Thailand in a nutshell

Thailand Thailand where do I begin? I think I'll just ramble if that's okay. I love the food; everything about it. The freshness and spiciness and cheapness of it all. I love Thai iced tea and fried rice and banana chocolate pancakes. I love the 30 baht phad thai from street vendors. I could eat this food all day every day. Which I have been. The people in Thailand as well are warm hearted and kind and helpful except when they're hustlin you, which isn't too often. One thing I don't love is the streets and the traffic and the noise, I could do without crazy cars and motorbikes and tuk tuks swerving all around and honking all day and night. Cheap ass shopping and markets oh my! Massages. Inexpensive, sometimes painful, but awesome all the same. The King's glorious face on billboards and clocks and calendars and murals and well pretty much everywhere. Golden Temples and Buddhas and some of the coolest art and shiny craziness I've ever seen, only in Thailand. Not really Thailand but I'm including it here; Laos. I loved the baguettes and the cheap mojitos and the scarf buying. The slow boating and the bus riding I will always remember fondly because they taught me to be patient and I've carried it with me since. Tubing was a shit show but I loved it all the same. And I loved that hangover day afterwards as well. I will always remember the glorious week of fun I had with Jackie and Yumi when they spur of the moment decided to come and visit and I got to take them around and shock them with tuk tuks and street food and shitty train rides. And drunken buckets and street bars and chatting up new people and i did not love that hangover day no siree. Mostly it was just fun to see my friends and get to catch up and hang out no matter what we did. And although I was really sick, the time we spent on Railay was amazingly fun and relaxing and ohhh that ocean water. Eating at Mom's and drinking honey by the shotglass and bamboo tattoos and swimming with jellyfish and the kayaking adventures. I am very glad the Malaria scare went over well and negative most of all but it taught me as well to slow down and take it easy sometimes, and that sometimes not going according to the plan is just as good. I think I learned that most of all, that you can plan the shit out of something, but then life finds a way of putting its own spin onto things and you end up somewhere even better. Farming in Chiang Dao was a good time, mostly when I wasn't totally out of shape and going through sugar with drawls, but I got to meet some cool people and work hard and nap hard. Overall I loved my time here and I feel rested and healthy to begin my next adventure. And to begin the second half of my traveling year.

Chiang Mai Revisited

Well I've been spending the last few days chilling out in Chiang Mai. Recuperating from farming, aka eating whatever I want and hardly doing any physical activity (besides getting cheap massages every day). And I came to notice something. In all the countries I've been to, there is always one town I happen to accidentally get stuck in for longer than anticipated. And it's all because of the farming. You have to go there before to get near to the farm, and you have to go back there after the farm to go anywhere else. In Argentina it was Mendoza, in Australia it was Melbourne, and in Thailand it's Chiang Mai. Notice anything? All M's. Anyways I thought it was weird. And in all these places I spent a lot of time on my own, just wandering around. And unlike the other places I visit where there are things to see and sights to visit, by the third trip you've usually covered all the bases. So I've been getting more of an extended look, a feel of what it would be like to live here. I find my favorite restaurant, I got there a lot and I have my areas where I like to hang out. In Mendoza it was the Green Apple Vegetarian restaurant with the best flan and veggie buffet, and I went to the massive park a lot to go jogging and explore and read. In Melbourne there were many fave food spots; lord of the fries might win out, or the 5$ Indian buffet place. And I would always find myself around Federation Square and frequenting all the art museums or wandering through the many parks and of course the Queen Victoria Market. And in Chiang Mai, it is most definitely DA bakery. Where i go every single morning for the bad-ass breakfast, and these delicious wheat rolls that are fresh from the oven, fresh squeezed tangerine juice and the best home fries I've had since Silence Heart Nest in Seattle. And I wander through all the food markets and clothing markets and up and around the giant moat that encircles the city. And I've read like three books and I just keep trading them at all the used book stores around town. The down time is good and gives me time to reflect on life and prepare for going to India.

Amee Doyer's Organic Farm

Clement and Amee Doyer are the owners of the farm. Clement is from Quebec, Amee is Lisu, from Burma. They grow oranges and pineapple and papaya and rice and rubber. There are palm trees and banana palms and mountains and forest all around. The border to Burma is close and many people working and living on the farm are from there.They have piggies and doggies and chicks and roosters and mama hens. There are large ponds filled with fish, and an even larger "pond" that is pig shit, covered with lilies which grow out of the muck. It is vast and borders a national park so it is very quiet. I use this term loosely as quiet must mean to many peaceful escape from bustling streets and cars and chattering. But quiet here is only a repose during the rooster's napping. Because if there is light out, the 30 something roosters and hens, (not even counting all the babies) are chatting and calling out to each other all live long day. And the other women on the farm are up with the birds, chattering away as well on cell phones or to each other about god knows what but it honestly never ends.
I arrived on a Sunday the day of rest and was introduced to Claire, their friend visiting from Quebec, and Henrikes, a German wwoofer who are both very nice. Henrikes and I got to talking and turns out this is one very small world. A conversation on Gotan Project turned to Argentina, talk of Argentina led us to discover that we both visited there around the same time. And we both wwoofed in Tunuyan. And she wwoofed at the farm that Guillme and Gabrielle went to after they left Madre Tierra. So we had an interesting chat about our mutual friends and about Tunuyan, and turns out she even met Sergio of all people while trekking towards Chile. I tell you SMALL. WORLD.
So the first few days I got killed. Seriously I am out of shape. I was sweating and pounding the water and taking a million breaks. We were hoeing round the orange groves which is long and arduous and frustrating cause you know the weeds are just coming right back. We hauled cow shit to fertilize the trees, we cleaned the lilies off of the pig doo doo, and we hoed some more. The work is hard, but rewarding. My shoulders and back began to adjust(with the help of some daily yoga) and after the hump of day two I was doing good. Sadly Henrikes had to leave but later that very day Byron, a wwoofer from Alberta arrived to assist with the workload.
The work hours are 6/day. Usually up at 715 to eat brekkie of rice and something and get started working by 8am. Work 8 till noon then siesta till 3 or 4 and then work two hours in the afternoon. And boy did I siesta. Long, sweet, two hour hammock naps in the warm breeze. I would wake up groggy and without a shred of desire to pick up a zappo, but I did, eventually.
The food varied from rice and veggies sometimes with mystery meat I would eat around, to potatoes of every shape and size; chips, fries, hash browns, home fries, you name it. Delicious fruit; pomelo, pineapple, tangerine, rose apple, green mango, papaya, banana (the good little stubby bananas right from the farm too), etc. Claire made crepes one afternoon and banana cake the next.
And the evenings were spent watching endless episodes of Grey's Anatomy. Now in my 'normal' life, this has never been a show of much interest to me. But after suffering through the terrible, creepy, violent movies that are on constantly in Thailand, I welcomed the unoffensive television drama. Clement has a great collection of tv shows and movies and so the nights floated by lazily watching one show after the other while indulging in some delicious fruit or butter cookie.
They have a really cool contraption to heat water for showers. By placing a tea kettle of water on this contraption backed by mirrors and facing it towards the sun it heats the water throughout the day to be used for warm showers. From past farm experience, at least Argentina style, I am content with any water, and therefor was content with cold showers nightly as long as I could rinse the dirt and compost and caca de vaca off of me.
On Friday night, even though we still had to work Saturday, Byron and I started early to finish early and trekked into Ban lo Pahan to get some beers and ice cream. Byron accidentally bought a bottle of Chinese moonshine thinking it was beer, and let me tell you the gulp i took of it set me back for the entire night. Nothing better than a cold(ish) beer after a long day and even longer week working out in the sun. And I didn't even mind combining the taste of my chocolate ice cream with the cool beer, it was perfection.
A week and a half flew by when I think back now, but I remember the time crawling by when I was hoeing and it was only 945 and still two hours till lunch. I had a good time more or less, the good balancing the not so good and the work balancing the well, laziness of my trip thus far. I even saw a cock fight. A legit rooster brawl, it reminded me of the crazy girl fights on Jerry Springer. Where they're held back for a while and then charge, and held back and then charge. Except these roosters would stare down and then fly at each other and stare down and then claw away, hard too till one was bleeding. It was actually a bit scary at times. But pretty cool in the end, when a third rooster intervened, this big regal fucker came in and settled the whole affair. Badass. I also worked expressing oil from niger seed on this massive industrial oil machine which was pretty cool, and the seed comes out in these black cakes that look like play doh or strips of blackened beef jerky, and these are then fed to the pigs and chickens, and the oil is used for cooking. Like the delicious french fries I had cooked in the oil. It had a sweet taste, the taste of the fruits of my labor? haha.
And now I'm back in the real world where I don't get three squares a day and have to pay for my bed and have the liberty to spend my afternoon wandering the city and reading. Its nice to be back, but the farm was a great break from it all, even if it was only a short one. I look forward to the Indian wwoofing experience and all the new craziness that'll bring!
Sawaat De Kaa!

The Odyssey (to the farm)

Three continents. Three farms. Three very different experiences.

Before there was the farm, there was the journey. I woke early after a glorious night's rest in Chiang Mai. Tuk Tuk to the bus station, two hour bus to Chiang Dao, and here are the directions as follows: Stay on the bus past the city of Chiang Dao, get off 3-4 km later at the first traffic light at the intersection of road number 1178. This can also mean stare out the window cursing your country for not teaching you the metric system and trying to remember the mile to kilometer conversion. look for the first traffic light. wonder what happens if you miss the traffic light. Get out of the bus. Walk 50 m to the left on the road to 1178 and catch a yellow sangteuw to Ban Lo Pahan. Sit in the sickeningly hot sangathew for a long while waiting for it to fill up. Also, must pronounce Ban lo PA HAn though or they have no idea what you're talking about. Sit in the sangathew and get stared at cause your a gringa, answer the general questions. Where you come from, where you are going. The usual frown and uncomfortable confusion at the "I'm going to work on a farm" comment. Stare out the window. Watch for a motorcycle shop on the left, get off. Get out and cross the road 1178 to the only street on the right. Hope this is the right street. That didn't really look like a motorcycle shop, but oh well, this is the only road around. Start trekkin.
Walk down this road, past the last house on the left (about 1 km, like i know what 1 km should feel like!) 100m further, there is the first and only dirt road on the left. Follow this lane and the power lines to the house at the end about 600 m. Walk down a road way too early that is dirt and almost get attacked by dogs. Wait for them to calm down. Realize your mistake. Slowly back away.Walk what feels like an eternity through what feels like people's backyards. Roosters and crazy dogs are everywhere. How are you to know which house is the last house on the left, couldn't you just walk forever?But finally it looks promising, a long dirt path up a massive hill past the last house on the left. It's dirt. You take it. You think to yourself, if anyone from my real life saw me know they would be pissing themselves laughing. Sweating, dirty, hauling her life on her back, maybe starting to panic but trying to be strong, Liz, hiking up some random dirt path past corn fields and rice paddies and banana trees all alone in Thailand looking for some farm where she will work for free? Oh yeah, and to think at this time last year I was blow drying my hair and painting my nails and dusting Aveda products on shelves and answering phones and making licorice tea.
Reach what you thought was the top of the hill only to realize it goes on further. You go further. Reach a fork in the road. Get slightly more nervous. Nothing in the directions mentioned a fork, almost get the phone out. Decide to persevere and take the right path. You see a woman in the garden, she waves! You approach, it's real! Not a mirage! You have arrived! Thank god, because you were this close to losing faith in yourself. But no fear. If you can find the farm, the hard part is over.

Twenty-Six buses and counting

I've arrived in Chiang Mai again. After my twenty sixth long distance bus ride since september. I have such a fond remembrance for Argentina camas and night caps and vin diesel movie marathons and even coco leaf busts as i'm cramped up and freezing in a mosquito filled bus with on and off sleep every 15 minutes all night long. After being alone for a while I'm really starting to enjoy the freedom of wandering nowhere and everywhere and eating and sleeping when I see fit and generally having a chill time. I am resting here in Chiang Mai before heading out tomorrow morning to wwoof for my last few weeks in Thailand. I had all these elaborate plans of seeing vietnam and cambodia and all the south, but getting sick was pretty much a sign to slow down. And I'm alright with that, slow is what I need. Some nice healthy physical labor, some mountain air and some roosters. Oh yes the roosters I fear and know will be at the farm. Not much news I just wanted to lay out some thoughts. More will come after farm time!

Railay Beach

Picture this: cool turquoise water, soft and warm sand, limestone cliffs, palm trees, fresh squeezed juice, hot sun, quiet bungalows with hammocks and amigos! Almost Paradise was literally stuck in my head the entire week I was in Railay.
Getting there left something to be desired but I chucked the bad experience up to the travel gods and be done with it. After one tuk tuk, one train, two buses, and one longtail boat we arrived on Railay. Just in time to grab a couple of bungalows up a MASSIVE flight of stairs, change into bathies and hit the beach.
The water was glorious, cool enough to feel awesome but warm enough to run right in.
And although I was feeling pretty crappy I had a quiet night of rest that was much needed in the bungalow.
Oh and we all got tattoos. Bamboo style which is far less painful. Not at all in fact and you don't have that horrific buzzing of the tattoo gun. Small little abstracted peacock feathers I drew based on these earrings I bought in BKK. Mine is on my shoulder. Pix to follow.
The week is kind of a blur because Island time is slow and yet it flew past so quickly. I was feeling really bad with flu symptoms, which unfortunately also happen to be the symptoms of Malaria. And just coming from Laos and northern Thailand where the risks are higher I was starting to worry. And the island was so small that it didn't have a clinic. So I was forced to wonder and wonder and wonder. And my throat became worse and worse, and continuous sleep pretty much didn't happen. Luckily we had met up with Erin so the girls and her stayed out after I turned in early every night to try to sleep despite the pain.

I felt pretty good one day and we all rented Kayaks and traipsed around the limestone cliffs and caves and looked at enormous bubblegum pink jellyfish blobbing about in the water. And got totally ripped pumping against those waves. Eh Jackie?
We went all the way to Poda, this cute little island with tons of shade and Longboats selling delicious and cheap food. Quite a change from slightly overpriced Railay. So we all bought some cheap fried rice and were given some free Rambutans (red, slightly hairy but delicious, lychee tasting fruit inside). But the break was over when Jackie and I headed back at around 3pm and got stuck in a whirlpool created by fast moving waves and longboats and ARRRRGGGGHH! I got sooo pissed off. We rowed and rowed and got nowhere. And Erin and Yumi were long gone. I also mistakenly was sort of headed to the wrong beach for a while, but luckily Jackie pointed us right. But it was a fuckin struggle. I've never been so glad to be on land in my entire life. My arms felt like jellyfish. And the mint chocolate chip ice cream cone I had as a reward was breathtaking.

All the bars on the island are very chill and play tons of reggae and overcharge for drinks. Except of course for Whiskey Buckets. We frequented a couple and by our third night were friends with everyone around our guesthouse area. We found this cute little restaurant Mom's and ate brekkie there everyday afterwards. I tried to order(sickly as I was) just tomato juice but got a bloody mary, but didn't realize it and became drunk without knowing it. NOT cool. Jackie and I danced it up to GASOLINA! Yumilike got a free tattoo, and we saw Thai boxing, cobra show, and fire twirlers almost nightly.

One more thing. The water is filled with Jellyfish. Bright baby boy blue jellyfish, and I was nervous at first, super nervous cause in OZ you have to wear stinger suits to protect from these guys and here everyone didn't seem affected. So the swiming was a little unrelaxed at first, until one day this Norwegian woman just picked one of the suckers up to show me that there was a crab stuck inside. Well. I guess they're not poisinous then?

Poor Jackie and Yumi were reacting really badly to the tropical heat. We were all pretty much a pathetic shit show for a while there. I was puking and sore throat and fever and sickly. Jackie had mosquito bites that were as big as golf balls, and Yumi had crazy heat rash all over. Then Jackie got heat rash too, then some crazy spider bites, then Yumi's eyes started hurting, then my eyes started goo-ing, then Jackie was hungover, then Yumi was hungover. And on and on.

But we found logical solutions for it all. Erin pointed out that the anti-malarials that Jackie and Yumi were taking say to avoid direct sun exposure, so at least they know the cause. Jackie got some anti-inflammatory stuff for her bites, Yumi some eyedrops. And I unfortunately went in and got tested for Malaria. I had to wait until today in BKK because of the no clinic on the island. And I went in, gave the doc my symptoms, did a breath test and a blood test and a stethoscope looksy. And she said I probably have a respiratory infection and so I'm starting some anti-biotics today along with some vitamin c and some stuff to gargle. And I had to wait all day for my Malaria results. She stated that the infection was probably it, but since I have been in Laos and N. Thailand that the test was a good idea. And if I develop flu symptoms again, I'll need to get tested again. But at 3pm she took me into her office and showed me the piece of paper. Malaria...............Not Found!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So no need to worry all, It's just a little infection and hopefully I'll be back to normal in 5 days or so.

I'm so happy my friends came and visited me! It was a total blast! I'm also super sad, Jackie left this afternoon and Yumi departs the day after tomorrow, and then it's Liz on her own again. I'm excited though, because Erin had done some WWOOFing up near Chiang Mai so I might do some farm work after my sickness heals, save some moolah, work it out a bit, I think so!

Changover

BeerChang=Death.
Jackie and Yumi decided to spur of the moment come and visit me in Thailand! So we met up in Bangkok and I've been taking them to all the must see spots. Mr. Yim's vegetarian street food, Koh Sahn road street bar, Tuk Tuk mania, Weekend Market Madness, Garden Massage, etc. And I feel kinda bad because I am pretty used to all the craziness and I can tell it's a lot for them to take in, but I think overall they're diggin it. And SOOO ready to roll down to the beach! And we've been boozin it up to celebrate their arrival and today it finally all came crashing down. I felt sooo bad. Why Why Why do i do this to myself I ask you, i BEG of you! After a long day of Wats, Train Stations, Hustlin, Marketing, etc. We all needed a beer. Well Jackie and I did at least, and one turned into eh, five. And we chatted up some people sitting around us at the street bar. Andy, Curry's Austrian doppelganger(yes this is my new favorite word) and Irish man Mike, we bonded over drunken shopping and Beer Chang as Jackie fell into the frog lady trap and Andy haggled over a Jade Buddha Print. Overall though it was a great night filled with Mojito buckets and new friends and yes, drunken shopping.

The Changover lasted well into the day and that night we had to catch a train down south. BIGGEST MISTAKE YET. Originally the train seemed better than a bus because you can get a sleeper cabin and walk around too. But buying tix prevented the sleeper cabin, OR the air conditioned seats, which left us in this hella ghetto sweat couch style seats and open windows for eh, about 12 hours long. Hello sickness. But I'm convinced that the fates had this be their plan because if we hadn't taken the shit train we would have missed two awesome happenings.

INTRODUCING... the Schitzo Tuk-Tuk driver.
We originally were planning on hopping in a cab to the train station to save our lungs and cause we didn't think our bags would fit, but when crazy(that's what i'll call him) offered us a tuk for 1/3 the price, what can you do?
so we three pile in rucksacks and all and off we go. And pretty standard chit chat. Crazy will also speak in all caps from now on. WHERE YOU FROM? America. HOW LONG AMERICA? Um, 23 years. HOW LONG AMERICA? HOW LONG AMERICA? okay, i get it, this guy likes the repeater. Then he asks where Yumi and Jackie are from and I say America too. He looks surprised and points at his jet black hair and then to theirs and says NO, NOT AMERICAN! SAME SAME (in reference to the dark hair). Then a couple of repeaters and then a bit of a crazy back and forth of Yeah, YEAH, yeah yeah yeah, YEAHEYAHYEAHYEAHYEAH, and then a semi laugh-a-thon which led me to thinking that he's not just normal crazy, but crazy crazy.
Then he of course wants to know where we're going. So I make up some itinerary cause the last thing he wants to hear is "we don't know". So I say Koh Pi Pi, Koh Samui, and Koh Pan Ngan. HOW LONG KOH PI PI? um two days. BETTER THREE. okay three days. GOOD. HOW LONG KOH SAMUI? two days, BETTER THREE. HOW LONG KOH PAN NGAN? three days (finally catching on) BETTER FIVE!. OKAY KOH PI PI, KOH SAMUI, KOH PAN NANG, THREE DAY, THREE DAY, THREE DAY. He says, figuring out our trip for us, and then I'm pretty sure telling every Thai person he passes on the road our itinerary, nationality, and perhaps tries to pimp us out too, we're not sure, but we just roll with.HOW LONG AMERICA? so i do it back to him... how long thailand? FIFTY YEAR. i wait a minute. How long THailand? FIFTY YEAR!!!,another pause, so... how long thailand? ONE HUNDRED YEAR? ahhh, he just got played at his own repeater. BOO YA.
The key moment of the night was when he shook all our hands and told each one we were his favorite and then said I LOVE YOU and just stares at you. uh, i love you too crazy, we all reply giggling with unsure nervousness. Moral of the story: travel in tuk tuks in numbers. NO JOKE. But we got to the train station okay and the rest is history.
We also met a very nice Canadian girl named Erin who was on our bus from the train station to Krabi and who traveled with us for a while and was loads of fun, so you see, it all works out.
Pix still aren't working for some reason, so check back soon for some pix of me and the girls in BKK!