Author: magrilless

Whew! What a whirlwind couple of days in the biggest fullest busiest hottest city in Thailand! We were only here for a day and a half, so we packed in some experiences!

Starting with the snake farm at the Red Cross, where they do lots of anti-venom research. Because, holy cow!, it seems like every snake here could kill you. (Except, hopefully, for the one at the entrance, whose “cage” is not bound in by anything. Neither glass nor water nor ditch nor magic force field, as far as we could tell. Just a sign in the bushes saying, please don’t enter. We imagine it must be written in snake on the other side “do not exit”, since it was just coiled nicely under a log, peacefully habitating.)

There were lots of enclosures with lots of different species. And they were very active! We saw a water snake catch a fish. And a pit viper catch a frog. And a king Cobra unsuccessfully catch a human. And we voluntarily wound ourselves in a Burmese python. (She was very sweet and accommodating and felt lovely and cool around our necks.)

And we duck-paddled our way through a city park. Where we were on the lookout for monitor lizards, the most famous residents of Lumphini Park. There were plenty to see! Along with some ibis and the biggest koi we’ve ever seen and the ubiquitous stray cats that presumably keep the rest population low(er).

The next day we toured Jim Thompson’s house. It is a perfect island of luxurious traditionalism in a loud and busy concrete sea. Teak buildings and bamboo groves and brick paths and crumbling stone statuary and porcelain antiques and silk mattresses. I could live there (if I added some screens to the windows, and perhaps a bit of air conditioning). And it’s hard to see how Mr Thompson could have walked away from it voluntarily. I hope I get to learn the answer to his mysterious disappearance in heaven.

Then we took ourselves to Chatuchak, the largest open-air market in the world. It’s divided into sections, like clothing, art, food, etc, all several stalls deep, and over a kilometer long. We got ice cream and takoyaki and the girls each bought a t-shirt. And we were able to find our way out again! Back to our funky and colorful hotel on the edge of some slum-like neighborhoods.

And that will be the end of our time in Thailand. It has been a wonderful 3 weeks. Full of food we loved (so much fruit, especially in smoothie form), and some we were brave to try (looking at you, century egg). The smell of a market with pig snouts and skittering crabs and bundles of chickens with their feet tied together and motor scooters rumbling down the middle of cramped aisles? That we may not miss, but was awe-some to experience.

We no longer gape at a family of 4 on one scooter, the baby tied to the driver with the sleeves of a shirt. Or think twice about slipping off our shoes to go inside a public place. Or have to remind ourselves to put our palms together at our faces and bow to a new friend or waitress or driver.

On to Cambodia. But we will remember Thailand and its feast for the senses!

We’ve spent a little more than a week in the charming city of Chiang Mai. It is the second largest city in Thailand, in the northern part of the country, snuggled by Laos and Myanmar. It is ringed by mountains, often cloaked in clouds, and a lovely place to visit.

There are a variety of neighborhoods to wander, some even with sidewalks. With a temple seemingly around every corner. And of course history stretches back centuries, so temples range from old and crumbling, to new and shiny, to old and shiny, to new and natural.

There are quirky parts and bougy parts and places for calm and spots for the hipster youth.

So close to the mountains, we also made excursions (excurded?? (that word needs its own verb, I’ve decided)) up to the forest. The jungle! We stood at the highest point in Thailand. Crossed waterfalls. Drank coffee grown, harvested, and roasted on site. Watched women plant rice in cleared paddies. Listened to cicadas buzz and watched huuuuuuge butterflies flit and gaped at other colorful and large beetly buggies. (But we were never really bothered or bit by anything.) And we even attempted to sight-see through gusting clouds. We didn’t see very far, but we’ll definitely remember Doi Inthanon because of it!

Generally speaking, it was an easy place to be. And we can see why so many expats choose to land here. Like everywhere, we left things unexplored. Reasons to come back. Markets uncombed and streets ignored and temples unvisited (and so many geocaches undiscovered–we are unexpectedly terrible at that game!).

We have one more quick stop in Thailand: Bangkok. This country has been really good to us! Friendly and forgiving and welcoming. We are happy to have spent the time we have. And we may be back!

Here we are! In Thailand! Woo!

And we finally feel like we’re here. It took us a bit more time to get settled, honestly, than on previous trips. I’d say it was definitely a week before we were feeling our normal adventurous selves, able to do more than one activity a day before sitting under the air conditioner and staring into space. Was it the Major (with a capital m) time difference? The more profound otherness of the way of life? The Humidity (with a capital h)? All of it?

But. We acclimated. We’re here! And we have plenty to show for our first destination in Thailand: the island of Phuket.

We stayed in a smaller town, Kamala, with a beach and an open air food market and a 7/11 and lots of Russian tourists.

You already know we gravitate toward quieter places. Where we can learn all the streets (and which ones have cows). And we also got massages as a family. (Which unfortunately backfired a little. One of us had an allergy to the oil and spent 2 days with itchy ouchy full-body hives. And one of us got bruises from the super-human fingers of those women. And one of us is still occasionally woken from twitching muscles after a nerve was excited a little too much. And one of us enjoyed it very much in the moment.) And we found the best place for smoothies (which were literally a single kind of fruit and ice, blended to perfection).

And when we wanted more, we took a Grab (Asian Uber) wherever the mood (or adventure) struck. Like to the town of Phuket. Where we wandered the old streets and touristy shops. Stopped at several Buddhist and Daoist shrines. And had to eventually give in and purchase the ubiquitous plastic ponchos.

Also in Phuket, we gambled with our lives and hiked up Monkey Hill. We were trying to find a particular geocache at the summit. And had to repeatedly run the monkey gauntlet to progress up the trail. Mostly the animals were totally benign. Sometimes even cute. And mostly we took the coward’s way out and walked only when there were other people already passing through. But once I had teeth bared at me. Once a street dog growled at us. And once a monkey leapt at me and tried to grab my water bottle from my pack. Which is when Tessa officially stopped having fun. And when we turned around, even without finding our cache. But with our lives (and health) intact!

We snuck in a few moments at some beaches around the island. Although the weather was not the greatest for beaching. Red flags flew everywhere, due to waves and undertow. And rain. Lots and lots of rain.

And when I say rain, I mean Rain (with a capital r). We lost power one evening, and didn’t go a single day without a storm. What a different world than ours at home!

And of course, we ate well. We ate really really well. Salads and soups and noodles and smoothies and once a pizza and curries and fresh fruit. Repeat.

We even took a cooking class, which included a produce market tour. To up our skills and gain some knowledge and increase the odds that we could make some of these delicious dishes at home. Although some ingredients are going to be hard to find, like pea-sized green eggplants and tendrilly finger root and tangy tamarind paste.

The shining experience of our stay, though, had to be the morning we spent at an elephant sanctuary.

In the end, we chose a place with a lot of elephant-person interaction. (Which is obviously pretty far from a wild elephant’s normal life.) But which uses humane methods of control, employs vets, keeps the number of animals low, and upkeeps a natural environment for them.

In researching ethical sanctuaries, you quickly learn there is quite a range of philosophies defining “ethical”. We already knew we were going to avoid places that offer rides and shows. But what about bathing? Petting? Feeding? Interacting one on one at all?

So what did we do during our visit? We started by feeding them. We were assigned elephants (ours were Dobby, Lana, and Pimpa) and allotted 2 hampers of watermelon slices each. We handed off a slice at a time to eager trunks. The elephants would wrap the ends of their trunks around a slice and transfer it to their mouths with a great *squish*. I was surprised with the strength of their trunks. I mean, I guess I knew they can move trees, but they’re skinny little appendages (relative to the animal at least)! But of course, trunks are powerful and muscley, and could certainly move me out of the way if desired. Luckily, I had a steady stream of watermelon going, and later balls of rice and pumpkin and beans and bananas.

All 7 of the elephants here are rescued or retired ladies. Their previous lives were either circus-ish or as beasts of burden (like moving downed trees for jungle farmers). Now they each have a full-time human caregiver who lives with them, cares for them, feeds them, talks to them, bonds with them 24/7. Now that’s a career choice!

Then we climbed into the mud with them. We scooped up gray globs from under the water and spread it on their bodies. Did they need this treatment? I mean, probably not. They are more than capable of their own skin care regimen. It was definitely a “tourists will like this” activity. But did the elephants mind? I’d say it ranged from mild enjoyment of being in the water to great indifference. But it meant we got to touch them more! What does an elephant feel like, you ask? Our varied descriptions: like flexible sandstone; bristly; like old crusty leather.

And then came the deep pool with clean (a relative term when you’re speaking of quickly-digesting animals that aren’t potty trained) cool water. I think the ladies did enjoy this. Us being there with scrub brushes was secondary to simply floating in the cold water. They floated and rolled and talked and bubbled happily. And we got to touch higher up, since they were lower down. That’s where they felt more leathery and supple. All around, it was an awesome experience!

Now we leave Phuket and the ocean for awhile. We head inland and north, to the mountainous region of Chiang Mai for about a week. More adventures on the horizon, I’m sure!

We made it to Asia! Holy smokes! We are taking it to the next level, folks.

Getting here is no joke. A non-stop 15-hour flight from San Francisco is certainly the longest stretch we’ve ever spent in an airplane. And then a significant time difference once on the ground. Don’t ask me how many hours. Or in which direction. It’s about flip-flopped, is all I can tell you. And that is taking some adjustment! Some extra adjustment.

So our few Hong Kong days were maybe not as coherent or structured as we normally accomplish. But don’t think we just sat in our hotel room though!

We found staircases and parks. Lots of green spaces, actually, for such a dense and sky-scrapered city. And many people running and exercising in groups. (Despite the intense heat and humidity, which is kind of kicking our butts!) I was tempted to join some of the older ladies in their aerobics, but was informed that would be much too embarrassing.

And did you know, Hong Kong is one of the last major cities (maybe the last?) to use bamboo for their scaffolding. Seriously, skyscrapers covered in scaffolding. Which is bamboo, not metal. Skyscrapers. Bamboo. Incredible!

And we did manage to take the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbor. And navigate the designer shops and malls to the Cup O Noodles museum. Where we got to design our own cups and customize our own ingredients for our very own instant noodle meals! (Very silly. But one of our goals for our visit. Silly is often right up our alley, you know.)

And our hotel was very fun and fancy. Thank you credit card points! We spent some time in the pool (before bed at 5:30) and had a mango and a lobster themed high tea for dinner (before bed at 7:00) and generally tiptoed around the gilded surfaces and flower art.

We get another shot at the city at the end of our trip. When we’re settled in to whatever time zone this is. We plan to be a little more adventurous with food, see the harbor lights (or anything!) after dark, and generally experience it all as living beings instead of zombies.

For now, we move on to Thailand. The adventure continues!

When we first started planning for our time in Malta, many questioned our week-long itinerary. It’s a country you can fully drive across in less than an hour, and cruise ships dock for less than a day. Wouldn’t we be bored with a full week?!

No. We were not.

Just our very first day, we traveled across epochs of Maltese history. We took a hike from our apartment door and passed a castle built by the Knights Templar. A British fort from WWII. Roman salt pans and apiaries. Community garden plots with grape vines and tangles of melons and olive groves and rows of tomatoes plants. Burial tombs of pre-Christian peoples.

We learned to say bongu in the morning. And watched the 2 videos that exist online which explain Maltese pronunciation. We practiced staying x as sh, and g for g, and j for a g with a dot above it, and nothing at all for gh. They do speak English here, but everything is written first in Maltese, and place names are solidly foreign-sounding (and -looking) thanks to the Arab influence.

We looked for hedgehogs, a protected species here, but only managed to find one very flat one by the side of a road. But we did manage to see geckos every day, 2 very friendly Siberian huskies, our apartment owner’s collection of songbirds that he breeds, and a handful of interesting fishie things.

Because we chartered a boat for a day from a local man (Gozo born and raised) and got a lovely tour of lagoons and caves and cliffs and beaches. And although we did visit the famous blue lagoon, it was much too busy for our taste and our captain happily took us to a spot equally turquoise with absolutely zero pizza trucks.

We wandered, of course, because what else would you expect us to do? Mdina (pronounced like M’Fashnik (or mmm, cookies)) was delightfully medieval and the tall walls provided delicious shade (and lots of fodder for Game of Thrones reenactments). Rabat seemed totally livable and beautiful with its alley after alley of enclosed painted balconies. Valletta bustled and moved with throngs of folks and boats (and cruise ships), but is literally built from rock, out of rock, on top of and into solid, immovable, permanent and steadfast rock.

A short ferry ride away from the island of Malta is the island of Gozo (the second largest island of the country of Malta). We unfortunately got stuck on the top deck of a bus going through construction on much too narrow “2-way” streets during the heat of the day. Which did not enamor the island to us. But it did allow us to fully experience the jaw-dropping skill of bus drivers (as we looked over the edge of the bus to the cement truck 3 inches away). And we got plenty of time to appreciate the decorations for approaching feast days — colored bulbs on churches (like you might imagine around a circus), festoons of red, yellow, and green flags strung over streets, lamppost gilded with flowers. And beer and Sprite have never tasted so good.

We split the party one day for an aquarium visit for half of us, an anime movie in the theater for the other half. We lounged in the cool(er) evenings in our backyard. We celebrated Bill’s birthday with a lemon “cheesecake.” And we discovered a beach known only to locals (where we watched a man snorkel with his 2 dogs at his side).

We totally missed the southern and western parts of Malta (and, honestly, really, Gozo too). So we still have more to see if we ever return! (Which we will do at a different season. Everyone kept telling us it was still spring. But, boy, it felt just about at our limit of still able to have fun. I can’t even imagine summer!)

And that is a wrap for our Mediterranean holiday! We head to London now for a few days before we fly home. All in all, we are ready. But also feel like this was one of our most successful big journey yet. We are coming home bronzed and satisfied and tired and happy.