Sandy Does Southeast Asia

I take vitamin supplements every day while I’m at home but I never take them with me when I travel. That’s not because I hope to get worn down and eventually succumb to a tropical malady. If you know me even a little, you probably wouldn’t put it past me, but honestly that’s not why. I don’t take supplements while I’m travelling because that way I have to think more closely about what I eat. And since I hate sightseeing, there’s precious little for me to actually do while travelling (other than watching cable or staring into space of course) so I have plenty of time to think about nutrition. (Yes, smarty pants I know I could be writing, and as a matter of fact I did start working this morning – so there!)

When I say “think about nutrition”, I just mean I make sure that I get the best variety and balance of foods each day. I eat at regular intervals, I include fruit and/or vegetables in every meal, and I rarely if ever consume empty calories (like alcohol or soda). OK I seriously just realized that this is probably why I feel so much healthier and happier when I’m travelling. Anway.

The reason why I was thinking about this is because I love Chiang Mai. And the reason I love Chiang Mai is because it, like the best cities in the world, is totally obsessed with food. I have this theory that you can quickly judge the liveability of city by the emphasis it places on eating. San Francisco: VERY liveable. Los Angeles: don’t even bother, unless you plan on doing a lot of research, a lot of driving, and spending a lot of money.

Not only are there signs everywhere for cooking classes, but it’s pretty much impossible to throw a rock without hitting a good, cheap restaurant here. There is an incredible variety including all the foreigner standards (Greek, Italian, French, about three German hofbraus, English, etc…oh, and of course Mike’s Original hamburger/hot dog/chili place down the street). But even at my own guesthouse, they seem to take food very seriously. Today for lunch I had a green curry with chicken and vegetables over rice, with a papaya juice. I wasn’t expecting much but…I applauded at the end of the meal. I’m not kidding. I literally sat there clapping to myself.

Speaking of my guesthouse, I figured out that it’s not meant to be an American diner, it’s meant to be a French diner. Or bistro or whatever. In fact, the entire guesthouse is French themed. It took me a while to figure this out because I am nothing if not incredibly self-involved. What finally tipped me off was not the French name (Rendesvous), the huge aerial photo of Paris in the dining room, the Eiffel Tower shaped bottle of liquor in same, or even the fact that the Thai owner sits for hours working with his French tutor every afternoon…no, what finally tipped me off was sitting on my balcony looking at the little round gray granite-topped table with the elegant iron base. Hey, that looks quite French, I said to myself. Then I started looking around – oh wait, everything looks French in here. Admire the incredible powers of observation that allowed me to notice this after only two whole days. (Side note: In the spirit of things I have taken up reading Lettres d’un Voyageur by George Sand.)

OK must run – I’ve got to start planning what to have for dinner!

The new interim Prime Minister of Thailand was just sworn in. He made a statement saying during his administration (only until the election next October, in theory) that they would work on increasing the happiness of the people rather than the economic bottom line; basically that they would focus on well-being indicators rather than the GNP. That is brilliant, isn’t it?

This morning on the flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai I was thinking about how I’m feeling happier at the moment than I have in months. I think that maybe happiness is contagious. And I could be catching it from Thai people. It’s such a cliche about this being the land of smiles or what have you but there really is something special about the bearing of people here. When they smile at you it seems sincere, unlike many places in the world (e.g. Vietnam), where you sort of feel sorry for people when they smile at you because it is usually under duress and looks like they’re doing something vaguely painful. But here, people smile at you like, “Hey, you’re a person and I’m a person and we’re both right here. Isn’t that marvelous??” It gives you a warm, connected feeling.

So, in the general spirit of the new Prime Minister’s administration, here are some things that have made me happy today:

* Finding a guesthouse on a quiet, shady side street – $8 a night for a large, airy room with a balcony overlooking temples and trees, cable TV with 100 channels (including…wait for it…CNN Asia! Yes!!), a refrigerator, pretty blue tiles in the bathroom. It’s lovely. Chiang Mai vs. Bangkok (as experienced from my respective hotel rooms) is less traffic and construction sites, and more birds and bells and wind in the trees.

* Chatting with my new friend Korn who works next door to the guesthouse, at the place where I now use the Internet. He asked me about a festival in the United States that his friends told him about, which turned out to be Halloween, and we planned out how he was going to dress up and go trick-or-treating at the American Consulate (took a while to fully explain ‘trick or treat’ but he is now very fond of it, almost as much as ‘see you when you see me’, which I’ve picked up from him). Also, he pointed out that his name was an American rock band whereas my name (when he heard it, he raised his eyebrows and said, “Really?!”) is very lucky because in Thai it means something like ‘really super great’ (two words, one of which is like ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ and the other is a modifier meaning ‘one hundred thousand’). I really, really hope this is true.

* This climate simply agrees with me. I noticed it in Vietnam and it continues here. My skin looks all dewy and my hair is super shiny and wavy. Oh my god I’m so pretty pretty pretty! OK fine I’ll stop now. But I really am suited to this climate.

* Hanging out at the U.N. Irish Pub, which is a two-minute walk from my guesthouse, drinking a lasse and listening to Oasis. That made me very happy indeed.

* The restaurant of my guesthouse looks exactly like an American diner. It is so awesome. The booths are carved wood and red vinyl, and have granite table tops. How much will I be hanging out there drinking coffee and writing in the morning? The answer: A lot.

I think that every day I will start making lists of all the things that have made me really happy (don’t worry, I’ll spare you guys from now on), until maybe eventually they will crowd out all the sad, disappointing things that landed me here in the first place. Eventually I will forget. Right?