Out With A Bangkok

We're officially out of Thailand and in Australia. It's hot and we're tired. I will be back later to comment further.

Hanging Out

We've just been hanging around in Chiang Mai for the past few days, our flight to Sydney is on Friday out of Bangkok. I feel fine, didn't take long to recover. We have been sleeping a lot though, and haven't been doing much around town. I think this is partially because I've been wanting to take it easy, and partially because we sort of felt like we already explored this city in the past 2 weeks. Not that we've seen everything - certainly not - but we're just maybe a bit burnt on wandering the same grounds a million times over, you know?

Anyway, we're excited to get down to Australia. We met an Aussie guy yesterday who said that Sydney is good for four things: cappuccino, caesar salads, a famous bridge, and no right turns. I'm excited about two of those at least, mostly the salad. My mouth waters for a good caesar salad...mmmm. He told us about a tour where you climb up the suspension cables of the bridge and we pretended to be interested. I like bridges, but prefer to stay on the ground. Sean, you can do the damn bridge climb when you come visit.

So, we fly out Friday Chiang Mai to Bangkok at 11am (arrive 12pm) then Bangkok to Sydney at 5pm, arriving at 6am Saturday morning. Kane's friend Kelvin will pick us up from the airport, bless his soul, and has offered his apartment for us to stay for a couple nights. I'll miss how cheap Thailand is, but I think Australia will feel much more like home to us.

Hospital in Thailand

I find it prudent to warn everyone that you are now in too deep to turn back. We're having a really awesome trip, but I keep having these nights that require gruesome descriptions to fully capture the mood, and you're required to come along with me. So, I'll try to tone it down on this one to a reasonable volume, but you're just going to have to clench your teeth and come to a hospital in Thailand with me.

It's Thursday night and we grab some dinner. My stomach isn't feeling too hot, but it rarely is nowadays, so I basically ignore it as usual. Let's just say the river doesn't flow to the ocean, ok?

Anyway, we have some broccoli and brown rice for dinner, to help the flow, but I need to hurry back to the hotel because I need to go potty. I go, but I still don't feel well. Soon after I throw up my nice dinner. Damn. Then this continues. I don't want to get too graphic, but let's just say that the toilet can only be used by one end of my body at once, so I need to employ the little plastic baggies for a while. I can't stop throwing up. There's nothing more in there, but I can't stop. By this time, Kane is concerned and is trying to get me to drink water and take some Immodium. He is aware that this can make a person very dehydrated and is worried. I can't drink. I can't stand. I lay in the shower shivering and dry heaving. Blood is present in both the substances exiting my body.

Kane calls his friend Sean who is local and asks him to come pick us up to take us to the hospital. Not that we couldn't have found a hospital, but it was really nice to have someone guide us to the closest and best one, which was really close to our hotel - thank you Sean! We get to the hospital and Kane carries me in. They do the I.V. thing to give me some fluids. Ask some questions, poke some places, put me in a plush room for the night. The nurse gives me 4 huge syringes of stuff through my I.V., anti-nausea stuff, antibiotics, etc., etc. I feel better already but still not normal. Through the night people come in and make me eat pills and take my blood pressure; Kane sleeps on a couch in the room. And by "sleep" I mean sits there mildly unconscious until I make the slightest movement or someone enters the room at which point he's sitting up and awaiting instruction. He's like a soldier, it's amazing. Anyway, they assess it as a case of food poisoning, though I have no idea what I ate. The doctor said it could be from something as old as 3 days ago, and with my digestive system, I thought maybe even more than that. So, really no idea, just know that my body was not happy.

Couldn't eat or drink all night, but they gave me the go ahead in the morning to drink water. Throughout the night I had to potty a few times, but no more throwing up. I didn't realize it because I felt ok laying down, but standing was a bit too much. On the way back from the bathroom at 3am, I passed out just before I made it to the bed. Kane caught me and pushed me on the bed. I then awoke and proceeded to scold him for not getting my I.V. stand over to the other side of the bed quickly enough. I'm so sweet when I'm semi-conscious.

I hung out at the hospital all day Friday; we missed our flight to Koh Samui. Oh well. I was going to stay another night, but when we found out that the cafeteria had closed I said let's get the hell out of here. We paid our bill (to be taken up with insurance later) and took a tuk-tuk home at about 9pm. It was $540 for the night and 5 more days of meds. And I came out better than when I went in - I suppose that's really all that I ask for from a hospital in Thailand.

Pai and the Road Back

Well, I'm a bit behind for reasons that will be revealed in the next post, so I'll start from where I left off in Pai. Pai is a nice town. Small, quaint, buried in a small valley amongst forested mountains in the very north west of Thailand. And it's full of tourists (and by tourists, I mean dirty hippies), which means countless guest houses, restaurants, internet cafes, and other amenities desirable to us transients. There are about 4 main blocks forming a square at the center of town that comprise the main area of town with aforementioned food vendors, etc. It reminds me of Berkeley actually (the hippies help). I'm glad we went, though I wish we'd spent a bit longer there, as we weren't able to really do much (not that we do much anyway...).

We rented scooters (110 cc Honda Click - booya!) and scooted around town and around the countryside. After realizing that I'm a bit of a spaz on the scooter, I acted like a good girlfriend and let Kane tote me around on the back of his scooter - he's far more confident of a scooter rider. I even got pretty good at taking pictures from the back of the scooter, we'll see how those turned out. Anyway, a nice 2 nights and we're on our way back.

I had been dreading the return trip, which you are probably aware of if you read my post describing the drive up. There were 2 other girls on the bus on the way back who had puked the whole way up, so at least we were all in this together. This time, there were a few factors that I think contributed to a significantly more pleasant drive on the way back: 1) The nice Aussie girl gave Kane and I some Dramamine before we left. Never again will I be without this drug - quite a godsend; 2) We were prepared for what was in store and tried to eat and drink accordingly. We at a light breakfast and some ginger tea before we left to calm the stomach. I hate ginger tea, by the way, and hope I never have to drink it again. It's making me nauseous just to think about it; 3) The minibus this time was significantly older and crappier. This made it impossible to drive up the rather steep hills as the first guy did. This driver drove mercifully normally and Kane and I (along with the rest of the riders) managed to have an almost pleasant trip back.

So, now we're up to Thursday night when we arrived back in Chiang Mai, all food in it's proper place (namely still in my stomach, rather than in the supply of baggies that we brought). Then, for other reasons, those little baggies decided to become very useful.

The Long and Winding Road...

...to Pai. We made the trip to Pai today via minibus with 10 other people. It was a truly epic journey. We fought off countless foes, weaved through mountain and jungle, and escaped deftly from the reaches of evil. Though our bodies were broken, our spirits were not and we prevailed against the journey's numerous and extensive challenges.

Warning: the following story is graphic in nature. Please be advised and only read on if you are prepared to handle the grossness. I am not holding anything back - and that is not a pun.

Ok, the real story. Our tour book warned us of a "windy" road, as in very curvy, not like has lots of wind. And it was right! We drove for about a half hour on straight, regular roads out of Chiang Mai and then began our ascent up this monster mountain that was paved with the most gnarly curved road I have ever been on. Fortunately, our driver has driven this road before, and was extremely practiced - nay an expert - on driving as fast and jerky as possible. This is a 5 speed manual transmission Toyota minivan and he worked it to it's limit driving it like a race car. I start to get carsick just after 11am. We had left at 9:45, so I had been doing well, but we were still not even halfway there. Just before I was going to ask the driver to pull over, we stopped for a break at a rest stop. We rested for about 20 minutes, but I knew I was in trouble. Kane was feeling badly too, but he was doing better that I was - though he sympathizes since he is typically very prone to motion sickness as well.

So we get back in the car and keep going at lightening speeds around countless miles of curved road. The people behind me are actually reading books. It is unfathomable to me how anyone cannot get sick on this road in these conditions, much less read a book. So unfair. Probably 10 minutes later I decide that I need to pull over. What I didn't know (and I wish they had told me), is the procedure for throwing up on the bus. We don't stop. I assume that's because if we did, we would have been an hour or more late to our destination because one other lady and I were not doing well. There are little plastic bags for you to throw up in, similar to the ones on an airplane. I did not know of these little bags and one was only handed to me after I had thrown up in my own two hands - the only container I had available at the time. Kane opens the window and I toss the contents out, spilling a drop on my jeans and a few onto the inside of the door. Yeah, souvenirs. I hang my dripping hands out of the window until we actually do pull over (the driver asked "do you still want to pull over?", I wanted to hit him) at which point I rinse my hands with water. Water does not get barf off your hands, just to let you know. It gets the three dimensional chunks off when your rub your hands together, but there is still a nice film of sick on you and it smells like hell. I told you I was going to be graphic, it makes me feel better about it. And you know, I figure, how often do you barf on yourself in your lifetime, right? Probably once, maybe twice if you're lucky? I see it as having a once in a lifetime experience.

So, we continue on, and I am really hoping that I haven't offended anyone too badly with the display and the smell, etc. I can't decide what's better: to lie back with my eyes closed or try futilely to watch the road ahead from the 2nd row of seats. I try both, neither works. Kane is watching the road intently from the front row, unable to take his eyes off the road lest he get sick. I proceed to throw up 3 more times into little plastic bags, which Kane took from me each time and held onto until his hands cramped and we arrived in Pai. At least the bags held. I can remember one of the times I'm dry heaving into a plastic bag (I'm actually laughing as I write this because it's so ridiculous) as we are passing a big rig on the wrong side of the road around a 180 degree turn at like 35 miles an hour. It was like a goddamn roller coaster. I don't think I've ever felt so motion sick in my life.

Which got me thinking of all the times I've been motion sick. There have been countless mild carsick rides where my stomach hurts and it takes a half hour to shake off. I have yacked up Ramen noodles on Old Priest Grade going up to my Grandpa's cabin. I had to sit with my head down on a table for hours on a fishing boat with Yolanda. Then there's the fair rides: the teacups, the ferris wheel on crack that goes horizontally, and the spaceship. The spaceship is one that is especially close to my heart - this is the ride that places like Great America and Six Flags have too much dignity to offer; you will only find it at the county fair. It's a circular metal saucer that has walls bowed out on the inside that you lean against while the thing spins like a washing machine. The centripetal force squishes you to the exterior of the spaceship to the point where you can't even raise an arm or leg. Fun but requires some serious recovery time. Anyway, those were some of my millions of thoughts during this endeavor.

What actually bothers me most about being carsick is not the sickness itself, which in my case, can't really be avoided. It's not being able to barf on your own terms. When you're sick, you want to take care of it with as much dignity and as little mess as possible. I want to pull over, take some time, get some air, wash our my mouth, then continue on. I was quickly re-prioritizing after I realized that this was not going to happen, like you do when there's an emergency. First you're concerned about normal things like how you don't want to get messy and how you should conceal yourself from others to save them and your own dignity. By the end I was considering wiping my mouth and hands on my sweatshirt and I could basically not care less about the poor guy next to me as I heaved my final round in plain sight. I'm really looking forward to the return trip on Thursday...

We arrive in Pai at 1pm and sit for about a half an hour trying to gather ourselves. I dump the bags of barf in the bathroom and wash my hands with soap - thank god. Kane is shaking and I am exhausted. Welcome to Pai, it better be a goddamn paradise.

Mom

I think this may have gotten lost in translation. Welcome to Thailand. This pair is stationed at the front of a little prayerhouse in this hilltop wat that we visited. A very beautiful and sacred place. Good place for Mom.

Itinerary

We have finally made plans to leave this place (Chiang Mai) and visit other things before we head to Aus. Today is Tuesday and we will be taking a minivan (with A/C) up to a small hippie town called Pai (pronounced "Bye") tomorrow morning. Apparently it's only like 100 km (66 miles), but it still takes like 3 or 4 hours. It's up a steep windy road. Excellent, at least Kane and I aren't prone to getting completely car sick...

I actually used to manage to get sick going to Grandma and Grandpa's house when I was a kid. If you don't know, that's about a 7 minute drive from my mom's house. Kane gets sick just looking at water and a curvy road affects he and I with the same intensity and in the same time frame (immediately). But, we're sucking it up and making our way to this town regardless at the recommendation of Kane's friend Sean. It better be cool there. Actually, it's supposed to be really cold - like down in the 40s at night since it's in the mountains. Why are we going here again???

Ok, so 2 nights in Pai then back to Chiang Mai for one night and then a direct flight on Friday down to Koh Samui. It's a small island (maybe half the size of Oahu?) in the south eastern side of the country, in the Gulf. It's a tropical beach island known for sand and water sports and all night parties. Though we are not prone to partaking in any of these, really, we are going to try it out to get the full feel of the country. We'll be there for 7 nights and booked a neat beach bungalow (with A/C - we're not really roughing it for goodness sake). We'll see how it goes, I think it will be very nice.

Then we have our flight back to Bangkok on the 14th from Samui at which point we will board our plane to Sydney at 5pm. It's another 10 hour flight and we get there at 6am. Do the math, that's means there is a 3 hour time difference between Bangkok and Sydney?? So after flying the whole night we get to arrive at the crack of dawn in a new country, yeay! We'll get a hotel and recover, no big deal. Anyway, then the real adventures begin...stay tuned.

My Heart Will Go On

Do you know the Celine Dion song by this name? The title track from the movie Titanic? It is plaguing our trip and I do not appreciate it. Our hotel insists on playing constant Kenny G style elevator music in the lobby which happens to be directly adjacent to our room. We can constantly hear murmurs of clarinet-type music when we're in our room, which is relatively unobtrusive if you don't know the tune, then you don't even pay attention.

They must play the same CD over and over though, because the elevator rendition of "My Heart Will Go On" seems to play about once an hour. Not only that but a girl playing violin in the street for money last night was playing the same god forsaken tune. We hear it walking by bars and restaurants. We've had to hear this song over a dozen times in the past two weeks; it's ridiculous and intolerable. What a song to pick, eh? I would be fine with a nice easy Sweet Home Alabama or even some Ace of Base or something. Oh well, I suppose life will go on...and ooonnnn...

Q and A

Thanks to everyone who leaves comments on my blog entries. I have been keeping track of questions and will now give some answers in a Q and A format. Hope this helps satisfy the curiosity that abounds.

(Pictured: tuk-tuk, a three-wheeled, 2 person taxi)

Q from Denise: Is potable water a problem there? I bet y'all don't see many suburbans.
A: Nope, not many Suburbans, haha. Actually, no SUVs at all that I've noticed. They have the regular brands of cars: Toyota, Honda, Ford, Chevy, Mazda, etc, but all cars and pick up trucks. No big rigs (you can't get around on these streets) and a ton of scooters and motorcycles, like I have mentioned previously. As for potable water, we have heard that you're not to drink the water though I haven't heard much else about it. All restaurants and hotels provide bottled water (free in our hotel room, you have to pay for it at a restaurant). We brush our teeth with the sink water, and shower in it (of course), but that's about it. Don't know if we would get sick, but not gonna try it.

Q from Jane: Are we supposed to keep our comments relevant to your journal enties, or do we add ordinary "conversational" news as well? Are you still able to receive e-mail? If so, is that where we should leave "news" so as not to bore the rest of your readers?
A: I still have my regular email and I check it daily. Feel free to email me anytime. The comments are typically related to the post that you are commenting on, but they don't need to be. Comment on anything you want, email me with anything else.

Q from Dad: So, do you ever ask for milk with any meals? Would they think that is bizarre or do they drink/offer milk there?
A: I have never asked for milk with dinner, I don't ever ask for it in the US either. Since you posed this question, I have looked on menus to see if milk is listed under the beverage choices and I haven't seen it. I know they have it because they put it in other things like tea and coffee, but I'm not sure if it would be weird to just order it plain. They would probably humor me, at least at the tourist-oriented places.

Q from Jeff: Also, is the food very hot?
A: Most of the food that we have ordered has not been spicy, save the tofu from the previous blog entry. Some restaurants designate spicy dishes, and I don't order those ones. I thought it would be far more prevalent than we've experienced. It might just be something that locals know where to find and they keep the tourist places mild - I don't know.

Q from Denise: Have y'all had much trouble figuring out the money?
A: At first we didn't know which of the coins were which amount, but fortunately their numbers are the same as ours, so it didn't take long to figure it out. The conversion is 33 Baht to $1, which makes 100 Baht equal to $3, which is easy. So if something is 500 baht, just multiply the 5 by 3 to get the amount in dollars: $15. Haven't had much problem.

Q from Rhonda: What is the general mode of transportation, the pollution index...how are you doing with water? Are there many American's who have made it a permanent home? Lots of tourists this time of year?
A: Perhaps Wikipedia would answer better than I would for the pollution index...I don't even know what that means. People generally do the scooters or motorcycles and lots of people also have cars. Tourists travel by tuk-tuk or these other trucks that have bench seats along bed (I don't know what they're called) that act somewhere between buses and taxis. For longer travel, most locals use the bus or train, very few can seem to afford a flight. I don't think normal people travel much, it's a relatively poor country. It's very polluted in Bangkok, it's actually known for it, though I didn't notice much. Chaing Mai is too small to be that polluted, less than 200,000 people in the city proper.
I think a good amount of Americans have made it a permanent home, though it's hard for us to know. There are lots of tourists, it's high season and this is a tourist area. Tons of tour book toting folks abound.

Q from Eric: Do they at least have lizards of any type to help out with the infestation?
A: Yes, they have the same cute geckos that they have in Hawaii to help with the roaches. At least to help cancel them out in my mind, if they don't actually eat them. The geckos are infinitely cuter and less obtrusive. Also, fortunately, far more common to see than the roaches.

Q from Rhonda: What do the Thai's consider traditional Thai [food]? ...sounds like it is hot and humid. Do they use traditional Thai healing?? Every time I pictured the hundreds of collisions that must occur on those tiny scooters packed with humanity...I wondered how the locals treated themselves medically. Are there traditional healers that you know of?
A: As for food, I'm not sure what's totally traditional. We see mostly noodles, rice dishes, meat dishes, and curries, in addition to soups and salads that are not really similar to those in the US. We intend to take a cooking class at some point, maybe we'll learn more about the food then.
It was hot and humid and no doubt continues to be in Bangkok. The past few days have been getting colder though. Not much humidity at all. I would venture to say that even you would like it, Rhonda. Probably 75 or 80 in the day and 60s at night. Freezing to me, of course.
I know they do traditional healing, but I've only really read about it in my tour book. I assume that most cannot afford proper medical care, and I'm not even sure it is offered. I am basically not educated about this at all - sorry. It is an interesting question though...

Q from Dad: If you haven't already, try to get some pics of one of the families riding around on those little scooters and blog or email it. That would be very interesting to see. Must look like a dogpile of people with 2 wheels under them. Probably can't even see the scooter underneath them all.
A: Haha, you forget that these people are tiny! It would be like taking me when I was about 12 and putting 3 of me on a scooter. The girls and women are probably 80-100 pounds and the men are surely smaller than 130 pounds. (typically) ROAR! ME 140 POUNDS! I EAT YOU! Still a funny sight to see just because I know how precarious it must feel to have that little butt space on a scooter, even with that little of a butt. I'll try to get a pic of it. Maybe I can just have Kane go into the street and stop one of them head-on, Superman style, to get a good picture. IT'S A BIRD, A PLANE, A HUGE WHITE TOURIST, AHHHH! RUNNNNN!

So, those are the questions that I've racked up, hope I didn't miss any. I'll try to keep gathering and answer in bunches like this.

A Spicy Meat-A-Ball

Well, I haven't actually written about stuff we've been doing for the past few days. I guess that's because we really haven't done anything exciting. We've been hanging out in the day, reading, napping, taking walks. For the past 4 nights we have gone to the east part of town and hung out either near or right next to the river.

On Wednesday, we went to the Night Bazaar which is a few blocks from the river. It's basically a tourist thing, a market that lines the sidewalks and operates every night. The road does not close to traffic like the massive Sunday market, which is in a different part of town and is popular amongst locals and tourists alike. And unlike the Sunday market, the sidewalks are lined with more permanent style stalls - maybe more similar to a flea market. But since they don't close the road, the stalls line the sidewalk and there is only a tiny path to walk between the market stalls and the streetfront buildings. It's a bit claustrophobic. Plus, everything is more tourist oriented (as opposed to the Sunday market), so everything is way more expensive and the sellers have significantly less reservations about trying to coax you to look at and purchase their goods. So, the first night I found it a bit overwhelming and annoying. Though I did buy a chain for a pendant that I had previously bought for mom, and some earrings for myself.
Apparently it is standard to bargain at this market. At the Sunday market, I think you can bargain too, but when they're asking a dollar for a hand made scarf, I just don't see the point in bargaining down to sixty cents. Whereas at the Bazaar, the girl was asking $19 for the silver chain and about $5 for the pair of earrings. I say no and it's like an automatic thing where they say "ok, ok, what will you pay; make an offer". So you do and then they do, etc., etc. I find it obnoxious, but I ended up paying $15 for the earrings and necklace, which I thought was reasonable.

Thursday night we went back to the market briefly on our way to a dinner cruise on the river. We had decided the night before that the beautiful setup of lanterns and statues lit up at night were beckoning us to buy a tripod to take better pictures of the area at night. We found one for $10 and got it. The dinner river cruise was full that night, so we made reservations for the following night and went next door for a nice dinner. There are a number of large restaurants by the river, which appear to cater to tourists, although there were few white people in the restaurant that we could see (maybe Japanese people?). I ordered a tofu and basil dish which turned out to be a "bit" spicy to me. After a few bites, I was nearly crying, liquid escaping from eyes and nose alike. I powered through the rest of the dish, which got better toward the bottom; I think they had sprinkled extra spicy goodness on top. It was very good despite it's affect on me. This place also had real ice cream. I got chocolate and it was heavenly. And it came in a dish that did not need a microscope to see, which was an added plus. Delicious! We walked the Night Bazaar again on the way home, this time being better prepared for the scene and enjoying it more because of that. We spent a good amount of time taking tripod pics and figured out that using the timer mode takes the blur out that comes from pushing the button that takes a picture. If the computers here weren't soooo slow, I could actually post some of these pics. You people are just going to have to wait.

Friday morning my body found it necessary to remind me of the spicy non-meat-a-ball from the night before and I had to spend some extra time in our hotel room, if you know what I mean. At least the timing was good.

Friday night we did our dinner river cruise from the Riverside Restaurant which was nice. You have to order all your stuff before you leave the dock because they just get it from the kitchen and give it to you before you take off, which was funny. So we sat on a docked wooden boat on the river and had dinner, which was nice in itself. It was actually very cold that night; it seems to be getting colder here, especially at night. It was probably 60 degrees and my long sleeved shirt did not suffice to keep me warm. Oh well, welcome to my life - I suppose I can't escape being cold.

Saturday night (last night) we hit up the river restaurants again for dinner and some drinks. I ordered a Sa-loong at the recommendation of my waiter, which was a bright blue drink that came in a silver bowl about the size of half of a coconut. It tasted like bubble gum, or another Bazooka product of some sort. It was a bit nauseating, but certainly could have been worse. We then went down the street to a place recommended by our tour book. There was a rock band playing Radiohead and Chili Peppers and the like. It was excellent, though we only caught the end of their set. Then we headed home in our first Chiang Mai tuk-tuk ride - we were freezing!
A good last few nights though. Tonight we go to dinner with Kane's local friend and hit up the Sunday market, which we have been waiting for all week.

Plans for where we are going next are being formed: we are tentatively going to head up to a small tourist town called Pai (pronounced "Bye") which about 60 miles north of Chiang Mai for a few days, then going to fly down to Ko Samui, a small tourist beach island in the southern gulf. If flights are still available, that is (it's peak season). We'll see how those plans pan out.

Dirty Little Secret

Roaches. They're here and they're gross. It's not like Hawaii or anything, but I have seen a few the last few nights. They are large like in Hawaii, but not the giant ones. Probably about one to two inches long, brown, and assuredly with wings though god forbid I ever see them use them. One of the more sickening creatures on this lovely earth. I'm not happy to dislike them, but I can't seem to help it. I just keep a wide berth.

...There's a joke in there somewhere, but I don't have it (wide berth)...

(Pictured: Fried bugs at the market. These are labeled "mackerel", but I'm pretty sure they're giant cockroaches. A protein-filled snack!)

Telephone Poles

As a small addition to the list below:

1. Telephone Poles: All telephone poles are made of concrete. Big concrete obelisks. Can't log here, so there are no...logs. I think it adds to the industrial look of the city.
2. Milkshakes: In my deprivation of proper dessert food, I have searched low and high (mostly, low, I suppose) for a correct milkshake. One made with ice cream and of adequate viscosity. There are none to be found. Even the places that boast "ice cream milk shakes" do not make them properly. I think their first problem is that they use ice in their shakes, and the second is that they don't use ice cream. I may be wrong. Either way, they are tasty, but not the super sweet overload that I'm looking for. The quest continues.
3. Western Food: I think it's funny that many of the restaurants boast "Western" or "American" food to the tourist clientèle. Not that I haven't preyed upon some of this mediocre, imitation American food, but it seems that they should advertise "Traditional Thai Food with English Menu", because that's what I would be more interested in. I can get American food all day long in America! Give me some dang Thai food, and make it good!

I had more, I think of them throughout the day, but I have forgotten. I suppose most of these things relate to service and restaurants. I guess I notice that because I spend most of my time at these places, or trying to find them.

No Free Refills

There are obviously many things different about Thailand than the US. Many of these things are what makes it fun and interesting to travel here; some are just annoying. I wanted to compile the beginnings of a list of things that I have noticed that are strange or funny.

1. No free refills: I have yet to see an actual "fountain drink", as in, there are no soda machines with a button that starts the flow of soda. They only have soda in bottles - 280 mL bottles no less, which is smaller than a 12 oz can. As such, there are no free refills. =(
2. Tiny glasses: Since I'm already typing about soda, I may as well discuss the drinking glasses. They are tiny, maybe hold 6 oz or less. At first I thought that this was just at the hotel buffet so that us fat Americans don't drink all their juice, but it seems to be standard. You order a drink and they give you the bottled drink and a tiny glass cup to pour it into.
3. Napkins: You American napkin hoarders wouldn't like it here - you know who you are. You don't get napkins on the table when you sit down at a restaurant. Instead, there is a tiny cup that holds napkins on each table. You think, what's the big deal, but these napkins are about the size of a square of toilet paper, and just as thick. You need to grab about 4 of them to even begin to have enough cushion to wipe anything substantial. Definitely one thing I'm not happy about.
4. Political trucks: Every now and again we see (or hear, rather) a truck driving by blaring some sort of music or a tape playing what sounds like a speech (in Thai, of course). When it finally drives by, there are pictures of people on the sides of the truck, which appear to be political candidates. It seems a strange method of campaigning, but perhaps it works.
5. Handicapped people: Basically, you better hope you're not one here. There are no ramps, no elevator requirements, and nothing at all that appears to be required to assist a disabled person in getting around. For that matter, I don't know how you can even be elderly or be a slow walker or have difficulty walking, as some of the stairways are very steep with huge non-standard sized steps. And the traffic does not stop, or slow really, for pedestrians. Better be able-bodied indeed, it's like an obstacle course.
6. Scooters: I think I've mentioned it before but everyone has a scooter or small motorcycle. No helmets appear standard. It almost seems as though there is an unspoken contest to see how many people they can fit on one 50 cc scooter. We've seen 4, but Kane's friend Sean said he's seen 5 or 6. Entire families crammed onto a scooter. Dad driving, boy in front of him, mom on the back holding the baby in her lap. Safety first.

Well, lord knows that's just the beginning, I'll ponder more to add.

Pictures

Ok, so I've been wrestling how to best get everyone pictures from this trip and have been having mixed success. I emailed some pics, but I know some people had problems with that. I am trying to upload to Snapfish, a site where I can send everyone the link and you can go see a slideshow without having to download anything.

You can also, apparently, post directly to your blog (as pictured), but I can only do 1 pic per post (sad face). *Correction - I can do as many pics as I want, but it takes up a lot of space. See "Dogs and Ruins" below.*
So, the search continues. Hope you all can make due.

Also, I'm going to start retroactively adding pics to many of the previous entries, so feel free to scroll down and take a look at the newly added pics (some of which I emailed to everyone, so you may have already seen them). I need to go get my jump drive to do this, give me some time!

Aunt Denise

Hi Denise, you have been asking a few questions in the comments, and there is no good way for me to respond, so I'll do it this way (since I am in charge here...)

You most recently asked: Is this a buddist holy day [Loy Krathong]? Do the Thai wear colorful garments, ordinary blue jeans or what?

I don't actually know what Loy Krathong is for - I assume it is Buddhist since they're all buddhists here, but I'm not sure. Wikipedia won't work from this computer and I'm not sure why not. I have not specifically heard the people talk about Buddhism when describing the holiday, so perhaps it predates the religion? Maybe someone can comment about it.

As for the clothes here, they are pretty standard. I don't think they really dress like Americans, but similar. Not everyone is in blue jeans like in the US, but some are. Most seem to either be in what I would call business dress or casual dress. Business dress would be slacks and a polo for men and a skirt and blouse for women. Many people wear this. Casual dress would be like linen loose shirt or a t-shirt and loose linen-type pants or capri pants (or jeans). Younger people often dress more casually. Probably 99% of people wear flip-flops or sandals. The monks all wear orange, yellow or brown robes just like you've seen on TV - very cool. There are lots of monks.

I think someone asked about food a while ago. Thai food here is similar to Thai food in America. Noodles, rice, veggies - but a bigger focus on meat at most places. We are a bit limited in our eating because we have to stick to places that have English on the menu. Probably about half of the places do, maybe more in the center of the city where we are - lots of tourists here. We have tried Thai food, there is a great Japanese place adjacent to our hotel, and last night we tried pizza and Kane tried a burrito at a place downtown that boasts Thai, American, Italian, and Mexican food (yikes). Burritos were a mistake, pizza was surprisingly good. Generally, you can find whatever food you want here, but not always as good as in CA (i.e. they don't have Mexican people, so you know the food can't be as good). They are keen on putting meat in everything (thai dishes). Especially pork, they love pork. They take perfectly good dishes and just throw some unnecessary pork in it - pisses me off. But there are plenty of veggie places too, so that is nice for us.

Anyway, happy to answer questions about culture and lifestyle the best I can. Let me know if you have any more questions Denise, or anyone!

Relaxing

Well, it's Monday night in Chiang Mai, and here is the weekend report. This weekend was Loy Krathong, and we got to experience the rest of the weekend without incident while having a lot of fun. As per the previous post, we witnessed the celebration by the river on Friday night and experienced the madness. On Saturday, we decided that we'd had quite enough of that and simply took part in the festivities at our hotel. We love our hotel, the lobby is so cute and nice, and all their events are very cute. Each night they have some sort of live music - the guy with the acoustic guitar doing American classics is my favorite - "rastin aray ageen in malgalitavirre"...if you follow.

On Saturday night we got tickets to the Loy Krathong party at our hotel. At about 5pm we went down to the lobby and were taught how to make "krathongs". The base of a krathong is made from a disk of the trunk of a banana leaf tree. You then proceed to decorate this disk with banana leaves that are folded in all sorts of neat ways. Then you add flowers to make it pretty. Then you put a little piece of foam in the center of the disk and stab some incense sticks, a candle, and more flowers into the foam to make the top pretty. People who wanted to made their own krathongs, and the hotel had a zillion others premade for everyone else. There was a band of children playing traditional Thai music on strange instruments, and there was food and traditional drinks - which were kind of gross. At about 7pm they moved everyone to the pool to set off paper lanterns into the sky (as described in an earlier post). They had a lot of them so that all the guests could light one.

After the lanterns, we all got our krathongs and took a walk down to the canal - there were probably 30 or more people with us! We all filed to the nearby canal and lit up the candles and incense on our krathongs and set them in the canal to float away with all of our "bad luck". Traditionally you put your krathong in the river, but the canal is closer so I assume they figured it would be easier to tote 30+ tourists 2 blocks instead of 10. It was very fun anyway.

And the next day, they even gave me pictures of Kane and I that they had taken while we made the krathongs and as we released our lantern - like I said, I love this hotel.

We didn't go out after that, and instead called it an early night and read for the remainder of the evening. Sunday had an uneventful morning (sending out pictures takes forever). Sunday evening, however, is the weekly market in Chiang Mai. It's huge and awesome. There is food and about 6 city blocks-worth of streets are closed off and completely lined with vendors selling all sorts of fun goods. There was also a parade that night for Loy Krathong, which we watched part of (neither of us are terribly interested in parades). By the way, I think "parade" is the most difficult word to discern from a native Thai saying it in English. They say "palade" and put accent on the first syllable instead of the second. Took me a few tries the first time someone said it to us.

So, we walked the market, bought a couple things, found the cake stand - yum!, and then came home nice and tired. That market is awesome, we're definitely going next Sunday too.

Loy Krathong

With the "th" pronounced as a "t", Loy Krathong is a once yearly Thai celebration, held on the full moon in November. This year, that is tonight but the celebration extends this whole weekend with parades tonight and tomorrow (Sunday) and general madness all 3 days. Loy means "float" and Krathong means "banana leaf", which describes the customary event of floating a frisbee-sized banana leaf boat down the river with prayers for forgiveness and a clean start. I don't think this is their new year, but the sentiment is the same.

The other traditional thing to do is to set of an "air balloon" into the sky, which looks like an oversized paper lantern. The sky is filled with them, tiny specs of orange light glowing near and far as they float along until their flame is extinguished, they meet a barrier such as a tree, or they catch themselves on fire. These lanterns are very thin paper cylinders that vary in size but are typically about the size of an oil drum. They are all enclosed except for the bottom which is open and has wire holding a candle in the center of the lantern. When you light the candle, hot air fills the paper and makes the whole thing float like a balloon. They are actually very beautiful.

Now, the other thing about this festival, which I found to me a bit more...noticeable...is the abundance of beer and fireworks. Honestly, it's like a war zone. No photos, video, or words can capture the madness. We walked the main drag last night with Kane's friend and his girlfriend; it was nice to have guides because I don't think we could have handled it alone. Hordes of people line the river and the adjacent streets are packed with cars and people. There are hundreds of stalls selling food, sweets, drinks, firecrackers, and krathongs (the little boats) by candlelight. The noise is deafening. Hardly a second goes by without a pop or a bang of a firecracker, many of which I understand are homemade. Some of them are way too close and I am constantly flinching. I watched one boy throw a firecracker at a group of people with a grin on his face. Glad I'm wearing shoes.

The river appears to be the main target of the fireworks, most people light their bottle rockets or sparklers and let them fly into the river; but some folks appear more interested in the noise alone. Some of the explosives must be just that - actual TNT - because some are so loud that it is truly scary. I tried to take pictures, but I'm not sure how well they turned out because it's really hard to record landscapes like that at night. Plus it's hard to hold the camera still when I'm constantly flinching. I didn't see anyone get hurt, and we ourselves came out unscathed, but I'm sure the police and hospitals have a busy weekend. Just like 4th of July I suppose. Apparently you can't suppress stupid people with fireworks anywhere in the world. Boys...

So, we walked the strip (plugging my ears for much of it), bought and lit a lantern thing, and bought some strange gooey dessert item. Definitely an experience. Today, our hotel has a little party that where they will teach us how to make a krathong. Then we will all walk down to the river together and float our krathongs. We probably will not stay out quite as late tonight, just to avoid some of the madness - supposedly tonight is supposed to be even crazier.

Happy Loy Krathong!

Thai Massage

We're waiting for Kane's friend to let us know what we're doing tonight (he has a friend from high school who lives in town), so I'll write about the massages we got last night. We got Thai massages last night. They were nice, Kane liked it more than I did. My tour book describes Thai massage as "passive yoga", which apparently means that they stretch your limbs all about and push on you with their arms, elbows, hands and feet. It was interesting. Not the Swedish massage that I was looking for, but a good experience. Kane thought it was nice, as he does not like the "sissy" massages that I do.

So that's it, we tried it. Next time I'm getting a foot massage. It was $9 US for an hour. Expensive for here, but we didn't care. It was at the nice place in our hotel, so we paid for nice atmosphere. They give you ginger tea, soak your feet, wash your feet, then take you to a room to change. Then you lay on a bed-type thing, Kane and I were right next to each other the whole time. The two ladies massaging us kept talking to each other throughout the massage, sometimes giggling. I couldn't help but think they were making fun of the ogre Americans in front of them. Kane's lady chuckled when she arrived, which I attributed to either his huge feet or the fact that they were hanging off the bed because he's so tall. This country is not meant for people over about 6' tall. Oh well, poor Kane. Watch your head.

We paid for 7 more nights at this hotel today. We're going to do some tours next week: a temple nearby, the Golden Triangle, the Longneck people, and a cooking class. Thailand is awesome.

Chiang Mai Rocks

All right, I have mixed feelings about travel advice, mostly because it's not easy to predict what someone else will find enjoyable or not about a given place, but I would like to recommend Chiang Mai as the premier destination of this country - from what I have seen so far. Bangkok was awful: crowded, unfriendly, smelly, dirty, and people constantly trying to sell you stuff. At least the part we were in. Ayuttaya was better, much nicer - perhaps anywhere outside of Bangkok will be relieved of at least some of those symptoms. The south is beach land (we have not been and are not going to go), nice if you like beaches (we don't really).

Chiang Mai is what I was looking for from this country; this is why I came. It still has all the quirkiness of Thailand, the things that make it so different than the US (it's third worldesqueness), but in a way that's not so accosting. Though still a crowded, busy city, you can breathe here. Not to say the air is clean (I have no idea if it is), but you can move, you can walk around, there are things to do and you can actually find them and do them.

We found a used book store/book exchange yesterday and exchanged the books that we had brought and finished. Kane is continuing with Terry Pratchett and I have moved from "The Beach" (sorry Henry, traded it in) to some Asimov. The book store was excellent, had many good choices.

There is a huge festival this weekend called Loy Krathong. It appears to be a mixture of Christmas and 4th of July in style, with a parade, constant songs playing in the streets and at the hotel, and a general huge celebration. It's mainly tomorrow, but extends all weekend. Looking forward to it, I think it's a big deal (I'm kind of a big deal...). Happy Thanksgiving again everyone!

Follow up to "Commenting"

My dad left a lengthy comment describing how to create an account so that you can leave comments, for those who are confused about the site. See the comments below the "Friends and Family" entry about 3 entries down.

Thanks dad!