Thailand

I went to Thailand with my parents for the winter break. I didn't realize how many Americans were living in Almaty until I got on the airplane and heard more English than Russian or Kazakh. Fleeing the Kazakh cold for Christmas seems to be the Anglophone thing to do.

Thailand itself was wonderful, wonderful enough to be difficult to leave. I contemplated losing my passport (but not too seriously), and I got the business card of a school where they said I could teach English. Some highlights were the frenetic, golden temples, the canal neighborhoods of Bangkok, a marriage proposal from an eighty-year old woman who was visiting a monastary (I said "ok", which was one of the few things I knew in Thai at the time), worn vaguely Buddha-like shapes in the Khmer-era ruins, a city where monkeys live as thick in the streets as pigeons in Chicago, and elephants. As my new t-shirt proudly and orangely announces, "I Love Elephant". Our guide, Dao, and her daughter, Bess, and our driver, Boonma, were wonderful, and despite my reservations about taking a guided tour, they made it a lot of fun. And of course, I got to spend a lot of time with my parents. I give Thailand a 5+.