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.