Expatriate Escapades

Melbourne continued - an amazing night is born

2009-11-30T08:44:00.001-08:00

After a few restless hours of attempting to sleep in the noisiest dorm room ever, the club downstairs finally calmed down. Which allowed me to calm down.

Just as I was really feeling settled, these two sleazy bitches come rolling in, all noisy-like. And turn on the lights. And heat. Which was totally unnecessary. And positioned RIGHT above my bed.

I obviously wasn’t having and of that. And made sure they knew it.

I sat up, glared, and said “Turn it off. Please.”

“But we’re cold!”

“Then get under the covers.”

Total karma for the fan wars in Cairns. Seriously.

In any case, I got up at a decent hour and got myself to a café down the street for some brekkie. Met some blokes who lured me in with promises of dj friends who worked at local bars. I made the mistake of texting the one guy, who proceeded to leave 30 missed calls on my phone when I was out that night.

Ugh. Who does that? I met you at a café and said I MIGHT stop in. Get over it.

He continued to stalk me for 2 weeks, while he visited Sydney. One of my kids – the 12 y/o with the deep voice – answered it for me. Ha.

So I got breakfast, browsed the tourist materials and booked a tour on the Great Ocean Road for the following day. Finally, around noon, I headed out of my ‘hood – St. Kilda – and into Melbourne proper.

It’s a really gorgeous city, perfect for strolling, browsing and otherwise spending a lazy day. I, of course, skipped all of this at first and headed straight to the hugest open-air market ever. And got talked into buying a gorgeous leather jacket that I didn’t need at all but loved just the same. Had cake for lunch. It was all very awesome.

In the late afternoon, after some more strolling through pretty arcades and city streets, I wandered up to the ticket office for the Melbourne arts festival that was opening that very day. I asked about tickets for that night and possible student pricing.

Would you know it, they had a single seat left at student pricing for the opening of this abstract opera-dance-thing.

Awesome. I felt so artsy and cool.
As I stood at the tram stop waiting to get back to the hostel, it started sprinkling. Then pouring. And then pelting sideways. So much so that I was soaked from the waist down, even though I was standing under an awning.

It was so bad that I looked at the guy next to me, and we both just started cracking up. It was that kind of craziness.

After primping and opera time, I headed back on the same tram line. I took a seat next to a couple of girls who looked like they had been throwing them back since after work. They continued to sip out of a wine bottle – classily enclosed in a paper bag – for the entire ride.

As we rode, all of this random ass shit started to happen. The tram driver, I soon realized, was making super rude, hilarious commentary over the microphone. And the more material the riders provided, the better he got.

First, these preteen boys got on the tram and sat next to us. One of them asked the girls to hand him a ticket on the floor. A ticket that was obviously used up, as it had clearly been stamped with a big expired sign.

When you get on the tram, you are supposed to scan your ticket, and the machine stamps and returns it. If the ticket is expired, it spits out really fast and beeps loudly to get the driver’s attention.

So what does this kid do? Shove the expired ticket in the machine. Again. And again. And again. Because he thinks that beeping sound is funny.

OMG kid.

After about 20 hits, the tram driver gets on the system. “Hey kid. Why don’t you try one more time. It might work now.”

Silence. And then outbursts of laughter all around me.

Poor kid.

Next, these 3 guys get on and have to stand. Right above us. And they are all wearing jeans with red-ish tees.

They start to talk to us, go on about how they are master chefs at some restaurant and otherwise slur some compliment attempts in a thick Scottish accent. They put together that the three of us are friends from Europe or something. Which, given the fact that we just met and none of us are European, is clearly not the case. But he was very drunk and could not be convinced otherwise.

After a few more minutes of dodging his awkard, drunken, Scottish attempts at getting laid, the tram driver comes on again.

“I bet the gentlemen in red are currently figuring out that they might do better with the ladies if they dressed a bit better.”

More silence. And then the three of us girls started hyperventilating in unison.

The red dudes all of sudden were at their stop.

As we pulled up to the girls’ stop, they asked me what I was doing and if I wanted to join them for a drink. They were going to this great live music joint near my hostel that I wanted to check out anyways.

Yes, please.

We said our thanks to the tram driver, made introductions and entered The Espie. Properly known as the Esplanade Hotel.

And that was how a great night was born.

Arrival in Melbourne. The Last Hoorah.

2009-11-04T01:02:00.001-08:00

For my last hoorah adventure in Australia before heading back to the States, I decided to take a long weekend in Melbourne. Which is the other big city in Oz.

Essentially, I will use the LA vs. SanFran example again. Or LA vs. NYC. Melbourne has shitty weather, but more awesome and attractive people.

Like NYC. Clearly.

Here's a map to help you out.

For those who don't know, Canberra is the capital of Australia. Why? Because Melbourne and Sydney both wanted to be the capital. And no one could agree. So they created a little district in the space between them and called it the capital.

Very interesting, I know.

So, yes, I went to Melbourne. Alone. Awesome.

I booked myself into a "VIP" style all-girls dorm that I found in my Lonely Planet. With the hopes of not finding any more condom wrappers in my bed.

My flight arrived pretty late in the evening - like, 11 - but I figured it wouldn't be that bad. What I didn’t realize is that my flight landed in the oldest, shittiest airport ever, super far away from the city. Not the new Melbourne airport.

So I had to take an hour bus ride to get there - then a tram to my neighborhood - and then stumble around in the dark to find my hostel. At 1am. Alone. In a city I've never scene. With luggage.

After stealing a tram ride because I can't figure out the machine on the bus and successfully avoiding arrest, I wandered around this really cute little area with a bunch of drunk people passing by me. Fun scene, so it wasn't too bad. Just effing cold.

I realize I'm getting super close to where my place should be, but I don't see it anywhere. There's a HUGE line of people waiting to get into a bar down the road a bit, so I walk up to ask for help. I know this hostel is huge – someone will know it, right?

Oop, wait. This is my hostel. I'm sleeping in the only crowded bar in the neighborhood.

I had to show my bags and irritation to the bouncer to cut the line and get through the front door.

As the clerk checked me in, I just kept screaming “WHAAAT!?!?” until he gave up, threw me the key and said goodnight.

At this point it’s 1 in the morning. Everyone in the place is a 19-year-old backpacker who’s been drunk for at least 6 hours. I tried to socialize - everyone was veeerrry friendly - but quickly went old-lady style and went to bed.

My mother would be ashamed. And so would Ufer.

I did better the next night. Stay tuned.

Oh, and there were no condom wrappers. Just nice little bottles of Aveda shampoo.

Score.

Birthdays all around

2009-10-24T04:05:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, THANKS to everyone for the birthday wishes. Via gmail, facebook and traditional Hallmark greeting, I have enjoyed all the love.

24 is kinda a lame age, but you know. It's cool.

What's WAY cooler is a 1st birthday. On October 21, ExpatEscapades celebrated its first year of life!!! Yay. Which means, over a year ago, I landed in Bangkok.

Damn.

My mom celebrated her birthday on the 21st too. But I'm not allowed to tell you how many candles she got.

Thanks for virtually hanging out with me for the most amazing year of my life. Hope it's been entertaining.

Cause, let's be real. It's all downhill from here ... ;)

Singapore – where lashing WORKS!

2009-10-20T02:28:00.000-07:00

As we all learned on GLEE a few weeks ago, Singapore is a very very safe, clean country. Because they lash people there. And it works.

Singapore is also the end of the line for the Asian blog chapters. I know, it only took me 6 months to finish.

So, yes. From Malaysia we caught another night train to Singapore, a gorgeous island country that is basically a little Australia in a lot of ways. Nicer, even.

The official language is English, which caught me by surprise. Traffic laws are obeyed, there’s no trash on the ground. People are courteous and have very Western-like mannerisms. But everyone is Asian … crazy. I know.

Due to a serious decrease in the value of the American dollar, Singapore was by far the most expensive country we visited. It took us a while to find a place, which ended up being a bare - but clean - room above a bar. Which, I recently learned, was a rip-off of another bar in Melbourne. But that’s beside the point.

It was a really quick trip – 2 or 3 days – that we filled with museums, culture centers, etc. One night we made the awesome decision to visit the night safari, which is basically a zoo of nighttime animals.

Awesome.

Oh, and proof that ligers DO exist!

Most of the place was meant to be explored on this little tram thingy, but we did a lot on foot first. There was this little bridge over a pond at the end of one stretch. It didn’t look like there were any animals around, except for this little deer the size of a chihuahua. Weird.

As we sat there and watched this little deer-rat, backs to the pond, we heard a loud POP. All of a sudden, 5 of THESE bitches surfaced only a few feet away from us.

Apparently, they are called gharials. And they are scary.

Creepy. Seriously. Remember, it was dark, and we were there kinda late.

Then they sank away without a sound. And then resurfaced. And went back down. In sync.

I think they wanted to eat Adam.

Either way, it was nightmare material.

Other than that, we explored Singapore in the same manner as the rest of the trip.

We drank, we walked, we drank.

Oh, and we rode this CRAZY ASS slingshot ride on the main drag, which is called Clarks Quay. Pronounced "key."

They had a video thing on you the entire time you were on the ride, including the few minutes before the launch. Then, when you got off, you got to watch the video of your ride (with the option to buy).

Of course, I was a SERIOUS potty mouth the ENTIRE time. Especially at the end, when we were dangling in the air and I figured no one could hear us. Adult rides are meant for adult language, right?

When we got down, they played our video. On the big screen, with surround sound. In front of a line of 30 people, including some young children.

I’ve never been so embarrassed in my entire life.

That might be an exaggeration, but still.

Oh, and I decided at noon one day that I wanted to pierce my nose. By 3pm, I was sporting a stud.

Unfortunately, said nose ring recently fell out during one of my drunken escapades. It closed overnight.

Bummer, dude.

After that, we headed back to BKK. Adam hitched a ride back to MI, I meditated for a few days, and eventually, landed in Oz.

You know what happened after that ;)

Some flava

2009-10-07T20:14:00.000-07:00

I'm an awesome nanny, and I've started baking once in a while. Good for the kids, bad for my waistline. Blah blah.

I couldn't find my grandma's banana bread recipe. So I did a little searchy-searchy online.

Apparently, there is a whole website dedicated to banana bread recipes alone

Not only did the site have great recipes. It also had comments from fellow bakers - including this little gem from Barbara Louis Underwater:

"Here in the south, people are getting a little chubby so I needed a healthy banana bread recipe to serve at my get-togethers to give my guests some flava. but after hearing that my best friend paula broke her scale the other day, i knew i couldn't use my butta flavad crisco recipe nomore. thanks banana bread recipes!"

Amen, sister. Thanks banana bread recipes!

Chicken vs. fish. Cairns, part 2.

2009-09-29T02:53:00.000-07:00

After the waterfall extravaganza, Team America took a day to relax and enjoy the beaches of Cairns. Not that Cairns really has beaches – but, you know, the neighboring town does. The actual coast of Cairns is covered in clayish mud instead of sand. Not exactly sunbathing material.

Trinity Beach, however, was sunbathing material. And looked like it could be a topless beach, judging from the girls around us. So, for a brief moment, just to make Amanda uncomfortable, I went topless as well.

But then I stopped, because I didn’t want to get arrested.

This kinda became a theme of the trip. Getting naked to make Schrama uncomfortable. I think at one point I got up on her without pants on or something.

I didn’t care, but she totally did.

I would have done it to Cait, but she didn’t care either. “Whatever, man.”

In any case, we enjoyed a beautiful afternoon, during which we ran into one of our touring English friends from the day before. She asked Caitlin how her date went, referring to the American guy with the crazy friend that she knew from Sydney, and again from the bar in Cairns.

How did this lady know that Caitlin was going to see this guy again? Oh, because Cait told the whole damn bus how great this guy was in bed. And how excited she was to see him again.

1 more point for Team America.

After a bus ride back to the hostel with the most annoying southern ladies with the grossest hackers cough voices ever, we showered up and headed out for a fancy coastal dinner. With wine and appetizers and everything.

The whole specials menu sounded great, and seemed kinda cheap. There was one dish I didn’t quite recognize.

“Umm, maam’, which is your favorite fish? And what do you think of this one on the specials menu?”

“That’s not a fish. That’s chicken.”

Priceless.

After dinner, and half a bottle of wine to myself, we walked back towards the hostel, gelato on the brain. Some Aussie dudes walk by and compliment me on my dress.

“That is gorgeous on you. Great color.”

“Thanks. I don’t suppose my tits hanging out is what caught your attention?”

“Umm, wait, lemme see?”

As I turned my head to follow up on my sassy-ass comment, my body continued on without me. Before I could throw another zing out, I ran into innocent little Caitlin. We both nearly fell over.

It was super smooth and cool.

We got awesome gelato and headed home.

End day 3.

Just an afternoon in the office

2009-09-28T22:52:00.000-07:00

While sitting, drinking tea, watching kids eat afternoon snack. Talking with my 2 middle boys, 6 and 10 years old.

6y/o - (Getting up from table after finishing sandwich) "I don't have hiccups anymore I think I'll have one of those nut bars my penis hurts."

Me - "Drink some water anyways ... Wait, what did you just say?"

6 y/o - "I think I'll have a nut bar."

Me - "Before that."

10 y/o - "His penis hurts."

6 y/o - "Yeah, it stings a little."

Me - "Umm, that's not good."

10 y/o -"It's from playing with it too much. (pause) It happens to me sometimes too."

There are three drunk Americans on this bus … in Cairns

2009-09-28T21:42:00.000-07:00

As I may have mentioned in a previous post, there was a serious outbreak of swine flu in Australia a few months back. As I prepped for my return to the States, it was decided that I should plan to stay away from the kids for my first week back in Oz. In case I was carrying pig sickness.

When the time came, it seemed like this was unnecessary and I could go straight back to work after 4 weeks off. Buuut, I already had a ticket to the Great Barrier Reef. Oh well.

Thanks to a delayed flight to LA from Detroit … and an even longer delay in LA to Sydney … I wasn’t even in Australia for 24 hours before getting on an early ass plane to Cairns. I met Schrama and Ufer in the airport around 5:30am or some shit. By 10am we were in Cairns, ready for trouble.

We checked into the hostel, got our keys and went to the room. And were met by a terrible drunk boy stench and some near-dead kids in a couple of dorm beds.

Three hours later, we returned to find them in the same exact state. As we quietly went about unpacking, I discovered a condom wrapper in my “clean” bed, wrapped in my “new” yet crumpled sheets.

No discussion necessary. In a blink of an eye we packed again, and were quickly moved into a girls only dorm on the other side of the building.

Ahh. Much better.

Our roommate was still weird, and woke up really early, and insisted on turning the fan off in the middle of the night and closing the door so I woke up sweating and annoyed. But at least she didn’t smell bad or have sex in my bed. That I know of.

I don’t think she thought much of us either. She told Schrama on our first day that she was staying a while. Then quietly slipped off at the crack of dawn on our second night.

Whatevs. We basically had the place to ourselves the rest of the time.

During our first day in we booked a couple of great tours. One was the obligatory snorkeling and diving on the reef. The second was a totally random tablelands trip that the girls had heard of in Sydney.

On day 2 we woke early in anticipation of our waterfall adventure. After watching many well-maintained tour buses drive by our place, we were a little worried we’d been left behind.

A few minutes later a raggedy-old hippie looking minivan pulls up, and out hops our crazy dreadlock-and-Thai-fisherman-pants-sporting Kiwi tour guide.

In case you don’t know, Kiwi means from New Zealand.

“Those are some nice teeth,” he says to Amanda. “Where you guys from?”

“Umm, thanks. The States.”

“How you guys feeling this morning?”

“We’re great, but the one with the teeth was out late last night. With an Aussie. She’s struggling.”

“Watch out everyone. We’ve got Americans.”

And that’s how the day started. And Team America was born.

We quickly made friends with our Kiwi guide. He was married the week before, to a Welsh girl who gave him a threesome for their 3-week dating anniversary. That’s when he knew she was the one.

He had everyone do a roll call as we drove to the tablelands, so we could get to know each other. Key points included country of origin, relationship status and whether you fold or scrunch your toilet paper.

I’m gonna propose that as an addition to the Facebook basic info page.

I said “depends on the job.” For the record.

We went to three sites throughout the day, for swimming/hiking/generally getting into trouble. At the first stop we had breakfast and the Kiwi taught me how to squeeze the butts off of green ants and eat them.

Tastes like lemon.

After dominating the natural waterslide and busting up both of my knees on boulders, we went to lunch. Seeing as we were so entertaining sober, our guide decided to buy us tequila shots to see what other stupid shit we would say.

I was instantly drunk. So I ordered soco and lime shots all around. And a beer.

And then I was wasted. “Whatever we do guys, do NOT let me swim.”

You guys are terrible friends.

As we boarded the bus again, our guide informed us of our next stop. “Oh, and you guys, there are 3 drunk Americans on this bus. I’m not gonna name names …”

As we pulled out, the super nice bar lady comes running out the door holding a purse. “It’s gotta belong to someone on Team America,” replies the Kiwi.

“LISA!”

“Aw, shit guys. Thanks. Seriously, I’m not allowed to swim”

Twenty minutes later I was swimming again, this time in the COLDEST effing water ever, into a fairly strong waterfall current.

I wasn’t going to go in, but, you know. It’s easy to convince me.

Sydney and I decided to swim for it. Her name wasn’t Sydney, but I bet you can guess where she was from.

Schrama went in, and Caitlin was forced in. As you’ll see in the video below. I drunkenly escaped, but went back in later.

You notice in this little clip that there’s a creepy old dude taking pictures. Before we got in the water, he tried to get us girls to pose for a bikini picture. He even offered some monies. We politely declined.

Apparently, that didn’t stop him.

No one noticed this happening at the time. It was only later, on the bus, that the evidence was discovered.

After swimming we went to the cheese and chocolate factory, where Caitlin and I drunkenly gorged ourselves on cheese and crackers. And felt immediately ill.

Last stop was a gorgeous lake that I didn’t catch on film. It was quiet, and warm, and I peed in it.

After a late drive back, we grabbed some dinner, and Schrama cashed early. Caitlin and I went out to meet some friends of hers from Sydney.

These guys had hit on the girls on a ferry in Sydney, and I hear that the whole day was a blast. Caitlin and her dude ended up having a good time, but Schrama’s man turned out to be crazy. I wasn’t sure I believed her story, and I was willing to give homeboy a second chance.

I gave it the old college try, for Caitlin’s sake. I couldn’t let her show up at the bar alone.

5 minutes in, and he was going on and on and on about how Schrama had broken his heart … after knowing her for 15 hours. 10 minutes after that, he was yelling at me – literally – for liking tequila.

I smiled knowingly at Cait, said my goodbyes, and walked home.

And that was our first full day in Cairns.

I’ll think I’ll make this a 2-parter. Or maybe 3. I think that would be fitting …

Lisa’s triumphant return. For reals this time.

2009-09-15T04:44:00.000-07:00

Yup yup, she’s doing it again. Sadly, a month earlier than planned.

Due to unexpected (and unethical) increases in airfare during the month of December, I will be returning to the States in November. November 18, to be specific.

This time will be “for good.” Or, until I get restless again.

Want to see more of me? Find me a job and an apartment, and I’m there.

Seriously. Anywhere. Gimme.

This will also mean that Expat Escapades will have to retire. I’m considering throwing a retirement party.

People bring presents to retirement parties, right?

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Home to the world’s most memorable cab drivers.

2009-09-15T03:39:00.000-07:00

After the successful bus rundown we boarded a night train to KL. Despite a few mishaps, this proved to be the most comfortable mode of transportation in SE Asia. Besides flying.

Following a restless night of yelling at people to close the goddamn door because they were too dumb to push the freakin’ automatic close button, I finally managed to get some shut eye. Probably around 3am.

At 4:30 we awoke to pounding on the windows and yelling in our ears.

Time to get off the train.

In the mad dash we managed to loose the stupid bag thing I had strapped to the outside of my pack. Key items included my running shoes and the underwater camera from Phi Phi.

Sadpants.

Once into town we went on a crazy search for accommodation. Things were quite pricey here, in comparison to Thailand.

After we settled in and took a nap, we started a 3 day stint in the city.

It was raining a lot, putting a damper on the trip.

Pun.

We took a stroll around Chinatown, which looked like every other Chinatown I've ever seen anywhere else in the world.

Adam tricked me into getting under a huge gutter stream with an umbrella. And then made me think he was taking a picture and not a video.

Ass.

As a result of the rain, we ate a lot. Because the cheapest (and best) food was in the tents, which also happened to be the best place to hang out in a rainstorm.

I think we had 6 meals one day. And waaaaay too much Indian food the whole time we were there.

We also got a bit daring on day one and got fish pedicures. They have them in the States too, but I’ve never seen them.

Basically, you stick your feet in a big fish tank, and the fish eat the dead skin off.

Yup, it’s as gross and uncomfortable as it sounds.

Not painful. Just ticklish and weird and wrong. But fun. I wouldn’t make it a habit, but they sure did get the job done.

Besides rain and Indian food, this city had a pretty great bird park. The world’s largest covered bird park, or something. I don’t remember what it is officially.

Unofficially, this city has the world’s most memorable cab drivers.

They had them all. Politicos spewing on about Hindu/Muslim racism, uber helpful guides, and the asshole who tried to make us think he was doing us a favor by driving us around. Like it wasn’t his job and we weren’t paying him.

But the BEST was the karaoke guy.

He had karaoke. In the car. Screen (with lyrics) was located on the inside of his passenger sun-visor-flap-thing. Microphone was plugged into the dash.

He expertly navigated traffic and carried a karaoke turn without skipping a beat.

As a pop culture blogger would say – AMAZEBALLS.

Even if he DID take us to the wrong museum. It was worth it.

We hit up the bird park, like I said. It rained, per usual. But I had fun, chased some birds, and fed a few. They scared me.

The icon of KL is (are?) the Petronas Towers, aka Petronas gasoline. Or petrol. You know.

They are the world’s largest twin towers. You can go to a little deck 30ish floors up and see a great view of the city. But you can’t go to the top, which is lame.

There’s a great little aquarium underneath though. Which is cool.

We did lots of animal things in this city, apparently.

I feel like this entry isn’t about the words. The videos are the true highlight.

So sorry if my verbal skills are impaired by the wine I've been sipping.

All in all, KL was a really, beautiful modern city with too much curry and a real Hindu/Muslim battle. Wish we had more time.

After a couple of nights we boarded ANOTHER night train – this time to Singapore. Where they speak English and lash people.

But BEFORE we got on the train to Malaysia …

2009-09-04T23:11:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot about this part. Dammit.

So, in order to get on the train to Malaysia, one must travel very far south into the not-so-stable border states of Thailand.

I snagged a little bus van thing, packed to the brim, for the uncomfortable ride down from Krabi. We had ordered train tickets online, so we asked to be dropped right out front of the train station.

They literally drop us on the side of the road, and we hop out. Van drives away.

As I struggle to find the tickets to check the train time, I realize that they are in my wallet. In my purse. Which is NOT on my shoulder.

I had stuffed it into a shelf in front of me on the van. And failed to retrieve it upon exiting the vehicle.

EFLJH*&!@)*MKJFO(*&$@)(U#@*&*& T!!!!

This could possibly be the WORST place and time to loose a passport. And all of your money. And other forms of identification.

I look up at Adam, scream about my purse and start running down the dirt road. He yells at me to drop my backpack. I dramatically chuck it down and get a move on.

I’ve never ever put so much effort into a sprint in my whole life. I was in the middle of the road, dodging tuk-tuks, motorbikes and cabs. Drivers honked, cheered me on and stared.

I caught up to the van as it got stuck in the turn lane. Just as it entered the intersection, I pitched my water bottle into the back window.

The driver just slowed a second and kept driving. But it was enough for me to catch up and start POUNDING on all of the windows.

Everyone still in the van looks on, terrified, as I slide open the door, grab my purse, and walk away. Without saying a word.

Observing tuk-tuk drivers gave me the thumbs up on my walk back to the corner.

And THEN we had lunch and got on a night train. To Kuala Lumpur.

For those of you who don’t get it…

2009-09-04T22:59:00.001-07:00

At this point, I’m writing 2 kinds of entries. The ones about Australia (recent) or the ones about Asia (not so recent). Since I got backed up during the backpacking, I’m having to retrace my steps.

Sorry for the confusion.

Another boyfriend ...

2009-09-04T19:43:00.001-07:00

Here's another video of a typical day on the "job."

Koh Phi Phi – You know, where they filmed “The Beach.” Duh.

2009-08-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

After our near-robbery in Phuket, we snagged an early tour ferry to Phi Phi. It looked like we’d be fighting for accommodation, since it looked like 1000ish people were getting off our boat alone.

As they starting labeling everyone with huge colored stickers, indicating the snorkeling time slots, we realized that almost everyone on board was part of a TERRIBLE day trip. Lucky us, we were the first stop off.

We were greeted on the island by an unbelievably calm, helpful travel agent who helped us find a place to stay and someone to carry our luggage. Since, you know, there are NO vehicles allowed on the island.

After full days and nights of honking traffic in Hanoi, it was a welcome change. The weather was a little weird, and hot, but still a complete paradise. We meant to stay for a day or two … which turned into 5 or 6. Oh well.

The schedule basically went like this:
12pm – wake up
12:45pm – get out of bed
1:30pm – get breakfast
2pm – dodge rain
3pm – lay on beach
4pm – get lunch
5pm – get snack
6pm – read
8pm – get dinner
8:30pm – get a bucket of liquor
9pm – go to fire show
12am – get drunken food
2am – stumble home, avoiding huge crabs, dogs and drunk people trying to convince you that’s it’s a great morning to get a tattoo.

After a few weeks of intense sightseeing and moving around, this place was just RELAXING and beautiful. I was in love.

I mean, we did do things. We went on a snorkeling trip, and saw the famous Maya Bay (made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio) and other great reef sights. We had some awesome coverage of this portion, but we lost the underwater camera on a train in Malaysia.

The fire shows, and buckets of liquor, were a blast. And, yes, I mean buckets. Like, for making sand castles.

You order a sand pail, filled with a pint of liquor and mixer of your choice. It’s buy one get one free. And one is enough to kill a horse.

We made the mistake of ordering a second round the first night. A centimeter in we were rolling on the beach and don’t remember the walk home.

Fire shows also included drunken fire jump rope and watching people fall on their asses. See below.

The guy in the khaki shorts, at the end of the vid, is Adam. Sadly, I have no footage of him falling on his ass.

On the 3rd or 4th night there, we met up with Damonz, who had been a friend of Kim’s while she was in PP. He introduced us to a few friends, joined us for a bucket and gave us this great idea.

He suggested that we rent kayaks and take a trip around the island, stopping on the small beaches. Since the island is really just a huge limestone cliff with a few small beaches on the far edges, it costs a lot to hire a fishing boat to take you around. This way, we’d save money and see more.

In theory.

Either we went off the wrong end or we’re just stupid. Probably both. In any case, as we headed out around 2pm, neither of us thought to look at a map first. Or a weather forecast.

After making it out of the bay, we suddenly felt the waves get much stronger and the clouds look much darker. Ah, well, a little rain never hurt anyone.

Waves get even stronger and we move further out into the wide, wide ocean. Sky turns black. Fisherman in boat points at the clouds and us. Laughs wildly.

Once the storm actually got started, we hit panic mode. Started packing up our stuff, paddling like crazy and looking for SOMEWHERE to beach this thing.

Apparently, all of the beaches are on the OTHER side of the island.

The boat was filling up with waves, and I had honestly stopped paddling. We were going nowhere, even with both of us working for our lives.

Mind you, there are tons of boats flying around us and motors turning up more and more waves, making everything THAT much easier.

Out of nowhere, the nicest man alive pulls up next to us in a fisherman boat he has clearly chartered for himself and his family. In a gorgeous South African accent, he asks us if we need help and offers to put us – and our kayak – on board the boat to get us to shore again.

Even in this situation, my pride almost gets the best of me. A quick look at Adam and we silently concede to our stupidity.

We awkwardly apologize, laugh and roll our eyes at each other as we make it back to the beach. Even with a motor and a lifetime of experience on the island, the driver still seems to have a hard time getting us back in.

It becomes very clear that, without this dude, we would have been toast.

Apologies continue, and we try to figure out how much a life-saving rescue is worth in baht. We hand it to the driver, apologize again, and drag the damn kayak back to the hut where we rented it.

Lesson learned.

On some other night, we saw this huge crab on our walk back up. Evil children that we are, we tried to convince the neighborhood dog to battle with it. He lost, but only got a small scratch on the nose.

Events all blur together for me during this portion of the trip. 6 pints of SangSom will do that to a girl.

After the islands, I was meant to head back up north to see the girls. Buuut, somewhere along the line, I was convinced to head south to Malaysia and Singapore instead. Sorry Marianne.

And as simply as that, I was crossing another border on a night train headed to Kuala Lumpur.

Trapeze School!

2009-08-27T02:44:00.000-07:00

2 loooong flights, 3 encounters with bitchy airline employees and a van ride later, I arrived in NYC!!! YAYAYA

I arrived at my old apt and visited with my old roommate, the one and only k.hel.

Celebrations/drinking commenced.

I was hoping to meet up with my friend Dayna, but when I called to make a date, she said she was a bit busy.

"I have this TRAPEZE thing ..."

I signed up immediately.

We went to the top of Pier 40 or something, and learned how to fly with the greatest of ease. With the hottest trainers ever.

I nearly cried every time I went to the platform, since, you know, I'm a wimp. You had to lean forward, over the platform, 23ft in the air, and reach for a bar. Which doesn't look or sound nearly as scary as it is. At first.

But then you jump, and you feel like you're 5, and it's amazing.

Until the next day when every muscle you haven't used since the last time you played on monkey bars goes totally sore, and you can't even run because all the pieces around your boobs hurt.

I stole some zoom shots of the hot instructors for your viewing pleasure. One of them is a personal trainer for Hugh Jackman, my fav Aussie. Yum.

Below are vids of some of my rounds on the bar. I would show you Dayna's, but she's better than me.

Cheers mates! Stay tuned.

I'm baaaaack!!!

2009-08-27T02:42:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the hiatus guys. For those who don't know, I was in the States for 4 weeks, and then visited Cairns for a 5th. Which means I have TONS of material to come.

Plus, you know, I never finished the Asian stories.

Sorry guys. I was too busy being really really busy.

Buhbye Vietnam, sawatdeekah Thailand

2009-07-13T04:45:00.000-07:00

After too many days in rainy, cold, sorta mean Hanoi, we jumped on a plane and were back to relative-reality, Bangkok. It was amazing how I felt so at home when we landed – but Thailand made a lot more sense than Vietnam.

We had a few hours to kill between our landing in Bangkok and an evening flight to Phuket, so we headed into the city for some camera shopping and luggage storage.

While I’ve never actually seen it in the States, Thailand has an abundance of Swensen’s stores – as in the San Francisco ice cream chain. It was disgustingly hot out, and I was craving.

I’ve picked up this super annoying habit of pulling Adam’s hair. Mostly picking at single strands of arm and leg hair when he isn’t looking and we’re in small spaces. Like cabs.

As we were walking into the mall, I needed a fix. I needed to pull his hair. But he’d had enough.

I promised to buy him ice cream if I could do it one more time. And I did it again. Twice.

That was going to cost me.

Swensen’s is not cheap, but I had promised ice cream. And taken advantage and pulled 2 hairs instead of one. So that bitch made me PAY by ordering up everything his little heart desired in the super-Americanized Bangkok ice cream shop.

I had to pay 20 bucks. In Asia, that could get you a bed for the night, a couple of drinks and a hot call girl for at least an hour. Eff.

That night we flew to Phuket and got a hotel room in some nutty place that also housed a small Stalin museum.

Yup.

Phuket was just a short stop on the way to the islands, so there wasn’t much on the itinerary. We decided on one task – finding the Hard Rock Café so Adam could pick up a souvenir. His family collects them, blah blah.

There’s a whole freakin’ web site set up for the Phuket Hard Rock Café that led us to believe it actually existed. So we jumped on a rickety bus and make it to the other side of the province, to another beach district, more or less in search of this place.

We get there, and it’s not even open yet. Not finished.

The Hard Rock site had mentioned some grand opening date that had already passed. My money is on the fact that the Americans have no idea it’s not open, and the Thais don’t care.

Whatever.

We played on the beach for the rest of the afternoon, and I played with my new awesome camera. Beautiful sunsets.

Adam found some crabs. To go with my herp.

It turns out that this area had a pretty happening nightlife, so instead of heading back to the hotel we decide to stick around. We showered in public bathrooms, bought some new dry rip-off clothes to wear and hit the town.

After dinner and hookah, Adam decides that he wants to light up a kom loi, which is a Thai hot air lantern that is supposed to help you release worries and send them up into the sky.

Really, boys just like to play with fire.

After bargaining forever and still getting ripped off, homeboy finally gets one. I videotape.

As you’ll see, I end up giving the camera to one of the vendors to record both of us. But then I quickly run off camera. Because when I turned around, some other vendor was going through my purse!!!

He tries to pretend that he was fixing our blanket, which you can see him toss into the air as I run up with a superbitch look on my face.

PISSSSSED!

Luckily it didn’t look like he managed to find anything valuable in the dark.

And then we jumped into the back of a pickup truck-style sawatawng and went back to the hotel. The next morning we headed to paradise – Koh Phi Phi.

Free food moments

2009-07-03T01:51:00.000-07:00

We've ALL been there. It's the weekend, you've been out for hours drinking your ass off, and the clock hits 2am, 3am, 4am? And all of a sudden you are FAMISHED.

ME NEEDS FOODSIES NOW!!!!

That piece of pizza, that gyro, whatever, it tastes amazing. No matter what.

But lemme tell you, it tastes SO much better when you get it for free!

Free food moments have been abundant in Oz. I've had 2 that I can remember. I'm sure there are more that I don't.

(Free drinks don't count)

Free Food Moment #1- leaving the crazy King's Cross club with Marianne at 3ish I think? We've been dancing our butts off. I see pizza-by-the-slice.

This dude is line turns around, looks at me, pokes me in the face and tells me I'm beautiful. I have a beautiful smile. He tells Marianne, his friend, another person in line and the pizza dude. Puts his arm around me, hangs drunkenly. I almost slap him. Annoying.

But THEN he put 20 bucks in my pocket. WTF!?!?!

I was much nicer after that.

Finally, his pizza arrived. A whole freakin' box of pizza, one of every slice flavor. I grab the super veg, smile nicely, scarf my pizza and enjoy my cab ride home, subsidized by the free pizza beautiful smile guy.

Free Food Moment #2- Last weekend, or maybe 2 weeks ago? Leaving the Ivy with the German ladies, hit up Mackers (McDonald's in America) for a Fillet-o-Fish and some fries.

No tomato sauce.

I go up to the counter to ask for some. The dude hands me a bag with tomato sauce AND 2 Macs. I open the bag, look at him confused. He smiles, nods and walks away.

I announce to the whole place (which is packed) that I just got 2 burgers for FREESIES. And then I share one and eat the other, after finishing my fish. And then order a sundae.

I don't care what ANYONE says. I love me a Mackers chocolate fudge sundae!

Representing all that is AMERICAN (to be read in a southern-hillbilly accent with a touch of GeorgeDubya)

2009-06-30T04:20:00.000-07:00

As you might already know, I'm technically here as an AUPAIR, not just a nanny. So, technically, I'm supposed to be learning about another culture while teaching the kids about my own.

Thanks to the evil evil Disney channel, and the fact that I'm from the most egocentric country in on the planet, there's pretty much nothing I can teach these kids that they don't already know. While I struggle to learn the different little pieces of the Aussie lingo, everyone around me is able to translate.

bin = trash can
rubbish = trash
biscuit = cookie
lolli = candy
mince = ground meat
mobile = cell phone
chips = fries

blah blah blah.

But then the kids starting asking me about the REAL ins and outs of American culture.

"Lisa, what's a Twinkie? What's a Ho-ho? What's a sloppy joe?"

And I went on to explain why we're all obese.

For the past few Tuesday night dinners, I've been in charge. I know, it's scary. Annie (the old German nanny) and I tackle the 5 kids on our own, without adult supervision.

To distract the kids from how much nicer and more fun the old nanny was, I made tonight American dinner night.

Menu? Sloppy joes, fries, carrot sticks, pickles. Meat, potato, pseudo-veggies. The core of the American diet.

True American kids' cafeteria/summer camp/junk food.

They loved it. Really, they did.

Photo proof, from oldest to youngest ...

Elias

Ruben

Joel

Asher

Jasper

So don't you worry, America. Slowly but surely, I'm successfully spreading democracy and poor eating habits to all corners of the world.

The swine flu hits Oz

2009-06-30T04:12:00.001-07:00

For those of you who think it’s over, here’s what they think in Oz.

Seriously. It's calmed down a bit, but they still take a lot of precautions.
I will probs be wearing a mask for my super long flight.

Part 2 - Halong Bay. And the end of Vietnam.

2009-06-30T04:04:00.000-07:00

After realizing that Hanoi was kinda lamish, and we had a few days before our flight to the Thai islands, we changed our minds about Halong Bay and decided to check it out. With the advice of some friendly Canadians from our horrendous bus ride, we thought we’d skip the tourist traps and go on our own.

It turns out that you can’t really get to the island without a tour company unless you have a lot of time, patience and luck. We were running low on all of these things.

We ended up taking a shitty local bus and a motorbike from the side of the highway into Halong Bay, only to find out that we would have to join up with a day trip that started in Hanoi that we could have just taken from the beginning.

Oh well. I was a little sicky pants at this point, so I just hated everyone.

It was a bit cloudy and rainy, but the view was still beautiful. The boat went all around the limestone cliffs, took us into a cave and then dropped us to kayak for a bit. Pics included.

Again, this also included a lovely on-board lunch. Yummy.

We were meant to catch the van back with our tour group, but somehow got ditched and had to wait on the side of the road to meet up with another group from the same company. Of COURSE, we got stuck behind the biggest accident of all time and were delayed by hours. Everyone literally parked their car and hung out by the side of the road in rural Vietnam until the thing cleared up. No one was going ANYWHERE.

Ah, well. We tried. At least the seafood was super cheap and delicious. And we got to see yet another World Heritage site.

We got back to Hanoi super late and went back to the same shitty hotel. And got on a plane the next day to Bangkok, went camera shopping for a few hours, ditched some luggage at my storage place and hopped another flight to Phuket.

Yay. We were back in sunshine. And the Land of Smiles.

The Queens gets older, so Oz takes a holiday.

2009-06-30T03:56:00.001-07:00

For those of you who don’t know, Australia is still a colony of Britain. So even though she barely matters in Oz at this point, they still respect her enough in Australia to make a holiday out of her birthday.

Except it’s not really her birthday, it’s just the Monday that’s closest to her birthday. To make it a long weekend. Because, really, who wants to take a Wednesday off? What good does that do anyone?

My new expat friends were taking a road trip to wine country and invited me along. Yes please.

It was quite the international crew. My friend Jorge (American/Latino), his Aussie girlfriend Renee, Vincent from Singapore and I piled into a car to stay with three of Jorge’s friends from Turkey. Talk about an international buffet.

The Turks are here working at a stud farm a few hours north of Sydney, so they have a pretty big house near the stables that they share. It was super cozy and relaxing. We ate a lot, drank a ton, attempted to ride an ex-racehorse, visited wineries and local drinking holes and generally had a great time.

Did I mention that there was a lot of really great wine involved?

We got in fairly late on Friday after hitting traffic and making sure to eat dinner in the equivalent of a Aussie greasy spoon diner.

I tried a chicken schnitzel, which I’ve seen offered everywhere here. It’s essentially a steak fried chicken, very flat and breaded and fried. With gravy and potatoes and veggie. Country style for sure.

Oh, and this diner had the smallest, most ghetto ATM machine I’ve ever seen. So we took a pic. (see above)

After a few glasses of wine and some introductions, we settled into the cozy country house and got lazy. Excellent.

The next morning we tried to ride Bill. He wasn’t in the mood and nearly threw each and every one of us off. I managed to stay on, but only barely.

We rode with jockey saddles, which means no horn to hold on to. So when Big Bill got a little feisty, I had to hold on with my legs. Ohhh wee. I was sore for days after only a few minutes on this guy.

At 3 we decided it was time to start drinking. So we went to the bar and watched horse races on TV.

On day 2 we hit up some wineries in the area. Yum.

On Monday we hit up the more famous Hunter Valley wineries on our way back to town. I wasn’t that impressed with many of them. We almost headed straight back when Renee saw the sign for Petersons.

This ended up being the winery that made the entire trip. Katherine, our lovely hostess, was awesome and let us try everything, and it was all delicious. I ended up finally buying a bottle of shiraz, even though it was 50 bucks, because it was just that delicious and she was just that fabulous.

She gave me a ton of Peterson’s stickers too, so that’s something.

It was a fab Aussie weekend.

Happy Birthday, Your Majesty.

If OUR pigeons looked like this, would we still chase them away?

2009-06-23T04:10:00.000-07:00

It was a rainy yet peaceful Sunday afternoon. I was in the market, enjoying my pumpkin soup, when all of a sudden THESE guys showed up.

Not lost pets. Just the normal annoying birds that you get in Oz.

I think they're cute! And so did all the other tourists.

Hanoi, Halong Bay, back to Hanoi. The end of the Vietnam journey. Part 1.

2009-06-16T03:09:00.001-07:00

From beautiful Hoi An, Adam, my herpes and I headed to the capital of Vietnam, which is Hanoi.

Call me dumb, but I always figured Saigon was the capital. It’s not.

We loaded onto yet ANOTHER overnight bus, which proved to be the nightmare of all nightmare buses.

Broken toilet for 15 hourish ride? Check.
Attempt at scamming our fellow travelers and trying to leave them on the side of the road? Check.
Loud dude constantly yelling into his cell in Vietnamese? Check.
At least 5 brushes with death? Check.
Terribly loud Asian music videos blaring over your iPod until 1am? Check.
Bruises on knees from trying to stay in bed during near-death car passes? Check.
Getting jumped by 30 cab drivers crawling into the bus at 5am while you get dropped off miles from the center of town as promised? Check.
Additional scam at the end of the ride to force us into specific guesthouse? Check.
Crazy spinning cab meter that charges you 3 times for the cab ride that you shouldn’t have had to take because you were supposed to be dropped in the center of the city? Check.

The only saving grace was the load of fun backpackers in the back of the bus with us, and the monks and nuns holding up the front. For the most part, our company was pretty great.

And I managed to snag the over-the-toilet bed for a certain male travel companion. So he could stretch out. I’m the best, I know.

It really was scary as hell though. And loud. Even the locals thought so. Like this guy.

The bus driver kept swerving off the road and having to STOP the bus to not go off a cliff or whatever kind of road we were driving on. I ended up half sleeping in a ball, wrapping around a metal post and a safety belt, trying to keep myself from flying off the top bunk.

Imagine trying to stay on top of a bunk bed while participating in a high speed chase. It was like that.

Once we got to Hanoi, we were met with more unfriendliness. And rainy weather.

I should let Adam guest-blog here to talk about his gambling experiences. This is a formal invite.

The coffee was AMAZING in Hanoi, but that’s about all it had going for it. Other than ok Western food and a pretty great little bar that had hookah and drinks on a balcony where we could sit in peace and watch people get in motorbike accidents. Oh, and a park that I ran around TWICE, concluding my attempts at real physical activity for the remainder of the trip.

We went to a water puppet show, which Hanoi is kinda famous for. It was really cute, if not cheesy. But you know, when in Vietnam. It was a unique thing to do, blah blah.

The actual puppet show was developed around the flooding of the rice paddies and it’s still done with the old-style wooden puppets. We couldn’t take any pics, since you had to pay to get a camera permit. But EVERYONE else did. I’ve included stolen examples.

I swear, all I could concentrate on the ENTIRE time was what I wanted to say to all the terribly obnoxiously people that watched the whole 1.5 hour show from the lens of their HUGE cameras.

I think they could make a flip book and see the entire show again with how many prints they must have now. Maybe they should sell them. Or hang themselves with their neck strap.

Since is was kinda rainy and there wasn’t a lot to do, we just shopped, ate, and drank our way through Hanoi. Repeat.

One great, sharable moment, was when we went out for pizza. Because I was craving it.

My beautiful veggie pizza needed a little flava. So I grabbed for salt and pepper.

Not salty enough. A little more.

Seriously? I still want more? What’s my issue? Is it not coming out properly?

Alright Lis, that has to be enough salt …

Wow, what a dumbass. You’ve been trying to sprinkle your pizza with the lid from the toothpick holder. You. Are. Retarded.

Since we’d been traveling together for waaay too long at this point, Adam and I had a habit of going silent during meals. Or at least once the food hit the table. So this whole convo happened in my head. To myself.

So in the middle of the meal I just started laughing, loudly and hysterically, while pointing at the lid of the toothpick holder.

But don’t you SEE how I could have gotten confused? Right?

He didn’t even pay that much attention. He’s used to this kind of asinine behavior.

But I made him take a picture so I would remember to tell this little gem of a story. Because it’s where my true personality shines. Like on MySpace.

(If you don’t get this reference to my past dating experiences, please inquire for a recap.)

Hmm, and that’s all for Hanoi.

We went to Halong Bay too, and then went BACK to Hanoi, but I think I’ll make that a separate presentation. Because there are pretty pictures to go with it.

Kangaroo brunch

2009-06-08T02:58:00.001-07:00

It’s not as exciting as tarantulas, but it’s still pretty cool.

In celebration of an impromptu visit by my old friend Marianne – from Thailand/London/Maryland – we decided to do some touristy sightseeing and treat ourselves to an awesome meal.

After a night of romping around Darling Harbour, we took a recommendation from Marianne’s backpacker friend and went to check out the Sydney Tower.

The tower itself isn’t significant at all, it just provides spectacular views of the city.

Since Sydney’s surrounded by water and bays, it’s actually a pretty amazing skyline. As you can see.

For $25 we could just go up and down on the tower. For $50, we could sit for a couple of hours and stuff our faces on the all-you-can-eat buffet while getting a 360 view at the rotating restaurant.

Sold.

Along with a beautiful assortment of meats, salads, pastas, rice and amazing desserts, there was one key item on the menu.

That’s right. Kangaroo roast.

As you can see, it wasn’t THAT gross. But after my second bite I did get a really strong gamey aftertaste and got a little grossed out. Unfortunately we had stopped taping at that point.

Just watch for the shudder at the end.

It looks a lot like beef, but it’s a different color. And the grain is really big.

Would you call it a grain? Like wood? We didn’t really know.

In any case, you can eat kangaroo. You know, if you like that kind of thing.

They’re roadkill here. You can see them dead on the side of the road. Like deer in Michigan.

Weird, huh?

If they make it through customs...

2009-05-30T04:05:00.001-07:00

As I've said before, there's a serious quarantine on what/who is allowed in and out of Oz.

Two of my sassy speechie bitches are going to try and make it through. Hopefully they clear customs.

Amanda Schrama has been a terrible influence on my otherwise responsible life since I was about 12. Or something. She snuck in as an illegal alien from Canada and managed to blend into the Rochester/Avondale scene. Sort of.

Almost every terrible story at the Avondale High School Class of 2003 High School Reunion will start with something like this:

"Remember that time when we were totally wasted at Amanda's house ..."

This is a pic from one said party. I believe the official name of it was Pimps and Hoes.

We still can't all concur on the true course of events. Cops, beating, then knives in the backyard? One can never be sure ...

Caitlin is a GV "Honors" friend. I think we really bonded in Honor's Civilization class, where we sat in the back trying to sleep and figure out what the fuck was going on.

In fact, I believe Caitlin was the only freshman who went out with me the night before freshman exams instead of studying. We came back at 2 in the morning, effed up, and confronted a huddle of studying dorks.

We arrived in the class the next morning and took the exam. Still wasted. And made sure the Profs knew it.

I think we both cleared with B's. That works for me.

Stories with Caitlin usually start with, "Remember that time when we were running from the GV campus police, totally wasted ..."

You get the idea.

In any case, they are coming. Together. Somehow, magically. Here. To Sydney. In August. And it's going to be a shitshow.

Watch out for these posts. They are sure to be winners.

Nha Trang and Hoi An. Full of pleasant surprises. Like herpes.

2009-05-25T02:56:00.001-07:00

Next stop on the journey was Hoi An, a coastal town in Vietnam known for its amazing tailors and shoe maker elves. As it turns out, you can’t get a bus directly from Dalat. You have to stop in Nha Trang, a super beachy area that seems to be an obligatory stop on the backpacker trail.

We had plans to travel straight through the day and night to Hoi An from Dalat. But since we barely made it onto the bus in the morning, and the aircon was broken, and so were the shocks on the bus, and it was one of the most horrible bus rides I’ve ever taken, we considered stopping in Nha Trang for the night and getting out to Hoi An the next day.

As the bus pulled up to gorgeous waves, we were set on staying. No doubt.

It turned out to be a pretty quiet town with really fantastic snorkeling. Unfortunately I have no pics of this – we lost the underwater camera somewhere between Krabi and Singapore. Along with my running shoes. And a few other loose ends.

We went on a beautiful (my first!) snorkeling trip, and apparently I was totally spoiled. The visibility was perfect, lunch was tasty, and the water was a perfect temperature. Except, it was full of tiny little jellyfish that stung me constantly. It was just a little itchy at first, but eventually it left little red trail dots on my skin.

I didn’t notice the dots until we got to Hoi An the next day. Convinced I had a parasite or the HIV or something more serious, I went to a clinic/pharmacist.

“No bug bites, your skin have allergy. You in water or sun?”

“Umm, yes. Mountain rivers, ocean waters, you name it. I’ve been in it. A lot.”

“Yes, yes. Your skin not like heat and sweat and water. Put on cream.”

“I can’t read this. It’s in Vietnamese. What should I do?”

“Put on, put on. Ok, ok.”

“Ok?”

I purchase said cream for, like, a dollar, and start applying. Adam seems to think he knows something about medicine and asks to take a look.

“This is herpes cream. It’s got the same active ingredient.”

“Umm, what? And how would you know?”

In any case, it was apparently the same cream one would use for a herpes outbreak.

As we all know, you can suppress an outbreak, but there is no cure.

Not that I had one ... just that the cream is multipurpose. Plus, I mean, it's Asia. And I'm a backpacker. Who knows what they were thinking ...

Naturally, I started referring to my little red trails as my herpes, or my herp. Which was fine, I suppose, until a few days later when I was in a crowded touristy area with a lot of people who understood English.

I had started depending on the fact that NO ONE understood what the fuck I was saying. Ever. This can become dangerous.

(While applying white cream to legs) “Hey, Adam, look. My herpes look sooooo much better today.”

Hmm. Silence.

Disgusted stare from group of older travelers sitting close to us.

Disapproving stare from my travel partner.

I just started laughing hysterically. I mean, really. How do you recover from that?

I still don’t know what it was that I had. They came and went, reappeared in other areas, and finally went away completely. At one point I had trails of red welts going down the length of my body, coupled with mosquito bites. It was niiiice.

We thought maybe we were carrying fleas? Or something? Who knows. Gross though, right?

Back to the point, Hoi An was totally fantastic and underrated. I got a ton of shoes and clothes made – to order, designed by yours truly, for unreal prices. I’ll have to show you all someday ;)

We stayed for a long time and ate great food, including the wonton soup and noodles that you can ONLY get in Hoi An. The dough can only be made from the water of a special well in town, so you can only get those noodles in that town. Cool, huh?

This is me. Eating noodles.

And that was really all in Hoi An. Loved it, shopped a lot, relaxed and had fun. Relaxed so much that there are no pictures. Not even of my herpes.

Priceless, isn’t it?

Meet my new boyfriend

2009-05-24T21:50:00.000-07:00

His name is Jasper. We spend a loooooot of time together. He's like a typical man - expects me to cook and clean up after him. Only wants attention when I don't have time. Decides if and when he wants to be nice to me.

And he's a ladies man. All the girls at playgroup love him. He's totally my type.

Oh, well. No man is perfect.

Abseil or Die. Dalat, Vietnam. Part 2.

2009-05-18T06:13:00.001-07:00

Dalat was THE location for outdoor shit, thanks to the gorgeous weather and the stunning mountain views. On day 2 we paid a measly 20-ish bucks for a full day of near-death adventure on a canyoning trip through the Vietnamese wilderness. It also included lunch.

I’ve never been canyoning, but I’ve done a lot of other outdoors/white water rafting/hiking/rock climbing stuff before. So I THOUGHT I knew what I was getting myself into.

It turns out that I didn’t. Not at all.

The little adventure started out calmly enough. We met up with the guides and a couple of younger girls who were also going with us and trekked through a calm, overly touristy waterfall that looked pretty lame. They gave us our little crotch safety straps and taught us how to use the ropes to move up and down the rocks.

It was essentially the same as belaying, if you’re familiar with rock climbing lingo. Only backwards.

Our first little abseil was fun and easy, just really was about learning the rope stuff. Then there were a few little jumps, some hiking, etc. I was feeling like a badass.

Then came the real shit. The point where I started screaming NONONONONONOOOOO and honestly questioning whether or not I would make it out alive.

I can’t be sure on which order these happened in. There was the HUGE waterfall abseil, where you climb down the front of the falls with instructions on how to come out alive. Or the washing machine waterslide. Or the waterfall we went into sideways. Or the 32-foot cliff jumps.

I started hearing things like this:

(in strong accent that was hard to understand)

“If you slip, just try to turn around and slide on your back. Hopefully you won’t get hurt that badly or break anything. Just don’t try to stand up again because it won’t work.

“If you can’t see because the water is pounding down on you too hard, just try to breath through your mouth when you turn your head and keep moving sideways. Don’t go too far to the left or you’ll certainly slip.”

“Once you’re a few meters from the bottom we’ll tell you to jump. You have to push off and let go of the rope, or you’ll get caught in the water and slam into the cliff ledge below.”

“You must finish this or you can’t eat lunch. It’s down there, and there’s no other way to reach it.”

“There’s a little ledge there, so you have to run and jump. Otherwise, you might not clear that huge rock. And you will hit it on the way down.”

At one point on the side of the huge waterfall I started crying a little bit. I was totally, utterly, completely terrified. I mean, rollercoasters, waterslides, snorkeling, jumping off of things, etc – I can do all of that. With a smile. But this? I was in the middle of a river off the side of a mountain in Vietnam, with only a rope coming between me and a painful death. I nearly shit myself.

I got to the bottom of said waterfall when they told me I had to let go, push off and jump. There was a serious gap between me and the water that I couldn’t see. It took some convincing from several people to get me to let go.

All I kept thinking was that my mother would never ever know what happened to me if I died. My body would never be found. Seriously.

Once we hit the 32ft free falling cliff jump, I was done. I wanted nothing to do with any of it.

Then the boys all did a running jump and made it look so easy. But all of us girlies were too scared.

So I did it. And according to spectators, nearly impaled myself on a cliff ridge a few meters below.

But it’s ok, because it didn’t hurt. In fact, it was a blast. And so was the rest of the day.

I was EXHAUSTED at the end, and needed a really long nap. I woke up to find that all of my bruises, which hadn’t shown in the freezing water, were now starting to turn. And I had a killer one on my arm from when we tried to go down the waterfall backwards and headfirst, and a certain someone took a ride on my chest.

After my nap, as I ate my dinner at the nice lady’s café, I noticed a group of friendly looking backpackers, including a couple of cute-ish Aussie cops, and decided to introduce myself.

“Hi, I’m Lisa. Mind if I join you? That old man in the corner keeps starting at me and my laptop.”

“Oh, sure. And don’t we know you? We saw you in a bar in Ho Chi Min. You were with that group ordering it up at happy hour. And then that crazy Australian guy with the rice hat was all over you.”

“Excuse me?”

“We thought you went home with him.”

“Umm, I’m sorry? I didn’t go home with anyone – we left to go dancing. And did I meet you? I don’t actually recognize you …”

“Oh no, we didn’t meet you. We just recognized you. That super crazy guy was making such a scene at the bar. With you. At happy hour.”

“Fantastic. Glad to see I make great impressions on people.”

It ended up being a fun night as I re-lived the entire douche bag Aussie experience from the third person perspective. It was actually a little creepy, since I had never actually MET these guys. But they were narrating my night. In a terrible light. Bastards.

Then we went home, except Adam left his man bag in the bar, which included our bus tickets for the next morning. But super Aussie copper found it, and did some detective work, and found us in time for our bus the next morning. In fact, we weren’t even up yet. We probs would have missed it had he not woken us up AND handed us our tickets.

We’re smart. Ummmhmmm.

You want to send me MORE snail mail?!?!

2009-05-15T22:15:00.000-07:00

I've actually been asked quite a bit for this - so here it is. My mailing address.

45 Hamilton St
Riverview
NSW 2066
Australia

BUUUUT, before you mail ANYTHING, please take a look at this link:
http://www.daff.gov.au/aqis/travel/entering-australia/cant-take

There is a serious quarantine in Australia, and they will rip apart any and all boxes, especially if there is anything "bad" in them. And I might never get the package. Fair warning.

Greatest.Text.Ever.

2009-05-15T03:41:00.000-07:00

This had to be shared. Even though it really has nothing to do with anything.

Allow me to set it up.

Last weekend I went to a super dorky expat mixer thing and met a cool group of people who are willing to adopt me.

They were expats. Imagine that.

In any case, we went to a few bars/restaurants, and ended up at this club. While my friend went up to get drinks, this tall, chiseled, hot-ish, serious-looking dude slides into the empty chair next to me and starts spitting up lines. In some crazy Russian/Ukrainian accent.

FIRST, he said he came over to ask me why I looked upset. Then I looked sad. Then I was pretty, and he just had to come talk to me.

Whatever dude. You were way more attractive before you opened your mouth.

Then he went on about making friends, as he lit up a cigarette and stood over me. Once my friend was back, I kicked this kid out.

So I'm not really interested in his bullshit, obviously. But EVERY time I go to the bar, or bathroom, or hot dog stand, here's Steve. Sounding like the Terminator. Trying to get me to meet his friends and shit.

I'm starting to think that they tattooed "EASY" on my forehead at customs. In a special ink that only really-full-of-themselves-dudes can read.

I played nice, sorta, since it was my first time out in Sydney clubs. Didn't want to start up on the wrong foot.

I mocked him under my breath instead of out loud.

As I make a beeline for a street sausage, he insists on taking my number, and I just gave it to him. Because I figured he'd never ever use it.

Sunday morning, I get a text from Steve.

"Hello troublemaker, you miss me yet? ;)"

Yes, it included the emoticon. No embellishments here.

Umm, miss you? Yes, terribly ...

Not responding. Maybe if I stand still he won't see me, and he'll just go away.

Missed call later that afternoon.

Second missed call later in the week.

We started a real relationship, I think. He calls, I don't answer. He sends a text, I don't answer. Etc.

Yesterday, this relationship ended. Officially.

"Hey America, I feel like out marriage is going nowhere. We should take a break. We don't talk like we used to. I can't even remember the last time we had sex! It's not you, it's me. You keep the kids, I'll take the Porshe.

PS - You're sleeping on the couch.

Ta."

I almost want to ask him out now. Just because this text is so amazing.

And creepy. And totally uncalled for.

!?!?!? Can someone explain this to me?

Never.calling.him.

What the hell are you doing in Sydney?!

2009-05-15T03:23:00.000-07:00

I guess those of you who read this shit would already know why I'm here.

I'm a nanny.
I'm avoiding the real world.
Dodging the recession.
All of the above.

I am NOT pregnent, I did not move here for a hot Aussie, and it is not always summer here. In fact, it's autumn. For the record.

I'm still working on the recaps from the trip - sorting through notes, making sure I give it justice. In the meantime, here are a few pics of what I'm up to.

For my "welcome to Australia" weekend, the family took me to a little animal park where I got to see all of the nutso animals they have here. These are some obvi faves - kangaroos and wallabies. There were also koalas and wombats and dingos and some other stuff that kind of scared me. Excellent.

I tried to pose with the kids and animals - clearly, that didn't go that well.

First impressions? The culture is much more British than I bargained for, and driving on the other side of the road is easier than I thought it would be.

You can get kicked out of clubs for anything, because no one in the service industry expects tips. Read : TERRIBLE customer service.

Umm, and that's it so far.

I made it!

2009-04-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

I'm heeeeeere.

I made it to Australia on the 27th after a 2 day hike. I left Chiang Mai, waited around for 6ish hours, then jumped the night train to Bangkok. I waited around Bangkok for 10ish hours, picked up my luggage from random hiding spots in the city, and jumped a night plane to Melbourne. After a four hour layover and a 2 hour flight, I finally landed in my final destination - Sydney suburbia.

So far I'm pretty pumped - the neighborhood is adorable, the kids are cute, and the city looks fantastic. I'm still learning how to drive on the left side of the road in the HUGE car ... we'll see how long it takes me to make a blog post out of that ;)

In the meantime, you can call me if you miss me - I got a new cell number ;)

If you dial 011 61 434084139 from the States, it should work. Maybe.

Can't wait for allllll of those calls to start rolling in!

And the adventure continues ... in Dalat. Part One. Many pictures and videos.

2009-04-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

It’s time. The time you’ve all been waiting for. The limitless installments of Asian Invasion BBB 2009.

You see, I’m without shelter for the next 36ish hours. I was let out of the meditation center at 11am, and I have nothing to do between now and 10:30pm tomorrow except get to Bangkok for a flight. Which normally takes around 8 hours on a bus. But since I have nothing but time, I decided to take the 14 hour train ride instead.

Read: no need for a guesthouse. Monies saved.

And time for blogging.

So, back to Vietnam.

After Ho Chi Min City, we decided to head to cooler lands, in the country’s central mountain ranges. Thanks to Mikey for not letting us overlook this awesome stop on the backpackers’ trail.

Had I not been completely drunk when I got on the bus, thanks to a crazy night in HCM, I might have enjoyed the beautiful bus ride a bit more. Dalat is an agricultural powerhouse, growing everything from coffee (!!!!!) to lettuces and more boring things.

It’s like the non-Vietnam – the weather is comfortably cool and the people are really really nice. Mostly.

We got off the bus and, typically, had no idea what we wanted to do or where we wanted to stay. A cab driver dropped us off in front of some random place we picked out of the Lonely Planet guide. Immediately, the greatest woman ever greeted us with smiles and welcomed us into her guesthouse.

While she didn’t have a room for us, we did go there for most of our meals, and she always greeted us by our names.

“Good morning, Lisa. Where Adam? Still sleeping?”

"Oh, no. He's jacking off in the shower. He'll be over here in a few minutes."

Within minutes of first arriving at her place we were eating delicious food, drinking amazing Vietnamese coffee and getting pitched by a guide for a motorcycle tour. They almost had us sold into a 6 day bike ride, but we managed to get ourselves back into day tour range.

The next day we set off on the back of gorgeous “big bikes” to see Dalat in all of it’s glory. The tour was sooo pretty, with stops to see scenic pine forests, hikes up little hills for higher views and some other agricultural sites. Photos included.

Oh, and the silk farm and factory, which was really cool. Those are the worms up there.

Here’s how silk is made:

And a pretty pagoda with beautiful gardens, also seen above.

Thhhhen came the waterfall hike.

As some of you may recall, I’m not very bright. Or coordinated. Sometimes I act like I’m four and get excited and fall-down-go-boom.

The waterfall was pretty, and I wanted to put my feet in. So I crossed the little stream. Successfully, at first, which you can see in this little video.

On the way back, I got a little cocky. And I (accidentally) rode that stream like an extreme waterslide.

A lot of people in Asian countries can’t swim, so when I fell in, a really kind gentleman started freaking out and threw me a really thin stick to hold on to. He didn’t realize that I was a strong swimmer, that the stick would break, and the current wasn’t so bad. I was just in total shock as to what I had just managed to do and was screaming my ass off.

Adam wasn’t worried. He just started taking pictures.

I had really wanted to swim anyway, so I was going to stay in for a while to make it all worth it.

“Umm, Lisa. Where’s your camera?”

“UUUUMMMMM. Dammit. It’s in my pocket.”

So that was the end of that camera. I’m pretty sure my 2 year expired warranty doesn’t cover Vietnamese river damage.

My very very wet jeans were not the most comfortable wardrobe choice for the remaining few hours of the tour. The tour guide tried to take me shopping, but there was nothing available that looked even remotely comfortable. He just drove me around on the bike really fast to help me dry off quicker.

Then we saw how they make rice wine, and how they use it to keep the hogs drunk so they get fat faster. Seriously. The hogs are in a drunken stupor 24/7. At least that's more humane than locking up sober pigs? If I had to live in a cage, I would want to be drunk too.

Lastly, we saw this really nutso hotel that was built by a famous Vietnamese architect in an Alice in Wonderland – type style. The hallways were confusing and curvy, and the rooms were decked out in an on-acid theme with mirrors above all the beds. I wouldn’t really want to stay there … but it was a cool site and the pride of Dalat.

And that was our first full day in Dalat. We ended the evening in the market, where we bought too many silk paintings. And some woman was a bitch and refused to let me see her jewelry and made me mad. I just want a ring for my mommy, you whore!

Ugh, Vietnam. Sometimes you piss me off.

Backpeddalling ... some vids of my dorky self, thanks to ALC

2009-04-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

Adam is abusive with his video function. In fact, I often pose for pictures when he's really taking a video. I'm smart like that.

Back to Angkor Wat for a moment, here's a video of me try to climb down the crazy stairs. I obviously thought he was going to take a picture.

Oh, and here's what I look like when I'm trying to relax on a Cambodian bus. Thanks for leaving me alone, asshole.

More later ... cheers!

I know, I know ...

2009-04-19T19:17:00.000-07:00

Terrible terrible blogger, I am. So fire me.

It's been an amazing run - officially named Asian Invasion BBB 2009. It's winding down now, as I just left Bangkok behind, along with my trusty travel buddy.

The official itinerary changed quite a bit. We ended up hitting 5 countries, including Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand again, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand one more time.

My passport is cooler than your passport.

For the next week I will be locking myself up in a meditation center for some reflecting and winding down before taking off on my next adventure. On the 26th I take off for Sydney ... and then the new party begins!

To those on you on the edges of your seats waiting for updates, rest assured that I have been taking careful notes on the craziness of the past month and you will be getting your fix soon. Highlights include:

- chasing down buses in southern Thailand
- near death by limestone cliff. and regular cliff
- piercings in Singapore
- other shenanigans

So stay tuned, folks. Once I have regular power and internet access again, it's ON.

Ho Chi Min, old Saigon. Lots of legitimate hate on the US and several rounds at happy hour.

2009-03-29T20:35:00.000-07:00

Our first stop out of Cambodia was to Ho Chi Min City in Vietnam, or old Saigon. We took a bus over the border, which wasn’t too bad. I’d heard some horror stories about the bus disappearing when people got out to walk through customs, etc. We were lucky I suppose. It all went ok.

Saigon itself doesn’t have THAT much to do, save for the war museum and related sites. If you go a couple of hours outside the city you can crawl around in the tunnels used by the Vietnamese during the war, and shoot a machine gun if you like. It sounds a little gruesome to me – shooting a gun into a previous killing field site? Reliving a massacre …

No? It’s just me?

I later heard a fellow backpacker tell a story about a dude from Michigan who had gone to the tunnels to shoot guns into the fields. According to this observer, the guy took off his shirt and insisted on wearing a belt of bullets across his chest while he gleefully shot into a field of imaginary people.

The kid telling this story wasn’t from the US, and after telling this story seemed to be looking at me to stick up for the people in my country. He seemed a little shocked when I just shrugged and said, “Yup, that sounds about right.”

Due to time constraints and lack of interest, we decided to hit up the museum but skip the tunnels.

I was a little ashamed to be an American as I walked through the Vietnam War museum. Just saying. I tried not to talk too much and hope that people thought I was Autralian. I get that a lot here anyway.

To escape the afternoon heat, we got Vietnamese massages from blind massuses who didn’t speak English. Talk about a lack of communication. The only thing they were able to tell me was to take my clothes off – they felt me up, realized I was dressed and started pulling.

If I thought the Vietnamese were the toughest people in SE Asia, the massage certainly proved it. Nothing like the stretching of the Thai massage, or the pressure points of Chinese – the Vietnamese literally just beat you in rhythm until you seem to be back in the right shape. A hour of getting slapped around is basically what you’re getting here. It felt ok, but I’m not a serious fan.

The market wasn’t too friendly either – they pulled and pushed and physically trapped you in their shops. If you decided not to buy something, they yelled at you and called you a bad person. It was a loooooot of fun.

But the one thing that they had plenty of in Saigon were AVOCADO SHAKES. OMG. The world’s greatest food. A little sweet, a little buttery and totally totally delicious. The saving grace to my first encounter with Vietnam.

That night I met up with a couple of Canadian guys we had met on the bus who had joined up with a few other girls from Canada and Australia. They were nice enough to let me hang out with them, even though I’m American. No one likes us over here, guys.

We hit up a bar for happy hour, which offered buy 2 get 1 free. Three of the kids decided to share drinks, which left Daniel and me to split 3 cocktails every round instead of just 2. You can imagine how well this turned out.

I was approached by the douchiest Australian guy ever rocking a rice paddy hat, ski goggles (?!wtf!?!) and a shit load of big red welts from a cupping massage he had gotten that day. As I asked him about the massage he pulled off his sexy sexy wife beater and told me how awesome it was. “Do you feel detoxed now?” I asked. “Huh?” Yeah. Great. Glad you really appreciated your cupping experience, jackass.

After about 2 more lines of conversation, he asked, “So, are we going to have sex tonight?”

“Umm, huh? That was quick. And blunt.” I mean, he was cute, but come on …

“I’m on holiday, you know. I don’t have time to flirt.”

“Hmm. Maybe? Wait, no. No, we’re not. I think I’m going dancing with my friends now.”

And we did. Drinking, dancing, stumbling and meeting up with more Australians. I swear, it’s fate telling me that Sydney will be awesome.

I rolled in at 2am or so. I was completely wasted as I got on the 7am bus to Dalat the next morning. God bless the early rising noodle lady

Eating tarantulas and playing Jenga in a brothel

2009-03-26T00:37:00.000-07:00

On our way out of Cambodia we stopped for one more night out with Mikey - and got our passports and visas to Vietnam. We went to a lovely little cafe for dinner, where the boys convinced me to eat tarantulas. Not one, but two.

The first wasn't so bad - taken in small bites with LOTS of sauce. The second was for a dare - I had to eat the whole thing in one bite (or as close as possible) and I would get $10 from Adam and a free drink from Rios. Which I did.

Then they added a stipulation that I couldn't have any other beverage during the entire 15 minutes it took us to pay and get to a cocktail lounge. The crunchy exoskeleton was in between my teeth for the entire time.

Mike is a shady bastard. Listen to his remarks in the background.

Bitches. Victory never tasted so sweet. Just like chicken.

After dinner and drinks, Mikey left us while we decided to continue the party. As the bars started to close, we found ourselves a little stranded in a sudden downpour. We took refuge in a little bar that looked cute ... but turned out to be a brothel. Easy misunderstanding.

We played 4 mean games of Jenga and happily took down a few cocktails each before calling it a night.

Thank you Cambodia. Next stop - Vietnam!

A nice river ride from Siam Reap to Battambong

2009-03-20T05:29:00.000-07:00

Before heading out to Vietnam, we needed to make another pit stop in PP to pick up our passports and visas. Heading out of Siam Reap we thought it might be nice to take a scenic boat trip down the river to Battambong, Cambodia's second largest city.

The low river level made for a LONG boat ride ... 8ish hours, actually. But it was a great way to see some of the countryside and enjoy the day.

A little rickety tugboat thing took us down with a small group of travelers from all over the world.

Europeans smell bad in Asia. Just saying.

We passed through a dozen or so little villages that were mostly built on water. It was nuts! They all used little boats to get around like they were on streets - even the smallest kids were floating around.

Nearly every building was actually a float - schools, shops, houses. It looked like a lot of people lived on boats with little shacks on them. There was even a little floating market.

It was a hot, sleepy day, but I managed to take a few pics. Cheers!

It's official - next move ... SYDNEY!!!!

2009-03-20T05:24:00.000-07:00

AHHH, it finally came through. The impossible visa to have a working holiday in Australia actually came through.

It was quite a process, including some paperwork and some serious medical checkups at a far away clinic in Chiang Mai.

I've managed to convince a nice Australian family in Sydney to take me in and let me be an AuPair starting in late April of this year. Assuming all goes well, I'll be home just in time for Christmas at the end of the year.

Very very excited. More details to come at another time.

Start planning those vacays now, bitches.

Angkor Wat, National Treasure. Not to be confused with the very entertaining Nicholas Cage movie.

2009-03-20T05:07:00.000-07:00

From PP we shipped out to Siam Reap, home to Angkor Wat. The largest temple in the world, this site put all of my other ruined temple sites to shame. Well, at least in size.

Some of the temples were originally built as Hindu sites, but were later used for Buddhist purposes. They are all intricate, huge, beautiful, extremely old and make you wonder how in the hell they were constructed without the use of modern technology. Amazing.

According to UNESCO.org –
“Angkor is one of the most important archaeological sites in South-East Asia. Stretching over some 400 km2, including forested area, Angkor Archaeological Park contains the magnificent remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century. They include the famous Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon Temple with its countless sculptural decorations.”

The whole site is huge, so most people hire a tuk-tuk driver/informal tour guide for the day. Mr. Sin was the man, and he was quite a cutie.

My camera started acting up this day – UGH – so I didn’t get as many pics as I would like. Adam has some great ones, I will try to steal soon.

My fav temple was actually never finished – it was hit by lightening during construction, so the king decided it was bad luck and abandoned it. But I still love it because of the amazingly crazy stairs you have to climb up to get to the top.

These cement “stairs” are more like small grooves in a wall. It’s quite vertical, the stairs are shallow and they are widely spread apart. We made it up just fine, but one other girl made the mistake of looking down mid-ascent. She needed a little help getting down after that.

All in all it was a beautiful day with beautiful, breathtaking temples. I now have a serious sunburn that shows the exact lines of my tee shirt.

Nice.

First stop - Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2009-03-20T04:52:00.000-07:00

I’m writing this while riding on the craziest bus ride ever in Vietnam. I may end up with a broken laptop during one of these near accidents. So bear with me.

First stop on my SE Asian adventure was Phnom Pehn, Cambodia – home to the one and only Mike Rios. With the help of his trusty instruction sheet and a personally made map, we landed, dropped off our passports to get Vietnam visas and met Mikey at a café near his amazing apartment.

This kid is living it up in PP. I’m telling you, it’s tempting.

I spent a few days in the spoils of Western delights – bread, wine, cocktails and other tasties. Great little cafes and bars with cushioned benches and English speaking staff. I was impressed by this little-big city.

There is so much good food here. My personal theory is that the French occupation blessed this country with great baguette on every corner. I think it’s a good guess.

Even though its been nearly 5 years since we last embraced, it took no time for Mike and me to get back where we left off.

I wanted to stroke his extreme Cambodia sideburns. He wanted to stick his fingers up my nose.

I’ve included photos of the resulting compromise.

The next day Adam and I set off to see the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, an old school that was set up as a torture camp during the Khmer Rouge. I’m ashamed to say that my historic knowledge of this period is limited, but the museum certainly helped to clarify.

Grotesque doesn’t cut it. I was so moved that I got a little dizzy and lost a bit of feeling in my hands.

The classrooms had mostly been turned into torture rooms. Most were empty except for one bed and a graphic black and white photo of a victim in that room, either tied to the bed or otherwise chained. Photos were post-torture. Graphic.

There was also a photo exhibition with interview excerpts with survivors of the massacres. It was hard to think that nearly every tuk-tuk driver in the city, anyone above the age of 40 had lived through the Khmer Rouge and had almost certainly suffered and lost a loved one.

Tough stuff, but certainly worth an afternoon.

That night I hit up the town with Mike and his amazing roomie. We had a lot of drinks, shared poop stories and went dancing on a pontoon boat turned bar/dance club. Excellent times all around.

A little hung over, I headed out the next day. We’d be back to say goodbyes and pick up the visas.

Nope, it's not photoshopped. Yes, it really happened.

2009-03-12T04:19:00.001-07:00

This photo was taken while I waited for some mai aroi som tom on Soi 11 near the very very busy Sukhumvit road in Bangkok.

Why would you ride an ELEPHANT in traffic, in Bangkok, at 11pm? No one knows.

Expat Escapades is going on the road!

2009-03-12T04:16:00.000-07:00

That’s right folks – I’m hoping to keep up with you all for the next couple of months while I backpack through Cambodia, Vietnam and possibly Malaysia.

Or some other places. Or the islands of Thailand. You know me and decision making.

I’m in Bangok now waiting for a Mr. Adam Leslie to arrive on a very very delayed flight. Tomorrow we head out on an afternoon flight to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to see the one and only Mike Rios. The one who started my personal Asian Invasion … it’s bound to be blog material.

From there we head to Angor Wat, then back to Phnom Penh, and then Vietnam. All over. Until April 13th, when I hope to be back in Thailand for the Thai NY celebration, Songkran.

It’s a huge water fight, and it’s supposed to be the coolest holiday of the year here. I can’t miss it.

In any case, it’s gonna get spotty in terms of internet connections. So Schrama – lay off it, ok? Gimmeabreak. OkThanks.

Mai mah leau. Sawatdeejau, HangChat

2009-03-12T04:08:00.000-07:00

Oh, here come the emotions. Still no tears, but you know.

On Wednesday morning I said my final final final goodbyes to everyone at the school. It was pretty tough, and overwhelming in how heartfelt it seemed. Thai people tend to keep their emotions locked up, so seeing some honest reaction to my departure was a little shocking.

Nate cried a lot. It was cute.

The gifts poured in from everywhere – jewelry, thai pants, coconut belts, teddy bears, scarves, etc. I was amazed.

Just before I left the house, a couple of my favorite little kiddies from town and one of my cute students came to the house to say goodbyes and give me king and queen teddy bears as a set. I will keep them forever.

Ning and Pan came with me to the bus station, and totally took charge. Arranged for my HUGE luggage to get on the bus, bought me a lunch and snacks for the road, and waited until the bus pulled away to wave goodbye. Such moms until the bitter end.

I spent all day Wednesday on the bus to Bangkok. It still hasn’t sunk in that I’m DONE. Once I leave the country, I’m sure it will.

ENGLISH CAMP

2009-03-12T03:58:00.001-07:00

Why is that in all caps? Because they were screaming it for 2 days straight, and I want you to get the full effect.

ENGLISH CAAAMP!

My last 2 days on campus were filled with the joy of English Camp. 2 days of teaching our Matiyum 4 kids how to clap, dance, scream and generally be obnoxious while occasionally communicating their joy in my mother tongue.

It wasn’t thaaat bad. I’m just tired.

Sunday afternoon I got a call from my coordinator asking me to IMMEDIATELY email him some lyrics for one of the games. “I will be waiting to see it soon please.”

6 hours later he called back to let us know that the entire international email network was out, (his personal theory when things online don't work) so he wasn’t able to access it. He had just noticed … because he had just looked for it. Way to make me jump for nothing, huh?

We agreed to meet him bright and early at 7am for camp prep the next morning. Nate banged on my bedroom door to wake me and successfully got me out of the house on time. But it was for NOTHING – our coordinator didn’t roll in until 8am.

I called this one. Nate didn’t believe me.

A lack of structure was basically the theme of the camp. Things were supposed to start at 8:30am, but didn’t commence until 10:30am. Whole activities were scraped, water balloon fights broke out. Dancing and singing was all done in Thai, even though it was ENGLISH camp. Whatever.

The day was just long. At 10:30pm things finally started to wind down enough for me to duck out, but only after rocking out at the dance party. Apparently the whole thing still went on for some time. I went home and immediately crashed.

The next morning I attempted to lead an intro yoga session – at 6:30am – to kids who don’t understand English or give a damn about physical fitness. So I made Nate demonstrate to add an element of entertainment. I wish I had pictures for you.

NONE of the adults showed up to my session. Bitches.

To retaliate, I skipped the intro and breakfast session to go home and do laundry. Haha.

The rest of the day was calm – said my goodbyes again, and gave my goodbye presents to some teary-eyed teachers. For the first time I realized that they were really going to miss me.

The kids all headed home around 3pm – I went home to pack and clean like a madwoman. And just like that, it was all done.

My last day as Kru Lisa

2009-03-12T03:51:00.000-07:00

I am officially done teaching at HangChat Wittaya School. My last day of school – and the kids’ last day of testing – was Friday. I can’t believe it’s over, it went by so quickly.

Blah blah.

I woke up early to say a few words to the kids at the morning assembly, although I’m sure few understood me over the crazy sound system. In any case, I said my goodbyes without any tears. It was too early for me to really understand what was happening.

There wasn’t much for us to do, since they were all taking tests. So I walked around, said goodbye, handed out candy and signed the shirts and books and pictures that the kids gave me. You can imagine the cheese I was dishing out.

“Best of luck in all you do.”

“Keep dreaming.”

“I will miss you terribly.”

“PRACTICE ENGLISH.”

God, I’m so inspirational. I should write a book.

Then I tried to take a nap, but I couldn’t because I was sweating from every pore in my body.

The end.

I'm totally THAT teacher

2009-03-02T22:30:00.000-08:00

You know in high school, there was always that one teacher who was young and cool, and who you liked to hang out with after school sometimes? We had a few.

Well, I’ve totally become THAT teacher at school. It feels pretty good.

Earlier this week we ran into a couple of our fav 6/3 kids while we eating dinner. These are seniors, and they’ve already taken most exams, so they’re pretty checked out of the game.

We always ask if they want to hang out, what they are doing, etc. Just typical nice Thai chatting. But for some reason they actually came the other night, and were thrilled to see the inside of our house.

It’s not much, but anything American really threw them off. My stack of collected American mags, my electric toothbrush, photos of family – all of this was really amusing to them. They just went around looking at everything, asking where it was all from, what it was. Then there was the confusing attempt at translating, even though they speak a lot of English. I swear, it’s these kids who have learned the most from us – and we don’t even really teach class topics.

The following night they took us to a market, which was super cute. We had a crew of 4 escorts this time, who got very worried if I strayed and watched our every move. Like they needed to protect me? “Reesaaaaa. Risa. Pai nai?” Adorable.

The L and the R is had for the Thai to distinguish. So my name is Risa.

I thought the streak was over until they showed up at our house around 10pm last night. We couldn’t figure out what they wanted or what was up until one of them started sitting in the street and kept yelling – “Teacher, we come in PLEEEASE?!”

Wasted. My kids were totally wasted.

Apparently they had skipped out of school at 2pm and headed to a friend’s house to drink. Until around 9pm. 7 hours of amateur drinking, sitting on my doorstep.

We let them in and fed them candy, water and vitamins. One curled up in a ball on the floor for a quick nap. The others spent an hour trying to learn how to open the child lock on my One-A-Days. They’ve never seen one before!

Around 11 they finally headed out. Nate drove home with them to make sure they got in safely. I was a tired bitch, so I just went to sleep.

I’m going to miss these kids. Boopants.

I can't believe I'm almost done

2009-02-26T20:04:00.000-08:00

Sorry kids – not as much news here as there once was. The year is winding down, kids are getting nuts, and I’m trying to figure out the rest of my life. I have a few posts coming soon.

My last day is technically a week from today, with an English camp the following Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, March 11 I will set off from fair HangChat ... and may possibly never return. I can't believe it will be 5 months ... nuts. How time flies.

But you will all be happy to know that I will be back in NYC on July 24 to be the BEST MAN in my best friend’s wedding. I AM Julia Roberts. Except, you know, I’m not trying to hook up with the groom or anything. Let’s be clear.

Congrats Adam and Julienne!

I’m hopefully going to be hooked up with a job abroad still, so it’ll only be a quick visit. Pumped. Clear your calendars for time with yours truly.

More news coming on ExpatEscapade’s backpacking trip and new locations!!

I went to the ZOOOOOOOOOO

2009-02-19T23:57:00.000-08:00

Fun fact about Lisa - I'm obsessed with going to the zoo.

I don't know why. It's just like a vanilla ice cream cone with sprinkles. Or mac-n-cheeze. No matter how old I get, I'm still totally drawn to these things. Like a 4 year old.

Yeah, whatever. Don't act like you're cooler than me.

So when we had a free 3-day weekend, I dragged Nate to the Chiang Mai Zoo. I was hype. Like, really really excited.

Unfortunately, Thai people are lazy, and the zoo was basically built to be seen from a train or monorail. We tried to walk it, but it was confusing and waaaaay spread out and not pedestrian friendly. Lame.

But we saw lions, and monkeys, and bears. No tigers. Lizards. I got to hold the snake.

It was hot man. Really hot. Thailand is really really hot.

Oh, and they have this crazy bird with a beak on it's head. That was cool.

Happy belated Valentine's Day! You know, and updates.

2009-02-19T23:41:00.000-08:00

I know - it's really not a blog if I don't update often. Whatever. Blame the third world.

It's been killer hot here lately, which means I take naps a lot ... which means I don't blog ... blah blah. This worries me, since it's not even the "hot season" yet.

But Happy Belated Hallmark Holiday, everyone. I hope you enjoyed yours as much as I enjoyed mine.

The girls came to HangChat. 2 motorbikes, 5 people and luggage and sleeping gear for 3. Kelly and Marianne got into town at 2am, so we drove everyone in around 2:30am, with all gear in hand. I wish I had taken a picture - it was quite a sight.

The next day we went SHOPPING. Markets and outlets and Thai goods - oh my! I was exhausted by the end.

Then we ate a lot, and played cards, and ate some more and drank a TON. We even played Texas Hold'em with rice as chips, which, again, I wish I had gotten a picture of.

It was honestly one of my favorite Valentine's Days of all time. No drama, lots of love, lots of food and drink. It was relaxing and a blast. Sadly, it might be the last time we all party together in this country :(

I'm done teaching March 10 or something. Then it's off on a whirlwind adventure to Cambodia, Vietnam, maybe Lao and Malaysia? And then ... who knows. I have a few tricks up my sleeve, but I'm not ready to reveal them yet.

I miss you guys. Email me, bitches.

Stay warm over there. I heard it's been a killer winter.

Phu-chee-fa – The Sea of Fog

2009-02-10T19:29:00.000-08:00

After one failed attempt to go see the notorious “sea of fog,” the girls made a solid plan to get ourselves on the mountain in celebration of Juliette’s quarter-century birthday.

Phu-chee-fa, which translates to “mountain near the sky,” isn’t normally found in the Lonely Planet-farang guide, but is notorious in Thailand. If one ventures at sunrise to the top peak of this mountain, which overlooks the Thai/Lao border, you can see what literally appears to be a sea of fog. When the air is cold is creates a white wash below the peak – all you can see are the tops of the neighboring mountains below. In the day’s first light these peaks look like little islands in the ocean. It’s truly a beautiful site.

Juliette managed to get us a tour guide for the day, which seemed to be the only way to get up to the mountain without personal transportation. It was quite a climb, so I’m glad we didn’t attempt to rent the Jeep ourselves. For the first time in my Thai adventures, I was actually motion sick on the way up. This may or may not had something to do with the candy-coated peanuts.

A couple of hours later we landed at the base of the mountain, ready to set up camp. Our guide hooked us up with 3 teeny tents and a pile of blankets. We slept on a broken out cliff on the opposite side of the mountain, which, again, was gorg.

A few little kids from the orphanage in town came by and asked us if we would like tour guides in the morning. They were willing to let us name any price, and they would come get us at 5am to make it to the sunrise. We couldn’t resist.

After a delicious meal of random meats and veggies grilled on sticks, along with a pile of American-style chocolate, we settled in for what was looking like a sorta lame evening. We hadn’t bought enough beer – ugh.

In comes a troupe of 15-ish Thai college kids, roaring and ready to have a good time. Before pitching a tent, a cutie named Arm came to serenade us by the fire.

After he had jumped up and offered us shots of Thai whiskey – the instant cure to sobriety – we decided to come down and make friends.

Exactly 30 minutes and 3-ish shots later, I was wasted. I wandered over to find the other girls, sadly, not as wasted. We went to work on fixing that.

Arm tried to seduce me by the fire, and when I resisted he simply laid down on our campfire blanket and passed out. Hilarious. His friends came by to torture him and carry him away, eventually. To be honest, he was behind me and I hadn’t realized he was there.

I’m a terrible person.

Our tour guide from Chiang Rai called to say that 5am was actually too early – he’d be by around 6 to pick us up.

We all rolled into bed around 1 or so, restlessly sleeping until around 4:30. Which is when the rudest, most obnoxious person ever started blowing a whistle and talking into a loudspeaker to wake up all the drunk people who were planning to go to the top of a mountain.

The Americans all tried to sleep, but that was interrupted by the sound of little kiddies and the blazing flashlights into our tents. Our orphanage tour guides hadn’t been informed of the time change, so they were ready to go and at our tents at 4:50. AM!!!

We lazily rolled out of bed and crawled to the Thai kids’ fire that was still burning warm. As we rolled up our tents, our little guides decided that we sucked and decided to re-roll everything for us. Score.

All of a sudden we heard screaming and crashing near the bathrooms below us. It seems that a drunky had attempted to drive his truck uphill, on the side of a cliff, in the dark, without use of his first gear. The end of the story is he had to jump out of the moving vehicle as it crashed over 2 smaller cliffs before rolling into a deep ravine. This really woke everyone up.

We saw him later on the mountain top, smiling and seemingly not concerned about his truck being in a ditch. I love the Thai.

Our original tour guide arrived at 6, we packed our things in the truck and headed to the Phu. A short climb with a large crowd of Thai people and we experienced this. Gorgeous sunrise, a sea of fog … all we had dreamed of and more.

The end was pretty anticlimactic – some rice soup, a short, drowsy ride to Chiang Rai and a shitty ride back to Lampang. KIM’S story is much better.

And that was that.

Lesson See - I'm Magic

2009-02-09T19:27:00.000-08:00

Yup, you heard me. MAGIC. Or, for KellyHelderBoobs, I'll say that I'm like Jesus. Touch me and you're healed. Forever.

What does this mean? It means that Thai people - especially old women in villages and smaller towns - think that it's good luck to touch white people. I've heard that they do this with blond hair in China - lucky for me I'm a brunette these days.

At first I thought I was imagining it when a random old lady would reach out and touch me. Then it occurred to me that, nope, I wasn't crazy this time - that lady actually DID just stroke me.

In Sukohothai, I was trying to wai my respect to an ancient lady walking out of the bathroom, and she used it as a chance to drag her hand from my shoulder to my waist. Just par for the course.

It hit an all-time comedic moment when I was trying to leave the grocery store last week, and some woman made a beeline across the aisle to grab my ass. Literally. I saw her walking towards me, tried to dodge because I thought I was in her way, and watched her follow me and take a grab as I passed. I kept walking, but started cracking up and almost lost the groceries. It took a few seconds for me to catch my breath to explain to Nate why I was hyperventilating.

I mean, what else do you do but laugh? I didn't really mind - that's the most action I've seen in weeks.

Lesson Saam - Thai Lawn Care

2009-02-07T01:09:00.000-08:00

This weekend I've decided to stay home and relax. Catch up on laundry/postcards/blogs about my last couple of weekends. I woke up early, threw in some whites and relaxed in front of a book with a cup of tea.

Imagine my dismay when the entire field next to our house went up in flames.

Nope, this was no wildfire. This was lawn care.

Here in Thailand, the common solution to leaves and long grass is just to set that shit on fire. Seriously.

Last week, Nate and I had to drive through a cloud of smoke over the highway that was so thick, we had to cover our faces and speed through to the other side totally blind. We turned around to see that an entire field was in flames, with a small crew standing by to "handle" it.

Apparently, the janitors didn't know that we were home, so they didn't give us any warning as to what was happening. At first, it was hilarious. Then I started coughing and was much less amused.

They burned the entire field around our back porch, extending the length of the school campus. This shit would never fly in the States. We can't even have bonfires!

Lesson Saam - if you're lawn looks unkempt, just burn it down and start over. Problem solved.

I'm having a blast - but still, Thailand really kicks my ass

2009-02-05T18:16:00.000-08:00

Others certainly have it worse – mainly Kim – but still, Thailand has really been kicking my ass lately. Which is why you haven’t heard from me as much as you might like.

This week alone, I’ve:

-woken up to a trail of spider/mosquito bites from my left shoulder blade to my neck to my right bicep. Plus, you know, a few detours on my thigh/ass. And my lip, which is a first.

- burned my leg on the exhaust pipe of the motorbike. It doesn’t’ seem too bad, but it just happened Wednesday. It certainly looks gross. I’ll let you know how it goes.

- been called fat a dozen or so times, sometimes in front of a large group. One of these times it was pointed out that I USED to be beautiful, but I’m not anymore. Then that person insisted that I tell them my current weight in pounds so we could convert it into kilograms so he could tell me how overweight I really am. (side note – upon last visit to a scale, I’m exactly the same as I was when I left NYC.)

- also been ridiculed for my lack of Thai fluency, and otherwise made fun of in a language I don’t understand. Also in front of a large group.

- ended up on a shitty short-distance fan bus that you’re never ever supposed to take, especially on long-distance trips. Twice. Four hours each way.

- spent 14 hours on a field trip from hell that included endless torture from a bitchy teacher, a karoke machine and mic that was managed by students and a flat tire on a full bus only 40 kilometers from home.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I still love Thailand, and all that. I just wanted to share another side of the seemingly flawless existence I have right now. Along with getting retarded on the weekends, I’m cultivating my abilities for patience, kindness, understanding and acceptance. But it certainly isn’t easy.

I’m planning to check into the Buddhist Center for meditation soon. Maybe that will help me a bit.

Mae Hong Son/Pai – the totally Thai experience

2009-02-04T20:26:00.001-08:00

Earlier in my time here you were introduced to Som, our adorable Thai friend in Lampang. Well, a few weeks ago Nate and I joined Som and 18 of her friends on a motorcycle road trip through the notoriously dangerous mountain roads of Northern Thailand on possibly the most amazing road trip I’ve ever been a part of. It was so unbelievably beautiful and authentic – without getting all fuzzy, I’ll just say that it was the highlight of my time here.

Som had invited us weeks earlier, and told us that we would be joined by some other farang who we met during our first month. We later found out that they really went on their own, while we chose to let Som lead the way. Any time she asked our opinion on anything we just asked her to make executive decisions. It certainly kept things interesting.

Saturday morning, Nate and I walked with our backpacks and blankets to the front gate of our school, not sure what to expect. Immediately an ancient Nissan pickup truck pulled a u-turn on the highway and screeched to a stop in front of us. Piled high with luggage and 3 Thai people, we jumped in (literally) and joined Som on the other side of the highway.

A few minutes passed in mild confusion before a line of 6 HUGE chopper-like motorcycles pulled in front of us and parked in a perfect line. Each carried a Thai dude and a female counterpart in variations of skater/hipster/biker-chic clothing. Awesome.

They went to work fixing a bike that was leaking something, and we headed out. 6 bikes and one overloaded pickup. We spent the entire weekend in the back, piled 5 deep with baggage, tents and blankets for 20. My ass stayed planted in place, but my limbs were off the side for a good portion of the trip.

Mae Hong Son and Pai are known to the Thai people as the place in the country that you just don’t go. Apparently, if you’re being persecuted for money, you can hide out there and people will leave you alone. It’s that hard to get to. The roads are winding and steep – the tourist association will actually give you a certificate just for making it to the top.

Between Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son, there are 1895 curves in the road – to Pai, 1095. We went from Mae Hong Son, over to Pai, and back down. In 3 days.

We traveled for at least 8 hours each day, stopping numerous times to take beer/smoke/potty/food/stretch breaks. It was a very romantic atmosphere – not about the destination, but the journey. A true road trip.

On the way to MHS, we stopped in a seed production forest, which proved perfect for photo-ops.

When we finally made it to town, we rented a huge house for everyone to share. People were piled 3 to a bed, 2 on the floor per room. Of course, there was a room for the smoking. And a beautiful campfire, next to the woods, with unlimited rum and a guitar for strumming.

There’s nothing like listening in on a long evening of bull shit in a language you don’t understand, in a country so far from your own. I mean, out of 18 people, only 2 speak English.

Nothing else has really helped me see that, at the core, Thai twenty-somethings have a ton in common with my own friends from home. People laugh, tell stories, get drunk, do stupid stuff, and make fun of each other. The more relaxed I felt, the more the body language and facial expressions helped me understand. I certainly don’t speak Thai, but by the end of the night it hardly mattered.

The next day was the most treacherous – MHS to Pai was slow going, but again, beautiful. We even hit up a cool temple and a national park, to really fill the trip. Everyone was super excited about the fish cave – a natural cave with a pond underneath that’s full of huge fish. I think I was a little less excited than the others, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

When we made it in around 6, we found there was nowhere to sleep, thanks to the reggae fest in town that we were planning to attend. This usually calm hippy village in the mountains was packed to the brim, and we waited on the side of the road, in the truck, waiting for more news.

Eventually they found a bungalow village with 2 open rooms and a teepee. Yes, a tepee. The originals of Pai, in fact.

We created a little circle of tents around the tepee and campfire, and again piled into bungalows. The smoking and drinking commenced, putting everyone out of spirits to move anywhere, especially an expensive concert that was fairly far away. So we never made it.

morning we headed back, exhausted, dirty and totally happy. We finally started to look the part of hipster Thai with our huge shades.

When Nate and I finally jumped out of the back of the truck around 8 at night, hugged and waved goodbye and started the trek to the house on foot, we were totally wiped out. I hadn’t really showered since I left and had bruises behind each knee from jumping in and out of the truck so many times. I was burned to a crisp on my arms, face and chest. And still, I was so content with the weekend. That was Thailand in its truest form.

More love in a package

2009-01-29T00:21:00.000-08:00

As promised, I continue to post in gratitude of lovely care packages. So thanks go out to a Mr. Adam Leslie for sending me my weight in peanut butter and magazines. Oh, I miss the States sometimes.

A few of you have mentioned that you still want to send something - refer to this link for my address.

In case you're not aware, I'm only staying in HangChat until late Feb/early March. My contract is only good through the end of the term. At that point I'll be traveling all over Thailand and Asia, most likely until May. Eventually I hope to have another job ... somewhere ... not in the US.

So if you're mailing something, please do it now. Otherwise I might never see it!

I love my HangChat neighbors

2009-01-29T00:07:00.000-08:00

Here in HangChat we have several neighbor teachers who live on campus – a creepy janitor – a pack of blood-hungry dogs. But none of them hold my affections the way the animal neighbors do.

We’re talking the cute, the fuzzy, the scaly, the poisonous and the deadly.

The most annoying lately have been the geckos – not lizards, but geckos. They measure a good 10 inches each, and there are 7 of them living in the walls of our tiny place. The little lizards live here too, but it’s the big ones that make the most noise. They've been keeping me up at night with the crazy squeaking - last night I got up and started banging on the walls. That shut them up for a while.

I love the Buddhist explanation as to why they weren’t removed when the whole place was renovated. “I asked the janitor to get them out, but he said that they live there. It’s their home. So they stayed.”

Like I said, you can here them shuffling around and squeaking at night, and they leave huge turds everywhere. Mostly they are heard and not seen, but once in a while I’ll be sitting in the kitchen and see a claw hanging down, or a tail, or just a head or two.

This is actually 1 of them hanging out on our wall – it decided to stay out a while one night.

My personal neighbor favorite is Sapparot – or “pineapple” in Thai. She (I think) is a neighborhood cat that managed to sneak in our house during the Christmas party. Crazy Pan fed the thing all the leftover prawns, and now it hangs out for food scraps. I love her though – she’s actually a pretty sweet cat, considering that I don’t even like them.

Nate got a tropical fruits book for Christmas, and I happened to be flipping through it while the cat meowed at me from the yard. And Sapparot is fun to say. So that’s her name.

She likes to sit on the washing machine outside the window and meow at me. Cute. Until she put a hole in the screen.

I know she might belong to the crazy janitor neighbor, but I like to pretend that’s not the case. Even though, clearly, she is clean and well fed and belongs to someone.

The other two are less adorable – the huge spider in the front yard, and the scorpion(s) that we’ve found on our walking path near our house. Luckily, it seems that only the small-ish spiders have made a home in the Jungle Bungalow – which may or may not be thanks to the geckos.

This huge mean-looking beast has a huge web in our front lawn.

That’s Nate’s hand. Notice that the spider is larger.

The scorpion was most likely dead when we took this picture, but at the time we didn’t know and it all seemed very dangerous. We’ve mostly seen these still and dead, I think – we don’t throw things at them to see if they really are alive.

I wanted to, actually. I found a stick and everything. But someone convinced me that poking a scorpion with a stick was a terrible idea.

Lame.

A glimpse into the Thai classroom ...

2009-01-28T23:46:00.000-08:00

I think it’s hard for many of my friends to see me as a legit teacher. Which, I mean, is totally understandable.

These videos reveal that, indeed, I’m not really a legit teacher. At least not by American standards.

I came to Thailand with all of these visions of what teaching would be like, excited students, etc. Dream on, farang. Dream.On.

I took these during one of my little kid classes – ½, to be exact. So, think 7th grade in the States.

This one is from when I first walked in – notice how the kids are excited to learn?

The second shows the drastic change in the kid’s behavior once I try to settle them down. Notice the physical attacks going on in the back of the room.

I resorted to grabbing a broom and bending the kids over. The one girl I actually swung at laughed her ass off, since I would obviously never REALLY hit a child. But I tapped her, dramatically, and she was all too thrilled to play along. Way to have authority, huh?

They I started slapping chairs and desks of the bad kids really really hard if they were talking when I wanted them to be quiet. Which worked, sort of.

Finally, I sat down and refused to teach until they shut up. Then I got up to leave. And, miraculously, they managed to control each other enough to play a quick game.

And then the bell rang, after 10 minutes of real class time. Thank you very much, HangChat Wittaya School.

Part 3 – ooooohhhh weeeee. Rainstorms and glow paint and shakes, oh my!

2009-01-19T19:13:00.000-08:00

After a few days of fun in the non-sun, it was time to join the other ladies in Phang-Nga for the culminating event of the week – the non-Full Moon party. We had to take another ferry to the island, which sucked in a storm. We had all gotten comfortable in a pile of luggage and people on deck when we were covered with huge black clouds and pelted with tons of rain.

Most of us tried to stick it out for a while, but it didn’t take long for all of us to get forced below deck. This created a gross, crowded scene of wet people, some still drunk from the night before. Ugh.

We landed on the island in the heat of the storm, and only escaped by piling 7 girls, with luggage, into the pickup truck cab from our guesthouse. Don’t worry – it was only a little cramped. Marianne’s accent took up a ton of room – she all of a sudden became super-Brit when she made friends with a few people from her home country. But she DID save my ass in the rain – so maybe I should let it slide ;)

After eating and settling in, we realized that it was 5pm on NYE, and we were a little bored. The party didn’t really start until 11 or so …

Remember those disgusting mixes of cheap vodka, fruit juice and soda that you used to drink in college? Well, we brought those back with style, and I have to say that they did the job. There’s just something about a mixed drink in a bucket that gets me going, you know? It was time to party.

After getting sufficiently drunk we headed to the beach to get painted. Yes, painted. I wore a bikini, a sarong and a ton of glowing body paint on NYE. It was a beach party, man. Trust me, I wasn’t the only one.

The entire length of the beach was covered with gorgeous international backpackers in very little clothing, under the influence of all kinds of drugs and alcohol. Each bar’s dance floor spilled out onto the beach, and blared variations of techno and pop music that seemed to blend and mix itself as you walked from party to party. Everyone was dancing, smiling, having a great time. We spent several hours crawling from one scene to the next, dancing on stages, downing buckets, making new friends and otherwise having a phenomenal time. The music pulsed so much you couldn’t help but be energized – sometimes it almost felt like I was tripping because the music seemed to be making my heart beat faster.

I love guys from other countries because they don’t play games. “You’re hot. I want to have sex with you.” “Wow, thanks, you’re hot too. But I’m dancing now – maybe later?”

And he really was hot – but I really did want to dance.

The countdown came and went way too fast – apparently there were fireworks, but I was too busy standing in the water talking to my mommy to notice. Good thing Kim got a video to remind us of those, because we all seemed to loose track around midnight or so.

You know how you drunk dial people sometimes and get all lovey and say a bunch of sweet things you normally wouldn’t say? I guess I did this to my mom … which is why she forgives me for screaming drunkenly in her ear for a solid 10 minutes.

So we continued to dance – I made a new Australian friend … and around 2am we decided that we needed a water break. A little pick-me-up. Which we found at Magic Mountain, or Mushroom Mountain, or something like that, in the form of a “special shake.”

I mean, you know how you hear all of those warnings about strict drug laws in Thailand? Well, this place was on a huge cliff, overlooking a huge crowded beach, and had a number of large billboards advertising all of the drugs you could purchase there. As soon as you pass the door, a huge Thai woman attacks you and asks you what you want, listing off a number of options that my virgin ears had never ever heard of. Unreal guys, unreal.

I won’t spill the beans on who had what, who stayed clean, etc, but I will say that we all continued the night well into the morning, finally crawling back into our bungalows around 6:30am. We got back mostly unharmed, except for Marianne who managed to step on the meanest piece of glass ever and slice open her foot. The girl didn’t even mention it all night – only when she started leaving paths of blood in the sand did we know something was wrong. And then she just kept on walking and dancing, still bleeding, until we were all ready to go home.

I guess those Brits just really like to party. I guess it’s just karma and she had to pay – her night ended better than anyone else’s. ;)

Of course, we had been walking around barefoot, in the streets and on the disgusting beach, covered in paint and sweat and beer and sand and everything else for hours. We needed to shower.

We get in the bungalows … and there’s NOOOO water. So we try to bathe in the ocean, only to realize that we are on a huge sandbar and have to walk a mile to find water that’s deeper than a couple of inches. I sat on the sand bar and splashed myself like a small child, looking like an idiot. Then I was just covered in salt. At least I tried.

I woke up at noon when my mom called to wish me a happy NY, EST. She reminded me of all the nice things I said to her, which I vehemently deny to this day.

We pretty much wasted New Year’s Day, sort of wandering and shopping and eating piles of fried noodles. I took a terrible ferry/bus/bus/bus ride home on the 2nd. The boat almost tipped in a swell, the bus dropped me in the middle of Bangkok at 3am, and I had to camp out in the bus station. I finally made it home Saturday night, after leaving the islands on Friday morning. But the party was worth it – cheers to the craziest NYE of my life.

Choke dee in 2009. My New Year’s resolution – try not to eat as much as Nate anymore.

Skype me? Skype you!

2009-01-14T23:32:00.000-08:00

Umm, yeah, so apparently it's really expensive for you guys to call me. And most cell phones don't support international calls. Lame.

I certainly can't afford calling you either. I'm on a Thai budget now.

So let's try Skype, huh? It's a 12 hour time difference from EST to me. So just change the AM to PM, or PM to AM, and you know what time it is here. Same, same, but different.

So instead of calling me, you should all download Skype - www.skype.com - and add me as a friend - ltrav1023. Same as my AIM. Original, I know.

Then we can CYBER. Or, you know, chat with voices. It'll be niiiiice.

Talk to you soon, kids!

Part 2 – Koh Samui, where I hope to never drive a motorbike ever again

2009-01-14T17:57:00.000-08:00

I was going to hold this a bit longer, but Schrama really really wanted it. And, I mean, if she finds this blog exciting, that's saying something. Can't make her wait ;)

For a few days before New Year’s Eve, my friend Jen and I camped out on Koh Samui before heading over to Koh Phang-Nga for the main event.

“Koh” means island in Thai. In case you weren’t following.

Koh Samui is much larger than the other islands, with a lot more to see and do. This was fortunate for us, since the sun refused to show its face for our ENTIRE stay. Literally, the moment I got out of the cab and on to the beach, the sun went behind some clouds. And never came back. So other than some burned shoulders, I am still pasty after a week at the beach. Lame.

When I say “camped out,” I mean that in a near literal since. We embraced the bungalow life again at a nice place called New Hut, and stayed riiight on the water, in a little tepee on stilts. It was adorable, and it was beautiful to fall asleep and wake up to the sound of the waves. Of course, we were always covered in sand, but who really cares when it’s pretty and white sand? At 350 baht a night, we weren’t complaining.

For those of you in the States, that’s around 15 bucks a night. Total. $7.50 each.

Well, I complained when our neighbors stayed up super late and brought out iPod speakers to blast really shitty pop music. But I didn’t complain about the sand.

We attempted some beach time on the first day, which was fine but cloudy. We gave up with the rain started really coming down.

We found a great little night market with amazing cheap food, which would have been much cooler if it wasn’t surrounded by little gazebo pole-dancing bars. Seriously. It looks like a cute little street with a market …. And then you realize that the gazebos are full of nearly naked Thai women dancing on poles. Sad, sad.

On one of the nights we met a large group of hot foreigners who were training at a Thai boxing gym on the island. What is it about me and the foreign boxers? Seriously?

Of course we met them on the ONE night that they were staying in, for the sake of their livers. Ugh. We flirted as best we could, but no one was up to party. So we were left to wander in search of some cool people.

We didn’t manage to find any – but we DID make some pseudo-friends who were too drunk to notice when we stole their beers. They had promised to buy us one, and we were sick of waiting. I feel like that’s overzealous acceptance, and not really theft. And they were tools.

The next day we rented some motorbikes to explore the island and see what it was all about. It was a fun drive to the different neighborhoods, seeing the fishing town, and the more deserted beaches, etc. We made a quick turn at a sign for a waterfall, which ended up being quite a hike. Luckily we had our bathing suits on, so we went for a quick swim. Beautiful, beautiful. Great way to pass the cloudy day.

The bikes were a blast, for the most part. I loooove driving. But at the end of the day we headed to the crowded beach to get a look before the sun went down. And that small stretch between Hat Lamai and Chaweng is where I almost died. 3 times.

The first time wasn’t my fault at all – a truck decided to pass another truck, in the wrong lane, around a curve, on a huge hill. I happened to be the first in a line of motorbikes coming around the curve in the opposite direction, and we were using most of the lane to keep from turning too hard and skidding out. Luckily I don’t usually freeze in terror, so I was able to swerve in time to avoid being killed in a head on collision.

Next, my purse got stuck in my basket, or something, and I tried to make a similar turn on a similar hill. But I was pushing left … and my bike was still going straight. This left ME in the wrong lane this time. I pushed a little harder and got out of the lane – luckily, a nice British man noticed the terrified look in my face and made some room for me to get back in control.

The last time was like the first, only a closer call. At this point, I was ready to pull over and hitchhike home.

Damn Thai drivers. Like honking your horn will guarantee that I can get around you? Will the sound provide enough cushion in case we do hit one another? No, dude, that’s just not how it works.

All of this trouble, and the main beach just looks like a slightly prettier version of Pattaya. Which, if you remember, was like Miami or Cancun. Full of drunken fools paying too much for crappy Western food and looking to score. Like a foreign version of American Pie 2, with a bunch of Stiflers running around. Not as cute, just as bastard-y.

THIS is what I almost died for?

But the sand was really pretty, and I went for a glorious swim. So that’s something.

We dropped off the bikes 30 minutes late, unscathed. Although I’m pretty sure that day cost me at least 3 years off of my life expectancy. But once I’m that old, I’m sure I won’t notice anyway. Right?

I really don't know how many parts this will be - probably 3. So yeah, that means there's another one coming.

I need to learn how to summarize better.

NYE Shit-Show Extravaganza – Part 1

2009-01-11T22:13:00.000-08:00

If you’ve even been glancing at this blog recently, you know that I’ve been creating quite a buildup for my NYE plans – a week on the islands, culminating in the huge Full Moon-wannabe NYE party on Koh Phang-Nga. I like to create dramatic build-ups.

Like now.

Are you ready?

The Saturday after Christmas, Nate and I set off for the south on the longest bus ride journey ever. It started with a freezing motorbike ride at 7am, and finally ended some 30ish hours later on Sunday afternoon.

We managed to easily snag a bus ride down to Bangkok at 8:30am. We should have walked – we would have gotten there faster. It took 3 hours longer than it should have to get there, which meant that almost all of the bus lines were closing down for the night. And, of course, there were NO busses to Koh Samui, or Surat Thani, or anything remotely near our destination until Monday at the earliest. Excellent.

We split up and ran around franticly knocking on all of the windows, trying to find SOMETHING that wouldn’t leave us stranded in Bangkok for 2 days. I ran over at least 3 people with my rolling duffle bag.

Finally, someone said “Sure, we have a bus tonight. It leaves at 9:30. First class, 500 baht each.”

A few things should have made me think that this didn’t sound right. The price was too low, the timing sounded too perfect, and we didn’t actually get tickets. Instead we got a slip of paper, which was handed off to an old sly-looking man, who led us all the way out to the very last bus stop in the station, in the very very far corner.

I was too distracted by joy to notice all of the caution signs. And Nate was hungry, so his brain wasn’t working. The 10-hour bus ride made him a crabby pants.

We sat around and waited for the magical bus. Other Thai and farang travelers were in the same boat as us, so that was a good sign.

I made friends with the vendors and their kids to pass the time. This effort was greatly supported by the Pez that my mom sent me in the care package glory of 2008. I took sooooo many Pez virginities that night, it was fantastic.

You never know how popular you can be until you stand at a Thai bus stop with a little Santa figure that spits out sugar tablets. Laced with red dye #392. Or something like that.

Side note – anyone else ever notice how red Pez taste JUST like Swedish Fish? I mean it.

So our bus finally pulls up – it’s def VIP class, looks clean, and is relatively on time. Nice.

We check and double check that it’s going to Surat Thani – other travelers do the same. We are shown our assigned seats and start to get comfortable.

After about 15 minutes they tell us that everyone who’s NOT going to Krabi needs to get off the bus. Which means us.

Hmmmmk.

We wait a few more minutes outside until the grossest, oldest bus ever pulls up. THIS is what we paid for.

Umm, excuse me?

Ripped, bottom-class seats, light bulbs hanging from the roof, no space, dirty, dingy, etc. 12 hours on this thing? OMG.

My eyes start to water, but I hold it together.

At this point we’ve hit 10:30pm, and I’m ready to hit the road. But wait, we have to change busses one more time, to an equally old, maybe less dirty bus. Not. Pleasant.

They wait until they’ve filled the thing – 11:15ish, to take off. We make friends with our neighbor, a Thai girl who apparently used to be fat but is now a beautiful model, thanks to her fake boobs and hair. She’s on her way to meet up with her American boyfriend and his parents.

A German hottie sits next to her, and we all start chatting. Some time after I fall asleep, she apparently forgets her boyfriend and starts making out with the German. Classy Classy.

When we finally get off the bus, the Thai-model-rocket-scientist offers to help us find our way to the island with her. Since she has unlimited funds stuck in her hair, she doesn’t even ask how much everything is. We end up paying a scam-like rate for the bus and ferry, which only ices the cake that is this terrible ride down.

The last step was to herd us onto a huge ferry thing that FINALLY lands us on the island. Nate and fat-girl-turned-Thai-model-slut both grab motorbikes and head out. I end up on a sawatawng that tries to rip me off, so I jump off the back and find a new one. An hour and a half later I have a tank top sunburn, but I’m on the beach. And the sun has gone behind clouds, never to return for the entire length of my trip.

I was never so happy to see a shack and an outdoor shower in my entire life

Once upon a time, a young boy named Jesus ...

2009-01-06T19:20:00.000-08:00

Merry belated Christmas, everyone. Sorry for the delays – a beach vacay pulled me away from my computer. I know, I know, lame excuse.

Somehow, during the one week a year that I normally don’t do much of anything, I actually had a lot of work here in Thailand. This was mainly due to the fact that we were charged with writing, casting, rehearsing, costuming and performing the Christmas nativity play – in English – with young kids who’ve never performed before – starting a week before Christmas.

Oh, and they’ve never done a Nativity play at this school before. Ever. So we had to start with the whole story, and move on from there. “Once upon a time, in a town called Nazareth …” Etc.

I’m sad to say that I had to look up the details of the story. Apparently I was never ever listening in church. I mean, it’s the birth of Jesus – pretty basic, right?

In all honesty, it shouldn’t have seemed that difficult. But the kids don’t care, they don’t speak English, and none of the teachers were really available to help. Plus, Thais are generally less worried about everything, so nothing was put together until the last minute.
And the average temperature managed to rise at least 10 degrees that week, which was awesome for Nate in his Santa costume…. And it just made me mildly miserable.

I was really just crabby because I was homesick. Let’s get real, Lis.

When it was all said and done, the “play” lasted about 10 minutes, and I narrated almost the entire thing. A few kids had a line or 2, but again, the audience doesn’t speak English. I was tempted to throw in a few random lines during the performance, but the director of the school studied in North Carolina for 2 years. So I’m sure she would have noticed, and not been amused.

I did start screaming like a new born baby when our Mary pulled the doll out from under her dress. That was a crowd pleaser.

The kids had a blast, mostly with the costumes and the eyeliner beards. They did a great job, and it was adorable. I didn’t get any good pics of the actual performance, but these are from the dress rehearsal on Christmas Eve.

The rest of the pagent was filled with Jingle Bell dances, the play Snow White, and other various little performances. I still hold firm with my statement – most Thais have no rhythm. But they’re adorable, so who really cares?

I managed to sneak out of wearing a “Santa Baby” costume, and I only had to sing one song at the end of the pagent. Which was widdled down from 5. I told my coordinator he could pick … and he chose “Colors of the Wind,” Vanessa Williams style. Which sucked, because I never got to rehearse, and was to a tune on the karaoke machine that I had never heard.

Thai karaoke machines always change the melody around. Bitches.

No one was watching anyway, and Nate came up and acted it out with me, in Santa gear, to help distract the crowd. It was nice.

After the pagent, some of the teachers and the director were supposed to come over for a “small Christmas gathering” at our house to help us feel less homesick. Leave it to Pan.

She pulled up in front of the house with a small army of students to help cook, clean and manage the “small gathering.” She brought her own grill, soup pot thing, silverware, dishes, food, all the dips you can imagine, whole prawns, meatballs … and a table and chairs and an ice bucket with cups and water and students to move and serve things.

According to her, I was a guest, even though it was in my house. So I really just sat around and did nothing. Fine by me Pan, fine by me.

Then we ate for about 4 hours until the director showed up with presents and homemade stockings. And I got the greatest purse ever. And then we had a photoshoot and ate some more.

Then a random cat snuck in the house. I kicked it out, but Pan decided to feed it. So now it won’t ever.go.away.

But it’s cute. I named it Sapparot, which means “pineapple.” She doesn’t really look like I pineapple – I just like saying that word. We’re friends now.

I did make a single chocolate martini with the awesome kit my Mom sent me. And I made it pretty weak. And still they all could only handle one sip. A small one. But they loved it, and passed it around, and held it in front of their faces and smiled and asked again what it was called. And then they did the same with the bottle of Baileys and the chocolate rimmer shit.

If I’ve done one good thing in my life, it’s to spread the love of the chocolate martini to the rest of the world. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Santa shout-outs

2009-01-04T22:26:00.000-08:00

You guys really do love me, don't you? I got sooo much Christmas love this year - almost more than I get when I'm actually in the country.

Special thanks go out to the girlies - Danielle, Christine and Palms. They sent me a box of goodies with Christmas themes, and Danielle even donated a used Amazon.com box. So thank you for that, ladies. I'm keeping the ornaments up, even though the holidays passed.

LuxiePoo - just got the card today, and already had the eggnog flavored chocolate. Which may now be my favorite holiday flavor. You know what I like ;)

Aunt Sissy - thanks to you too! The card was really sweet.

Thanks again everyone. Post addresses if you want a postcard in return!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!!!

2009-01-04T18:29:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. This almost isn't a blog anymore. I've taken way.too.long. to post.

Buuuut, I have some really great excuses. I mean, I had a nutso Christmas week of Nativity play planning and packing for a trip and Christmas parties and karaoke ... etc. You can forgive me, right?

And then I went away for a week to the islands, which both had lame bad weather. But we still managed to have the greatest NYE ever at the full moon-ish party.

Both of these events will be clearly underlined in coming posts.

So please forgive me and choque dee in 2009!

Nate's new workout plan. You can thank Daniel for this one.

2008-12-22T21:55:00.000-08:00

This post is dedicated to Daniel. Ask and you shall receive. But it’s going to cost you once I get back to NYC.

There’s supposedly a gym in HangChat, or Lampang, or somewhere in between, but I have yet to see it. I’ve found that jogging at the park, soccer with the kids and some basic mat work is enough to keep me in-shape-ish.

I try to do yoga sometimes, but let’s be real. That never works.

In any case, here’s what Nate’s new workout plan looks like.

Eat your heart out, ladies.

Adventures in HangChat

2008-12-21T18:28:00.000-08:00

I really overuse the word “adventure.” It just works for me. But let’s continue anyway.

Beach trips = no monies for Lisa.

Long bus rides, plus motorcab rides, plus ferry rides, plus other kinds of rides = expensive vacations.

In an attempt to save some baht for the coming NYE shit show extravaganza, I have stayed in HangChat for 2 weekends in a row now. And to be honest, it’s been pretty fantastic. Except that Nate’s here.

Last weekend we effed around town a bit, but to be honest I was pretty lame. I caught a little flu-ish bug that was going around the English staff room, and I was under the weather.

Ning, one of my fav teachers, came in one morning and asked how I was. “Mai sabai,” (not well) I responded. “Nit noi sick.”

“Feeling a little UNDER THE WEATHER!?!?!?” she asked. Which was immediately followed by a fit of giggles.

She explained that she had JUST learned that expression on an English show she was watching over the weekend. Despite my mai sabai, she was thrilled at having used it properly on her first try. The whole exchange made my morning. Adorable.

So, the only cool-ish thing we did last weekend was when Nate got ants in his pants and decided we were going on a roadtrip, motorbike style. I happened to already be on the bike when this was decided, so I had little choice in the manner.

It was a beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon, and we just drove. Well, he just drove, while I challenged his sense of direction. He can pick up Thai vocab like a champ, but his internal compass leaves something to be desired.

We ended up at the bottom of a doi (mountain) that clearly housed a wat (temple) on top. Old Love, our ancient motorbike, bitched the whole.way.up. But Nate has a way with women, and we got up without any major issues.

What a beautiful sight. The wat was silent – there wasn’t another soul there. There were two sites built into the side of the mountainside, overlooking all of the HangChat fields and countryside. Add in a setting sun, and you’ve got a pretty breathtaking view to end a gorgeous drive.

Pictures to tell the story. Blah blah blah.

I heart HangChat.

Oh, and I forgot about the fire dancers

2008-12-21T18:16:00.000-08:00

We went to the fire show almost every night we were on Koh Samet. Which I sort of mentioned before. But here’s a video to help explain.

Kim and I tried to learn one afternoon, but it wasn’t that successful. She did ok, but I have no hand-eye coordination. So I just left the fire dancers an open opportunity to come up behind me and “show” me how to hold the fire stick properly.

At one point I screamed SAVE ME to Kim without even trying to hide it. The main fire dancer had a firm grip, but I managed to slip out with a cunning duck of the head.

That’s all. The end. For reals this time.

It’s still like a scene from "The Beach" – minus crazy people who won’t let you go to Bangkok.

2008-12-16T19:30:00.000-08:00

We went to bed super early in Pattaya, since there was really nothing spectacular about the nightlife. I mean, if you’re a white dude from the West who’s wife is at home while you’re in Thailand working out a mid-life crisis, you might disagree. As it were, I don’t fall into that bubble. And neither does Kim.

So we woke up at the ass crack of dawn to get on a minibus at 7:30. That’s AM. Au Bon Pain opened at 7 and offered a cost-efficient breakfast menu. Score.

A mini-bus took us on a little journey to Ban Phae, a port city, which led to a tug-boat, which led to what I called the refugee boat, although I’m sure there’s a much more PC name for it. But seriously, refugees come over on similar “boats.”

It was a floating deck with a motor attached, and we all had to jump off the tugboat onto the deck, with luggage, while chugging along in the island’s bay. Without falling in. And that still wasn’t the end - even the platform couldn’t make it all the way in – so we eventually had to lose the shoes and jump in the water, still holding our luggage, and walk ourselves onto dry land. Which wasn’t a huge deal for me, but seemed to seriously annoy some prissy Euro-trash on a day tour of the islands.

At this point we were a little confused as to where we had landed on the island, so we just went to the taxi lane and asked them to take us to the backpacker beach, Ao Hin Kohk.

Thanks again, Lonely Planet, for making all of my decisions for me. You suck with restaurant picks, but you get the guesthouse thing pretty right on.

Well, the cab driver informs us that the entire minibus costs 200 baht to rent one way. Which is kinda a lot. We can take it now, or wait an undetermined amount of time and hope that someone will share it with us.

Boopants.

So we decide to wait. And then we decide to try and walk. And then we realize that we’re really far away, and there’s no way we can walk. So we go back to the cabbies and wait again.

A nice German couple is there, willing to share the cab. But it’s still pretty steep, even with 4 people. We suggest waiting for a few more to lessen the blow. Like, 8 more people.

They convert the cost to Euros and explain that it’s still very cheap. We explain that we are on Thai budgets, and we’re American, so either way their reasoning won’t really work for us.

In a grand gesture we walk away and sit down, out of earshot of the German man trying unsuccessfully to bargain with the Thai drivers. Just to show that, while we wish we could, we simply cannot pay that much for such a short ride.

In the end they decide that they will pay the 200 to rent, and we can ride for free.

Yay Germans.

So that was awesome.

We make it to the backpacker’s area and land at Naga’s Bungalows, a nice little wooden place with little bungalows built into the side of the cliff. Excellent. One room left, will be clean in 30 minutes. Sounds great, thanks.

It was camping, really. I loved it, but let’s call it what it was. The bungalow was a wooden box on sticks that floated on a slant in the jungle. Inside was a piece of cement with a single sheet on it, covered in mosquito netting, which resembled a bed. No furniture, concrete floors, an old fan, no screen. No blankets or anything to cover yourself with. No towels.

“Shared bathrooms” were outdoor showers with no hot water and outdoor squat toilets. No sink, etc. But there WAS toilet paper, and that was something.

Again, I actually loved this place, even if it was really hard to sleep. We just didn’t sleep, really – we could do that on the beach during the day.

The rest of the day passed peacefully, uneventful – it was cloudy, and some fat farang got tipped in their kayaks and had to give up without getting out of the bay. Kim and I made up a dialogue that included them walking the kayaks back to the rental stand and insisting that the boats were broken. We.Are.Hilarious.

As we’re walking back to the guesthouse I see – wait, could it be? – Juliette!!! And Stephen. I see her EVERYWHERE – Chiang Mai, and now Koh Samet? This is an island that’s at least a 15 hour trip from where we live. Nuts.

Later that night we all grab some margaritas, and then wine, and then beer, fried rice, noodles, mussels, huka, cigs and weeds – the craziest combo my body has experienced in one night. Ever. But, I mean, with the waves crashing and the lights on the beach and the dancing, who could resist? Then Stephen requested “Love Generation” from the DJ and we had a tribute dance for Bob Sinclair on the beach among fire dancers and waves and smoking objects that were recently lit with gasoline. Beautiful.

I think the combo hit us all a little abruptly – add that to the early morning traveling, and Kim and I were beat. We made it to 1am, which was pretty late considering the shenanigans started at 6ish. And we had been awake FOREVER.

The other days were all kinda of a blur of poached eggs, banana shakes, white sand, turquoise water, huka, Singha and Europeans in string bikinis. And some peddlers on the beach, but not as many. And a ton of crazy dogs. There was a reggae bar with “coyote” dancers in lingerie that we hit up one night. I’m getting bored with the naked girl thing.

I got an awesome tan, which eventually started to peel on my back a few days ago. I rubbed it with aloe every day for a week after I burned, and I STILL peeled. Eff you, green slimy shit. Your label LIED to me.

Since my ass was burned – literally, my ass – we decided to explore the island on a rented ATV – or 4 wheeler if you’re from the Midwest. The blue beast was the best idea ever – she took all around the island, which was quite a distance, on the most treacherous roads ever.

There is 1 road on the island, which works for all motor and foot traffic. It’s totally sand/dirt with HUGE potholes, and is extremely steep and windy. So all of these foreigners on motorbikes, crazy Thai mini buses and little kiddies walking around use the same dangerous, narrow street. God help us.

The man at the rental place showed me the break, handed me a map and reminded me that I should drive on the left side of the road. Peace out. See you in 10 hours.

Kim was brave enough to let me drive first, since I have recent motorbike operation experience. You can ask her how she feels about that decision now.

I wish we took pics driving, but we were both too busy fearing for our lives. I was sore the next day from clutching everything with every muscle with all the strength I had just to stay on the damn thing.

At the first beach we stop to visit, we park the beast. And she starts to roll. Thankfully, Kim noticed before we lost her.

The beach was secluded, quiet, beautiful – and it had a SWING.

We basically did this all day – drive to a beach, swim, sleep, explore, take pics, repeat.

We’ve reached that point in the story where I can’t explain myself – it’s just a gorgeous, unreal island, where white sand beaches hit cliffs that hit really blue water. Some of the areas have reefs in them, and you can see it from the shore. I’ve honestly never seen anything quite like it before. So the pics here and on fb will have to tell the story for me.

This state of awesomeness lasted all day. We were soooo tired by the time we were done, we decided to head back to the hostel and watch the movie they were showing in the living room. And order huge sundaes like they make in the States, complete with a brownie. I don’t know the last time I saw a brownie. It was beautiful, really.

We reluctantly left on Tuesday afternoon after 3.5 days of bliss on the island, and another 2 in Pattaya. It was back to the boats and busses.

I left Koh Samet at 1pm on Tuesday. I arrived in HangChat at 4:30am on Wednesday.

After 8 hours of dosing on the overnight bus in complete dark and silence, the steward turns on the lights and shakes me.

HANGCHAT HANGCHAT HANGCHAT.

Umm, ok, thanks? Lemme grab my bag, put on my shoes …

HANGCHATHANGCHATHANGCHAT.

Oook, my bag is still under the bus…. – oh, wait, you’re throwing it at me now.

The bus barely stopped before I was on the ground. I was still sleeping. At 4:30 in the morning, on the side of the road, alone in rural Thailand. Sound like the beginning of a bad horror flick?

Luckily Nate is nice sometimes and picked me up right away. And I went to bed, which felt like heaven after sleeping in the bungalow. Although it seemed a little quiet without the noise from the reggae bar to rock me to sleep.

And I spent the next few days wishing I were back on the beach and begging Nate to put aloe on my back. Last time. I promise. Wait, did you miss a spot? Is it peeling yet? Does it look burned? Etc.

More beach time to come - Koh Samui in 1.5 weeks. And then Koh Pha-Ngan for the full moon party on NYE. We’re sure to have some stories after that one. Let’s just hope I’m not in Thai prison.

Just kidding, Mom ;)

Yay, SNAIL MAIL!!!

2008-12-16T19:25:00.000-08:00

Finally, the strikes at the airport have let up a bit, and we’re able to get international mail again. This is really the only way that the political bru-haha has impacted my life at all. So no worries, in case you were.

If you want a more candid explanation of what exactly has been happening in Bangkok, please refer to my friend Marianne’s blog. Or, just Google it. Or CNN. Or the Times. Etc.

In any case, I finally got my mom’s Christmas care package spectacular. OMG. The woman can pack a box of love, that’s for damn sure. Chocolate, cookies, banana bread, other sugary goodness, a small Christmas tree …

I love you Mommy.

I also got a very unexpected gift from one Kim Gouz of Chicago. I’m currently wearing a lovely tank top and eating a Fiber One bar, all thanks to her. Oh, and I know everything I would want to be wearing this season if I were in NYC. People magazine = Bible.

Soooo … if you want a shout out, send me something. Now.

K, thanks.

It’s like a scene from “The Beach,” minus Leonardo DiCaprio. Part 1.

2008-12-14T00:06:00.000-08:00

After 2 months-ish in Thailand, I finally made it to the beach. O.M.G.

I was supposed to go to elephant camp last weekend – like, real overnight elephant camp – but somehow it filled up on me. Even though I had a semi-reservation. Blah blah, translation issues. Sorry Kim, for dropping the ball on this one.

We found out on Monday that we would not go to elephant camp. Vacation started on Thursday, and was a week long thanks to a line-up of holidays and school events. 1 sports day, 1 King’s birthday, a weekend and a school competition in the city that gave us days off. Excellent.

So what else would we do but hit the beach?

After a full 8 hour bus ride and a tragic navigation of the Bangkok bus station on a holiday, I found myself on a bus to Pattaya. It was a short 2-hour trip from Bangkok to it’s hedonistic beach-side counterpart.

Let’s rephrase that – it SHOULD have felt short. But thanks to a bitchy bus-ticket lady, I was assigned the fifth-middle-bitch seat in the last row of a fully-packed bus. So, if you looked down the aisle of said bus, you would have seen me, pouting, having a silent elbow battle with the old Thai man to my right. Totally passive aggressive – a loud sigh, a dramatic shift, an elbow to the side. Then silence. Then the next person goes. Repeat.

Finally the dude found the air-con and seat adjustment lever, and started to fall asleep. It only took an hour.

He wasn’t very bright.

So I land in Pattaya, snag Kim at the bus station, randomly pick a hostel/guesthouse strip from the Lonely Planet map and head out. We wander and find a place. A quick glance at the landscape and we’ve officially dubbed the place Cancun meets Miami. Spring break on steroids. Niiiiice.

In the heat of the night, all of the old white men are out. In full force. I don’t know if this has something to do with the strikes, and maybe an old white dude convention got stranded here? In any case, it’s gross. Gross, gross, gross.

But there IS a McDonalds. And Starbucks. And Au Bon Pan. I’m ashamed to say I hit them all – but other than the Starbucks, it’s wasn’t too pricey. And I only got ice cream at McDonalds. And I had the new Christmas Frap flavor!!! But I will never do it again.

We have a beer, street food, somtom. Time for bed – maybe it’ll be nicer in the morning?

Call me a snob, but it was not that nice in daylight either. Crowded, narrow beach, no hiding from the peddling vendors selling EVERYTHING you could ever imagine – sunglass, food, sheets, bedspreads, pedicures, massages … I FINALLY find a pair of sunglasses I like, bargain them down 100 baht, and break them exactly 5 minutes later. Ugh.

We wander, see a gorgeous sunset and go to bed early. We’ll catch the early early 7:30AM bus out of here and get to Koh Samet, an island a few hours away.

Koh Samet was much better. Stay tuned.

Som – which means “orange” in Thai. Or angel if you’re me.

2008-12-13T23:20:00.000-08:00

Som is the new Joi. The Joi of Lanna. She is beautiful, Thai and provides food, entertainment and love.

I met Som while we lived in Lampang – she had just opened a little restaurant that was attached to our building. She makes lovely little meals at cheap prices and hosts a crew of hippie Thais on a regular basis. In fact, it is a true hippie palace. It’s named Na Bob’s, as in Marley. Plus, she speaks great English and is fun to hang out with.

On a particularly restless night for me early in the trip, I decided to roll with this hippie crowd and let them take me to a “party,” which was really a chill group with a guitar, weed and whiskey, singing Bob Marley and Jack Johnson songs as best as their broken English could manage. My scene for sure.

They all chatted in Thai trying to put together one-liners in English. Versions of “I love you” and “You’re beautiful” were all they managed to come up with. Somehow, that never gets old. I’m ok with it.

After we moved to HangChat I didn’t see much of Som. Sadpants. But when we decided to crash in Lampang town for the night, I gave her a call to see what she was up to.

“You come to my house? We drink? I pick you up in five minutes.”

Pure.Love.

(Side note – Thai showers are heated by a little electric box that’s attached to the shower head. As punishment for taking so freakin’ long to shave his legs and making me wait until 8pm to eat dinner, I’ve just hit the switch on said water heater while Nate showers. Let’s see how long it takes him to notice.)

Back to Som.

Exactly 3 seconds into the ride, she turns around. “You want to drink or smoke weed?”

Wait, was that just a dream, or did she really ask me that question? It was hotter than that time that Matt Damon came up to me at the bar and said, “Your place or mine?”

So me, Nate, Som and a bunch of Thai dudes sat around and drank a whole freakin’ case of Chang 40’s. Which, that night, tasted like Singha. Because just being in Som’s presence makes things taste better. It was one of the best nights I’ve had here.

We sang some old-school Backstreet Boys, acoustic style, and that “Kiss Me” song that is so popular here. They only know a handful of American songs – why they like that one so much, I will never know. Then we bashed English women. Not because I like to, but because our new friend Thor has had his heart broken by 2 of them. He loves American girls, though.

The rest of the night passed blissfully, although a bit cloudy.

I’m sure you’ll hear more about this gem, Som. And I’ll take a picture sometime soon. Because she’s freakin’ adorable. She even texted me to tell me that the moon was smiling, which only appears every 4 years in Thailand. Or maybe every 100 years. The jury is still out on that one.

(Nate just noticed about the water heater. Not.amused.)

Time for dinner now.

Sukhothai is old – ancient, really. I mean it

2008-12-10T00:53:00.000-08:00

Because we’re awesome and want to see everything there is to see in Thailand, the girlies decided to meet for a weekend in Sukhothai.

That’s Su-ko-thai. Not Suko-thai. Obviously.

Sukhothai was the original capital of Siam, back in the day. Like, in the 13th century. Which, in all seriousness, makes for an amazing sight.

See below for my adventures on the bus.

Then we continued on.

An additional - and very comfortable - 2 hours pass and we’re in Sukhothai. I snag a basket attached to a motorbike, which is known as a cab here. Then I hit up a guesthouse, hit up another guesthouse and book some hotel rooms. Etc.

That first night, Kim and I go in search of all things holy – street Pad Thai and Singha. We were sooo much more successful than we ever thought possible.

After some uneventful beer drinking and a run-in with some lame German travelers, we crossed the bridge – literally – and found ourselves in a night market that appeared to serve beer until the sun came up. Excellent.

Just as soon as the first Singha hit the table, we were approached by Sergent Smith. A Thai soldier.

In case you’re confused, Sergent Smith has an anecdote to help you understand. “Smith, Smith – you know, like Will Smith? Bad Boys!?!? I’m a bad boy – my name Sergent Smith.”

Oooooooh. Silly me. Now I understand.

Drink, drink, lots of cashews, some bananas soaked in love, more cashews, more beer. He pretends to understand English, I pretend to care. We ignore him and have girl talk.

Kelly and Marianne get to the guesthouse at 2am and call me. “We’re across the bridge drinking with Sergent Smith. Start walking towards the river and I’ll meet you.”

The beautiful thing about this moment is that Kelly, with a huge backpack in hand and 9 hours of traveling behind her, does not even question this. She just confirms the directions, lights up a smoke and walks towards the bridge.

More beer, cigarettes and Sergent Smith. He loves me because I’m the only one who didn’t say she was married. Bitches.

I make up a story about how my phone only calls US numbers, and how it costs some astronomical amount to call me if you’re not in the States. Which is clearly proven wrong when the girls call me on Thai cell phones. Whatevs. I take his number and promise to call. He hits up the ATM and pays for all the booze.

Again, we are bitches.

We sleep nit noi and wake up early to get moving on seeing ancient shit. A whole ancient ruined city, actually.

All five of us roll into one basket that pushes us all the way to the national park, where we rent some nice little peddle bikes for the day.

“Yours has a 9 on the back. Remember that.”

“Haha, that’s funny – so does yours. And Marianne’s.”

This should have been a sign that something was wrong, but I was too preoccupied making my old-fashioned bell work while ringing it incessantly to the tune of “Ring My Bell.” And singing along. While driving the peddle bike through motor traffic.

At the first stop we lock up the bikes as instructed – 3 tied together with one chain, 2 with the other. Too easy.

A few photoshoots with Buddhas and we’re ready to hit the road. Unfortunately, there are only 3 bikes left. And they ALL HAVE A 9 ON THE BACK.

We realize that the bike company must be stealing these back, hoping that we’ll come crawling with apologies and pay for the cost of replacing them. Otherwise they would have taken our names, or charged us more than a dollar for a day’s rental.

Puh-lease. Like we didn’t see through that.

There are pegs on the back of 2 of the bikes, with a little place to strap your bags and other goods. Or, if you’re crafty, a farang chic.

So the rest of the day we peddle 2 to a bike. Up hill, on the highway – doesn’t matter. Wee seeing ancient things. And Buddhas. It’s good karma if we have to work hard.

The day is beautiful, as you can see. Beautiful and breathtaking and tiring and completely worth the trip. I don’t know when I’ve had time to spend an entire day at a national park. Or dedicate a weekend to getting there.

We adopted an English guy named Mark on the way and invited him to drink with us later that night. And since Marianne is a blatant whore, he took us up on it.

The night was great, we stumbled around and turned a full stage show into a karaoke shit-show the way only we could. Downed 2 bottles of rum in 1 hour.

I sang the Titanic theme song at the top of my lungs with a Thai singer who should not have put up with me. Kim stopped mid-song to play Freecell on stage, using the laptop that plays karaoke lyrics. Par for the course.

I really wish one of the ladies would send me a video or picture of this.

Then Kim and Marianne decided to get fucked up and Kelly and I babysat. Haha, love it.

The next morning we had breakfast, got on buses and went home. Nate picked me up on the curb, which is a legit bus stop according to the HangChat police, and informed me that we had been robbed. By students. But it’s ok, because the school gave everything back and expelled them. I should just “watch my back,” since the kid might be angry and he’s evil and he might try to hurt me. Niiice.

Honestly, it’s ok though, because I have a live-in babysitter. And the kid is MAYBE 80lbs. So I could sit on him and he would die.

The end.

Lisa attempts to ride the bus – alone. And it’s enough to warrant a blog post

2008-12-10T00:48:00.000-08:00

Since I love to pretend I’m Thai and not plan anything, or think about anything too hard, I just attempted to jump on a bus on a Friday afternoon to make the 4 hour journey to Sukhothai. Which, thanks to Sutham (Alex), was perfect. I walked riiiight onto a direct bus just as the doors were closing.

Unfortunately, this meant that I didn’t have time to hit the toilets. Which proved to be a problem, since the one on the bus was out of order.

DAMMITDAMMITDAMMITDAMMIT.

About .5 hours into the trip, I was ready to pee. 1 hour in, I was in pain. By the 90 minute mark I was sizing up my nearly full water bottle, trying to figure out how the hell I was going to pee into it without anyone noticing.

Just around the time I started looking for a way to jump off the bus without getting killed, we stopped. For longer than it takes a person to get on or off.

With my legs firmly pressed together from groin to knee, I wobbled up from the last seat on the bus to the front, knocking into sleeping senior citizens all the way up.

No bus driver.

Pai nai? (Where you go?)

Out of pure desperation, I hang out the door screaming HONG NAAAAAM!!! (Bathroom). A group of nice looking gentlemen, who I assume are with the bus company, point in two totally different directions. Excellent.

After some discussion I’m led to the nicest bathroom I’ve seen in a while. It was beautiful even. Gorgeous. Heaven.

Business time.

Of course I trip over the cord of a floor lamp and send it flying as I exit. Naturally. Because I’m slick like that.

As I roll out of the building, the nice gentleman hands me a banana. In a manner that makes me feel that I should ALWAYS get a banana for going to the bathroom. In fact, I think I will address this again at a later time.

Meet the Catueys - a video from class

2008-11-27T23:14:00.000-08:00

The students in one of my elective classes asked me to sing a song. I told them to sing a song. Then I requested one in English.

One of my catueys, or lady-boy students, was elected by the class to sing. This is what he chose.

Priceless. Truly.

Show me the money

2008-11-24T19:39:00.000-08:00

A blog is supposed to be a conversation. A two-way communication tool, if you will. So that means you have to say something.

Comments are like rent. Or a cover charge. You're supposed to pay to hang out here.

If you don't want to comment, then you have to show me your boobs. JPGs or GIF files accepted.

Please remit payment to lisa.travnik@gmail.com.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Best,
Management

Adventures in Chiang Mai - aka the longest blog post ever

2008-11-23T22:28:00.000-08:00

For our first weekend in the North, Nate, Kelly, Marianne and I decided to make the trek to Chiang Mai and see for ourselves what the city was all about. For those of us in Lampang, the journey was supposed to take 1.5 hours by a bus “that comes every 10 minutes or so.” Riiiiight.

Thais will always tell you what they think you want to hear, whether it’s true or not. This is important to bear in mind when asking important questions.

In any case, we found a lovely old lady who was willing to help get us on a bus. Which turned into a train. Which got us to Chiang Mai exactly 4 hours later than we expected to get there.

The amazing thing was that Kelly and Marianne had magically stumbled onto the very same God-forsaken train 13 hours earlier, in some random town that was ONLY a bus ticket, pickup truck hitchhike and motorbike cab ride away from where they were staying in BFE.

Like I said – MAGIC.

When they strolled down the aisle we were thrilled. I was a little tipsy from the huge Singha that Nate had picked up at the train station, so I think I was more amused than was truly appropriate. Whatevs.

We made it to Chiang Mai in decent-ish time and were immediately attacked by evil mini-bus drivers trying to rip us off. Being adventurous farangs, we decided to go with private transportation – a ride in the oldest Buick ever, operated by the oldest man ever, who couldn’t manage to turn off the left turn signal or even start the thing without some assistance.

Thank you, Thailand.

The first night was drunken and fun. Halloween isn’t that huge in Thailand, but we did see a few costumes. Blah blah.

The next day we ventured out for some attempted shopping, which was sorta lame. So we decided to take another little adventure, minibus style, and go to Doi Suthep, a mountain that sits just outside the city and is topped with a gorgeous pavilion overlooking the city and an awesome temple. This was a great idea.

We rented a mini-bus to get there. I copied Nate and huge out the back.

Obviously, these are images from the temple.

We are wearing crazy Thai gear that you have to put on to cover your legs and shoulders out of respect for the temple. Stupid farang, forgot about this rule.

After trekking back into town and relaxing a bit, we went for the gold – the Muy Thai boxing gold, that is. Muy Thai, or Thai boxing, is the national sport of this fine land, and I now know why.

The “ring” was in a “stadium” that was surrounded by a bunch of little bars, all run by drag queens. It was made into a “ring” because of some tacky banners, which I was led under once I showed my ticket. “Ring side seats,” which we paid a premium for, were inevitable – seating was only 2 or 3 tables deep around the entire ring. Heavy-weights only went up to 135kg. Between each of the 7 fights, the drag queens put on dance and karaoke shows to your favorite English tunes – my personal note was YMCA. Thank you Marianne for capturing this all on film.

Are you getting the picture here? One can only hope.

This is my favorite drag queen, but only because of her shirt. W$%?

So we’re drinking our 9th Singha, watching these little shits kick the hell out of each other, which was actually a lot of fun. We did a little random betting, danced with the drag queens, etc.

Thhheeeenn, this hot WHITE dude gets up there. With chest hair and everything. And he does the little Thai dance, and gets kicked around, and then totally knocks this Thai dude unconscious.

Panty melt.

Marianne, who has huge balls and does whatever she wants, gets up and introduces herself. And me and Kelly. To Julien, the hot, French/American Thai boxer who wants us to go out dancing with him later in the night.

Umm, yes please.

So the fighting ends, we grab a tuk-tuk and head out.

We get to Warm-ups, apparently the best dance club in Chiang Mai, where we dance like assholes for hours until the turn they lights on and kick us out. And we never find the fighter. But it’s cool, ‘cause we’re drunk and dancing.

As we’re stumbling to the next dance spot, who should Marianne trip on … but Julien.

YAY.

He’s trained in Thai massage, ladies. He showed us.

So we jump on random motorbikes – I’m squeezed between the fighter and his hot British roommate – and make it to a bar that is actually a broken down retro van that serves drinks to people standing outside. Where we continue to drink into all hours of the night. Julien breaks up a fight, Marianne shuts down the old Aussy. Blah blah.

We decide it’s time to go home. Or swim. Me in my clothes. After totally harassing Nate, who’s sound asleep and should have slapped me for being such an ass.

Then the hostel owners yelled at us and told us we can’t have more towels and get out of the damn pool in your underwear.

Then the sun came up, and we realized it was 7am and the girls had to catch a bus at 8.

And then I found a dollar.

And had a huge massive enormous hangover. But a very relaxed back. And wet panties, for various reasons.

It was raining all night. And I jumped in the pool.

The end.

Special thanks go out to Marianne for allowing me to rip off her pics. Apparently the English ARE good for something.

Welcome to HangChat Wittaya School

2008-11-20T19:33:00.000-08:00

A few snapshots of my life at HangChat Wittaya School

Farangs travel to Lanna (the North)

2008-11-19T20:39:00.000-08:00

After being told that it was against some kind of Thai labor law to make anyone move my 88 lbs of luggage onto a plane, I did some negotiating, rearranged a few things, dished out 500 baht and rewarded myself for a job well done with a little Burger King.

I don’t know the last time I had BK. It may or may not have been in Mexico.

After a short, pleasant plane ride we landed in Chiang Mai, the San Francisco of Thailand. If Thailand were California.

Some people get this comparison. Others blink a lot and nod slowly.

I've included a map. If this doesn't help, just move on. And face the fact that you're not very bright.

Basically, Chiang Mai is the cooler, hipper, northern alternative to Bangkok. In my opinion, a superior alternative.

We were met by an entourage of Thai teachers from HangChat to welcome us into our new positions. It was adorable, and really hasn’t stopped. I mean, it’s like we’re Brad and Angelina over here. At least on school grounds.

The people in Lampang and HangChat are extremely friendly – especially the school staff. Alex, our coordinator, and Pan, who’s taken it upon herself to be our caretaker, are a couple of blessings in a sea of mosquitoes. And ants. And screaming kids. They cart us around, feed us, take us on field trips and generally act as our parents in Thailand.

Alex is our official contact and the head of the English department at school. Annnnd, he’s super cool and hilarious. He’s totally fluent in English and makes dirty jokes. He explained to me that the herbs served with lunch are to boost my sex drive, and explained that under no circumstances does he serve them to his wife. This is just one of many examples.

Sawatdee ka, Alex.

Pan is my conservative mother figure – she’s super sweet, if not a little overbearing at times. So far so good, I’ve dodged her disapproving glances well. She sort of reminds me of my Mexican host mother. She likes to hold my hand while we’re shopping, I’m thinking to show me off? I’m like a doll, I suppose. But she feeds me and buys me coffee, so I’m ok with it.

I think she understood that she was becoming the “uncool” teacher, because the last time she took us out, I got a little wasted. On daiquiris. Yay rum!

Sawatdee ka, Pan.

The rest of the staff is equally amazing – Noi, Took and Ning.

Took is actually the “madame” of the city, meaning she’s a beauty queen who managed to snag the city sheriff. Yup, that’s right. Sheriff. They use that word. So whenever they refer to the madame and the sheriff, we can’t do anything to hold back the giggles. Unfortunately,
the two of them got transferred back to Chiang Mai, and there was a big party in their honor. And they wore cowboy outfits. Amazing.

The other two are sweet hearts, although much more quiet. Then there are there are the teachers outside of the English department, whose names I can never remember, who like to poke and me and take pictures with me.

More on these characters to come. I'm sure of it.

In case you want more pictures ....

2008-11-18T22:58:00.000-08:00

... and for some reason you're not on Facebook, or connected to me, or whatever, you can access my current albums at the following links:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2243696&l=a188a&id=22400081
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2251319&l=40d83&id=22400081
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2251322&l=2fcea&id=22400081

They're not that exciting, but whatever. My life is still cooler than yours.

J/k. Sorta.

Lesson Sawng

2008-11-18T21:26:00.000-08:00

Here are a few more fun facts I’ve acquired during my weeks here in Thailand:

Thai mosquitoes = death
I’m not sure what it is about the bugs here, but they are serious. Even the city ones are vicious in a way that literally makes me scared to leave the house sometimes. Luckily, the temperature has dropped considerably, so I’ve been mostly covered in pants and long sleeves. Not that it really stops the big ones.

Now my feet are just covered in bumps. Even the bottoms. No joke.

Showers are luxuries, not necessities
We JUST got a water pump installed in our house, thank god. But before that, I was limited in availability of water pressure and/or hot water. So it was cold bucket showers on 50 degree mornings. Awesome.

My hair has never been so dirty.

Toilets are luxuries too
I have officially mastered the Thai squat toilet. Yess. See below for a sample.

Roosters are terrible, evil things
They are everywhere, although less abundant at school than they were in the city. And they make noise allllll dayyyyyy. Starting at 4am. If you want more info on this, ask Juliette.

This is not a pleasant way to wake up.

Thai food is for every meal
Breakfast? Lunch? Snack? Dinner? All looks the same here, kids. A variety of rice (sticky, fried, plain, boiled, jasmine?) with some meat (almost always pork) with some crazy spices (chile) and a side of random weeds (I’ve been told that they improve sex drive and overall health). If you’re eating with sticky rice, no fork or spoon required. It’s all about hands, baby.

Side note – I’m the worst food orderer ever. Luckily, Thai’s always order as a group and share everything. BONUS.

I was wrong - there is a serious language barrier
Remember when I said it was all translated for my convenience? True in the big city – so NOT true here. The possibilities for confusion are endless.

So far I know how to say rice, pork, chicken, hello, thank you, and you?, goodbye, egg, fried, drunk, how much?, what’s this?, I don’t understand, I don’t speak Thai, I speak a little Thai, no, yes, and a few other random words. Let’s hope this expands.

GOOD NEEEEEEWWWWWSSSSSS

2008-11-18T21:16:00.000-08:00

I FINALLY figured out how to hook up my MacBook to the school internet system. Special thanks go out to the little help dude who made it all possible.

So now I can blog. Regularly. And be a huge nerd every night, typing things up to post in the morning. And Facebook can be updated with pictures!!!

I know, small thrills. But with no TV or DVD player, the internet is my only outlet. I was feeling a little lost for a while. But I have learned how to play Rummy and beat my teacher's ass at it. Thanks Nate.

YAY. Stay tuned for all the promised updates. It's so close now you can feel it.

Oh, and I'm 23 now.

2008-11-08T22:50:00.000-08:00

While you're waiting for info on more interesting topics, here are a few pics of the embarrassing celebration that was my birthday. I had just finished getting an amazing Thai massage, so I'm barely coherent when Phil pulled me on stage. See above.

All of the October birthdays celebrated with a bunch of cute little cakes with icing pools on them. YAY cake!

Sorry for the delay ...

2008-11-08T22:06:00.000-08:00

Ugh, sorry guys. I didn't mean for this to turn into the blog that was never updated .... but a crazy week prevented me from getting internet. Aaand, I have yet to find somewhere to plug in my computer, so I can't put pics up. Blast.

In any case, I am officially living in the jungle. We've affectionatly named our new pad the Jungle Bungelow. Cute, right?

We moved in last week after a nutso weekend in Chaing Mai. More to come on that.

Nate's mastered the motorbike, while I'm still learning. We celebrated our successful move with a trip to a Thai po-dunk karaoke bar. Again, more to come on this.

Oh, and we got kidnapped this weekend and sent on a mountain adventure. Which was ok, until I busted my leg a few miles from civilization. In flip flops.

All in all, teaching is amazing - the kids are almost always making me laugh. Even when they're trying to torture me.

I have a great video of them for you too .... UGH. I need to find internet for my laptop!

Our house is nice, but not without its quirks. We have lots of roommates - huge spiders, centipedes the size of snakes, and at least 6 geckos. We're ok with them, but they need to be potty trained.

I've also adopted the Thai showering system - AKA, fill up a bucket and dump. Quickly. We have "running, hot water," but it takes at least 20 minutes to warm up and only dribbles. Seriously, who has time for that?

Just make sure there isn't a snakes in the bucket BEFORE dumping on your head ;)

WRITE ME please! Or snail mail me. Or something.

Ping pong is not just a sport best played with frat boys and cups of PBR

2008-11-02T02:21:00.000-08:00

Anyone who knows me well realizes that I sometimes jump into things without knowing exactly what’s happening. I don’t like to waste time on silly things like planning. I’d rather do something more useful. Like take a nap. Or cure AIDS.

What I’m trying to say here is that I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting myself into with this whole Bangkok thing. I figured I’d just find out when I got there.

There was nothing in the world that could prepare me for the freak show that is Patpong, Bangkok’s notorious red light district.

Raunchy? Twisted? Obscene? You don’t know the half of it my friends.

The evening started off well – a stroll down the street, a few pics in front of inappropriate signs. Etc, etc. Hustlers at all sides trying to steer us into various establishments that were clearly full of naked Thai women. Nothing I couldn’t handle.

Then we moved on to the Happy Beer Garden, which was, indeed, very very happy. See above post for more details.

But then, after a paparazzi-esque photo shoot by Joi, we decided to move on to bigger and better things, a-la the Ping Pong show.

Choque dee kaa, my friends.

I’ve included an image of the menu from said show.

Exactly.

Yup.

That’s what it really said.

After some attempted bartering, we agreed on a price and headed to the shadiest bar ever, where we witnessed a few performances from this menu.

I was not prepared for the literal interpretation. The girls literally used their private parts to do tricks. They played ring toss, popped balloons with little darts, and, per our special request, launched ping pong balls. At me. Hands free, out of their vagina. While smiling.

One landed in my lap.

GROSS GROSS GROSS.

I’ve learned that they are able to pass razor blades, smoke and shoot bananas in this manner as well. Just like the menu says. I have it on good authority.

I still can’t confirm how they cut bananas. I’m sure I’ll live happily without ever really knowing.

I can’t explain to you how non-sexy this was. It was just a freak show. Complete with a lady-man. Apparently the Thai are totally accepting of transgendered people. Even some of my male students already wear lipstick.

In any case, after the ping pong show ended, we were totally jumped by what I would call the “mamas” of the place. They blocked our way, blinded us with intense flashlights and demanded 1000 baht each. F#$%!!!!

We had agreed to 100 baht each. Notice the extra zero.

There was a lot of drama and attitude exchanged at this point, with a very clear threat of physical harm coming from these bitches. If looks could kill, I would be dead. Death by ping pong.

Just to emphasize her point, the mama actually went as far as to pound a Tupperware dish in front of me that was full of water and the ping pong balls that had just be launched at me by the magic pussy. As if it’s not going to haunt me for the rest of my life already?

Thanks for reminding me pussy-mama. I almost forgot what we were talking about.

Anyways, we each made it out alive, having paid only 200 or 300 baht each. We’re not sure how this happened. All I know is that I yelled, other girls yelled, and I slapped the dirty-ass table with my 200 baht and walked away looking pissed.

Looking back, there’s a good chance that I was one step away from being sold into sex slavery.

I’ll never ever look at beer pong the same way again.

Eff PR -I want to be a mahout when I grow up

2008-10-30T04:15:00.000-07:00

My life is complete.

I wasn’t wearing a loin cloth, but I did indeed make it to elephant camp.

The first full day in Kanchanaburi included a fun-filled adventure of elephant camp and rafting. The rafting was cool. But the elephant trekking was, well, elephant trekking. Clearly this was the highlight.

Elephants are amazing. And slightly hairier than I imagined. And really not smelly at all, which is stunning considering how smelly I always am in this country.

I mean, I’m not as smelly as Nate, but I don’t smell like roses either. Perfume attracts bugs, so I had to cut that shit out.

Our little baby elephant was a doll face, and didn’t even require a rider/driver for most of the trip. Our mahout (elephant driver dude) actually jumped off and stole my camera for most of the ride – the Thais love taking pics, apparently. So I have a whole photo shoot of the adventure, as well as a lovely picture of elephant appendage. See below.

It’s only like that when they pee – but still man, that’s a seriously apparatus.

I was really just giddy with delight the entire time I was on this thing. Seriously. Giddy and excited and a little terrified that I would fall off this dinky bench they strapped to the elephant and plummet to my death.

Mostly I was just excited though.

We got a chance to ride on the neck of the elephants too, which is where the mahouts usually ride. Yessssssss. So basically you just brace yourself on the ears and head of this thing and hope that it likes you.

I heart elephants. I can’t wait for the other elephant camp. Where I get to stay overnight and perform in the elephant show. OMG.

Eff PR - I want to be a mahout when I grow up.

I know you want to send me things

2008-10-30T00:04:00.000-07:00

Just in case you were wondering, I heart snail mail. A lot.

Soooo, if you are ever in the mood to send some along, you can reach me at the following address:

Lisa Travnik
HangChat Wittaya School
166 Moo 5 Chammadevee Rd
HangChat, Lampang, 52190
Thailand

Packaged goods would be deeply appreciated. Like trail mix. Or granola bars.

If you could mail me a great salad, that would be nice too. With a grande soy latte.

Or maybe Hanes-style white tees and tank tops - I brought a bunch, but a little run-in with the Thai laundry system has left me with a large pile of faded pink attire. More on that to come.

I'm just kidding on the last one. Unless you really want to send them.

If you want to call or text, I do have a cell phone, but I'm not sure how much that will cost you. It's pretty cheap on my end. From the states, I think you would dial 011 for the international code, 66 for Thailand, and my number. So, it would be:

001-66-087-408-7336

I think.

Hope to hear from all of you soon, in one form or another.

Sawatdee ka!

The Grand Palace is very grand indeed

2008-10-28T04:38:00.000-07:00

So, I’m obviously a little behind in the posting department. Sorry. I keep writing these blogs, but I refuse to post without the pictures to go along with it. And since SOME PEOPLE named Kim are holding crucial evidence hostage, I’ve been a bit delayed.

Plus, I’m lazy. And the Internet is slow.

In any case, while in Bangkok we visited the Grand Palace, which was very grand indeed. To be honest, I had a hard time focusing and understanding all of the information provided by our lovely tour guide. The only line I could really make out was “take picture now.”

We visited the Emerald Buddha, which used to be housed in Lampang. The Palace and the Buddha are pretty much the must-see attraction of the city.

The Emerald Buddha is actually made of a single piece of jade, not emeralds, and is a little smaller than I imagined. He’s still extraordinary, I’m just saying.

The Buddha has 3 different outfits for 3 different seasons – but I promise, his wardrobe is much cooler than yours. All are made of solid gold and the changes are handled by the King himself. Or, I guess his son now. He’s super old - but everyone loves him anyways.

I mean, really. Who gets dressed by the King?

Marianne and I managed to get a front row seat in the temple holding the Buddha. I was a little awe struck – the whole sight is simply amazing. And really really hot.

I’ve attached pics – they really say it all. Look for more on my FB.