- Loi Krathong: This week, Thailand celebrated Loi Krathong. In Chiang Mai, they also celebrate/combine this holiday with the Yi Peng festival (read more here), and boy do they know how to throw a festival. The whole week was absolutely spectacular. We went to the opening ceremony a few days ago, and for the first time heard this lovely little tune: Once was enough to get it stuck in my head, but just in case it wasn't.....they played it everywhere, all the time, all week. There was a parade each night, and each was more extravagant than the previous night's. The real party, however, was at the river. There were oodles of fireworks and oodles of teenagers anxious to set them off (we're not talking the dinky safe kind either), countless krathong stands, and hundreds of people setting off hot air balloons. The hot air balloons were beeeautiful. It looked like someone had thrown stars into the sky, but these were dreamy and constantly moving.
- Pictures: I've discovered (or confirmed, really) that my photography skills are abysmal. However! I am taking pictures. This is a significant accomplishment. I really will put them online someday, but just a heads up....there will be 4 albums: exciting thailand trip pictures, ridiculous dogs, backs of heads of people who decided to stand right in front of me while i was taking a picture, and white guys who obviously moved to Thailand so they could get a girlfriend.
- Cooking school: Sarah and I went to cooking school today at one of our favorite Chiang Mai restaurants. We'd gone a week or so ago to a class run by an organic farm outside of town. During that class, we met some very interesting people, enjoyed the beautiful farm, learned a lot, and left absolutely stuffed. This time around it was just the two of us and the restaurant owner in her home kitchen, and it beat the pants off the other class. We went ot the market that morning with her husband who taught us a lot about the different things we could buy there and how they're used in cooking. We came back and spent the afternoon with Kanjana, who was an excellent teacher and very patient.
- Haircut: It is not horrendous! She did a great job.
- Starbucks: Always there to remind me that it's the holiday season in the US. Dark cherry mocha and cranberry bliss bar, fa la la la la. However, should you find yourself in Chiang Mai getting coffee at Starbucks and feel compelled to take a picture....do not. They will get mad.
- Monk chat: We've had some really interesting conversations with Em at one of the temples near our guest house. We're hoping we can bring him a monk "care package" (they sell them all over the city) before we leave.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
This is just going to be a random list of things. Sorry :-P
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Saturday, November 8, 2008
A watermelon shake and a cataloup shake....
That's all it took to put me right again. The trek was a blast. Dan and Clint, twins from New Zealand, Tim from Australia, Sarah, and I piled into the back of a pickup truck (with a roof!) and drove a few hours north. We did stop at the Tourist police office so they could give us some safety information and make sure we were all accounted for, but if this trek had been in the US I'm pretty sure there would have been about 19 safety forms to sign and far more life jackets involved. Nu was a great guide though and we all came out alive, so nown we can just look back and laugh.
First day was a few hours of hiking with a waterfall stop. (I'll probably post again about the trek once I have pictures). This is when we saw the first signs of the magic one can do with a big knife and some bamboo. Nu and our porter disappeared and did some some chopping, and 10 minutes later we had a bridge to cross the river with! 3 minutes later, the bridge was gone.
We spent the night in a Lahu village. That was a bizarre and fascinating experience that I'll have to recount when I have more computer time (maybe in the picture post). The Lahu tribe is from Burma and moved to the village 35 years ago or so. Apparently only half of them are in Thailand legally, so whenever the police come....the other half run across the border again until the police are gone.
The next day we did 4 or 5 hours of hiking, and my quads did lots of burning. Hong, our porter for that leg of the journey would periodically disappear from the trail and we'd hear more chopping. We ended our hike at a picnic site beside a river, where Hong proceeded to turn two bamboo logs into 5 bowls and handed out freshly whittled chopsticks!
The neeext leg of our journey was a bamboo raft to the village we stayed in the second night. The bamboo rafting was awesome. I don't have a picture to post yet, but just to give you an ideal....
It was a lazy river with a few light rapids, so we mostly just watched the mountains, trees and flowers go by. The highlight was the passionfruit that Nu picked as we floated along.
The second night we stayed with the Lisu hill tribe, who came to Thailand from China several hundred years ago. Their village was about half the size as the first one but much closer to cities, so there were more modern conveniences it seemed like. However, our accomdations were pretty much the same, a hut with a raised floor.....only this time with multicolored mosquito nets. Again, this village was fascinating, but less awkward than the first. This village also had more vocal animals. We had a pig friend that "slept" (maybe she just snores a lot?) under our hut, a cow that sleepwalks with a bell around its neck, chatty dogs, and roosters that really need somebody to tell them when the sun comes up.
Today we went caving and rode elephants, which were both lots of fun. Elephants are massive and bats smell bad.
The fruit shakes were glorious and now I'm going to sit here and hurt.
Love you all!
First day was a few hours of hiking with a waterfall stop. (I'll probably post again about the trek once I have pictures). This is when we saw the first signs of the magic one can do with a big knife and some bamboo. Nu and our porter disappeared and did some some chopping, and 10 minutes later we had a bridge to cross the river with! 3 minutes later, the bridge was gone.
We spent the night in a Lahu village. That was a bizarre and fascinating experience that I'll have to recount when I have more computer time (maybe in the picture post). The Lahu tribe is from Burma and moved to the village 35 years ago or so. Apparently only half of them are in Thailand legally, so whenever the police come....the other half run across the border again until the police are gone.
The next day we did 4 or 5 hours of hiking, and my quads did lots of burning. Hong, our porter for that leg of the journey would periodically disappear from the trail and we'd hear more chopping. We ended our hike at a picnic site beside a river, where Hong proceeded to turn two bamboo logs into 5 bowls and handed out freshly whittled chopsticks!
The neeext leg of our journey was a bamboo raft to the village we stayed in the second night. The bamboo rafting was awesome. I don't have a picture to post yet, but just to give you an ideal....
It was a lazy river with a few light rapids, so we mostly just watched the mountains, trees and flowers go by. The highlight was the passionfruit that Nu picked as we floated along.
The second night we stayed with the Lisu hill tribe, who came to Thailand from China several hundred years ago. Their village was about half the size as the first one but much closer to cities, so there were more modern conveniences it seemed like. However, our accomdations were pretty much the same, a hut with a raised floor.....only this time with multicolored mosquito nets. Again, this village was fascinating, but less awkward than the first. This village also had more vocal animals. We had a pig friend that "slept" (maybe she just snores a lot?) under our hut, a cow that sleepwalks with a bell around its neck, chatty dogs, and roosters that really need somebody to tell them when the sun comes up.
Today we went caving and rode elephants, which were both lots of fun. Elephants are massive and bats smell bad.
The fruit shakes were glorious and now I'm going to sit here and hurt.
Love you all!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
:)
I have 19 things I want to share, but we have to leave in 5 minutes for our great trek into the jungle. I'll just leave a little note about the election though...
We watched the coverage with a bunch of local expats and some other foreigners who were interested in both the election and watching the Americans watch the election. It was so cool. I think everyone, inlcuding myself, constantly went back and forth between being jubilant and crying. After we left that party it was strange, and I kind of wished I was in the US for a day. Life was going on as normal and nobody was talking about it :-P
Sad about proposition 8, but so so excited otherwise....and relieved!
We watched the coverage with a bunch of local expats and some other foreigners who were interested in both the election and watching the Americans watch the election. It was so cool. I think everyone, inlcuding myself, constantly went back and forth between being jubilant and crying. After we left that party it was strange, and I kind of wished I was in the US for a day. Life was going on as normal and nobody was talking about it :-P
Sad about proposition 8, but so so excited otherwise....and relieved!
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Revisiting the pharmacist
A quick trip to the pharmacist around the corner pretty much cured my leg woes. The ol' legs have done an excellent job carrying me around the city all day. Sarah had a rough day today (too much delicious fruit?), so I went back to see if they could help us out again. I returned with a magical stomach potion that had ginger AND mint and some bonus rhubarb too! The woman on the bottle looked extremely happy so we're hoping that's what Sarah will look like when she wakes up in the morning :)
Today was supposed to be decision day....should we go to Laos or Cambodia? what are the "must do" things before we leave Chiang Mai? Where we can we watch the election results? It seems like having even a rough calendar mapped out will take away some of the stress over wanting to do everything and not having time. So far we've decided that both Laos and Cambodia would be awesome, there are lots of things we want to do in Chiang Mai, and that UN's Irish Pub seems to be the place to go. (One decision down!)
I did some more walking around Chiang Mai, which is very accessible by foot. We're staying in the old city, which is surrounded by a moat and is primarily a pseudo-grid of "soi" or alleys. The city center and the Ping River are to the east, which is where you'll find the night bazaar (not my favorite of the many markets we've been to), silk and fabric shops, the large produce market (see old post), etc.
Tonight was also the Sunday Market, and although I was thinking I was marketed out at this point, it's my favorite of the ones we've been to so far. It had a wider variety of crafts from some of the hill tribes which were a nice change of pace from endless stalls selling fisherman's pants. (By the way, you all need some of these pants. I wore my new ones today, and they are literally the most comfortable things I've ever worn. I only looked a little bit like a hippie earth mother.) The market was also dotted with musicians ranging from a 5 member Thai boy band to a one man band playing 4 instruments (there were lots of toes involved).
And now, bedtime. We have to wake up early for cooking school!
Today was supposed to be decision day....should we go to Laos or Cambodia? what are the "must do" things before we leave Chiang Mai? Where we can we watch the election results? It seems like having even a rough calendar mapped out will take away some of the stress over wanting to do everything and not having time. So far we've decided that both Laos and Cambodia would be awesome, there are lots of things we want to do in Chiang Mai, and that UN's Irish Pub seems to be the place to go. (One decision down!)
I did some more walking around Chiang Mai, which is very accessible by foot. We're staying in the old city, which is surrounded by a moat and is primarily a pseudo-grid of "soi" or alleys. The city center and the Ping River are to the east, which is where you'll find the night bazaar (not my favorite of the many markets we've been to), silk and fabric shops, the large produce market (see old post), etc.
Tonight was also the Sunday Market, and although I was thinking I was marketed out at this point, it's my favorite of the ones we've been to so far. It had a wider variety of crafts from some of the hill tribes which were a nice change of pace from endless stalls selling fisherman's pants. (By the way, you all need some of these pants. I wore my new ones today, and they are literally the most comfortable things I've ever worn. I only looked a little bit like a hippie earth mother.) The market was also dotted with musicians ranging from a 5 member Thai boy band to a one man band playing 4 instruments (there were lots of toes involved).
And now, bedtime. We have to wake up early for cooking school!
Friday, October 31, 2008
Northward
Yesterday (which guest house man tells me was Thursday) Sarah and I waved goodbye to Ko Samet and took the overnight train to Chiang Mai. They were out of first class cabins and second class sleeper cabins so we decided to try our luck with second class seats. It was a festival of new smells and sounds, but there were some lovely jungle views.
I'm soooo excited for all that Chiang Mai and the surrounding area holds, but it's going to be difficult deciding how to spend our time here. Today we checked in to our guest house with free wireless (woo!), walked around to get our bearings, and ate some delicious overnight bus ride recovery food. (I'm probably going to talk about food a lot throughout the trip, feel free to tune out if you're not interested :-P) I got a pumpkin curry that was just spicy enough to leaving me sweating (glowing?) but that didn't require a recovery period (as the curries have thusfar), a shockingly purple dragon fruit shake, and a...maz...ing mango sticky rice for dessert. Sarah described the sticky rice well: the perfect combination of salty, sweet, creamy, and fresh.
We've heard that the Sunday market is not to be missed, but today we walked through a couple of the markets that are held on a daily basis. The first was exclusively produce/meat/fish. The vegetables and fruits were abundant and beautiful, and there were many I'd never seen before. Umpteen different kinds of ginger, chiles, garlic, etc. The other one offered dried foods and textiles, but we didn't spend very long there because I'd become afflicted with my terrible condition.
My terrible condition: golfer's vasculitis. This is something that primarily affects people over the age of 50 (if you round to the nearest 50 that's me?) Yup. It is a lovely rash thing on your legs that according to google, is just now becoming a "legit" condition and is basically just a pain. I was mostly annoyed and not overly concerned until the woman at our guesthouse who organizes the treks learned of the situation. She was extremely helpful and told me the name of a clinic that treats patients whose bones are being eaten away and also skin conditions. She also (very generously) shared some cream that her friend's daughter uses on her skin. (I'm using it on a test spot this evening!)
It better be cured before trekking next week! (Guesthouse woman would not let me go this week :-P Probably a wise decision on her part.)
Love you all!
I'm soooo excited for all that Chiang Mai and the surrounding area holds, but it's going to be difficult deciding how to spend our time here. Today we checked in to our guest house with free wireless (woo!), walked around to get our bearings, and ate some delicious overnight bus ride recovery food. (I'm probably going to talk about food a lot throughout the trip, feel free to tune out if you're not interested :-P) I got a pumpkin curry that was just spicy enough to leaving me sweating (glowing?) but that didn't require a recovery period (as the curries have thusfar), a shockingly purple dragon fruit shake, and a...maz...ing mango sticky rice for dessert. Sarah described the sticky rice well: the perfect combination of salty, sweet, creamy, and fresh.
We've heard that the Sunday market is not to be missed, but today we walked through a couple of the markets that are held on a daily basis. The first was exclusively produce/meat/fish. The vegetables and fruits were abundant and beautiful, and there were many I'd never seen before. Umpteen different kinds of ginger, chiles, garlic, etc. The other one offered dried foods and textiles, but we didn't spend very long there because I'd become afflicted with my terrible condition.
My terrible condition: golfer's vasculitis. This is something that primarily affects people over the age of 50 (if you round to the nearest 50 that's me?) Yup. It is a lovely rash thing on your legs that according to google, is just now becoming a "legit" condition and is basically just a pain. I was mostly annoyed and not overly concerned until the woman at our guesthouse who organizes the treks learned of the situation. She was extremely helpful and told me the name of a clinic that treats patients whose bones are being eaten away and also skin conditions. She also (very generously) shared some cream that her friend's daughter uses on her skin. (I'm using it on a test spot this evening!)
It better be cured before trekking next week! (Guesthouse woman would not let me go this week :-P Probably a wise decision on her part.)
Love you all!
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Bungalows....
Sarah and I have learned several things in Ko Samet (which has been absolutely lovely):
- "Bungalow" can mean many many different things. For example, it can mean the incredibly adorable little hut with the porch and rocking chairs that overlooks the ocean. It can also mean the little box about a 15 minute walk up the mud hill with holes in the screens and a construction site next door. You neeeever know.
- Sometimes....hotel that makes no claim of a beach view>>bungalow.
- Dogs that live on Ko Samet are probably the happiest in the world. Their schedule consists of eating scraps people give them at the beachside cafes, Taking a nap in the shade of the unused beach umbrellas, eating lunch scraps, taking a cool down swim in the ocean, dinner scraps, and watching the sun set in a little ball in the sand.
- Fruit is definitely still delicious.
We've spent two full days here....mostly reading on the beach. There's a hostel type thing that's popular with backpackers that serves a great breakfast. We've gone and had our daily coffee and eggs, but THIS morning I discovered the banana breakfast sandwich. They apparently bake all their own bread, so they take a couple slices of that....put some bananas and cinnamon on it, and then grill it until it's gooey goodness. I will sorely miss it. The island has been nice. It's an interesting mix of Thai people, European families, and backpackers. Also, the water is a color I don't think I've seen before. Sarah and I came to the conclusion that it's decidedly not Caribbean colored....more of a muted jade green.
Tomorrow we're taking a bus back to Bangkok and then hopefully an overnight train to Chiang Mai. We're hoping to set up shop there for awhile.
As always, miss you and hope you're all doing well :)
PS. Saltwater has taken my hair down to medium huge.
Pictures:
1. These are from the ferry ride over to Ko Samet.
2. This was our bungalow
3. This was better than the bungalow
4. Ko Samet dogs taking their morning nap
5. This house belongs to the family who rented us beach chairs each day.
6. A favorite beachfront dinner spot for both Sarah and I and the Ko Samet dogs.
7. Just a lovely rainbow :)
8. Our other favorite waterfront eatery....I wasn't very good at capturing the ambiance her at night.
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