Let's Eat Some Bugs: A Global Travel Diary: March 2012

Well, folks, this is it. The end of the road. Spring break has arrived, and the group has split up to various global destinations (India, Australia, glamorous Chicago). As for me, I’m back in Bangkok after a fabulous week of sitting around with none other than David Schloss, Peter Forsberg, and my beautiful little sister, Louisa. With meal times every three hours, a private beach, Dave eating 100 chilis in one day and bottles of Sangsom aplenty, their visit has been an awesome way to end the trip. Love you guys. I leave for Chicago tomorrow at 8AM. Apprehensive, but excited, for my return to real life.

Agenda for this post: for those of you who were wondering what Team Thailand was up to for the second half of our five-week travel extravaganza, I've provided a brief summary below. Then, just to prove that I really did learn something here (all you Kellogg haters, take note), I'll talk about what I'm going to take away from this incredible experience. Enjoy.

Here goes, starting with Vietnam, Part Deux:

Hoi An: ate Banh Xeo as many times as possible while shopping at almost every custom tailor in town (a real feat, considering there are about 5,000 of them). I broke off from the group on our second day, desperate to learn the intricacies of Vietnamese cuisine, and took a cooking class with a fabulously jolly middle-aged couple from the UK named Pam and Tom. We were under the tutelage of a portly middle-aged Vietnamese chef, who kept giving me her demonstration leftovers. I wasn't complaining. We made fresh spring rolls, banh xeo, rice noodle salad with beef, and pho bo, the classic Vietnamese rice noodle soup with beef. Good stuff. As of right now, I plan to cook Vietnamese food at least once a week at home. Or at least have my local Vietnamese restaurant’s number on speed dial.

Saigon: we had been in Saigon for 45 minutes when Mahima’s purse got stolen. This is not a joke. Went to lunch down the street from our hotel and decided to go exploring. DO NOT GO EXPLORING IN SAIGON (unless you are “exploring” the main roads). We found ourselves a little off the beaten path, which I was loving until I heard Mahima scream. A motorcycle had pulled up next to her with two men on it, and one of them grabbed her bag out of her hand. She put up a pretty serious fight – so serious, in fact, that the strap of her purse cut her hand (well done, M) – but the strap eventually broke and the bandits made off with her cash. Nice introduction to the city. Other things we did in Saigon, besides get robbed: visited the War Remnants Museum, a moving and emotional collection of photos and artifacts from the Vietnam War (which made me realize I know absolutely nothing about the Vietnam War…thanks, Shady Hill); saw a water puppet show (very bizarre); ate spring rolls on the street with some nice Vietnamese ladies (delicious); went to a club, Lush, that got raided by the communist party while we were there (they took a bunch of money and the DJ’s computer to “search it for contraband”); had dinner at a local BBQ place, 5KU, and met some very drunk businessmen who wanted to practice their English, help us order, cheers a lot, and tell us about Vietnam (“I want to say something about my country…”). Good stuff.

Siem Reap: first, I have to say that I love Cambodia. I love the feel of the place – the people are warm and friendly, the countryside is beautiful, and the history is incredibly rich and sad. I'm pretty confident in saying I'll be visiting again. Siem Reap in and of itself is sort of like Disneyland – tourists (about a million of them Chinese) invade to come see the amazing 11^th century temples of Angkor Wat and others that made up center of the Angkorian Empire. While watching sunrise over Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious monument, was an incredible experience, seeing some of the lesser-known temples like Ta Phrom was equally impressive…trees grow over the sides of the temples like vines, and if you go early enough in the morning, the size and silence of the place is overwhelming. After a morning of temples, we went and shot machine guns. Bet you didn’t see that coming. Ross, Ahmad and I shot both an AK-47 and an M16. And it. Was. Awesome. I’m sure the boys don’t want me to bring this up publicly, but I can’t help bragging a little - I won the target practice. I believe the exact words from the gun guy (official title?) were, “the lady is very good shot”. Hell yes.

Koh Phangan & the Full Moon Party: when we boarded our plane bound for Surat Thani from Bangkok (note: do not do this, fly into Koh Samui instead – worth the extra $100), I have to admit I was a little nervous. The plane was packed with other farang from all over the world who were clearly looking to party. “Can I handle this?” I wondered, out loud, to Syreeta. We’ve all heard about the infamous Thai Full Moon Parties. Crazy, wild nights on the beach slamming Red Bulls and jumping fire. And I wasn’t sure I was ready. However, by the time full moon night rolled around, I hit the ground running. I have to say, Kellogg represented at FMP. Everyone embraced the scene, bought ridiculous neon clothing, and we painted our entire bodies with neon paint that glowed in the blacklights along the beach (for future reference, said paint is waterproof acrylic poster paint, so do not put it on your face). We each drank our fair share of buckets, rode the fire water slide, and danced the night away under the full moon on Haad Rin beach. What a party. What else did we do in Koh Phangan, you ask? Absolutely nothing. Which is exactly what we needed after three weeks-plus of traveling. On the last day, I went solo on a dive trip to Sail Rock, the Gulf of Thailand’s premier dive site. The rock is about half way between Koh Phangan and Koh Tao, and is absolutely teeming with life – I’ve never seen so many fish, and the brightly-colored corals were unlike any I had ever witnessed (Antony, if you’re reading this, I want you to know that I was thinking of you the entire time I was underwater…we need to get together to watch “Planet Earth” ASAP). My instructor, Corey, a “retired” (he’s 25) roofer from Calgary and I spent the afternoon chasing schools of barracuda and trying to stay out of the way of territorial triggerfish. And then he took me to get a fruit shake. Great day.

Before everyone dispersed to the corners of the earth, we were talking about what life is going to be like when we get home, and all we could think of is…different. There is absolutely no way to summarize, or even fully describe, the experiences we’ve all had together over the past 11 weeks. We’ve seen some amazing, incredible, beautiful things (and also some dirty, scary, and just plain strange ones), have met some wonderful new people, and have formed new friendships with old ones. There’s so much more I want to say, but I’ll save you the reading and leave you with just a few important lessons learned from this trip:

1) Don’t go exploring in Saigon.

2) If you’re a lazy man, join the Black Hmong tribe in northern Vietnam. The women work, do the cooking, the cleaning, and raise the children. The men sit on the street and drink beer. Yes, this is real life.

3) If you’re going to Laos, bring Pepto.

4) Everyone laughs in the same language (I have to give credit to my 7^th grade Spanish teacher, Mr. Harvey, for this one, but I thought about this a lot throughout the trip…there’s just no good reason not to smile all the time).

5) When eating bugs, stay away from the ones that look like worms or grubs. The consistency is less than favorable.

6) Don’t put Twinkies on your pizza (note: not a lesson learned from SE Asia, but a general life lesson learned from one of the greatest movies of all time – Lu, I know you know this).

7) Do your best to be open-minded, open-hearted, generous and carefree. The Thais like to say “don’t worry” all the time. I know from experience that this doesn’t necessarily help if you’re teetering over the edge of an island cliff in a 12-passenger van packed with 17 people, but it’s a nice way to live life.

8) Go to the seafood soup guy off of Chula 22 in Bangkok.

9) Talk to everyone, everywhere. You never know who might show you something new and incredible.Every day is an opportunity to learn.

10) And finally, the absolute most important thing we learned in Thailand is courtesy of a man in Patpong, who advertises for a lesbian sadomasochistic-domination sex show. If you decline to enter the show after his vivid description of what the girls do on stage, he’ll rope you back in with his famous tag line, “never try, never know”. I can’t think of one good reason not to live my life by this motto. Can you?

One more huge, heartfelt thank you to all of my wonderful travel companions, who are now among my closest friends. This has been an incredible experience. For all of you other Kelloggers reading this, get ready – Team Thailand is planning to host a full moon party in Evanston this spring. It’s going to be rad. Just don’t put the neon paint on your face.

Thanks for reading.

Sawadeeka,
Liz