So. This, more or less, is the semi-censored, semi-true adventure of our last day and night in Thailand, our one more night in Bangkok. It started bland, just moseying through town, visiting all the spots we saw on our first couple days, back when it was new and we were vulnerable silly lambs, this time calloused with experience, cooly dismissing the suit-makers and frog ladies, hardly glancing at the dread-lock magicians, now savvy of our whereabouts and how-to-get-abouts, now knowing the grilled corn to be dry and unsavory, etc.
We did take a river taxi though, which was new, and fresh, and not that special really, but new. We then hit up the Amulet Market, which is a long sidewalk of people with blankets and little Buddha or Krishna amulets strewn, or King Rama necklaces maybe. Or big wooden penises, that sort of thing. We did a little shopping, and then glory behold I finally found my Thai thrift store! Which I'd been craving to find but had long since decided was a hopeless fancy. But there, on one of the spread blankets, heaps and heaps of dirty, torn, filthy, vomit and poo-stained clothing, scraps of material, all stuck in one humid, steaming heap. Glory joy! I dug right in.
Most of the items were pleasure for the sake of laughter, silky flared pajama or possibly dance pants, with feathers and crystal beading. All manner of slinky silky top-pieces, shreds of unknowable fabric! But, being open-minded, I tried on a good 4 or 5 items, receiving stares and whistles from the other blanket-lounging vendors, all encouraging me to buy, yes, look good, very nice, their fellow slumstress's wares. In the end, I was torn between two polos. One fit better but was plain other than some really terrific armpit discoloration, and the other was a bit sackish, but had a Thai insignia on the chest, so I went for it. No stains. Hardly a stink! I don't think very many Thai people are willing to engage in the muck-raking though, even to find the gems within. I didn't see any doing their own sorting, but while I flailed through the mess quite a few stopped and observed, watching carefully if I might uncover for them a particular satin gem, or perhaps a pair of billowy velvet trousers. But no, it seemed I was the only one willing to cough up 10 Baht for a blouse, and I'm glad I did. It was the last of my money, and it infuriated Kyle that I spent it.
Kyle thinks I am irresponsible on souvinir buying, and says I've been unfair in my personal spending, since we draw from one community pot of cash, and just keep track of our respective "discretionary debts." He said we wouldn't have money to last us if I bought any more stuff, but I just took more out of the ATM, no big deal! Besides, I only ended up spending ten more US dollars than him, pheesh! I spoke my piece though, and now it's over anyway, so hopefully no begrudgments left.
After our day's heartening romp, we hiked back to the hostel to freshen up for dinner. We dressed once more in our cleanest, decentest wares, remembering shoes not slippers this time, Kyle in his pink checkered blouse again, me sausaging my thighs back into those black acid-wash jeans that were accidentally AJ's not mine and so tight and not stretched comfortable, and with a peek-a-boo hole all along the back just under the left buttocks. Oh yes, Bangkok. This is all yours for tonight!
Alex has a friend who is currently living in Bangkok, who asked not to be named in the blog when I told him I'm writing one, so we'll call him Freckle. Freckle was Thai but spoke perfect English because he'd done boarding school in England, then dentistry school in Omaha and was working there until a Visa fiasco. So he was essentially killing time in Bangkok while his lawyer worked stuff out and offered to take us out, feed us some proper Thai food since he knew we'd been doing the village market thing. And, as it turns out, proper means insanely expensive and almost frighteningly well garnished, as well as delicious.
Freckle was a man of society, let me say! He took us to his friend's restaurant at a beautiful fancy hotel near the Red Light District, and which is in a restored traditional Thai house from last century, all plushness and incredible folded lotus decorations and inhumanly delicate carved vegetable and fruit garnish boquets on every plate. We shared a buffet of appetizers and then a buffet of entrees, with unlimited drinks to boot, and the owner gave us a tour explaining the refurbishment and a few of the antiques decorating throughout.
Over dinner Freckle asked us if we'd be interested in seeing a bit of Bangkok's freaky side, perhaps something along the lines of those shows we'd heard about but couldn't believe last time we ventured to see the infamous area. He said we were close to some interesting hot-spots, and he'd take us for a drink and a sight-see, if we were interested. I was. Oh yes. Why not? Gotta do it, I always say. Especially if generous Freckle is footing the tab.
I quickly and expertly coerced Kyle through his shy anxiety, then we took our complimentary after-dinner liqueur shooters, and were off.
----
There are no words (especially because I don't want to tag my blog for adult content) for the sights we laid witness to over the next couple of hours, but let me say one scenario involved a train of lady-boys mock-penetrating a howling man, and in general there was a good deal of stunned blushing speechlessness on our part.
----
Thankfully, after Freckle showed us what he showed us, he knew we could use a giant martini. So we walked to the fanciest hotel around, asked the doorman if Bamboo Bar upstairs was still open, to which he shook his head no, but Freckle insisted he let us at least have a look around the lobby. Freckle then led us into the elevator and up to the ultra modern, ultra-expensive looking top-floor bar, where he smoothly cajoled the bar maiden and her staff of cheerful waitresses to serve us their famous foot-high martinis with blue-cheese stuffed olives (as mentioned before), as well as some spicy Thai cashews for munching. Needless to say we quickly recovered and it was time for dancing!
But when we got to the disco, it was insanely crowded and Freckle was tired and it was late, and Kyle was tired too, so they both decided to head home and leave me to my frenetic, seizurous choreographies. A few hours later it was 5 in the morning! And I'd met an incredible and hilarious little gang of English speaking (at various skill-levels) Thais. Kaew and her boyfriend BingBing (who spoke flawless and unaccented because he'd lived in the US for 14 years, and looked just like a little hipster with his bowtie and puffed bang), and then Kaew's little brother Art who was the only one who didn't speak English, but who had a phone to show all of the Chihuahua puppies he breeds and sells. I pray it's a small family operation, not a full on mill, but either way they were sweet little dears in pictures. And then a boy named Boy! Really? Yes. And a few other wacky, funny friendly people. They asked me how old I was and I said 22 in a week, and they all went crazy and started screaming a frantic chorus of Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday from a group of amazing strangers in the middle of wet, grimy alley-way outside a crowded disco in Bangkok's Red Light District. Yes. Who, honestly who, could ask for anything more.
We walked to a little noodle vendor and they bought me soup, and we talked and laughed for another hour. It turns out there are these dolls people have, called Blythe dolls, and you can dress them up in crazy ways, and this little posse of friends has monthly themed contests for dressing their dolls! And last month's winner determines this month's theme. Kaew, who was thirty, had won last month's "Rio Diganero Carnival!" theme and selected "Me in My Room" for this round. Yes! Yes of course! Her doll's name is Rie, a Japanese name she informed me. Boy's doll's name is Fay. Bing is one of the judges, and I'm going to be guest judge this month via the photos they'll send me of all the entries! Kaew described in detail her plans for Rie this month, a garden scene, with the doll in a gazebo... painting a picture! Oh Oh it's so good so good. I cannot wait to see it.
Eventually it was pretty much morning so we all exchanged emails and names and everything, and then they helped me find a good taxi, and helped figure out how to get me to my hostel, since I only knew the name and not the street, and Art even rode along to talk to the driver and to make sure nothing happened since they were worried about me not having a phone. Beautiful beautiful people.
I finally got back to the room at 6 am or so, flopped onto to the bed for 45 minutes, woke up and packed the bag for the last time, jamming my stinking, moist articles into the gaping gorge and happy I won't be wearing most of them again anytime soon. Then off in the swindling taxi to Democracy Monument, public bus to the airport, and up up up and away. So long Bangkok. So long Thailand. What a miracle and a wonder and pleasure and a pain and a treat and feat to taste and see in three short weeks! Oh! Thailand! A servile and luscious guest you have been! What forbidden fruits we've suckled together in the loins of my velvety hospitality. We must again soon, we must we must!
And I'm not sure if this blog is done. There's still the roadtrip from Seattle to Lincoln, the mad rush to class by Tuesday at 11, and certainly plenty more time for revelations and upheavals.
Oh, and I forgot, I agreed to give Kyle a chance to write a post on here, so he can have a word in edge-wise. So that'll be coming tomorrow, followed of course by my stunning rebuttal.
Oh, dear reader, it has been fun, hasn't it. It has.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
A Few Quick Nuggets of Thaiglish,
for your reading pleasure, dear reader.
These are all from one menu at a little outdoor eatery just behind the bus station in Sukothai. There was a pet rooster on the tables and among us as well. These three sets were separated on the menu, as if clearly belonging to distinct categories, and they were written in Thai accompanied by the following translations:
- Whole poker neck.
- The entrails roasts.
- The tongue roasts.
- Minced fish fierce meat.
- Mix total up sea friend.
- Cook spicy a domestic fowl.
- Cook spicy a frog.
- Cook the vegetables totals up.
- A traditional Thai lettuce dish, with frog, beef, onions, salad.
- Another traditional Thai dish.
- Another one.
Can I have a plate of your Another one. please? It sounds like just what I'm looking for, non-specific, possibly traditional, impossible to know. If you're out I'll take a poker neck sea friend combo platter.
These are all from one menu at a little outdoor eatery just behind the bus station in Sukothai. There was a pet rooster on the tables and among us as well. These three sets were separated on the menu, as if clearly belonging to distinct categories, and they were written in Thai accompanied by the following translations:
- Whole poker neck.
- The entrails roasts.
- The tongue roasts.
- Minced fish fierce meat.
- Mix total up sea friend.
- Cook spicy a domestic fowl.
- Cook spicy a frog.
- Cook the vegetables totals up.
- A traditional Thai lettuce dish, with frog, beef, onions, salad.
- Another traditional Thai dish.
- Another one.
Can I have a plate of your Another one. please? It sounds like just what I'm looking for, non-specific, possibly traditional, impossible to know. If you're out I'll take a poker neck sea friend combo platter.
I think
there are fleas in this airport. I itch all over. I'm gonna go get my free meal now. Kyle won us free vouchers just by asking if there was an earlier flight! What? There aren't a ton of flights from Taipei to Seattle daily? Alright, voucher please! Badabing!
I've gotta hurry so I can come back before the flight out and tell about my couldn't-have-been-better last night in Thailand, a lecherous and bourgeois romp through Bangkok!
Teaser: Giant martinis with blue-cheese stuffed olives!
I hope no one steals my sittin' cart.
I've gotta hurry so I can come back before the flight out and tell about my couldn't-have-been-better last night in Thailand, a lecherous and bourgeois romp through Bangkok!
Teaser: Giant martinis with blue-cheese stuffed olives!
I hope no one steals my sittin' cart.
finishing up...!
So, let me finish quickly the tale of the trek, so I don't have to be Thailand blogging back in the states...
I think I left off at the European breakfast, which was immediately followed by more casual rice whiskey shooting. Then, we participated with Tee and Yao (the Shaman) and another man whom we were told to call Papa Monkey (a name Tee also used for Jacob and Sergev at times), in a Animist prayer ritual. Which is technically the reason they make the rice whiskey. But you only use one bottle for the ceremony, and each batch produces five or six, so there are extras for sipping and sharing! Kyle said he could really get behind a religion that's prayer consists of sitting in a circle taking shots.
(Damnit another obscure Taiwan airport interruption, but I just have to report that the women workers here are wearing little bowties and miniature bowler hats, and that a man just delivered me a shopping cart to sit in while I use the computer.)
Back to the ceremony: The Karin people are originally Animist, but now some have converted to Christianity, though a lot still participate funnily enough in Animist prayer. The first and last sip of the bottle are poured out for the Anscestral Spirit, and there's a careful code for who passes to whom, who pours each shot, how much is poured each time, whether you finish the whole thing or sip and pass. It's pretty elaborate. Or maybe Tee was just bullshitting us so he could drink some more. Anyway, it was fun.
After that we had to venture back out of the dark, cool, coal-lit hut and into the dazzling heat and sun to tour the village and then trek back. Sergev, who as I said was tall and a little fat, went to the edge of the "terrace" as he called it, to hang a bit of clothing to dry, and fell through the floor board! Oh! It's the funniest thing, though, you cannot apologize or make any sort of big deal about it. Tee insisted we move instantly away and not look at the hole, and the whole family were in an uproar asking Sergev if he was okay, okay, okay? He was fine, the precious tiny hut was not.
Later, when we visited Grandma and Grandpa across the way again, to see the chew stuff made and say hello, Jacob and Sergev both broke a board on the little porch landing at the bottom of their step ladder! Oh! The delicate village, and we the devastating foreign pillagers. A classic scenario.
Everyone had their rice dumped out on mats drying in the sun, because it had rained and if the stores sprouted they'd all be ruined for food use. Such labor! We saw the primitive de-husking log pounder. We learned how they make fires on the inside of bamboo huts without burning down the village. And then, we hiked. And hiked and hiked and hiked and it was ghastly hot and unendingly upward, but finally eventually it was over and we had lunch of noodles wrapped in leaves with on-the-spot made bamboo chopsticks and then a pleasant shaded stroll to a different village's little school elementary school.
There was a kindergarden for kids 3 through 6, and then up through the 6th grade. The Thai government sponsors these schools in all the Karin villages, provides buildings, materials, teachers (modest provisions but still), and allows only the Thai language to be taught. Children aren't supposed to use Karin there at all. I don't know how I feel about that. None of them ever learn to read or write Karin unless their parents decide to teach them, and I can't imagine that's immensely common. But still, in the city there is no free education and parents have to pay to send their kids even to elementary school, so it's something. The kids were all running about mad, and I wasn't sure if that was standard procedure or they were on recess. It looked fun anyway! Tee said the government's stance was that the Karin people didn't necessarily have to be totally literate, but they should at least know how to read and write their names. How generous of them!
Last time the teacher had asked Tee to bring a soccer ball, and he had, and the uproar was delicious. Sixty kids fizzing with excitement about a flat dirty football pulled out of a purse-sack. Good fun!
Then it was just a matter of trucking back to Chiang Mai and interrogating Sergev in the back about being an Italian director. I'm hoping he'll take on the project I'm working on, the film about this experience, where I'm played by Oprah. Sergev thought I was a dancer because of my posture, and who better to play a dancer than Mdme. Whinfrey her-graceful-self? The Queen of Thailand is retired from theater or I'd have asked her to understudy.
I think I left off at the European breakfast, which was immediately followed by more casual rice whiskey shooting. Then, we participated with Tee and Yao (the Shaman) and another man whom we were told to call Papa Monkey (a name Tee also used for Jacob and Sergev at times), in a Animist prayer ritual. Which is technically the reason they make the rice whiskey. But you only use one bottle for the ceremony, and each batch produces five or six, so there are extras for sipping and sharing! Kyle said he could really get behind a religion that's prayer consists of sitting in a circle taking shots.
(Damnit another obscure Taiwan airport interruption, but I just have to report that the women workers here are wearing little bowties and miniature bowler hats, and that a man just delivered me a shopping cart to sit in while I use the computer.)
Back to the ceremony: The Karin people are originally Animist, but now some have converted to Christianity, though a lot still participate funnily enough in Animist prayer. The first and last sip of the bottle are poured out for the Anscestral Spirit, and there's a careful code for who passes to whom, who pours each shot, how much is poured each time, whether you finish the whole thing or sip and pass. It's pretty elaborate. Or maybe Tee was just bullshitting us so he could drink some more. Anyway, it was fun.
After that we had to venture back out of the dark, cool, coal-lit hut and into the dazzling heat and sun to tour the village and then trek back. Sergev, who as I said was tall and a little fat, went to the edge of the "terrace" as he called it, to hang a bit of clothing to dry, and fell through the floor board! Oh! It's the funniest thing, though, you cannot apologize or make any sort of big deal about it. Tee insisted we move instantly away and not look at the hole, and the whole family were in an uproar asking Sergev if he was okay, okay, okay? He was fine, the precious tiny hut was not.
Later, when we visited Grandma and Grandpa across the way again, to see the chew stuff made and say hello, Jacob and Sergev both broke a board on the little porch landing at the bottom of their step ladder! Oh! The delicate village, and we the devastating foreign pillagers. A classic scenario.
Everyone had their rice dumped out on mats drying in the sun, because it had rained and if the stores sprouted they'd all be ruined for food use. Such labor! We saw the primitive de-husking log pounder. We learned how they make fires on the inside of bamboo huts without burning down the village. And then, we hiked. And hiked and hiked and hiked and it was ghastly hot and unendingly upward, but finally eventually it was over and we had lunch of noodles wrapped in leaves with on-the-spot made bamboo chopsticks and then a pleasant shaded stroll to a different village's little school elementary school.
There was a kindergarden for kids 3 through 6, and then up through the 6th grade. The Thai government sponsors these schools in all the Karin villages, provides buildings, materials, teachers (modest provisions but still), and allows only the Thai language to be taught. Children aren't supposed to use Karin there at all. I don't know how I feel about that. None of them ever learn to read or write Karin unless their parents decide to teach them, and I can't imagine that's immensely common. But still, in the city there is no free education and parents have to pay to send their kids even to elementary school, so it's something. The kids were all running about mad, and I wasn't sure if that was standard procedure or they were on recess. It looked fun anyway! Tee said the government's stance was that the Karin people didn't necessarily have to be totally literate, but they should at least know how to read and write their names. How generous of them!
Last time the teacher had asked Tee to bring a soccer ball, and he had, and the uproar was delicious. Sixty kids fizzing with excitement about a flat dirty football pulled out of a purse-sack. Good fun!
Then it was just a matter of trucking back to Chiang Mai and interrogating Sergev in the back about being an Italian director. I'm hoping he'll take on the project I'm working on, the film about this experience, where I'm played by Oprah. Sergev thought I was a dancer because of my posture, and who better to play a dancer than Mdme. Whinfrey her-graceful-self? The Queen of Thailand is retired from theater or I'd have asked her to understudy.
zoot!
Here I am and we are in Taiwan's airport its very self, doing the 6 hour layover boogie thing. If this trip were a baby chick it would be totally fried and ready for dismemberment!
I've got to clarify one thing quick, because I don't want to leave an ugly portrait of anxious dad floating around the blogiverse. That is, I was never particularly abused or ill-regarded by anxious dad as a boy and so, upon talking with Alex who is wise in such things, and reflecting, I've come to think of the awful dad dreams (which were only 2, not so bad!) as not necessarly referencing real dad himself, or my relationship with him. Because he wasn't even in the first one, and in the crazy screaming one he wasn't really himself, he was just dad archetype. So, I think what maybe is going on is some sort of dream-reflex more related to fatherly....
HOLY SHIT! PAUSE! HOLD IT! AN ENORMOUS BROWN WING-ED COCKROACH JUST CRAWLED ACROSS MY ARM!!! YOU ARE KIDDING ME! THIS IS A CLEAN MODERN AIRPORT! WHERE DID IT COME FROM? NOOOO! TAIWAAAAAANNNNN!!!!
Okay here comes a staffperson. My god. The thing is wily. It's running away. It's gotta be at least three inches long. Shudder. Shudder.
Alright, so, anyway, as I was saying, I think dad conflict in my dreams is related to patriarchy/fatherly affiliated things, like responsibility, and the stress of constantly having to be responsible for myself, look after myself, make a thousand decisions every day. Granted a lot of those decisions are actually silly, but some are big!, and they all seem completely pivotal at the moment, when the sweaty fat woman in a head-dress is staring at you just inches away, stroking her noisemaking teak frog toy with such pitious and pleading melancholy, whimpering again and again, "Okay you touch, okay you touch." No thanks, but I'm sorry! You and all the others indistinguishable from you are very sweet!
And then there's always those inevitable regrets, when soon after one such decision it becomes all to clear that, made in haste or even carefully weighed, it turned out to be premature and not in good judgment. As per, when I made a purchase several days ago at a Night Market in Chiang Mai. I hesitate to mention this, because it happens to be about the souvinir I bought for anxious dad, and I feel he's suffered enough, but I'll go ahead anyway. It was saffron, alright, baggies of red saffron, big baggies, like a sandwich bag, not stuffed fat but flatly full you know, full of saffron for a very reasonable price. I asked myself, ever the cautious shopper, "Is this really saffron? It can't be, but it does look like saffron. Doesn't saffron come in tiny vials at obscene prices? And this is a lot of it for not an obscene price. But at the same time, the price doesn't seem totally ridiculously cheap, it must have some quality. It's probably a much commoner weedy saffron strain, but still dad loves to cook and when would he ever buy saffron for himself? And I've heard of saffron rissoto, which he likes to make, and maybe he'd enjoy trying to prepare it, and he could just use more than normal and the flavor might be similar?" After about thirty seconds of deliberation, I bought a little envelope of the red stuff for 100 Baht or so.
We continued wandering the market, eyeing silks and watches like grandmother gypsies out for a stroll, until we came upon an indoor mall-like area, with non-tent stalls, but real rooms from which similar goods were being sold. And there, no freaking kidding you, were bags and bags, heaps upon heaps, of the saffron we'd just bought in a comparatively tiny amount, and these bags at even MORE reasonable bulk prices. Purple with disgust, I turned to hurry out of the stall, bumping into things in my mania and rage, and I kid you not, just as I was about out, just as the nightmare of shame was almost over, I glanced down at my feet and saw a garbage bag of the stuff. A garbage bag full of Thai saffron. Just think of all that risotto!
So, the long short of this post is, sorry again, pop!
I've got to clarify one thing quick, because I don't want to leave an ugly portrait of anxious dad floating around the blogiverse. That is, I was never particularly abused or ill-regarded by anxious dad as a boy and so, upon talking with Alex who is wise in such things, and reflecting, I've come to think of the awful dad dreams (which were only 2, not so bad!) as not necessarly referencing real dad himself, or my relationship with him. Because he wasn't even in the first one, and in the crazy screaming one he wasn't really himself, he was just dad archetype. So, I think what maybe is going on is some sort of dream-reflex more related to fatherly....
HOLY SHIT! PAUSE! HOLD IT! AN ENORMOUS BROWN WING-ED COCKROACH JUST CRAWLED ACROSS MY ARM!!! YOU ARE KIDDING ME! THIS IS A CLEAN MODERN AIRPORT! WHERE DID IT COME FROM? NOOOO! TAIWAAAAAANNNNN!!!!
Okay here comes a staffperson. My god. The thing is wily. It's running away. It's gotta be at least three inches long. Shudder. Shudder.
Alright, so, anyway, as I was saying, I think dad conflict in my dreams is related to patriarchy/fatherly affiliated things, like responsibility, and the stress of constantly having to be responsible for myself, look after myself, make a thousand decisions every day. Granted a lot of those decisions are actually silly, but some are big!, and they all seem completely pivotal at the moment, when the sweaty fat woman in a head-dress is staring at you just inches away, stroking her noisemaking teak frog toy with such pitious and pleading melancholy, whimpering again and again, "Okay you touch, okay you touch." No thanks, but I'm sorry! You and all the others indistinguishable from you are very sweet!
And then there's always those inevitable regrets, when soon after one such decision it becomes all to clear that, made in haste or even carefully weighed, it turned out to be premature and not in good judgment. As per, when I made a purchase several days ago at a Night Market in Chiang Mai. I hesitate to mention this, because it happens to be about the souvinir I bought for anxious dad, and I feel he's suffered enough, but I'll go ahead anyway. It was saffron, alright, baggies of red saffron, big baggies, like a sandwich bag, not stuffed fat but flatly full you know, full of saffron for a very reasonable price. I asked myself, ever the cautious shopper, "Is this really saffron? It can't be, but it does look like saffron. Doesn't saffron come in tiny vials at obscene prices? And this is a lot of it for not an obscene price. But at the same time, the price doesn't seem totally ridiculously cheap, it must have some quality. It's probably a much commoner weedy saffron strain, but still dad loves to cook and when would he ever buy saffron for himself? And I've heard of saffron rissoto, which he likes to make, and maybe he'd enjoy trying to prepare it, and he could just use more than normal and the flavor might be similar?" After about thirty seconds of deliberation, I bought a little envelope of the red stuff for 100 Baht or so.
We continued wandering the market, eyeing silks and watches like grandmother gypsies out for a stroll, until we came upon an indoor mall-like area, with non-tent stalls, but real rooms from which similar goods were being sold. And there, no freaking kidding you, were bags and bags, heaps upon heaps, of the saffron we'd just bought in a comparatively tiny amount, and these bags at even MORE reasonable bulk prices. Purple with disgust, I turned to hurry out of the stall, bumping into things in my mania and rage, and I kid you not, just as I was about out, just as the nightmare of shame was almost over, I glanced down at my feet and saw a garbage bag of the stuff. A garbage bag full of Thai saffron. Just think of all that risotto!
So, the long short of this post is, sorry again, pop!
Friday, August 21, 2009
the trek, finally, hopefully
It all began by Kyle and I sleeping in and thinking we'd missed the goose. We were supposed to be at Pooh's place by 6 am, and I stumbled out of bed looking for the time a half-past seven. Poor Sergev'd been waiting the whole time! But luckily Tee wasn't mad. We ate some fruit and coffee, hopped in the truck and began the 2+ hour drive away from civilization, stopping at a market on the way for cooking groceries and beautiful hiking loafers for Sergev.
We started hiking sometime in the afternoon, set off down a pleasant dirt trail, the sun on our backs, plenty of water in our packs. Almost immdiately Tee began rattling off his wealth of interesting knowledge, from everything edible and how to find out to how many kilos an elephant can lift with its tusks. We were passing a lot of poo from the cows that roamed from the nearby village, and Tee told us about the Buffalo Dung Beetles, which we've all seen and heard of, rolling their little poo balls and laying their eggs inside. But then we saw something new! How to locate the mothers, the big ones, in their dens, and dig them up. Tee started plowing in with his giant knife, a foot down til we could hear the hissing wail and see the ebony glint. He fished her out, the size of a pool-ball, and showed her to us. The babies grow up in the poo balls and come out fully grown as big as her he said.
The next part was funny, because the slogan of Pooh's trekking is Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints and kill nothing but time. Tee explained that the dung beetles were excellent to eat and tossed the noisy glossy little beast into his purse bag "for later." Along the way Tee and the other two guidemen with us located and ousted a few other little snacks from their places of residence. We were shown a rotted looking bamboo, and Tee told us it was because of maggots. So, his associate went and hacked it down, and brought it to us to see. We were all expecting those little nasty white writhing worms that eat dead stuff, but this was only one maggot, doing it all by himself. He was as big as two thumbs, undulating and blobbing in Tee's fingertips, helpless and fat. These were even better eats, Tee explained, because they were all meat and no skeleton. Oh yes. Like scrambled eggs he said.
Soon we came upon a Bamboo Elephant Beetle, milking a fat stalk of bamboo with its yes, very trunklike, probiscus. One guide walked to the bottom and said, ready? Tee nodded and lightning fast the guy broke the bamboo and the top came smacking against the path. Tee grabbed the dazed beetle before it reorient, and he proceeded to explain the these beetles were given as gifts, like toys, by parents to their children. He tied a string to one of its long tusk-like projections, then told us how tried to fly away, and the child can hold the string and carry it around like a little balloon. Then when it gets tired and stops flying, the child cooks it over the fire and eats it!
But this one wouldn't fly, so Tee and Long started shaking it around, then breaking off its legs, to make it fly. But it wouldn't, so they broke off all its legs, then its tusks, and finally its wing covers. Game over, little friend. Long popped its butt in his mouth and bit off everything but the head, and crunched it down his throat. "Tasty!" he grinned, with a heavy accent.
We worked our way down through the various levels of forest until we arrive at a cave entrance, The Bat Cave. Hiking up our shorts we plodded on in. We'd be walking through and in the river that flowed through and had created the cave, with only three burning torches to guide us. I was worried at first about getting soggy feet, knowing we had so far left to go, but it turned out we'd be in and out of the river, crossing again and again to reach better trails, for the rest of the day, so there was no hope of staving off the wet. The Bat Cave was certainly a bat cave, and we could hear and see them all above and among us, in droves, angry at our intrusion, but all talk.
We met another trekking group, of 7, at a bamboo hut by the river where they'd be staying. (We were doing the same thing they were doing, except backwards and in two days instead of three.) They had a fire going for supper so Tee brought out the maggot and beetle and proceeded to roast them up for all to share! We passed around the beetle first, each taking a bite of its stringy meat. Jacob was the only one to pass, a true blue vegetarian. The texture was alright, the flavor smoky, meaty, but hard to describe. Like Tee said, you can't describe it, you've just got to try it. Soon the maggot had stopped hissing steam and Tee brought out his knife to slice it up. We each got a little maggot disk, creaming inside, almost like runny eggs yes!, and tougher on the skin, almost like the skin of a sausage. The flavor was meaty again, but closer to eggs, plus smoky from the fire. Sergev was really into it, and Kyle liked it pretty well too. Sergev fantasized about the maggots, fried with a very crispy outside and the inside even softer and creamier. Oh yes.
We continued on down the river, Tee showing us a leaf that can be snapped open and its sap blown into bubbles, and then up, up, up, endlessly up the huge green mountain-hills to the village's rice paddies, up more, up to the village itself. Just outside of it, Tee produced from his underwear strap a tiny baggie of mah-ree-wanna, which he said we could roll ourselves and smoke secretly in the outhouse later if we were intersted. It all happened so quickly, one by one, asking us, do you want it? do you want it? Everyone shook their head a sober no thanks. So he unwrapped it from its plastic and tossed it into the bush. Cheers!
As it later turned out, there would be no shortage of intoxicants in the village itself!
We arrived at Yao, the village Holy Man's, bamboo house, met his wife and two youngest sons, and unloaded our gear and took a rest. Almost immediately, the rice whisky was produced and shots were being passed around. The stuff is unbelievable smooth for home hooch, and tasts a lot like sake. Cheers!
It got dark quick, because it gets dark so early here, and more and more other villagers came and joined us for whiskey and laughs on the little porch area. We all started cutting and snipping and preparing food for the meal. Tee drank the most of all I think, because he officially postponed all questions for the morning. He didn't want to tell us something wrong because he was drunk, and because he had to focus on cooking the meal, which was incredible and vast. While we watched and waited and helped where we could, we sampled some day-old roasted mouse that was staring blackly from about the small far, rigid on its bamboo spit. It was mostly smoky and tough, a lot like the beetle actually. Weird!
It's so nice to not be in the minority as a vegetarian! (If I can call myself anything like that still.) Sergev got his own little bowl of chicken stuff, but the mail courses were all veges, to share we had a green curry soup with potatoes, mixed vegetable stir-fry, and another tofu fry with chili paste. And bottomless rice the mother kept frantically shoving onto our barely cleared plates, literally by the fistful.
After our enormous dinner, more rice whisky was brought out and dispersed, and the arm and leg-wrestling began. And playing with the cameras! All the villagers, especially the little boys, were thrilled by our tiny TVs, and wanted to take and look at themselves in a million photos. I had the strangest warm feeling, watching the mother look at herself in a picture, almost forty years old and and seemingly genuinely surprised and intrigued by what she saw. It struck me, how possibly little their faces and bodies were attached to any concept of ego. Do they see themselves, their bodies, as a function, as a tool to use and hope it doesn't wear out? Once they're married do they ever think about their appearance again?
The mother had no sense of looking at herself in a mirror every day and making judgments and assigning value by what she finds there. She probably knows herself better by her hands than her face, let alone by when she sees her whole body in a photo. The old people too, with their black teeth from the stuff they chew, seem completely oblivious to the fact that they are, if not toothless, black toothed, and with black lips, black juice running out the edges of their mouth. It doesn't matter because it's not all wrapped up into that idea of an ego, of a self, a self that very much includes appearance, but also the books you've read, the movies you've seen, the people you know. I wanted to know, I wanted so badly to sit down and talk with that mother, to ask her, who do you think you are? To find how she regards herself, her self? As a tool for completing tasks, as a collection of experiences, as eyes that see and exist only in the present moment and perform what is presently necessary?
I wondered how much any of the villagers live in the present moment, how far do they think to the future and what kind of plans do they make? They're subsistence farmers. Are they just worried about this year's harvest? Next year's? It seems like so much of their lives are laid out before they can ever make any decisions. Do they ever learn how? I don't want to oversimplify their lives, their minds. They are completely and fully human beings, but their dailiness is filled with so little stimulation and such a limited range of experiences, I know their view of life must be so totally different from mine, and I'm curious! But I'd have to learn the Karin language to ask. Woe.
When we ran out of rice whisky, Tee had Kyle and I go to the mother's parents house 20 meters away and request more! It was a very awkward encounter, because Tee was drunk and hadn't really told us what to do or say, anything exept making us memorize the man's name! So we go trucking up their miniature steps and into their little hut, and there they are, ancient and wrinkled, lying down for bed on their little mats! Kyle and I looked at each other, terrified, confused. How do you just barge into a situation like this, and then give no explanation other than to say the man's name?! But the old woman understood without our help, reapplied her head turban and went to the shelf in the corner, bringing down two gleaming bottles of rice whisky, which looked to be capped by little clear condoms! (Tee later explained that a custardy street food comes in those plastic things, and they save them for caps, but still, very condom-like in appearance.) The whisky was even smoother than the last, and topped our night off swimmingly.
Just as we were growing tired, and mother was yawning suggesting the party come to a close, Yao produces his little white bottle of Chinese remedy powder, with its U-shaped metal tube nose applicator. He loaded me up a hit, and I put one end of the U in my mouth, but before I could load the other end into my eager nostril, I coughed and blew the sweet load into my eyeball. Stinging at first, I quickly recovered and realized, say! that's not so bad. Load me up another! Which he did, twice, one for each nostril, properly blown all the way deep into my sinuses, and then later one more, for my left nostril, which felt like it needed a little bit more. Sergev and Kyle did it too, and of course Tee, and in the end we still weren't sure what it was or what purpose it was supposed to serve. To clear the sinuses maybe? It sort of had the partly sweet and bitter taste of a pill, if you let it sit on your tongue too long before swallowing, but dribbling down the back of your throat instead. So good.
We pretended we were all gonna get addicted, and be begging for more in the morning. I manically asked the guys if they felt like dancing, I feel like dancing! I said.
But instead we set up the mosquito nets and sleeping bags right where we'd been having jollies a minute before, and went off to bed. By 4 am, a few short hours later, every family's roosters were violently being throttled, or else cockadoodling, and so it made for a short night of restlessness, but absolutely worthwhile.
For breakfast, we were treated to "European barbecue" according to Tee, or toast and jam, eggs with tomato and peppers. And hot tea!
Oh! I'll have to finish telling the tale another time. Thought I could make it but I've gotta get back to the bus. We're leaving in a few minutes for Bangkok. I can't believe Thailand is almmost over, the deed is almost done! School starts in three days, with or without me...
But it's not over yet! Let's see what else I can put in my mouth before this thing's over!
And let's see about getting rid of this pesky manhood before it's too late!
Sawatdee khrap!
Kan
We started hiking sometime in the afternoon, set off down a pleasant dirt trail, the sun on our backs, plenty of water in our packs. Almost immdiately Tee began rattling off his wealth of interesting knowledge, from everything edible and how to find out to how many kilos an elephant can lift with its tusks. We were passing a lot of poo from the cows that roamed from the nearby village, and Tee told us about the Buffalo Dung Beetles, which we've all seen and heard of, rolling their little poo balls and laying their eggs inside. But then we saw something new! How to locate the mothers, the big ones, in their dens, and dig them up. Tee started plowing in with his giant knife, a foot down til we could hear the hissing wail and see the ebony glint. He fished her out, the size of a pool-ball, and showed her to us. The babies grow up in the poo balls and come out fully grown as big as her he said.
The next part was funny, because the slogan of Pooh's trekking is Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints and kill nothing but time. Tee explained that the dung beetles were excellent to eat and tossed the noisy glossy little beast into his purse bag "for later." Along the way Tee and the other two guidemen with us located and ousted a few other little snacks from their places of residence. We were shown a rotted looking bamboo, and Tee told us it was because of maggots. So, his associate went and hacked it down, and brought it to us to see. We were all expecting those little nasty white writhing worms that eat dead stuff, but this was only one maggot, doing it all by himself. He was as big as two thumbs, undulating and blobbing in Tee's fingertips, helpless and fat. These were even better eats, Tee explained, because they were all meat and no skeleton. Oh yes. Like scrambled eggs he said.
Soon we came upon a Bamboo Elephant Beetle, milking a fat stalk of bamboo with its yes, very trunklike, probiscus. One guide walked to the bottom and said, ready? Tee nodded and lightning fast the guy broke the bamboo and the top came smacking against the path. Tee grabbed the dazed beetle before it reorient, and he proceeded to explain the these beetles were given as gifts, like toys, by parents to their children. He tied a string to one of its long tusk-like projections, then told us how tried to fly away, and the child can hold the string and carry it around like a little balloon. Then when it gets tired and stops flying, the child cooks it over the fire and eats it!
But this one wouldn't fly, so Tee and Long started shaking it around, then breaking off its legs, to make it fly. But it wouldn't, so they broke off all its legs, then its tusks, and finally its wing covers. Game over, little friend. Long popped its butt in his mouth and bit off everything but the head, and crunched it down his throat. "Tasty!" he grinned, with a heavy accent.
We worked our way down through the various levels of forest until we arrive at a cave entrance, The Bat Cave. Hiking up our shorts we plodded on in. We'd be walking through and in the river that flowed through and had created the cave, with only three burning torches to guide us. I was worried at first about getting soggy feet, knowing we had so far left to go, but it turned out we'd be in and out of the river, crossing again and again to reach better trails, for the rest of the day, so there was no hope of staving off the wet. The Bat Cave was certainly a bat cave, and we could hear and see them all above and among us, in droves, angry at our intrusion, but all talk.
We met another trekking group, of 7, at a bamboo hut by the river where they'd be staying. (We were doing the same thing they were doing, except backwards and in two days instead of three.) They had a fire going for supper so Tee brought out the maggot and beetle and proceeded to roast them up for all to share! We passed around the beetle first, each taking a bite of its stringy meat. Jacob was the only one to pass, a true blue vegetarian. The texture was alright, the flavor smoky, meaty, but hard to describe. Like Tee said, you can't describe it, you've just got to try it. Soon the maggot had stopped hissing steam and Tee brought out his knife to slice it up. We each got a little maggot disk, creaming inside, almost like runny eggs yes!, and tougher on the skin, almost like the skin of a sausage. The flavor was meaty again, but closer to eggs, plus smoky from the fire. Sergev was really into it, and Kyle liked it pretty well too. Sergev fantasized about the maggots, fried with a very crispy outside and the inside even softer and creamier. Oh yes.
We continued on down the river, Tee showing us a leaf that can be snapped open and its sap blown into bubbles, and then up, up, up, endlessly up the huge green mountain-hills to the village's rice paddies, up more, up to the village itself. Just outside of it, Tee produced from his underwear strap a tiny baggie of mah-ree-wanna, which he said we could roll ourselves and smoke secretly in the outhouse later if we were intersted. It all happened so quickly, one by one, asking us, do you want it? do you want it? Everyone shook their head a sober no thanks. So he unwrapped it from its plastic and tossed it into the bush. Cheers!
As it later turned out, there would be no shortage of intoxicants in the village itself!
We arrived at Yao, the village Holy Man's, bamboo house, met his wife and two youngest sons, and unloaded our gear and took a rest. Almost immediately, the rice whisky was produced and shots were being passed around. The stuff is unbelievable smooth for home hooch, and tasts a lot like sake. Cheers!
It got dark quick, because it gets dark so early here, and more and more other villagers came and joined us for whiskey and laughs on the little porch area. We all started cutting and snipping and preparing food for the meal. Tee drank the most of all I think, because he officially postponed all questions for the morning. He didn't want to tell us something wrong because he was drunk, and because he had to focus on cooking the meal, which was incredible and vast. While we watched and waited and helped where we could, we sampled some day-old roasted mouse that was staring blackly from about the small far, rigid on its bamboo spit. It was mostly smoky and tough, a lot like the beetle actually. Weird!
It's so nice to not be in the minority as a vegetarian! (If I can call myself anything like that still.) Sergev got his own little bowl of chicken stuff, but the mail courses were all veges, to share we had a green curry soup with potatoes, mixed vegetable stir-fry, and another tofu fry with chili paste. And bottomless rice the mother kept frantically shoving onto our barely cleared plates, literally by the fistful.
After our enormous dinner, more rice whisky was brought out and dispersed, and the arm and leg-wrestling began. And playing with the cameras! All the villagers, especially the little boys, were thrilled by our tiny TVs, and wanted to take and look at themselves in a million photos. I had the strangest warm feeling, watching the mother look at herself in a picture, almost forty years old and and seemingly genuinely surprised and intrigued by what she saw. It struck me, how possibly little their faces and bodies were attached to any concept of ego. Do they see themselves, their bodies, as a function, as a tool to use and hope it doesn't wear out? Once they're married do they ever think about their appearance again?
The mother had no sense of looking at herself in a mirror every day and making judgments and assigning value by what she finds there. She probably knows herself better by her hands than her face, let alone by when she sees her whole body in a photo. The old people too, with their black teeth from the stuff they chew, seem completely oblivious to the fact that they are, if not toothless, black toothed, and with black lips, black juice running out the edges of their mouth. It doesn't matter because it's not all wrapped up into that idea of an ego, of a self, a self that very much includes appearance, but also the books you've read, the movies you've seen, the people you know. I wanted to know, I wanted so badly to sit down and talk with that mother, to ask her, who do you think you are? To find how she regards herself, her self? As a tool for completing tasks, as a collection of experiences, as eyes that see and exist only in the present moment and perform what is presently necessary?
I wondered how much any of the villagers live in the present moment, how far do they think to the future and what kind of plans do they make? They're subsistence farmers. Are they just worried about this year's harvest? Next year's? It seems like so much of their lives are laid out before they can ever make any decisions. Do they ever learn how? I don't want to oversimplify their lives, their minds. They are completely and fully human beings, but their dailiness is filled with so little stimulation and such a limited range of experiences, I know their view of life must be so totally different from mine, and I'm curious! But I'd have to learn the Karin language to ask. Woe.
When we ran out of rice whisky, Tee had Kyle and I go to the mother's parents house 20 meters away and request more! It was a very awkward encounter, because Tee was drunk and hadn't really told us what to do or say, anything exept making us memorize the man's name! So we go trucking up their miniature steps and into their little hut, and there they are, ancient and wrinkled, lying down for bed on their little mats! Kyle and I looked at each other, terrified, confused. How do you just barge into a situation like this, and then give no explanation other than to say the man's name?! But the old woman understood without our help, reapplied her head turban and went to the shelf in the corner, bringing down two gleaming bottles of rice whisky, which looked to be capped by little clear condoms! (Tee later explained that a custardy street food comes in those plastic things, and they save them for caps, but still, very condom-like in appearance.) The whisky was even smoother than the last, and topped our night off swimmingly.
Just as we were growing tired, and mother was yawning suggesting the party come to a close, Yao produces his little white bottle of Chinese remedy powder, with its U-shaped metal tube nose applicator. He loaded me up a hit, and I put one end of the U in my mouth, but before I could load the other end into my eager nostril, I coughed and blew the sweet load into my eyeball. Stinging at first, I quickly recovered and realized, say! that's not so bad. Load me up another! Which he did, twice, one for each nostril, properly blown all the way deep into my sinuses, and then later one more, for my left nostril, which felt like it needed a little bit more. Sergev and Kyle did it too, and of course Tee, and in the end we still weren't sure what it was or what purpose it was supposed to serve. To clear the sinuses maybe? It sort of had the partly sweet and bitter taste of a pill, if you let it sit on your tongue too long before swallowing, but dribbling down the back of your throat instead. So good.
We pretended we were all gonna get addicted, and be begging for more in the morning. I manically asked the guys if they felt like dancing, I feel like dancing! I said.
But instead we set up the mosquito nets and sleeping bags right where we'd been having jollies a minute before, and went off to bed. By 4 am, a few short hours later, every family's roosters were violently being throttled, or else cockadoodling, and so it made for a short night of restlessness, but absolutely worthwhile.
For breakfast, we were treated to "European barbecue" according to Tee, or toast and jam, eggs with tomato and peppers. And hot tea!
Oh! I'll have to finish telling the tale another time. Thought I could make it but I've gotta get back to the bus. We're leaving in a few minutes for Bangkok. I can't believe Thailand is almmost over, the deed is almost done! School starts in three days, with or without me...
But it's not over yet! Let's see what else I can put in my mouth before this thing's over!
And let's see about getting rid of this pesky manhood before it's too late!
Sawatdee khrap!
Kan
Before I finish telling the trek,
I've been meaning to tell about the Sightless Market Minstrel.
We saw her at the really killer Night Market in Prachuap Khiri Khan, wending her way slowly up and down the long crowded, grease-billowy aisles between booths selling watches, fried squid, pet kittens, ball gowns and pineapple watermelon smoothies. (Most Night Markets also have one weapons and knives booth. Throwing stars!) There she was, taking steps so impossible small she couldn't be moving but she was, he eyes pinched close, a blind person's walking stick in her elbow, a music box speaker hung from her neck, spouting all manner of traditional and modern Thai hits, a tupperware balanced on top containing a couple small coins, and a microphone clutched in her hand, pressed to her sweetly singing lips.
Her voice was being filtered through some sort of electronic echo device, and her speaker-box was set at volume HIGH. And there she was! I asked Kyle if I could take a picture. He said no and gave her 10 Baht. That's almost 30 cents. Very generous. She practically owed us a picture, but I abstained, because I'm becoming a monk. Anyway, we fell instantly in love, and saw her several other times that night, somehow navigating the irregular and frenzied walkways, always singing with that echoing voice that sounded almost as pinched as her eyes, like she was squeezing it out of a dry lemon. Beautiful stuff.
But here's the real gem of the story. No less than one week and hundreds of kilometers later, as we were browsing the fried delights in Phitsanulok's own thriving Night Market, what should we hear caught on the oily breeze? Why, the haunted melodies of the Sightless Market Minstrel! And then, round the bend she came, tottering along, all 50 years, 4 feet and change of her, the squat, chubby, wandering little woman of our dreams. But how had she arrived there? Was someone carting her all around the country, sucking up the sympathy one Night Market at a time? Was she a captive slave performer for some heartless opium warlord, milking her talents for a few sorry dimes? Or was this all completely standard? Was she simply completing her weekly circuit? There was no way to know.
But, whatever the case may be, I still regret not exploiting her, and she still owes me a topless photo.
We saw her at the really killer Night Market in Prachuap Khiri Khan, wending her way slowly up and down the long crowded, grease-billowy aisles between booths selling watches, fried squid, pet kittens, ball gowns and pineapple watermelon smoothies. (Most Night Markets also have one weapons and knives booth. Throwing stars!) There she was, taking steps so impossible small she couldn't be moving but she was, he eyes pinched close, a blind person's walking stick in her elbow, a music box speaker hung from her neck, spouting all manner of traditional and modern Thai hits, a tupperware balanced on top containing a couple small coins, and a microphone clutched in her hand, pressed to her sweetly singing lips.
Her voice was being filtered through some sort of electronic echo device, and her speaker-box was set at volume HIGH. And there she was! I asked Kyle if I could take a picture. He said no and gave her 10 Baht. That's almost 30 cents. Very generous. She practically owed us a picture, but I abstained, because I'm becoming a monk. Anyway, we fell instantly in love, and saw her several other times that night, somehow navigating the irregular and frenzied walkways, always singing with that echoing voice that sounded almost as pinched as her eyes, like she was squeezing it out of a dry lemon. Beautiful stuff.
But here's the real gem of the story. No less than one week and hundreds of kilometers later, as we were browsing the fried delights in Phitsanulok's own thriving Night Market, what should we hear caught on the oily breeze? Why, the haunted melodies of the Sightless Market Minstrel! And then, round the bend she came, tottering along, all 50 years, 4 feet and change of her, the squat, chubby, wandering little woman of our dreams. But how had she arrived there? Was someone carting her all around the country, sucking up the sympathy one Night Market at a time? Was she a captive slave performer for some heartless opium warlord, milking her talents for a few sorry dimes? Or was this all completely standard? Was she simply completing her weekly circuit? There was no way to know.
But, whatever the case may be, I still regret not exploiting her, and she still owes me a topless photo.
I meant to say about the man-woman from Montenegro that hir story also made me think about relativity, and perspective. That's been another thing we've had to keep in mind here, and that we learned a lot about in the Karin tribe's village. And on the trains.
I want to grab the man and shake him who offers to take my used baggie and beer bottle, and so casually tosses them out the moving window, into the landscape I can't stop admiring. That's wrong, I want to say, you shouldn't do that! But how can I? It was the same in Peru, everyone throwing their styrofoam meal plates out the back of the boat, a thousand rectangular snowflakes drifting slowly down into the Amazon River. That's wrong, I wanted to say, you shouldn't do that! But who am I to tell the people who've used this land for a thousand years how to do it better now?
But some good just seem universal, and not relative, and you just want to.
I want to grab the man and shake him who offers to take my used baggie and beer bottle, and so casually tosses them out the moving window, into the landscape I can't stop admiring. That's wrong, I want to say, you shouldn't do that! But how can I? It was the same in Peru, everyone throwing their styrofoam meal plates out the back of the boat, a thousand rectangular snowflakes drifting slowly down into the Amazon River. That's wrong, I wanted to say, you shouldn't do that! But who am I to tell the people who've used this land for a thousand years how to do it better now?
But some good just seem universal, and not relative, and you just want to.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
taa blu, nee boh nee taa!
"Hello, thank you, and many lucks and good healths upon you!"
(That's the Karin language, the tribe we visited, and they don't bother with any of that folded hands bowing Thai business. The language is actually as different from Thai as German is from Japanese!)
So, yes, we are back in Chiang Mai and we have done many first things, seen many first things and consumed many first things, but we made it and are back and it was everything promised and more. I don't know where to begin.
First maybe I'll explain our trek-mates. First actually, in case it's unclear, trekking is the British word for hiking, so it's the standard word here, though a lot of places take you trekking and there's not much trekking involved. Tee, our guide, told us some companies just drive you to a fake village and feed you opium. We took a Chinese remedy alright, but it wasn't dope, and we didn't smoke it. We snorted it! Kind of.
I've gone too far past my first first. I'll begin again. Our comrades:
Jacob: A 28-year-old vegetarian ex-google-programmer, and it showed! He was a regular pocketbook of information, and his google phone retained service well into the wilderness. An avid trekker, biker and journeyman, he quit his job a year ago and is doing the world with his girlfriend in tow. She stayed in Chiang Mai. He had a beard like Spanish conquistador plus the king of the monkeys. Tee called him Papa Monkey.
Sergev: A 36-year-old Croatia-born Italian, who studied aesthetics and film in Milan, and had his thesis on the philosophical world-view set forth in Monty Python's Flying Circus published into a book upon graduating. Now a working director and writer for television, he was given the opportunity to direct his first feature length Italian film at the age of 21, but got nervous when they told him he'd be in charge of a 70-person crew. He had no experience trekking, had only flip-flops so he had to buy awful bright white loafers at the market as we left town, which thoroughly blistered his tender hooves, and plus he was the oldest and a little bit fat.
*Sidebar: Sergev was fascinating and had a million things to tell us about. If only he could have kept talking as he struggled miles behind us up the swampy slopes. At a stopping point on the ride back to town, though, he told us over a beer about an incredible article he had read about the isolated tribal mountain people of Montenegro, and the author's interview with an old woman living alone in the hills with only the wild wolves and her three cows for company, hours away from the nearest tiny village.
She lived and acted like a man, though she was clearly a biological woman. Apparently in Montenegro it used to be that if a family did not produce any sons, the youngest daughter was raised as a boy instead, dressed as a boy from the earliest age, allowed to drink and smoke with the men, given a boy's name. The practice has since fallen out of use, especially as most of the tribal people moved out of the villages and down from the mountains. And so this old woman the author interviewed was probably one of the last living examples of the Montenegrin girl-men.
He asked her all variety of questions, and her answers were always unbelievable but exactly what they had to be. He asked her if she'd ever seen the sea, and she said No, what use do I have for the sea, nothing can grow on the sea. (She fed herself by farming.) He asked her about her cows, and she talked about them as if they were family, human beings. This one is jealous of that one, and Oh look now she's angry at me, Those two always sleep near each other because the other is often rude in the mornings.
He asked her if she knew that men had landed on the moon. She said, No, it's not true. Impossible. If a wolf cannot jump as high as this wall, no man can go as high as the moon. All the while scowling and pulling deeply on her short fat cigarrette.
Everything about her dress and manner was masculine, and he wanted to know how she negotiated that with being actually physically a woman, so he cautiously asked her about menstruation. She became perfectly still and silent, a blank scowling wall.
He then asked her what she thought about at night in bed. She replied that each night before falling asleep she would think about three things. First, about her father. Second, about her cows. Last, about her great-great-grandfather who, when visiting a foreign Sultan, refused to remove his little Montenegrin cap. (Montenegrins are a very proud people.) After each of these three things had passed through her mind, then she could asleep.
Only as the interview was coming to a close did she admit on her own that she had lately been feeling a little bit sad. She was getting older, and had begun to worry about about not knowing how to read or write, worried because she was the only native person left living up in those mountains. Everyone else was gone. Spinning in a circle she pointed at all the many peaks and spoke their long, beautiful names, but she could not record them and save them, and when she died they would be lost forever. With her death, so much would be lost forever.
The story felt especially fitting after the experience we'd just had in the Karin village, after trekking through the unblighted junle, rainforest, evergreen or deciduous forest depending on the altitude, after slipping up and down the rain-smoothed paths on the hill-side rice paddies, after sleeping in the squat but lovely bamboo huts, after spending a day with people who had nothing to occupy their lives and minds but work, rice whisky and each other, the whole experience and story and Thailand in general all seemed to culminate and reverberate and marinate into one of the Buddha's key concepts: impermanence.
The mountain tribes in Thailand use slash-and-burn farming on the steep slopes to grow their rice. It's much different than the mid-country typical flat-bottomed swampy version, and at first hearing the term slash-and-burn I was a litte concerned. Kyle still isn't convinced, but it's the way they've done it forever! And they cycle the fields by five years, to re-establish good soil fertility, and they keep scattered large trees up and down the hills to prevent erosion, and we saw areas that had only laid fallow a year or two, totally overgrown with tangled thicket higher than my head. Everything those people build and do could be undone and erased in a short matter of years.
Our guide as I said was named Tee, and was most distinguished by his somehow perfectly trustworthy and familiar face, his sarcasm and his two little front teeth, with a centimeter between each and another before the molars kicked in on either side. He grew up in a different Karin village than the one we visited, which was called Ton Kyew, but most of the customs and culture were the same.
We were accompanied on our trek by Tee's best Karin friend Yao, whose house we ended up also sleeping in, with his wife and two young sons (5 and 6), and who also ended up being Ton Kyew's resident shaman, the holy man. Man and wife choose each other in Karin culture, no arranged mess, and operate very much as an equal team, sharing the farm and housework evenly, tending the children, fixing the roof, making dinner, all according to who's busy and who's not at any given moment. Each family gets a plot of the community's rice fields according to its size, plants it particular heirloom rice variety, harvests and stores it all once a year, then gets ready to do it all again. One family may grow sticky rice, another brown and another white. They simply trade each other if they want something different one day.
I'm becoming very sleepy. Last night wasn't the greatest sleep on the wooden board, and there's too much to say. I'll have to keep going tomorrow.
*Teaser: Maggots roasting on an open fire.
One more thing to leave you with, a meditation exercise on impermanence. It's supposed to be repulsive at first, and then liberating.
You think about your dead body rotting!
But you've got to through all the stages, worms a creeping, loose skin a peeling, bones held together just by tendons, tendons falling away, loose disjointed skeleton, bones bleached by the sun, bones scattered in an untidy pile, bones pulverized into dust, and finally dust on a quiet, cool breeze...
... and actually finally maybe dust getting into someone's eye, or falling into a shaker and peppering someone's morning scramble.
Doesn't that feel good?
Buddha's love,
Kandy-Boots
(That's the Karin language, the tribe we visited, and they don't bother with any of that folded hands bowing Thai business. The language is actually as different from Thai as German is from Japanese!)
So, yes, we are back in Chiang Mai and we have done many first things, seen many first things and consumed many first things, but we made it and are back and it was everything promised and more. I don't know where to begin.
First maybe I'll explain our trek-mates. First actually, in case it's unclear, trekking is the British word for hiking, so it's the standard word here, though a lot of places take you trekking and there's not much trekking involved. Tee, our guide, told us some companies just drive you to a fake village and feed you opium. We took a Chinese remedy alright, but it wasn't dope, and we didn't smoke it. We snorted it! Kind of.
I've gone too far past my first first. I'll begin again. Our comrades:
Jacob: A 28-year-old vegetarian ex-google-programmer, and it showed! He was a regular pocketbook of information, and his google phone retained service well into the wilderness. An avid trekker, biker and journeyman, he quit his job a year ago and is doing the world with his girlfriend in tow. She stayed in Chiang Mai. He had a beard like Spanish conquistador plus the king of the monkeys. Tee called him Papa Monkey.
Sergev: A 36-year-old Croatia-born Italian, who studied aesthetics and film in Milan, and had his thesis on the philosophical world-view set forth in Monty Python's Flying Circus published into a book upon graduating. Now a working director and writer for television, he was given the opportunity to direct his first feature length Italian film at the age of 21, but got nervous when they told him he'd be in charge of a 70-person crew. He had no experience trekking, had only flip-flops so he had to buy awful bright white loafers at the market as we left town, which thoroughly blistered his tender hooves, and plus he was the oldest and a little bit fat.
*Sidebar: Sergev was fascinating and had a million things to tell us about. If only he could have kept talking as he struggled miles behind us up the swampy slopes. At a stopping point on the ride back to town, though, he told us over a beer about an incredible article he had read about the isolated tribal mountain people of Montenegro, and the author's interview with an old woman living alone in the hills with only the wild wolves and her three cows for company, hours away from the nearest tiny village.
She lived and acted like a man, though she was clearly a biological woman. Apparently in Montenegro it used to be that if a family did not produce any sons, the youngest daughter was raised as a boy instead, dressed as a boy from the earliest age, allowed to drink and smoke with the men, given a boy's name. The practice has since fallen out of use, especially as most of the tribal people moved out of the villages and down from the mountains. And so this old woman the author interviewed was probably one of the last living examples of the Montenegrin girl-men.
He asked her all variety of questions, and her answers were always unbelievable but exactly what they had to be. He asked her if she'd ever seen the sea, and she said No, what use do I have for the sea, nothing can grow on the sea. (She fed herself by farming.) He asked her about her cows, and she talked about them as if they were family, human beings. This one is jealous of that one, and Oh look now she's angry at me, Those two always sleep near each other because the other is often rude in the mornings.
He asked her if she knew that men had landed on the moon. She said, No, it's not true. Impossible. If a wolf cannot jump as high as this wall, no man can go as high as the moon. All the while scowling and pulling deeply on her short fat cigarrette.
Everything about her dress and manner was masculine, and he wanted to know how she negotiated that with being actually physically a woman, so he cautiously asked her about menstruation. She became perfectly still and silent, a blank scowling wall.
He then asked her what she thought about at night in bed. She replied that each night before falling asleep she would think about three things. First, about her father. Second, about her cows. Last, about her great-great-grandfather who, when visiting a foreign Sultan, refused to remove his little Montenegrin cap. (Montenegrins are a very proud people.) After each of these three things had passed through her mind, then she could asleep.
Only as the interview was coming to a close did she admit on her own that she had lately been feeling a little bit sad. She was getting older, and had begun to worry about about not knowing how to read or write, worried because she was the only native person left living up in those mountains. Everyone else was gone. Spinning in a circle she pointed at all the many peaks and spoke their long, beautiful names, but she could not record them and save them, and when she died they would be lost forever. With her death, so much would be lost forever.
The story felt especially fitting after the experience we'd just had in the Karin village, after trekking through the unblighted junle, rainforest, evergreen or deciduous forest depending on the altitude, after slipping up and down the rain-smoothed paths on the hill-side rice paddies, after sleeping in the squat but lovely bamboo huts, after spending a day with people who had nothing to occupy their lives and minds but work, rice whisky and each other, the whole experience and story and Thailand in general all seemed to culminate and reverberate and marinate into one of the Buddha's key concepts: impermanence.
The mountain tribes in Thailand use slash-and-burn farming on the steep slopes to grow their rice. It's much different than the mid-country typical flat-bottomed swampy version, and at first hearing the term slash-and-burn I was a litte concerned. Kyle still isn't convinced, but it's the way they've done it forever! And they cycle the fields by five years, to re-establish good soil fertility, and they keep scattered large trees up and down the hills to prevent erosion, and we saw areas that had only laid fallow a year or two, totally overgrown with tangled thicket higher than my head. Everything those people build and do could be undone and erased in a short matter of years.
Our guide as I said was named Tee, and was most distinguished by his somehow perfectly trustworthy and familiar face, his sarcasm and his two little front teeth, with a centimeter between each and another before the molars kicked in on either side. He grew up in a different Karin village than the one we visited, which was called Ton Kyew, but most of the customs and culture were the same.
We were accompanied on our trek by Tee's best Karin friend Yao, whose house we ended up also sleeping in, with his wife and two young sons (5 and 6), and who also ended up being Ton Kyew's resident shaman, the holy man. Man and wife choose each other in Karin culture, no arranged mess, and operate very much as an equal team, sharing the farm and housework evenly, tending the children, fixing the roof, making dinner, all according to who's busy and who's not at any given moment. Each family gets a plot of the community's rice fields according to its size, plants it particular heirloom rice variety, harvests and stores it all once a year, then gets ready to do it all again. One family may grow sticky rice, another brown and another white. They simply trade each other if they want something different one day.
I'm becoming very sleepy. Last night wasn't the greatest sleep on the wooden board, and there's too much to say. I'll have to keep going tomorrow.
*Teaser: Maggots roasting on an open fire.
One more thing to leave you with, a meditation exercise on impermanence. It's supposed to be repulsive at first, and then liberating.
You think about your dead body rotting!
But you've got to through all the stages, worms a creeping, loose skin a peeling, bones held together just by tendons, tendons falling away, loose disjointed skeleton, bones bleached by the sun, bones scattered in an untidy pile, bones pulverized into dust, and finally dust on a quiet, cool breeze...
... and actually finally maybe dust getting into someone's eye, or falling into a shaker and peppering someone's morning scramble.
Doesn't that feel good?
Buddha's love,
Kandy-Boots
first
I've been meaning to tell you the chickens here are velociraptors. Almost humanly erect, clever, quick, stringy, gleaming multitudinous color schemes, blues, greens, reds, browns, yellows. Dinosaur birds. I always thought a chicken was a white pom-pom pillow.
Monday, August 17, 2009
ALSO!
There won't be any updates for a bit because tomorrow at 6 am we set off on an eco-trek for two days. The man who runs the operation is named Pooh, but he's a wise fellow nonetheless, and out of all the operators this definitely seems the most friendly and symbiotic way to see nature unblemished and how the tribal people really live. We won't be bathing elephants or seeing them perform any sort of comedy shows (we've seen the ones on the street with neck-chains and their hook-wielding masters and that's about enough). We won't be white-water rafting on bamboo boats, and we won't see the villagers do a dance for us, but we will be doing some genuine jungle hiking, and we'll learn how the local people cook their food, and make their rice whiskey! We'll live right in among them!
Our actual guide's name is Tee and he is as clever and straight-talking a gap-tooth as I've ever met.
In two days I'll let you know how it went! Gotta go get some sleep for the early start.
Peace!
(Also we saw the queen on TV today, all lipstick and blue frills. I forgive her for everything.)
Our actual guide's name is Tee and he is as clever and straight-talking a gap-tooth as I've ever met.
In two days I'll let you know how it went! Gotta go get some sleep for the early start.
Peace!
(Also we saw the queen on TV today, all lipstick and blue frills. I forgive her for everything.)
becoming buddhist monks
Today we learned a few techniques of meditation from a monk at the mountain-top temple in Chiang Mai. The room was also full of reading materials about Buddhism, the 4 Noble Truths, Eightfold Path, meditation, the relief of suffering, that sort of thing. It was an enlightening afternoon, and I became teary-eyed at one quotation about there being nowhere near enough time in life to spend any of it on hate.
When doing a sitting meditation, when your back begins to ache, you don't move, you just bring awareness to the pain. You say over and over in your head, aching, aching, aching. You ride the experience.
We did a walking meditation too. Everything in threes, and every intention thought out loud so to speak. You begin by closing your eyes and scanning up and down your body three times with your hand, then think-saying standing, standing, standing, and then intention to walk, intention to walk, intention to walk. Then as you start walking you say right foot first, left foot first, right foot first, left foot first, and so on. Then when you get to the end of where you're walking, you say stopping, stopping, stopping, and then turning, turning, turning until you're back facing the way you came. Then all over again! If you accidentally start thinking, you simply bring awareness to it. Thinking, thinking, thinking, oops!
Before that we had wandered the glittering golden colorful gleaming palace of the temple itself (after mounting its 400 steps) and found a little fortune-telling shrine. Some girls finally taught us how to properly perform the kneeling triple bow thing, and we did that, then shook the fortune sticks and received a key to our destinies. We both got the same number, 14, which is nice because I like 4s and Kyle likes 5s (1+4=5!). So, both of us need to carefully heed this advice from the Buddha above:
The 14th number tells that you should be patient and don't be in hasty. Everything will be all right. Don't think about the lover.
Monks it is!
When doing a sitting meditation, when your back begins to ache, you don't move, you just bring awareness to the pain. You say over and over in your head, aching, aching, aching. You ride the experience.
We did a walking meditation too. Everything in threes, and every intention thought out loud so to speak. You begin by closing your eyes and scanning up and down your body three times with your hand, then think-saying standing, standing, standing, and then intention to walk, intention to walk, intention to walk. Then as you start walking you say right foot first, left foot first, right foot first, left foot first, and so on. Then when you get to the end of where you're walking, you say stopping, stopping, stopping, and then turning, turning, turning until you're back facing the way you came. Then all over again! If you accidentally start thinking, you simply bring awareness to it. Thinking, thinking, thinking, oops!
Before that we had wandered the glittering golden colorful gleaming palace of the temple itself (after mounting its 400 steps) and found a little fortune-telling shrine. Some girls finally taught us how to properly perform the kneeling triple bow thing, and we did that, then shook the fortune sticks and received a key to our destinies. We both got the same number, 14, which is nice because I like 4s and Kyle likes 5s (1+4=5!). So, both of us need to carefully heed this advice from the Buddha above:
The 14th number tells that you should be patient and don't be in hasty. Everything will be all right. Don't think about the lover.
Monks it is!
another awful dad dream
This time everyone from my whole life was gathered for a screening of my first film, a culmination of years of hard work and passion. The room was crowed chockablock with family, friends, all my teachers and professors, the queen was there. And then, just as we were hushing and cooing, just as the lights were about to dim for the start, dad flew from his seat and started maniaclly screaming and cussing straight into my face! It was vivid and totally realistic besides his doing that, and so, in the dream, I thought how can he be DOING this? I looked around but no one would make eye contact. They were mortified and embarrassed for me, or maybe embarrassed to be there, at the screening of a film by a guy with a dad like that. I mean, dad was in my FACE, giving me a side-ways middle finger and hollering at the top of his lungs, no restraint, FUCK YOU, YOU LITTLE BASTARD MOTHERFUCKER I'M FUCKING SICK OF YOU! FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOOOUUUUU!! Spittling inches from my own mouth.
I ran from the room after the third outburst, hopped on my scooter and fled into the night. Later, I was devastated knowing everyone would have watched the film probably, and I had missed my one chance to witness their reactions. To see how my work was received by everyone who was important to me in the world.
Shucks, dad!
I ran from the room after the third outburst, hopped on my scooter and fled into the night. Later, I was devastated knowing everyone would have watched the film probably, and I had missed my one chance to witness their reactions. To see how my work was received by everyone who was important to me in the world.
Shucks, dad!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
We saw a lot of temple ruins yesterday in Sukhothai. We biked the ten miles there at the hottest part of the day, 2 pm, and Kyle took his shirt off, which we later learned can incur a fine of 2000 Baht if the wrong police man sees you! But we made it. And it was incredible. Definitely reminiscent of Macchu Piccu, I mean as in bringing about the similar sort of feelings, of ancient-ness, of history, of richness, the magic of being human. But these ruins, which were specifically temple ruins, held a distinct power. Maybe a lot of it was the Buddha images, huge, sitting, standing stone giants all around, that humanity so clearly present. But something about the layout, the design, everything, just felt more spiritual and appropriate and beautiful. The sprawl, five huge temples and various shrines in a few kilometer block, and also the fineness of the architecture.
Macchu Piccu I remember was impressive and astounding a lot of the time for the magnitude of its composite pieces. Giant, giant bricks as big as boulders made perfectly square and stacked ten high and a hundred long, perfectly level. But the other thing of it was, Macchu Piccu was a whole city and definitely seemed like it too. There was grandeur and elegance sure, but also there were those areas, and rooms where it seemed like, Oh, this is where they stored the poop maybe, or Yeah, that could hold a lot of corn. These Buddhist ruins didn't feel that way, although I think the monks did have little bungalows in and among the structures. Maybe it was just the use of more small bricks in layering up the huge towers, or just simply the specifically Asian style that I prefer aesthetically. Either way, I felt at peace and wonder-swept being there, and hope we get to see more like it before we leave.
We're in Chiang Mai tonight and may have spent a lot too much at the night market, but again, it's hard! All sense of proportion is thrown into whach! No, goodness no I won't spend more than two dollars on my dinner! But say, five dollars for that hairbrush, that's reasonable!
We think we're both experiencing a sort of decision-fatigue. I remember something like it when Allison and I got to Lima in Peru. You get exhausted with trying to find the best deal on everything, fighting over every price, waiting to look around more before you decide, and you just start going for it, treating yourself to a little careless liberty. We had chips with bean dip on the way home, after we'd just finished chastising ourselves and each other for how much we'd spent!
Tomorrow we'll make up for it. We won't get any iced coffee! We won't buy any, we won't look for any, we'll never buy any of it any more, never again, we will pretend we never have, and we'll never even think about it again, but we're absolutely gonna buy some tomorrow morning.
Macchu Piccu I remember was impressive and astounding a lot of the time for the magnitude of its composite pieces. Giant, giant bricks as big as boulders made perfectly square and stacked ten high and a hundred long, perfectly level. But the other thing of it was, Macchu Piccu was a whole city and definitely seemed like it too. There was grandeur and elegance sure, but also there were those areas, and rooms where it seemed like, Oh, this is where they stored the poop maybe, or Yeah, that could hold a lot of corn. These Buddhist ruins didn't feel that way, although I think the monks did have little bungalows in and among the structures. Maybe it was just the use of more small bricks in layering up the huge towers, or just simply the specifically Asian style that I prefer aesthetically. Either way, I felt at peace and wonder-swept being there, and hope we get to see more like it before we leave.
We're in Chiang Mai tonight and may have spent a lot too much at the night market, but again, it's hard! All sense of proportion is thrown into whach! No, goodness no I won't spend more than two dollars on my dinner! But say, five dollars for that hairbrush, that's reasonable!
We think we're both experiencing a sort of decision-fatigue. I remember something like it when Allison and I got to Lima in Peru. You get exhausted with trying to find the best deal on everything, fighting over every price, waiting to look around more before you decide, and you just start going for it, treating yourself to a little careless liberty. We had chips with bean dip on the way home, after we'd just finished chastising ourselves and each other for how much we'd spent!
Tomorrow we'll make up for it. We won't get any iced coffee! We won't buy any, we won't look for any, we'll never buy any of it any more, never again, we will pretend we never have, and we'll never even think about it again, but we're absolutely gonna buy some tomorrow morning.
TRAINS ARE COOL!
We took our first bus today, as in long distance bus, because there isn't a train station in Sukothai and we'd have had to backtrack to take the train. BUT! It would have been worth it. The bus is expensive and dull! Expensive as in 220 Baht each when trains have been between 20 and 50. Plus it jostles in a less regular pattern and so I can't read my book. I nearly became ill today from trying. Worst of all, people all sit in neat little seats and all there is to look at is a dozen rows of black half-heads looking the other way. On the train you're facing the little bench opposite your little bench, and there are old women to watch or little babies to play with and exploit. The countryside was lovely, but it's much more real from a train, open window, head reaching, wind whirling. Fans and fresh air beat half-functioning air-con any day. So, no more bus.
But speaking of spectacles and exploited locals, the train the other day, up to Phitsanulok from Ayutthaya, was full of things to watch and do. We had to stand a large portion of the way, but it gave us a great opportunity to see a lot of people about their business. Two old ladies who seemed to be long-time friends, both totally toothless and grinning all along, kept concocting themselves little homeopathic chewing potions out of their apothecarial lap baskets. There were green leaves, some red paste, little dry lime looking things, deftly peeled and cut up with a barbers long sharp razor blade! and a few other bits, then all put into a tiny bowl and mashed mashed mashed! Then you should've seen the old dears gumming the stuff! Either it tasted good or, more likely, it made them forget how old they were.
The fat one had to mix herself a new mouthful five or six different times too, had to keep spitting it out whenever some little goodie came floating past, which was often. They were queens of the train fare. (Which included whole fried baby chicks, pulled limb from limb and eaten like a cracker.) That's the other thing about the train, there are sometimes 20 different vendors, trotting up and down the aisle over and over, up and down, hour after hour, peddling their same tired, medium-warm fare to the same nonresponsive crowd. Except those old ladies. They were down to play the game. And, admittedly, after seeing the cold bucket of ice and soda go by a hundred times, and you're sweaty and sticky, sometimes you literally can't help but give in!
The other great thing that happened was just one bench over, a sweet little baby girl and her grandmother, taking a day-trip it seemed. I teased and smiled and played with the little gem for a long time, then, behind the grandmother's back, while she was being fed, I shamelessly exploited her in a series of well-lit and precious fotos. (I also took some killer video of the old ladies mashing their drug-mash, and it is too good to be true.)
Anyway, the awful thing about the baby and grandma was, as soon as I'd finished taking all those awful secret fotos, I went to look out the window. Leaning my head clear out, I started to lose my sunglasses, pulled in with a violent twist to save them, and somehow the giant water bottle clasped precarious in my elbow tipped, somehow unlidded itself, and unloaded its warm, spitty contents all over baby's face and grandma's lap. All down grandma's bag! I was the epitome of evil westerner at that point. I might as well have asked grandma if I could make some sexy videos with her baby. Shame. Shame!
But speaking of spectacles and exploited locals, the train the other day, up to Phitsanulok from Ayutthaya, was full of things to watch and do. We had to stand a large portion of the way, but it gave us a great opportunity to see a lot of people about their business. Two old ladies who seemed to be long-time friends, both totally toothless and grinning all along, kept concocting themselves little homeopathic chewing potions out of their apothecarial lap baskets. There were green leaves, some red paste, little dry lime looking things, deftly peeled and cut up with a barbers long sharp razor blade! and a few other bits, then all put into a tiny bowl and mashed mashed mashed! Then you should've seen the old dears gumming the stuff! Either it tasted good or, more likely, it made them forget how old they were.
The fat one had to mix herself a new mouthful five or six different times too, had to keep spitting it out whenever some little goodie came floating past, which was often. They were queens of the train fare. (Which included whole fried baby chicks, pulled limb from limb and eaten like a cracker.) That's the other thing about the train, there are sometimes 20 different vendors, trotting up and down the aisle over and over, up and down, hour after hour, peddling their same tired, medium-warm fare to the same nonresponsive crowd. Except those old ladies. They were down to play the game. And, admittedly, after seeing the cold bucket of ice and soda go by a hundred times, and you're sweaty and sticky, sometimes you literally can't help but give in!
The other great thing that happened was just one bench over, a sweet little baby girl and her grandmother, taking a day-trip it seemed. I teased and smiled and played with the little gem for a long time, then, behind the grandmother's back, while she was being fed, I shamelessly exploited her in a series of well-lit and precious fotos. (I also took some killer video of the old ladies mashing their drug-mash, and it is too good to be true.)
Anyway, the awful thing about the baby and grandma was, as soon as I'd finished taking all those awful secret fotos, I went to look out the window. Leaning my head clear out, I started to lose my sunglasses, pulled in with a violent twist to save them, and somehow the giant water bottle clasped precarious in my elbow tipped, somehow unlidded itself, and unloaded its warm, spitty contents all over baby's face and grandma's lap. All down grandma's bag! I was the epitome of evil westerner at that point. I might as well have asked grandma if I could make some sexy videos with her baby. Shame. Shame!
Long live the Queen!
So! I have hesitated to even begin describing the hell-dream that was the Queen's Birthday celebration. My chief concern is that I could be put in jail for five years for saying the things that must be said, but it's also just a matter of reluctance at the thought of reliving the awful ordeal.
In some ways, we planned our entire trip around the Queen. We knew we wanted to go south first, and then head back north in time to be in Bangkok for her big day, and then finally proceed up into the far northern areas of Thailand, where a lot of the things to see are actually located. And of course as I've mentioned, all the ten days prior to the grand event, we grew more and more excited, buzzed by the millions of posters, flower displays, banners, streamers and general hullabaloo in every tiniest town along the way. I'm telling you, these people really love their queen! We felt that if they went to all this for just the lead-up, my god! We were certain to be in for a party of the century, and would both get to see our first real live in-the-flesh person of royalty when the Queen made her thankful address to her adoring masses. As I think I've already mentioned, we carefully parcelled our clothes so to be sure our blue blouses would be pressed and ready to display our bodily love of the blessed Mother on her special day. Everything was falling into place, perfectly.
We killed a whole day in Bangkok, freshening ourselves with another mostly painful Thai massage, and waiting around for the parade to begin. It wasn't hard to find the huge boulevard, all sectioned off and ready for the grand palace floats, and we took our seats on the curb to observe all the action close-up. Would we really be seeing her this soon? In the parade? Or maybe at whatever destination the procession would lead us to? We were giddy and eager to say the least.
Finally we made out, way down the long winding road the beginning of the marchers, a 20 piece band, oh my! This thing was really starting out with a bang. But then, what's this, the rest of the parade, as it trickled ever nearer, was no more than mob after mob of trudging, bored middle-school age children, limply waving their paper flags. Well, the parade must just be the way of getting to the event! So, we hopped amongst their ranks and scooted on down the road for about a mile, until we came upon the festival grounds. Three huge stages all set up, carnival food, a hundred thousand people or more, not quite as giddy as us, but they must see her every year at this time we rationalized. We sat down to wait, declining the giant plastic sheet of factory energy drink labels everyone was selling and buying and sitting on.
It got dark, things started to happen. Little yellow candles were passed out for free by a million hard-working boyscouts. We'd light them in her honor all at once at the exact minute of her birth! Or so I guessed. We moved closer to the main stage, which was lined with a couple hundred men and women in fancy suits and blazers, ladies and dukes of the court I supposed, passing the fleets of workers decked out in blue versions of their uniforms. Blue nurses. Blue sanitation workers! And all huddled together like gangs and perfectly matching.
At last, it was happening! The music began, a shrill, ghostly howling from someplace on the stage, the spotlight shone on the towering portrait of the queen, and all the royal court-people turned to gaze lovingly at her massive and purple-lipped visage.
We lit the candles! It was windy so they kept blowing out, but we were frantic and kept them going. All steady! The birthday song began!
Any minute now! From the top of the bleachers, oh! She'll come cascading down in the royalest blue gown, of course! Yes! Can you see her? Is that her they're looking at there!? Is that her singing? It must be!
And then, boom boom BOOM! The sky erupted in a hurricane of fireworks and dazzlers!
And then, they ended.
And then, like a well-flushing toilet, the crowds, the hoards of admirers scattered, were gone. We were alone in an empty field, shivering, alone, without our queen and without a trickle of love left in our expended hearts. I tried to calm Kyle down, but he couldn't hear me. He couldn't hear anything anymore. He sobbed silently, his eyes fogged over beyond any seeing. We slept in a gutter, and the rats ate my hair. I'm totally bald. And all because the puffy bitch stood us up.
In some ways, we planned our entire trip around the Queen. We knew we wanted to go south first, and then head back north in time to be in Bangkok for her big day, and then finally proceed up into the far northern areas of Thailand, where a lot of the things to see are actually located. And of course as I've mentioned, all the ten days prior to the grand event, we grew more and more excited, buzzed by the millions of posters, flower displays, banners, streamers and general hullabaloo in every tiniest town along the way. I'm telling you, these people really love their queen! We felt that if they went to all this for just the lead-up, my god! We were certain to be in for a party of the century, and would both get to see our first real live in-the-flesh person of royalty when the Queen made her thankful address to her adoring masses. As I think I've already mentioned, we carefully parcelled our clothes so to be sure our blue blouses would be pressed and ready to display our bodily love of the blessed Mother on her special day. Everything was falling into place, perfectly.
We killed a whole day in Bangkok, freshening ourselves with another mostly painful Thai massage, and waiting around for the parade to begin. It wasn't hard to find the huge boulevard, all sectioned off and ready for the grand palace floats, and we took our seats on the curb to observe all the action close-up. Would we really be seeing her this soon? In the parade? Or maybe at whatever destination the procession would lead us to? We were giddy and eager to say the least.
Finally we made out, way down the long winding road the beginning of the marchers, a 20 piece band, oh my! This thing was really starting out with a bang. But then, what's this, the rest of the parade, as it trickled ever nearer, was no more than mob after mob of trudging, bored middle-school age children, limply waving their paper flags. Well, the parade must just be the way of getting to the event! So, we hopped amongst their ranks and scooted on down the road for about a mile, until we came upon the festival grounds. Three huge stages all set up, carnival food, a hundred thousand people or more, not quite as giddy as us, but they must see her every year at this time we rationalized. We sat down to wait, declining the giant plastic sheet of factory energy drink labels everyone was selling and buying and sitting on.
It got dark, things started to happen. Little yellow candles were passed out for free by a million hard-working boyscouts. We'd light them in her honor all at once at the exact minute of her birth! Or so I guessed. We moved closer to the main stage, which was lined with a couple hundred men and women in fancy suits and blazers, ladies and dukes of the court I supposed, passing the fleets of workers decked out in blue versions of their uniforms. Blue nurses. Blue sanitation workers! And all huddled together like gangs and perfectly matching.
At last, it was happening! The music began, a shrill, ghostly howling from someplace on the stage, the spotlight shone on the towering portrait of the queen, and all the royal court-people turned to gaze lovingly at her massive and purple-lipped visage.
We lit the candles! It was windy so they kept blowing out, but we were frantic and kept them going. All steady! The birthday song began!
Any minute now! From the top of the bleachers, oh! She'll come cascading down in the royalest blue gown, of course! Yes! Can you see her? Is that her they're looking at there!? Is that her singing? It must be!
And then, boom boom BOOM! The sky erupted in a hurricane of fireworks and dazzlers!
And then, they ended.
And then, like a well-flushing toilet, the crowds, the hoards of admirers scattered, were gone. We were alone in an empty field, shivering, alone, without our queen and without a trickle of love left in our expended hearts. I tried to calm Kyle down, but he couldn't hear me. He couldn't hear anything anymore. He sobbed silently, his eyes fogged over beyond any seeing. We slept in a gutter, and the rats ate my hair. I'm totally bald. And all because the puffy bitch stood us up.
freebies and fortunates
On the train:
2 cigarettes, a regular and a menthol, smoked one directly after the other
several firm, apple-like fruit wedges, dipped in pepper-sugar
a bottle of chilled water
three hand-shakes, two hugs and an hour of absolutely one-sided but enthralling Thai conversation with a drunken old man (the gifter of apples and water!)
Apparently, if you ride third class and really go among the people, forgoing a proper seat to cramp and squat in narrow hallways and pockets of squallid air, the Buddha rewards you with the kindness of strangers.
And later, when we arrived in Sukothai:
100 Baht off of our luxury resort suite
an evening of beers and tequila on the house (oh!)
a heaping plate of garlicky chicken bits on the house (oh?)
a couple of sparkling and dandy bicycles for a day of ruin-viewing
Apparently if the general manager of an upstart resort likes the look of the cat-fish mustachioed little boy and his bearded chaperone, he rewards them with his money and power.
2 cigarettes, a regular and a menthol, smoked one directly after the other
several firm, apple-like fruit wedges, dipped in pepper-sugar
a bottle of chilled water
three hand-shakes, two hugs and an hour of absolutely one-sided but enthralling Thai conversation with a drunken old man (the gifter of apples and water!)
Apparently, if you ride third class and really go among the people, forgoing a proper seat to cramp and squat in narrow hallways and pockets of squallid air, the Buddha rewards you with the kindness of strangers.
And later, when we arrived in Sukothai:
100 Baht off of our luxury resort suite
an evening of beers and tequila on the house (oh!)
a heaping plate of garlicky chicken bits on the house (oh?)
a couple of sparkling and dandy bicycles for a day of ruin-viewing
Apparently if the general manager of an upstart resort likes the look of the cat-fish mustachioed little boy and his bearded chaperone, he rewards them with his money and power.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Kyle is addicted to iced coffees
And he says he can't bear me in the mornings unless he's had the fix. I'm disabling!
And we had another "discussion" tonight, about the fact that I butt in on conversations, or communications, when I feel there is a hang-up. As in, when he questions a random vendor or street-person, which we do often, but seems to press just a littttle too long when to me it's obvious the person is unconfortable because he or she does not know a spit of English. Maybe that's my tourist's guilt coming through. But when it happens, or when his sentence trails off and an English-speaker even fails to understand what he's driving at after a few repeats (most are not native English-speakers but even the ones that are!) I can't help but feel the need to jump in and clarify, smooth over the complication, the road-block, spit out the word, the phrase that is not coming across or whisper urgently "He doesn't speak English!" And I do this often! With all people! The smoothing, the pacifying of conflict! But he can't stand it. He takes it a personal assault, and I'm trying, honestly trying to understand his point of view and decide if what I'm doing is a violation, and it makes him upset so I guess it is.
Yet when I find myself in a near head-on collision, cruising down the right side, the wrong side, of the road, and he calls out, "Get on the left side!" I am beaming grateful! My life's been saved. I suppose it's different. Not life or death, but I can't wrap my head around it yet.
But also, instead of updating all our current and latest endeavors and adventures (which are a lot!) I've just read a big lot of Allison's blog and have had a beer and am feeling weepy-eyed without surely knowing why.
I miss Allison and I love her and feel this way a lot when I remember I love her, as when I remember how much I love other crucial Christ-figures in my life and fail to show it, and the hard thing is maybe, hearing about what joy she's making, is that I know she's learning that she doesn't need me, that she can do it alone, travel or otherwise, and maybe that's part of it. Another part is I see the joy she's making on her own, and I think, what is this silly arguing Kyle and I do and I've done and are doing! Why?! What for!? What are we missing in its place??
But. And it is a fat, surly but, at the same time, I'm realizing as I write this that the thing of it is, the difference is that seeing what I'm seeing while paired with someone like Kyle who I have not known immeasurable years and who is not a twin-self like Allison, and with whom there does exist conflicts and discrepencies, is that I am learning things of the self. I am of course also seeing things of the world, but it really seems the biggest thing is the learning of the self, in ways that maybe can't happen without conflict and argument and (seemingly) time-wasteful debates. I have already begun to learn the value of that wise Buddha's smile, which I have seen but never seen before this trip. And who knows what else awaits.
Hopefully there'll be time tomorrow to tell of happenings and get things aligned and ready school-wise for my return.
For now, I must finish this beer and let loose my cares away!
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
wiggle-worm
Now, I'm not trying to make a mockery of anxious dad's sex-surgery concerns, but I've just got to show this thread of worry.
First off I received this:
I'm hoping the sex change stuff is just your creative writing!!!
You are making me worry.
And I hoped to mollify with this:
it's all for the sake of good humor, pop! if anything i might come back with a new nose.
don't worry!
Then I got this:
No nose - no nothing!!
No mutilation!!
I didn't respond to that one. Didn't think I needed to. Obviously I have a perfectly formed and enviable nose.
But then a few days later, more! He says:
Guess I don't/can't always appreciate your humor (since I am such a caveman). But I don't even like you joking about it!!!!! You've been rather secretive about this, so I guess it wouldn't surprise me.
Bethany tells me she's asked him about it, and the biggest thing is he can't conceive of any reason for my choosing Thailand for a visit other than that it's got a really jackpot sex surgery market.
Doesn't he know I touched the monkey?
Wait til he sees my fotos!
*Sidebar: If I did have my penis inverted and shoved into the hollow between my pelvis bones, I hope anxious dad would still love me. But, really, I think the little wiggle-worm is nice enough the way it is.
First off I received this:
I'm hoping the sex change stuff is just your creative writing!!!
You are making me worry.
And I hoped to mollify with this:
it's all for the sake of good humor, pop! if anything i might come back with a new nose.
don't worry!
Then I got this:
No nose - no nothing!!
No mutilation!!
I didn't respond to that one. Didn't think I needed to. Obviously I have a perfectly formed and enviable nose.
But then a few days later, more! He says:
Guess I don't/can't always appreciate your humor (since I am such a caveman). But I don't even like you joking about it!!!!! You've been rather secretive about this, so I guess it wouldn't surprise me.
Bethany tells me she's asked him about it, and the biggest thing is he can't conceive of any reason for my choosing Thailand for a visit other than that it's got a really jackpot sex surgery market.
Doesn't he know I touched the monkey?
Wait til he sees my fotos!
*Sidebar: If I did have my penis inverted and shoved into the hollow between my pelvis bones, I hope anxious dad would still love me. But, really, I think the little wiggle-worm is nice enough the way it is.
Forgot to say! We finally got to see the full-on freaky side of Bangkok when we went to the club area last night.
"Ping pong show!?!" And the mouth popping noise, on every corner.
A thousand men with little sticky laminated slips of paper listing all the things you can see a pussy do, neatly numbered.
1. Pussy write the letter
2. pussy shoot the ping pong
3. two pussy together
4. pussy blow the whistle
.... on and on, a dozen or more delectable options.
Why on earth did we opt for the regular old dancin' disco??
Also every street was plentifully lined with soliciting girls. One of them had a giant face. It looked like a grinning mask! That one scared me.
It scared me how much I wanted her. (I'm shuddering all over. And by shuddering, I mean sweating.)
"Ping pong show!?!" And the mouth popping noise, on every corner.
A thousand men with little sticky laminated slips of paper listing all the things you can see a pussy do, neatly numbered.
1. Pussy write the letter
2. pussy shoot the ping pong
3. two pussy together
4. pussy blow the whistle
.... on and on, a dozen or more delectable options.
Why on earth did we opt for the regular old dancin' disco??
Also every street was plentifully lined with soliciting girls. One of them had a giant face. It looked like a grinning mask! That one scared me.
It scared me how much I wanted her. (I'm shuddering all over. And by shuddering, I mean sweating.)
I've also been having very vivid regular dreams. I'm not sure what it means. Alex? The subjects are quite varied, and never incredibily dire, but always the kind where you wake up and feel relieved it's not true! Oh! No! I'm in Thailand! Phew! That sort of thing.
One was about my film camera that was revealing ghosts, mostly of my Grandpa Seidel, mostly him sitting on the couch in our old house. And somehow that proved why dad was having a sour temper. And then I was supposed to have a dinner date with Jim Dvorak? and ditched him, and he chased after me with a giant sampler platter! I tried going to India but the flight was confuddled and Allison was sour!
Dream-genie, what you making me worry for?!
One was about my film camera that was revealing ghosts, mostly of my Grandpa Seidel, mostly him sitting on the couch in our old house. And somehow that proved why dad was having a sour temper. And then I was supposed to have a dinner date with Jim Dvorak? and ditched him, and he chased after me with a giant sampler platter! I tried going to India but the flight was confuddled and Allison was sour!
Dream-genie, what you making me worry for?!
TATTOO IDEA
Also! I think I finally have an idea for a tattoo I can really get behind. A portrait of the queen's face, on my face.
No, not really. Really, a smily face! Or actually probably a smilING face, of my own doodling. It's the thing or at least a thing I'm really taking in from this trip. The people are all incredibly warm and cheerful and helpful, and will without fail return a genuince and jolly smile anywhere you go. Plus all the smiling Buddhas! Gracious! This is a happy place!
And it makes a lot of sense. It's pretty right there in line with my life philosophy, which is to find the humor in everything, to laugh at everything, to laugh at my self, to smile and be entertained by even the sourest circumstances. But, as with all life-mantras, sometimes you just sort of forget about it, and maybe lose your cool, or get annoyed, or have somebody murdered, childish stuff you know. So, how appropriate and what more appropriate for this moment and this experience than a sweet lil inky reminder to forget about that frown, and smile smile smile. Life is good good good!
No, not really. Really, a smily face! Or actually probably a smilING face, of my own doodling. It's the thing or at least a thing I'm really taking in from this trip. The people are all incredibly warm and cheerful and helpful, and will without fail return a genuince and jolly smile anywhere you go. Plus all the smiling Buddhas! Gracious! This is a happy place!
And it makes a lot of sense. It's pretty right there in line with my life philosophy, which is to find the humor in everything, to laugh at everything, to laugh at my self, to smile and be entertained by even the sourest circumstances. But, as with all life-mantras, sometimes you just sort of forget about it, and maybe lose your cool, or get annoyed, or have somebody murdered, childish stuff you know. So, how appropriate and what more appropriate for this moment and this experience than a sweet lil inky reminder to forget about that frown, and smile smile smile. Life is good good good!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
parties, poops and pals!
Last night we did the club party dance thing. Apparently, allegedly, "slippers" which are sandals, are not kosher disco wear. We had to buy sneakers on the street! I got some turquouise ones that look remotely like those chuck all-star ones for 190 Baht, not the greatest deal but we had no choice! It spent all the last of our money so the German guys we met at one place bought us a drink. We had lunch with them just now actually. They are a rock-climbing duo and had much to talk to Kyle about in that regard, and I of course had about a thousand questions for them regarding sausages and kraut. It was a sensational meal to say the least.
OH! How can I even continue without first paying regard to the fact that today is the Queen's Birthday! Long live Queen Siriskit or some such name. There are flower displays all over the city, every city, but Bangkok especially goes to town so to speak, as well as enormous, billboard sized photographs of her on every corner, surrounded by elaborate shrines. She was a fox in her day, but current photos, which are obviously much rarer, reveal her to be a swollen fat-lipped dough-boy, but in the most endearing way. She is a beloved monarch here. They all are. In years past there have been fireworks displays and the like, but this year will unfortunately be more tame because of budget cuts. There are colors for days of the week, and this day is blue, and we must wear it to celebrate her.
OH! How can I have gotten so far without introducing this gratifying development, this joyful nugget so to speak: I pooed a solid poo this morning! I think my delicate, song-bird system may be developoing a few resistances to the parasites at last! It's an especial treat and surprise because I've started regularly drinking the tap water here. Because it's free!
Also, we've realized that we spend our money and conserve it somewhat erratically. It's just hard to be logical when there's sweet and savory oil flirting down your nose at every turn, especially when you're feeling like you've paid your thrifty dues on the 8 mile walk to avoid paying a dollar for a tuk-tuk, or you slept in the hostel with the bugs. We went a bit crazy at the night market for instance a couple of nights ago, sampling a dozen fried and skewered items, smoothies and each our own sampler tray of donut sweeties. Kyle also bought a scandalously low-cut V-neck and I myself a pair of striped shorties for a few hundred Baht.
We are deeply considering renting a motorcycle for the remainder of our tour, so we can see more and on our own time maybe. Originally we thought it might be cheaper, but if you take shorter, non-sleeper trains around, it's very cheap, and busses we've heard are luxurious and also very reasonable. So now it's more the fun of it that allures us. We would be giving up ever getting a free place to sleep though. And it might be annoying with the bags and all. But also, come on, yes. Yes.
I've also been thinking about who will play each of us in the film or stage adaptation of our journey, and for myself I've narrowed it down to Oprah Winfrey or Reba McEntire. Kyle's a bit tougher, but I'm pretty dead set on Rosie O'Donnel or Rosanne Barr. And if we can't get either of them, then Cameron Diaz.
Kyle and I have negotiated through a lot of our tension-making 2 domineering personalities clash-collision issues, and a sense of jokefulness and wonder had returned to our experience. That, along with my pristine bottom and the all-you-can-eat buffet of pudding-faced queen images is making for a real turnaround in trip morale. But honestly it was never that bad. I just felt sorry for Kyle. I thought the poor fellow might be a chronic depressive (hence Cameron Diaz). He cries himself to sleep every night!
And! He criticizes my luscious singing. Ridiculous!
I had my first slightly unsatisfying (disgusting?) meal yesterday, too. It was an omelet the size of a dinner plate and an inch thick, but by my best estimate the chef managed the thing with only one, possibly premature, quail egg. Somehow (alchemy I say!) they had whipped the tiny bit of egg fluid into a mad froth and then spritzed it into a fryer, thus creating a loose matrix of oil, with bits of thin, cotton-candy crunchy oily brown oil-egg matter suspended throughout, the likes of which I had never seen before. I don't know if this description is even doing it justice. The only thing I can compare the experience to, so someone like Alex might understand if he's reading this, would be drinking a pitcher of gravy. And funnily enough, my saucy brunch was washed down with what the menu proudly called "Orange Juice (lemonade)" but which was, although an enticing orange-sherbet color, actually a salty, meaty pudding drink. Gravy!
The drink I finished. The omelet I only almost finished. Bon appetit!
All the food here is oily though. You get used to it. Actually, you love it. I have maybe a dozen new little pimples around my mouth and chin each night. Who could ask for anything more?
OH! How can I even continue without first paying regard to the fact that today is the Queen's Birthday! Long live Queen Siriskit or some such name. There are flower displays all over the city, every city, but Bangkok especially goes to town so to speak, as well as enormous, billboard sized photographs of her on every corner, surrounded by elaborate shrines. She was a fox in her day, but current photos, which are obviously much rarer, reveal her to be a swollen fat-lipped dough-boy, but in the most endearing way. She is a beloved monarch here. They all are. In years past there have been fireworks displays and the like, but this year will unfortunately be more tame because of budget cuts. There are colors for days of the week, and this day is blue, and we must wear it to celebrate her.
OH! How can I have gotten so far without introducing this gratifying development, this joyful nugget so to speak: I pooed a solid poo this morning! I think my delicate, song-bird system may be developoing a few resistances to the parasites at last! It's an especial treat and surprise because I've started regularly drinking the tap water here. Because it's free!
Also, we've realized that we spend our money and conserve it somewhat erratically. It's just hard to be logical when there's sweet and savory oil flirting down your nose at every turn, especially when you're feeling like you've paid your thrifty dues on the 8 mile walk to avoid paying a dollar for a tuk-tuk, or you slept in the hostel with the bugs. We went a bit crazy at the night market for instance a couple of nights ago, sampling a dozen fried and skewered items, smoothies and each our own sampler tray of donut sweeties. Kyle also bought a scandalously low-cut V-neck and I myself a pair of striped shorties for a few hundred Baht.
We are deeply considering renting a motorcycle for the remainder of our tour, so we can see more and on our own time maybe. Originally we thought it might be cheaper, but if you take shorter, non-sleeper trains around, it's very cheap, and busses we've heard are luxurious and also very reasonable. So now it's more the fun of it that allures us. We would be giving up ever getting a free place to sleep though. And it might be annoying with the bags and all. But also, come on, yes. Yes.
I've also been thinking about who will play each of us in the film or stage adaptation of our journey, and for myself I've narrowed it down to Oprah Winfrey or Reba McEntire. Kyle's a bit tougher, but I'm pretty dead set on Rosie O'Donnel or Rosanne Barr. And if we can't get either of them, then Cameron Diaz.
Kyle and I have negotiated through a lot of our tension-making 2 domineering personalities clash-collision issues, and a sense of jokefulness and wonder had returned to our experience. That, along with my pristine bottom and the all-you-can-eat buffet of pudding-faced queen images is making for a real turnaround in trip morale. But honestly it was never that bad. I just felt sorry for Kyle. I thought the poor fellow might be a chronic depressive (hence Cameron Diaz). He cries himself to sleep every night!
And! He criticizes my luscious singing. Ridiculous!
I had my first slightly unsatisfying (disgusting?) meal yesterday, too. It was an omelet the size of a dinner plate and an inch thick, but by my best estimate the chef managed the thing with only one, possibly premature, quail egg. Somehow (alchemy I say!) they had whipped the tiny bit of egg fluid into a mad froth and then spritzed it into a fryer, thus creating a loose matrix of oil, with bits of thin, cotton-candy crunchy oily brown oil-egg matter suspended throughout, the likes of which I had never seen before. I don't know if this description is even doing it justice. The only thing I can compare the experience to, so someone like Alex might understand if he's reading this, would be drinking a pitcher of gravy. And funnily enough, my saucy brunch was washed down with what the menu proudly called "Orange Juice (lemonade)" but which was, although an enticing orange-sherbet color, actually a salty, meaty pudding drink. Gravy!
The drink I finished. The omelet I only almost finished. Bon appetit!
All the food here is oily though. You get used to it. Actually, you love it. I have maybe a dozen new little pimples around my mouth and chin each night. Who could ask for anything more?
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Kyle said I was expending one of my American points on buying the little butter waifers, with their chocolate colored cream centers, and only because I said they somewhat resembled E.L. Fudge cookies. I protested and after eating a few I outright disagreed because they in actual fact tasted like dark toast and furthermore their packaging and price were clearly Thai. AND furtherestmore, I set the most of the baggie next to the sleeping monk on the train we were taking when we got off. I hope they didn't contain gelatin or pork, but I'm nearly certain they did.
That was two nights ago. I didn't get to touch the monk. Women aren't allowed to touch the monks, and even though I'm not a woman, I suspected the rule might apply in my case as well, because of my mustache.
If giving something to a monk, a woman is supposed to put it directly into the monk's receiving towel, careful not to meet flesh to flesh. No thanks! Talk about feeling unworthy. I was happy to just tuck the cookies between his sleeping bottom and the crusty leather train seat.
This is our second morning in Prachuap Khiri Khan, and yesterday was full of incidents. I had my closest encounter so far with the child sex trade! We did a lot of climbing and hiking and beach combing.
First we set out on foot for the glittering wat (temple) that can be seen from anywhere in town on top of the nearby Mirror Mountain- named for a little arch at the top that early locals suspected was reflecting the sky, not showing the sky on the other side!
We walked along the beach to the mountain, examining hermit crabs and various clam, oyster creatures, debating the origins of all the little holes in the sand. Kyle said clams were eating and pooping the sand, but I was certain there was more to it, crab villages etc! Kyle criticized my opinion, declaring it not based in science. I still believe, however, that his four years of zoological and environmental studies courses cannot have given him every answer, and that very few scientific "facts" can really stand up, when all is said and done, to my personal instincts.
Arriving at the base of the mountain, we were met with the promised hordes of monkeys, although they were much more fanged and menacing than the travel guide had insinuated. Entertaining though, yes! The little ones were precious but you couldn't get close. Only when they were being groomed did you have any hope of getting in close, and that's when I made my move! I touched the monkey! Just on the tip of his finger with the tip of mine, and he recoiled like a viper, but I touched him. Mostly if you reached out to them (and didn't have a banana in your hand) or looked at them too long, or tried to take a picture or anything, they turned wild, baring inch-and-a-half fangs, slapping the ground, preparing to lunge. It was genuinely terrifying a couple of times, a lot of times. If they saw your banana, and you weren't giving it to them, they were going to get it. And then peel it quickly and then shove the whole thing down into their neck-sack, which seemed unlimitedly stretchable. It was a glorious and most-enviable sight.
We mounted the mountain, taking care to both exploit and not be bitten by every monkey we passed, explored the mediochre wat then found the treacherous trail and steel ladder down the steep side to view the "mirror" arch. Spectacular!
We followed the trail all the way down, had some grouper for lunch which was good, but very spicy, and we were both pretty lip-burned for an hour or so. I had to concede and use the ice they've been offering everywhere, and even drank the water. So now if I'm gonna get it I've got it, and I'd already had it even before that, so why be too cautious? A fellow gets thirsty.
Back on the beach, trekking to another distant wat and alleged cavern wat for exploring, we met a woman with a spoon and a small household colinder working her way down the shore-line. She was digging for clams! She showed us how to identify the particular tiny air holes they make in the sand that gets washed in with the tide each morning, and then how to dig down with a spoon or shell and find them. Kyle got bored after a while but I was really into it. I found dozens! Only a few of mine really pleased her though, earned that heart-warming "Oh! Oh! Big-size! Big-size, you okay!" Most were pretty tiny and I wondered how they were even worth cooking and shelling and all that. After about an hour of local grocery shopping we moved on, for a long, uncertain while, looking for the wat we weren't sure existed.
We finally did find it at the end of the next bay, and it was breathtaking, very new seeming and with a few monks wandering around tending house. One was chasing after a few geese with a giant bamboo spear, and he even hurtled it after them a couple of times. I thought he was really trying to hunt them, to spear the flesh! How could it be?! But no, it turned out he was just ushering them into their cage the only way Buddha taught him, with violent thrusts of a bamboo spear.
There was a new shrine being built and it was pretty epic and unbelievable, but we wandered up the hill-mountain and discovered some old ruins of a wat that was no longer in use, and it was probably the most beautiful and awe-inspiring experience yet. To see it all, with the lush vegetation growing over it, but still with its beauty and splendor, mesmerizing. Kyle said he felt like Indiana Jones! I felt like Captain John Smith, and I couldn't wait to find a living person to baptise.
We entered the small cavelet and were a bit disappointed that it didn't seem to go anywhere. The book had mentioned a reclining Buddha... all we saw were bats and a few eerie white Buddha statues the exact size of people, filling a few niches in the wall.
We were just turning to head back, breathtaken again at the old workmanship, the shells and mother-of-pearl inlays in the concrete structures, when we noticed another path leading farther up.
A thousand more steps later and there we were! The mouth of an actual and huge cavern! Inside we saw two immense reclining Buddhas, at least twenty meters long each, and then deeper, with Kyle's head-lamp we explored even larger caverns, totally dark but for a tiny hole in the cieling letting a tiniest drop of light. There was a small golden grinning Buddha image perched up a medium-sized mound of rubble, and we climbed up and had a moment of the Universe in the dark, in the smiling presence of that Buddha, alone, silent, surrounded by so much space and so much stone, so much emptiness and so much density. We was breathless and breathing and perfect.
Tired after our long day's adventures, we wrangled a couple beers in the little fishing village by the wat and then tried to arrange a tuk-tuk back to our hostel, but there were not actual tuk-tuks operating. A woman flagged down a motorbike with a sidecar and three old ladies for us, and they agreed to take us. For 150 Baht! Our breakfast this morning, for example, cost only 20 Baht, and most of our meals together cost only 120 or so. So, our eyes met, and there was the shared "oi!"! But we were already in the thing, so okay, okay. We both felt pretty alright about getting ripped off by three laughing crazy old Thai ladies in their barely running motorbike.
Oi! I've got to go pack and be ready for the train in twenty minutes. What happened next with the ladies was funny, then frightening, then bizarre, but I'll have to finish telling it later.
Oh and the night-market where we ate as kings! Oh!
Thailand's gracious mother,
Kanny Kan DeWitt
That was two nights ago. I didn't get to touch the monk. Women aren't allowed to touch the monks, and even though I'm not a woman, I suspected the rule might apply in my case as well, because of my mustache.
If giving something to a monk, a woman is supposed to put it directly into the monk's receiving towel, careful not to meet flesh to flesh. No thanks! Talk about feeling unworthy. I was happy to just tuck the cookies between his sleeping bottom and the crusty leather train seat.
This is our second morning in Prachuap Khiri Khan, and yesterday was full of incidents. I had my closest encounter so far with the child sex trade! We did a lot of climbing and hiking and beach combing.
First we set out on foot for the glittering wat (temple) that can be seen from anywhere in town on top of the nearby Mirror Mountain- named for a little arch at the top that early locals suspected was reflecting the sky, not showing the sky on the other side!
We walked along the beach to the mountain, examining hermit crabs and various clam, oyster creatures, debating the origins of all the little holes in the sand. Kyle said clams were eating and pooping the sand, but I was certain there was more to it, crab villages etc! Kyle criticized my opinion, declaring it not based in science. I still believe, however, that his four years of zoological and environmental studies courses cannot have given him every answer, and that very few scientific "facts" can really stand up, when all is said and done, to my personal instincts.
Arriving at the base of the mountain, we were met with the promised hordes of monkeys, although they were much more fanged and menacing than the travel guide had insinuated. Entertaining though, yes! The little ones were precious but you couldn't get close. Only when they were being groomed did you have any hope of getting in close, and that's when I made my move! I touched the monkey! Just on the tip of his finger with the tip of mine, and he recoiled like a viper, but I touched him. Mostly if you reached out to them (and didn't have a banana in your hand) or looked at them too long, or tried to take a picture or anything, they turned wild, baring inch-and-a-half fangs, slapping the ground, preparing to lunge. It was genuinely terrifying a couple of times, a lot of times. If they saw your banana, and you weren't giving it to them, they were going to get it. And then peel it quickly and then shove the whole thing down into their neck-sack, which seemed unlimitedly stretchable. It was a glorious and most-enviable sight.
We mounted the mountain, taking care to both exploit and not be bitten by every monkey we passed, explored the mediochre wat then found the treacherous trail and steel ladder down the steep side to view the "mirror" arch. Spectacular!
We followed the trail all the way down, had some grouper for lunch which was good, but very spicy, and we were both pretty lip-burned for an hour or so. I had to concede and use the ice they've been offering everywhere, and even drank the water. So now if I'm gonna get it I've got it, and I'd already had it even before that, so why be too cautious? A fellow gets thirsty.
Back on the beach, trekking to another distant wat and alleged cavern wat for exploring, we met a woman with a spoon and a small household colinder working her way down the shore-line. She was digging for clams! She showed us how to identify the particular tiny air holes they make in the sand that gets washed in with the tide each morning, and then how to dig down with a spoon or shell and find them. Kyle got bored after a while but I was really into it. I found dozens! Only a few of mine really pleased her though, earned that heart-warming "Oh! Oh! Big-size! Big-size, you okay!" Most were pretty tiny and I wondered how they were even worth cooking and shelling and all that. After about an hour of local grocery shopping we moved on, for a long, uncertain while, looking for the wat we weren't sure existed.
We finally did find it at the end of the next bay, and it was breathtaking, very new seeming and with a few monks wandering around tending house. One was chasing after a few geese with a giant bamboo spear, and he even hurtled it after them a couple of times. I thought he was really trying to hunt them, to spear the flesh! How could it be?! But no, it turned out he was just ushering them into their cage the only way Buddha taught him, with violent thrusts of a bamboo spear.
There was a new shrine being built and it was pretty epic and unbelievable, but we wandered up the hill-mountain and discovered some old ruins of a wat that was no longer in use, and it was probably the most beautiful and awe-inspiring experience yet. To see it all, with the lush vegetation growing over it, but still with its beauty and splendor, mesmerizing. Kyle said he felt like Indiana Jones! I felt like Captain John Smith, and I couldn't wait to find a living person to baptise.
We entered the small cavelet and were a bit disappointed that it didn't seem to go anywhere. The book had mentioned a reclining Buddha... all we saw were bats and a few eerie white Buddha statues the exact size of people, filling a few niches in the wall.
We were just turning to head back, breathtaken again at the old workmanship, the shells and mother-of-pearl inlays in the concrete structures, when we noticed another path leading farther up.
A thousand more steps later and there we were! The mouth of an actual and huge cavern! Inside we saw two immense reclining Buddhas, at least twenty meters long each, and then deeper, with Kyle's head-lamp we explored even larger caverns, totally dark but for a tiny hole in the cieling letting a tiniest drop of light. There was a small golden grinning Buddha image perched up a medium-sized mound of rubble, and we climbed up and had a moment of the Universe in the dark, in the smiling presence of that Buddha, alone, silent, surrounded by so much space and so much stone, so much emptiness and so much density. We was breathless and breathing and perfect.
Tired after our long day's adventures, we wrangled a couple beers in the little fishing village by the wat and then tried to arrange a tuk-tuk back to our hostel, but there were not actual tuk-tuks operating. A woman flagged down a motorbike with a sidecar and three old ladies for us, and they agreed to take us. For 150 Baht! Our breakfast this morning, for example, cost only 20 Baht, and most of our meals together cost only 120 or so. So, our eyes met, and there was the shared "oi!"! But we were already in the thing, so okay, okay. We both felt pretty alright about getting ripped off by three laughing crazy old Thai ladies in their barely running motorbike.
Oi! I've got to go pack and be ready for the train in twenty minutes. What happened next with the ladies was funny, then frightening, then bizarre, but I'll have to finish telling it later.
Oh and the night-market where we ate as kings! Oh!
Thailand's gracious mother,
Kanny Kan DeWitt
Friday, August 7, 2009
I've got to commend the public restrooms on this little island of Koh Tao, though they are spaced sparingly. They are clean enough, with little hoses like the ones on a kitchen sink for squirting clean your bottom. And a sink with soap always! It makes those frequent visits quite bearable, and even lovely. Which is to say, yes, the travelrhea has begun. From rich and loose chocolate moose to green curry in coconut milk, the flavors and textures have really started running the stool spectrum in the last 24 hours.
But I don't blame the food! The food! Oh, a dream. What glee to wake up each morning and know there are three tasty plates ahead of me, even if the interrim toileting might stagger my cuilinary confidence.
I'll say we did try the fresh sea-food yesterday, and indeed it did contain the little purple octopus and tentacles and all manner of popping fishy rubber flesh, but we did it. Kyle enjoyed his and even said that beyond the texture he found the little morsels to be as or more savory than beef. Imagine!
The finding of nuisance in one another's nuances has also begun, culminating in several tats today. He compared my wanting to blog once a day to a father constantly making business deals on his blackberry on the family vacation. I tried telling him that no! it's not that, it's not for money! it's for passion! Our brains work differently and I feel the words bubbling in me and I'm not settled til they're spat. And it's just a lot faster to type than hand-write, and I'm really trying to give this blag thing a solid go!
Last night though we saw our first official transvestyte cabaret, and what a spectacle of micro-exacted choreography and exaggerated movement. One act right after the other, 20 girls or more, and all along the gamut of genuinely pretty to comically scowl-faced. I've never been more sure than now after seeing that show that I am destined to be a poorly paid, exploited sexual side-show for international tourists.
Speaking of, I have now received three emails from anxious dad pleading with me that I not alter my body surgically. "No mutilation!!!" He's full of concern. Sorry, Dad!
There were little kids at the show, and a two-foot puppet penis in one of the acts as well. The lady-boy pulled out the long dark sock and jerked and yanked and rubbed and even deep-swallowed the fully illustrated tip. The song she performed must have had something to do with all of that, but it was in Thai so I'm not sure. I'm not sure why she had black freckleds painted on either.
No more motor-bike wrecks yet, but Kyle's calf wound is festering. I've been going barefoot the last two days because of a foot-sore, and because it's magically appropriate, even fancier, to do so here. No shoes inside! But today we found several bits of glass in my heal, so that's something to consider!
Then we found a pair of flip flops abandoned for free in the road! Oh, island mercy.
Snorkelling yesterday was the most unreal and beautiful think yet. It took me a few minutes to navigate the mechanism and stop breathing the brine, but soon I was a diving and frolicking otter among a thousand varieties of flickering life. I touched a sea cucumber! (They're supposed to spit out some of their guts when agitated, so the predator will eat that and spare the motherload, but mine only flopped like any regular land cucumber would.) There were little brightly colored puff balls that sucked into the coral if you waved your hand over them. Parrot fish full of all the colors of the neon rainbow! Terrifying sea urchins only feet away as we flippered through the dense coral landscape. Glowing green eyes, yellow eyes, clear green water you could see through forever and beyond.
Land on this island, albeit towards the middle not beach-front, goes for only 1200 Baht per square mile. That's $40. And they build you a house as well. Nothing's ironed out for certain, but I'm just saying, the snorkelling was really nice, and the motorcycle makes me feel very powerful. Powerful enough, I'd say, to own this island.
Needless to say we're destroying this island before we leave a little later today. No one can enjoy it if we must go.
And I'm about due for another massage. Our first was nice but a little bit taxing. The thai massage involved the little lady maneuvering you with a great deal of force, bending and pulling and pushing, and most of the time she is poised on top of you. My service-woman was fat, and I nearly died. Next I think I will take an oily rub-down, to soothe my sun-beaten shoulders.
Oh! It's been too long already and Kyle will be back! I've got to get off and pretend I've been reading or he'll sass me like he always does.
So far no tattoos, but Thailand has been an otherwise gracious and compliant guest.
Soon we will touch the monkey! And the elephant!
(And own them.)
Hoping the fever, sneezing, sore-throat and headache pass quickly,
and are not indications of swine flu,
or my desperately weakened system,
Kan DeWitt
But I don't blame the food! The food! Oh, a dream. What glee to wake up each morning and know there are three tasty plates ahead of me, even if the interrim toileting might stagger my cuilinary confidence.
I'll say we did try the fresh sea-food yesterday, and indeed it did contain the little purple octopus and tentacles and all manner of popping fishy rubber flesh, but we did it. Kyle enjoyed his and even said that beyond the texture he found the little morsels to be as or more savory than beef. Imagine!
The finding of nuisance in one another's nuances has also begun, culminating in several tats today. He compared my wanting to blog once a day to a father constantly making business deals on his blackberry on the family vacation. I tried telling him that no! it's not that, it's not for money! it's for passion! Our brains work differently and I feel the words bubbling in me and I'm not settled til they're spat. And it's just a lot faster to type than hand-write, and I'm really trying to give this blag thing a solid go!
Last night though we saw our first official transvestyte cabaret, and what a spectacle of micro-exacted choreography and exaggerated movement. One act right after the other, 20 girls or more, and all along the gamut of genuinely pretty to comically scowl-faced. I've never been more sure than now after seeing that show that I am destined to be a poorly paid, exploited sexual side-show for international tourists.
Speaking of, I have now received three emails from anxious dad pleading with me that I not alter my body surgically. "No mutilation!!!" He's full of concern. Sorry, Dad!
There were little kids at the show, and a two-foot puppet penis in one of the acts as well. The lady-boy pulled out the long dark sock and jerked and yanked and rubbed and even deep-swallowed the fully illustrated tip. The song she performed must have had something to do with all of that, but it was in Thai so I'm not sure. I'm not sure why she had black freckleds painted on either.
No more motor-bike wrecks yet, but Kyle's calf wound is festering. I've been going barefoot the last two days because of a foot-sore, and because it's magically appropriate, even fancier, to do so here. No shoes inside! But today we found several bits of glass in my heal, so that's something to consider!
Then we found a pair of flip flops abandoned for free in the road! Oh, island mercy.
Snorkelling yesterday was the most unreal and beautiful think yet. It took me a few minutes to navigate the mechanism and stop breathing the brine, but soon I was a diving and frolicking otter among a thousand varieties of flickering life. I touched a sea cucumber! (They're supposed to spit out some of their guts when agitated, so the predator will eat that and spare the motherload, but mine only flopped like any regular land cucumber would.) There were little brightly colored puff balls that sucked into the coral if you waved your hand over them. Parrot fish full of all the colors of the neon rainbow! Terrifying sea urchins only feet away as we flippered through the dense coral landscape. Glowing green eyes, yellow eyes, clear green water you could see through forever and beyond.
Land on this island, albeit towards the middle not beach-front, goes for only 1200 Baht per square mile. That's $40. And they build you a house as well. Nothing's ironed out for certain, but I'm just saying, the snorkelling was really nice, and the motorcycle makes me feel very powerful. Powerful enough, I'd say, to own this island.
Needless to say we're destroying this island before we leave a little later today. No one can enjoy it if we must go.
And I'm about due for another massage. Our first was nice but a little bit taxing. The thai massage involved the little lady maneuvering you with a great deal of force, bending and pulling and pushing, and most of the time she is poised on top of you. My service-woman was fat, and I nearly died. Next I think I will take an oily rub-down, to soothe my sun-beaten shoulders.
Oh! It's been too long already and Kyle will be back! I've got to get off and pretend I've been reading or he'll sass me like he always does.
So far no tattoos, but Thailand has been an otherwise gracious and compliant guest.
Soon we will touch the monkey! And the elephant!
(And own them.)
Hoping the fever, sneezing, sore-throat and headache pass quickly,
and are not indications of swine flu,
or my desperately weakened system,
Kan DeWitt
Thursday, August 6, 2009
SCAB!
I crashed the moped! I had just been saying to Kyle, here we are, riding on this motorbike across this tiny island off the coast of Thailand, having just finished a loaf of bread and a couple of beers on a boulder just off-shore, having just sat there and watched the sun set, then having strolled over to a meal of green curry with vegetables at a lantern-lit bungalow restaurant right on the beach, resting on lounge pillows at our low table and with more cheap delicious beer, as the fire dancer danced his fire mere meters away, and here we are, positively cruising now, having such the time!, when there! there! Kanny! No! The barrel. The barrel in the road and a wobbling swerve or two later we are catapulted and with rub-burns on the sides of our calves.
Nevertheless! We lounged in the ocean today for hours, in the bay which is our $8 bungalow's brilliant view, and have been cruising the island on the $5 scooter all day. We just came to the happening district to catch the lady-boy cabaret, but it's CLOSED tonight, to our shameless dismay.
Our toilet at the bungalow is Thai style though, hole with two platforms for squatting, so that's something at least! And we saw a woman sitting alone on our beach today, all day, until sunset. She's browner than ink! Someday I hope to be that beautiful.
I think Kyle's sore at me for updating this blug, but doesn't he know I got that email from my dad and I've simply got to clarify a few things?
Which are, or is: To those of you who are my anxious dad, no, no I am not serious about the sex surgery.
Love,
Kanny
...
To those of you who are everyone else, I've never been more serious about anything in my life.
Soon to be free,
Kandy-boots
Nevertheless! We lounged in the ocean today for hours, in the bay which is our $8 bungalow's brilliant view, and have been cruising the island on the $5 scooter all day. We just came to the happening district to catch the lady-boy cabaret, but it's CLOSED tonight, to our shameless dismay.
Our toilet at the bungalow is Thai style though, hole with two platforms for squatting, so that's something at least! And we saw a woman sitting alone on our beach today, all day, until sunset. She's browner than ink! Someday I hope to be that beautiful.
I think Kyle's sore at me for updating this blug, but doesn't he know I got that email from my dad and I've simply got to clarify a few things?
Which are, or is: To those of you who are my anxious dad, no, no I am not serious about the sex surgery.
Love,
Kanny
...
To those of you who are everyone else, I've never been more serious about anything in my life.
Soon to be free,
Kandy-boots
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
HERE!
Listen, I'm sorry about everything in this blog so far. It hasn't been very entertaining or savory, and it certainly wasn't written in Thailand. If you're just starting here, just start here, here in Bangkok, where we are and I am and which already is and has been very entertaining. Just like I promised.
We saw a lady-nun monk, buzz-headed but in a white rather than burnt orange robe, trying to feed a wide eyed and patchy little kitten to a dying pigeon. Or maybe she wanted the kitten to attack, or play with the pigeon. Either way, neither of the creatures were into her plan. And all this at the bottom of the steps of the holy Wat of Victory, just off Khansao Road, which is a mecca of white half-naked vagabonds, having false dreadlocks woven into their clean short hair.
There are primarily three kinds of solicitors in this bustling tourist district: old women with meat on sticks, young women offering the false dreadlock service, and men in handsome suits beckoning you into their glass walled shops with Armani catalogs spread open centerfold style. They beg most persistently of all the vendors, Please, please, a suit, nice suit! They want me to be fitted for a beautiful silk suit, measured and made in less than 18 hours! Needless to say, Kyle and I will be picking up our suits tomorrow afternoon, just in time for our three-day elephant-ride nature voyage.
And my dreads look really good. I paid thirty cents extra because the scalp my vendor harvested from was a virgin's. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Last, it is early evening to bedtime prospect is weighing on my mind. Our hostel seems clean enough, not as good as the first place we looked but we hadn't figured out our trick for the best savings yet. Anyway, scratched into the wall above the bed are two words whose combined meaning could not be any clearer. They read, "warning" and below that "bugs." Next to the second word there is even a childlike rendering of a bug, circle, six lines jutting. We shouldn't have listened to that American Life about bed-bugs on the road to Seattle.
Needless to say, I'm going to douse the bedposts with the vinegar solution I made and brought along for cleaning fruit. It's sure to work.
We are tourists of course but how much worse it seems when we're among so many others of the same! We gotta get out of here!
All of Thailand's love,
is mine,
Kanny
Listen, I'm sorry about everything in this blog so far. It hasn't been very entertaining or savory, and it certainly wasn't written in Thailand. If you're just starting here, just start here, here in Bangkok, where we are and I am and which already is and has been very entertaining. Just like I promised.
We saw a lady-nun monk, buzz-headed but in a white rather than burnt orange robe, trying to feed a wide eyed and patchy little kitten to a dying pigeon. Or maybe she wanted the kitten to attack, or play with the pigeon. Either way, neither of the creatures were into her plan. And all this at the bottom of the steps of the holy Wat of Victory, just off Khansao Road, which is a mecca of white half-naked vagabonds, having false dreadlocks woven into their clean short hair.
There are primarily three kinds of solicitors in this bustling tourist district: old women with meat on sticks, young women offering the false dreadlock service, and men in handsome suits beckoning you into their glass walled shops with Armani catalogs spread open centerfold style. They beg most persistently of all the vendors, Please, please, a suit, nice suit! They want me to be fitted for a beautiful silk suit, measured and made in less than 18 hours! Needless to say, Kyle and I will be picking up our suits tomorrow afternoon, just in time for our three-day elephant-ride nature voyage.
And my dreads look really good. I paid thirty cents extra because the scalp my vendor harvested from was a virgin's. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Last, it is early evening to bedtime prospect is weighing on my mind. Our hostel seems clean enough, not as good as the first place we looked but we hadn't figured out our trick for the best savings yet. Anyway, scratched into the wall above the bed are two words whose combined meaning could not be any clearer. They read, "warning" and below that "bugs." Next to the second word there is even a childlike rendering of a bug, circle, six lines jutting. We shouldn't have listened to that American Life about bed-bugs on the road to Seattle.
Needless to say, I'm going to douse the bedposts with the vinegar solution I made and brought along for cleaning fruit. It's sure to work.
We are tourists of course but how much worse it seems when we're among so many others of the same! We gotta get out of here!
All of Thailand's love,
is mine,
Kanny
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