I could have decided not to include this little mishap on our blog but I’ve opted for honesty over dreamy stories of travelling without any hiccups! So here goes...
We set out around noon today wanting to go take a stroll on the famous Khao San road. Last year at this time we had just spent two weeks in New Orleans and we thought maybe Khao San Road was to Thailand what Bourbon Street is to New Orleans. But I guess we will never know, or at least not during this trip!
We knew it was about 30 minutes away from our hotel but now know better than to trust any kind of itinerary on google maps... we wanted to make the most of our last day in the city so wanted to get there by tuk tuk... unfortunately, no tuk tuk wanted to bring us there at that time, maybe it was a scam all along or just the traffic, who knows, traffic here is really something!!!
One driver offered to take us to a nice restaurant not too far away for 150 Baht(about 7$)... we had been very careful up till now asking « how much » before getting involved in any kind of activity but once he dropped us off at that restaurant we kind of felt like we had little to no choice as to eat there and,well, pay after... the waitress seated us at a big round table outside and brought us a couple of fans as maybe she could tell we were a tiny bit hot! We ordered fanta for the kids(they had never tasted it before and were pleasantly suprised by our choice of drinks for them!) We then ordered non spicy sweet and sour chicken for Jeremie and the kids and a lobster(sea food kind of looked like their specialty so we decided we might as well try it.)
The food was DELICIOUS(at least) and even the kids who were complaining that they weren’t even hungry ate their whole plates. Norah-Fay must have had three portions all to herself! Everything we ordered had prices but then the waiter asked if we wanted to switch to a family sized portion of rice and a few more questions that, looking back, we probably did not understand quite clearly because when the bill came, Jeremie did not even want to tell me the amount... we paid and just wanted to be back in our hotel room...
Before the bill...
How we felt after the bill came...
Getting out of the restaurant court, we had to walk a bit before we could even find any tuk tuks and the first ones we asked didn’t want to take us back to our hotel... finally(maybe this guy took pity on us) but accepted to bring us back after having to make a detour to ask a friend(I’m guessing)directions to get us there! Lots of guessing when you don’t understand/speak the language....
Now, we have had our tuk tuk ride of the day, the kids are napping and we also have one more learning experience under our belt! Nothing in life happens if you’re not willing to make mistakes(this is a hard one for me as I am a big perfectionist and mistakes are hard on me...)
We travel so we can learn about the world but also about ourselves! We want our kids to know that mistakes happens, we have to accept them and learn from them and hopefully do better next time!!!
In the meantime, I think I’m ready to leave this big city behind us and head down south to enjoy a bit more calmness and greenery! Like Jeremie remarked this morning, this country girl has had enough of the noise of the city... and of that traffic!!!!! Krabi here we come!