All Good Things Come to an End

So Thailand has come and gone. Thailand was heavenly, everything was so friendly, cheap, easy and cheap. Alas all good things must come to an end, but I am fortunate enough to have another good thing beginning in India!

Ok so to wrap up Thailand. Just as I was feeling a little ready to stop traveling alone, I was bombarded with wonderful company. The night I last updated my blog, one of the owners of the guesthouse was having his birthday. They invited me to join them for "Thai Barbecue," which is a cross between hot pot and grilling. An open donut shaped metal pot is placed on top of coals where soup and vegetables are boiled, and then in the middle is a mound with slits for grilling meats. When the meats were done we dipped them in some tasty chili sauces. Around this birthday celebration I got to meet some other fellow travelers from Russia and some nice locals as well. As I was going to put something back in my room, I overheard in Chinese a plan to go to Doi Suthep. I turned around and saw a group of Chinese women making a plan for the next day to do a variety of things. I sorta just jumped in and asked if I could join, they were excited at my Chinese and readily agreed. They were even nice enough to leave in the afternoon instead of the morning so that I could go to my massage. Who knew Chinese would be helpful in Thailand? Later that evening I met with Aleela (the woman in the market who showed me to the masseuse) and got introduced to a whole crowd of people she was sitting with.

The next morning I went back to my mysterious massage lady who worked on me for another full 2 hours. Then in the afternoon I joined with the Chinese women and we piled into a truck up a long and windy road into the jungle and up the mountain. Our first stop was this really gorgeous Wat. It was right by a waterfall and in the jungle, filled with all kinds of statues, paintings, and Buddhas. There were two statues at the entrance that particularly struck me--they had the broad bodies of lions and the torso and heads of beautiful Thai dancers, the looked like they were straight out of the "The Never Ending Story." Next we went to the King's Winter palace, which was really quite underwhelming. The rose garden wasn't in bloom, and most of the picturesque scenes were covered up for gardening or construction purposes. I found myself really enjoying these sweet Chinese women, and in the interesting position of being able to half understand everyone. I could half understand the Chinese, and half understand the Thai broken English. As a result, I ended up doing some haphazard translation for both sides, mostly just translating the heavy Thai accented English, into less accented English with a few Chinese words thrown in for clarification. It was quite funny, and I was actually impressed I was able to decipher and translate words like "car sick" and "catch a cold" and explain in Chinese why one woman had to rent some clothes to be respectful.

We were going to go to a hill village, but most of the women were really car sick, so we just went to Doi Suthep. Ah, finally Soi Suthep, much more what I was expecting. A beautiful golden temple surrounded by beautiful Buddhas and offerings. It was also under construction, but still glistened in the sunlight. After a long day of being touristy, we came home.

The next and last day in Thailand I decided just to indulge in all my favorite things I had found over the week. I ate my favorite foods, got one last massage (though I admit that it wasn't as good as my mystery lady), and ended the day with mango sticky rice. I was pretty proud of my budgeting. I literally did everything I reasonably wanted to do and had just enough for the airport.

That evening I went to the airport, and like last time was stuck outside of security because I arrived in Bangkok after the Air India check-in had closed. I had a rather uncomfortable and cold sleepless night, and finally when it cam time to check in, my flight got delayed by about 3 hours. However Air India was nice enough to give us breakfast vouchers, so I got to wander around the airport for some coffee.

Eventually I finally arrived in India! Seina picked me up from the airport and we went to her home after running some last minute Diwali gifts. I am in this really interesting place in my life right now where I feel like I can come home to so many different places. New York, New Mexico, California, Minnesota, and now India as well. The dusty smell, the half hindi half English, the intensely sweet smell from the constant incense all feels so comforting to me. I think a lot of it is that people almost assume I am from here. A standard question while I am here is "are you Indian?" not "where are you from?'

I passed out pretty soon after dinner (delicious calamari, prawns, sea bass, and pork chop). We woke up this morning early to go to our first Diwali puja at a house that Seina's family is building. For those unfamiliar with Diwali, it is India's huge winter time celebration. It celebrates the return of Rama, Laskman and Sita from defeating the ten headed demon Ravana as told in the classic epic, The Ramayana. Though I learned today that Diwali also is related to Lakshmi, which in turn means that things like gambling is also seen as very auspicious today. The puja (ceremony) was lovely, and Seina's family was very sweet in including me in all the rituals. Then throughout the day we did 4 more pujas. I got to change into my Sari, and I always love wearing saris. Seina and her mom told me we will go out to buy me another one for the wedding, which I am quite excited about. By the end, we were all quite exhausted.

After dinner Seina and I left the smoke filled house from incense to join the festive war zone outside in setting off the huge sack full of fireworks she bought. All around were loud pop and cracks followed by festive lights and smoke. Apparently after today all the mosquitoes die from suffocation of the smoke, while I am kinda craving some fresh air right now and relief from my headache, I won't complain too much if it gets rid of all those pests.

So that is where I am now! Seina and I will be do some planning tomorrow for our travels. Pictures are coming soon I promise!