Planes, Pachyderms and Pad Thai

After our trip to Palawan, Robby headed back out to the field while my sister and I continued our travels by jetting off to Thailand.  I'm going to take you all to Thailand with me as Robby was basically doing much of the same.  He was out on the boat all day collecting and doing dissections in the field whenever possible!

Christy and I flew into Bangkok and spent our first two days there. On our first day we decided to explore the Grand Palace. On the way there we were stopped by a man that very much looked to be working there, as he was stationed at one of the many gates into the place.  He informed us there was a service being held and the palace wouldn't open to the public for two more hours.  He asked if we had a map and then made a suggestion as to what we could do in the meantime, pointing out several spots on our map.  He suggested a river cruise through the canals of Bangkok that ended at another temple.  We thanked him, figuring it would be a good way to pass the time and he explained to us how to get there. 

We hopped in the rickshaw that was waiting by the curb and he took us to the port to meet the boat.

When we arrived there were no other tourists waiting for the boat, which was in sort of a side street, which struck us both as strange. But the man there told us the price of the cruise, which was a bit steep but it was basically the same tour that had been described to us so we decided to do it anyway.  We managed to negotiate the price down a little and hopped in!  

We were the only ones on this giant boat.

We passed many others that were essentially empty as well cruising around.

The tour took us through many parts of Bangkok, though I'm not sure exactly which as our boat operator never really gave a tour.  He just sat back and drove so we tried to take in everything we were passing by.

I did not realize how many waterways there were in Bangkok, or how much they are used to get around the city.

While ours was a tour boat, there were water taxis that would take you across to the other side of the largest canal or to different parts of the city, like a bus route.

We passed some beautiful homes that were right on some of the smaller canals.

There were also many homes that were not as nice, but still were in a great location.

Almost all of the homes had one of these in the backyard.

Some were more decorated than others, but almost every home had one.

Even some of the businesses we passed had them.

We learned later that what we were seeing is what is known as a spirit house.  Thai people keep them in their homes and places of business to give the spirits that occupy that space a place to stay.  They also leave things for the spirits such as food and honor them in different ways as they believe it will bring luck and good fortune to them and their families, or place of business.  

There were many locals out paddling in their boats through the canals as well, shuttling different goods with them.

We were taken to a floating market that, due to the holiday (Easter for us, we were confused as to if there was a Thai holiday also happening or if it was due to Easter) only consisted of two boats, but I bought something from one of them more for the novelty of the shop than the actual piece (though it was nice, a wooden elephant with pretty carvings in its back).

We also passed by the "fish feeding area" where people were tossing bread into the water as we would for ducks back home.  It was actually pretty gross, the water was crawling with hundreds of really gross looking long, skinny, slimy fish.  Possibly catfish, but we were unsure.  Peculiar thing, but the fish definitely knew where to spend their day! 

The tour ended with us crossing the main waterway, with a neat view of the downtown skyline, and we were unloaded at a dock (on the opposite side of where we needed to be of course) where we had to pay more to go up to a temple. 

We had no real desire to go into the temple, and decided to peruse the vendors set up outside instead.

We found some really nice artwork, this man chiseled elephants and other scenes out of leather.  

After doing quite a bit of shopping, we figured out how to take a taxi back across the canal to the side with the Grand Palace and did some more shopping.

Mostly for food this time though! We had some delicious Pad Thai from a street vendor.  
The food in Thailand is amazing!

After lunch, we headed to see the reclining Buddah. 

A beautiful statue,

That was housed in a beautiful and incredibly ornate temple.

The complex also had some unusual but gorgeous architecture.

 From there we headed back toward the Grand Palace as it had been a couple of hours and we assumed it would be open again.  After getting directions, we set out for the palace.

On our way we were stopped by an unassuming man who asked where we were headed.  He informed us that the Grand Palace was actually closed today and that he could show us on our map other temples and things we could go to as well as a really nice cashmere shop he knew of.  I explained to him that we didn't really have time as we were catching a train and asked if maybe we could do a shorter version of his itinerary, while trying to figure out why the Palace was now closed.  He started to become adamant that we could not cut out the cashmere shop and if we didn't go there than he wouldn't take us on the rest of the tour.  I was trying to negotiate this with him when Christy jumped in and said essentially alright fine then we won't go, goodbye.  I asked her what the abrupt end to that was all about, and she said "do you remember that sign you saw in our hotel last night?"

The sign had told guests to ask the front desk for taxi or rickshaw drivers, as many locals would scam tourists and have take them to a destination or tour owned by a friend where the tourist would be charged more and the driver would get a kickback.  As we were discussing this we turned the corner and saw the massive line of buses and tourists pouring into the Grand Palace.  It was open, and had been all day.

It was around this moment that we both realized that not only had this guy lied to us, but we had been completely scammed earlier in the morning by the other guy telling us the palace was not opening for a couple more hours.  That port we were taken to was his buddy's and we had fallen for the scam completely.  Writing about it now I'm sure you are all wondering how we could have been so naive (or are concerned about our safety), but neither one of us ever felt unsafe and these people just wanted to make some money, their intent was not any more malicious than that.  I was pretty surprised by the audacity of these guys, we had not run into this sort of problem in the Philippines as the tourism industry is not as big and con-artists are not very prevalent.  As such, my guard was completely down, as was my sisters who had just come from a week with the friendly, open and incredibly helpful Filipinos.  Oh well, lesson learned.  We got some pretty cool artwork out of the deal as well as a nice tour and delicious food, I'm not even mad about it!

The Grand Palace was a huge complex of temples, filled to the brim with tourists, as well as incredibly ornate buildings and statues. 

Everywhere you turned the buildings were covered with intricate carvings

as was everything else in the complex: easily the most unique lamppost I've ever seen!

The palace itself was gorgeous with well manicured grounds.

It was also guarded at every entrance.

 I wish I could tell you more about the history of the palace, but the place to get the audio tour had closed by the time we arrived and all of the plaques were in Thai so we were left simply admiring the beauty of the architecture with no real concept of its history or original purpose.

After our whirlwind tour of Bangkok, we boarded an overnight train to take us north to the town of Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai is a large city that is in the mountainous region in the northern part of Thailand.  The train we took was really comfortable, my only complaint was that they kept the lights on the entire night!

Our seats folded down into a bed, and the second bed dropped down from the ceiling.

 We arrived at around 10 the next morning so we had the whole day to explore.  We took a local taxi, very similar to the jeepneys in the Philippines, to take us up into the surrounding mountains to check out a temple we were told had beautiful views.

The taxi was just a truck with a covered bed and seats in the back.

As we were leaving to go the owner of our hotel told us that the mountains are usually visible from Chiang Mai and he pointed in the direction of them.  The sky was a grey haze which we had assumed was due to it being overcast, but he told us it was actually smoke.  Evidently, the mountain farmers practice slash and burn agriculture and it was burning season so the air was thick with smoke from the fires, so much smoke that the mountains weren't visible.  Insane!  We decided to give the temple a try anyway, but when we reached the top it was just as bad.  You could not see Chiang Mai or much of anything so we just wandered around the temple.

There were a lot of areas for prayer and we actually were invited to sit and join in while a monk did a short blessing which entailed some chants and being showered with a bit of water for good luck.

After leaving the temple we wandered around the shops, it was a lot of touristy junk, but one vendor caught my eye. 

They were selling friend bugs! Roaches, grasshoppers, you name it.  We weren't brave enough to try, they were way too big!

Christy and I had planned a lot for our time in Chiang Mai. The next day we went to the Elephant Nature Park and spent the day with the elephants!  The elephants used to be used in the logging industry to haul logs, but that was outlawed as the elephants were overworked and abused.  This law left a lot of elephants, and owners, with a problem: they were not wild elephants and were acclimated to humans and their owners had paid for them.  As a result, the tourist industry was where a lot of owners turned and they sold/leased elephants to operations that allowed tourists to go for rides and treks on the backs of elephants.  Evidently, elephants cannot handle riders (their backs are not as strong as a horse's is) so this practice is also detrimental to the health of the animals.  This is a big draw for a lot of tourists however, so the industry is still thriving.  Christy and I didn't want to be a part of that, so we opted to go to an elephant sanctuary where a woman started a reserve for injured/abused elephants.  As they cannot be released back into the wild, they are cared for by humans but tourists can come and feed them and take part in their daily activities: eating, walking, eating, bathing in mud, eating, bathing in water, eating, eating, and a bit more walking.  What this meant for us is that we basically spent the day feeding the elephants!

Elephants are my favorite so I was beyond excited!

We started the day feeding the elephants watermelon.

They'd eat them two or three halves at a time.

We would place the food in their trunks, or well I should say their trunks found the food and then we let go of it as they grabbed it.

We had plenty of time for photos as they munched away. (And yes I am wearing an elephant shirt for my day with the elephants!)

So photogenic!

So much happy!

After feeding them we walked a ways, feeding them as we went.

We were each given a bag full of bananas which meant the elephants followed along right by your side!  

You had to be careful as they sometimes would edge you into a tree or off the path and they also got dangerously close to stepping on your toes.

If you weren't fast enough getting the bananas out, they weren't shy about searching for them!

Once you ran out they continued poking around with their trunks expecting more.

Eventually, you  had to push their trunks (and them) away as they would not stop searching your bag and hands for food.  Once they realized we were all out they (we spent the day with a group of 5 elephants) left us and went and hung out in a mud puddle spraying it onto their backs.  Our guide told us they use the mud as sunscreen, so they are constantly scooping mud, or even dry dirt, up and spraying it onto their backs.  So smart!

We then went on another walk with the elephants (we were given more bananas thankfully!)

Christy took a selfie with the elephants.  While walking.  Easily could have cost her a  foot.  Worth it? 
At least he smiled for her!

We stopped our walk on top of a hill for lunch while the elephants went off with their mahout (elephant trainer).  After lunch we walked back down the hill and to the river for bath time!   

We showered the elephants with buckets of water while they stood still eating hunks of what I believe was sugar cane. 

When the food ran out they started bathing themselves and spraying water all over.  Such a cool thing to witness, their trunks make for incredible hoses!

We fed them again after the bath.  These guys eat SO much!

Next we walked back to where we had started the morning, some of the elephants grabbed snacks along the way as we were fresh out of bananas again.

When we got back we returned our bags. One elephant came in and started rummaging through all the bags looking for even more bananas!

This place has to keep soooo many bananas around!  I don't know how they can afford them all!

At the end of the day we were taken to another area that had play toys and scratching posts and other things, that housed another small herd of elephants.

This group had a baby with them!  We got to watch as they bathed and the baby played in the water.  It was so incredible, the whole group looked after the little guy and were very protective/semi-aggressive if we got too close.

The next day we took a Thai cooking class.  We learned to make all sorts of Thai food.  Our chef was this crazy Thai lady who was easily the most upbeat and peppy person I've ever met.  She was cracking jokes and being ridiculous the entire time which made the day even more fun.  We did the class on a farm a short drive outside of Chiang Mai so we got to walk around and see all of the different plants, mostly spices, that we then used in our cooking.  One plants leaves tasted exactly like pad thai, I had no idea it was a plant that gave that dish it's distinct flavor!

We started the day making our own curry paste.

I learned that yellow is the mildest curry, then green curry, followed by red curry as the spiciest.  Our chef danced around adding extra chilis to anyone that said they liked spice, even a little.  I put no chilis in mine.

The result was that my yellow curry turned out delicious (and edible) while I watched everyone else around the table sweat and sip lots of water as they ate theirs.  Christy said her red curry was delicious as well though!

Since you couldn't really tell from above, this is what went into the curry.  Thai food is pretty basic, though making curry paste takes a lot of pounding and grinding!

We each had our own station to prepare our food.

Aside from curry, we also made two different kinds of soup, pad thai, cashew chicken, egg rolls, and then for dessert I made a dish with bananas in coconut milk and Christy made mango sticky rice.

Such beautiful presentation!

Definitely going to purchase a wok when I get home, Thai food is so easy and so delicious!

Our next day we spent walking around Chiang Mai doing some more shopping.  As I said before, I love elephants, and in Thailand elephants are a symbol of good luck so there is elephant everything available for sale.  I went a little crazy.  I got many, many pieces of artwork (mostly paintings) and the majority of them were of elephants.  I couldn't help myself, the paintings were all pretty unique and Christy and I have essentially the same taste so it was difficult sometimes deciding who would get which piece.  At one point we actually commissioned an artist to make a painting for us as we both liked one that he had done, but it was way to big, so we had him make smaller ones for us.

We got different colors so we didn't end up with the exact same painting.  A little funky/different, but he made them for us in two days.  So nice!

Before heading out of the city that evening (we were heading up into the mountains for a "hill-tribe holiday") we stopped by Catmosphere Cafe.  Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like.  In Asia evidently cat cafe's are a big thing.  

You order drinks and the cats just do as they please.

This one was into your drink in the blink of an eye if you turned away so I gave him some on my spoon.

I think they should open up one of these cafe's in the U.S. except with dogs that need to be adopted. Anyone want to give me some startup money for that business?

As I mentioned above, next up was a "hill-tribe holiday" which meant that we went up into the mountains to where the hill tribes (mountain villages) are located. 

After catching a van to a town even further into the mountains, we met up with our private tour guide.

Our guide was from one of the local hill tribes (actually from the one where we spent the night with a host family) and he showed Christy and I around the area for two days.

The first day started with a visit to a temple (duh) and another Buddah statue.

We then spent the morning hopping around town buying food for dinner.  We were taken to a local market and bought all of the veggies for our dinner.  

We then were taken to a local "factory" where the 5 or so women running it make fresh noodles every day. 

 We got to see the whole operation.  It started with grinding up the rice to make flour and then adding water to that flour to make a paste.  Then, the paste was churned in a machine,

and sucked up and sprayed out into a pot of boiling water.

I say sprayed because it looked like a shower nozzle on the end that made long skinny strands which turned to pasta as they hit the water!

Then the pasta was scooped out with a basket and run under cold water.

To keep the water constantly boiling, they had the pot over a type of furnace.  Here she is shoveling in wood chips to keep the fire burning! 

After it cools the pasta is separated into piles and placed on a large table to be sold.  They made enough to sell out each day and no more, so it was never packaged.  We got there early to pick up ours as our guide said they usually run out.

Once we purchased all of our food, we set out for the mountain villages.  Our first stop was a hill tribe where we visited the local blacksmith.

He specialized in making knives/machetes.

While we were there he was just sharpening the blades, but we also got to see a few he added new handles to.

 They were massive, my hand hardly fit around the handle!

After that little side trip, we headed to a hill tribe known for its coffee.  They planted their own and sold it, but they also offered to brew civet coffee.

The civet coffee bean is taken out of the poop of the civet cat (closely related to a mongoose) and then prepared like any other coffee bean!

Evidently they love coffee plants and when you take the bean out of their poo it makes for great coffee.  Who knew?  

I'm not a coffee drinker so I don't have a taste for these things, but according to Christy the poo coffee is really good!

The coffee that is grown here was for sale, but is also actually sold in bulk to Starbucks!

Here is the owner with his Starbucks cup and bag of his coffee with the Starbucks logo!  

It's pretty impressive that Starbucks was able to find this place.  It's in the middle of nowhere, but evidently this tribe has always been known for its coffee so word got around!  After having coffee and eating lunch, our guide took us around the village to see what was going on and to get a feel for what the hill tribes are like.

Most of the roads are just dirt paths that you walk around.

While we were walking we came across a group of women on a porch weaving, in the same way they have been for hundreds of years.  We watched them for several minutes, it was really cool to see how it is done!

Our guide also pointed out these tall skinny trees, Betel trees, that locals chew the leaves of.  It is a very similar addiction to tobacco we were told.

We also came across the local school, both the Thai alphabet and the Roman alphabet on the wall!

It was nap time when we arrived so the kids were asleep in their bug net tents.

Here is a look at one of their homes, underneath most homes the families kept their animals.

There were so many baby pigs!

In cages or just fenced in underneath the house.

There were also roosters and baby chicks everywhere!

A lot of families had one of these near their home as well. 

It is used to break the brown shell off of rice after it is dried so the white grain can then be stored.

We spent the remainder of the day meandering through the mountains and stopping off at different villages and overlooks.

I'll just give you a quick rundown of things we got to see.

More traditional garments being made,

 and sold.

Rice terraces,  rice terraces, and rice terraces.

As well as rice terraces that had recently been burnt or were burning.

We saw first hand why it was so hazy down in Chiang Mai, entire sides of mountains were being burned!

There were also places where farm land was a little less mountainous.

We got to see a government project where seeds are planted

and the seedlings are then grown under a greenhouse before the plants sold to locals.

Aside from rice we saw all sorts of crops, here I believe is passion fruit.

Out on the farms, families also have built spirit houses for those spirits on their land.  These were not as ornate as the ones in the city, but the same principle.

We ended the day in our guide's village and were taken to our host families house.  They had four children living at home, ranging in age from around 5 to 18 years old.  All of them were a lot of fun and super friendly.  Their family farm has a lot of kidney beans so when we arrived they were sorting the beans their mom had picked that day.  

Basically they were just sifting through and throwing out any bad ones, which we decided we could handle so we joined them!

Our host brother, around 10 years old, sorting through the beans.

The youngest one was also helping!

After awhile we then all transitioned into preparing dinner.  Everyone helped.

Either with peeling the veggies (her arm almost got peeled as well!)

or chopping up the veggies (Christy with our host sister, around 15 years old)

or with chopping up the meat (above is our tour guide!)

Once we were done, all the peelings and scraps were taken down the road to their pig pen and dumped on in!

And all of the good stuff was left for us.

Oh I almost forgot, this is our families house:

Underneath where Christy is standing is an open air basement that had two rooms and the bathrooms and is where we stayed.

Behind Christy is a long hallway that has a door leading off to a large room (which then has two smaller bedrooms) and another door leading into the kitchen. The hall wraps around the back of the house so it is also essentially a wrap around porch.
Some photos to help you visualize that:

Here is that long hallway that was behind Christy, the first door to the large room and bedrooms is on the left there.

Here is the room.  We ate dinner on the floor while a TV in the corner played a Thai movie.

This is further down the hallway. As you walk down, on the right hand side there is a sink which overlooks their neighbors' homes.

Here is where the hall wraps around the back of the house.  No furniture, we just sat on mats.  
You very much felt like you were in a tree fort!

The kitchen was really just a room with a fire pit on the floor.

We helped as best we could, but had to keep taking turns as it was hot and you tired pretty quickly since you had to squat to get close enough to stir!

While dinner finished cooking the kids took us on a walk around the village. 

Lots of ups and downs to get around.  "Hill" tribe is definitely more a descriptive name than a creative one.

They took us to the 10 year old's school 

and to a temple with a tower that housed a big gong.

The sun was setting during our walk which made for a beautiful view over the mountains.  When we returned we had dinner and then went to bed, as we had to be up early the next morning with plans to join the family at their farm.

Christy and I learned a lot while on the farm the next day.

Starting with how a farm can be on the side of a mountain, which makes picking and planting the fields a bit more challenging.

We also learned what kidney beans look like.

And the tool required to cut the pods loose from the plant (I didn't catch the name unfortunately).

We took our turn getting in there and hacking away at them.

The hardest part was figuring out how to hack or pick without slipping down the hill.

We also found out that most families have a hut on their farm land where they can get some shade, take a nap and  cook meals while taking a break from farming.

We also got to see the lengths they go through to cover themselves up from the sun.  

The girls took it to a whole other level.

We also found out that our host family (and most Thai's) eat an insane amount of chili peppers.  Just one of these little guys was my sister's limit, and she loves spicy food!  They go through this entire bag  in about a week!

Our guide also picked off what looked like a husk of corn, but after opening it we discovered that it is basically a loofa!  They come right off the plant ready to be used!

Aside from all the farming knowledge, I also got lessons on how to use a sling shot from our host brother.

Though I was terrible.  I never hit my target and we used all of the rocks in the nearby vicinity.  

After that failure, I taught him a few puzzles which ended up taking all the siblings (and several clues) to solve.

For lunch we had a delicious spread, and most of the food and seasoning came from the farm!  Papaya salad, potato with lemongrass, chicken with herbs and some greens.

That about summed up our hill-tribe holiday, here is us with the whole family!

After saying goodbye, our guide took us back to town to catch a van to Chiang Mai.

On the way we stopped by a bank to pay him and Christy just casually waited behind a monk while he finished his withdrawal.  

I, naively, thought monks were only at temples or in the monastery studying.  Evidently anyone can practice being a monk. They are required to wear the traditional garb and follow many, many rules.  One of those rules is that they cannot touch women.  Christy had to stop me from tapping one and asking for a photo as they apparently have to do a whole ritual if they come in contact with a woman. 

After arriving back in Chiang Mai we found a place close to our hotel for dinner. 

The only one open was a place known for their birds nest soup and shark fin soup.

After spending so much time with Robby, I'm now well aware of how the coveted shark-fin soup has decimated the shark populations in this area of the world, so I didn't allow myself, or Christy, to order it.  I have to admit it was cool to see what their fins look like though, above were two on ice in the restaurant!

Well that about does it for our adventures in Thailand.  For the video version check out the link:

https://youtu.be/lCO7k3OXS44

The fun fact I'm going to leave you all with today is the same fun fact I came back to after our hill-tribe holiday: a text from Robby telling me that the air compressor broke.

So why is this such a fun fact?  Well, remember the recon mission we went on back in February where we went up and down the coast of Zambales stopping in at every municipality and asking them a series of questions and doing an initial survey of the MPA?  Yes?  Well, one of those questions was: where can we fill our scuba tanks?  We asked multiple times and in multiple ways: Do you have an air compressor?  Where is the nearest one?  Are there any others?  On and on the questions around air compressors went and after asking every official, in all 10 municipalities, we arrived at one answer:

Masinloc.

The municipality of Masinloc had the only air compressor around. The only other air compressors in the province were located at the very bottom of the province, in Subic, where local dive shops exist and thus have compressors.  Our sites are all in the northern part of the province so Subic is a 3-4 hour bus ride from our sites.  Not close.  Not really even feasible to get to when you take into account the fact that we don't have a car and need to fill 10 scuba tanks daily.  So, a broken air compressor in Masinloc essentially means no air. 

No air compressor = no scuba tanks = no diving = no collections = no project.

This nightmare to be continued on the next blog....

So glad I got a nice vacation in, but now back to the craziness!