Bangkok to Hua Hin
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On arrival in Bangkok, we got a taxi and went directly to the Legacy Suites on Soi 29 (Sukhumvit), nr. Phong Phrom Skytrain station. This turned out to be the most comfortable accommodation yet on the trip (until we reached Hua Hin), and included a kitchen in which we could make mac and cheese for the boys. An essential criterion for choosing accommodation in Bangkok is proximity to the Sky Train. I had forgotten just how bad the traffic is and mistakenly took for a taxi rather than walk the five minutes to Phong Phrom station; we ended up seeing pedestrians walk slowly into the distance. There doesn’t seem to be as much of a pollution problem in Bangkok this time, and quite a few cars and tuk tuks seem to be using Compressed Natural Gas.
While Carmen caught up on some clothes shopping at the MBK mall, I took the boys to Sathon Pier and caught the tourist boat up the Chao Phraya river to Phra Athit Pier and back. Ethan enjoyed the boat more while Toby enjoyed the Sky train ride back. We’ll wait until they’re a bit older to see the other sites up close (Grand Palace, reclining Buddha, Arun Wat); we took Toby a couple of years ago on the way to Phuket.
(Click above to see album)
Bangkok to Hua Hin
Our CNG taxi ride to Hua Hin took three hours and we were very happy to see an enormous swimming pool surrounding the entire Blue Lagoon complex. There are separate rooms for the boys as well -- what a strange concept after all these months of travel.
We’ve been here over two weeks now and it’s been good to take some time out from our travels, recuperate and plan logistics for the journey ahead. The nearby Sheraton hotel has a kid’s club which we have made full use off, allowing me and Carmen to take time to visit the gym or nearby shopping mall. Carmen also took a day long cooking class at a place nearby called Buchabun that has proven informative for our market shopping knowledge and taste buds: we now have a deeper understanding of Thai food, particularly Tom-Yham-Kung soup and green curry. Our tolerance for spice, especially coming from India and Sri Lanka, has increased significantly. We are not quite ready to eat a raw chili with our breakfast though, like some we know.
Catching up with Home-Schooling
Apart from swimming almost every day over the next couple of weeks, we tried to catch up with home-schooling. If we move to the UK and enter the boys in school September, they may need to be one year ahead of the US system for their age group. Both would also go from being the youngest in class to the oldest. With the help of an application for the iPhone, Toby is learning his three and four times tables and working on reading comprehension and other books by a company called Home Workbooks. Carmen bought these before we left and we have been carrying around ever since. Our hope is that he finishes these by the time we leave, which should take ten or twenty pounds off our luggage load. Since he is left-handed, we are focusing on correct positioning for writing. Luckily there is a lot of information about this on the internet, but it is difficult to break old habits, especially since he does a lot of drawing using the same ‘incorrect’ hand position.
Ethan requires less schooling as he would be entering reception year, or Kindergarten, at about the same age as Toby. He is practicing “join the dots” to learn his numbers better and practice holding a pencil. We are also trying to color inside the lines (conformists we are). We started him on a phonics book for preschoolers (from India) as the UK seems to place more emphasis on reading in reception than the US. He sort of understands the need to sound out letters to make words now, but sometimes confuses ‘b’ with ‘d’ and ‘y’ with ‘g’. Starfall (.com) was useful for Toby in learning to read, but Ethan sat alongside him, enjoying it, but didn’t absorb any of the lessons. Unfortunately, now that Ethan is ready to learn from the website, he is tired of it.
Since we started this trip, we haven’t been reading to them every night as before, partly because we didn’t have the diversity of reading material from the bookshelf or library, but mostly because we’re tired from spending all day with them and need a break. We’ll have to get back on track with this soon, maybe in Hong Kong where there may be help with looking after them during the day.