Awesome Australian Adventure A mechanical solution to an electrical problem.

Heading South

by dcposch

...we've just come full circle a second time. We started our Thailand trip in Bangkok, and after all our adventures in Chiang Mai, we passed through Bangkok again a week ago. Here we are now in Bangkok a third time, looking out across the Chao Prahya river, which is buzzing quietly with millions of mosquitoes and loudly with a handful of overpowered ferries.

We just finished an awesome trip. A side-trip, but still--we spent the week in southern Thailand, on hills, on a beach, and in no less than four caves.

The first two of these were in Petchaburi, our first stop. A place so far off the tourist trail that it was hard to find any signs in letters I could recognize, where getting food was an exercise in sign language. The town's one attraction was that pair of caves, which had been converted into religious spaces--one was a wat, or temple, while the other was just filled with Buddha images. Both had an interesting, unexpectedly postapocalyptic feel to them, empty and surrounded with stray dogs. Hundreds of monkeys sat in the side streets as much as in the trees, scratching themselves and squawking at us. They seemed to be waiting for throngs of snack-laden tourists that didn't exist. Inside the "cave of a thousand buddhas," were two women in white robes, meditating in silence. The darker corners of the cave were filled with the guano and high-pitched chirps of lots of bats.

the Buddhas

and us, waiting patiently for the shutter timer

The real Terminator vibe, however, came from the wat cave. Its entrance was halfway up a hill that rose out of the otherwise flat outskirts of Petchaburi. As we approached the hill, locals were burning trash and leaves in ditches by the side of the road. The smoke wafted up to large, but decaying facilities--a half-finished parking structure, some food stalls, and a long line of bathrooms. These buildings, like the monkeys surrounding them, seemed to be waiting for visitors that never came. We were the exception.

Only one other person entered the cave with us--a lady, like those in the by the "thousand buddhas", dressed in white. Three dogs followed her in; they looked as though they had definitely seen better days. We followed the dogs.

Inside, the wat was lit with bare fluorescent tubes. The Buddhas were beautiful, but the smell was consistent with the handful of stray animals who seemed to call the place home. Nathan and I found a side cave that was only accessible by crawling through a tunnel a few yards long. It was just big enough to stand in, and black except for the dim glow of Nathan's iPhone. It also contained two floorboards, a broom, and a piece of cloth--we're guessing that a monk spent some quality time alone there.

then we set the iPhone flashlight to red and Ben took a really long exposure shot.

We kept walking. One of the coolest statues in the cave was a very large reclining Buddha. So Matt whipped out his headlamp and Ben did another 15-second exposure:

...every year during New Student Orientation, there's a slideshow of the wildest pictures people have taken with the word "Stanford." With a little luck, this might qualify. (Also, the way the word overlaps the Buddha a bit was unintentional.)

We walked deeper into the cave, and into the most surreal experience I've had on this trip so far. We heard someone's voice echoing from the walls, piling syllables on top of each other in a fast staccato rhythm. It was the lady who had walked into the cave in front of us, and it was clear that she wasn't saying anything in any language. She was exerting herself visibly, though, taking short sharp breaths between long stretches of sound. This was glossolalia--"speaking in tongues." I had only known it from the book Snow Crash (which, by the way is awesome.) In real life, however, there was something seriously disconcerting about it. I watched open-mouthed for about a minute. The three unkempt dogs stared back, presumably hoping for food, but the lady was facing one of the Buddha images and never acknowledged our presence.

We left the cave and climbed to the top of the hill, which is capped with an enormous (20-ish yard tall) sitting Buddha.

and some extreme scaffolding

The statue was under renovation, surrounded by an abandoned-looking construction site. The hilltop also had some excellent views of Petchaburi and the countryside.

like this one

The next day, we took the slow train to Hua Hin, through some scenic farmland. Hua Hin is only about 100 km south of Petchaburi, but in many ways the cities seem to be opposites. Hua Hin, it turned out, is a sunny beachside resort town. Once an annual destination for the Thai royal family, it is now full of Hiltons, Courtside Marriotts, and middle-aged vacationers in beach chairs. Nathan and the others found some really good seafood.

Our last stop was lots more memorable. It was Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, and it was almost as devoid of tourists as Petchaburi. Steep, dramatic, jungle-covered limestone peaks rose up next to a white-sand beach. We had a bungalow surrounded by palm trees.

yeah, it was this good

That night, I walked over a short, steep path to a nearby fishing village. The boats were all ridiculously colorful. No English was spoken or written anywhere, so I just walked up to some dude who was loading fishes into a giant cooler and asked "khao lai"--"how much?", one of the five or so phrases of Thai I know. (I have the same understanding of Thai that a parrot might have if it was still in training.) It worked, though, and with a bit more gesticulation and waving of Baht bills, I got some fish. I got a few other things from two little shops. (This town was so small, it didn't even have a 7-Eleven. Those are totally ubiquitous in Thailand, kind of like McDonalds in America, and like McDonalds, you know you're really off the map when you find a place that doesn't have one.) In any case, I carried the fish back and Nathan showed me how to cook them Japanese style, encrusted in salt. We made a bonfire out of coconut shells and palm fronds.

the fish was ridiculously delicious

We got up the next morning to go caving again. These were a different kind of cave altogether, though--no black chambers or hair-raising utterances here. Instead, these caves were gigantic, and most of their roofs had caved in, creating two gaping sinkholes. Lots of sunlight filtered in through really tall trees reaching toward the surface. We shared the space with a couple of butterflies and a group of elementary-school kids.

two Thai kings visited here a long time ago. the first left this throne.

and then the rocks parted, and blinding light shone through

We rolled back to Bangkok again by the scenic route--chugging along in a German-built diesel contraption from a couple of decades ago.

your friendly neighborhood travel bloggers

Until next time... peace!

The Old Empire

by Nathan

Last time I went to Reno, I got this strange post-apocalyptic vibe. There was some sort of wildfire that gave the city an eerie haze. The decay after the town's development boom in the 90s didn't help. So, imagine Reno, plaster statues, fake gold and all, after having been invaded by the Burmese some two hundred and forty-some times (according to the math team), and you get the idea of the ruins of Ayutthaya:

historically significant piles of rock

History lesson time: Ayutthaya (Aye-yuhtt-eh-yuh) was the capital of the Ayutthaya Kingdom from 1351 to 1767, when it was sacked by the Burmese for the last time. This kingdom, at one point, was the center of power in Southeast Asia in addition to being a major trade hub. Ayutthaya was the source of many of the "oriental" goods so prized by the West, such as sandal and tigerwood, rice, and a variety of spices and medicines. We discovered all of this in the morning at the Ayutthaya Historical Study Center, a fantastic and informative museum built in collaboration with the Japanese. The general principle of the construction of the exhibits was :

On the right is the Emperor of Japan visiting the museum. Seriously, the dioramas were the most detailed and impressive I've ever seen.

Afterward, we headed towards the ruins of the Grand Palace, in the north of the city. We rented bikes, this time of the non-powered variety (except for Ben, who rented what the dealer assured him was a Kawasaki superbike but was actually an upscale scooter. He still did burnouts for us). We then toured the major ruins, examining a variety of stupas, chedis, wats, and other remnants of the Ayutthaya Empire. As Ben had a motorbike, he toured the city a bit faster and took his own set of good photos. For those, check out the Ayutthaya portion of the gallery. Anyways, the requisite photos:

We think that the preponderance of headless Buddah figures was a symbolic move take by the Burmese invaders.

After we examined the major ruins, we toured the city on our bikes, examining the various smaller remains spread throughout the city. Like everything we do, this was not without its dangers:

DC tries his hand at being an Australian road train

matt moments before being run over by an elephant

All of this is merely a prelude to the major event of the day, which Marvin! will tell you is dinner. We found a real night market (we didn't see any other tourists there) and proceeded to acquire a feast of decidedly non-Thai proportions.

these fish were swimming not five minutes ago

Pointing and grunting works surprisingly well.

10,000 Monks

by matt

After much deliberation, we decided to extend our stay in Chiang Mai. The primary reason for this decision was an event called 10,000 monks. This was clearly hyperbole, but the pictures on the posters looked cool, so we decided to see what this was all about.

Monks Accept Offerings in Their Bowls

The idea is simple. 10,000 monks line up and the people of the city donate food and drink to them. There are a few complications:

1. It starts at 6 AM. We have not woken up this early aside from the night we stayed in a hill tribe village and were awoken to the sounds of farm animals.

Farm Animals That Woke Us Up

2. There is a lot of traffic. We had scooters, which normally circumvents this problem, but it was still hard to weave around all of the cars.
3. There is 1 1/2 hours of chanting prayers and various speeches in Thai. We don't speak Thai.
4. Westerners stick out like a sore thumb, especially if they stand up the whole time and have massive cameras around their necks. We had massive cameras around our necks, and we wanted to get a good view of the line of soldiers and monks.

We really enjoyed the whole thing, and the highlight was watching the monks go down the offering line. They were all dressed in amazing robes of various shades of red and orange. We were told that they came from all over, including neighboring countries like Burma and Cambodia. People dressed in white lined up in four rows with offerings, leaving two aisles with red carpets on them. Soldiers them lined up in the middle of the aisles and knelt while the speeches, ect were being made. Then, the monks walked down the inner aisles, came to the end, and walked down the aisles. They held large silver bowls, which the villagers put offerings in. These offerings were then placed in bags that the soldiers held, and more offerings were put in the bowls. The offerings, as well as cash offerings made at booths, were donated to monasteries as well as schools in remote villages.

The Ceremony

The best part of the whole thing was that there were 10,000 monks. It gave us a profound respect for Buddhism and the monks who dovote their lives to it to see them perform this magnificent ceremony.

The Monks!

Banana please.

by Ben

TREK!!!

We got to Chiang Mai on the 23rd, and the next morning our guides picked us up for a three day trek through the forests around the city. On this trek we learnt many things about Thai custom, the merits of correctly sized blankets, waterfalls, and the feeding of elephants.

Day 1

Our journey to the start of the trek involved some truly, truly insane driving. We were piled in the back of a Chevrolet Colorado, a vehicle designed for transporting shopping bags between districts of suburbia. At one point we were overtaken on a blind corner by an equally insane, non discript, people carrier. At this point a car met us travelling the opposite direction. None of the drivers were phased by what appeared to be an inevitable collision- instead, the approaching car moved into our lane, passed the people carrier, then squeezed diagonally through the gap between us and the people carrier, putting it back in it's own lane. The people carrier then completed the overtake. I have prepared a diagram to explain this maneuver.

I should point out that no brakes were used in the making of this diagram

Later, we did some walking. It was fun. We stayed the night in a village on top of a hill, inhabited by Thai farmers. They were very friendly, and it was really interesting to be somewhere that was 'authentically' Thai, where people were living more or less as they had been before the invention of tourism, rather than centering their efforts around extracting money from tourists, as has been the case in the cities we've visited.

Camp site in the village

Local people

On the second day, we continued to wander through the forest. At one point we stopped next to a lookout tree, which was a tree that had a ladder up the side so you could climb to the top and see stuff. Ladder is a slight exaggeration.

DC scales tree

On the second night, we camped down river from a waterfall. It was a good waterfall.

Waterfall!

On the third day, we were done walking. This was good news for Marvin! who is still suffering slightly from the time his foot almost had to be amputated. Instead, we employed two unusual forms of transport.

First we rode elephants. In the museum we visited in Bangkok, they explained that elephants were effective as military mounts. This is clearly false. First of all, elephants are extremely hungry- all the time. We were given some bananas for the elephant. Within about 2 seconds of being on its back, the trunk was up in Nathan's face, asking for a banana. Naively, we fed it a banana. In less time than it takes Marvin! to eat a three course meal, the trunk was up again. We fed it another banana. The third time, we thought we would trick it by feeding it two bananas at once, but this backfired because somehow it managed to eat them even quicker in tandem. By this point we had moved less than four meters from the start of the walk, which brings me to my next point; elephants are very very slow. In the museum there were paintings of Thai princes dueling their enemies on the backs of elephants, which would never happen, because some foot soldier would just walk up beside them and push them off while the elephant was asking for a banana. If, of course, the elephant had even made it to the battlefield. This leads on to the third point, which is that elephants are extremely hungry, all the time! Every now and then it would give up on us trying to separate a banana from the bunch, and go off and pull a small tree out of the ground and eat that instead. This became an issue when it tried to eat a tree that was on the other side of a deep crevice. It inched closer and closer to the edge, while the three of us inched further and further towards the back of the elephant. Apparently they occasionally fall off cliffs around here. This, also, would not be helpful in a combat situation.

Elephant gives up and eats a tree

DC tames elephant with crocs

The last item on the agenda was bamboo rafting. After that, we slept. More to follow... very shortly!

Bienvenido, Thailand

by Ben

We're in Thailand! We landed around 3:30 local time, and arrived at the hostel just three hours and four dark alleys later. So far our Thai experience has been limited to the airport (which has a crazy steel exoskeleton), the bus ride (which was almost as quick as our crossing of Australia by solarcar), and the FOOD!!! of which there is a lot. And it is cheap. It has already received the highest honour we have to offer, math team approval*.

*This may or may not be an inside joke... I'm not sure if we've mentioned it on the blog, but Marvin! is the new solarcar math team. When he approves something, you know it must be awesome to a high degree of accuracy.

Anyway, there is one question I know you must be asking.

What happened to Sydney??!

Sydney was awesome. Two main things happened in Sydney.

1) OPERA HOUSE!!!

Indisputable evidence that we were in Sydney

2) CSIRO

Our last observer on the race was a guy called Colin who works for CSIRO, which is this ridiculous Australian entity that is effectively a government owned science think-tank. Apparently they invented Wi-Fi. Their building had gold in the windows. They have a measuring machine that is accurate to 0.1 micrometers. It's made out of granite. If more governments had these we'd be building solar spaceships instead of solar cars.

Unfortunately all the stuff inside CSIRO was top secret so I don't have any photos. Imagine something s0 futuristic that it has blue glowy lights and makes a whirring sound.

Anyway, it is now (very early) on day 2 of Thailand. Our plan of action for today is to rescue DC from Kuala Lumpur and then make a plan. And then eat. As is not said in Thailand, adiós!