Mr. & Mrs. Moe: Pattaya Vacation, July 2010

Things aren't great, but that's still no reason to simply not do anything about how life goes for us. Rather than give in to the easy downward spiral of resignation, Little Nio and I have decided to take a road trip and a vacation in Pattaya — a father and son outing that will help reinforce the bond between us. If I'm going to be a father to my son, I suppose I have to put in the time. There was a long weekend break due to a public holiday, and it was a terrific opportunity to get away.

Here we are ready to start our drive early in the morning. With several free-night vouchers and a good membership card to a chain of hotels, it wasn't too difficult to find a hotel destination that would be clean, safe and inexpensive. Too bad you can only use one voucher at a time.

Not enough time for a decent breakfast at home, Little Nio takes a bottle of milk formula on the road with us. We've slowly started weaning him away from the bottle.

According to Dr. Spock one way to do this is to alter the ratio or formulation. By weakening the potency of the mix the child is slowly made to turn to other types of food and drink for sustenance. It used to be a 1:1 ratio of formula to water, but now we've reduced it to 1:4.

My father says that Little Nio will give up the bottle when he's good and ready. No point in stressing over it. The milk formula he's been drinking since he was a little baby has done him a world of good.

The open road. Driving along the elevated toll way road to Chonburi province. Even though the roads are great, we try to keep our speed to a maximum of 120 kph. It's an easy drive this early in the morning with fairly light traffic. Our first destination will be the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Chonburi province, which is roughly 85% of the way to Pattaya, roughly another 20 minutes driving.

Here we are taking a rest stop at a fuel station with a convenience store for a quick bite to eat. After some real food, Little Nio decides that a popsicle is a well deserved breakfast dessert.

Arriving at the Tiger Zoo, Little Nio is excited about all the many options and does a funny dance near the entrance. My son is a real character and he is very funny.

The entrance fee is 300 THB for adults and 250 THB for children. The rates are different for foreigners, but fortunately my accent and grasp of the language is passable.

Tigers are one of Little Nio's all time favorite animals. When I dressed him up in his tiger shirt and then he saw the real tigers he made the connection instantly. He was very excited, pointing to the tiger on his belly and exclaiming that they were the "same" as the large cats behind the glass. He kept pointing to them and exclaiming "big ti-yer". He hasn't quite mastered the hard "g" sound yet, but we're working on it.

Crocodiles are another of Little Nio's favorite animals and seeing these life size sculptures gave him the shudders. A curious but reserved distance. He watches the Animal Planet channel so he has a healthy respect for wild animals and what they are capable of doing.

Little Nio points to the baby crocodiles kept behind a glass enclosure. He spent a few minutes watching them move around in the water.

He was absolutely delighted with the young deer. The young fawns were all at the feeding trough when we walked up to their pen, but it was good there was another one at a petting station we visited later on.

Little Nio kept a very respectful distance from the elephants at the zoo. I've seen way too many freak accident videos to want him any closer than this, specially without any kind of barriers or fencing. Not his first time to see elephants, so he wasn't too impressed.

He was fascinated by the orangutans wearing tee-shirts, but not so much that he would get close or sit with them.

Here's Little Nio making friends with one of the baby deer. We spent almost half a hour here with this little faun. I tried to teach him the word "deer" and "fawn", but he kept insisting that he call the little deer, "friend".

Here he is feeding the baby tigers. I have very confused feelings about this. On one hand, I am delighted that my son has the opportunity to find out first hand about wild animals in a controlled environment. But, on the other hand, because of the terrible conditions I cannot help feel that this is very cruel to the animals. I am not sure what the options are, but having seen this first hand I do not think that this is best for the animals.

These photos were taken at the crocodile show. I'm ambivalent about cruelty to crocodiles. I suppose it's because they're cold blooded killers and I have watched them inflict so much harm on all other species. With a show like this one, I figure that the crocodiles have a pretty good opportunity to vent any grievances they might have.

Ironically, just outside the crocodile show arena was a stall selling crocodile satay. Naturally we had to try it. It's like a funny mix between fish and chicken. Interesting, but not as palatable as frog's legs for example. Not exactly our idea of yummy.

Little Nio drinks some refreshing coconut water to help wash down the taste of deep fried reptile.

And of course an ice cream to make sure that there's no after taste.

We finally arrived at our hotel, the Hotel Ibis Pattaya at around one in the afternoon. After checking in and gathering up all our gear we went to settle in to our tiny hotel room. While his daddy was putting things away and preparing his bath, Little Nio jumps in bed to try out the mattress and bed linen.

After a nice warm shower and a fresh change of clothes, Little Nio goes down for a late lunch at the hotel restaurant. Fortunately they are serving his favorite "khao pad moo", or fried rice with pork, with an extra order of "phorpiya thort", or fried spring rolls.

Having eaten and walked around the hotel a bit, Little Nio retires back to the hotel room for a bottle of formula milk and a power nap. He slept for a little over two hours and got a fresh boost of energy for the rest of the day. I sometimes wish that I could still take a power nap like that in the middle of the day.

Arriving at Central Festival Pattaya for the very first time ever. Little Nio strikes a pose at the entrance to the mall from the parking area. As always, he's got his trusty white hard hat on. Not so much for safety, but you can't really be sure you'll never need it.

Our timing for a visit here is perfect as we fortunately timed it with an awesome Ice Cream Festival. More than twenty different ice cream, sorbet and gellato stalls set up shop to sell their delicious goods. Little Nio was definitely up to the challenge of tasting a few of the goodies on display.

Here's Little Nio meeting up with Khun Jiew, Daddy's officemate. Her family owns property in Pattaya, and every long weekend she makes it a point to visit here. This long weekend gave Little Nio an opportunity to spend a bit of time with her. Here he is working on a bit of coloring at the Ice Cream Festival.

One of the fun things we did together is that Little Nio and I went to watch the movie, "Despicable Me" in 3D at the cinema there.

We got tickets for a nice big sofa seat, bought a soda, a bottle of water and a bag of popcorn and had ourselves a grand time. I spent half of the time watching in gob smacked fascination as my son was reacting to the animated film.

He laughed in all the right places, got anxious during a chase scene and incessantly kept asking me "what happening, Dad?" when he couldn't follow the plot. I need to reassure him, "don't worry, son, your dad looses the plot quite frequently so there's nothing to trouble you on that account."

Here's Little Nio enjoying dinner at Hachiban Ramen after the movie. Nothing like a tasty bowl of Japanese style fried rice to settle a hungry little tummy. This is one of our favorite restaurants as the food is clean, nutritious and tasty, the portions are generous, and the price is fairly reasonable. Plus the service is quick and very efficient.

Dinner was great and Little Nio was looking around for a nice dessert when he spotted this giant ice cream cone. It was part of a display for an Italian restaurant, but was fortunately not on the menu and definitely inedible.

We tried leaving the mall, but after seeing the long queue out the down ramp we decided to spend a bit of time on the arcade rides. After half a dozen rides and a handful of games we bid the mall goodbye and drove back to our hotel.