“I just ate a baby animal?!” - Laos Day 1

Friday we left for Laos.  We were only staying the weekend, and this was definitely the lightest I have ever packed. Ever. I was pretty proud of myself. I even used everything that I brought - including the deck of cards, which was probably the biggest stretch. Before we left for the Chiang Mai Airport on Friday morning, I spent 60 baht on all-organic (read all citronella) bug spray, because, well, I forgot to start my malaria meds on time... oops. I was a day late.  And really, only 12 hours late. So not horrible, and better than one member of our group who just decided not to take his. I am being a good kid though and taking them for the full week after the day we got back, and I'm even making sure to take them at the same time everyday.  I take meds the way Emily takes care of her diabetes - "Why do I feel funny? Oh yeah. I haven't taken drugs (or in her case insulin) yet today."

But anyway. Laos. Or Lao People's Democratic Republic as the country is apparently called. 

We cancelled class for Friday and took off for the airport at 11.  As we're all gathering downstairs with our overnight bags, Ajaan John turns up with a HUGE bunch of bananas.  He was out walking and decided we might all like to have some food for the airport.  Luckily for him security, while frequent at the Chiang Mai Airport (we went thru three times), was not very strict, so he was able to bring them through to the waiting area, and may have even brought some on the plane. 

While we were waiting to board our flight, I started editing the English language booklets for my NGO. I had tried to do this once before, but got intimidated by this opening paragraph "Students at the age of curiosity: experimenting with off-class sex education.  At the conjuncture age, high school students have much to learn and cope with changes in relation to the environment."  Jigga wha!? (and yes I have been channeling Amelia lately.)  I still don't know what to do with that, so at the airport I started in on the other booklet, and got through about half of it during our weekend trip. It was interesting though, because I did a lot more editing of "quotes" than I have ever done before.  I figure people know how to speak, someone just doesn't quite know how to translate their articulate comments from Thai so that they are equally articulate in English.  I'm just taking it that next step. 

So not only did we go through security three times at the airport, not only was our boarding delayed for almost an hour (no clue why).  The whole Lao Airlines experience was pretty different than other plane rides I've taken.  When it was finally time for us to board, we exit the gate, but there is no plane in sight. Instead we get on busses that are built like a cross between tour busses and subway cars. After about 15 seconds on the bus, we've gone around the corner of the airport building and are stopping in front of the smallest, most brightly colored airplane I have ever seen.  The Lao Airlines logo is very tropical and once you climb the stairs into the back of the plane, the upholstry is even more neon and flowery.  I was impressed. It was dreadful. Once we're airborne they conduct the fastest meal service I have ever experienced - it seems even more harried than the 45 minute flight from CR to Chicago, despite it being an hour long flight. It is also the shortest safety presentation - basically they told us how to fasted our seatbelts, that there were four exits and to read the safety card for all other information.  (On the way home, the woman sitting next to me says something like "that's basically their way of saying 'don't bother. if we go down in this plane you're screwed anyway.")

Our hotel in Laos was beautiful.  Lots of dark wood, everywhere; comfy beds and soft pillows (a nice change from Thailand; dressers (not that we needed them for two days); complimentary drinking water; and a GORGEOUS rooftop garden. I think Emily and I declared "This roof garden kicks Mountain View's garden's ass!" You could see all the mountains surrounding Luang Prabang and there were hammocks to sit and read in. Sweet!  Emily still got bored of the roof pretty quick and decided we should go walking around the town. 

While Luang Prabang is a fairly large city as far as Laos goes, and is possibly the most popular tourist spot (due to having two rivers - both called Mekong - caves and a waterfall in or close to the town) it is tiny compared to Chiang Mai, and even Cedar Rapids. It's probably closer to the size of Mahtomedi or White Bear Lake, Minnesota - where I grew up. We wandered around the two wats (or vats in Lao, but still said like a "w") next to our hotel. At the first vat, we saw a guy jogging around the chedi. Em and I joked how he was gaining merit while getting his exercise - multi-tasking, Buddhist style! I bought postcards for 8 baht at the market between the two wats. A lot of people here in Chiang Mai like to charge 20 B. It makes me sad. After the vats we just wandered around the city for a while up and down the two streets by our hotel - which were not, in fact, the most interesting, but we didn't want to get lost. Our wanderings also included a quest for Lao music we had heard from our roof, and occasionally caught snippets of while elsewhere on the street. Turned out it was coming from another vat at the end of the block. 

Things that struck us while we walked were, in no particular order: fewer street animals, less western looking structures, the cobbled street and sidewalk, less smog, more small children and young mothers, fewer motorized vehicles and those that existed were more likely to be motor bikes than trucks (including the "song-tuks" as we christened them - the size of song-taows, but pulled by a three-wheeled motor bike (like tuk-tuks) rather than a truck), and bikes were more popular than anything, lots of wood or coal fires, rather than electric things, fewer lights on patios or at vender stands. 

The vats we walked around and others we passed all had what we think were Mara images.  Emily and I couldn't figure out why they would want to build Mara statues, since Mara represents all the worldly vices that the Buddha had to ignore to reach enlightenment and then worked to subdue.  One of the poses of the Buddha is actually called "Subduing Mara." Mara is usually represented by a woman with uber long hair that she's wielding like a whip. These statues were definitely women with whip-like hair, but she didn't look as crazed as Mara usually does. So... I'm not sure if they were or not [Edit - Monday - So apparently they are not Mara images but instead are the Rice Goddess - Mae Phosop (meaning Mother Rice) who is very, very important in Northern Thai and Lao folklore and traditional religion.  Not Mara; Mae (said Mah) Phosop (said Pohso).]

Along with vat vs. wat there are other subtle differences between Thai and Lao.  They're similar enough that whenever people were talking, I felt like I should be able to understand at least something, but I didn't. Here are some English-Thai-Lao comparisons:

Thank you (very much) : Kop khun (mak) kha : Kop jai (lai lai)

Dollar : Baht : Kip

Hello : Sawadee kha : Sa bai dee

How are you : Sa bai dee : I actually don't know this Lao, but notice that "Hello" in Lao is the same as "How are you" in Thai.

The last great adventure of our first day in Laos was going out to dinner at a French/Lao restaurant.  They mostly just served French food, some of it with a Lao twist.  I had the most delicious pumpkin soup, ever. Oh I wish that could be in my life more often. Two of the other people I was traveling with decided to order meats they had never had before - quail for Nikki and lamb for Gen. As we're about halfway through out main dishes and sampling each other's food, Gen asks "What's the difference between lamb and sheep anyway? Is it male and female?" "No. Sheep is the adult and lamb is the baby," I respond. Gen's eye's get wide and her jaw drops as she gets this petrified look on her face.  As we start to ask her if she's okay she says "I just ate a baby animal?!" and starts apologizing to her lamb. Nikki, Holly and I try to calm her down, explaining that lambs live good lives and it's not a baby, persay, just a younger sheep. But she pushes her plate away a little and starts to cry. "I just feel so bad. I'm so guilty I ate a baby."  

My telling of the story is most likely no where near as funny as it was in real life, but as it happened Holly and I were in silent stitches. I have never seen anyone get so upset over food before, and I watched my younger brother freak out over a feed-lot and give up burgers for a month. Gen is such a sweetie. :)

Week of 2/1-2/7

Here are some highlights of the last week or so:

Last Sunday (2/1)... yeah, that's over a week ago... we went to cooking school and learned how to make (among other things) curry, pad thai, and a banana with coconut milk desert. The day started with a visit to the market, where our teacher taught us about the different kinds of rice, various coconut products, and different forms of flavoring common in Thai foods.

Then we drove out to the farm where the cooking school is. There we learned about traditional Thai family farms and the ways they plant crops to encourage soil health and plant health - like planting stinky plants next to others to keep the bugs away. Their green beans are HUGE here - like as long as your arm. For real. It's intense.

Last Monday (2/2) all nine of us trekked out to the UN Irish Pub to watch the Superbowl be replayed. Those of us interested in the game already knew the outcome, but decided to go see it anyway. And we decided to mess with all the other people (at least some of whom didn't know the end) and cheer for the losing team. It was so much fun. Andy, Emily, and I in particular had a lot of fun being loud and raucous.

Best quote of the night came during the booth review for the last Steelers touchdown:
"Oh, come on! His toes are down; he's just being graceful! He's a fucking ballerina, that's all!"

Hilarious.

Also on Monday, a new language teacher started - Ajaan Jang. She's very high energy and is a ton of fun. She sometimes tells us stories about past years of Coe students, such as last year one student kept telling her to turn toward the water buffalo during his midterm. She said she tried really hard, but after the third or fourth water buffalo turn she just burst out laughing. What he meant was turn right - or liaow kwaa, not liaow kway. We also take a 20 minute break about two-thirds of the way through class, which is excellent. Two hours is a LONG class.

On Tuesday (2/3) Catherine got sick. Usually getting the stomache flu is not a huge deal, but since Catherine's pancreas doesn't work (she has diabetes) she can't be left alone while ill. Since I was one of the people that she gave 'betes training to over christmas break, and since Patricia is the one with all the tropical disease knowledge from her years working in Paraguay, the two of us camped out with Cate, making sure she tested her sugar and ate icing and such - did you know you can absorb sugar through your gums? I didn't until Christmas. It was actually scary for a while because her blood sugar refused to climb above the 60s (for reference 180-200 is good, 300 is high, and 40 is coma). Then we discovered the icing Cate was eating didn't actually have sugar in it. Oops. Thanks for that info Google. So I left her to rest with Patricia and took a drunk Becca for a walk to the 7-11 to purchase sugary things for Catherine, and bread-like things for her. There we discovered the group's new fave candy - Chokie-Chokie. It's basically a milk-chocolate fudgey-substance in a tube and is delicious. And two or three tubes absorbed via the gums made Catherine's blood sugar sky-rocket up over 200 so she could sleep.

Wednesday in Human Rights class we reverted to third grade and needing to raise our hands to talk rather than having a conversation like adults, and some people still didn't talk. Ugh. Hopefully we can un-revert this week. Probably one of the most interesting discussions we did manage to have was whether the "vacation mentality" would really enable people to make decisions to do things that they would be opposed to doing at home, as one of our authors discussing child prostitution suggested. Nathan and Ian were very sure that this would not happen, while Becca was convinced that it could. Thoughts? This also lead into later discussions regarding if humans are inherently good, inherently evil/bad/not good, or inherently stupid.

Thursday the program took us out to eat at Drexler's favorite Italian place in town, right across from CMU. It was pretty delicious, about as good as you can get anywhere (and a lot better than Gen, Nikki, John and I had gotten the day before!). Coe alumn, Brad, who is teaching English at CMU this year came with us too. I remember thinking we had a lot of good discussions, but I don't remember what about anymore. Drexler and Patricia talked about living abroad, Holly, Emily, Kacie, Nikki and Gen told ghost stories, I talked to John about Teach for America for a while, but I don't really remember what I spent most of my time talking about. Andy, Chris and Brad had boy talk at one end of the table. :)

Since it was the first Friday of the month, there was a craft market going on in one corner of the campus, and after class Patricia, Holly, Emily and I tried to wander to it, but it took a very long time and we got a little lost. Walking back was much faster. That night Andy, Chris, Gen, Nikki, Kacie, Emily, Holly and I went to a British Pub by the guesthouse for bar food and drinks. When everyone else went to play pool, Gen and I had a really great talk back at the table. I really enjoyed getting to connect with someone new on the trip. And Gen is such a sweetie!

When we left the pub, Gen, Kacie and I decided to go check up on Paul, the saxophonist and co-owner of the jazz bar. Gen is his secret admirer, so at least a couple people from our group go every few nights. The jazz is decent (it really depends on the ensemble playing), but Paul is very good. This night, the combo was short a bassist and drummer. So one guy jumped up to the drum set for a song or two, and when he wasn't playing, Paul would occasionally tap a cymbal or something to accompany a solo or whatever. For the last song of the first set, Paul said they wanted to try something "experimental." I wouldn't say it was that experimental, but it was PHENOMENAL - I mean one of those times when music just reaches all the way to your soul, and you not only hear it with your ears, but feel it in your chest, in your pulse, creeping around your subconscious. A-mazing. I hadn't had that happen in a while, and this piece especially grabbed me.

Saturday (2/7) we went to an elephant show. To be honest, I almost didn't go. First off, we have our Thai language midterms this week, I wanted to get started on editing my NGO's english publications, and I need to read a lot faster/a lot more for my independent study on Thai conceptions of gender and sexuality. And secondly, these sorts of things always feel somewhat like animal exploitation to me, and I kind of wish there wasn't a market for it. I'm fine with safaris and going to see the animals in their own habitat or something replicating their natural environment, where they're wild and untrained. But animal shows kind of bother me. And this was our second one. In the end though, I went and it was fun to coo over baby elephants and marvel at elephant antics with everyone. I did skip riding the elephant though. It just felt like too much money to sit on an old-style throne on the back of an elephant that had just been forced to paint pictures and kick soccer balls in front of me. Instead, Patricia and I wandered around the camp, until we hit the village where all the mankoots (elephant handlers) and their families live. Then we turned around so as to not intrude.

Also on Saturday, I discovered one of the computers in the guesthouse has a slot that fits my camera's memory card!!! Excitement! So I'm working on uploading all of my pictures before we leave for Laos this weekend.

Only viewers in the United States can watch these full-length episodes.

- ABC.com

This message just ruined Emily's and my night.  We were going to catch up on the Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice and Pushing Daisies, but no. No. Thai people aren't good enough for online episodes. Sad face.

My apologies for all the long, long posts as of late.  I'll try to keep them a bit more brief in the future for everyone's sake.  

On Friday (1/23), Thai class got very interesting.  We played a relay game where we had to perform basic math in Thai (with the goal of learning numbers - I'll have to remember this tactic for when I'm teaching). We were split into two teams, and whichever team could finish the stack of problems first won the relay.  First off, my team won the relay, which basically makes us Thai masters.  Second, it was pretty fun - and funny.  It was great to see the enthusiasm of everyone (especially a-jaan John, who actually bounced up and down at one point) and the different competitive strategies each person employed.  We also tried to learn the names of different foods, and failed miserably.  Seriously, how were we supposed to memorize "sweet and sour stir fried vegetables with minced pork" and the like in ten minutes?

Friday night a-jaan Bob took us out to a restaurant that specializes in northern Thai dishes.  He was most excited about feeding us fried raw pork sausage.  It was better than I expected, but I still couldn't eat much more than a bite.  I just kept thinking about the House episode where a woman almost dies from a parasite she picked up from under-cooked pork.  So, yeah, the sausage was fried, but it was also still somewhat raw, and I have a goal to avoid worms at least as well as I avoid fungus (aka mushrooms, which I refuse to eat).  The three different kinds of chicken and fish curry and fried pumpkin were way better than raw pork.  

After our incredible dinner, Drex took a small group of us to the wine bar he promised to show me.  It seemed more like the central locale for the European and New Zealand/Australia ex-pats, rather than the center of the GLBT community, but was a ton of fun nonetheless.  Emily, Holly, Kacie and I were all finishing our drinks when the server came over with four smaller glasses and a carafe of more wine.  Before we can correct his apparent mistake, he's distributed the glasses and is pouring us glasses of chardonnay.  He says to us "This wine comes from Buddha" which sounds a bit sketchy to the group of us Christian foreigners.  As we look at him a bit questioningly he continues "This means that someone has gotten it for you, but doesn't want you to know who they are.  So, it's from Buddha."  

From all of us - Thanks, Buddha.  Your gift definitely made my night wonderful.

After we got sick of telling ghost stories over white wine, we decided to catch a song-taow back to the guesthouse. Our song-taow already had a few other people in it (a single lady, a couple and their child), so we took a detour to drop them off.  When they got out the driver got in an argument with one of the riders.  We think that we witnessed our first ride and dash and the driver wanted the woman to pay for herself and the three other people who ran off. Here's hoping that never happens to a group of us. 

Today (Saturday 1/24), we went to see a famous temple located on a mountain that overlooks Chiang Mai.  The ride up and down from the mountain top was INSANE.  The road was originally built by buddhists trying to make merit, a way long time ago.  I don't think the angles, curves, slopes - anything - has been reevaluated since the road was originally built for foot and cart traffic.  Now it's a bit wider and paved, but still has crazy steep inclines and over 180-degree curves, many of which are blind. Also add into that mix Thai drivers' penchants for lane markings being suggestions, speed limits ignored, and you end up with the group of us wondering if the four-hour walk up the mountain might not have been a better idea. 

At (almost) the top of the mountain sat Doi Sutep, a very grand wat.  On the outer wall of the wat, a beautiful mural depicted the story of Buddha and his journey to enlightenment.  Drexler took us around and told the story.  Every once in a while we would reach a panel where he would say something like "And I don't know what this is, so don't ask me about it." After we explored the Buddha story, each of us wandered the wat on our own or in small groups.  Some of us have begun giving offerings at the wats we visit, becoming a little more Buddhist each time.  I find it calming and a great way to be spiritual or religious on this trip with a group of secularists. Give offerings and pray at wats, come home and say a rosary before bed. That's how I do. 

Out side the temple itself there were a great many vendors selling everything from food to postcards to other souveneirs, secular and religious.  We all ended up gorging ourselves on banana corndogs (a corndog, but with a banana rather than a hotdog inside), banana chips, and sticky rice in a bamboo tube (which has a Thai name, but I forget it).  I got chased by a lady determined to sell me a bell.  

After Doi Sutep, we went a little further up the mountain to visit a hill tribe village.  I was interested to discover that the tribe we were visiting was Hmong, since I know many Hmong from the Twin Cities.  The hill tribes - Hmong and others - that are native to Thailand apparently used to recieve all of their income from opium plantations, but unlike in, say, Colombia, the Thai government has been much more successful in helping the tribes transition from opium to other forms of agriculture and trade.  That said, the tribes are also subject to great discrimination because many were forced to immigrate here from other countries and most are now denied Thai citizenship, so they live in this stateless limbo. At least the Thais aren't killing them, like the Chinese and Burmese were. 

After the Hmong village, we went to visit a jade factory. I think Drex had built it up a little bit.  It was interesting, but not as exciting as he had made it sound. 

That night Patricia and I went out for coffee and to catch up, which was excellent.  She's so happy and adorable right now.  I tell her it's nauseating, but really, it just makes me smile.  After, we got drinks at the bar.  Mine was neon blue and called an Adios Motherfucker.  Not as delicious as I had hoped.  It was also Gen's birthday, so we had chocolate cake.  For a country that loves their flavors - one of which is sugar - Thais really fail at making sweets. Patricia and I are thinking about walking across town to get dark chocolate M&Ms at the one 7-11 that carries them.  Chocolate has become our black market.