Circus

We had gone back to a Club Med in Phuket and with that the boys got to perform on the trapeze and bungee bounce. We knew Cameron would jump right back in, but we were not so sure about Mason.
Mason is now 4 and can do the trapeze, but we thought he would be too scared to try. Well we were wrong. Mason went right up to the top and jumped off without batting an eye. It was the highlight for the boys every day. Cameron has become even more of a dare devil and did the trapeze with one leg.
This Club Med even had a bungee bounce that sent the boys flying off the trampoline high into air. Cameron did front and back flips on it. Thankfully there were safety nets and harnesses to protect the boys. I even tried the bungee bounce. After about 10 jumps you want to stop because your stomach feels like it is coming out.

Elephant Trekking

We took a break from the beach one day and went elephant trekking. What a great experience. You don't know how high you sit on elephants until you are going downhill and the elephant is wobbling back and forth. We all enjoyed the ride, but after 30 minutes we had enough. After we finished the ride we got to feed the elephants pineapples and bananas. I didn't know that elephants can eat the pineapple whole. Very impressive.
A special treat was to feed a 5 month old elephant name Peemai. Baby Peemai especially loved Cameron. After feeding Baby Peemai, Cameron got close enough for the baby to put its trunk around his head. The baby elephant then tried to slowly pull Cameron's head towards its mouth. Cameron just thought that was so funny and after we got Cameron safely away we saw all the pineapple juice on Cameron's hair and shirt. (The picture of Cameron smiling is about the time this happened.) Everyone there had a good laugh.

Jim Thompson House

I visited the Jim Thompson House while in Bangkok and had a very interesting time. Many of you probably don't know who Jim Thompson was, but he was an American who revived the Thai silk industry. Go to the website to learn more (http://www.jimthompsonhouse.com/) His house is in the heart of Bangkok right on one of the water ways which is how they got around mostly in his days. The pictures shown are his house, a template of which Thai silk was made, and a headless statue. The reason the statue does not have a head is because during a war the head was cut off to see if gold was in the statue. If there was no gold then they left the statue.

Jim Thompson only had one air-conditioned in his house and instead of the bedroom he had it in his office since he spent most of this time there. Jim Thompson mysteriously disappeared without a trace one day in 1967 while walking in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia. If you ever visit Bangkok it is worth the trip.

3D IMAX

We just had to take advantage of seeing a movie while in Bangkok since we don't have the option in Atyrau so we went all out and saw a 3D IMAX movie named Monsters vs Aliens. It was the boy's first 3D movie and they were very excited. Cameron was trying to catch all the things coming towards him and Mason was too scared to wear the glasses. (Pretty typical of their personalities.) We had lots of fun and will look foward to the next time to see a movie.

Trip to Bangkok

You are always filled with excitement and anticipation when going on a vacation. Traveling to Bangkok was no different. We started on a 3 and 1/2 hour flight from Atyrau to Almaty. When we arrived it was 2 am and our next flight did not leave until 8 so we decided to stay at the airport hotel to get some rest. It was a dormitory style hotel with no frills (check out the picture). When we left it was cold, but not wanting to take up room in our suitcase (so we could buy things) we decided not bring any jackets. People asked us where we were from since we were wearing short sleeve shirts and they were wearing winter coats. We answered their question with, "from Kazakhstan." They immediately replied, "no, where are you really from." We are used to these types of questions when we travel so we just kept moving along.
We then boarded the next flight to Bangkok which was about 7 hours. Our luggage made it and we were on our way to our hotel. Here is where Bangkok started off with a dud instead of a bang. Our ride to the hotel was supposed to last 35 minutes. Traffic was smooth until we were about 3 miles from our hotel then STOP. I don't know if it was rush hour traffic or what, but we did not move for 45 minutes. By this time we were tired and hungry and I think I even contemplated walking to the hotel, but thought kids, luggage, strange city, not a good idea. We finally turned off to another street only to be met by more traffic. Since we were just sitting there for so long the taxi started to overheat and our driver kept getting out and putting water on the car. He even had to ask other taxi drivers for water, but nothing seemed to work. I peeked over and saw the gauge was on HOT and the gas gauge was on empty. Well the car finally shut down and I was just thinking great, all this time and still not at the hotel. Luckily I was able to flag another taxi down and he did get us to the hotel.
The hotel was very nice. When we arrived they even had a Marie Claire magazine red carpet event there. I knew Stacey would want to go shopping so I got a hotel that connected to a large shopping mall. We checked in and were off to find some food. We asked the boys what they wanted for dinner and to no surprise we ended up at McDonalds. After all this traveling I was thinking where are these massages everyone raves about.