Strollers In BKK: Challenging But Doable

We were told the Maclaren Lightweight Stroller was a must have item in BKK as it holds up well to the rough uneven terrain in the city. I must say it does do well and we are quite pleased with it. However the challenge begins in the decision to take the BTS (above ground metro). So some of the stops have up escalators BUT they have about 10 stairs you must climb before you can access the escalator. This is so Thai – I mean why have an escalator if it doesn’t go/start all the way down? So this means you have to carry Nick in the stroller up the ten or so stairs. And note I said SOME - not all do which means if they don't then I might have to carry him in the stroller up 90 or so stairs. You take your train ride and get off at your stop – there are NO escalators going down. So once again you carry Nick in the stroller down the stairs - 90 or so stairs to go down total. Right now this is barely doable – he weighs about 19 lbs 5 ounces and the lightweight is probably about 10 lbs - so that's almost 30 lbs total. But once the boy gains more weight – we may have to restrict his outings because I am not sure we can manage to carry him up and down all those stairs in the stroller. We have tried to get him used to either our baby carriers (Ergo and Belle Baby) or baby wrap (Maya). He liked both early on, however nowadays he wants nothing to do with them. They are definitely the way to go. But he refuses! We were told that Thai babies do not leave their house until they can walk. The reason being is it is hard to get around with them. For this reason you do not see many Thai babies out on the streets. When you do see them they are being carried by the mother who is usually on the back of a motorcycle with the rest of her family – husband and any other kids she may have! We have seen a family of five on a motorcycle once.

Here are some snapshots of Nick at the BTS waiting for the train in his Maclaren Lightweight Stroller and pics of all the steps that I must carry him up (if no escalator) and down (there are NO escalators that go down). Enjoy!

Pic 1: This is the first set of stairs you must go up that take you to the level where you pay, go through the turnstile and then you go up an even larger set of stairs to the platform to await your train.

Pic 2: This would be the larger set of stairs - only you cannot see them all because they meet in the center and then wrap around and go down further. They take you to the platform to await your train.

Pic 3: A side shot of the BTS station.

Pic 4: Nick just had lunch with Daddy at work and is now napping in his stroller while waiting for the train to arrive to go home.

Western Babies in Thailand

Thai’s love western babies. So picture this – you go to dinner with your 4 month old baby and while sitting there eating dinner there is a large family of Thai’s several tables away the entire time pointing and smiling and laughing at your baby. Then after about 20 minutes of this, a Thai lady gets up and walks over to your table and picks your baby up and walks off with him without saying a word. She takes him over to her table and they all continue to play with him. How do you feel about this? Well if most of you live in the US, you would probably freak – especially if this happened back in the US. For those of us here in Bangkok, it is the norm.

The above is exactly what happened with us one night at dinner here in Bangkok. Every time we go out with Nick, we are stopped every few feet because the Thai’s will get in front of the stroller and stop us so they can play with him. Their favorite game to play is Ja-A (peek-a-boo). They also LOVE to touch his feet. They often ask us “gii duan” which means how many months old. As many of you know – Nick is one BIG boy now. He is turning 5 months this week, weighs 19lbs 1ounce and is wearing 12-18 month clothing. As soon as we tell the Thai’s he is 5 months old they all nearly die laughing and then respond oh big boy you very big boy. You know it is bad when they take him away from you at dinner and return a minute later to give him back because - baby too big baby heavy, cannot take.

Nick has quite the fan club here. The guards at our building all love him – especially a guard we have nicknamed “Smiley” because he has the biggest smile of anyone we have ever met – it seriously takes up his entire face. Smiley enjoys him so much I sometimes put Nick in the stroller just to walk him out there to see Smiley. Then he also has his friends at the Villa Market (grocery store). Honestly at times I have left him in the stroller up front at the check out area with them while I grocery shop. How many of you would do that at your local Safeway or Giant stores? Then there are two guards that work at the BTS (above ground metro) station by our house that come running the minute they see the stroller pop up on their platform. One guard is on the other side of the tracks and he stands across the way waving to Nick, smiling and making faces at him. It’s pretty nice because we get special treatment – they have us hang out with them and they make sure we get onto a car that is not too crowded for a stroller. We usually take the train to the stop next to Joe’s compound where he works. At that train stop the guards and cleaning ladies all come running to see Nick. Also at this stop there is a coffee stand run by a young Thai girl who of course loves Nick – we refer to her as Nick’s “girlfriend.”

Speaking of girlfriends, one night Joe and I took Nick on the BTS to go out to dinner with some of his coworkers so it was rush hour and the train was packed. Well, I was holding Nick while Joe carried the stroller, which we had folded up. As we are standing there, Nick reaches his arm out and starts caressing this girl’s shoulder! He looked as though he was in heaven. Just before getting off the train, he grabbed her hand and kissed it. I think it made her day…month…maybe even her year. Nick is certainly lovin’ all the attention he is getting here – it comes from men, women, he she’s, young and old. The fascination here is only with western babies though – we have not seen this reaction towards Asian babies. We keep telling Nick – don’t get too used to this – it will definitely not be same same when we return to the US!

Prague, Czech Republic

We spent 5 days in Prague, Czech Republic. An odd place for us to pick to go huh? Well we had 5 days and wanted to do something near Vienna as that is where we planned to end our 3 week excursion. We'd both been to Germany before and wanted to see something new. We spoke to several people who all told us that Prague is by far the most beautiful city in Europe. So we figured why not check it out. We were not disappointed. The architecture of the buildings in the city was gorgeous. They had six different architectural styles: baroque, gothic, cubism, renaissance, rococo and romanesque. It was so pretty to see the different styles. The food was pretty good - they love their meat there. We loved their goulash soup too. Ah and they love ice cream there. I swear there was an ice cream booth on every street corner. The people were very warm and friendly. Everyone spoke English and all the menu's were in English too. We took various tours while there. We picked tours with less walking so it was not as hard on Susan and she could rest up after our time in Switzerland. We thoroughly enjoyed it though.

Enjoy our pics:

Pic 1: St. Nicholas Church Old Town Square in Prague.

Pic 2: St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle.

Pic 3: St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle.

Pic 4: St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle.

Pic 5: Panoramic view of Prague from Prague Castle.

Pic 6: Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square in Prague.

Pic 7: Entrance to Charles Bridge in Prague.

Pic 8: Sedlec Ossuary is a small Roman Catholic Chapel located beneath the cemetery church of All Saints in Kutna Hora. The Ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people, many of whom have had their bones artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel.

Pic 9: Susan heard that if you hang out with skinny people it will accentuate your belly!

Pic 10: The most gruesome Coat of Arms in all of Czech Republic.

Pic 11: Beautiful wall decorations.

Pic 12: We think we'll redecorate our apartment in this style - what do you think?

Pic 13: St. Barbara's Church in Kutna Hora - UNESCO World Heritage Site - construction began in 1838 and did not finish until 1905. St. Barbara is the Patron Saint of Miner's and the town was a mining town.

Pic 14: Inside St. Barbara's Church. Last Supper over the altar.

Pic 15: Susan got all artsy fartsy with this photo and finally took a better picture than Joe! This is the ceiling of St. Barbara's Church.

Pic 16: St. Barbara's Church from the side.

Pic 17: The monument to the Black Death (the Plague) in Kutna Hora.

Wengen & Interlaken, Switzerland

We then traveled with Mary and family to Wengen, Switzerland for 5 days. We flew into Geneva and then rented a car and had lunch with some of Tom's friends in Montreux. Then we drove through the mountains to Lauterbrunnen where we parked our car in a garage and boarded the cog train for Wengen. It was about a 20 minute train ride up the mountain to the small town of Wengen. We were hoping this would be the most relaxing part of the trip for Susan but due to her pregnant condition it was likely the roughest and most stressful part. Wengen was gorgeous and we do hope to go back one day when Susan is not pregnant. Wengen was super hilly and the hills were steep so this meant hoofing it up the hill anytime we wanted to leave the hotel. No cars are allowed in Wengen so everything was done on foot. We had hoped to take the cog train up to the Jungfrau which is a mountain peak that you can see from Wengen but the weather conditions were bad and the train up there was closed. We did take the cog train up a few more stops and had lunch and a closer look at the mountain top. The hotel we stayed in was nice but they were rustic accommodations - the rooms were small and very simple. They were fine but very hard on Susan as the bed was pretty low - it may as well have been a mattress on the floor. So it was hard to get up from the bed and Susan gets up at least 4x a night now to pee! Otherwise, the hotel would have been fine. One day we spent in Interlaken which is a larger town down the mountain from Wengen. Joe found what he thought was an easy hike to a cave - he actually didn't think it was a hike at all but more of a bus ride there and that the cave was right there for you to see. So we decided to go there - turns out he was wrong. We took an hour bus ride out to this cave, then hiked up a hill that was straight up and included many stairs. Got to the entrance of the cave and found you can only see it via a tour and it is 1km into the cave to include 297 stairs and then 1 km out of the cave, again to include 297 stairs. We thought Susan was going to give birth in that cave. She was fine going in but coming out was hard as it was very slippery and she almost slipped and fell a few times. She was toast the rest of the day - could barely move and was just really tired - we think she overdid it that day. The cave was nice and all but had she realized how strenuous it would be while pregnant, she probably would have skipped it.

My apologies if some of the pictures are a bit out of order - I am aware of that but it's a pain in the butt to move them around on this blog!

Enjoy the pics of the beautiful scenery around Wengen and our cave hike in Interlaken:

Pic 1: A town shot of Wengen.

Pic 2: Another shot of the town of Wengen.

Pic 3: Joe and Susan in Wengen with mountain top views behind us of the Jungfrau.

Pic 4: A waterfall that we had a good view of from Wengen.

Pic 5: The town of Wengen.

Pic 6: The town of Wengen.

Pic 7: The view from Wengen.

Pic 8: The town of Wengen taken from Kleine Scheidegg which was a couple stops on the cog train above Wengen.

Pic 9: A panoramic shot from Kleine Scheidegg.

Pic 10: Another panoramic shot taken from Kleine Scheidegg.

Pic 11: A close up of the mountain tops from Kleine Scheidegg.

Pic 12: A night shot in the town of Wengen.

Pic 13: A night shot of our hotel in Wengen.

Pic 14: Another night shot of Wengen.

Pic 15: Another night shot of the town of Wengen.

Pic 16: Panoramic shot from the train ride up to Kleine Scheidegg.

Pic 17: Panoramic shot of Wengen.

Pic 18: Another panoramic shot from Kleine Scheidegg.

Pic 19: Another shot from the cog train on our way back to Wengen. You can barely make out a small little town towards the hills on the right - that is Wengen.

Pic 20: Picture taken from a church in Wengen looking down into the valley below.

Pic 21: A close up shot of the mountain tops taken from Kleine Scheidegg.

Pic 22: Another close up of the mountain tops taken from Kleine Scheidegg.

Pic 23: The cave entrance to St. Beatus cave in Interlaken, Switzerland.

Pic 24: This was taken at about the half way point of our hike up the mountain.

Pic 25: Joe and Suz getting a pic on our way up the mountain to the cave.

Pic 26: Susan after the cave excursion with the view of Lake Thuner See in Interlaken in the background. No pics were allowed inside the cave unfortunately.

Amsterdam & Haarlem, Netherlands

After the family reunion, my sister and her family and Joe and I went to Amsterdam for 3 days together and stayed right downtown. We had a blast. In Amsterdam we took the canal tour, visited the Anne Frank House, walked thru the red light district, and did a walking tour of the Jordaan neighborhood. Chiara needed a break one day so Mary and Tom stayed in the city with her while Joe and I took Sam to Haarlem for the day to go on the tour of the Corrie Ten Boom house. This was one spot Sam really wanted to see as he has had to watch her movie (nearly ten hours) 3x for school and/or scout projects as well as read her book several times etc. We figured he has devoted well over 30 hours of his life to Corrie Ten Boom so it was worth a visit to her house. She is a Dutch Christian Holocaust survivor who helped many Jews escape the Nazi's during World War II. The Anne Frank House was interesting as it gave you a quick glimpse into WWII from the perspective of a teenagers eyes. The Red Light District was not at all what Susan expected and she was quite disappointed. Susan was expecting it to be similar to that of the red light districts in Bangkok but she thought the one in Amsterdam was pretty tame. You always hear of the nearly naked women in the windows, all the sex shops and prostitutes everywhere. You almost kind of had to go looking for them - which we weren't that interested in it so we didn't look too hard. In Bangkok, they are very aggressive and approach you in the streets offering their services - they don't stand in a window off a beaten path. They are all out in the open and hound you. We did see some sex shops and we saw two God awful ugly women in a window down a side allow dressed in some skimpy lingerie. You could smell pot everywhere though - all the coffee shops sell it and some even post their menu/prices on the door/window for you to see on the streets.

Anyhow, here are a few pictures from our time in Amsterdam and Haarlem:

Pic 1: Anne Frank House...

Pic 2: All the bicycles parked at the train station.

Pic 3: It's hard to see but the sign reads, "Homomonument!"

Pic 4: Sam hiding in the "Hiding Place" in the Corrie Ten Boom House.

Pic 5: Aunt Suzy and Sam sitting and waiting for the train in Haarlem to take us back to Amsterdam.