Ouch! That Hurt

Tuesday, April 26: Day 14
Well, it was bound to happen eventually. How could it not, really? When you take a trip like this with 2 small children, you expect it. You anticipate it. You feel it's looming presence and you dread its arrival. The anticipation is almost worse than when it does finally come, almost. What do I speak of? The horrifying Day of Devil Children. Today was the day that our travel angels turned into travel demons, testing us at every turn, whining, crying, screaming, kicking, tantrums, complaining... making you want to set them down and walk away. And believe me, today Joe and I were tempted to do exactly that.
Today we planned to visit some of the many lovely Buddhist Temples all over the city of Chiang Mai. And each and every one we visited had welcoming steps that I'm quite certain our children would have been safe on as we abandoned them. I'm equally as certain that the monks would have taken good care of them and quite possibly raised them better than we are raising them.
Ahh... that almost feels better just typing it! So what exactly happened today that made me want to leave my children with Buddhist monks?
We started with a fairly uneventful breakfast, but one in which Scarlett would barely eat anything.
We went to the petting zoo, fed the animals, did the playground, then went into town. We then wandered around the gardens at the hotel until 11:00 when the free shuttle went into the city. There was lots of whining from #1 as we walked around about all of the things we were doing that she didn't care to do. And mind you, she was being carried around by yours truly.
We had the driver stop at the first temple, Wat Phra Sing where we were mobbed by tons of taxi drivers who wanted to drive us around the city checking out temples. The girls were grumpy, so we decided to get a snack across the street at a coffee shop before bringing our highly spirited children into the sanctuary of the temple.
The whole time while having the snack Audrey complained and moaned at us about how we never buy her anything (mind you, the child has been getting souvenirs in every city so far), she didn't like this, didn't like that, we were horrible and mean (all while she's munching on a piece of Dutch Apple pie that SHE picked out) and Scarlett is hitting us, NOT eating (again), doing her best 'backbends of rebellion' as if she were being judged on precision of motions, screams and tears. Joe was having an epic battle with her, so I took her outside and gave her a time out. This relaxed her a bit, so we took our chances on the temple.
It was lovely, the children cooperated and we exited unscathed.
We decided that we needed to stop and find lunch b/c Scarlett really needed to eat something. We found this fantastic little place about 1 block from the temple. It was a small restaurant attached to a guest house and was super quaint and relaxing (or should have been). We ordered a sweet & sour veggie, a chicken noodle dish and some sticky rice with mango. Surely she would eat something -NOT! Scarlett continued to be a mad child while Audrey went back to her diatribe about how we weren't doing anything for her and we were so mean. Scarlett continued with her Olympic quality performance of "I'm almost 2 tantrums" and not eating. Joe and I shoveled in bites as fast as we could and continued onto the next temple, which was across the street.
There was more of the same for both children and I tried to bring myself to some place mentally where I didn't want to either slit my own wrists (I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen often outside the doors of centuries old Buddhist temples!) or abandon my children.
I did manage to bring Audrey down a bit from her crazy train, but it was obvious that both children were just plain exhausted. A storm had slowly started moving in from the mountains and was now dropping some rain.
From being accosted by tuk tuk drivers earlier, we knew that we could get one to drive us around the city sightseeing for 60 Baht. We decided to do this to encourage naps and get out of the rain. I argued a bit with one guy who insisted on bringing us out to this "village" with streets lined with shops filled with silks, jewelry, umbrellas, etc.. All of which he ASSURED me our kids would really enjoy walking around seeing. Meanwhile, I'm standing there holding Audrey whose eyes were crossed from being so tired and Joe had Scarlett who was again revving up into her next performance. He obviously was not paying ANY attention to our kids' behavior, but we suspect he got some kind of financial kickback for bringing people out to this shopping district and that's why he was so hell bent on bringing us there. We walked away, tried another guy who said there was no way he could drive us around for an hour for 60 Baht and insisted on taking no less than 100. (He obviously WAS paying attention to the kids' behavior and was like, "There's no way in hell I am spending 1 hour with those devil kids and only getting paid 60 Baht! You people are nuts.") And yes, I realize this is only a difference of roughly $1.30. But the next guy agreed to it, so we jumped in just as the rain was really starting to come down. Scarlett was asleep within 2 blocks and Audrey enjoyed the ride for a bit, but was out about 15 minutes later. Joe and I (finally) enjoyed a moment of peace, snuggling our (again lovely & sleeping) children, shielding them from the chilly rain in the back of a tuk tuk as we drove around seeing the city of Chiang Mai.
About an hour later, the driver dropped us off at Wosret Market, which is their Chinatown. We wandered around a bit then looked for a Yellow Car to take back to the hotel. To take a taxi back out, it costs 400 Baht. The yellow car is really more of a little truck with a topper on it. It has a padded bench on each side of the truck's bed and seats about 10 people. The back has an open doorway that you just pop into. There's also a little platform with ladders on the back of the truck that can fit a couple more people and 2 more can fit in the front seat with the driver. There are no organized stops, you just push a buzzer to let the driver know you want off, and then you pay him the fare. We paid about 60 Baht for the 4 of us to go the 10+ Km.
We had intended on staying in the city for dinner, but at this point, Joe and I felt like we had been through battle and just wanted to call it a day. It was dinner and early lights out for all.
Phew.