TTT – Day 3

Maybe our approach to curing our jet lag isn’t all that stupid.  When last I left you, we were about to try to get some sleep at about 1:00 AM after we had slept the day away.  We tumbled into our beds and awoke around 3:00 AM when Etta couldn’t rest.  I tried to coax her back to bed by hauling her into the big bed with Oscar and me.  I gave her some milk and then Oscar decided it was time to have some fun.  Somehow I got them both calmed down enough to almost sleep and then it happened.  Etta sat up and blew formula all over me towards Oscar.  It came out of nowhere, and after she had managed to get it out of her mouth, she sat back and laughed.  Oscar, however, was not so cool, yelling “wet, wet” over and over.  I called housekeeping and got all three of us into the shower, and within minutes we  could have been back in bed, fast asleep.  You know that didn’t happen, though, didn’t you?

While Etta and I dozed for a few minutes after 6′ish, Oscar has been up since 3:00.  We didn’t let that hold us back today, though.  we got out of the room around 8:30 and by 9:00 had a cab for the day and were headed towards the reclining Buddha.  Oscar loved it here.  Every room we entered evoked audible oohs and aahs (literally).  He loves statues of Buddha, and when he saw the reclining Buddha, he about lost it. 

After adoring his Buddha and running around like a wild man, Oscar went to Buddha’s backside where there were a series of 108 buckets aligned for visitors to place coins.  The coins are donated to the temple, and the thought behind this is that you drop a coin into a bucket, make a wish and it will be granted.   I bought coins for him to place in each bucket, but Oscar had his own ideas (naturally).  First, he ran around, saying “money, money, money,” then he threw a few coins in one bucket, ran to another down the row and did it again and finally dropped a bunch of coins on the floor.  A number of Swedish women came to his rescue, picking up the coins for him, while their husbands captured the moment on film.  When I went to collect Oscar, their faces crashed, and I realized that I had probably ruined the moment for them.  I think they had imagined that they had been helping a little Thai boy, and instead, they had only assisted an American.  I’ll be more careful in the future.

Oscar oohing and aahing

When we went to Wat Arun, Oscar had had enough site-seeing.  Who could blame him?  It was a million degrees, he was sweating and he likely wanted to get some sleep.  Instead of visiting the Wat, Oscar decided to become a peeping tom at the local dance academy.  Unfortunately, that is not where it ended.  On our return, Oscar escaped me to actually JOIN the class, where he ran around the room for a while after he had jumped into the middle of the girls who were dancing.  His dance moves did not seem to be very well appreciated, so I grabbed him, apologized profusely and we left.  He also made a friend on the streets, although this pic only captures the moment before they began their muay thai boxing moves.

You may be noticing that Etta is not featured in these photos.  Sadly, she spent the day in the carrier because of the crowds.  You see, Etta is a bit of a superstar here in Thailand.  People rush her to take their photo with her.  I am not joking.  They come up to her by the dozen, not simply snapping pics, but asking to either hold her or to be in a photo with her.  I get that she’s beautiful, but is this more because she’s African?  I imagine there could be more white Americans and Europeans here than people of African heritage  I asked our tour guide about it at the Royal Palace, and her take was that Etta is just so beautiful and happy that people want to be with her.  Who knows.  Just know that her radiance was documented for many happy tourists today.

I’ll add photos of our trip to the National Palace in our next post, since I’m starting to worry that the bandwidth here won’t be able to load this post as it is.

September 18, 2010 - Posted by Oscar and Etta's mom | Our family, Thailand, travel