Hey - I know, I know, I know. It's been too long. I'm so sorry.
Here's...
1) Chiang Mai w/ Stephie
2) the week in Greece with my family
3) Back in Thailand -> Pai trip
4) Since starting teaching again -> getting sick
It's 18 Microsoft Word pages. Pace yourself.
CHIANG MAI w/ STEPHIE!So since the last post - I moved in with my friend Renata on the 15th.
I finished working at AUA for 2006 on December 16th.
I had a bunch of free days I didn't know what to do with on 17th, 18th and 19th and on the 20th I went down to Bangkok to meet Stephie! Woo hoo!
We came back to Chiang Mai that day, went to Elephant Nature Park on the 21st, stayed one night (better than a day, but would have loved to stay longer of course), got back to Chiang Mai on the 22nd, bought some DVDs at the Night Bazaar, walked along the Saturday "Sunday Market" (a special market for people from Chiang Mai to sell their own stuff, known as the Sunday Market, but, because of the Flower show, now happens on Saturdays too) and then Sunday had a nice breakfast, Stephie got a haircut while I packed, and then took off to the Chiang Mai International Airport to get to Bangkok to get the 11 flight to Athens.
The International Terminal in Chiang Mai is absolutely beautiful. Brand new for the Flower show, but 95% of the international flights are just the flights to Bangkok that connect later.
We had a little trouble getting a red truck to the airport, so we figured we'd just do a domestic flight to Bangkok and then do all the visa stuff in Bangkok, but when we got to the counter the domestic guy wouldn't let us check in. He said to go to the International Terminal and I said, "I don't think we have time!" and he pretty much laughed in my face. When we got there we saw why. It was completely empty. We walked up to the Thai Airways counter, there was one other person there. Walked to the airport tax counter, we were the only ones there. Walked to immigration, we were still the only ones there. We had been so surprised and confused about the lack of people we actually forgot to fill out the leaving slips, but the guy just laughed and waited as we filled them out at the counter. EMPTY! We were at our gate in the International Terminal in less than 15 minutes from getting to the Domestic Terminal
The guy at the domestic counter was right. We definitely had enough time.
The flight to Bangkok was fine. The new airport is really nice I guess but their signage is terrible. They have arrows that point up to the sky that don't mean go straight, they mean, find the nearest escalator, which is probably behind you, and take that "up." I don't think signs in America work like that. Steph and I, both reasonably bright human beings I'd say, walked in the wrong direction for about 1/2 hour. We knew after about 5 minutes that there was no way that we were going the right way, but we really wanted to see where this arrow was going to lead us. And they had "people movers" (treadmill/flat escalator things), which are really fun, the whole way, and we had nothing better to do. But they were only going in one direction, so the walk back took a really long time, but it did face us back in the opposite direction so we saw the escalator on the way back.
The flight was fine. We didn't have individual TVs which is always a disappointment on really long flights, but it was fine. It was a pretty empty flight so Steph and I both got our own rows. But I was stupid and jumped to the first row of the section (we were in the second) and the armrests there don't move like the ones in the other rows so Steph had a row to herself to sleep on and I had a nice window seat with a lot of room to put my stuff. Also nice. Another bummer about the first row is that you're actually too close to the TV to see it. But I don't think I was interested in the movies anyway. I got to listen to some Thai pop music which was nice. I've really been missing it lately.
GREECE
Athens
So then GREECE! First off, their immigration people suck at keeping their inkpads inked!
My Greece stamp is just pathetic. You can barely see it. And I heard poor Maisie had the same bad stamper for her first stamp! That's just not right.
Steph and I got to Greece and realized we didn't know anything. It was weird. Steph had written down the name of the hotel and emailed before we left, but we got there and said, "Huh, so we're in Greece. Their stamps suck. So what do we do now?" I was still convinced Mom and Dad were going to meet us (for no reason other than I thought they'd want to). Steph was smarter than that. She went out to figure stuff out while I guarded the luggage. She asked where to get a taxi, if they had meters (maybe not) and how much it was supposed to be The answers were, "There's a stand outside with metered taxis with a sign with average prices for common destinations." We were both blown away. A sign with average prices??!?!? WOW! The West is great! We almost forgot that Greek cab drivers probably wouldn't take Baht of Rupees so we got some Euros and headed out on our way. Our driver was really nice. He was a bit hesitant when we, two kind of dirty backpacker looking kids, said we were going to one of the top five Athens hotels, but when we explained our parents were already there he agreed. Twenty minutes later we were at the Electra Palace Hotel. And Dad was there to meet us. And pay the guy in case we forgot to get money, which we almost did, but then didn't.
Woo hoo! Athens! But more so.... Woo hoo! Family!
The pictures will tell more than I can. I'll try to recap...
12/25 - Christmas! We ran into a huge Christmas festival with ponies, balloons, candy houses, skinny Santa Clauses, more balloons and some lottery tickets! Then we walked down a strange street market of fake stuff and Incan music. I don't know what to make of it. Then we walked around the area a bit, led by a very nice dog who even led us back to our hotel when we got too cold. He knew exactly where we wanted to go. It was weird. I think he wanted a tip for showing us the way back but we only had coins. No food. He waited by the door of the hotel for a while and we all crossed our fingers that he'd find some more nice people and wouldn't be waiting for us when we left again for dinner. He wasn't. At night we headed over to our , "No, you don't get to order, you'll get what I give you" first grilled meat dinner. Lots of grilled meat. This time in little rolls with some pita. Right on.
12/26 - Steph, Alex and I ventured out and ended up having a way cooler day than expected. Much to Erica's dismay. The pictures will explain. We saw the guards at Parliament doing their thing, which is a strange march like thing in an even stranger outfit. Alex stole oranges from Parliament, we walked around making fun of Greek people's leather jackets, mini skirts and stiletto, we stopped at a coffee shop where we learned that the only difference between hot chocolate and hot chocolate Vienna is that the Vienna has whipped cream. I noticed that Greece is the first place where hot chocolate is more expensive than cappuchino. We went on the Athens metro which was very nice! Very clean, much better signage than the Bangkok airport. We took it to an area by the water with a whole bunch of Olympic stadiums. All closed but interesting I guess. Then we walked around some park area and found a huge bouncy playground. It was empty, but not closed (as most things in Athens were). Steph did some talking and got the three of us in. Woo hoo! That was fun. We took the tram back to the hotel, stopping at a fish restaurant along the beach. The area was pretty dead, but you saw all the potential it had for being really exciting in the summer. Oh well. I think dinner this night was room service. It was damn cold and everything was closed. It was hard to work up the energy to leave the room at night.
Santorini12/27 - Athens to Santorini. Maisie in an airport! This was my first time seeing her in an airport. My iPod had broken, so I gave it to her to play with. I think she liked it. And by liked it, I mean, she liked (putting) it (in her mouth). But hey, that's what babies do. It's cool. The flight was fine. I had been under the impression we were going to have a private propeller plane to the island, but it was a real plane, much bigger than the American Airlines Madison --> New York plane. Our hotel place in Santorini was amazing. The nice thing about going to a summer only place not in the summer is that the fanciest places all have reduced rates, so we stayed in a really nice place. The rooms are all kind of built into the cliffs, like all those "Greek Isles" pictures you see with the white buildings and blue water. To get to it you have to walk up and down a lot of stairs and through little alleys and stuff. It was fun. I was kinda hoping a donkey would carry our luggage, but it was ended up being a nice Georgian (country, not the state) boy, named George, who carried a lot of it.
Santorini was really nice and cute and beautiful and everything, but oh so closed! We walked for quite a while trying to find some place to eat. We eventually found the same place as all of the other people who had been on our plane. Being the only place open, you'd think they might have a waitstaff of more than one, but no. The owner was the waiter. He didn't let us order. He said he knew what we wanted. "Some nice salads, some bread, and a nice chicken." It was kind of weird. We did get manage to get a pizza and some pork too though. No grilled vegetables though. Erica tried and got the response, "Vegetables? What do you think's in the salad?" Ok. He also took the liberty of serving each one of us oil, vinegar, salt and pepper for the bread. Nice, yes, but then when poor Stephie asked not to have pepper, he was very insulted and decided she needed to hear an important story. It went like this...
"Um, no thanks."
"No pepper? Why not?"
"I don't like pepper."
"Have you had it before? How do you know you don't like it?"
"Yeah, I've had it before, that's how I know I don't like it."
"Well, let me tell you a story. I thought for the longest time that I didn't like octopus. And my friends would try to get me to eat it and I wouldn't. And then, one time, when I was completely drunk, my friends gave me octopus. And guess what?"
"What?"
"I loved it. I eat it all the time now. And I never would have known if my friend's hadn't made me eat it when I was drunk."
"Oh."
Erica: "Is anyone here drunk?"
And then before Stephie had a chance to get back on defense, there went the pepper into her oil and vinegar.
This guy also broke a glass and spilled water - both remedied by putting a new tablecloth over the old one. I'm sure he was on crack.
I think we skipped dinner this night, but went out for coffee later and found a place with crepes. Those were good, but I realized I don't like Nutella as much as I thought I did. I much rather have Hershey's Chocolate Syrup in any scenario I can think of.
12/28 - We decided we should do a tour to really see and "experience" the island. It was iffy if we would be able to find a tour guide (keep in mind, I think the population of all of Santorini was maybe at most 100) but the Erica worked hard and the guy at the hotel eventually set up a for a 2 hour tour in with a van with enough seats for everyone. Nice! Turns out the guy was really just a guy who happened to have a van with enough seats more than a tour guide. His first question, "Where do you want to go?" Silence. "Red Sand Beach?" Sure. So after the silent, very pretty, ride, we get to the red sand beach and dude said, "I wait here." So we hung out as RSB for a while. I was in a ridiculous amount of pain from something going on with my foot caused by wearing my shoes. It sucked and hurt a lot, but oh well. So I hung out on the top with Mom and Alex, Stephie, Erica, Mike and Maisie went on a little adventure down to the beach with the red sand. And Steph and Alex made it all the way across the beach to a random door in the cliff. It was closed.
Then back in the van! And we went off to... the beach with the black sand! I think it was called Black Sand Beach! Also nice, not as much walking, so I got to see the water. Then back in the van. Where to now, Tour Guide? Steph tried to ask for someplace but he said it was closed. So she asked for another place and he said it was far away, but didn't give any other suggestions, so we said whatever, dude, far place it is. It's called Oia and Erica and I are pretty confident it's where Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (or
... of the Traveling Man) was filmed. I bet if we had stayed there, our luggage totally would have been carried by donkeys. But, I also bet, if we tried to stay there we would have been really cold, because all the hotels there were probably closed. But it was really nice. I think. We saw "the shot" from the van and asked the guy to stop so we could take pictures but my guess is it was the politeness that killed our chances. Tour Guide Steph sitting in the front asked dude, "Could we stop someplace to take pictures?" to which he answer, "Yes. Pictures. I know." If Steph had said, "Mr. Mean, Not-even-tour-guide guy, can you stop right now so we can take damn pictures?" maybe he would have understood better. I don't know. He took us to the bottom of the cliffs and said, "Here. Pictures." It was also nice, I guess. But it was pretty much impossible to get any kind of picture that could capture how cool it had looked from the road on the top of cliffs. On the way back we were in a rush, (because we had gone to the far away place, against his wishes), so we didn't dare ask him to stop.
Lunch this day was actually not bad! I mean, well, mine was. I got a "Spinach Pie" which were 5 grease puffs with green goo that couldn't have possibly been spinach inside. But, as far as waiters/owners listening to what we wanted to order, he was very accepting of our own orders! That's probably because what was ordered was a lot of grilled meat, a lot of grilled fish that came with salads. It also came with Santorini wine. Dad asked if he could substitute anything else, but the guy got insulted and said that he made the wine, so it wasn't just any wine, it was special. And, he had more of it than anything else and it was cheap for him to give it away with the set meals. So Dad got the wine.
I think it was this day when I took a bubble bath in a jacuzzi bathtub. I had never done that before. It was pretty nice! Among other things, water pressure is definitely lacking in Thailand. And bathtubs don't really come around much either. So that was a very nice treat!
Erica and I also watched Maisie stand against a table with fruit on it for a pretty long time. Her toes were sure working hard. She went back and forth from standing on her toes to standing on her feet and then back again. She also started taking tinsy little bites of pear. Each one actually. A tiny tiny bite out of each pear on that table.
Dinner this night was take out from a Gyros stand. At this point, I had had more than my fill of grilled meat, and they were out of falafel, so I got just a pita, but even that was sopping in grease and oil and made me miss Thailand and their rice. Erica really liked the Tzsiki from there though.
I think it was this night we realized that all the stuff that's not open during the day (pretty much everything) was open at night! Not everything. But if 90% of stores, shops, restaurants, etc. were closed during the day, only 75% were closed at night! Pretty exciting if you ask me. We also found a cute little supermarket where I tried to sneakily take pictures of stuff but when the battery ran out and gave a really loud sound telling me, I got some mean looks, Santorini style. Ah! We also used the internet this night which was exciting. It was really fast. But super smokey, like most places in Greece. Damn those Greeks and their cigarette addictions. Gross.
12/29 - Santorini --> Athens.
In the morning we went to another supermarket to, you know, get gifts like sponges and stuff for friends and family back home. Alex also took pictures with the Christmas ostrich standing outside a Christmas store. But wait, it's days after Christmas, why are people still caring about Christmas? I don't know is the answer. But up until the day I left people were loving everything Christmas.
When we got back to Athens, my rice day finally came. We got back to Athens and found a Japanese restaurant to go to. I was so happy. Thank you Stephie for looking into it when I was too cranky and grumpy to do anything except complain.
At night Alex, Erica,
Steph and I made it to one of the many coffee/dessert, but no food, places. We went all out and got
cappuchinos, huge waffles with ice cream, baklava, some caramel thing, and some really good chocolate thing. The waffle and the chocolate thing came over with sparklers on them which was pretty exciting.
12/30 - Acropolis day! We went to The Acropolis. It was interesting. I liked watching Erica and
Steph read about the significance of different things. I'm not sure who pointed it out but we also saw where
Yanni had given his famous performance. I also tried to take pictures of ridiculous fashions wish I thought was going to be easy because it doesn't look rude to have your camera out and be taking a lot of pictures at The Acropolis, but for some reason the pictures didn't turn out as well as I had hoped they would. Oh well. It was cold, and because of the foot thing, I was wearing flip flops. I can actually say, I'm fairly certain I was the only person in Athens wearing flip flops that day. After Acropolis-
ing we ate lunch at the inexpensive part of an expensive restaurant. Milk shakes - 7 euros. It was ridiculous. The drinks especially. Yesterday at lunch my friend Caroline pointed out that the best deal in Thailand might be the fruit shakes for less than a dollar. I agree. They're damn good. Then I went with Alex to look for sneakers but totally miscalculated how long it would take to get there and after taking the tram to the stop, pretty much turned around to go back and meet
Steph and Erica to tell them I was too tired to actual do what I had said I would be back for. They went out and found a really cool, small Russian Orthodox church that was holding a service. I slept. For dinner, we finally found a fun, reasonably priced place to eat with good, friendly service. And music eventually too! What a relief. Athens had really not been impressing me much, but this restaurant was exactly what it was had been looking for. I would have been down with a plate or two being broken, but, hey, our waiter was nice and let us order what we wanted, so that was enough for me to be happy. And the woman at the table next to us had glitter in her hair which also made me happy. We liked this place so much we stayed for coffee and dessert too! But that was also an attempt to stay there until the music started. We got there at 8, when it was completely empty, "to get a table before the crowds" but the music didn't start until 10. But by then it was packed, so it is good we got there early.
12/31 - New Year's Eve Day! Today was an attempt to recreate the fun day from
pre-
Santorini. It worked!!!!! We got everyone on a subway, to the same place, and we Erica finally got to do the bouncy playground obstacle course. It was, needless to say, fun. Then the tram ride which didn't go as well as planned. It was supposed to be a nice, peaceful, pleasant ride along the beautiful Athens coastline, but people got hungry and people couldn't care less about coastlines if they're hungry. So we got out, but every place was closed or only served coffee and dessert and club sandwhiches. So eventually we gave in and went to a coffee place that had club sandwhiches and mini pizzas and had lunch there. And then back to another place for dessert and coffee. Steph finally got one of these cold hot chocolates we'd been seeing on all the menus. Like an iced coffee, it was an iced hot chocolate, which sounds kind of like chocolate milk, but it somehow wasn't. It was good. I got a hot one. They were both quite beautiful. I should have taken pictures. Then we got back on the tram continuing along the coast, and about 15 minutes later, got off, and caught the next tram going in the other direction back to town. It was planned that way, don't worry.
Getting back to the hotel was kind of lame, when we turned on BBC and it said stuff about bombs going off in Bangkok. That sucked. I didn't like it. I think we also watched a bunch of promo ads for Greek kids' music with this little 10 year old kid wearing a suit and playing a piano and then a bunch of little kids singing songs running around in leotards and tights looking like reindeer and chickens.
We went out and tried to get New Year's Eve chicken gyros but we ended up with a New Year's Eve beef gyro plate and beer. Steph ordered Stella for the first time. Erica tried to go Greek and order Mylos or whatever it's called, and got a funny look for it. We ate, drank, and then walked around to find something cool going on. Syntagma Square was the big place to be, with music and everything but we walked around more to see if there was anything else going on. We found another square that had stuff going on, but there were only groups of young leather jacket wearing Arab men. No women, no kids, no white people. I think we stood out. Alex guessed that there was probably some cute Arab girl who was going to performing there later.
We ended up back at Syntagma and watched the guards do their funny march again. When they stopped marching, they just stood still. Protecting Parliament and stuff. But then after about 20 seconds people started taking pictures with them. So Alex did too.
There were some fireworks. Not after too long, we went back to the hotel. That was it for me.
1/1/07 - I thought my flight was at 4:30, but it was really at 4, so my overly cautious 1pm departure turned into a 1pm on the dot departure. But it was all fine. It was weird to see a Greek guy at the Thai Airways desk, but I guess I knew it would happen. As I was going through security the entire flight crew came through so the whole line waited for about 10 minutes for each member to go through. I couldn't believe how excited I got. Thai Airways staff are kind of a big deal in Thailand. Flight attendents and pilots are two of the top profession that kids in my classes want to be. It's one of those worldly jobs you can only get if you speak English well. Knowing the status that Thais give to them, I kind of felt they were celebrities coming through. And I got to hear people speaking Thai to each other and they kind of did the Sawatdee stuff to some of the people in line (who, if not going to Thailand, were probably pretty pissed they decided to show up to go through security in this group of 30). But oh man. It was exciting.
As with the Athens flight, the Bangkok flight was pretty empty. I got my own row again, and I was in a normal row so I could put the arm rests down. I don't remember what the movies were. I watched this whole episode of "True Hollywood Story: America's Next Top Model" because in the preview they said they were going to talk about the Thailand immigration problem, but it was actually cut out, so I watched the whole thing for nothing which was lame. The food was good though and I got to try to read Thai newspapers again. It's not easy.
BACK IN THAILAND
Chiang Mai
My flight took me from Athens to Bangkok but I had to get another flight to Chiang Mai. I tried going to Laos but it didn't work. That's ok. I bummed around Chiang Mai, trying to figure out what else I could do, and then Friday morning I went up to Pai, a really cute little super hippie town overflowing with backpackers, but also a popular destination for Thais. I actually first hear about it from Thais but then soon found out it was Lonely Planet's off-the-beaten-track gem several years ago, and is now a standard part of many a beaten track. So, like everywhere else in the world, it's not what it used to be, but it's still pretty cool is you ask me.
My bike in Chiang Mai is 97ccs which is pretty wimpy in comparison to most bikes around. So in Pai I decided to rent a 125cc for a day and see if I noticed a difference. I did. It was pretty cool. Pai is up in the mountains so it's just absolutely beautiful and all I did the first day (after a nausiating 4 hour mini van drive up there) was drive and look and stuff and be happy that I'm in warm, beautiful, nice, delicious Thailand, and not Greece anymore. But I did miss my family obviously. It was unbelievably nice to get away from Chiang Mai. Pai was a reminder that, minus the elephants, the things that I love about being at the Elephant Park are pretty much available all over the place once you leave the city. The beautiful jungle, mountains, bamboo shacks, people on bicylces, little dirt roads, all of it. It's rural Thailand. I think I had been forgetting that because I only associated that stuff with the park. A lot of places were full already but I stayed in a room above a massage place that they were pretty hesitant to give me. They said it was a Thai room because it had a hard mattress, a light and nothing else, with a shared bathroom, but I convinced them that I was more than happy to stay there for 100 baht ($2.50). The other option, which I almost took, was to stay at a 400 baht ($10) and had cable.
On the van ride up it was only a French mother with her two kids, a Canadian kid named Ethan who was studying in Australia, who was nice and tried to talk to me several times even though I was being super grumpy and anti-social. But that was really stupid of me. And at night, when I realized I was going to eat dinner by myself, I got mad at myself for having been such a grump. But luckily he walked by the restrauant where I was eating, and I ran after him and apologized for being a grump and asked if he wanted to hang out and he said yes. I explained the whole just getting back from Greece, family thing and said sorry for being a grump. He was cool with it. Pai is up in the mountains so it was pretty freaking cold up there at night. We got tea at an outdoor reggae bar with a bonfire. And made plans to meet up Saturday to check out some waterfalls and stuff. The area around Pai's got a lot of stuff to look at and play in.
After the first freezing night, I brought my stuff down to say thanks and pay, all ready to move to my room with cable and my own bathroom (I hadn't showered), but they were all sitting around a table eating breakfast and told me to sit down. So I did and they fed me all sorts of crazy stuff. Sticky rice, which is always good, and huge pieces of pig. I'm reluctant to use the word pork, because I feel like pork means someone put in some effort to make it indistinguishable from it's former self, and this was very... distinguishable. It was pig. It was cooked and all, but it was the most straight up pig I'd ever seen. I ate it. There were some really spicy vegetables that I had some of, as to not be rude, but absolutely hated and had to work hard to say no to the second time, and lastly, a lot of snails. Little snails you sucked the stuff out of. That was a first. I probably had ten. So after breakfast, they noticed I had my bag and said, "Where are you going? Are you leaving?" And I said, "Um... no! Sorry. I'm going to go bring this back upstairs!" The cable would have been cool, but I felt like if I'm going to eat snails and this is going to be that kind of trip, then I should go all out and stay in the Thai room. And they were cool and some of the other more expensive guesthouses were snippy when I asked if I could get a discount because I would only be using one bed in the two bed rooms. So, I stayed. There was a Thai guy named Jack that was staying in the same hallway above the massage place and he said he wanted to go see stuff today and said I should go with him. Which is cool, but could have been kind of awkward if we were alone. But, I had my plans with Ethan, so we went to meet him and the three of us went out on a ridiculously awesome adventure.
1st stop - "everything beautiful!" So on Friday, Ethan had tried to go to hot springs but when he got to the place on the map it turned out it was a Thai National Park which means it's 400 baht for foreigners and 20 baht for Thais. (Because I pay Thai taxes I found out I'm supposed to have a card that entitles me to that 20 baht price, but I've never gotten it, so I didn't have it.) So he never went and really wanted to find some, or failing that, some waterfalls. So Jack said he knew were to go for hot springs, but asked if we wanted to see "everything beautiful." Well hell yeah. Who wouldn't? Although it did kind of sound like something a drug dealer would say to a high school kid. But it wasn't anything with drugs. It was a place. But it turns out the place was in a national park. So we biked like 35 kms, and got to the sign that said 400 baht. I didn't even have 400 baht on me, and neither did Ethan. Jack felt bad, he said he had never been there, he had just heard about it and knew where it was, but didn't realize it was a park and we'd have to pay. Hey, Mai Pen Rai! Ok, back to those hot springs!
2nd stop - Hot springs! Free ones! Or one. I'm not sure how to really use the term "hot springs." After going back into town (35km) and then back out in the other direction we drove and drove and drove and then made a left at a tiny blue sign all in Thai (most signs are huge, green, with Thai and English). We go down these steep narrow dirt roads for 5 kms and then, there is it. A little pond with like 20 boys slinging mud out of it. I asked Jack what they were doing and he said they were working. Their job was to clean the hot springs. It was kind of weird showing up there. Ethan and I could have easily been the first foreingers these kids had seen. And I was the female for miles. And we were there to go swimming. And they knew that. It was awkward. I went in Thai style. Fisherman's shorts and t-shirt and just kind of kept myself submerged for as long as possible. It was only a little pond and not that deep, but really really really warm. The boys pointed out a bigger lake or a river or something that was close by, but it wasn't warm. It was cold. So I don't know if it's a hot spring, or if a little pong can be a hot springs or how to say it. But it was really nice and really relaxing and was probably the closest thing to a bath I'll get in Thailand. The hotsping(s) were really nice, but getting back out on the bike while soaking wet wasn't. I had all my layers with me, so I changed the top layers, but I had nothing to change into for the bottom. But, we weren't headed home just yet.
3rd stop - Jack asked if we wanted to go to see caves. He had been there a bunch of times before and really loved it and you rent a guide and a raft for up to four people for 550 baht so it wouldn't be as much as a national park. I was on the fence about it, but Ethan said sure, so we went. Again, drive and drive and drive. We stopped at a little rest stop and got coffee which was fun. I really liked our little group of three. Jack had the Thai knowledge that we didn't and I had the Thai language knowledge to understand stuff and explain it to Ethan. Jack speaks English too but there were some things he needed to explain in Thai and I could totally translate. Cool, huh? I can understand a lot better than I can speak which is cool, but also kind of frustrating because you usually show people you understand by responding but I get stuck. It's ok though. But yeah, Jack, Ethan and me was a good group. We finally got to the caves and started our next adventure. So this place is called Lot Caves and it's a Thai tourist attraction. There were only a handful of foreigners and I don't know what they did because our guide at least, definitely didn't know any English. She was nice and Jack knew the speil front to back so he tried his best at English and I filled in the gaps where I could. So 550 baht gets you a guide with a latern and a raft for four people which is pulled by a very tiny old skinny man. There are like 25 of them just sitting waiting to pull your raft. It's kind of weird. But you float to the first cave and then get out and walk up huge steps and walk around caves. The guide points out stuff like, "Look, it's looks like a crocodile!" and stuff like that. One thing I couldn't understand were these really long wooden rounded pod like things. They looked like really skinny canoes. Jack tried to tell us they were coffins discovered in the caves but they were like 15 feet long. And when I asked why they were that long he said people used to be taller. I truly doubt that. But they're old. I just did some googling and it sounds like they're 2000 years old. When Thai people were 15 feet tall. Just kidding. Oh, also, this is where Thailand's most beautiful prehistoric painting had been until it was wiped out by a village kid during a graffiti cleanup action. Oopsies! I have a picture of the picture of what it used to look like.
So caves, caves, caves and a lot of bat droppings. The third cave actually smelled so bad I walked around the whole thing breathing through my jacket. But it was cool anyway. And to see Thai people being tourists instead of just foreigners was pretty cool and quite refreshing. And being pulled on a raft by a very skinny old man was an experience I didn't ever see myself having. So that was cool too I guess. Although I felt really weird the entire time.
So finally we were ready to return home. But we were hungry. So 10kms back to the main road.
4th stop - Food! It was good. We were really hungry. We also passed this area with a lot of lights so we went to check it out and it was a bouncy castle, but we weren't allowed on. Lame.
Then - the ride home. It was freezing. I had on my almost dry, except for the crotch of course, shorts and a couple of layers on top. Ethan changed back into his jeans and put on his sweatshirt. Jack, the Thai guy, had on shorts and a t-shirt. The same shorts as he swam in and the same shirt he used to dry himself off. I tried to give him one of my layers but he declined. Eventually though, he turned onto a dirt a road and we went into a village looking for a blanket for him to drive with. I thought he was going to ask where a store was, or find the blanket maker or the village or something, but he just pulled into the first area of houses with lights on and asked if he could buy a blanket from them. In this area all the houses are build on stilts and stuff so they said don't worry about it and threw down a blanket for him to use. How cool is that? I have no idea how common that is. But neither Jack nor the family seemed to think twice about any of it.
Eventually, we got back to Pai. Again, I'm staying at the cheap place with a shared bathroom and by then it was sooooo cold, that I couldn't imagine the idea of getting out of the shower. I just didn't have enough clothing for how cold that was going to be. So for the second day, no shower. Ethan, Jack and I went out later that night to celebrate us all getting home in one piece. We drove back over 50kms in the dark on nasty winding, steep mountain roads. But we were safe and went slowly so it was fine. We went to the first bar which was a bar Ethan and I had tried going to the previous night, but he didn't have tea, so we left. But this night it was fancy drink night so we all got fancy drinks. As we were sitting by the fire (all the outdoor bars have to keep warm in the winter somehow) a bunch of Pai police officers came and hung out with us. The bar keeper guy gave them all sodas. They were nice. Then they had to go, but Ethan made sure to ask for a picture with them before. It would have been better if you could have seen their uniforms because their shirts said something funny that I can't remember now, but alright moving on. We kind of went bar hopping around Pai and ended up watching this really good singer/songwriter play Thai songs. That barely ever happens. It was exciting. I asked Jack who sang each song but he didn't know any because he usually lives on the beaches in the south and only knows the Western pop music they play in clubs. But he asked the singer, so I got some names. The night was cold and the bed was uncomfortable and my hair was geting pretty gross, but Sunday morning I finally said goodbye and got the van back to Chiang Mai. In the van with me this time were a bunch of Thai collge girls and an Israeli couple who were throwing up the whole time. But at the same time complaining that they had a 1:00 flight to catch. They were annoying. But I'm pretty sure the Thai girls hated them more even more than I did. The van was supposed to leave at 9 and most likely it had taken them 4 hours to get up to Pai, so how could they think leaving at 9 was a good idea for a 1:00pm flight? And leaving on time? Oh come on. This couldn't have been their first day in Thailand. They should have known better.
So on the way up there and on the way back, you stop at this little shop to eat food, drink and go to the bathroom. I decided to get a banana. They gave me two. The first one was really good. For the second one, the first half was good but then I tasted something crunchy. I just kind of swallowed it and didn't think anything of it and took another bite which was fine, but then I realized that this whole section of the banana was all messed up with a bunch of black stuff. I stopped and looked at it for a while and then the shiny stuff started swirming out of the black stuff. They were little worms. Tiny little ones. I was really grossed out. I then stopped eating the banana and got back on the bus. That was the first time food I've been given obviously bad food. I can't believe I kept eating after the first crunchy bit. I know this is bad timing, but I really don't think this had anything to do with the stomach problems, which are, by the way, fine now.
I got back to Chiang Mai around 2, after dropping off annoying couple at the airport and showered and slept and tried to psych myself up for going back to work. Boo...
But Sunday, I did get to meet up with Em (friend who I met at ENP last January, who was back for another visit) who was just about to start her week at the Park, so that was cool.
SINCE STARTING TEACHING AGAINStarting this term at AUA wasn't nearly as exciting as starting any of the previous ones. I think being in Greece with family, and then in the mountains sleeping on hard mattresses and eating snails, and then watching my friend Katie hand in her resignation, it was just hard to get psyched up. Also, this for this weekday term instead of 5 weeks of 4 days a week with 1 week of 5 days a week (plus Saturdays), it's 5 weeks of 5 days a week (plus Saturdays). So 6 days a week is tough when all I can think about is figuring out when I'm going to be leaving. I decided if I'm going to be in Chiang Mai, then I'm going to make the most of it and enjoy being in Chiang Mai. So I think every night after work I went out with friends. That was a bad idea. Because my Saturday, the day I was supposed to move, yet again, I was exhausted. I didn't move. I stayed home and watched movies with Renata, my roommate I hadn't seen since Sunday since she leaves for her real school job before I wake up and goes to sleep before I come back from my not real school job. So Saturday I chilled. Sunday, Craig and Caroline hosted a big breakfast thing which was very cool, and filling. And finally on Sunday, I packed everything into bags, then into a tuk tuk and moved to my new place.
On Monday, I was a mess. My throat had been hurting and had gotten worse. My tonsils were totally pussy and my glands were totally swollen. But I had to go to work. I thought taking a shower adn everything would help but it didn't. I got to work, and fell asleep on the table I was working at. Then I woke up and had lunch, came back and fell asleep again. Then I went to the pharmacy. I told the pharmacist that my throat was really bad and she, without taking a step, grabs two packages of Ammoxocylin and gives them to me. For $2.50. I KNOW TAKING ANTIBIOTICS IS NOT GOOD, AND ESPECIALLY NOT GOOD IF YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW IF YOU HAVE AN INFECTION OR VIRUS, but I was so desperate, I think I had convinced myself it was strep and these $2.50 antibiotics were the only answer I needed. I also got some cough drops. I taught Monday. I shouldn't have.
Tuesday I woke up and fell back asleep. I couldn't move and my stomach hurt. I tried again and went to take a shower but that didn't work out well and I fell back asleep after shoving as many whole wheat crispbreads in my mouth as possible because I realized I hadn't even in over 15 hours and I had started taking antibiotics. It wasn't pretty. Finally I woke up again and went to work. I taught Tuesday. I shouldn't have.
Wednesday I finally went to the doctor. He told me I had bronchitis and endosomethingitis which was the stuff in my stomach and gave me new antibiotics and told me to stop taking the other ones. And some decongestants for the bronchitis. The doctor was a recommenation from John, the director of AUA who's lived here for 25 years, but the whole idea of a clinic is kind of weird. All clinics have their own pharmacies, so they've not that much different in that say what you want, we'll give you antibiotics, except that in the clinic, a guy in a nice suit will talk to you in a room first and check you out and stuff. But the price for the medicine and the visit are all in one, so it's like, if he doesn't prescribe something from his pharmacy, he won't get paid. Or something. I don't know. Wednesday I taught, and I actually had a doctor's note to take two days off if I wanted, but that seemed silly now cause the two days I should have taken off were Monday and Tuesday. So I taught Wednesday, but that was fine.
Thursday and Friday, same same. Nothing dramatic. Woke up early to teach on Saturday. Took last night and today very easy. My nose is still a tiny bit stuffed. I'm not coughing anymore and my stomach's fine. I still have a couple of days of antibiotics left. But I'm staying away from them next time I'm sick. Unless I get a culture telling me it's a bacteria and not a virus. I don't want Superbugs to come and kill us all.
There are a bunch of hippie healers and people like that in Chiang Mai, so I think next time, I'll try that end of the spectrum and see what happens. But in the meantime... more sleep!!!!
PICTURES
Elephant Nature Park with Stephie and a couple of extras. -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigramroad/sets/72157594491479882/My best 362 Greece pictures -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigramroad/sets/72157594491669382/Pai -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigramroad/sets/72157594492185241/And I'm going to sleep now.
