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Asia » Thailand » North-West Thailand » Chiang Mai
June 7th 2009

Published: June 7th 2009

Hello.. Sawadeeka....

Jumping right in... Well things have certainly calmed down quite a bit, I guess Thailand is good for that. But first, I'll recap our journey in India. From Kolkata we headed to South India. Our tickets were to fly into Bangalore, which I apparently made some serious calculation errors about because Bangalore happens to be no where near Kerala. Instead of taking a 17 hour train followed by a 2 hour bus, we opted to fly but had to spend a night in Bangalore.

From Bangalore we flew to Kochi, in Kerala. We stayed at a guesthouse near the water, it was a very chill place with hardly any cars or people. Near the water they had huge fishing nets and fisherman selling their fish along the pier. You can buy the fish and take them to local restaurants to have them cooked for you.
We had a tasty lunch of calamari and tiger prawns and basically just wandered around for the day. That evening we went to a Kathakali performance. Kathakali is a traditional Hindu theatre/dance art form where people wear really elaborate colorful costumes and makeup and basically act out Hindu mythology with song and dance. Traditionally they begin in the evening and go all night into the early morning, but our version was the express tourist version of 1 hour. After the performance we decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner where the food was really not that good, but the restaurant had really good live music and the waitress basically ran across the room when I attempted to pour my own water. On the way home from the restaurant we got stuck in a HUGE monsoon complete with toads hopping through the puddles and enormous tree branches falling on our heads. I enjoyed it though.

After Kochi we took a local bus to a place called Allepey a few hours a way. I must say Ive never seen so many people get car sick as I have seen on this trip. The bus didn't have windows and the woman in front of me threw up out of her window. Luckily this did not come flying into my face. The woman was sick in a bag for the next hour.. when she was done, she proceeded to throw her bag of vomit out the window. Completely open. Oh crazy India. In Allepey we booked an overnight houseboat in the Kerala backwaters. The boat had 2 rooms, a living room and a small kitchen in the back, and also a captain and a cook. We left on the boat at around 11am and floated through the backwaters. The backwaters are basically canals that wind through this part of Kerala. The scenery here was really beautiful, lots of palm trees, greenery, birds, and small villages along the water. They made us huge delicious looking meals on the boat, but as we were eating the first meal we noticed a really strange flavor that every dish had. We finally figured out that almost everything in this part of Kerala is cooked with coconut oil (including our omlettes in the morning). Note to self, I hate coconut oil. Its a very overwhelming buttery coconut flavor that overpowers everything. After that we stuck to the fresh pineapple and bananas that were amazing. The day on the boat was really relaxing. Many of the other boats had televisions which at first we made fun of, but when the boat docked at 5 pm and it got dark, we were really aching for some T.V.

The next day as we were about to leave the dock in the morning, I saw a very strange sight in the distance. It looked like two small boats where pulling a raft as wide as the entire river. I squinted and squinted until they got close enough to see... "Are those...... ducks?!?". It was a herd of ducks. I say herd because the two boats were herding the ducks down the river like shepards herd sheep. They got closer to the boat and our captain told us that there were probably 5000 ducks in the group. When a few would drift off, one of the boats would go and gather them back to the herd. By far, this was one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. We learned that there was a duckfarm upstream and they take the ducks to a nearby field to "graze".

Next we hopped another local bus to a beach town called Varkala. Because its low season most of the hotels and shops were closed and we got a pretty good deal on an oceanfront "resort" (hotel) with the most comfortable mattress I have slept on the entire trip. (Most of the mattresses have basically just been boards covered in a VERY small layer of cushion that bruise your hips when you sleep on your side). The beach in Varkala is set below red cliffs lined with greenery and palm trees, it was really peaceful and beautiful. The current here was insanely strong and the waves basically knocked me over everytime one hit. I'm pretty sure the "lifeguards" on duty don't know how to swim or wouldn't ever actually get in the water (being as they are dressed like police), so everytime anyone gets a little too far out they blow their whistles incessantly until every single person comes back to shore. On the beach there was also a pack of dogs that kept trying to sleep under our very small umbrella. I let one under because she was too cute to resist but when the other 5 tried to sneak their way onto my towel I had enough. At one point the girl next to us got up to go into the water and she came back to find all 5 dogs under her umbrella. She actually ended up sitting in the sand and crazy strong sun while the dogs stayed under the umbrella. (clearly with this story I don't have too much to report, since all we did was sit on the beach and eat for 3 days)

Now here we are in Thailand. We flew into Bangkok and had 2 days to wait for my friend Briana to arrive. Jake and I explored the insane and wonderful weekend market where they sell everything from puppies, to clothes (dangerous place for clothes shopping.. Bangkok is just a bad place in general for a budget), to food, books, cleaning supplies.. basically everything. But not guitars. (Jake wanted a guitar). Next to the weekend market is a huge food/produce market where we sampled mangosteens, another fruit that tastes and looks like a lychee on the inside but looks like a spikey sea creature on the outside. I forget what its called. Really good though. We also tried the infamous dorian fruit that is banned in public places because of its smell. Now, I don't know if the Thai kind is more mild, but it really didn't look or taste as bad as so many people claim it does. Not to say that I like it, I took one bite and that was it. It tastes like almost rotten mushy mango. Our next days in Bangkok we just explored, shopped, drank tasty pineapple shakes (you can have ice in Thailand, its all filtered.. WOOO), and ate a lot. We've decided to stay in Thailand instead of trying to fit in both Thailand and Laos (sadly.. but i'll be back).

Since Bangkok we went to a place called Kanchanaburi that has lots of WWII history from the Japanese occupation of Thailand, Including a place called "the bridge over River Kwai". The Japanese built this bridge along a railway to Burma that they were apparently going to use to assist in their conquering India (did anyone have any idea that Japan wanted to conquer India?! That would be interesting.) The bridge is significant because the Japanese basically worked 200,000 people to death making and rebuilding it after it was bombed. This included 100,000 western POW's and 100,000 indentured workers from other countries in SE Asia.
In this town we also visited the tiger temple. The temple originally, and sortof still is, an orphanage where monks take care of orphaned tigers that would have otherwise died. However, now it seems to be more of a huge tourist trap that makes $15 per head. I'm not going to lie, getting to pet and see tigers up close was really cool, but the whole thing was a little to staged for all of us.

Now we are in the north in Chiang Mai exploring lots of beautiful temples and cool markets. This area is also home to many hilltribe villages including the Karen people (also known as the "long necks", the tribe whos women wear gold coils around their necks to elongate them). However, their are again a lot of ethical concerns over visiting villages that are or aren't already set up for tourists. The one we almost visted today was basically set up so you are dragged around to gawk at people before heading to an overpriced shop.. not to mention that these are government run "villages" that charge 500 Baht per person ($15.. a LOT of money in these parts). Being as most tribes have been denied citizenship, and the rights that come with it, by the government I am going to doubt that the majority of the money goes to the village. Theres a whole separate set of concerns for the ones that aren't tourist locations. Even though I would love to see these people because I find them beautiful and fascinating, the whole process just doesn't really feel right.

So... that brings us up to speed. Tomorrow we are flying to Krabi province to spend some time at the beaches and national parks. Until next time.... (sorry if this was boring! we've and fun and seen some really cool stuff in the past few weeks but its hard to make it sound exciting.. "then we saw a temple, then we went to a market, then we saw another temple... but i hope you've enjoyed it!)

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