The Things in the North – Part II: Rai Mai Shoe

We left Pang Mapha the next morning to head to Chiang Rai, taking a van back through Chiang Mai to do so. We arrived in the evening, were joined by Jenna, slept in our wonderful and cheap lakefront hotel, then set off the next morning to check out the White Temple and the Black Temple (which we later learned is called “Black House”). The White Temple:

BEHOLD.

The most elaborate “No Smoking” sign in the world, I imagine/hope.

There were a few of these on the temple grounds, and for a dollar, you could add a little silver plaquething with your name onto one of these trees. A beautiful guestbook.

…was insane. The interior, which had a “no photos allowed” policy was stunning in every sense of the world. The artist who designed the entire temple (and continues to design it, with hand selected students. The project is supposed to take 90 years, continuing after his death) portrayed images of suffering and peace – with the former as a road to the latter – in incredible fashion, combining religious mythological imagery (demons, fire and brimstone, Buddhas, etc) with contemporary mythological and political imagery (everything from Hello Kitty to Batman to Harry Potter, the Twin Towers, etc) in a provocative and, for me, disturbing scene.

A tiny fragment of the interior photo that I found online. You can see Bumblebee from Transformers and Jigsaw from Saw on the left side.

From there, we went to the Black House, which didn’t have the immediate visual splendor of the White Temple, but was definitely a treat in its own right. As opposed to having a single primary attraction, the Black House was more of a temple compound, with a dozenish buildings containing various works of art, wood-crafted furnitures, and animals skins to convey an earthy, primal mood that was a stark contrast to the White Temple’s divinity.

The foresty grounds of the Black House.

White buildings in the center. Very striking given the deep green forest and other black buildings.

A nicely carved door.

One of the bizarre interior dining scenes in an art gallery, complete with horned furniture and animal bones.

From the black temple, we took a taxi out of Chiang Rai and over to Pu Chi Fa. A google image search of Pu Chi Fa makes it clear why it was on our destination list – visitors get an unreal view from the mountaintop, complete with crisp sunrise and a low fog layer that makes it look like you’re living on Olympus. Unfortunately, the weather was unkind to us and we didn’t get the thick, lush clouds beneath us that we’d hoped for. Still, we did get to play a great soccer game with the local kids (we won, don’t worry. U-S-A! U-S-A!) and enjoy a beautiful, though not magical, sunrise from the top of the mountain.

Layers of beauty.

I call this piece: A sign, a sun and the ladies.

The village shirt I mentioned in the last post. Holding on to my beanie so I don’t have to jump off the mountain after it if it blows away.

We left Chiang Rai that morning (after the sunrise) and headed back to Chiang Mai for the final and most anticipated leg of our northern adventure: Songkran. Songkran is the celebration of the Thai New Year. It takes place during the hottest days of the year and is a water festival where the Thai people blah blah honor gods blah blah peace and love.

Songkran is a three day water war and it the best holiday in the world.

The first of three weapons I would go through.

Songkran parade.

Nothing is so fearsome as a squad of teenage boys with water guns.

Glimpse: Songkran Chiang Mai 2013, the World’s Largest Water Fight

^ That’s just a glimpse and doesn’t even begin to capture the full insanity of what happens when an entire nation decides to revert to grade school warfare. I couldn’t really take pictures as I didn’t want my phone wrecked, and there’s no point in trying to describe it: There are no words, my friends.

It was the perfect end to a perfect vacation during the perfect six months in the perfect country. The only downside was saying goodbye to some truly incredible people that have done a wonderful number on how I think, how I feel about myself and others, and how I treat each day I have for the rest of my life.

Five days and 1 blog post away from home.

Moses

What I’m Reading: Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

What I’m Writing: The Lincoln Lions (novel) – 42%

What I’m Listening To: The 20/20 Experience by Justin Timberlake

The Things in the North – Part I

So I finished my summer teaching…:

Don’t let the smiles fool you; these kids are monsters. Wonderful monsters, but monsters nonetheless.

The newest class at Phanom Adun. Only got to know them for a few weeks, but they had chutzpah.

Then left my town for ten days of adventure in northern Thailand. As an exercise in understatements, I will say that this last one and a half week period was one of the most fun and fulfilling endeavors of my short, beautiful life.

The adventures begin with several hours and methods of travel. A flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai with Jordan, then a van from Chiang Mai to Pai, where we met up with Shannon. After a few hours hanging out in Pai, we took a paid car to Pang Mapha. Pang Mapha is in Mae Hong Son – Thailand’s northernmost province – and is famous for its hundreds of underground caves. It makes sense, then, that the first thing we did the next morning was to go out and see some of those caves.

One of the many treks from cave to cave.

From left to right: Chaya, Lyndsey and Foued. Some great fellow cavers.

We left all of our things outside each cave so I didn’t get any pictures of the interior, but it was so dark that my measly phone camera wouldn’t have done anything anyway. We went through three caves, and while each one was unique (one was essentially an underground river path where we were crawling on our bellies in a stream for a few hundred feet, and another was full of loose, brittle rock – which gave me a nice gash when a chunk of wall that I was holding on to fell off), they each offered the same feelings of being under tons and tons of earth and being in a place so dark that, with our lights off, it was literally impossible to see one’s hand in front of one’s face. Awesome experience.

The next morning, we hitched a ride over to a local village to hang out with hilltribes. They turned out to be pretty much just regular people (we expected neckrings and cockroach teeth; they had both regular length necks and cockroach-free teeth) that were really good at weaving. I bought a shirt (picture forthcoming), whilst Jordan and Shannon got some scarves.

Once one lady saw us and set down her scarves for display, the entire village came out to sell their wares.

Village lady getting her weave on.

A wall painted by the students of the village school. Vegetables, mustaches, a turtle, Despicable Me, and Happy. “Five of these things are not like the others…”

Leaving the village, we set out back to the guest house for what was supposed to be a relaxing, two hour trek through the woods. We had been told to simply “follow the river.” After walking for about forty minutes, though, we got to a point where there was no riverbank, only river and dense forest. Lost, we then turned back and followed the road, a winding 6 miles of uphill and downhill exhaustion. At one point, we stopped in the middle of the road and sat to regain our breath, check out remaining water supply and bury those who had died of dysentery. When we finally made it back to the guesthouse and asked why the gods had forsaken us, we were again told that we were supposed to follow the river. Literally. As in, get in the river and float back. Heh…city folk. We don’t know anything/think of swimming as recreational rather than viable transportation.

City Folk Pictionary: Family hike.

Shout out to Cave Lodge for leading amazing tours (Uncle Wat, our tour guide, was a 60 year old man. Impressive and emasculating) and being the friendliest, most accommodating guest house I’ve stayed at here in Thailand.

Check out The Things in the North: Part II for the riveting conclusions of our journey.

Moses

How I Spend My Free Thaim

See what I did there with the title?

Anyway, I figured I’d make an entry that could actually be helpful to the people of the future who want to teach and live in Thailand, even though we’ll have teleporters by then so they could live in their home country and still work in Thailand. The most pressing question is typically “What is your day to day like?” Honestly, I only teach three or four hours a day and am done with the school day by 3:30pm, so I end up with a lot of the day to myself?

“What do you do with all that free thaim?” you ask, spelling “time” the same way I did in the title, you clever devil. Read on!:

1. Hobbies

This guy knows what’s up.

Those that know me know that I love myself some hobbies. In fact, I think I have enough hobbies that having hobbies is my hobby. Hobby hobby hobby. It’s a funny word.

One benefit of living in a country that has both a weak currency and an inexpensive standard of living is that you can have as many hobbies as you want and not be considered financially irresponsible. Buy an instrument, take a class, learn the language. It’s basically free and you’ll be getting better at something.

Among other things, I’ve been doing archery every other weekend in Bangkok. Ramkamhaeng University has free archery lessons for beginners every Saturday morning from 10-11am and the only fee (other than travel) is a 300 baht (10 dollars) yearly membership fee to their massive sports complex that would allow you to do everything from archery to rockclimbing to Afghan goat carcass polo, I presume. I took up archery because it’s something I’ve always wanted to be good at and doing it in the States can be pretty expensive. In Thailand, I take a two hour van to Bangkok, a mass transit (airport rail link) to the university area, then a cab to the campus. I do the opposite to get back home. All in all, the trip costs me about 350 baht (about 12 dollars). In the states, that wouldn’t even cover the gas it would cost me to drive one way to the nearest archery club, much less the monthly classes fee or equipment rental.

2. Lifestyle/Spirituality/Etc.

If your yoga teacher hasn’t taught you this yet, go get your money back.

For religious people, I’d recommend finding a place to worship. It’ll give you a bit of familiarity to relax you and minimize homesickness, and it’ll also give you a community here in Thailand to support you. Thailand is a pretty diverse and international country, so I’m sure you could find something, depending on where you live; as long as you’re not a Scientologist, which I’m going to assume doesn’t exist in the future anyway.

Other than religion, there are plenty of options for spirituality, reflection, meditation, etc. My spiritual activity of choice is martial arts, so I’ve taken up Muay Thai lessons from a teacher in my town. Muay Thai actually has a number of cadet branches based on the region of Thailand they developed in, so mine is more specifically called Muay Chaiya. My instructor is part Pillsbury Doughboy, part Tony Jaa, so the lessons are pretty enjoyable. And he doesn’t charge me, so there’s that. While it helps physically, I think anyone who has studied a martial art for any length of time will tell you that it affects how you think and how you interact with people around you and how you sleep at night as much as it affects your muscles and balance and killing ability.

3. Media

This is a big one for lazy people (I guess. I wouldn’t know). There are days when you don’t want to go anywhere or do anything physical or social, and it’s important to have things to do at home. Books, movies, music, newspapers, holograms, and virtual pets will all make your life easier. I’m a caveman, so I brought a number of books with me instead of getting an E-reader, but you shouldn’t be like me. And for the 3 of you who don’t steal music and movies, I guess you can stock up on those too.

Additionally, video games. I’ve gone back to playing Rome: Total War and I’m a better, cleaner person because of it.

4. Travel

Some people don’t like to travel, and I definitely understand that. If you’re not the type, then replace this with “being social.” I grow weary of interacting with people, but I use every other weekend to travel with my fellow teachers to different exotic locales. It’s always fun and educational, and it’s good to remind myself that there are other people in Thailand that are just as inept at speaking Thai as I am.

Bangkok is the central hub of travel for all of central Thailand and it’s almost always easiest to go through Bangkok (Mo Chit bus station for long trips and vans at Victory Monument for places near Bangkok) to get to where you’re going. Any of the islands (Ko Samet, Ko Chang, Ko Konut, etc) are worth a visit, as well as Chiang Mai in the north, the various national parks and really every single square inch of Thailand. There’s a lot to see.

5. Preparing For the Future

You’re gonna need a lot of preparation…

Ah, yes.

No matter how much you’re enjoying yourself in Thailand, most of us will leave this paradise to go back to our underwhelming lives in whatever terrible first world country gave us citizenship. Because of that, you should always be working, at least a little bit, on the life you’ll lead when this is over. Filling out job applications or updating your resume or what have you. Call your mother every now and then, so you have somewhere to live when you go back penniless. If you’re an artist, work on your art. If you’re a normal person, try to find volunteer activities or workshops in your field that will look great on that resume you should’ve updated three sentences ago.

You may not enjoy it since there are always more fun things to do in Thailand than worry about home, but you’ll appreciate if you do it and hate yourself if you don’t. Believe me. I wrote this whole blog post to avoid finishing a grad school application.

Later!

Moses

What I’m Reading: America Again: Re-Becoming The Greatness We Never Weren’t by Stephen Colbert

What I’m Writing: Everything but grad school apps

What I’m Listening To: Life is Good by Nas

A Little Travel Poetry

I’ve accepted that I won’t be a particularly good poet until I’m old and mustached, but I try to write one every now and then to practice wordplay and what not. I wrote this poem back in October when I went to visit Cade in Vegas and it wasn’t at all about travel, but now that I’ve left the country, I realize that it’s entirely about travel. So there (or here, rather) you have it:

All The Things You’ve Forgotten

Remind me

 

Of your left hemisphere brain

Its long and lovely attitude

River grooves, tributary thoughts

And the continental drift of your countenance

 

The way your ears flushed

And your cheeks perked up

And your upturned teeth filtered tropical

Rain from the thunderous Brazilian sky

 

Your eyes were a summer in Greenland

Roads from the coast

To the national interior, teeming

With lilies and hyacinth

 

Mozambique swept your hair

In strips of willow bark, in flashing firelight

Drum circles by the watering

Hole in step with your shadow

 

Electronic billboards, concerted flashbulbs

Our Korean weeknights

And your karaoke lips a warm inch

From the microphone

 

You are my work desk, my pain

grotto, summer CD full

Of anthems, my inside

Joke, tribe and chieftain

 

You are my rent-week paycheck, my go

to dance move, escape route, dead

End, terminal wellness, my holiday scarf

The only memory I need to keep

 

Till next time!

Moses

What I’m Reading: America Again: Re-Becoming The Greatness We Never Weren’t by Stephen Colbert

What I’m Writing: Songs and Novel and the last few Grad stuff

What I’m Listening To: Blunderbuss by Jack White

A Little More Conversation Vol. 3 – Part of Your World

I find it hard to be narcissistic out here.

Lemme explain.

Back home, as I go about my day, there’s a feeling in the very back of my head that, in some strange, impossible way, the word revolves around me. It’s possible that this is a #mosesproblem and that anyone reading this is judging me as delusional, but I don’t think I’m quite that unique. I have this impression that my life is like The Truman Show or that I’m the main character of some ongoing narrative like in Stranger Than Fiction (the only Will Farrell movie I can tolerate, btw). When I wait at the train stop to go to work, I’m in my own head and the other people around me – even though it is very obvious that they came from somewhere, are going somewhere, and have their own lives independent of mine – feel like extras. When I accomplish something that I consider “important,” I feel like it is some pivotal scene in The Book of Moses that will change the plot from here on out.

Admittedly, parting the Red Sea was a pretty big deal.

In some ways, I guess, the feeling is valid; our lives are indeed stories. But, realistically, the things that I do on a day to day basis are pretty unimportant. Even the things Barack Obama does on a day to day basis are pretty unimportant in the scope of human history. That’s the nature of the mundane.

Out here, though, I’ve come to realize that I feel incredibly, wonderfully unimportant. Part of it likely has to do with the language barrier; it’s pretty difficult to assume you play an important role in reality when you’re sitting at a table full of conversing people who don’t – and couldn’t, even if they wanted to – say a word to you. And part of it likely has to do with how much history I’ve learned about a place that I only knew existed in theory. American history almost comes off as mythology due to how ingrained it is and how few of the actual locations I’ve been to, but when I’m learning about the Kings of Siam while looking at their ancestral palace, it’s kind of hard to deny that there has been and will be quite a bit going on, whether or not Moses is around to see it.

Moreso than the two above explanations, I subscribe to the belief that this denarcissification effect is due to the abundance and diversity of life I interact with out here, and I don’t just mean wildlife. As far as animals go, the only ones I see on a daily basis are dogs, cats, geckos, cockroaches, and various flying things.

Flying sharks are pretty common around here.

What I mean is, literally, the diversity of life. I see life in all it’s forms every single day. The various packs of street dogs finished birthing season a month or so ago, and there were litters of puppies chillin close-eyed on the roadside on my way to school. Those puppies have since opened their eyes and learned to cross the street. There’s a young pigeon couple that lives [and shits, relentlessly] two feet above my front door. The mosquitoes bite me, the geckos eat the mosquitoes, and the neighborhood cats fight each other to the death every night. With regards to humans, I wave to babies, instruct children, co-teach with adults, and receive all my services (food, laundry) from the elderly. In a one mile radius from my house, there are one room wooden shacks, two story houses, and expansive mansion compounds, and the people in that radius are just as varied as their living economic conditions. On the same day that I saw a newborn, my coordinator went to three funerals.

There’s so much life that I’m witness to that it seems absurd that my tiny handful outweighs any other. There’s a whole system that’s moving and flowing very visibly and very independent of me, like a Circle of…things living.

This comes up for a reason. I was waiting for the bus the other day and, after about fifteen minutes, it came by. The bus stop is on one side of the highway and the bus picks up at the highway median. By the time I looked up from pausing the song on my phone, the bus was already leaving.

So I whistled for a cab and when it came near…

I got up and waved frantically, but the only person who saw me was an old lady in the back of the bus. She gestured “You supposed to be on this?” and I nodded “Yeah!” The bus drove away, then came back two minutes later to pick me up.

Despite this seeming intuitively like it should’ve made me feel even more central to Thailand’s workings, it instead made me feel very, very insignificant in the best way possible. If my life were a book, then me missing the bus would’ve been simply a part of the plot. I didn’t pay attention, so I missed the bus. But the bus coming back made me feel like just a cog in the clock, a small part of the system. The old lady was the main character in that exchange, not me. It was her agency that turned around the whole bus to pick up one inattentive foreigner.

I like it. I like the world being so big and me – and the insects and the birds and the other people and the mountains – being so small.

Moses

2012 to 2556 – Hua Hin and The Story of Hot Richard

From Phanomsarakham to Bangkok, then Bangkok to Hua Hin, my conclusionary weekend of 2012 began like any other.

After that, though, it got awesome really, really quick. I didn’t take many pictures cause I was busy having an amazing time (and taking video, but that takes forever to upload), so I apologize in advance.

The first full day of our stay in Hua Hin, Liz had the brilliant of idea of taking a 6km walk along the beach from the Hilton to Khao Takiab (a temple in Hua Hin on a hill). I say brilliant sarcastically because a long walk sounds awful, but it actually turned out to be one of the better ideas any of us had that weekend.

At one point during the walk, we went inland to stop at 7-11 (the American Moses in my head recoils at how casually and frequently I say that) and came across a small dog (we’d seen him earlier harassing horses on the beach). There are more stray dogs in Thailand than there are Bieber fans on Twitter, but he had been chillin outside and looked at us curiously as we came out so, instead of ignoring him, some of us gave him a pat on the head.

Strangely, when we got back on our journey to the temple, the dog seemed to be leading the way:

Our spirit guide animal thing.

He then proceeded to lead us for several miles, stopping to look back at us when he got to far ahead (four legs are faster than two). I wasn’t sure if he was leading us to some dog wonderland, or if he had decided to join us on our journey to the temple, or if he was a mafia-trained assassin dog until he turned down a street that wasn’t the way to the temple. By now, Taylor had given him the name Hot Richard, so I said to him, “Hot Rich, that’s not the right road. We’re goin this way, dawg.”

So he came back onto the main street and continued leading us.

At this point, I knew that he could understand English, was actually named Hot Richard by his birth parents, and was very likely from a different planet where dogs speak English and are named for British kings (kinda).

Me and the Dog himself.

We continued along the beach. We walked, Hot Rich led. When we stopped to take pictures, he’d stop to chill in the shade. We eventually got to the temple, where Hot Rich left us. He said he had a meeting to get to.

 

The temple was full of monkeys, which I didn’t get any pictures of for some reason. Also, monkeys, at least these ones, are jerks. I saw about four people get mugged  by the monkeys at the temple and a number of attempted robberies. The man that ran the ice cream stand had a sling shot that he kept at the ready, and he sent an overly bold monkey scurrying off when he aimed for it.

On the second day of our trip, we went to get ice cream at a place called Eighteen Below, which was owned by a Belgian chef and his Thai wife. Some of the best ice cream (and apple juice, curiously enough) that I’ve ever had. Then we went into this guy’s house/music store/bookstore  (called Rhythm & Books) and met a Thai writer/photographer who was incredibly inviting and opened his life up to us. A very very remarkable man. He also recommended to us a better, more secluded beach than the Scandanavian tourist-filled main beach.

That beach is where we had the most epic of sand castle building competitions. I ended up winning, Taylor took [a distant] second, Liz kind of got third and Jeff absolutely lost. Only mine and Taylor’s had the proper moat and walls to survive the incoming tide. Jeff’s washed away almost instantly and Liz’s washed away twice. Amateurs.

For a more entertaining, but less accurate recounting of the event’s, see Liz’s blog posts at:

http://lifeisnotacasserole.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/the-fellowships-quest-to-khao-takiab/

http://lifeisnotacasserole.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/sandcastle-wars/

Anyway, that night was New Year’s Eve night, so we went bowling then hit the beach for the midnight countdown. There were fireworks and Scandinavians everywhere, the former of which were exploding about fifty feet from us because Thailand doesn’t bother with nonsense regulations. The result was the most dangerous and spectacular firework show I’ve ever seen.

So here’s to 2013 (Or 2556, to tie in the title. Thailand doesn’t use the Gregorian calendar). With all the memories and progress and happiness that 2012 brought, this new year has a lot to live up to. I’m looking forward to enjoying the remainder of my time here in Thailand and getting back to my family and friends in the States.

Thanks for reading. Miss and love you all!

“May we all live long, may we all be brave, may the bridges we burn only light our way.” –  From Candles in the Sun by Miguel

Moses

What I’m Reading: The Once and Future King by T.H. White

What I’m Writing: Grad Stuff/Songs

What I’m Listening To: Kaleidoscope Dream by Miguel

Ten Days with Animals Part 3 – BUAKAW

This last post covers the most dangerous and elusive of all Thai animals. No, not a tiger. I’m talking about the Muay Thai Master, The White Lotus himself, Buakaw Por Pramuk!

On December 16th, the last leg of a several month international Muay Thai tournament, hosted by Thai Fight, was held in Bangkok and it would’ve been foolish of me not to go. Also it was free, because Thailand is better than every other country on Earth.

So we go over to King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) Plaza where the fight is being held:

The famous statue of King Chulalongkorn on his horse. The inspiration for the Gangnam Style dance, true story.

They had a sign up on Facebook for the event (it was free, but they had sign ups to guarantee a spot if the place filled up), but since it was all in Thai, it was difficult for me to navigate. Ajarn Sompit (Ajarn is a term for teachers. She’s our coordinator, as mentioned in previous posts) is a huuuuuge muay thai fan, so she’d been keeping me updated on things and mentioned the sign ups. When we got there, my name wasn’t on the list, but I told them that maybe it should’ve been, so they gave us tickets.

The plaza was pretty incredible and whatever White House-looking building they have there made a beautiful backdrop for the ring.

While it was still sunny out, they held the prelim bouts. There were fighters from Ukraine, Belarus, Ivory Coast and a few other countries participating. There was a heavyweight tournament that took place and, while it was fun to watch, Muay Thai requires a precision, coordination and speed that really only looks right when the smaller guys do it.

So anyway, it gets dark and the main card starts. This is when the theatricality of the event was on full display. Smoke, laser lights, giant LCDs, and 30 foot tall image of the king, etc. Thai Fight knows how to put on an event.

 

And they gave us all these inflated clapper things, which was cool.

My phone is a phone and not a camera, so I wasn’t able to get any particular brilliant pictures of the event, but it was too awesome for pictures anyway. You had to be there. I’ve been to a number of fights back in the States and while its always fun and awesome, the density of drunk, muscled, testosterone-filled, douchebags tends to limit how much I can enjoy the event since I have to spend part of my energy avoiding drink spills and blocking out the shouts of ignorant fight advice from armchair quarterbacks.

In Thailand, or at least for this event, though, this was not the case. The audience, like everything else in Thailand, was diverse. There were old people, there were kids, there were young women who clearly were there to watch the fight and weren’t just accessories to their boyfriends. There were Thai celebrities and regular folk. There were plenty of young men, but few were drinking (which was a bit surprisingly, actually. Thai people love their whiskey) and the ones that were only had enough to have a good time and not to become belligerent. There was a group of Belarussians there to cheer on Buakaw’s unfortunate opponent who would chant “Belarus.” At first, the Thai fans were responding with chants of “Thailand,” but when they saw that it was several thousand Thai fans against six Belarussian dudes, some of the Thai fans started chanting “Belarus” to make it more even. Lolz.

Part of this, I think, is due to the cultural component of Muay Thai. While it is a combat sport, and one of the more brutal ones, actually, they don’t seem to view it, primarily, as a legalized, regulated street fight. The fighters bow to the King’s image on entrance, they do a traditional dance and bow to their trainers beforehand. Traditional Thai music is playing throughout (well, a Thai band with Thai instruments. They played Jingle Bells at one point). The audience seemed pretty educated on the sport and revered the technical brilliance of the main event and co-main event more than the bombastic violence of the undercard bouts.

But, anwyay, on to Buakaw. I only took video of his entrance cause I didn’t want to be looking through a phone for it, but it was pretty bananas. Before he entered, there was a several minute video highlight reel of his journey through the tournament and when he finally came out, to his epic theme music, there was smoke and lights and fireworks and angels playing trumpets and they released wild lions into the audience and Chuck Norris flew in on Silver Surfer’s board…absolutely insane. He’s basically a superhero out here and his entrance definitely showed that.

The fight was pretty tame as far as spectacle, but wonderful as far as tactics and execution. His opponent, who was very, very capable, used his longer reach and frame to mess around with distance, which made it hard for Buakaw to go to work with his obscene kicks. Instead, Buawkaw worked his clinch grappling and scored six or seen throws and takedowns.

In the end, Buakaw took the unanimous victory and is the 2012 Thai fight champion.

It was a pretty cool night and my students went nuts when I told them I was there live. Most of them watched it on TV.

Good times, good times.

Moses

What I’m Reading: The Once and Future King by T.H. White

What I’m Writing: Grad Stuff/Novel

What I’m Listening To: Off the Wall by Michael Jackson

Ten Days with Animals Part 2 – Sri Racha Tiger Zoo

Continuing on with my nine day adventurepade, our school took a field trip with the M1s (the equivalent of 7th graders and the main grade that I teach) to the Sri Racha Tiger Zoo. You’re probably wondering if this is THE Sri Racha – where the sauce is made – and I’m proud to say that YES, it could very well be that place, since it has the same name as the sauce. I have no idea, though. I didn’t ask.

The trip started with the teachers getting on board the bus full of students. There was a caravan of thirteen buses leaving the school (One for each of the twelve M1 classes and 1 for the EP kids) and we foreigners sat on the bus with the English Program students.

I’ve been seeing buses around Thailand with swirls of color and poorly painted Dragonball Z characters, playing loud music and I’ve wondered what they’re for: I received my answer. Our bus had Naruto drawings on it and the first song that started bumpin once we got on was Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On.

Just kidding. It was Gangnam Style.

Naruto says “Welcome.”

Police escort cause we roll presidentially.

After an hour and a half-ish of bass and drums and Thai music and the kids dancing like it was the last night of their lives, we got to the zoo. Here come the pictures:

The kids getting prepped to terrorize some unsuspecting animals.

Me and a small tiger/large house cat.

They went on to stick pretty much every body part into the crocodile’s mouths.

An intimate moment.

Me and mah boys. They mock me every time I do a thumbs up so I hit ’em wit the deuces.

So we went to an elephant show. They elephants did some cool stuff, then the trainers asked for two volunteers. I figured it would be another elephant massage like in Kanchanaburi, so I was down. I raised my hand, got picked, walked down like a boss and got my massage.

Then tragedy struck.

There’s a video on Facebook that captures it better, but the host let the other volunteer leave and kept me for part two, where they strapped me to a board, but three balloons next to me (one under each armpit and one between the legs. Of course.) and showed off of their elephant’s dart-throwing skills. It was pretty cool; he would lift the oversized metal darts above his head with his trunk then launch them forward. The only weird thing was that the elephant REALLY SUCKED AT THROWING DARTS. He hit 1 out of 4, then they were like, “Alright, let’s do this.”

They blindfold me (which I was actually pretty thankful for cause then I wouldn’t have to watch the dart smash through my glasses and eyeball and brains) and the elephant goes to work. I can’t see anything, but I hear the announcer count “1….2….3!” each time, then I hear a pop shakes with the force of the dart and I hear a popping balloon. This happens three times and I, somehow, walk away unscathed.

Yolk’s on me, though, cause I later found out that they brought out a different, sober elephant while I was blindfolded and he actually popped the balloons from point-blank rather than fifteen meters away. Haha. Haha. Ha.

Moses

What I’m reading: The Once and Future King by T.H. White

What I’m Writing: …I don’t know really. A mix of grad stuff and continuing to work on my novel. And songs! Writing songs.

What I’m Listening To: Creul Summer by G.O.O.D Music

Ten Days with Animals Part 1 – Chiang Mai

The next three posts will collectively cover events from December 7th to December 16th, 2012

Wahwahweewah.

I had a nine day period (I put ten in the title because it’s a better number, objectively) recently, that, all things considered, was one of the better nine day periods of my life. Starting on Friday, the 7th, I got on a bus for a 10 hour ride up north to Chiang Mai. I didn’t really know any cities in Thailand before I came out here (other than Bangkok and Phuket), but I heard a lot about Chiang Mai and figured it would be worth a look-see.

First of all, Thailand knows what they’re doing when it comes to bus travel. Not only was it characteristically cheap, but the accommodations were great (comfortable seats, a blanket, free drink and croissant), there were plenty (but not too many) of bathroom and food stops, and I was able to choose a seat that had plenty of leg room because Thai people are considerate and no one took the seats for us long-legged folk.

I got to Chiang Mai about seven in the morning and met up with my All-Canadian travel compadres. The first thing we did, naturally, was go to McDonald’s.

Notice the Christmas decorations. In Thailand, they have a piece of legislation called “No Holiday Left Behind.” It allows them to celebrate everything.

Then we went to the hotel, dropped our things off, and hit the streets to…well, to wander, really. It was nice outside and our hotel was pretty centralized, so we checked out what they call “Old town.” One thing about Chiang Mai is that, since it’s in northern Thailand, it doesn’t have the crazy, oppresive, tropical heat. In fact, it got pretty cold at night. To the point that my wearing a beanie was only a little bit strange. Also, it was pretty touristy, but not so flagrantly as a lot of other tourist spots. And there were plenty o’ temples:

Interior of one of the temples.

After wandering, we took a trip to the world famous Chiang Mai zoo! I think I’m gonna make it a point to go to the major zoo of every city/country I live in. Not because there are a bunch of animals that I feel I haven’t seen, but because I can act like a child at the zoo and the haters can’t say anything because -…well, I guess they can, but they don’t.

First, we were greeted by otters…

…then, we went to go feed their bull male elephant…

THEN WE GOT TO SEE SOME WHITE TIGERSSS!!SS!!11!!1S!!

The white tigers were the highlight of the zoo trip for me. One of the few big cats I’d yet to have seen and one of the visually more impressive creatures on the planet. When we were there, the two cats they had were pretty active, strutting around and posing on rocks and what not. I’m about 88% sure it could’ve cleared the gap between us with a running start, but I suspect that the animals in Thailand are just as relaxed as the people.

Side Rant: One of the things I’ve encountered a lot out here is that foreigners seem to think that any location in Thailand that harbors animals is a black-market supplying, animal abuse resort. I’m not naive, and I know that such places exist, but I want to use this opportunity to dispel that notion. Thai people love animals and care for them just as much as westerners do (excluding dogs, which Americans have a weird fetish for, but that’s another post). Their zookeepers seemed just as prepared, used the same methods of reinforcement, and showed a genuine appreciation for the animals. I’ll get to this more in part 2, but I wanted to establish that point now. The Chiang Mai Zoo, and nearly every other place in Thailand that I’ve been to that has animals, treats them well. And, more importantly (and this is what people seem to forget is the most important thing), they let people interact with the animals in a way that is safe for the people.

So, yeah. Also, we saw a two-headed rock lorax:

Just kidding. It was two animals, but one was trying to fuse with the other.

After the zoo, we went home to freshen up then went out for some karaoke and other such funtivities. I’ve made it a mantra of mine that I don’t want to go places with a bunch of Westerners (why come to Thailand to see people I could see in America?), but it was pretty nice to see new, English speaking faces and look through songs that I recognize and like. Good times.

That was Friday. We woke up Saturday and, after deciding not to rent motorbikes, took a sawng taew (the covered truck transportation) up a mountain to Doi Suthep. I think it was the first temple ever built or something…lemme check Wikipedia….meh. I couldn’t verify it, so just go with it.

The long road/staircase up to the temple.

I’m only including this picture because Jeff is particular about not having bad pictures of him on the internet. You look dashing, sir.

Drop down and get yo prayer on, girl.

Monks with a View: A new sitcom/indie band debuting this Spring.

So that’s that! I had to catch a bus back home really early the next morning, so we didn’t stay out too late, but it was a full day, nonetheless.

Part 2 coming soon. Miss you all!

Moses

What I’m Reading: …look, I haven’t had much time to read.

What I’m Writing: Grad Personal Statements – 25%, The Lincoln Lions (Novel) – 33%

What I’m Listening To: Walk the Moon by Walk the Moon (Thanks Cristine!)

A Little More Conversation Vol 2. – Making Sense

People drive on the left side of the road in Thailand. Or the right side. Whichever’s easier.

Basically, the rule is don’t drive like an idiot. If you need to get somewhere and it’s faster for you to drive towards oncoming traffic, go for it.

When you get street food, sometimes the food will be crazy hot (soup or meat, most often). You know whose fault it is if you get burned? The seller’s.

…Just kidding. It’s yours. How did you not know soup would be hot?

It even has those swirly heat markers coming out of it, you dummy.

What I’m saying is that Thailand is a country that runs largely on common sense and it is reflected in the behavior of the people. Thai people are, by and large, very sensible. They put ice in all their drinks because it’s hot, they know traffic is insane, so they make public transportation convenient and affordable, etc. The students are given an enormous amount of autonomy, to the extent that they’ll come get us when it’s time for class to begin. This teaches them at a young age that education is their responsibility. If they don’t want to learn, they don’t have to. Very sensible.

In Thai, they spell phonetically, so many words have several spellings. The result is that you just figure it out. My coordinator asked me how to spell my middle name (no easy task), then when I was done, she just kinda wrote what it sounded like. I wanted to be like, “Oh, no, there’s an ‘h’ there” then I realized that it doesn’t even matter even the tiniest bit. Anyone who needed to read it could read it and it would sound close enough. Isn’t that the whole point of writing anyway? To make it readable?

This all comes to mind because I’ve been studying a form of Muay Thai out here and my instructor repeatedly has to tell me that there are no set forms or set positions such as in other martial arts. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is all about knowing what to do from a variety of standardized positions. Karate students learn katas all day. When I ask my instructor “So where does this hand go from here?” he always says “…it depends”. Basically, he just tells me to do whatever makes sense. Any position is usable. If I I’m punching and have no way of protecting myself, then I need to protect myself. If I’ve just parried a jab to the outside and want to counter, it doesn’t matter if I go with a lead counter or back hand counter. Whatever feels right at the time. It’s all very hippy.

Short bit from one of my training sessions

The difference between Thai common sense and, perhaps, “American” common sense is that in Thailand it seems to be institutionalized and pervasive in all parts of their society. In Thailand, it seems that common sense is expected and that the answer to most questions is pretty intuitive. Note that I don’t mean this disparagingly towards Americans. I don’t consider myself a person with an abundance of common sense. While I’m capable of doing things that make people say, “Oh, that’s cool, I never would have thought of that,” I’m never the person that will make you say, “Oh, duh, that’s so obvious. Why didn’t I think of that?” because I’m just not intelligent in that way. I also do a lot of things that don’t stand up to even to most miniscule amount of rational scrutiny, so I admire people that are good at the basic, supposedly obvious things.

There are pros and cons to this, of course. The main con is that common sense doesn’t always work and is largely based on life experience. Traffic in this country is indeed a mess and if you’re tired or not paying attention for a bit, you can pretty easily kill yourself. Real talk. Things just aren’t as regulated and so those “dumb mistakes” that we all make can be pretty costly here. I’ve run into a staggering amount of people that are missing digits or limbs, are deaf in an ear, have burns on their bodies, etc, due to accidents of various kinds.

This is how a Thai highway sees humans.

In America, we make it easy to get by without common sense, because everything is regulated and labeled and has fail-safes. We also have a society that is concerned with liability, so in the work place and in our daily lives, we tend to always defer to an expert or somehow who is “allowed” to make a decision, as if our own brains are defective.

As a person with dangerously low intuition, American society is geared towards my strengths and I look forward to getting back to the states and letting the world share some of my thinking load. However, it is nice to go to a bank with a request and not have to talk to a supervisor.

Moses