Thermal Eye on America

Made these a while ago for an online forum I participate in.  Posting them here primarily so they can (hopefully) be reposted over at Fuck Yeah, Puns (if you have any interest in puns – and seriously, if you didn’t, would we still be friends at this point? – then I suggest you go check it out).

Haven’t written an update in a while, I know. Some of that is due to being busy, some of it due to using transportation that caused me to press a wrong key (while being jostled) and lose a few paragraphs, and not feeling like facing that again. On a plane right now, and while it will be a short trip (Phuket to Bangkok, about an hour), I should have a chance to get at least a bit written up.
As I write this, my trip is nearly over. Tomorrow is the zip lines, the next day we still need to de die what we’re doing, and the next morning I have an early flight. Too soon for a wrap-up post, though, so don’t think I’m about to launch into my “final thoughts” or anything like that. Instead, I’ll work my way backward from today.
So, today I had originally not planned on doing anything, it was to be a lie-around day while Noosha went sea kayaking around some island caves in the northern part of the bay. I was going to skip it, because it was a pretty expensive tour that I was only marginally interested in. Noosha began to have doubts about it herself yesterday, also due to the cost, but then she managed to find a sea canoeing trip through the area for significantly less. Since I hadn’t made any real plans, and we were not staying near the nice lounging beaches, the better price made me decide join her.
The trip ended up being a lot of fun, and it was in some of the most beautiful area we’ve seen yet (though it is sort of an apples to oranges comparison between islands, jungle, temples, etc.). We got loaded on to a large boat, which took us out to the four islands we would visit. Noosha quickly spotted a group of Iranians, then the boat started playing some Persian music, so she was quickly in Iranian mode, chatting away and dancing. Maybe it’s just a matter of the difference in proximity, but there’ve been a surprising number of Iranian tourists on this trip, and we only met three American tourists the whole time (this knowledge is clearly something I wouldn’t have obtained had I been traveling alone. I never would have even learned about the three Americans, and I certainly don’t have the (I want to find some sort of term around the lines of “Iranian-dar”, but with better flow. The best I can find would probably be pronounced “ih-RAY-dar”, but there is no spelling that would make the pronunciation obvious at the same time as the derivation (to say nothing of the fact that it depends upon incorrectly using a long “A” sound for it to even work). Suffice to say, “tendency to notice Iranians”) that Noosha does), but there have been (by her count) around 20 Iranians.
The first island was just a nice beach, though you could also canoe in the waters off the island while people hung out on the beach. I went ashore and took some pictures while Noosha (who was keen to paddle) played in the water (I joined her about halfway through the stop). What we didn’t realize at the time was that this was the last time we were scheduled to paddle our own boats (more on this later).
The next island was “James Bond Island”. This was apparently the setting for some scenes in “The Man With The Golden Gun”, which I haven’t seen in decades. Lacking the perspective of “oh, cool, this is THE PLACE” that I would get somewhere I personally could geek out over (like when I made my “pilgrimage” to Vasquez Rocks to see where Captain Kirk fought the Gorn), what I mostly experienced was a pretty beach where nearly every inch of land was taken up by stall of vendors selling crap to tourists. Still, the pretty parts were pretty.
Island number three, Hong Island, is where it got really good. This is where we went on canoes through caves, in to amazing little grottoes. Parts of the caves were so low they had us lie down to get through the openings. They set us up with guides through these parts, but once we were out of the caves they let Noosha paddle back to the boat. It wasn’t nearly the experience she had been hoping for, but I haven’t ever done much kayaking or canoeing, so I personally didn’t mind the passive role as much. It would definitely have been nice to get to spend more time there, and to focus on the areas we liked best, though. The last island was pretty similar, though inside the grotto was a single tree in the middle. As always happens in areas like that, I was instantly reminded of the island in Princess Mononoke (I believe a search through the old journal will show me writing something very similar in 2001). Anyway, it’s now a bumpy cab ride from the airport, so I’m going to save and exist this post before I lose the whole damn thing again. I’ll go back and fill in the other days soon, probably.

So, I seem to have skipped a couple of days in here, I think it’s time for me to play catch-up (this being my unstructured day and all). Let’s see, last big post was on the bus from Bangkok to Sukothai. While I’m glad I got to see what I saw in Bangkok, I’m even more glad to no longer be in Bangkok. It’s far to hectic a place for a vacation. Very tough to unwind somewhere that bustling, and I definitely was planning on unwinding on his trip. Fortunately, that plan is now working out much more like I’d planned.

What to say about Sukothai? First off, the nighttime in Sukhothai was pretty much the opposite of Bangkok, in that everything seemed to shut down at night. That was not a problem, except for the issues with finding a place for dinner. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Sukothai itself is not a huge city. More of a town, really. Perhaps even a hamlet, though I think it is probably bigger than that (though I mostly don’t want to commit because I’m not really sure what the definition of a hamlet is. I just like the word, and don’t really get the chance to use it very often (or hell, maybe I do. Hard to say for sure when I’m not even certain of the definition)). In any case, we didn’t stop in Sukothai for Sukothai itself’ exactly. It was a combination of it being a good way to break the trip from Bangkok to Chiang Mai up a bit, and primarily to see the ruins of the old city. Old Sukothai has a number of old, largely ruin temples, all in one area separated from everything else. We got there in the afternoon, then rented bikes to cruise around the area, enjoying the architecture, taking photos, and just enjoying being on bicycles instead of on a bus (even if it was a luxury bus). There was no traffic, and hardly any people, which made it a nice change from Bangkok.

That evening, after we got back from the old city, we decided to chill for a bit before heading out to get some dinner. This, it turns out, wasn’t necessarily the best thing we could have done. Noosha had gotten a restaurant recommendation from her guide book of a place near where we were staying. When we tried to find it, however, either we were on the wrong street, the place was no longer there, or it was was there but we couldn’t tell, because like everything else in the area, it was closed for the night.

You notice the “everything else in the area” bit back there? Yeah, so did I. What had been a quite active area just an hour earlier was now practically a ghost town. We decided to wander along the main roads looking for something to fill our bellies. We saw a handful of food carts, but none that looked particularly appetizing, and eventually we found a restaurant that was open, connected to a hotel. We sat down and got some menus, at which point we learned that they had an approximately 1000 item menu. I’m pretty sure I mentioned earlier my trouble picking food when I’m hungry, so this menu was certainly not helping matters. Eventually I settled on something that looked interesting (it was a wild boar dish), Noosha found something that looked good to her, and we got the waiter’s attention.

What followed next ended up as a sort of reprise of Monty Python’s “Cheese Shop” sketch, when everything we wanted to order they turned out not to have. I don’t know if it was an aspirational menu, if they just listed every food they might ever have instead of having to change their menu, or what the deal was. Aft a few tries, we were able to order some food, then had a beer and waited for it to arrive. Once it did arrive, we were subjected to the first (and so far only) disappointing meal of our trip. About the only part of it that could actually be called “good” was the curry sauce in my dish (everything in the sauce was definitely underwhelming, though).

So, this afternoon it was again time for dinner and a show. This time, however, the focus was on my feet. Oh, and while the show was again for me, the dinner was for many tiny fish, as today is the day I went to a “fish spa”.

This is something I just learned about last night, from another tourist. The deal is that you go in to a place which has benches next to medium-sized aquariums, in which are a whole bunch of little fish. Your feet get a quick washing, then in to the tank they go, whereupon a few dozen fish immediately set upon your feet and start eating up the dead skin cells, along with any yummy bacteria and such they should happen to find. It is, to say the least, a very unusual sensation. If you’re ticklish in your feet, I imagine it would be very difficult to stop laughing, at least any time in the first 10 minutes or so of the procedure. I had originally planned on just doing a half hour, but I think they forgot about me, because they left me in there for an hour. They might have only charged me for the half hour, hard to say, but in any case the whole thing cost me roughly $.35, so I’m not exactly concerned about it either way. Also, I got in a walk of a few miles before going to the place, so they had plenty to do. I can say that meet do seem nice and smooth now. The odd thing was that the place where I went seemed to be some sort of “fish spa district”, as there were 3 or 4 places next to each other, with one more (at least) across the street. The nice thing about the fish spas, at least, is that unlike regular massage, you’re not exactly worried that you might not get the most skied practitioner. I mean, they’re fish, it’s not like they have to train for years and get certified, now is it? (although, much like traditional massage, there are many different schools. Hah! Get it?! Schools! See, because, you know…….fish)

Last night, after getting back from rafting, we ended up hanging out with some of our fellow rafters and going to a kantoke place. Basically, it was dinner with an exhibition of traditional dance and the like. The sort of thing that used to be done for visiting dignitaries, and is now done nightly for tourists. If we were in Hawaii, think of a luau at a hotel for the general idea. The food itself was very tasty, and they kept bringing refills until we had enough. For a cocktail, I got a Mai tai that was very tasty, clearly involving the use of fresh fruit juice, and served in a carved-out pineapple. The show itself, unfortunately, wasn’t nearly as exciting. Most of the dances had less of the feel of a polished group that does this every night, and more of a “community cultural center” feel to them. Granted, they were supposed to be showing us the traditional folk dances, and I’m sure the local farmers took a daily casual approach to their dances at the end of a hard day gathering tea leaves, but they were doing it for themselves, not for busloads full of paying customers.

Pretty close to the midway point of the trip today, which is a perfect time for a “nothing lined up” day. Sleep as late as I feel like sleeping, read when I feel like it, probably take go vacilar in a little bit. I haven’t yet had a good aimless wander through town, which is something I really do enjoy when traveling. I think I’ll probably bring the iPad along, and at some point stop in a local bar for a beer and some blogging, catch up on the details of yesterday’s adventures. Oh, and we finally managed to get ahold of Tan Man, so it looks like we’ll get the change to hang out with him this evening (which technically does constitute a “plan”, but a vague one that didn’t even come in to shape until the last minute, so I still get to put today in the “no plans” column).

In Chiang Mai now. Went to the Sunday Market last night, going whitewater rafting today. I’ll write more this evening.

Haven’t yet tested how this iPad tool works with multiple photos, so here are a few semi-random ones to go with my semi-random words. (note: while the normal exchange rate of pictures to words = 1/1000, In The Troubled Economic Times these will really only work out to maybe 1 picture being worth 327 words or so)

Above are the frog legs (pretty sure that’s where I’m at in the cycle), below are the soft-shell crabs.

Ok, so I’ve tried adding three different photos below, no luck. I’ll give them a try some other time.

Ok, since I didn’t get around to mentioning temples, food, or massage last post, I’ll cover it this time. As it happens, today also contained some of each, so it’s not even like I’m just backtracking (I know what you’re thinking: “what, you had food yesterday AND today? Haven’t you ever heard of ‘variety’?”. To which I can only respond “you failed biology in high school, didn’t you?”). Let’s start with “temples”, shall we?

No, you’d prefer I start with “food”? Very well, I live to serve. (even if I do suspect that you just want to start there because you’re still smarting over being called out for your ignorance on the topic last paragraph. Seriously, that was a long time ago (your failing high-school biology, not that last paragraph. The last paragraph was just moments ago (for you reading it, I mean. I actually wrote it about four hours ago)), isn’t it time you moved on?)

So, having been here for two days now, I’ve had several meals, and a few snacks. Yesterday, started the day with Pad Thai, since the restaurant in the hotel had a thing next to it on their menu saying it had won some sort of award. Also got some chicken sate, because I’m pretty much always game for sate (mostly because I’m always game for peanut sauce. I had peanut butter sandwiches roughly 3-4 times a week, from 2nd grade though high-school graduation, because that was what I wanted). Both were good, though neither was particularly earth-shattering. Still, with a nice solid meal in our bellies (the first of the trip, airplane food being what it is – I mean what’s the deal with airplane food? Am I right? And why don’t they make the whole plane out of the black box? Women be different than men!), we were ready to head on out. That was when we found the aforementioned tuk tuk driver and headed off to a few temples. That trip lasted until sunset, when we then stopped for dinner. Ended splurging a bit for a semi-fancy place on the river. Sort of a Thai/French fusion. Dinner was pineapple fried rice, deep-fried frog legs, and soft-shell crab with garlic and pepper. It was my first time trying frog’s legs, and at the risk of being cliche, they did quite resemble chicken in the taste department. Also, at some point something in the evening’s conversation reminded me of the muppets (as so many things do), which made me think of the Muppet Movie, which made me feel extra bad about eating frog legs (some of you may have noticed my alternating between the possessive and not in regards to the legs of frog. I just couldn’t decide which one felt best). The highlight of the meal, though, was unquestionably the soft-shell crab. The garlic pepper sauce on it was the best thing I’ve had in a few weeks.

Less to report on the second day’s food. Had a bacon and egg sandwich at a cafe around the corner from the hotel, then after visiting some temples (to be discussed more in a moment) found an area with a lot of food stalls. At the point I was really hungry, and presented with an menu of some 50 items or so, I knew my two options were basically to stare at the menu for the next three days, or just order the damn Pad Thai, which I promptly did. And I have to say, it was in some ways better than the previous day’s. Definitely helped that, unlike at the hotel, they actually had e sauces and things out (to be fair to the hotel, they weren’t really expecting anyone to be having lunch at that our, it was mostly breakfast time, but having just arrived our sense of time had no relation to the local clocks). Then, as we were leaving the area to return to the hotel, I passed by a very familiar-looking type of stand. Sure enough, someone there was selling takoyaki! Never being one to pass by a takoyaki stand, I bought some. It was pretty good, but when I was eating the third one I noticed that, despite my specifically having requested octopus (they had few options for what was inside), they seemed to have give me hot dog takoyaki, which just is not right.

(took short break just now to watch “Batman Begins”, hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long. And man, that movie just never lets up on the being of the awesome, does it?) (I also had another meal just now, but it was nothing to write home about) (see what I did there?)

Now then, where were we? Food’s been pretty thoroughly covered, so I guess it’s on to Temples as I continue to work off my obligations to you fine folks (maybe I should have just changed the title for the last post after all. Oh well, too late now, and I try to be a man of my word (even if my words do have a way of winding rather off course)). I’ll try to get some photos posted soon, but in the meantime, back to my words. Started the first day off with a visit to the Golden Mount. As might be expected, this temple is on the top of a hill, and is topped with a large golden dome and spire. As might also be expected, climbing to the top of a hill really makes one aware of how much more humid it is in Bangkok than in southern California. From there, it was over to Wat Benchamabophit, also known as the Marble Temple (quickly hit save so I don’t have to try typing that name on a virtual keyboard while riding a moving bus a second time) (the Thai name, not the marble temple bit). Since I have pictures, I’m not going to get too descriptive about the temples – you’re reading this online, feel free to hop over to wikipedia for historical info, etc (I may even try to set up some links once I’m home and working on a real computer). I guess I said that somewhat dismissively; please don’t take it as such. The temples in Bangkok can be absolutely amazing. I’ve just never been a very descriptive writer, and no way would I be able to do them justice. Granted, neither will photos, but they’ll come quite a bit closer. “But Therm,” I feel empowered to make you ask, “why are you even bothering to tell us about the temples in the first place if you’re not going to describe them to us?” Well, I did kind of promise to earlier. Plus, for those of you who have been to Thailand yourselves, or even just read about it, you may be wondering if I’ve been to one of your favorite places. Anyway, that actually covers the temples for day one. Did some shopping (the suit and shirts I mentioned earlier), then took a longboat tour of the canals (though we think we got somewhat overcharged, and the guy wasn’t very good about slowing down for us to take photos).

The boat trip was interesting for the show of the dichotomy. First off, there is a river that runs through Bangkok, the Chao Phraya. There are also a number of smaller channels and tributaries branching out from (or I suppose mostly running in to) it. The capital used to be on the west side of the river, and a few hundred years ago got moved to the east side. The channel we went up borders some of the old capital area. It is also lined by many houses, some temples, the occasional restaurant, etc. The interesting thing was the huge variety in the conditions of these buildings. One moment you’d be passing a nice house behind a concrete sea wall, and the next there’d be a broken-down shack, or a free-standing seating area that’s now half-submerged (examples will be in the photos). Noosha was saying what it most reminded her of was the current state of New Orleans. My closest area of recognition was probably Puerto Rico (though I think it may have had as much to with the sort of concrete-with-tiles construction I only seem to see in tropical, water-bordering areas (I noticed the same sort of thing in Okinawa).

After the boat trip was the dinner with the frog’s legs (I’m at a possessive point in the rotation) I mentioned earlier, then back to the hotel, where we were able to get some Thai massages (ooh, and now that I’ve mentioned massages, I can wrap this up at any time. I’ve still some some bus ride ahead of me, though, and no Internet for a while to post with, so I forge on).

The next day (yesterday as of this writing) we got over to the grand palace, whose grounds include Wat Phra Kaeo. Here is where words truly can not do justice to the concentrated beauty and splendor of the place. I’ll give you what can, though. There is a giant mural that runs the length of the interior walls (2080 yards) telling the story of the Ramayana. Then there are what seem like a dozen smaller buildings (but is actually like five) with numerous styles of decoration, so that everywhere you turn is something different looking, but equally splendid. Then there are the rest of the Grand Palace grounds. By the end of it all, we were suffering from “beauty fatigue”, where it was hard to really absorb more. As it turns out, this set us up quite well for Wat Pho, or as one of my friends has apparently dubbed it, “the temple of chill-the-fuck-out”. Not only does it house the statue of the Reclining Buddha (just laying there comfortably on his side), but there is a Thai Massage school on the grounds, where for not much mom at all a 1 hour massage can be had (any my legs and back ere ready for another massage by that point) (currently at one a day – probably won’t manage to keep that ratio going, but it’s nice to think of for now). Properly de-stressed, we went off to get a meal (the second one of Pad Thai I spoke of above), then went to have a follow-up fitting done on the clothes (and that time we ended up with a genuinely frightening tuk tuk driver. Took a cab back, as we needed walls around us for comfort at that point.

Writing this from a bus headed to Sukhothai, where we’ll be for just one afternoon and night, then tomorrow is off to Chiang Mai, where we’ll be for a few days. We’ll see when I actually get the chance to post this.

Writing this while waiting for the “jacket tailor”. I’m having a jacket, 3 pair of pants, and three shirts made. While I almost never have reason to wear a suit, for some reason I like to buy them. Makes me feel like a grown-up, I guess. I’m sort of the same way with my habit of buying decent booze, then usually drinking my cheap stuff, because the good stuff is clearly too good for the likes of me. Still, custom tailoring is a useful thing for me, since my arm length/height ratio (that’s my overall height, not my arm height) makes medium shirts have far too short of sleeves, but large shirts are too wide in the shoulder (adding the gut in to the mix certainly doesn’t make things any easier, either). I’ll just have to make some more excuses to dress like an adult every now and again, I suppose.

Anyway, the trip to the tailor was far from the largest part of our day. Started the day (after finally getting some much-needed sleep) ate the restaurant in the hotel, with a brunch of chicken sate and Pad Thai. Got the blog posted, then headed out to find a tuk tuk ride to where we were planning on visiting for the day. Ended up spending the day with the same driver, who I refer to deep down in my heart as “Mr. Toad”, because at times his driving style reminded me of the Disneyland ride. Very helpful and friendly guy, though, and he got us to all of the places we wanted to reach.

Calling back for a moment to my previous post, it occurs to me that part of the difference in this trip is not just that I’m traveling with another person, but probably more significantly, I’m traveling with a “people person”. One who actually interacts with strangers, and who they seem to respond to in turn. Because we booked our flights separately, we were seated in different rows, which is how I first started to reflect on it. When we changed planes in Tokyo, we had to go through the security screening again (but out checked bags were sent through on their own). While we waited in that line, Noosha stared talking about how the guy she’d been seated next to had to go pick up his bags first and then make a close connection, and he was in the U.S. Navy, etc. I, on the other hand, could best describe my seat mate as “caucasian male, late 40′s, spoke unaccented English (at least enough to request a beverage). Yeah, that’s about it.

The difference became even more apparent on our second flight. In this case, I know my seat mate didn’t speak English, but I only know that from when the beverage cart came by. Noosha, on the other hand, was laughing with her seat mate before we even got in the air. After the flight, I then learned that she’d been given leftovers from first class, because she’d seen the flight attendant looking stressed, asked if anything was wrong, learned a passenger thought he was having a heart attack, offered to help if she could, realized it was just a panic attack, and talked the guy down from it. Pretty much from the phrase “saw the flight attendant looking stressed”, every portion of that goes in to a “road not traveled” category for me.

Fortunately, traveling with a people person does help me to reap some of the benefits of that personality type, while still letting be me my usual “is someone there?” type of personality.

Hmm, I seem to have titled this with reference to temples and food, neither of which I have got around to mentioning. Both were involved in yesterday’s adventure, but I’m running out of writing time at the moment, so I’m just going to post this, write up the rest later, and instead of changing the title before posting, spend a paragraph explaining that I know it’s inaccurate. Like I do.q