Friends
This is the big enchilada of a posting. In brief, this is the only thing we have to talk about for November 2012, because it’s just about the only thing we did. So – after planning this trip for about 11 months (no, really), we set off to Thailand on the biggest excursion yet.
All in, there were 17 in our party –> Daniel, Rachel, Anida, Eric, Jacob, Leo, Frida, Sara, Michael, Sean, David, Barbara, Oystein, Kia, Zoe, Farmor and Grandpa. And if we’re going to really round it out – Jan and Gunn-Margrit joined for the last couple of days.. Whew. Still, it worked out really well.
We headed out from Denver on November 16th to Phuket via Los Angeles and Beijing. 
This is a picture from the 
Beijing airport – about 17 hours into a 25-hour trip. I’ve bragged before about how the kids are outstanding travellers, so I’ll just say it again – they’re awesome.
Once in Phuket – life just sort of settles into a comfortable routine. You wake up, you have a nice breakfast, you mess around in the pool or on the beach, chill for a while, maybe paddle a kayak or go shopping, have some lunch, relax some more… Get together with everyone at cocktail hour, have dinner. But of course there are variations.
We took a couple of excursions – specifically we went on a sea-canoe excursion which in addition to going sea-canoeing into some really nice caves, also stopped at a beach where we would swim and paddle. We also took a “elephant safari” trip, which included a trip to a famous waterfall, a rubber-plantation overview, paddling thought a mangrove forest and a ride on an ox-cart. That last one was a little odd…
And then – the family got to go on a really nice fishing expedition that Grandpa had won in a lottery earlier in the year. So while the Hekneby family went snorkline at the Phi-Phi islands, and the Pasta’s stayed at the resort, we all piled onto the 47-foot “Reel Blue” luxury yacht for the day.
Grandpa caught a tuna, and Eric caught a Wahoo, which were both prepared by the boat crew for lunch. We pulled into a private beach and got to snorkel in privacy – seeing all sorts of fish, crabs and even a Moray Eel. It was very, very nice.
And in the 11 days in Phuket we got to celebrate Loy Krathong, and the kids made Krathongs and placed them on the water. And dinners on the beach, and – wow – I could sit here all night and talk about the fun we had in Phuket. Suffice it to say that we had a great time.
And then, for the last 3 days of our vacation, we flew up to Bangkok, because if we’re going to be honest – Phuket isn’t “really thailand” and we figured that the kids were finally old enough to have the stamina for Bangkok.
And so we went to the Grand Palace. And the reclining Buddha, and to Wat Arun, and took a ride on the Chao Praya River, and rode Tuk-Tuk’s at a crazy pace through a crowded city.
We saw the 5.5 ton Golden Buddha, toured the crazy streets of Chinatown and Eric and Oystein went to Bobby the tailor to get shirts made. All in all, the Bangkok stop of the trip was good. Less relaxing than the Phuket segment for sure, but good. Rachel mostly remembers the Tuk-Tuk rides and the pool at the hotel, but Daniel picked up more details – and to be fair – Bangkok is NOT an easy tourist destination, it’s hot, dirty, loud, incredibly large and very foreign –> exciting, but not a first choice for touring with kids – > they did great.
The trip home went via Tokyo and San Francisco to Denver. Another long trip on which the kids did great. We were all somewhat jetlagged and discombobulated for a couple of days, but by now we’re back to normal…
And it’s time to start planning the next trip…
Love, ADRE.
This is just an oversight, of course – we went up to the mountains last weekend and stayed at the YMCA Snow Mountain Ranch for a couple of nights – went to Granby Ranch/Sol Vista for the first ski weekend of the season. And – it was pretty good – Daniel got right back into skiing, and Rachel took a couple of runs to warm up to the fact that the only run that was open was a blue. 
