We had to walk up these HUGE steps. Up, up, up, up to get to our bungalo.  The wood steps at the end were almost as tall as me.   That was a place before, and now there are only little steps.

 

In some bathrooms the whole room is like a shower with a drain in the corner of the wall.  The sink just drains onto the floor and the toilet doesn’t have a place to sit, just spots for your feet.

On Koh Phangan, some people there started calling me Chicken because Dad says my name sort of sounds like that to them.  At first it made me mad and I growled at them, but later I think they just got confused, so I set them straight by continually telling them that “no, I’m just a kid!”.  Grown- ups get confused easily so reminders help. 

 

At the beach I like to dig.  I make a pile and the waves wash it away.  I make another pile and the waves wash that away.  I do this for hours until its time to go for dinner. 

 

There are many VERY BIG and many bugs here so Mommy and Daddy spray me with bug juice to keep them away.  It makes me stink so the bugs don’t eat me.   Sometimes they bite me anyway and I get itchy. 

 

I take a pill because some of the flying bugs have germs that could make me sick.  I don’t know what the big deal is with swallowing a pill.   It’s kind of like food, except you’re not supposed to chew it first.  Then it’s yucky.

 

Mom and Dad say there are lots of germs here.  Germs are little bugs that you can’t see.  If you can’t see them, I have noidea how the grown-ups can tell they are there, but sometimes grown-ups are weird.  Anyway, they want to give me hand sanitizer all the time and it stings my cuts but gets the little bugs I can’t see.

 

 

Where we are now there’s a place we walk passed that smells really bad.  I call it the Dump, but Dad says it’s just a garbage can.  Sometimes there is a dog standing on the top eating part of it.  We need to walk really fast to make the smell go away.

 

At the market where we get veggies some of the spots sell meat and other things.  I hold my breath or squeeze my nose to keep the smell out because it smells kind of like the Dump. 

 

Sometimes nobody else is talking so I tell them stories about what I did earlier or explain to them that we’re in Thailand which is NOT Canada.  It’s so different I’m not sure it’s the same planet.  Or I make up a cool story about my toys and it’s really exciting.  The grown-ups think so too.

 

When we’re walking around, I see things that look like Thailand so I shout out “now, THIS is Thailand!” so my parents and Jenna know we are finally here.   I’ve been on planes and cars and boats and trains and buses and song-towels [pick-ups with bench seats in the back] and tuk-tuks [motorcycle trikes] and long walks and every so often I think we finally get to where we are going.  This is a very long trip. 

 

For breakfast I keep asking for eggs and toast and pickles and ham.  So far it hasn’t happened yet.  I don’t think Thailand has pickles.   Now I just ask for porridge, because they seem to know what that is.

 

When we walk around town, a lot of the people here want to touch my face.  They reach down (seemingly out of nowhere) and feel my cheeks or my chin.  I don’t like it, and since they don’t speak English, I just growl at them and try to turn away.  My parents ask me to try to be nice and use my words, but I don’t like strangers touching my face.  And besides, they don’t speak English, and I don’t speak Thai.  Growling works.

 

There are lots of changes because “this is Thailand, not Canada”, so I need to do things differently.   So far I think I’m doing pretty well.