Sawadeeka!

PF and I have very different holidaying styles. He's really suited for chill-out-and-go-brain-dead type of spa holidays and I'm the duracell-bunny-on-speed-and-a-coffee-drip type of holiday maker. I mean, I'm here for only x number of days, so pass me the baht and call a tuk-tuk, we're going canoeing, rock-climbing, golfing, spa-ing, shopping... and THEN lunch! I'm the ultimate kiam ka na (stingy sour prune) too. When shopping, I almost get into fights over 10 baht. And usually by that time, my husband would have slunk away in embarrassment and would be of absolutely no use if I'd gotten my eyes scratched out. Of course, I then go back to Singapore and realise that I was almost blinded over 40 cents!

So that's me on holidays before kids came along. It's really different when you have kids huh? Goodbye duracell bunny, hello slow loris. No more cheong-ing until 11pm, or making full use of happy hour. You've got to think about naps, insect repellent, tea-time snacks, regular bowel movements and spare toys in the diaper bag. Not glam, not glam.

All this just means taking things really slow on holidays, MAJOR changes in one's holiday expectations and lots of beer on the plane. And in the hotel. And at dinner. And heck, how about one before dinner? You know, to dull the pain!

This was the first time I'd seen PF drink so much beer on a holiday. It all started on the flight to Phuket - a beer with his tray dinner. On Day 2, it was beer from the minimart (Phuket Lager!) and beer at dinner. On Day 3, more beer when the kids were sleeping. No beer on Day 4 because his hands were full carrying all our barang-barang, and he konked out on the plane after lunch. He drank more beer on this holiday than on all our other holidays combined! When you go on holiday with two kids under four, life's more bearable through beer goggles eh?

It was also funny that as the holiday progressed, the list of things that we'd forgotten to bring got longer and longer.

1. DN's anti-allergy medicine (Ack! Had to buy Zyrtec at the airport.)
2. DS's bath net
3. Cable for downloading pics from the camera
4. Plug Adaptor
5. DN's multi-vits

... and so on and so on. The days were peppered with, "Aiyah! We forgot to bring that!"

But all in all, it was good fun. I got to spend quality time with my mom, set my throat on fire with Tom Yum Goong, enjoyed our own private lap pool and basically did nothing constructive or useful. Quite shiok! ;)