Who knew traveling could keep you so busy?

Last week I was probably 1600 kilometers down south (ha ha ha, feel my pain and convert that!) and 30 degrees warmer. And I won’t make you convert that- its plain Fahrenheit- I still haven’t gotten a grip on Celsius. Only last week I was on the sunny and tropical southern beach of Ton Sai, where the fun never ends and the sun never sets. Actually, it does set, it only feels like it never sets, because it stays approximately one million degrees all day and all night. And now I’ve made my way through Ayutthaya- the city of ancient ruins, and coiencidentally, ancient bricks- through to the northern hippie city of Ciang Mai, only to finally settle on the even more northern and even more hippie town of Pai which reminds me too much of the Californian hippie town of Sebastopol. But I am getting too far ahead of myself. First, let me tell you about my trip up here and explain how bumming around Thailand could possibly keep me so busy.

So, I started back in Ton Sai, which is in the province of Krabi, down on the south west coast of Thailand. (For more on Ton Sai see my post “A Rai Na?”) Hmm. I like how I’m indexing this site, like people other than my parents read this. Anyways, my traveling partner Inga and I took the night “VIP” bus up to Bangkok, which cost 100 baht ($2.50) extra to go from normal air conditioned to VIP, but we justified it with a 13 hour bus drive. However, after this experience, I truly believe VIP stands for Very Ignorant People, because it’s very much NOT nice or comfortable or anything one would think one would get when one hears VIP. I advise all Thailand travelers traveling from Krabi to Bangkok to take public buses, which, for the most part, are much better. But, the one good thing they did provide for us on the bus was a movie. Now, I, along with the 40 some odd other people on the bus, were leaving out of Krabi. Keep in mind Krabi was one of the most affected areas by one of the worst natural disasters in recent history, or perhaps, all of history. The movie selection for the trip was “The Day After Tomorrow.” A movie about natural disasters, which in one scene depicts a giant tsunami hitting New York City. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Who thought this would be a good idea? Who thought, “Let’s put on The Day After Tomorrow because that’s a wonderful idea”? No one wanted to watch this coming from where we had just been, faced with the reality of this depiction. I had to say, it’s just Thailand. Sometimes, things here just don’t make sense.

After the interesting bus ride and a night of no sleep, we managed to catch the morning train to Ayutthaya, a city full of history, and evidentially, full of old bricks and not much ambiance to go along with them. It used to be a center of trade for Thailand and the surrounding countires, but now it is just a bustling city built around the remanants of a golden period. Even after visiting the sparse Ayutthaya Historical Study Center, I guess I still didn’t fully appreciate the bricks, so we opted to get back on the road, and headed for the northern city of Chiang Mai. After an incredibly comfortable bus rise in a public bus, (second class), we stayed in this charming earthy city for two days before deciding to head even further north to the more remote and supposedly even more hippie and more charming city of Pai. This is where my story turns unfortunate. We opted to take the public bus (third class) which was only 60 baht ($ 1.50), and found that many more people than just us had found 60 baht to be appealing too. Luckily we were early, which means we got a seat and got our backpacks stored in the trunk. Most everyone else got their backpacks and crates thrown precariously on top of the bus, and what didn’t fit on top went inside. Which meant backpacks, sacks of rice, tires, and any other random things you can think of. The people who didn’t get a seat got to sit on the sacks of rice and tires, and the people who didn’t get to sit on sacks of rice got to stand in the doorway. With the door open. Did I mention this was a four hour drive through steep and winding mountains? So, Inga and I got seats, but other than us the seats were mostly occupied by Thais as they know the tricks of getting seats, and all the late “farang” (the Thai name given to all foreigners) were the ones standing or sitting on sacks in the isles. No one was complaining though. This is Thailand, the land of smiles and a laid back attitude, and besides, with tickets costing 60 baht, people would have sat on the roof. Suddenly, a farang couple came up to the two Thais sitting behind us, and started talking rather rudely. Soon, the man started yelling, and pointing at the Thai’s seat, and then asking to see his ticket. Then he took out his ticket and started pointing at the seat. I soon began to see what was going on. Apparently, all the seats had numbers, which match up to numbers on tickets, not that anyone goes by them. As anyone could tell, it was very obviously first come first serve. The couple obviously wanted the two Thai people to give up their rightfully earned seats simply because the farang didn’t know the system and didn’t want to stand. The farang couple was persistent, and the Thais, in true Thai character, never wanting to say no and never wanting to cause trouble, let the couple have their seats. I was furious! How could they?! Now the two Thais had to stand for the four hour ride, all due to two ignorant and inconsiderate farang. It’s people like this that make me very sad for the people and cultures of the travel destinations, and additionally, very sad for the farang travelers because if they never leave their western ideals and standards at home, than they will never truly be able to appreciate the different cultures that they are imposing on. I propse we start a ballot that stipulates that people like this are required to stick to their package tourist deals and restricted to places like Club Med where interaction with the local culture is limited. Moving on. . .

We finally made it to Pai, and have been here for five days. Pai is situated at the bottom of a valley right on a lazy river called the, you guessed it, Pai River, with random bamboo bungalows sprinkled along it’s river banks. It’s incredibly quaint, and everywhere you go the people are so inviting and friendly. Three days ago when Inga and I rented a motorscooter to get around, neither of us knew how to drive one. The young Thai guy running the trekking store across from the motorbike rental shop had meandered out to give us tips, and ended up closing his store for a little while to take Inga out to teach her how to drive. It’s things like this that make Thailand as incredible as it is. Since then we’ve been busy every day. We have gone on a trekk with elephants and then gone swimming in the river with them, been driving all over the surrounding mountains thanks to Inga’s newly aquired riding skills, seen waterfalls, gone bamboo river rafting, and even vistited a small Chinese village. Inga and I leave tomorrow for Chiang mai, and I will have to say goodbye to my new friend as her plane leaves monday, and I will once again be on my own. So much has happened in this past week, I can only imagine what will happen in the next one.