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What a fun-filled adventure weekend spent in Chiang Mai!

Chiang Mai is the largest northern city in Thailand, near the borders of Laos and Burma. The area is well-known for it’s incredible jungle landscapes. I spent the entire weekend feeling like I was in the movie, Avatar. The feeling came not just from being surrounded by never-ending stretches of jungle, but also the feeling of having an out of body experience. I almost could not believe this was my life. It had to be a dream! Take a look at this picture and you’ll be able to feel what I felt. This picture says it all:

High-flying adventures were the order of the day at Jungle Flight. Situated in the jungle mountains, this adult playground spans 34 platforms and covers a large chunk of land. The longest zip line was 130m (about 430ft). The “divine trees” as they are called, were each an average of 150 years old and 100m tall.

I also learned a new English word: abseil. Abseiling is when you sit back in your harness, the rope secured to the line above, but instead of zip lining across from platform to platform, you are dropped directly beneath you to a lower platform. To use in a sentence: The trip ended with a 40m drop that we had to abseil (see picture).

The guides and zip wire crew were like monkeys in the way they would quickly connect to the zip line, leap, and slide across to the next platform. Then as one crew member prepared us for our zip ride, the others were already zipping off again to get the next station ready. Sometimes they would hang upside down as they zipped across; they were really entertaining.

The Thais (and maybe Asia?) have a weird thing with hair in communal places. When I went to a water park, everyone had to rent and wear a swim cap. Then at the zip line, they first made each of us put on a hospital-style hair net before putting on the helmets.

The scenery here was amazing. Dense, lush jungle set against a mountain backdrop. Tall trees, soft bird calls, occasional sounds of water bubbling in the creek; the entire area oozed adventure and relaxation at the same time.

The elevation of 1000m above sea level is impressive for Thailand, but weak by Colorado standards. The higher elevation and being in the northern part of Thailand also contributed to a little cooler climate, a nice respite from the constant heat.

Joining me on the adventure was a nice Kiwi (New Zealander) and a group of Chinese young adults from Shanghai. The Kiwi and I swapped travel tales like a couple of old hands. I told the Chinese that I would be moving to Nanjing, and they happily invited me to Shanghai to have dinner. We exchanged our contact info and I will take them up on the offer! Shanghai is about 1 and ½ hours away from Nanjing by bullet train, according to my new Chinese friends.

The next day I went on an all-day trek with a nice couple from Spain (got to practice my rusty old Spanish skills!). The trek involved hiking, elephant riding, more hiking, swimming in a waterfall, lunch, a visit to an orchid farm, and white-water rafting.

I hiked in my reasonably expensive Gander Mountain hiking boots (this pair of boots, by the way, has touched mud in the rainforests of Brazil, has strolled the streets of Melbourne, Paris, and Copenhagen, and has climbed mountains in Colorado and Norway!).

The Thai tour guide, on the other hand, did the entire hike in flip-flops! This was over slippery rocks, through mud, etc., and I was the only one who fell into the stream to get my boots wet. The guide didn’t so much as stumble!

Elephant-ride: what a trip! As you might imagine, this part of the adventure was unlike anything I’ve experienced. Horse-back riding doesn’t come close. For one, horses are much faster. But the view on an elephant, and feeling like an insignificant weight on the large animal…very different. At times, I wondered if the elephant even knew I was sitting on its back! The Spaniards elephant was very hungry and kept munching on any nearby leaves it could get its trunk on.

What can I say about white-water rafting? I’ll tell you this much: driving through the jungle is fun, but rafting through the jungle is even more fun! I think it helps that the raft is open air and there is no ceiling, whereas in the van or truck, driving through the jungle, the view is limited to what can be seen out the windows. This part of the trip was very wet! The Spanish couple admitted that this would be their first time rafting. Made me a bit nervous, but they did ok and said they had lots of fun getting tossed around by the dips and twists of the river current. Our Thai guide for the rafting portion was funny and kept warning us to beware of crocodiles (we knew there were no crocodiles!).

I was pretty lucky that it did not rain during my adventure on either day. Right as we finished the last activity, rafting, the rain finally came. Our guide carefully drove the truck back out of the jungle. On the way, we passed two tourist charter vans stuck on a dirt hill that had turned to mud! The Thai tour team waved down my tour guides, who jumped out to help push. Being a good Boy Scout, I also came down and started moving the van with them, pushing up the hill. The Spaniard even joined in and we finally got both vehicles up the hill and the tires spinning on solid ground again. The Spanish girlfriend was watching the whole time and got pretty fired up when we came back to the truck. She complained, and rightly so, that both vans were full of tourists! None of the tourists who were actually "stuck in the mud," got out to help push, even after seeing the obvious American and Spanish tourists do so. And the tourists didn't bother to get out and watch the effort either, because if they at least got out, the van would have been much lighter to push! She had a good point! We laughed it off and were content to know we had rescued the lazy tourists.

This was a great weekend and the perfect end to nearly five months in Thailand. The jungles of Chiang Mai will be well maintained in my memories! Next stop, Nanjing, China!

Don't burn my eyebrows!

I've eaten at a few Thai BBQ buffets, and would have to credit Best Beef buffet (near BTS On Nut station) as being the best. These eateries are a bit different than what Americans consider a buffet.

Similarity: They are all you can eat.

Difference #1: Some places (Best Beef) will weigh and charge you per 100g weight of leftovers that you do not eat. I also noticed this policy at Hot Pot restaurant. I always finish my food anyway, but especially at these places. Maybe this would be a good policy to be adopted in America- though I'm not sure whether it would encourage or discourage over-eating (already a problem!)

Difference #2: Diners cook all the food themselves. For the bbq buffets, a clay pot, filled with hot coals, is brought right out to each table. Then a hot skillet is placed above and diners add meat, and butter, to cook u the food. Unfortunately, the position of the skillet is usually right at face level. And unfortunately, this leads to some occasional, painful splatters of hot grease! I had both eyebrows singed over my last meal!

Difference #3: Time limits. Some places (Best Beef, and a Japanese buffet, Shabushi) say, "it's all you can eat, for two hours." After two hours, it's time for you to pay and go look for dessert! Maybe another good policy to adopt in America.

Pillow Talk

My roommate asked me, “how’d you sleep man?” My response, “better. Actually, much better.” What was different? It’s all thanks to a wonderful new pillow I’ve been ‘resting my troubles’ on called the One Hundred Year Pillow. I discovered the miracle pillow when shopping at Central Plaza Rama Two, the large mall near my city. I read about it and the interesting, age old science behind the pillow, and had to have it.

When living in another country, far from the comforts of home and nowhere near my good ol’ tempurpedic mattress, it is very important to take advantage of comforts where I find them. And until now, the comforts provided by my cheap, Big C Supermarket pillow and floor mattress are just that, cheap. Well, I decided to spend the money to improve my bedroom comforts and it was so worth it! We spend about 1/3 of every day in bed, so we ought to be happy when we’re there!

The pillow is not filled with cotton but “buckwheat hulls” or “soba gara” which has been scientifically shown to be better for neck support. These husks allow air flow to pass much more smoothly through the pillow and between it and your body, so that the pillow stays a comfortable temperature and does not develop “hot spots” like my old pillow used to. The Japanese are credited with the discovery of these materials being a great sleep aide. The pillow has been sleep tested in the Orient for hundreds of years.

The company’s motto is: Cool head, warm feet, deep sleep. The pillow has given me just that: a much deeper sleep, letting me wake up more refreshed every morning! I recommend this pillow to anyone living abroad and, for that matter, living at home. Since it’s designed to last for many, many years (ok, not 100 years, but at least 10 years) I will be taking this pillow back to the states when I return!

For more info about the pillow, check out this website

Adventures in Cheese

Homemade dairy products can be a lot of fun (and tasty) as well as provide for some interesting learning experiences. Take for instance, this page from one of my chapters in living in Thailand. My roomie, Michael, and I stand over the results from my latest batch of homemade yogurt, which has yielded something quite unexpected.

“What is it dude?” He asks.

“I dunno. Smell it.” I respond.

“Smells ok.”

“Yea, smells ok.”

“I dunno. It could be the start of some really awesome cheese or some really funky yogurt.”

“I guess we should taste it.”

“Ok, you first.”
(tasting)

“Tastes like cheese. Here.”

(tasting)

“That’s some pretty good cheese. It tastes like it’d be really good on pasta.”

Now, I should explain that these are Mongolian-style dairy products. Michael had spent a month living and learning on a dairy farm in Mongolia, and he taught me all he knows about making homemade yogurt and cheese, etc. Well, in Mongolia, they don’t have refrigerators and they don’t have the same appreciation for the appearance / presentation of food as we Westerners do. I’m sure the process of making Western dairy is quite different than what we do in our Thai kitchen. So be forewarned, the pictures you are about to view aren’t as appealing as a nice, tasty block of European cheese.

I should also explain that I go to great lengths to find and buy only organic dairy in Thailand. There is only one brand available, and it is quite good. So I can proudly say that the cheese I make is organic cheese!

So since my pictures of cheese may not be all that appealing or appetizing, then feast your eyes on this! Here is another creation from my Thai kitchen: stuffed french toast. Since maple syrup is hard to come by, I've had to resort to other options to french up my toast.

Option #1: blueberry yogurt, slices of banana, and drizzle with honey (banana not pictured - the photographer was hungry!)

Option #2: Gourmet raspberry jelly, topped with a handful of chocolate chips

I'll open the discussion board to my readers now: what looks and sounds more delicious? Blueberry/banana french toast or chocolate raspberry french toast? Think about it, and I invite you to try the recipes at home!

Finding Nemo

Can you find Nemo in the photo...?

I took advantage of my ‘new Friday’ on a Tuesday routine and left work at 10:30am on a van bound for Bangkok. For lunch: a delicious tomato soup with vegetables at a nice western café. Errand for the day: stop at a bank for some transactions. I filled in my ticket with the date 8/22/2554 (Thai Buddhist calendar year is 2554) and was surprised when the teller changed the date to 8/23/2554. Huh, I thought, I’ve been living in the past! So I quickly made a mental note to write my parents that night to wish them a belated happy anniversary! Happy anniversary mom and dad! I’ll go ahead and dedicate this blog to many more happy and healthy years!

Next on my Tuesday agenda, a real treat: Ocean World at Siam Paragon.

Siam Paragon is a large and very ritzy mall in Bangkok. It is a gorgeous mall with lots of great eateries, Thai traditional art galleries, hordes of in-vogue shopping boutiques, and a Lamborghini dealership on the fourth floor! In the basement of the mall-megaplex is Ocean World, the largest aquarium in Thailand.

NOTE for my teacher friends: The price charged to Farang (foreigners) is 1000 Baht, but if you show your work permit, they let you in at the Thai price of 380 Baht.

I was very impressed with the look and feel of this aquarium. I’d have to say it beats the aquarium in Denver, CO, and rivals the aquarium in Melbourne, Australia. The place was massive and the many different tanks were thoughtfully displayed. Each display also featured an informative write-up about the fish or creature with fun facts, etc., in both Thai and English. The aquarium was divided into three main zones: Deep Reef, Rainforest, and Open Ocean. The open ocean is where you want to go if you want to see sharks up close and personal!

At many of the exhibits, a staff member was equipped with a microphone and was explaining the exhibit in Thai, followed by an English translation. The English spoken was actually very good! I was impressed.

My favorite fish was the paraya. These small guys have some wicked looking teeth. All the better to eat their source of food: piranhas. You gotta be tough to hunt piranha! And yet, the paraya are harmless to humans.

Also in the mix, I got to see the water rats and sea otter feedings. Both were very cute. The sea otters have been trained to play fetch with balls tossed into the water before they earn their dinner! Very entertaining!

Then, the main attraction: I got to see two divers enter the Open Ocean tanks with a cage full of food. Piece by piece, they retrieved portions of meat to feed directly to the sharks! Is it bravery or foolishness? I’m not sure, but it was fun to watch! (and no one got hurt!) Oh- it was also pretty neat to hear the Jaws theme music played over the PA system throughout the shark feeding. That movie and the composer will forever live in association with sharks, the world over!

Returning to my town, about 45 minutes away on the van ride again, the evening was capped with wonderful food and camaraderie at a teacher party. This was held at the nicest seafood restaurant in town, which is situated right above the banks of the town river, providing for a very nice view of the sunset over the water. The Thai teachers all sang karaoke (they love their karaoke here!), and myself and my foreign co-teachers all enjoyed the evening. Nothing like seafood after spending most of the day staring at fish swimming around! You look at the fish in tanks long enough, and they sort of start to look like food. These "pineapple fish" (that's the real name too) were just begging me to eat them!

Elephants and Tigers and Crocs, oh my!

My school delivered a nice surprise circa de Wednesday this week: there would be no school on Friday due to a district meeting for the teachers. I was invited to attend the meeting, provided I could understand the discussions solely in Thai, with no translation. So three day weekend!

First thing Friday morning, I was picked up by one of my Thai besties, Amonrat (Aom). I cooked us some breakfast burritos (black beans, guacamole, salsa, eggs, rice, homemade cheese, tortilla! Leftovers from home cooked burritos week). Aom took a few bites and handed me the leftovers, deciding it was not tasty. I’ve gotten used to the Thai’s we cook for just politely trying a few bites. I am pretty sure they are just used to Thai food and don’t like other tastes, but maybe I really am just a bad cook!

We drove about three hours to the beach in Chonburi province and met with my other Thai bestie Thanawat (Sam). Sam and Aom both work for the private hospital near my home. Sam had a training seminar at a nice hotel near the beach in Chonburi. We arrived in time to join him for the complimentary buffet lunch provided to attendees. I think they may have noticed me, the one white person at the buffet, but everyone was OK with it! After lunch, we traveled up to the Sriracha Tiger Zoo. The owner of the private hospital also owns the Tiger Zoo, among other businesses, and so had given Aom four VIP tickets for the weekend.

Our first stop in the Zoo was the elephant show. Man, those elephants sure do seem to have fun and enjoy performing! They danced, performed tricks, and even gave two brave volunteers an elephant massage! After the show, the elephants posed for pictures. If you walked by with a banana, they stole it right out of your hand!

Next was the crocodile show. Truly amazing and deadly creatures, we got to see their scary jaws open and snap shut more times than I’d like to remember. A muscular Thai man was the main trainer and he wrestled several crocs on the stage for performance. They actually don’t so much as wrestle them as they ‘hypnotize’ them. By rubbing the crocs snout with a stick, they were able to make the reptiles open their mouths and keep them open for several minutes. Long enough for the trainer’s to safely put their heads in the mouths! The other trainer was a small Thai girl, but she bravely and effectively battled those crocs. You know, just another day at work!

This part of the zoo was saddening, however, because the animals really seemed to be “living without souls.” They had been in captivity for so long that they had forgotten their dangerous nature. The stage was a big factor: it was a very slippery tile, preventing the crocs from easily running, much less walking across. If they moved, they would almost always automatically lose their footing and fall over themselves. Safe for the trainers of course, but we still felt for the crocs. Half of the reptiles did not even put up a fight or protest when the trainers dragged them around by their tails.

The next show, my favorite: tigers!

They were so much fun to watch. I wish I could post a video! They danced, jumped through hoops, rolled on the ground, and more.

Afterwards, we went to another area of the zoo and observed the young tiger cubs playing in their cages and then I took this picture with a baby cub! That is one cute cat! And the tiger cub is cute too :-)

Day Two: I volunteered to go on a school field trip to Ayutthaya for the day, and I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Ayutthaya is the old capitol of Thailand, before it was destroyed by Burmese invaders centuries ago, so I knew I could appreciate the historical sites. But students on a weekend day?!? Well the trip turned out to be great fun. All the teachers and students were loaded into double decker, air-conditioned buses: a comfortable way to ride! The students were well-behaved throughout and gave us teachers plenty of space! I got to see one of the royal palaces (outside and inside), a European-style temple, and a museum for one of the Royal Projects. Also took a ‘ski-lift’ ride across the river. Perhaps the best part of the trip was seeing my co-teachers dressed in normal clothes, outside of school, being silly and having normal people fun :-) It was a very nice trip and time well-spent.

Day Three: As I write, I am planning on heading to my favorite restaurant cafe in Bangkok for a pancake lunch and to type, type, type on my computer. Then home to clean house a bit and get ready for another week of classes.

Another great weekend!

Kanchanaburi

This is the name of a city and province near the Thai-Myanmar (Burma) border. The province has jungle mountains (ok, more like hills, but mountains for Thailand), a very nice town, and a famous national park. The highlight of the national park is a gorgeous seven stage waterfall. But I digress, let me start at the beginning…

We did not have any school on Friday because it was the Queen’s Birthday, which is also the day that the Thai people celebrate Mother’s Day. I sent my mother a nice email (if I don’t say so myself!) that describes the culture’s practice of giving a white flower garland to their mother’s on the special day. Earlier that week, some of my students asked what mother’s day was like in America: I described the importance of letting mother’s sleep in, then making them breakfast, and then letting them relax as much as possible!

My American friend, Nick, whom I’d met in Phuket for teacher training, came down to my town on Friday. Saturday morning, he and I met with my Thai friends, Thanawat and Amonrat, and drove with them up to Kanchanaburi province. The drive totaled about 4 hours, including about an hour of negotiating the famous Bangkok traffic.

The first sight to see is the “Death Railway,” which stretches across the River Kwai. I wish we did more investigation as to how it got its name...From there, we drove another 30 minutes to get into the national park. Some of my other English teacher friends were in the park as well, but they did not have use of a vehicle. Their trip from the town to the park took 2 hours by bus, so I was very happy to have my Thai friend’s with us when I heard about their long bus ride just to go what took us 30 minutes!

We spent some time taking pictures of the jungle covered hills as well as a large, scenic dam sight. This was where we paused to rest and gather some information from the tourist center. We briefly contemplated camping in the park, decided against it, and then drove back down the hills. Halfway down, we pulled over to swim in the River Kwai.

Back in the town, we had dinner with some of my English teacher friends then checked into the River Kwai Mansion. It was more of an apartment complex than a Mansion, but I was there on vacation and not to correct the mistaken translations to English, and the rooms were halfway decent. The next morning, we had Massaman curry, which was recently rated by CNN as the #1 food in the world. See here for the top 50 foods.

We returned to the national park and enjoyed a two hour hike up the seven stages of the waterfall. Each stage was a small waterfall drop-off that was spaced out by about 10 or 15 minutes hike before the next stage. The scenery was breath-taking. A dense, lush jungle with bird sounds, occasional monkey sightings, pretty water and sculpture-esque waterfalls. Another benefit: the majority of tourists where Thais enjoying the holiday. It’s nice not to see the country being enjoyed by just the white folk!

We swam and slid down a smooth boulder slide at stage number five, then had a “fish” foot massage at stage number six. What is a fish foot massage, you ask? Simply stick your feet in the water and find out! There is an interesting variety of fish that will come up to your feet and eat off the dead skin cells! Sounds gross and, ok, it is pretty gross. They bite only enough to take the top layer and do not ever break the skin to draw blood. It’s an all-natural exfoliation. And a very tingly one too boot! The massage is actually so popular that many spas in Bangkok have foot tank baths full of the fish and charge about six U.S. dollars for the service. Mine was free!

After hiking back down, we loaded into the car again and drove back to Samutsakhon. The drive, both there and back, consisted of jamming American pop music, discussing American rock music we didn’t like, and then swapping English words and sentence usage lessons for the same in Thai with our Thai friends. We all agreed that the road trip experience was as fun as the time in the park, but probably not as pretty after four hours sitting together in a little car!