Life Wonders

Matt Vanalli, a Phuket-based journalist, spent a couple of weeks to compile a list of the top 100 Thailand-related blogs, and here comes the surprise - we’re in it!

Although Lifewonders is near the bottom of the list, I’m still surprised that we even made it, considering that popularity is such a low priority for us.

The list features some familiar names and some newcomers as well. I checked out some of the more promising new ones and I was delighted to find some quality content from apparently like-minded people.

Check out the full list at Thailand’s Lost Boy.

Tags: thailand, thai, blogs, top 100

As I promised the other day, here are some pictures I took of the Songkran festival in Chiangmai. The first day was a blast! Armed with guns and buckets, Cherry and I took our friend straight to the streets almost immediately after her arrival. I wish I had such an initiation when I first arrived to Thailand!

The two girls were busy waterfighting while I took advantage of this handy waterproof camera case and took photos right in the middle of the fray. I found it better than risking the camera on unreliable plastic bags, and certainly better than taking pics through car windshields or sniping the action from a safe distance using bazooka-sized teleobjectives. The problem with the latter two is that they offer the viewer only a distant third-person perspective.

When you watch these pics, the kid smiles at you just before splashing you with water; the revellers wave at you as they pass by on their pickup trucks.

See the rest of our Songkran photos at the Thaiwonders Songkran Gallery!

Tags: songkran, water festival, Thailand, splash, pictures, photos, waterproof camera, underwater camera, olympus

It’s that time of the year again. Songkran, the water-festival of Thailand has arrived today and hit Chiang Mai with the force of a tsunami.

Unlike in previous years, this Songkran started out badly. We’ve got no water and no Internet in the morning, and we were about to pick up a friend of at the airport. After a grueling flight from London, we really didn’t want to tell her, “oh, sorry, you can’t take a shower since all the water is being splashed on the street right now”. Luckily, we didn’t have to. By the time we got back from the airport, the water was okay, and so was the Net.

After getting rested a bit, the three of us headed out for a short walk around the city, which turned into a long waterfight along the city moat. We got guns, buckets and lots of fun! I think this was a very nice way for our friend to get initiated into the Thai way of life.

I will upload pictures soon… until then, I wish you all a wonderful Songkran!

Tags: songkran, chiang mai, thai new year, water festival, pictures, photos, thai, tradition

“Ha itt lennél velem” (If you were here with me) - this is the title of a well-known Hungarian oldie song from a talented group called Republic. I thought of this song because Cherry has been away in London again, working on her research project for quite a while now - but she is about to return very soon! Needless to say, we both are excited to be together again.

And then I thought, it would be nice to share this song with you. So a couple days ago I sat down at the keyboard and recorded what I played. The result… well, click on the player below and you’ll see - I mean, hear.

(Or if the embed link doesn’t work, you can also listen to the song directly at our Gallery.)

Recollection
It’s been also a while since we last “talked” here on the pages of this diary. Much has happened since our last post: visit from an overseas friend and advisor; a new job, numerous trips to beautiful places, new members in our family, wonderful experiences and a whole lot more. We get to all that in detail later.

For now, I’d just like to let you know we’re all fine, still here, and there is that song I’d like to share with you.

I hope that life is treating you good. If you happen to read these words: I’d be glad to hear about the things that has happened with you during these months!

Cheers,

SiamJai

Tags: republic, republik egyuttes, ha itt lennél velem, hungarian music, pop, song

Lasting treasures
When was the last time you had a truly lasting happy experience? You know, the kind that will always bring a smile on your face, no matter how much time has passed since it happened? Cherry and I are lucky to have heaps of these joyous memories – some just keep happening spontaneously in our everyday life, and for others we make an effort to create them.

Can happiness really wait?
You know, I think that most people don’t have enough happiness in their lives. Maybe they don’t know what makes them happy, or they just don’t think that it’s important. But the most prevalent reason I’ve seen is the illusion that we all have unlimited time here on Earth. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen people living with the notion that “happiness can wait until…”, or “I won’t be really happy unless…”. The objects are always the same: promotion, retirement, new house, better looks, better job, car, status etc.

The illusion of forever
There wouldn’t be anything wrong with that kind of lifestyle, if it weren’t based on that false premise that all of us are guaranteed to have a long life. But there is that little nagging fact that life could end at any moment – and then what? People who kept procrastinating happiness for later will find that they wasted their time, and “later” won’t ever come. It’s much better to be happy now, with whatever we have, and spend little time for future plans. When most of your life is quality time, you won’t look back with regrets when that final moment comes.

The gift of forever
With this in mind, I have thought of a test to see whether something gives real happiness or not. Imagine that you are diagnosed with an incurable disease and you are told that you’ll be gone in a matter of weeks. What will really matter then? I’d imagine that the prospect of a new car, attractive looks or promotion all of a sudden would lose its importance. In fact, I think that no tangible goods would remain on your list of what’s really important. But whatever remains on that list – hold on to them, appreciate them and make sure that you make them part of your everyday life. That is the way to enjoy truly deep, lasting happiness, the gift of forever.

(dedicated to the memory of Janie – we will always remember you, dear beloved friend!)

Tags: lasting, happiness, life, truth, Janie

Wow, it’s been quite a while since all of a sudden we’ve disappeared from public view, newlywed-style! I hope these months have brought much happiness into your life, like they did into ours.

A life of two worlds
We live a greatly simplified life, and it’s very nice. There is one happy world that consists of the two of us, and another distant world with everyone else. The two are nearly isolated, the only bridge being our close family members and friends. Maybe it’s selfish… but we like it this way.

With that said, there haven’t been any drastic changes after marriage, and that’s the way it should be when a relationship is deeper than what a piece of paper could signify. Though just before we married, we kept teasing each other about me turning into the stereotypical couch-potato husband drinking beer and watching football, and Cherry turning into the typical bored-outta-life grouchy housewife watching lakorns all day long. Naah!

From now on, we’ll be posting stuff here again, and.. who knows, maybe you’ll see some interesting changes on Thaiwonders!

Take care and see you soon!

Tags: cherry, siamjai, just married, love

We just got back from Bangkok this morning, from a short trip to the Hungarian Embassy and back. Talked with the Embassador and got some papers for our upcoming marriage. (When that’s gonna happen exactly, we don’t know for sure yet, since we still have some more official stuff to sort out).

So this BKK trip was short and sweet: left Monday evening, got there Tuesday morning, did the stuff still in the morning, then killed some time on Siam Square until the afternoon when our Chiang Mai-bound train was ready to leave.

Big City Life? I don’t think so.
I don’t know about you, but for us, Bangkok feels the nicest when we’re on our way out. I mean, it’s okay to be there and do our stuff, and interesting happenings abound all the time, but there is something that makes us feel uneasy inside the Big Mango. So, like all other BKK trips before, this trip too just reaffirmed that big-city life is just not for us.

What about you, guys and gals? How do you feel about living in the Big City (I know some of you do… ). What influenced the choice you made when you picked your current living place? Are you happy there, or does your ideal living place lie elsewhere?

You might have noticed that our entries don’t have pics and are a bit on the short side now. That’s because our little time for online stuff is quite unpredictable, so from now on, we rather post short entries more frequently, and fill them in with pics later. I hope it’s okay with you.

So, we gonna update this with some pics soon, and write about some interesting Hualampong experience. Until then, take care, all!

Tags: embassy, hungary, bangkok, thailand, life, big city, big mango

Cherry and I are together again after such a long wait! It feels just great. Despite the hardships ahead, we both feel optimisitic, because our relationship passed the test of time and distance, and that’s the most important thing.

Now, whenever we have some free time, we go back and visit places where we had special time together, and we happily re-live those magical moments. There were so many in the past, and there are still plenty of those ahead. <3

The trip was smooth, albeit long. I’ve been kept awake for ca. 29 hours straight, so you can imagine how I felt when my body finally hit bedsheets again - I was sleeping like a stone.

Stepping off the airplane reminded me of that very first time I touched Thai ground, three years ago. The impressions I got now are so very different - not the least because this time my fiancee was waiting for me at the end of the long journey.

That first time I felt like an alien from another planet, but now every sound, sight and smell brought back all kinds of memories - it was like coming back home. And that “home” feeling is actually quite close to reality. I live in Thailand not as a casual visitor, neither as a temporary expat, but as someone who happily looks forward to spending decades in this country, becoming part of it as much as he can.

It’s great to be back.

Tags: thailand, back, cherry, siamjai, together

Playing on a grand piano - that’s going to be one of the things I may not be able to do frequently once I’m back in Thailand. So today I spent an hour or so at the keys, playing some of my favorite tunes. One of them is Suteki Da Ne (”Isn’t it beautiful”) by Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu. This moving, beautiful song has also become a theme song for the popular PS2 game Final Fantasy X.

This popular song has several versions; the one I play was background music for a tropical village scene - a slightly faster version than the original soundtrack. As usual, I adapted the song to piano by listening to the original tune many times.

This version of the song has one meaning for me: “Life goes on”. Though today was just practice, I usually play this song when things don’t go as expected, or clouds of trouble appear on the sky. It brings hope back. So I send this song to everyone for whom life doesn’t go well right now. Don’t worry - life still goes on, and you will be fine in due time.

Tags: final fantasy, mp3, piano, suteki da ne, nobuo uematsu, kilika

“Yaay, I got it! I’m going! Yippee!!”

That’s what I was yelling on top of the Buda mountains, jumping around like a lunatic, holding a little blue booklet in my hand. I can almost see the dear reader asking now with a confused expression: did poor SiamJai go crazy?

Nay… at least, not in the traditional sense. I am just excited because Cherry and I got one step closer to our grand plan. That is, I got my first Thai visa in my shiny new passport, meaning that Cherry and I are going to be together again in a few weeks! This is surely a good reason for excitement, especially considering that we parted in Chiang Mai almost a year ago. Although we’ve spent a wonderful month together in Hungary since then, the wait alone was still too long! And now our new life is about to start.

Going Thai in Budapest
So, back to the namesake topic of this post, I’d like to talk a bit about the Thai embassy in Budapest. You know, our blog stats show a surprising number of visits to one of our previous entries titled “Going French in Chiang Mai“, a short but informative blog about the French Embassy there. I hope that this entry will be just as useful to some of our readers.

How to find the Thai Embassy in Budapest?
Okay, first you gotta know the address:

Hungary, Royal Thai Embassy
Verecke ut 79,
II. 1025 Budapest
Tel: (36-1) 168-9421, 168-9422, 250-0727
Fax: (36-1) 250-1580, 188-2347

Then you gotta find a way to actually get to the Embassy. It’s fairly easy if you’re a local, but if you’re not, here is a quick low-down:

1. Use Subway no. 2 to get to Batthyany Square Station.
2. Exit the station; immediately in front of you will be Bus No. 11. Take it.
3. Go fourteen stops with the bus, get off at “Csatarka ut”. (If you’re lucky, the driver is gonna announce each station in advance, and there is an electric board that shows destination names as well.)
4. Finally go across Csatarka street and walk straight uphill on the road before you. Just about when the hill is about to get less steep, turn right on a new street called “Verecke ut”. Follow the road until you see the oh-so-lovely Thai flag on a building!

Too confusing? Click on the map to your left, that should make things a bit more clear. Though I marked Southern Train Station as the starting point, you can use this map as a reference from anywhere as long as it’s connected to a station in the No. 2 Subway.

First Impressions
The first thing coming to my mind about that trip is the long, tiring climb to the top of the hill where the Embassy is situated. I recall Betti mentioning this a while ago, but I didn’t think it’s gonna be this steep! Actually, the hill itself is not that high; the problem is the long, straight road leading to the top! It seems like the city planners never heard of the serpentine concept. :|

Anyway, once I got to the top, I knew what the pilgrims must’ve felt when they climbed the holy mountain to see the wise hermit on top. My “hermit” lived in a small building that didn’t look any different from the others surrounding it, save for the familiar Thai flag blowing in the wind. What a beautiful sight it was!

But then I stepped inside…

(Read on …)

This month we haven’t updated Lifewonders much, but for a good reason! We were busy remodeling our website. The new look has more of a Thai feel to it, and the content management system behind the site is a bit more advanced and user-friendly.

You can see the new style in the works here. One thing that I’m proud of is that none of the graphics is second-hand: we designed every single graphic element by ourselves! This way, it looks exactly like Cherry and I imagined, and we are very happy about the way it turned out.

The brain behind the looks
Enigne-wise, we’re using good ol’ Wordpress. This time, however, we’re not using it as a blog, so comments and such are completely removed from the new set. We’ve found a really cool template from Becca called “Remember” - this very useful template served as a model for our “Khao Nieow” style. She coded the files in a user-friendly way, so I had fun modifying it. As a result, you can see that there is quite a bit of difference between the two. (It’s released under GPL, so we’re allowed to modify it.) By the way, these cute square-smilies are also her creations!

For now, this new theme is still in testing stages, but soon we’re going to replace all areas of Thaiwonders with it. Well, almost all areas: maybe we’re going to leave this blog as it is, since it worked so well already!

Please let us know if you have any ideas for the site - we would like to make you feel at home there!

Tags: thai, look, thaiwonders, theme, beccary, remember, wordpress, themes

Phew, I finally managed to get my lazy butt up and continue writing about our favorite places. Okay, it’s not really like that. I’ve just finished re-designing the rest of thaiwonders.com and it looks great! I gonna show it to you guys in another post, but for now, let’s continue with…

Our Favorite Eating Places, 3-5
Usually we don’t think of a school cafeteria as a source of delicacies, but Fai restaurant really deserves to be mentioned here. It’s located at one of CMU’s cafeterias, blissfully hidden from Farang backpackers. Its speciality is moo-yang Isaan. At first sight, it’s nothing special, just fried pork with rice and a bit of som-tam. But the sauce! Whoa. I couldn’t describe it well, you gotta have a taste to know why it’s so special! This sauce compliments the meat well, brings out a special flavor, making this simple meal a unique delight to savor! Mmmmm… can’t wait to have it again!

Farang food without Farang mood or Farang prices
Cherry and I usually eat Thai meals, but when we occasionally decide to taste western food, we always have to put up with lousy company and high prices. That is, until we’ve found out about a quite little place near Wat Umong, the forest monastery of Chiang Mai. Pai Sabai set up a small eatery in the beautiful garden of a private home. Eating there is a very atmospheric experience. They specialize on Farang food, with very acceptable prices and excellent service.

Cherry and I stumbled up this little place completely by accident. After doing dtak baat in the city at dawn, we went to Wat Umong, but it was too early for the monastery to be open. So we just strolled along the forest-covered walls of the wat, when we got to this little soi with a sign advertising Pai Sabai. We followed it to the garden, and had a great breakfast there. We ordered blueberry pie, Yellow Label tea, muffins and strawberry jam. So yummy!

Little Hungary in Thailand
Yeah, I skipped Hungarian food from this list… why? Because I am blessed with a grandmother and mother who love to cook and have the skill to cook great food too! So, we almost never dine out in Hungary. On the rare occasions when we do, we choose exotic food, like Chinese. Yet, there is one Hungarian place that I can mention here: Kalacs & Tea in Airport Plaza Chiang Mai.

This Thai-Hungarian joint venture imported machinery to make the unique Hungarian delicacy called kurtos kalacs. What is it? Hmmm… kinda difficult to describe. Its taste lies somewhere between sweet bread and donut, and it has a cylindrical shape. They make the dough first; it’s rolled on a cylinder and is baked over fire with the cylinder rotating. When it’s done, it can be coated with different condiments, including walnut, cinnamon, poppy-seed and vanilla. They made a new Thai variety that had dried-shrimp coating, but we skipped that.

Kalacs & Tea, as its name suggests, also served tea along with the dessert. What made this special is that they imported their tea straight from Hungary as well! Along with the Hungarian decoration of the place, this was really a trip back home. Sadly though, they couldn’t keep up with the increasing cost of mall rental fees, so they folded last year. Too bad, because Cherry and I spent some precious moments there.

So, this concludes our short list of our favorite places to eat at. I hope you found it interesting; give them a try when you get the chance!

Tags: thai food, restaurant, Chiang Mai, moo yang, Fai, CMU, Wat Umong, Pie Sabai, farang food, hungarian food, kurtos kalacs, cherry, siamjai

What are your favorite eating places?
Been busy with some major website remodeling, but a tag from our dear friend Selba reminded me that I shouldn’t neglect this friendly corner either.

The rules of this interesting food tag are the following:

1. Add a direct link to your post below the name of the person who tagged you. Include the state and country you’re in.
Nicole (Sydney, Australia)
velverse (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
LB (San Giovanni in Marignano, Italy)
Selba (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Cherry & SiamJai (Chiang Mai, Thailand)

2. List your top 5 favorite places to eat at your location.

3. Tag 5 other people (preferably from other countries/states), and let them know that they’ve been tagged.

With that in mind, let’s see our choices of good restaurants around our place!

Chopped Catfish at Auntie Chicken
One of the best places Cherry and I like to hang out frequently is a family-run restaurant called Paa Gai, or “Auntie Gai” in Chiang Mai. It’s a cozy little place far from the city center - this is perhaps the reason why tourists haven’t discovered it yet.

Paa Gai makes lots of yummy food, but their best is yam pladuk foo. Basically, they fry catfish until it’s crispy, then chop it up to very fine tiny pieces. It’s served with somtam. Like most of the delicious Thai dishes, this is also quite hot.

If you plan to visit Paa Gai, don’t do it on Wednesdays - it’s closed. Why? It’s lottery drawing day, of course! They’re open on the all other days of the week though.

Ruby Fish by the Lakeside
If I said “far” for Paa Gai, the next restaurant on our list is even further! While Paa Gai is still in the city, the restaurants around Huay Teung Taew are waay out there, quite far from the city. What makes this place popular amongst locals is that Huay Teung Taew is the only lake amongst the mountains there.

There are many little places to choose from, and their speciality is plaa taptim, or ruby fish. If you ever had this fish, you’ll remember it, it’s so delicious - if they prepare it well. This fish is good both fried and steamed, but Cherry and I like the steamed variety better. Its juicy, pink-colored flesh goes well with khao suay, crispy chicken pieces with seasame seed and tiny fried shrimp. We usually also drink coke with it. Maybe not the healthiest of menus, but very tasty and filling nevertheless. After such a good meal, it feels very good to take a nap in one of the little straw huts by the lakeside.

Talking so much about food makes me hungry! There are still three resturants remaining on our list of favorite places, but we’re going to continue this blog next time - until then, Happy Easter for everyone! Also happy Chakri Day for all of our Thai friends!

Tags: thai, food, plaa, plaa tubtim, taptim, paa gai, yam pladuk foo, huay teung taew, chiang mai, restaurants

Spring has come to Hungary, and so the flowers start blossoming in our Thaiwonders Springtime Gallery as well! Today, on a sunny spring Sunday, I ventured out to the countryside trying to capture some of the beauty of wildlife waking up from winter slumber.

I made good use of the macro feature of my new camera that I got from my sis as a Christmas present. Both Cherry and I love taking macro shots - I guess our microbiology background makes us keen on seeing miniature things up-close. Below is one of my favorite shots from today:

Beautiful spring weather also brings smiles to faces - did you notice that we smile a little differently now? You can try it too, if you comment below and type some smileys.

See you all next time!

Tags: spring, hungary, photo, photography, gallery, nature, macro, smilies

Women - what a desolate place the world would be without you! Wishing happiness to all the grandmothers, mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, fiancees and girlfriends out there who make this world a wonderful place to live in!

(Last year at this time… I smile every time I think of that day Ja. )

Tags: womens day, greeting card, flash, ecard

Klut le Phaya Naak
Dang saeng sa-wang gap kwam-muet
Dtor-suu gan dtalod gaan.

The Story
The Garuda and the Naga are two of the most recognized characters of Thai mythology. These two creatures are in constant opposition, and their epic battle inspired writers, poets and artists through centuries. This artpiece is my homage to the Garuda-Naga motif.

Garuda - the Light
Garuda is a bird-like creature, popular in Hindu and Buddhist stories. Nothing could prove its high status more than the fact that it’s the national symbol of Thailand and its ruling royal dynasty. Traditionally, it’s the mount of Phra Narai (Vishnu).

Naga - the Darkness
The Naga is an equally powerful symbol. It symbolizes the underworld; it is featured on every temple in Thailand, and is the protector of none other than the Buddha himself! It’s no wonder then, that the clash of two such titans has been a favored theme for artists and storywriters alike.

Staying true to traditions, this pic shows the Garuda in winning position. The Naga is sort of like the underdog in these battles, although in theory it’s possible for a stronger Naga to win over a weaker Garuda (their strenght is determined by the circumstances of their birth). I tend to root for the underdog, so I find the Naga a bit more interesting than the Garuda.

The poem
I came up with the English version, Cherry translated it to Thai, and then we transcribed it to the drawing using a special Lanna font to give it a Northern flavor. ;-) The meaning of the poem is the following:

Garuda and Naga
Like light and darkness
Eternally fight each other.

Or in Thai:

ครุฑและพญานาค
ดั่งแสงสว่างกับความมืด
ต่อสู้กันตลอดกาล

Tags: garuda, naga, klut, nak, classic thai, asian mythology, thai mythology, drawing

Cherry and I wish everyone a happy Chinese New Year with this little animated card. Each time a panda jumps through, a good wish is being sent to friends and family. You have received some too while you were reading this! ;-)

Let’s all have a prosperous and happy New Year! ^_^

Tags: chinese, new year, panda, card, ecard, Flash, animation

Palm trees blooming in the London winter!
We’re not kidding! :-) Cherry has been to Kew Gardens, a large botanical garden in the UK capital. She took an awesome number of pics, which you can check out at our new photoalbum. Even if you’ve seen plenty of tropical stuff and exotic plants, it’s still likely that you gonna find something interesting there. For instance, have you ever seen such butt-shaped coconut shell before?

I’m going to write more, once we talk on Skype and Cherry is going to tell me her stories

Tags: Kew Gardens, London, botanical garden, tropical plants

JayisGames, a community about casual Flash games, is reporting a brand-new puzzle game that takes creative thinking to new heights.

If ancient Egypt and mummies are your thing, you will likely enjoy the “Tomb of the Mummy” series developed by the good folks at CandleLightStories. The plot of the second one is simple: you’re in front of a window, you’re cursed, can’t move except your fingers. Your goal is to create a golden bird statue that will break the curse. You can use only the materials in front of you, but since you can’t move, you have to rely on the constantly changing outside environment to manipulate things inside. (Click to play the game)

Impressions
You gotta derive satisfaction from hard work in order to like this game. Causal players will find a huge drawback right in the beginning. Unless you have much experience in solving puzzles like this, you will likely be scratching your head and think “what’s the point in this?” With some perseverance however, things will start to make sense, and the satisfaction for figuring solutions out is rewarding.

Would I play it again? No, not really. Once you got through it, there isn’t enough variety to bring you back to play it again. On the other hand, I’m looking forward to the sequel however, which is likely coming if this one becomes a hit.

Tags: jayisgames, flash, game, tomb, mummy, puzzle