Window to My World

Someday, I'm going to strap a tiny camera to my helmet and record my regular drives around Chiang Mai, too, but for now, enjoy this version that one of my friends here found on YouTube.  Yes, this is basically what driving around this city feels like, except that they seem to have recorded this on a remarkably quiet day.  (Also, it's missing the essential hallmark of driving in Chiang Mai:  the four drunk Thai teenagers and a dog on a single bike, with no headlights, the driver of which is eating with one hand and texting with the other and is also not the person sitting in front.  And the bike is going the wrong way down a one-way street.  THEN it would be fully accurate. :))

B Flat

Adventures in speaking Thai!  Today I got to navigate the fun world of fixing a busted motorbike, which is an interesting challenge when the longest sentence you're able to say in the local language is, "I'll have the pad sii yew with pork, a little bit spicy, no MSG."

I think Arcee ran over something on the way home last night, because her front tire was starting to go flat when I started out this morning (although, moron that I am, I couldn't figure out why she was twitching and jerking until a friendly dude at a stoplight pointed the now pancake-flat tire out to me).  I wobbled my way to the nearest gas station and tried the air pump; I was pretty sure, from the speed with which the tire had deflated, that it was punctured, but it was worth a shot.  Sure enough, I'd ridden a few metres before it was completely flattened out again.  So I paddled my way back to the station.

The attendant took one look at my tire and pointed me to the air pumps.  I tried to explain in English that I thought the tire had a hole, and got a blank look (it doesn't help that when I'm flustered that someone can't understand me, I start using a whole lot of different phrases, very soft and fast, to try and explain, which is probably the worst thing to do to someone who's trying to follow a foreign language).  He asked one of his colleagues to come over; she listened, looked at the tire, nodded sympathetically, and then pointed at the air pumps.  Eventually, the first attendant took my bike and wheeled her over to the pump, filled the front tire, and looked at me expectantly.

I had no idea what the Thai was for "fill" (or "puncture", or "tire"...), but I remembered "chan" ("I"), and "leaw" ("already"), enough for me to gesture at the pump and insist, "I already!  I already!", followed by an enthusiastic mime of a tire deflating.  From my hunched-over, deflated position, I could see a lightbulb switching on over the attendant's head.  He pointed me in the direction of the nearest repair shop, where I again tried to babble out a long account of what was wrong (in English), while the mechanic stared at me.  Eventually, he pointed to the tire and asked pointedly, "Change?"  Oh.  Right.  Yeah, that'd be nice, thank you.

Things Arcee has now:

- A new tube in her front tire
- A freshly inflated back tire (y'know, while I was there)
- A stunning wash-and-wax job, courtesy of Smile Cars, a carwash run by a sassy middle-aged Thai woman, where they give you a free bottle of branded water with each wash.  (Yeah, I don't know, either.)  Seriously, though, I wish I'd taken before-and-after photos.  Arcee got filthy while I was away (... okay, that didn't really come out right :)), covered in dirt and cobwebs from sitting in the parking lot.  The first time I rode after coming back, my hands ended up caked in mud from the dust that had collected in the grooves of the handlebars.  Now, she positively gleams.
- A very exhausted human

Speed in a Sachet

This is the label on the tea I bought today:

Oh, tea, you had me at "hot off the drug is similiar to the driving".  Put the kettle on, baby!  I am clearly in for a wild night!

ETA:  It lies.

Get Your Motor Running

Well, the draft of my report is still very rough, and I keep finding more ground to cover the more I look, but I now have a good chunk of… um… words.  They may not be perfect, but they’re words, and there are lots of them!

I don’t know if I’ve explained exactly what it is I’m writing:  basically, it’s an advocacy guide to all national and international sustainable development rules affecting Burma, plus a look at whether and how those regulations are being applied on the ground.  So, it’s a big book of anything that would allow activists to go, “See, you said you were going to do this, and actually, you’re doing that.”  It’s the “on the ground” stuff that’s often the most difficult to track down – information from inside the country can be hard to get and verify.  But holy crap, I’m learning a lot along the way.  There probably could not be a better crash course to start my placement than researching this thing.

I think I’m moving out of the “ZOMG EVERYTHING IS NEW!” phase, so the character of these posts may change a bit.  Here’s a roundup of a few things from the past week:

• I’m slowly getting to know people in the office.  I still feel a bit awkward making conversation, but I’m trying, and everyone’s been very sweet about it.  (It’s difficult to explain, but there are different cultural rhythms and styles of conversation – for example, there’s a particular way Karen people tease each other.  It reminds me a little bit of trying to fit into a British office for the first time.  It’s a more dramatic change than that, of course, but on the plus side, this time I was prepared for there to be differences.)
  
  I still have lunch with the folks in the office a few times a week; it’s usually a mix of conversation in English for my benefit, and conversation in Karen while I smile and stuff my face. :)  Also, it gives me the chance to try loads of new foods, both home-cooked Karen dishes and Thai food from the local market.  The big discovery this week?  I knew that you can eat fresh jackfruit, and that you can use the flesh in a curry, but damn, no one told me that you can eat the seeds, too!  (You’ve got to boil them first, but still.)  They’re like giant, warm macadamia nuts.  I love that freaking fruit.  It is the most awesome fruit.

• My friend Pam and I were the whole of our team for the UN Irish Pub’s weekly pub quiz this time around (the teams vary in size a lot, depending on who’s free and in the mood) – and we came third out of about twenty teams!  Whoot. :)  It was the first time we’ve won a prize since I started coming along (I refuse to believe that those two events are related, despite the evidence :)), but the prize for third place is a jug of beer… and I’m not a huge beer fan, and Pam doesn’t drink (plus, we both had to drive back home).  So we ended up wandering around, pimping our beer out to the remaining teams in an apologetic sorry-we’re-smarter-than-you-please-have-some-beer kind of way.  (Pam’s theory is that you can get away with saying almost anything, provided that you add, “Have some beer!” at the end.  “You’re astonishingly ugly.  Have some beer!”  “May the hand of God descend and wipe your lineage from the face of the earth.  Have some beer!”)  It was cool, actually – we met some really nice people.  As frequently happens when you wander around giving out free booze.

• I bought some deodorant.  It is “whitening”.  I am scared.

• Full points and a free jug of UN beer go to my friend Lee, who predicted that I would end up loving my motorcycle.  Until very recently, I didn’t think that would be the case; I was competent to ride it, but it was still (and frequently still is) pretty nervewracking, and knowing I would have to do a tricky drive (like, say, in heavy traffic) the next day would make it tough to sleep the night before.  I still have occasional bad moments, but over the past few days, something’s shifted.  There have been times, driving along the superhighway – on a bright day, with the mountains rearing up just ahead of you, or late at night, when there’s very little traffic – when I’ve found myself wanting to go faster, wanting to open up Arcee’s engine a little more and see what she can do, and (at least briefly) really loving the feeling of flying along the road.  It’s faintly possible I may have started singing under my breath, “Get your motor runnin’, head out on the highway…” :)

• Yesterday, I went out to dinner with another of my fellow VSOs (a Canadian volunteer named Taskin, who’s awesome), and had sushi for the first time in Thailand.  It was lovely – really fresh sashimi, and salmon tempura rolls with crispy flour on the outside, which I haven’t seen elsewhere.  And afterwards, we wandered around the funky, Camden-style local student market, with its racks of funky, often gloriously nonsensical t-shirts, like, "Stupid T-Shirt Company - We Do Only Stupid Thing!"  (Some of them were perfectly legit, like the one with a picture of an AT-AT that said, “Imperial Taxi Service”.  On the other hand, there were a couple where the joke could have been intentional, or possibly the result of an awful translation, like the shirt that demanded to know, “Are you single or fixed?”)  We even found a late-night ice cream parlour that makes a brilliant range of flavours on site – brownie, chocomint, real vanilla bean (which is rare here), two-tone chocolate – and where the proprietor let us taste about half a dozen before deciding.  So I got to have brownie-batter ice cream while Taskin taught me some Thai verbs.  It was a really nice night. :)

• Last night, I saw one of the little lizards that inhabit the stairwells (not Henry; he’s my special shower lizard) dashing madly down a wall when he heard my approach.  Unfortunately, this particular wall has a recess that starts about two feet above the floor, and for some reason, instead of sticking to the wall as it curved inward, the lizard simply ran out of wall and fell to the tiles with a *smack*.
  
  I looked at the lizard.  The lizard looked at me.  If you were going to subtitle that silent exchange of looks, the conversation would probably go something like this:
  
  Me:  Hey, dude, are you okay?Lizard:  I meant to do that.
  Me:  Ohhh-kay, are you sure?  Because that –
  Lizard:  Totally meant to do that!
  Me:  It’s just that that looked like a pretty nasty –
  Lizard:  I SAID I’M FINE!  Now, if you’ll excuse me, some of us have flies to devour.  *tail flick*

This weekend’s experiment:  Baking cookies inna toaster oven!  Stay tuned.

If you're thinking of being my baby, it don't matter if you're black and white.

*waves*

Hey, everyone!  Right now I'm happily ensconced on my bed with the contents of the care package Margaret just sent me (chocolates, jaffa cakes, and M&S Christmas tea, which is delicious), and with a three-day weekend ahead of me, because Monday is the king's birthday.  (There are GIANT PHOTOS of the king, complete with gilt and flags, all over Chiang Mai this week.)  I'll still be doing some work over the weekend, but I'm basically ahead of schedule; the outline for my report was supposed to be finalised by Monday, and not only have I handed it in, but I've got a chunk of the first chapter written.  The rest of it's still pretty daunting, but I'll get there!

So, the highlights of last week included getting my driver's licence (whoo-hoo!), and THANKSGIVING.

The driving test in Thailand... well, explains a certain amount about the drivers in Thailand.  It's a doddle - straight line, turn, up a hill, down a hill, easy slalom (although I feel incredibly smug about the fact that the slalom is one of the things my London motorcycle instructor despaired of my ever getting), and drive along a plank.  Not that I should talk; I've had the licence for almost two weeks now, and I'm still very much getting used to the bike, so I'm benefitting from the somewhat lax system, too.  And I'm still rather hypocritically proud of myself for getting this far. :)

Now, this is the design for both licence plates and driver's licences issued in Chiang Mai.  I'm showing you the plates, because the text on the licence covers most of this.  I'm sorry that the picture is still pretty blurry; it was the best I could find online.  I want you to direct your attention to the bottom right-hand corner there.

WHAT.  ARE THOSE PANDAS.  DOING.

So, yeah, I've got humping pandas on my licence. :)  Hey, it's a good thing!  They're endangered!

Since getting my licence, I've been experimenting with further distances and trickier drives.  The first real excursion on my own was just to the local Western-style bakery (bribing myself with cake was an essential part of the learning process :)).  After that, I've driven to the Night Bazaar, taken the full loop of the Superhighway to go meet friends for dinner, and, last night, driven right into the old city for pub quiz night!  I'm still a bit leery of traffic, and so far I've only gotten up to about 50 kmph before feeling like I'm going to shake apart, but... yeah, I think that, "I'll get there!" is the theme of this post.

The Night Bazaar is well worth a visit.  It's a lively, strange mix of traditional handicrafts and the kind of boho art and "Come to the Dark Side - We Have Cookies" t-shirts you'll find in Camden Lock, with loads of fruit and ice cream stands thrown in.  There are posh antique shops and galleries side-by-side with overflowing textile stalls and carts selling Buddhist trinkets, as well as a warehouse-like hall with rank upon rank of both authentic craft tables and tatty souvenir shops (you know those cat statues with the one bobbing arm?  Would you like FIVE BILLION OF THEM?).  The vendors are friendly without being pushy, although a guy selling Indian-style laquer did tell me he'd seen me walking along the river the day before with my boyfriend.  So either I have a doppleganger who's getting more than I am, or I've been sleep- ...dating.

I'd give the Night Bazaar food court a miss, though, if I were you.  It's got a bizarre atmosphere, like one of those slightly fancier outdoor New Jersey malls (usually called a "plaza" or a "colonnade") that's dotted with trees and windowboxes to give it a classier feel.  There are live performances of Thai dancing, which is cool, but the food isn't great for the price.  I was intending to get some sushi, until I saw the sushi.  I think someone defrosted a bag of mixed veg, wrapped some rice around them, squirted the whole thing with salad cream, and called it a day...

Anyway, I did manage to get a little Christmas shopping done (more is slated for tomorrow, when I hit the hilltribe market and some of the craft shops).  As for the pub quiz this week, we came fourth - quite a feat, considering it was just Pam and me for about three rounds!  After that, we were joined by a very nice Aussie couple backpacking around Europe, who helped us shoot ahead in the ranking because one of them knew the given names of all the Jonas Brothers. :)  Before they left, Pam gave them the full rundown of top places to go in Chiang Mai when you've only got a couple of days - a few of the more beautiful or unusual wats; the Night Bazaar and the nearby day market; and loads of excellent restaurants, including a cocktail van the expats call "Latifah's", because apparently, after you've had a few, the proprietor looks a little like a Thai Queen Latifah. :)  I even got to chip in with a few ideas, which made me feel all cool. ;)

And yes, I did get to celebrate Thanksgiving here in Chiang Mai!  I was invited to a party thrown by a friend of a friend - a MASSIVE feast with about twenty people and all the Thanksgiving/Western comfort food you could ever want:  roast chicken, lasagna, mash, bread with garlic butter, stuffing, sprouts, cheese, brownies, and even wine (which is way out of my budget normally, so I appreciated being spoiled by the non-volunteer expats :)).  It was very relaxed, and it wound up being one of those evenings where a few people are lingering, smoking and drinking on the porch and earnestly dissecting scifi novels, at two in the morning.  There haven't been enough of those in my life lately.

I'm enjoying going out with and getting to know the other VSOs and their friends, but at the same time, it sometimes makes me acutely aware of the fact that my own friends - who would love this person or have so much to contribute to that conversation or get a kick out of this random cultural quirk - are so far away.

A few more things:

• Yesterday was the Thai and Burmese Christian festival of Sweet December (an increasingly big deal in this country), which celebrates the first day of the month of Jesus's birth.  Apparently, there are prayers, and then everyone gets together and eats solidly until midnight.  This is precisely my kind of celebration.

• I discovered earlier this week that I fail at rice. :)  I went to one of the local restaurants (little cookshops that are essentially a few tables in a bare storefront, with a noodle stand outside), and for the first time, ordered a dish with rice instead of a bowl of soup.  I started eating the rice the Western way - you know, with a fork.  Halfway through, the cook saw me, burst out laughing, and eventually - when she was able to control her giggles - very gently took my fork away and handed me a spoon, beaming at having enlightened the clearly mental farang.  RICE - UR DOIN' IT WRONG.

• Contractually obligated geek-post:  There's been a lot of debate, online and off, about the depiction of women in comics lately since DC comics relaunched its entire line (and, in the process, gave us some of the most facepalmingly objectifying art of superheroines ever).  A common counter-argument to protests about the objectification of women is, "But men are objectified in comics, too!  They're drawn as perfect specimens with giant muscles and powerful bodies!"  Well, if you're interested, here is the perfect rebuttal to that argument, in the form of an awesome webcomic.  If this kind of pop-culture debate is your thang and you want to learn more in general, don't miss this blog.

Photo post soon!  I'm sure you're all dying to see what my apartment looks like, right? :P

Introducing the Lady in Red!

By popular demand, I present:

MY MOTORCYCLE.

She's a Honda Wave with a 110 cc engine.  Pretty, no?

So, anyone who's actually surprised I've named my motorcycle after a Transformers character, raise your hand. Yeah, didn't think so.  :)  I mean, short of actually buying a car (not very likely while I'm in either Thailand or London), when else am I going to get that chance?

I'm calling her Arcee.




Arcee in Transformers Prime is Optimus Prime's second-in-command.  She's a snarky, rebellious loner with a traumatic past, who is also a ninja.  And, it goes without saying, a motorcycle. :)



I'm still doing practice sessions with Pam, as well as on my own now (my neighbours think I'm nuts), and I may end up having a crack at the driving test this coming week.  Wish me luck!

Theravada Buddhism and the Art of Motorcycle Riding

HOLY CRAP, I CAN RIDE A MOTORCYCLE.

Keep in mind that this is after my disasterous course in London, after I fell off and wrenched my leg, after my instructor in London despaired of my ever learning.  I had a few hours' training today with a fellow VSO volunteer, the wonderfully snarky Pam (also my "buddy" whose job is helping me get settled in to Chiang Mai - so far, she's shown me where to buy utensils, imported cheese, and chocolate cake, so orientation WIN, as far as I'm concerned :)).  It was a WORLD of difference from the London course, which mainly involved a large man sighing in a pained manner over my incompetence as he rattled off the same list of instructions after every abortive attempt of mine to travel more than a few feet.  Pam is very laid-back about the whole thing, knows exactly what riding a bike in Thailand is like (so, "Keep your right foot on the rest and push off with your left, then immediately lift that one into place," becomes, "Hey, if it's easier to keep your balance with your feet dangling at first, do it that way until you're comfortable," and, "You must be properly attired in summer-weight motorcycle gloves," becomes, "Seriously, you're better off than most Thais if you're wearing a helmet,"), and was really encouraging, pointing out how much progress I was making and that I was able to U-turn really smoothly.  By the end of what was barely a three-hour session, I'd gone from making my wobbly way up and down my own driveway to tearing around the parking lot and back roads at the local reservoir, going over bridges, making hairpin turns, and only seriously freaking out once. :)  "You're not ready to go on the road yet," Pam told me, "but you can control the bike."

WOW.

I don't think it's possible to overstate how terrified I was about the whole motorcycle thing when I came out here, and now... well, there were times when I actually enjoyed that. :)

Still got a ways to go, but am apparently not nearly the hopeless case my London instructor believed!