Thailand — Laos

Happy holidays from this happy traveler! Although this season I’ve missed my friends and family, the warm fuzzies, winter lights and snow back at home, the past couple of weeks have been filled with heart-warming connections that have kept my holiday spirit alive. It’s been just over a month since I left Oregon and I’ve finally settled in to the moment-to-moment mentality. Here are some categorical updates since Christmas.

Health

Directly after my last blog post I got sick on Christmas. It was my first time getting sick this trip, and it had to happen sooner or later. It may have had something to do with getting too comfortable with the local water and ice, new foods, eating with hands, chicken poop exposure, and a lot of beer and little sleep. After about 24 hours in bed and keeping it low key, I was back up and at it. I’ve been feeling feverish every few days but I’m learning it’s my body talking and telling me to slow down and sleep, and I’m getting better at listening to it.

Farm “work”

• Being sick limited my ability to help on the farm. I honestly spent more time relaxing and hanging out with the family than I did working. At times I felt like more of a nuisance than a help, but I tried my best. On the days I worked I woke up at 4:30am to feed the chickens. My hand-eye coordination is sub-par, so for the most part I’d scoop the feed into buckets and Mom and Pa would put the feed in the troughs. We’d take breaks for coffee and food. I helped wash dishes that had accumulated from the evenings, then we’d start our rounds collecting eggs. On average I gathered about 1,500 eggs in 2 hours out of the 11,000 or so eggs produced each day…which speaks to my painfully slow pace. Mom and Pa have been farming eggs for 20 years so I’m really no match to that kind of experience. I’ve never seen hands move so fast and with such precision! My goal was to drop no more than 5 eggs a day; it’s the most sinking sensation to hear and egg crack. We would go back in the coop for another 2 rounds of picking up the late bloomer eggs and polished the ones with chicken poop on them. The work day would finish around 1pm.
• One day I went with Pooh to “help” her at her cooking job at Lanna Resort. I hung out in the kitchen and assisted in making Pok Pok (papaya salad) for a customer, delivered an order to a customer (which was funny and awkward because they had seen me taking a nap by the pool an hour earlier), motorbiked around with Pooh and coworkers to restock supplies for the cafe and kitchen, assisted in a Papaya Salad cooking class that Pooh taught to some Chinese tourists, and seran-wrapped and delivered some room service orders. I had such a good time this day my cheeks hurt from smiling.

Culinary

• I ate my first hot pot and my first Thai bbq (both are super fun and social ways to share a meal)! One day I went to get beef noodle soup lunch with Pooh and Nuun (so delicious! Alloy ma ma as they say in Thai). I’m still perfecting my noodle soup and chopstick technique…I slurped like a baby and splashed beef broth all over the front of my jumpsuit. I could have used a bib!
• I went to the market with Pooh and shopped for ingredients. We drank iced coconut water from plastic bags and wove through tables piled high with herbs and morning glory veggies, clementines, fish cooled by spinning paper mobiles, and myriad of cooked meals. We returned to the farm and she showed me how to make her spicy green sauce using the pok bowl. This was my first Thai cooking lesson! When I was at the resort Pooh also taught me how to make Pad Thai sauce, and later Pok Pok with the leftover ingredients from the Papaya salad class. Next time I’ll go heavier with the fish sauce and get a little angrier when pounding the chili peppers.
• Pa taught me how to make a local dish made with frog and a lot of Thai peppers and herbs.
• I tried a centipede throat coat medicinal candy. It’s a little hard ball you suck on. Not super effective but it was a unique flavor!
• Tried Snow lotus fruit. It looks like a potatoe but has the crunch of jicama and the flavor of melon. According to Mom and Pa it grows in the vicinity of Thailand, China and Japan, but originated from Thailand.

Local learnings and observations

• Pa got a gnarly scratch from a chicken claw. Through that experience I learned a trick in Thai herbal healing to dab the base of a Thai basil palm leaf stem on cuts to heal the wound. Within 2-5 minutes his gash had sealed together. Pretty incredible.
• I feel tall here. For the first time in my life I’m hitting my head on things. Everything is built for a slightly smaller stature.
• I’m still so impressed by how every Thai person I’ve met is so deft with a machete.
• Mom made homemade dog food using rice, water, scrambled eggs, and fish sauce. Each dog had his own bowl in its own place and each dog knows which one is theirs.

Special moments from the farm week

• One night Peh, the other daughter, came to visit so I finally got to meet her! She hand knit me a red beanie for Christmas 😍 so nice to get a festive Christmas present. This family has been so generous and have given me so many gifts and even more to send home. This is the night we had our Thai bbq, and afterwards I sang “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz for them. By this point in the night my voice was pretty much gone so that was probably my worst cover ever, but oh well, I tried!

• I loved having mini English/Thai language lesson exchanges with Pa. He has a book called “English Conversation” that we used and I would help him with his pronunciation and he’d help me with my Thai.
• On my last day on the farm I had a full work day, then napped and packed my bags. As soon as I was done packing the evening became a whirlwind of activity. Mom and Pa chanted prayers and tied white strings to my wrists that signify I am from Chiang Mai and provide good luck. You are supposed to wear them until they fall off naturally. Every time I look at my wrists I’m reminded of a sense of home.
• As soon as we finished I hopped on the back of a motorscooter with one of Mom’s friends and went to the market to pick out food (we got a big grilled fish and some crispy fish/papaya salad) for the usual post-work appetizers and drinks with the locals.
• We took a lot of photos and shared whiskey and had our final conversations. My heart, and belly, was full. I’ve felt consistently sad to leave places in northern Thailand. Any time I meet locals I want to stay for longer. These people have invited me in like family, like one of their own, and it made me feel such belonging at a time of year where it’s needed most ☺️

• Pooh picked me up and brought me back for a final Thai bbq party at Lanna resort. It was so much fun to joke around and hang out there; these people really are friends to me. A major highlight was that I got to sleep in a private bungalow at the resort! The room had 2 beds and I was so excited I woke up in the middle of the night and switched to sleep in the other bed. The best part is that I finally got to take a BATH. For the first time in a week I was a super clean queen.

On December 30th I left for city center of Chiang Mai. It was a day for errands. I met up with my French friend and we did our own laundry, walked around old town, visited the incredibly chaotic night market on walking street where I officially killed my interest in night markets after sweating shoulder to shoulder with tourists.

We went out to a couple of bars and got 7-11 toasties on the way home (7-11s are everywhere in Thailand, and toasties are a packaged ham and cheese sandwich which they toast for you in the store. Very processed but a dangerously delicious late night snack).

I spent the last day of 2018 hanging out with elephants! Jeanne (French friend/current travel partner) and I went to Maerim Elephant Sanctuary, which opened in 2016 and currently has 5 elephants, one of which is 3 years old. We began by dressing in traditional clothes that were all blue (elephants only see blue and yellow) and sipped on coffee while watching your usual cheesy video orientation. Then we got right to it and fed the elephants bananas, letting them grab the bananas with their trunks and also putting them directly in their mouth. One of the guardians put some crystals (maybe sugar or salt?) in my pocket and the baby elephant put it’s trunk in my pocket and ate them! Next we drove to a grove and cut down banana trees. Chopped mine down in 3 whacks and got bit by fire ants in the process – but no worries, tiger balm cures all! We rode back to the sanctuary on top of the truck, which is always better than being inside of a truck. We took a break and had a noodle soup cooking class/lunch, then fed the elephants the banana trees and some corn stalks. Finished by giving them a mud bath, got into a mud fight with the Thai elephant guardians, washed the mud off the elephants and ourselves, and then chilled by the human pool at the main sanctuary building. What an enlightening and fun experience! One of the elephants had been rescued from the logging industry just 4 months ago and is still getting used to humans but I felt like she was really calm around me. It was special to be able to look her in the eyes. These massive creatures are so much like humans. Pretty amazing to see how they are emotional and expressive, and how their human guardians can have such a communicative relationship with them.

Later that night I celebrated the New Years countdown, with 2 friends from home and Jeanne, by sending a lantern into the sky. My chin was lifted all night as Chiang Mai was glowing with everyone’s floating wishes.

I spent the first day of 2019 with breakfast burritos (my first western meal in Asia) and lots of caffeine fueled laughs. Jeanne and I walked around old town and I visited Wat Chedi Luang. My favorite part was a little enclosure with photos of crystals lining the walls and a tower in the center of the room with glass dishes holding samples of the pictured crystals. In front of the crystals was a monk in a glass box. Confused and anxious I walked around the enclosure and kept stealing glances to see if he was breathing. Thai people were entering the space and praying to him. I didn’t know how to react. After a very slow lap around the enclosure I smiled to myself…he was a statue. I put my hands together and bowed to him and moved forward to the next space.

January 2nd I began my journey to Laos, beginning with a bus to Chiang Kong. We stopped in Chiang Rai and saw the white temple. In the evening Jeanne and I walked along the river in Chiang Kong.

January 3rd was day 1 of the slow boat to Laos. I accidentally overstayed my visa in Thailand by 1 day. Ya live and ya learn. The border patrol was smiling and laughing, which relieved my concern about reentering the county. I taught some swedes a new card game I recently learned. We all sat together in the back of the slow boat with a bunch of Thai/Laos people and played it to pass the time. At one point I brought out my pens and paper and played with the local kids. Some lady kept trying to keep my pens; maybe she misunderstood and thought I was giving them to her, maybe it was her trying to steal, but it made me put my guard up. Which was an uncomfortable feeling because everything is much more fun when there is trust in the air. We spent the night in Pakbeng and I had a delicious pumpkin curry for dinner.

Slow boat day number 2 felt a little longer than day 1, and looked very similar except this time we had seats which allowed for a view of the Mekong river. But the back of the boat is where it’s at so I found myself spending most of my time socializing back there. All that time on the boat motivated me to start to draw again. I have a little fear with it, which makes it hard to start. But that’s because I’ve been out of practice with boldly putting the pen to the page. The more I do it the braver I become, and the less pressure I put on myself. It’s when people watch me work that I tend to hesitate, but I’m gradually becoming more and more comfortable with an audience because I’m caring less and less about what they think. We made it to beautiful Luang Prabang by 4:30pm.

January 5th I visited the Kuang si waterfalls, and saw the most beautiful blue colored water I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s caused by the limestone in the water, which also calcified the roots of the trees. We hiked to the top, through flooded stairs, to see the source of the waterfall. We also stopped by a bear sanctuary next door.

Spent the evening at the Utopia bar fire pit and ended the night at a bowling and archery range which was super random and a great time!

January 6th and 7th were eating and chilling days. Photos say enough. Tomorrow morning I leave for Vang Vieng. We’ll see if I wake up with enough stamina for a pre-bus sunrise hike and yoga.