FAMILY VACATION - edited

WEEK ONE - HEATHER SMITH

MONDAY FEBRUARY 23 - After 30 hours of travelling we arrived in Emma's city. Driving on the wrong side of the road was different as well as the heat. I think it was around 37 C which was a nice change from snow, but disgustingly hot. Once we settled in to our hotel, Emma showed us her current house and took us into town for Thai massages. I had never had any sort of massage before, but a Thai massage is very different from the ones at home, very painful but relaxing in the end. We were too hot to stay in the sun any longer so we headed back to our air conditioned hotel For dinner we went to a Korean BBQ with Emma's host mom and sister, which is a bucket of coals in the middle of the table covered by a grill. You go up like a buffet and pick what you want to cook (raw pork, chicken, veggies, noodles etc.) and bring it to the table and cook it yourself. For myelf, my mom, Ashley, Emma and her host family it cost 100 baht par person which is about $3.50 a person - and we ate a lot of food. After dinner we went to a Thai like Walmart (Tesco Lotus) to get stuff for us to have at the hotel, and had a great night's sleep.

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 24 - we slept in and caught up on some sleep, and heat out for lunch to where Emma said had the best pad thai. We ate on the river which boarders Laos and Thailand. It was a beautiful view. When we were done eating we took a Sam Law (Thai taxi) into town to the fresh market. They sold EVERYTHING there, I mean EVERYTHING! We all bought beautiful silk dresses there for CHEAP, and fruit for later. The heat was exhausting us and causing our clothes to stick to us, so we went for a swim at Suzanne's (Emma's exchange friend from the US) school to cool off. It was well needed. We freshened up before heading to Emma's Thai friends' house for dinner. Kate and Klao are twins and so adorable and friendly. We ate a huge meal of rice with soup, pour with peanut sauce, Veggie salad, and my mom's new favourite - sticky rice and mangoes. EEM MAK MAK KA! (Very very full!) We sat around and sang Thai karaoke and recieved very beautiful bracelets from their mom. We were very tired, Thai sun does that to you, so we went back to the hotel and passed out early.

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 25 - We were up and ready by 9:30 for Tony and Kaew to pick us up. They took us to an old Thai prison and a beautiful library in Nakhon Phanom, as well as temples on the river. On our way out of Emma's city we stopped at a temple that had a HUGE Buddha sitting on the roof. My guess is that it was a coupe hundred feet tall. We went to a chrimp farm for lunch, I think it was teh hottest day so far, so I didn't have much of an appetite, but my family seemed to enjoy it. After lunch we stopped at the hiding spot of Ho Chi Minh's house. For you who don't know he was a leader in Vietnam and he escaped to Thailand when the French invaded. The property was beautifully covered with plants and exotic flowers. We also saw the aquarium (Under Water World_ with lots of fish from the Mekong river. After a long afternoon of sightseeing I knew I needed some "normal" falang food so Kaew invited us for steak and potato salad which was well needed and delicious. A quick visit to Emma's first host family and back to the hotel for bed.

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 26 - Tony and Kaew picked us up again (they were so good to us) and took us to the nicest temple so far. Buddha's original chest bone was in the roof which was made of 300 kilos of pure gold. We saw a museum of really ancient artifacts and headed to lunch (which we sat on the floor for). We went to a Thai Catholic church and a really big market, and saw the village that Kaew grew up in. The village made me realise how lucky we are to have the things we do, it was a very poor village, and it's sad to think people have to live like that. We got dropped back off in Emma's city and had noodle soup and crepes, then watched 2 movies at Emma's house before bed (Second Hand Lions and Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2).

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 27 - We woke up and got ready and went to see Emma's school. The Thai kids are so kind and friendly. Her first host mom took us out for Vietnamese food, which has been my favourite so far. She also took us to the post office to mail postcards and to the bank. We went to an internet cafe to check our emails / facebook which cost 10 baht for an hour (35 cents). Then we went to a cool night market, where we bought too uch stuff and had a huge dinner at Emma's house. We watched House of Flying Daggers and head home early becuase we were waking up to feed the monks and pack to go to Bangkok the next morning.

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 28 - At 5 am we woke up to feed the monks. If you give the monks food you will not be hungry in your next life, if you give them money, you will not be poor and if you give them flowers you will be beautiful. Monks cannot eat past noon so they rely on the town people to give them food to eat in the morning. We went home and packed a bit and then went for breakfast at Emma's house. We watched Friends while waiting around until 11 when her 1st host parents were picking us up. We went to the King's park and fed fish while going for a nice walk. Afterwards they took us otu for a nice lunch on the river. We stopped to get locks for our suticases and notebooks to write in, said goodbye to her first host family and headed back to the hotel to finish packing. At 3pm Tony and Kaew (so nice!) picked us up and drove us to the airport for our flight to Bangkok. After safely arriving at the Bangkok airport we took a near death cab ride to the Holiday Inn. This guy was going about 130 km in a shuttle bus, dodging and weaving in and out of traffic. After settling into our hotel room, we hadn't ate dinner yet so we went down to the lobby, looked around and had a very nice buffet in the hotel. By that point we were so tired we went back upstairs and went to bed.

Thailand is such a welcoming country, with very kind people always offering food and gifts to their new friends. They are always smiling, always laughing and the happiest peopel I've met so far. The past 2 weeks have been an experience of a lifetime and hopefully one day I will return :)

WEEK TWO - ASHLEY SMITH

SUNDAY MARCH 1 - On our first day in Bangkok we caught the sky train to the JJ market. The market was as large as 6 football fields and had wonderful things to buy. We shopped around and then went for lunch at one of the resturants in the market. After we continued to shop and then took the sky train to the Siam Paragon mall. This mall had 7 floors , 6 Starbucks, a movie theatre inside and bell men to hold the doors open for you. We didn’t buy anything since it was full of stores which were too expensive to buy from for example Chanel, Giorgio Armani, etc. We went to Starbucks and chatted about what to do for the rest of the day and decided to go see a movie. We saw Confessions of a Shopaholic which was very funny. After the movie we went downstairs and had dinner at a fish and chips joint and then headed home for a swim in the hotel's pool.

MONDAY MARCH 2 - On Monday morning we woke up and packed for our trip to Ko Samed island. We then took a taxi to the dock where we would take a ferry to our resort. Once we had settled into our room we went for lunch and got massages. Emma had a thai massage, Mom had a leg massage and me and heather had oil massages. We all then got pedicures and manicures. After, we roamed around the resort waiting for Emma's Rotary friend Chris to show up. Heather and I then learned to ride motor bikes! It was a lot of fun!! After that we all went to dinner and shared food with each other. We had a furry friend sit near us all night so we named him Jasper. Since it was very hot on the island we took a swim in the pool and sat and talked for the rest of the night.

TUESDAY MARCH 3 - The next morning we woke up and had breakfast at the resort. It was nice to have eggs and sausages for once. In the morning we went to other side of the island (via motor bike) and swam in the water. It was really salty. Then Emma and I went jet skiing while Heather and Chris played pool and Mom tanned and waded in the water. We couldn’t stay long at the beach because we had to catch the ferry back so we could get the bus to Pattaya to see the elephant show. When we arrived in Pattaya Emma and Chris' friend Adrian's host parents drove us to the elephant show. We first watched a dancing show where Thai women danced on stage with fans and the men drummed on drums. It was really neat to see all the things they could do as well as their costumes. We had to leave that early so we could get good seats for the elephant show. It was really fun. We got to watch the elephants ride tricycles, play basketball, bowl, paint pictures and dance. We bought bananas so after each act the elephants came over to the stands so we could feed them. Their trunks were really ticklish! We each took turns being picked up by the elephants and got our pictures taken. We went to a Korean barbecue that night with Adrian's family and had a lot of fun. We then headed home to Bangkok on a taxi instead of a bus since we were all very sore from getting sunburnt.

WEDNESDAY MARCH 4 - Wednesday we went to Auttya the former capital of Thailand and saw a lot of the old temples that were destroyed during the war. It was really nice to see the different culture and hear the stories of each temple. Once we were back in Bangkok we went to Siam Paragon and had dinner at the fish joint again and had ice cream. They had some of the most random types of icecream and it was really hard to pick what to eat. After we went swimming in the lobby pool and hung around the hotel room.

THURSDAY MARCH 5 - Today was our Kachanaburi day tour! We got picked up by a taxi bus and were heading first to the floating market when heather got really sick in the taxi and we had to pull over. It was no fun for her since she wasn’t feeling well the rest of the day. When we went to the floating market we were driven around in a boat and pretty much went shopping. It was really interesting. After the floating market we went to the Bridge over the river Kwai cemetery where we saw all the graves of the people who were killed while building the bridge. It was really heartbreaking to see how many people died. We stopped for lunch at a little place near the tiger temple and watched a video about the tiger temple. At the tiger temple we walked a while until we saw a huge line up of people waiting to pet the tigers. Since we paid extra we got to skip the line and lie down with the tigers and get our pictures taken. It was very scary at first since the tigers aren’t drugged but since they are very tired from the sun most of them were fast asleep. We each got to sit with each of the tigers and have their heads in our laps. After we walked some more and got to the baby tigers! They were so cute! I wanted to take one home! After the tiger temple we went to ride elephants. It was really scary when they went down the hills cause it was steep but the man rididng the elephant let us take turns sitting on the elephants neck while they walked! It was a lot of fun. On the way home we stopped off at the bridge over the river kwai and walked along it. It was so beautiful but it was upsetting to see how many people died to build it. After that we headed home and went to dinner at the restaurant downstairs in the lobby. Mom and I had the steak sandwich, Heather had the turkey sandwhich and Emma had a Panini loaf. It was really good. After we continued to pack our stuff and then went to sleep for a few hours.

FRIDAY MARCH 6 - We woke up and continued packing and once we were done we caught a taxi to the airport where we hung around Starbucks until we had to leave. We said good bye to Emma and headed through the gates home. It was a long flight but since we got our own tv screen we were allowed to watch whatever we wanted so Heather and I watched twilight. Since Heather had an extra seat beside her we each took turns napping over two seats it was a better trip home then it was coming. Once we arrived in Toronto we collected our baggage and went to find Daddy. We didn’t have to wait long cause he had arrived early. It was really nice to see him and even though we had a wonderful trip it was nice to be home.