TTT – Days 1 and 2

After a brief 24 hour period, we made it to our hotel in Bangkok.  How was flying across the Pacific with an eleven month old and a three  year old?  A lot easier than I had anticipated, actually.  I think a lot of that can be attributed to a couple of things.  First, this SAHM gig gives me a bunch more flexibility in terms of travel prep.  Usually I would be running around the house like a mad woman up to the moment I was supposed to leave for the airport.  Here, I was packed and ready the night before our trip.  I also had the time to organize our carry-on bags so we had tons of stuff to play with on the flight, so I felt like I was ahead of the game even before we left.  Second, my kids seem to be pretty good travelers.

We had a few trying moments on the journey, obviously.  Oscar has no fear, it seems, when it comes to his running around in public.  This typically comes into play when we are in confined spaces, where running around is simply not appropriate, like, you know, airport security lines.  Before going through security, while I was holding Etta and trying to get all of our belongings sorted into baskets and breaking down the stroller, Oscar decided to crawl onto the metal table that the buckets go onto before they go into the scanner.  I hauled him off, and he discovered that there was another shelf under the table, so he jumped onto that and crawled to the front of the line.  I ran and got him, pulled him back and walked us through the scanner, which he touched.  The TSA lady tried to get him to walk through it alone.  Big mistake, but once all three of us got through it (without him touching the sides (this took three attempts)), we got to the point where I collected all of the stuff in the buckets and the TSA man checked to make sure the baby’s milk was not some sort of explosive device.  This, my friends, is where airport security jumps the shark.  What mother of two has the freaking time to plot the take down of an airliner?   C’mon.  Anyway, while I’m standing there with Etta, waiting for the milk to be cleared and the flight declared safe for all and simultaneously trying to get my crap pulled together, Oscar bolts.  Yeah, seriously.  Runs, looking back at me like he wants to play chase.  There are somewhere close to one million people at the terminal, I’m being told to wait, while my child is about to run the length of the international terminal, so there, at the airport, I discovered my “don’t screw with me, kid” Mom Voice.  It’s been in development for a couple of years now, but I had the opportunity to roll it out then and there.  Thankfully, it worked, and although I had to use it once more (at the same point at the Seoul airport), I’m hoping it won’t make any additional appearances this trip.

That’s pretty much it for the trip.  We spent a looooooong time on airplanes.  Oscar and Etta got into it a couple of times, but mostly that was attributable to Oscar being exhausted and wanting to sleep on me, while Etta was sitting on me. For most of the flight, Oscar sat in his seat watching Cars and dozing once in a short while. The flight to Bangkok was a lot easier, since Etta was mostly in the bassinet.   Oh, and since it was less than half as long as the first flight.

The smartest thing I did so far was book the “premium flight service” (thanks, Stace), which meant that once we hit Bangkok, at 11 PM, we had a nice lady waiting for us in an electric cart, which whisked us away, past hundreds of others arriving at the same time, up to the Immigration lines.  At first I thought this had been a waste of $70, since the walk didn’t look that long, but it ended up being quite far away, with a huge line of people.  The thing that clinched it for me, though, was that the “fast track” customers have their own area, where there really aren’t lines, so when we were almost through immigration and found out that Etta  needed a health clearance, it was no big deal to go get one and come back.  And, I mean “no big deal” in the timing sense, don’t get me started on the fact that my infant child needed a health clearance based simply on the fact that she has an Ethiopian passport.

Regardless, 25 hours after the car picked us up at home, we were in our lovely hotel room.  Wide awake, which leads me to now, almost a day later, at 10 PM, when we’re wide awake again.  This is because I broke the first rule of beating jetlag (which is not the same as the first rule of fight club), we slept all day today.  I know, I know.  But I was not going to ruin my kids’ lives by making them stay up all day today just to reset their clocks.  We got up at 5 AM, played, went to breakfast (where Etta charmed everyone by saying “thank you” – even for the guys who came up and said “they say she can talk, can we hear?”) and Oscar put on a dance show for the guests, walked around the hotel, where Oscar oohed and aahed all through the lobby and again, danced for anyone to see.  We went back to the room, where I thought we’d wait until the kids club opened, and then it happened.  They slept.  I tried to wake them a couple of times, but then I gave in.  We napped together until 7:30 PM, when we ordered dinner, had our room made up and are now hanging out playing.  I’m hoping that they’ll want to crash again in a few hours and that tomorrow we can at least go see the reclining buddha.  But, if we don’t, it’s no big deal.  I had considered Bangkok simply a stopover so we could fight our jetlag.  It’s looking like that might be all we manage, but everyone seems happy, so it looks like we’re okay for now.

Sorry the pics are so lousy, but here you go . . .

September 17, 2010 - Posted by Oscar and Etta's mom | Our family, Thailand, travel