chang beer & dive bar restrooms

I loved Chang Beer, but I did not love the public restrooms in the dive bars of Khao San Road...

BYOTP is the rule rather than the exception in these places, and toilet seats are optional. Bangkok doesn't have a great sewer system, so most restrooms have a bucket for the paper, and in one place, there was a bunch of garlic cloves in the paper bucket. Ew! How does that happen? Dirty toilet and garlic is a smell I won't soon forget.

But, my favorite restroom experience in all of Thailand was the one where I was faced with a tankless toilet, a spigot, a bucket of water, a pot, and no flush lever. I didn't give the situation much thought until I realized I had no clue what to do with this odd assortment of equipment. It was a tense time because the bathroom reeked, the paper bucket was overflowing, and there was a waiting line. I considered opening the door and asking advice, then it struck me that the only option was to pour water into the toilet by the pot full to flush it. Phew! Crisis averted :)

If you told me 2 years ago that I'd be eating my dinner with chopsticks on a curb, frequenting BYOTP places, and flushing with pots of water, I'd have called you a liar. But scary restrooms and all, I can't wait to go back! That said, I'm grateful to be back in the world of plentiful multi-ply toilet paper, and dual flush toilets.

street food - pad thai

Pad thai from the street stands of Bangkok is easily one of the best food bargains in the world! I felt sort of guilty for all the work these people went through to earn less than $1, but 25 - 30 baht was the going rate for a vegetarian pad thai consisting of noodles, cabbage, mung bean sprouts, fried onion, peanuts, and egg.

How do they turn a profit?

Street food isn't for everyone. Corners are cut; for example, street pad thai often uses soy sauce in place of fish sauce, and vinegar in place of tamarind. There are cleanliness and food safety issues to consider. And it can be awkward to walk or sit on a curb and eat, but street dining is one of my favorite travel experiences!

Pad thai is traditionally made with rice noodles, but this another area in which the street vendors cut costs. Still, most offer a choice of 3 different types of noodles and the pad thai is still much better than anything I've had outside of Thailand.

Sour, salty, spicy, and sweet with a little bit of crunch for less than $1, what's not to like? Some vendors offer a variety of sauces, but the more traditional stands outside of the touristy areas simply offer white sugar and crushed red pepper. And you have to eat it with chopsticks :)

anger

When I signed the contract to move to Denmark, I was told that my employer would provide income tax assistance with my foreign return for the first 2 years.

Since the Danish system calculates our taxes automatically and I am living in Denmark, I thought that the "foreign return" was the US return. Except, I was wrong.

This morning, I received the following reply to my request for assistance:

Hi Sage,

I’m sorry to disappoint you but you are only entitled to assistance with your Danish tax return and not the US one. You have the appendix valid for local hires from abroad and they will only be assisted with their Danish Tax return. If you have no other agreement than this appendix, I’m not able to help you. Sorry!

I hope you will find a way to solve the US tax return yourself.

Best Regards,

xxxx

How nice of them to help me with the "return" that isn't even a return!

I am beyond angry that I've been dumped in the middle of a new country without any help finding a place to live, setting up a bank account, getting a CPR number, navigating the healthcare system, etc. etc. But this one takes the cake!!!

How the hell am I supposed to pull a rabbit out of a hat this time??? It's hard enough finding an electrician, how am I supposed to find a US tax accountant in this freaking place?

I am angry. I feel defeated. I don't know where to turn and I'm tired of everything being so difficult. I'm ready to cry "uncle" or just cry because just when I think I've finally reached cruising altitude, someone cuts the engine, again.

If I were a weaker person, I'd list my flat and go home. But I'm not going to quit that easily. My Danish might suck and I might perpetually feel like I've been alternately kicked in the teeth and punched in the stomach, but it's going to take a lot more than that to run me out of town.

But, sometimes it feels like too much. Just too much for one person to handle alone. I keep telling myself it gets easier. But when? It's been almost a year. When does it get easier?

pig of good fortune

Chinatown, Bangkok
4 February 2011, the Year of the Rabbit

chiang mai

I will go back to Chiang Mai. I must go back to Chiang Mai. I'm already checking airfare prices daily. I want to spend a month there. I want to learn more about Buddhism, meditation, and mindfulness. I want to travel to Laos and Cambodia. If I weren't so grateful for the opportunity to travel to Thailand at all, I'd consider it a tragedy that I wasted 11 days in Bangkok and Patong, and had only a precious 3 in Chiang Mai, but I will not dwell and I will not be greedy. I will save my øre, I will hoard my vacation time, and I will visit again.

Chiang Mai was everything I expected in Thailand. It was the first time in the trip that I felt like I was someplace very far away from anywhere I'd ever been. And I wanted to drink in every last drop.

I took a one day Thai vegetarian cooking class. I went on a river cruise. I went to a night market, where I got the most incredible deals on Thai Silk (less than $1/meter) and a Buddha statue (about $3). I visited temples, talked with a monk about Buddhism, and stayed in the the most amazing boutique hotel!

There are some more commercial areas of Chiang Mai, but a significant portion of the city is made up of little roads (Soi) like these. They are dotted with guesthouses, restaurants, bars, etc. It's possible to rent a room in a guesthouse here for less than 5000 baht/month (less than $200). It's a very popular area with backpackers and other alternative types of travelers, which suits me perfectly.

Vegetarian food was plentiful here. Happy Cow lists 49 veg-friendly choices in Chiang Mai, but there were so many more, and they're silly cheap! Aloo gobi with rice at the night market was less than $2. And it was good!

The most expensive thing on this menu is slightly over $2.50, and these prices are on the expensive side. If you've got the time, it's totally possible to take a long break here and live well without going broke :)

No matter where I go, I'm always on the lookout for Vespas. Somehow though, they're never as romantic outside of Italy.

Chiang Mai has around 300 Buddhist temples. I didn't see nearly as many as I would've liked, but I did visit a handful of temples, and I will post separately about them.

Elephants are very prominent in Thai culture, and especially Thai Buddhism. There is a lot of elephant imagery in art, sculpture, and decor.

Unfortunately, there's also a fair amount of elephant tourism in the form of elephant parks, elephant treks, elephant shows, etc. Animal welfare standards in Thailand are very low and I really wish people would stop supporting this ugly side of the tourist trade, or at least educate themselves enough to know the truth about the poaching and abuse that they are so blindly supporting in their quest for an "exotic" vacation experience. Isn't visiting Thailand exotic enough? *stepping off my soapbox now*

Now that I've given a rundown on each of the three areas I've visited, I'll post my favorite photos and more in-depth about individual experiences. I'll also post the details of my cooking class and share the recipes with you.

If you get sick of hearing about Thailand, let me know via the comments section and we'll return to Scandinavia or Italy for a bit ;)

patong

Patong was the low point of my trip. That'll teach me to retrofit my itinerary the night before I leave!

My first thought was to skip Phuket entirely, but since I'd already bought a non-refundable plane ticket from Bangkok, I thought it made sense to at least go check it out for a couple of days. Talk about penny wise and pound foolish!

I tried to make the most of it, but mostly I just waited around until the glorious moment I was to leave for Chiang Mai. One day in, I tried to get an earlier flight to Chiang Mai, but I missed the change cutoff by a few hours. So, I ended up wasting an additional two days in the tourist trap from hell.

If you look carefully at the blue massage sign, you'll see it says, "no sex". That's because Patong Beach is the sort of place where they need to spell out that kind of thing.

Here's a closer look...

There were hookers on the street, and so-called "sweetheart bars" where the lonely can go for some "quality" female companionship. To each their own, that wasn't really the issue. It was more the tourist trap vibe of the whole place.

I could not walk more than a few meters without someone asking where I'm from; if I'd like to have "designer" clothing made; if I'd like a massage; if I'd like to buy a laser pointer, electronic cigarette, wooden frog, counterfeit handbag, sunglasses, or watch; if I needed a taxi or tuk-tuk; if I'd eaten; if I wanted to see a ping-pong show, etc.

Trucks with advertising on the sides drove around all day and night hawking their tourist experiences via loud speaker at a few decibels louder than necessary. My favorite was the one with 4 bony teenage looking guys on the top, trying to look tough whilst luring the masses to their Thai boxing arena. Unfortunately, I was too busy thinking about how silly they looked to remember to take a photo :(

The competition for restaurant patrons is so stiff that they'd hover around the sample menu and try to coerce people into their restaurants. One guy got irate with me because I didn't want to eat his one vegetarian dish, which was stir fried vegetables with soy sauce. This was vacation, not fat camp, would it have killed him to throw in some tofu or something a little more tasty than soy sauce? I had the worst falafel of my life at Shawarma Express. I finally found an ok Indian place on a back street that had decent but overpriced aloo gobi, a pretty good tamarind chutney, and cheap beer.

Shopping was an even more frustrating experience than dining. I get that it's a tourist area, but come on! One woman started at 1,850 baht and promptly dropped her price to 500, based on Bangkok prices, 300 baht would've been an ok, not great deal. Another wouldn't go below 500 baht for the same dress, different pattern that I bought in Bangkok for 179. This scenario repeated over and over until I gave up and only spent on food.

Patong Beach is nothing to write home about. It was overcrowded and swarming with people trying to sell me jet ski rentals, beach chair rentals, parasailing, boat rides, etc. Nevermind that I was wearing a sundress and carrying a camera with a giant zoom lens, which I'm sure they would have taken real good care of while I was out in the water ;)

Obviously there are prettier and quieter beaches in Phuket. But I am not a beach person and Phuket just isn't my thing.

There were a few nice moments in Patong... my hotel was an amazing deal and run by lovely people, I fed a colony of stray cats, snuggled a family of kittens, ate an amazing crepe with chocolate and fresh coconut from a street vendor, and found a great little spot to hang out and play Jenga in the afternoons. Still, that time would've been much better spent in Chiang Mai, but live and learn.

My departure from Phuket was consistent with my overall Patong experience...

On the van to the airport, the woman behind me puked all over the floor. Who, outside of grammar school does not know they're about to be sick in time to get a bag? If worse came to worse, I'd puke in my purse! It splashed my legs, my dress and my shoes. It reeked, it was awesome, and it pretty much summed up my Patong experience.

bangkok

Bangkok was everything I'd heard... hot, dirty, smelly, congested, smog-filled, seedy, and wonderful. It was also different from what I'd expected. I was shocked at how Westernized it has become. Grabbing a quick bite in a mall food court, it struck me as I ate my Subway that as I looked around, I could only see Starbucks, Auntie Anne's, Krispy Kreme, and McDonalds from where I was sitting. It didn't feel like Bangkok, I could've been back in Connecticut.

I was not prepared for the poverty that surrounded the glamour of the downtown area. People with missing limbs crawled face down on the filthy sidewalks, begging for money. I looked into the empty eye sockets of a begger man, taking a few moments to register what I'd just seen. Tiny children sat alone begging in the dirty streets at night.

Emaciated cats and dirty dogs were everywhere. And so were sex tourists out on "dates" with their beautiful hired companions.

This shot is from the mall complex near my hotel. I cannot believe the size of the malls! The green covered bridge is part of a skywalk system that allows pedestrians to walk above street level and connect to the malls and skytrain without having to deal with traffic. It's really convenient and it feels a bit cleaner up there out of direct range of all that exhaust. Of course, it's really just an illusion because there's so much smog, you can't even see the sun, but it's a cool and well designed system.

I'm leaving Patong tonight and it's not a moment too soon! I guess I'm just not into beaches and tourist traps. I'll write more about Patong and Bangkok, but right now, I have to pack for Chiang Mai!