Day Nine
28th March

The wedding celebration party is on Sunday. We have two days left to prepare. We had lunch with Kung, Jah A--Snow‘s step sister, and Nihm--Jah A’s friend-- at the Pizza Store, which is at the Charoensri Mall. The mall is attached to the hotel, side by side. We can walk a short distance to the entrance. The pizza was good and they gave us a 2 for 1 special. Snow and Alex went off to the grandparents house, while I was left to buy water at Tops Market, on the top floor for Robinsons dept store. Snow and Alex went over in the afternoon to the temple to see the monk.

We had dinner back at the grandparents house.

Day Ten
29th March

Snow’s uncle was going to do flower arrangements for the wedding on Sunday. But his son and his father-in-law were hurt seriously in a car accident earlier in the week, and he has to drive far to get to their hospital. So on Saturday Snow is taking our laundry over to the grandparents house, and will be working on the flower arrangements. After she is there, the uncle is able to return and she doesn’t have to do them.

In the morning Alex stayed with Daddy. It was a real father-daughter bonding day. Snow went down to the spa for a massage. It lasted 70 minutes. Alex says one of two things: either “go-ey” for go, or “walk-ey” for walk. She has pushed Snow and I so much this week and last to get up and go, go walk with her. She loves to walk the hallways of the hotel. She likes to walk through the lobby. She loves to walk the city sidewalks outside the hotel and the mall. Strangers walk up and touch her hair, brush her arm, pinch her forearms, they say jah aiee which means peek-a-boo. At the spa, Alex and I see Som Oh, Snow’s cousin, who works at the spa in the hotel. Som Oh is enchanted with Alex like everyone else has been. Alex walks around the inside of the spa, and plays with the girl who works the towel counter. There’s a table in the lobby of the spa with an arrangement. In the arrangement there is real fruit, real peppers. Alex grabs at them. Som Oh warns her off from holding the peppers. But Alex is happy with two limes.

After Snow’s session with the masseuse, we relax in the room, and Alex took a nap on her bed. Snow plans to go over to the house with the laundry. She leaves Alex with me to watch while she sleeps. But as Snow leaves at 145 PM, Alex wakes up. In her state of just woke up, she wants her mother. So she cries at me, and she wants to go out, perhaps to try and catch up to Snow. I calmed her with leftover pizza from our lunch on Friday. We had five pieces left and I gave her small pieces of pizza to eat for lunch. After lunch, she wanted to walk, So she and I went to the mall. We rode the escalators, we went into Robinsons. The Robinsons sales girls were taken with Alex, we played with the fans, and in the clothing department. She got thirsty, so we bought a lemonade at Auntie Anne’s pretzels. We sat in chairs by the stand with a small table and looked at each other. AClose to 4 pm, we headed back to the hotel. We ran into Snow who was back. She took Alex and went over to run errands, while I used the internet.

Day Eight
27th March

We went out in the morning to visit Snow’s cousin, who lives in Bangkok not far from Kriang and Numphu. They have a townhouse in a private neighborhood. Its not a large town home. She has two children with her boyfriend, who was originally form Norway. He told me when he came down, that he started a business online with some friends, that did online betting. Then they sold it to a large company. Now he has a business in Bangkok. Aunt Moo brought the youngest son, Pau. At one point, he and Alex were both eating goldfish crackers. Pau tried to take a drink of juice from Alex’s juice cup. She was not happy with that. She did not want to share her juice cup. She got very upset at him, taking it away from her. She demanded instant justice.

We invited the couple to come up to Udon Thani for our wedding celebration on Sunday. They said they were coming to see us. On the way back we stopped at a noodle shop for lunch. We were already mostly packed for Udon. Our flight was at 6 pm. We were going to head out at four. We got in two taxis at four pm. One with Snow Alex and I, the second one with Snows mother and brother. We needed two taxis to carry all our bags. When we got to the airport, we got a shock. Our flight was at 440pm, and it was 435 when we found out. Snow hadn’t brought her printed itinery, and her mother had told her it was at 6 pm. We missed the flight. We had to buy two more tickets to get to Udon Thani, the next flight at 745 pm. We had to sit in the airport for 3 hours. Thank heavens for the goldfish crackers to help keep Alex happy. During the flight, there were some spectacular lightning on our side of the plane. Alex was upset before we took off, but Snow cleverly made her happier and calm by pointing out the balls, the blue lights lining the runways. We arrived in Udon at 845 pm, where several family members were there to greet us and take us to Snow’s grandparents house.

We arrived after 915 PM. Alex hadn’t been up that late all week. She hadn’t had dinner yet. She was cranky. When we got out of the pickup, there were nearly a dozen cousins and uncles outside, all coming up to see her. Some were loud, a few were already drunk. This naturally terrified her. She cried and clutched her arms around Snow’s neck. In the house were Snow’s grandparents, aunts, female cousins. It was all a bit too much. She was too tired. She cried and wasn’t able to be social in her state.

Luckily she soon fell asleep and Snow moved her to her grandparents room where she slept on top of the bed. Snow and I had dinner, a nice macaroni dish with pork, eggs, tomatoes, in a tomato sauce. We went back to the Charoensri Grand Royal hotel. it’s a nice hotel, pretty western, a bit old but they have decent amenties. Free breakfast buffet, a few Western TV channels, internet access in the lobby at one space, for $1.00 an hour. We got a room on the 14th floor, due to superstition, there’s no 13th floor in the hotel, and 14th is the top floor. We got two full or twin beds. So Alex slept in one with Snow, and I slept on the other.

Day Seven
26th March

We headed back to Bangkok with our van departing around ten in the morning. We stopped at this shop that specializes in desserts, and Snow bought a bunch of things there. We stopped for lunch in Samut Songkhram which is close to Bangkok but on the Gulf. Bangkok is north of the bay and doesn’t sit on the Gulf, but on rivers that run through the city.

We had seafood at the restaurant, which was across the small street from the beach. There were small street vendors, like you see at a swap meet or farmers market. I finished lunch before Snow, Kung, or their mother did. So I took Alex for a walk. She loves to ask for a walk now. So we walked around the restaurant, which was long and open, but mostly deserted by now. She saw the vendors across the street, and wanted to go see it. So I picked her up and took her across the street. The locals were charmed by her. This part of town wasn’t full of tourists, but more it seemed like locals shopped there. She enjoyed looking at the exotic wares, which included dead fish.

When we got back to Bangkok, it was after 3. So we relaxed and rested. In the evening, Snow went out to the market with her aunt. I watched Alex. She was a bit cranky, we went outside and ran around the yard for a while. I got her inside the house around 625 PM as it was growing darker. Numphu’s cook made some pork soup and the nanny had a bowl in the middle of the downstairs. Alex went over there for spoonfuls of food along with Numphu’s children.

She played along with them for a while. I joined the men, Kriang, his young assistants, the older uncle and Kung in watching a live soccer game on TV. It was the Thai national team playing Oman. Turned out it was their first match in World Cup qualifying. The Thai’s allowed a goal in the first minute of the match. Then Thailand pressed the Oman goal again and again, but never got a goal and lost 1-0. Tough result, especially at home in Bangkok.

Alex tired of playing and came to me. She wanted Snow of course and was a bit upset for her. She wanted to go upstairs, and there she asked for Spongebob. I put the DVD in the laptop computer. She watched one episode or two, but in the middle of one, she wanted Mommy. We went downstairs again. She loves to climb up and down the stairs. Well snow had gotten home already, but was in the back kitchen which is off the kitchen and you cannot see her cooking in there. She was making our pasta dish from home, with the bowtie pasta, or farfalle, with mushtrooms, artichoke hearts, olives, and feta cheese.

The pasta was delicious. Alex went to sleep before 9 pm. I saw American Idol on satellite, but with the weather being windy, the signal was breaking up and I could hear all the vocals and all the comments, but I got the drift.

Day Six
25th March

Our final full day at the beach, in Pranburi, was mostly quiet. It rained in the morning, a downpour early in the morning, but it was brief. As Snow said, it started, and two seconds later, it was over. It just got everything wet. But the day was gray and windy. We didn’t go out in the morning after breakfast, and I had time to go online.

I used the internet Monday and Tuesday to watch an episode of Lost in 2 to 6 minute increments. I probably didn’t see all of it, just most of it. I watched through youtube .com. I tried to watch it on ABC, but they had a message that stated, only viewers in the USA can watch full episodes using the player. I couldn’t watch Big Brother on CBS.com either, though it didn’t say because I wasn’t in the US. Just that it wasn’t available. Through you tube I saw episode 17 where Matt was voted out, and episode 18. I watch 6 to 10 min clips but they have whole episodes this way. I also saw American Idol where the last 11 sing, by watching a clip of each singer. I haven’t see any of the Bachelor as yet.

On satellite there are many series on, just on diff nights and days. You can see all the CSI’s all three on Sundays. There’s American Idol, Law and Order SVU, Survivor, Oprah, Two and a half Men, Old Adventures of New Christine, Bones, House, 24, Ghost Whisperer, Heroes, Simpsons, NCIS, Without a Trace, Desperate Housewives. There’s BBC Entertainment channel, animal planet, discovery channel, Disney channel, history channel, discovery home and health, cnn, cnbc, bbc news, and ESPN.

Finally, we actually got a driver and decided to go back to the beach at Sam Roi Yot. We had been there two days before but hadn’t been able to get out and take photos and check it out since Alex was napping in the truck. The sand wasn’t as nice as the one at Koh Galok, the views of the islands just of the shore, and the trees that line the start of the beach by the road. Snow ordered a couple of sweet snacks, prepared roadside by a small vendor. It’s like a sweet crepe with sugar and butter inside folded several times over. You never know with road side stand food. It was yummy, but may have made me sick later on.

Because we really didn’t want to go into the water at Sam Roi Yot, we went over to the one we were at before--Koh Galok. It was late nearly six, so we didn’t have much daylight maybe an hour or so. We went in with Alex, Snow and I. She didn’t go in as far, but we had fun, we ran along the edge of the water. After playing in the sea, we hung around the beach till it was dark. There is plenty of room there, as people start to head home at 530 PM and 6 PM.

Back at the hotel, after 7 PM, we were prepared a special dinner by the chef. We had a catfish with tempura breading. We all ate well.

Day Five
24th March

We took Sayan’s pickup again Monday. This time we drove over to Sam Roi Yot National Park with goes right up to the Gulf. Its just a bit further south of the Koh Galok we were at the afternoon before. We drove down this most secluded and deserted beach coastline. There was just a two lane concrete road, trees and beach on the left side, small shops, small restaurants, and nice resorts on the right side, Farther on the right, there are a range of mountains in the short distance. The mountains hugging the Gulf adds to the atmosphere. Out in the Gulf you can see four small islands. They don’t see much on them but rock and trees, they do not look inhabited. There were small fishing boats anchored to the beach. Small time fisherman making a living on the tiny fish they pull out of the Gulf there.

Sayan planned to stop over by this beach. But Alex sitting in my lap had fallen asleep before we arrived. So we didn’t stop so she could sleep. We headed over to the National Park area. We parked over there because Alex woke up after an hour nap. We got some chips and sodas.

We went to this Buddhist temple. It was very hot. It was midday and the sun was out strong. We removed our shoes at the entrance, which forced us to walk barefoot. But everywhere you step was so hot. They have marble steps which they put strips of carpet down over the marble, but the carpet sat in the sun and got so hot. So we stepped as quickly as we could and looked for lil spots of shade. This was a bigger stop for Snow’s mother than for Snow or me. We went up to the top and there was this very large bronze statue of a sitting Buddha where faithful had put gold squares on it to start covering it.
Due the heat, we couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Sayan wanted to take somewhere in town he knows for lunch. So he took us to a small downtown noodle shop. Noodle shops are prevalent in Thailand, They have good cheap soup with noodles vegetables and meat. But this one was less impressive than ones we had seen in Bangkok and Udon Thani. Snow was not happy with it. When we got the soups, and we had to wait longer than expected, Snow and her mother each didn’t care for it. For me, it was much worse. They ordered for me, and though reassured by the woman that it was not spicy, they gave me the spiciest soup I have ever tasted. After less than half a bowl, my lips felt like they were burning. They seemed swollen and I couldn’t close my mouth. It was so difficult. We left early and headed to the hotel, where Snow and I had lunch again. We had some delicious tempura.

We were going back to the beach. But because I wasn’t feeling well, we stayed at the hotel and before dinner we went in the swimming pool. There was Kung, Snow Alex and I, with Snows mother lounging next to the pool. We bought the small boat float at Koh Galok beach and had that. Alex rode the boat a lil bit, but mostly, she was in the water with each of us. We held her, or lifted her up or bounced above the water with her. After a while, she started to get upset. She didn’t want any of us to hold onto her. Instead, she was clearly wanting us to just let her go so she could swim on her own. She felt she could do this swimming and floating thing on her own. But of course, we kept denying her freedom. We didn’t know how badly she would take going under. We didn’t want her to be traumatized in the pool so young. She was really mad and wouldn’t let up. She got very mad at both of us and was fighting us while we held her. She was in such a state, it was tempting to let her go and see for herself how she would do. We didn’t though. Then Snow finally took her out of the pool while she was throwing a fit. She looked like she would run away from her and jump back into the pool herself.

After dinner, I went to use the net, Alex went to sleep and Snow watched her favorite Thai dramas. She has been able to see some of her favorite shows and favorite stars from Thailand. That night I counted between 40 and 50 lizards on the walls, the posts, the beems, the ceiling.

Day Four
23rd March
Today a new word from Alex: “ walk “ Since we all fell asleep around 800 pm and I think I was asleep by 815pm latest. We all woke up around 6:15 am. The Sun hasn’t even rose yet. Snow noticed from the balcony how beautiful the pre-dawn moon was. We have a bench on the balcony. It’s all wood. Not super comfortable without any padding. The hotel has great food. Every morning there is a complimentary breakfast. American breakfast is two small hot dogs, two slices of ham, two slices of white toast, an egg, a slice of bacon. There’s also boiled rice, a staple of Chinese food.

The hotel is only a year and half old. Its owned by this couple who are there every day. The staff is small and seems like a family. They have all taken to Alex. There are only 9 rooms and we rented a double room, one for us, one for Kung and Snows mother. They are next to one another, but separate. The first night there seemed to be other guests, but Sunday night, there seem to be fewer and on Monday and Tuesday, we may be the only guests. Its impossible to be sure. They didn’t tell us this, but by the look of things it seems possible. They are open to getting us anything we need. They really care about giving us good service.

The owners of the hotel are this couple. The wife and her assistant handle the front desk and the restaurant. The husband Sayan has a small auto shop in town, and he drives guests around the area. This day he would drive us down to the Pranburi River. We hired a boat to take us down the river, just like the canoes in northern Michigan, cept there were the five of us and he had a small propeller. The ride down the river to the Gulf took a little over an hour, and was very peaceful. There are many fishing boats all along the way. There are craps, fish and shrimp to be harvested from the muddy river. Whenever the old man driving the boat heard his cell phone ring, he would cut off the motor so he could be heard on the phone. We had gotten to the end of our journey, in the channel leading out to the Gulf. The wind was strong and the currents were much stronger. Then he got another call. Apparently, a woman coming to see them for a boat had gotten lost on the local roads. We noticed as he talked, we were quickly drifting towards the large rocks that line the channel’s side. As we got closer and closer to the rocks, we were getting more apprehensive. I expected him to cut short his call, whip on the motor and get us out of danger. No such luck. We struck the side of the rocks and were buffeted around. He finally now got off the phone, but had to slowly maneuver us around the rocks with an oar, to be able to get us around to where he could use his rotor. We stuck the rocks three or four times before he finally turned us around and got the motor in action again. None of us were thrilled.

After we came to a local beach just down the channel, Sayan met us with his Isuzu pickup. We headed up to a small temple at the top of a large hill. It had beautiful views of the valley below and to the sea. Snow’s mother burned some incense for good luck.

We had lunch back at the hotel. The food was great, they make a good Tom Sum soup with fish, tomatoes and a broth with is tart with the flavor of lemon. After resting back in the room for a bit, we went to the Mangrove Forest National Park, which is almost across the street from the resort. We learned about how cutting down the forest was bad for the ecosystem. They cut them down to build shrimp farms, but the fishing in the area was hurt by loss of the trees. The King stepped in, and they built back the lost forests in 2001. There was a cool 3-D presentation of this process. We climbed a 4 story tower that looked over the forests and nearby landscapes. It was very hot and steamy out.

Sayan drove us to the local beach. There was a beautiful spot. Its called Koh Galok. The Galok Mountain of rock is large and juts out to the Gulf. Next to it, the sand is white, fine, and soft, and the long beach stretches out into the warm Gulf waters. We rented some wooden deck chairs and set up camp. We changed Alex into her key lime polka dot swimsuit.

This was her first time in the sea. She loved it. Really took to it. She enjoyed it as the small waves crashed into her one after the other. After a while, she thought she would enjoy sitting down in the water. Well that made her lower, and even in shallow water, she was hit in her face by part of the wave, she just brushed it…no problem She just brushes the water off her face and trudges forward. It happened a few times.

We did not see her upset, she did not cry. She enjoyed watching the other children playing. We ran in the shallow water long the edge of the shore. She sometimes had me hold her up while we walked around in the water. She just had a wonderful time. Since we got to the beach around 5 pm, it was dusk. The wind was quite brisk, and it drove the waves faster. Sundown being close to 6:30 PM, the beach began to empty slowly after 6. Snow went to the local vendors and got her a beach towel to dry off. We had failed to bring a towel from the hotel, as we didn’t really plan ahead for a beach trip. She also got an inflatable boat, and she rode in it on the Gulf, but not for long. We relaxed on the deck chairs before heading home, enjoying some snacks and drinks. Snow, Kung, and mom had coconuts, drinking the juice. Snow picked up a can of beer for mom and me.

Sayan took the pickup and came back with a jeep. We sat in the back. We laughed thinking he just didn’t want sand inside his nicer pickup. We showered off at the hotel and enjoyed a dinner back at our hotel. Their cook was really good. Everything was excellent. I finally got the internet to work up in the lobby around 9 PM. I had to unplug the wireless router to get the signal to work. This allowed me to catch up on what had happened in sports since Tuesday. I sent the email to Taylor, Lauren and Nicole, and to mom and dad.