Do's and Don't in Thailand
Parts of Buddha
01-21-2013
Moved everything I have in Thailand today on the Click. Three trips, three backpacks, and two backpacks too many! I'm delaying mailing a bunch of overpriced packages to the US, and trying to get down to the essentials without shorting myself of necessities or even some creature comforts.
Got surprised by my motorbike-for-a-month negotiations as well. I went in ready to hard-bargain down to 120 baht a day (50 baht less than the weekly price per day) and the shop owner low-balled me at 116 baht. Without my prepared argument, I caved, paid, and will go back tomorrow for some cycle maintenance on some soft front brakes.
I finally called the local orphanage and go to meet the president Wednesday to set up my volunteering schedule for the next month. I'm excited to help out and nervous I'm going to end up adopting one or more Thai orphans. It's yet another motivator to learn the language as well as a forum for practice.
Getting it done included the long-denied yoga class. A lovely, tall, blonde French woman taught the class. She opened with a talk about Sanskrit writings 200 years before Christ that gave life lessons in which we focused on thou shalt not steal. She related this to a yoga practice by focusing on how to steal is to in some way respond to an internal lack. This practice was about abundance and the lack of lack. Very enjoyable and I was pleased that I am still very flexible and stong (thank you Fulcrum Fitness!).
Pad Thai for 25 baht
Pad Thai assembly
Present for Mom
No Foam for Food!
Monk Kit
Mutant Gummy
Numberone!
Which naturally brings me to the last incident of the day. After a venture into the very busy, very crowded night market I'm now a few blocks from, I returned to MiCasa and parked my bike. The night clerk ran out and showed me how to lock the steering column and I suddenly remembered when I saw three Thai men earlier carrying off a scooter much like mine. In the moment, based on their expressions, I suspected nefarious intent but chose to go with the belief that they were moving a defunct bike for repair... One more thing to nail down.
Thank you Martin Luther King Jr. for a much needed holiday and a heap of inspiration. Hoping I can, to borrow from Ghandi, become the change I want to see in the world. Speaking of change, I spent a good hour reviewing my journal from a year ago (been a bit lax on that exercise). It's strange to reconnect with the feeling of that time and yet very much the now as well. I'm reading of struggling with loving Andy and yet being wholly unable to be married to him. I was also wholly in love with a man with whom loving was a constant conflict with an inner value system for us both. I write of it as a craving, a need that supersedes all else and how frightening that kind of feeling can be. How to balance it, hide it, express it...
Amazing that it is no longer there, that intense guilt and sadness as well as that desire that ruled me. What is still here is the list of beliefs that I still struggle with: I should know what to do with my life, I can't miss out on life experiences, romantic relationship hijacks everything. What I do know now that I didn't know then, I am never lonely, often bored, but never lonely (thank you Skype and social media - it really helps) and even if it's mosquitos, I'm never alone.
01-22-2012 - The Cash Donation
Today was expensive. A surprisingly expensive day. I needed pants and a new pair of shorts and some flip flops. Found the flip flops easily enough at the Warorot Day Market, and a cute pair of super-light-weight heels for 129 baht. Found pants (a little too snug... but maybe a few workouts...) and bought a dress that really makes me question my eye for fitting. I think in America, this dress would fit a thin 12-year-old, 90% of the adult females here, and never, ever me. Good thing it was $4.
I arrived back at my hotel with purchases in hand, excited to try them on (can't do that at the shopping center...), and was immediately stopped outside by a tall, handsome man with a thick accent asking where to rent a bicycle. I told him, showed him on the map, then tossed my stuff in my room, put him on the back of the Honda Click and took him to the place. I needed to drop off the Click for a brake repair job anyway, but he wanted to get some iced coffee, passed on the bike (fit him, right price), and so I walked him to a coffee shop that was basically a home spilling out into a garden eatery.
Giving tour of Chiang Mai
Gilded Monster
Jade Buddha
Salad Roll - Vegetarian yum!
Sitting
Day Market
Day Market
Wat Ceiling
We discussed American politics and geography, talked about his recent journey to India and how different that was from Thailand. All in all, enjoyable. Then I put him on the newly repaired Click and taught him how to ride a scooter. I got worried when he disappeared for five minutes, but soon enough he was back and I put him on the back again and we were off to see some Wats.
On the way, I was flagged down by a policeman. I stopped, was asked for identification (back at the hotel) and cited for no ID, and my passenger didn't have a helmet. I asked if I could take care of it there, they said yes. I asked how much and they did some complex math (4 + 4 = 800 baht). When I whipped out my wallet and started flashing baht around, they instantly told me to put it back and proceeded to fish out the 800 baht from my bag. I was lucky too, there was only 860 baht in there.
Over the next thirty minutes, my companion and I debated the finer points of arguing down the fine (probably could have, but I DID break the laws), whether or not a ticket would have been better, and how it worked in other countries. Luckily this was over a semi-good lunch paid for by him and I recovered 200 baht. This also seemed like a good time to part company and I'm back at MiCasa to work and stay away from men! It's not easy when they're 23, very friendly, sing to you, and give you little winks and pecks, and are pretty damn cute.