This Land is Your Land, This Land is Thailand

And it’s a pretty excellent land, at that. Here we are, sitting in our room at the KMUTT guest house. 3:10 am, planning to depart at 6:30. Conventional wisdom says that we should minimize our sleep time tonight in order to sleep more on the plane and begin the arduous adjustment process back to US Eastern Standard Time. With that, I’m suing these final hours to type this final dispatch from the Eastern Hemisphere’s City of Angels. This may not be the last post on this blog entirely, mind you. I’m hoping to flesh this whole narrative out with the elusive photos that inferior internets have prevented me from posting yea these long two months.

Anyway, I think everyone in my party would agree that today was a very appropriate conclusion to our time here. We began this morning with our final presentations of our research. Mine went very well, with the only problem being a small technical glitch getting my movie demo of my device to play. Occupational hazard for a Mac user in a PC world. Managed to get it to work eventually, so no harm no foul.

For lunch we went to a small out of the way place that served these awesome lettuce wraps, vaguely similar to the “Thai lettuce wraps” they serve at The Cheesecake Factory, but, you know, real. Then, Joey and I headed off to the grocery store for some last minute food shopping, which, of course, had to include one last batch of mangosteen. Even though they’ve gone out of season, I wasn’t about to leave the country without eating a few of these one more time. We also stopped for our last cup of cha yen, delicious bright orange Thai-style iced tea that I’m going to try to make in the States but inevitably will never be able to get quite right.

Packing and dinner were about as interesting as one might expect. I will say that I enjoyed one much more than the other (guess which one, I’ll give you a hint: it involved shrimp). The aftermath of dinner, though, was far more exciting. You may recall a few weeks ago, around a certain holiday celebrating American independence, when we picked up some semi-legal fireworks. We were a little nervous about setting them off without a fluent Thai speaker present, just in case “the man” decided he didn’t appreciate bright lights and loud noises. So, when Joey and I were cleaning our room and found a trash bag full of explosives, we decided something should be done. Some of the grad students suggested that we bring them to dinner with us, and set them off in the parking lot just like any respectable hooligan might do. However, this plan was soon quashed by the restaurant parking attendants, and we were forced to retreat back to campus.

Not to be deterred so easily, we split up with various groups of grad students for typical goodbye style gatherings at the nearby watering holes. Eventually most of us wound up back together, and the subject of the elusive pyrotechnics still lingered on everyone’s mind. Fortunately, these grad students (different ones than we ate dinner with, for the most part) were a little more adventurous, and offered to accompany us on our quest for detonation.

After wandering around campus for a while trying to negotiate with security guards while scouting out safe launch pads, we wound up in the middle of the football pitch. Seems like a logical place to me. Some of the others had lingered behind, and as I was walking back towards them to tell them that we were go for liftoff, all of a sudden the rockets red glare behind me at full force. Let’s just say that this display..um..exceeded all our expectations in terms of sound and light. Our immediate course of action then became to run for the hills. We survived though, and nothing burnt down, which is always good. Plus, we managed to go out with a bang.

I don’t think I could live with myself if I closed this entry with such a dumb pun, so I won’t. Instead, I’ll just reiterate that Thailand is a nation like no other. It’s people are polite, welcoming, yet ever the pragmatists. The scenery is rich and varied in terms of sights, sounds, and scents. Working in such an new and contrasting environment causes one to examine aspects of our normal western lifestyle under a different light. For example, you can eat unrefrigerated meat products purchased from random people on the street, and you will not die. In fact, it may likely be absolutely delicious (aroy mak!). At any rate, they say you spend one night in Bangkok, and the world’s your oyster. After 9 weeks here, I’d certainly agree.

Thailand by the Numbers

Days in country: 68
Total hours spent in the air to get here/back: 26
Time zones crossed: 13 (we took the long way)
Modes of Transportation: 7
Bags brought over: 1
Bags coming back: 2
Socks coming back: 2 (on my feet)
Length of my commute to work each morning, in minutes: 3
Loads of laundry: maybe 8
Plates of Pad Thai consumed: 4
Plates of Pad sie ew consumed: at least 20
Different brands of Thai beer consumed: 5
Brands of GOOD Thai beer consumed: 1
Most people seen on one motorcycle: 5 (the whole family)
Minutes left on my cell phone: 0, as of today
Amount of tea I’m bringing back, in pounds: over 3
Pictures taken: 595 (as of last count)
Cultural/Animal Performance shows seen: 8
Buddha images: innumerable
Instances of illness: just 1, brought on by western drugs
Major trips out of Bangkok: 7
Motorcycle crashes: 2 (one by me, one by Joey)
Cockroaches seen in our room: 4
Cockroaches killed in our room: 0
Cab drivers that speak English: 3
Red light districts visited: 2
Farang jokes: too many to count
The look on their faces when they realize you know enough Thai to tell when they’re making farang jokes: priceless

Things I've Eaten

1. Bitter Melon
2. Tentacles (don’t know what they originally belonged to)
3. Pig’s kidneys
4. Jellyfish
5. Mangosteen (delicious)
6. Rambutan
7. Mandarin Apple
8. Jackfruit
9. Frog
10. Fish Eggs
11. Eel (also very good)
12. Marinated Salty Guava
13. Longan
14. Durian (eat THAT, Zimmern)
15. Squid
16. Pig’s liver
17. Morning Glory (it’s a plant)
18. Thai Chilies
19. Fishballs (like Gefelte Fish)
20. Scorpion
21. Chicken feet
22. Lotus root
23. Lychee
24. Bird’s nest soup
25. Traditional Chinese Medicine (I have no idea what this actually was, but it tasted like Craisins)

This list is not exhaustive. It contains only the things that I both thought were remotely interesting and remembered to write down. Of these, by far my favorite was the mangosteen, which Jules Verne describes in Around the World in 80 Days as, "a fruit of the size of an average apple, dark brown outside and bright red inside, and whose white flesh, as it melts in the mouth, gives your real epicure a delicious sensation like none other." Pig kidneys, on the other hand, taste like bad hot dogs.

Perfunctory closing entries

With my time in Thailand running out, we're now at the point of the customary series of closing blog posts. I'm going to try and put these together over the course of today and post them as I go before my last entry (at least from Bangkok), which will go up tomorrow night (pending internet access). Let's begin, shall we?

The Week in Review: Last Edition

Alternative titles I considered for this entry include: “Sex and Violence”, “Shop ‘till You’re Incapacitated”, “Engineering in the New Getting Wasted”, and “Sex and the City”. However, I’ve elected to go with the far less interesting moniker at the top of this page, mostly because it allows me to combine the narratives of all recent events together into one glorious amalgam of a blog entry.

For starters, last Friday. It was my last Friday in the city, and I hadn’t had a chance to go yet, so we hopped in a taxi and said, “Patpong”, at which point the driver just laughed. For those without access to Wikipedia (and oh what a terrible life that would be), Patpong is probably the most notorious red-light district in the world. After the craziness of the strip in Pattaya, I had high expectations for the vast expanse of crudely rendered neon signs. I have to say that I was disappointed. For all the hype, Patpong was nowhere near as nuts as Pattaya. We did, however, still get to gawk at our fair share of older overweight nerdy white guys trying to impress Thai girls half their age. Desperate losers=hilarious.

The next day, Joey and I decided to take in another very Thai tradition that we’d yet to experience: Muay Thai fights. When we got out of the cab, we were immediately assaulted by a large motherly looking figure who asked us in perfect English if we wanted to watch Thai boxing. She had credentials around her neck, so we figured she was pretty legit, plus she was engaging us in this whole transaction in plain view of the ticket sellers and security guards at the stadium. We let her talk us into ringside seats, which we paid for before she put a sticker on each of our shirts, gave us a receipt, and told us to come back in 2 hours. Giving money to sweet talking strangers is always a little dicey, especially when she gives you stickers that are clearly not in Thai, but in Japanese.

We wandered around for a while to kill some time while we both hoped to ourselves that we hadn’t just been taken for a ride. Fortunately, it didn’t turn out to be a scam, though it was a precisely run plan aimed squarely at tourists. Our seats were great, front row right behind the one of the judges, but I’m pretty sure there was not a single Thai person sitting in the section with us. The fights were great though, much more entertaining then any boxing I’ve seen on TV (not much). Muay Thai is much more dynamic, since you’re allowed to strike with your fists, feet, elbows, and knees. Part of me was really looking for the Rocky theme to start blaring when one guy landed the old “flying elbow to the top of the head” maneuver on his opponent who had previously been kicking the krap out of him.

With regards to the title about shopping, I still can’t get over the size of the malls here. On Sunday, and again on Monday, I went to two such establishments, and managed to get thoroughly lost in both of them. I can not for the life of me figure out how all these stores selling essentially the same products don’t drive each other our of business. I could very easily picture a conversation involving a mall worker going like this:

“I work at McDonald’s at MBK”
“Oh really? The one on the 7th floor or the one on the 4th floor?”
“No, the one in the basement”.

Humanity has reached a new low in the realm of fast food, where mall owners don’t want to impose on their shopper by making them go downstairs to the Mickey D’s. Instead, they just build another one on the upper floor.

Lastly, my favorite event of the week happened last night, when two professors and an assortment of grad students decided to have a party in honor of my departure, complete with traditional Thai food staples including pizza, KFC, and prodigious quantities of Singha. I won’t get into the gory details of this event, though I will mention the best line of the evening was when Nai got up to pee by announcing, “I am NOT at steady state!”. For my part, I opened beer bottles with a mallet we had lying around before leading the assembled masses (including my professor) in a rousing rendition of “Boots the Cat”.* Best. Night. Ever.

*I am not making this up.

Exploring the Northwest Territory: Part 4 (The Thrilling Conclusion)

Our last day in Chiang Mai was far and away my favorite. We immediately got off to a good start by mobilizing a half and hour later than recent days. This didn’t really affect my routine at all, it just meant that Joey and I went from being late to on time. Our previous tardiness had nothing to do with an inability to get up, but the impossible task of tearing ourselves away from the buffet.

With the Ring of Power long since destroyed, we turned to a little Pixar for our automotive entertainment needs. However, Ratatouille may not have been the best choice for the day, since we were headed up the nearby mountain. I’ve always enjoyed a good set of switchbacks, especially when not on foot, but the motion of the van mixed with Remy’s wild run through Gusteau’s kitchen induced nausea in everyone else by me.

Finally, after a wild ride up the road that probably could’ve used a few more guard rails, we arrived at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, which is nestled right into the side of the mountain itself. After two months running around this country, I’ve seen enough temples to have them coming out my bot. This one, the last we’ll visit in Thailand, blew them all away, though the epic staircase leading to the main complex itself blew our lungs away first.

The contents of this place were notable well beyond the standard array of wat décor, like the large central Buddha image and towering chedi (this one was especially shiny). For example, the enormous nipple gong (oh, don’t worry, this entry is about to get way more immature in a few paragraphs) which made a sound that literally shakes you to the core. Even more impressive than that though, was the cloudscape that surrounded the entire back half of the complex.

I believe that, in order for any travel experience to be truly considered an “adventure”, one needs to experience that singular moment that compels you to stop and, essentially involuntarily, utter the word, “whoa”. For me, Doi Suthep has now joined the ranks of the flight of the flying foxes along the Ord River, the Italian world cup celebration/riot, and my first steps onto the Giza Plateau as one of these moments. Since it had rained the night before, the cloud cover was still very low and the sky was a thick overcast. Watching all of this stretching off into the distance, I got a clear sense of why they built a religious monument here.

After staring off into space for a solid 20 minutes, we headed back down the long staircase and made our way to our next destination. Before I get into this one, I should point out that I had no idea that we were going to this place until a few hours beforehand, and that all previous blog entries were written without that knowledge. With that said, as you can probably imagine, pulling into the parking lot at the Winter Palace of Phu Ping was like Christmas in July.

I told you it was going to get more immature.

This place had some awesome signs. I think my personal favorite was the Phu Ping Police Dept., but the possibilities are endless. Once we got into the complex though, the place was as classy as one might expect for the king’s winter place. There were thousands of immaculately landscaped flower patches, including one surrounding the His Majesty’s royal satellite dish, as well as one of those dancing fountains that’s tuned to a soundtrack. Thankfully, when we did encounter hilarious signage, we were able to control ourselves.

That night, we had dinner on our own, so Joey and I promptly returned to the Red Lion before one final sweep of the night bazaar for any last minute purchases. We had to get up absurdly early the next morning (5:30?!?) to get on the road. A little atlas searching reveals that the distance from Chiang Mai to Bangkok is about the same as Boston to Rochester. However, we had to stop along the way for a tour of the coal power station at Mae Mhor. I’m fairly sure the only reason we went was because the program is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, and as such they require at least three “science-related” excursions. Around 6 hours later (it took 2 to get to the plant), we rolled back into the KMUTT parking lot, piled in the elevator, and crashed. All in all, a very successful “holiday”.

Exploring the Northwest Territory: Part 3

That night, once we’d arrived in Chiang Mai and checked into our hotel (the Imperial Mae Ping, ooh la la!), we made our way over to Chiang Mai’s famous night bazaar. The night bazaar isn’t really a specific place, so much as a series of streets lined with pushcarts surrounding buildings with more pushcarts. Lots of cool things to be had here, and I think I actually bought more stuff here than I did at JJ market. Still being only one of two guys on this adventure, I wound up my shopping experience much faster than others of our group. Thus, Joey and I went and found a place more to our liking that we’d read about on Wikitravel: The Red Lion Pub. Not as good as The Londoner, but still serves products better than Chang.

Speaking of chang, the next day we made our official obligatory pilgrimage to the nearby elephant farm (coincidentally, also the filming location for parts of Rambo 4) for the official obligatory elephant ride. For those who are familiar with my Dad’s blog about our Egypt trip from 10 years ago (holy crap I’m old), you will recall my distaste for methods of transportation requiring large mammals. This whole experience has revolved around trying new things and exploring beyond the western comfort zone, so I gainfully hopped aboard. Turns out, not much has changed in those 10 years. I’d still rather ride the motorcycle through the muddy jungle after the rainstorm than Dumbo.

I’m guessing Joey might have said the same, since after we returned to base, he noticed that his wallet was not in the pocket where he left it. After a little running around, we determined that it was probably off somewhere in the jungle, though I suggested that he stick to the version of the story where the elephant attacked him, stole his wallet, and ate it. Not to worry, he managed to get everything taken care of, though I guess there’s always the chance that a band of enterprising monkeys could try to steal his identity. Still, he dealt with the whole situation way more calmly than I would have. I don’t know what I would do if I lost my miniature high school diploma given to me by Beverly National Bank.

In the afternoon, we decided to stop by one of the nearby national parks, partially because as one of my colleagues put it, “but, we haven’t seen a waterfall yet!!” I have to admit, my expectations for this endeavor were pretty low, especially when I walked to the edge of the parking lot and saw a mediocre trickle flowing over some equally mediocre rocks. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this was only one of ten waterfalls in the park, and that there was actually a solid dose of hiking required to see them all. The Boy Scout in me lurched into gear, and we headed off into the jungle (again). The scenic forest combined with the layer of extremely slippery algae/moss that destroyed any semblance of traction made this an exciting little junket, one which reminded me of the Daintree forest north of Cairns, Australia.

After a day of jungle exploration, we were all in need of nourishment. To fix this, we sat down to a traditional kantoke dinner. A moment of explanation: I don’t actually know what “kantoke” means, though I’m guessing it could mean anything from “traditional northern Thai meal” to “dinner and a show” to “take of your shoes, sit on the floor, and make a mess of your pant legs”. I asked about this, and no one seemed to be able to give me a straight answer. Anyway, the food was delicious, even though I did get about equal portions on my clothes as in my system (occupational hazard, I’ll deal with it). The traditional northern curried pork was especially good, and I nabbed most of the leftovers until they were no longer left over. The cultural show was essentially the same routine we’d seen before, with the standard series of Thai dances and musical performances. At the end though, they invited members of the audience up on stage to dance with them. Had I known this was going to happen, I would’ve postponed my bathroom visit. Had I known that the “take off your shoes” rule also applied to the bathroom, I really would’ve postponed it.* Still, I managed to make it home and crash into bed, albeit with a few more bacterial stowaways in tow.

*This wasn’t nearly as gross as it could’ve been, and for this I am truly thankful.