So if you were wondering, i am indeed still alive and currently in phnom penh.
Left Bangkok with Kirk last friday on the 5:55am train to aranyaprathet. quite a lovely journey really, very scenic - and only 48baht! arrived there about 11:20 and took a saengtaew to the border for 10baht. there you get to wait in line to get stamped out of thailand and then walk across a 50 or 100m wide strip of land where all the casinos are, then pay a bundle for your cambodian visa and get stamped into their country. we were hassled much less then anticipated. just kept walking in the same direction that elliott did when he got his pickup. hooked up with this couple - Vern from S africa and Telli from canada and eventually a lone japanese kid looking for company who we just called 'Tokyo' never really found a proper pickup but one did eventually stop and say they'd drive us to sisophet for 50 baht each. however, i may not have mentioned this but cambodia is pretty corrupt place and the 'officials' at poipet had decided to make it illegal for foreigners to travel via pickup - only taxi or their crappy buses. so just on the edge of town at the police checkpoint, the correct amount of money didn't change hands. our truck turned around and drove us into town, but when it stopped it was at a motorbike stand. there they had us each get on a moto and get driven out of town past the checkpoint to meet the truck down the road. jumped in and we were off! sat in the back, very bumpy, the road probably hasn't been paved since wwI. lots of pothole dodging. but good company at least. our real problem came in sisophet where elliott said he didn't have to wait too long for a truck but for us there were very few. after waiting nearly 2.5 hrs for the truck we chose to keep finding stuff to load in the back we caved in and decided to pay $5 each for a taxi the rest of the way. all squished in, we decided that it had been a good decision as soon as it started storming. plus the road the rest of the way to siem reap was even worse - just dirt track really. for another 2.5 hrs or so. but we made it!
sat morning then kirk and i met up with the guide recommended by Alan and Joyce Welch. Ban Chantla did an excellent job - knew about everything and him driving us around kept us motivated to see all the main temples. Long days in the sun but Angkor Wat really is amazing! too bad tourism is really picking up. in a few years there will no doubt be regualations/limitations all over the place. Went all over the place, covered a lot of ground and learned a lot of history. on the 3rd day we spent half of it visiting the vietnamese floating village on the lake. interesting, but also a rip off. really most of cambodia is just trying to separate you from as much money as possible. the worst is that you have to work in 3 currencies - the us dollar, thai baht, and cambodian real (which is play money really) ah well.
so our last night in siem reap was monday. unfortunately i started feeling a bit under the weather but am recovering quickly. on tuesday, i set off on a bus to phnom penh with vern and telli while kirk flew back to bangkok to catch his flight home. its just been ridiculously hot and dusty here, so i admit i haven't moved much from the fans in the guesthouse. tomorrow i'm forcing myself out though to see the killing fields and the prison s-21. not exactly real positive but thats kindof how cambodia is. a bit depressing. a bit corrupt. thailand definitely wins in my opinion and hopefully not just cause i'm a bit sick (i was due - we figured out that every other american in our group had had something to take them out for a couple of days!) at any rate, i fly to bangkok on friday and home on saturday! see you all soon!!
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Monday, August 15, 2005
Chiang Mai for mothers day and floods
So this last weekend was mothers day here in Thailand (ie the Queen's birthday.) Quite a big deal here as it is an official national holiday with it's own flower, symbol, etc. However, for us just an extra day off of work to travel! Just Hannah, Travis, and me on this trip - we left town about 6pm on Thursday on a super nice bus with seats that went almost all the way back. Unfortunately leaving so early meant that we arrived in Chiang Mai at the fantastic time of 4am...
Fortunately, since I'm the planner, I looked into a cooking class that provided accomodation outside of town and when I called on Thurs afternoon they even said they'd pick us up at the bus station at 5am. A nice lady from the office drove us out to where the cooking school is - about 20km south of town in a really quiet rural area (see http://chiang-mai-kitchen-cooking-school.infothai.com/ ) So we got there, found ourselves the only ones at the bungalow style accomodation and promptly went to sleep for 3 or 4 hrs. The owner of the cooking school Mr. Teng then woke us up a bit after 9am to take us to a market shopping for food. Nothing too new there as we've been to plenty of markets. There was a little girl there who was fascinated/absolutely terrified of me. Her mom kept holding her and trying to get her to say 'sawadee ka' but the poor thing must've thought i was a devil or something with my red hair - definitely a sight around here.
At any rate we returned to the school and started cooking. Just the three of us conveniently enough so we chose our own dishes - green curry, phad thai, fried bananas, sweet and sour chicken, and spring rolls. Cooked the first three just for lunch - definitely a full and intense day of eating! Luckily the last two we made in the afternoon and were able to wait to cook/heat up right before dinner time. The office was even able to arrange Muay Thai tickets for us so Friday night we were finally able to see Thai boxing.
A pickup drove us over to the stadium - plenty of farangs down front but more Thais showed up later in the evening. About 8 or 9 fights total starting with really young kids - maybe 6 or 8? Hard for me to tell the age of Thais correctly as they tend to be so small anyway. Anyway, they enter the ring, wai to everyone, and then as the live music (a drum, finger cymbals, and a recorder type instrument) played they would dance something they'd made up to represent their school. Most incorporated very similar elements but it was interesting to see dancing right before fighting. Then a very violent struggle - kicking, kneeing, and a standard left/right punch being integral. Weird to see little kids going at it like that, but just the next fight they seemed to be teenagers and able to choose such an activity... Most of the fights in the middle did end with one or both contestants bleeding. And that night was different in that a few farangs (foreigners) were actually fighting. One was finnish (looked ackward but had good reach) who won and the other lebanese (huge guy who forgot how to punch) who lost. Also the very last match was what seemed like a pretty old/skinny/ripped Japanese guy against a teenage thai about his size.... crazy.
Back to our bungalow in the country for the night and in the morning we were picked up by a group to do a trek. Trekking is really big and pretty standardized in the Chaing Mai area but we all had a great time on Saturday. 6 total in our group - one english guy and an italian couple were with us. First we hiked a couple of kms up to a Hmong hill tribe village, really a cultural center sort of thing. Wouldve been an easy hike but it had drizzled all day on Friday and kept going with stronger rain at times on Saturday. The trail was incredibly muddy and coming back down the hill was quite a feat! At any rate our guide was pretty good - gave us an overview of the tribe - originally from China, now Thai citizens mostly. Poor, but really seems like an okay life farming and getting money from tourists. Always seems better to be poor in the country then in the city. At any rate we got to wander around for a bit before the muddy/slippery hike down - only ended up on my butt once! After lunch then we went to visit a Karen village. Not such an exciting hike but interesting to see a different tribe - different style houses/different looking/same getting money from tourism deal. Next a hike up to a pretty cool waterfall - a good reason to visit in the rainy season I would guess. Then the standardized riding elephants/bamboo rafting bit which was actually really different from what we did in Kanchanaburi and better in lots of ways. The elephant ride - how can you complain about riding an elephant?? was awesome, throught the jungle and across a river. Then the bamboo raft, a long skinny thing, which we rode down a much faster river - with actually some minor whitewater sort of stuff. Definitely good times. It started absolutely pouring about halfway through, such an awesome feeling to be on a raft in a river in a jungle being drenched by a tropical downpour... glorious! Well needless to say we were pretty worn out and after finding a guesthouse in Chiang Mai the most we could do was find the Night Bazaar (rather infamous - 10 blocks long!) and finish our Thailand shopping.
On Sunday, Travis took off on another tour thing while Hannah and I had another girls day. Started out with a Muay Thai lesson. We'd gotten a flier at the fight on Friday night and decided to give it a go. We were the only 2 students from 8-10am. Met outside the place (really a conglomeration of bars with a boxing ring in the middle) by our teacher, a short, middle ages Thai guy who was obviously a former boxer himself. Basically the 2 hours were spent in training and conditioning. Not really any actually fighting. Started out jumping rope (don't laugh! I know i'm no good at it ;) ) then jumping on a tire, kicking over a stick, kneeing and kicking things, moved on to punching and kneeing the pads he would hold. Apparently I have a pretty good right knee - watch out! hehehe... Anyway by the end of the two hours I looked like I'd been swimming - just drenched in sweat. A quick cook down/stretch out and we had to run back to check out of our room at the guesthouse.
So feeling we'd earned it after a hearty lunch we walked around and chose at random a massage place (tons of them in Chiang Mai). Decided to go all out and got a facial scrub followed by a full body oil massage that in all took almost 3 hrs. Glorious! I'm getting way to addicted to these awesome less then $10 massages... Well after that, all relaxed and refreshed by some delicous homemade ice tea we wandered the old town and headed out into the new town to visit a market we'd heard about. Only then did we see the effects of the rain the previous days. Horrendous flooding of the river and canal. Apparently it hasn't been so bad in years and years. First thing everybody asked me when they saw me this morning was if it had effected things. We got to the bridge over the canal and found that the blocks between it and the river were completely flooded - waist deep at some points. So that but a limit on things. It poured a bit more so not too much happened after that. Dinner when Travis got back, and I'll admit I'm busy reading Harry Potter which Hannah bough and finished last week.
Got back into bangkok about 6:30am this morning and I gave up and came straight to work. So a long day most likely, little chemistry and probably plenty of stalling on this paper thing... bah!
Fortunately, since I'm the planner, I looked into a cooking class that provided accomodation outside of town and when I called on Thurs afternoon they even said they'd pick us up at the bus station at 5am. A nice lady from the office drove us out to where the cooking school is - about 20km south of town in a really quiet rural area (see http://chiang-mai-kitchen-cooking-school.infothai.com/ ) So we got there, found ourselves the only ones at the bungalow style accomodation and promptly went to sleep for 3 or 4 hrs. The owner of the cooking school Mr. Teng then woke us up a bit after 9am to take us to a market shopping for food. Nothing too new there as we've been to plenty of markets. There was a little girl there who was fascinated/absolutely terrified of me. Her mom kept holding her and trying to get her to say 'sawadee ka' but the poor thing must've thought i was a devil or something with my red hair - definitely a sight around here.
At any rate we returned to the school and started cooking. Just the three of us conveniently enough so we chose our own dishes - green curry, phad thai, fried bananas, sweet and sour chicken, and spring rolls. Cooked the first three just for lunch - definitely a full and intense day of eating! Luckily the last two we made in the afternoon and were able to wait to cook/heat up right before dinner time. The office was even able to arrange Muay Thai tickets for us so Friday night we were finally able to see Thai boxing.
A pickup drove us over to the stadium - plenty of farangs down front but more Thais showed up later in the evening. About 8 or 9 fights total starting with really young kids - maybe 6 or 8? Hard for me to tell the age of Thais correctly as they tend to be so small anyway. Anyway, they enter the ring, wai to everyone, and then as the live music (a drum, finger cymbals, and a recorder type instrument) played they would dance something they'd made up to represent their school. Most incorporated very similar elements but it was interesting to see dancing right before fighting. Then a very violent struggle - kicking, kneeing, and a standard left/right punch being integral. Weird to see little kids going at it like that, but just the next fight they seemed to be teenagers and able to choose such an activity... Most of the fights in the middle did end with one or both contestants bleeding. And that night was different in that a few farangs (foreigners) were actually fighting. One was finnish (looked ackward but had good reach) who won and the other lebanese (huge guy who forgot how to punch) who lost. Also the very last match was what seemed like a pretty old/skinny/ripped Japanese guy against a teenage thai about his size.... crazy.
Back to our bungalow in the country for the night and in the morning we were picked up by a group to do a trek. Trekking is really big and pretty standardized in the Chaing Mai area but we all had a great time on Saturday. 6 total in our group - one english guy and an italian couple were with us. First we hiked a couple of kms up to a Hmong hill tribe village, really a cultural center sort of thing. Wouldve been an easy hike but it had drizzled all day on Friday and kept going with stronger rain at times on Saturday. The trail was incredibly muddy and coming back down the hill was quite a feat! At any rate our guide was pretty good - gave us an overview of the tribe - originally from China, now Thai citizens mostly. Poor, but really seems like an okay life farming and getting money from tourists. Always seems better to be poor in the country then in the city. At any rate we got to wander around for a bit before the muddy/slippery hike down - only ended up on my butt once! After lunch then we went to visit a Karen village. Not such an exciting hike but interesting to see a different tribe - different style houses/different looking/same getting money from tourism deal. Next a hike up to a pretty cool waterfall - a good reason to visit in the rainy season I would guess. Then the standardized riding elephants/bamboo rafting bit which was actually really different from what we did in Kanchanaburi and better in lots of ways. The elephant ride - how can you complain about riding an elephant?? was awesome, throught the jungle and across a river. Then the bamboo raft, a long skinny thing, which we rode down a much faster river - with actually some minor whitewater sort of stuff. Definitely good times. It started absolutely pouring about halfway through, such an awesome feeling to be on a raft in a river in a jungle being drenched by a tropical downpour... glorious! Well needless to say we were pretty worn out and after finding a guesthouse in Chiang Mai the most we could do was find the Night Bazaar (rather infamous - 10 blocks long!) and finish our Thailand shopping.
On Sunday, Travis took off on another tour thing while Hannah and I had another girls day. Started out with a Muay Thai lesson. We'd gotten a flier at the fight on Friday night and decided to give it a go. We were the only 2 students from 8-10am. Met outside the place (really a conglomeration of bars with a boxing ring in the middle) by our teacher, a short, middle ages Thai guy who was obviously a former boxer himself. Basically the 2 hours were spent in training and conditioning. Not really any actually fighting. Started out jumping rope (don't laugh! I know i'm no good at it ;) ) then jumping on a tire, kicking over a stick, kneeing and kicking things, moved on to punching and kneeing the pads he would hold. Apparently I have a pretty good right knee - watch out! hehehe... Anyway by the end of the two hours I looked like I'd been swimming - just drenched in sweat. A quick cook down/stretch out and we had to run back to check out of our room at the guesthouse.
So feeling we'd earned it after a hearty lunch we walked around and chose at random a massage place (tons of them in Chiang Mai). Decided to go all out and got a facial scrub followed by a full body oil massage that in all took almost 3 hrs. Glorious! I'm getting way to addicted to these awesome less then $10 massages... Well after that, all relaxed and refreshed by some delicous homemade ice tea we wandered the old town and headed out into the new town to visit a market we'd heard about. Only then did we see the effects of the rain the previous days. Horrendous flooding of the river and canal. Apparently it hasn't been so bad in years and years. First thing everybody asked me when they saw me this morning was if it had effected things. We got to the bridge over the canal and found that the blocks between it and the river were completely flooded - waist deep at some points. So that but a limit on things. It poured a bit more so not too much happened after that. Dinner when Travis got back, and I'll admit I'm busy reading Harry Potter which Hannah bough and finished last week.
Got back into bangkok about 6:30am this morning and I gave up and came straight to work. So a long day most likely, little chemistry and probably plenty of stalling on this paper thing... bah!
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Around town
Well this past weekend ended up being needed relaxation. On Friday night, I met up with Hannah and Kirk over by Lumpini night bazaar to check out Thai boxing - Muay Thai. Unfortunately, once we found the stadium we also found out they have a double pricing standard for foreigners. Voted too expensive by our group we headed over to the beer/food garden (described in an earlier post) phad thai and fruit shakes later we decided to see what adventures we could find wandering around town. Stopped on the way out of the night bazaar to pick up round 2 of Chang beers and walked along the park edge. Sat around drinking in the park till it closed and then headed to the busy/infamous Patpong area. The place was packed - up and down the street with vendors of all sorts and attacks from all sides from sleazy men asking us if we wanted to go see the ping pong show. By the way, I may not have mentioned that earlier but it is a common question from tuktuk drivers, etc - has become a running joke amongst us americans... After walking for a while and stopping at the ubiquitous 7-11 to try random thai energy drinks (apparently some are illegal in the US! so we thought it worthy entertainmetn) we headed back towards MBK and ended up seeing 'Land of the Dead' An absolutely horrible movie! Even our tolerant bunch couldn't stand it... Wandered back to the dorms, ran into Doug and Elliott and ended up staying up late chatting.
Saturday was glorious as it began with.... sleeping in!!! the first time in weeks! Hannah and I decided to have a girls day around town since everyone else was off on their own personal missions. Finally headed out around noon and walked over to China town - found the untoursity part of town and got catcalls half way there! At any rate it's a very interesting section... definitely a taste of China with the crowded streets and vendors selling everything from bandsaws to grapes to cigarettes they found in the trash - pretty authentic from what I'd say! We occupied ourselves for quite a while exploring before heading back to the dorm. On the return trip we found a street lined with coffin stores... plus one in the middle selling only ducks... We reconvened back at our rooms and headed to Pontip which is the electronics sales area of town. A crazy several story floor where you can buy mp3s pirated DVDs or a computer. Deals weren't as good as in China though so after browsing we headed south to Banyan tower - one of the tallest buildings in Bangkok. They have the tallest rooftop restaurant where we sat and sipped expensive drinks overlooking the city. A pleasant way to kill a couple of hours! Back home for a nap and when Kirk and Elliott got back all four of us headed to Khao San Road for an evening out. The place is crazy and entertaining but I'm very glad we can leave when we get tired of it!
Sunday I slept in again when Hannah went with Kirk to church. Our original plan called for us and Elliot to go to the ancient capitol of Ayuthatya in the afternoon. However when those two came back around noon we found out that both Hannah and I had to change rooms and move in together by 4pm! So that killed time and by the time we were finished it was a bit late for the 1 hr train ride each way. As substitute we headed over to the middle eastern section of the city by Nana skytrain stop. Different from any other part I've seen - signs in arabic, english, and thai. Had some great indian/pakistani food and when it started pouring we moved across the street to smoke a hookah for awhile. Got back kindof late and didn't end up doing much the rest of the evening.
Monday went with Doug and Elliott back to Khao San and their favorite vegetarian restaurant - I think they're converting me... that or the sketchy Thai meat. Tuesday was just gym, MBK, home, hall party and room shuffle as Doug and Elliott moved in together so that Hannah and I could have our own rooms (she gets up way too early! and the boys are just nice!) Then last night back to the vegetarian restuarant Mai Kaidee's to celebrate Doug's 22nd bday in style.
Well I'm feeling it's definitely time to get out of the city and tonight I'm headed north with Travis and Hannah to Chiang Mai! Be back on Monday...
Saturday was glorious as it began with.... sleeping in!!! the first time in weeks! Hannah and I decided to have a girls day around town since everyone else was off on their own personal missions. Finally headed out around noon and walked over to China town - found the untoursity part of town and got catcalls half way there! At any rate it's a very interesting section... definitely a taste of China with the crowded streets and vendors selling everything from bandsaws to grapes to cigarettes they found in the trash - pretty authentic from what I'd say! We occupied ourselves for quite a while exploring before heading back to the dorm. On the return trip we found a street lined with coffin stores... plus one in the middle selling only ducks... We reconvened back at our rooms and headed to Pontip which is the electronics sales area of town. A crazy several story floor where you can buy mp3s pirated DVDs or a computer. Deals weren't as good as in China though so after browsing we headed south to Banyan tower - one of the tallest buildings in Bangkok. They have the tallest rooftop restaurant where we sat and sipped expensive drinks overlooking the city. A pleasant way to kill a couple of hours! Back home for a nap and when Kirk and Elliott got back all four of us headed to Khao San Road for an evening out. The place is crazy and entertaining but I'm very glad we can leave when we get tired of it!
Sunday I slept in again when Hannah went with Kirk to church. Our original plan called for us and Elliot to go to the ancient capitol of Ayuthatya in the afternoon. However when those two came back around noon we found out that both Hannah and I had to change rooms and move in together by 4pm! So that killed time and by the time we were finished it was a bit late for the 1 hr train ride each way. As substitute we headed over to the middle eastern section of the city by Nana skytrain stop. Different from any other part I've seen - signs in arabic, english, and thai. Had some great indian/pakistani food and when it started pouring we moved across the street to smoke a hookah for awhile. Got back kindof late and didn't end up doing much the rest of the evening.
Monday went with Doug and Elliott back to Khao San and their favorite vegetarian restaurant - I think they're converting me... that or the sketchy Thai meat. Tuesday was just gym, MBK, home, hall party and room shuffle as Doug and Elliott moved in together so that Hannah and I could have our own rooms (she gets up way too early! and the boys are just nice!) Then last night back to the vegetarian restuarant Mai Kaidee's to celebrate Doug's 22nd bday in style.
Well I'm feeling it's definitely time to get out of the city and tonight I'm headed north with Travis and Hannah to Chiang Mai! Be back on Monday...
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Whitewater rafting and a foiled attempt to donate blood
So it's already August! The summer is almost gone... We spent this past weekend on a trip planned by the Chulalongkorn Thai students. Left incredibly early on Saturday and began what became almost a 6 hr minivan ride replete with flat tire to our destination near Pitsanalok.
Once there we checked into our 'resort' which actually was pretty swanky - bungalows with ac/tv/fridge/showers - everything! Hannah picked that time to catch whatever fever has been going around and that Kirk and Doug already survived so she was out for most of the trip. The rest of us were walked over to eat lunch and then get ready for the whitewater rafting. We all expected it to be tame floating down the river - considering most of the Thai kids can't swim and tend to get afraid of things.. but we were pleasantly surprised!
The group split up into 2 rafts. With full helmet/life jacket ensemble we figured we'd have to try to get hurt. The 5 of us that hang out were all in one raft plus about 4 or 5 Thai students. Most of the Americans took up rowing positions as all of us had been rafting before. Despite commands being yelled to us in Thai (sometimes was confusing whether we were supposed to row faster or stop and hold on for example) we showed up the other raft. About 3 people sat in the middle at a time and whenever the Thai kids rowed they insisted whoever was in the middle hold on to their life jacket during the rapids! The current was strong and the water pretty fast from recent rains. Half the fun at the beginning was dodging trees and tree branches which tended to be in the middle of the river indicating you can probably only raft during the rainy season.
After a few 'warmup' rapids we got to a series of 'real' rapids were actually pretty impressive including a couple of meter drops and 200m long sections of rocky whitewater. Definitely a couple of times where we got knocked around but we never lost a crewmember. Only once, after hitting suddenly a rock that came out of no where, we lost one of the 2 river guides who totally flew out the front. The rest of us mostly managed to get jarred into the person in front of us or into the boat.
At any rate, towards the end we had the obigatory jump out of the boat for awhile section. The current was still impressively fast so we had a good time even though the river wasn't quite as nice as the one in Kanchanaburi. Had a few times where floating thai students (they all did jump in!) would request a 'rescue' and one of us would grab the back of their lifejacket and kick them in closer to the shore. Hilarious! Just as we got out of the river and were rinsing off, it started pouring and wouldn't stop until late saturday night.
Needless to say the rest of the evening was Thai style vacation (ie eat, take pictures, relax, play cards, relax more). Good thing that all of us like to read! The almost ludicrous thing was that the only thing we did was eat and sleep and then eat and then endure another 5 hr van ride... ah well. such is life.
Sunday one van left early and got back into Bangkok about 2pm. Kirk, Travis, Elliott and I requested a drop off at the weekend market to finally complete some of the dreaded shopping! Even with a light drizzle the place was as busy and claustrophobic as ever. Three hours later I emerged exhausted, probably dehydrated but victorious in finding presents for all the crazy couples getting married and most of my friends. That meant I was free to return to my room, shower, and crash.
So since then, not too much has been happening. Trying to increase the pace here at work to have something to present and write about. Thailand is just not the right place for successful LDA chemistry! Looks like this friday we might go check out Thai boxing at Limpini and hang around a bit for the weekend. Time to recover and save money for the Cambodia airfares...
And i forgot the blood donation bit! On Monday everyone came in all excited since apparently there was a blood drive that was going to occur over in the convention center. We all headed over around 10:30am to attempt to be nice and give blood. Doug and Elliott got in fine and had a race with all of the army guys giving blood - totally beating them of course. Unfortunately I couldn't give since I'm on antimalaria medicine! Dangit! Most of the girls were out either for not weighing enough (that would be under 45 kilos!! hence my feeling like a giantess half the time) or being on their periods, so we waited around for the guys. Met a lady from the 9th floor (cancer research) who was super friendly to us farangs and even tried to adopt us and have us call her 'mama.' Absolutely hilarious - especially when she gave me all the free snacks even though I didn't give blood and some vicks vapor rub-esque multipurpose salve. (reminds me of kidnapper in Plovdiv, Bulgaria!)
Once there we checked into our 'resort' which actually was pretty swanky - bungalows with ac/tv/fridge/showers - everything! Hannah picked that time to catch whatever fever has been going around and that Kirk and Doug already survived so she was out for most of the trip. The rest of us were walked over to eat lunch and then get ready for the whitewater rafting. We all expected it to be tame floating down the river - considering most of the Thai kids can't swim and tend to get afraid of things.. but we were pleasantly surprised!
The group split up into 2 rafts. With full helmet/life jacket ensemble we figured we'd have to try to get hurt. The 5 of us that hang out were all in one raft plus about 4 or 5 Thai students. Most of the Americans took up rowing positions as all of us had been rafting before. Despite commands being yelled to us in Thai (sometimes was confusing whether we were supposed to row faster or stop and hold on for example) we showed up the other raft. About 3 people sat in the middle at a time and whenever the Thai kids rowed they insisted whoever was in the middle hold on to their life jacket during the rapids! The current was strong and the water pretty fast from recent rains. Half the fun at the beginning was dodging trees and tree branches which tended to be in the middle of the river indicating you can probably only raft during the rainy season.
After a few 'warmup' rapids we got to a series of 'real' rapids were actually pretty impressive including a couple of meter drops and 200m long sections of rocky whitewater. Definitely a couple of times where we got knocked around but we never lost a crewmember. Only once, after hitting suddenly a rock that came out of no where, we lost one of the 2 river guides who totally flew out the front. The rest of us mostly managed to get jarred into the person in front of us or into the boat.
At any rate, towards the end we had the obigatory jump out of the boat for awhile section. The current was still impressively fast so we had a good time even though the river wasn't quite as nice as the one in Kanchanaburi. Had a few times where floating thai students (they all did jump in!) would request a 'rescue' and one of us would grab the back of their lifejacket and kick them in closer to the shore. Hilarious! Just as we got out of the river and were rinsing off, it started pouring and wouldn't stop until late saturday night.
Needless to say the rest of the evening was Thai style vacation (ie eat, take pictures, relax, play cards, relax more). Good thing that all of us like to read! The almost ludicrous thing was that the only thing we did was eat and sleep and then eat and then endure another 5 hr van ride... ah well. such is life.
Sunday one van left early and got back into Bangkok about 2pm. Kirk, Travis, Elliott and I requested a drop off at the weekend market to finally complete some of the dreaded shopping! Even with a light drizzle the place was as busy and claustrophobic as ever. Three hours later I emerged exhausted, probably dehydrated but victorious in finding presents for all the crazy couples getting married and most of my friends. That meant I was free to return to my room, shower, and crash.
So since then, not too much has been happening. Trying to increase the pace here at work to have something to present and write about. Thailand is just not the right place for successful LDA chemistry! Looks like this friday we might go check out Thai boxing at Limpini and hang around a bit for the weekend. Time to recover and save money for the Cambodia airfares...
And i forgot the blood donation bit! On Monday everyone came in all excited since apparently there was a blood drive that was going to occur over in the convention center. We all headed over around 10:30am to attempt to be nice and give blood. Doug and Elliott got in fine and had a race with all of the army guys giving blood - totally beating them of course. Unfortunately I couldn't give since I'm on antimalaria medicine! Dangit! Most of the girls were out either for not weighing enough (that would be under 45 kilos!! hence my feeling like a giantess half the time) or being on their periods, so we waited around for the guys. Met a lady from the 9th floor (cancer research) who was super friendly to us farangs and even tried to adopt us and have us call her 'mama.' Absolutely hilarious - especially when she gave me all the free snacks even though I didn't give blood and some vicks vapor rub-esque multipurpose salve. (reminds me of kidnapper in Plovdiv, Bulgaria!)
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