Basic Rocket Science

Last weekend had no 21-hour cross-country journey, no multi-cultural holiday celebrations, and no drunken beach raves, but it was one of the most authentically Thai weekends we’ve had yet.  One of those weekends you look back on through a haze of Sunday night exhaustion and go, “Holy hell, I’m living in Thailand.”

Friday night we walked around a random festival in Krabi Town.  We have no clue what the festival was for.  There is almost always a festival of some sort, but we can usually make out what it’s about.  This one is as yet unexplained…but there have been fireworks every night for over a week so make of that what you will.  The tents at this festival were selling damn near everything, including large pieces of furniture, mattresses, caged birds and meat on sticks.  I kept thinking that it was probably good my parents aren’t here yet because Jane would totally have wanted to ship home a dining room set…or a gazebo.

Small class:  me, Alex, Kira, Carlyn, Ya and Stacy

Late Friday night – well, “late” by Thai standards where everything seems to close early for no reason – we decided we wanted to take a Thai cooking class the next day.  We had been planning to do the class for weeks but neglected to actually look at the brochure to see that it was closed on Sundays.  Figuring it was probably too late but worth a shot anyways, we called, and to our surprise – or not, I mean this is Thailand – we were in!

Ready to cook!

Saturday morning, a transport arranged by the cooking class picked us up at 8am sharp – a shock to be sure since we figured we’d be waiting until 8:45 at least (at which point we’d start to worry they’d forgotten about us).  The cooking school sawng-taew took us to an adorable outdoor kitchen nestled under a wooden bungalow.  It was as if someone had set up a kitchen in the bottom section of Olives.  A table was set for five people to the left.  At each place setting were a cookbook and an apron.  To the right was a series of woks on portable burners and in front of us was the chopping station: cutting boards shaped like tree trunks and large chefs knives set up on a high-top table. 

We waited a bit for our other cooking companions, a Greek mother and son from Germany (nope, not a typo).  Kira and Alex were pleasant fellow chefs even if she was exceedingly vocal about her dislike of sugar and he had that creepy, European mother-obsession-bordering-on-Oedipus-Complex thing going on.

I felt like an evil queen mixing up some
poisonous brew :)

Our instructor, Ya, was a lively middle-aged Thai woman who had a degree from a culinary university in Bangkok, because, as she pointed out, her parents didn’t subscribe to the archaic (but not so archaic in Thailand) theory that women don’t get educations.  She instructed us on the finer points of Thai cooking – we learned that “chop, chop, bang, bang” was the gist of it all as we chopped a variety of strange-looking things and ground spices into a fine powder with a very heavy mortar and pestle set.

We made four different types of curry – red, green, Massamun, and Penang (my favorite) – as well as pad Thai, spicy papaya salad, tom yam soup, chicken & cashew nuts, and fried rice.  We got to eat everything as we cooked which was delicious and saved the leftovers for dinner.  Since we paid in cash (a credit/debit card is next to useless over here except at an ATM), we got a free apron at the end!  I can’t wait to use my new Thai cooking skills at home! 

This one was SO heavy!!

When we were leaving, Ya was insistent that we come back and stay in her bungalows.  Evidently she’s got five homes but she’s all alone so I guess she was looking for company?  Kira said she was alone too – pointing to her son, she said, “He always work work work!” (Yeah no kidding you overbearing mother; he’s thirty-five years old and should have his own life that doesn’t involve joining you at yoga and waxing appointments) – and that she would love to come stay with Ya.  It was clear that Ya was actually speaking to Carlyn, Stacy and I, not the Greek Germans.  So that was awkward.

We were home by noon and stuffed beyond belief so my food coma lasted for a couple hours.  I love the adventures, but sometimes it’s fantastic to just chill out on a Saturday afternoon.

Pad Thai!

Delicious feast!!

Leftovers...take away is almost always in these funny little bags

Saturday night I corrected a terrible wrong that has been eliciting horrified, half-frozen expressions from people since this summer:  I finally watched Harry Potter #7, Part 2.  Oh hush with the judgment, people.  Carlyn hadn’t seen it either, so we geeked out together, excited that we were at long last witnessing the finale in the saga of the boy wizard who grew up with us and depressed that it was actually over.  It was like the final nail in the coffin of my childhood….not to be melodramatic or anything.

True story.

If Saturday was relaxing, Sunday was anything but:  We rented a motorbike. 

For serious you guys, we really did it. 

All ready to pull out on the street and then this happened.

At first, I was supposed to be the driver so I went with our Thai mom to rent one…at the same place that does our laundry.  I think they do bikini waxes and sell insurance too.  I tried to act all badass like a real biker chick, but I think it was pretty obvious I had no idea what I was doing.  The lady seemed a little reluctant to rent to me, and with so much lost in translation, the whole thing was rather difficult.  She’s trying to explain to me how to work it but neglected to tell me how to accelerate.  It was a simple enough thing to learn, but since I’ve never driven a motorcycle before, I had no idea it was with the handle (Or, I’m sure I did know this, but was far too nervous to remember).  It didn’t help that the bike was freaking huge and SO heavy, and I’m not so big or strong.  I got increasingly frustrated with her because she wouldn’t show me how to make it go forward!! and kept trying to scoot it forward with my feet, and she was understandably skittish to rent to the deranged girl trying to drive a motorbike like Fred Flintstone.  She kept saying “no” all sad-like and miming scraping knees and elbows because she was sure that I would never be able to drive the thing without crashing.  It was becoming more apparent that she didn’t want me to have it, so once I figured out that the handle was the accelerator (with no help from her), I just took off on it.  Figured that was the only way it could take it was just to hijack it.  Except I’d already paid, so it wasn’t technically hijacking.  I was a little unsteady – it felt giant – but eventually I started to figure things out. 

When I was satisfied with my test run enough to go back home to get the girls (yup, all three of us were going to ride this), I came to an intersection and realized I had no idea how to stop gracefully while balancing the monstrosity.  Go ahead and tell me it’s just like balancing a bike and I’ll tell you what my parents and a couple dozen ditches on the Montour Trail already know:  I’m not actually that good on a bicycle.  I started freaking out that I had to slow down, check both ways for cars, turn slightly, and then continue down a hill.  Next thing I know, I’m veering towards a row of parked bikes and motorbikes in front of a hostel and I have no idea how to avoid them.  I keep over-steering and wobbling and then I sideswipe the entire row with my left knee.  I could hear the slow crescendo of sound from what I’m sure was a Stooges-worthy domino-effect toppling of bikes behind me, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn around and look.  I knew I had only really hit everything with the side of the bike and my knee, so there was no actual damage except to my ego, but they were for sure all on the ground.  If I’d done anything really terrible, someone would have started chasing me, but a Thai guy on the sidewalk just said “mai pen rai, mai pen rai” and went to pick up all the bikes.  Another Thai guy encouraged me “sl-owly, sl-owly” to cross the street, and I was so blinded by my own embarrassment I barely acknowledged these two kind souls.

Driving!!

Naturally, that little event shook my confidence to drive with two other humans behind me, so Stacy took over driving responsibilities and aside from a few close calls and more than one instance of her yelling “Get out of the way, asshole!” to whatever unfortunate farang got in her way, the rest of the day passed without incident.  Unfortunately, because the bikes are only really allowed to be rented to two farangs to ride - which as far as I'm concerned is discriminatory since I've seen an entire Thai family of five squished on one motorbike - we only got two helmets.  Thus the person in the middle (me) didn't get a helmet (sorry, mom).  I tried driving again later on a less crowded street and....SUCCESS!!  I feel confident that when we do it again, I won't crash into any parked vehicles, motorized or otherwise.

woo hoo!!

The day before, on our way back from the cooking class, we passed through Aonang, the little beach town near us and saw that THERE WAS A STARBUCKS!!!  We cursed our ignorance that we had not known there was such magnificence so close to us and vowed to come back the next day.  Thus the motorbike.  It should be noted that we easily could have taken a sawng-taew for 100 baht each round trip, but we thought this would be more of an adventure.  Understatement of the year.

We drove to Aonang (only managing to get lost in a random Muslim community once) and parked ourselves for an hour at Starbucks where I finally finally got to enjoy the blessed brilliance that is an UNSWEETENED black tea.  It was perfection.  My teeth enamel thanked me.

After Starbucks, we ventured next door to McDonalds….not to eat the food (ptooie!), but rather to act like insufferable tourists and take our picture next to the Ronald statue.  You see, this was no typical Ronald McDonald.  He was posing in a frozen wai.  How very Thai.

Yes mom, I am standing with my feet wayyy spread apart.
Sorry 'bout that.  Also, I've got crazy serial killer hair.

We spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach.  Aonang is certainly does not have the paradise appeal of Railay or Koh Chang or Lanta, but it was a whole lot cheaper and we got a tan, so it was fine for teachers on a budget.

We made it home on the bike and both our Thai mom and the rental lady were positively shocked that we were alive and the bike was unharmed.  Aces J J

Woosh, thank goodness it was a fake monkey!
And it had a beer!!

Garden gnomes are creepy no matter the culture.

Reclining Buddha on the side of the road we stopped
to see on our way home

Flat Garrett sees his first giant reclining Buddha!

Tiny wats :)

The "Reclining Buddha" posture represents the
mahaparinirvana: the Buddha's final stage of
enlightenment before his death.

Buddhists believe that a properly rendered Buddha image is
a hypostasis: an actual spiritual emanation of the Buddha which
possesses supernatural qualities.  This is why Buddhists make
offerings to and pray before Buddha images.

Lighting incense