So far from home and from me

I was writing an email to a friend today and I was finally able to express what it is that I have been feeling since we have been in Thailand.  Loneliness.  I am lonely.  It is frustrating because here I am in a beautiful, fascinating country and I cannot appreciate it.  I have hired help to enable us to free up our time and to really experience what life is like as an expat, yet I am still stressed every afternoon when Marcus comes home, the kids still frustrate me and I still find myself losing my patience everyday with them and Marcus.  He on the other hand has changed, he is much more relaxed and carefree which only adds to my frustration.  I am still calling myself the "physco bitch" still snapping and yelling and nothing seems to be good enough for me, I am still searching for that "something" and the problem is I don't know what that "something" is.

I can imagine my friends back home reading this and saying to themselves "come on Ally, get real, look at where you are and what you are experiencing and you are still complaining!"  But here is the clincher, the source of all this frustration is loneliness, I have none of my close friends around me or even nearby, I cannot just pop out for a coffee or a play date, I cant just drive down to my mother in laws house to say Hi.  I share a glass of wine with myself.  I have no one to gossip with, no one to laugh with, you know the type of laughter that makes you pee.  I miss everything about home.  I seem to have simply picked up my whole life and routine and put it all on a plane and dumped it in another country, the same stresses and worries and arguments have followed us here.  When we made the decision to take this trip we were both secretly hoping to leave all of the niggling little worries and fights behind and start a new and exciting chapter.  But it has not happened like that, we have a house that looks like any house from Australia, the weather is exactly like North Queensland and if I stay home for a few days and don't venture out past my front gate I swear I could be living in Cairns.
 
I remember reading a book about Thailand and it saying that expats have 2 ways of living in Thailand, Encapsulation, where you become a part of the community of travellers or expat community, where you live in your big house, eat imported foreign food, watch satellite TV, join expat clubs and shop in expat supermarkets.  The only Thais you converse with are the maid, the driver, the gardener or the nanny.  It is very easy over here to recede into your own little bubble or world and live exactly like you would if you were back in your home country.
Or there is Integration, where the visitor removes the barriers that separate him/her from the Thais and slowly stops using the expat community for friendship and entertainment and feels increasingly more at ease with the Thai people and culture.  It says that the person has everything to gain this way and little to lose but their intolerance.  However to integrate you need to be able to speak the language much better than I do at present and you need alot more confidence than I have. 
When we moved here I imagined us to be adventuring every weekend, visiting wonderful and interesting places.  But we mostly hang out at home or go to the shops, we stopped doing the tourist thing months ago.  Thailand is not a country built for children, the sidewalks are for selling things on and not for walking on, the streets are very dangerous to cross especially with a pram and a small child, the public transport is even harder.  I don't even know how to call a cab, there isn't a dispatcher like back home, you actually need a drivers personal phone number or if you happen to be by yourself you can take the risk of hailing down a taxi motorbike and pray you don't get killed.  But since I have the kids it really slows me down in what I can do each day and I end up doing the least stressful option and go shopping in the super huge multi-story shopping complex where everything is twice as expensive as home.  Whoever said Thailand is cheap was fooling themselves.

I find it hard simply to meet new people.  I tried the other week at a mothers group, but most of them seemed so pretentious (or maybe they thought I was) but I only really got to talking to one other mother and that was through an introduction from a mutual friend and we happen to be from the same city.  She seems really down to earth and normal so I hope to be able to develop more of a friendship with her and she also has a son who is about 4 so I am also hoping Judd can make a new friend since our only friends with kids left for home last week.  It was really quite sad as Judd was really good friends with their 2 boys and they played so well together, he talks about them everyday and asks me when they are coming back.  Poor kid, it must be so hard to be taken away from not only your friends but your family as well.  I need to make more of an effort to make new friends not just for my own sanity but also for the kids as well. 

I had these grand ideas of taking time each day to exercise, meditate and to research more about Buddhism and the art of meditation and to write, write about not only my experiences but my self discovering along the way. Well at least I have managed to write, the other stuff I still hope to do but I seem to be very stuck in my everyday routine.
I am tired of complaining, of bitching and of snapping at everyone.  I feel so shallow and empty and I wonder how much longer it is going to take to fill this gaping hole I have inside and I wonder where and how this hole got there in the first place?

Christmas Day

Christmas day was different.  I mean growing up in my family we kept it pretty quiet anyway, the mornings were spent with me opening all of my presents and since I was an only child and all of my other cousins were alot older than me or lived in other cities I got terribly spoilt.  After I was done my parents would either go back to bed or we would sit about and have a normal breakfast and then get ready for when my aunty and uncle would come over to share a cold lunch of ham and roast meat and salads, then my uncle would fall asleep on the couch and the parents would sit about having a beer and a wine and I would wander off down the street to my best friends house to see what she got and to eat all their food.  There was no big crazy day spent rushing about from house to house visiting all the family members, it was very nonchalant and sometimes pretty boring, especially as I got older and the magic of Christmas started to fade.  It wasn't until I moved to Melbourne and met Marcus that I got a sense of how busy and enjoyable Christmas Day could be. Not that mine weren't enjoyable but they were very very casual.
Now Christmas with Marcus wasn't too crazy but it was spent visiting a family members house for lunch and drinks, they would have a annual big family party a few weeks earlier to fit into every ones schedules so by the time Christmas Day came it was only a few left to get together and share gifts and a bottle or 2 of wine.  But I liked the idea of big family functions, coming from a small family this was all very new to me.  And especially after I started working in retail my Christmas' became very very busy and I could never celebrate too much because I always always had to work on Boxing Day and that was usually our biggest day of the year for sales.  How I do not miss working those crazy hours and I do not miss the crazy desperate shoppers over spending and creating havoc. 
When we had the kids was when Christmas took on an altogether different meaning for us, it became exciting again, special and I love shopping for gifts to treat the kids with and I love telling Judd the stories of how Santa comes to visit in the middle of the night on a sleigh drawn by magical reindeer's and if he is a good boy he will get many special gifts from him.  To see the excitement on his face makes all the effort worthwhile.  To take him out on Christmas Day to visit the family and to get hugs and kisses and more presents and to basically show him off to everyone is really fun, and I know Marcus loves it too.

Christmas this year was different but no less special, Judd really understood the stories of Santa and he knew what was going to happen and he woke up Christmas morning disappointed that he missed seeing Santa because he tried to stay up to catch him.  Lillie doesn't know the stories but she does know how to unwrap a present and she got stuck straight in as soon as she woke and finished her bottle (as nothing comes between her and her morning bottle).  I asked Santa this year to bring Lillie some girlie toys as she mostly plays with Judd's old ones.  Watching her play with her new baby doll and her shopping cart and play house she has turned overnight into a little girl, no longer is she my little baby.  She may wear nappies but she knows how to give her baby her bottle, put her to bed, put her handbag over her shoulder grab the shopping cart and go shopping.  It is so sweet, she takes her baby everywhere now, in bed and in the car.  She cuddles it so tight it makes my heart melt. 
Judd got more grown up toys this year, boxing gloves, Lego and more Thomas trains. But he still insists on taking Lillie's toys from her, even the baby doll.  He always wants what the other kid has despite how many great toys he has himself. 
Our day was spent with a slow morning of unwrapping and playing with toys, a light breakfast and then Skypeing our families to wish them Merry Christmas.  Skype is a wonderful thing, for the kids to be able to see their grandparents and aunts and unlces is so special, and it makes us feel not so far away when we can now just dial up and have a chat whenever we want.  Afterwards I went out to get our Christmas lunch which ended up being 2 pizzas and some fish and chips for the kids, then it was nap time and then we decided to get out of the house and head into town for a Christmas dinner.  It was such a simple, private and calm day.  It wasn't any better than our usual Christmas Days but it was different in a good way.

Boxing Day was another matter altogether which I wont go into now as I don't have the emotional energy to go on about it, lets just say there was a miscommunication between adults and a fight ensued followed by some serious sulking. 

Thailand doesn't have the Christmas vibe to it like Australia, considering their mostly Buddhists that's understandable so in all honesty the 25th Dec could have been any other Saturday. 
But the Thais do celebrate New Year and the do it in a big way, Marcus gets 5 days off this weekend and their are festivals and markets and concerts popping up everywhere, its going to be a noisy and rowdy weekend and I cant wait, we are hoping to get a room in town to be amongst it all and to hopefully see the fireworks display they are having out on the bay.  But being the peak season for tourists I may have to do some serious hunting to find the right place that suits us and the kids, either way I am sure we will have alot of fun.

Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Eve and I am all alone in bed utterly exhausted after spending all day chasing last minute Christmas food and gifts and the ever elusive wrapping paper so I could sit up all night wrapping all of Santa's gifts for the kids.  Marcus is off at the work Christmas party something I am not at all happy with. It may sound selfish but I am upset that the kids and I have to spend tonight alone in a foreign country with no friends or family around to enjoy this special time with.  I don't see why the party had to be held on Christmas eve other than the Director is a bachelor who has no family here and no idea whats its like to be away from those he loves.  This man is not in my good books lately for reasons that I wont go into on my Blog as they involve Marcus and its not my place to comment openly.  To top off my discomfort our next door neighbours have been away for 3 weeks and their maid has been house minding during the day and today she discovered that either last night or early this morning someone has broken into the house, not stolen anything, but locked the bathroom door from which he entered through from the inside so that possibly he could return with help and a bigger truck, who knows.  But the simple fact that he has been sneaking around only meters from my bedroom window breaking into their house (our houses are really really close) has got my shackles up and I am very nervous about being home alone.  I have already checked on the kids and double checked all the windows and left all of my outdoor lights on but I cannot rest so I may as well just wait up until Marcus gets home from his party in Bangkok.

Also I thought I may have had to take Lillie to the hospital this afternoon, she was trying to follow Judd into the bathroom and he shut the door and accidentally jammed her thumb in it.  Now Lillie is a real tough cookie, she fell off the bed the other day and collected the side table and then hit the floor and only cried for minutes but today she screamed and screamed and kept holding her poor little hand, I was almost certain it was broken and that we would be spending Christmas eve in the Bangkok Pattaya hospital.  But thankfully after dinner and a bottle of milk she calmed down and started to play again so I figure that it just must be bruised and sore rather than broken.  If it was really broken she wouldn't have used her hand to grab and play with her toys (I hope).

On the up side of today I asked Judd if he would like to go through his toys and pick a few that he would like to donate to the local orphanage here in Pattaya, the Father Ray Foundation.  He was so good he went through all of his toys and gave me plenty to give away, he even tried to give away his Toy Story collection of toys, but I had to say no as they were gifts and he should really keep them.  We ended up with 4 bags of toys, clothes, shoes and baby blankets.  He came with me to the orphanage and spoke to the ladies there and carried the bags in.  I really think he understood what we were doing and how the other children were going to benefit from his toys.  I hope to be able to do this with the kids every year for Christmas and birthdays just teach them about charity and to also help them value their gifts more.

Also I gave our nanny/driver some days off to go up to her home town up in north Thailand to visit her parents and her children, so I am now doing my own laundry, ironing and cleaning for the next 2 weeks.  This will come as a shock to the system because I haven't done any serious cleaning since we got here.  I will enjoy it though, sometimes I feel like my job has been taken from me, but the plus side of having some help around the house is that I have more time to play with the kids and to give them the Grade A attention that they always deserve.

So we had our ups and downs today but as I go to sleep tonight I have that tired feeling that only comes with a busy but productive day and I look forward to the looks on the kids faces when they realise that Santa came while they were tucked up warm in their little beds.

A day of shopping

Spent a lovely day today in town with Marcus.  We have been wanting to get out and do some market shopping without the kids for quite some time now and I finally got around to arranging to have them stay with the nanny so we could wander around and shop at our leisure. 
It was nice, we started our day with breakfast at one of the many beach side restaurants then jumped onto a baht bus that took us a bit further up Beach road to a set of markets and Marcus hit the ground running buying some lovely Calvin Klein underwear and aftershave and bartering with the girl until she gave in with frustration.  He loves to haggle and it drives the Thais crazy because he has no problem walking away if they don't bring the price down enough.  I have been doing a bit (well actually alot) of shopping since we arrived so I am over all of the tourist junk that these markets sell, sometimes you can find something nice and of value but alot of it is just mass production tourist junk that devalues the real genuine crafts and gifts that the fine hands of Thailand make.  Their hands are so nimble, especially the ladies, and some of the hand made crafts are just wonderful to look at, but you have to be able to find a stall or shop that sells them to be able to see the fine difference there can be in comparison to the copies.  For instance there is a lovely little alley that is called Artist Street which I have mentioned before, and today I wandered along watching the artists work on their portraits and landscapes with such fine detail, it was fascinating.  I have decided that I want to buy one of these pieces however Marcus wants to choose one for my Christmas present, but the problem with buying someone else art is that they can never be 100% sure that the receiver of the gift is going to like it.  I showed him the one I liked, it was a scene from up country Thailand of a small river flowing over rocks, some traditional Thai houses perched along next to it and a wonderful mountain skyline above, it is a piece that I could just sit in front of and stare at for hours.  I then walked along and compared this to the many reproduction pieces that the other shops sell alongside their own original work and portraits and they all seemed the same.  I mean I could walk into any westerners house here in Thailand and I could bet money that 99% of these homes would have something similar hanging on their walls.  I don't want that, I want a piece of art, it has to mean something and it has to look and feel real.  I am sure Marcus will choose well (at least I hope so) but our tastes are really quite different.
After the markets we jumped a baht bus down to Pattaya Tai and visited Tech Com, a big I.T Super store selling thousands and thousands of copy and real phones, computers, movies, music and anything else that requires electricity.  We are looking at getting another lap top for me as this one I use now is so slow, it almost doesn't work.  But there are so many stalls and choices that I get dizzy and cant concentrate let alone choose a new computer that will set us back a heap of money, so we wandered back up to Beach Road after a lovely Japanese lunch of noodles, soup and dumplings and we treated ourselves to a foot massage each.  Before we knew it it was time to head home to give the kids their dinners and bed times.  A day like today doesn't come along very often and I think we made the most of it and got to have some special "couple time" that was sorely needed.

Korean students, body builders and food!

An interesting week, sort of.  We had a young girl from Korea stay with us for the week.  She normally lives with our friend Karen and her family as she goes to the international school with her daughters but as they had to leave for their Christmas vacation 1 week before school ended, Young Eun (or Marie as we called her) came to stay with us until last night when she flew home to spend Christmas with her family in Korea.  She is a lovely girl, but all she did was study, every night up until really really late.  I would wake up at about 12pm and if she was still up I would turn the Internet off to try and get her to go to bed.  I don't know if she was on the net or not but I wondered what else could she be studying for during her final week of school?  She is 17 so I couldn't just demand her to go to bed, but a few subtle hints may have been dropped.  The kids loved having her with us, they would run into her room every morning and make a big noise and mess and she was too polite and shy to kick them out.  But now she has gone home Judd gets to have his bedroom back much to every ones relief.  We had him sharing with Lillie the first night and that lasted about 1 hour before he woke her up with his wandering around and ended up in our bedroom.  I put up the portacot for him and he just fit into it with only millimeters to spare.  He definitely isn't a baby anymore! 

Last Sunday Marcus got his second tattoo.  Ouch!  He has already got Judd down the right side of his torso and to balance it out he now has Lillie down the other side.  A really good job too, the writing is slightly thicker than the first one but I think it looks heaps better.  Now he has got the taste for them he wants to get a full 3/4 sleeve done.  We have been looking at some designs at the shop we found just off Beach Road in Pattaya next to Mikes Mall.  It is the cutest little alley, all the way down it is just tattoo parlors and artists workshops.  I loved just walking along watching all the artists working on their paintings, so much so that this Sunday we have the nanny booked to watch the kids while we go out shopping for the day and I plan to go back to that alley and buy a big original piece of artwork for above my dining room table.  They all seemed fairly reasonably priced too. 
Marcus and I have been talking about taking a day to ourselves and just walking along the streets and alleys and checking out all of the little bazaars and markets that are too hard to go to when we have the 2 kids in tow, so we figured the Sunday before Christmas we will take the whole day to ourselves and hopefully have some fun together too.  It gets hard sometimes when the kids keep us so busy to take time to remember how to laugh with each other again.  And to think I have seriously been thinking about adding to our stress and having another baby!  Which surprise surprise, Marcus has agreed to, but only on one condition....I need to lose the weight I have been complaining about for 3 years, I have to get myself down to 70kgs before he will allow me to get pregnant.  Isn't that wonderful of him?  Actually it is, he has found the incentive I have needed to get off my ass and really get serious about losing this extra weight, before it becomes and permanent fixture.  So the plan is to not go crazy and cut out all the good stuff in my diet, I mean who travels half way across the globe to go on a bloody diet?  Not me, there is far too much delicious food and drink to be had while we are living this wonderful experience, but I do plan to take it all in more moderation, only drink on weekends and try to cut out the sugar as much as possible.  Thai food is quite filling so I don't find myself over eating I just snack on far too many sweets and drink too much Coke.  Plus I need to work in a new exercise routine, I would like to walk everyday but it is soooo bloody hot that I am dripping sweat into my eyes before I get one lap around the block, so I need to think of something else that fits into my day of taking care of Lillie and taking Judd to and from school and also fits in between Lillie's naps and feeding and on and on and on.  Yes I have a nanny/maid but lately I have been staying with Lillie alot more and her naughty behaviour has stopped, she is eating again and has stopped having as many tantrums.  So leaving her with the nanny everyday isn't really an option at the moment, not if I want to keep my sanity anyway.
I will think of something and I will reach my goal then I will stack it all back on with my baby weight with pregnancy number 3! LOL LOL!

Last night we took the kids to the big shopping mall in town for dinner, we like to do this on Fridays as Marcus works every Saturday so he wants to get out and do something before the weekend is over for him, which I totally understand.  So we had dinner at a lovely Japanese and Korean restaurant, and we ate like champions, even Judd surprised us and ate a Pork Steak with his rice and then he even went so far as to eat the udon noodles from our soup!  I nearly fell out of my seat with shock, this is the boy who wont even taste ice cream or chocolate and don't even think about getting him to eat a pea and here he is eating pork and noodles like he has been eating them his whole life!  What a champion.  Even Lillie has some rice, she is becoming so much better with her food lately too (but I shall not get my hopes us just yet as with kids you just never know).  After dinner we went out to the front of the mall to get a photo with the biggest Christmas tree I have seen, all lit up in blue and purple lights, but we got outside and there was a Thai body building competition on.  OMG I have never seen such ripped little (or not so little) Thai men!  They had muscles coming out of everywhere, it was fascinating and of course I had to interrupt family photo time to get some pics of these men.  It was weird and gross at the same time.  But Lillie and Jud loved dancing to the music they were playing, it was so cute.  That is what I love about Thailand, everyday there is always always something happening, something to celebrate and everyone is pretty much in a pleasant and cheerful mood.  If I wanted to to I could take the kids down Walking Street and still feel totally safe and not have to deal with drunken louts stumbling around and starting fights and skanky women swearing their heads off.  The word for Thailand really is Mai Pen Rai

Bits and Pieces

A few things have been happening this past week.  Marcus got his cast off and is now walking normally, his leg is still sore but at least the break has healed and in time he will be back running on it again soon.  Our friends from New Zealand have gone on holiday and have asked us to board their international student from Korea, Marie.  Well her name is Young Eun but we call her Marie. She is 17 and is a lovely girl, she mostly stays in her room and studies so its almost like she isn't here at all.  The kids love her too, they are constantly running into her room and climbing all over her homework and she is too polite to kick them out.  Marie is only staying with us for one week until school finishes then she flies home to her family in Korea for Christmas break.

We also found a lovely beach not far from our house (well 40 mins drive but that's still pretty close) it is on a navy base in Sattahip, we have to get a day pass at the guard house and pay a National park fee and also we cannot drive down to the beach we have to catch the complimentary taxi bus over the hill to the beach.  Its called Sa Kaew beach and it is the most clean beach I have seen on the mainland, the water is clear and completely free of rubbish and plastic bags, the sand down by the water is white and clean, it is what you would expect a beach to look like when travelling to Thailand.  We have been twice so far and plan to go alot more.  Saturday we met our other friends from New Zealand, they are a family of 5, down there and the kids played and swam and had the best time.  Lillie loves running in and out of the waves and she thinks its hilarious when they knock her over, she doesn't even mind when she goes under.  We have to watch her very carefully as she has no fear of the water.  Marcus and I got to relax while the waiter brought our food over to us, the beers were cold and the sun was nice and hot, it was the perfect day.

I have had some nanny dramas this week too, our nanny was dating a western man and he recently broke up with her and she has taken it very badly.  I can understand it can be very upsetting for a Thai lady to lose a western man, she has basically seen her free ride stop and got kicked off, back to living on no money and looking at a future with no security. As she is already divorced and has 2 children who live with her parents up country she came to Pattaya to find more work and maybe a husband.  Life for women in Thailand is bloody hard work, especially those with little or no education.  So I have been trying to talk with her about this recent break up, but the language barrier is a problem and my patience runs out real quick.  I just keep telling her that he is scum and to move on, but a Thai lady tries not to have too many boyfriends, it makes it harder in the long run to catch a man, especially a Thai man, they do not like to date or marry a Thai lady who has already had a baby or been married, its like they are tarnished.  Do these Thai men think they are the best catch?  Seriously, I am so glad to have been born in Australia where I have had the freedom to "try before you buy". 
Anyway she now tells me she wants to buy a massage business from a friend and work it in her free time, I feel this will be good for her to set herself up with a business that can support her in the long run, if she manages it correctly of course.  Even if she ends up quiting working with us, I wouldn't mind knowing that she is taking care of herself and making enough money to send home to her children. 

Last week Marcus also took his workers out for beers and dinner as a sort of thankyou.  They just went to a local restuarant (well a man and a gas burner, an esky and some tables and chairs and you have a resturant in Thailand) it was out near their factory.  I drove out later to meet him with the kids and had a couple of beers and some yummy BBQ pork.  Much to my distaste they had a plate of fried grasshoppers, worms and crickets that they were snacking on like entrees.  Judd even picked one up and pretended to eat it.  Marcus ate a cricket  just to save face in front of the Thai men who were all munching them down like peanuts. 


Fried grasshoppers



If Marcus and I had of been taken to a side of the road restaurant like that 4 months ago, we would have nearly vomited, but last week we were comfortable and happy and we let the kids run around and play.  Even though most of the men couldn't speak any English and we speak no Thai we all had a good laugh and the kids of course were the main attraction.  If it wasn't so late and Lillie wasn't so tired we could have stayed there much longer.  And to top off the evening it only cost Marcus 2100baht to feed about 11 men, including many many bottles of beer.



Fried worms



This week I plan to organise my time a bit better, the past couple of weeks I have been doing alot of running around without achieving much.  I would like to start going to the gym in the mornings, then head home to hang with Lillie for the afternoons.  And I also need to plan our holiday in May to Phuket for our friends wedding.  We cant wait to see some family and friends.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention, Judd can now count to 5 in Thai!  Clever little man he is and Lillie can do the Wai - hands together and bow the head.  When someone says Sawatdee Ka she makes the Wai in return, its so cute and the Thais melt over it. 

My Birthday

Ok so my 30th came and went with no world ending Big Bang.  I did however wake in the wee hours of the morning to my husband rushing to the toilet with a case of Thai Belly.  I felt sorry for the guy, only just last week I was doing the exact same thing, however I did feel a bit smug because he has been saying the entire time we have been in Thailand that he wishes for a bit of Thai belly to "clear him out", ha, I bet he isn't wishing for it now.  I had rough plans in my head to spend the day getting massaged and going shopping and all the lovely things that girls like to do, luckily the nanny turned up for work and I instructed her to take care of Lillie and pretend like Marcus isn't home, as he was not leaving the bedroom, while I took Judd to school then headed out to spoil myself.  The down side of being up and ready so early in the morning is that nothing i Pattaya opens until 11am, 10am if you are lucky.  So I had to kill over an hour wandering around boring grocery stores until the massage parlor opened.  This left me with only a handful of hours to have a delightful and surprising body scrub and aromatherapy massage.  It was surprising because as I lay on the massage table with nothing covering me but a towel while the masseuse worked on my legs she moved up and proceeded to remove the top half of the towel and massage my breast area!  Well she didn't cover the nipple area but even so this was very weird for me as having been with Marcus for over 9 years now it felt very unsettling to have someone else touching me there, especially a woman!  She was very professional and I didn't feel that it was in any way sexual, but it was really quite a nice massage and after talking to my other expat friend here she also told me that she has had the same experience so I didn't feel like I was the only one. 
After my massage I tried to do a bit of shopping but my time was running out and I needed to collect Judd from school.  I managed to squeeze in 2 glasses of wine with a friend then I was off again to go hunting for ID photos for our work permit and visas that we had to drive to Bangkok for the next morning. When I arrived home, Marcus had arranged for someone from his work to deliver my birthday cake, we sang happy birthday and I opened my presents.  Marcus and the kids got me a new very fancy camera that takes excellent photos, Rainy, our nanny, gave me a collection of snow globes from Thailand and even our maid who works for us on Saturdays gave me a lovely picture to hang in my kitchen.  I was very touched by this, I didn't expect anything from either of the ladies who work for us and their kindness and generosity touched me. 
So all in all I had a very busy, pleasant birthday and somehow managed to wake up the next day feeling no different to how I felt when I was 29 and life is just rolling along like normal.

We did have to drive to Bangkok that day, so the morning was spent arranging the kids for the long and boring drive.  Marcus had mapped out our route but of course a quarter of the way there we discarded our plans and changed highways, not once but twice and ended up lost in some part of Bangkok, then once we found the road we needed to be on we sat in the worse traffic I have ever experienced without a 3 car pile up and a fatality at the end of it.  We literally moved about 1 km in and hour.  The way they sequence the traffic lights in this country is ridiculous, they leave the red for far too long and there is this unwritten rule that at every intersection you can turn left at all times, even when facing a red light.  So the traffic keeps filling up the intersections until the other lights turn green and then that oncoming traffic cant move because the intersection is full of people who illegally or not ran the red lights.  Confused?  I am, constantly.

So after not murdering anyone out of frustration we managed to squeeze our way through the traffic, narrowly avoiding colliding with 2 buses and hundreds of motorbikes and we reached our destination but had to park on the opposite side of the road and just as we were about to run the gauntlet of traffic with 2 kids, the pram, Marcus on crutches and the nanny, Judd started crying and peed his pants.  So back we went to the car and thankfully I had his school uniform shorts in the boot from the day before and was able to at least put him in some dry clothes.  This time our second attempt at crossing I was hot, sweating, pissed off and had zero patience left and I just walked straight out through the traffic and held my hand up for the cars to stop and let me pass.  It worked too, I think they could see the flames coming out of my ears and the devil horns appear over my head with a sign saying "don't fuck with angry farang".
Once in the airconditioning I was able to cool down, calm down and go to the toilet.  We then had to sit in a waiting room with heaps of other people while our representative from the law firm who was handling our permit took care of everything.  We then made it to our interview, but the officer didn't even ask us anything, he only wanted to know how Marcus broke his leg, he then stamped his papers and that was it.  No interrogation about what our intentions are while living in their country, no security questions, just a stamp and a nod and 60 secs later we were out, paid our fees and that was it. 
We are now in possession of a work permit and long stay visas until at least May when we have to renew them all again.  The contradiction that irks me is that even with the 12 month visas we still have to have them stamped at immigration every 90 days just like we would have had to do a border run with the tourist visas, the only difference is that we don't have to leave the country we can just send our passports to the law firm in Bangkok and they will get them stamped for us then send them back. So no wonder alot of expats don't bother with work permits and visas and just stay here on 90 day tourist visas.  But there is some relief that we don't have to make the border runs anymore, that in itself makes it all worthwhile.

Now my next project will be to get all the paperwork together to apply for Thai drivers licenses.  Technically we shouldn't be driving without either a Thai license or a international license, and I am dreading the day that the cops pull me over to check my papers and I have to try and talk and buy my way out of having to go to the police station, where it is said to cost more than double what it would if I just pay the guy who pulls me over.  And there are benefits too, apparently once you have a license and you show it at certain places around Thailand you get the "Thai price" not the "westerner price".

As for this weekend it is the Kings Birthday long weekend and we plan to rest, relax and try and find a beach down the coast in a town called Sattahip that is said to have clean beaches and clear waters.  I have asked a couple of our friends to join for a sort of belated birthday celebration and the kids will absolutely love a swim and a chance to play in the sand. 

Food poisoning and turning 30

My dinner on Wednesday night tried to kill me.
I have had my second bout of food poisoning since being in Thailand, but this latest one was really bad.  It started at 1am with vomiting and stomach pains then continued until 5.30am.  I was so relieved when it stopped and I was able to lay down and fall asleep.  I don't know what was worse, the vomiting or the sleep deprivation.  I managed to get 45mins shut eye before the diarrhea started and that gave me grief for the rest of the day.  This all came about because I was stupid enough to re heat a meal from the previous night and eat it for my dinner.  Tip: never re heat a Thai take away meal, no matter what! 
I was really worried too as I shared some of the rice with Lillie but thankfully she didn't get sick at all. 
I had plans to go out and have pre birthday celebrations on Friday night but I was so sick and my body was aching so bad that I couldn't even think about leaving the house, let alone drinking all night.  I was even scared to eat just in case it happened again. 
I vowed during my delirium that I would once again never touch alcohol, chocolate, energy drinks or any other crap if only God would make it all stop.  I hope She wasn't listening because as soon as I was feeling better I was eating crap food and drinking beer again.  So much for my vow.  I did however stop having energy drinks, they stop me from sleeping properly anyway so its better that I avoid them.  I have no idea what the ingredients are in those drinks, all the labels are in Thai, they could be doing all sorts of bad things to me, they could have amphetamines in them for all I know.
On Saturday night our friends down the road had us over for a few beers and dinner and they re assured my faith in Thai food by introducing us to a new restaurant.  They make the biggest and yummiest spring rolls I have had and their Black Bean Squid is amazing.  We now have 2 really good take aways that we can alternate between.

Marcus is still on crutches and we are hoping that they take his cast off this Friday, but he still wont be able to put weight on his leg for a couple more weeks.  So frustrating, more for him than me, I am actually getting used to him hobbling around.  But he is bored just sitting around and not being able to run or exercise or take the kids swimming.  This weekend it is the Kings Birthday long weekend and I was hoping to be able to go away to one of the islands for a few nights, but Marcus is reluctant to go as it will be alot of work for me dragging 2 kids, suitcases and a portcot and pram by myself as he cant carry anything.  I am disappointed.  It would have been nice to do some tourist things, we haven't done or gone anywhere exciting for a while now.

It is also my birthday tomorrow, I turn 30!  This comes as a bit of a milestone for me, I feel like I have been in my twenties forever.  I started out on my own when I was still 17 so to look back and try to remember all the things I have done over the past 13 years it feels like a lifetime, yet I know that it is hardly a blip on what I hope will be a long long life.  But these past 10 years have set the mark for how my life is going to play out, I mean I worked a few jobs, climbed the ladder (so to speak) worked hard and achieved some pretty good results.  I also met Marcus, we got married, we had children (and still may have more) we have bought a house and now we are living overseas in Thailand.  Where to next?  Anywhere really.  But the basics will stay the same, I am a mum, a wife and my day to day duties will remain pretty much the same for at least the next 15 years.  But the exciting part is where will we be?  Thailand?  Australia?  Somewhere else, maybe like China?  Who knows but I would like to keep our options open and not slot us into the typical domesticated box that 90% of the population are in. 
I have no idea what I want to do with my personal time as the kids get older, where I want to work or what I want to study.  Right now none of that is even an option for me, I will decide when the time comes.  But I want to promise myself that I will not turn (as I already started to) into the nagging, bitchy wife that nothing pleases and nothing is good enough for.  I want to stay happy in my marriage and I want to be a good mum, these are my 2 main priorities and is my full time job.  I chose to be a wife and a mum so I don't expect to turn around at the quarter mile mark and change my mind, I am committed to my family and to my life choices because as the last 12 years have shown me is that its my choices that have brought me to where I am today and I must be proud of them.
So tomorrow I turn 30 and a new decade begins and I have a couple of resolutions that I would like to follow:   

1. Live in the present and not in the past
2. Stop comparing my life to others
3. Be alot more patient
4. Find joy in the simple things

These seem simple enough, but for me will be the hardest resolutions to keep.

Loi Khatong

Tonight there is a full moon and there are festivities all over Thailand celebrating Loi Khatong.  It is of Indian origin and it is a festival that is celebrated over 3 days of the full moon in November.  They make a Khatong, which is a flower shaped boat made from banana stems or polystyrene and decorated with flowers and carry incense, candles, a few coins and the wishes of the loi (launcher) who casts the boat into either a river, lake or the sea.  Outside our bedroom windows there are fireworks and and fire crackers being let off all around our village.  There is music coming from all different directions as people get together to celebrate.  It isn't a religious day but more of an excuse to throw a party and let off really loud and badly built fireworks.  As I type this there is a huge banging sound coming from over the back, it sounds like guns from a battleship are being fired instead of the pop pop sound of fireworks.  I am a little nervous and worried that the constant loud noises will wake up the kids and cause me a night of discomfort trying to convince them to go back to sleep.



Traditional Thai Costume


Judd made a Khatong at school on Friday, he had to dress up in a traditional Thai costume and they held a small ceremony and danced the traditional dance.  He brought his Khatong home with him, it was so pretty.  So tonight since we were too tired and didn't feel like battling all the crowds down by Lake Maprachan or the even bigger crowds that gather down at Pattaya Beach, I put Lillie to bed and took Judd to our little lake inside our village.  We lit his candle, made a wish and set it out into the water.  At first we were worried that the fish would upend it and make it sink, but they left it alone and we watched it float out into the middle of the lake.  There were many other Thai families down there too, launching there much bigger and more elaborate boats.  Then the fireworks started up over the back again and across the other side of the lake we could see the lanterns being sent up into the sky with peoples wishes as well.  It is a paper lantern with a flame that is lit and a wish is made and then they let it float up into the sky, higher and higher until it looks like a little orange star. 
It was a very pretty night tonight, quite peaceful despite all the music and noises.  It feels sort of friendly and there is an atmosphere of peace and joy.  It may sound a bit soppy, but I felt like I could just sit there all night just watching the lights in the warm evening air. 
Judd said he wished for his boat not to sink and to float all the way out into the lake, and I, honestly, could not think of anything to wish for. 


  

     Ready to launch his Khatong



The Khatong's floating out into the lake



Maybe that is a sign of content.





 

                                                          

To or not to?

I am about to turn 30 so I have been having some emotional ups and downs lately.  The biggest question on my mind right now is "do I want to have another baby?" My immediate answer would be to say Yes, however after further contemplation I end up arguing with myself the pros and cons of having another child.

Pros are as follows :-  I can afford a nanny while we are in Thailand to help me, I have alot more spare time to spend with a new baby, Judd is in school 4 days a week so I would just have Lillie most of the day, Lillie is older than Judd was when I got pregnant the second time and if I wait until after Nicole and Leigh's wedding in May then she will be 2 and a half when the baby would be due to arrive (that's figuring I fall pregnant straight away and according to Marcus I will since he has SUPER SPERM!)  So she would be slightly easier to handle, I hope. 
The cons would be that we would be starting all over again with the night feeding and breast feeding, the weight gain from being pregnant which I am still trying to get off.  Being restricted to the house again and working around the babies nap times and feed times, I would have to purchase alot of the baby stuff that I already have sitting back home in storage (that I am OK with as I love to go shopping, especially for baby things). We wouldn't be able to travel as much or as often with 3 kids and considering we are living as expats in a foreign country it would be a pity not to be able to be free to just hop on a plane and start exploring this part of the world.  We would have to get a bigger company car and since it was such a drama to get the car we have now I cant imagine how long it would take to upgrade to a bigger one.  I would have to get another car seat and cot as Lillie is still in the porta cot.  Marcus doesn't particularly want to have 3 kids, he is happy with 2, he feels we can afford 2 quite comfortably and possibly be able to send them both to private schools when the are older, but maybe not with 3.  I don't think I handled my stress very well with the first 2, I am still coming to terms with being a mum, even after 3 years.

It seems that I have alot more cons than pros but the one thing that overrides all of these objections is that my body does not feel like it is time to shut up shop, I don't feel finished.  As much as my selfishness tells me to give up now before I sacrifice another 3-4 years of babies and toddlers and tantrums and shitty nappies, I keep telling myself that maybe I could handle another one, maybe I am getting better with each kid, learning to handle situations better, maybe?  Also I ask myself  what am I going to do with my time once both the kids are in school and I have the hours between 9.30am and 3.00pm to fill?  Will I get a job?  Where do I want to work.  Will I go back to study?  What do I want to study?
Now there is the possibility of waiting until we return to Australia and then see if I still want to have another baby, the kids will be older but will we all then be passed the baby phase and into something else?  Do I wait and enjoy Thailand and all it has to offer, use my freedom to explore and take up new hobbies and grow and change?  Do I  really want to put more pressure on my marriage adding the stress of another baby? 

It seemed like a holiday at first, but then the reality of how far away we are from all of our loved ones and friends set in and how hard it can be to negotiate our way around this country as neither of us don't speak any Thai. Yes there are Thais in the tourist towns that can speak very basic broken English but it is only enough to barter a price or buy some milk or petrol.  If you get stuck in a bad situation and need to talk your way out of trouble, it is a bit hard when you don't speak the same language.  So it is all these little stresses that eat away at the happy couple on an expat holiday in Thailand.  The cracks start to emerge.

We may seem like we are living the high life over here, and quite possibly we are.  But the fact is that this is a hard country that has poverty right next door to wealth, literally.  We see young children living in tin shacks with dirt floors and torn clothing everyday as we drive around in our new car spending money freely.  The guilt of that plays on me and sometimes on Marcus too, it makes me feel like a very selfish person some days.  Wanting to do more but not knowing how, and being warned of trying to give charity as some of it can be scams that never reach the children or the families.  This is a country of contradictions, smiling happy faces, Amazing Thailand with white sandy beaches and clear blue water.  Not here in Pattaya, yes the people can be lovely, but the beaches are filthy and full of rubbish, the sand is rocky and lumpy with rubbish all the way through it, the streets along the beach stink with sewage coming from the open drains under the roads.  There are Bar Girls at every bar you come to, all there trying to coax men in to buy them drinks and hoping they will buy the girl too, to take them away from a life of sex and prostitution and become either the mistress or the wife of a foreign, desperate man.  Alot of these girls have young babies and children back home with the grandparents and they work to send them money for their care. They have either been abandoned or divorced by a Thai man. A fact which is astonishing to me as it is to most Westerner's, it is socially acceptable for a Thai man to upgrade to a younger, thinner wife and also to keep a mistress and even sometimes a girlfriend as well, where do they find the time, let alone the money?  There is no law to force this man to pay maintenance for the care of his children or to evenly split all assets and money with his ex wife. 

Now in saying all of this, this is how this country contradicts itself.  After spending 4 months here, I admit I was shocked and appalled at first, but I have now grown accustomed to this city, I feel familiar with is streets and back lanes.  I am becoming more knowledgeable about Thai culture and customs and their way of life.  I am trying not to view their world as I would view my own back in Australia.  I cannot and must not compare the two, it is impossible to try and force my world view and my ideals on these people, it will not work and I am the one who will suffer from it.  Once I resigned myself to this I was able to start to see the beautiful parts of this city, the quaint little shops that pop up everywhere, selling everything.  The people who sell flowers at the street lights for 20baht each, I bought some the other day and they smell wonderful.  Even the gardeners that work around our village, now we have gotten to know them, we see beyond the weather worn faces and and stern demeanor from working hard manual labour with minimal pay.  Gardeners in Australia are paid like kings in comparison to these men.  But they now smile and wave hello to me and the kids everyday when we go walking and Judd rides his bike.  Even the scary looking Guards that patrol the grounds stop and play and one of them even bought some fish food to share with Judd up at the lake yesterday afternoon. 
Cities and Countries are like people I guess, we always judge upon first impressions but its after getting to know someone or in this case Pattaya, Thailand.  I begin to see beyond the obvious and start to see the beauty that is underneath the smell, the sex, the bars and the poverty and realise that this really is an Amazing Country and one I feel privileged to be able to enjoy.

So how does having a baby tie into living in Pattaya?  I don't know, but I guess in the end my decision is that I will wait, keep my options open and use my time here to really discover this country and its people and take advantage of this great opportunity we have been given.  And if I can find a way to enjoy this country but also somehow give something back it may ease my conscience slightly when I drive past those poor kids playing in the dirt outside their tin sheds.

Walkin around on a broken leg.

What a day I have had!  Yesterday Marcus was supposed to play rugby with the Pattaya Panthers against a team from Australia here on a footy trip called the Unquenchable's, however they were obviously too pissed to play so they cancelled last minute and the Panthers ended up playing a practice match against themselves.  Fun for them but not for the families who showed up to watch and support.  The kids didn't mind I guess as they just run around the field like crazy and the babies just love having the freedom to roam where ever they liked.  It was the wives who were a little annoyed, but I solved that by having a few beers.
Marcus was about a quarter of the way into the first half when he was in a tackle and one of the big guys rolled or stood on his ankle.  He thought at the time it was just a twist and he could run it out, even though for a while there he couldn't even walk on it.  I knew from where I was watching from the sideline that it was bad, women's intuition I suppose, but he chose to play on for the rest of the game.  Which in hindsight he now agrees that it wasn't the best thing he could have done.  So last night we iced and treated his ankle thinking it was a bad sprain and when he woke up this morning, against my advice, and went to work.  It was about 9.00am that I called him and he said that he thought he should go and see a doctor at the Bangkok Pattaya Hospital.  I was quite frustrated with this.  Any other day it wouldn't have bothered me but today our nanny came to work after dropping Marcus off and asked me if she could take another day off work.  She had 2 sick days last week and about 5 the month before that. She has just about worn out her grace period and my patience.  So I had to take Judd to school and drop the nanny off along the way.  Then on my return home Marcus informs me he wants to go to the hospital and I would have to drive the 35 minutes to his Industrial Estate to pick him up, with the baby.  This was not how I planned my day when I woke up this morning.

Turns out he has a broken leg, down where the leg meets the ankle.  Thankfully the hospital we go to is very, very quick in processing its patients (as long as they can pay) and Marcus had seen a doctor, got a cast on his leg, picked up his medication and paid the bill in just over 2 hours.  Pretty efficient. 
So now I have 2 kids to clean up after and a husband who cant walk without crutches.  I know I should be feeling sorry for him and have some sympathy but all I feel is annoyed that my work load has increased.  How selfish of me, but I cant help it.  I guess I may have been in a more compassionate mood if the nanny hadn't pulled the pin on coming to work today.  On the upside though, I had a very productive day, I haven't been this busy in months.  I did laundry, cleaned house, got Judd to and from school, picked up Marcus took him to the hospital, did some grocery shopping, picked Marcus up, took the kids to the park, fed them, bathed them and put them to bed.  WOW its like my old life back in Melbourne before we had maids and nannies. 
Having a day like this shows the contrast between our two worlds.  I love having help around the house and help with keeping the kids entertained, and being able to go out and grocery shop alone or meet a friend for coffee or a massage, but I miss being that central point that the family evolves around, the one person that makes the house and family function efficiently.  I am almost a spectator on the sidelines now, if the baby has a choice she sometimes chooses the nanny over me, I have way too much spare time but not enough friends or a hobby to enjoy that spare time with.  Back in Melbourne I may have been a bit strung out and stressed out and time poor but looking back that was my job, I was (am) a stay at home mum.  Now I am not so sure what my job title is. 
I met a young man from Holland up at the lake near our house on the weekend, he was about 17 and goes to one of the International Schools nearby.  He asked me what I was doing here in Thailand and I explained that I was here with my husband and family and where Marcus works and he went on to ask in a way that only a 17 year old, overly confident boy can, "so what do you do?  On holiday?"  It was asked so straight forward and without malice that I just had to laugh and say "yes".  He obviously doesn't see raising 2 kids as "work".  But there is the question, is it still work when you have hired someone to do most of the work for you?

Visit to the Australian Embassy in Bangkok

As part of the on going saga of Marcus getting his work permit issued we had to drive to Bangkok today to get a statutory declaration signed at the Australian Embassy to say that his resume is a true account of his work history and not full of bullshit.  Thankfully one of the lawyers of the company that is handling his permit application came and met us at the Embassy and made sure that all the documents we gave him were correct and assured us that now the process can really start and we should have to meet him again in about a month for an interview of the whole family.  I don't know why they need to meet me and the kids, we aren't the ones who want the permit, but I think it has something to do with us all getting 12 month visas to stay in Thailand without having to do those annoying border runs every 90 days.  So fingers crossed they get the ball rolling now.  I am holding off getting my Thai drivers license until this permit is issued as apparently it cuts back on some of the paperwork you have to supply.  I have been told that they drown you with forms and requests for odd documents that most people don't think to travel with.  But they don't require you to sit a driving test or an exam.  And you need a medical certificate to basically say that you are alive and wont be dying anytime soon.  I will also have to drive back to the Embassy in Bangkok in a month or so and get another statutory declaration saying that my address is accurate and that my Australian divers license is a real one.  I thought to get it all done today since we were already there but as we don't know how long this permit is going to take there is apparently a time limit on how old these documents can be for them to be accepted.   


Stuck in traffic



I really do need to get a Thai license as I don't have a International License and if I get pulled over by the police they have alot of trouble reading a foreign license and it causes more confusion and just adds to the possibility that I will have to hand over cash to make them let me go.  I guess it has an upside though, tourists and expats can get around most things if they are quick to hand over some Baht.

Our dive into Bangkok today was interesting.  Marcus thought it would be easier if we drove the car into the city instead of catching the bus and then the connecting sky train to the Embassy.  I didn't really agree but I didn't argue the point either.  Turns out I should have.  The unfortunate thing about being in a foreign country like Thailand is that the language is very hard to speak and the written word is even harder to read.  So of course we drove way way past our exit and instead of being on the south side of Bangkok we popped out at the North end of Bangkok and had to negotiate several U-turns before getting ourselves back on track.  Luckily I recognised a market and park called Chatachuk which is also the last stop of the Sky Train, called Mo Chit.  I remembered these places from our very first visit to the city back in May when Marcus and I came for 4 days to preview the country we were planning to move our entire life to.  I was pretty impressed with my memory and sense of direction, however I am sure that Marcus would take all the credit as he was the one who was driving.  So in that case I could let him take the credit however he would also have to shoulder all the blame for getting us lost in the first place.  I can live with that.
We found our way back to the Embassy and parked at the Mariot Hotel down the road.  The problem with driving in Bangkok is that there is nowhere to bloody park.  If you have money you can find a hotel and pretend you are going to dine in their restaurant so they let you park in their secure car parks, if not, then I have no idea where everyone else parks but there has to be somewhere since there are thousands and thousands of cars, trucks, bikes and buses driving around the city all day long.

Turned out that the restaurant at the Mariot was having a special lunch offer and we had the most amazing lunch for only 190 baht each.  I did however have to order dessert which cost the same for only 1 scoop of the most amazing white chocolate ice cream I have ever had.  It was Movenpick Ice Cream and its worth every cent (or baht).  Marcus really enjoyed his lunch too, get got it all over his face and didn't care, he groaned and kept going on and on about how yummy it was.




After lunch we miraculously found our way back onto the motorway to head back to Pattaya and got the easiest run home, so we decided to treat ourselves once more with a massage each before heading back home to the kids. It was Marcus' first Thai Foot massage and I told the girl to go really hard on him as he likes the pain, and from what I could tell from his groaning and flinching she heard me.  I got a head and shoulder massage and I swear I could almost have stayed there all day.  It is the best 200baht ($6.10) I have ever spent. 

 Meanwhile our lovely friend Karen came over and spent the day with Judd and Lillie and helped our nanny/maid take care of them while we went to the city.  She is one of the most kind hearted, warm and caring people I have ever met.  We have only known each other for just over 2 months and already she has adopted the kids as her grandchildren (and spoils them like a grandparent too) and she gives up her time regularly to look after them for me.  Without Karen I think my time here in Thailand would have been alot harder than it has been. 


Overall it was a good day and I think we handled the traffic pretty well, I got cranky as usual, but we didn't fight and apart from Marcus farting in the car with the windows up it was a really nice trip.  One which we will have to repeat in a month or so to finalise the work permit.  Maybe we will make a weekend of it and stay in the city and do some tourist things.

Halloween

Saturday night we were invited by our new friends to come along to a Halloween Festival that was being held near our village at a park called Three Kings Park.  It is a huge parkland with a Polo Club where Marcus trains for Rugby, a horse riding club, a huge open park full of free roaming animals and 3 huge Buddhist temples.  It was at the site of these temples that this festival or fete was.  It was mostly full of expat families from the international schools and a few Thai families as well.  All the kids (and some of the adults) got dressed up in their Halloween costumes and there were pony rides, fire twirlers, medieval knights duelling, a huge jumping castle, merry go rounds and bumper cars.  There were other games and activities aimed more towards the older kids and there was a ghost tour which our friend Karen was acting in as a wicked witch scaring people as they walked in the dark through the park.  The Temples were beautiful, the 2 smaller ones were all lit up from the outside and in the night they just looked amazing.  Apparently the man who owns the country club owns the whole parkland and surrounding housing estates.  It is huge.  The park is open to visitors most days so we plan to take the kids back to have a play in the grass and see the animals another time when the weather is nice.  Lillie spent her whole evening running around in her little lady bug costume, she refused to get into her pram and didn't want to be carried she just wanted to run.  I reckon she ran around for over 2 hours.  I made a deal with Marcus that if we were to go to the fete he would have to be the one in charge of Lillie and I would take care of Judd.  Marcus has way more patience for her stubbornness than I do, I just get frustrated with having to follow her around all day.  Judd really enjoyed the fete, he dressed up as a crocodile (actually a green dragon but he wanted to call it a crocodile) and he got to have his very first pony ride and he looked so little sitting up on that horse.  Thankfully he got to ride the bigger more docile horse as the smaller pony was playing up and getting frisky.  Judd also went on the dodgem cars over and over again and he liked the merry go round but I think it went too slow for him.  I wanted to let him go on the jumping castle but it was full of bigger school kids and he would just end up getting jumped on.  It was a good night though and I am glad we went.  I tried to dress up as a witch but the witches hat I bought was too small for my head.

I have noticed lately that the kids are different over here, especially the expats kids that go to the International schools.  They are quite spoilt and naughty.  I have a real problem with parents who don't pull their kids into line when they are being rude or bullying another kid.  There is a little half Thai half Italian boy at our village and his dad owns the restaurant and he is only 5 but he is the naughtiest little shit.  One afternoon while we were in the pool Judd asked him if he would play with him and the little boy got a mouthful of water and spat it right into Judd's face.  I was furious and so close to telling him and his parents what a right shit he is. 
But not all the Thai kids here are like that, Judd has made friends with an older Thai boy who helps him feed the fish and turtles in the lake and plays with him in the play ground.  Yesterday we all went up to the park and kicked the footy and soccer ball around and some of the other kids joined in and it was really nice watching them all play together.  Marcus ended up playing with the kids long after I went home to feed and bath Lillie and then Judd walked in the door by himself I asked him if he told daddy that he was going home and he said " No I just told the boy (his thai friend) to walk me home".  How cute, but I didn't go and tell Marcus that Judd was with me as he obviously wasn't watching Judd closely while at the park and I wanted him to stress a little when he finally realised that Judd was gone.  It didn't work though.  Men just don't watch kids like the mothers do.

Judd seems to be making friends at his kindergarten too.  He had a bit of trouble the first week as they serve the kids lunch everyday and Judd is a fussy eater and he didn't want to eat their food.  So now I have to provide a sandwich just in case he doesn't eat. They also tried to give him cold milk which he spat out as he only likes warm milk and then they tried to give him chocolate milk which he spat out again as he has never had chocolate milk or anything sweet like that before.  I couldn't believe they give the kids chocolate milk, it is just full of sugar and junk.  I now also provide his own bottle of milk and I found it strange that I had to stipulate that it needs to be kept in the fridge and then warmed up in the microwave before they give it to him because the first time I sent him to school with milk they didn't even put it in the fridge and they just gave it to him at room temperature.  I had to quickly make sure that they know to keep it cold as it is fresh milk and he will get sick.  The Thais just don't get it as they all drink the UHT milk.  Yuck.

It is all these small little differences that add up at the end of the week and can really wear me down.  Having to explain the simplest of things is so tiresome.  And I cant show my annoyance as it is very uncool to raise ones voice or show you are angry to a Thai, they do not outwardly show their emotions like we do and if annoyed they more than likely will not even tell anyone about it.
This is a hard thing for me to learn because if I am pissed off I don't have a problem telling the person or people about it and lately I get pissed off very easily.  Don't really know why but I guess it has something to do with constantly having to repeat myself to the kids over and over the same things as neither of them listen to me anymore.  Then I have to speak in baby words and repeat everything to the nanny as she doesn't speak much English either.  So I spend my days speaking babyish and can't have a real conversation until Marcus gets home but then he doesn't want to talk much either as he is tired or has work to do as well.  So it can be a bit mind numbing sometimes.

On a brighter note the weather has really cooled off now.  It is almost cool today, the Thais are all rugged up like its 5 degrees but for me its perfect.  Cool enough to leave the air cons off and sit comfortably without sweating.  The humidity has dropped heaps as it is now entering Thai winter.  They tell me that the weather is perfect from around now until January before it starts heating up for spring and summer.  The seasons don't work over here like they do back in Melbourne so its quite difficult to tell what time of year it is.  For me it is just different stages of hot. 

This Friday Marcus and I are going to drive to Bangkok to visit the Australian Embassy to get some papers authorized for his work permit.  I hope to leave the kids with the nanny and just have a day out with Marcus and actually try and have a conversation without being interrupted all the time.  Should be a nice day trip if we don't get lost.

Border Run to Cambodia

I must begin by apologising to my handful of loyal followers about being so late in adding this most recent post to my blog.  The only excuse I have is the same one most women use, " my kids were being a pain in the ass".  But I have had quite a busy week as well.  In my last post I mentioned we had to take a trip to the border of Cambodia and Thailand to renew our visas.  That awful and most painful trip happened on Tuesday, a day I will never get back, precious time spent sitting in a mini bus with a crying baby and no way of settling her down.  To add to my frustration we were not the only people on the bus, there was an American man, a German and another women who didn't speak a word for the entire trip so I do not know where she came from.  I was very aware that Lillie's screaming and crying was not only recking my trip but also the other people who were forced to sit through it.  I can only imagine what they would have been thinking, I would have been thinking the same thoughts had I been in their shoes.  Thankfully Lillie did scream herself into exhaustion and we managed to get a little bit of respite.  And to tell the truth, once she was quiet the ride was really very pleasant.  Judd was watching his DVD player (thankfully I thought to put it in my bag as the driver played only violent, action films full of blood and guns).  Every now and then I would turn to check on him and catch him watching our screen during a particular bloody scene, typical boy.  The seats in the bus were so comfortable, they were like leather armchairs, they reclined and swivelled, which made it easier to get to the kids who were sitting behind us.  The driver was typical of Thai drivers, he swerved in and out of traffic hit and exceeded the speed limit whenever the road was flat and smooth enough to make it safe and he loved lightly beeping his horn at every bike, dog or person who looked like they may get in his way.  I could have even had a sleep if Lillie didn't wake up from her nap so soon.

Once we got to the border we piled out of the bus and dragged the kids over to the immigration office which was a little row of windows with a Immigration Officer sitting behind.  We got our passports stamped for leaving the country (and narrowly avoided a HUGE fine for the kids overstaying their visas, phew).  We then had to walk about 20 meters over a bridge which spanned some very dodgy looking water full of rubbish with slum like shacks perched precariously on the edges.  We went straight to a little table and there we had to sit until the Cambodian Immigration Officer received our passports and issued us with a one day tourist visa for Cambodia.  Lillie decided this would be a great time to play in the mud. 
The Cambodian border was just a small glimpse of how poor and poverty stricken that country is.  The roads go from nicely paved on the Thai side to yellow mud, beat up shitty cars, smokey motorbikes and ramshackle shops selling heaps of crap.  I was warned about begging children but I only encountered 2 on my way to the toilet and since I left my purse in the bus I couldn't give her anything.  Speaking of the toilet, this was a first for me since arriving in Thailand 90 days ago.  It was the famous Squat toilet.  I have successfully avoided these so far but today I had no choice.  Unfortunately I was wearing long harem pants so I had to somehow pull the pants up so they didn't drag in the water puddles that covered the floor, then gather the rest of my pants together so I wouldn't pee on them while I perched in a very uncomfortable position over this ceramic bowl with footholds on either side.  Luckily I managed to put some tissues into my pocket before going in otherwise it would have made for a uncomfortable ride home.  Its times like these I wish I was born a man so I could pee standing up.
We then walked back over the bridge into Thailand, lined up again at the windows and received our visa stamps for another 90 days.  Once we hopped back onto the bus to head home there were lovely trays with our lunches waiting for us to eat in comfort and watch TV on the ride home.  This I would have enjoyed, however Lillie was not keen to get back into her car seat and decided to scream again.  After trying to calm her I finally gave up and ignored her and miraculously it worked and she fell asleep again.  Mind you I don't think the other passengers were at all happy about me letting her cry it out.
So 3 movies later we arrived back into Pattaya and our driver picked us up and took us home.  It honestly felt like we had been away on a 4 day long weekend trip and walking in our front door I had that lovely feeling of "GOD its so good to be home".  I haven't had that homely feeling since we have been here, and it was reassuring to know its attainable.

Now I have firmly told Marcus that I flat out refuse to do another border run and he needs to inform his employers that they need to pull their fingers out of their bums and get us our work visa before our 90 days run out again. 
The up side of all of this is that we both agree that we would like to take a few days off and have the kids looked after so we can go to Cambodia and visit it properly as tourists.  I couldn't do it with the children, it would be far too stressful.  But it is now on our "places to visit" list.

Thai Visas and Immigration

I have heard rumors around about how painful Immigration Departments can be regardless of which country you are visiting and now I have experienced first hand that it is true.  When we decided to take the job in Thailand we started arranging all of our necessary paperwork to live in a foreign country as temporary residents.  We got ourselves Non Immigrant Visas which we can use multiple times for 12 months.  We assumed that this would allow us to stay in Thailand for 12 months and because we had to produce paperwork confirming Marcus' employment etc we also thought that this was our work visa as well. WRONG, we should know better than to ASSUME!
Turns out that the Visa is only valid for use for 12 months and the maximum allowed time to stay in Thailand consecutively is 3 months (90 days). So we have to leave the country every 90 days to get our Visas stamped then we re-enter get stamped again to allow us to stay another 90 days.  As well as that we were told that Marcus needs a work permit which can only be obtained once you are living in Thailand through a Immigration Law Firm, mountains of paperwork and all sorts of weird questions are asked and now they want Marcus to chase up all of his education paperwork from Australia as well to prove that he is qualified.  They also told me only days ago that this process can take over 60 days.  So we cannot apply for a 12 month extension on our Visas and forego the border runs until the permit is approved.  My frustration was that none of this information was given to us either before we left Australia or when we first arrived.  Maybe if someone had of informed me then we could have gathered all of the documents they needed.  Also I would have been more prepared and organised to make a border run, I could have made a little holiday out of it and visited Singapore or somewhere like that.
 
I know, I hear that little voice in the back of my mind telling me that I should have researched all of this before we left and should not have left it up to other people, but when a International company asks you to live and work abroad a person can be allowed to assume that they will take care of everything.  Boy do I now know that that is not the case, we were given a few flights and then dumped to figure it all out on our own.  I get upset some days when talking with other expat wives and they tell me that their companies handled EVERYTHING, insurance, expenses, housing, Visas, work permits, cars, drivers etc etc etc.  I come home and then tell Marcus how shit I think we have been treated by his company and of course he gets all defensive about it.  But in another light I think that maybe it is kind of rewarding and encouraging to know that we moved here with 2 small kids and did it all by ourselves with minimal help, maybe we are experiencing the real expat life, and for that matter the real Thailand.......

So now after spending the morning sitting in Immigration and handing over another handful of cash we have a 7 day extension on our visas to arrange a border run and get another 90 day stamp.  The closest country to Pattaya is Cambodia, its about a 3-4 hour drive one way and there are many bus companies that run daily trips over there for tourist and temporary residents like us.  Apparently everyone who doesn't have a work permit extension has to make these runs, you can go to Malaysia or Laos as well.  They charge you a pretty high fee for this service but they take care of all of your paperwork for you and make the whole process (hopefully) pain free.  We leave at 6am next Tuesday from a pub in town in a minibus. Oh and did I mention the kids have to come too?  We stop for lunch somewhere along the way, then when we get to the border we hope out, walk through the Immigration gates into Cambodia (or a neutral zone), get a stamp, then we walk a few steps to the other gate and walk back through the Thai Immigration gates and get another stamp and then back into Thailand, hope on the bus and head on back to Pattaya. 
Or that is how I have been told it goes.  I have also been warned to watch for pick pockets and begging Cambodian children, it is apparently quite bad.  There are also meant at be alot of Casinos that have been built recently along the border as gambling is illegal in Thailand but not in Cambodia so alot of Chinese -Thai people go there.  We wont be trying any of that, not with the kids anyway.  It will be stressful enough just keeping them occupied in the bus for such a long boring day.
So my week so far has been stressing about going into Immigration to request an extension (our Visas expired today so we were really leaving it to the last minute) and about organising and making the border run and stressing about making sure we have all of the papers we need.  I will absolutely die if I go all that way and end up forgetting a necessary document.  But the beauty, as I said before, is that the visa run company should handle everything all we have to do is walk through a couple gates and smile for the camera.
Well here's hoping anyway.......