10.13.10 - 10.20.10: Bali

Once again I'm afraid I have been remiss in reporting my adventures here on the other side of the globe. In my defense, internet access in Bali was not the best. But other than that I really have no excuses other than pure sloth. My week in Bali was filled with more gorgeous beaches, volcano vistas, and amazing sunsets. But the highligh by far was the diving. I decided that since I would be in Bali by myself, and I had heard really good things about the diving there, that I would continue my learning experience in diving and take my advanced open water course. So I booked myself at a hotel right next to the beach on a little island off the coast of the Balinese mainland called Nusa Lembognan. I'm feeling a bit guilty for not getting off that little island and seeing more of Bali, but at the same time I saw so many beautiful things under the water that I could not possibly be dissappointed. On the first day after I arrived, my dive instructor was not there yet as she had gotten held up with some troubles obtaining a visa in Singapore, so I decided to go for a snorkel. The first site we went to was on the corner of the island, unsheltered by other land. The wind was high that day so the waves were choppy, and there was a fairly strong current as well, but I jumped off the boat in my snorkel and fins and dutifully followed my divemaster and fellow students, watching them from above as they descended and swam off. I decided to follow them for a bit, as it is a little unnerving to be by yourself floating around in the open ocean, so I swam above them for a while, and suddenly, without any warning, there underneath me maybe 7 meters down was a beautiful manta ray, gliding effortlessly through the water. It was huge! I stopped swimming where I was and just looked down on it as it floated underneath me, swimming off into the darkness of the deeper waters. I couldn't believe my luck...I only had to founder and gag down salt water for about 5 minutes before seeing a manta! After that I struggled and flopped around for a few more minutes before giving up and heading back to the boat. The water was too choppy and the visibility too poor to prolong the agony of constantly choking on sea water. So I opted for tanning on the roof of the boat until the rest of the group got back. I was rewarded for my prude decision, however, with the next site we went to. It was called Crystal Bay, and it was aptly named. The water was clear and still, and as it was a beautiful sunny day the visibility was great. The coral was so beautiful; it streched as far as the eye could see on all sides, bright reds and purples. blues, yellows and greens. I have never seen anything like it. The rest of my week of diving was much the same, although I didn't see any other mantas. I learned how to navigate with a compass underwater (and believe me I am no Magellan), and I also had the opportunity to take pictures underwater, which I will certainly post when I get back. I had a beautiful little room at the hotel, right next to the restaurant and overlooking the beach. Every morning I would wake up to find offerings and incense laid out on my balcony and the sun coming up from the east making the water glow a soft blue. In the evenings I could sit on the balcony with a book and a beer, and watch the sun set over the ocean. In short, I could have spent a month in Bali and not wanted to leave, and in fact next time I am in this part of the world I think I will do just that. I didn't leave Lembognan, so there is so much that I missed, but I really enjoyed my time there. I even got to see the running up to a cock fight...where the contenders show their birds to eachother and see which one gets his feathers all ruffeled up and looks very fierce, and then people place preliminary bets. I was told there that cock-fighting is so popular, that the men will come and wager almost a year's salary on the chance to win. One really does notice the prodigious number of roosters on the island, because they make it nearly impossible to sleep past dawn; they are very noisy animals. I of course had no desire to watch them peck eachother to death, so I did not come back for the real thing. Balinese architecture is also quite a site to behold, but I didn't take any pictures because I felt really weird taking photos of people's houses and their family shrines. I'm sure people probably do it all the time but it seemed a little bit invasive, so I have to be content with my own memory. On my list of things to do when I go back is to hike the volcanoes, visit the temples in the mountains and to see more manta rays! It was a really beautiful week, although it did culminate in a 10 hour layover in Korea, which I could not leave the airport for because I had by accident packed my sweater and was in only a t-shirt and I was freezing. After that I was on to Hawaii! More about that later...

10.4.10 - Leaving Bangkok

I can't believe that I'm coiming to the end of my stay in Thailand! How do two months go by so quickly?? I think it's the amazing company, the great food, and the copious amounts of shopping that has sped time up. In fact, time went by so quickly, that I over-stayed my visa entry allowance by 18 days. When I realized this, I made a trip to immigration, thinking that it would be a quick fix. I would pay the exorbanant fee that was brought on by nothing but my own stupidity and irresponsibility (so I really couldn't be mad about it), buy a proper visa, and extend my stay in Thailand a few weeks. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I could only obtain a 7 day visa after over-staying as I had, and that in order to obtain a 15 day visa, I needed to leave the country. Immediately. Because they charge 500 baht for each day that you stay over in their country. This is how they trap all the drunken Westerners who come here to blow their pension on cheap beer and cute girls. I am not one of those. I am just impossibly irresponsible for no good reason sometimes. Anyways, so from the immigration office, I had no choice but to get a taxi to the bus station, and hop on the next bus to Cambodia. After a 5.5 hour ride, I arrive at the border, and after a quite expensive hour I make it through customs and back again, catching a taxi back to the bus station just in time to make the last bus back to Bangkok. The ride home didn't take quite as long, but all together what started out as a 2 hour errand turned into a 15 hour day trip to another country. And as I was standing on the other side of the Cambodia border, I reached into my purse for my camera to document the fact that indeed I was there, even if it was only for 10 minutes, and my battery was dead. Of course.
I'm so sad to be leaving Bangkok. I had gotten used to spending a lot of time alone, but now that I've been hanging out with friends all the time, I remembered how wonderful it is to share traveling with someone. I mean, when you're alone, you have no one to laugh with at your blunders, and no one to commit them with either! I've eased my anxiety by booking my stay in Bali and am going to continue with diving and get my advanced open water certification. I've also booked my first five days in Hawaii and I'm starting to get really excited about it :) The faster time moves, the closer I am to returning to the States and to real life...that part is not so easy to get excited about, but I'm working on it.
That's it for now...more later, from Bali!

9.22.10 - Continued (Mis)Adventures in Cooking and Speaking Thai

I have now successfully finished three cooking classes, which is enough to obtain a certification in Thai cooking! Yay...except that I thought I had to take five classes to get certified, and my instructor wasn't prepared with my certificate the day of my third class, so I didn't receive my certificate. I will either just pop by the school to pick it up, or I will take another class. I haven't decided yet. It is funny how the dynamics of each class are entirely different depending on the people who are in it. For example, the first class we were a large group of mixed ages but mostly older people. The second class was mostly young people, and mostly Americans. I knew from the moment we were in the market and they wouldn't stop making jokes about the shapes of the eggplants, and by their near-constant commentary over the instruction of the teacher, that it was going to be a long and embarrassing class. And I was correct. By the end of the class our instructor was so exasperated by the loudness, rudeness and apparent oblivion of the American boys to the latter two offenses (well to be fair one of the obnoxious ones was Canadian, but went to high school in the states), that he picked out the quietest student in the class, a German girl sitting next to me, and asked her, "Where are you from? I like you! You are my favorite, so quiet, always listening when I am teaching" and then ended his little rhetoric with a scathing glare at the American boys. They were young, rich boys from the West coast; if these were their only offenses it would have been fine. But to make matters worse, they were fresh out of college and still under the notion that their status as college basketball players actually acquitted them from having to act like normal human beings in real life. It was made all the more note-worthy by the fact that the boys were totally unfazed by our instructor's exasperation, and would actually make comments like, "Is this guy for real?" and "This guy is a total zoo" when he left the room. While it is true that the instructor is a bit eccentric (he's actually very sarcastic, which is funny only because most Thai people are too polite to make fun of others so blatantly), describing him as "a total zoo" didn't quite seem to fit the description, especially because the reason he was being so sarcastic and biting was because of them! But I guess they didn't realize that, as they hadn't experienced classes without themselves in it. I had, and I wished for more of them.

Fortunately, my third class was more like the first, with a group of mostly older people and a few young ones, and only one other American who was as unobtrusive and enjoyable as the basketball players were the opposite. I also met a lovely old Swiss man, who having worked for 50 years at a school for mentally challenged children, was granted an extra 1 month paid vacation. His wife, who is a translator for the deaf at five different schools, could not find five people to replace her and so was unable to accompany him on his holiday. She also apparently hates to fly, so I don't think she really begrudged his going. He was so full of excitement and wonder about everything, and was going to take a few different classes so he could go home and cook for his wife. In addition to him and the American, there was a group of three young Korean girls who were on holiday together; they were so funny, a South African lady whose husband had to come to Bangkok on business and she accompanied him for a holiday, a French woman whose husband was also there on business, and a very shy Scottish man who took the better part of the day to come out of his shell. The dynamics of this class were so fun, and so different from the one before, that I think the food even tasted better.

And then there is Thai class. I had a good week last week; I felt like I was getting the hang of some things, like I could make myself understood, and we all were all laughing and having a good time discussing how much things cost, and where we are from, and if our parents are nice, etc. Then Thursday came and my teacher was a different lady, and I couldn't understand a word she said. She didn't enunciate things the way the other teacher had; in fact she talked as a normal Thai speaking person talks. And for about the first hour I had to remind myself that I am of average intelligence, that I am not, in fact, very stupid. After I got used to the way that she spoke I was able to grasp things more quickly, but it was quite a frustrating first hour of class. Then, on this past Monday, after a weekend comprised of staying out dancing till 5am, shopping all day Saturday, going out with the girls for more dancing, and then sightseeing all day on Sunday, I was exhausted. And the room was such a nice temperature and we were all talking so quietly that I just could not stay awake!! Which, by the way, is so much more embarrassing when you're sitting at a table with three other people, as opposed to sitting in a lecture hall with 50 other people. It's kind of hard to hide the head-bobbing when you are sitting directly across from your teacher. I was so mortified by this, that I have vowed to spend my evening tonight studying Thai in preparation for my class tomorrow, so I must go get started!!

9.11.10 - Myself as a Thai: speech impediments and cooking genius

It has been a week of discovery this week! I had my first Thai language class this week, and I am struggling! That is to put it kindly. To put it accurately, I sound like a 2 yr old with severe cognitive impairment when I attempt to conversate in Thai. I'm not sure if that is a very politically correct way of saying it, but it really is the truth. The class is small (two other students beside myself) but I missed one day of class as I signed up late, so they already had the advantage over me. And, they are Japanese, so I have a feeling that the vowel sounds and the idea of tonality might not be as foreign to them as it is to me. All of this is just me trying to make myself feel better about my absolute hopelessness regarding the acquisition of Thai, which it doesn't seem to be accomplishing anyways so I'll stop now. But I know how to count in Thai, which has given me more incentive to shop; I must practice my numbers after all, and what better way is there? It funny though, my homework for the weekend was to compose and answer 10 questions in Thai. We aren't learning the Thai alphabet (which I'm really sad about) so it's written with English letters and accent marks to denote the tonal changes. We learned how to describe things, and the nice part about it is that to compose these sentences you don't have to conjugate any verbs. In fact, to say, "is your shirt new?" you say literally "shirt yours new, no?" and if the answer is yes you say "shirt new", if the answer is no you say "shirt not new". There is no "is", there is no verb at all actually. But the word for new is "mai" and the word for no is "mai" and the only difference is your tonal inflections. Here is where all the trouble comes. So, I have to confess, I was hoping that Thai cooking would come a little easier to me than the Thai language. Having now done both my first language class and my first cooking class, I would venture to say that Thai cooking is the exact antithesis of the Thai language. It is uncomplicated, easy, and you can adjust it to your personal tastes as needed. Ah if only everything were so easy and produced such amazing results! I am about to lapse into a food coma, so I want to get this out before I do. I had the most amazing morning! First we went to the market, and bought our materials. We got little lessons on the herbs and vegetables used in Thai cooking, then we walked back to our kitchen and began a marathon of cooking. We made 5 different dishes, all of them (other than the rice which was made for us in a rice cooker) in one single wok over a single flame. The key is the fresh ingredients, and then everything else is so simple you wouldn't believe you get the results you do with that little equipment and time! You can add or take away spice, sweetness, bitterness and salty as you think necessary, as all four of these flavors are always present in Thai food, in what seems to always be the perfect balance. We made tom yum soup, pad thai, chicken salad with sticky rice, green curry with vegetables and chicken and for desert a turnip diced and tossed in tapioca flour, cooked, and served in sweet coconut milk. And maybe my favorite part was that all the coconut milk for the recipes we made by hand from shaved dry coconut! So yummy! Another really great part is that I made a friend!!! She is from the Philippines, and she is in Bangkok for work for a month, so we made plans to do touristy things together on the weekends. All in all it was a very satisfying day. And it's only halfway over!! After Julia gets off work tonight, we are planning to head out for a little bit of Bangkok night life with Anna, so I must go rest up a little bit... I am planning on doing lots of dancing to work off the 5 course meal I cooked and ate today, and if I'm going to spend an evening in high heels, I better not be tired and cranky!

9.6.10 - Bangkok

I can't believe a week has passed by in Bangkok already! Julia is back at work this morning, and it looks like this week she won't even have Sunday off so I will be left to my own devices all week long. Fortunately, I have learned how to pronounce the name of the drop-off point for the motor-bike drivers, so I now can get home after running errands. I start cooking classes on Saturday, and I'm really excited about that. It should include a trip to the market, a lecture on Thai ingredients and methods, and then a few hours of cooking...and best of all, I get to keep all my results! Perhaps I'll save some for Julia, perhaps I'll eat them all myself before I even make it home, I don't know. Only time will tell.
Today I'm going to investigate some options for Thai language classes. As I have mentioned in the past, I've been getting started here at home with looking up some Thai language lessons online. The most useful ones are obviously those with voice recordings of English phrases translated into Thai. Otherwise if things are just written, I don't know how to read their alphabet, and I certainly don't know how to make all the intonations necessary to communicate. But I have discovered that there is something for every Thai-language need. In my search this morning, I came across the website Thaiforlovers.com, which is exactly what you might expect it to be: cheesy, romantic phrases translated into Thai. No voice recordings, only things that you would cut and paste into a makeshift love letter or valentine's day card. But don't worry, this will really help you develop your inter-cultural relationship. Which leads me to point out one of my observations of Bangkok social life: it is a haven for fat, washed up, middle-aged white men. They love Thailand. Why, you might ask? Because while Western women view them as how I have just described them (one might say we see them as they really are), Thai women see them as walking dollar signs. This might be a bit of a harsh assessment, but it is the only reason I can think of that would account for the fact that the vast majority of mixed couples I see here are composed of beautiful, young, manicured Thai woman, and an old, fat, ugly white man. The men are either blissfully ignorant of this perceptual difference, or they just don't care because "dude, she's hot". Call me a cynic, but I just don't think that love is blind enough to account for these, um, inequalities. And while Thai men are quite beautiful, somehow I don't think I'm going to have to know how to write "Ten thousand times farewell-yet stay a while. Sweet, kiss me once: sweet kisses time beguile" in Thai. So I will continue in my search for the acquisition of some sort of proficiency in the Thai language. Don't be confused by my use of the word proficiency when I come back to the states not being able to speak a full sentence in Thai. By proficiency I mean being able to count to 10, say hello, goodbye, how much and thank you without being laughed at or unknowingly saying something inappropriate, which, considering the intricacies and complexities of the language, is a feat in and of itself. I'll let you know how it goes.
Yesterday, I went on my first true Thai shopping trip. As my guide Anna (a friend and co-worker of Julia's) explained to me, shopping in Bangkok is not just a means to an end. It is a way of life, a pastime. And I can totally see why. The mall we went to was packed, an amazing amount of products and people crammed into a tiny amount of space. 6 floors of absolute commercial chaos. It was beautiful; there was everything you could ever want and then some. The sad thing for me is that a lot of the clothing shops were "one size fits all" kind of places. Except unlike the massive, flowy outfits that fit under that category in the States, all these clothes were extra small. Apparently "one size fits all" only if you are a tiny Asian woman. And there are no fitting rooms so you don't even have the joy of getting stuck in a garment that is too tight to make you not want to even contemplate trying another one on. Not only are the clothes really tiny, but the stalls themselves are too! At one point I was looking at belts or headbands or something with Anna, and when some other people wanted to come in, all of us had to turn and face each other and shimmy sideways to maneuver ourselves into and out of the store. It struck me that a good 25% of the U.S. population wouldn't even be able to fit into these stores! I'm not exactly slimness personified, but I managed ok; you can imagine though if I were pregnant or had a bit of a beer belly, it could have been a very uncomfortable situation. After a long, arduous day of shopping, Anna and I went for pedicures and manicures at the salon that she frequents. It was wonderful. Top it off with some pad thai, and I went home an exhausted but very satisfied person, if a little more broke than when I left. Until next time ...

8.31.10 - Sawadee Ka, Thailand!

After my arrival in Bangkok on the 14th of August, Julia and I headed out on the 16th to the south of Thailand for a two week vacation on the beaches and islands of enchanting Thailand. It was an amazing two weeks, filled with so much amazing food, drinks, dancing, beach-bathing, sunsets, sunrises, boat rides, motor bike riding, and just a general good time. Now I am back in Bangkok, and have begun the serious business of researching what I want to do while Julia is at work 6 days per week. I have been looking into cooking classes, which I’m thinking of doing once per week. I also have been contemplating the idea of taking Thai language classes.
Learning any new language can be daunting. In fact, Julia and I had a long, inconclusive conversation about the complex irregularities of the English language last night, and the possible means and reasons for the change and development of language. Should the language be made more regular in order to facilitate an easier grasp of converstional English, seeing as how it has become the “universal” language in the sense that it facilitates business and tourist transactions all over the world? Needless to say, neither Julia nor I came to a consensus on the topic. But it did get me thinking about what I love about language, and what makes English so difficult to learn. The English language is full of rules, and then is constantly breaking those rules with exceptions for no apparent reason. We have many tenses, once we don’t even realize we use until we reach the 8th grade and are told that we have been speaking in the present perfect tense. Who knew?
In order to get a better understanding of what I was up against when it comes to learning Thai, I was reading a webpage in which the author stated that Thai is much more simple than English in that respect. There is often no use of past or future tense – everything is in the present tense, and the meaning is changed only by the words used in the sentence (ie the verbs do not need to be conjugated, but always remain constant, and time is delineated by the use of the words “will”, “already” or “in the past”). There are no masculine or feminine nouns as there are in Latin languages. There are no articles or particles (a, and, the), and there is no plural. So by reading this first page you start to think that learning Thai might actually be an attainable goal. This of course is before you have ever tried to speak Thai to a Thai person. Once you have done this you understand why so many Westerners don’t even bother. Although the grammar and syntax of Thai might be more simple, the tonal variations and the vowel sounds of the words are so complex that to the untrained ear you might not ever hear the difference between one word that is spelled the same, but when pronounced in different tones can mean completely different things. The author of this article gives a good example:
“A word can have several meanings depending on the tones, for example the sentence 'mai mai mai mai mai' (with varying tones), can mean the ‘new wood doesn’t burn does it?’. This is where the confusion sets in, such as the word kii, which could mean ‘ride’ or ‘shit’ depending on which way you say it. Even worse is the similarity between glai, where only a falling tone differentiates the meaning from ‘near’ and ‘far’.” (http://www.1stopbangkok.com/speak_thai/tones/, 2008)
So, perhaps at this point you can understand why I am sitting in my apartment writing about the complexities of the Thai language. If not, let me elaborate. I know how to get to the train station. I know how to buy a ticket, what stop to get off at to enjoy some food, go shopping, or visit Julia at her job when she gets off work. I know how to say hello and thank you. I know where the grocery store is, and where the open air night market is. But, once I am done with all of these things and I want to catch a motor bike back to the apartment, I don’t know how to pronounce the name of the drop off point! I can get myself to any number of locations, do any number of things, but I can’t tell the driver how to get me home. Of course I’m not going to sit here in the apartment all day until Julia comes home from work. I’m going to go out and give it a try anyways, once I have done my yoga and gotten properly attired (Thai women always look fabulous I have discovered, and short of wearing high heels, I’m going to try to look fabulous as well if I have to leave the house) I’m going to go shopping and cook dinner for Julia and I tonight. I’m going to make green curry with vegetables and rice, one of our favorite dishes. Not from scratch of course because I don’t have the utensils to make the green curry paste myself, but I’ve discovered that anything with copious amounts of coconut milk in it is just by nature absolutely delicious. Thai food is amazing! Ah well, wish me luck ☺

8.13.10 - Delhi continued

Ahhh so now that I’ve been home, washed the dirt off my face, arms, legs and feet, and slept in my jail cell that I’ve become rather fond of, I feel much better about my trip to Agra yesterday. The plus side of the non-A/C seating was that on the way back to Delhi, I had the whole bench to myself and could stretch out and sleep – it was fabulous. Especially when we stopped for 2 hours so that the rest of the tour group could visit some obscure temple to honor Krishna, whose birthday it was. We had stopped in his birth town for dinner earlier (I had the most tasty samosas and chai ever, and also walked around town with a guide to find the world’s most well-hidden ATM to pay back my benefactor) and I got to watch a terribly cheesy movie depicting Krishna’s kidnapping and reappearance, which I’m assuming is typical to this season. It’s a bit like Christmas in the States I guess; people are all out on the town, shopping for each other and for offerings to leave at the temple, decked out with strands of jasmine in their hair and beautiful sarees on. It was a nice cultural experience, and a few of my fellow travelers took the time to explain to me where we had stopped and why it was important. But when we pulled up to the place where they would go to the temple, nobody told me what was happening and everyone just piled into autos and left. I decided that I would just as soon stay in the bus and sleep. Also it was the perfect opportunity to pee in the woods, which I did promptly once I discovered we would be stopped there waiting for a few hours. All in all, it wasn’t a terrible trip. I arrived back to my cell at 4 in the morning and was able to sleep a few more hours before the heat made it unbearable.
Delhi is hot. Really hot. And dusty. And I think the entire city is under construction; everywhere you go there are roads being torn up, two lanes of traffic being funneled through a passageway barely big enough for one lane of traffic. There are cranes, backhoes, and piles upon piles of dirt which all turn to massive mud puddles when the deluge of rain comes. All of this has the combined effect of making me exceedingly glad that I’m leaving tomorrow. But for now I’m going to make the best of my time here. I’m off to use the internet, then go exploring. Tata!