Thailand.. First thing one thinks of is usually crazy sex and drug fueled vacations, movies about being thrown in Thai jail because of accidentally smuggling illegal drugs over the border, and Thai massages, usually with a happy ending, in line with the sex vacation obviously. However, what is unfortunately later to come in mind is the fact that Thailand is a buddhist country, formerly (quite recently actually) a police state, with a very rich culture, and not to mention their sandy white beaches.
For anyone who does yoga, and does the Namaste greeting, that is actually the official greeting for most of south asia. In Thailand its the same hand gesture, but is called a wai. ( I know one other Thai word than this, Thankyou)Which I have learned is a lot more difficult as a greeting than it looks. It must takes years of practice to be able to wai on command, particularly with one or both hands full. We just end up doing a head bow and smiling a lot. The Thai also are a culture full of smiles. They are very soft spoken, incredibly polite, never pushy, always helpful and always smiling. It's wonderful. You feel the buddhist philosophies radiating at every turn. For example, the waiter by the poolside overheard me complaining to Johannah about my chicken pox-like bug bites on my legs, and came out with a bottle of citronella bug spray and sprayed me down. None of them speak very much if any english, but area always laughing and smiling during the conversation (which you inevitably laugh and smile back, completely unaware of what just happened). At the market when you ask the price of an item they pull out their cellphone or calculator to show you the number of baht, or when you order a sandwhich from the café, they excitedly list off the list of possible vegetables and sauces in english that they have memorized.
The Thai members of the Thai Foreign Ministry that are in attendance of the conference are no different. At supper tonight there were always several of them asking if I wanted more rice, more water, soup, dessert, etc. I barely had time to reply yes when they were already calling over the waiter to order more for me. One of them has even volunteered to escort Johannah and I around Bangkok Sunday, bringing us to this market that is apparently even bigger and more fabulous then the one I was at last night in Cha-Am, and this Temple that is only accessible by cable car (which the table warned me to beware of the monkeys, as they tend to rush up and grab purses and steal food). Another, upon hearing this conversation about Bangkok and planning, told us about this car they always rent for sightseeing which we could rent at the locals rate (thanks to them) of 2500 baht per day. Which at 70chf that is already a steal, forget about the fact that the hotel car simply to come from the airport to the resort was 4000baht.
Speaking of the 2.5 hour car ride to the hotel, I found it delightfully refreshing. Why, you might ask, did I find a two and a half hour 115 franc car ride through a tropical very hot and humid country refreshing? Well for one, they have very "normal" sized cars here. You'd swear you were back in North America. Mid-sized sedan like cars, vans and trucks everywhere. None of the compact everything you have in Europe. Environmentally speaking, I know this isn't exactly a good thing, but its a nice change to have a large van for a long-ish ride after 20 hours of travelling, rather than a tiny compact car, regardless the emissions. Secondly, the roads are straight. YAY. In Europe, straight roads do not exist. On the highways perhaps, but there are tolls every half hour, and you tend not to take these roads unless you are driving across the country (which normally you take the train). In Switzerland every road is so curvy and steep that I've been avoiding cars like the plague because I get so carsick. It's slowly getting better, much better recently actually, but it was amazing to have a nice two hour drive on "normal" straight roads. Thirdly, although when we stepped out of the airport with the humidity and heat it was like walking in to a brick wall, I instantly had to change out of my jeans in to a skirt, peal of a layer of shirt, and pull back my hair, every closed space, buildings and cars alike, are highly air-conditioned. :) Made for two very happy campers. Actually, in many ways, Thailand feels more Western than Europe. I mean, on the car ride I saw nature first of all, nothing but lush green tropical plants, forests, trees, parks, fields, etc as well as American chains such as 7eleven, KFC, and A & W. The first and last ones I had yet to see anywhere in the world other then the US and Canada.
As far as actual tangible events go, the Conference has been going great. Jo calls them her puppies, as she says they're all so eager to learn and participate that they look up at her with those wonderful puppy eyes. For their simulation negotiations today she modeled the situation on my Masters thesis, and had them negotiating the climate security situations in the Middle East, Sudan, and Arctic. When I admitted to them that I chose those topics because there was not answer to them at the moment, it was all normative solutions not being applied, they were extremely relieved that they did not fail when they didn't come up with a solution.
When not teaching, Jo has been feverishly working every minute that she has not been swimming, eating or sleeping. So much in fact, that she actually considering taking all day Saturday off work. Why does this sound like a big deal? Well because I asked her to name me the last day she did not work at all, and we got back as far as three weeks and couldn't remember any farther. So needless to say, it will be MUCH needed, but I'll believe it when I see it. With all her working on other projects, this means that I have been doing a lot of laying by the pool at the resort, reading, and swimming, which I am not complaining about in the slightest. A bit of exploring here and there, wandering the town a bit and the market last night. Some walks on the beach, drinks at the bar, meeting other guests; which most of which are from the quite lower class UK, which is fine, but I have tremendous difficulty understanding anything they say. So other than Johannah, Robbie and Emily (UN colleagues) there hasn't been much in depth conversation with anyone else due to language barriers.
Tonight actually there is finally more people at the resort and I met this Belgian (of all places) at the bar. Flemish however, (haha), but still a nice surprise. Speaking of locations, normally people ask where I'm from, I say the Canada, and when they ask to specify, I say the middle, as no one has ever even heard of Saskatchewan, let alone can pronounce it or knows where it is. However, the random tailor we went to see down the street where Jo is getting some dresses hand made with fine Thai silk (3 at a very fabulous price), got very excited when I said I was from Saskatchewan. Why? Because he just got back from Saskatchewan to fill out the remainders of his immigration papers. He's moving there in about 8 months. Small fucking world. So to all of you in Saskatchewan, if you want the name of a fantastic tailor that will custom make you dresses, suits, jackets and the like, at an amazing price (even in Canada it will probably still be better than all the others), in a about a year check out Mr. King. (This is also the tailor who Jo thought had kidnapped her - taken her away on his scooter to some small den down some dark alley without telling where they were going, while leaving me to watch Thai/Indian television with his wife who doesn't speak a word of english. Turns out he was just bringing her to the man who cuts the cloth. Really, he could have mentioned that.) Today I also met this woman from the Beijing delegation who had done a 3 week Canada trip and had stopped in Saskatoon, get this, her favorite place out of all of them. (love it!) She loved it so much, she is convincing the Beijing delegation to go back next year.
I'll finish off this unexpectedly (but rather habitually) lengthy blog with an account of my most Thai experience to date, my traditional Thai massage. From 5-7 tonight for the price of 1000 baht ( about 32$ cdn, but which the people from the Foreign Ministry informed me later is still expensive) I received a half hour body scrub and a one and a half hour thai massage. It started off very normally, being ushered to a lovely foot washing station with black stones and flower petals in the basin to wash my feet (as the Thai consider your feet to be the dirties place, very rude to put your feet on tables, point with your feet, or touch someone else with your feet). She then gave me slippers and I followed her to our room with was like a hotel room, on the right was a bathroom, then a shower, on the left a closet, counter and mirror, and the rest of the room occupied by two massage tables. Everything was made of black marble and glass doors, and the room with the tables a very zen beige with simple white Asian architectural design. Again, all very protocol she told me (in her very broken difficult to understand english) to "take of everything," and put on a shower cap. I did what she said then walked over to the table. It was at this point where the massage got very different from other massages I've had.
She then took my towel from me, leaving me standing there naked as she grabbed the towel, and told me to lay down on the table as she layed the towel down. I then received the most through body scrub of my life. It was a coffee scrub I received, and at this very moment, 3 hours later, I still smell delicious. Why? Because there were coffee grinds in places that coffee grins have never been before. They were everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. She was quite thorough in the "scrubbing". There was a moment where I actually had to fight back from laughing; when I started thinking of the ridiculousness of the situation. "Here I am, laying down in a room with a Thai lady who is scrubbing/massaging coffee grinds in to my arm pits." After this was finished, she takes the towel off, and tells me "You go showa now!" and ushers me (totally naked) in the the shower (with the glass door) that she had already started and warmed to the perfect temperature.
After the shower, I then received a towel to cover myself again, she gave me what looked like traditional asian clothes; very loose simple white blouse, only one button at the top, and those typical very bright coloured baggy asian pants. To change in to of course right there. After this, the real Thai massage part started. Now, it was less like your typical massage than it was like a guided, rigorous, pressure point yoga, complete with thai masseuse between your legs leaning over you pushing down on your pelvis cracking your lower back. It was a little on the painful side, yes, but one of those wonderful pains that release all the tension. She did this for an hour and a half, the yoga-like stretching, pushing, poking, intense pressure points for an hour and a half, all over my body; from by toes to by hips, to my finger tips, to my scalp. I left the room barely able to say my name I was so relaxed. I don't think I have ever been more relaxed from a massage in my life. Like I said, it was more like a massage and yoga combined, with added pain. Love it.
