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!