This afternoon I sat by myself in a cafe on a river. I read Hemingway and thought that, given the circumstances, I should get drunk.

What stopped me wasn't a cultural sensitivity or a carpe diem "you're only in Laos once" attitude. It was a handful of uncooked greens that led to a 36-hour gnawing stomach cramp that was only then subsiding. If I was going to enjoy Laos - or Hemingway for that matter - it seemed prudent to abstain.

Reading Hemingway makes me want to write. I think it is because he lets so much go by unsaid. I find myself wanting to fill in the blanks. So here I am in Luang Prabang, in front of a computer with a crappy keyboard, with no real story to tell.

Sam left this afternoon, after we shared a dizzying and incredible 10 days together. We filled up my passport by visiting too many places in too little time. In Krabi, I got to the top of a climb and declared that it was the most beautiful place I had ever been. In Hanoi, Asia felt new all over again as I marveled at all of the activity on the streets. And in Luang Prabang...

I'm still not really sure. Something is preventing me from loving this place. Could be the raw veggies.

In retrospect, one of the funniest differences between Sam and me during the trip was that Sam would, by default, assume the food was dangerous, and I, after nine perfectly healthy months in Thailand, would assume it safe. By the end of our time together, I was basically cutting his questions ("Do you think this water is safe?") short.

At dinner, again reading Hemingway, I thought about what a Thai person would ask, when confronted with American food. I then considered the irony of a Thai man getting badly sick by eating a peanut butter sandwich, against all odds.

I go back to Chiang Mai on Saturday, and have nobody but Hemingway and Augusten Burroughs to keep me company, so odds are I'll make it back here before then. Sam has promised to blog about our trip, so with any luck I can keep things anecdotal and philosophic.

Where I've Been, Where I'm Going

Okay, I admit, I've been a very bad blogger lately. It doesn't mean that I don't miss you guys, because I certainly do. It's just that I've been too busy doing cool, exciting things to take a couple of afternoons to sit down and get caught up on 2.5 months worth of blogging. My todo list says that I owe you stories on the following topics:

• 2-Day Housewarming Extravagansa
• December border run to Burma (wayyyy better than last time)
• Getting my Thai Drivers' License
• Meghan and Adam's visit; New Year's on Koh Chang
• A DeBeers ad in the NYTimes magazine; American's newfound propensity for lynching rich people
• Discovering and exploring what we believe to be the deepest cave in Thailand
• Getting certified as a Wilderness First Responder
• Launching a brand new Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures website
• Lisa Kelley's visit
• My upcoming vacation with Sam to Krabi, Hanoi, and Luang Prabang

Ok, so now you're caught up, right? So I can start from today?

I'm really hoping to write more about at least some of that stuff, but if you don't want to wait (possibly forever), then give me a call.

Miss you guys a whole hell of a lot. Today marks the start of my 9th month in Thailand!

Elderly Women Sitting in an Airport, or: How My Parents Had Eight Days Added to Their Vacation

When my parents first booked their trip to Thailand, I was concerned. 15 days, including an arrival just before midnight and a departure at 6am, just didn't seem like enough time for them to do everything that they wanted to do. I already promised my Thai host family that we would attend their two-day housewarming extravaganza on the 22nd and 23rd, so after 4 days in Bangkok, the Conbeers had about 6 free days in Chiang Mai to try to understand my life, meet my friends, and explore northern Thailand.

Thankfully, the PAD understood my anxiety, and decided to take over Suvarnabhumi Airport. The political protests were mostly nonviolent, and in fact the protestors were primarily older women and children, but since the Thai police and army were caught in a bit of a political quagmire, the airports were closed for about a week until the Thai Supreme Court ruled to dissolve the ruling political party, citing electoral fraud. The next day, the airports were reopened, and my parents managed to book a flight back home four days later.

But what that meant is that we had an extra eight days together, which afforded lots of time for daily massages and a very laid-back approach to sightseeing. Plus, it meant that I got to eat at every restaurant in Chiang Mai on somebody else's dime, so I can't complain.

Some highlights: watching my dad tap into his old motorcycle-racing days while riding his 125cc Honda Click motorbike; having a great, big dinner with friends and family at Riverside; showing my parents Crazy Horse, the climbing area, and taking them to the hot springs; becoming rather good friends with the masseuses at the local 120-Baht/hour massage place (they like daily customers); and giving alms to 11,250 monks. [Photos]

There was also the super-mega highlight of the two-day housewarming extravagansa, which merits its own post, coming shortly. Happy New Year, everyone!

Merry Christmas!

Santa has already come and gone on this half of the globe, but I wanted to take a second to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I miss you and love you, and cannot wait to be reunited in 2009!

Spending Christmas in a Buddhist country, where the holiday is at best a novelty, is pretty strange, especially if you are like me and have never been away from home for the holidays. But it was great to have Meghan and Adam here, and we had a very relaxed and fun day, and while it would have been nicer to be home, it was pretty good here, too. Plus, Santa didn't forget to stop by my little townhouse, so I guess he got the memo.

We booked tickets today to go south to Koh Chang for New Years, and we have a visit with my host family and a day at the Elephant Nature Park scheduled between then and now, but I'm going to really buckle down when we get back to try to get this blog current!

Thanks again for reading - friends and family that care enough to visit here are the only present I really care about. Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and good night!

The Big Mango

The first two things I noticed about Bangkok were that the taxis were all sorts of crazy, bright colors, and that people keep to the right when they walk on the sidewalk.

In Chiang Mai, the taxis are all a dusty, deep red, and people walk on the left, which is where you would expect them to walk in a country where you drive on the left side of the road.

That - and the fact that a fresh cup of coffee is surprisingly hard to come by - are all I really have to say about my trip to meet my parents in Bangkok, which ended roughly a month ago. The rest is pretty well-documented in the captions of my photos, which you can find here. It was great to see my parents, and even better to tour Bangkok with them and live the high life for a few days, but I think you can get the gist from the photos. Much more on watching Mom and Dad navigate Asia in a forthcoming post about showing them around Chiang Mai.

One thing that went almost completely undocumented was the Yara Bangkok Challenge, the adventure race I did with Elena just 12 short hours before my parents arrived. Afterwards, I said that the race was by far the hardest thing I'd ever done, and Elena, who has run a marathon and summitted Kilamanjaro (separate incidents), agreed. After 6 hours and 23 minutes of exhausting Type-II fun, we'd biked 46km and ran 16.5km on roads, through temples, and across rice paddies; swam 0.5km upwind across a lake wearing backpacks and lifejackets and dragging a truck-tire innertube; kayaked 4.5km in the midday sun; accidentally waded through a sewage pit; and crossed the finish line 21st out of 39 teams (or 4th of 9 in our Mixed division).

Some lessons were learned: 1) Eat bananas beforehand. I was dealing with major leg cramps for the last 2.5 hours. 2) Don't eat a lot of GORP in the morning, and only drink water before the bike sections. Your body doesn't have much blood left for digestion, and all of the liquid bouncing around on the runs just doesn't feel good. 3) Bring sunblock. 6.5 hours of sweating and swimming is too much for even the heartiest lotion. 4) Pick your teammate. Elena and I were having a great time, in spite of cramps, sunburn, and exhaustion, while the guys we were battling for the last two hours were swearing at each other the whole way. We named them the Assholes. (Their name ended up being the STUDS, which is somehow unsurprising.) Guess who won?
[Full results, times, photos (none of me) and distances are here, if you care!]

Battlezone, Chiang Mai

No, this isn't about the much-publicized political protests and airport closures in Bangkok.

This is about Loi Krathong, the Thai holiday that occurs on the full moon in November. This was two weeks ago, but things have been a little crazy, so I'm writing about it now.

Loi Krathong is a festival of lights, but where the Jews light candles, the Thais light fireworks. Big fireworks. Which include homemade bombs packed into terra cotta pots with short, unpredictable fuses. Real fun stuff.

But I digress.

Loi Krathong is a time for Buddhists to make merit and give themselves good luck by floating handmade boats down rivers, in lakes, etc. at night time. In fact, Loi means "to float" and Krathong is the name of the little barges with candles and incense on them. This means that (even without the "googled" phenomenon), Loi Krathong is both a verb and a noun, and both singular and plural. This leads to such usages as:

"I need to go home (to, for) Loi Krathong."

"My girlfriend is mad at me because I didn't Loi Krathong with her."

"My Krathong didn't Loi."

And my favorite, "Loi that Krathong."

And here I am, just before I Loi that Krathong:

In case this seems potentially boring, it is all made much, much more exciting (read: terrifying) by the fact that, as you Loi your Krathong, you are an exposed target for every male over the age of 8 to shoot fireworks at. Any supposedly serene, peaceful, or romantic moment is erased, as everyone's yearly Krathong wish becomes "Please, Buddha, just let me survive Loi Krathong."

I don't know if I can adequately express the terror of the three days of Loi Krathong, except to say that no matter where you are, you are never safe. I was sitting in my living room, just after sunset on the first night, and I kept jumping out of my seat as random explosions took place just feet from my front door. One bomb was so big that it set off car alarms on my street. And there aren't even cars on my street.

Anyway, I managed to make it through Loi Krathong with all of my fingers and toes, and although I'm not sure that my hearing will ever recover, it was kind of worth it, because I also got to take part in one of the oldest and most beautiful Thai traditions. About three days before the Loi-ing officially begins, there is a festival at a local university at which about 10,000 fire lanterns are released at once. It was truly an incredible sight that I'll never forget. A friend got pretty good video of it a few years ago, so you can get some kind of an idea. (Click the photo to view; requires QuickTime)

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In other news, the airports in Bangkok have been closed for three days, with no forseeable end in sight. Everyone is hopeful that this will resolve itself by the King's birthday on December 5th, but nobody really knows for sure. Mom and Dad are rebooked on a flight back to the States on the 8th, and with any luck they'll be able to get home then.

But as long as you're not trying to go anywhere, life in Thailand, and particularly in Chiang Mai, goes on, unaffected.

Out of Hand

Thanks to several of you for concerned calls and emails over the past 24 hours. Things seem to have gotten a little out of hand down in Bangkok at the moment, but everything is, as always, completely normal in Chiang Mai. The only remote concern that I have is that Mom and Dad won't be able to fly down to Bangkok on Friday, and then to the States on Sunday. However, we're all pretty optimistic that the 50 million Baht/day cost of having Suvarnabhumi airport closed will push the otherwise-sluggish Thai bureaucracy to find a solution quickly. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, the trip to Bangkok was incredible, and Mom and Dad's visit to Chiang Mai has been even better. I leave you with this gem as a teaser: