Wats, Hill Tribes and Opium… (Dec 8)

Yes, it is Jan 3rd and I am posting on Dec 8th... the time zone and internet time warp.  If you have a brown paper bag you can put it over your head and sing the song now.  If this doesn't make any sense, just move on :-)

We began our day (Dec 8th :-) meeting with our tour guide, Mr. Noom.  He was a spunky 20-something year old Chiang Mai born Thai.  His name means “young man,” and he had quite a sense of humor and was a wealth of information. 

As a side note: in Thailand you go to school for 4 years to be certified to be a tour guide.  His previous job was as a mahout (elephant trainer) at Mae Sa Elephant Camp, which we had visited the previous day.  We had a few things in the line up of the day for Mr. Noom to show us: Hmong Hill Tribe Village, Wat Pratap Doi Suthep, a few more Wats, and maybe some parts of downtown Chiang Mai….

In Northern California, we enjoy fields upon fields of orange poppies, but all poppies are NOT equal!  While visiting one of the northern Thai hill tribes, we began our opium education (vicariously, mind you!)  The  historically alluring opium pod has had major impacts on the world, especially Asia -- financially, culturally and politically.

Most of today’s hill tribes of Northern Thailand live in the hills because they are, or were (generations ago), refugees from the surrounding countries of China, Myanmar/Burma, Laos, and Cambodia.  The Thai government has allowed them to live in the hills, on reservations of sorts.  We visited the Hmong village where the Hill Tribe Museum is located:

The cultivation of opium began late in the 19^th century when hill tribes arrived in northern Thailand from China, where opium has a very long history (remember learning about the Opium Wars?)  It needs to be grown at high altitudes and with poor soil, both of which can be found in the “golden triangle” area where the current borders of Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand meet.  It became a HUGE cash crop, but was outlawed by the Thai government back in 1959, then unfortunately kicked up again during the Vietnam War.  There were major power struggles over the this region (called the golden triangle because for many years opium purchasers had to use gold as their currency as well as being the area in which three countries - Thailand, Llaos and Burma/Myanmar, meet), and in the mid 20^th century, the Thai government actually gave control over the illicit drug trade to the KMT (the Chinese Nationalist Army which fled China as Mao Zedong defeated them and established the People’s Republic of China in 1949).  Since that time, opium production in Thailand has decreased by 80 percent due mainly to efforts and programs made by the Thai King to help the Hill Tribes find other ways to support themselves.  Note, though, that there’s still 20% of that production happening!

While I knew opium was made from a type of poppy, I never really pondered how it is actually made, nor did I connect it to heroin, which is also made from the opium pod.  During our visit to the museum, we learned that when the pod is full, slits are made in it and the thick substance that oozes out is dried and then processed various ways to produce both drugs.

After learning more about the tribes (yes, there is much more to them than opium J ), we enjoyed walking through some gorgeous hillside gardens which outshone the primitive dwellings of the tribes. 

I have never seen poinsettia growing in anything but pots at Christmas time in the US, but it grew naturally here! 

Even with the processing of opium being outlawed, the tribes were able to (or just did it anyway) grow the opium poppy – here it is in all its glory:

And a few more pictures of the locals who agreed to pose with the crazy tourists J

Did I mention that the walk between the parking lot and the museum was through some shopping stalls?  Very convenient for the Hmongs trying to sell their wares… and we did oblige them by making a few purchases of their handcrafts:

And their kids are soooo cute!

After the village and a bit of shopping, we loaded in the van and drove some seriously skinny, winding roads (with no railing – we chose not to focus on this fact in addition to the fact that we are in a HUGE van in the land of no seatbelts) up to Wat Prathet Doi Suthep.

An important word to know in Thailand is the word “wat.”  It means temple… of the Buddhist variety.  In this case, the name Wat Prathet Doi Suthep is literally translated temple (wat) of Buddhist relics (prathet) on mountain (doi) called Suthep.  The temple is about 309 steps up a hill on the side of Doi Suthep, with an incredible panorami view of the city of Chiang Mai in the valley below.

This was the first of what I know will be many Wat experiences during out stay in Thailand.  We were fairly prepared from talking with Bill and Sally (Kev’s sister and brother in law) – we wore modest clothing (long pants, long skirts or pants for women, nothing sleeveless) and knew to not touch a monk or hand him anything directly – we knew to put the item on a cloth and set it before the monk, or to give it to a male for an untarnished delivery :-)  We knew we would need to take our shoes off at some point.  That’s about what we knew.  Well, we learned a few things, and I’ll share a few with you:

·      It is believed that if you ring one of the (many) bells on the grounds, it will bring luck.  Our family (or at least those with y chromosomes) REALLY enjoyed the bell ringing.  Some of the x chromosomes got headaches.





·      Many Buddhists will show respect to Buddha by offering sacrifices during their visit.  What do they offer, you say?  Lotus flowers and incense, both of which are for sale on the grounds.

Buddhists making incense and lotus flower offerings...

The flower amulets were found everywhere in Thailand... more on that in a different post.

·      Buddhists, or at least Thai Buddhists, all know what day of the week on which they were born.  Most, if not all, of the wats have figures of Buddha in 7-9 different poses.  One for each day of the week, two for Wednesday which is a special day (1 for Wed am, one for Wed pm), and sometimes 1 for celebrating Buddha’s departure from this world to the next (this is the reclining one).  At these altars of sorts, people will offer money in a donation receptacle under the Buddha figure for their day of birth.  The money is used for the monks and upkeep on the wat.

·      If you see people running around town w/ cotton string/rope on their wrist, you can guess they have been in a wat.  There are often monks on duty to receive offerings and/or give a blessing of sorts to visitors.  When they do this they tie a rope onto the visitor’s wrist.  Our guide led us into the room w/the monks to do this – there was the quick quandary of whether our doing it would be disrespectful/dishonoring to Jesus.  We ended up doing it and then were able to have some good conversations about the whole topic later with the kids.

Papa and the monk.

·      Wats are comprised of many many buildings within some type of wall, or enclosure -- it serves the purposes of monastery, temple and community center (as well as a place for tourists -- especially children who want to see as many as possible... well, maybe not).  There are a LOT of wats in Thailand, approximately 30,000!  Part of Buddhism is making merit -- basically the idea (and associated follow through) that doing good deeds leads to good outcomes -- in this life or the afterlife.  Many of the building of the wats is funded by patrons making merit. 

Lots of bells, lots of people.... lots of motrin...

·      Most men in Thailand will do some time as a monk during their life.  For a few weeks, a few months, a few years.  It is believed that if a man has not been a monk, and marries, his wife and kids will not pass into nirvana if he hasn’t done monk time.

·      Monks usually wear the typical saffron color outfit, but there are different colors.  The brown outfits are for those monks who are learning on their own in the jungle.  A totally green outfit indicates a monk who has “had a girlfriend” (in our tour guides phraseology) but still wants to do the monk thing.

·      One must be 11 years of age to be a monk.

·      Education at monk schools is much less expensive than “normal” schools.  Monk schools go all the way through college.

·      To go to the 2^nd floor of the wat, you must take your shoes off to show respect:

Shoe racks come in all sizes and shapes and styles in Thailand...

Our first experience in a wat-- it was eye opening!

Beijing airport - a virtual refrigerator!

We made it to Beijing this am after a five hour flight from bangkok at 6:30 or so -- the sun wasn't up yet and it was a brisk 18 degrees on the flight line when we walked across it with zombie like kids to load the bus to the terminal. Initially the terminal felt warm but we soon realized that it is COLD, plain and simple! (We are simply amazed at how cold it is in here, and thankful f the coats that we brought w us) Being The coffee addict I am, and not having much yuan, I skipped my morning wake up -- but soon was met with a rip roaring headache in it's place. A motrin and a coffee place that takes us dollars later, my headache is gone, and I am snuggled w the family watching pilgrims progress on kev's laptop and trying to stay warm. We are doing our best to make some good memories in the final stretch of our trip! We leave in 3 hours for san Fran -- about a 12 hour flight. Based on the amt of sleep this crew has had in the last few days, i think there will be some sleeping on the flight!!!

Hope to see you all soon!!! Much love to you all!

Final day....

We can't believe this is our last day in Asia! Those of you who have followed the blog likely think our trip ended awhile ago since the posting came to a pretty abrupt halt!! In actuality, the combo of savoring our vacation time and time w our precious extended family as well as limited Internet time has kept us from the blog. As it should be, in the final analysis! We do have a few posts partway done on the laptop that we will upload when we have some Internet time....

For now, fitting tea from china, sticky rice pots and baskets, bamboo umbrellas, Thai silk, seashells and the like into our luggage is a full time job! (not to mention the completely full hard drive on the laptop currently undergoing surgery so we don't lose our vacation photos! -- so thankful to have such an excellent IT department in the family! He makes my media/photo taking addiction possible :-).

The kids are enjoying their last day w cousins -- it has been so good f them all to have this time to connect -- they have had so much fun!!!

It is noon on Wed dec 29th here, and our flight to Beijing leaves at 1am tonight/tomorrow am. After the 5 hour flight, we have a 10 hour layover in Beijing and a 12 hour flight to san Fran where BOTH sets of grandparents will pick us up. Couldn't be better -- I am sure by that time we will so appreciate their TLC and familiar faces!

I am sure you'll see a post or two from us if we can connect -- at least a huge hurrah as we get through customs... Or a pic of us w that first in-n-out burger stateside :-).

Love to you all!

A Tropical Paradise!

We made it to Khao Lak, just north of Phuket Island, in Southern Thailand, on Monday. We LOVE it here! We are staying in a super nice place and have been so busy having fun and relaxing you haven't heard from us! I want to post more later (it is 4 am and I am on my phone :-) because it is so beautiful here! We have been swimming, sea kayaking, body surfing/boogie boarding, and shell collecting on the beach. The hotel has the longest swimming pool in southeast Asia - it snakes around the whole resort! We snorkeled at the surin islands -- a 1:40 hr speedboat ride northwest into the Andamen sea. It was incredible!!! The kids did super! We saw a giant moray eel, a bunch of nemo fish, a few turtles, parrot fish, coral & a ton of other gorgeous fish! Here was my favorite line of the day -- exclaimed soooo very excitedly by josh as he came up from diving down to see some coral up close -- "Mommy, this is so cool to see since we studied it!!!!" Warms a homeschool mom's heart!!! (and I agree!) We were served a yummy Thai lunch in a hut on the beach -- complete w all the thai spice, a fish w his head still attached (and teeth bared!) and FRESH pineapple :-). Zach had a super sixth bday on the beach yesterday. He even had cake delivered to him under a palm tree! We swam all day and now look like varying stages of (cooked) lobsters! So worth the fun and memories! Josh has a new love ... Boogie boarding. It was mighty hard to rip him away from that thing -- even for food -- yesterday!

It is Christmas eve morning here and we drive back to Bangkok today to spend Christmas w kev's sister and her family.

Hope you all have a great Christmas and have a renewed appreciation and awe for what Jesus experienced and endured on our behalf. Happy birthday, Jesus!

Thai Food – Cooking Class and Market Experience (Dec 15)

One of the experiences we were looking forward to before coming to Thailand was taking Thai cooking classes.  This wish came to fruition a few days ago – and it is an experience we will not soon forget!  Grandma and Grandpa took the morning to do some shopping and left the cooking to the Boyums J

We met our cooking instructor, Khun Pooh (Khun is a title of respect used for Mr., Mrs., and Miss here in Thailand) and her assistant, Khun Noy, at a meeting place in Bangkok. 

Her husband transported the 8 of us right away to the Klong Toey market (Klong means canal in Thai – and there are a ton of them – Bangkok is often called the Venice of Asia).  The first hour of our class was spent in the market; I don’t think you can really understand Thailand or its cooking without a visit to a market.  I am glad I have some pictures to show you because my words will be a feeble attempt at describing our experience!  But I’ll give it a go…

Zach, Kev, Elise, Christina, Josh, me and Khun Pooh

First of all, the market opens at 2am!  Many people shop that early because the weather is cooler, it is less crowded and they may need the food for their work (ie food stalls on the street, catering, restaurants).



Khun Noy, our 2nd instructor, leads us through one of the more open walkways of the market...



The market – As soon as we entered, we were met with a thick, warm, steamy wall of SMELL.  It wasn’t necessarily rancid, but most of our family was taken aback by the sheer thickness and offensiveness of it.  Josh began to get pale and queasy and we all felt the steamy heat as we stepped further in to begin taking in the new sights, sounds and smells…



A few observations:

·      Animals were butchered right there in the market -- guts, blood, the works.



Note: if you are into entrails, those are tidily packaged in the baggies on the bottom rack...

Or, you could buy pig parts....



But if you are choosy and just like the pig skin itself...

For the very choosy -- try a pig head instead, complete with its hooves :-)

And remember, you can always just purchase the snour and a bit of the forehead for that special soup...

• The ground was wet everywhere (which would explain why many people were wearing galoshes – even in 85 degree heat with about 185 degree humidity).  The “wet” was contributed to by these butcher stalls as well as many others, and the spraying down of it all.  We walked gingerly through the puddles for fear we might be wearing pig entrails on our backside from “splash up.”
• The fish/sea creatures were often still alive!  We saw a fish jump right out of a 2 ½ foot high bucket – the fish sellers were enamored with the excitement shown by our boys as this occurred.





The fish in this tank are still swimming... though they are not the ones that hopped out of the tank.


• The Thais (and other Asians) eat frogs!  Not just frog legs like we do in America.  The WHOLE kit and caboodle.  We saw them, full bodied and dead with skin, full bodied and dead without skin, chopped and fully alive (yes, jumping and croaking, but in tidy little bags so they couldn’t escape).  The market frog sellers occupy themselves as they await customers by skinning and often chopping the frogs.  Note: they chop the whole thing – no entrails are removed.  So when you purchase chopped frog, you don’t get jipped of any part of the animal (insert smell and visual of frog guts here J )  This is about when Josh looked pleadingly into my eyes and asked how much longer we would be in the market, trying valiantly to hold on to his breakfast.





Live frogs for those who like to consume freshly killed croakers...





Hard to choose... skinned or still croaking?



Chopped frog parts on top, partially skinned below...

 


Normally into blood and guts, the smell of the market made this picture far more posed than it might appear...



• Crabs on a stick – doesn’t get fresher than this.  The crabs were still alive and kickin’ – just on a bamboo skewer (like you can find almost any food served in Thailand) ready for you to plop right on the grill.





Khun Pooh and Christina ready to BBQ


• Mealworms are a delicacy – live of course.  They cost 1000 Baht/kilo (about $15/lb) !!




Insect alley -- see if you can find: water beetles, mealworms, grasshoppers...

The stall “alleys” where shoppers walk are very crowded.  With what?  Shoppers, vendors, children (read: toddlers, preschoolers), tourists, dogs, cats, people with hand carts, bags, people on motorcycles!

Interesting items (just a partial list):

• Fried/steamed fish in bamboo baskets
• Chives which have already flowered – complete with roots as most veggies are sold)
• Pork skin and intestines – both fresh and fried
• Mussels/clams – fresh
• Whole quail – skin removed, but feet still intact
• Fish heads – very freshly beheaded
• Pig heads – they are in high demand around Chinese New Year, we hear
• Lemon grass – not the tender small shoots like in Jamba juice – about the size of a large green onion
• Pandan leaves (used in sticky rice and other desserts to give flavor and scent)
• Fresh chickens – “stiff-legged”
• Morning glory – different than our flower – an asparagus type green shoot
• Eggplant (only about 1 ½ inch in diameter and completely round and green)
• Mini eggplants – about the size of a super mini cherry tomato
• Ant larvae & ants





Ant larvae... yum





Or just go for the live thing... ants, anyone?

Signature Thai Chili peppers -- they are awesome and used in almost all Thai cooking!

Tons of fruit and veggies!

• Eels – alive
• Catfish – live

There’s so much more to share, but I likely painted a bit of the picture for you.  Stop by sometime and we’ll show you the video – but the full experience must be had in person for the full multi sensory experience!

We were picked up by Kuhn Pooh’s husband and transported to their home, with our purchased items in hand (Josh was thrilled to have purchased a pineapple (completely free of frog entrails) all by himself – he has fallen in love with Thai pineapple).  Their home wasn’t far away, still in the Klong Toey neighborhood, just past the “slum” part of it (though I am not sure what delineated it – they themselves call it the slum).  Both the neighborhood and the market were along the Klong, or canal, aptly described by my boys: “the canal was stinky.”

The neighborhood alley, of sorts, was narrow.  There were people at outdoor stalls of sorts, and tables in the walkway.  There was a drain under part of the alley that didn’t smell so good.  Overall, the alley was well kept and the people were friendly, though it was a bit run down.

Kuhn Pooh’s kitchen was really just a long room with 2 sofas on one long side, and a long counter of sorts on the other side.  At the far end was a sink and a bathroom as well as a fridge. 

We cooked three separate menu items.  Each time Khun Pooh demonstrated the recipe and then we each cooked a single portion ourselves. She had prepared some of the ingredients ahead of time (i.e. sliced chicken, deveined prawns), leaving the fun part of the cooking to us.  Kev and I and all 4 kids took part, even Zach. 

Actually, the instructors were amazed that Zach did so well and loved the experience so much – for that matter all of the kids.  The diced, sliced, pounded and mixed right alongside the two of us.

Here are the menu items:

1)      Som Tum – Papaya salad

2)      Tom Yum Goong – spicy prawn soup

Kev's favorite dish -- he loves spicy and he loves seafood!

3)      Tom Kah Gai – coconut chicken soup

Josh LOVED this soup!

4)      Pad Thai Gai – Thai noodles with chicken

Zach and his Pad Thai Gai

Each course was sooooo good!  When we did the som tum, we could change the ingredients a bit.  For example, more or less chili, prawn, lime.  As 2 of us finished, we sat down to eat what we had made while the next set of us stepped up to the cooking station.  Basically it went like that until all the menu items were prepared and eaten.

Doing what Boyums do well -- enjoying good food.

We of course didn’t skip the dessert course, but those were purchased at the market.  We enjoyed:

·      Sliced fruit – rose apples and jack fruit

·      Custard filled pumpkins

·      Mango sticky rice

Top left, clockwise: mango, jackfruit, custard filled pumpkin, sticky rice.  Middle: sauce for rice.

We Boyums LOVE mango sticky rice.  Kuhn Pooh beamed like what I think an Italian grandma would as we devoured each and every grain of the sticky rice and the kids were asking if it would be impolite to lick the plates.  She quickly ran out and came in with more sticky rice, sliced another mango or two, provided us with some more sauce and told us how happy she was that we enjoyed it so much.  Apparently the Boyums and Khun Pooh should hang out more – we make one another so happy! J

Take aways from this experience?  I’d love a huge wooden mortar and pestle to make som tum in at home.  I’d love to continue experimenting with Thai foods – the flavors are incredible and it’s not too hard!  I am so glad we took the time and paid the money for this class – not just for me or me and Kev, but for all 6 of us.  It was super for them to learn alongside us and use the chopping skills they have been honing in our kitchen.