Journey to the North - Part 3

Warning! - This is going to be a really SHORT post, since.. the next weekend is already approaching, with more adventures to come! :)

Day 4 - Tuesday, July 27th

This day, we took a 1 hour van from the hotel to go to Doi Inthanon National Park!

Doi Inthanon is the highest point in Thailand, and as such... it was pretty cold when we got there! The high temp. for the day was 18 degrees Celsius, and for being dressed in only shorts and a tanktop... I was a bit chilly! But, the overall feeling of being at the very top of the mountain was just so.. mysterious, since it was so green, covered with moss, as well as a layer of mist and fog.

This one's for you, Ingy, my brilliant astro-phys-engineering roommate, you!

The cool air, birds calling to one another in the trees.. what a nice little hike~We then went down the main road on the mountain from there, visiting the Napamaytanidol Chedi, which were built there in honor of the 60th Birthdays of the King and Queen of Thailand.

Look how nice those two chedi's look next to each other?? aww...~ (haha)

One was more purple in color, the other more brown, with each of them having a Buddha statue inside them.
Since this was further down the mountain, it was relatively warmer, here!
Wachirathan Waterfall!
Mae Klang Waterfall!

Journey to the North - Part 2

Walk like a Buddhist~

Day Three - Monday, Buddhist Lent

After having a nice tour of the city, Doi Suthep, as well as an intro to Northern Thai cuisine for lunch, as well as a trip to the Sunday night bazaar (where the WHOLE street was blocked off, tons of stalls aligned the street, and tourists like Julie spent a LOT of Baht), I decided to have a relaxing afternoon, walking around and getting a better feel of the city.

Walking around Chiang Mai was definitely a good experience, since although cars and motorbikes, tuk tuks, and red trucks were on the street, there was significantly less traffic than Bangkok.. and just, so much more of a laid back feel to it. Frequently, I felt as though I were in Japan, since the streets weren't that wide nor busy, the weather was warm, small businesses were along the street and in smaller side alleys, and smaller temples could be found randomnly if you just looked a little closer.
So, that was fun! I got pretty sweaty, though... so decided to cool off by taking a swim in the hotel, followed by a little personal spoiling of a 1-hour Thai massage... which actually turned into a 2- hour Thai massage, since I just couldn't help myself with the fact that it was only 300 Baht!! SWEET.

The masseuse was super nice, as well, speaking English pretty well, and having a pretty decent conversation with me about her upbringing in Myanmar while elbowing her might into my thighs or bending my other limbs into other forced positions, haha!

A bit anachronostic, but... going back to Monday morning...

So, this day, as usual I woke up early because I just have a tendency to do that, because: 1. I always wake up hungry and can't wait for whatever meal awaits me and 2. I like to make the most of my day.

I ended up grabbing some interesting coconut bread, Thai coffee, as well as a bologna-pizza sandwich (?! ahha!) from the 7-11 nearby, and after eating in the hotel lobby, went to the front desk to ask about possible activities to do for the rest of our stay in Chiang Mai.

My main question, though, was what type of ceremonies would be occuring for the Buddhist Lent! To which, I got some helpful advise from the front desk crew, but then this older guy came up to the front desk, too, and started speaking pretty good English to me, helping me out, too! He asked me where I was from, to which I replied 'California, around Los Angeles,' to which he remarked that he had some friends that lived in San Diego, and had been to Newport Beach before, when he visited them.

Turns out. He was the manager of the hotel!!

It was really funny, because I thought he was just this random, really congenial guy, but he reached over the front counter, gave me his card, and said that there'd be a ceremony going on at the main Chiang Mai temple (Wat Chedi Luang) around 7pm, and offered to send a hotel van for us to the temple!

SWEET.

So, I was pretty excited, since I really wanted to just see what this ceremony was like, since.. I just love absorbing as many cultural experiences as possible. And what better time to go to a temple than on a Lent day?

Although there weren't that many people at the temple when we first got there (around 6:45 pm), we already saw a few people holding incenses and lotus flowers, walking around the temple. Interestingly, the number three appears to have special meaning (for example, people kneel/bow and touch the floor 3 times in front of Buddha statues, usually, in order to respect the Buddha, the Buddhist teachings, and the monks), so the worshippers walked around the temple three times.

The monks then gathered in front of the temple, and the head monk began a speech (perhaps chanting some prayers?) after nightfall.
I love outside gatherings like this, in which the purpose is not necessarily social, but more cultural and personal, for people to reconnect with their morals, values, place in society, and most importantly, themselves.

Journey to the North - Part I

As explained in my earlier post, this past Monday+Tuesday was a holiday, allowing us to have a 4 day holiday weekend, in which we ventured off to... Chiang Mai!

After riding an approximately 10 hour bus, which ended up being REALLY nice (a little expensive by Thai standards, but very reasonable for us! It had VERY nice reclinable seats, foot rests, neck pillows, snack + drink service by the bus attendant, movie, air conditioning, and even a stop at a station in the middle of the night, in order to enjoy a MEAL of various veggies, meats, porridge, etc.!) , we arrived in Chiang Mai at 7:30 AM, took a red-truck (more on this later!) to our hotel to drop off our things, and then... go on our tour for the day that picked us up at 8:30 AM!

Although the bus was very nice, we were a bit groggy getting off of the bus, but the excitement of just being in Northern Thailand, with its noticeable abundance of greenery, lack of sky-scrapers, and not to mention... WAY cooler and more maneageable climate, and the fact that we were just about to embark on our tour definitely got our adrenaline running and woke us up for the adventures to come! :)

Day One - Here's where we went on our tour...

1. Orchid Farm! - beautious~

2. Elephant Camp!

• Watched the elephants come out onto the river and take a bath~

• The elephant trainers would get into the river with the elephants, scrub their backs, climb all over them.. splash water... so cute!

• Approximately 1.5 hour roundtrip elephant ride into the jungle to visit a Lisu (very colourful cloths and whatnot!) tribe~

• Lunch on the river... which, apparently... was one of the scene shots in 'American Gangster'!! Supposedly a lot of the scenes in this movie were filmed in Chiang Mai, since 1. Bangkok has changed quite a bit since the 60's, and I guess that Chiang Mai looks more like the past Bangkok? and 2. Chiang Mai is in the North, near Chiang Rai (famous for the Golden Triangle!) and still has some opium growers, apparently mainly to continue tribal traditions, which you CAN experience if you spend a night at a tribe... hmmm!!

• After having lunch, we then bamboo-rafted down the river, which was definitely very relaxing and just.... surreal. We were seriously just, sitting on these super-FLAT rafts, with a guy standing on either the front or back of the raft, stearing the raft with a POLE. So... I guess it was basically a Thai Gondola (minus the singing, of course!). It was just so nice to just, float so calmly down the river, hear the water, see the GREEN on both sides of the river... perhaps see some cows or elephants on the river bank...

Day Two -

Because we were pretty happy with our tour guide (Wit? Vit?) from

the day before, we took his offer of using the van for the entire day

for 2500 baht total. Vit was a pretty cool guy with really good English

(after apprently having studied abroad in Australia when in college, to

study environmental design!), and was originally from Bangkok, but

decided to come to Chiang Mai +get a tourism degree after basically falling

in love with how much calmer and laid back it is compared to Bangkok,

there!

One interesting thing about Chiang Mai is that it's kind of a city within a

city! The older city portion is basically a square in the center of every-

thing, and is surrounded by a moat, which (in the ancient days) used to be

accompanied by brick walls, some of which still remain, but mostly in ruin

form! Sky scrapers are apparently not allowed to be built within the

Ancient City area, and the more modern parts of the city just kind of

spread outwards from that.

• Wat Chedi Luang - one of the bigger temples within the old city walls, having the biggest 'stupa'

This was apparently the temple that used to house the Emerald Buddha, and after being discovered there (hidden within the temple, due to all of the tensions between Burma [Myanmar] and Thailand), was taken to the Grand Palace of Bangkok.

And... there's some noticeable Hindu influence, here, too! :)

• Wat Suan Dok - apparently used to be the gardens of the royal family, ) and..the Chiang Mai king decided to make a temple in his garden. The grounds contain a ton of white jedees housing the ashes of the old Chiang Mai royal family.

• Lunch! - Khao Soi, which is a Northern Thai dish of egg noodles with coconut curry over it, with toppings of pickled veggies and onions! And of course, chili flakes, vinegar, and sugar if necessary... :P

Haha... just thought this was cute and random :)

• Doi Suthep - probably the most famous of temples of Chiang Mai, which is actually located on a NW mountainside about 30 minutes away (windy and uphill!) from Chiang Mai city. Apparently a white elephant carrying Buddha's relic (bone?) was on a journey, and died right at the location of this temple, which.... is why the temple was created, here?

So, there's approximately 8-9 different Buddha figurines, representing the different days of the week, which correspond to some actions/events that Buddha took on his way to Enlightenment! So, people usually give donations to the temple, in particular to whichever Buddha figurine corresponds to what day they were born on!

Maybe you should check what day you were born on??

For example, this is Friday - where I think he's collecting alms?
And.. I was born on a Tuesday, which is of Buddha lying down on his right side. If I understood correctly, it means that even when Buddha is asleep, he is not completely asleep, since he is meditating/pensive at ALL times..

So, that's RIGHT. I MAY be asleep... but I'm ALERT! muahah~! just kidding~!

Vassa

I'm not going to be able to post anything again until next week, since I will be away from my laptop...

BECAUSE:

Although I've been taking a lot of weekend trips around Thailand (yes, I have been doing chemistry work during the week, don't worry!), my program friends and I will be taking a BIG trip this weekend to Chiang Mai, which is in Northern Thailand!

This weekend in Thailand is a 4-day holiday (Mon. and Tues are public holidays), so we decided to take advantage of this free time in order to do bigger-scale traveling!

So, what is this holiday that we're talking about? I'm super excited about Chiang Mai, since it's supposed to have a very different culture (Northern!), climate, food, arts+crafts, etc... but, I figure that it's only right that I should learn a little bit about this public observance, called Vassa!

Vassa:

Begins on the first lunar waning day of the 8th Lunar Month, and is basically the Buddhist version of Lent, which lasts for 3 months from July until October.

Thai families with sons believe that their sons need to become monks (for whatever period of time they feel is just) in order for their parents to be able to go to heaven.

So! On Vassa, or, the first day of the Buddhist Lent, many men (including someone from my lab, and even a brother of the graduate student I'm working with!) enter the monasteries to become monks for that 3 month (give-or-take) period.

So, this coming weekend is (I think?) typically spent having parties/preparations for the sons, who will shave their heads and eyebrows, dispose of all material posessions, and then enter the temples on Mon/Tues.

I've never really been religious, and when Thai people (knowing that I'm part Japanese) ask me whether or not I'm Buddhist, I honestly tell them how when I go to Japan, I pray at my family altar and tomb for my grandparents and other ancestors, and attend Buddhist ceremonies. But, for me, it's more of a cultural aspect, or even, a sign of respect for my grandparents and other Japanese relatives that have passed.

I wonder, though... if Vassa is like the Thai Lent, should I give up something for these next 3 months, just as some men are briefly leaving behind their normal lives to experience the ways of the Buddhist monks??

The first thing that comes to my mind, is how my friends at home typically give up candy/cake/other sweets for Lent. Which brings me to something I now look forward to finding after work...

LT^3BMD - VIII

Thai icecream in BREAD!

That's RIGHT. I was first very skeptical of having icecream in a bun (rather than the U.S. typical cone or cup), but! Having this for the first time... and few times after that... have been heavenly~

The icecream flavours are typically: coconut, chocolate, chocolate chip, and pandanus leaf.

Toppings you can put on: chocolate syrup, peanuts, sliced kabocha, coconut jelly, and other interesting Thai iced-dessert-toppings

And the bun? Puffy and slightly sweet, like Hawaiian bread rolls.

I've never really been TOO big a fan of icecream sandwiches (a la Klondikes and other thin-cookie-sandwich types), but... these real bread sandwiched icecream wonders... oo!

SO GOOD. SO SIMPLE. And at only 10 Baht each? What a winner.

Narak Mak~!

I finally got to try the Sushido!!

Most of these were basically weird combinations of jelly and cream! I think my favorite one had to be the one on the top row, second to the left (blueberry jam on top and in the middle!)

LT^3BMD - VI

Some words in Thai are straight up the foreign words, but said with an increasingly higher-pitched tone at the end.

For example:

CD = C Deeeee~!

DVD = DV Deee~!

Strawberry = straw beh leeee~!

So, even with my name, most Thai people pronounce it as, Ju-Leeee~!

LT^3BMD - VII

This is a bit random, but I thought it was SUPER cute. Do you know the word for 'Asparagus' in Thai?

It's "Naaw maai fa rang."

Which, literally translated into English, means "Foreign Bamboo Shoot."

So, when you eat asparagus from now on... just imagine yourself eating BAMBOO! All this time, we've secretly been pandas when eating asparagus~!

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??? :)