Thai Cooking Class: Making A Spectacle of Myself

Many of my memories of Thailand are recorded in sensations: the way the flavour of my first-ever mango seemed to explode on my tongue; the thousand folds in an elephant's leathery skin beneath my fingers; the scent of hookah smoke as I watched it curl lazily up into an endless spread of stars over my little straw beach mat.

But these are the pleasant sensations.  I can think of at least one sensation I experienced in Thailand that was --- somewhat less pleasant.

My new pal Rose, whom I'd met while volunteering, suggested that we spend a day taking a Thai cooking course.  Seeing this as a means of inexpensively supporting my newly-accelerated Thai noodle addiction once I got back home, I agreed.

New friends - pleasant sensation!

We met our small class at the beautiful old teak wood building that housed the cooking school.  After a short orientation we were off to the local market to learn how to select ingredients.

That market was a blur of pleasant sensations: fresh fruits and vegetables piled in bright towers; the mingled scent of a hundred spices perfuming the air; fresh fish whizzing from vendor to vendor, slapping wetly as they connected with their targets.

We learned the fine art of choosing the best ingredients, sniffing and squeezing and bartering, and then toted our selections back to the school.

The teacher's daughter Bam-Bam made some excellent recommendations.

The first course (papaya salad) was prepared without incident.  The teacher complimented me on my dicing technique, and I moved into the next course -- green curry -- puffed up with gastronomic pride.  Forgetting, of course, that pride always comes before a fall.

 I was excited about the curry course because I was going to get to use a mortar and pestle for the first time.  The set we were using was massive and made of heavy stone, so the group took turns pounding the chili peppers. 

My first turn went by without incident.  I happily pounded away with the heavy pestle, the spicy chilies tickling my nose, then passed the mortar on when my arm got tired.  When my second turn came I took hold of the pestle, laughing, overconfident, and slammed it back down into the mortar.

I could never in a million years have managed it had I been trying, but I somehow hit the half-mashed chili at just the right angle to send a huge chunk of the fiery hot juice straight into my open left eye.

I can't remember exactly what thoughts were running through my head at the time, but I imagine they went something like "AAAAIIIIEEEEEEAIAIAIAIEEEE!" punctuated by some inventive cursing.  The mortar and pestle hit the ground with a mighty clunk.  My body flailed around wildly, unequipped to cope with that kind of pain.  A veritable waterfall of tears spouted from my eye in a vain attempt to flush the terrible stuff out. 

Fortunately for my ocular health (and my self-esteem), this was a common enough injury at the cooking school.  The teacher herded me over to the outdoor sink, turned on the tap and shoved my head under it.  As the tepid water slowly soothed my burning eyeball (but not my embarrassment), the rest of the group pounded up another pepper and finished the curry in record time.

Apparently you don't need to ingest chilies via the proper orifice for them to make you sweat.  Also, check out that bloodshot eye!  SEXY!

The rest of the courses were prepared without incident, thanks largely to the group's wise decision to keep me far away from any dangerous produce.  Once the burning had been reduced to a tolerable level I contrived to enjoy myself immensely.  I even managed to get in a few eye puns, each one cornea than the last (WAH-wah!).

I think it's safe to say that I learned a lot more in that cooking class than the average student.  I guess that makes me an excellent pupil?  Bahaha!  What, you don't like puns?  Don't lash out!  Wooo, eye'm on a roll!  Badoom-CHING!

When Kelly Met Needles: An Amazonian Love Story

A few people have asked me about this picture:

"Where are you?"  "What kind of fish is that?"  "And what the hell are you doing to it?"

I was in the Amazon jungle.  We set out before dawn, our group stumbling sleepily out of the lodge, down through the jungle, and piling into long wooden boats that cut almost silently through the dark water.

We were headed for an oxbow lake, which is a U-shaped body of water that's formed when a wide curve of a river is cut off and creates a lake (thanks Wikipedia!).  This was allegedly the favourite haunt of some river otters, and was also a good place to view many of the larger birds that lived in the area.

And then we were going to go piranha fishing.  Naturally.

The journey through the cool early morning was beautiful, the sun creeping dreamily up over the tops of the trees.  We drifted around the edges of the lake, but the otters didn't appear to be at home that day.  We did catch sight of a toucan in the distance, and some of the ubiquitous monkeys chittered away from the darkness below the canopy.

A couple of other boats joined us, keeping their distance to maximize the chances of seeing some wildlife, but there wasn't much to see.

At least, not above the surface of the lake.

Our guides pulled out a few fishing rods and some bloody chunks of mystery meat and showed us how to thread the meat securely over the hooks.  We all took it in turns to drop the hook into the water and jig the gruesome bait around, hoping to arouse the interest of the piranhas.

It seemed that we had chosen a bad spot.  All around us, cheers and cries erupted from other groups tucked into the folds of the shoreline as they pulled piranha after piranha from the depths.  But on our boat, no luck.  Well, one of our guides DID manage to pull up some kind of large snapping turtle, which was cool but not the kind of excitement we were looking for.

For some reason, I was very focused on catching a piranha.  Despite the gorgeousness of the brightening sky and the exotic foliage and my general distaste for harassing wild animals, all of my attentions were concentrated on the muddy water below.

I tried first one end of the boat and then the other, holding my rod near to the sides and then as far out as the pole would reach.  Wrinkling my nose, I squeezed more blood out of the meat to scent the waters with.  I tried to think like a poor defenseless prey fish, doing my best to make the bait glide cautiously through the water, then jerked it around as though I were in distress.

I had just about given up on ever catching anything (and was thinking some very dark thoughts about the more successful fishermen all around us) when I felt a sharp tug on the line.  I'm not sure, but I think I may have squealed like a 12-year-old.  I tried to remember all the advice my grandfather had given me about reeling in a fish:  don't jerk too hard or you'll shake him loose, but don't hesitate too long or he'll work himself free of the hook and get away.  I gritted my teeth, closed my eyes and pulled.

I bet we made a pretty hilarious sight, with the piranha swinging wildly over the boat and everyone diving out of the way as though it were a great white.  One of the guides managed to catch him in his hands and held him up for everyone to see.  He was tiny, but SO AWESOME.  His scales were a shiny golden-green, his eyes wide and red.  The guide showed us how to hold him by pinching him vertically between your thumb and index finger.  In this position, he couldn't move much so we could get a good look at him.  He offered a thick leaf to the little guy and we watched as his teeth, like tiny shards of broken glass, shredded it effortlessly.  Needles, I thought.  That's his name.

I was feeling pretty bad for poor Needles, stuck up here out of the water, but I was ACHING to hold him just for a minute.  The guide passed him carefully over to me.  I was struck by how solid his body was.  The other fish I'd held were floppy and fluid, but Needles was like a slimy green rock.  With terrifying teeth.  I looked him in the eye for a minute, predator to predator, and thanked my lucky stars that I was so much bigger than him.

After everyone had had a chance to get a quick look, I insisted that it was time for Needles to get some oxygen.  As I tossed him back into the lake, I was worried that we'd kept him out too long, but my worries were in vain.  With a contemptuous flick of his tail, Needles shot off into the depths in search of less annoying company.  Or perhaps a snack.

I'm a friend in need who's got friends, indeed!

Nothing shows you who your friends are like trying to win a trip around the world!

I've entered the My Destination Biggest Baddest Bucket List contest.  If I win, I'll be spending 6 months wandering the world writing blogs and creating videos -- in other words, doing what I'm meant to do.  I've got a ton of competition, but I'm determined to succeed by any (legal) means necessary.

Since all the voting is via social media, I've been spending a lot of time on Facebook.  A lot of negative crap can go down on there, but the past day and a half have been heartwarming to say the least.  The friends who have shared my link so far have all said such unexpectedly lovely things about me and why they think I deserve to win.  And it's not just my nearest and dearest, either -- several people I haven't seen in years have popped out of the woodwork to share my link, catch up a bit and wish me well.  

But the biggest surprise came this morning.  I had commented on a post made by an old friend from high school, and shortly thereafter I got a message from a non-Friend, asking if I was "THE Kelly Winger, from WELLAND?!"  It was a girl I hadn't seen since our early high school years.  We were probably the two goofiest girls in school -- she used to call me "Kelly Winger, worm eater"!  Oh man, the laughs we used to have!  We didn't really travel in the same circles though, so when I switched schools in my last year we lost track of each other.  I often wondered what had happened to her.  The years went by as they tend to do, and then suddenly here she was popping up on Facebook!  And it turns out she'd always wondered about me too!  We had a lovely chat about our lives thus far -- she married a great guy we went to high school with and has two beautiful little girls.  It was so nice to reminisce about our silly times together.  It's crazy to think that, if I hadn't entered this contest and started spending extra time on Facebook, we might never have gotten back in touch.

Like I said at the start, I'm determined to win this contest.  But if by some evil chance I don't, the well-wishes and renewals of friendship are their own reward.



Wanna help me live my dream?



Just click on this link, then share via the social media links in the green box on the right.  I get one vote for each platform that you vote through.  And don't forget -- if you've got a GMail/Google account, you've got Google+!

An elephant never forgets (to catch the bus)!

The first rule of group travel -- don’t miss the bus!

In 2008 I travelled to Chiang Mai, Thailand to work and play with the amazing and hilarious children of the Wat Don Chan orphanage.  The other volunteers and I wanted to do something special for them -- many of them had never left the wat! -- and we decided that a trip to an elephant sanctuary was just the ticket.

I worked for 5 years as an educational tour leader, so I’m quite comfortable travelling with and keeping track of large groups of children.  But as I watched all 600 of them swarm out of the dorms to meet the assortment of buses and military vehicles we had commandeered, I knew that this was an elephant of a different colour. I tried not to panic as I squeezed into a seat with three ecstatic little Thai girls.  We wouldn’t leave anyone behind, right?

My fears evaporated in the face of the kids’ excitement as they fed, petted and even rode the elephants.  It was an incredible day.  But the crowning glory came when we all packed into the open air pavilion to watch the elephants paint, the claim to fame of this particular sanctuary. 

I fell in love with the work of one particular pachyderm -- I can’t pronounce his Thai name, but he looked like a Fred to me.  I vowed to bring home Fred’s masterpiece and raced down to the little shop to stake my claim along with two other volunteers.  We must have been chattering pretty excitedly, because we somehow managed to miss the departure of 600 overstimulated children and volunteers.

I’ll never forget how it felt to run out into that parking lot and find it completely deserted.    My heart dropped into my flipflops, Frank’s still-wet painting dangling limply from my hand.  We had no cell phones, no number to call even if we had, and the staff at the sanctuary spoke no English.  The insect sounds from the surrounding jungle seemed suddenly louder and more ominous as we contemplated the 75 km walk back to Chiang Mai.

I cursed myself.  How many times had I told kids on my tours -- whatever you do, NEVER miss the bus! 

I was about to throw myself down in the dirt and have a good cry when a pickup truck bounced around the corner of the building and into the parking lot.  Turns out that 600 kids make a LOT of garbage, so the wat had brought along a recycling truck!  I leaped desperately in front of it.  Fortunately the driver recognized us, and we crammed ourselves into the foot-wide gap around the recycling bins. 

It wasn’t the safest or most comfortable ride, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it.  As I closed my eyes and and reveled in the cool wind on my face, I remember thinking -- well, at least we didn’t leave anyone behind!