Thailand Day 3: Elephants, Top Secret applications, and the Sunday market

Hazy sunrise in Chiang Mai

I really can’t resist the opportunity to pet, snuggle, ride or feed 99% of animals, so of course since there are elephants everywhere in Thailand, I had to indulge. I signed up for a little excursion, again recommended by my hostel for their rescue efforts and humane treatment of the animals, and was picked up bright and early to go hang with the pachyderms. We were driven about an hour outside of the city into the rolling hills and valleys, but the sky was still full of hazy smoke, and the hills were pretty crispy.

We arrived to the elephant camp and were immediately directed to ditch our nice clothes in favor of some outfits quite reminiscent of my massage costume. After that, we were given a brief but useless lesson in elephant commands. Each elephant has a trainer, a mahout, that basically lives with it 24 hours a day. They eat, sleep and hang out together, and most of the time, form very strong bonds. What this means is that the animals will rarely listen to anyone but their mahout. After the lesson, we were paired up and wandered into the corral to get matched with an elephant. I was paired with a lovely little German girl, and this was her first trip out of Europe.

Elephant commands

She hesitated when our elephant arrived, so I happily jumped up into the front “seat” which is basically directly (no seat or saddle!) on the elephant’s neck. I bent my knees, tucked my feet in behind her giant ears, and grabbed on to the garden hose that was tied around her neck for my only real stability. After some clamoring, my riding mate made it onto the elephant’s back, and off we were.

As touristy as it was, it really was a cool experience. We were out in the hills surrounded by a working farm, which was beautiful even in the dry season. Our elephant was a bit slow and stubborn, so we were at the back of the march, but it was so cool to lumber along directly on top of such a giant and powerful animal. Her skin against my legs was really rough and dry, and her thick bristle-like hairs were pretty scratchy, but I didn’t mind much. We climbed up a steep slope, and the elephant, whose name was pronounced Mellow-Poe, took giant bumping steps up the trail which definitely inspired me to cling pretty tightly to my garden hose grip. On the way down, she tipped us forward enough that I again found myself digging my knees and feet into the crook of her neck to keep from pitching forward over her head!

Scratchy elephant head!

The German girl was adorable, and giggled with every jerk or bump of the elephant and she marveled at the scenery. She had never seen a banana tree or a rice field before, and watching her take it all in and helping her figure out all the new sights was pretty fun. Once we had ascended and descended the hill, our elephants were lead to a large watering hole…and without much warning or ado, they charged into it one by one and kneeled into the water, sequentially dunking all the tourists J We were directed to hop off our mounts and given buckets to bathe our elephants with. We were all barefoot, and the bottom of the concrete reservoir was squishy with what I pretended was “mud” -- the water was warm, waist-deep, and opaque. Ick-factor ignored, I loved being eye-to-eye with the kneeling elephant, and she seemed to tolerate the little bath for a few minutes.

She tired of bath time eventually, and stood up and began walking away without warning. When you are inches from an elephant and it decides to move, you instinctively get the heck out of the way! Our mahout helped the German back on, but when I hopped on by facing the elephant and leaping off the trainer’s bent knee, Mellow-Poe had lost patience, and took off towards her pen before I had a chance to get settled! Hilariously, I was stuck riding backwards (facing my new German friend), which was surprisingly comfortable and unsurprisingly entertaining to all the other riders and trainers. It was a short backwards ride back to our starting point, and the elephant ended up letting me turn around for some final pictures and the dismount.

Washing our ride

We rewarded her relative tolerance with bunches of bananas that she dexterously plucked from our hands with her prehensile trunk and popped quickly and greedily into her mouth. We said goodbye, allowed to rinse off and change back into our clothes, and were fed a delicious “lunch” (it was only 10:30, but I was starving), of KOW SOI??, a noodle/curry dish famous in Chiang Mai. After eating, we were shuttled back over the hills, into the city and dropped at our hostels.

I spent the remainder of the hot afternoon hiding in the outdoor lobby under a fan finishing my Top Secret Clearance application. I still can’t believe they want every address you’ve ever lived at and every country you’ve visited. Filling in those details took close to forever! But I finished it while sipping fresh mango smoothies and eating amazing curry, so at least that’s a little improvement over my standard work-from-home fare.

In the evening I hit the Sunday night market with a group of people from the hostel. It was in a different area of the city, and although it was still crowded, it was a little more spread out than the night before so we had less trouble navigating as a cohesive group. We ate street food, looked at all the stuff for sale, and people watched for hours! I accidentally ended up ordering pork blood soup….I thought I was just getting the pork version of Khao soi (pronounced cow soy), but about halfway through sharing the bowl with a British girl, she remarked how “lovely and tasty” this version of black pudding was….whoops?? Oh well! What I didn’t know before didn’t bother me, and it was yummy, so we finished it off!

Curry and clearance apps

Mmmm bugs!

Everything you can imagine is for sale at these markets: Handicrafts, soaps, candles, knick-knacks, purses, touristy souvenirs, paintings, shoes, scarves, t-shirts, dresses, and goofy “Thai” pants that are all the rage with backpackers. It’s a totally sensory overload, and I can’t focus on shopping when chatting with other people, so when the group turned towards home, I made one last solo loop to see if anything caught my eye. It must have been too late and I was too exhausted, because I couldn’t decide on anything and headed home after a half hour or so.

I had booked a morning mini-van ride to Pai, another little backpacker enclave further afield, and after another pre-bedtime cold shower, crashed for the night!

Thailand Day 2: Chiang Mai!

I got up pre-the crack of dawn (which wasn’t much of a challenge thanks to jet lag!) and grabbed a taxi back to the airport. A ton of friends who had visited Thailand recommended visiting a few towns in the mountains up north, so I listened! After a quick 1-ish hour flight, I landed in Chiang Mai. Unfortunately, I arrived at the very tail end of dry season which is when the farmers burn the fields and undergrowth in the forest in preparation for the next growing season. It was pretty hot and the sky was totally hazy with thick smoke. I had heard Chiang Mai and Pai were cool, scenic, chill-out towns, but at the moment Chiang Mai was brown and crispy!

Smoke aside, I dumped my bag, signed up for an evening cooking class, then wandered around town with a Canadian hostel mate who had just arrived. We grabbed a meal (I had an interesting crispy fried pork cutlet thing…), and then parted ways to find a Thai massage J I didn’t have to search long, as they are literally about every 50 meters, and ended up going to a place that trains female prisoners to be masseuses and helps them find job placements upon their release.

I’m sure the Thai massage experience varies depending on the price range, and this one was on the lower end (about $6 for a one-hour whole body massage). First, I was taken back out to the front porch and my feet were washed. Since you take off your shoes before entering homes, businesses and all the shrines, I was doing a lot of walking around barefoot and my feet were pretty icky! After a good washing, I was given some slippers and led to a little changing area. I was handed some loose drawstring pants and a loose top (they sort of resembled medical scrubs in a way) and was “told” to change. There wasn’t any English being spoken, so again this was mostly a pantomimed exchange, but I hoped I was correct in assuming to take off my clothes and bra and out on this nice flowy loose stuff instead.

After changing came the interesting surprise: I was then lead into a large, dark, air conditioned room FULL of wall-to-wall low beds where about 25 other people were in various stages of their own massages. I really had no idea how Thai massages worked, and at first I found being in a room full of strangers getting massaged pretty funny. I was directed to my bed, told to lay down on my back, and my little lady quickly got to work. She was awesome! Thai massage is part massage, part stretching, and part chiropractice. For example, she massaged my feet, legs and hips, but then had me sit up with my legs out stretched and laid on my back while I folded forward, forcing a pretty deep toe-touching hamstring stretch. She cracked and popped anything that would yield, and she almost jumped off the bed giggling when she cracked my neck and shoulders, which admittedly let out a pretty impressive and VERY loud series of pops in the quiet room.

As most massages do, the hour went by all too fast and before I knew it I was being lead back to change. I felt great! After some bowing, a cup of hot tea, and some more bowing in thanks, I was back out in the bright hot afternoon, and headed back to the hostel. I took the long way home, and hit about 7 incredible temples on the way home. Chiang Mai is a historical city, and the main old town resides within a square-walled perimeter, with a gate at each of the cardinal directions. Inside the walled area, which was around one mile per side, was a dense accumulation of temples, museums, hip cafes and bars, and typical Thai food stalls, shops and massage places. I learned along my travels that Chiang Mai had been “discovered” by backpackers decades ago, and was now a favorite of ex-pats and a regular stop for the traveling types, which meant it had all the things cool young people want or need. On top of swanky organic coffee bars and neon-signed sushi bars were a ton of very of shrines, monuments and Thai history.

The "kitchen"

They’re all beautiful, but about 11 giant golden Buddhas per day is my personal limit, so after hitting my quota of history and temples, I went back to my hostel and cleaned up for my cooking class, which my new Canadian friend also joined me for. Thai food is clearly amazing, and a bunch of my friends recommended taking a cooking class, so I was pretty excited!

There were a lot of options, but I opted for the one suggested by my hostel (and as it turned out, one several of my friends had gone to as well), Baan Thai cooking school. Baan means home and Thai means Thai (but it actually translates to “free”), as this school was in an old converted family home of the original owners. They had three outdoor “kitchens,” which were a number of basic stations made up of a single gas burner and wok per student and one long prep table per kitchen.

We were given 4 options for each of 4 courses, and I chose to make a green papaya salad as an appetizer, tom yum soup, pad thai (one of my all-time favorite foods, hands down), and a green curry. After picking our courses, we were lead around the market by our teacher and taught about various Thai food ingredients -- from the produce to the fresh herbs and seasonings to the proteins that would all end up in our dishes.

Huge durian fruits in the market!

I was starving, but thankfully I only grabbed a passion fruit juice at the market, because I had NO IDEA how much food we were about to cook. When we got back to the cooking school we were separated to the three kitchens based on which dishes we chose to make. We started with pad thai, and were each showed to a station then the prep table where the veggies we needed had been mostly prepared and laid out for us. After a bit of chopping, our very boot-camp and militant sounding instructor gave us a full rundown of the steps, and in less than about 4 minutes, she had whipped up some pretty delicious looking pad thai!

After her demo, we were let loose, and she marched back and forth behind our line of woks yelling corrections and instructions as we went. It was unbelievably hot in front of the wok, but I didn’t crack under the heat or pressure and also whipped up something that resembled what I hoped was a tasty dish. As we finished we walked back to our low table and sat on the floor to eat. I couldn’t be bothered to wait for the others or even snap a picture, and I scarfed the whole thing down before some people had even gotten back to the table! It was pretty yummy!!

Dried shrimp :)

For the next round, we prepped and cooked both the soup and the salad. First we combined everything for the soup, gave it a quick boil, and then threw it down on the table with a plate over the top to stay warm as we made the salad. I had never ordered a green papaya salad, but had tried a bite or two here and there….so I was more just curious what went into the dish. We shredded unripe papayas and some huge carrots, squeezed a lot of lime into a mortar and pestle along with fish sauce, chilies, palm sugar, and dried shrimp and ground it all together for the dressing. The dressing got tossed with the papaya, carrots, some tomatoes and green beans, and that was that! I had plowed through the first course so quickly, and made the second round of everything so spicy, that it was slow going through the soup and salad course!

But honestly, the soup was easily the best version of tom yum soup I have ever had – I don’t know if it was the super fresh and authentic ingredients or my sweet new cooking skills, but it tasted way better than any Thai soup I had ever tried before.

Thankfully they let us take a long break after this, and a few of us went and grabbed some beers at the 7-11 (they are on every block, on every corner, like a bad Starbucks joke) to try to extinguish the fires in our mouths with some Changs J I won’t lie: most “local” beers taste exactly the same to me….Chang tastes like Tusker tastes like Cusquena tastes likes Peroni tastes like Bud. They all are the same generic lager to my undiscerning palate, so Thai beers were no more or less offensive than other regional offerings I had tried. Not sure if I should readily admit it, but to me, those beers are all just generic beer flavor.

Tom Yum soup and Green Papaya Salad

Anyway, the beer helped, and after some slow eating and chatting, it was time to make the last curry dish! I was excited to learn, but so full that I had no hope of actually eating it. I had chosen green curry, and was lead to the appropriate kitchen – on this prep table was basically a mountain of green chilies beside a huge mortar and pestle. All 8 of us were handed a large handful of chilies and told to chop them as finely as possible. The only man in our group (there were several overall, but apparently they preferred red curry) was relegated to the mortar, and as we chopped the ingredients got thrown in to be ground up. It was tough work, and after the chilies came Thai ginger and some other spices that the poor guy had to hammer away at for what seemed like forever to get a paste going.

Making curry

Once the ladies were done chopping, we took turns vigorously slamming the spices into submission. Once it resembles a light green paste, we made our own coconut milk! We had been provided with a large cheesecloth bag filled with fresh, shredded coconut. This got dunked into a huge bowl of lukewarm water, which we took turns kneading and squeezing the bag into to extract the milk from the shreds. Once the milk was ready, we took our places at the woks and stir fried everything up along with some chicken and veggies! It smelled so amazing, that even though I was stuffed I was way too excited to taste it.

We returned to the table, were doled out some scoops of jasmine rice, and I finished the whole little bowl before my full tummy had a chance to protest. I regret nothing :P

Yummy chili peppers

All together I was pretty shocked at how complex the flavors of each dish were for how few ingredients went in. The fresh herbs and chilies layered with a little fish and oyster sauce really provided a lot of depth to each course, but all in varying ways. I loved the class, and was glad they gave us a little paperback recipe book to take home with all the typical Thai dishes in it!

I t happened to be Saturday night, and Chiang Mai has huge night markets on Saturday and Sunday evenings. Whole chunks of the city get closed off to traffic and hundreds upon hundreds of vendors and food hawkers set up in the streets.

A bunch of us from the class opted to get dropped off at the market instead of heading home for the night, and we explored the market for a while. We stuck together for a bit, but eventually we all ended up in smaller and smaller factions since every time you stopped to look at a booth, the constantly flowing crowd would sweep away the rest of the crew like a fast-moving river! I lost my friend from the hostel and about a half hour later, found myself “alone” in the crowd. The night market was on the south end of town, and I was staying all the way at the north gate, so after a bit more wandering, I peeled out of the masses and headed towards home. The middle of the city was ridiculously quiet. Compared to the lights and crowds of the market, the whole walk home felt like I was in a deserted ghost town! All I had learned from other travelers so far is how incredibly safe and friendly the majority of Thailand is, so instead of grabbing a tuk tuk, I opted to walk the 20 minutes home, and sort of reveled in the warm night air and the peace and quiet of the temples at night.

I made it home, took a cold shower, and climbed into my bunk! I had a 7am pick up to go meet some elephants, and the jet lag was catching up. I was out immediately and never even heard my roommates stumble in sometime in the wee hours!

The Thais That Bind

Bangkok! 

After a work trip to Japan got postponed, I decided to take a last minute “Spring Break” trip to Thailand! I had a week off of classes between the Winter and Spring quarters, and hoped that if I added on an extra week of vacation and skipped the first week of classes that nobody would miss me :P 

I booked the ticket with less than a week’s notice, so I didn’t really do any planning at all for my 14 days, but I got so many encouraging recommendations from my world-traveling friends that I was pretty sure it would be a great trip no matter what! The week leading up to the trip was a little bit of a whirlwind: just after I booked my ticket I found out I made it to the interview round for a fellowship at the White House I had applied for, and I spent A LOT of time trying to rush to finish all the requirements for attaining Top Secret security clearance before I left the country. But I got almost everything done, packed a small backpack (I’m pretty proud – my checked bag was only 15 pounds!), and hopped on a LONG flight through Beijing and to Bangkok. 

The Grand Palace

I got in at 1am and crashed pretty hard, but overall getting there was pretty easy. I woke up pretty early (thanks, jetlag!) and spent the whole day wandering around Bangkok. I had pad thai and a fresh coconut for breakfast and then headed to check out a gigantic golden Buddha. Basically, from the moment you land you realize Buddha is a REALLY big deal here. His images, statues and shrines are everywhere you look, and in the touristy places there are even some fun informative posters informing you that Buddha images are NOT appropriate for tattoos and decorations, but are to be revered for worship only. 

After the golden Buddha, I headed to check out the Grand Palace. It was pretty amazing! The colors, murals, golden towers and ornate carved architecture was so mesmerizing. I wandered in circles around the grounds for a long time taking photos and playing with my new camera….I indulged in a new point-and-shoot or the trip that boasted being weather sealed, waterproof, drop proof, and freeze proof (three out of four of which were definitely put to the test on the trip!). 

When I finally finished my sightseeing, I was pretty darn warm – the forecast had warned me that the temperature in Bangkok would be approaching 100 degrees, so I opted to find some A/C and escape the sun! I grabbed a tuk tuk (I had missed them!) to a mall and went shopping for a Thai sim card for my phone. It was the most ridiculously large mall I have ever been to (outside of Dubai, which was just insane). I quickly found a sim card and also grabbed a battery charger -- for some reason the Chinese government confiscated and disposed of mine during my extremely short layover in Beijing. I strolled through the mall for a while marveling at the mega-throngs of shoppers and the abundance of crap, but eventually decided to grab a pair of heels and head to a fancy rooftop bar I had read about. The guidebook warned that there was a dress code, so I figured ditching my sandals was necessary. 

That's a big reclining Buddha

I grabbed another tuk tuk and showed the driver on a map and my iPhone were the place was….and after asking another driver, he seemed to know where I was going. We started off heading the right way according to Google maps, so I put away my phone and was enjoying the sights and sounds of bustling Bangkok, but after about 15 minutes I checked again – of course we were WAY off and were headed the opposite direction. I tried to convince the driver, but he kept pointing to a tall building and emphatically arguing in Thai that we were headed to the right place. 

Heels, ugh

Upon arrival, it was clearly NOT the place. And it took me some serious pantomiming to convince him to turn around and take me to the actual bar I was looking for. For the rest of the drive he was not pleased and kept turning around to glare at me and demand more money. I happily agreed, but the glares continued… 

This is what a $23 drink looks like...

I did eventually arrive to the Sky Bar, swapped my flip flops out for the heels, and rode the elevator up to the 64th floor. I had read claims that it was the highest open-air bar, and the views of hazy Bangkok were pretty cool! It was still really warm out, there was a swift breeze up that high, and arrived just before the crowds. You definitely paid for the privilege of the view, and I forked over about $23 for a drink. The drink was yummy and had ice cubes of frozen fruit and dehydrated passion fruit on the rim….but still, $23?! 

After one, I called it quits and headed home. I booked a plane ticket for the next morning to go to Chiang Mai (in northern Thailand) based on a LOT of recommendations from friends, and crashed! Overall, it wasn’t a bad first day!