The Bulk of it All

As many of you know, I'm about as obsessive/compulsive as you can get without getting a diagnosis. Usually whatever I obsess about has some end in site. If it is an athletic obsession, it usually ends with me blowing out my knee or something equally dramatic. If it's fishing, the end of the season comes sooner or later. Seinfeld only went for 9 seasons and then that one died out, etc.

It is to my chagrin that my obsession with learning Thai has no such quick resolution. I've been enrolled in the university since I got here. 5 days a week, 3 hours a day. On top of that I'm seeing a Thai tutor for an hour before and 2 hours after every class. I then proceed to batter Pui with questions for another 3 or 4 hours. I'm speaking a little better, I can listen a lot better, and my reading/writing is going off. My vocab is probably getting close to 2000 words which is more than I thought I would ever know.
I'm still perplexed by all the special case rules for the reading/writing. I came across the word for 'culture' the other day: wat-tha-na-tham. However the word is spelled as such: watntrrm. After applying all the special rules of what do do with 2 r's, n's followed by t's in the middle of a sentence, etc., you end up 4 syllables where before there was 1!
Also, here is a lame video of me talking Thai with Pui so you have an idea how I sound.

Fingers and Toes

I just read what I wrote about this festival on last year's blog and suffice to say, it hasn't changed a bit. There are still just as many people losing their fingers and toes to all the fireworks. Bangkok has prohibitted all fireworks in the city, so as it would happen the festival is bigger in Chiang Mai than anyplace else.
This year Pui and I decided to celebrate it in the traditional thai fashion by building a Kratong (a little floating candle) and send it down the river. The building of it is actually quite fun; you use misc. parts of a bananna tree and piece it all together with some flowers. Check out the photo album to see the 'making of'.
Getting it to the river however, wasn't quite as much fun. The problem is every other person in Chiang Mai has the same idea. We waded through about a mile and a half of shoulder to shoulder traffic (and people throwing random firecrackers) to even get to the river. Then we walked down this little ramp to the river that is right below the biggest bridge in the city. Having people see how close they can fire a bottle rocket at your head without actually hitting it was more fun than I could handle.
After watching the video from last years festival, I was reminded that it's not all bad. However, I took another video this year that captures some of the stress.

Paying the Bills

So I had this sweet standing desk made for like $50. It's right next to the window of my condo in the high rise, and it's everything I ever wanted in an office space. Last summer I took on a job with Vertical Media running their hosting division. Between that and working with some clients consulting in Jackson, I've got the mix down pretty good. About 4 hours total; 2 morning and 2 in the evening, with my entire days free to do whatever my little heart desires.

The internet connection this year is easily twice as fast as last year. Same phone number, 307-739-8680 and it rings right into my room here. I still think that is pretty wild.
Anyways I'm working on websites like a banshee, so if you have any updates or web work you need done, I'm your guy.

The Return to the Cave Lodge

If you never heard my plug this place the first time I came to Thailand, here it is: If you visit Thailand, the Cave Lodge is the one place you must not miss. The food, culture and activities paint a very representative picture of living in Northern Thailand.


This time I went for about a week with some good friends from Jackson, Nate and Tina. We signed on for a trek where you hike up through the jungle and spend the night with a hill tribe. On they way up the guide points out just about every root, shrub and tree that is used in their day to day lives; from mushrooms used in soups to herbal spices used for pregnant women in steam saunas. During the 7 hour hike we would collect enough food to feed both us and the family we stayed with.


Over the next couple of days I saw some pretty freaky things. A couple of years ago the prime minister of Thailand instituted a program which installed solar panels for every hill tribe villager so they would have electricity. The place we stayed modestly used it for lighting, however at least 2/3 of the huts were using it to run their televisions for 2 hrs a day.


The food we made was probably the hottest thing I've ever put i my mouth. I was torn, because it was also some of the tastiest food I've ever had. Which on a side note, be very, very careful if you ever eat wasabi in this country. I've come very close to booting in public multiple times.

Oh yeah, before I forget here is a video of some villagers getting rice ready for harvest.

The Big Surprise

So for those of you haven't heard of my elaborate plans to surprise my girlfriend, here is the short version. Pui thought I was going to come back to Thailand about a week later than I was. I told her my incorrect return date back in May, so I've had pretty much the entire summer to lay out the deception. The basic idea evolved into having some of my friends in Chiang Mai invite her out for dinner. In a disguise, I would be introduced as their friend from Canada, Jean Paul. The disguise consisted of me growing out my beard, dying it with some pretty nasty dye (which I would end up falling asleep with), and then shaving in a 'hero' design. In addition I had my barber, Jenny Budge, (from back when I had hair) give my favorite wig a haircut to make it believably bad. After a donation of Blu-Blocker sunglasses from my brother and a padded jacket/fat suit, Jean Paul was born.

The average friend thought I would last about 10 seconds before she recognized me. For all those naysayers, I would like to present the video! (all 2 minutes of it)

Moving Back In

If you go back and read my blog from last year, it sounded like I was going to last about a week. This year was the polar opposite. I moved right back in to my apartment from last year. My landlords saved it for me when I proposed a $30/month increase in rent. In addition they stored all my stuff for free. Knowing where all the good restraunts were kept me from any more pig intestine episodes. I picked my old motorcycle at the police station which stored it for the entire summer for free. I had my Thai drivers license already, so that cut out about a weeks worth of red tape.

The First 40 Hours

One of my favorite parts of going to Thailand is the actual 'going'. I love being able to escape the grasp of the Internet for so many hours in a row. Cleaning up your computer's desktop, getting rid of duplicates in your address book, reading through pages and pages of useless gadgets in SkyMall - these are the things reserved for a time in your life when you truly have nothing else to do.

I looked out on my main flight and ended up with a row seat with nobody next to me in the window seat. This allows you to try and contort your body into a lot more positions in the futile attempt to try to sleep for more than 10 minutes at a time (picture laying on my back across both seats, legs straight up in the air against the window).