More Cowbell!

So um we kinda figured out what was making Danielle sick. And the only cure for it is more cowbell!



Really though it's not that funny. Sort of. Head over to her blog to check it out.

Confusing Censorship

As many of you back home know, YouTube is banned in Thailand due to someone posting a video saying bad things about the King. Recently however I have seen many people on the net claiming that YouTube is no longer blocked in Thailand.

Well crap I still can't see YouTube so what gives?

I did a little more research into the matter and found a few interesting things out.

1. The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) gives out a list to the different ISP's here on what sites to block. It is up to each ISP to enforce this list. So this explains why someone may be able to view a website from their office but not from their house. Or why one person can view a website while I can't. Simply put, one ISP hasn't blocked the website... yet.

I've heard that the main routers leading out of the country have since been given a block list but that does not seem to be true if the above phenomenon still happens.

2. MICT people barely use e-mail themselves. This is a group that hardly even uses the medium that it enforces. So in their efforts to censor they do not realize that they can ban a single page or video. Instead they ban entire domains regardless of what else might be banned. Thus effectively banning more websites than they even know. They claim to have banned about 200, but independent groups estimate blocked websites in the thousands. Hence my earlier post of wondering if blogger would work since a Thai blog drew the ire of MICT.

3. The interim military government doesn't seem to know how bad this makes Thailand look to the rest of the world. If they knew that they were being put in the same league as oppressive dictatorships (Link, scroll down to the graphs), I think that things would change. However, as stated before they don't use the internet that much.

4. Add everything up and you get a mess of attempted censorship. Nothing works right, they ban more than they know, and depending on who you get internet service from some stuff might not even be banned. (Ie: I can get Newgrounds but not YouTube, and Newgrounds is also on the ban list at number 17637.)

5. Note: Porn is banned in Thailand outright, and has been for some time. Hence many websites on the ban list are pornographic in nature. I'd say 90% seems about correct. However if you want to see some skin there are plenty of go-go bars in the tourist areas. This ironic topic I'll save for later. Confusing to a westerner but not for the Thai.

So all in all Thailand itself is still a really good place to be right now, it just looks kind of bad from the outside. I can personally say, as a foriegner who is a "tourist", that I'm still having fun and enjoying my time here. The censorship barely effects me, and to be honest I don't notice it until I get on the net. If I lived here and had to deal with the politics, then my view might change. But no, I'll be back in November to deal with all the silly American politics back home, and our own confusing "censorship". Don't be so harsh on the Thai censorship, as I know firsthand that America has it's own faults in the media.

Sunday #3, first day of rest.

This Sunday Danielle and I are taking it easy. Partially because our local guide is having elections today and partially because I have bruised something deep in my left foot. I am thinking about taking an extra day off tomorrow to let it heal.

The language lessons are going very well, I know introductions, a few basic questions, numbers up 999, plus dates and time. The Thai week is still rooted in their religion as each day carries the name of a certain God who rules a planet for that day. It is interesting to note that the western calendar also does this but not many people know of it. This is because in the west the days are named after pagan gods such as Freya for Friday and so on, and not many people know the old pantheon due to Christianity imposing itself so completely. The days also have colors and your lucky color is the one of the day that you were born on. I share mine with the Thai King of being born on a Monday so my color is yellow. Danielle's is green for Wednesday.

I found a more in-depth blog on the matter for those interested in such things.

Thai Colors of the Days, This post also has a link where you can calculate the day that you were born on.
Thai Gods of the Days

Another thing that I should remind everyone of is that although the country is 98% Bhuddist the Thai people hold on to their Animistic beliefs just as much. Many of these beliefs are Hindu in origin. So it is not uncommon to see worship and revrence of various Gods just as much as Bhudda.

This makes me wonder about the west, and how much culture and heritage we may have lost due to the complete overhaul that Christianity brought with it. Granted our calendar days and other traces give us a clue to this past, but how many people are even aware of these things that are right in front of us? What customs, superstitions, and beliefs have completely vanished from our culture? Although there are modern movements to restore what we can from our old ways; I find that most of these movements fill in the gaps with Christian and politically correct morality instead of trying to attempt an educated guess, or a truer synthesis in some other way. Personally I'd be happier if they would just leave it alone and say "that information has been lost" and work with holes in the system to be figured out later if possible.

Or we could take the Thai way and just pretend the two don't contradict each other. That doesn't suit me though...

FoCo Steak PWND!

I just ate at a steakhouse within walking distance from the Muay Thai camp called ChokChoi.

Best steak of my life. The End.

Spread the word around Colorado that some Thailand steakhouse just PWND the shit out of all of them. I'm dead serious about this too.

On another note, we've been noticing that the Thai's seem to cook Western cuisine better than Americans in general. Maybe it has some cultural thing of quality and pride rather than just turning a profit.

Sunday #2 and other such things.

Sorry for not posting earlier but Thailand has been really exhausting. For our second sunday trip we went to see the National Museum. The entire place is off limits to cameras so there were no pictures of this one unfortunately. There is a ton of information among the several buildings that house various exhibits. One of the most interesting to me was the weapons room and the history of Thailand through the several dynasties up to the current one. They had a seperate room for each King in the current Chakri dynasty (9 so far) and what some of them did was really impressive. The Thai Kings all seem to work just as much as the common people do, and often fund projects for the benefit of the country.

Danielle has started cooking with the local shop owner's wife. She is mainly doing prep work and such but she learns one new dish every day.

The Muay Thai training is going well I am supposed to test sometime in next few days on the basics, my only concern is the relatively confusing and long Wai Kru Ram Muay.

Caution.

Anything that has "jungle curry" in it is hotter than shit.

Keep in mind that this is coming from a guy who loves to cook with habaneros.

I could only eat about one third of the bowl.

Our First Sunday Trip

Hello Again!
Yesterday Danielle and I took a trip to some of the temples and palaces in central Bangkok. This stuff is really impressive, and although we felt touristy we took a lot of pictures. A local guy who runs a eatery/cafe/food-stall three blocks from the Muay Thai Institute was our guide. His name is ChaiPoom, and he rocks.

So without further ado here are the pretty pictures.

Wat Arun, Temple of the Dawn. This is the King's temple and where his ashes will be stored. A very impressive temple, it's called Temple of the Dawn because when the sun rises it sparkles off of all the china, gold, and jewels.

We took a ferry across the Chao Phraya river this is the view of Wat Arun from there.


Up the first flight of stairs.


The stairs up to the top after climbing the first set. The signs say "don't even think about it".


The Demons gaurding Wat Arun, here you can see the inlaid jewels and china.


A figure in the wall, there are different ones everywhere.

There are a lot of other cool things and places around this temple but there is also a no camera rule in those areas, so we don't have pictures of them.

Up next is the Reclining Bhudda of Wat Pho. This thing is HUGE, I don't think that the pictures convey that really well. It's just really big and impressive. I think the Bhudda itself is about 150 feet long.

The Head.


Danielle for size comparison.


The Feet.


Up Close of the Feet. Here you can see the mother of pearl decorations.


The Grand Palace and Emerald Bhudda were next. The Grand Palace has this huge Golden Chedi that's really cool. Also this place has an extremely strict zone of camera use, so we can show you only the outside of these places. If you ever get a chance to see the Emerald Bhudda here, do so.

The Golden Chedi


The two of us in front of the Golden Chedi.


These were explained to me to be Protectors, like bodygaurds, as all demons in holy places are here. There is a huge red one in the airport as well. They are called Khon.


The outside of the royal library.


More Khons.


Our guide ChaiPoom and us outside the royal pantheon.


After all that we decided to head back to the camp. It was blazing hot. Our sunscreen was wearing out (we are both burnt a bit), and our legs were tired. All this stuff and more is in central Bangkok. It would take a few weeks of constant tourist action to see everything in the area.

Special thanks to ChaiPoom for being our guide.


Until next time.


P.S. be sure to keep checking Danielle's blog as well as mine, there is just too much for us to write about at one time. After all of this ChaiPoom invited us to his place for a traditional Thai dinner which was awesome.

What I'm In For.

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of posts but the training and jet lag combined has been leaving me a bit tired. So far Danielle has posted a bit more and has uploaded some pictures of our room, spiders, and this strange hairy Thai fruit that is really sweet. Check out her page here.

So far the training has been pretty much as I thought. They are concentrating on stance, movement, punches, and kicks for the beginners. Not to mention how to wrap your hands the Thai way and also the Wai Kru; their pre-fight ritual dance.

We warm up each time by running around the stadium. Bare feet on concrete makes for some interesting blisters but they are turning into callouses pretty fast so that's no big deal. After that some warm up and stretching and then running through the basic footwork. The second hour is where they divide up the class per skill level and teach us what we need to know using drills, sandbags (yes they are filled with sand, yes they hurt), and usually having either 10oz. gloves on our hands for the bags, or 1pound weights in our hands for the free-form exercises.

I do that from 7-9am and then again from 3-5pm Bangkok time, everyday except Sunday. This leaves me drenched in sweat by the time I am done (Actually 1/2 an hour through). It's a great workout and although I never run out of breath (thank you elevation difference), the heat and humidity here makes for some sore muscles.

That's all for now, I'll talk to you all again soon.

Finally here.

So the 20+ hour flight was not nearly as bad as I had thought it would've been. The only problem we had was finding our contact at the airport here in Bangkok among the masses of people. Not to mention every taxi driver offering their own help and delaying us as well.

Sleeping was a bit off. But that is to be expected. Today I am going to grab a few things from the local markets and set up my training with the Muay Thai Institute. Expect pictures sometime else. Danielle already took some of the first spider she saw in Thailand, it is a simple house spider in our bathroom.

One thing that I noticed is that the flight attendants for Japan Air were a whole lot more professional than American Airlines, or even what I've seen from United and other American flights that I've taken. Honestly I don't think that I would even comment on this if it wasn't so impressive.

That's all for now, I am going to set things up here.