Can Tho floating market, Mekong delta, Vietnam

Fruit, fried insects, lemongrass tea and other local delights

So I was on the airplane headed to meet my parents in Saigon when I broke off a piece of paper from the vomit bag and began jotting down thoughts and instances that have brought a smile to my face, an AHA! moment or a big question mark in my expression.

Not only have I discovered that green papaya salad is my all time favourite food these days, but that my favourite passtime is finding a fruit stall that will sell me a bag of freshly cut pineapple in the evening so I can stick it in the communal fridge at Walai House and have it nice and cold for breakfast the following day! I swear, if eating fresh pineapple every morning for breakfast is not a luxury, I don´t know what is. Fruit vendors are EVERYWHERE...even in the most remote and deserted streets and alleys where you figure these people mustn't earn much of a living... well still, their senseof commerce is pretty well developped so they must have their niche in the neighbourhood and I seem to have become one of the regulars at this one place behind the YMCA and Buddy Internet near Walai. Ever since I tried Guava here (which incidentally tastes a bit of nutmeg or clove or something like that YUMMY!) that has become my afternoon snack.... but get this, you get a back with sugar and chilli to dip the fruit in. It's actually REALLY GOOD! My chilli tolerance is definitely increasing. I've also tried other very tasty local delicacies such as Maracuya (or Liliquoy - spelling? - as they call it in Hawaii), a fruit that on the outside looks like a massive dinosaur egg, only pink and with fish scale looking things.....but then you open it and it's like a white pear with black sesame seeds (this is all imaginative description)....I don't know what it's called. Sapodilla is REALLY good and the lychees and other fruits in the same family like longan and such are also really good. So my breakfasts are becoming very exotic to say the least!

On occasion, in the evenings, I come across what look like mobile hot dog vendor or night-time ice cream cart...only what's for sale is quite a wonderful (and I mean that literally) array of fried insects! I admit curiosity got the best of me a couple of weeks ago so I requested a sample for tasting (I'm not ready yet to spend Baht on full bags of the stuff). So I tried the really small ones that look like a centipede kind of thing only smaller (they looked pretty safe) and actually, didn't taste of much. A bit grainy and mushy. Then the other night, I ventured for what looked like a thinner and crunchier version and actually, they'd fried it in honey so it tasted a bit like crunchy crisps. I enjoyed it. However, I don't think I'll be trying the beetles or the huge insects where the naked eye can actually see the wings as well as other fine details of the face way too clearly. I still have some money in the bank and it doesn't look like I'll be going hungry anytime soon so for the time being, my taste adventures will only go thus far with fried insects.

I've also discovered that lemongrass needs to be boiled to infuse a nice drink. Then mixing it with a little bit of honey and cooling it in the freezer is my favourite style! We were offered one such glass at the nearby celadon factory while we looked at the arts and crafts on display. I do not think I have ever met people as friendly, cordial and genuinely nice as the Thais. I also recently realised that the reason ginger tea here is so strong and slightly spicy "hot" is because contrary to our tea bag culture, here it is made by literally peeling the entire root and boiling it in water! I was served the mug with the whole root in it the other day! THAT was an "aha!" moment. My latest discovery in Vietnam is cold lotus tea....gotta add that one to my list of faves. The ginger, I've decided to have as a dry snack in the afternoons. They sell it in the markets here thinly sliced and coated in sugar. It's yummy, still strong, and very good for my tummy.

I could go on forever..... my little airplane stream of thought exercise delivered front and bag jots on the piece of paper bag but I think I'll write about them slowly but surely on the next blog. In the meantime, I am preparing my next entry about our trip so far in Vietnam, my skinny dipping last night in the resort swimming pool and the visit to the floating market this morning, but more on the next one cause it's late and I gotta wake up at 5 AM tomorrow to catch a flight up to Hanoi. In the meantime and to whet your apppetite, there's some pics of Vietnam hot off the camera today in my shutterfly page.

Love & Ego

Well, before I forget, Happy Holiday's to everyone.

The last few days have been a bit sad because many great friends have parted. I now also understand what is meant by the "cool season" here. Our friendships are so close we have even got cuddling friends for our cold beds at night. I feel like I am back in College. Walai House hosts mostly students of the local massage schools, of which I am one again. After much encouragement from a variety of people who have received "Teba's improvised massage", me and my so called "healing hands" have gone back to school. Thank you Sean for this gift. I guess I have known for a while in my heart that the gift of healing through massage is something I enjoyed giving but I have been actively resisting going to school.... I think I realise that deep down I did have a feel for it and that if I confirmed my suspicions, and proved others and myself right, it would be yet another reasons to reconsider my path in life so far.

Well, it is all true. Now I realise the more I have resisted doing something, the more I needed to pay attention to that feeling...the more I needed to listen to my heart and understand the real reason behind it all. My friend Sean and I went on our motorbikes to the beautiful Doi Inthanon National Park last week. As we drove there, with the wind on our face and nothing but green dense forest and a blue sky before us, I realised how free I am and how much opportunity lies ahead of me. I am in such a special place right now...in my heart and in my spirit. Life is full of possibilities. It's time to stop wondering what I am going to do with my life or what my real calling is. I spend so much time doing that that I forget about the gift of today... the "present" and how each moment is a chance to try something new, to jump in the deep end and experiment with anything I can. Life will unveil itself to me....I shan't keep worrying about what'll happen to me tomorrow, because the truth is I haven't got a clue and the mystery is nice that way. I know every corner I turn will bring some new and amazing experience, some new opportunity to meet another soul, to connect with the energy around me, to experience a new adventure, story.... the best is yet to come and the thought of that brings me peace.

I have been training on professional massage for the past 2 weeks. I am enjoying it now. I don't know what will become of it all, but I know I have yet another door open to me. I have made some truly enriching friendships in the past 3 weeks and I feel that to have allowed Mata, Sean, Shawn, Aun, Yo and Jib into my life is the best gift I could have given myself and they could have given me. Thank you.

And so to finish, here's the latest from Sean...my source of inspiration. It was written by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi:

We are not responding to this instant
if we are judging any aspect of it
The ego looks for what to criticise
This always involves comparing with the past
But love looks upon the world peacefully and accepts

The ego searches for shortcomings and weaknesses
Love watches for any sign of strength
it sees how far each one has come
and not how far one has to go

How simple it is to love
and how exhausting it is always to find fault
for every time we see fault
we think something needs to be done about it
Love knows that nothing is ever needed but more love
It is what we all do with our hearts
that affects others most deeply

It is not the movements of our body
or the words within our mind that transmit love.
We love from heart to heart.

www.teba2.shutterfly.com

This is the web link you can go to to view my latest albums and pictures.

http://www.teba2.shutterfly.com

The password is "teba2" ENJOY!

... captured moments

a place called Pai

SO...I know I haven't written in a while. The truth is I have started to "live" here. Chiang Mai was a place that I was going to visit for 2 weeks. Tomorrow will be my 5th week and this morning I went to the Immigration office to extend my visa. I am not quite sure I can possibly describe what is happening to me out here. I am blessed with what I have and those around me and that gives me a freedom to reconsider EVERYTHING in my life and consider ANYTHING from here on after.

Well, before I get too philosophical, (which I will, but not in this post cause I haven't got much time) I will tell you about a place called "Pai". It used to be a stopover town in the hills north of Thailand on the Mae Hong Song Loop for those heading to trek. It has now become the chill out and hippie hangout that one visits and wants to stay in. The town lives from the hand made jewellery and hill tribe garments for sale on the streets. The town is full of cool haunts where you can find anything from banana pancake, thai rum, coconut and pineapple shakes to a good old thai green curry or the odd variety of deep fried insects! Then of course, you may get invited to the back of some bar to sit on the floor around a home bonfire, to smoke some home grown ganga, eat roasted corn cobs and listen to the world view of your rasta host. I guess in many ways it is the typical hippie town that may seem like a bad imitation of what hippie towns must've been like in the 60's and 70's, filled with young foreigners trying to live in consonance with nature, but there aren't as many posers as one would think and people just wanna hang out like we did, surrounded and enjoying the nature, watching time and life pass by hanging on a hammock, atop a bamboo hut, while you watch the sunset or the sunrise.

I am glad we ended up staying one more night than we had expected and hanging at the Ting Tong Bar where I bought one of my favourite pieces of jewellery made by the owner. It's a Ting Tong Leaf wrapped in leather. You'll see it in the picture below. We went white water rafting (and our raft capsized!!! ...it was the BEST part of the decscent!) and soaked in natural hot springs. But by far what I most enjoyed was seeing the locals re-build Pai which was badly flooded 2 months ago. We experienced the building of a bamboo foot bridge over the Pai river and enjoyed contributing to the welfare of our guest house owner who was re-building every single one of her huts which had been swept away by the waters. I will be loading pics of this and more tomorrow. In the meantime I leave you with a few images.

A saying I learnt...

Yesterday is history,
tomorrow is a mystery,
today is a gift ... that's why they call it "present"

I hold my "present" dearly. It's where I live now. I am still in Chiang Mai... the place takes a hold of you and doesn't let go. The smallest things of today build up into the mysterious and wonderful things of tomorrow, like the conversation I had one night with Yo and An from Walai House (the owners). I wanted to go trekking for a few days and to see hill tribes that were remote and non-touristy and what began as simple questions evolved unexpectedly into a trip to Yo's friend's hill tribe in mountains of Fang.....120Km north of Chiang Mai. It also turned into a Walai House field trip.... so 6 of us packed up into Yo's pickup truck and headed north, accompanied by two trunks full of Thai herbs and foods of sorts from the market that Yo and I had visited that morning to cook for our crowd. Yo says the green curry with chicken was his favourite and that I can now set-up my own Thai restaurant. He's a sweetheart! I tried my best not to poison anyone....especially cause we arrived almost at 9 PM and spent the best part of 3 hours chopping galangal, lemongrass, garlic and chillies among many other things, and preparing 3 different dishes + rice for everyone in a dark kitchen lit by candles. It was in fact an unforgettable night.

That night was spent cooking, eating on the deck overlooking the mountains and gathering around a fire to keep warm! We slept in bamboo huts surrounding a toad filled lake... with their "toad chat" to accompany the crickets and the smell of the bamboo hills. I got to open my sleeping bag that night and can happily say it kept me very warm. The following day we woke up in a completely different place.... there was so much light it felt like we were in the sky. There were clouds below us so all we could see was what surrounded us at ground level. Sean cooked us fresh pineapple and banana pancakes and we slowly woke up while Yo went off to the lake to fish for our lunch feast. The vibe was wonderful. The group who had gone up clicked very well. Wile Mata sang, and Yo fished, Ryoko gave Reiki and Little Sean gave Thai Massage. Big Sean went out to pick Maracuya fruit from the nearby trees and then cooked us pancakes in a wok, while Yuki discovered the newborn puppies nearby and played with the local kids.

We then took off to visit the locals. For the first time, we were all invited into their hut. We gathered in a circle around the hearth, and awaited a cup of their locally grown tea while we asked about their life and their customs. The hut was a two room affair where the entire family of 6 slept in the room next door to where we were sitting. They had 3 pigs sleeping below the raised hut, and a few dogs and cats to keep them company. The tea was very good, but what was superb was seeing the wife, the local healer, give us all massage....and realise how she "felt" and intuitelvely knew what most of us had to pay to learn. It was fascinating. We spent nearly 2 hours there, looking, feeling, smelling and mostly trying to see life from their eyes and from the place where they sat. The rest of the afternoon was spent walking and cooking, eating, and talking, enjoying each other's company and smelling the hills around us, before heading back to Chiang Mai.

Elephant Nature Park

I am slowly approaching my destination quietly seated inside a 9 people van, attempting to advance through a pretty steep, pot-hole filled, deep orange coloured dirt road...dangerously avoiding the edge of the road that overlooks a green field filled with palm trees, and overgrowing flora. We pass many an elephant trekking camp where these animals are employed to "entertain humans" be it by drawing flowers, performing acrobatics of some sort or simply allowing humans to ride them atop elephant seats. We later learn how this is at a huge cost to their livelihood and a rather bizarre contadiction; in Thailand elephants are sacred beings, long revered and used in numerous iconography across the country. In Thailand, the elephant population (wild and "tamed" has diminished by 95% in the past decade only!). There are now only 2500 elephants left in Thailand and most undergo a horrendous "taming" process to allow them to be enslaved for trekking camps, logging or for begging in large cities and temples. It is rather disturbing...particularly when you watch it live or on one of the many documentaries that has been made on the subject; National Geographic 2002.

So we slowly make our way into the "Elephant Nature Park" of Thailand, a vast flatland on the banks of the Mae Taeng river, surrounded by bushy trees, fields of cotton and only 60Km north of Chiang Mai. Lek, a Thai woman, owns this camp and has fought for the past years to rescue elephants from dangerous situations and bring them to this haven of peace. The Park is a sanctuary, a place where you go to relax, learn about elephants and mostly, to live among them and learn to appreciate their greatness close up in a humane and positive atmosphere of freedom. Although you may visit the park for one day, once you set foot onto the dirt you feel the need to remain there for a much longer period of time. Peace floats in the air. Volunteers who stay longer sleep in bamboo huts that overlook the river. But everyone is able to take part in the daily ritual of feeding and bathing the elephants. They eat anything from 250Kg of cucumbers, pineapples, bananas and/or pumpkins daily! They get bathed and scrubbed down twice a day in the river and once a week, they get taken up to the hills to roam free for one night in what is called the "Elephant Haven"...and those who are lucky to go with them, sleep on a large tree-house.

I stayed for 3 days (2 nights) and the experience was truly unique. I loved my bamboo hut.....nothing fancy, and yet, all the wonders of the world.... I woke up to elephants roaming free below my hut every morning! My bathing ritual involved a large tub of water and a saucepan type thing to help scoop the water out and drop it over my head. The water, of course is cold. The shower is in fact a bamboo hut in the middle of a field. (You're lucky there's a light switch!) . My room was simply a mattress, a mosquito net and two large windows overlooking the place. I walked with the elephants in the mornings as they fed on nearby bamboo, grass & leaves of sorts. All the while, we would carry orange ribbons cut from Buddhist monk robes that had been blessed. These ribbons would be tied around the trunks of trees to "save" them from being culled. In Thailand, there is now a ban on logging..... but this practice reinforces the "sacred" nature of trees to anyone Buddhist (nearly everyone here) attempting to cut the tree down.

We would then return for some chill-out time before lunch.....a feast of 15 dishes to choose from, prepared on the spot by the local folk working in the bamboo hut known as "the kitchen". Then after lunch, it would be bath time. Off to the river with buckets and brushes to scrub down the animals. If one didn't have enough with this 40 minute water fest, there would be another chance later on at 5Pm to try it again! Not without before viewing the National Geographic Documentary or taking a nap. Then off to the bath again....and then a short walk at dusk before enjoying another feast under a thatched roof at night, with the sounds of crickets or the odd dog coming up to keep you company. Then, the mahouts would light a fire to keep the 3 "old ladies" (80+ year old elephants) warm at night and we would make ourselves hot cocoa and play a game of cards or two.... or simply enjoy the darkness of night, reading a book under a torch to keep the mosquitoes at bay!

I was surprised to find I didn't really have to work much at this place, as the locals are employed to take care of everything. In fact, after the 1st day, where everything felt like a novelty, I started getting a hang of the schedule and did as I pleased! It's very chilled. On the 3rd day, I went off walking in the forest and one of the most marvellous things happened. Much like seeing snow for the 1st time when one grows up in a tropical climate, for me it was happening upon a cotton field. I had read many books where these fields were named and described but the sight of seeing it live was amazing to me. I neared it and grabbed a stem and realised the stalk had a ball that had "flowered" into 4 parts and each part was a cotton ball, with seeds and all, but a cotton ball nonetheless. I treasure these moments.... when you get to see where things really come from, and how amazing it is to think that that same thing you are looking at, when spun and threaded, can become the clothing that protects you! On my second day, I insisted in helping cook (I couldn't keep away) and learnt a thing or two as I mashed over 50 green bird-eye chillies in a wooden mortar and tried to sign my way around the kitchen.

Feeding the elephants is quite amusing. You place 3 or 4 cucumbers in the tip of their trunk and they roll it in and dunk them into their mouth. On some occasions, you get to stick half a pineapple into their mouth (which looks like a massive tongue really). Apparently they have molars to crush the food...you never see them though! They don't really smell (nothing like horses or cows if you know what I mean) which makes approaching and patting them so much more enjoyable. Although they have a habit of pooing in the river while they bathe, the crap floats and looks like a big green ball of hay so it's pretty funny!

I didn't make the trip up to the Haven.....maybe next time when I return. In the meantime, all I can say is that I haven't slept this long in a while, and the peace of being surrounded by nature, pure clean air, the sounds of crickets, or the rustling of the tree leaves is so soothing to the human soul, that my return into Chiang Mai last night was rather distressful! It took me a while to fall asleep, amidst the sounds of motorbikes, cars and the odd booming stereo. I miss the elephants, the cats, dogs and the wonderful people who have dedicated their life to preserving these special animals...a total of 22 older elephants and 3 young ones who have luckily made it to this sanctuary. THIS is what I call eco-travel and all included for only $299/week where you know exactly where every cent of your money is going.