Monsoon Country

These, my friends, are what perfect mangoes look like. We go through 10 or 12 a week, smoothies galore!

Rambutan. Stumbled across them a bit in literature over the years, but never knew what one looked like till coming here

Not much flavor, but juicy with a small pit inside. Rambutan are kind of fun to say & eat... every time I sit down to enjoy a bowl, the cracking open of bristled peel reminds that I'm not in Holland anymore

In Holland we can't buy 8 stems of orchids for 40 baht... just over a dollar!  Ry still doesn't enjoy visiting local open markets here, as the smells can about knock one over, but picking out fresh flowers makes it more tolerable.  A few days ago little ones there were following her around, wanting to touch her golden braids. Some kiddos had peanuts in the shell and Ry was amused by their shelling technique of setting them on the ground & stomping with their barefoot heel to open... harder on the feet than simply handing to mom & asking please, but moms here have mangoes & orchids to move at market

The healing knee

It's not a cobra. Last weekend my friend watched gardeners RUN madly (gardeners here don't usually run... it's part of that surviving-the-heat thing), whacking at this 2m long serpent on the rough they'd just cut on her backyard golf course. After they killed it, this guy swung it over his head like a lasso. There's a decent chance he brought it home & ate it, seriously. Pink trucks & taxis are common here

So are peachy sunsets we see most evenings

Thailand is restless, and red shirts are rising. Things remain quiet by us. The heated protesting is almost entirely in Bangkok, a huge expanse of city where trouble has been localized to a few areas.  Protests are also uniting in Khon Kaen, the impoverished area in the north where we visited at Christmas.  None of this is new to Thailand and some feel it will blow over, possibly with another coup as is the pattern here. A unique concern with this uprising is the King's health.  He's been ailing in hospital for months, and worry is that opportunity could be ripe for major unrest & anarchy.  Long live the King, but still problems remain.

We've been talking with the girls and drawing parallels to the French Revolution to help them understand. Largely poor, rural red shirts are the hungry French peasants storming Versailles. We are exposing the girls to wonderful and not so wonderful things. Opportunities to learn. But how much do we just let them be kids & not bog them down with heaviness that abounds?  And how much do we challenge them to genuinely care, form founded opinions and perhaps take action? Wish it was spelled out in a chapter of that perfect parenting book for which we all long, but does not exist.

A beautiful read that does exist is Monsoon Country by Pira Sudham.  I finished it last week on holiday.  It explores the divide between poor, rural Thailand and wealthy West, and is set a generation before my own, but has timelessness. 

I'm often asked, what is the hardest thing about living in Thailand?  The heat is a strong contender, but witnessing & experiencing massive socioeconomic disparity is a true challenge, even from our privileged vantage.  Vacationing a few weeks in poor, desperate places is so vastly different from living there.  I wasn't expecting those differences to hit me with such intensity. 

We are days from arrival of monsoonal rains.  I feel them looming as skies have grown heavy with occasional downpours & distant thunder. A slew of new bugs are on the move & trying to reside in our house.  Temperatures are on the final push of their upper limits. Heat hasn't seemed to affect the protests, Thais can take the heat and the rains.  Motorbikers press through pounding showers, while pick-up trucks carry crouched, drenched people. 

Politics & military history are filled with weather-affected outcomes.  I hope these protests don't have the outcome of just blowing over with the change to an impossibly wet season... the 25 deaths of April 10 would be all the more senseless and sad. My hopes may be naive, but there are populations here that need respite from their economic storms cycling sure as the monsoon.  Mayuri has been exploited to literal death.  Palm & her community have barely a chance of breaking the slum pattern. And "unwanted" babies still fill Vietnam-era orphanages in this land of smiles where orchids are happy & mangoes are perfect.

Spring Break

Much like & unlike a Michigander's pilgrimage to Mackinac Island, we drove 4 hours Monday morning to the coast near Cambodian border where we car ferried another 1/2 hour to Thailand's second largest, mountainous rainforest island   

Greeted with Happy Songkran, the Thai New Year & water festival meant crazy & slow driving all week in the comfort of our rolled-up windowed truck.  Motorbikers didn't fare so well, or perhaps they did.... another hot, 100 humid degree week

Kids from 1 to 92 had a blast with buckets & super soakers

Passed a monkey on side of the road, only one we saw all week

Hardly a gas pump on the island, but lots of old whisky bottles recycled for selling petro... equates to about $6/gallon

Tuesday, we opted for pachyderm power to explore the jungled hills

Never before limboed atop a riverbed-tiptoeing elephant... now I have

Cool to see allergy-plagued Rob enjoying his first time ever riding a large mammal... stirred his sniffles a smidge, but not too badly

After trekking, we got to give all of these beautiful girls a bath

Most riverbeds are dry by this time of year, but this deep & frigid one still works

As Al gave her elephant a bath, she reciprocated Al with a shower

In this water, how many little germs may lurk that could aggravate a 4-day old sutured knee? Who cares... I get to swim with an elephant!

Ry's elephant is 50 years old and will hopefully live to 90 or 100

Many Thai elephants are abused. I guess what we were doing was abuse, but this camp appeared more conservation conscious and keeps their elephants in a natural setting where they roam & graze without painful chains & barbs

Lather, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat was Al's elephant's nature. Happy Songkran, her mahout kept telling her

Banana flower

Things grow big in Thailand... this, about the size of Ry's hand

Durian, a smelly fruit about the size of a pineapple

Ohh, how I loathe fresh coconut milk, but I say thank you & smile

Thankful for an amazing day with some amazing creatures in a splendid setting

Our afternoon ritual after adventuring the great outdoors

Wednesday we explored a long day under the sea, joining 6 scuba divers for an hour & half boat ride out to deeper waters

Made 2 different dive stops near Koh Tien & Koh Yak in a nature preserve of sorts... allows divers, but no fishing

Girls now want to stay a third year so they can get their open water dive certification, Ry can't until she's 10

Both girls were FANtastic snorkelers. We knew Allie could handle it, but were a bit nervous for Ry. She's become a powerful little swimmer the past few months with having a pool & she figured out the snorkel, salt, waves, deep waters just fine with Rob's help. We went out for a bunch of 20-30 minute dives in deep waters, no vest

AMAZING sealife... and no photos of it, sorry to say... will probably do more of this, so gonna research H2O cameras. We have only snorkeled a touch in Cozumel & Venezuela, but this trumped both of those wee experiences and we couldn't get over the immense variety the Pacific offers. A few things our eyes spied: marbled sea cucumber, squamose giant clam, tons of black diadema sea urchins, forests of coral including tube, brain, fine table, sun mushroom, fan, funnel, Hemprich's soft, and we swam through huge schools of fish of every color of the rainbow

Back at the docks, girls had more water fun with Songkran festivities

Thursday included a drive down the island coast to a quiet beach where, for the cost of a matinee feature film, we got foot massages & pedicures

Not much motion in this picture

Allie while she was still enjoying her foot massage... the guy ended up using a balm (with black pepper in it) on her legs that burned a couple of her open sores to the point of tears

Kind of intrigued with the layering they do for thatched rooves on huts

Friday was Happy Birthday, Riley Mei!

Adorably 8

She wanted a salon that morn...

...for some island birthday braids.  72 braids took nearly 3 hours

Al had no interest in braids for herself & wasn't smiling all 3 hours, but Take 2 on the pedicure helped

Afternoon turned stormy

A taste of coming May monsoons

Girls had a dance party while rains poured

Birthday dinner... Italian, of course, for pasta loving Ry

We had dined here earlier in the week & this is where Ry wanted to return. I arranged a sweet little party with the owner from Milan 

Lovin her strawberry tiramisu... the owner's emailing me her recipe

Sweetheart Fernanda... the girls have a way of getting invited back into quaint kitchens. Ry learned that Italian pizza is baked at 350 degrees C (hot!) for just 2 minutes 

Our home for the week

Drove home through steady, heavy rain Saturday. Holiday is over, for Thais too.  At our Meijer equivalency this weekend, everything was out for back to school. Strange feeling for us in April, but this is when Thai school year commences. Ours wraps up in 8 weeks.  Girls & I'll be home June 27-July 23, Rob just shy of the last 2 of those weeks.  Mixed feelings about going home, as most of the time will be anything but vacation, but trying to keep it light for the girls. Happy for the R&R we were gifted this week.