Monthly Archives: June 2005

The greatest adventure so far has been our journey over the past two days to get to Luang Prabang! Our story begins this past Tuesday, when after crossing the Mekong River by small ferry from Thailand to Laos and dealing with passport control, fifty of us young white backpackers (from U.S., Australia, Israel, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, France, etc.) bought suspicious-looking handwritten tickets from a shady Laotian man with darting eyes. We were then made to wear bright orange handwritten stickers that said “SLOW” (to distinguish us from the more expensive speedboat ticket holders) and crammed like cattle into a very long and green barge boat that had definitely seen better days. No one could (or would) tell us how long it would take to arrive. Our seats were 6-inch wide hard wooden benches painted in nauseous and peeling lead-based colors.

The passengers ranged from solo German women travelers — you know, the type who keep their noses constantly in their guide books and their eyes on their watches (what for, after all??) — to quiet young Italian couples and dread-locked Australians with dirty feet and mysterious-looking smoking apparati. Our voyage totaled 17 hours (over a period of two days) via this loud, smelly diesel-powered boat from hell! The “slow” boat barely generated enough air movement to cool us off in the jungle heat. From 11:30 AM until 8:00 PM the first day (and 8:30 AM-5:30 PM the second day) , we had only the meager food and water that we had brought with us. Unfortunately that meant warm soggy sandwiches and several packages of very weird cookies and crackers. We spent most of the time draped painfully over the benches or hanging out the ‘window sills’ like pitiful war prisoners, trading dirty jokes and commiserating about the nasty conditions of the toilet. Erin and I and Carly renamed ourselves “Achy”, “Sticky” and “Stinky”. The only consolation on the first day of the trip was the ice chest of cold “Beer Lao,” hawked for outrageous sums by the smirking Lao man who seemed to double as bartender and engine mechanic. The passengers quickly rid the galley of beer, just before the boat broke down (twice!) and we gratefully jumped onto the sandy bank to watch the ‘crew’ bail water from the engine compartment while the captain forged a new piston out of a length of bamboo and an old machete. Meanwhile, a herd of water buffalo, ever chewing, backed themselves into the safety of a nearby stand of trees to give us dirty looks.

The first night, the boat docked at a small village named Pak Beng, which was where we were all to sleep. Erin and Carly and I had read the guide book while on the boat so we could decide in advance which guest house we’d make the mad dash for. Fifteen extremely stressful, sweaty and uphill minutes later, we found ourselves at the (supposedly) nicest of all the guest houses. We paid the equivalent of US$1 each for two tiny rock-hard beds in a room with a decrepit fan that only worked when the village’s generator was on (meaning never). Poor Carly slept on the floor, but said it was more comfortable than the bed. The “hot water shower” was never hot, nor was it actually ever water. I ended up scrubbing what I could using the sad trickle from the sink. The food was terribly overpriced, but we did get to try “curry buffalo,” a yellow soupy concoction in which I found fish bones. Hmmm”¦. And because we were so thirsty, were forced to make a choice between two brands of bottled water, one called “Deth Drinking Water” and another called “Yellow Surprise”. The walls of the guest house were made of wooden boards, constructed in such a way that you could both easily see and hear into all of the surrounding rooms. We were eaten alive by extra large bugs, and kept up awake by the British girls who played a very loud and dirty card game and smoked opium all night. At about 3 AM tripped out in the hallway because they “˜couldn’t find their room’ and thought they were being attacked by monster rats, which might actually have been true.

Finally, we arrived yesterday in beautiful Luang Prabang!!! This is definitely my favorite city in SE Asia so far. It is a very relaxed and slow-paced town. It makes your mind wander to sentimental thoughts just to stroll up and down its sleepy streets. Luang Prabang is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site because its buildings and temples are so well preserved. With its aging French colonial architecture and coconut palms bending over the Mekong, it is truly a town frozen in time — and also the sort of place that makes you want to spend all day in a hammock.

The night market is particularly nice. At dusk when the air becomes cool and fresh, a main street in town is closed to motor vehicles, and the women lay out gorgeous Laotion handicrafts on mats on the ground. It is the most quiet and relaxing place to shop, and it is lit only by small lanterns. People barter in whispers and even the babies just stare at you drowsily from their mothers’ backs.

I’m leaving for Phonosavan in the morning so I can get to Hanoi in time (Monday) to start my internship. I also want to see the famous Plain of Jars near Phonosavan. Erin and Carly will be just a day or two behind me, because they are waiting for Erin’s Vietnam visa. Stay tuned for more adventures”¦

Hello world, I’m back! Did you miss me?

“Same same but different” is a really funny English phrase that Thais invented to use when they want to explain that two things are a little similar yet different. Some clever person has even printed it on t-shirts for tourists. I crack up whenever I hear the Thais using it.

Last Monday night, our class rode the overnight train to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. It is a whole other world here compared to Bangkok’s urban chaos!! Chiang Mai is a large town, but it has a small town feel. Its terrain is mountainous and covered with forests. The train to get here was also great fun — we ate our evening meal in the dining car with its colored lights swinging back and forth and fellow Thai diners singing along with the karaoke on the overhead TV. It is also quite a challenge to keep your Tom Yum Kung soup in its bowl while eating on a train! At night, our seats folded into curtained-off bunk beds, and then attendants came around to give us sheets and pillows.

Friday June 24th was the last day of our Tulane course “Thailand’s Response to the HIV Epidemic”. It was very intense, with class from 8:30 to 5:00 PM every day consisting of a heavy lineup of lectures by program directors (UNAID, CARE, FHI, etc.) and also site visits to local NGOs and government health agencies. We spent a lot of time writing and in group discussions. It was pretty hard on all of us to be in such close quarters with the same 17 people for so long, but at least I had a great roommate (Becky!). Photos coming soon!

Today (Monday), Carly and Erin and I are traveling from Chiang Mai to the border of Laos by bus. The name of the town where we’ll spend the night is Chiang Khong. It’s six hours from here, and our bus leaves at 1:00. Stay tuned for the upcoming adventures of Carly, Crystal and Erin!

Saturday, June 4: Baby elephant day
American friends Jay, Christie, and Graham met me in Ayutthaya to explore the temple ruins. We hired the very friendly, multiple-gold-ring-wearing driver of a hot pink tuk-tuk to be our private chauffeur for the day. Ayutthaya is a hot, hot town at this time of year. It was extremely uncomfortable to be in the sun for more than a few minutes without an umbrella. We visited four or five beautiful ancient temples from the days when Ayutthaya was the capital of the Kingdom of Siam, including the famous one with the Buddha head ‘growing’ in the bodhi tree. (New photos posted!)

Ever since I was three years old and someone took me to the circus, I dreamed of having a baby elephant to play with. Well, after nearly 25 years, my dream pretty much came true. One of the stops we made in our Ayutthaya tuk-tuk was to an elephant ranch, where for 20 baht (US$.50), you get a basket of over-ripe bananas and about a thousand Kodak moments with a baby four-year-old Asian elephant. (Be sure to check out the pictures I posted!) I also found my second favorite bottled Thai beverage (next to green jelly drink, over course!), which is cold tea brewed from white tea leaves.

Did you know that Ayutthaya is actually an island, surrounded on all four sides by three different rivers? This natural barrier helped the Kingdom protect its capital from raiders between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, until the Burmese finally kicked its butt in 1767 and bustedup all the temples.

Saturday night, after getting one-hour Thai foot massages, we had a very spicy dinner of tom yum soup, vegetable and tofu stir-fry, and spicy grilled fish at a table overlooking the Pasak River.

Sunday, June 5: Thai massage day
Rode the mini-van back to Bangkok from Ayutthaya. (This time, the driver had two functional eyes!) It was really great to be back – I had no idea how much I had missed Bangkok for those two days!

I still had a major headache that I never shook off from Saturday, so I went to get my first real Thai massage at the place across the street from my Bangkok guest house for 250 baht (US$6.25) per hour. Thai massage is not like any other kind of massage, as far as I know. It’s *sort of* relaxing, because they really lay into your muscles hard, which I like, but it also involves a lot of limb twisting, pounding, joint popping, etc. so it’s more invigorating than anything. Also, they purposely cut off circulation to your legs and arms, one at a time, holding down your major arteries for a minute until your limb becomes numb, then letting the blood rush right back in. This has something to do with their health beliefs about circulation. It’s a pretty interesting feeling. She massaged almost every part of me (including face, head, butt, arms, etc) and popped pretty much every joint in my body. Back downstairs, they make you drink a big glass of green tea before you leave. I really felt great afterward, and my headache was gone!

Then I had kuay chap for dinner, which is an intensely savory and flavorful soup with pork and rolled rice noodles. The broth is dark brown, and the flavor reminds me of Vietnamese pho.

Tuesday, June 7th: Fortuneteller and badminton
My German co-worker Patricia wanted to go to the English-speaking fortuneteller that Tee recommended to us. So I called to make a 5:30 PM appointment for us with the “Gypsy Tarot” reader (who is really a Thai man) at his office near Ari station in Bangkok. He had tarot cards from all over the world in glass cases on the walls and many astrology books on his shelves. He even had a tissue holder in the shape of a Thai teakwood house.

According to him, my future looks bright and I will be a “high priestess” in the career field, as long as I don’t mind hard work and little pay for the first two years. At age 30, a great star will pass over me, and I have many great life opportunities. After age 37, I will become an expert trainer, lecturer, or professor – something to do with teaching others. I then got the chance to ask him three specific questions and draw cards for those. He also says I worry too much and unnecessarily. (Good advice!)

After that I had a dinner of pork soup, chicken satay and a fresh baby coconut milkshake with friends Amanda, Ahmed and Glen at Soi 38 – a street famous among UNESCO staffers as the soi with excellent street food. We then headed off to a sports club for one and a half hours of badminton with several other people (10 of us total). I pretty much sucked at it, but I had so much fun that I didn’t even notice how sweaty I was or the bruise that I was developing from holding the racquet incorrectly.

Wednesday, June 8th: Korean BBQ wisdom
Lunch today with the whole UNESCO Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health (ARSH) Unit – all four of us! – at a Korean BBQ restaurant called Seoul. We listened to the wise Francisco tell more of his amazing life stories (he’s the 60-year-old Filipino man with the Star Wars theme song as his cel phone ring tone). He told us about the man he hired as a bodyguard during his eight years of work with the U.N. in Lagos, Nigeria – a Hausa warrior from the rural north – who asked only for a machete and a bow with poison-tipped arrows to guard Francisco and his highly coveted Peugeot station wagon. According to the wise Francisco, it is important to live as though you were a bamboo tree – extraordinarily strong, but light and very flexible. Bend in the winds of life like a piece of bamboo.

It was a particularly muggy day today and the clouds looked heavy. I was certain that it would rain all night, but it didn’t. I met my Tulane friend Jay at the Asok station so we could go to dinner at a famous Bangkok restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms (photos coming soon). The restaurant has a beautifully decorated outdoor garden dining area, with colored lights (and condoms) hanging from the trees, soothing Thai music played by a woman with a harp-like instrument, and “˜weeping’ rock fountains. The atmosphere and novelty of the place were really the biggest draws, but the food was quite good also. We had just drinks and appetizers (crab rolls and coconut/shrimp/peanut/lime/garlic things wrapped in betel leaves) because the menu was a little pricey. Afterward, Jay went with me to meet UNESCO friends for ladies night drink specials at the Dubliner pub.

Friday, June 10th: Last day at UNESCO
It’s very sad that it’s my last day of work at UNESCO, but I’m excited to move in to the Royal Benja Hotel, which is rumored to have a pool, and then start class on Monday! Eventually leaving Thailand will be hard for me too, because I’m afraid I will never again enjoy any other kind of food!

New Thai words and phrases:
Ao (pronounced OW) means “I’d like”¦”
Nahm Plao (pronounced NAHM PLOW) means “bottled water”
Jai (pronounced JYE) means “big”
Chaa (pronounced JAAAH) means “tea”
Nok (pronounced NOKE) means “bird”
Lieu sao (pronounced LEE-OH SOW) means “to the left”
Lieu kua (pronounced LEE-OH KWAH) means “to the right”

I worked at UNESCO just half a day yesterday, eating lunch with friends at an Indian fast food restaurant. McDonalds-esque visors and uniforms at fast food counter, complete with Briyani combo meals served on banana leaves and plastic trays!

Around 1:30 PM, I headed out to begin my voyage to Ayutthaya. At the last minute, I decided not to take the 1.5 hour trainride, which everyone warned me was a standing train. (Standing?!?! No thanks!) Instead, I went to the Victory Monument — a wide roundabout boulevard that encircles an imposing white sculpture where mini-vans to Ayutthaya leave every 15 minutes for 50 baht or so.

For almost the entire trip, I was so sleepy that I dozed off drooling and with my head rolling around. (Thank goodness I didn’t choose the standing train!) We arrived in Ayutthaya in just over an hour. I had the shape of the window handle stamped in a delicate red color on my forehead.

The great adventure that ensued was due the fact that I had absolutely no idea where to tell the driver to drop me off. I shrugged my shoulders. The driver stared at me blankly with his one functional eye. Then suddenly, a vague memory surfaced from the muddy depths of my drowsy, sweat-soaked consciousness. I remembered a certain fact that was to be the key to it all. Aha! The informal online review of the Amporn Floating House did mention that it was “located in walking distance of the night market”. I looked up the words for “night market” in my sticky guidebook and continued to repeat them, hesitatingly at first and surely very badly pronounced, to this very skeptical and confused driver. Somehow, he gleaned some meaning from these two magical words, Hua Raw, and he promptly dumped me off at the corner to take a tuk-tuk (these are the angry, cracked-out golfcart-mobiles I mentioned in earlier posts) to the night market. The one-eyed mini-van driver communicated my destination to the tuk-tuk pilot, and I and my backpark were jammed inside. I shared the little benches with two old ladies holding large bags of dried fish and about six or seven small children in school uniforms. Tuk-tuks are quite clever, with (actual) doorbells rigged up in the passenger area so that you can alert the driver when you want to get out without having to yell and pound on the glass.

Very proud of having made it to the night market, I strode into the 7-11 to get a cold bottle of water and ask for directions. One girl spoke English well but said she hadn’t a clue where the floating house was. I told her I’d head to the river (down the soi that was just across the street) and she said this was a good guess. (Duh,Crystal! It’s a floating house!)

The soi to the river was dim and full of shops selling clothing, shoes, and everything plastic. One place offered bird cages of every shape, size and color. Overhead, laundry strung between the buildings fluttered and blocked out the sun. An old woman was grilling pork satay. I looked around for someone bright-eyed who could possibly direct me.

To ask for directions, I would say hello,excuse me, etc. Then I would tell them that I was looking for Amporn (repeated several times for emphasis in a bad accent ). Then I would say “hotel on the water”, demonstrating by making the hand motions for “house” and then swaying back and forth. Everyone I asked thought this was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. I’d like to believe that they understood me, but alas.. Finally, one guy seemed to understand what I was trying to say. So I followed his (very sketchy) directions, which included his shouting “Bang! Bang!”, while the woman standing next to him made violent, sweeping hand motions toward the sky. (I still don’t know what that part meant, even now.)

Sure enough, there it was! The floating house bobbed over the river at the end of one particularly greasy-looking soi. A small, air-conditioned department store/ice cream shop next door was where I registered and received a set of keys — the outside gate is locked after dark for our security. It was only 200 baht per night, 1/2 the price of my Bangkok guest house. To get ‘on board’ the floating house, one crosses a set of extremely long and narrow planks of wood over a muddy embankment. These planks bow, creak and bend precariously toward the mud under one’s weight. But once you get to the other side, the house is fantastic!

It is a completely wooden teak house. Remove your shoes, go down the hallway of just four rooms to come to the small back deck which looks out over the river. The deck is laid out with tatami mats, Thai triangle pillows, and comfy, cushioned rattan chaise lounges. You can get breakfast (waffles or eggs/sausage/toast) served on the deck in the morning if you order in advance. One bathroom is shared among the four rooms.

The only other guests here are a couple (the middle-aged, chain-smoking, gold necklace-wearing type who looks like a thug from the European mafia, and his Thai ‘girlfriend’.) They bickered loudly from their room while I tried to relax on the deck. This was just after the Thai lady poured her heart out to me for 20 minutes about how this guy mistreats her and hunts her down wherever she goes. According to her, “he could kill (her) if he wanted to.” My Spidey sense is strongly indicating that I should stay away from those two… Thankfully, they went out shortly after their fight ended in her crying, probably to go satisfy his nasty drinking habit.

The online review of this place had only one warning: mosquitos. Why, with my especially tasty and sweet blood, did I select the most mosquito-ridden location on the most mosquito-ridden river, in the rainy season no less?!?! At least I have a little lizard friend who lives in the ceiling corner of my room and chirps at his mosquito prey.

My next adventure was a long evening stroll into town. There I found a department store that carried floral-scented insect repellent lotion with 13% DEET. YES!!! This I discovered only by asking a group of young giggling ladies at the makeup counter, performing a dramatic interpretation of the mosquito, complete with buzzing sounds and pinching one of the girls.

Feeling clever, I walked back to the floating house area and braved the night market for a bowl of seafood soup on the open terrace overlooking the Pasak River. Hauntingly beautiful bodhi trees are everywhere here. If you’ve never seen them, they have long finger-like roots; the tree is maybe a little similar to cypress..(?)

At 9:00 PM, I sat in a lounge chair and wrote all of this up in my journal. The floating house was doing its thing — swaying ever so gently, but not enough to cause sea-sickness — and its moorings creaked now and again. It was a mild, breezy evening and moonlight reflected on the water. On occasion, long tail boats slipped by in silence. The evening was so quiet that I could hear the Thai chatter and clattering dishes coming from the houses on the other bank.

Earlier in the day, I saw one old woman in a boat outfitted with a raggedy green umbrella. She steered the boat while simultaneously stirring her giant kettle of noodles and calling out to the neighboring floating houses to advertise her soup. She coasted near our deck to wash bowls in the river. A group of tiny brown boys from the house across the way ran down the dock laughing and stripping all the way before jumping right into the water. It looked so fun that at that moment I would have given anything to be one of them for the day!

Despite the Japanese tourist dinner cruises that passed by with their on-board karaoke and drunken cha-cha lessons, I managed to sleep.

This morning I went on a long walk. It was already hot at 7:00 AM! I had breakfast in the market: a soup containing pork knuckle, blood sausage, tripe and liver, with rice. (I didn’t know what I was ordering, obviously.) Despite what it sounds like, it was delicious. The waiter taught me the word for delicious: it’s arroi (pronounced Ah-ROY).

So far, the folks from Ayutthaya seem very jolly and especially quick to smile. I discovered where to rent a bicycle and have my eye on a particularly shiny orange cruiser that seemed to call my name for today’s ride around the ruins…

Okay, with advice from Thai friends, the verdict is that I will be going to Ayutthaya (pronounced Eye You TAY Uh) this weekend by train! I found a really cool guest house online, called Amporn Floating House — check it out! – It is inexpensive and looks very relaxing.
Ayutthaya was the capital of the Thai Kingdom during the fourteenth through eighteenth centuries.

I plan to rent a bike and explore the historic temple ruins by day and eat spicy fish by night. Hah!

Stay tuned…

Also, here are my new Thai words/phrases of the day:
Dern: means “to walk” (pronounced like it looks)
Pas Aht Thai Nit Noi: means “speak only a little Thai” (pronounced Pah-SAHT TYE NITT Noy) This does not seem to be a particularly useful phrase because doesn’t it quickly become evident that I can only speak a little Thai?

I think I will avoid all the muddy roads and sand fleas on Ko Samet. A real, REMOTE tropical island paradise trip, like to Ko Samui (or other islands down there) would be better spent with a certain fiancé in the future anyway…

Ayutthaya, Amphawa, Phetchaburi and Kanchanaburi are the contending choices for my weekend trip now. They are all close by (within 2.5 hours). All of them have lots of varying things to see and do which are more interesting and/or historical than beaches — like temple ruins, the Bridge Over River Kwai, waterfalls, and an orchid farm! I’ll get some advice from Thai co-workers by the end of the day about these places.

I’ll keep you posted.

Happy 1st of June, everyone!

I’m leaving Bangkok on Friday morning for a weekend beach trip to Ko Samet, an island about 200 km from Bangkok. Ko or Kho means “island” in Thai. I can get there in 3.5 hours away by bus and ferry. Here’s the hotel I plan to stay at, on Noi-nha Beach. You can see where Ko Samet is, indicated with an arrow on this map. Reading and getting a massage on the beach….aaaaah….

My ability to order food is rapidly improving. I had mackerel and som tum (mango salad) for dinner last night. Tonight I ate winged bean salad for dinner at Inter — my favorite restaurant.

I went to lunch today with my UNESCO friends Amanda (American), Praveena (Sri Lankan), Ahmed (Indian-Canadian), Monica (Italian) to the “Dosa King”, a bright and clean vegetarian Indian restaurant near Asok sky train station. We had dosas and lots of fun appetizers that I cannot pronounce. My favorite part of lunch was watching the “milk man” arrive and deliver big jugs of milk to the kitchen of the restaurant, wearing leather clothing from head to toe and a huge red 80s-style motorcycle helmet, which he never removed for a moment during the whole event.

New Thai phrases/words:
Mai Kao Jai: “I don’t understand,” pronounced MY COW JYE, with an upward inflection on the last syllable.
Muu: “Pork,” pronounced MOOOO.
Khun: “Miss,” pronounced KOON. (As in Miss Universe.)
Hey! I can say Miss Piggy: Khun Muu. How’s that for putting words together?!
I suppose that would be a fitting title for the recent winner of Asia’s Ms. Jumbo pageant. (You’ve gotta check that out — it’s crazy.)

Crystal’s Thailand Tip of the Day: If at first you cannot flush the toilet, try lifting UP on the handle instead!