{"id":1251,"date":"2011-10-06T21:16:06","date_gmt":"2011-10-06T14:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/?p=1251"},"modified":"2011-10-12T15:29:46","modified_gmt":"2011-10-12T08:29:46","slug":"the-family-global-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/?p=1251","title":{"rendered":"The family global village"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>

Team adventure trek in northern Thailand<\/p><\/div>\n

6 October 2011….It\u2019s a big world, right?\u00a0 I mean, as an example we\u2019ve got family in California, Arizona and Washington.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got most of our family in Sydney of course, when they\u2019re home that is.\u00a0 We used to have family in Ireland and we still have family in Holland and Singapore.\u00a0 Plus there\u2019s us in Bangkok.\u00a0 So we\u2019re scattered and by definition our paths sometimes don\u2019t cross often enough.\u00a0 That means it\u2019s a huge treat to have family from different places converge on Thailand for a holiday and general family catch up. \u00a0And I know just the right tour guide to organise the whole thing.\u00a0 Julie.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Royal barge rehearsals in from of famous Wat Arum<\/p><\/div>\n

Klaas and Julie\u2019s sister Linda have daughters living and working in Amsterdam and Singapore.\u00a0 Linda used us as a willing excuse to visit her sister Jessica and have a holiday in Thailand and Laos.\u00a0 And what a great time we all had on her holiday!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Living and not-so-living frogs at Khlong Toey market<\/p><\/div>\n

Linda spent four days in Bangkok, her first visit in 25 years, exploring the tourist sites with Julie and delving into some of the finer points of the city, like massages, pedicures, cooking schools, visits to the Australian Ambassador\u2019s home, the markets, the canals, the incredible shopping and the fantastic food.\u00a0 And the two sisters had ample time between the sites to catch up and share notes on family and friends.\u00a0 So all good.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n
Drinking photo no. 1 – Cheap Charlies<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Drinking photo no. 2 - Anna's Bar<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>

Lost in the jungles of Northern Thailand<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0But we cranked it up over the weekend by all flying to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand for a weekend of adventure and more family fun.\u00a0 Joining us was Linda\u2019s oldest daughter Jessica who lives in Singapore and Jessica\u2019s friend Geoff.\u00a0 But hang on, to complicate the situation a bit more Jessica flew into Chiang Mai from Pakistan where she had been on a business trip.\u00a0 That all sounds pretty normal, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Public transport in Chiang Mai<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Chiang Mai is a wonderful city, up in the hills a bit and slightly cooler than Bangkok, rich in history with its ancient wats and beautiful moat around the city centre, famous for its markets and a gateway for the hill tribes in the mountains further north.\u00a0 Chiang Mai has magnet appeal.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Chiang Mai was suffering due to the flooding<\/p><\/div>\n

But right now the whole northern part of Thailand is inundated with massive flooding, mostly the result of a heavy rainy season which just keeps on giving, and dozens of provinces are under severe stress as the waters continue to rise, crops are ruined, villages are flooded, roads are cut off and lives are lost.\u00a0 There are countless thousands of Thais, most living a fairly simple life style in their rural settings, who are struggling to literally keep their heads above water.\u00a0 And the rain keeps coming.<\/p>\n

\n
In Chiang Mai the famous night market was heavily flooded when we arrived and many shops were only saved by the piling of sandbags at their door.\u00a0 As the water receded a little over the weekend there was a monster cleaning up job and it was slow going on some streets because of the mud and silt from the Mae Ping River.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>

All ready to go before the bamboo raft trip - excellent fun!<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Walking around beautiful bright green rice paddies<\/p><\/div>\n

After a Friday night catching up over drinks at the Juicy Bar (I don\u2019t think they are referring to freshly squeezed) and hearing more about Jessica\u2019s adventures in Pakistan the five of us embarked on a one day adventure trek in the mountains near town.\u00a0 This is one of those moments when Dad asks, as at least one Dad did, \u201cokay kids, how many forms of transport did we have today?\u201d\u00a0 Well, on this day we had five – minivan, elephant, bamboo raft, walk and tuk tuk.\u00a0 And kids, how many different ethnic villages did we visit?\u00a0 Answer \u2013 three, the Shan, Mhong and Karen tribes all live near the Mae Wang River which was the centre of our adventure.\u00a0 And don\u2019t forget the mushroom farm, the water falls, the wobbly bamboo walking bridges, the endless fields of beautiful healthy rice, the intermittent rain, the couple of hours walking through the bamboo and rain forest,\u00a0 and our guide Tea (\u201clike Ice Tea\u201d) who couldn\u2019t operate a camera to save himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Woman from the Karen tribe in a quiet mountain village<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Bashing through the forbidden jungle <\/p><\/div>\n

But wait, there\u2019s more.\u00a0 On Saturday night dinner was at the Good View Restaurant on the banks of the very flooded Mae Ping River in Chiang Mai where we celebrated Jessica’s recent big\u00a0promotion. On Sunday we\u00a0hired a Sorng Tao, a shared taxi which is sort of like a ute with a cover on the back and two long bench seats, to take us up the steep and windy switch back road to Doi Suthep National Park and the famous Wat Suthep on the top of this 1700 metre mountain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Team photo at team dinner<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>

The gold on this place seriously glitters when its not raining<\/p><\/div>\n

This is a magnificent temple with grand views over the city and valley below (when it\u2019s not foggy and drizzly!), packed in history and mythology with great religious importance for the locals.\u00a0 There can be nothing better than to walk up the long string of stairs between two endless tiled nagas, ring a few of the bells and take in the glittering gold stupa and surrounding Buddhas (when it\u2019s not foggy and drizzly) while watching the locals make merit in various ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A little girl in traditional dress on the steps of Wat Suthep<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Lin Ping is only two years old but she is gorgeous <\/p><\/div>\n

With energy to burn we stopped at the Chiang Mai Zoo to specifically see their most famous residents.\u00a0 Okay, a zoo, not everyone\u2019s cup of tea and why would you bother with a zoo on limited time?\u00a0 Well, maybe to see Lin Hui, Chuang Chuang and most importantly Lin Ping.\u00a0 Because these three temporary guests of the zoo are a family of pandas, and most incredibly Lin Ping is a two year old baby panda born via artificial insemination at the zoo, one of very few pandas conceived in such a way outside of China.\u00a0 What a fantastic treat to see these three pandas, mostly just lying around or sitting up like humans gnawing on bamboo, and looking absolutely gorgeous.\u00a0 Great ambassadors for China in general and zoos in particular.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

My, what big tusks you have!<\/p><\/div>\n

All our guests eventually left us in Chiang Mai, Jeff back to Singapore, Linda and Jessica to continue their adventure to the Laos border where the following day they would catch a boat for a two day trip down the Mekong to beautiful Luang Prabang in northern Laos.\u00a0 For Julie and I it meant a quiet afternoon exploring the Sunday markets, enjoying a long massage and a few beers and dinner before our late night flight back to Bangkok.<\/p>\n

For all of us it was a great chance for family to catch up, enjoy a wonderful city and surrounding area, tells stories, take photos and generally do what families do.\u00a0 Even if you are scattered all over this global village.<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n
Plenty on offer at the colourful Chiang Mai Sunday markets<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Umbrellas not to be used when its raining<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6 October 2011….It\u2019s a big world, right?\u00a0 I mean, as an example we\u2019ve got family in California, Arizona and Washington.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got most of our family in Sydney of course, when they\u2019re home that is.\u00a0 We used to have family in Ireland and we still have family in Holland and Singapore.\u00a0 Plus there\u2019s us in Bangkok.\u00a0 So we\u2019re scattered and by definition our paths sometimes don\u2019t cross often enough.\u00a0 That …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1264,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thailand"],"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/DSC_2378.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1251"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1301,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions\/1301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}