Tales of Mr. Kittipot and other stories from vacation

Hello from Northern Thailand! The city of Chiang Rai is where our family has been for the past four days. Today we took the kids on a trip out of town- and what a time it was! It started at a local waterfall- which we did not know took about an hour hike (we all had flip flops on and Joab had Salome on his back) up to see the falls. Here is the steam on the path.



It was so fun to see Asa and Mei so excited when we finally got there!

The spray was so strong we all got covered with mist at the bottom!

From the falls we headed to a local hot springs. I have been looking for a natural hot springs for 16 long years. This is because in college I took with some friends into the mountains of Arizona to look in vain for any natural hot springs to stop at with our little car packed with five girls!
Oh that trip was so fun and so crazy! This trip to the hot springs was a lot calmer- but I
had no idea it would basically be a huge hot tub and that my kids would not really like how hot it was! Joab was a huge sport to help the kids play while I held Salome who put it well when she just said "HOT" every time she went in!


Feeling hot hot hot. And happy that 16 years later I was able to take my three kids to the springs! Love you Laura Lynn, Kori and Laura! These are some of the girls who went on that car adventure so many years ago!

You may be asking how did you get to the falls and springs? And who in the world is Mr. Kittipot? Well this delightful and full of energy man was our driver to these places. We hired him to take us around on his huge motorcycle. Joab had reserved a van for the day but we learned in the morning we could only have Mr. Kittipot (this is what the sign on his bike said and what he answered to when I called out to him above the drone of the bike). This guy likes to party! He liked to play the music loud and drive fast and make us laugh with all the American music he put on. He also liked to stop along the way!

Once we all got situated on his bike (which is not very easy with three kids, a picnic , swimming stuff and a baby backpack) he stops about ten minutes after leaving our hotel at a hospital. I thought perhaps he was getting sick, having a heart attack , or thought we were sick! He parks and then take a plastic bag full of cooked rice and meat from somewhere in the bike and says "five minutes". And he races off to only come back two minutes later to get something else in the bike. We are now really confused when he comes back and zooms off fast until he stops in about five minutes on the side of the road. He turns the bike off and from under his seat takes out a huge water bottle filled with gasoline. He then "fills her up" and we zoom off again. Only to stop in about twenty minutes at a gas station (did we not just do this with whatever was in the water bottle?!). While he tops off the bike he explains that his wife just had a baby and he needed to bring some food to his wife at the hospital! With that we zoom off with music blaring. Another twenty minutes and we stop for some water for him. Our last unscheduled stop with Mr.Kittipot was after the falls hike when we see this sign all in Thai writing with a cement fish in front of a shop. He pulls in, shuts off the bike and says "come". Joab and the kids "come" and he gets some fish food and shows Joab how to feed the fish that live in the nearby river we are passing. Were we suppose to catch fish or just feed them? We are unsure and in the middle of eating our lunch on the bike (while we zoom off to the hot springs).

We enjoyed many laughs, singing old songs and a memorable picnic on the back of Mr.Kittipot's bike today! One of my favorite things in the world is to look over at Joab as we zoom around the mountains of Thailand on the back of Mr. Kittipot's bike ; thinking I love him even more than I did when we first came to visit Thailand over twelve years ago.

Our very hot children at the hot springs next to the bike that got us there!