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.

Exploring the Northwest Territory: Part 2

Last night I did my final load of laundry of this adventure, and I managed to get it all finished right before they closed for the evening at midnight. This isn’t that exciting (well, it is for me, since I don’t have to do any more laundry), except that when I went back to reclaim my undies, I discovered a strange woman examining all my clothes. I think she was just the laundry lady wondering who on earth would be washing clothes at this time of night, but it was still a little interesting nonetheless. No harm though, I still have all my underwear (I counted). Anyway, back to the saga.

The next morning we got up early (again), and headed off to the Sukhothai Historical Park, which is the fancy name they give to the little gatehouse along the road that leads to all the cool ruins so they have an excuse to charge a foreigner entry fee. However, since last night was a Buddhist holiday, the entry fee was waved for today. Looks like my laps around the temple paid off, score a point for karma!

Like I said before, compared to the ruins at Ayutthaya, the remains of Sukhothai’s old city are in great shape. As Aeng described it, they’ve been “ruined” only by time. Since they’re so intact, and were so lavish to begin with, it’s easy to see why they’re still so impressive 800 years later. The first temple we stopped at housed a gargantuan plaster Buddha, one of the largest we’ve seen yet, which vaguely reminded me of the stature of the four depictions of the seated Ramesses II at Abu Simbel. Apparently, there used to be a passage with stairs leading up to a little window next to the Buddha’s ear where one could go up to talk with him, but after someone climbed out the window onto the statue itself, an extremely sacrilegious maneuver, the pathway was permanently closed. Even though we couldn’t get up that close, the statue was still impressive as it serenely towered over us.

Next we stopped at the main temple complex at Sukhothai, again, I don’t remember the name and even if I did I probably couldn’t pronounce it. This place was more like Karnak in Luxor than the temple at Abu Simbel, and had the same sort of never-ending feel to it. Got some great pictures, though I did get yelled at by Aeng for wandering off to take them. I guess it just proves the validity of genetics, especially the patrilineal ones.

After some serious wandering and photography, we piled back in the van to drive another 3 hours or so to Lampang, where we stopped to see, that’s right, another temple. This was built in the Lanna style of Northern Thailand, which after a solid 6 hours of Extended Edition Lord of the Rings, looked a little like Rohan.

My favorite aspect of this temple was not the gold-leaf chedi (spire-like reliquary at the center of every Therevada Buddhist temple) or the cool statues or anything like that. It was in a tiny building off to the side with apparently nothing extraordinary about it. Aeng tried to explain something about how the light from the chedi came through the hole and blah blah blah and women weren’t allowed to go inside. So, while the rest of the group headed off to see something else, Joey and I peeled off our shoes and up we went. The room was very tiny, with a traditional Buddha footprint in the middle and a white bedsheet hanging from the ceiling. We had no idea what we were supposed to see, and we didn’t want to touch and inadvertently desecrate anything. As we were about to give up trying to figure it out and leave, two well-dressed Thai men came up to join us. After walking in, they shut the door (this idea had never occurred to us). Through the dark shone a perfect image of the chedi projected onto the sheet. Viva la camera obscura! Goes to prove that the technology discussed on Beakman’s World is universally important.

As Joey and I descended the stairs discussing how cool all this was, we ran into a pleasant Thai girl who asked if she could interview us for her English project. We obligingly discussed the standard round of topics (Where are you from? Do you like Thailand?), until Aeng called me, again somewhat upset that we (I) was again delaying the party’s progress. She didn’t seem too impressed that we were helping with a local English project; I think she was worried the girl was going to scam us somehow. She rushed back over and proceeded to interrogate the girl about what school she went to and what her project was. Once she was convinced we weren’t going to get robbed/mugged/kidnapped/blunt force traumaed, she let us finish our thrilling conversation before boarding the van, queuing up the DVD player, and hitting the last of the road to Chiang Mai.

Exploring the Northwest Territory: Part 1

I’ve returned from our excursion to Chiang Mai intact, and now I’ve finally got a chance to document it. In the interests of smooth literary digestion, I’ll be separating the weekend’s events into a series of bite-size posts, rather than a single magnum opus. Let’s get down to business then.

We left at 7 am last Thursday, bleary-eyed with duffel bags in tow. Once again, I’m glad to have brought an extra bag wadded up in my suitcase. Five days worth of stuff is too much for a backpack, but not enough for a suitcase. Old 1980’s duffel bag, just right. After a few hours of driving (and viewing of the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition, which we killed off over about three days and is way better than the original trilogy), we stopped for lunch at Phitsanulok, a town famous for it’s Buddha images. The grandest of these is the Phrabuddha Chinaraoj, which is a classic giant gold Buddha in the Sukhothai style, similar to its formerly concrete-encrusted cousin now residing in Trimit Temple. Lunch in Phitsanulok was fun, mostly because we ate on a series of wooden docks floating on a small pond. Any table scraps get thrown to the large school of even larger fish that have got the system all figured out. In a somewhat macabre display of cannibalism, they loved the skeletons of the fried fish we ordered.

Once we and the Lecter-fish had eaten our fill, we pressed onward to Sukhothai, the old capital of Thailand that predates Ayutthaya (the newer old capital that was sacked by the Burmese). Sukhothai’s remains are in much better shape, mostly because it did not have to contend with marauding bands of bloodthirsty armies rampaging through it. Upon checking into the hotel, the bellhop offered us a bright green “welcome drink”. Continuing my habit of consuming whatever’s offered to me, regardless of whether or not I know what it is, I downed the glass. In hindsight, this wasn’t a great idea. No one (Aeng included) was actually able to tell me what was in it, but it was noxiously sweet and tasted very strongly like bubble gum. Mmmm, I’m getting nauseous just thinking about it. Makes me glad that Rob and the Mercury Brewing crew never got it in their heads to make green bubble gum soda, cause I’m pretty sure that’s what it would have wound up like.

After dinner, instead of going back to the hotel, we drove over to a nearby Wat which was build around the remains of a former temple that flourished about 800 years ago. Turns out that it was a major Buddhist holiday (with a long name that I can neither remember nor pronounce) that night, commemorating the Buddha’s first teaching to the first monks. To celebrate, members of the congregation light candles and incense and walk three circles around the temple, one for the Buddha, one for the Dhamma (his teachings), and one for the Sangha (monkhood).

Of the six people in our group, we have two Buddhists, three Christians of varying denominations, and one miscellaneous. Guess which one I am. The Buddhists, along with Aeng, went to go get their candles, while the Christians waited off to the side. I, at first, was unsure where to go, but, in the spirit of striking a blow for cross-cultural understanding, I kicked off my shoes, grabbed a candle and away I went. Interestingly enough, I wasn’t the only white person doing laps. I did see one older guy with a beard, who I’m guessing belonged to the family that was sitting next to my “family” and looked equally embarrassed that their one kooky member had decided to partake in the local tradition.

In the crowd through, no one seemed embarrassed or even surprised to see me. I guess the extremely welcoming and open character of the Thai people strikes again. Although my candle stayed lit for all of the first fifteen feet of our three laps, I did enjoy myself. Speaking of cross-cultural understanding, I noticed a major similarity between this ceremony and all the other candlelight services I’ve been to: give a candle to a little boy, and he immediately turns into the world’s biggest pyromaniac. For them, this event was much more appealing than anything held at First Church in Ipswich, since here we had the added perk of being held outside, where there was an abundance of grass and leaves to set on fire. After relocating my shoes and my group, I headed back to the hotel. I had to retire the shirt I was wearing for the remainder of the trip though, since the incense had totally permeated everything I had on. Combined with the results of sweating in Sukothai’s cooler-though-still-pretty-darn-hot weather, the only thing that can be said is, “Holy stink”.

The Week in Review: TGI..W? Edition

Once again, I've hit the end of the work week, and it's time to summarize what I've done. What's that you say? It's only wednesday? Don't worry, the time zone isn't that far ahead here. I've actually got tomorrow and friday, as well as the following monday, off from work so we can go on our "Big Vacation" to Chiang Mai. Basically, over the next five days or so, I'll be essentially driving across the entire nation of Thailand to reach its second largest (I think) city, located very close to Myanmar. Should be an interesting trip, I know we're planning to watch the entire Lord of the Rings Extended Edition on the ride, but Aeng says that may not cover the whole weekend. I'm considering an epic retelling the "Tisbottle Story" (haven't heard of it? that's probably ok...).

Anyway, back to this week (and last, since I realized I never said anything about my research of last week). Things have been going quite well. I've wrapped up most of my project, and now I'm in the middle of the manuscript writing/editing phase. I'm planning to submit my paper to an IEEE conference on robotics to be held in Seoul, Korea next November. If I get accepted, my professor says I might be able to score another free trip to Asia. Sweet deal!

I've discovered that putting together an official paper for something like this is way more work than it probably should be. I spent all of yesterday and a good portion of today just formatting the thing. IEEE has extremely stringent paper formatting standards, and if your section subheadings are in 10 point Times New Roman instead of 8 point, the nerd gods of engineering may just smite thee asunder. After two days of working on it, I think I've sacrificed enough of my life to appease their unholy formatting desires.

Beyond that, nothing terribly exciting since the last post. Just returned from dinner at the mall (Japanese pork, sushi, and Ice Monster for dessert). As far as future posts are concerned, I'll probably have to enter radio silence for the next few days. I'm leaving my computer here in Bangkok, though I will have my iPod that is internet ready. However, where we're going, I'm guessing that wireless access may not be terribly easy to come by. Maybe I'll type the entries on my iPod as we travel, and then upload them all when I get back. We'll see how plucky my thumbs are feeling, and how bored I get during the car ride.

Speaking of innovative blogging, I've decided that I really like the concept of "liveblogging", where one types a series of short entries on a rapidly updated blog. I've "watched" the Celtics win the NBA title this way, and today I followed all 15 innings of the AL's 12 (or 13th, I can't remember which) consecutive All-Star game triumph (too bad Francona didn't get a chance to pitch J.D. Drew though...) Anything I type from Chiang Mai won't be especially "live" per se, but I might still have to chronicle any especially exciting events that happen as they happen. Check again on monday or tuesday, same Bat time, same Bat channel.



PS: Sorry, I have to add this right now. Joey is looking up Thai idiom online, and just informed me that, according to the website, the equivalent of the phrase "Keeping up with the Joneses" is "hen chang khee khee dtaan chang", which allegedly literally translates to, "you see an elephant, and you want to shit like an elephant."

Learn something new everyday...

Ol' Man River

Over the past seven weeks or so, we’ve done a lot of standard touristy things that embrace Thai involvement, but still mostly cater towards western visitors. This weekend was not one of those things. Granted, it was part of a “package deal” at a hotel where all activities and meals were included, but we were the only farangs in the bunch. For once, it was nice to be able to vacation without being bombarded by people trying to sell me the tchatchkey of the day. Having absolutely no idea what was going on was a small price to pay.

This whole adventure took place in Kanchanaburi province, in central Thailand. Kanchanaburi is home to the Kwai River (pronounced “kwaeh” in Thai, “kwai” means “buffalo”) and the (in)famous Bridge Over it, part of the Siam-Burma railroad built during WWII by thousands of POWs and Thai civilians. The construction of the bridge was described, albeit with a certain amount of poetic license, in the 1957 (I think? I don’t remember exactly from Wikipedia) film starring Sir Alec Guinness (aka: Master Obi-Wan. You know, the good Obi-Wan). As a result, the whistled “River Kwai March” was ubiquitous around here, leading to a serious case of “It’s a Small World” syndrome. My brain needs a “shuffle playlist” button. Badly.

Before the program began, we stopped at museum, war memorial/cemetery and finally the bridge itself. The bridge was the only part of this weekend where western tourism still ran wild. I have to say that it was a little depressing to think that a landmark constructed with so much human suffering was now serving as the backdrop to vast numbers of western Christmas card photos, but I suppose it’s unavoidable. Plus, it does bring a certain amount of income to a relatively poor area.

Ok, enough downers for this entry. Walking across the bridge, the first thing I notice is the apparent replacement of any sort of guard rails with a sign that says, “Walk at your own risk.” Let us recall that this is a bridge over a river, and a rather high one at that. Pack enough tourists on there, and moving around can get a little dicey. We didn’t see any disastrous falls, though I’m sure someone must have gone for an unintentional dip at some point. Otherwise, why would they need a sign?

Plummeting into fast moving water aside, about 15 minutes later we discovered a far more pressing reason for the sign in question. We knew that trains still run on the railroad. What we did not know, however, is that they still run across the bridge with minimal warning that they’re coming. Furthermore, the bridge is pretty long, so running to the opposite bank isn’t really an option on the table. Fortunately for us, the train wasn’t moving too fast, and we were able to take refuge on one of the lookout points along the bridge which, also fortunately for us, were equipped with guard rails. This was pretty cool, watching the train drive within three feet of us while we were waiting over the water, until the train stopped on the bridge, preventing us from…well, from doing anything. Without anything else to do, we stood there for about 20 minutes until they pulled the German backpackers out from under the cowcatcher (I assume that must be why they stopped) and the train chugged its way across.

After the bridge, we made our way to the hotel to check in, eat, and go “rafting”. Details on this part of the day were sketchy at best, and all manner of theories had been discussed among us as to what “rafting” actually meant. None of us were actually right. We put on life jackets and hopped aboard a platform of bamboo poles tied to rusty metal pontoons. This vehicle was one of many in a floatilla carrying similarly attired (though much more intoxicated) passengers, all tied to the back of a boat. The plan: get towed about a kilometer up the river, abandon ship, and float back to the docks. Knowing this, we were a little surprised when the boat pulled us about 100 yards past the dock and stopped.

To this point, all the other people on the raft had been great fun, and we found ourselves retaliating for numerous series unprovoked splashing attacks (I later discovered that the guide had been using his megaphone to tell them to “splash the farangs”, which I still think is pretty funny). So, when we stopped and the guys sitting around me said “jump”, I was the first to throw myself off the raft. The rest of the group, including Aeng, followed suit. However, as we floated away we noticed that no one else had entered the water. Turns out that they were just having problems with the boat, but the Americans were dumb enough to think that this was as far as we were going, and jumped in the river. I didn’t figure out that I’d been pranked until aways downstream. After drifting away, climbing out, and running back along the bank, we all managed to get back on the raft before it drove away. I do have to hand it to our new friends, they did know how to act.

After floating home and drying out, we went to dinner and the accompanying festivities. I wish I could explain what these festivities were, but I have no idea what any of it was. If I had to guess, it reminded me a little bit of Bar Mitzvah entertainment, as similarly dressed guys in their mid twenties karaoked and danced their way through the night. Once the show was over, we watched the “Light and Sound Presentation”, which (I’m told) described the history of the railroad as lights were shone strategically on the section of track that ran nearby. The one piece of this show I did understand was the use of pyrotechnics to mimic artillery. I also understood the reaction of the guy next to me, who after the charge went off reminded me a little of the sea captain in that “Bring me my brown pants” joke.

The following morning (this one, I’m blogging on time!) we got up again at some ungodly hour (I think it may have started with a 6), headed across the river by boat, and hiked off into the jungle. After a nice uphill climb (the pace of which seemed to imply that I’m gaining back some of the muscle mass I lost during my gastric defeat of weeks past), we arrived at what can best be described as “a really sweet cave”. This cave (again, so I’m told by Aeng) was used as a hiding place for escaped POWs who had managed to elude their Japanese captors. They handed out candles (both for light, and to appease the spirits of the prisoners, who had all been executed when they were finally discovered) and we headed off into the darkness. This place was really cool, and I don’t know that I can adequately describe it without pictures (you may address all angry letters to the Blogger division of Google Co. which is still failing to allow me to post any). I will say though, at one point, we did have to slip through a crawlspace that probably would not have accommodated many western frames. Fear not, dear reader; I, with my elegant yet compact physique, managed to slip through unencumbered and return to write this gripping narrative.*


*This statement currently under investigation by representatives of the International Hyperbole Regulatory Commission (IHRC), who purport that Mr. Hamlin’s narrative is far from gripping. We, however, can attest to the high quality of his entirely unexaggerated and rippling musculature.

Vomit Vomit Yum Yum Yum

Chinatown can be an interesting place no matter what city you’re in. But, when you take a Chinatown and drop in the dead center of a city that’s already as frenetic as Bangkok, you know you’re in for a good time. I didn’t realize exactly how interesting this time would be until I arrived there and got swept away in a sea of keychain merchants, noodle stands, and various fish entrails. Bangkok’s Chinatown is a big awesome steaming cup o’ crazy, and I liked it.

We started of the day a little slower, at the nearby Trimit Temple. This temple is very similar to the many other Wats we’ve stopped at in the last few weeks, so by now I had the drill figured out: remove shoes, don’t point your feet at the Buddha, take pictures only wear they tell you to, don’t lose your shoes once you take them off, and so forth. The aspect of Trimit Temple that makes it unique is the massive Buddha image that dominates the small bot. More impressive than the size though, is the fact that it dates from the Sukhothai period, about 1000 years ago. Oh yeah, it’s also made of solid gold.

This Buddha wound up in Bangkok purely by accident. When it was excavated in Sukothai (I’ll be heading there in a few weeks, should be interesting), it looked just like every other concrete Buddha image, which, in Medieval Thailand, were a baht a dozen. However, the less than competent riggers in charge of moving this thing managed to crack the concrete when the were pulling it around by a rope tied to its neck, only to reveal the solid gold, though slightly smaller, statue inside. I think the clearest way to picture this is to imagine cracking the candy shell on an enormous ancient Thai-style Buddha shaped M+M.

Following the religious candy metaphors, we moved on to Chinatown proper: Yaowarat Road. This road is allegedly the oldest in the city, or so the tour guide legends say. According to Aeng, it looks exactly like downtown Hong Kong, and I totally believe her. Wandering down the street, almost all the storefronts sell food, specifically shark-fin soup. This Chinese delicacy has decreased in availability in recent years due to overfishing, though it looked like the fisherman here hadn’t been having any problems. The fins were large and plentiful and intimidating, mostly because seeing them all led me to visualize the animals they came off of, which, I assume, were proportionally humongous.

We didn’t purchase any shark fin soup, mostly because of the sizeable financial investment involved. Plus, there’s always the ethical question of how the fins were obtained. Instead, we tried the other Chinese liquid delicacy: Bird’s Nest Soup. This stuff is still very pricy, but it comes in different grades, so you can get a bowl for as little as 100 baht, which is exactly what we did. Bird’s nest soup is, in fact, made of real nests, constructed and formerly occupied by small cave dwelling birds. These caves are hard to access, which is what causes the astronomical price (a box of 12-15 quality nests can be over $1000). These nests are not made of sticks or anything link that. No, they’re made up of layer upon layer of regurgitated stomach contents: that’s right, bird puke. When boiled, they fall apart and assume a cheap jell-o like consistency.
I have to say that a bowl of bird vomit did not taste bad. Actually, a lot like really runny scrambled eggs. Match it with a glass of cheap green tea, and you’ve got yourself a decent snack. Plus, it’s a great way to make the more uptight obnoxious “ugly Americans” among your group really grossed out.

The Week in Review: Victory Edition

Attention: all hands on deck. My professor now has the link to this blog; Quick! Everyone look busy!

Now with that out of the way, we can get down to business. It’s been a pretty great week, starting with our adventures of Tuesday night. I’ve been trading emails for a while with one Julawat “Bub” Suppipat, Midnight Ramblers Class of 2002, who grew up in downtown Bangkok and now runs an awesome Thai/Italian restaurant in the same area. Finally, our schedules coincided at a time when I was capable of eating food again, so we got a chance to get together at last.

Bub swung by KMUTT and picked Joey and I up after work on Tuesday, and we drove over to Sukuhmvit, one of the main streets that runs through the heart of the city. Shopping and dining options abound, many aimed squarely at the large farang population staying in the numerous high end hotels. Bub’s restaurant is known for its outdoor dining, which probably wasn’t the best choice that day, since as we were driving over we found ourselves in one of the heaviest downpours I’ve ever seen. Instead, Bub suggested we get a true taste of nitty-gritty Thai culture, so we went…to “The Londoner” British Pub.

I really do like Thai food. I do. But, after five weeks of rice and noodles, my steak and cheese (cheese!) sandwich was the most delicious food on the planet. To compound the awesome greatness of this sumptuous feast, we arrived right in the middle of happy hour. They say you learn something new everyday. That day, I learned that happy hour is named that way for a reason. Buy one get one is a good enough deal, but with the availability of British style bitter ale happy hour went from happy to ecstatic. While I do like Thai food, I cannont honestly say the same about Thai beer. They have sweet logos, but they taste suspiciously similar to Genny Light (except for Beer Chang, which tastes like Rolling Rock, which tastes like pennies)

After a great night out with Bub, it was back to work. In terms of my research, this week was extremely productive. Pull out your flight suits and unroll the aircraft carrier sized banners; it’s time to declare (likely prematurely) Mission Accomplished! That’s right, I built something that actually works, and does what it was intended to. I’m sure statements like that will make some suspect that the real Nick has been kidnapped and replaced with some sort of strange ghostwriter, but it is actually true. Now the world has a way to repurpose an old printer to serve as a single degree of freedom haptic device. Way cool.

With this done, I can start writing up my report, and also expanding the range of virtual objects that this thing can mimic. Next on the to do list is to imitate a wall made of rubber. I’m sure this is useful…somehow. Anyway, now it’s back to laundry. Following our trip to Chinatown earlier this morning (gripping blog account coming soon), my clothes smell a little interesting.

Ruined

Ok, let’s continue on my quest to catch up and actually blog about something that happened within the last week. Last Friday was the official halfway point to our program, and as a result we all gave our oral progress reports. This was strangely satisfying, since it was finally an opportunity to turn the tables on the grad students and watch them glaze over while we got to speak rapidly. As a reward, or possibly since the organizers of the program couldn’t come up with anything for us to do, we had the following Saturday off. Finally, my first chance to sleep in in over a month. As much as I’ve enjoyed running around to the exotic corners of Asia, I remembered, if only for one day, that I also really enjoy doing nothing.

With our nothing completed, we went back to the standard 7am weekend wakeup time for our Sunday trip to Ayuthaya, the old capital of Thailand about an hour north of Bangkok. The city is known for its vast stretches of ruins, mostly of religious sites, which were destroyed by Burmese plunderers in search of Thai gold in the 18th (I think) century. Before the ruins though, we stopped at the King’s summer palace. Between this place, and the winter palace at Phu Ping (look! that’s still funny!), it almost seems like they don’t really even need a regular palace. The summer palace is cool, mostly because it’s based on European and Chinese architectural styles since the original king who built it really liked to travel. As such, it’s also home to the only Gothic style Buddhist temple, which goes to prove that globalization has been around forever; a precursor to the Cheers restaurant in the Malaysian airport. Still my favorite example of “Thai-ized” western symbols has got to be “Sawadee Ronald McDonald”. Let’s just say I wish that I could still post pictures, because there’s no other way to describe him.

Speaking of pictures, I feel I should offer a handy travel tip: if you’re gonna take pictures of cool Thai flowers that look like they’re about to say, “Feed me, Seymour!”, watch where you stand. For example, it’s probably not a good idea to stand on a nest of fire ants. Based on personal experience, I can attest that this activity is just as fun as it sounds. ‘Nuff said.

After the palace, we stopped for lunch. Nothing special, but I bring it up solely because, at one point during the meal, Aeng, our tour guide, complimented my Thai. Me? The guy wearing a shirt advertising, “The Original American Ale”? Even though I was proud of myself, this clearly had to be a fluke. Turns out it was, since yesterday I think I managed to inadvertently swear at my boss. Apparently, my phrase book’s comment that most western speakers can make themselves understood without worrying about the complex tonality of the Thai language is a blatant lie. I didn’t cause an international incident (this time…), and instead I just apologize profusely. I still don’t know what I said, since none of them would tell me.

Anyway, back to Sunday. After lunch we stopped at a series of ruined temples, many of which are still venerated by modern monks. I won’t outline all the details of me running around these places, but I will say that on a few occasions I found myself in a similar situation as Dad did in Pompeii, when he took off to explore and lost the rest of our family. At one point, Joey and I ran into some Japanese tourists (surprise, surprise), who asked me to take their picture. Apparently, I’m very non-threatening and don’t look like I could outrun most tourist types, since I always get asked to take pictures. Once I’d taken the photo, they offered to take our photo, so Joey and I obligingly lined up in front of the temple. Right as the girl was getting ready to snap the shot, an enormous and unending procession of people filed right between us and the camera. It was certainly one of those, “well, this is interesting” moments. I wasn’t waiting around for them to pass, since I couldn’t see the end of the line, so I did what any self respecting culture nerd would do. I grabbed my camera, grabbed Joey, and hopped in the parade too. If they were going to ruin our photo op, we were at least determined to figure out where they were headed. As we followed the procession around, we passed by the rest of our group who were waiting in the shade. Needless to say, they looked at us a little funny.

Turns out that a new monk had just been ordained about 10 minutes earlier, and that the procession was in his honor. This whole spectacle was really cool, and I wanted to stay and watch, but we had to depart for our next set of ruins. My solution? Fake a bathroom stop once we got out to the parking lot. This plan did require an investment of 3 baht to use the bathroom, but I got to see more of the ceremony. I also got a chance to pee. If Aeng hadn’t followed me back in to make sure I found the bathroom, I probably could have stayed to catch some of the candy and money that the new monk was tossing to the crowd. I’ll remember this for the next time I crash a Buddhist ordination.

Off topic alert

This has nothing to do with Thailand, but it's really really cool:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/06/30/pre-columbiansounds.ap/index.html#cnnSTCText

More substantive posts to follow in the near future.

Sex on the Beach

I swear that title sounds more exciting than this entry actually is, though, to my credit, I probably just increased the traffic to this blog tenfold since now it might show up accidentally in Google searches for porn. Anyway, once again, I’m behind in my chronicle. I spend most of this week still recovering from my body’s angry reaction to the anti-Malaria drugs I was on. It wasn’t the drug themselves so much as the fact that the doctor at Rochester decided to omit the fact that one needs to take them with food, draink a whole glass of water, and not take them right before bed, blah, blah, blah. Turns out I was pretty much doing the exact opposite of everything you’re supposed to do when you take these drugs, and I paid the price for my ignorance. My system seems to have recovered completely though, since I was able to consume green curry again without any pain (at least, without more pain than is usually incurred by the consumption of green curry).

But this entry isn’t about green curry. No, it’s about Pattaya, our port of call after our stop at the Sriracha tiger zoo. We didn’t really have any concrete plans for things to do in Pattaya, and we didn’t really need them. This was some of the greatest people watching on the planet, since Pattaya is home to one of Thialand’s most infamous red-light districts, right on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Wandering up and down the beach in the afternoon, one encounters in abundance members of a distinct demographic, not found in the west. I am, of course, referring to the “Sexpat”. This is a white guy who is probably old enough to qualify for a free hash brown at IHOP on senior discount Saturdays with his hairy, wrinkled, tattooed, sunburn of an arm wrapped around a Thai girl less than half his age wearing more makeup than “Clown-Face Barbie”. These guys are hilarious, since they’re probably among the most obviously sleazy guys on the planet, at it’s pretty clear that they know it. We kept trying to snap photos, but it was hard to do so without looking equally shady.

After dinner, we bought tickets to a show. No, not that kind of show. Come on, my Mom reads this blog…This was your standard wholesome Vegas style cabaret, complete with lavish sets, plush red upholstered seats, and absurdly dressed showgirls. “Alcazar” had one unique difference: the showgirls in Vegas didn’t used to have weeners. Thailand is famous for it’s “Ladyboys” and rightfully so, since if I didn’t know better there would have been absolutely no way to distinguish these women from your average tall Asian supermodel. The show itself was great, but by far the best number was when a guy started “singing” (the whole thing was lip synced, for reasons that became clear after the show) with the curtain covering half his body. Soon, he disappeared and a woman popped out doing the same thing. Fairly soon, it became apparent that the man and the women were, in fact, the same person, with clothes and makeup similar to Two-Face from Batman. It’s times like this that I wish Blogger would still let me post pictures, because this was really a remarkable act.

Following the show, come of the performers milled around the parking lot for photo-ops. Joey and I quickly obliged, and we walked up to the first showgirl we could find and handed over our 40 baht. She was dressed in a white gown, and looked a lot like the ninja girl from Crouching Tiger. However, when she thanked us , I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between her voice, oh, and that of, say, Walter Cronkite. Immediately, I understood why the lip syncing was necessary.

Post-photoshoot we decided to venture into the belly of the beast, and take a walk down the Pattaya strip. This reminded me a lot of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, but with more cheerleader/schoolgirl/nurse outfits, and substantially less sanity. Being clearly American, we became targets for pretty much everyone, and I made a lot instant “friends” who wanted to sell me stuff/take me places/rob me. I do have to say, that walking around in Pattaya does make you feel very popular, since, when even the scrawny white guy walks past the bar, he is showered with shouts of, “Hey sexy man, come over here!”.

For me, though, the highlight of this adventure was the snack food. Lesson #1: let your scorpions cool before you try and eat them. I made this mistake and had a nasty tongue burn. I’m not sure what possessed me to do this, but, come on, when am I gonna be able buy this stuff again? Maybe I’ll see if the giant Pittsford Wegmans has any in back. Lesson #2: If you are going to eat a scorpion, bring dental floss. I also made this mistake, and, when I brushed my teeth later that night, I was still finding legs in the sink (not making this up). All in all, I don’t know if I’d recommend them to everyone, but I’d probaly eat them again. They taste like a really thick soggy barbecue potato chip. They taste…exoskeletony.

In the end, I had a great time in Pattaya. Maybe now I’ll finally be able to talk about events that happened THIS week. Next up, Ayuttaya: fewer prostitutes, more monks, just as interesting. Stay tuned.

Crocodiles, Tigers, and Infectious Diseases

Oh my. I’ve never been a huge fan of zoos, mostly because I feel like they’re a little too voyeuristic of my taste. Still, most of the institutions of animal observation that I’ve been to in the states are pretty high quality, with expansive recreations of natural habitats (though always with a heavy does of Disneyfication). With that the Sriracha Tiger Zoo contrasted almost as strongly as it smelled.

According the Wikipedia, Sriracha is known for a recent outbreak of a notorious Asian disease a few years ago. Now, I don’t want to alarm anyone, so I won’t get into the details, but I’ll give you a hint: it starts with an “a” and ends with a “vian influenza”. Walking through the gates, it’s not all that surprising. Sriracha is not an especially clean attraction, and you can smell it from the parking lot. Still, there were certainly some attractions worth seeing. First, a stop at the crocodile show. Walking in, I was reminded of a ramshackle version of a sea world set (“The Pirates of Pinniped,” this production was not).

Soon enough, it became clear that “The Underpaid Workers Pissing Off Large Reptiles Show” would’ve been a far more appropriate title than “Crocodile Show”. Seriously, I can’t describe it any more clearly than that. These two performers enter the enclosure and prod, whack, or otherwise irritate the crocs, who, predictably, try and bite back as the “trainers” back out of the way just in time. Geez, if people will pay for this, maybe I can score a quick buck charging admission to let people watch me poke at my cat Duncan.

We also attended the “Amazing Circus”, which I will not describe herein, mostly because, it was more of the same, except the animals were primarily land-based rather than aquatic. There was also a nice helping of the cliché “flaming hoop” material. Far more interesting was the elephant show. Not because the elephants did anything remarkable, oh no, human suffering is way funnier. Also funnier, because it didn’t happen to me. It almost did, though, as I nearly raised my hand to break the awkward silence when they asked for a volunteer. However, right as I was placing my camera back in my pocket, Joey beat me to it and promptly made his way to the front. There but for the grace of Joey go I.

The guy in charge had Joe lay down face up on a mat, while the other (female) volunteer did the same, face down, about 20 feet away. Then, out came Jumbo*, trunk held high, who walked over to the other volunteer and used his stocky foot to give her a “massage”, which mostly consisted of him just stepping on her butt. Needless to say, we were all a little worried about Joe, and we wondered if he should roll over for his own well being. Turns out that the request for a male volunteer was purposeful, and so was having him lay on his back, since the elephant promptly walked over and gave Joey a solid kick in the jumbos. Watching this spectacle (that is the only word that describes it), I felt a lot like the President who watches the secret service agent leap in front of a big gray bullet. Joe seems to have survived unscathed, at least physically. I cannot necessarily say the same for his dignity. As for me, I got some great pictures.


*names changed to protect the innocent

Gastric Defeat

The title of this entry is the flip side of the “gastric triumph” entry from a little while ago. I’ll get into that shortly, but first I must apologize for the lateness of this update. Looking back, I think I’m running about a week behind (for myriad reasons soon to become clear). I think the best course of action in this case is to divide up the last week/weekend into manageable bites instead of trying to write a massive War and Peace style entry.

To reveal the main reason that I’ve been slow to the posting (besides the bad internet connection, which does have one redeeming quality in that it makes a great scapegoat), I direct your attention once more, dear reader, to the title of this post. Following the attack of the questionable pork products from a few weeks ago, I’m right back where I started with another more virulent case of “Bangkok Belly”. Locals and traveler-types alike use this term to refer to a lot of diseases, from indigestion to amoebic dysentery. Thankfully, though, I’m pretty sure that I do not have amoebic dysentery. I think one becomes immune to it after dying from it enough times playing “Oregon Trail”. I have no regrets though; I’d still rather take my changes on the long way to Fort Laramie before paying the Indian $5 to help me ford the river.

Kickass 90s computer games aside, I’m still not feeling great. However, after a little charades this afternoon with Nai, I managed to gesture my way through the concept of heartburn (wish I had pictures of this one) enough that he figured out to take me to a drugstore. The only way this pharmacy could possibly have been more shady is if it were sewn into the lining of someone’s trenchcoat, maybe while he says something to the tune of, “Hey buddy, lookin’ for a good time?” The woman at the desk, who reminded me of a combination of Master Yoda and the Wise Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock, kept passing me boxes with instructions entirely in Thai. I had no idea what any of these products did, and I learned in 6th grade health class that you should be very careful when old women offer you mysterious pills. My solution? Buy the first box with English on it and look it up online.

Score one for dumb luck. With my less than three dollars I managed to get the Thai version of Prilosec. It seems to be helping, since I managed to eat my way through an entire bag of bugles, one bugle at a time. It took me about an hour and a half, and I must say that it was rather unsatisfying, since “one bugle at a time” isn’t especially conducive to the “put the bugles on your fingers and pretend you’re a witch” game. Ah woe, ah me.

Now, with today’s festivities adequately documented, I can get back to last week. Look for the recap across the next few days. Hopefully, I’ll remember all the good stuff; somewhere between the scorpions and the transsexuals things have started to get lost. Speaking of Lost, I think that’s an appropriate way to close this entry, with a CLIFFHANGER ENDING….

(to be continued…via flashback)

Hog Wild

For a trip to really be considered an adventure, one needs that brief moment of pure abject terror. For me, nothing personified this idea better than the roads of Ko Samet, via motorcycle. I have never ridden a motorcycle before. However, I am an American college age male, which, according to most car insurance companies, qualifies me as a “risk-taker”. No wanting to disappoint, I accepted the challenge. We arrived on the island on Saturday afternoon for a brief overnight stay. Upon landing at the dock, we stopped at the first motorcycle rental place and picked up our sweet sweet rides. Mine was red, with a shiny decal number 22 on the front (nickname: “The Double Deuce”). After giving me the standard “here’s how to make it go” series of gestures, the attendant suggested that I ride to the end of the block and back, to make sure everything was in working order. The breeze was whipping through my buzzcut and I felt the call of the open road, so I leaned forward, adjusted my sunglasses, revved the engine, and…drove about 20 feet at a top speed lower than that of a Fisher Price Power Wheels product.

My old lady like driving aside, I did manage to make it back without falling down or killing anyone. Maybe this could be ok. It seemed like fun. Problem is, Ko Samet is not, shall we say, the most developed of vacation spots, and the 20 feet of road that I had just torn up probably accounted for about eighty percent of the total pavement on the island. Off we went, as I tentatively crept along and tried to avoid falling off my newly acquired hog. Once we hit the mud, though, life certainly became more interesting. You may recall that June is the heart of the monsoon season in Southeast Asia. You may also recall that I am not an especially large person, certainly not one with enough mass to properly weigh down a vehicle that weighs substantially more than I do. These factors combined to make circumstances, well, rather slippery.

I only really wiped out once, but I decided to make it count and land in a puddle. I also did nearly crash into a tree, but managed to activate the brakes at the last second. We drove up and down the whole island, winding through the jungle on our speeder bikes, eventually arriving at the imperial base that controls the deflector shield for the death star so we could deactivate it and Lando could use the Millenium Falcon to destroy the Empire’s ultimate weapon once and for all (at least, that’s what I was doing, I don’t know about the rest of the group).

For as white as my knuckles were whenever we stopped, I think I did a fairly respectable job and remained, for the most part, intact. The same could not be said for Joey, who ate pavement (the other twenty percent) while we were riding back from dinner. He and I were the last two of our little convoy, and between the two of us we couldn’t get his bike to restart. This is how I wound up riding through the jungle, at night, through the mud, in the rain, by myself. Needless to say, the journey probably took me longer than most, since I was concentrating very hard on having my life continue beyond the next five minutes. I survived, though, and so did Joey, though we both agreed that we felt much better once we’d gotten back to the hotel and obtained beer.

Speaking of the accommodations, I’d like to reiterate the lack of development on Ko Samet. Our room reflected this, and I believe in Thai one might refer to such a dwelling as a “sheea twhoal” Despite the Spartan room, we enjoyed the rest of the trip, That said, we did have more fun than anyone else since our room a.) did not smell like a port-a-john and b.) did not have a roof which allowed the weather outside to become the weather inside. The next morning required another motorcycle ride back to the pier. It stands to reason that I’d only manage to really get the hang of it about five minutes before returning it. Go figure.

Gastric Triumph

I have done it. I have consumed the only Asian food that Andrew Zimmern could not bring himself to stomach: the durian. For those still living in desolation without cable TV (my parents included, I only watch at school), Andrew Zimmern hosts one of my favorite shows on the Travel Channel, creatively titled Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. In this hour-long gustatory extravaganza, Zimmern circles the globe consuming whatever fare is served to him, from eyeballs to arthropods. All, that is, except durian: the king of the fruits, which on two occasions he has been forced to spit out, declaring something along the lines of, “that is the most foul thing I have ever eaten”.

Gotta try it.

The fruit itself looks like a cross between a porcupine and a football, with spines so pointy that it’s very painful to handle it without picking it up by the stem (I know, I tried this too). After the helpful fruit man with the large machete opens it, one finds a series of pale yellow segments with a strong odor. Zimmern compares it to smelly socks and/or rotting meat. This smell can be so strong that in most of Southeast Asia, hotels will have you escorted from the premises if you try to bring one in. For all the build-up, I couldn’t tell what all the fuss was about. Sure, it didn’t smell like daisies at the perfume convention, but it didn’t smell like socks either.

Ok, go time. Biting into it didn’t taste especially terrible, but texturally, the durian has no equivalent, except for possibly really rotten peaches. For lack of a better word, it “gooifies” when you bite it. Still, I think Mr. Zimmern certainly overreacted. The durian does not deserve the gag-inducing stigma that western palates have placed on it. I might even eat it again if the mood strikes. That said, my buddy Andy still has me beat in the consumption of strange organ meats department. But who knows, I still have a lot of Thailand left.

PS: If I ever form a rock band, I'm pretty sure we'll be called “Gastric Triumph”.

The Week in Review: Round Sorng

Sorng means two; I finally learned how to count and I’m gonna show it off every chance I get. I need to update now, because if I don’t then I’ll forget and all the excitingness that was this week will be lost forever in the bowels of my memory. Speaking of bowels, I realized I left some critical information off of the last post. Let’s backtrack to last weekend, when we stopped briefly at an exhibition of photos taken by the king (His Majesty has a lot of interesting hobbies, including photography and jazz composition, leading my roommate to declare, “The King seems like a cool dude”). As I wandered through the show, a series of picturesque landscapes struck me. The composition and the artistry wasn’t what I was interested in so much as the context in which the shots were taken: at the royal winter palace in Phu Ping province. Let us also take a moment to recall that in the Thai language, the letter “H” is silent. Utter hilarity.

Anyway, back to this week, in which I have three interesting stories to relay. First, I finished building my device. I have yet to hook it up to anything, so right now it looks like an overbuilt paperweight, but I’m hoping to see some signs of life sometime next week. Further bulletins as events warrant.

To complete this machine, I needed to obtain some parts, which leads me to my second story: visiting the shady Thai electronics market. My grad student (and immediate source of advice/Thai profanity) Nai volunteered to take me on Tuesday morning. I asked how we would get there and about how long it would take. He replied, “We take bus, about 20 minutes”. Turns out the term “bus” can be interpreted rather loosely around here, as we climbed into the back of a pickup truck with some benches welded to the sides. I think this would’ve been more frightening had the powerful dose of automotive fumes not kept my senses in check. After a short ride, we disembarked at a random street corner, only to board another bus soon after. This vehicle looked much more like what I picture as a bus, though it didn’t have any doors and the driver seemed to be using a large piece of pipe instead of a gear shift handle. Either way, we were back on the road. Turns out though, that the 20 minute estimate seems a little inaccurate, as we rolled into downtown Bangkok about an hour later.

If they’d had these markets in the US when I was in high school, I’d be a lot poorer now. This place was really cool, if your definition of cool involves boxes upon boxes of random mechanical parts (which mine does). Another salient feature of Ban Mo (the official Thai name) is the prevalence of sidewalk TV and appliance repair pushcarts. Instead of walking down the street to the aroma of grilled meat, we get the complex musk that is lead-core solder. I love the smell of engineering in the morning. We found the gears I needed (sort of, I spent a few hours modifying them once we got back), and boarded another doorless wonder bus for the trip home.

Lastly, this week was also notable in that I, for the first time in my life, was presented with the honor of participating in a venerable ancient Asian tradition: Karaoke! This experience completely contradicted my existing concept of Japanese businessmen cheering each other on in a crowded bar. Instead, we (the six of us plus a cadre of grad students) were led to a small dark private room with a TV/Microphone setup. It took a little while for the rocking to commence, but rock we did. My personal favorite song of the night? “Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy” (Actual lyrics: “Sexy sexy sexy, naughty naughty naughty, bitchy bitchy bitchy, yeah!”) Compared to these profound words, Britney Spears sounds like Lord Byron.

As for this weekend, I’m off to Ko Samet, an island hotspot about 3 hours south of the city, followed by another hour on a ferry. Farang pay about 10 times as much as native Thais, but I think Aeng, our guide, is going to try to sneak us in. Should be an interesting trip, to be documented in full upon my return, assuming we don’t all get busted and wind up in Thai prison. Not that we will, but I have to say things like that to keep Mom on her toes.

Wats Aplenty

Once again, here we are on Thursday and I have yet to post about the events of last weekend. I could use the excuse that I’ve been working a lot, but last night I went out Karaokeing (more on this in future posting), so the work thing doesn’t really jive. I’m going to chalk it up to my rediscovery of Super Mario, which is a great way to consume your evening when you’re not karaokeing. I already have 91 power stars. Yay me.

Anyway, last Saturday took us to three of Bangkok’s most famous temples, as well as the two major residences of the royal family. We started our day at Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn, which resembles a concrete Eiffel Tour, albeit with a Khmer twist. The coolest part about Wat Arun is that it’s decorated completely with broken shards of Chinese porcelain arranged artistically, like this. (Note: a picture was supposed to go here. The internet hates me).

After taking a ferry back across the Chao Praya river, we visited Wat Pho, pronounced “Poe” (like Edgar Allen, or the red teletubbie if you prefer). This is the site of the famous reclining Buddha, a massive gold-plated bronze statue depicting the Buddha’s final moments in his earthly state. Let me first say that this monument is on the official list of “Locations to Which Pictures Do Not Do Justice”. This thing is big. Really big. If I were a better writer I’d paint a nuanced picture of its majesty with the English language, but I’m not, so I guess we’ll just have to go with “really big”. Although pictures really don’t capture it, I tried my best to get one (they encourage photography, don’t worry). I did, however, have to fight my way through the entire Indian subcontinent that decided to visit the same day we did. I think I managed to snap a couple decent ones.

Next we took a short ride over to Wat Phra Kaeo and the Grand Palace. This is the “National Temple” of sorts, which is connected to the royal residence. Not much to discuss here, except that the palace guards are under the same no talking/laughing/emotion/movement restriction as the guards at Buckingham palace, making a photoshoot a no-brainer. This never gets old.

On Sunday, we headed to Jatujak Market (known as simply JJ market to the in-crowd), the largest open air market in the world. This is not an evcnt for the claustrophobic, or anyone with olfactory inhibitions. Walking around, I felt like a rat lost in a giant smelly maze, a maze with Folex watches and elephants made out of coconuts. Again, there’s not much else I can say beyond that, except that I bought lots of cool stuff and just tried not to get lost. It didn’t help that I was still recovering from the night before, when I’d purchased a bag of mysterious pork products from a nice lady on a street corner. I ate said pork, which soon after tried to eat its way back out. I survived, and I’m just now getting back to gastric equilibrium. After JJ, it was back to work. So far, the work week has been more interesting than most, but that will have to wait for next post.

Dinner, a Show, and Racquet Sports

Backtrack to yesterday: I’m starting to get the sense that the grad students like to goof off fairly regularly. Case in point: every Tuesday and Thursday they all leave at 4 to go play badminton. They’ve been asking me to come with them for a while, but yesterday was the first time I’ve actually been able to go. We piled in cars and drove to the local badminton complex, a series of poorly lit courts inside an even darker warehouse style building. It didn’t take long to figure out that this was not going to be the badminton experience I’ve been used to based on my past history with the sport in HWRHS gym class (motto: “Anything’s better than the weight room”).

Let’s take a moment to reinforce some stereotypes. I’m just going to come right out and say it: Asians are ridiculous at badminton. REALLY ridiculous. The 10 or so of us took turns playing round robin style, but with the stifling heat in the building and my lack of any substantial physical activity beyond vocal percussion in recent memory, everyone else went around a lot more than I did. I feel like I managed to hold my own fairly well, though I’m also fairly confident that at least some of the players were taking it easy on me.

Immediately after, I booked it back to my room for the fastest total wardrobe change I’ve been involved in since changing into a full white tux in about 30 seconds during my 9th grade performance of “Honk!”, and then ran back out to the car that had been waiting for me. We all went to the mall to grab some dinner at this Japanese place. One thing I really like about many Bangkok establishments is that the menus are filled with pictures of the dish, so even if you have no idea what it’s called, you at least have a sense of what you’re getting. Still, somehow, the actual contents of my meal managed to elude me, and I wound up with substantially more raw fish eggs than I had planned on (I.E: More than none).

After dinner, the grad students we were with asked if we wanted to see a movie. When we replied in the affirmative, they said, “good, we’ve already bought the tickets”. Observations about Thai cinema:

1.) WAY more previews (over half an hour total. I know, because I timed it).
2.) Before the movie can (finally) start, the whole theater rises for the national anthem and a tribute to the King. I’ve decided that Thailand, like Australia and South Africa, has a great national anthem.
3.) I still want to be Indiana Jones when I grow up
4.) Harrison Ford looks exactly like Lauren’s dad.

Tonight, I’ve been taking it easy, since we’ve got a busy weekend ahead. As far as I know, we’ll be going to the Grand Palance, Thailand’s largest temple, and the world’s largest outdoor market (Jatujak), among other places. We wandered around trying to find a place to eat dinner, and wound up back at the BKK Grill, a restaurant we’ve been frequenting, mostly because they have English menus (in contrast to most places nearby, which don’t have any menus).

Wandering around tonight I noticed that Bangkok has a lot of smells, many of which combine to remind me of, oddly enough, Boy Scout camp. Between the charcoal grills, body odor, mustiness of dirt roads in humid places, and a slight touch of feces, it brings back lots of memories. Add all that to a nice healthy dose of loosely regulated auto emissions, and you’ve got Eau de Bangkok.

The Week in Review

Sorry for the delay between posts. I was struck by a perfect storm of bad internet connectivity and the final stages of jet lag. I think I’ve got the latter straightened out (finally), but I have no control over the former. At any rate, my first full week of work has had its ups and downs. I started off with some difficulty, since I needed to find an appropriate motor and encoder set to start designing my device. These sort of parts are everywhere in the US, and you can pick them up online everywhere. However, in Thailand, this is apparently not the case. Online dealers still exist, but with a limited selection. Even so, finding what you’re looking for, at least for a farang like me, is nigh impossible, since everything’s in Thai. The grad students in my lab, who seem to accumulate technical junk by the boxful, kept pushing parts on me that they thought might work. After about two days of tedious searching, and wandering around to panhandle for parts at other labs, I eventually found what I was looking for.

With parts in hand, I could actually start designing. But first, a short digression..

WARNING: NERD CONTENT AHEAD!

I don’t remember if I mentioned it before, and I’m pretty sure I don’t have the internet to check right now (I’m typing this in word), but I don’t think I ever actually explained what it is I’m trying to make. In short, I’m building a one degree of freedom haptic interface. In long, this is basically a little sliding piece that moves back and forth as one pushes on it. The slider is connected to a DC motor via a belt, and an encoder is in turn connected to the motor to record the rotational position, which can be read by a computer. The goal is that the slider will be able to slide up to a predetermined point (programmed in the computer), and then the motor will not be allowed to turn. This allows the user to “push” on an invisible virtual obstacle as if it were really there. I don’t know if that made any sense, but I’ll press onward

Anyway, once I had parts, I could start designing. I spent the next few days drawing a 3D model using Solidworks design software. Not much to report on this. Sat still a lot, mouse hand got sore, butt fell asleep. Once that was completed, the junk hording grad student pulled out a printer carcass he had lying around, and it was immediately clear that it would be way easier for me to modify this old printer than to try and fabricate everything from scratch. About 20 minutes of tinkering later, I had the skeleton for my device done.

That’s a short summary of my actual job for the week, but the week was by no means limited to the events described herein. The rest of the time gets its own post, which I’ll put together right now, though no promises when it’ll get posted. Please address all complaint letters to the KMUTT IT people.

Touristering (or "I got crabs and then went to a brothel")

(Editor's note: bad internet connection makes posting pictures hard, will try again soon)
I've noticed that all the events I've chronicled thus far have only gotten me through to about last wednesday or so. In an effort to stay current and not have everything run together in my memory before I can commit it to the internet, I've decided to cut my losses and give up on the rest of the week, since nothing especially remarkable happened anyway. Instead, I'll skip ahead to friday night. Just think, friday afternoon, work for the week is over, you're ready to get out on the town and have some fun. Where do you go? That's right....Crab Festival!

This wasn't just any crab festival, mind you, perish the thought. This crab festival was international. Located in the "big open area" outside the giant shopping center where we've had dinner a few times, this event seemed to be suspiciously similar to a standard Thai seafood market, but a little cleaner and populated by younger people. As for why it was billed as "international", I have absolutely no idea. Maybe because there were a couple of obvious Americans walking around sticking out like a bunch of thumbs who had just finished visiting the large hammer convention.

What does one do at a crab festival? I asked the same question, and got the pointed response, "Crab. Is good." I correctly guessed that this meant eating crab. Turns out I was partially correct; we did eat crab, lots of it in fact. However, we also ate about every other kind of sea creature that the vendors were able to immobilize and boil. They also had some mammals on the menu as well, which also looked good.



The next day we drove about an hour south of the city to the floating market at Damnoen Saduak. My Thailand guidebook explained that this was one of the few remaining floating markets that was not organized purely for tourist purposes. Oh how wrong they were. We were squirreled into rickety looking canoe-like vessels that were powered by what appeared to be old engines lifted straight out of old cars. Riding around, I kept waiting for Kevin Costner to swim under the boat and set it on fire, since it looked and sounded just like the evil jetskis in the timeless 90s classic Waterworld. This boat proceeded to drive us through a series of fetid canals, which were lined with vendors hawking the same set of hats, toys, and Buddhas. This would have been unpleasant, but I think the cloud of carbon emissions surrounding everything killed enough brain cells to make me complacent.

Next, we went to see a Thai cultural show at a nearby hotel complex. The phrase, "Cultural Show" reeks of underpaid locals dancing around and mugging for western photo ops. This one contained a certain amount of that, but it was entertaining, and the production value was high enough that it looked like the performers were actually enjoying themselves. They even set up a miniature boxing ring so we could all witness an intense, albeit obviously choreographed, Muai Thai boxing match. The grand finale was the best though, as all the performers unfurled small flags of the world, while the traditional Thai percussion ensemble struck up a rousing chorus of "It's a Small World". I believe it is still playing on endless loop inside my head today.

To conclude our saturday activities, we drove to a large public park featuring a giant statue of the Walking Buddha. This was much more my style, and I think I got some great pictures. I may not have reached nirvana, but the quiet did help with my "It's a Small World" problem a little bit.

Today was spent riding around on the world's crappiest bike at the "Ancient City", a replica of...pretty much everything. If it's a landmark in Thailand, you can pay to see it here, reproduced in concrete and plywood. There's not much to say about it, except that I did make a point to have my picture taken in the little model brothel in the little model village, just so I can show Mom.


She must be so proud.

I paid money to get kicked in the balls

Granted, it wasn’t too much money, 250 Baht to be exact (around 8 bucks). After the official festivities of orientation finished up, someone suggested that we needed some hardcore rejuvenation to help us recover from the effects of a flight half way around the planet. This sounded innocuous enough, plus jet lag still had me in no shape to protest. I hopped in the car along with the rest of the crew and a couple of Thai grad students and headed of to an “Ancient Thai Massage Center”.

When I got there, I realized this may not be the greatest idea, since Thai massage is known for its forceful pulling and stretching of limbs. Given my recent shoulder problems (for anyone who missed it, the video is available here), I wasn’t thrilled with this plan, and decided to settle for a foot massage instead. This would’ve worked out great, except that everyone else decided to go for the full 2 hour punishment, and you know what they say, “when in Thailand….give in to peer pressure”. I asked the grad students to tell the massage people that I had a shoulder problem, and to watch out for it (I didn’t feel like trying to explain what “dislocated” meant). They seemed to get the message across easily enough, so they led us away to the torture chamber.

First we exchanged our shoes for slippers and drank some nicely urine colored (though delicious) tea. Then they marched us up the stairs to a room that looked like a bowling alley with camping mattresses on the floor and hospital style curtains that could be drawn to separate each section. They closed the curtains, and we put on the provided wardobe, consisting of bright green pants which could have fit 3 of me and an even brighter green shirt. I don’t have a picture of this, but if I ever find one I’ll make sure to put it up. I’m guessing I probably looked like the Jolly Green Giant’s unfortunate sidekick, the “slightly uncomfortable green short guy”

I won’t go through all the details of the massage itself, since I think I’ve successfully repressed most of them by now, though some highlights included the deliberate depravation of blood flow to my limbs and the audible cracking of my wrists, which made the masseuse laugh out loud, Here was a woman who was at least in her 60s, possibly older, who had hands like the jaws of life and knew how to use them on unsuspecting westerners. The real icing on the cake though, was when she went to stretch my leg by placing her foot in probably the most unfortunate location she could think of, and pulling on my leg while pushing away. Ok, so it wasn’t really a kick per se, but I’m counting it since it registered at least that high on the testicular pain-o-meter. Needless to say, after the whole process was over all the girls couldn’t stop talking about how much fun they’d had, and how great they felt, while Joey (my roommate) and I sat silently staring straight ahead and unable to say much of anything.

My shoulder ended up working out fine, though I did have to stop her from pulling on my arm a few times. All in all, it was probably not the most rejuvenating afternoon, but it certainly did keep me awake.

Orientation in the Orient

Two days ago we had our official greeting here at KMUTT. This was a little more formal than I was expecting, as the Vice President of something-or-rather met us in an officially set up conference room complete with personal microphones at every seat. Needless to say, this was a little overwhelming, especially since we were told to wear, “the best clothes we have”, and I neglected to bring a tie. No one seemed to notice my lack of neckware, and afterwards we were taken to our respective labs. I’m working in the Institute for Field Robotics (I think), part of the Mechanical Engineering department, in a lab which is eerily reminiscent of the garages of many people I know, minus the three giant Robot arms which dominate the room. Here's the view from my desk:



The grad students in the lab are very welcoming, and they all speak English to varying degrees. However, between their thick Thai accents, and my rapid and inadvertent use of American slang, communication can be tough. Still, I think I’m able to talk to them relatively well, even if sometimes I have to write down what I’m trying to say.

Following the morning’s introductions, we came back to the conference room in the afternoon for lunch and an engrossing engineering ethics workshop. I don’t have much to say about this, since I was still drunk on jet lag and stabbing myself in the leg with a pen to stay awake. More interesting (and painful) than the workshop was its aftermath, which I think deserves its own post.

Meanwhile, in other news:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/05/27/space.toilet.ap/index.html

It’s just a jump to the left.

Actually, if you think about it, it is almost. Look at any map of the world and you can start in Boston, then make one leftward jump to LA, then another to Taipei, then another to Kuala Lumpur. OF course, then you do have to take a small step to the right again (and travel about 2 hours by plane north) before you get to Bangkok. Directions aside, the whole journey boils down to a major time warp. And, as such, I have no idea what time is actually is right now, but suffice to say that it’s late enough according to my system that I’ll be writing the rest of this tomorrow.

10 hours later, here we are again, having just returned from a sojourn to the nearby 7-11 for water, starchy snacks, and yogurt. I’ll backtrack to the flights of yesterday before I move on to today. A series of flights totaling about 26 hours is about as exciting as you’d think it’d be, so I won’t delve into gory details. However, I did enjoy certain aspects of the trip, such as the woman in the Malaysia Airlines safety video wearing too much makeup and beckoning my fellow passengers and I to, “Please join me on our journey into safety.” Afterwards, she proceeded to explain what we should do in the event of a “water landing”. Something about this phrase struck me, most importantly that, at least, the 747 that I was sitting on, was not equipped with the proper pontoons for any sort of “water landing”. I guess the phrase, “crash and burn in the middle of the Pacific” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

Before landing in Taipei, the friendly Malaysia Airlines staff also reminded us that our seat backs and tray tables must be the upright and locked position, our seatbelts should be fastened tightly and, “trafficking of narcotics is illegal, and carries punishments including the death penalty. Thank you.” The way they phrased this seemed to imply that drug mules were punished beyond just the death penalty, at which point all I could think about was a crew of dead drug traffickers picking up trash on the side of the road. I think I’ve been flying too long.

After a brief stop in Taipei, it was on to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. After wandering for a bit, we crashed for a few hours in Malaysian Burger King until our next flight. On the way there, I spotted this:



Viva la Globalizaçion!

Flying into Bangkok, the first word that comes to mind is “soggy”. The city is filled with patches of flooded fields, reminiscent of high tide Ipswich marshes. These areas are so prevalent that it looked for a brief moment like we’d be having one of those “water landings” the nice lady in the video had told us about. Fortunately, the runway materialized out of nowhere, and we were on the ground.

The next word that comes to mind when arriving in Bangkok is “moist”. I swear if you tried hard enough you’d be able to swim through the air. God bless air conditioning, which has been blasting in our room since we got here and has finally managed to lower the humidity level from “Turkish Bath House” to “Mercury Brewing Company”. Not much of an improvement, but it’s something. I’ve been here for less than 24 hours, and I could probably keep writing for pages. However, I’ll cut myself off here so I can get dressed for orientation and our meeting with whoever’s in charge. More to come soon.

Technical Difficulties

So I've been here a few days already, and much to my chagrin the internet access has not been as available as I'd have hoped. Technically, we're supposed to be getting our official usernames/passwords tomorrow. I'm sure this will be a production, as is everything in Thai bureaucracy (more on this in a future post). Anyway, tonight I'm able to connect thanks to "borrowed" login information, and as a result, I'm finally able to post. The last few days have been a continuous flurry of activity, which I've tried to document in order and save to my computer. Instead of trying to get through everything in one magnum opus, I'll post these next few entries retroactively until I catch up. As they say on the Food Network, "Here's one I prepared earlier".

This is only a test (T-minus 3 days)

I figure I should verify that this whole blog thing actually works before I try it overseas.  Following in the rich Hamlin tradition of travelblogging (see the last poorly organized attempt here), I'll be documenting my latest travels here. And, following in the rich Hamlin tradition of bad travelblog humor, I've arrived at the above title. Anyway, this summer, I'll be working as a research assistant at King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) in Bangkok, Thailand. As to exactly what I'll be researching, I have a vague idea, but I'll wait until I know more before I make any attempts to explain it here. Fortunately though, unlike on past adventures, I'll have my own laptop with me, which means:

I can post words AND PICTURES!

Now I know how you're feeling:



Yeah, I'm excited too.

I'll be leaving this coming Saturday, flying from Boston to LA to Taipei to Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, a total of 26 hours in the air. More on that as it happens. In the meantime, please shoot me an email if you think of anything special I should mention, or just to say hello. Maybe I'll try outsourcing some of the really important decisions I run into like those old choose-your-own-adventure books ("flip to page 45 if you want Nick to eat the roasted grasshoppers, or turn to page 82 if you want him to eat the organ meats of questionable origin"). We'll see how things shape up once I get there (I don't even know if they make roasted grasshoppers, they might all be fried), but until then, stay tuned.
-Nick