The World in 100 Words or Less

So it’s been awhile since I last updated. I must admit, the north is a very relaxing place to stay and the people are great, so it’s been hard for me to pry myself away from the couches and the markets to write this.

After another wasted day in bangkok, where my only two successes were getting my India Visa process started and booking a ticket to Delhi, I began to head north. My first stop would be Ayutthia, the old capital of Thailand. Ayutthia was sacked in the late 18th century by what is now modern day Myanmar (aka Burma). It was a beautiful city of numerous Wats, Shrines, Palaces, and fine Buddha images. Now what remains are a series of ruins. The Buddha statues have their heads chopped off,the palaces have been burnt to the ground, a few walls made out of brick remaining. But, walking around this once immense city gives you a glimpse into “medieval” and “renaissance” thai culture. In fact, the city was so large, that some estimates place it as the biggest city in the world for its time, both in sheer area and in population. But it suffered the all to common fate of a city that had grown beyond itself, beyond its own control.

For anyone interested in Thai architecture this is a must-see as the Thai buildings are amazing. Many of them made out of red-clay brick, similar in appearance to the town houses of the USA, the Thai kings had huge shrines created for the remains of their relatives and large temples built that housed thousands of monks. One of the most filmed image of thailand is the image of the head of Buddha in the form of a statue with overgrown tree roots partially covering it. It remains as one of the only existing heads of Buddha in all of Ayutthia’s ruins and provides interesting theories of how it got there. Surprisingly though, it was a little dissapointed. I was expecting a huge 6 or 7 ft tall head under a huge tree, when in reality I almost walked right by the damned thing without noticing it.

After a full day in the hot and humid air of modern Ayutthia, I was exhausted. Seemingly so were the skies. No longer able to hold the weight of all the humidity in the clouds, it poured like no other. It was the first time I really saw it rain and thailand, and so far, the only time. Everyone took shelter under whatever they could find, poor motorcyclists arrived at their destinations drenched, and the streets flowed with an interesting shade of brown. I was just happy it cooled off a little bit and I had a place to read. SO I sat back in the train station and waited a whole 4 hours for the train to Chang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city.

Chang Mai:Let me first say, taking the train instead of a bus is a beautiful thing. The train provides those little creature comforts that make an 11 hour journey not so bad. Whereas the train is cramped and almost painful for someone of my height, on the train I get my own bed, complete with all of the fixings. Now of course I pay 3 times as much, but it all adds up to about 13 dollars, so not bad. Well worth it to get a full nights rest, especially after the smoldering day before. I get into Chang Mai in the morning, as the sun is rising over the mountains and onto the rice paddies and through the windows of the train. I decide that I’ll buy the ridiculously over priced breakfast offered by the all-too-eager waiter, so that im fresh for Chang Mai and finding a place to stay. BAD IDEA. For the first time in my life, breakfast does me in. Off all the crazy street food i’ve eaten, from questionable curries to scorpions and grasshoppers, eggs over easy and a little piece of Ham has me puking all morning at an internet cafe. And to think, I paid triple the usual price of breakfast to be sick. I’ve actually been going back to the same internet cafe where I puked because I wanted to give them some business in exchange for the mess I left in the bathroom.

So here I’ve been in CHang Mai, relaxing with fellow travellers, going to night markets, clubs, and watching movies.  And to think, I wasn’t even going to go to this place.  It turns out it’s been one of my most enjoyable stays.

More to follow as usual….

Day 9: After 2 days on the beach,  Aaron and I had had enough.  It’s a very relaxing place to be, but when you want to be seeing all of the sites and exploring the culture, it falls short of your end goals.  I will say though that Koh Lanta was quite an interesting place.  Unlike most of Thailand which is buddhist, the island was instead inhabited by a fishing community of some 20,000 muslims of malaysian descent.  Our travel agent who booked our trip back up to Bangkok was more than happy to discuss religion and especially the increasingly tense situation in Far South Thailand (in between his puffs of a joint).  The muslim culture at Koh Lanta is, not surprisingly, very different from islam in the States.  It has a distinctively asian feel to it, in which they had adapted many beliefs of their previous reiligions and cultural ideas.  But anyways, I’ll move that segway back over to our trip back up.

SO we get on the little minibus to take us to Krabi, a resort town on the mainland, where we find that the driver is amazingly the most ignorant and idiotic person to ever be born.  As we pick up more people from various other resorts we’re surprised to see that he often doesn’t know where they are, on his own island! Let’s be clear, there really aren’t that many and they all have signs at the main road (the only paved one on the island).  So after an hour and a half of watching him attempting to drive a manual car, talk on the phone, and look at a map, we finally reach the ferry which will take us to the next island where we catch yet another ferry to krabi.  Talk about island hopping.  We finally reach Krabi and stop at what we think is our bus stop.  LIttle do we know that because of the driver’s poor off-roading skills we’ve got a flat tire and he took us to the first bus stop that he could think of.  And we’re already late for our bus!!  The other passengers and I are fuming, everyone needing to go somewhere different, and everyone on a tight schedule.  At this point Naomi, my new friend from Bangkok, pops up into my head.  I remember her telling me about one of the favorite phrasesn of Thai people, “Mai Pen Rai”, roughly translated as “no worries”.  Everything is no worries, and thai time is usually about an hour behind everyone elses watch.  SO there we are, freaking out that we’re getting screwed and will end up having to stay a night in Krabi, paying yet more money, becuase the disorganized bus system will definitely not fit the bill.  And to make matters worse, its raining, so we can’t even have a relaxing day on the beach like the day before.

Out of nowhere, our chariot arrives, a minibus that will take us to Surat Thani, to catch a different bus there.We skeptically board and find out that it’s not so bad after all, accept for the young Aussie girls next to us that wont stop talking on their phones, but they’re tolerable.

day 10: After 16 huors of travel (including having to suffer through “XXX:state of the union” and “The Scorpion King”) and a beutiful ride through rubber tree plantations and palm groves we arrive back at bangkok, tired, smelly, and hungry as usual.  Aaron and I get a room at the place we were staying at the last time in Bangkok and quickly fall fast asleep.  Cheers to the closest thing to home. After some calls home and some good old street food I spent the day lounging around, badly needing a break from the ridiculous journey.

Day 11:

So It's been awhile since I last updated this blog, due to high internet costs in some areas and because, well, the beach was really nice and who wants to spend time on the internet instead of with beautiful women ... [Continue reading this entry]

Day 3: Today I decided that I would leave the comfortable, air-conditioned abode of my friend Naomi and commune with the other poor travellers on the famous Khao San road. To ge there, I would yet agani have ... [Continue reading this entry]

This post got destroyed so sorry if it seems scattered or incomplete. I finally arrived two days ago at midnight, called my new friend Naomi whom i'm staying with (it only took this tech-savvy boy 5 ties at the phone), and ... [Continue reading this entry]

So I have completed my first leg of the trip! The flight from Bangkok was a breeze as it was completely empty (or close to) and I had a nice little spread set up across 5 seats in the ... [Continue reading this entry]