Sunday, March 14, 2010

Lynn's Trip to Thailand part 6: Getting the Hang of Ao Nang

As before I will quote the text and then comment on it:

From this website entry, here is how to pronounce Ao Nang:
Ao as in cow, and Nang as lung. Assuming this is correct, then once again, Lynn Johnston has made a joke on the name of a Thailand place which does not match the way the name is actually pronounced.

We left Phi Phi around noon, yesterday, joining a diverse group of folks at the dockside. Thank goodness we are travelling with small bags, because you have to climb from one boat to another to get to the one you want. This ferry took us across a calm stretch of water, again into a bay surrounded by fantastic sheer limestone cliffs and tiny sandy bays.

According to this website, the ferry time from Phi Phi to Ao Nang is approximately 1.5 hours. As Lynn has pointed out boats from Phi Phi depart from the pier on Ton Sai Bay.

Ao Nang is a few miles from the town of Krabi which is much easier to find on a map. Ao Nang a pretty resort town with a high class clientele, clean streets and many international restaurants. The traffic, however is characteristically fast and the streets are no place to dawdle. Vehicles flow in the opposite direction to ours and if you look the wrong way for a second, you can be flattened. Taxis are motorcycles with a sidecar chassis and enough seating for 3. Seven is the max! A canvass surrey keeps you out of the sun and a fast talking driver makes for a fun tour around the coastline. Our hotel is modest and clean and the air conditioning works like a charm. Without it, we would have to really change our routines and our clothing many times a day.

The vehicle Lynn is talking about is called a Sam Lor. Here is a picture. As for Ao Nang, according to Wikipedia, it is a central point of the coastal province of Krabi, Thailand. Province, not town. However, I have seen a number of other tourism websites call Krabi a town, so I can understand Lynn's thinking here.

I walked down to the beach this morning and bought a lemon ice from a street vendor. The fruit drinks here are fantastic, flavorful, fresh and cold. We go from stall to stall on our travels trying all the juices and the local fare. Cocoanut, pineapple and bananas taste so sweet and different from the imported fruit we get at home - we just can't get enough.

Lynn drinks something nonalcoholic. It can be done.

A few observations: So many young European travelers have tattoos. This is big business here. Tattoo shops are combined with laundry, travel and manicure businesses and the art ranges from sublime to ridiculous.

Here are 2 websites for Ao Nang tattoo shops. I do not see any reference there to laundry, travel or manicures in the websites. I have the feeling the combination Lynn is talking about is not really a single business doing tattoos, laundry, travel and manicure. Perhaps they just share space.

Cashews grow here and the nuts are available in every flavor- much like our potato chips. A single nut grows on the end of a pepper-shaped fruit. The fruits are soft, red or yellow and they make a sweet drink- much like apple juice. The nut pod on the bottom of the fruit is so hard it has to be cracked by an instrument built especially for this purpose. I always thought cashews grew like walnuts - this was a real eye opener. No wonder they are so expensive! We bought some packages to give as gifts, but we have no room to keep them, so they have become part of our menu.

The fruit to which Lynn is referred to in English as the cashew apple. In Thai it is mamuang himmaphan. See this website for more information on cashews.

Small private shrines are everywhere. You see them at gas stations, in mini malls, on street corners and in front of private homes. Gifts of food and drink are put on the balconies of these shrines as an offering. I rather like these customs; the idea of praying to a fat, smiling man seems so positive - so healthy!

Buddhists praying. Hum! I believe that a Buddhist would say that you don’t pray to Buddha, since Buddhas are not gods. As I understand it, a Buddhist meditates in order to reach enlightenment. As for the smiling buddhas, this is a website that describes this particular aspect of Buddhism. Not all statues of Buddha show a fat, smiling man.

The big community temples provide baskets of miniature food and drink items for you to give as offerings. You can also buy the thinnest gold leaf sheets to press onto the icons. Lotus blossoms on long stems are also a popular gift when making your devotions. Outside most temples, a cone shaped hollow oven provides a safe place to blow off a few dozen rounds of fireworks for good luck and after awhile, the noise drives you crazy! The vendors must be used to it because the tourists are the only ones jumping out of their skins and holding their hands to their ears! This is the Asia I’ve been looking for!

Apparently the Asia Lynn has been looking for involves very loud fireworks. That doesn't really sound like a mysterious East to me. However, try as I might, I cannot find anywhere on-line that says fireworks are associated with Thailand Buddhist shrines. As for whether the vendors are used to it, or simply have a severe hearing loss, it is difficult to tell.

We are off to continue the adventure, so I'll sign off for now. Sa-was dee, ka!

Between these 2 websites, you can tell that Lynn is trying to say, “Hello” as said by a female. The way to say “Goodbye” in Thai can be found in this website.

2 Comments:

Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

Perhaps Lynn believes that Thai is similar to Hawaiian in the respect that 'hello' and 'goodbye' are the same word. If so, she's clearly in the wrong: สวัสดี (sawùt dee) sounds nothing like ลาก่อนนะ (lah gòrn ná) nor does it have anything like the same meaning. The end result is that she ends up sounding like an idiot who doesn't have the least idea how stupid she sounds.

8:26 PM  
Blogger howard said...

My guess is that you are right about the Hawaiian. With Lynn, she is lucky to have learned any words in Thai.

10:11 AM  

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