Tag: Thailand

Categories
Pop culture Travels

It’s A Party in The USA – Thailand Part 7

A bus station in Ayutthaya, Thailand.

Yesterday we arrived in Ayutthaya and set up camp in a hostel called Tony’s Place. While there are some minor flaws (zero water pressure in the shower), this is hands down the coolest place I have ever stayed at while abroad. The whole front of the building is a giant deck/restaurant that is swarming with a mix of traveling folk, and it’s directly across the street from Christine’s favorite bar, Chang House.

There is WiFi and decent food on the terrace, as well as a tourist information desk. It very much blurs the line between hotel and hostel. Everyone here is super friendly, and I’m typing this while eating a delicious BLT breakfast (I got a little tired of chicken and rice.)

Our room has cable TV, so we settled in and relaxed for a bit and flipped through stations before settling on MTV Africa (an odd thing to broadcast since Thailand is not in Africa). I haven’t watched MTV in years. In fact, I’ve been pretty actively boycotting it since around 1997, so whenever I do catch it for a while, I’m always blown away by what I see. 8 videos in a row and 7 of them (including Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus) clearly used and overused auto-tune. I’m sickened, is there any musical talent required anymore? Geez. Anyway, this frightened me worse when I realized I was watching MTV Africa, not MTV US, these pop stars and the ads for Jersey Shore represent America to many people, and they look up to it. That is frightening.

After that, we went to Chang House and hung out with Christine’s friend Earth. Awesome guy, we split a bottle of “Blend” whiskey (Distilled by Red Bull, cheap and not half bad, considering) and attempted to overcome language barriers and had a good laugh doing so. From there, we went to another bar where Earth’s band was playing and found some French guys and Christine’s coworker, Dan, from the UK. We had a great time talking about cultural differences, and I wound up telling the one gentleman from Paris my trick to getting a Parisian to speak English. He had a hearty laugh and admitted he had no doubt it would work.

From there we went to a nightclub where there was a Thai rock band playing. I was exhausted, but it was a lot of fun. It seems a lot of Thai rock is set on a reggae beat, so it’s very, very similar to the ska-punk I grew up with on Long Island, which is very strange but very comforting. Eventually, the band busted into a Thai Punk cover of Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance,’ which was surprisingly good.

Thai covers of American music are actually really huge over here in the touristy areas. Still, they are quite amusing to those who natively speak English. I’ve been told that most (but not all) of the singers don’t understand the words to what they’re singing. It strikes me as believable as if you listen closely, many of the singers will butcher the lyrics but hit the notes, tones, and timing near perfectly. It’s an amazing phenomenon and very entertaining nonetheless. From there, it was time for bed. As a whole, the day turned out to be really enlightening and fun.

Today we’re catching a boat tour around the city and checking outcome old ruins. I can’t wait to take pictures and share them with y’all. Cheers!

Categories
General

Everybody’s Working For The Weekend?

A few days ago Tim Jahn posed an interesting question on his blog.

In short, Tim’s looking to discover why people work, when they do, and do they draw lines between personal and business at certain hours?

I’m pretty sure I can relate to Tim on this question. Like many others of our generation, Tim leads more than one life, with two jobs (his web development business and his excellent video podcast Beyond The Pedway), and he’s about to be a father. With so much going on, it can be hard to figure out where to draw the line. If anywhere.

This is a question I’ve posed to myself lately as well. I’m pretty darn busy these days. Between working for Apple, taking improv classes, working with Long Pork, blogging, assorted photo and video gigs, and trying to stay active in the social networking scene of all these communities so I can live up to the “localcelebrity” moniker, it’s hard to keep it in control. In some regards, my personal life has taken a hit, not to mention my sleep routine.

The thing is though, I’ve never been happier. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m doing the things I love; I’m “working,” being pretty successful at all of it, and barely any of it feels like work. To me, there is no line, if you love what you’re doing, it won’t feel like a chore, and you won’t need to take a break from it all that often.

I love what I’m doing. I love the people I’m meeting in these different communities. I love the skills I am learning and the things I’m creating. This, to me, is what life is about: constant growth and enrichment. Yes, there are some things I need to change and cut out. But, I am confident that if I keep working at it, keep doing the things I love, and if I don’t let anything get in the way, that it’ll all eventually fall into place.

I read once that Steve Jobs looks himself in the mirror every morning and asks if he wants to go to work, and the day he says no are the days he realizes he needs to change something, and he does. That, to me, is the right mentality to have.

If you love what you do, there are no hours, and you won’t mind.

But who am I to say that? I’m just some jerk blogging from a hostel in Thailand and “working” through the vacation of a lifetime.

(and I couldn’t be happier doing so).

Categories
General Travels

Another Day, Another Bus, Another Buddhist – Thailand Part 6

A photograph of a man's hand holding the handlebars of a motorcycle.

We got up this morning, had breakfast, and caught a motorbike taxi to the bus station. We were actually walking there ourselves when we came across an older man who offered us a ride as we walked past his house. He was a funny little man with a great big friendly smile so we couldn’t help but accept his offer.

As we walked up, we saw his back was covered in a large tattoo written In the Thai alphabet, so while it was illegible to me, it was very detailed and very beautiful. Christine informed me that she’d seen the same design before and that it was a spell of protection that the monks do. Sadly, I did not get a picture, but the idea is fascinating to me.

Thailand is one of the most populous Buddhist countries in the world, and it has greatly changed a lot of my outlook on Buddhist culture. I suspect and hope that I may be misinterpreting things, but at first glance, there seems to be a lot of materialism and superstition around it here, which was not at all what I had understood from the beliefs previously. I also, in general, know very little about Thai Buddhism and how it varies from other forms. This is something I plan to research further when I return to having a regular Internet connection.

I have noticed that meat is very popular over here, but beef is almost nonexistent. This fascinates me because my perception was that spiritual Buddhists are often vegetarian. As such, I would have suspected to see a lot less meat as a whole. But the no beef thing, one would guess to be influenced by Hindu beliefs? One thing I’ve seen for sure is a friendly, laid-back culture of lovingkindness here. I definitely need to read more before I go on talking about this. Otherwise, I’m sure to make myself sound ignorant.

We are headed now to Ayutthaya, which used to be the capital of Thailand before Bangkok. We’ll be meeting up with some of Christine’s friends from her job over here (note: I forget if I mentioned this but Christine is over here teaching English as a foreign language). She tells me it’s among her favorite places here. I’m excited all around.

Categories
General Photography Travels

Elephants, Dragons, and Bats (oh my!) – Thailand Part 5

© 2011 John Morrison - subism Blog entry here: subism.com/2010/04/08/elephants-dragons-and-bats-oh-my-thailand-part-5/

What a day.

This morning, we woke up and had breakfast on the river before catching a ride to the elephant ranch. We sat in the back of a truck for the half-hour ride through the countryside. The weather was beautiful, and it was really nice to have the wind in our faces and enjoy the ride. When we got to the ranch, we bought a bag of bananas, were helped onto an elephant, and rode through the hills. The wrangler handed Christine an absurdly pink umbrella to block out the sun as we rode. He lead us down a path to the river where we dismounted, and Christine begrudgingly returned the umbrella. We each got another elephant to ride in the river. The wrangler provided us with some dish soap and a scrub brush to bathe the elephants. They are such amazing creatures. I sat around the back of an elephant’s neck as it pushed its ears back against its body to hold onto my legs as it dunked itself sideways underwater. An incredible life-affirming experience that exemplifies the intelligence of the animal on almost an emotional level.

That whole adventure cost around $25, which was money well spent. From there, we headed back to the hostel, showered, and rested up. While relaxing, we just happened to catch a glimpse of a giant monitor lizard swimming through the river right in front of our place. As I write this, Christine will not stop going on about it and demanded I fit into this entry. To be fair, it was pretty cool (Editor’s Note: that monitor lizard – aka dragon – is the embodiment of awesome!) (Writer’s Note: Christine is never going to be asked to edit my entries again.)

After that, we rented a motorbike and took off on the open road, eventually finding our way to the “Death Railway” and “The Bridge over the River Kwai.” I bought a much-needed pair of sunglasses, and we proceeded to get lost until we found a passage over the river we could take on the bike (the “bridge over the River Kwai” is train or foot only, no vehicles allowed.)

We spent some time getting lost, asking directions, and having a good laugh before we stumbled onto a bridge and eventually made our way to the Khao Pun Caves and the Buddhist temple built in and around them. It was quite possibly the most peaceful experience I’ve had here, which is saying a lot. The caverns went deep underground, and we stumbled onto a massive amount of bats lurking up above us and proceeded very carefully as not to disturb them. Despite our efforts, one or two still took flight here and there, giving us a mild spook.

The place was filled with an astonishing amount of Buddha statues stashed throughout the caverns, and many of the passages got absurdly tight and short, causing my lanky self to have to duck often. We were both very thankful for not being much larger in size. It reminded me of the scenes from “In Bruges” where Colin Farrell’s character is heckling the fat American family, telling them they won’t be able to climb to the top of the bell-tower. Fortunately, we’re not that large.

The caverns were beautiful beyond what I can describe, and it was nice to find some naturally cool air here (it has been in the 90’s this week). As we were leaving, a monk set himself up in front of a massive Buddha statue and started to pray. It was an extremely moving thing for me to witness, but I made a conscious effort not to disturb him. After that, we biked back into town for some dinner at the “Tofu Bar Vegetarian Food” restaurant, which thankfully had free WiFi for customers. We watched the sun go down over a few beers, listened to some John Lennon, and caught up on the news. I’ve enjoyed being detached from just about everything aside from Twitter, but it’s good to know what’s going on as well.

Tomorrow we’re heading out to Ayutthaya, Thailand’s old capital, and Nakhon Sawan, a small city where Christine is teaching. As much as I’ve enjoyed the tourist stuff, I’m excited at the possibility of getting into a less touristy area and seeing things a bit more like a local.

As for tonight, back to the bar, we found last night to share a pint with a couple of Belgian girls while listening to our new Thai friend Juan (definitely spelled wrong) play music.

Until tomorrow friends, cheers!

Categories
Travels

State of No Big Deal – Thailand Part 4

A ranch in Kanchanaburi, Thailand.

I received some emails of concern, so I thought I’d address this head-on:

Yesterday a state of emergency was declared in Bangkok due to the ongoing Red Shirt nonviolent political protests. The group is looking to dissolve the parliament and install their leader, who had previously been deposed by the Yellow Shirts a few years back. That is pretty much all I know. While we were there, Bangkok was hustling and bustling with people. Among them were many of the “Red Shirts” who had set up tents with signs and loud blaring speakers. For the most part, they kept to themselves. At the most, they blocked up traffic on their motorbikes.

Either way, we got out of there yesterday. Not because of this situation at all but because we wanted to do other things. I’ll be back in Bangkok on Tuesday briefly to fly out to Tokyo, and neither Christine nor I are concerned. The Red Shirts primarily do this stuff on the weekend to disrupt tourism, hurt the economy, and put pressure on the Thai government. This is not to comment on their messages or the importance of either side’s missions; it is just to say that we are safe, and we don’t expect it to impact Monday as well.

Anyway, we’re having breakfast and then off to see some elephants. More later!