Our Year of Adventure

Our plan to travel the world was conceived many years ago, but was set into motion in September 2017. It had been 4 years since Ben and I had gotten married, 3 years since we had become parents, 1 year since I had been laid off, and to be honest, our lives had become a little stagnant. In order to spice things up, I ended up drafting a list of options from which Ben could choose: 1) move to another town where I could find a meaningful job, 2) try for a third baby or 3) travel full-time with our children. Each option had implications for our careers, for our relationships with our friends and family, and for our finances. After careful consideration, we decided to follow our dreams and started planning for the trip of a lifetime.

From the get-go, I think most people doubted that this trip would come to fruition. We had jobs, a house, a small savings, cars, loans, friends and family, and commitments just like everyone else. It’s hard for anyone to imagine leaving it all behind. But honestly, the hardest part of this journey so far was merely just making the decision to go. The rest of the pieces fell into place after. Fast forward to now, nearly 6 months into said trip, and I still feel like our plans are met with incredulity. It’s probably just me, but I feel ridiculous when I call home and tell my mom things like, “Ben wants to hike to Everest so we are going to Nepal.” I know her brain is flashing red and she’s racing through questions like, “Who really goes to Everest? How does one afford that? Don’t you need oxygen and gear to withstand a polar vortex? Where do you find a sherpa? Where will the kids be?” I imagine her silently rolling her eyes when I tell her that we are considering a side-business selling cardstock (purchased in Vietnam, carted across the world for 6 months and then sold on Etsy), and how far-fetched is sounds to say out loud that we plan to live with a family we’ve never met–in France–for free–for a month. But all of it is true.

When we planned this trip, I anticipated having a grand adventure, full of family time, visiting new sites and ticking off a few boxes from our bucket list. However sappy it sounds, what we’ve found is that everything is possible. That is not to say that we haven’t had some misfires. Anyone remember THIS post? But overall, we are proud about what we’ve accomplished so far and are excited about what we have lined up for 2019. Here’s a peek into where we’ve been and where we are going.

I am acutely aware of how absurd it all sounds that we tote our toddlers around the world, but once we settled in Thailand, it just became the norm. We have been inspired by families we have met that piece together jobs that allow them to travel or live wherever they want, that don’t let having one or two or three or four kids keep them from going where their hearts desire and that support each other in following their dreams. We are so glad that we made the decision to live and travel abroad, and we feel incredibly lucky to be living this life.

I also want to shout out some families that we have met in person and/or communicate with on Instagram that are truly #livingthedream. 🙂 All have quit their normal 9-5 jobs and are traveling the world with their kids. If you have a minute, check them out.

The Jetsetting Family

Crayons and Carry-ons

The FUNemployed Family

Two Toddlers Take On…Chiang Mai

We have lived in Chiang Mai with our two toddlers for half a year and have explored this city from top to bottom. Many articles recommend popular activities like the Night Safari and visiting elephant sanctuaries, and while these places are great fun and should definitely be explored, they are not always ideal for families with small children. Believe me, we tried to take our littles to the night bazaar and between navigating the tourist hordes with kids below hip height and the approaching meltdown period before bedtime, we nearly quit Chiang Mai altogether. So, we made it our mission to search out the most family-friendly places in Chiang Mai and this is what we found:

Ginger Farm

 This lush garden restaurant is the epitome of Thailand, and it’s in the middle of the city. The restaurant features artistically presented fresh, organic, local food. It is a working farm and daycare, with a hay mountain for kids to climb, an art area, a sandbox, swings and a bevy of animals to look at. There is a bamboo bridge over rice paddies and water buffalos. If you are ok with your kids getting absolutely filthy, there is also a mud slide into a water pit. Luckily, I have never been there when it has been open so I have never had this particular debate with my children.

They don’t appear to have their own website but you can click on the headline for a link to their facebook page.

This sounds lame but go to the malls.

Every single mall has an indoor play area dedicated to the entertainment of children, and unless you grew up at a carnival, they are bound to blow your mind. For 150 baht (equivalent to $5.50), your child can play in a contained area with a blow-up bouncy slide, ball pit, trampoline, build a house with life-sized Duplo blocks, go shopping with kid-sized carts and fake food, play with balloons, swing and climb for an hour or two. Let your kids burn off some extra energy, rain or shine, while you sip on your Thai iced tea from the sidelines. Or, you can play too for an extra 30 baht. Furthermore, some places have a stamp card where you pay for 5, and get one free.

http://www.promenadachiangmai.com/

http://www.mayashoppingcenter.com/

http://www.centralfestival.co.th/index.php

http://www.centralplaza.co.th/index.php

http://www.kadsuankaew.co.th/en/

Rent a golf cart at the Chiang Mai Zoo

This is different than the Night Safari, which is on the opposite side of town. The zoo is a hilly, car-centric place but is a great for little kids to see a variety of animals at a fraction of the price of the Night Safari. You can feed hippos and giraffes, see penguins and pandas, and get up close and personal with porcupines and tortoises. You can walk, or ride the tram for a small fee, or best yet, rent a golf cart to explore the park at your own pace. There is a small kid’s playground and library which is so-so. The real bizarre but awesome part is that there is an amazing water park right in the middle of the zoo. Kids and adults alike can play on the splash pad-tunnel-water playground for an additional nominal fee. This blessed oasis is a welcome break from heat and humidity and is virtually guaranteed to tucker out even the most rambunctious of kids. The zoo is open 8am-5pm every day.

Eat lunch at Nic’s or Triplets

 Both of these restaurants cater to families and are located a little bit out of town. If you don’t mind paying an obscene amount of money for totally average food and phenomenal playgrounds, these places are for you. Trampolines, sand pits, massive climbing structures, slides and swings are surrounded by tables from which parents can supervise their offspring. Parents can relax a bit and let kids scream, run and play without fear of upsetting other patrons. Good luck taking your kids to a regular restaurant after this.

http://nics.asia/en/homepage/

https://www.tripletseatandplay.com/

Siam Insect Zoo

I had very low expectations for this place. I expected to find butterflies and grasshoppers pinned to bulletin boards and maybe a couple of fish tanks with spiders, so I was pleasantly surprised by how interactive the exhibits were. Yes, there were lots of dead bugs displayed on the walls, but there were also hundreds of tarantulas, a butterfly garden, lizards, and centipedes. Kids could spray stick bugs with water bottles, touch lizards, find millipedes in loose soil and even hold a scorpion. There were several large iguanas and a few tortoises for good measure. The only downside is that it is located in Mae Rim, which is about 20 minutes outside of Chiang Mai. Songthaews will take you there, but if you have your own car, you could make a day of it and also go to the Mae Sa waterfall, snake farm, monkey show, extreme sport center and/or strawberry fields.

 

Are you visiting Chiang Mai with your kids?

Stay tuned!! Comprehensive 3, 5 and 7-day itineraries for family-friendly activities in Chiang Mai coming soon.

The Blonde Dilemma

We come from a homogenous part of Southern Oregon. Our town consists of a whopping 20,000 residents, mostly affluent and retired. In fact in 2011, the Census Bureau confirmed what is plainly seen, that our town is also 91% white. I love our small-town life, but as our children grow older, I worry about their cultural naiveté (to put it politely). For us, a big part of the appeal of traveling is to teach our children and to remind ourselves that the world is a big place. People are a variety of colors, their experiences are diverse, their beliefs, their standards of living, their behaviors, and their languages are all different. In planning for this trip, we had hoped that we would come back with greater respect and acceptance of others, to have more compassion and to learn more about what is socially acceptable in other countries and why.

It’s has been fascinating to watch my family navigate the grey area between cultures. We are not tourists but we are definitely not locals either. We decide when to speak English and when to speak Thai, when to wai (bow with palms pressed together to show respect) like the locals do and when to shake hands like Westerners, when to haggle over the price of a taxi and when to just let it go and pay the foreigner price, when to dress conservatively and when to just wear what is comfortable in the heat. Ben leans more towards integration. He weaves his scooter through the traffic, he takes the time to learn the Thai numbers although they are rarely used and he eats things like fried chicken neck for dinner. I definitely fall into the Western category. I am content using a few Thai phrases, I wear shorts and tank tops most days, and will go out of my way for cheese.

While I am mostly comfortable in navigating this farang (Thai word for foreigner) limbo, the one place that I struggle is when people engage my children-which they do constantly. People genuinely seem to love children in Thailand but I had no idea of the insane level of attention that our light-haired kids would attract. I personally think that my offspring are model-material, but to be fair (pun intended), they are probably just average white kids. In the beginning, it was nice to receive such a warm welcome. We encouraged our kids to say hello when people stopped to look at them. We didn’t want to be rude so we let strangers take pictures. We passively watched as good-intentioned folks lightly pinched the kids’ cheeks, touched their arms and rubbed their hair. At first, we all went along with it, but things changed over the course of a couple of weeks. Once, we were standing outside of a mall playing in a fountain when a horde of Chinese tourists came up. Worked up into a frenzy, they engulfed Falcon like busy bees surrounding a blooming flower until we intervened. Similarly, I walked Blue down the aisle of an airplane to the bathroom on a flight to Vietnam and zombie arms shot out of the seats to touch her over and over as she passed. Although not as gratuitous, the ogling is a daily occurrence. About half of the time, people ask if it is ok with us if they take pictures of the kids. The other half hover around snapping away, sometimes blocking Falcon’s escape or trying to get Blue’s attention by touching her. I want to raise polite and socially confident children, but the constant, unwanted attention is starting to yield the opposite reaction to what we had hoped.

Taking pictures of Falcon and Blue while they play

We appreciate that blonde hair and white skin is considered lucky and beautiful in many Asian cultures. We should accept that this is part of the culture that we chose to live in. But, we also have a duty to protect our children. We say no when people ask to take pictures of the kids, but they often just move to a different location and take pictures anyway. We position our bodies to shield them from people showing too much interest. Instead of becoming more tolerant and accepting of other people, my kids are becoming increasingly shy and scared because they don’t understand the significance of their features. They just know that they don’t want to do anything to create additional attention. They don’t want to be independent, they don’t want to speak Thai, and they don’t go out of their way to make friends. The irony is not lost on me. We left our racially uniform town to experience multiculturalism, only to find that our children are now in the fishbowl.🤦‍♀️

So, I think the take away message here is this: As a parent, it is my duty to make my children feel safe first and foremost. My job is to demonstrate kindness to others and hope that even if my kids don’t engage, they are still witnessing the behavior I hope they will one day enact. But furthermore, I have the opportunity to teach my kids and other adults about respect. Respecting physical boundaries should be universal and someone’s personal luck or curiosity or trophy photo doesn’t trump another person’s feelings or safety.

Have other families experienced this? How do you handle the attention? I would love to hear your comments and feedback.

**I am aware that the title picture with Blue on the beach may be disturbing to see. She was in no way being harmed and had been fine with photographs until this very moment. Ben was standing just out of camera shot and stepped in immediately when she started crying.

Full-blown Crisis Mode

Existential crisis, that is. One might expect this from a recent college grad: someone undertaking a gap year abroad, before they start their career, find a significant other to settle down with and have kids. This is not what is expected of a 35+ year old woman who has graduated from college twice, who can count trips abroad on hands AND toes, who has had a career, found a significant other (uhhh, twice), settled down and had kids. We have just completed 100 days abroad and I thought that I would have been neck-deep in projects by now. I would be volunteering in an orphanage, I would be amazing my family with culinary Thai-American fusion delights, I would be on my way to fluency in Thai, driving a scooter carefree down the roadways, writing children’s travel books, maintaining a successful travel blog and spending my spare time becoming a svelte, tan Muay Thai fighting mom warrior. Alas, this has just not been the case.

Ben finished his TEFL (teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification and began working part-time as an English teacher to young teens. This has really challenged him and generally keeps him out of trouble most weekends. His obsession with CrossFit resurfaced briefly until a new, minor injury sidelined him. He is taking some private Thai lessons and has a scooter to zip around town. The kids have found their groove going to daycare twice a week and have made some expat friends that meet around town for playdates. However, we had an epic fail trying to enroll them into extracurricular activities. It turns out that American kids (or maybe just my American kids) are not as disciplined as Thai kids, and they spent the majority of a karate class making faces at themselves in the mirror. Needless to say, the teacher very politely refused to let them return so we spend our afternoons playing soccer in the yard instead.

I’ve found that even abroad, I’m only really good at cleaning the house. I compared my idleness to all of Ben’s activity and started stressing out. I also found myself wondering why we came here. What did I want to get out of this trip? Was it meeting my expectations? And most importantly, how will things be different in Oregon when we return home? I looked back on my original bucket list to see how we were faring and I was pretty pleased to see that we had ticked off many of the items.

• Make paper out of elephant poop
• Take a Thai cooking class
• Ride a motorcycle across Laos (Ben)
• Lose the baby weight
• Scuba dive (Kara)
• Raise a lantern during Loi Krathong –the Lantern Festival
• Fight Muay Thai
• Volunteering TBD
• Take a junk cruise in Halong Bay, Vietnam
• Eat lots of new fruit
• Explore the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore
• Teach the kids how to swim
• See the sunrise over Angkor Wat
• Master the art of using chopsticks
• Teach English (Ben)
•  Jump off the cliffs at Chiang Mai’s Grand Canyon (Kara)

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I started to have a change of heart about this crisis-thing. Moving abroad with two little kids and setting up a new life takes time and the fact that we got on a plane with one-way tickets is an achievement all on it’s own. It doesn’t necessarily have be defined by rushing through the typical backpacking checklists of 1) see the temple, 2) ride the elephants, 3) try Muay Thai once, 4) ride a tuk-tuk, etc. Furthermore, I should be proud of the things that I have accomplished this week. I rented a car and taught myself how to drive on the left-hand side of the road–in traffic–where lanes are just guidelines and speed limits don’t matter. I completed a doula training course and I can either use these new skills to help my friends in labor or start a brand new business. And I weighed myself at the little gym in our building and I have semi-intentionally lost 10 pounds since we arrived 3 months ago. Ben may be more decisive and outgoing in his planning, but I was accomplishing things too.

I’m still hoping to discover some hidden talent for like, reiki, drum circling, essential oil application, or shamanism. 😉 Instead of fretting over getting weird diseases, I really want to rekindle my passion for studying diseases. I dream of learning a useful language or writing something and getting paid for it, starting an Etsy shop, or even doubling down and getting all those plastic surgeries I’ve joked about having over the years. Ultimately, I decided that the goal of this gap year should be to do what makes us happiest. If that means that we move to Nepal for a month so that Ben can hike to Everest base camp, then that’s what we do. If it means that I get Thai massages twice a week and grow out bushy eyebrows from not plucking, then that’s what I do. If Falcon wants to eat peanut butter for every meal, and Blue wants to play in the sand on a beach for hours then we will try to accommodate them (within reason). Hopefully, in the process we will learn more about ourselves, discover new passions and skills to achieve them, at the very least, get all this stuff out of our systems so that we can return home refreshed and more well-rounded.

5 American Habits I’m Learning to Kick in Thailand

We have been in Chiang Mai for nearly two months now and are starting to find our groove. The kids are happily settled in daycare for 12 hours a week, Ben has finished his TEFL program and has accepted a part-time job teaching English and I…well honestly…I wish that I could say that I have been more productive but I have been nesting hardcore and am just now starting to explore some options for my free time. However, don’t let all this domesticity fool you. Leaving the house is like venturing into an alternate universe, complete with new language, new alphabet and a new calendar. A place where Netflix movies are banned, there are decency laws preventing inappropriate and rude behavior, the year is 2561 B.E. and the language does not contain the conditional tense (i.e. I would have…) A place where the words for ‘plain rice’ are recognized by one vendor one day, and are not recognized the next. Even things that I thought were mundane or mainstream are proving to be very, very uncommon. Not that I am complaining. We asked for an adventure and Thailand is delivering. To prove my point, here is a small compilation of the behaviors that I didn’t even realize were strictly American until I moved to this strange land.

1. Forget racking up the mileage.

Although widely accepted in the United States, debit and credit cards are not often accepted in Thailand. Cash is king here. My grand plan of getting a travel-focused credit card with hefty rewards for flights and eating out has been completely foiled. Only the grocery store, taxi rides and a few tourist places are the exception. There appears to be a universal look that people give when I whip out the plastic, like I maybe the dumbest person on the planet for merely suggesting that credit cards could be used. I’m settling in and learning to keep a wad of small bill cash on hand.

Flaunting their wealth–65 cents each for bubble tea at our favorite vendor

2. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

Having moved from Southern Oregon where recycling is basically a religion, the lack of environmental consciousness here is at a near head-exploding level. You can’t walk down the street without finding trash on the side of the road. I get it. This is a developing nation, garbage disposal is expensive and a challenge, but what I don’t get is the near obsession with plastic bags. Every single item is packaged in its own plastic bag, and then placed in yet another plastic bag containing all of the plastic bags. Even our breakfast cereal box contains five individual cereal bags and then yet another bag full of five separate dried fruit pouches. We eat at food vendors quite frequently, and therefore, produce a lot of trash. We have experimented with bringing our own Tupperware to the street vendors in an effort to minimize our impact, but this act has been met with much confusion, and overall, much disdain. For now, we are easing into it by dining in and using reusable bags whenever possible.

A simple single dinner to-go

3. Safety Third

The expectation that rules and laws will keep me safe seems uniquely first-world. There may be laws about not having more than three people on a scooter but that doesn’t stop parents from riding with multiple kids on their mopeds. With few traffic signals and lots of traffic, I have virtually made an Olympic sport of crossing the street, dodging cars and scooters with two toddlers and our bags in tow. Frankly, I like that common sense prevails here. It promotes personal responsibility and self-reliance, as well as, provides the perfect place to observe Darwinian evolution in action. From the scooters swerving in and out of traffic to the insanely low railings for the wild animal enclosures at the zoo, the rules are basically life guidelines but it is up to the individual to survive.

Neck-height railing for kids= Hip-height railing for adults

4. Dry Bathrooms

The availability of toilet paper is a real crapshoot (pun intended) and it is nearly non-existent in smaller towns. However, I can always count on the presence of a squirt gun to spray my nether regions. These mini-bidet shit shooters are all the rage; however, they take a level of dexterity and maneuverability that it seems few have mastered in order to keep the spray within the confines of the toilet. That being said, having a poo-mist and puddle-ridden bathroom is the norm in most places. I have learned to make contact with as few surfaces as humanly possible in public bathrooms, but imagine having toddlers with access to a hose placed at eye level and an unlimited supply of water in your home!

The infamous bum gun and our kidney poking toilet paper roll holder

5. Sun Protection

For a fair-skinned girl prone to freckling, the equatorial heat and intense sunshine in this country is something to be feared. While I spent the majority of my life casually applying low-SPF sunscreens and lounging in the sun hoping for a tan in the summer, I find myself now liberally applying SPF 70 head to toe every time I go outside. Although it is ferociously hot, long sleeved shirts are used for sun protection and umbrellas are used for shade just as often as rain.

Year round umbrella use

Another One Bites the Crust

Today marks a new milestone in our move across the world. For better or for worse, we have run out of Life cereal. To most people this is an inconsequential detail, I will even go so far as to say that it may be irrelevant. But for those of you who know our 4-year old son Falcon, the sunrise today ushered in a new era -one of immense power struggles, deprivation, and passionate fury. Our child loves bread, with every fiber of his petite and wispy being. He loves cereal, oatmeal, pancakes, toast, croissants, macaroni and sugar snap peas, but only the peas, not the pod. Running out of our last creature comfort from home is devastating for him and we are not above bribing him to try new foods at this point. Thankfully, he is showing a very slight interest in sticky rice which we are rewarding with heaping spoonfuls of peanut butter or ice cream or both.

The rest of us have been fairing only slightly better with this transition. Finding SIM cards for our smart phones…no problem, establishing residency in a foreign country…got it, opening a bank account…piece of cake. Did someone say cake? Finding food to satisfy an insanely ravenous bottomless-pit of a stomach, one picky child, a modestly discerning palate and one toddler who shouldn’t even be mentioned because she would eat dirt and be happy about it….tough. We have found a grocery store that sells corn flakes, peanut butter and macaroni and cheese so we won’t starve, but we may complain a lot. Nearly everyone who heard that we were moving to Thailand said, “Ohhh, the food! The food is amazing. Tell me all about it. I love Thai food. Send me pictures.” And while we certainly have had some good food, I have not experienced the culinary orgasm that I was expecting. We buy fruit at the markets and have indulged heavily in persimmons, avocados, pineapple and bananas. We also make our daily trip(s) to the food vendors for fried rice, mangoes and sticky rice, pad thai, omelettes and meat skewers. I make green and red curry at home and every once in awhile we go to restaurants for mystery meat noodle soup. So far, all of it has just been mediocre. I am really looking forward to going on a food tour and really trying some new things and having some explanation of what it is that we are eating.

Purchasing meat at the grocery store is intimidating me into vegetarianism.

Speaking of mystery meat, it’s everywhere…on skewers, in soup, by itself, on pizza (see below), in pad thai, freaking everywhere. It’s somewhere on the nugget-bologna-hot dog spectrum and it’s called misleading things, like “sausage,” which implies that it is meaty, fatty and/or peppery. But don’t be fooled, it’s none of those things. Now that I’ve written all this, I’m starting to doubt that it’s even meat. Maybe it’s tofu with the essence of meat. I need to investigate this further.

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Although there is a lot of gastronomic uncertainty here, I have to admit that it is a little thrilling to order something new. I have found that Ben and Blue have totally different techniques than I do when it comes to the unknown. I’m an ease-into-it kind of girl. Have something familiar with a side of unfamiliar. I’ll try chips, but the seaweed flavor. I’ll have the pad thai but instead of chicken, I’ll have the teeny, tiny shrimps and wonton noodles. Usually, this technique works pretty well for me. Ben and Blue are the jump-in-with-both-feet kind. He’s like, “I’ll have the barbequed, purple blob.” Come to find out, it’s a whole, barely cooked squid on a stick. Not breaded or seasoned calamari as we know it, but straight up, out of the ocean, squid on a stick. Eat it like a rubber seafood lollipop. I suppose that there is some merit to their way of things, but frankly, I let the voyeur in me just sit back and enjoy the show.

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If the dearly beloved Anthony Bourdain was still around, I would challenge him to live solely on the food of another ethnic group. Here is Ben’s attempt at “sandwiches.”

The Big Reveal

Without further adieu, we have signed a 6-month lease for…

#3: THE CUTE BUT CRAMPED CONDO

After much searching, we decided two things:

1. Having a common community area and pool were really important. We have looked high and low for a playground that the kids can go to easily/daily to interact with other children and to get their wiggles out for cheap and the only public one that we have found remotely close was demolished this week.  Although the condo is small, being able to just go downstairs to run or take a dip in the pool was a huge plus. And…we can invite other kids to come play at our place. We have found a family of European kids playing soccer in the yard, and maybe, just maybe, they can teach our kids some ball skills -an area of our kids’ upbringing in which Ben and I have recently noticed that we have failed.

2. Being close to the city center and in a walkable neighborhood was paramount. After seeing a scooter accident yesterday there is no way that I will be driving in this town, nor does it make sense for us to get a car for a short period of time, so it was necessary for us to be close to the city center. The neighborhood of Nimman has banks, a mall, a few grocery stores, many bars, restaurants and hotels all within a few blocks. There is an organic farmers market on Sundays, lots of street food vendors and a night market 3 nights a week as well. We enrolled the kids in a daycare/preschool that is about half a mile away this week too. Chiang Mai also has amazing transportation options so for a couple of bucks, we can be picked up in front of our building within a matter of minutes and deposited nearly anywhere in town.

So, that being said, Chez Bryan is open for visitors!!

House Hunters International

Once at home in a 2,000 square foot Queen Anne-style house with fenced yard, our family of four is downsizing in order to make our dreams of living abroad come to life. After spending a week exploring the neighborhoods of Chiang Mai, we have selected the Nimmanhaemin neighborhood. It’s full of bars, restaurants, hotels and community work spaces. It is touristy, but also home to digital nomads and expats. There are also a huge number of McMansions in the suburbs that are much, much cheaper than the centrally-located condos. While Nimmanhaemin (or Nimman as it is called) is more expensive than other areas, the proximity of this neighborhood to the city center allows us to experience all that Chiang Mai has to offer without the need for a car. Therefore, we are limiting our search to condos or townhomes with American facilities (no squat toilets for us!)

Our wish list includes:

• Over 50 sq meters (500 square feet)
• 2+ bedrooms
• Close to the city center
• Walking distance to a grocery store
• Partially or Fully-Furnished
• Community area
• Pool
• Under $1000/mo
• View

Property Number 1: The Oldie but Goodie

Located in the heart of the Nimman neighborhood, this condo is the largest of the properties that we’ve seen at 110 square meters (1184 square feet). It is an old, slightly musty building, with no common area and no swimming pool. It has 2 large bedrooms with closets, 2 full bathrooms, and American-style kitchen complete with oven and plenty of storage space. It has real hardwood floors and kitchen table for 6. The highlight of this property is it’s immense size, and stunning view. It is on the 9th floor and looks out over the entire Nimman neighborhood, as well as the entire city skyline. The condo has large windows in every room and a patio with deck chairs for lounging. It would also provide enough space to host out-of-town visitors and has access to a nearby pool with a moderate fee. The railing for the patio is somewhat short, leading one to prohibit any small children from even looking at the patio, let alone ever venturing out onto it. (The patio doors could be double locked.) Listed for 28,000 baht or $860/mo.

Property #2: Far-out Farang (That’s Thai for Foreigner)

This 60 sq meter (645 sq foot) condo is found in a cement lego brick-like fortress, complete with security guards and key-code entry. With 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, and community area with pool, gym and green space, it meets 99% of our wish list. It has a pool ready to host the most epic of spring-break parties, and being one of probably 10,000 condos in the area, it probably does from time to time. The downside, (in addition to the cookie-cutter nature of this unit) is that it is located approximately a 10-15 drive to the city center. There is near a suburban mall and some shops, but not the cultural center or university that we had hoped for. A taxi to our prefered neighborhood of Nimman costs about 100 baht or $3. The unit that is available is on the 7th floor and has a view of a massive construction zone with multiple cranes. This condo is listed for 22,000 baht or $675/mo.

Property #3: Cute but Cramped Condo

This condo is on the 4th floor of a modern complex. It’s a corner unit (which might save any relationships that we had hoped to have with our neighbors due to screaming children.) It is small at 60 sq meters (645 square feet) and has 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. Forget any plans of cooking in the nearly non-existent kitchen or any privacy due to the tiny footprint of this unit. On the plus side, it does have tons of natural light and floor to ceiling windows in each of the rooms. The condo complex also has a large pool and an astoturf play area (which sounds lame but is actually really nice in a place that rains daily and has clouds of mosquitoes that live in real grass.) Not to be forgotten are the sauna, large covered lobby, security, and small gym. Like Property #1, it is centrally-located in the neighborhood of Nimman and is 28,000 baht or $860/mo.

HELP US DECIDE WHERE TO LIVE! TAKE OUR POLL

South of the North Pole, East of the West Pole

“Well guys, we don’t live in Ashland anymore.” -Falcon (4), giving us all a reality check as we drove away from the only place he’s ever called home.

Our journey to Thailand started with a 7-hour drive in a rental car to San Francisco, followed by a mere 14-hour flight to China, a 5-hour layover, and then another 2.5-hour flight to Chiang Mai. Not to mention, the immigration, customs, taxi ride and many frantic emails in the condo lobby to our AirBnB host to find the unit and key to the apartment. But truth be told, the travel was a piece of cake compared to the preparation. In the past few weeks, Ben and I have quit our jobs, sold a car, moved all of our furniture into storage, rehomed my beloved cat, paid off our cell phones, drafted a will and our advanced directives, spent numerous nights worry-sick about finding a tenant to rent our house only to have a lease signed and rent check deposited literally one hour prior to our departure, and said goodbye to all of our friends and family. I’m exhausted just writing about it all.

Today- our first full day in Chiang Mai- has been full of ups and downs. Let’s discuss the successes first, however minor. We managed to flag down a taxi, provide an unpronounceable destination in a language that we cannot write AND we negotiated a fare. We have not had any toilet accidents since leaving home. We have not had any mosquito bites. We have ensured that Falcon will not die of starvation by finding a grocery store that actually sells kraft macaroni and cheese. ——–I’m going to pause for a moment so that you can appreciate that last one because food is really the biggest challenge we have here. ——— Ben has scheduled a playdate with another expat family for tomorrow. Blue can say “hi” to people in Thai with a little prompting when she is in a good mood and we are working on getting both kids to say “thank you” in Thai. I have not had any alcohol in 3-4 days, depending on what continent you are in. (I am aware that this makes me sound like an alcoholic, but I assure you that I am not.) We have had a shockingly warm, if not downright steaming hot, reception from the locals. This place isn’t called “The Land of Smiles” for nothing. After being in Poland where people were not at all pleased with rambunctious children in public, the locals here seem completely delighted by our kids. Security guards play peek-a-boo or literally tickle the kids, a man at 7-11 bought the kids toys while we were shopping, and people seem to have infinite patience with how slow the kids walk.

Now, enough of the rainbow and unicorn stories and onto the realities of traveling with toddlers. Just as you would expect, the jet lag makes us regret ever leaving Oregon with children in the first place. The kids wake up ready to rally at 3am and no amount of cuddling, ignoring, threatening or bribing works to calm them so I may or may not have given my kids Benadryl at some God forsaken hour for their “allergies.” I don’t want to jinx it but I do think that we may be over the hump after last night. They slept from 8-230 and then from 330-630. We have also significantly underestimated the difficulty of walking around with kids. Between the buckled sidewalks, curbs, scooters that frequently drive in the gutter, ankle deep puddles, aforementioned daytime fatigue, and general stare-inducing fascination with all new things, the radius of our explorations has been reduced to about 4-5 blocks from the apartment. In what seems like a lifetime ago, I would have been to many of the markets, nightclubs, tiger and elephant sanctuaries, temples and cafes by now. It humbles my soul to spend so many hours playing legos in the living room but that’s what make the kids comfortable in this new place. I have to remind myself that this move abroad is a long-game and if we want to ensure that they enjoy it (and therefore WE enjoy it) we have to let them adjust to it on their own terms.

Walking has never been so dangerous.