Ok. This is the third time I've attempted this post. Internet access is unreliable here, as is website compatibility. We've had three wonderful days of the Loy Krathong festival. Thousands of lanterns floating up into the sky from points all over the city. It looked like a stream of souls travelling up to heaven; peaceful and ethereal. Also thousands of Khoy Lom candles floating down the river in a steady stream. Flickering candlelight reflecting in the water in the dark of the evening. Just down the river from our guesthouse, hundreds of people were lined up releasing their offerings into the beautiful lines of lights twinkling in the easy slow current of the Ping River. You could buy a whole tray of banana trunk segments (peeled from the trunk cross-section like an onion), with a candle shoved in the middle. One tray of about 15-20 of these for 40 baht (a little more than a dollar). Our guesthouse is right on the river, so we hardly needed to leave home to experience all of this.
Loy Krathong also comes complete with fireworks, which is beautiful, and somewhat dangerous at times when walking near the river. People are randomly shooting fireworks into the river. Or in random directions depending on aim... There are also the inevitable illegal big boomer ones, which is unfortunate if you care to get any sleep before, say, 4 AM.
There is a restaurant adjacent to our guesthouse that serves authentic Thai dishes from a variety of regions of Thailand. We have not been brave enough to try some of the items: pond snails, ant larvae, bamboo worm shells, horseface fish, chicken knuckles, and all manner of frog. Aaron actually did order deep-fried frog, which he enjoyed very much. I was disappointed, however, that it wasn't served as a whole frog. I do have to admit it was quite tasty, though it contained about as much bone as meat. We also discovered that often beer will come served in a glass with ice. I'm not sure how hot it would have to be for that to seem like a good idea. We are learning to anticipate this and order beer, and wine, without ice.
Yesterday, Aaron and I took a one-day workshop in Thai Herbal-Ball Compress massage. Our teacher was Kru Dot, who has been the assistant instructor in our regular classes over the past week as well. She is a practitioner not only of Thai massage, but also herbal medicine, acupuncture, and a host of other modalities as well. I hope to be able to receive a treatment from her sometime this coming week. For our one-day workshop, we started with a walk around the alleyways near the school. We picked, smelled, and often tasted many different plants cultivated in the school's garden or growing wild by the alleys (or neighbors' yards). On our walk, we went by our teacher's home and were treated to "burnt" coconut to drink (more coconutty taste) and got a look at her ylang-yang tree. Some neighbors were out, and we were invited to try some homemade Thai herbal tonic whiskey made with some special herbs that are obtained apparently by a day's journey up a mountain. Very special to be allowed to share this. Aaron also tried some rice with some sort of blood soup. I decided to pass on this round.
Back at the school, we learned to prepare the herbal compresses. We chopped up fresh lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, pandanus leaves, galangal root, soaked tamarind pods, soaked acacia pods, sea salt, camphor and menthol (not too much, "just a pickle!"), and fresh turmeric root. A lot of turmeric root. My hands are still yellow.
Then we were to put the herbs in a square of muslin (?) cloth and tie it into a ball. We did a fair-to-poor job of reproducing our teacher's example. We saved the soaking water from the tamarind and acacia, and added some more of the other herbs to that for the steam room for later. The herbal balls went into a steamer. Then we were given sarongs and went into a steam chamber built for the occasion from PVC pipes and shower curtains. Surprisingly effective! We sat on little stools and steamed in the herbal/camphory goodness from the steampot. Then we used the herbal balls to massage our arms and legs and each other's backs. It made our skin kind of yellow, and Aaron still has some yellow patches in his hair. Felt wonderful. Coming out of the steam chamber, it was amazing how cold the 85-degree day felt! After a shower, we changed into new, dry sarongs and traded Thai-style herbal compress massages on the mats. Then we went home and slept for 3 hours.
Tonight we are going to hit the Sunday Walking Market again. Lots of things to see. Chiang Mai is so colorful and fun. So much to do!!
