Can't Buy Me Love

Bangkok - Chiang Mai, 6/30/11 - 7/1/11

I'm last on the Chiang Mai-bound bus, which means I'm awarded an uncomfortable seat in the very rear of the bus, sharing the space with a large lead pipe.

Fortunately, I'm sitting right next to two cute British girls. Their fashion sense is hippie-chic, both wearing long tribal sarongs, tank tops, and messy hair. They must have gotten on the wrong bus since we're not bound for Burning Man. Both are instantly friendly and warm so I'm convinced I've found my new travel partners for north Thailand. Especially Milly, my beautiful, amber-haired, bespeckled seatmate.

It's their first day in Thailand and Milly and Kate could not be more excited to be on holiday. I share their excitement. Fifteen hours together in an exhaust-spewing, cramped bus with a broken bathroom is enough to make anyone crazy. And there's something magical in the air as the rain pours down so I'm convinced I'll get off engaged to one of them.

I ask them how they spent their first day in the thrilling capital city of Bangkok. "Well we went a bit crazy," Kate begins, "we went immediately to the mall and each bought 7 fake designer handbags. Now our bags are so big, we can't even pick them up!" Look at all of them, Kate implores, as she shares a series of images of the bags photographed in an organized, geometric layout on their hotel bed, calling to mind Mondrian.

Fifteen hours on an airplane to get away from England and the first post-departure stop is a mall to pick up knock-off British bags? New travel partners? I think not.

May Kaidee

Bangkok, 6/30/11

Lexi, Tata and I are almost in tears.

 

Despite the obvious lack of meat, including the missing flavor of Thailand's condiment of kings, fish sauce, the lunch at May Kaidee vegetarian restaurant in Bangkok is spectacular. It's so good, the three of us sit at the table in silence, fighting with our chopsticks to get the last nibbles of the glorious cornucopia in front of us. The restaurant is an oasis in the backpackers strip of Khao San Rd, which is populated with McDonald's, KFC, westernized sandwich stands, and overpriced, watered-down Thai street food. The restaurant is located in a cramped street behind Burger King -- a hidden heaven behind chain hell.

May Kaidee is the proprietor, but it's really a family restaurant, and her sister welcomes us in with open arms and smiles, encouraging us to join her tomorrow for a cooking course.

We start with seaweed fritters, moist inside surrounded by a golden brown tempura-esque batter and dipped into crunchy, sweet peanut sauce. The dish is for those who feel, "well, I enjoy the taste of sushi but do not appreciate its health benefits."

Fresh spring rolls here are wrapped in a thin, crepe-like paper versus the traditional transparent rice paper. They're stuffed with noodles, basil, carrots and covered in that same peanut sauce. At once, crunchy, savory, sweet, and herbal.

Next up is Massaman Curry, hands down the best curry I've had to date in Thailand. It's beyond thick, almost like a stew. The curry itself has strong flavors of coconut, cinnamon, anise, garlic, and chilis. Inside, there are large pieces of tofu, onions, carrots, and potato and we eat it alongside brown rice. It's nearly 100-degrees out but somehow the spicy hot curry still seems like the perfect answer for the day. I will say, however, if I ate in front of a fire on a cold winter's day, I may fall into a coma of sheer elation.

Dessert is a bourgeois take on the street food staple of sticky rice with mango. White sticky rice is replaced here with thick purple long grain rice, which is cooked in sugar, coconut milk, salt, and sesame seeds into almost a coconut rice pudding. Served alongside candy sweet mango and banana.

This just might be the best meal to date. We may be nearly crying, but they are tears of joy.

Words and Phrases to Describe Traditional Thai Massage

Squeezing
Pulling
Pushing
Contorting
Walking Upon
Twisting
Kneeing
Bending
Bruising
Aching
Pain
Stretching
Throbbing
Popping
Shattering
Snapping

Back-breaking
Sadistic

Sights and Tastes Around Kanchanaburi

Kanchanaburi, 6/27/11 - 6/29/11

• Mongolian barbeque served on my hostel house boat at sunset. Chicken fat lubricates the piping hot charcoal grill, which I had to carry from the restaurant to my room as the waiters couldn't be bothered. The mixed grill includes shrimp, mussels, calamari, pork, beef, and chicken. Two sauces: sweet chili and spicy num pang fish sauce with chilis plus plenty of vegetables to poach in the broth.

• The night market in which we spend hours. Local kids laugh and play checkers with bottle caps. Street vendors sell sushi, banana sticky rice, crispy fried chicken chopped with a cleaver, fragrant green curry, grilled calamari. Yes to all.

• Crepes pockets filled with taro and corn, sold for pennies on the streets, made with utter care by one man in the pouring rain 

• Whole snakehead fish steamed in foil with scallions, lime, galangal with tiny bones all too easy to digest. Looks like an oversized black eel. Tasted just as good

• The man at Sugar Cane bar who befriends tourists by introducing them to his pet squirrel who wears a rhinestone collar

• The little girl on the bus who stares at me for hours making funny faces

• The proprietor at the inevitable reggae bar ("Buddha Bar") in town who is dressed up in full Jack Sparrow regalia and offering us hookah. Plus his two week old black lab puppy, who probably doesn't enjoy the music, smoke, odd pirate walking around, or distance from his mother

• The fantastically fresh steamed snapper with scallions, soy, and Jasmine rice oddly shaped as a teddy bear

• The friendly staff and delicious vegetarian food at Tofu House -- stir fried tofu with onions, mushrooms, scallions, and ginger; coconut soup with mushrooms that smile; homemade crystallized ginger for dessert

• The coconut ice cream sundae with "the works" which is an odd combination of dehydrated banana, poundcake, caramelized zucchini, caramelized potato, kidney beans, and condensed milk

Bridge on the River Kwai/Death Railway

Kanchanaburi, 6/28/11

The final leg of the Kanchanaburi tour is the Bridge on the River Kwai and the Death Railway. During WWII, Kanchanaburi housed a famous Japanese POW camp. Hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers and local civilians lost their lives constructing a 258 mile railway from Thailand to Burma to avoid Allied camps in Malaysia and Singapore. The Death Railway is built alongside a mountain and surrounded by dense forest and the River Kwai, designed to make it harder for the Allies to find it and attack. Nearby caves that were once POW hospitals and are now temples filled with gilded Buddhas. The beautiful scenery presents a stark contrast to the utter brutality that occurred here in the early 1940s.





The railway, although no longer associated with death, is still operational and an open-air car passes by, filled with locals on their way home after a long day of work.

The Bridge on the River Kwai has been rebuilt since being destroyed by the Allies in 1945. On the surface the black metal bridge looks ordinary, especially when surrounded by vendors selling pork ball skewers and tourists in fanny packs. But if one pauses to read the nearby memorials about the 200,000+ who lost their lives, the vantage point quickly changes.

Driving Ms. Nanga

Kanchanaburi, 6/28/11

Nanga is bigger, hairier, dirtier, larger-nosed and, at 67, older than most females I've ridden. Her tough gray skin feels like dried out leather, so someone should really pick her up some moisturizer. She smells liker a pungent combination of hay and rotten bananas and could really use a bath. If I'm lucky, I'll strip down to my skivvies and join her.

Sunsets over Kanchanaburi

Kanchanaburi, 6/27/11

Kanchanaburi is a small town three hours northwest of Bangkok renowned for its outdoors activities, rich World War II history, and laid back atmosphere. I'm staying at the Jolly Frog Hostel, a sprawling resort with lawn chairs, hammocks, a popular restaurant staffed by ladyboys, all right on the Kwai River. Surprisingly, the hostel staff is quite unfriendly, except for the travel agent, who can't be bothered to ever awaken from her all day naps.


As I'm staying at 'da frog, my room is rightfully amphibious -- a spacious double on a floating houseboat in the lily pad-strewn river (200Baht = $6).

My neighbors are Lexi and Tata, both Germans vegetarians, who are traveling and working for a year in Southeast Asia and Australia. Their work experience has included being stable girls at a horse camp, acting as a squigee girls in a bikini car wash, and working seven-days-a-week on a fruit farm where Lexi developed the dreaded "mango rash" which consumed her whole body and health for three weeks. Lexi is short, red-haired with dark eyes and numerous piercings. Tata is tall, with wild curly hair like Miss Frizzle, and a predilection for hipsterish thick plastic-framed spectacles. Lexi has a full German pedigree while Tata originally hails from Brazil, with an accent and envy-inducing tanned skin to match. They are both low key and affable. We hit it off immediately and travel for the next three days.

The view from our houseboat/room at sunset is certainly worth the price of admission, like an ever-changing canvas of gold, red, orange, and yellow hues (some pics from Tata & Lexi).