Cambodia pictures

Cambodia pictures -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigramroad/sets/1697069/

Funny article -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/4567856.stm

I woke up at 6am for some reason, decided to check out the sunrise, found a party still going on down the beach a little bit with a ton of people singing Nirvana, Oasis and The Killers very loudly.

Hell yeah. The Rock kids stuck it out, those Techno wimps were all asleep.

And I did a yoga class today!

Sorry

Ok, I've noticed a general trend...

1. Get somewhere
2. Complain about it
3. Reminisce about the place I last was
4. Get over it and eventually end up having a good time
5. End up being sad when leaving
6. Get on a plane
7. Repeat

Koh Pha Ngan isn't as bad as I made it out to be. I'm a lot happier right now than I was when I wrote that last entry.

Yes, I've been hit on by Israeli guys in Speedos with lines like, "You look like you're looking for something. I think you're looking for me." But it's all part of "experiencing" Koh Pha Ngan.

I think what helped was leaving for the day. Danny decided he wanted out and he went to a hostel in the north part of the island. The taxi (pick up truck) ride was about an hour and it was really beautiful. The pathetic part of the island is really only the street I'm sitting on right now. The rest of it really is a beautiful island, with crazy banana trees, white sand, clear water, nice Thai people who have regular Thai lives.

Danny found a really cool place on this really tiny island off of the island we're on. It's called Koh Ma if you want to look it up. To get to it you walk across a sandbar. I think they have a boat if you really need it, but most of the time (weather/tide depending) you can just walk to it! That's what we did. When we got there it reminded me a lot of the elephant park but with white sand and clear water instead of elephants. It was a small group of people in a beautiful and peaceful place just chillin on hammocks and enjoying the surroundings. There are SOOOO many people around Haad Rin (madness village I'm in right now) that it's actually kind of hard to meet people cause it can just feel too overwhelming. But at this new place there are like at most 15 people on the island (only one place to stay - Danny's place) and everyone was kind of hanging around the food/reception/tv area.

It made me really happy that Danny is going to be there for a couple days. I really like watching drunk people dance to techno music, which Haad Rin happens to be perfect for. Danny wanted someplace where he could read science fiction, snorkel and relax by the beach (with as few Israelis in Speedos as possible). And now he's totally there. And he'll come back to Haad Rin for New Year's Eve. And then on the 1st I'll go back with him to and stay there for a couple days before he leaves for Hong Kong.

Also, on the way back to Haad Rin I was in a pick up with a group of Australian/English/Polish people. They were just arriving and were asking me tons of questions. I instantly turned into Tour Guide Beth. It was kind of cool. The picks up aren't allowed in "downtown" Haad Rin so he drops us off in what looked like the middle of nowhere. Luckily, after getting in a minor fight with Danny about the fan in our room I had gone on an adventure and had ended up in that middle of nowhere place and knew exactly how to get to town! They were all very appreciative because the pick up driver just kept saying, "One minute walk! One minute walk!" but with no directions and 6 roads to choose from.

So knowing that my days here are numbered got me excited to actually do stuff. First, I'm going to try the boat trip again with the bungalows I'm staying in. The guy who works here/runs the boat trip helped me out with changing my room so I said I would go with him. So no Snoop Dogg, but I'm ok with that. Danny will meet up with me then too cause the place the boat trips go to snorkel is Danny's little island! Very cool. Am I spelling snorkel right?

Then also there's a Yoga place that I finally located this morning. So I think that'll be my goal tomorrow. As long as I'm not sitting on the beach all day I think I'll be fine. I realized it's just the day time that was bothering me. The night time's fun. Last night Danny and I went to "Rock Night!" at one of the bars and there was a DJ wearing a Sex Pistols shirt and playing The Killers, The Strokes, The Clash, The Ramones, Green Day, The Pixies, Muse, The White Stripes and The Libertines. And then again. Not much variety for an entire night, but it was fun anyway. I met a couple from England who LOVE The Cat Empire which was cool because today in the pick up truck the two guys, from Melbourne (hometown of TCE), had never heard of them. But then I found out the only bands they like are "Creed and Green Day" If they like Creed I decided it was probably best they don't know/like The Cat Empire.

The computers here seems to be a bit smarter than the ones in Chiang Mai and won't let me download my flickr uploading software so that's why I haven't been able to update Flickr but soon! Soon!!!

Last things...
1. this is really cute - http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KENYA_ODD_COUPLE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-12-28-14-19-12

2. More cool pictures from Elephant Nature Park
http://mikerace.blogspot.com/2005/12/baby-elephant-walk.html
http://mikerace.blogspot.com/2005/12/kitties.html
http://mikerace.blogspot.com/2005/12/puppies.html
http://mikerace.blogspot.com/2005/12/dog-days.html
http://mikerace.blogspot.com/2005/12/elephant-days.html
http://mikerace.blogspot.com/2005/12/baaaaaabies.html
http://mikerace.blogspot.com/2005/12/baby-elephant-walk.html

3. Gerry and Isabel's Blog with some really big/cool pictures from ENP
http://tblogs.bootsnall.com/gerry/

Koh Pha Rain

By the time I left the internet cafe is had started raining again.

To answer Beau's question - I'm not sure what role Snoop Dogg plays in the Snoop Dogg Boat Tour. There is a Reggae Boat Tour and my guess is someone was like, "Yo, hip hop needs to be represented. I'm gonna start the Snoop Dogg Boat Tour!" The Reggae Boat Tour was all full and the other option had a boring name, that's why we went with Snoop's. They all go to the same places, do the same things, and cost the same price.

In addition to Australian teenagers are more Isrealis than I think I've ever seen before. The computer that I'm typing on right now has English and Hebrew characters. There are a ton of signs in Hebrew also. Very unexpected.

Personally, I'm not digging this place too much. I finally got into Thailand but now this doesn't even feel like Thailand! There aren't any red pick ups, no tuk tuks, no wats (temples), no monks walking around, the people working at the stores don't even try to make you feel like you're in Thailand. At least in Chiang Mai they would say "korp kun kah/kap" (thank you, female/male) when you bought something and you could try to say it back and feel like you've learned something. Here they say thank you. Boooring. And internet is a lot more expensive. In Chiang Mai an hour is 30 baht ($0.75), here it's 120 baht ($3). I don't know if I can stay here the whole time. Besides the one day boat tours there isn't really anything to do. I think you're supposed to sit on the beach all day. I'm having a hard time getting into that. And then if it's raining you sit and watch movies all day. That was the plan today but the movie I wanted to see turned out to be a bootleg and I couldn't hear what they were saying at all. They turn the closed captioning on but the captions are usually way way way way off. The bad captions are sometimes more entertaining than the movies.

So my mission today is to find a tour group to go to Laos with. It would also be really nice to just have all the transportation/lodging/food/attractions done for me. And maybe I would meet people???

I think I'll reserve the last week or two to go back to the elephant park. I'm afraid to go back too early and then not want to leave or do anything else for the rest of my time. It happens all the time with that place. A couple who had planned on staying for three days ended up staying for 2 weeks, left, and then went back for Christmas/New Years.

I uploaded some new pictures to Chiang Mai set on flickr. I tried to do Cambodia and Koh Pha Ngan but this computer is also really slow. Soon I will find decent computer! But here's my new hat - http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigramroad/77974181/in/set-1620680/

Ok, peace out everyone.

Cambodia

Ok, so this is my shot at trying to describe my Cambodia...

Cambodia
Dec 22
- The Siem Reap International Airport Arrival Terminal was a 100 foot hallway that started with a counter to buy your visa, continued to 4 counters for Passport Control, behind which was the one baggage couresel, and last but not least a guy collecting customs form at the exit which was the parking lot.

- Danny met me a the airport and I met our driver for the next day, Funny Guy. He was, indeed, a funny guy. Not a whole lot of English, but a lot of smiling and laughing. We took a tuk tuk but it wasn't like the ones in Chiang Mai. It was a motorcycle with a hatch on the back that carried a 2 person (or 3 or 4 if you're feel adventurous) cart behind it.

- The first night we went to a place called Deadfish Cafe which was a cool place but it was completely empty. On the way to the bathroom you walk over a corcodile pit. They all looked dead. It was kind of creepy.

Dec 23
- The cool thing to do is to go to Angkor Wat for sunrise, so we convinced Funny Guy to meet us at 5am. He did. It was freezing out. We got to Angor Wat, tried to watch the sunrise but it was cloudy and no one saw anything.

- In the first few minutes of getting there we were bombarded with women literally running towards us saying "breakfast, come eat breakfast, come with me!" We said, "uh, we were going to try to watch the sunrise, maybe later." This continued the entire day. Anytime we weren't walking through a temple, like in the parking lot or going from one temple to the next there was a rush of people running towards us with menus or screaming, "pineapple!" or, the worst to turn away, a heard of little kids following us around saying, "buy my postcards! buy my bracelets!" They were no older than 8. Very strange.

- We saw Angkor Wat (the name for the whole area, but also the main temple that's on all the postcards), Byron (had a bunch of gigantic faces, kind of weird) and then the coolest one, Ta Prom. After 6 hours of being awake and freezing it was nice to end the day with this one. It was big stone temple (like all the others) but had HUGE trees all intertwined with all the walls. First there was nature, then the temple, but now nature's kind of claiming it back. Very very cool. I think they said Tomb Raider was filmed there maybe? (Cambodia is all about Angelina Jolie) Pictures coming soon. I promise.

- On the way out we ran into a bunch of monkeys! Some with babies! Very surprising, very cool. WHen we got back I fell sleep for 6 hours.

- We decided to be Cambodian and eat dinner at a street stall. Again, there was an 8 year old girl who ran up to us with a menu and we decided to just go for it. She was the hostess and our waitress. Joining us for dinner were all the streetkids waiting for us to finish eating so they could eat the rest. I gave the rest of my food to a little girl who hid underneath the table to eat it and Danny gave his to a one legged boy who hobbled his way over a big dirt pile to get to us. I think he was asking for money but seemed satisfied with the food and hobbled away again.

- Feeling a bit exhausted by the whole "Cambdodian" experience we went to the tourist's bar street for dessert. It's really strange. There's a road block and none of the amputees/ young girls carrying newborns/ unbearably cute dirty 5 year olds asking for money are allowed on the other side. The "other side" is a ton of bars in French Colonial buildings, fun music, nice views (of the rest of the street) and 2 for 1 cocktail specials with drinks like Tomb Raider and AK47.

Dec 24
- The Plan: Rent bicycles and ride to Angkor Wat to check out what we were too tired to do the day before. Funny Guy was disappointed but took it well.

- Turned out it was boiling hot outside, so we went to and got $4 massages at the Seeing Hands Massage Center. (The masseuses are all blind.) It was interesting. Danny was a little freaked out. I fell asleep.

- We went back to Deadfish Cafe hoping there would be more people because we were told there was pianist there from 1-4. It was his day off. I stared at the crocodiles some more.

- We tried to go to the landmine museum but it was closed by the time we got there. We did get to Angkor Wat (only the main temple) again which was nice. We took more pictures and had fun being on bikes rather than the tuk tuk. Because we were on bikes we had to park further away which meant more walking time to the temple which meant more running and yelling from people trying to get us to buy stuff.

- We figured it was best to get back town before it got really dark and on the way back we stopped at the Foreigner's Correspondance Club for happy hour. It was happy hour for milkshakes too! They were also serving Christmas Dinner and showing Cinderella. By the time our Christmas Dinner came Cinderella was over and Home Alone was starting. Awesome! Except that the DVD started skipping and about 45 minutes into it they just started it over. And we were finished with all of our food. So we had to leave

Dec 25 Cambodia --> Ko Samui
- Siem Reap to Bangkok. The plane left on time! We got extra cookies with our meal because it was Christmas.

- Got to Bangkok and hung out in the Bangkok Airways lounge with free mini tuna sandwhiches and nice couches. It's kind of a budget airline so everyone gets to use their lounge, not just the fancy people!

- Again, the gate for the flight to Samui was in the dead, scary area so we didn't want to get there too early. The tickets we had were for flight 143 which the lady at the office in Siem Reap told us left at 14:30. The lady at the Siem Reap airport ten wrote 14:30 on the boarding pass. But flight 143 is actually scheduled to leave at 13:40. Guess what time we got to the gate? 13:50. "Oh no, so did you miss your plane?" Nope, not even close. It was delayed until 14:50. Even the monitors in the Bangkok Airways lounge didn't have flight 143 listed anywhere. I figured for this one it was because it was the international gate for a domestic flight (we had special stickers so that we would go through immigration in Samui and not Bangkok), but the Siem Reap flight was an international filght and also not on the monitors, so maybe Bangkok Airways just doesn't pay enough to get themselves listed or something.

- Danny wanted to get to Koh Pha Ngan (the backpacker's island) but by the time we got to the Samui airport (an adorable collection of open air huts with all staff in Hawaiian shirts) we figured we had missed the last boat and decided to spend the night in Koh Samui. We stayed at the cheapest place with availability and it pretty much sucked. It was in the middle of nowhere and most of the time it was raining. My actual Christmas dinner was chicken and cashews and white rice. I did go in the ocean for about 5 minutes but then realized I'm not a big fan of salt water or sand. Then I went in the pool but got bored fast.

Dec 26 - Koh Samui --> Koh Pha Ngan
- Got to Koh Pha Ngan on a boat filled with Australian high school kids.

- Went to the crazy party beach of Haad Rin and took the first room we found. It's peak season right now so all the places are most expensive than normal and mostly booked. We got a smelly bungalow with two beds, a cold shower and a manual toilet (scoop buckets of water from a pail into the toilet) for 500 baht. There are so many people who want to stay here, the prices are kind of ridiculous for the quality you get. (In Chiang Mai my fancy hotel room was 650 baht.)

- The cool thing about the bungalow was it was right on the beach so I got to watch people walk up and down all day and there was a hammock! I read People magazine (THANK YOU BEAU!!), played sudoku, listened to two Jack Johnson albums (being played in the restaurant 50 feet away), and watched people on the beach while sitting in that hammock. It was very nice.

- The main streets here (there are two of them) are made up of internet shops/travel agent/guesthouse, liquor store and restuarant/bars playing movies all day. Yesterday I watched three episodes of Friends, parts of Zoolander, Snatch, and The Beach (a favorite out here). The plan for the rest of the day is to get more food and watch more movies.

Dec 27
- We decided to see if there were any other options for the room. We settled for a not bad smelling bungalow with 3 beds, hot water, a fan, flushing toilet and breakfast for 800 baht. It's not right on the beach and there's no hammock but I guess it's ok.

- We tried to do the Snoop Dogg Boat Tour of Koh Pha Ngan today but about 10 minutes before we were supposed to go it started raining and it was canceled. Good thing the same place where we booked the tour had internet! (Here I am, no photos though cause I thought I was coming to go on a boat).

-It's since stopped raining and so now I think we're going to get food and watch a movie. We'll try the boat thing again tomorrow.

Coming Soon....
New Year's Eve on Party Central of Thailand. Should be interesting. Danny wants to do drugs.

Boxing Day!

It's actually the 26th. I'm on Koh Pha Ngan in Thailand. Here's what's been going down the last couple of days...

In Chiang Mai
- I changed my plane tickets to stay in Chiang Mai longer, skip Loas (for now) and go straight to Siem Reap to meet Danny. I actually had to cancel my first ticket and then buy a new one. The difference was about 6000 baht ($150). The city office didn't have cash to pay me back (I paid in cash in Hong Kong, so they couldn't put it on a credit card they said). They said try the Chiang Mai airport. More on that later.

- I bought an awesome hat from an Akha tribeswoman at the Night Baazar. It kind of looks like this http://www.akhagear.com/images/_small_akha_hat_2.jpg

- I met a girl, Sarah, who is teaching English in Japan (Errol is kind of one of her bosses) and convinced her to go to Elephant Nature Park for a week. She's there right now. I'm totally jealous. I hear the mahouts get really into their Christmas carols.

- I got a fancy foot massage and then a not fancy head, neck, back massage.

- I wimped out on taking the night bus to Bangkok because Helen (who stayed at the Park) was going to come back Wednesday night!!! So I got to say goodbye to her.

- I went to an "American" bar where they have pool, internet and popcorn for free. I wish we had internet for free in American bars.

- I finally went to see something famous. Doi Suthep is a fancy temple on the top of a hill overlooking Chiang Mai. Sarah came with me. It was an adventure, full of nausiating pick up truck rides and tough negotiating. The temple was cool, we followed an English tour group. The view was non existant. It was totally cloudy.

- I finally took a red pick up truck by myself to the airport. The limo from the airport had been 120 baht, and the red pick up truck ride back was 30. I was proud of myself. Getting less freaked out by the day!

Airport

- The Chiang Mai airport office for Bangkok Airways also didn't have enough cash to pay me back. My flights with them started in Bangkok so they promised that Bangkok airport would have enough cash and I could pick up my cash and tickets there.

- My 11:30am flight to Bangkok took off at 1:15pm.

- They knew I had a connecting flight (at 2:50pm) so they bumped me up to the 12:45pm flight to Bangkok which took off at 1:00pm and also had us get off of the plane first, which would have been nice except that the plane landed in the middle of nowhere and we boarded a bus to take us to the terminal. Getting off first actually pushed us to the back of the bus.

- I sprinted 486 meters from the domestic terminal to the international terminal.

- I got to the Bangkok Airways desk at 2:25 and asked if I could still get on the 2:50 flight. The lady replied "Too late! Too late!" I figured I had done all I could, accepted the fact that I would have to wait until the 6:10 flight and went and got a pedicure.

- Around 4:45 I went to the gate and the 2:50 flight to Siem Reap was just beginning to board. Not fair. For some reason Bangkok Airways doesn't have their flights on any of the monitors and the area where the gate is past additional security with no shops or food or anything so it's not like you wanted to get there too early. I didn't think to ask the lady "Is the 2:50 flight delayed by any chance?" Now I know.

- The 6:10 flight was delayed until 7:10 but then actually left around 6:40pm. Confusing, huh.

Then Cambodia for 3 days, then airports/Koh Samui for Christmas and Koh Phangan now.

I'll get to that stuff later. This computer's really slow and it's like a billion degrees inside.

I'll get pictures up later too.

Pictures!

Elephant Nature Park Week 2!

House Building/Chicken Dancing in a Karen Village

Elephant Nature Park Week 1!

Chiang Mai City (no elephants yet)

Hong Kong Pictures

More more more!

Things I'm Going to Miss (continued)

• Getting/Being Dirty! - So instead up stinkifying my entire wardrobe I tried to just use the same clothes over and over, and over and over. As I mentioned before, elephants are not known for their cleanliness. Then add a week of rainy days (week 1), followed by the Elephant Haven trip (a soggy, muddy trip thanks to the rain), then the Karen Hill tribe (no running water) trip and you've got one dirty Beth. The park had showers but it was cold water so it's not like you really would want to stay in too long. The river was usually a nice temperature so sometimes I'd think, "Oh, I'll just go in the river and at least get some dirty off" but then 6 balls of elephant dung would go floating by and I'd remember the river is just as much their toilet as anywhere else. But anyway, the point is, it didn't matter. It's not too often where you're surrounded by mud and you say, "Fuck it, I'm going to get covered in it sooner or later, may as well be sooner."
• Getting People Addicted to Sudoku - I love it. By the time I left there were like 6 people with puzzles they had copied out of my book. Three sudoku virgins tried their first puzzles in my book. At first there were concerns that it was making me anti-social, but I think it was the complete opposite.
• Real Thailand - I feel so lucky that I actually got to do real Thai stuff. Examples: bought pig's blood with Pom, went to a food market where they were selling live frogs, had a group of woman and an old man jump into the back of the pickup to catch a ride home, ate tamrin (?) off of a tree in the jungle, dropped pieces of wood into hot water and then drank this purple tea that an 83 year old man said was the secret to why he's still looks young, watched a video of Michelle (volunteer supervisor's) Buddhist Wedding. For more Thai culture see also: Things That Didn't Annoy Me As Much As I Thought They Would
• The Motorbike Ice Cream Man - Self explanatory.

Things That Didn't Annoy Me As Much As I Thought They Would

• Elephant excretions
• No lights in half of the bathrooms
• No hot water
• Thai food twice a day
• Rock hard mattresses
• Hand washing my clothing and hoping it wasn't going to rain
• 39 dogs (That is until they started fighting outside my room at night and howling at 4am)
• 12 cats (I didn't see them too much so no allergies)
• Toast for breakfast
• Bumpy dirt roads
• No phone, internet
• Sitting in the back of a pickup truck for long periods of time.
• No drinkable tap water (plenty of water bottles always available)
• Random stomach issues (everyone gets something at some point, Pepto cured it)
• Heat (No humidity!)
• Helping with things (not that I thought it would annoy me, but I never got sick or bored of loading/unloading or anything else we were asked to do.)
• Random animals all over my room (spiders, geckos, mice and/or rats, dogs)

Things I'm Not Going to Miss

• Dogs either taking up any available seating or barking and fighting.
• Not washing my face.
• People asking if I'm Canadian and then saying, "I didn't want to say American cause Canadians get really upset if..." Yeah yeah, I get it. Thanks. Props to Sarah (Canadian) who is against the whole put a Canadian patch on everything you have as to not be suspected of being an American idea. She said "Seriously, traveling, I've met the coolest Americans and the lamest Canadians."

Ok I think I'm done with Elephant Nature Park stuff. I also wrote this Things I've Learned list but looking at it now it's way too cheesy to actually post, so you can ask me later if you're actually interested.

So yesterday and today have been really fun (and clean!). Michelle (volunteer supervisor from Australia, it was her wedding video I watched) has a bunch of cats and one of baby kittens left the house and walked up to the main hut and got mauled by one or a couple of the dogs. Scary stuff. Helen (from England) is actually a veterinary nurse, so she came down to Chiang Mai to bring it to the vet after doing her kitten first aid at the park. Last time we were in Chiang Mai we thought we'd treat ourselves and go to a day spa, but with Helen's vet priority and my internet addiction that didn't work out. But we did go for a Thai Massage for 150 baht (same price as my guesthouse room, a good sized Tex-Mex dinner, 3 tuk tuk rides around town, a t-shirt with minimal haggling, 5 hours of internet or a Subway sandwich plus cookie). The massage was... um... awkward. There was a fat middle aged woman crawling all over me. It was an hour long but the first half hour was all leg stuff which was just weird. I was tense the entire time. I guess Thai massage is all about using different parts of your body to massage different parts of someone else's body. Not my thing. At least not with her. The second half was back and neck and that was better. I finally relaxed. The whole thing was kind of awkward and I think next time I might go for a foot massage.

We also went to the Night Bazaar which was a lot of fun. I love that the minute you walk up they say, "Special price for you." For me? Really? Wow, thanks! Then you walk away and they grab your arm saying, "How much you pay???" For me, it doesn't get old. For Helen, it does. She's English and just way too nice.

I bought a tee shirt from this guy and got him down from 220 to 150 (so easy! I said "but the lady over there is selling them for 150!" he said, "ok"). Helen went to the same guy's table but there was a girl there (way harder to barter with) so Helen said "how much?" and she said "220" and Helen went into this mummble of "I think my friend just bought a shirt for 150, just a minute ago" and the lady said, "Ok, I give you special price, 180 baht" and Helen said, "Well right, thanks, but I think, I think I want to pay 150? Is that alright? 150?" Lady replied "Ok, 2 for 300" and Helen bought 2 t-shirts for 300 baht. She's getting a lot better though.

Today I spoke more Thai with random people on the street. One guy said, "You're the same height as my wife, are you English?" and I figured that was just too random to not answer. He's Thai, he married an Australian woman (apparently my height). Then he asked if I wanted to see a picture. I said sure, then I said, "Oh, soo-ay mahk!" which means very beautiful and he said, " Oh! You speak Thai!" and I said, "Nit-noy" which means a little bit. Very exciting. I think he was trying to get me to sign up for some tour or something but I said I had to get to my guesthouse and he was understanding.

More fun with Thai: There are not one, but two, karaoke television channels and sometimes they have both scripts! So I can sing along! I don't actually sing along, but I can recognize words, especially in cheesy, sad love songs. "Difficult, love, better, heart, sad"

So cool. Ok, I have to find food now, and then I might try to find a better internet cafe with faster computers so I can finally upload some pictures of baby elephants!!! And then maybe a foot massage. Or pineapple. I'm in Thailand.

Dee Mahk (Good Very!)

So obviously my whole Elephant Nature Park experience was quite amazing, informative, fun and inspirational. There's more to say than I would ever have time to put into this blog. So I thought I'd go with some lists. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm being a complete hypocrite with regards to the whole "backpacker complex" thing. Oh well.

Things I'm Really Going to Miss

• The elephants! - So I think I said this before, but the grounds of the park were like a summer camp but with 25 elephants all over, and I mean all over. In the morning I would wake up and there would be a family outside my window. And when I was sleeping outside (week 1 with coughy roommate Stacey), fields of elephants was the first thing I'd see when I opened my eyes. Walking down the dirt road to the main hut I would usually pass five or six. Then I'd get to the main hut where some of them like to hang out waiting for the food truck to come. Then feeding time, then walking down to the river for a bath then for a walk. Seriously, I feel like hanging out with elephants is like hanging out with gigantic baby humans. Slobber everywhere, always unbelievable cute and funny and there's never a dull moment.
• Sounds - I had no idea how many different kind of sounds elephants make. Then in addition there are the ones too low for humans to even hear! There's the trumpeting which is really cool, especially if a bunch of them get into it, there's there like a really loud rumbling that sounds way more like a motorbike starting than an animal noise. Then there's the squeaking which sounds like it should be coming from a seal and not an elephant. Then there are geckos which make some other squeaky noises. Then there's the sound of the wat (Buddhist temple) down the street. They play some really nice music I think around 6 every day. (UPDATE: found out it's the Thailand National Anthem, just being played on the town's PA's system) Then there's the sound of the mahout's karaoke bar which I think was also in town. So funny. Then there's the sounds of the 39 dogs, but I think that might go in the Things I'm Not Going to Miss list.
• The Other Volunteers - Either Elephant Nature Park is unbelievably cool or I just have awesome timing. I met the best people there. You'd think with two weeks of the same people you'd start to get sick of people but I really didn't. The age range was always at least 10 years but barely noticeable. And none of the large number of couples even acted annoyingly couple-y which was really cool. Maybe I'm totally off and everyone hated me or something but I'm completely amazed how well the whole group of us got along. And even some people who were only there a week, or even 3 days, I made awesome friends with.
• The Mahouts - First, it's really cool to observe the relationship between the mahout and their elephant. The role of the mahout in Thai society is really strange (they're the caretakers for Thailand's 'most precious' animal, but it's basically a crap job that gets handed down to you) and then the role of the mahout at the park is even stranger. Mahouts are basically taught from day one that torturing the animal as much as possible is the only way to get it to obey, so coming to the park and having to change their ways can be quite a shock. (Sometimes they can't change and are asked to leave.) Anyway, the mahouts at the park all seem really sweet with their elephants. Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot of yelling and discipline, but no metal hooks or massive beatings. And the good times outweigh the bad times by a lot. Second, a couple of the mahouts were psyched to hang out with me and teach me Thai. I had been really frustrated not learning ANY Japanese in a month of being in Japan, so I took full advantage of this opportunity. Some of them also were trying to learn English so it worked out well. One night when the other volunteers were playing Mafia, I sat with Kopi (17 year old Burmese mahout) and helped him read a Lion King picture book he had bought in town. He could read most of the words but didn't always know what they mean. It was really fun to try to explain/mime out what the words dark, mouse, secret and trust meant. Mongkhun was an 18 Thai mahout with this huge smile who spoke very very little English but liked laughing and smiling. I learned most of my Thai with him. He didn't really speak English so we just bother used the Thai phrasebook to communicate. He would say something and then look it up so I would know what he said then I would look something up and point to it then he would say it, then I would say it. We could have full conversations like that. I couldn't believe how well it worked. The phrasebook is helpful but kind of pointless without someone to actually say the words because Thai is based so much on the tones. He also had this really silly "Learn English" book with really bad English sentences that Rachel (from Singapore, roommate for 2nd week, supercool) and I tried to correct and turn into sentences a person might actually want to say. I didn't realize how much Thai I learned until getting back to Chiang Mai last night. In the tuk tuk I kind of had a conversation with the driver! Very cool. Thank you Mongkhun! And thanks to Kopi, if I'm ever in Burma I can say 5 or 6 Burmese phrases too!
• Food - There were 2 full time chefs who made lunch and dinner each day. Soooooooooo good. I would have a full plate (or two or three) each meal. Lots of pineapple and cucumber!!! I don't think I can eat Thai food back in the States anymore. Just kidding. The dishes usually weren't spicy and if they were I was given a heads up. I was feeling so adventurous I even ate fish and curry dishes too. Go me!!
• The peace, quiet and beauty - So the website and the official volunteer pack made it look like we'd be doing hard labor from 7am to 5pm. We actually woke up whenever we wanted, before 10 if we wanted breakfast, helped with feeding and bathing, took pictures for the day trip people, then chilled, which usually meant playing sudoku on the deck. Not just for me, but for like 6 other people too. Sometimes there would be poo pick up or barbed wire fence wrapping to be done too. There was also a balcony (where I slept week 1) that overlooked the park that was really nice to sit out on and just write. Or play sudoku. I've never categorized myself as a "country" person, but wow, being in dirty, smelly, noisy Chiang Mai really makes me really miss the serenity of the park.
• The Karen Hill Tribe trip- I'll try to explain this better. Lek (superwoman) has a project Jumbo Express which was initially set up to visit, educate and give care to elephants and people in small, poor villages in the mountains. Unfortunately, a lot of the villagers were taking the medication she gave them for their elephants, selling it for money and continuing to be mean to their elephants. Kind of discouraging. So she's stopped doing that as much but still likes to help out when she knows the help will be appreciated. Soooooo, she got word from this guy who used to work for her named Yo that a family in one of the villages he oversees was in dire need of a new house and invited us to help build it. We were psyched, but none of us knew the first thing about building houses especially out of bamboo in the jungle of Northern Thailand. Fortunately, like the case with Elephant Nature Park itself, the most important thing we as Westerners could bring was the money (in the form of medication and roofing materials) and not our manpower or housebuilding knowledge. They had that covered. We also brought our dancing skills. So the first night, I already mentioned the funeral. They wanted us to get involved because for the younger generation it's not cool to be involved with traditional stuff and we, being Western, are apparently automatically cool. So when they got us involved it was a way to get the younger generation psyched about their own tradition. The most impressive thing about them wanting us to be their was their patience with us. They speak Karenii, we spoke English. We're walking around a coffin, you would think it would have been awkward. Well it kind of was for us, but definitely not for them once we got past the staring-at-each-other phase. They were lighting candles at one end of the coffin and wanted us to light candles too. The walking stopped for about 10 minutes because we couldn't get the candle to stand. Eveyone's still smiling. Then after 30 seconds of standing, the candle fell again. We moved to the other end of the coffin and lit incense instead. Then there was a piece of cloth or toilet paper or something soaked in maybe water, maybe whiskey that they were swinging over the gifts (seeds, cookies, candles) that were scattered on the top of the coffin. They held our hands and got us to do it too! And then all the younger girls were walking with this shawl on their shoulders and they stopped the procession to get us under the shawl too. It was really nice. And then the whiskey offering. See, funerals are kind of like week long parties for the village and I think I was told that the idea is the teenagers get drunk and then run off and, um, repopulate. "With death comes life" kind of thing? Anyway, everyone there was really inviting, really patient and really excited for us to be there. So surprising. I felt really bad thinking about the response if they showed up for a Western funeral. So the next day was filled with "oh-mu-chew-puh"(hello)s and "tab-leuh"(thank you)s. Rachel and I played frisbee and tried to get the kids to play with us. It didn't work but they all liked sitting around and watching us look like fools running to catch it and falling. Then the chicken dance thing. See Pom, she kind of led the trip (Lek was in the hospital for stomach problems, but she's better now), is this tiny tiny nature/outdoorsy woman who only wears board shorts and oversized t shirts and LOVES techno music. At a painfully loud volume. So in the car with her we listened to BEST DANCE MIX and there was this techno chicken dance song! I loved it. Rachel did too. So we were chicken dancing a lot. When we drove into town for lunch we made Pom play it 3 or 4 times and danced non-stop. So then when we got back to the village we kept it playing in the truck and got out and danced in front of their huts. Pom videotaped it. That may have been the first time I was filmed all day. Not for any of the house building but for the chicken dance after lunch. Thanks Pom. Then for the rest of the day Pom was yelling, "CHICKEN DANCE!!!! CHICKEN DANCE!!!!" So after the whisky out of the plastic bag offering Rachel and I thought it was only fair to teach them the chicken dance. You know, like a cultural exchange. They got into it! Kind of. I have pictures. We were told we may have been the first Westerners they have ever met so I have this vision of them meeting their second group of Westerners and thinking, "Let's show them that lovely traditional Western dance that other group taught us!" And then getting picked up to go on tour across Thailand. I did help build the house too. I carried and untied bundles of straw roofing, I carried bamboo all over for the floor, the walls, the everything. Bamboo is quite impressive. Ok, Beau just called and is going to call back so I have 5 minutes. The last thing about the whole experience was the ceremony at the end. We all sat in a circle in the newly built house, lit by candlight and the mother and the old man (113) of the village gave us these little string bracelets which mean a lot. I wish I knew more, but they were all giving blessings and it was just crazy that they would share this with us! Then they brought out this tray of rice with some super spicy dishes in the middle and I ate it! Super spicy! When we left I was crying. The kids were so fun, the people were so nice, the whole experience was just unreal. Ok, last thing, I only got to do this cause Lek is such an awesome woman and really just wants to help whenever possible (did I tell you I know get how cults happen now?) There are "hill tribe treks" offered every 5 feet in Chaing Mai but they go to villages that are visited like 20 times a day and it's all so lame. They visit like 5 villages in one day. Show up, take pictures, give candy to begging kids (rot their teeth), and then leave. The long neck tribes (you know, the women who make their necks long with the brass rings?) actually stopped doing it (because they realized it wasn't good for them) but now the younger generation is starting to do it again because they don't want to lose the tourist money. AAARRRRGGGHHH. There is a better way to do all this!!!

I should go now, I got through 1/2 of my first list I have like 2 more. I'll write more later.

Thank you Lek and Elephant Nature Park for everything.

Two Minutes

I have two minutes.

I've been reading through emails from Beau (BEST BOYFRIEND EVER!!!!) and talking to Danny on IM so I only have a minute now before I meet people.

But this is from my IM conversation with Danny. He said "Tell me a Thailand story"

Chausette4: i went to this hill tribe and built a house for this family of 4 (mom, 3 kids, dad just died a month ago) out of bamboo. and a saw and string (you know, for a level). and the night we got there there was also a funeral going on for an older woman who had died and we were asked to join in the ceremony and i walked around the coffin for like 30 minutes and was then offered whiskey from a plastic bag and i took it. and then i drink whisky out of the bag the next day when we were building the house (it's cool, everyone was) and i tought these middle aged tribe women the chicken dance. long story.
Chausette4: and i learned hello and thank you in the karenii language.
Chausette4: cause i was chillin with the karen tribe. it kind of sounds like french. really beautiful.
Chausette4: and i gave little kids de-worming medication and then really loud annoying balloon noise makers and coloring books. we didn't know the balloon things were also noise makers.
Chausette4: and they all (women, men, kids) had much cooler clothing than me.
Chausette4: all super bright track suit tops and bottoms with knit hats.
Chausette4: except the married women. they had on traditional clothing. really beautiful. still with the knit hats.


More on the whole tribe thing later. And the last week at the elephant park and everything else. So amazing. I already told them I'm coming back in January. I've learned such an incredible amount in the last two weeks. I'm so happy. And tan. And hungry.

More Later!!!

Naga!

I decided to come back to Chiang Mai for the night. A couple of the group of kids who started on Monday are leaving, so we decided to come back in, have a nice dinner (use the internet!!) and then go to a bar. Only have a minute though. Ok, let's see. WHERE DO I BEGIN?????

Everything is still going really well. I'm learning more and more about elephants (the specific ones at the park and the animal in general) and 'the situation,' which gets more and more depressing the more I learn, and it seems that the only real answer is massive education for the entire Thai society which, um, is difficult to say the least.

On a brighter note, I've acquired 2 nicknames since the last blog update. First one, "Bad-Time-Beth" from a lovely Canadian named Matt. This was based on the fact that I don't like playing this terrible game called Mafia where your success is based completely on how well you can lie and trick other people into believing you're not "the Mafia". The best player always seems to win just by saying, "Seriously guys, I'm not the Mafia, ok?" And for some stupid reason everyone believes her. It's evil, really.

My second nickname is naga, which means "serpent dragon" in Burmese. I picked it myself after making friends with Kopi, a very sweet 17 year old mahout from Burma. No one (from Burma or Thailand at least) goes by their real name so I didn't want to go by mine either. I looked through his Burmese-English dictionary and picked naga because 1) I could pronounce it and 2) I've never been a serpent dragon before and it seemed pretty cool. In addition to his phrasebook he also has Lonely Planet's Burmese Phrasebook which features an additional section titled, "Should you go?" (Neither my Thai nor Japanese Phrasebook had that section. ) How strange it must be to have come from a place that the general public is advised to just stay away from.

The other mahouts all speak Thai and I've learned some Thai from them but they can be a bit much at times so the first phrase I figured out was, "I have a boyfriend." Very handy! And since then I've been using the phrasebook a lot! The mahouts have one they share too so we sit around and communicate with a lot of pointing and bad pronouncing on both sides.

Ok, back to the elephants!!! They're getting cuter and cuter, it's going to be really hard to not try to shove one in my backpack when I have to leave. This morning I got back from "The Elephant Haven" which is this beautiful area where the elephants can just roam around. At the camp they get put in pens at night because they only sleep 4 hours a night and if they wander into a farmer's crops the camp will get fine and the elephant might get shot. Eeek!!! No good. So we went to the haven! We hiked to the river (stopping for beer, ice cream and potato chips), rode the elephants across the river then hiked up a really steep hill until we got to a tiny hut. We set up camp and the elephants were on their way! Totally free! We had an amazing meal cooked on a campfire and sat around the campfire. I 1/2 taught English to the mahouts with Helen (a lovely British girl who says, "Oh bless him!" and "That's absolutely gorgeous!" every five minutes) and then 1/2 learned more about depressing situations all over (Burma, elephants, aahhhhh, the list goes on).

In the morning after another awesome meal we went out to hike through the jungle with the mahouts to find the elephants!!! For being such huge creatures they do blend in quite well. We eventually found them all and then headed back to camp. These hills were soooo steep!! The humans were slipping and sliding all over the place, the elephants looked like they were walking on flat ground. Man, they're good at getting through the jungle.

I have a bazillion photos but this internet place is about to close. I may try tomorrow morning.

So yeah, update... Everything is still really good here. My super coughy roommate Stacy was replaced today by a girl named Rachel who is English but has lived her whole life in Singapore and went to some famous international school. Crazy accent, and she really liked my Old Navy pajama pants. She asked if I got them in a market in Chiang Mai and was surprised when I said they were pajama pants. I also learned they don't have Old Navy or Pepto Bismal in Singapore. My super coughy roommate was actually a blessing in disguise, I ended up sleeping outside on this balcony for two nights and it was really nice. The weather's perfect (at night anyway) and then when I woke up there would be an elephant family within feet of me, just over the railing. It all still seems so unreal.

And, let's see, what else, oh, for the hour and something drive into Chiang Mai tonight a bunch of volunteers I started with (some leaving for good, some going back tomorrow with me) and I rode in the back of a pickup going no less than 60 mph on every possible kind of street from complete mud to highway to city street. Singing showtunes.

It was fun.

Mom, don't worry, I'm pretty sure I get to sit in the passenger van on the way back tomorrow morning.

This next week I'm going to be going on "The Jumbo Express" which is Lek's project that goes around to small villages and gives medicine to their sick elephants. And I heard a rumor that the park is getting THREE new elephants!!!!

I'm so happy I'm here for 2 weeks.

Save The Elephants!!!!!

This is the best I've felt since coming to Asia.

The elephant sanctuary is amazing. There's no internet or phone up there so I came back to Chiang Mai for the night to communicate with the outside world.

Pretty much, this woman, Lek, rescues elephants that have been really messed up from logging and/or jungle trekking (humans riding elephants) and/or street begging. I don't even know where to begin. There is so much to say. Please please please check out the website.

It's old, outdated and probably difficult to navigate, but they're working on a new one and I wouldn't be able to do the situation justice.

www.elephantnaturepark.org

Lek, the woman who runs this place, is a fucking amazing woman working for a really important cause and while the world (or the people who know about it from around the world) seems to be behind her, the country of Thailand is working as hard as they can against her. It's really sad. The first day we watched a National Georgraphic story on the situation and were told all the horror stories of how each elephant ended up at the camp. Really really sad stuff.

As for me, I'm having a blast. It's like summer camp (really good food, really nice people, beautiful surroundings) but with 25 amazing elephants all over the place!!! I've learned so much. The "work" is really laid back too. Feeding and bathing are the two major things and then there are different side projects all the time. On the first day we were told they'll always be stuff to do if we want to, but we never have to. "There are no good or bad volunteers." I was told by a returning volunteer that the most important contribution is really the money we pay to go there which goes to medicine for the animals and towards the purchasing of more sick elephants.

So I do the feeding and the bathing and yesterday morning I went banana picking! Or, more excatly, banana tree dragging!

Three mahouts (elephant caretakers) and six volunteers sat in the back of a pick up, drove up a mountain to a mud road, got out, pushed the truck up the rest of the way, got to a point where we couldn't move it anymore and stopped, and then went into the jungle to get bananas. The mahouts had the machetes so they cut the trees and then we (volunteers) would carry/drag it back to the truck. Add to this, we were in the middle of jungle land, and it had rained the night before so it was all mud. Everywhere, mud. It was also raing. We were slipping constantly. On the way there we had all been trying to not sit on the bottom of the cab of the truck cause there was some water left of from the previous night's rain. By the time we had finished filling the truck with banana trees we were all coverd with mud, front and back. At one point we realized it was faster to just sit on our butts and slide down the hill than to try to find any kind of stability in each step. It was a lot more fun too. Also, once we got back to the road a girl named Kelly and I decided to just run and see how far we could slide on our feet. Like snowboarding kind of. All mud. All fun.

We got back, fed the elephants, fed ourselves, then jumped in the river and used the elephant scrubbers to try to wash ourselves. Then we washed the elephants.

So there are 25 elephants in all. Sixteen female adults, 4 male adults (we don't hang out with them much, they're solitary and tempremental) and 5 baby elephants (SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CUTE!)

Lek's hope is that the baby elephants can grow up without ever knowing about the crap that all the other elephants have had to go through. And then they'll still be used for tourism (with camps like hers that show happy, heatlhy elephants) but trained with love and health instead of sharp metal objects getting stuck into their heads and broken backs from carrying around tourists on their backs all day.

But since what she's saying is so risky her camp is severely hated by all the other tourist camps and not advertised on the street and is therefore relatively unknown.

Driving up to her camp you pass a couple of camps with tourists sitting on elephant's backs, with the mahouts with the sticks with the metal hooks at the end and I know it can't be a comfortable situtation for anyone invovled. Some elephants are even bleeding from their foreheads!! And I have to imagine that if people knew there was an opportunity to actually hang out with the elephants really get to know them (THEY'RE REALLY SMART AND ALL HAVE REALLY DISTINCT PERSONALITIES!!!) and their situation, the sitting on the back thing would lose its appeal, real fast.

To be honest, in the beginning, I kind of thought I would do this thing and be all about the cause for 2 weeks but then maybe do one of the other elephant camps just to get a picture of me sitting on an elephant but I have absolutely zero interest in that now.

Ok, I should probably go, I have a ton of errands to run in my one night in town. If you have any questions on anything, elephant related or not, let me know. I really like talking about this stuff now.

Pretty much, I'm really happy, I'm learning a lot, meeting cool people from all over the world and will be sad when I leave.

And I don't have email, phone reception, a comfortable bed or hot showers, but I'm completetly fine with that.

I'm not being fair

Ok, things have gotten better since I wrote that last blog. (This is my second one today. Scroll down for the earlier one.)

I walked along the road outside the hotel which is pretty much cafe, internet cafe, tourist activity agent (books hill tribe treks, massage, cooking, meditation classes , pharmacy, cafe, internet cafe, travel agent, pharmacy.

I walked by a bunch and then decided to stop for some food. I got vegetarian fried noodles which came with egg and tofu. I actually liked it. I didn't just eat it. I also got a good sized pinapple shake. It was good. The pineapple of Thailand is talked about a lot. Lonely Planet says something like, "once you've had the pineapple from the street vendors in Thailand, you'll never be able to eat the canned stuff again." One of Danny's friends in Hong Kong said, "Yeah, they're totally right. The pineapple is AMAZING. I don't even think I can eat pineapple in the States anymore." See, this is a concern of mine. Not the pineapple eating, per se, but the whole backpacker complex thing. I don't want it.

If I come back and I start talking about the pineapple in Thailand please tell me to shut up.

So that meal was $1 and I think I went to one of the more expensive places. This money thing is very strange. After eating, I went to the market that was happening right outside my hotel. There is so much stuff and it's all really cheap. Anything in Hong Kong is a third of the price it was in Japan and anything in Chiang Mai is a quarter of the price in Hong Kong, with very minimal effort.

There was a purse that I saw in Japan that I liked. It was $30 there. Then it was in Hong Kong for $10 and then here it didn't have a price. I started looking at it and she said "120 baht! ($3)" I said I wasn't interested which was true because the reason I hadn't bought it in either of the other two places was more because of space than price. She said "what you pay!" I tried again saying I wasn't interested but she didn't like that answer and I also hadn't actually walked away yet (my fault). So after a couple more, "what you pay!"s I said, "80?" and then she funny made a face and said "100!" and I said "um, sure".

I'm sure I could have gotten it for 90 or started lower and gotten it for 60 or 80. And I'm sure she was totally laughing at me for paying so much. But I decided if I'm getting ripped off and that means I'm paying $2 more than someone cooler than me would, I think I'm ok with that. Also, it turns out it folds up really easily.

On the topic of "bargaining"...
Friday night in Hong Kong we went to a market and Danny and his friends tried to get a bunch of t-shirts. They found a place that had the right colors and the right sizes and between 3 or 4 of them they had 12 shirts. The price said 29 HKD and, in a fun, friendly way, they got them down to 20HKD. But they thought they could get them for 18HKD and kept at it and eventually left the store without buying any of the shirts, thinking there would be another stall with the same shirts. There wasn't, and then when they tried to go back the people running it wouldn't let them in.

I'm going back to the hotel room and try to sleep. I only slept for 30 minute intervals last night and didn't actual feel comfortable turning the light off until 6am. Also, it's 90 degrees outside ("feels like 96" according to weather.com) and my room has AC.

Last things to note:

• I sat between two Korean guys on the plane ride from Hong Kong and Bangkok and realized that no one understands anyone in Asia. And the secondary language in most Asian countries is much more likely going to be English than Korean. Therefore, I have to stop complaining about a language barrier. In Thailand it's more of an accent barrier anyway. Most people speak English.
• "Homeward Bound" by Simon and Garfunkle is playing right now. Not fair.
• I might try the early hours of the night market and see if I can find some clothing. My most appropriate piece of clothing right now are my pajama pants.
• On the way from the airport I passed at least 4 billboards telling people that having sex with children under the age of 18 is illegal. They were in English.
• I have to stop thinking that every 20 something Western guy is a drug smuggler.
• One the street right now are a hippie couple both with dreads down to their waist, two awkward blond girls with a Lonely Planet Chiang Mai, a huge Western guy with a tiny Thai girl, a group of monks and a tuk tuk driver trying to get people to take a ride with him. This is Thailand.

Chiang Mai

I'm feeling better now, but these are some 'highlights' from an email I sent to Beau after landing in Bangkok, before my flight to Chiang Mai. He suggested I post it here. Sorry about the, um, strong language.

this is so fucking scary.
this feels really shitty.
i just want to stay alive.
i don't have anywhere to stay tonight.
i really don't know what i'm going to do.
i have no coins to use the phone.
i have no idea what's going on.
i don't want to be here by myself.
i had no idea i was such a fucking wimp.
i've been on the verge of tears since the plane landed.
this sucks this suck this sucks this sucks.
my one goal is to try to stay alive. and then figure out how to not cry all the time.
i don't know if i'm going to puke, pass out, start crying hysterically or shoot myself in the head first.

Crying hysterically eventually won out, but not until I got to a hotel room in Chiang Mai.

So yeah, I just really wasn't ready for any of this. 'Any of this' referring to Asia probably, but Thailand in particular. It's not that it's that hard being a foreigner here (I've definitely seen more Westerners than actual Thais) it's just that everything seems like a bad idea when you're 1) by yourself 2) female. So I stayed in a hotel room and watched Disney Channel original movies all night. Chiang Mai is famous for it's night market but I didn't feel like figuring out how to get there, what transportation to use, or how to not have my wallet stolen, so I watched Disney movies.

So far today I've made it from the hotel to an internet cafe around the corner.

The food has been fine. There was a meal (beef with noodles, not spicy) from Hong Kong to Bangkok and then a snack (breaded tuna and bread thing is my guess, not spicy) from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. This morning's breakfast was Sour Cream and Onion Pringles and an apple juice juicebox. Total cost - $1, from the minibar in the $18 hotel room.

I decided to 'splurge' and get the $18 hotel room with A/C, my own bathroom and hot water. December is peak tourist time so I was pretty lucky to even get that room. The taxi driver told me all the guesthouses ($2 dorm beds) would probably be full anyway.

As my heart rate continues to slow down I think I'll be able to walk around more. Chiang Mai is supposed to be a really nice city. I just have to calm down. I don't think it's the foreign city thing that making me paranoid, I'm pretty sure it's the being alone that's making me paranoid. I really really really don't want to get lost or robbed. And I feel like the chance of either is a lot higher because I'm by myself. Or this is just be being a wimp, which I'm totally ok with.

Tomorrow morning I meet my elephant people. I hope that makes me happier. This whole sad/depressed/scared/overwhelmed/homesick/lonely thing is starting to get old.

As for the rest of the time in Asia, I have plane tickets to Luang Prabang (in Laos), Siem Reap (in Cambodia), Koh Sumai (central place for the nice beaches in southern Thailand) and then back to Hong Kong. Luang Prabang will be by myself (maybe I'll meet people in the elephants place?), but the others are all with Danny and maybe Brian if we can convince him.

Other things:

• There were 6 monks on my flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai.
• There's no toilet paper anywhere, so I've finally started using the promotions tissues that I collected in Japan.
• I tried some Thai raisin type fruit, Longan I think it's called, on the plane and it was bad. But I tried it.
• I'm going to leave the internet cafe now.

E-tickets...

... have just been added to the ever growing list of "Thing I Took For Granted In The States."

I stole this from Danny

Danny's funny and I'm really tired so here you go...

12.01.05

So Beth is here for a solid 5 days and we've been having a good ole time here in Hong Kong. Yesterday was full of stressful situations and irritating occurrences and generally not a good day. There's no point in sugar-coating it, Hong Kong can be an extremely stressful city, and yesterday she flexed her muscles upon Beth and I.

Today was all about travel agents and Hong Kong Disneyland!

After an absurd day with plane tickets yesterday, we hit the jackpot by visiting the headquarters of Bangkok Air. Thanks to their extremely patient employees and their genius Discovery Air Pass, I now will be flying from Hong Kong to Cambodia to Bangkok to Koh Samui and back to Hong Kong for a very reasonable $2600 HK (~$320 USD).

We MTRd on over to HK Disneyland after the travel agency and immediately hit up Space Mountain which was incredible! The inside of space mountain was all glittery with stars and planets and fireballs(?) and I truly did enter an altered state of mind (for the first time since Amsterdam!). Thanks to a genius invention called the single-riders line we could bypass the 25 minute wait and ride over and over again. We only rode it twice, which was probably a mistake because it is the only real 'ride' in the park.

The rest of the park was overloading with lameness for the most part. Our first meal was dry, bland, and full of bones. BBQ Pork Ribs with Rice is much better in theory than in practice. The Sprite was good though, and the ice cubes were the cylindrical kind-- I love those! At this point, Beth started feeling sick/tired, the culprit: malaria pills. We sat around for a bit watching kids run around entertaining themselves with plastic bags in a park full of multi-million dollar attractions, and then made our way to the Character Photo garden which was dominated by 40 minute waits for the major characters. We ended up skipping out and taking a photo with a small dragon from Mulan who was being forced to put his/her arm around a hysterically crying child.

Next was Tarzan's Treehouse which was epic in it's ability to bore and waste time. Skip it if you ever find yourself in HK Disneyland. Actually, if you're in Hong Kong it's probably best to skip Disneyland altogether. And if you're in Asia, it's probably best just to skip Hong Kong. And I'll even go one step further, If given the option to travel anywhere in the Eastern Hemisphere, I'd choose Australia/Central Asia/Middle East/Europe/Africa over East Asia. We had dinner at 'Astro Burger' where we spent the entire meal trying to figure out what kind of sauce we were given for the chicken fingers (my guess: ketchup with vinegar). So our visit ended on a good note with the evening fireworks display which actually ended up being really cool. The music was timed with the fireworks which was something I've always heard about but never seen. Following a stampede toward the exit and trying on every hat in the entire park we left and headed home so Beth could get some real sleep.

Tomorrow, who knows! More travel agents and some laundry and hopefully a visit to the Peak and a solid night out of live music, good friends, quality drinks and asking people to 'Join my harem' in Cantonese. Another piece of advice is to learn how to say "I can speak _________(language of country you are in)" whenever you travel abroad. It always gets people's attention and creates laughter and dialogue, even though you immediately have to explain that you were just kidding and all you really know how to say is "yes", "no", and "join my harem".

Off to make some phone calls, can't wait to get back to the states!

Danny

and here's some older stuff that I thought was interesting...

11.26.05
...After traveling a bit through Asia, it's clear that Hong Kong has the best grasp of English. However, it seems like there are a few rules that locals just cannot understand. For one, in English, the subject and adjective are not interchangeable. Often you will see phrases like "Cool is Radio" or "Impossible is Nothing". I tried explaining the first example to my radio program manager but everytime I reversed it ("Radio is Cool") she would respond, "and Cool is Radio!" and laugh. She get's an A for effort.

Often, Hong Kongese signs and notices have perfect grammar, but the word choice is awkward. I think this is a result of a clash between past British influence and omnipresent American globalization. For example, if you drink a lot of coffee here at Pacific Coast Coffee it's a good idea to join the "Frequent Drinker's Club". And the Winter Spice Latte is "laced with creamy white choclate". Instead of "caution: wet paint" they use "beware: wet paint". All you need to do is look around to see these 'close but no cigar'isms--it's what makes Hong Kong the city it is! I can't really accuse them of misusing the English language, sometimes I find myself wondering whether my words make sense-- I think I butcher certain rules of basic grammar.

Breaking news: I didn't go on to the next round of the singing contest, which is total bullshit. I'm all about cultural relativity but Hong Kongese have a horrible taste in music. The top ten who advanced are all kids singing whiny soulless Canto-Pop which is the HK equivalent of listening to Celine Dion underwater. I was the only person singing a capella which is unheard of in Asia-- where using backing tracks (half-assed lip synching) is a widely accepted practice. Show me one good Hong Kong band and I will show you the 9,251,213 bands who they are trying to copy. I am allowed to say this because somewhere in the US some Hong Kong native studying abroad is writing about how American music is loud, garish and unorganized.

I've come to realize that as the world slowly succumbs to globalization and a single world culture, it has become justifiable to say that one culture is 'better' than another. Not better in the sense that the people are better, but in the sense that one will continue to last and gain influence and another will die out. The local students who have adopted Western culture in their lifestyle (good with english, wearing western clothes, listening to western music, generally extroverted) are the ones who are popular and leaders of their social groups. Students who adopt the traditional Asian mentality involving saving face and a reserved personality are loners for the most part. As Western businesses with white executives move to China it will become increasingly advantageous to adopt a Western lifestyle over the traditional Asian lifestyle that was thriving just 50 years ago. So in conclusion, Western (mostly American) culture is 'better' than Asian culture because it's appeal is more widespread and spreads virally rather than relying on being passed down through generations.

OK, that's enough of the serious and possibly offensive rants-- tonight is prank night and we have a special mission all planned out!

-danny

I have to leave to go to Thailand tomorrow and I don't have a ticket yet. This isn't good. Europe has a billion super cheap flights (England to Austria for $13USD on ryanair!!) and East Asia has very very few, ridiculously expensive flights.

On the bright side, the minibus rides are getting less scary and my laundry is in the washing machine right now. And the single riders line at space mountain really was very fast. The only other people in it were a father and son from Atlanta. Everyone else in the entire park may have been Asian. The whole "Eastern collectivism/Western individualism" thing totally worked to our advantage. Go America!