Welcome back to Asia!

After a wonderful three weeks spent in Latvia, our family has finally arrived in Asia.  We're already in Laos now, but, this post is just going to be about being back in Asia... about our first stop, which was Bangkok, Thailand.

We knew we were back in Asia when....

Beni started attracting more attention than ever before!  We knew it would happen... but, as soon as we got here and out of the airport, people have just been ALL OVER her.  She's blonde, and let's face it, she's cute- and she's very white.  When we got to our hotel in Bangkok, just as we were checking in- actually, before we even got up to the desk- we had a group of men come up and comment on how cute she was, and ask if they could take a picture of her.  I said that they could, but I was carrying her in the Ergo- so when they extended their arms as though they wanted to hold her, I said no.  So that meant that I had this greasy, smelly strange man sidling up to me, putting his arm around me, pressing his HEAD AGAINST MY HEAD (ICK!) while his friend took a picture of us.

I was left wondering where in the photo album one puts the random picture of white people in Bangkok.  It's not like we're local, tribal people.  It's not like we're part of a show.  We were just random people in a hotel- and he's standing next to us like we're best friends.  Anyway... like I said, back in Asia...

And then, we went out for dinner at a restaurant a few blocks from the hotel.  As soon as we sat down we got swarmed by waitresses, one of whom simply grabbed Beni up from the table and carried her away! Now, many of you may not know, but, Beni has only ever been left with one real babysitter- who was a really good friend of ours, and it was only for a couple hours.  Otherwise, when she's away from me, she's been with either her dad, or my mom.  Needless to say, I'm not big on leaving her with just anyone, so having a waitress just swoop her up and carry her away was pushing the limits of what I'm comfortable with!  Of course, she was fine, although, it took her a bit to get used to it as well.  The attention didn't stop at the restaurant, at the hotel, at the airport the next day, or at any point since.

At the restaurant I had another experience which reminded me I was back in Asia... I carefully looked over the poorly translated menu and found two items called very similar names- something like fried vegetables mix.  The other I think was called stir fried vegetables.  So I chose one.  When it came out it was a plate overflowing with different seafood (mostly unrecognizable to us, although I spotted one prawn), and a few bits of green veggies. Huh, ok.  Something got lost in translation. ;) So I tried to explain to the waitress that I wanted ONLY vegetables... no chicken, no pork, no fish.... it took three waitresses and a lot of pointing to other items on the menu and pictures and such to figure out exactly what I wanted.  I did finally get a lovely plate of vegetables and some rice which suited me just fine.  We paid for the seafood plate, but neither of us touched it.  Ah well.

When we got back to the hotel, we came across the last thing that really made us go, "oh yeah, we're back in Asia!"  It was the bathroom... or I guess you could call it the showerroom.  It had a toilet, a sink and a shower... and by that I mean, a shower head.  It's just up on the wall in one corner of bathroom, not to close to the sink or toilet.  There is no shower curtain, no shower base.  The bathroom is simply tiled and you just shower in the open bathroom, and let the water run into the drain in one corner of the room.  Of course, not all Asian bathrooms are like this, and telling you we had a bathroom like this in our hotel, would also let you know that we only paid $20 for the room for the night...but, I'd say you'd be pretty hard pressed to find a hotel room in the States, no matter how cheap, that had a similar shower.

The good news is the weather is lovely and warm- er, hot- (if a bit rainy, but the middle of the night thunder storms are ok by me), the food is fantastic, it's great to be here with family (especially to meet our nephew who was born in March!)...in general, it's great to be back in Asia.  I look forward to sharing with you as we settle into our new host country and find our what it's going to be like to be a mother, a wife and a woman here in Laos!