Heading on the Highway….

January 11

Rich and I have made our date nights into date-afternoons.  For the past week we have discovered the magic of the scooter and how it manages to lull Sydney to sleep.  Every afternoon at about 2:30 we sandwich Sydney between us and head out for a drive.  We take bets on how long it will take for Sydney to fall asleep and then we start on the ‘nap road’.  Seriously, within 5 minutest she is leaning back in my arms and totally out.  We pull back into our community and Rich picks her up and we place her into her bed. It works like a charm.  Rich and I  do a dance as we skip down the stairs and tell Ya that we will be back in about 2 hours.   The kids are sleeping and we head out!  Heaven!

We have explored some great little places doing this.  The beach area is interesting; it starts in Ao Nang which is full of long tail taxi boats and many many tourists (mostly from the Scandinavian countries). As you scooter along the dynamics change, the beach becomes very local and we love this.  The Thai locals here know how to do it up right.  They love to picnic and by this we mean laying out mats, pillows, music, hammocks and then they bring out the bbq’s and load em up with fish (not so sweet smelling but …).  It is not uncommon to see 10 or more family members sitting together and enjoying their beach time.  We love this beach.  As you continue on for another 10 to 15 minutes we enter the last frontier part of  Ao Nang beach.  This area is called Long Beach and it is largely deserted. It can be described as calm and beautiful.  It won’t be this way for long as the roads are newly paved and the trucks are rolling in.  Here you can find huts still on the beach for about 500 baht a night (about 20 bucks). 

Rich and I love driving around and taking this time to hang out and explore.  We are both so dog-tired by the time the kids go to bed that we don’t ever see much night life.  

Our local beach today was packed full of people.  Children were in their school uniforms picking out trash from the ditches and families were strewn along the beach.  The roads were full of cars and trucks loaded up with people.  It reminded us of Sylvan Lake on steroids.  We found out that today was Student’s day.  In Thailand they celebrate Father’s Day, Mother’s Day but also Children’s Day and Student’s Day.  I thought this was great; as I have wondered why there is not a Children’s Day in Canada.  The extra day off would be nice...