ABCs of Thailand

**Disclaimer: The idea for this clever little blog did NOT, in fact, spring from my own brain, but from here**

Here's a little list (I'm slightly addicted to lists) of random observations I made during our adventures in Thailand, starting with "A" and moving on down the list. Some letters I was more enthusiastic about; others, I just could not think of ANYTHING, such as with "q," predictably. I hope you enjoy, I certainly enjoyed writing it!

ANIMALS: the stray animals will break your heart.

BIRTHDAYS, BUCKET SHOWERS, and BAI NAI: the day you were

born is much more important than the date, i.e. they celebrate on the day of the week you were born at that particular time of year, like the second Tuesday in November and whatnot. we experienced the infamous bucket showers while staying with Liz...not bad, especially on hot days! But definitely gave an involuntary squeal every time the first bucket was poured over the head. finally, as a greeting, Tha

is will say, "Bai nai?" meaning, "where are you going?" It's kind of like our, "what's up?"

COLOR-CODES: every day of the week has a different color. at some schools, the kid's uniform shirt must match the day of the week that color happens to be!

DIVING, DRAGONFLIES and DANCING: aw, I love diving. The dragonflies are red. And traditional dancing is awesome, and so hard! My hands do not bend that far--when the girls are babies, they will have their hands soaked in warm water and pushed back, and then when they're in lessons, the hands are taped back to achieve the best curve.

ELEPHANTS and EGGS: I love elephants, they are SO CUTE, and we finally saw a baby one on our last day in Chiang Mai! As for eggs, in our friend Megan's village, a group of Christian missionaries live nearby, and on Easter, they went around handing out Easter eggs. In Thailand, if someone hands you an entire egg, it means they never want to see you again. Hence, the Christians had a lot of apologizing to do!

FANTA, and FIELD TRIPS: Orange Fanta is somehow better when you're abroad. Field trips are not the to-do they are in the states; the teacher merely grabs the kids and you can wander around for as long as you wish. No permission slips, no nothing!

GENEROSITY and GEEKS: The Thais are some of the most generous people on the planet. Although they do have this weird custom of geeks: every married person probably has a geek, i.e. mistress, on the side, and this is perfectly acceptable and the entire village will know, although it's not completely advertised.

HITCHHIKING, HAIR and HUMIDITY: Hitchhiking, will not encouraged when you're alone, is fun in a group; and as previously discussed, the generous nature of the Thais always had them rearranging their truck for us and refusing any sort of compensation! My hair, as you can imagine, reacted very badly to the humidity, as did my skin...I loved Thailand and most of SE Asia, but I honestly don't know how people survive the humidity!!

INDIGO: As in dye. It's beautiful! We were given the opportunity to try it out, and it smells super funky, but kind of good. It's made of a local plant, so it's all organic. The fabric ends up any shade between dark green and deep blue!

JANKY: A word I say all the time now, thanks to my cuz.

KING, KHANOMS, and KARAOKE: Everyone in Thailand loves their king. Every day, in public places, his anthem is played, and every house has a least one picture of the king inside, if not multiple. Even when you go to the movies, you'll watch a short film and hear the anthem prior. Khanoms are any kind of snack, usually something sweet, that is customarily brought when you visit anyone, like a hostess gift. And finally, karaoke is a huge pastime and you will do it everywhere: parties, camping, etc.

LANGUAGES and LA: Within Thailand, they have several dialects of Thai, as mentioned, my Thai name was in the northern dialect. Everyone in the north speaks this dialect, as well as the national version of Thai. "La" means handsome, and I used it all the time as it's accompanied with a fun hand gesture.

MONKS, MILKING OUT, MASSAGES, MOLES and MAI BEN RAI: Monks, wearing their customary bright orange outfits, are everywhere and I love them! Breasts in Thailand are called "mountains of milk," I got told often that I was "milking out." In addition to our sketchy massage in Pai, we got a much nicer on in Chiang Mai, although I'm still not exactly flexible, and it was occasionally excruciating. The back-cracking and usage of tiger balm is quite nice, though. We also got a foot massage from fishys...our feet were so soft afterwards although it tickled so much!! Moles, especially with long, nasty hair growing out of them, are a status symbol, a sign of wisdom, so the old men especially prize them. They are nothing but GROSS in my mind. Finally, "mai ben rai" is the Thai equivalent of "no worries!" and can be an answer to anything.

NIGHT MARKETS and NICKNAMES: Night markets in Thailand are the best! The best stuff, the best haggling, the best atmosphere. Everyone has a nickname in Thailand that usually sounds nothing like their five-syllable-long given name. For example, Liz's roommate's full name is Haittaratt, and her nickname is Lyette. I guess they both have "t's"...

OVALTINE: iced. it's the best.

PANTS, PAD THAI, PAYING and POMEGRANATES: fisherman pants, which I always thought were weird, are ubiquitous and quite comfy, and are cute! Pad thai is AMAZING, and I love that it never tastes quite the same. Old people always pay--wahoo, and pomegranates rock here: they're white-pink on the outside and sweet on the inside.

RICE and ROACHES: SO MANY KINDS OF RICE!!! Sticky rice, purple rice, plain white rice, dessert rice...the list goes on. Can't say I'm a huge fan of rice, but sticky rice is pretty good! Especially when mixed with coconut milk. And Thailand, unfortunately, introduced me to cockroaches. The most memorable experience was an overnight bus infested with them...somehow Court and I both slept on that bus. But, EW.

SUGAR, SNAILS, SUWAI, STREET FOOD, SPIRIT HOUSES and SCAMS: Even my sweet tooth could not handle the excessive sweetness present in many Thai dishes and snacks. At one point, Liz's bathroom was overrun by the BIGGEST snails I have ever seen. "Suwai" means beautiful, and it was definitely one of my ten go-to words, although I figured out near the end of our trip that using it in a different tone means something like fu-ugly...street food can be delicious and terrifying and disgusting, and we had all of those experiences and more with street food. Spirit houses are one of my favorite Buddhist traditions. You build someone a spirit house when they die, and every day for a year you light the incense on the house and give them offerings, to ease their transition between lives. Finally, scamming is an unfortunate part of life in Southeast Asia, and it's not always easy to catch--the borders are the worst!!

TUK-TUKS, THAI-NAPPING, and TRAFFIC: tuk-tuks are ubiquitous and can be cool but are mostly annoying. but hey, when you're in need of a ride at 4 a.m., they rock. As previously discussed in the blog, Thai-napping is rampant and is always crazy! We also got 'Nam-napped (more on that later). And TRAFFIC in Asia is a WHOLE different organism than traffic anywhere else. I thought South America was crazy, but Asia was a whole different ball game. Unlike in the states, it's better to NOT look both ways. Never let 'em see you sweat!

WAI-ING, WHITENESS and WATS: By far my favorite Thai custom is wai-ing, where you fold your hands like you're praying and bow your head to people. Different placement of the hands is required for monks, elders, etc, but I pretty much wai-ed everyone like a monk. Whiteness is sort of like tanning here: everyone wants to be paler, and they have tons of whitening products (even for the armpits, as I made the mistake of buying whitening deoderant...). Although unlike most of our tanning products (except actual tanning and maybe the chemicals in spray-tanning) the whitening products contain bleach. So if you use them continually, you end up a funny grey color. everyone called us beautiful, mostly because of our skin, but hey, I wasn't complaining! FINALLY, wats. Wats--temples--are everywhere and are crazy decadent. All are curly-cued and gold-tinged and some are insane, but either way, you'll find one on every other corner!

YEARS: Last notice: years. The Thais go by the Buddhist timeline, beginning with the year that Buddha achieved enlightenment (I think, although I've had several different bits of information about this) and therefore the year is 2553.

WELL. Wasn't this fun? Wishing you all a fantastic New Year and Christmas!!!! xxx

Send Those Wishes Into the Sky (Or Down the River)

"As we push away we pray
We will see a better day."
(last two lines of the Loi Krathong song)

The festival of Loi Krathong (pronounced roy gratone, sort of) finally came! Ever since my brother went when he was in Thailand I was looking forward to this event. And what a weekend it was...
We got into the Loi Krathong spirit pretty quickly after saying goodbye to Liz's village and all of her lovely neighbors (the goodbye consisted of some laughter and pointing as I hoofed my stubbornly CROOKED backpack-Court calls is "the Worm"- after the little red trucks they use as taxis, and cramming myself into the most crowded one ever for an hour, but hey) as the Loi Krathong song was playing over and over at the bus station in Phrae. It's a nice song, but imagine hearing 'Jingle Bells' over and over...you get the picture.
Our pilgrimage to Chiang Mai, reputedly the best city in Thailand to see the festival, went well, although the 4 hour bus ride seemed much longer as my bladder was threatening to explode (don't you love my intimate details??). Then, after dropping our stuff off at the Green Tulip-to date, the cleanest and nicest hostal we've seen in Southeast Asia-we wandered off to see the town.

Chiang Mai is such a NICE city. Rivers and moats, malls and markets, parks and wats. Bookstores up the wazoo.

Our first day in Chiang Mai, the highlight (for me) was some Western food in the form of Pizza Hut and HARRY POTTER 7! Part One. It was fun to go to a movie in Thailand-there is a little video/song at the beginning dedicated to the king, and everyone stands up in respect.

On Saturday, Loi Krathong truly began! The day included bagels, a nice Thai massage (with TIGER BALM!!-more on this later) and a massuese that was actually trained in the art of massage, and our own little Thanksgiving feast. We, meaning me, Liz, Megan, and Court, also had our own little Thanksgiving celebration, which included a whole host of farang food, such as falafel, burritos, Subway, salsa, Coke, and salad. Not much traditional Thanksgiving food, but the sandwiches WERE turkey, and remains one of the best Thanksgivings on my record, anyway (despite the fact that we almost burned down the hostal with our "mood lighting" candles...at least we were on the roof and caught it quickly, eh?) The rooftop of Green Tulip was also the PERFECT place to get our first glimpse of the amazing lanterns lighting up the sky as part of the festival.

Loi Krathong, in case you aren't in the know, traditionally began as a festival honoring the river goddess. Basically, you make a little banana boat (the krathong) and fill it with flowers and candles and bits of yourself, i.e. fingernails and hair, to send away the bad spirits that you may be plagued with. Then you light the candle and send it down the river! The rest of the festival, the spectacular part, evolved in the places that don't have a river: giant lanterns lit up and send into the sky with wishes for the next year. I think the idea of the lanterns/boats is BEAUTIFUL and I fully intend to steal at least the lantern idea for my wedding or retirement party or something (so be warned).

After our lovely little Thanksgiving celebration, we headed out onto the town to see the festival and send up a lantern of our own! The festival, we soon discovered, is like 4th of July on crack, mixed with a street festival and Valentine's Day (you're supposed to send your boat down the river with your lover). The 4th of July part was the insane fireworks that were exploding everywhere, and as Thailand is a little lax on who can light the fireworks (although they were especially on guard when a farang had a firework in their hand, I noticed) and where they can be lit, it was slightly terrifying, with them shooting in ALL directions!

I soon decided that Loi Krathong is one of the HIGHLIGHTS of our trip. It's terrifying, yes, but beautiful, majestic, inspiring, crazy, brilliant...I could go on (I won't, though, I'm sure I already broke several grammar rules, and the fact that I don't know which ones tells you just what kind of English major I was). From a distance, the lanterns looked like fireflies, or the enchanted ceiling in Hogwarts, or aliens taking over the planet. But no, just millions of wishes being sent up into the sky!

After traversing the crowd, getting caught in the middle of a parade, we made it down to the river, the center of festivities. After fighting our way through, and taking pictures of the many lanterns and the crowds and the fireworks, we bought our own lantern and headed onto a rickety dock to light it off.
It was harder than we thought-it took awhile to get it lit (of course, a friendly Thai person produced his extra lighter and gave us a hand) and after you light it, you have to hold it for awhile so it gets sufficient heat to prevent crashing and burning (we saw a lot of those, and some that got stuck in trees, or on houses...makes you wonder how many fires happen during that weekend!!). Being the crazy farangs we are, we didn't quite hold it long enough--it got really HOT--and it careened through the crowd, causing a few men to grab their women and dive out of harms way. But it went up! Nobody got hit! And we watched it go waaaaay up into the sky, holding our wishes for a better day :).

The rest of the night consisted of some dancing, although my skillz were not up to their usual level as I was ill with the bastard cold (that would, to my dismay, last for another two weeks, but at that point I just sounded like a man with a cough). It was still great to get out though! And it was fun to head back to our dorm, meet people, and sway on the roof in awe at the bee-you-tiful lanterns.

The next day, Loi Krathong continued, although the day was somewhat bittersweet as it was our last day :( with Liz and Megan! The lanterns were still beautiful, though, and Liz and Meg took us to an awesome night market where I spent waaaaay too much money, but mostly on gifts, so I don't feel SO bad :). We also went to dinner at this salad place with amazing carrot dressing...hear that, Mom? Salad! Carrots! I'm eating like a grown-up! (Not counting the Oreos...)
Sunday was fairly low-key as I was now having trouble breathing in addition to the throat-0n-fire, but still, I loved Chiang Mai!
After wrenching goodbyes to Liz and Megan (well, Megan. Liz snuck out at 5 a.m.) we spent another few days in Chiang Mai. That Monday was apparently THE day for Loi Krathong, which we'd hear about every other day that weekend, but it WAS! The streets were all closed off, the parade was somehow still continuing at around midnight when we finally headed home, and the crowds were INSANE.
Court and I bought our own little boat for the river and put a bit of hair in it, and braved the fiery shores (Court literally got her hair caught on fire from a firework--scariest moment of my life possibly--and we both narrowly avoided several close calls to our faces and other precious parts) to send it down the river! Our candle didn't really stay lit all that long...but I still like to pretend that the river goddess is blessin' us anyway:).
That evening, we watched the plethora of lanterns from our peaceful (well, peaceful except for the occasional dynamite blasts) rooftop and imagined all of the wishes, thought of our own wishes, sat there in awe.
A better day may indeed be heading our way...but it's going to be pretty hard to beat that festival! :)

A "Lake," Elephants, and the Mekong

After bidding Liz and her village goodbye-for-now, Court and I headed across the country towards the Burma border to Mae Hong Son, to be followed by Pai and a short sojourn into Laos to renew our visas (I've quickly discovered that visas are the BANE of my existence). We stopped over for a few uneventful hours in Chiang Mai and discovered our careful plans of NOT catching the local bus and GETTING the neat little vans were thwarted, and sure enough, we got on an overnight bus that resembled a school bus, rather than the "classy" ones with seats that only recline at an awkward angle and the A/C is fully blasting you in the face all night (yes, the school bus was worse).
The night was...long. Thankfully, it was dark, so we only felt the 1800-some(no joke!) turns that the mountainous road to Mae Hong Son is famous for, rather than saw them with our terrified faces.
We did get there in one piece, and even got a little bit of sleep, but were again slightly dismayed when we were dropped off at the worst hour of the day: 4 a.m. Nothing is open, no one was awake expect our tuk-tuk driver who dropped us off in front of a closed hostal. Luckily, being bright resourceful young women, we made good use of our time by wandering the streets, peeing in the lawn of what possibly was an official building (when nature calls...) and outrunning the local dog pack.
We also found the famed lake of Mae Hong Son which is, well, kindly, a "lake" as it's smaller than our neighbor's glorified pond. But, at least it was pretty and provided some seating to a couple of freezing girls! :)
Mae Hong Son was spent walking around, getting lost, discovering the glories of the Asian night market (oh boy!) and planning our trip to Pai, where we headed the next day. This bus station was a little more successful: we snagged one of the neat little vans and met an original hippie who introduced us to his pal in Pai.
Pai immediately struck me as a fun little hippie town, full of tourists--we even spotted our first fellow Americans, a couple of drunk boys trying to beat up a scarecrow, so proud--and full of fabulous, if pricey, shopping. We were still naive little travellers and got sucked into too many pairs of fisherman pants, but it was fun nonetheless.
Our first day in Pai, we also had our first encounter with the art of Thai massage. Let me just say, it was...interesting. We picked a random shop on the street, and immediately it was different from the massages I'd gotten in America--no music, no quiet atmosphere, and we changed into clothes they provided (although I convinced my cousin we both needed to keep our shirts off and get under the blankets, which resulted in hilarity from both of our massueses...whoops). They also BEND you around and crack your back and push painful veins (mine shoved her fingers in my armpits for the longest, most painful ten seconds of my life) but we felt pretty dang good, and sore, afterwards. And don't worry, they definitely were NOT "happy ending"massages. :)
Pai was also the sight of one of our most epic adventures yet--elephant riding!!!!!!
Take a moment for !!!!
I love those elephants. I pretty much filled up a memory card on my camera with elephants. If you saw them, you could not blame me!
We started out fairly early for Thom's Elephant Camp, meeting two pairs of German/Swiss girls traveling the world, and proceeded to meet our lovely elephants. Ours, a subdued little girl, was named Bom Pen, which means...well, our guide didn't know, but we still loved her!
The elephant guides are like acrobats, leaping up and down and climbing up the trunk, while I could barely swing my leg across, my thigh-area is still sore, and I was clinging for dear life to the rope/elephant head to avoid falling...and it's pretty far, cause elephants are, you guessed it, TALL!
The ride was nice, through the beautiful hills around Pai, and just as I was getting really sore, we came to a river and swam with our elephants! It was so fun, they clearly love the water and were splashing us and each other, and one even rolled over, dislodging his riders and leaving them hanging on to avoid getting rushed down the river (and even though I loved this part, another part of me remembered how all the pipes in Liz's village dump right into the creek). After a little while longer with our Bom Pen, we utilizied the camp's hot springs. Mmmm sooo good...especially after we discovered we'd been sitting in the cold pool for ages and found the nice surprise of the hot pool, three inches away.
After another trip around Pai's night market, we hit the road the next day, bound for LAOS!!!
The scenery on the way to Chiang Khong (the border town) via Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai was quite beautimous. Lots of curves, hills, mountains, mist...then rice and corn. One thing I noticed on the bus was this young woman, probably younger than my ripe old 23, cuddling her little baby, who was seriously adorable. The Thais, I have observed, really love their kids. Everyone dotes on the children, and we have seen fewer children working than I noticed in countries like Peru. We have also seen so many kids with dads, even being taken to work with their dads, and I find this heartwarming, too.
Enough random information, or else this blog, like the other one, will never end!!
It was a long day to Chiang Khong, where we were thankfully met by another Peace Corps friend of Liz's, another Josh. Josh gave us a taste of some Northern Thai curry (delicious and spicy) and gave us a tour of his town, where we got our first glimpse of the MEKONG and LAOS, right there, right across the river!!
The rest of the night involved drinking at a bicycle-themed bar with an Ethiopian and a Swiss, a couple of guy travelers, and then a cold night on Josh's floor, all before crossing the border the next day.
Once again demonstrating the ridiculous generosity of the Thais, Josh's neighbor/landlord dropped us off personally at the border with fruit and smiles.
So we began our first border crossing...we hopped into a little boat, zoomed across the river, filled out paperwork for awhile, got our passports stamped, and got completely ripped off for an evening ticket to Luang Prabang. (Border towns are expensive--even my pomegranate was twice as much! Pshaw).
Another looooooong night bus later, 15 hours complete with flat tires, pit stops on the side of the road, and views of villages with one T.V. (although it was kind of cool to see the entire village crowded around a T.V. cheering and laughing) we arrived in the French colonial city of Luang Prabang!
Luang Prabang is one of the prettiest cities we have seen so far. Giant wats everywhere, surrounded by two rivers--one of them the Mekong--and filled with crepes. I was a pretty happy camper for the few days we were there!
They also have an incredible Hmong Night Market. I've been interested in the Hmongs ever since reading "A Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down," and it was great to buy some of their handicrafts.
Laos went by in a whirl of monks, crepes, baguettes, shopping, interesting Lao food, including some kind of "river vegetable"and lots of lemongrass, Beerlao by the Mekong at sunset, and walking a lot. It was a fun little trip, but it was also good to be back at Liz's village, which now felt almost like home! :)