Step Five: Become a local celebrity

We arrived at the airport in Bangkok and did something sinful. To some we sank to the bottom of un-hip in seconds flat... to others perhaps we gained more hip points. We spent the last of our baht (Thai money) not on food (we were starving, and were not getting fed on the plane) but rather on a tall americano from, you guessed it, Starbucks. We even took a picture on our iPad, and unfortunately we can't post it right now, but if we could you would think that it was taken in Vancouver. Typical Starbucks decor, employees in the background were Asian.

From the moment we got to the airport we felt like we were in India. While waiting to get checked in and drop our baggage we were being pushed and shoved by the masses of fellow passengers. There was chaos, there was budging in line, there was pushing. There were dozens of flat screen TVs surely being brought to family and friends or to be resold in India. We were sweaty, but we were stoked.

Within five minutes of landing in Kolkata nothing in life made any sense anymore. Unbelievable traffic, honking every couple of seconds, cows crossing at leisure, people pulling carts packed with more weight than seems possible to move, crumbling colonial buildings, waves of food smells followed by the overwhelming stench of urine and outdoor latrines... who are we and what is the point of life?

Ok, maybe we're being a bit dramatic, but seriously, we were as prepared as we could get, including being prepared to feel unprepared and STILL we don't know which way is up. We are staying in a "backpacker" kind of district near Sudder st near central Kolkata, but this is no Thai westerner meet-up spot. We are very much in the middle of a huge Indian city with life going on all around us whether tourists are here or not. The only difference apparently is more budget accommodations and more people craftily asking newbies for money.

Amongst the chaos and disorientation that came along with landing, we stumbled upon an oasis almost right after checking into our room. We went for a walk to check out the neighbourhood and found a park. This park is a gigantic field, as big as the neighborhood we're staying in and actually on the south end houses the Victoria Monument (worth a whole weird blog post of its own). Vendors selling water, mixed chat, bel puri, chai (don't know what all that is yet) line the path, people playing cricket, flying kites higher than we thought possible, and pony rides. It was amazing to find a cool spot to sit and chill away from the street. And then it started. We slowly realized that people were looking, staring even, smiling and not, curious about what or why we were there. One couple shared their picnic with us, amazing dumplings, and then some nice guys asked if they could take a picture with us. This was foreshadowing for the next few days (and the next few months?) as more and more people (Indian tourists?) seem to see us as an attraction and want a photo souvenir.

In the last two days we have had our picture taken by people who have asked. We have been asked and declined, much the disappointment of those who asked. We have also had a crying child pushed by her father to pose with us. Nobody asked us, or the child, and we couldn't make a quick getaway because Amy was nursing her sore feet and didn't have her shoes on. It was so weird, and frankly kind of disturbing. Maybe they got wind of our hipness via social media from the Thais who also took our picture, though from a far and more discreetly.

The burdens of being so damn cool.

Step Four: Beach Bum in Communist Country

The north-east of Thailand (Isaan) was amazing. A rare opportunity to be a tourist on a path traveled mostly by local tourists, and a good way to get our travel sea-legs. About a week ago now we went as east as Thailand goes (Kong Chiam) to check out some 4000 year old cliff paintings (I know right!?), though we were more enamoured by the graffiti carved into the bamboo trees and translated signs ("slippers area" instead of "slippery area"). We ventured into one of Thailand's neighbours, Laos. One of the first things you see when you cross the border is the Laotian communist flag, complete with hammer and sickle. Kind of surreal.

One purpose of going to Laos was to explore some fo the country that our hip ancestors - the original "hipsters" - hippies, had first sought out as travelling chill vibe seekers. <History Break!> During the era of hippies the United States was dropping bombs in Vietnam, one of Laos' neighbours, but what isn't talked about as much is how many thousands of tons of bombs were dropped in Laos. One stat goes along the lines of the equivalent being a bomb every ten minutes for nine years. 400 000 of the unexploded souvenirs have been safely detonated by a dedicated group of Laotians, only about a billion to go. Of course this was mostly in the north-east of Laos and we were headed south so we didn't necessarily bear witness to the remnants of this war, but the history certainly deserves recognition.

Don Det... How do we even write about this tiny little island int he middle of the Mekong? Once a hidden oasis for those off the beaten track, part of the 4000 islands ("island" is a loose term, some are literally only big enough to fit a tree or a couple of shrubs), Don Det is easily the most infamously popular. Mini bungalows on the Mekong, bicycles to ride around, waterfalls to explore, even dolphins! For those who might be so inclined, there is also the option of adding a little "happiness" to most menu items at local restaurants. The definition of "happy," we found out (because everyone is really open about it) meant anything from marijuana to Valium. So, as you can see, we were set up potentially to lose ourselves in our bungalow hammocks for days, maybe weeks, as super hip chilled out beach bums. But... then we got bored. After a day and a half, we realized we are terrible at doing nothing! One aspect of our "hipness" we will have to work on, surely. We met a cool French couple... actually we've really only met French people in our travels, and overheard a couple from Quebec yakking away. Who knew that going to South East Asia would provide such an excellent opportunity to improve our French?! Anyway, this couple had just spent a year doing something called "Help Exchange" which is kind of like WWOOFing. There is an internet site you can visit and find requests people have put out there for help around their farm, or doing child care, or teaching, things like that. In exchange for about 20 hours of work a week they give you free accommodation and food, and often the kind of travel experience you'd only get from living with a family/working in the community. Cool eh? So it took us making our whole way to Laos, but we've found some clarity about the kind of world wanderers we are, or at least think we want to be.

The conclusion? Screw this hippy-dippy beach bumming and dolphin watching... we want to go places and see things and work for our experience. Don't worry, this is hardly the end of our adventures in becoming hip, the hip can still accomplish things during the day. We were on the first bus to Bangkok the next day, and about 30 hours later on a plane to where we find ourselves today... KOLKATA!

Step Three: Romanticize Public Transportation

Private transport is for lightweights and capitalists. As hip hardcore travellers we have already experienced, most of the time on purpose, public transit at its finest. The BTS sky train in Bangkok is amazingly convenient and fast, if there is a station near to where you want to go. Unfortunately for us, we took it anyway and found ourselves wandering a mini highway for half an hour before reaching the bus station to take us northeast to Pakchong. We also realized pretty quickly that our plan to go through the northeastern Issan province is one that not many non-thais seek out though many Thais vacation here. Think of it as the Muskoka or Mt Tremblant of Thailand. Interestingly enough, with the amount of cowboy themed hotels, steakhouse restaurants and parks, not to mention billboards of the king in saloon-wear, this could be a central canadians dream location. And a hip one at that! Our tour through Khao Yai national park was amazing, a day and a half of bats and monkeys, gibbons, snakes, spiders, scorpions, waterfalls, nature! A much needed oasis after a few days in hectic Bangkok. This was Alyx's introduction to songthaews, speedy and bumpy bench-lined pick up trucks, but since they are common means of public transport around here, we're both obviously pros now.

The train can be a quaint, scenic, economical, some would even say romantic, choice in Thailand. Our ride from Pakchong to Ubon Ratchetani was pretty much that and more, except we missed the first express 5 hour train and ended up leaving 3 hours later on a 3rd class 7+ hour journey sitting on the sunny (read: HOT) side of the train (also read: no Thais were on our side because they knew what took us hours to catch on to), and we didn't bring food with us because someone (Amy) was sure we could easily eat on the train... The scenery was beautiful, don't get us wrong - acres of rice fields and small child monks playing in them create quite a picturesque, if painfully typical, vision of this region of Asia - but it probably would have been just as nice seeing it go by 3 hours quicker. We sure didn't look hip at the end of the day, tired and sweaty, but we made up for it in what is hands down one of the hippest cities this side of the Pacific.

Once we arrived in Ubon we hopped on another songthaew that took us to our guest house for 10 baht. That's like a 30 cent bus ride! The amazing thing about songthaews is that they pick you up and drop you off anywhere along their route. If only such a modification could be made in Canada! Though to be fair sitting on the back of trucks in the dead of winter in Montreal might not go over so well.

Ubon Ratchetani is hawt. There is a beautiful park in the center which is home to an outdoor gym. Last night we enjoyed watching people playing badminton, spinning, doing a salsa dancing class and passing a band of buff bros returning from a workout on the top notch muscle building equipment. There was also a night market where one stall was selling all kinds of shirts adorned with moustaches, and another with long "sailor" print shirts. Now I realize sailor isn't very 'hip' right now, but watch out, because I bet it will be in the next 6 to 8 months! If they've got it in Ubon it's coming to a store near you.

We also enjoyed some delicious food and finally found a stall with a yellow flag, marking  vegetarian food in observation of the current Taoist vegetarian festival. It was uncanny how similar this market was to the Richmond night market, though perhaps with fewer Chinese food stalls or Vancouverites in big glasses and tight jeans. As we sat and ate our food a busker serenaded the crowd with a Classic, Heart of Gold, and we couldn't help but feel as hip and in as could be. With all this excitement we were in bed by 9pm.

Today we are on our way to Khong Chiam, a town outside of another national park where we're stopping to see some 3000 year old cliff paintings...nbd. We're thinking of renting bicycles to make the 40 km trip, but even sitting still in this heat is hard, and it wouldn't surprise if melting was actually possible, so still not sure. One consideration is, of course, that though going out of our way to use inefficient public transport has been awesome, nothing brings one closer to hip enlightenment than the feeling of smooth pneumatic tires between your legs.

a&a

Step Two: Eat and Review Food

How is it possible that Toronto and Montreal do not allow food trucks (in public) because of health and safety concerns, and yet billions of people eat street food every day in hot countries with looser food safe policies? 

Well thankfully here in Bangkok the shackles of non-accessible street food do not exist and we are free to explore the local gastronomy and let our hip fly, sometimes to the dismay of our tummies. Ironically, because most people here seem to eat street food at least once in a while what we are doing is completely mainstream and not really hip at all. There seem to be many hip places however, identifiable by the youngins or contemporaries depending on which one of us you're talking to, though they seem somewhat out of our 35Bht (1$) a meal budget. McDonalds seems to be an especially popular choice where you can enjoy an iced coffee for twice as much as in Canada in a super snazzy booth.

But let's pretend that you don't know any of this and continue on as if we are experienced foodies and you were reading this blog because you follow our food adventures with keen interest, secretly wishing that you were cool enough to have your own food blog. In other words, pretend for a moment that you're Amy. We would show you amazing pictures of all the food we've eaten taken with our Hipstamatic app and then provide quipy reviews.

Unfortunately we cannot provide any pictures for a few reasons. The first is that we keep eating the food before remembering to take a picture. The second is that we thought the hip thing to do was take pictures with our new SLR camera, but that has meant we cannot load the photos onto our blog because we don't have access to a computer because we are on an iPad... And so the mystery as to why Hipstamatic and Instagram have become so popular is solved.

What's the saying again? EPIC FLUNK?

Instead we will provide a list of what we've eaten and a short review, though you probably won't ever be able to find these items because they are from carts on the side of the road, and realistically we don't know the names of half of what we've eaten or the streets we've walked down.

So far we've enjoyed lots of iced espresso. Nessa, if you're reading this 4 spoonfuls of sweetened condensed milk per small espresso serving is about average, and that's after sugar and before milk is added. They go for somewhere between 25 and 50Bht, and are delicious, refreshing snacks.

There is also tons of fresh fruit everywhere that many cart owners are happy to throw into a blender for you, with ice, and for 20Bht more colourful jello shooters! If you're lucky they come in adorable hello kitty cups or if you prefer all drinks can come in a plastic bag which attaches nicely to your scooter! Why BC cyclists haven't demanded the same kind of convenience is beyond us...

On our first day we decided to wander until we found food, and two hours later got up the courage to buy something and had some kind of fish cake/fish ball noodle soup even though a local translated "no meat" for us. But fish isn't real meat anyway, and after being ground up and mixed with some kind of gelatin it stops being fish too! It was delicious.

Another highlight has been vegetarian spring rolls outside of the Grand Palace, which Alyx's Godparents will be happy to know we went to, fighting the urge to be wanderers, and instead joining the herd. Sweet chilli sauce or "cock sauce" here is not what many Canadians eat by the jarful, and after tasting this sticky deliciousness you would never go back. Also spring rolls come with a stick which makes you feel like you're eating a popsicle!

We found some Som Tam, which is a papaya salad, in a university food court Amy had read about on a foodie blog, while taking shelter from the rain. It was alright, but the search is still on for a better version because it is a big deal here and we want to understand what all the fuss is about.

Also had some Pad Thai which we thought would be called just "Pad" here but turns out its not! It lived up to its reputation though, and came inside an eggy omelet wrapper which was unexpected.

Tonight we go to Pat Pong, or the red light district, for some casual cruising. 

a&a

Step One: Create Blog

It's not always easy being an inter-generational "lesbian" couple. 

Actually, it is easy, and rather fun, but what's hard sometimes is striving to be hip enough to merit the title. People see us and have high expectations, you know? So, here we are, two not-always-so-cool queers, out on a path of self-discovery, a journey that will teach us about culture, customs, and most importantly, how to be hip.

So if you want to follow our adventures, or are curious about becoming hip yourself, we will be sharing tales (written in a moleskin and posted via an iPad btw) about what truly matters in this world; namely good food, photography, playing obscure songs on the ukulele (or perhaps purchasing some kind of local instrument like a sitar), locating vegetarian and vegan optional food stalls, reviewing budget guest houses, enjoying nature while trying not to destroy it, and keeping all our Mac products more protected than our passports.

But for now our ice coffees are waiting.

a&a