Thailand - it's hot here

Before traveling to Thailand I'd heard repeatedly about the friendliness of the people there. During our time in Bangkok and Krabi, I found this to be absolutely true. The Thais we met were incredibly kind and welcoming. BUT, I have a working theory that the perceived friendliness of the Thais towards visitors to their nation takes on an even rosier glow when you visit in what is the equivalent of August in NYC -- April is their hottest month, the apex of the dry season before the rainy spell ushers in some relief. Therefore, I found an extra benevolence in the Thais, who unfailingly greeted with a smile my sweating, bleary and blotchy, pink, red and enflamed self, uttering my few phrases of Thai to which their English was, to a person, far, far superior. To not make you feel like the smelly, gross, inept and foreign being you are -- that's truly kind. When on two separate occasions local folks commented on how hot they felt, Matt and I both could have hugged them.

If Matt hit his low thus far in the trip during our Australian camping heat wave, then I must say I found myself humbled in Thailand: the heat and humidity caught up to me three days into Bangkok and rendered me unable (okay, unwilling) to leave the air conditioned hotel room past 4pm. A few days later, I was incapacitated by an intense fear of heights on a hike in Railay where I couldn't progress beyond the first tier of vertical rope descents without my legs shaking too much from nerves to continue. Fortunately, Matt made it down to the lagoon for both of us. Over the course of five days in Ao Nang, I barely got over my fear of the motorbike to ride behind Matt, and wasn't able to attempt to drive it myself. All told, I lost my confidence there for a bit in Thailand, but I'm better for it. This leg of the trip was outstanding. We started in Bangkok, a huge metropolis laid out around the Chao Phraya river and its network of canals, making flag boats an ideal way to get around. Not only are they quick and cheap, but also they afford you fantastic views of the countless Buddhist temples and pagodas throughout town, not to mention a nice breeze when they pick up speed.

Another way to see temples is actually to go in and explore. Wat Pho: Temple of the reclining Buddha. Through the columns from outside you can glimpse separate features of this immense statue; once inside you realize it can't fit in one picture frame. This temple complex also features a museum of Thai massage, which laid a foundation for appreciating the spirituality of the art form when we later got massages in Ao Nang.

A final way to take in Bangkok's temples is to see them lit up at night from a rooftop bar over the Chao Phraya. Stunning!

A few other observations of the inner workings of Bangkok. Wet and dry food markets in abundance sustain an immense streetfood culture of carts, stands, and tucked-away restaurants lining side canals. Portraits of the current king, Rama X, and his wife, can be seen essentially every block. Tended to by guards, these portraits are huge standalone structures, gold-framed, garlanded in flowers. Every business had a small one on the wall, and if a business had been visited by a member of the royal family, the photo of that occurrence would also feature prominently. Lastly, malls: oases of air conditioning! Bangkok has some of the largest malls in the world. The food court of the Siam Paragon alone seemed bigger than the entire Galleria in St. Louis.

The absolute best experience in Bangkok? A streetfood tour, hands down. What better way to get to know about the history of a place than on a culinary journey through one of its iconic neighborhoods? We connected with our guides Annie and Mikey in Bangkok's Chinatown, the largest Chinatown in Southeast Asia for an epic four-hour sampling of more than 16 traditional dishes. Annie was a passionate and knowledgeable food aficionado from a family of Chinese-Thai farmers, and a current resident of Bangkok's Chinatown. Mikey was a young athletic guy whose main role was, as Annie said, "to run" -- he sprinted ahead to each next location to make sure it was ready for our visit and he ducked down our line to doll out hand sanitizer and napkins with each finger food. Together, they ran a seamless operation.

Annie's superpower, though, was in weaving historical information and cultural context into the tour. As we stood at the intersection of the ultramodern neon-lighted main thoroughfare, Yaowarat Road, and a side street down which we could see red and gold lanterns and streamers marking a corridor of Chinese markets, Annie explained how Bangkok came to be the fourth capital city of Thailand. The first capital was Sukhothai, founded when a new kingdom of people, the "Thais," emerged within the ancient Khmer empire in the 1200s CE. About 100 years later, Ayutthaya was named capital by a separate strong kingdom that had emerged, and it remained the capital of Siam until it was destroyed by the Burmese in 1767. For a brief interim from 1767 to 1782, an Ayutthaya aristocrat who'd survived the fall of the city established the Thonburi kingdom with a capital city of the same name. This aristocrat came to be called King Taksin the Great after helping to reunify Siam and quash further invasions by the Burmese and Cambodians. Last but not in any sense the least, we have the current ruling dynasty, the Chakri dynasty, which assumed power with King Rama I in the late 18th century and moved the capital city to Bangkok in 1782. King Rama V ("King Rama 5" Annie clarified -- the Thais don't say "the fifth"), in power 1868 - 1910, was especially beloved by the Thai people for three major achievements. First, he strategically built diplomatic relationships with Western European nations, visiting their countries and sending young Thai scholars to be educated abroad, so that he could preserve the sovereignty of Thailand against foreign colonization. And it worked -- Thailand stayed independent. Second, he instituted a plan for the abolition of slavery in Thailand that would be bloodless and ensure that formerly enslaved people could settle as farmers or merchants successfully. Third, he enacted a number of modernizations and improvements to the nation. All of this was relevant to our food tour because many of the dishes we tried had at one point earned a royal family's personal seal of approval and therefore gained particular fame as key dishes of Thailand. In fact, some of the places we stopped were vendors who'd been visited by the current monarch, King Rama X, or members of his family, and had photos of these visits propped up on their carts. We tried a couple of Michelin-starred spots and more than a couple Thai-Michelin starred locales. It was SO MUCH FOOD, super varied, some "Thai spicy," all types of proteins...

This brings me to Annie's other superpower, which I discovered the next day upon waking up after all of those unfamiliar foods and feeling, as I texted to my sister, "fresh as a newborn baby": Annie had deliberately placed a traditional natural digestive aid, pennywort (a grass-tasting dark green chilled juice) at the midway point. "Trust me," she'd said, "we have this halfway through and you're going to thank me tomorrow." Indeed, Annie!

After the supercharged pace of Bangkok and, honestly, this entire trip so far since leaving home on Jan. 31, Matt and I knew we were going to need time to decompress and also take time to plan next legs. We decided to do this in Krabi, highly recommended by an Amateur Traveler episode for its slower pace and beach scene. We stayed five lovely nights in Ao Nang Eco Villa, far enough away from the Ao Nang beach tourist epicenter to spare us the chaos and noise, close enough that when we wanted to see it or, as it happened, wanted to get, twice in our short stay, the best fresh mochi I've ever tasted from the sprawling night market, we could get some exercise walking the five kilometers each way.

In Ao Nang we attended muay thai, traditional Thai fighting that has, to my eye, an emphasis on attacking more with knees to the abdomen/sides and foot to foot than with the hands. Bull Muay Thai stadium is only about a year old but it has gained quite a following, both of the locals, tourists, and expats who participate and train at the Bull gym next door, and of the fans who seemed to have picked their favorite fighters and shown up big time to cheer them on. Opponents engage each other in up to five rounds of two minutes each, with a one-minute break in between to be attended to by their coach and crew with ice baths, water, and smelling salts. Traditional Thai music accompanies the rounds, while traditional (American) fight songs play during breaks.

Once I got over my heart palpitations at getting on the back of a motorbike, Matt drove us about 30 minutes to Tiger Temple and Tiger Cave. Something about 1,260 stairs in the heat of a day that...let me check...yes, was 97 degrees with 48% humidity...really was calling our names. It was absolutely a rewarding hike to the top. There was an aura of peace amid the golden Buddha statues and the mountain, jungle, and ocean views into the distance. We could catch our breath, rehydrate, even recycle the water bottles into monkey-proof containers there, and then climb back down. Did I say monkeys? We did meet a marauding family of macaques about halfway up and then saw them again rinsing off in the fountains as we left. Basically exactly what I wanted to do. I'd say on the authority of having done it that a visit to Tiger Temple is not complete without actually seeing the Tiger Cave, around which Buddhist monks have built an active shrine, as well as other caves where the monks live in homes built directly into the cliff. There's a nature hike that takes you past the dwellings and up to some impressive trees.

While in Ao Nang, we became return customers of Nee's Thai massage parlor, where you can go to have tiger balm and strong kneading exorcise your hike-induced calf aches. Thai massage started out with an initial unexpected direct shot by Nee's muscled hands to my spine. Hearing those cracks I at once trusted her and wondered how intense this was going to be. Turns out, it was just right.

After five days in Ao Nang we made our way by longtail boat to Railay East on the Railay peninsula. This peninsula has two sides accessible by boat, East (no beach -- a pier that juts out from mangrove trees well into the bay for access during high and low tides), and Railay West (lovely beach where you can catch a chill sunset, dozens of longtail boats jutting right up onto the sand with no pier). The peninsula also has a whole other beach that feels delightfully secluded because no boats dock on it, Phra Nang Beach. Phra Nang is bordered on each side by magnificent caves in the karst cliffs: Princess Cave, where fishermen leave phallic statues to encourage fruitful catches, and Bat Cave where we know thousands of the not-so-little guys must reside because we saw them take to the sky each night at sunset to chip away at the heavy insect load of this rainforested area.

Railay peninsula is a funky place. All of the three beaches plus the vacation community linking them is walkable in about 30 minutes, so Matt and I had to adjust from clocking 13+ miles a day on foot over in Ao Nang just to get around to actually finding excuses to go out and do laps around Railay. I'm mostly kidding -- it was still prohibitively hot there and there was an awesome illusion pool at our hotel and lots of activities a boat ride away to keep us occupied.

Our adventures during the four days on this side:

A group speed boat tour out to the Phi Phi Islands with the excellent guide Mr. Panja for some amazing snorkeling and the opportunity to step foot on Maya Bay, the beach famously in The Beach. It's a crazy tourist parade over there, which is a thing to see in its own right, but the snorkeling spots were fantastic. I saw a purple eel undulate out from the reef and that was really cool.

It was also neat to get up close to the karst mountains by boat and appreciate the unique environment for certain species that they provide. The eroded limestone makes perfect nesting spots for swallows. Once swallow eggs hatch, the birds abandon the nests they have formed of their own saliva. The nests are collected and ground into a powder used for its high protein concentration in energy drinks and the famous bird's nest soup.

We also did an experience at The Elephant Sanctuary Krabi on the final day. Our host was Bang, a Dr. Doolittle type who has lived seven years at this sanctuary, acclimating one rescued elephant at a time (he's up to three now) to life without people riding them, with enough food and freedom to roam, and with the overall treatment of beloved pets trained with treats and not with sticks or hooks, to which most elephants in captivity are accustomed. We interacted with 42-year-old Pumpui (he told us her name means "Chubby") and 37-year-old Pinkie. 60+-year-old Yaupin was only recently acquired from a family that couldn't afford to keep and feed her without selling her services to a riding gig. The family traded Yaupin to the sanctuary in exchange for a place for them to live, so they have a hut right there on site. Yaupin was still being rehabilitated in Krabi's elephant hospital at the time of our visit; Bang said he'd spent the last three nights by her side getting to know her and that she was about "30%" comfortable with him.

In the four hours we spent at the sanctuary we learned that Asian elephants need about 300 kilograms of food per day. The shocking amounts of bananas, sugar cane, and watermelon/pineapple rinds that we fed Pumpui and Pinkie to have them get comfortable with us were a mere "snack" to them, Bang said. When we arrived at the sanctuary Bang sat with us for about an hour, talking over its history and making it very clear that we would go no further with the elephants if upon first encounter (on their turf, out in a jungle clearing, with plenty of food for them, nothing resembling a spear or hook like some selfie sticks, and absolute stillness until they showed that they felt safe through contended ear waggling) they decided it wasn't for them. He told us that his elephants need four things to feel safe: food, freedom, feeling no sense of threat, and friendship or family. Clearly, Bang and his team had trained Pumpui and Pinkie into the routine of the next few hours: after meeting them in the jungle with tons of treats, we walked alongside them as they made their way through the jungle, eating palms and other plants, cooling off in a small river, and gradually winding over to an area where they get their daily medicine, which we prepared for them in softball-sized rice balls that we placed directly on their tongues. After medicine it was mud pool time. Pinkie flopped right in and I followed her, helping Bang and the team coat her skin with silt. When both elephants seemed done with that, we were all told to get out of the pool so they could leave through a water spray and over to a small pond for rinsing off.

Hearing about about the community around this sanctuary made me hopeful that paying for a tourist experience like that was actually contributing to a sound cause, but of course I have my reservations that this is the case. I recognize that it's certainly not normal for elephants to mud-bathe and swim with people as well as eat from their hands. According to Bang, Thailand had a population of ~100,000 wild elephants as recently as 30 years ago. Now the number is more like 3500. There are about that many more in captivity, and animals like Pumpui, Pinkie, and Yaupin that were born into captivity cannot re-enter the wild. On the other hand, those elephants seemed pretty darn content, and certainly their lives were nothing like what they'd experienced as show and ride animals...What I can say for sure is that this was an experience unlike any other I've had.