Observations from an Alien Anthropologist

Let me just begin by saying that I absolutely love Thailand.  And when I say that, mostly what I'm talking about is the people of Thailand.  I love their nature: sweet, modest, calm, respectful, honest.

I love the fact that I'm not the only one around here who feels the same way, either.  All the expats that I've met here, or who have ever traveled here, have said much the same thing about this glorious country.  I think if you have the slightest curiosity about Thailand, the most minute desire to travel here, maybe due to the otherworldly images of the beaches here, or the idea of going out nights in Bangkok shopping and carousing with the international set, you should revise your idea.  Instead, come here for the people.  Come here to connect with someone who will make you feel good about the people of the world in general.  And those folks are everywhere here.  

Now that I've said that, I'd like to post some observations from an outsider who does not understand everything he see around him.  Some of these sights simply raised an eyebrow, while others crossed my eyes.  I make these observations with an open and fully accepting mind, but with, like I said, not much in the way of understanding.  

First, the most obvious to anyone who's ever been to Southeast Asia, is the disregard for personal safety. To illustrate, I submit as evidence, exhibit A: An entire family riding on a motorbike with nary a helmet in sight, with the father controlling the handlebars not with both hands, No!  With one hand because he's holding an umbrella over everyone's head with the other.  Now I applaud his chivalrous intention, make no mistake.  And I completely understand the benefits of the motorbike over the car. But why not put a helmet on junior or the missus or yourself?  I also know it's hot outside and you like the wind whipping through your hair as you weave in and out of traffic at high speed.  But think of the children...

 Exhibit B: again with the motorbikes!  While I'm driving as attentively as I can, It's still impossible for me to be aware of every motorbike around me when  these guys and gals are passing me on both sides of the car.  It's literally unsafe for me to turn either direction or to brake suddenly because there are motorbikes around me like a swarm of busy bees.  Why?!  If you won't "think of the children", then maybe think of the poor chap behind the wheel of that rickety old Soluna whose trying his best but isn't from around these parts, so probably won't do what you expect him to do.  Besides, his guts are twisting as he drives and his knuckles are turning white on the wheel.  Pity me!

Second is the menu translations.  Most of what I've seen on the menu in Chiang Rai is written Thai, which makes sense.  It's Thailand.  But occasionally a restaurant will scratch out a couple English words underneath the Thai.  This is a great help to ignorant travelers like myself; however there are occasions when I wish they either would  pay a professional to do it, or just leave it in Thai.  As support for this, I offer you the following, seen on a menu a few days ago:  Serpent head with sour and sweet sauce.  That's it.  No description.  No identification of the type of serpent, or how much of the neck comes with it.  How can I make an informed choice?  I guess I'll just have the curry.  Again.  Another menu just yesterday stated, "Rice with fried vegetables and pig offal."  Come to think of it, I don't know how to say pig offal in English and make it sound appealing.  Maybe just leave that one in Thai....

Anyway, I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, because I'm not, except about those damned motorbikes swarming me!  Maybe I'm just making a mental list of things I hope to understand before I leave.  Remind me to tell you about The Night Gnarket.......

Right now the monsoon rains are falling again and I have to drive (have mercy) downtown to do some shopping for the new house that we move into tomorrow morning.  Super psyched to have more than one cell bedroom for us and the kids.  Life here is about to improve 100 fold.  

Busy lifestyle

I imagine that at some point in our life here, we will slow down and get into a laid back, take-it-easy way of life.  This has not happened yet.

Every day has been more or less non-stop with our house hunt, school preparations, communications, and meeting new people.  I have to say, I am ready for the shift to take place, but being busy has been good for us - mostly because it keeps us out of this hotel room.  Speaking of which, it looks like we found a house and will be moving into it on Saturday.  It was an exhaustive effort, but Jess and I felt just like we were on the show House Hunters International (Jess' favorite show).  We looked at 6 very different houses last Saturday and were able to decide on one pretty quickly.  I was leaning towards the first one we saw, which was in town and very cheap (I still haven't gotten work yet).  But in the end we agreed on one at the top of the budget outside of town.  It's got a big yard, everything we need to cook and clean with, nice neighbors, and a cat, apparently.  The kids were psyched about that, as you can imagine.  The owner of the house was a real character - a retired Brit who never stopped ragging on our real estate agent.  He totally charmed the kids, so much so that all they could say after we left was "Tony!  Tony's house!  Let's move in with Tony!"

Unfortunately for me, as soon as we returned to our room from the house hunt, I fell extremely ill.  In fact, I didn't get out of bed for 24 hours, and even then it was just to wobble around the room for a minute.  I am still feeling nauseous and have a head ache but my fever is gone and the stomach cramps have eased up a bit.

But the real exciting news is that today is the first day of school for Jess and the kids.  I dropped them off this morning and watched the flag raising ceremony where the kids all line up in their uniforms and sang the Thai national anthem, the school song, and welcomed Jess, Suni and Radd.  It was cute, but I was sweating and feeling dizzy so I didn't stick around long.

Now I am desperate to leave this room again, but can't stand the idea of talking to anyone or being outside.  What to do?  Write a blog post!

Just What We Needed

You know, living in Chiang Rai can be tough.  It's not all fried crickets and hotel breakfasts.  The stress level around this little room has been rising for the past couple of days due in part to the slow pace of the house hunt, the uneasiness of buying this glorified go-cart and our close quarters.  But I gotta say, today has been a good day.

After sleeping until 7:20 (a new record!), we had our usual delicious breakfast.  Then, our new friend Ady picked us up in his super-cool diesel Toyota Forerunner (known as a Fortuner around these parts).  We had made plans to visit his favorite waterfall, which has a small pool at its base that is perfect for a little dip.  Though it rained all night, and even drizzled a little all day, it turned out to be perfect for a jungle trek because it kept the temperature perfectly pleasant (about 25 degrees C).  So we dropped off his beautiful little 2 year old at her preschool and set off for Khun Korn.  The drive was cool because the road snaked along through the countryside past rice fields, banana trees and small traditional Thai houses.  About 45 minutes later we arrived at the trail head.  There was absolutely no one around, probably because it was drizzling ever so slightly, but perhaps it was just early on a Thursday morning.  The trail was slick and rocky and traversed the little river several times.  There were bridges made of bamboo rods with split bamboo as a covering.  Most were fine, but a couple required special care in crossing, especially because of the rain-caused slickness.
The sign at the trail head said 1400 meters, and I guess that was about right, though I was too engrossed in looking at the foliage to really tell.

Mosquitoes followed us the whole way, but fortunately few were hungry so we just kept marching and peppering Ady with questions about living in Chiang Rai.  "So, can you pump your own gas here, or...?"  "Do you do most of your grocery shopping at the Big C, or are you a loyal Macro customer?"  Ady was so patient.

Arriving at the waterfall, the mosquitoes disappeared because the force of the falling water created a stiff wind that drove them away and cooled down the air even more.  It was pretty impressive, I have to say.  And the kids being the kids, stripped down before anyone else, changed into bathing suits and ran down the mossy boulders to the water.  Instant smiles and happiness.  Ady was kind enough to guide them, one at a time, to a little cove behind the waterfall.  I think it was something that the kids will definitely remember for a long time to come.

Afterwards, we hiked back to the car and drove back into the city.  Ady suggested a little Mediterranean restaurant for lunch and so we demanded that he let us buy him a meal for such a great day.  It turned out to be Maltese (almost identical to any good Italian restaurant.)  We had pizza and beer and just felt so so relaxed having met a friend, explored a super cool natural feature, and had a meal that didn't have one rice noodle in it.

Back at the hotel, Pi called and brought our new go-cart to us.  So, now we are mobile too, which is nice.

One funny thing that happened on our hike was that Ady said every time he had been on this trail previously, he had met someone from Israel.  That is quite a coincidence considering the remoteness of the place, he's been there four times, and the fact that it's, well, Chiang Rai Thailand.  Since we arrived and didn't see anyone around, I thought his streak had ended, but sure enough, as we walked down the trail back to the car, we met an Israeli family.  That's five in a row now.  What gives?

Anyway, it was a great morning and just what this group needed to restore a little morale and get us excited about living here.  The weekend is coming up and tomorrow is our one week anniversary.  Anything can happen...

The Piti Suksa Montessori School

Hello there from Jess!  Yesterday we met with the director of my new school (Piti Suksa Montessori School) and she took us on a tour for the first time.  The school is on a quiet, lush street in a safe neighborhood.  A few of the teachers live very nearby and we are hoping to also.  As we entered the grounds my first impression was that of a very peaceful and tropical space.  The bird sounds were abundant as were some very high pitched insects. A large playground full of trees was surrounded by open-air classrooms.  The kids immediately ran to play on all they could.  They particularly enjoyed the foam matted space where the classes do yoga, gymnastics, and games. Radd was excited to see a big open grassy space with goals where he can teach the students lacrosse. Kroo Aoy (Kroo meaning teacher in Thai)  took me into my classroom to let me get familiar with it. It is a nice space with wooden floors and tables.  The shelves are prepared, but upon closer look, not very organized or "Montessori."  After meeting for a while, I was left to my own devices to try and make sense of my new teaching environment.  Overwhelmed by the task and the heat, I could only stay for an hour or so.  I decided to regroup and try again tomorrow.  

What We've Learned So Far

As I lay awake in bed this morning, I was thinking about our circumstances.  Here we are, in a country where we can neither speak, nor read the language, and yet we spent the day yesterday getting cell phones, negotiating the purchase of a car (albeit an overpriced piece of $hit), arranging to see rental houses (on our new phones,) and exploring the town on foot.  But what permits all of these things to occur, generally speaking, is trust in our fellow human beings.  We don't know if we are being ripped off or deceived.  In fact, I assume we are to one degree or another, yet if we didn't just suck it up and trust the people we meet, we couldn't accomplish any of the mundane tasks that we need to complete.  Essentially, I'm feeling very vulnerable and helpless.  But then along comes some sweet face with basic English ability and suddenly we are signing contracts that we can't read.  It goes against everything I've ever learned the hard way.  My brain is shaking with apprehension, but I know it doesn't matter.  We have no choice but to trust people completely.  We are students of humanity right smack dab in the middle of an important lesson, though class is not out yet.  I'm hoping to be rewarded for our faith in people and not have my cynicism reinforced.

I'll let you know how that goes......

In a few minutes, we are being picked up by the owner of Jess' school.  She's taking us to check it out for the first time, which we are all very excited about.  We are also meeting one of Jess coworkers who has a washing machine.  All of our clothes are stinky with South-East-Asian humidity and we have no way yet of cleaning them.  It's the little things that make us excited these day, you know?

Later, I have to drop off the rest of our deposit on the overpriced piece of you-know-what.  Then at 1 PM we get to see our first house.  It's almost directly across from the school, but is not furnished. That has to be negotiable though.  After that?  Who knows?

Good Morning

Jet lag continues to haunt Suni, and as a consequence, all of us.  Radd and I are sleeping well, but I think Jessica and Suni are showing similarities to Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
Suni woke up at about 4:45 and started listening to a book on tape.  Breakfast is at 7:00.  What do you do in a small hotel room with 4 people for over 2 hours when one will not let you sleep?  The answer: silently stew.

Things began to pick up after breakfast though. We decided to go for a walk going in a different direction from the hotel at about 7:45 AM.   Within about 20 yards from the hotel, we noticed a tiny used car lot.  When I say tiny, I mean it had 4 cars, though what caught our eye was a classic Volkswagen Beetle in almost perfect condition.  Too bad it was out of our price range.  Anyway, we stopped in to look at a 1998 Mazda pickup that looked affordable.  The woman who came out to meet us was named Pi (pronounced "pie").  She said that she had "a friend" who had a much larger car lot and was sure she could help us find something that would work for us.  As we talked, we mentioned that we were also looking for a house.  She brightened up immediately and said she had the perfect house for us only 10 minutes drive away, and began showing us photos on her iPhone.  The house looked large and well taken care of and fit in our budget.  We are looking for a house under 18,000 baht.  Guess how much she wants for the house...18.000 baht.  Jess, ever the wheeler and dealer, started bargaining without hesitation. "Would you take 15,000?"  Apparently, the house is owned by a Chinese couple who do not live in Chiang Rai so she has to ask if they will accept less.  Well, now we have an appointment with Pi for 12:30 this afternoon.  She's going to pick us up at the hotel, drive us to the house and then drive us to the car lot.  All this occurred before 8:00 AM.

So after we say goodbye to Pi, about 20 yards further up the road, what do we see but a couple schools with English programs.  This gives me (the unemployed English teacher) hope.  These schools did not appear in my earlier Google searches, but now I have more leads to follow up on on Monday. And it's still early!!!!!!!  Can't wait to see what happens next.  I'll let you know when it does though....

Chiang Rai: Initial impressions by expats for a year

After breakfast and a round of cards this morning, we called a taxi to take us to the Central Plaza, the big mall in Chiang Rai.  We needed to get new phones or sim cards, and wanted to check out our new digs.  Lesson one for new arrivals to Thailand: when you go to get a cell phone, bring your passport and international driver's license.  We were all set to get our new phones, and learned that valuable lesson.  Now we have to return to the mall tomorrow...
After that, we toured the 3 story mall.  What we discovered was that all the prices of all the products were the same as in the U.S.  No deals on anything to be found.  On the bright side (I guess) the mall had everything you could imagine, including a ciniplex.   Now showing: The Bourne Something-or-Other, Through the Looking Glass, A Pet's Life, and a bunch of other titles I hadn't heard of.  Cost to see a film?  $3.50 USD.
After leaving the mall, we took a tuktuk (see what I did there?) down to the center of the city.  There is a large golden clock tower in a roundabout that is said to be a tourist attraction, though I don't get it.  To be honest, we were a little underwhelmed by the city of Chiang Rai.  It doesn't really differ from anywhere else we've been in Thailand.  It has a lot of small shops that sell a mishmash of plastic stuff, tons of coffee shops, a couple bars, massage parlors (of course), and the rest of it.  The side walks are all broken up, the streets have all the same smells, the traffic is bustling, the buildings are  in various states of disrepair.  Jess and I concluded that when people talk about how beautiful Chiang Rai is, they are referring to the area around the city: the mountains and temples, etc.  Therefore, we decided to rent a car tomorrow and drive out of town to see what we can see.  Oh! That reminds me:   lesson two for new arrivals:  have the hotel reception write down the name and address of your hotel in Thai so that you can show it to the taxi drivers.  No one seemed to know what we were saying when we tried to get back to the hotel, so we ended up in the wrong place and had to use that hotel's wifi to use google maps to show the driver where the hell our hotel was.
Anyway, we made it and are now trying in vain to force the children into a nap so we can break the cycle of waking before dawn.  It's not working.  So....it's about 2 PM, we are all tired and cranky but can't nap, we are basically stuck here for the rest of the day until we walk to the market for dinner.  I wouldn't knock on this hotel door if I were you.

Everything That's Happened Up Till Now...

First, an important announcement:  We have arrived in Chiang Rai Thailand!

Ahh, that's better.  Now I can tell you a brief history of our journey.

It all started when we were dropped off at the airport in Bozeman at 6 :30 PM by the lovely Mrs. Jessie Foch.  As usual, we breezed through check-in and security (if you've been through Bozeman's airport, you know what I'm talking about.)  To be honest, I can't really recall the waiting period before the flight left.  What I do remember is Radd suddenly developing a fear of flying about 10 seconds after the wheels went up on the plane.  My first thought was: Oh sh#t!  We have a lot of flying to go!
I famously have a fear of flying, but I took care of that with the help of a small white pill called Klonopin.  I highly recommend it.  Anyway, the flight to Seattle was uneventful and even relaxing.
Unfortunately, we had a 5 hour layover there and didn't board our next flight until 1:30 AM  The kids and Jess had sacked out for a while at the gate, leaving me to sit and people watch.  Now the best part of the whole story, at least as far as I am concerned.  As soon as we boarded the plane for the 10 hour and 45 minute flight to Taipei, my head began to bob and my eyes began to close.  The next thing I knew, I woke up just before the 2nd meal was served.  Jess says I was out for 7 hours!  Boooooom!!!!! I have never slept on a flight for more than 15 minutes. This was the best news I had ever heard.  The other good thing was that the kids were napping when I got up and I was able to watch The Revenant in peace.
Next, we arrived in Taipei at about 4:45 AM local time.  This was the beginning of our jet lag.  We watched the sun rise through the haze of Taiwan smog and humidity while we ate ramen on the floor of an airport lounge.  Radd thought it was the best thing he had ever eaten.  One cool thing that happened in the Taipei airport was that we met a really nice woman.  She was Thai, married to an Armenian man and had two children: one biological, one adopted from Thailand.  The crazy thing about that was, she adopted this little girl at the exact same time we adopted Suni.  She had to deal with the epic flooding in Bangkok and was delayed over and over again like we were.  We got along so well that we exchanged contact info.  Turns out she lives in Westchester NY!
But soon it was time to board our flight to Bangkok, and to tell the truth, that flight was also uneventful (which is obviously the best kind of flight).  We were fed an interesting Chinese breakfast of chicken and mush.  I liked it. No one else did.
After landing in Bangkok, we collected our luggage (it all made it!!!) and took a taxi to the hotel, which was very close to the airport.  The taxi driver had really pimped out his ride with huge speakers mounted in a Plexiglas case, acrylic gear shift nob, and chrome rims.  He also pimped out his hair: died blonde with a high pony, sides shaved.  Nice!
The hotel was no frills but nice enough. All we wanted was a bed and a pool and this place had both. We immediately went down to the pool, had a beer and relaxed.  I have to say, we deserved it.  But then that jet lag really caught up with us.  Around 3 o'clock, we decided to take a nap, but when you are as tired as we were, waking up from a nap is a herculean task, one that was just too much for Suni. At 5 PM or so, Jess and I forced ourselves awake to deal with dinner.  I walked down to the 7-11, which was just a block away, but when you are as exhausted as I was, walking around a 7-11 in Thailand is like stepping into someone else's dream.  You can't make heads or tails of what you are looking at.  Are these shark flavored Doritos?  How much is 50 baht in American dollars?  Why can't I remember why I'm here?
I shuffled back to the hotel room with 2 beers, a large bottle of water, and two small bags of almonds with some kind of flavoring that, even after eating, I still could not tell what it was supposed to be.  Upon returning, Jess went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered real food, consisting of green curry and fried rice.  Both were excellent.  Unfortunately, waking the kids for dinner was impossible.  They were down for the count, though Jess did manage to get Radd to chomp down a couple mouthfuls of fried rice.
Now, what happens when you go to bed at 3 in the afternoon?  Well, you wake up at 1 in the morning, of course.  Suni snapped wide awake ready to talk and play and eat.  It was a struggle all night to keep her quiet enough for us to try to get a few more hours of rest before breakfast at 6 AM.  Needless to say, we didn't feel very rested when we did make it there, but the breakfast was OK.  I had the best instant coffee I've ever tasted and some kind of chicken and rice dish that was off the chain good.  The kids wondered at the fried eggs with raw, bright orange yokes.
Now during this whole journey, and a few days before, I had been in touch with some former Thai students-turned-friends who live in Bangkok.  So at this point, we arranged for them to pick us up at the hotel at 11:00 and take us to their house for a visit.  This amazing beautiful young couple started their own company and are doing quite well.  Their house was brand new, as was their darling daughter "Neptune".  Bo and Ake live with Bo's mother in a nice gated community near the airport.  Bo's mom cooked us this delicious meal of tom yum soup, green curry, spicy Thai basil chicken and fried chicken wings (Radd's favorite).  Ake opened a couple different beers for us to try: Singha and Leo, which according to Ake, is made by Singha and is a lower budget beer that was made to compete with Chang, Thailand's most famous blue-collar beer.  Both were cold and delicious, or should I say cold and alloi (the Thai word for "delicious" that Bo's mom taught us).
When lunch was over, Bo and Ake drove us to the airport, which began the only stressful part of  our journey.  We got stuck in Bangkok traffic and arrived at the airport with just over an hour before our flight was scheduled to leave.  Unfortunately, there was a huge line at the Bangkok Airways counter. Fortunately, we found out our flight was delayed an hour and we made it with time to spare.  Really fortunately for us, Bangkok Airways gave us 300 baht each for food as compensation for the delay.  Now that is good customer service!!!!!  So we bought 2 paninis, 2 mango smoothies, one chocolate smoothie, a blueberry muffin, and an Orangina.  It would have cost us $36, but the coupons covered all of it.  Yea Thailand!  Finally, as Suni was beginning her jet lag collapse, we boarded the Airbus A320 bound for our new home.  The flight, again uneventful, lasted an hour and we were served a full meal.  Yea Thailand!
Upon arrival, we were greeted by some of Jess' new coworkers and brought to our hotel: The Wilacha Chiang Rai.  It's a nice place close to her school with a free breakfast and super friendly staff.
The kids got into bed as soon as we walked in the door, with Jess and I following as soon as her coworkers bid us good night and departed.
Now, as I write this, it is post breakfast time.  The kids and Jess are playing UNO on the bed and I am typing away to the sound of the landscaper mowing the lawn with a  hedge trimmer (a manual hedge trimmer.)  Soon, we will take a taxi into the city to visit the big department store, secure new cell phones, and get the lay of the land.  Initial impressions of Chiang Rai (the city) to follow.
 

The Last Week

The last week has been like taking a ride inside a tornado:  We have slept in 5 different houses (none of them our own), recreated on 3 Montana rivers, danced under the big sky full of 4th of July fireworks, eaten enough delicious comfort food for 2 families, and driven hundreds of miles.  "Fun" is a feeble understatement to describe it all.

Now we are facing our last full day in the U.S. for a year.  It is actually cold and rainy; in fact, I hear that it is snowing in Big Sky, where we were just one week ago hiking, fishing, and playing...
Anyway, I guess it's perfect weather for making a trip to the bank for traveling money, grocery store for airplane snacks, and just to repack our bags so that we know we have everything we need.

Downsizing

Because of a "mistake" at the UHAUL office, we were upgraded to a 26 foot truck instead of the 20 footer I reserved.  This turned out to be most fortunate because we couldn't even fit all of our stuff in the 26 footer - we had to load up Jess' minivan with the rest of our crap.  So it was that we set out for the storage unit hidden away near the airport.  And as the planes took off and landed over our heads, I opened the storage unit for the first time and my heart swiftly broke.  It was about half the size of the truck.
I couldn't think for a solid 120 seconds as I tried and failed to come up with an alternative.  However, just before we left our house, our friend recommended that we channel our "Tetris" powers when unloading the truck.  So that is exactly what we did.  We began by taking the large items out of the truck and spreading them across the parking lot.  Then, pulling out all of the stack-able things, we attacked the back of the unit by creating a wall of useless junk 15 feet high.  It was an engineering feat rivaled only by the Grand Coulee Dam or the Colosseum.  Hour after hour we worked until, nearing the front of the unit, we could see that we would indeed be able to fit everything - that is until we remembered that we still had a minivan full of furniture.  No problem.  All of the hours I spent sitting cross-legged on the floor 18 inches from the TV playing Nintendo were not spent in vain.  Tetris Power!  In the end, we celebrated by snapping this photo of Jess and Radd feeling proud, tired and hungry.  From this moment on, it was time to return the truck and begin cleaning the house in anticipation of our tenant taking possession of the keys; however, that is not as fun of a story to tell (or read, I assume) so forget about that.
We are now out of the house and living out of a 2004 Honda Odyssey.  Talk about downsizing to a tiny home...