Longboat Trip Bangkok (xmas holidays)

So after 2 weeks in Mieussy and 3 days in Cochin for a wedding we extended our xmas holidays further with 5 days in Bangkok with some very dear and close friends. We spend quite some time together but also had some time to ourselves, some of which we used to take a long boat trip on the Bangkok waterways. Jonas had gone out with Eelco to negotiate, it was a long conversation beforehand, to make sure that Eelco understood that we where not to pay more then x for the 1.5 hour trip. Ready for a long negotiating process, Duuk and Kaat patiently checked out the options.

We think the dock manager knew Jonas well enough by then, so the price she quoted was exactly…X. Well that was that done. So off we went.

 About 20 min in we met the floating kiosk, she sold us some soda's and then asked if we wanted to buy a beer for our captain…at 10:30 am?!?

 This is a longboat

 And this is one of the nicer houses along the route

Most others looked more like this

Or actually messier, like this

 We also had to do a lot of locks

 Meaning we had plenty waiting time to take some nice family portraits

 And boat selfies 

 Also lots of temple complexes to be seen

and like this, complete with dock

 And some wildlife

 At some point we where moored up so close to others, waiting for a lock, we could give them our camera to take a family portrait.

 Not sure why but 75% into the trip we all of the sudden got life jackets for everyone

Duuk pretended to know something about life jackets and helped out

 The cool dude we had with us

 And some selfies inside the lock.

 Fabulous 1.5 hours on the water!

Working on our wellbeing

We are working on our wellbeing. Eating the right kind of cereals….-:)

and relaxing through yoga at home

And at school

(Kaat in corner behind her teacher)

Windmills of your mind

Now the apartment complex in our compound is more and more complete we have more friends who live in the gorgeous duplexes. As a result, every once in a while, we get a good view of our own house and the complex.

Our villa is 2nd block from right back corner, left front corner of the block.  

 There are 2 additional rows of villa's to the back left and the playground etc are in the far right corner.

 To the left of the clubhouse are the future tennis courts. Inside the club is a heated pool, squash courts, a big hall, some offices, a gym and a library.

Travel kids (xmas holidays)

In the timespan of 5 days we went from Mieussy to Geneva, from Geneva to Dubai, Dubai to Cochin, Cochin to Kottayam, Kottayam to Cochin to Bangalore, Bangalore to Bangkok. With 3 kids of 5 years old and under. No problem! As our kids travel more then most adults we know, and so to them, it is all normal.

Kaat & Rick waiting at Geneva Airport.

 All in their own comfort zone with maximal or minimal clothing -;)

 After midnight in some airport lounge

 Wide awake our 3 little clones

 How do you mean I should be sleeping and 'this is not a playground'

 Checking out the airplanes

 Looking completely as if they belong

 Hop hop. Getting as usual quite some attention from the staff.

 And then after 24 hrs in Bangalore, as also pointed out by the customs staff at Bangalore Airport who start to recognize use, we were off to Bangkok again. In Business Class this time. And despite the 1am departure. Nothing but smiles.

 And no I am still not going to sleep!

At some point they gave little Duuk even his own seat - or should we call it throne.

 I wish I could think off more things, other then airplanes, that make Rick this happy!

By the time we made it to the hotel in Bangkok, at about 7:30 am local time, we did have some sort of tired kids, but still not difficult though!

Took a few trips to carry all our 'luggage' to the room -:), and we were just so proud we only had 1 bag and a carry on the 5 of us!

Mommy weekend away - Bangkok

A few weeks ago over brunch we had hatched a plan to have a weekend away for some of us mommies. Considering we managed to find a date which worked for all of us, we decided to not hesitate and booked immediately. So for the valentines weekend, the four of us, all more or less neighbors, a South African, American Brit, Canadian and a Dutchie, expats in banking, the hotel business, telecom and oil - left our 9 kids with their dads and went for 4 days to Bangkok.

After an issue with the wrong passports at the airport at midnight we fortunately did make it onto the flight and embarked on a weekend of relaxing, food, drinks, laughter and shopping. Lots of shopping!

We started the weekend off with an alb orate breakfast, some sleep and then high tea in the Mandarin oriental. A hotel that in its heyday, was the fanciest of its kind.

 Of course with no kids around and so much chatting we took no pictures at all, apart from budget's gluten free scones….which looks like just a picture of scones of course!

Later that night we met up with some of Nan's friends at some very hip skye bar. No idea how high we really were but a really nice breeze and we could see all of Bangkok.

 Our Saturday was dedicated to the weekend Market. As you can see we were all ready and excited to go.

 It appears the weekend market also has an actual name

 There is nothing much that cannot be bought at the weekend market and everything is cheap. We all agreed that it must be possible to find most of the stuff also in India. But if there would have been a place that had even 1/10th of what we were looking at - we would have known about it. So maybe yes you can but this kind of stuff in India, but not in 1 place, and definitely not without being hassled, whilst eating the street food, and with enough daytime to spend.

 The haul from the trip for the 4 of us was significant, and cheap. And we were all excited about our finds.

 In the evening we dressed up and went to the restaurant of one of Ali's university friends. As usual, we laughed a lot.

We recognized that it was quite special to go away together not knowing each other that well, and also having such fabulous husbands that none of us worried about the home front. The men and kids spend also almost the whole weekend together and send us an occasional picture.

 Sunday morning we went for cultural and made our way out to the Jim Thompson House. The man is the 'father' of the successful Thai silk industry of this era, and the house holds an impressive Thai historical art collection.

 By Sunday morning I had had quite some sleep and was clearly happy and relaxed.

 Clean, relaxed, organized - wonderful!

 After another more modern evening market we went to one of the more famous traditional Thai restaurants.

 News from the home front was also still good:

I was told this was not really champagne…. and someone had borrowed our sleeping bags so Kaat & Rick had a camp out in Rick's room.

 Our last day was spend shopping around for those necessities we miss so much in Bangalore, as you do, from Japanese department stores, New York Coffee chains, supplies for Chinese New year

 Still happy together

 So yep, we came home with another sizable haul of dishwasher soap, wrapping paper, rice cakes, gluten free pasta, ziplocs, breakfast cereal etc etc.

 Thanks to one of the husbands we had a nice hotel booking with access to the executive lounge all weekend. So we wrapped things up with another toast to the weekend. It was so nice and soooooo relaxing.

 And we definitely left with much more luggage then we arrived with.

We are already talking about the next trip. Maybe one with all 4 families? It was a huge success, with only a million tears of laughter. The kids had not even missed us and all told us that we had missed so many fabulous parties whilst we were away. The dads were happy we were back but none of them looked worse for wear. Superdads and a super weekend.