Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Some Advice for Parents...

Traveling 24 hours to another country (Thailand in this case) with two children under five is not recommended unless you are:

a. Not morally opposed to tranquilizing small children.
b. Insane
c. Self-loathing

I would say that traveling internationally with a one-year-old and a 3 1/2-year-old is akin to repeatedly hitting yourself over the head with a sledgehammer.

Our trip to Thailand this time around included two stops (usually one) -- the first in New York City and the second in Tokyo. The tickets were courtesy of one extremely generous father-in-law. But, I will be the first to say...never again. Never again will I stop twice with two small children on the way to a country on the other side of the world. The trip was more like 36 hours instead of 24.

Hell on earth.

I would compare hour 21 in Tokyo to a really, really, really bad acid trip. Small Japanese women running around with overly-friendly smiles and really red lips...haze of sleeplessness...feet swollen from being stationary for hours... two zombie children first whining in fast-forward and then in slow motion..three carry-on bags that seemed to be growing heavier with each stop until I was convinced my name was Sysyphus and I would never be freed from pushing that goddamn boulder up that hill over and over and over again...the feeling that I wanted to punch that guy (also known as my husband) sitting next to me for no reason at all...

On top of it, we had a two-hour delay in Tokyo that put us in Bangkok at sometime around 2 a.m.

We made it though. And, I am still relatively sane.

But wait...it's not over yet. We still have jetlag.

Stay tuned...

3 comments:

taraneh said...

i just posted a message on facebook before i read your blog about hating traveling with kids under 5!! too funny. your blog is exactly why i haven't been to iran in 5 years. and my relatives there keep pressuring me, keep egging me on to come. i was debating going this summer. thanks to your blog entry, the answer is a big fat NO. :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Rosana! It's Maryanne (Dede's friend). You are one brave soul for traveling around the world with your kids - AND TOTALLY INSANE too! Hope you guys have a great trip now that you are there! Keep up the blog - it makes for great (and very funny) lunch reading :)

Anonymous said...

Hi!
Wish you will have a great trip. You already bring them along, right?
What a story. Kekekeke...
See you around.