The Vagina Monologues, Part I

My plan to start and direct the first official production of "The Vagina Monologues" here in Bangkok is finally happening. In the past week, so much has happened that the production doesn't seem like a daydream, but a real future event. Chris, my co-producer, and I found a venue that we intend to book. We received the news that MTV's EXIT campaign here in Thailand, www.mtvexit.org, is going to be one of our official partners and will help us with large-scale fundraisers for the production. We scheduled and publicized auditions which will be held next week. And, we've found two additional partners, the Foundation for Women, www.womenthai.org, and Pavena Foundation, www.pavena.thai.com, who will be the recipient of our fundraising efforts.

This past Sturday, I attended the Foundation for Women's 24th Anniversary event. Chris and I attended the first seminar on what the Foundation has achieved over the past 24 years. A number of women in the Foundation spoke about their work and experience. The session was in Thai but we had a wonderful translator. We learned that the organization worked to provide legal support and representation to women who had been trafficked and forced to do sex work. The Foundation also helped protect these women in government shelters and also gave them counseling and money so that they could return to their home countries. Some of the women who spoke from the audience cried when they talked about how the organization had changed their life and helped them. These women are so brave and progressive for their time, since a strict social hierarchy routinely marginalized women, particularly poor and uneducated women here in Thailand. Additionally, the police do not take rape or violence seriously and leave it unreported.

As wonderful as the Foundation for Women is, the Pavena Foundation is truly extraordinary and my visit there really effected me. Pavena is an extraordinary woman who was a Member of Parliament here--she went to Thailand's top university and has two masters degrees--and became passionate about helping women and children who are victims of violence, rape, trafficking, abduction, etc. We went to her headquarters, in a small village off of a main highway in a countryside province about an hour and a half outside of Thailand. I'd heard from a friend who's grown up here in Thailand that she really helps women. She has a help hotline, a four-digit number that's known throughout Thailand, and cabs around the country know where she is. But I only realized how much she helps when she took us around her organization.

In a small one room building, Pavena takes hundreds of cases a month and is a safe haven for women and children, in a country where there aren't many. She showed me the thick binders containing just how many cases she gets each month. In the building, she shows me photos of women she's helped--how badly they've been beaten, abused, and some hospitalized. She works with the police, since she has a lot of credibility, to remove women from these toxic and harmful environments, and then to catch and punish the responsible men.

I saw her two safe houses--each a small house, with 5 beds and a small bathroom. I met the young girls living in these houses. One girl, at only 15, was raped by 7 of her classmates, who videotaped the incident and put it on the internet. She now lives in the safe house, goes to school down the road, and has a good life until she is ready to leave, to go to school or get married. Another girl, just 10 years old, was raped by her teacher in the North of Thailand. She too, lives in the safe house. Another girl, 17 and pregnant from her rape, was in the hospital giving birth; she also live in the house. I met a women and her one-year old son, her husband beat her and she showed me her bruises, it was very difficult to look.

I felt a bit strange there, being introduced to all these women and girls, who were so polite and respectful, one even thanked me even though I'd done nothing for her. I told her I was so happy that she'd come to a place where she could get help, and though I'm pretty sure she didn't understand my words, she understood the sentiment.

I talked to Pavena about what the funds could be used for--I'd asked if she wanted to build another safe house; she told me of course she would like another safe house, and an activities center--she has too many cases, but not enough space for all of the women and children. So, we tentatively decided to aim to raise enough money for Pavena to build a new safe house and activities center.

So the journey begins. Auditions, fundraising, and a whole lot more ahead, so stay tuned.

I encourage all those interested to visit their websites to learn more about these organizations. If you would like to contribute to our V-Day campaign to raise money for Pavena's new safe house and activities center, please email me at vdaybkk@gmail.com.

The Hospital

I've become very familiar with Thai hospitals, well, one in particular: Bumrungrad. This is a hospital like no other. You can ask me anything, and I'd probably know the answer. Is is clean? Do they speak English well? What floor is women's medicine on? And what about digestive diseases (very important place living in Thailand), or the wellness center? How is the ER?

I've spent the past week in and out of the hospital and quite a place it is. I've experienced an abundance of its services, in both the new wing and the old wing, though an ordinary Bangkokian probably wouldn't know the difference, I know. Don't worry, I'm fine and all is well...now. I'm usually not this public about my health, but I feel that I must explain my absence and lack of responsiveness to my friends and family, but I'd also like to blog about the experience because it was very revealing. I'll start from the beginning.

Upon returning home from Europe, Thailand just seemed so happy to have me. First, I collapsed on the subway--either from exhaustion or dehydration or maybe just not eating enough? I was taken to the first-aid room by a very kind woman, who also bought me an orange juice from a local vendor, and awoken with Thai sniffing balms--they love them here. A woman rubbed my temples with the balm to calm me, and gave me juice and a Thai cure-all medicine. I was so touched about how concerned all the women were, hoping that I was okay. I don't think anyone anywhere in the US would be this concerned and caring to a stranger. I tried to pay the woman for the juice, or the skytrain workers for the balms and medicine, but they all refused. That's not the Thai way.

Three days later, I fell into a sewer. I was in a food market waiting for Kate to get her bubble tea when I walked over it and fell in. The sewer gave and I hurt my shin--a scrape and a bone bruise on my shin that still hurts. Just as I yelled out in pain how I hated Thailand--poor sidewalks and infrastructure here do bother me--a crowd of vendors, security guards and strangers from the market rushed over to help me, it was quite a scene. A girl gave me band-aids for my cuts, a guard brought out some antibacterial spays, and a woman even offered me a beer; I kindly declined and explained I had to go back to work. I was overwhelmed again, by the number of people who wanted to help me, and who refused to let me give them something for it--to pay the girl, who was clearly very poor, for the band-aids, for example. I wanted to take back the thing I said about hating Thailand as I was falling in, crying in pain. I love Thailand, and I loved the people.

But I digress, on to the hospital. After coming back from Bali when Christina left, I got sick. Very sick. My health certainly seems to be off this month. I went out to lunch with my office at a Vietnamese restaurant and four hours later, I was uncontrollably vomiting. I was in so much pain and I tried to go home. Luckily, the traffic in Bangkok worked in my favor, for once, and the cabbie refused to take me because of the traffic. So, I got out of the cab, barely able to stand up, and right in front of the US Ambassador's gorgeous house complex (it has a moat), I vomited. And I kept vomiting and people were staring. I knew I had to get back to my office building, across the street to get into the bathroom. I rushed to the bathroom, where I could be sick in peace, oxymoron, I know, until I passed out on the floor.

Soon after, a Thai woman who worked at Au Bon Pain right on the ground floor of our office building came in and found me, tried to wake me with her sniffers, and went to get help. I was in so much pain, I could not move. She brought in a security guard, tried to get me to go to the hospital, but I thought I just had a bad bout of food poisoning (episode 5 in 4 months!) so I didn't want to go. Eventually she got me up, took me to a back couch in ABP, and let me rest, gave me a plastic bag for emergencies and came in every 5 minutes or so to check on me.

It soon became apparent that I needed to go to the hospital, so Amelia (my roommate), came to pick me up and bring me to the hospital. She was amazing and talked to the doctors, since I clearly couldn't. I was taken into the ER in a wheelchair from the taxi and serviced immediately--no wait, nothing. I was treated by a nurse and doctor quickly, who told me I needed an IV and needed to stay overnight. I was given a chart to select my room--they give you different options with corresponding prices. Did I want a room to myself for 6,000B a night? Or to share a room for 3,000B? Or a four bed room, or a six bed room? It was as if I was checking into a medical hotel.

I was taken to my room and my misery began. I developed a fever. My IV swelled my entire wrist and hand. I was woken up every two hours for my temperature and blood pressure. But, I was given pain medication, which it didn't work incredibly well, and the service was great. And I had an all-in-one remote was attached to my bed: it controlled the bed, the TV, the lights and called the nurses. Basically, my body continued to leak for about 24 hours.

When I finally left the hospital--I begged to be discharged early, even though the doctor wanted me to stay another day and night--I was weak and worn and had no energy. I couldn't sit up without being dizzy and I could barely eat. I've never felt so drained and lifeless before, ever. But, I began on my road to recovery, with my 3 medicines, electrolyte packets and restricted diet. They were still trying to figure out what caused my severe episode, but would have an answer shortly.

A few days later, just as I was able to walk and leave my apartment and eat simple foods, I started to feel pain again. I called my doctor and it turned out that I didn't have a parasite or a bacterial infection--I had nothing at all, according to the tests he did. I had to come in and see my doctor.

I went back to the hospital and waited. The digestive diseases center was filled exclusively with Arab people--women in burqas and men in traditional or conservative wear. In my deranged state, I started to wonder if Arab people had bad particularly bad stomachs and if I was in fact part Arab. This clearly wasn't the case, but does speak to the hospital's main demographic, as I've mentioned before--wealthy oil men and their families who come from the Middle East to Bumrungrad, the best hospital in Thailand for elite treatment.

Indeed, the care is superb. I like my doctor here better than my gastroenterologist in NY. He's incredibly smart and thorough, and knows his stuff. When I came in and he felt around for my pain, he was able to identify specific areas where he thought my problems were, and suggested I take the next steps to determine my illness.

Needless to say, I had two very unpleasant procedures that I won't discuss here. The procedures themselves weren't unpleasant since I was asleep under local anesthesia, but the preparation and after-effects were quite awful. But, they were the right thing to do and did lead to a diagnosis and treatment--I'm fine, nothing serious, everything I have is controllable and can be monitored--and I am much, much happier now.

But, these rocky experiences this month showed me a lot about the Thai people and have really made me love Thailand, oddly, even though I seem to be allergic to it. They've also made me feel lucky because as bad as this was for me, I know that not only was I able to afford top treatment, but also I know that some people here go untreated and would experience worse in terms of their health and wellness. I'm reminded of this everyday on the street when I see blind people singing for money, or burn victims begging, or people with terrible deformities living on the street. I'm also reminded of this through my work for "The Vagina Monologues" here, when visiting our local partners and the women they help--seeing women who have been beaten or raped--I know that what I experienced, though jarring, especially in a place far away from home, cannot even compare to what some of the people face here.

I recognize that this seems to be a bit of a tangent and doesn't seem to relate, but my experiences this past month have made me value my own health, something I take for granted, and my situation in life, with access to health care and help, something that many do not have. I've come out of this rocky month with a renewed sense of purpose here in Thailand, and hope that I can give back to the community that has so willingly helped me when I needed it. Will keep you posted on how I do...

Something Strange about Singapore...

I went to Singapore about a month ago, and the place still irks me. When I arrived, my immigration and customs experience couldn't have gone more smoothly, but right after I stepped past the customs booth, I saw a soldier carrying a huge machine gun (it looked like one, though it was probably not). My friend Jay met me at the airport and took me to his apartment in a cab as he started to explain the city to me, the good and the bad--there is a very small gap between the rich and the poor (there are no bums in Singapore, god forbid!), prostitution is legal and registered, most of the housing is government-owned and each building upholds racial quotas to ensure mixing...the list goes on.

As we were driving along the highway, I noticed the perfectly manicured trees and felt like I was in some sort of jungle oasis, but in a city. We passed the Singapore skyline, which is lovely, and headed toward's Jay's apartment--which isn't government owned, but owned by the ministry of education since he is a teacher. After settling in a bit, we went down to Clarke Quay-- the harbor area where the major clubs, restaurants and bars are located, there's even a bungy-esque adventure contraption--for dinner, drinks and a fun night out.

Partial view of the Skyline and the Durian building

Perfect streets

Out in Singapore was also quite the experience. The expat community is older and the clubs are filled with a lot more Caucasian people, unlike Thailand. The clubs also tried to be a little glitzier and more exclusive than some of the ones in Bangkok. I guess this fits in with the whole intensely materialistic culture that reigns in Singapore. Like Bangkok, Singapore has tons, and tons, and TONS of malls, but shopping in Singapore seems to be a more ritualized activity than in Bangkok.

The next day, Saturday, Jay took me downtown to see some of the major sights--the government buildings, the Durian building and the Merlion fountain--definitely one of my faves--the Raffles Hotel, the colonial-era hotel famous for their Singapore Slings. We also went to the Fullerton, a 6-star hotel--to be honest, the Raffles, a lowly 5-star hotel, seemed just as nice to me, though the Fullerton was definitely more modern.

Jay, Kate and the Merlion

The Raffles Hotel

Then we continued on in the heat to the air-conditioned malls of Orchard street where I experienced Singaporean shopping and style. I got a great pair of jeans on sale which I love. It's funny, even though these jeans fit me, they were the largest size this store offered, a size 28. In the US, jeans run usually size 24-32, with most women falling between a 27 and a 30. And, amusingly, the jeans I bought, an American brand, were considered to run large, whereas in the US, this brand is considered to run small, as the brand is called "Rich and Skinny." Oh Asia.

After shopping, we returned to Jay's apartment for a nap and to get ready for another night out. We first went to Chinatown to see the famous temple with the Golden Buddha Tooth, had Foot massages, and then headed to dinner at an Indian-Asian fusion restaurant, just on the outskirts. Chinatown was okay, but it didn't feel incredibly authentic or special, I prefer the Chinatown in SF or NY. We continued our night at a bar called Helipad, which was an interesting concept-bar overlooking Clarke Quay and the bungy-like contraption.

Lights at night in Chinatown

The next day we headed to the Zoo, which was by far, my favorite thing in Singapore. The animals were great and the surroundings, while perfectly manicured in true Singapore-style, were open-air and natural for the animals. For the remainder of the day, we went to Little India and the Little Arabia. There was a cool market in Little India, but the intense incense everywhere made it impossible for me to walk around outside for long without sneezing. We then headed to Little Arabia, which was my favorite of the "Little" ethnic neighborhoods. The mosque was very pretty and there was an alley of very hipster boutiques and restaurants made for lounging and hookah reveling; the mosque was also quite pretty.

Monkeys at the zoo

Artwork on a temple in Little India

Flower offerings and incense in Little India

Hipster hangout in Little Arabia

Mosque in Little Arabia

What's strange about all the ehtnic neighborhoods is that they're fairly interchangeable with each other, you just have to change the writing on the signs from Chinese, to Tamil to Arabic--the Singaporean government tries to celebrate the diversity of it's population by delineating these spaces as "Indian" or "Chinese," and uses the same flags and markings to mark them. Little Arabia did have a more distinct personality--they each had distinct personalities, but there was still a common thread.

Overall, here are my thoughts on Singapore:

• It's a strange place, but I could never figure out how to articulate why it's so odd. Everything is perfect and well-run--the sidewalks, subways, signage--but something is off. Perhaps it's because everything is too forced. Just like Singapore tries to highlight it's diversity by highlighting cultural differences, you miss the point of diversity in the first place, and it all starts to look the same.

• The government sounds.....I probably shouldn't say. There are serial numbers on doctors notes, which you need to get a sick day. There is intense censorship. No gum....but prostitution is legal?

• There is some great architecture in Singapore, there's even a building that looks like the Gotham Building from Bathman. And hey, it all looks new. That's because the Singapore government tears down buildings more than 20 years old....

• For a city that's remarkably clean, I've never had worse environmental allergies in my life, I could not stop sneezing. And, for a city that tries to sterilize everything and gives grades to each of its restaurants--even street food vendors, which are kept off the streets and put in centers called "hawker centers," have grades--I somehow contracted a terrible bout of food poisoning that hit me on the plane home....
  

That's all I've got. I'm glad I went and experienced the oddities for myself....

Apologies

Sorry friends and fam for my tardiness. After returning from Singapore, I had a huge turnaround, went to Europe for two weeks and got back last week. I will be posting a short blog on Singapore, another one on my time in Amsterdam and Barcelona, and then another blog on my time back in Thailand, which has been quite eventful on its own, separate from the current protests outside my office. Stay tuned!

Feel the burn

So I finally did it, I took an exercise class...in Thai. It was quite the experience, so funny that I had to write about it. In Bangkok, I'm a member of the gym "Fitness World," which is conveniently right across the street from my house and also right next to the BTS. The walls are all glass, so anyone walking out of the BTS can see you running and sweating, quite the set-up.

Every time I go to the gym, before getting to the treadmills, I always pass the little spinning studio, the small black room that is always suspiciously empty. Yesterday, I decided to venture into the little black room and spin my heart out. As it turns out, the spin room doesn't stay black and dark all day. No, it doesn't have windows, it has a multi-color disco ball. The disco ball spins round and round, flashing different colors, creating the ultimate party...I mean, spinning atmosphere.

I walked in 5 minutes before the class started, but somehow I was late. The instructor in the front, wearing a towel on his head, was barking out instructions that I did not understand; I can only imagine they were to encourage the other spinners to go faster?I felt like I was in boot camp but didn't really feel the pressure of it all since I couldn't understand a thing.

My ability to follow the class relied on my peripheral vision, doing the glance to the left and right to see what other people were doing. Do I turn the resistance knob up, down? I navigated my way through the class as best as I could, but it was a bit difficult because it was all too amusing--the Thai electro-pop, the lighting, the towel-headed instructor all made it a bit difficult to focus.

After 35 minutes of spinning, I left the class to find Kate so we could grab some dinner. Much to my surprise, I found Kate on the couch outside of the "dance" studio, totally mesmerized, transfixed by the Thai dance students. Curious, I joined her on the couch to see what it was all about--it was a "hip-hop" class, with not one farang in the mix. I'm not really sure what kind of hip-hop this instructor was familiar with, but it certainly didn't look like anything I'd seen before--there were birdlike arm gesticulations, slides out of a 1970s movie, and weird stretching.

Amused and entertained, Kate and I went to dinner, contemplating what our next Thai exercise class experience might be....

Bangkok Brief: Neighborhoods, Nightlife and an Overdue City-Orientation

I've realized that I've left out a lot about Bangkok in this blog, which seems to just cover my travels. To remedy that, I thought I'd give you a brief overview of Bangkok's neighborhoods and places I frequent, and a general overview of the city layout.

In Bangkok, there are main street which are arteries of the city--some of these are "Sukhumvit" (the biggest street in Bangkok, where the skytrain runs along), "Phahonyothin" (where I live), "Phetchaburi" (where Bumrungrad, the main hospital is), etc. Off of these streets are smaller streets, usually labeled with numbers: Sukhumvit Soi 1, 2, 3, etc. The even sois are on one side of the street and the odds are on another. Off of the main roads, i.e., Sukhumvit Soi 4, are smaller, but still big roads with names--every few sois is a big street. For example, Sukhumvit Soi 63 is called Soi Ekkamai, and Sukhumvit Soi 55 is also called Soi Thong Lor, but the sois in between aren't main roads. However, the nearby sois are considered part of the Thong Lor neighborhood. So, Sukhumvit 55, 53, 51, 57 are all considered part of the "Thong Lor" neighborhood. Off of these roids (soi Thong Lo, etc) are smaller sub-sois: Thong Lor Soi 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. This is the city planning of Bangkok, definitely not a grid, but a more "organic" way to plan a city, or so one of my friends here says.

Of the neighborhoods I know and am familiar with, most are along the Skytrain, so I'm going to give my overview as if you were looking at a skytrain map:



The main Skytrain line is the Sukhumvit line, which connects the famous Chatuchak market in the northern part of Bangkok to the Eastern neighborhoods like Thong Lor and Ekkamai.

So, starting from the eastern most: Thong Lor and Ekkamai are cool, more upmarket areas that are mixed with Thais (wealthy) and expats--there are a lot of bars in this area and the majority of the "cool" and trendy Thai clubs are in this area. Soi 38 is in Thong Lor, which is famous for having delicous street food into the wee hours of the night/morning, it's fantastic. Almost like a 24-hour diner in NY, but not exactly.

Farther west is Nana is one of the "red light" areas (crazy that it's not THE red light district?!) but it's also where many Indian restaurants, the big clubs (soi 11), and Little Arabia (Soi 3, where my favorite middle Eastern restaurant with Dave the waiter, is) all are. A tad more west is Phloen Chit is where I work, 1 stop away from Nana; I work right across the street from the US embassy and about a 10 minute walk from the Nigh Baazar (2nd best but still damn-good market in Bangkok) and Lumpini park, one of Bangkok's main parks where runners and aerobic enthusiasts (yes, they have park aerobics classes, it's hilarious) gather like clock-work at 5 AM and PM.

2 stops west of Phloen Chit is Siam, the center of Bangkok. As a center of Bangkok, it is obviously where all of Bangkok's enormous malls are (Thais LOVE to shop, it's like a sport here): Central World (the biggest), Siam Paragon (the most luxuious), Siam Discovery, Siam Tower, MBK (electronics galore), and Central Chidlom (department store where FoodLoft is, one of my favorite eating destinations; technically not a mall, and also technically a 5-minute walk away form Siam). Siam is a major stop in the Skytrain as and is where you can change trains to go south towards the Chao Praya river at Saphan Taksin, where all the nice hotels are, the Oriental, Shangri-La, etc, and where you can catch a boat up the river to Bangkok's main tourist sits like the Grand Palace, Wat Pho, Wat Arun and the famous backpacker paradise, Khao San Road. You can also take this Skytrain line, the "Silom Line," to Patpong, Bangkok's other famous red-light district where you can find ladyboy shows, alternative "entertainment," a night market, my favorite Mexican restaurant, and yes, more shopping (the Silom Shopping Complex and some other shopping complex).

If you were to stay on the Sukhumvit line and continue north from Siam, you would reach Victory Monument (I still don't know what the victory was). Victory Monument is a teenybopper's paradise and it's where many of the school kids gather after school. It also has, yet again, great shopping, food, and bars (my favorite jazz bar, Saxophone, and another rooftop hipster/jazz bar/restaurant). Also, one of the better night clubs, Club Culture, isn't too far from Victory Monument.

Farther north from Victory Monument is Ari, my neighborhood. Ari is a quiet, Thai-farang area (again, wealthy Thais). It's filled with cute restaurants, and a few low-key, cute bars that I enjoy frequenting. Then, just a bit farther north from Ari is JJ (Chatuchak Market), the largest open-air market in the world where you can find anything from clothing to home decor to art (I've bought many paintings and photographs) to leather goods to pets (dogs, cats, bunnies to rare pets like squirrels and other rodents, usually dressed in weird outfits which are meant to be cute).

I have ventured off of the Sukhumvit skytrain line, though many of the restaurants, bars and clubs I go to regularly are in these areas. Some other areas to mention though are RCA, a closed-off street, lined with big nightclubs which are Thai-farang mixed; Phra Athit in Banglampu, the bohemian area of Bangkok, not far from Khao San Road, filled with amazingly delicious and inexpensive restaurants, including my favorite Thai restaurant, Hemlock; and Sarasin/Ratchadamri, near Lumpini Park, where there are some cute bars and great restaurants, though to be fair, this area is BTS-accessible.

Hope this helps all of you who were starting to wonder more about where I live (and the heart of the current Thai political turmoil)!

Chiang Mai, oh my! A Hippie Haven in the Thai Mountains

I've just returned from a lovely weekend sojourn to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. In fact, this was the first trip I went on where, when I left, I didn't feel "ready" to leave. Some of my preconceptions of Chiang Mai were indeed correct, while, yet again, I was very surprised by other parts of Chiang Mai. I was expecting a cute city surrounded by some nice scenery--sweeping green mountains and rice paddy valleys, but a city without much character due to its status as a tourist hotbed. Tourist hotbed, it was--treks were plentiful on every street, offering a smattering of options from elephant riding, ox cart rides, and bamboo rafting, to hill tribe village immersions (more like cultural tourism or "ogling"), to visits to butterfly farms or tiger kingdoms--but despite the large tourism presence in Chiang Mai, it was amazing to me how laid-back it is. Chiang Mai is completely different from the hustle and bustle of Bangkok--it's a small, livable and easily navigable city (albeit sans public transport), in fact, by the end of my weekend there, I even began to recognize where I was and where things were situated in relation to places I'd been and wanted to go to.

In terms of it's personality, Chiang Mai, Thailand's second largest city, is more like Berkeley, California-- as my friend told me, it's filled with hippie expats who are into organic, vegetarian food and yoga (though of a more spiritual nature, not necessarily yoga as exercise) --this was readily apparent in my first few hours in Chiang Mai as I'd seen more vegetarian restaurants in those hours than in all of Bangkok.

And, not only are the expats different (or the expat stereotype: hippy or English teacher versus sexpat or business person), but the Thai people who live there seem very different as well, and the Thai community seems much more accessible to expats than it does in Bangkok. When we went out at night, we met my friends' Thai friends and students; I'd never been around this many young Thais before! Clearly, Thais and farangs seemed to mix more than they do in Bangkok where bars and other venues are usually "Thai" or "farang," though many of the farang bars do have Thai girls (not men and women). At one of the bars we went to, we saw two local Thai bands--one alternative rock cover band, one Thai hip-hop band--which was pretty cool. Maybe it was the place we were, but overall, the young Thais in Chiang Mai seemed more alternative and dressed like hipsters. Granted, I have seen Thai hipsters in Bangkok, but not this many and it they certainly weren't this pervasive (hipster was the dominant look amongst young Thais I saw). The Thais also seemed more interested and eager to be friends with farangs like us--they were friendlier and a few even came up to talk to us. Despite this Thai-farang mix, there still are "farang" bars in Chiang Mai; we went to one, but there was still a small handful of Thai locals, mainly male, who were just chilling out, talking to the farangs. Also, my friends there spoke much more Thai than I expected (my Thai is limited to key words and phrases) and the Thais seemed exciting and willing to respond to them in Thai; in Bangkok, most people want to respond or speak in English.

The Thai hip-hop band we saw

Now, on to the things I did in Chiang Mai. One day, I rented a car with my friends and we drove to this national park, Doi Suthep Park, right outside of Chiang Mai. We drove up the hill, stopping at view points along the way for views of the city, until we reached Wat Doi Suthep, the famous Chiang Mai wat with gorgeous views of the city and the park. We climbed the 306 steep, serpent-lined (artistic serpents, not real ones!) steps up to the temple from the car park. Unfortunately, it was raining by the time we got to the top, so we didn't get the best views and didn't get to spend too much time in the temple.

Me driving our car on the other side of the road

View of Chiang Mai after a downpour

The 306-step naga staircase

The nagas (Buddhist serpents)

After the temple, we continued driving up the mountain and drove off of the main road (it was quite a drive, tiny road filled with potholes along the edge of the mountain!) to the Hmong hill tribe village (the Hmongs are not the famous long-necked hill tribe for those who may be curious, those are the Karen). The village was surprisingly pleasant--none of us wanted to just stare at the hill tribe people amidst a sea of tourists, which is what we were expecting. However, this village didn't have many tourists at all, we were one of maybe 3 small groups. We passed through the village market, which sold mainly embroidered clothes and crafts, and went to the maintained stepped garden, where there was also a nice waterfall. It was very peaceful and serene and we didn't have any people haggling us to buy things. We were approached by an adorable little girl dressed in the traditional Hmong costume who offered to have her picture taken with us for the bargain price of 10 baht (about 30 cents). We, of course, consented, she was just too cute. After our token hill tribe photo, we headed out of the garden, through the village and back to our car to start heading down the mountain, hoping to catch a hiking trail before leaving. We did get to one trail which was short, but nice. There was a waterfall, a river and a bouldered area. After the hike, we headed back to the city for, what else, amazing organic vegetarian food! Delicious. Oh, and did I mention that I had vegetarian street food too?? For dinner. Twice. At this cute little night food market in the old city. The street food in Chiang Mai was delicious.

The terraced garden in the Hmong village

One of the statues by the waterfall in the village

Our 10 B photo with the Hmong girl

An interesting tree that we came upon during our hike

The night food market by Chiang Mai gate in the Old City of Chiang Mai

Day 2 in Chiang Mai was also lovely and relaxing--it consisted of a 2-hour yoga class, which, as aforementioned, was spiritually, rather than cardiovascularly bent. After yoga, we had an amazing, again, vegetarian lunch, though this time it was all Indian food. Not as good as the Indian in Bangkok, but half the price and so therefore wonderful. My day of luxury and relaxation continued with a massage and then shopping at a weekend "walking" market, a market along a street closed off from cars. I think I'm spoiled by Chatuchak market (the largest outdoor market in the world where you can get anything!) right outside my doorstep, so by comparison, this market was okay. I bought some pretty awesome, hipster-y sneakers and a scarf.

The Sunday walking market

The nice thing, however, about the Sunday market, was that it was in the heart of the Old City in Chiang Mai and therefore surrounded by temples. Chiang Mai is a fraction of the size of Bangkok, but has just as many temples as all of Bangkok. Just from my few hours in this area, I definitely got a taste of the Chiang Mai temples of fame.

Outside a temple at night time

People making offerings

A large Buddha in one of the temples


Another temple

Overall, Chiang Mai was fantastic, and I definitely plan to go back, if only for a culinary tour. Or perhaps I should just start blogging about food...

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