* note that my Thailand blog posting are out of order at this point. Each one is dated and titled like this one, for clarification.
March 8
Her foot is intertwined with his, locked into the dark crease of his knee. They sit folded up into each other on the park bench in front of me, laughing over who-knows-what or just sitting quietly, happy in the silence. To my left, reclined against the park’s western edge of concrete blocks and seats next to the river, another couple nods off in the afternoon sun, heads tipped in and held upright by shoulders warming in the sun. This park is full of lovers, each time I visit, heavy with the Thai essence of pairing off, the intensity of love and connection that seems to be everywhere.
I’m here not as part of a dynamic duo, in this sense of romance and love, but with a friend, so I get to observe, sit and write and think about that it means.
If I were here with a boyfriend, or in some sort of relationship that was anything other than just here for myself, I’d probably be caught up that and what it means to be in love with someone In Thailand and on vacation. But because Kyle’s not my lover-- and is at the dentist, isn't even here in the park with me-- I’ve got the whole afternoon to myself to do exactly what I want, however I want, without the complications (or yes, comfort) of another.
That’s not to say that I feel like I have to entertain him, or vice versa. We have our own comfortable silences to get caught up in. Like a couple of old friends-- which is what we are-- there’s no need to impress or worry or put too much effort into being with each other. The perfect travel companion.
I’m here doing this for myself, looking at my opportunities to write and think away from Chicago and the “real world” as an inner experience achieved through outer stimuli. As silly as that might sound, I really hope that it actually really is all that. And more. I’m trying to decide if grad school will be in my near future; will it be a job, any job at the RIC, just to have a job, or will it be the internship I’ve been banking on since last summer? And if it’s school, is it gonna be speech distorders/therapy, or the MFA, the writing path I’m trying to tell myself is the right one. Speech therapy seems so solid, so secure, so permanent, in a different way. Writing, storytelling- that will always be mine, so why get more schooling in it? I could travel then, and write, yes, but where’s the money for that in writing? Therapy though, solving the riddle of communication and speech and though problems, that’s a commitment. A long-term choice in the making. And I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Or a real job. But I do want some sort of direction.
I want clarity, closure, an understanding of why and how this trip actually ended up happening after two years of thinking and talking about it.
Only a couple of days into this vacation, I’ve already had a chance to experience the warnings of the guidebooks, the thrill of Thai traffic, the scheming, shifty salespeople and stalls on every corner. I’ve had ideas of my own about all of this, but like travel to any unknown world, like simply going to Chicago’s south side for the first time or walking into a pharaoh’s tomb, Bangkok thus far, has been outside of any of my possible expectations.
Not that I really had too many expectations. I expected the crowds, the traffic, the congestion of Cairo or Colombia, but Bangkok has it’s own, overwhelming flavor.
“Should we stay for three days or so, get your dentist stuff done, then go to Chiang Mai?” I asked Kyle this morning. I think that I’m going to be completely overwhelmed by then, with this craziness.” In theory, it sounds great. Whether or not that happens, I’m not sure. Maybe we’ll fall in love with Bangkok and overdo our stay, cut short something else.
The people are friendly, everyone does, indeed have a smile, as promised in the tour guides and stories and experiences shared. During breakfast on the first morning, at the hotel near the airport, I talked with a Frenchman about the islands he’d been to and the places he’d stayed. With no plans, the entire country is ours, so I’m happy to learn what other people have to say in building our plans.
I have a cousin who studied here recommending a more sophisticated way of traveling that will not happen for us, a book to follow in chasing my own “perfect moment,” and an open month’s worth of time to explore and learn. If this adventure is anything at all like the rest of my travels and trips, it should be a good one. And with the agreed on level of “keeping it platonic,” the tangles and rewards of a relationship should be as far away as the looks in these people’s ayes as they gaze into smiling, brown faces opposite.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Friday, March 7, 2008
Tha Thewes Market
It smells like the old rotting shed behind my grandparents’ house. Dank and dark and mysterious, full of ancient secrets. The heat of countless tropical afternoons has cured the peeling, wooden walls with the stench of meat, the essence of animal byproducts; decay. Wooden pallets stacked in a dark, cobwebbed corner and countertops resting clean and bare in the afternoon’s lull mark the industry of this building, but reveal nothing of its purpose. The market’s smell has permeated the very foundations of this building, though, and I know that human activity, if absent from this room, simmers in the sun, one room over.
In the main part of the Tha Thewes market, motorcycles buzz through the foot traffic, somehow spilling neither strapped-down contents from the seat nor stalls, nor pedestrians in their blue, fumey wake. The frequent disturbances fill the aisles with sound and exhaust, held heavily in the air by the moisture, the humidity of the Phra-- river. But these mechanical puts and gurgling are not the only sounds.
These chambers of secrets sparkle like Ali Baba’s thieves’ den; crackle with shopping bags, plastic wrap, static radios. There is a cacophony of human voices, like Bable, all are communicating without attention to what’s being said by others. The rising, throaty “ng” sound of consonants close and unheard in English, the nasal, happy “sawadee” called out in greeting reach me through the din, remind me of where I am in time and place. I bite into the smooth, snow-white squid on a stick purchased upon entry, enjoying the chewy texture, the spicey, clean taste, the possibility of fresh seafood. As I browse the stalls looking for nothing and finding everything, I am jarred for a minute by the beautiful chaos of the atmosphere and the lack of urgency I feel. Even in the scramble, I feel alive, unhurried, almost… calm. When was the last time a stop at the “market” was like this at home?
Home.
Back in Chicago, where shopping for groceries, clothes, planting supplies-- whatever-- is anything but unhurried and exciting. Home, where ceilings of false lights and immaculate floors trap me and tarnish me more than any corrugated tin ceiling or cement walkway here ever could. The aisles of my local Jewel-Osco grocery store, the levels of products at Target--when was the last time I cracked a smile in the crowds of scowling faces, the noise of screaming babies, the noise in my own head?
At home, also near the water’s edge (this water being Lake Michigan, not -- river), I scurry through aisles crowded with cans, bags, boxes, people, things, displays of stuff, stuff, stuff, STUFF, looking for something, but finding NOTHING, wasting a whole day among the masses. Here, a day in the market, a day of nothingness, a day “wasted” is not a waste, but a lesson in culture, history, language, life. Here, everything is “sanuk,” the Thai word for fun. Everything is an experience, a reason for celebration, an opportunity to learn and let go. Even though I have seen this in action on the streets, in the backpackers mecca of Khao San Road, or the bars late at night, it is in this moment of activity that I really realize just how fun life can be here. If you can just let it be.
Caught up in this epiphany, I bump shoulders with a fellow shopper, a fellow female. “Mai pen rai,” we call out in apology. “Nevermind.” No problem, no big deal. Here, a bumped shoulder is simply that, not a bumped ego or a damning accident as it often is in Chicago.
Buddhists adhere to living in the present, as it is all that exists. Not the past, it is behind you. Not the future, it is not yet here. Just what is here, now, in front of you.
In front of me, I see chilies spread on a wooden counter, glowing reds and muted browns drying in front of me. Chilies so hot they rival the 90+ degree heat I’m growing accustomed to.
My second meal here, a hot, hot dish of pad thai cooked on the street, plagued me twice. Once, before the liquid wash of Singha beer could quench it, and once the next day, as I sweat it out in a hangover dimmed only by the liters of water I gulped down while walking around the temples.
The chilies in this booth are in various stages of freshness and preservation, and if I lean down and away from the fish and snails and shrimp next to them, I swear I can feel the heat of their oil in the burning, red aroma that enters my nose. Saffron, seafood, basil and garlic; these are the scents of the market. Layered with the exhaust, sprinkled with sweat, they all paint a vivid, olfactory panorama across my mind.
A motorcycle veers toward me, marks my left leg with its splatters of water trickling slowly below my feet. As much as the market is a combination of kitchen, shed, fragrant garden or livestock pen, it is not at all dirty. For the Thais, cleanliness is next to, well, holiness, at the least. Temple admission is gained only with the removal of shoes; covered heads, clean aprons, spotless dishes glisten in each eating establishment-- even the street stalls-- I visit. This passing motorcycle, then, splashes me not with street muck or sludgy water, but mists of the overflow of a stall washed clean, buckets rinsed and restored as the evening’s traffic nears the space.
As I prepare to leave, exiting the way I came in (this labyrinth of stalls and walls and people could make that hard) the warm, earthy core of the earth’s produce catches my nose. These upshoots of inner germination-- mushrooms--are laid out in neat rows and clusters before me. I could spend hours at the exit, eyeing each smooth cap, each dark, fragile filament of spore lining, but because the rest of the city beckons, my experience with the market ends with the brilliant hues of metallic sarongs, in fabrics whose colors rival the rising sun’s glow or soft pastels of the swollen moon. Only here would the fashions of the day be stacked next to the tumbled tangle of mushrooms and onion roots, the shimmer of street fashion neighboring the activity once bustling underground. Terrycloth as soft as the downy lining of a bamboo mushroom stem moves soft and silent under my fingers, ending the tactile thrill of taste, touch, smell and sound that has been my experience of the Tha Thewes market.
In the main part of the Tha Thewes market, motorcycles buzz through the foot traffic, somehow spilling neither strapped-down contents from the seat nor stalls, nor pedestrians in their blue, fumey wake. The frequent disturbances fill the aisles with sound and exhaust, held heavily in the air by the moisture, the humidity of the Phra-- river. But these mechanical puts and gurgling are not the only sounds.
These chambers of secrets sparkle like Ali Baba’s thieves’ den; crackle with shopping bags, plastic wrap, static radios. There is a cacophony of human voices, like Bable, all are communicating without attention to what’s being said by others. The rising, throaty “ng” sound of consonants close and unheard in English, the nasal, happy “sawadee” called out in greeting reach me through the din, remind me of where I am in time and place. I bite into the smooth, snow-white squid on a stick purchased upon entry, enjoying the chewy texture, the spicey, clean taste, the possibility of fresh seafood. As I browse the stalls looking for nothing and finding everything, I am jarred for a minute by the beautiful chaos of the atmosphere and the lack of urgency I feel. Even in the scramble, I feel alive, unhurried, almost… calm. When was the last time a stop at the “market” was like this at home?
Home.
Back in Chicago, where shopping for groceries, clothes, planting supplies-- whatever-- is anything but unhurried and exciting. Home, where ceilings of false lights and immaculate floors trap me and tarnish me more than any corrugated tin ceiling or cement walkway here ever could. The aisles of my local Jewel-Osco grocery store, the levels of products at Target--when was the last time I cracked a smile in the crowds of scowling faces, the noise of screaming babies, the noise in my own head?
At home, also near the water’s edge (this water being Lake Michigan, not -- river), I scurry through aisles crowded with cans, bags, boxes, people, things, displays of stuff, stuff, stuff, STUFF, looking for something, but finding NOTHING, wasting a whole day among the masses. Here, a day in the market, a day of nothingness, a day “wasted” is not a waste, but a lesson in culture, history, language, life. Here, everything is “sanuk,” the Thai word for fun. Everything is an experience, a reason for celebration, an opportunity to learn and let go. Even though I have seen this in action on the streets, in the backpackers mecca of Khao San Road, or the bars late at night, it is in this moment of activity that I really realize just how fun life can be here. If you can just let it be.
Caught up in this epiphany, I bump shoulders with a fellow shopper, a fellow female. “Mai pen rai,” we call out in apology. “Nevermind.” No problem, no big deal. Here, a bumped shoulder is simply that, not a bumped ego or a damning accident as it often is in Chicago.
Buddhists adhere to living in the present, as it is all that exists. Not the past, it is behind you. Not the future, it is not yet here. Just what is here, now, in front of you.
In front of me, I see chilies spread on a wooden counter, glowing reds and muted browns drying in front of me. Chilies so hot they rival the 90+ degree heat I’m growing accustomed to.
My second meal here, a hot, hot dish of pad thai cooked on the street, plagued me twice. Once, before the liquid wash of Singha beer could quench it, and once the next day, as I sweat it out in a hangover dimmed only by the liters of water I gulped down while walking around the temples.
The chilies in this booth are in various stages of freshness and preservation, and if I lean down and away from the fish and snails and shrimp next to them, I swear I can feel the heat of their oil in the burning, red aroma that enters my nose. Saffron, seafood, basil and garlic; these are the scents of the market. Layered with the exhaust, sprinkled with sweat, they all paint a vivid, olfactory panorama across my mind.
A motorcycle veers toward me, marks my left leg with its splatters of water trickling slowly below my feet. As much as the market is a combination of kitchen, shed, fragrant garden or livestock pen, it is not at all dirty. For the Thais, cleanliness is next to, well, holiness, at the least. Temple admission is gained only with the removal of shoes; covered heads, clean aprons, spotless dishes glisten in each eating establishment-- even the street stalls-- I visit. This passing motorcycle, then, splashes me not with street muck or sludgy water, but mists of the overflow of a stall washed clean, buckets rinsed and restored as the evening’s traffic nears the space.
As I prepare to leave, exiting the way I came in (this labyrinth of stalls and walls and people could make that hard) the warm, earthy core of the earth’s produce catches my nose. These upshoots of inner germination-- mushrooms--are laid out in neat rows and clusters before me. I could spend hours at the exit, eyeing each smooth cap, each dark, fragile filament of spore lining, but because the rest of the city beckons, my experience with the market ends with the brilliant hues of metallic sarongs, in fabrics whose colors rival the rising sun’s glow or soft pastels of the swollen moon. Only here would the fashions of the day be stacked next to the tumbled tangle of mushrooms and onion roots, the shimmer of street fashion neighboring the activity once bustling underground. Terrycloth as soft as the downy lining of a bamboo mushroom stem moves soft and silent under my fingers, ending the tactile thrill of taste, touch, smell and sound that has been my experience of the Tha Thewes market.
Nights and days
I knew there was a reason I hadn't been able to sleep for the past two weeks prior to my trip. I'd joked about resetting my internal clock on my own, to circumvent the jet lag, and what do you know, I really did get into my own sort of shifted "circadian rhythm."
A circadian rhythm is a roughly-24-hour cycle in the physiological
processes of living beings. this includes plants animal sna fungi as well. The term
"circadian" was appointed to a shift in waking-hour patterns by Franz Halbergbut comes from the Latin circa, or "around" and diem, which means "dies" or "diem." This literally then, means about a day.
diem or dies, "day", meaning literally "about a day." The formal study of this condition (chronobiology) is mostly caused by shifts in daylight patterns, and is what seems to cause jet lag.
After pulling an all-nighter, sleeping as soon as I got on the plane in Chicago and then napping at the appropriate times on my flights, I managed to wake up and go to sleep at all the right times en route. A quick nap while waiting for Kyle's flight killed the time and headache I was working on. Jet lag nothin'! I'm on track with the time change already, up at 6 am while he's still sleeping the morning's brief coolness away.
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