Getting lost

Today has been a lovely day which made up for my anxiety and frustration upon arriving yesterday.

I spent the day allowing myself to get entirely lost (which is a pretty easy feat when 90% of the street signs are in Thai characters, so any possibility of orienting oneself based on street signs and maps is pretty limited!). I walked around, sampled some food, and got lost too many times to count. Luckily, the Old City is fairly small, so every time I got lost I was able to walk straight until I reached the outer walls of the city, and then re-orient myself. Certainly not the most direct route, but hey, it was a great day of exploring!

It did help me to realize, however, just how at home I am in Vietnam, and how familiar I am with Vietnamese culture. Even if I can't speak the language on a conversational level, I can at least read the street signs, read the signs for food (and understand some general words of those foods), say please and thank you, and at least act like I have a general idea of what I'm doing. Here, I feel TOTALLY and completely lost. I can't read any of the signs for food because it's all in Thai script, so I have no idea what I'm eating. I can't read the street signs, and I'm back to ground zero with regards to language. I am still trying to remember how to say "hello" and "thank you" - hopefully by tomorrow the words will finally stick.

This experience of newness and confusion in Thailand just helped me to remember how relative cultural adaptation is. Relative to my two days in Thailand, I am pretty darn adapted to Vietnam, and it has been really helpful for me to gain that realization while here. Hopefully when I return to Vietnam, I'll return with a newfound appreciation and love for the country, as well as a newfound sense of confidence and pride in how much I have learned and how (relatively) independent I am able to be, as opposed to in a country where I am just traveling through.

ANYWAY. In the afternoon, I made my way to the Chiang Mai Women's Correctional Institute. They offer a vocational/rehabilitation program that teaches some of the soon-to-be-released inmates marketable skills such as the art of Thai massage or Thai cooking, so that they can re-enter the workforce. I knew that I wanted to get a Thai massage at least once (or, perhaps every day? Who knows...?) while I'm here, and I figured that this would be the best cause to support, offering a win-win situation to both me and the masseuses. The massage was excellent, and I still feel so loosened-up and relaxed.

This evening I took a Thai cooking class at the Asia Scenic Thai Cooking School. I only mention the name because the class was INCREDIBLE, and the school was so well-organized and well-run, that I would recommend this cooking class to anyone who finds themselves in Chiang Mai. I learned how to prepare pad thai, massaman curry, and tom yum soup. We were taught that Thai people look at spice as sexy, so the more spice you put in your food, the sexier you are. This is good news for me since I already love spicy food! The food that I prepared was quite delicious, if I do say so myself.

While cooking, I met three girls who are backpacking Thailand together, and one of them is a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Turkey. The other two girls are preparing for their two-year stints in the Peace Corps. Naturally, the four of us had plenty to talk about, and it was nice to meet some people so the traveling-alone thing does not feel quite so lonely.

Tomorrow I am going downhill mountain biking in Doi Inthanon National Park, which I hope is not the stupidest decision of my life. As all of you know from my bike trip with Kelly from Da Lat to Mui Ne, it was NOT easy, and parts of it were really freaking scary. Why I decided to subject myself to this terror and pain once again, I am not quite sure. However, the scenery is promised to be beautiful, and I signed up for the beginner bike ride, so hopefully all goes well.

The bike trip is scheduled to return around 4 in the afternoon, which leaves the perfect amount of time before dinner for me to receive another Thai massage. (Hey, they're only about $5 for an hour's massage here! I can swing it!) There is a school for the blind that also offers vocational massage training (apparently the massages at this school are particularly good because the blind students are supposed to have a heightened sense of touch), so I think I will try to go there to get my next one. I figure that I will support as many social/community causes as possible while being pampered, so I'm going to spread my support around for the female prisoners as well as the blind students!

I'm already starting to get incredibly giddy at the thought that in just a COUPLE short days, I will be playing with elephants. While I plan to enjoy this entire trip to Thailand, I expect that the elephants will be the highlight, and I am just so eager to get going and to meet them!

I wish so much that I was typing this from my laptop so that I could upload photos from my day to this blog entry, but sadly, you'll have to use your imagination. When I arrive in Bangkok in a few days and (hopefully!!!) have more reliable Internet, I will upload everything and do a photo-summary post, so you have that to look forward to!

Now I am calling it an early bedtime- going to write in my journal and reflect upon the day while watching another episode of this new History Channel mini-series that I have downloaded and fallen in love with. It's called "Vietnam in HD" and it chronicles the Vietnam War with really impressive home movie footage collected from thousands of people all over the world. I'm one episode in (there are only six, so I'm trying to savor them!), and already I can feel that by watching this series, it will give me more perspective into the crazy relationship that our respective countries had 40 years ago. It will also help me to appreciate just how much Vietnam has grown and re-built after the war, not only with regards to infrastructure and economy, but especially with regards to foreign relations. I am so proud that Vietnam and the US have improved their relationship, and I can only think that my position as a Fulbright ETA is helping to continue to grow these relations.

Anyway, I digress- I'm writing on the hotel's desktop PC, and I feel so unfamiliar keyboard, screen, and browser, that I think it is affecting my organization. Time to go to bed- I have a big day of biking tomorrow!

Goodnight to all!