One Year in Asia Challenge – May Picture
Time Left in Internship: 6 months
Countries visited: 5 (Malaysia, Japan, China, India,
Vietnam)
Countries left to visit: 6 (Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia,
Philippines, Taiwan)
Number of times moved flats: 3
Avg. Number of homemade meals/week: 2.16
Avg. Number of workouts/week: 1.5
Love for Hong Kong: 70%
Comments: Doing fine!
As an expat, my life revolves around traveling, happy hours
and hosting dinner parties. Occasionally, I spend a Saturday afternoon at a
café trying to figure out life.
A lot of my friends back home are curious as to how I can
get by with so little security, having to start over from scratch with every
move. I tell them that I don’t manage that well at all - in exchange for the
fun of living abroad, I have a minor crisis whenever it’s time to move on.
However, comparing to my mindless wandering of four years in University, I
definitely prefer this more.
There’s an old saying that, ‘When you’re making the right
decisions in life, lady luck is on your side.’ I just have to trust that if I’m
pursuing what I enjoy, I’ll eventually end up where I’m meant to be. Until
then, I will make the most of my unsustainable lifestyle.
Next up on To-Do List - Thailand
In my life, I have collected a handful of elephant key
chains from different people coming back from Thailand, each of them telling me
stories of crystal clear aquamarine waters, stunning transgender dancers and
amazing nightlife. I wasn’t going to see any of these stereotypes on this trip.
I chose to go to the North of Thailand - Chiang Mai instead, where a decent
side of Thailand still remain that hasn’t been chipped away by bachelor
parties.
Once again, we managed to find a family to stay with. Our
hosts are a family of working professionals looking to give their boy more
exposure to other cultures. Ironically, since we were not early-risers, we had
the most interaction with the grandmother who didn’t speak more than five words
of English, who would always patiently wait for us to get our bums out of bed.
On our first day, I woke up to the sun shining on my butt,
missing the host parents completely. While doing the walk of shame down to the
living room, our host grandma greeted us in the sweetest voice, ‘Sawatika!’ and
smiled at us as if we were her own grandchildren. Then she introduced us to our
first quest -
She pointed at a map that was laid out on the table. My eyes
widened when I saw the map. It was a vivid illustration of the old city, a
medieval citadel with a reddish brick fortress, surrounded by a moat. In it, it
was filled with temples and many ancient ruins that resemble Cambodia’s Angkor
Wat. Our host father had circled a few important landmarks. This felt like the
intro page to a fantasy online role-playing game. She then pointed us to two bikes that were prepared for us.
We were going to bike through a sacred
ancient city….
Dun-da-dun-tah, dun-da-ta, dun-da-dun-ta, dun-da-ta-ta-ta. Off I go with my trusty bike and
fedora!
The Four Trials of Chiang Mai
Watering the Relics
of the Buddha
Many Chinese traditions are deeply rooted in Buddhism, we
pray at temples, burn money for our diseased family member and pour wine for
the kitchen gods, despite all this, many people are not aware of the religion’s
basic principals, viewing it more as a lifestyle instead. Coming to Thailand,
I’ve seen what this religion is really about. I’ll save you the lecture on
origins and scripture texts. My key learning was that life is too short, let
your demons go.
Coming back to our incredible biking adventure through the
ancient town. We unintentionally discovered what I consider one of the most
beautiful Ancient ruins I’ve ever seen.
Behind a popular temple decked out in gold was the forgotten
ruin of Wat Chedi Luang, what used to be the epicenter of the town during its
early days of development. We circled it with our bikes and I couldn’t help
marvel at its magnificence. The temple has survived many earthquakes over the
course of eight centuries. Although the elephant sculptures that once adorned
the temple were no longer complete, I can still see what an architectural
wonder this is. It resembled Mexico’s most famous pyramid, Chichen Itza.
However, the difference here was that I was getting a VIP tour with no
authority to boss me around.
While I was sitting right at the foot of the ruin, I noticed
a pulley installed on the top of the temple and at the ground level, a water
pail. Beside this station was a white board full of illustrations with Thai
captions. The only English explanation said ‘How to water the relics of the
Buddha’.
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| The pulley leading to the top of the temple |
A challenging workout later, we successfully gave the holy
remains its daily bath. I later realized that I was so out of shape that I
injured my wrist. However, this was definitely worth it!
Learning to Cook Thai
As an avid cook, one thing that we absolutely could not miss
was learning the secrets to Thai cooking.
We spent an entire day at a farm outside of the city where
we made an eight-course meal that we proceeded to eat within 5 hours. Needless
to say, we skipped dinner that day.
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| The famous Khao Suey Curry, very similar to Singaporean fried noodles |
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| Mango rice, you have no idea what it took to get the rice that colour |
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| Enjoying our homemade meal |
Day of Randomness
We signed up for a full day tour that was advertised as a
visit to the elephant sanctuary but should’ve been called ‘The most random
things about Chiang Mai squeezed into 8 hours’.
First of all, the tour arrived in a ‘bus’, which was
essentially a truck with benches. We bonded with the other tour members while
hanging onto a very bumpy ride.
We then paid a visit to the village of the beautiful
long-neck women. These women start wearing brass-coils at age five and each
year they wear a longer coil, which elongates their necks. The original purpose
is to protect them from tiger-bites. Since some of them were catholic and spoke English, we had a
nice chat with them. It appears that they originate from Burma, however due to
war they were displaced and came here instead. Fortunately, they have
successfully adapted to their new life, making handicrafts while their husbands
work in a nearby industrial center.
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Afterwards, we went to the advertised elephant camp.
Unfortunately, it was not the elephant sanctuary as we imagined. Instead of
giving a baby elephant a mud bath, we were riding them through a river during
their lunch hour. I think I was just as uncomfortable as the elephant. It was
also extremely sad to see them in chains. That is the last time that I’ll ever
go elephant riding.
Nothing is more spontaneous than going white water rafting
with a group of young boys who developed their own rules. I have never been a
fan of extreme sports and this trip has been full of it. After getting a
tutorial in broken English. We embarked on the rafts and were told that to
maneuver the boats in fast rapids we have to physically all move to the right
or the left of the boat. I somehow fell off the raft when my friend came to my
side too fast and bumped me off. Initially we all panicked as I drifted through
the rocks but I was in no apparent danger with my helmet and lifejacket. The
hardest part about this rescue was when I lacked muscle power to climb back on
the raft and two other people had to help me. The next thing I knew, everyone
wanted to try it and we were all drifting in the water.
At the end of the day, I took a painkiller and made a note
to myself to get a Thai massage.
Flying through a
forest like Tarzan
I regretted signing up for this the moment they push me to
the end of the platform. The thought of jumping off a tree with an entire
valley beneath me was extremely scary. However we had a wonderful service team
that would push me off when they were fed up with my cowering. Eventually I got
over my fear of heights and was able to enjoy the thrill of flying like a bird.
Unfortunately, I chickened out of the abseil and begged our servicing team to
carry me down.
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| The forest we flew through |
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| Flying monkey |
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| Right before I freaked out at the sight of the abseil |
So this is the end of my Indiana Jones adventure. Until next time!
