The Night Market

After our culinary success in the afternoon, we decided to plan our evening according to the meal. The kids voted for Hamburgers, so we found the highest rated place on TripAdvisor and off we went.

After exhausting Yuval's and my navigating skills, we came to the conclusion that the place was not here. We stepped into the Hotel which was where the restaurant was supposed to be and they confirmed that the 'restaurant' was a van and he hadn’t arrived today. We had 6 hungry children and TripAdvisor showed nothing within walking distance. We were on our own. Yuval and I left the moms with the kids and each one ran in a different direction to try and find food. We returned after a few minutes with our findings. There was a bustling market across the road with a food area in it. That were we went. Food first, market later. The food was not bad at all + a banana lotti for desert (and one for Yuval when all the kids had gone).
After that we continued to buy a 'Sharwal' for all of us (pronounced 'Shual' by Yael which is 'fox' in Hebrew) And while the girls were busy buying, the boys were busy investigating and found a break dance show!

After the buying, we all rushed to the break dance show only to find out it had finished. But there was hope, they were performing again a little later.

We found a safe place for the kids to run around. Yael and Roi played mother and baby, and Yael put her baby to sleep. The rest of the gang were a little more energetic and were racing around the market at lightning speed!

And then the show began, At first there was a drag show. It was very amusing, followed by the long anticipated breakdance show. 

We were all hypnotized! These guys were amazing! Who would think that there'd be such a break dance seen here in Chiang Mai.

The Best Vegetarian restaurant in Chiang Mai

The next day we woke up, had breakfast and a swim at the hotel pool. Yuval and Rona came to pick us up and we went for a walk through the old town. The old city is surrounded by a wall and it is full of charming little alleys. It took me a while (well, more like a few days - After Bangkok I was sure that in Thailand pedestrians are a disposable nuisance) to loosen up about walking in the road. We walked through the alleys, occasionally stopping at a temple.

Trip Advisor has become our compass as far as food goes. Sometimes we are spontaneous and just turn it on when we get hungry and go to the closest recommended place, other times is we want to be more specific, we find the restaurant we want and navigate to it.

This time we were semi spontaneous, we looked for the closest vegetarian restaurant in the area. We found that the closest option was one of the most highly recommended Thai restaurants in Chiang Mai (Morning Glory) . Full of expectations we found the place, which turned out to be a little family business which was completely empty, looked a little run down. We stepped inside and found a man watching something on his laptop. The place looked dead and the man looked like he was really hoping that if he kept his eyes inside the screen we would disappear. But hungry kids don’t disappear quickly, and the noise made the place feel full. We made ourselves comfortable, rearranging the tables and helping ourselves to drinks. By the time our waiter arrived, some were ready to order and others were ready to leave the restaurant…. This was extremely bad service in any ones book. But moving a herd of 10 people is not a trivial operation, especially if some of them are hungry children – so we ignored the bad service and ordered. Slowly the restaurant came to life, a few women appeared in the kitchen and slowly the dishes started to arrive.

The food was out of this world! Every dish was better than the previous. By far the best Thai food I have had and by far the cheapest – What a surprise! The TripAdvisor proved itself!

Off to Chiang Mai

It was a short flight to Chiang Mai. We stepped out of the airport, and were thrilled to breathe the northern air. It was hot and humid, but nothing like Bangkok and most important – it was clean!

We took a taxi to our Hotel. It was wonderful, Chiang mai is a small city, no high rises, no traffic jams, the cars and people seem less stressed and most important – the air is breathable. "There is Yuval" – Alma shouted, but before we had time to understand what she was talking about, we had already passed him. The girls started screaming from excitement. "We will soon see them all" we calmed them down.

The taxi came to a stop outside of a very fancy hotel. "There must be a mistake" I said, but the name of the hotel was the same as our order. I went in to check and low and behold there was a reservation in our name. The bell boy came to take our bags and took us up to our rooms. We explained to the girls that this hotel has nothing to do with our trip, it was a mistake that won't repeat itself. The rooms were much fancier than I had expected. We took the lift down to the pool. – This place was too good to be true!

After an hour in the pool, we got ready and went to meet Rona and Yuval for an early dinner. The girls were beyond themselves with excitement. Rona and Yuval were already locals here. They had been here for 8 days and had already a list of favorite restaurants, ice cream parlors, park, etc...
After the Mexican dinner we went for a walk to have ice cream and then stopped over at their hotel for some a grown up drink and movie for the kids. - What a day!

I am sure we wouldn't have enjoyed this day as much had it not been for Bangkok. So I stand corrected. The best thing about Bangkok is Chiang Mai.

Arriving in Thailand

We were a little weary of our flight to Bangkok as it was both the cheapest and strongly spoken against by my travel agent aunt - Carolbokie.
Trans-Euro was the only company we could get one way tickets that cost more or less half the price of the full ticket, plus they had the most comfortable hours, so against all odds we went for the cheap option. The flight was scheduled to leave Ben-Gurion airport at 14:00 via Moscow with a 3.5 hr stop, Landing in Bangkok at 11:00 the next morning.
we were still at home when we saw that the flight was delayed by hour, So we took our time with lunch and arrived at the airport with a lot of time to spare. We went through everything at lightning speed and were at the duty free with 2 hours to spare. The airplane crew were typically Russian - (very impatient), The food was inedible, but other than that the flight was fine.
In Moscow we came across  the poorest looking duty free I had seen since the stop over in Addis Ababa. But it was a good place to stretch our legs. Yael couldn't get over the abundance of escalators and the walking escalators and the older girls joined the party. The flight to Bangkok left on time and arrived on time. On the way to Bangkok I finally had some time to start reading about our destination. The past 3 months (since we decided to go on our trip until now) went by so fast and with so many things to do, that I had only enough time to care of the most urgent thing there was for each step. So now we were on the plane and I could finally read up about Bangkok.
Galia and I didn't sleep that well on the way. Between the discomfort and the girls waking us up, we were up most of the flight, except a short nap we both had when Yael was awake beside us. When we woke up we found all her stickers were stuck on the airplane window.

Divon's instructions were perfect and we made it to his apartment as smoothly as we could possibly hope. Divon and Channe arrived at the flat from their swim as we arrived at their door step. And after some quick hellos we went down for lunch at a local restaurant. Divon explained about the area and about Bangkok, about the culture and the food. Giving us tips and ideas. After lunch we carried on to one of the near by malls.

Divon's flat is in one of the richer parts of Bangkok. There are many restaurants and malls not far and most important the 'high-train' has a stop a few minutes from his flat.
We bought a couple of local SIMs and made our way back to the flat.
Divon and Channe got ready for their flight we said our good byes and I took the girls down to the pool for an evening swim.
Galia and I were so tired, we hardly could remember our names. I think it was  the first time in our lives that the girls all went to sleep after us.

The following day we woke up fresh and ready for a day in Bangkok. We stepped outside the air conditioned flat and within 5 mins we were ready to escape the streets of Bangkok. We hurried off to the closest mall and spent the 1st half of the day walking around and comparing prices, just to find that they were just about the same as the prices in Israel. We found good ice-cream and good Sushi. After hearing her sisters complain about not feeling well, Yael decided she has a temperature (see picture on right).

From there we continued to look for the gadget mall and found a cheaper mall for clothes and an out door food market. From the unbearable heat, we suddenly found our selves in a pouring shower. The unbearable humidity was replaced by pouring rain, the smell of fried food mixed with exhaust fumes was replaced by the stench of the sewers. One second we were praying for the humidity to stop and the next we were seeking for shelter from rain.












The next day we went to visit the Kings palace. We took the high train (air-conditioned), then a 15 minute boat ride and off to the palace. The sun was out and the heat was unbearable even for us Israelis. By the time we crossed the entrance booth, the girls were ready to escape to the closest Air conditioner.






Bangkok is a city were all we did was try and escape it. Running from one air conditioner to another. The traffic is terrifying, with policemen who are busy making sure that pedestrians don't get in the way of the fancy cars coming out of parking lots.

The only 2 good things about Bangkok were meeting Divon and Channe and getting the hell out of there!