Pop My Cherry

Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my next installment of Shona's misadventures.  When I last left you I had returned to Bangkok after my adventures in the islands.  Well, we decided to spend 5 days in Bangkok to wind down and get ready for our India extravaganza.  So, we spent a bit of time hunting out the perfect accommodation.  And low and behold we found our little haven amongst the chaos of Banglumpu.  We found this little out of the way guest house down a dusty alleyway near the river nestled in amongst the locals, away from all the noisy drunk obnoxious tourist areas....ahh, heavenly!  The people who run it are lovely and our little room opens up to the courtyard outside. So, having settled into our little abode we decided to head down and get a feed, and me feeling like a ravenous carnivore went straight to the barbeque chicken stand to hunt down a chicken leg.  Heading to the little temple grounds that I mentioned in my previous story we settled down to gnaw on our hoard. Mmm, tasty, but whats that? A dog comes wandering up looking very sad and sorry for itself and plonks itself right in front of me with its huge puppy dog eyes, not fazed by this at all (me being mean like that and all) carried on eating, C.J. however didnt like this canine companion much and suggested that I throw a piece of my chicken away from us to get rid of him, so I did, and he trotted over picking up the piece of chicken and troddled on back to eat it in front of us, bugger!  But worse was yet to come, suddenly the whole yard turned into a sea of dogs appearing from every nook and cranny and they all headed towards me, arghh, a fews growly dogs later we were feeling very uncomfortable in this situation and decided to bail, so I threw what was left of my chicken leg to the dogs and turned to leave, this is when a destitute local came up to me asking for food (he couldnt speak english) of which I had none, I walked away confused by the situation, and it completely threw into light how much we take for granted back home.  To Thai people dogs are lower beings than humans and to throw food away like that to animals and not give it to a person was uncomprehensible.  That was an eye opening moment.  And to top things off, as we walked out the little gate onto the street a massive (and loud) dog fight started that attracted lots of attention, oops! Well, after that we decided to hide back in our little room for some more R & R while the monsoon rains fell.  As they eased off we decided to check out this great little vegetarian Thai restaurant recommended by some travellers and it turned out to be absolutely delicious so we signed up to do a cooking class with them at May Kaidee's Restaurant and Cooking School.  This was taught by May herself and her band of merry and some what quirky employees.  Time for a short history of May, she is from Northern Thailand where she grew up eating anything and everything that was available and she became a self confessed podge, she then moved to Bangkok where she learnt to cook in her uncles vegetarian restaurant and learnt the error of her ways and became svelte in the process.  She now owns two restaurants in Bangkok and is opening one in Chang Mai and she also teaches how to cook vegetarian Thai food all over the world, and is somewhat famous in Russia (of all places).  She also praises the value of brown rice and organic food, who could ask for more? (Me...pass me the meat please, hehe).  Well, we made and interesting and delicious array of food with 16 of us in the class (thats alot by the way).  These dishes include, Pad Thai, Thai Red/Green Curry, Tom Yam/Kar, Masaman Curry (my fav), Unfried Spring Rolls, Peanut Sauce, Green Papaya Salad and a variation of Pumpkin Hommus (very tasty, minus the corriander) and the grand finale, Black Sticky Rice with Mango.  Needless to say my tummy was very happy and extremely full.  An interesting point they made to us at the start was that we could make our food as spicey as we liked, so C.J. not being much of a spice fiend made our first dish (Tom Yum) nice and un-spicey (which incidentally made it pale) and one of the helpers came up and kindly asked what was up with our dish and proceeded to add chilli paste, sugar and lime to it while muttering that it wont be that spicey, much to C.J's distate as she quite liked the way it was at the start.  And after several hours of cooking, eating and general merriment that involved an impromptu Thai dance lesson, we carried our weary heavy bellies back to our hide away, which was thankfully only a short distance away. Once again we settled into some well earned (well, in my opinion anyway) R & R.  The next few days involved eating some bugs from a bug kart (grasshoppers, crickets, grubs, locusts and chrysallis'), which I was initially aprehensive about, but C.J. lead the way with casual determination, and proved they were actually quite tasty, it was the chrysallis that tasted bad; a 25 minute ordeal in which C.J. was spelling our names to an Indian woman so we could get our tickets to Leh; I got my eye lashes curled (which feels quite odd initially); we hid in our room to escape the monsoon rains and went a little mad (Pigs with guns, Cows with Bazookas and Sheep with Machetes - the ramblings of a travellers mind); and I recieved the perfect foot massage.  This leads us up to the final days in Bangkok, where when I decided I was going to post some stuff back home I find out its National Holiday time, with Queens Birthday and Mothers Day.  This was a very festive time in Thailand and we went down to the local park and stood to attention while they played the National Anthem, watched some Thai dancing and the fire works display that was going off over the Palace.  We then wandered off to our abode where C.J. developed a case of what I like to call 'Pre-Delhi Belly'.  Why wait eh!  This has hence-forth turned out to be giardia.  Well, we packed up our bags, which was no small feat for C.J. who had lost the entire contents of her internals, and headed to the airport for our next adventure in India.  Flying the highly reputable (sarcasm injected here) airline, Biman Bangladesh.  This flight was to involve a long stop over at Dhaka Airport in Bangladesh, and a hotel stay.  But, funnily enough it ended up being delayed by six hours, C.J. and her Pre-Delhi Belly and I nestled in a best we could at the airport and waited and waited.  Finally at four in the morning we boarded onto a plane that had stuffing falling out of the seats, smelled like a leaky toilet (which it was) and full of smelly, sweaty Indian men who wouldnt stop staring at us.  The staff were uncompromisingly unfriendly and I was bemused.  We flew for about 2 hours and ended up in Dhaka Airport, which in itself is an adventure, and the transit counter was full of yelling, bustling, just downright rude indian men vying for the attention of the guy behind the counter, wow, what a sight.  So, lil ol' me thought, ha!  Ive been in mosh pits at Pantera etc, I can take these Indian's on, so I squeezed and hustled my way to the counter and waved my ticket around just like a local, much to the confusion and annoyance of the men around me and got my ticket checked, fantastic!  Little did I know, there was absolutely no need for the craziness and I could have just waited for the crowd to disappear cos it wasnt like we were going anywhere for a while. But, then again, what kind of adventure would it be if you didnt just thrust yourself in with the locals now and again?  Well, looking out the window of the plane, Bangladesh looked like one big river with houses precariously perched on the edge of the water.  We spent 7 hours in the airport, which was one hour short of getting a hotel room, and spent that time getting to know some of the forgeiners on the plane (there was only a few of us).  There was Victoria who was Swedish and travelling on to Kathmandu, and Miriam (Spanish) and her partner Christoff (French) who had been living in India at Varansi for the last 16 years.  They were incredibly helpful and gave us many helpful hints and tips for Delhi, they paid for a taxi for us and showed us to a guest house and where to eat etc.  What a god send!  Because after seeing the streets of Delhi and the poverty, Thailand is a dream to travel in.  So, we arrive in Delhi and over the loud speaker they say that it is 15 degrees outside and C.J. and I were excited about the prospect, but skeptical at the same time, and with good cause as it was stinking hot (arghh). Dusty and with cows and shit and flys everywhere and the dodgy supposedly helpful locals and the arguementative vendors, it was all a bit much, especially for me, who dosent like standing out too much in a crowd being a white woman does nothing for my need to be inconspicuous.  Funnily enough we left Bangkok on the tail end of the Queens Birthday celebrations and flew into India right on India Independence Day, so eating dinner at a rooftop restaurant we watched a sea of paper kites flying above the Delhi rooftops and numerous fireworks going off (we seem to time the festival thing well).  Unfortunately I had no idea and left my camera behind in my room.  Much to all your amusement Im sure, I happen to have the perfect figure, hair colour, looks and temperament to attract Indian men, I have been hit on many times already including a very determined young man at the domestic airport.  Not exactly what I had in mind.  And to top it off, when C.J. and I took a auto-rickshaw to get our tickets to Bangkok re-confirmed the driver on our return stretch told me I should be in Indian movies, ha!  Maybe I should pack my bags and move to India and become the next big Bollywood star.  So, putting the craziness of Delhi behind me and getting ready to fly to the mountains (woohoo!) I packed my bag and settled onto my bed to snooze away until 3am when we would catch our taxi to the airport.  I lay down and felt something crawling over me, so I squished it, but that was followed by another one, and another, and another, so I jumped up and turned the light on to discover that the walls were crawling with these little mayfly like bugs, they were every where! It was plague proportions of bugs crawling in through the edge of the door, so I did the most un-buddhist thing I could imagine and grabbed the menu off the side table switched off the lights in the room and C.J. hit the lights in the bathroom and they flew in and drowned on the wet walls, and any that didnt succomb to that ended their little lives at the end of my swat.  Mwahahahahaha!  Thats what happens when something tries to plague Shona kind.  So, 3am rocks around and we gather ourselves to our taxi and what a sight to behold, the streets are deserted of people with the exception of a few sleeping in the street and a whole herd of cows has gathered to snooze right in our path, the driver managed to convince a couple of key cows to move so we could be on our way.  We arrived at the airport, check in and I get hit on by a very determined young Indian man, who didnt even flinch when I tried to explain that I had a boyfriend, it didnt wash, he just said I must be very lonely (hint hint) travelling without him.  By joves, I have never had this much attention (curse those curly eye lashes) and its hideous!  Much to my relief, the plane came and we flew to Leh in northern India, and its beautiful, but thats another story, so stay tuned.