Ramallah | We made it, Momma!

While Ramallah isn’t as old as some of the places that claim more biblical origins, it’s still been around for a good long time. It’s said to have been founded by Christians fleeing from the east after a snafu resulting from a misunderstanding over a mixed Christian/Muslim betrothal, but whatever the true story of its origin, it’s been there since the 1500s. As it stands, in visiting I guess we were just bringing the whole mixed marriage concept back–closing the circle! For most of Ramallah’s history, it was predominantly Christian, but more recently, its population has become more Muslim with a still-sizable Christian minority.

Nowadays, it’s grown to be the largest Palestinian city, and moreover is the de facto capital of the Palestinian Territories; it’s also often called the “Tel Aviv of the West Bank” because of its comparable nightlife and culture. Regarding the more political aspects of recent history, I’ve started and then read more and then started again trying to write about them…I’ll have to come back to that, though. Even in the few labels I’ve already typed, I suppose I’ve pegged on a certain stance, but there’s a lot more to the very complex situation that encompasses Ramallah than I want to get into right now.

So, I’ll focus on what’s most important to me about it: it’s where my amazing mother, Najwa, grew up, along with her wonderful siblings, Grace, Nuha, Raja, Saleh, and Maha. And following that thought, Bonnie and I finally got to go there, which is a fantastic cap on almost a year of travel abroad!

practical notes for other travellers

That is, because we wholeheartedly recommend others go to Ramallah–it’s one of our favorite places that we’ve been to. Our public transportation adventures and foibles in just getting to Jerusalem from our village aside (though I do have one question for the Orthodox part of Jerusalem…why are your hats so small?!), getting from there to Ramallah is pretty straightforward. Except on Friday. Which is when we were there. It was still fine–you just hop on a bus at the bus terminal in East Jerusalem, near the Damascus Gate, which would normally take you into the center of Ramallah, but on Fridays it only goes to the Qalandia Checkpoint. Luckily, we met an utterly adorable Muslim couple who guided us through the bus, checkpoint, and sharing a service taxi the rest of the way to our destination, but it would have all been doable to figure out…just less pleasant and efficient without our new friends! On the way in, you just walk across the border–no check or anything. Leaving is pretty easy too; when we did it, we just stayed on the bus as a couple soldiers came on and quickly glanced at paperwork and our visas in our passports (didn’t even seem to look at the info page). All we got was a raised eyebrow of the perfectly neutral, “…huh,” but they did mysteriously take away one Palestinian teenager.

Regarding lodging, we definitely recommend Area D Hostel. It has a fantastic location a couple blocks away from Al Manara square and almost literally across from the bus station, and it has the bar-none best views of any hostel we’ve been in throughout our travels. It’s also quiet, spacious, and has a full kitchen available, plus, a witty name if you’re up on West Bank political geography. We also learned some interesting details about things you just don’t hear about in Israel from unobtrusive books and postings around the hostel, like how only 17% of the water from the West Bank’s aquifers goes to Palestinians; the other 83% is pumped to Israel or directly to settlers.

practical stuff aside, back to family history

Modern Ramallah, I should note, is very different than the very small town that my mom described growing up in. Nonetheless, we were determined to find out what we could that might remotely be the same. The first thing we looked for were my family’s old houses–we had several landmarks to orient ourselves by, schools and churches and the like, and to look for pink stone, and so we headed into Ramallah’s Old City and started peering around. We did find many old houses amongst the newer apartment complexes, but there were a lot–we’re excited to go through with our relatives and see if any are recognizable, though. We did get glimpses of the hills around Ramallah as we explored, which was nice especially because it’s the first place that’s rivaled Sapa for such gorgeous valley vistas.

My favorite thing we found, though, was my family’s old church. The inside is gorgeous, albeit dark for photos, but filled with a icons, stained glass and a beautiful altar. Best of all, though, was that we were able to obtain a copy of my mom’s birth certificate, and get it certified by the priest! That felt like quite a coup, and helped us with our next attempt, which we’d been encouraged to do by our village co-workers…

…trying to find family connections amongst the people living in Ramallah. Although most people we encountered spoke English very well, it was still helpful to be able to show them the birth certificate. The attempt did lead us what felt like a bit of a wild goose chase, though, admittedly–for example, from a tourist information center to an electronic store to a pharmacy to an apartment where a woman who didn’t speak any English eventually called her son, wherein we eventually figured out that his great-grandfather might just maybe have been brothers with my great-grandfather. Well, it was amusing, at any rate.

shopping local

We found a couple great places to contribute to the local economy, also. Dar Zahran Heritage House is placed within the historic house of a mukhtar, or local leader. It has historic photos, rotating art by Palestinian artists, and a very affordable shop with jewelry, art, and more made by local artists. And: free Arabic coffee!

The other shop we actually just stumbled across during the aforementioned wild goose chase–Abood Food. It’s a small shop, but it has a fantastic selection of every sort of tea, jam, honey, olives, and other foodstuff we could think of, also all grown and harvested in the West Bank.

stuffing ourselves silly

If we’re honest, the main thing we really did besides looking up family history was, well, eating. And loving every bite–we went to a bakery by our hostel three times in two days, getting spinach pies and bread stuffed with grilled halloumi cheese and za’atar. And, we tried two different places for the famous Palestinian ice cream, which uses Arabic gum to create a unique, taffy-like texture (check out this NPR story on the one we preferred, Rukab’s). And then we went back to Rukab’s, because we liked it so much.

Also of note: the shawerma shop who’s name we’re not sure of, but it was the first shawerma I’ve had since the Lebanese restaurant that no longer exists at the University of Arizona more than ten years ago that I was actually excited about (so naturally, we went there twice). Bonnie tried falafel, which was quite different than the Israeli style in that the toppings were simpler and the falafel itself is shaped more like a log than a ball. We also tried Stars and Bucks which sounds as goofy as a Starbucks spoof can be, but it’s actually a pretty nice sit-down place for breakfast. At Ziryab, we enjoyed freekeh soup, fatoush salad, vegetarian fukhara and beer from Palestine’s only microbrewery, in a cozy, low-light and tapestries environment. During the day we were given free oranges at the market at the foot of the hostel’s building, and Bonnie picked up some sesame seeds in a small shop for mind-boggling prices; we also snagged some green almonds from a street vendor, just like my mom used to buy us at the Arabic store in Tucson! And, we were happy to discover La Vie Cafe, where they grow most of the food they make on their rooftop–we were able to enjoy limonana while sitting under the lemon tree they used to make it!

definitely visit Ramallah!

We certainly weren’t the only Westerners by any stretch–we saw plenty while walking around, even more than in many places we traveled in India–so don’t feel shy about heading there on that count. Ramallah is a bustling city with more good restaurants than we knew what to do with, great views, and very friendly people. Check it out!

Cooking where no one cooks – Part 1

Where are we now?

We’ve now been in Chiang Mai, Thailand for just over a month this time around. It’s a haven for digital nomad expats–apparently, there are 40,000 expats living in Chiang Mai, and walking around town, I believe it. Living expenses are very low, internet is fast and widely available, and there’s lots of fun stuff going on all the time.

Yes, we cook

For those who may be unfamiliar, food in Thailand (especially street food) is cheap, convenient and delicious. So understandably, people we talk to are constantly amazed that we actually cook here (though, admittedly, most of the people we talk to are expats). They’re even more amazed that we cook daily, usually at least 2 meals every day. When you talk to expats who live here about getting a place with a kitchen, most will say “don’t bother.” But I say otherwise. If you’re planning to stay for any length of time, get a kitchen–even a little counter space and a sink is sufficient, as you really don’t need more than that, and electric appliances are very affordable. (More detail on that in the next post)

Here are my reasons.

1.  It’s also inexpensive to buy and cook food at home

Even the Western-style grocery stores by us (Rimping and Tops) are cheap if you’re careful about what you buy. Interestingly, both Tops and Rimping are inside shopping malls, one very modern, and the other…well, let’s just say its heyday has passed. You can find basically any food item you could want from the Western world, but much of that category tends to be pretty expensive, so we’ve tried to stick mostly to what the locals might buy there.

But even better–there are tons of local markets all around. These markets can either be pop-up style like farmers’ markets back home, or they can be more established in an open-air, warehouse sort of building. The latter type might require a bit more courage, and ideally, an orientation from a local. You can find everything from a huge variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, to recently butchered meats, freshly made curry paste, coconut milk squeezed while you wait, flowers and candles for visiting temples, and much more. They’re great places to find just about anything you’d want, inexpensively.

Admittedly, we haven’t taken advantage of local markets as much as we’d like to, but we’re going to start. This morning we tried one that’s more of the farmers’ market kind, at Baan Kang Wat, and maybe it’s just getting started, but it was rather small. We did find some delicious jam and a woman who sells hummus, but sadly she ran out by the time we got there. Frank did get a delicious grilled cheese sandwich, and we shared some nice local kombucha. But just remember, don’t shake your kombucha. I turned it upside down a couple times just to try to mix it and managed to explode it somewhat. Oh well!

 

2.  You can control what goes into it

Since it seems like all the other expats eat out for every meal, I’ve heard complaints that restaurants use MSG, too much oil, and often that vegan/vegetarian food is not actually vegan/vegetarian. The reason for that last complaint is one that I’ve personally experienced. Many Thai cooks don’t realize that fish sauce and oyster sauce aren’t vegetarian by many people’s standards. They just think of the meat itself and not the sauces. Interestingly, though, sometimes if you order your meal vegetarian, they do often ask if you want egg. Coming from the US as a vegetarian, it’s interesting that here they would be more careful about eggs than about fish sauce or oyster sauce.

3.  You’re probably tired of eating out for every meal

As much as we love restaurants, after 4 months of travel through Vietnam, Thailand, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore, eating almost every single meal out, we were really getting tired of it. We absolutely love waking up, making some oatmeal, cutting up a bunch of fruit, making some tea, and relaxedly eating at home. This takes us maybe 5 minutes even when we’re not rushing. In the past, breakfast involved getting up and dressed, going out and often having to settle for something we didn’t actually want. If we were lucky we could find some kind of yogurt/fruit/muesli bowl, but that wasn’t always an option. Traditional Asian breakfasts are rarely vegetarian, and the “Western” alternative was often expensive and included some kind of unknown sausage, oily eggs and a couple pieces of white toast.

4.  It’s fun to use ingredients that you don’t have at home

Bird’s eye chilies, galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime zest, kaffir lime leaves, Thai ginseng, passion fruit, star fruit, soursop, dragonfruit, many varieties of bananas, longan, rambutan, mangosteen, etc., etc. The list goes on and on. You may be lucky enough to have an Asian market at home, but odds are, these ingredients will never be as fresh or as cheap as they are here. And do we really want to support the importing of foods from all the way across the globe? So use them now while they’re local.

5.  You can practice new skills

How many of us have a souvenir cookbook from a cooking class that’s just been sitting on a shelf? Use it! Another side benefit is that getting used to cooking in a tiny space will make anything back home seem luxurious.

In part 2, we’ll get down to the practical stuff.

 

Some more photos from Baan Kang Wat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos from a market we visited in Bangkok in June

Chiang Mai Highlights (So Far)

Ahhh, Chiang Mai, Thailand’s northern gem, aka one of our favorite places to have visited so far. Barring, you know, something exploding or the city flooding or the Burmese repeating one of their historical invasions of the region.

Speaking of history – see what I did there? – Chiang Mai was founded all the way back in 1296 as the capital of the Lanna Kingdom, which was an influential Buddhist kingdom in SE Asia for several centuries. Eventually it was subsumed into successive Thai kingdoms, but there are still markers of that ancient past visible even just walking around.

For one, the center of Chiang Mai is a pretty obvious big square ringed by a moat. This is the original city boundary (and the first actual moat I’ve ever seen – I very much get how daunting that would be to a medieval military, now), though modern Chiang Mai spreads a good way beyond it. There are only a few fragments of the city wall and gates left, but even in their crumbling state, there’s enough to help imagine the city as it might once have been.

Nowadays, Chiang Mai’s old city is full to the brim of vegetarian restaurants, guesthouses, cafes, shops and more temples than you can shake a stick at – seriously, it makes it sometimes pretty confusing to get directions: “No, you have to go to the next temple over.”

East side of the square: stick to that side.

It’s been the best side of the square we’ve seen so far. We stayed in a great little hotel, for example, Lantern House, that was right around the corner from a tiny restaurant, Hideout, where we had some mindblowing food. Followed by a house-made fudge brownie drizzled with orange-cardamom syrup, but seriously the sandwiches were delicious, too.

We went out with some folks from Lantern House (the usual international mix – this time it was English, American, German, and Canadian) to a cabaret show, which had some pretty great acts, including spot-on renditions of Rihanna and Tina Turner. As to the transgender/ladyboy/cross-dressing aspect, a few people from our group seemed extremely uncomfortable, which startled us – upon reflection, although we were impressed by this show, we realized our main reaction was to feel homesick for the burlesque and LGBT stuff we enjoy at home.

In any case, we ended the night at a nice little courtyard that had a different bar for every genre of music that one might dance to; our group picked Roots Rock Reggae and their killer live band. Man, reggae is just the best for a bar.

Center of the square: museums and temples.

Lots of temples. Lots and lots of them. All over the place. Yep. I’d love to wax on about how beautiful they are, and it’s nice to see such a concentration of quiet spirituality, but aside from one silver-plated building we saw south of the city, there isn’t a lot of variety in Buddhist temple design. They’re nice, though.

The museums we’ve checked out have been of varying quality. On the lower end of the scale is the Chiang Mai Historical Centre; it was a bit like a rundown, lackadaisical, smaller version of the amazing Museum of Siam in Bangkok. Bonnie’s favorite was the Lanna Folklife Museum – she thought it had a really nice variety of artifacts and great explanations of everything from the shape of traditional Lanna water-serving jugs to temple architecture to medieval mural painting techniques, traditional textile weaving, embroidery, and wood carving. My favorite by a nose was the Chiang Mai Arts and Cultural Center, purely on one count: it had miniatures to display the different ways people have lived in the region in centuries past. I love miniatures so hard.

South of the square: well, we did it again.

That is, we accidentally ended up staying in the middle of a Thai neighborhood where no one spoke any English, and it was prohibitively far from where we actually wanted to hang out. The Airbnb ad and reviews said it was a 10 minute walk to the old city, but it was more like at least 20, and that’s just to the edge of the old city–probably another 20 minutes to where you want to be. It did lead to the usual learning about local living just by observing as we walked around, though, and some funny experiences.

For example, I got a haircut for a little over a dollar, and it came with free mini-bananas, and about as much joking as we could all create with nominal language overlap. Also, we had more fun times with the pan-Asian cultural practice of the locals never saying “No” – ie, cab drivers saying they knew exactly where we were going. And then going the opposite direction. Then going the opposite direction again while spinning around a tourist map and looking perplexedly at our phone map. They may or may not have known how to read a map. It led to some pretty funny discussion between us about asking them next time to take us to “Funky Town” or “Paradise City” and see if they claim to know where those places are.

Anyway, while exploring the south side of the city, we did manage to have some interesting food. Namely, there was one vegetarian buffet – a very local sort of place. It took some doing to figure out how to get our food and where to wash our own dishes – that was simply one of the worst meals I’ve ever attempted to have. Seriously, I felt physical distress while trying to eat it – each new thing I sampled was almost painfully worse than the last; I think I know what it would feel like to be poisoned, now. Even the different drinks we got were so inexplicably smoky in flavor that we couldn’t take more than a couple sips.

On the other hand, Khun Churn, while a little out of the way, was one of the best buffets we’ve been to – it is all you can eat fresh vegetarian food with a beautiful salad bar, fresh fruit and coffee, and both cold and warm varieties of delicious breakfast and lunch options spread over two floors. Moreover, they had plenty of drinks that actually tasted good, like roselle, bael, and lemongrass. One of the very kind servers used “I’m sorry” when he probably meant “excuse me,” so we kept thinking we were doing something wrong each time he stopped by our table to see if we needed anything, which was often. According to the American ex-pat who gave us a little orientation when we first arrived, we just needed to remember that’s it’s all you can eat but only for 3 hours. He said he’d petitioned for them to extend it to 4 hours and to hang some hammocks outside so people could take a nap in the middle and then start again. Although his tone was extremely dry, we’re pretty sure he was joking…nice idea though!

One afternoon, as we started our trek back to our apartment, we decided to get takeout for dinner and luckily stumbled upon some delicious Indian food, Taj Mahal. While we waited for our food, we had a nice conversation with a British guy here on holiday and a very opinionated older ex-pat. When Bonnie asked where he was from, he said something like “I lived in Hawaii once.” She decided not to press further. We wonder if some of the older ex-pats are here trying to forget their past lives or something. Ooo! Maybe he used to be a gangster.

Also south of the square but this time very south of the square, we found a nice clinic that caters to English speakers. Although we had some confusion finding it initially (mostly because the name is so generic and Google was confused), we received great service. This was the second of our 3 rabies vaccination shots, which each cost about $25. In the US, we figured out that it would have cost over $800 for each of us, so we’d decided against it. We’re starting to think we should have gotten all of our vaccinations here in Thailand. Apparently, India still has quite a problem with rabies, so we decided to go ahead with the pre-exposure vaccination before going.

West side of the square: is…fine, I guess? The good stuff is far away?

Well, wait, let’s see. There’s Mixology, which was recommended to us by Jody – thanks Jody! – which had a unique burger with sticky rice instead of buns and a spicy ground pork patty, and a colorful tower of grilled veggies with pesto marinade for Bonnie. Then there were some lackluster attempts at breakfast and some interesting Chinese style buns…but then we tried Amrita Garden, a tiny restaurant run by an adorable Japanese family, which had tasty vegan food. But then we were really hungry again inside of half an hour.

There was also our favorite temple so far, Wat Suan Dok – it’s big and beautiful and has pristine white secondary mini-temple sort of things and a meditation retreat that we signed up for (the main reason we decided to stay in this part of the city). And, we ran into a sweet Spanish girl that we’d originally met in central Vietnam – small world! Sadly, she doesn’t use Facebook–maybe we’ll meet again someday anyway!

The trick with that temple is that it’s well outside of the old city square – and so is Ninah…Ninnyhamin…Nannahymar….that other neighborhood that’s west of the old city, that has a lot of expats and university students and feels like California. Nimmanhamein. We’re going to go back tomorrow, but let’s see, today we had:

• Loose leaf vanilla rooibos tea, a dark chocolate passion fruit shake, house-cured duck prosciutto crostini, and a huge open-face roasted pear, mushroom, and garlic-creamy spread sandwich at Rustic and Blue–delicious!
• A haircut for Bonnie; there are a lot of salons in that area. It turned out well enough, especially considering the lack of English. A picture of Anne Hathaway on the phone was helpful.
• An utterly gorgeous glass of butterfly pea tea, traditional Thai flower tea, spicy tofu and mushrooms, and a richly creamy Massaman curry at Anchan

Oh, also, the weather is pretty fantastic.

It’s much cooler up in the mountains than in the rest of Thailand’s tropical savannah, and so while we’ve been doing a ton of walking, it really hasn’t been as onerous as in other places. That said, it does rain a lot – almost every day – but rarely more than a light misting, and so it’s an easy fix to pause for a coffee and wait it out, or just toss a rain jacket in a backpack.

Quick post: a dash through Bangkok

Ant-Man!

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Minions!

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But remember to stand before the movie starts – respect the king!

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No seriously, it’s a thing – make sure to stand up for this when it plays after all the trailers and whatnot. Also, the theaters in Bangkok have assigned seats, and they don’t open the theater until the moment of the listed time for the movie. Plus! They have interesting popcorn flavors, like sweet cheese and strawberry.

 

Also, the Chatuchak Weekend Market sells plants during the week!

 

Weird fish ice cream!

 

Little Farm Friendly Project

No, that’s not a typo; at least, we don’t think, anyway – that’s how you look it up online. Here’s their website! Maybe it’s a translation thing? In any case, it’s a little farm-slash-animal sanctuary in Ratchaburi Province, about two hours by mini-bus west of Bangkok. Here are our in-no-particular-order notes from spending a week WWOOFing there!

• Our mini-bus was maybe two-thirds full when we left Bangkok, which seemed pleasant enough, but as soon as we allowed ourselves to feel comfortable with the idea that we’d have a little wiggle room, it stopped to let more people in, filling all but maybe one seat. Then a little while later, it made yet another stop to pick up people, letting on 3 or so more people. Basically it meant that a vehicle meant for 15 now contained 18 or 19, including children on parents’ laps. We somehow found ourselves crammed into the back corners, bags on our laps and with little AC, so fortunately, it wasn’t too long of a ride. From talking to others, apparently, this is a typical experience.
• We’d noticed this a little in Bangkok, but much more at the farm – trucks driving slowly by, blaring…something from massively loud PA systems. It could be anything from talk radio to advertisements to revolutionary propaganda, but we couldn’t read anything into their universally even, calm cadence.
• There is no such thing as an aesthetically pleasing farm animal noise. From the rusty, creaking-hinge of guinea hens to the drunken bellow of sheep, to the incessant cascades of strident and ear-piercing rooster crows (one of which sounded like a pubescent boy with a crack in its voice) and atonal honking of geese, the farm was just plain a loud place. Night was a little better, with just insects , geckos and the resonant chirp of Oriental magpie robins that lived in our porch (except for the 24/7 roosters, anyway), but the only truly silent time was in the middle of the day, when it was hottest and nothing moved at all. Except for the bugs trying to bite you, anyway.
• Most of our duties were of maintenance – sweeping shit, namely, from the pens of various animals: sheep and goats, chicken and guinea fowl, horse stalls, and a deer/rabbit/guinea pig area, 6:30 and 15:30, each day. We also cleared space among bamboo copses for a garden, though, and planted pumpkins, gourds, and corn.
• The first night we were there, the owner of the farm took us to a nearby Buddhist temple for a full moon ceremony. In some senses, this was a much more impressive and significant experience than even going to the massive Wat Pho in Bangkok – the temple was stunningly massive and beautiful for being practically out in the middle of nowhere, and to see and participate in the temple actually being used for religious services (as opposed to tourists walking around gawking) was hugely more engaging.
• Frogs seemed to live in the little out-house bathrooms, which honestly seemed to be kind of a toss-up for them as much as for us when the water would sometimes cut out in the middle of the day. But moisture or no, toilet paper rolls seem to make a good home for them. And boots, as Bonnie discovered when she found some under our hut that looked to be the right size.
• There were two kinds of chickens on the farm, interestingly – the penned ones that gave us eggs, which were pretty much similar to what we had in our backyard in Tucson, and an entirely different sort just running wild around the farm: much more feral, dinosaur-looking, and with legs for days…we figure they’re closer to what chickens looked like before they were domesticated. They also seem to roost in all sorts of places, including the outdoor kitchen.
• Two characters that were never penned up were Pumpkin the pig (lumbering, shy, curious, sweet), and the nameless pony who was just a complete jerk, stealing bras and bikini tops as they dried on porches, sneaking up behind us to try to nip us, and even kicking Bonnie at one point while she tried to prevent him from stealing a feed bag. (Fortunately, she wasn’t injured.)
• There were a couple failed ventures in our field trips; in one, the school we were supposed to teach English at was closed because the kids had gone to the temple to learn meditation. No big deal, but in the other, after an hour’s drive in the back of a pickup truck, the “hot springs” we were supposed to go to turned out to be kind of polluted stream and a few strange little pools that eventually filled up with hot water, but that we couldn’t really bring ourselves to use more than dipping our feet–they were just too hot. At least we got to see some monkeys and the local swarm of butterflies?
• The local market, where we often went to pick up dinner, was initially a little overwhelming because of the complete lack of any English, but we quickly got the hang of it. Most people were very friendly and could communicate with us via smiles, our few Thai phrases, and pointing, though there was this one startlingly angry old guy who tried a few times to get people to overcharge us. We tried all sorts of things, including: the infamous durian fruit (Frank had to spit it out, Bonnie was more contemplative), tiny crispy taco-shaped crepes filled with cream and candy, bigger fried coconut and black sesame tacos, fried mayonnaise and corn sandwiches, fishy green curries, red curries, mushroom soup, goopy fried coconut spheres, corn/potato spheres “like a hush puppy and a tatertot had a love child,” fried wedges of shredded vegetables with delicious sweet and spicy peanut dipping sauce, creamed corn drink (again, Frank had to spit it out, Bonnie was more contemplative), and mangosteen (….no way to describe the flavor, it’s unique, and delicious). We also found that many of the curries feature tiny, spherical green eggplants.
• We got around by packing into the farm owner’s motorbike-with-a-sidecart; we maxed out at seven people, but even with five it was relatively comfortable for short distances. Except for that time it was pouring driving rain and we were soaked to the bone, but that was fun in its own way. And speaking of motorbikes, we noticed that there seem to be some implied rules for them. The generally take the outer lane, allowing for larger vehicles to pass. Also, it seems ok (at least in rural areas) to drive the wrong direction on the road as long as you do it on the shoulder.

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Bangkok

Little bits from staying in a Thai neighborhood.

• Girls riding side-saddle on the backs of scooters and motorcycle taxis, even as they careen in and of traffic and on the sidewalk, practically calm enough to be doing their nails while barely hanging on; it’s like they have glue on their butts
• broken glass lining the walls of one house, though most just made do with tall security gates
• omnipresent tiny, incredibly ornate Buddhist shrines and displays for Thai royalty in seemingly random places, like street corners, backyards filled with junk, and alleys
• street food every block or so, sometimes five or six to a block, everything from spherical sausages to sliced fruit to, the most common weirdly enough, soups that are basically what we’d think of as Vietnamese pho with slightly different meats
• we got papaya and pomelo to have for breakfast from a late-night grocery, the pomelo being literally as big as my head and fragrant, though unfortunately dried out from not being watered enough

More on getting around.

Apparently some of the Thai taxi drivers rent out their cabs to Cambodian immigrants, which explains a lot about us getting into taxis and getting right back out when there is just no way to explain to them where we want to go, even when showing them an address and map in Thai. That said, it also seems like a lot of Thai taxi drivers just don’t know their way around really.

We tried taking a train into town, which has a plus of only being 8 baht (24 cents), but is kind of a trial, in walking a mile and a half to the station, waiting in baking heat, sitting on hard wooden seats, and with the train not really going fast enough to generate a breeze through the semi-open windows. We did get a kind of tour of canal-side slums mixed with sleek, gleaming new high-rises, though. We got the same views at night time in a marginally more comfortable (slightly padded seats) yet more expensive “express” train, but it was still just as slow as the prior one.

Tuk-tuks. “Open air taxis.” They can be negotiated down to a low price, but it’s even odds they might try to scam you into taking you to a friend’s place instead of where you actually want to go, so they can get a kickback. Also, while it feels like an amusement park ride, it’s hot, and you really don’t get much of a view of any sort if your head’s tall enough to fit under the awning. It’s worth trying at least once, I guess, or if the distance you have to go is less than the meter-drop for a taxi (35 baht).

The subway and elevated-rail give us the most control, along with air-conditioning, but they’re only useful if where we’re going is along the right route (and still require walking a good distance to and from the stations, anyway).

And boats! A “helpful” stranger (as Allison warned us, don’t trust anyone with good English who approaches you out of nowhere) directed us to a pier with a smarmy guy in a Hawaiian shirt who tried to convince us we didn’t want to go to a museum, we wanted to pay 20 dollars to put around the river for two hours. So, we laughed at him and pushed on through Chinatown till we found the actual pier we wanted, with a fast public boat-bus – I was glad I’d done my research and was happy to see the orange flag for only 15 baht (~50 cents)!

And, sightseeing.

Museum of Siam – this is actually one of my favorite museums now, I have to say, and not just because it’s free after 4pm. I think I learned more about Thailand’s history from this place than all of the articles I’d previously read put together, in truth. That heaping helping of information comes in everything from cutely animated interactive games, goofy and melodramatic historical reenactment videos, intricately carved miniatures, and even a game where you fire animated cannonballs at an advancing Burmese army by moving a real cannon.

Wat Pho – you get a free water bottle with your 100 baht ticket, which is nice, but other than that unless you have a guidebook you’re entirely on your own. Our Triposo Thailand app definitely came in handy here. There are fun, stone giants that were originally brought as ballast on Chinese ships that have all sorts of kooky expressions, some pretty massive temples that do glitter nicely with cut glass mosaics and gold, and the Reclining Buddha really is eye-poppingly huge. There are also really scrappy, hard-bitten cats everywhere.

Khao San Road – is a big, hot mess. From everything we’d read, we just had to see what it was like, although we knew we probably wouldn’t spend much time there. We did have a weird moment where we realized exactly how local we’d been for a few days, when we realized we were seeing other foreign people for the first time. Hot, sweaty, drunken, over-laden backpackers, specifically. It’s Vegas-bright and gaudy, with people trying to get your attention every five steps to buy dubious and cheap things, there are seedy bars and hostels on every inch of it, and the tuk-tuk drivers will try to extort you when you go to leave. But we did get some delicious banana pancakes (aka, fried crepes cut into a grid and drizzled with chocolate and condensed milk).

Soi Cowboy – an even hotter mess. So to speak. The glaringly-neon bright length of this short street is completely lined with go-go bars, each with their own stripclub-esque theme, and each with a gaggle of girls out front trying to get you to come inside. The fun part about that last bit, though, is that each gaggle has a different skimpy uniform, which just made me want to create a reboot of the cult classic The Warriors, with all of the themed gangs played by the Soi Cowboy girls.

A Few Pros and Cons and Options – Bangkok

Staying at an airport hotel.

Pros: It’s quick and convenient to get to by taxi, especially when you arrive on a delayed flight around midnight, as opposed to a forty minute taxi ride into the city. You get a room to yourself, with a king-size bed (albeit with a Thai-style flat, hard mattress) and a large shower, and time to decompress. Breakfast is only a few dollars, and there’s great wi-fi.

Cons: It feels a little silly to have to get yet more transportation into the city, and it is more expensive than a hostel (ours was $20 a night). It might have been easier to just go directly to downtown, but we really wanted that time to catch up to ourselves.

Getting into the city.

Option 1: just taking a taxi all the way to the city. A bit more expensive, but possibly faster and air-conditioned…but with a crapshoot as to whether you might get stuck in the infamous Bangkok traffic.

Option 2: a bit more convoluted. We took a taxi back to the airport, which yes, did feel a little silly, and then the rail-link into town. It was much cheaper, and the crowds aren’t as bad as most subways we’ve been in, and it looked like we dodged a lot of traffic.

Cell phone service and data.

Option 1: we got here being quite hopeful about our T-Mobile “free international data.” And it seemed to be working quite well near the airport – it even notified us that we’d have free texting! Buuuut, it’s terribly inconsistent away from that initial area, which is really quite frustrating when you suddenly find yourself unable to access maps or addresses sent to you by email in the middle of the chaotic jumble that is Bangkok. We did stumble across a few things, in that, though: a tiny Buddhist funeral procession that held us up, a tropical flora park entirely under a massive overpass, and a mall that was a mix of a warren of commodity-crowded hallways and dizzyingly high atriums within a tall narrow building.

Option 2: Get a dang Thai SIM card. We could have probably done that at the airport. Oops. Instead, we got it in the aforementioned mall, with no English-speakers remotely in sight for a good while (except for a very friendly and helpful random neighbor at the slushie stand we happened to be sitting at, thankfully). For about $15 total, we’ve got a gig and a half to work with, for when our T-Mobile isn’t working. So far, it seems very good, and it includes access to a bunch of wi-fi hotspots around the city.

Couchsurfing.

That data allowed us to finally start to get back on track to getting to our Couchsurfing host for the night, a British expat who lives a fair distance north of Bangkok proper and works at an international school nearby.

Pros: It’s interesting to see how people in Bangkok really live, with close, narrow streets that jumble together industrial and commercial and food stands and motorcycle shops. We got a nice room and another king-size, hard/flat bed and shower to ourselves, and a host that’s easy to communicate with.

Cons: It was a challenging adventure just to get to it, even when we finally got an address to give to a cab-driver, who was obviously challenged himself in trying to find it. Of course, there’s apparently a hugely easier train service to this area, but there wasn’t really any way for us to know that; womp, womp. But we can use that now, at any rate.

This Round the World Traveler Spent Hours Reading Articles…What She Found Will Blow Your Mind!

Ok, so I read way too many other people’s articles containing suggestions for the best travel apps, and I’ve really had my fill of internet hyperbole. I decided that an article titled Here Are Some Travel Apps I Liked, and You Might Like Them Too would be far more persuasive for me than those that I found, the worst of which was The 26 Travel Apps That Will Change Your Life, especially because included in that were Kayak, Yelp, The Weather Channel and at least one that is now defunct (sadly, it did sound pretty cool). Aside from the fact that this website tends to cater to let’s just say…those with a bit more money than us, and almost all suggested apps cost money…I just really felt like I needed to write my own article on this topic because many of the others just don’t apply to our type of travel.

Since I haven’t had the chance to try these out yet, this is just a list of the apps I’d like to try. I’ll report back at some point when there’s something to report. Also, I should mention that we have an Android phone, so these are only apps that are available in that format.

 

City Guides

Especially because our plans involve some more out of the way kinds of places, I think we’re still going to opt for a traditional paper guidebook, but here are a few apps that might come in handy while we’re exploring big cities.

 

Stay.com City Guides and Offline Maps

Create a personalized travel guide, use input from friends and share it with others. I like that it’s available offline too. This one seems best for advance planning.

 

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Trip Advisor City Guides

This one seems to be the most like a traditional guidebook, and most other authors liked this one best among city guide apps.

 

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Triposo World Travel Guide

This looks similar to Stay.com, but it seems to be designed more as a plan-as-you-go guide. It uses GPS to track your movements, which could be cool, but I imagine it would eat up battery life.

 

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TouristEye Travel Guide

Although this one wasn’t mentioned as often as some of the others, it looks decent. It’s also now associated with Lonely Planet, so I’m inclined to try it out.

 

 

Travel Organizing

TripIt Travel Organizer

This wasn’t the kind of thing I originally thought I needed, but people seem to love it, and it has a snazzy video, so why not try it out? It organizes all of your travel information and allows you to easily share it with others.

 

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Local Food Finder

Foodspotting Local Food Finder

I certainly like the concept of this, but it gets mixed reviews. I’ll be interested to see if it’s useful to us. I read in another article that it’s for finding local, independent food, and specific items, but it appears as though it’s more of a visual guide.

 

Hotel and Flight Planning

Hipmunk Hotel and Flight Planning

I’ve had lots of luck in the past using Kayak and Skyscanner, but I’m interested to try this app. Several people recommended it, it seems to have really nice graphics and looks easy to use.

 

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Utilities

Wi-Fi Finder

This is another app with mixed reviews, but the concept seems like it will be super helpful. You can search for public wi-fi that’s available within your area. It also allows you to download and save a database for use offline.

 

 

Global Tipping Guide

 I definitely plan to research cultural norms of tipping before arriving somewhere, but it might be nice to have some help on the spot. There was another tip calculator that looks like it might be a little better, but it’s only available for iPhone.

 

Translation

Google Translate

This one is pretty obvious, but I’m only including it because they recently acquired another app called Word Lens, which will do image translation (sadly not in any Southeastern Asian language yet). It also now has Conversation Mode.

 

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Maps and Directions

Aside from the obvious, Google Maps, other authors recommended some more specialized mapping apps. It’ll be interesting to see how they compare to Google Maps, which seems to try to be everything to everyone. And I wonder how well they’ll work internationally.

Transit App: Metro, Bus, Bike

When I was in college and before Google Maps had the monopoly on this type of thing, I used Hopstop to plan public transportation. It doesn’t seem to be a big player anymore, so it’ll be interesting to see how this one compares.

 

AllTrails – Hiking & Biking

Use this app to find trails, read/write reviews, and share them with others. Maps can be downloaded for offline use. I guess it works with Samsung Gear Fit, if you’re into that kind of thing.

 

Travel Journals

This is actually what I was first looking for when I started this research. Here are a couple travel documentation apps that I’d like to try.

Travel Diary

​I’ve looked through several, and this seems like the best one and is free. Many of the reviews say that if they add map integration it would be perfect, and it says in the notes that they’re planning to do just that. Other travel journal apps don’t seem to let you add your own existing photos or add photos later with a different camera, but this one seems to let you. I’ll report back on the ease of this.

 

Trip Journal

This one looks interesting and it won some awards, but the reviews are somewhat mixed. It also costs money, so I’ll probably just stick with the first one if I like it.

 

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Others

Entrain Jetlag Prevention

This one was developed by sleep researchers at the University of Michigan. I’m not totally sold on the idea of it, but it’s worth a shot.

 

PackPoint Travel Packing List

Having a fairly minimalist mentality when it comes to packing for travel, I’m pretty skeptical of this, but I’ll give it a try! In this app you select options for gender, trip type, activities, length, etc., and it offers a suggested packing list. You can then modify as necessary.

 

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#datenight: Genesis Dance Project

Bonnie sure knows how to treat me like a lady! She was opening the car door for me and everything! On our romantic date night, that is. Which she was sweet enough to set out to take me on. Thanks Bonnie! Of course, it also afforded us an opportunity to get to explore new places, which is the best kind of date.

Dinner, with side dishes.

Korean-style side dishes, that is. Korean food always provided a smorgasbord of salty snacks, and Red Kimchi in Scottsdale is no exception. In this particular iteration, while there were less than the last time we wrote about Korean food, they were actually must tastier – especially some yellow slices we think were turnips, and a green leafy vegetable in rice wine.

The service was good, the booths were velvety, and there was even an Ingress portal basically inside the restaurant. Also: we got to try dunggulle tea, and now we want to get some for home. *we have no idea how to actually pronounce it

Dance, with weirdness.

photo from Desert Dance Theatre

The main event was at the Tempe Center for the Arts, a veritable temple of arts and culture, surrounded (as we figured out in accidentally walking all the way around it) with really interesting fountains, pools, and even fire and mirror-based sculpture. We got there early, and so spent a little extra time strolling along the Salt River and Tempe’s gorgeously lit bridges.

Now, up until that point I had no idea what we had traveled there for; even when Bonnie handed me the tickets, I still had no clue. I was just like Lex Luthor inhabiting the Flash’s body:

I soon came to understand, however, that Genesis Dance Project was to be a showcase of both upcoming and established professional dancers across a diverse range of styles. It was right up my alley – Bonnie really does know me well!

The dancers really were fantastic all the way across the board, though there was something of a split between two general conditions. On one side were the perhaps more conventional, but gorgeous and impressive, like:

• a solo guy doing some athletically robot and acrobatic stuff to Imagine Dragon’s Radioactive along with dramatic, Carvaggio-like shifts in lighting
• a really impressive high school group that also used lighting to astounding effect along with one of my all-time favorite songs, Samuel Barber’s Agnus Dei, beginning with tiny stars cupped in their hands in the dark, crescendoing to brilliant light, and returning to quiet shadow
• graceful traditional ballet and flamenco

On the other side were dancers that were obviously skilled, and obviously had a message, but my eyebrow was raised so hard over time that it actually became sore, including:

• two dancers dressed like male and female Hitlers, doing a not-quite-explainable comedic routine
• a woman acting as if dancing movements were trying to burst from her body without her volition, but they never quite burst free to our frustration (maybe that was part of the meaning, though?)
• what seemed to be performance art involving recycled objects like a shop sink, toilet seat hat, and a tea kettle, creating never-quite-rhythmic percussion and with spoken-word non-sequiturs

We really, very much enjoyed the parts that we could best liken to So You Think You Can Dance, and did our best to appreciate the more post-modern offerings. I think we found them a little opaque, in the end, but perhaps we just need better dance education. It was a great time overall, though, even in being perplexed!

And, the last course: dessert. Of course.

Mill Ave, which Bonnie pointed out is kind of like 4th Ave in Tucson in a sense but a bit douchier, wasn’t too far away, so we popped over for some ice cream at Sparky’s. You can really tell that their ice cream is house made – it’s very soft and creamy. Their amaretto blackberry sorbet and dark chocolate raspberry habanero were both very good, but in the end we just went with old, delicious standbys: coffee and double-fudge.

tl:dr, Thank you Bonnie for the romantic, adventurous date! And for showing me that chivalry is indeed not dead!

Our Friends Are Awesome At Things

Overworked fatigued dehydrated slightly inebriated teenagers operating heavy industrial equipment.

Of course, we don’t use this to refer to Kevin and his fellow rangers, but the above is entirely accurate to the people who worked once upon a colonial-days time at the Saugus Iron Works. Which, of course, we learned during Kevin’s tour of the same, which he manfully did in a chilly, nor’easter super-drizzle in little more than his uncannily XCOM-like sweater. This being one of the best tours we’ve been in on in all our travels (they really seem to just come from our friends), we learned a great deal, including but not limited to:

• This seems to make so much sense now, but the Puritans weren’t by themselves in their colony – hence, some of their fire and brimstone speeches weren’t really directed at wayward fundies like themselves, but rather at lecherous laborers and poor basically-enslaved Scottish POWs from the English Civil War. So, interesting to find out the colonies were more heterogeneous than we thought, but yeesh, fundies, right?
• We also learned all about how an iron works actually works – it was startling to see such engineering before the Industrial Revolution, and we even got to see the waterwheels, massive and loud trip-hammer, bellows, in working action. No blacksmithing, alas, though check out this video (Kevin incidentally admins the facebook site and does videos and such, as well).
• Apparently, the dissolution of the Saugus iron works (thanks to, of course, terrible and corrupt management) led to the later prosperity of the colonies – while the workers had incredible technical knowledge for the time, they also had non-compete contracts….until the iron works completely imploded due to legal issues, and they couldn’t pay workers. No more non-compete contract meant they could spread their iron work-y knowledge throughout the eastern seaboard, ramping up economies as they went. #historicalnexus

Long and short of it, it was fun to finally see Kevin doing well in his element (and in the elements, no less!)

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