A Lot of Thai

Written in Thailand, Posted from Sri Lanka

A couple of weeks ago now, back when we were still in Chiang Mai, I took an AMAZING cooking class. Those of you following along have already heard about the class, but up until now, I haven't had the time or the energy to write about it. Sometimes, when you do something you've been waiting a long time to do, it's hard to find the words to write about it. And while it may seem silly to say it, I've been waiting a long time to take a cooking class. That I took my first cooking class in Thailand is awesome. But that I took my first cooking class with one of the sweetest women I've ever met, in a class with just three other people, where we cooked no less than 6 different Thai dishes, AND we got to wander around a market with our teacher? Well that's the kind of thing that makes a girl dream about cooking for the rest of her life. (Don't worry Daddy, I'm still interested in the law thing. For now anyway.)

I heard about this cooking class via the Internet, of course. But then I heard about it from everyone I talked to in Chiang Mai. "You want to take a cooking class? Go to A lot of Thai." So I did. I signed up for the all day, 7-hour lesson. It came to a whopping $30. And a whopping 6 pounds -- which is how much weight I felt like I gained from all of the food that I ate. Because here's the best part about the class: everything I made was tasty! SUPER tasty.

Like I said, we made six different dishes -- pad thai, green curry chicken, tom yum soup, fried spring rolls, and stir-fried chicken with vegetables. We also ate some sticky rice with cocounut milk and mango for dessert, but our teacher, Yui, did most of the prep work for that. I just had to find room to stuff it in. Since the rice was purple and the mango was amazing, I managed just fine.

Here are a few things you should know about Thai cooking:
1) Each dish uses the fewest and freshest ingredients possible. Everyone, even people who hate cooking, knows that this makes for the tastiest food.

2) The following ingredients are in just about everthing you make: palm sugar, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaves, garlic, tamarind sauce, cilantro, chilis, and purple basil (otherwise known as holy basil or Thai basil).

3) This is what you didn't know about the above ingredients: kaffir lime leaves come from a lime that's all knobbly and wounded-looking. The wee little limes that are everywhere in Thailand are just plain old regular limes, but they're amazing. You can use dried kaffir lime leaves if you can't find fresh ones. Palm sugar is made from the palm coconut tree. It has the consistency of maple sugar, and I could eat it by the fistful. At home, cook with brown sugar instead. Fish sauce is really salty. If you want to cut the salt, use half fish sauce, and half low-salt soy sauce. Tamarind sauce in Thailand isn't nearly as sour as the tamarind sauce we get in the US. Since the point of the Tamarind sauce is to make things a little more sour, just use what you need to in order to balance the flavors. Balancing the flavors! That's the point of Thai cooking. So you can do a lot of things by feel and taste, rather than by recipe. I love that in a meal. Most of the garlic that they use in Thailand is grown in Thailand, and the skin on the garlic is so thin that when you saute it in oil, the skin kind of crisps up nicely. So you can LEAVE IT ON FOR FLAVOR! That's brilliant because it saves time AND adds flavor! Most of the garlic we get at home is big and the skin is thick and coarse. So you have to take it off, which is kind of a pain in the ass, but whatever, we're used to it. The firmer the chili is to the touch, the spicier it is likely to be. If it yields a lot when you squeeze it, it's probably fairly mild.

4) In order to make a really decent fish stock, you use shrimp heads. Seriously. Shrimp. HEADS. If you're a vegetarian or vegan, you make your decent stock by using garlic skins, the really tough lemongrass stalks, and the bottom tough part of a green onion.

5) Oyster sauce has some sugar in it. So if you're making a dish that calls for oyster sauce, you can reduce the amount of palm sugar you use.

6) You can add holy basil to taste. This is music to my ears, since I love the stuff and can't eat enough. You can also add cilantro to taste, which is also music to my ears, since I truly can't stand cilantro and it's perfectly acceptable to leave it out.

I took a bunch of pictures from the class, partly because I'm a dork, but also because there was this really sweet father-son duo in my class who forgot to bring their camera. So when you look at the pictures, say hello to Ben and Jim! Ben's a teacher in Chiang Mai and his dad came to visit him. How cool is that?





I wanted to post the recipe for Pad Thai, courtesy of the cookbook that Yui provided. But I accidentally sent the cookbook home in the last box we sent back to the States. So you're just going to have to wait until we get back. In the meantime, you should go out there and find a good recipe for pad thai. But if yours doesn't taste quite as spectacular as you want it to, don't blame me. There was magic in Yui's kitchen (which, incidentally, was outside), and there was magic in Chiang Mai. But I'm hoping that those of you who are feeling adventurous enough to venture out to an Asian grocery store and throw this simple noodle dish together get even a bit of the magic I experienced under Yui's tutelage. And in case you don't, well, then that's just one more reason to hop on a plane and visit Thailand.

Feels Like Home to Me

Posted from Bangkok, Thailand

Our time in Siem Reap under the skyscraping and collapsing towers of ancient Angkor Wat is over. We sadly boarded a plane earlier this evening, and an hour later, here we are -- back in Bangkok. We loved Siem Reap, and there are plenty of stories and a cubic butt-ton (that's English not metric) of pictures. I promise we'll get them up as soon as we can, but for right now, we're just so happy to be back in Bangkok.

In fact, we're excited to be in Bangkok for two reasons. First, something about Bangkok feels comfortable, like we're coming home in a way. We know what to expect, how to get around, and where to get decent meat on a stick. So that's really comforting, something we've really been looking forward to. Second, (drum roll, please) Chris and Amanda are flying in tomorrow to meet up with us. We didn't want to say anything before that might jinx it, but in a few short hours they will be on a plane to Bangkok. The four of us will be in Bangkok for a few days and then we'll head to Sri Lanka together. We can't wait! We are so excited to see Chris and Amanda. For those who don't know them, we met Chris and Amanda while I was stationed in Oklahoma. Chris and I were even deployed overseas together, and we've managed to stay in touch ever since. We haven't seen them in years AND they will be the first familiar faces we'll have seen in over a month. Anyway, we can't wait!

On a separate note, one of more ecological importance, Lizzi mentioned to me on the flight that this was our eighth flight in 6 weeks. For those math geeks out there, that's more than one per week. Yes, we are single-handedly contributing to global warming. In fact, I think the hole in the ozone layer just got a little bigger. Please send our apologies to Mr. Gore, but we are having the times of our lives.

The OTHER CMU

Written from Hoi An, Vietnam, about Chiang Mai, Thailand

Here's something you don't expect to see when you're walking around Thailand, on your way to a famous temple called Doi Suthep:

For those of you who haven't already figured it out, that's Chiang Mai University. Matt and I couldn't get enough of the fact that there's ANOTHER CMU. Yes, we're well aware of Central Michigan University, but we're SO not even going to talk about them here. We're talking about the CMU in Thailand, the one that has a pagoda right on campus.

We decided that would really spruce up the CMU in Pittsburgh. That and some elephant statues.

We walked around the campus looking for a bookstore so we could buy a tshirt, but alas, we were disappointed. Instead, I made Matt take a picture of this sign, because somewhere in there are the letters for "CMU" in Thai:

Did I mention that we're total dorks? Because in case you hadn't noticed, we're TOTAL dorks. Also, GO TARTANS!!!!!

Baby Elephant Walk

Posted from Hue Vietnam

I got to play with baby elephants! Four of the them to be exact. First, you have to rewind almost two weeks back to when Lizzi and I were in Chiang Mai. We had decided to have separate adventures in Chiang Mai: a cooking class for her and a day with elephants for me. And what a day!

After a short minibus ride to the Elephant Nature Park, we got a short safety briefing. What day with massive mammals easily capable of squashing you is not complete without a safety briefing. The gist was this: they're big and hungry. Always hungry, which leads to the first experience of the day: feeding the elephants. Each elephant has its own basket of food (almost 300 lbs of food per elephant!), full of that elephant's favorite treats, which you feed directly to the elephant -- hand to trunk! My elephant fancied sweet corn and watermelon, but she refused to eat any watermelon until all of the corn was gone.

After lunch it was time for the elephants' bath. The mahouts (elephant caretakers) would lead the elephants to the river, where we washed and scrubbed them. If they were cats, they would have been purring the whole time. Of course, what do elephants do right after a bath, they play in the mud. The four babies were rambunctiously playing in the huge mud puddle next to the river. They wrestled and played, and I couldn't do anything but watch and smile.

Then the elephants went off for some alone time, and we sat down to watch a documentary about the working elephants of Thailand. All of the elephants in the park have been rescued from the tourism and logging industries of Southeast Asia, and the documentary displayed in excruciating detail the torture and abuse these magnificent animals go through. After watching the video, we bathed the elephants one last time, and then called it a day.

A Very Jewish Thailand

Written from Luang Prabang, Laos, about a Shabbat Experience in Chiang Mai, Thailand

We were frantically looking for accommodations in Chiang Mai. Everyone told us that the province was booked solid, that we'd have a hard time finding a place that would have availability, let alone availability with a double bed and a hot shower. But the never-fail hostelworld.com brought us to what promised to be the BEST hostel in Thailand. We surfed around on the site until we found this little link: "Celebrate Shabbat with our Jewish neighbors!" Huh? Shabbat? In Thailand? But there it was in black and white. "Call Larry to celebrate shabbat with an American Jewish family" accompanied by his phone number.

"You have to call," Matt said.

"But what if it's weird?"

"You have to call."

Matt knew as well as I did that Friday, January 4 was the date in which my brother and father would be observing Yahrtzeit for my mother. Yahrtzeit is the calendar date in which a prayer is said every year to note the death of an immediate loved one. I don't usually observe the Jewish calendar date, but this year it was quite close to the American calendar date, and it was hard to know that my dad and brother would be together at synagogue, and that not only would I not be with them, that I'd be half a world away.

So I called Larry on Thursday, a day before Shabbat. An excited voice answered the phone, promising Matt and I a delicious kosher meal, along with Shabbat prayers and stimulating conversation with his daughters. "My husband's not Jewish," I told him, and was reassured, up and down, that this was fine, that he was excited to meet us, that we should be there at 6:30.

We arrived at 6:25, and were greeted by Larry and his three beautiful daughters -- Ayelot, Rivka, and Tamar -- as well as a young friend from Germany who endeared himself to this lovely family. Dinner was, of course, delicious (kosher Thai food) and conversation was more than stimulating. Larry included Matt in the Shabbat blessings in a way that made us both feel comfortable, and we passed a few delightful hours at his dinner table, then took a walk around his neighborhood.

I think that the most amazing thing about the experience is that it's one that I never expected to have. If you would have told me before we left that I'd be saying Shabbat blessings in Thailand, I would have laughed at you. If you would have told me that we'd come across a Chabad house in Phuket, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Laos, I would have thought that you were out of your mind. But here we are, and here they are, and even though Larry didn't know that a million miles away my family was saying Kaddish for my mother, I managed to feel connected to my family and my faith across a few oceans and several continents. There's something perfectly timeless about that, something that reminds me about what it means to be Jewish, and that you take your history with you, no matter where you are in the world.

A Couple of Sore Bums

Posted on our first night in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR

The idea seemed simple enough: take a bus to the river and catch a boat from Thailand to Laos. But it's sooo much more than that. Getting from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang underscored for us that getting from point A to point B is actually part of the adventure. First, we took a six-hour minibus ride from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong, a sleepy town separated from Laos by the mighty Mekong River. The overnight accommodations in Chiang Khong left much to be desired. In fact, they were far worse than what we experienced in Bangkok, but at least it had a hot shower. From Chiang Khong, we crossed the river by long-tail boat and processed through immigration. As unceremoniously as that, we entered Laos. Then we waited. And waited. And waited until our ferry boat finally pulled out of the dock. The long-distance ferry, which would carry us to Luang Prabang, was crowded, noisy, and slow. Slow. This word has a new definition for me, as does the phrase "a slow boat to China" because we took a slow boat down the Mekong River. So slow. After seven hours, we reached the midway point, Pak Beng, where we stopped for the night.

Pak Beng is an interesting town, because it only has electricity from 6PM to 10PM each night. That's appropriate, because the ferry pulls in around 6:30PM, and the locals have to get up early. So there's no nightlife. In fact, the bar we stopped at shooed us out the door at 10:30. However, the lack of street lights, TVs, and lamps meant that the night sky and its stars shone brilliantly. I haven't seen stars like that in years.

The next morning, this morning in fact, we woke up and hopped back on the boat for another bum-numbing 7 hours. We arrived in Luang Prabang around 5:30PM, got settled in a guesthouse, and here we are. Our butts are sore, but we're ready to explore Laos for the next few days before we head off to Vietnam. Luckily, there are no long boat rides anywhere in our near future.

Traveling slowly offers an opportunity that hopping on an airplane for an hour just can't; you get to meet other travelers. On our first day in the minibus, we ended up meeting not one, but four people, two couples who were making their way through Southeast Asia. Both couples are about our age; one couple (Lizzy and Tom) are from England, and the other (Anna and Caleb) from New Zealand. We hit it off right away and stuck together through the crappy accommodations at Chiang Khong and the butt-numbing boat ride to Pak Beng. In Pak Beng, we banded together to bargain a better rate at a guesthouse and closed down the bar that night. This morning we found seats together on the boat and kept the conversation going. We couldn't have dreamed of meeting better people along the way. Good luck to you, Anna and Caleb, Lizzy and Tom in the rest of your travels and in finding your ways home!

Right Now: Chiang Mai

This might be the first real-time post in a long time. I am sitting at a bar that has free wi-fi in Chiang Mai, drinking my draft Chang beer (so much more on that later...) and reading Dumas's The Man in the Iron Mask. It's a good life. I'm on my own today because Lizzi is taking a Thai cooking course, which I'm sure she will tell you all about.

Chiang Mai is a beautiful city. It's full of the culture and history, and it is so much more laid back than Bangkok ever could be. The people are friendly and always have a smile for you. We arrived here with a grand plan of walking tours of temples and daily massages, but that has yet to materialize. So far, we've visited one temple, and the only massage has been to scratch our itchy mosquito bites. But we are only ourselves immensely. I can only imagine what it would be like if we had a year to spend. I don't think we would change our destinations, but I think we would come to enjoy a more intimate appreciation for each one.

With that, my battery is about to die, and I should finish my beer.

Night Train to Chiang Mai

Getting from Bangkok to Chiang Mai is a fairly easy task. In fact, there are as many options as you can imagine to convey you from point A to point B: planes, trains, and automobiles. For us, the largest limiting factor we have is time; we want to maximize our waking hours in every place we are going to be. However, the number one thing we did NOT account for in our itinerary was the time it would take to get from one place to the next. Given that we were used to catching a non-stop flight to Boston from Pittsburgh whenever we wanted, factoring in older and, especially, slower modes of transit was not even a consideration.

When presented with the myriad options for traveling to northern Thailand, we naturally chose the one that allowed us to enjoy a full day of sightseeing in Bangkok AND a full day in Chiang Mai: the night train. The night train is something of a backpacker standard. Everyone we talked to at the hostel in Bangkok had either ridden the night train to Bangkok or was headed to Chiang Mai on the next one. The train leaves Bangkok at 7:30PM and arrives in Chiang Mai at 9:45AM the next morning. We booked our tickets in the 2nd-class sleeper car, so that we could hit the ground running in Chiang Mai.

The sleeper car is divided into upper and lower bunks. The lower bunks are formed by two seats facing each other, and these tend to be more desirable. The upper bunks flip down from the roof of the car like the overhead baggage compartments on an airplane. Unfortunately, Lizzi and I weren't able to book a matching upper and lower bunk, but we managed adjacent uppers. What's most surprising is how comfortable the bunks are. After spending four days sleeping on plywood covered in styrofoam at the hostel, these train beds seemed the height of luxury.

In our car, there were several couples traveling together, a few pairs of friends, some singles, and an entire family of eight! Mom, dad, four kids, grandma, and grandpa! When it was time for bed (a time strictly enforced by the night train's staff), the car was a complete circus. People were climbing up the tiny ladders to the upper bunks. Kids were dashing about in pajamas, brushing their teeth and washing their faces. Hilarity and insanity. It felt like a weird mobile slumber party of complete strangers. In fact, Lizzi and I joked that the whole scene reminded us of the Knight Bus from Harry Potter, and we were waiting for Stan Shunpike (pre-Death Eater days) to come by to collect our fares.

The night train was a blast. And it ended up being some of the best sleep that we'd had since landing in Bangkok. I hope we get the opportunity for more night train experiences throughout the rest of our trip.

One Night in Bangkok

Actually, it was four nights in Bangkok. And it could have been many, many more. But four nights was what we had for our first stop in the City of Angels, and thanks to the good advice of a very dear friend (Hi Eric!) we had a pretty fantastic time there.

I keep thinking that Bangkok is a city of juxtaposition. It is the spirituality of Jerusalem alongside the hustle of New York City. And not just alongside, as in "next to" but alongside as in all mixed up with, thrown together, a jumble of faith and fun smooshed together. Because of Eric's advice, we were able to create a strong affection for this city. Having someone to tell you where you might like to go and how to get there helps make a place feel manageable. We seriously can't thank him enough. He's blushing now, so I'll stop, but really, Eric, please know that we think that you're a rockstar.

Here are some of my favorite things about Bangkok, in no particular order:

1) The Reclining Buddha. I loved him. Just loved him. I could have spent hours and days in his presence, staring up at his relaxed and omniscient face. He made me feel like I was a part of something bigger at the same time he made me feel content just to be myself. He alone is worth a visit to Thailand.

2) Lumphini Park. The Lonely Planet describes it as an oasis within the city. It couldn't have been a more apt description. It was a place to sit and hear...none of the city noises, as well as a place to watch kids feed fish in the midddle of the afternoon.

3) The Erawan Shrine. I love this shrine because of WHY and WHERE it is. It's outside the Erawan Hyatt, and it's there because the place of the original shrine was deemed inauspicious. So a new shrine was built and it has been bringing good luck for over 50 years. People come to the shrine in the middle of the day to pray, and they make offerings for good luck. Sometimes those offerings even include McDonald's. Also, there are dancers that you can hire, on the spot, priced per length of dancing time and how many dancers. You hire them if you really really really want Buddha to know that you're serious about your offering and your heart's desire.

4) The food. And the food courts. Eric advised us to go to MBK's food court with the caveat that we shouldn't think he was crazy for suggesting that we go to a mall to eat lunch. We didn't think he was even the least bit crazy before we headed over to the MBK, but after we got there, we knew that he was a genius. The MBK food court is like a wonderful, fabulous maze of food. You buy coupons then use the coupons to pay for the food you want. Each food stall basically sells what you see on the street, but best of all, it has a picture and brief description of what you're going to eat. So we went crazy and ate about 3 main courses plus 2 desserts. Remember how we were worried that I was going to come back from this trip all skinny? Worry no more.

5) The skytrain. It's easy-peasy to get around town on this thing. Plus, Matt loves the fact that this sign COULD be mistaken as implying "no lawyers" even though it CLEARLY says "no hawking." Whatever.

6) The Chao Phraya Express. This boat takes you up and down the river and calls out the places to stop where you can go and see the famous sights of Bangkok, including the Reclining Buddha, the Grand Palace, the Flower Market, the Emerald Buddha, Wat Arun (a really old, really cool temple), and Chinatown. It was so easy to use, and so inexpensive, that we took it twice in two days.

7) The gourmet food market inside the Siam Paragon. They had blue and green rice! And white and pink eggs! It was like Whole Foods but BETTER, SO MUCH BETTER. If they had grocery stores like this at home, I WOULD quit my job and cook all day.

8) The technicolor taxis. I don't know why they warmed my heart, but they did. I think it's partly because I knew that my sister-in-law Amanda would love them as much as I did, and every time I saw a hot pink taxi, I thought about her. But I also think it's because they kind of reminded me a little bit of the extremely nice people we've met in Thailand. It seems like people here take something that could be mundane, and they turn it into something a little better, a little more special, just a bit more beautiful. I love that in a country.

One more note about Bangkok before I sign off and let Matt tell you about our experience on the night train to Chaing Mai: the people in Bangkok are unabashed about showing their love for their king. All over Thailand, actually, people express their love for the king in every way possible. There are pictures and larger-than-life-sized posters of him everywhere, and people wear yellow to show support for their king of over 60 years. Something about that kind of national pride really strikes a chord with me.

Our days and nights in Bangkok have been some of the most interesting days and nights of our trip, so far. We can't wait to go back there in a few weeks to revisit some of our most favorite sights, and catch up on things we missed.

An Auspicious New Year!

Happy New Year! Ok, so that's about 10 hours early for most of you, but it's already been 2008 for two hours here in Bangkok. Trust me when I say that New Year's Eve is a big deal to the Thai people. They're not messing around, folks; they celebrate 3 separate new years: the Thai new year, the Buddhist new year, and the Western new year.

This year the biggest hoopla was at one of the largest shopping malls I've ever seen. It felt like Times Square but with more Thai people. Lizzi and I disavowed every piece of advice Eric gave us and decided to throw ourselves on the mercy of the crowds, thinking that where there is a will and plenty of beer, there is fun to be had. Except that there was no beer. Strike that. There WAS beer, but there was a minimum $100 bar tab just to be served. So we skipped it.

Then, there were the crowds. Oh my god, I have not been stuck in the middle of that many people in my life. I've now been groped six ways from Sunday, and not in that good way. Really. No one should be that close unless you're willing to buy them breakfast the next morning. And by my tally, one hundred drunken Thai boys owe me a Denver omelet.

Despite the craziness and inappropriate touching, we rang in the new year the way we have for the past 8 years: with a kiss. Simple, yes. Sappy, you bet. But it's us, and what you really expect any less?

Happy New Year!!

Lost in Lanta

Our original plan was to head to Ko Lanta for a few days then take the ferry back to mainland Thailand, then out again and spend a few days in Ko Samui. We reasoned that this way, we'd get a feel for the islands on both sides of Thailand, Lanta in the Andaman Sea and Samui in the Gulf of Thailand. Plus, there are whale sharks in Ko Samui. And Matt really wanted to see whale sharks. I'm not sure WHY he wanted to see them, since they look like THIS when they're eating. But whatever. He wanted to see them.

We had the best of intentions. We really did. But after our miserable four-hour ferry ride on the Ao Nang Princess I AND II (neither of which made us feel the least bit like royalty), we were exhausted. When we landed in Lanta, we were drastically overcharged to get to our resort. As we sipped those first beers at Funky Fish, we started to wonder whether or not we should just bag our trip to Samui and stay in Lanta.

Two days later, we were spending our Christmas at Coffee Asylum. And we just, well, we got stuck. It was the kind of day that lazed on forever. The kind of day that makes you think to yourself, "I went to school so that I could get a job where people have to dress up and jump up and down just to make a point? What is WRONG with me? I could have been anything! I could have owned a coffee shop on a beautiful tropical island!" It was the kind of day that I used to daydream a lot about when I was younger. See, a few years ago now, my brother took a trip to Europe with a few of his closest friends. If memory serves me correctly (note: I was about 12 when he went on this trip, so my memory MIGHT be a bit off) while he was in Greece, he changed his itinerary to spend a few extra days in the island of Corfu. He told my parents that he sort of got lost on Corfu. "Lost," I remember thinking, "how do you get LOST on an island? Didn't he know where he was?" But now I get it. I see how it's possible to get lost somewhere where you're perfectly content to be. It's a good feeling. It's a "come what may" feeling, a "free from school at last" feeling.

So we stayed in Lanta and never went to Ko Samui. We heard that we did the right thing, that the weather there is bad this time of year, that we wouldn't have wanted to waste an entire beach day sitting on a boat. We agreed. We spent six days losing ourselves in Ko Lanta. Six wonderful, sun-drenched, beer-soaked, careless days. We ate the best spring rolls I've ever eaten (thank you Thai Cat!), had some interesting political discussions, and really got to know our way around a large Chang Beer. But most of all, BEST of all, we actually relaxed. And since that was the purpose of going to the islands in the first place, I think we can safely say that our trip is off to a pretty good start.

Seeking Asylum

When we first arrived on Ko Lanta, we had no idea where to go or what to do. We'd checked into our little bungalow on the beach, sighed with relief that the longest ferry ride ever was finally over, and wondered "What next?" We left our little hideaway and strolled down the beach, looking for a snack and a drink, because what else do you do at the beach? We finally found our way into the Funky Fish and whiled away a few hours (read: got hammered). Somehow we stumbled back to our room and promptly fell asleep at the unreasonable hour of 7PM. We didn't wake up until 9AM the next morning. Sheesh.

We liked the Funky Fish, we really did, until we discovered Coffee Asylum that morning. What started as just a quick breakfast and the use of free wi-fi lasted the entire day. We lounged about under a thatch roof, playing cards with a few other world travelers. We met Charlie and Anna from Sweden, Charlie's boyfriend Kent from Australia, and Dave from San Francisco. As the day lazily wore on, we met Michael and May, who own the coffee shop. And that's how we spent the whole day. Sitting, talking, and playing cards.

Coffee Asylum has this wonderful ability to create a community. After spending just one day there, we had people to talk to or just say "hi" to on the beach. It's also the kind of place that you want to keep coming back to. There's great food (May's muesli pancakes with fruit and honey are to die for), outstanding company, and good conversation. I hope that we have the good fortune to find more places along our way that make us feel as welcome and at home as Coffee Asylum.

Thanks to Michael, May, Charlie, Kent, Anna, and Dave for making us feel at home when we are very far from it.

Pics: Ko Lanta

We had originally only meant to stay on Ko Lanta for a couple of nights and ended up staying a week. The island is beautiful and relaxing. There are still a couple of stories to tell, but for now the pictures will have to do. By the way, sunsets on Lanta are simply spectacular. As the sun goes down, the sky turns from blue to pink to red. We noticed that most people left the beach as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon, but they were missing the best part. As the sun sinks lower behind the earth, the clouds burst into flame until finally they cool down, turning a deep purple, and then the sun's light is completely extinguished and night arrives.

Pics: James Bond Island

Just before leaving Patong Beach, we decided to take a sea kayak tour to James Bond Island. This unique island was made famous because it is featured in The Man with the Golden Gun. Dad, I know you of all people will appreciate these pics. Also, our guide Ek told us that one of the islands we visited in the Phang Nga Bay was also the setting for Tomorrow Never Dies.

Explaining the Sleaze

After spending a night in Phuket Town, we decided that we needed to experience the manic insanity of Patong Beach. Let me say that Patong Beach certainly lives up to its reputation. The parties are loud, the drinks relatively cheap, and there are women everywhere. Imagine New Orleans at Mardi Gras mixed with Vegas glitz and a healthy portion of Atlantic City sleaze. But the first thing you notice about Patong Beach is how white it is. Apparently Germans and Scandinavians flock to Patong every year in droves. And the effect is readily evident: German biergartens, schnitzel on the menu, and lots of men in speedos -- *shudder*.

Unfortunately, what we couldn't get over was the obvious, in-your-face nature of the sex trade. Old, white men walking up and down the streets, in their hand was clamped the tiny hand of a Thai girl who could have been his granddaughter. In a word, it was revolting. Far be it from me to judge anyone, but let's just agree that if one can't get laid in one's own country, one should not fly to a different country and pay for sex. Good, now that we are all agreed on that we can move on.

Before summing up, I would be remiss if I didn't make some mention about the ladyboys of Thailand. These men are some of the most beautiful women Lizzi and I have ever seen. In fact, as we walked down an uncharacteristically sedated Bangla Road (Thailand holds dry elections, thus the night before it is illegal to serve alcohol, which is ironic, since it was the one night we planned to party, Patong-style), Lizzi noticed one exceptionally tall beauty, "He is WEARING that dress!" And he (she) was. Earlier that night, we had ventured in the Sphinx Theatre to see a cabaret show. In Thailand, a cabaret is an hour-long program of dancing and lip-synching to American pop hits. In short, it's wonderful and hilarious, and it was made even better by that the fact that we were the only two people in the theater. During the show, we would quietly ask each other which of the performers on stage actually had penises, and to be fair, we frequently couldn't tell, not that it mattered in the slightest, because the performance was phenomenal.

Patong Beach was just okay, although our hotel was outstanding, by far the best part about visiting Patong Beach. Like most beach towns, even in the States, everything is for sale, but the overaggressive touts for the restaurants, massage parlors, and taxis lost their appeal within minutes. Patong Beach was something we wanted to see for ourselves, and we did. I just wouldn't want to go back to see it again.

Clean Food, Good Taste

The first memory I have of eating Thai food occurred when I was a 18-year-old freshman in college. My best friend from high school, Becca (hi Becca!) came to visit me for my birthday and we went out to dinner at the Thai restaurant in Shadyside. (For those of you who are curious, it's where Shady Grove now lives.) Becca and I were adventurous eaters. When our peers were spending their babysitting money on whatever stupid shit they spent their money on, Becca and I were taking ourselves out to dinner at nice restaurants in Philadelphia, trying to see whether the waiters would serve us the wine we ordered, sheepishly, with our dinners (sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't). Many of my earliest and best food memories occurred with Becca in high school, not least because my behavior during these early restaurant forays caused Becca to giggle endlessly, and endless giggling is always one of my main goals in life.

I digress. So we're at this Thai restaurant in Pittsburgh, and we KNOW that we're adventurous eaters, Becca and me. We order something like a glass noodle salad, and the waiter asks us, on a scale of 1-10, how spicy we'd like it to be. "Nine," Becca says, with confidence. It's a bold choice, and we both know it, but we're bold 18-year-olds who have been served wine in some of Philadelphia's nicest restaurants. We can handle a nine from a Thai restaurant in Pittsburgh. Of course we can.

Of course, we are wrong. Terribly, mouth-wateringly, eyes-tearing, gulps-and-gulps-of-water-can't-cure-this WRONG. We realize that the source of the spice is mixed in with the glass noodles, and we avoid them, fishing around instead for the green papaya and the pieces of shrimp. It doesn't phase us, this spicy food disaster, and I remember our meal as amusing and fun, and that I made Becca laugh about something or other.

Fast forward 11 years (holy crap, Becca, did you realize that was 11 years ago?!) and I am actually in Thailand, eating actual Thai food. Since I first self-aggrandized myself as an adventurous eater, I have not slowed in my pursuit of interesting food. And yet, as we were preparing ourselves for this trip, even as I was writing that earlier post about Julie's food experiences in Barcelona, I was a bit nervous. I vividly recalled that Pittsburgh Thai food experience, and it was something I hadn't thought about in, um, 11 years.

So let me tell you a little bit about the Thai food we've encountered: it is, in a word, amazing. All of it. Excecpt maybe the Nescafe they serve you instead of the much-coveted Thai coffee. But other than that, it's amazing. There are spring rolls (better than spring rolls at home, though their contents are just as unidentifiable), soups (spicy-sweet Tom Yum soup meant to be eaten with rice, as well as noodle-based soup-like meals), rice dishes (pineapple fried rice is even BETTER here), many many wonderful noodle dishes (pad thai, fried noodles, wide and flat rice noodles), curries, yams (salads), and other things that I either can't pronounce or haven't yet tasted. There's lots of fish (fresh, delicious fish), lots of cilantro (I'm dealing with this), and every single thing we eat seems to have lemon grass and basil in it, which is okay by me, because I love lemon grass and basil. There is also plenty of beef and chicken and pork, and so far, we have not contracted the bird flu from eating the chicken. Thank god for that, right?



Every single day I think to myself, "I am going to get sick of this food and want something American." But then we sit down at a rickety table surrounded by rickety chairs, and I page through the menu, past the items aimed at tourists (ham and cheese sandwich), and order another plate of noodles. Another plate of spicy, slippery, hot, and delightful noodles. See, I JUST finished breakfast and thinking about those noodles is making me hungry. Which is okay, because if I'd wanted to, I could have eaten those noodles FOR breakfast. Genius!



Most dishes come with slices of cucumber on the side of the plate, and a wee little piece of kaffir lime (the lime that might even rival key limes in flavor and deliciousness). You also get a condiment basket that's got sugar and salt, white pepper, vinegar, and a little container holding spicy chilis floating in fish sauce. There's also this bizarre little container of "napkins" which are actually just tissues. And tourists must be very dirty, for we are the only people who use them. For those of you who are worried about my consumption of raw vegetables, I can neither confirm nor deny whether I ate those slices of cucumber.



Contrary to popular opinion, Thai food is NOT eaten with chopsticks. Duh, Thai are not Chinese! So we eat with a spoon and a fork. Rather, we SHOVEL with a spoon and a fork, because the food is that good. After a week here, we've concluded that you're supposed to languish over a meal. We have come to this conclusion because this is the way the meal ordinarily transpires: we order food, a TON of food, and it comes out whenever it comes out, and we eat it (if you're us, you eat it rudely and quickly, through happy sounds of "mmmm" and "you HAVE to try this!"), and then the people who served you the food leave you alone. They're not in a rush, and they don't seem to think you should be in a rush either. When I think about it like this, I LIKE that they leave you alone, though for the first few days, it was unsettling not to see the smiling face of the server at my side every 10 mintes, asking me if I'd like anything else, refilling my water glass, urging me towards dessert I don't really want. The servers here seem to assume that if you want something else, you'll ask for it, and that you were clever enough to order enough food in the first go-round.

A word on the beer: there are three main kinds of beer here that we've seen so far, Singha (prounounced Singh), Chang (the highest alcohol content at 6.7%) and Archa. They are served in small, normal-sized bottles, or large, fantastic bottles. A large, fantastic bottle is about $3 if you time it right, and it's so economical to spend $3 on a large beer, that we do. Every day. Every day for a week, at least. There's a whisky that we haven't yet tried called Meh Kong, and our funny little bartender at the Funky Fish told us that it was too strong for him, which makes me hesitant to try it. But who am I kidding? Of COURSE I'll try it.



We haven't had proper dessert since we've been here, but I've been eating my weight in bananas, pineapple, coconut, and watermelon. The fruit alone is worth the 31-hour plane ride. I'm so not even kidding about that. Proper dessert is on the list of things to do in Bangkok.

The entire meal, from large beers down to artfully carved pineapple, comes to a whopping $10. Which means we are spending too much on food. But we can't help it because there's so much to try.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I did have one more of those mouth-watering, eyes-bulging, what the HELL happened to that chili pepper? moment. It happened on Christmas Eve and the offensive chili was floating around in some curry that we'd ordered. I saw that it was there, noted that it was a huge chili, and bravely thought, "I'm an adventurous eater, I can handle that! I'm in Thailand! With real Thai food!" I was abruptly brought back to that moment in Pittsburgh, when, sputtering, I reached for any liquid within reach. Finding nothing to stop my tongue from falling off right there in my mouth, I quickly shoveled another mouthful of rice onto my tongue and held it there, all while making a face at Matt for laughing at me. "Ahhh," I sighed, when the burn finally subsided, "that was the hottest chili EVER!" And then, because I am a glutton for adventure, "can you spoon some of that sauce onto this rice?"


** The title of this post, "Clean Food, Good Taste" refers to the signs you see, EVERYWHERE, advertising resturants, both proper and impromptu. The title is for Eric, because I'm hoping that the reference made him smile.

Happy Christmas From Thailand!!

We've spent other Christmases at the beach, but we've never spent a Christmas 12 hours ahead of everyone else. For those of you yet to experience Christmas, it's pretty great over here. It's turning into a beautiful day, and the weather's perfect for a dip in the ocean or working on your tan (read: sunburn).

So a week has already flown by and we've managed to post nothing. That's not because we have nothing to say, it's because we've been spending our time trying to experience this place that we're in, and generally adjusting to a life where Internet isn't ever-present. We spent the first few days in Phuket, and were totally overwhelmed by the sights and sounds and smells of the place. Not just because Patong Beach is dripping with sleaze, but also because we are, um, in a totally different country. We came to Ko Lanta a few days ago, and life here couldn't be more different than what we experienced in Phuket. Lanta Island, as it is also known, is a place of hippies and wood shacks. Beer is $2 for a large bottle, and you can eat lunch and dinner for less than $10. The food is amazing and the people are friendly and helpful. Basically, it's an easy life. It feels a lot like a Christmas present, in fact. We like it so much that we're thinking of skipping out on Ko Samui and staying here instead. Lanta is the kind of place that inspires that sort of lazing about. And after the 16 months we've had, we deserve some lazing about.

So for all of you out there who are using today as your one break from your very hectic lives, enjoy it! Take the relaxation for everything it's worth. Imagine yourself on a beach somewhere, Chang beer in hand, listening to the calm waves of the Andaman Sea. And if you can get yourself all the way there in your imagination, turn around and wave hello to us, because we're at the next beach mat, trying to decide whether we want noodles or rice for lunch.

Happy Christmas everyone!

love,
Matt and Lizzi

31 Hours Later...

...we've arrived safe and sound. Everything went off without a hitch. The flights were on time, and even after three different planes and three different countries, our bags somehow miraculously showed when we did.

Just before we left, the burning question had been: Which direction are you going to fly to get to Thailand? Prevailing wisdom (read: Google Maps) seemed to indicate that we would fly west from New York to Hong Kong. However, I can now say with authority that we flew neither West nor East, but North. Due North. We flew directly over Greenland, over the North Pole, over Russia and all of China to finally touch down in Hong Kong. So there you have it: we flew North.

In case, there are those who need to read these words before believing it: We arrived safe and sound. There I said it. Now, time to get some sleep.

Anywhere but Home for the Holidays

Less than 20 days till we leave for Thailand. I can't believe it's so close already. Luckily, everything is pretty much taken care of; everything except where we are going to be staying in Thailand. According to the guidebooks and the blogs, not knowing exactly where we're going to be staying is completely normal. However, what the guidebooks don't tell you is what to expect when you are traveling over the winter holidays: Christmas and New Year's. And that's precisely when we are going to be in Thailand. Specifically, we plan to be on Ko Phi-Phi for Christmas and Ko Samui for the New Year.

To make planning a little less stressful, we divided up the holiday stays: Lizzi planned Ko Samui, and I got the other one. Diligently, she booked our New Year's stay over a month ago. Thinking that seaside bungalows grow on trees in Thailand, I dragged my heels and just now started looking at where to stay. Surprise, surprise! Everything on Ko Phi-Phi is booked solid until after the first of the year. So Ko Phi Phi is a bust. Whoops. Never fear, I've got a back-up plan in mind, and I hope by the end of the week, we'll be all set for our Christmas stay in the islands.

The moral of the story is this: the holidays are a wonderful time to travel; you know this, and so does everybody else. Book your stay ahead of time.

As for our stay over Christmas, I'll keep you posted.