The Land of Smiles

Bangkok, Thailand

Touring the many Wat in Bangkok,

this guy was begging for me to pose like

him
The largest reclining Buddha in the world,

Wat Pho, also the largest and oldest wat pho sho.

One night in Bangkok, sampling the many

many tasty street stall meals
Total stalls visited that night - 6

Total money spent 4 dollars

= Land of Smiles

First massage in Thailand, included

a post massage snack of tea and a banana.

Had a Thai massage, quickly learned why you

need the banana

The reason I went to Thailand -

the "evil" palm oil

Palm oil processing mill -

never have I wanted buttered popcorn so much

Trying my hand at loading fresh fruit bunches

from the truck to mill.
Each FFB weighs about 30kgs,

even though this dude is making it look glam

Harvesting the FFB from full grown trees.

Also tried this, and picture not included

because it was an epic fail resulting in me

drenched in sweat.

And then work got real hard.....Phi Phi islands

(not pictured - snorkeling and canonballs off our private boat)

Smiles = pimped out tuk-tuk
Krabi, Thailand

As much as I've complained about my job on this blog, apparently they may be reading.....I arrived back from the weekend in Ponza with Marietta and Cornelia with a lot of stress about missing a day of work, only for them to tell me on my first day back that they thought I should go to Thailand, and not just Thailand, but to Krabi. So thank you job for the hard sell, keep it up and I may like you after all. Here's a few of the highlights from my time in Thailand which included two days in Bangkok and ten in Krabi/Phi Phi Islands:

Palm oil - What brought me to Thailand you ask - visiting palm oil mills and farmers as part of a study I'm conducting on the benefits and challenges for smallholders. Palm oil gets a real bad rap as I am sure you are aware - one day it's responsible for the extermination of orangutans, the next it's responsible for all of climate change and deforestation, and the next Girl Scout Cookies are the culprit because they use palm oil. I will take a rare soapbox/bully pulpit moment on this block to state that all palm oil is not created equal. Like many agricultural products, one fresh fruit bunch (FFB) of palm can deliver over 10 products that you use everyday. While doing this, the residues and effluent can also produce electricity - all at the same time from one little orange kernel. I have visited palm oil plantations and mills now in three countries, but this was my first experience in Asia. A few of my main findings - 1) smallholders are making a killing on palm oil cultivation while growing other products like mushrooms, rubber, grazing cattle, and conducting tourism businesses; 2) it is not easy work even if it looks glamorous/alluring; 3) palm oil mills smell like popcorn

Khab kun krab Thai people - Thai people are possibly the nicest/kindest people that I have ever met. When you say thank you or hello in Thailand you slightly bend with your hands in prayer formation at your chest. Something about this is really soothing (which from me is possibly the highest compliment you can get) and polite. I had wondered about traveling alone in Asia, and always thought I would wait to go there until I had a travel buddy until work decided otherwise for me. I guess I always thought I would stick out a lot more than in Latin America and not have any clue about the language. What I found is that it was actually easier to get around/negotiate on my own. I attribute this to the kindness of people; the unagressiveness of men; the cheap massages and beauty treatments; and the development/tourism of Thailand and their ease at dealing with us weird white people. Please see further explanation below, but I also experienced the unbelievable kindness of Thai people when I became sick all alone, and yet didn't feel alone because of how caring/sweet/above and beyond the hotel reception people were in caring for me. Thailand you passed the test in my inadvertent damsel moment. Do you want to date??

Massages - So about those massages, yes I had one everyday and sometimes twice a day = the land of Elizabeth's smiles. I learned quickly however about which type of massage to ask for - at the end of my first day, I stumbled (literally because I was exhausted from flying the night before and then touring so many wat I didn't know wat to do with myself, then stuffing myself with streetcart food, anyway) into a massage place right outside my hotel. I figured I had to do it since I was dedicated to getting a massage everyday. So as a novice I requested the Thai massage - figuring when in Rome (but not in Rome).....they gave me some comfy pjesque outfit to wear that already got me excited until it started - for the next 1.5 hours I was caught between a fit of giggles from being tickled to outright screaming from the pain that was being induced from a small man climbing all over my cute pj outfit. Never was I so relieved when it was over, especially when they gave me a banana and a green tea as a small offering for what they'd inflicted on me. All discomfort aside, I woke up the next day to all my aches/pains from carrying my luggage gone - as they told me no pain no gain. However, I didn't have it in me to revisit this experience and opted the rest of the week for the "oil massage" which basically equals a tamer version more similar to our Western view of massage. Average cost of massage = 5 dollars. Oh Thailand, I miss you already, giggles/screams and all

Im leaow - You may have noticed that I'm a bit behind in this blog, but for once I am thankful for that, since I don't think I would have been able to write about the food any sooner. I was so looking forward to leaving unending pizza/pasta behind for awhile to finally have some ethnic cuisine that is so hard to find in Rome, in addition to just getting excited to taste what real Thai food in Thailand tastes like. I had a fantastic ten days of street cart sampling (average 1 dollar per meal); delicious restaurants and blends of papaya and spicy, two of my favorite things - until on the last day I woke up with the worst sickness I have ever experienced, including fever, hallucinations, fainting, and a lot of other things that I won't mention here. I have oft talked about how I never get food poisoning because I always drink the water and eat the street food so I must have built up some immunity, obviously I thought I had jinxed myself - but I hadn't - I finally determined the culprit of my sickness as, no not the streetcart food, but oysters that I had at a fancy restaurant for my last dinner. Not just me saying this, determined by the fact that my dining companions (all except the one that didn't have the oysters) came down with a similar affliction. Needless to say, I loved the food, the cheapness and variety of it. And I will be avoiding oysters for probably awhile to come, so don't try and convince me with some aphrodisiac jargon

Germans - You may be wondering what Germans have to do with a blog post about Thailand? Well, the seminar and projects I was visiting are facilitated by Germans, and while Nik my former intern and Miriam by friend from New Zealand had already given me an appreciation of their efficiency, directness, and predicatability - I have a whole new appreciation after this trip to Thailand. First of all the seminar/whole week of events was so well organized and on time, that I felt like I was in heaven compared to life in Italy. Plus, Germans are hilarious in that they don't quite realize their very Germanness but are quite happy when you point it out to laugh at themselves. One German asked me about the word "marvelous" and if we use it much in English. I replied that it was a bit antiquated/royal sounding, but that yes at times we use it. He then replied that he was going to attempt to bring it back into fashion. Every email I have since received has included marvelous in it - the German dedication and persistence to a cause.

You may have noticed some Thai language above. The only two phrases I learned while in Thailand were how to say thank you and I'm full - very fitting summary for my trip.

And so with that, thank you work, you've now helped me check off Africa and Asia in my first four months of employment. If you can swing a stop by Antarctica (they must be farming something!), I'll be ready to come home having completed world (continent) domination. And thank you Thailand for 11 days (minus one for that food poisoning) of smiles that will last me awhile to come