carnival

In Ban Phe, I stopped at Christies in Ban Phe for some curry and to say hello to Oui and Chan and everyone.


Look, it's Oui! I forgot how tall I am in Thailand.

I went to Bedrock for the fried red curry with prawns and long beans (this trip is about 90% about the food, I think.) I also saw Aum.


The carnival was in Ban Phe too. Unlike last time, the carnies constructed the roller coaster with no extra parts, and there was *not* a baby in a hammock underneath it. There was a ferris wheel.


Then I went back to Bangkok.

the best of my love

You probably won't visit Ban Phe. If you do, you'll probably walk from the bus station to the dock across the street to catch a ferry to Ko Samet. But if you wanted to go to Ban Phe, or if you'll be here for a TEFL course at some point, I hope this helps.

I'm leaving Thailand tomorrow night to go back to America. I'll be in the Seattle area for about three weeks before flying to Korea where I will start working again in late August. It's been a nice three months of unemployed vagabondery, but I've got to start making money again.

Before I leave, though, I want to share the best things about Ban Phe.

My favorite guesthouse in Ban Phe is Bedrock. I like that the fan rooms are 200 baht a night now in the low season (that's about six dollars) and the restaurant has fantastic food (including the best Pad Thai in Ban Phe.) It's also got free wi-fi and they'll rent you a motorbike. The rotating selection of Old White Guys at the bar is the cherry on top.

My favorite restaurant in Ban Phe is "Naughtiness." It's actually called "S Land," but some folks refer to it as "Sunny's" after the adorable little girl who is the daughter of one of the employees (it's a family-owned thing.) Naughtiness has the best seafood curry in Ban Phe (which is saying something, since Ban Phe is famous for seafood.) They also have one of the few espresso machines in town. It's cheap and good.

My favorite massage place in Ban Phe is the place across from Christie's with the big reflexology foot diagram on the door. They don't always offer the ginger tea at the end, but they will let you take a nap indefinitely after your massage, which always ends with a satisfying "pop-pop-pop" of your back.

My favorite day-trip out of Ban Phe is Khao Chamao Park about 40 minutes away.

My favorite place to buy pretty much anything (mostly tee shirts, belts, and tasty desserts) is the night market on Mondays and Thursdays. It always has a great selection of produce, bootleg movies and clothing.

And I'm leaving. Tomorrow. Which is kind of weird.

back home again

I've been in Ban Phe for six days now, but I still have posts from the old capitals for the rest of this week. I love this town, but not a lot happens here. This isn't so bad, since I have such a surplus of pictures from my month away. It's relaxing to be in a familiar place with familiar people.

I missed the ocean, and being able to walk down the street and wave at people I know. At the same time, there is a nagging feeling that I may have crossed into a parallel universe where things are just a little different. Furniture was rearranged. Ryan moved away. Oliver tucks in his shirt!

Rubber tommy water gun

Ban Phe celebrated Songkran on Friday. In the morning, the school staff rode in a songthaew down to our base in town. The streets were so crowded with pickup trucks full of people that the songthaew crawled along the road at a speed that let townsfolk board it to throw water on us. We set up shop in front of a hair salon with a giant tank of water and some freshly delivered ice.



Songkran is a fantastic holiday. Pickup trucks full of people rode slowly by and we splashed them and they splashed us. People politely came up to each other and smear colored powder on one anothers faces, so that you alternate between caked-with-paste and rinsed clean.





There was a big wet dance party in the heat in front of Christie's restaurant. People let loose like I've never seen people let loose in Ban Phe! It was fantastic.

When it rains and shines

In Ban Phe, Songkran will be biggest on Friday, but my first attack was on Monday. It's grown since then. There are mobile and stationary groups of children and adults, and both have advantages. Stationary groups are easier to refill, usually have fresh ice and less spillage, and access to hoses. Mobile groups (almost always a barrel of water, a dozen or so people, and scoops and water guns in the back of a pick-up truck) can attack without warning, and from higher up, though they tend to be less efficient at reloading.

As an unarmed pedestrian, I got soaked by both.

Here, a stationary team and a mobile team soak each other. Those folks on the street had giant floating blocks of ice in their buckets.



On Friday, the staff of Siam English Training School will all take part and douse people together.

Come, my lady

I took my immersion student on a field trip to the Sobha Botanical Garden here in Ban Phe. The gardens include a museum in a traditional teak house. Impressive door handles, eh?


Unfortunately, I don't know the names of most of the plants at the garden.


But the English word for this is "butterfly."

Risin' up to the challenge of our rival

I'm not generally one for attending sporting events, but Muay Thai is Thailand's national sport which makes it a cultural event. A dirty, sweaty cultural event occuring in a usually vacant field, at night. So Friday after work, that's what I did.

The Muay Thai ring was constructed in a field and the whole area was enclosed within a tarp and bamboo fence. It had rained heavily that morning, and the winged ants were out in full force that evening because of it. Attracted to the three incandescent lights swinging above the ring, they frantically fly about until they lose their wings and fall. The first order of business, then, was to sweep the spent insects out of the way.


(Don't think of these shots as blurry--they're frenzied and energetic.)

Before each match, the fighters stretched and prayed in the ring. The first fight was between children. They looked 9 or 10, so they were probably 13 or 14, in the 30kg class. Muay Thai is vicious to look at, and for the first few fights the action was entirely in the ring. As the night went on, the crowd got more involved (and invested) in the fights and the energy was divided between the crowd and the fighters.

There were a few gimmicks: a Thai-vs.-Falang match (the falang won,) and a short, stocky fellow in red against two taller opponents in blue (red won.)


Red's kind of invisible in between his opponents.


Nobody cheered when the falang won.

There were twelve fights of five rounds each. The whole spectacle went on from about 8:30 to 1:30. As I left the enclosure was already coming down. The Muay Thai stadium turned back into a vacant lot by morning. It was an entertaining night, and I found myself yelling along with the crowd by the end of it.

healthy and clean

That's all.

This bird has flown.

Alas, the landlord of the swift house next door doesn't want a herd of foreign women touring the place and possibly stealing his proprietary swift-luring technologies.

I have been more aware of the swift houses around me though. The other day I was at TESCO at sunset, and watched dozens of swifts flittering about, silhouetted against the brilliant orange sky as they darted after insects and swooped in and out of a swift house entrance, far and high on the only inhabited building on the block.

In the middle of our street

When I was little I lived in the woods, which was fantastic for tromping around and discovering old abandoned cabins with hot bowls of porridge in them, but it lacked other things. Like sidewalks. On the television, children walk along sidewalks to their friends houses after school. But I had to drive to a friend's house just to go Trick-or-Treating. It was very traumatic, I tell you.

So I've always kind of loved the idea of neighborhoods where you can borrow a cup of sugar or a landscaping implement from your neighbor, and hang out and have barbecues and things.

Oliver's Bar looks like this now


And he's moved some 100 yards or so up the street toward me and Annie and Ryan and Swedish Mike. I realized a few days ago that what I've got now here is a lot like Sesame Street.

One afternoon I was eating at Sa's with Autumn, which is right about in the middle, south of TEFL, across the street from Swedish Mike, and just north of Annie and Ryan. I was telling Autumn about how lovely our little community of neighbors is, and I saw Oliver walking over to Swedish Mike with a small pink plastic container, and I fancied that he was asking for a cup of sugar or something, because that's just the kind of thing these folks will do for one another.

But this was in that pink container


Oliver found it in his bathroom, and his wife insisted on keeping it as a pet! She hasn't named it yet, but she'll let everyone know. Isn't it cute? Still no sidewalks, but this is just as good.

One bourbon, one scotch

Diggery Doggery
Good Monsieur Oliver
Shouts in the morning hours,
"This bar is closed!"

Your people thank you for
So sympathetically
Not just reopening
Armed with a hose.


Higgledy Piggledy
Good Monsieur Oliver
When ladies visit they
Drink just a few

And it goes well until
Just when you've paid you hear
Unambiguously
"Not kissing you!"


Bubbly bubbly
Good Monsieur Oliver
Sure we'll all miss your old
Waterfront bar

All we've got left is that
Victorianously
Now that you're finished you'll
Have a cigar!

Oliver's Bar opened for the last time on Friday. I really, really enjoyed myself.

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green

Sometimes there are schools of hovering pufferfish in small knitted hats.



Sometimes you walk on a sidewalk in Ban Phe and then you are suddenly in a tunnel of tiny seashells that goes on as far as you can see.



If you turn at any point within this tunnel, you'll be in one of seven identical shops whose walls are lined with magic seashell mirrors, reflecting exotic candies and dried seastuffs.

She's got the devil in her heart.

This is why I call Naughtiness Restaurant Naughtiness Restaurant. I've never ordered its signature dish, on account of I am one of those weird people who eats seafood but not meat that comes from land animals, and it's hard to say, but I would imagine that "naughtiness" involves meat.



That's just because the ham is mischievous, which is close to naughty. And similar things often go together on menus.

But I went to the restaurant this weekend, for breakfast no less, with a meat eater! I was very excited to see what naughtiness entails, and after she ordered spicy cashew salad and I ordered toast and jam I tried to order naughtiness. But the waitress spoke those dreaded words...

"No have."

Foiled!

Strange apparition

There usually aren't cows on my street, until there are.



They appear on the road and graze in vacant lots and front yards, dragging their tethers behind them.



They are generally unmanned and well-behaved. They do their best not to disrupt traffic. On more than one occasion they have disappeared while I briefly looked away.

Happy ever after in the market place

Every night in Ban Phe, there is an evening market that sells food in a little covered area. On Mondays and Thursdays, the market expands, literally and figuratively, to encompass the surrounding land and sell clothing, shoes, perfume, housewares, and pirated movies.

When I'm not searching for rad new tee shirts or practical new belts, I generally visit the same few stalls.

This lovely lady is my Cha Nom Yen smoothie dealer:



She doesn't even ask what I want anymore, because though a rose apple smoothie does sound appealing, I can't think of anything else when I see that steaming, orange, caffeinated nectar waiting patiently in its pot to mingle with sweetened condensed milk and ice in a blender until it's all smooth and perfect.

And these two hook me up with vegetarian spring rolls. They're full of glass noodles, wood ear mushrooms, egg, carrot, cabbage I think... probably other stuff too. Anyway they're divine.



And mango sticky rice, the food of the gods, is the first thing I bought (which is why I didn't get a picture of the goddess who provides it to me) and the last thing I ate, which is why it's the only food item of which I have a picture.



Sticky rice and fresh mango, drizzled in warm, sweet coconut milk.

Into the light of the dark black night

Directly across Soi Suan Son from me, there looms a strange building. It follows the same basic model as the other units on the block, but stands a full two stories taller and, most ominous of all, lacks windows. Instead, aside from small vents where the windows would live on any other building, the only apparent entrance is an unguarded opening visible on the top floor. At night, between the wafts of karaoke and snarling dogfights, I'm sure I've heard unnatural noises coming from that building.

Kinda weird, right?

This is a fairly common sight on the street:


The strange, windowless building in this otherwise vacant block is the only part that appears to be well-maintained and painted. My strongest hypothesis was vampires (of course) who don't understand enough about human culture to realize that painting their building made it more conspicuous. They enter and exit through the roof when they take the form of bats.

I learned the truth this week, and I was correct that it is indeed a part of an entirely new dimension of reality. It has existed for more than 400 years, but I had never known of it until now: bird's nest soup.

Bird's nest soup is, well, exactly what it sounds like. It's not something people eat here in Thailand, but it's a rare, expensive delicacy in China. The nests in question are those of swiftlets, and are made from the bird's saliva. The birds naturally build the nests in caves, but since the things sell for something like $2000 per kilogram, it's a profitable venture to let them get cozy in your vast, empty concrete building instead.

So the creepy windowless buildings are actually birdhouses, and now I'm seeing them everywhere! The reason I learned what they are in the first place is that my coworkers Annie and Ryan just moved into a house down the street, right next door to a birdhouse in the making.



People apparently spend lots of money to modify the inside to be damp and jungle-cave-like, and construction on this house should finish in a couple of weeks. Then (with luck,) we'll then get to tour it before it's closed up and the birds (hopefully) move in.

Ain't there one damn song

I didn't finish work until just before 9:00. I assigned myself the mission to go to the little shop and get some soy milk, but I recognized the looming temptation to walk down to Oliver's instead.

As I left the building, I saw Tim's silhouette returning from Oliver's, so I walked down to meet him and we talked a little and I decided to head down there, at least long enough to pass along a Hello from Celine.

It was a good decision. There were some cool people, some bad jokes, and I sat through the entirity of The Wall album (and giggled through drunk people describing the film to one another) and then... and then there was surprise karaoke!



At first it was just me and Annie (my boss...ish...person) and Pete (how can I describe Pete?)



Soon other people came too, including Oliver himself which is a thrill.



We chose a little karaoke place between Oliver's and the school, where the English song selection is limited to a hip-hop remix of "Zombie," which I sang. I was reminded that Annie can actually sing.



And that Pete can make some glorious death metal growls. It was a fantastic, unexpected evening.

Lady Godiva

I felt a little like Lady Godiva yesterday coming back from the market. I received a box full of dresses from home, and I wore one of two that doesn't require a belt. I went to the market and bought some belts, and rode back sidesaddle due to the complicated nature of my dress (for those of you who are into that sort of thing, it's the 1952 Walkaway Dress from Butterick.) The overskirt billowed, my hair fluttered behind me, my array of shopping bags... nearly inspired me to dig up a thesaurus. I smiled at everyone. It was kind of glorious.

And I more than doubled my wardrobe, an even gloriouser feat.

Don't rock the boat, baby

Not a secret: I am not a good swimmer. When I came to Thailand, I got nervous when I couldn't touch the bottom with my feet. As time went on I became comfortable with swimming in the ocean without worrying about the bottom, but I'm not generally confident in the water.

Last Sunday I went out in a little sit-on-top kayak while Autumn practiced windsurfing and Bert paddled around on a windsurf board without a sail, giving instruction. I'm totally comfortable in a kayak and enjoyed myself immensely, actually. But after a long couple of hours in the sun, when my hands were sore and I was ready to go back to the beach, my kayak started rocking violently with each wave. I was maybe hundred meters from shore, and had some flashes of panic as I realized that there was more water than appropriate in the bottom of the kayak, and it really wasn't supposed to be so tippy.

And then I capsized. And I'm very impressed with myself, in hindsight, for not completely flipping out in panic at that point. I'm not a good swimmer, I was far from shore, and the water here wasn't clear enough to see but I knew that jellyfish loomed in those murky depths. I couldn't get the boat back over, and I yelled for Autumn who was paddling on one board while Bert was farther away on the one with the sail. As it turns out, there was an important plug that had disapparated and my kayak had slowly filled with water. I hoisted myself onto the extra windsurf board and paddled back, while Bert saved the day (or at least the kayak) by windsurfing to shore with Autumn on the back of his board, dragging the waterlogged kayak.

We drained an impressive amount of water out of that thing when we got it back to shore.

Bert's sunglasses were unfortunately lost when the boat tipped over, but praise Poseidon that my (waterproof) camera did not drift out of my dress pocket when I was treading water. I could not otherwise have shared Autumn's windsurfing.

Oh here come the gods!

There is a Dunkin Donuts right inside the door to the TESCO here. I guess sometimes the girls there say "Sawatdee ka" to people as they walk in, but they said it to me in a way that seemed to recognize that I frequently stop there on my way out. I did have a bit of a donut problem for awhile (always the chewy, chewy mochi rings) and actually after realizing how ridiculous my donut obsession was I don't find reasons to visit TESCO quite as often.

On Saturday I went with Autumn to buy a Christmas Cheer donut for someone else (I did get a donut hole for myself...) and I saw this. It's pretty much the best donut flavor in the world, and I know this without having tried it. It might also explain the red Fanta thing.



(Today's song line/blog title comes from this ridiculously bad song by Madonna... featuring Otto Von Wernherr.)