Friday, February 22, 2008

exploring bangkok









chinatown....
gutted sea cucumbers floating in brine, little white sweet cakes dusted with pink powder, mung bean paddies, black soybean tofu, soups with stomachs and intestines floating within, large boxes of teas, small bags of tea for us to smell, jasmine green, oolong...wandering narrow alleys with food supplies on either side, people carrying bags and boxes, motorbikes squeezing through, long fingered blue prawns, fish being scraped of their scales with a rough brush, little crabs, big crabs with claws bound, dried fruits aplenty, a chinese herb shop smelling of roots and tonics, full of drawers of unknown herbs to heal, glasses of lotus root tea to sip on the spot, stores full of incense and gold and red and temple offerings, little garlands of hand woven flowers, gardenia, marigold, as offerings to buddha or spirits, little jangly carts selling coconut ice cream with corn inside, knock-off croc shoes for $3, hair ties and hair clips and bobby pins and barrettes, fresh cut pineapple/watermelon/papaya/asian pears to eat with a little wooden stick, small fish and large fish and squids floating in water and squids dried on a stick...so many new smells and sights in those narrow alley ways we found in the chinatown food market....

walking busy exhaust-y polluted street in search of little india....it was elusive to find, finally we took a right down a narrow alley and here it was, maybe looking much like india itself, small little streets with a few indian restaurants (we ate at a great one, vegetarian punjab sweets, shared a thali plate with dhal, shani paneer, 2 paranthas, raita, rice, and a punjab sweet...vegetable korma....two butter chapatis...and another dish, scooping up the various delicious sauces with our hands and our chapatis, the only white people in the restaurant, everyone else of Indian descent)....we found another narrow lane next to a 20 foot tall garbage dump, where the smell of indian incense wafted out and pictures of shiva, kali, vishnu, all the hindu gods floated off of packs of incense and cassette tapes and little pendants to wear around your neck. we went into a food shop to buy water and it smelled of indian spices, and there were dried chickpea snacks and big aluminum tubs of ghee (clarified butter) to cook with (i love ghee!) and mung beans and indian teas and spices...people wearing red bindhis on their foreheads, different music, different scents (including a fermenting stench from the enormous garbage dump on the other side of the fence, quite a contrast)....i was a little closer to india than i've ever been, and it made me want to go there again...

we walked back out to thailand onto a busy street, saw carts of flowers lining the sidewalks...turned the corner and entered the bangkok flower market, more flower stalls than you could ever imagine, roses bundled and wrapped in newspaper, tropical flowers like you'd see in hawaii, bags of marigolds, back alleys of the raw parts for making the garlands you see everywhere, little white jasmine scented buds, rose buds, marigolds, people buying these flowers by the bag full to make their own offerings to sell and to leave at altars and around golden buddha necks...we walked through the flower wearhouses being the only non-thais, looking at this aspect of their daily lives....the flower market turned into sweets market, with every kind of sweet imaginable to buy (luckily we are with jeromi who buys any new thing he sees to taste and try!)...coconut rice cakes, little rice puff cookies (my favorite), tapioca basil seed puddings, coconut chili kaffir lime leaf crunch, crispy taro chips, you name it....this ebbed into a food market, baskets of little red chilis (a bite of one will make you sweat and do you in!), ripe mangos, piles of little oranges, scallions wrapped in bundles, small cucumbers, baskets of purple garlic....oh the list goes on. the markets are amazing and one of the hearts of bangkok, of thailand.

yesterday we found another heart, wat pho. we went to see the reclining buddha, a 46 meter long/15 meter high golden buddha who is the largest of it's kind in thailand (in the world?)...a sacred place for thais to visit, especially yesterday, which happened to be buddha day, a day that happens once a year. we watched the thai people praying there, ring a loud gong three times, so we rang it too (i've never seen/heard such a large gong before, deep resonating vibration filling the room and spilling out of the doors and through my feet)...they added gold leaf to buddhas, and touched the gold to their foreheads (we found a piece of gold leaf floating in the breeze and adorned our foreheads too, like in the picture above)....we walked around the buddha and marveled at the intricate inlay on it's wide feet with sacred images embedded in mother of pearl....walked the wat grounds, which were so peaceful and quiet i literally forgot i was in the middle of bangkok. you cannot see any tall buildings or hear any traffic when you are in the middle of the grounds, amazing! we watched orange robed monks enter a large temple and heard their chants drift through the open windows, walked past golden buddha after golden buddha, holding space for the temple they surrounded....walked behind a group of older thai women all dressed in black in honor of the king's sister....it was so beautiful to be there, to watch them pray and to honor their spirituality and their culture, and to be able to walk inside these temples too and give reverence, smell the incense, hear the chanting, ring the gong.

being here in bangkok is such a rich experience. i guess i've found that with every big city we've visited, and i can't say enough how glad i am that we have gotten to stay here as long as we have. i would've missed so much if we would have left before we did. today is our last day here. we are picking up our indonesian visa, and i'm not sure what else (though i hope it includes some more sushi, yum!)

last night we watched jeromi eat a selection of fried bugs from one of the food carts on khao san road....ants cooked with lemongrass, fried grasshoppers, little silk worms, grubs, and possibly the largest cockroach i've ever seen! he drew a crowd for sure, and actually enjoyed the ants and the grasshoppers! carson and i ate banana rotis with sweetened condensed milk drizzled on top instead (much like a crepe, not as doughy)

i am learning how to say yes more and to reconsider why i say no to an experience that opens me and shows me something new. i wouldn't take anything back that we've done, and why not experience everything with a yes openness than a no resistance?

a last piece of sweet news:
today is carson and i's five year anniversary!

1 comment:

rachael said...

Happy Anniversary! Funny, it seems like longer than five years to me. Obviously I see the distinct Carson and the distinct Melissa, but you are also so intrinsically linked, in my eyes.

I love all of your colorful and generous photography. Carson, have you found yourself double-timing Melissa with your camera? Tyson has re-discovered photography, and has fallen IN LOVE. Currently on his nightstand is Light: Science and Magic. He dreams in Apertures. So, when you get back to us, you two will have to explore for local images together.

Happy to hear that all is well. Your lives sound amazing. Spring is coming to Portland. Bulbs are peaking out their green bowed heads, Daphne bushes are showcasing their annual swagger of aroma and plume, and the sun is out! We look forward to our someday most WONDERFUL reunion with all the Meads, and Melissa.

Love you guys! (The newlywed Robichauds)