It's always the last hour of travel when things – or more specifically the kids – fall apart. They can go 21 of 22 hours of flight without a hitch, but when starting down the barrel of success, that's when they hit their limit. On last year's trip to Bali, Sennen hit his limit as our plane was descending into Bali with 10 minutes left.
"I want this plane to go back to America! I love America and I want to go back to America because I love America. Make this plane take me back to America because I miss my home in America and I love America and I miss America…" he wailed as I tried to explain that the plane couldn't possibly – even if it wanted to – take him all the way back to America. So, we needed to land I explained and then we could figure out our next steps. He calmed and that discussion never came. We just appeared to the rest of the very diverse group of passengers to be some the stereotypic 'merica kind of people they have always suspected Americans really are.
Then in the car from the airport to the house outside Ubud, Sennen fell asleep while Ailyn wailed what turned out to be a new word for the first time. "Nack! Nack! Mama Nack!" she shrieked and cried with Emily, me and Jesper all trying to decipher what she meant. Snack. And a pouch of strawberry baby food was found and Jesper fed it to her in her car seat, restoring peace to the backseat.
So it was again that our last hours were our worst. On the flight from Singapore to Chiang Mai, everyone fell asleep. Only, not everyone was able to wake up. Sennen fell into a night terror when Arielle attempted to wake him. Eyes open and appearing awake, he was still asleep – crying loudly and mumbling incoherently. I lulled him back to sleep and carried him off the plane. He slowly woke and came to on my shoulder just in time to pass through Passport Control. From there, he had fits of crying for no reason and clung to Emily's leg when we got outside and heard the loud sounds of the motorcycles, tuk-tuks, cars and songthaews.
Ailyn did better waking on the plane, but fell fast asleep on the van ride to our vacation house – snoring in the backseat, passed out on Emily almost immediately. When we arrived at our house later than expected due to numerous wrong turns by our driver, Sennen was carried in asleep while Ailyn began wailing.
We knew we had to act quickly – bath, teeth and bed ASAP. Only then it turned out that the bathrooms have showers, and no bath tubs. Not that our kids haven't taken showers – but in their fatigue, both considered showers to be some kind of water torture. So, with as much love, kindness and cajoling as we could – we bathed what acted and sounded like two demented psychiatric patients. Then we got them into jammies, brushed their teeth and watched them pass out while we read to them. When I checked the time – feeling as if it must be late – it was 7pm.
That gave us time to get dinner, unpack, shower and get to bed by 9pm. And a full night's sleep was had by all if you discount the six times the kids woke briefly and called us for various needs such a diaper change, a tissue, wanting to know what time it was, etc. Despite it – the household remained relatively asleep until 6:45 am and everyone was much happier for it.
Only now was the challenge of having no food in the house. This was supposed to be a non-issue because I had relied on Thailand to provide as it is so apt to do. Nowhere in Thailand is more than 1000 feet from a 7 Eleven. And moreover, it's hard to find anyplace in Thailand more than 100 feet from a food stand, stall or cart. I have seen food stands in remote places in Thai national parks. But my dinner gathering effort last night revealed that no such resource exists on our block. And the requisite 7 Eleven was across a major thoroughfare with a divider running through it – and no means of crossing.
Although it has been 6.5 years since I was last in Thailand and more than 15 years since I lived here, I still consider myself an expert at sniffing out Soi life. You see, Thai cities – and life – are divided into kinds of roads: Thanons (the great thoroughfares that can be the size of freeways), Sois (small streets branching off Thanons, usually named for their Thanons only with numbers to designate them i.e. Sukhumvit Soi 21 or Viphavadee Rangsit Soi 32) and Moos (slightly smaller than Sois and usually branching off moderate sized streets in smaller towns – similarly named and numbered like Sois).
Life in Thai cities and towns happens in the Sois and Moos. These are the neighborhoods where everyone knows each other. The fertile homes of gossip and friendship. The places where the best food in Thailand is served from stands and stalls with no menus. The places where laundry is done, motorcycles are fixed, babies are tended, dogs stand guard at night. The living, breathing heart of Thai life. And I love it.
Only the new, modern, lovely upper-middle class townhouse community with beautiful swimming pool and kids playground that fit our needs so well is in a Soi that is flatlining. The planned, gated communities on this road leave no room for Soi life and apparently, no food vendors will, or are allowed to step foot here.
So it took me time to hunt down life in the next neighborhood over – finding Sois with enough, but not fantastic life and resources in them.
All this to say that not only did we not have anything to feed our kids in the morning, but ideas of walking down through our soi to grab a cheap delicious meal as needed were as dead as the desolate soi itself.
So, we decided to start the day with a trip to the grocery store. And since Thai grocery stores usually have food courts, we figured we could tackle breakfast today and in the future in one fell swoop. Only when we got there at 8:20am, the store – as well as the mall it's in (Thai grocery stores are usually in malls) were still closed.
So we took a quick 10 minute ride into the heart of town to explore the beautiful, portions of Chaing Mai within the old city walls and to get some breakfast. The shopping would have to wait until afternoon on the way home.
Within two minutes of being dropped off at the Three Kings Monument, we found no shortage of great food options and quickly settled on some noodle soup, satay and fresh guava juice to get the day started.
When asked what he thought of breakfast, Sennen immediately replied, "I love it! I just love it!"
This was his same answer later to how he liked Thailand, Chiang Mai, the grocery store and the mall. When it comes to Thailand and Thai life, Sennen's in. As we were leaving the mall mall food court to head down to the supermarket, Sennen even asked, "Dad, can we come back to Thailand again?"
In short, we did very little today of great significance. We walked around old Chaing Mai, saw some beautiful temples, watched a high school sporting performance, explored the sois of others, drank some juice and teas, booked a trip to an elephant preserve for Friday and spent significant time at the Central Chiang Mai Aiport Mall – with special emphasis on the playground area. The kids made Thai playground friends.
We'll probably go to a night market tonight for dinner.
But what did matter is that Thai life – despite our lackluster soi – began to seep its way into our family's consciousness and we have so many days ahead to continue to explore and enjoy it.
