Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays, everybody! I heard that Idaho got a sorta-white Christmas, which is better than nothing. It's certainly better than the warm-and-sunny-with-slight-chance-of-showers Christmas that we had here. We had a very difficult time remembering that it was actually supposed to be Christmas. In our local 7-11 (which are multitudinous in Thailand, by the way) they had some tinsel hanging around the shop and Christmas lights around the cigarette case. That was our first indication, other than the calendar date, that Christmas was approaching.

The Peltons (the missionaries who had us over for Thanksgiving) invited us for Christmas dinner. We had traditional American food which was a nice break from stir fried veggies and rice. Not that stir fry isn't an integral part of every holiday meal. But it was very nice of them and we had a great time.

Sheena employed her 4 years of art education to make the beauty you see pictured below, which added a very "Christmasy" feel to the house we were staying in. It was a nice reminder that the holidays were near.

In other news, we are planning on heading to China very soon. On the 30th we fly from Bangkok to Shenzhen, where we'll meet up with one of our NNU buddies, Isaac Stone, who has been living there teaching English for the last year and a half. We'll spend New Year's Eve there
before heading up to Beijing. The scheme is to get jobs teaching English on the side while working on various and sundry creative projects to build our respective portfolios and digest the place we'll be living in. Beijing should be a very interesting city with the Olympics on their way this August.

Here are a few pictures of things we've done in the past month:

Our Christmas tree (Sheena made it).

Sheena, right before punching me for taking a photo of her.

The outside of Un's house, where we stay. The bamboo makes it feel so delightfully Asian.

A traditional Thai kitchen. Propane stove, rice cooker, & a mortar/pestle combo. And no oven, to Sheena's infinite chagrin.

An old temple in Chiang Mai City.

A young girl decked out in Northern Thai dress. She sits on one of the 309 steps that lead to the summit of the mountain where Wat (Temple) Doi Suthep sits.

A wall fresco at the aforementioned Wat Doi Suthep. Pretty old, we think, but we can't really tell. The temple was founded in 1383, but there's no way to tell how old the present structure is (unless you read Thai, that is).
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Happy Holidays

Greetings everyone, and happy Thanksgiving.

Sheena arrived here a couple weeks ago and we've been having a fun, if relatively uneventful time. She stepped off the plane into the humid, perma-summer climate of Bangkok (from snow, no less), so our first stop was the beach. We headed down to a small island in the Thai gulf called Koh Samet.

It was awful.

Well, the island itself was nice, but it was pretty geared towards tourists aged 40-60 who are traveling with a little more cash than we were. Things like a $15 US fee to get onto the beach, karaoke, or the exorbitant taxi fees really put a damper on our time. When you're used to $3 accommodation and $1 meals, 15 bucks to walk on some sand is just stupid. So, we headed up north, post haste!

We decided Chiang Mai was the place for us, at least for now. It is the second largest city in Thailand, though it has a very small town feel. We are staying with a friend of mine, Un, who I met in Tibet 2 years ago. He had a couple spare bedrooms in his family's house and was gracious enough to let us be bums for about 6 weeks.

We start our TEFL class in about a week, which promises to be grueling. Or at least more grueling than sitting my lazy ass on the beach. Sadly, it runs over Christmas, so we'll have to make our own holiday here.

Things have been pretty uneventful since arriving here. We've met many of Un's friends, learned some Thai, ate lots of delicious Thai food, and even gotten the hang of the local mode of transportation: scooters, or mopeds, or motorbikes, depending on your preference.

One of Sheena's friends from college was a missionary kid from Chiang Mai, and her parents are still here. Sheena contacted them, and they've invited us up to their house for Thanksgiving tomorrow. They promise there will be turkey, the closest thing to football they can find, and very little Thai food. Which, believe it or not, does get old after 2 months straight. It will be really nice to have something familiar for the holidays.

Well, feel free to drop me an e-mail, and happy Thanksgiving!
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Saturday, October 27, 2007

Laos

At long last, I have found a decent enough Internet cafe to post some pictures of my journey so far. I left the islands in the south of Thailand for Laos about a week ago. It's a staggeringly beautiful country full of rivers, mountains, and caves to explore.

I've been spellunking about in Vangvienne. The mountainside is littered with caves large and small that have been used by monks and by peasants hiding from the Vietnam war (which, as I understand, spilled over into Laos a good deal). Above is Nangyuan island in Thailand.
This friendly monk bears a tattoo from his wild youth, which he tells me was centered around wine, women, and football (soccer). Now he spends all day in his quiet retreat behind a waterfall, reading, learning, and praying.

Poaching is still a problem, so the locals befriend tiger cubs and keep them locked in cages for the entirety of their natural lives. What's worse? Long life in a cage, or a short life free...




This is a real picture, of a real place--honest. I think there was a cosmic oversight on God's part to allow so much beauty in one place.



A drive-by photo taken from my rented bike as I searched for some caves to explore.

And the obligatory sunset photo. A fishing boat speeds past on the river as the sun sets. The Laotian mountains are gorgeous spire-like formations with sheer cliff faces, called karst peaks. It's truly otherwordly, like most of southeast Asia.
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Thursday, October 18, 2007

A Scanner Lacking

Against my will, I have decided to change the way I update my blog. While I liked the idea of having an analog journal, it is just too difficult to come across scanners where I am. So from this point forward, it's going to be text with images or photos thrown in when I'm feeling generous.

Since it has been a while since the last update, a quick rundown: I got to Thailand safely, about 3 weeks ago. I wasted no time in getting down to the island of Koh Tao where I was to meet my former-roommate-Steve for some freediving. We did that and it was fantastic. We learned to dive to 20 meters, or 65 feet, on a single breath of air. And we dove to shallower depths for extended periods of time.

My time as a full fledged tourist was a lot of fun, but I quickly realized what a toll it took on my finances. Since I was last in Thailand (2 years ago), the Thai baht strengthened and the dollar weakened, making what was once 20 dollars equal 30 dollars. Naturally, I didn't check how much I was really spending until I was well over my budget. So I had to come up with a quick plan to remedy my stupidity.

The plan: go to Laos. Laos is a country which borders Thailand on the north and east and has only been out of communism for a short time. It has a really interesting and sad history. It will be cheaper for me to live while I await my TEFL course in Thailand and it is also a really amazing place. My bus leaves in an hour for Vientienne, the capital city. I am not entirely sure where I'll go from there, but I'll keep you all updated.

For now, I'm off to have a bite to eat before heading out. Adios!
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Thursday, September 20, 2007

Ramadan

it is ramadan this month. this is when muhammed received the quran. so, for the entire month, all muslims are supposed to observe religious laws strictly such as charity, good will towards others, abstaining from sin, and most importantly: fasting during the daylight hours. this is supposed to bring everybody closer to god and engender attitudes of serenity and peace. what i've discovered so far however is that everyone is just really grumpy. until sundown, when you eat iftar, which is the breaking of the fast. the entire city collectively stops what it is doing to chow down on fried food, and finally stop complaining about how hungry they are.

















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Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Future Plans

i just looked down at my shaking hand (presumably from my cofi 11 espresso) and decided it would not be prudent to leave just yet, until i come off my coffee high at least. some of you may have met my former-roommate-steve before, but for those who haven't, he is the guy who i'm visiting in bangladesh right now. his fulbright scholar grant finishes up within the next couple months and it couldn't be soon enough for him. he is burned out on the country, but more specifically on ngo's in the country. as a remedy for this, i have graciously offered to accompany him to a small island in the thai gulf, called koh tao, so we can learn to free dive for a few weeks. free diving involves learning to control your heart rate and breath so you can dive down to about 50 feet for several minutes on a single breath of air, like pearl divers. it's much safer than it sounds, really. steve and i will be beach-bums until sheena arrives in early november, when we will travel north to chiang mai university to take our t.e.f.l. class. she and i will then have to be respectable and get jobs teaching english. all this will probably go down early to mid october. my hand has finally stopped shaking, so farewell and good health to you all.



















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Coffee in Dhaka

for some odd reason, its impossible to get good coffee in all bangladesh. most places have the instant, nestle crystals, which don't seem very much like coffee at all. that is, until i was referred to cofi 11 but some other expats. apparently, it's one of the 3 places to get a good cup of (western) coffee in this whole gigantic city of 12 million. so here i sit in cofi 11, drinking an espresso and listening to john coltrane. normally, i dislike going to places i could go to very easily in the states. but bangladesh has proved more challenging than i had originally thought. the constant stares really get to you. and these aren't stares of curiosity. they're the kind of stares you get when you were in 2nd grade and the teacher calls for attention but you didn't hear because you were too busy talking to your friend, until you look up and the whole class is staring. just like the coffee shop staff are trained on me right now, intently wondering what i am writing, i am able to tune them out because of the espresso in front of me, jazz in my ears, and the distinctly western aesthetic environment i'm surrounded by.


















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The State of Bangladesh

it has been about 2 and a half weeks now since i arrived in dhaka, bangladesh. i think i finally have a pretty complete picture of what i think about the country. keep in mind that my opinion is heavily colored by the group of expat foreign nationals living in bangladesh ngo workers non-government organizations i hang out with. they are a bunch of incredibly brilliant folks all applying their ample brain power to the problems of the country. while some of them do get to see results, most of them have their efforts frustrated by hostile environmental, social, and political conditions. for instance, the government comes in a solid second place for corruption, with only congo taking the gold medal. environmentally, flooding is a very constant occurrence across the low lying country. there isn't enough space to grow all the food they need, and the infrastructure is under capacity and in disrepair. the bangladesh people have the odds stacked against them and are plagued with a broken government to boot. the country has a good deal of natural beauty, but even this is often choked with pollution and poverty. the only redeeming quality is the people themselves. and yet, depending on your perspective, it is the people (government mostly) who are the biggest problem. and finally, it's really difficult to get a good old fashioned beer since it's an islamic nation. ultimately, bangladesh is not a place you come unless you're working or have something to keep yourself occupied with. bear in mind, i have enjoyed* my time here, i just don't think that i'll be back unless it's in some sort of development context. note: i use the term enjoy loosely. hawaii is a place you enjoy. the carribean is a place you enjoy. bangladesh is not one of those places.




















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Dhaka, 1st Week

I arrive in Dhaka from new york and notice that the country is more or less sea mixed with land, in equal parts. from the ocean, skinny strips of land jut out to mix and tangle with other snakes of land. from the plane, these unruly strips eventually organize themselves into a gridlike pattern in order for farmers to use them for roads to get out to their rice paddies. the order slowly degenerates again as the buildings, slums, and streets of dhaka appear. i happened to fly in right during the middle of a student protest in which the caretaker government shut down all transportation and communications in the city. luckly my former-roomate-steve weasled his way through military checkpoints in the middle of a curfew, on a rickshaw no less. this was very good because i would've had no way to contact him or get to his house, not speaking bangla myself. as we pedaled safely home using our whiteness to get us through checkpoints, my senses were assailed by the great pitri-dish of dhaka. b.o., trash, human waste, and the illicit odor of hashish punched me in the nose. confronted with beggars at every corner, the eeriest were groups of lepers in a rhythmic, monotone chant of god's name--allah, allah, allah--with arms outstretched, asking with hungry eyes who would be the answer to their prayers. you wonder how much heartbreak you're supposed to feel. in the west, we forget that we're all fragile sacks of biology susceptible to disease and decay, an ever present reminder here.



















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Greetings from Bangladesh

I've decided to try an experiment. Rather than sending out mass e-mails updating my trip through Bangladesh and elsewhere, I'm going to include scans from my travel journal. This will help me continue writing even when I don't have internet access and be a little more personal than e-mail. The images are a little small, but you can click on them for a bigger version. And I've tried to keep my handwriting as legible as possible! You can also leave comments or ask questions for each post, and of course, there's always e-mail. Let me know what you think of this system. Thanks!
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