Sexual Obsession on Tuesdays -- Chiang Mai, Thailand

My week on Bumrung Bury Road, Alley 2 flew by in a flurry of morning walks,

 

 -- massage class, 

-- street food --

 -- acro yoga, 

My Russian

 -- laughing at my Russian's antics and wondering if she might have been hit by a tuk-tuk because a juicy mango called to her from across the road.

I love this lady. She brings out all the silly in me. 

All of it. 

Class pic at massage school, taken by my Russian. Can you find me?

Our hostel on Bumrung Bury Road, Alley 2 has a good many things. It has all you can drink instant coffee with powdered milk and white sugar/mass grave of black ants. It has a prodigious amount of mosquitoes and "comfort rooms" in which I glimpse gargantuan cockroaches more often than the rare, timid Western creature colloquially known as "toilet paper." Currently on the critically endangered species list in most of Asia, I believe. It has stairs so slippery and narrow that I nearly plummeted down the entire lot of them this morning whilst en route to have a chat with the cockroaches in the loo. When I take a shower in the evenings, the warm water pools around my feet due to a giant mat of black, curly hair clogging the drain.

Eh... bath and shower meet. That's multitasking for you..

Two of the few things missing at my hostel on Bumrung Bury Road, Alley 2 are decent fruit salads and British Canadians named Jerry.  My first morning, I attempted to make do without both staples, and ventured off to the South Gate market to scrounge up some breakfast.

"What is... errr... NOT spicy?" I asked a small Thai woman behind a table sagging beneath the weight of twenty different colorful dishes.

"This, no spicy," the woman nodded understandingly and pointed to a solitary, unappetizing looking mountain of mystery meat avec kale.

"And?" I gazed at my option forlornly.

One out of twenty? Seriously, Thailand?

"And this, no spicy," another equally unpalatable dish was pointed out.  

"Well... okay. One of this and one of this," I conceded, thinking that these sneaky Thais must exploit foreigner's poor tolerance of spice to get rid of all the food locals won't buy.

I used to enjoy spicy food. In fact, after my six month stint in Mexico, food tasted tepid without a hearty helping of chili to bring it to life. Preferably in the form of Oaxacan mole (be still, my heart...). However, after the spicy shrimp food poisoning incident in the Philippines, my body has become decidedly less enthusiastic regarding all things chili. I tried Tom Yam soup my first week in Chiang Mai, and I immediately felt the unquenchable rage of my stomach lining.

We spent the day studying abdominal massage in school, wherein my irascible belly was poked and prodded for hours.

I spent the night in abject misery. My forehead was cool, but my belly was on fire. I broke out into a sweat, all the joys of diarrhea were visited upon me, and my distended, burning belly roiled with gas.

I moaned on the squeaky top bunk, frequently scrambling down the flimsy metal ladder to use the loo, fervently wishing for my own bed (whatever that really means) and a toilet that didn't spray me with foul water every time I attempted to flush it.

At four am, I was so dehydrated that I made an emergency excursion down the alley to the nearest water fountain where I could fill up my bottle.

   
Then a wave of vehement nausea hit my poor, beleaguered body. And that is how I ended up kneeling in a dark, narrow alley in Chiang Mai, vomiting into a gutter. Stray dogs watching curiously from a safe distance as I hurled whatever was left in my turbulent guts into the rat infested underground of Chiang Mai.

I'm the classiest dame of all the dames. 

Also, I want my mom. 

"How are you?" my massage friends asked as I haggardly limped into our songthaew. 

"I feel like I got hit by a truck," I groaned.

I fantasize about having one day  -- just ONE day -- with no pain. No forty days and forty nights period flood with vicious cramps, no throat pain that lasts for months and stupefies doctors all over the world, and no spontaneous combustion of my innards. 

Anyway. This is why I avoided the other eighteen tantalizing dishes and resentfully carried the two slimy, dull looking bags of meat and veggies back to Bumrung Bury.

Bag number one turned out to be more or less edible.

Bag number two turned out to be cold, slimy liver with green beans.

"Kitty!" I shamelessly called the hostel cat over, dropping my bag o' cold liver onto the floor.

So now I walk the twenty-five minutes to the market with the fruit salad and the British Canadian named Jerry.

And I'm a little in love with my entrancing morning walks.  Watching as the glowing sun rises over tangled webs of telephone wires, scooters and bicycles.

Passing quiet temples, abandoned to pigeons and stray dogs.

 Watching the monks collect offerings, walking barefoot with golden bowls and plastic bags of donated food. Occasionally stopping to mutter prayers for a person kneeling at their feet.

 

 It's nearly daily that I find a funny sign over which I giggle uncontrollably.

Which is my favorite way to giggle. 

Good test. bahaha.

Hairy basil. Hehehe.

No milk? Umm... then what have you got? Hahaha

 The songthaew full of chipper strangers has turned into a songthaew full of exhausted buddies.

Maki, the Japanese Berliner, has even created a sketch of each of us.

She says she doesn't have facebook, so this is her substitute. 

 

During my two weeks studying Thai Massage at TMC in Chiang Mai, I've learned quite a few techniques I'll incorporate into my massage sequences in the future.

But I've also learned a lot of... well... codswallop that makes me question the legitimacy of the bits and pieces I do like.

Exhibit a)

You'll notice that when your Ida Sen line is blocked, you will have night blindness and may die, if the Ida remains blocked for one week.

If your Pingala Sen line is blocked, you might end up unconscious. "Like Blue Krait snake bite."

If your Galataree Sen line is blocked, you might experience entire body numbness, due to eating too much sticky rice. It "often happen on Sunday, Monday."

If your Tawaree line is blocked, you will have eye socket pain and "due to consuming young-sweet coconut, sexual obsession -- often happen on Tuesday."

Is this culture so set on honoring their ancestors -- their teachers -- that they refuse to abandon the outdated bullshit? 

I received my answer the other day, whilst watching one of our frightfully basic morning video lectures.

"We at TMC bow to our great teachers and will not change anything we learned from them."

And THAT is how we create a stagnant world devoid of critical thinking. 

I suppose that to let this portion of Thai massage invalidate the rest would be just as mindless as to blindly accept all of it. 

"We know it doesn't make sense sometimes... just do it and don't ask questions," the thick Thai accent on the lecture video exhorted us. "Look in the book. If you can't find the answer there, write TMC an email."

I choose to laugh at all this. As I choose to do with a good many things.

"Why do we start this technique on the right side when most start on the left?" we asked our instructors.

Aam and Duen looked at each other, shrugged and said, "curriculum!"

I collapsed into a fit of laughter. A fit which lasted for several minutes. At one point, Aam approached me with a chuckle, "Aimee, bathroom! Inside!" and tried to shove me into the loo.

When telling us to repeat a technique on the opposite side, they say, "Na ha!, Right side, same same."

When telling us to repeat a technique with a bit of variation, they say, "Na ha! Right side, same same, but different."

SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT! BAHA. 

"Aimee, come back!" Aam smiles as I again lose myself to laughter.

Even if I never use anything I learn here because I discover, after some critical thinking, that 100% of Thai Massage is codswallop, I will not regret my experience here. All this laughter. All these lovely people. My Russian. Randomly meeting a friend of Misho's who gave me a Martenitisa to celebrate spring.  

I was supposed to be here.