Sunday, August 16, 2009

Rainy Day Riverside Thai / We Cook Alloi!


After another morning of banana pancakes and overhanging dark clouds, we decided to try and search out a nice riverside restaurant/ hang out to watch the inevitable downpour in dry comfort. We found a place aptly called, Riverside Restaurant and Bar. 


We ordered curry and it rained. It rained for about an hour, we had planned on waiting it out, because we had taken a 10 minute motorbike ride across a bridge to get there, but I made the decision that we had to at least see what it was like to ride the motorbike in the pouring rain with shorts and tshirts only. So we wrapped Maris's purse in a plastic bag we found on the ground and began our cruise. 


It was great, cold rain hitting our faces- refreshing unlike anything I had felt in Thailand. The rain is cold and stings. It was an exhilarating feeling I look forward to experiencing again in the near future. 


We took it easy that night, neither of us have had a wanting to go out and experience the night life since we have been in Chiang Mai, sans my excursion to the Muay Thai kickboxing match. 


That will change tonight, we will be going out. 


We spent the day yesterday at a Thai cooking class in a woman's house down the Thanon (road) from us. She was super sweet and easy to understand. She loved cooking and you could tell her passion was real and it translated welll in her teaching. We learned to cook 7 dishes- a stir fry, an appetizer, a soup, a curry, a curry paste and a dessert or as the South African/ British transplant next to me called it, "pudding".




It was a great experience and all the foot turned out amazing. We were a group of 3 couples and one girl from Spain who stayed half the day. One couple was austrian, one was south african and then there was us. It was nice and also a little strange that the language catered to was English. They were all very fun and interesting people. I wish we could have shared a pint with them afterwards, but unfortunately it never came into fruition. 




It was a great experience. I also got a Thai massage the other day. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. Think rubbing muscle on bone until you get to the point of no return and then FINALLY letting off only to do it 5 inches up from where the first bit of torture took place. It was tough, it was kind of a crash course in meditation in that I tried to keep my mind off of the excrutiating pain. It was tough, but I stuck it out for the entire HOUR. Maris loved it, you couldn't pay me to do it again. 


Either way we have had a wonderful 4 or 5 days. We just bought plane tickets to fly down to Krabi for our year anniversary. We will be living there for a month, we will be taking our TEFL course there. 


We look forward to beach time. It should be a great journey to the opposite end of Thailand. 


We shall see.


_Brock

Posted by BrockTalkinThai at 9:59 PM

1 comment:

  1. Aunt JoAugust 20, 2009 at 9:33 PM

    This is just so excellent! I am really enjoying your blog. You are a great writer and I love the pictures. Although the food does not look appetizing, but I'll bet it does taste good. I am so happy for you - you are living everyone's dreams. Give my love to Maris.

    ReplyDelete

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The Beginning

The Beginning

I am a 25 year old, southern Gent. I've been bothered by the fact that I've not traveled the world or even left the country, sans a trip to Cancun when I was in High School, but that was so muddled with tequila and strip clubs (sorry mom), that It doesn't REALLY count- that I have decided to take a adventure across the globe with the love of my life.

All I needed was a motivator, I needed someone to push me to travel and tell me, "Now's the time to do this, and we should totally do it". She came, she said those magic words and now we've got our bags packed, watching the calendar.
 
I had intentions on moving to New York City with my girlfriend. We are both really big into music and both have a spot in our hearts for the city. The opportunity escaped us after having our hopes deflated by the freaky rent prices there. We kind of ditched the New York idea immediately following a trip there and the mention of Thailand. 

We had always tossed around the idea of traveling together. I knew I wanted to travel with her. The first place she mentioned was Thailand, and after 20 minutes on Craigslist, checking out places and prices, we were sold (prob not the best way to chose where you want to spend your life, but that's just how it happened, and this is my story). Thailand it was.

So here we are 6 months later, a ticket for Bangkok dated August 4th in our hands. When people ask us how long we will be in Thailand, we say "Indefinitely". We are ready for a life change, something that might coax us into never coming back.

I have been dreaming of the sand and the crystal beaches since we mentioned the move, I have also had nightmares of being locked up and having to deal with a girlfriend who has been kidnapped by some crazy python handler, but those are just dreams.

The truth is, I have never been so excited and nervous at the same time for anything in my life. Right, now as I sit on my couch in South Knoxville looking out the window at the homemade bird feeders we made, on a hot Sunday afternoon, it blows my mind to think that in a little under two months, I might be laying in the sand with the tide riding up my mini bathing suit, with some concoction of a random Thai's design to sip in one hand, watching long-tailed boats float over the horizon, holding the love of my life in the other.

I expect to be shocked, excited, impressed, disappointed, lost, scared, found, happy, comfortable, uncomfortable, drunk, frightened, enlightened, ready to come home, ready to stay forever- all at different times on this journey.  

But one thing that will never change will be when I am an old man, maybe back in South Knoxville, sitting on my porch in a rocking chair with my old wife, widdling some crazy little thing old men on porches widdle, I will be able to look over to my wife and ask, "Remember that time we went into that local bar in Thailand and we saw that Thai Prostitute perform that "Ping-Pong show?" I am glad we shared that moment together."  

And she will say, "Brock that's disgusting" and then smile a little bit.


_Brock