Christmas in Thailand

Christmas has a bizarre spot in American culture. We are very dependant on it economically, to the point where it is advertised for about 9 months a year. For the month of December it is impossible to go anywhere and not see Christmas, it adorns our store fronts, comes out of the radios and works its way into our conversations. Everyone in the states, regardless of religious denomination seems to be swept up in “the Christmas Spirit” because its now more of a national holiday than religious one. This is not the case in Thailand. Its more akin to a religious holiday still, where you are aware its happening, probably know a couple celebrating it, but even if stores are putting up decorations its not so pervasive as it is in the states. It took some recalibrating to enjoy Christmas in this snowless environment, it was a slow process but, by the time the 25^th rolled around I was in a pretty good state of mind for the entire affair. I woke up to skype with my immediate family on their Christmas eve, we simultaneously watched It’s a Wonderful Life from opposite sides of the globe. Have I mentioned how much I love technology? That, in a real sense, was my Christmas, and it was after this that my Christmas in Thailand really started. The following is the story of my Christmas day.

I knew something was strange. The man that was making my som tom was looking up at me with some unidentifiable expression on his face as he was pounding the dish with his mortar. He held up an uncooked crab, I considered it, nodded, and he threw it in. I got a second hint something was off when, after I had sat down at table of store next door the maker of my food moseyed over and began speaking to the owners of the shop, a wonderful couple that I’ve started to get to know since arriving. I began to eat, the first bite was good, had the flavor and kick that all good som tom should have. The second bite was very hot, and I made the ill advised move of drinking water to quench the fire, a mistake that no matter how many times people warn me about I continue making. The chef was sitting there expectantly, trying to be nonchalant; I pointed at the food, and gave a thumbs up, “good, thank-you”. He waved at his mouth making the universal sign for, “your mouth is burning with an intensity and passion that you didn’t think was possible isn’t it?” to which I shrug, nod, wave at my mouth and take another bite. Now, I have an appreciation for hot food, I love hot wings in the states, and I have never been stingy with my stars at restaurants, I consider a hot dish a welcome challenge, and if you can get past the heat there is usually excellent flavor behind it. But this burning in my mouth was not obeying the rules set forth in the human-spicy foods treaty, it was not decreasing, or even plateauing. No it was increasing in intensity, and suddenly it was not doing so at such a relaxed pace. My roommate has just woken up and was smoking a cigarette on our stoop and I saw this an opportunity to save face, I coolly and casually leatp from my seat, and with the urgency of a man running from hornets I strolled over to my roommate. I don’t even remember what I said, I think it was something rather disparaging about the cook and “Hottest ******* thing I have ever eaten”. I was still expecting the burning to at least slow if not stop, but it did not. I was suddenly pacing around in a circle listening to the hearty chuckle of that evil, fat, som tom chef from a few feet away. Time for round two, I went into the store and bought some Milo, basically chocolate milk, and return to the table, determined not to loose to this food (No I don’t have competition issues, and yes you can definitely win or loose meals. Shut up).

            The Milo felt like a genuine Christmas miracle, the screaming in mouth was almost silenced; the landscape was now more akin to a parking lot on a hot day than a prairie fire. Unfortunately the Milo provided only a momentary respite, the burning returned shortly. After two bites I am near tears, but I’ll be damned if I let that smarmy punk spice me out of my lunch. The burning was still there, though it was less intense, whether this was because of the Milo or the fact that my nerve endings were sending in their resignation letters I’m still not sure. The wife of the owner came out and saw my face, recognized the look of a oral burn victim and came over to look at my dish. She frowned and walked over to the chef, seems to chastise him for a few moments than returned with a packet of rice intimating I should eat it with the som tom and it will reduce the spicines. A minute or so later the owner, who’s English is spectacular comes out and offers me a small bowl of mushroom soup, “My wife make this, its not so hot, good for you!” I offer my sincere thanks, and use it to clear my mouth for an attempt at round three.

I took two more bites and couldn’t take it, my nose was Niagra, and my eyes were rapidly filling. I had to polish off the milo and dive into the soup. By this time the chef has joined me again, and the wife of the owner who is sitting at the table was frequently miming hitting the chef in the head with what I imagined to be a cast iron frying pan. Soon the chef is on his way, driving off with his motor bike based stand leaving me feeling as though Thai food had finally, truly and completely kicked my ass. The wife points at my bowl and says “for me, one!” I was a little confused so she re-iterates, this time however, I saw she was not pointing at the general dish, but one of the MANY small peppers that populate my bowl. That punk had given me easily 6-7 peppers. I was stunned, but this explained so much about the last half hour of my life that I couldn’t be angry. How could I be? The food may have been heinously hot, but it sure was an experience, and one that brought me a bit closer to my neighbors, on Christmas no less, the best time of the year to be brought closer together.

Later that evening I brought a pot of fresh coffee (my glorious parents had sent beans and a French press as a Christmas gift) to my neighbors to thank them for helping with my extreme lunch, and of course to wish them a merry Christmas. We enjoyed the coffee, laughed about the som tom and once the coffee was gone they brought me a beer and began filling, and refilling my cup. Soon my roommates had come out, and we were all enjoying Christmas beers talking about Thailand and its quirks with our neighbors. I noticed the owner of the shop was cutting up a lime, I thought, “dear god, if he is making cocktails than he is going to drink me under the table!” but soon he offered a slice of lime to my roommate and I, “Is that sweet or sour?” We were dubious, it was a lime, of course it was sour, but we obliged, tasted the slices, and sure enough, they were sour. He than gave us each a small berry shaped a bit like a bean, and told us to eat it and try the lime slice again. We chewed the berry; it tasted fine, anything but an extreme taste, and tried the lime. This time it was more akin to candy than a citrus fruit. Both of us looked up in shock, and asked what the berry was, “Miracle fruit!” our neighbor said laughing. It was a unique gustatory experience certainly, and one that lasted longer than either of us wanted it to. Our beers tasted more like sugar water the rest of the night, the dinner I had later could have been good, I don’t know, it tasted like candy. It was bizarre. It was Christmas in Thailand!

Khao Sok it!

In retrospect my big mistake was congratulating myself for doing so well in the first month. “Damn Mike, you are really doing much better with this blog than you anticipated good work!” quickly turned into, “Hmmm, I should probably do one today, buuuttt I HAVE been doing good job…” than into, “Blog?” Ashamed of my collapse, I am attempting a comeback.

This past weekend was a pantheon level one, many things came together, weather, location (oh my location), stress levels prior too, and need to be somewhere other than the city made this trip spectacular. While checking my email, I found out that the Red Sox had acquired a player that had been on my wish list for 3 years, which was exciting in and of itself, but it led to a simple and obvious realization that I would have said I understood, but really probably didn’t prior to that moment. Life goes on. Seriously. There are no breaks, no vacations, no pauses, skips, rewinds or fast forwards. Nothing we do can alter that in the slightest of ways. I was in the jungle, having seen some of the most spectacular landscapes in the world, and on the other side of the planet my favorite baseball team was making offseason moves. Its one of those weird things that I thought I understood, but in the end really just knew how to pay it proper lip service.

Khao Sok national park is the largest Jungle in southern Thailand. I arrived on Friday, taking a minibus after missing the cheaper regular sized bus by approximately 17 seconds. While booking the min-bus I was talking with the man who was writing out the ticket when it came up that I was a teacher. His expression and demeanor immediately changed from what is clearly a polished poise for tourists to a much more relaxed and human character, he knocked 10 baht off the bust ticket, and offered to call his friend and book me a discounted room at their resort, and really, who am I to say no to such a generous offer? The resort turned out to be a very pleasant place, run by people that made me feel like I was the only guest, (The Khao Sok River Valley Lodge, very near Khao Sok Jungle Huts, I can’t recommend them highly enough) and my room was a decent sized hut that was about 15 feet in the air on stilts. The owner’s wife walked through some of my options for the following day, and ended up helping me settle on the 1 day lake and cave tour, a great decision.

At 8:00 they served breakfast, an actual pancake with some fresh pineapple and mango juice (it’s a tough life here sometimes). At 8:30 I was picked up and brought to the beginning of the lake where our tour guide Paul, a nice guy and great tour guide collected 200 baht for the park entrance fee (later that evening we discovered that the entrance fee was free for the weekend due to the King’s birthday), and shortly 12 of us were piled into a long boat and zipping across the lake. It was approximately a one hour ride to the other end where we would begin hiking to a cave. But forget the cave for now, the boat ride took me through the most spectacular landscape I have ever encountered. Forget everything you know about valleys, there were no gently sloping hills, or even steep hills leading down to the water. No, this valley had 200 foot cliffs erupting from the water, dripping with jungle. It was as thought there were once mountains there, but only this small fraction of the mountain thought it was worth sticking around. Some have narrow inlets where the walls of two cliffs tower maybe 30 feet apart on their way up. It is the only place I have ever been where the tour guide could have said, “And while they recently left for the coming hot season Dragons inhabit these cliffs roughly nine months of the year.” and I would not have blinked. The weather was spectacularly co-operative for the entire day, cloud cover breaking enough for it to feel sunny, but not enough that it got to hot. Additionally, I don’t think that there are too many places that actually become more impressive on a cloudy day, but low hanging clouds among some of these cliffs gave the impression that they never stopped, and added an air of mystery and mysticism that was awe inspiring.

We arrived at the other end of the lake, a small tourist outpost with little floating shacks for over nighters and a nice dock area with seating, kayaks (free for those on the tour) and a backdrop of legit jungle. We had approximately an hour to swim, kayak, read or lounge before lunch. The water was about as pleasant a temperature as can exist, and the opportunity to kayak away from the 4 Russians who had been drinking consistently since the tour began and consequently had been getting closer and closer to shouting their conversations, was very welcome. Lunch was good, a fish that seemed to have spikes instead of fins (presumably fresh from the lake) and an assortment of chicken and veggie dishes to go with rice. Than it was time to strike out into the Jungle towards the cave which, according to the descriptions of the tour, was considered to be the highlight of the park (not the case). The hike was among the least strenuous hikes I have ever encountered, but it was still very interesting as it was through the FREAKING JUNGLE! If you are unable to tell, I was every excited to go into the jungle, which I have wanted to see since I did a report on rain forests for my fourth grade science class. The path was flat, but we crossed a lot of streams, many of which had tiny waterfalls either just ahead or below where we were crossing. The jungle itself was peppered with Bamboo stands, vines of shapes and sizes (including, but not limited to green and spiky, thin and read, brown and spiraling, and the kind that you can actually swing on, Tarzan style), some mushrooms that were a bright, translucent orange, tarantula nests, and some crazy trees that looked as though the roots started about 6 feet above ground. The cave that we were trekking to had been used as a hide out by communist students who were fighting the Thai Gov’t in the 70’s. It was a great hiding spot, the middle of a jungle and an entrance that you had to duck to use, than a river flowing through it so that some swimming was required to get very far (side note: apparently it is stupidly dangerous anytime its raining, which seems to be every day from late October until, well now. So was fighting the Gov’t something they only did 10 months out of the year? I am confused). They cave was impressive, formations that take an unfathomable amount of time to develop pepper the entire thing. Many of the surfaces are covered in small up and down ridges as though someone had taken a small toy rake meant for the sand box and very carefully made them. It was impressive, but I found the cliffs and jungle to be more interesting.

Talking with our tour guide, and being amazed at some of the things he was able to pick out of the jungle, or on the shore as we were speeding by in a boat, it reminded me that people live in places like this. Its very easy to forget, that even though they are tourist destinations, people grow up and live in these places, and our guide at least, seems to appreciate it. The shirt he wore much of the day combined with his relaxed attitude and seemingly content state was a nice caption for the day