Sima and Chiang Mai

So then I was back to Chiang Mai, and here I’ve been every since, though my current 2 month visa runs out again around the 14^th. But I have a final 2 monther lined up; I just need to do a border run.

A few days after I got into Chiang Mai my dear English friend Sima Cutting arrived from Oz on her way back home. After some discussion we decided to get a flat in Chiang Mai. I’d considered this myself previously but had just never committed. But this time I was planning to be in Chiang Mai for the 2 months I had, and Sima was happy to have a base camp, so we got a little room in S.U.P. Court inside the old city. It’s a pretty basic room with a double bed, a wardrobe, a dresser, a cold shower, and a toilet. But it costs 1700B per month, which is around $60 :-D. I slightly lament the lack of food prep area, but when I think about it, many Thais don’t have a food prep area either and they still manage. You often see familial groups of 5 or more all sitting around on the floor eating rice and curry, or barbequing chicken over buckets of coals. Plus the street and restaurant food here is so cheap and SO amazing and inspirational that I’m perfectly happy eating out.

Anyway, there we were feeling very grown up with our own flat and all. Sima kept us very busy. She was on a totally different time scale from me so she really wanted to cram activities in, which was fine by me, and a great change to my current pace of life. So we hired a scooter and hammered around to other little town up to about 150km away from Chiang Mai. This was great, I freaking LOVE riding! We found caves and waterfalls, cute little towns (Pai, great place, if a little cliché), markets, etc. So much fun. The roads up to Pai were pretty crazy, very windy and mountainous, I was in my element having grown up in the hills. I get bored riding on straight road, but that riding was really fun!! But poor Sima was petrified. She doesn’t deal with hills. She also doesn’t deal with curves. And this was hours of some of the steepest and most windy road I’ve ever driven on. But she managed.

We also visited a fair bunch of the lovely markets up here, and I bought a few of the lovely things I’ve been telling some of you about and admiring for a while. It’s good to have someone else around when you’re buying these things in case it’s a bad idea. For instance the “Will I wear this anywhere in the real world?” test is a must for any item of clothing. But I’m really happy with the things I’ve bought. An Asian styled dress up jacket (because I have a bit of a thing for jackets), a crazy little waistcoat which will be great for looking silly in, and some embroidered things for decorating a room. Sima bought a beautiful green embroidered dress which I’d been perving on for weeks but didn’t have anyone to buy it for. I’m so glad that it fit her, it’s truly spectacular :-).

Then I went south with her as far as Sukhothai where there are some amazing old ruins of an old Thai empire (The Sukhothai empire in fact, it was the capital city). Unfortunately the modern day Thais had done a little reconstruction. Nothing big, just fixing an arch here and a wall there, but they did it in such a shoddy way that it really started to get to me once I started noticing it. It was SO different from the original, and felt a little disrespectful and tacky. But it was still a beautiful place. It’s amazing to see the scale on which they built their temples. In its heyday the temple district would have taken up several kilometres, and some of Buddha statues were absolutely mammoth.

Then we parted ways and she headed south to the islands (against my suggestion I might add, and was I right Sima? Yes I was :-P ) and I went north back to Chiang Mai. She has put some photos up on Facebook of our good times together, the album can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=442469&id=761960523&l=34d648eaaa Thanks Sima :-).

Since then life has gone back to normal for me over here. I’m listening to a lot of Harry Potter audio books which are most enjoyable, though I’m having trouble finding number 6. Gee they start getting a bit dark towards the end though don’t they? I hear they just get darker from here, can’t say I’m complaining though. I’ve also started Kung Fu classes because I decided I needed some more exercise than the spot of yoga I was doing in my room. The classes have been really good; it’s not the super flashy variety (not that I would have minded actually, I just might have felt a bit silly); and it’s great to get a sweat up and gives me something to practice in my room when I get cramped up over my laptop or something. I actually wanted to try Tai Chi, but this place I checked wasn’t running it now due to lack of students, so I chose the Kung Fu instead. The downside is that it’s about doubling my living expenses (it’s about $36 per week for 3 lessons), but that’s alright, I’m doing pretty well on the money front anyway.

I also went to the hospital while Sima was around to find out once and for all whether I had a stomach ulcer or not. It had been playing on my mind, and it annoyed me that every non-medical person I mentioned it to always scoffed and told me flat that I certainly didn’t have a stomach ulcer with lines like “Just look at you!” But unfortunately the hospital didn’t do the conclusive tests I wanted, the doctor asked me some questions, listened to my stomach, and then just handed over some antibiotics to get rid of it. So I still don’t know, but I took the drugs and now I don’t really get the pain there anymore, so that’s a good sign.

The other thing was, at about the same time, that I change my eating habits. I’ve written before about the fact that I basically have an eating disorder where I eat way too much and that I find it really difficult to change the habit. It’s exacerbated by the fact that nobody ever believes me (once again the “Just look at you!” call) and I then feel the need to prove that I’m not anorexic or bulimic or something. But I was in a permanent state of exhaustion where I found it difficult to get out of bed in the morning, and the flights of stairs up and down from the flat were a serious obstacle. And Sima was worried too which gave me some added conviction. So when I decided to go to the hospital I also decided that I should put some effort in on the eating front as well. So I went off refined fats and sugars (bye bye sweet roti, I haven’t had one since :’-( ), coffee, alcohol, and most of the chilli I was eating. All things I love unfortunately, though I’m not being anal about avoiding these things I’m just making a concerted effort to avoid them as much as possible. Luckily I’ve been able to replace the roti addiction I had with mango sticky rice which never makes me feel crap afterwards. I also really tried to avoid eating too much, and failed a few times, but with Sima as my conscience I started to get a grip on that too. Which was great because now I rarely overeat, though I frequently still have the urge. And lo and behold, my energy came back in leaps, bounds, and lunges. I was a bit blown away by the difference I have to admit, I couldn’t believe that food could have that much affect on me. I knew eating too much made me stupid, but to make me that exhausted was pretty crazy! But I believe it now as I haven’t had an exhausted day since I changed my eating habits, and the alternative isn’t really an option. I think it’s probably exacerbated by the heat here. A lot of people say they go off food entirely when they come to Thailand because of the heat, and it makes sense because your body doesn’t need to burn energy to warm itself up, but it DOES need to eat salt and electrolytes because you sweat nearly constantly. Hence they add salt to EVERYTHING, including the ubiquitous fruit shakes and mango sticky rice (don’t knock it ‘till you’ve tried it, they’re WAY more refreshing with). My diet at the moment involves about one meal of fruit, one vege curry or other rice dish, and one of bread. The bread part surprises the hell out of me because I’ve actually been anti bread for a while as I’m not sure that modern wheat strains are very nutritious. But I’ve become a bit addicted to it since finding an Irish pub which bakes loaves of fresh bread every day. They have some really dark rye’s which I can just eat plain when they’re still hot out of the oven, and they’re SO SO SO tasty, and my body seems to love the stuff so I’m not about to argue with it.

Well anyway, that’s probably enough for now. Let’s hope I haven’t doubled up on anything, I guess I can check the blog next time I get online, but I doubt I’ll be bothered making changes :-P.

I hope you’re all kicking goals in whatever games you’re playing. Don’t feel shy about writing me with news about whatever you feel like. Speaking of news... how ‘bout K-Rudd? That was a bit of a surprise to me. I knew he’d basically turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, but I guess I’ve been out of the mainstream Oz news for too long because I hadn’t expected THAT!!!

But anyway, bye bye!!!!
Love, Frankie