Browsing Tag

Thailand

Water world

April 17, 2011

Songkran is a funny beast. The Thai new year festival is a celebration of cleansing and rebirth, marked by water throwing.

The tourism bureau would have you believe it is something adorable, like this.

Sprinkle sprinkle.

 

But this is closer to reality.

IN YO FACE!

 

People line the streets with buckets and hoses, armed with water guns. Every passerby is a target, especially the people actively trying to stay dry. It’s loads of fun — as long as you’re the person throwing water. When you’re not, it can be fairly miserable.

This tradition began with the cleansing of the Buddha statues, which are washed in honor of the new year. That water was then captured and used to bless elders and family members. The holiday has evolved into the world’s largest water fight, complete with wet T-shirt contests, shucking buckets of water into open vehicles and surprising strangers with a fistful of ice in the face.

There is no escaping this festival. I spent several hours yesterday tossing buckets at the unfortunate souls who tried to sneak past Hopf Coffee House in Chiang Mai. When I was done for the day, soggier than the last cornflake in a cereal bowl, I headed home on the back of a scooter. That’s when karma took a big chunk out of my ass, and I was stopped at a traffic light for what felt like hours. I was pelted from all sides with warm water, ice water, probably even a beer or two. I also had the pleasure of a garden hose down my pants.

This morning I snuck over to the ATM, where I got treated to a Super Soaker in the back while I was removing cash. As I was paying for a squirt gun and Diet Coke at the 7-11, the employee was packing his own heat — he shot me in the neck with warm moat water. During a coffee run, I was ambushed by a child hiding behind a potted plant. And I was cornered in a dark alley by 40 tiny kids with water balloons.

I seriously haven’t been dry for more than a few hours during the past three days.

While this is the biggest and most popular festival in Thailand, it’s also the most unpopular festival for my camera. I’ve been wrapping my poor little Lumix in plastic bags, sealed inside of Ziplocs, contained inside waterproof bags, and somehow my stuff is still getting wet. (I took a couple videos, but they don’t do Songkran justice.)

So sadly, I don’t have too many images to share. Instead I have to rely on the kindness of friends, like the good folks over at JDMesh, who took this awesome photo … while dumping a bucket of water on my head.

On the plus side, this is the cleanest I’ve been on this whole trip.

 

One of my favorite Songkran moments happened yesterday when some friends and I posed in the street for a seriously waterlogged photo. The guy snapping the picture was taking a long time, and we thought he couldn’t figure out the camera. Turns out he was waiting for the people across the street to run over with buckets. Sneak attack!

D’oh.

 

 

Call of the wild

April 17, 2011

If there’s anything tigers do well, it’s making delicious cornflakes.

They also happen to be champion sleepers, counting sheep and sawing logs for nearly 16 hours a day. And so it was on my visit to Tiger Kingdom in Chiang Mai.

Go get ’em, tiger!

 

The good news is that I’m part cat, so I was able to snooze with them.

Like goose down, but with teeth.

 

He’s a tiger. I’m a cougar. It works.

 

My visit included some time with the big guys.

What’s new, pussycat?

 

The medium tigers.

Easy, tiger.

 

Jungle fever.

 

And the babies.

Five-month old.

 

His favorite movie is “The Lion King.”

 

Along the way, I got closer to tigers than I ever expected. Probably a lot closer than humans should.

This is gonna be hilarious.

 

Don’t try this at home.

 

Tigers just want some finger food.

 

Once again, I am in awe of nature and in love with the beauty that exists in our world.

I almost wore leopard print today. Can you imagine the fashion faux pas?

 

Zzzzz.

 

Gorgeous. And I’m not talking about me.

 

A note about Tiger Kingdom: I was highly skeptical about visiting this place. I’d heard about other tiger parks where the tigers are drugged or abused to the point of total submission for tourists. I did a lot of research before I decided to give Tiger Kingdom my money, including asking the opinion of workers at animal sanctuaries I trust. The unanimous response was that I should go and decide for myself.

After my visit, I am much more comfortable with Tiger Kingdom and what they do. I do not think the tigers are drugged — I was happy to see they were not declawed either — but they are definitely not wild tigers. These animals were born into captivity and are quite used to human interaction. When the tigers are too big (age two), visitors are no longer allowed to get inside the cage.

After the tigers reach adulthood, many of them stay at Tiger Kingdom for conservation studies, though some are sent to zoo programs. I have mixed feelings about this. I realize that done well, zoos can provide incredible educational opportunities about our environment. I also know that there are few options for tigers who have been born into captivity — they obviously cannot be released into the wild. On the other hand, it’s heartbreaking that a majestic creature will spend the entirety of his/her life behind bars.

As much as I enjoyed my visit, I probably would not visit Tiger Kingdom again. While I don’t think the animals are mistreated, I do feel guilty for using them for my personal entertainment. My biggest problem is that I love animals so much, I just want to be close to them — and sometimes I forget how that isn’t the best choice for the creatures I want to protect. Maybe you can be a better person than I was.

It’s a complicated issue, and visiting Tiger Kingdom is a decision that everybody will have to make for themselves. If you are interested in visiting Tiger Kingdom, this fantastic blog post can give you more information about prices and what to expect.

 

Finding my balance

April 16, 2011

I lost my balance in Dahab, Egypt.

Physically, I mean.

I was staying at the amazing El Salam Camp and Yoga Shala. During marathon late-night yoga sessions, in an idyllic setting where night and stars rolled in on the Red Sea waves, I found myself inexplicably toppling over on the mat.

This photo was lovingly ganked from the El Salam website.

 

It was very strange. Even when I can’t do bendy poses, I’ve always been able to hold my own in the balance asanas. Maybe I can’t slip into lotus or touch my toes to my head in scorpion, but I can rock a motherforking tree pose.

Not me doing tree.

 

Shifting my weight to one leg, rooting myself into the ground, gently balancing the sole of the other foot against my inner thigh, keeping my eyes focused straight ahead — I got that.

Except in Dahab. For the first time ever, I couldn’t keep my balance. My leg was unsteady, my posture unstable. I tipped over. I fell. I tried again. My knee shook, my leg wavered. I faltered. I fell.

I’m embarrassed to say that it took me far too long to draw a connection between my physical loss of balance and my emotional one. Because during that time in Dahab, my grandmother passed away, followed a few days later by my mother’s death.

No wonder I couldn’t hold a tree pose. I could barely hold a toothbrush.

Those days were all itchy and unsettled. I slept with my eyes open. I dreamt when I was awake. I was detached, like some kind of alien pretending to be a human. A lot of people offered me love, and I didn’t know how to accept it. Even my body felt lonely, because there was nobody inhabiting it.

Instead of being compassionate with myself, I tried even harder to achieve balance. But as you probably know, the more you try to force something the more elusive it becomes.

I’m in a different place now, both physically and mentally, and a couple pages on the calendar have been torn away. I wouldn’t say my wounds have healed, but they’re slowly getting some scar tissue.

Yesterday I took another yoga class, this time at Wild Rose Yoga in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The instructor told us to focus on the theme of impermanence. He used the Thai new year festival of Songkran as an example — when you’re in the thick of the party and the water-throwing action, you’re giddy, elated, excited. But it’s not long before the fun stops, the wind kicks in, the air gets cold — pretty soon you’re unhappy, grumpy, uncomfortable.

Everything is impermanent.

The way sunrise and sunset effortlessly tumble through each day, so it is with our feelings. Our emotions are fluid. Happiness doesn’t last. Pain and sadness don’t either. They just feel like they do.

At one point in the class, we were all holding chair pose, a squatty posture that kills your glutes in two seconds flat. As everyone groaned and sweated, the instructor reminded us that physical sensations are impermanent too. He said that 10 seconds from now, we’ll forget the burn was ever there at all.

He was right.

My balance is back. I held tree pose for several minutes tonight just to prove it to myself. But now I accept these things are constantly in flux. Maybe I’ll fall over tomorrow. Maybe I’ll get back up the day after that.

This is life — shaky and unstable — and I’m just doing my best to keep up with the flow.

Dakini, the rockinest yoga babe out there.

 

** A special shout-out to all my yoga stars, every teacher and friend I’ve met on the mat along the way. As I travel around the world from class to class, you have all taught me incredibly powerful lessons. Thank you for your insight, your love and your light.

 

Say wat?

April 10, 2011

I spent my first full day in Chiang Mai, Thailand, wandering aimlessly around town on foot, popping into random wats.

Like this.

Big, old wat.

 

And this.

Wooden wat.

 

And this.

Gilded wat.

 

Along the way, I saw a few things I’ve never seen inside temples before. For instance, the tree trunks were covered with nuggets of bumper sticker wisdom.

My ugly mug agrees with this.

 

A TV crew filming in the temple. What made it surreal is that the crew sent the actual praying people out of the temple and brought in some fake ones.

Cut! That prostration needs work.

 

Bottled temple water.

Like Evian, but with enlightenment.

 

A magical coin-operated blessing machine.

My wish was to be big.

 

Another one, but sadder.

This one gave me a blessing. I think. It was in Thai, so who knows?

 

And finally, monk keychains.

You can’t see the cardboard on top of the packaging in this photo, but they all say “Fashion” — because monks are known for their fashion sense.

Collect them all!