Have you hugged your elephant today?

Warning: there are a lot of pictures in this post, so you might want to go get a cup of coffee while it's loading.

It looks like I'm doomed to be at least a country behind in my blog for a little while, since I'm sitting in the airport waiting to go to Cambodia from Malaysia and just now writing about Thailand, but when I'm having this much fun, it's tough to find the time to edit photos and sit in front of a computer. But I had better start getting caught up, because Thailand was a whirlwind and it's already getting a little blurry around the edges.

I was lucky enough to be joined by a couple of friends from DC, Erin and Jason, in Thailand and we had a blast jumping between three cities, zipping around on scooters, and eating a lot of very spicy food. 

Nothing says "Welcome to Bangkok" like a 4 foot long monitor lizard, eating garbage out of a downtown canal.

We flew Nok Air, or as I started calling it "the Chicken Plane", to Chiang Mai.
It's like flying a real-world version of Angry Birds, except where nothing crashes.

Those lazy tuk-tuk drivers, always sleeping on the job.

Doorway guardian at the Royal Palace

We kicked off in Bangkok, which to be honest I wasn't expecting much from, but it turned out that it has a lot of character and I enjoyed it quite a bit. There's amazing shopping at the street markets (it really pained me not to be able to take advantage of some of the bargains), an awesome Chinatown, and some really interesting historical sights. Plus, you have to give credit to any city with over 6,000 restaurants reviewed on TripAdvisor - that's my kind of town! We spent most of a day looking at the Royal Palace, checked out a couple of temples, took the obligatory long-tail boat ride, and I made friends with our waitress at a waterfront dive bar (see picture below) after she took my wallet out of my hands, laid out all my money on the table, and showed me how I should be carrying my money to hide it from thieves. You know, all the standard tourist things.

Making friends in Bangkok

Fried Chicken Knobbly Knees??! What is that? And who would order those?!

Uhhh, me, of course! Near as I could tell, they were in fact, fried chicken knees. Not a culinary experience I would recommend.

After about 3 days in Bangkok, it was time to head for the real highlight of the trip, Chiang Mai, but not the city itself, just one incredible day at the Elephant Nature Park. The sanctuary has almost 40 elephants that they've bought/rescued from various begging jobs, forced breeding programs, or unhealthy and cruel work they were being forced to do. Once the elephants come to the sanctuary though, they are rehabilitated and re-socialized with other elephants, and their lives become primarily occupied with doing whatever they want to do, and having the daily batch of tourists come and cater to their every whim. We fed elephants, learned about their habits and past lives, washed and scrubbed elephants, massaged elephants, and pretty much did whatever they seemed to enjoy for about 7 hours, with a break for a delicious lunch. It seems to be a pretty good life for the elephants in a country that doesn't have enough wild space to release them in, and a lot of fun for the tourists.

Just a guy, taking his elephants for a walk.

One of the blind elephants at the sanctuary. She has an elephant friend who leads her around.

You just knew there had to be an unbelievably cute baby elephant, right?

Of course there was!

Our interactions with the elephants, by the way, were loosely supervised by trainers, but elephants are really big, and I definitely had the impression that if one of the elephants had taken a disliking to one of us, there wouldn't have been much anyone could have done before serious injuries would happen. On a related note, it's truly amazing how quiet elephants can be walking around, and once you have an elephant or two sneak up behind you and grab food out of your hand, you don't forget to pay serious attention all around. My way of coping with all of this was to stay on their good sides (literally in some cases, since many were blinded in one eye), and do whatever the trainers told me they liked, up to and including attempting Thai massage on a grandmother elephant. It's a unique experience I think everyone should try. 

Gotta scrub the undercarriage too.

Good thing they aren't shy...that's a lot of attention.

More baby elephant photos!

After leaving Chiang Mai, we flew to Ao Nang on the western coast for some beach bumming. This area is pretty touristy, but it's also easy to see why: white beaches, towering limestone cliffs, and rainforests all in the same area means everyone can find something they like to do. In our case, that was kayaking, renting scooters, and drinking. Please note that we were not drinking while doing the first two, but you could be forgiven for thinking so if you had seen us flip the kayak twice (once unintentionally, at least for Jason), and me crashing my scooter while pulling out of a parking lot. The scooter and I both only suffered minor scraping, although my glasses were run over by a passing car, which means I got to go shopping for new glasses in Malaysia - only $150 for new prescription lens and designer frames! I might have to come back to SE Asia every year with a couple of empty suitcases and just go wild shopping for clothes and new glasses.

Limestone islands and cliff of the Thai coast

Kayaking near Railay Beach

Lovely Thailand

Sadly, Erin and Jason had to head back to the States all too soon, leaving me to catch a bus for Penang, Malaysia. On a side note, it's funny how my tolerances have changed on this trip; previously I would have considered a three hour drive to be a long trip, but now a seven or eight hour bus ride is average, and only when do train or bus rides get into double digits do I have to brace myself. And I won't even get into how far my standards have fallen in lodging; I would have thought hot water for showers was essential for me, but lately it's just "a bonus feature." Next up, Malaysia! ...and Cambodia! ...and Indonesia!!

Out to sea

Sunset in Ao Nang

Panorama of Railay Beach

Happy Monday morning, and an early Happy Thanksgiving

Since it's soon to be Monday morning in the States, and also Thanksgiving week, I want to share a short story for my friends who are about to be making their way to cubicle-land this morning. The point of this story isn't to rub in the fact that I've taken a break from work, but it's to remind everyone how much worse work life can be, as well as how much better you can choose to make it. Also, a few photos from Thailand, so it isn't just boring text.

The Royal Palace in Bangkok

A row of guardian spirits, all the way around the temple

Some of the mausoleums and temples in the Royal Palace grounds

Occasionally while I've been traveling around this year, when someone asks me what I do for a living or how my job lets me travel this long, I'll tell them that I quit my job to go see the world. This isn't really the case, but it's sometimes easier than explaining "leave without pay" and government benefits, especially when I'm talking with someone with limited English skills. The following is a conversation I had with my driver in India, which I found so interesting I had to write down afterwards.

     Jamil: "What do you do for work?"
     Me: "I quit my job to travel for a year."
     Jamil: "Really? What will you do for money when you go back?"
     Me: "I don't know really. Get a new job I guess."
     Jamil: (pause) "Ah, yes. In America, you can do this."

As someone who has frequently hopped careers, I take it a little for granted that yes, I can get a new job if I want one. So it was a nice reminder from Jamil that isn't the case for everyone, and that there are a lot of people in the world who don't have a lot of choice about what they do to put food on the table. So I wanted to pass along that reminder to my friends this week; maybe work isn't that great all the time, but it could be much worse.... and if it's really that bad, you really can make that change. And along those lines, I'm looking forward to meeting up with my recently-retired parents in Australia!

Happy Thanksgiving!

A very large reclining Buddha. Or as Jason called it, "the lazy Buddha"

A long-tail boat traffic jam, waiting for the canal locks to open for a new batch of tour boats

Aquatic street signs for the canals in Bangkok. Or, a possible vision of New Orleans' suburbs in 30 years. 

Short Eats & Yé Yé

I’m an entire country behind in my blog now, thanks to a great week spent with friends in Thailand and spending the last few days knocked out of action by a cold. Since leaving Maldives, I’ve explored Bangkok, given elephants a bath in Chiang Mai, kayaked in Krabi, endured a 12 hour bus ride across the Malaysian border, and slept through an overnight train ride to Kuala Lumpur (where I am now). I’m sure I’ll catch up eventually, but for the moment, I have one more post from what I’ve been thinking of “My Barefoot Month” volunteering with the whale shark program, as well as my favorite pictures of the sharks themselves.

On the rare occasions when you see them coming head-on, they're all mouth

And even from the side, they're still mostly mouth

Even on the days off, snorkeling was the favorite activity

Sadly, my time in the Maldives with the research program has ended, but it was a fun and rewarding experience that I could easily see turning into a vacation habit. Aside from accomplishing my goal of seeing and swimming with whale sharks (62 encounters in four weeks), I also got to meet some wonderful people from several countries, dip my toes into Maldivian local culture, and re-energize my spirits after three months of constant traveling. The lifestyle on the local islands is slow to the point of being glacial and it made for a very nice change of pace when the only reason I was hurrying was to be in time to see the sun set from the beach. At the same time, my days were still very active and full, thanks to loading and unloading the dhoni (“boat” in Maldivian) and spotting and swimming the sharks, with enough time left over for the occasional nap on the roof. Knowing my urge to keep traveling, I’d probably be climbing the walls after another month, but I left wanting more.

This is how I choose to remember the ferry rides between islands: blue sky, breeze, and rainbow

One interesting and unexpected side effect from my time in the Maldives is that it has really changed my perspective of “resort culture” and cured any desire I might have had to stay in a luxury hotel if I ever come back. Yes, the resorts are beautiful and yes, they will pamper you to an absurd degree, but they are so disconnected from any reality of local culture (reality, in general) that after seeing some of the local islands, I can’t imagine visiting without seeing more of that side. The resorts are like trying to live in a magazine spread, while the local islands are like hanging out with friends around a campfire (which, by the way, we did on the beach, and it was awesome). So, if you ever decide to visit the Maldives, check out some of the local guest houses and see what’s available, at least for a couple of days. They’re likely to be much less expensive, more sincere, and in the end more memorable. In the corner of the Maldives I visited (South Ari Atoll), a fun option would be a guest house or the new hotel in Dhigurah. If I had just come and stayed in one of the resorts, I feel like I would have missed out on so much, not least of which would have been the tasty delights of short eats and Yé Yé.

The old guy on the packet pretty much says it all - "I'm wired!"

As I mentioned in the last post, “short eats” is an absolutely brilliant relative of tea time, usually mid-afternoon, when you can get coffee or tea and a variety of snacks to eat. The best part is that when I first heard the name, it sounded petite and quick to me, like tea and a couple of crackers, but the reality is that it can last an hour or more and provide as much food as you can find room for, in order to provide you with the energy you need to make it to dinner. Both resort staff canteens served short eats -- usually some assorted pastries (left over from the guest breakfast), cornbread fritters, or cake -- but the best days were when we went to the local cafe on Dhigurah and feasted on real espresso and a wide variety of delicious spicy snacks, most of them containing tuna and all of them fried. It really improves the afternoon when you can get out of the sun for a while and eat your way through a few plates of home-cooked snacks, have a coffee, and then finish it off with a little after-meal betel nut. In the Maldives, betel nut is widely available as a palate-cleanser, but it’s not served whole like I’ve seen it in China. Instead, it’s shaved and dried into chips, then wrapped up in a minty leaf with some spices, chewed for a while and then swallowed. This results in less spitting of blood-red juice everywhere, but you do spend a lot more time picking little wood chips out of your teeth for the next couple of hours. To me, the betel nut experience is reminiscent of the Fruit Stripe bubblegum I grew up with; you get an enormous rush of flavor for 15 seconds, then spend a lot of time wondering why you’re still chewing on this flavorless lump.

A munching, crunching school of green parrotfish

"Hello Mr. Moray, how are you today?"

Well, no need to look so grumpy if you're having a bad day

A school of yellow-tailed snappers

Aside from a better class of snacks, the other reason I like the local cafe better is because they have an espresso machine. Real coffee is hard to come by in both the resort and local staff canteens. Instead, they have Nescafé, which I gave up on as totally unsatisfying by Day 3. Luckily, one of the MWSRP staff turned me on to a better substitute to feed my addiction; Yé Yé instant coffee mix. This magical powder claims to be a 3-in-1 blend of instant coffee, milk, and sugar, and I find it delicious, but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s actually coffee -- it tastes like coffee in the same way Jolly Rancher green apple candy tastes like apples. In fact, if you make the mistake of reading the ingredients of a packet of Yé Yé, as I did while drinking my first mug, you’ll notice that coffee is the very last ingredient listed in this “instant coffee mix”, while sugar is the first. Even more puzzling (or entertaining, or disturbing, depending on how you value your health) is the second-to-last ingredient: silicone dioxide. So while the package claims to contain a 3-in-1 mix of coffee, milk, and sugar, a more accurate description would be a 3-in-1 mix of sugar, milk and sand* (*mix may contain traces of coffee) But it’s yummy and cheap and makes you feel like a champion, right up until the sugar rush wears off. I considered buying a bag (they’re sold in bags of 50 packets) to send to my office in DC, thinking if the doses could be managed correctly, productivity could be increased by 1000%.

Fernando keeping watching on the roof while I hide from the sun

Not the best shot, but one of my only ones from below a shark

The MWSRP staff and October volunteers on the way back to the local island

Unfortunately, Yé Yé is indicative of a more serious problem in the Maldives - the diabetes rate is nearly 10%, which puts it about the same as the United States. The traditional diet is mostly a healthy mix of protein and carbs (tuna and rice), and the modern diet isn’t much different, so obesity doesn’t seem to be much of a problem, but the Maldivians seem to love their sugar to an unhealthy degree. Soda, sweet fruit juices, and energy drinks are the only cold beverages available, and every cup of coffee, tea, or cocoa has so many spoonfuls of sugar added that they require several furious minutes of stirring to dissolve. Breakfast tends to be the worst meal of the day, and I’ve seen bowls of cocoa puffs covered in sugar, topped off with a drizzle of honey. Since leaving the Maldives, I’ve noticed that this love of sugar seems to be pretty common in SE Asia as well, and most of the drinks, snacks, and breads are far too sweet for my taste, although the main dishes are very much to my taste - spicy and savory.

So that does it for the Maldives pictures and stories. It was a fantastic month that far exceeded my high expectations, I met a lot of great people and got to swim with a lot of sharks and mantas. Thanks to the MWSRP for the opportunity and I hope to have the chance to do it again someday (maybe even next year if I have any frequent flier miles left).

You can't help being a connoisseur of sunsets in the Maldives

I've been in Bangkok, Thailand for almost two days now, but I can tell my time in the Maldives is going to be on my mind for a while. I've still got at least one more post on my volunteer time chasing whale sharks, but for the moment, I'm just going to post all of the sunset pictures I accumulated in the Maldives. As I thought one evening while I was there, "I think you could spend a lifetime here doing nothing more than watching the sun set day after day and still consider it a life well-lived."