Merry Christmas

This is actually my first Christmas where I didn't wake up in my bed at my mom's house and have breakfast with my family. It's the first time I didn't see my extended family (mom's and dad's) and have dinner with them Christmas evening. It was interesting. We didn't do much today. Our friends walked around the deserted city while Kane and I scoured the internet for plush downtown housing. Kane and I went to the CBD (downtown) for a bit to see if anything was going on there, and it was basically a ghost town. Some shops were open (mainly Jewish or Israeli owned), but most were happily closed. So, we came back home to meet our friends and eventually went to the tourist beach area of town for dinner.

Dinner ended up being delicious, but started out crappy. As I have mentioned (complained) before, the restaurants here are really expensive. A normal cafe will cost about $20 a person as compared to $10 or $12 in the U.S. This keeps us frequenting crappier places that border on fast food or have only pre-made stock, which is unfortunate. We usually eat in. Tonight we went to a place for dinner where you order at the counter and they bring the food to your table. We browsed the menu for a few minutes then went up to order. As I ordered, the guy cut me off to tell me that they are only serving chicken and french fries (chips). No burgers, no salads, no nothing else on the menu. Awesome. Why didn't he tell us this as he stared at us while we were deciding from the menu? Jerk. I didn't really want french fries for my Christmas dinner (though I would have happily settled for a salad), so everyone else ate there and Kane and I went down to the Vegetarian Pizza place down the street. It was delicious, I was very happy. And the pizza man didn't even charge us full price for no apparent reason - score. So, Christmas was saved after all.

Christmas is big here, much like the United States. I hadn't realized that we had been missing the relentless and continual assault of holiday-itude while we were in Thailand, and I literally didn't miss it. They have the Christmas music in all stores here, decorations everywhere, children in little foam reindeer antlers, and even the Salvation Army donation collectors (although they didn't have the bell to ring...). It's relatively awful; I'm not a huge fan of the in-your-face mega-capitalist Christmas. I suppose it's nearly over now, so we can enjoy the sales and move on with our lives.

Tomorrow, the day after Christmas, is Boxing Day. This is celebrated throughout Commonwealth countries and has nothing to do with the sport of boxing. See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_day. This isn't a holiday where people really do anything, but there are huge sales at all the stores, probably similar to the day after Thanksgiving. Kane and I need a bunch of clothes, so we're going to take a deep breath and release ourselves to be consumed by the masses tomorrow. It will probably be total madness; I'm a bit frightened. Kane and I both get pretty cranky pretty fast when we shop, so we'll see how we do.

This is also our last night with our visiting friends, which, among other things, means our last night of free internet. So, until our laptops get shipped over from SLO, we will be at the mercy of expensive internet cafes around town. We'll still be online frequently, but I probably won't blog with quite the fervor, so forgive me. Anyway, we both wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday. Hugs all around!

Mobiles

Post from Kane:

Angie and I got cellular phones, our numbers are 04 3376 1254 (Kane) and 04 3376 1264 (Angie) to call from outside Australia just replace the leading 0 with 61 (for example 61 4 3376 1254), but be careful it might be REALLY expensive for you to call Australia cellular phones.

Our phones are also Skype phones so you can contact us for free using Skype to Skype, to do this just sign onto Skype and call our Skype accounts (kaneehrler for Kane or angie.sommer for Angie) this is free to make the call and to receive the call.

Good luck to anyone trying to get in touch with us! Email if you need any help using Skype.

Getting it Together

Ok, it finally stopped raining in Melbourne. We arrived Friday (as previously noted) and it rained all night. We were soaked multiple times having to walk to our motel, to the flat (apartment) we're staying at, and to dinner. Saturday it rained off and on all day, and we only braved the weather to walk to the store twice - about a 15 minute walk each way. We woke up this morning - in our extremely comfortable bed - to sunshine. It's brisk and a bit windy, but no rain.

We're planning on heading downtown (into the CBD) today to do some shopping for work clothes, cell phones, and possible rentable laptops. Kelvin and Yan Shih (the people we stayed with in Sydney) are coming down today to visit Melbourne. We get to host them at our place, which is kind of funny. Anyway, they'll be down tonight and then I'll have a laptop again, thank god. Internet costs $4-$5 an hour at internet cafes here, so we're not frequent visitors.

Melbourne seems nice so far, just another big city. We're hoping to get a taste of downtown today to get a feel for the city. Hopefully we can get the laptop on the internet at our place tonight and I can blog up a storm for Christmas. Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Rain in Melbourne

We arrived in Melbourne today by plane. It's raining like the dickens, which wasn't nice for our half mile or so walk from the train station to our stupid motel. We met the people whose house we're renting for the next 2 weeks - they're nice and so is their place. We move in tomorrow.

Internet is expensive here, so won't be on quite as much. Laptops are in the works, so hopefully we'll be happily settled with a laptop each in a few weeks (ahem, Thom). Just wanted to check in and let everyone know our progress.

Pics to come of the Sydney opera house, it was pretty cool.

Mooching

So, we've been mooching off of Kane's friends for the past 4 days now. We're staying at their house (in their room, no less), eating their food, and pretty much bothering them all their waking hours (at least when they're home). They are extremely gracious to have us here, and it's been really great. Fortunately for them, there is a light at the end of the tunnel as we have booked our next move.

Kane and I are both eager to get jobs and a place to live; vagrancy hasn't been as welcome in our lives as we might have imagined. We both seem to long for something to work for, which would in fact be just that - work. So, we're moseying on down to Melbourne where we anticipate that we will settle. We have booked a temporary apartment for the next two weeks, which we hope to use as a home base to find permanent housing and jobs. People are going on "holiday" for the holidays and are renting their places out to travelers like us. We were really lucky to find the place we did at the time we did and I hope it all works out ok. We fly down on Friday and move in Saturday.

We explored Sydney downtown a bit yesterday, it rained today. We went to Darling Harbor and walked around. It's relatively comparable to Pier 39 in San Francisco except less tacky, and I would actually readily compare Sydney in general to San Francisco. Except there are not the hordes of homeless people waiting to accost you. Plus, I don't know if they have the crappy areas that SF does; we were more in the area like the financial district - downtown Market Street. It was fun. The weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow and we plan to hit up the other half of downtown with the opera house, etc.

One comment that Kane would like me to mention is the lunch we had while we were downtown, specifically, the lunch he had. We were wary of having lunch downtown; all restaurants appear to be very expensive here. So, it would be fitting that the tourist area on the harbor would be the most expensive. There were a plethora of nice restaurants, packed with savvy white collar folks who work downtown. Typical lunches were over $20 a person. We weren't into that, so we went a block away from the harbor are and found a nice cafe with cheaper sandwiches. I got a veggie burger and Kane got a chicken sandwich costing $9.50 combined. My veggie burger was very mediocre, but Kane's chicken sandwich was quite interesting. To his surprise, in addition to chicken, tomato, and lettuce, this sandwich also included beets, a fried egg, ham, and a slice of pineapple. It looked nasty to me but he seemed to like it, even commenting how he could go for another one today. Weird Australians...

Welcome to Sydney

It is our second day in Sydney, Australia and today we are far more conscious and far less zombie-like. Getting here wasn't really so bad, but we were awake for quite a while. We awoke at 8am on Friday morning to catch our 11:40am flight to Bangkok. Then we had to sit around the airport and consume overpriced things until our flight to Sydney at 5pm, which was delayed 1 hour till 6. The flight was only 8.5 hours which was not too bad but neither of us could sleep. The time difference added 4 hours, so we arrived at 7am. We're staying with Kane's friends (god bless them) and we went around with them yesterday to the mall, grocery store, and hung out around the house. We took a 2 hour nap at 2pm because we couldn't stay awake any longer. The nap was surprisingly helpful and we were able to stay up till midnight.

Today we feel refreshed, though the rain spoiled our plans to go to the beach and downtown Sydney. They don't call downtown "downtown" though, they call it the CBD, I think, for Central Business District or something. Apparently if you call it "downtown" they will laugh at you. Noted. So we went around the mall, which is surprisingly similar to an American mall near Christmas time (extremely crowded, Christmas music playing, Santa in the center of the mall, etc.) except that it has grocery stores in it, which is actually rather nice since we are staying right across the street.

This is a far more ethnically diverse city than I had thought it would be - it is almost exactly like the bay area. It basically feels like home here except for our notable lack of an actual home. Everyone speaks English (sort of), we can read the signs, traffic follows rules (although they drive on the wrong side), nice restaurants and McDonalds' abound, the works. We have noted that: 1. Restaurants are far more expensive - a typical Applebees style dinner for two would probably run you at least $30 or $40 here rather than the $20 in the US; 2) Selected items are ridiculously expensive - groceries are normal while clothing, some electronics, and books are outrageous; and 3) Cell phones don't have the regular monthly plans that provide a certain number of minutes for a certain price. Rather, you buy a cell phone and a sim card and charge up your card with money at the drug store. It's strange, but it may actually end up being cheaper, we'll see. Gotta get a cell phone first, and they are expensive. Also, one American dollar is worth only slightly more than an Australian dollar ($1 US = $1.16 AUS), so they are almost even - boo. This will be good for us when we start working though.

It's nice here (summertime, whoo-hoo!) and we're looking forward to exploring the city more and getting some pics.

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!