2010 September 28 «

TTT – Days 13 and 14

Vacationing with children really is exhausting. Just like at home, we get up every morning by 6:00 am, if not earlier. Some days, far far earlier. Today, we made it to 6:00, but given all we had scheduled, I should have rolled us out by 5:30. I got us all showered and dressed, with the kids racing around the room and Etta crawling everywhere to find new things to stick in her mouth, fed Etta her pre-breakfast meal of baby food brought from home, and we were on our way to the restaurant by 7:30, with everyone fed for real (and Oscar’s clothes changed because of a mishap with his tomato soup) by the time we took off with our tour guide for our day with the elephants.

After a beautiful hour-long drive into the hills of Northern Thailand, we arrived at our elephant camp. It looked at first like we were the only guests, which was a lot of fun, since we had a bunch of elephants to ourselves to feed. Oscar thought the elephants were amazing. He kept pointing at them and yelling “el-ee-FANTS”. We bought bunches of bananas and some sugar cane, and I tried to get Oscar to hand them over to the elephants, but he kept peeling the bananas for the elephants. He finally got into the swing of things by the end, though.

After feeding the elephants, we watched them be bathed in the river, followed by a short show where the elephants moved logs around and demonstrated how many ways there are for a person to climb onto and off of an elephant before a baby elephant painted a little picture, which was cute. At about this point, Oscar announced to the audience that it was time to ride the elephants, and people actually started to head out, only to be called back, since Oscar is not an employee of the elephant camp. He’s just a very bossy three-year old.

A few minutes later, we were allowed to go to the stand to ride the elephants. It was at this point in the day that Oscar about lost his mind. We were at the stand, and other people were getting onto their elephants, with Oscar literally jumping up and down, saying “elephants . . . ride elephants! hi, elephant. ride elephant.” At some point, we were led to our elephant, which was huge, and Oscar jumped right onto it, with me taking a bit more time. Our tour guide convinced me to let him keep Etta back with him and the other guides, since it was very hot, there were a lot of bugs out and Etta was acting like she needed a nap. I’m now hoping that she forgives me and doesn’t make me bring her back to ride an elephant since her brother got to do it.

Oscar got a lot more out of the trip than I did. It was very pretty up in the hills, and it was interesting to ride an elephant (although, as my parents reminded me, this was not my first trip – I rode one at a circus once when I was a kid. I cannot imagine that I enjoyed that trip either), but I was distracted by the fact that the path was a bit treacherous and I could imagine my child falling from the elephant at every turn. Oscar thought the entire thing was amazing, though. He could not get enough of watching the elephants feet. I don’t know why, but this fascinated him.

After an hour, we were finished with that part of our day, and we headed on back to the city. We stopped at a hill tribe community that is related to Oscar’s tribe. I considered going to visit the Long Necked Karen village (this is the group where the women wear the gold rings around their necks), but despite the explanations by many guides and other Thai people we’ve met of how this was not exploitative of these women, I couldn’t get comfortable about it. So, we headed on back towards the hotel, making the obligatory stop at the shopping venue where one’s tour guide gets a kick back. We did find a grocery store and bought diapers and formula, so Etta is set for the rest of the trip. This sets her apart from her brother, who now wakes up asking for corn on the cob and chili for breakfast. It’s good we’ll be home soon.

Eventually we made it back to the hotel, and the kids were so tired that even Oscar didn’t want to swim . . . for about 90 minutes. After watching Wall-E for the 10th time in two days, we headed to the pool for some late afternoon swimming and the kids ate dinner at the pool, which was really convenient, since Oscar got terribly messy eating spaghetti, but it didn’t matter, since he jumped back into the pool immediately after eating. I finally got the kids back to the room, bathed and into bed at 7:00 PM, but Oscar decided to wake Etta up half an hour later. Thankfully, he’s started to kiss his sister, so he woke her by kissing her and saying “night night Etta, niiiiiight,” while jumping on the bed right next to her head. We used the opportunity to Skype the grandparents, and the kids just went to bed a little while ago – at 10:00 PM.

I am now too tired to even sleep. Why is it that that only happens at night, and not, say, at 6:00 am when your kids are forcing you to get up?

Pics from elephant day, not enough bandwidth to post pics for both days.