The World in 100 Words or Less

It’s been two weeks since my last confession and I have sinned a lot father…

Just kidding.

So, I’m in Delhi, India now and you’re saying to yourself if you’ve been following along, “what the hell happened to Thailand?” Well, I got real comfortable and had trouble pulling myself away from monuments, temples, beaches, cafes and cool conversations to type out something here. But, I will attempt to do that now so get ready for a long one. I’ve since lost track of exactly what happened on what day, but we’ll see how it goes:

So we left off at Chang Mai i believe. I meant to stay one day, and I stayed four. CHang Mai is a lot like Bangkok with respect to its designation as a city, but that is the end of their shared path. Chang Mai is no doubt unique. Bustling with metropolitan happenings and the stamp of industry, it is at the same time home to an immense arts and crafts market (perhaps the best in Thailand) and a haven for people just having escaped Bangkok. Though some will dispute my feelings, Chang Mai is a quiet haven for me. If you need a shot of clubs and bars, they have it. If you need to see little children painting the umbrellas you get in drinks, they have that too. But for someone who has been running around the country, Chang Mai provides quaint little guesthouses with great common areas, even better people and very good food. FOr as little as twenty baht ($.50 US) you can get a very large helping of basil and chili chicken, rice (heaps of it) and a coconut pudding desert. And let me tell you, its quite filling. When I first arrived in Thailand I was, needless to say, skeptical of the street food. However, I found that more often than not its better than whats in the restuarants, just as safe and a hell of a lot cheaper. So for Thailand, street food it is (in India its a little different but we’ll get to that). So what did I do in Chang Mai? I basically said what I did before, nothing outstanding, but a lot of really good things, and for much less than anywhere else. One can easily get by on $10 a day and that’s including the occasional alcoholic drink (no worries Grandma, they’ve been very occasional).

After Chang Mai, on Naomi’s suggestion, I ventured to the even farther north city of Pai. Pai is known as “hippy central” of Thailand. Its a quaint little town, propelled purely by tourism and all that goes with it, in the mountain regions close to Burma (AKA Myanmar). As peaceful as it is, the ride there is less than enjoyable. In Chang Mai I had met up with a nice italian girl named Sara who had heard the cheapest way to get to Pai was by the local bus. Having taken local buses previously and enojyed the atmosphere, i quickly agreed to join her. The second bad idea in thailand. The road to Pai is up and down a mountain, taking approximately 4 hours with only one 15 minute stop in the middle. The road probably hasn’t been fixed in 20 years and the curves make any professional race track look like child’s play (Jason, you would love this road on a bike). Had I had a seat, perhaps I would have enjoyed it. But, my italian comrade was given the last one. I stood. 4 hours. in the heat. up and down a mountain with winding roads. right behind the engine compartment. melting sandals. stinky people. aching muscles. not happy.

Once we got to Pai my mood had been raised slightly. Anything was better than rocking back and forth on a bus whose driver deemed it acceptable to pass slower vehicles on a one lane, dead man’s curve (it was a long drop if he moved over a couple of inches. So after 121 km (I counted every marker stone that went by) Pai looked beautiful. It really isn’t that nice, just a little town in a valley but the backdrop of mountains 360 degrees around aint bad. There’s, seeing as its a hippy refuge, really not that much to do in Pai. Yes, you can work on your chakras or discuss energy with one of the many local yogis (for a price of course), but other than that, the pickings are slim. Gee Wiz, thanks Naomi. However, it you rent a bike (powered or not) there are some very cool villages that stick to the old ways outside of town. When me and Sara arrived, we ended up meeting another Italiana, Erica. Seeing as Sara was more of the lounge-around type, Erica and I checked out some of these villages with bicycles, just taking in the sites. Rice paddies, thatched huts, little girls in down jackets when its 95 degrees F (38 C) outside, interesting. OUr only mistake was not getting a motorbike though. After about 12 kilometres we were exhuasted. The road to these villages is literally all uphill and on shitty bikes, pretty hard to manage. Erica’s piece of work was stuck in low gear, so I had the pleasure (because im such a good guy) of switching with her. My shirt was soaked in minutes with sweat. But, keenly placed is a little refreshment stand outside one of the villages. for about 25 cents you can have yourself an ice cold coke in the glass bottle, thank god. THe way down was much nicer as it was all downhill and we sure as hell went as fast as we could (the road was empty and it felt like flying). The two nights there were spent drinking at a fantastic reggae and jazz bar, aptly named the Bepop Bar. There you could find a mix of locals ands farong (foreigners) lumped together on a hot dance floor all enojying the music together.

As I said, there really isn’t much to do in Pai. So after two days it was bon voyage and back to Bangkok on the overnight. I ended up spending another day in Chang Mai, but that was because of the bus schedules. Arriving back in Bangkok on Khao San road at 6 am was surreal as usual. The street is usually packed with vendors and travellers, but before the sun comes up, it looks like a ghost town full of trash. I tried to spend as little time there as possible. I picked up my India visa, booked my flight to Delhi and headed to Naomi’s house. The next three days were spent just wandering around town, trying to take in some of the culture I missed and hitting the fantastic weekend market again. Its unbelievable how much stuff they have there. You wont see the same stall twice even if you try, though you will see some of the same things over and over again (thanks to us tourists making it a must-see). At 2:40 a.m. on Wednesday (bangkok time) I said goodbye to thailand and hello to Delhi. The taxi ride to the airport was actually rather sad. I had just gotten used to Thailand, and was really enjoying its many flavors, but I knew there was much more to see on this journey. INdia was ahead, and I was extremely nervous. Whereas Thailand is easy travelling fdor tourists, I had heard India was completely different, always a surprise around the corner. So who knows what has become of me…

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 to go through the traffic of Bangkok. TO be cear, BKK traffic is among the worst in the world. The drivers are crazy, the motorcyclists even worse, and the lights can have you waiting 4 minutes for a green. The taxis are always interesting, because either the driver is fast and nearly gets you killed every minute or painfully slow attemtping to conserve gas (my least favorite). Of course, on my longest taxi trip as of yet, I got a slow one. Mr. Khaison, as his identification card said, was ex-military and a fan of street racing, thuogh you wouldn’t know from his sloth-like driving skills. After 45 minutes of holding my tongue about narrowly missing lights and taking extremely congested streets, the man has the audacity to stop at a store and get a bottle of water, and he didn’t even get one for me!!! I was furiuos, and told him to chop 50 baht (39 baht=1 us dollar) off the taxi ride, which was about a third. Surprisingly he agreed, because he sure as hell didn’t want me walking off withuot giving him nothing. SO after an hour, with the air condiitoning surprisingly “no work” for the time after our argument, I arrived at Khao San.

I found myself a nice little room on the main street that was clean enough, but not great. Atleast it was better than one of the rooms i checked that had cockroaches the size of your fist running along the floor. The place ended up saying has been great though. I quickly made friends with 4 of the other travellers: Aaron, Max, Remco, and Svenna (USA,USA,Holland,Germany). I spent he rest ofthe day hanging out with them, just walking around buying stuff at the many markets, which turned out to be great. The road really affords good friends, and travellers are always more than happy o introduce themselves. Meeting people has become one of my favorite parts. LIke on Day 2 when I ended up getting sloshed with a bunch of thai guys and their girlfriends at this local’s place not far from Naomi’s house. Not that I remember all of the night, because they were kind enough to buy the last 8 rounds (the beers are about a litre big and are 6 point. whew!!)

Day 4: Today I’m off to Chinatown which is supposed to be great and I’ve also booked bus tickets with Aaron down to Surat Thani, which is far in the south. The bus will take all night, but we got a good deal, which ended up costing as much as one night’s stay at the hostel, so not bad all things considered. From Surat Thani (pronounced s-ir-a-t t-a-n-ee) we’ll be heading off to Khao Sok, a beautiful natonal forest preserve with great hiking and from what Naomi tells me, great culture.

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]