Friending, Fitness and Skeeter Bites.

This past weekend, we decided to lay low and recover from traveling the weekend before. The upside of doing so was that we discovered a lot right under our noses in Nan. Emily and I visited a new coffee stand (that actually makes real coffee - !!! - not the kind from 3-in-1 sugar-milk-instant coffee packets... blegh) where we met Cho, a young-ish guy from Bangkok who speaks very good English. Cho has a friend who runs a trekking company in Nan and offered to ask him for a discounted trip for us... hopefully we'll take him up on the offer very soon. Next we did some shopping at one of the clothing "boutiques" near school, and met Joey, the employee who wouldn't stop complimenting us and asked me sing to the American rap music he was playing in the background. I politely declined, but he gave us a discount on our shirts anyways.

Later we headed to D-milk, pretty much the most stereotypically Asian snack-shack you can imagine, and our new obsession. "D-milks" are essentially made from ice, fresh milk, condensed milk, sweetener, and some combination of chocolate cereal or Corn Flakes, or jelly if that's your thing, all blended together to make a milkshake-type drink. Sound weird and kind of gross? Yes. Delicious? Yes. At D-milk we met Meow (that's how her name sounded... no clue if that's the correct spelling). Meow is working on her Master's in Accounting from Georgetown, and just returned home to Nan after spending 3 years living in Washington, DC. She explained that her father is in failing health, and so she's not sure when she'll get to finish her last year. She said she misses America a lot, and asked us to come visit her often because she gets "so very bored" during her D-milk shifts. This will no doubt become a regular hangout for us - and it's cool and very rare to meet a Thai person in Nan who's spent any amount of time in the States.

On Sunday we had our usual Hot Bread brunch, and talked with Usa and her sister for a while about our respective trips. Usa is always incredibly helpful in answering our various travel questions, and has even leant us some Southeast Asia travel books from her bookshelf. She also told Anna - our resident chef - that anytime she wanted to come by to use the restaurant's oven, she was more than welcome to (we don't have any kind of kitchen in the apt). Anna took her up on the offer, and tomorrow we will be enjoying a surprise homemade feast. Emily, Nicole and I are in charge of finding wine, and eating. The first task may prove challenging, but the second - no problem.
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Just when I thought I'd adjusted to the humidity here, I tried running in it yesterday. Wooowee it was like drinking air. My exercise routine up until now has consisted solely of bike riding around town and daily yoga videos with Anna in her air conditioned room, but today after yoga I took my afternoon workout to the reservoir along the river, where Emily and Nicole do their daily runs. Eventually my "run" became sets of 10-second sprints with Anna, then a slow jog, then a lap and a half of power walking... (and who am I kidding really... I've never been a runner in any kind of weather... but I'm giving it a go).

No matter what kind of workout you're after, the reservoir is a prime place for people watching in Nan. There are people of every age circling the track. School-aged kids go jogging in their uniforms. Old grandmas go running dressed in head-to-toe sweat suits in the sweltering heat. Women go jogging in platform sandals. Some people wear jeans. It appears there really isn't much a Thai person won't exercise in, except a good ol' pair of running shorts and a t-shirt (so imagine how ridiculous we look to them). Aside from the locals, there are also a host of stray dogs, white cows, and buffalo chillin' around the reservoir. They stay off in the marshy grass, but man they can add an unpleasant smell to the air every now and then.

As we were making our final lap around the track (drenched in sweat, from only walking), we passed by two women and heard them muttering "something-something-ajaan-Bandon-Sriserm." Recognizing that they knew we were teachers at Bandon Sriserm, we shot glances back at them and nodded, and they laughed, asking how old we were. I told them and they cackled, "Babies! Babies! and so beautiful!" I wasn't exactly feeling my finest, but it was nice nonetheless.
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I think there's a mosquito - or maybe twenty - inhabiting my sheets, and last night, they feasted on me. I woke up this morning COVERED in itchy bites. I'm not exaggerating when I say I look like I have some sort of disease... I was bored during a free period and counted 29 bites on just one arm. They are also on my feet, my neck, my knuckles, wrists, behind my knees, and every other possibly irritating and difficult-to-scratch place on my body. Needless to say, I was pretty miserable during school today, and had a lot of shocked "AJAAN CAITLIN!" gasps as students pointed to my bite-covered elbows in class ("I know! I know!"). In 6/1, Cake was very concerned and told me that the solution is to "keep walking, always walking." She also ran after me after class to give me her jar of Tiger Balm (a menthol-like cream that helps with the itch). There is no age-minimum on kindness and hospitality here in Thailand.

I'm still scratching away as I sit and type this, going a bit nuts while I wait for my sheets to come out of the wash... But at least now I've expanded my vocabulary and can say "mosquito bite" in Thai: "yung gat"! Also I have a new beautiful piece of artwork for my desk, courtesy of Aj. Anna: