Songkran - Part 3 of 3

After lazing on beaches and sipping smoothies for 8 days, it was time to have some more frenetic fun before our vacation came to an end.  And that meant the realization of a bucket list goal (of mine, at least):  It was time for Songkran!!  I had heard about this holiday about 10 years ago in a travel book. I think it was described as a country-wide water fight.  Well, that's a pretty spot on description, though I would add "a 3 day long" country-wide water fight.  That is how foreigners see it, of course. But Songkran is first and foremost the Thai New Year celebration.  It's a chance to "make merit" by visiting temples and feeding monks, and a chance to wash away past sins with ceremonial water purification.  Somehow along the way, it became a water fight though.  And of all the place in Thailand to celebrate this holiday, we were told that Chiang Mai was sort of the craziest, so off we went!

Chiang Mai is an ancient city.  It was founded in 1292 and was the former capital of the Lan Na Kingdom.  Throughout the old part of town, you can still see remnants of its history: massive crumbling brick walls and a moat that encircles a huge section of downtown are among the most famous.  In fact, that is where most of the action during Songkran takes place, so of course, that's where we stayed.

Almost as soon as we checked into our hotel (around 5:30 PM the night before Songkran officially began), we hit the streets to see if anyone wanted to "play water" as our taxi driver described it.  Almost immediately, we were hit by water from the back of a a passing pickup truck.  "Oh!  It's on!"  We found a street merchant selling various sized water guns and opted for 2 "medium sized" water blasters for the kids and a small plastic bucket for Jess and I to share.  We would carry water to reload the kids water guns when they ran out.  By the time we got to the moat, we were soaked from head to toe.  Water hits you from the front, as little kids jump out from behind their parents and spray you with Hello Kitty water pistols, from the back, as adults act nonchalant until you pass and then pour a bucket of ice water on your head, and from the side, as passing trucks loaded with Songkran revelers toss buckets of water into the crowds.  And through it all, everyone is smiling, laughing and cheering.  It must be the happiest holiday on earth.  And it was still the day before it began!

The next morning, we could barely keep the kids at the breakfast table, so we ate quickly, dressed in swim suits, loaded the water guns, and headed back to the main road.  We found some early-rising celebrators and decided to hang out with them in a bank parking lot for a while.  They had a garbage can filled with water, and floating in it was a giant block of ice.  This was where we learned that splashing people with ice water was really the way to go.  It got a much better reaction than simple tap water. So we joined forces and learned the ropes from the experts:  aim for open car windows, if a songthaew stops in front of you, it is OK to walk to the back and spray the riders inside the truck,  and if someone walking by raises his hand as a signal not to spray him - spray him anyway.

Armed with this new knowledge and fresh ice water, we walked down the streets, from water source to water source, refilling and spraying, refilling and spraying.  Occasionally we would stop and join a large group or aim at unsuspecting people on balconies.  It was like a time machine - transporting everyone back to their carefree youth and hosting a party to celebrate it.  It was also exhausting.

Jess and I spied a chalk board outside a tiny cafe that advertised 80 baht mojitos, so we stopped in to make sure they were authentic, and found to our astonishment, they were fantastic!  So were had another.

On and on the day went and into the night.  We were wet all day and happier for it.  But the next morning we had to rise early for a songthaew for the bus station.  We were told that if we left before 9, no one would be on the streets spraying water and we might arrive at the bus station dry and comfortable, so we left at 8.  However, just before we reached the station, a giant splash of water came through the window and exploded on us.  The man responsible gave Jess a sheepish grin and a shrug of his shoulders.  No worries, mate.  In fact, good on ya for getting out early and hitting people unaware!

The memory of Songkran in Chiang Mai will stay with us forever.  It was a beautiful celebration of life in a childish display of mutual splashing and spraying.  It seems the status of "favorite memory" of this year in Thailand continues to be replaced each week we continue to stay here.  But really, what could possibly top this???      

Island Living - Part 2 of 3

After we boarded the overnight train in Bangkok, we settled into our chairs and wondered, "How does this chair turn into a bed?"  There seemed to be no way there would be enough beds for the four of us to sleep on this 12 hour trip.  But of course, as with all traveling in Thailand, as soon as you start to fret, the situation seems to resolve immediately.  For just then, a man came along with a small device to unlock the top bunks from the ceiling and magically transform our chairs into beds.  Worry not - he seemed to say.  So we settled in again and before we knew it, we arrived in Surat thani.  Then it was breakfast, a bus ride, a ferry ride, a songthaew ride, and we were at our hotel on Kho Phangan.
All that and only about 12:00 in the afternoon!  Unfortunately for us, a freak monsoon was hovering over the island and we arrived in the pouring rain.  Even worse, it hovered for the next 4 days. However, even in a monsoon, tropical paradises are tropical paradises, I always say.  So we made the best of it, first by upgrading hotels.  I don't know about you, but when I enter my hotel room and it looks like a 1980s Chuck Norris POW movie, I want out!  So we walked down the beach a few hundred meters and found a place that was actually beautiful, had a pool, included a great breakfast, and had customer service - for the same price.  Magic

Now again, you have to make the best of it when it's raining on vacation, but when you feel sick, that's pretty hard to do.  Almost as soon as we arrive, Jess started feeling bad.  A few days later when she was fully recovered, I went down and stayed down for like 6 days.  But as I said, we made the best of it and this next little story is pretty much what made our Kho Phangan trip so great:

So, let me take you back 5 1/2 years when we met Suni for the first time.  We met her foster mom at a hotel with Suni so that they could say good bye to each other.  It was very sad of course, but one of the bright spots (besides us getting to take Suni home) was meeting Suni's foster sister "Guitar".  She was about a year younger than Suni, and just the cutest thing ever.  Apparently, they lived together for just over a year with Yai Jah.  Well, when we were visiting Yai Jah in Bangkok this time, we inquired about Guitar, where is she?  Is she well?  If you think about it, she could have been adopted by any one of millions of people from the U.S. or throughout Europe, so we were curious.  Get ready for this....She was adopted by a family that lived in Washington state, but that's not the crazy part.  We asked for their email address so we could inquire further and maybe someday have Suni meet Guitar again.  A few days later, when we were on Kho Phangan, we got their email address and sent off a message.  You better sit down now, I'll wait.......
Guitar and her family were living in Thailand! They were living in Surat Province!  They were living on Kho Phangan!  They were living 10 minutes from our hotel. And yes, they wanted to meet!  Long story short, Suni and her long lost foster sister met and played together for 4 or 5 straight days, Radd played with her older brothers, whom he had a lot in common with, and we hung out with their super cool parents.  I. Shit. You. Negative.  That's the universe doing what it does, I guess.

And I would probably be remiss if I didn't mention one other fun aspect of living on Kho Phagnan for 8 days.  We rented scooters and cruised around and around and around feeling like eagles soaring through the ether.  We snorkled till our fingers were pruned, sipped fruit smoothies at all hours of the day, and got massaged beach side.  We also found a restaurant on a long skinny point that had a little cliff diving area teeming with tropical fish.  The kids spent over an hour jumping off, floating around, gazing at the fish while the sun was setting...It was pretty magical, I must say.  Something I could get used to...



But all good things must come to an end, so we got back into that songthaew, the ferry, the bus, an airplane and then a taxi and found ourselves in Chiang Mai, ready to experience our first, though I desperately hope not our last, Songkran!

Bangkok!!!

Thailand's megalopolis capitol city is but a 1 hour flight from the bucolic streets of Chiang Rai, but once you land there, it might as well be a different planet.  Where most large cities have a defined skyline consisting of the largest buildings clustered together, Bangkok has several skylines, depending on where you are and in which direction you turn.  Skyscrapers abound and beneath them lie countless smaller, but still large buildings that seem to stretch out in an endless sea of humanity.  For most Montana guys it may represent the 5th level of hell, but somehow I find myself in love with Bangkok.  Perhaps because it's in Thailand and full of Thai people.

We landed there on a Friday afternoon and grabbed a taxi to our centrally located hotel, where we took a quick dip in the pool and then hit the streets looking for action.  With the exception on Suni spying a rat and having a major freak out right in the street, there wasn't much action to be found.  We ate and returned to the room to relax.  But Saturday was our day to party!

On Saturday it was shop till you drop, but since we tire easily of shopping that was about 4 hours.  We found an area that is famous for inexpensive clothing and tried our best to find something that we couldn't live without, but had limited success.  The one thing we apparently couldn't live without was a giant box of scarves which we purchased and mailed home - so check your doorsteps Montana peeps.  We didn't send it to ourselves, so one of you will have to look out for it for a month or two (Thanks in advance).

Saturday night we met our dear Bangkokian friends for a memorable evening at Asiatique - a fancy shopping/dining/fun park on the waterfront.  Here we boarded a huge yacht that brought us up and down the Chao Phraya River as we sat on the top deck and ate a variety of delectable dishes while grooving to the musical stylings of a duo of top 40 Karaoke-like singers.  The multiple skylines of Bangkok glided past, lit up in technicolor glory.  Bow and Ake were lovely tour guides, pointing out the major temples, hotels, government buildings and other attractions as we stuffed our faces.  Over dinner they asked, "So, what do you guys want to do tomorrow?"  "What!?" I thought.  "You want to do more cool stuff with us?"  We decided to take a drive up to Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand. Awesome - we couldn't wait.

Sunday arrived early when Bow and Ake pulled up at the hotel with their little angel of a daughter and Bow's dear sweet mom.  In just over and hour we were out of the new and into the old.  Ayutthaya is a step back into the past - like 700 years into the past, when it was founded.  You can see the remains of an early kingdom many miles up the Chao Phraya river away from the Gulf of Thailand that traded with merchants from India, Japan, Indonesia and even as far away as Portugal all when the U.S.A. was still a colony of the British.  The old kings were forward thinking pragmatists who respected all religions and cultures, so long as they wanted to trade. Here, Buddha's wisdom was practiced and his images worshiped.  As you walk along the crumbling remains of ancient temples and palaces, you can almost still feel the vibrations left by the centuries of chanting and meditation that took place here.  It all amounted to the contrast of the millennium with the place where we ate dinner that evening:  An entire little German town recreated to host and feed a parade of tour buses filled with Chinese tourists, though, to be fair, the food was excellent.

But parting is such sweet sorrow!  We had to say good bye to Bow and Ake for the last time in Thailand (at least for this trip).  Thanks for everything guys!  We had a blast!  Off to bed because the next day was sure to be just as eventful - or more so.

Monday morning and it was to be another special day - this time a very emotional one.  We had made plans weeks earlier to meet Suni's foster mother, with whom she lived for about 2 years before we adopted her.  Since Radd had already reunited with his foster mother on the trip where we adopted Suni, we thought we'd just give Suni the same opportunity.  That's what we thought....

When we made our way to the adoption agency, we met with a social worker and a liaison who would translate and take photos for us.  Then we all packed into a minibus and headed off to meet Yai Jah (Grandmother, in Thai).  But when the van pulled up to a row of old houses and we got out, the first person my eyes focused on was Radd's foster mom.  My jaw dropped.  What are the odds???  She just happened to be walking by in the neighborhood, on this day, at this time?  Well, no.  The agency decided that they would arrange for Radd to meet her again too.  Except they forgot to tell us, I guess.

 Oh well.  So we didn't have a gift for her, which is traditional, and we weren't mentally or emotionally prepared, which is normal for us.  We still had a nice time catching up with her and got to meet her husband for the first time.  He was rather emotional - this being the first time he'd seen Radd in over 9 years.  Radd is a pretty special guy, so I could understand how he felt.

Then it was back in the van and off to Grandmother's house we went.  Yai Jah was also emotional to see her little Teng Mo (Watermelon, in Thai - and Suni's nickname).  We looked at old pictures and told stories and had a Coke.  It was just like a commercial.  But we wanted to see the house where Suni lived when she was young, as we were visiting Yai Jah at her son's house.

So....back in the van!  A few minutes later we met Yai Jah's grown daughters who also helped care for Suni, and even met their little kids.  We walked around the house as Yai Jah told us about how Suni liked to swim in the river as it reached flood stage and hide among the plants in her nursery.  It was all very touching.  But finally it was time to leave them as well.  There are so many good byes when you meet so many good people.

Our last stop of the day brought us to the subway, which we took to the end of the line, which was the big old Bangkok Train Station.  And here, finally, we boarded an overnight southbound train for phase two of our summer vacation:  8 days on Koh Phangan.