From Boho to Hobo, Shopping is My Religion, Playing Frogger

After our first full day in Bangkok and an extremely long and satisfying night's sleep, Liz and I woke up Sunday morning ready to explore the JJ market. (The real name escapes me but I learned in my guide book that the "ch" spelling is often pronounced "J" and there happens to be two "ch" sounds in the word. Thus - JJ. Now you know).

Being two women who have assorted public transport systems in several countries, we opted to take the skytrain up to the market. It was simple, no issues and cost about a buck each way which is reasonable. I'd been pressing Liz to move her ass that morning so we could get going, knowing once the sun was in its peak position she would be miserable. I'm fairly tolerant of the heat as long as I know there's a shower home waiting for me. And while I don't love humidity, as long as I'm not planning a run over 3 miles I'm ok. Not to mention the hair. Oh, the hair. The topic of whether or not to bring a hair dryer was discussed on several occasions prior to our departure. I strongly suggested Liz not bring a hair dryer. I suggested she instead, as she wrote, 'embrace her curls'. BUT, at the market I looked over at her and had to confess, "Liz, I think you just went from boho to hobo". Her curls were out of control. Therefore, after trekking through a Bangkok mall that was only seconded in size by the Montreal underground malls, we found a high voltage hair dryer which has made Liz happy beyond comprehension and it's all around more pleasant to be in her company - hair straight.

The market is insane. Insanity. Crazed madness. I loved it. From what our guidebook tells us it has around 200,000 visitors a day and over 8,000 vendors. I'm not sure if the lady with a wheelbarrow in the middle of the aisle slicing up fresh papaya for salad counts as one of the 8,000, but I venture to guess we only were able to see 1/10th of those. What were they selling? Clothing (new and used), Foods of all creation (smoothies, tons of green papaya salad, piles of noodles, meat from a large array of animals bbqed, fried and boiled, delicious looking creamy fruit pops, soups, fried tofu, spring rolls and of course, fried bugs (obligatory photo taken), handmade paper goods (sheets and books), tons of silk (scarves, pillow covers, and piles of fabric), shoes (oh my god, shoes), plants, dishes, pottery, crafts, teak of all sorts (furniture, lanterns, etc.), antiques, BEADS (tried to control myself), wood carving and other crafts, buddhas out the wazoo. It was endless, really. You can wander around outside or venture into the underbelly of the market, getting lost as you weave your way through the throngs of people.

As you all know, I love to shop. Some might call it a problem - but I would deny that. Even just browsing - I can do it for hours. And we did, about 5 of them. Thailand is very dangerous for someone of my kind. But as Liz's brother suggested, the way to go is to buy a suitcase before leaving Thailand for home, go to the market and fill it. And that's what we'll do. As you'd imagine, this stuff is ridiculously cheap compared to what you'd find in the states. But for now, I settled on a hat since I've been looking for one for ages and the asian people have bizarrely small heads, as I do. We chowed on some noodles and hot unripe mango with red pepper flakes - holy spicy but wonderful flavor. Liz had the best bottle of orange juice she's ever consumed. She's banned tropicana from touching her tongue for ever more.

That night we hit up Kao San Road which has nightly markets and is filled with backpackers. I bought a bracelet for about 2 bucks and promptly lost it in less than 24 hours. Oh well, it was 2 bucks. We ate dinner at a lovely outdoor spot (masaman curry, what else?). When we finished, we were walking down the street and Liz turned to me saying, "How is it POSSIBLE that we've been here almost 2 full days and I haven't had a massage??" I didn't know how to answer that question, so we walked into the nearest massage place (there's around 13 a block) and got some fabulous 1 hour foot massages for 200 baht (6 bucks). When it ended they did a bit of thai massage on me which is quite fascinating - bending, kneading and pressing the body in all directions. I'm going to head over when I'm finished with this and get a full hour thai massage. I'm sure it will feel great when I'm done but frankly I'm a little nervous about being twisted and prodded for an hour. I'll let you know.

We booked a flight online to ChiangMai for Monday afternoon but when we arrived at the next day it was cancelled so we had to wait another 4 hours for the next flight. We ate at the airport (some of the spiciest soup I've ever eated - I thought it was delish, not so much for Liz). The flight was around 50 minutes and cost 50 bucks. Upon arrival in ChiangMai we headed to the guest house where we booked a room. It's cute, by the river and has a nice little garden outside. Liz was ready for another massage (she's fully ready to get one every day) but after sitting all day in the airport and plane, I was restless and needed to wander. We went our separate ways and she got an oil massage which included an intimate encouter with a small thai woman who was apparently climbing all over her AND massaging her bare breasts. She likened it to a gynecological breast exam - and who really wants to pay for that? I on the other hand took a stroll and used my super smeller to sniff out the night market. It's amazing how I come upon these things without even trying. I strolled for about an hour... this stuff was of a lower quality than what was in Bangkok aside from the occasional authentic vendor who was selling handmade crafts or artwork. I found my way to a lovely woman who was selling clothing she handmakes and spent about 15 minutes trying on an assortment of skirts, eventually settling on a yellow/green one for 250 baht (8 bucks). It's adorable.

I went and picked Liz up after her mauling and we attempted to crash back at the room. As soon as my head hit the pillow it sounded like someone was being shot outside my door. A little worried, Liz called the front desk and learned it was fireworks for 'the festival' whatever that is. Liz claims they stopped after 20 minutes, I think it was more like 2 hours. In any case, we ended up moving our room this morning since throughout the night every time Liz fell asleep she was wakened by: dogs barking, children crying, trucks riding by. I put my earplugs in and slept through it all.

In any case, today we begun the wander around Chiang Mai. We like it here. It's a much more managable city and we walked all over the place. We even stopped into a school to inquire about teaching options and spoke to the very pleasant chief of educational something something who seemed fairly interested. We filled out some paperwork there then headed down to the guest house a friend of a friend had recommended we stay in. It's quite lovely in a lush tropical garden environment so we hope to move over to stay there tomorrow. Plus it's about 1/3 of the price - 500 baht or 20 bucks a room. They also have a cooking school which they run out of the place, so we're planning to take a 1 day course sometime this week.

We ran into a canadian expat today while I was buying a bag of pineapple for breakfast for 10 baht (about 30 cents). He gave us a card for a guy who he said would take us on a personalized trekking tour through northern Thailand. Everywhere you go there's tons of treks being advertized, but Liz and I being Liz and I, we don't want to go on the zoo-like tours of the tribal villages. We'd rather do something more low key. Plus the hiking on these trips is around 2 hours a day and we'd like something a little more substantial than that. He also suggested some good restaurants we plan to check out. The one thing that creeps me out about Chiang Mai is the excessive number of middle aged caucasion men who are either partnered with Thai women (of age) or alone which makes me positive they're here to touch small children. I means, it's a lovely, cheap place. But I don't see many middle aged caucasion women walking the streets alone. They are
EVERYWHERE. Where else should a pedophile live other than a place where they can retire, live on a dime and have easy access to child prostitution. Or, find a nice Thai lady to spend money on and make your wife (which I have no problem with, it's the expat way of life I suppose). Just an observation.

Aside from that, Chiang Mai is great. It's touristy but not in a six flags kind of way. Liz and I wandered north today and found areas of the city which were much less so (we could tell because signs were only in Thai). We're slowly picking up some language (at least yes, thank you and hello). At first we struggled with getting the intonation right (it's all about intonation here) but now it comes naturally. Lance, the Canadian, told us how to tell tuk tuk drivers and such to go away, which has come in handy as well. Oh, I ate the most delicious thing today... there was an ancient guy slicing up little bananas at his cart and I walked over to see what they were. He skewered a bunch of chunks, roasted them on his grill, then put them between a tool which is essentially two paddles then squashed them flat. Did I want one? Oh hells yes (I love warm bananas). He took two skewers and gestured to ask if I wanted them dipped in whatever the grayish sauce that was in the bag was. Sure! He dipped them and handed them to me for 5 baht (15 cents). The sauce was apparently coconut milk. It was simply fabulous. I haven't seen anyone else selling those so I must go out tomorrow and look for said banana man again. Thankfully, Liz took a picture of him so maybe I can show it around and see if someone can point me in the right direction.

Liz bought an adorable dress and pants today even though she professes she has not one more inch of space in her pack. She's not much of a shopper but apparently I'm a bad influence :) Oh, she also picked up a pair of GUCCI sunglasses for 2 bucks. What a deal! I bought a skirt (what? for the beach! It was 5 bucks).

We've been trying to determine how exactly to cross the street here in Thailand. Liz's brother likened it to frogger which is a good approximation of the experience. You pretty much just have to GO and presume the cars ripping down the road towards you will slow down. So far so good. On the way home today we had to cross a major intersection and we literally stood there for 5 full minutes discussing the best approach to reach the other side. Finally we were like, "Let's go!". We've taken to holding hands while crossing the street, figuring if one of us is going down, at least we'll go down together. Its amazingly effective to just step down and go. We haven't bit hit yet. Liz towers over all the petite Thai folk, so they can see her coming a mile away. I generally position her towards the oncoming traffic figuring that's the safest bet.

It's 6pm and we're headed in for our next massage. Then dinner (I hear Liz has a hankering for curry of some sort - are you shocked?). Tonight we plan to 'hit the town' a bit and see what this place has to offer. I have no doubt lots of expats hanging out drinking alone... thankfully I don't think I'm their type.

La Gong for now!