going home

it's not often that chicago, shakopee, northfield, cambodia and thailand have something in common. but in the context of friends and family, any place becomes a sort of home. it's hard to encapsulate how fabulous the last month has been. reconnecting with friends and family following four months away from my conventional definition of home was indescribably fabulous. i love the first moments together, wondering if the other person is really next to you rather than across the world. though it sounds cliché, reunions remind me what's really important.
after two weeks of friends and family in chicago and minnesota, i departed for india. however, as the boarding doors closed in chicago, i had a terrible realization. somehow, during the planning process, i failed to take time zones into account when planning my trip back to asia. i ran through the terminal at heathrow, desperately trying to schedule a new flight to bangkok during my brief layover. the only consolation was pretending that i was in love actually, as it was christmas eve. i re-boarded the air india plane and almost jumped out the window when the pilot reported we could not land in delhi because of a fog implosion. suffice it to say, spending 18 hours stranded in the bombay airport, the capital of bollywood entertainment, on christmas day was enough punishment for my stupidity in planning. this antecdote does not bode well for my general level of common sense, something i fear i lack.

following the 48+ hour journey, i felt like i should run down the steps of the plane and kiss the ground at the airport in cambodia. we assembled inside of the small terminal and handed in our visa documents and wallet-sized pictures to the official. the assembly line of men working behind the desk completed our visas and the last man in line held up passports, exhibiting the photo page, and waited for them to be claimed. i paid a man to deposit me and my large backpack at our guesthouse and after he situated my pack between his legs, we set off just in time to see a huge man walking toward the airport. isaac arnquist, of course. isaac, ash and i wasted no time in partaking in a pizza from ecstatic pizza and making the most of our time in cambodia. it's a wonderful feeling to create a sense of home through the comfort of old friends.

in siem reap we, of course, spent a day at the temples of angkor. scaling the steep steps reminded me that i am actually a little scared of heights. who knew? to assuage my fears, ashlee, isaac and i sang songs, including the theme to the golden girls. crazy foreigners.




after a few days in siem reap we took a bus to phnom phen. we made the most of a pit stop to explore a less touristy market and partook in a delicacy-- gigantic crickets. possibly the more eventful leg of the journey was the 6-hour return ride on the mekong on the roof of a speedboat. on our first morning in phnom phen ashlee and i were awakened at sunrise by some loud dance party music. on our porch we saw a huge assembly of cambodians, facing the sunrise and the river, performing aerobics with no apparent leader. the two of us went down to the river to take a closer look and found a elephant that we named howard, receiving a bath on his way to work. while in phnom phen we also visited the former killing fields, now home to a pagoda with over 8,000 skulls, illustrating a fraction of the executions committed under the khmer rouge. there's not really any sentence in the english language that can properly link this stark piece of history and the rest of our journey. isaac, ashlee and i spent our last night together ringing in the new year by watching fireworks on the roof of our guesthouse.

coming back to chiang mai has been full of sharing my favorite places and foods with my mom. watching the patriotic bit about the king preceding all movies in thailand even reminded me how much i love the king. after elephant riding and sampling the food of chiang mai, i returned to my home. when i walked into my host family's house in chiang mai it was as if no time had passed. my khun mee immediately sat me down at the table and began depositing food onto my plate, kai muk, my youngest sister, danced around singing "pee coco" and my khun phoo entered and gave me a giant hug and kiss. dinner at my family's house was a buffet of "pee coco's favorites" and catching up with my my parents, aomsin, tabtim and kaimuk. my family called my mom "mom" and i reveled in having her in my thai home.

today is our final day in chiang mai. my mom and i partook in the best banana pancakes in thailand this morning and then i had a small solo adventure complete with renting a motorbike and then narrowly escaping a parking ticket and a final thai massage. when i arrived back at the hotel, i discovered a mass of protesters. apparently the sheraton chiang mai is currently hosting a conference concerning a free trade agreement with the united states. guess i can't escape the politics of the u.s. administration anywhere i go. as the guards lowered their riot gear face masks, i found another tourist-- anne from australia-- and we decided we had to find a way into the baracaded hotel. when the guards said they would not let us through, a kind thai man told us to follow him. all of the eyes of the protesters turned to us as we wove past the man speaking from the back of a truck, speaking passionately to the protesters the protesters, and through the crowd. later in the evening the protest evolved to a more "kumbaya" feel with music and dancing.
well, this entry has become somewhat epic... this massive account would never have happened had the hotel staff not prevented us from leaving the grounds because of the protesters... and so it goes...