One Night In Bangkok...

We only spent one night in Bangkok..because that was what the silly 80's song told us to do...boy did we regret it!  So much to see, do, eat, buy...we were bummed to not have MORE time!

We arrived mid afternoon and braved the subway (with all of our bags).  We now had one extra giant bag full of Greg's hand tailored suits and shirts that he loaded up on.  We found our high rise place and checked in, sweating all the way. The humidity is about right if you live in Atlanta or Florida, however coming from a place with no humidity it was rough to adapt.

We found a New York Pizza place and had to try it, it was right by the place we stayed.  Not bad, certainly better than the pizza in SA where it is all cooked in a wood oven with very little sauce and cheese.
We headed out to find a shopping mall as everyone said the shopping in Bangkok is supposed to be amazing.  We didn't find much in the way of stores our first night but we did find some American favorites- Dairy Queen, Dunkin Doughnuts...so fun!

 The kids thought Jay Parece would have been proud of us for choosing DQ!

 Another tuk tuk ride- traffic is crazy here...tuk tuk isn't as much fun as it is a tight squeeze and its hot sitting at the stoplights, but the kids still like it!

We go to bed early-we did not take advantage of the crazy nightlife as we wanted to be up early to beat the lines to see the Palace.  Everything I read said get there early to beat the heat & the lines!

We had to make a stop in the outfit rental place and check out some skirts for ladies and pants for men.

 Yes travelling with a six year old boy is everything you can imagine, fun for a moment like this but incredible amounts of whining when he is done looking at culture or needing breakfast or a break.  We may have set the speed record for the fastest ever visit to the palace as we did a fly by of it all...in an effort to get Charlie to some breakfast after we left.

We did duck in to see the Emerald Buddha, it was in a neat room with tons of gold and people were praying and bringing gifts for him.  They had a neat museum shop too, it was the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles. They had beautiful handmade fabrics and outfits on display, some of which she had worn, I've always been a big fan of the First Ladies Exhibit at the Smithsonian, so this place was right up my alley.  Sadly, we did a speed visit due to whiny six year old that needed food!

After food we went to a floating market, not the one we were planning on, but the one the cab driver took us too.  Cab rides were an interesting affair, they were trying to scam us like typical tourists, however now with phones and GPS we a bit harder to fool!

 I think this sign says, "Teenagers, don't let the sweet faces and smiles fool you"!

Here is what the ladies had to sell from the boats.  Was really neat to see!  We did all of our shopping on the land based shops though, only because it was all stuff we could take home.  Tons of fun things to buy!

Our next destination was one that these New Zealand ladies in Phuket had told us about...a giant mall where they were planning to buy electronics and million other things.  Called the MBK Center...

 On the way we find an A&W and duck in for a root beer float-nothing better- South Africa doesn't know root beer- only ginger beer- so we are tickled to have our floats!

I have never seen rice served at an A&W in the states-crazy huh?  We did watch the kid next to us eat rice and curly fries, so not to worry our junk food continues to dominate the world.

The MBK center is CRAZY...a floor of electronics, other floors of clothes, shoes, luggage-you name it and they had it.   Much of it was like a flea market, booths of individual people selling stuff.  There were also real stores too.  We barely make it through any of it.  Greg decides to buy out the electronic section, if you see some Hughes family members wearing Beats headphones..know that we bought them there...at a fraction of whatever they really cost!

Sadly we have to hurry out and head back to pick up our bags and head for the airport.  We wanted to stay and shop! 

Our flight home takes us through Singapore airport for a few hours and we discover something we missed before....

A Dunkin Donuts- with Strawberry Frosted! Charlie's favorite treat in the planet, so we buy him a box of them to take home on the plane!

Long ago for her birthday wish, Katie wished she could fly...we finally almost made that happen..I have no idea what the giant wings were for, but they sure would make a cool Halloween costume!

We fly home to South Africa, feeling lucky to have had such a great family adventure and getting to see so many neat places, however we are sad to come back to the every day grind.  Of everyone I am the happiest, I missed my soft bed.  My joke was that Thai massage is such an institution in Thailand because everyone sleeps (or attempts to sleep) on a rock hard mattress!

Market Trip & Thai Cooking School

Kelly and I signed up for cooking school and walked over to the other sister hotel to ours that offered it through their restaurant.  We started with a trip to the market in the big beach town called Patong.  It was about 20 minutes from where we stayed.  Our two guides took us through and showed us the vegetables and herbs we would be using.  It turns out the two key ones are Thai basil and Kaffir Lime Leaf-I have been looking for both since we have returned to Africa...

The market was incredible, you could buy any fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, seafood, meat you could imagine.  Our guide said it best, she said, "We are Thai, we eat everything!".  A New Zealander that was on the tour asked her in the seafood section if there were regulations on what could be caught or sold.  She didn't seem to know the answer to his question, but he said to me, "they would arrest you for selling some of this where I come from!".

Here is what was on offer...

 I kick myself for not loading up on the green curry in the background-what was I thinking??  We did load up at the sweet stand that was near the exit, no photos because we were too busy tasting and buying.  We tried these sticky coconut nests-amazing.  They also had sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves and corn floating in what looked like strawberry milk, they sold that by the plastic bag...

 The setup when we arrived back at the hotel.  This is the way to cook, everything was prepped and ready and we didn't wash a single dish...we cooked with experts to help & we got to sit and eat each course!

 First course, the soup...Tom Yum Goong, spicy prawn soup

 Geang Kiew Waan Moo- Pork in Green curry, with coconut milk, amazing on rice, we could vary the amount of spice, so Kelly's was almost white-not green.  The final course was Gai Phad Med Mamuang, Fried Chicken with Cashew Nuts.  We ate as much as we could and brought the rest home to share with our beach bums, Greg and Katie & Charlie went to the beach.

We left with our aprons and recipe books, now I'm on the hunt for all of the special ingredients that I need to recreate the dishes here.  One bright spot is Woolworths (High End Grocery Store here in SA), carries a whole line of Thai seasonings and I actually found a premade green curry pack that was very close to what we made!

One final photo I had to share, this is what the electric poles look like on all the streets.  When you walk under them they are humming & popping away....something tells me they aren't quite up to our codes?

Next stop Bangkok...then sadly back to work & school...

Phuket, Thailand!

After a short two hour flight, we arrive in the airport in Phuket and ride about an hour south to the Karon Beach area where we are lucky enough to spend six nights.  There is a beach playground right outside our hotel which is the high rise building in the back of this photo.  Our location was great we could walk to all the shops and restaurants.

 On our walk we passed all the massage places, some even have these little fishtanks out front where you stick your feet in and the fish will chew off all your dead skin.  Kelly and Charlie were the two brave ones that wanted to try it...Kelly has a great face.  Charlie ended up doing it for about a minute!

The money is Thai Baht, Charlie calls it "Bart" and every time he says it we crack up.  Kids loved getting a giant stack of bills to shop.  The exchange rate is crazy.  

Tons of swimming at the ocean and in lots of great pools, at our hotel and the sister hotel.  The sister hotel had some nice Charlie friendly waterslides.  

 One night Greg and Charlie closed the pool and went to the pub, while the girls and I walked to the night market.  Fabulous food there, one guy was even selling all kinds of cooked insects!  The market was on the grounds of the temple and we got to see the monks chanting their evening prayers.

We took one day to go to the Phi Phi Islands, on a snorkeling trip.  Katie was excited to snorkel in clear blue water.  Sadly, the water was pretty rough and so our snorkeling was quick and not that enjoyable.  The boat trip was a marathon day, overall we would rate it pretty poorly, islands were overcrowded with boats and people and the beaches were dirty, because of too many boats & people.

 On the boat...

Snorkeling, with the ladies in Burkinis...

 Just a small sample of the zillions of people on the beach!

Our first stop, "Maya Bay".

Our next stop, Monkey Island, we watched dumb tourists were feeding the monkeys peanuts (Charlie joined in) his excuse was that he is six...the adult tourists have NO excuse for feeding wild animals...this was hard to see after our time in Africa where everywhere they tell you NOT to feed monkeys!

The best part of the entire, long day is the great stories we all can tell about our fellow boaters, the guides, etc.  We all start cracking up when Greg launches into descriptions of various people from the trip or when he imitates our guide and starts yelling, "red boat"....

 We passed pictures of the King & Queen everywhere we went.

This was a school bus full of kids on their way home from school.  The picture I missed was a similar bus full of boy scouts on their way to some outing in a similar bus!

 Kelly lead the charge to go visit the Big Buddha which we could see high above the hills from our hotel room.  We took a Tuk Tuk up there music blaring & lights flashing. We passed the places where you can take elephant rides or see the monkey show.

 Charlie with the smaller golden Buddha, his favorite color is gold!

 The Big Buddha is at the top of the hills and from the place you can see both sides of the peninsula of Phuket.  There is a great breeze blowing and people purchase wind chime pieces to write a message on and hang.  So it sounds amazing up there with all of the chimes going.  Monks were also under the statue praying. The entire place was very peaceful and beautiful!

 The Hughes kids signed a wind chime too and we had fun adding it to the collection.

A nice sign with what I thought was a good message...

One more view of the Buddha, girls had to borrow wraps to cover up their shorts that weren't long enough.

The view from the Tuk Tuk....the ride down was just as much fun as the ride up!

One thing I really wanted to do was take a cooking class and Kelly said she would do it with me...stay tuned, we had so many pictures it gets its own post!

Exploring a new continent-Asia!

The kids had a long break between school terms and we took about ten days to go on a big adventure to Singapore & Thailand.  We spent one tired day in Singapore (due to flying about ten hours through the night).

We arrived and felt the humidity right away, airport was beautiful, beautiful flowers everywhere, we ride the train to the Cloud Forest Gardens.  We notice the sign on the train about Durian not being allowed, it is this super stinky fruit that people have told us stories about..

Tired Charlie on the floor of the packed train surrounded by our bags.

 The Cloud Forest is this giant indoor garden, with a waterfall at the top.  You take an elevator to the top and walk down all of the levels.

Reminded me of a strawberry planter, where the holes were in the planter were all the walkways for the people.  The curving things above the girls are the walkways.

 The orchids of every kind, color, etc were really amazing!

 Cool view looking down at the waterfall.

Charlie on one of the walkways with the city skyline including giant ferris wheel behind him.

We go to an amazing kids playground and splash park right on the grounds of the Cloud Forest, Charlie is in heaven, and Greg and Charlie sleep...jetlag gets us all at different times...

On the way to the hotel Charlie finally crashes, I can't manage the bags and sleeping boy...so I break the rules!

After a rest we head for dinner and a night boat tour, we get to see a lazer show in Marina Bay, where the famous Merlion Statue is.  (Merlion is the mascot of Singapore)

The cool hotel that the lazers originate from is in the shape of a ship, beautiful at night!

Singapore is super expensive, we spent a fortune to be there just for one night, we can't imagine how people live there and afford it!  On to Thailand...we are all very excited!