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February 15th 2007

Published: February 15th 2007

Hi everybody, here a blog from Remmert and me together. Wanted to first make clear that the 1000.00 CAD came from the choir from Cheam Elementary School. They raised the funds at their X Mas concert, this for the people that didn't know. Second I haven't done any housework or laundry for over a month !!!!!!!! Start to get really used to this, oh also no cooking for a month, we are all looking forward to a home cooked meal in the motorhome. enjoying last day in Bangkok, full of luxuries, thanks to shopping with the VISA (with the Aeroplan points you can only get 5 star resorts)

Boys yesterday was the day to be nice to our spouses, hope you didn't forget!
Last week we made a day trip from BangSean to Pattaya and did some fun stuff for the kids. No temples, no hikes, no culture. We went to Pataya's fun park and water park and rented a jetski at the beach. Everyone was ready for this. Pattaya is like a big beach resort, where the tourists outnumber the Thai people. It's one of the big party towns for tourists in Thailand. Most of the places we stayed through Thailand we stayed away from places like that and we couldn't wait to go back to BangSean.
Yesterday we arrived in Bangkok at the Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel. On aeroplan points, we were able to get this nice 5 star hotel for 4 days. Big pools, 5 different restaurants and for me a 24 hour gym! It took me 10 minutes from arrival time and check in to land my lazy butt in the gym. It felt good to exercise and sweat again. I mostly sweat during my stay in Thailand anyway due to the heat and humidity but this felt awesome.
Kids off to the pools and mama looking for the nearest Starbucks! So, everyone happy.
We visited the beautifull Grand Palace yesterday. It was the royal residence now it's open to the public. Thailand's famous Emerald buddha is located at one of the temples. A large setup of temples for the king and his queen built in 1750. Nicely done with wall paintings and hand crafted tiles. It seemed that every inch was decorated with something but after 2 hours in the heat we went back to our resort and put ourselves down in the lazy chairs by the pool.
Today is our final full day in Thailand and are getting ready to face the Autralian Outback. Yesterday we made our trip to the well anticipated Tiger temple in Kanchanaburi . We rented a van with driver for 2500B for the whole day. Don't feel save to drive myself with 11 million people around me.
On our way there we stopped at the cemetery near the Bridge of the river Kwai and walked over the bridge it self. 1600 Dutch soldiers lost their lives as POW in 1942-43 building the bridge and railway for the Japanese. The Japanese were occupying Thailand at that time. The kids were suprised to see the age of the soldiers burried at the cemetry, most of them only 20 years young!
Our journey continued to the tiger temple. This attraction was on our list since we planned the trip. Meindert has a special interest with the tiger and was dying to see them and touch them.
Through other travellers we heard that is was something great to do. We had high hopes that it was a similar experience as the Elephant park , with lots of interaction. Unfortunatelyy it was very commercialized and arrived with 50 other tourists trying to take a picture with the tiger. The tiger temple started 5 years ago by monks to be a refuge for orphanist baby tigers, left alone in the forest between Thailand and Burma after their mothers were shoot by hunters. Nobody was willing to help them until a few monks came to the rescue. In the early days of the set up the tigers were walking around freely with the monks and interacted with the public. Now they are mostly tied up and you can take a picture one by one for 100B. The kids were still happy to see and touch them, for me I was a dissappointment.
Our days in Thailand are numbered and looking back it seems we have done a lot of what we were planning to do and more. It's a very nice country to travel in with kids and we will miss their friendliness, helpfulness, the good food and beer. their culture and religion. We will not miss the early morning smell of cooking food, the dirtyness and hard beds.
We are ready for a new adventure down under! Everyone is holding up well. I think we did well by staying 3-4 days at one time at a location. Also Thailand is great for back packing and making your own trip without a organized tour.. This gives you the freedom to stay at a place if you feel like it. It will be nice not to unpack and pack for 3 weeks when we live in our house on wheels.
Talk to you soon, Remmert.

p.s. No Valentine night for us as we have one room for the 5 of us! Happy days.

P.S Can't download pictures on this computer, will do when in Australia, we have lots of great new ones !!!

Some facts about Thailand :

- Thai people eat about 7 times a day, and they still keep skinny

- Have only met one or two "unfriendly" Thai people

- About 65 Million people living in Thailand, more than 10 million in Bangkok

- 95 %!B(MISSING)uddhist, 4%!M(MISSING)uslim and 1%!C(MISSING)hristian

- Domestic animals have no aggression towards humans because humans never treat them badly due to the reincarnation belief. Buddists believe that after you die you come back as an animal on earth.They din't want to treat animals badly because it could be some one they knew who died.

- Most honoured animal to come back as is the elephant even more a white elephant

- On Mondays Thai people wear yellow and on Friday they wear blue because those are the days the King and the Queen were born on(King-Monday Queen-Friday).Only this year though because it's the King's 60th year of being King

- In Southern Thailand people find it cold when it's 20 C and in Northern Thailand 10 C is cold.In Chiang Rai people were wearing winter jackets and we were in shorts and T-shirts when it was 20 C!!!!!!!

- There are 3 different types of buddha statues. Lanna, Sukhothai and Chinese with Chinese being the fattest

- Very common way to bring the kids to school, stick them all on your family scooter and off you go. In our case all 3 of the kids, no helmet, and all in school uniforms. Girls skirts, kneelength , boys shorts same length and NOOOOOOOOOOOOO long hair for the boys.

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