Eating Worms

Today is our last day in Chiang Mai. We are soon heading to the airport back to Bangkok. As soon as we arrive, we will get a cab to the train station and hopefully catch our train in time to Hua Hin. If our plane is delayed, we won’t make it as we are cutting it very close for time, so I am a little nervous about that! The train is 3 or 4 hours and will arrive at 2am in Hua Hin, a beach city south of Bangkok. We will spend my birthday relaxing on the beautiful white sand beaches of Thailand! We are not going as far South as we would like, to see the beaches Thailand is truly famous for, but we are going as far south as we have time for, and I am glad we are able to do that. Yesterday was our last full day in Chiang Mai, and we spent most of it relaxing. It has been a busy week with nearly every day packed full from beginning to end. We slept in a bit, ate some Thai food, Chris watched a movie on his laptop while I finished my book, then headed out to the Night Bazaar at night.

Speaking of my book, Little Daughter by Zoya Phan is incredible. I had no idea the situation in Burma (Myanmar) is still so bad. In her epilogue, this is what she writes about her country, “Burma is a record-breaker for all the wrong reasons. It has the highest number of child soldiers, the longest-running civil war, one of the highest levels of infant mortality in the region and the lowest levels of spending on health and education. The regime has been accused by the United Nations of a crime against humanity for its use of slave labour, the highest in the world. It is engaged in ethnic cleansing in Eastern Burma, is one of the few governments in the world that still uses landmines, and denies international aid to its own people.” This has a lot to do with Thailand because the countries border one another, and there are hundreds of thousands of Burmese refugees living in Thailand, many of whom are stateless. My tour guide the other day was telling me about one camp he visited with 200,000 Burmese. Just ONE camp. Many of the children sold into trafficking and child prostitution are from Burma. It is something I previously knew very little about, but hope to learn a lot more.

A few days ago Chris and I went to the Sunday Night Market, and I realized I haven’t written about it yet. It is held every Sunday night from 6-11pm and is a spot to buy food, handicrafts, clothes, etc. It was mostly Thai, but there were lots of tourists and it seemed like the popular place for the men to come with their prostitutes (it disgusts me every time I see it). I bought a few things, and Chris got some food. Mostly it was just the atmosphere that I enjoyed. As we neared the end of the market, we saw a stand selling bugs to eat! I was a bit skeptical at first (wondering if it was just a touristy thing; I always like to stick with what is authentic) so I stood to the side and waited to see if any Thai people would buy them. In about 5 minutes I saw several people come up and buy bags of worms, cicadas, grasshoppers, and beetles. Chris and I decided to try one (they let us buy one instead of a big bag for only 1 baht each). We decided on the fried bamboo worm because for me it looked somewhat like a french fry! It was salty and crunchy at first, but once I hit the middle I couldn’t ignore what I was eating; it was mushy and definitely tasted like a worm! Gross. The Thai people were eating them like candy and laughing at my reaction. Last night we headed to the Night Bazaar, which is a market open every night only a 10 minute walk from our hotel. I insisted on taking a tuk tuk back though once we were done, because there were cockroaches all over the street and it was dark when we were going back and I didn’t want one to run over my feet! The Night Bazaar was a lot different than the Sunday Market. It was more organized with an area for bars, an area for eating, an area for a Thai dancing show, an area for selling things, etc. whereas the Sunday Market was random and had stands from all different people wherever they could find room to set up. The Night Bazaar had much more Western clothes (fake brand name clothes, sunglasses, etc.) where the Sunday Market was mostly souvenirs and handicrafts. The Night Bazaar is where the staff at VCDF told us most of the kids from the Drop In Center go either for prostitution, begging, or selling flowers. We couldn’t find the area he told us to go to where most of it happens (the Bazaar was huge) but I did see one little girl working, selling flowers, on the street; no more than 6 or 7 years old. Outside some of the bars, the prostitutes would sit in a row wearing clothes just barely covering them, using their beauty to lure the men in. We didn’t buy anything other than dinner, but sat and watched the World Cup on the big screen for awhile and walked around the streets. Thai people are obsessed with the World Cup! We had no idea just a ten minute walk from us there was a McDonald’s, Starbucks, Subway, and Burger King!

Some other random things that I haven’t posted about yet: I learned that 80% of the cars are in Bangkok. It is very different in the rural areas, and even in Chiang Mai, because most people are on motorbikes and the streets are much less congested. We have arrived at the start of the rainy season, but have gotten lucky so far in that most of the times it has rained, we have been in the car. The only time it affected us was when we were at the Burmese border. I also have to talk about tuk tuks. They are similar to auto rickshaws in India, but much comfier. Haggling is very common here and we have been told by several websites and tourist books that we shouldn’t be offended by it or be rude to the Thai trying to haggle with us; it is just how things are done. The tuk tuk drivers are the worst and will offer us ridiculously high prices to take us places. We have sometimes paid more than we would have liked, but for the most part we stand our ground. To get from the Night Bazaar to our hotel it was only a 5 minute drive, but he wanted 70 baht! We had paid 40 baht to get there, and I suspect a Thai person would have gotten it for lower. We stood our ground with 40 and he said no. We said fine and started walking away, and started laughing as we heard him calling us back, “Okay, okay my friend! 40 baht!” This has happened many many times!

Lastly, I know I talked about the communal shower we used on our Karen hill tribe trek, but I never managed to get any pictures. Chris got one so I took it off his camera and it is below. The water comes from a stream, goes through the bamboo, and comes out at the end where you can see the people bathing.