Muay Thai

I've two Thai buddies that I was randomly assigned at an event organized to better integrate foreign students and locals. I neglected to ask them about their potential vacation homes in Pattaya. I remain hopeful. We should have won the dance competition.
I am one of the few girls in the Muay Thai boxing club. I joined on a whim but I actually really, really enjoyed it. The plan is to stick with it, hone my skills, bring them back to the states and start the revolution.
Field trip number one with the Thai Language and Culture class was this past Friday, and none of us are really sure exactly what the place was called nor the purpose it served. I'd call it a palatial yet somewhat smaller museum full of works of art completed for members of the royal Thai family. I had no idea that beetle wings were used as decoration, they were used in virtually every other piece. Gold was also abundant and the level of detail was phenomenal. The silk woven tapestries looked like paintings.
I literally burned my ass on the kiddie slide at the pool on Saturday. I am a moron. For nearly four hours the pool was monopolized almost entirely by Green Park students, it was awesome. Famous Cabbages and Condoms restaurant for dinner, they have condom everything and decent food. I spun the wheel of sexual fortune and I'm sure you will all be glad to know that I did not land on Aids. That night I saw my first drag queens up close, this was also amazing. I got my picture taken with a few of them free of charge, but when the boys in the group did the same they demanded tips, which was also very amusing. The queens were gathering just outside of the pool hall we spent much of the night at, which was apparently also a popular high school hang out.
Today I went into the city with Bonney, Lane and Julia to see the snake farm, Wat Pho and the Grand Royal Palace and to get Thai massages and the massage school. We took water taxis to get around, which are essentially buses on the water, it's incredible and super relaxing. The snake farm was interesting, we were initially told by the ticket booth woman that we would each have to pay 200 baht to see the show. We countered that with the fact that we're students and apprehensive looks. While we were standing in front of the booth just trying to make up our minds as to whether or not we should pay the seemingly official price that wouldn't budge for students when she suddenly decided that our business was wanted, 100 baht each later we were watching snake handlers skrew around with cobras. It was crazy. After the show the crowd was allowed to hold the python around the neck and of course I had to partake.
The Grand Royal Palace looked amazing from behind the high white walls and that was about as close as we were allowed to get in order to save the 350 baht entrance fee. Just a short walk down a street littered with vendors is Wat Pho, entrance fee 50 baht and home of the biggest reclining Buddha I've ever seen, plated in gold and looking happy and chill like Buddha always does. The surrounding temples were beautiful.
Thai massages are amazing and somewhat awkward. You are in a small U-shaped room in a small section of 3 beds or so laying side by side, and chances are you're sweaty and have dirty feet from walking around all day, I really felt bad for my masseuse. They don't really mess around, they hit you deep and where it hurts and afterwards you feel amazing. Julia said it was the fastest 30 minutes of her life, and I tend to agree. Next time I'll spring for the full hour.

Puppets and Ruins

We took the train to Ayutthaya, the old capital. The man sitting across from me during the hour and a half ride was a Muay Thai boxer, the scars on his face and the eagle tattooed across the entirety of his chest spoke to his merit. A man and a small child sat next to me for a while, the child did not accept my peace offering of a mento and I was deeply offended.
We took tuk tuks to the island to the Toto Inn, party room for 8. Most of us ate Thai food that night but apparently we should have sprung for the Italian place next door. Lasagna in Thailand, anyone? I slept well despite the cold and the general lack of blankets, though I was one of the lucky ones who didn't have to share one of the thin plaid strips of cotton.
Breakfast and bikes the next morning, after much ado over the continued use of tuk tuks and our general ability to bike to all of the ruins successfully. We almost died 5 times. I will never get used to driving on the left or riding bikes next to double decker buses airbrused with curious combinations of Disney characters. Few tourists were around and most of the ruins looked pretty much the same--lots of old bricks built into awesome 600 or so year old Wats that are now falling apart. I have now seen Ayutthaya.
The night before was another school sponsored trip to a culturally relevant puppet show frequented exclusively by tourists. Three people control each 3 foot tall puppet as they use their legs and faces to further illustrate the actions of the puppets they are controlling. A traditional band, 4 men acting as the voices of the puppets and a whole lot of dry ice accompanied the puppeteers on stage. I could have done without the obnoxious voices for the most part, but the weird music grew on me.

Mint

I've gotten used to the Thai weather. Walking to get dinner tonight I was cold and it could not have been below 65 or so (Fahrenheit, that is--people will occasionally ask one of us Americans to tell them the temperature in Fahrenheit, it's amusing).
It's amazing only having classes 4 days a week, I'm getting more used to the obnoxiously long classes, the key is always to not look at the clock. Human Rights is shaping up to be my favorite class thus far, largely discussion based, or as much as it possibly can be, due to the general lack of participation during class by the local students--their shyness during class is really weird. Part of that may be the fact that English is a second language for pretty much all of them and all the classes (obviously) are taught in English. I really thought that I'd be able to understand them better, but some of their accents are so thick that I only get about half of what they say . . . I hope it's not that way with them and the teachers. Ha, which reminds me, one of my friends here wanted to take an English class and accidentally signed up for Advanced Spoken English--he's definitely a native speaker, they definitely didn't let him take it. A lot of the classes here involve taking one or more field trips, which is awesome. We're taking 3 in my Thai class and one to observe monkeys in my Anthropology class. This fact increases the awesomeness and the high school-ness of the whole thing.
This past weekend pretty much everyone from Green Park stayed in town to go on the school sponsored field trip-type thing to the Floating Market. Five in each long boat propelled by an outboard motor, we traveled down the extremely narrow canals past other boats carrying mostly tourists past different markets opening up to the water, sitting on the edge of the canal. It was pretty awkward a few times when the driver would pick a random stand to stop at, which no one had any interest in, and the shopkeeper would frantically show us different things and promise us 'special prices'. There's a main market that has mostly souvenirs where you can get out of the boats and walk around, which we did. I ended up getting this awesome red hammock that may or may not actually support my weight. When we left there we pulled into what I believed to be the main area of the market where many more waterside shoppes sat side by side as well as many, many locals in boats selling various fruits and vegetables. The pineapple here is the best I've had in my life.
After the market we had a several course meal at a Thai restaurant (I'm actually not sure if I should keep calling them 'Thai restaurants'--because if I were in the US and eating at an 'American' restaurant, I'd just call it a restaurant . . . either way) where I tried some of the super hot soups they make with coconut milk bases. I'm also getting more used to the spicy foods here. On an interesting side note my Anthropology professor here posed the question why we thought that in tropical regions such as Thailand and Mexico eat a lot of spicy foods. Being pretty much the only foreigner in the class I was the only one to offer a response, it clears your sinuses? I hadn't thought of the fact that spices are medicinal to an extent and that there are more diseases present in tropical regions, so it is possible that the foods developed out of evolutionary necessity. I found that very interesting. What else was interesting was the fact that monks were in the restaurant as well, which I hadn't expected to see at all because it was my understanding that they have to renounce all luxuries, but hey, times change, right? The icing on the cake was that they all had ice cream sundaes after their meals, which really struck me as bizarre. Thinking about it now it really shouldn't be I suppose, but it was an odd sight at the time.
That afternoon I checked out the pool down the street from the dorm, which sits just behind the closest restaurant to serve American food which has a terrace that overlooks the pool itself, I believe. For about $4 you can swim in one of the nicest pools I've been to, complete with three slides, even if two of them are strictly for small children, not that that stopped me. As soon as I walked in an employee eagerly pointed at the sign of the pool rules--all ladies must wear a swim cap while in the pool, which was fantastic. I later heard that same employee speaking English to another patron, which I found odd because he totally acted like he didn't speak the language to me. The plant debris in the pool, unlike in the states, consisted of beautiful flowers from the hedges, it was quite pleasant. A bruised hip and a lost earring later I headed back, those slides were brutal.
The next day several of us went out to the weekend market in Bangkok called JJ market, well not actually, but the full name is pretty much never used, and I don't remember it. We took a bus into the city which took about 45 minutes and cost 19 baht, and the sky train from Victory Monument to where the market sets up which took about 5 minutes and cost 25 baht. In conclusion the sky train is expensive. I've never been more grateful to have a working cell phone because there's no way I would have found my way out and back on my own. The market is huge, encompassing several indoor and outdoor areas where vendors and shopkeepers wait eagerly urging you to buy whatever it is they're selling. I made it a point not to go to the ATM in order to keep my spending to a minimum. I didn't pay full price for anything, even if I only lowered it by a few cents, I felt much more justified in my spending. I swear, no matter how much you first suggest to these vendors they will laugh at you and shake their heads, as if to say that you're insane for thinking that they'd ever sell you anything at such a price, when the fact of the matter often is that they start their asking prices at twice what they're willing to take for something. This is the case according to some of my friends at least. The day ended with a confusing cab ride to the wrong side of Bangkok to a shopping mall whose name sounds far too similar to Wat Pho. Thank God for cell phones and Thai speaking friends, they enable my ignorance of foreign languages.
My Thai friends have nicknamed me Mint.
Score.

In the beginning . . .

I'll start with the flight. I got up once during my 13.5 hour flight from the states to Tokyo due to the excessive sleeping habits of the elderly gentleman sitting next to me who is in a curious relationship with a young Filipino woman . . . I was out cold for 5 hours or so on the way to Bangkok from there, which was much needed--I venture to say I got up twice during that 7 hour flight. As the plane was landing the clock struck 12 midnight, ringing in a new year, and I could see fireworks from the air strip, some of which I was forced to assume were to welcome me, of course.

I ended up getting to the dormitory, Green Park, sometime between 2 and 3 in the morning after going through customs and a somewhat awkward ride with a driver who spoke virtually no English--our conversations consisted mostly of me or him saying something, the other not understanding, some attempt at clarification, then just laughter upon coming to a shared understanding of not understanding. After a much needed shower I ended up meeting several of the other international students as they were returning from the festivities of the city. They told me about their plans to travel to Kanchanaburi the next day and invited me, I had no idea where it was or why they were going, but suddenly I was too.

Leaving early the next day didn't exactly work out, at around 5 in the afternoon the 15 of us had arranged travel and were on our way, luckily I was riding in the car of handy, amazing companion Wil, who is Thai and attended high school in the US, speaking perfect English and Thai, a Godsend if ever there was one. Two hours or so after driving south we arrived in Kanchanaburi at a place called Sugar Cane that is quite literally on the water, sitting on pontoons. After those who'd ridden the bus got in we roamed the streets a bit and found a Thai place that could house us all. Most of the restaurants are more like glorified roadside stands in a sense, they are in buildings with kitchens, seating areas and bathrooms but often times the former two are one in the same, as was the case here, and they are open air. Because there were so many of us and all of the food is prepared fresh (we saw it) it took quite a while for us to finish, but it was worth the wait--very good and very cheap. Most of the other students went out on the town thereafter but my jetlagged self was about to pass out at dinner, so I went straight to bed.
The next morning we got up fairly early and grabbed a fast breakfast at a 7-11 on the way to rent motorbikes (there are 7-11 stores everywhere, it's amazing). After a crash course in how to drive the things (literally for one of us, he has battle scars to prove it) we headed out, two to a bike, to the Bridge over the River Kway. The bridge itself was pretty cool and at the end of it I encountered the first of several elephants I've seen thus far. After the bridge we went into the WWII museum just around the corner from it, which was interesting though not well maintained. It was here that we saw a man carving flowers out of bars of soap, the level of detail was incredible. We ate and checked out the surrounding street markets after the museum, I tried haggling for the first time and I didn't succeed, exactly, but I didn't fail either. After that we went on a 45 minute bike ride through the countryside to a waterfall where there were tons of locals swimming and climbing around. We rode back to Kancahanburi and ate dinner at an Indian restaurant that was a little more expensive than the Thai one from the night before but equally good and a little more closed off from the street. Again, I almost fell asleep in my food so I just went back to Sugar Cane when everyone else went out.
Our last day in Kanchanaburi we returned the bikes and ate breakfast at a restaurant called the Jolly Frog which was pretty good. We checked out of the guest house and over half our group decided to just take the bus back to the dorms, the rest of us went to Tiger Temple. This was more or less like a free roaming zoo, with the exception of the tigers who are chained and presumably drugged up. When we first walked in we passed a group of water buffalo and goats as we made our way up to the first temple, which was closed for dharma lessons at 1, so we fell in line with another group of tourists who were following a monk leading a tiger. As we followed Thai people who worked at the place kept running up to people and saying eagerly 'camera?!?' and taking their cameras and running up to the front of the line with them. Before I knew it I was handing my camera to a small Thai woman who grabbed my wrist and led me to the front of the heard of people, put my hand on the back of the tiger, ran in front of me, took my picture, grabbed me away from the tiger and gave me back my camera before running away to do it all over again. It was quite bizarre.
We finally got to the tiger den so to speak, an area at the bottom of some kind of canyon where there were nearly 15 or 20 more tigers laying around, chained to the ground or to various rocks or trees. I'm still not sure how much they may or may not have drugged up these animals, because though I'm sure that they would sleep a great deal on their own I have no idea how they'd react to the dozens upon dozens of people being led around them, petting them and having their pictures taken with them. It was sad in a way, but I was right there reaping the benefits of their potential sedation. We got in line again here, where we were instructed to take off any sunglasses, bags or dangling items and to turn off the flash on our cameras so as not to disturb the tigers in the event that one would happen to ever wake up, which didn't happen. More Thai workers again take your camera and lead you around the ring, taking your picture essentially with every tiger on the grounds. The woman leading me around asked me if I spoke Thai, I laughed and said 'hello' and 'thank you' in my very poor Thai, she laughed a little and nodded. After a few of my pictures the woman would remark how pretty it was and show the workers around her, it was amusing to me because I'd been hiking around and not showering well for the last few days, not the most gorgeous look.
We finished up at Tiger Temple with some pony and peacock chasing along with a few last minute pictures with the baby tigers that had just finished feeding. Then it was off to the National Park to see the waterfalls. Wil was able to get the car load of us into the park at half price even though none of us had our student id's yet, just another perk of speaking the language. We got there just 20 minutes before the higher, apparently better parts of the falls were closing for the evening, so we speed hiked up the side of the mountain. The views were amazing and the falls were bigger than the ones we'd seen the day before, I considered jumping into the fairly clear water, especially after speed hiking and all it would have felt very good, but then I'd be wet for the ride back and I'd read that it's generally not a good idea to swim in fresh water in Thailand, so I refrained. The guards started kicking us out pretty soon, so we hiked back down and looked at some of the lower falls on the way out. We ate dinner at a small open-air restaurant that was part of a chain of shops and other eateries in the parking lot, again, very good food and my first sticky rice of the trip, always an excellent choice.
The ride back to Green Park was extraordinarily long, with no small part due to the fact that there were 8 of us crammed into the car with all of our backpacks. Not long after we got back to the dorms most of us decided to go into Bangkok to go to Gazebo, a bar/disco just off Kawasan Road with hundreds of night markets and thousands of tourists. Gazebo is on the 3rd floor with an open roof over the perimeter of it and it had a live cover band singing mostly 90's US hits, and they were actually pretty good. We hung out and danced for a while before I personally had had enough and was starting to get tired again. I was upset to find that this club and presumably many others in Thailand are exactly the same as they are in the US--same music, same dancing, neither of which I am much of a fan.
The next day I went back into the city to get my uniform and to do some exploring. Our friend Muheeb from Bangladesh who has lived in Thailand for several years showed us around one of the malls, MBK. We spent forever in there just looking around, I wish I knew better what would be a fair price for certain things because I really want to haggle more effectively . . . I've been laughed at by multiple vendors already. Awesome.
We ate at a Mexican restaurant in the city that night, which was surprisingly good, but far from the best Mexican I've had, but what do you expect on the other side of the world? Plus our waitress was a transvestite, they're quite common in the city because they have many plastic surgeons who are very good at the kinds of operations they like to have done, fun times. Muheeb joined back up with us here and took us on a brief walk through the red light district where I saw nothing but scantily clad, underage Thai girls and old white men--it was both funny and disturbing. The city is exhausting.
Today was my orientation day and my first day of class. Naturally I missed the bus to take me to the University along with my roommate, Shayanne. Thankfully, all we needed to do was call Wil and he willingly came and brought us to where we needed to be. Orientation was fairly brief and uninformative. Thought the people directing it spoke English well it was difficult for them to understand our questions and respond effectively. I'm signed up for four, four hour classes: Introduction to Thai Language and Culture, Southeast Asian Studies, Introduction to Human Rights and Physical Anthropology. Today I only attended one because the other was canceled due to orientation, and that was Introduction to Human Rights. The professor is Australian and there are about 9 of us in the class, including one of the girls who went to Kanchanaburi with us, Julie. We basically had a full day of class today after some brief introductions and going over the syllabus, I guess some things never change. The material is very interesting thus far and my classmates all seem very nice and interested as well.
I caught a taxi for the first time by myself after class to meet up with a few of my friends at Tesco Lotus, the Thai version of Wal-Mart or maybe Target, to pick up some basic food and water in bulk. Let's hope I catch the shuttle bus tomorrow, geez.