I'm a pretty lucky person. I have some really great friends, but Marisa will always be special because she was the first real friend I made. We met when I moved in to my house in Burke. I was 6 and Marisa was 5 and a half (that half being very important as it is to all 5 year olds). This put us in the same grade at the same school for 8 years. Then Marisa and her family moved to Thailand. When I was 14, I promised I'd come visit her. It took 14 years, but I finially made it to Bangkok for her wedding. Marisa's mother said I had to come back when she had more time - not for Natalie's wedding. Well, I made it back... and guess what Marisa and her husband produced this in 2 years:
This is Punn Punn and he alread knows party tricks. Marisa calls this "the genie", which he learned how to do when he discovered his toes.
So when we can get grandma to watch the baby (and the baby to watch himself... he loves mirrors), what to 2 old friends do?
We get matching hair cuts (because a top end salon only charges about $13 and we both hadn't had a hair cut in a while), then put on matching sarongs so we can go into the grand palace for an Thai Royal Art exhibition at the Grand Palace. Royal art is completely amazing. It takes 10s to hundreds of artist shaping gold, diamonds, teak wood, silk and beatle wings into some of the most beautiful art. Yes, I said beatle wings. They're beautiful shiney shades of blue and green. In order for the beatles to be used in the artwork, they have to die a natural death, otherwise the wings aren't as risiliant. Both Marisa and I started thinking about how many beatles had to die to make all those sculptures. Then we started thinking about what is really considered a "natural death" for the beatles.
This exhibit is in the same part of Bangkok as the riots that are happening. The Thai people are upset with the Parliment, so they've been organizing and hoping over gates to let the government know that they are upset. Marisa's office with the UN is right next to the riot and we drove by a couple of days ago. It was really interesting. The riot looked like a normal street market, complete with food and clothing vendors. We didn't go into the area, just drove by. Now you can't do that and you can't go into the Grand Palace and Marisa couldn't go to work yesterday because the riots have escalated. So if you are in Thailand, come after this riot blows over and come see the temporary Royal Art Exhibit at the Grand Palace. According to Marisa, museums in Thailand aren't very good because they're not maintained because people don't go to them and people don't go to them because they aren't maintained... This isn't the case for this exhibit. It's really well done.
When grandma wasn't watching Marisa Junior, we decided to do a family friendly activity and visit the National Science Museum (knowing that the Thai Museums had a reputation of not being all that great). I kind of wanted to see the museum and see what an 8 month old baby gets out of a trip to an interactive educational insistute. The Science Museum is a 6 story interactive exhibit, not too unlike the Boston Museum of Science. The first 5 floors are very well organized with multimedia educaitonal tools. All exhibit descriptions are presented in Thai and English. The 6th floor all about the engineering behind Thai art (pottery, embriodery, etc.) This museum didn't live up to the reputation of Thai museums either. Punn Punn loved it. This is Punn Punn trying to shake his own hand in a bowl mirror. Yet again, we had fun being young and not very stupid.
In order to get young and stupid, Marisa had to leave me on my own for a little bit in Thailand. I travelled south to a town called Krabi, which is know for sea caves and rock climbing. So... when in Thailand - I went rock climbing.
Rock climbing on real rocks is much harder than it looks. The grips aren't perfect nor obvious like they are in a gym. This was fun and physically and mentally challenging... But I really enjoyed cave kayaking on the tidal rivers through the mangroves in the rain forest. This was less physically challenging, but it was eye candy.
So there I was crawling around in sea caves with paintings that were from about 2000 BC. This is officially the oldest evidence of modern man that I've run into on this trip.
I got to crawl around in these ancient sea caves, and hear stories about the sea gypsies that knew about the tsunami that hit Thailand a couple of years ago and warned everyone to move to the highlands several days before the Tsunami hit.
Of course this wasn't all that stupid either because these were guided tours. It wasn't until about an hour and half after this sea cave tour ended that I got stupid. I booked a motorcycle taxi for my 14 km ride to the airport. A lot of Thai people take motorcycle taxis around town mostly for short trips, and I got a taste of riding on one on my way in to Krabi... I had taken an airport bus, which had a short taxi transfer to my hotel - I could have walked it, but the bus company insisted that I take the free transfer. It was a rush... so of course, I decided to take a motorcycle all the way back to the airport, 14 km. It's rainy season in Thailand, and my motorcycle didn't show up because it had been pouring rain. As the rain was ending I ran the 1/4 mile to the tourist info booth where I'd booked my motorcycle wondering where it was since it was 30 minutes overdue at my hotel. Long story short, I jumped on the back of a motorcycle - no helmet, at the end of a thunder storm, and we weaved through traffic to get to the airport on time for my flight. About 2 minutes into the ride, I observed that my driver had a helmet and a poncho, and I had neither... that's when it occurred to me... this is stupid... Then I looked up, saw the clearing sky, felt the wind in my face and saw all the other Thai people on the road without helmets and ponchos, and decided this was awesome! Then I thought - "Ben Roethlisberger, I understand, I really do understand." I saw a sign that said "Airport, 1Km" and something inside me sank... this awesome thrill ride was almost over. We turned the corner and pulled up to the departure area, I got off, thanked the driver, and went off on my merry way. I survived, and it was damned fun!
A little post script - Mrs. Vatana likes durian and has wanted me to try some and she finally got me to try it last night when I got back from Krabi. If anyone is wondering what durian tastes like - it tastes a little like sweet garlic pudding. I didn't like it or hate it (as goes the fable), it tastes better than raw onions, but I wouldn't choose to eat it again.
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