Two Tired Travelers Reach Chiang Mai

Having been spoiled by the bus from Bangkok to Khon Kaen, Lydia and I were almost looking forward to the bus ride to Chiang Mai, expecting much of the same. In that, we were wrong. The bus, in all honesty, was not the worst I have ridden. In many ways it was much the same as the Kazan’-Ufa bus from last summer, except the Thai believe in air conditioning where the Russians and Kazakhs do not.

We left Khon Kaen at 8:00 p.m. after a last dinner with Lydia’s family at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant. The attendant on the bus greeted us with a glare as she pointed to our seats and Lydia promptly nicknamed her “Sunshine.” While we were waiting to leave, an old tube TV played, the image was in different shades of purple and emitting barely discernible words. Thankfully, that was turned off as we drove out of Khon Kaen. The bus seats did not compare to those that we had on the first bus. In fact, they made certain airline seats seem roomy and very comfortable.

The bus ride was twelve hours long and several times it sounded like the engine just might fall out as we sped down some back Thai road. “Sunshine” made several trips up and down the aisle and every time she passed me, she bumped me. We only left our seats once during the entire trip, when we stopped for a bathroom break at a rest area. The bus did have a toilet, but after twelve hours I cant even begin to imagine what it smelled or looked like. Despite ten hours of sleep, I was still exhausted by the time we reached Chiang Mai around 8:00 a.m. The silver lining of this trip, because there is one, is that the bus allowed us to see some of the country side as we drove in to Chiang Mai. As we drove to Khon Kaen earlier in the week, I felt as if I was in a Florida that had a slightly more tropical climate. Now, having seen mountains with jungles and flat rice fields, I feel as if I am finally in Thailand. 

When we arrived in Chiang Mai, we took a songthaew, a taxi made from a truck where the passengers in the bed of the truck on two plank benches, to the Top North Hotel. The hotel is located in the center of the city and is comfortable for $25 a night. It also has a very nice pool, where many of the foreign guests like to wear too little clothing and fry themselves for their trip home. Thankfully, our room was ready and we were able to check in and drop off our bags. We walked around for a little bit and successfully ordered our first Thai meal without help. After lunch, we headed back to the hotel and napped for a few hours. Dinner consisted of fruit smoothies and street food. Lydia was one happy southerner as she ate her fried catfish. I stuck to chicken Pat Thai. Tomorrow, we decided, is a no fried food day. This may or may not be a success.

In the songthaew with all our luggage.
That is the face of total exhaustion.

Looking out the songthaew.

Hey Patrick, how do you like this electrical job?

The Old City Wall

The Katam Corner

Street Food for Dinner

P.S. Thank you again Mr. and Mrs. Douglass and Bekah for a wonderful time in Khon Kaen.

How Thailand Nearly Became a Solo Adventure

Looking over the Mountains between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

My flight from Kazakhstan to Thailand left at 8:30 a.m., which meant that I was up before the sun rose over Almaty. Thankfully, Timur drove me to the airport and I got there before check-in had even begun. I cleared migration and security quickly and waited in the international waiting area for an hour. The flight was six hours and they gave us two meals. I slept the majority of the flight, waking upon descent. Once we landed in Thailand, I cleared migration again and settled in with my nook and waited to Lydia to arrive.

Over Afghanistan, at least that is what my seatmate said.

"Toto, I don't think I'm in Kazakhstan anymore." 

Lydia was scheduled to arrive on the 9:10 p.m. plane, but those passengers came and went and she was not among them. I didn't think that I could have missed her, but I walked down to the "waiting area" anyways. Still no Lydia. So I went on to one of the Internet terminals and checked my Facebook, assuming that if she had been delayed she would have messaged me. No message. I checked my Gmail. No message. Now I was getting nervous, I did not have any contact information for Lydia's parents or acquaintances in Bangkok. I went up to the information desk and asked if they could check the passenger manifest to see if Lydia had even made the plane, but they could not understand my meaning and told me just to wait at the international gate. I went back over and I waited for the next flight from Seoul and still no Lydia. I logged back on to one of the computer terminals and decided to check her Facebook to see if she had made any references to being delayed. That's when I found the message from her mom on her Facebook page addressed to me. Lydia had been delayed out of Atlanta and was expected on the 11:45 p.m. flight. That flight was in turn delayed until 12:23 a.m. Finally, some time after 12:30 a.m. an exhausted Lydia made her appearance. 

We headed down to the waiting area where Araan, a family friend, was waiting for us. He'd apparently been there since 8 p.m. but had not recognize me from the pictures that Lydia's family had sent him even though we must have passed while I was looking for her. 

Lydia's delay meant that we could not make the night bus that we had be scheduled to take and ended up booking a hotel for the rest of the night. It was pretty seedy.

Four hours later, Lydia and I were again awake and we met up with Araan who took us to the bus station. I tried to get money out of the ATM but my credit union decided that I could not withdraw money even though the told me before I left that there should not be a problem. They blame Visa, I call BS because, eventually, I was able to withdraw money using my Bank of America card, also a Visa. We bought the tickets and went to the cafeteria for some food. To buy food, you purchase tokens/tickets and purchase your food before returning the remainder to receive change.
The bus that we took was very nice, more comfortable than any plane that I have flown on. The one exception was the toilet, which was less than sanitary. We were seated on the second floor of the bus at the very front, which meant we had a direct view out the windows as we drove for six hours. The seats were wide with foot rests and I slept for most of the trip, waking just before we arrived in Khon Kaen.

Khon Kaen is the current residence of Lydia's parents, the wonderful Mr. and Mrs. Douglass, and her sister, Bekah. Bekah moved to Thailand several years ago as part of the Peace Corp. When she completed her tenure, she chose to remain and a couple years ago her parents joined her, they now teach English at an elementary school in town. We are staying at their house, which is on the outskirts of the city. Our first stop in Khon Kaen was the Green Market. The Green Market is a new, fun, hip market. There is an abundent variety of food, clothing and live music. We went there for dinner, which included grilled meat on sticks and sticky rice.

Sunday was the Thai Mother's Day, as well as the Queen's Birthday. We went out to lunch to celebrate with Mrs. Douglass before exploring Central, which is one of the larger shopping complexes. Afterwards, we dropped Mrs. Douglass back at home, so that she could enjoy her new kindle, while we went to one of the wats. The wat, which is located outside of the city, sits on the shore of a large lake. To get to the top, you can either climb the thousand steps, or you can drive. We drove. The most prominent feature of this wat is the large seated white Buddha. While walking around the wat in bare feet, I managed to do a magnificent fall on a particularly slick piece of marble. Other than embarrassment, I was fine.

Supporting the rock.

The Steps

Yesterday, we visited the Wat Nong Wang. This wat was red and gold on the outside with stunning mural on the inside. The murals depict the local culture as well as stories and parables. The wat is also nine stories high, and each floor had a different set of murals and artifacts, and we climbed to the very top to overlook Khon Kaen.

Mosaics on one of the decks

Look closely, this mural does have a woman bent over exposing her bum and passing gas.
Apparently, somewhere in the mural or the description is the Thai equivalent of "pft"

Khon Kaen

Ring for Luck

 Throughout the city, there are stores called otops, which are cheap clothing and souvenir store. I bought myself a Thai silk tunic, which I am very proud of. I wore it to dinner last night with some of the family's close friends.

We also got my camera fixed!!! Finally.

Oh... And this is Tigger. He's adorable. He also has a kink at the end of his tail, which is apparently very common in Thai cats.

Babushkas...and Dedushkas*... Know Best

This past weekend, my last weekend in Almaty and in Kazakhstan, I went on a mission to find out more about how to make laza. I thought that my best bet would be the Green Bazaar, where I hoped to find a babushka who might be willing to divulge her secrets. It also gave me a good excuse to explore my two favorite places, Panfilov Park and the Green Bazaar, one last time. After walking around Panfilov park, and having to avoid the street cleaning tractor deployed there, I headed to the bazaar and down to the fruit, vegetable and spice vendors, where I honed in on a spice selling babushka.

I spent a few minutes looking at her wares as she arranged packets of spices. Most of her other spices were in little canvas bags and were overflowing and there were four different types of peppers. Once she returned to her side of the stall, I began to describe what I had come for. First, I had to describe laza, because laza is the Kyrgyz name not the Kazakh name. This involved me talking about this spicy red sauce made with pepper and garlic; however, it was only when I mentioned that it was served with lagman did she know what I meant. She called the sauce lagzhan. She then proceeded to tell me that she had just sold out of her lagzhan and that the vendor would bring more during the week. While I would have happily bought lagzhan had she had it, I was more interested in what type of pepper I should use to make it at home and so I asked. She was more than happy to show me. First she asked me about my tolerance for hot foods before pointing out two different types of red pepper. Since I am not an expert, I will attempt to describe them. One was a very fine powder, red as Georgia clay, the other was composed of dry pepper flakes, the size of pepper seeds. She sold me a cup of each to take home. Then, without prompting, she began to describe how to make lagzhan. First, she said that I would need to moisten it with some water. I gathered from her hand motions that she thought that I should do this with a blender. She then went one to tell me that I had to use two crushed cloves of garlic. She was very insistent on this point, emphasizing “two cloves, not one, two cloves” of garlic several times. She then said that I had to use oil and fry it, though she didn’t specify which to use. I will probably use sunflower seed oil as Acel suggested. My hunch paid off, within twenty minutes I had a recipe for lagzhan, two cups of pepper and the babushka had a story about the strange American girl who wanted to know how to make laza/lagzhan.

I walked around the bazaar a bit more before breaking down and buying two books; a collection of Jack London short stories, which are very popular here, and In the First Circle, by Solzhenitsyn. I feel it is only fair, since they are the only souvenirs that I have bought for myself on this trip.

On Sunday morning, I decided to walk down Seifullin to Al’-Farabi  Ave., the big highway that runs on through southern Almaty and connects it to the airport. I had a meeting scheduled for Tuesday and I wanted to make sure I knew where the building was. I headed down Seifullin early in the morning, but instead of running straight in to Al’-Farabi, as I thought I would, I was forced, by way of a highway with no way to cross, to turn right. I could see what I thought was the building, so I headed in that direction. I went up a few streets and right a few streets until I hit Al’ Farabi. 

Al'Farabi is the avenue where Almaty meets New York. This is where all the big businesses have their headquarters in entirely glass buildings. It is on Al’ Farabi that big names like Louis Vuitton and Prada do, or will, have their regional headquarters. I continued west on Al’-Farabi, which in some areas in six lanes wide, until I hit a familiar sight, the concrete canal, which runs alongside the amusement park on Abai. Just on the other side of that was the tall glass building where my meeting was scheduled for Tuesday. 

I walked around the canal a bit and discovered that on the southern side of Al’-Farabi there is a small berm and on the other side of that is the river that is funneled into the concrete canal. It was odd looking south from the berm, I had Al’-Farabi at my back and a river valley in front of me with a dirt path that would lead you to the mountains.

Practice ski jumps in Almaty

After a few minutes, I turned around and began to head back home, this time along the canal knowing that it would spit me out on Abai. While the canal itself is not beautiful, it is made up of concrete basins that spill over from one to another with brown water and hundreds of bottles floating along, the banks had some very nice parks. It was nice to see so many people out an about with their dogs.

As I was walking along, an old Kazakh man in his seventies caught up with me. He was wearing the tubecheka, a traditional hat, and was carrying two bags, one with apples the others with apricots. He struck up a conversation, which we carried on as we walked towards Abai. He told me that he was walking from the mountains, where he had picked those fruits, a four-hour walk. He also said that he was from a village 100 km outside of Almaty and that he didn’t like the city, there were too many dogs.  We had a good and interesting discussion for about twenty minutes. When I left him at Abai, he called out “I wish you long life.”

I take back all I ever said about minding the gaps in Kyrgyz roads.
This one takes the cake and I had to cross it on a unstable metal bridge.

Sunday afternoon I went with Jessica and a friend of hers to a the local art museum which was playing host to a collection of French Art.

Yesterday, in celebration of the end of my internship and Mariana's belated birthday, Mariana, Jessica and I went to Шоколадница, the only one in Almaty. I was thrilled to find it and even more thrilled to eat the Шоколадница blini, upper right, and drink the most amazing hot chocolate in the world, bottom right. A guilty pleasure? Most definitely.

Шоколадница we meet again. In the bottom right, the most wonderful, delicious and heavy hot chocolate ever.

I am thankful for the opportunities that this internship has granted  me. I have learned much, I have widened my skill set and I have gained experiences that will help me secure my future career. I am going to miss Almaty, the city, the people and the friends I have made.  Tomorrow, I leave for Thailand to spend time with one of my best friends, Lydia. However, this is not goodbye Kazakhstan, this is see you soon. 

*Dedushka (Дедушка) = Grandfather