TRAVELING AROUND THE WORLD: Our Tales of Delights and Disasters (5 page)

sat as comfortably as possible and focused on breathing. The only sound was the whir of the fans and an occasional bell or barking dog. I don’t know how long I sat before I lost touch with my foot. I tried focusing on it, but wasn’t willing to wait it out. Shaking and stomping brought it back. I was thankful to be the only one in the room.

You’d think it would be easier to focus while walking and talking to yourself and yet I still found myself thinking about things – wondering what time it was, what Mike was doing, realizing that I might be hungry. On one pass, I noticed the table at the end of the room. The metal feet had been wrapped in orange fabric. I wondered how many bare toes had bumped it. Ouch! But then I zoned out and could only feel my feet. It’s amazing how much feeling is in the bottom of your foot. I felt the heel touch the cool surface first, the ball, and the side with the toes – each one of them – following. I could feel the gaps between the tiles as I progressed slowly. It was good. It was peaceful. And it was only a glimpse into the calm peace.

With one more seated meditation, the time was up. I can’t say that the time flew by but it didn’t feel like three hours either. I thanked the kind monk, left a donation, retrieved my shoes, and left to meet Mike. As I walked out of the temple complex, I could still feel the bottoms of my feet. They were unusually sensitive as I felt the cushion of my shoes under me. The rest of me, however, was still in a daze and overly sensitive to the noise and bustle of the street. I sat for a while before Mike and I continued with our day… another temple.

As for the life of monks, I wish I understood more and maybe I’ll learn in time. For now, the monks here, there and everywhere will remain an inspiration and a mystery.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Magic Carpet Ride

Ahhh – Chiang Mai. This is a smaller city northwest of Bangkok. It is slower paced, with less traffic, less pollution, more walkable and a more complete Thai experience. And it’s easier to get out into the countryside, which we did.

Mike and I booked a one-day trek. In this case, our “magic carpet” came in the form of a covered pick-up truck with bench seats along the sides and an open back – no seat belts or airbags. It whisked us away to the hills and jungle outside of the city, along with seven others who were from either Austria, Germany or Israel.

Our first stop was an orchid farm. It was beautiful with bursts of colorful orchids floating in the air. Next, we were off to see traditional villages. For me, it generated conflicting feelings. The “village” was actually a collection of huts for several tribes, such as the Hmong and Karen tribes. We learned that this protected area helped preserve the tribes’ cultures – a worthy goal. Nonetheless it felt like a zoo for people. When we arrived, an eighty-five-year-old woman rose from her seat. She demonstrated how rice grains are separated from the hull by beating them with a lever operated by her foot. I tried it and discovered it took considerable strength! She could probably out-run me! Kids ran and played in traditional clothing, placidly posing for photos as they’ve done many times before.

One of the most notable tribes was the Karen Long Necks. These women wear metal rings around their necks, legs and arms starting at a young age. One ring is added per year until age thirteen. They could choose whether or not to wear the rings. They were beautiful women. They sat quietly while tourists photographed them in their rings, their hair wrapped in colorful fabrics.

The church and school were at the far end of the village. The school was an outdoor pavilion with a roof and one wall. The wall held a huge blackboard from which they appeared to be teaching Thai and English. Throughout the community, villagers were selling their locally-made, traditional products. We skipped the products and donated to the school. It’s sad to think these people’s history and traditions may eventually end. But I’m not sure this is the lifestyle they envisioned for their future.

Back into the magic carpet truck and on towards an elephant camp. On the way, we saw several other elephant camps with the animals standing under trees. We arrived to a dusty spot under the coconut trees littered with a few bamboo huts. We could buy bananas or sugar cane to feed the elephants. Mike apparently didn’t hear that part, so as I went back for bananas, he yelled, “But they’re not ripe yet!” They’re not for us – silly!

With no preamble, we walked to a small bluff with a planked area. I was intently watching the elephants all around and was taken by surprise by a long brown snake-like thing curling up and around searching. Silly me – it was an elephant trunk! And it was searching for the bananas I held in my hand. After tearing apart one banana off, the trunk – seemingly disconnected from the head below – curled around the banana and zipped it into the waiting mouth below.
Fabulous!

The elephants had a type of saddle on their backs. It was a metal frame seat for two people resting on a pile of thick pads and strapped to the elephant’s back. But there was a problem. One elephant had a baby last week and another was pregnant. With two elephants out of commission, they needed volunteers to ride behind the driver on the neck of the elephant while two others sat in the seat behind.

Pick me! Pick me!
No worries. I was the only one clamoring to get directly on the elephant’s back. With a little juggling, we got all three of us on board with the driver. But our elephant was one of the smallest and it was carrying four people. And the elephant wasn’t happy about it. No amount of coaxing could get more than a grudging few steps. All the others soon passed us. With a brief discussion in Thai, the solution apparently was for the driver to slide down the wide face of the elephant. He would lead from the ground – leaving me perched happily behind the elephant’s ears and looking down over the broad head. It seemed odd to not see his eyes which were well below.

This worked better. I talked and coaxed with my legs while the trainer coaxed in front. We made “good” progress. In forty minutes, we went about 200 yards. Not exactly zipping along. The elephant stopped periodically and raised his trunk to me looking for more bananas. Nope – not until we finish. He accepted that and we eased forward again. It was a strange ride as he slowly placed one big, round foot in front of the other. His large legs hinged just under my butt creating an uncomfortable back and forth rocking motion.

It was a messy business – sitting on an elephant. The wiry hairs prickled and dust swirled. The end of the trunk was moist and slimy. They also use their trunks to throw dirt on themselves to keep away bugs. Moist and slimy combined with dirt made mud. Every touch left a broad smudge of elephant snot/mud – snud – on my arm. As we plodded along, we heard a loud blast. The trainer giggled as we realized it was an elephant fart. I was glad to be on top. But that was nothing compared to the dismount. When we arrived at the dismounting platform, I wanted to see his eye so I bent over to say hello. A big, wide, strong trunk wrapped over my head – as though I was a large banana. Was this elephant happy or mad? Hard to tell but the staff quickly disentangled me and led our elephant away. I left with snud across my neck, back and arm. I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

After our lunch of rice and melon under a bamboo shelter, we were back in the truck to our next event – hiking to a waterfall. From another dusty parking lot, the group set off at a breakneck pace – or the twenty-somethings did. Me, Mike and a couple from Great Britain – the only other middle-aged people – enjoyed a more leisurely pace, took photos, and were subsequently left behind.
No problem.

The trail led through the jungle-covered hills. Huge trees towered against a clear blue sky in the fresh air. The trail soon became rocky as it ran alongside a small boulder-strewn stream. Banana trees covered the hillside; teak trees with their plate-size leaves grew straight and tall; bamboo, four-stories tall, bent over the trail like a green sunlit canopy. In some places, the trail crossed streams that we traversed across big and small stones. Other times, bamboo ladders lay horizontally across rocks and streams, making for a precarious but fun balancing act. After an hour, we came to the waterfall where the others were lounging on rocks by the falls. It was a beautiful and cool spot, filled with the sound of the falls. It reminded us of our smaller waterfall in Cotignac, minus the bamboo and bananas.

Always looking for opportunities to sell to tourists, two women – one very old – were selling cool drinks to the dusty crowd. The old woman, skin leathery from decades in the sun, head wrapped in fabric, entranced with her sparkling eyes and distant gaze. These were eyes like my grandmother, set in the high-check-boned face of this Thai woman. Through our guide, I told her that she reminded me of my grandmother. I hope it touched her as it did me.

After our walk back, we were off for white-water rafting. I was already weary and not excited. Without shoes, but with life jackets and helmets, we boarded the raft with our guide. The river was filled with round boulders as the water swooshed between. It was a thrilling ride that refreshed and revived me. Between rapids, we enjoyed the scenery of hills, huts and trees. As we neared the end, the river became wide and shallow. A mother with her naked baby played. The baby lay on its belly and kicked its feet in the shallow water, naked butt popping up.

The last experience of the day was bamboo rafting. Five people on a bamboo raft are not a good plan. We floated – sort of – with the raft submerged just below the surface. Any shifting weight caused it to tip slowly side-to-side. We were drenched. The guide explained, “No wet, no fun!” We scrambled to shore, changed clothes, and started the hour-plus drive home.

Exhausted and caked with layers of life – truck exhaust, snud, and dust cemented to our bodies with river water – it was a perfect day. I’ll gladly snuggle into the folds of this magic carpet and let it take me back to Chiang Mai.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Aladdin’s Garden

Forget the Garden of Eden. Thailand is like Aladdin’s Garden, whose cup runneth over with flowers and food – particularly fruits of the most extraordinary kinds.

To get outside of Bangkok, we took an excursion to the floating markets. The farther we drove, the more greenery we saw. Skyscrapers turned into low buildings; small parks became large fields. We nearly jumped from the moving van when we saw our first large rice paddy, complete with a worker in the field wearing a conical bamboo hat. Our astute guide and driver found a rice field where we could stop for photos. Amused, driver happily accommodated the crazy American tourists. It’s like tourists taking pictures of a corn field in Texas. No matter – we were thrilled.

And Mike and I remained thrilled as we boarded a long boat for the trip through narrow canals to the floating market. Bangkok is known as the “Venice of the East.”

The canals wound through coconut groves, bamboo huts, and green mangoes hanging heavy on the trees. The floating market is a series of piers where shoppers walk by perusing the vendors who are floating in long, narrow boats like canoes. The boats are lined up side-by-side, several deep, and goods and money are exchanged via a small net at the end of a long pole.
Food, food and more food.
Old women had boats overloaded with mangoes, pineapple, tangerines and papaya – the most familiar items – that they would slice on the spot. Then there were guava, rambutan, mangosteen and rose apple. Other women cooked inside their tiny boats and dished up foods to waiting hands. Tiny “monkey” bananas (half the size of the bananas we typically see) were fried and served hot. What looked like tiny custard pies, slightly bigger than a silver dollar, were actually fabulous coconut pancakes. And my favorite, coconut ice cream, was served inside a freshly cracked coconut and on a bed of the coconut meat scraped from the sides. All was prepared while we watched.
Yummy!
An old man made soup on his boat, heating it on the spot with a small burner.

On our way back, our driver took us the scenic route through fields and orchards. We saw mango and papaya trees, coconut groves and guava trees. There was even a grove of dragon fruit that looked like yucca plants gone astray. Fruits of all sorts are sold in carts all over Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Fruit drinks, made fresh, were on every corner. Coconuts seemed to be the workhorse. We stopped at a coconut facility where they showed us how coconuts are used. The long, thin coconut blooms (they look like overgrown ears of corn) are whacked at the bottom so the juice drains. The bloom is left on the tree to develop into the coconut. Meanwhile the juice is cooked for ninety minutes in a large vat until it caramelizes into coconut sugar. It tasted like… caramelized sugar. It’s used in Thai cooking as we experienced later. The coconuts are harvested, cracked and drained, and the meat is scraped using a small bench with sharp teeth on the end.

While fruits are a star in Thailand, the flowers are not far behind. Shrubs of hibiscus and bougainvillea grow in the highway median. Tree-sized dracena line country roads, as do shrubs of croton in many varieties. Lotus flowers float in decorative bowls placed around temples, hotels and more.

We literally walked past cart after cart of prepared foods, dried fish, and fruits on every street and alley. And much of it goes into the traditional Thai dishes which we love. It was only natural that, with no plans for the weekend, we took a Thai cooking class at Silom Thai Cooking School with Sanusi Mareh. The class included only me, Mike, and a young, newly married couple from Sweden. We met Sanusi on the street and he took us to the market to do our shopping. It was great fun to finally learn about the unknown vegetables and the essential Thai spices (for example, they have three types of basil and four types of ginger). After our shopping spree – vegetables and herbs for four cost about $3.50 – Sanusi led us to the cooking school down a long alley.