travelling allrite

After all of the previous day's excitement we needed something more relaxing. So today we did very little. Woke up late, ate breakfast, let Alex play with the hotel staff, who seem to love him. He's been very good at charming the locals with an easy "Hi!" and his excited descriptions of things like "fountains!" (his lift replacement, for he has encountered none here), "motorbike!" and "wee-wee toilet!". The Manathai feels like a very sedate resort, which suits us just fine. After we dragged Alex away from the fountains and waterfalls we crossed the road towards the local market area, making the mistake of trying to use the stroller over the bumpy and narrow footpaths. Alex managed to sleep through it all. The markets sold all sorts of things, from Spider-man outfits to pickles. But nothing we wanted. The atmosphere is interesting, though. We emerged from the narrow streets at the river and did a loop across a couple of bridges. The e...

Alex cried out in agony,as if he were burning. Nothing we gave him could ease his pain. No, he hadn't been thrown unrestrained through the car window on a busy Thai road. Nor was this a consequence of falling down a ledge on to concrete. He hadn't been trampled by an elephant, or slipped off the back of one, plunging to the ground below. He wasn't run over by the wheels of an ox drawn cart or drowning in a river filled with elephant poo. No tiger had mauled him, no tuk-tuk had run over him and he was not trapped under the rubble of a building felled by a magnitude seven earthquake. Alex had bitten a raw green chilli. Fortunately for him, we knew the antidote. This is a powerful drug, so addictive that I used to devour six litres of it in a week. We gave him ice cream. It's funny. We came to Thailand to escape the consequences of the earthquake and the risks of the radiation leak. Those risks are small, quantified and should not apply to the southern areas. Yet...

What's a boutique airline? One with art works hung all around the cabin? Trendy service? Small numbers of passengers? Whatever the answer, we were about to find out. We woke to the sound of rain. It was dark, except for flashes of lightning. I assumed that it must be very early, as Thailand is four hours behind Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time. Actually, we’d slept until 10am Aussie time, or 6am local. Good! I could write some of my blog. While I wrote, Alex played. The hotel had the Australia Network Channel available on the televisions, which was good because Alex got to watch Playschool. With all the rain outside we gave up on going outside to search for breakfast and decided to eat at the hotel instead. Sadly, their buffet lacked local dishes, though the selection of fruit and pastries was nice. The atmosphere was spoiled a little by the male Qantas crew bitching at an adjacent table. Not certain if they were flight attendants or pilots, though I suspect the forme...