another early day

There's something romantic about being out and about early enough that it's still dark out. As i left my house at 4:40 this morning I felt like I was being treated to see a side of Uthai Thani I rarely see. Men were sweeping the streets with stiff brooms. Dogs were fast asleep in the middle of the road. Not much was going on.

I got up early to run a race. It's not exactly the way I'm used to races being run in the states, but I ran last year, so I knew what I was getting into. Yesterday when I went to sign up no one had signed up in my age category and I wasn't sure whether I wanted to run a 13 miler and work on distance, or a 6.5 miler and work on speed. I decided to wait till this morning to sign up and let the deciding factor be the number of people in my category, whatever would give me a better chance of placing. But I hung around yesterday and chatted with lots of nice people which made for lots of friendly faces on the course.

I ended up in the half marathon and had a great race. I took it mostly as a training race and realized when I had lots of steam at the end that I started way too slow. My favorite part about races in Thailand is that at the turn-around they give you a little rubber band with a colored string on it to mark that you've been there. No fancy timing chips on your shoe, but it works just as well.

After chatting with people and partaking of the free noodle soup (they also served free dinner yesterday and free breakfast this morning, and I got a shirt- all for $7.50 entry fee), I went to the sunday market near my house and picked up some corn, spring rolls, and bbq chicken. Then I came home and made masaman curry.

My cooking repitour has grown recently as I'm trying out lots of new things. Here are the Thai dishes I have under my belt. Go ahead and pick and choose what you want me to make for you when I get home. I can't wait to cook for everyone:

-Masaman Curry
-Fried Wontons (just made them yesterday)
-Cashew Chicken
-Clear noodle salad
-Thai Fried Rice
-Sweet and Sour Veggies
-Thai Stir fried veggies
-a yummy fried pumkin dish
-sesame asparagus and shrimp
-'pad see yew' which is basically stir fried fat noodles
-'gang som' a yummy red curry
-'som tam' or fresh papaya salad
-'pad ga-pow' sort of the thai version of taco fixins
-Thai omlette
-Pad Thai
-Thai Ice Tea
- smoothies of many flavors and varieties
- and loads of other stir fried veggy variety dishes

I'm also been working on farang dishes. Look forward to:
-deviled eggs
-juicy hamburgers
-matza ball soup
-hash browns

Mmmm. I'm hungry.

Sleepless in Uthai Thani

Couldn't sleep this morning. So I got up at 5:30 and ended up at the morning market not much later. I love the morning market. It's not a whole lot different from the evening market, except that it's two streets over. The morning market consists of lots of old ladies sitting on stools 4 inches off the ground, or on the ground, and selling fresh veggies or fruits on wooden boards 6 inches off the ground. You also have some carts where people have huge bowls of "gop khow" or 'with rice.' It's the food you will eat with your plate of rice- curries and fried veggies and soups and noodle dishes. And then you have people with buckets of flopping fish for sale. Also at the morning market you have a few stalls of places to get yummy noodle soup or rice soup.

I got a few veggies, some wonton skin- as I plan to attempt fried wontons today, knome crook- my favorite coconut treat, some masaman curry paste- also plan to attempt masaman curry, chicken, half a kilo of jack fruit, and a bag of peeled garlic. All for less than 2 dollars.

I also saw my som tam lady friend. So I sat down on her bench and chatted with her as I ate my knome crook. We chatted about the world cup, as Thais are huge soccer fans and think all farangs are huge soccer fans too. I helped her pull the leaves of the green leafy veggie 'fuck tong.' Yes it's really called that. And she put me to work sitting on one of those 3 inch benches washing tomatoes.

It's been nice to be in my town the past few weekends. Before that I was in Bangkok and went to the North East to Nong Khai to meet up with friends. Next weekend I have to go to Bangkok again for my GAD GID (Gender and Development group which is a Peace Corps Global Initiative Group). Then after that we have a long weekend and I'm headed to Pataya beach with my friends.

Kong Khai was a really cute town and we had an adorable guest house right on the Mekong River across from Laos. Nong Khai has a great market along the Mekong which I walked down with AJ. But it was so hot we all mostly just sat around at the guest house. My Bangkok weekend was lots of fun too. One night we went out to 'ride the bull' -a mechanical bull. Duh Rachel. We had about 10 or so volunteers, as many of our nights go. Started at Cheap Charlies- an outside bar where we sit on stools on a side street and any drink is 50 or 60 Baht ($1.25-$1.50). The night was a celebration for my friend Dan's last night in Thailand. He has been a volunteer here for over 3 years!

Bangkok, and Thailand, has a reputation for it's sex industry which isn't unfounded. And there are certain areas where it's all very blatant. Unfortunately that's where the fun mechanical bull is. So we went to aforementioned bar which also happens to have pole dancing women on a stage. They are sort of off to the side and easy to ignore. We were happily taking turns on the bull- trying to beat 60 seconds and get a free drink- when at one point they turned off the bull and wouldn't let us go. Turned out it was show time on the stage. And there wasn't much else to do but watch. Two women were dancing on the stage in what was supposed to be a sexy routine, but they looked so bored, as I'm sure they do this routine 5 times every day. The cool thing is that it was actually raining on them! They had a rain machine on the stage. Maybe some of the guys would debate with me that that was 'the cool thing' about it.

Shower party

All the banana leaf folding (and then lotus petal folding) was for a good cause. 70 men became monks at my temple this weekend. Some for the day, some for 3 days, some for the week, some forever.

The coolest part was that one of the guys becoming a monk was wearing a shirt that said "You say I'm a Bitch like it's a bad thing." Those Thais and their t-shirts! They love anything with English and most can't read it anyway, so they get some pretty crazy things on there. Often times they have really sexual shirts. Which reminds me of a story.

The beginning of my 6th grade English text book has an example for the word 'over' that goes like this: "The girl lies over the boy."

WHAT?? Yes you read that correctly. I sent a text message to my friend Natalie about it. Text messages are a way of life here. If I don't send/recieve 5 or so it's been a slow day. So Natalie texted back, "What happened to good old Missionary? Kid's these days..."

The monk ceremony was great. But it was a hot day. The monks got to stay cool as they were 'showered' by about 200 people each. The day before they had all their head and facial hair (including eyebrows, but not eyelashes) shaved. Then they sat in a long row in their shorts and held their hands in prayer position as people walked past and poured a glass of water on each of them in a cleansing ritual.

There was also a parade w dancing in the streets. And the monks dresssed in white dresses (well robes really) with doilys on their head. Just like what a baby wears at a baptism! Only these were grown thai men.

So you wanna be a monk....

Today I sat on the floor of the temple all day and folded banana leaves that were then put together for mini floats to be handed to one of 100 boys who will become a monk this weekend. School was closed today to get ready for the festival and all the teachers were there making banana leaf floats too. We just sat and chatted and laughed all day. It was a nice example of how relaxed and layed back Thais are. And it felt wonderful that I was just another thai person there, nothing special. It was even no big deal to me when my shoes went missing. I wasn't wearing my shoes because you don't wear shoes inside a temple, so I left them at the door, with all the other shoes. And at about 2 PM when I went to go outside they were no where to be seen. I never found them, but no big deal. 'Mai Pen Rai' as the Thais say 30 times a day, which means 'no worries.'

Long Live the King

Just reading up on the King. There is lots of great info about him here: http://www.bangkokpost.com/60yrsthrone/





I didn't know, but he was born at Mt. Auburn hospital in Cambridge, MA. His family was living about half a mile from my highschool on Longwood Ave because his Dad was going to Harvard Medical School. And his mom went to Simmons!!!!

Father a doctor. Mother a Simmons grad. Sounds like a recipe for a PERFECT CHILD.

A country of Big Birds.

Friday marks the 60th anniversary of the coronation of the King of Thailand. This is HUGE. Our King is the longest reigning king of modern times and people have been gearing up for the celebration all year. In a country where EVERY house, if not every room has a prominent picture of the king you can tell this is big.

In recognition of the 60th anniversary everyone in the country is wearing yellow shirts for the 1st to the 15th of June. Everywhere you go everyone is wearing yellow, yellow, yellow. It's the color of the king, as he was born on a Monday, and yellow is Monday's color. Have I mentioned how every day gets a color in Thailand?

Day's of the week are so important here. I think I gave my co-teacher a heart attack when I told her I didn't know what day of the week I was born. Uniforms and coordinating outfits is also important. All school children wear uniforms. And the teachers and town officials also wear certain outfits on certain days. In my town Wednesday is green day. Everyone has matching green shirts or suits. All the same shade of dark green. I just found out Thursday is teacher's day, as 'Paruhat' (the guy Thursday is named for) was a teacher.

Thailand is also BIG on the rubber bracelet craze. When I was here 2 years ago I could spot an American, even among all other foreigners, by a yellow 'LiveStrong' bracelet. Not only were imitation 'LiveStrong' bracelets sold on the street here for 50 cents. They made every color bracelet and every cause imaginable. Sometimes the money went to a help a cause, as with my Thailand World AIDS day bracelet, and sometimes it just went into someones pocket, like with all the LiveStrong bracelets. The most popular bracelet now is a 'LONG LIVE THE KING' bracelet. In yellow of course.


Here's a CNN article about the yellow shirt craze. (but the shirts do not seem in low supply at all- they are being sold all over the place.)

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/06/05/thailand.yellow.ap/index.html

Picts

I uploaded some pictures to snapfish which you should be able to see.

These are of my visit with my parents in November and our trip to India:
http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=422281148828429200/l=100167469/g=3661338/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

And these are a whole bunch of pictures from Life in my town, Thai New Years, Jan 1st New Years down south, travels around Thailand, and visits from David and Jen, and Rachel N.
http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=798281148828070907/l=100167468/g=3661338/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Just log onto Snapfish and enjoy!!!

NEW EMAIL ADDRESS: Rachel.Bobruff@gmail.com

Please update accordingly