Jenyfer Matthews

I arrived home yesterday afternoon, tired and disheveled (travel tip: Wear dark jeans on the plane so when you spill a cup of red wine, the splotches won’t show. Much.) The planes were mostly on schedule and nothing too terribly irritating happened, which is pretty high praise for traveling eleven hours in economy class. The boy and I even had a happy surprise in that the plane we returned on was a newer, more comfortable model with TV screens in the seat backs for individual program selection. He really enjoyed that for a hour or so before he fell asleep. (I envied the fact that he slept all the way across the Atlantic!)

Now it’s time for some spring cleaning. I’m not a clean freak, but I do like to maintain a certain, minimal level of cleanliness and judging by the footprints in the layer of dust on my floors, housework was not a priority in my absence. There were sand dunes forming near the floor-to-ceiling windows in my living room! I’m really putting my new vacuum cleaner through its paces.

I’ve given you a hint on how I’m spending my time in the next few days – a gold star for anyone who can tell me which book and author the literary reference in the title of this post refers to. This is a supposed to be a writing blog after all…

You might remember my post from two Fridays ago, where I talked about the deficiencies of the medical system in Egypt. I can add to that list now and call it either incompetence or overzealousness, depending on my mood.

In short, the Egyptian doctors overreacted – my son is absolutely fine and healthy. To give them the benefit of the doubt, I suppose it was better to err on the side of caution in this case and I am certainly happy to get the news I did rather than the alternative, however I could have used a little less stress over the last few months with the worrying and the travel!

With the medical portion of our trip dealt with, I did what I could to make the most of my time in Cleveland. I shopped (including my first trip to Trader Joe’s – awesome!), we went to the zoo, we saw “How to Train Your Dragon” in 3-D (thin on plot but great special effects!), I indulged myself with a variety of beers and wine, I caught up with old friends, and I gorged myself on fish.

We also spent an afternoon at the Rock and Roll of Fame and Museum. That was probably more fun for me than it was for my little man, because though he knows many of the songs that were being played over the speakers, he doesn’t know who any of the bands or singers are! He was happier once I bought him a pair of drumsticks (what boy doesn’t like sticks??)

I got myself a present as well – a CD of 50 Motown classics. How could I resist a CD that had wonderful songs like “My Girl” (Temptations), “Heard It Through the Grapevine” (Marvin Gaye), “Stop! In the Name of Love” (The Supremes), “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” (Four Tops) but also “Brick House” (Commodores) and “Super Freak” (Rick James)? Choosing between this disk and a cool graphic t-shirt was really no contest at all. Limiting myself to only this disk was harder because as you might imagine, the gift shop was bursting with wonderful music.

Now it is down to packing up to go back home. Happily, packing should be easier than usual – I brought an extra suitcase with me and I was more restrained than I often am

Have a great weekend and a happy Easter. Barring delay or disaster, I’ll be coming to you live from Cairo next week.

The Bangkok Duty Free and the Orchid Growers of Thailand must be laughing themselves silly over their clever scheme to separate tourists, high on their holidays, from their last few baht.

I had about an hour in the Bangkok airport before my flight and was wandering the shops, as you do, needing to spend what remained of my Thai money. I bought myself an elephant key chain and a few spices for hubby. There were many, many boxes of cut orchids that I admired and passed by. I wasn’t sure how Egyptian customs would deal with me bringing in plant life and didn’t want to risk it. But then I saw the orchids plants, sealed in bottles.

I was feeling overconfident – I have never grown an orchid in my life. I can’t grow picky plants like African violets or cyclamen. I think that seeing orchids growing like weeds all over Thailand (their native environment, duh!) infected my brain though. All I could think at the time was what could be better than cut orchids than an orchid plant? And they came with instructions – how hard could it be?

I ended up getting a package of four small orchids. I gave one to the mother of a friend of mine who loves plants and kept the other three.

First instruction: “Take the orchid plant out from the bottle, when this young plant has filled up the bottle or the nutrient jelly has dried up, approx. 1-3 months spent.”

Hmmm… The inspection stamp on the back of the box was 2009 so surely that was more than a few months? And the plants were in that little airless jar in my custody for weeks and were doing nothing. So I decided to open the jar because maybe they just missed a step in their translation, right?

Wrong. Within days of having opened the jar, the nutrient jelly started to grow mold! Oops.

Okay, on to step two: “Wash the jelly out thoroughly and leave it to dry in basket under shade until new roots have developed, normally consumes 2 weeks.”

I washed the tiny plants off, hoping the Cairo tap water wouldn’t do them in, and put them in liqueur glasses in a dark corner of my kitchen and waited. They looked as if they were molding too – at first. Then I realized that what I took for mold might actually be the roots. Cool!

Their two weeks were just about up when it was time for me to leave for my trip so I hastily potted them. I used coffee cups because it was all I had handy, and let’s be realistic – how long are these things really going to last anyway, especially now that they’ve been left to the care of my nine year old daughter? Think she’s going to remember to water them twice a day? Fat chance!

Good thing the nursery where I bought the peat moss has some lovely, mature, blooming orchids for sale. I should have just gone there in the first place!

Another thing I would recommend not getting in Thailand is a pedicure. I now have an ugly toenail and a month’s worth of Lamisil to remind me of my holiday treat…

I ended up having an extra day in Bangkok at the end of my tour because of the airline schedule – there was no way I could have gotten from the train station to the airport in time, even if I had wanted to step off a thirteen hour train ride and onto an eleven hour flight! My plan for the day, when I expected to be on my own, was to take advantage of the hotel amenities and have a massage and hang out by the swimming pool and just relax.

What really happened is that, happily, my roommate decided she’d like to stay in Bangkok for a day herself so I added her to my hotel room. She had a massage while I had a body scrub and pedicure and then we went to Chinatown – so glad she had a guide book because it never would have occurred to me otherwise!

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We had to ask a couple different tuk-tuk drivers before one agreed to take us to Chinatown for a reasonable price. Once I saw the traffic in this part of town, I understood why!

Won’t you take me to… C-H-I-N-A-T-O-W-N!

It was an amazing place – sort of like walking through a street carnival.

You could get just about anything there, from evening bags to spare parts. It also seemed to be the wholesale market for the souvenirs for the rest of the city – there were times when one of us wanted something but the item was only sold in bulk!

Chilis anyone?

We walked around the warren of streets for about an hour – and probably only saw a tiny percentage of the entire district. More amazing still was how few foreigners were there. It seemed that everyone else was just there doing business.

After Chinatown, we got out the trusty guide book again to decide where to have dinner – and ended up wandering to a restaurant down near the river.

The restaurant was open air and the food was so nicely presented. Why don’t my dinners at home ever look so attractive?

We sat there for ages, just chatting and laughing, before we took one last stroll through the madness of the night market. All too soon it was time to go back to the hotel and get my bags organized for my early morning departure.

I suppose it must go without saying that I had a fantastic time on this trip. Would I book such a tour again? Without a doubt, but with one reservation: with as much fun as I had in Thailand and the wonderful people I met on the tour (including our guide) this trip will be a tough act to follow!

We had a free day in Chiang Mai, before having to catch the night train back to Bangkok. My roommate decided she wanted to go and feed the giant pandas at the zoo, as suggested in her guide book, and I wanted to visit a ceramics factory just outside of town. We did both.

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I’m always slightly dubious about going to a zoo in a foreign country – they aren’t always nice places. I avoided the zoo in Dubai and have yet to visit the zoo in Cairo, both depressing places from what I’ve heard. I am happy to say that the Chiang Mai zoo was a pleasant surprise.

The animals were much perkier than at some zoos I’ve visited. It was a lovely day which helped. It probably also helped that in some cases you were able to buy an animal appropriate “snack pack” and feed them.

The way to a hippo’s heart…

Really???

Who knew the zoo would be such an excellent monk stalking spotting place?

I’m no expert and don’t quote me on this, but I’ve been asked why it is some of the monks are so young. So far as I understand it, many Buddhist families will send one of their sons to be a monk for a period of time – a way for him to be educated and also be of service to their faith. Sort of a cross between Catholic boarding school and the army. Our tour guide told us that he was a monk for a while when he was younger, and left the monastery when he was 18. Obviously, based on the age range of monks I’ve seen, some also decide to stay.

As it turned out, we were not allowed to feed the pandas, but it was still nice to see one in person since not every zoo has one. I could however have had my picture photoshopped into a scene with a panda had I wished!

All the walking made us hungry, and who could resist this? (the description on the label reads: “This sandwich is delicious. We want you to try this sandwich”)

The sandwich was tuna salad and in fact was merely adequate, but I guess the label worked because we bought and ate it!

We made a quick visit to the showroom of the ceramics factory where we bought some lovely items and then had to rush back to the hotel to catch our train back to Bangkok.

Isn’t it great to be an unsupervised child?

Even monks need reading material for the train!

Tomorrow: my last day in Bangkok and Chinatown.

After our second overnight in the village, we took a little time after breakfast to pack our belongings in plastic bags, in preparation for the bamboo raft portion of our trip. I admit it: the muscles in my legs were screaming in pain having hiked up and down steep trails for five hours the day before so I was looking forward to a nice relaxing boat ride.

Little did I know!

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Preparing to set sail!

Yes – you see correctly: everyone is standing up! I was really nervous when I saw that because my backpack was more or less waterproofed with plastic bags, but my camera was still hanging around my neck! Our guide assured us it was safe, but having been swimming there the afternoon before, I knew just how deep and swift the current was near that bridge. What were the odds that five tourists standing on a bamboo raft for the first time in their lives *weren’t* going to capsize?

Judging by the group of villagers up on the bridge to see us off, they must have thought so too!

I suppose we could have seated ourselves if we had wished, but the air temperature wasn’t so warm and the raft not entirely buoyant – we were often ankle deep as we floated along. So I simply planted my feet for balance and kept a grip on the luggage rack for support. I was too intent on remaining upright to notice any discomfort in my leg muscles!

The scenery was beautiful and I soon began to relax. I wasn’t so much worried about getting wet myself, but I didn’t want my new camera to get dunked – but hey, that’s what travel insurance is for (right??)

I love the contrast between the location of this traditional home – Nowhere, Thailand – and the enormous satellite dish!

Who needs all the slats anyway??

Land ho! This was our rest stop, a place to stretch our (aching) legs and have a snack before we set off on the second half of our journey.

I had a quick granola bar and then amused myself taking pictures – of course!

This old guy was just relaxing in the shade, enjoying the spectacle of the tourist trade.

Before we set off again our guide instructed us to put our cameras away in a dry, secure place. The river had been fairly shallow and calm so far (only knee deep most of the way) but the next half had some rapids and there was more potential for getting wet, etc. Though I was mildly disappointed not to be able to capture that scenery with my camera, I happily complied. Better to keep my camera safe and I could use both hands to hold on!

In the end, we had to get off the raft once because we were hung up on a large rock under the water. The water wasn’t deep, but it was murky and there were many jagged, slimy rocks on the bottom that made walking treacherous. I was just as happy at that moment not to have my camera hanging around my neck since I was concentrating on not falling and fracturing my skull!

Another hour of rafting brought us to our destination – and lunch. Funny how standing on a raft for a little more than two hours can work up your appetite! After lunch, we loaded our bags and ourselves into a truck and took off back to our hotel in Chiang Mai – where we all promptly used up the hotel’s hot water by taking long, thorough showers!

Here I am, wearing the t-shirt I bought for my husband because it was one of the few things I had that was still clean! Now that I’m home, it’s still mine because it’s too small for him. (Subconscious? )

We had one last group meal in Chiang Mai that night, all of us in high spirits for having “survived” the experience in the jungle. The entire scenario was totally contrived – a manufactured adventure – and yet I think we all experienced quite a sense of achievement all the same.

Tomorrow: a bit more of Chiang Mai and back to Bangkok.

(I’m almost done, I swear!)

If I was ever in doubt about what I packed in my backpack for the trek, I didn’t regret it after the first night camping in the village. It was cold! I slept in my clothes, a fleece pullover, fleece socks, and covered up with a fleece blanket and still I was chilly. It was nice to get up and sit by the fire in the morning!

We set off after breakfast. We had about a five hour hike ahead of us to get to an elephant camp where we would have lunch and then ride the elephants to the second village.

I was last in the line of hikers again, but it was probably because I kept stopping to take pictures. How could I resist?

About a half hour into our walk, I suddenly remembered that I’d left my bathing suit at the guesthouse in the first village. How lucky was I that we ran into these heroes who were willing to interrupt their plans (hunting??) to go and retrieve it for me?

What a spectacular view! The poinsettia was a colorful and seasonal touch

Five hours (and about 8km) later, we made it to the elephant camp where we had lunch. By then we were all more than happy to let the elephants do the walking!

They are softer than they look!

Elephants seem a lot bigger when it comes to sitting on one!

Since our elephant was in the front, this may be the only picture of my roommate and I with the elephant’s face – all others being taken by other riders but from the rear!

You wouldn’t think an elephant could walk down such a narrow trail, but they can!

I wasn’t ready to get off when we finally did arrive at the second village. Riding an elephant is fun!

Again, our guesthouse was simple and we all shared a room. I took this before the sun went down because it was pitch black at night!

A river near our guesthouse – otherwise known as our bathtub. It was COLD!

Certainly refreshing though!

Not surprisingly, my camera batteries died as we were touring around the village – but I still managed to get a few shots before the camera quit and the sun went down.

I’m so glad I got this shot before the camera gave up. Such a lovely expression.

Never fear though – I had more batteries in my bag!

Tomorrow: bamboo rafting and back to Chiang Mai.

Our train arrived in Chiang Mai on time, early in the morning, and we went to our hotel. I knew I was going to like this place when I saw this structure and sign.

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You might be able to relax and consume refreshments here…or not!

The first thing my roommate and I did after depositing our bags in our room was to go exploring. There was a market quite close to our hotel so we went there first.

So many photographic opportunities at a market!

Chiang Mai was where it became apparent that I am a Buddhist monk stalker groupie. They are such colorful and cheerful spots in a crowd, it’s hard to resist!

Having been to Thailand once before (the south) and twice to Cambodia in addition to India, I’ve seen my share of Buddhist temples so they aren’t quite the attraction they used to be. After lunch our guide suggested that we might like to see Wat Prathat Doi Suthep and since everyone else was going, I went too.

There were many, many stairs to climb to get to the temple. Why don’t we decorate all staircases like this?

Instead of one main Buddha, there were many, many Buddhas here – each of them getting much attention.

And what better place to be a monk groupie than at a temple?

How could I resist taking this picture for my children? Also funny for anyone who likes LOLcats – just substitute “nom” at the caption!

Had I opted out of the trip to the temple I would have missed this Buddha – the most unique one I’ve ever seen. There must be a reason for his attire, but to me he looks as if he is stuck in a 60s time warp!

The view from Wat Prathat Doi Suthep was pretty spectacular as well – Chiang Mai is a lot bigger than I was imagining it to be (this is only one direction!)

Tomorrow: playing in a waterfall, our trek into the jungle, and our first night in a village.

Our first day on the tour was a free day in Bangkok, so my roommate and I decided to visit Wat Pho, home of the famous reclining Buddha. Why famous? Because of his enormous SIZE.

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The grounds of the temple are impressive as well as you can see. While we were standing in line to enter the temple, this sign caught my eye.

Now of course I know what they mean, but having ingested a steady diet of Stephen King as I was growing up I couldn’t help imagining my phone or my camera coming to life and attacking me!

And here is the Buddha.

But that’s not all!

And for a little perspective on just have massive he is…

Love his toe swirls too!

After we left Wat Pho, we thought we might visit the Grand Palace since it was close by. Somehow every turn we took was wrong so it took longer to get there than we expected – but the street scenes were fascinating!

We did finally find the Grand Palace, but it the grounds were much larger than we were expecting and by the time we got there we didn’t have enough time to go inside since our tour leader had arranged for us to take a canal boat tour in the afternoon. I simply had to take this picture though:

Once again, I knew what they meant, but it amused me because of the word choice. If I knew the stranger was “wily” of course I would be on my guard!

After a quick lunch, we rejoined our group for a longtail boat canal tour.

The view from our boat of the main channel.

Another longtail boat of the type we were riding in, passing.

This is what it looked like once we turned off into some of the smaller channels.

There were grander houses mixed in as well, but I preferred the look of the humbler places.

Our guide stopped here and bought us some snacks. This woman makes wonderful fried bananas!

We stopped at a small orchid farm along the way, then disembarked at the flower market. The colors! It’s a photographer’s paradise.

Have you ever imagined such piles of orchids in your life?

I took so many pictures on the canal and in the market my camera batteries died! Fortunately, I had time to buy a couple more packages before we went to the train station to catch our night train to Chiang Mai.

Our sleeper car.

Sorry the picture is a bit wonky, but we were moving!

The train was so much better than I expected it to be. I was initially dismayed to see that our beds would be open to the aisle with only a curtain for privacy, particularly as we had been warned to sleep with our valuables as close to our heads as possible. (Those wily strangers are everywhere!) As it turned out, we had a great time because we could more easily socialize with the more open plan. The night train is where my roommate and I made fast friends with an adorable Brazilian couple who were also in our group. It was a 13.5 hour ride but time just flew by as we laughed and chatted the evening away.

That is probably (more than) enough for now. Tomorrow: Chiang Mai.

And so it begins – a run down on my trip to Thailand. I did and saw so much every day I could probably bore everyone for the next year or so with my 1000+ photos, but I promise to try and be concise.

I admit it: I was pretty nervous when I left home. I started to wonder why I was doing the trip at all – what if I hated the other people in the group? It would be so much easier to stay at home! But my flights all went smoothly and without delay or aggravation and I was able to get from the Bangkok airport to my hotel without difficulty and that went a long way toward soothing most of my doubts.

I met my roommate from the tour a few hours after my arrival. Truly, I could not have been luckier in who they paired me with. She and I had so much in common it was as if we had been matched up by a dating service! She is a script writer from Germany, incredibly sweet but with a sharp sense of humor, and we hit it off immediately. I not only had a friend for the trip, but I hope for life. When I left, we were already discussing my coming to visit her in Germany and sampling white gluewein at the Christmas fairs there.

We met with our tour leader in the evening and after the initial introductions, he took us to a nearby area with one of the many night markets in Bangkok for dinner. What a wild place! My roommate and I walked around a bit on our own after dinner. She was shopping, I was just gawking.

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My roommate bought a $8 “Casio” digital watch from this lady. It was still working when we parted ways so I suppose it was worth at least that much!

They call this “fish massage” – the theory is that the fish are nibbling away all the dead skin on your feet. Nice, huh? Apparently there are also tanks where you can submerge yourself up to your chin, and some tanks have even larger fish in them, though I was told that while the larger fish are more efficient it is also a bit scarier! I am content to stick to traditional pedicures!

Anyone who has read this blog for long knows I am not a fan of McDonald’s, but how could I resist taking a picture with this guy – especially when he was being so respectful? Note the orchids growing around the tree trunk. Wish they were so easy to grow everywhere!

These are only a few pictures from my first evening in Bangkok. Tomorrow: Wat Pho, a canal boat tour, the flower market, and the night train.