Winter Escape: A Christmas Holiday in Thailand (2014)
By
Randall D. Ball
With the colder air and the dense, misty fog hitting our
home in Lahore, Pakistan, we knew it was time for another winter escape to a
warmer, sunnier climate. Thus, for the
fourth year in a row, we opted for an island (or two) for our Christmas
holiday. We were heading for Thailand.
We landed in Bangkok late Saturday night after a relatively
quick, direct flight from Lahore. Our
hotel in Bangkok was nice and very friendly.
It was located on a quiet side street, but we were close to several
attractions. On our first full day in
Thailand, we went for a little walk to Jim Thompson’s house. Thompson was a well-known American figure in
the silk trade who made his home in Thailand after World War II. Although the man disappeared mysteriously
while on holiday in Malaysia in 1967, his home in Thailand remains and has
become something of an icon. Christine
and I especially enjoyed lunch there, which concluded with a very tasty dessert
of mango and sticky rice. Anastasia and
Talula loved roaming around his house, as well as his gardens and around
various ponds, which are located along one of Bangkok’s many canals. They also liked the spirit house on the
grounds of the property, the first of many such houses we would see in
Thailand. The spirit house looks like a
little doll house, and is designed to keep the spirits at bay, giving them
their own home so they don’t invade your own.
For our next three days, we would be joined by our own
private tour guide, Natt, who took us on day trips outside the city. Our first stop was to the legendary River
Kwai, where yes, I whistled the little tune from the movie. It turns out that I had been mispronouncing
the name of the river all this time; according to Natt, the name “Kwai” should
rhyme with “square.” Don’t worry; I couldn’t quite work it out either. We walked across the train trestle, most of
which is original from the war, and then we took a train ride across the river
and through the countryside and over the viaducts. After a quick buffet lunch, we explored some
nearby caves (Krasae cave) along the viaducts.
The girls were enthralled with the stalagmites and all the bats who were
snoozing on the ceiling.
From there, we headed to some Khmer ruins at Prasat Muang
Singha (stopping along the way to feed some monkeys). Our driver took a back road to the ruins, so
we actually bypassed the entrance gate.
Yes, we essentially sneaked in without paying. The ruins were reminiscent of what Christine
and I saw on our honeymoon in Cambodia nearly ten years ago. They are different from most Thai ruins, but
of course what interested the girls was the chance to climb and run around the
site.
Our second day with Natt took us north to Ayutthaya, the
ancient capital of Thailand before the Burmese beat them down in 1767, and home
to several different ruins of temples.
We saw the historical ruins of Wat Phra Sri San Phet, Wat Chai
Wattanaram, and Wat Mahathat, which is probably most famous for one of its
banyan trees, where the head of Buddha has been imprinted on its roots. Interestingly, it’s one of the few heads of
Buddha you’ll find. Most of the statues
of Buddha in these ruins are headless, victims of various plunderings. Next to Wat Phra Sri Pan Phet is Wihan Phra
Mongkhon Bophit, a grand assembly hall built in the 1950s to house an enormous
bronze Buddha statue from the 1600s.
It’s several stories tall—and this one has a head. Before we left Ayutthaya, Natt stopped by an
elephant farm, where the girls enjoyed feeding them and checking out two baby
elephants that would come right up to you and nudge you, forcefully.
On our final day with Natt, we headed south to experience
one of the top ten deadliest markets in the world, Maeklong Market. This market is set up along train tracks, and
a few times a day, a train goes right through, forcing everyone to move their
goods out of the way and pull up their awnings.
It’s quite a sight: we passed by
all sorts of food and other goods, including seafood of all sorts, before
stopping by a chicken vendor where we stepped away from the tracks just as the
train swooped by. Talula loved the
chicken vendor because you could see the chicken feet, the heads, etc.
From there we went to a cathouse. Specifically, a home for various Thai
cats. Anastasia and Talula loved
checking out all the felines, although for Anastasia what stole the show was a
talking bird. Christine liked the cats
with two different eye colors; I liked
the informative sign around the cat cages that read, “Bad smell area” (another
good sign was the previous day’s warning at the temples: “Do not move any single brick from its
original place for making any of your ideas, it will be charged as illegal act”).
Our next stop on this very busy day was to the Damnoen
Saduak floating market, where we took a boat tour through mostly narrow canals,
some of which were quiet but others were full of various shops, some just along
the river and some set up on boats drifting by.
It was a very busy but fascinating place, one that is used by both
locals and tourists alike to buy goods.
We bought some bananas from a woman in one boat, but we saw pretty much
anything for sale, from artwork to clothes to souvenirs to seafood to
vegetables and fruits to a few minutes with a boa constrictor.
Then we took an hour-long drive further south, through fish
and salt farms in tidal areas to the beach at Cha-Am, where we had a really
tasty but long seafood lunch right on the shore overlooking the Gulf of
Thailand. We ordered way too much food,
shrimp, grilled fish, squid, and soft-shell crab, along with rice, of course,
and we just sampled away for about ninety minutes. Then it was time for the long drive back to
Bangkok. It may have only been about one
hundred kilometers, but the drive back took three hours because of heavy
traffic, including ninety minutes of rush hour traffic in the city of
Bangkok. It’s hard to imagine having to
do that on a regular basis, every work day, all year long.
Our final day in Bangkok, Christmas Day, was on our
own. We took a cab to the Grand Palace,
where we wandered around for a good portion of the day, exploring the temple of
the Emerald Buddha as well as Wat Phra Kaeo.
Then we had lunch at an outdoor market before walking along the
riverfront briefly and heading back to our hotel in a tuk-tuk. We figured the girls should experience a ride
in one of southeast Asia’s most popular modes of transport, the auto-rickshaw. We see plenty of them in Pakistan, but we
don’t need them since we have our own transport there.
The next morning, we caught an early flight (Christine and I
both had a chuckle at the flight attendant who, during our descent, gave the
usual spiel about returning your seats to the upright position and putting your
tray tables up, said, “Thank you for your copulation”) to the resort island of
Koh Samui, where we would spend the next several days dividing our time between
the pool and the beach. Both girls loved
the pool, and Anastasia has really become quite the swimmer. We also enjoyed some walks along the beach,
and our hotel restaurant had an extensive menu and really good food. The Tom Kha seafood soup was the best I have
ever had; it was perfection. We had many delicious meals at the hotel’s
restaurant, which was right along the beach, providing some beautiful scenery
both night and day.
One day, we did head inland into the jungle. I had seen a sign along the main road for a
waterfall, so we decided one morning to take a little hike. There was an entrance fee (the girls got in
free, though), but it was well worth the price of admission (about $3.00) when
we saw the fish spa (included in the price).
We saw the waterfall, as well as a cheesy big rock called the Valentine
Stone, and we hiked up the mountain to a scenic viewpoint (where one could also
take a pretty frightening zip line ride).
But the highlight was the fish spa.
I had been wanting to do this again since our time in Singapore, and
finally, it happened, unexpectedly. We
put our feet in the pond, and the fish came.
They swarmed. They tickled as
they nibbled at our feet, chowing down on some dead skin cells. These fish were a little bigger than the ones
in Singapore, and the feeling was pretty intense. It didn’t hurt; it just tickled, but it was pretty
intense. The surprising thing is that
the girls actually tried it. Talula
tried first, with the promise of ice cream.
Let one fish take a nibble—get ice cream. She did it, and Anastasia followed after some
additional coaxing. They were very pleased
with themselves afterwards. Christine
and I were just happy to get smoother feet.
Our last day in Koh Samui started off innocently
enough. With the exception of the
previous day’s adventure into the jungle and up the mountain, the days on Samui
were rather predictable: breakfast,
beach, pool, lunch, pool, afternoon thunderstorm, more pool, dinner,
bedtime. But this day would be memorable
for the wrong reason. Earlier in the
morning, while exploring some rocks along the water, I cautioned the girls
about going too far out. The waves were
a lot bigger than anything we had seen (except perhaps in Sri Lanka), and those
powerful waves could slam them into rocks pretty easily. Back near our hotel about an hour later,
Anastasia was making faces at the water and waving her butt at Mother Ocean,
and I remember thinking that she shouldn’t tempt the sea. It might come for you.
About fifteen minutes later, it happened. The girls were playing in the sand, looking
at shells, while Christine and I sat along the beach reading. Talula had gone down into the wash zone a
bit, but unlike Anastasia, she wasn’t paying attention to the waves. A wave came in and knocked her down, but then
she didn’t get up. Instead, she started
sliding down (there was a bit of slope where we were), and I knew she was in
trouble. I called out and ran into the
waves as she was carried out. A huge
wave knocked into me, and I lost sight of her.
Christine was next into the water, and she caught Talula but was also knocked
around by the waves. Poor Talula was
rolled several times (the image that Christine will recall vividly, just as the
image burned in my mind is that of poor Talula sliding down into the water in
the first place), but in what was probably less than 25 seconds, it was over. A stranger also appeared on the scene to help
both Christine and Talula, and then we were all back on shore, safe again but
definitely full of emotion, anxiety, and adrenaline. But the important thing was that everyone was
fine.
The following day was supposed to be our last day in
Thailand. We flew out of Koh Samui,
which was very easy. We went through
immigration there, instead of in Bangkok, which meant absolutely no lines at
all. I can recall thinking, “This is too
easy.”
I was right.
We landed in Bangkok and just as our flight from Bangkok to
Lahore was supposed to start boarding, we were told that the airport in Lahore
was closed due to a “disabled aircraft.”
That’s code for a plane crash, of course. A plane landing in Lahore had lost some wheels
and skidded, and although no one was injured, the airport was closed for a day
and a half. So we spent an extra day and
night in Bangkok, this time at the airline’s expense. Our new year’s eve was spent in an airport
and then at the airport hotel (a nice hotel, though). The next morning, we were starting the
boarding procedure when it was called off again. Finally, a few hours later, we were headed
home, tired but relieved after a few chaotic days. This is why we sometimes need a holiday AFTER
our vacation.
