“It wasn’t always like this, you know” Aez said to me in her usual sage-like tone. Dusk was approaching and the streets were becoming increasingly chaotic and increasingly wet with Songkran merry-makers. We were watching two kid siblings across the street shrieking for joy and dousing each other with buckets of ice water. “Oh?” I […]
Songkran Part 2: The True Meaning of Songkran
After several days of living in the Wild Wild Wet, I was ready to ditch the crowds and find peace in the quiet mountain town of Chiang Dao. The internet says it’s “stupid easy” to get to by bus, but I am *really* stupid sometimes and I’m anxious to take a bus. I’m always afraid […]
Songkran Part 3: Peeing Myself in Front of a Bus Full of People
“Is your phone in a safe place?” The kindly concierge at Gap’s House in Chiang Mai peered over her glasses at me as I walked by the front desk. It was 11 o’clock in the morning, 3 days before the Songkran festivities were officially scheduled to begin. I gaped at her. “They’ve started already?” Clearly, […]
Songkran Part 1: Eating Noodles with a Gun
Tham Lod Cave & What It Taught Me About Thai Stimulants
It’s 6pm and I’m clocking into my corporate job from Azalea Wellness Village Resort. The wonderful staff have brought me a pot of tea, which helps with my lingering sleepiness but not with the malaise of uninspiring work. Then I look up. Hundreds of bats are beginning their “morning” commute. They’ve got a long night […]
I’m at the Temple. I’m at the Cave. I’m at the Combination Temple and Cave.
“Be careful of roadside food stalls,” my Thai teacher told me on the day we learned the Thai word for “diarrhea”. “The exhaust from all the cars driving by can make the food dirty.” This was what was going through my mind as we pulled up to the roadside milk stall on the first day […]
Hot Roadside Milk and Other Foods I Was Forced to Try
