deep breath in...

I'm a little annoyed with Thailand today. None of it is even Thailand's fault, really.  I know that I posted the elephant post, but I started that yesterday and wanted to talk about the rest of the weekend, specifically Friday night's dirty ladyboy show. But first, I'm annoyed.

I got a lot of sleep last night after my long day of elephant fun, which was nice. I woke up, wanted to finished the elephant blog but the internet here is spotty at best. It kept quitting, not saving stuff, and then my computer did something weird and I lost most of the post because the stupid internet hadn't been working and the post hadn't auto-saved. I took a break and tried to get lunch, but everything is closed on Sundays here. I ended up eating at the guest house, which was fine. I tried to go to a pharmacy near here, but it was closed, so I ended up at a different one next to Tesco, one of the grocery stores. Apparently there's a Tesco Express not too far from here. I looked for something to put on my arm wounds, which they didn't have, but I did walk out with chocolate and batteries for my little speakers for my ipod.

I found another pharmacy and had to try to explain to the man who speaks very little English that I fell off of an elephant and got scraped by some sort of plant and now have these marks that are all puffy and burny and itchy. He gave me some sort of salve. Who knows what it is or if it will work. So far it looks the same but isn't itchy/burny anymore so that's good.

I had to do laundry, and needed change and detergent. The people at the laundromat laughed at me. 

I didn't feel like doing anything so I tried to watch tv on the internet but the connection is so slow that it took me almost three hours to watch a 42 minute program.

I went to the grocery store to buy wine and cheese for Melissa's birthday tonight, but they won't sell alcohol between the hours of 2 and 5. I found some goat cheese with no price and it ended up costing almost $16 usd. When I tried to return it I had to pantomime my request to the ladies at the customer service. My fruit lady wasn't out yet because shit is impossible on Sundays... Arg. I'm just annoyed.

I'm going to hold off on the ladyboy post.

ELEPHANTS!!!

When I first booked this trip to Thailand, I decided that I wasn't going to plan much of anything other than getting there and back and school, with one exception...an elephant trip. I found this one elephant farm in Lonley Planet that looked really interesting, kind of expensive but something I was very interested in.

The name of the farm is Patara Elephant Farm and it's located south of Chiang Mai. I booked my trip while I was still in Chicago, picking the second Saturday I was in town so I would have an open weekend when I first got here.

They picked me up this morning at 7:45am in the most comfortable vehicle I've been in since arriving in Thailand. The minivan with padded seats picked me up second, first was a man named Dave who's from Washington D.C. and is here traveling before starting law school. Next we picked up two other Americans, one studying at ITM, and a woman from Canada and then made the 40 minute trip to the camp located at the base of the mountains.

 

Pat, the owner, and the shirts we all had to wear

The man who owns the farm with his family is named Pat. He greeted our group, which in total was about 14 people,  mostly Americans with two girls from Belgium in our group, a couple from Australia and England in the other. We got a short lesson on the goals of the farm, which is to breed elephants to increase the population. Pat told us that he does some elephant rescue but usually only with domestic elephants who are in relatively healthy condition.

Patara hopes to have ten new baby elephants in the next three years. They currently they have twin year old boys and at least two elephants who are pregnant. We got to see the babies from afar, they're shorter than the men who were walking with them, which is pretty short since Thai men aren't known for their height.

 

Overlooking the camp

We were told that we all had to wear these shirts made by local villagers that they make everyone who interacts with the elephants wear. They also made us wear fisherman pants while we rode the elephants, apparently to reduce leg slippage and, in my opinion, elephant hair pricks.  The seven people in my group put on our shirts and hiked down to where our elephants were being kept.

 

The path that leads to elephants

When we arrived we were assigned our elephants for the day. Two of our elephants were pregnant, one 16 months an the other, mine, something like 5 months. Elephants carry their young almost two years. Can you imagine being pregnant for that long? And carrying a baby that weights about 260 pounds? It's totally insane.

 

Our elephants

We were taught how to tell if an elephant is in a good mood by watching their ears and tails. If they're moving around and their ears are back, they're in a good mood. If they're ears are out, stay away. They are also supposed to speak when you call their name, but mine would never do that.

Ben, who was our group leader, told us the story of an elephant farm in southern Thailand where the elephants were all upset, ears out, at the same time and kept trying to lead the people who ran the farm out and away from the farm. The people decided to follow the elephants to see where they thought they needed to go. The elephants led the people to high ground and started to calm down. Shortly after,the big sunami hit southern Thailand, wiping out the elephant farm. Those elephants...so smart.

Once it was decided that our elephants were in a good mood we were each assigned one and then given a basket full of treats, bananas and bamboo, to give to them.  I guess we were bribing them to like us. I was assigned a sassy 20 year old named Nui. The first thing she did when I walked up to her was spit on me. I'm not quite sure if that's a good sign or not, but it seemed to work out.

 

My girl taking a break from holding her head up

In order to get them to open their mouths to let us put food in we had to say "bon" (although if we didn't say bon, they would have taken the food out of our hands with their trunks). Once they opened their mouths we were to put the food in there. It's so weird sticking your hang in an elephant's mouth. First of all, they're huge, I mean an animal that size would need a big mouth. Secondly, it's the inside of a giant mouth. They don't have visible teeth just a huge tongue and lips that create a suction when you stick something in there. Their teeth are horizontal and not visible so I wasn't afraid about getting bit, but my hand did get stuck in the suction once or twice.  The basket didn't last long so I stood with Nui and pet her trunk, telling her "dee dee" which means good girl. I think we bonded pretty well, although that didn't make her a good listener.

Bon

Next, we were taught how to tell if our elephants were healthy. First sign is if they are moving their tails and ears, healthy means happy after all. Next sign was to look for sleep marks on their bodies. Third thing to look for was sweat,  elephants sweat near their toenails. If they aren't sweating then they aren't regulating their body temperature properly and are most likely ill. Lastly we were to check the dung to make sure it was moist, it didn't smell badly, that there was enough of it (at least six piles. Nui had 10) and that it was fiberous. This was the part that I knew was coming and wasn't looking forward to but it wasn't that bad. Elephant poop smells like hay, and sort of feels like it too so it wasn't like sticking your hand in dog feces. It was more like sorting through small pieces of wet hay or damp dried grass.

 

Smelling the poop

After we all made sure our elephants were in tip top shape, we tugged on their ear and told them to "ma" or come. We were trying to get them separated so we could, basically, beat them with brushes made of leaves. Some of the elephants ate their brushes when they were done. In retrospect, I'm pretty surprised Nui didn't.

Elephants throw dirt onto their backs in order to keep away bugs and stay a little cooler. The whole time we were checking to make sure they were healthy, they were getting themselves nice and dirty for us to clean off.  Elephants, obviously, are much taller than we are so in order to get their backs free of loose dirt we had to tell them to "nan long" or lay down. 

This was my introduction to Noi's defiant side. She did not want to lay down. She wouldn't listen to me when I said it (which isn't surprising), she wouldn't listen to my trainer when he said it. She just wouldn't lay down. We eventually got her down and I got to try to beat off most of her dirty before we went into the river for a bath.

 

Brushing my girl with leaves

Next my trainer led me and Nui to the river. I wasn't really sure what was going on because my trainer had us go but none of the other elephants went in the same direction. It ended up being just the three of us in this one part of the river, which was pretty nice.  We used buckets covered in bamboo to get her wet and made her lay in the river we so could wash her and brush her with a proper brush. 

 

Bath time

Apparently Nui is known for her water antics. She has no problem getting into the water and is the elephant they call upon to spray unsuspecting "owners for the day" while they're trying to get their pictures taken. She did it to me and the Belgian girls while we sat getting out picture takes (on my trainer's command of course) and then when it was time for the other section of the group to get their pictures they brought her over there to do it to them too. Little devil.

 

Post cleaning we got to learn how to get on our elephants. There were three ways that Ben showed us. The first way, or the hard way as he puts it, is to ask the elephant to bend her front leg but patting it and saying dee dee. Once she lifts her leg you hold onto her ear and step up her leg using her ankle and thigh and then swing your leg over her. It isn't easy, but it gets you up there. The second method is to have the elephant put her head down and then jump up onto the top of the head/neck. Ben seemed to think this way was easy, but I don't think anyone even tried. The third way, or the easy way, was to have the elephant lay down and then just get onto it while it's down there. The lazy man's version. 

I chose the leg method. There's a video at the end of this post if you'd like to watch. I think I did an ok job, although as the day went on it got harder to do.

  

No hands!

The actual riding of the elephant is easy enough. You have to sit close to the head with your knees bent and just over the ears so you can give the elephant commands with your legs. This works in theory, but Nui wasn't having it. The command for go is "bi" and stop is "how." She did how just fine but bi, not so much. She stopped to eat constantly, which is good because they're supposed to eat a lot and she's pregnant so needs to more, but she was holding everyone up and would stop all the time to rip trees out of the ground and get all ear flappy when we made her go. No matter how many times I said bi and deedee she just didn't care. My trainer had to tap her with a bamboo stick and pull on the rope that was around her body to get her to go. She was hungry. She was bigger than me and my trainer. She was stopping.

This caused some hold up as we rode our elephants through the camp and then down the road to the small trail that led to the waterfall where we would be having lunch. The only place she didn't walk slowly and try to eat everything was when we were approaching the other half of camp where the rest of the day's guests were. My guess is she knew that she got fed there and was in a hurry to get some bananas.  

My knee, Nui's ear. The view from an elephant

The first elephant in line was afraid of water and would stop before each stream or puddle, but not Noi. She was fearless when it came to water and obstacles, they were just something between her and the next branch she was going to eat.

Anyway, we rode our elephants in a big, slow line to a waterfall that wasn't far from the camp for swimming and lunch. The waterfall itself was quit small, as it's dry season, but there was enough of a pool of water for the elephants to play. Play they did.  Most of our elephants absolutely loved the water. When we first got there about half stayed on the rocks and just rested. The very pregnant girl never got in, but, you know, she's about to give birth. The ones who did get in dunked themselves, twirled around, sprayed water. They were just loving it.

 loving the water

I know someone who went last week and she said that no one from her group got in. Not ours, we all got in, even if we didn't all try to get on the elephants in the water. I actually slid into the water. The rock surrounding the water was pretty slipper when it got wet, especially the rocks under the small stream of water that led into the pool. Well, I totally slipped on it as I was trying to get to the dryer rock and ended up sliding all the way down the rock and into Cat, a woman from our group, and the water. She was fine and I was fine, but everyone thought it was pretty funny.

The elephants were already laying down in the water so you'd think it would be pretty easy to get on them, but it wasn't. They were moving so much that it was like riding a bull. The trainers wanted us to stay on top of the elephant no matter what direction they went, which involved trying to slide you body over them as they turned. Elephants aren't slippery though. Their hair is like little quills and the water doesn't change that. When I got off of the first elephant my thighs were quite red from the rough skin and hair. We each got on at least once, but I did it twice. One of the Belgian girls got to stand on the elephant, which made me really jealous.

It was sort of chaotic while we were in the water if more than one of us were trying to ride the elephants at the same time. One time I was getting on mine and someone was on the elephant next to me. His elephant was trying to stand up while mine was still laying down and my leg got caught between them. Luckily, though, elephants are squishy and nothing was hurt. 

 

Trying to stay on

The water was pretty dirty, and probably full of elephant poop, so Ben suggested we go to the waterfall to rinse off in clean water. It was quite refreshing but was so small that it was tough to actually get clean. Me and Cat tried to change out of our suits behind the towel I brought, which was pretty interesting while surrounded by all of our trainers. We did it though and then went up to this little tree house-like structure for lunch.

Lunch looked beautiful. It was fried chicken legs and many different varieties of sticky rice. There was plain to eat with the chicken, there was sticky rice with custard, sticky rice with coconut, sticky rice with banana, with potato, with beans. A lot of sticky rice. There was so much food that we couldn't eat most of it and got to give the leftovers to the elephants (but not the chicken or oranges). 

  

lunch for us and our elephants

While we were eating the other half of the original group showed up and almost all of our elephants got into the water with their elephants. As far as I could tell, none of the humans got in the water though. They were missing out.

 

Elephant party. 

After lunch we got to ride back up the hill and across the street, over the guard rail (which you can do when you're on a giant elephant) and into the foothills that were covered in trees. We were to follow a narrow, somewhat treacherous trail that seemed to be carved out be elephants. Nui didn't hesitate going over the rail, but did at times when we were going down hill. She did a little better going forward on my command this half and only seemed to balk at going when the trail got more difficult. She still stopped to eat, but I learned that if we were close to a tree I could push against it and make her go.

When going up hill you're supposed to lean forward and lean backward while going down. There was a lot of both on this section of the ride. 

 

 Over the rail and onto the trail

Going up hill, leaning forward

Everything was going pretty well on the trail and we had been riding for a while when we heard, what sounded like, steel drums being played. We didn't know where it was coming from, our elephants didn't know where it was coming from, and the first elephant, who was already a little jumpy, bellowed and lifted her head and started to turn, which caused my elephant to turn and the elephant in front of mine to turn and the next thing I knew I was being taken off the trail at running speeds going who knows where.

Nui was the first elephant to run. She knocked past the elephant that was behind us and into the trees. I held onto the rope as tightly as I could, figuring it was better to stay on her than to come off and possibly be trampled. She couldn't have been running that long before my trainer caught up to us and put his arms out and told me to fall backwards. It took me a second to register what he was saying because I was still holding on for my life and had no idea where we were going or what you're supposed to do when you're the leader of an elephant stampede. I did let go and fell back onto him and we layed on the ground watching as two or three other elephants ran past our heads.

It was kind of surreal to watch from that angle as giant legs passed at a distance of about a foot.  Movies get the sound of running by large beasts pretty spot on. I'm pretty lucky we fell off to the side, or I probably wouldn't be writing this entry.

After it was quite we both got up, he handed me my shoes (you ride barefoot, which I forgot to mention) and I looked around. There were maybe three elephants on higher ground who didn't run. Down the hill closer to the trail were people who had come off their elephants. Closest to me was one of the Belgian girls and her trainer. Down by the path was another trainer and another woman. We all started yelling, asking if everyone was ok. The woman on the path said she had been cut and it was pretty bad. Her husband was on one of the elephants that hadn't ran and he was franticly trying to get off his elephant and to his wife.

My trainer left me once he knew I was ok to try to find Nui. The other elephants involved in the incident had stopped but she had kept going. Someone on a higher ground elephant said she saw her down in a ravine but I couldn't see her.

I walked back to the path to see what was going on. The woman (I wish I was better with names) was laying on the ground with some sort of gauze on her foot. There was a lot of blood and someone said later that her cut started from the inside of her big toe and went to the middle of her foot. One of the trainers called Ben and arranged for the vans to come get us and bring her to the hospital. She wasn't freaking out, she just said she thought she needed stitches and that maybe her foot had gotten stepped on by an elephant during the chaos.

She was pretty tough, though, and walked herself down the rest of the hill. She has lost her camera during the incident and her husband looked for it upon her request. One of the trainers found it.

We all just stood there for a while, pretty stunned. The trainers made everyone except for Cat get off of the elephants, although there were only two people left on elephants. I guess Cat's elephant wasn't even phased during the whole thing. Other people said that their elephants just moved up hill a little to get out of the way.

They decided that we had to walk back down, that our elephants were too spooked to get back on. I was totally bummed, although at that point Nui was still missing so I couldn't have gotten back on her anyway. I'm glad my trainer made me fall, otherwise who knows where I would have ended up or if I could have kept holding on.

Ben met us when we were close to the road and was freaking out. I don't think this happens very often. What I understood from his distraught broken English, the people in the village know when the elephants are out and keep quiet because if the elephants can't see where the sound is coming from they get scared and, well, do what ours did. They run. He thinks it was a car with a loud stereo going by and not the villagers.

 

Arm wound from fall off the elephant

He asked if we were alright and apologized at least five times. We insisted we were fine and that they are animals and get scared and it was ok. I asked if we could get back on but he ignored me.

Nui was found and the trainers rode the elephants back.

 

Cat, our lone post-mini stampede elephant rider

We got back to the camp and fed our elephants some more bananas to thank them for the day, but we were all pretty ready to get back on. We asked Ben if it would be alright if we rode some more. He seemed pretty surprised but said yes.  So we all got back on and rode our elephants through the creek and to the village, where I'm guessing we were supposed to see some sort of small performance but because of the agitated state our elephants had been in, we had to cut our ride just a little bit short.

 

End of day ride through the creek

We got to give our elephants one last basket of treats and say goodbye to them and our trainers.

 

  

my hero

 

me and Nui

 

Nui

 

Cat and her calm old lady

Overall it was one of the best day's I've ever had and would recommend it to anyone coming to Chiang Mai. 

I was thinking about the elephants on my way to dinner last night. They're just so amazing. They're beautiful creatures that are so wise and caring. They're enormous and yet delicate. I thought about the sounds they make, and how they sound like dinosaurs out of Jurassic Park. If I come back, I'll do it again. Even with the stampede, it only made my love of them grow.

This is me getting on Nui.

ANTS! ANTS! ANTS!

Stuff happened today but all I can really think about is the fact that I got home from Chaba House tonight and found a bunch of tiny ants in my bed. Now, despite shaking out the sheets and comforter, I keep feeling ants on me. There aren't any, mind you, but I know they were here. Problem is, they could still be here, I don't know. They're tricky littler fuckers. It's my own fault. I ate crackers in the bed.

I also put the crackers in the fridge for this very reason. Damnit. I hate you ants!

I did my first 90 minute Thai massage today. I think it went very well. I just found a fucking ant on my computer. sorry. Anyway, I got a little frustrated in school today. They tried to "teach us" the sen sib lines, but then sorta seemed like they expected us to know them in 15 minutes. There are 62,000 of them, and they only want us to know 10, but that still seemed impossible.

I walked to the grocery store today and bought fruit and crackers and cheese. I will no longer be eating any of these things in my bed.

There was a going away dance party at Chaba House today for Talal and Jose. They are leaving for Krabi tomorrow and then off to Brazil. It sounds lovely. I wish I could get in a little beach time. I think I'll be taking a cooking class, so that should be awesome.

I also think I'll be taking a sleeping pill this evening b ecause this ant thing is not going to work for me.

busy

It seems as though the same thing that happens at home is happening here. I get busy, it gets tough for me to actually log on to this thing and write about my day. When I'm at home I have to plan my life around getting home for my sweet sweet dog. But here...I never need to come back here. All that's at my guest house is a bunch of junk and a bed. Warner is definitely giving me the hard sell on moving the Chaba still, but it's silly to leave here now. I can go there whenever I want and hang out. In fact, I'll be going over there to play cards after school tomorrow.

Yesterday after school Melissa and I got massages at this place near Tha Pae gate. It was kind of nice because I woke up in a totally crappy mood. I had broken a glass in my room the night before (which was an amazing explosion of glass everywhere. In fact, I found a piece in my bed just a few minutes ago) and got a shard in my foot, which I didn't realize until I got to school and spent ten minutes in the office trying to dig it out with a safety pin. I had also slept like crap, woke up in the middle of the night absolutely drenched in sweat. I just couldn't shake the mood. Maybe I was missing my friends, but I've stayed pretty well connected.

Anyway, when she suggested massages after school I was all about it. It was nice to get a massage to kind of try to figure out what other people do. The woman who massaged me did a lot of the same stuff we're learning but faster and both sides at the same time, instead of one at a time. Today in class we learned some of the modified/more advanced stretches, some of which she did to me and I was mentally trying to figure them out.  It kind of made me decide that I'm going to stay in Chiang Mai until the 14th and fly to Bangkok as late as possible and just hang out at the airport so I can take a table class somewhere other than my school. I also want to start getting more massages so I can compare and steal techniques.

Post massages we met up with Gina and Tom at the bar they call Jim Beam, but I think it's actually called Kafe. They had a little mistake on their menu that I thought was funny.

 

But now I see that they sell shrim in addition to frence fried

We didn't eat there, instead we walked to a very delicious vegetarian restaurant called Taste From Heaven. The owner was a very lovely man from Australia who owns a black lab mix whom he saved from the streets.

We found an shop across the street that makes organic lotions and such for so cheap. I should have bought this honey body lotion but didn't feel like carrying it because I knew we were going to North Gate Jazz club (finally).

On Tuesday nights they have an open mic jam session that I guess is really popular. There were a ton of people there and they close off some of the main road around the old city to accommodate them.I didn't like all the music but that's ok. Everyone Sounded pretty good.

 

 Gina and Tom

 

yummy pineapple drinks

 

Jazz

When I met two girls from ITM here they were talking about their classmate named "Cello Joe." They were going to see him play that night and invited me to come. They said that he rides his bike all around Chiang Mai with his cello on his back and does some sort of cello/beat box thing. It sounded pretty strange. Well, he played at North Gate and it actually sounded really awesome.

 

Cello Joe

I left the club slightly early to try to get home to phone into google for the meeting about benefits, only to realize that it was at 12pm cst and not 11 and there was no way I was staying up until 2am for it.

This morning I woke up far less crabby. I ate a left over sub for breakfast, which made me feel like barfing for the first half of class. I felt better by afternoon and then Melissa felt like crap. We were learning those new things I told you about and it was a little frustrating because Dao may be the sweetest lady but her English is practically impossible to understand and she falls asleep in class, which is weird. She was a little better about paying attention to us today, so that was nice. 

Tonight a big group of us went to the cultural center for some very touristy show. We had a super great time, though. It's really nice to connect with my classmates. I was just so worried.

 

 

 There was a little boy during the second half of the show, who's parents were probably in the show, who kept dancing with the dancers and running across the performance area. He was pretty much the cutest thing ever. Trying to take his picture was like trying to get a puppy to look directly into the camera, or even like trying to get a 2 year old who doesn't speak you language to look at you. 

 

 

Tomorrow night we go dancing to celebrate Samantha, Talal, Jose and Singrid's last days at school. 

toilets, teachers and double dog dares

Ketchup fried rice sounds pretty disgusting. it's on the menu at the place across the street that I get mango and sticky rice from and I just can't imagine what that would be like other than completely gross. Speaking of mango and sticky rice, it might be the sole reason why I won't be losing any weight while here in Thailand. Oh well.

On a completely unrelated topic, but on point with the title of this entry, I've gotten pretty accustomed to the Asian way of not putting toilet paper in the toilet. I occasionally slip up and put it in the toilet instead of the basket but I'm a Westerner, what can you expect? On the train here there were two bathrooms, a regular toilet and a squatter. I'm pretty glad that there aren't a lot of squatters here. In India, they were everywhere. They take a little getting used to and on the train it was pretty tough because that fucker wasn't very stable.  Both the toilet and the squatter had no tank/flushing, there were just holes that went out the bottom of the train. At the houseboat this weekend they had the same system, only into the lake. You had to fill a pot of water that sat in a large barrel in the bathroom to "flush" it. I didn't really think about it until a little later, but that went right into our swimming lake. I mean, I guess there was a slight distance between the bathrooms of the houses/rooms and where we were swimming but not really. There was a lot of shower scrubbing when I got home.

I started level two today. So far we've just reviewed what we learned last week. We have a new teacher named Dao. She's very nice, and giggles a lot, but I don't think she understands everything we're saying and we definitely don't understand everything she says. Melissa asked her what she did this weekend and she said 'I don't know' which I is doubt is possible. She just doesn't know much English. She seems to be a good teacher and has been doing massage for a while, from all we've been able to gather. She did, however, fall asleep today while I was working on Melissa. It's totally fine since we're just reviewing last week's stuff but we'll probably need her help when learning new things.  There are only two level 1 students this week and neither plan on continuing. There are four people left taking level three and then the teacher training program students. It's going to be pretty quiet at school next week.

On our ride home from the lake Warner dared me to eat the flower that was behind my ear, so I did. I told him that generally I will do anything if dared. I very rarely refuse a challenge. Last year Christina and Erin Armstong told me that they didn't think I would go up to the dude we call Ryan Gosling and ask him to make out with me, so I did. I'm just too competitive to lose and not going through with a dare is kind of losing. We can also refer to the bug, as I really didn't think I could do, but I said I would so... Melissa and Warner "triple dog dared" me to show them my boobs, so I did. I don't think I've done that since New Orleans with Sharon all those years ago. I'm sorta worried what this will lead to. Hopefully they forget all about this dare thing.

I've stopped taking so many pictures. I mean, who really wants to see a photograph of me waiting for the taxi to school or writing post cards and doing laundry and going to the grocery store. It becomes less of an exciting vacation and more regular life and regular life isn't really as interesting.  I don't want to go back to real regular life just yet. Good thing I have two more weeks here.

oh weekend, why must you end

This was maybe the best weekend I've had in as long as I can remember.

Saturday morning I met up with Erica, Stefan, Melissa, Warner and Daniella to take a taxi about an hour and a half out of Chiang Mai to a national park with a big lake in it. We took a boat out the Eakachai Houseboat where Erica had reserved a room and a private house.

 

our private house

 

Eakachai Houseboat

I was slightly nervous about going at first. I felt like I had almost invited myself, even though Melissa had invited me,  and that there wouldn't be enough room.  I had asked Erica the night before if it was alright, but felt like maybe she just said it was to be nice. It didn't help that I was the first one to arrive at our meeting point. I started to think that they weren't going to show up and the joke was on me. This, obviously, wasn't the case.

First thing we did upon getting there was swim. The place itself was about a 15 minute boat ride from where we were dropped off on shore. I consisted of a main building where there was a restaurant/bar, a motel style section, and two private houses on the end. I think there was another motel style building on the left, but didn't go over there.The whole thing was floating about 100 feet from shore (maybe, I'm terrible with distances).

 

Sunrise, Melissa swimming, Warner messing with his phone

  

Stefan and Erica

 Me and Daniella, taking a break from our dance party

The water was warm enough and the air was so hot that it felt good that it was a little cold. There was a lot of lounging, massaging, drinking Sang Som (Thai rum) and iced tea, eating all the time, Erica and I went kayaking, we had a dance party, long talks, and laying in the sun. Everyone got alone really well, and six was the perfect number. Warner and Melisa had one room of our house and Daniella and I had the other, while Erica and Stefan took the single room. I shared several freshly caught grilled fish with everyone, which is kind of a big deal since I've never been a fish fan. It was just really perfect. I'm so glad I went.

Tonight I was walking out to get dinner and there was a girl sitting alone eating dinner, so after I picked up some 20 baht pad thai I asked if I could sit with her. Her name is Valentina, she's from Italy and starts at ITM tomorrow. She's all alone here, so I asked her if she wanted to go to the Sunday Night Market with me and she did. So we walked there and I gave her some Chiang Mai tips and tried to tell her the easiest way to get places, that she should only take the red truck taxis and should never pay more than 20 baht for them, etc. 

I found those little screen prints that I wanted to maybe get, they had elephants today. I wish they had a little one that was the two colors, because that's what I want for dwall. I feel like they should be able to make them pretty easily but when I asked they guy he said he couldn't. I also wish they still had the whale one. I asked him if they were going to make any more he couldn't understand my English well enough to answer. I also found this painting on our walk out that was so beautiful. It was only 1000 baht but it was kinda large. I'd have to ship it home. But man, it was gorgeous. I did buy a dress. I can't figure out what to get for Michael, Pete and Beth and Stephanie for helping with Lola. I have two more weeks to figure it out.

On our walk home we can across a frog that was so very loud. He wasn't very big, but that's how it goes. I tried to get a picture of him singing, but I scared him and he stopped.

later...

This might just be the latest I've been awake since being in Thailand. 1am...crazy. It's like it's the weekend or something.

So, Muay Thai tonight was something. I met up with Gina and her ex Tom and we walked over to Tha Pae Gate to meet with Sara, Erica, her boyfriend Stefan and Daniella, the ladies are from school and Stefan is along for the ride. I've sorta started to just invite myself to things, or tag along and then see if it's ok. I asked Erica at lunch today about boxing and she invited me to dinner, so that was nice. Anyway, we ate at El Diablo again. It's pretty funny that I've had Mexican three times since I got here. I made everyone go to Mexican before I left because I figured that I couldn't get it here. It's almost like I should have made everyone go to Thai food. Anyway, we taxied it over to Kawila Boxing Stadium, which was kind of in the middle of nowhere. It was near the train station, I think.

The stadium itself was pretty basic. The ring was kind of off to the back in the center. The "ringside" seats were white plastic chairs on the north side of it while the cheap seats, where we sat, we bleachers behind a shorter chain link fence. We ended up walking up to the ring anyway, and probably had a better view than the ringside seats. We met up with a girl named Claire, who was in the first five weeks of the program with the teach training program people. Her boyfriend, Simon, was on of the fighters this evening.

When we got there, there was two little boys in the ring. They were maybe 14 and it was kind of difficult to watch them kick and punch each other in the face, knees, stomach, whatever. I've never been into boxing, or fighting of any kind, but I wanted to check this out since it's something that's not readily available to me in Chicago (and even if it was I probably wouldn't go see it). The little boy's match went five rounds, which is the maximum, and one of them was declared winner.

Next up was Simon, who was fighting some chubby guy. He was totally outmatched in weight, but the chubster was getting tired and Simon got a good one in and won by knockout. The next four matches were won by knockout, including another little kid match.  Muay Thai seems pretty clean, I mean the fighting. It still made me a little anxious. I'm getting soft.

There was a three piece band playing Thai music during the fights and old men betting on the matches standing near the ring. One of them was one eyed. At some point one of the better turned around and waved money at us. None of us could understand what he was doing.

I didn't feel like going home and ended up a bar with Clair, two people from the teach training program whom I never speak to and some girl named Shawn who lives in Portland who doesn't really know the other people we were there with either. I can't remember exactly how she knows anyone we were with, but I think it has something to do with her friend that she was at the match with.

We went to a bar near Tha Pae Gate called rooftop bar. It's located on the roof of this building (obviously) and was really beautiful. The drinks were cheap and the roof was nice but they played a lot of clubby dance music. I stayed for a drink and then walked home.

 

Simon and the chubby guy

 

Sara, Erica and Stefan watching the match

 

Rooftop Bar

 

anyone know what a veggaquarium is?

I walked on purpose so I could maybe stop by that damn jazz club. There were more people there, but there was no jazz. Damnit, someday.
 

I bought a sim card for the nexus one on my walk home, so I'll have a Thailand number as soon as I pop that thing in.

I like that I walked two miles home and felt completely safe. The only little incident was some guy riding up to me on his motorbike as I was entering my guest house and asking if he could touch me. Odd question. I said no.

I should go to bed. Have to get up early to go to the lake.