Top Ten Tuesday

And now for our final post (for this trip at any rate)... In honor of old grammar school friend Bethany Manning, whose blog is similarly inspired by our late Junior High friend Jennifer, here are the top ten things – or make it a baker’s dozen – that are grateful for:

13. The Thai urban health system is more thorough and cheaper than the US system.

12. Cool tile bathroom floors on feverish cheeks.

11. Getting through the airport calmly, 2.5 hours before protesters occupy it and shut it down. (Although it would have made for an entertaining blog post.)

10. Tropical diseases eliminated those extra pounds we’ve been trying to take off.

9. Fish soup is actually not a bad thing for breakfast, especially when served by a kind, smiling nurse.

8. Ginger in Mae Rim, looking out for us and befriending a feverish Rozie who nonetheless motor biked out the 17 km, in search of peace and quiet.

7. Kristin, no longer of Chiang Mai but wonderfully in Seattle where she can deliver us soup, and who warned us of the impending hair loss and depression in 2-3 months, so we won’t freak out.

6. The sympathy that exudes from a hostess (Lizzy) even when we overstayed our welcome in so many ways, especially once she experienced first hand the meaning of “communicable.”

5. The hilarity that can ensue with cultural differences, especially with inter-cultural communication around bodily fluid samples.

4. Jamie, the housesitter/ housemate who was happy to let us come home early and muscle in on her newly claimed territory, and friends who instantly offered to feed us Thanksgiving dinner.

3. How easy it is to appreciate a Bostonian Anarchist (cap A), who will not cede to foreign queue cutters and can seamlessly merge into Chiang Mai traffic anarchy (small A).

2. How unfazed one becomes about airsickness, once 4 days have been spent in a foreign hospital.

1. Laughing at ourselves and with each other, and loving with a deep constancy… even when (or especially when) sicker than dogs, and when trying to escape a foreign country before a coup, and even though whilst we were away California, Arizona, and Florida said it isn’t worthy of the term “marriage”.

We made it home (Seattle)!

If R has one thing going for her, it's an uncanny sense of timing. (If I do say so myself!) We arrived at the Indigo Pearl amidst a huge crowd in the lobby, but thankfully, the beauty queens were on their way out, and the patrons became very sparce during our (anti-social) visit. Then, although our stay had seemed too short, we ended up traveling through Suvarnibhumi International Airport in Bangkok a mere 2.5 hours before it was stormed and shut down by anti-government protesters last night. K is now safely and sleepily rolled in a blanket on the chaise on this cold, stormy Seattle day, trying not to pout that we didn't get stranded in Bangkok.


Thailand is in a difficult way, politically. The government is clearly corrupt, a puppet for a rather megomaniacal profiteer, yet it has been elected and re-elected by a majority of voters, and really is serving the poor in significant ways. The "People's Alliance for Democracy" opposition, however, is decidedly UNdemocratic, and is trying to play off the non-governmental monarchy against the elected officials and trigger a coup. Neither side is easy to support, and both sides are getting violent, with people actually using the term "civil war" now -- certainly not a prospect most people would usually consider for this country of peaceable people.

Ah, but for those last few days we were surrounded by the privileged foreigners, in an idyllic paradise and our travel arrangements worked like clockwork! It was so bizarre, but if you're going to be sick, it's good to be "rich" even if only for a few days. The thing we noticed about being rich and privileged, though, is that it really leads to a lack of imagination. No wonder some rich people get obsessed with power! It's one of the few challenges left. They are surrounded by people -- servants and syncophants -- who are constantly thinking creatively about how to meet the rich person's every need and desire. The privileged person does not have to think at all, let alone exercise the necessary human faculty for creative problem solving. It's great to be privileged when you are too sick to think, though, and we were very grateful for our few days in a bastion of jet setters.

Here are some photos from our last days of luxury...
The lobby where we waited for the beauty queens to check out:

Scantily clad beauty queen getting up from our lounging couch. I'm sure we ruined her necessarily photogenic atmosphere... hehehe!




Our room. Very industrial and chic. But the best part was when the staff came in the evenings to light the aromatherapy jar (jasmine) and bring a fresh mosquito coil. Not that this place had many mosquitos, despite all the ponds.

K loved the bathroom with it's glass wall to the rest of the room and the windowed wall out to the private patio.

She also loved the bolted toilet paper holder (they don't usually use tp in Thailand, they use a little hose -- that shows how foreigner-oriented this place is. That, and the soft feather beds! We kind of missed the hose, though.)



The pools and beaches were lovely. Yes it was cloudy most of the time -- still rainy season there, but that kept us from getting sunburnt, so we were happy!














It's not a vacation until K gets her foofy drink on the beach.

While some people find that they can't drink alcohol anymore after dengue, K found that for her, alcohol seemed to have no affect at all anymore. Once a one-drink cheap date, she kept trying different drinks throughout our last day there, but stayed sober as a judge. Very strange, but as Dengue side effects go, this is one of the best!

Other views around the grounds:



The Tin Mine Syndicate Pub -- very hip circulation system!





Ah, so happy!

Paradise Found!

Well, we're heading home on Monday, but we just had to do something to satisfy all you who were hoping to live vicariously through us. We hopped a plane down to Phuket Island, where we're staying at a very posh resort -- the Indigo Pearl (a little more polished than the Black Pearl, but Rozie feels like she's plundering treasure anyway.) We got a screaming last minute deal, so we'll be here for the three days before we head back to Seattle.

We arrived to a melee as the Miss France contestants were checking out. Talk about culture shock! There goes our feeling tall in Thailand. Of course the 3" stilletos with jeans helped, and set off the sashes well. (Do they have to wear them 24 hours/day?) And how come beauty queens all look the same? (Except for Sarah Palin, of course.) We didn't quite have the nerve up to ask them to pose for us, sorry. So anyway, now we're feeling VERY posh... and a little middle-aged frumpy.

As if we weren't feeling rather dizzy anyway, this resort is quite the den of cognitive dissonance. It's designed to evoke a tin mine, with all the Thai staff wearing metalsmithing aprons and t-shirts with shoveling men on them. (Yes, you read that right -- a posh resort that makes you feel like you're in a tin mine.) Everything in the entire complex evokes that theme. Still it is so swank, that we thought we'd just link to some pictures from the internet so you can get the right feel. (And we're using the computer in the library, so no photo uploading of our own. We'll post those later. K can't wait to show you the metal bolt toilet paper holder.)

We're in the middle of Nai Yang National Park, which is incredibly quiet and peaceful. Gorgeous huge trees with trunks like eucalyptus and needles like a pine shade everywhere but the beach, which has the softest sand you can imagine. We've never been on any shore where the sand gets WARMER as you head to the water. But, there are little stinging things in the sea, so we're very happy we have 3 pools to choose from in the resort! All in all, some nice R&R finally, before we come home for Thanksgiving.

Doi Suthep

Yesterday, Rozie and I went on a real outing, and climbed the mountain called Doi Suthep -- with a motor bike. Those of you who read the first round of this blog (in 2006) will recognize the mountain has the same name of the Buddhist temple that sits above Chiang Mai.

I think Rozie’s shots of the naga, the dragonlike guardians of the temple, do them more justice.

I especially like this one because it looks like she's developed a case of typhoid and hasn't yet gotten the antibiotics on board.










Rozie found Wat Doi Suthep to be an odd experience. First of all, there were no monks there, other than one monk in each of two little meditation halls, giving out blessing strings for a donation. We did see a mae jin, which is a woman who has renounced worldly life for religious vocation, and dresses all in white with a shaved head. Rozie had read about them -- they have no status in the stratified Thai society as there is no tradition of female ordination there, and they have very little material support, but some abbots allow them to live within their Wats in return for doing chores. This particular mae jin was working the gift shop, where you could buy Buddha key chains.

In front of the stupa and golden Buddha representations, Rozie made offerings of incense, candles and silk flowers for the both of us, in the Thai manner, and then watched amusedly, as the Wat attendants (laypeople) gathered up the flowers and brought them back to the vending area to be resold to the next batch of visitors. The stupa was still under restoration scaffolding (as it had been 2 years ago), but it was very nice to circumambulate it - a new experience for these westerners, and it is indeed very meditative. It was beautiful and peaceful up there, even with the throngs of visitors and the lack of any active Dharma.


On our way down Doi Suthep we checked out a local waterfall. I have to admit, living in the northwest, I'm a little jaded when it comes to waterfalls, but this one is notable because we actually got a shot of two of us together.

Looking at this photo I guess I must have have lost some weight. But in case any of you are tempted to use either of these diseases as a weight loss method, let me assure you that you only lose weight in your face. (Rozie says that's not really true, we both look rather sickly all over.)

Buak Hat Park

Nature came calling rather aggressively, (this 5" frog is 4 feet up the door) so we decided maybe we should return the favor...

We made it outside! ...To go sleep in a park. We went into the old part of town for Rozie's trip to the accupuncturist (where she found out we officially had "red spot dengue", according to the old Chinese terminology. It's the worst of the four kinds, by the way. But we're not proud.) K found that waiting in the bookstore was a little too tiring, so we rested by the moat that surrounds old Chiang Mai. It was built in the 12th century and is filled with fish. But it has an elaborate pumping system, so there are no mosquitos incubating in it! Then we took a spin around the boulevard, and rested in Buak Hat Park. It was a very nice park - 10 baht (~$.30) will rent a grass mat to lie down upon. It was a good amount of exertion for us. Here's some of the sites from our big day.

Loi Krathong

That Ear-Nose-Throat Doc will never be the same!

We had a dramatic 2 am hospital admit on Wednesday after K passed out on the toilet. Classy, eh? She didn't injure herself. To the contrary she just grew very, very fond of the cool tile floor in short order. But Rozie thought more conventional care might be called for, so she haled a tuk-tuk and what a ride it was. A three-wheeled, open-air vehicle, with no muffler or shocks to speak of is quite the emergency vehicle. We already knew where to go, having been there each day this week to have any one of the three of us (K, Elizabeth or R) have our white blood cell and platelets counted for the dengue fever check-ups.

The hospital docs didn't have an additional diagnosis until the next day when K passed out and convulsed in the middle of a nasal swab exam. (That's when they try to stick a pipe cleaner up into your brain through your nose -- VERY unpleasant.) That ENT doc will never be the same, let me tell you :-) K tried to warn him by saying, "Uh, dizzy" and repeating with more emphasis, "DIZZY" but perhaps he doesn't know the English word dizzy and I guess she should have said, "Caution! About to convulse."

When she came to, there were about five people in his small office. One of
them waving a really large, Q-tip, that had been dipped in something quite
acrid. (Can you say, "Hand me the smelling salts. Krista has the
vapors."?) She wanted to say, "Uh, look, I've been through this before. If
you'd just let me lie down on the tile floor everything will be fine."


At any rate, that got their attention. After a bit of anti-convulsion
medicine (that is some good stuff, she was practically dancing back in her hospital room) the doc got back the results from the latest blood test to confirm that K had dengue AND typhoid fevers. K was relieved to
know that she's not just a big, wimpy hypochondriac. Rozie was less thrilled
to find out K had yet another disease. According to R's Chinese medicine doctor (rumored to also treat the King) we have the worst of the 4 kinds of Dengue as it is.  The Chinese call it "red spot" dengue, because it attacks your blood vessels and causes a rash of little red spots all over.  Once the fever breaks, the red spots spread until your hands and feet are bright crimson, swollen, and then they start to itch like you can not even believe!  It almost makes your miss the "bone crushing" stage of the illness.  The good news is we'll never get "red spot" again - the bad news is that we could get any or all of the other three, and they would be all the worse for having followed red spot.

But after round the clock care by a team of almost-english-speaking nurses, our "family doc", a gastro-enterologist, a dermatologist, and that poor ENT, and including four days of IV drip and some serious antibiotics, they let K go today. With another week of oral anti-biotics the typhoid should be cleared our of her gut completely, so she won't become another "Typhoid Mary" carrying around the disease unknowingly.  Meanwhile, we are about as weak as kittens while the rest of the dengue works its way out, and until our immune systems are able to turn back on R is absolutely paranoid. (You should have seen her jump when K tried to order a raw salad for her first meal out of the hospital!) But it should only be another 2-3 weeks or so, maybe... and we've been told that the shadows in R's vision should go away eventually too.

Are we having fun yet?

Randomness

We’re pretty much home-bound, (here is Elizabeth's "farang" townhouse, with cat Norman waiting to be let in our window) now that all three of us are down with Dengue. So we’ll just post some random observations, including some interesting creepy crawlies for the kiddies in our audience. Perhaps someone out there with energy could figure out what these things are named and let us know! The horned lizard here fell out of a tree almost on R's head while walking down the sidewalk -- it reminded K of the "flying snakes" in Greece.

It seems as if Thai people are the most precise and decorous people of anywhere we’ve travelled. I (Rozie) have actually been feeling like a slovenly klutz here, in comparison. But dengue seems to be changing me – since every thing I touch hurts, I now move very slowly and precisely. Because I want to keep the mosquitos from biting me and spreading it to others, I’m dressing much more modestly. And since I’m afraid of passing out in the sun… well, when we ventured out to get some necessities, I realized I am becoming “Thai people” – at least in terms of how I look and move!

Thai sidewalks are even worse than those in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Though perhaps just as old and as narrow, here it is not just crowds of co-eds that make them an obstacle course. Trees, parked cars, restaurant signs, (not to mention flying lizards) and as in this case, a phone booth, have us dodging out into the traffic to wend our way down the street. But aside from the fact that there's no emission standards, this is an immaculate city -- much cleaner than even Seattle. In fact. we saw someone cleaning every nook and cranny of this phone booth when we walked by the next day.

Early tomorrow morning we will all three take a tsong-taew to the hospital. (Here is a picture taken from a 3-wheeled tuk-tuk, with a red tsongtaew on the left and an anarchist biker flying between.) I will get my
blood drawn again to see what my white blood cell and platelet count is. I’m actually feeling better today (I’m the only one, hence this will not be edited) and so I imagine that I may be on the way out of it. They say your levels drop for the first 6-7 days no matter how you’re feeling. We’re guessing I’m on day 5, K is on day 6 and E just started last night. Here're some more "housemates," just to round out the post:

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

We weren’t even done with our jet lag when we caught dengue fever, or breakbone fever as it’s sometimes called, because you feel like every bone is trying to break away and secede from your body. First we blamed the aches on Elizabeth’s exceptionally hard beds, then we blamed the Thai massages we got to help with the hard-bed-related aches.


Nausea and diarrhea? It must be that street vendor food we’ve been eating. The sticky rice! It must have been the sticky rice. Finally, after yet another night writhing and remembering the bleakest movie ever, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Rozie decided it was dengue fever. Elizabeth offered to be Rozie’s hospital guide, and the diagnosis was confirmed.


The new hospital was very spare and clean and everyone was nice and spoke some English. The trip went like clockwork except a computer error delayed the results for 2 hours – the plague of the modern hospital.


There’s really nothing to be done about dengue fever, except to wait it out; take Tylenol; do "taking & giving" meditations for all those who feel this way and don't have the comfort of knowing it'll be better in a few days; and try not to “breed”, as the doctor put it. (“Breeding” as in, when you scratch mosquito bites too hard and they “breed”.)


On the way home, Rozie in a stupor on the back of Elizabeth’s motorbike, there was a Thai moment. Less than a block from home, we were stopped at an intersection by a tight-clothed policeman with a whistle. We sat there for 10 minutes in the blazing sun while he let every other direction go but ours. (It seems some VIPs were coming and we would have crossed their path.)


E said that if it was the queen, we would have to dismount and stand and bow until she’d gone by. Very polite and orderly these Thais, but after 10 minutes in the full sun, the biker anarchy kicked in. When there was a break in the cross-traffic, all the two-wheelers in the front of our lanes just took off, hearing the cop running out of his little box, whistling after us!


We are now painfully aware (pun intended) that there is an epidemic proportion of dengue fever in Chiang Mai, which is especially bad this year due to global warming extending the rainy season. So let this be a lesson to any of you interested in visiting tropical areas at the tail end of the rainy season. Don’t wait to break out the Skin So Soft like we did.


Uh oh, we just got a call from Elizabeth. She’s heading home with take out dinner... and a fever.

Time Out for Patriotism

Once again K is abroad on Election Day – but this time, the local authorities didn’t ask her how she voted before they allowed her to cross their border. And with the poll results, we may actually be allowed back in now!

We began to regret our decision to leave the states directly before the election. (Of course we cast our votes before leaving.) However, we did find a good location to watch the election returns. The local Irish pub in Chiang Mai seemed to be hosting most of the American expats starting in the early hours of Wednesday morning (it’s a 12 hour time difference from Eastern Time.) We got there around 9am with an all-white, under-thirty crowd, who had probably only known the Bush era, already hooting and hollering upstairs. Rozie could barely keep from crying to see so many young people be happily inducted into the democratic process as she was 20+ years ago, when she fought for college student voting rights in New York.

But we staid 40+ folks sat downstairs. If there were any McCain supporters, they were very quiet, but we suspect most people who travel abroad are ready for regime change, if only because everywhere we travel is waiting with baited breath.

We’ve been reading Gone With The Wind (I know, we’re traveling with a 10 lb book!) Margaret Mitchell wrote so much about the politics and sociology of the south that was cut out of the movie, and it’s been fascinating to review the Civil War during this election cycle, albeit through one-sided fiction. It’s sad to realize how many of the mistakes of Reconstruction, made in the name of liberty by patriotic partisans, were made all over again in Iraq. And then to watch CNN in an Irish bar in Thailand, and see the parties’ campaigns, 140 years later, still being affected by the legacy of those misguided days (only this time with many things in their platforms kind of reversed.) Too weird! May we never elect and appoint leaders who don't know our own and international history.

We were moved and proud by the outcome. It was a shame that McCain waited until the finish of his campaign to show real leadership -- His concession speech was outstanding, (which only highlighted the hooliganism of his front row supporters, and one can only guess if he might wish he hadn’t pandered to them earlier.) And Obama’s speech, was, well, presidential. Not gloating or even too celebratory but appropriately sober and reminiscent of the struggles that brought us here. We have a long road ahead of us. May his administration fulfill all hopes for a more peaceful, more just entrée to the future.

Rainy Season?

The rainy season is not over! K’s curious about rain in Chiang Mai, since being here in the dry season last time and not seeing a drop. It brings the temperature down to about 77 degrees just after a shower, but increases the humidity. It’s been alternating downpours and sprinkles since just after a little adventure to the special outdoor market, but Elizabeth says it’s nothing compared to the wall of water that is the height of rainy season.


Although the area of Chiang Mai in which we are staying is near the University and full of English-language shops and “farang” restaurants, we saw no other Caucasians at the market, and felt fully, wonderfully, out of our element. Still, it is disconcerting when even the numbers are written in characters we don't understand. We were too shy to take pictures.

After watching the activities in a makeshift tent restaurant for quite awhile, R got brave enough to go up and order something for K to eat. (This is the task specialization we’re developing: R gets bravery points for ordering, K gets bravery points for eating.) The cook had a large propane pot that was separated into compartments – one had broth, another had pasta water, and the third had some kind of soaking white meat ball (this is why K is the food tester!) The cook grabbed the noodle type I chose and lowered it in a one-portion basket into the pot for a few seconds, then dumped it in a coconut shell bowl. She topped it with various dry ingredients from a nearby pile of baskets that included a spice mixture, peanuts, dried meat bits, seasoned ginger, a scoop of salt, and dried greens of some kind. Then the broth was added, and we sat down at a low bamboo table on little plastic stools. (Gals, you’d recognize them from the Korean spa.) We both agreed it was delicious, whatever it was.

It’s two and half years later and I’m back. Only this time it’s with my partner in crime, Rozie. Our journey here was long (29 hours of total travel from the Seattle house to Chiang Mai) but surprisingly comfortable. That is, if you don’t include the six months of preparation it took to facilitate a smooth journey – that was pretty brutal since it mostly piled into the last week! For those of you who were wondering, yes, we did finish the backyard fence complete with gate, but despite Casey's help, we had to leave the dog door issue to a professional after our second try.

[You may notice the tense changing in this blog. We’re both writing -- and brutally editing each others’ writing. We’re fairly interchangeable (having the same given name and all) but occasionally even we may get confused as to who’s writing.]

Our trip really started with a jaunt to Arizona in early October to visit some kin. Rozie had yet to meet K’s dear friend Matthew, who met us in Tucson. And R wanted to see her Uncle Allan and Aunt Boonmee in Prescott. Boonmee hails from Kalasin province, southeast of Chiang Mai, and Allan lived in Thailand for about two decades. (In fact, we're now living across the street from Chiang Mai's Rincome Hotel, where they got married.) While we toured Allan & Boonmee’s well-loved desert haunts, we also learned a lot about Boonmee’s life in Thailand and Allan’s adventures abroad. We hope to meet up with some of Boonmee’s other nieces when we venture outside of Chiang Mai.

Elizabeth met us in Bangkok just in the nick of time to make the flight to Chiang Mai. K was disappointed with the new ultra-modern Bangkok airport because it now seemed like so many others we've been in lately, but at least it had an appropriately extravagant spirit house to keep the spirits from causing mischief inside. (A ubiquitous Thai tradition.)

Our pets are safely home with Jamie, but luckily for us, Norman, Elizabeth’s small, talkative, black cat is here to keep us four-footed, furry company, so we feel right at home.

Lizzie is once again providing excellent hosting support, complete with the standard (making sure we are comfortably housed and fed) and with more than standard hostessing… driving three on a motor bike, helmetless through rush hour traffic. (Don't worry, it was a one-time, initiation kind of thing, now that we've rented our own bike we'll be legally helmeted.) And on our second night a ukulele jam session with Lizzie's ex-pat friends. It was quite an international gathering – Marissa is full Thai but from the US and is here doing public health research for Johns Hopkins; her German fiancée is in Argentina removing transmitter backpacks from swallows. Katlin from Australia runs a music program for youth, and Corinna is a Peruvian who hails from Germany, but has been here for 20 years and speaks 5 languages. And there we were, playing Hawaiian ukelele’s in Thailand! Who knew that Britney Spears could sound so good on ukeleles? (Did we mention we’re going through culture shock?)