Our Internet connectivity was a little limited in Bangkok, so I find myself a little behind on blogging our activities so far.  I also wanted to start getting some of the photos online so I focused there first, so now I can connect some of this narrative to actual photos.  It seems so ironic to me that the smaller hotels with the lower rates and often equal amenities are the ones with the free or included Internet access, and the big resorts continue to chisel an extra few $$ out of their guests to get online.

Anyway, on with the show…..

Our original plan included a couple of days in Bangkok at the start of the trip (and also a couple at the end).  I am no fan of the big cities and had no real desire to spend any time there, but Laurie and the kids had not been there and we figured a few days would be enough to see and experience it without inflicting too much pain.  Although I am glad we went, I feel like my initial impressions were confirmed, and there is just far too many people there for my tastes.  If you are ‘city people’ it would certainly be a great spot as I think that if you cannot see it or buy it in Bangkok, it is purely because it does not exist.

We planned to cram a bunch of activities into our initial days, partly to cross them off our list, but partly to be able see some of the culture (vs just the beach) while Russill was with us.  We had planned to see the Grand Palace and perhaps a river tour, so we decided to spend our first day doing just that.

The Grand Palace

The Grand Place was built by King Rama I and was started when the King moved the capital of Thailand to Bangkok in 1782.  The grounds consist of a series of buildings including the Palace itself, the Kings Temple – where the Emerald Buddha is kept, and various ‘official’ buildings used for ceremonies and hosting foreign dignitaries.  Only parts of the complex are open to the public, and like most Thai museums and historic sites there is a small admission charge for foreigners which I assume goes to cover the cost to maintain these sites.  When you see first-hand the sheer size of these places coupled with the level of craftsmanship that was used during their construction, it is staggering to think about the amount of work involved in keeping them in the immaculate condition they are in.

The current King does not actually live in the Grand Palace, but rather lives in another palace complex in Bangkok, and the Grand Palace is used only for public and government ceremonies. I guess it truly is ‘good to be the king’!

We took the sound advice of travelers that were here before us and decided to hire an English speaking guide to tour us through the grounds.  The price seemed a little steep, but after listening to him explain details of the complex and the many artifacts located inside it was apparent that the money was well spent, and we would have gotten far less out of the site if we had tried to just wander through on our own.

One of the highlights of the grounds is the Wat Phra Kaew or the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.  The temple was built to provide a home to a rare Buddha image made completely of Jade – the deep green emerald color of the stone giving the statue it’s name.  Legend has it that the Emerald Buddha is over 2000 years old and has made it’s home in several SE Asia countries until settling in Thailand in the 1400s.  As with all the other buildings on the palace grounds the Temple is an amazing construction of minute detail – and even more amazing when you consider that it was all done 300+ years ago with crude hand tools and manual labor.

Chao Phraya River

We made our way back from the Palace grounds towards our hotel and then hired a long-tail boat to take us for a tour of the Chao Phraya River that runs through Bangkok and the many canals (klongs) that branch off the main river.  For 100s of years the river and the klongs were the primary means of moving goods and people around, and even with all the modern infrastructure that is part of the city today, the river still is a central part of their transportation network.

The klongs are like side-streets to the river and traveling up them reveals a part of the Bangkok ‘underbelly’ that while visible from the streets, is much more in your face.  We saw the whole spectrum of the people here – nice new canal-side homes and apartments built right next to what can only be called squatter’s shacks, and burned out old factories.  It is amazing to see the stark contrast between the haves and the have-nots so closely together.  What is even more amazing however is that regardless of how rich or poor the people we saw were, they all seemed so happy, and as our boat passed by they would all wave and smile like they had not a care in the world.

If the only lasting impression we get from here is that life can be as simple as you allow it to be, then it will have been time well spent.

As an aside, did I mention that it was damn hot – while we were at the palace it must have been in the high 90s and between the humidity and the sweat, we were all drenched by the time the tour was over.  The odd shop or indoor exhibit that was air-conditioned probably received much more attention than it normally would have 🙂  Hopefully as we acclimatize a bit we will notice it less, but for the moment we are drinking a lot of cold drinks.

I have uploaded a bunch of the photos we have taken and will continue to do so throughout the trip (when Internet connectivity allows) and the can bee seen on the CasaRoberts Gallery

Well, after about 16h or so on the plane we made it 🙂  We arrived in Bangkok at about 9:30pm tomorrow!!  Given the trip across the International Date Line our arrival date was actually Thursday night (vs our Wednesday morning departure) and the kids were very excited to declare that they had solved the time travel problem.

The plane to Tokyo flew the polar route, and one of the options on the seat-back screen was to watch the location of the plane, so there was lots of questions about why we were going north in order to get to Japan, and what would happen when we crossed the date line, etc.  They diligently watched as we crossed, and …… nothing – except we were in tomorrow.  I guess fun to see that the small things can be so fascinating when you are not old and jaded 🙂

Thanks to some good legwork and shopping around by Laurie, and a bunch of American Express reward points we were able to fly business class – this of course made for a much more comfortable travel experience for the old guy, and the kids now believe they are all high-rollers.  I feel only marginally bad for spoiling them for their future travel companions.

We managed to find Russill with no problem (our flights connected in Tokyo) and after making our way through Thai customs, getting some local currency, and then checked-in to our hotel room we were all well beaten down and ready for a good night of sleep.

Today, our goal is to get ourselves oriented a bit, and then try and take in the Palace and hopefully a tour of the river and the Klongs that people live and travel by.  The weather outlook is for about 90F and 50% humidity, so we shall see how the Great Adventurer herself adapts 😉

Special shout out to my parents for all of their help in getting ready and to the actual flight on time.  We had so much last minute stuff to do and people to see that we definitely would not have been ready without their last-minute help – thank you.

Well here it is a couple of days before we go and there is so much I wanted to get done, including a couple of blog entries, but it looks like this will be the final one before we leave.  It always seems like there is so much to do in the final days – getting ready, getting in last minute visits with the people we will miss while we are gone, projects cleaned up at home and at the office, etc. but the next thing you know you are out of time.

We spent last weekend doing what everyone should do before they go on vacation – the pre-vacation!!  Thanks to my brother and his wife, who found an opportunity we could not refuse, the 4 of us drove up to Whistler, BC to spend the weekend sans-kids for a couple days of relaxation.  We spent the weekend just doing some leisurely sightseeing, going up the gondolas to take in the views, walking around the village, and just generally taking in the serenity.  If you have never been there, it is well worth the trip – I had not been since the mid 80s, and I was amazed to see how much it had grown, but was still able to retain it’s European village style charm, and for those that like to ski, it boasts the largest ski area in North America.  Some photos are available in the gallery.

The kids were busy getting the final days of school taken care of, and the weather here has been kind enough to give them a few days to enjoy the pool and a few chances to see their friends before we go.  We won’t be here to get their report cards, but they all ensure us their grades are ‘fantastic’ 🙂

My parents came to town for the weekend so they can get their top-up of grandchild time before they leave for their summer on the boat, and we head off for our adventure.  It was nice for them to be here for Father’s Day and we all popped out to George’s Place in Kirkland for a family breakfast – kudos to Derek (one of our neighbors) and his staff for a great meal, and a nice start to the day.  We finished up the day by watching a big rain storm blow through and sadly spoil my plans to do some yard work with my Dad, we were of course very disappointed 😉

I think that is all I have left for now, a couple of days left to get work in order before I am offline for a few days, and then away we go.  My next post will be from Thailand – we hope you all have a fun and enjoyable summer, we will be thinking of you all while we are gone, and look forward to seeing you all when we get home.

Hard to believe how fast the time is flying by.  It seems like just yesterday since I wrote my last post, but we are rapidly running out of days.

The kids are gleefully counting down the number of days of school left (10) and the reality of our big adventure is really starting to set in for everyone.  We had a birthday party over the weekend for Rachael, and her friends have helped her out with some spending money for while she is gone – along with a decent array of gift cards, ‘product’, and candy.  I think she and her friends had a great time, and it was nice for so many of them to be able to get together before the end of the school year.  Jackie’s birthday on the other hand will not be until after we are in Thailand, so we will have to be more creative for that one, but whatever it is, for us it will certainly be original.

As we scratched this weekend off, we looked at the calendar for the remaining days and realized we still have a fair amount of things we want to get done, but a decreasing amount of time to do them.  I still have a business trip to squeeze in, and we want to try and spend some time with our friends here as the summer ‘officially’ starts.

We learned this week that we will be meeting up with more people that we know from here while on our vacation.  One of Rachael’s friends from the gym will be traveling with her family in SE Asia and is going to work in a few days in their schedule to meet up with us in Koh Samui.  It is amazing how small the world really is sometimes when people from a community like Woodinville can meet up on a beach on the opposite side of the world.  We will be molding our travel path slightly to make everything work, by swapping the order we were planning to go to Krabi and Koh Samui in, but fortunately they are close enough together that everything will still work out fine, and the girls will have some familiar faces around for a few days.

We also need to finish up with our travel vaccinations, and this week will be getting our 2nd round of the Hepatitis A/B shots.  Getting those done will be the last set of shots before we leave, and after that we should be all set for a few years should we decide to do something like this again in the future.  We are also trying to get in all of our various visits and checkups with the dentist, orthodontist, etc so that we don’t find any surprises while we are gone, but also so that we are not scrambling to catch up once we get back.

We are now down to a little less than 4 weeks until we leave, and it seems like the time is going quickly.  There is less than 15 school days left so the kids are counting that down also, and we are all trying to get loose ends tied up before we go.

We have confirmed Russill’s flight plans also, and he will be connecting with us in Tokyo at the start of the trip and joining us for about 3 weeks.

Now that we have some specific targets (we need to have Russill back to Bangkok for his flight home on July 15) we have started to rough out an agenda:

• A) Bangkok
• B) Phuket
• C) Krabi
• D) Koh Samui
• E) Bang Saphan
• F) Hua Hin
• G) Chiang Mai

We are still planning to ‘free flow’ our day to day agenda and likely will not commit to much more than 2-3 days of advance booking at a time but are roughly planning to be in Krabi or Koh Samui around about the time that Russill needs  to depart back to Canada.

All of our documents came back from the Thai Embassy, and we all have our 60 day tourist visas now, and we have started taking our immunization pills, so travel wise we are in good shape.

We still need to get our luggage plan figured out, and likely borrow a few backpacks or good travel bags, as our old luggage is looking a little tired, and would not really be the preferred bags for wandering around anyway.  I’m sure that like so many other things we will pick up stuff along the way, so don’t want to take too more from here than we have to.

Sadly it looks like the dollar is losing a bit to the Thai Bhat, so my 300 Bhat massage looks like it has gone up by about $0.30 or so.  On the flip side, the global tourism industry continues to weaken – I saw flights to Australia for about $300 each way this week – so perhaps my ability to haggle the 300BHT price tag down to 200BHT is getting better 🙂

All in all we are looking forward to a great adventure, and the excitement is starting to ramp up as the departure date gets closer.