Tag Archives: Thailand

Triple Threat

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We only have three days left on our trip—one in Crete, one in Athens, and one in an airplane and Washington. In honor of this, here are my three favorite places on this trip:

1: Crete has been good to us. So good, in fact, that I am rather reluctant to leave—this seems odd since home is at the other end of this 12-hour journey. No matter; I’ll just stay on Crete and enjoy the summer warmth and the pool that comes with it. Not. I would enjoy staying just for the food, though. Especially the tzatziki, chocolate-coated baklava, grape leaf rolls, lemon chicken with chips and zucchini at Taverna Fantastico, and the chocolate cakes.

 

1: Yes, this is a second number 1. I would count Crete and South Africa as a tie. While similar in some ways (warm, with nice people and good food), there are so many differences. For example, we knew South Africans, such as Oom Dennis and Tannie Marietjie (and their dogs Dinky and Griet). Dad, Mom, and Ethan had already been to the country before and thus knew what it was like. Also, we got extremely lucky, seeing seven cheetahs, three leopards, ten African wild dogs, an African wild cat, two honey badgers, a handful of rhinos, a Cape cobra, both black and white, plenty of lions, ostriches, and spotted hyenas, and more than enough black-faced impala, springbok, gemsbok, elephant, kudu, and giraffe to go around. And everyone knows that Cape Town is the best city in the world.

 

3: Thailand gets the bronze medal in this competition. Like South Africa and Crete, Thailand was certainly memorable for its warmth. It also had Buotong Waterfall, Thai food (green curry and sweet-and-sour curry and banana pancakes, oh my!), six amazing pools, MBK Mall, Jatujak Market (can’t forget my cheap sandals, which have somehow lasted until now), tiger-petting, and elephant riding. Yes, Thailand is certainly a very good (and inexpensive) country. Plus, Thai Airlines is part of the Star Alliance and has really good food and magazines in their airport lounges.

Ciao!

Half-Way Day!!! :D

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Today, in honor of the half-way mark, we climbed Lion’s Head. Well, that wasn’t really in honor of, but we did it anyway.

So far we’ve visited seven countries in six months. My favorite place so far has been Thailand, but Upington—with its croc-free Orange River and good food—is a close second. Early next year we’ll head north to Dubai for a week then cross the Atlantic to spend three months in Argentina, Chile, and Peru. We’ll then fly back across the ocean to Morocco, where we’ll spend a month, followed by France, Switzerland, and Greece.

In Thailand, we got up close and personal with tigers and elephants. We enjoyed mochas in Bangkok and fried bananas at Doi Suthep, with green and sweet-and-sour curries in between. Then we experienced the Drama of the Indian Visas, which saw us fleeing Thailand as our visas there were about to expire. We chose Laos, just across the Mekong from rural eastern Thailand, and rode in the jumbos, ate ice cream at Swensen’s, and took a hike to a waterfall in the jungle.

We returned to Bangkok to pick up our visas really quickly before hopping on a plane to India. Because we were a week late, we didn’t spend much time in New Delhi—it was only a few hours before we rode a train to Agra, where we saw the Taj Mahal. Soon after we visited Jaipur, where we watched the Olympics, Jodhpur, where we visited a village and schools, and Jaisalmer, the fortress city and our starting point for a camel trek.

We returned to New Delhi and flew to Sydney two days later, where we spent a week freezing. We warmed up in Darwin before heading south to Tennant Creek, Alice Springs, and eventually Ayers Rock. From the rock we flew to Perth, drove up to Gnaraloo, then drove back down to Perth before jetting off to Johannesburg.

We drove up to Gaborone and eventually ended up in Namibia. In Etosha we saw a leopard and many, many elephants. We were in Swakopmund for my birthday, after which we made our way to Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park where we saw our first cheetah and yet another leopard. We then visited Upington, where Ethan learned to waterski. After a night at Witsand, we visited Oom Dennis, Tannie Marietjie, Griet, and Dinky.

We finally made it to Kruger where we saw two leopards, six cheetahs, a bunch of lions, and many more elephants. Working our way down the coast, we jumped on the trampoline at The Haven, saw penguins at Boulders, and visited the southernmost point in Africa.

We’re now in Cape Town where we’ll be celebrating Christmas in five days. We’re also imagining our snowy home…

Ciao!

Entering India

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We arrived in Agra last night at eight after five hours on the plane and about four hours on the train and too many hours awake. While on the ramp out to our plane, I picked up an Olympic magazine, which kept me company along with A Thousand Words on our flight. Once we landed and went through customs and immigrations, we got some cash, water bottles, and mochas. The mochas were delicious, and so was the Oreo brownie Ethan got. My peach and banana cake was bland and dry.

We got into a rickety taxi at Post 36 and rode to the train station. It took forever and gave us some more near-death experiences. Once at the station, we waited until 4:30 to go down to the train. The doors finally opened and we piled on. We were seperated because, if you will recall, we got these tickets last week because of our visa problem. Mom and I had seats 17 and 18 in AC-1 and Dad and Ethan had seats farther down but still in the same car. In case you’re wondering, AC does stand for air-conditioning.

After several delays, we arrived in Agra. A man named Shakil picked us up, and he joked how he was Shaquille O’Neal. Shakil drove us to a place for supper where we had naan, rice, lady fingers (okra), and two main dishes. He then took us to N Home Stay and we finally went to bed. Ciao!

One Last Time

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At a Swensen’s in Thailand… hopefully. We may actually get to go to India tomorrow! Swensen’s was pretty much all we did today except for swimming twice. The first time we were at Viva Gardens and Ethan and I swam by ourselves. Well, there were two little boys in the pool too, but they stayed in the shallow end. Ethan and I are such tall people that we could only be in the deep end (1.2 meters). Well, only in the deep end until we raced. We had one really long race at the end: three half-laps with different strokes (the crawl, backstroke, and breaststroke), touching each of the fountains on the spout, and all sorts of crazy things. Ethan eventually won and I was very disappointed.

At Swensen’s we all had chocolate ice cream (of course) and after that Mom and I looked at clothes in the Tesco Lotus (Swensen’s is in the building) while Dad and Ethan lurked. Once done there, we returnd to Viva Gardens one last time, picked up our luggage, and rode in a green taxi (green!) to BS Residence. After Ethan and I did our schoolwork for the day, we went swimming with Dad as Mom ordered supper from The Pizza Company. (Guess what we got?) It was a very successful day! Ciao!

Terminal 21- Almost an Airport

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Terminal 21 is an awesome mall. We went to it today and finally figured out how it works: each floor is a different international city. The lowest floor (parking and dry-cleaning) was Bangkok… kind of. It had no theme but it was Bangkok. Above that is the food floor which was Caribbean themed. We even saw a sign on a palm tree for Half Moon Bay in Antigua and Barbuda. We’ve been there!

Above that was Rome which was a mix of clothes and accessories. Paris was the floor that connected to the skytrain station. That was handy during the sudden rainstorm. Tokyo, an escalator ride up from Paris, was full of fancy dresses that I lovelovelove. London was a short escalator ride away and it had one of those red double-decker buses. That floor was home to casual clothes. Istanbul connected to Paris by way of one looooong escalator. That escalator skips floors one and two and stops at the floor of knicks, knacks, trinkets, and baubles including giant stuffed animal poodles, video games, and postage stamps from Israel.

The fourth floor- San Francisco- was awesome. There was the Golden Gate Bridge above it, and when you looked at it from the fifth floor you could see the little toy cars on it. The San Francisco floor had Swensen’s (of course!) and even a trolley car. The fifth floor was also San Francisco: the coastal (food court) part of San Francisco. There was a Chinatown part, too, except there was Thai food in it. The sixth floor was Hollywood and there was a movie theater and gym there. Nothing particularly interesting.

It was the best mall I’ve ever been to, and we even heard One Direction! Ciao!

Heated Toilet Seats? By Toshiba?

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Yeah, well, even if you are wondering about that, they are really out there. YesterdaOy I experienced one of them in the Terminal 21 mall in Bangkok while we were waiting to go to the visa place.

Before that, we had gone to a park right down the street and had some magnum bars after I tried out some very weird exercise equipment. One of them was an excercise twister with handles up above. It was so weird that I gave up on the twister thing and just hung from the circles above.

Okay. By now you probably want to know about the toilet seats that I encountered in the mall. It was kind of weird, there was a toilet seat with what looked like a remote to the right side. On the remote, you could choose lots of settings, like how warm the water was, or how warm the seat was. You could also move the nozzle for the bidet back and forth. And that part even had a drying feature.

Back in Bangkok

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A wise man once said that you can only see a city in the dark. Flying into Bangkok at 11 last night, I agreed: the city lights stretched out for miles to the horizon. Wee cars moved “slowly” on the roads below and a plane’s lights blinked behind us. It seemed like coming home. We’ve now landed on the Suvarnabhumi tarmac three times and Bangkok is kind of becoming a home base. We’ll be back, too, on our way to Australia.

The display on my watch said 0:16 as we walked into the Viva Garden building, which seems to be one of the coolest buildings ever. Later in the morning, we walked into the Indian Visa Application Centre and handed over our passports. We then made our way back to the Viva building for breakfast. After recharging our batteries some more, we went to the Tesco Lotus for Swensen’s and things like shampoo and a new shirt for Mom. Dad needed to get seats for our flight to New Delhi and asked Customer Service where the Thai Airlines place was as a man here had told him that the airline had a location in Tesco. The person at the booth sent him to the men’s clothing section for his Tie Airline visit.

Ethan and I spent about an hour in the awesome pool and then we went to supper at Look-in, a nearby restaurantthat serves Thai and Italian food. Ethan was dubbed “Young Boy Sir” by our waiter. Ciao!

A Vientiane Visit

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Today we leave Vientiane, Laos, and fly to Bangkok for the third time. There were many things that stood out about Vientiane, but the main ones for me were traffic, money, and animals:

 

Traffic: Laos’s capital’s drivers seem to take life slowly. There seems to be no “fast lane” here. There are also plenty of one-way streets which can make life stressful as you try to find a way to go south on a street that allows only north-bound vehicles. These vehicles include jumbos, motorbikes, tour vans, and VW bugs. Jumbos are the Laotian version of tuk-tuks… kind of. They are, as their name suggests, bigger with the seats in a U-shape instead of two benches opposite each other. There are mini-jumbos, which are technically the same size as tuk-tuks but, because of the shape of the bench, can hold more people. They are also the loudest and ricketiest “vehicles.” They buzz and whine and putt-putt their way through the streets, and our mini-jumbo this morning stopped running more than once while we were stopped.

 

Full-sized jumbos are a whole different story. They have three seats in the front, too, with the one in the middle being the driver’s and the other two for passengers. The seats have all sorts of different patterns on them, and the outside can be all different colors. My favorite so far has been a purple jumbo with seats that are purple with a pink stripe down them. We didn’t get to ride in it, but maybe we will on the way to the airport. That would be awesome! We probably won’t, though, because the most common jumbo color is white with red, yellow, blue, and green accents.

 

There aren’t very many songtows, but the ones we’ve seen have been, for the most part, stuffed. Just today we saw two songtows go by Swensen’s that were full of novices in their bright orange robes (that’s why we noticed them). Vehicles the same size as or larger than a Ford Escape seem humongous unless they’re a cement truck. The motorbikes are still here and dominating. At every stop in traffic, these little beasts move up to the very front of the line of traffic. The bicyclers could do this, but it seems like the only people on bikes on busy streets are tourists, who, for the most part, aren’t brave enough to get up to the very front.

 

Money: The official exchange rate is ₭8,024 per US$1 as of July 24, 2012. It fluctuates a lot; on July 20 it was 7,100 kip per US dollar. This makes prices like 72,000 kip seem low: that’s only US$9. The coins were deemed so worthless that they no longer mean anything. The bills are in denominations of 500; 1,000; 2,000; 5,000; 10,000; 20,000; and 50,000, which is worth about US$6. There may be a 100,000 kip bill, but we haven’t seen one. Even then, though, it would only be US$12.5 (approx.).

 

The face on most of these notes is the face of President Kaysone Phomvihane, who was Lao PDR’s first leader.

 

Animals: The most common type of animal in Laos is probably humans, but dogs and ants are close seconds. Actually, ants most definitely outnumber people. The guide yesterday told Dad that a popular Laotian dish is fish and ants. The ants add acid, which is sour, and the people like that. Personally, I find that disgusting, but maybe I’d like it… if I felt like trying it. There are ants everywhere– on the sidewalk, in the fried rice yesterday, along the trail, inside Swensen’s, in my pants… (Yes, I did have ants in my pants.)

 

We are of the opinion that dogs in Laos (or, at least, Vientiane) are cuter than the dogs in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. There are four that live right around Vayakorn House: the short, furry one with floppy ears and a nasty bite, the tan short-haired dog of some kind, a black dog, and the cutest black and white dog with a heap of fur and a tail that looked like a fountain of black fur. The last one followed us home from Joma Café this morning because it smelled the chocolate chip cookies and banana cake Mom was carrying. It stopped at a sign post, we turned the corner, and I’m guessing it tried to decide what attitude the other three dogs would have towards it since it was an intruder. The little furry one looks like it belongs in Great Britain for some reason, but it can hold its own just as well as the tan and black dogs.

 

Pigs are here but we only saw a few yesterday in a truck heading towards Vientiane. There were four or five on the roof of the car and more below. They were all alive and smelly.

 

There are many cows here, too. Not in town so much (although we did see some along the Mekong on our first day) as the countryside. We saw dozens yesterday as we drove to and from the waterfall. Our songtow had a musical horn that was used to get the cows out of the way, although we usually just drove around them. Cows are very stupid, and we discovered just how stupid they are when we looked back and saw a calf running along the road with a van right behind it. It could have just turned to the right and been safe, but it chose to turn to the left just as another van was coming. It was hit.

 

It got up, though, and went back to running in its own little world.

 

I hope it lived.

 

Ciao!

 

Over Here!

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We’re in Laos! That’s because our Thai visas expire today and we had to go somewhere else. We’ll return later to give our passports to the Indian Visa Application Centre in Bangkok… hopefully. We’re not so sure they’ll let us back in after such a short time away. But I’m crossing my fingers.

After breakfast at our hotel in Bangkok, we went to the airport, mailed some postcards, and waited in the Thai/Star Alliance lounge until we had to flaunt our boarding passes at Gate D1. Our plane to Vientiane, Laos, was tiny (comparatively) and was in the air for about one hour. We landed in Vientiane, applied for and received our visas, and met the man from Vayakorn Guest House. Dad got 1,000,000 Lao kip (about US$125) at the ATM and we piled into the van with our four suitcases, four backpacks, four people, and one hat.

Vayakorn Guest House is nice enough, but my main issue with it is that, because the floor is wood, you have to take off your shoes before continuing upstairs to your room. This can be very uncomfortable when you have multiple pairs of shoes and you’re packing up to leave, forgetting the pair of shoes you left waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

We went out around four o’clock for water and shampoo and to look at the Mekong River and Thailand, which is about 1/4 mile away from where I sit typing this. (The Thai-Lao border is, like the one between Washington and Oregon, down the middle of the river for most of the way.) There, people were setting up their booths for the Friday night market. We finally found a little store (NOT a 7-Eleven. In fact, we haven’t seen a single one!) and bought our shampoo and 12 liters of water (eight 1.5 liter bottles). We also saw the Mirinda soda bottles. I wanted to get some of that and a chocolate truffle Magnum bar, but we needed to get back in an air-conditioned place. However, we need to come back soon as Ethan is dying to get his hands on Mirinda (for those of you who don’t know, Mirinda is the name of my best friend).

We returned to my parents’ room to look at the kip bills. Lao money is so worthless that the government quit making coins. The largest bill is K$50,000, or about US$6. In the lobby of Vayakorn, there is a framed two-dollar bill, which was surprising on so many levels.

For supper, we went to Makphet, which is a restaurant that gives poor people jobs. Our food was pretty bland, but our kips went towards a good cause (see it here at http://www.tree-alliance.org/our-restaurants/makphet.asp?mm=or&sm=mp). We returned home, ate some more strawberry creme Oreos, and typed this up. It’s getting “late.” Ciao!

Today Was a(n) [insert adjective] Day

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You can comment on what sort of day you think it was after you read this. This is in chronological order according to the times on my stupid (you’ll see why) watch:

2:33: I wake up, look at my watch, think Thank goodness there’s still an hour, and go back to sleep.

3:25: Alarm doesn’t go off.

4:08: We wake up to Mom knocking on our door. I tell Ethan to get his butt in the shower, and I answer the door. We think she had been standing and knocking for quite a while.

4:10: Ethan finishes his shower- if you can call a nozzle sticking out of a wall and spraying the toilet a shower.

4:33: We’re all dressed, showered, packed, and out the door in the airport shuttle.

4:44: Our arrival at the airport is too early; we have to wait until five o’clock rolls around.

4:59: We’re checking in and the lady looks at our tickets from Bangkok to New Delhi.

5:00: She asks if we have our Indian visas.

5:01: We don’t.

5:06: She pulls up a list of countries whose citizens don’t need visas beforehand: Cambodia, Singapore, South Korea, Mexico, Vietnam… the US is not on there.

5:07: We head to the benches to regroup and an exclamation is heard: “I want to go home.”

5:38: A family sits down across from us, happily eating their Hilton breakfast and displaying their Swiss passports.

5:52: They finally leave.

6:37: We go to the United Airlines counter and reschedule our flight to India for Friday.

6:39: The benches are a wonderful find.

7:32: Our bags (except for Dad’s backpack) are left with the people at LEFT BAGGAGE.

7:33: We find another bench.

7:46: Ethan and I go up to the (frigid) observation deck. That airport has the AC on waay too high.

7:49: We head to the FamilyMart and look at all the sickly-sweet looking foods.

7:51: We return to our parents.

9:31: The female half of us changes the new flight to Saturday, July 28.

9:35: Mom goes looking for unguarded electrical outlets for her phone.

9:41: She returns with no luck.

9:47: We look for breakfast.

9:58: Chocolate waffles!!!

10:03: We buy our tickets for the airport train, which goes in to town.

10:07: Oreos are bought just to get some smaller bills/coins.

10:09: We begin to wait for the train.

10:23: It finally comes.

10:52: We quickly exit the station and walk to the tube.

11:09: We’re spit out of the train into the rain.

11:10: We start walking the wrong way.

11:22: We stop and ask where we are.

12:01: Finally! The stairs up to the GLAS HAUS loom in front of us.

12:07: We enter the Indian Visa Application Centre.

12:09: We’re back in the hallway to fill out the remaining three forms- Mom’s, Ethan’s, and mine- on the iPad.

13:12: We’re now officially in the Centre.

14:29: After being forced to pretend that my signature at age nine is still the same three years later, we leave with the promise to return with our passports next week.

14:57: The underground’s doors close too soon and I am left behind.

14:59: A Thai lady tells me that she’ll make sure I get to the right place (the next stop). That was nice, but I would have been perfectly fine on my own.

15:01: The next train comes.

15:03: I get off and Ethan tells me that Mom’s looking for me. Thankfully she didn’t go back (although we could’ve easily called her. We had four bars… underground!).

15:07: We’re back on our way to the airport.

16:32: Supper is served at Twin Time, a restaurant in the airport that serves tiny portions. My chicken satay and Thai iced tea were AMAZING.

17:49: Ethan invites me to come to the bookstore with him so he can show me the Justin Bieber book. Of course, he didn’t tell me this beforehand.

18:13: 31 Flavors! (Ethan counted- there were 30 flavors in 32 tubs. FYI, 31 Flavors is Baskin Robbins)

18:17: I try a spoonful of green tea ice cream. Be warned! (Unless you like greasy ice cream that tastes like moldy [and looks] like moldy vanilla.) Dad, Ethan, and I each get one scoop of Chocolate Mousse Royale and one scoop of World Class Chocolate. Mom had one scoop of the former and one scoop of mint chip.

18:31: Dad buys water at the 7-Eleven.

18:37: We retrieve our luggage.

19:29: We arrive at Mariya Boutique Residence, and I grab a banana.

20:46: Mom chokes on her malaria pill as I read her this post.

21:13: I bid you… Ciao!

Visas are NOT credit cards

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That is what everyone should know if they are traveling to another county. Today we woke up waaaaay too early ( but still layer than we were supposed to) to go to the airport. Here is what happened with visas today: say (just for an example of what happened today) India. So, we had read on a website that India doesn’t need a visa for American citizens, but at the check-in desk, we heard differently……… Apparently you have to have a tourist (or other type of) visa to get into India if you are an American. Since we didn’t have one, we missed our flight to New Delhi, where we had multiple reservations, one of which was a driver that picked us up at the airport to take us to our place. Since we weren’t there, he had to stand there all morning, holding a sign that said “Jerry Reeder” on it. Too bad.

Since we had nothing left to do at the airport, we went out to try and find the Indian embassy in Bangkok. We found it eventually, but not after taking several wrong turns through the torrential rain. When we got there, we hadn’t even filled out most of our forms and we needed them to finish our work on the 15th floor of the Glass Haus. But since my mom’s phone had died, and it could give us the Internet we needed to fillnout the forms on the iPad via bluetooth. So, because of that, Eryn stood by one of the four elevators and used the outlet in the wall to charge my mother’s phone while the rest of us read off details from our passports. After about an hour, we were finally done and we went in to the waiting area and filled out some more forms before finally getting called up and getting our applications approved.

At least we can now go to India.

M.D. Madness

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M.D. House was our home in Chiang Mai for three weeks. It had its good sides and bad sides. It had two pools, except it seemed like one was always dirty. There were also tadpoles in one and nasty chemicals in the other. They were both green except for when a ton of chlorine was dumped in. However, they were always a nice temperature and there was a place to jump off into the smaller of the two pools. The bigger pool got deep at one end and had a waterfall.

The breakfasts could have been better. We bought fruit to go with them after the first day, and the only two dishes we ever chose were French toast and toast and eggs. The orange juice was prepackaged in little plastic cups before it was poured into our glasses, but the coffee was good (if you like your coffee without cream, sugar, and scaldig hot. There was a creamer and sugar but it took too long to adjust the flavor to suit your personal taste). The rooms were spacious and we were never lacking in toilet paper, but the sheets were never cleaned. We could’ve gotten clean towels more often but sometimes we were home when the cleaning lady came by.

There are also annoying neighbors, but those come and go and we can only blame them for their problems, including yelling nasty things about Harry Styles and One Direction as a whole.

The people on the staff were amazing. They would always smile at us as we walked by and, after the first day, knew which two keys to give us as we walked by the front desk. This hostel was worth the money we paid (not very much) and it was in a great location, so, if a pool and clean sheets aren’t your top priority in a place to stay, I would recommend this place.

Rain, Rain, go away, come again some other Day.

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Preferably when we aren’t there looking areopen air temples up on the hills surrounding our faithful city of Chiang Mai. The rain is good in Thailand, so it bearable.

If I was the rain, I would probably do the same thing that the rain did today, though, but still, why did it have to be on the one day that we went up to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep and Doi Kom.

With rain up on Doi Kom, there are a lot of dogs just sitting underneath cars, but it was still so hot that there were then two good reasons to sit under a car; shade and shelter from the rain. After that, we got on a plane and went off to Bangkok to spend the night at a hotel before getting up early tomorrow morning to catch our flight into New Delhi.

Fun ‘n Games

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Today was our last day in Chiang Mai, here is what we did:

 

Today we went out early to try to find Good Morning Chiang Mai again. We found it, and we ate breakfast there. After that, we walked to the park at the far corner of the inner city of Chiang Mai (remember it)? At the park, my father gave me 20 baht and I got us two mats so we would have something to sit on besides benches. My dad and I shared a mat and I took a nap, because we had had to get up early to get to Good Morning Chiang Mai. After I took a nap, I took my dad’s phone and did a couple of games of sudoku (perfectly) before moving over to Eryn’s mat and playing Train with her. Train is a word game where you have to say a word starting with the letter that your opponent’s word ended in, and the game always has to start with the word “train”. We did a couple (two) of rounds, the first one was one where it had to relate to Thailand, but that got to be too hard so we just skipped that rule, and Eryn won, I got second, and my mother got third. We played a second game that had to be animals, that was pretty hard as well, but we kept to the rules that time and I lost, my mother came in second, and Eryn won (again). After that, I returned the mats to their owners and off we went, away from the park, never to see it again.

And that is what happened in our last full day in Chiang Mai.

Good Morning Chiang Mai Cafe

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We finally found it! We were in a totally wrong part of town when we looked for it last time, but Dad went to its website and we rode a tuk-tuk to Good Morning Chiang Mai Cafe. Well, not directly to it. We rode it to a wat and then walked around the corner to the “eclectic” cafe. The menu was pretty good and I got a tall stack of pineapple pancakes. They were called “Fruit Pancakes” but the only fruit besides pineapple was the watermelon that came with it. Dad had the fruit waffles and the yellow chicken curry, Ethan had the whole-wheat pancakes, Mom had the French toast, and each of us had a mocha, which was just a latte with a pseudonym.

We spent the time eating and looking at the three books in the cabinet by the beanbag I sat in. There were two modern hotel picture books and a book called An Idiot Abroad about a British guy sent by his two friends to go see the seven wonders of the ancient world. Dad does not have a very high opinion of it.

We visited the park in the corner of the old city, and there Ethan and I played hearts and sudoku on our parents’ phones. I also got frustrated with some stupid cannibalistic ants. Our steed home was yet another tuk-tuk, which we rode in only after Dad and the driver haggled over the price.

I’ve decided to let you in on a little secret: we’re going to Boutique della Pasta for supper. Ciao!

Boredom Buster

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I do not know anyone named Buster, but today was filled with boredom. After going to a wat early this morning, we went to breakfast at- yet again- Nature’s Way. I had a latte with chocolate syrup and a banana pancake smothered with chocolate syrup. After that very healthful breakfast, we returned to M.D. House and sat around for the next three hours doing nothing. Okay, we read. But that was it.

Ethan and I were going to go down to the computer room, but our parents had other plans: we needed to go to UPS to mail a package and to the market to buy fruit. On our way to UPS, we stopped at the Thai airlines building and Mom, Ethan, and I got to relax in the air-conditioned room while Dad took care of our flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok.

Once on our way again, we took a left turn and walked down the outer edge of the square part of Chiang Mai to find UPS. Well, we took a wrong turn. We finally discovered this and had to walk back and beyond, going almost to the corner. After buying a box and paying for the shipping, we lost an extremely large amount of money for two reasons: one, we were shipping finished school books home and, two, I sent away my foreign currency that I don’t need on this trip such as colones, pesos, and pounds.

We went back out into the scorching sun and walked around the corner of the city and all the way to the market, where Mom bought mango and pineapple. Ethan and I both got shakes: he got a pineapple shake and I got a mango-banana shake. Never again. Ever!

Once we got home, we did our schoolwork and went on the computers in the computer room. After a short visit there, we retreated to our parents’ room and looked at places to stay in Greece. Don’t worry! I won’t be a spoiler and tell you where we’re going! My dad can do that for me on the itinerary page. Ethan and Mom also finished their game of War. She won.

Supper was, for the third time, at Aum. We have plenty of memories there: playing the guitar (and fighting over it), Dad eating the spoonful of what looked like avocado but was really wasabi [horseradish] that came with our avocado maki (sushi with vegetables instead of meat. Aum is a strictly vegetarian restaurant), playing with the Barbie and trying to make her hair look less greasy, trying to figure out what the yak-like animal under “N” on the alphabet-board was, and discussing what a hard time the people are having at work without Dad. Would you like me to explain the alphabet-board? Well, we dubbed it the Periodic Table of the Elephants. It shows the Thai alphabet and our alphabet, and for each letter is a picture. For example, under the letter B is a bird with a ball and a boyfriend bird. It is named for the elephant under “E” because Ethan asked if it was the Periodic Table of the Elements. I responded, “No. It’s the Periodic Table of the Elephants.” Some of the other ones were not so obvious, but we decided that, yes, it is a xow underneath “X” with 1.5 bottoms.

We got Magnums at the 7-Eleven after discovering that the lady who did our laundry couldn’t find one of my socks. We didn’t get Magnums because of that, mind you, but because we hadn’t had ice cream all day (!) and desperately needed to. I find it amusing how at home a pack of gum costs about $1 and here it costs about $33.33 cents. Ethan wanted to spend his pocket change on things beside just ice cream but we had a record of 1:40 to beat on our way back. Guess what? We didn’t. But we did finish the easiest e-crossword puzzle on the website that I found with 30%. We got all the words/letters right (it tells you), but I kept guessing on the letters which lost us the 70%. With my parents’ help, though, I finally finished it. I absolutely hate to say this, but… I could have never done it without you. Ciao!

Smoothies!

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Today, in the afternoon, we went to the fruit market. There was more than fruit, though, there were fish, clothing and vegetebles. Eryn and I crossed the street and found that there were fruit smoothies as well. For only 20 Thai Baht, I could get a pineapple smoothie which I did. For 40 Thai Baht, Eryn got a banana and mango smoothie. They were really good, and they were so good that Eryn and I were still drinking them half an hour later.

The fish there varied a lot, there were fish dead, fish alive, and fish fried. We didn’t get any, but we saw a lot. And they smelled a lot too.

Buatong Bash by Boon

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Buatong Waterfall was our destination today, and after an hour on the road, we finally made it.

Buatong is named after one of the king of Lanna’s daughters. He and his wife were killed and only his daughters Buakaew and Buatong escaped with their lives. Alas, they had no water in the jungle, so they prayed to one of their goddesses for help. The spring came out of the ground and the girls were saved.

The water contains calcium carbonate which has turned leaves, roots, and other things there into smooth rock. Well, not completely smooth. If you’re climbing up or down the waterfall, you’ll notice that the places where the flow is weak are the slippery parts. (Those parts are also green, brown, or black.) There are three levels, and at the bottom of the third one are two shallow pools (one is made for you to jump into. The other is probably too shallow). The top level is by far the longest. From the spring, there is a deep little stream that turns into the falls. After centuries of flow, there are turns around trees that are perfect little chairs.

The second and third falls are much the same, and for the best part you can, like Ethan and I did, climb all the way up to the top in the falls instead of on the trail. If you want to walk 150 meters, you can see the crystal-clear spring. Besides the waterfall, there is a bathroom (Europeans/Americans be warned: these are not Western toilets) and two places to buy necessary food staples such as fried chicken, papaya salad, and ice cream.

We drove back to Chiang Mai in Mr. Boon’s car. He has been of the utmost help to us and we thanked him greatly. Ciao!

Mista Boon

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Today we got up early (again) to go on a ride with Mr. Boon to the Boatong Waterfall. Once there, we changed into our swimsuits and took off down the steps to one of the lower levels in the warm-ish water. But, since you don’t know what in the world I am talking about, I will describe the waterfall:

The waterfall is made up of four levels, level 1, level 2, level 3, and one that I made up…….Kind of. The top level (1) is the one that you first see when you drive up to park, it is made of limestone and it is surprisingly not slippery. The next level down (2) is about 80 meters down the hill and you take steps to go down to it. There, there are some ankle-deep pools that you can wade in and you can climb the waterfall up to the first level or go down to the third. On the third level down, there is a tall and steep face of the waterfall, but it is still easy to go down, and there are some more ankle-deep pools below it. The level that I made up was the one at the very bottom and it had some deep-ish pools that you could jump into if you decided you wanted to go down some more rocks (or steps, the steps go all the way down).

What we did was skip level 1 because there were a lot of people there, but we stopped at level 2. While at level 2, we climbed up a little and then went down the other side, then waded in the litlle pools before Eryn and I went down the waterfall to level 3 (our parents took the stairs). At level three, I climbed the face a couple of times, and in between, some college age girls wanted their picture with me for some reason. Then we went down to the level that I made up and saw a family jumping in of the edge of a ledge and into a deeper part. I decided to do that and it was a bit colder than in the shallower area. Then Eryn joined me and we both jumped in half a dozen+ times into the water. We (being my father, Eryn, and I) decided that it would be fun to go up, actually, Eryn and I decided, but my dad just followed us. We climbed up steep limestone walls and through shallow pools before reaching the top, where Eryn scraped her toes and started to bleed.

When we arrived at the top, we found my mother sitting there with all of our stuff and we put on our flip-flops and walked up some more stairs to the spring of the stream that created the waterfall. The spring was crystal clear and there were little fish in it. There were also buckets attached to bamboo poles that you could dip into the water and pour on each others heads. We tried out the dippers, and as it turns out, a quart sized amount of water can seem really heavy at the end of a piece of grass.

When we got back to the parking lot area, we saw that a lot more people had come, so we decided to grab ice cream and leave.

Bonjour

Recording Life

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Today Ethan and I finally beat our parents to the breakfast table. We were down at 7:43 am with the intent to pleasantly surprise them (“them” in this case being Mom). After some cajoling, our twosome became four at around 8:19. At church we visited the English Sabbath school and listened to the service and sermon,which was all about what women shoulwe wear according to the Bible, Ellen White, and the speaker herself.

Potluck was the high point, what with one of the boys turning two, and there were noodles, spring rolls, and chocolate cake. Three people from our Sabbath school talked with us about our trip, and we discussed their travels as well. One man had been to India, Australia, Burma, Thailand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Laos, Pakistan, Great Britain, Italy… the list goes on.

Once home, we read: I on my Kindle and Ethan 360 Degrees Longitude. We finally went down to the pool and disrupted the sunbathers’ orderly afternoon. We timed ourselves and I can hold my breath for a pathetic 31 seconds and Ethan a mere 24. I can also do an underwater handstand for only eleven seconds. Once dry, we were dismissed to run to the 7-Eleven for four Magnum bars. It took us 6:44 minutes total, and we were out with the melting and cracking for an astoundingly long time of 2:19. We enjoyed that chocolate as well as our panna cotta at Boutique della Pasta after our potato and olive pizzas. Ciao!

Jump, Splash, Scream

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That is what happened when Eryn and I jumped into the little pool from the jacuzzi above when it was surrounded by college-aged girls who screamed and had to redo their makeup. It was very entertaining…….

We swam for only 20 minutes, but in that time, we scared away some girls, had races, and timed the time we could stay underwater. I noticed that one of the girls was reading Catching Fire and had an iPhone 4 or 4s. I think she put away her book as soon as we started jumping, but weirdly, she took out her iPhone and started doing something on it. Maybe texting her boyfriend, if she has one.

For the races, we put our legs into the lotus position and then proceeded to see who could go from one end of the pool to the other and back (while staying in the lotus position) the fastest. I won the race, but when we continued on to a breath holding contest, I only got 23 seconds while she got 29. Too bad.

The last time that we had swam in that pool, we had noticed that there had been a lot of water bugs and tadpoles due to unchlorinated water. This time, however, when we swam we saw almost no tadpoles, and the one that we saw was very much dead. It was very good to know that we wouldn’t have to be worried at swallowing a live tadpole, but then again, we had to be worried about swallowing a dead tadpole…….Yuk.

Good Morning Chiang Mai

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Today we woke up early at about 7:00 am to get out the door at 7:30 am to get to a restraunt called Good Morning Chiang Mai, which is a little bit south of the M.D. House. We walked for a while, then when we, according to TripAdvisor, were supposed to be there, we weren’t….

So we walked a little ways down the street, still couldn’t find it, and then just decided to go to a cafe with internet that was right next to us. When we got done with the food (which wasn’t very good) we watched the original Hawaii Five-O on the screen in the cafe before heading back to the M.D. House, but not before looking for the Good Morning Chiang Mai which we never found. And that was how we got to be annoyed at how TripAdvisor is always wrong on its maps.

The Search for the Perfect Cafe Take 2

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Mom found the perfect place for breakfast this morning: Good Morning Chiang Mai.

 

Except… it wasn’t there. After spending a trillion hours looking for it, we finally settled on some cheap coffee shop playing So You Think You Can Dance. Their waffle maker wasn’t working, the pancakes were bland, and the fried rice was too onion-y. Ethan said that his mocha was good!

We returned home and did nothing except dip in the pool (we didn’t swim or dunk because it smelled strongly of lethal chemicals) until four. We got up and left for the Central Airport Plaza, where we found Ethan some lightweight shoes, got some chocolate ice cream at Swensen’s (Sticky Chewy Chocolate Fantasy for Mom and me, Chocolate Crunch for Dad, and an waffle bowl of some sort for Ethan), and had pad Thai noodles for supper. Ethan also got a pineapple shake afterward (we all tried some- so good!) and we all rode home in a little songtow. Ciao!

Conversational Monk

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Yes, we went to another temple today. Actully, we just went up to Doi Suthep to see the veiw and just hang around in the outer courtyard. After an interesting ride made up of 2 different songtows, we finally got up to the top on empty stomachs, which is probably the right thing, considering that we skipped breakfast in the morning, we walked up the great multitude of stairs to get to the outer courtyard that had a bunch of bells and large gongs (about 6 feet in diameter for one of the larger ones).

After walking around a little ways, we were looking at the veiw that wasn’t that much of a veiw, and a monk approached us, and with his somewhat limited English, began to tell us that he had come from an island in the south and showed us a map (in English!) of the island on which he lived. He also asked how old Eryn and I were and we replied in turn. It was a very interesting conversation because some of us thought that he was trying to get us to buy a tour boat service around the island that he lived on, but who knows??
Still, though, it was an interesting conversation.

Sunshiny Days

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Our father decided that we should get up at the awful time of 6:40 am to be able to leave our hostel at 7:30 for Doi Suthep, the wat up on the hill. After climbing 618 steps and watching Ethan slowly eat a cup of hot corn (and discovering that the waffle man doesn’t get to his shop before 9:30 am), we climbed back in our songtow and headed down the hill.

Once we returned to Chiang Mai and had breakfast yet again at Nature’s Way, we did homework, ate Magnum bars, and played Temple Run until about 3 o’clock. That was when we left for Mom and Dad’s foot massages (Ethan decided not to at the last minute) and my manicure (purple and gold!). Ethan sat on the couch for the whole hour and enjoyed the sticky rice candies. Each massage cost US$5 for one hour, and my manicure cost US$5 as well.

We returned to our rooms, took our doxy, and left at around approximately 6:44 pm for supper, which we had at Ourhouse, the restaurant  associated with the Ourhouse 3 guest house. The little girl of one of the servers, who was wearing a pink dress with Minnie Mouse on the front and Mickey Mouse on the back, was trying to be helpful. She achieved this by taking Ethan’s empty Fanta bottle and napkin off our table, which was only a few inches shorter than her.

It had been roasting hot all day, and as we left the restaurant, the rain started to fall. We had heard the thunder, seen the lightning, and felt the sudden chill, but we didn’t know when it was going to rain. We left in the nick of time. Ciao!

Open Casket Burial at Sea

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Yes, I know that we aren’t at sea, but there was a water burial today, and it was my hair……….So sad. Since Eryn and my mother were gone at a cooking class most of the day, my father took it into his hands to cut my hair. Since we didn’t have scissors and  I didn’t want a buzz cut, he used his hair trimmer to cut my hair, and he cut it very short. When he was done, there was so much hair that we couldn’t just wash it down the drain in the shower, we had to give it the finest burial that we could have in a bathroom. Not that many choices there, are there? Sadly, we didn’t have a goldfish to go with it. When I finally looked at myself in the mirror, I saw how short he had cut it and swore to myself that I would wear a hat for the next month.

As it turns out, I didn’t, we went to one of those ever present 7-11s and got me some hair gel. Then we got ice cream. It was very good and we relished every last bite of it.

For dinner we went to Boutique della Pasta and we had a Caprese, two Bruschettas, pine nut and raisin ravioli, ravioli with greens, and ravioli with ricotta with walnut. Last, (but definately not the least) we had a dessert of chocolate Panna Cotta. It was very good.

“Our Food is Guaranteed to Make You Look Pregnant”

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That’s what the wall at the Thai Kitchen Cookery Centre says. (Not that I would know. I never saw the sign in person. I just saw it on the camera.) The Thai Kitchen Cookery Centre is where Mom and I went today for seven-and-a-half hours, from nine o’clock to four-thirty.

We were picked up at approximately 9:01 this morning. We were the first of nine in our songtow and were followed by three British guys and a group of four with a couple from Malaysia and a couple from China. After a few minutes at the Centre eating sugared dried bananas, we got back in our songtow and rode to the market on the other side of the river. After our “guide,” Aum, showed us how to make coconut cream, which chilies are spiciest, and more, we had ten minutes to look around as she bought our groceries. I bought a pink Thai cupcake for five baht. Mom and I ate some of it (I didn’t like it very much) and saved the rest for Ethan and Dad.

Our ten minutes were up and we joined the rest of our group at the table with our baskets. We each got to carry some groceries out to the songtow. Upon our return to the Centre, we split into groups according to what noodle/rice we were making (the rice and noodles were pre-made). I was making the thick Thai rice noodles, so I joined a group with Tae and some others. (Tae is kind of important, but I’ll tell why in a few lines.) We cooked our egg, chicken, noodles, and herbs and ate the delicious dish. After we made that, we made and deep-fried our spring rolls (but we couldn’t have the peanut dipping sauce too spicy because we have a kid in our group [me]) and went to work on our green curry paste. This we added to our green curry, which included chilies (with the seeds taken out), chicken, eggplants (mini, of course), and some herbs.

Do you want to hear about Tae now? She’s from Wales and left her job for two-and-a-half months with her boyfriend Richard (who was also at the Centre). The reason she’s important is because she and I cooked the exact same things except for the dessert.

Before we could eat that, though, we had to make our stir-fried dish. I had chosen sweet and sour (my favorite!). That made, we joined the others in the air-conditioned room and savored the curry and stir-fry. The curry was amazing (mostly because there were hardly any spices in it), but the sweet and sour was kind of tasteless. We only had four pieces of pineapple to put in the stir-fry, but all four were very, very, very good.

We had an hour-long rest from eating, and then we made our desserts. Only three of us had chosen to make the fried banana with vanilla ice cream (the ice cream was pre-made). The other options were black rice pudding and sticky rice with mango. I tried my mom’s sticky rice with mango and found the rice’s sauce too salty for my taste. My banana and ice cream, on the other hand, was to die for. So was my panna cotta at supper tonight at Botique della Pasta. Ethan and I had it last time we were there, so we knew just what dessert to get. Ciao!

Hot and Dangerous

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That would be the sun. Today it was more than that: it was a skin-burning, egg-frying, ice cream-melting, sweat-inducing, kid-blinding, plant-withering ball of fiery fire. How do we know? We spent two hours in the light of the very same star you just read about. Where were we? We were at the Ratchapruek Royal Gardens, about 10K southwest of M.D. House.

It was apparently funded by government agencies and large companies like Toyota and AirAsia. Some of the buildings were more interesting than others, like the Groundwater building. Ethan took the time to pump all six water pumps in the front as we watched in the blessed shade. After that, we walked a bit farther to a little pond with a pagoda. Ethan and I were supposed to go to the pagoda and smile for the camera. I’m not really sure if we did that. All we really did was scare the hundreds of little fishies and make the water boil. On our way back to the main walkway, we saw a boot in a different pond. I’m still of the opinion that there is a body attached to it.

After drifting through the orchid section, we found the playground. It is hardly worth mentioning, but I will say this: there was a whale slide.

After [too] much more drifting, we found ourselves at the entrance buying deliciously cold water in .6 liter bottles. Those finished, we walked up to the monument for the king and looked at the walls, which show of his love for his subjects.

Our alotted time over, we climbed back in our song tao and rode off into the sunset. 🙂 Ciao!

All Flora and no Fauna

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Today we went to the Ratchaphreuk Royal Gardens and walked around for a ways, there was an orchid farm in it and it had a maze-like collection of paths that connected the sides and the back. As far as I could see, there were very few orchids, but there were lots of plants. When I heard from my mother that Eryn was in the back, I went there immediately and tried sneaking up on her but the fountain was motion activated so she knew that I was there before I even knew where she was. Then Eryn and I hung out in the back and interested ourselves with looking at the sign that said “Do not Inhale” and it was in front of a flower. I didn’t inhale. We sat back there until our parents came to the back an finished looking at the orchids.

There was also a couple of small ponds that had so many fish in them. There was a pagoda out on the biggest pond and fish stayed right underneath it so when they came out you could almost reach down and grab one, there were so many. I would have, but they are fast fish, instead, I got myself wet. Eryn also humored herself by taking off her flip flop and waving it right over the fish so the all ran in different directions. In one of the smaller ones, there was a pipe going through it and on that pipe there were a lot of snails the size of my fist. There was also a boot floating upside down and Eryn seriously wondered whether it was connected to a person, I said ‘no’.

The Royals

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  • Bhumibol Adulyadej- His Majesty’s full name is Phra Bat Somdet Phra Poramintharamaha Bhumibol Adulyadej Mahitalathibet Ramathibodi Chakkrinaruebodin Sayamminthrathirat Borommanatbophit” (Thai: พระบาทสมเด็จพระปรมินทรมหาภูมิพลอดุลยเดช มหิตลาธิเบศรรามาธิบดี จักรีนฤบดินทร สยามินทราธิราช บรมนาถบพิตร). He is called Rama the Ninth  as he is the ninth in his line, and his job is called “Ruler of the Country.”
    There are three books about His Majesty: The King Never Smiles, The Devil’s Discus, and The Revolutionary King. All three are written in English; The Devil’s Discus is written in Thai as well. All three are also banned in Thailand, as well as The King and I.  However, in 1985, the king and queen went to see The King and I on Broadway.
    He was born in 1927 Cambridge, Massachusetts, and  is the only American king. (He has dual-citizenship.)
    If you come to Thailand, do not dare to write His Majesty’s name in red ink. Writing someone’s name in red means that they are dead or that you wish them to be dead.
    HM is also an excellent saxophone player and has played with some of the world’s best jazz musicians. 
  •  Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya- Rajakanya is the oldest child of the king of Thailand. She has a younger brother and two sisters who are even younger than him. She has two daughters and had an autistic son, who died at 21 in a tsunami in 2004.
    She was born on April 5, 1951, in Switzerland. When she was sixteen, she and her father competed in the fourth SEA Games and won gold medals in sailing. Her parents nicknamed her La Poupée, which means “doll.” Eventually, it was shortened to Pée.
    The princess was born with the titles of “Her Royal Highness” and “Chao Fa,” but these she relinquished because she married an American commoner. She still holds the style of Tunkramom Ying, meaning “Daughter to the Queen Regent.”
    Her father is sadly getting older and will soon no longer reign. There is hot debate about who will follow him: will it be the princess, who everyone likes because she helps the Thai people, or will it be the prince, who would continue the tradition by becoming Rama X and who would get angry if his sister got the title but who the people think doesn’t deserve it? Ponder deeply.

    Ciao!

     

What Wat??

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Today was not a busy day, and we sat around and had naps for a big chunk of the day. In the morning, we had gone to Nature’s Way (again) and we sat around and had the same things as last time; mango and banana pancakes. An hour after we finished breakfast, we headed down the road for two Wats. One of the Wats was really big and had an old temple with elephant statues on the side of it and the other had a large temple building inside and was pretty big…..In the afternoon, Eryn and I swam in the deeper of the two pools and had a lot of fun, less fun, perhaps, when Eryn accidentally  made a big scratch on my back. For supper we went to back to the place where we had met the Oregonian family and didn’t see them but dined anyway.

Market Day

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Today was hot. Okay, compared to, say, what we’ll experience in India, it was not hot. But to our inexperienced selves, it was very hot. And we decided to walk (walk??? in summer in Thailand??? who does that???) to Wat Chedi Luang and Wat Phra Singh. Once we were done at Wat Phra Singh, much to our relief, Ethan got us a tuk-tuk and we rode home.

Once at home, we lounged around for a bit after getting more Magnum bars and sandwich cookies (including blueberry ice cream Oreos) from the 7-Eleven. We finally went swimming in the wonderfully cool pool. Once we got tired of that, we dried off, organized (i.e., deleted) more pictures, retrieved our clothes from the laundromat, and went in search of supper.

We didn’t find it at first. We were going to try Botique della Pasta again, but we passed it at 6:05, and it opens at 6:30. What a bummer. So we decided to try street food at the Sunday night market. All we ate in the “food court” section was a fried banana with a sugary sauce. It was good, but not very filling.

We looked around the market, and it didn’t seem that different from the Jatujak market, which was in Bangkok. Well, there was more variety in Bangkok. The Sunday night market in Chiang Mai is just a street that goes from wall to wall. It is lined with people selling their trinkets, baubles, and food and is filled with tourists, Thais, and musicians trying to earn a few baht. We bought two lamps (one for Ethan, one for me) and tried out our bargaining skills. We ended up with both lamps- originally 160 baht each, but we got a “discount” so it was 150 apiece- at 280 baht total (about US$3.70). After we walked up and down the street several times and looked at several restaurants, we decided on Aroon Rai, where we’ve gone before. (Mr. Boon recommended it.)

The food was good, as usual, and afterward we went to “Bird’s” (you want the real name? Fine. It was Bud’s.) With almost no chocolate left, we had limited choices. Well, there were only ten flavors in the first place, and only a few of those had chocolate (we can “only” eat ice cream with chocolate!). Mom had one scoop of rocky road, Ethan had one scoop each of rocky road and cookies and cream, Dad had one scoop each of rocky road and mocha almond, and I had a scoop of peanut butter (there was chocolate in that. Just a very small amount). It was very, very, very good (and it was cold, too. That made it even better!). Ciao!

To the Zoo!!!

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Today we went to the zoo in the early afternoon and stayed for about two hours. It was fun to feed the giraffes pieces of banana straight from your/my hand. We were going to go to the so-called “snow dome” but it turned out to be just an opportunity to get your picture taken in 19.4 degrees Fahrenheit next to a styrofoam snow man……Not exactly the best thing to do, even if it was only eighteen dollars for the four of us. Anyway, we also saw an elephant that had its tusks curled together so that it couldn’t skewer people in the passing buses that sometimes stopped there. The zoo also seemed so proud of the fact that it had some pandas, and it even had a gift shop that had some panda-dung notepads. We saw a couple of different varieties of big cats, including tigers, white tigers, lions, leapords, and panthers, and for the leapord, for twenty baht, I fed it a piece of beef on a stick.

The Search for the Perfect Café

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This morning, other than breakfast and updating the pictures on this site, we did… nothing!!! We were going to go to church, but the English service started at 9 am. This we discovered at 11. Eventually, we left with a certain destination in mind. To get there we had to ride in a songtow, which is a red “bus” that works like a taxi but has multiple stops with each load, as different people want to go different places. These are usually red with green padding on the benches and walls of the truck, but there are also yellow songtow. We call these “yellow red buses.” The lining of our songtow was pink.

Chiang Mai Zoo is what the sign says. But it is more than that. It is also a place to buy ice cream, land of the [lame] Snow Dome (-7 degrees Celsius, but it’s only really a photo oppurtunity), and the place to feed big cats (leopards, jaguars, pumas) and hand-feed giraffes. AND it is the only location of the Loo Café (I misread “Zoo” on the cursive sign).

After a very refreshing swim with Louisa (remember her? She’s the one who likes One Direction.), my family members chose the Free Bird Café for supper. It was being renovated. So we walked some more and found a [really good] Indian restaurant. The garlic naan is to die for!!!

Now I’m sitting next to Mom as she gets a foot massage. She says, “It’s wonderful… I could do this every [week].” Hmm. For US$5, I bet you could (and would) do it too! Ciao!

R&R

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After an extremely good breakfast at Nature’s Way consisting of mango pancakes, banana pancakes, dragon fruit, Thai iced tea, and shakes, we did pretty much nothing the rest of the day. Well, nothing other than school and sorting pictures and reading. At around 2 pm, we finally got ourselves moving: Ethan and I went swimming for half an hour. I also got frustrated with some tiny ants for not caring about when we submerged the others (we didn’t let any die, though!). Then we decided we needed Magnum ice cream bars like we had yesterday. So Ethan and I got to go by ourselves (!) to the 7-Eleven a couple yards down the street. We got three chocolate truffle bars and one chocolate ice cream cone, which was for Ethan.

For supper we went to a suggested restaurant: Aum. It had a very small downstairs and a fair-sized loft. We ate in the loft, where you could recline on chairs and play with the toys in the toy basket, including…. BARBIE!!! 🙂 Well, all we really did with her was do her greasy hair. Who knew synthetic hair could be greasy???

Our meal was good. We had deep-fried soybean leaves in tempura, red curry, spring rolls, green beans in a spicy sauce, brown rice, sweet and sour vegetables, and deep-fried tofu. To drink, I had a frothy pineapple lassi, which seemed the same as a pineapple smoothie. Apparently it’s made with yogurt, but I detected no difference. Ethan had apple Fanta, which he said tasted like Listerine mouthwash. Dad had a pineapple-lemon shake, and Mom had a banana-orange smoothie. For dessert, Dad and I went to the 7-Eleven and bought four types of cookies for 40 baht (about US$1.34): double-chocolate Cream-Os (Oreo wannabes), vanilla-chocolate Cream-Os, and strawberry and blueberry cookies, both by Dewberry. So far, the blueberry cookies have been the worst. Ciao!

Chiang Mai has Delicious Ice Cream

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Today we went nowhere. How fun…….Actually, it was fun, because we got to do what we wanted to do and nothing was scheduled so we just sat around in the air conditioning reading books and sorting pictures on the computer. The highlight of my day (and probably Eryn’s too) was swimming in the pool. The water was a little cold and we had to dunk a couple of times before we were warmed up enough to swim around. We had a couple of races and breath holding contests before we “discovered” a new stroke and I call it the squid stroke. It is where you are going back-first underwater and you just kick, and you don’t use your arms. Also, when I came back from using the bathroom, Eryn was giving a lecture to some ants that were walking across the filter in search of food; she was blocking one off to prove that they didn’t care about one another and all they cared about was getting food back to their home. As it turns out, she was right, and when she barricaded an ant off from the rest and it was stuck, no other ant came out to help it. When we got out of the pool, we read a little bit before going across the street to an ever-present 7-11 and bought ice cream for us all. It was really good. I got a chocolate cone, and the rest of my family had a Chocolate Truffle Magnum Bar. When we got back, my dad was editing pictures from the wax museum, and some of the pictures were of Eryn with “Justin Beiber.” Oolala……not.

Splish Splash goes the Elephant

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Today we went to an elephant training camp and rode elephants for some of the day, here are some of the things that we did,

Getting There, A pickup truck picked us up at our place and we got to ride up to the mountain tops with my family, a couple from Canada, some french people, and two young women from England. It was a very bumpy ride once we had gotten off of the paved road and it was mostly dirt. Sometimes, though, there were strips of concrete that you could drive on that were very narrow. When we finally got there, we saw a bunch of elephants and their trainers working on some projects. We had to follow all of the elephants up a mountain trail and across the same stream three times to get up to the base camp where there were some tables and bathrooms.

Training, Before we started anything, they gave us clothes to change into so that we did not get any of our clothes that we had on sopping wet. The clothes were just an itchy shirt and some itchy pants, it was all very itchy. When we were all changed, we started our training. We had to learn about the elephants and their basic commands, it was very interesting, and I do not really remember anything except for that saying “by” makes the elephants go forward. We also learned how to get onto our elephants that we were going to ride.

Riding in a Loop, When we started out, we rode two to an elephant and rode in a small loop that lasted about 30 minutes. My dad and I were at the front of the line of elephants and the guy that was leading tossed back a bunch of bananas that we could feed to our elephant that we were riding. Our elephant was a mother of a 6 month old calf, and the calf stayed up with us the whole ride, and the guide gave it some pieces of sugar cane. While we were riding around in the loop through some marshy grasslands, it started to rain and we were glad when we finally got back to the “camp” to eat lunch.

Lunch, When we got back from the short ride of about 30 minutes, we found lunch prepared for us at one of the tables under a roof. Lunch consisted of noodles wrapped in banana leaves and spring rolls that you got to make yourself. That was all pretty good and we all ate a good amount, when we got done, we started out on another elephant ride up to a waterfall.

The Waterfall, When we finished lunch and the other group had come back, we got back onto our elephants and started up the hill to the waterfall, which formed a pool that stayed in place because bags of soil made a small wall. At the waterfall, there was a young elephant that was trained to spray people with water from its trunk and we all got wet from that. Also, you could pose with an elephant or get “kissed” by one and then you would have an interesting picture. You could also scrub the elephant with brushes that were up there or you could splash other people with water from buckets. On the way back to the camp, we rode on a different path that went uphill a lot but still down hill a lot. When we got to camp, we changed out of our wet clothes and back into our dry ones so that we did not smell like elephant on the ride back down the mountain.

Going back DOWN, The ride back down was a bit more slippery because it had rained and the road was all slick, but we did not crash, which was very good. Once we got back onto paved roads, our driver took us to a place that sold ice cream and we all got some. When we finally got back to our home at the M.D. House, we started on “real” work…….

Evening Fun, In the late afternoon and evening, Eryn and I swam in the other pool and found a pair of sunglasses and tried to jump in and come up with the sunglasses still in place. When we finished, we went upstairs like obedient little children and started our schoolwork. For supper, we went to a place that Mr. Boon had recommended us to go to and right on the table next to us, there was a family from Portland……WOW!!! My mother chatted with them for a little while before Eryn my dad and I joined her and we talked a little about our trip and the fact that they are away from home for 6 weeks. Their family consisted of a 6 year old girl named Sadi, a 13 year old girl named Summer, a dad named Jim, and a mom named Brook. On our way back home to the M.D. House, we stopped and an ice cream shop and got some more ice cream to take back to the M.D. The ice cream was really good and I think that we all enjoyed it. Anyway…..When we got back, Eryn and I finished up on homework and read a little bit out of our books.

Dumbo

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The Disney elephant certainly had big ears, and, compared to the size of his body, they were humongous. But he probably grew into them. Our elephants today at Ran Tong Elephant Training had huge ears. True, they were all full-grown, but, true, they weren’t blue animations.

After a long drive up a road that makes our gravel road at home seem like a newly-paved freeway, we arrived at the camp. Since we were the first group to arrive, the elephants and the cook and all the mahouts were there to meet us. We walked for about five minutes, giving us time to think about what we were about to do and who we were with.

First there were the two college-aged British girls. One especially (Lizzie, I think) was outgoing and laughing. The other girl was quiet around the other eight of us until the ride home. Maybe it was because the oldest two in the group- my parents- were in the cab of the pick-up, but maybe not. Then there was the Canadian couple. They spoke both French and English fluently, which is good because they’re going to university in Ottawa and I overheard them say that the university classes are taught mainly in French. She is a med school student who will graduate in 2014 (there was a sign on her backpack). The French couple was probably relieved to find more French-speakers on the trek, but they could speak English just fine.

We finally arrived at the Ran Tong camp. The Canadian couple, Ethan, our guide, and I were the first to arrive (everyone else was behind the mom and baby elephants). We were given our mahout clothes and told to change. Because Ethan and I are so small, we had red shirts and everyone else had pink striped shirts. The rope on the shorts went around me twice and dragged a couple inches on the ground.

We sat at the picnic table under the first shelter and listened to our guide explain the instructions for an elephant. “Sie” is left, “qua” is right, “how” is stop, “toi” is back, and “bie” is forward. We then practiced on the one male elephant they had and then boarded our own. Everyone had to ride with someone else except the two Canadians. Luckies.

Ethan and I were the drivers on our elephants, and Dad was Ethan’s passenger and Mom was mine. Our elephant was always begging for bananas (which we had). We were at the end and Dad and Ethan were one of the two elephants at the front. The four elephants in the back were so slow because we all got stuck behind the biggest elephant.

After a short ride, we went to the second shelter for lunch: pineapple, noodles, and make-your-own spring rolls. The second group had arrived by then and went on the elephants for the short ½ hour introductory ride. By the time we finished lunch, a third group (that was thankfully only hiking, not riding) had arrived and the second group had started their lunch. We got on the elephants for a second time, this time going to a waterfall. Mom and I rode a 22-year-old elephant named Mesvah (or something close to that).  Once at the waterfall, two elephants were left behind as the others went to go bring the second group. We were supposed to wash them, but Mom, Dad, and I weren’t too keen on the getting wet part. We did go in the water for the pictures, though. There were certainly a lot of those. We also got sprayed by the elephant, which is why one side of me was soaked and the other side was hardly wet. (I was facing away from the elephant so I wouldn’t get water in my eyes.)

After the elephants finally returned with their human loads, we got on- this time I was with Dad- and rode back to camp on the path that went up and down the side of the hill instead of along the stream. My passenger was groaning the whole time, and it was uncomfortable too.

As he put it, “It’s like riding a piece of plywood with a three-inch bump in the middle.” That’s because he rode on the actual back, not at the neck like I did. It started raining once we were about half way through, and, combined with the waterfall water, we were soaked by the time we returned to the camp. We changed into our own clothes and walked to the truck. There we saw the cook. She had slipped in the mud from the rain and her whole back was covered in mud. And her shirt was white.

The rain had also done wonders to the road. Well, not really. It seemed the same as before just with slightly deeper puddles. I was on the end of the bench that was at the edge of the bed, so I could “almost” fall out (but only if I tried). My parents were smart enough to grab a ride in the air-conditioned cab. As we drove down the road that consisted of two one-foot-wide lines of concrete (washed away in places by the torrential rains), we peered behind us at the slick road that was really only red mud. Oh, yes, and the concrete!

We stopped at a little roadside store for drinks, but only Lizzie bought a drink (a can of Coca-Cola). However, all of us bought either a Magnum chocolate cone or ice cream bar- “made with real Belgian chocolate!” They were so good. There a can of seaweed Pringles was bought, and those of us in the bed of the truck shared the chips on the way to Chiang Mai. They just tasted like regular Pringles instead of some “special” flavor.

We dropped of the two Brits first, and then came the M.D. House. We were the only ones who got out, but it was good to be home, sweet home, at last. Ciao!

Tigers!!!!!

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Today, we went on a tour with Mr. Boon and got to see a couple of things, here is the list: we went to Wat Umong, Doi Suthep, the Orchid Farm, and the Tiger place.

Mr. Boon picked us up at our place and took us to the following things, waiting for us at each place:

Wat Umong: Wat Umong is a temple up on the hills surrounding Chiang Mai, it has a tunnel system that runs underneath some bricks, where there are bowls and multiple statues of Buddha. It also has a lake where you can buy food and feed it to the pigeons or the fish, sounds kind of anti-temple, doesn’t it? Then we went to Doi Suthep

Doi Suthep: Doi Suthep is a temple on another hill that is built on the place where a white elephant died. The legend tells it that a king ordered that wherever the elephant died, a temple had to be built, and so, there was a temple, and there was a hermit there named Suthep, so someone named the temple Doi Suthep, after that hermit. It took about 100 steps of vendors and 200 of steep stairs (300 total) to get to the top of the hill where the temple is situated (there was also a tram, but we didn’t use that). Once on the top, you can either go up a little bit further to the inner part of the temple or walk around the outer bit, we chose the former. Inside the top part, there is a golden dome that people walk around saying prayers. There are a couple of Buddhas with five heads, and a green-colored stone that was made into a Buddha. There was also a little stone wall that was covered in coins. There were two buildings on opposite sides of the inner courts that both had a bunch of Buddhas and some elephant tusks. After we saw all of that, we went down to the outer courts and explored a little bit there. There are two big drums laying on their sides in carts, also, there are a lot of different bells. Then there is a statue in commemeration to the white elephant that “founded” the temple. Then we began our grueling descent back down the mountainside. When we got down about three quarters of the way, we came across a man selling waffles, so we bought a few. There were waffle sandwiches with chocolate inside, and a banana fried that was wrapped in waffle. My dad ordered some corn across the way. Then we went to the Orchid Farm.

Orchid Farm: At the orchid farm, the first part of it is a butterfly enclosure with lots of different types of butterfly. After that, we went out of the other door of the enclosure and entered the “real” orchid farm. In that part, there were lots of different colors of orchids, red, purple, blue, orange, pink, and a lot more that I don’t care to list. In the gift shop, there were some necklaces that were made out of real butterflies and orchids, they had been dipped in some sort of glaze and then rimmed with gold. Then we went to the Tiger place.

The Tiger place: At the tiger place, there were 3 different kinds of tigers that we got to see and touch, large (full grown), small (“teenagers”), and smallest (cubs.) Eryn and I were only allowed to see the small and smallest ones, too bad. I liked the small ones the best (maybe they just reminded me of me when I fight my sister, but who knows???) because the were more fun to be around since the littlest ones who didn’t do much at all. Later, when we were having snacks of ice cream and pineapple juice, we saw a man playing with the full grown tigers, making them chase some pieces of dried grass. Eventually, one of them got it and sat there, in the little pond, chewing on it while the rest of them chased a “flying” coconut. Then we went back to our place.

Our place: When we got back to our place, Eryn and I swam in the pool before going inside and working on schoolwork. Boring…….Yawn. Anyway, when we got done sorting some of our pictures and doing most of our schoolwork, we all went to the Italian place right down the road from the M.D. House (our place.) For supper, we had pasta and ice cream. YUM!!

Tomorrow: Tomorrow, we are going to an elephant place by a bumpy pick up truck ride. We have to get up at around 6:30 AM to be downstairs and waiting to be picked up somewhere in between 8:00 and 8:30, and somewhere in there, we have to squeeze in breakfast. Now that is going to be soooo much fun.

Happy Fourth!

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Today was spent with our friend Mr. Boon, who had driven us home from the train station on Monday and was familiar (in detail) with Chiang Mai. We had him drive us around to various places, and he was also a very valuable source of information about a lot of things, ranging from King Rama IX to Thai schools to street food.

The places we went to today were as follows:

  1. Wat Umong- the tunnel temple. We were slightly dissapointed, I think, because on Trip Advisor it said that there were plenty of temples, it was interesting, etc. There was a fish pond, too, and apparently it is a good investment to buy fish and pigeon feed and sell it to visitors at the wat. There were two Thai ladies there who had dozens of pigeons around them.
    We were also growled and fauxtacked by the stray mutts there. There must be at least twenty of those creatures there.
  2. Doi Suthep- There are 309 stairs to get to the wat at the top. That, OR you can take the tram. Obviously we walked. On our way down we stopped at the waffle shop, and Ethan and I got waffle-and-chocolate sandwiches and Mom got a wafflized banana. (A banana wrapped in waffle.)
  3. Orchid and butterfly farm- One of the most beautiful places in the world. First we went in the butterfly section, where Mom, Ethan, and I got some amazing pictures. Drifting on into the orchid part, we found the best and most colorful blooms placed at the ends of the long aisles, but there were some pretty ones in the actual aisles, too. The most interesting part? The orchids aren’t in pots; they’re just hung from a hook once they get to a certain size/age.
  4. Tiger Kingdom- I’ll admit it now: I was scared going into it. I was thinking, They’ll bite. Of course they’ll bite. I’ve seen Animal Planet enough. They stress that, despite what it seems, animals like tigers are still wild animals and can still act viciously.
    Which they (kind of) did. Just not to me, or anyone, for that matter. Just to their playmates.
    We couldn’t go in and see the newborns in the nursery because it was off-limits to visitors, and Ethan and I couldn’t get in the cage with the big cats because we’re under 15 and less that 160 centimeters tall. But Mom and Dad survived.
    We did get to cuddle with the 3-4-month-olds and laugh at the 5-7-month-olds’ antics. That wasn’t even the best part- we got to see three (and, sometimes, all four) of the big tigers play after we had our ice cream and pineapple drinks. They destroyed all the toys that got in their reach, though.
  5. M.D. House- Where we swam. It only rained for about three minutes total today.
  6. Boutique della Pasta- An Italian restaurant for supper. We all shared the appetizers: caprese and bruschetta. I had pumpkin-carrot ravioli, my dad had cheese ravioli, Ethan had an orange sauce with his pasta, and my mom had a pesto sauce with hers. We all had dessert. Ethan and I had a sort of chocolate pudding (Panna Cotta), Mom had tiramisu, and Dad had, I think, a scoop of chocolate ice cream. That was when we heard the fireworks, reminding us to celebrate our country’s independence from Britain.
    We asked the lady who worked there what the fireworks were for, and she said some sort of festival. Mr. Boon had explained that tonight all those who wanted went the 15K up the hill to Doi Suthep. It was a traditional Buddhist Chiang Mai celebration of sorts.
    Still, I’m sticking with it: some Americans set those fireworks off knowing today was the fourth of July.

 Ciao!

When in Chiang Mai

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So, we arrived in Chiang Mai last Sunday and have found our place of residence; the B.D. House in the inner city.

Our accommodations are situated right inside the moat that surrounds the old city. It is a fairly large place with two pools, but it has only a small breakfast menu. We are in the second building, on floor 3, and we are one of the few people on our floor.

Let me fill you in on what happened since I left you in Bangkok:

  • We got to the train station around 4:30 PM on Sunday after we had gone to 3 different malls in the center of town. On the train ride, we had first class seats (did I say seats, I meant bunks) that were in adjoining compartments. On the train ride, we had supper, which was good, and breakfast was pretty sparse, the only part that most of us ate was the toast with butter. It was a bumpy night, but most of us slept all right, but still, we were all tired in the morning.
    When we got to Chiang Mai, we went to our place by a taxi man (who had a long Thai name, so he called himself “Mr. Boon” and said that Daniel was his brother) and went to the park at the corner of the old town after a time where we just sat on a couch for a while. Then we tried to go to an Italian resturaunt, but found out that it was closed, so we went to a place a little ways down the street from our place that served good food, and both Eryn and my mother commented on how great the iced tea was.

Today:

  • Today, when we went down to breakfast, Eryn, my mother, and I all got “french toast” which was little more than glorified toast.Then we went to the Airport Plaza Mall and went around the food court, eating coconut ice cream and fried bananas. When we came “home” Eryn and I swam, and met a 13-year-old girl from Brazil named Louisa. When we got out of the pool, we went upstairs and got our schoolwork done, before going out to supper in a tuk-tuk. It took us about an hour to get there, because our driver didn’t know where in the world (Chiang Mai, that is) our resturaunt. The food there was o.k. But it wasn’t my style. It was a curry soup that you got to put your own condements on, such as cabbages, challots, fish sauce, coconut milk, sugar, lime, pepper paste, and banana slices. As it turns out, when we got a tuk-tuk to go back, it only took us about 5 minutes to get back.

Tomorrow, we are going to go on a ride with Mr. Boon and go to tourist places. Then, on Thursday, we are going to the elephant farm. And that is as far as we have planned ahead.

Our 2 days in Chiang Mai have been very nice and interesting ones, and we hope to have many more.

Taking M.D. House by Storm!

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We finally arrived at M.D. House around 9:30 yesterday morning. There we spent about five hours sleeping, rehydrating, reading, and eating (Jelly Bellies, of course!). We soon decided that we had done nothing for long enough, and we set out to find the Buak Haad City Park, which is about as far away from M.D. House as you can get while staying in the old city (it was the original Chiang Mai. Funny thing: Chiang Mai means “new city.”).

The old city (built in 1296 by King Mengrai) is almost a perfect square. It is surrounded by a moat and walls that were built to protect it from Burma, which was a constant threat to the Thais who lived there. Chiang Mai was Chiang Rai’s successor as capital of the Lanna Kingdom. It was also another replacement- the replacement of the old city called Wiang Nopburi, which was once a bustling city on the same land as Chiang Mai is today. The walls are ever-shrinking because of erosion and people.

The park itself was full of teenaged Thai couples just out of school (It seems like Thai kids go to school every day of the year, even now, in July, and on Saturdays and Sundays.) and male pigeons trying to get a girl. Ethan took the oppurtunity to ride the swings that were chairs (they had backs), and the rest of us just sat and soaked up the shade. Ah, what a life! And then our stomachs growled.

We had had next to nothing to eat the whole day, just some water, juice, hot chocolate, and two slices of bread for breakfast on the train. Oh, and a handful of Jelly Bellies. Can’t get much better than that!

So we returned to our hostel and found the perfect place for supper: Boutique della Pasta. Yes, it is Italian. Well, we never tried it. After we finally found it on the alley we had passed ten minutes earlier, we discovered it was closed. But we kept going, knowing there were more Thai restaurants nearby. We finally found it, a place with a name that we can’t remember, where we found young coconut curry, spring rolls, mango curry, glass noodles, banana curry, and the best iced tea I have ever had. (I don’t usually have iced tea.) It seemed like it was sweetened with honey, but it just had condensed milk and sugar in it. It was mostly ice in the cup, yes, but ohsogood.

After the bill had been paid, we returned home and swam in the less green of the two pools. The waterfall had sadly been turned off, and the water seemed almost frigid, but we got numb and got used to it.

This morning we ate a meager breakfast and planned our two weeks here. Our plan for today had originally included the Dok Mai Garden, but it got shortened to just the Central Airport Plaza. Now that’s a plaza. (Haha. It’s a mall.) We only did the first floor and the below-ground floor. There’s a Northern Village section of each floor with handicraft items from some of the villages here in northern Thailand. On the food court floor (below-ground), there was a HUGE Thai food section, and we enjoyed two sticks from Banana Grill and coconut ice cream in a coconut. The sticks had three flattened slices of banana that were grilled and dipped in a delicious sauce. The coconut ice cream was just coconut ice cream, except for it was topped with nuts and it was in a coconut with real coconut shavings in it. Yum!

While swimming after all that hard shopping, we met a Brazilian girl named Louisa. She’s (obviously) staying at our hostel, speaks a good English (especially as a second language), and is thirteen. She likes One Direction too! And pink! And she helped me attack Ethan. She tickled his feet as I flipped him over in the pool.

Supper was at the suggestion of our renters, the Hernandezes: Just Khao Soi. When we finally got there after a few wrong turns in our tuk-tuk, it teaches you how to eat northern Thailand’s dish that binds “oil-splattered mechanics” and “polished secretaries” together. It’s very interesting- you have a bowl of soup with noodles in it and seven food items you can use to fine-tune the soup to your taste. The options were coconut milk (for texture), sugar (for sweetness) , cabbage, shallot (for “tanginess”), peppers (for spiciness), lime (called lemon here), and fish sauce. The vegetarian soup came with soy sauce instead of fish sauce (for saltiness). It was very, very good. Now I’m writing from the Computer Room here at our hostel. It’s getting late. Ciao!

Teeter-Totter Train

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Last night was, quite literally, a bumpy night.

When we got on the train to Chiang Mai, we were expecting- well, I don’t know what we were expecting. I don’t even know what I was expecting. However, I have one-word descriptions on several different points:

Funny- The lady selling the Lays and Pringles was going up and down the hall saying, “Sheeps, sheeps.” (She meant “chips,” but she had a very strong accent.)

Overwhelming- At least, this is how I see the man who took our meal orders and served us. He was also our alarm clock, and as soon as we unlocked our doors this morning he was there with breakfast.

Gross- Most of breakfast. We all drank the juice and had the two slices of toast, but I think I was the only one who ate beyond that. I had a few bites of the slimy fried egg and the piece of carrot.

Tasty- Supper could be described this way. We ordered ours without the duck and pork and were, I think, pleasantly surprised. For the main course three of us had the sweet-and-sour chicken and vegetables (which consisted mainly of baby corn and onion). Ethan had the chicken with macadamia nuts. His curry was red, unlike ours, which was whitish with chicken and onions. We all had the same soup, and three small slices of pineapple were our desserts.

Umm…- Okay, this isn’t exactly an adequate description of the fruit plate we bought, but it’s accurate. There were apples, huge grapes, and three or four other types of fruit that I can’t rightly name.

Loud- That would be the train.

Bumpy- Also the train.

Ciao!

Certainly Saying “So Long” to the City

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As the miles of rails pass by, we get to think about what we did in Bangkok, especially what we did today: we hit three malls in the time frame of less than six hours. Obviously we didn’t hit every stall and shop, but we went to the important things: Cream and Fudge Factory (for the best ice cream since Friday) and Madame Tussauds wax museum. My experiences?

I got to cuddle up to Justin Bieber, have a friendly conversation with George Clooney, be Oprah Winfrey’s guest, take charge of the Oval Office as President and First Lady Obama looked on, moonwalk with Michael Jackson, backup dance for Madonna, get a hole-in-one with a jealous Tiger Woods watching, play Wii tennis with Serena Williams looking on in total awe, win four Oscars– dream come true, play paparazzi to an Asian celebrity nicknamed “Pancake,” be Bruce Lee’s replacement figure, yearn for One Direction figures (and be duly disappointed), pose with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt on the red carpet, show Picasso how to make a perfect painting (an eyebrow with an eye!), be taught by Beethoven, and take pictures of many, many more, including Princess Di, Buddha, Gandhi, King Rama IX and his wife, Beyonce, Nicole Kidman, and Will Smith.

Once we had fully appreciated the wonders of waxmanship, we found our way to the sky trains station and headed to Chong Nonsi. There we switched to the BRT and rode for seven stops down to Wat Pariwat. After one last look at the Star Estates @ Rama III building that was our home for a week and the temple that was our view for a week, we grabbed our luggage and hopped in a red taxi. It’s funny- we’ve been in Bangkok for about eight days and had had only one taxi ride. The taxi was green and yellow. The most common color is pink. And, nooo, of course we couldn’t ride in a pink one! If we had gotten to the curb with all our luggage a mere minute earlier, the pink taxi would’ve been ours. Instead, it was pulling away with a single tourist in the back. Sigh.
Ciao!

On a brighter note, we made it safely to the train station, got our postage stamps (for the postcards) and Trident gum from the 7-Eleven across the street, read our social studies books (Beware, Princess Elizabeth and Horrible Histories: The USA), and boarded our train. An hour later, we’ll still technically in Bangkok. It’ll take us thirteen more hours by rail to get to Chiang Mai, when it would have taken a mere hour-and-a-half by air. Ciao!

Last full day in Bangkok

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Today was our last full day in Bangkok, and I thinkwhat we did a pretty good job of enjoying it while we could. Here are the things that we did today:

We ate a meal (breakfast) consisting of rice, chocolate milk, mangos, and scrambled egg. Then we went down the street to the coffee shop (Chimney) and had mochas, small for the kids, medium for the adults. We also had two pieces of cake and a triple brownie. It was all very good.

On our way back home we stopped at the Buddha Dharma Relics Museum and saw a lot of Buddha relics. It was interesting because we saw a bunch of weird items, like Buddha blood relics (which looked a lot like red sand) and other stuff like that.

After that we went down to the pool (all four of us) and swam for a long while, using my father as a horse to ride upon, (I know that that sounds stupid, but you probably don’t want to get in between someone and the wall of a pool) also we used him as something to splash. It was very liberating……..

Then we went up to our room and sat around for about an hour before heading down to go to our favorite restaurant across the street, Buri Tara. Again, for the third time. By the time we came home, it was about 7:15 and we decided to pack and then swim for a while (we being Eryn and I). Today was our first day of 270 that we have to take malaria pills. Lucky us…..

Bidding Bangkok ‘Bye

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Today we had a more relaxed day. After a typical breakfast (rice, eggs, mangoes, mystery sauce, chocolate soy milk, and pomegranate juice), we headed down the street to the Chimney Cafe for mochas and desserts: hot lava cake and whipped cream (I thought the sign said “Chocolate lava with whipped cream,” but it said “and” instead of “with.” They were right. There was more whipped cream than cake!), a brownie, and a piece of almond mocha cake. They weren’t all for me… :(. I had the lava cake, Ethan had the brownie, and Mom had the piece of cake. We all had mochas, which were, as usual, very good. Ethan also got a bottle of water because he “need[ed] something cold to drink.”

On our way home, we stopped by the Buddha Dharma Relics Museum across the street. It was a bit confusing since we’re not Buddhist because to us it seemed like the relics (such as brain, heart, skin, hair, tooth) were just little rocks. That makes us sound disrespectful, but no one could speak enough English to explain, and Wikipedia wasn’t much help either. There were stories written in English and Thai on the walls, though, and we read those and appreciated the many statues, including the three of Buddha in his three different outfits: one for winter, one for summer, and one for the rainy season.

Once home, we all went down to the pool and swam. Our parents got out after only an hour-and-a-half and Ethan and I left fifteen minutes later. I had Mom take 366 pictures on my camera. Okay, I didn’t have her do that. I let her do that. We just had supper in Bangkok for the last time at our favorite place, Buri Tara, which is across the street. Sigh. Well, duty calls. Ciao!

 

Paddleboating!!!!!!!!

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Today we went to the Lampini Park which is a big park right in the middle of Bangkok. For the first half hour we sat on a bench and took pictures of water monitors and turtles. After that, we went to a dock and rented two paddleboats that each had two duck figureheads made out of plastic. We paddled those around for about half an hour before returning the boats to the dock. Then we went home after going to the grocery store and getting ice cream, which we had for supper along with pizza after we swam in the pool for a little bit.

Oh, I just remembered, as we were leaving the bus station, we saw some people filming a movie that involved people in black suits having a gun pointed at them.

High ‘n’ Dry

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Let me start off by saying we were neither high nor dry today. Now I will continue:

We were going to visit the floating markets of Dar, but we, as obvious American tourists, were advised against it. Instead we had the second-most laid-back day of our trip. We had our typical breakfast of rice, eggs, and some mysterious (but thankfully mild and flavorful) sauce. We also had oranges. We spent a while after that just dilly-dallying until about ten. After a few stops, we finally got off the sky train at the Sala Daeng stop to visit the park given to Bangkok by King Rama the sixth. It’s called Lumpini Park, which is a very Italian name. That explains the sign on a nearby skyscraper that reads “ITALIAN-THAI” in fifteen-foot red letters. That building also has a big white sign on it that says Oregon!

Way back in the 1920s, when the king gave the civilians the royal property, the area was on the outer edge of town. Now it’s in the middle of the business district and has two train stops- a Metro and a sky train- on its edges. There’s also a big statue of the king. The park was named after Lumbini, which is where Buddha was born in Nepal.The whole area is 142 acres and has plenty of things to do, including watching the water monitors and people, paddle-boating in boats that look like ducks, zoning out in the shade, playing on the playground, and getting soaking wet in the sprinklers on the ground and fountains in the lake. We did all of these things, plus getting bit by mosquitoes, bouncing on the see-saw, playing “Escape” on the play structure, “working out” on the gym equipment, and getting pelted by rocks from the edger.

But that wasn’t even the most interesting part of our day. At the station that connects the bus system and the sky train system, we saw part of a movie being filmed. We weren’t in it (sadly), but all the extras were white and the cameramen were speaking in English and the five main actors looked slightly familiar. This isn’t the first time that we’ve been in the same city as some famous people. When we were in Venice in 2010, Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp were there filming The Tourist. We figured this out because there was a sign by a canal that said something in Italian, but we found the words “The Tourist” and “filming.”

After that “exciting” event, we went on to the food stalls where we bought our first “street” food: waffles. They came in all different styles, including maple (which I got) and cranberry, and with all sorts of different fillings, including chocolate (which we all got), taro root, Thai custard, and red bean. The outside of the waffle was the best I’ve ever had except for in Florence, Italy: large grains of sugar and coated in a sweet syrup. On the return trip, we got some dried kiwi and mango from a different stall. Yum!

On the way home we bought some groceries at MaxValu, including ice cream, chocolate soy milk, and pomegranate juice. For supper we’ve ordered two pizzas. Since we’ve been home, we’ve swam in the pool, ordered two pizzas and a salad, eaten the dried mangoes, and worked on schoolwork, which made it just a typical day in Bangkok.

Steep Stairs, “Steep” Prices

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Today was our “Wat are we doing today?” day. The answer? Wat Pho and Wat Arun. Wat Pho was filled with high-schoolers working on their English and asking American tourists questions in English on video. We had two groups of girls come up to us, and one girl told us what to say when you bow. Bowing means lots of things including thank you, hello, and good-bye.

After Wat Pho (pronounced “poe”), we crossed the Chao Phraya River on a ferry that cost $0.10 a person. When we got to the other side, the clouds burst into tears. We found our way to the entrance and, once inside, our parents sought shelter as Ethan and I climbed to the fourth- and top- level of the temple in the torrential rains. It didn’t rain that much, however, until we decided to go down. I hid in a corner, trying not to get soaked. It finally let up ever-so-slightly, and we decided to go down the slick stairs. My parents and Ethan went up in the sun after that, and, as I watched and waited, three teenaged Thai girls came by. Two of them asked to take a picture with me (I complied); the other couldn’t find her phone.

On our way out, we saw more of those boards that you stand behind that make you look like you have a different body. The guy was charging 40 baht (about US$1.34) to get your picture taken behind them! We had already done that upon our entry. He hadn’t seen me and therefore we saved a dollar-and-a-third. Another cheap way to make money is to charge five baht to go to the bathroom. Yes, we could pay the  sixteen cents, but it was still frustrating.

Swenson’s are more popular here than in America!!!

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Wat Pho and Wat Arun are both temples on the river running through Bangkok. Wat Arun was my favorite because you could climb up high on steep staircases. However, Wat Pho was interesting because there were some school girls who practised their English by asking us questions about where we are from and if they could take their picture with us. On our way home, we stopped by Swenson’s and had some ice cream before going into Tesco to buy some things for supper, which we had at home.

MK & MBK

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Today was the most non-touristy day so far. After over-sleeping, we went out for mochas, fried rice, and chocolate cake at the Chimney Café. Yum! (Despite what seemed like sarcasm, it was really good. ESPECIALLY the chocolate cake.) Mother, Ethan, and I all had the chicken fried rice and Dad had the green curry chicken fried rice. The mochas were good, especially with the whipped cream and sugar. 🙂 Ethan and I each had a piece of double chocolate cake, and Dad got a piece of chocolate fudge cake, which was by far the better choice of dessert. Our cake was heavy and dense (but it tasted good!) while his wasn’t so sweet but was light and airy.

After we had frittered away two hours, we returned to our apartment and just chilled for an hour. Finally, at around noon, we decided to visit the huge MBK mall. It’s seven stories tall and sells just about everything except the kitchen sink. Oh, wait. We skipped Level 5, the household items floor, because we have no house for which to buy things. Yeah, I’ll bet they sold kitchen sinks.

Anyway, here’s our (small) haul:

1. Pink shirt for me

2. Blue dress for me

3. Red and black shoes for Mother

4. Flowered Converse for me

5. Ice cream at Swensen’s (got to have dessert first!)

6. An interesting supper at the elusive MK

Here are the things we wanted to buy:

1. MBK

 

Ciao!

WE FOUND IT!!!!! (kind of)

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Well, we finally found the resturaunt. As it turns out, it is a chain that is around Thailand, it is called MK. It is an interesting place, where, sitting in the middle of each table, there is a stove burner with a pot of spiced water in which you put in your food that you order. There are no forks or knives, only a soup spoon, a ladle, and a set of chopsticks for each person.
Now to start at the beginning of the day,
For breakfast, we went to the coffee shop down the street, then we went back to our apartment for a while before heading to the MBK mall by the national stadium.We stayed there for a while (about 6 hours) before heading home. We had supper at the mall

Where was that restaurant again???

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Ice cream and pizza, in Thailand!!! Who would’ve thought?!?!?!
Sounds more like Italy, except there you would change it to be gelato and pizza (or would that be piazza??)
Anyway, today started out like any other day, we got up, took showers and had breakfast. But that is as far as the similarities go, today we stayed at ourbapartment building doing schoolwork until we left for supper. Eryn had looked up everything for our supper arrangements and had it all planned out when we found out that she had remembered the wrong mode of transportation. So, instead of doing that, we decided to go to a Lebanese place somewhere down the street.

Guess what, it wasn’t there, so we changed our plan again and decided to go to a piazza place. The pizza was okay, but what I really liked was the chocolate ice cream…..YUM!!!!!

—zzz—

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Today we made it our goal to visit the museum across the street. Well, in the end (or as of 5:30 pm), we accomplished nothing other than more schoolwork, eating more chocolate bars, sorting pictures, reading, drinking plenty of water, and taking a nap. Oh, we also added photos, as you probably saw. Well, the museum will still be there tomorrow. Ciao!

Today’s News Report

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Today was an interesting day. We got up early and were supposed to leave at 7:30, but due to our late breakfast, we finally slugged out the door at 8:05. After four modes of transportation (super crowded bus [morning rush hour], sky train [also crowded], Chao Phraya Express’s blue flag [tourist] boat, and our own tired, blistered feet), we finally got to a corner diagnol from the Grand Palace. There, a man with a lanyard that said ‘Royal Thai Police’ saw that we were looking for the Palace (and had walked right by!) and asked if he could help. Then he told us that a prince was there, and the Palace was closed until 11:30 am. He suggested that we take a tuk-tuk ride to the Marble Temple and the James Tailor warehouse. He called his friend over, and the price was 40 baht (about $1.35… total).

Well.

That was an unnerving experience.

After what seemed like some near-death experiences, we finally got to the Buddhist temple. The most interesting part to me was the pair of ladies selling live fish, eels, and baby turtles at the entrance. I even saw a tourist buying a bag with water and three of those poor babies in it!!! Oh well. 🙁 I can’t rescue all the helpless animals on Earth, although I did rescue a slug from the rental car in Oregon. Anyways, the inside was mostly statues of Buddha. Someone had put an orange monk robe around the last Buddha. So I took a picture. The most interesting Buddha, however, was the statue of him fasting. It was very skeletal. Another interesting one had elongated ears.

After that, we went back to our tuk-tuk and told the driver, who I will now call Frank, that we’d decided to skip James Tailor. He convinced us that we should go there for just five minutes because they’d pay for his gas. So we went, looked through a catalogue, avoided the salesman’s questions, and left. Then, instead of returning to the Palace, we went to a jewelry factory/store. It was really interesting, or at least the factory part was. Apparently if you put certain gems under your pillow, your pains will be relieved, or, as my mother eagerly said, “With a rock that size, you’ll get a new pain.” Then we had to look through the whole showroom with things as expensive as $1,000,000! Dad later noted that the lady at the front had written down our tuk-tuk’s license plate.

I also found this at http://thailandforvisitors.com/central/bangkok/ratanakosin/prakeo/: “The Grand Palace is open every day from 8:30 to 3:30, unless it’s being used for a state function, which is quite rare.  Be careful of touts working outside the palace area who tell you its closed, and suggest their own guided tour instead.  They’re most likely lying, and their ‘tour’ will be to several shops where they get commissions on  purchases.” Hmm. Mother’s starting to have her doubts about the liability of our ‘Royal Thai Policeman.’

We finally got in the Grand Palace, found a guide who was very nice and learned about the palace. She told us a lot of things, including her name, which was hard to say and really long. After the Palace, we went to Tesco Lotus and the Swensen’s for ice cream. Ohsogood. I think it’s the second-best ice cream I’ve ever had (Moose Tracks is always #1). Following that, we got some oral rehydration “sachets,” or pouches. We returned home to the pounding of thunder and the calling of schoolwork and the moaning of children. We spent about two hours on schoolwork and found a restaurant. The food was really good, even the mushrooms, and we ate almost everything. Ciao!

Palaces & Temples

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Some people like Buddha, and some people don’t, right???
Today we got to experience what people who like Buddha do and see when they visit the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Karo (pronounced Pre Q). We saw that, in a legend, there is a demon king with 10 heads and, when he gets angry, 20 arms. Also there are snake guardians that have five heads and necks. Their faces look like human faces when they are happy and crocodile faces when they are mad.

Buddhists have lots of ways of getting good luck, including dripping holy water off of flowers and onto their heads, taking a small piece of gold leaf and sticking it onto a statue of Buddha, putting some money on top of the heads of elephant statues, and many more. Also, elephants with curled in trunks are supposedly happy, while ones with out facing trunks are supposedly lucky.

We also learned that you can tell the difference between monkey statues and demon statues by looking at their feet; demons have shoes, monkeys don’t.

Exploration & Transportation

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Today was apparently cooler than yesterday, but obviously we couldn’t tell. What we could tell, however, was that the Or Tor Kor vegetable market was missing because of construction in the area. We walked what seemed like miles just looking (and never finding) it. It was supposed to be right by the Jatujak Market (nicknamed “JJ” by the locals), but we walked up and down and side to side on those streets and never found it. We did, however, find the three main forms of transportation in Bangkok: BRT, BTS, MRT. (The bus rapid transit, the sky train, and the underground.) Well, all three except for the Chao Phraya Express (pronounced Chow Prayuh), which is the system of taxis on the Chao Phraya River (แม่น้ำเจ้าพระยา).

First, we got on the BRT at the stop 50 feet away from our apartment– Wat Pariwat. Wat (วัด) means ‘temple’ in Thai, and, yes, there is a wat that you can see from our balcony. Anyways, we got on the BRT and rode to the Sathorn station, which is the end of the line. It connects to the BTS station Chong Nonsi. As you should remember, the BTS is the sky train. Most of the people on our train, including a Canadian family who, no, Destiny, we did not talk to, got off at the station that connected one line of the BTS with the other. That was at the station of Siam. After that, we got off at the last stop on the second route, Mo Chit (หมอชิต). Once you walked out the doors, you were in the blazing Thai sun and the Jatujak park and market. We arrived around 8 am and finally left at around noon.

On the return trip, we entered the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit- การรถไฟฟ้าขนส่งมวลชน) station of Jatujak Park. The moment we entered the shade, it seemed like it was five degrees cooler. As we descended into the tunnels, it became even cooler until we were in the train itself and it was like a freezer. It was on there, and at breakfast our first morning in Thailand, that we noticed the weird TV ads they have. I’m not going to describe any, for the sake of both my weary fingers and the content, but some are very interesting.

We rode the MRT to the MRT Si Lom/Sala Daeng BTS station and boarded the sky train. We rode the one stop to Chong Nonsi, where we switched to the BRT. We rode the bus from the first stop on the route– B1:Sathorn– to B4: Thanon Chan, which is where our landlord told us the Tesco Lotus was. Well, we looked and asked and were finally redirected to the next station, B5: Nara-Rama III. We walked a ways, found the store, and ate sandwiches at Au Bon Pain. After we bought some groceries like rice and eggs and Tim Tams, we found a Bangkok map and finally arrived in our own B7: Wat Pariwat. Ciao!

Market Day

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Today we got up early (6:45 haha) to go to the Jatujak weekend market and the Or Tor Kor to look at stuff. The Or Tor Kor sells fruits and vegetables, while the Jatujak market has just about everything. We found the weekend market but then could not find the Or Tor Kor. So we just gave up on that idea and went to the park for a little bit. On the way home we decided to go to Tesco and buy some more food for breakfast. When we finally got home it was around three and I swam in the pool for a little bit. Then my mother joined me and she and I raced, me beating her most of the time. After that we went out to supper to the same place that we had supper at the day before yesterday and had the same things, too (bean curd with bean sprouts, chicken with sweet and sour sauce, and green curry soup with chicken.) 🙂

A Busy (and sweaty) day in Bangkok

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Since you can’t be friends with dogs in Thailand and since it is so hot and Americans sweat so much, bottled water has become man’s new best friend. The pool at our hotel is fairly big, with fountains and tile whales at the bottom. We also found out today that 7-11 is a very common store on the streets behind our apartment building. On a single walk on only two streets we saw 4 7-11s!!!!

Help! There Are Whales In My Swimming Pool!!!

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Today, Saturday for us and 1/2 Friday and 1/2 Saturday for you Pacific coasters, we got up at around 8 am, showered, and walked down the street 850 meters to the Chimney Café. We had an interesting mix of food- to drink, Mom and I had hot chocolates and Ethan and Dad had lattes. For the main course Mom and Ethan had chicken fried rice, Dad had green curry chicken, and I had a chicken soup of some sort and steamed rice. Let me tell you: salty chicken soup and a creamy latte don’t taste good together. At all!

Anyway, we decided we needed to make a plan for the rest of our time in Bangkok, so we spent what seemed like forever talking and writing and thinking. In the end, we decided that we needed to go grocery shopping. We rode the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) down three stops, from the Wat Pariwat stop 50 feet from our building to the Charoen Rat stop, which is number ten on the line. We’re near number seven.

At MaxValu, which is only a few feet from the BRT stop, there was a singing competition going on in what we discovered to be a mall. There was even an Office Max! That and the Nutella were the only really familiar parts, and I think we were the only white people there.

We bought some cool looking fruits, a mango, rice, a spicy looking sauce, eggs, an onion, and some shampoo. When we returned to our apartment, we ate another chocolate bar, and then Ethan and I went swimming in the awesome pool: it has blue tiles on the bottom and whales made with green tiles. It’s only about three feet deep in most places, but it has cool fountains to compensate. Ciao!

When in Bangkok

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Today it is Saturday and we have been in Bangkok for about 30 hours, and we have done a lot of things. We have learned that almost all of the locals wear long pants and jeans, making us easy for pickpockets to spot as rich tourists if we wear shorts. So, since we decided to wear long pants, we sweated a lot yesterday as we walked around searching for the “elusive” 7-11, that, as it turns out is only a little ways down the street. We also have to keep ourselves from petting or in general, touching dogs, because most dogs in Thailand have rabies and sometimes rabies can be transferred by a lick of a dog. This change might be hard for me, since I really like dogs.

17 Hours

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17 hours, 17 things:
1. Landed in Thailand
2. Checked into BS Residence
3. Gone to bed
4. Woken up
5. Had breakfast (rice, toast, and chocolate dry cereal… yum)
6. Swam in the (“biggest … I’ve ever seen” Ethan said) pool at BS Residence
7. Packed up and moved out of BS Residence
8. Rode in first taxi of my life to Star Estates
9. Entered apartment to find it wasn’t yet cleaned
10. Left in search of the Holy Grail… okay, bottled water
11. Went to the “market” across the street
12. Sweated
13. Crossed back and found a Seven-Eleven
14. Bought four bottles of water, a huge bucket filled with H2o, and a tube of toothpaste
15. Returned to apartment and chose rooms
16. Taxi-watched (10 colors, 1 street: Pink, red, orange, golden, yellow, yellow & green, green, blue, purple, and dark purple)
17. Finished 2 pages in my math book and 2 pages in my science book

We’ve only been in the land of the Siam for 17 hours* (1 am this morning to 6 pm tonight) and already we’ve been through so much (and yet, comparatively, so little). Ciao!

*I found several mistakes in this, so I edited it 17 hours after posting it. 🙂