Not Busy, Just Thai'd Up

 

Hmm this week has been filled with a lot of schoolwork, and thus not much exciting to tell you.  Lemme tell ya what though- I’m excited for this 20-page research paper due at the end of the semester.  I’m thinking about doing it on women’s roles in Thai Buddhism.  There’s this whole thing about not being able to be officially ordained.  There’s only one nun in Thailand, and she’s not recognized by the state.  More on that another day, after I’ve done my research and whatnot.

 

Speaking of nuns, Buddhist nuns have 311 precepts, or rules, that they have to follow.  Crazy right?!  Buddhist monks have something like 247 precepts, novices have 10, and laymen have 5.  I learned all of this from the monks I visited on Wednesday.  LauraSA volunteers at Wat San Prahkha (spelling?) teaching English to two monks, M and KK.  She really enjoys it, so she invited me and Emily to go with her and meet them.  They are really super sweet.  KK got us all journals, pens, and plastic bags (for shopping at the market in Bo Sang where we explored later) as presents.  AND he wrote us a message in the journals with the most wonderful penmanship I have seen in a while- he even has different font styles. 

 

Emily asked KK about his daily routine, and whether or not he will disrobe.  It is common for males to enter the monkhood in order to attain an education because it is free, they get to travel, and they have a lot of time to study- there are none of the material, worldly distractions that plague all of us other students.  Then, after they have learned a satisfactory amount, they disrobe, and enter lay life.  Historically, the Buddhist religion and the temples were the center of community life in Thailand, so entering monkhood was pretty much the only one could gain an education for a long time.  But, I’m not going to write up a history paper.  I do enough of those.

M is the monk on the left, KK is on the right.

 

Hmm, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant for Maia’s birthday.  I tried these slimey wrap things, which are her favorite, and they were slimey, but OH SO DELICIOUS.  I regret not knowing what they are called.  We got her a cake, and Emily bought her an over-the-shoulder-strap bag from her volunteering place Healing FamilyFoundation!  It’s an awesome place, and I’d like to go at some point.  It is an organization that serves as a community for disabled people.  They make the most beautifully weaved things, and I think everyone should buy something from them (some of you will get Christmas gifts that I bought from this foundation).

 

Food.  We also went to Birds Nest Café.  Which is amazing- the murals are done by a local artist who also plays an instrument and writes, the books are awesome (I started reading The Little Prince) , and the food is crazy good.  The Friendship Cake tastes like tea, and the banana and black sesame seed shake was so good.  The first night we went, we were there for the viewing of the movie The Lady, which is about Aung San Suu Kyi.  I highly recommend the movie 1) because it’s a great movie and 2) because she is a freakin amazing, inspiring person.  I know now what to write when asked the question about who my role model is.  Just read about her, everyone.  And for those of you in America right now, you should go see her speak because that’s what I would be doing if I were at home.

 

The other night we went to Birds Nest, there was Indian food! Oh how I kind of miss India.  It’s such a magical and puzzling and horrifying place.  But I loved it.  BUT I’M IN THAILAND! So I’m gonna continue to focus on the fact that I’m here for the time being, until I travel somewhere else.

 

Friday night, I took more people to a Muay Thai fight at the Kalare Night Bazaar Boxing Stadium. This time, we got to see International fights, and women fights!  People kept making  jokes about me being up there…oh heck no.  I am not nearly ready for any of that.  Especially after watching this 20 year old women from Canada beat the crap out of this 40/50 year old Englishwomen.  She just went after her face like a banshee bridezilla after discovering the baker didn’t put buttercream icing on her wedding cake instead of chocolate.  It was awkward and awful to watch. The ref stepped in twice, and the fight didn’t even last 2 minutes.  In the middle of one of the fights, the power went off, which was super amusing, but I felt bad for the fighters because they had to wait for about 20 minutes before they could finish their fight.

 

Later, we went to Zoey’s where I met one of my trainers at the Reggae bar.  Lemme tell ya what.  Zoey’s while completely sober is not fun.  It is a shit show- everyone is super drunk, foreigners everywhere while poor Aka villagers selling bracelets try to sell their stuff.  My friend ran into a pimp too- there are prostitutes everywhere.  I saw two Thai people dressed as Pikachu and Yoshi, and I got to watch my trainer kinda make a fool of himself on stage while the reggae band was playing music, and he gave us free beer…so, I guess Zoey’s wasn’t terrible.  

 

The most exciting part of this week is that I got to see the stars one night.  It’s a rare and special treat to see the stars in a city-ish area.  I want to go to Mauna Kea Observatory just for the stars.  But I’m in Thailand.  And I’m lovin’ it, folks.

 

My birthday was great- my friends Emily and LauraSA surprised me with a coconut cake that looks like a bear- it was soooo cute, and delicioso.  Then, my other friends Alex, LauraH, Mickey, and Kristina took me to a hot pot place where they give us a boiling pot of water, and we cook whatever the heck we want in it! Super fun.  Then, Kristina spoke in her cute little Thai way to the scoopers of Swenson’s ice cream, so they stayed open so that we could get ice cream on my birthday.  I’ve never felt so special- and that ice cream was so good and fixed all of my chocolate wants.  Roommate Lek posted a super cute happy birthday post-it on my desk, and LauraSA’s roommate gave me some perfume called “Sexy Me” and it actually smells really good.  Watch out world- I’m frickin sexy…well the smell that I will wear every once in a while is I guess…me not so much.  So all in all- my birthday was Araawy!

 

I won’t post details- but people in management positions for organizations that are supposed to help people should really take the correct steps, even if they are hard, to make their organization/business the best it can be.  People that don’t do that- Yuck, man.  But I’ll give this rating an Ehhh for personal reasons.

 

School dinner buffet.  Yuck.  Take the chicken bones and the congealed chicken blood out of the foods that actually seem decent please. 

 

Junk food.  Yuck.  I WANT FRUIT AND RAW VEGGIES! And cheese, but that could make me fat- I don’t need any more fattening crap right now.  Oh wait- I am enjoying trying the different junk foods though.  I had prawn chips, and lots of different chocolatey things, and whatnot.  Some are Ehhh.  Also, milk sucks here.  I am adopting a milk cow when I get back to the states, and I will tote it around with me everywhere I go.

 

Fruit smoothies with salt.  Yuck.  Mai sai (enter the thai word for ‘salt’ which I have forgotten).  Being able to order foods in Thai and request that certain things be dismissed from the order- Araawy.

 

The beds.  I have been a very good girl and have not complained about them, but I feel like I need to get this out.  The beds are not yuck, but they are owwy.  I cannot lie on any side of my body without being sore in the morning.  Lying on my stomach causes my knee to pop, waking me up with a jolt of pain.  And the cold showers- now that I have become acclimated to the weather, and it’s cooled down a bit, cold showers at any time of the day are entirely uncomfortable and make it impossible for shower singing to happen- which is so utterly depressing that I cannot speak of this anymore.

 

I went on a one day trip to Chiang Rai.  I saw the White Temple, which was incredibly interesting.  You can read about it here, but I must do more research on it- on the inside of the temple were images such as Ben 10, Michael Jackson, Darth Vader, Harry Potter, AND MORE! It was the strangest thing ever.  Araawy

 

Then, we trekked through mud to get to the Bandaam Museum.  Basically, this famous Thai national artist named Thawan Duchanee has done lots of art and it is housed in 36 or 38 of these beautiful houses that you can’t enter. It would have been cooler and I would have been more intrigued by his beautiful craftsmanship if I had more time to gawk, and had I not been drugged by Dramamine.  I don’t recommend trying to see this in a large group if you are an art geek, or on Dramamine. Ehhh.

 

The last stop on the trip was the border to Myanmar/Burma.  I crossed the border into another country!...to shop.  Those of you who know I hate shopping will laugh- I got lost in a clustercraphole of cheap Chanel bags, perfume, fashion clothing, and pirated DVDS.  I ended up wandering off by myself to search for things I was interested in- these places were sparse, but I found them by braving a somewhat empty street.  I can’t tell you what I bought because they are prezzies for some of you fine people.  I enjoyed the walking merchants who felt that I would become interested in buying their cigarettes if they told me “I love you.” Thank goodness my mother told me that some men use that line to take advantage of girls.  Overall rating on the Myanmar trip- Ehhh. I spent present money and a 500 baht re-entry fee to get a few stamps proving my presence in Burma.  I wish I could have done more there.

 

Watching an anime called Monster.  Araawy.  Except when the internet is a butthole- Yuck.

 

Muay Thai Boxing- ARAAAAWWYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  This past week was the beginning of my muay thai lessons.  Ever since I caught a glimpse of people learning muay thai in Ohio where my dad was taking Eskrima (Filipino stick-fighting martial art, another art I’d like to learn) lessons, I have wanted to learn too!  DREAMS DO COME TRUE! So, Rachel, Mickey and I are going twice a week on Wednesday and Friday mornings for training from 6:30 to 9, and afterward, we go back to school and have classes all day.  We start training with a “45 minute run” (we are not in tip top shape yet), then jump rope for way too long, then shadowboxing, some drills, and then we “spar” with the trainers one-on-one.  They shout orders at us “punch-hook-punch…kick-kick…uppercut-punch-hook-punch…knee-knee-other knee-knee…elbow-elbow-elbow…sip (ten) kick- neung-sawng-saam-see-haa…”  After each sparring round, and they have decided that we are sufficiently out of breath, they make us do sit-ups, and have us hydrate.  After three rounds, and a lot of sweat, we do more kicking/kneeing/punching drills with the bags, and then condition.  After all of these repetitive exercises, we will be really good at counting in Thai.

 

My favorite part of training is when we are trying to leave so that we can make it to school on time, and my favorite trainer, a 50/60+ (?) year old whose fighting name when he was big in Bangkok is Maak Dynamite, gets us to do more drills.  He is hilarious and so adorable, and in incredible shape.  There is also a couple from Denmark visiting Chiang Mai and attending the gym for the next couple of weeks- their names are Jed and Maia.  They are 51 and 43 years of age, respectively, and also in amazing shape, AND they are fighting next week.  AMAZING! I aspire to be as active and healthy as they are when I grow up…and now.  I could mop the floor with my sweat while they jump around and whatnot for three hours without a bead flowing down the brow of their blue-eyed faces.  Woof- I have so much more to say about my muay thai experience, but I’ll save it for later when I have absolutely nothing interesting to say.  The honeymoon part of my trip has ended, and now I’m settling down into a routine of trying not to spend so much money, and being in school.  UUUGHGHGHGHGHG I DON’T WANNA WRITE A PAPER! BUT doing muay thai has made me much happier- to do something active, physically draining, and off campus is magical. This could be the best thing I have done in my time here.