Tokyo Journal: Thailand Holiday

We recently spent a week in Thailand on holiday. Rich had been working a lot and the break in Phuket, a resort island, and Bangkok was well needed. We first spent seven nights at a resort and had lots of relaxation time and going out to eat in the little towns that dot the shores around the island. Most of our time was spent by the pool, as the water was a bit rough - as attested by this wave that soaked all our stuff despite our being almost as far away from the surf as possible.

The one hiccup on the trip was Max having a 102 – 103 fever for three nights. We actually took him to the hospital on the fourth day (the Phuket Bangkok hospital being the nicest hospital we have ever seen) but fortunately by then the fever broke. He seems to have started a pattern with getting sick on holidays.

We then spent two nights in Bangkok. We splurged and stayed at the Mandarin Oriental, which was a bit over the top for us. The service was great and each floor actually had a butler if you had the need for one. All the staff knew Max by name and they even had a little bathrobe for him to lounge around in.

When Max pressed the butler call button and asked for a milktini, truffle chocolate chip cookies and to have the pillows refluffed we realized we had set ourselves up for trouble.

It felt much hotter and humid in Bangkok and that first afternoon Rich and I left Max with a sitter in the hotel play room. We took the river taxi up to Chinatown and wandered through small alleyways lined with stalls selling foods, textiles and other completely random stuff. Rich sampled some street vendor spring rolls for which he paid a small additional price for the next day.

We then got caught in a deluge (it happens to be rainy season in Thailand in June). After waiting under an awning for about 20 minutes the rain broke enough for us to continue onwards, but we had to improvise some rain gear. I started with an elegant plastic bag "rain sheath”, and