Yesterday was Dad's birthday, so Teay had the idea of making a Photoshopped birthday card with our heads replacing characters. I did some searching for good source material before I stumbled on a Young Frankenstein movie poster - one of Dad's favorites.
So, Teay and I created YOUNG FRAHMENSTEIN:
Starring Dad (Bruce Frahm as Dr. Frankenstein), my brother (Karlyn Frahm as Igor), Mom (Janice Frahm as Inga), Teay (as Elizabeth), and me (as the monster).
(base source HERE, with family photos)
Happy Birthday Dad!
The big news is:
I am no longer single!
Teay and I officially got married on November 24th 2009, at the Amphur Muang Uttaradit district office next to Teay's Mom's food shop. So Teay (her nickname, which translates to 'short') is now officially Miss (you're allowed to retain the Miss title in Thailand even if married) Kalaya Jindarat Frahm. Jindarat is her family name, but since people generally only have two names here, given name and family name (excluding nickname), I encouraged her to keep that that name as an American-style middle name.
Don't feel out of the loop if this comes as a surprise. Teay and I had been planning to get married for a while, but didn't really publicize it. In Thailand, it is fairly common to have the official marriage at the government office as a separate event from the wedding ceremony, which could be held possibly months later. So, we are planning to have a wedding sometime fairly soon, hopefully at some point when my folks can visit Thailand (come on Mom and Dad!). We're also working on getting Teay a visa to visit the US with me, so hopefully we can do an informal reception type event to get family and friends involved.
This was Father's Day weekend in Thailand, so with a vacation day on Monday Teay and I decided to take a mini-honeymoon / vacation to Doi Inthanon mountain along with my new Mother-in-law "Loly", or J-Lo as the customers at her shop call her! Doi Inthanon is near Chiang Mai, so we left on Friday in time to get to the passport office there to get a new passport for Miss Frahm, showing her new name. From there, we went West to about 40km from the base of the mountain and had 2 nights at Chang Rung Ranch, a horse ranch with guest houses.
The ranch is out in the country, so it was nice and quiet with good scenery, lots of animals, and horseback riding. The owners also raise Brahman cattle near the ranch. We arrived there about supper time on Friday, then on Saturday we spent most of the day traveling up to the summit of Doi Inthanon and checking out the other attractions in the area. There was lots of good mountain-summit-in-clouds scenery, and I saw my first "lake" of clouds surrounding a mountaintop, but just in one small area from a distance. Also many good vegetables and other produce for sale, and a very nice "Royal Project" garden to visit on the mountain, plus several waterfalls.The top of Doi Inthanon is the highest point in Thailand at 2565 meters or 8415 feet. We've heard that in the past month or so this year there have been several mornings with frost on surfaces, but no hard freezes. Near the top, the thermometer we found said it was 10 degrees C, or about 50 F -- downright frigid for Thailand!
On Saturday night back at the ranch we had another good supper, and then launched some Kom Loy hot air balloon bags for the King's birthday. Today, Teay rode a horse in the morning and then we set back off for Uttaradit, with stops at a very nice set of shops for hand-carved wood furniture and art, and San Kamphaeng geysers and hot spring.
I've uploaded pictures from the trip HERE!
October is midterm break time here so Teay and I just got back from taking a vacation in Pai, a small town in Mae Hong Son province in the far Northwest Corner of Thailand. Teay had been one time before, but I had only heard about it. It is known for being sort of a hippie retreat with hiking, reggae bars, and cold (by Thailand standards) temperatures. For our vacation last year we went to Koh Samui island, so we decided that taking a mountain trip would be fun this time around!
We left on Monday morning for Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a very popular destination itself, and the second largest city in Thailand (although it is still dwarfed by Bangkok). Mark from the school (teaches P4-5-6 non-bilingual classes) wanted to go to Chiang Mai also to visit the American Consulate about a passport issue, so I offered to take him and his friend along with us.
I'd never driven to Chiang Mai myself before, but it was quite easy to get there and just a 2.5-3 hour drive from Uttaradit. The city itself was somewhat harder to get around in, but not too bad. Chiang Mai is laid out around an old city square, with the original wall still standing in some parts and a moat all the way around it. The road outside the moat is one-way clockwise around the square, and inside the moat goes counter-clockwise. I was slightly less utterly hopeless with directions than usual, but Teay and Mark provided a lot of good help getting around and figuring out a hotel with parking for my car!
After getting checked in and dropping off Mark and his friend, we got back in the car and drove out to Chiang Mai Zoo. We had a good time checking out the animals from the monorail that circles around above the grounds and on foot. Teay had two specific items on the agenda: first to see the new baby panda (named Linping) at the zoo, and second to visit the snow dome indoor area with snow generators. Unfortunately, we were too late in the day to get to see a panda showing, but we did get to check out the snow dome. It had better quality snow than the similar place in Dream World at Bangkok, and it was colder also, but had good coats and boots that let us stay in longer. The down side was that they didn't let us take photos - apparently the "air temperature is too cold and might damage them" (but the camera of the official photographer works just fine, and he'll sell you prints for low-low prices! --no thanks).
After the zoo, we went out to eat at Miguel's Mexican Restaurant, which was excellent even though I'm not quite as desperate for Mexican food after finding the place for it in Bangkok and making tacos at home with Teay! After supper, we walked back to our hotel (not very far) to get some sleep before driving to Pai the next day.
We left for Pai on Tuesday, and managed to get on the correct highway out of Chiang Mai fairly easily. It was going to be about a 180 kilometer trip that we were told would take about 3 hours. The first 100 km passed in about an hour, and then we started to get into the hillclimb stretch of road leading up to Pai. I hadn't done any mountain driving for quite a while, so I had a great time weaving up switchbacks and enjoying the scenery for the roughly 2 hours to go the remaining 80 km. And Teay didn't barf in the passenger seat, so I must have been doing OK! :)
When we got close to Pai, we decided to stop at a resort with cottage houses for rent called Paina Paita that Teay had visited (but not stayed at) the last time she was in the area. It is right on the side of Pai Canyon / Valley, and the cottage rooms looked great, so we went ahead and checked in there. We got a small cottage all to ourselves with a bedroom with mosquito nets, nice fairly open / natural style bathroom, and attached porch with fantastic view of the valley.
We did some relaxing there and then took our first trip in to Pai town to check out the evening walking street with vendors, live music, bars, etc. The town does have a very hippie feel, similar to some of the mountain towns in Colorado. We enjoyed walking around and checking things out.
I was a bit concerned about mosquitoes getting in through the open-air spaces in our cottage at night, but with the mosquito net around the bed, it was very comfortable sleeping and a very nice cool temperature. I'd guess that it was in the low 60's Fahrenheit for overnight lows, which isn't all that cool by Kansas standards, but positively frigid in Thailand. I think that in the coldest parts of the year (maybe December in Pai compared to roughly early November in Uttaradit) it can get down to the low 40's F at the elevation in Pai.
Wednesday morning was enjoyable to wake up and check out the clouds and fog that settled into the valley from our cottage porch. We enjoyed a good breakfast prepared by the resort owner, and then set off on some road trips to area attractions.
First was a small local market outside of the town. Lots of local-grown fruits and vegetables, and some handcrafts etc. We bought some fruit including pomegranates. I ate pomegranate in the USA maybe once a year around Thanksgiving or Christmas, but they are cheap and plentiful here so we get them quite frequently.
Next we went to an overlook / hiking area to see Pai Canyon. Great view and nice rock outcrops, with nice easy hiking and footpaths. Teay was a bit chicken about walking across one semi-narrow ridge out to get a different vantage point, so she crawled / crab walked it, and I followed with the camera.
From there we stopped at a bridge constructed during World War 2 over the Pai river. Teay bought some Thai-style sausage, which made the local dogs follow her everywhere.
Our next stop was some natural hot springs with mineral bath pools. Signs in the park said that the water at the outlet of the spring is about 80 degrees Celsius, and there were several tiers of pools of varying temperatures with stone dividers set up. We lazed in the water for about an hour or so. I would guess that the water in our pool was about 105 degrees Fahrenheit, quite comfortable with an ambient air temperature of roughly 65. It also had very nice scenery and nature to look at while lounging in the pools!
After drying off and cooling down a bit, we got back in the car and drove on a circle road that went around most of the valley to come into Pai town from the other side. We had lunch at a Big Bowl Noodle shop, where you get a large serving of noodle soup in an extremely large bowl.
For the afternoon, Teay wanted to drive to check out Pang Oung, a mountain lake advertised as being like a "mini Switzerland". We asked for directions and distance, and were told it was about 100km away, and a 3 hour drive. The drive was fun with good scenery, and we only got slightly lost once or twice -- the 3 hour estimate held to be nearly spot on. The lake was nice, and completely surrounded by evergreen trees (pretty rare in Thailand). We couldn't spend much time there since we wanted to get back to our resort near Pai before it got too dark. I think it would have been a good place to camp for a day or two, but it was a little "meh" as the object of a 6 hour trip of mountain driving.
On Thursday morning, the cloud coverage view from our cottage was even better than the day before, and we had a repeat excellent breakfast made by the owner. We did some packing and lazing around and enjoying the view before checkout time and then hit the road back towards Chiang Mai, but stopped at Coffee in Love shop for some hot drinks (coffee for Teay and tea for me) and photos on the way out of town.
Once back in Chiang Mai, we went to the Central Airport Plaza for some shopping (I got the new Dan Brown book) and ate at Shabushi, a fun Japanese buffet restaurant where you sit at a counter and a little conveyor belt carries sushi, meats, veggies, etc. in front of you for you to grab and eat or cook in a hot-pot at your seat. After supper we did some more walking around in Chiang Mai, and visited the Night Bazaar. Lots of neat stuff there, including some fantastic 3D scenes hand carved into teak wood (way outside my price range). I looked for a wood carved Guan Yu figure to add to my collection (mine are all resin figures), but didn't have any luck. Finally, we stayed in the same hotel that we started out the trip in on Monday night.
Friday was our return to Uttaradit day, but we also stopped in Lampang to watch an elephant show. I'd seen a similar show North of Chiang Mai before. This show also had paintings done by the elephants, which is very cool to watch. They come up with pretty well done pictures, and as far as I can tell they have absolutely no physical direction from their trainers when they do the painting with a brush held in their trunks.
My picture gallery of the trip can be found HERE. I've also edited together a few video clips from my camera that you can watch below. Sections are: driving to Pai, looking around Pai Canyon, and watching the Elephant show in Lampang. Guess that is all for now!
Happy birthday Mom! We decided to celebrate by getting some cake for you -- it was tasty!
Also, check out Teay's photo gallery from the Langsat Festival this year. Full gallery HERE.
Today is Teay's birthday (the big 25!), but we celebrated with a party last night. We made Yam Tuna (twist on a Thai-style dish) and tacos, and other visitors brought a grill for grilled fish and a kind of cockel-like clams for Hoy Krang. We moved stuff around to have the party in front of the house, Teay's mom brought a big cooler of ice, and Teay's friend Tien brought some party lights and decorations.
A full gallery of photos can be found HERE, with more description in the captions. Tonight I bought a bottle of champagne to test out with some friends (Teay hasn't tried champagne before), so we're going to do that pretty soon and I'll cut this post short.
I took a trip to Bangkok this weekend to get my health insurance sorted out. The plan I had with the school expired, and I had options to change providers, so I decided to get one with better coverage.
Teay helped me find the offices of the new company, and we did some good shopping and eating as usual for a Bangkok trip, including my first bagel with cream cheese since coming to Thailand. Also saw the new Harry Potter movie, which I enjoyed -- I thought it captured the characters personalities from the books as I see them better than in most of the previous movies.
We also had a fun experience walking through Siam Square, a shop area close to the Siam Paragon and MBK. As we were walking by shops, we got to a glass shopfront and saw a foreign guy sitting with his feet dangling into a big aquarium-type thing with lots of fish in it. All fairly small, sucker-mouth type fish, swarming his feet and cleaning/nibbling away. He gave us the thumbs up and seemed to be enjoying it. The following day, we were walking through the same area again, so I decided that we should go and check it out.
Fifteen minutes of fish treatment cost 200 baht, or 30 minutes for 300 baht. I wondered if Teay and I could split time and do 7.5 minutes each for 200, but she was a bit chicken to test it out and just wanted to watch me. So, I requested the 15 minutes and they gave my feet a quick wash before taking me over to the tank. Teay gave the receptionist some extra longan fruit that we had with us, also.
I didn't quite know what to expect the fish would feel like. It felt pretty weird, but not at all painful. The massive numbers of fish all swarming around at once sort of overloaded the limited number of foot nerves, I guess. Quite comfortable once I got used to it -- I guess I would compare the sensation to scrubbing feet with a loofa sponge.
And, just as Teay and I had done the day before, lots of people stopped to look in and gauge my reaction or give me "you're crazy!" looks. I gave lots of people the thumbs up, so maybe I encouraged some future customers also. I wasn't keeping track of the time, and when they said I was done Teay mentioned that it had been about 34 minutes for the 15 minute price -- not sure if Teay's fruit bribe or my interaction with foot traffic outside through the window got me the extra time free!
After it was done my feet felt quite good, and relaxed like after a Thai foot massage. Definitely worth the 200 baht to test it out! :)
Photos HERE.
I'd say that I'm behind, but by recent standards a break between posts of only a month and a half is pretty quick!
The final bit of summer break was pretty good. Teay and I took a bus trip to the beach near Bangkok with her Mom and workers from the Public Health Office, adjacent to Teay's Mom's restaurant. There were several different stops along the way, including a wax museum, shopping markets, and a nice park area. I've posted a gallery of photos from the trip HERE. In addition, we stopped at a place with a cable car ride that went up to a scenic overlook, and I got to see my first monkeys in Thailand. Teay liked them, and explains why in this video:
Rain... there has been plenty of it! Last week there was a lot of talk about a possible flood. Several school in Muang Uttaradit closed early to let kids go home and prepare houses and supplies, etc. I helped Scott and Pim move some furniture upstairs in their house (which is in a fairly low area and got swamped in the flood 3 years ago), and then helped Howard move a refrigerator upstairs in his restaurant (new project this year for his girlfriend Pui, who is a great chef with particularly good Som Tam!), so we all got pretty tired!
After the school closings and our furniture moving flood preparations, the water didn't end up making it into the town, but Lap Lae nearby had about a foot and a half of water at sidewalk level in some areas, so I think it was a narrow miss. Things have dried out since then, but we're only a couple weeks into rainy season so I shouldn't jinx things by assuming we're out of the woods yet.
Although my house is next to the Nan river, the riverbank on my side is very high and the opposite bank is probably 6 feet plus lower, so I think that historically this area has been above the reach of flooding. There has also historically been plenty of warning time with the waters rising slowly, so I think that in the highly unlikely event that water did make it up to my house, I'd be able to pack my belongings (computer first! -- priorities) into my car and drive up North to the mountains and take a few vacation days in Chiang Mai or something! :)
I guess that is all for now.
Yep. Last post in January. Now late April. I didn't die or anything -- just got way behind!
After Teay's school term ended, she returned to Uttaradit and has been staying with me here. We have enjoyed the vacation time, staying in Uttaradit a fair bit and traveling around a bit. I have been slightly less lazy in updating my Picasa photo galleries than this blog, so you may have seen some newer photo sets. Here are links to galleries from a trip to Nan province, Dream World theme park in Bangkok, and Songkran in Uttaradit.
I recently got a new desktop PC, which I have been enjoying setting up. My Alienware laptop that I got just before coming here developed some vertical bars in the built-in LCD display that spread to being over an inch and a half thick. I limped along for a while by literally suspending it from the wall with a rope, connecting a keyboard, mouse, and new flatscreen monitor, and using it as a non-mobile "desktop". But having a proper new machine has been good.
I couldn't decide which OS to run on it -- Windows XP for best game compatability, Windows Vista to see if the new flavor is as much of a train wreck as I've heard, or trying a new Linux variant even though I've been out of that scene for quite a while. So, I decided to go with all 3 at once, and can choose to jump into XP, Vista, or Ubuntu Linux at boot. I am extremely impressed with Ubuntu -- no need to boot into XP or Vista other than to play games or run Photoshop (if any *nix'ers feel feel the urge to inform me about WINE, I'm already aware of it. GIMP also. I learned Photoshop first and I'm too lazy to reform).
And that brings me basically up to now. Teay and I just got back from a trip to Amphawa, which is sort of the Thai version of Venice, with most of the houses and storefronts facing canals and the river. We actually stayed a bit away from Amphawa, but still on the river, at a resort called Baan Tai Had. Our room was next to the pool, and had a balcony looking out at a canal with carp and lotus plants etc.
The first day, we mainly stayed around the resort and swam in the pool. We borrowed a bicycle from a lady with a shop there (bike free after Teay bought us matching pink t-shirts from her shop) and rode it about 5 km to a ferry that took us to a market area across the river for supper. Five baht for the ferry -- 2 baht per person plus 1 for the bike. Two baht would let you ride your motorcycle onto the ferry and drive off once at the opposite pier.
The second day, we went swimming in the morning, borrowed the bike again to get lunch, and got a private long-tailed boat tour that took us down the proper Amphawa canal and floating market area. We did some shopping there and ate supper, and then the same boat took us to see the fireflies in the surrounding area on the river banks. The fireflies are quite interesting -- they are attracted to a particular kind of tree, so they swarm on those. They don't fly around as much as the fireflies I am familiar with in the states, and they flash their light on and off much more quickly than those also. So, the effect is that these particular trees get dozens or hundreds of fireflies crawling on them blinking rapidly all over the place -- they look like Christmas trees.
Here is a link to the full gallery from that trip.
OK, I guess that is all for now. I'll try to be a bit more regular with updates in the future... But no promises!
