A Day of Adventure

Today (July 8th) was our day to tour much of North Thailand. We first set out for BaanDam, or the Black House. This set of houses was built by the artist Thawan Duchanee and varies from black wat-style houses to white stupa-like houses, and the houses included artwork and collections by Duchanee.

Photo Credit: Becca

Photo Credit: Becca

Photo Credit: Mark

Photo Credit: Becca

We then moved on to visit a Chinese tea plantation, where we learned how tea leaves were grown, picked, dried and readied for drinking. We also got to sample different types of green tea and enjoy the hills of Chiang Rai.

The tea plantations, with rows of tea being grown behind the sign (Photo Credit: Becca)

After visiting the tea plantation, we traveled to Me Sai, where there is a legal border crossing into Myanmar (Burma). Here we perused markets and saw people from both Thailand and Myanmar each cross into the other country.

The customs gate through which people must pas through in order to reach Myanmar. (Photo Credit: Becca)

Next, we drove to the area near the Golden Triangle. The Golden Triangle is where Myanmar, Thailand and Laos come together in a triangle shape area along the Mekong and Ruak rivers meet. This geographical area, although pretty, has a more ominous history. Nicknamed as such, the Golden Triangle was one to the highest producing opium areas in the world. With hill tribes in all three nations producing opium, much of the product (raw opium) is turned into morphine or heroin and transported around the world. We then walked down the hill from the viewpoint to visit the Hall of Opium to learn more about the history of the drug. Afterwards, we took a boat tour along the Mekong and visited an small island off of Laos. Here, they sold mainly fake handbags and snake whiskey (yes, that's bottles of whisky with preserved snakes inside). Returning to shore, we set out for our last destination.

A map explaining the geography of the area. (Photo Credit: Becca)

The Golden Triangle, with the confluence of the two rivers being in the bottom right of the photo. (Photo Credit: Becca)

Finally, we drove to Chiang Saen, and saw many old ruins of wats. We also witnessed the carving of candles for Buddhist Lent. Marking the start of the rainy season, Buddhist Lent is a time for harvesting rice. Monks also have a special rule that they cannot travel outside their town and, if they do so, must return within the same day. Heading to the fruit market, we unfortunately witnessed an accident where a truck hit a moped. This is one of the many dangers of living in Southeast Asia, where mopeds and motorcycles are one of the major modes of transportation.

Intricate carving of a naga (mythical dragon) from a candle (Photo Credit: Becca)

Ancient ruins of wats (temples) in Chiang Saen (Photo Credit: Becca)

All in all, this was an exciting day where we got to see many sites that we could not have found on our own without the help of a guide!

-Becca

First Full Day in Chiang Rai

Today, July 7th, the skies opened up and poured. It rained all day, and a lot! We spent most of the day listening to the rain, reading, and catching up on things. We did leave to get curry at a local restaurant for lunch, and then later that night to a restaurant for dinner. The last restaurant had Thai dancing as entertainment, but we were all much more interested in the geckos and the snake in the pond.

Mark and I have been trying to teach ourselves to learn Thai, but as the alphabet is 46ish letters long and symbol based, its proving to be a tad difficult. Although not learning words, even reading Thai can help you to figure out where you are. We found a great website that incorporates the sounds and the letters. It's actually created by the University of Washington, and if anyone is interested, here is the link: http://play.centerforgamescience.org/thai/

-Becca

Welcome to Chiang Rai

We took off from Bangkok early this morning on a flight to Chiang Rai.  We were eager to see the difference between a big, cosmopolitan city and a smaller Thai town.  

Once we had checked into our resort, we set off to explore the town on foot.  Since it was Sunday, the streets were quiet and many businesses were closed.  We visited the Hilltribe Museum, which provided interesting background to the culture and lifestyles of local tribes and the history of opium trade in the Golden Triangle.  We are looking forward to trekking to see tribes and the Golden Triangle in a couple of days.  After the museum we enjoyed lunch al fresco at a local restaurant that opened recently.  We learned from the cook that she had just returned to Thailand from the US, where she had owned a Thai restaurant and worked as a dealer in Las Vegas.  It was interesting hearing about her perspective on the two countries, and how she missed Thailand and its people too much to stay in the US.  She told the girls that working as a dealer is quite lucrative, and they should move to Las Vegas to work there.  (We all found that to be quite amusing.)

After a walk through a local park to see a monument and gold clock tower, we broke up the heat of the afternoon with a float in the resort pool.  The cool water felt wonderful after the sticky walk through town.  One of the benefits of travelling in the off season is that there are few tourists here.  We’ve encountered French, German and Spanish travellers in our hotel, but only a few other Americans.  It was fun to identify the different languages we heard at the pool.

A wat we saw on the way to the Hilltribe museum (Photo credit: Sarah)

We spent our evening walking through the Happy Market, which occurs each Sunday evening.  It was fun to see the locals browsing, eating and chatting.  We enjoyed some local entertainment, including an umbrella dance by a troupe of young girls, and a folk singer.  The variety of street food was amazing -- including many foods and aromas we did not recognize.  Some of the more interesting choices included eggs on a stick (still in the shell), dried cuttlefish on a stick and friend insects of various sizes and crunch levels.  We opted for phad thai cooked up fresh in a huge wok as we watched.  Mark tried some fried squid that he ate from a plastic bag with a toothpick.  We haven’t been as adventurous with the street food as we expected, but I think we’ll acclimate after a few more days.  The sights, smells and sounds are all consuming and make the thought of walking and eating a little daunting.

The trip to the market was a reminder of the opportunity that travel brings -- to try new things, get out of your comfort zone, and test the limits of your tolerance for the unknown.

-Michelle

The Second and Last Full Day in Bangkok

Today, July 5th, was our day to explore Bangkok on our own, and it turned out to be very adventurous. We started off by heading towards the skytrain in order to go to the weekend market. On the way, we ran into a smartly dressed man who claimed to be a policeman and showed us his badge. He said the weekend market didn't open until 1 pm and gave us recommendations for alternative activities. While we were talking to him, a tuk-tuk drove up. The policeman negotiated a price for us and told the driver the direction in which we would like to head. We ended up on a dead end street where a woman tried to sell us tickets for a longtail boat to the floating market. Having already taking the boat trip the day before, we put our heads together about what to do next. 

We then attempted to get the tuk-tuk driver to take us to the Jim Thompson House, a local museum. The driver insisted on taking us to a silk tailor, where he said he would get a stamp for gas. After repeatedly saying no, we ended up there anyhow. It turned out to be a legitimate business, we looked at different fabrics, and ordered Dad three nice, tailored shirts. 

Attempting to get the driver to take us to our destination once again proved futile, and we ended up at a gemstone business. The driver promised to negate any cost as long as we spent 15 minutes in the establishment. We walked around for a while, looking at shiny, sparkly pieces of jewelry. Made of semi-precious gems and 18 carat gold, the pieces were sadly over-priced, but it was fun to see the jewelry making process and variety of designs.

The showroom at the gemstone store (Photo credit: Emily)

In the end, we made it to the Jim Thompson House. Although not well known in the United States, Jim Thompson was an architect turned OSS officer (that's the old name for the CIA) who moved to Thailand after his divorce. He promoted the art of silk weaving and started his own company, which became very successful. Deciding to make Bangkok his permanent home, he combined six small, traditional Thai houses to make one western-style home. Today the house is a museum. At just 61, Jim Thompson disappeared into the jungles of Malaysia while on a vacation with friends. He was never seen or heard from again, and no one knows to this day what happened. The house was nicely decorated, with many Thai antiques and ancient images of Buddha (some over 1000 years old).

Obtaining silk thread from the cocoons of silk worms (Photo Credit: Emily)

A peek of the teak and painted roof of Jim Thompson's house in Bangkok (Photo credit: Emily)

Lotuses in the water at the Jim Thompson House (Photo credit: Becca)

Raw silk after being dyed (Photo credit: Becca)

We then headed to the weekend market, where we had lots of fun browsing shops, buying souvenirs and eating coconut milk ice cream. A bonus, Emily also got stopped and interviewed by Thai teenagers! They were doing a project on tourists and asked her about her impressions of Thailand, what she thought of the weather, and whether she would return again. Then, they all preceded to take photos and selfies with her, as well as with Sarah!

After the heat and time spent at the market (the place was huge), we decided to return home on one of the last modes of transportation we hadn't tried. The metro was very clean, and the long ride home was spent laughing at the weird commercials in the metro car. Getting off, we attempted to visit the serpentarium, which ended up being closed. We then spent the rest of the evening catching up on writing, eating phad Thai and the spiciest basil chicken, and preparing for our early day tomorrow.

-Becca

Bangkok Day One

Our first day in Bangkok was the Fourth of July. Here, nothing was closed, with one exception (see later in post). We crammed a lot into the day, and used the majority of the public transportation available. First, we took the skytrain towards the river (Mae Nam Chao Praya).

High-rises and hotels seen from the public river boat (Photo credit: Emily)

From there, it was a quick walk to the public river boat which would take us up the river towards the Ko Ratanakosin area, where many wats (temples) are situated. The boat ride was nice, and we were able to see many sights from the water. After getting off we walked to the Royal Palace, a compound that contained the former residence of the Thai royal family.

Royal residence, built in a European style. The most recent US president to stay there was Bill Clinton. (Photo Credit: Emily)

Within the walls were Wat Phra Kaew (the home of the Emerald Buddha) and many other brightly decorated buildings of varying importance. Unfortunately, we were not able to see the Emerald Buddha, as the wat was closed for July 4th. As we are in Bangkok, it was not closed for US Independence Day but for a private ceremony.

Various wats, residences and buildings within the compound. (Photo credit all: Emily)

Leaving the compound, we then walked to the Navy Wives restaurant and had a delicious and authentic Thai lunch. We sampled many dishes including phad Thai and green curry. Soon after we took a long tail boat ride around the canals of Bangkok. We saw many interesting houses and large monitor lizards in the water, and we fed humongous catfish loaves of bread.

The view from the long tail boat (Photo credit: Becca)

Disembarking from the second boat ride of the day, we walked to Wat Pho and saw the third largest Buddha in Thailand. Covered by the wat, the Buddha is a massive statue that is reclined, standing at 15m high and 43m long (that's 30 ft tall and 129 ft long for us Americans).

Photo credit: Emily

After viewing the many different buildings and statues, it was important that we the massage school within the wat. This is a traditional Thai massage school, where we all enjoyed a massage.

Even with intricate details, Wat Pho was much simpler than Wat Phra Kaew. (Photo Credit: Emily)

In a Thai massage and the masseuse uses her hands and body weight to massage areas that need relaxing. The massage was originally meant to relieve tension from weary workers who stood or crouched all day in rice fields or other jobs. We then took two tuk-tuks (motorized, covered rickshaws) to the flower market.

Becca, Michelle and Sarah in the tuktuk (Photo Credit: Emily)

This is where we ran into a tight spot. Tuk-tuks are notorious for taking tourists to places they do not want to go.  Luckily, we had a guide to orient us for this first day, and she negotiated the price and where we were going. However, traffic was heavy and the tuk-tuk containing Mom, Sarah and me went zooming ahead of Emily and Dad, causing us to feel rather uneasy. In the end, although we ended up having to pay higher than agreed upon, we found each other. The flower market was really impressive, with many orchids and roses.

It was very interesting that the flowers didn't wilt or dry up in the heat. We got a small flower wreath of a type that is made at most stands and is meant to be an offering to Buddha.

One of many styles of flower wreaths (Photo Credit: Emily)

Thailand is about 95% Buddhist, and it surely shows in the number of wats and images of Buddha.

Monks leaving the ceremony at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (Wat Phra Kaew). (Photo credit: Emily)

We then took the public boat back to the skytrain stop, with many locals cramming on during rush hour. Without much sleep between landing in Bangkok and starting our day, we were all exhausted and headed back to the hotel. After about an hour of down time, we attempted to go find the night market and ended up in a mall. Overwhelmed and tired, we bought melon and bao from the local market and headed home for the night.

Side note:  So far the heat and humidity have been pretty bad, but once you get hot, you're fine. You just have to realize that you're going to be perpetually sweaty and pink. Drinking lots of water is imperative, as you need as much as you can get.

-Becca

Arrival in Bangkok

We have finally arrived in Bangkok, Thailand. It took us about 34 hours including layovers and crossing the international date line to reach here. (It's currently July 4th.) None of us has had much sleep. The most intriguing part so far has been the Tokyo airport, with many different shops and murals. Upon arriving in Bangkok, the street signs all are the same color and signage as in the US, but it's all in Thai with some English below. Tomorrow will be busy, with touring the many major sites on the top of our list. The humidity hasn't been terrible yet but we arrived at night, leaving the heat, sun and the humidity for tomorrow.

-Becca

Photos Courtesy of Emily

Basics

This blog is meant to chronicle the journey of our family throughout Southeast Asia this summer (2014). We will be taking seven weeks to travel to Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. Tonight we leave for our trip, flying to San Francisco, staying overnight, and then catching our next flight to Tokyo.   From Tokyo we will fly to Bangkok, Thailand.

-Becca