Richardson Family Raconteur: Flashback Friday

We used to be adventurous.

I've decided to try and use Fridays to post flashbacks of the Richardson family and show some of the things we've done of note over the years that I'd like to include in our archives. This will also give me the opportunity/motivation to scan in and preserve many of our older photos, and use them as well in telling our story.

Yesterday was the 7th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and I flashback to where we were on that day.

On September 11, 2001 our family was living and working in Bangkok, Thailand. Bangkok was exactly 11 hours ahead of New York, so the attacks happened on the evening of September 11th for us. I was home putting our three-year-old twins to bed while Peter was attending "Tuesday Night Music Club", which was a group of our fellow teachers gathering at an apartment to practice their instruments together. I was 7 months pregnant with Henry. I happened to be watching CNN when the first plane hit, so I saw the coverage live almost from the start. Peter came home later in the evening and we watched the towers fall together. We stayed up watching the news while several family members called us from home. We finally went to bed way too late, shocked and exhausted.

I also remember what happened earlier in that day as well, because it was a bit of an adventure.

Peter and I had been planning to take a trip to the north of Thailand with our nanny and our kids before Henry was born so our nanny could show us her home village and we could get in one more trip before our new baby arrived. We decided the best way to do this was to take the overnight train between Bangkok and Udon Thani, the closest "big city" to our nanny's rural village. I decided to just go to our local train station in our Bangkok suburb and buy our tickets instead of trying to go downtown to the big Central Station, or using a travel agent. So the kids, the nanny Alunee, and I piled into our wonderful Suzuki jeep and searched out the local station, located in a nearby neighborhood. We had to walk along the track for several hundred yards before we came to the small platform/station. As usual, people would stop and stare at the strange foreign "madam" and the little blond kids and wonder what they were doing here, far from the typical tourist, or even normal ex-pat, sites. My nanny fielded all sorts of questions from the locals as she always did. She also had to do all of the train ticket transacting as the man behind the window spoke no English, and I spoke Thai like a two-year-old, at best. We secured our purchase, and made our way back to our jeep which was parked along the side of the road. We watched a train or two pass by, and bought some kabobs of fresh fruit from the ubiquitous vendors along the road before heading home. It was an area that we never went to, not many foreigners did, just a typical Thai neighborhood with its residents doing what they do. I loved taking outings like these around Bangkok. I found they were often as, if not more, interesting than the places found in all of the travel guides.

I still have the ticket stubs for that train trip, as well as my receipt from that day, stamped September 11, 2001.

Here are some photos from our trip that October 2001:

Our nanny, Alunee, with the twins on the train north

Peter holding Jack outside our train car - the engine was

rumbling loud and Jack was nervous

Jack and I after our arrival in Udon Thani

We passed this building in the taxi on the way to the

car rental place in Udon Thani and recognized it immediately
as the local LDS branch

We came back with our rental car and took some photos and talked to some of
the people at the branch - this customized truck was in the parking lot

Meeting friends of Alunee in her home village in Nong Bua Lamphu Provence,
located about 20 miles in the countryside from Udon Thani -
Harriet and Jack soon rebelled at all of the attention