Chiang Mai, Thailand, We've Arrived!!

What an AMAZING journey. Although it's only November 3, at 1:35, it feels as though I've been gone a month already. I kept thinking of A.S. talking about people dying of sleep deprivation after 11 days. We had only a fraction of that and I felt like I might die.

The worst part of the trip was actually the drive down to San Francisco. The kids were like kids in the backseat of a car in the movies: parents trying to talk, while kids fight in the backseat. You can imagine. Anyway, thank goodness that was the worst. They were actually stellar on the plane rides.

The first flight took 13 hours and we flew 6,400 miles. It seemed eternal. You were asleep when we took off at midnight, and we didn't land until you were packing up to go home from school the next day. The kids got Hello Kitty backpacks filled with activities. Phoebe's was the original Hello Kitty with pink straps, Ty's was someone he took to calling "Captain Kitty" with blue straps.

We then landed in Taipei, Taiwan and had a short layover there, then back on another plane for three more hours and 1,550 more miles. Phoebe started this leg of the trip out by complaining of a stomache ache. Sure enough, as the wheels touched down in Bangkok, she projectile vomited all over herself. Total mess, and I'm sorry to share it here, but it seemed newsworthy to me. We got her all fixed up with the help of A LOT of really great flight attendants who spoke very little english. (Smart Mommy brought extra clothes for the kids.)

This was still not the end. We had a 4 hour layover in Bangkok and then caught our final 1 hour flight to Chiang Mai. We arrived at our guesthouse by 5:00 pm Chiang Mai time and decided to go straight to bed. We slept until 11:00pm and turned on the TV because we were all wide awake. We watched the Disney channel!! Hooray, it was in english.

The people LOVE Phoebe and Ty. They all talk to them, touch them, whistle at them. A group of women working at the gate in Bangkok loved Ty so much they were kissing him and taking pictures of themselves with him on their cell phones. Anyone who's met Ty knows that he is initially shy. He would not smile at them. It was very cute. I looked up the word for shy: ai. So now we have Ai Ty.

It reminds me very much of Mexico here. Sadly, I speak not a word of Thai, so I'm slightly less comfortable here. The people are so nice though, so it really doesn't matter. We have ventured out today. First (via Tuk Tuk, above picture is of the kids looking at several Tuk Tuks lined up ready to go) to a gigantic mall (not at all like ours) and for a walk around our neighborhood. It is crazy busy. There's not a single stop light or stop sign that I've seen. I told Scott that crossing the road was like playing an extreme version of Frogger.