

The next day, we all decided we would like to find some accommodations that were a little more luxurious, so went around the city, and found a cute little hotel called the Sabai Empress. I can't seem to find a website for it, but there is a site for their parent company Sabai Group. They need to update their info a little since it still says "Sabai Empress Hotel OPENING 20 March 2009." As part of their grand opening, they had a huge banner out front announcing 50% off their regular rates. This caught our attention. The picture above was taken in the hotel lobby, and here is a picture of the room we had.

I was very happy with our room, but the rooms on the other side of the hotel are right next to a nightclub, and, apparently, not quite sound-proof enough. The other downside was the location. It was right on one of the main streets of Pattaya, which is good convenience-wise, but it is just not a relaxing vacation vibe once you step outside the hotel. (Then again, if you are going to Patttaya for a relaxing vacation vibe, you are going to the wrong place, but that's a whole other story.) Again, it was only about $34/night, and it sure beats anything you can get here for $34/night! Also, we were only going to be there for 3 nights. If we had been planning on staying in Pattaya for any real length of time, we probably would have sought out something a little quieter.

My BIL's wedding was a two-day affair consisting of a party the night before the wedding and then the actual wedding-day ceremony...which began at 6AM! We wanted to dress appropriately for both occasions, and being American and all, my SILs and I weren't quite sure what that entailed. Our SIL-to-be was kind enough to take us dress shopping (even though she had about eleventy-billion things to do to prepare for the wedding already!) and the dresses above are what came out of it. Needless to say, we were a little bit surprised! We all had traditional Thai dress in mind (whatever that means), and our mental images didn't quite match the reality! Since the bride-to-be spoke very little English, and we didn't speak any Thai, we were afraid that there might have been some miscommunications, and that we were going to stick out like sore thumbs, but it all worked out OK. She had a fancy dress of her own, similar in color to the burgundy one above, and while most other guests were in considerably more casual clothes, there were a few other dresses in line with ours, and I think since we were family we were allowed/expected to be a bit more extravagant.

The party was held at the bride and groom's home, and there were all the standard entertainments-food, drink, karaoke, and dancing. We had a great time, and went home exhausted around midnight. The following morning we were up at 5AM to be at the house by 6:00. It was a Buddhist ceremony, which is something I'd never seen before, and it was quite the experience. Ten Buddhist monks arrived and positioned themselves around the living room, oldest to youngest, and proceeded to chant and bless and unite and whatever else they did for about 45 minutes. The entire ceremony was in Thai, so I have no idea what was said, but there was a solid 15-30 minutes (?) of chanting, and about half-way through, something struck a chord in me and I got all choked up for a couple minutes. Granted, I'm pretty easily brought to tears anyway (commercials, movies, songs on the radio, etc.) but this was different.

Monks eating food prepared by the family. My husband adjusted the settings on his camera to pick up only the saffron color of the monks' robes.

After the ceremony, the monks were fed. According to

Adventure Guide to Thailand, a monk's morning begins with a bath and prayers and then they venture out onto the streets in groups to look for food. They carry alms bowls with them, and people give them food. "In Western eyes this gathering of alms would be considered begging but not so in Buddhist Thailand. It is considered an honor to give, and one makes merit, an important part of Buddhism, by giving to the monks." (p.40)

The family had prepared several dishes for the monks, and all the wedding guests also participated in filling the monks' alms bowls with rice. This was a simple act, but rife with respect and humility.

Some of the dishes prepared by the family

Monks' bowls filled with rice by wedding guests

After the monks ate and left, the wedding guests walked up the street to a local bar where plates of offerings were prepared. Everyone grabbed a plate and we all walked down the street in pairs. It was like a Noah's ark of Buddhist offerings. I had bananas, so I walked with the other banana-carrier. Coconuts walked with coconuts, etc. There was someone leading a call-and-response that involved a lot of celebratory whooping. As I understand it, the idea is to proceed down the street making lots of noise in order to draw others out of their homes to come celebrate with you. I think everyone who was going to join us was already with us at the start, but it was still a neat tradition. Also, after doing some additional reading and staring really hard at the one not-very-telling picture we have of this part of the ceremony, I think this is also the groom's attempt to prove his worth and gain the family's blessing by providing gifts to the bride and her family.

Upon returning to the house, the offerings were presented to the bride's family, and apparently they found the groom worthy (whew!) and we moved on to the next stage which involved lots of string. First the bride and groom sat together and everyone took turns tying strings around each of their wrists. Then the bride's family did the same for all of the groom's family. As I understand it, this is a good luck blessing. You wear the strings until they fall off, and after that, I guess the good luck wears off? I'm not quite sure about that part. There really weren't very many explanations given to us as we were going through all of this. The groom was doing as many grooms do on their big day, just doing what he was told and being where he was told to be when he was told to be there. He wasn't really sure about all of the customs and traditions himself.

Me, receiving my good-luck string from one of the bride's family members. The pillow on my lap is a gift made by the bride and presented to us as a thank-you for attending the wedding. They used pillows similar to this one during the ceremony, which involved lengthy bits of kneeling on the hard floor. My red dress and the one to my right? Also results of our shopping trip with the bride.

This pretty much ended the ceremony. We ate and then we went back to our hotel to prepare for the long drive with the new bride and groom (about 4 hours) down to Trat, where we then took a ferry over to Ko Chang (Koh Chang). That's right, we all honey-mooned together! My BIL has found himself one tolerant woman, let me tell you! The good news is, if she wasn't scared off after spending the two weeks surrounding her wedding with all of us, it should be smooth sailing from here on out!

View Thailand in a larger map

Well, kids, thanks for sticking with me. I'll tell you about Ko Chang another day. Right now, I suspect we all need a break.

Flying through the trees in Thailand

Well, now that you all know about my exciting journey to Thailand, let me tell you about some of the things we did while we were in Thailand. As you may recall, the main focus of our visit was my brother-in-law's wedding, but we had about a week before and a week after during which to do other stuff. One of the week-before items ended up being the Flight of the GibbonTM zip-line adventure. There are two locations, Chiang Mai and Bangkok-Pattaya. We visited the Bangkok-Pattaya one which is in Chonburi, about halfway between Bangkok and Pattaya, and it was amazing. There are 26 platforms set up, and most of them involve zip-lines to get from one to the other, but there are a couple of bridges to walk across, and/or ropes to descend. The longest zip-line is over 300 meters, and, if I remember correctly, about 180 feet up. Having a hard time envisioning that? Picture about three football fields. Now imagine a zip line strung across those. Still having a hard time. Let me see if I can find something to help you out.

There we all are on one platform getting ready to come over to the next platform. See us? Waaaay over there? Don't worry, this was toward the end of the run. They don't throw you up into that stuff right away. You start with a light hike through the forest to the first station, and they start you off on low platforms and short zip-lines. Because at first everyone is hanging on like this:

But by about halfway through, they convince you that it's OK to hang on like this as they lower you down to the platform below:

Eventually you work your way up onto platforms overlooking the entire forest with views for miles and zip-line rides lasting 15-20 seconds. And the views weren't just of the trees. There were huge, colorful butterflies and flowers, and we heard lots of birds. We just missed seeing gibbons moving around in the trees on several occasions-we'd hear something big rustling about in the canopy and then see where something big had just moved through, but I was never quick enough to actually spot anything. Others in our party did though.

Here's a shot from an earlier station. We zipped down to the bottom platform, climbed up the spiral staircase, and then zipped from the upper platform to our next station, like I am demonstrating for you here. =) (I just realized that the amount of helmet-wearing I do on this blog seems to be out of proportion to the actual amount of helmet-wearing I do in real life. Just so you know, I don't run around in helmets, waiting for adventure to strike).

We had a great time doing this, and it is something I would highly recommend. This was a great break from the noise and pollution and general stress that is the city. The facility is very new, and the work that was put into building this is amazing. Take a look at that first picture again. Now think about stringing that cable. Or building that spiral staircase in the last picture. Impressive.

I felt totally safe the entire time; from the moment we stepped up to the first platform until we touched ground at the last, there was not a moment that we weren't latched into something secure, and our guides were great. We had two, one to send us off at each platform and one to catch us on the other end. The guide who was on the other end waiting to catch all of us also had all of our cameras around his neck and managed to get pictures of everyone at each station (there were 8 of us) as we were hurtling toward him...in a safe and controlled manner.

From arrival on-site to departure was almost 5 hours, refreshments were provided for us before our adventure began, lunch was provided after, admission to the neighboring Khao Kheo Open Safari was included, AND we essentially had our own personal photographer with us for the duration of the trip. All of this for about $70/person-I think that's a pretty good deal!

I realize that this doesn't answer any of the pressing questions from my "Coming soon!" post, but that's only because I forgot to throw one of these pictures in there as a teaser! I'll get around to the rest, I promise!

Traveling to Thailand

**Edited 7/17 to add: I've listed this as my Weekly Geeks post for Weekly Geeks 2009-26:Where in the World Have You Been? I wanted to get another post up with more information about my actual trip, but so far, this is all I've managed to post, and it DOES fit in with this week's theme. :) If you want to hear more about my Thailand travels please come back during the week to check for updates.**

Wow, where to begin?? I didn't mean to mysteriously disappear, but I'm always weirded out about announcing, "Hey, world, I'm going to be out of the country, away from my house, for the next 10 days!" It's not like I've got my address posted here or anything, but you know. I also didn't mean to cause anyone anxiety about wishing me a good time. Nanny Goats in Panties wished me a fun time and then worried that maybe I was going in for heart surgery or something, which would have been awk-waaaaaard. But no worries! I did not go away for surgery (even though I did go to Thailand and I hear you can get all kinds of things done there for a lot cheaper than you can here), and I did have a good time in some unexpected ways.

The main reason for our trip was to attend my bother-in-law's wedding. Since we were going to be all the way in Thailand, we figured we might as well make a vacation of it too. Now, I love living in Hawaii, but travel to virtually anywhere is a bitch. Thailand involves an 8-hour plane ride to Tokyo, then the inevitable 4-hour layover, then another 6 hours from Tokyo to Bangkok. Upon arrival in Bangkok, we waited for my husband's two other brothers to arrive from the U.S. mainland (so, okay, granted, they had a lot more traveling to do than we did) then had a 2-hour drive to Pattaya where my brother-in-law who was getting married lives.

Ah, but this brings us to our first photo Q &A from the other day.

Q: Where can I get me a beer machine like that??

A: Well, I don't know if you can get yourself a beer machine like this, but you can go visit one in any of the airport lounges in Narita International Airport (NRT), assuming, of course, that you can get into the airport lounges. My husband travels enough that he can. There is a cooler of chilled glasses next to the machine, and as you can see, you put the glass on the machine, press a button, and it pours you a perfect glass of beer. This is one of the ways in which the 4-hour layover is made more tolerable in Japan. Ah, wouldn't you know it, someone has posted a YouTube video of the beer machine in action.

Another way to kill time while wandering around Narita is to check out the Nippon Origami Museum that is located in Terminal 1. They have examples of all kinds of origami figurines, but my favorite was the basset hound.

Also, the hippos were pretty cute.

But, really, they have all sorts of things to look at; there are entire dioramas showing things like village life and dinosaurs if I remember correctly, which I may not because, really, I just wanted a picture of the basset hound, and no matter which way you cut it, I was on at least 6 hours of travel by the time I reached Narita. Either way, the displays were way more impressive than any of the shoe-box and chicken bone dioramas I made as a kid. What? You never made dinosaurs out of chicken bones as a kid? Huh. I guess my elementary school was just cooler than yours. And probably in a much drier climate as well.

Um...anyway, our flight from Tokyo to Bangkok was fairly uneventful, except that I didn't realize it was going to be a 6-hour flight. For some reason, I had it in my head that it was like 2 or 3 hours, maaaybe 4. So, I was almost in tears when, at the 4-hour mark, I realized that we still had about 2 hours to go. Luckily, we at least had a pretty view for part of the flight. The sun was setting as we were heading to Bangkok, and this was the view from our window.

I've never really been above the clouds for sunset, and,I have to say, that's one of the coolest sunsets I've ever seen.

Coming soon!

Where can I get me a beer machine like that??

Why are three grown women dressed like they're going to prom?

I'm riding an elephant!

Where was I when this storm moved in? Hint: Not inside!

And finally, horseback riding 101.