Goodbye Thailand

Well everyone, it's time for me to leave Thailand (mostly because my visa runs out tomorrow). I can't believe I've been here for a month already, it's gone so fast! Time has a strange feeling here, I feel like I just arrived but at the same time I feel like I've been here for ages. Fisherman pants, eating at markets, afternoon naps to escape the heat, negotiating for a taxi (sawngtheaw) fare using Thai numbers...

Time for a bit of reflection. Warning: quite a long deep & meaningful ahead.

(for your reference NZD$1 = 23Baht at time of writing)
The weather at the moment is quite agreeable. Coming from freezing cold Japan, 35+ degree heat was a real shock to the system, and landing in Railay where there was no power during the day made it that much harder. But it forced me to acclimatise; I got over my hissy fit and got used to the heat before a week was up. The sea breezes in the south were most welcome and helped keep things cool, as did the daily tropical electrical storms. Up here in the north it doesn't rain as much; I miss the storms and the rain. In the mountains around Mae Sariang/Mae Hong Son we got rain again, and it has a strange soothing effect on the soul, being inside a rustic village hut and watching the pouring rain wash away the dirt and mud (and bring more dirt and mud). The humidity never goes away and is very taxing, especially because you never really feel clean except for the 2 minutes immediately after you shower. I even bought a small bottle of Johnsons baby powder which works wonders to keep you dry... for a whole 4 minutes after you shower. Then it's grime city again. (random Simpsons reference: Paul Grimes, or "Grimy" as he liked to be called) but as with the heat, you learn to get used to it because everyone's in the same boat. And there's always a 7-Eleven on the nearest street corner if you need a bit of A/C. I'm making the choice to stay in rooms without A/C to train my body to live without it, and so far I'm doing ok.

The food is Thailand is amazing! It can be a bit of a gamble if you eat at markets or street vendors, but it's become part of the fun. I really enjoyed the cooking class I did here in Chiang Mai, even though we only made the basic stereotypical Thai dishes it was still really interesting and fun to use fresh ingredients that we just don't get at home (e.g. turmeric - who knew it was a root that looked like ginger?) I believe food is an important part of a culture - and also, I just like eating - so this was a highlight for me. If you eat at a restaurant it's always the same menu: pad thai, tom yum goong, red/yellow/green curry, steak & chips, and it all costs around 80B (markets cost 25-30B). I've started eating local snacks too, I had a few weak moments where I broke down and bought a bag of chips, but on the whole Thai snacks are pretty good. One of my faves is green mango with salt/sugar/chilli dip. The unripe mango has a fresh tang and is nice and crunchy, and best of all a bag costs no more than 10B :) Most of the sweets have coconut cream or sesame seeds, and I recently discovered the beef (?) jerky which is also pretty tasty, something akin to biltong I think. Mum makes a mean version at home with coriander seeds. This stuff is great for long bus rides.

I've definitely lost weight here. I tried on my quick-dry pants the other day - I bought these at the height of my half-marathon training which was a stupid idea because after the race I put weight back on and the pants were almost too tight - and to my surprise they were loose around the waist. Pleasantly surprised of course :) The heat makes you lose your appetite, but being on the road means you're very active. I explore a lot and I walk everywhere, so my legs are super toned but my stomach is getting a bit soft haha. I try to do yoga some mornings to keep me limber and strong, it's a nice mental break as well.

On Facebook I mentioned "solo traveller's bipolarism". It's definitely an emotional rollercoaster being on the road by yourself. There are so many highs; the freedom and independence definitely agree with me and I like being able to do what I want, when I want, like when I took off to Sukhothai for a night (I felt so awesome after that). You see so many amazing things, new cultures, new food, and the shopping of course :P travel really does broaden the mind and the soul. It's humbling to learn about other people's way of life, see those who have less than you but are still happy, and you learn a lot about yourself as well as other cultures.

You make friends very quickly as a solo traveller, I've met people on buses, on ferries, (and on buses to ferries) wandering around the night market, at a cultural performance... all it takes is for you to catch each other's eye, smile and start chatting, "isn't this a cool market" or "bloody hot, isn't it?" which is almost always followed by going for a beer somewhere. It's an artificial environment; at home you don't strike up conversations with random strangers and befriend them so quickly, but everyone's in the same boat and I quite like the instant camaraderie. I've only met one dropkick so far, everyone else has been awesome. You find that it's a certain kind of person who takes off alone to backpack around SE Asia and you often have lots in common re: philosophies, attitudes towards learning about cultures, tourism, religion etc. Most people are very open minded. In saying that, it is hard to make lasting connections. The vast majority of people you meet are only for a day or an afternoon, after which you part ways again. Everyone has their own schedule and route to follow, and so far I've only met one person that I travelled with for more than a day. Facebook is a great tool for keeping in touch; as much as I don't want to be dependent on electronic communication, it's the easiest and most practical way of staying in touch. same as this blog - if I were to email each and every one of you separately I'd be spending all day every day in my guesthouse or internet cafe. On FB you can see where people are, where they're going, and you can drop them a line to say "let's meet up!". I have a few potential buddies in Luang Prabang, which is great.

Now for the lows. It was very hard leaving Laura and Stacy at the end of Japan. We made the mistake of staying in Tokyo too long and got Tokyo fatigue, it was even worse for me because I had a whole day by myself after they left. When you stay in one place too long you get sick of it and become apathetic, you don't want to go out and see anything, you just wallow and have too much time to think about the things you miss. When I got to Thailand it was all new and shiny and exciting again, I met another solo traveller (Brian) and we travelled together for 5 or 6 days and met a bunch of awesome people in the South, and I was happy again to have found a new family (of sorts). But I had a schedule to keep and moved on to Ko Lanta, where the first devastating low hit me. The reality is you are by yourself, miles away from friends and family. I am content with my own company but it is nice to share your experiences with people. My laptop is a real lifeline, I am so glad to be able to skype friends & family and stay in email contact. So please, leave a comment on this blog!!

I had another low last night, I had a good long skype with Dad and later on that night got a bit sad, I wished that friends could be here with me to experience all the highs. I kind of wish Dad could be here to go on a motorbike trip with me, it seems like the kind of thing Dad would enjoy. I am really looking forward to seeing Mum in Cambodia, it will be a relief and nice to have a part of home here with me. I am also really looking forward to my volunteer work, it will be a relief to be based in one place for a month and be around the same people for longer than a day.

Ok everyone, it's time for me to go. On the whole, I am having an amazing time and enjoying being here. Highs and lows are just a normal part of it.

I will write again and post some photos once I get to Laos. Sabai dee!

Love
May Lee

Six hours on a bus and we're in Sukhothai

So you read about my random decision to go to Sukhothai. It was well worth the trip (and the purchase of a tripod, which I had bought the previous day but was starting to regret). I got on a 9:45am bus and arrived around 4pm, checked into a neat little guest house, got something to eat and promptly rented a motorbike by which time it was about 5pm. I decided to disregard the official opening hours of the Sukhothai Historical Park (7am - 6pm) and went there anyway, figuring it's Thailand and if the ticket booths don't catch me, they can't make me pay. I got there a little before sunset and was well-rewarded with beautiful soft light and a hazy orange/purple sunset.




Turns out there was a festival/convention going on inside the park grounds, for Thai alternative medicine, massage and herbal healing. Lots of massage stands, people selling herbal compresses and of course the mandatory food stalls!! I was one of about 3 farangs I saw the whole time I was there. At around 7:30pm I was hanging out with some Thai girls in front of a wat who were getting these giant paper lanterns ready to light. They're the ones you light a fire underneath, and when the air inside gets hot enough they fly into the sky. Very cool! At one point, the people on stage said something exciting and lit a whole lot of fireworks, which was the signal for us to start lighting the lanterns. It's a lot harder than it looks - if your lantern isn't hot enough it crashes and burns, or alternatively crashed into the pond in front of you and goes out, and all the Thai girls laugh at you. Overall it was really fun and I'm glad I got to see the lanterns!!

That's me with the backpack on the left - yay for tripod and self timer!

Ewen - this one's for you!

Sukhothai was the ancient capital of Thailand in the 13th and 14th centuries. Nowadays it's a collection of ruins, some partially restored, some with giant Buddha statues, mostly concentrated within the square city walls but also some pockets of ruins outside the walls. I spent most of the 2nd day driving around checking them out, very glad with my decision to rent a motorbike and not a bicycle. By about 9am the heat is stifling. I gave it a good go, but after getting up at 6am, by 11 I was well and truly OVER IT. Stopped off for an iced coffee and ended up getting a massage ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh :) Then a long and painful 6 hours on the bus back to Chiang Mai, feeling pleased with myself that I'd accomplished something.

Wat Si Chum

tee hee hee :P

I have a few more days here to do some admin, then heading up to Laos on the 31st. Woo hoo!!!!

ML x

Some more photos from the Sunday walking market

Just a collection of snaps to give you a feel for the Sunday market.

Hmong hill tribe embroidered bedspreads and purses

The ubiquitous fruit shake

Karen tribe silver jewellery (of course I bought some! What a stupid question!)

Chiang Mai, Cooking Class and generally just enjoying being here

Hello again!

I'm back in Chiang Mai after a rather eventful week that involved a 6-hour bus trip each way, purchasing a tripod and meeting a really cool monk (and taking his picture!).

Chiang Mai is a really nice city. Very Thai, with the crazy traffic, millions of massage houses (I won't call them massage parlours), 7-Elevens on every street corner and lots of tour offices. And of course, an even higher temple-to-population ratio than Kyoto! (I should look that up, it might even be true) When I first arrived, it was the last day of a 6-day festival at Wat Chedi Luang, one of the principal wats in town and quite close to my guest house, so when I wandered by it was chock-full of people all making offerings, burning stuff, throwing cups of water over the Buddha statues and doing the one-coin-in-each-bucket thing down the length of the wat. There was music and live dancing which was all very exciting.
There were lots of street food stalls as well, I tried some strange mini/pancake biscuit things with coconut puffy cream and sprinkles of dried mango. I gotta say, once you start eating what the locals eat, it gets pretty exciting! i stumbled upon a local market the other day and ended up eating green jelly-worm type things that tasted like pandan, with coconut cream on it. Was actually really nice and only 5B :)


When I got back from Daeng's motorbike tour I did a one-day Thai cooking class. That was heaps of fun; we learned to make 6 dishes (pad thai, papaya salad, tom yum, red curry paste, Chiang Mai noodle and mango sticky rice) plus we got to eat it all which meant by the end of the day we all had food comas haha!! But feeling extremely satisfied with out cooking skills and full bellies. I made friends with a few people on the course and we hit the markets afterwards, then stopped somewhere for a few beers and a game of pool.

Look at my awesome hat! Eating papaya salad

Chiang Mai Noodle - basically red/penang curry noodle soup with fried noodles on top.
My favourite!

Tom Yum Goong - spicy & sour soup with prawns

I spent the next couple of days happily walking around town and exploring Chiang Mai's back alleys. The old town isn't very big, it's laid out like a square with a moat around it. There used to be a city wall but most of it's gone now, a few of the corners still remain and the large gates are also still there, quite well-preserved. The Tha Phae gate, on the Eastern side, is closest to me (and the tourist area) and on Sundays the pedestrian square around it it turns into a MASSIVE street market of epic proportions, which carries on all the way down Ratchadamnoen street. It's a lot of fun, there are buskers and food stalls and any type of souvenir you could possibly want. All the temples along this street open up their grounds and food stalls set up inside, average price for dinner 25-30B (50 - 75cents). The atmosphere is really buzzing, it's not just tourists but locals enjoy it too. Down the far end it gets less touristy and it's where locals buy clothes and other things.



It was at this market that i had my first bout of inspiration. The photography was becoming a bit of a chore - just going through the motions - but a few vendors were selling the most amazing collections of Chiang Mai-themed photos which I found really beautiful. I snuck a photo ;)

The next day I took my 50mm out for a spin and focused on shooting creatively. I shot a collection I call "Yellow" at a local wat, here are some of the highlights:

I met this monk "Ben" at Wat Bupparam, he spoke really good English and was happy to chat with me for a while and tell me all about Buddhism and being a monk. He's been a monk for 18 years.

I stumbled across a little gallery on my second day of wandering, the guy there was a painter/photographer and I spent a fair bit of time admiring his work and talking to him about photography in Thailand. It's things like this that keep you inspired to shoot; it does get hard to stay motivated, markets and temples all start to look the same after a while. He showed me some photos he'd taken of giant Buddha statues at Sukothai, the ancient capital of Thailand. It's about a 5-6 hour bus ride South of here. He put the idea in my head, which was consolidated later that night, to pack an overnight back and get my ass on a bus to Sukothai in the morning. So I did. More about that in the next post!

But let me just say that I am loving being on the road, loving independent travel, loving not having a fixed schedule! The freedom is going to my head, I think, but I really enjoyed the spontaneity of just getting on a bus and spending a night in a random town.

Ciao for now, hope everyone back home is doing well and it isn't too cold in NZ!

Love,
May Lee

Mae Hong Son by Motorbike part 4 (final part): Buffaloes & Tigers

Last day (day 5, Friday 21 May): After spending a pleasant night in Pai we made our way back to Chiang Mai. We stopped off at Tham Pla (fish cave) where they have lots of these blue carp-type fish. It was very well maintained, neat and tidy (rather unusual for Thailand) and there was a cool blue-headed lizard on a tree. And I found some really good-quality Engrish - enjoy!


There wasn't much else on the road between Pai & Chiang Mai, mostly winding highway through pine forests (yes, pine). Lots of CHM-Pai buses on this road. Here are some random pictures of me on the bike.
Just outside of town, Daeng pulled over and said "now we're gonna eat larb!" Larb is a spicy minced meat dish typical of northern Thailand and Laos. This little roadside outfit specialised in buffalo larb - turns out they eat buffalo too!!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Clockwise from bottom: sticky rice, spicy buffalo larb, extremely spicy buffalo soup, cold mashed fish with crunchy things (possibly pork crackling?) basket of assorted herbs & veges

I like the sticky rice - you break off a bit, mash it into a ball and dip it in your sauce. The sauce, however, was a whole different ball game. The buffalo larb was very spicy but manageable; with rice and assorted herbs (basket of random green things) it was quite nice but the soup was completely untoucheable. I felt i had to try everything so I did, and ate quite a bit of the larb. But I paid for it alright, my stomach was making funny rumblings all afternoon and felt like death the next morning :(

Last stop on the way back to town was the Tiger Kingdom. This is MUCH better than the Tiger Temple by Bangkok, the tigers look really healthy and are quite frisky, there is no chance that they're drugged. It's not cheap to go in but totally worth it - I got to cuddle the 3 month old tiger cubs!!! They sleep 18 hours a day when they're that young, the handlers said I could pat them and cuddle them, he took a few photos of me with them :) A great end to the trip!

(the tiger has a weird face because he's sleeping)

that's my Lawa bracelet with the silver dots

I'm now back in Chiang Mai. I'm here for about a week before I head up to Laos. First thing on the agenda: a long massage!! Riding a bike for 5 days straight was getting a bit painful towards the end :P Also on the list: cooking course, shopping at the night bazaar and just checking out the town. Stay tuned for the next episode!

Leave a comment - it's nice to hear from you :)

Love
May Lee

Mae Hong Son by Motorbike part 3: Longnecks and tea tasting

Warning: this is another long post

Here's the route map again for those of you with short memories


Day 3: woke up at 5am to roosters in Ban La Up (you may remember the "chickens for an alarm clock" post), feeling well-rested despite the early morning wake-up call. We had to wait for Daeng to wake up - he stayed at the clinic drinking with his buddies long after we left - so we took a quick ride up the hill to a lookout point. The village has the most beautiful view of the surrounding mountains.

Breakfast in the village (leftovers)

Today our final destination was Mae Hong Son, a town quite close to the Burmese border (everyone uses Burma and Myanmar interchangeably, Burma seems to be the more common term). Lots of driving today; doing the route by motorbike takes longer than in a 4WD so we didn't stop off at as many places as Laura & Stacy did, but for me the actual driving was a large part of the fun. You see, feel & smell more on a bike, you're exposed to the elements (sun, rain and wind are all out to get you) and you really feel like part of it all, rather than just passing through.

We had our first (and luckily,the only) breakdown! Daeng's bike got a flat tire and we had to stop seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Someone told us there was a mechanic shop a few kms down the road so off he went on my bike, only to return later with a handful of tools - the mechanic was the only one working today and couldn't leave his shop. Daeng had to remove the tyre by himself and bring it to the shop for changing - Daeng who had never changed a tyre in his life. He managed ok though, and before long we were on our merry way again :)


We stopped at a small town for lunch, pad thai for 30B and waited out another downpour. That afternoon it kept raining on & off; the higher elevation areas are definitely getting more rain than the lower areas, it's visibly noticeable in the plants & ground.

When we were around 30km out of Mae Hong Son we took a turnoff to a small boat pier. To get to the Huay Pu Keng long neck village, you have to go about half an hour down the river in a longtail. I was the only farang that day, so had to charter a longtail just for myself and Daeng (an expensive exercise, I wasn't too happy about the surprise cost and grumbled all the way to the village but hey, when am I gonna be here again?)

The long neck village itself is quite small, maybe 25 houses (cf 200 houses in Ban La Up). The long-neck women are a Burmese tribe called Kayan, they are mostly refugees that escaped a terrible life of extortion and persecution in Burma (the government doesn't recognise their ethnicity and they don't have any rights) and are now living in small villages in Thailand. There is a lot of debate about these villages; on one hand they have escaped the Burmese government but now they are effectively living in a human zoo; tourists pay an entrance fee to come and see them and take photos of their neck rings, and they try to sell you all sorts of scarves and other touristy crap as well. It's a fairly good income for them, there are plenty of tourists in the high season (i.e. not when I was there - I was the only farang in the village) but is it at the cost of their dignity? After visiting the village I'm still undecided.

So the result of them being in a tourist village is that all your photos look extremely posed and bored. I wanted to talk to them a bit more, get some real emotions instead of blank looks. The ladies themselves were nice enough but desperate to sell me things. There were a few young children wearing rings and with stretched earlobes that also tried to sell me things, but kids being kids soon got bored of it and started playing/bickering amongst themselves. I played with the kids for a while.

this lady appears on a lot of postcards

notice the earlobes

The boat ride to the village was quite pleasant as well, through more beautiful scenery.

That night we stayed in Mae Hong Son, in a guesthouse owned by a guy who runs a bar up the road that Daeng knows. We effectively rented out the whole house instead of just a room in a guesthouse, it was realy cool! It was decorated with all sorts of antiques, I had my own very spacious room with 4-poster bed and mosquito net. There was a gas stove for cooking and everything :) Only 400B for the whole house was a bargain!

Mae Hong Son town is quite nice, it has a small lake in the middle and is quite compact. We walked around the small night market in the evening where there were lots of tribe ladies selling handicrafts. I bought a cool purse made of strips of fabric sewn together into a pattern for 30B (about NZD$1.30). Every stand was selling exactly the same thing, I don't understand why one doesn't think of something different to set themselves apart from their neighbours??

The next morning we visited the hilltop temple for a view of the town. MHS is sometimes called the town in the mist, because the mountains are covered with clouds and mist for 3/4 of the year. And of course, what trip to SE Asia is complete without a few monks? Here you go!

Today (day 4) we drove even further into the mountains to Ban Raak Thai, a Chinese village famous for its tea. Because of the elevation and temperature, a lot of tea is grown there. A lot of the inhabitants are from Yunnan, and the houses are all decorated with red Chinese lanterns and they have Chinese names. We tried some delicious rice green tea, ginseng tea and others that I can't remember. Again, the climate was deliciously cool and dry, I even had to wear my raincoat as a windbreaker to keep me warm!

Ban Raak Thai tea village

tea tasting

village houses around the lake

On the way out of town, we stopped at one of the plantations where people were picking tea leaves. I had a nosey and was asking the ladies about the tea they're picking, what kind of tea etc. and helped her pick tea for a while :) they were really lovely and were happy to show me what they were doing.

Picking tea
I really am a giant... or are the Thai people just teeny tiny??

That night we stayed in Pai, a hippy town and tourist Mecca about 140km out of Chiang Mai. It's quite a cool chill-out town, not much to actually see & do in town but a great place to mooch, have a drink or 3, check out the local handicrafts (same striped bags again) and get your hair dread-locked. My bungalow had a hammock out front and I dutifully tested it out - very comfortable :) and they had wifi!!!!! In the middle nowhere!! I'm learning very fast that anywhere with tourists has wifi.