Hello all,
I know it has been a long time since I last wrote but I have been keeping very busy while in Thailand. I had originally planned to take a week during this trip to just relax at the beach and not do very much….but that didn’t happen. There are too many adventurous things to do; rock climbing, snorkeling, kayaking, scuba, and hiking to name a few. If anyone wants to take an adventure vacation I would definitely suggest Thailand as a spot to visit.
Since it has been so long there is much too much to sequentially go through my trip. So I have decided to break Thailand and Thai culture into smaller sections and hopefully from that you can reconstruct my trip.
FOOD:
I will start with what has impressed me the most about Thailand…the food. I was expecting that the food would be quite good but I was blown away with the variety and the quality of the culinary creations in Thailand.
I didn’t have my first meal until after I arrived at the hostel I was staying at the second day in Thailand. After putting down my stuff I met a college girl name Thoi who was working in Bangkok during her summer break from University. After talking for a few minutes we decided to grab a meal and she took me to a local noodle place she had discovered during her first week in Bangkok. Unable to read the menu myself Thoi ordered for me and picked an authentic Thai rice noodle and soup dish…..it was amazing. Afterwards we had a fresh fruit shake (much like a juice smoothie but significantly sweeter). I would make fruit shakes part of my everyday meal choice after that.
Later on that same day I met some Australians who were on a multiple month trip around South East Asia. We also decided to get dinner together and we saw a place that said…”winner of Bangkok’s best phat thai” but it was sadly closed. So instead we went to a place across the street. I got phat thai there and when it arrived I could smell that it was going to be spicy, real spicy. I took one bite and for an instant I thought, “this isn’t that bad.” Then it hit me. My tongue erupted in pain and I was pretty sure I could breathe fire for a few minutes. I ordered another juice shake and continued to eat the food. Even the Australians were having trouble with the spiciness of their food and by the end everyone was sweating and had runny noses. I am not even sure if the food tasted good…it was just hot.
Even later that same day (around 2 am later) me and the Australians returned to the Hostel and found that “Bangkok’s best phat thai” was open now. So how could any lover of Thai cu sine resist the best of the best? So we all sat down again and had another meal. This really was the best phat thai I had tried up to that day in my life. It would however come in second on my trip to the creation of a culinary genius later on. After the third full meal of the day I was pretty full but the Australians told me of a dish known as “Mango and Sticky Rice” that I must try. Giving into their peer pressure I got the dish and was blown away! It was amazing. The dish is basically fresh ripe mango and sushi rice with the addition of Sweet coconut cream and crushed nuts….absolutely Delicious. It was another thing I added to my daily repertoire of food.
No other day really compared to my first day of Thai food but as the trip carried on I tried a number of dishes and was almost always pleased with what I was eating. I was so impressed in fact that I decided that it would be wise for me to learn the art of Thai cuisine. So during my stay in the northern city of Chang Mai I signed up for a one day class.
The day began early at 9:00 AM when a driver for the course came to my hostel to get me and take me to the meeting place…an open air produce market. On the way we stopped and picked up a number of others also interested in cooking and by 9:30 fourteen people had amassed ready to learn to cook. Our teacher than showed up and taught us the different raw ingredients that go into Thai cooking and how to pick the best ones. His demonstration started off interestingly enough with a bare hands smashing of a coconut.
After about an hour of instruction on how to pick produce and picking up the ingredients for the class we made our way to the cooking school…about 30 minutes away. I got a chance to meet a number of people in the class and much like the rest of the trip I was the only American surrounded by a lot of Europeans…and this time one Canadian. The Canadian grew up directly across lake Ontario from me and went to college at York University, in Toronto, at the same time as a few other people I know. Also on the cooking course I met an Irish fellow who had retired at a young age after successful real estate dealings and commented on how terrible the food in the states was. I felt like I had to produce good results in the cooking class just to prove him wrong.
The class started off simple with instruction on how to make Tom Yum Soup (spicy thai soup) that was really really good. Then the dishes became more challenging as we moved into a special stir fry using a hot wok. I got a great movie of me adding the ingredients to the walk and a giant tower of flame rising as I cooked. Again the food came out well. After taking a short break we moved onto the world famous Thai dishes; curries and phat thai. I chose to personally make a green curry but we were instructed on penang (red) curry as well.
Then came the hardest dish of the day…phat thai. To correctly make Phat Thai you are supposed to wrap the finished dish in an omelet…a task that is apparently difficult. The Irish fellow was pretty sure that in standard American culinary fashion i would butcher the process and end up making scrambled egg instead of an omelet. However, I was did quite well and at the end I had a neatly folded omelet surrounding my phat thai…and the Irish fellow had scrambled pieces littering his dish. My own phat thai was the best I had during Thailand and I hope the results are reproducible.
After lunch we moved onto desert and created two dishes. One was a super spicy papaya salad that is eaten by hand after creating a ball of rice. Then we also learned mango and sticky rice. A dish I would be happy to make any of you for a price.
After that day food mostly just remained good and I tried different this for the rest of the trip. I eventually moved away from the juice shake to the fruit lassi which had the added benefit of being made from yogurt. Overall, I loved the food and am very eager to cook for myself when I return.
CULTURE:
The first thing and the most important thing I can say about Thai culture is that people are extremely happy and extremely nice. They (the thais) say that Bangkok is the city of smiling faces and they might in fact be correct. But it is not only Bangkok, it is every Thai person I met on my trip that made it clear that this country is happy and meeting the challenges of moving into the 21st century.
My trip to Thailand was lucky enough to coincide with the Thai new year, Songkran. To celebrate the coming of the new year and transition to the hot season they hold a 3 day (often growing to a week) festival of water. Very similar to the Indian festival of Holi. During this time the whole country transforms into water gun toting denizens who will hit drench anyone whom they encounter…. no one is safe from the madness. My first day in the northern city of Chang Mai coincided with the first day of Songkran. The man who picked me up from the airport said that the Hostel was close but he would take a strange route to spare my luggage in the back of the open air truck. I had no idea what he meant and we weaved around streets avoiding pavement for dirt road at times.
After getting to my hostel I was warned if I’m going into the heart of the city to not take my camera… I listened and went completely unprepared into the cross fire. About 5 minutes from my hostel walking toward the old city center of Chang Mai (basically 1 square mile surrounded by a moat) I suddenly felt felt cold water hit me from behind. I turned to the side to see a truck full of people driving by with buckets and water guns cheering. This happened about two more times in 5 minutes and then I was under attack by people who had set up outside their shops to get the trucks driving by. Finally I made it into the center of the city and met some Swiss people who were are bewildered at me by the party. We were getting hit left and right and decided it was time to join in. After purchasing a few buckets we joined in with a local bar and started attacking people on the other side of the street…in their own bar. While there I learned that Chang Mai is regarded as one of the wildest spots of Songkran because of the moat. The moat however would also be my main problem so far on the trip.
After the sun set and the party died down a little I made my way back to the hostel to shower, clean up, and eat…then hopefully come back to join the night festivities. However, after eating I noticed there was something wrong…my stomach was severely messed up. I believe that it was because people were throwing water from the moat and I involuntarily swallowed some…..needless to say that night was not pretty. I was so exhausted and dehydrated from the experience I spend the next day close to the hostel in recuperation and rehydration. Luckily they sell multivitamin juice/milk drinks that helped me get back on my feet.
All in all i loved the festival however and a few days later participated in it again. I always got a smile on my face when I saw a bunch of youths with water guns on a truck riding by and having a great time spraying people. It was watching them I realized that so far on this trip I have not had a moment of feeling insecure or unsafe. In my head I knew that if you see a bunch of people on a truck with guns that you should probably duck for cover because they aren’t going to be shooting water. The festival was a great way to meet local Thais and foreigners and I might one year return to Thailand to participate again.
To get a better insight into local life While in each country I have had extended contact with one local person. In Japan with a japanese ex-pat named Masami, and in Hong Kong with a girl named Jackie. In Thailand I hung out with a guy named Mac. Mac was one of the individuals who worked at the hostel I stayed at in Chang Mai. He put together the bookings for the guests and made sure people had a good time. He did an amazing job of making sure people had a good time. His English was quite good and we talked a lot about Thailand and how it was changing. He also showed me around Chang Mai one night and we went from small local concert bar to local concert bar. All in all the night was great and I was introduced to lots of Thai people and learned how they party…and they party hard.
There was one cultural aspect that I asked Mac to explain to me but he couldn’t….the lady boy. Now for people who have not been to Thailand the lady boy is exactly what it sounds like…a man who dresses, acts, and quite uncannily looks like a lady…a transvestite. However it is amazingly prevalent in the culture and population, especially in the night life. You can expect to find a number of them at any bar or club in Thailand. They are extremely good at concealing their gender and you have to pay attention to the Adam’s apple and hands of people to be able to tell what sex they are sometimes. It is even hard for the Thai’s to tell at times.
While on a jungle trek in the northern provinces of Thailand I met a guide who went by the name Johan (even though is thai name was Fuk – meaning the sky or vegetable in northern thai). He was born in a hill tribe village but went to college to study agriculture and bring new techniques to the tribe. He was very knowledgeable about thai culuture and policy and his stories kept everyone engrossed. He told us about the first time he left the village and went to the city of Chang Mai. While there he went to a bar and saw this beautiful woman. He went inside and tried to talk to her but she wouldn’t speak…instead she would just write down her responses. Johan kept explaining that she looked like an angel and he was mesmerized. After a few hours he asked her to speak just his name and that would make him very happy….when she did it was apparent that she was not a she at all…and instead a lady boy. He finished his drink at the bar and didn’t approach another “girl” for a number of months at school.
But in the end the thing I will remember the most from Thailand is how nice and friendly everyone was. They were not nice in the manner that they just saw you as a wallet and hoped to get a tip but they were genuinely concerned with making your time in Thailand a good experience. They often came up to foreigners and asked where they from and what they were doing in Thailand and what they thought about the country so far. Every foreigner (farang in Thai) all agreed that they were some of the nicest people in the world.
CLIMATE:
Coming from Hong Kong which was rather chilly during early April I still had pants and fleece on when I got out of the airport. My first reaction as I stepped out into the Bangkok air was that something had gone terribly wrong. There was no way that it could be 80+ degrees and so humid at 1 AM in the morning. Adapting to the tremendous heat and humidity of Thailand would be a challenge and sew the seeds of doubt of heading to India during the warmest part of the year.
By the time I had gotten from Taxi to the reception and spent 5 minutes checking in I had already broken into a large sweat. I soaked through my pants and shirt and immediately took a cold shower when getting into the room. It was good I didn’t want a warm shower because hot water is not a common thing in Thailand. In fact, only the really nice hotel I stayed at during my last day provided it in the room. However, except for shaving hot water was never a miss. The temperature stayed fast between 85-95 during the entire trip. With relative humidity during they day above 70 percent. Because of this as the sum began to set and temperature went down every place I was in was rocked by massive thunderstorms…which greatly lowered the humidity for the evening hours.
My second day in Bangkok saw the worst rain I have ever seen. For three hours the precipitation varied from extremely thick and fast rain to small pieces of hail. I was forced to sit within a ferry station for hours reflecting on my trip as the rains came down. This same event would re-occur numerous times during the trip and by the end I timed my return to my hostel as the sun was going down to avoid the rain.
The weather was most ideal in the tropical peninsula of Railay…(see attached photos). Here there was a cool breeze off the water and the temperature was never unbearable. Also the steady breeze and warm sun made for ideal beach and water conditions. The weather was the worst in Bangkok where there was nothing to escape from the heat expect jumping into a massive shopping center with air conditioning…which all began to look the same after a day.
That is all for today…but before I leave for India I hope to add a section on Adventure and Night life. Hope everyone is doing well.
S
