Tuesday, April 25, 2006

cogno kids

Ok..I've kept the blog hi and dry for a few days. BUT for my sins....I've got some FUNNY and GREAT pictures of being completely SOAKED in Songkran on the streets of Chiang Mai. In fact, the San Miguel foam party stand a few minutes away from our guest house had was by far the best stand around! Will tell more about this on my next entry and load pics too!

In the meantime, I've arrived in Manila (Philippines) for my month tour of the more than 1000 islands here. Well, I won't be going to all of them but I will be going to places like Tagaytay, Vigan, Banaue, Anilao, Galera, Boracay, Cebu, Bohol and Siargao for those of you who like to research online. It's VERY interesting to be in an Asian country that has so much Spanish colonial, Chinese and American influences! Tagalog, the national language, is plagued with Spanish and American words. When you want the driver to go straight, you say "derecho boss"! The funniest thing I've learnt so far is that the Spanish descendants living in Manila are better known as the "cogno kids" cause they use the swear word "cogno" so much...and their schools are cogno schools! Hilarious! the people are beautiful and friendly. Manila is a mish mash of cultures, poverty and affluence, surrounded by enormous shoping malls and little mom& pop corner street cafes. Going for a tour now so will leave you with that. My new phone number here is: +63 921 333 6658

Big kiss and will be loading pics and words shortly!

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Beauty thera...masochism!

There's been a lot of detox - retox - detox - retox going on here. So in my quest to return to a healthy-ish lifestyle, obliterating Happy Hut's "Death By Chocolate" cake come mousse..and the recent habit of consuming innumerable rum&coke's at 3 PM, my friend "X" and I (she wants to remain anonymous) discovered a little Thai spot that claims to return our unshapely legs (well, mine more than hers) to their original baby skin SMOOTH state. This, coupled with my early morning tennis lessons and my above mentioned denials, I thought, should do the trick.

So "X" and I have been slipping out to our little teatment cente in secret...of course when we return with aches and pains in our legs and bruises the morning after, I for one have taken to saying I've fallen off my bike again (not such a rare ocurrence for me). So, seeing as I am confessing my mid-afternoon escapades to you, I will also confess that the treatment involves "X" and I stripping into our sexy undies for a 30 minute laughing spree.... where we basically watch each other's fatty bumps get sucked by a vacuum cup! The best part is that the thai girls who massage our butt while this whole thing takes place, must weigh 30 kilos each at the most, and have never even contemplated getting the treatment themselves. The last time we were there, "X" and I were in tears of laughter after seeing that 1) my suction cup broke off the tube...a sure sign the system couldn't take it any longer and 2) "X"'s cup would not disengage from her butt! I thought she'd be sucked away through the tube into this electric machine wired up beside me! Our laughter was contagious and our thai "masseuses" probably thought we were, well, fat but merry!

ANYWAY....we have 2 teatments to go and we've already lost a couple of inches so we're excited! Seeing as we're trying to be healthy and get integrated into our local community, we decided to join the 6PM aerobics session at our very own local sports centre...VERY local! So we got there, all fired up and ready to shake our bottoms and sweat it all out! The place is open to the Chiang Mai heat so the sweating was inevaitable, although we marvelled at the fact that we were the only two "Farangs" sweating there.... well, plus a Thai lady-boy with a few kilos to spare a rare sight indeed! Behind the raised stage for our aerobics teachers (yeah, you get a group of them all at once, like a variety show), was a HUGE sign advertising KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken)! I don't know if it was subtle hint as in "If you've been to KFC, you know why you're here!" or rather "Come binge at KFC"! Oh well, who cares! The point is we were there and the minute the music began I realised this was gonna be one of those events you remember forever more! I was in my newly acquired sports gear (except for my trekking shoes). The teachers were so slim we could hardly see them in the distance of this massive and rather grey lit gym! The female teacher was surely on some amphetamine overdrive, and she was surrounded by 3 very energetic male teachers, two of whom we were convinced had to be lady-boys cause they loved the hip swirling aerobic moves too much! The music was pretty good stuff...and cranked up at full blast with a double-time-come-chipmunks beat! It took less than 2 minutes to get us laughing, wooing and delivering a pool of sweat like roasting pork! I for one have never been to such a fun and exhausting aerobics session in my life. So much so that I canned my 8 AM tennis lesson this morning! Thanks "X" for making it such a blast and accompanying me in my masochistic exhiliration! We're booked in for the session next Monday. Any takers?

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Back for a water fight

"...I'm just back here for a good ol' water fight!", said my friend Shawn recently, of his return to Chiang Mai. I couldn't have put it better myself. The reason I am back is surely the same, although in local lingo the water fight is known as Songkran. This festival is the Thai New Year; the beginning of a new astrological year in keeping with the old lunar calendar of Siam. The festival was originally a series of Buddhist merit-making activities, such as: bringing home cooked food and robes to the monks, gathering sand from the river to deposit at the base of the temple to "raise" it (necessary in old times when the festival was right after the rainy season), or the traditional pouring of water on elders or newly ordained monks while uttering good luck wishes. Well, in true thai spirit, the latter has evolved quite merrily into a 4 day street water fight. One of the owners of our guesthouse, Yo, particularly revels in the wet t-shirt look on the female bunch.

We have been assured a huge tank of water, cooled by tons of ice (a godsend in this 40 degree daytime heat!) on the back of the Walai House pick-up truck. In fact, last night we discussed making some t-shirts for us all to wear. I fear Yo will prescribe the female models be white and not too thick a cotton! Anyway, the festivities will take place from the 12th - 15th of this month, and this truly is the reason why I have returned. Don't expect much mailing form me those days cause the city shuts down and becomes party central! :-) I am looking forward to it....and in the meantime, building up some resistance to the sun by visiting my local swimming pool for some early morning swims.

After 5 months+ of travelling and little working-out (aside from occasional trekking or diving or moto-cross driving ... which for me IS a workout), my body has rebelled in the form of flabby and showy tummy syndrome. I have had many things in my lifetime, but tummy was not one of them, and it sure isn't in my immediate plans. So, my visits to the sports complex have become quite frequent since my return. I am also happy to report that my tennis lessons are paying off. My teacher invited me to venture into the back court and try hitting one ball more than once! Dunno what it was but I took it as a sign of progress. Adding to my self preservation of late, today I visited a nearby beauty salon for some well overdue hair waxing! (no, NOT Porn Hair Studio!). The blog faithfuls among you will probably realise this exciting event has been missing in my calendar since my threading experience in the backstreets of Vietnam (yeah, the one where I got invited to a wedding in the middle of a downpour in Hoi An. I have many theories on the reason for this invitation, namely that the poor woman was so appalled by the amount of hair she had to remove, that she figured if she stitched me up with some bloke at the wedding, I'd take care not to let the monkey effect take over!) Well, all well and good, I now feel quite sexy and much lighter (maybe I should get on the scales!). Thankfully, the swimming pool is olympic size so few people seem to realise there has been a monkey swimming in the lane beside them....or maybe that's why the pool was so empty! Hmmmm

So, for those of you wondering what it is I occupy my day with, well, mostly self grooming and LOTS of hours facing the computer keeping you all in the loop! (I must admit I come here for the daytime air con that is keeping me sane in this heat). Bring on the water! I'm ready for a good ol' soak!