My December – Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai

Where I went:

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How it felt:

***Yet again, all photos in this post are from Gianpiero. Thank you, Gianpiero!***

I had missed carefree travel so much. I didn’t fully realize how much I missed it until the morning of my third day in Chiang Mai.

I woke in my green bed. I stretched. I decided I was still full. I stretched again then I got dressed and went downstairs. A pyjama-clad Nine gave me a cup of coffee. The dog came over and sat beside my leg. I scratched his head and he wagged his tail.

I wandered into the city and realized that I was cold for the first time in a long time – over six months! I wrapped my shawl around me tighter and walked a little faster. I didn’t stop walking for 2 hours except once to buy some handmade mulberry paper for a certain mulberry paper-lover. It was 8:30 when I got back to the Green Tulip. The dog was chasing pigeons on the sidewalk.

I met a man named Max on the stairs who I had talked to briefly the day before. He is a folk artist/geologist/mountaineer and has been … everywhere. It’s a surprisingly happy thing for me to meet someone who has been to your hometown while you’re travelling thousands of kilometres away from that hometown. Not only had he been to my humble London, Ontario, but he’d been to Labrador of all places, and the Yukon. Not to mention hiking the scariest peaks of South America alone to have conversations with the hardy and hospitable people of those mountains. He was in Chiang Mai getting dental implants. Lord. Max gets up early to follow the monks around on their pre-dawn city walk. He watches them watching the city.

I put all my belongings into my backpack and came downstairs again. Gianpiero was sitting at a table with coffee and a guide book. We had decided to travel to Chiang Rai together to see what there was to see. We said goodbye to Nine, Stella, the dog, and the boy who made the coffee and crawled into a truck taxi to go to the bus station.

Buses from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai run every hour or so through a number of bus companies and tickets cost a couple dollars. There are two bus terminals, and the company we chose was leaving through the newer one. We killed the 45 minutes before our bus by buying snacky foods for the 3 hour trip. I got fried dried banana chips; GP bought sesame snaps.

The bus was air conditioned,comfortable, and quiet. Across the aisle from us, a small boy of 5 or so grinned at me fearlessly from behind his sleeping mother. We began a game of peek-a-boo in earnest. He positively squealed with joy every time I hid or reappeared until his mother woke up and gave him a smack for being so noisy. He just giggled and hugged her and tried to engage her in the game too. What a sweet kid. I pretended to sleep so as not to get him in more trouble.

Bus

We had a pit stop halfway to Chiang Mai. The small boy from the bus saw me as I was waiting for a toilet stall and actually ran to me and pressed his face into my pant leg. Everyone in the washroom laughed, including his mother.

Just before we got into the city, we saw a glitteringly white building. “What is that?” we exclaimed. “We need to get to that!”

After a short while of indecision and hot wandering in the city, we finally got ourselves rooms at the Akha River House. It’s about a km north of the city centre (totally walkable) which means it’s also far from the (pretty disgusting) backpacker digs. Apparently there are some decent places to stay right in the city, but the ones that still had rooms were so gross that even my past super-cheap-Euro-trip incarnation would’ve passed up on them.

The River House, though, was lovely and had large grounds by the river. I got a double room with shared bathroom for 200B  a night and GP paid a little more for a private bathroom. Almost all the employees are Akha – a distinct ethnic group of Northern Thailand – and full of interesting conversation. They had a wide variety of breakfast food too including my favourite: rice porridge Thai-style with lots of garlic and vegetables. And coffee! At night, they built a fire by the river to stave off the terrible, terrible cold. It dropped to around 6°C in the nights, a temperature for which I was unprepared.

After settling in, GP and I rented a motorbike. After seeing that glitteringly white wat on the bus this conversation ensued:
“…Gianpiero?”
“Yes?”
“Can you drive a motorbike?”
“…Yes.”
“Great! Let’s rent a motorbike!”
“…Ok.”
Hooray for Gianpiero! I can’t really drive  a motorbike myself; at least, not with any degree of trust. I declared my role: navigatrix.

We scooted into town and parked near the nasty dorms we had seen earlier, ate a gross meal at one of the super-touristy restaurants along the road out of desperate hunger, and walked to Chiang Rai’s Wat Chet Yot.

Wat Chet Yao's guardian handrail dragon says: BLAAAAAARRRREEGHHHH!

There was a large white stupa behind the main temple where two sets of stairs lead to the top. I’d never been on top of a stupa before and rushed forward only to have my way blocked by a terrible sign: “NO WOMAN UPSTAIRS”

Curses!

Fortunately, GP is a dude, and he went up and took pictures of what he saw:

The lion-dragon has something against womankind maybe.

They want to keep lovely sunset views from the ladies?

We then went back to the bus station area where every night there is an extensive night market.We tried some “Chiang Rai coffee” (which turned out to be Chiang Mai coffee) at a guidebook-recommended coffee shop. Honestly the coffee at the Green Tulip is better – but I recognise that I’m laughably enamoured with the place and so am biased.

The night market seems to be divided: a part for tourists; and a part for locals. The goods are mostly for the tourists: “silver” jewelry, hill tribe headdresses, wooden carvings, etc. There’s also an ornate stage by some expensive tourist-directed restaurants where cover musicians playing Thai instruments sing nightly.

I got them mad Akha styyyylllllezzz

Far more interestingly, in my opinion, is the yellow-seated food court further east of the bus station. I think I ended up there all three nights of my Chiang Rai stay and each time it was abuzz and busy with mostly locals.  That first night, we sat down in front of the stage in the food court watching some cute young Thais dancing Thai dances.

The locals part of the night market selling yarn for knitting hats and scarves. (It was truly cold.)

Gianpiero noticed that many people around us were gathered around clay pots over coals and were busily stirring and adding food. He wanted a picture but didn’t want to bother any of the people. No problem! I grabbed his camera and approached the lady sitting alone with a clay pot directly in front of us.

I knew three phrases in Thai at this point: “thank you”, “sorry”, “hello.” I also knew that women generally end sentences with ka while men end sentences in khrap. I smiled at the lady in an apologetically friendly way and said in Thai:

“Hello ka. Sorry ka,” then brandishing Gianpiero’s camera, I mimed taking a picture and pointed at the clay pot steaming merrily over the coals. She nodded happily and smiled back at me with double my smile power (Thais really know how to smile.) I took a few pictures then used my third phrase, “Thank you ka!” and returned triumphantly to our table.

Behold! My spoils!

Five minutes later, three young women joined the lady who seemed to tell them what had just happened. They all laughed, then went and got two more bowls and insisted that we join them at their meal. Yes, please!

I was so so so delighted. The clay pot turned out to be hot pot and was filled with delicious spicy meat broth to which our new friends added some vegetables, and various types of meat. Using their limited English vocabularies, phone dictionaries, and charades, we were able to learn more about each other. The younger women were sisters, and the older woman was their neighbour — all are Chiang Rai natives. The youngest was the most enthusiastic about trying English and the two of us had a loud and merry game of “point to an object and say it in your language and then the other tries to imitate the word.”  We are now facebook friends (obvi.)

"Eat more, eat more!"

As the night wore on, and their bottle of whiskey emptied (those women drink!) the one who was introduced to me as “Elephant” fetched more food court dishes including a big plate of fried silkworm larva. Oh silkworms larvae, you bring me back to my Korean days and the deceptively nice-smelling stewed silkworms (번데기) they sold in ice cream cones along the street. I always liked the smell, but never had the guts to try them alone (Alice refused to touch them. Maybe it had something to do with a 번데기-auntie stewing them right under her window so that her entire apartment was often filled with silkworm-smell in the cold months.) These were fried though, and admittedly looked pretty tasty.

Eenie-meenie-minie mo...

I choose you, silkworm larva!

They were good! Kind of nutty-tasting (as well as oily...)

We left the ladies to their whiskey and insects. They refused any offers of monetary contribution to the meal which made me vow — in a moment of full bellied warm-fuzzies — to pass the favour on to tourists in my own city of residence (wherever that may be) someday.

 

BONUS PICTURE: sweet and crispy egg pancakes spread with sugary egg cream and topped with shredded egg yolk. “Would you like some egg on your egg and egg?”

Any extra egg?

 

My December – Siam Rice of Chiang Mai

Where I went:

How it felt:

…I didn’t eat again for 24 hours.

An accurate depiction of how it felt. (Clockwise from the shallots: cilantro root, Thai garlic, ginseng, kafir lime peel, lemongrass, turmeric, galangal, and fish paste in the centre.)

Chiang Mai Day Two

***All photos in this post are by the heroic Gianpiero. Thank you, GP!!***

I ate breakfast. What a huge mistake.

Stephanie, Gianpiero, and I paid our “discount price” to Nine and piled into a truck-taxi where we met a couple from the UK who were on a honeymoon sort of trip around the world.  They had roadtripped across America and got married in Vegas. So badass. We were shortly thereafter joined by four Utah natives (3 sisters and a husband) also staying at the Green Tulip. We were all giddy with the promise of cooking and eating delicious food all day long. Once we were all in, the truck drove us to a wet market, much like the one Gianpiero and I had visited the day before.

To market, to market, to buy a fat ... bunch of lemongrass?

At the market, an adorable Thai lady gave us the low-down on Thai ingredients and taught us how to choose good specimens for cooking. A lot of the ingredients are the same as Cambodian cuisine. I did a cooking class in Phnom Pehn back in June, so I looked smart because I could name many ingredients. My favourites: kafir lime leaf, cilantro root, baby thai eggplant, and lemon basil (mmmm…)

She let us wander around the market for a while, and Stephanie noted that there was a shockingly large amount of pork crackly. Maybe Chiang Mai Mueng is famous for pork crackly? It smelled so! good!

CRACKLE! CRACKLE! PORK CRACKLE!

Apparently, Gianpiero spent this time taking lots of pictures of delicious produce some of which I will now share with you. Don’t salivate too hard, dear readers.

Typiecal Thai ingredients.

Another type of eggplant. They look like grapes, eh?

These are actually called ear mushrooms. Still salivating? (You should be.)

Beautiful!

Gorgeous: purple and white eggplants, and on the left from the top: a type of bitter gourd, ocra, and MYSTERY!

Turmeric, ginseng, and galangal.

Mmmmm!!! Kafir lime leaf and lemongrass. Yes yes yes!

For my carnivorous friends: sausage. Want.

On our way out of the market we saw a white dog with blue pen eyebrows drawn on its face. Apparently it’s “a thing”.  It surprised and delighted me.

We drove about half an hour out of the city into the lovely, sunny countryside where the cooking school is located. We were met by jolly Nancy who was both hilarious and really good at making delicious food. Secret Nancy tip of the day: “move your body!” Apparently, stirring is not effective stirring unless your hips are also gyrating.

She gave us beverages, and let us choose 7 dishes each to learn to make including a soup, an appetizer, a noodle dish, a stir fry dish, curry paste, a curry, and a dessert.  I chose to make spicy basil soup, papaya salad (som tam), drunken noodles (pad khee mao, no alcohol involved,) cashew nut chicken (kai pat med ma maung),  penang/phanang curry, and sticky rice with young coconut. *eyes roll back in bliss*

Nancy's capable hands and delicious ingredients.

Ingredients for different curries. (Mine had peanuts!)

We went out to a table outside with wooden chopping boards and cleavers covered with tiny dishes of different ingredients while Nancy managed to teach us all (with all our different dishes) at the same time. Just beside the table was a set of gas stoves and woks, each with a set of glass jars filled with salt, palm sugar, palm oil, and fish sauce. We made one or two dishes at a time, then went back into the house to eat. Repeat. We became fuller and lazier as the day wore on.

Green curry: final product.

The curry paste involved a lot of manual labour. We had to manually pound the ingredients into a fine paste using a mortar and pestle. It took the better part of half an hour. It was really satisfying but there may have been longing talk of food processors.

Freshly pounded green curry paste with other ingredients going into the curry.

Nancy teaching us the stir fry dishes. See how attentive I am?

The best part was eating and getting to try everyone’s dishes. Particularly good: GP’s coconut chicken soup (omg), Stephanie’s red curry with pineapple (srsly), and all desserts. I could only manage to eat a single half-forkful of my som tam because we made appetizers last and I was just ridiculously full.

The papaya salad no one could bear to eat.

Sticky rice with mango *dies*

The famous coconut chicken soup with ... something else.

Before the last few dishes, we were led to a little gazebo-type structure where adorable lady from the market handed us each a chunk of carrot and informed us that she would be instructing us in the ancient Thai art of vegetable carving. We lolled about agreeably, everyone too full to do much else.

Step one: cut a circle into the centre of your carrot, 1cm in diameter. We went to it with all the lazy determination of a toddler: tongues sticking out the sides of mouths, self-deprecating humour all around. Stephanie turned to me, “I think I made my circle too big.” It was … almost the entire carrot in diameter. She decided to start again and picked up one of two extra carrot chunks.

Step two: cut 8 radiating lines from the centre of your carrot. Stephanie turns to me again, “I think I did it again.” The circle was even bigger this time. She picked up the last carrot chunk.

Step three: cut the petals around the radiating lines to form a flower. Adorable lady (whose name means “banana” in Thai – SO CUTE!) showed us her finished product. It was beautiful. We looked at our crooked and hideous carrot flowers in glee. Stephanie finished her flower.

Stephanie's try one, two, and three next to Banana's work of art. We were almost peeing with laughter.

The groups' carrots. Mine is top left. So proud. (It's really HARD TO DO!)

After trying to eat our appetizers, Nancy printed off a little cooking class certificate and gave each of us a cook book.

We win at cooking! Front R-L: Anna of UK, GP, Kelly from Utah, her two sisters, Nancy Back R-L: Kelly's husband, me, Stephanie, Richard of UK

 

BONUS FOOD PHOTOS: 

Dessert from the walking market the day before. Trust me, I didn’t eat again until noon the next day.

Sticky rice desserts. Mmmm!

Coconut on the outside, coconut on the inside.

My December – Wats in Chiang Mai

Where I went:

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How it felt:

One important detail on the Jaya that I failed to post: my brand new camera broke then miraculously came back to life after four days (the entire dive trip.) The only problem with its resurrection is that the LCD screen refused to work and my camera does not have a viewfinder. Also it only turned on 30% of the time. Also the flash suddenly wouldn’t work. And then sometimes it couldn’t turn off.

Essentially, it was the worst camera ever but I was so relieved that it had come back to life that I didn’t notice this for another few weeks.  I’m still reeling from the shock of it. (Cam update: got a new one.)

Because there was no way of telling if it was actually taking any pictures besides listening very, very carefully for a tiny shutter click, I was really excited to get home and go through what I hoped was a memory card full of blindly-taken photographs.

Lo: FEAST YOUR EYES ON THESE MIRACLES! Among the many pictures of my face looking concernedly into the lens and horrendously tilted and artlessly off-centre shots, some of them actually turned out! A few even turned out the way I imagined they would. Another skill I will add to my MANTA QUEEN resume. They’ll want me for sure now.

When the Jaya returned to Khao Lak, I was reluctant to leave my new friends. Anneke ended up inviting me to stay in her posh rented bungalow at Phu Khao Lak. I was especially happy to accept her kind offer considering my body seemed to have swapped my usual (and suspiciously absent) seasickness for a new and terrible landsickness. The world was spinning wildly and I didn’t relish the thought of a 15 minute walk to my dingy, empty dorm room at Tiffany’s Cafe. Phu Khao Lak is very nice. It built bungalow-rooms on an old palm plantation and even has a pretty little pool.

The stage. You can just make out a be-tututed child behind the sea salt smudge on my lens.

The town was celebrating the beginning of the high season and had set up a party of tents consisting of food stalls and stages along the main stretch. We saw some bizarre performances, particularly, four-year-old girls dressed in fishnets and tutus dancing inappropriately to Thai pop, and a man and woman singing in Thai so convincingly that everyone was very surprised when we found that two tall, alabaster-skinned farang of Nordic origin were the singers. The local high school even had a tent where teens were carving watermelons into floral bouquets and entreating passers-by to “Please, enter tent. Welcome very much!” in adorable, giggling English.

I booked myself a flight to Chiang Mai for the next day, feeling very fancy-free indeed on my first unplanned trip then Maria, Kathryn, George, Anneke and I walked away from the noise and bustle to eat at Maria’s friend’s restaurant.  My favourite was the massaman curry and the gorgeous, melt-in-mouth roast fish. Kathryn successfully identified it (I forget…) We talked about how it’s kind of a turn-off to eat whole roast fish after having spent five days swimming around with its cousins.  Similarly, I feel guilty about eating octopus and squid because they are so amazing. I tend not to eat cuttlefish — it’s like when I was faced with the opportunity to try dog in Bohol and Korea and I couldn’t do it because I felt like other dogs might somehow know and be upset. (Rationally, I know that this is bananas.)

The next day Kathryn, George and I saw Anneke off which was sad and I spent my last day in the south wandering the beach and drinking coconut water. Also: I saw a grasshopper larger than I could have ever imagined.

Khao Lak Beach

It was too high up for me to put in my hand as a size comparison, but trust me when I say that it could probably have torn my thumb off. It was easily as long as a tube of toothpaste.

In the late afternoon, I returned to Wicked Divers where a taxi was picking me up to bring me to the Phuket Airport. I was happy to see Colin who was leaving that evening for the next Jaya tour and Kathryn and George even passed by before I left.

The taxi driver was around my age and we had a warm conversation about why Thais look so young — because they smile all the time because they aren’t burdened with problems because they share all their problems with their friends. He said that farang (non-Thais) don’t share their problems because they don’t like opening up. I disagreed with him: this particular farang won’t often share problems with her friends because she doesn’t want  to burden them unnecessarily. Taxi Driver said that if he kept problems from his friends, they would ask, “Why not? Don’t you love me anymore?” We spent a good 5 minutes in silence, each thinking our friend-thoughts but he was full of interesting talk and we ended up talking the entire hour drive.

CHIANG MAI DAY ONE

The plane landed in Chiang Mai at around 10pm. I asked my flat-rate taxi driver to take me to Green Tulip House to find one of the managers, Nine, waiting up for me. I chose Green Tulip because it had a super high rating on Trip Advisor and it did not disappoint. I cannot recommend it strongly enough. If you go to Chiang Mai, stay at Green Tulip House. My room was just a simple fan room, but it was quiet and immaculately clean, as were the shared bathrooms. On the top floor there is a sun deck and an adorable stone garden with reclining chairs and a nice view of Chaing Mai city. Fruit and toast breakfast is included, and best of all, the staff is wonderful in all sorts of ways. Also, there’s a dog.

I'm a messy person; I don't apologise for any aesthetic displeasure caused by viewing my unmade bed strew with travel debris. The lime green sheets solidified my love of Green Tulip. Also: they were CLEAN!

The next morning, when I came down for breakfast at around 8 the seating area was still empty.  Nine was up though and fussed over me until I was settled in an appropriate seat with an appropriate amount of Chaing Mai travel books to look through. Breakfast  was a plate of fruit and coffee. They also brought me bonus toast and orange juice for unknown reasons and I took it to be a good omen. Good vibes abound in Chiang Mai; I don’t know if it’s the cool mountain weather, or the inordinate number of temples in the city but everyone I’ve ever talked to about Thailand has raved about Chiang Mai.

My good times started immediately. I struck up a conversation with a girl who turned out to be my new role model. Stephanie from Australia went on an 8-week trip to Europe a few years ago, got to Turkey, realized it was just starting to get really interesting, and then phoned home to tell them not to wait up for her. She spent the next EIGHTEEN MONTHS travelling down into the Middle East, hitting up such amazing places as Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran. Her stories! Are! Unbelievable!

Stephanie was in Chiang Mai finishing up some papers for uni before her beach vacay in Bali. While we were talking, Nine came over and said in her forward way, “Tomorrow, you do cooking class.”
Stephanie replied, “Right! Sure!”
Nine turned to me, “You too.”
“A cooking class?”
“Yes, Thai cooking class. You do it tomorrow. Whole day. I give you discount.
“Ok!”

And suddenly, my tomorrow was filled with food and good company! Chiang Mai, ahoy!

WAAAAAAAAAAT!!!!

Before we continue, I want it to be known (especially by Nada) that the pun in the title of this post was unintentional.

I left Stephanie to her work, and headed out to explore the ubiquitous Thai wats that I had yet to see.  On my way out, I bumped into another traveller who had come in on the same Phuket flight as myself and whom I’d met the night before. We were both headed to do some wat-seeing and very organically became travel buddies.

Enter Gianpiero.

Gianpiero and I ended up travelling together for over a week and if I could recommend people as travel partners in the same way I can recommend guest houses, I would do so with many a superlative and hyperbole. He had just finished a PhD in microbiology in Utrecht and was on a 2 month Asian adventure. Ah! I hear you say, but “Gianpiero” is not really a Dutch name. And you’re right, he grew up in Sicilian village, population 300. He remembers when they installed hot running water into his house. He used to work the fields with his father. And he ended up in Utrecht with a PhD in microbiology. And he thought his stories weren’t very interesting!

We spent the entire day wandering the streets of old Chiang Mai. The walled city is full to bursting with temples and stupas. You’d have a hard time finding a place to stand that isn’t within sight of one. We couldn’t travel from one guidebook-recommended wat to another without finding three or four or five smaller temples along the way. It’s nuts. In a great way.

(Some of the following photos are GP’s, and are marked as such. Thanks, Gianpiero!)

I would like to remind you at this point that all these photos were taken blind. I expect you to be duly impressed.

Stop number one was Wat Phra Singh, a previous home of the famous “Emerald Buddha” and the most famous of Chiang Mai’s wats just a 5 minute walk from the Green Tulip. It was a nice introduction to wat-seeing. Wat Phra Singh is a wonderland of sloped roofs covered in gold filigree and painted mirror tiles and Estruscan-smiling figures and fantastic beasts (like naga!) all set upon a backdrop of a deep burgundy paint.

A copy of the Emerald Buddha in a building separate from the largest temple.

A detail on the ...plinth(?) of the copy of the Emerald Buddha.

The prayerful.

The buildings of the wat are surrounded by lovely treed pathways punctuated by large stone urns housing lotus plants and occaissionally, a bit of advice.

A meditation park-garden in the grounds. You can see a man tutoring a little boy in Buddhist teachings at the stone table. There are sayings on all the trees. My favourite one said, "Today is better than two tomorrows."

Behind the main temple is a great white stupa. When I was there, there were people cranking a wheel which pulleyed up a small cylindrical vessel to the dome of the stupa. When it hit the stupa, it broke open and spilled water onto it. When it did, people cheered. I still don’t know what it meant: can anyone shed some light on this?

A couple about to crank the water up onto the stupa. (GP)

A place for prayer outside the stupa. The wheel for the water-breaking is on the far end.

Background music of Wat Phra Singh: bells.

I think I mentioned in a post about Cambodia that I was fairly obsessed with Thai aesthetics when I was a kid because of King and I. I felt the same feeling of dream-fulfillment looking at the Lanna architecture and painting that I did from watching Cambodian dance.

I remember looking at this gorgeous painting on the inside of a window shutter and having one of those, "OMG I'm in THAILAND!" moments.

One of the more serious characters in Wat Phra Singh.

The walls of one building are covered in unbelievably detailed painted murals. They were done sometime in the 19th century by an ethnic Chinese painter (or so I read … somewhere…) and depict the daily life of people in Lanna. The faces and gestures of the little figures were endlessly fascinating to me. I spent a long time nose-to-wall, frequently taking out my poor camera and forcing it to take pictures of my favourite bits.

Now be a good human, and do as you're told.

They're totally just having a regular conversation. Awesome.

FORBIDDEN ROMANCE! I just know it.

Look at all the different faces. They all have their individual lives going on. Whole little worlds.

Shirtless chores. The best kind of chores. I think they're collecting flowers to make tea.

These men are wearing different outfits than the Lanna people and they have very distinct facial hair. Where could they be from?

From Wat Phra Singh, we turned down Ratchadamnoen - one of the main avenues in the walled cities – and had a look at every wat along the way. It’s all one golden blur to me now, and even that day I couldn’t keep track of which temples we visited and where they were and what they looked like. Here’s a smattering of images from the ones in which my camera would turn on.

A very Hindu-looking blue deity.

A temple.

A particularly lovely buddha. (GP)

I don't know what it means, but it's pretty. (GP)

I took special joy looking at the guardians of the different temples. I like the beasts that seem to be a mixture of a few animals or the beasts that aren’t native to Thailand so the artists’ renditions of them are skewed. It’s like looking at medieval European depictions of lions and elephants: close, but so very far.

The guardian lion-dragons have bum holes! Some of them are also daintily seated on little stools. Maybe the idea is they're supposed to be scary on from the front, and if you make it past their fearsome faces you ... get ... to see ... nevermind.

A particularly ornate handrail dragon. They're not supposed to be handrails. It's just how I think of them.

A shiny gold handrail dragon. Now pay attention to his "body" ... (GP)

... it's not its body at all! It's A SECOND DRAGON REGURGITATING THE FIRST LEAVING VISITORS IN DOUBT AS TO WHETHER THE FIRST WILL ALSO START VOMITING OTHER SHINY GOLD DRAGONS! (GP)

An unintentionally adorable lion-dragon-teddy bear. (GP)

A scary many-headed naga at Chedi Luang.

Some notable temples were Chedi Luang, a crumbling and moss-covered monolith; and my favourite (so far), Wat Phan Tao. Wat Phan Tao is just north of Chedi Luang and is made of dark finished teak wood and isn’t as covered in gold and mirrors as the other temples. It reminded me of the unpainted Korean Buddhist temple in Jisan that I loved so much.  Inside the main prayer temple were hundreds of round pots for donations, and a little corridor of banners hanging from the ceiling behind the big buddha. Tiny bells were tied to the tassels of the banners so that it sounded gorgeous too. A special place.

Chedi Luang. It's a good thing I haven't been to Angkor Wat yet, because looking at this was enough to awaken my inner Indiana. (GP)

Inside Wat Phan Tao. (GP)

Offering bowls (?) in Wat Phan Tao. Look at that dark wood! (GP)

The banners of the North Thai Zodiac in Wat Phan Tao. The zodiac is the same as the Chinese one but the year of the pig is replaced with an elephant, and the new year starts in the fifth lunar month.

It wasn’t until later in the afternoon that my new travel buddy and I started feeling hungry, and at that point I was delighted to find out that foremost among his many excellent travel buddy qualities is his love of food and eating. Hooray! We found a little noodle place before we went to find something marked on our map as “Sunday Walking Market”.

Delicious! (GP)

We couldn’t find the market, so we walked along the east canal of the old city, finding a wet market and an archaeological dig of part of the old wall along the way. Eventually we found our way back to Ratchadamnoen Road and sat down for a coffee. An hour later, we looked up and realized that the walking market had materialized around us as we chatted. It stretched the entire distance of Ratchadamnoen Road and spilled over into neighbouring streets too.

Stalls and Thai flag at Tha Pae gate.

There were stalls for everything: from the ambiguously “ethnic” gifts (coconut purses, anything gecko-shaped, bone earrings, sarongs), to Thai art of all price ranges, to Thai pop culture items, to handmade Indie goods made by the university students, and everything inbetween. And let us not forget the food stalls! Heaven!

Early on in the market. As the evening wore on, suddenly the streets became flooded with tourists from Bangkok who were in Chiang Mai because of a long weekend. It was so crowded that we were often in gridlock for minutes at a time. On foot!

We braved the street one last time for dinner just as the crowds were the thickest and managed to find a tiny table in a very noisy, busy, chaotic restaurant (good sign.) We ordered whatever caught our fancy: fried dried pork, Chinese cabbage with soy sauce and garlic, morning glory made Thai-style with lots of chili, and the most delicious tom yam soup I’d ever tasted.

Mmmmmmmm

When we finally returned to our guest house, I wanted to ask Nine if Gianpiero could also do the cooking class, but she found him first and invited/told him to join too.

That was a really monster post, but to be fair, it was something of a monster day too. What a day. Wat a day. (I’m sorry!)

Stories from Tubigon: Mom vs. Encantado

“Mom, do you believe in encantado?”

“No! … mmm…. no. Mmmmm …. maybe.”

My mom moved to Cebu to take accounting at the university there when she 16 years old. Near the end of her first year, she and her friends went into the fields with food and drinks. They lay their blankets down in the shade of an enormous acacia tree and they had a picnic.  They were young and energetic; they laughed and joked, someone started singing, dancing may have ensued, and no one was louder than my mom.  It was dark by the time they packed up and went home.

My mother woke up the next day to find her bottom lip had swelled up to three times its normal size. She couldn’t open her mouth. She couldn’t eat. She could hardly fit a straw in her mouth to drink. She went to the doctor and they gave her medicine, but after three days, the lip only became more painful and more swollen.

Weakening, she went home to Tubigon. My lola (grandma) was a nurse, and she didn’t know what was wrong with her either so they called in a witch doctor. The witch doctor gave her medicine too, and it helped enough for my mom to be able to take some food. They soaked bread in milk and squeezed the milk into her mouth because that was the only way she could get any food.

Two weeks in, things were getting serious: my mother’s lip was still just as swollen as before, she still couldn’t eat and everyone was getting worried. I like to imagine my tiny teenaged mother lying on a rattan bed in the old house near the window surrounded by her small army of scabby cats and dogs and watched over by Catholic saint tokens and tiny bottles of holy water from this and that crying statue; witch doctors giving up, nurse friends of lola bringing mentholated oil, lola herself washing and rewashing everything my mother comes in contact with as if to cure her daughter by cleanliness alone, various ratty-looking kids climbing fences to stare at her mutant lip, neighbours’ whispered speculations about the local wak-wak families and their nasty curses. Someone finally remembered that my mother’s primary school principal claimed he had an encantado friend … invisible, of course.  In fact, my ma had come into contact with this encantado once before … long ago …

* flashback waves  and accompanying harp music *

Ling and I were sick when I was really little, maybe six years old. The quack doctor couldn’t help, and maybe we couldn’t find a real doctor. The principal of my school had a friend who is an encantado and he said he could help. 

We went to a small room and it was a little dark. We stood on one side of the room, the principal stood on the other. He said to us, “turn around and don’t look back no matter what you hear”. Then the door was closed and we turned around. We were alone – just Ling and me and maybe another sick kid and the principal. I heard him start talking to his friend, explaining our sickness. I was scared when another voice replied. 

While they were talking Leling wants to turn around and see. Before she can turn around, we hear, “Don’t turn around!” right in our ears! We were scared. Ling didn’t turn around. 

Later, we were healed.

This same man was now the superintendent of the entire island school board and he still had the same encantado friend. They managed to get an appointment with him to see if his friend could help heal my mother’s swollen lip.

They sat in an office and talked. Sometimes the superintendent addressed an invisible person who was walking around the room, sometimes he listened to that invisible person speaking inaudible words. According to the superintendent, the encantado friend told him that my mom had seriously pissed off some powerful encantado with her noisy sunset shenanigans. Rule number one of coexisting with encantado: do NOT disturb the peace at dusk near an acacia tree. My mom brought this upon herself, she was told. (She agreed.) Mr. Friendly Encantado agreed to travel to these entities to apologise on her behalf. In the meantime my mother was directed to apply some oil blessed by this encantado on her lip.

She went home and applied the oil.

The next morning, she woke up to find her lip had crusted over completely. It had turned into a nasty, full-lip scab. It was hard and painless, but she still couldn’t open it. She kept applying oil.

On the second day after meeting the superintendent, she woke and sat up in bed. She brought her hand to her lip, and it fell off in her hand.

Her entire scab-lip fell off!

Underneath was a new lip, soft and supple … and moveable! My ma could eat again! The only catch was that her new lip was not symmetrical; it was thicker on one side and a little crooked in outline.

To this day, my ma’s bottom lip is crooked.  She’ll show you. Just ask.

You should be having nightmares about acacia trees tonight.

Stories from Tubigon: The Miscarriage

I arrived in Tubigon three days ago to spend Christmas in my mom’s hometown with her older siblings Nene and Inday.  I arrived with a fever and have spent those three days mostly languishing in the only finished room in my aunt’s brand new house (finished specially for my visit!) However, at mealtimes I’ve managed to talk to my aunt and uncle about the old Tubigon. Already I have some fabulous “new” stories. Here’s one of my favourites.

Uncle Nene rarely understands me and but we enjoy our conversations anyway.  I asked him, “Uncle Nene, do you remember when the Japanese came?” This is what he replied:

Manong remembers segoro. But – ah – koan … Between Manong and me is two years. Between me and Tita Inday is two years. Between Leling and Etta is two years.  Between Inday and Leling is five years. I remember this and the reason. There was another baby in that five years but it was not … koan?

 (Koan is a word that means sort of “what” or “um”. Uncle Nene uses it a lot when he speaks English.)

The baby was not  - koan? –  was not good.  How can you say?  She bled lots of blood. We called the quack doctor and he caught the blood in a pan. Then there came something in the pan.

I said, “The baby?!”

No. Not the baby. Koan - round and bloody. Like a liver. Walay baby. There was no baby. The quack doctor knew it was a  - ay, koan! - a wak-wak. English is a witch. It was a witch inside of Mama. Maybe it want to kill her.

In Bohol, we believe that wak-wak can look at a woman with child and hurt her. We have a belief that the witch can curse you with eyes only. Perhaps this is how the witch came to be inside of Mama.

The quack doctor said we must take the witch and burn it so it will die. So my father made a fire behind the house and we burnt it. That is why there remains five years between Inday and Leling. I remember.

I said, “Do you believe it was a witch, Uncle Nene?”

What? Ay, ha ha, no. Ah, perhaps.

And this is exactly what my mother says when I ask her about her Bohol beliefs. This place is a different world altogether. It’s a little surreal. Stay tuned for more Stories from Tubigon, and my fabulous Thai adventures.

My mom and the old house.

Happy Deepavali

I remember dragging myself out of bed way back in June and braving the MRT to explore Little India when the last thing I felt like doing was exploring anything. And then! The teeming masses of Indian men, nowhere to stand, nowhere to stop, just thousands of Indian men walking and walking and talking and looking. Oh Little India, you own a special place in my heart.

LIGHTS! (camera, action)

Guess what? October 26 was the Deepavali/Diwali civic holiday in Singapore, so the roomies and I bussed down to Lil’ India to take in the sights and smells. The streets were all lit up with light displays overarching the roads, and buildings were glowing with little fairy lights. The temple (above) was looking particularly whimsical, IMHO.

Starting on this squeeze-tube of a street.

My favourite part of the evening was going through a covered street-cum-market alleyway that was packed with revellers. Everyone seemed to be going somewhere, talking on their phones, fingering shiny goods sold at the stalls, lighting firecrackers, yelling, laughing.  At one point, for a good 7 minutes, no one could move because it was so packed. I had a blast in that packed alleyway. Maybe I got groped — I don’t know! Possibly I trod upon dozens of feet — no way of telling!  Sometimes freedom can be found in the riotous anonymity of a suffocating crowd of people.

Wares

Rachel: GRACE SOMEONE IS TOUCHING MY TUSHY!

The alleyway was filled with stalls selling shiny and smelly goods. There were a few oil lamp stalls and a few firecracker stalls.  The firecracker stalls all had displays of their wares on the ground between the feet of the packed-in crowds, which was a major fire hazard as well as just being really, really dangerous (but so pretty). The roomies were attracted to colourful mobiles of tiny elephants and I bought a print of some mysterious-looking seated characters.

I'm in the middle of saying something like, "Should I pose, or is it better to fake a candid snap?" You can see the elephant mobiles behind me.

More wares, this time Diwali-themed: oil lamps.

We had another exciting time back on the main street upon seeing large amounts of smoke. I thought maybe a restaurant was burning down (someone told me this is a common occurrence in Little India) and we went to go find out. What we ended up seeing was this:

WOOOOOO!

PARTTTYYYYYY

The street was filled with firecracker smoke from a double row of men waving sparklers around and generally having a good time. Pyrotechnic-related fun is superior to regular fun, wouldn’t you say?

Look carefully into the heart of the sparkler-flame, son. Therein lies a world of pyrojoy.

We took pictures from across the street (while other men took pictures of us taking pictures…) until I got bored and walked up to the man-crowd to ask what was going on. Before I could open my mouth, someone thrust a sparkler into my hands. Immediately distracted, I stood there silent and happy, and waved it around for a bit with the other silent and happy revelers until it went out.

Like a baby with a particularly interesting rattle

I turned back to my sparkler patrons and opened my mouth to ask if I could pay or buy some more for my roommates when someone took my eye contact to mean, “I would like more now, please,” and handed me three lit sparklers. Surprised, I said, “Whoa. ALL of these?!” And he took that to mean, “I want ALL of the sparklers, please,” and responded by mutely handing me about 10 more and miming for me to touch them to the lit ones.  He was grinning the grin of a boy who has mastered fire. Here is the result as viewed through Rachel’s camera.

Here, have ALL of them.

Suddenly igniting.

Overjoyed.

I thanked everyone, then went back to ask if we could buy some for the roomies, but instead I had this conversation:

G: What is all of this for?
Man in business-wear: We’re a lawyer’s office for migrant workers. We’re having a party for our clients.
G: Wow! That’s great!
Man: Yes. This is Singapore’s poor.
G: *feeling bad for having fun with the workers’ sparklers*
Man: Where are you from?
G: Canada.
Man: Are you bankers?
G: No, we’re all teachers.
Man: With the international schools?
G: No. We teach in Singaporean schools. *proud*
Man: Oh! I am a lawyer.
G: Ah … that’s great. I’m glad to hear someone is working to help the workers.
Man: Here is my card if you get in trouble.
G: Thanks. Thanks for the sparklers. Bye

I returned to the roomies and gave them his card (because, you know, they’re trouble.) We moved on, feeling a little guilty about the firecrackers-of-the-Singaporean-poor (mostly me.) We went off in search of an available henna artist for Rebecca’s henna craving then continued to stroll, ogling lights and eating Indian sweets (no monkeys to steal them this time!^^)

…then we went home and slept in on a Wednesday — HAPPY DIWALI!

Deepavali!

Note: all photos in this post were either taken by Rachel the roomie or Rebecca the roomie. Thank you, roomies!

Teacher’s Day Dinner

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Singapore celebrates Teacher’s Day (and HOW!)

There was an assembly and some students put on an extremely long-winded skit about teachers. The students laughed at lot at it, and teachers laughed too, but for other reasons. If you’ve ever spent some time with a group of kids, you’ll know what it’s like when one kid tells a “joke” that is either totally lame or not funny at all (“What’s bigger than a duck? … A duck!”), and the rest of the kids find it hilarious and end up rolling on the ground laughing. The entire 10-minute skit was like that.

Students also bought teachers little gifts and made them cards. I have a student neighbour which originally terrified me, but has ended being awesome because she’s such a sweet person. Sweet Neighbour and her friend gave me a glass bottle filled with tiny hand-made shiny paper stars and a little note. I loved that. I also received more plastic dangly phone charms than I will ever, EVER use. Also 4 Bible-themed purse hooks. The teachers pretended not to be too excited, but I could tell everyone had an awesome time ripping gift wrap off of everything and comparing. I actually managed to trick my desk neighbour into believing a student had given me a brand new iPad2:

Grace: Guess what I got? *opens iPad2 box revealing shiny new iPad2*
Desk Neighbour: *looks* *jaw drops*… Noooooooooooo. Noooooooooooooooooo!

We had him fooled for a full 10 minutes before I admitted the iPads for the iPad music program had arrived and it was just on loan to me.

I also got two enormous plastic bags stuffed to ripping with chocolates and muffins and cookies. So did my roomies. The living room table disappeared beneath our motherload of baked goods and chocolates and we steadily ate our way through it within a week or two.

Now the eve of Teacher’s Day (the day itself actually being a holiday  – yusssssssssss) was a themed dinner at a hotel downtown. I love costumes and I was pretty pumped for it. My favourite costumes are ugly, low-budget, homemade monstrosities manically hashed together in 2 hours of inspiration and improvisation. AWESOMMMME! (Colourful examples: fan death with Alice. Another time, Becca and I were loose-moraled Christmas flappers using tinsel and Zellers dress slips. Thankfully images of this travesty/triumph do not survive on the internet as far as I know.) The theme of the dinner was “Retro and Futuristic”. Retro is easy if you have the clothes already, but I think futuristic is easier to do on a budget … at home. I started eyeing things around me as potential costume pieces. This is the result:

TREMBLE BEFORE MY GREATNESS!

Vaguely futuristic costume recipe:

- 1 shiny grey shirt
- 1 long grey skirt borrowed from roommate, preferably a slightly different grey from the shirt
- 1 big yellow belt also borrowed from roommate
- 1 pair black leggings because you will be flashing your panties to all your coworkers otherwise
- 1/2 roll aluminum foil for accessories or to cover your belt should it not be garish enough
- 1 fluorescent pink child-sized hula hoop “borrowed” from your school’s music room

1. Put on clothes, makeup, and accessories as usual. Be sure to do your hair in a lumpy bun and the wrap it inexpertly in tin foil.
2. Bring hula hoop under skirt, then “trap” the hula hoop in your skirt by tucking the ends of the skirt into your leggings.
3. Now you are from the future. Dance the robot.

I had been warned that “no one actually dresses up” but when we arrived almost everyone had put on some form of costume. The thing was that despite the theme being “Retro and Futuristic”, I was the only representative of “futuristic”. A spy I will never be.

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Enormous Kuala Lumpur Episode Six (Final Episode Finally)

EPISODE SIX: MENARA

On Sunday, I woke up obscenely early again determined to make the most of my 6 remaining hours in KL. I took my time eating breakfast, however, because nothing was open yet. I wanted to visit the Kuala Lumpur Tower (Menara KL) and I wanted to walk there, maybe check out Little India, then walk back to the hostel in time for my 1:00 bus.

I shared my obscenely early morning with Francisco, a Chilean business traveler who had arrived in the wee hours straight off his day-long flight and who was determined to see everything in KL in a day. And to walk the entire thing. Because Chot was still asleep, I helped him find a map, circle the cool destinations, and recommend a walking route. (Me = pro.) He left immediately, a steely glint in his eye that I recognized as a manic brand of wanderlust also found in Alice.

I left around 8:30, figuring it would take me 30 minutes to amble my way up to the tower so I would arrive right at opening time. If I’m going to pay money to ascend a tower and  look at a city, it’s going to be a shiny, morning-bright city. The other two days had been typical rainy season: overcast + sporadic torrential showers; but today was looking gorgeous. I love the tropical blue skies we get in this part of the world.

To the Menara!

I found my way to the park, Bukit Nanas, that surrounds the Menara, and with the help of friendly cops on motorcycles, found the entrance to the little hiking trails. Chot had told me that although most of the forests surrounding KL are secondary (meaning that they are replanted forests, mostly of one tree species,) Bukit Nanas is still a primary growth forest. Interesting sidenote: bukit nanas means “Pineapple Hill”, (which sounds like a Beatles song title. Right?)

The trail I took which was right behind the Forestry Information building (empty except for an adorable, tiny cleaning woman who I accidentally scared when I appeared silently behind her and asked her where the trail started.) The first part was paved with little stairs, and later it was just a wide, easy dirt path. Nothing too jungle-y. After about 5 minutes, I emerged below the Menara. BEHOLD:

Menara!

Groovy-Man Crossing? I encountered this CLASSIC sign in the shadow of the Menara.

The base of the Menara is surrounded by a little fortress of attractions including pony rides, a small petting zoo (home to a small two-headed turtle,) and a little garden. When I arrived at the ticket desk, there were only 2 other people in line. One happened to be Francisco! We decided to join forces for the morning and I was happy to have someone to chat with while looking at KL from above.

View from above. Even in the daytime those Petronas Towers are shiny. Arrestingly so.

KL certainly was morning-bright that day, and we enjoyed looking at all the differently shaped buildings: mosques (I could see the National Mosque and Masjid Jamek), the shiny, shiny Petronas towers, the multitude of modern skyscrapers (some had swimming pools on top where we could just make out a swimmer or two enjoying the mild morning sun,) and older low colonial buildings. From the Menara you can also see various parks, Lake Titwangsa (yup), and even the Batu Caves! I could really appreciate the low mountains around KL: nothing at all like out West in Canada, or like Seoul, but a lot taller than anything in Singapore. Breath. Of. Fresh. Air.

Our tickets came with a complimentary: a) pony ride (although the poor horses didn’t look as if they could take a hefty Western frame  b) entrance into the petting zoo  or c) a discount off of some picture you can take with the Petronas Towers in the background. Fortunately, Francisco didn’t have any interest in any of these options either, and we climbed back down Bukit Nanas to make our way to Masjid Jamek.

I had warned Francisco that we wouldn’t be able to enter the mosque, but when we arrived, a friendly man proved me wrong by waving us in and dressing us up in mosque-wear. It wasn’t the institutionalized purple and purple of the National Mosque, but some white and off-white robes and a colourful assortment of headscarves for me. We weren’t allowed to enter the actual buildings, but were free to stroll the grounds and snap photos of the lovely architecture to our hearts content. There was more of the elaborate arches and reflective marble surfaces. If anything, the low ceilings made the old mosque seem even airier

The airy interior of the Old Mosque.

More gorgeous arches. Islamic architecture: A+.

From Masjid Jamek, I led Francisco to the National Flagpole but we agreed that it was missable and continued on to Little India, which he really wanted to see. Things we did:

1. Shopped for bangles
2. Looked at more fake designer goods (many cheaper than Chinatown)
3. Drank coconut water after convincing the seller not to fill half the cup with syrup
4. We ate. DID we eat! We found a likely-looking street food stall and had a good time just pointing at different dishes for the man to spoon onto some rice. I got sunflower seed – chili pate (so good!), awesome mushy eggplant/brinjal (so so good!), a boiled egg (always so good!), and a piece of fried fish (just barely good!) Malay food in Little India: feast your eyes on THAT!

Street food with brinjaaaaaaaaaaal!

Finally it was time for me to catch my bus, so after walking with Francisco to Central Market and setting his course to the Natoinal Mosque (I gushed about it,) peaced and tried to walk back to the hostel. I got lost and was running out of time (FAIL), so I took a taxi with a very friendly Taxi Uncle who took lots of alleyway shortcuts. I popped back into Equator Hostel, thanked awesome Hady, grabbed some snacks for the bus, and settled back into a comfortable DELUXE MASSAGE BUS seat with the added bonus of my seat being the back seat on the 2nd floor of the bus. Double decker FTW!

The trip home was uneventful except for buying some putu mayam at a gas station:

Putu mayam, which I was surprised to discover is not "puto maya" which is not "puto" which is what I was actually expecting.

Puto maya: a gingery, not-really-sweet, glutinous rice desert from the Philippines.

Puto: Filipino steamed sweet rice cakes usually with a weird cheese on top.

It was still pretty good. Seems that “putu”/”puto” is always a good bet dessert name-wise. I crammed a lot into that long weekend. Another is coming up this weekend (also Rebecca the Roomie’s birthday) and we have our beady eyes fixed on Malaysia … OR BANGKOK. (Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat??!)

Enormous Kuala Lumpur Post Episode Four

EPISODE FOUR: I MEET A MAN I DO NOT LIKE

Next stop: Central Market. On the way there, I passed a man with an open map blocking the walkway and looking totally lost. I stopped and offered, “I have a map too. Maybe I can help. Where are you going?” He told me he wanted to go to Chinatown, so I told him I was going halfway to Chinatown and we could go together.  Let’s call him “Man”.  Man is a businessman who was on his last day of a week-long business trip to KL from Dubai and who wanted to pick up some fake brand name stuff from the Chinatown markets.  It is important to note that at this point I wasn’t picking up any creep- or jerk-vibes off this guy.

We eventually came to Central Market with its big Kite-shaped cover. Central Market is just a big tourist trap, really, selling the sorts of Asian souvenirs you can find … well, anywhere: tropical fruit magnets, bad black velvet wall hangings of vaguely Asian-looking bamboo groves, poorly-made wooden “ethnic” instruments. We’re talking Toronto Chinatown in a cleaner, nicer-looking setting.

Central Market (read: where to buy your bad souvenirs for exorbitant prices.)

Still, I found a stall selling rojak, which is my favourite, favourite Malay food so far. I eat rojak whenever I can because it makes me 50% happier than before I eat it because it just tastes so damn good. Who would have guessed that the recipe for happiness was a mixture of chili, palm sugar, tamarind juice, and various dried and fermented shellfish slathered over fresh fruit and sprinkled in ground peanuts? Malay people: thank you.

Heaven, I'm in heaven ...

5 RM (1.60CAD) and an incredulous, “You know rojak?!” later, I stood in the damp street with a heavy styrofoam container of the BEST rojak I’d ever tasted, mouth full, eyes closed, totally delighting the rojak-seller with my unabashed appreciation of her wares. I just totally blissed out, right there.  (Hell, even writing this is buoying my spirits!)

After a minute of reverent silence, I turned my mind to business: I wanted to stroll in the market while eating my rojak. It was the right thing to do. Man hovered awkwardly, peering suspiciously at the jambu in the rojak. I gave him directions to Chinatown and sent him on his way. I entered the fray clutching my rojak, happy to be free.

Somehow, Man managed to find me again saying the rain scared him off, and insisted on following me around on my wanderings. I mentally shrugged: he wasn’t doing any harm, he just seemed really (read: REALLY) lonely. I know what it’s like to feel lonely while solo traveling, so I decided to tolerate his presence and to continue doing whatever I felt like doing. He followed me around telling me about annoying Arab women he knew.

After I got sick of Central Market, I set off for Chinatown, Man in my wake talking animatedly having now moved on to Arab Women Complaint #4: they like designer goods too much. I diplomatically chose not to point out that he was currently on a mission to buy fake designer stuff in order to “make good first impressions”. His words, not mine.  Alice must be rubbing off on me, because my usually aggressively sensitive Creep Radar didn’t go off until we reached Chinatown. (See Dandelion Story.)

Things were going well until Man found a Starbucks t-shirt he wanted. He asked for the price, and then asked for a discount on 2 shirts. “A large for me,” here he turned to me, looked me up and down and said to the stall owner, “And another tshirt, in … small.”

Whoa, whoa, WHOA!  Whoa.

Ok Mr. Man. Inappropriate. (Also, not a size small in any universe.) Still, I gave him the benefit of cultural differences and tried to politely but firmly decline, but he was having none of it:

Grace: “No thank you.”
Man: “Why? It’s like 10 dollars!” (Seriously? You should be paying $2.)
Grace: “No. Thank you. I worked at Starbucks. I have t-shirts.”
Man: “Do you have this one?”
Grace: “Thank you for offering, but you’re not buying me that t-shirt.”
Man: “Why not?!”
Grace: “I don’t want one.”
Man: *pained, patronizing expression* “Come on! It’s nothing. I have money.” (Ooooh! Is this a male wealth posturing thing?)
Grace: “No. I have no room in my luggage. I’m going to look at other stalls.”

On I moved, Man continuing to follow and tell me about how even though he ate at the Hard Rock Cafe three times this week he wasn’t able to make any friends in KL and hadn’t talked to anyone for more than 30 minutes in 8 days. Yah? Well, Man, after 30 minutes of conversation with you had moved from “barely visible blip on the Creep Radar” to “WHOA!” and were slowly creeping (*groan*) up the list of “Creepiest Dudes I Have Ever Had the Displeasure of Speaking With”.

We passed a sunglasses stall and I remembered that my 50cent sunglasses bought in Vietnam last year had snapped in half on my way back from Sipadan, and I stopped to buy a new pair. Man also bought a pair, then somehow ended up paying the stall owner for both pairs. Upon discovery of this I made a fuss (“You’re not paying for me!” “*wealth posturing expression* Come on! It’s like … 20 Ringgit!”) and forced 20 Ringgit into his hand. I can’t think of a single place in which it is considered appropriate to try to buy things for total strangers. I’ve JUST met you! You can’t buy me things!

I decided to leave Man’s company as soon as possible.

Chinatown (read: another place to get ripped off if you don't speak Chinese or a place to have fake brand name goods bought for you by pushy Arab men despite your every effort to avoid it.)

“Man, it’s been great, but I need to get some coffee or something. Enjoy your shopping!” I tried to flounce away.
“Wait! I’ll get some too! I saw a McDonald’s up the street.” And despite myself, I couldn’t help turning around in shock and hissing at him,
“McDonalds!???! You’re in Malayasia!  You’re going to buy coffee at McDonald’s!??!” And even more despite myself, I found myself leading the way to a street-side noodle stall and ordering a kopi-C and lecturing Man on all the awesome street food he was missing while he was eating at the Hard Rock Cafe and McDonald’s.

I realized my mistake when he started telling me about how hard it was to find a wife in Dubai. I gulped down my coffee, entreating the coffee god to send me a caffeine high strong enough to cancel out the creeps I was getting from Man. Then I paid for my coffee, thanked Man for the company (I can’t help it! My parents brought me up well!) and started walking towards the monorail station.

He followed me. Seriously, take a hint.

And this really takes the cake: despite being fully on the sidewalk, he felt it was necessary to physically protect (*caustic sneer of disgust*) me from the cars on the street and move me to the “safe” side of the sidewalk by touching my arm and assuming a smug expression of … I don’t know … male protectiveness? I knew that he would never have touched an Arab woman on her arm, imaginary danger or not.I surprised myself by becoming immediately, intensely enraged.  I wanted to, I don’t know, tear into his puny mind with an ear-melting tirade of “how dare you feel you have the right to touch my arm, you stupid, oblivious, pig, etc.” and then have a war axe materialize in my hands and hack up the nearest (empty) car into shiny, jagged pieces and arrange them to spell out, “YOU DISGUST ME” using only the kinetic power of my scorn all the while maintaining menacing, unblinking eye contact.

Instead, I stopped. I turned to him and pointedly said with great restraint,

“Goodbye.” I speed walked off.
“Where are you going now?” He actually jogged after me, wheezing and sweating.
“I’m going back to my hostel.” My pace did not slacken.
“Where is your hostel?”
“…I’m taking the monorail.”
“Do you want to come to my hotel area? It’s near the towers and you can go see the…”
“Whoa. No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m going back to my hostel.” Please note, that I felt strongly that he was harmless, but I wanted to get out of his creep range and start enjoying myself again. If I felt that he was actually dangerous, I would have taken other precautions.
“Do you want me to come with you? I can …
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I just want to go back to my hostel.”
“What are you going to do?”
“*flash of brilliance*…I’m going to sleep.”
“It’s 5:30.”
“Yup. Goodbye.”
“I’ll come with you.”

I stopped again, turned to him. I focused on radiating hostility out of every pore. And like Cyclops taking off his visor, I revealed the full glory of my Teacher Face, the one that actually makes my primary students tremble. He stopped too and stepped away from me.

“No. You are NOT coming with me. I’m going to my hostel to SLEEP. I do not know you.” He began to open his mouth in protest, but I ploughed on, speaking in my clearest, quietest, scariest Teacher Voice tempered with a new Warrior Princess Voice that I didn’t know I had.

“I’m going to SLEEP. I do not know you.” I watched the lightbulb turn on above his head and he had the good grace to look extremely embarrassed. He muttered an apology, handed me a slip of paper he had written his email on, and slunk back the way we had come with a whimpered, “Have a nice trip.”

I stalked down the rest of the street, actually shaking my arms to get rid of the angry, creepy feeling. I found a 20 RM note in the slip of paper. I tore the email up into tiny, tiny shreds, and placed the 20 RM in the donation box of a Temple that I passed, shaking my arms again.

My wanderlust cheered me up pretty quickly as I stared around myself on the monorail, watching people be people, and watching the city be a city. I went back to the Berjaya area to smell all the different foods in the night markets. Happiness restored, I really did go back to the hostel, where I met an adorable teenaged couple from Northern Germany, Max and Leia, who invited me along on a trip to a waterfall with the night hostel man the next morning. I told them about Man over beers, and after jamming with them on the hostel’s guitars (and uke!) the afternoon’s unsavoury meeting became just another funny anecdote.

An interruption from our regular schedule

I arrived in Singapore on Saturday night and today I had my first day of “induction”.  I’ll tell you all about it when I get caught up chronologically but for now I leave you this gem of a conversation: 

I call it: I LIVE IN UMBRIDGE’S HOGWARTS!!!!!!!!!!

Foreign Teacher: We were standing on the sidewalk waiting and they asked us to move. We did. We weren’t in our new spot for more than 2 minutes and they asked us to move again. What’s going on? Why can’t we stand on the sidewalk in the shade?
Ministry of Education worker: Oh, it must be the congregating law.
FT: What?
MOEW: It is not allowed to gather in one place more than 5 people simultaneously.
Everyone: WHAT!?
MOEW: Yes, it is the law.
Me: But … what if I have 5 friends and we go out for dinner.
MOEW: Maybe they’ll ask you not to stand together. Maybe they will see you’re just being social and it’s not a problem.
Me: Why?
MOEW: Because it is against the law to gather more than 5 people …
Me: Yes, but why is it the law?
MOEW: Oh! I see! It is because we want to discourage protesting. Protesting is against the law.
Everyone: WHAT!?
Me: You mean, Singaporeans don’t have the right to protest?
MOEW: (obviously confused) Um … You can go to a place called Speakers’ Corner to speak. That is alright. Protesting is not allowed.
Me: You don’t have the right to protest?!?
MOEW: I don’t know this right.

UMBRIDGE!

Umbridge lives.

Stay tuned for the rest of Cambodia and my new adventures here in Singapore.