Carson Christiano

Carson Christiano

Carson Christiano grew up exploring the backwoods of Minnesota, attended high school and college outside Chicago, and is currently living in Chiang Mai, Thailand, teaching tenth grade English and exercising her tolerance for spicy food. Always in search of a new way to get lost (so that she can write about it later), Carson takes every opportunity she can get to venture someplace beautiful, wild or enchanting. Her favorite traveling moments include piranha fishing in the Amazon, floating through underground rivers in New Zealand, watching the full moon rise over the rim of the Grand Canyon, and zooming around Sicily on a moped.

Features:

Taking the Plunge in Thailand - It’s 7 AM on a Saturday, I’m busy treading water in a sea of pleasant dreams, and already I have three missed calls from the monks I met in Pai last weekend. Clearly strangers to the manners associated with this well-established communication technology, my new friends (Are monks allowed to befriend women, let alone call them on a cell phone?) seem to be breaking rules left and right. [Visit this Feature]

In Search of Siam - It’s hot, and the food is hotter, and my shoulders are in the sun and the sweat is threatening to burst from my pores, and my book lies unopened on the table—I meant to be reading casually while consuming this mid-afternoon meal, in an effort to savor my surroundings, perhaps slow myself down a little?—but I can’t, can’t stop feeding the fire in my mouth, can’t stop teasing my taste buds, tickling my pores. My fate is locked in a bittersweet struggle for domination; it’s me and the sticky rice (my edible weapon) versus the contents of the bowl. Finally, the last drop of curry wiped clean from its sides, the evidence hastily destroyed (eaten), I fall back heavy and victorious against my chair, shoulder blades reconnecting with hot plastic. Letting the pores open now, I breathe a fiery, pumpkin-and-basil-laced sigh of relief. [Visit this Feature]

Thailand: Winter in the Tropics - Winter has descended on Chiang Mai. You wouldn't know it save for the hats, scarves, jackets, and knitting needles that have made their way into my classrooms, the complaints from teachers and students that they are getting sick, and the questioning looks I get when I show up to work in short sleeves. The weather is an excuse for everything from tardiness to falling asleep in class to unfinished homework. This morning was admittedly cool, a brisk 57 degrees with a biting southeast wind, but by midday it was brilliantly sunny, around 80, with a gentle breeze wafting through the windows of the English department. If these temperatures are driving the Thai people into hibernation, I hate to think what the summer months here are like. [Visit this Feature]

Thailand: Monks, Teachers and Food - This afternoon, on my way to yoga class across town, a group of five apprentice monks and their teacher, all clad in bright orange robes, hopped into the back of my songthow. These trucks are equipped to hold four people on each side, but because monks are forbidden to sit next to women, they all had to crowd onto the opposite bench. There I was, riding along face to face with six monks sitting on top of one another, with a whole bench to myself. While it was certainly an interesting sight to behold, I don’t think I have ever felt more powerful in my womanhood than I did at that moment. I couldn't help smiling the whole way. [Visit this Feature]