Thailand Trip Post 6

January 3, 2015

              We were up at 6am for our tour to the Floating Market. We had fruit for breakfast while we waited for our pickup which was over an hour late. I had a bad case of motion sickness all during the drive out to the market. The bumpy, twisty road, and hot day didn`t help at all. I felt better as soon as we got off the bus and walked around a bit. Oddly enough, being in the boat didn`t bother me a bit.

              All the vendors at the market were very pushy. Which makes sense, since the whole reason we were there was to buy things. There was lots of physical touching and grabbing to get your attention, though, which was not welcome at all. And if you showed the least bit of interest in something, you were immediately entered into some sort of haggling conversations. The more you professed disinterest, the lower the price and the more insistent the vendor.

A look at the boats we were in

Here's what the shops looked like.

We're having a great time!

Some of the houses we saw on our short boat tour

              We picked up several trinkets here, magnets, little jade elephants, scarves, and finally got to eat some dragon fruit. Victoria and I checked out some of the shops on land and got to practice our haggling skills for some clothes. I ended up with a scarf that I talked down from 700 baht to 300 and a skirt that I got for a few hundred less than she first asked for. Having exact change really helps the whole process. The only reason we were able to leave at all was because our boat tour was starting and we had to run off. Literally. We had to run out of there and she was still calling bargains after us. The boat tour was run in a long tailed, motorized boat and we got to see some of the houses along/on top of the river.

              When we got back to the city (no motion sickness this time), we hiked over to the Grand Palace. After borrowing some skirts to cover up better, we got to walk around inside the complex and look at all the pretty sparkling buildings. Among the many structures and important things they held was the Emerald Buddha. Even though the place was huge, it was hard to move around because of the crowd.

This is one side of the complex. The place is massive!

Some guardians

Me, in front of some shiny building. It's probably important, but mostly it's pretty.

A diligent guard in front of the actual place.

              We napped in our rooms for the rest of the afternoon. When we woke up, we went out for a dinner of stir fry and pina coladas. The food was good, but didn`t have as much of a kick as usual. Or maybe, I was finally adjusting to the level of spice. Not likely! Our laundry was still drying, but looked like it would be done by tomorrow. Tomorrow`s plans included getting to the other side of town, exploring the Jim Thompson House, and shopping..

Thailand Trip Post 5

January 2, 2015

              Our taxi came early and we had no problem getting to the airport for our 8:30am flight to Bangkok. There were several points of security though, the first one being a quick scan of all baggage and people entering the airport. We had to check our bags, because the weight limit for carry-ons had changed, but we didn`t have to pay any extra, so it didn`t matter much. We got drinks and breakfast from the only place selling food and headed up to our gate to wait.

              The flight was bumpy, but short. The transportation system was pretty confusing. We were let out onto the tarmac and bused around to the airport terminal proper. Then there were several options of trains and buses, all going to different places at different times. Bangkok has two airports, and the one we flew into was the older one, far out on the northern end of the city. We eventually figured out which train we wanted, although it wouldn`t come until 11. We waited at the station and applied sunscreen and bug spray for the umpteenth time. The train was like something out of a movie. Sparse bench seats, open windows, and full of people standing and sitting in any spare bit of space, with other people shuffling through the crowd selling drinks and food.

              When we arrived at the end of the line, smack in the middle of Bangkok, it was midday and none of the taxis we approach would even consider taking us anywhere near Khaosan Road, backpacker mecca and the nearest identifiable landmark to our guesthouse. A woman flagged us down and convinced a dude to take us in his tuk-tuk. I was super wary of this, because, hello, that sounds like the beginning to a scam. But he took us to the end of Khaosan Road and let us pay what she had told us to pay (200 baht, which was way overpriced according to the metered taxi we took later, but not horrible on the transportation scale). It was a terrifying journey of clutching our bags, each other, and any part of the open back end we could reach while the driver zoomed in and out of traffic as if lanes didn`t apply to him. Lanes don`t really seem to apply to anyone in Bangkok.

              We walked down the busy street full of stalls, stores, hotels, cafes, and people and found our guesthouse on one of the quieter side streets. It was easier than I expected based on our map reading. We were about an hour early for check-in, but they let us in anyway. We dropped our stuff in our room, reapplied the sunscreen and bug spray and headed off to find something to eat, since it was 2 hours past noon.

              We wandered into an art museum that advertised a café, that turned out to only sell drinks, but the admission was free so we walked around. Saw some traditional and contemporary Thai sculptures and paintings. There was a whole room of stuff painted by a past king, which was pretty cool.

              When we left there, we decided to check out the large park that was supposed to be nearby. It took us several tries and risking our lives to cross the crossway-less highways, but we made it. It was large and nearby, but almost completely devoid of trees. Just a swath of brown grass. We headed back to Khaosan, as a sure place to find food and shade.

              After some shopping to pick up some of the ever present elephant pants, we ate dinner at the Elephant Bar and Café. I had Pad Thai and chicken and Victoria had a curry. They had a mix of foreign food on their menu too, so we got the mozzarella sticks, because we couldn`t resist deep fried cheese. They served their Thai milk teas in mason jars which made us laugh all over ourselves. The group next to us asked for forks after their food came, and we were immediately offered forks and spoons as well, but we stuck with our chopsticks. We were seated on a balcony overlooking the street, and the people-watching was excellent.

The view from our seats

Delicious curry

              We asked about the potential for laundry at our guesthouse and a few others nearby, but were turned away, so we bought some detergent at a 7/11 and did some washing of our own in our sink. Then, we chillaxed in our beds while watching Scooby Doo in Thai until we fell asleep.

Thailand Trip Post 4

January 1, 2015

              I woke up aching all over. The jarring elephant ride combined with walking all over the night before led to sore leg, back, and arm muscles. We had breakfast at Coffee Lovers, egg, ham, and cucumber sandwiches and Thai milk tea, which is the most delicious drink ever! Then we found a place Victoria`s guidebook recommended for massages: the Blind Conservation School. It felt good and helped a bit with the soreness.

After, we went to the Inthakhin Wat and Museum. The museum definitely needed some repairs, but it did have short English explanations of some of the pictures and artifacts. Then we headed across the street to the City and Culture Museum, which was also full of English explanations. We learned about the kingdom of Lanna and how they became part of Thailand. Basically, Lanna was attacked on multiple sides by Laos and Burma, so they agreed to recognize the Thai kings in return for support. Lanna royalty still held high positions and were mostly left alone by the Thai government.

Inside Wat Inthakhin

It had pretty roof decorations.

We took our afternoon break at Wawee Coffee, which had been recommended to Victoria for having really good coffee. However, we both stuck to milk tea. I had a piece of white chocolate cake, while Victoria had a slice of coconut pie. Then we explored some more temples.

The murals inside Wat Phabong told stories of the Buddha.

Giant lion stature, because why not?

Wat Huakhwang

Wat Huakhwang

I'd seen these in a couple other temples, but Wat Chieng Mun had an explanation in English. There is a different Buddha for each day of the week and donating to the one for the day you were born on will bring you good fortune. It reminded me of that poem, "Monday's child is full of grace...."

The Elephant Chedi at Wat Chieng Mun.

The top of the Elephant Chedi

Wat Lam Chang

              We had an early dinner at another guesthouse. I had yellow noodles in curry soup and Victoria ha Burmese pork. The curries here are deceptive. At first it was sweet and not very spicy, but it left a trail of burning down my throat. After, we went to the north of the city to see some of the oldest temples. There were lots of small, winding lanes to navigate through. We met a nice older woman, traveling alone and combined our maps and direction skills to figure out how to get to a couple of temples.

              There was a lot of walking and I was very tired! We ended up back near the Tha Phae Gate and the market from the night before was still going on, though not as crowded. We ate nachos and drank pina coladas at a place called Loco Elvis. Their background music was straight from the early nineties; it was fabulous.

              Once we felt up to it, we walked to the Night Bazaar, a nightly street market in the southeast side of town. It wasn`t much different from the market held in the Square on New Year`s Eve. We were both tired, sore, and grumpy at this point and bickered a bit, before finally heading back. We confirmed our early morning taxi pick up with our guesthouse manager, packed up, showered, and slept.

I saw this sign on the way to the Night Bazaar and had to stop and take a picture to send to Grandma Beth. Go Buckeyes!

We saw this car during our walk, and at first we thought, "Oh. Okay. A Mao car. Sure, why not?"

But then on the other side, it says THE REVOLUTIONISTS and has pictures of Gandhi and Che Guevara. Those are some diverse people and politics to throw together on one small car.

Thailand Trip Post 3

December 31, 2014

              New Year`s Eve! We were up at 6:30 for our elephant park adventure. We were picked up in another truck. When it pulled up, the driver said Woody`s, instead of Happy Home, but it turned out that they were the same place, a recent name change confusing matters. We sorted it out and were the first people to slide in the back of the truck. It had padded seats on its benches, but they were peeling apart. We spent about an hour driving around Chiang Mai, picking up the rest of the group and then headed off into the jungle covered hills outside of the city.

              This time our group consisted of a couple from the UK via Switzerland where the girl worked as an elementary school teacher, an Indian couple on vacation, a Danish couple with their two young boys, and an American mother and son duo. The son was working in Chiang Mai as a teacher. Teaching stories were exchanged.

              After a long, bumpy ride, we reached the park. We changed into swim suits and provided shorts, which tied around our waist, and long sleeved black T-shirts. Then we sat and had tea and learned some commands in Thai.

              Then it was down the hill to meet our elephants. Victoria and I had the only male, named Magnum like the condom, because he was so big. I sat in front, on his neck, with my knees right behind his ears, resting my hands on his head lumps. Thai elephants have two head lumps, whereas African elephants have only one, smaller head lump and bigger ears. So, it`s said that Thai elephants are smarter, because they have more brains! Their body hair is long, sparse, and coarse. Victoria sat behind me on the elephant`s spine, not a comfortable seat, and held on to a rope. This park didn`t use seats on their elephants to make it less painful for them, which freaked me out when they told us, because I didn`t want to be causing these animals pain.

My name in Thai

Some useful commands

Here's us on Magnum!

Here's a group shot after we got out of the river.

Here is the hill we rode down.

              As we headed off, I could feel his shoulders moving up and down and rocked with it like in horseback riding. I also squeezed my knees and thighs in conjunction with our spoken commands to help direct him, though I think the trainer`s commands and leg taps were the real control elements. The first part was slightly downhill and was okay. Then it got steeper and muddy. We were last and Mangum kept stopping to eat. I think he had the right idea. At the muddiest part, he stopped and Victoria started slipping off. Our guide chose that moment to be distracted of course. Victoria managed to catch herself and grabbed onto my waist. I was already tilted forward and braced with my hands on his head and couldn`t risk moving one, so I waved my foot and shouted “Hey! Help! Help!” until the guide noticed and came around. He helped push her back up and we made it the rest of the way down without incident. The rest of the trip to the water was flat and we had no problems.

              We rode the elephants into the river. Those of in the front almost got dunked! They swam down a ways and got back out. Then we finally got off! We took a group photo before walking (Thank God!) with the elephants back up the hill. Then we fed them bananas, got more pictures with them, and saw them off. We went back up to the bamboo hut where we had changed, rinsed off and ate. We had fried chicken, rice, tofu, cabbage soup, pumpkin, and celery. Another 2 hour truck ride back into the city completed our adventure. Overall, it was a good experience, but I don`t want to ride an elephant ever again. As Victoria said, “It was the best experience I never want to have again.”

We fed them bananas.

       We showered properly and rested in our room for most of the afternoon. About 5pm, we woke up, got dressed, and headed out. We grabbed a cold drink and appetizers (spring rolls and cheese sticks!) at 92 Rachamedeamon, which is both the name and the address of the café. Then we walked up the road towards the Tha Phae Gate. We wandered in and out of Wat Sumpow and Wat Phanon, both of which were hosting markets. We went through the gate into The Square, and found a giant market there, all sorts of cool street food and every kind of souvenir you could think of and several you couldn`t. We munched on coconut milk served in the husk and grilled corn on the cob while we walked along the moat. Then we went back for shrimp baskets, which we also ate along the moat. We saw several floating lanterns going up from around the city and decided to investigate.

Grilled corn on the cob, yum!

Giant prawns and fish

Walking along the moat

Wat Sumpow

Wat Phanon

We walked towards the nearest area they were coming from, down a street that had been taken over by the ever expanding market. We reached Wat Mahawan, which is where we realized you could buy a paper lantern and light it and send it off into the sky! We immediately did so. Imagine that scene from Tangled, where the crowd of people set off the floating lights? Yeah, we were in the middle of that. Basically. It was awesome!

Just inside Wat Mahawan

They were being sent off from all over the city and made the prettiest star-like tracks.

              We eventually made room for other people and walked down the street until the market petered out. We walked back up the other side, sipping strawberry smoothies and sugar can juice and eating meat on sticks. We also picked up a couple of knick-knacks and gifts. When we reached The Square again, we stayed away from the main crowd and instead joined the crowd walking along the moat. We took advantage of some open seats to take a break and have a couple of beers. Just before midnight, we went back outside and watched the fireworks go off (right in the middle of the crowd! Seriously, safety didn`t seem to be of much concern.) and joined in the screaming and the celebrating! We started walking towards our guesthouse, stopping for a celebratory first drink of the New Year and people watching.

Blurry fireworks picture

More blurry fireworks, with added Emma!

Happy New Years!

              A gecko, later identified as a spring tailed house gecko, joined us in our room that night. We didn`t see him come in, but he crawled around the walls for a bit and then went behind or maybe into the air conditioner instead of out the door. At that point we gave up and went to sleep.

Thailand Trip Post 2

December 30, 2014

              Our plans for this day included booking an elephant park tour, making reservations for a cooking class, and wandering around getting to know the city. We managed to accomplish all three soon after we woke up. Our guesthouse was very colorful. The outside walls and porch/balcony floors were bright orange. Our room was done in purple with blue curtains and white bedsheets. We got up and looked through the collection of brochures at the front desk. We got a reservation for a cooking class this evening and for an elephant park called Happy Home the next morning. Two goals accomplished in less than an hour, good job, us!

              We wandered around the rest of the day. We found a coffee shop called Coffee Lovers near our guesthouse. They made good Thai Milk Tea and had a friendly atmosphere. Then we hit several wats or temples. Some we found my accident and some on purpose. Here`s a photographic list:

We found this little sugar glider in one of the temple markets.

Wat Muen Ngen Kong

Buddha inside Wat Muen Ngen Kong

Wall murals inside Wat Muen Ngen Kong

There were dogs around most of the temples. This guy is resting out of the hot sun.

These guys lined the stairs into every temple we saw. Wat Muen Ngen Kong

Wat Muen Ngen Kong

Wat Tung Yu

Wat Phantao

Wat Chediluang is one of the most famous temples in Chiang Mai.

They were decorated for the New Year's Celebrations, inside and out.

These zodiac streamers filled the inside of Wat Chediluang.

We also saw the Three Kings Monument and the Lanna Folklife Museum. The Lanna people are the native people of Northern Thailand and their art has influenced much of the art and structures in Buddhist temples, at least in Thailand. It was a good coincidence that we stumbled upon this museum early in our stay, as we were able to pick out some of the specific art bits we saw throughout our stay.

Three Kings Monument

Lunch was eaten at a market being held on the grounds of one of the temples we visited. I ate a coconut waffle and Victoria had pork dumplings. Both were delicious. We sat next to a group of French speaking tourists. After some more wandering, and the purchase of a pretty purple silk scarf, we headed back to our guesthouse to await pick up to our cooking class.

The cooking class was great! There was a bit of a mix up with our pick up. They didn`t get the email with our address, but a phone call and interpretation from our guesthouse manager/owner (I never got a straight answer on that) cleared it up. We got in the covered back of a pick-up truck with benches on each side. That seemed to be the main type of transportation around, along with tuk-tuks and taxis. The main trucks in Chiang Mai are red and easy to spot in traffic.

Our group consisted of four French people, 3 men and a woman who seemed to be the main interpreter to English. When complimented on her English, she said she had worked in Connecticut for 6 months as an au pair. There were also two couples, one of which was one their honeymoon, and one other woman whose sister was sick and had stayed at the hotel. Our instructor, Ann, was very nice. She spoke English and a bit of French. The honeymoon woman, Becca, taught 3^rd grade content learning and does a semester long unit on Japan. Victoria and I had an interesting conversation about teaching and culture and teaching culture with her.

They took us to a produce market first and taught us about the vegetables and spices we would be using that evening. Then we went to the place, which consisted of a large table with bench seats, and a kitchen area with a standing prep table and 10 burners with workstations. We did most of our own cutting (they handled the meat preparation) and all of our own cooking. We cooked the soups first, then took a break to eat them. Then went back and made the noodle dishes, followed by another break to eat, drink beer, and talk. Then we made our curries from scratch, and our appetizers, either fried or fresh spring rolls, before sitting down for the last time and enjoying the final products of our labor. Victoria and I made spring rolls and were complemented on our rolling/wrapping abilities. It was similar to making sushi rolls, which we have had some practice doing!

At the market

We were given the ingredients, and chopped them up ourselves. Here's the stuff for the soup.

Here is Victoria cooking her soup.

Mmhmmmm!

Spring rolls and beer!

Green curry and rice

I didn`t entirely burn my tongue only because I had “baby food” according to Ann. There was only one of us, Phil, that had acceptable levels of spice in his food. He was labeled “Hot Guy” by Ann. We went back to our guesthouse, and on the way, the truck passed the Tha Phae Gate, which is the center of the New Year celebrations. We saw them let off some of the famous floating lanterns near the gate.