My Thai - Nov 1, 2009 - Kanchanaburi, Thailand

Biking around Bangkok was stressful. You might think it was from the traffic, but that was wasn't the worst part. It was being led straight through busy, crowded markets and narrow, twisting alleys. I definitely got to see a lot of the city that I wouldn't have otherwise- when I felt secure enough to take my eyes off the road.

As we drove north of Chiang Mai for a 3-day hike, the scenery looked familiar. I haven't been in that many jungles so I was trying to figure out why I had this sensation. Then I realized, it's because we've all seen many videos of similar Vietnamese jungles being napalm-ed. The thick tangles on our tiny trails had definitely never been obliterated, though. Our guides did their best with machetes, but it was still a very difficult hike! We went to very remote villages and waterfalls, and thankfully didn't see much wildlife apart from a snake and various insects. We passed a tree being consumed by big staghorn bugs, and were told that Thais like to "train" these bugs to fight each other and then bet on it. Thais will bet on any sort of ridiculous animal contest, but a guy from our group went to a boxing match and said that no one was making bets. Strange.

At the second village, which was not so rustic as the first (in the first village the cooking fire was inside our communal sleeping hut) and the women had been given massage training. Or so we were led to believe. Getting a massage outside in the jungle at sunset was beautiful, but I am done getting Asian massages- ouch.

The next day we traipsed (or hobbled) out of the jungle and went for elephant rides. It was pretty tame compared to the intense off-roading we'd just done. However, the elephant camp was a filming site for Rocky IV. I like to think I had the same elephant as Stallone did. While we were ambling along, I reflected on how different this elephant experience was from the African elephant experience.

As expected, the food in Thailand is great! Since I'm not a spicy fan, I've been enjoying pad thai nearly every day. On Friday I went to a cooking class. We made 6 dishes and came home with a cookbook so I'll try to practice at home. It will involve a lot of calculations from kilograms and making friends at an Asian market. Being in cooking class reminded me of potions classes in Harry Potter: "bang the chile with the side of the knife until the seeds appear and add it when you begin to smell the garlic." So that just made the experience even better. I was amazed at our final results. Is it really possible that I made delicious and authentic Thai food? As I ate highly suspect dinner on the train that night I caught myself smugly thinking, "I could have done better myself!"

I celebrated Halloween by wearing a toga on our houseboat beneath an almost-full moon. Today we drove to Erawan Waterfall National Park, a gorgeous cascade of seven large waterfalls where we swam and played, and (some people) let the fish nibble their toes.

Here in Kanchanaburi we went for a bike ride this afternoon and I learned a lot about WWII that I didn't really know. Number one: mainland SE Asia was involved. Did I sleep through learning this?? Of course I was aware of the island-hopping westward to Japan, but we visited the Bridge Over the River Kwai and the Thai-Burmese "Death" Railway built by Allied POWs. Very, very tragic, especially because I felt blindsided about just finding out.

Tomorrow we have a flight from Bangkok to Krabi for some serious beach time!

Lauren