Life has been very low key and relaxing since we have come to Chang Mai. We found an awesome guest house that only charged 200 dollars a month, and I worked out a deal where I get unlimited access to their computer room for the month for 20 dollars (which is a SUPER good deal as its the nicest cybercafe I've seen here).
Anita is taking a 5 week massage course here, and she is pretty stoked about it. I'm happy to as it has given me a chance to finish the RPG book I've been working on for about 7 years now.
My days here are always the same, so I'll talk about the routine I've been following for the past four weeks.
8:30-9:30 -I wake up. Anita has gone to school, and I begin my day by showering usually. Though lately I have been so excited about getting my ideas about the book into words I skip the shower 50% of the time.
9:30-10:00 - I eat a delicious breakfast. Its either bacon, eggs, toast, and tea, green curry soup, chicken masala, or red curry vegetables and rice. It usually costs about 4$. Then I go to a juice vender that sells freshly squeezed orange juice and I buy a 500ml bottle for one dollar. Freshly squeezed orange juice is fan-bloody-tastic. I get it in the morning, an hour or so after it has been squeezed. I love how cheap it is here.
10:00-4:00 - I work on my RPG book, Plutocracy 2060. Thats right. I spend 5 or 6 hours a day typing out ideas and rules concerning the RPG game. I've been a writing fiend lately. In the past 4 weeks, I have spent about 150 hours working on the game.
4:30-5:00 - I watch the end of "Grey's Anatomy". Its a show about doctors who act like teenagers.
5:00 -10:00 I go for an early supper with Anita. In the evening we either go for a movie, watch T.V. that I have downloaded, or go exploring.
10:00 - bed time
It may sound boring, but I have been having an awesome time.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Kanchanaburi
We set off from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi in a moderately pleasant bus. The 2.5 hour trip went by fast and we got an overweight lady to take us to our hotel in her bicycle taxi. Its amazing that she could be overweight with that job, pulling an extra 200kg or so more than what one normally has when biking, and doing it many times throughout the day.
After a 10 minute ride we arrived at our hostel. It looked very small from the street, but discovered that it went about 250 meters in, all the way to the river. After descending some stairs we walked across a long walk way 2 meters above swampy algae and weed filled water. On either side of the walk way were 2 levels of bamboo bungalows, Swiss Family Robinson style. Ours was at the very end of the walkway facing the river, which was nice. It was very private and had a definite "I'm in Thailand!" feel. We had a nice porch were we could sit and watch the river while having a drink. It was late, so we didn't do much that night, we just ate and read books. That night Anita became very concerned about largish creepy crawlies shuffling about room so she couldn't sleep, but I didn't hear much and slept fine.
The Next day we went to a 1-day Thai cooking course we signed up for. The lady spoke very expressively, which helped us get through any poor English quite easily. There were 6 people in total in our group, a young British man, an older Aussie, and a young couple people from the Netherlands. First, we went to the traditional market to look at ingrediants. It was a very raw place, with things like skinned frogs, but nothing we were not prepared for. After we got to the kitchen we made pad thai, green curry chicken, spicy chicken salad, thai fried rice, and tom yam (spicy soup). We kicked ass at making all the dishes, but of course she held our hand while making them and we will likely screw them up when we try to replicate them at home. Our green curry in particular was awesome. I scalded my mouth quite badly when trying to taste it, leaving a painful burn in my left inner cheek for the next week or so.
The next day was animal day, dubbed such because we were going on an elephant ride trek, and to go to the tiger temple (yes, a temple with many tigers). The elephant ride was awesome. We had a huge elephant and a very experianced elephant trainer who let me ride atop the head of the elephant. It was even more fun when the elephants went for a bath in a clear river, with us atop of them. Whenever the elephants dunked, we went under as well. We soaped up and scrubbed their heads with rough brushes before other dunkings. It was good fun. Later in the day we went to a Buddhist temple where they have been taking care of orphaned tigers for decades. Now, just as Buddha would have wanted, the are used to draw in hundreds of tourists every day to take robotically calculated photos while touching them. It was fun touch them for a couple of seconds before being escourted to the next 10 second photo op. All in all, the elephant ride was much better, as it was less crowded and more personal.
The next day we departed on a 13 hour journey to Chang Mai (and we saw a huge iguana just outside of our bungalow on the walkway when we awoke early that morning, probably 1.5 meters head to tail, it scurried away when it saw us).
After a 10 minute ride we arrived at our hostel. It looked very small from the street, but discovered that it went about 250 meters in, all the way to the river. After descending some stairs we walked across a long walk way 2 meters above swampy algae and weed filled water. On either side of the walk way were 2 levels of bamboo bungalows, Swiss Family Robinson style. Ours was at the very end of the walkway facing the river, which was nice. It was very private and had a definite "I'm in Thailand!" feel. We had a nice porch were we could sit and watch the river while having a drink. It was late, so we didn't do much that night, we just ate and read books. That night Anita became very concerned about largish creepy crawlies shuffling about room so she couldn't sleep, but I didn't hear much and slept fine.
The Next day we went to a 1-day Thai cooking course we signed up for. The lady spoke very expressively, which helped us get through any poor English quite easily. There were 6 people in total in our group, a young British man, an older Aussie, and a young couple people from the Netherlands. First, we went to the traditional market to look at ingrediants. It was a very raw place, with things like skinned frogs, but nothing we were not prepared for. After we got to the kitchen we made pad thai, green curry chicken, spicy chicken salad, thai fried rice, and tom yam (spicy soup). We kicked ass at making all the dishes, but of course she held our hand while making them and we will likely screw them up when we try to replicate them at home. Our green curry in particular was awesome. I scalded my mouth quite badly when trying to taste it, leaving a painful burn in my left inner cheek for the next week or so.
The next day was animal day, dubbed such because we were going on an elephant ride trek, and to go to the tiger temple (yes, a temple with many tigers). The elephant ride was awesome. We had a huge elephant and a very experianced elephant trainer who let me ride atop the head of the elephant. It was even more fun when the elephants went for a bath in a clear river, with us atop of them. Whenever the elephants dunked, we went under as well. We soaped up and scrubbed their heads with rough brushes before other dunkings. It was good fun. Later in the day we went to a Buddhist temple where they have been taking care of orphaned tigers for decades. Now, just as Buddha would have wanted, the are used to draw in hundreds of tourists every day to take robotically calculated photos while touching them. It was fun touch them for a couple of seconds before being escourted to the next 10 second photo op. All in all, the elephant ride was much better, as it was less crowded and more personal.
The next day we departed on a 13 hour journey to Chang Mai (and we saw a huge iguana just outside of our bungalow on the walkway when we awoke early that morning, probably 1.5 meters head to tail, it scurried away when it saw us).
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Thailand part I - Bangkok
We flew into Bangkok from KL and landed without incident. There was the usual crowd of transportation services ready to take you into town for inflated prices, but we bargained one of them down to less than 1/2 his original asking price, which felt good.
Our hostel was a nice place, a midrange hostel with aircon (we are addicted to it) and hot water. It provided internet service and boasted a pleasant garden and pond outside, as well as an ashtray in the shape of "predator's" head, which I appreciated despite not using it.
Also good was the location. The street is famous for food stalls and sold some delicious curries and other traditional Thai dishes for about 1 dollar.
On one day there we checked out all the traditional Buddhist temples and statues, including the largest Buddha in the world. It was enjoyable despite the heat, and we got some good exercise and culture out of it. We wanted to end the day with a forensic museum whose claim to fame is the possession of a bloody shirt of a man who was stabbed to death with a dildo, but couldn't find it after looking for it for a long time, so we ate dinner instead.
On another day we went to see "Bangkok Dangerous", a terrible movie. The most entertaining part was Nicolas Cage's absurd hair. It was an excellent time. Why you ask? Because we reclined in very comfortable electronically controlled lazy boys under blankets. Yep, its the only way to watch movies I am now convinced.
After a couple of more days of checking out the sights, reading books, watching movies, and drinking expensive coffees we decided to go see a Muay Thai fight.
Muay Thai is perhaps the most vicious of all striking martial arts. It allows knees and head butts as well as punching and kicking, making the moves much more unpredictable. We went all out and got some ringside tickets, so we could taste the blood spatter more discerningly. I started downing beers to enjoy a little of the ol' ultra-violence with my glossy globes. The music played is dis harmonic and comes from what sounds to be some wind instrument. If you've seen a Thai fight on TV then you know what I'm talking about. It really gives you an anxious hyper feeling which lends to violent behavior. The first few fights were very light weight, but that didn't stop the crowd from shouting their bets with raised fists and crescendoing "Owwww"s every time a hit was landed. The best fight of the night was very evenly fought. One fighter won because he lacerated his opponents eyebrow with a vicious elbow, causing him to leak everywhere which each additional hit. Over the next few minutes the sanguine fluid was spattered across the mat and his back like Nosferatu's Pollack painting.
All in all our time in Bangkok was good, but I would say its not marketed towards couples as much as groups of rabid men.
Our hostel was a nice place, a midrange hostel with aircon (we are addicted to it) and hot water. It provided internet service and boasted a pleasant garden and pond outside, as well as an ashtray in the shape of "predator's" head, which I appreciated despite not using it.
Also good was the location. The street is famous for food stalls and sold some delicious curries and other traditional Thai dishes for about 1 dollar.
On one day there we checked out all the traditional Buddhist temples and statues, including the largest Buddha in the world. It was enjoyable despite the heat, and we got some good exercise and culture out of it. We wanted to end the day with a forensic museum whose claim to fame is the possession of a bloody shirt of a man who was stabbed to death with a dildo, but couldn't find it after looking for it for a long time, so we ate dinner instead.
On another day we went to see "Bangkok Dangerous", a terrible movie. The most entertaining part was Nicolas Cage's absurd hair. It was an excellent time. Why you ask? Because we reclined in very comfortable electronically controlled lazy boys under blankets. Yep, its the only way to watch movies I am now convinced.
After a couple of more days of checking out the sights, reading books, watching movies, and drinking expensive coffees we decided to go see a Muay Thai fight.
Muay Thai is perhaps the most vicious of all striking martial arts. It allows knees and head butts as well as punching and kicking, making the moves much more unpredictable. We went all out and got some ringside tickets, so we could taste the blood spatter more discerningly. I started downing beers to enjoy a little of the ol' ultra-violence with my glossy globes. The music played is dis harmonic and comes from what sounds to be some wind instrument. If you've seen a Thai fight on TV then you know what I'm talking about. It really gives you an anxious hyper feeling which lends to violent behavior. The first few fights were very light weight, but that didn't stop the crowd from shouting their bets with raised fists and crescendoing "Owwww"s every time a hit was landed. The best fight of the night was very evenly fought. One fighter won because he lacerated his opponents eyebrow with a vicious elbow, causing him to leak everywhere which each additional hit. Over the next few minutes the sanguine fluid was spattered across the mat and his back like Nosferatu's Pollack painting.
All in all our time in Bangkok was good, but I would say its not marketed towards couples as much as groups of rabid men.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)