Lampang and Sukothai

Well, I've left Chiang Mai and I'm now in Nong Kai. The trip from Chiang Mai to Nong Kai consisted of a long bus ride. I stopped at three areas; an elephant reserve, one of the oldest wooden Wats (Temples) in Lampang, and Sukothai runins.

Elephant Reserve was a waste of time. We only stopped for 2 hours and I didn't really want to do anything because it was extremely hot.

Lampang was once again extremely hot. An example of this is when I had to take off my flip flops to enter portions of the wat. But since the wat was outside my feet were going to burn off on the tiled floors, so i wore my flip flops and walked around all the sand. The wat itself was really cool because it was after new years so there were a lot of offerings the thai people left at the temple, such as wooden sticks to give offerings to trees and ribbon and sand for the monks.





I experienced my first hardcore thunderstorm the night before Sukothai. I went to sleep early so I could wake up early to visit the ruins of Sukothai, but I woke up at 1am due to thunder and lightening. I opened the door to my hotel room in Sukothai and the trees were swaying, there was purple light due to the lightning, and the on and off showers of rain. The storm lasted a good couple 3 hours.

I guess the thunderstorm was good because the morning after it was actually kinda chilly. Which meant I wasn't going to die in the heat while observing the Sukothai ruins.

Sukothai is Thailand's first capital in the 1200s and was amazing to see. The structures are all in various stages of ruins but a lot of them were still amazing to see and it spanded 40km sq. I biked around the ruins for 3 hours.

River Boat

Today is my 2nd to last day in Chiang Mai and I’m both sad and excited. Sad for the fact that I won’t be ever coming back to Chiang Mai and I know this town like the back of my hand. Well at least to the point where I know where I am in the city. And excited to leave because the next city on the list is Nong Kai. The move to Nong Kai also means a trip to Laos … more stamps in my passport. Nong Kai is also suppose to have the best thai food around and I really haven’t had epic thai food, which I’m very sad about.

Well, tonight I went on the river boat cruise. It was a change because it was just a girl thing and we all dressed up for it. Almost all the girls came out so it was a fun hang out session. During the cruise we ordered dinner, ate on the boat, and then we were off cruising the river for about an hour. After the cruise, a bunch of people went home but a couple of us went to Brassiere to listen to music and had dessert.

Random fun fact about Monica.
When I get mosquito bites they swell a lot and if they are at a joint, I can’t bend the limb till the bite is gone. I have a bit on my right knee right now.

Roti Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZoNG3l5n8s

Cooking School

Every weekday I get free breakfast downstairs at the Lemon Tree. However, yesterday (Saturday) there was free breakfast. So, this morning I woke up at 8am to get free breakfast, but there wasn’t any. Sad.

At 9am a driver picked us up at the IC lobby to take the 10 of us to the market to start Cooking School. At the market our teacher showed us the curry paste, different rice, veggies, fruit, and sauces that we were going to use for the day.

We got in the sawngtaows and the driver took us to cooking school. But little did I know that cooking school entailed a long drive to the country side. At cooking school I learned how to make pumpkin curry, tom yum soup, cashew chicken, spring rolls, papaya salad, mango with sticky rice, and pad thai. At the end we tried to eat all of our food and got a colored cookbook. Fun times.

Random Fun Times

The 17th was the first day back at school after the Songkran holiday. But l just had 2 hours of language class because Dr. Kerbo got food poisoning.

After class got laundry and went to Carrefour (a Wal Mart type store) But the sangtaow driver miss understood where Carrie, Shirley, Courtney, and I wanted to go. The driver first took us to the Central Airport Mall which store is on the opposite end of Carrefour. So, by the time we got to Carrefour it took 45 min. But once there I got what I needed at Carrefour e.g. shampoo and soap.

After Carrefour we went to go to dinner at an Italian Restaurant (Giogiano) which was actually legit because the owner was from Italy. The dinner was really good. I got spaghetti marinara with grilled veggies and mushrooms. Free bread too. During dinner a total of the 6 of us got 2 liters of the house red wine, so by the end of dinner everyone was pretty buzzed. Everyone’s dinner and wine cost a grand total of 3, 300 Baht ~ $100 which I think is a good deal for how much we got.

After dinner we went over to the best roti man and made a 10min long video which is pretty funny. I’ll post when I get the chance.

Songkran or Spring Break '09

Before Songkran, I had no clue that Thai people can actually have much fun. I guess it’s because they drink all the time. Oh shit tangent but you can drink in the streets here. I went to the sizzler mall yesterday and it was insane. They closed the four lane street for about 2 blocks and had performances on 3 different stages. At each of the stages they had cover bands as well as singers sing American, Thai, and techno. And you know my favorite part was the Techno lol. At each of the stages they also had fire hose like equipment to spray down the crowd, so everyone was drenched.

Shirley, Kaylen, Carrie, Shelly, and I pushed through the massive crowd to get to the very front of the stage and it was pretty epic. Everyone was dancing, drinking, and having a good time. Everyone I was with sang very loudly to American songs when no one else was really singing but everyone else was sang very loudly to Thai songs. The best part for me was when it started to rain and everyone stayed and danced because we were all wet already. There was also a white guy that looked kinda like a poser rapper but he made up for it because he rapped Eminem and rapped in Thai. There was also one of the few cute guys I’ve seen in Thailand in the crowd. He had a pretty nice body and me and Carrie deduced that he was Korean, but anyways he took off his shirt and it was pretty much over. That’s all.

Weekend

Pai (Bye)

Mostly everyone went to Pai. Pai is a backpackers/hippy kind of city. On Saturday morning I woke up at 7am to leave for Pai via chartered vans. The van ride was 3 hours of very windy roads in a very uncomfortable 12 person van with 12 people.

So, I thought that Pai was going to be an escape from the Songkron festivities e.g. water throwing. But it wasn’t. As soon as I left the huts to get lunch I was doused with water by local Thai kids. After lunch I scoped out the city drenched with water. Until I gave in and bought a monkey backpack water gun and teamed up with local Thai kids and splashed everyone passing by for what I think was 3 hours. This was the first official day of Songkron and the 2nd day was def more hard core. The 2nd day they had groups of people throwing water with music blasting in the streets and they used coloring in the water to stain the clothes you would wear.

I had my first mango with sticky rice in Thailand at the most legit market I’ve seen in Thailand. The market sold only food products e.g. food to eat, veggies, or uncooked meat. The meat looked very sketch because there were a ton of flies on them and it wasn’t refrigerated and it was very very hot.

I tried riding a bicycle to a waterfall but had to turn back because the ride uphill was too hard (I didn’t go far) but the ride back was all downhill and villages threw water along the way, so that was fun. And I ended up just taking a very very long nap on the porch.

Had my first bucket. Found 75 Baht ($2) mixed drinks.

Songkron

Got back into Chiang Mai today and it was insane. We got invited to walk in the parade with Uniserv (the hostel I am currently staying at). The parade consists of floats with Buddha images from wats found around Chiang Mai. The parade is for people to throw holy water on the Buddha images to clean the images for the New Year. In between throwing holy water the bystanders would throw holy water on me or just buckets of water till I was once again drenched.

Bangkok

I just found out this morning what was going on in Bangkok and it was crazy and everything is fine where I am, but hopefully everything will die down by the time I get to Bangkok.

Thanks for the pictures Sarah!

For those in the states and don’t know what’s going on in Thailand.

The red shirts have been protesting in Bangkok or a couple of days now and Thursday the red shirts blockaded the main square for government buildings. In order for the red shirts to stop the blockade the Prime Minister declared Songron a day early. Declaring Songron a day early allowed all the protesters to go home and celebrate Songron with their families. Most businesses close for Songron but I still had class. Sad.

Songron is Thai New Year

Traditionally it is when Thais clean their house as well as the temples for the New Year. But it’s a big national water fight for 5 days and it’s pretty much a major party.