Thai’d in Knots: Make mine “hard” please

A few days ago, I had a 2 hour massage while sitting in a barca-lounger in Old Chiang Mai. I thought I had experienced Thai massage…..but I was sadly mistaken!

As part of my Northern Thailand Great escape, I took a 4 hour motorbike trip from Chiang Mai to Pai, a little village staffed by tea growing hill tribes that is now the Trekking capital of Thailand. Though Chiang Mai is in between its tourist seasons, Pai, only 140 km away is in high season. This tiny little town is crawling with Europeans, mostly between the age of 20 and 30. They’re white water rafting, backpacking through the jungle, riding elephants, and just chilling out in downtown Pai.

About every 10th storefront is a massage parlor offering 1 hr “thai massages” or 1-2 hour oil massages. Having just spent 4 hours on the back of a 125 cc motorbike…think smaller than a motorcycle, but capable of doing 60 mph… on the twisty windy and treacherously steep mountain highway to Pai, my body ached. Well….my BUTT hurt, mainly…the rest of the body was fine. I decided to compare my previous chair massage to a real thai massage.
As with many shopkeepers, the lady in charge of the “spa” could speak just enough English to get me committed. Using mainly an English menu of choices and her finger, she reviewed the alternatives. When I pointed to the Thai massage she asked: “hard or soft?” I don’t know why, but my mind immediately jumped to Tina Turner introducing their version of Proud Mary….”we don’t do anything easy”, she says. We like to do things rough” “HARD or SOFT?” my spa consultant once again repeated. I decided to hedge my bets. I told her “if it’s a man, make it soft, but if a woman make it hard”. This was the only way I knew of to suggest perhaps “medium”.

I was led into the primary massage room which had 3 inner spring-less mattresses on the floor side by side. The room had a long open window the length of the room such that we felt more like we were in a carport than an inner room. I remembered seeing a sign outside saying “air conditioning”, but this room would not have been able to be air conditioned. As it was, there was a strong fan blowing a breeze, and the room was a perfect temperature for a massage. Beautiful Thai jazz (I made up that term) was playing from speakers, and it made for a perfect atmosphere. Since I was wearing long pants, my masseuse gave me some light cotton tie-around pants to put on. They were size 94…whatever excess you had, you simply continued to wrap around your waist and then tie it.
Concurrent with my massage, a young European couple came in and took the two mattresses next to mine. They had both asked for “soft” massages, and though I only occasionally peeped out of one mostly closed eye, I’m pretty sure that I got the bargain.
A quick note of brilliance on my part. Because there had been so many parlors, I couldn’t figure out how to choose. It occurred to me that a Farang (foreigner) would not necessarily be able to tell a highly trained masseuse from someone who just rubs you the wrong way….since most people haven’t had a Thai massage, thus I wanted to make sure I got the real deal. I chose this particular place because, in addition to advertising thai massage, they also advertised Thai massage lessons. I’m thinking they’d be a real sticker for making sure their people did things RIGHT.

Back to my massage. I knew I was in for a treat from the beginning. For the first 2 minutes, my feet were scrubbed with a warm wet, herbally enhanced cloth, and then rubbed with oil. After that, it was NO MR NICE GUY. My tiny Thai masseuse probably weighed in at about 100 pounds dripping wet. She asked me to scoot up to the top of the mattress so that there was room for her. She promptly sat down by my feet, and grabbed my left foot with both hands and put it in her lap. Next, I’m pretty sure she took her right foot and put it into my armpit, and her left foot was placed firmly against my left inner thigh. She then pulled….not with a yank, but a good, steady, pull until she was satisfied that my leg had been adequately displaced from my hip socket.
The wonderful thing about Thai massage is that your body simply becomes theirs for one hour. You don’t have to assist them at all (prease rift your reg a rittle higher) they do all the heavy lifting themselves. I simply closed my eyes and tried to envision what was happening to me…as if I had escaped my body and was watching from the ceiling above. I’m pretty sure that within the first 45 minutes, all four of my appendages were removed from my body, rubbed down, kneaded, poked and prodded, and then reattached.
About 40 minutes into the massage, I actually DID have to help. “Roll over please” she requested. I was now on my stomach. In a matter of minutes, she was on top of me. I think they call this doggy style. She wandered aimlessly up and down my legs and buttocks, all the while her hands were prancing around my back and neck. For a moment, it reminded me of when I use to play horsy with my daughters on the living room floor. It always ended with me collapsing and them crawling around all over me. This, somehow, seemed infinitely more professional.
As for my two European comrades, the ones that requested “soft”, I never once saw their little ladies tie them into pretzels or hang ten off their foreheads. All I know is that when 1 hour was complete, they hopped right up and went on their way. Me, well I kind of had to relearn how to walk. ….. more later.

Thai Cookery

Quips and Insights from Pert, our Thai Cooking Instructor

Pert picked us up in his modified pickup truck…the back had a roof on it, and a padded board on both sides so that customers could sit “comfortably” while being transported to his cooking school. Fortunately, Tanya and I were picked up first, so we got to sit up front in air conditioned comfort, as our comrades in the back from Italy, Ireland and Holland enjoyed the limited view from behind.

I had just yesterday seen local Thai men walking in the drainage canal with a fish net. Turns out they were netting small fish and slimy eels. I asked if Thai’s frequently ate eels. He ignored my question altogether and remarked gleefully “He was Mister Unhappy”!! Why? Because he was EEL”. Hahahahhahahahahhahaha (ill). Yeah, it took me a few minutes to figure this out as well.

He said that locals out in the country would eat eels, but generally not the city Thais.

Interesting fact: I asked about the difference between Northern and Southern Thai cuisine. Southern Thai is coconut milk based and Northern, water / broth based. Reason: Its only been recent decades that they’ve had coconut trees in Northern Thailand. Since there is no animal large enough to consume, transport and excrete a coconut (which is how many other tree species are propogated), there was no way for coconut seeds to get planted up north.

Ha is Thai for “five”.

At the Market, Pert was pointing out all of the different Thai fruits, vegetables and herbs we’d be using. He came across a mounds and mounds of chicken eggs. There was a stack of smaller eggs for 95 baht, medium eggs for 110 baht, and larger eggs for 130 baht. He then asked “Which eggs are the best to use?” Long silence. He then points to the smaller eggs and claims. Why? Because they’re cheaper. Hahahaha-hhahahahahaa (Pert always laughs longest and loudest at his own jokes)….. Actually, he uses the smaller eggs because he says they come from younger, healthier chickens. The eggs are thus “tastier”. Older hens lay larger eggs, but they’re older and thus not in as good health.

He then pointed to a set of Pink Eggs that carried the label “horse pee” eggs. These are eggs that have been soaked for a lengthy period of time in something like lye. They become black and solid inside, and when you remove the shell, they smell like horse pee. Apparently, these are delicious in soups and salads, especially for those who are partial to horse pee smell.

Fresh eggs come to the market dirty. They should not be washed off until you’re going to use them. Keeping them dirty helps them last longer.

Pert pointed at a large pot of water that huge Tilapia swimming happily in it, in spite of the fact that they were awaiting their demise. He then pointed to a pan right next to the Tilapia. It was full of catfish with barely enough water to just cover their their bodies …there was no swimming room. Pert asked our group: “Why is it the Tilapia have plenty of water to swim, and the catfish have none?” Silence… Then pointing to the old woman working the market stall, he says “because Ming Tee is busy and hasn’t finished putting water in the pot.. hahahahahhaha-hahahahahahahahah Actually, its because catfish have sharp fins, and if they have more water, they will swim aggressively and cut each other up making them less attractive to sell.

Our cooking class contained 17 students from Holland, Ireland, Italy, Australia, Nicaragua, the UK, and of course, ME. After Pert’s entertaining market tour, we retired to his home out in the “suburbs” where he had built his house / cooking school . Each student has their own cooking space, utensils, everything. Throughout the day, we all made Thai specialties, some collectively as a group (Pert doing, us watching) and others individually.

AT 3 pm, we gathered in front of his house, sat at long tables, and enjoyed the dishes we’d created. IT was quite a feast.
Between the two of us, Tanya and I jointly prepared:
Spring rolls
Hot & Spicy soup with Prawns
Coconut chicken soup
Green Papaya Salad
Red Curry Chicken
Panang Curry and Tofu
Minced Pork with Holy Basil Leaf
Drunken Noodles
Pad Thai
Coconut sticky rice with Mango
Chicken with Cashews
Pineapple fried rice

Thai: Language Lesson 101

Language Lessons:


Though I have a full “phrase book” for speaking in Thai, my memory is not as “elastic” as it once was. Thai sounds and words have no relationship to anything familiar in English like you might find in Spanish or French or Italian. For example, though it is a foreign language, if you call me an el stupido, I can probably figure out what that means.

However, in Thai, since they don’t even use “our” alphabet, the likelihood that there is similarity in meaning of any of their words is low. I’m committing to learn at least one new word or phrase / day…and I must admit I’m ahead of schedule. However, I’m finding it useless to simply memorize meaningless sounds, so I’m trying to massage the Thai pronunciation so that it is vaguely reminiscent of a phrase with completely different meaning, but similar pronunciation in English.

Here is an example. To say Hello or Good morning, you simply use the phrase Sewat-dee (written here in phonetic English). This is fairly easy for me to remember since it happens to be the name of our favorite new Thai Restaurant in Winston. Given that I’ve memorized the restaurant name previously, it occurs to me that it would have been convenient if they had instead chosen to name their restaurant “Horng nahm tee-nai” (translated, “the bathroom, where?”). This would have been incredibly for any of their patrons who might find themselves traveling in Thailand, and I doubt the non-traveling Winston clientele would be offended as they would likely never bother to look up the translation anyway (it was not til this trip that I found our restaurant was named “hello”).

So, though I already knew Se-wat-dee, I learned that you also have to put another word on the end of the phrase. If you’re a man, you add krub. If you’re a woman, you add kaa. I misunderstood this, thinking that you added the ending word based on WHO you were speaking TO. The logic of this little add-on must be rooted in the deep tradition of cross dressing and transgendered people in Thailand. (there are many of these apparently) Thus, when you greet someone, you are basically saying : Hello, I am a man. (or woman as the case may be). Since I didn’t understand this, for the first 24 hours, I greeted all men I met correctly, but the women, I greeted saying: Hello, I’m a woman. …and to make matters worse, since Thai is a “tonal language” , “how” you say something is as important as what you say. Since I was tentative with the unfamiliar language, when I greeted the women incorrectly with my gentle and low confidence Sewhatdee Kaa, I can assume I was basically saying, hello, I’m a girly boy.
To memorize this phrase, I had to come up with a similar phrase in English. Sewhatdee Krub when said by me sounds awfully close to Say, What dee Crap! This was a helpful pronunciation and memory tool for me. But as I listened to my host say it quickly and informally to people, I realized that it was really more accurate and helpful to slur the phrase like a run-on, generating instead “Sweaty Cop”. I spent my afternoon greeting many of my Thai counterparts on the street this way…said confidently, I sound incredibly local. Sweaty Cop said with a big smile opened many doors.

Day Two: Eaaaarly in the am.

Day Two: Yesterday, I arrived in Chiang Mai Thailand at 9 am after about 44 hours in planes and airports. Tim Johnson, a classmate of mine from Eckerd College is living here for 6 months while writing a book about China, Tibet and the Dalai Lama. I’m staying with Tim, his Nicaraguan wife, Tanya, and their 12 year old daughter Sophia. Sophia has lived in Nicaragua, Colombia, Beijing, Chiang Mai and Washington, DC. Thus, she speaks 4 languages…and she’s more fluent in Chinese and Thai than her parents.

Its now 4:30 am on Day 2 and I am wide awake as a hootie owl. I went to bed about 9pm and went right to sleep, having only had about 6 hours of sleep over the last 2 days.
I feel like I am in a tree house. Tim and Tanya live in a beautiful 3rd floor condo, very westernized. Its fully furnished as they each brought only a suitcase each from Beijing. All of their other possessions are in storage in China.

My bedroom is large and two of the external walls are floor to ceiling windows. My windows are screened and I left them all wide open last night with the ceiling fan on. Its beautifully temperate here, like 72 degrees. Tim says is unusually cool.
There is a rooster crowing in the distance, though it is still pitch black dark outside.

Out of Tim's bedroom window is a dramatic mountain where the sun sets. Though, yesterday, the sun just kind of sank behind the mountain, no dramatic sunset.

Also, out of his window is a lagoon. There are lagoons everywhere. If this was Florida, they would all be immaculately landscaped, but this lagoon looks like it is being in the process of being developed built around. One gets the feeling that the jungle surrounding Chiang Mai is so aggressive, that if there wasn’t a constant battle between civilization to keep it at bay, within a few weeks of neglect, if allowed, the city would be overrun by vegetation the way that morning glory overtakes our garden every fall.

People fly around the narrow little streets here mostly on mopeds. They drive on the left hand side. Though a street may appear to have 2 lanes, people pretty much disregard any suggestion of order. Its pretty much every man for himself. Most mopeds have 2 passengers…a lot of the girls ride side saddle behind the drivers. It will be very upsetting for Allison to know that know one wears helmets here.




 

Incredible street vendors are everywhere. We saw a woman cooking something from a distance and couldn't make out what it was. As we got closer, we realized that she was frying these huge whole fish, head and all. They had first been completely coated in salt. It looked like the fish had been stuffed with herbs on their stems, the way that Allison fixes her turkey. It was then deep fried. She had about 8 of them on her cart for sale. We will definitely buy one soon

Matt just reminded me to make sure and eat mangosteens if they are in season. This is where they come from. I'm looking forward to breakfast, because we will eat the fruit that I bought. Yes, gillian, I will take pictures. This one fruit I bought is bright read and has little spikes coming off of it. It looks like it could be make of blown glass, the spikes being like pointed thorny leaves. I can't imagine what it will taste like.