We Asked For An Adventure

We asked for it. It’s definitely been an adventure.

It feels like there are moments in life where if you pause, you can see that disentangling the strands will make sense and eventually fit into the complex mosaic of a story. But right now, a muddled mess of new experiences, celebrations, gratitude, and natural disasters. 

Obie’s 12th Birthday

Rewind to October 2, Obie’s 12th birthday. It was a pretty epic day.  Order of celebrations:

  • 8:30 am. Wake up to home-like breakfast of corn pancakes and bacon. Slightly burnt and unsightly because we made the bacon in a wok and the gas stove doesn’t go to low. But still, like home.
  • 9:00-10:30 am. Play video games with friends from home. Read texts and get calls from afar. Obie feels loved and remembered.
  • 11:30 am-1:00 pm. Try out new drama class. A success! Discover a 3D printing cafe and eat a celebratory coconut dessert with Obie's picture on it. 

  • 1:30 pm. Head to the biggest mall in Chiang Mai. Go to a Chinese hot pot restaurant that offers so many surprises!
    • Free manicures while you are waiting for your table.
    • Kids get light-up wands.
    • Food delivered by robots on wheels.
    • Noodle guy does burning man-like dance in front of the table.
    • Human-size stuffies placed at every table where someone doesn’t have a date so they won’t feel lonely.
    • Birthday song by staff with flashing lights
    • Dessert.

  • 3:00 pm. Next to the restaurant is a huge arcade. Marvel at parents’ inner competitive streaks in Air Hockey. 
  • 5:00 pm. Home for birthday cake.

  • 7:00 pm. Obie and Chris special time at the Sunday night market, where Obie gets to choose his present: a little elephant personalized with his name and the number ’12.’

Now if that wasn’t an adventure of a day…

The Floods

We had read enough translated articles from a Chiang Mai news site to know there was a chance the Ping River was going to flood, but I suppose we just didn’t believe it. Even though our house is a block from the river. Even as we obsessively watched the numbers of the river height steadily rising.

It started after we fell asleep following Obie's birthday celebration. At 1am, Chris and I wake up to a text from our AirBnB hosts and thus began the never-ending night into morning. We may have to evacuate. 3am – Chris goes out to check the river level. Definitely still rising. 4am – We definitely have to evacuate. Chris and I start packing. 5am – wake up the kids and the AirBnB hosts come over. Kids exhausted, lying on the couches, Chris helping our hosts move furniture to the second floor, turn off breakers, get the house ready for the coming flood.

The plan was that we would have an extended breakfast at a fancy hotel buffet (one where we could sit for 4+ hours) and then the AirBnb hosts would take us to another of their properties where we could wait out the flood and the post-flood maintenance. Arrive at 6 am. We sit. Eat first course, second course, so many courses – drawing out time, side eyes from waiters wondering when these disheveled farangs will leave.

As we wait, we watch reports in on flooding, and suddenly, we see that the road to our fancy hotel has also flooded. I walk out to the front and see this.

Now up until now, we hadn’t really felt much. It all seemed rather orderly and scientific. At this point, the faint jangles of alarm bells in my head.  We cannot get stuck at this hotel. We call our Air BnB hosts to pick us up NOW.

They arrive. And proceed to tell us they got it wrong and that their tenants at the other house are not leaving until the next day. So now we have to find a hotel. Mind you, it is teeming rain. Onlookers line the streets, watching the water levels rising. Thankfully, we exit the flood zone and arrive in the old city and hop from one hotel to another in a downpour to find one with space for a family of 5 (not easy to find!). We stay there for the night. It has a pool and a lady who serves mango with sticky rice stationed in front. Everyone is tired, grumpy, relieved, and some of us would best be described as delirious.  

I am writing now a day later from our new temporary home. It feels like we are starting over – getting to know a new neighborhood, where the markets are, how to get filtered water, etc. But that’s ok. 

It’s Yom Kippur morning. I paused, meditated, thought about how far from home we are and what life would be like during these holy days in a place more familiar.

I’ve been sitting with this thought of the nature of knowing. How the kids – for the first time in their lives – get to see that we (Chris and I) really don’t know what we are doing. They witness us navigate neighborhoods, transport, cultural mis/communications, unfamiliar sites, and natural disasters, observing their parents’ previously held omniscience slowly dissipate. We of course try to provide a safely held space for this emerging realization. And yet, the realization seems a universal one, not relegated to the kids among us. Of slowly disentangling the illusion of knowing and wondering what the fallen facades might lead to.

My Experiences in a Wat [Emmet]

You walk in the wat. You take your shoes off. If you look straight, you see an old glass shrine, sometimes with things monks have touched. To your left and right, you see paintings on the walls. If you look closely you see a statue, or a Buddha, with gold foil on it. Finally, you walk out and see people with orange robes on. Those are monks. Some are fully grown, and some are only ten. They train and train to be monks.  It is not easy. Have you realized that everywhere is so old and beautiful? If you look on the trees you might see Indian plums. They are very bitter and sour. I took a bite and regretted it. You walk out of the place and you see an old little shrine covered in vines. You walk back to your house smiling.

A New Year - First Days in Chiang Mai

Standing barefoot in front of the golden reclining Buddha, two Thai women prostrate in silence, Asa whispered to me, “I would pray too if I knew how.”

It was our first full day in Chiang Mai. Jetlagged, hot, disoriented, the spicy khao soi still fire on our lips, and yet he wanted to enter into every room in every crevice of that wat. Asa, who had been devouring any Hindu book he could get his hands on before our trip, began to pick up the influence of Hinduism on the development of Thai Buddhism. Today, it all became alive.

And that was the day. It was not without whining and moments of unsteadiness in our new surroundings. 

Case in point: Chris trying/failing to figure out how to buy filtered water in a machine around the corner from our new house.

But it was as if I watched each kid evolve in one day. From the profound to the banal, from the discussion with the young monk studying AI on the nature of the mind, to riding in our first songthaew (prompting a discussion on ‘danger’ and how much a society ‘protects’ one from danger vs. one’s own autonomy to protect oneself), to our kids learning how to use the ‘bum gun’ instead of toilet paper (with just one mishap!), everything was new.

The first of many coconuts for Emmet

Obie rocking spicy food

First songthaew ride

We are not yet in our routines. We still fall asleep reading to our kids each night. We are starting exercise/Thai classes next week. I haven’t had a moment alone in days. And despite all of that, this new year feels pretty awesome.

Arrival at the airport in Chiang Mai!

Update from Emmet

To me {Emmet}, I think the trip idea is amazing! I’m so excited, I have never gone to Southeast Asia or Italy! I am most excited to go to Sicily and Sardinia, Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Hoi An… I’m so excited for our whole trip. So far we have been to Boston, Massachusetts, Rochester, New York, New York City, New York {which we are in right now}, and then Chiang Mai! 

Every day we write in our journals about our days. Here is the front of mine.

In New York we went to see the Statue of Liberty. I loved it so much because it’s bigger than you think, and it is made out of copper. The statue is important because it symbolizes freedom and peace when people come to New York on ships escaping persecution. The statue is the first thing they see. Here is a picture I took of the back of the Statue of Liberty.

So far my favourite place we have gone to was in Boston because I loved all the bricks because it looked so cool and red and old. After all, Boston is so old. Here is a picture I took in Boston.

Soon, we will visit Times Square at night!!                                               

P.S. we leave for Chiang Mai on Sunday!!!


Announcing Obie's Book Log

I have decided to keep track of every single book I read during this trip on this page. This list will keep growing as the trip goes on. Feel free to read the books I have on here, and suggest other books for me to read in the comment thread below! The asterisks next to the books are the ones that I really enjoyed.