Innasense or lack thereof

Fulbrighters in Pecs

2006-10-13T20:58:00.000-04:00

Last weekend a group of Fulbrighters descended on sleepy Pecs, so I finally got the full tourist tour that I had been too lazy to undertake on my own.
Me in front of the Zsolnay fountain. The Zsolnays are a famous Pecs family known for their ceramics. They developed the secret bluish-green glaze you see on the fountain's lion heads, with the recipe known only to trustworthy family members.
Locks of love. Those in love scrawl (or engrave) their initials and a date on a lock and attach it to the gate. Their love, I think, is meant to last as long as the lock does. Much to my chagrin, (since I have a lock there myself from 2004), I learned that older locks are regularly removed to make space for newer ones. In my opinion this is a very skeptical statement about the constancy of love.
My first wine tasting, at the Bock cellar in Villany. We started with the white, but Villany is really known for it's reds. Ended up buying three absurdly expensive (for Hungary) bottles of wine when happily drunk afterwards.
View of the rolling Mecsek from the Pecs Tv tower.

Jump into the action

2006-10-13T20:51:00.000-04:00

For those who want a better understanding of the 1956 uprising, check out this absolutely ridiculous "commemorative" action game that lets you participate in the revolution and kick some Soviet ass. "Points by delivering medical supplies, rescuing the wounded, and battling soviet soldiers and the dreaded secret police."

Remembering 1956

2006-10-05T12:06:00.000-04:00

If you don't know that October 23 is the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Revolution, you're clearly not in Hungary. And you can't count.

I spent September 28-29 in Budapest at a conference dedicated to remembering the uprising, where I had the chance to exchange phone numbers with Hungarian spies for the American government who grew up hating Russians. Unfortunately the purpose of the conference seems to have been more commemorative and symbolic rather than investigative, but that's not terribly surprising given that the event was organized by embassies and NGOs dedicated to promoting democracy. The lack of active international support for the Hungarians in 1956 was tactfully side-stepped for most of the conference and some Western panelists even delineated the reasons why America didn't help Hungary fight off the Soviets. The organizers, moreover, made sure to invite 1956 emigres who expressed an undying gratitude to their new homeland. One obnoxious historian or politician turned the podium into a pulpit and preached that the current political and media situation shows that Hungary is no democracy, and if they don't clean up their act there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I've just surprised myself by sounding sceptical in the above description. I guess it takes a certain latency period to form an opinion rather than an impression. I actually found the conference enjoyable; for me the most valuable aspect was meeting experts and fellow researchers (including a poet, who had applied for a Fulbright but didn't get it; that was awkward). And of course spies. Plus the coffee and pastries were very good. And there were some intense emotional moments. Like the time at the beginning of the conference, just before Hungary's president, Laszlo Solyom, gave his welcoming remarks, when some old man stood up from the audience and called on everybody to sing the national anthem. So everyone in the room stood up and sang the national anthem in unison.

On a note related to the conference only because I heard this information there, I just learned that the director Istvan Szabo was an informer for the Soviets. Doesn't that put his films into perspective?

Coffee connection

2006-09-24T18:45:00.000-04:00

There's a rather nasty elevator in the building that houses the International Studies Center; its doors start closing the moment you push the button, and the only way to stop them is to push the button of the floor you're on. On Thursday--during my daily trip to the ISC to find out whether the courses I want to take are offered after all--I once again made the mistake of pushing the ground floor button on my way into the elevator, effectively shutting the doors on the two people behind me. I spun around to correct my error, crashing into the woman directly behind me who, unfortunately, was carrying a cup of coffee. The coffee went everywhere from the woman's dress, to the floor of the elevator and all of my clothes (that cup must have been bottomless). In a state of shock I realized that my limited Hungarian vocabulary included no words for "I'm extremely sorry!" "Boscanat!"--what I usually say to people when I accidentally bump into them on the bus-- didn't seem quite appropriate, so for a while I stared at the woman silently trying to decide which language to use, before finally settling on English. The woman rewarded me with a prolonged Eastern-European-woman-in-her-fifties look of death and marched back out of the elevator. The young guy behind her rode down to the ground floor with me, eyeing the puddle of coffee with disdain and disgust. And I had to make my way across town covered in coffee from head to toe.

More on civil war

2006-09-19T07:24:00.000-04:00

Events in Budapest seem to have escalated during the past week of "civil war," with riots and occasional clashes between police and protesters. The student union has even cancelled their protest on Thursday against the introduction of tuition fees (little sympathy here). Events have similarly escalated in Thailand last week, culminating in a military coup. It appears at first glance that my presence in these countries has instigated political unrest. My parents, however, have a different theory. My mother points out that several months after I left Soviet Union there was a coup in Moscow, which suggests that it is my departure from a country or city that throws the government into turmoil. So it is rather fortunate that I plan on attending a conference in Budapest next week--my presence should calm things down.

Hungarian Politics

2006-09-18T19:07:00.000-04:00

That's the name of a course I'm currently enrolled in. The one where the professor is running for mayor and thus can't hold class until after October 1st. Anyway, we were supposed to have a tour of Fidesz headquarters tomorrow morning (the Hungarian conservative party), but then I read the following line in an e-mail from a Hungarian student in charge of herding Americans to various events associated with the class:

"It sure that tomorrow we cannot go to any candidate, because of the civil war."

Civil war? I assume that Norbi is referring to the Prime Minister's admission in private and in very foul language (Hungarian is very good at that) that his party had screwed up and lied about it. A recording of his speech was somehow leaked to the Hungarian State Radio, naturally causing some unrest and storming of state TV towers, but fortunately the civil war is expected to end in the next couple days, since Norbi's e-mail also suggests that as early as Wednesday party headquarters will be ready to accept visitors.

Paprika

2006-09-17T16:12:00.000-04:00

I have inadvertantly come into the possession of 5 hot peppers. Things I learned in the process:

1. erős does not mean sweet; édes means sweet
2. Hot peppers become significantly less spicy when cooked
3. But after cooking them your hands will burn for a looooong time

Things I have yet to figure out

1. How do you make your hands stop burning after cooking hot peppers?
2. Why do "sweet" and "spicy" sound so similar in Hungarian?

This land is my land

2006-09-12T14:16:00.000-04:00

Hungary is a land of procrastinators. The semester officially started yesterday, but many professors are still trying to come up with a syllabus or even a schedule for their courses, some professors are out of the office until tomorrow or next week, and some decided at the last moment to take their sabbatical this semester. Sigh. But I guess that means I fit right in:)

On the other hand, Hungary is not a land of tea drinkers. I have spent a good part of the past week (the times when I wasn't reading Wheel of Time or trying to contact my professors) looking for a tea pot...with no success. I may end up spending absurd amounts of money on a Zsolnay teapot (the Zsolnay family is famous for their glaze--it's recipe is a well-guarded family secret), which means I will end up with two fancy teapots in my possession.

Magyarorszagon!

2006-09-12T14:10:00.000-04:00

It appears that since my last post I have traveled ¾ around the world, crossing both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on my way to Hungary--we have a lot of catching up to do! I’m currently in Pecs, a typical Central European town of 150,000 in the south of the country with plenty of pedestrian zones, designer stores (why is it that there’s a Mango store in the smallest European town, while in the States even Boston doesn’t have one?) fruit and vegetable markets, crumbling Soviet bloc apartment buildings, and bureaucratic quirks that make you sigh in desperation. Every country has its own special way of making simple things incredibly complicated; it seems that someone in Hungary decided that buying a cell phone was unnecessarily easy. After all wouldn’t it be ridiculous if anyone could go into a T-Mobile store, buy a cell phone in 15 minutes, and not even give the store their mother’s maiden name? Apparently the telephone companies noticed that cell phone speculation turned in a tidy profit and decided to prevent these clever entrepreneurs from buying too many cell phones. Now foreigners cannot purchase a cell phone without registering their residence with the local authorities. If you show up with a Hungarian friend, however, they will sell you a cell phone in your friend’s name, unless he has already bought more than one cell phone in the past 6 months. Fortunately for me I had already purchased my cell phone in Thailand (where the process is a lot simpler), so all I needed was a SIM card. After much deliberation the T-Mobile store agreed to sell me one even though my address wasn’t registered, but they did copy down all the information in my passport (even clarifying where exactly in Russia I was born since my passport doesn’t give the city), and after asking for my mother’s full maiden name made me sign 6 different sheets of paper (only Szent Istvan knows what they said!). So just an hour after first going into the store I had a Hungarian cell phone number! And the people at the International Studies Center told me I shouldn’t even try it without a Hungarian!

But please don’t judge Hungary too harshly; America may have less bureaucracy, but it takes the people at Radio Shack in Watertown at least an hour to upgrade phone plans anyway. Also, any country with food this good should be allowed a few flaws.

Not a lonely planet for everyone!

2006-07-27T08:53:00.000-04:00

I apologize for my long silence--I've gotten caught up in catching up on research and making sure I make it to Laos next week. Speaking of research, there comes a point in everyone’s life when they must acknowledge that someone else is better than them. For a Let’s Go RW it’s a difficult and painful acknowledgement when the person in question is their Lonely Planet counterpart and nemesis. Don’t get me wrong, though staunchly loyal to Let’s Go, I’ve never actually had anything against Lonely Planet books and I’ve never before experienced any inkling of emotion towards a specific writer. But over the past month I’ve come to resent the Lonely Planet Northern Thailand researcher. For no other reason than that he’s better than me.

And I don’t mean better in general. That’s a completely different question, and one that I can’t settle without actually meeting him. I suspect that I’m probably younger, more attractive, and hold a degree from a more prestigious university, but as far as my research is concerned, I always feel slightly inadequate. Let’s begin with the fact that he lives in Chiang Mai. I found that out as I was eating a pleasant dinner with fellow farang at Libra Guesthouse. One of them, a slightly tipsy Englishman, asked me about my job. He seemed very interested, but soon I realized that the interest was merely aggressive skepticism. He asked me to read aloud my research notes. "Why don’t you have a look at them yourself?" I suggested, seeing that everyone else wasn’t as excited to hear my thoughts about restaurants in Tha Ton. "No, I want you to read them to me," he retorted belligerently. I read him a sentence of my marginalia. "How long are you in Chiang Mai for?" he asked. "Two weeks," I lied (I actually only had a week and a half). He nearly jumped, "Two weeks?!" and proceeded to tell me that two weeks wasn’t enough time to research Chiang Mai. (Of course it’s not.) Could we imagine a Lonely Planet researcher only spending two weeks in Chiang Mai?! My Chinese-French neighbor confirmed his suspicions, and told me that the Lonely Planet researcher actually lives in Chiang Mai with his Thai wife (memory is creative; I may have made up the Thai wife) and certainly spent more than two weeks time researching Chiang Mai.

He lives in Chiang Mai?! That must be why their food section is so well researched and organized. I felt the first stab of inadequacy. After that, everywhere I went in Chiang Mai I was following his ghost. Restaurants that we list would proudly advertise that they have been recommended by Lonely Planet for 4 years already, with no mention of Let’s Go. Amazing Sandwich was most impressive, with a list of about 10 guidebooks and maps (some of which I’d never heard of before, meaning they’re too obscure to be sold in the best travel bookstore in Boston) that recommend the restaurant. No mention of Let’s Go. I was tempted to cut them.

The final blow came the other day in Pai. I was checking out a tourist police box, the most useless and least English speaking tourist-geared office in any town (actually, I take that back; in Mae Hong Son, right in front of the official tourist information office, is the "tourist volunteer center" a 24-hr tourist information booth staffed by a guy who couldn’t answer my question, "what do you do?" and didn’t have enough English to give me directions to the post office; but he did give me a completely useless maps identical to the one distributed of the official tourist office; and then I signed the guest book), and in this marginal, isolated booth, I heard from the police officer that the researcher for Lonely Planet had been there last year. And that he speaks Thai.

He speaks Thai?! I might as well give up now. If I could speak Thai I wouldn’t have to spend half an hour trying to find out when the pharmacy opens! People would never have to pore over my Lonely Planet phrasebook deciphering the miniscule Thai characters, and thinking that I was asking them when the sun rises. I would breeze from shop to shop from office to office and gather accurate, comprehensive information. And I would be in no hurry, since I would live in Chiang Mai, and my Thai wife might even accompany me and help me out with my research.

But alas, I’m merely a Let’s Go researcher, forced to gather accurate, comprehensive information at the record speed of three towns in three days. And I guess I better go do that now.

PS. Case in point: I was on a bus to Phitsanulok, sitting just behind a group of middle-aged Americans. Their guidebook looked pleasantly familiar. "You’re using Let’s Go?" I asked. "Yeah, we’ve misplaced our good one," they answered. Fortunately they got off the bus before they had a chance to ask me why I on earth I would lug a computer around with me on a trip to Thailand.

Monk Chats and Russian Connections

2006-07-07T07:16:00.000-04:00

Today, I took part in a monk chat which is exactly what it sounds like--sitting across the table from a monk and chatting. Both sides get to ask questions and satisfy their curiosity: I, for my part, finally figured out the difference between chedi, pagoda, and stupa (I won't bore you), as well as the reasoning behind Thai years--they start counting from the year after Buddha's death. That makes this year 2549 in Thailand. Apparently in Myanmar and Sri Lanka the count starts from the last year of Buddha's life, so it's 2550 B.E. (Buddhist Era) across the border. In turn, the monk asked me what A.D. stood for in our Western years. Then, finding out that I was Russian, he demanded to know some phrases in my native tongue, which he proceeded to pronounce almost perfectly. Moreover, as he asked me to repeat the phrases, I saw that he was correcting my approximate rendition of Russian in latinitsa with....IPA!!! Apparently he knows IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet, for the uninitiated). Apparently, he is also familiar with Webster's system of transcription, which is different from IPA. At the end of our conversation I was very surprised just by how pleasant the chat had been, especially because I was reluctant to participate at first, practically forced into it by a random Hungarian I met at the wat.

Russian knowledge came in handy yesterday as well. I was walking down the street, minding my own business, when a tuk-tuk driver ran up to me, frantically waving a 100-baht banknote. I must admit, I'm rather wary of tuk-tuk drivers; all of my prior interactions with them have consisted of me being overcharged, so I immediately recoiled and indicated with pidgin sign language that I have no need of a tuk-tuk. But then I realized that this driver wasn't holding 100-bahts in his hands, he was holding 100 rubles, which does look surprisingly like a 100-baht banknote. The driver was simply asking me to identify the origin of the mysterious bill in his hands. After I explained that the money was from Russia, he started complaining that the bank had refused to exchange it for him, and I reassured him as much as I could that the money was actually worth a little over 100-baht. He seemed rather distraught about the whole thing, but was pleased to know where the bill came from (at least it's not Monopoly money) Unfortunately his English wasn't good enough for me to find out how the 100-rubles made it into his hands, but I suppose it was some хитрый Russian hoping that the not-so-хитрый tuk-tuk driver wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the bills. I bet the driver had thought he was pretty clever himself, charging the foreigners 100-baht for a lift around the corner, and now he's stuck with 100 rubles. But then again, it's actually worth more than 100-baht...

Master Chef

2006-07-04T05:31:00.000-04:00

Well, maybe not yet, but I do know how to prepare anything you may want to order in a Thai restaurant: green curry, pad thai, spring rolls, tom yum gun, sweet and sour chicken, and mango sticky rice. The class was taught by a woman who spoke fluent pidgin English--I always knew what she was saying and she even inserted jokes into her speech "sit down your big ass" or "take baby weapon" (referring to a small spoon for the mango rice), but there were no tenses, inflections, or function words in her speech. Unfortunately, I also had to eat all of those dishes in a span of three hours, so the last thing on my mind is the hot dog barbeque at the US consulate where I'm headed now.

Welcome to Chiang Mai

2006-07-03T07:54:00.000-04:00

Yesterday night I got into Chiang Mai and am still recovering from the culture shock of Western civilization. The hot showers, English signs, and Asian-to-Caucasian ratio suggested that I was in California, further supported as I passed a Starbucks, a Doner Kebab stand, and a Tapas Bar within 5 minutes of leaving my guesthouse. After indulging in a meal at a local Japanese restaurant, however, I was reminded that I'm actually in Thailand, where the only good ethnic food is Thai food. There's nothing quite like being disappointed by sushi. Except for, maybe, being disappointed by your Doner Kebab, so I don't think I'll try one, as tempting as the umlaut over the "o" looks...Speaking of excellent Thai food, I plan on taking a cooking class tomorrow, followed by a party at the American consulate.

A couple more

2006-07-03T07:42:00.000-04:00

Wat Tha Ton again, with some monks in training in the background
Here's a view of Laos (across the river) from my guesthouse in Mae Sai.
This one doesn't need a caption.

Teepee Bar in Chiang Khong

Some photos

2006-07-02T12:43:00.000-04:00

This is me at the Golden Triangle, not terribly exciting, but one of the few photos I have of myself.

These are monkeys by the Monkey Cave sitting on top of a wat. Anyone know the species?

Same cave, different monkey.

These are chili peppers drying on top of a roof in Mae Salong. It must be chili pepper drying season here because they were tarpfulls of them all over town.

View from Wat Tha Ton of the Kok River

This is me hiding from the rain at the Doi Phuka national park near Nan, with about 70 wet kilometers to go on my motorbike.

On mosquitoes and being eaten during dinner

2006-07-01T11:12:00.000-04:00

I found a spectacular little restaurant in Chiang Khong today; it's called Green Tree House Restaurant, and it's exactly as you might imagine it--you feel like you're in a tree house eating your meal crosslegged on floor cushions. The food was excellent, and I was just beginning to sip my favorite drink (a watermelon shake) while listening to Thai pop playing at the Saturday night market, when I realized that the mosquitoes around me were rather hungry too. In vain I searched my bag over and over for the 98% DEET I usually keep there. The bloodthirsty bastards weren't particularly interested in the exposed skin of my arms, no, they went straight up my linen pants and started their feast as I sat helplessly twitching on the floor and contorting myself in previously unfamiliar ways, hopelessly trying to scratch my inner thigh in public without seeming inappropriate. Unfortunately the mosquitoes were faster and more agile, and they probably enjoyed their meal much more than I did, though hopefully I squashed at least some of them in my frantic slapping. Fortunately, I was the only person in the restaurant. But still I'm covered in mosquito bites from butt to toe, so if I die of some scary tropical disease, please think kindly of me.

Dungeons and Teepees

2006-06-30T05:48:00.000-04:00

I've run into some interesting people and buildings recently. Yesterday after dinner I met a very friendly older Australian couple (it later turned out that they were my parents' age, but they looked a lot older at the time...I guess it's not surprising) and we went for a walk around town, stopping for some Thai "pancakes" (they have to have stolen them from the French!--they were literally crepes with a sweet filling). It started to pour (ah rainy season) and we ducked under an awning where some locals were drinking beer. We ended up hanging out there for a while talking, and it turned out that the husband, Derryl, is a cop in a rather bad neighborhood (in some Australian city, I don't remember where), while the wife, Gabi, is a prison guard at a maximum security jail and a piano teacher on the side! They both seemed rather cheerful and fun people--Derryl was showing off his tattoos of Thai, Vietnamese, and Australian flags, which made him quite popular with the local crowd. Gabi had tattoos of her children's names and birthdays and a huge dragon across her chest. They plan to retire in Thailand next year, teaching English.

As for buildings, I mainly want to talk about teepees. There was a cool bar in Chiang Rai--called Teepee Bar as you might have guessed--full of French hippies and rabbits (actually just two constantly copulating rabbits who may have been hermaphrodytes judging by their sexual positions; but many more French hippies, mainly male), so I lounged there for a bit on their soft floor pillows rabbit-watching. (Speaking of rabbits I just finished Watership Down:).

In Chiang Khong I had to review a restaurant today called Teepee. Turns out that the restaurant has closed, but in its place now stands an actual teepee, right in the middle of town. It functions as a tiny bar, as well as a home for its owner, who lives on a loft above the bottles of beer. The owner is also apparently a tattoo artist and uses some traditional bamboo technique for his craft. But he is out of town this week, and who did I find lounging practcally naked in the teepee hammock but the French hippie from Teepee bar in Chaing Rai! Apparently he was taking care of the bar until the tattoo artist returns from his trip--he must be very good with teepees.

Take 2

2006-06-28T03:57:00.000-04:00

Today I dressed up as the Romanian flag (blue cardogan, yellow shirt, red pants) and gave motorcycles another chance. I had to go to the Golden Triangle (called gold not because of the glistening Buddha statues, but because of the famous opium trade between the three countries that meet there; as a matter of fact, the golden Buddha was placed there only recently to entertain the multitudes of tourists who realize all too quickly that there is nothing exciting about the town except for the fact that three countries come together in the middle of the river). So I rented a little black Honda Dream, with a broken speedometer and potentially broken gas tank indicator (or perhaps I really was driving on empty the whole time--there were no gas stations on the way, so I just had to hope). The trip was worth it--I learned a whole lot about opium and, surprisingly, tea. Here I'll just relate one Akha legend about the origin of opium, since after careful consideration I decided not to include it in the book. The legend relates that there was once a young beautiful girl, who had 7 suitors, but she could not choose between them (unlcear whether it was because she was so indecisive or because she didn't want to hurt anyone), so she decided to make love to all seven men, even though it would result in her death (again, unclear whether she would die of exhaustion or shame or be killed by her family for bringing dishonor on them). So that's what she did, and then she died, and the poppy flower grew out of her grave, and everyone who tasted the flower wanted more and couldn't get enough. Sounds plausible enough.

Monkeys!!!!!

2006-06-27T03:44:00.000-04:00

As you know, I'm rather fond of primates...I even took a whole course on them so that I would get to look at cute monkey pictures twice a week. And I'd seen monkeys in the zoo (the spider monkeys in the Toronto zoo were particularly memorable), but I'd never seen them in the wild until today, when I visited the Monkey Cave in Mae Sai. Actually, the cave is called Thum Pla, or fish cave, and it does actually have lots of fish, but the monkeys are the real draw. The cave is part of a wat (appropriately called Wat Thum Pla), and these monkeys, hundreds of them, run around the entire complex, climbing to the roof of the temple and looking down at visitors with a superiour air. You can buy bananas and peanuts right in the wat, and feed them to the monkeys, who will take the nuts (ahem, legumes) directly from your hands. The big monkeys always go for the food first (bloodly alpha-males), and the little ones usually stay behind squeaking miserably, until you come up and hand them the banana directly, at which point they grab it and hide, so that the big monkeys can't take it away.

The trip there was an adventure in and of itself, since I enlisted the help of a local bar owner to get there. This guy was born in England (he's Thai) and calls himself Uncle Johnny. I've hung out with him two nights in a row, and he was completely drunk both nights, but swore that he would be sober for our trip. And sober he was, but he drove like a maniac, while I frantically clung to him from the back of his motorbike. He gave me a scary-looking helmet about twice the size of my head, which kept twisting my neck and catching on to my glasses. We passed a number of cars on the way there, so I guess we were going about 100kph, at least. I couldn't tell for sure because his speedometer was conveniently broken...Relax, he said, don't be scared, I'm a good driver. You drive awfully fast, I replied. But safely, he retorted. Safely?! He went the wrong way on the road ON PURPOSE, because it was faster than going to the next place where you could make a U-turn. He offered to drive me to Chiang Saen (where I am now), but I refused as politely as was possible under the circumstances.

As far north as I will go

2006-06-26T07:35:00.000-04:00

Myanmar is just across the river in front of my window. Or across the Friendship Bridge, which is the route you take if you're not smuggling opium.

I am in the northenmost point in Thailand. And I wish I could go further...the heat is unbearable, and the cold showers (both natural and man-made) are not much better. But I did have mangoes for lunch today and mangosteens for breakfast yesterday and curry for dinner and the list goes on, so I shouldn't complain.

Ever since I finished my copybatch in Chiang Rai last week I've been traveling through sleepy towns and villages without internet or a 7-Eleven. Mae Salong was spectacular: one street, mountain views, cheap silver necklaces, Chinese influene=very good tea, and a towering temple on top of a hill. I drove up there with a fellow farang in the middle of the night; I don't think I've ever seen so many stars! And the temple shone mysteriously against the dark sky, lit up by a lightning storm off in the distance. What surprised me most was that this village without internet was a hodge-podge of religions, with a mospque, baptist church, and buddhist temple within 5 minutes of each other.

I was less fond of Tha Ton--a rather dead little village, where the power went out in the whole town as I was checking my e-mail, prompting angry beeping from 20 computers. But apparently the internet cafe, specializing in ADSL and international call services, also sold candles to disgruntled customers in case the first two were unavailable. The tourist office was perpetually closed (the owner is sleeping, I was told by the restaurant owner next door), and the woman who worked at my guesthouse stood over me as I ate my lunch and watched every spoonful that went into my mouth. I assumed that she wanted to make sure I paid, but out of principle I sat there slowly enjoying my tom yum soup (in so much as it was possible with someone breathing down my neck) and didn't pay until I was done.

Speaking of tom yum soup, I have a confession to make. I think I like the stuff they serve at 9 Tastes better than the real thing. Actually, I prefer the tom yum at Penang to the one at 9 Tastes, but in any case, I'm ashamed to say that all my anticipation of the plate-fulls of spicy soup have turned out to be a disappointment.

I've met no other lone female travelers on my way so far, which is somewhat disconcerting, particularly because I've met plenty of older male ex-pats, most of whom are married to young Thai girls. They have been rather pleasant company, both in Chiang Rai (where they played chess while I typed up my copybatch) and here in Mae Sai, where I've been getting free beer from them. I have also met a number of Christian missionaries, but I won't go there:)

Motorcycle Diaries

2006-06-19T09:05:00.000-04:00

I rode a motorbike several days ago. Yes, I, Inna, Nusha, who doesn't like roller coasters or risking my life, rented a red Honda motorbike in Southeast Asia, and rode it for two hours up a steep slope to a national park. On the left side of the road. Fortunately I wasn't alone--a guy from my hostel led the way up the mountain. I must admit I was terrified, though mainly of the cars and other motorbikes that were passing me. I understand now why everyone has a motorbike in this country--it's the only way to escape the heat at midday: pleasant cool wind in your face as you speed down the highway at 60kmp. Unfortunately, motorbikes aren't as useful for escaping the rain. Just as we got to the top the park office it started to drizzle. I had come to Thailand expecting daily tropical storms, but I hadn't seen one yet and I had been lulled into a comfortable sunny existence, or rather an uncomfortable, sweaty, but nevertheless sunny existence. But it started to drizzle, then to pour. We hid in a wooden gazebo along the road and tried to wait it out. When the tropical storm turned back into a drizzle we started back. After 5 minutes, I noticed that I didn't have my sunglasses (I didn't have a visor, so the rain was hitting me directly in the eyes.) "I don't want to go back" I whined, thinking of the slippery road. Steve offered to go back and get them...he came back 20min later with a battle wound--he'd fallen off his bike into a ditch, but he never found my sunglasses. The drizzle soon changed back into a shower, and we rode all the way back to town, all the 60 km, under the rain. The cool wind was no longer pleasant. In fact, it was the first time I was cold in this country. I was freezing. But we made it back! And, man, do I feel tough now:)

Another Resurrection

2006-06-19T08:39:00.000-04:00

This time of my blog.

I don't quite know where to start with my notes on Thailand...I have several "themes" I wanted to address, and I'll break down my thoughts into smaller entries so that it's easier to read.

Right now I'm in Chiang Rai, a medium-sized and popular city in the north of the country. The first two towns I visited, however, were positively tiny, and people there see very few tourists especially in this time of year (i.e. rainy season). Children point at me in the street, yelling "hello!" One adorable five-year-old on the back of a motorbike (who puts their child on the back of a motorbike?!) pointed at me and cried: "farang!" meaning foreigner. The parent was probably embarassed, but I thought it was pretty cute. Older children try to start conversations with me: they ask me my name, where I am going, and how I'm doing, in no particular order.

Actually, adults are rather psyched about talking to me as well, though the conversation ends with "hello!"--the only English many of them know. As I was walking towards a hill tribe store I had to visit in Nan, I stopped at a bike shop to ask for directions. It turned out I had at least a kilometer of walking to do under the burning sun. I was about to turn back, when one of the guys offered me a lift. Trusting my instinct (or perhaps ignoring it) I got on the back of his motorcycle. The guy was very pleased with himself--a farang female on his bike!--he kept honking his horn so that all his friends at neighboring bike shops and gas stations would notice.

Earlier that day, a woman slowed down her bike next to me and introduced herself in halting English as an English teacher. "I'm on my way to [important wat whose name I forgot 2km outside the city]. Come with me." Here, I listened to my instinct, remembering signs next to the empty, harmless, and unconvincing tourist police office: "If someone offers to take you to a jewelry shop, please say no!" and "If someone offers you free food and drink, please say no!" So I turned down her offer, explaining that I have no time (which I didn't, running around like crazy to check out every establishment in town). "You don't trust me," she said, "let me read sentence from your book to prove I'm English teacher." Giving her the benefit of the doubt, I asked her where the Easy Internet was. She didn't know, "but come with me!" she insisted. Not this time.

Воистину

2006-04-23T17:18:00.000-04:00

It was a grey and miserable Easter weekend. The temperature dropped to 40 degrees, the winds rose to 10mph, and raindrops punctuated our Easter greetings. Some say that we should have celebrated Easter last weekend along with everyone else, but part of the charm of Russian Orthodoxy is the look people give you when you tell them you're busy on January 7 because of a family Christmas dinner. Also, our Easter never occurs before Passover, which, by all accounts, is more consistent with the Bible.

On Easter I always feel like I am part of a secret cult performing mysterious and slightly illegal rituals, and I imagine that anyone who happens to drive by a Russian Orthodox church at night and see a procession of people with candles accompanied by bells and Byzantine chanting must be full of curiousity and envy. Maybe I am mistaken.

The Church and I go way back (I was a Christmas bunny in one of the first official Christmas celebrations in Moscow; yes, a Christmas bunny: I wore a big fluffy bunny suit and hopped around the stage of some important Moscow auditorium with hundreds of captivated people in the audience), but nowadays I don't make it to service more than twice a year, and every time I go back I notice how disconnected I've become from this place that felt so comfortable 8 years ago. I spent most of the service watching little balls of wax be devoured by flames while pondering these deep questions of faith and religion and making peace with things I said when I got drunk at Bridget's earlier that day.

The Easter service is an awkward one. Since it only happens once a year, no one quite knows what's going on--priests hurriedly whisper to each other trying to remember how to perform a certain aspect of the intricate ritual, the chorus mumbles most of its lines, only singing the "theme song" in unison, and certain privileged church members rush around yelling at everyone to go outside or come back in or move forward or make way for the chorus. The end of the service is probably the most awkward part of the whole night. Every single church member must go up to every priest and perform the traditional Easter greeting: "Christ is risen! Truly is risen!" followed by three kisses on the cheek. Except it's really disconcerting when you're kissing a 70-year-old man you hardly know, who doesn't want to kiss you either, so you end up kissing the air around each other's head. This part is necessary if one wants to receive a red painted egg blessed with holy water, and since our own eggs turned out a brownish-grayish-disgusting color this year, my mother, brother, and I did the rounds and returned home triumphantly bearing/eating our gifts.

Betting game

2006-03-16T00:49:00.000-05:00

Let's play a game: let's guess whether I make it to class tomorrow. This is the class that I have missed two weeks in a row, simply because of my inability--exclusively on Thursday--to wake up at the trumpeting of two alarm clocks. This is also the class where I've almost failed two pop quizzes. And the class where we discussed synaesthesia (from previous post). The TF is completely crazy and awesome: apart from her colorful auditory skills, she speaks Esperanto, is married to a linguist, and told me that my thesis was far more important than systems neuroscience. But I'm getting side tracked, we were talking about a betting game, the betting game of the week in my opinion...soooo.....I'll be optimistic and bet on "yes".

Crazy

2006-03-14T19:19:00.000-05:00

We discussed ferrets in class today; in particular, ferrets whose brains had been rewired so that the visual input from their retina was sent to their auditory cortex. Basically these ferrets processed sound and vision in the same area of their brain...crazy, isn't it?

This brought about an even crazier discussion of synaesthesia in humans. My TF was saying that color-auditory or color-letter synaesthesia were a lot more common than one would think. She told us we probably knew a couple synaesthetes but weren't aware of it. Then it came out that she herself was a color-auditory synaesthete, and E-sharp (or flat) for her was a yellow-green. She said it helped when tuning her french horn.

Upon recounting this story to Alex, I found out that my roommate is actually a color-letter synaesthete, and the letter q is "bluish-greenish-grayish-purplish." She promises it makes sense. Apparently, her mother and brother are both synaesthetes as well, so my TF was completely right in suspecting that I knew infinitely more synaesthetes than I thought I did. I certainly I wish my alphabet had colors...

Yes, I know.

2006-03-10T02:44:00.000-05:00

I apologize for the lame state of this blog for the time being. I promise that as soon as I have a subject to talk about that's more exciting (for the general public) than a non-Nominative one, I will be sure to post a new blog entry.

A long way to Aristotle

2006-01-30T21:12:00.000-05:00

A tenth-century Chinese Encyclopedia gives the following classification of the world's animals:

1. Those belonging to the Emperor
2. Embalmed
3. Tame
4. Suckling Pigs
5. Sirens
6. Fabulous
7. Stray Dogs
8. Included in the Present Classification
9. Frenzied
10. Innumerable
11. Drawn with a Very Fine Camel Brush
12. Et Cetera
13. Having Just Broken the Water Pitcher
14. That from a Long Way Off Look Like Flies

Studying to O-Zone

2006-01-30T16:39:00.000-05:00

"Music is extremely useful, as I have come to realize. Especially when you have to get things done in my house, where my bedroom doubles as my father's office, and my father talks to himself while he works." This is what I thought before I realized that my father was actually speaking to me, and I've been ignoring him for five minutes.

A tribute to Chekhov

2006-01-30T01:14:00.000-05:00

Chekhov was a genius. Perhaps I'm biased, since I just spent weeks cramming for the one-question True-and-False exam at the end of my Chekhov class, but you will agree when you find out that he came up with Catch 22 half a century before Joseph Heller did. In one of Chekhov's early stories, 'Cвадьба'--not to be confused with 'Женитьба'--a man wants a doctor's certificate confirming that he is insane, in order to avoid marrying a certain girl, but the doctor replies that he can certify the man's insanity only when he actually wants to get married. I was impressed.

Since this is my first blog entry (the test entry doesn't count) I suppose I should explain why I'm keeping a blog at all. But since I'm in a Chekhovian mood, you'll have to bear with me as I revert back to the nineteenth century in a 2am fit of silliness. You should keep in mind that I generally prefer googletalk to the telegraph, and K* isn't really a gentleman. At least not in the way Chekhov would have used the word.

I was once "acquainted" with a certain gentleman K*. It so happened that one day I found myslef in the urban metropolis of M*, while the gentleman of my "acquaintance" remained in another urban metropolis on the opposite side of the lake. One evening, unable to express the depth and intensity of my affection for said gentleman over the telegraph, and groping for a concise way to uncover the feelings in my soul, I told him that he was my blog. (They were charging me by the letter after all, and "my love" has most certainly been overused by dull and unimaginative letter-writers) Struck by my words, he said it was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him. But he was being sarcastic.

And so I started thinking--perhaps it really is unnatural to force the role of both boyfriend and blog onto one person, perhaps I should keep K* as my boyfriend, and leave the role of blog to, well, this blog.

TECT

2006-01-26T23:47:00.000-05:00

-KTO TAM?
-NHHA