Leonard Family Around the World Adventure

Day 22, Thursday December 27 th . I awoke early this morning and got some great work hours in. The internet connection is so spotty and acts very strange. I was able to finally get blogs posted by saving them in word 2003 format, copying them to a flash drive, taking them downstairs and posting them using the hotels computers. We ate breakfast and the girls did some school work while I continued working. The car was delivered; we inspected it – it seemed fine – but had no gas. The lady that delivered the car took it and brought it back shortly with ¼ tank of gas. The girls loaded up a day bag – I was immersed in work and the next thing I knew they were waiting for me downstairs. I hurriedly gathered my stuff and off we went. We negotiated the car for 4 days 3200 baht – wow just a single taxi ride last night had cost 600 and when we were trying to get to Patong beach the other night one way was 400 baht. The car was a Suzuki samurai – probably 10 years old – 1,000,000 miles? I

December 26 th – Boxing Day. We sleep in until 8am. I get up and does some work – we all go down to the breakfast. The girls hit the internet and work on some school work, Pam inquires about a rental car and makes an arrangement for one tomorrow. I blog the last 3 days, the internet connection is acting strange not working as expected but I am able to check e-mail. We call Lea to say Merry Christmas. We plan on calling others, Pam leaves a message for Amy but it gets pretty late Pam was talking to Viki and came up to the room in tears – saying she made him cry. She was inquiring about the Tsunami – today is the 3 year anniversary and he told the story of that day and it made him cry. As Pam relayed it to me he was working about 9am at one of the tailors shops he owned (I gather he starts them up and sells them) at Bang Tao beach. He heard people talking abut water and assumed there was a sewage or water main break until he noticed water coming up to his shop. They locked up the

December 26th, 2007 This is the second time I am writing this entry – I went to hit save and word crashed – unbelievable – I am very frustrated with Office 2007 – I have never before lost so much work in word. Pam had come into the room in tears and I decided to hit save and a dialog came up saying the program had stopped responding – unbelievable – so I will try to recreate what I wrote earlier. After my bag did not arrive we checked the international baggage claim to see if it had been misrouted – no luck. I filed a report and the man taking the report had never heard of the Benyada lodge – an ominous sign. My bag had all of my clothes – except what I was wearing – shorts, the charger for the notebook – I cannot even imagine trying to replace that – Dell chargers are finicky and I have tried others – sometimes they will run the notebook but not charge the battery and finally all of my medications were in the bag. Another lesson learned – if I ever see my luggage again I will be more

Day 19 is Christmas Eve December 24th – It did not feel like Christmas at all. It was our last day in Bangkok and I am actually ready to move on. Pam met a family from Brazil that was living in Tokyo. They had hired a driver for the first day when they arrived in Bangkok and were using the same driver to return to the airport as they were off to Singapore. Pam was able to arrange for the driver to return at 11am and pick us up – he will drive us for our final day and deliver us to the Novotel in the evening. Our flight to Phuket leaves at 8am on the 25th. We had breakfast, went to our rooms and packed and downstairs to meet our driver – loaded up in his SUV and off we went. We had not really decided what we wanted to see so on the fly we decided to go the Grand Palace . We spent an hour and a half perusing the grounds. It was beautiful but because it was a Holiday many of the buildings were closed – but we did get to see the Emerald Buddha – awesome. Pam had on capris with just

Sunday December 23, 2007 I awoke this morning and got some work done. Had a very productive conference call for a couple hours. The girls did some school work and Pam kept entering and leaving the room with a pained expression on her face. When I was done with the call I tracked her down in the girl’s room and asked her what was wrong. She was upset and frustrated – the hotel clerk had given her incorrect directions for the weekend market and the wrong street for the restaurant we tried to visit. She said she found the market in our guidebook and we had got off the sky train only one station too soon. She was nearly in tears – I gave her a hug and said everything was fine and not to worry – I think she needed that. I know milling around the room this morning was really us taking a collective deep breath before venturing out into the city again. We decided to hit a Sunday brunch at the Sheraton which was recommended in our guide book. Allysha had had breakfast earlier at the hotel

Saturday 22, December. I awoke having had about 12 hours of sleep. I was able to get a few hours of work done and the girls worked on their school work. We decided to see the Jim Thompson House and to see a movie and go to the weekend market. We had the free breakfast at our hotel and then walked to a water taxi. We took the taxi down the river and then caught the Sky Train to the EBK center. The center was a large mall – we could have been in the US. There was an Outback Steakhouse and every type of store imaginable. It was about 10 stories tall and on the top floor was a 10 screen theater. We decided to go see a national Treasure 2 as Allysha has wanted to see it since she saw it advertised 6 months ago. We all got to see the movie, 2 popcorns and 4 soda for 650 baht – about 19$ US – awesome. There was assigned seating in the theatre. It seemed to b capable of seating 1000 people but there were only about 50 screening the movie. It was in English with Thai subtitles. The n