You know you are in SE Asia when...

So when I left you last we were in Panama and on our way to South America. Well, surprise! Now we are in SE Asia! After hitting a lull in Nicaragua, Brandt and I had a talk and decided what we needed was a big new change of scene. This is not to say we expected Sur America to be the same as Central America, but with thought it would be same same (YKYAISEAW #1). We ending up finding an insanely good flight price from Chicago to Bangkok and then back from Jakarta. All flights from Panama were very expensive, so we parlayed a trip home to visit our families into the package deal of traveling to Asia. Win-win-win if you ask me!

I had visited parts of Thailand and Malaysia in January 2011 after finishing PA school. A dear friend from college had been finishing up a year teaching English in Thailand and we had a blast traveling together for 2 months when we both were done. It was an amazing time but I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the region. My sweet husband had never been to Asia (he tried going to China over the summer of 2004 but the SARS outbreak shut the trip down), and I was very excited to explore with him this go around.

If you don't know, Thailand is amazing! If you have the opportunity and are interested in traveling I suggest you find a flight. You will be some sort of half-functioning zombie for the first few days (YKYAISEAW #2) if you are coming from the West, but give yourself time to relax for half a week and your brain will start working again.

Incredibly, we stayed at a really nice, super friendly guesthouse (not hotel, #3) for only $14 (#4), called Siravin Guesthouse which I recommend. Immediately you will notice differences in culture that you may not have experience before: someone thanking you 1 million times after nearly everything you do or say (#5), wai-ing to others and them to you (hands placed together with a slight bow #6), and taking your shoes off before entering the guesthouse, restaurant, business, etc. (#7). One week later you will learn the hard way that you still should have been wearing shower shoes as you now have fungus feet (#8).

(Our King size bed and nice room at Sivarin Guesthouse)

We stayed in Bangkok for 4-5 days and really enjoyed ourselves! The highlight for me was eating the most amazing noodle dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner (#9) and paying less than $2-3 for a full and happy tummy (#10). A few times we frequented a street-food vendor/restaurant called Magic Max. The guy there, Max, actually goes around and does magic for you while you wait for your food which is pretty fun. On top, the food is delicious! The restaurant is one block North of Khao San Road on the paralleling street. I definitely recommend it! Most dishes come with steamed rice, but go for the sticky rice (#11) substitute/addition. I FREAKING LOVE STICKY RICE!!!!

Khao San Road is crazy/a nightmare/the most amazing street ever/dynamite people watching. Even if you hate it, you'll find yourself there more than once. Ladies (or gents), keep a good eye on your man! If you let him out of your sight for too long he'll end up getting a custom suit made (#12) or two. Don't worry, it's worth it! It's not every day your man (well my man at least) looks so handsome in a custom suit! Soooo handsome! KSR is also famous for foot massages for $4/hour (#13), tanks of fish that nibble the dead skin (and fungus too?) off of your feet (#14), cheap clothing with elephants on them (#15), fried scorpions on a stick (#16), amongst other inexpensive/outrageous finds.

Another true highlight was visiting the Chatuchak Weekend Market in Bangkok. This really is such a spectacle or spectacular place depending on your disposition. I read that the market has 5000-6000 stalls! We took bus #3 which happened to be a free bus (perhaps always, perhaps on the weekends, perhaps just this day), and found the market easily (you really can't miss a market this big!). We walked around for hours and surprisingly, kept our shopping to a minimum. However, we decided that we would return to BKK later on just to go back to this market and buy a suitcase to fill up of gifts and other shopping goods to take home :) If you think Walmart or Target sells everything, you haven't seen the Chatuchak Weekend Market. As you can imagine with literally, thousands of stall and shops, this place has it all: clothing, housewares of every sort imaginable, bags, watches, coins, jewelry, hardware shops, produce, multiple “food courts”, pets, pet supplies, clothing makers, books, building materials, furniture, etc. etc. etc. There really is no end to what is sold in this place (#17).

(view between stalls at Chatuchak Weekend Market)

(lunch on the market "food court")

(to be honest my lunch wasn't my favorite street food so I supplemented with this delicious wonky waffle)

We also spent a day exploring some of the Buddhist temples of Bangkok. Word of warning: do not, in any circumstance get in a tuk-tuk for a 20Baht tour of all of the temples. If someone offers this to you (#18), you are getting scammed. Even if the person trying to convince you is a charming, kind, well-spoken father of 4, or a charming, kind, well-spoken grandma, you cannot go with them! Or you can, but you have been fooled :) 

(smiles before we realized we had been duped. in our defense, we never payed the driver so if you ask me, we got a free ride and he got burned. *he ended up abandoning us at our final temple and we had to walk home.  initially we had been walking to all of them so this was no trouble for us)

We did not see the Royal Palace but perhaps will on our subsequent visit (I had visited there before). Instead, we went to Wat Pho (the reclining Buddha), the Golden Mount, and Wat Benchamabophit (the marble temple). Despite the intense heat and humidity, most locals (and us too) were pretty well covered – wearing long plants and sleeves or a scarf to cover the shoulders (#19) –as it is customary to dress modestly when visiting religious or royal sights.

(small "temples" at Wat Pho)

(some of the many many Buddhas at Wat Pho)

(the very big Buddha!!)

(After hiking up the Golden Mount)

 

(ringing the gong for good luck!)

(Wat Benchamabophit on the back of the old 5Baht coin)

(pretty cool, huh?)

Side note: I couldn't help but think of many of the ladies we saw in Central America going to church. In much of Latin America it seemed as though the line between sexy and fancy had not been established. Regularly ladies (regardless of whether it was what I might consider flattering or not) would wear very tight tank tops with their bra exposed paired with extremely tight pants or skirts to go to church. I always found this strange in a somewhat conservative and traditional culture. But I guess that's what it is for better or worse, it's culture.

Our time in BKK was short and instead of visiting much of Thailand before moving on, we headed to Cambodia! Our anticipated loop is now Cambodia → Vietnam → Hong Kong → +/- Taiwan → Laos → Thailand → Malaysia → Indonesia!

We have had many adventures in Cambodia already so I will try and get the next post up next week!   If you have been to any of these areas and have recommendations, please comment and let me know!

(#20 - there is a nozzle spray for your bum on ever toilet)

(#21 - greater than life size images of royalty are everywhere)

Extra, Extra

I know there are about 5 people out there reading this and wishing that I would blog more frequently, but like I said once before, blogging is tough! Especially if you have already told your stories or relayed your daily itinerary to family and friends or journaled or emailed! You start to feel like you are repeating yourself.

Anyhow, I am so behind! As promised, here are the details of the day Brandt and I became movie stars. Or something like that.

One evening we were sitting in the lobby of our hotel writing and interneting when we were approached by a college-age joven, Jan, who quickly asked us if we could be extras in a movie. He said they had too many Panama-looking people and needed American-looking people. “You know, people who are blonde,” he said. He asked what size clothes we wear, told us they would feed us dinner and pay us $40USD each. It might be a 12-hour shift though. The free food and cash outweighed the long hours. We were to star as extras the next day.

And now, an entry from my journal describing the day...

21 August 2014

This is a hilarious day. This is the day that Brandt and I are going to be extras in a Panamanian film. I will document this experience to the best of my ability.

1:00pm – We arrive home from lunch to find a note under the door stating that our show-up time has been pushed back from 2:30 to 5:30pm. I speculate this is due to rain.

5:00pm – Jan comes by our room to make sure we got the note. We did

5:30pm – Jan meets us in the lobby and leads us to our waiting area which includes 3 white tents, tables, folding chairs, a food truck, a buffet being set up. We sign wavers in Spanish. Our rights in exchange for $40. Deal.

5:35pm – Jan asks that we have our 4 changes of clothes, right? No. You told us to wear jeans when we asked you what to wear. Then you asked for our sizes and said they would dress us if they didn't like our outfits (which I was banking on). You said nothing fancy. I said not to worry, we are backpackers and don't have anything fancy. Also, 4 changes of clothes is seriously all of our clothes! We go up to the room and get, basically, all of our clothes. Thankfully most of them are clean. This is going to be nuts!

5:40-8:00pm – Nothing happens. Thank God we have our kindles. Jan says that we are waiting because some actor is late.

8:00pm – They tell us to get up and lay out our clothes on the tables. Seriously, our clothes are so boring. It looks like we have no style.  We have no style.  I wonder if we are about to get fired.

8:10pm – The clothing lady comes over. She doesn't fire me but she looked pretty disappointed with my clothing selection and apathetically put me in my peach dress. Brandt stayed in what he was wearing.

8:15pm-12:30am – We're starts! Being an extra is awesome! I don't know why people told us this would not be fun because it is VERY fun! We filmed a bar scene, sat at a table and usually just pretended to talk. A few times we actually talked and once they filmed a scene with just us and the waitress! Hopefully it won't all get cut out. There were 4 other extras and then 3 actors. One man named Edmund introduced himself and we chatted a bit between takes. He was an older man and in the end, fell asleep on set between the scenes. One of the other extras was as cute as a button. He looked like a 5 year old boy but was obviously not. He was 24 or 30, I couldn't tell which. He was even more excited than me!  (how is this possible?!?!)  He's the sort of person you want to put in your pocket. He was paired with a nice woman who was rather weathered which made for more of a mother/son combo than a hot date.

It was interesting to see how many people are involved behind the scenes – hair, make-up, directors, producers, cameras, sound, guys holding mics, guys moving stuff. Everyone was really nice and chatted us up. We even talked to the writer. He won a contest and $500,000 to get working on the film. I can't believe this was all shooting in our hotel! Anyhow, he said the cool ½ mill will only go so far and they have to get more sponsors along the way. Sadly we have to wait til next year (summer/fall) to see the film. It will become my favorite Panamanian film of all time and we will get copies for everyone we know. It's called KIMURA so watch out world!

12:45am – They just fed us an awesome espegetti and albondigas (spaghetti and meatballs) late night dinner and we are waiting for our $40 cash money.

Other tidbits:

• at first our “wine” was cranberry juice but by the end it was actually wine
• ladies came around to powder our faces and fix our hair
• pessimist Brandt thought we “ruined” the shot and they changed it to cut us out. But then we were in a scene with just us, so what does he know
• it takes 3-4 hours to shoot a few minutes of movie
• they had snacks and drinks (apples, cookies, cafe, agua) for us between takes
• we might pick this up professionally
• this is one of my most memorable days on our trip!
• Remember when we went to Panama and then were cast as extras in the movie shot in our hotel? Yeah, that happened!

left to right: the guy you want to put in your pocket, me, B, another extra, casting director gal, Jan

The faux bar designed on the first floor of our hotel where we shot our scenes