~Flora and Fauna~

Sawatdee-khaa! Here's my second post made from the Land of Smiles.

One thing Thai people love to do is pai talaad, or go to the market. You can find just about anything at a talaad deun, or walking market. There are markets everywhere, and depending on where you go, you can find things there you have never seen in your life. I went to a market in Sakhon Nakhon (which is a rural place in the middle of nowhere), and I saw all kinds of things for sale that I never saw in Bangkok: fried worms, fried crickets and other kinds of bugs, pig feet, and a pig head. The Isaan region (eastern Thailand) is also known for eating dog, but I didn't see any dog meat. In Udon, I also saw fried frogs! It's times like these that I'm glad I don't eat meat. :P People here respect vegetarianism, so there's no pressure to try anything.

Just hanging out with friends by the jungle. No big deal.

One of my favorite things about Thailand is all the fun types of transportation. In the States, the attitude about transportation is "click it or ticket," but the attitude in Thailand seems to be "hang on for the ride and take charge of your own safety." Here, you only have to wear a seat belt in the front seats of a car. Many vehicles have no seat belts at all. I have seen entire families crammed onto one motorcycle. I have also seen groups of people sitting in the back of pickup trucks going 65 mph on the freeway here, and cops don't pull them over or anything. In Chiang Mai, people stand on the back of little buses called rot daengs and just hold on, without being strapped in at all. I sort of like it.

Bangkok!

This is called a saam loh. Very fun to ride in.

Another thing I love about Thailand: if I sit outside at night and close my eyes, I can tell just by the sounds I hear that I am far from home. Frogs croak, birds make strange clicking noises I've never heard before, and the crickets here chirp really loud. There are the coolest animals here, like these little geckos called jingjoks. They are everywhere, and they climb all over the sides of people's houses.

Sitting with a friend and some relatives. I have a jingjok on my head and another on my hand!

Elephants are so playful and they love people. The King's royal elephants are well-treated and well-trained. This is one of the King's elephants. It has a really long name that I can't remember. Don't worry, here's a chain around his leg...maybe... ;)

New fruits! In Thai, this one is called nga, and in English I believe it's called rambutan. They are super tasty. They're one of my favorites.

 This one on the left, in my opinion, is gross. It's called durian. You either like it, or you hate it. It smells very strongly and you are not allowed to have it in certain public places and train stations for that very reason.

 Guava, or falang. In Thai, the word for "white foreigner" is the same as the word for "guava." The guys selling this to me thought it was hilarious that I was buying it. By the way, in rural places in Thailand where there are not very many white visitors, everyone stares at you. Here they think white people are so beautiful, but in the States we think tan people are beautiful. It's so funny. My cousin Erin and I had guys hitting on us all the time in Roi Et. :P

 This fruit is called mangkut, I believe. It is so amazingly aroy (delicious).













I've made friends with quite a few bugs here. I always feel like they're crawling on me. Sometimes they are, but most of the time, I look and there's nothing there. I'm starting to wonder if I'm going insane for that reason. Mai pen rai. There are bugs everywhere, and you can't get away from them. It's okay though, because I'm getting used to them. There's even a spider who lives in the corner of our bathroom. Today I decided to name him Phil. I figure he eats the little flies that come in, so why not just keep him there?

One thing I am NOT fond of is the mosquitoes. Let me tell you, as I'm writing this right now, I'm scratching this area on my knee where one of them sucked the blood out of me. I have sprayed and sprayed myself with intense stuff that's 98% DEET, but they still get me! All I have to do is walk across the yard into the laundry room, and I'll get bitten. The locals laugh and say that falangs have sweet blood. This must be true because the mosquitoes here are CRAZY. A friend of mine in our Thailand group also sprays herself with stuff that's 98% DEET, and she got some on her toes and it melted her nail polish off. It also melted some of the color off of one of the stickers on my laptop when I touched it. That can NOT be good for your skin. I will either get some kind of cancer from DEET, or get some kind of disease carried by the mosquitoes! Lose-lose situation. I give up. Mai pen rai.

On the up side, the language learning is going well. I have no idea what people are saying 85% of the time, but that's okay! I can have very basic conversations, and things are improving. The people here are really happy when you try to speak their language, even if you can't speak very well at all. And if you don't understand what they're saying to you, they will go out of their way to make sure you do. It's so nice!!

I have many more things to say, but they will have to wait for a later post. Peace!

Yin dee ton rab.

 When I arrived in Bangkok, the first thing I noticed was the rush of hot, humid air that hit me. The plane landed at night when it was dark, and it was still about 88-90 degrees Fahrenheit (32-33 C) outside. It was unlike anything I was used to. My cousin Erin and I got on a rot fai fa, or sky train. Erin knew this country like it was a second home to her, but I had never been anywhere in Asia before, let alone Thailand. I didn't know what to expect. After getting off of the sky train, Erin and I waved down a taxi and headed to our hotel. As I looked out the window, I was scared. Everything looked sketchy and unfriendly to me. I didn't know what the people were like, I didn't know what the culture was like, and I didn't know how safe I was. I started to wonder if I was crazy, and why I had decided to come here in the first place. But I knew that I had chosen to come to Thailand for a reason and that I was here for a reason. God was taking care of me; I just had to trust Him. I also knew that from my experience, first impressions are often wrong. I thought that maybe in the morning, I would wake up and things would be just fine.

I was right. I woke up the next day feeling ecstatic. I was so stoked about the adventure I had begun to embark on! First I would travel around Thailand for a couple weeks with Erin, and then I would head up north to live with a host family. As we walked around town in the morning, it didn't look sketchy at all. The people were nice, everything was new and fascinating, and there were shrines and wats everywhere. It was very foreign to me, but as Robert Louis Stevenson said, “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” I was reminded of this everywhere I went, particularly because I have white skin and light brown hair.

If the idea of going to another country where you don't know the language or culture and living there for three months sounds crazy to you, you're right. If figuring things out as you go and somehow trusting that everything will be fine sounds crazy to you, you're also right. It's absolutely nuts. But that's just how I roll. This is something I have been wanting to do for the past four years and now it's finally happening. I know this won't be easy, but I do know that I will not regret it in the end. Last fall, I went to an international study program fair at my university where a bunch of options for international programs were being displayed, and I walked all around trying to decide what to do. When I walked up to the Thailand table, immediately this feeling came over me like "oh my gosh, I need to go to Thailand!" It's that simple, and I don't know how else to explain it. Sometimes, going with your gut is the best thing you can do, really.

 So, why Thailand? Well, why not? A friend of mine lived here as a refugee once. He told me about how much he loved it here, so I thought I'd check it out myself. This is an amazing place. If you'd like to come on a virtual trip to the Land of a Thousand Smiles with me, then I invite you to follow my blog.

My host family!! :)

 Mai pen rai is the Thai phrase meaning "it's nothing" or "don't worry about it." It's the "hakuna matata" of Thailand, and it pretty much sums up the culture of this country in three words. That is why I thought it would be an appropriate name for this blog.

Mai pen rai is like the other day when I was on a bus heading to Udon Thani from Roi Et, and I couldn't get my straw through the plastic lid of the cup of water provided to me by the bus. A man sitting across the aisle from me took it from me and tried to poke the straw through, but when he couldn't do it because the straw was shaped weird, he gave me his straw. How nice of him! I drank the water and then looked at his and realized he had already used the straw. I totally just used a stranger's straw. Mai pen rai.

Mai pen rai is also like the time when I was riding a tuk-tuk with my cousin in Bangkok, and a motorcycle crashed into us from behind. The driver of the tuk-tuk and the motorcycle both said "it's ok, don't worry about it, it's fine" and then we went on our way as if nothing had happened. Thais don't get worked up about that sort of thing, and neither should we. Mai pen rai.

By the way, tuk-tuks are SWEET. I seriously want to get one. Not even kidding. I wonder if they're legal anywhere in the States, and where I could get one. The blue vehicle in the picture above is a tuk-tuk.

That is all for now, and there will be many more posts to come. Until then, choog dee khaa!