Celebration!

For my two weeks anniversary (an occasion worth celebrating) of surviving Thailand more or less gracefully (you can decide after reading this blog), I treated myself to a spicy tuna salad. Of course this being Thailand, I don't know what to expect. I imagine something along the line of, you know, peppered tuna on a leaf of lettuce or two, but you never really know. After rice for breakfast (with green curry, vegetables and tofu) and rice for lunch (the sticky kind with mango and coconutsauce), I fancied a change, and I must admit, I'm not dissapointed.
I also did a bit of therapy shopping today, because I'm taking preventive malaria-medication and I call this urge a side-effect, next to the sleepiness. Also being forced in a local, hired outfit (I wasn't decent enough to enter the Grand Palace apparently) consisting of a, let's say loosefitting, synthetic blouse combined with a ankle-length wrapskirt (annex picnic-blanket) and almost ditching the 500 Baht deposit so I could keep these items, I realised how bored I am with the clothes that I brought with me.
The mute woman at the stall made some awkward noises, before it dawned on me that she was 'talking' to me. She blew up her mouth and cheeks, holding her arms in an uncharming manner on her hips and sticking out her non-existing belly. I guessed she tried to look like a...snowman? Oh. Or like me, I realized as she frantically pointed towards the rail with the 'large' t-shirts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This would never happen at H&M.
I must be the only tourist in Thailand not losing any weight, but I'm actually finding my clothes tighter as I go along. A fact that has nothing to do with my washbasin-laundry skills, I want to add. Hopefully replacing the Green Ice Teas with water will help. These dearly beloved 'Green' Ice teas contain 13 teaspoons of suger per half liter. I was drinking 2 liters a day. Bare in mind that the iceteas already replaced the ice-coffees (wonderfully delicious, mainly because it consists of condensed milk and even more sugar).
Crap. I don't even like water... Ah well, maybe if I put some in my Ice Teas....

quick recap of the last few days:
Sukothai: lots of ruins, statues and ruined statues.
Bangkok: I met not one, but two Australian backpackers! In their early seventies, brothers-in-law, asking me for directions. Yeah. I know, the irony.
KOC: nobody ever heard of the Moon Star Studios, but I found them and two lovely local students to share the experience (and Erlend-jokes, sorry Erlend) with.

Koh Chang tomorrow, and I plan to get really bored there!

Nice as Pai

So, all my friends that had been to Thailand, told me, no, made me promise to go to Pai. Luckily for me, I actually listened. Pai is a small place in the north part of Thailand, a 4 hour busdrive from Chiang Mai. It's actually what I expected Thailand to be like. It's no wonder you hear stories about tourist going to Thailand to travel, but just end up staying in Pai for the whole trip. Rumour has it, it doesn't get better than this; that's a bit scary, I suppose. Don't worry, I will leave this Pairadise, just not today (as originally planned....). Here's some reasons whai I love Pai:
- you survive the walk over a small bamboo bridge towards a tiny place called the Riverside Bar. Here you can just sit down, sloped against your triangular pillow and eat a nice bowl of muesli, fruit and yoghurt.
- there's Jason Mraz and Bob Marley everywhere.
- the bartenders play Thai checkers on a homemade checkerboard with bottlecaps for pieces (Chang vs. Singha).
- there are no ladies thrusting a wooden frog under your nose, that makes a crickety noise when you rub it with a stick. Don't get the picture? Keep it that way. It's horrible.
- every night is a bonfire night at the Riverside Bar.
- Major electricity black out? No problem, you just pull out your spare candles and have another mojito (for 70 baht)
- there's the cutest little farm at the bottom of a hill, near (i use the term 'near' loosely, because it's a 3,5 hour walk) a waterfall; they grow their own crops, and make you icecoffee or mangoshakes, if you want. Or you can just sit there and watch them cut coconuts and sing another Bob Marley song. Their motto: peace+love=us.




-Police-officers are allowed side-jobs without worrying about conflict of interest (then again, they don't seem to worry about Health and Safety issues either). Like this policeman who dubbs as a guitarplaying singer to supplement on his income..
- it's where 2 Ozzy girls and a German man find you in a cave (with a rather dissapointing waterfall) whilst reading Atomised on a rock, and decide to adopt you like a stray Dutchie-dog.
- Pai is also where you end up with 4 (four!) babycats falling asleep in your lap. And I don't even like cats all that much (I do like kittens....).

leaving Pai makes you realise it's all downhill from here (if you survive the journey of 762 hairpin-curves, that is)

Everybody Pai now....

What more can I say? Ah, yes:


And maybe a little bit of this;

And I almost forgot to tell you about;

Oe, oe, oe, and there's this (of course);

I'll leave you with this one (or two). I have to sign off, polish my helmet, you know...

Homesick (past tense)

Warning for reader: I am now safe and very happy in Pai, but I did feel a bit homesick earlier this week. Since I'm a lousy sugarcoater and I didn't want a 'now I'm in Bangkok and now I'm in Chiang Mai-blog', I will bore you with my feelings.

It hit me when I least expected it. I've actually been waiting for a diarrhea-attack (still waiting...), so when I was pushed and shoved by homesickness, I was unsure on how to fight back and therefor took it like a girl, just lying down really.
Everything was going quite well, met a friendly guy on the nighttrain to Chiang Mai, bumped into him again when we had both rented some bicycles, had a lovely breakfast (him: full English, me: pancake with banana) and cycled through the city. We saw heaps of markets and temples. I mean no disrespect, but the first, let's say three, are impressive: 'Look at the woodcarving', 'wow, it's a dragon', 'amazing buddha'. But the dragons become horses, elephants, tigers etc. The incents smell the same everywhere, the buddhist monks are just men in orange robes checking the internet on their computers and I felt exhausted. Not just tired of temples, cycling, stairs, the heath, but also of my company (not his fault) and mostly of myself. I apologised to my newfound (and lost again) friend and returned to my room in the guesthouse, where I wasn't entire sure what to do with myself.
What did I want? That seems to be the big (reoccuring) question at this time in my life. So what does a girl do when facing these demons and dilemma's (nice title..). She sleeps and then she sleeps some more before posting a distressing status on her Facebook.
Thing was, I received so many do's and don'ts, but no footnotes on how to deal with homesickness. But, for future reference for fellow travellers (and holiday-makers), a small warning:
- you are probably not immune to homesickness. It will happen. When you least expect it, or in my case, when you are very tired.
- diacure doesn't help.
- also do not, I repeat Do Not drown yourself in sorrows (or the River Kwai or any other large quantity of fluids).
- take the advise of my social worker; just walk, take notice of your surroundings, but no! hard! thinking!.
- give in to your exhaustion and sleep it off.
- the moment will pass. This is also the reason nobody tells you about it; because they forget. When you look at the pictures, you will think 'lovely weather, good food, hurray for swimmingpools, temples, more temples and a nighttrain'. And not 'god I'm so lonely', 'I don't even know what to do in Chiang Mai, let alone in my life'.
- other lovely tips and encouraging words included Ben Folds and cupcakes, Tigerbeer (and other alcoholic beverages) and the mantra: it's normal, it will pass, just relax and enjoy it (it being an unknown variable).
This was mainly monday and tuesday after cooking and eating a pad Thai, a green curry, cashewnut chicken curry, chicken and coconutsoup, fishcakes, rose-apple and black sticky rice pudding, I felt a whole lot better. Meow's Pad Thai cookery class is a definite thumbs up and cheer up. And off course, everything is better in Pai!


yes, I am staying in a cute little hut, and yes, that is in fact a bucket of Mojito.

Not in the Lonely Planet...

The best way to make sense of Bangkok for me is to see it as the 'upside-down day' episode of Spongebob. You can't lock your hosteldoor from the outside, no, only from the inside. They don't just pour sugar over their strawberries, no, it's a yukky mixture containting salt. When they say something is closed, it's actually opened (but he just wants you to take a tuktuk to the Tourist Information office). Smiling and looking down means 'No' and sometimes 'Yes' also means 'No'.
So when people kept telling me to get out of the city, so stay away from the red shirts, do not go anywhere NEAR the demonstrations, guess what I did?
(this is the moment that I usually start guessing, even though I'm asked a rethorical question)
Yup. I went there and took a good look all these protesters. I sat down next to another guy eligible for white-people-tax with the words: 'can I sit here? Safety in numbers and all?'. But he didn't get my joke (us two versus 800.000+ people; nu.nl says 80., but that's a bit on the low side, and they're expecting more to come this evening)
It reminded me of Queensday, but everyone is wearing red instead of orange. It is confusing though, everyone seems to have another reason for wearing their red shirts (fashion not being one of them) and to shake their heart-shaped rattles. There weren't many tourists there, even though Ko Sam Road is right around the corner. The few pale-faced, shortswearing, shy looking people that were there, greeted me with a look of recognition. It was actually quite nice, because, well, Bangkok is not really my city. It's too big and the tuktuk drivers, shopkeepers, padthaicookers and taxichauffeurs just won't leave me alone. But here everyone does, or they just look at me curiously, smile and wave. They just want to talk about the cause and not take your money.
As I am (was) writing this, a man wearing a 'red in the land' shirt and matching bandana plants a flag behind me. Promptly a mother places her two children next to me and takes our picture.
God I wonder what that flag sais. I am being photographed a lot today. Let's just call it even for all the intrusive pictures I took today.

West-Kruiskade, eat your heart out!

I woke up at 10:45 this morning, convinced that it was hours earlier. But it wasn't, so this morning the cold shower was a warm welcome to today. I also hold up my first taxi (the first of many firsts, I presume) and let him take me to the Hua Lampong trainstation where I buy my 2nd class, low, AC nighttrain-ticket to Chang Mai for sunday for 841 Bhat. Remember the Tourist Info lady? Ha!
Walked into China Town, and trust me, the West-Kruiskade (Chinatown of Rotterdam) has nothing on this place. I was excited when I discovered shoe-street, found a lovely fake-leather, pink bag at bag-street, had a giggle at everything-made-of-paper-street, but was more than ready to leave China Town when I got lost in chickenfeet, dried shrimp and all-the-intestent-you-can-eat-AREA. Yeah, that put me off my breakfast and my lunch.
Being Dutch, you have to show the locals your cycling-skills, and I made my country proud today... The narrow backstreets of an hitherto undiscovered China Town (motorcycle&tuktuk-parts-street!!) proved somewhat of a challenge, but we made it, in one piece. We also took the ferry to 'old town', where the main attraction is white people in shorts on bikes, yelling 'hello, hello' back to the toddlers (daycare is 20 Bhat per child per day! Incredibly cheap, but they don't seem to learn anything other than to smile and wave....) and high-fiving them in the passing.

I have no intention in turning this into a political blog, cause it's not, mainly because I don't know much about politics other then when I'm supposed to turn up to vote whatever the 'Kieswijzer' tells me to. What I do know is that there is police, military people and riot vans everywhere. My bag got searched when I entered the MBK shopping mall (yeah yeah yeah, I also went shopping and saw a movie today). They frowned at my 'hartige Sultana' that was left in my bag. And on the way back, my taxi had to slow down so that an armed guard could check it with a flashlight. The bizarre thing is that tourist-info-lady told me that everyone is fleeing the city, because of the protests, and, bicycle-tour-lady said that everyone from surrounding provinces are coming to Bangkok, because of the protest.
Go figure. Ah well. Hopefully bridge over river Kwai tomorrow.
ps. About that movie: it included a Karaoke version of the Thai national anthem, nobody sang along though. Very interesting to see, unimaginable in Holland.

safe, sound and Nivea

I've never been even near Asia. Actually the closest I've ever come to Asia was buying an Indian cookbook after developing an unconditional love for curries whilst living in Shrewsbury. I went to Marocco, but that's Africa. So with the bare purchase of a returnticket, I got one step closer to adding another continent on my 'have seen' list.
Of course my flight is delayed... Which I'm seeing as a practice in concentration. I am compensated with a food voucher: two and a half hours of my human life equal 15 euros (or a fish and chips meal). During the meal I get to listen to Krezip and Rene Froger in de 'Old Amsterdam'. The rest of the time I spend in a lounge area where I am treated to endless views of Hollandish Horizons; trees, creeks, cows and more windmills than I can count. All this joy accompanied by the soft snores of my next-chair neighbour. I've never felt more Dutch in my life.
Eleven hours, two meals and one-and-a-half movies later I arrive in Bangkok. Analyst that I am, I start comparing, trying to make sense of it all. Fruitless off course, backstreets of Miami, sandy islands in Greece, horse-and-carriages in Egypt, nor the old North of Rotterdam have nothing to do with Bangkok. I'm just to fucking tired.
I know it's the worst thing to do when suffering from a jet-lag, but I allow myself one hour of sleep and cold shower. The cold wasn't really an option. I am cranky and even though there is nobody here to annoy with my downish mood, I do have to spent another 28 days with myself. Let alone the rest of my life.
I finally relax when I smell the Nivea sunscreen that I put on my face and arms. Funny how that worked for me; I take that scent with me wherever I go.

And then.
Leaving political drama's behind with recounting votes in Rotterdam, PVV-problems in the Hague, I enter another political issue over here. Apparently there are large protests scheduled for tomorrow, and even the locals are fleading the city. Or so the lady at the Tourist Info Shop told me, but maybe she was just trying to sell me a load of tickets outside of Bangkok. Anyway, I am told not to wear red (in favour of the monarchy) and not to wear yellow (supportive colour of Taksin (?)). So much for my lovely new King Louis dress covered in large red & yellow flowers....

ps. my camere doesn't seem to like the heat... so no pictures just yet.

Tourschedule de Thailand

The original plan was 'there is no plan'. I just booked a returnticket to Bangkok after not to carefull consideration and that was it. So I guess the only plan was to go home after 28 days.
But other people's enthousiasm is contagious and slowly but surely small options ("yeah, I'll think about it...") become e-tickets and booked excursions via obscure and not-so-obsure websites. Because if you see this "เพราะ นรก ผู้ รู้ สิ่ง นี้ หมาย ถึง หรือ ไม่", in your inbox, who knows if it says 'thank you for your interest in the KOC-concert' or 'thank you for your creditcard information, we will now empty your bankaccount'. I don't care how charming those frisky looking letters are!
When people ask me where I'm going, I tell them that I 'start in the middle (by that I mean Bangkok), go up, stay there, go back down to Bangkok and then even more southwards to the islands on the right. And then back to the middle.
Yeah. Geographically challenged, remember? That's why I drew this helpfull map!
Things on my to-do list are a bicycle-tour through Bangkok (the famous Co van Kessels classic), Kings of Convenience concert (23th of march in the Moon Star Studios), exploring markets, admiring buddha's, realizing when you've seen one, you've seen them all, cooking lessons in Chiang Mai, finding Poi (or was it Pai?), sharing a hammock with Jason Mraz (mp3), climbing a Treehouse on Ko Chang and regaining some poise, peace and playfulness.
Or as my Outlook unavailability wizzard explains my absence:
I'm eating fish, collecting seashells and decorating Australian backpackers.
(I can't write 'versieren', my parents read this blog! Oh wait...)
Anyway, it's almost T-time!