This is our last day on Koh Chang. Tomorrow we will return to Bangkok by boat and bus, then Nicholas will start preschool again on Monday. I'll take Thai classes again at AUA before I return to the states on Friday.

I did some sea kayaking this morning. Ying doesn't like kayaking, and Nicholas is a little too young. Paddling a short distance down the beach, I found some interesting rock formations with many black crabs scurrying around on them like ants.

Yesterday, we had another family snorkeling trip, this time on Koh Wai. Koh Wai seems to have about 10 permanent residents, plus a few snorkelers from time to time. It was very quiet while we were there. You can rent a bungalow there for $5 per day. There is a common bathroom and shower a short walk down the beach, and electricity is available for a few hours in the evening. If you ever want to really get away from it all, Koh Wai would be a good place.

The little bungalow resort does have a restaurant, and it does serve western food. I had a good BLT sandwich, and Nicholas had a fried cheese sandwich. Ying had Thai food. Everything was good and surprisingly reasonably priced.

Ying and Nicholas have changed their reservation to come back to the states on the 19th of May, a couple of weeks after I come back.

While I'm here on Koh Chang in this grass roof internet cafe on the beach, I thought I'd record a couple of memories of Nicholas during the trip. He has been an awesome traveler.

• After watching us call the front desk in Bangkok several times for different reasons, Nicholas picked up the phone and said, "Hello? This is Nicholas, and I need your help. The refrigerator won't open. I tried to open it, but it won't open!"
  
• Nicholas hid behind the curtains at our room in Koh Chang, then appeared. "Ladies and Gentlemen! This is Nicholas! The band will be on Friday. That's all."
• At Ocean World in Bangkok, everything Nicholas saw related back to Finding Nemo. When he saw a manta ray, he called it "Mr. Ray", and when he saw a shark, he called it "Bruce".
• Nicholas has a new Chicken Little video dubbed into Thai (he calls it "Little Chicken"). One night, a pop song came on over the sound system in the hotel. Nicholas got out of his chair and started a little dance step. It took us a minute to realize that he was imitating a dance Chicken Little does in the movie.
• Nicholas announced he was going to tell Naa Kat a story. He started off, "Once upon a time, there was a prince named Daddy." That was the whole story. The end.
• Nicholas gave Ying a big hug and told her, "Be a good grownup."
• Due to the parental vigilance and energy a 2.5-year-old requires in the big city, we tried to change our flights so that we would all come back together this Friday. The airline didn't have space -the earliest Ying and Nicholas can come back is May 19th (which is still earlier than originally planned). We explained to Nicholas that Daddy would go back to Seattle, and Mommy and Nicholas would stay at Baa Oh's house with Oat, Ahm, and Odd. He got very excited and said, "And my new friends will be there!" We told him that, yes, his new friends would be there. No problem -Daddy can go back to Seattle, and Nicholas will play with his new friends at Baa Oh's house. But soon after, he gave me a big hug and said, "We like having you around." Good to hear. :)

We are on Koh Chang, which translates as "Elephant Island". It's just off the coast of Thailand in the South China sea, about 300 kilometers from Bangkok, and close to Cambodia. The trip here took longer than expected, but the island is nice and the water is warm. Nicholas wins the "good traveler" award for the trip to Koh Chang, hands down. He was upbeat and talkative, singing his Dora the Explorer songs ("we're going to treasure island, we're on a pirate adventure..."), and reading the map ("we're going here, here and here, then we'll be at the beach!").

Yesterday, we spent the day on the beach in front of our hotel. Nicholas never gets tired of it. He loves to swim, and the water is warm and comfortable. He also loves to play in the sand with a shovel and a bucket.

Today, we took a boat to a tiny island about two miles off the beach in front of our hotel and spent an hour looking at the fish at a coral reef there. It's very nice, and Nicholas loved it. He didn't want to come back.

These are some additional photos from Nicholas' great-grandmother's house in Hat Yai. One is of the Songkran ritual of putting water on the elders, something like a shower. Another picture is of Nicholas watching his new Thai language Chicken Little Dreamworks video on a VCD player on the porch of his great-grandmother's house. The third is just a cute photo.

We are back at the Grand Diamond hotel for a night in Bangkok before a bus ride early tomorrow morning to Koh Chang, an island in the South China Sea.

We are in Hat Yai, in the Songkhla province of southern Thailand. We are here for the Thai new year, also known as the Songkran water festival. On Songkran, people line the streets with buckets and super soakers and soak anyone who passes by. Other people pack the backs of pickup trucks and engage in water fights with the people lining the streets. Nicholas and I took a stroll around downtown Hat Yai with aunt Kat. Everyone was soaked within a few minutes.




Nicholas has spent a lot of time at his great-grandmother's traditional Thai house between the cities of Hat Yai and Songkhla. He has met many, many cousins, friends, and other relatives. He has quite a few relatives who are children, and they have been very outgoing about sharing their toys and inviting him to play. His great grandmother and grandfather have been delighted to see him. One day, he took a nap at their house, and his great grandmother took advantage of the pause in his activity to look very closely and lovingly at his face for a few moments, which was very touching. Ying gave her grandmother a photograph of her graduation from Central Washington University.

Coming from the international metropolis of Bangkok to this more remote area, we are experiencing quite a culture shift. There is much less English spoken here, and many signs don't have a transliteration. The Thai itself is different here, too, since people speak a southern dialect. One thing that hasn't changed is that there seems to be a 7-11 every few blocks. There's even one a short distance from Ying's grandmother's house.

We have met many friends and relatives after a long time. Along with Kat and her husband Tii, we had dinner with Ning and Ma, a couple we know from our time in Iowa. They live in Hat Yai, where Ma teaches English and communication and Ning works at an office of foreign affairs.

Greetings (again) from Khao San Road.




After dropping Nicholas at preschool, Ying and I spent the morning visiting some famous places in Bangkok. We started by visiting Wat Suthat, which has a large bronze Buddha from the Sukhothai kingdom, the era predating Ayutthaya. We then went to Wat Po, a complex of Buddhist temples, for Thai traditional massages at the Wat Po massage school. The massages were great, and we are planning to go again tomorrow. I walked around the Wat Po reclining Buddha, which is about as long as a football field. I don't have a picture of the reclining Buddha -it's very difficult to get a good picture without special equipment, because the Buddha statue is so big, and the enclosing building is so close to it.





We just had a late lunch at Khao San Road, which included an expensive bottle of water and an inexpensive bottle of beer. For dining enjoyment, Dragonstea Din Tea (the Numa Numa song) and some Hindi film songs were blasted into our heads from nearby loudspeakers. As usual, the food was terrific.

Nicholas is very confident now when we drop him off at preschool. He knows his room and his teachers. He is speaking more and more Thai with his teachers and preschool friends. Soon, there will be no hope of my ever catching up to him.

This Wednesday, we will fly to Hat Yai, in the south of Thailand, for the Songklan water festival.

On Sunday, Nicholas' Uncle Muu, Aunt Pin, and Cousin Pan picked us up at our hotel and we all drove to Ayutthya, the old capital of Thailand, which is about 90 minutes outside of Bangkok. We visited Bang Pa-In, the summer palace, which is still in occasional use by today's king. The palace was built by kings who were beginning to open Thailand to commerce and diplomacy with other countries, and the buildings are a beautiful mix of intricate Thai, European, and Chinese architecture.

After Bang Pa-In, we had lunch and visited the temple Wat Panang Choen, which has been in existence since before the establishment of Ayutthya as a capital in the 1300's. Wat Panang Choen has a huge Buddha image, and as we walked in, there was a ritual going on where long orange material that had been draped around the statue was being passed over the crowd. The ceremony finished shortly after we arrived, and a monk sprinkled holy water on people as they left.

From Wat Panang Choen, we went to the Ayutthya historical park, which is filled with ruins from the 18th century, when the capital of Thailand moved from Ayutthya to Bangkok. The ruins are now protected by the government, but until recently, people borrowed many bricks for their houses, so there are a lot of buildings that are mostly disassembled. There are many "chedis", which are structures thought to contain relics of the Buddha. We visited another temple at the historical park, which had another big Buddha statue.

On Friday, we met Oh and Odd for dinner near Chinatown. The restaurant was small and hot, with lots of noise from the street outside, the kitchen, and a TV, but the food was great. At first, I was afraid to try the fish served complete with head, tail, and fins, but once I tried it, it turned out to be good.

On Saturday, Ying and Nicholas took a Tuk Tuk (motorized rickshaw) to the water bus on the Chao Praya river to visit Oh and Odd's house in Nontaburi, which is not far from Bangkok. Oh and Odd took Nicholas and his new friends Oat and Ahm to a Buddhist wat on the Chao Praya river, where the three kids had lots of fun feeding the fish. The rest of the day was spent at Oh and Odd's house playing together. Aside from being fun, playing with other kids is a good way for Nicholas to "study Thai".

The AUA language school will be closed for the Songklan water festival next week, so I spent the day Saturday studying Thai at AUA. Since the school is closed next week, I'll have a chance to do some sightseeing with Ying before we head off to Hat Yai and Koh Chang.

Nicholas is meeting his Uncle Muu ("Lung Muu") and cousin Pan ("Pii Pan") for the first time today. We will meet them in about half an hour (9:30am here) for a day at Ayutthya, the old capital of Thailand.

We always allow two hours for the bus ride to pick up Nicholas from preschool, in case the traffic is bad. Today the traffic was good, and we are here an hour and a half early. So, we are in an internet cafe, checking email and waiting for the preschool to let out.

Naa Kat is in Bangkok until tomorrow, and Nicholas has been bonding with her. Naa Kat works and lives in Patanee, which is in the southernmost part of Thailand. We will see her again in Hat Yai next week during the Water Festival. The Water Festival is something like the holiday season in America, in that families often travel in order to get together. The main event is people putting water on each other, and in recent years, the ritual has escalated to a huge water fight involving super soaker squirt guns and buckets. It will be a fun experience.

Nicholas has been enjoying the swimming pool at the hotel. It includes a shallow end that's just up to his waist, so it's perfect for him. He's very confident in the water -he has a signature way of swimming that's reminiscent of a seal.

The picture below is of the Brahma shrine at the Erawan Hotel. The original statue was vandalized, and it has been replaced by poster-sized photographs. The shrine is as popular as ever, and there are always lots of people there. Since it's between our hotel and the AUA language school, I walk by it on the days I attend AUA.

Yesterday, Odd took me by canal boat to Kang Lom, an open market specializing in electronics. The malls near our hotel could easily be mistaken for malls in America, but Kang Lom definitely would not. It's an open air market with very modern electronics being displayed on tables and racks in long, crowded, narrow alleyways. I was looking for an Asian region DVD player so that Nicholas can watch his Pixar movies in Thai. I found a few players for about $30 American, but I didn't buy anything at the time.

Today Nicholas' Aunt Kat ("Naa Kat") is in Bangkok, and the preschool and AUA language school are both closed for a national holiday, so we went back to Ocean World at Siam Center, where Nicholas enjoyed seeing the sharks and manta rays.

As my Dad noted in his comment, there's a political crisis here, and the controversial Prime Minister may soon be replaced. We hear about the election and see the news in the media, but happily, day-to-day life is very stable. If I do see occurrences related to the political situation, I'll be sure to blog about them.

On his third day of preschool Nicholas has settled into a routine of having breakfast at the hotel and taking the bus to school. When I asked him yesterday how school was, he said, "Great!". So, great!

Yesterday, Ying dropped off Nicholas at preschool, then dropped me off at the American University Alumni language school. When I took a Thai course at the University of Oregon based on the AUA system, I was very impressed by the unconventional approach to learning language based on rhythmic drills and word games. The courses at AUA Thailand are even more unconventional, but it seems to be working, as the students speak good Thai. I'm planning to take 2-3 hours of Thai language per day in Bangkok.

The image below is a shrine to Brahma and Ganesha which I walk by on the way to AUA. It's outside a big shopping mall.

Thank you all for your kind comments and for reading the blog. It's a lot of fun to take a trip in the age of the internet and digital cameras.