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Published: July 18th 2011
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Scooting across Mahidol Campus
These scooter guys offer rides for 10B across campus. It is the way to go... especially on hot days! Yeah, so I had all these grandiose plans that I would be blogging daily about my adventures in Thailand. I would do something cool during the day, make all kinds of interesting observations, maybe note a funny anecdote or two, and then wind down at the end of the day with well-told tales of my travels.
But alas, it is not so simple.
You see, I am having TOO many adventures. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. Not in the least bit. In fact, I tend to love adventures. But when I get up in the morning, am showered and out the door in less than an hour, do incredible-amazing-wonderful things from first thing in the morning until very late at night, that doesn't leave much time for unwinding. There is barely enough time for some good REM sleep.
But I will try to catch you up.
I left off at the end of Day 2. That was in my low-key, recovering from jet lag stage. Since that time, I have had adventures in three areas: (a) Salaya/Bangkok, where Brooke and Matt live; (b) Chiang Mai, which is the first stop on our trekking adventure;
At the Grand Palace
There is simply too much to look at here. Pictures will never do it justice. and (c) a full-blown elephant trek into a Hill Tribe area.
Salaya/Bangkok On our third day (Monday), we woke up and went to a Muay Thai boxing lesson at Brooke and Matt's gym. It was quite a bit of fun, a fabulous workout, and I now have a killer move that I can use on any bad guys I run into in a dark alley. After that, we hung out at Mahidol University for a "work day." But any day that starts out with a high-speed scooter ride across campus (and not slowing to terribly much for corners and speed bumps!), makes work a lot more fun. (Now there's a business idea: 50 cent scooter rides to and from the UNL Union!) We spent some time taking care of work (yes, I'm actually squeezing in some work), talked shop with one of the profs in the department, and toured the campus (including stopping for lunch and iced Thai tea).
The next day (Tuesday), Tessa and I headed off to the Royal Palace on our own. We hailed a taxi to the palace (with a little help of a postcard with a
Grand Palace
Almost everything there is covered in gold. So even on not-so-sunny days the whole place shines. picture of the palace on it), walked around ooing and awing at all of the glittering buildings, snapped 100+ pictures (hard to resist!), and ventured into the market. We found our way to the open air market area, ordered food from a food stall (pretty good stuff), and went off to check out Wat Po, where the famous Reclining Budda is.
Aside from the Reclining Budda himself, the highlight was Tessa getting ambushed (in a friendly way) by a group of men we now affectionately refer to as the "Pack of Pakistanis." Apparently, they really loved her blonde hair. At first she thought that these couple guys wanted her to take a picture of them. It became clear that they wanted to take turns having their picture taken
with her. It started out as just a couple, but then all of their friends showed up. By conservative estimates, Tessa had her photo taken at least 15 times with different Pakistani men. I wonder how many travel photo albums she'll end up in…
After the Wat Po, we decided to venture off to Wat Arun. And that is where the adventure began. There were a bunch of tourist groups
Success!
Our first meal on our own without our local guides. Ka Pao chicken and veggies for me. that wanted to sell us WAAAAAAYYYY overpriced trips (300B = $9) down and across the river. But we knew there was a cheaper way. We just couldn't find the right ticket booth. So we ended up taking the ferry across the river (3B = 9 cents), got on the right ferry to go down river (14B), missed our stop to Wat Arun (totally my fault for thinking the boat would turn around and cross the river… not realizing we needed to take another ferry), rode all the way down to one stop before the end of the line, hopped off and back onto a ferry going the other direction (14B), and by the time we got to the Wat Arun stop, had perfectly mastered the system and were giving advice to other travelers. When all was said and done, we had spent 37B ($1.15) for about an hour-long river cruise. Very cheap.
And the best part of that ferry ride was that because we had gone so far down-river at about 5 p.m., we had boarded with about 50 tween monks. Yup, you read that right: tween monks. It appeared that this huge group of 9-13 year-old boys, dressed
Part of the Pack of Pakistanis
Yeah, they all thought Tessa was quite adorable. I should have taken this photo so you could see the line queued up to have their turn. in their saffron robes, were at monk school and headed home(?) for the night. I wish I had more photos of that, but my camera battery had finally had enough. We met Brooke, Matt, and their friend, Yatu, for a celebratory dinner (Yatu successfully defended her prospectus that afternoon!) at a fabulous restaurant patio on the Chat Praya River. Nice way to end the night.
On Wednesday, we were headed out of town. So we got up early, packed our suitcases, and headed down to Khao San road. And I decided to keep up my international travel tradition and get a haircut from someone who doesn't speak much English. I pointed to a couple photos, tried my best to say "not too short," and held my breath. Definitely an experience. My hairdresser, Ae, told me after he had razor in hand, that he was self-trained. There were razors, scissors, and texturizing shears. I think he used every cutting technique known to man on my head, including shaving my hairline. That's one way to get rid of my pesky cowlicks! But post-cut stubble sure feels weird when I'm washing my hair. (I kept thinking it was dirt!) He finished the
Reclining Budda
This thing is enormous! And the whole time, you hear a ping-ping-ping noise. There are empty metal pots and it is good luck to drop a coin in each one as you leave. styling job with about a pound of product: enough mousse to style Crystal Gayle's hair, gel, wax, and some hairspray for good measure. Surprisingly, I think that with a week or two of re-growth, I'm going to like the cut.
We headed out after the cuts for hour-long Thai massages. Mmmm…. I love Thai massage. We hopped in a taxi, where we proceeded to sit in a traffic jam that was so dense, we had gone a whopping 0.1 kilometers in the first 9 minutes of our trip. But the traffic eventually broke and we made it to the train station just in the nick of time. By nick of time, I mean just in time to run four paces and come to a complete stop when the King's song was being played. Think random Thai flash mob of frozen people. Then the music stopped, we grabbed some bottled water and snacks from the convenience store, and boarded our overnight train to Chiang Mai….
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Vicki
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I want to know about your elephant trek in the rain :)
Thanks for another nice blog, and do get some Zzzzs so you can be refreshed on your adventures! :)