Where the Wonderfalls~

This weekend, we took a trip to Kanchanaburi, which is a province in Western Thailand! It was a really nice get-away from Bangkok, especially since we got to, yet again, escape the busy metropolis to be able to breathe fresh air, see greenery and rivers, as well as finally see some hilly views of the country!

After driving about 2 hours from Bangkok, we reached our first destination, Wat Tham Seua - which ended up being (yet another!) temple with a large, outdoor, golden Buddha that sat on a hillside and could be seen on our drive to and from there (so, from quite a distance away!). Since the temple was on a hillside, we got to see a lot of the farmland of Kanchanaburi that surrounded the great Buddha.

Love the detail on the rooftops, as well as the Chinese influence especially on this building, below.

After having lunch, we then briefly visited a cemetery of POW's (Australian, Dutch, British, U.S., as well as some Indian?) that lost their lives in Thailand. It was just crazy, reading some of the headstones, seeing some of the love from the family members of these fallen soldiers... some of which were SO young (around our age!) when they passed away.

So, the reason that a lot of these soldiers lost their lives as POW's in Thailand, was because the Japanese forces were putting them to work on an iron bridge for a railroad linking Thailand with Burma. Apparently 1 out of 4 POW lives were lost on this project, due to the really harsh working conditions.. etc that I don't want to really elaborate on..

Afterwards, we took our van farther up the river, to get on our..... RAFT!
Our accomodations for the night consisted of two conjoined raft houses - one was a two-story for sleeping, and the other had a kitchen and disco/karaoke area on it, for dining and partying purposes.

It was really nice to just go down the river on our raft house, feeling the breeze in our hair, water flowing peacefully, greenery on both sides of the river, the occasional motor-boat that sold everything stopping by and latching onto our ferry boat (like lamphreys on sharks, I felt like.. haha!) hoping to sell us stuff...

At night, we had a fun time karaoking to Thai and American songs, new and old, and dancing to a lot of American pop and techno-fused beats. We were definitely exhausted and didn't mind sleeping with the open air, hard wood floor, and blanket+pillow.

Once we had breakfast on the raft house, we headed off to... Erawan National Park!

This park had seven waterfalls, the highest one able to be accessed by an approximately 45 minute hike. Not going to lie... the path was pretty slippery with mud and some parts were pretty steep! But, it was SO worth it!
The two waterfall pictures above were only the 6th and 7th waterfalls (the two lowest-located waterfalls) of the park!

My friend, Dennis, and I went a little ahead of the group to hike up to the 1st waterfall, and were so amazed by how clear and blueish the water was up there! Although we were planning on just dipping our feet in the water, we couldn't resist (not to mention, we were pretttttty sweaty by that time!), and just took a complete dip into the water, which felt soooo refreshing and nice!

Definitely worth the trip. :)

Bai Gin KHAO!

Hey! So, here is the LONG awaited food-themed post, finally!

After weeks of taking pictures of my food at almost every single meal that I've had in Thailand... I present to you some of the dishes that I'm more fond of - yes, this means that I have definitely filtered/reduced the number of food pictures for your convenience!

So, let's begin!

Maybe you'll recognize some things that are sold in Thai restaurants in the U.S.... or even see the differences between the Thai and U.S. versions... or see things you've never seen before!

• Bai Gin Khao = Let's eat!
• The meat in Thailand is majority PORK, chicken, shrimp, fish - beef is definitely rare!
• Eat with a spoon in the right hand, and fork in the left hand!
• Most of the pictures I took are from my lunches at my school's cafeteria (pssh, I wish U.S. cafeteria's were THIS good!!), and cost only.. usually between 20-40 Baht! SO cheap, considering that 32 Baht = $1 !!!

1. Thin rice noodles with basil, glass tendon, pork meat, pork meat balls, pork liver - this one is with a small amount of pork-broth soup, but, you can always ask for more soup!

2. Some noodle dish (yes, the noodles are hidden underneath all that!) that had some orange-y yellow curry as the topping, with bean sprouts, lime, pickled veggies, and crunchy-fried things on the side. There's probably some meat hidden somewhere in there... ?
3. Stewed pork with veggies, fried garlic, rice, and whatever sour/spicey sauce you want with it!

4. Pad Thai - this, I took from when I went to dinner with my lab-mates at supposedly the BEST Pad Thai restaurant in Bangkok! Meaning... if it's the best in Bangkok, and Bangkok's in THAIland... I'm sure it was the best Pad Thai in the WORLD?? haha! It was definitely good - just letting you know, though, that I put on those extra chili-flakes on my dish! Although most things in Thailand are spicey, they usually have extra spice-containers on the table for you to adjust to your spicey-level pleasure!
5. SOM TAM! - probably my favorite dish, so far, since it's very refreshing but spicey at the same time - Papaya Salad!

To eat Som Tam, people can eat it as it is, with sticky rice on the side (and dip it in the dressing from time to time), or else by mixing rice noodles in it.

Some other variations on Som Tam include... placing a salty (partially cooked) crab in the whole mess of things, just for some salty flavour from the crab!! BE WARNED... do NOT eat the crab, since it's known to be not sanitary (as my friend Mike found out the wrong way, with his stomach acting up all weekend!). Weird why they even put it in in the first place!

6. Fish/Pork balls on sticks - things on sticks are EVERYWHERE (in ball, meat, or sausage form), and you can pretty much get these on any street corner.

7. Some kind of spicy egg noodles...
8. An array of foods... That white wavey thing at the bottom of the picture, as well as the darkish/maroon wavey thing next to it are a type of fungus/mushroom! very yummy and nice texture!
9. Steam cooked snake-head fish!
10. Garlic/shallot/some green herb- fried Snake-head fish!! By far... the best fish I've had!
11. Ground pork with spices and veggies, served with sunny-side up egg and rice.

This kind of thing is definitely very common - rice served with a sunny-side up egg, and some sort of meat on the side.

12. Um.. spicy noodles again?
13. Green curry with fish/pork balls, eggplant (which, are TINY like cherry-tomatoes, and are green, by the way!) with noodles.
14. Pork vermicelli noodles?

I think you can see by this point that if it looks good, I EAT... and don't really question too much what it really is... haha!
15. Pink slightly-sweet-vinegary broth (apparently from fermented tofu??) with flat noodles. Definitely one of my favorite new-finds in Thailand.

16. Pad See Eew
17. Some sort of stir-fried squid with bamboo shoots thing and rice...

So, the story with this is... I was with friends who had eaten a big brunch, but I was definitely hungry. And, being the cheap-o that I am (plus, I like to try new things, even if it seems a little on the risky side??), I definitely prefer street food to sit-down places. So, that's just what I did!

I spotted this lady cooking in a huge wok on the side of the street... went up to her... and was basically like, 'Make me something!' To which... she gave me a pretty blank stare, like, 'who is this FARANG, here!?' ('Farang' = foreigner, also... guava!), and called her friend over, asking me if I can handle SPICY.

To which, I was replied with the general gist of 'I'm READY. BRING IT.'

And so, she started cooking in her wok... showed me a little baggie with squid inside of it (I of course gave the thumbs up!), and... got my 30 Baht lunch, which was superb! yaya!

18. Rice with... some tempura-like-fried veggies, stewed veggies, pork (?), and this nice slightly spicy sauce.
19. North Eastern type food - has a Laos/Vietnamese influence?

• 'Salad' of tomatoes, onion, carrot, and pork w/pepper-corn sausage slices.

• Noodles with the special pork w/peppercorns, fried garlic, a quail egg, tofu

20. Chicken Satay!
21. This interesting hand-rolled leaf thing! I think it was a lotus leaf? Not sure..

But, in any case, you fill the leaf with chilis, dried shrimp, peanuts, shallots, fried pork rinds, ginger, or this mystery-black-sauce that was slightly sweet/fishy?
22. Cashew Chicken
23. Three mixed Salads.. I forgot what they were, one of them was with bittermelon, another with lots of seafood.. ??
24. Vermicelli Salad - 0ne of my other favorite lunches (this one is sold next to my favorite Som Tam lunch place!) Complete with... fake crab meat, sausage, onions, veggies...

Hungry, yet??? :)

Past and Present, moving forward

So, this weekend was REALLY fun, since... we took a look at ANCIENT THAILAND!!

WOO WOO~!

After consulting with one of our trusted research colleagues, our group of 8 U.S. Chemistry students rented a van to drive about 1 hour north of Bangkok to Ayutthaya! (The places to see in Ayutthaya are a bit spread out, so I'd definitely recommend renting a van for the whole day, like we did - or, perhaps taking a bus there, then renting bicycles, or tuk-tuk-ing it!)

Just for a little background information, Ayutthaya was the old capital of Thailand, during the Ayutthaya period which lasted from 1351-1767, and was known to many foreigners as 'Siam.'

The city is actually a sort of island, since it is located at the junction of three rivers, and has the rivers surrounding it, like a natural moat - thus, apparently it is sometimes called the 'Venice of the East.'

Anyhow! I was super excited about seeing this particular site in Thailand, since it's known to have so many ancient ruins, and I definitely wanted to see some cool, crumbling Thai buildings! Okay, fine, that doesn't sound that cool, but, believe me... although there were tons of temples (that may have gotten a bit repetetive), we made some other non-temple stops, making the trip definitely above my expectations, especially...

because I definitely felt like I was living the life of Indiana Jones, and... that's pretty SWEET, I would say? :)

Let's get on with the photo's - and... I'll just show a few, here, and those of you who will see me in the states can just ask me for some more, in-detail shots that I took!

1. Wat Yai Chai Mongkol - This was a pretty cool temple, probably the one where I saw the most monks walking around! Complete with an outdoor reclining buddha, as well as this cool tall building (crumbling brick, of course!), that had a circular room with 5 or so golden buddhas at the top of it! And tons of buddha figurines, one after another...

2. Wat Tummickarat - More awesome than the previous one... This was more ruin-y, but you could definitely see the new-meeting-the-old. For example, this next photo, here. Firstly, I had some difficulty taking a really 'cool' picture of it, since there's actually just a normal 3-story apartment/office building right on the other side of the fence of it. Secondly, these stones lion/dog statues are crumbling (and indeed, some of the stone statue-heads fell off and were just sprawled on the grass!), but the people expertly (?) substituted some bricks to try to keep the statues together.

Hmm... I wonder who that weirdo is...?

3. Wihan Phra Mongkorn Bophit - Largest bronze Buddha image in Thailand.

4. Wat Phra Si Sanphet!! - Even cooler than the one before! This definitely made me feel like Mogli and King Louis from Disney's Jungle Book could just stroll in from behind a pillar and start singing their beloved jazzy jingle (my sister and I LOVE this song and at least try to sing even the jazzy scatting lyric parts...!!). It was AWESOME. we could walk all over the ruins and climb up the stairs... :D

Aww, why not? I love this song so much and feel the need to listen to it! hehe~ Here's fo you, Erika! :D

5. Wat Chai Watthanaram - the BEST site we went to!!! Not only were the grounds just huge, we seriously could climb up all over these ruins, too, and it was just... unbelievably beautiful and just, surreal that these ruins were still existing..

It was just, majestic, to say the least.

I was too scared to go up these stairs, since not only were they REALLY steep, there were apparently bats at the top of them!! haha~

We had a great time.

Chan, Kun, Rao, Kao - Me, you, us them

When in Thailand, do as the Thai’s do!

1. 'Wai' to people you know - see, even this McDonald has the right idea!
2. When in a public area, at 8am and 6pm everyday, the National Anthem plays on speakers. My friend, Mike, and I first experienced this when we happened to be walking around Lumphini Park at 6pm. I had heard of this strange custom from my sister, but hadn’t encountered it, yet, since I was always commuting/at university, and apparently they don’t really play it everywhere.

Anyhow!

While we were walking around Lumphini Park, the anthem started playing, and everybody…. I mean, EVERYBODY, just stopped right in their tracks, whatever they were doing, and stood completely still! Even if they were sitting down, they stood up! If you’re walking, freeze! And, those butch muscle-y guys that were lifting weights, all sweaty and probably preparing for muay thai practice? You betcha! They stood their ground, as well!

Funny thing was seeing everybody after the anthem as well, since once it’s over, everyone just resumes normal activity, as if nothing happened!

2. Toilets in Asia are just… a whole subject to talk about, and Thailand is certainly no exception! 95% of the time, I have to bring my own toilet paper or tissue paper into the stall with me, and like several countries I’ve encountered, you have to throw the TP into the small trash bin next to the toilet! Actually, I don’t really do this in the hotel/residence that I’m staying in… but… it’s making me slowly realize that perhaps more countries (*cough cough, the US?*) maybe should do this, too, since perhaps toilet paper is the main clogger of pipes in toilets? But then again, maybe plumbers would have less work to do if that were to happen, and I certainly don’t want plumbers to go out of business….

Another thing with Thai toilets, though, that we encountered on our weekend trip, were toilets that can only drain if you add more water to it! I forgot what this is called, but my friend Seham (from San Jose) said that she’s seen it in San Francisco, as well (of course! Since, Bay Area people are just SO eco-friendly/conscious, right? Hehe~!)! But, anyways, basically there were several toilets (both squatting and Western) that had buckets or sinks of water next to them, as well as a little water bucket/scooper. So, after you did you thing, you have to add water to the toilet (perhaps 2-3 scoops?), and everything pretty much drains down! What a good way to save water, eh?

3. Eat spicy and often! Pretty much, that sentence says it all. Everything is just varying levels of spicyness, here (yumm!). And everybody eats several snacks (kanom!) a day! Never have I taken so many snack breaks during lab J
4. SMILE all the time and don’t raise your voice!! This is VERY important. Everybody here just has such a jolly attitude, and even if your day is not going well, you don’t show it, or else, just say what’s on your mind, but with a smile on it. I find that I identify with this custom, already, since I’ve been trained with it so much since I was little, with my Japanese mother and grandmother. Sometimes I find it unfortunate that it feels like you have to conceal your true emotions/feelings sometimes (and bottle it up inside…), but… although it has this con, it does have a bright side. And, to me, this bright side is that, so far, it’s put me in a better mood, since everyone else seems to be in a good mood too. Like, things might be bothering everyone, but it kind of shows that there’s more to life to look forward to and live for, and you show that positive mentality with a smile.
5. Just some other taboo’s:
1. Don’t use your feet to point to anything
2. Don’t point your feet at images of Buddha
3. Wear proper attire in temples and in Palaces – collared shirts and long pants for men, sleeved shirts and long skirts for women. Closed toed shoes for both sexes. This is actually the reason that, when I went to the Grand Palace, 2 weeks ago, that you can see in my picture that I’m wearing a pretty long skirt!
4. No PDA – This is completely opposite of my experience in Shanghai! My wifee would definitely appreciate this, since she is often annoyed by couples overly-smoochy in public!
5. Never talk badly about the royal family
6. Don’t touch people on the head!! When I went to get my first Thai massage, last week, the masseuses actually asked me if I would like a head-massage or not, probably because some people are sensitive to this! Of course I accepted, and was VERY happy with my decision! :P