tourists

ok, here is the brief summary of our travels after i left school.

i went in to bangkok on friday night after school, to my friend alex's new temporary apartment. he works for the state department and just relocated to bangkok, but their permanent apartment was still occupied. the temporary place is pretty swank, and the permanent place will be even nicer. your tax dollars a work. then alex, his wife nithya, nithya's friend and i went out to dinner at some really nice thai-for-westerners type place. it was quite delicious and expensive (for thailand). finally around 11:45pm i headed over to the airport to meet tim. we had a general meeting area arranged but i was worried i'd miss him. it was packed with people and i had to stand on my tip-toes to see over three thai people to watch people coming through immigration. but i found him with no problem. not much PDA in the reunion, tim was worried we'd be arrested or something. :)

on saturday we slept in...it had been a late night for me and a really long day for tim. we got a late start, finally went to the national museum and walked around a little. that part of bangkok is kind of hard to get to unless you take a taxi and sit in traffic for forever, so we took the skytrain to the river taxi and then walked some. it was probably an interesting trip for tim. we walked through the amulet market, where you can also buy dentures, and ate at a small restaurant by the river where they barely speak english. it was ok, but not superb. the national museum was interesting. they have a lot of cool stuff but its not at all well-preserved or well-presented. we didn't have much time, due to the sleeping in, but we saw the rooms we were most interested in, old carvings and art and such. after that we walked over to the golden mountain, which is a hill with a big golden dome thing on top. i'm sure its some important buddhist thing, but i don't know what. it was a really nice view from the top, though, and we could see some rainclouds heading our way. then we took the khlong taxi back over to near alex and nithya's (they will be A&N from now on). we walked past the singha beer garden on the way, and how could we not stop?

on sunday we went to jim thompson's house with A&N. jim's an american who fell in love with thai silk and revived the thai silk export industry. then he moved some old-style teak houses to his compound in bangkok. there are some interesting things inside the house, he liked to collect art and all, but you can't take pictures so i can't show you. he disappeared into the thai jungle some time ago. we ate at the cafe there and it was pretty tasty. then tim got a migraine, so he and i went home. later on we ordered in some indian food, it was delicious if you ask me since i hadn't had indian in at least 3 months.

on monday morning we flew up to chiang mai. we found our guesthouse and it was quite nice. right by the river, good location, etc. we walked over to some temple and from there took a boat trip on the river to a "fruit plantaion tour". it was totally lame. don't do it if you go there. although the boat ride was kind of nice, if loud. later we ended up eating at a food court at an outside mall, which is not uncommon in thailand but tim was initially opposed. he ate some khao soi gai and found a new obsession. whatever it was i picked was not as good. tim's migraine came back, so we went back to our room and watched "my girl" on hbo. oh and we found mangosteens in a little grocery store. tim loved them. that was the highlight of the day, when he tasted them and found out how delightful they are.

tuesday and wednesday we went on a jungle trek. it was not all that exciting. we also visited a local market (nothing new for me) and a temple. the hiking the first day was kind of sucky, although we did go through some rice paddies and a guy from singapore fell in, that was entertaining. the first little hike we did was to a waterfall, which was a not-bad hike. but upon leaving the waterfall our guides didn't make sure everyone was together. i was behind tim, who i thought was following the german girls. apparently he couldn't see them and led us (and the chinese couple following us) the wrong way. no one told us we weren't going back the way we came. maybe 10 minutes later, we stopped so tim could marvel at some ants and the chinese passed us. finally we got moving again, went back most of the way to where we started, when one of the guides comes running up and tells us to go back to the waterfall. we were totally confused because he kept running to find the chinese. so we walked back slowly towards the waterfall, trying to figure out where we went wrong. we stopped and waited when we got to the first obvious side-trail. well, apparently we were supposed to make a sharp turn right when we came up from the waterfall, way back, and somehow it took all the others that long to figure out we were gone? it was kind of crazy and poor group-management skills by the guides.

anyway, that night we stayed in a hut in a karen village in the hills. the scenery was nice, and the food was pretty good. there was this crazy little man that hung out with us after dark and had all kinds of crazy magic tricks to share. he showed us how to do them, but i can't really remember them now. then he'd get someone to give him beer. it was entertaining. we slept in a bamboo hut on woven mats. don't worry, we had mosquito nets. it was a rough night. first singapore was snoring sooooo loud and sooooo grossly that i could only laugh. too bad it lost its funniness as the night wore on. then china started snoring. it was a nasal symphony. then singapore and korea got up before dawn to go look for birds. singapore doesn't really understand how flashlights work, i think, so he was shining it all over in the dark. (the previous evening he'd shined the flashlight in my face and said, "can you see now?" and i said, "not when you're shining a flashlight in my eyes" and he said, "i'm not shining it in your eyes!")

the hike that day was better, more jungly but still all secondary forest. and still a surprising lack of wildlife. we went to another waterfall. something in the creek bit tim on the toe. (it didn't get infected or give him a disease, yet.) after the hiking we went bamboo rafting, which was pretty fun. the british guy was not very good at steering, but i didn't actually fall off. he fell off like 3 times and managed to loose the long pole you use for maneuvering. tim displayed amazing balance, standing on the raft behind the thai man doing most of the work, and barely getting wet.

after rafting we went on an elephant ride through the jungle! that was fun. its weird being on an elephant, and having another elephant behind you. the little thing you sit on is not very comfortable. but its a different view than you usually get. nothing really interesting happened, we just rode around and then the elephants drank some water and we were done.

when we got back to our hotel we were glad for a hot shower. then we had dinner at the food area of the night market down the street, and that was quite delicious.

our last day in chiang mai (thursday) we just walked around and looked at various things. mostly temples. there was one that had all sorts of weird lawn ornament-type things, including a donald duck. we're not sure what was going on there, maybe they have a special attachment to animals at that one. after a long day of walking, we got thai massages. it wasn't as brutal as the first one i got, they didn't stretch as much or put me in as many weird positions, i think because this one caters mostly to tourists and the other one didn't. my massage lady made fun of the tan lines on my feet and my short hair, even though hers was shorter. tim's massage lady re-tied his pants for him with no warning. and they said something about tim looking like superman and being from hollywood.

we flew back to bangkok that night, then down to koh samui (actually, to surat thani) on friday morning. our plane took off for samui, we started gaining altitude and then leveled off pretty low. after awhile i said to tim, "we're still really low. and we didn't go out over the ocean yet. its weird." and then the pilot came on and said we had to go back to the airport because of problems with the navigation system. so we landed, repair-type people came on and went into the cockpit, everything seemed pretty normal until these 4 russian people started freaking out and demanded to be let off the plane. i guess they didn't trust the repair people. but there's not that many flights to where we were all going, so they probably just screwed themselves. anyway, finally we got back in the air and it was a nice 1-hour flight. from there we had a 1-hour bus ride to the ferry dock, then a 1.5-hour ride on the ferry, and finally a 45-min minivan ride to our hotel. it was a brutal day and i had thought we would be at the hotel sooner. at least we had like 5 minutes to eat some food at the cafeteria at the ferry dock. it was actually decent food, and true thai hot.

we didn't do much on koh samui. we walked on the beach. sat on the beach. went in the water. rented a sea kayak and explored a little, there were some little islands off the coast. waded out at low tide-ish and looked at some exposed rocks, saw tons of sea cucumbers and some fish, i cut my foot a little. in the afternoons it rained some and the beach totally cleared out, but after that it was super nice out. i didn't particularly like the beach, it was pretty narrow, especially at high tide. and there were restaurants and bars and massage places and tour places right up to the water. but we did get offered lots of drugs. people walk around selling various things. the strangest are the guys walking around with tablecloths. until you find out that in their hand under the tablecloth are the drugs. i think we got offered smoke, drugs, marijuana, opium and cocaine. what else could we need?

the best foods we had were for lunch. one day we got some food from a guy on the side of the road, true thai-style. when he could tell tim was considering a particular dish, which i told tim was hot, the guy was all, "spicy, spicy" and looked concerned. but we had that and some fish and pineapple curry thing. they were spicy, especially the one. i don't know what its called but i've had several variations of it and its hot. its basically just pork and chilies, sometimes green beans. the guy was pretty impressed tim could eat it, he was hovering around at first to make sure there wasn't a casualty. and then a lady (wife?) came out and asked in thai if it was good, and i said yes back in thai. yeah, language skills! it was a fun experience and really made tim realize that to get true thai food you have to go places that tourists don't typically go. and maybe risk some gastrointestinal problems. the next lunch was delicious also. it was in a restaurant, but we ate things out of the pots by the road. just like it sounds, there's a table by the road with various pots, and thais come and look in the pots and pick what they want, get a quick meal for here or to go.

then back to bangkok on sunday afternoon! 30-min taxi to the ferry, 2-hour ferry ride (why so slow?), 1-hour bus ride, 30-min minivan ride to the train station. it wasn't as bad as the way out. but then we had like 2 hours to kill before the train. we got some food from, loitered, etc. finally our train came. we had a first class cabin, traveling in style. it consisted of bunk beds, a little table that folded down from the wall, and a little sink. the bathroom was down the hall. but the beds were surprisingly roomy and comfortable. it was nice to have a sink since i wouldn't dare brush my teeth in that bathroom. and we had a window, so we could look out and watch the nighttime scenery go by. we actually slept pretty well, until maybe the last 3 or 4 hours. the tracks were nice and smooth until then, then they got really bumpy. they offered us dinner when we got on, but we already had eaten (we got on at 8:45pm!). i thought they'd bring breakfast but i was wrong. good thing tim impulse bought those pringles. actually, i was looking forward to the dunkin donuts i knew to exist at the bangkok station. :)

so we got back to bangkok on monday morning around 8:30. whole wheat donuts at dunkin d, who knew such things existed? back to A&N's. shower, do some laundry (there was a rum leak in my bag...) tim took a nap while i went to the bank to transfer the money from my thai bank account to my american bank account. that took longer than i expected...first they had to figure out what i wanted to do and then what the right form was, then i had to figure out what to write on the form. then there was some need for my work permit, which i had returned when i left school because that is what you're required to do when you don't work anymore. but eventually it all got sorted out.

that day tim and i mostly just went shopping around bangkok for souvenirs and such. we ate lunch at this outdoor food place by some of the big malls, just pointed at things, noodles, pork balls on sticks, a crab cake in a crab shell. it was all pretty good, except the noodles were just so-so. we had a farewell dinner with A&N at a foreigner-oriented vegetarian place. i had a watermelon-mint drink, it was interesting. then we managed to pack everything back up, get a few hours sleep, and head to the airport around 3am for our 6am flight. and we made it back all in one piece, although super tired.