Without a doubt, as I knew it would be, the best part about Asia has been the food. I could eat like this forever. I have already gone on at length about the awesomeness of the street food in Singapore, and I am not honestly sure if Thai food tops it, per se, but it is just as enjoyable.
I certainly have my favorites - Thai iced tea, green curry, mango and sticky rice (and I am here during mango season to boot - it is astounding how good they are), but more than that, the food here is just such fun.
I mean, not all of it looks tasty, and I can certainly do without the more aromatic things, like the dried fish stands with the
ir barrels of little...fish...crisps things that reek to kingdom come. And Thai street food is, a lot of it, still the domain of the locals, so there frequently is no English translation, photos, or handy instruction manual on the carts. I am certain I have missed some of the best foods here because I don't know what the completed meal is like when I walk by the ingredients, so don't know to get it. I know some things, though, so I get to enjoy little gyoza or spring rolls, the always popular meat on a stick (I don't know what the ladies have done to this chicken, but it is SO TASTY), sugar-popped corn (for when I went to see a movie!) and all manner of little sweets or sandwiches. I did learn one valuable lesson, though - never buy a curry from a street vendor or a night market stall. Those things are not meant for westerners - I could take two bites before my mouth was on fire. In a restaurant, you can always get the tourist-level spicy, and that's plenty when you are pansy like me.
The Thais know how to do fruit - cut up fresh fruit on the street, the freshest fruit blended with ice to make a shake that will finally, for a second, let you feel cool(er), the mango on the rice...the fruit here is like the antithesis of Argentina, where produce fears to treat. Vegetables are not easy, but the fruit.... Nothing has equalled Ko Phi Phi in that, though, when there was a Thai pancake and fruit shake stand every 20 feet. I would have been way more full of banana or mango or coconut or pineapple shake if that were the case.
There is, of course, ubiquitous American fast food here as everywhere - McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Subway (though not nearly as many as in NZ or Australia), Pizza Hut, Starbucks, etc. But then there are a lot more, ones that I didn't know aggressively exported, like Swenson's, Dairy Queen, Dunkin' Donuts, Sizzler - some of those places I can't even get at home. Western food is everywhere, and what's sad, thouogh not surprising, is that it is easily 2-3 times more expensive than Thai food, and yet they are all jammed. The model has been aggressively copied, too, and there are all kinds of local chains that look just like the Sizzler, serving Thai or Chinese food like a peking duck Red robin - these places are more expensive, too. I don't know why I find it sad, but I do. The menus are not, unsurprisingly, the same - McDonald's especially seems to have a lot more pork on the menu from what I saw, and I did check - no Diet Coke on fountain. But the best part - the dessert pies (fried, like in the days of our own transfat-filled yore) come in three flavors: pineapple, taro, and corn. Awesome.
Nothing has been more embraced and incorporated to Thai life, though, than the 7-11. They are everywhere - which really isn't an exaggeration. There is one across the street from this internet
cafe; there is also one next door. Every couple of blocks in Bangkok, there is a 7-11. I am not knocking it, at all - air conditioned havens of splendor, these are. And the 7-11s sell lots of water (essential so you don't die of dehydration walking from one to the one on the next block) and other minor essentials. But they also sell awesome stuff - Thai iced tea from the little machines that is as tasty as any restaurant in Thai town, and apple mentos, and quick snack foods. They have a lot of hot food, too - chicken burgers that I tried out of curiosity, and a baby clam burger (like, the patty is made out of baby clams...smooshed together) that I wouldn't try if you paid for the doctor bills after, and toasted sandwiches - this month's featured flavor is ham and corn chowder. They have regular slurpees, as well as slushies made from aloe jelly and sugar cane, and candy called "Toe Dust" that looks like either Pop Rocks or Lik-em-aid. I did try try the sushi Lay's, too - they taste like seaweed. So, I mean, if you are into that....
The food, except anything western in style, is affordable and flavorful and wonderful, and I will be so sad to leave it behind. Naturally, this has made me terribly hungry, but on the little soi (side street) where my hostel is located is the neighborhood night market, so I get to go to town for my last dinner in Bangkok. Yay!
So today, I went uber-traditional, uber-touristy, and uber-Thai for the day - why not, I only have a couple left. I took a morning Thai cookery class, and had a Thai massage.
Unexpectedly, considering I generally love to cook and am not so keen on massaged, I was a much bigger fan of the latter than the former. Who would have guessed?
The cooking class was great, don't get me wrong. It's just that a couple of years back, I took a Thai cooking class with my father and sister that was awesome, and I didn't feel like this one blew me away any more than that. Any excuse to eat, though. I do wonder if my opinion would have been different if we did a different dessert - namely, mango and sticky rice. I want to know how they get that rice so sticky! Instead we did bananas poached in coconut milk. Tasty, absolutely. But the how to is...kind of right there in the name, you know?
The massage was better. Not just for the hour of aircon splendor in the middle of the day, but beause it was a lot more stretching and working of kinks than a massage I am used to - I felt more like I was being stretched out by a trainer at a gym than getting a massage, and I mean that in a good way.
Other day highlights (it was a full one!): My last wat, Wat Arun, a Khymer-style temple that you can climb up. It was late in the day, thank God, but the hard part was the steepness of the steps - I had to pull myself up by the hands, honestly. I didn't die, though!
Because I've been in Bangkok so long, I am checking off anything from any guidebook highlights section that sounds remotely interesting. One of them is fascinated by upscale hotels, so a friend and I went to check one out today. This place was so stuck up its own bum that it won't admit backpackers to come in, and has a stricter dress code than the grand Palace, one of the most sacred sites in Bangkok. I wouldn't stay in that hotel for anything, honestly - those places, like flan, are really only good if you are fancy on the inside, and I am not. I took a picture, crossed if off my checklist, and went on my merry way.
(On a side note, there is a side of Bangkok that is like that - forget the income of 98% of the country, we are rich and we will flaunt it; it's called Siam Square, it tires to be as European or American as possible, and it is distressingly juxtaposed with the entire rest of the country. There is more to it than that, sure, but this country has nearly as much in the way of five star luxury resorts as it has in poverty, and that's just bizarre. I got way off track here. All of that wasn't today, it was just where my mind went).
I am still ready to leave, but at least I will have seen more when I do.
inexplicably, this:
is absolutely the closes i have ever come abroad to american-tasting diet coke. it's not perfect, and it's really only available in a can (what can you do?) but i mean, really. it's so diet coke-like!
makes it more fun to spend more than a week in bangkok, let me tell you.
I have now, officially, been in Bangkok a week. It's too long, especially since I am pretty much done with shopping, and I've been to the Grand Palace, and there isn't a lot more I really feel like I need to do. And yet, I have four more days here. Who knew that one of the dangers of world travel was not traveling fast enough?
Fortunately, the other day I moved out of the hotel and moved into a hostel across town. While I am very, very sad to have given up the 24 hour aircon (how I miss you, air conditioner!) and the cable television, there are some good things. One is that I am on the complete other side of town, and given the traffic and majorly flawed transport system in this city, it feels almost like I am in an entirely different city. Almost. The other is that, being back in a hostel means I once again have people to talk to, and people to go to the market with, and things to do besides enjoy the aircon and the television. All good things.
Yesterday I wallowed in Westernity, but I am unashamed. Sometimes the day calls for going to all of the uber-hopped-up malls in the city center and looking at what the Thai consumers yearn for, and also bask in their air conditioning. It's still exploring the city, dangit.
And I also went to Jim Thompson's house. I wasn't initially interested, but the guidebooks talked me into it, and I am glad they did. He was an American who moved to Thailand after WWII and ended up starting the Thai silk trade with the west. His house is gorgeous and the tour was really interesting.
I have no idea what all I am going to do in my last few days in Asia, but I am sure I will find a way to eat through them at least.
I figure I've been in Bangkok for three days, so it's time to go and see what is arguably it's most famous site, so today I went to the Grand Palace. It's no longer a royal residence, but you wouldn't know it by the bejeweled and bedazzled buildings.
I think going to the Palace and making offerings may be a New Year tradition, because there seemed to be a LOT of Thais mixed in with the tourists. Like a lot. Like three times as many. It made it busy as hell, but at least it didn't feel like a tourist attraction, but like a living and breathing sacred place.
Inside the Palace is a huge temple, along with dozens of other buildings. Pictures don't do it justice, because they can't really capture that these multicolored buildings and roofs are all covred with mirrors and shining jewels, so they literally sparkle in the sunlight. It's an amazing site, like we just don't have in the west, really.
The next stop after the Grand Palace is the Wat Pho across the street, where one finds the reclining buddha. And he is huge, but just chillin', really. Kickin' it. Again, the place was packed, and many where Thais making their offerings - burning incense, pouring water over the Buddha images, making money donations into pots. I think I liked Wat Pho better of the two - something about the Grand Palace was magnificent, but to stoic for me. Inside Wat Pho were vendors and hawkers, lots of walkways that went nowhere or to some other little temple, a massage school, all kinds of little treasures.
I took a water taxi back, and it's the fastest way to travel around here - traffic is insane in Bangkok. And ironically, it's the driest way, too; no one gets you with water when you are on the boat. Once you are off, though, fair game.
If you ever get a chance to visit Thailand during the New year, it is a trip - but do think about whether you want to get anything done whatsoever before you decide to go.
The Songkran festival is apparently like 4 or 5 days long - I guess it started Saturday, and I think tomorrow is the last day, so that would be four days this year, at any rate. It's the New Year. It's chief characteristics seem to be closed government offices, chalk drawing on faces, and water. Lots and lots and LOTS of water. It is essentially a national waterfight, and if the major center for the celebration is in Chaing Mai, I can't even imagine what it must be like up there, because Bangkok is more than a little damp.
I heard about the water festival from the people in Phuket, and they described it as something that kids do all day, and drunken tourists embrace in the evening, and so I knew that I would get wet and the like. I pictured people with squirtguns shooting one another, maybe some water balloons? I didn't really know.
Oh, no. Maybe kids/backpackers is how they roll in Pattong, but here in Bangkok, everyone is throwing water. Little old ladies have super soakers in their hands, with the full reservoirs strapped to thier backs. There are some food stalls out, but nearly every other street vendor in the city has put away their normal wars, and for now the only things being bought or sold on Khao San Road are water and things to use to hurl that water at others. And there is no such thing as an innocent bystander, as everyone is fair game - walking though the market, you can (and will) get a bucket of ice water poured down your back. Currently, after a brief walk around town, I look as if I went swimming while fully clothed. I had to wring out before I could sit at the computer.
There are dunk stations - kids with huge water barrels to fill their bowls and buckets and guns, and they pelt everyone who walks by. There are masses of guys in the back of open pickups who all have squirt guns, and they spray you from within traffic. People spray cars, they get you as you are going in doors, they pour water on you as you walk away. It's all good natured, but there is no way to be safe. Well, unless you are the uniformed police. They seemed pretty dry.
There is also this chalk stuff, which I don't get. They look like Hershey's kisses, and some people draw on their faces, and others mix it with the water and smear it on people as they pass by. Some seem to throw it, this chalk water, but that is apparently generally reserved for serious mutual waterfighters and for cars - no one has thrown the chalk water on me, but I have gotten smeared with it more than once.
What's hilarious to me is that no one can explain why. It's tradition, but there is apparently no reason for the water or the chalk that anyone knows. Just that it's hot here in April, and I gotta say - before too long, you begin to appreciate the ice water, and feel like the people spraying warm water are just being stingy. Today was the first time I've gone for an hour's walk in Thailand and not been hot, too. So while a high-powered soaker at close range can hurt your neck, and while I still don't like the smearing with the chalk (call me a prudish Westerner if you will, but there is something unnerving about strange men walking up to you on the street and touching your face. I can do water fine, but hands off, eh?) overall, it's a pretty fun festival.
After two more relaxing and lazy days in Phuket, I headed off to Bangkok - it wasn't precisely a midnight train, but it was a night train, so I was ON the train to Bangkok AT midnight; that counts, right?
There were some snags, some large and some small, with getting here, but overall the train was a pretty cool experience. It was sort of a challenge to get a berth because right now is Thai New Year, so all of the locals are traveling to visit family - and everyone getting on and off this train had bags and bags and boxes galore. One mother and kid was hauling around a full-sized bike. There was some traveling going on, that's for sure.
The train left early-ish, about 5, but that was ok - if it was going to get in to Bangkok at 5am, I needed to go to sleep early or be useless today. So they come around and convert the chairs into relatively comfortable upper and lower bunks. This is me all snug in my upper bunk:
It stayed light, and it could be noisy from time to time, and I didn't feel entirely relaxed, so I didn't sleep the best ever, but it was not the fault of the berth at all.
So here I am in Bangkok, and a little groggy, but still looking to get out in the town - first stop is the weekend market. Now I just have to find it. That is the challenge here, isn't it?
By the way, I am staying, for the first time since Aerolineas put me up in Buenos Aires, in a hotel by myself, because my sister is awesome and that's what she gave me for Christmas. And having my own room, television, aircon, and bathroom? Priceless.
I know I hardly painted the rosiest of pictures, but really, Ko Phi Phi grew on me. Yesterday was my last day there, and Michelle and I took a sunset snorkel cruise out to the sister island, Ko Phi Phi Leh (technically, we were on Ko Phi Phi Don, the inhabited resort island).
Ko Phi Phi Leh I believe has a contract that specifies the name must be followed by "where they filmed The Beach," because that's how every sign, tour, and sentence uttered refers to it. Phi Phi Leh is part of a natural reserve, and it technically has no inhabitants, save park rangers, but man does it get a lot of boats and tourists there for the day. Maya Bay, which was the actual The Beach, is in fact stunning, if a bit shallow-watered, but maybe it's the heaps of people that make it maybe not the bestest place I have ever ever seen. The snorkeling is also crap, with deep and murky water. There were some pretty fish, but not many. Great Barrier Reef it is not - though one of the boat workers opted to feed the fish when i was swimming in them, putting me in a feeding frenzy of striped angelfish. Man, that feels weird!
So Ko Phi Phi definitely grew, but I think three days was enough. Today I am back in Phuket for 2 nights, awaiting my overnight train to Bangkok - which was a feat to get, by the way. Everything is booked for the New Year here, and at first they were telling me that I couldn't get to Bangkok until the 20th. With some fancy footwork and some convenient cancellations, I got a berth on the sleeper, though, so all is well.
I am now going to digress a bit onto the food on Ko Phi Phi. I am sure it will be the same in other parts of Thailand, but I have to rave a moment for the pancake and shake stands that are everywhere on this little island. The Thai pancakes are essentially crepes, made slightly differently and fried in butter - not too shabby. They have sweet and savory, they are all less than $2, and when it is stiflingly hot, a light and tasty meal, or a Nutella breakfast, is so handy.
Did I mention it was hot? Because it is. Thailand is hot. So what goes better with a pancake, or a walk, or being alive enough to breathe, than a fresh fruit shake. They make them everywhere, and I've had a mango, a lemon, a coconut, a pineapple and a banana, and I love them. They are all made with incredibly fresh fruit, the ice is like manna from heaven, and why aren't there fresh shake stands everywhere on earth?
On an unrelated note - I have taken gobs of pictures, but the computers here are not great at uploading, so it's on the agenda for Bangkok. Wait patiently!
Current location: Ko Phi Phi, Thailand
aka, Tropical Frat Party
Ko Phi Phi is gorgeous, y'all. Really, in its natural state, it has got to be paradise on earth. The water is surreal in how blue-green, the sand is perfectly white, the rocks are sheer and beautiful. The internet is also not super cheap, so I am not uploading pictures yet, but it is just like a postcard, honestly.
I didn't know what to expect, also, because the tour books all are printed before the 2004 tsunami which went right across the island and killed masses of people here, or they were printed right after, which means there were like 2 bars that were planning to reopen, and much accommodation was still shut. Well, things have progressed a lot, and the accommodations are back up, and believe me - the bars are booming. Even more than the east coast of Australia, this feels like a tourist mass. The island is small, but everything on it is a hotel, a restaurant, a tour shop, a bar, or a souvenir shop. That is essentially Ko Phi Phi. I will be here for 3 days, and I think that will be enough.
(I am really glad I got to come, though. The accommodations here are all rather inexpensive guesthouses, but they really have very few dorm-style ones. so on my own it would be a pretty pricey bed, and I likely would ahve stayed one night at most. Since I met Michelle in Phuket, though, we've been traveling together and splitting our own, bare-bones bungalow is quite cheap, so it's a lovely way to travel).
Anyway, so this place is packet to the gills with young travelers, and they love their drink late at night. The drink of choice would honestly rival Las Vegas for crass excess: you buy a bucket. This is not figurative. You buy a little plastic sand bucket on the street, and it is filled with a can of Red Bull, a can of Sprite, and a flask of Smirnoff or whiskey, and a few straws. Mix, and proceed to forget the evening.
A BUCKET.
The bars serve them, too - generally they compete for business with 2-for-1 bucket deals, amazingly - but why bother with those prices when you can pick one up at a stand on the street and wander through the tiny cobblestone streets with your bucket in hand?
I really feel like I am on spring break in Cabo, or wherever the Girls Gone While hotspot is now. It's so...classy.
Today, I spent much of the day on the beach in Phuket.
How often do I get to say that? I mean, really. Phuket is lovely - the parts with the water are simply drop-dead gorgeous, in fact. It's also stiflingly, oppressively hot. It's a toss up which one of those is what I mostly think about Phuket, and it shifts moment to moment. Really, pretty, but really hot. Why didn't someone tell me I was going to Thailand in its hottest month? It's Thailand; I can barely handle the coolest one.
Oh well. I'm managing. There was a girl on my flight from Singapore, who then showed up on my airport bus, and when we got off, we realized we were going to the same place. We've been on the same schedule ever since, and had dinner last night - the only place we could find in Phuket Town that was serving food at that time was a swanky air-con hotel restaurant, so we coughed up the $5 for dinner. Today, we took one of the buses to the beach. We meant to go to Kata, but couldn't figure out where to get off, so we ended up at Karon instead. I've never been to Kata, but Karon is gorgeous; exactly what a Thai beach was supposed to be, with this clear and shimmery blue-green water that you an just walk out in until it's shoulder high. The beach is lined with deck chairs with umbrellas that you rent for the day; shade is worth any price to me on the beach, but it was still really cheap to do.
Still got burned, though. I blame it on a combination of factors. I was under the umbrella the whole time, which lured me to a false sense of security; my sunblock (stupid Australia) is merely "30+" which is clearly inadequate; and it's also quite thick, so I didn't spread it around well. This last is very obvious, because my burn is this fabulously blotchy mess all over. I have a burn patch on my ankle, and one on the side of my knee. I think I had my watch on when I put on sunblock and then took it off, so my white watch patch burned. The sun was on my right, so the outside of one thigh has pink, as does under my arm on that side. All of it is jaggedly ringed with white where I did manage to apply enough block. I look STUNNING, and it's only after 4 hours on the beach. I've got days to go yet - I will be a patchy lobster by the time I am done at this rate. I need some SPF 50.
ir barrels of little...fish...crisps things that reek to kingdom come. And Thai street food is, a lot of it, still the domain of the locals, so there frequently is no English translation, photos, or handy instruction manual on the carts. I am certain I have missed some of the best foods here because I don't know what the completed meal is like when I walk by the ingredients, so don't know to get it. I know some things, though, so I get to enjoy little gyoza or spring rolls, the always popular meat on a stick (I don't know what the ladies have done to this chicken, but it is SO TASTY), sugar-popped corn (for when I went to see a movie!) and all manner of little sweets or sandwiches. I did learn one valuable lesson, though - never buy a curry from a street vendor or a night market stall. Those things are not meant for westerners - I could take two bites before my mouth was on fire. In a restaurant, you can always get the tourist-level spicy, and that's plenty when you are pansy like me.
cafe; there is also one next door. Every couple of blocks in Bangkok, there is a 7-11. I am not knocking it, at all - air conditioned havens of splendor, these are. And the 7-11s sell lots of water (essential so you don't die of dehydration walking from one to the one on the next block) and other minor essentials. But they also sell awesome stuff - Thai iced tea from the little machines that is as tasty as any restaurant in Thai town, and apple mentos, and quick snack foods. They have a lot of hot food, too - chicken burgers that I tried out of curiosity, and a baby clam burger (like, the patty is made out of baby clams...smooshed together) that I wouldn't try if you paid for the doctor bills after, and toasted sandwiches - this month's featured flavor is ham and corn chowder. They have regular slurpees, as well as slushies made from aloe jelly and sugar cane, and candy called "Toe Dust" that looks like either Pop Rocks or Lik-em-aid. I did try try the sushi Lay's, too - they taste like seaweed. So, I mean, if you are into that....
