| Monday, January 29, 2007 |
| Choc-o-inaka |
 The month of January has been rescued!! I suppose a Joyfull meal wouldn't fit in the box, but Bae-Yon-Chris-Joon knows how to survive the lonely inaka, and my first package ever from the UK was perhaps the most perfect. Creme eggs and Twirl for everyone! |
posted by Raychaa @ 6:07 PM  |
|
|
|
| Thursday, January 25, 2007 |
| Mount Daisen |
 Hey hey, we're on Daisen! For those of you that don't nihongo o hanashimasu, that means "Big Mountain." The weekend on the mountain included middling snow, one very cool Meet The Jetsons chairlift (with space-age windscreen), one Botox headband, and one evening of getting sucked into a Kochi-style drinking ritual with some teachers that covered several rotations of the following topics:
--Japanese sake
--War
--Kendama (a children's game involving a wooden ball on a string attached to a mallet)
My Japanese vocab on the topic of war is limited: "It's bad," and "Bush is not very good in the head." At least kendama is easier to explain. ("I can't do it. Because of the sake. I am not very good in the head.") So, that was our night. The next morning the two teachers looked wrecked and wouldn't acknowledge our existence in the dining room. In their defense, they are country bumpkins who said they see a gaijin about 3 or 4 times a year. In their non-defense, I hate the Fight Club rules about drinking gatherings. Back home, talking with strangers is called "making friends." In Japan, it's an exercise in pretending you exist in two different dimensions. And it is CREEPY.
I had to warm up with the sunflowers on the beginner slope before we moved to the more difficult area, where the mogul skiers and daredevils and big boys play. Also, that's where all the attractive men were hiding. I bet Bruttney impressed them with her sexy stolen skipants. Step aside, fancy-haired snowboarding boys, the Kibichuo Idols have arrived! And only one of us knows what she's doing, so we're going to need some open space on this here slope... |
| posted by Raychaa @ 11:03 PM |
|
|
|
| Monday, January 22, 2007 |
| Leaving Las Phuket Vegas |
 Annabelle's Asia Tour 2006 brought you by... Woodinville Starbucks, where the macchiatos are perfect and the faux-homeless men congregate. This Thai tour now finishes in... Patong Beach Starbucks, where the lattes taste burned and the Thai rent-a-girlfriends congregate and glare at their ill-mannered European "boyfriends".
We spent very little time in Phuket: long enough to eat last-chance pizza, to drink mediocre Starbucks, to get a mani-pedi, to glance at the masses on the beach, and to fly out as fast as we could. The "massage" parlors are quasi-legit, in that you can get an actual massage in most of them, and it's standard in any type of beauty parlor. Some is completely legit, some of it is dirty, and usually it's all going on in the same place. I didn't get any massages because I don't like strangers touching me, but I'd be unsure about things if I were a guy. If you are in a place such as Phuket or Pattaya, chances are much higher that more of the business is of the non-innocent kind. You can make guesses based on how seductive and aggressive the girls are that work there are acting, but who really knows.
The nail parlor where we went was very clean and nice and they all had certifications on the wall. Per usual, they also offer massages. A lady came in for a massage, and disappeared upstairs with one of the girls. Her boyfriend sat beside us for a foot massage in the main area. After that 2 dirty old Japanese men came in and started hassling for their "massage." It was so creepy to be in the room and realize that they were buying sex, while I was sitting in a chair watching ER and having my toenails made pretty. Only one of them spoke some broken English, and they were both clearly drunk in the middle of the afternoon. They told the woman they were from Korea, but I could understand a lot of what they were saying. The older woman in charge brought them a separate price menu, which was about 5x what the most expensive listed massage was. She was arguing with them a bit, and one of the younger girls came in to be inspected, but they dismissed her, one saying to the other "She isn't cute!". They kept asking for discounts and gesturing lewdly and snickering. Oh, those cheap bastards... you know they'll get off the plane in Japan and pay $200 for a train home, but they're hassling and haggling over $40 to exploit some poor Thai girl. As soon as they were taken to a room by an angrier and sufficiently cute masseuse, the woman just looked really pissed off. We told her that they were speaking Japanese (not Korean), and she just shook her head and seemed really defeated. It was probably the most depressing moment of the day. My toenails were a beautiful shade of red, if tinged a bit with shame.
 Flying high on the AirAsia discount skies! I flew straight home from Bangkok, got back to my aparto the next morning, and was at my desk at school by lunchtime, looking and feeling like hell. Annabelle flew to Japan a few days later. The morning she arrived, I was awoken by a call from Kansai Airport security, asking for my address and phone number on her behalf. I was worried they hadn't granted her a visa, or that customs had discovered the orphan in her carry-on. ("Welcome to Kansai airport, gaikoku scum... drug-sniffing dogs are now being released into the luggage area...") Nope, they just stopped her at quarantine for no reason, and then let her pass on through once I had vouched for her. Hahahah... little do they know about the intestinal party she picked up while volunteering at the Mother Teresa home in India. Suckers! Wait... that's my name on the form if she really is carrying the plague... |
| posted by Raychaa @ 5:48 PM |
|
|
|
| Sunday, January 21, 2007 |
| Burnin' Koh Phi Phi Love |
 Koh Phi Phi, home to Burning "Love", was fantastic and we stayed almost a week. The sea is gorgeous, of course, the atmosphere is really relaxed and friendly and clean, and everyone seems honest. Most of the businesses are run by families, and it has a much safer feel to it. The land travel across the isthmus (via dirty dirty Surat Thani) took hours and hours because they keep transferring you from travel agency to sketchy travel agency. It doesn't make any sense, since none of the individual drivers or buses can be making any money. Word on the street is that the Thai mafia owns Surat Thani because it can control drug trade through the ports and up to Bangkok. So, they supposedly shunt tourists through 14 agencies in 4 hours as a front for other business. Glad to be of service!
Highlights of Phi Phi: We spent almost every day on a beach, more commonly known as Shirtless Man Heaven, and wandered around the entire island by foot or boat. There are no roads on Phi Phi, so almost no motor vehicles. Our bungalow was up on a hill, above tsunami-level, hidden up in the trees. It was lovely, except when it poured rain one day and 4-inch centipedes threw a soiree in the shower, much to my dismay. And by dismay, I mean screams. The restaurants were amazing, and a nice change after the very-tasty but slightly-repetitive orphanage food. (The Burning "Love" is a bacon mashed potato dish, not something that requires an awkward test and a course of antibiotics.)
 We met up with Colin and his pals and had a fun night of food and drinks and midnight swims. I really wish we had seen him take on the 6'6" Aussie amateur fighter in a boxing match the night before, but we just saw the after-effects: split lip, damaged rib, increased fame. (Next up, Colin-- fighting 10,000 men in fundoshi at Naked Men festival!! Let's take down the yakuza!) After he left, we kept hanging out with Fran (on the right), who is from Johannesburg but now lives in Italy with her husband. After dinner one night, she looked at her change, and instead of a one-baht-coin, she had been given a South African rand. I can't imagine there are many of those in circulation, but she thought it to be fateful. She was really fun and knew everyone on the island, so it was like being with a celebrity. One of the Finnish boys in the group was in love with her, not to be deterred by her wedding ring and constant mentions of the husband. Oh, little Finn...
 We formed a fan club for this guy, who was awesome. The band did all cover songs, and if you closed your eyes, you'd alternately think that Kurt Cobain or Eddie Vedder or Bob Dylan were suddenly in the bar with you.
On a kayak trip one afternoon with Fran and a hilarious Canadian couple (Roger and Loretta), we did some snorkeling and visited the swimming monkeys on a place called, predictably enough, Monkey Beach. One came up and stole Roger's green tea, and proceeded to drink the rest of it. It's sad to see animals like this, going after people food and stealing garbage, and filling their bodies with crap that they should never have to encounter in the wild. Probably Steve Irwin would be rolling over in his grave. He seemed fine with wandering into wild animal habitats, but animals are not supposed to have people food. Or sweetened o-cha. You know, saru-chan, that's just all empty calories...
 As we were on the beach, a guy came hobbling out of the water, limping on one foot. While walking on the rocks, he stepped on a sea urchin, and the spines went deep into his foot and broke off. In addition to that, he already had gashes on his shoulder and leg from a motorcycle accident on Phuket, and looked a bit worse for the wear. The Thai man running the food stand told him to pee on his foot for the time being, and then to ice his foot. As he and his friend went behind a rock to take care of that, a monkey hopped into his kayak and ran away with his camera. Worst day every for the beautiful sea-urchin guy! We tried to chase the simian klepto, but it pulled a Hot Zone "ebola jaws" impression and we stayed back until it got bored and dropped the camera in the sand. We met him again at a bar that night, and his foot was completely swollen up. "Koh Phangan tattoo" is the phrase for damages incurred by idiots on motorbikes. This guy also managed to get a "Koh Phi Phi tattoo" due to urchin spines imbedded in his foot, but such tattooes are much less common. And hardly in demand...
|
| posted by Raychaa @ 10:11 PM |
|
|
|
| Wednesday, January 17, 2007 |
| New Year's, and Why I'm Done with Koh Phangan |
Happy 2007 from Koh Phangan
 On the road from Sangkhlaburi to Koh Phangan, a few shout outs:
*Thank you, VIP bus driver, who kept trying to leave people behind during momentary restroom stops en route to Bangkok. I don't know what they do on the Very Non-Important Person buses, but probably they push you out the window when it gets too full.
*Thank you, travel agency on Khao San Road that closed early twice when we needed to pick up Abelle's ticket.
*Thank you creepy Sikh agent man who made us take a cab for a hour across Bangkok in rush hour traffic to pick up said tickets from his gated compound.
*Thank you, Koh Phangan taxi-truck driver on meth, who pulled over, tried to extort money from everyone in the cab, yelled and swore at us when we got out, accused us of being Italian, almost slapped another girl passenger, swore some more when we gave him his money and ran away, and would have run us off the road a minute later had we not been hiding in some family's garden.
*Thank you useless men in said truck who did nothing to help this situation, besides offering him 10 times the fare to keep driving. (Did I say "men"? My mistake.)
After 24 hours in buses and taxis and boats, we arrived on Koh Phangan on New Year's Eve without a reservation and not sure where to go. At the taxi stand, a dishevelled American guy came up to us and offered to help us find a place to stay. He had been out partying all night and was waiting for taxi charges to go down before he went home. He suggested we try to get a bungalow on the same beach where he and his friend were. This sounds like a good premise for "Brokedown Palace 2: Eastside Girls Doing Stupid Things" (see scene 1, going to Sikh man's Bangkok compound at dusk) but they were decent fellows. And since they didn't have rocks to throw like AB's India mugger, it seemed totally safe. We got the last shack available, and it sufficed for a night. I don't know why, but everything about Koh Phangan made me uneasy. I used to like it, but when you keep have negative vibes coming from everyone living on/running the island, and the crowds of foreigners are the ones you would never want to hang out with... you have to follow your gut and get the hell out.
By evening we were on Hat Rin for the New Year's party. Hat Rin has become more developed and everything looks a lot trashier, people included. It had a much more relaxed backpacker feel 2 years ago, but this was more like being in a frat party. Down on the beach, we ran into the Champclair Mafia (Martin'n'Jen, Greg'n'Ted), and hung out for a bit before drifting away in the crowd. Right before midnight, we spotted our buddy Mike standing on a chair, yelling out to us, "Girrrrls!! It's meeeee!" before his chair toppled and we had to try and catch a very drunk Irishman. There was the standard fire poi and club music and fireworks, but it felt a bit been-there-done-that, and really sleazy. It wasn't like Phuket, which is gross for obvious reasons (hookers, the dirty old men who love and pay them, and slutty ladyboys), but still just felt sort of wrong. Alcohol can be fun when it clouds things a bit, but not being able to drink keeps your head clear and lets you focus on what you actually want to see. We spent a long time chatting with a guy who ran a dive shop on Koh Tao, and would come over with his brother to sell drinks every night during high season, and then head back to work all day. His comment was something like, "Yeah, Phangan makes good business... as long as you don't have to stay! Hahahahahah." Yeah, that's about right.
On New Year's afternoon, we went to check on tickets to Phi Phi for the following morning. Hat Rin is convenient because of all the cafes and bookstores and shops, and I love that aspect of these little tourist ghettos, but it seemed even more depressing by light of day, as if the beach itself had a hangover. The taxi incident occurred on our way from Hat Rin to the boat office in Thong Sala, and we made our decision to get out immediately. When we came out of hiding, we flagged down a guy driving a pick-up for one of the fancy resorts, and he dropped us off in town. He had a Thai karaoke machine on the dash, and seemed thrilled to make some cash on the sly. AB and I went to the office, instead bought tickets for the night boat, and were sailing away from Koh Phangan 2 hours later. I shan't be returning... |
| posted by Raychaa @ 2:37 PM |
|
|
|
|
| Team Baan Unrak 2006 |
Sayonara until next time, Baan Unrak! Our group was awesome-- 21 beautiful, funny people, all volunteering so much time and energy to be here. I adore you all so much!
 Back: Me, KT, Erica H, Brad, Alicia, Steve, Sarah.
Middleish: Soma (high school girl from the home), Nicole, Denise, Nikki/Nikkers, Colin, Marie.
Front: Chelsea, Annabelle, Nicci, Gary, Abijiit, Vicky, Jen, Tricia.
(Early escapees: Jon, Brazilian Erica)
I had some people ask why we all wanted to work during our holiday, but the time here was a vacation. Imagine the best day you've ever had at your job. Now imagine that intensified tenfold, and continuing for a week solid. Oh, and all the people in this best-workday-ever-on-speed situation are orphans so sweet that you get soul-cavities. Not relaxing, but makes you happy, right? So, that's why this was a holiday, and why I came back to Japan more centered than when I left. Go team!
|
| posted by Raychaa @ 1:29 AM |
|
|
|
| Monday, January 15, 2007 |
| Jungles and farmland |
 I rode an elephant at last! I gripped Erica's arm the whole time, and was happy that I didn't get thrown off in a freak stampede. I used the above picture in class today to talk about winter holiday, but was shown up by an elementary schooler who had ridden an ostrich. Who does that, really? There is an ostrich farm right in my town, and your only other wildlife-viewing option is the caged boars at the gravestone-carving shack by my house, but I didn't know you could ride them. To her credit, she's like 3 feet tall, and weighs as much as the 3000yen ostrich eggs sold at the farm stand, but that's still quite brave and much more exotic. Maybe I know why the caged boar grunts... it's jealous that the ostriches get all the attention.
The ride was quite slow, but the best part was fording the river, upon an elephant eye-deep with its trunk in the air. If you imagine the elephants to be oxen, it felt very Oregon Trail, minus the cholera and diphtheria. Our elephant was the only one with tusks, and had a habit of uprooting small trees as we went, which caused the guide to yell and smack little Stampy in the head with a metal hammer thing. We started out first and got passed by every single other zou-san. Embarassing!
The subsequent bamboo raft ride was an exercise in sadism for the guides. Whenever there was a turn in the river, a tree, or a section of rapids, the guides would either purposely guide you into them, or not be of any use to change the raft's trajectory. After the first crash, I realized that whenever you saw the motorboat stopped with a guide running the videocamera, you were about to get hurt. So, you either pole like hell to avoid the obstacle (which never worked), or you pre-empted injury by falling to your knees. When I thought we were finished, our guide maliciously rammed the raft into a rock right at the end, and I scraped up my entire leg and got a bruise that has only just faded. Jerk! (Or to quote Michael: "How do you say 'annoying jerk' in British?" "Um... bloody wanker?") This never would have happened on the Oregon Trail.
 To get to where the elephants roam, we went on a very early boat through the misty morning. The "old" Sangkhlaburi town was flooded years ago in order to create a reservoir, but there are still a few remnants visible, such as this temple. We also saw the bridge that crosses from the Thai to the Mon (a hill tribe) side of town.
 That night, Abijiit gave us a full tour of the grounds and talked about plans. He works with Baan Unrak full-time, and wants to become a Dada and start a home of his own. He has a wife in the Philippines who hopes to become a Didi in the future. He is fascinating and knows nearly everything about anything. On the land surrounding the home, he has created an elaborate farming system, with tiered gardens to account for the wash-out rainy season, irrigation plans, medicinal herbs, vegetables, flowers, trees, and lots of reasons for everything being the way it is. He wants to have a meditation retreat area with simple guesthouses, but that is a few years down the line if it happens.
 |
| posted by Raychaa @ 11:37 PM |
|
|
|
|
| Teaching at the school |
 We all split up and taught for 2 days at the school, and A-belle and I were in the kindergarten and nursery rooms. I desperately wish I could have been working with this age group full-time while in Japan, but I'm content enough with my part-time elementaries. The kids have free play in the morning, and then at 9am they would clean up and sit in a circle. One of the teachers would light a candle in the center of the room, while all the kids sat quietly with closed eyes, sneaking smiles to us every few seconds. I don't know what was being said by the teacher, but the kids surprisingly all calmed down completely for about 15 minutes. Japanese students are like drugged housecats compared to the little Thai tigers you see at Baan Unrak, so calming the younger ones was a task.
From there we led songs and some games that I used to do at BCC and at Kids' Place, and did some other activities. Even the tiny 3-year-olds know a lot of English songs, particularly "Jingle Bells," which they will sing 20 times in a row before you need to intervene. On the second day we did masks as well, before heading to the nursery until lunchtime. The nursery children have less structure, and mostly were playing with clay and having snacktime. One little toddler who had some physical/developmental issues loved Annabelle, and when he saw her later at dinnertime, he yelled and wiggled away from the house mother so Annabelle could hold him. He then started licking her face. Oh, those kids...
|
| posted by Raychaa @ 1:49 AM |
|
|
|
| Wednesday, January 10, 2007 |
| The big orange house on the little hill |
Last year, all the kids at Baan Unrak were living in the school building, with 2 to a bed and 10 to a room. There were 100 children in a space meant for 50, and limited air flow and lack of light was contributing to illness. Didi had purchased land for a new home, but there was no funding for the project. As of December of last year, she told us that she meditated on it, set a date as to when the need would be fulfilled, and kept faith that things would happen as they should. She told us that February was the date she envisioned. Shortly after our trip, she was home on a visit to Italy, and did a presentation about Baan Unrak. A friend of a friend offered to fund the entire project, and they broke ground in February!
 The home is on a hill above the town with a view of the lake and the jungle. There are also several huts (below) for single mothers that can work in the weaving center and in the home in exchange for their housing and the ability to live with their children. Single mothers in this area of Thailand are shunned, and it is virtually impossible to get work. Thus, many women (particularly Burmese refugees) will abandon their children in order to go to the city for work, or to enter into a new marriage, or otherwise look for a new life. But, this gives the women and their children a second chance.
 The new home embodies everything that I think about Neo-Humanism: open, full of light, complicated, accommodating, and pale orange. (I say orange not to be sarcastic, but because that is the color of clothing worn by its leaders.) The Neo-Humanism Foundation is the group that operates the home, and it is under the international Ananda Marga yoga group. The beliefs of this group are that all lives are interconnected-- animals, plants, people, the environment. The phrase used in meditation, Ba'ba Na'm Kevalam, is translated as "all is love", "all is one", or "love is all there is", and is used as a chant to focus the mind in celebration of a supreme consciousness. As everything is interconnected, we should respect our surroundings, and also treat our bodies with respect. They do not eat meat, fish, garlic, onions, dairy, eggs, or caffeine. Also, they meditate daily, and do yoga. In many ways, this (all is love, all is one) could be any number of philosophies or religions or stoned ramblings, but what makes it stand out is that the expression of this belief is through service to the community. So many service organizations are based in one faith, which can be problematic when you support the goals but not the foundational basis. To compare it to the Catholic notion of "good works," the outcome of community service may be the same, but the works themselves may be motivated by fear of God or Hell, or as a means of being allowed entrance to Heaven. With Neo-Humanism, service is not a means to an end, but the constant and necessary mode to approaching enlightenment. I do think that most people have an innate desire to help others, but motivation and specific direction are the largest barriers in acting upon this desire. And whether it takes religion or socio-spiritual groups or personal quests to guide individuals into improving their communities, then each has served its purpose.
 Here are Colin and I with Didi Anuraga and Didi Devamala, who run Baan Unrak. Didi Devamala started the home 17 years ago, after she was given a child to look after while visiting the area. She was then given another child, and another, and she decided that her mission would be to create a home for abandoned children. Didi A came to Baan Unrak in the past decade, and she is now in charge of the primary school. I think these women are amazing, and I'm excited to be back for a few months post-JET to be with them and all the great kids. |
| posted by Raychaa @ 10:19 PM |
|
|
|
|
| Santa Santa Santa Santa Baby... |
 Christmas day was more chilled than Christmas Eve, which meant lots of time with the kids. The morning was a coloring contest for all the kids, and the afternoon was something that was imagined as Undokai (Sports Festival) but evolved into games chaos in the blazing sun. We had a ton of toys and school supplies from everyone's collection efforts back home, and every child got various gifts. A company had donated a backpack for all the older kids, and some of them didn't take it off for days. My little Mushroom, Kemala, got a puppy that she carried most of the week. And that tiny guy below carried that yellow plastic bag around like it was a baby. Proof that toddlers will inevitably love whatever the toy came in more than the toy itself!
 
 We had not one, not two, but FOUR Santas, partly because it took forever to hand out each individual gift. Above is KT and one of the older girls, and below are Santa Gary and Nicolelf with some of the younger kids. Many of the Burmese kids wear thanaka paste on their faces, which has many purposes. It works as sunscreen and bug repellant, and is used decoratively for beauty reasons as the girls get older. It is said to condition the skin, and absorb sweat, and probably cure cancer while regenerating fossil fuels, too.
 |
| posted by Raychaa @ 7:11 PM |
|
|
|
| Tuesday, January 09, 2007 |
| Christmas Eve at Baan Unrak |
 Baan Unrak! Baan Unrak! Back again!
 It's hard to write without hyperbole and exclamations and calling everything the best ever, but this (like last year) really was my Best Christmas Ever. Had it been October rather than December, I would be describing the Best Week Before Halloween Ever, but it carries a weight of romanticism to even say the word Christmas. (There's no other holiday for which WHAM! would be receiving royalties with such a pathetic song. John Mayer took a weak stab at nurturing sympathies for lesser holidays with "Just 'Til St Patrick's Day," but it didn't work. Let WHAM! have their monopoly, buddy. You stick with pleasant asthmatic whining.) Christmas Eve was our first full day at the home, so we were all doing different things. I was shown a bolt of cloth and asked to get the kids to sew a stocking for every child in the home. There are 112 kids. I had 6 needles, 3 scissors, a roomful of bouncy kids, and an afternoon. So, Brad and Alicia and I set up assembly lines, finding jobs for the different ability levels of the kids, and they got about 50 or 60 done by hand.  Need stockings? Elf knickers? Get 'em at Santa's Little Sweatshop. Chelsea prepared an elaborate musical for everyone to perform at the pageant, and it was adorable. Sarah and Annabelle (the two little children) claim that you can't have Christmas without: 1) Snow 2) Reindeer 3) Presents Colin, the patient dad, informed them SURE YOU CAN! You can have Christmas without any of these things aslongasyoulovethebabyjesus. (In 'Merica, Jesus loves ALL the little children... 'cept the bad ones. And possibly the homosekshuls. But snow and reindeer are unconditionals. Everyone loves the reindeer.) And then everyone broke into multi-lingual song. It was a perfect skit, and we have some great singers in our group. We really had no clue about whether this was a Japan-style Christmas-minus-Christianity farce, or whether we were being asked to promote it as it was regardless of whether our group wants to promote Christianity. The orphanage isn't religious, the kids aren't Christian, but one of the nuns had many holiday requests relating to The Baby Jesus. Though Christmas has become something so different through culture to pop culture and back again, it IS about.. you know... Christ. We weren't sure where to tread, holding a pile of gifts and clothing for The Baby Jesus while chanting an "All is Love" meditation in Hindi. Politically correct can be culturally incorrect, but we went the PC route and had a shadow puppet show with magical animals, and focused on Rudolph instead of Jesus. Not a huge worry anyway, since the kids have limited English, and were more interested in the fire. And the horse. Most of the kids did a Burmese or Thai or Karen song/dance of some kind. The house mothers did an awesome Thai pop-song rendition. 
 That's not the bonfire. That's part of the bonfire that the adorable little pyro below dragged out with a stick before getting distracted and trotting away again. 
 And this is the horse. The story related to Mary and Joseph, and an Eastern European folktale about animals talking on Christmas day, and imagining something so strongly that it happens. I couldn't hear very well. But at some point, this horse rocked up to the pageant to watch and all the kids harassed it the rest of the night. I can't recall where horses fit into the picture, or talking ones at that. Been away from Sunday School too many years. |
| posted by Raychaa @ 8:15 PM |
|
|
|
| Tuesday, January 02, 2007 |
| Bangkok again, again, again... |
Merry Christmas from Jack Sparrow and the gang!  I had no intention of being back in Thailand for another Christmas, but needed to come back to Baan Unrak orphanage, so here I am again! I left on the 21st, and had some of the Bitchu-Takahashi bitches (Marilu, Jen, and Dimple) for company at the airport and on the plane. Annabelle and I met up on Khao San Road, where we celebrated winter holiday by eating most of a gingerbread house in our hotel room. Maybe not quite as good as Mom's legendary Christmas Party fare, but at least we had electricity when we ate it. (1st world? 3rd world? Where am I?) I met most of my trip companions on the Friday, and we spent our only full day shopping for presents for the kids.
 At Wat Po that day with Steve and Colin, I wandered into the photo of some pretentious barefooted fake-dreadlocked backpacker. Sensing death rays aiming at my head, I turned to see him glaring at me in disgust, probably because I was wearing footwear, had showered that week, and will never understand the REAL Thailand like he did. I apologized, and he said in an affected American-who-wishes-he-wasn't accent, "Don't smile, get out of the f**king way!" We could have pointed out that anyone who respected the REAL Thailand wouldn't swear in a temple, but the dreads must've affected his brain. And now, I can use this as a catchphrase when anyone dares cross my path. The temple was already closing, but the monks let us in to take photos. Hope that Buddha in a mirror isn't blasphemous, but I bet my ponydreadtailed friend will say otherwise.
At the bus station in the morning, we had a reservation *maybe* and were meeting a Thai girl from the orphanage to help us *maybe*, but couldn't figure out what to do at the station once the taxi drivers had finished running up the meters by driving people in circles. We spoke no Thai, the bus attendents spoke no English, and we were all confused. I was terrified that I would manage to screw up one of the simplest yet most important tasks of the trip (getting everyone there) but it worked out just fine. Alicia was a star at sorting it all out, as nothing about the city seems to faze her. Not much else to say about Bangkok, other than that it is still dirty and crowded and there is more to see than you ever could hope to. Left Bangkok, made it up to the town, and that is where more stories will begin. |
| posted by Raychaa @ 11:03 PM |
|
|
|
|
| So wrong it's right. And then wrong. And then wrong again... welcome to the inaka. |
| About Me |
|
Name: Raychaa
Home:
About Me: “No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this - 'devoted and obedient'. This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.” (Florence Nightingale)
Profile
|
| Previous Post |
|
| Archives |
|
|
| Shoutbox |
For travel-volunteer junkies Responsible Nomad My favorite place, favorite kids
PEPY Ride: Cambodia
|
| Pretty People |
|
| Powered by |
 |
|
