Checking out the airline is always essential!

Choosing an airline is something not many of us spend too much time on.

Usually, we fly whatever is cheapest, or whatever we can use our miles towards. I know that I usually just go for the cheapest tickets that will take me wherever I need to go. But this is isn’t always the best strategy when you fly with the family.

There is a huge difference between what airlines offer kids families. Consider entertainment, food, seat comfort and layovers when you do your decision making. A good number of the main airlines in the USA still don’t offer personal seatback screens on their flights – amazing but true. I’ve found this to be the difference between a smooth happy flight with kids and a potential flight from hell. Especially when young kids are concerned. Just in the past few months I have flown to Europe with one of my kids on United (no seat back screens) and to Latin America with American (no seat back screens).   Luckily my kids are very experienced travelers, but for many parents out there, I’d say, pay a bit more if you need to and fly with a carrier offering what is typically the standard solution to happy family flying.

If you are unfamiliar with any carrier that you see a price for, check out Skytrax. Skytrax ranks airlines and you can read plenty of reviews posted by regular travelers. Earlier this year while planning for our trip to Myanmar, I checked out the difference between one of the major Chinese carriers and Asiana Airlines from Korea. Asiana was more expensive by about $100 a ticket on this particular trip. Both had lengthy layovers.  I soon learned that Asiana was a 5 star rated airline (one of very few in the world) and the reviews were excellent. The reviews for the other airline were generally very poor. We decided to fly Asiana and had an excellent experience. A friend of mine flew through Shanghai with her family and their trip was terrible – they had not been informed that in order to exit the transit room they would need visas for China, so visa-less, they had to spend about 10 hours cooped-up in a small holding room. A disaster for a parent with small kids. We on the other hand enjoyed a day exploring Seoul.

So, if you are planning a real long distance trip, I suggest you do your homework on your options. If the money difference is manageable, you’ll be doing yourself favor.

At the Palace

We flew from Thailand to Seattle on Asiana Airlines.

I find that one’s choice of airline can make a great difference to flying with kids, and Asiana is one of the highest ranked airlines by Skytrax. It was indeed superb and the family was very happy with the choice.

Our trip included a 12 hour layover in Seoul, so we decided to take the day and explore the city, since we’d not been to Korea before.

Seoul is connected to the airport by subway train, and within about 50 minutes we emerged right in the center of downtown. We managed to negotiate the local metro without problem, and we found our way to the Gyeongbokgung Palace, rated the #1 site by Lonely Planet. The palace (and grounds) is huge. This is not like any European palace – rather, it is a collection of pavilions and courtyards, not so different from Topkapi in Istanbul. The kids loved watching the changing of the guard ceremony – guards dressed in traditional dress accompanied by cymbals clashing and trumpets blaring, march around the palace at 11 a.m. every day. We also briefly popped into the National Folk Museum and admired some really kid friendly statues.

Seoul - lots of fun for kids

Our next stop was Insadong-Il, a narrow street crowded with souvenir stores and expensive handicraft shops – it is a big tourist attraction, and we found some of the stalls fascinating – especially since we had no idea what they were selling. We tried to find somewhere Korean to eat, but English signs on the Korean restaurants were few and far between, so we found ourselves at Burger KIng – not somewhere I would normally take the family, but after 5 weeks in Asia it didn’t seem like such a bad idea and everyone was really very happy to be eaten “Western” again.

Last stop was the Cheonggyecheon Stream – this is an amazing place – a stream with a beautiful path alongside running right through the middle of the city. It seemed to be very popular with kids, and ours joined the Korean kids splashing around on what was a very humid day.  It was a welcome oasis from the big bustling city going on all around us and really is a great example of urban park architecture.

Seoul - a modern metropolis

Our Seoul experience was way too short. Four or five hours in an ancient capital city just isn’t going to do it any justice! Gal felt that it was just like being back home in Vancouver, and in many ways it did feel very familiar – downtown Seoul feels like many North American cities – yes, the writing is different, but we have never seen so many American fast food joints as in Seoul – Baskin Robbins, Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, KFC, McDonalds everywhere, and of course Vancouver has a large Asian population. We also saw soldiers – American and Korean, and the presence of the US military since the Korean War is clearly a big reason as to why the city feels so familiar in many ways. We’d be happy to go back.

We got back on the train to the airport, and thus ended another incredible family trip.

(PS: I plan great family trips for families all over the world – click here for more details).

Monkey Island

The next day we hired a fishing boat (and its captain) to take us sailing to the nearby sights. Another family, whose kids had become friendly with Daniel and Eitan, decided to join us.

Directly opposite the resort in the sea is a small island, known locally as Monkey Island. We anchored  and waded ashore onto a tiny beach.   The captain then whistled a few times, and within a few minutes monkeys started  running along the beach and straight up to us. These monkeys see visitors daily, and the captain had brought along a few bunches of bananas for us to feed the monkeys with. These monkeys were not aggressive at all, and the kids felt very comfortable around them. When the bananas were all done, we went back to the boat to continue our exploring.

We made our way towards the National Park, and anchored just offshore where the captain now produced some fishing rods and bait! We are not experienced fishermen – we’ve caught a few fish out of a pond before, but the kids found it very exciting. Alas, there were no bites, so after about half an hour later we anchored off the pristine white sand beach of the National Park.

Fishing

Sam Roi Yot was the first coastal national park established in Thailand. People come for the rich bird life, the beaches and the caves. It’s history is interesting and somewhat tragic. The Thai King Mongkut , together with many European guests, came here in 1868 to observe an eclipse of the sun. This they did, but the king managed to be bitten by a mosquito, contracted malaria, and died soon after. Since then, Thai kings have been making regular pilgrimages here, and in 1890 a pavilion was built within the largest cave in honor of the kings’ visits.

Wading back to the boat

We hiked up to the cave – it takes about an hour and is uphill, but the kids managed just great. The caves are huge, and have collapsed roofs, meaning that the sun streams in. We explored and then it was a quick hike down the hill  to the beach. If it were up to me we would have stayed a while at what was really an incredible beach, but the kids wanted to get back on the boat and go back to the resort, which we did.

Overall, a fantastic outing.

The rest of our time at the resort sped by. We really did very little – we enjoyed the massages, the great food, the pool and the sea.

Finally, the time came for our 3 hour taxi ride back to Bangkok Airport, for our flight back home.

(PS I am now planning great family trips to Thailand and South East Asia. Click here for details).

Fun at the pool!

The final Thailand stop on our Southeast Asia trip was Dolphin Bay, a little known beach resort about 40 minutes drive south from the town of Hua Hin, along the Gulf of Thailand coast.

Thailand is world famous for its beaches, but one has to know where to go depending on the season. We were there during the monsoon, and this meant that the Andaman Coast was likely to be washed out. However, the Gulf of Thailand beckoned, and during my research I came across a place called Dolphin Bay. Hua Hin is a major resort, but we felt like just taking it easy after what had really been a really busy trip in Myanmar and then in Bangkok. Dolphin Bay is way off the beaten tourist path – tourists tend not to visit this part of Thailand at all, or go to Hua Hin if they do, but Dolphin Bay is where Bangkok expats like to go, and this appealed to me tremendously. I always feel that locals know best.

We ordered a large cab, and we drove for about 3 hours to reach Dolphin Bay. The cost: $100, which I thought was pretty good value for a  3 hour taxi ride.

We arrived at our resort in the afternoon. The beautiful bay opened up before us, and with only a very small one lane road to cross, we were right at the beach.  We could immediately see that we would be happy. With only a handful of places to stay at and to eat at, this is not a place you go to for the nightlife. But if it’s a family friendly trip you want free of any worries or hassles, then it’s perfect. Our hotel was simple - about 40 rooms, with a/c and TV, leading right onto the garden and two pools, one with a water slide. Within minutes the kids were busy sliding away, and they were happy in the pool for hours, even when it began to rain, as we soon learned was to be expected for an hour or so every  afternoon. One could rent bikes, go for a hike for miles along the beach, have a massage, and just take it easy. The food was excellent. Our resort was very empty but there were a few other families and our kids made new friends almost immediately.

Fishing boat at sunset

Not far away is the Sam Roi Yot National Park – famous for the visit made by a reigning Thai king in the late 1800′s, who built a small temple in a huge cave, but was unfortunate in being bitten by a malarial mosquito and succumbing soon afterwards. We didn’t fear malaria now – its rare in Thailand these days, and so we planned to hire a fishing boat to take us to the National Park the next day.  That evening we swam in the bath-warm sea, enjoying the most magnificent of sunsets.

The beach - Dolphin Bay

Loving Thailand's national snack - mango and sticky rice

Our final destination in Bangkok was the famous Chatuchak market. Almost universally acclaimed as a must-see if you are in Bangkok on the weekend, Chatuchak is supposed to be the largest outdoor market in the world. We found our way there easily on the skytrain and arrived about two hours before closing time. It took us a while to figure out where we were – the market is divided into many different sections, and consists of tiny dark alleyways packed with tons of stalls. Those alleyways are stiflingly hot and we quickly retreated to the main thoroughfares which criss-cross the market. At least we could breath in these, and even get something to eat. I had to have Thailand’s most popular snack – mango and sticky rice, and it was awesome.

We left soon after – the stalls were closing down, and the kids really didn’t enjoy themselves – too hot, too stuffy – not a place for families.

We were leaving Bangkok the next day, and we had loved it. I had been very wary – in fact I had told to avoid it completely as a place that just wasn’t worth taking kids to. But we learned that there are many faces to Bangkok, and what made it for us was the fact that we stayed in Thewet – a really authentic part of the city which we loved. If we had only stayed in the Sukhumvit area, we wouldn’t think of going back. But Thewet was a completely different story – amazing!

(PS I plan great family trips to Thailand. For more info click here.)

Gal at cooking school.

Bangkok is a great place to learn to cook. Specifically, there are many excellent cooking schools where you can take a half day , full day, weeklong or longer courses.

While the boys and I explored Wat Arun and the markets, Hilit and Gal went to a half day cooking lesson. I researched a whole bunch of them – some were full, some were closed on Sundays and some never replied. They ended going to the Silom Thai Cooking School – hidden down a little alleyway, it was based in a nondescript apartment house.  The verdict? They loved it! And Hilit is a chef herself, so she has extremely high standards. The group went shopping in a market, and then spent the morning cooking a wide variety of classic Thai dishes. The preparation of the food got the highest marks – everyone sat in a circle on a tatami type mat, and they each had their own tamarind wood cutting board on which to cut the vegetables etc. The ingredients, herbs and spices were beautifully displayed in the middle of the circle, and the chef was so funny that he kept them in stitches while they all worked. The girls were very disappointed that our schedule didn’t allow them a repeat visit. Next time.

Later in the afternoon we went to explore one of Bangkok’s most interesting shopping centres – the famous MBK (Mah Boon Krong). The boys and I loath shopping centers, but we really liked MBK, because, basically, MBK was a regular chaotic Asian market, with a huge number of stalls, fake goods and more, except this one was inside an air-conditioned building! There was also a huge food court, that spread over several floors. The whole family thought it was pretty cool. And then we happened to bump into a super famous film star (sponsored by Madame Tussauds).

PS: I am planning great family trips to Thailand. For more info, click here.

Gal with, what's his name again?

Durians for sale.

We explored the Thewet markets.

At the fruit market we saw huge stacks of rambutans( a lychee type fruit), and mangosteens, my favorite South East Asian fruit. And then we saw huge spiky durians. Durians are famous throughout Asia – they are often referred to as the King of Fruits, but they are infamous too – they have the worst smell of almost anything edible. They are banned from most airplanes.

We decided to buy some – you don’t have to buy the whole fruit – rather, you can buy just a few segments, which is what we did. We would try it out later.

The market was awesome – the kids were amazed by the pink eggs on sale, and watched in horror as the fishmongers attacked their fish, blood flying everywhere.

Our next stop was Wat Arun, one of Bangkok’s famous landmarks – a magnificent temple soaring into the sky. Back on the river ferry, which we now knew well, then on to a smaller boat across the river , and finally a short walk to this famous temple. It’s fun for kids as you are allowed to climb halfway up the outside of the huge tower. Not a place for those with vertigo, it offers great views across the river to the city skyline. When we descended, we decided to eat our durian. I opened the packet and the boys almost gagged from the smell. The flesh of the durian is yellow, and soft, and the fruit has a pudding type texture. It was like no fruit we have had before, and frankly , the boys hated it. I ate most of it – but I’m not sure how much I liked it either. It had an extremely rich taste, almost like eating solid cream, and one simply can’t eat much of it.

Exploring Wat Arun

Firing the cannon at the Museum of Siam

Durian done with, we continued our exploration. Our destination was the Museum of Siam, a new museum featuring the latest in technology. The museum tells the story of Thailand from the stone age to the present day. It’s amazing. Using holograms, active hands-on exhibits, games – it engages people of all ages. The kids really enjoyed shooting the cannon during one of the many Thai wars, and they also like driving tuk tuks, or at least pretending to, being on TV, and operating a bicycle powered agricultural water system.

For lunch we popped into a tourist restaurant that we had seen the day before. It’s easy to eat in Thailand – the food is excellent, and cheap.

(For more info on how I can a great family trip to Thailand for you, click here. )

Fun at the Museum of Siam

Fishmongers, Thewet Market

Where do these eggs come from? In the Thewet market.

Our table.

That night we went out for dinner.This was no regular dinner, as we would be eating with Mark Wiens, an incredible guy who is fast becoming an internet maven on Asian food in general, and Thai food in particular.

Mark is a young guy, who has made it his mission to travel the world and really learn his way around the local food. He now lives in Thailand, and I had arranged this meal with him before our arrival in Bangkok.

It was a real monsoon night, and the taxi ride that should have taken 15 minutes took an hour. By the time we arrived at the restaurant that Mark had chosen (far away from any tourist area), he and his friend Joel had already ordered a feast and had begun to slowly tuck in.

I don’t have a good idea what we had – Mark had ordered a big selection – meats, fish, salads. This was an Isaan restaurant – not the regular Thai food that you and I come across in our North American cities, but rather food from northeastern Thailand, from the region of Isaan, where the culture is Lao influenced and where the dominant tastes are chili and tamarind, and where sticky rice is an essential part of the meal. Our table had a fish on it with vegetables stuck into the mouth! Luckily my kids are adventurous eaters and didn’t bat an eyelid. And they loved it when the sticky rice was served – each one of us received a steaming little bamboo basket, with the rice cooked inside!

Isaan food

The food was delicious and the company was fascinating. Mark’s friend Joel has chosen to live in a tiny Thai rural village where he teaches the local kids English. He’s the only Westerner there, and the nearest store is about an hour away. And Mark isn’t only a Thai food fundi – he’s been to Burma, China, Sri Lanka and many other countries to explore the food. He’s even published a huge guide to Thai Food, which he sells online.

Check out his website – if you love Asian food, you’ll find it downright fascinating. Scroll down the page of Mark’s list of the 100 best foods to eat in Bangkok, which is found here:

After a real food adventure, it was back to our very quirky hotel in Thewet.

PS: I am now arranging great family trips to Thailand, Click here for more info.

Do people eat these (eels)?

Bangkok is only an hour’s flight from Yangon, yet in every other way the two cities are light years apart. Everything in Bangkok screams “Asia Rising” at you – the new airport, the multi-lane highways, the skytrain, the massive malls.

We had heard mixed reports from other families – some really tried to put us off going. But we really  had a wonderful time.

We saw two sides of Bangkok – the area near the hospital is exactly as I described above – brash, glitzy, dominated bu huge malls and skyscraper hotels. We didn’t like this area. The malls bored the kids, and the only thing that seemed attractive, the 4-D movie, was booked out every time we tried to get in.

So we quickly moved to another part of the city. We found ourselves in an area called Thewet – that looked nothing like Sukhumvit Road. Here was the Bangkok we had hoped to find – small streets, outdoor fruit markets, a wet fish market, little neighborhood grocery stores. No tourists and lots of locals going about their daily lives. The hotel we were staying at was called Phranakorn Norn-len – really a guesthouse more than a hotel, but there was something really special about it. Firstly, the decor. Every room is different, and don’t expect many mod-cons. Our room had a 50-year-old TV, that wasn’t meant to work – it was just decor. We were in the fish room, and the walls were painted in hundreds of fish. In the outside courtyard with a garden on one side of it, was the restaurant. Just a few tables, serving home cooked organic vegetarian food picked from their garden. Our room was not cheap – in fact it compared with 4* hotels elsewhere in the city – but our memories of Bangkok are of this wonderful place, and not of the modern glass and steel tower we stayed in before.

From Phranakorn, it was a quick walk to a few very local markets – we wandered through a fruit market selling all the fruit that Thailand is famous for – rambutans, durian, longans and fruit we had never seen before. Next to the fruit market was a “wet” market – so-called because of the fish flopping and flapping everywhere – the kids were in awe of the eels (we don’t see eels at home) which looked a lot like snakes, slithering around in their buckets.  We saw for sale frogs too. Now there is no doubt that the lids found these markets way more interesting than wandering through the malls. Nearby was the jetty for the river taxi. On the jetty were women selling big bags of old crusts of bread. Looking around, we sw people throwing bread into the river and hundred of catfish rose up to fight for it. Wo bought our own bags, and the kids had a huge amount of fun throwing the old bread to the catfish.

Catfish frenzy (just throw them some bread).

Catching the river taxi, we went to see the big sights of Bangkok – the Royal Palace, the Wat of the Emerald Buddha, and the reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. Now these are wonderful sights, but there is a huge difference to the experience compared with Myanmar. Thailand receives (I think) 15 million visits per year, while Myanmar received 300,000. The difference is that in Myanmar one can wander about at will at the most magnificent sights, taking as long as you like and knowing you won’t have anyone else in your photograph. In Bangkok, it’s a circus. Thousands of tourists lining up, and some pushing and shoving, make seeing the sights something of an ordeal. We enjoyed them, and we did find some quietish spots, but it was incredibly busy. At Wat Pho we all went for massages at the famous massage school – the kids loved it, and so did I. Thai massages are not relaxing – you get pulled and pushed and some of it is excruciating, but I felt great afterwards. (It was toned down for the kids).

Trees out of Dr Suess at the Royal palace

The monuments were grand, but the kids enjoyed little things, like the pink taxis driving around, or the manicured trees, that looked like they had come straight out of Dr Seuss.

Sightseeing done, it was back on the river taxi to the hotel.

(And what about the sleazy side of Bangkok? We didn’t go near it, and my kids don’t even know it exists).

PS I am now planning great family trips to Thailand, For more info, click here.

Eitan gets a big hug before checking out.

I’ve traveled to many interesting and exotic destinations with our three kids – Myanmar, India, Morocco, Turkey…the list goes on. And often one (or more) of the kids will get sick. It’s usually nothing worse than a 24 hour stomach bug, which is easy to pick up almost anywhere. usually, we let nature take its course – if that doesn’t work, we pull out the antibiotics that we normally travel (or stop in at a pharmacy, which are very common in Asia), and only if that doesn’t work, do we go see  a doctor.

Eitan, our 6 year old,  had become sick during our last couple of days in Myanmar with vomiting and diarrhea and by the time we reached Bangkok he couldn’t keep anything in his body – no liquids or solid. After our first night at a Bangkok airport hotel he wasn’t feeling any better. We emailed the doctor who had examined him in Yangon and he told us to go to hospital immediately. He advised us to take Eitan to the Samitivej Sukhumvit Hospital, a private hospital in central Bangkok. He would inform the hospital of our arrival.

The taxi took us to the entrance of a new, beautiful looking building. It looked more like a hotel than any hospital we’d seen before. With a pianist playing in the foyer and a host of restaurants and shops, it looked nothing like hospitals we’d seen. At the information desk, we were amazed when we were asked if we were “the family coming from Yangon”? We were taken immediately to a specialist pediatrician who was waiting for us, confirmed that Eitan was dehydrated and would have to go on a drip (IV) immediately to replace lost fluids. They would of course do all the checks necessary to try determine the cause of his severe vomiting and diarrhea. He had not responded to strong antibiotics, so it seemed unlikely the problem was a bacteria.

The room he was put in was like a hotel room – large, with a bed, sofa, comfortable chair, table with two chairs, kettle, microwave, fridge, a TV with 100′s of channels, private bathroom – even his own toothbrush and toothpaste. He was in bed and hooked up within an hour in the pediatric ward.

It goes without saying that spending a few days in a Bangkok hospital was a totally unplanned part of our trip. We canceled our beach hotel booking and found a hotel near the hospital. We learned very quickly that medical tourism is a huge business in Bangkok – Samitivej had contracts with many good hotels nearby, and we automatically qualified for a discount at the hotel due to Eitan being a patient. I picked up brochures covering all the treatments one could have – from transplants to you name it…

I slept on the couch in Eitan’s room for the next two nights.  He is a real fighter and this was not his first stay in hospital – at age 5 he was admitted in Vancouver for four days, so for him it was nothing new.

The treatment we received was incredible – he was wonderfully looked after, and the staff was amazing. The pediatrician came in on her day off to check up on Eitan,  the nurses were great and very insistent (he tried to get out of washing – no such luck). Even the food was good.

After two days in bed, Eitan was jumping around and ready to go – the tests had not shown any bacterial infection, so we were told it was something viral. We were given some vitamins and careful instructions of how to look after him for the next couple of days and then he was released. And costwise – a lot less than we feared (and we were well covered by our travel insurance – they paid us out in full).

Summary – awesome treatment at an awesome facility.  What lesson did we learn? That even the best planned trip can become unstuck due to nobody’s fault, and that if you are anywhere nearby, get to Bangkok for medical treatment – it’s outstanding. (same applies to Singapore).

Thailand was waiting and it was time to get back to our holiday.

PS I am now planning great family trips to Thailand. For more info click here.