Submitted: Our Thailand adventure

Because it was an adventure. Supposedly, the goal was to have a memorable holiday with the five of us, Huib Wiets and the children (from Bussum). I think that worked out. It is known that the average teenager is not very interested in the culture of distant countries, and certainly not ours. If there is such an EO documentary on TV about the cycling culture in Vietnam, they immediately zap it away. Now they have become acquainted with a world in which five people sit on a scooter, where people eat insects or fried scorpions

We thought we were going on spec, but in the end we just booked the classic tour at a travel agency in Bangkok. Night train to Chiang Mai and then flying south, to add another beach holiday. It wasn't very cheap, but we didn't have much to say either, there at that travel agency. The Thai hardly spoke English and we didn't speak Thai. This only became painfully clear when we wanted to check out on the last day of the holiday. It was 4am, we had a plane to catch, and I turned out to have reached the limit of my Visa card and the hotel refused to let us go. The trip was actually just too luxurious for us. At the station in Chiang Mai we were personally picked up by the hotel. I sometimes see that at Schiphol, someone holding up such a sign with a name on it in the arrivals hall. I always thought it involved important people. I immediately didn't dare to bargain anymore, while you can read in every travel guide that that is really the intention. Well, it doesn't make any sense anyway. I can say very loudly that 40 Bath is way too much for a ride with the tuktuk, but converted that is just 1 euro, I believe. What are we talking about. But now that I think back on it, it may have been expensive after all. I was terrified in the tuktuk. Those Thais drive like crazy. The five of us were usually divided over two tuk-tuks and all drivers, or what passed for that, made it a competition every time. But they didn't manage to drive us crazy. Only the one time at 1:XNUMX in the morning, when we had to go to the airport, the five of us in XNUMX tuk-tuk, with all the suitcases we had with us.

The kids liked Kho San Road. Also to go out. I learned this holiday that as a parent you shouldn't want to know everything your children are up to. But yeah, that's hard when you're out together. Spending the night in Bangkok, an initiative of our eldest daughter Emma, ​​is something different in my experience than spending the night in Utrecht. With a lot of effort I was just able to keep them from visiting a ladyboy show. There were many Dutch people walking around on Kho San Road. As a tourist this normally does not make you happy, but at night in the hotel I found it a reassuring thought. On Kho San Road we encountered two more families from Bussum whose children went to school with our children. A bit of a sad highlight of the holiday because you suddenly start to have fun with each other.

In itself everything was well organized in Thailand, but we had to get used to the Thai way of doing things. In the night train to Chiang Mai it turned out that the compartment, as stated on our tickets, could not be found. In fact, that whole train set of ours did not exist. Now in Thailand there are all kinds of people in uniform walking around in government buildings of whom it is completely unclear what they are doing there. So I didn't want to ask for an explanation at the first pope with a cap on. We just sat down in an empty compartment. Until we were driven from our place by a Chinese family (with the right papers). Then I just shot something that looked like a conductor. He would solve it and hoppetee, he walked out with our tickets. Then we had nothing left, no seat and no tickets and the train was already XNUMX minutes over time. Well, it all worked out in the end. We were all divided over different compartments and with a little cooperation from loose travelers who wanted to move, we could be reunited again. Of course there were five of us and there was only room for four. The fifth person was assigned a place with the conductor, together with the dirty laundry. Needless to say who that fifth person was. I was often the asshole in that regard. When we went on a jungle trekking somewhere in the North, I had to sit on an elephant, together with another superfluous guy in the party (also a non-enthusiast).

In Chiang Mai we cycled and indeed, we did a jungle trekking. Those people up there in the mountains must have thought us crazy, that we spend so much money to trudge up through the jungle for a whole day at 40 degrees and then lie down with them on a hard bamboo bed. That brings me to what for me personally is seen as the lowest point of the holiday. Rarely have I been so laughed at by my family as on the way back down. It had rained that night and the steep mountain paths (you couldn't even call it a path) were very slippery. A combination of slippery shoes, fogged glasses and total exhaustion meant that sometimes I was down faster than I wanted against my will. And if I didn't fall into the water once, when we walked along such a path between two rice fields (only four cm wide!), I received applause and a thumbs up from the group.

At the end of the second day in the jungle I had just enough sense to say thank you for rafting down the river. I was tired but not tired of life. And rightly so, as it immediately turned out, because Servaas, our son (who is really a sportsman), fell into the water and cut his leg open. It was actually not too bad, but the wound had to be stitched. So in the hospital. That is in Thailand is an experience in itself. Again all kinds of uniforms here. I believe that about seven people came to see Servaas's leg when he was lying there on a kind of stretcher, until finally an eighth person (without uniform) came to stitch his wound. What I found special was that there were not only men and women walking around in the hospital, but also a kind of intermediate form. Male doctors (I think but in uniform) who were made up as women. Very special. They say that we are free-thinking in the Netherlands, but I have yet to see if such a thing would be accepted here.

We have been visiting the islands in the south of Thailand for the last 10 days. And sure enough, right on the first day, on the first island, they were assigned an idyllic hut on the beach, right by the sea. The children didn't know what they saw and I grew increasingly sorry that I had not bought my own building blocks from Greenwood in advance. The next morning, Famke thought she saw her head of department from school lying on the beach, in a bikini. After secretly taking some pictures like a real 007, she came to the conclusion, after consultation with her friends at home, that it must indeed be Mrs. Vis from the superstructure with 95% certainty. That remaining 5% was caused by the bikini. By getting closer and closer as Mrs. Fish went into the water, Famke eventually managed to be recognized, after which the rest of the family also suddenly emerged from the water to shake her hand. Just not me. I don't like the sea very much and I prefer not to be in the sun when it is 25 degrees or warmer.

On the advice of Mrs. Vis we rented three scooters, which was very nice and handy. Well, scooters, I think they were really motorcycles. With 250 cc you are allowed on the highway here in the Netherlands. One of the best adventures (in retrospect) was then

somewhere inland, in the middle of nowhere, we got a flat tire. My wife now says she came up with it that way (but at the time it was just stubbornness) when she said she would walk down with the scooter (motorcycle), still 10 kilometers, and that we four on the other scooters had to go ahead to find a tire patch repair shop. And it was also very hot that day. In fact, all days were very warm. Anyway, we started driving and within about 10 minutes we were overtaken by a pick-up with a scooter in the back and Wiets waving out the window. I consider myself lucky to have such a woman.

At the resort where we stayed, the children tried for a while to pretend that they were on holiday together. We were therefore supposed not to know them in passing or in the bar. In the end, that can no longer be sustained and they have resigned themselves to the fact that we also existed. I am not aware that the children have suffered adverse effects from this. Our youngest thought it necessary to round up her age with her friends. Famke is 16 but temporarily went through life as a 19-year-old (and that's how she looks). It was a bit of a swallow when she got a boyfriend at one point who said he was 27 (but probably 35). We have such good conversations, said Famke, especially at night on the beach (sometimes until six or seven in the morning). For a moment I felt called to wake up my daughter from that beautiful dream called innocence, but the practice turned out to be a faster learning experience.

We also went snorkeling. My wife was enthusiastic because she thought she had seen a blue fish. I didn't participate. I let myself be burned, left alone in the boat. A week after returning home, I looked with extra interest at the fish in the aquarium here in Bussum at the local Chinese. The blue ones in particular caught my eye.

Well, time flies like this. I was happy with that in itself. And everything was recorded by the children on their phones. How many times have I had to pose. Huib and family with a reclining Buddha, the children together with the golden Buddha and also a picture of Huib alone with a laughing Buddha (to cry) and I think there was also something about a giant Buddha. Well, at least I've seen them all. In the beginning you thought it was something special those Buddhas with accompanying temples, but if you pretended to be interested you were always given a skirt to cover your legs. Once is nice…

Back in Bangkok, we visited a “floating market” well outside of Bangkok, mainly to please our driver so that he could collect his provisions. For that reason we have also made unintentional trips with the tuktuk in Bangkok, to Nepalese tailors and Chinese jewelers and so on. It was extremely disappointing, that so-called floating market. It was more that we floated and the market was just on land, with fairground stalls that all sold the same thing: very small and very large elephants and everything in between, scarves with colorful prints and more souvenir-like items. It reminded me of an Efteling tour in which an (Oriental) fairy tale was depicted, complete with talking males and females (the Thai are not that big). That same day we also visited a rail market. Here many dead and live fish and accompanying flies. You have to take the term railmarket with a grain of salt. The market is indeed located on a railway line, but if a train ever ran there, the problems would be incalculable.

Happy as I was that it was almost over, I let my family tempt me to have my feet massaged. I can do that Bangkok on every street corner. We had opted for a butcher's shop that had been converted into a massage parlour. Before I knew it I was sitting in the chair with the butcher's wife (I had no say). Well, it's like at the dentist, you can't do much more than smile back and you do.

Finally, I can report that in Thailand I developed a spontaneous allergy to everything that has to do with rice and noodles, combined with chicken curry or, even worse, squid. On the plane on the way to Thailand I thought: hey, how nice, Thai food. But if you then get served in different variations for three weeks, you'll be happy if you can go to a pizza hut at the night market on Koh Samui and order pizza there (which was ridiculously expensive by the way). Speaking of planes. I am always amazed that they last so long. The average person has grown so much taller over the years that today he is completely stuck in such an airplane seat. I can't believe that all the planes I'm on have made a mistake when calculating the legroom.

I am not yet caught by the Thailand virus, let that be clear. But I thought it was a great vacation. The satisfaction with me is usually afterwards. But not immediately upon arrival this time. At Schiphol, Famke had brought the wrong suitcase from the conveyor belt. Whether dad wanted to take the train back to Schiphol at Weesp to exchange it.

Thanks to my friends.