I heart Thailand

Sunday February 14 2010

It’s Valentines day and I’m getting romantic with Thailand. Everyday that I’m here I’m falling more in love with this place. My friend Brad warned me about this this, telling me that more than one westerner had dropped anchor in Thailand only to give up his former life for a culture that doesn’t have the word for work. Before I talk about this next part, remember that I’m a tough guy who hangs out with tigers ok?
The kings palace is gorgeous, an Asian version of the secret garden. As a girl, Aiola was expected to love the gardens, as I guy I couldn’t help but appreciate it for it’s truly spectacular beauty and crisp clean mountain air. While we couldn’t actually go inside the palace, the surrounding gardens were enough to impress me. Just as I was getting picture happy, my battery died. Ironically I was cocky enough to make the comment earlier that my battery seemed to last forever. No worries, Aiola had a camera of her own. Wrong. Her battery also died just as my string of curses faded away. I have to say I admire her drive to never settle. She had our driver ask everyone and anyone who may be able to help us with our predicament. Her persistence paid off, and we were able to commission a local photographer to follow us to our next destination.
Chiang Mai has a splendid amount of Buddhist temples, but the most spectacular one is Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep Rajvoravihara Temple nestled in the mountains over-looking the city. At 700 years old, this temple holds tradition, religious significance, and beauty that can only be understood at the most basic level by a visitor like myself. 300 steps separate your arrival with the entrance of the temple. No Audio guide, no tour leader, this is a living temple. Thankfully our photographer was there not only to take pictures, but to guide us through the experience, pointing us in the right direction and making sure we followed the Buddhist traditions. Admiring the gold platted spires and ornate wood carved doors, despite the number of tourists, it was easy to get a feeling of peace in this place. A subtle wave of his hand, I moved in the direction of the photographer towards a small room off to the side where a monk was seated. Removing my sandals, I dropped to my knees like the rest of the people in the room. I kneeled in silence as we received a blessing from the monk who spoke in a language I could not understand while droplets of holy water caressed my head.
I walked out and took a flower from a small girl and walked in a procession around the center of the temple. When I finished, I placed my flower amongst the others and continued on to the side where I received an incense stick and candles. Respectfully I placed the incense in the designated spot and aligned my candle with the others casting a warm glow on the temple wall.
In another small room off to the side, another monk was giving a blessing while tying several strings together around your wrist to form a good luck bracelet. Not wanting to pass up good karma, I received my blessing along with a bracelet of my own.
We finished the day at a silk factory, which in my mind was sub par. Thai silk from what I saw was inferior to Chinese silk, much courser and lacking the quality that you can tell from just feeling it. One thing that I can say was cool was the demonstration on the lifecycle from the worm to the final product.
After another spectacular dinner, we decided to treat ourselves to a Thai massage. I have to say that I was ignorant as to what I Thai massage really was. I was expecting a tiny Thai girl struggling to really get deep enough in my muscle tissue. Holy crap was I wrong. Two middle-aged tough as nails Thai women showed up and made me their bitch for 2 hours. I have to admit I yelped once or twice when they put me in a figure four position and bent my leg in the direction that it normally doesn’t bend. After that display I’ve decided to skip wrestling camp for my future son and just send him to learn Thai massage. His opponents will be crying uncle faster than you can say full nelson.
Feeling better and worse at the same time, I paid for my self-induced torture and ended another spectacular day in Thailand.

Tiger Kingdom

Saturday February 13 2010

When animals attack is the first thing that comes to mind as I step into the cage. Why was I doing this again? Aiola asked if I was scared, I say well, it IS a tiger.

When our driver asked if we wanted to go to Tiger Kingdom I was thinking that watching tigers could be cool. When he started telling me that we could actually get in with the tigers I thought that his broken English was failing him. His English was fine, it was my comprehension that was a bit slow.
Again for a ridiculously low price you too can get into a tiger cage with your own private photographer who will capture what may be the coolest day of your life. Sorry mom, I know I said I would be careful, but this was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. It’s intimidating to see a full grown tiger up close, even if he is laying down. 400 pounds of rippling muscle and power is humbling. Just knowing that one swift motion with his paw would spill my insides put the hesitation in my movements as I crept closer to the majestic feline at the request of the trainer and cameraman. I slowly pet his back paw and tail working my way up to his mid section. Despite being asked to lay down next to the tiger my natural instinct told me this is crazy. After a few minutes I worked up the nerve to follow the instructions I was being given. After all, what did I have to worry about, the trainers one foot bamboo stick should be more than enough to thwart any attack by a killing machine. Where the hell was the tranq gun and the whip? Swallowing my fear, I eventually got cozy with the tiger laying my weight on him and pulling my arm around his mid section. What an incredible feeling! Aiola followed suit not bothering to go through the warm up routine that I went through, feeling quite comfortable with the tiger from the start. (I’d like to think that I was brave to go first and that she was just pulling from my courage). A few more top model shots and we called this photo shoot a rap.
The rest of the day pretty much pales in comparison, but for completeness sake, we then went a jade shop where Aiola did what she does best – bargained. There was a blue Safire ring that she was pining after but being the tough negotiator she is, she walked away only to sweeten the deal with our driver who had a contact with the dealer who gave her an offer she couldn’t resist (shout out to Vito).

Suda

Saturday February 13 2010

One of the best things about Thailand is that if you aren't from there, chances are everything will seem cheap to you. Aiola and I rented a driver for the day for about 1000 bhat, which is about 40 Sing dollars. This was a fantastic move because not only did we have someone to take us where we wanted to go, we could do it on our own schedule and have a Thai guide when we needed it. The first stop of the day was to the Elephant Sanctuary. The entrance ticket included an "elephant show" to start things off. To be honest, I was only half interested expecting that I would watch elephants walk around in a circle holding each other's tails for half an hour. What I saw couldn't have been further from that. While it was true that the show started off relatively simple, demonstrating how elephants could act on command, how they were used as work animals to pick up logs etc, I quickly became amazed at how intelligent these animals were, and what they were capable of. I've posted the pictures of what I'm about to describe because words alone can not, excuse the pun, "paint the picture". The trainer gave one of the elephants a paintbrush and it walked over to an easel and started painting. What I expected was random brush strokes, what I got was definite curves, clearly with intention behind them. Soon these curves started taking shape and I was saying outloud, "doesn't it look like he's drawing an elephant?!" Sure enough within a few minutes, this incredible creature had drawn an elephant picking a flower off of a tree, and like any good artist, he didn't leave without signing his name "Suda" before he was finished.

Excited after that display of intelligence, I was ready to get on one of these massive animals and go for a ride. On the elephants back, a chair was secured down with rope from which Aiola and I sat perched looking down upon the jungle floor. At first I felt unstable as the elephant took his massive steps, but after a while it became a rhythmic movement that I became used to. After a short time, we came to a river that the elephants crossed with ease which would have been up to my neck if I were to attempt to cross on my own. We stopped along the way to feed the elephants bundles of banannas which it ate in one gulp. After tipping my elephant handler 20 bhat, he got off of the elephant and took pictures of me "driving" the elephant. In order to do that I had to climb out of the chair and onto the elephants head. It was such a cool feeling to be so close to the elephant, except for when he got close to a ridge and started bending down to pull on some foliage to eat. I thought I was going to slip off of his head and down the hill, but the trainer yelled a command and the elephant backed right into place. After about an hour we ended our elephant journey and rode an ox cart back into town for some lunch. Wanting to relax, Aiola thought that she would check out the fish spa. To my surprise this was exactly what it sounded like, a fish, spa. It works like this, you put your feet in a large tank filled with hundreds of small fish. They immediately swim up to you and start nibbling on your feet eating off all the dead skin. I put my hand in there to get an idea of what it felt like. It was a sensation unlike anything I had felt before, but I could tell that the tickely feeling would be too much for my feet and I would end up pulling half of the fish out of the water.

After Aiola finished with her fish massage, we walked back down to the same river that we had crossed earlier that day on the elephant, and started down stream on our bamboo raft. this was steered with a long bamboo poll and was very relaxing to laydown and cool down on the river getting some sun and a nice breeze. When we reached a point down the river, we exited to find our driver already waiting for us ready to take us to our next destination, the long necked village. This was something that I had seen on National Geographic, and I must admit that my expectations were high.

When we arrived at the long neck village it was really just a collection of merchant stands that the women were running. I was immediately disappointed. After some thought I asked myself what I was really expecting? AFter all, this is the twenty first century, and these people needed to make a living just like anyone else and selling small trinkets seems like the best way to make ends meet when you already have a captive market in tourists that have an innate interest in their culture. These people really were beautiful in their dress and their elegant long necks. I had the chance to pick up on of the metal pieces that they wear around their neck, and it was unbelievably heavy. I can’t imagine walking around with that kind of weight. As embarrassing as it was to ask, I had to have a picture with them seeing as this was a once in a lifetime chance.
The mild disappointment that I felt after the long neck village was made up 1000 fold with our next experience that same day…