, which would have taken an hour. Note for future reference: when travelling with small children, sometimes the cheapest choice is not the best one.We didn't stay on the island of Phuket, but just up the coast in the Khao Lak area (one of the areas hardest hit by the tsunami). We stayed half the week at an enormous lavish resort (complete with resident pet baby elephant) and half the week at a small low-key beachside place that featured much shorter walks between the room, the pool, the restaurant, and the sea. The weather was if anything even hotter and sunnier than Singapore, although we did even get a spot of rain once.
Jamie and Iris were pretty much happy to play in the pool or in the sand. The Andaman Sea is known for its sunsets, and the evenings make a lovely contrast to the relentless insolation of the day. Every night is some sort of special theme at the restaurant. (And yes, food is very well-priced -- the resorts are more than the places on the street, but still cheap by any standards.) The guy with the guitar tried hard to come up with songs that both he and you knew. Actually, he knew almost all the words to "Mrs. Robinson" (phonetically, I think, which is that much more impressive), and a couple of lines (kind of) to "The Boxer."
This is the fancy resort (full of fancy people of course... next time, we need to think about dressing better, and maybe not throwing our food all over the floor at breakfast.) Jamie said, "Go away, baby elephant!!", although it turns out he says "go away" whenever he gets excited, so maybe he didn't mean to sound harsh. He really enjoyed the Penguin Club for kids (so-called because it was cool inside?) and probably would have stayed there as long as we let him. He didn't really do Thai kick boxing though; not quite big enough yet.
Later in the week, we did a number of excusions. This is one of the main reasons I wanted to go to Khao Lak, as it is nearer to some forests, national parks, and offshore islands. Elephant trekking (a low-speed activity) is de rigueur anywhere you go, and if you try a bit you can convince yourself the elephants don't have it too bad, although the sticks the mahouts carry do have sharp hooks on the end, rather than pom-poms like the ones at the zoo. I think it's for clearing dense vegetation! Don't worry, the snake around Jamie's neck has its mouth taped closed. And hey, we did skip the "monkey show."
Bamboo rafting goes right along with elephant riding, and it was actually just the right amount of fun for kids -- somewhat exciting without being dangerous, as the water is only inches deep at this time of year. The bridge at the waterfall we went to could use some repair, though.
The top activity in this region, however, by far, is diving/snorkelling around the Similan and Surin islands. We meant to go to the Similans, which are much closer, but due to scheduling constraints and other factors, we ended up going to Surin, which is about an hour farther away by van, although is said to be slightly better for snorkelling. It was a cloudy day, good for being on the water, although a bit windy and choppy at first, which led to about half our speedboat tour being sick. Lovely. But "peeking at fishies" was certainly worth it, at least for us adults. Jamie only went in the water once (with a lifejacket on), and is still a bit too small for the mask-and-snorkel thing. Iris stayed on board and was babysat by our friendly tour guide, to all appearances a retired ladyboy. The Surin islands are all a national park, and landfall is only permitted in one place, where they have extensive accomodation facilities of tents, huts, mess hall, etc. It might have been nicer if our shoes hadn't been back at the dock, but we soldiered on. The format of this tour meant there was more travelling than time in the water, but we were glad we did it, and will try to work in more coral reef exploration to future trips. I found myself dimly remembering that I spent a year and two summers, a couple of careers ago, working with coral scientists in a geology lab, and actually took a fourth-year geology course in the subject at the time.
We did a bit of walking in the rainforest along the coast. Keep in mind it's a billion degrees out.
Finally, the trip wrapped up with "one afternoon in Bangkok," inside a 12-hour layover at the airport. (After all, putting stickers on your face still leaves 11 hours and 55 minutes to kill.) Travelling into the city was neither the most time- nor cost-effective thing we did on our trip (probably the opposite), but it was still better than the alternative, sitting at the airport and not seeing Bangkok. Anyway, it was always our plan to go into the city, but you end up spending a lot of time in traffic and the tour guides that have the concession at the airport are really not good value for money. That said, the things we did see (Marble Temple, Standing Buddha) were great. It's just hard to be satisfied by driving past the outside of sites that one would really want to see. In the past, we've essentially only travelled in one mode (low-budget grad student), but now, as we learn to adapt to different realities in a number of dimensions simultaneously, their are new lessons to learn about what approaches work best, and the converse.
In the end, the whole outing was saved by a longboat tour (still overpriced though) through the canals of Bangkok (who knew that Bangkok even has canals?), which shows off an entirely different and fascinating view of the city, its built environment and how its people live, both rich and otherwise. This is definitely a must-do element of an city visit. (Ok, it might have helped had we done even the slightest bit of research prior to our arrival.)With that, there were only four or five more hours to wile away at the airport before boarding the overnight return flight to Seoul, bringing our two-week long adventure to an end. There is no doubt it tested us in a few ways (to small kids, being away from the familiar comforts and routines of home is not necessarily "fun" or "relaxing," and travel will certainly reveal any gaping holes in your parenting skills), but the memories are all very positive, or at the least wry, in retrospect.
Finally, if you are interested, please don't forget to devote close attention to the pictures, moreso than to the text. They are far superior, if you click to get a full-size version.
