I'm writing this from the slow boat to Luang Prabang, Laos and indeed it is a slow boat. We boarded around 11 am and will dock around 7 or 8 this evening and then repeat the process tomorrow tacking on a couple hours for a grand total of 18.
The trip has been great and the lack of plans has been going semi-smoothly so far, knock on wood.
Jess arrived in Khon Kaen last Saturday and Neuki took me to the airport to fetch her. Naturally, we headed straight for the mall to eat suki which is Jess's second-favorite meal so far. I showed Jess a bit of my neighborhood and we had a mini planning session before she passed out. That was when we started freaking out about not having enough time in each place and we decided to leave on the night bus Sunday instead of Monday. So, with our new departure looming, we spent Sunday running errands. Jess still got to see my office, meet my Thai tutor and friend Gee, eat another delicious meal, and go back to the mall for some bowling with Neuki, Toffee and Meredith before we got on the 11 hour bus to Chiang Mai.
We arrived around 7am and immediately caught a minibus to Pai. I somehow managed to sleep for 90% of the windy journey through the mountains even after sleeping 9 of the 11 hours from KK to CM. We almost lost our lunches on that same minibus ride on the return trip which makes our sleeping feat on the way to Pai seem all the more incredible.
Pai is there-are-no-words good. It is a tiny town tucked away in the gorgeous mountains of northern Thailand. It is small enough to explore thoroughly on foot in a couple hours, but filled with coffee shops and arts and crafts shops and restaurants so that one could keep him or herself occupied doing nothing there for a while. It is becoming pretty popular with tourists and we did meet some cool ones, but I hope tourism does not ruin the magic of the place like it tends to do in Thailand. We stayed at a place called Aqua Resort and got a pretty good price since it is still low season. It is a really tranquil setting about a mile or 1.5 outside of the town. We got our fairshare of exercise since we did not rent motorbikes like most tourists, and the walks to and from town really allowed us to take in the scenery. Photos of stunning mountains and green rice paddies to follow.
Looking back, we definitely could have stayed in Pai for another day, but we opted to leave after two and a half days since we had seen the whole town, did some hiking, and gotten a good feel for the place...I hope to get back there at some point.
When we got back to Chiang Mai with no guest house reservations, the lack of Peters-planning bit us in the butt. We got stuffed in a dingy and sweltering room on the fifth floor of a stinky guesthouse with the world's most uncomfortable beds. We also had our first bad meal in Thailand that night after wandering for an hour on a quest to find an Indian food place recommended, though we are not sure why, in the Lonely Planet Guide. At least we learned our way around almost all of old Chiang Mai that first night...no better way to get to know a place than to get lost in it! I just recommend doing it in a cooler (temperature) environment and with a less cranky-if-she-has-not-eaten travel buddy.
With most of the bad luck behind us, we moved guest houses in the morning. The upgrade to Julie's brought a much nicer room with it's own bathroom and a crowd of really fun people and a helpful staff (well worth the extra 50 baht). Highlights of our stay in Chiang Mai listed in order of occurrence include:
1. Getting confused for a mother and daughter pair. If that is not funny enough... upon further investigation, I was told that I looked 41 because I have wrinkles around my eyes. Later, Jess did not deny the existence of said wrinkles but acknowledged them as laugh lines...ha ha
2. Our night out at this area referred to (I think by more people than just us) as the reggae garden.
3. Wat Suan Dok which is a temple originally built in the 1300s with a beautiful buddhist cemetery with ornate white stone graves. We sweated up a storm here and needed some refreshing so we headed to...
4. Nimmanheiman Road which is a sort of posh street with cool cafes and shops. We spent an hour playing rapido in iBerry, a quirky little ice cream shop recommended by a friend. For those of you who do not know, rapido is a card game Jess and I have been playing for ages. We are in an ongoing battle of rapido and yahtzee ("kniffel" to the Germans on our boat). After iBerry, we had amazing Thai massages, and to top off our day of indulgences, we proceeded to eat the best meal of our trip so far (yes, we have them ranked. That should not surprise you since Jess and I are into ranking systems and really into food). The place was this Thai vegetarian restaurant and we were the only customers in their trendy and serene little garden.
5. Going to this bar on the river called Brasserie to hear some of the best live music we have heard in a while. The opening band had a female singer with a ridiculous voice and the main attraction was a trio playing classic rock. The guitar player was incredibly talented and so captivating because he was a tiny Thai guy with a huge overbite that gave him the goofiest grin while he performed. It was so funny to hear such a raspy bluesy voice come out of this guy.
6. The Thai cooking course which we arranged at the time it was scheduled to begin...while we were still in bed. After Jess declined to be picked-up by car, we speedily dressed and hauled it a couple blocks on foot to discover we were the only students that day. We began with a market tour to get the ingredients and then went to the kitchen which was outside in a really shaded area. We made so many delicious things (since we do not love fish, there was a lot of chicken on the menu)... Green curry, cashew chicken, fried chicken cakes, red curry chicken baked in banana leaves, tom yam with shrimp, pad Thai, spring rolls and custard inside a pumpkin. It was all delicious and Jess is still talking about how someone cleared away the cashew chicken she was saving for later.
7. Small world experiences. My friend Mary just moved to LA to teach High school English as part of the Alliance for Catholic Education program. Think Freedom Writers. Anyways, Mary's roommate Sean, also an ACE teacher, has a girlfriend who just moved to Thailand to teach. Mary has been saying how well we would get along and encouraging us to make contact with each other via email. No need. As I sat down to write postcards, one of the few American backpackers started chatting with me and it took us about 10 seconds to realize that we had stumbled upon each-other. Her name is Lili and she had two friends with her. Jess and I had a lot of fun with them our last day in the city. I still cannot get over the coincidence.
8. Haircuts. Definitely our poorest decision to date. I have been needing one for ages and have been nervous about the language barrier in Khon Kaen and the precious mane that I had painstakingly grown out for the past two years. Needless to say, it is gone and what is left ain't pretty. I would be complaining more, but Jess had a little more trouble. First, the lady washing her hair got it so tangled that she proclaimed she could not brush it. Four people, including Jess, were needed to comb it out. Have you ever asked to brush your own hair at the salon? The Thai women are not used to foreign hair, but Jess's really threw them for a loop. After all was said and done, Jess had received quite the cut involving many, many inches of golden locks on the floor and a new layered do. It actually looks nice but it was a drastic "trim" and it might make her look a little younger. Oh, when the man guessed 41 for me, Jess got 17 and that was before the haircut. We both agree that our cuts really messed with our images, but lesson learned and it will grow back...by the time I'm 30.
9. Right before the bus to the border, we went to the Saturday walking market which was full of arts and crafts and delicious treats. It was a really good way to end our stay in Chiang Mai. Tourist-activity-wise, we did not do as much as we could have in the city which actually feels like a big town but we know it pretty well now since we explored it all on foot.
This morning, we had some meal issues, including stolen fried rice lunch boxes, inedibly fishy papaya salad and extremely expensive sticky rice that tasted like cement even before we discovered the ants steamed into it. So, besides being hungry and a little uncomfortable on the wooden benches, we are very happy. We are really looking forward to arriving in Luang Prabang, though taking in the scenery for two days on a boat is definitely a good way to see this beautiful place.
Since writing this, we made another day's journey on the boat and arrived in Luang Prabang, or Heaven. After three hours here, we are in love. It is so quaint with it's French colonial architecture and hardly any cars and it is right on the Mekong. There are lots of tourists here, but somehow it is more tasteful tourism than in Thailand. We are so excited to drink delicious coffee, eat French bread, do some trekking, and really just soak up the atmosphere for the next week.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
In other news...English Camp Photos
I put up an album of photos from English Camp. I forgot to write about this terrible place we went the last day. I forget the name; it might be The Pattaya Center for Animal Cruelty. We paid to see this awful crocodile show...I am sure the crocs were on tranquilizers. There were tons of tigers and bears and zebras all in really small, smelly cages. It was the most awful place. Anything to make a buck over here.
There are also a lot of photos of students doing this Price is Right obstacle course Meredith and I made. It was pretty hysterical until it got extremely hot and we felt bad making the students do it at all.
There are not too many photos of me (disappointing, I know) but you can see me trying out some Thai poses in a couple near the end. Thai people LOVE to pose for photos and have really funny ways of doing it. I am really bad at it, but in this album you can see me trying to make half of a heart with my arms. That is a favorite one over here. Enjoy!
There are also a lot of photos of students doing this Price is Right obstacle course Meredith and I made. It was pretty hysterical until it got extremely hot and we felt bad making the students do it at all.
There are not too many photos of me (disappointing, I know) but you can see me trying out some Thai poses in a couple near the end. Thai people LOVE to pose for photos and have really funny ways of doing it. I am really bad at it, but in this album you can see me trying to make half of a heart with my arms. That is a favorite one over here. Enjoy!
 |
| English Camp (the Aquarium, an obstacle course, and animal cruelty) |
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Thai Ghost Movies and Flexi Girl
It is my last week of teaching for the semester! How did that happen?!
I spoke to Jess who arrives here next Saturday and I think we will leave for Chiang Mai on the Monday night bus. We are very excited, but not very planned. I think we will have a session when Jess gets here. She is more like her mother and our grandfather than she pretends, so I am confident that we will have some sort of alphabetized-color-coded-calendar-meets-map after a few hours of work. I couldn't think of a better person to be my travel-buddy and I can't begin to imagine what our adventure has in store...Some hiking, eating, three days sitting on wood benches on a "slow boat" to Laos and a lot of sweating with no aircon in Vietnam, I think.
This friday I went to see a Thai movie. It was supposed to be a scary movie. Neuki warned me that I would need her to sleep over for a week after seeing it. Most of you know that I really hate scary movies, but since my coworkers invited me, I thought I should go to advance the friendships and because I didn't want them to know I am a baby. My bodily reaction to fright is to laugh, and I laughed the whole time, but mostly because it was so NOT scary that it was funny. It was about ghosts and karma, and that stuff doesn't usually scare me the way that murderers do. There is also a possessed "Took-Gaaay", which is a big gecko that we have here. I slept alone Friday night and did not wake up sweating in fright at all. I'm so proud of myself. One thing that I forgot to say about Thai movies when I wrote about Harry Potter is that everyone in the theater must stand for this song that honors the king at the beginning of the movie. It's like the Star-spangled Banner before a sports game, I guess. Photos of the King doing good things and scenic landscapes flash while the song plays. Another interesting window into Thai culture. One more thing, they sell shuttlecocks and ping pong balls at 7-11, how convenient!? I never knew why they called it a convenient store until now, but I am ALWAYS looking for a shuttlecock. They don't sell nail polish remover or peanut butter, but who needs those things when you have odd sports paraphernalia?
Yesterday, Alison, Mere and I went to see "Beijing Acrobatics Show." I had been under the impression that it was associated with the Olympics, but it was not. Anyways, it was really cool, sort of Circe du Soleil-ish. They had four motorcycles inside this little ball driving in circles and upsidedown. Meredith, the physisist, was not as impressed as I was because she could explain how it worked using formulas. Something about the three types of velocity. How boring. There was one girl, "flexi-girl" as Alison called her, who must have had rubber for a spine. At one point, there was a pole on stage with a soft covering on the tip, like a sock or something. Flexi-girl put the sock in her mouth, kicked her legs over her head so far that her gluteus maximi rested on her forehead. Oh, and, all the while she was spinning plates on her legs and arms so the only thing touching the ground was the pole that she had in her mouth. Shannon Traeger, I have some new moves for us to try in couple's yoga.
Tomorrow I am going with the Business English Department to the Pullman Hotel (that's the nice one) for dinner to demonstrate Western manners. My mom sort of freaked out when I told her this. It's drink on the left, bread and fork on the right, start from the inside, put your elbows on the table, chew with your mouth open and put your napkin on your head, right Mom?
This could be my last post before I head out next Monday, but hopefully I can post as I travel. Thanks for reading!
I spoke to Jess who arrives here next Saturday and I think we will leave for Chiang Mai on the Monday night bus. We are very excited, but not very planned. I think we will have a session when Jess gets here. She is more like her mother and our grandfather than she pretends, so I am confident that we will have some sort of alphabetized-color-coded-calendar-meets-map after a few hours of work. I couldn't think of a better person to be my travel-buddy and I can't begin to imagine what our adventure has in store...Some hiking, eating, three days sitting on wood benches on a "slow boat" to Laos and a lot of sweating with no aircon in Vietnam, I think.
This friday I went to see a Thai movie. It was supposed to be a scary movie. Neuki warned me that I would need her to sleep over for a week after seeing it. Most of you know that I really hate scary movies, but since my coworkers invited me, I thought I should go to advance the friendships and because I didn't want them to know I am a baby. My bodily reaction to fright is to laugh, and I laughed the whole time, but mostly because it was so NOT scary that it was funny. It was about ghosts and karma, and that stuff doesn't usually scare me the way that murderers do. There is also a possessed "Took-Gaaay", which is a big gecko that we have here. I slept alone Friday night and did not wake up sweating in fright at all. I'm so proud of myself. One thing that I forgot to say about Thai movies when I wrote about Harry Potter is that everyone in the theater must stand for this song that honors the king at the beginning of the movie. It's like the Star-spangled Banner before a sports game, I guess. Photos of the King doing good things and scenic landscapes flash while the song plays. Another interesting window into Thai culture. One more thing, they sell shuttlecocks and ping pong balls at 7-11, how convenient!? I never knew why they called it a convenient store until now, but I am ALWAYS looking for a shuttlecock. They don't sell nail polish remover or peanut butter, but who needs those things when you have odd sports paraphernalia?
Yesterday, Alison, Mere and I went to see "Beijing Acrobatics Show." I had been under the impression that it was associated with the Olympics, but it was not. Anyways, it was really cool, sort of Circe du Soleil-ish. They had four motorcycles inside this little ball driving in circles and upsidedown. Meredith, the physisist, was not as impressed as I was because she could explain how it worked using formulas. Something about the three types of velocity. How boring. There was one girl, "flexi-girl" as Alison called her, who must have had rubber for a spine. At one point, there was a pole on stage with a soft covering on the tip, like a sock or something. Flexi-girl put the sock in her mouth, kicked her legs over her head so far that her gluteus maximi rested on her forehead. Oh, and, all the while she was spinning plates on her legs and arms so the only thing touching the ground was the pole that she had in her mouth. Shannon Traeger, I have some new moves for us to try in couple's yoga.
Tomorrow I am going with the Business English Department to the Pullman Hotel (that's the nice one) for dinner to demonstrate Western manners. My mom sort of freaked out when I told her this. It's drink on the left, bread and fork on the right, start from the inside, put your elbows on the table, chew with your mouth open and put your napkin on your head, right Mom?
This could be my last post before I head out next Monday, but hopefully I can post as I travel. Thanks for reading!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Just put some eggs
I am feeling the pressure to make my blog extremely awesome. First of all, Mrs. Bannon, my sixth-grade teacher and the cornerstone my English grammar knowledge, is now a loyal follower of this blog. Secondly, my oh-so-clever-and-remarkably-witty-bestest-pal Abigail Catherine Bertrand Poats is now settling into her Princeton in Asia post in Beijing and she, obviously, has upstaged me with her blog. It is a lot funnier than mine and I only read the post that she wrote before she left America. I have a feeling Abby's blog will get increasingly funnier as her Chinese students discover she is the world's most gullible person. God help her. I will include the address if you promise that you will only read her blog in addition to mine because I cannot stand to lose followers. Plus, I know some of you have just started the monotony of the rest of your lives at a desk and will be looking for things to make it look like you are working. (Poatsinpeking.blogspot.com) Third, Magee is in the Dominican Republic for Peace Corps, and although her blog has more grammatical errors than mine, it is filled with wonderful descriptions of her life which seems way more interesting than mine and she has the whole e.e.cummings lowercase style thing going on which really makes her blog cool. I am super jealous that she speaks Spanish because she has already had more fun encounters with Dominicans than I have had with Thai people in three months. I REALLY want a charismatic 13-year-old to take me off the street, put curlers in my hair, and play dominoes with me!
Just now, when I told Neuki that I needed to make my blog extra-super-dee-duper, she said "just put some eggs." This, I think, is a semi-joke possibly related to a saying in Thailand which might have something to do with the fact that anything is better with an egg on it. I mean, not everything, but as far as meals go, I agree. Even before I discovered the Thai obsession with egg which is "kai" in Thai, I had my own love affair with adding a fried egg to everything I could put in my mouth in South Africa....pizza, bananas, croissants with brie, hamburgers, endless possibilities for deliciousness. I know how to ask for an egg prepared in many different ways in Thai because all Thai food is better with egg.
So, it has been a while since my last post. I have been busy. Some of the classes that I was complaining about before have been postponed or cancelled but I have new ones in their places. I am currently teaching a class on interviewing to Engineers which pretty much consists of me taking things from the ND career center website and giving it to my students, no plagiarism involved.
Last weekend, I was an honorary member of the Business English Department's English Camp in Rayong/ Pattaya. Pattaya is a beach that is the Thai equivalent of Ocean City. It is pretty much the armpit of the country, but camp was super fun. The Business English students speak English very well, so it was nice to actually get to know some students personally. The older students hazed the freshmen with the typical eating bananas and hard-boiled eggs with chillies inside, painting their faces, rolling in sand, chanting things and weird rules, etc. There was the standard binge drinking one night, scolding the next morning, and secret drinking the next night. The last night, after slightly painful skits and karaoke, I was lucky enough to witness the initiation ritual of the faculty. Of course, I cannot say what it was, but it involved taking care of an egg (more eggs, ha) for the weekend. The students whose eggs cracked were physically and mentally tortured at the hands of a fourth-year with a megaphone in front of the rest of the upperclassmen who were pretending to be extremely mad about the broken eggs. I mean, how could the freshmen be trusted in the faculty if they can't take care of an egg?? Tears were shed out of pain and group-bonding and finally all things were made dandy again with candles and singing...typical. Ms. Frank could have designed the ceremony herself (shout-out GV '05).
Now I am back to the grind in Khon Kaen. I am really working on my Thai, but the stars have to align for me to be understood. I have to remember the word, remember which of the five tones it has AND...here's the kicker... actually get that tone to come out of my mouth correctly. This gets increasingly harder with the number of words I attempt to string together. BUT I know the days of the week, lots of food, the colors AND...drum roll please... I can write my name, first and last, in Thai!
This weekend I will judge a debate competition from 8:00 to 4:00 on Saturday and hopefully find time to clear the mud I have on my pig's tail, meaning grade a ton of papers. I also need to do some serious planning because my adventure begins in three weeks. Jess arrives the 19th and we will set out as soon as possible. I cannot wait.
Love you all. Choop choop. Kiss kiss.
เอริน(Erin) เมอร์ฟื (Murphy)
Typing that name just took me longer than writing the whole rest of the blog!
Just now, when I told Neuki that I needed to make my blog extra-super-dee-duper, she said "just put some eggs." This, I think, is a semi-joke possibly related to a saying in Thailand which might have something to do with the fact that anything is better with an egg on it. I mean, not everything, but as far as meals go, I agree. Even before I discovered the Thai obsession with egg which is "kai" in Thai, I had my own love affair with adding a fried egg to everything I could put in my mouth in South Africa....pizza, bananas, croissants with brie, hamburgers, endless possibilities for deliciousness. I know how to ask for an egg prepared in many different ways in Thai because all Thai food is better with egg.
So, it has been a while since my last post. I have been busy. Some of the classes that I was complaining about before have been postponed or cancelled but I have new ones in their places. I am currently teaching a class on interviewing to Engineers which pretty much consists of me taking things from the ND career center website and giving it to my students, no plagiarism involved.
Last weekend, I was an honorary member of the Business English Department's English Camp in Rayong/ Pattaya. Pattaya is a beach that is the Thai equivalent of Ocean City. It is pretty much the armpit of the country, but camp was super fun. The Business English students speak English very well, so it was nice to actually get to know some students personally. The older students hazed the freshmen with the typical eating bananas and hard-boiled eggs with chillies inside, painting their faces, rolling in sand, chanting things and weird rules, etc. There was the standard binge drinking one night, scolding the next morning, and secret drinking the next night. The last night, after slightly painful skits and karaoke, I was lucky enough to witness the initiation ritual of the faculty. Of course, I cannot say what it was, but it involved taking care of an egg (more eggs, ha) for the weekend. The students whose eggs cracked were physically and mentally tortured at the hands of a fourth-year with a megaphone in front of the rest of the upperclassmen who were pretending to be extremely mad about the broken eggs. I mean, how could the freshmen be trusted in the faculty if they can't take care of an egg?? Tears were shed out of pain and group-bonding and finally all things were made dandy again with candles and singing...typical. Ms. Frank could have designed the ceremony herself (shout-out GV '05).
Now I am back to the grind in Khon Kaen. I am really working on my Thai, but the stars have to align for me to be understood. I have to remember the word, remember which of the five tones it has AND...here's the kicker... actually get that tone to come out of my mouth correctly. This gets increasingly harder with the number of words I attempt to string together. BUT I know the days of the week, lots of food, the colors AND...drum roll please... I can write my name, first and last, in Thai!
This weekend I will judge a debate competition from 8:00 to 4:00 on Saturday and hopefully find time to clear the mud I have on my pig's tail, meaning grade a ton of papers. I also need to do some serious planning because my adventure begins in three weeks. Jess arrives the 19th and we will set out as soon as possible. I cannot wait.
Love you all. Choop choop. Kiss kiss.
เอริน(Erin) เมอร์ฟื (Murphy)
Typing that name just took me longer than writing the whole rest of the blog!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)