Chiang Mai and Humble Pai

For my last two weeks in Thailand (until I come back on my way home) I went up North for Songkran which is the Thai new year.  I've never really been envious of Christmas or any other holidays but Songkran has got to be the world's best holiday and I'm pretty pissed that Jews didn't think of it first.  Water in Thai Buddhism represents newness and second chances, so for the new year, people used to sprinkle scented water on statues of the Buddha, monks and elders for good luck.  I'm not really sure how it got so out of control, but somehow over the years this respectful sprinkling of perfumed water turned into a HUGE all out national water fight that lasts almost a week. It's totally ridiculous.  Chiang Mai for some reason is notorious for their Songkran celebration so I had to buy a bus ticket weeks in advance, which is totally unheard of in Thailand just to be able to get up there.

I left at 4:00 p.m. the afternoon before the festival and what should have been a 9 hour bus ride took 13.  The bus driver was a smoker and would stop, seriously every forty minutes for like 15 minutes. It was miserable... to make matters worse there was this awfully creepy guy who was sitting behind me and kept leaning his head really (REALLY) close to mine while I was sleeping.  After waking up an inch away from his bug eyes a couple of times I just leaned forward on my knees for the rest of the ride which made it impossible to sleep and impossible to even read.  I arrived at about 5 in the morning and rented a cheap hostel just to shower and take a nap before joining in the festivities for the day.  I didn't really know what to expect, but I hadn't taken ten steps out of the hostel before I was drenched in water. 

All along the side of the main roads and side roads are stands selling buckets and water guns. Everyone in the city is parked outside their shop fronts with huge garbage cans filled with water just splashing and squirting everyone who walks by.  They also put these huge blocks of ice in their garbage cans so the water is always freezing. There were big sponsored stages all along the river front with hot thai girls dancing to club music... most people in Thailand drive pick up trucks and every truck and tuk-tuk had a garbage can of water and sufficient ammo and would just inch along in a sort of parade, splashing each other and all the pedestrians. People were pushing each other in the canal, dropping buckets on ropes down into the canal to deck people and ambushing people on the sidewalk.  It felt like I was flirting with everyone... every single person you make eye contact with or even pass by will shoot you with their guns or catch you and pour a whole bucket of ice water on your head. Little kids will just sit in their garbage cans full of water and spring up to shoot you in the face.  All the bars are packed all day long but no one can afford to sit down so everyone just stands up and dances and guns each other down. There are also no boundaries... I saw some Israeli guy pour a bucket of water on his waitress's head as she was taking his bill and she just laughed and poured his drink on him.  Even the really old people get into it and the whole country just gets more irreverent than it usually is, which is very anyway. It was completely awesome. 

On the third day of Songkran, it got a little tiresome to not be able to walk to 7/11 or get anything to eat without being soaking wet, and it started to get a little colder too so the ice water wasn't really appreciated.  I put an emergency poncho over me and my knapsack and got on a van going up to Pai which is about 3 hours north of Chiang Mai.  The van wasn't air-conditioned and you couldn't keep the windows open on account of the water festivities, but 3 hours is very short by Thai travel standards so it wasn't such a big deal.  Pai was a little bit more relaxed about the splashing but I was still wet within 20 minutes of stepping off the bus and I just surrendered and enjoyed the dancing lady boys and obnoxious teenagers. Pai is one of the best places, if not the best place that I've been to so far. The whole city is less than one square mile and it's right in the heart of the northern mountains.  There isn't enough power to have air-conditioning and whenever it rained the power in the whole town could go out for up to 2 hours. It was kind of nice though even then... all the bars would just light candles and people would sit out the rain and wait for the Bob Marley to come back on.  It just kind of sucked when it happened at night and the fans would stop running. The atmosphere there couldn't be more laid back... most of the roads won't even allow cars to drive on them and there are never enough people in the city at any given time to generate that much bustle. 

While I was there I rented a motorbike for 3 bucks a day and cruised around the mountain roads surrounding Pai.  The signage out there is pretty bad but getting lost on a motorbike is still fun and I managed to see a bunch of water falls, hot springs, canyons, farms, villages and amazing views the whole time. Even after 5 days of Songkran, little kids would still run out in front of my bike, stop me and drench me with water.  It's also customary to put powder on people's faces and it's bad luck to wash it off so I looked pretty ridiculous all day. There's a certain thrill these people get by pouring water on foreigners... I heard some people speculate that they're taking out all their pent up aggression on tourists but I don't think so. After all it's like giving someone a blessing so it's actually really nice of them to take time out of their days to get us wet. It was also so hot riding around all day and my shoulders were starting to get burnt, so the water felt really nice. 

I met some really awesome people while I was there too... Certain places in Thailand attract certain nationalities for some reason.  Like while I was in Koh Chang, everyone everywhere was speaking either Swedish or German.  In Pai, everyone is Israeli.  Most of the signs are written in Hebrew also and all of the keyboards in internet cafes have Hebrew letters stuck on them. I think it might have something to do with all the good trekking up there, but whatever it is, I had a really good time with a good group of people while I was there.  I also ran into these 2 Swedish girls who I'd met in Koh Chang at the beginning of my trip.  A couple of times since being here I've seen people I recognize from other places, but it's never been anyone I connected with so I didn't really speak to them about it.  These two girls though had been working at a bar on the island and I hung out with them the whole time.  Then again when I was in Cambodia I accidentally ran into them at Angkor Wat and then I just saw them walking down the street in Pai.  The three of us and these Israeli guys went to this outdoor, fire pit type place called "Don't Cry Bar" and the bartender there was soooo funny.  He employed us to help him open about a million individually wrapped straws and showed us all these mind puzzles using tooth picks and bottle caps. 

I've kind of become an insomniac lately, I think it has something to do with all the long over night bus rides and early rising roosters and monks. The heat also makes being tired so much worse... and I don't think drinking in the morning helps either. One of the days I was in Pai I found an "eco-pool" about a twenty five minute walk outside of the city and just sat and read all day. "eco" in pool terms just means dirty and not chlorinated, but after walking around soaking wet all week I was ready to jump in just about any kind of water. 

I had only planned on staying in Pai for a couple of days but I spent the better part of a week there because it was so great. I only went back to Chiang Mai yesterday to go to the Sunday market, eat some good Italian food, exchange used books and get a bus back to Bangkok. The bus ride on the way back only took about 9 hours and I made it home by about 2 which was nice. When I got home though my aircon was broken and leaking water all over everything.  I couldn't fall asleep with the dripping sound and now I'm really beat. Tomorrow's my last day in Bangkok before I fly to Singapore where I'll be for a few days before I go to Malaysia, and from there to Sydney. I think I did my last couple of weeks in Thailand good, but I'm really going to miss it I think. Also, packing is a bitch and I'm only bringing a knapsack to Australia... Here's to smelling terrible until my Nana starts pampering me and washing all my clothes. 

Peace,

Esti

Bangkok Dangerous

Since I've returned from Vietnam I've been spending a lot of time downtown getting to know what is largely considered to be one of the best cities on earth.  There are so many cool neighborhoods, interesting people and most importantly, delicious foodstuffs around... I could spend days just wandering from eatery to shoppery to eatery.

Finals are over and we've all kind of been cramming in our last attempts to "live it up" in Bangkok.  One night we went to a place with a Thai indie hipster band that played exclusively Kings of Leon covers and knew probably an 8th of the lyrics to any given song. Another night we went to a club called "Spicy" where the girls are (aptly), hot and easy.  It's pretty much just a racket for Thai prostitution and is frequented by sleazy foreigners and drunkies like me who can't stand up to their peers when being pressured to "get a true Thai experience." 

I also made a new batch of hilarious Thai friends that go to school here. The two funniest ones are named Ice and Leo.  They're both huge potheads who only smoke out of a water bottle with a metal pipe stuck through it... only.  Also, once they're high they completely forget how to speak the little English they knew before and it makes all communication thoroughly laughable. I also met the hottest Thai girl ever who has awesome dreads and a two month old adorable baby.  I have a huge crush on her... she doesn't speak English but she put her finger on my nose and said "I like!" Score.  

Last night was perhaps one of the better "going-out" experiences I've ever had.  The group flight to the states left this morning, so a lot of people were going out in Bangkok for the last time.  I discovered this restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms that was started by a former senator in an effort to raise money and awareness for AIDS and safe sex.  It's a very classy, upscale place that happens to be contraceptively themed.  Instead of mints with your check, they give you condoms.  There's a Captain Condoms lounge upstairs with drinks named things like "The Blue Rubber."  All over the walls are various condom themed art or jokes and there were mannequins lining the pathway to the restaurant dressed in all condom clothing.  It was really affordable, like $4.00 for a meal and was the best Thai food I've had since being here. 

After we ate we got back on the Skytrain and went to the State Tower in another part of downtown.  On the 64th floor of the building is one of the most famous bars in Bangkok called Distil.  You can see every inch of the city and Bangkok has incredibly weird and awesome architecture and lighting that is best appreciated from ridiculous heights.  Drinks at this bar cost upwards of $15.00 each... which sucked extra for me as given my passover diet was restricted to a "Nada Colada" for $17.o0.  The price of a drink was really worthwhile to see the view though and I'm sure we sufficiently pissed off all of the wealthy European clientele by taking lots of pictures and gushing about how much we'll all miss each other. I was sufficiently pissed off anyway... 

On the way home in a taxi we passed by a red shirt protest and was able to see a solid amount of it due to stagnant traffic along the road blocks.  This protest in particular was supposed to have been violent and international folk were warned from going downtown at all.  It it weren't for public transportation options like the Skytrain we would have been stuck in traffic all night.  It's a pretty ridiculous situation because the Thai government just allows silly little factions of students who don't know what they're protesting shut down entire areas of the city.  It's extra ridiculous because the red shirts are protesting the new Prime Minister who was put in place after Thaksin was forced to resign and they want to bring Thaksin "Raper of the Thai Economy" Shinawatra back into power.  It's all very Thai. 

In other news, monsoon season is upon us and while it's sometimes annoying to get caught in the epic floods on my way back to my apartment, it's actually a step up from the sweltering hot season that preceded it.  Don't get me wrong, it's still balls hot- but now, for like half an hour every day it cools down to livable temperatures.  The thunder and lighting is also out of this world... The loudest, longest most awesome thunder I've ever head in my life by far. Ill.

Less awesomely, Passover here sucks and I have nothing to do or eat.

Happy various holidays to the rest of you,

X

esti

Summer's out for Summer

I just finished my last "class" of the "semester."  

April Fools!!!

Double April Fools!!!! Today really was my last day.... Suckers.

The past few weeks have been really busy.  After our school beach trip, I spent a few days around Bangkok.  I went to a shitty amusement park and a really fancy shmancy mall. The rest of the time I watched bootleg DVDs and ate take-away pad thai in an attempt to cure myself of my lung disease before the ship arrived.

On Thai buses they have this courteous (highly annoying) custom of dropping people off at their individual homes if they're relatively on the way to the bus station.  This makes 1 hour long trips take about 3, which is how long it took me to get to the Laem Chabang Port to pick up Ben and Ga.  Somewhere in the middle of nowhere I realized I was the last person on the bus... this didn't alarm me too much until the driver realized I was the last person on the bus and unceremoniously dumped me on the side of the road, with no bus station in sight and drove off.  I started to mildly freak out because Ben and Ga both didn't have phones and I had told them to meet me at the bus station about 2 hours ago. I got on a motorcycle taxi and asked him to take me to the bus station.  After what must have been 3 hours of charades he finally agreed and took me to an office with folding chairs outside and drove away.  At this point I was very stressti and decided none of these people could help me because none of them spoke English, so I just started walking in the direction I assumed would lead to the most white people. Straight.  After about 5 minutes of walking I saw a little soup lady on the side of the road and asked her if she knew anyone in the area who spoke English.  She pointed straight ahead... and about 100 yards away, sitting outside a different office with folding chairs... were Ben and Ga! (and Heather who will from here on out be referred to as Luna Lovegood) They were the English speakers I was looking for! Woo.

Happily reunited, we got on a bus to Rayong which is the coastal beach connecting to Koh Samet, the island we were headed for.  We spent about 2 days there, eating, floating, smoking, drinking and drinking. 

The next two days we spent in Bangkok, not really straying much from the main backpackers area, and doing mostly the same things as we'd done in Rayong, minus the floating.  It was also St. Patrick's Day our first night in Bangkok and we spent it at a bar called Shamrock's which was actually the first place I'd ever gone to in Thailand and a really cool pub. Highlights included Ben eating bugs and Ga buying sunglasses. 

On Thursday they had to get back on the ship on their way to Vietnam and I flew out on Friday morning to meet them in Saigon.  I was there for a couple of days by myself where I met the CRAZIEST girls I've ever met in my life.  They were totally ridiculous and after 2 days of partying with them, I was pretty relieved when they told me they were going to an Island to hang out with these new Australian boys they had met and were 'in love with.' 

On Sunday I met up with Ben and Ga and we went to the zoo in these funny bicycle mobiles.  It was really beautiful and relaxing there.  Lots of cute Vietnamese babies running around.  An Orangutan threw a piece of corn at my head.  Afterwards we met up with their friend Pete and just ate and drank around central Saigon.  The next day we went to the War Remnants Museum which is basically a collection of pictures of people hurt by agent orange and used to be called The Museum of American Atrocities and War Crimes. It was really fucking intense and also incredibly awkward to be there as an American.  Communist propaganda or not... It was a very sobering experience.  We didn't really do much else the rest of the week.  The heat coupled with our attempts to get drunk with breakfast really took it out of us and we just hung out mostly and bought really cheap DVDs at the free DVD store across the street from our guesthouse. (If you must know, I know own seasons 1-18 of the Simpsons on DVD) 

After the boys left, I had a couple of days left in HCMC. I went to the Mekong River Delta about 2 hours outside of the city which was really cool.  I saw some bee farms, some coconut candy factories and some fishing markets. We got to walk around the village for a little while and it was interesting to see a really residential Vietnamese neighborhood after spending so much time in downtown Saigon.  The next day I visited the Cu Chi Tunnels which is the site of a famous group of Guerilla VC fighters who defeated an American army base while living underground.  The propaganda at this place was INSANE.  As soon as we got there we were shown a 30 year old documentary about the people of Cu Chi and their heroism in defeating the enemy.  They told the biographical story of a 14 year old girl who was given the Award for Killing Americans and has numerous schools and streets named after her now.  The tunnels themselves were fascinating, and the way these farmers managed to survive while living three stories underground is pretty amazing. They were really innovative and resourceful people- as mostly demonstrated by the make-shift booby traps they had set for the American soldiers.  There was a whole row of the traps set up for us to look at, backed by a poorly done mural showing various American soldiers getting impaled on bamboo spikes and spouting blood. The tour guides were also all dressed up in VC uniforms and talking about "the enemy" as a "crazy batch of devils who shot women and children." (who were evidently trying to kill them also).  Anyway, political inclinations aside, it was really interesting and kind of disturbing to see the other side's documentation of the war.  Somehow though it didn't yield any animosity towards Americans and I still felt really welcome in the country the whole time I was there. 

After skipping the entire month of March, I returned to classes this week to find (as I had suspected) that no one noticed my absence and I hadn't missed anything.  I slipped right back in for my last 2 days of class, and now have only to await finals before officially finishing my "study" abroad. 

My future travel plans include the North of Thailand for Song Kran, the Thai New Year (which is a huge nation-wide water fight) and Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia before heading to Sydney. In the meantime I see much Simpsons watching in the immediate future, and possibly some E-mailing of you good people.  

Love you guys.

Sex, Drugs, and Acoustic Guitar

The past couple of weeks have been mildly debaucherous... For freshness of mind reasons I'm going to report them in reverse or random order, beginning with last night- a sample of which is depicted for your viewing pleasure to the left.

As some sort of effort to integrate the various nationalities at Rangsit University's International College, the school took us on a three day trip to the beach about 3 hours Southwest of Bangkok. They rented out a nice resort and bussed all 200 of us down there, leaving us to our own devices. I unfortunately had to go to the hospital on the morning of the departure to deal with this lung ailment I've been suffering from for the past month, but I made it to Ban Phe by about 7:30, by which time every single other person was like 6 whiskey neats deep. 

The party had taken the form of a free style international rap battle, (which somehow these Bhutanese guys were dominating) spread out along these gazebos on the beach and enhanced by the attendance of many of our professors. Things escalated seemingly quickly from there, and soon enough there were people in various stages of nakedness running into the ocean and tackling each other. After we were all coerced out of that potentially hazardous situation, we opted for chicken fighting in the hotel pool which only ended up being equally if not more hazardous. 

The next day, those of us who made it up while the sun was still out, rented tubes and just bobbed in the ocean for hours. While this was really relaxing and fun, it also kind of simulating the effects of a washing machine which isn't optimal for the morning after. That night was more of the same, only this time there were 8-year-old fire dancers and spin-the-bottle involved. It was a really great bonding experience for the group, some of whom bonded a lot more than others- and to my knowledge only 5 people threw up and only 1 item of hotel property was destroyed. Being that I had nothing to do with any of the above, I call the entire trip a success and only wish it had lasted longer (and had better food). 

This brings me to things I wish had lasted less time- namely, my friend Q's twenty first birthday which was last week. In the morning, I went to the floating markets which were really boring and annoying and sweaty. As soon as I got in the door, I had to quickly get ready and make myself presentable to meet up with Q, our friends Kirk and Joran (Van Der Sloot-- Google him), and Q's mom, who was visiting and was us out to dinner for his birthday. We went to a restaurant in the State Tower which is famous for it's Sky Bar on the 56th floor that overlooks all of Bangkok. We ate on the 54th floor and had a table right on the edge of the roof- it was totally incredible. I tried taking pictures, but none of them came out well. This was probably the classiest and nicest restaurant I've ever been to in my life. If you question its classiness hear this: They gave me an upholstered stool to put my purse on next to my chair. I mean come on. 

When we were finished dinner we went back to Q's mom's hotel for more drinks (on her) and then went to this club called Bed. Aptly, instead of tables in this club, there are only beds, the entire place is filled with beds. I think it's an international gimmick and I'm pretty sure they have one in New York. I'm not sure how they compare, but this one was really nice. Apparently I have been hanging out with all of the wrong people up until now (no offense guys) because the guys I was with payed for EVERYTHING the whole night. Just to get into the club was about $40 a person, and drinks were also extremely overpriced. I just stood around and if my hand was ever empty I only had to wait about 20 seconds for someone to put a drink in it. This graciousness extended to cab fare and munchy snacks (which became increasingly important later in the night) and I managed to go the whole night without dropping a single Baht.  

 around 4 we went back to Kirk and Joran's house which is about a 6 minute walk from where Q and I live (our apartments are next to each other's). I can't really get into details here, but let's just say we put all those fuckers who take 21 shots on their 21st birthdays to total fucking shame. I got home at 11:30 that morning, and given the state I was in, I am considering skipping my own 21st birthday entirely. And I shall say no more. 

I don't have much planned for the next couple of days... Ben and Ga are arriving in 6 days (but who's counting) and we'll be going to Koh Samet and then meeting up in Vietnam. I'm also skipping the rest of school until April to travel, as I think it's in my best learning interest to experience things outside the classroom. And because I can. 

Lots of love and Chag Purim Sameach to everyone (especially you Jordan)

Fondlingly,

Esti

The People's Pajama Party of Kampuchea

Part I- Sihanoukville:

After about 7 hours on a bus, which is pretty short by Thai bus traveling standards, I arrived at the Cambodian border just before it opened at 7 a.m. I had been warned about all of the crazy people who will harass you as soon as you cross over, and attempt to rip you off- but I hadn't really been told how to deal with it. The trouble is, even the authorities are in on it. When I was buying my visa, I tried to argue that I knew it only cost 1,000 Baht, and I simply was not going to pay 1,200... but there was nothing I could do about it. Either swallow the extra 200 (about 6 U.S. dollars) or go back to the Thai side. So I sucked it up... only to suck up an expensive cab ride, an over priced bus ticket and a terrible exchange rate in order to get to Sihanoukville. But there was really no choice... You just have to hope you get lucky and meet an honest person, otherwise you are at their mercy. Interestingly though, the Cambodian people speak English far better than most Thai people. Some people speculated that it's from necessity, but I'm telling you, in a lot of other areas also- these people were just terribly clever. The first funny thing I noticed about Cambodia is that somehow, the transference of the purpose of pajama sets got lost in translation when they were adopted from western culture, and loads of Cambodian people just walk around in pajamas all day long. It's really hard to take a grown man seriously when he's decked out entirely in Japanese cartoon characters and cruising around on a motorcycle. 

   Anyway, Sihanoukville is this small town on the beach that mostly caters to tourists which makes the locals a lot more well off than those throughout the rest of the country. I guess this was a good way to transition into seeing such crazy poverty, because even in Sihanoukville, little children come up to you and beg for your leftover food and people injured from land mines years ago crawl through the beach and beg for money. It's really hard to deal with, especially when you're sitting in a lounge chair drinking beer and ordering actual food. It's also interesting because everything in Cambodia is priced by American dollars, but they don't have American coins so they use Cambodian Riel as change. It's also important, as requested by the Cambodian government that you don't give or buy anything from the child beggars. Because this is a (very tempting) form of child labor, if tourists stop supporting it, parents will have no choice but to stop relying on their children to beg for money. Mind you- resisting these children is nearly impossible and the only time in my life I've experienced something literally gut-wrenching. These little boys and girls are terribly cute and terribly smart. They speak English and French and explain to you very eloquently that they need money to buy a bike to get to school, or to buy dinner. When you say, "sorry, no sweetie" they say, "sorry doesn't feed me... sorry gets me nowhere- you are a bad woman." It's awful. So after this less than leisurely beach trip, we got on a bus to Phnom Penh, the capitol city which is about 4 hours away (everything in Cambodia is 4 hours away from everything else, and to all Thai borders).

Part II- Phnom Penh:

We got to Phnom Penh at around 3 p.m. and after beating off like twenty men trying to take us to various guest houses, we walked down to the river front to get food. Like Laos, Cambodia has been colonized by Le French so therefore has baguettes everywhere. Unlike Laos though, it also has a very thriving ex-pat scene which means they also have awesome western restaurants... unfortunately mildly expensive because they're priced in dollars. I'm obviously kind of spoiled though- I found myself getting so annoyed paying $2.00 for a meal and cursing the damn dollar for being so damn strong right now. After eating, we wandered around looking for a guesthouse that was reasonably priced but found nothing on the river front. We passed one of the tuk-tuk drivers who'd been trying to take us to a place called OK Guesthouse at the bus station and he had a good laugh that we still hadn't found anywhere to stay. We finally caved and asked a different guy to take us to OK Guesthouse about 15 minutes away and got an a room with A.C. for 12 bucks. This is by far the most I've paid for a room since being in Asia... that 6 bucks is like 6 meals in Thailand. Our tuk-tuk driver asked us if we had any plans for tomorrow and for $18 offered to pick us up in the morning, take us to the market, The Killing Fields and The Genocide Museum. This seemed to be the preferred way of getting around the city, and most of the travelers there just settled on a driver they liked and adopted him for the rest of their stay.

So the next morning, we went to the market first. In Thailand, when you haggle and get too low, the vendors just kind of shoo you away. In Cambodia they will practically sell you anything for any price... which kind of gives you a sense of how little these things actually cost to make- because they wouldn't be operating at a loss. After the market, we went to The Killing Fields which was obviously a really sobering experience. The way it's set up now, is you walk up to a memorial temple that houses hundreds of victims' sculls in glass shelves, donate some money, light some incense, and then walk through the rest of the area. It's so eerie because grass has grown over all of the dug-up mass graves and there are birds and flowers and trees and the whole place is really beautiful. It takes about thirty minutes to walk around the whole thing, and certain graves and trees are marked with stories that happened to them specifically. Afterwards we went to Choeung Ek Genocidal Center which was a high school before Pol Pot's regime converted it into a prison and torture facility. Now it is a museum, but most of the rooms and cells remain untouched and you can see the torture weapons and chambers, as well as hundreds of pictures of victims, some only little babies. You can tell the Cambodian people are really eager to share their history with foreigners as it helps to put in perspective the poverty and wounded state of the country. Jakey spoke to us a little bit afterwards and said that he wishes everyone would be able to see the museum, as these things are all still so fresh in the minds of all Cambodian people. By the end of the day we didn't really want to stay in Phnom Penh anymore- it was really depressing... so we bumped up our bus tickets to that afternoon and headed to Siem Reap...

Part III- Siem Reap

We got the name of a guesthouse in Siem Reap from the one we stayed at in Phnom Penh because we wanted to stay somewhere Cambodian-owned. The owner picked us up at the bus station and he was this really nice 26 year old guy who spoke perfect English and French and owned like 4 of his own businesses. The place was pretty nice and he helped us get drivers to take us to Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples the next day. Now, I'm not usually one for temple ruins. I usually pretend to be interested in that kind of stuff because people are supposed to... but I'm usually of the mind that if you've seen one ruin, you've seen em all. I was a little resistant to pay the $20 entrance fee into the park, and I was a little resistant to spending a whole day there... I mean how big can the place really be? It is totally HUGE. Angkor Wat itself is the most awesome thing ever- it's humungous and beautiful... I was blown away. The crazy thing was, after spending a day driving around the area and seeing the other ruins... Angkor Wat became less and less impressive. I mean it was still obviously amazing, but it wasn't my favorite. The best one was this series of ruins that had been built in the middle of the woods. Over the years these massive, amazing trees have grown around the stones and it seriously looks straight out of Rivendel from Lord of the Rings. It was unreal. The only downsides to the day were having to walk up approximately 1 billion stairs in the positively sweltering heat... and the literally hundreds of children who try to see you junk at every turn. It was really sad turning them down... again, they were all really cute and smart. They'd remember your name like 3 hours after you first say them. Crazy. All in all, it was definitely worth the trip and everyone should put it on their life's list of things to do. Pictures do not do it justice... it was pretty awesome. We spent the next day on our 9 hour bus ride home... non air-conditioned this time and on the craziest, bumpiest dirt roads ever. It really made me appreciate spending hours and hours on Thai buses and on Thai roads. 

In summation- the trip was pretty excellent. Despite some parts being really depressing, the country itself was beautiful and the people were fantastically friendly when they weren't trying to rip you off. I really learned a lot and the whole thing was very fascinating. 

Last night, we all had dinner on a boat and sang karaoke and cruised through Bangkok on the Chauphreayu (that's spelled horribly wrong) River... It was really fun. This weekend I'm going to the floating markets and possibly wake-boarding. Keep in touch please...

Much Love!!!

-Esti

Kava? But I barely know you!

Midterms have passed with hilariously little circumstance. One day I was basking in the sun on Koh Chang, the next day I sat down, wrote some essays, ate some pad thai and called it a day. No studying necessary. This is the best school (if that's even its real name) ever. Since all of the teachers are foreign and most speak less than perfect English I just used extremely flowery and complicated language to get my potentially-but-probably-not-correct points across.

A couple of nights ago I participated in this cooky island ceremony in which you drink this tea called kava. By tea, I mean dirt in water mixed around and served to you with a ladel and a coconut shell. Brian, that keeno who speaks Thai has it shipped to him from Fiji because it helps him run- or so he claims. He spent about half an hour before explaining to us the origins of kava which if I remember correctly grew from the remains of a sacrificed young leperous princess or accidentally vaginally penetrated two women as they bent by the stream to wash yams. Either story ends in the islanders rejoicing, drinking mad kava, getting mildly stoned and meditating. Now the ritual has become so prevelent that they even have a strain of kava called "business kava"... people sit around business meetings and drink kava together. Sort of like the "business weed" we smoke in America.

After the kava is mixed, the maker (Brian) ladels out kava and passes the bowl the the person on his left. Jeff, in this case would say "Bula," clap once and chug the kava (chugging is imperative). Afterwards he hands the shell back to Brian, says "Matha" and everyone else in the circle claps twice. This process is repeated until the maker drinks the remaining kava in the bowl last. It was amazing- Brian is the best liquid volume estimator on the face of the planet-- he perfectly measured out enough into each shell so that at the end, he had the right amount left for himself. Bizzare.

Throughout this process you are meant to be communing with the kava gods and appreciating everything in your life. As opposed to alcohol, the more kava you drink, the more sensitive you become to it. When I drank 2 shells, my mouth got numb, my tummy rumbled and I went to go eat. When Jeff and Brian drank it they looked like they might just step right out of their bodies and float away. I just don't know how much muddy water I can drink to make it worth it. Anyway that was an interesting experience...

Tonight I'm going to Cambodia for some days with my friend Lacey. It's going to be interesting being a tourist there... in places like Sihanoukville, the locals go out of there way to create a beach paradise for locals, which does boost their incomes and whatnot. I just think I'd feel so uncomfortable being a backpacking bum in a country like Cambodia. Going to the beach one day and the Killing Fields the next? I don't know, that could just be the nature of things. I'll write about that trip when I get back...

Love you...

Tofu Burger in Paradise

The way my class schedule has been working here is that I get home Tuesday mornings usually around 6, go to some class, sleep Tuesday night, go to class on Wednesday and then leave again Wednesday night. While this is objectively awesome- it is also extremely tiring. So anyway, after one night of sleep I headed out again to go to Koh Chang which is the second biggest island in Thailand, yet somehow one of the least visited.

About 10 years ago it was opened to the public and is part of a national marine park reserve about an hour ferry ride from the mainland. The whole place is crazy beautiful, it's a huge rain forest in the middle and gorgeous beaches all the way around. While I obviously benefit from the restaurants, bungalows and bars being built up at a rapid rate, it was really sad to see all the trash and construction. I can't imagine what this place will look like in another 10 years. It's probably on its way to being just like Phuket or Koh Samui.

Anyway, at this point I was traveling by myself which was slightly nerve-wracking when I found myself at a bus station at 4 in the morning surrounded by creepy old Thai men and not a single English speaking person for miles. With some very skillful charades and gestures I was able to make it to the actual island and set myself up in a beach hut, get some breakfast, etc. I spent the first day on the beach reading by myself which was really nice but I started to get a little apprehensive about the night ahead of me. The crowd on the island was a little off- a lot of old people and a lot of couples, I guess per Valentine's day weekend, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to find a fun group of people to go out drinking with.

I worried for naught though... within ten minutes of walking around I somehow managed to run into the only 2 Israeli guys on the island. And I mean only... They purposefully came to Koh Chang to escape the droves of Israelis in every other part of Southeast Asia and said they liked my Americanized version of Hebrew and were sick of hearing Israeli accents. We went to a free BBQ at one of the bars where I had tofu kebabs served to me by none other than Captain Jack Sparrow on crutches. I ended up spending most of the night between them and these 4 Swedish kids I met, dodging lady boy advances and dancing to some Justin T-lake classics.

The next morning my friend from school, Q called me and said he was on the island since last night but couldn't get in touch with me. Anyway after hanging out in his (air-conditioned) room for a little we drove his bike down to the southern side of the island to a more remote beach. (NOTE: I am pretty effing terrified of bikes now I have to admit. The roads on these islands are sooo hilly and twisty, any teeny bump in the road or pothole and you are peaced. Every time I make it to where I'm going safely I feel like kissing the ground just to have made it.) This beach we got to was so beautiful and empty. You literally could walk fifteen meters into the jungle behind you and be in the straight jungle. You'd need a machete. That night one of the guesthouses was having a big beach party at their bar and we hung out there, drank some buckets, met some weird ass people etc. It was a pretty fun night.

The next couple of days followed with more of the same. Eating, drinking, beaching, drinking... not so much on the studying though. That was supposed to take up the bulk of my day today but it's already 3 and I haven't started yet. I really hope these classes are as easy as everyone's making them seem. It would suck if everyone was saying they didn't study because that's the cool thing to do. Then I'll be the asshole who really doesn't study and I'll get dicked and not pass my classes. So cross your fingers for me and be jealous that I spent the days before my midterms on a tropical island in southern Thailand... and my grades don't effect my GPA. Suckers.

I promise to get to E-mailing people back really shortly. I love and miss you,

Esti