Thailand

After my two week Peace Corps conference in Cebu City, 7 friends and I left for the land of the free, Thailand (Thailand was the only country in SE Asia that was never colonized).

Visiting Thailand was a really interesting experience, my second country in Asia, my 24th country to ever visit, the second country I have been to that has its own alphabet (after Greece), my second non-Christian country (after Turkey) and the sixth country I have been to wherein they drive on the left-hand side of the street.
It's difficult to imagine what Thailand would be like. Bangkok...the far-east city I have imagined hundreds of times or a modern, urban sprawl? Thailand, and more specifically Bangkok, is half fantasy, half reaffirmation of preconceived notions, half Disneyland, half lucid. The most overwhelming thing to remember is that this culture has existed for thousands of years and nothing about the places we visited were fabricated to fit the expectations of Westerners.
We landed in Bangkok at about 10:00 at night to a sweltering and humid 32 C (90 F) evening. We immediately hit the town, heading straight to the infamous Khaosan Road.
Khaosan is like any touristic landing pad, like Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Laang Street in Cape Town, the Champs Elysees in Paris and Times Square in New York. It has all of the amenities of Western creature-comforts in a very modernized far-east city. We stayed one street over at the Greenhouse Hostel. The rooms were very comfortable (aside form the one night I had a single room - a concrete box with no windows - with only a ceiling fan) and had adequate air conditioning. Khaosan had bars, clubs, McDonald's, Burger King, 7-11's (there are 3,800 7-11's throughout Thailand and seemingly half of them are on Khaosan) and many restaurants offering a smattering of Western and Thai style foods.
The most authentic foods came from the street vendors, naturally. While it is certainly advisable to be weary of street foods for reasons related to cleanliness, refrigeration, parasites, etc., the invincibility of youth got the better of us and we dove right in. The most popular street food among members of our group was the pad thai, only 25 baht or 71 cents USD. Most Thais cannot speak English (from my experience) but can understand a fair amount, especially in the touristy areas. When you go up to a vendor, indicate if you want egg or no egg, point to the kind of noodle you want (typically there are four options) and indicate if you want a spring roll. After stir-frying your choice, made-to-order, the vendor will slop the dish into a half of a Styrofoam box. Now this is your time to shine: on the side of the cart is an assortment of toppings including crushed, dried red peppers, wet, green peppers, dried, salty shrimp, chopped peanuts, MSG, salt (don't get the two confused!) and assorted pepper sauces. Mixing and matching is a more precise science than alchemy - the perfect combination is only attainable after 3 or more Singha beers, the national beer of Thailand. It is advisable to mix equal amounts of all of it in, though this should not be attempted unless you are carrying around your own roll toilet paper.
After waking up with lips still burning, we walked the city, though Bangkok in general is not a very walkable city. We first went to the Grand Palace, home of the king of Thailand.

(Jason, me and Dan)

The Grand Palace was certainly marvelous, right out of the movies. Within the palace is the house of the king and Wat Phra Kaeo, one of the holiest Buddhist temples in the country. This picture shows a gaggle of monks heading into said wat. This is my only picture of monks. I felt uncomfortable taking their picture; this picture was taken candidly. There were a few time when taking their picture would have been very rewarding: two different times include a monk coming out of a 7-11 and another with a bluetooth headset, talking on a cell phone. I'm digressing.
Anyway, we went inside Wat Phra Kaeo; we were not inside for more than 30 seconds before we got in trouble from the guard. In Thai culture, pointing one's feet at someone/something is like flipping the bird. Upon entering the wat, one is expected to sit in quiet contemplation immediately. My friends came in and sat with their feet outstretched in front of them, aimed directly at one of the most holy Buddha statues in the country. Abuse another culture with American-branded ignorance? Check. But Thais are very forgiving of trespasses and welcomed us to stay longer as long as we kept our feet tucked behind us.
This is from inside the wat:
The food was by far my favorite part of the trip. If you check out my Picasa Web Album, you will find a glorious collection of foods in which I indulged.

As I'm sitting here typing this, a gecko just pooped on my pillow. It's good to be home.

Every evening was pretty much spent the same way, wandering the touristy areas, drinking beers on the street and trying to outdo each other with quantities and qualities of chilies.
After visiting wats, the famous reclining Buddha and walking around, seeing what we could of Bangkok, we left for Chiang Mai, a city far to the north in the mountainous areas, known as the adventure capital of Thailand.
We boarded a 17 hour train at about 2:00 in the afternoon, foolishly having forgotten some libations for the...um...rails. Fortunately, the train abides. The train was a whole lot of fun though and an excellent way to see the country in a short amount of time. Once we got out of the city, the countryside of Thailand sure began to look a whole lot like the Philippines, but with much less water.
There were numerous points on the trip where I got homesick for the Philippines; it wasn't until later that that struck me as odd. But I certainly do consider the Philippines my home now. I guess it only took a trip away from my family and my site to realize that. Although is doesn't sound too Romantic, home is where things are predictable and Thailand, as far as I was concerned, was not predictable.
Chiang Mai had a much more agreeable pace, slower and far more "chill", as the kids say. The two activities we had that really stick out in my mind were visiting Wat Doi Suthep and riding elephants.
This is Chiang Mai from Wat Doi Suthep, about 1,000 km above the city (there were so many stairs up to the top, it felt like we had to climb all 1,000 km by foot, though we did take a car). Wat Doi Suthep was a giant compound containing many wats within its walls.
This was my favorite of the inner wats; I had a good 10-15 minutes in here by myself. It was so peaceful. Intricacy and symmetry are obviously paramount within holy spaces in Thailand (at least as far as I had seen).
The day after, we paid our elephantine friends a visit. I don't think it prudent to go into details of an elephant ride because it's all pretty self explanatory. Here are pictures:
The whole riding elephants thing was pretty gimmicky and the animals are treated pretty poorly, but animals rights as a concept is something I have never seen in the Philippines and I'm assuming Thailand as well. To illustrate my point, the elephants are treated as tourist machines and the drivers use hooked apparatus to club and hook the ears of the elephant to guide them. It seemed harsh. I sometimes would see the driver clean blood off the tip. I can't necessarily recommend doing an elephant ride but it was fun in its own way.
We saw some other wats in Chiang Mai, including Wat Chedi Lupang (which was awesome!), and then caught the train back to Bangkok for one last night.

Our last night is Bangkok was pretty uneventful.

Being back at site is somewhat of a challenge; after two weeks in Cebu City (the L.A. of the Philippines) and then Bangkok, getting back to my little coconut republic is taking a lot of readjustment. The pace of my life has come to a screeching halt but it's not all bad. I'm reminding myself that I am here to work. I do have a job after all.
Please be sure to check out the rest of my photos on my Picasa Web Albums page. There are tons of supplemental pics there.