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

Farang

The adventure continues. (I apologize, this is possibly the longest post ever, so hang tight, and I understand if you just can't make it through!)

After Ko Tao, we grabbed a hostel in Chumphon for the night, planning to meet our friend in the Peace Corps, Liz, and stay with some of her friends in a nearby village.

After a calm night where we ended up passing out at around 8 p.m. (Mr. Jet Lag just wouldn't leave us alone) we got up and met Liz at the (wrong) bus station, but it was soooooooo grand to see her and have someone lead us around who knows the language!! Liz is seriously the most generous person ever!

As are the rest of her PC buddies. We stayed with her friend Josh, outside of the village of Lang Suan (pronounced Longswan) right on the beautiful coast. The first day is a blur--Liz led us to Lang Suan, where biannual boat races were going on, and it was crazy crowds. So loud, so many people, so much color and smells. We stowed our packs in the police station and tried some of Liz's papaya salad (the jury's still out on that one) before meeting Josh and another PCV Leanne to watch some races.

Right about the time the downpour began, we hightailed it into the market tents, and that's the first time I noticed the stares.

Having spent most of our time in well-touristed (that probably isn't a word, but shush) areas, we hadn't had much experience being the animals-in-a-zoo foreigners, aka farangs.

The staring is blatant, little children will be nudged to get their view of the farangs wandering through the market, sampling all the food in sight (which sometimes completely backfires!!). Especially as we were in a group of farangs!

The staring, while obvious, was never what I would call rude. I had one experience in a small village in Peru where I felt totally unwelcome, but everyone here would point and gawk, but also smile.

I guess there's a reason Thailand is called the Land of Many Smiles! :)

It was great having Josh and Liz as tour guides, and urging us to try everything possible. The sweet sticky rice wrapped in some sort of leaf was delicious, as were the pomegranates and many other exotic types of fruit. The worst thing we tried (the worst thing we've tried this entire trip, in my opinion) ended up being eggs from a horseshoe crab. I can't even describe how awful they are, but YUCK. The taste wouldn't go away, even after some pink (insanely sweet strawberry) milk.

One thing I've discovered about Thailand--my sweet tooth has got nothing on theirs. Everything is drenched in sugar. Their chocolate milk is so sweet one sip makes me feel sick--and for those of you who know me and my insatiable sweet tooth, this is quite impressive.

After the market, we had a quiet evening eating Josh's homemade Thai food and wandering up to Lang Suan to visit the 7-11, which is, according to PCV here, Mecca. I didn't get the draw at first, but it does always have A/C and lots of fun little snacks.

Josh's place, in another little village outside of Lang Suan, is this adorable little cottage about three feet away from the beach. It was so nice and peaceful, and he was such a great host! All these people are making me and Court feel soooo welcome.

The next day was a true day of adventure.

Soon after waking up, we headed to this nearby island that apparently in hot season you can walk across the water too, but after the previous day's downpour, this was not an option.

We started the trek down, and were quickly picked up by, of all things, a truck full of crabs!! It was actually really fun, and I only got pinched once (why none of the other five crammed in the back got a pinch is beyond me, but that's just my luck).

It was also my first experience hitchhiking, and now it's one of my favorite ways of travel. I'm not sure if we'll do it without one of our Peace Corps buddies considering our grasp of the language pretty much stops at "pretty," "delicious," "hello," and "thank you." It's still a fun, acceptable mode of transport around here, and I like it!

The rest of the day passed quickly: we hitchhiked a boat to the little deserted island, hung out on the perfect deserted beach, showered, wandered into town for some internet love and delicious seafood fried rice, and planned for our departure the next day.

The next day, we made friends in Chumphon, including a cute old Thai guy named Charlie who showed us around, and a Brit by the name of Dean who was currently almost done with biking from the UK all the way to Singapore (yeah, WOW). We bid a sad farewell to Josh, and waited for our bus, killing time by watching the Joy Luck Club, a great movie that had us all missing our mamas!!

Another night bus (rapidly becoming a main mode of transportation, which are not at all thrilling like the hitchhiking) and we ended up in Bangkok. There, we bid Leanne, and Megan, another PCV, goodbye, and wandered the city for the day. I had some articles to finish up for Outside Bozeman (and somehow, I finished them, even though writing about ice climbing with Boy Scouts while hanging out in an alley sweltering in approximately 100 percent humidity was surreal) and Liz had to visit the Peace Corps Lounge.

The day was nice, we took the Sky Train around which was fun, these boat taxis that I LOVED, I accidentally brushed against a monk and did not get thrown in the water, (and neither did he!) and we had ice cream and visited the giant Chinatown in Bangkok.

That night, we hopped on another bus to Liz's village, which is just outside of Phrae, in northern Thailand.

There, we continued to experience the weird feeling of being farangs, but again, everyone was so friendly about it! We stayed in Liz's house which, despite the bucket shower (yes, you pour the bucket over yourself a few times, and that's it) and the squat toilet is pretty and cute.

We visited the rice paddies, corn fields, and teak forests, visited many of her neighbors and were constantly being given food and smiles and compliments. I had my first Pad Thai which I am now ADDICTED to, got called a doll more than once, and met the students I will be helping out with in a few weeks!

THEY ARE SO CUTE. I CAN'T WAIT.

We also met one of Liz's co-teachers--the Peace Corps policy is to have the volunteers help out another teacher, as that is more sustainable than them just coming in, teaching, and leaving. Her co-teacher, Ba Pat, is this adorable little lady who gave us our first experience with "Thai-napping." Thai-napping is when you hop in a car or bus or whatnot and end up going a million more places than bargained for.

For example, Ba Pat kindly agreed to take us into Phrae to shop (which, being obsessed with all things Thai, we could hardly refuse). Before that though, we ended up sightseeing at this nearby cave which has recently been remodeled to look sort of like a discotheque.

The cave was beautiful, but it was quite interesting to see all the work that had been done--very different from the US, where all the caves I've been to have been about leaving-no-trace, not filling it with neon lights to attract tourists.

The end of the cave also had a lovely shrine to Buddha, just like most of the country, so we paid our respects and played a fortune-telling game included in the shrine.

My fortune was...terrible. Ba Pat, amusedly, told me I should just put that one back and forget it. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be true, because my life certainly does NOT suck!

Courtney, of course, got a lovely fortune, just like she got the lovely Thai nickname, and gets the lovely pictures taken of her...and no, I'm not bitter at all :). It's kind of funny how, when Thais learn her name, they say, "awww..." (her name is Fondow, which means falling star) and when they hear mine, they laugh. Mine, on the other hand, is pomegranate, or Macgaw (I can barely pronounce it, much less spell it!!).

I do like pomegranates, and they're especially delicious here, and it's better than my first two nicknames, which were Bendy (guess where that came from) and Kanom, which means snack. I also like that Macgaw is in the northern dialect of Thai...taptim is pomegranate in Central Thai, fyi...and for some reasons it sends people into hysterics when they hear Macgaw. Maybe that's just my face, though. :) So far, I have been called beautiful many times, which I'm told is mostly because I'm white, but hey, I ain't gonna fight that. I also have been told I look like a doll (can't decide if that's a good thing), that I'm fat (don't worry, I don't take it to heart--they are TINY here) and also that my nose should be used as a model for plastic surgeons. Suffice to say, I LOVE the Thai people!

Anywho, after the cave, we went a little crazy shopping and eating Pad Thai with Ba Pat and her sister. It was quite the day!!!

Whew, I made it through the first two weeks. Now, Court and I are doing a wee bit of traveling on our own, renewing our visa in Laos, so we can stay in the country longer and volunteer in Liz's school and see Loi Krathong, the lantern festival!



I hope you at least smiled if you have made it this far, cause I sure am!!! :) More to come, if you have the stamina to continue!

xxx




p.s. You can find my cousin Courtney's accounts of our travels here!