Month: March 2019

This was one of the best family vacations we have ever taken, and while I wasn’t sure how we would handle 7 days on a beach, I think we would all jump at the chance to go back. This post is all going to be pictures and stories that didn’t fit into a separate post but that I still want to share with you.

By this time, Alex had figured out the magic of “add it to our room bill” So before he laid down here, he had ordered me a cha yen and himself a coke. He got very spoiled by the staff here, they all took such good care of him, even offering to watch him so Mark and I could go out on our own.

The hotel next to us was supposed to have really amazing food, and since it was right next door we decided to save that for our last night. The view was fantastic, the food was good- I don’t even really remember what we had though, so it can’t have been that good.

Alex is such a great kid that no matter where we take him, he will get along and have a good time. Here, it was hanging out on the rocking horses while we waited. He was enjoying the driftwood and looking out at the ocean.

Ice and Mo (the ladies in the pictures above) were so sweet to Alex I think they would have kept him if we had let them and Alex would have stayed! They even sat with him and let him show them his Mario game – even when he wouldn’t let them have a turn!

He had a giant chocolate smoothie, it’s really a milkshake, and he was thrilled because it was so tall. Since it was our last night, it was special and totally worth the splurge.

This was our settling up trip to the dive shop, in the end, Alex had done 3 bubblemaker dives, Mark had done two dives and I did one “just trying not to panic and drown myself” refresher dive during the week. I think we may have created a monster in Alex as he talks about diving all the time now.

French toast became his jam during this trip, he had never really been that into it before, but everyday on this trip, he ate french toast for breakfast and would have eaten more if we let him. Breakfast here was always a good time, because we got to chat with our new staff friends, sit next to the ocean, and plan our relaxed days.

Mariya was another staff friend, we saw her every morning at breakfast, and she told us all about her home area, and her family.

Mo and Ice even gave Alex a special treat, they made him extra french toast and packed it up so he would have a snack to have on the long trip back to Bangkok. Alex was promising to come back to visit every vacation we have, he really enjoyed this vacation. Everyone who works for Ten Moons is wonderful, we couldn’t have asked for a more friendly, helpful, and fun group to hang out with.

They walked over with us to the long boat that would take us out to the big dock to get on the speed boat. Alex was so sad to leave that he cried the whole long boat ride back. It is definitely a trip he will remember when he is older.

The speed boat ride back was the worst. We hit some bad weather and the boat would ride up on a wave and slam back down on the other side. Since my bruise was still very new, every time the boat would come back down, I would cry, it was so painful. But the good news is that I didn’t really get seasick… so maybe pain deferment works. Alex again sat up in the front of the boat, and while adults were whining and complaining about the trip, he just enjoyed the ride.

Once we had gotten off at the main pier in Hat Yai, two gentlemen from our boat stopped me, one told me that Alex was destined to be a Navy Seal the way he took the waves in stride, the other one gave Alex a chocolate bar from his home country of Spain and commented that Alex was such a brave kid and very polite…. all the things a mother wants to hear!

I think we all slept on the van ride back to the airport, and the flight back was pretty uneventful too. The surprise on the way back to Bangkok was at the security checkpoint. I had forgotten that I had drinks in my purse, and normally at least at US airports, we would get pulled aside, the drinks would be thrown out and there would be some embarrassment about the whole thing. This time though, they just asked us to open and drink some of the drinks to show that they weren’t anything illicit and off we went through the gate.

When we got back to Bangkok, we ended up driving over to the other side of the city to stay near the airport we would leave from the next day. It wasn’t a fancy hotel, but it worked. Not far from the hotel there was a large shopping area with an open market and lots of restaurants. We trekked over there and ended up going to a sushi place that made Alex really happy. He’s come a far way from the kid who wouldn’t eat raw fish (or really any fish). Early the next day we hopped on a flight back to Hangzhou and came home. While it’s taken me over 6 months to write this blog because of the variety of weird things that happen day to day, the memories of the trip are still very clear and collectively as a family, we have told anyone who would listen about this amazing island, with its lovely people.

While we enjoyed this vacation a lot, there were a few bumps and bruises along the way. The first day we were there, Mark stepped on a sharp rock in the water and cut his foot pretty good, one night on the way to the main strip to get dinner- Alex and Mark stopped to pet a stray cat and Alex tripped and fell hard on a stick, giving himself a nice bruise. The piece de resistance was me- I fell terrifically in the hotel.

The showers in the hotel had a hot water setting that was too high for Alex to reach, so he asked me to come in and turn it up for him so he could shower after a day at the beach. So of course, being the wonderful mom I am, I did. As I went into the shower, I fell- banging my ankle and cutting it, but worse, landing on the metal rail that meets the door to keep the water off the floor. It hurt and honestly I was a little worried I had broken something on the way down- so I was crying pretty hard and loud- which scared Alex and he was naked and crying in the shower and blaming himself that I had fallen. Mark had to come help me up from the floor, and then go down to the front desk to get help. I’m pretty sure that anyone staying the hotel that night heard me fall and then start wailing!

One of our new friends of the hotel staff (Ice) came up and had to check out my leg to see what the damage was, and she jumped into action. Ice pack was brought up, we were told we’d be moving into a lower room with less stairs to walk up and that someone would be coming to help move all of our stuff to the new room.

The hotel staff was absolutely amazing at handling this minor injury. They came and helped me move into a lower room, and almost as soon as I was settled on that bed with an ice pack, I was told that we were moving to a different room even lower.

This bruise is on the back of my thigh and took almost a month to go away completely- this was taken about 6 hours after the fall happened. It got as big as a large hand over the course of the next day or two. I had never had a bruise that had a lump in the middle of it, and it really did hurt to walk up and down stairs for a day or two, walking flat was mostly ok.

I said I would gladly take one for the team and fall on every trip to get this kind of an upgrade. We ended up in a beach front bungalow with about 6 stairs to get to the beach. It was very nice of them to help us out with everything, even making sure Alex was doing ok because he had been so upset.

So, that whole thing was a giant embarrassing fiasco- but we made it through it all. The next day I was supposed to join the boys diving, but honestly it hurt too much to walk all the way to the dive shop and then swimming- so I stayed home and rested while they went adventuring. After they got back, we decided to head to a restaurant that the dive shop folks recommended.

You can pick out your individual fish if you’re into that sort of thing, we let them pick because… I don’t really know what a good fish is.

Your fish is then cooked on the grill, or fried, or whatever way you’ve chosen.

This is the owner and chef of Nee Papaya, she moves so fast it’s hard to get a good non blurry picture of her. She was very nice to us, and really liked Alex. We picked a few items and couldn’t have been happier!

I don’t know what kind of fish these were, but they were tasty! Even though they were a little spicy (for Alex, we thought they were perfect) Alex ate a ton of each fish.

This was a lime fish, I’ve always had fish with lemon, but lime is a great change! Both types of fish were white fish, and very flaky and fresh- it really was a wonderful dinner after a hard day of diving and recovering.

The waitstaff of the restaurant are these friendly and happy ladies pictured above and below. They really got a kick out of the fact I was taking pictures of everything and hammed it up for the camera. They were very nice to Alex( but who isn’t) and made the meal even more special.

Alex went to thank the owner for a really delicious meal, and she stopped to take a nice picture with him. He also got a beautiful keychain with Nee Papaya on it as a souvenir.

One of the cool things about Koh Lipe, that we had noticed but really got to experience after the upgrade, is the abundance of hermit crabs running around. I had never seen a hermit crab not at a pet store before this trip.

I kind of got obsessed with finding the biggest hermit crab and spent the evenings following them around trying to get good pictures of them. Mark was a good sport, but I think Alex thought I had lost my mind.