Leave it beaver

Sometimes I'm amazed by just how little control I have over travel circumstances.

Like a good, traveled road tripper, before embarking on my 3 week cross-country roadtrip, I got the car checked out- making sure it was prepared for the journey.

But alas on the first day, almost out of PA, I heard a thud and immediately lost my power steering and brakes. There goes the belt.

So a majority of my day was spent people watching truckers... And trucks. And trucks on trucks- like a truck dance party.


But an awesome thing: I got to drive through Scranton, PA- home of The Office.


Even better, the car shop had it fixed the next day, in time to make it to Chicago for a good old deep dish pizza pie. Delish.

Cook Like the Thais

One thing I wanted to accomplish in Thailand is to learn to cook Thai food. It was coming down to my last month in Thailand, so I thought Now or never.



I took a course through Baan Thai in Chiang Mai, Thailand. After a trip to the local Thai market to learn about the produce I would cook with, the course began with a meet and greet accompanied by refreshing Thai snacks.



It was a great course, because I was able to choose exactly what I wanted to make...

Pad Thai


Chicken in Coconut Milk Soup


Penang Curry


Spring Rolls

Red Shirt Frenzy

Right now, there's a lot of political tension in Bangkok from the Red Shirt Party. At Government House yesterday they spilled 1,000,000 cc's of blood, donated by the Red Shirt protesters. They dumped blood again this morning at the Prime Minister's house, begging him to step down.

There were constantly parades going stopping traffic all over Bangkok, and I was interested to see what these rallies were all about. So I headed down to Government House to spend a day in the heat with the Red Shirt Party.

Below are some photos I took...

100,000 protesters at Government House


Carting jugs of blood through the cheering crowd


Showing me where they had blood drawn that morning


Party card-holders

Chiang Rai Excitement

I took a day-trip from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai, which is the Northern-most part in Thailand.

First I went to the White Temple, a famous recently-built temple signifying Heaven and Hell. In Hell, people are reaching up trying to get out. Inside the temple there are disturbing paintings with references to modern culture (9/11, etc) on the walls showing Buddha conquering all.




I traveled to what's known as "The Golden Triangle," where Thailand meets Burma and Laos. I got a border pass to Laos where I had to try their famous Laos whiskey. I could choose between some killer "flavors" if you will: tiger fur, lizard or cobra. With options like that, how could I go wrong? I opted not to have a hair ball coughing fit later and stuck with "cobra".



Then I went to a tribal village, where I met the Long Neck Tribe, famous for growing their necks up to a foot long. They were really welcoming to me and let me try on one of their neck braces. In exchange for their kindness, I bought some hand-woven scarves.

Why didn't I teach in Chiang Mai?

Reasons I love Chiang Mai, Thailand:
-It's significantly less sticky than Bangkok
-They actually have a cool season
-The city is easy to navigate and drive
-It closely borders 3 countries: Laos, Burma and China
-The people are totally laid-back

Tiger Kingdom

At Tiger Kingdom in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I got to play with tigers of all sizes for 1,400 baht (about $45). They raise all of their tigers in captivity, so there were even 3 newborn tigers. The facility was kept-up, the staff spoke English- fabulous experience. It was the best day of my life. Here are some of my favorite shots from the day.

  

Khao Yai

This weekend I visited Thailand's second biggest park, Khao Yai. Here are the highlights...



On the way in we were harassed by monkeys who stood outside our taxi begging for food. I think tourists feed the monkeys and their families.


On the way out of the park, we stopped by a pork roast on the side of the road. Two things about this incident: 1) Notice the stuffed gorilla pretending he's roasting the pork 2) I ate my first piglet that day. It was actually pretty good.