Bangkok - Down to the South

 Our arrival in Bangkok gave us time to run some errands needed for India, first of all we needed some medication and most importantly we realized that the suitcase we had sent back from Bali was an error so we went out to get another one. Other then shopping Bangkok holds an amount of beauties that are incomparable.
We went for a visit of the royal palace and a few temples which are really worth the detour.
People are friendly wherever you go, food is amazing.
Thailand being right in the middle of our trip, I wonder if that truely is the cause, has been pretty heavy on us.
Actually I don't think it's Thailand but I think something has shifted within the traveling mode.
We are lazy don't feel like looking up much are tired of packing and unpacking. We are all exhausted actually and as cynical as it may seem to many we need a holiday.
We decided to go south and locked up in a beautiful resort on a beautiful island.
I suppose rest and dolce far niente on a beach is what we needed. However it seems that even there everything is going a bit haywire.
The place we are at although supposedly a top hotel offers a public beach; flattened by tourists all day, the air-con has been noisy and woke us up four nights in a row, service is poor and I am tired and angry at the money I am spending on this place while a bungalow by the beach would have been better cheaper and definitely without expectations.
The kids have been really hard to handle lately and Julian in constant imitation of his brother hasn't been tender at all. I suppose the fact of being twenty four seven together is slowly taking it's toll and that a trip cannot be all honey and cream all the time. I realize my worries are petty but it does have an impact on our well being. On a personal level I feel we all have to get through this, individually together and this definitely is one of the self/family confrontations that we anticipated before we left.
No major problems really just growing pains in order to evolve to a strengthened relationship with each other.
I also believe that the  confrontation with Asia also plays a factor. We are the strangers here, there is no hiding it either. On the contrary to European countries it is clear and accepted here to discriminate the non Asian, the farang. A farang pays more then a Thai if the later pays at all to enter a public temple, garden, zoo etc.
The difference in culture, language, thought, reaction, feeling, view on things is amazing.
You cannot think as you think in Europe, things are not resolved the way they are resolved where we're from. The anchor point towards our frame of mind, comparable to the previous continents we've been, Norh America and Australia is different. In that way we are drawn yet again a little further away from what we know and deeper into the middle of the sea where little anchoring is left but a constant flow of spirituality, and even that is constantly evolving and changing as we encounter new personal challenges on a daily basis.
Thailand hasn't been our favorite cup of tea it is cheap,the weather is good, the food amazing, the Thai people very friendly but for some reason we don't seem to find a lot of affinity with this country, I cannot pin point exactly what it is yet, is it Thailand or most probably is it us?!

To complete the circle with the beginning of this post, maybe we are all longing for a more structured living after these six months of adventure.

From the North back to Bangkok

On our way we merrily went, to Lampang a little town south of Chiang Mai. The Thai pronunciation caused Julian to start singing Lampang Lampang in different tones after about ten minutes of him doing it on his own we started humming it together repeatedly after Julian set the tone, for the next thirty minutes; interrupted by the last hotel we stayed at saying we had forgotten our ipad.
We thus decided to carry on to Lampang and go back to Chiang Mai for the night.
We had a great day though Val had it on the wrong end all day. She checked the room to make sure we hadn't forgotten anything and after sushi suggested a hopeless horse and cart trip of the city followed by a visit to a temple (Wat Pratat Lampang Luang, Djudj says it beautifully) at four fifty, not knowing the temple closes at five.
The next day we took the same road and saw a sign saying elephant hospital, after reading up on it and getting nothing but praise compared to the usual elephant places in Thailand in we went.
Now this place had a few special things of which one in particular. We stopped in the local onsite restaurant for our first taste and no more, Thai food, it was disgusting. Val went to talk to a monk and asked about what a monks life is like. A quick description of this monk is needed and though I am adding a picture try to add my description to your mental image of this character.
This man is slightly overweight has three tooth plaited together as one on the bottom. he is speaking over-loudly with a Thai accent where nearly every other consonance is lost.
After explaining to us that monks shave there heads every full moon, get up every day at four am to repeat there mantras before setting out at six to wander for offerings and food given by the people;  they cannot touch women are thus bound to celibacy and are living of charity of people, he greeted Val and came down to the table me and the boys were sitting at screaming at Matt:"Wa is yur name"Matt said Matthew, " Ow ol ar yuu" Mattew answered in Thai "pet pee" eight year old same went for Julian.
The monk then proceeded to Matt "Yuu Thai name is 'Chompuu'" and to Djudj "en yuu 'Mattmuang'".
Thus both my sons have been renamed to Thai as 'pink apple' and 'mango', and if that weren't enough as we continued to see the attraction in the park this is what happened.
We first went to visit the hospital section where we saw an elephant operated at the foot with a huge bandage, on we went to hand feed bananas to mum who had her young baby sleeping by her feet.
Then approximately ten tame elephants were ridden to the lake to take a bath, just before they arrived we were sitting in some kind of tribune we heard a loud voice shout "Chompuuuuu, Matmuang" repeatedly until the kids turned around and as they did the monk laughed "cho cho chooo".
This followed us throughout the elephant visit.

I took some pictures painted by the elephants and even though they were guided the result is still amazing.
We carried on to the temple we missed out on the day before to find that it's originality lays more in the belief then the beauty. One thing that struck out was in one little room preceded by some high stairs was a supposed imprint of Buddha's foot and as the door of this little room was closed it unveiled a camera obscura effect reflecting the whole temple on the wall like an upside down color picture, amazingly sharp.
We carried on to the sad little city of Phrae nothing worth to say here appart from meeting a Belgian couple that hated India would never go to China and told us a horrible story about being in Laos arrested by the army and witnessing a rape.
On to Sukhothai the next day.
The place we stayed at was everything our guide book predicted. The place itself was amazing and though the collection of caged birds was stunning we all fell we would sneak them out by opening the cages. The beds were extremely hard and the Italian host having a love or hate relationship with his customers turned out to be the kind of person i greatly appreciate. The real Italian, his Thai even sounded like Italian, direct proud well dressed Thai style but moccasins shoes and white shirt for Italian class and a I know it attitude. He did know, everything he told us about the area turned out to be better then we expected and the 'incrediibile' breakfast was amazing. Sukhothai had a calming effect on us the seven hundred year old ruins lit on the Saturday night the bicycle tour the good food on the stalls at night and the guest house made us long for a less travelly mode so on the way to the Errawan waterfalls as we saw the crossing Errawan right Bangkok left we chose for the latter one.
A quick visit to the capital and of to the beach we go.
The children are although demanding at times and as loud as ever being darlings the last few days.
My wife is getting to her moon cycle and claims I am impossible so all is turning as usual and life goes on it's merry way.
I am sitting in this 'chiquy' hotel room writing my blog with a bit of nostalgia to be more settled yet a hunger to discover. I am still blessed and arriving in Bangkok with little traffic we noticed it was Sunday and our decision to get here today was not really ours but was led by.....   . We are taken care of I know that and Val felt it to and I am grateful.

North Thailand

Tiger Kingdom pet and cuddle the tigers sounded like the thing to do with the kids it turned out to be saddening and made us aware once again that we actually contributed to this place staying open by paying to get in.
The snake show on the other hand down the road was amazing. Cobra's, king Cobra's and a bunch of other snakes being played with and teased. The kids loved it. The whole show was presented by a blonded thai slightly over-sized woman that was screaming with a very heavy Thai accent through the P.A.
At night we wandered the night market with it's colorful clothes, paintings, carvings, jewelry and wooden toys to mention but a few.

Today walking around the old Chiang Mai is on the program. We got our car in the morning and drove to a little 'soy' (alley) where a fresh market was showing it's fresh watermelons, papaya's, mango's and more, little stands serving fried rice and noodle soups, varieties of rice displayed in big jars. We stopped at the juice stand on the middle of the market and ordered Matti's favorite orange, strawberry, banana, apple. Oh yes before going into the market we stopped on the street at a pancake maker Matt ordered a saussage and chocolate pancake, I tasted it it was actually excellent, Djudju a rainbow sugar balls one and I had a strawberry jelly crepe. We walked the soys for a while and ended up the four of us in a comfy chair getting a foot massage. The lady massaging Julian said his hair looks like noodles hence Djudjes new Thai name,'noodle head'.
We visited an old temple, which reminds me that two days ago we bought some turtles and eels at a temple and released them in the river for good luck (a Thai tradition), and ended up on the Sunday market. This site turned out to be the ultimate test as far as how Thai food and Farang (non Thai) stomach mixes. We tried food at every stall we met with as result to our digestive systems...that it continued functioning as if nothing happened. Thai food is just amazing in variety taste and lightness.

A tuc tuc (covered motorcycle taxi) took us back to our car and a good night sleep carried us into the next day.
We left the hotel with a good memory of the restaurants staff playing with the kids,running around as if they were kids themselves.
Our first destination on the northern loop we decided to drive is Pay.
Pay is nothing special it's a nice little laid back village away from the city where there isn't that much to do but chillax. It has a great little night market with again food stalls and all kinds of goodies and a few great bars. To our astonishment we saw a Muslim community here mingled amongst the locals.
We found a nice little resort here stayed the night after a visit to the night market.
Following a route printed of the net we found ourselves visiting a kindergarten. One lady in charge of twenty six children all overexcited to see some farangs daring to come in. Djudj cried when we had to go, he wanted to stay and play. A little deeper in Soppong we got to Ban Tam Lod, for a visit of the caves.

A visit of the caves here is different from the well lit caves I had visited before. A lantern holder took us down along a path where locals were thinning out long bamboos to ropes with machetes. Arriving at the bottom of the hill close to the stream we boarded our bamboo raft sitting on benches about twenty centimeter high set on it and of we were armed with couple of torches and a big gas lit lantern for a walk that would take about two hours up and down steep stairs in a darkness lit only by our guide and rarely passing groups of visitors. Stunning views of stalactites/mites taking shapes you had no difficulties to compare to animals or monsters out of movies. The kids where marveled though Matt had a little scare on the high stairs. The story of the day as far as the guide is concerned, and he told it merely to anyone we crossed (or at least that is what I made of it) was that the farang (yours truely) took a dump in the cave. My stomach was acting up and it was either that or big trouble so...when you gotta go, you gotta go, thank God for my headlight and Val bringing tissues (yes I know to much information, gross, but I want to remember it).
More walking and rafting took us to the bat part of the cave for the familiar smell of guano (here we go again) making us known that the amount of bats present isn't little. Looking up revealed hundreds of bats twirling and shifting to avoid the light we were shining on them.
Our book steered us to Cave Lodge a backpackers hut style hotel for a nights rest.
A little parenthesis is needed here. We have rarely been to a place with such a good vibe. The place is set  a steep hillside. A big platform is the deck where you hang out and have exquisite food. Our hut was set next to a rock playing the role of a curtain and had two double beds next to each other and a shower and toilet.
All over looking the stream passing through the hill we were on and the hill in front of us. The kids did make the place a 'little' less quiet then the vibe it exhaled when we got there.

On the next day for a drive through the hills passing a few hill tribe villages.
Amazing how people live here, how little the have. A good four by four seems to be the most important thing to have as this is the only way to move around. Distances are short but the winding roads are slow and long. Our loop holds over one thousand six hundred curves.

An overnight stay at a nice resort, the Thai name a hotel resort as soon as it is out of town or village and has a few trees around it, Val freaked at the sight of a spider so big I got pretty uncomfortable, we drove on to the Myanmar border.

We drove past a isolated palace built for the kings staff and arrived in Rak Tai, on to the Burmese border where a few drunken soldiers took us to see the views upon Burma from this side of the border. Val panicked she thought we were all going to get killed molested and raped, well not me her. Since they offered us to go and see the views there was kind of no way back so on we went down we came and we lived to tell the story.

We decided to stay in this three and a half street village after finding a basic but spotless place to sleep. I took a picture of the plumbing system, thought it was worth it A few kids were playing beating up a scarecrow and Djudj was watching them. Carefully he got closer, mixed in then withdrew. Not much later all the kids were mingled laughing and playing together. What a joy it brought me and Val to see the kids finally mix with local kids. Language doesn't seem to be a barrier at all and watching them sliding down a hill on a rice bag and playing hide and seek around the huts by the lake. I think one of the reasons our kiddo's have been grumpy is the lack of interaction with other kids, something us parents will have to take into account.
We stayed till noon the next day only to see the kids in full glory again having a blast.
On to Mae La Noi after declining a home stay for a lack of windows, sheets and too far a toilet.
We arrived in a resort set in the middle of the fields, stunning views. At supper we were served by a twelve year old girl and a fifteen year old je ne sais quoi. This boy/girl/both/none was a extremely kind yet undefinable indescribable character. Mens feet and hands yet breasts, slight mustached yet 'coquette', anyway try to explain that to your four and eight year old I dare you!
Laundry ws given out in the evening only to be returned the next day soaking wet, and no more rooms for the night.
So back to Chiang Mai and our good hotel we decided to get back before heading out east.
For some reason Matt is Being rebellious and aggressive since a few, we talked to him but he doesn't seem to know whats going on. One thing is that, as we knew it would happen, Djudju being the blue eyed blond noodle head he is, has quite an impact on people here and gets a lot of attention... .
Val seems to have a difficult time these last days too. We both knew a trip like this is bound to cause self confrontation and I truly belief that is whats happening with her. Asia is a country where you cannot think as a Westener, logic here is not the same, your existing value system is not valid here, and as easy as it is to calculate the exchange rate, no exchange calculator has yet been invented for customs cultures and value systems.

No more words just lookie lookie here !

Sawadee Kaaaaaaaaaaa!

Bangkok, you love it or you hate it. Well I hate it, it's busy it's filthy and I am passed my single years and traveling with wife and kid. We are somewhat accusing the blow of having been with the family, not in a negative way but the feeling of needing to be alone re-center and get back into a traveling mode is present in all of us. We even mentioned going back home but that thought only lasted for a milli second.

We left Bangkok after some shopping and a long tail ride on the klongs. We didn't realy get ripped but our long tail turned out to be an outdated short tail who was about twice slower then anything on the river. The trip got short due to Matthew having tremendous ear pain.
So after many a discussion we decided not to put ourselves through the ordeal of riding the eleven hour train to Chiang Mai but opted for the one hour flight instead.
The kids have been impossible for the last few days, Matthew has been rebellious and Julian is being a whiner. I suppose that my new tactic in reacting without shouting is causing some confusion and therefore triggering testing reactions.
We got to Chiang Maiwhere my friend Dirk, whom I hadn't seen in twenty odd years, took care of us for the next two days, got a car today and started exploring the city.
We did take Matthew to the hospital to check out his ear and I was stunned by the efficiency of the packed place, he was diagnosed with a medium ear infections and a week of antmbiotics should get him back to his old self. Just as good we left coastal grounds.
The friendliness of the Thai towards the children is without any parallel especially towards green/blond curly wurly. We were sitting at bistro Number One, in the middole of the hot Chiang Mai hoping to get a curry worst but had to settle for bitterballen en mexicano, a revelation after six month of traveling.

Having said that there is, as most of you know, books and books I could dedicate to Thai street cooking.
The little stalls are uncountable the variety is endless the taste is amazing the colors stunning and the price ridiculous. Top that with just about everything being low calorie and here stands a happy Henry in a tasting mood. I could live on noodles and sushi forever (those bitterballen were tremendous though).

We are slowly getting back into our traveling shoes and I suppose the main thing we realized we needed as incentive was nature. So of to the hill tribes we will start moving before slowly starting to explore the North of Thailand probably to start driving back to Bangkok following a Noth Eastern route. More will be revealed.

Conclusion Bali

I have left writing on my blog for a while two main reasons being at play.
The first reason is that we haven't moved much so travel wise there hasn't been happening a lot.
The second being that I don't think family holidays is very interesting for people to read except for the family.
Having said that we did visit a few places and as far as family fun goes there are a few things to be mentioned.

Bali being city of temples, rituals, offerings and deep belief marks the city constantly with little baskets filled flowers, rice, plants as offerings. You find them in Taxi's, in front of houses, in and around anything you can just imagine. No day starts without some kind of a ritual and a blessing.
I suppose it centers each individual participating and is a way of starting your day being humbled, something we Westeners often 'don't have time for' or 'forget' to do, me being as guilty as anyone often starting the day without taking the time to channel in.
As I've mentioned before the people we met and keep on meeting are very open, and genuinely friendly.
We took the family for a trip to Tana Loth Temple. This temple is characterized by the fact that on high tide you cannot access it as it is surrounded by water.
A lot of Muslim Indonesians, presumably from Java, who were visiting the temple were as eager to take pictures of us 'bulé's (strangers) as we were of them. I suppose the red and the blond curls played a role in that.

We carried on to Jeti Lue literally meaning very beautiful, rice terraces protected by the UNESCO for some stunning view of the valley.
Comming back from Bedugul temple we stopped at a market where Vals dad in law bought some nuts.
Not a good idea as I spent the next night moaning groaning getting up and wondering which side of my body the food or liquid was exiting next (am I being to graphic?).
We had the opportunity or misfortune, take it as you wish to see a Barong Dance.
In the setting we saw it, this overpriced tourist attraction actually reflects the core of Balinese beliefs or superstitions depending on the way you view it.
It is a war between the white and black magic forces portrayed with God servants with long nails, large eyes and four legged dragon-like monsters. The whole theatrically en-scened in front of a twenty something manned orchestra made of xylophone like brass instruments hit upon with hammers creating a music which is supposed to get the dancers in a trance. I am not sure whether it is the show we saw that wasn't good but I thought it sounded like a cacophony.
We continued on to an elephant park were val and the kids rode an elephant.
The best attraction of that park were the two orphan ourang outangs raised by this girl since they were born.
I'll let the picture speak for themselves.
The most memorable thing about new years eve which happened quietly in our villa was the constant exploding of fireworks that started at dusk and went on till about two and the fact I had a few video calls with people in Europe and the US which literally meant I was video conferencing to the past.
Bali was a great family quality time and rest. It's people amazed me with their welcoming openness and stunned me with their ritualistic convictions. It also reminded me of Ibiza as a party capital and it's lush nature and rice fields left me speechless.
Bali was also our entry point to Asia bringing in a first culture clash and belly clash, we weren't at the peak of our health here.
I suppose it's a good way to ease into this continent.
Bali in picture can be seen here!
On to Thailand...........