Age of Aquarius

As I have been pretty sick for the past week, and I'm sure no one wants to hear those gory details, instead of relating the latest events of my life I am going to comment on the art of Thai massage. It seems they try to dignify it by calling them "massage parlours" but its really more like a torcher chamber with serene babbling brook and birds of the rain forest sound track. The dungeon master works very hard at her task of contorting your body into a human pretzel because she is throwing her whole body into the task. Steam rolling your back with her knees and making demonic grunting noises of exertion while she finds any and all pressure points with her bony skeletor fingers. Other methods of "massage" include: punching, karate chopping, elbow digging, pressing down on your arteries until you can't even remember what circulation feels like, and using your back as a trampoline. While I was getting beaten up today I started thinking about the fine line between pleasure and pain in S&M. I don't think they are too far off here. In Thai massage it really seems like an Orange and ylang ylang scented grey zone rather than a well defined boundary. Afterward though they always give you really good tea with honey, almost like a peace offering saying; "Sorry I had to rock your shit and kick your ass today, but how about a nice cup of tea?" The thing about S&M though is you always go back for more.

I have also had a few facials since my arrival. These are great because you feel like they are sucking your face off with a miniature vacuum. Then they bring on this polishing brush, and since my eyes are always heavily cucumbered I can only imagine what this contraption looks like. I picture the same instrument used at the dentist to polish your teeth, with the super speedy 360* rotating hollow rubber core, but bigger. Like a nozzle the size of a quarter. It isn't all together unpleasant, just the Zamboni ice cleaner sound does freak you out a little bit.

Liz flew out to Bangkok this morning to meet up with Jackie and Yumi, her roommates from UW who came as a last minute surprise. Im leaving in a few hours for the island of Ko Chang in the Gulf of Thailand. I have 6 days left until Charlie comes and plan on spending that time beaching it up, scuba diving, treking out to waterfalls, and drinking whiskey by the bucket full. That is something special about South East Asia, they take the miniature pales that kids use to build sand castles with at the beach, fill them with ice, whiskey, the soda of your choice, and stick in 10 or more straws for maximum booze inhalation. It's glorious!

XOXO

We arrived in Laos yesterday after 2 days of floating down the Mekong River from Thailand. This was by far my scariest, most drunken, worst heckling, frantic shit show of an experience in South East Asia yet, all combined into one 2 day journey down a river. Here is how it went down...

Our first snafu was forgetting to check out of Thailand... whoops, they don't really like when that happens so when we arrived at the Laos embassy on the other side of a river we were aggressively informed of our mistake. So we schlepped our huge backpacks with shoes and stolen bus blankets hanging precariously from strings back into the tipsy sawngthaew boat (where we almost end up in the river over the side of the boat with the weight of our bags) and head back across to Thailand to get our departure stamp. The testy embassy guy snaps for our passports then stamp stamp stamp, he takes the piece of paper with our visas and goodbye to Thailand. We cross the river again to the Laos side on the sawngthaew boat to get our new visas and arrival stamps.

The sawngthaew boat we took from Thailand to the shore of Laos

So now we are in Laos, officially this time. We decided to take the slow boat down the Mekong River to Louang Prabang, which takes two day and stops overnight in the village of Pakbeng after the first day of shenanigans. And it was utter shenanigans. Before we even get on the boat the heckle starts. We are taken to some "meeting" where a Lao guy (who we later discovered was working for the bus agency) gives us this horrific and terrifying speech about how horrible the conditions are on the slow boat, with no food, water, or bathroom and how expensive the stopover night in Pakbeng is. He then assures us we have another option, for the small price of 700 Baht we can upgrade to the nice and cushy air conditioned bus with movies and stops for food and bathrooms. We can see scenery and the local people out the huge windows and it only takes 7 hours to reach Louang Prabang instead of 2 days. In broken English and thick Lao accent he says "I only say this because you are my guest in my country. You are my guest." So once he has convinced some suckers to take the bus (without slow boat refunds, which we have already bought) he turns around and resells their seats. Very sneaky. While this is happening they have taken our passports which are laying on a huge stack on a table, all the passports of the people who are taking the boat are then supposed to be taken by people not wearing any kind of uniform just out of sight to the "police station" where they copy the numbers for records. Liz and I are totally freaked out by this passport snatch and are watching ours like hawks from this scare tactic meeting while they shuffle and reshuffle the stacks. After the heckle we demand our passports back which is a huge shit show, the argument being "You are my guest, trust me" and Liz saying "Well if you really are going to show my passport to the police shouldn't I be with it since it identifies me and a passport without the person is useless? I'll go with you to the police station and I will show them my passport if that is really what you are going to do, but I'm going to stay with it and hold it." So they throw our passports at us, with huge relief, and we follow the guys carrying the other 100 or so in the random stacks to a room with a guy behind a desk where we personally copy our own passport numbers into the books, get our tickets for the slow boat (because we are not buying his crap about the horrible conditions) and give an imaginary finger to the "trust me" guy. It was a harrowing and stressful experience to say the least. And finally we got to board the boat.

Being on this boat (which I shall now refer to as the booze cruise) was the first time we have met any fellow travelers in South East Asia. Sure I have seen them around, their white faces glowing among a sea of tan, but this was our first opportunity to chat it up with some underage drunken gap years from Australia and England. And drunken it was. Not only was the "trust me" guy full of shit, because it was a very comfortable and airy ride with cushy seats and huge open windows with little pink scalloped curtains and fringe hanging down, but there was also a BAR with sandwiches. And if you wanted to support the local economy by buying beer from a child who carried it on board in a plastic laundry basket at one of the random stops along the coastline along with some other snack munchies that was also an option. I must say that Beerlao it quite excellent. The ride was about 7ish hours down the Mekong to the village of Pakbeng down the coffee with cream colored river. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous, with fluffy green forest and huge grey rocks that jutted out of the water like steel colored ice bergs.

Scenery from the Mekong River bank
You could wander around and socialize, play cards and drink, or just chill and read your book and watch the coast line float by. The ride once we are on board was all smooth sailing, literally, but once we arrived getting our bags off was another story.

Commence shit show heckle number 2 of the day. All our backpacks were stored under the floor boards, and little kids would board and just start carrying peoples bags off up this huge muddy hill and demand a tip once they got to the top, so you had to pay to get your bag back and you weren't sure exactly where it was or who had it unless you could grab your bag first, before they got up the hill. Since we were one of the first ones on the booze cruise our bags were at the bottom and we had to wait a worrisome length of time to get them out with people crowding all around and shouts of "You stay here! This good room!" and signs and pictures for guest houses being flashed in your face with the enclosing darkness of nightfall adding to the stress. I snatched my backpack off some kids shoulders before he made it up the hill and Liz got hers by pushing back through the crowd into the hold of the boat and grabbing hers. So we succumb to a guesthouse picture flash, get a room with sporadic hot water bouts and electricity until midnight. The end of this day was brought in by some much needed whiskey and coke over dinner. Since whiskey is sometimes cheaper than water I just consider this another cultural assimilation.

The village for our overnight stay, with limited electricity and hot water

A rooster crows at 5 AM right outside our window. At least we know where our eggs for breakfast are coming from. With no electricity we pack up and head down to the muddy boat landing for day 2 of booze cruise shenanigans. We knew that at the end of this ride we would finally be in Louang Prabang admiring the French influenced architecture and sipping Laos coffee in a swankey cafe, but the past day still haunted us and we couldn't wait to get out of there. Once we finally departed day 2 of the booze cruise was pretty much the same on the fellow passenger drunkenness scale as day one, except today the Australian lads decided to play drinking games, and really who am I to turn down a game of Kings Cup? Especially since these boys needed instructing as to the official Reno rules, which are still the best set of rules I have yet encountered in my vast and now worldly experinces. So after setting the record straight I mingled with/ was entertained by my fellow booze cruise/slow boat travelers and just hung out admiring the scenery for the rest of the ride to Louang Prabang.

Our arrival in Louang Prabang, FINALLY!

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First out I gotta give a shout out to BARACK OBAMA and his awesome inauguration speech that Liz and I watched via youtube from the great country of Thailand. We are headed into Laos tomorrow but I just wanted to give a little summary of the last of the Northern Thailand shenanigans.

CHAING MAI

We were only in Chaing Mai for about 2 days, but during that time we managed to cook 6 different dishes of delicious Thai food and eat ourselves into varying degrees of food comas. We decided to test our culinary skills at the Bann Thai cooking school. It was pretty rad. I pounded out some red curry for use in the regional specialty, Chaing Mai noodles which was a delectable combination of cooked and crispy noodles smothered in red curry coconut milk an chicken. It was sooooo good, and I didn't even light anyone/thing on fire.


Shopping at the local street market for ingredients for cooking class


So happy over my chicken in coconut and lemongrass and ginger broth soup.

Oh yeah, I made this!

I also learned how to make spring rolls, phad thai, and fried bananas rolled in fresh shredded coconut for dessert. Afterward they gave us a little cook book with all the recipes so hopefully ill be able to duplicate when I get back home.


CHAING RAI

Huge golden clock tower from the center of Chaing Rai

Our hostel we are currently in is looking like its getting THE BEST award for N. Thailand. We had a wonderful bus ride up with a little mint green suited bus attendant, got cold water, oreos, and an American movie dubbed in Thai Our hostel has the ol cabin feeling with a cute little garden outside. There are hot water showers, and two 2 month old puppies running around with their little curly piglet tales wagging so hard their feet come off the ground with each swipe. Its so cute.



Women from the Long Neck Karen Tribe in Northern Thailand.
The golden rings they carry around their necks are 12 pounds of solid brass. We got to hold one (not attached to a neck) and it's so heavy. This tribe came over as refugees from Burma to Thailand about 15 years ago. Anyway it was very interesting to see this tribe of people who believe that a long neck denotes status of beauty. The differences in what is considered cultural beauty across just this country has been very intriguing to me. They make these hand woven scarves by old school loom style in gorgeous multi-toned colors. I got an emerald/teal and hot pink/red scarf.


Monkeys from the Monkey Caves that didn't try to infect me with their rabies

We also got to see the Monkey Caves with hundreds of monkeys scavenging around. They really like to eat Popsicles and Coke-a-cola. Haha.


Ummmm, does this cat have a Hitler mustache?

I saw this cat on the last stop of our tour today and I just thought this was funny. I swear I didn't take a sharpie to this cat. It's too legit to quit.


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Alright, I just wrote a wonderful post and then somehow it got deleted, so here is what I remember in abbreviated form...

Some things I have noticed about Thai culture include everyone riding around on these tiny motor bikes, entire families will pack onto one bike with a little kid on the front, dad driving, mom and another kid squished in behind and some crazy pile of groceries strapped on, sometimes with another kid holding on to the top of the groceries pile for dear life as the bike careens out of control roaring down the street, through traffic, in, out, and around the yellow line. The middle yellow line is considered to be more of a guideline than a rule. It also really funny when you tell someone you are an American they let out this accented exclamation of "OHHHH!!!" and give this huge double hand thumbs up and yell out "AMERICA!" Then proceed to tell you where their third cousin twice removed went to visit in the US and how much they loved it, its hilarious.

We just came from the mountain town of Ayutthaya where we went traipsing around waterfalls and getting chased by monkeys, well im getting chased by monkeys. Now before you start thinking about how cute monkeys are let me interject this little story which we have now titled, "The day Juli almost got monkey rabies." Here's what happened...

So we were wandering through this national park on our way to go swimming in these 7 tiered waterfalls

when all of a sudden we see some tourists up on the trail pointing at something, we get closer and see there are monkeys in the trees staring at us with their furry little faces. So of course we get out our cameras to take pictures when we see a mama monkey carrying her baby,

so I go to get a picture of that too, and while my attention is focused on the mama monkey a little See You Next Tuesday sneaks up about 9 inches from my feet and hisses, I look down and it is raised on its hind legs, fangs and claws bared and hissing at me, so I start backing away slowly and it jumps up screeching on its legs and starts chasing me and biting at my feet.

I high kneed it out of there screaming "OHSHITSHITOHSHITSHITOHSHITSHITOHSHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!" so quick that it would have made any former sports coach of mine proud, except the screaming profanities at the top of my lungs part. Unfortunately I only saw the beware of monkeys sign after the attack incident.


The ruins were really cool too. We rented bikes and peddled to about 5 of the 58 intact Wats (which basically just means temple).

Wat Maha That was the most sacred in Ayutthaya during the golden age. In the reign of King Song Tham the principal pagoda collapsed through the foundation but it was later restored in the reign of King Prasat Thong. The monastery was destroyed and burnt in the last was between Ayutthaya and Burma in 1767 AD.

Wat Maha That


Buddha head carved in tree bark at Wat Maha That


Singed Buddha

This Wat was my favorite because it was the most well preserved after the ransacking. The 3 chedis are an infamous Ayutthaya icon.

Wat Phra Si Sanphet


Chedi close up of Wat Phra Si Sanphet

This Buddha was 80 feet tall erected in an ornate red room that smelled like jasmine incense. It was massively cool

HUGE Buddha Booty


We have since moved North from Ayutthaya to the capitol of the North called Chaing Mai. Tomorrow we are taking a cooking class where hopefully, cross your fingers, I won't light anything on fire.

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So as I'm sure everyone knows by now we have arrived in Thailand and it is GLORIOUS! Bangkok is such a busy city, the main motive of transportation is by tuk-tuk, which is an open air taxi for two attached to a moped, they weave in and out of traffic like they are playing a race car video game.

Every tuk-tuk fortunately comes equipped with OH SHIT handles for the nervous passenger to place their strung out white knuckles through and hold on for dear life. The tuk-tuk's split you out at your quasi-suggested destination after some haggling for the price of fare and you are on your way as soon as you get over the motion sickness and regain your land legs, even though you were technically on land the whole time. Some are pimped out burning man style with plush colorful seats, shag carpet ceilings, and Christmas lights.

Bangkok is a city I both love and hate. It is filled with amazing and delicious food sold on the street for 30 baht (which is less than $1 American), and beautiful bedazzled golden temples which smell of incense, but it also is polluted beyond anything I could have imagined. The city is so smog filled that a dense grey cloud hugs the skyscrapers like a long forgotten lover who will not release her hold. This haze is so thick that even the light from the sun appears muted making it difficult to find your shadow. So that is the Bangkok atmospheric update. On the other hand though, everything is AMAZINGLY cheap and wonderful, from food to clothes to massages (which I have gotten 2 of already). Thus my love and hate relationship resumes its quarrel.

The first day we arrived in Bangkok we were toted around via tuk-tuk to some of the sights, which included the most amazing 100 foot golden Buddha

Standing at his feet was like placing a barbie at my own feet. My hand looked small in comparison to his baby toenail. Unreal! Liz and I made an offering to the Buddha by buying some flowers resembling miniature tuba rose lei's, taking off our slippers, kneeling down with our feet under our bootys and placing the flowers on one of his gigantic toes, then we touched our foreheads to his toenails, said a little prayer, and came back up with foreheads covered in gold flakes and oil. We just felt it was the right thing to do.

We have since left Bangkok and traveled North today to the smaller and more lung friendly city of Kanchanaburi. We rented bikes and toured the city during the afternoon, then got massages and drank beer and ate phai thai, yup, we are living the life.

So I know this is a rushed and VERY abreviated version of all the events of my life during the past week, but it is just too much to report upon without 1, oring you with every backstory and detail, and 2. Wasting hours of my life in front of the computer scren when I could be getting a massage for under $5 US on the beach. So I will say this about Australia, It was a very different traveling experience, some good and some bad, but overall different from Argentina because of the way people traveled. It seemed that people woul hunker down in one spot for months at a time and find jobs instead of traveling around to different cities. That is a note on the travels. The Aussies were cheeky and funny andf loved to abreviate EVERYTHING> Thus Breakfast became Brekkie, lollipops = lollies, gossip = goss, cup of tea = cuppa, etc. Which was a funny little vernacular to fall into. I loved it though. So now I am in Thailand which is completely different in terms of economy, climate, and culture. It is strange to be traveling where a French tourist and Thai local communicate in English. It just reaffirms the power that I have been slowly coming to realize I posses simply by my cultural status.

Something that I absolutely am peeing my little pantyhose over though is that Charles will be here in T-23 days!!! w00t w00t!! I think he might be a little surprised by my new traveler status, as I have ditched all my normal clothes for stuff I bought at the Thai markets which include various colors of comfy yoga pants, silk scarves and head bands, some red hair dye, black henna, and hippied out t-shirts. I consider this another cultural assimilation.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Mom and Dad left yesterday and I am still a little sad we had to say goodbye.

There were definitely some NYE2008 shenanigans. First of all I LOVE any holiday with fireworks. So far this is only guaranteed on Fourth of July, and New Years Eve. I think two official fireworks holidays are just too few, so February 18th should probably be thrown in also, just for good measure, but the government hasn't picked up that option yet. But for now lets concentrate on NYE, the one night of the year when getting drunk and making a fool of yourself is not optional, but in fact mandatory. We partied it up on NYE2008 with awesome glitter hats and finger mustaches. Sydney, Australia being the second country in the world to receive the New Year (New Zealand was the first). We traipsed down to right underneath the Harbour Bridge to watch the fireworks. The crowds were absolutely insane. They closed down George Street, the main street going through downtown so the thousands of people in town would be able to fit through the streets to see the fireworks. The fireworks were amazing! They were so colorful spraying out their neon fire fingers into navy sky, and HUGE!


The best part of the night though were the hats that Liz and I picked up from the supermarket on a whim. Here is how it went. We were searching for snacks and chasers at our favorite local Woolworths grocery outlet when we stumble across a bin of hundreds of glitter hats in every shinny color of the rainbow. These glistening head covers are only $3 so we say, why not? We have no other NYE bling. So we buy 3, two for us and one for Mamacita.

These hats were probably the best NYE investment (besides booze) that I have ever purchased. We were the only people out of the thousands that frequented the streets of Sydney to have these awesome glitter hats. People tried to buy, bargain, and steal from us because they were just SOOOO fabulous. At all times we had to be on our best hat guard, keeping one beer holding hand on top of our heads while weaving through crowds of thousands of New Years Eve Drunkapalooza party goers I am considering all part of my NYE 2008 experience.

The day after Liz and I managed to treat our hangovers right by fitting in a full season of Deperate Housewives and eating ourselves into food comas. All in all a pretty good night!

We also went to the Blue Mountains on a tour a few days after NYE2008. They are called the Blue Mountians because this hazy mist comes into the valley covering everything from the trees to the peaks in a blue tinge.

The main attraction besides the emense rainforest valley is the 3 sisters rock formation.
Our tourguide deemed Treehugger Terry told us the tale of the 3 sisters: Long ago, way back in the dreamtime there was an old medicine man who had 3 daughters. There was also a monster that lived in a cave below their home that all the forest animals and people were scared of. One day the medicine man had to leave the daughters home alone and cross the valley. The monster was taking a nap so it was safe to walk by the entrance to his cave as long as he was not woken up. So the medicine man starts out on his journey and the girls left to their own devices get very bored. One of the girls accidentally throws a rock over the edge of the cliff landing with a hugh CRASH on the valley floor below. This awakes the sleeping monster from his nap. Mad about this abrupt awakening he starts to go after the girls. The medicine man is already too far away from home to do anything other than reach into his bag of magic poweder and turn his daughters into stone so they will not get hurt, thinking he will change them back after the danger has passed. The advancinfg monster is now even more pissed that his prey is stone, so he turns to go after the medicine man. The medicine man then reaches into his magic bag again and turns himself into a small lyre bird to escape into the bush. After running away from the monster and getting to safety the medicine man discovers he lost his bag of magic powder. He searches and searches for his magic powder bag but he can't find it anywhere. And legend says that to this day the little lyre bird still searches for his magic bag of powder to return himself and his 3 daughters back to their former selves.

So those are the latest updates. We leave for Thailand in 3 days though, so not only do we get a change of country, but a change of continent is on the horizon as well.

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Love you all!