One of the best things about Thailand is that you are just about never
more than 50 yards/metres from somebody who wants to sell you fresh
fruit or related products. Carts full of sliced pineapple, papaya,
watermelon, etc. that go for about 30 cents (US) are just about
everywhere. In extremely touristy or remote areas, the price might go
up to 60 cents. Slightly less common, but still nearly-ubiquitous
(perhaps on every second street corner), are vendors selling bottles
of fresh-squeezed orange juice from small, brightly colored,
tangerine-like Thai oranges (75 cents or so US); and others making
banana shakes (around 1 dollar).
The banana shake deserves a paragraph of its own. Vendors happily make
shakes from other fruits, it's true; and they're pretty good. The
banana shake, however, is something sublime. I tried to eat at least
one a day for most of our stay in Thailand and was largely successful
in this endeavor. The recipe varies a bit from location to location,
but most involve some combination of fresh bananas, crushed ice,
coconut milk and a bit of sweetener. Variation in how these are
combined rarely seems to affect quality, with the main exception to
this being a shake I had in Chiang Rai where the woman added
sweeteners from like 80 different bottles and it tasted more like a
Jolly Rancher than a banana. More surprising in quality was a shake in
Chiang Mai that was possibly made by the restaurant owner's kids, who
seemed to be running the place for the night. I believe 8 children
aged 8 - 14 or so were involved in making this shake (I'm not
kidding), the procedure for which inexplicably involved 5 or 6
giggle-filled trips to the kitchen to grab mystery ingredients, and
several cycles in the blender (which was on the sidewalk, where I was
standing and watching the ordeal). Not once did they taste the shake,
but somehow the end result was delicious.
It will not come as a surprise to at least some of you that I was
looking forward to eating mangoes in Thailand. Even though mangoes
were theoretically out of season during my visit and therefore
unavailable in local markets, it was still possible to get them in the
cities and at some restaurants. This was quite fortunate, as it
enabled us to eat mangoes with sticky rice in the morning at our
favorite breakfast place in Chiang Mai. This is more commonly eaten as
a dessert by Thai types, but I can assure you it makes a delightful
breakfast -- fresh mango, sticky rice steamed and then soaked in
coconut cream, and all coated with a bit of sugary/coconuty glaze.
Washed down with a banana shake or fresh orange juice (see above).
What could be bad?
It does bear mentioning that moving around all of these fruits and
vegetables is a nontrivial operation. Happily, virtually every family
in the agricultural areas of the country that we visited seems to own
a small pickup truck and/or a motorbike. In this context, neither of
these is a recreational vehicle. On more than one occasion during our
bike trip, for example, we would be biking on two-tracks through the
jungle and run across a local on a motorbike. In the US, locals in the
woods on motorbikes are folks who enjoy breathing engine exhaust, race
along at speeds meant to generate adrenaline, and then go home to
watch NASCAR. In northern Thailand, two-tracks in the jungle are
thoroughfares for the hill tribe people -- and the motorbikes would be
laden with bamboo poles or oranges or something. Speeds were slow so
the goods wouldn't topple over. And when we saw pickup trucks in these
areas, they were inevitably loaded well beyond capacity -- sometimes
20 feet into the air -- with whatever could be crammed on them. It was
pretty impressive.
Speaking of our biking trip, we saw just about every kind of tropical
fruit tree/plant that you can imagine -- bananas, papayas, pineapples,
longans, pomelos, oranges, lychees, jackfruit, peanuts, mangoes and
probably also a few that I'm forgetting. We did not, however, see any
mangosteen trees. The mangosteen, as some of you may know, is a small
purple fruit that I discovered in Chinatown in Toronto. It has a thick
skin and flesh that is white, sweet but slightly tart, and wonderfully
creamy. I knew they grew in Thailand so I asked our biking guide where
they grow. "Mangosteen?" he laughed, "They grow further south. People
cut down the trees for firewood because there are so many in season
you can get them for 5 Bhat (about 15 cents US) per kilo!" In Toronto,
they go for about $5/pound. I feel cheated somehow.
Stay tuned for another guest blog post on other foods in Thailand.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Saturday, January 5, 2008
This Land is my Land, this Land is Thailand
We all (Mel, Matt, Jer and Josh) just got back to Singapore from an amazing experience in Thailand. This is long. Feel free to read part now and more another day. Click here for 1/4 of our pictures. Click here for 40 more.
After my last posting, Jer and I flew to Bangkok and met up with Matt and Josh (Matt's friend since age 11). In short, we spent a weekend in Bangkok, flew down to Phuket, bussed up to Khao Sok National Park for two days, vanned to Krabi, taxied to Ao Nam, boated to Railay and stayed there for about five days. Then we boated to Ao Nang, taxied to Phuket airport and flew home.
A bit more detail...Bangkok was filled with lots of people, vendors selling things on the sidewalk, wats, and amazing food. We stayed in the tourist area, packed with street food, cheap clothes and fake IDs. Jer and I visited the Jim Thompson house (after nearly dying at least five times in the tuk tuk ride on the way over). He (Mr. Thompson) was one man with amazing taste.
Friday night we met up with Phu and Ryce, two of Matt's friends from grad school. We had a great dinner - in terms of the conversation and the amazing dishes that Ryce chose. Yum. My favorite dish was the shrimp with noodles.
Saturday night we met up with Matt's other friend Noi and her husband Bob. This time we dined on the river and also ate amazing food. My favorite dish was the pomelo salad.
Sunday we flew off to Phuket. One might think that when you're staying at a big hotel in the centre of touristville you might be able to find a way to get to the airport for less than US$50. We finally did, but it took a lot of inbred fighting (between the four of us - mostly me, though) and a man who tried to get an extra $10 at the end. Also, our ticket didn't say which airport in Bangkok we were flying out of, so we (mostly I) were worried the whole taxi ride about going to the wrong airport.
From Phuket airport, we taxied into Phuket town, ate at a bus station restaurant and hopped on a local (but air conditioned!) bus to Khao Sok National Park. It ended up being a four and a half bus ride up the coast and then inland. We saw an area called Khao Lak which was totally devastated by the tsunami. The truth is, though, that we have no idea what it looked like pre-tsunami, so I can't comment on that.
Somehow when we got dropped off on the side of the highway, there was a woman waiting for us (not that she knew we were even on that bus - I seriously don't know how she got there), and we hopped in the back of her pick-up truck to get to the Nung House.
The Nung House was an experience in and of itself. Matt and I got the honeymoon suite - at the end of the row of shacks. We did have a toilet, and we even had a cockroach and three snails, but they had no shells! We had blue curtains and a frilly pink mosquito net. We had water when we were lucky, and a manual flush toilet. Matt and I were okay with our room, but Jer and Josh, down the road, were "less impressed."
We stayed in this rustic area in order to access Khao Sok National Park. We all woke up at 7 in the morning to get a start on the hikes that Lonely Planet recommended. We stopped in at the visitors' centre and asked about the leeches that were briefly mentioned in the LP book. They said they hadn't heard of any leeches this year, and we should head out, and the trail to all of the seven waterfalls should take us all day. We were pumped and started walking.
Jer didn't feel well, so ten minutes in, he turned around.
Josh was h
ot and uncomfortable and after 45 minutes, and the first waterfall, he turned around.
Turns out they were the bright ones. When Josh left, Matt checked his feet and found the first leech. 35 leeches later, Matt and I saw a few lame waterfalls and were pissed and bitten. It took us three hours to get to the end, and it took us 50 minutes to get out. We stopped at the visitors' center on the way out, and the guy said that if he had told us about the leeches, we wouldn't have gone on the hike, so he didn't want to do that. Oy.
On Josh's way out, he was pointed at and laughed at, and then 20 people (he said they looked like they might have been Thai or from somewhere near Thailand) surrounded him and took a picture with him.
We ended up sitting at the restaurant at the Nung House for about 2 days playing euchre and a bit of hearts. Luckily they had great food and it ended up being great atmosphere, so we had a good time, but we weren't too happy about the park. As Jer put it - "Khao Sok khao sucks."
We took a minivan on a crazy ride to Krabi. As expected, they dropped us off outside of Krabi, and we had to use their collaborative tourist services to get ourselves out of there. We had run out of Thai Baht, so we asked how far it was to Krabi town. We were told 1km, so Jer and I decided to walk to change some money. After 10 minutes of walking, we stopped into the only hotel we saw, and we asked how to get to Krabi town. They said to take one of the pick-ups that has benches in the back, and it should cost about 10 baht a person. It was about 5 km away. We hopped on the first one we saw, and we asked to be dropped of in the centre of town. Jer and I started relaxing and high fiving each other. Then we realized that we had NO idea where we were, and that after we got money, we would have to get back to Matt and Josh. We watched every turn and even asked a guy on the truck where we were, but it was impossible to get a straight answer. After finding a place that was open (new years day...), we tried to find a truck back. When trying to make sure that we would get dropped off in the right place, no one spoke English, and we couldn't figure out how to tell them where we needed to go (apparently the road has no name!). We walked (and sweat) for about 30 minutes, and finally we hopped in the back of a truck that would get us to the right place if it kept going straight. We ended up getting back, and it was quite an adventure.
We had to trust one of the collaborators, (though he did want all of the money up front, which we obviously refused), and for a small amount of 800 baht, he promised us we would end up at our hotel. We drove for 15 minutes, got off at a pier, walked with all of our stuff out to a long tail boat, jumped in and ended up on Railay East. Our final accommodations were much nicer than the previous two. Josh was happy.
This peninsula is basically the most beautiful place I have ever been. It has amazing limestone cliffs sticking out of the blueist, most gorgeous greenish waters. The beaches were unbelievable. We explored the island, and then Josh, Matt and I took a boat into Ao Nang, across the bay, to find out about kayaking and diving. It was a super touristy area with lots of places to eat and sleep. I'm not sure I loved it, but it did have a great, laid back atmosphere.
The next f
ew days were filled with gorgeous beaches, an outstanding kayak ride around the cliffs and islands, a totally shady snorkeling trip, awesome diving, lots of pad thai, a couple awesome hikes/walks, and nights of euchre and hearts.
Some highlights included the following.
During lunch our first day, we spotted a cat that looked like a VERY SICK version of the cat that we're friends with at home (Matt calls her Hunter, and I still refuse to give her a name). This cat even had the same meow. We were watching her through lunch. When we were finished eating, but we hadn't yet paid, the cat walked over to Matt's chair and jumped up on the chair, which made him jump up in order to make room for her (she was really gross looking). It was hilarious.
We signed up for a sunset snorkeling trip, and the trip ended up being gorgeous and fun, but it was super shady. The company never took our names or hotel room numbers or anything, so if god forbid something happened, they would have no idea who we are. In addition, they told us to stay in bud
dies, but they never checked that we had buddies. There was no one watching us, so if someone needed help or became a distressed swimmer, there was no one to help them. At one point, when everyone was snorkeling, they switched boats, and the new boat was way farther out. People who were snorkeling saw their boat driving away. Then, to top it all off, we came back in a long tail boat with NO LIGHTS on it, IN THE DARK. I didn't freak out as much as I could have/should have. We did see good fish, we saw an amazing sunset from a beach that was perfect, and the food was good.
The morning that Matt and I woke up to go diving, I could not stop scratching my legs. I had noticed some bites the couple days before then, but I thought they were mosquito bites (I didn't think about the fact that they were only on my legs...). That morning, I had TONS all over my legs and feet, and they were miserably scratchy. I looked on Matt's legs, and he also had tons
of little red bites (though he didn't seem to have the same allergic reaction that I did...), and I realized that we had bed bugs. Yuck. The hotel's solution was cortizone cream. They also offered to have someone spray in our room. We made them switch our mattress since they couldn't switch our room. Nevermind that the maids wanted to put the same sheets and pillows on the new one, but it was only one more night...
Wednesday, Matt and I had met a taxi driver in Ao Nung who said that he would drive us to the Phuket airport on Saturday. He said he would meet us downtown at 10:30 am. I was a bit untrusting, but we realized that we would find something to get us there if we paid enough money. Today, at 10:25 when we got off our long tail boat with all of our stuff, sure enough, the taxi driver was waiting for us on the beach and even carried some of our stuff up to the car. He was the friendliest guy ever, and he indeed took us to the airport, and we left the most beautiful place on earth (that I have seen so far).
Again - click here for the highlights of our pictures. Click here for 40 more.
I have lot
s more to say, but I will write more about it all this week. This is just too long. Tomorrow I'm turning 30. Wow.
(Title of this blog compliments of Jer)
After my last posting, Jer and I flew to Bangkok and met up with Matt and Josh (Matt's friend since age 11). In short, we spent a weekend in Bangkok, flew down to Phuket, bussed up to Khao Sok National Park for two days, vanned to Krabi, taxied to Ao Nam, boated to Railay and stayed there for about five days. Then we boated to Ao Nang, taxied to Phuket airport and flew home.
A bit more detail...Bangkok was filled with lots of people, vendors selling things on the sidewalk, wats, and amazing food. We stayed in the tourist area, packed with street food, cheap clothes and fake IDs. Jer and I visited the Jim Thompson house (after nearly dying at least five times in the tuk tuk ride on the way over). He (Mr. Thompson) was one man with amazing taste.
Friday night we met up with Phu and Ryce, two of Matt's friends from grad school. We had a great dinner - in terms of the conversation and the amazing dishes that Ryce chose. Yum. My favorite dish was the shrimp with noodles.
Saturday night we met up with Matt's other friend Noi and her husband Bob. This time we dined on the river and also ate amazing food. My favorite dish was the pomelo salad.
Sunday we flew off to Phuket. One might think that when you're staying at a big hotel in the centre of touristville you might be able to find a way to get to the airport for less than US$50. We finally did, but it took a lot of inbred fighting (between the four of us - mostly me, though) and a man who tried to get an extra $10 at the end. Also, our ticket didn't say which airport in Bangkok we were flying out of, so we (mostly I) were worried the whole taxi ride about going to the wrong airport.
From Phuket airport, we taxied into Phuket town, ate at a bus station restaurant and hopped on a local (but air conditioned!) bus to Khao Sok National Park. It ended up being a four and a half bus ride up the coast and then inland. We saw an area called Khao Lak which was totally devastated by the tsunami. The truth is, though, that we have no idea what it looked like pre-tsunami, so I can't comment on that.
Somehow when we got dropped off on the side of the highway, there was a woman waiting for us (not that she knew we were even on that bus - I seriously don't know how she got there), and we hopped in the back of her pick-up truck to get to the Nung House.
The Nung House was an experience in and of itself. Matt and I got the honeymoon suite - at the end of the row of shacks. We did have a toilet, and we even had a cockroach and three snails, but they had no shells! We had blue curtains and a frilly pink mosquito net. We had water when we were lucky, and a manual flush toilet. Matt and I were okay with our room, but Jer and Josh, down the road, were "less impressed."
We stayed in this rustic area in order to access Khao Sok National Park. We all woke up at 7 in the morning to get a start on the hikes that Lonely Planet recommended. We stopped in at the visitors' centre and asked about the leeches that were briefly mentioned in the LP book. They said they hadn't heard of any leeches this year, and we should head out, and the trail to all of the seven waterfalls should take us all day. We were pumped and started walking.
Jer didn't feel well, so ten minutes in, he turned around.
Josh was h
ot and uncomfortable and after 45 minutes, and the first waterfall, he turned around.Turns out they were the bright ones. When Josh left, Matt checked his feet and found the first leech. 35 leeches later, Matt and I saw a few lame waterfalls and were pissed and bitten. It took us three hours to get to the end, and it took us 50 minutes to get out. We stopped at the visitors' center on the way out, and the guy said that if he had told us about the leeches, we wouldn't have gone on the hike, so he didn't want to do that. Oy.
On Josh's way out, he was pointed at and laughed at, and then 20 people (he said they looked like they might have been Thai or from somewhere near Thailand) surrounded him and took a picture with him.
We ended up sitting at the restaurant at the Nung House for about 2 days playing euchre and a bit of hearts. Luckily they had great food and it ended up being great atmosphere, so we had a good time, but we weren't too happy about the park. As Jer put it - "Khao Sok khao sucks."
We took a minivan on a crazy ride to Krabi. As expected, they dropped us off outside of Krabi, and we had to use their collaborative tourist services to get ourselves out of there. We had run out of Thai Baht, so we asked how far it was to Krabi town. We were told 1km, so Jer and I decided to walk to change some money. After 10 minutes of walking, we stopped into the only hotel we saw, and we asked how to get to Krabi town. They said to take one of the pick-ups that has benches in the back, and it should cost about 10 baht a person. It was about 5 km away. We hopped on the first one we saw, and we asked to be dropped of in the centre of town. Jer and I started relaxing and high fiving each other. Then we realized that we had NO idea where we were, and that after we got money, we would have to get back to Matt and Josh. We watched every turn and even asked a guy on the truck where we were, but it was impossible to get a straight answer. After finding a place that was open (new years day...), we tried to find a truck back. When trying to make sure that we would get dropped off in the right place, no one spoke English, and we couldn't figure out how to tell them where we needed to go (apparently the road has no name!). We walked (and sweat) for about 30 minutes, and finally we hopped in the back of a truck that would get us to the right place if it kept going straight. We ended up getting back, and it was quite an adventure.
We had to trust one of the collaborators, (though he did want all of the money up front, which we obviously refused), and for a small amount of 800 baht, he promised us we would end up at our hotel. We drove for 15 minutes, got off at a pier, walked with all of our stuff out to a long tail boat, jumped in and ended up on Railay East. Our final accommodations were much nicer than the previous two. Josh was happy.
This peninsula is basically the most beautiful place I have ever been. It has amazing limestone cliffs sticking out of the blueist, most gorgeous greenish waters. The beaches were unbelievable. We explored the island, and then Josh, Matt and I took a boat into Ao Nang, across the bay, to find out about kayaking and diving. It was a super touristy area with lots of places to eat and sleep. I'm not sure I loved it, but it did have a great, laid back atmosphere.
The next f
ew days were filled with gorgeous beaches, an outstanding kayak ride around the cliffs and islands, a totally shady snorkeling trip, awesome diving, lots of pad thai, a couple awesome hikes/walks, and nights of euchre and hearts.Some highlights included the following.
During lunch our first day, we spotted a cat that looked like a VERY SICK version of the cat that we're friends with at home (Matt calls her Hunter, and I still refuse to give her a name). This cat even had the same meow. We were watching her through lunch. When we were finished eating, but we hadn't yet paid, the cat walked over to Matt's chair and jumped up on the chair, which made him jump up in order to make room for her (she was really gross looking). It was hilarious.
We signed up for a sunset snorkeling trip, and the trip ended up being gorgeous and fun, but it was super shady. The company never took our names or hotel room numbers or anything, so if god forbid something happened, they would have no idea who we are. In addition, they told us to stay in bud
dies, but they never checked that we had buddies. There was no one watching us, so if someone needed help or became a distressed swimmer, there was no one to help them. At one point, when everyone was snorkeling, they switched boats, and the new boat was way farther out. People who were snorkeling saw their boat driving away. Then, to top it all off, we came back in a long tail boat with NO LIGHTS on it, IN THE DARK. I didn't freak out as much as I could have/should have. We did see good fish, we saw an amazing sunset from a beach that was perfect, and the food was good.The morning that Matt and I woke up to go diving, I could not stop scratching my legs. I had noticed some bites the couple days before then, but I thought they were mosquito bites (I didn't think about the fact that they were only on my legs...). That morning, I had TONS all over my legs and feet, and they were miserably scratchy. I looked on Matt's legs, and he also had tons
of little red bites (though he didn't seem to have the same allergic reaction that I did...), and I realized that we had bed bugs. Yuck. The hotel's solution was cortizone cream. They also offered to have someone spray in our room. We made them switch our mattress since they couldn't switch our room. Nevermind that the maids wanted to put the same sheets and pillows on the new one, but it was only one more night...Wednesday, Matt and I had met a taxi driver in Ao Nung who said that he would drive us to the Phuket airport on Saturday. He said he would meet us downtown at 10:30 am. I was a bit untrusting, but we realized that we would find something to get us there if we paid enough money. Today, at 10:25 when we got off our long tail boat with all of our stuff, sure enough, the taxi driver was waiting for us on the beach and even carried some of our stuff up to the car. He was the friendliest guy ever, and he indeed took us to the airport, and we left the most beautiful place on earth (that I have seen so far).
Again - click here for the highlights of our pictures. Click here for 40 more.
I have lot
s more to say, but I will write more about it all this week. This is just too long. Tomorrow I'm turning 30. Wow.(Title of this blog compliments of Jer)
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Chiang Mai to Chaing Rai
Seriously - those are the names of the cities.
Click here for 1/4 of my pictures from the trip to Thailand.
Jer and I got picked up in the back of a pick up truck (we were literally picked-up) and we road for a couple of hours with our new friends Jeanette and Martin, a couple from E. Germany (he lives in Singapore). We first saw an elephant show which made me sad. The elephants didn't look very happy, though I must admit that I don't know what a happy elephant looks like. It just seems like if they had their druthers they wouldn't necessarily do the things they were made to do.
On to more important things...we arrived at the Chaing Dao (another Chiang - it means town) caves, and got on our bikes after lunch. We biked a bit on roads, visited a local market (including de
ad frogs) and got off road a bit. We rode about 35 km. We ended the day sort of in a hill tribe village. The hill tribe people here are not Thai people per se, so they speak different languages, and they definitely have a lower standard of living. We stayed in a bamboo hut over night. There were a few remarkable things about this experience.
1) It was Christmas eve, and the guides were SUPER cute about it. They brought us rum, soda, rice whiskey and chocolate cake (none of which they usually do).
2) We did this thing where we lit a lantern with a candle, and we all held it until it was hot enough to raise itself up in the air. We all let go, and it went flying off into nowhere (or Burma to fall down during the dry season and start a forest fire). It was really cool, and it ultimately looked like another one of the amazing millions of stars.
3) They bought and wrapped presents for each of us. After our FEAST of a meal (and a few drinks including the wine that Jeanette and Martin had brought...), we got to open Christmas presents. It was my first Christmas presents since high school, I think.
4) It was FREEZING. If you have been reading my blog since I moved to Singapore, you would know that I am just about NEVER cold. It was so cold (supporting picture to be uploaded soon).
After getting up, we had another feast of a meal and had one of the hardest but most amazing biking days of my life. We ended up biking about 65 km, and about half of it was SUPER hard off roading. I nearly died, but it was so rewarding, and it was SO gorgeous. We rode through bamboo forests, banana tree fields, country roads with amazing views of mountains, through streams, villages, and just about every other type of food and vegetable field you could think of. We had a couple of what my dad would call killer hills, and I must say that Jer and I did really well (obviously he did bett
er, but for me, I rocked). We ate really good pad thai for lunch. We saw another cave with a buddah or two, and we rode on the truck for a bit to reach Tha Thon. Here we stayed in a hotel and I ate pork soup (I still think it's funny when I eat pork). It was freezing there too. Thank goodness for my winter hat.
The third day we ended up biking about 65 km also, but it was more on the road, and definitely less challenging (but still SO HARD FOR ME!!). My butt nearly fell off, but luckily it's still there. We saw some people harvesting rice, which was neat-o. They work so hard. It doesn't look like fun. We also went on a boat ride with our bikes. The driver zoomed us down the river, avoiding rocks and other obstructions by mere centimeters, but with no errors. It was pretty impressive. We also bought a few pomellos (sp?) right out of the field. They were 40 baht for 3 - that's about $1.30. Holy schnikes, right? We rode right up to our hotel in Chiang Rai. It was a totally fine hotel with loud parties next door. We ate good food again.
Today, our last day of biking, kicked my ass. At this point, my thighs were mildly responsive when I asked them to pedal, and my butt was still not interested in sitting on the seat. I definitely did the best I could. We biked about 40 km - up to a few pretty wats and an amazing waterfall (supporting picture to follow). We ate the best meal I have ever had for lunch. It included spicy papaya salad, sweet smashed bananas with honey, sticky rice, fried chicken, green chile paste, cabbage, bamboo shoot salad and a dessert made from cassava and coconut. It was outstanding.
We then rode in the back of the truck back to Chiang Mai. Jer was dad, and he was miserable the whole time, worried that we were going to tip over or get in an accident or something similar. It was beautiful and fine (but he still didn't enjoy one minute of it).
Once we got back to Chiang Mai, I actually decided to try out the Thai massage again (check out my Bangkok posting from July). Since my body is/was SOO sore, it felt amazing. She was laughing at me for how much I jumped when she leaned on my legs. It was $8.
Jer and I just ate a great dinner, and we're off to Bangkok tomorrow, and we finally get to meet up with Matt and Josh.
Click here for 1/4 of my pictures from the trip to Thailand.
Jer and I got picked up in the back of a pick up truck (we were literally picked-up) and we road for a couple of hours with our new friends Jeanette and Martin, a couple from E. Germany (he lives in Singapore). We first saw an elephant show which made me sad. The elephants didn't look very happy, though I must admit that I don't know what a happy elephant looks like. It just seems like if they had their druthers they wouldn't necessarily do the things they were made to do.
On to more important things...we arrived at the Chaing Dao (another Chiang - it means town) caves, and got on our bikes after lunch. We biked a bit on roads, visited a local market (including de
ad frogs) and got off road a bit. We rode about 35 km. We ended the day sort of in a hill tribe village. The hill tribe people here are not Thai people per se, so they speak different languages, and they definitely have a lower standard of living. We stayed in a bamboo hut over night. There were a few remarkable things about this experience.1) It was Christmas eve, and the guides were SUPER cute about it. They brought us rum, soda, rice whiskey and chocolate cake (none of which they usually do).
2) We did this thing where we lit a lantern with a candle, and we all held it until it was hot enough to raise itself up in the air. We all let go, and it went flying off into nowhere (or Burma to fall down during the dry season and start a forest fire). It was really cool, and it ultimately looked like another one of the amazing millions of stars.
3) They bought and wrapped presents for each of us. After our FEAST of a meal (and a few drinks including the wine that Jeanette and Martin had brought...), we got to open Christmas presents. It was my first Christmas presents since high school, I think.
4) It was FREEZING. If you have been reading my blog since I moved to Singapore, you would know that I am just about NEVER cold. It was so cold (supporting picture to be uploaded soon).
After getting up, we had another feast of a meal and had one of the hardest but most amazing biking days of my life. We ended up biking about 65 km, and about half of it was SUPER hard off roading. I nearly died, but it was so rewarding, and it was SO gorgeous. We rode through bamboo forests, banana tree fields, country roads with amazing views of mountains, through streams, villages, and just about every other type of food and vegetable field you could think of. We had a couple of what my dad would call killer hills, and I must say that Jer and I did really well (obviously he did bett
er, but for me, I rocked). We ate really good pad thai for lunch. We saw another cave with a buddah or two, and we rode on the truck for a bit to reach Tha Thon. Here we stayed in a hotel and I ate pork soup (I still think it's funny when I eat pork). It was freezing there too. Thank goodness for my winter hat.The third day we ended up biking about 65 km also, but it was more on the road, and definitely less challenging (but still SO HARD FOR ME!!). My butt nearly fell off, but luckily it's still there. We saw some people harvesting rice, which was neat-o. They work so hard. It doesn't look like fun. We also went on a boat ride with our bikes. The driver zoomed us down the river, avoiding rocks and other obstructions by mere centimeters, but with no errors. It was pretty impressive. We also bought a few pomellos (sp?) right out of the field. They were 40 baht for 3 - that's about $1.30. Holy schnikes, right? We rode right up to our hotel in Chiang Rai. It was a totally fine hotel with loud parties next door. We ate good food again.
Today, our last day of biking, kicked my ass. At this point, my thighs were mildly responsive when I asked them to pedal, and my butt was still not interested in sitting on the seat. I definitely did the best I could. We biked about 40 km - up to a few pretty wats and an amazing waterfall (supporting picture to follow). We ate the best meal I have ever had for lunch. It included spicy papaya salad, sweet smashed bananas with honey, sticky rice, fried chicken, green chile paste, cabbage, bamboo shoot salad and a dessert made from cassava and coconut. It was outstanding.
We then rode in the back of the truck back to Chiang Mai. Jer was dad, and he was miserable the whole time, worried that we were going to tip over or get in an accident or something similar. It was beautiful and fine (but he still didn't enjoy one minute of it).
Once we got back to Chiang Mai, I actually decided to try out the Thai massage again (check out my Bangkok posting from July). Since my body is/was SOO sore, it felt amazing. She was laughing at me for how much I jumped when she leaned on my legs. It was $8.
Jer and I just ate a great dinner, and we're off to Bangkok tomorrow, and we finally get to meet up with Matt and Josh.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Wat's up in Chiang Mai
Jer and I are in Chiang Mai. We have basically been watting since we got here. If you have been to Thailand you know what I'm talking about. There are Wats all over the place. Wats are temples. They're GORGEOUS, but honestly, how many can you see? Inside Chiang Mai itself there are 300! That's a lot, and it's far too many for us to see.Turns out this posting is going to be shorter than I expected. I'm getting eaten alive by dengue and malarial mosquitoes (okay, they're probably not, but I'm my dad's daughter).
We have found the temples to be amazingly gorgeous, and we particularly love the guarding dragons. T
he wats also have great bathrooms. They're very clean.We have walked around the city at least 20 times, and we have seen each street vendor at least 40. I think they sell their things in different parts of the city at different times (sometimes even at the same times!). There is actually great shopping here.
Today Jer and I took a Thai cooking class. We made some coconut soup, some amazing curry, some stir fry, some banana cake and some other things that I can't remember.
Our favorite food here is sticky rice with mango and a banana shake on the side.
NO MALARIA!! NO DENGUE!!
Must get in
side.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Jeremy in Singapore
Since I last wrote, my brother FINALLY arrived in Singapore. After driving from Ithaca to Buffalo and flying to Michigan, then Portland, then Tokyo THEN SINGAPORE, he arrived at our house last night around 1:30. I almost didn't recognize him in the airport, because his shoulders have gotten more broad in the last six months. Luckily, he stood out, because he was white.
Today was a public holiday in Singapore - it's Hari Raya Haji, which my taxi driver told me remembers Abraham's almost sacrifice of Isaac and also the people who do the Haj. Apparently Malay all around Singapore sacrifice goats at their mosques. Anyway, basically this meant that we didn't have to work.
Jer and I woke up and went to the wet market by my house. We first had some prawn noodles for breakfast along with a plate full of awesome fruit and lime juices. This man and his son invited us to sit with them. He said they don't ever see foreigners in that food court. That's the same food court where my parents met people each time they went. Apparently this is the most friendly food court in Singapore - or at least in Bedok (where we live).
We walked all around the wet market. Some highlights included mangoes, fish heads, SUPER long beans, and some things that we have never heard of (we bought one - chinko or something like that).
We then went to pick up my shoes that were being repaired and visited our first mall of the day. Jer appreciated the Christmas tree in the almost totally Chinese HOT as hell country. We bused to Esplanade and walked all around there and up the river to Clark Quay and then over to Orchard Road (that's a long walk). Jer appreciated the huge "umbrella" over Clark Quay which makes it feel like it's not raining or sunny and it turns colors at night.
We ate great dim sum, walked around malls, looked around a huge Japanese department store called Takashimaya and then headed over to Little India. We didn't do anything too exciting there, but we ate really good food.
Now we're exhausted and headed to sleep, because tomorrow at 4:30 Jer and I are getting up to go to the airport to go to Chiang Mai. I will blog as much as I can from the road.
Today was a public holiday in Singapore - it's Hari Raya Haji, which my taxi driver told me remembers Abraham's almost sacrifice of Isaac and also the people who do the Haj. Apparently Malay all around Singapore sacrifice goats at their mosques. Anyway, basically this meant that we didn't have to work.
Jer and I woke up and went to the wet market by my house. We first had some prawn noodles for breakfast along with a plate full of awesome fruit and lime juices. This man and his son invited us to sit with them. He said they don't ever see foreigners in that food court. That's the same food court where my parents met people each time they went. Apparently this is the most friendly food court in Singapore - or at least in Bedok (where we live).
We walked all around the wet market. Some highlights included mangoes, fish heads, SUPER long beans, and some things that we have never heard of (we bought one - chinko or something like that).
We then went to pick up my shoes that were being repaired and visited our first mall of the day. Jer appreciated the Christmas tree in the almost totally Chinese HOT as hell country. We bused to Esplanade and walked all around there and up the river to Clark Quay and then over to Orchard Road (that's a long walk). Jer appreciated the huge "umbrella" over Clark Quay which makes it feel like it's not raining or sunny and it turns colors at night.
We ate great dim sum, walked around malls, looked around a huge Japanese department store called Takashimaya and then headed over to Little India. We didn't do anything too exciting there, but we ate really good food.
Now we're exhausted and headed to sleep, because tomorrow at 4:30 Jer and I are getting up to go to the airport to go to Chiang Mai. I will blog as much as I can from the road.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Four Years and Time is Moving
Yesterday was my brother Kenny's yahrzeit (which by the way was a word in the national spelling bee. Should that be allowed? I think not!). A yahrzeit is a Jewish anniversary of death. He actually died on New Years, but in the Hebrew calendar it was the 7th of Tevet.
It has been four years.
When he died, at this time, four years ago, I was leading a birthright trip of college students in Israel.
The year after I was at my friends, Andy and Leslie's wedding in Indiana (though that wasn't allowed according to Jewish law...it was really important to me).
btw, Marla, I guess I would go to the wedding. I forgot about this one...
The year after that I was in Chicago. Matt and I had just gotten engaged, and we were celebrating that and my birthday with our friends. We went to some bizarre minyan there to say kaddish.
Last year I was leading a volunteer trip to the north of Israel. The amazing people on that trip, though SUPER late at night and so tired after a really long day, made a minyan for me, and I said kaddish. I think we even threw together a morning minyan.
This year, we met a friend for brunch, we played tennis with our other friends, and we ate salad. I guess it all feels really far away. I'm not in Israel which always reminds me of death now (for many reasons). I'm not in the cold, which reminds me of a cold funeral. I'm just still living in June, and I don't really have people around me who will/are able to remember with me. I'm not sure if this means moving forward or just spending a few years outside of my support network.
On another note - I am REALLY hoping that my (other) brother can get around this mad snowstorm. I don't really want to wait longer than Wednesday night, and our trip to Thailand definitely won't wait for us! Please - Jer - just drive to catch your flight out of Oregon or Washington or wherever it is!!! You must make it!!
It has been four years.
When he died, at this time, four years ago, I was leading a birthright trip of college students in Israel.
The year after I was at my friends, Andy and Leslie's wedding in Indiana (though that wasn't allowed according to Jewish law...it was really important to me).
btw, Marla, I guess I would go to the wedding. I forgot about this one...
The year after that I was in Chicago. Matt and I had just gotten engaged, and we were celebrating that and my birthday with our friends. We went to some bizarre minyan there to say kaddish.
Last year I was leading a volunteer trip to the north of Israel. The amazing people on that trip, though SUPER late at night and so tired after a really long day, made a minyan for me, and I said kaddish. I think we even threw together a morning minyan.
This year, we met a friend for brunch, we played tennis with our other friends, and we ate salad. I guess it all feels really far away. I'm not in Israel which always reminds me of death now (for many reasons). I'm not in the cold, which reminds me of a cold funeral. I'm just still living in June, and I don't really have people around me who will/are able to remember with me. I'm not sure if this means moving forward or just spending a few years outside of my support network.
On another note - I am REALLY hoping that my (other) brother can get around this mad snowstorm. I don't really want to wait longer than Wednesday night, and our trip to Thailand definitely won't wait for us! Please - Jer - just drive to catch your flight out of Oregon or Washington or wherever it is!!! You must make it!!
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Prostitutes
Tonight we went out for a friend's birthday. It was at a super fun/good food/great atmosphere restaurant downtown. We had a great time with her and her friends.
On the way home, Matt took me into a place called Orchard Towers. Apparently at night, this is one of the two places that prostitution is legal and regulated in Singapore. I am extremely inexperienced when it comes to prostitutes. Considering I have only seen them pretty much in the movies, I have to say that these were especially hot. They were gorgeous ladies! It was an office building that had a lot of closed stores, a few clubs, and a few open restaurants. The restaurants were filled with ladies.
When we walked away, we saw two walking ahead of us, and they were basically going after each white guy who was alone on the street. They didn't just give them looks, they also reached out and tickled their bellies (like Elmo) or dragged their fingers across their arms. I didn't see them succeed, but it was super interesting to see this in action.
If anyone knows any good books about life as a prostitute - memoirs or what not, please let me know. I'm totally intrigued.
On the way home, Matt took me into a place called Orchard Towers. Apparently at night, this is one of the two places that prostitution is legal and regulated in Singapore. I am extremely inexperienced when it comes to prostitutes. Considering I have only seen them pretty much in the movies, I have to say that these were especially hot. They were gorgeous ladies! It was an office building that had a lot of closed stores, a few clubs, and a few open restaurants. The restaurants were filled with ladies.
When we walked away, we saw two walking ahead of us, and they were basically going after each white guy who was alone on the street. They didn't just give them looks, they also reached out and tickled their bellies (like Elmo) or dragged their fingers across their arms. I didn't see them succeed, but it was super interesting to see this in action.
If anyone knows any good books about life as a prostitute - memoirs or what not, please let me know. I'm totally intrigued.
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