Lop-vegas

Lopburi, Thailand is a large town/small city that weirdly enough reminds me of the big town I grew up outside of in West Virginia. If Parkersburg had street markets and vendors and monkeys running around, they would be about the same - both are kind of dated and run down, but still friendly. Apparently Lopburi is also the secret weapon for the Thai military and I am literally surrounded by about a dozen bases and special forces schools. Oddly enough around town people still wear American military apparel, saw a guy with an arm patch that said Ft. Benning, pretty sure there is not one of those here. But there is an airborne base down the street from my hotel, so maybe we have an exchange program? I'll tell you what there is not a lot of...hookers. Not that I was looking or expected it, but there is not a plethora of seedy bars and questionable women. There are a lot of monkeys that will steal your stuff and dogs that look like they want to eat you, but so far no red light district.



I can't mention the monkeys enough, mainly because I don't like them. They are cute for about 2 minutes and then they start looking at you and your realize that they are scoping out what you have and how much they want it. I'm not kidding. One of our first excursions downtown, we were walking back from dinner trying to find a song-tau (cheap taxi - pickup truck with a metal roll cage welded to the bed with bench seats placed inside)



to catch a ride back to the hotel, and we see a monkey sitting on the iron gate encircling a ruined temple. This monkey sees something in the bed of a truck that is coming down the street, jumps from the gate across some lawn, a sidewalk, and a lane of traffic to land in the bed of the moving truck, steals a piece of fruit, and jumps out again. These monkeys do not play around.

The people though are amazing - they think we are interesting to watch because they get few Western foreigners here and we are varying shades of pale which is considered attractive. So for the first time in my life I am exotic. Haha. It's a novel experience, but I am looking forward to blending in again when I get back. They are extraordinarily patient with our lack of Thai and their lack of English - it's amazing what you can accomplish with hand gestures and pantomime.

It's also amazing how alive this town gets in the early evening. It starts getting a bit cooler (although the heat is not intolerable, no worse than Florida in the early summer), and people roll out open door restaurants onto the sidewalk, food carts line up along busy streets and people just pull out of traffic onto the shoulder to grab food. Somtimes they don't even make it to the shoulder, they just stop in the lane and the rest of traffic just moves around them. No angry blaring of horns or yelling. No whistling or yelling from guys either as a group of us girls walk down the street. I love Buddhist countries.

They love pork here, but there is no bacon at breakfast. And Thais don't seem to eat cheese, which is sad and has me craving quesadillas and nachos a lot. The food is good here, but I find myself planning my meals for when I get home. This is kind of ridiculous because there are western restaurants - I had pizza last night (tasted like Pizza Hut) and my favorite food cart is fried chicken made my a sweet Thai woman who laughs at my highly accented Thai thank yous (kop kun ka!). So it's not like I am without comforts of home - I even bought bowls and have been having Fruit Loops in the mornings for breakfast. This doesn't mean I haven't been expanding my horizons. At the dig site, several of the wonderful Thai students who work with us make amazingly beautiful and delicious lunches. This was my first taste of curries and all sorts of Thai fruits (mmm mangosteens!). And you really can't go wrong with simple dishes like pork or chicken and rice. Sadly, this means I have learned I am a non-ferocious bamboo shoot when it comes to spices. A lot of things that the other field school kids think is only mild or worse, not spicy at all, I have a hard time trying to get down. White rice is amazing for cooling your mouth and I'm also drinking a lot of water, as a consequence. So..yay, for hydration, at least.

More to come, but just as an fyi - if you are in Thailand and are trying to buy a drink and they ask you if you want it in a bag - say yes.

I think therefore Siam

Bangkok - May 27-30

What an amazing, loud, busy city. It's like London or D.C. on crack and if they were into street carts and sidewalk salesman. The city smells of food all the time - people are cooking in restaurants, rolling out sidewalk cafes, setting up carts of fresh fruit, noodles, boiled pork (yum!) and some sort of weird hot dog thing that they call sausage, but IS NOT SAUSAGE and made me a little sick to my stomach.

We saw several temples (Sleeping Buddha – largest in the world) and the Grand Palace where the king still performs ceremonial functions, part of the palace area is a Buddhist temple where the Emerald Budda resides *Hint- Buddha is a big theme here*.

It was moving in a way I can’t explain to see people taking off their shoes, going in and kneeling to pray. I was moved, but at the same time was very aware of my own Christianity and didn’t join other non-Thais (read Americans and Europeans) when they kneeled before Buddha too. The beautiful murals and statues and architecture are so grand as to be almost overwhelming and I am still trying to wrap my brain around a place that dates its Historical (written word) period back at least 2,000 years. *Another hint* We Americans only date it back about 200.

It's hot, but not unbearable - reminds me a lot of Florida. The vegetation is more interesting out in the town where we are working out of (Lopburi), just because there is more of it to see. In Bangkok, like any city, it's more concrete than actual jungle. And sadly, I find out, there is no actual jungle. We are in the middle of the country where it’s maybe subtropical, but more temperate forests. The south has the tropical jungles.

Had to take a boat to get to The Grand Palace and the Sleeping Buddha - which was a good time. It sounded almost refreshing since it was hot that day, until you saw and smelled the river. Not as much trash as you would think, but lots of biodegradable refuse like plants and a dead baby pig. Not something you want to go swimming in…or have sprayed on you. It's definitely a bottled water city (and country for that matter) though there are no recycling bins that I have seen...it’s possible this is just done at the trash plants.

Food was a mix of Thai food, a few forays to McDonalds as I craved something familiar, and Thai pizza - which was delicious. Oven backed bread cooked on the thin side so was crispy with mozzarella and tomato paste put on top last. The food here is amazing I have come to find out.

The Temples were beautiful, you had to take your shoes off when you entered, out of respect - so there was a lot of removing of shoes and socks and I kind of wished I had brought flip flops. We also stopped by the Jim Thompson house which was close to our hotel, an interesting story - an American serviceman (served in the OSS during WWII) who liked Thailand and stayed on, building this beautiful conglomeration of several Thai houses into one main structure and making Thai silk what it is today - world renowned and wanted. And then on a visit to friends in Malaysia he just disappears while on a walk. Crazy. But his business continues and you can tour his house and gardens which are amazing. You have to remove your shoes – it’s customary to do this in Thai houses since they normally eat sitting on the floor and you want to keep it clean. Of course, I didn't see the signs initially and stepped inside and was about to take a picture when I was reprimanded by the staff. I hate making cultural faux pas like that.

Next updates will be about Lopburi and the dig - Bangkok was fun and interesting, but I'm no city girl and jet lag had me in bed by 9 or 10 each night.