Number 8

Today started off quiet enough but has ended with a big adventure! Every morning I still get up before everyone and make some coffee. I turn on the TV to catch up on the news. We have CNN, BBC, Bloomberg and Aljazeera as our news sources. Most people in the house watch the BBC. The other morning, since I was alone, I put on Aljazeera to see what it's all about. I assumed it would be a bunch of raving about America and Israel and a healthy does of Fundamentalist Islamic rhetoric. Kind of like a Arab version of Fox. To my surprise it's nothing of the kind. They have women dressed in Western clothes as some of the newscasters. They have stories about Western movies and culture and fairly balanced news reporting. I was surprised and frankly, I like watching it. They have a crawl at the bottom of the screen like the other news networks and this morning there was a blurb about Israel and Palestinians firing at each other. That's it. No blame. No slant. Who knew?

Anyway, we Americans had a meeting this morning about Thanksgiving. Bruce is way into holidays. We're going to have about 20-30 people of at least 8 nationalities at our "feast". Bruce wants everyone to bring a food from their harvest festival and to give a brief explanation of it. (he's going to talk about Sukkot) He also wants to go around the table and have everyone say 2 things they're grateful for. One from this year and one in general. He wants people to write them down because he says the Lao will be shy and just say what someone else said. He takes every opportunity to teach something to someone. We decided Ella, who is British, will have to sit outside the gate and watch since the Pilgrims fled England to escape religious prosecution. I can only imagine where I'll have to sit on Christmas...

I worked most of the day on my project. I planned to go to the Central Market so I could change some money, check out food for Thanksgiving and get a photo of the Drug Store sign that cracks me up. I really wanted to get out and have a nice long walk which a trip to Central would accomplish. The way things work is you let everyone in the house know that you're going and if anyone else wants to go, you go together. I was itching to go off on my own and see if I could make it there and back on foot. As it turned out, everyone had some kind of plans so around 6:30 I set out, in the dark, on foot, on my great adventure.

Chiang Mai is very safe except for the traffic. The "kids" routinely go out late at night and walk up to the main street to get something to eat. When I first got here I always offered to walk with them but they laughed at me. It's nothing for 1-2 two of them to go out after 11pm to walk through the neighborhood to the main drag or to one of the neighborhood places. For some bizarre reason, the little neighborhood restaurants (2-3) tables in a small street front room, or a cart will stay open to midnight on weeknights. And more bizarre is that people are there eating.

Mark gave me directions and showed me on the map, BABSEA gave me as part of my welcome package, how to get to the market. It was easy so I didn't take the map with me. On the way there I missed the turn and ended up near the old city. Mark had specifically warned me against this route as there are no sidewalks and people drive wherever they want. There are sidewalks that adjoin the moat but they're on the other side of the street, and the street is about 6 lanes. Crossing a busy street in Chiang Mai is something like Russian Roulette but with worse odds. Since it was dark the challenge was even greater. I made it across unscathed and enjoyed a really nice stroll along the moat to the main street where I could see the Market. The problem was I had to cross the main drag twice in order to get there. I didn't like the odds so I took a deep breath and crossed diagonally. I think some people stopped out of pure disbelief that a falang was doing such a crazy thing. It wasn't all that dangerous and was more of a challenge.

At the Market I changed money outside next to Starbucks and as I entered the front door I almost ran into Moon. She was just leaving and expressed appropriate admiration that I had gotten there on foot on my own. I set off to find the drug store. I couldn't remember where it was and I wasn't having much luck until I remembered I had taken a picture of it with my cell phone and, as a precaution, I had taken my phone with me. So I walked up to a security guard and showed him the picture. He sent me up 2 floors. Wrong. Next guard sent me down 1 floor. Wrong. Third guard sent me across the Market on his floor but then came and found me because he realized he had sent me the wrong way. He realized that because he didn't really recognize the photo. So he walked me down to the front information counter (I didn't know they had one) and the woman at the desk told me the photo was not from the Market. I smiled, said "kop koon krup" (thank you) and headed for Topps to look for fried onions and mushroom soup. What was 3 doors down from Topps? Yup. I went in and asked the people if I could take a photo. Well, I didn't really ask, I pointed to the sign, pointed to my camera and smiled. They nodded and all was good. I found most of what i was looking for at Topps except the onions. But in all fairness, I have no better then a 50% chance of finding something at Byerlys where the labeling is in English. I'm sure I'll find it if I come back with Porn. (I still love that)

After Topps I went to a restaurant in the Thai food court and pointed out my dinner. You choose what you want and then you go buy a ticket and bring it back and present it when the food is done. It's all prepared fresh. I tried a different fish and rice dish and once again it was good. There are tables set up for the 7-8 different little restaurants and a Thai band was playing Hotel California. They were pretty cute and they weren't bad but the emoting while they sang part almost made me laugh. Before I finished they left and another band took their place starting out with some Buddy Holly. Again, not bad musically but their affectations were really amusing. Thought about going up to the DQ for a 20 baht little blizzard but decided to head out instead.

The walk back was going to be easy because I wouldn't go the wrong way this time. Wrong. I made a wrong turn somewhere and got lost. I wasn't worried because at anytime I could give up, flag down a red truck or tuktuk, say "Wat Suondak" and they'd get me to the temple which is near the house. So instead of doing that I walked up to some guards at a building security booth and said "Wat Suondak and pointed both ways with a shrug. They smiled and pointed the exact opposite way that I had been walking. I kop koon krupped them and headed off. I repeated that scene several times with people on the street until I realized where I was. With great pride I walked the rest of the way back to the house having only extended my trip of about 3 miles round trip by about double or so. I told Mark the story and showed him on the map (which I had left in my room) where I had gone. He actually laughed out loud.

So there you have it. Some things change, somethings always stay the same. It was a very good adventure.