Extreme Forced Family Fun in Thailand

Tuangtip, a petite woman in her late 50s/early 60s, was our gracious local guide for the longboat and tuk tuk tour of Bangkok. 

“No, you may not call her twin tits,” I told my youngest, acting in his typical obnoxious form with his audience of two college age brothers back in tow. “Behave or I’ll make you drink the brown water from the Chao Phraya River,” I smiled. “And dad and I would like each of you to think of a question to ask her.” 

“Are we gonna meet any femme boys?” My 20-year-old asked, eyeing his brothers. “It’s lady boys,” I interrupted, “and no, you cannot call her twin tits if you ask five questions.” My youngest was relentlessly trying to bait me. 

Tuangtip managed to teach us about Buddha’s unique to the day of the week you were born, Buddha blessings and Thai street food in an afternoon. After two hours on the river, we docked and hopped into a tuk tuk. 

“Does anyone know why they are called tuk tuks?” Tuangtip asked. 

“Because of the sound they make,” my 15-year-old shouted over the loud noise, proving he does listen, and I didn’t learn a thing having ridden in a dozen of those rattley motorbikes in India. 

We bid farewell to Tuangtip at the pier. “Sawa-Dee-Ka” the female thank you and “Sawa-Dee-Crap” the male version, the rehearsed plan, which was polished and polite until we walked away. “No, it’s not Swastika,” I barked at my clown boys, trying not to laugh or throw them off the dock. 

We braved Khaosan Road and vendors selling fried crickets, beetles, scorpions, and spiders, before hailing a taxi for the ride south. Not one of the boys took me up on my dare, though I debated feeding one to my youngest after he asked the lady selling massages if $20 included a “happy ending.”

Khaosan Road was the first time I spotted a 7-11 across from a 7-11 (clearly 7-11 is the Starbucks of Thailand) and a McDonald’s with Ronald himself, hands together in a “Y greeting” smiling right below the neon green sign blinking “Weed Store.” As any good mom, I snapped a quick photo of my three sons beside Ronald mimicking the prayer pose. 

It hardly seemed like the eve of Christmas Eve with the blazing hot sun. We had much to be thankful for having navigated Bangkok and managing to only lose our daughter to her job teaching English up north in Chiang Rai. We were also grateful we raised three responsible sons who could float us a loan south of Bangkok. Three days of successful itinerary planning and something was bound to go wrong. Luckily, nothing that required Pepto or Imodium so I’ll chalk it up to success. 

The boys changed their Christmas dollars into Thai baht for street vendor mango slices and 7-11 delicacies and still had more than 3,000 combined Thai baht to bail out mom and dad. Not from jail, just from a hairy situation involving the driver of an XL van who didn’t speak a lick of English. A situation even Google Translate can’t help when you fail to hook your credit card up to the “Grab” taxi account. Rookie move on my part, having registered my credit card to the “Bolt” taxi app and forgetting to register it to the “Grab.” Jet lag must’ve hijacked my brain when I booked the only car service with space for mom’s luggage times five. 

Twenty minutes later, we robbed the boys, and were seated at the only hotel restaurant, Singha beers in hand, praying to the Buddha seated across the table that they would accept an actual credit card after we ate, having already agreed to stay open for us until 9pm. 

Bellies full, and after a few false starts with the credit card machine we told the boys to go “doom scroll” on the hotel’s WiFi in case things got ugly. 

“We literally have no cash,” my husband said frustrated. Kids? Plenty of those, in fact, we are blessed with kids because it rained on our wedding day according to fortune, or folk lore. Now we were stranded in Thailand with empty wallets. Debating our next move, I saw the restaurant owner’s face light up. Ca-Ching! Credit card success, and their 3% credit fee a bargain at this point. 

Same issue at the Khao Kheow Zoo the next day without an ATM in sight. Apparently this remote part of Thailand rivals the Boondocks in Iowa.  

“We flew half-way around the world to see Moo Deng,” I pleaded. The Pygmy hippo gone Instagram reels viral, who also happens to have her own YouTube account. “Can’t you just let us in?” We were out of Thai baht and I was close to faking tears when the ticket lady told me to hop on the back of her scooter. In blind faith, I grabbed her shoulders and held on. She took me to the international booth - for dumb foreigners - where another lady pointed at my phone. Klook app she showed me on hers, giving me the WiFi code to download the app. I added my credit card number hoping it wasn’t an international scam, and a few clicks later I presented the receipt before hopping back on the motorbike. 

We arrived just in time for Moo Deng’s breakfast - squash, greens, and whole bananas. The zookeeper filmed the entire meal with his iPhone on a tripod, after which time the one-year-old hippo laid down beside her mama and went to sleep. No hippo antics running around bonkers and she only bit the zookeeper’s boot once. The capybaras were more feisty, but she was hippo cute and my boys are now convinced the Instagram Moo Deng reels I send them are AI. Me? Not so much. I believe. Santa Moo Deng eating ice cream even showed up in my feed.