thaiglish and neighborhood cows

thaiglish (pronounced ting-glish) refers to the amazing translations you see around of thai to english. with no standardized method of translating the sanskrit letters, it can be quite fun! some of these mistakes even appear on really professional looking banners and neon signs! it is amazing that no one catches these things.

this one is a little different though - hand painted. it is my favorite neighborhood sign. this is where you go to do your laundry in the washing machines.....but here they just mash it for you, perhaps like potatoes?

(if you can see behind it, next door is the love code studio. not quite sure, but i think it is a printing place, probably where they make misspelled signs. curious name.)

here is another neighborhood favorite of mine. these are what i like to call the city cows. these cow-like creature can be seen next to a rather busy road grazing in a field! right next to the mall and apartment buildings. they even have a farmer guy in one of the sloped straw hats that takes care of them. urban sprawl can't stop them! they also recently erected a giant billboard size shrine to the king in the middle of their field.

quiet days

now that the crazy festival is over, i have not had much to report, but i wanted to say hi. luke and i have not had many students lately, so we have had many quiet days of reading books, drawing, taking walks, and drinking bubble tea. we also started our thai class at the ymca. the pace is a little slow for us, but we didn't want to pay double to get one on one lessons.

a couple funny things happened in terms of people sighting. one night when we were walking in laos, this guy was alone and asked me which way the mekong was. i pointed him in the right direction (it was a good thing he asked!) and since we were also going that way we chatted. he was from israel and really nice. during the festival i saw him here in chiang mai! he had really distinct features, so i recognized him immediately! small world sighting #1.

on tuesday we went to this british pub for quiz night. we did horribly compared to the seasoned veterans in the room, but it was something to do anyway. there was a guy sitting at the bar with a sigur ros shirt on, which is a band i like. i thought about going to talk to him after the quiz. it turns out that he was sitting at the same table as us during the monk chat we went to in our first days in chiang mai! he was also from israel. small world sighting #2.

the other day luke and i walked around our neighborhood scoping out guesthouses for bill and charlotte when they come in february. we found this super cute and hip one next to an ice cream shop. in the window are all these polaroids of people. one of the pictures was of Aek and MM, 2 thai kids from bangkok that we met when hanging out with kyle (who lives in our building). ok, we know about 20 people in this whole country and we found a random picture of 2 of them! small world sighting #3.

when luke and i were driving across town on the moped the other day, luke spotted "cold beer guy". "cold beer guy" was a guy we saw in laos (we crossed paths with him several times in luang prabang too!). he is a british guy who was eating at the same restaurant as us one night. the reason he stuck out was because he ordered a beer and then was being high maintenance about the temperature - it was not cold enough for him. i mean, come on, we are in laos. the people there are too poor to even order beer, and he was complaining about it. so anyway, he is in chiang mai now, probably drinking beer with ice (because they always give you ice in your beer here, but not in laos.) small world sighting #4.

then there was also a sad sight the other night. luke and i found this really great restaurant near our house and we finished and were about to leave. there was an elephant walking up to the side of the restaurant! (it was open air, like most places here.) the 3 mahouts (trainers) were trying to get people to pay to feed this poor baby elephant. this is apparently a big problem in thailand. elephants used to be quite useful in the logging industry and with other rural tasks until recently. logging is not allowed in most places and they use machines for other things now. so many of the elephants live in elephant camps where you can help train them and feed them and ride them as a tourist. they usually take good care of them there. but some mahouts bring their elephants into the city to basically beg for money. this is bad for the elephant for obvious reasons. so this baby elephant was walking around chiang mai all night (chris saw it too, and we saw it at another location later on), while the trainers used it as a freak show to make money. an amazing yet sad sight.

a synopsis of the festivities

the loy krathong festival is now officially over so here are some of the sights and sounds of the festival.

a parade happened at night on each of the three festival days. of course, doing this at night requires lights for the floats. so they have big cables attached to car batteries or to generator 'floats' that go along with the parade. the last night the floats were huge and elaborate. they were so tall that sometimes the huge tangle of power lines proved to be an obstacle. the solution to this problem was to have 2 bamboo-sticked assistants with little u shaped hook thingys on the ends. these people used this device to push up the wires so the float could go through! so crazy! shouldnt these people be getting electrocuted? oh, thai safety rules...i mean what safety?

over by the river is were most of the chaos goes down....if you can get over there. lots of streets were closed due to the parade so you really had to snake your way through. and the road by the river was a total traffic jam each night. the river was packed with people on all the bridges, especially the foot bridge which was ground zero for the massive amounts of fireworks - which sounded like we were in a war zone! bang bang bang all night long - and day too. there were people selling all sorts of roman candles and cherry bombs from tables on the side of the road! explosives for all ages! hooray!

there was also an area on a closed off road where people were launching balloons again. lots on the full moon night especially. but definitely not as many as we saw last saturday!!! that was way more peaceful and amazing than the river chaos.

everyone was also launching off little boats made of banana leaves and flowers with incense and candles. this was cool but not as cool as the balloons. there were lots floating down the river, but not all them were lit at the same time because the candles ran out.

on one of the nights we were at the river, we were strolling down the street and came across a vendor we wanted to try but had only seen one other time. ready? it was a bbq-ed BUG VENDOR!!! yes we all ate bugs and i have photo proof! we tried little crickets (salty), huge crickets (2 inches long and a little more gross, especially if you got a leg!), and meal worms (puffy and airy but a weird texture when you mushed them up). it was really not that gross. the little crickets were the least bad, and i ate quite a few of those. let's just say i was glad that i bought a bottle of water too!

last night we had dinner at a pretty fancy place for luke's birthday. it was called the antique house and was inside one (hence the name). the food was really good and we sat on the floor on fancy pillows. one thing we ordered was curry soup with frog! the legs were tiny and you had to eat them like a chicken wing because they still had a bone. pretty much just tasted like meat, nothing weird. getting home was quite crazy because of all the fireworks in the road and lots of traffic, but now we have lights for our bicycles! i wear my head lamp too for a front light and the tuk-tuk drivers by our house laugh at me! but i need the crazy drivers to see me - thank you very much!

tonight we are going bowling and some people we know are meeting us there. yes, we have a regular old bowling alley here!

we also went back to wat umong because luke wanted to feed the giant freak catfish for his birthday. here they are:

fireworks galore

loy krathong festival = everyone setting off really, really loud intense fireworks at all hours of the day (including 10 am), causing all the neighborhood dogs freak out for at least 5 minutes after the blast. (including this big beefy boxer/pitbull-like dog that is always roaming near our building and is really loud anyway, minus the fireworks.)

my new favorite holiday

last night we saw the opening of the loy krathong festival, the lantern portion known as yee peng in chiang mai. here is a bit about the holiday:

"Loy Krathong is held on the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar. In the western calendar this usually falls in November. "Loi" means "to float". "Krathong" is a raft about a handspan in diameter traditionally made from a section of banana tree trunk (although modern-day versions use specially made bread 'flowers' and may use styrofoam), decorated with elaborately-folded banana leaves, flowers, candles, incense sticks etc. During the night of the full moon, many people will release a small raft like this on a river. Governmental offices, corporations and other organizations also build much bigger and more elaborate rafts, and these are often judged in contests. In addition, fireworks and beauty contests take place during the festival."

I think this was the most magical amazing beautiful thing i have ever seen. it is the coolest holiday. and also the biggest fire hazard i have ever seen - only in thailand! the lantern portion is a bit different than the description above. the festival is to celebrate the end of the rainy season, thank the rain, and to make a wish when you send off your lantern or boat. it was absolutely the clearest night we have had since we have been in thailand, so it was perfect.

we had a vague idea of where to go, up north behind this university. so we just headed that way. we followed a big line of cars and then took a turn to chase down and follow a truck taxi, which turned out to be a good idea. we parked the bike and walked down a little road full of food vendors, lantern vendors, and banna leaf boat vendors (there was a small creek where they did a little boat celebration, but that celebration happens more next week on the big river). there was a parade lineup and tons of people. then the road lead to a big grassy field, with a buddha shrine at the front, and tons of candle sticks in the ground all lined up in a perfect grid. the only thing i can think of to compare it to is a giant 4th of july celebration. it reminded me of being at mercyhurst (for all you erie-ites) because of the huge amount of people all sitting on the lawn waiting for lights in the sky. they asked everyone to wait until the cue to send their lanterns off, but from the moment we got there we started to see lanterns off in the distance, first only 3, then 10, 20. we were inpressed with this and the festival hadnt even started yet!

the night started out with a small parade that went up to the shrine. then there was a buddhist ceremony where all these monks were up in the front and they did many prayers and chants. it was really interesting and peaceful and everyone in the crowd was chanting too.

after all the college age girls in charge had properly doused the candles in lighter fluid, there was a candle lighting ceremony. let the flames begin!!! beautiful, magical, chaos. let me explain these lanterns to you. they are made from a bamboo or wooden hoop that varies in size from 2 feet in diameter to 4 feet. in the hoop there are 4 wires all pointing toward the center that are tied to a donut like thing made of coconut covered in wax. this is the part you light on fire. then the whole lantern is made of paper and is shaped like a big cylinder. it is made of several square sheets of tissue like paper glued together, fragile yet sturdy. the pink thing is the waxy coconut. ours was the small size.

so once the candles were lit, the lantern lighting started on the far side of the field and it seemed like everyone on our side was waiting. oh my god soooooo amazing. you hold up your lantern over the candle flame until your coconut catches. then you have to hold up the paper until the hot air inflates it enough to hold its own weight. then eventually the thing takes off! they all started going! so many little orange fireflies in the sky. then the chaos started. some lanterns got stuck in the trees! they would either escape eventually or just catch on fire! and sometimes catch the tree on fire a little too! then it got really nuts because some people attached fireworks to their lantern so that when it floated up it would literally be raining fire! and sometime these got stuck in trees too. oh my the most amazing fire hazard i have ever seen! then in addition to lanterns and fireworks on lanterns there were random fireworks going off everywhere! some big, some loud, some really really big. and with no organization at all. wow.

so then the lighting moved to our side of the field. chris was off taking pictures and it was me, luke, and natalie with our two lanterns. the one luke and i got was the small size, so we lit it ourselves while natalie took pictures. even though it was small we almost caught it on fire since we didnt know what were were doing! another group of white kids near us caught theirs on fire! such chaos. so then we get it inflated and everything and we are just balancing it to try and get it to fly. it finally flies away but goes sideways instead of up! a flaming coconut heading for people's heads! luckily someone caught it and held it up until it could properly float away, so our wish could come true!
meanwhile, these thai ladies next to us were in a conundrum. their coconut wick wire had gotten tangled into the candle holder! it was on fire and hot so they were trying to knock them apart with shoes and other objects, to no avail. they ended up having to ditch it and stomp out the fire because it was too heavy to send it up with the candle.
then we worked on natalie's lantern. she got the big one and this was more tricky. the three of us were holding it in as many areas as we could to try and keep it out of the fire. luckily, two thai ladies that had a great technique came to our rescue! we most definitely would have caught it on fire without them! we shook it and tapped it to keep it inflated and away from the flame. it was almost 5 feet tall inflated! it worked!!!!! so amazing!! we just sat back and watched the beautiful amazingness for a while longer. our neighbors were experts and this is the big size.

then we heard there were some banana boats on the creek, so we went to check it out. it was not nearly as exciting as the lanterns, but it things were dying down so we decided to leave. it was pretty chaotic trying to get out of a place with so many people, but having a motorbike instead of a car makes it much easier.

i think that may have been the most magical thing i have ever seen. i am going to try and get a couple small lanterns to bring home so we can have a demonstration.

tonight will be magic

tonight we are venturing to the north of town for a festival made for me. for the opening of loy krathong (which extends into next week and ends on luke's birthday!) there will be a mass release of paper lanterns - aka baby hot air balloons - into the night! i am so excited for this.

it starts with paper balloons and follows with banana leaf boats on the river! ahh all my favorite forms of transport. i can't wait to tell you all about it! parades, beauty contests - it should be a spectacle around here into next week!

chiang rai to luang prabang via the mighty mekong

ok everyone, brace yourself. this is going to be a long one, and there are lots of new pictures on shutterfly too.

part 1: so our journey started out last week with a scenic 3 hour van ride to chiang rai, thailand for work. but i did not have to work at all! luke did a couple presentations, while chris and i got to explore the city. it is a pretty small place, so we managed to see most everything in the day and a half we spent there. there was an amazing gold clock tower, workers hanging up lanterns for the loy krathong festival, and a cool park by the river. at the river we saw some crazy elephant statues, a sand digging expedition of crazy thai proportions, and a cute little thai boy in a batman costume! on the way to the river and back we walked down a perfect, quiet little southeast asian neighborhood road.
later that night we found out that we all were invited to a party put on by the u.s. consulate at the swanky brand new la meridian hotel. mom, you would have freaked out to see this place. first off, the party was hosted by a california wine company so we got free wine and fancy appetizers. the place is brand new and right on the river. they have a swanky bar and restaurant with really cool modern furniture. then we walked around outside through the jungle, fountian, swimming pool, bondfire, outdoor bar, riverside paradise. there is a sidewalk that walks over the fountain too. it was too dark to take pictures, but just picture the fanciest hotel you have ever imagined, and put it in a tropical paradise, and you've got it.
after going out to dinner we explored the night market in town.

the next day chris and i went on a wat tour. the coolest one we saw out of the bunch was wat phra kaew. there was a big beautiful teak building that was more like a museum than place of worship. it had these really amazing acordian books made from palm leaves with wooden covers. they were really long and skinny and contained prayers and spells. one larger one had numerology charts and formulas. inside the temple that was up a steep staircase was a series of amazing paintings. they depicted the story of the emerald buddha and how they had to fight off those trying to steal it and all the parades and celebrations they held for it. the paintings were very flat, but depicted many layers of people and activities and amazingly decorated elephants. they are my favorite paintings so far in thailand.
at the bottom of the temple staircase was a little pond, and in it were about 10 species of turtles! including these crazy looking prehistoric dino turtles that had soft shells and really long necks!

part 2: after lunch we were ready to leave chiang rai for chaing kong thailand, on the laos border. the only way to get there other than hiring a taxi, was to take the local bus. so we did. no ac and all thai people except for us. i thought it might be uncomfortable and sketchy, but it turned out to be super cool. we stopped at a bunch of little village neighborhoods to drop off and pick up people. and it was not as hot as i anticipated with all the windows down. the scenic ride lasted 3 hours. thailand is so green! it was dark when we got to chiang kong, but we walked up the one road town to find a guesthouse. we found a cheap half decent one and then got some dinner. after dinner, we walked to the river - yes, the mekong! crazy! - and looked to laos at night. i could tell that it was different than thailand even from across the river in the dark.

part 3: journey to laos
after a delicious breakfast at a wonderful little restaurant - i has museli with yogurt and fruit! - we set out for the ferry to laos. our wonderful waiter told us that the departure dock was not too far up the road so we decided to hoof it there. this is where the adventure starts and anyone who needs constant cozy creature comforts should turn back.
at the departure dock we had to wait in a rather slow line to get an exit stamp. i impressed the customs guy with my thai and a respectful 'wai' or bow, so i had it easy. then we made our way down the sandy slope of a dock to the 'ferry'. i use this term loosely, because we actually took the skinniest, longest, hard wooden seat boat across the mekong to laos. this is were we met our first friend of the journey, garreth from wales. we then got out, and headed for customs. we paid our fee, got stamps, showed our passports to 45 different people, bought some overpriced snacks and drinks for the boat, bought cushions (thanks for the tip garreth!!), and walked down the one road town of huay xai laos to the slow boat dock.

i use the term boat dock loosely too. you see, laos has had a rough history and is still really really poor. no western stores, no seven elevens, just families with stacks of stuff on their porches to sell with chickens running around alongside. the simplicity of it all is kind of beautiful. and everything, everything is done by hand. so the boat 'dock' was actually just a road that lead to a sandy slope that slid right into the mekong. we bought our ticket and waited around a bit. there was a slew of long skinny boats all tied up next to each other on the edge of the river. the 'dock' had a skinny little plank of wood to climb over onto the boat. so we got on the boat early and sat in the front - on a tip we overheard at dinner the night before. up front is it much less noisy and there is 'leg room'. bear in mind the slow boats were built for cargo not people...so wooden benches it is. we waited and waited at the dock and saw lots of busy lao workers unloading all sorts and sizes of packages off of 'cargo' ships, which were just actually the same skinny motorboats that we ferried across on. skinny little boats everywhere! truely a sight, i hope you can get a little sense of it from the pictures. so as we are sitting there for about an hour and a half waiting, we nearly start melting in the sun because it is about 11:20 before we take off. but once we get going there is an instant breeze. and there were not really any mosquitoes. here are the slowboats. grandpa, i am not sure if you would approve of their seaworthyness, but then again we made it!
part 4: slow boating down the mekong
you know the feeling when you learn about the rainforest in third grade and imagine it being the most amazing place on earth, or when you watch a special on tv about the most fascinating places on earth to visit, like the pyramids or stonehenge? well i think that the mekong river is one of those places. even after hour 14 on day 2 of the ride (7 hours the first day and 8 hours the second day), i was still amazed by the constant jungle everywhere and mountains and green and green and green and rocks in the river and little villages of 6 houses every half hour. there was a bit of rain and also these crazy whirl pools that sucked the boat around a bit. we stopped at a couple villages to drop off and pick up locals. at one of them, about 10 little kids ran onto the boat trying to sell us beer and pop and chips and pineapple.

after the first 7 hours we got to the town of pakbeng. this strange little town only exists to house the people who come by on the slowboat. the minust we got out and walked on the snad hill we were bombarded with kids trying to carry our bags and people trying to sell us their guesthouses. ahh!!! we successfully ignored them and wandered up the hill with our new boat friends - garreth, bry and sean from vancouver and miles and ville from finland. we spent our one night in the one night town. one weird thing about the town - actually it is so weird in general - is that the place is in the jungle so it has to run on a generator. so the power in the whole town goes out from 10 pm to 6 am! luckily i brought my headlamp and garreth bought candles, so we could hang out after the blackout.

the second day we managed to get the good front seats on the boat again! although this time our 'seats' were actually on the floor and our cushions were a little more squished, but it wasnt too bad. we played lots of cards with our new friends. we heard it might be 10 hours but it was only 8! two exciting events happened on the second day first we got some new passengers at one stop - in the form of chickens and turkeys and ducks in basket cages that were tossed onto the roof! at a second stop, our captain pulled over onto a desolate beach (not a village in sight), jumped out of the boat and started running. at first i thought maybe he had a bathroom emergency. but then he stripped down to his undies and jumped into the river! everyone got out to watch. turns out some bamboo got stuck to the rudder and he was down there ripping it off!

these were our seatmates in the front of the boat.
one other sight on the mekong is the appearance of fast boats. and they are just that - fast. and apparently pretty dangerous because of all the rocks in the mekong. and soooo loud! they buzz by and all the passengers are wearing helmets and life jackets (unless of course they are locals!) and their luggage is strapped to the front of the cockpit. this form of transport is not recommended, and it seems like it would be pretty easy to lose your luggage...or hearing....or a passenger!

part 5: luang prabang, laos
everyone was quite excited at the sight of luang prabang. yes we were quite ready to get off the boat! we walked up the hill with our new crew of friends and started looking at guesthouses. there are many in LP because it is a world heritage site and gets a fair amount of visitors. we ended up splitting up the group because it was a bit complicated with so many, but we agreed to meet the next day for lunch. we walked quite far but found a nice place that was only available one night but took it anyway. we then proceeded to eat a most delicious dinner - lao bbq!!! so good! the tables all have these pull our tiles in the middle where they bring you a bucket of hot coals and then a little bbq pan to put on top of that. then they bring meat, veggies, noodles, and broth. the waiter cooks the first round and then you are on your own to cook the rest. we did this two nights in a row because it was so delicious and fun!
we walked around a lot on the first day just exploring. there was supposed to be a bamboo bridge across the mekong tributary, but it turned out that the monks were just beginning the building process! over near there there are tons of little farms scattered along the rich silty soil. they have little ramshackle bamboo fences around them and huts made of bamboo and banana leaves. it was so beautiful and perfect, just how you would imagine rural southeast asia from a history book or a postcard. there were some chickens roaming around too, just like everywhere else in laos! we then walked up the hill/mountain in the middle of the old town and explored the wat and little temples all the way up to the top that are scattered about amongst huge rocks. there was a great view of the little farms and the rivers and a big bridge and a golden chedi across on the opposite hill. mmmm.
the second day we though about going on a boat trip to the nearby cave temples. but it poured and poured for the first half of the day. so instead we went to this weaving center that i saw a flyer on. it was quite far in the rain but worth it. the place is really beautiful and right on the mekong. we were given a tour and the guy explained to us everything about silk making. they harvest the silk worms and then take their cocoons, which are really just a long line of silk. by boiling a bunch of cocoons in water, they are able to turn it into a string to use for weaving. before they weave they dye the silk with all natural dyes that they grow right there on the grounds. then the 22 villagers that they employ weave the silk into beautiful things. they are paid per piece so they can work at their own pace and they are also paid a fair wage. the prices are higher here than at the markets, but it is so cool that they do it all at the center. they also have classes.

on our last day we ventured to the airport on a tuk-tuk truck-truck hybrid. it is only 4 km from town but really out in the sticks. we ended up getting their way early because we had seen it all in LP, so we played lots of cards at the restaurant across the way. then we ventured into the one gate airport, walked outside and into our propeller powered lao air plane, and flew back to chiang mai. the ride was only and hour and the plane was only 1/3 full, but we still got lunch! what service!

tidbits: all the women and girls in laos wear traditional skirts with regular old tshirts. it is an interesting mix of new and old, which is what is seems laos is becoming.

i think that americans are the only ones who say laos in a way that rhymes with mouse. everyone else we met calls it lao which rhymes with cow. i guess it is a french name after all. lao also refers to the language and the people.

more on laos later but for now.....

Oh Oh Obama!!!!!
Ahh! Hooray!

Laos was amazing too...more on the Mekong beauty later today, and pictures too.

but for now.......OOOOBAMA!