From hot to cold

Well folks, due to a number of reasons, I have unfortunately decided to return to Canada. Well, that decision was made last week, I'm actually back in Whitby now, and will be back in classes at Trent tomorrow. With that being said, after this post, I shall be bringing this blog to a close until my next adventure.

Thursday was my last night in Chiang Mai. I nearly got myself arrested for jaywalking that day. Apparently the Royal Family's motorcade was coming down the street, so I became a scurity risk. Needless to say, the cops weren't too happy with me... Later that night I went out for a couple drinks with the one friend I made in Thailand, and then returned to my apartment around 1am, still having to pack up all my stuff. I had to be at the airport by 6:30...

So after pulling an all-nighter and sleeping only in the plane, I found myself in Bangkok. I had 17 hours to kill until my flight left for London, so I stowed my bags at the airport and went exploring. After an hour busride into the city, over a distance that should only have taken about 20 minutes, I began to walk around. The first thing I came across was the National Museum - a museum of Thai history, with thousands of various artifacts. It was a really impressive museum, I could have spent all day there. There were rooms of masks, rooms of weapons, rooms of textiles, sculptures, jewellery, everything. My favorite part was the building dedicated to the royal chariots. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take pictures, because these are just undescribable. I can start to understand why the Royal Family was considered divine at one time.

After the National Museum, I walked down to the Grand Palace and the Temle of the Emerald Buddha. There isn't much to say about this, other than that it was very impressive. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

After that, I wandered through some markets and the tourist ghettos. I really wasn't too impressed. So then I decided to walk across town to see the largests Buddha image in Thailand...one 4o feet tall. So I walked for about 45 minutes, only to be not very impressed. You'd think it would look nice, but no, it was this:

Finally, the day came to an end, and at 12:30 I flew out of Bangkok. I had been gone for exactly one month. Its unfortunate that it didn't work out, but despite that, despite having my room broken into, depsite almost not going because the airport was occupied by protesters, I did manage to see a lot of cool things and do some things I couldn't here.

For a full photo documentation of my trip, check facebook. I posted all my pictures there. For those of you who don't have facebook, you should be able to see them all through these links:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2090267&l=0dcaf&id=119103953

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2093078&l=0988d&id=119103953

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2093080&l=48da8&id=119103953

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2093083&l=6abe8&id=119103953

There should be one last album being posted soon with more photos from the Tiger Kingdom, I will post that link here once I have uploaded those pictures.

So that brings this blog to an end for now. Thank you to all who have been following it. I shall hopefully see all of you soon!

Prison rub-down

Thailand is famous for its massages, so I decided to get one today. The location, however, was not quite the traditional setting for a Thai Massage. Right in the middle of the city, there is a women's prison, although by the flowers painted on the outer walls, you'd never know it. Right beside this prison is a small massage shop, where the prisoners give excellent massages. Thats right, I got rubbed down by some women who's in the Pen!

Actually, the majority of the women in this prison are there for drug offences, as Thailand takes a very hard-line against drug use. So as part of the rehabilitation process, these women are taught a skill, such as massage, baking, or handicrafts, so that they are able to effectively reintegrate into society after their sentence is up. Then, once they only have six month left of their sentence, they are allowed to practice their chosen skill, offering their services to the public. So besides the massages, you can also buy baked goods and needle work. All the profits from this commerce gets set aside and given to the women when they are released. Apparently this has been a really successful strategy.

Besides that, I wandered around today, and came across a temple that was being restored. It was interesting to watch some of the decorators work. It gave me a real appreciation of how much detail goes into the decorating of the Wats.

Beautifully drunken noodles

Continuing with the theme of food from the last post, I attended a Thai cooking class today. I owe my cousin Julie big time for suggesting this, because it was absolutely amazing, and worth every Baht (and it must have been so much better since I wasn't hungover).

Transportation was provided as part of the course, so each participant was picked up, and then driven down to the local market. Once we were all amassed there, we were each told to select what we wanted to make today - one each from the categories of curries, stir fries, noodles, soups, salads, and desserts. There were at least ten options in each category. After each of us picked our array of dishes, we wandered through the market, being shown exactly which ingredients were needed, and buying it all fresh.

After that, we drove to the course location, and begun our lesson. A couple hours and a very full stomach later, I had made six different delicious dishes - and to top it off, I only rubbed my eyes once immediately after handling chilli peppers! The following picture shows some of my creations. From top to bottom; Thai-Burmese curry, a glass-noodle stir fry, "Drunken Noodles" (the Thai name for this dish apparently litterally translates to 'too much whiskey', and is a favorite hang-over dish. Maybe you should have made that Jules!), and coconut soup. The other two dishes I made, although not pictured, were som-tum (spicy papaya salad), and the dessert - pumpkin balls in a coconut sauce. The food was absolutely delicious, and at the end of the class we each received a cookbook with all of the options listed, so once I return to Canada I can prepare delicious Thai feasts!

In other news, I have also finished my Thai language lessons. Although it wasn't as hard as I expected, I still have only one thing to say: I am totally screwed! I'm apparently as tone-deaf as my Grandma (just kidding, but still, none of you better show her this! haha), so speaking a tonal language is interesting to say the least. Perhaps I shall demonstrate. We will begin by examining the word klay (pronounced glie). If it is spoken with a flat tone, it means 'far'. However, if you say it in high tone, it ironically means 'near'. My personal favorite though, is suey. Spoken in one tone, it means 'beautiful', yet if you speak it in another, it means 'unfortunate'. I have a feeling that this language is going to provide for innumerable adventures...

Oh, my apartment was also recently broken into. Heres a picture of the culprit:

Its kinda fruity!

As anyone will tell you, the food in Thailand is amazing. You can get pretty much any type of food you want from the thousands of street vendors. At first one wonders how so many vendors can actually survive with so much competition. However, given that most Thais don't have kitchens in their homes, upwards of 75% of all people buy all their meals at restaurants or roadside stands. The prices of the food make this possible as well; I can get a full meal for 30 Baht, which is roughly equivilent to one Canadian dollar.

The best part of the food though is all the fruit. Availability and selection is obviously seasonal, but right now oranges, bananas, watermelon, guava, apples, papaya and cantaloupe are all in vast supply. What is really cool though, are the oranges and watermelon. Although you can buy those in their regular variety, Thailand has some interesting versions as well. For starters, despite their name, the oranges are green (well the peel is anyways, the flesh is still the right color). There is also yellow watermelon (see picture below). These fruits still taste just as they should though.

Thats all for now, I'm going to go back to eating my papaya!

Saphron Deceptions

Buddhism often seems to be the only 'pure' religion when we're thinking about it from our place in the West. We elevate this religion, or 'way of life' above all others. Its not surprising, because when we look at pictures of Buddhist Wats (temples) and monks, everything seems so peaceful and perfect. And its so easy to take pictures to portray that (see below).

Yet theres something about being around the monks that will totally dispell that idea. Maybe its seeing a monk wearing an iPod. Or maybe its talking to one, who then suggests that since I didn't bring my girlfriend with me, I should just get another one here. After all, as he says, the Thai girls are very beautiful, and theres no way my girlfriend will ever find out... For some reason, I dont think that that suggestion fits in with the eight Buddhist Precepts (the Buddhist equivilent of the Ten Commandments), one of them being 'Right Thought', aka don't think about doing something you shouldn't. But I don't think I should be that surprised. Unlike Christianity, monkhood is not confined to those who wish to fully devote themselves to the religion for the rest of their lives. Instead, most Buddhist men are ordained for a time, usually three months, as a right of passage. So it means that the monks range from being children and teenagers, all the way up to old men (there are also the Buddhist equivilent of nuns, but it is a relatively recent addition to the religion, and they are mostly confined to cooking for the monks). So given that there are many teenage monks who may not be totally devoted to the religion, I'm inclined to believe a story one of my friends told me that he heard while he was in Thailand. We were talking about the waterfall I had mentioned in one of my previous posts, and he said that when he was there a number of the trees had saphron robes hanging in them. Apparently some monks would come down there, get changed into street clothes in the forest, go out and have a night on the town, and then the next morning would return, get changed, and walk back to the Wat as if nothing happened.

I managed to visit a few more of the Wats in the city today, so here are a few pictures of them.

One Wat had this cool wooden carving of an elephant. If you look closely, you can see that his other ear fell off, and is sitting against one of his legs.

For those of you who don't know anything about Chiang Mai, the old part of the city is surrounded by a moat, and there used to be a wall around the city as well. It is really cool to look at from Google Earth, because there it is nearly a perfect square of water in the middle of the city. Below is a few pictures of the moat, and some of the remaining sections of the wall.

In other news, I went to see a play the other night. It was completely in Thai, so I didn't understand much. I did get that they started making fun of me though. At one point they were picking on audience members, when they realized that there was a 'farang' (foreigner) in the room. People had a good laugh, although I couldn't tell you why...

A cellular nation

So the other day I went for a wander around town, and found this really cool artsy neighbourhood. There was an interesting little ice cream shop there with a variety of modern art on their lawn, including a three-story yellow dog-like something (sorry, no pictures. I didn't have my camera with me at the time). There was also a statue of Chairman Mao talking on a cellphone. I have a cell now too, so maybe I can talk to him? Pretty much everyone in Thailand owns a cell phone (and they're really cheap). I also read an interesting little tidbit about Thailand recently. Apparently cell phones are actually illegal. Looks like I'm already breaking the law, and I've been here less than a month!

Last night I was feeling a little homesick, so I decided to try and find some western food. I walk into what looked like an American-style restaurant. It turns out that this was really Thailands answer to Hooters. So I'm sitting there being served by these Thai girls wearing nearly nothing, and all the menu has to offer is beer and grilled meat. So I'm sitting there alone eating this meat, watching Americas Funniest Home Videos on TV (on mute) listening to a bad house jazz band, when myy waitress walks over and starts chatting to me. In broken english she asks what I'm doing in Thailand and if I'm travelling alone. Then when I said I was, she said that she could make sure I didn't get homesick...

Temples and Tigers

One thing that deeply influences Thai culture is Buddhism. This 'way of life' is deeply rooted in the country, and one of it's visible incarnations are the temples, or 'Wats', that are everywhere. I got a chance to visit a couple over the past few days. The first one I visited was in the old part of the city - the area surrounded by a square moat. Wat Phra Singh houses the most important Buddha image in Chiang Mai, a statue that was brought from Sri Lanka in the 1300s. Apparently the image was being carried around until it 'chose' its final location - Chiang Mai was 'chosen' because this is where the wagon broke down.

Two days ago I went and saw Wat Doi Sutep, which is located up on the mountain. It was a lot larger, and really cool. The entrance is marked by a long staircase with two long dragons running alongside. Inside was beautifully decorated, and this was obviously a temple of great importance. But most stunning of all was the view from atop the mountain that overlooks Chiang Mai. The location of the Wat holds meaning for more than just the view though. In Thai society, hierarchy is often represented by elevation (ie. Head is most sacred part of the body, feet the most offensive, monks sit on platforms above commoners, the heads of commoners are supposed to be held below the feet of the king - in fact one of the Thai ceremonial titles for the monarchy states just that). Thus, by building the temple so high up, it's importance is represented.

Yesterday I hired a tuktuk driver to take me just outside the city. For those who don't know, a tuktuk is a 3-wheeled vehicle with a bench in the back for passengers, and it is driven just like a motorcycle with handlebars and hand throttle / break. It's perfect for inhaling all the fumes of everyone around you. As I was sitting in this tuktuk, half pulled out into oncoming traffic, I realized that these vehicles are probably just as safe as motorcycles, an ominous thought when traffic is bearing down on you ready to t-bone. But despite my eccentric driver who talked to himself and had to stop and ask for directions a few times, we made it to our destination. Before I move on though, more about this driver. He apparently decided to pimp out his tuktuk, converting the backrest area of the passenger area into a soundsystem. So picture this tuktuk sitting at an intersection blasting europop techno into my back, with me, a farang (foreigner) sitting there bobbing along wearing my bandana like bandit to protect myself from all the fumes around me.


So back to the real story. We drove out to the Tiger Kingdom, a total tourist trap, but cool nonetheless. It gives people a chance to play with Tigers and have their pictures taken with them. Si I spent some time with some 7 month old tigers, and some fully grown ones. To be honest, it wasn't so much as playing with the larger ones as it was petting them while they were asleep. I know tigers are nocturnal, but I have a feeling that they wouldn't normally be this docile if they kept getting woken up during the day though. Either way, it was really cool. Unfortunately there was a mixup with the picture CDs, so I only have pictures of me with the 7 month old ones right now, but hopefully I can get my hands on the other ones soon.



(Yes, please use the log and not me)

(She could devour my face whole!)

After the Tiger Kingdom, my driver decided to take me on a bit of a runaround, and instead of going back to town, we ended up at a snake farm. They had a whole bunch of cool snakes and birds, and also had some totally crazy snake trainers doing tricks with some of these snakes. One guy even managed to catch a snake with his mouth!!!