Landing page.
Let’s start with the takeoff. We arrived at the airport at 9:30 AM. Eyal already checked us in in advance, so we had our seats reserved. The terminal was relatively empty and we progressed nicely from the counter to passport checks and handbags security scans. After spending some time in the airport’s tiny playground, we boarded (needless to say – after hearing the “last call for flight number 507”).
Aeroflot flights were highly satisfactory, except from the food, which was really hard to swallow. Luckily, we had sandwiches loaded with love from grandpa and grandma, so we could skip airplane meals. Four hours of flight and we are in the Russian winter. The airport is covered with snow. The connection was as good as they get – just enough time to find the gate and visit steady toilets, before boarding again. The kids were highly excited by the airplane experience, got personal attention and entertainment kits from the flight attendants to keep them busy. In the longer night flight, there were also personal screens, which did a great job (for the elders. The youngers fell asleep before broadcasts began). Overall, we made through the flights happy and well.
And from autumn, through winter, we landed at summer. Following our friend’s advice, we found a public taxi to the city in a highly convenient manner and very reasonably priced. And one more note about having a local friend – when you get exposed to a place and get to see it through the eyes of a local, rather than a tourist, it upgrades your experience entirely. Starting from the food, transportation, through local customs and to the people. It happened to us with Bangkok. It was our home base during our pre-children long trip to Asia, and then later – during our family trips as well, so that landing here felt like coming back to some familiar and beloved home in some sense.
The weather during this season is surprisingly pleasant. You can walk around in long jeans without sweating, and if you sweat, it is from the effort of looking over the kids. Our countryside kids, bare footers, who climb every tree they encounter, for whom the dangerous road is the ring road of the kibbutz and the big city is mighty Kiryat Shmona with its mighty four-story buildings… land into a strange new world of skyscrapers, hectic transportation, taxies, sky-trains, bridges, blinking lights, escalators and elevators, any of which is an attraction on its own. Their excitement is reaching their limits, and with all the understanding and containment, ours as well… Combined with the jetlag, that make them stay awake until 10 PM or later even after tiring days as we have, our patience does not always handle the load.
Our days in the big city were spent buying stuff we still wanted to have, looking for a descent camera (which we did not find yet so that we still rely on our phones), experiencing diverse forms of public transportation and getting intimate acquaintance with street food. The kids usually taste the local stuff and you can always count on plain rice to contradict any unwanted spiciness. One day was also spent outside the city at The Ancient City park (AKA Muang Boran) – an astonishing park both in size and beauty, filled with reproductions of key temples and building styles from all across Thailand, spread over a huge forested territory, covered with picturesque vegetation and lakes, all so clean and spectacular.
Tonight is our sixth night in Bangkok. We keep reminding ourselves that this journey we planned and dreamed of has already started, because it hasn’t entirely sunk in our minds yet. In a couple of days, we will be flying-riding-sailing to Koh Phangan. We will provide our children with some space and nature and look for a long-term home. Because home, at the end of the day, is wherever we’re together…