Pratchuap Khiri Khan

Posted on by
4
Happy Days!

Happy Days!

Ordering their chosen colour of candy floss

Ordering their chosen colour of candy floss

The night market just setting up

The night market just setting up

Shell & Stone Draughts

Shell & Stone Draughts

Shell collecting

Shell collecting

Could we be in England? No, it's too hot!

Could we be in England? No, it’s too hot!

Scarlett enjoying the freedom of no cast on her leg!

Scarlett enjoying the freedom of no cast on her leg!

What we really needed was a nice place where we could rest for a few days, allow Scarlett some time to learn to walk without her cast on, and hopefully not spend too much money.

We couldn’t have done better than roll into this lovely seaside town.  We arrived by 3rd class train for the price of 68 bhat for all of us (about £1.20).  OK, so the train was 3 hours late, but at that price who can complain?

After a bit of a hunt around, we have a HUGE (seriously, massive) hotel room with a sea view, spotlessly clean & much nicer than we can normally afford, for 1100 bhat/night (about £21)*. They have been so friendly to the children, giving them little cakes and treats, and there’s a lovely outdoor seating area with free tea, coffee and Ovaltine, so we’ve had a great time doing homeschool out there by the sea, making the most of the freebies.

The town is set in a beautiful horse-shoe bay, dotted with little islands, and has the unusual feature of a promenade, reminiscent of Scarborough or the East Coast of England.  There’s also a large playground (which the children are totally hooked on, I have spent about 6 hours there in 2 days) and a brilliant night markets, with scores of little stalls selling everything you can imagine.  Mostly we call it ‘funny stuff’ as we don’t know what it is, but it’s absolutely delicious and unbelievably cheap!

It’s so lovely to be in a real Thai town rather than a tourist town at last.  In fact, we have just extended our hotel booking for a few more days.  It’s hard to know how long to stay in each place; we have a 60 day visa and so many islands we want to see, what if we regret staying so long as we have to rush through other beautiful places?  Or will we move on and sigh in regret that we didn’t stay there longer?

I say, if it isn’t broken, don’t try and fix it.  Enjoy it while it’s good, and be grateful that’s the biggest problem we’re facing right now.  Happy days.

* Pratchuap Beach Hotel, about 500m south of the pier, if you are looking for it!

Cast On, Cast Off

Posted on by
14

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

So, after a nearly 30-hour journey, and with the aid of one tuk-tuk, one songtiaw, one taxi, one night train, one day train, two long distance buses and a fair bit of walking (sometimes even in the right direction), we have made it from Savannakhet in Laos to Hua Hin on the Gulf of Thailand.

We got a 60 day visa for Thailand this time round and are planning to spend the next two months almost entirely on Southern Thailand’s beaches and islands, heading on to Malaysia in late March. But before that starts, we’ve stopped in Hua Hin for a very important hospital appointment: tomorrow Scarlett gets her cast off!

She broke her leg on November 13th and it’s been a long, hard 10 weeks. At first she couldn’t sleep, then she couldn’t walk, then she couldn’t play with her sisters at all, then she couldn’t keep up with them on her crutches, then she couldn’t swim, but through it all, she’s been ever-so brave, hardly complaining through not only all that us dragging her half way across Asia.

But tomorrow (fingers crossed) there will be no more cast, no more complicated waterproof cast covers, no more dreadful itching and blisters where the cast rubbed, no more sand or stones to extricate, and no more carrying her up stairs (when she’s tired) or across beaches (when she has no cast cover on).

She’ll be mobile again and able to make the most of her travels.

All of which I’m glad for. Although I will rather miss the carrying her around in my arms bit.

The Musée des Dinosaures, Savannakhet

Posted on by
1

When we arrived at the Musée des Dinosaures in Savannakhet, I wasn’t expecting much. It warned our guide book that there were just a couple of rooms and the whole place was obviously underfunded but that it had displays from several local digs where they’d found bones from t-rexes, spinosauruses, several sauropods and even a newly-identified species found only here in Laos.

Personally, I’m fond of small museums. They often have a bit of character and can generally be relied upon to throw up some surprises as the curators struggle to fill them up. Plus you don’t risk the kind of foot-punishing, brain-numbing museum fatigue delivered by bigger places. And sure enough, the exhibits were limited to several bones from a sauropod, together with a fairy-lit outline on the wall to show how they fitted together and a dozen or so display cases of other finds, together with some unusual rocks and a meteor.I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a fragment of the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs but, hey, who can argue with seeing a meteor.

Anyway, it was all interesting enough and with half an hour or so killed in discussing paleontology and meteors, we were ready to leave… when the curator stepped out of a doorway, somewhat like the shopkeeper from 70’s kids’ TV show Mr. Ben, and asked if we would like to see some more bones.

“OK,” we replied, so he opened a drawer.

“This bone from Tyrannosaurus Rex,” he said, lifting a cannon-ball sized lump out of the drawer. “You want to hold?”

And that was it. I had in my hands a real T-Rex bone. Not a plaster-cast replica. The real thing.

I couldn’t believe it. A 65-million plus year old relic of another aeon. In my hands.

And then it got better. He took us into the back where they clean their finds and showed us more bones, letting us hold them each time. He showed us the plaster casts they were making for a Thai museum, the tools they use and the display they were putting together for their newly-identified species.

But through it all, and long after we left, it was the T-Rex bone that I kept thinking back to. The museum here may be tiny, but you don’t get experiences like this at the Natural History Museum.

I Love Savannakhet!

Posted on by
1

We’ve been in the sleepy town of Savannakhet for 3 nights now, and I love it here!

To the untrained eye, it may seem as though there’s not much to do here.  It’s hard to believe it’s Laos’s second largest city; it’s quieter than Horsforth, the suburb of Leeds, UK, where we live.

But having come from some of the most hectic parts of Thailand, it’s a tonic.

Reasons to love Savannakhet:-

  • Virtually no tourists – you can see the ‘real’ Laos going on around you and it’s lovely
  • Virtually no traffic
  • 130 years of French rule have left behind some beautiful colonial architecture
  • Our guest house, Leena, has the biggest and nicest area we’ve had all trip for doing our morning yoga
  • The years of French rule have also left a culture of French cuisine mixed in with the traditional SE Asian mainstays; so you can buy fresh baguettes with spicy Thai-style Som Tam for breakfast
  • There’s an EXCELLENT French restaurant where you can get a 3 course set menu with beautiful house wine that you’d be happy to be served in Paris…and all really good value…Daosavanh
  • You can get your Thai and Vietnamese Visas here without queuing
  • All the above is a fraction of the price of being in Thailand
  • And best of all…there’s a DINOSAUR museum…with real bones found locally.  We’re off there right now, can’t wait!

Happy days.

Travelling with Triplets

Posted on by
3

Exploring Koh Samui

A surprised double take. Wide eyes. “Fet Sam?” (That’s “Three twins?” in Thai. There’s no special word for triplets. I guess they’re too rare.)

I smile proudly. “Fet sam.” (“Yes, three twins”)

A closer look, one girl at a time. Then awe-struck agreement. “Aaw! Fet sam.”

She looks around, wondering who else to tell. A thrilled whisper follows if there’s someone nearby but if the nearest person is over the street, a discovery like this is too exciting not to be shouted across. “Fet sam!”

And it starts again. The newly-engaged stranger widens their eyes. They double take. And, disbelieving: “Fet sam?”

“Fet sam,” the woman confirms.

They turn to me. “Fet sam?”

I confirm it, too. “Fet sam.”

Wonder! “Aaw! Fet sam!” And a look around for someone who hasn’t yet heard the news.

Another shout to another stranger. “Fet sam!”

Another double take. Another query, first to their informant, then the general public around them, then me.

“Fet sam?”
“Fet sam.”
“Fet sam?”
“Fet sam.”
“Fet sam?”
“Fet sam.”
“Aaw! Fet sam.”

There’s no need for conversation starters when travelling South-East Asia with triplets. Wherever we go, they’re a sensation. But somehow, it never feels intrusive. No one stops us if we’re in a hurry. The wonder is genuine.

And when you’ve come to stare at someone else’s country, it’s only fair that they look back, too.

Out of the Frying Pan and into Pattaya

Posted on by
2

It’s great to be escaping the crowds on Koh Tao.  As lovely as it still is, the island is just too busy right now (at peak season, to be fair) and I was starting to resent the crowds and the lack of any Thai people, culture, or even Thai food.  A particular low moment was Fergus proudly ordering our food in Thai, only to be told by the waiter, “Sorry, no speak Thai!”  You know you’re in a tourist trap when…

However, before we can hit that traveller vibe again, we are off to two of the most touristy places in the whole of Thailand: a night in Khao San Road followed by 3 nights in Pattaya.

Khao San is the notorious hang out for backpackers that’s developed into a kind of hotbed of youth culture, with cheap clothing, knock-off CD’s and DVD’s (it was tapes last time we were there, I feel old) and huge number of bars, nightclubs and late night eateries.

Pattaya is the jewel in the crown of Thailand’s seedier beach resorts, with a propensity to attract middle-aged, overweight Western men.  The beach is supposed to be fairly ropey, but the local tourist office has been trying to redevelop the town to attract older couples and families, so it will be interesting to see it.

Our motivation for making this 2 day journey?  We are going to meet an old friend of Ferg’s who’s just got married here and is having a honeymoon in Pattaya.  I can’t wait to meet him having heard so many stories from childhood, mostly about catching frogs under the school they went to in Malaysia.  Khao San is a natural break in the journey; our bus drops us there at 9pm tonight, so we might as well stay there.

It’s not what we’d have planned to do, but it’s been a fun journey so far and I’m sure the kids will enjoy the experience, plus there’s a pool at our hotel in Pattaya, which guarantees good times for us.

Let the holiday continue!

Bubblemakers

Posted on by
2
Learning the “everything OK” sign
Ready to go diving

As babies, we enrolled our children in the Waterbabies swimming lessons.  The course culminates in you plunging your offspring into the water for a Nirvana Nevermind style underwater photo.  I didn’t realise then that it may have been the start of a long line of underwater experiences.

Coupled with being strong swimmers and a burning desire to “see tropical fish” – plus of course wanting to be like Daddy who’s doing his PADI certification, the girls were desperate for us to enroll them on the ‘Bubblemakers’ kids scuba diving course that you can do here in Koh Tao.

So today, after much excited anticipation, they finally got to don wetsuits, flippers (well, Scarlett only got one flipper – she still has a plaster cast on her broken leg) and a full-on scuba diving vest with attached tank of air, regulator and weight belt, and had their first underwater adventure.

I came along and snorkeled in the water behind, helping Scarlett with some of the bits that are a bit tricky with a broken leg (like climbing up step-ladders onto boats…hmmmm).  It was terrifying to attach heavy weights to your children and watch them jump in the sea.  Very counter intuitive.  But they got the hang of it straight away, breathing through the regulators face down and doing the ‘OK’ hand signal to the instructor.  They looked like miniature cool scuba diving surf babes.  Perhaps a glimpse of things to come.

I loved seeing the girls’ excitement at seeing the deep, deep water and the schools of fish.  We had one little bit of a problem when Scarlett felt a bit panicky about how far we’d swum, and how far we had to go back, and somehow convinced herself that we were going the wrong way.  But a cuddle from mummy soon sorted that out.  It’s nice to know that they are still my little babies, even though they look like mini cool scuba diving surf babes.

The verdict when asked about it later was very positive from Jemima and Evie, who want to use some of their Christmas money to do another dive, but Scarlett thinks once is enough, bless her.