Night Market and The Sounds of Thai

Last night after dinner we decided to venture out to a Sunday night market that I had heard about; I thought it would be big and crazy, but we were unprepared for just how big. It ran almost the full mile of the inner city, branching out from its main street onto side streets and even into the open lots of schools (of which there are many here). I haven't done so much shopping in a really really long time. Not only does the exchange make everything massively cheap here, I've been delighted to find that I haven't needed to alter the shopping habits I try to maintain at home, finding a surprising number of second hand vintage stores and locally handmade goods, often of natural materials, made with natural dyes, etc. Sarah found a beautiful hand made cotton dress with this adorable little lace color for about $30, would certainly have cost over $100 in the states. My most amazing find of the night was probably a hand woven silk/cotton scarf for roughly $3! It's a thrill to worry more about how much room I have left in my pack than how much money I have left in my budget.

 

 

Chaotic situations do often fluster me enough to inhibit my proficiency in the little Thai that I know. Because Thai is a tonal language (the meaning of words is derived by the inflection, rather than the sound of the word itself) many Thai words contain the same noises, and can tend to sound befuddlingly the same to my Western ears. Example: the "ai" at the end of the word "Thai" is extremely common: chai is yes, mai is no, rai is what, the name of our hotel in Bangkok was Sabai Sabai (Sabai means peaceful, or place of tranquility). To confuse matters just a little bit more, Thais use a kind of "polite word" at the end of many sentences, either to show respect and courtesy (very important here) or to soften a terse statement or question (ex. how much? or where are you going?) For females this word is 'ka' and for males 'krabp' with a very soft bp sound on the end. This sometimes makes the phrases that I have learned swim in my head, as they all end the same way. Thus, in a moment of flusteriness, I sometimes grab the wrong one. At first hello (Sawat di ka) and thank you (Korb kun ka) were the only two I knew readily, and I used the wrong one once or twice, saying hello to the waitress for a second time when she brought my food. Last night I bumped into someone, and instead of saying sorry (kor thot ka), I thanked him (korb kun ka)! But this is getting better, and I'm even starting to be able to hear and produce the tones for words, which fall into five categories: mid, low, high, rising, and falling. I got some good advice before we left, which was that if it doesn't sound absolutely ridiculous to you, you're not pronouncing it right. Thai an incredibly interesting language, and I'm excited to be here long enough that a decent amount may sink in. In the mean time, we've found that a smile, a willingness to laugh at oneself, and a grateful bow of the head go a very long way. For speaking so little of the language, I've probably had the best interactions with people here of anywhere I've travelled.

 

 

Looking forward to more, and to telling you about it!

Thailand, so far

I must love you all very much, because I've taken a break from reading under a thatched roof, cushion covered garden platform to tell about our trip thus far.

(Don't miss the links!!!)

 

 

Even the plane ride here was full of amazing sights. Because of the curvature of the earth, we flew very far north en route to Tokyo. Flying over the coast of Alaska we could see inlets and fjords that gave way to endless stacks of snow covered mountains: more snow than I've ever seen in my life. Flying over the Pacific we could see the texture of the swells that will eventually make their way to land and become surf, amazing to see on that scale. Eventually we were asked to lower our window shades so that people could see the television screens, and I couldn't believe it when the flight attendant asked me to put mine down, telling me "there's nothing out there." I guess the thrill of being inside of a cloud wears off after a while when you work at 30,000 ft. Otherwise both of our flights were pretty uneventful, which I suppose is a good thing.

 

 

We got into Bangkok just after midnight, and rode a cab the nearly half hour drive to our hotel from the airport. Had a moment of concern when we pulled into a dark alley, only to see the sign for our very swanky hotel a moment later. Our suite had two bedrooms located through triple doors of colored glass overlayed with carved wood. The staff was extremely friendly, and we had some great interactions with our first trials of the Thai language: amusing for both parties. I am discovering that the Thai way to deal difficult or awkward communications is to make light of the situation, to smile and laugh at the silliness of the situation. This suits me just fine; I'm sure my pronunciation sounds absolutely hilarious (I try to remember how funny foreign accents sounds in English) and its so much more comfortable to laugh at your difficulties than to become upset with them. Sarah is particularly good at international charades, which always gets some giggles as she's silly and adorable while managing to get her point across quite well.

 

 

After taking a day to recover from travel, and explore the neighborhood around our hotel, we took the bus downtown to the train station where we booked second class tickets on the night train to Chiang Mai. We didn't want to venture too far while waiting for our train, as Bangkok seems to be arranged like a giant rat maze, and we were all still feeling a little travel weary, not to mention wiped out by the abrupt switch to 95 degree humid heat. We found a great hole in the wall Cantonese vegetarian restaurant down a little street by the train station, and had a great, slow lunch to pass the time.

 

 

The train was lovely, much much more comfortable than the Amtrak cross country. Each "cabin" area had four bunks, two top two bottom facing each other. The bottom bunks were treated as bench seats until the conductor came through to make them up into beds, which we had him do almost immediately. When we woke the next morning we were riding though the countryside, little ramshackely towns, towards the mountains. Brilliant pops of color were everywhere among the fields and bamboo forests, every color of flower imaginable speckling the ground or in giant swaths on treetops. We arrived in Chiang Mai around one in the afternoon, four hours later than scheduled. At least there are some things that are the same everywhere in the world!

 

 

We're staying in a hostel here that a friend of Sarah's in Astoria helped build just a few months ago. He was getting back to Oregon just as we were about to leave, just in time to tip us off to this great little place. We've eaten some of the most amazing food since we got here yesterday: a little fixed price veg place that served us heaping plated at less than a dollar, banana pancakes, delicious spring rolls with a sweet carrot sauce, and surprisingly some really excellent Mexican food. I've also been blown away by the quality of coffee and skill of baristas here. So so much fresh fruit and juices too, which are really nice in the heat.  Just wandering around town has also been fantastic; yesterday we visited the largest Wat (Buddhist temple) in Chiang Mai.  It was such an overwhelmingly beautiful place; I've never seen anything man made the rivals it.  I've been amazed, though, at how many other tourists, both Western and from other Asian countries, seem to have made no attempt to look into how to behave (and dress)respectfully, and remain fantastically oblivious of what seems appropriate.  I've felt the same way seeing how people behave in European churches; makes me extra grateful to have the travelling partners that I do.

 

 

Tomorrow we're going to venture out of town for five days, take a breather and really relax. This evening we're meeting with someone who owns an eco resort up in the mountains about riding out there with him tomorrow and spending our time there. They guide treks, teach Thai cooking classes, and work with a local tribe to develop tourism on their terms, which sounds like perhaps the most respectful to be able to experience rural Thailand. It will be nice to escape town for the first half of Songkrang, the New Years festival, and when we get back into town on the 14th we can jump into the craziness of a city-wide week long water fight refreshed!