My very own treehouse ... for a night

I did ultimately make it to my destination: The Pai Treehouse Resort. It's true: on Saturday night I slept in a tree. This resort offers several different bungalows and three of them have been constructed directly into the structure of a beautiful tree. It was phenomenal. I slept, showered, and even used the toilet … all up in a tree. Of the three tree-housed bungalows, I booked early in order to reserve the tallest unit. It was certainly roughing it a bit. But armed with lots of blankets and lots of insect repellant, I was able to soak up all that nature had to offer. It was pure bliss the entire time. I spoke to my niece on her sixth birthday last Saturday and it completely blew her mind that it was daytime where she was and nighttime for me, on the other side of the world. I was hoping to do another iPhone FaceTime session with her while up in my tree but the WiFi connection wasn't so great. She would have loved the treehouse. What can I say … I had a toilet, hot water, and bed in the tree. We'll have to improve the quality of that wireless connection before I visit again.

Welcome to Pai

And Pai was such an awesome little hippie town. There were cafes and health food stores and rather than unidentifiable meat and deep-fried everything on the streets, you could find vegetable skewers and mushroom soup. It rocked. I was also able to snap a few colorful photos of Wat Luang in Pai. I mentioned the unsafe conditions of some of the roads on the way up to Pai but let's take a moment to discuss the bridge here in town. There's a bridge which straddles the banks of the Pai River. It's made completely of bamboo. It's designed only for pedestrians but every time someone crosses it, the entire structure bends and creaks. I can only imagine how many stoned hippies have been jolted from their blissful buzz on their way home to their bungalow as they realize that they've fallen off the bridge into the chilly nighttime water below.

a good friend in Pai

I made a good friend in Pai. His name is Tat Lao and he's an elephant. We spent two hours together, trekking through the trees, climbing a mountain, and frolicking in the river. I chose an elephant camp which was probably not the most ethically responsible but I took some time to justify it for myself. Tat's trainer, Joi, lives with the elephants at the camp. He spends the majority of his time working with and caring for the animals. As Joi was speaking, I had a hard time deciphering when he was speaking Thai, when he was speaking English, and when he was speaking elephant. I'm pretty convinced that Joi was part elephant himself. There's another camp which allows the elephants to roam in their natural environment but this camp in Pai satisfied more of my needs at the moment. Plus, the money that I spent went toward supporting the people who work in this tiny town. It allows them to make a living. However, the next time that I'm in Thailand, I'll definitely be going to The Elephant Nature Park. (And to justify even further, I've visited a vegetarian restaurant a few times which financially contributes to the Nature Park.)

Tat Lao & Pong Duad

I've gone on and on about how small this world is and how incredible it is to run into people that you've met on a train or with whom you've encountered on the busy streets of Bangkok. It happened again. This time it was while I was fifteen feet off the ground upon the shoulders of an elephant. Tat Lao and I were galumphing down the road when someone passed on a motor bike. It wasn't until after doing a U-turn behind us, backtracking toward us, and removing his sunglasses that he called up to me. Here I am, three hours away from home, on the back of an elephant and I run into a guy from the first week of school. Crazy, right? I mean, I know that when there's a destination listed in the guidebook, that it's likely that everyone will go there. But really? At the same time and in the exact same spot? I also ran into another kid from school the night before on one of the walking streets. We shared some mushrooms and a cocktail.

Though I was trying to make it back to Chiang Mai during daylight hours to see if I could score a better view from the mountain, I did scurry 24km off the path in order to check out Pong Duad Geyser. It was well worth it. Never before have I seen an active geyser. The particular hydrogeological conditions necessary to form a geyser exist in only a few places on Earth, so they are a fairly rare phenomenon. As surface water works its way down to come in contact with hot rock, the hot spring at Pong Duad spurts out steam 4 meters above ground. I was able to bathe in that same hot spring water after playing with Tat Lao. The facility offers hot spring-fed baths. Since I've encountered nothing but stand-up showers since Tyoko, this was a refreshing alternative.

Big decision

I made a big decision last week. Faced with the conclusion of Level III, I realized that I have so much material. Way too much material. The curriculum at school is similar to the curriculum at Bikram Teacher Training in that you learn a whole lot and are never afforded the opportunity to put it all together. I currently have enough Thai Massage technique to administer a six-hour massage. And though that might be lovely under certain conditions, what New Yorker is going to find that to be practical? Imagine trying to allot six hours out of your day in order to do something wonderful for yourself. So rather than follow through with Level IV — which focuses specifically on the acupressure point work of Traditional Chinese Medicine which I already know from my Shiatsu training — I decided to graduate one week early and spend my last week here in Chiang Mai devoted to putting together all of the pieces and getting in some much-needed practice. It was a big decision for me because it could be interpreted as me giving up in a way. But I don't believe that for a minute. I'd much rather return to NYC having had time to practice and become comfortable with these new methods. After all, you're all going to want to book some Deep Root Thai immediately upon my arrival, right? So I'm spending my days formulating a general massage routine that will work for my clients (upon which I'll add on to custom-tailor,) practicing the moves, seeing more temples, and knocking a few more of the incredible vegetarian restaurants off of my list. So, in an official sense, I've graduated! I'm done! And rather than clouding my brain with doing well on an exam, I can focus on becoming good at the actual technique. Yay for no more coloring of diagrams. It's a good thing too because my colored pencils were getting tinier and tinier by the day. But now … less typing; more practice.

Her name was Mee and she worked wonders.

Upon a recommendation from an acquaintance back home, I visited the massage office of Lek Chaiya. Currently 70 years old, Lek has developed her own style of Thai massage unlike any other teachings in Thailand. She calls this form of massage "Nerve Touch" distinguished by its deep tissue approach to muscles, tendons and nerves for full body massage and specialized therapy. For many generations in Lek Chaiya’s family, the traditional Thai Healing Arts have been handed down from mother to daughter and Mama Lek began her training with her mother. 'Nerve-Touch' is a method of working which is deeper and more therapeutically oriented than typical, Northern-Style Thai Massage. My therapist's name was Mee (one of Mama Lek's desciples,) and she worked wonders.
Mee had a way of using different parts of her palms in order to generate completely different effects. This mays sound like a simple concept — and of course, this is something that I practice all the time — but she was exceptional. She accomplished the same thing by using her whole foot one aspect at a time (as if she was pressing a gas pedal,) on my hamstrings.
Between she and I, language was not a commonality yet we were communicating the entire time. She was 100% receptive to my needs. There were noises coming from my joints which I had never before heard coming from my body. My joints were singing her praises. My belly has been hurting since yesterday morning and she somehow had the intuition to conclude this. She used an herb-pack on the floor, with me lying face-down on top of it. She was massaging my low-back while the hot-herb pouch was massaging my little Thailand-Tummy.
She did some things of which — as a massage therapist — I never would have thought to do. She pronated my hand in order to work my palm in sidelying. She hooked her extended toes superior to my sacrum as I layer supine and interlocked my fingers around her back. These are moves that are not taught in school. She rotated my pelvis with such finesse as she suspended me by one leg and one arm. The way that she finished with a towel as a tool to rotate my head into various positions: it's techniques like this which I will never forget. I think I may know someone who will be studying with Lek Chaiya in February 2013.
Coming to Thailand, it was my intention to incorporate two of my passions: yoga & massage. To be able to incorporate yet another one of my passions (the heat … yes, it's somewhat absurd that heat is a passion for me but as you know, it's something that I take quite seriously,) would be incredible. I hope that you guys don't miss me too much because I think I may know where I'll be this time next year.
(OK … you got me. The above photos is the first that I've posted — either here or on FaceBook — that is not one of my originals. I ganked it from Mama Lek's website.)

Cooking instead...

No more massage for the moment. Cooking instead.
We started off with Pad Thai, of course. We used rice noodles collected from the market around the corner. We were able to obtain all of the ingredients that we needed from different merchants all found only two blocks from the house. We used two different types of tofu. The first, was what you'd generally be able to find in The States … just your regular, run of the mill, firm tofu. We cut this into little rectangles. The second type was cured with turmeric for a yellow color on the outside. This variety, we diced finely. The Thai variety of garlic is much smaller than to what I'm accustomed and in Thailand, they generally leave the paper on. I used soy sauce in place of fish sauce and mushroom sauce rather than oyster sauce. Chinese chives, bean sprouts, egg, and water. The heat element was situated as such so that we could tilt the wok to a 45° angle in order to allow parts of the dish to remain on the side of the wok while cooking other parts. I've always used this technique with stir fry by the 45°-angle tilt makes it so much more effective. I think I'm going to try to find one of those wok rings so that I can try this at home. I particularly liked the ground peanuts and chillies that we sprinkled on top.

After sitting down to eat the first course, we went back to the kitchen for Hot & Sour Soup. The dish traditionally includes chicken and prawns but I substituted with oyster mushrooms and tofu. There were a couple of ingredients that were used for flavoring but were not intended to eat. Those included kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, and galangal which is a root grown in Thailand which is similar to ginger. If you know me at all, you know that I'm a huge ginger enthusiast. I was excited to try galangal but it's definitely no replacement for my one true love. This recipe includes those super-hot little chiles. Here, they call them mouse-shit chiles. Hilarious, right? Now these can be quite dangerous for the novice but I decided to use six for the soup. It turned out pretty spicy, for sure. But not just spicy for spicy sake. It was tasty and complex with a whole bunch of heat at the end. Added to the pot were mushrooms, onion, tomato, lime juice, soy sauce, sugar, chiles, and chile paste.

Moving on to my absolute favorite Tai dish: Green Papaya Salad. We learned a fancy way to use a huge knife in order to shred the papaya which is actually only green because it's harvested early … which is what I suspected. (It's one of the many questions that I asked. I seemed to be the only one engaged enough to ask lots of questions.) Since the knife trick was a bit scary, we were also provided with a zig-zag vegetable peeler if we preferred to stay on the safe side. There were only two cooking injuries for the evening: a burned finger and chili peper-oiled eyeball. Neither of those incidents involved me though. We used a big, wooden mortar to pound and "cement" (as they call it,) garlic, chiles, and long beans. Knowing that this dish is raw, I chose to use only three chiles as opposed to the six that I used in the soup. After pounding in some lime juice, soy sauce, and tomatoes, we created a bit of a dressing in which we could dissolve the palm sugar which is not related to the cane plant at all but rather extracted from the flower of a palm tree. (That is another tidbit that I learned which was spawned from one of my questions.) It's a very dense, sticky paste which has a much fuller body than the refined sugar with which I'm familiar. We added the papaya and some carrots then pestled away. Watching the people on the streets, you can tell that it takes some practice to master the pestle-and-spoon combo technique. When five or six people join in together, it makes for a bit of a meditative musical jam session. Finally, we topped it with peanuts. All done. The whole Papaya Salad process was much simpler than I had expected it to be. It's so rewarding that I now know how to make my favorite dish. It's a good thing that there were tissues at the table 'cause this one was a-spice-aaaaayyyy.

And onto the main event with the Panaeng Curry. We started by making our own red curry paste: soaked red chiles, shallots, garlic, galangal, lemongrass, ginger, kaffir lime leaves, coriander root, and turmeric. The stuff that we avoided eating in the soup (kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, and galangal,) went right in 'cause we pounded the hell out of 'em with the mortar and pestle. (I've got to get myself one of these.) We used a wooden set for the Papaya Salad because it's a more delicate process. We used a granite mortar for the paste in order to truly pulverize the ingredients. I used tiny eggplant instead of pork. It's called Pea Eggplant because it's so small; it adds a pretty tart flavor to the curry and they sort of explode in your mouth like a grape tomato. Into the hot wok went paste, Panaeng spice blend, tofu, and coconut milk. We squeezed our very own milk from the flesh of a mature coconut; it smelled so good. (I imagine it didn't hurt in moisturizing our hands either.) After allowing the mixture to thicken a bit, we added soy sauce, palm sugar, and ground roasted peanuts. The chiles for spice, the lime for tart, the coconut for smooth and creamy. It's perfection.

I met some great people and learned some priceless skills. So … when are y'all comin' over to my place for curry, huh?