An Overview (Kait)

Well, now that we’re finally removed from the city in our peaceful little compound, I feel like I can actually take the time to sit and recap part of our trip so far. We spent the first few days in Bangkok at Suk 11 hostel, this gorgeous and cheap hostel that couldn’t decide if it was an antique shop, a greenhouse, or a comfy hostel. We found Bangkok really interesting, but hectic and polluted (but not as bad as I expected) and were glad to head north on our train to Chiang Mai after we spent a few days hitting all of the tourist must-see destinations (the beautiful temples, the grand palace, the crazy markets peddling t-shirts, buddha statues, and hippie clothes to tourists, the canals, and the floating markets where everyone loads their fruits, curries and cheap trinkets into canoes offer them to the shoppers paddling by in their canoes).

Some other highlights of Bangkok were seeing the monks in their beautiful orange robes, the crazy fruit-stands selling all sorts of delicious tropical fruits I’ve never heard of, watching the majestic video tribute to the King that everyone stands for before every movie played in the theatres, and devouring delicious street-vender food and surviving, Bangkok-belly free. Good thing we both like spicy food so much- I guess most visitors don’t get sick from tainted street food, but simply because their stomachs can’t handle all the chilies. So far our stomachs have been handling it like champs.

Our train ride to Chiang Mai was very long (about 12 hours) but we enjoyed watching the gorgeous jungle and rice paddies fly by. We even saw a water buffalo and a man in one of those round, peaked Chinese hats plowing their rice paddy. A man from our guest house, Gaps 2, was waiting at the train station was waiting to pick us up at the station and help us with our ridiculous amounts of luggage.

We’ve loved our few days in Chiang Mai- it’s the second biggest city in Thailand, but it’s tiny compared to Bangkok and is infinitely more laid-back. It’s been described to me as “the Eugene of Thailand” because it’s really laid back, has lots of highly educated liberals and has tons of interesting cultural stuff to do (an old walled city to explore, Thai cooking courses, nearby hill-tribes to visit, elephants to ride, meditation retreats, national parks, expat hangouts, hiking, rafting, etc). We booked an overnight hill trek for just over 30 bucks each and had what I’d say are two of the most amazing days of my life.

Our guide picked up all of the other trekkers from their respective hostels around the town and we drove an hour and a half or so outside of Chiang Mai, getting to know each other on the ride. Ace and I were the only Americans- we were trekking with a music student from Ireland, an engineer and English teacher from Germany, a recent grad from Denmark and her yoga-teaching Israeli boyfriend, a younger guy from England, and a biology teacher and social service worker from Finland. Every one of them was fascinating, well traveled, well-educated and fun in their own way- just an incredible group who I enjoyed every second with. Our first real stop was the elephant trekking site, where we climbed aboard elephants and went for an hour ride through gorgeous, dense jungle. I got to ride our elephant sans-saddle and feed him bananas- he kept lifting his trunk above his head to snuffle at me for more snacks. It was amazing. I think we got the mischievous one, cause every time our guide wasn’t paying attention (which was most of the time) he wandered off the path and started munching on trees. We then drove a bit further and did a 2.5 hour hike up to the top of a mountain where the remote hill tribe we’d be staying with lived. The hike was really, really challenging- super-dense jungle, an extremely steep, narrow dirt path that crisscrossed back and forth over a stream via rocks you had to hop across, and heat that gave poor Ace some mild heat exhaustion. Fortunately around the time he was getting dizzy, the sky split open and we got monsooned on J It actually felt great, as it was still so warm and we got to be drenched with water instead of sweat. Our guide cut us bamboo walking sticks, pointed out wild reached the village and were shown our accommodation, which was a typical village house, a bamboo structure on stilts with open doorways and a fire pit in the middle (obviously no electricity in the village). The structures were amazing- the deck was made out of bamboo poles covered with a sort of leafy plank made from the outer layer of bamboo, split open and laid flat. Our beds were mats on the floor enclosed by mosquito nets. We shared the building with a hill tribe host family and spent our evening having amazing philosophical discussions and singing along with a guitar our guide rustled up. I also made friends with the adorable, happy little local kids by taking pictures of them and showing themselves on my camera. Our walk around the 25-or-so building compound was accompanied by a trail of kiddos hopping around us and holding our hands. The next day we hiked back down the mountain (VERY steep and slippery due to the rain) and bathed in a waterfall. Then we went for a very exciting white-water rafting trip (Ace’s first!) with our spunky guide, who kept slapping the water and screaming “Oh!! Alligator! Big alligator!” and who encouraged us to “paddle! paddle harder!” directly into the giant rock ahead of us. This was followed by a trip bamboo rafting down the river (I’m not sure if you can call it a raft if it doesn’t really float…it hovered a few inches below the surface while we sat belly-deep in the warm water) which was quite relaxing after all of the crazy rapids we’d gone down in our inflated raft. That was the end of our tour, and we drove back into town and sadly said goodbye to our wonderful friends.

The next day, after we’d taken a delicious shower, examined our blisters and gotten some much-needed sleep, we took a one-day Thai cooking course. It was amazing- we got to make like 9 or so different Thai dishes and devour them without having to wash a single dish. The course started with a trip to the market, where our instructor introduced us to Thai veggies, spices, noodles, and fruits and explained what to substitute for the ingredients found only in Thailand. Then we headed to the beautiful outdoor cooking school (which was haunted by a bunch of well-behaved but hopeful doggies who loitered under the tables) and started cooking. For each dish, the instructor explained the ingredients and cooking methods, then we headed to our individual woks and tried it out while he good-naturedly shouted instructions behind us. Let’s see if I can remember all of our dishes…green curry, chicken with cashew, tom yum soup, fish soufflé in a banana leaf cup, and fried fish cakes with spicy cucumber sauce for lunch (I couldn’t even put a dent in all those at lunch time) and then spring rolls with plum sauce, phad thai, and whole pumpkin with coconut custard which we wrapped up and took home for dinner. Everything turned out beautifully, and we even learned how to make roses from tomato skins and lotus flowers out of onions. Best of all, we got this great cookbook with all of those recipes and a ton more to take home with us. Anyone want to try any of these at home?? I’ll send recipes!

Chiang Mai CELTA Centre (Kait)

It’s our first night in our training center outside of Chiang Mai- I can’t even express how lucky I feel to have found this place! It’s absolutely perfect- I can’t imagine a better place to spend a month studying and relaxing. The website describes the rooms as “rustic” and “functional as opposed to luxurious”, and Ace and I decided to share a room, so I was basically expecting to be sharing a twin bed in a buggy closet somewhere. Not the case! This place is so much nicer than anywhere I’ve stayed since I moved out of Mom’s! The compound is this lovely, lush, plant-y area with stepping-stone paths all over and open-air study areas overlooking a beautiful pond boiling with the hugest catfish and koi I’ve ever seen. Our room is spacious and full of light, has carved wooden doors and what I’m pretty sure is a queen bed, a mini-fridge, two little desks, air conditioning AND a fan (!!), a flat-screen TV and a lovely, spacious clean shower! Amazing! It also felt wonderful to finally unpack all of my wrinkly clothes; I hate living out of a suitcase! So we’re already all moved in and feeling at home here. An extra bonus- the whole compound is covered with adorable little 2-inch geckos that hunt bugs on the ceilings and walls. Haven’t found any in our room yet, but I was thinking we should catch a few hang out in the room and eat any bugs that decide to live with us. All 12 people that will be taking the course have arrived, and it seems like a really fun, interesting, social group. We’ve got a few people from the U.S., a Scottish guy, an Aussie, a woman from New Zealand, a Hungarian girl, and a few Brits. I’m the baby of the group, and I’d say the oldest guy is in his mid-fifties. He’s done everything from owning a chicken farm and cattle ranch in Panama to owning a liquor store in England to writing a book. A lot of people have already taught in different areas of Asia (and I think one guy was teaching in Saudi Arabia) and are looking to get accredited. We’re really looking forward to getting to know everybody even better. After arriving at the compound this afternoon, we all got moved in and then 8 of us took the 40-minute walk into the nearest little town, passing people planting rice in rice paddies and people driving these cool-looking cattle (oxen? water buffalo?) along the one lane road. Going back was also exciting, as we took a sort of taxi-truck back to the compound, getting quite lost, hurtling along the tiny road, and getting hit by the motorbike behind us when the driver had to slam on his brakes. Fortunately, no one besides us looked too worried or surprised by this J We got back to our compound, had a very tasty dinner of curry and spicy mushroom soup, and sat around drinking Thai beer and chatting with Clarence, the owner of the compound. He’s a super-laid back, funny Brit who came here as an English teacher and is still here 40 years later. Class starts tomorrow at 10:30- I’m a little excited and a little nervous. This is probably the last free time I’m going to have in quite a while!

July 26th- Adventures in Bangkok

So we're having a really good time so far; Bangkok is indeed big, noisy and smelly, but it's not quite as bad as I expected. So I'll try to fill you in on what we've been doing the last three days- after the Komodo incident, Ace and I found our way back to our hostel area, took showers and then walked down the block and got Thai massages :) It was GREAT; an hour of wonderfully brutal massage for about 9 bucks :) I'm 99.9 percent positive the massage place also offered "other" services, but we avoided the "lotion" and "shower" massage options and stuck with Traditional Thai. I loved it- she spent about half the time pummeling and yanking on my arms and legs (ever had your ankle popped? Well, now I have!). Ace and I headed back to the hostel and went to bed. At 6:30. We were pretty jet lagged, I guess. We woke up early the next morning, had the fresh fruit and muffin breakfast at our hostel, and went to the river; we hopped on a tourist boat and headed up the incredibly nasty water to the main tourist-attraction area- we spent the afternoon scoping out the incredibly opulent King's Palace, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, and Wat Pho (Bangkok's largest and oldest temple). I took a ton of picts and Ace has been taking tons of videos, so we'll get those online for you to see eventually. We hopped another tourist boat back down south, took the lusciously air-conditioned sky train back to our neighborhood, then had dinner at a beautiful restaurant by our hostel. There were orchids on our table :) Ace and I had curry, and the peppers in Ace's were so hot the back of his head was sweating. It was glorious. Then we hit up the nearby British pub, the Pickled Liver, and had shots of Thai whisky. We managed to stay awake until about 10:30 last night. I think the heat is really taking it out of us. Today our reservation at Suk 11 ran out, so had to move to another hostel- this one is YHA hostel Thailand. The rooms are unimaginably tiny, but we got an air-conditioned room and the staff is super helpful and friendly. We also went to the train station and bought tickets for Chiang Mai- I'm super excited for the scenery. Getting to the station was interesting because cabs instantly identify us as clueless sucker tourists. It took us four taxis to finally find one that was willing to start the meter instead of charging us a ridiculously high fixed rate. The way back was easier, though. The Lonely Planet guide has been so helpful- I think I've been approached with almost every scam the book warns about. After that, we went to the weekend market (a ridicuously huge market that reminded me of the souks in Tunisia, except with less harassment). So far, we've seen everything from amulets to dentures to adorable fuzzy puppies for sale in the markets. They were especially fuzzy because the vender kept combing them backwards to ensure their fuzziness. Then we wandered around for about an hour in a half in search of an English bookstore- Ace wanted to find some Thai lit in English. He finally found some sort of novel, so now we're back in our tiny tiny hostel relaxing before dinner. We'll probably go nab some food from a street vender. Tomorrow we've signed up for a tour throught the hostel, which should be nice- it'll be good to have someone who knows what's going on cart our tired butts around for a while. We're going to see the floating markets (people mill around in the canal or river in little canoes filled with fruits, veggies, and crappy souveniers), then a muy thai demonstration (martial arts), then some traditional dance I think, and some other stuff I can't remember. That's about it for now- we'll be heading up to Chiang Mai on Tuesday AM, so we're trying to get everything in.