The Reckers Visit + Khao Lak, Thailand

Sawasdee-kha Family and Friends,

We hope you’re well and that this recent snow storm is not causing you headaches! As you all know, our dear friends, Ellen and Jared Recker, visited us right after the holidays for a beach vacation in Thailand and some exploration time in Singapore. It was relaxing time together filled with lots of food and chatting about life, a perfect combination.

Khao Lak, Thailand

After the work day on Friday, 27 December, we jumped on a 2-hour flight to Phuket, Thailand, then drove one hour north to a small southwestern coastal town named Khao Lak, where we would check into our villa and meet the Reckers later that night. This was the first time we met our visitors within the region before their visit to Singapore, which worked out nicely beside a few flight delays.

2004 tsunami. Some of you may recognize the name Khao Lak, as it was one of the regions hit extremely hard by the 26 December, 2004 tsunami, known as the deadliest tsunami (and possibly natural disaster) in history claiming nearly 1/4 of a million lives in 14 different countries. We visited the region almost exactly 15 years later (to the day) and while the area has since bounced-back very well, there are frequent reminders of the tsunami throughout the region. If you are up to it, you could watch the movie ‘The Impossible‘ on Netflix, which depicts a real family’s survival journey after the tsunami unexpectedly hit Khao Lak. Note, this movie follows a tourist family and not a local Thai family, and while the movie doesn’t do a great job of depicting that both were impacted, it does do an incredible job depicting how difficult surviving the surprise tsunami was for those affected.

Beachfront living. We stayed at a narrow-but-tall and beautifully decorated, 4-story beachfront villa overlooking the gorgeous waters. While there are many wonderful resorts within the region, staying more rural like we did affords more local interaction, something we treasure. Our first day was spent lounging and allowing the Reckers to start to adjust to the big time change. Our incredible host drove us to city center, about 10 minutes north of the villa, where we had a great lunch and grocery shopped for our breakfasts and snaaaaacks. After watching the sunset on the beach, we stuck close to home for dinner eating at a restaurant around the corner, with great Thai food.

Day trips and cooking class. On Sunday, 29 December, each couple separately did an exploration day trip. The Reckers headed to the rainforest for some adventure tubing and the Jansens headed to Khao Sok National Park for some lazy lake exploration and bamboo river rafting. That night we ate at Mr. Ju’s, a local restaurant that serves, hands-down, the best Thai food we’ve ever eaten. Mrs. Ju does all of the cooking and their restaurant is truly a small family affair. Mrs. Ju was also recognized by the King of Thailand, 2 years ago, for her incredible food. A picture Mr. Ju proudly shares with his patrons. A well-deserved accomplishment. Sleep came early and easily that night, as we were all cashed from the adventurous day and fun in the sun. The next morning, we all headed to a local market with our cooking class host, Pui, who taught us all about the ingredients we would be using during our cooking class. Pui’s open-air kitchen was beautifully surrounded by greenery and sweet-lovin’ pups and kitties. There was even a reading nook Samantha swooned over. We’d HIGHLY recommend Pui’s cooking class to anyone. She truly has a well-oiled class, as we made 8 Thai dishes with her and ate them as a group in only 3 hours. That evening after dinner, we all got much needed massages… the first massage experience EVER for the Reckers! They were not disappointed.

Animal friends. As is with many small beach towns in southeast Asia, there were many neighborhood puppers. We befriended our neighbors’ dogs, who would walk us to the beach and greet us every time we departed/returned to the villa. The sweetest of these were a little black and white puppy and an older pup whose fur was pretty matted. Samantha affectionately called the matted pup ‘Dreads’, while Travis called her ‘Mange’… to Samantha’s disapproval. We also adopted two hermit crabs, Hubert and Mr. Ju (yes we named one after our favorite restaurateur), from the beach for two days and then returned to the wild after we facilitated a fancy shell upgrade by Hubert. He looked great in his new digs. Finally, we couldn’t write this blog without mentioning Bob, our massive 2″ villa cockroach. For those of you freaking out, cockroaches are akin to spiders in the midwest. They’re not comforting but they happen. Anyway, he was huge and was captured for a period of time under a bamboo cup only to be accidentally released again by Travis when he went to “rid” the villa of him. Subsequent to his stealthy escape, he and Samantha had a stare down at 1AM the following night… he again escaped never to be seen again.

Anniversary beach day. Team Jansen celebrated Baby Boy Jansen’s half-way mark and their 9-year wedding anniversary on 31, December with the Reckers. It was the perfect day spent at the beach playing frisbee (or the flying machine as the local packaging stated), reading in the sand chair that Travis dug-out by hand, eating snacks, and chatting. That evening we released a Thai sky (paper) lantern and a wish on the beach and then walked the beach to Mr. Ju’s for our last proper Thai meal of the trip. Our dinner there was even more special as Mr. Ju felt comfortable sharing his and his family’s tsunami story with us, while still difficult an extremely fortunate one as he would say in comparison to many others, and Travis set a record of being the first white guy to ask for “Pet Mak Mak” or Thai hot spice-level and enjoy it at the restaurant. Mrs. Ju had to subsequently add more heat because she didn’t believe Travis would be okay with Thai hot… while his glasses fogged and Ellen giggled at him, the 6 of us took a great picture together to commemorate the moment. If you are ever in Khao Lak, visit Mr. & Mrs. Ju, they and their food are incredible. We finished the evening playing euchre on the 4th-story balcony and welcomed 2020 into our lives by watching the fireworks and lanterns both being released from the beach. The next day we arrived in Singapore around dinner time.

Overall. Overall our trip to Khao Lak was perfection. It boasted among the best beaches we’ve been to in the region. We ate too much green curry, made many animal friends, met and befriended some wonderful people, and learned a great deal about the area, the culture, and food. We did all this with great friends by our side for the ride.

The Reckers in Singapore

After our trip to Thailand, the Reckers stayed with us in Singapore until the late evening of 5 January, 2020. Our four days together in Singapore can be summarized by ‘slow and steady’. The pace in which the Reckers wanted to explore Singapore matched perfectly to Samantha’s pregnant self and Travis’ over-worked self. Throughout our time in Singapore together, we explored Gardens by the Bay (including both domes, Floral Fantasy, and the Supertree Grove day and night), ate szechuan in Chinatown and explored her Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, ate some pretty tasty Indian food in Tekka hawker after exploring the Tekka wet market, ate chili crab and pepper crab with the port as our backdrop in East Coast Park with the Donaldsons, after which the 6 of us finished the evening with beer towers in the happening Arab Quarter on Haji Lane. We also took a Singaporean cooking class from the sweetest Auntie (Mummy Soh), ate a stellar dinner at LAVO at the top of Marina Bay Sands hotel overlooking Singapore as the sun set, and had a fun game night filled with Scrabble (Jared for the win) and Pandemic (a cooperative game that we beat as a team). If you’re thinking, ‘Damn, they ate and cooked a lot of food!”, you’re right, the four of us sure love food. We also kept active by hiking MacRitchie Reservoir where we saw a monitor lizard and a handful of monkeys. Probably our favorite thing about the Reckers visiting were our chats. We talked about life, parenting, and the future. We sure miss these two and fingers crossed, they visit again soon!

Shout-out to Jared for helping Travis with Baby Jansen’s used dresser! He helped pick-up and move it into our condo. Your help was much appreciated!

We’ll be pretty quiet for the next two weeks, as the Bomstads are visiting us during that time and we’ll be celebrating the Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year)!!

All our love,

xo Team Jansen