Observations on Chiang Mai, Thailand

I shouldn’t compare one city to another, as each city is different and should be allowed to stand on its own merits.  Unfortunately, as the second city on our itinerary, Chiang Mai must put up with being compared to Bangkok.  The landscape in Chiang Mai is greener and the weather is cooler, not so suffocating.  The strays here are smaller, leaner, looking like they’ve survived a few more fights in their short lifetime.  Though I don’t know the exact history of Thailand, Chiang Mai seems older with its crumbling red brick walls lining the edges of the old city. 

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Cooking up a Storm: Smart Cook Cooking School, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Through our whole stay in Chiang Mai, I kept seeing advertisements on cooking schools.  I like cooking but thought nothing of it.  However, I kept hearing about how fun these classes were,  and I started thinking about how cool it would be to cook some yummy Thai food back at home.   We signed up last minute at the cooking school right next to our guesthouse, Smart Cook.

Our teacher was super friendly and enthusiastic.  We first went to the nearby market where he showed us the different vegetables and spices we were going to use in our dishes.  We sniffed and examined everything, then had a break to explore the market ourselves. After an interesting cultural exchange regarding tilapia fish, Rick couldn’t resist the lure of fresh inexpensive durian and scarfed some down before we returned to the school to get down to cooking.

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Big Fish: Mekong Catfish Fishing

As our last days in Chiang Mai ticked down, Rick and I were both struck with an urge to make the most of our remaining time.  While enjoying tea, as had become our habit each night, Rick started browsing through the brochures and ended up flipping back and forth on one advertising Big Game Fishing.  The pictures were all of grinning people staggering under fish half their body weight.  Now, you have to understand that Rick and I often go pier fishing, which, while cost-effective, don’t really provide us the heftiest catch, maybe a couple pounds of mackerel or sculpin at best in return for hours of alternating freezing cold winds and hot blazing sun.  So, you can see how these pictures would have a particular impact on an avid fisherman like Rick.   We booked through their website and two days later, a van showed up at the entrance of our guesthouse to pick us up. 

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A Lazy Afternoon

Written down in my notebook about two weeks ago.

I drift away in my thoughts, eyes barely open, fan blowing a steady breeze in my direction.  A gecko has stopped in the rafters above, frozen in motion, as if made of silicone and carefully glued above for ambience.  For once, I let all the "I-shoulds" and "I-have-tos" fade.  It’s nice, in a strange unsettled sort of way.  Like a sense of relief from pain, so long a part of me, I had quite forgotten it existed until it’d left.  I can feel the individual ribs of the bamboo hammock hard underneath my back but it’s by far the most comfortable hamock I’ve ever laid in, as it doesn’t try to engulf me in fabric like a human burrito the minute I lay in it.  And if the wanderings of my mind tend towards Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus in Boondock Saints (both 1 & 2) rather than any deep philosophical truths of life, I don’t mind.  Because I don’t expect anything productive to come out of this particular hour. 

Perhaps some may ask, "What’s the point?  You’re in an exotic foreign country and you’re just laying around doing nothing?"  Well, yes.  And that’s the only answer I can provide.  Later on, we’ll probably stroll over to a nearby church for evening service, then enjoy the ambience of Chiang Mai’s Night Walking Streets.  We’ll settle back in our guesthouse for various errands & responsibilities, maybe relax with a musty yellowed novel purchased from the local Gecko Used Bookstore and a cup of lukewarm tea laden with cream & sugar.  But, right now, I’ll dream a little longer of tattooed Irish boys with rosaries and silver pistols.

Riding High: Baan Chang Elephant Park

As with many one-day tours & activities here, a driver picks us up directly from the entrance of our guesthouse.  We were the only non-whites and only Americans on the one-day tour to Baan Chang Elephant Camp, the others a mix of European tourists.  In fact, while conversing during lunch, an Australian girl confided to us that ours in the easiest accent to pick out.  Upon arriving at the camp, we were immediately treated with a field dotted with humongous elephants, and a shed piled high with bunches of green bananas.  A locker was assigned to each pair and each person was given a set of denim "mahout" clothes.  The mahouts, people assigned to care for each elephant on a one-to-one basis, we encountered wore a mix of casual t-shirts, cut-offs, and bandannas, so the clothes we wore weren’t authentic in the slightest.  Later on, we learned that not only did the clothes allow us to get down-and-dirty without worrying, the elephants (due to their rather poor eyesight) recognize the clothes, not the mix of people wearing them, and so allow the set of moving clothes to clamber on their back day after day without fuss. 

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Fuzzy Stripes Ending in Three-Inch Teeth: Tiger Kingdom, Chiang Mai, Thailand

One of the reasons I was adamant about visiting Chiang Mai was the tourist attraction, Tiger Kingdom.  Cats, any sort of cats, are one of my favorite animals (though, I’m quite partial to most animals with 4 legs and fur), so I couldn’t turn down the possibility of getting up close & personal with tigers. 

At fist I was concerned with the welfare of the big cats.  Not even for my pleasure would I want any of those magnificent creatures hurt in any way.  Or forced to perform unnatural deeds.  However, when we arrived by tuk-tuk, my fears were put to rest.  I saw no "shows", no signs of drugging or starvation.  The big cats, lounging about in various enclosures, seemed healthy and well-fed, their fur glossy, their eyes alert albeit sleepy.  I didn’t mind the sleepiness.  As a previous cat (of the smaller variety) owner, I knew most cats slept 14 hours a day and tend to have the most energy (aka. insanity) during the night.  As it was around lunchtime, the early hour combined with the constant heat made even me a bit sleepy. 

There are a total of 4 cages, each with a different age group: smallest (the babies, 2-3 months), small (4-8 months), medium (9-12 months), and biggest (13-30 months).  We paid for the 2-cage package, the small and biggest ones, and asked to sign a waiver essentially stating that if we were attacked in any way, we couldn’t sue.  I remembered Rick asking his brother, a doctor specializing in infectious diseases about the possibility of contracting rabies if bitten by a tiger, and his response that if were ever bitten by a tiger, the last thing we needed to worry about was rabies.  Still, I signed my life over into the hands of the pretty young Thai ladies with sweet smiles and a deft hand with the credit card machine. 

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Reflections on the 1st Month

A month ago, Rick and I sat in LAX, almost giddy with anticipation for a trip we’ve thought about and saved for years.  Now, after a month of travelling and 3 countries (3 and a half if you count our overnight stay in Korea), I’ve definitely realized a few things:

Home takes on a new definition

We’re currently “homeless” in the sense that we have no permanent home abroad and no permanent home in the US either.  We also have no idea where we’re going to end up when we do get back to the US.  This means, home is starting to mean something different to me.  I still have my childhood home.  And the US is still my home country.  But, home, to me right now, has become wherever we are + Rick + our two rolling pieces of luggage & our backpacks.  It’s not a PLACE, it’s a state of being.  Ok, rag on me for sounding all hoighty-toighty philosophical, but there’s a particular sense of freedom in that. 

Learning to judge the worth of our material possessions

Everything we buy falls into two categories: to be consumed or to take up space in our limited luggage space.  The very nature of our trip demands that we can only bring with us what we can carry.  And it’s not like we’re going to head home after our stay in each country.  Whatever we buy and don’t use up, we have to add that extra mass and weight to what we have to lug to our next stop. 

So, now, when we purchase souvenirs for ourselves or others, we weigh it in our hand and rearrange our luggage in our minds, trying to figure out what tiny space we can create to safely bring it home with us.  I’ve learnt to quickly assess whether I truly want something, if it’s “worth” it. 

And sometimes, we come across something SO worth it, we’re willing to ship it home at incredible cost, and that’s totally cool too. 

Plus, we’ve really learned to appreciate the few things we’ve brought with us from home, considering we’ve used them over and over again and they’ve (mostly!) come through for us time and again, making our life much easier.  The things that aren’t useful or sentimental have quickly found their way into the trash bin to make way for more worthy things. 

Don’t fall into the expatriate trap

There are moments when we find ourselves comparing the country we’re in to the US.  We dream about In-and-Out Burger and Netflix and English-speakers and cheap fruit.  And yesterday, after watching a bootleg version of The Help, I had the most intense craving for chocolate pie and no way to get to a Marie Callender’s.  But I have to keep reminding myself to see the good in the country we’re in, the things we can experience here that can never be found in the US.  I’m learning to stretch out of my comfort zone (slowly!), to squash my social anxiety and experience what the world is waiting to teach me. 

Expectations rarely match reality

3 countries!  And yet my blog only reflects one.  I know I’m two weeks behind.  I suppose I could whip something out but I don’t want to skimp on quality for the sake of quantity.  But, each blog post takes time: to write, to edit, to add photos, etc.  And time, I’m finding, is a dwindling resource. 

Rick and I went into our trip with grand plans and a list of projects to work on.  We thought, “Hey! We finally have the time.”  Ha!  We’ve definitely have to scale our ambition back quite a bit to balance with our wearying pace of travelling and actually enjoying ourselves.  When we have free time, I’m slowly learning to allow myself time to breathe, to nap, to read a book.  You know, have a vacation, instead of my frenetic pace before where I went to work and when I came home, I kept working on all my personal work late into the night.  So, if that means I’m two weeks behind on my blog, or I don’t know what we spent every penny on, or I go a week without answering any emails, or I haven’t gotten to editing the dozen short stories pending, then so be it. 

Don’t worry, though.  I have lots of half-written blog posts in the pipeline. 

Privacy is a precious commodity but people are pretty darn cool, for the most part

Wherever we go, there are people.  People I don’t know.  Constantly.  And so far, pretty much every person we’ve met (apart from a few mouthy Chinese taxi drivers) have been nice and try to be helpful.  We’ve heard a lot of life stories and it’s fun to learn about the differences and similarities between us.  The only thing is, we don’t get a lot of privacy, so we have to take privacy where we can get it.  That’s why I’ve learned how important spending that extra money for private rooms are,just to have a place to shut out everyone else for a little bit.  Rick and I are also starting to develop ways to discuss things without other people overhearing.  I can’t wait until we can have whole conversations with just our eyebrows. 

There are going to be ups and downs (so better have a good travel partner)

Most of the time, travelling is awesome.  But, even in the short time a month affords, things don’t always go according to plan.  Nights sleeping in airports aren’t comfortable.  There are long periods of waiting.  We miss our stop on a bus and are stranded in an unknown place in the middle of the night.  Insane crowds.  Not being able to communicate.  And, as a married couple, there are bound to be disagreements and conflicts, especially when we’re both tired and hungry. 

Conflicts with my husband are especially tough for me, because he’s the only person I know and the only one I can turn to in the particular country we’re in.  So, we’ve both had to figure out how to deal with each other in our enforced constant state of togetherness and how to deal with problems that crop up together as a team.  Everyday, I’m realizing more and more how blessed I am to have Rick as my travel partner because he complements me so well, and he’s a steady presence that I know I can trust no matter what happens.  Travel is really a test of relationships and I’m glad that (so far!) our relationship has only grown stronger. 

So far, we’re having a blast!  I wonder what the next month will bring. 

Sleeping All the Way: Train Ride to Chiang Mai, Thailand

Chiang Mai was the next stop on our trip and we decided to take a train there both as a new experience and to save on one night’s accommodation.  When we arrived at Hualomphong train station to purchase tickets for 9/16/13, we were promptly informed that they were starting approximately a month’s worth of construction on a section of the track leading to Chiang Mai that very day.  We could, instead, purchase a train ticket part way, then take a bus the rest of the way.  I glanced over at RIck and could tell he was as hesitant as me.  Did we really want to be looking for a bus at some godawful hour in the early morning in an unknown city?  And what if we missed the connection?  We were prepared to deal with whatever circumstances our adventure might throw at us, but why seek out difficult unneeded circumstances?  Instead, we decided to check out half a day earlier and take the 9/15 train instead, the last one direct to Chiang Mai, one of the benefits of remaining as flexible as possible when it comes to our schedule. 

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Initial observations of Bangkok, and Thailand in general

It may be a cliché thing to say that travel, or the act of travelling, opens our eyes.  Perhaps it doesn’t open our eyes, so much as allows our minds to react differently to what we see through our eyes.  In the comforts of home, of a normal repetitive routine set among familiar surroundings, we are not obligated to observe, to compare and contrast, to struggle to understand the most simple of tasks.  When we deliberately put ourselves out into another part of the world, in a place where the customs, language, and ways of thinking are different, often incomprehensible, then we are forced out of that unconscious state of "normality" into a state of learning.  We are again children, watching those around us for the smallest cues of right and wrong, of polite and rude, of praise and censure.  And we, again, SEE rather than let our surroundings slide by us in a blur.

After more than a week in Bangkok, and now in Chiang Mai, Thailand strikes me as a unique combination of reverence and practicality.  The reverence reveals itself in both the casual way faith is inserted into daily life and their respectful, almost worshipful, attitudes towards the people who lead their country.  In any meandering walk through the city, I encounter holy trees wrapped in a filmy rainbow of fabrics, ornate temples where chickens cluck and stray dogs wander freely, and spirit shrines painted in reds, whites, and golds, carefully placed so that they aren’t overshadowed by the house or business that erected them.  Lit incense burns in small metallic bowls tucked away in the concrete nooks of random street corners.  And shopping malls set aside special prayer rooms for anyone to use. 

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Bangkok Bicycle Tour

Brace yourself for a deluge of posts over the next few days as I try to catch you up to where we are right now.  The Co Van Kessel Bike Tour we selected was the most stressful tour I’d ever experienced, mostly due to my own incompetence with a bicycle, a general lack of coordination among my limbs, and an ingrained aversion of being run over. 

It’d been almost 10 years since I rode a bike last.  However, I can’t use this reason as an excuse because Rick hasn’t ridden a bike in longer and he suffered no loss of muscle memory.  I could also say my sturdy mountain bike was too large for me, but our tour guide was a head shorter than me and she handled her bike with an easy competence.  So, again, I had no excuses. 

My first thought, as I straddled the bike, my toes stretching to touch the ground on either side, was, "Oh crap, what have I gotten myself into?"  I wobbled, but I managed to find that elusive balance, so began the tour with a sense of relief. 

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