Kho Phangan

The trip to Koh Phangan was a long one. The train took 12 hours, but smart us, we got the overnight one. We didn't get the AC compartment, but it cooled down amazingly at night. I have to say, I enjoy the gentle rocking of a train as I sleep. There's something comforting about it. We arrived at the Suratthani train station in the early morning darkness and were immediately greeted by bus operators offering us rides to the ferry terminal. We searched for and found the company that our combo train-bus-ferry tickets were for, and then waited until the bus decided it was time to pick everyone up. An hour later we found ourselves trundling through the city on a rickety old bus filled with other white, college-student type tourists, on our way to the ferry docks. We made one stop where we had to switch buses, but soon enough we all found ourselves waiting patiently at the dock, sitting on and amongst piles of luggage, looking out to the sea in the hopes that we might spot the ferry boat coming to pick us up. We weren't there but 10 minutes when dolphins were spotted out in the water, very close to the dock. They turned out to be pretty good entertainment as we waited. They were obviously feeding, seeing as we could actually see the silver fish speeding ahead of them, leaping out of the water in their desperate bid to escape. I suspect the dolphins enjoyed it when the fish jumped because they got to come swooping behind, skimming the water as they snapped them up, and then finishing with a showy acrobatic roll. About the time that everyone was getting bored with the dolphin show the ferry showed up. Luggage was stacked on the deck, people claimed their seats, and within four hours we had arrived. Luggage was now tossed back onto the docks and claimed by their respective owners, and the battle for reasonably priced transportation ensued. I'm 99% sure that all the songthaew drivers there were in some sort of taxi gang where they had all agreed on a fixed price, because everyone - every last one of them - was charging a flat 100 baht per person to go to Haad Rin, which was the beach we needed to get to in order to go to Haad Tien, which was the beach we wanted to stay at. Getting around the island isn't exactly easy... But we refused to pay 100 each and kept asking different drivers for a discount. Finally someone agreed to take us for 200 total, but asked us not to tell the 7 other people in the truck that we were being charged less. I was happy to keep my mouth shut. The drive to Haad Rin gave us a little taste of how beautiful the island is as we passed over some large hills which offered fabulous views of the crystalline water. I haven't been to too many beaches around the world, but I feel pretty confident in saying that the beaches of the Thai islands have got to be on the list of "Most Beautiful Beaches. Ever." Add the lively green foliage that inhabits all the spaces between buildings and roads and it becomes almost magical. It will be a pity when one day most of the jungle is gone and replaced with big resorts and condos and whatnot. Ah well. Once we got off the songthaew we were, once again, accosted by taxis. These were water taxis though. And they were much harder to haggle with than the drivers back at the dock. Unfortunately, Haad Tien is basically only accessible by boat, so that left us with no other options. We cajoled and rationalized and begged but they would not budge. 200 baht per person. 200 per person! That's $6 a person! In Thailand, that feels like a huge rip off. But they can get away with it because there are only a few water taxis and a lot of desperate tourists. We eventually gave in. At least the ride was fun! Well, I thought it was fun. Femke didn't like it. The ocean was rather choppy that day and as our precariously balanced longboat bounced off one wave and crashed into the peak of the next, we were flung into the air, our butts leaving the seat momentarily, again and again. It was a bit spine-jarring, but lots of fun I thought. And the views of the island from our vantage point on the water were all that much more breathtaking. Picture perfect, like a tropical fairy tale. As we passed around the jutting rocks that separated Haad Rin from its neighboring beach the boat driver sprung on us the news that he would only be landing at one beach: Haad Tien, where we had asked to go, or Haad Yuan, where two of the other tourists on board had asked to go. He said it was too choppy to land at both beaches. I wanted to complain about him charging us 200 each and then not taking us where we wanted, but instead I told him that Haad Yuan was fine after consulting with Chuck and Femke. The only reason we agreed on Haad Yuan was because apparently there was a footpath between it and Haad Tien. So! He drove his boat full force onto the beach, coming to a screeching halt in the process. We got out, got our stuff, and followed the kind gentleman who was also going to Haad Tien, along the footpath. I learned something on that walk. Something about myself. I learned that there is no way I am ever going to go hiking or camping with a huge backpack strapped to my back. I think I nearly died on that short walk. It wasn't even a hard or long trail. It would have been fine without my bag, but my god. With my backpack on I was panting and sweating and burning as I hauled myself up the stone steps, across the gently sloping peak of the trail, and back down the other side onto Haad Tien. And as my eyes swept the secluded beach I found myself disappointed. It wasn't as nice as the one we had just come from... And the hotel/bungalows we had been wanting to stay at were full, except for one expensive room. Chuck and Fem checked out the other two bungalows, but had no luck. Looked like we were going back along the trail of death to Haad Yuan. We took it slower the second time around though, so it wasn't nearly as bad. There were a few bungalows along the way that we popped into, but we wanted to check out what was available on the beach before making up our minds, so we continued past them back onto the white sands of Haad Yuan. A place called Big Blue had one room available. We were discussing whether the price was reasonable (it was 400 baht a night - $12 a night, and we were considering how reasonable that was - hah!) when another couple came up looking for a room. That made the decision easy. Big Blue it was. I felt kinda bad as they walked away, shoulders slightly hunched and looking dejected. My guilt passed quickly though. Our room consisted of a small, freestanding bungalow complete with two beds and a shower. No hot water, but it was pretty hot anyways so it wouldn't be a problem. No TV or AC or anything fancy like that. Just a wooden, shanty, cute little bungalow set amid the manicured greenery maintained by the owners. So! First things first. Time for a swim. We quickly changed and made our way back to the beach. The water, although somewhat rough, was amazing. It was warm enough that I hardly flinched when I sank in all the way up to my shoulders. Not cold at all. We did some body surfing and avoided the undercurrents and had a good ole time. The rest of the day was restful. We ate at the open-air restaurant that was run by our Big Blue bungalows, and I found a nice thick book for me to read on their community bookshelf: the Dark Materials Trilogy. I must have been pretty exhausted though, because at around 6:00 PM I managed to fall asleep in our hot, hot room, waking intermittently throughout the night to the strange new sounds of the jungle around us. Chuck and I were both woken up at one point by what sounded like a dog's squeaky toy. Squeak-eeee, squeak-eeee. Of course, we later found out it was just a Tokay Gecko. Those suckers are pretty big and will leave little steamy piles of poo on your bed while you're away, if you're lucky. We were faced with the poo a couple times during our stay... Stupid big geckos... Pooing on our sheets... Pft. Here's what they sound like, it's bizarre: Tokay Gecko's
call.



I managed to stay in bed until 8:00 AM, giving me a good 14 hours of fitful sleep. Chuck and Fem had been awake for a while by the time I finally got up, but waited for me for breakfast. After filling our bellies Chuck got the internet itch and ran around to the various bungalows on the beach, trying to figure out the best way to get our fix. Let me tell you, internet on the islands is not cheap. I think it's all satellite internet. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't even any cable internet on the island. The cheapest he could find was 2 baht a minute, or $0.06 a minute, or almost $4 an hour. Big Blue, the bungalow we were at, was offering this price, so we just paid up and used their internet. The day consisted of smoothies, reading, blogging, ogling the beach, swimming, laying for a bit in the sun, etc. Basically enjoying the sort of lazy vacation one has at the beach. In the evenings, Big Blue would show two movies at the restaurant. The first one tended to be goofy and funny while the second was a bit more serious. Watching these movies became our ritual for the next 3 weeks.

Femke ended up leaving us on the 21st. She was meeting up with a friend on the north end of the island, and our Haad Yuan beach wasn't quite the atmosphere she was looking for anyways. We ended up switching rooms after she left, to a bungalow that was a bit further back, but in a somewhat secluded location up the slope of the jungled hill that encased the beach. It was much cooler in that bungalow, so we were happy. They have a nice plot of land there at Big Blue, and instead of cutting down all the natural trees they've just manicured them to fit nicely into their bungalow set-up. They've got a few papaya plants, jackfruit, and coconut palms around the property. I'd never seen a jackfruit tree before, so I was a little bit fascinated with how the fruit grew from the trunk rather than the branches. All this natural foliage attracted the local butterflies, which reminded me of my Mom's yard back at home. She also has tons of butterflies flocking to her natural garden. The butterflies on the island were much more varied than I had ever seen, though. I think we must have spotted at least 10 different kinds during our stay. They seemed to like to flutter across our path as we walked to and from our bungalow, teasing us with a splash of color and making us stop to watch. Ok, well maybe it was usually just me who stopped and watched. They just were so pretty!



The days blurred together. Every morning we would get up (usually around 8:00 AM or so), throw on something simple and head down to the restaurant with our laptops and my book. We would check out what the evening movies were and order a fruit shake or some tea. There was usually a daily internet check, and if we were lucky the staff would forget to change the wifi password for a while after we were finished and we could sneak a little extra internet time. We would read, I blogged a lot, food was ordered more often than my butt appreciated, and we frequently found ourselves distracted by the green and blue crystal water churning against the beige colored sand not 50 feet away. We took our daily swims, and as the weeks passed the ocean got calmer and calmer, some days lying completely still all day long. I ended up developing a taste for coconuts and would order one every afternoon. First I drank the clear juice, then I had the bungalow staff crack it open and I would eat the yummy white meat. That was good stuff. In the evenings we would watch the movies on the big white projection screen and enjoy dinner and perhaps a drink. It really was a version of paradise. Not much happened while we were there. We just were.



A few things stick out in my mind though. Such as one day when the water was a bit rough. I swam off to the left a ways, where the sand - unknown to me - sloped steeply downward and I suddenly couldn't touch. Deciding that swimming towards shore to get my footing was a good idea, I started doggy paddling my way in. After a minute I realized I wasn't actually getting anywhere, so I doubled my efforts. And still, I got nowhere. After a few minutes of straining against the currents I started to panic mildly, my arms getting tired and breathing harder. I shouted to Chuck and Fem, getting their attention in case I decided I really needed help. Remembering those warnings on the beach signs back at home, where they say to swim parallel to the shore for whatever reason, I decided to give it a go. That finally worked and I made my way back to dry land, relating my story to Chuck along the way with wide eyes.

Another day, Chuck went on his own (I was still asleep) down to the beach around sunrise, leaving his shoes at the "shoe spot" by the restaurant so he didn't have to traipse through the sand with them on. After his stroll he came back to find his shoes had disappeared. Once awake, I helped him search. We looked all around the restaurant, we asked if they had a lost-and-found of some sort, we kept our eyes open all day in the hopes that they would magically reappear. Chuck was kinda sad, just because he'd had those flip-flops for over ten years, and shoes become nostalgic after that long. But still, nothing. He was now flip-flop-less. The next day, after our afternoon swim, we were making our way back to our bungalow when Chuck stops with a surprised look on his face, points at one of the bungalow staff disappearing behind a "Staff Only" sign and proclaims "He's wearing my shoes!" Before I really had a chance to respond he was off and after the guy, right through the "Staff Only" gate and around the corner. I caught up to him as he shouted "Kap!" at the fellow, who was now a good 30 feet ahead of him. Luckily the guy stopped and we all met each other halfway, where this awkward pointing and motioning dance occurred as Chuck tried to tell him the shoes were his. The guy looked faintly bewildered as he shrugged the shoes off and handed them to Chuck. "Kop kun kap," Chuck told him as he gathered them up and we headed back to the main path. I was, quite frankly, incredulous. I couldn't believe we had actually gotten his shoes back. I had heard a few stories of people having their shoes stolen on the islands, and they would never end up getting them back. Instead, they just took other people's shoes! Spread the love and all that. But Chuck actually got his back! Craziness.

I remember taking a swim every day, most of the time being sure to put on sunscreen before hand. Luckily, we never got sunburned, even when we neglected the whole sunscreen thing. When the water was rough we did some body surfing. Man, it's pretty awesome when you catch a nice wave and can feel it lift you up and tear you towards the beach. It's always great when you're knees scrape the sand because you've managed to ride the wave almost all the way to the shore. The only problem with a good ride is that it tends to want to pull your bathing suit off in the process. I always had to be sure to check that everything was in place and covered before popping back up out of the water. I tried to catch some waves on my back too. I think I managed to get one decent ride, but it's much harder doing it that way. Chuck and I even tried a tandem surf where we held hands. I guess it worked a little bit once we actually managed to catch a wave. And when the water was calm I whipped out the goggles we bought in Croatia and poked my head around the rocks that encased the beach. There was a decent bit of life going on there - tons of crabs. They were an opalescent dark green and mostly 2 to 3 inches long, although there were some bigger ones. They liked to cling to the rocks above water. Meanwhile, down below there were various fish, a strange black, spongy looking tube, sea urchins, anemones, and I even found a starfish. He felt funny when he used his tiny "feet" to walk across my palm. Another day we chased a hermit crab through the water for a bit. He was so fast, we never caught him. There was also a puffed up pufferfish that washed up on shore one day, that funny little pufferfish smile plastered on his face. Chuck and I stood around poking and staring at the dead fish for almost 10 minutes. I think there were a number of beach goers that thought we were strange because of this, but come on! How often do you see a puffed pufferfish? Investigation was warranted.



One day we had an unexpected visitor at the bungalow. He was big and black. With an orange and yellow beak. And white tail feathers. Can you guess what it was?? Yes, that's right, it was a Rhinoceros Hornbill! At first he positioned himself up high in the branches of a palm tree where it has hard to get a nice view of him. People were craning their necks upward in order to check him out. He must have decided that everyone seemed alright, because he swooped down to the basketball hoop that sits right in front of the restaurant and stared at us. He found something tasty in the hoop that he picked at for a bit, then he once again spread his big wings and flew off to a far away palm. He was really beautiful in person, as a wild (but obviously used to humans) animal. And there was something impressive about seeing such a large bird take off and fly away, up into the tree tops. I mean, that's a lot more body to have to haul around than a hummingbird has. And he had a prehistoric look about him with that bulbous crest sticking out of his forehead that was pretty cool. Anyways, I was thoroughly delighted by his visit.



He wasn't the only bird in town though. The Big Blue bungalow had a happy little Green-naped Lorikeet who liked to talk to everyone. Every day, at 10:00 or 11:00 AM, the bird was let out of his cage to roam free for the day. One of his favorite things to do when the door opened was to fly a big circle around the back of the restaurant, down and across the beach and back to the restaurant to land on the counter next to his favorite human friend, who was the manager of the place. Then the bird would go on chirping and squawking for the rest of the day as he flew to people's tables for a chat, or maybe out to the hammock strung between the trees out front, or down by the sand to play with any children that might be around. He had a thing for kids. Whenever a new kid would show up with his parents, looking for a room or maybe just having lunch, he would land on their table, or on the railing lining the restaurant and softly chirp at them, twisting his head back and forth as he got a good look. I saw him follow a little girl to the bathroom once. Some kids were scared by his curiosity while others picked him up as freely and easily as if they had been friends forever. He liked to be tickled too, which was really cute to watch. The only person who did this to him was his lady friend, the manager. She would flip him onto his back and basically tickle his belly, gently pinch and shake his beak, or spin him around in circles on his back. He would cackle and laugh at all this and appeared to have a grand old time. Here's a video. But his all time favorite thing was bath time. His human lady friend would, every day, turn on a sprinkler set in a short palm tree, it's head coming up just among its lowest branches, and he would be so happy. He sang as he clawed his way up and down the palm leaves, soaking wet and fluffing his feathers. He sounded so happy during bath time! Singing away and wobbling trough the branches. Here he is at bath time. He was a really cute bird.



We got to enjoy the island for three weeks. We would have stayed longer, but our Thai visas were going to be expiring within a week, and we would have to leave Thailand if we wanted to get new ones. So we bought a combo ticket back to Bangkok and sadly checked out on the 10th of March. We were not looking forward to another 21 hour trip, but there wasn't much else in the way of choices. We had to wait a while on Haad Yuan for a water taxi to decide that our money was worth a trip to the next beach. Chuck and I watched a huge, huge hornet digging a tunnel in the sand while we waited. I might have been nervous about having something so deadly looking flying around so close to us, but he (or she) was completely engrossed in his (or her) digging and couldn't care less about us it seemed. Eventually we were waved onto one of those longboats and chugged around to Haad Rin where we would meet a pre-arranged taxi to take us to the ferry. While waiting in Haad Rin we decided to get something to commemorate the birth of Chuck's newest niece back in the States. A Thai newspaper and a vibrating panda toy named Shakey were our choices. We're gonna keep Shakey with us so he can experience the rest of our travels and report back to little Jenna when we get back to the States and can give it to her. Before we knew it we were back on a ferry, motoring towards mainland Thailand, back to the “real world.”

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Bangkok III

Back in Bangkok we made our way to the good old Soi 1 Guesthouse via metered taxi. There were plenty of people offering to taxi us for a flat price of 350 baht, which would have been a ridiculous amount to pay seeing as our metered taxi came to 140 baht. Booyah. The traffic was pretty crazy though, due to the Chinese New Year holiday coming up. We checked in to the hostel, noticing how different the atmosphere felt this time around. We didn't recognize anyone except for the staff, who happily welcomed us back, asking about our time away. In the midst of the conversation Femke made a surprise appearance, much to my delight! So we sat around talking for a bit, went out to our favorite street cart restaurant for dinner, and called it a night.

On the 13th we had our favorite 25 baht soup from around the corner, which was delicious as usual. Still the best soup ever. And for dinner we went to yet another one of our favorite places with Femke: Sukishi in MBK. Korean BBQ and sushi make me happy. Afterwards we played an obligatory round of DJ Max Technika. Somehow, I had gotten better since that last time I had played! To end the evening we walked around the MBK shopping center looking for headphones (we had managed to break ours in Chiang Mai), but they were all ridiculously expensive in my opinion.



The 14th was a day of big celebrations for the Chinese New Year, so Chuck, Femke and I all went out to the main part of Chinatown to check it out. Stepping out of the subway station we were greeted by signs of the festivities, such as a kid on his Dad's shoulders holding a really cool looking dragon toy. I decided I must have one of my own by the end of the night. The dragon that is, not the kid. We headed towards and past Wat Traimit - which was beautifully lit and horrendously packed with celebrators - and stopped to admire the big Chinese arch at the center of Chinatown. This area too, was packed. There was a long line of people waiting to rub the ball under the foot of the gold lion statue that sat at the base of the arch. I'm not sure the significance of that, but I'd bet money that it's for good luck. There was also a big blow-up "statue" of a cartoon tiger holding a bat (like the small, flying animal – not baseball) in his hand as if to throw him away. I'm not sure what was up with the bat, but the tiger made sense since the new year was the year of the Tiger. After a few pictures we headed off to the right and down the main street. Must I tell you that it was crowded? Very, very crowded? I think you've got the idea by this point. There was a red and gold stage with a Chinese opera being performed and past that was a section of vendors selling food and New Years related items. Glowing red lanterns were strung across the street, over everyone's heads, making it all look oh so festive. Past this lanterned section it turned into a mile long, food-lined street, filled with a sea of congested human traffic. We tried all sorts of foods. Food is my favorite part of any festival. Kinda my favorite part of everyday actually. We had a crumbly, peanut flavored, cookie-like thing, coconut ice cream in a coconut shell, cornbread covered meatball, fried ground meat stuff, funny sausages, soup, colorful balls of hardened jelly (those were so fun), and I'm sure some other things that I can't remember. When we weren't eating, we were being squished into the crowds as they surged towards the royal Princess who was doing her rounds, visiting the local shops to show her support during the New Years holiday. The Thai people love the Princess, just as they love the King. The Prince, not so much... But the Princess - they adore her. And their feelings were apparent. They were happy to sardine-pack themselves in huge numbers just to glimpse her from a distance as she went from one shop to the next. Oh how I hated getting caught in that crowd. Sweat dripping down my butt in the stifling heat and no way to get out and get some fresh air. I'm not a claustrophobic person but I had a moment there where I really had to focus on my breathing and attempt to take my mind elsewhere. Needless to say, we felt more inclined to curse the Princess rather than adore her. We never made it to the end of the festivities - there was just too much. At some point we switched to walking down the back roads, finally making a U-turn and heading back to the subway. On the way back I got my dragon toy. He was quite cool and had a little red drum that I liked to spin back and forth, causing the the string-attached balls to beat away. I banged the drum all the way back to the hostel, where we got ourselves a bottle of Sang Sam Rum, Coke, and a Red Bull, sat on the front patio area, and drank and talked well into the night. Happy Chinese New Year! Oh yeah, and Valentine's Day. Whatever.



Over the next few days we enjoyed some sukiyaki buffet with Femke, had some more Sukishi (we got to use our discount card, saving ourselves $9, woot), got a new cell phone, and bought train tickets to Ko Pha Ngan. We got some street cart corn which they sliced off the cob into little sheets of corn, just like my Dad used to do when I was little. Ahhh, nostalgia. I also got busted in the lip by my laptop with Chuck's help. I was laying down with my laptop balanced against my knees when Chuck decided to tickle my feet. In my (appropriately named) knee jerk reaction, I jerked my knees, sending my laptop crashing into my mouth. I had a cute little bump on my lip for the rest of the afternoon. On the 17th we (including Femke - she was going to the islands with us) said goodbye to Bangkok again and headed to the train station. In 24 hours we would be on the beautiful Thai island of Ko Pha Ngan!!

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Chiang Mai I

Our train arrived at the Chiang Mai train station an hour later than scheduled on the 24th. The guesthouse we were staying at, conveniently, had a pick-up service. This meant we wouldn't have to barter with anyone on prices for a ride into town. The two sisters that greeted us there seemed pretty nice and we loaded ourselves into the back of their truck and watched the city fly by as we made our way to the guesthouse. We waited around in their restaurant area as they got our room ready. One of the sisters gave us a map and circled various points of interest in a very business-like manner. Then we waited some more. I checked out their bookshelf (a "take a book, leave a book" bookshelf) and was amused at finding three copies of the DaVinci Code. It must have been a popular read amongst their guests. We continued to wait some more. Chuck wandered down the road to check out the area a bit. And we waited. As I put my head down on the table to try and sleep they announced our room was ready. Phew! It was a pretty good room with an attached bathroom and hot water. There was just a fan to keep us cool, but Chiang Mai is cooler than Bangkok due to it being much further north, so that was fine. First thing we did was check out the internet. But there was no internet. No wifi signals for our hotel came up. So we asked at reception and were told it was broken and being fixed. We decided to check out the Sunday Market a few blocks away instead. As we walked down the busy road, watching the songthaews, tuk-tuks, and falangs pass us by, Chuck (who was walking in front of me) was suddenly clobbered by a thin, black haired girl. She rushed into him and threw her arms around his neck in a big hug, leaving us both wondering what the hell was going on. When she let go and we could see her face we realized it was our friend Evelyn, who we had met in Bangkok and had gone to the medical museum with! She seemed so happy and relieved to see us, and once we got to talking she told us why. She had run into some bad experiences in Chiang Mai. Apparently while walking around alone at night, not only was she chased by a pack of barking dogs, but she was also aggressively hit on repeatedly by drunk tourists. Perhaps because she's Chinese they figured she was one of those "expendable Asian chicks" or something stupid and ignorant like that. Anyways, it left her feeling really uncomfortable and scared, so she was glad to now have people she knew nearby. As coincidental as our finding her there sounds, it wasn't really all that amazing. She knew we were coming to Chiang Mai and knew where we had planned on staying, but didn't know exactly when we would be there. So she decided to just march herself down to our hotel to see if we were there, and on the way ran smack into us. Needless to say, she joined us in our trip to the Sunday Market. The market was surprisingly packed - to the point that you could only move as quickly as those in front of you. The goods for sale were much nicer than the market goods I'd seen in Bangkok, and a lot of it looked hand-made. It was all typical market stuff though: clothes, jewelry, toys, trinkets, etc. And food, of course. We made sure to get some of that. Afterward we went to a nearby bar that Evelyn had heard about called THC (there were lots of signs there telling people that they probably shouldn't actually smoke pot because the police like to come by for unexpected visits). It was a very cool building and location: on the roof, right next to the starting stretch of Sunday Market stalls (there are a lot of them, too). We got a few buckets and talked well into the night. Oh, a bucket is something we discovered in Thailand, although I think they're popular with tourists throughout all of south-east Asia. The traditional bucket recipe is basically half whiskey, half Coke, and a bottle of Thai Red Bull, all mixed together in a small plastic bucket, or something similarly sized. Everyone gets a straw and shares the bucket love! It's usually quite strong, but the Red Bull covers the taste of the alcohol so you can easily forget how drunk you're getting. It makes for a lot of good and very bad nights for a lot of tourists I think.



In the morning on the 25th we walked to Evelyn's hotel to meet up with her. It was her last day in Chiang Mai and we wanted to hang out before she left for good. After we all had brunch we stopped into an internet shop to try and figure out what our sight-seeing options for the day were. I discovered that there was an upcoming flower festival in a week and a half, but not much to do or see in the center of the city in the next 6 hours. Sure, there were lots of temples, and a zoo at the edge of town, and an expensive bug museum, but there weren't really any big must-see sights. We shuffled on down to the hotel Chuck and I were staying at, in the hopes that their connection was fixed so as to avoid paying any more money for internet at the shop. And it was fixed. Only problem was that they refused to tell us the password. When I reluctantly turned my laptop around to let the woman type in the password she whisked it up and disappeared into a room for five minutes doing god knows what with it. I'm 99.9% sure they didn't download any porn or steal any of my infos off of it, but still. That's my computer and I don't want people just randomly disappearing with it! And Chuck was for sure not going to be letting them mess with his computer, so thoughts of switching hotels started dancing through our heads. In the mean time, I ended up getting my computer back with working internet and we looked up a famous (now deceased) Chinese singer who Evelyn had heard lived in Chiang Mai. Apparently she developed a taste for a Coca Cola chicken soup, and we were hoping we could try it too. After much research we figured out where the one and only Coca Cola chicken soup place was and jumped in a tuk-tuk. Of course, once we arrived we were disappointed to find that the place had been closed down for about three months. A nearby shop owner claimed that there was another place on the other side of town that had the Coke soup though, and called us over a tuk-tuk. With all the broken English involved in our conversation I wasn't surprised when this soup place did not, in fact, have Coca Cola chicken soup. They began looking at us like we were crazy when we kept pointing to their soup and saying "Coca Cola? Coke?" Blast it all! We ended up eating their soup anyways, and it was good. It just lacked that unique Coca Cola taste. We went back to our hotel again after that, getting sugar-salted strawberries and a coconut along the way. Before long, Evelyn had to catch her bus to her next city and Chuck and I attempted to tackled the internet problem once more. They, again, refused to just give us the password, and wouldn't even go get someone who knew knew how to get the connection to work. They were so uncooperative and just didn't seem to care! It was really frustrating, so I vowed we were going to be out of there the next morning.



True to our word, we woke, packed, and checked out on the 26th. About four buildings down the road we found another guesthouse for a better price, with internet that worked well and which we were actually allowed to know the secret, sacred password to. The rooms weren't as nice by any means, but that is hardly important to us these days. There were beds, toilet paper, and hot water. Oh, and the staff were so nice! It was owned by a British man and his Thai girlfriend (or should I say a Thai woman and her British boyfriend...hmm). The woman was friendly and warm and genuine, while her boyfriend was a typical, but likeable British "bloke." They had an adorable little son who was maybe one year old. He was always downstairs in the restaurant area, cuddled in someones arms. Mom, Dad, a friend or even a customer. He was constantly played with and entertained. I think we only heard him cry twice in our three week stay there. He seemed so loved. So we settled into our new room, and via our new, shiny internet, Chuck connected with an old employee of his old employer: Tom. I remember back when Chuck was still working with this particular company, hearing the romanticized story of how this elusive, brave Tom got sick of the corporate BS, sick of the unending routine, sick of the monotony, and finally one day up and left, unexpectedly, for strange and exotic Thailand. It was the sort of story that inspired one to dream. To think that there is hope - an escape. And here we were gonna get to meet the man himself! The plan was to meet at our guesthouse and go for some Northern Thai food. To be honest, I kinda hate "meeting people" for the first time, so I was probably a bit of a bummer through the meal. Luckily Chuck is good at conversation though, so it went well enough that he invited us to Burger Madness with his group of friends that night. Ah, Burger Madness. Every Tuesday. It's an event that can, and has, easily turned into a weekly ritual. This being our first time, we got to meet a few people: Randy, Sai, Chris, Kat, and Allie. The group consisted of persons from America, Australia, Britain, and Germany. Kat and Allie were just visiting for vacation, while the others had set themselves up fairly permanently in Thailand doing such things as teaching or being self-employed. Along with the Burger Madness was a sort of beer madness, which is a madness we all happily gave in to. How can you beat three large bottles (640 mL) of Chang beer for $4 US?? See? Insanity! And the burgers were some of the best Chuck and I had eaten since leaving the States. The company was great, the conversation flowed, and laughter was abundant. There was even some entertainment. Let me start by telling you about the movie Bangkok Dangerous. In it, there is this scene where Nicolas Cage (oh boy, he's just a gem of an actor, huh - so dynamic...) encounters an elephant while walking through the streets of Bangkok. He proceeds to pet it and have a lovey moment with his blind lady-friend after getting over his initial shock. When I watched that movie for the first time over a year ago, I remember laughing and rolling my eyes at the unrealistic scenario. And now we fast forward to our night at Burger Madness in Chiang Mai. I was sitting there laughing when Randy catches my attention and asks me an odd question. "Do you want to feed an elephant?" Given the beers, my mind was processing things at the rate of "the lights are on, but no one's home," and I told him "Sure," because feeding an elephant one day would be cool. He stood up and motioned for me to come along. I realized that he wasn't just inquiring after my secret elephant-feeding desires when I looked in the direction he was headed and saw, standing just outside the patio area, an adorable little elephant, trunk wagging and curling in the hopes of luring unsuspecting saps into buying food for him from his two handlers. A freaking elephant! Surreal. I declined to feed him at that time, but he passed by a few more times that night and I finally gave in close to midnight. Chuck and I got a little baggie of green mango slices and held them out, one at a time, to the elephant. I was tentative at first, trying to hold the mango by just the smallest edge, but after a few bites I held on tighter so I could have more of a chance to feel his skin. He could have done with a thick moisturizer by human standards, but by elephant standards he was probably a sexy shade of rough. Reaching out with his coarsely haired trunk, he would take the fruit from our fingers with his little nostril bits. He wasn't rough or clumsy at all. He was very sure of his movements and took the mango gently, letting his trunk brush across our hands. It was pretty cool. He even trumpeted at one point. A cute baby elephant honk. After that novelty wore off we decided to move the party elsewhere. We all went back to Tom's place where the night turned into an over-intoxicated blur to be honest. I think I ended up asleep, actually. And there was a cat. Somewhere... Good times...

As you might imagine, we weren't really up for doing much when we woke up the next day (the 27th). We ate the delicious food from the restaurant downstairs and drank lots of water. Certainly, we'd learned our lesson! No more drinking for us!

On the 28th we still weren't feeling quite right and suspected it was more than just an extended hangover. I felt perpetually full making it hard to eat even half a meal. But we were well enough to walk around the city a bit, so we did just that. We stopped into Wat Phan On, which had a bright gold chedi that shone like an alien landing beacon in the smog-free sunshine. We were interviewed by some Thai students who asked us questions like "What's your favorite thing in Ching Mai?" and "Do you like Thailand?" They must have had some English assignment where they had to talk to foreigners, and maybe even practice their writing skills (they wrote our answers down in English). On the way back to the guesthouse Chuck managed to step in some fresh paint. They had just finished painting red and white stripes on the curb to indicate that "no parking" was allowed. Chuck stepped in it, causing his next step to leave a smudge of white paint on the sidewalk. So, Chuck has made his mark on the city of Chiang Mai. If you're ever in Chiang Mai, stop by the intersection of Moon Muang and Rachadamnoen, on the south side - maybe it will still be there! And that night as we looked out over the communal balcony of our guesthouse we saw a few specks of distant light against the black sky. People had been busy sending off lanterns for some reason. They floated delicately upwards in a silent celebration of who-knows-what.



The 29th... Hmm... No clue what we did. I didn't take any notes on that day, and there are no photos. Oh, oh! Our friend from Bangkok - Femke - arrived in Chiang Mai and came to visit us. She came by our guesthouse and then we went out for food later that night. Yeah.

The 30th we met with Femke for dinner again. We went to the south side of the moat (the entire old city is encircled by a perfectly square moat, a remnant of the old days) where the square was packed with metal, wheeled carts and filled with the delicious scents of Thai street food. We opted for a tasty-looking soup cart. Over dinner we discussed our plans for the night. One of our new friends - Sai - had had a birthday recently and they were all celebrating with dinner and drinks. We invited Fem along with us. We still had some time until we were supposed to meet people at the restaurant so we checked out the nearby night market. It was full of tourists and crafted goods. Chiang Mai is a nice town, but also very touristy. We saw a dragon dance going on inside of one of the temples we passed by. The coordinated precision with which the dancers controlled the dragon was mesmerizing as they wove back and forth and up and down in front of the crowd. The beating drums only added to the hypnotizing effect. Femke got herself some fuzzy balls to dangle from her bag and I almost got a $1 anklet. But alas, I knew it would only break in three days because me and anklets just don't mesh. We spilled out of the market to find ourselves back in the square we had eaten our soup at. It must be time to head to the birthday bash! We hailed a songthaew and headed off towards the restaurant. A songthaew is like a group taxi. In Chiang Mai they are generally red pick-up trucks with a big metal cover over the top and set up with a long seat along each side of the truck bed. You flag them down, tell them the street you want to go to and they nod yes or no. If it's a yes, you hop in the back and wait until you're at your destination, then hit the little buzzer on the roof of to be dropped off. It's a flat rate of 20 baht per person unless you've negotiated otherwise. Pretty convenient if you ask me. Once we got to the restaurant we grabbed a table and waited for people to arrive. We ordered some drinks while we waited and watched the scantily clad waitresses wander around. The restaurant was a Western place with a bit of a Hooters feel, so the waitresses were wearing butt-length, skin tight dresses. For entertainment, we picked out the best looking ones. Nothing like superficial judgment to pass the time. But, soon enough, Randy made an appearance and everyone else followed quickly. Food was ordered, drink was imbibed, and deliciousness abounded. There were about 9 or 10 of us in all which made for some louder-than-usual, criss-crossed conversations. We met Becca, who was staying on a work-exchange farm of some kind, earning her keep by helping out. It sounded like a fabulous experience! We discussed Randy's big-hearted-ness and I learned more about Kat and Allie's lives back in Australia, and at the end of the meal I cringed when a bottle of Tequila was whipped out. Tequila is not good stuff. But being a team player (or was it peer pressure? Uh-oh! Not peer pressure!) I downed my shot like a champ. Well, I did make hideous faces afterwards, but I didn't spill a drop. After dinner we moved on to a club called Warm Up. It must have been a popular place because it was packed with provocatively dressed guys and gals, Thai and foreign. We got through security just fine, thanks to our white skin according to Tom. Awesome. It didn't get us anything so nice a free drinks though. Boo. We got ourselves a bottle of whiskey, a few bottles of soda water, and commandeered a table via Kat and Allie's womanly charms. Those fellas never saw them coming! We talked, checked out the dance floor, listened to the live band, experienced the hell that was the bathroom (complete with vomiting young beauties), etc. Eventually though, I was ready to go. I guess the club scene isn't really my scene unless I'm in a very specific mood. Fem decided to tag along with us and we headed out front to get a tuk-tuk. The guy quoted us a high price, of course, and we climbed in. Just then we heard some shouting over the dampened music and turned to look. A guy on a motorcycle with a smirk on his face was in some sort of disagreement with another fellow who was yelling at him. Within just a few moments the angry guy took three swings at him. The first one didn't really connect, so the smirk wasn't quite wiped off motorcycle-man's face, but adding in the second and third did the trick. He stumbled under the strikes, causing his bike to fall under him, although he managed to not be knocked to the ground in the process. He was, however, obviously upset now. There was a lull in the commotion and I thought it was over, but then about four other guys came back with motorcycle-man. I didn't see what exactly happened next, but I remember someone trying to smash the instigator in the head with a bottle, only to be stopped by a bystander or friend who thought this was not a good idea. Then the instigator was suddenly on the ground, on his back and obviously in a daze. One of the guys gave him a glancing kick to the face and he just lay there, head lolling with the blow. I saw a pool of blood oozing from his head. Meanwhile, a crying girl had thrown herself into the fray, tears streaking down her face as she cried and screamed at them, throwing herself against another guy who was going in for a kick. Then it was over. Everyone had been restrained or talked down by friends, the bleeding guy was helped up, and it was over. The fight happened so fast and was so short. It's the first actual fight I've ever seen and I can't say I liked it at much at all. It made my stomach turn. I couldn't get over how fast it was, and that despite that, the guy was bleeding from his head and practically unconscious. And the poor girl screaming and crying. Bleh. But I guess it makes for a mildly interesting story.



The 31st was a hang-over-free day thanks to my outstanding control over my drinking. Even so, I had some hang-over worthy food downstairs at our guesthouse: a cheeseburger with mashed potatoes and gravy. I wasn't prepared for the gravy. It hit me like a freight train. It was fantastic! Creamy, salty, flavor-y, rich, and deep. I raved to the owner about it and discovered why it was so good. It was made from the real dripping of a real, honest-to-god pork roast. Om nom nom nom. And for dinner he would be serving a real, honest-to-god Sunday roast. Double om nom nom nom. I would certainly be there for that, and I reserved myself a plate. Let's just fast forward to the Sunday roast and beyond (it was fantabulous by the way) because we had a very boring and lazy day. In the evening though, we met with Femke at a little outdoor bar down the road from us. We had a few tasty, fruity drinks and then made our way to the Sunday market. There's no place better than the Sunday market for even more food on top of your Sunday roast. We wandered through the crowds, down the road, eying the crafts and clothes as we went. Chuck got himself a a top and some hippie pants, and I ended up with a cheap tank top and shorts. We stopped in to the first food-filled side street and had a few pieces of sushi and a bowl of khao soi (a curry soup made with egg noodles, most popular in Chiang Mai). Then we came upon a temple whose courtyard had been packed with food carts, and in we went. Fried chicken balls and some spicy rice noodles were the big winners here. The not so big winner was an odd sweetened-condensed-milk (they use a lot of this in south-east Asia by the way) drink that was filled with cubes of grass jelly. Just as you might be imagining, it is indeed made from grass. It doesn't taste quite like grass though. It tastes more like... nastiness to be honest. Very bland with a hit of old-ness. I managed to choke almost half of the drink down before I gave up. We passed a vendor selling everything Hello Kitty and had to get a picture. Took me right back to my days in elementary school, it did. Further down the road we came across a low table strewn with earrings, an old woman sitting behind it with pliers in hand, bending the prongs of another hand-made pair of earrings into place. Her earrings were just my style so I bought a pair - for a whopping 100 baht! That would be $3. I mean, sure, I can get a pair of $3 earrings from Claire's, but I'll never see the face of the poor, under-paid woman/man who made them. At least I got to smile at the creator of my earrings and say "Thank you," or "Khop kun ka" as it's said in Thai. And then, not 50 feet further down the road I saw another table covered with an array of earrings, glass ones in this case, a man busy at a blow-torch behind the set-up. He was busy dotting bits of clear glass onto a marble-sized clear glass ball, which would end up being a nicely textured dangle for an earring. So I decided to support his trade as well and bought another pair of earrings for 100 baht. What a steal... We came across a cart selling fried insects and worms so Femke got herself some little silk worms that we shared. They weren't anything special, although they were a bit better than the insects we had in Bangkok. It was a pretty good night at the market if you ask me, although my throat was hurting a bit by the end of it. That was more to do with the fact that I was coming down with some bug than anything to do with the market, though.



The next day we tried a new place for lunch and had some interesting and tasty (as always) new dishes. Chuck had a thick soup, it's broth being the consistency of runny snot. I know that description makes it sound really unappetizing, but it's the closest comparison I can come up with at the moment. I got some fried noodle thing. After food we began our mission for the day: temple hopping. We went through three or four before we found ourselves in front of the guesthouse where Femke was staying, so we popped in to see if she was around. Lucky for us, she was sitting right there in the common area, getting herself set-up with a bus to her next town. One of the guesthouse staff walked by and commented on her long hair as I took a seat next to her. She took the ends of her own long braid and Femke's, stuck them together and said "Avatar" with a laugh. If you've seen Avatar then you might remember how they all had really long hair with feely-bits in the ends. I thought this was pretty funny, although no one laughed out loud so I held it in. Fem joined us for the rest of our temple hopping. At one of the bigger temples we were captivated by the huge, crumbling pyramid-esque structure at the back of the property. It must have been impressive when it was still standing. Another temple had a line of metal pots, just like we had seen in Wat Pho back in Bangkok. Femke got 100 baht coins from the monk on duty and when about methodically plunking each one into a pot. After we were templed out Chuck suggested going to one of the many fish spas scattered throughout the city. What a good idea! We went to one whose location we remembered and were happy to find they had enough fish to go around. Off our shoes came and in our feet went. It is such a unique experience that it's difficult to describe. At one point it felt like a bunch of little soda bubbles attacking my feet, and at another point I would have described it as a vibrating foot massager. It took a few minutes to get over the ticklish nature of the experience, but after that it was kinda nice. And in the end, I think the fish might have actually had an effect on my crocodile feet, seeing as they left a few faintly lighter lines across my soles. We topped off the fish experience with some foot massages. I think they didn't have enough actual masseuses on hand for all three of us, so I ended up with a thuggish-looking, tattooed guy who dug his fingers roughly into my feet. I had to grind my teeth against the pain a few times, but I told myself "No pain, no gain." I hate complaining to masseuses about their technique... We walked back to our guesthouse, stopping along the way for some mangos, papaya salad, and cough medicine (my sore throat had developed into a bit of a deep-lung cough). The three of us relaxed outside, at the restaurant of our guesthouse having a few beers and discussing the nuances of Dutch and American culture and the silly things we all do, until we eventually grabbed a songthaew to a local Mexican place that our Chiang Mai friends had mentioned. I can say that the margaritas were good, and the food was decent, but they were very stingy with their portions. I got maybe two spoonfuls worth of Mexican rice with my dinner. Lame. Then it was off to the roof-top bar for even more drinks! I dunno what it is with Chiang Mai and drinking! It was a fun night though. Lots of good conversation.



The 2nd was a McDonald's day. They were out of ketchup. How does McDonald's run out of ketchup? What-ev. Stopped by a few bookstores looking for a book recommended by my Mom. Once back at our guesthouse we saw Femke sitting in the restaurant area with all her stuff. It was leaving day for her - she was off to see more of Thailand. She'd explored a lot of Thailand already, but there's always more to see. She had come by to hang out with us before her bus took off, and where were we? Stuffing our faces with greasy delicious food is where we were. Ah well. We hung out for a bit, Fem showed us some pictures of her home-town in Belgium, and eventually she had to go. We wished her well and hoped to see each other again one day. Chuck and I stayed downstairs, checking e-mails and what not. My throat was really sore and Chuck, being the gentleman that he is, went and got me some cough drops. They helped with my urges to cough, but when I did cough it was still all phlegmy sounding. A little cough wasn't going to keep us away from our new favorite Tuesday night past-time though: Burger Maddness! This time Sai brought along her adorable daughter (4 or 5 years old I think?) who seemed to find men more interesting than women. Both Randy and Tom, and even Chuck (she's a brave girl and makes friends with new people quickly) were fun to watch while playing with her. She seemed to have a wonderful curiosity about the world and a fantastic imagination. We kept it a short night and left around 11:00 - I needed my rest to try and kick my cough.

We woke up earlier than usual on the 3rd thanks to some special plans for the day that required us to be waiting outside our guesthouse by 8:30 AM: cooking school! It was closer to 9:00 when the cooking school's songthaew came by. We climbed in and met our fellow cooks for the day: three other young people and four older folks. Most of the older folks seemed alright, but there was one guy who was just...really strange. He would take pictures of everything. People's feet, grass, clouds, chairs, etc. And he claimed to have studied cooking with some person that his friends seemed to think was impressive, but he couldn't figure out how to cut with the sharp edge of his knife. And he walked around with his mouth fully open, his bottom lip hanging heavy and glistening with saliva. I suspect the guy might have had some sort of impairment beyond the average, so I should probably just keep my mouth shut and pretend he was fine and dandy. But let's face it, some people catch your attention and make you wonder what their story must be... His friend's story was interesting though. He left the US back during the Vietnam war to avoid the draft. Over the course of many years he traveled through Europe and eventually into Afghanistan and India, where he decided it was time to make a decision: Australia or the US. He flipped a coin which decided he was going back to the US! And then another story about swimming with sharks and having to pee really bad and not knowing if urine attracted sharks. Apparently, it doesn't, as he was greatly relieved (haha, relieved) to find out. Ok, enough about those guys - back to the cooking school. We were driven to a food market and shown some basics. Our guide showed us different rices, including sticky rice. You can tell sticky rice and normal rice apart because sticky rice is opaque when uncooked and slightly transparent when cooked. Regular white rice is the other way around: slightly transparent when dry and opaque when cooked. Good to know. He then showed us the curry pastes: green, red, and yellow. Green is the hottest, yellow the mildest. Who'd a thunk? Finally he showed us the seasonings and suggested substitutes if we didn't like, have, or were allergic to it. He was a funny guy actually. For example, he might hold up a bottle of fish sauce and say "Oh, unlucky for you. You don' like fish sauce. What can you do?" We'd all stare at him blankly and after a moment he would hold up it's substitute (in this case he said we could use soy sauce instead). He would also hold up a baggie of palm sugar or MSG and give out points to people if they knew what it was. He was always smiling and had all sots of little jokes ready. After he showed us the basics we were free to wander around the market for a bit. We didn't get to buy our own ingredients or anything - they had all that taken care of. But we did buy a bit of food for breakfast. We all piled back into the songthaew and headed the rest of the way to the cooking school's farm. It was a small farm as far as I could tell, and had only a small garden. There was tobacco, kaffir limes, lemon grass, bitter eggplants, various types of cilantro and parsley. A lot of herbs. We were given sombreros (I don't know why sombreros and not those fun cone-hats) and aprons, shown around the garden to taste and smell the herbs, and then brought back to the kitchen area where he showed us how they prepared the sticky rice. Then it was finally time to do something cookish. We were given our ingredients for the curry paste of our choice (green for me, red for Chuck) and got to work grinding them up with our mortar and pestle. My arm hurt after that. Next we got to chop up ingredients and toss them in our pots of boiling water and coconut milk to make our curry. Once done we put that to the side, washed our pots, got our ingredients for our next dish (Chicken in Coconut Milk soup for me, Tom Yam Shrimp soup for Chuck), and followed directions on how to cut everything up throw throw it in the pot. Get the picture? The last dish before lunch was Chicken and Cashew for me and Chicken and Basil for Chuck. Then for lunch we stuffed ourselves on the food we had cooked, and I don't think anyone actually managed to eat all of their three dishes. It was amazingly good food though! It's like you just can't go wrong when cooking Thai food under supervision. We all lounged in our chairs like beached whales, now dreading going back in the kitchen and making our last two dishes. But after a few cups of lemongrass-basil tea and a hot stroll around the garden, we were summoned back to the kitchen to start on our desserts. Thai desserts are very simple, and Chuck's Mango and Sticky Rice was only finished before my Pumpkin in Coconut Milk because pumpkin takes a bit of cooking to soften. Our last and final creation was Pad Thai for Chuck, and Spring Rolls for me. I have to say, I did a beautiful job rolling my spring rolls. They were tight and symmetrical and oh so pretty! Chuck's Pad Thai was tossed into a baggie and tied off, as was my Pumpkin in Coconut Milk and the Spring Rolls. Thai take-away is kinda fun because they put the food into clear plastic bags and tie them off so that they are full of air, like a balloon. If you shake it, the food-stuffs inside bounce around freely. I got to learn how to do this, and made our baggies nice and balloon-y. I felt all Thai. So that was that. We hopped back in the songthaew and were trucked back into town to be dropped off at our respective guesthouse. Chuck and I ate our bagged food a little while later and were delighted to find that it was all quite delicious. We even got a cookbook for all our hard work. What a fun day!



The 4th was another day of drinking. It started out fine as Chuck and I went out for breakfast and then looked for a place where Chuck could get a shave. Ever since he got his face shaved for him in Bangkok he hasn't wanted to do it on his own. That night was Kat's last night in town and the plan was to meet at the burger place to celebrate the good times and forget all the bad times (although there were no bad times I could remember). The party moved itself to the roof-top bar (against Tom's objections) where we had some buckets. I made claims that I could drink a bucket in under five minutes (or was it three...) and was egged on by a few people, but I wasn't stupid enough to try. I mean, I totally could have done it, but I would have really regretted it the next morning. Then onto the whiskey van, some random club, and finally ended up at Randy's house. We were all over the place! I hope Kat had a good night!

The next day brought the event I had been looking forward to since arriving in Chiang Mai: the Flower Festival. We went down to what I thought was the main festival area, only to find myself mildly disappointed. I mean, there were some nice parade floats, a photo spot decorated with flowers, and a few vendors selling plants, clothes, and food. But it wasn't what I was expecting. I was imagining rows of home-grown prize orchids and a Sunday Market-like atmosphere. But we walked around and I appreciated what was there. We got some noodles and I bartered myself a new skirt. Skirts are a great thing to have in Thailand, where you're pants feel more like sticky paper than jeans. We watched some singing and dancing performances that were happening on the stage. The costumes were brilliant, but the dancing was subpar. I have yet to see any truly good dance routines in Thailand. Well, their boy-bands on the music video channel are alright. At least they're synchronized and dance with sharp energy. The live performances I've seen have been sluggish and not together. Not that I could do any better mind you. I'd look like a buffoon up there (no offense to any buffoons reading this - you guys are fabulous). That was about it for the 5th.



I dragged Chuck back to the flower festival on the 6th. We were lucky that we had arrived when we did, because the parade was going by, showing off all the floats that had been decorated with flowers. Just flowers! Nothing else! They were all amazing in my opinion, but some were more fabulous than others. These, of course, were the winners of the float contest. After getting bored with the parade (it was hot, the floats started to look the same, and I couldn't get a good photo-taking position) we got some festival food and I haggled myself a green, many-stranded bracelet. I haggled her down from 150 to 70 baht, which made me feel like a Jedi mind trickster. But she gave in to 70 so fast that I suspect I was still played... Oh well. When we got back to our guesthouse we were asked by the super nice lady-owner of the the place if we were going to watch the Flower Festival beauty contest that night. By the end of our conversation with her we had learned that there was an even bigger set-up on the other side of town where the prize winning flowers thst I had been hoping for were being show-cased. That was what I wanted to see! So we relaxed for the rest of the day and at dusk headed out to the big festival. It was pretty crowded at the edge of the market, where we started, and as we walked towards the center of the festival, passing vendors selling the same vendor-stuff as usual (there were a lot more plant sellers than usual though) the crowds grew until at the center, we were pushing through, shoulder to shoulder. The food stands went on as far as we could see to our left, plants on display on our right, and down the center were the flower decorated floats we had seen earlier in the parade. We passed through the childrens' section where there was a bouncy house set up, slides and swings, and even a goldfish scooping game. Eventually we tumbled out the other end of the festivities feeling a little disheveled, but energized at the same time, and kept walking towards one of the old city gates to meet Tom for dinner. Chuck and I wandered around the nearby Night Market for a bit because we were still early, but eventually we met up with Tom and dinner ensued. They were both in the mood for something spicy, and I figured maybe I could handle the spice, so i went along with it. First we got a green papaya salad (thin strips of not-yet-ripe papaya mixed with various spices and an uncooked crab), followed by some pad ga prao (stir fried meat with holy basil) gap prik (with chilies). There was some other meal involved as well, but what with my brain being on fire I can't remember what it was. I could hardly eat the food. I tried, but it burned too much. How do people eat stuff like that?? Such good flavors killed by nerve-deadening spices! It reminded me of Achara's curry. Delicious but dangerous. Very dangerous. We had a few drinks at the Chill Out bar next to our guesthouse, where we met up with Randy, Chris, Chris's wife, and a pleasantly crazy Irish friend. We kept it low key though and after a few fruity, weak drinks called it a night.



The 7th brought even more Flower Festival fun. Chuck and I stuffed ourselves silly on festival foods and I got to take pictures of all the beautiful plants that had been groomed and grown for the contests. The orchids were by far my favorite. They're such lovely, interesting plants. On the way out of the festival we got ripped off when we bought some mini bottles of alcohol. Here we thought we were getting a good deal when in fact we were getting colored water. You live, you learn.



Some of you might remember the Super Bowl being on the 7th, but for us it was on the 8th. Bright and ridiculously early in the morning. We woke up at 5:30 AM and stumbled our way through the still-dark streets to one of the few guesthouses that was going to be open and showing the game. Tom and Randy were there, as planned, drinking well needed cups of coffee and waiting for the game to start. There was a "cover charge" of sorts that we had to pay, but it included breakfast so it was alright. It was cold that morning too. I had on three layers of clothing and was still cold. Even a few hours after dawn the sun hadn't managed to warm the city up at all. I didn't know weather in Thailand could feel like that! We watched the game, got excited a couple of times, had breakfast, a bloody mary, etc. I hardly remember the actual game, but I remember having a nice time. That evening we met Tom (Randy never showed, bum) for quiz night at a place near our guesthouse. We were horrible, but it was lots of fun making up goofy answers to the random questions. I think the other team who had to "grade" our answers must have thought we were idiots. However, I can't say I feel too dumb for not knowing everything like some of the other teams. I like to think I'd feel like a useless know-it-all if I actually had so much useless trivia locked away in my head. However, I don't really have any special useful information locked up there either... After our horrible loss we headed to Reggae Alley to drown our sorrows. It was a pretty happening place with some decent music going on. I was mildly shocked to see a five year old boy out at midnight trying to sell who-knows-what to all the bar customers. I found him endearing because when told "No thanks" he didn't leave, but began playing in the sand with his toes (the floor of the bar was all sand). It made me suspect that he wasn't really interested in selling crap and would rather have been off playing. Big surprise there. Ah well. At least he wasn't being cracked under a whip (at least he didn't seem to be).



On the 9th Chuck and I finally got off our butts to do some more sight-seeing. We rented a scooter which Chuck drove around a bit on his own to get the feel of before I climbed on behind him. He drove us around the moat that surrounds the Old City of Chiang Mai, practicing changing the gears with his foot, controlling the speed, and braking without tossing us off. Once he had that down, we headed off into the hills just outside of the city where a number of popular tourist sites are to be found. The idea was to visit the big temple known as Doi Suthep, but on the way we saw a sign for a waterfall pointing off to the left. We stopped in and followed the short foot-path to where the water spilled gently over the rocks. It wasn't grand at all, but it was pretty. What I really liked about the place though, was the fun orb-weaver spider hanging upside down in the shrubs and the Tokay Gecko hanging out on the trunk of a tree. The same kind of gecko we had seen snapping up flying bugs back in Kanchanaburi. I was just merrily walking along the path when I suddenly remembered I should keep my eyes open for wildlife. I looked to my left and BAM! There he was not five feet from me, frozen in an attempt to become invisible. By the time I had gotten my camera out of my bag he had moved into the safety of a knot in the tree, making my photo rather boring. In the process of trying to zoom and get the lens focused (stupid finicky camera) he had run away completely. Slippery sucker. We stopped into another nearby temple that was still under construction. The main temple building was filled with bamboo scaffolding, men perched haphazardly about the room putting the finishing touches on the colorful decoration. It looked like it would be a pretty nice place once finished. Chuck drove us further along the winding mountain road and occasional views of the distant city popped into view where the trees had been cleared from the side of the road. We stopped at one look out point where a wooden platform had been built to offer a commanding view of the city. After 15 minutes we arrived at the big Doi Suthep. It was a bit like a theme park in that you had to pass down a tunnel of vendors in order to get to the temple. I found the most impressive part of the place to be the twin serpents that flanked the long set of stairs leading up to the building. Did I mention that the stairway was long? Cause it was long. I had to stop twice along the way to catch my breath. The temple was like a temple. There was a big bell, lots of statues, a plastic emerald buddha. It didn't take long to look around and get our fill. We decided to finish up our outing with a trip to the zoo. We chose not to take the metro/tour bus that drives around the zoo, thinking that the place would be walkable like a lot of other zoos I've been to. It was, but barely so. There were lots of hills and long stretches of road between the sets of exhibits. We managed, although every time one of those tour buses drove by we got bewildered looks from everyone on board. The zoo itself was pretty good though! The animal displays were attractive and well set up I thought. We got to feed the giraffes which was very cool. It was a lot more similar to feeding an elephant than I thought it would be. I would hold out a piece of unpeeled banana and his rough, purple, long muscle of a tongue would loll its way out of his mouth, wrap itself around the food and snap it all back in. Feeding animals like that makes ya feel like a kid again. We got videos of the feeding too: here I am feeding him and here's Chuck. The zoo also had some neurotic orangutans, daft emus, sleeping koalas, and skittish deer. We paid extra to go into the panda exhibit, which was like visiting a terminally ill celebrity. We had to step in a pool of antibacterial liquid to clean our shoes and they taped the flash on my camera down. Once inside we got to see just one lazy panda, sleeping with his dirty butt pointed in our direction. Did you know they have a 24-hour panda channel in Thailand? It's filmed from the Chiang Mai Zoo! However, it seems all the activity that happens on it is behind the scenes and not out in the public viewing area. Boo. There's a lovely aquarium at the zoo as well, with a nautilus, sea horses, an adorable hermit crab, and some other fun stuff. In the bird exhibit area we were treated to the mating rituals of the peacocks. The beautiful man-peacock was busy strutting around all the dull looking ladies, his tail feathers open and quivering. One of the peahens found something tasty lodged in his little bird anus and began pecking around in there. It must have been really good because she went back for more. Again and again. It was pretty gross. We ended up staying until closing time and were ushered out on one of those tram buses. And after all that we still went out with Tom, Randy, and Sai! Sai had yet another friend visiting her from out of town, so we got to meet another new person. Her friend had a little boy who was cute and wildly energetic. He was a ladies man and even gave me a kiss on the cheek before leaving. Maybe it was just my night with kids though, because even Sai's daughter played with me. She got it in her head that she could use a fork to brush peoples hair and chose me as her guinea pig. She was so gentle and careful while she was combing my hair, making sure not to poke me or stick the fork in my eye. After dinner we went to Sai's house and hung out talking on her roof patio until it was quite late.



The 10th was a simple day of cart food and fruity drinks. Nothing special.

On the 11th we decided we'd better look for a way back to Bangkok, since we were supposed to be leaving the next day. The tourist shops all offered the same overnight bus, which is not what we wanted. Finally resorting to going to the bus station itself to get tickets got us the bus we wanted: an AC morning bus. We had a sort of goodbye lunch with Tom at an Isaan restaurant (Isaan is the north-eastern region of Thailand). It was good food, but much more lime-y than I was used to. Next thing was to extend our visas. It cost us a pretty penny, but if wanted to hang out in Thailand any longer we'd have to do it! It was a relief to have it off our shoulders once we were finished though. And that night, when we informed our hotel that we were going to be leaving the next day, they gave us each a free drink! I thought that was pretty great of them.

And on the 12th we packed everything up, checked out, and hauled ourselves down to the bus station. The bus ride was as comfortable as it could be, with good, strong AC. Chuck and I had a good time making fun of the sappy Thai music videos they were playing on the TV. It seems that Thai music videos have two basic requirements: crying and painful love triangles. And more than one video ends with someone being hit by a car and presumably dying. They're soooo melodramatic! The bus also showed this really weird movie with a crazy demon lady chasing all these people around their village. It sounds like it might be scary, but it was definitely more of a spoof. Everyone over acted ridiculously and there was farting and silliness gong on all over the place. Between the movies, music videos, and sleeping we were in Bangkok again before we knew it!

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Bangkok II

Our bus from Kanchanaburi deposited us somewhere on the edges of Bangkok, leaving us to pay some lucky taxi driver 250 baht to get back to the hostel. To his credit, it did end up being a long drive, so maybe it was worth it. At least he was pretty nice and laughed a lot while trying to teach us some Thai. We went back to the same hostel we had been at before so everyone was all "Hey! Welcome back!" For dinner in the evening we went to our favorite street restaurant. After a few minutes three hostel-mates show up and join us. One was Femke, who would end up becoming one of our good friends, but on this particular occasion we hadn't quite gotten to know each other yet. After a few more minutes four more hostel-mates show up. So we ended up dragging two of the fold-up tables together and shoving all nine of us in for dinner. It was a bit crazy with so many people, but fun. Some of the others decided to go out for even more fun after dinner, but Chuck and I wished them a good time and headed back to the hostel. Later that night I woke up an hour into my sleep with the blasted tooth pains. I tried the swish-and-floss technique that had worked the first time I got the pain and it worked, but ten minutes after I laid back down it flared up again with a vengeance. It seemed that the natural increase in pressure to my tooth when I laid down made it hurt like a crazy mo-fo. I tried sleeping sitting up against the wall, but that didn't work so I went out into the common area. Although it was 2:00 AM there were still five or six people partying and playing pool. I got out my laptop and resigned myself to staying awake all night. I had a really bad flare-up at one point that, once again, made me consider that I might have to go to the hospital if it didn't die away within the next 10 minutes. It did though, and once everyone else had gone to bed I rested my head against the wall and tried to sleep again. For some reason I can sleep sitting up well enough on buses or planes, but not in a decently comfortable chair at the hostel. So annoying.

After staying up all night I was ready to go to the dentist as soon as I thought they might be open in the morning (which was the 31st - New Years Eve). I woke Chuck at 8:00 AM telling him I was going to the dentist. He, of course (and thankfully), insisted on coming with me. We had seen a dentist office just around the corner so headed there. Their sign said they weren't open until 9:00 AM. Blah. So we showered, went to the optometrist to get the nose pads on my glasses replaced since they had fallen off, and got some good pain killers from the pharmacy. Chuck decided that he likes the foreign pharmacies where the pharmacist helps you find what will work best for your condition. Back in Europe Chuck had been annoyed with them, but as time has gone by we've realized that it's actually pretty convenient and helpful sometimes. For example - I told the pharmacist that I needed pain killers and he reached in one direction. As I continued with "for a tooth ache," he switched directions and reached for a different medication saying that I would need something stronger for a tooth ache. I might have gotten something less effective if he hadn't been around to help me! By this time it was after 9:00 and we headed back to the dentist. Strangely, they still weren't open. So we rang the bell and someone was kind enough to come out and see what we needed. Turns out the dentist would be closed until January 4th for the New Years celebrations! I couldn't wait until then! She recommended I go to the hospital if it was that bad. So it looked like I was going to the hospital despite all my attempts to avoid it! At the hospital we were directed to their dental department (luckily they had a dedicated dental department) where they were able to fit me in for an "emergency checkup." Some of you might be wondering about the quality of hospitals and healthcare in Thailand. I can't tell you much about that in general, but I can tell you about my own experience. The hospital we went to was called Bumrungrad International Hospital. It was very modern with large, shiny silver pillars, walls of glass, and even valet parking. It looked like a 5-star hotel met a hospital and had a baby. As for service, I personally thought it was good quality. The doctor asked a series of questions while poking and prodding around in my mouth, trying to figure out which tooth was the problem. In the end she took the blunt end of her metal tooth-pick instrument and tapped on the three teeth in question, leaving me no doubt about which one was the problem. My back right molar. It definitely rang with that strange, overwhelming pain that is unique to tooth aches. Next was the x-ray. I was surprised that they did their x-rays differently than how I've experienced them in the States. I don't know what ya'lls x-ray experiences have been, but in the States I've always had to bite down on this strange contraption they've jammed into my mouth, hooked to a little plastic circle used for aiming the x-ray in the right spot. All I know is that those things always hurt like hell inside my mouth. The edges I'm biting onto always jab deeply into the tender tissue that covers the inside of my mouth and it hurts. At the dentist in Thailand they replaced that torture device with a simple 1.5 inch square of plastic (although I'm sure there's something metal in there too to block the x-rays from going through the whole of your mouth and making a muddled x-ray). How was it kept in place? My finger. They positioned the square just so against my tooth and then had me stick my finger on it to hold it in place while they took the x-ray. Ingenious! So simple, and more importantly, not painful! It was funny going through the process though, because it was so foreign. Most of the nurses spoke in broken English or had thick accents, so half the time I was at a loss as to what they were asking me to do. I tried my best to read body language and pick out key words, but sometimes I just stared or nodded at them dumbly. But good news: the dentist figured out my problem! An old filling had developed a little hole. Bad news: I would need a root canal. Worse news: they had no openings available for the next 8 days. This actually scared me. The thought that I might be unable to sleep for the next 8 days and end up in an ER with sleep deprivation or something was really unpleasant. She did prescribe me some antibiotics and pain killers though. The pain killer was called Idarac (I think it has a different name in the US, but it still wasn't something I had heard of) and it did less for the pain than the ibuprofen we had bought at the pharmacy. But at least I was scheduled to be fixed, even if it was over a week away. Being New Years Eve, I had a sleepless night ahead of me anyways. Because we were planning on going out that night we kept it simple during the day by staying in. That night we joined our hostel for the New Years pub crawl, which was really the same as the regular pub crawl. Dave led everyone to the same places and went to the same strip shows. Since Chuck and I had already seen it we hung out at the pool bar on the corner, listening to the live music that was being played. Midnight was anticlimactic. All us farangs were gathered at the end of the road having our own, personal New Years countdown. At midnight we all cheered and hugged and kissed cheeks, etc. Meanwhile, the clubs around us randomly popped balloons and that was about it. Business continued as usual. Soooo not exciting. Looking back we wish we had gone to Center Point where they had a stage set up and did a countdown. Ah well. After midnight, we all piled in taxis and went to Spicy club, just like last time. We didn't get ushered out and across the street this time which was a bit of a bummer. I liked the smaller bar much better and I just couldn't get into the dancing mood in the huge room that was Spicy club. We (as in all the hundreds of people at the club) did get a good show when some white girl jumped up on one of the ledges and danced real dirty-like for 30 minutes. She had a real talent for bending over and showing off her thong-covered bits to the crowd, making everyone cheer. She wasn't the only one dancing on the ledges of the club - we noticed two people from the hostel up there at one point (strangers until that night), making out in a drunken stupor as they attempted dance. We later saw them in the bathrooms (they weren't together in the bathroom, they were just taking a pee-break), right next to where we were sitting. The guy came in a timely manner and proceeded to wait for the girl. And wait. And wait. I felt bad for him, so eventually I went in and checked on her. The ladies bathroom attendant saw me looking a bit lost as I stared at the stalls and knew just who I was after. She pointed me to the correct door with an apologetic but unmistakable look of "please get her out of here." I knocked, and then decided to just go in. Luckily, she wasn't in the midst of taking a dump or anything and was just sitting on the floor hugging the toilet. I wondered what I had gotten myself into as I dragged her to her feet and lumbered us out of the bathroom, nearly falling over a fair few times. She was amazingly drunk. Her make-out partner also had a look of "what have I gotten myself into" as I led her to him. He asked us in whispers to please help him, and being the cold, heartless person that I am I said "No way man! You're on your own." Maybe that's harsh, but I wasn't about to make myself responsible for a girl who is old enough to take responsibility for herself. I did, however, keep my eyes on her while the guy went off to try and find reinforcements. She was wobbling continuously in her stool and nearly fell off a few times. Then she headed back to the bathroom where she sat for a good 15 minutes until I felt badly enough for the bathroom attendant to go and fetch her back out. Eventually, Dave came back with the poor-guy-who-had-been-making-out-with-her-and-thus-felt-responsible-for-her and they limped her out and into a taxi back to the hostel. I think the guy went back with her, which I sort of had to respect because he was nice enough not to just ditch her as unwanted baggage. He probably didn't get what he was hoping to get, but who knows - maybe they hit it off again later in a less drunk state. Sometime after the excitement of all the drunk people died down Chuck and I got bored and left, going to bed after our nightly rituals (tooth brushing and pajamas). Happy New Years!

The 1st of the year was nice, but boring. We sat around all day being lazy! Yay! Over the next few days we indulged in everyday things like restaurants, shopping malls, arcades, and movies. We saw Avatar in 3D which was good. Thai movie theaters have an interesting pre-movie feature: the National Anthem. Sometime before or after the previews the words "Please stand for the National Anthem" flash across the screen. Everyone in the theater stands and the National Anthem of Thailand is played along with clips of the King and the royal family doing different things, as well as clips of people showing their undying adoration for him. The people in the theater weren't standing at attention or anything so severe as that, but they stood straight and tall and payed attention to the screen for the most part. It was really quite strange and interesting. I guess the Pledge of Allegiance that many Elementary Schools recite might be comparable. Really interesting. And Avatar was pretty good. I went into the movie having heard all the hype but feeling very unconvinced. I thought that it can't be so good as to be setting new precedents and standards for the movie industry, like they're claiming. And it wasn't, but it was still really enjoyable. The 3D effects were pretty incredible. The glasses were the most hi-tech 3D glasses I've ever used, and I think they made a serious difference in the experience. Usually 3D movies are really cheezy with bad 3D. This was very good 3D with very good graphics, which were beautiful and the environments and creatures they created caught my imagination. Why am I writing a review of the movie here?? Sorry, moving on!



We went to that sushi restaurant - Sukishi - again. Along with sushi they do Korean BBQ which we did for the first time. It's like the melting pot with a little grill. They bring out your chosen selection of raw meats and then you slap them onto the grill where they quickly cook for your gleeful consumption. It's so much fun! For me at least. I'm sure someone out there would be annoyed at having to cook their own food, but I say they're just spoil sports. Why is this style of eating not in the US?? Maybe we're all too lazy to cook our own food... Hah.



We went to Wat Hualamphong on the 5th where we met an incredibly vocal and friendly cat. The temple was nice too. We hung out with Femke more and more. I started to realize that her and I have a lot in common and understand each other pretty well. It was so nice to really connect with another person for once! And having someone to hang out with in places other than the hostel was nice. We all found a place with delicious margaritas and went to get tipsy one night - it was a lot of fun.



On the 6th it rained all afternoon causing the streets to flood a few inches. Traffic slowed to even more of a crawl than usual. It was also my Dad's birthday, so Happy Birthday to Dad! My tooth pain was manageable as well. I would take an ibuprofen and an Idarac at bed time and it kept me pain free. Looked like I would be able to wait it out until the 8th when my root canal was scheduled.



On the 7th we decided to do something touristy again. We wanted to go to the Forensic Museum located inside a local hospital, but once we arrived it turned out to be closed for renovations. We had taken the river taxi, walked to the pier (where we got pork from the awesome pork vendor), crossed the big river, and asked five different people at the hospital where the museum was. Then it turns out to be closed. Gah! After much annoyed discussion we decided to go to the famous Wat Pho, home to the giant laying Buddha. And huge he was. I mean, he was like... as long as a school cafeteria. I know that's not descriptive at all, but I'm so bad with lengths. I'm sure Wikipedia could fill you in if you're truly interested. And he was bright gold. And the soles of his feet were beautifully inlaid with mother of pearl. Along one side of the Buddha was a line of metal pots about the size of those plastic pumpkin buckets that are manufactured en masse at Halloween. People were lined up and moving methodically down the row dropping a penny in each pot. The clink-clink-clink of the pennies meeting their bronze brethren filled the whole temple. It sounded like it was raining coins. It was a nice sound. We explored the rest of the complex with all its statues, smaller temples, and chedis. The architectural style was a little different from the other temples we had seen. I've never been to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but the look of Wat Pho reminded me of it. That night I ate a bad chicken skewer and woke up in the middle of the night to barf. Other than that - good day! Note that this is the only time I've gotten sick in Thailand. All that unsterility that is associated with the street carts is a bunch of BS if you ask me.



The 8th was my long awaited root canal. We arrived at the hospital-dentist 10 minutes early, and to my surprise was called in five minutes before the scheduled appointment. She didn't waste any time. Immediately after applying a topical anesthetic to my gums, she took her big novocaine needle and numbed me up. Then she went straight into the drilling of my tooth, no waiting necessary. I kept being afraid that I wasn't numb enough yet, but to my surprise the numbing-stuff works faster than I thought it did. So once again, to compare this to my US dental experiences, in the US there is a a lot more wait time involved. In the lobby, you wait. After the topical novocaine, you wait. After the shot, you wait while the doctor leaves, probably to attend to another patient. Meanwhile the whole side of your face goes numb, jaw to chin to nose. My Thai novocaine-shot only made my tooth area go numb - the side of my face was hardly affected. My chin and nose didn't feel any of it. And you know what? I still didn't feel any pain! Imagine that. The doctor left the room for only 10 minutes as an antiseptic ointment was soaking into my gaping, hollowed tooth. Otherwise she was with me for the full 1.5 hours. She drilled and scraped and poked and I had to wear a strange metal contraption around my tooth that was attached to a rubber screen that was stretched across my whole mouth. I drooled all over the place and was constantly told to move my head up and left. I tried hard to be a good patient, but my head apparently just wouldn't stay in the right place. After the procedure I was informed that I would need to come back four more times, over the course of a month to complete the procedure. Wait, what? My past experience has taught me that root canals are a one time deal. Once again, this must be a difference between my Thai doctor and the doctors I've had in the US. After some discussion she decided she could finish it in two weeks, with just three more visits. Since we wanted to stay in Bangkok for a bit this seemed like a good excuse. Besides, I was paying 14,000 baht ($420 US) for the procedure so I would be remiss not to use all my allotted visits - you know, get my moneys worth. The idea of having that big needle jabbed into my gums three more times wasn't nice though. After the root canal I decided some comfort food was in order: McDonald's. Don't judge. Then we went to MBK with Femke (our Hollander friend) and Tim (one of the Texan friends we hung out with in Kanchanaburi) to walk around and just hang out. Later in the evening Femke and I went to get a massage while Chuck and Tim went out to Khao San Road. When we met up with them again they had a pretty interesting story to tell. Apparently they were walking down a mostly deserted side road when they spotted some money blowing across the ground ahead of them. Of course, they basically dove at it and were flabbergasted to find that they were all 1,000 baht bills. Ten of them. That would be $300. Chuck took a moment to look around and see if anyone looked as if they were frantically searching for lost money, but the few people that were even on the road were calm and unawares. They each kept what they had picked up: 2,000 for Chuck and 8,000 for Tim. When it came to this part of the story I have to admit, I became internally upset. Leaving all issues of whether it was right to take it in the first place, I thought the polite and friendly thing to do would be to split it right down the middle. But... that apparently wasn't going to be an option. I just hoped that the 8,000 was well needed and would be going to pay for rent or some basic necessity when Tim got back home. He did e-mail Chuck later, filling him in a bit on his situation and apologizing, so that was cool. I guess it was well needed. Oh, and to celebrate we (Tim, Chuck, me, and a girl we had just met at the hostel) went to dinner at our favorite sushi/korean bbq restaurant. We split up after dinner and Chuck and I went to try and play DJ Max Technika, but the arcade had closed. So instead, we went to the bookstore where Chuck got himself a Thai language-learning workbook. He'd been getting pretty decent at some very basic Thai over the course of our trip, especially reading, so he wanted to try and learn even more. Besides, it's always nice to have something to do while on the train or bus.

The 9th was boring, although we did meet a Polish-Canadian named Ali. We invited her along with us on our plans for the 10th, which was an awesome day. So, on the 10th the three of us hopped on the MRT (subway) and got off at the Queen Sirikit Convention Center. There was a steady flow of people heading from the station to the building, so we followed them, as we were sure they would lead us to our ultimate destination: the Thailand Game Show! Yay! It was fairly crowded inside, and noisy to boot. We headed into a display room where they had a few old gaming systems and games on display: a Famicom, old school Gameboys, N64, a Ranma 1/2 game and Zelda were my favorites. Then we got to try out some of the newer, but relatively unknown games that have come out. There was one where you had to fit the parts of an animals skeleton into the silhouette of his body, like a puzzle. Another had you draw shapes and lines that translated into motion. You had to be clever with what and how you drew things in order to complete the level. Another was a racing game, but instead of a controller with buttons, there was a touch sensitive box. In order to make your character run you had to tap your fingers on the box, mimicking the pat-pat of running feet. That one looked hard to me. Next we experienced my favorite aspect of the whole game show: cosplay. If you don't know what this is, I'll inform you. It's dressing up as characters from stories. Typically the term "cosplay" is used in conjunction with people dressing up as anime and video game characters. There was a Cosplay Contest planned for later in the day, but some people were already there and dressed up or geiting ready. One well accepted aspect of the "cosplay scene" is photographs. It's well accepted that people will want to take pictures, so they frequently have a few poses ready, in the style of their character, and are more than happy to whip one out for your photographing pleasure. Some people had huge, fancy looking cameras and would take massive numbers of pictures of a character from every conceivable angle. I was too nervous to initiate a photo request, so I just waited until they were already in a pose for one of these “professionals” and then jump in to take my picture. Somewhere amidst the noise and crowds our new friend decided she would take off (which I could understand - it was pretty busy). Chuck and I decided to pay to go into the main expo part and see what they had on display. I can't even tell you what games there were. Everything was in Thai and everyone was Thai. I think we only saw three other white people there over the course of the day. We felt so immersed. The crowds doubled inside the expo area leaving us to push and shove ourselves through some spots. We waited in line to watch the trailer for a Thai game that is based on Thai history and met a nice guy. He was curious about where we were from and wondered what we were doing there. We exchanged e-mails and went our separate ways. After a while we needed a break though, so we headed down to the food court area. They have a fun way of working their food courts. You don't pay your money to the food-maker - you go to a coupon stand and get a credit card specific to that food court, loaded with however much money you want. You give that to the food maker and they swipe it quickly, handing it back. If there's money left over you go back to the coupon stand and exchange it for the remainder. Kinda cool. After lunch we just hung around the cosplayers and took pictures. Some of their costumes are incredible. Two guys came dressed as transformers and they were just... amazing. They were almost Hollywood-worthy costumes. One guy had a huge dragon costume, but he couldn't walk around while in it - just flap the wings and move the head. Another person came as Packman. He was entertaining to watch because all the other characters had fun being eaten by him, or pretend to fight him off. We headed back into the expo area when I though the cosplay contest would be starting, only to find ourselves watching a very weird Dragon Ball Z concert. Dragon Ball Z is a long-running, extremely popular anime. So popular, apparently, that they have concerts dedicated to it where a middle-aged Japanese man in a tight, black motorcyclist outfit jumps exuberantly around the stage while the crowds cheer him on in excitement. It was really strange and cool at the same time. Needless to say, there was no cosplay contest right then. Turned out we would have to wait another few hours if we wanted to see it and since we were tired and had plenty of pictures of all the costumes already, we decided to leave. It was a very cool experience. Oh, we even saw the guy who had told us about the game show in the first place. I mentioned him back when we were in Bangkok for the first time. He had talked to us and helped us when we were first learning to play DJ Max Technika at the arcade. Small world, eh? Well, it's not surprising really, but still nice that he came to talk to us and say hi.



On the 11th we entertained ideas of staying for a month in Bangkok. We headed to the very end of the Skytrain line and beyond to look at a place. That was way too far so we did some deeper research and found a bunch of really good places not too far from the Siam and MBK area (which is basically the center of Bangkok). Then we decided we'd better check out Chiang Mai before settling down in one spot for a month. So many changes of mind in one day!

From the 12th of January and onward, what we did is just a mishmash in my head. We did a lot of nothing sprinkled with a few actual things. We had one or two really good philosophical and political conversations with hostel-mates that kept us awake until 5:00 AM. We did a decent amount of drinking on the hostel's front "porch." We met a really cool Russian guy who has the same political ideas as Chuck (which is pretty uncommon in and of itself - add in that he's Russian (although has lived in America a long time) and that we're all in Thailand and it's crazy-bizarre).



I went to the zoo one day, all by my lonesome. Chuck was in an anti-zoo mood, so I got to go by myself. The zoo was decent and I think I was even hit on by a cute Kenyan guy who was performing in the acrobatics show. I was a bit appalled at the elephants who were tethered to five foot chains, pacing back and forth, one step in each direction. They were just there for people to pay to feed, so I hoped their normal pen was much more spacious. All the animals were pretty active that day and I stood and watched the monkeys (I know "monkeys" is pretty broad, but I can't remember which kind they were) for about 10 minutes. There was also a pretty good nocturnal display with fairly active animals. And there was a temporary albino animals display with an albino crow, turtle, salamander, and a few others. Not so bad!



We went to see a free Muay Thai show (it's every Wednesday evening at MBK, if you're in the area) which was pretty cool. I enjoyed the fight between the muscled, tan French guy and the slightly hunch-backed, pale, scrawny Australian. I thought for sure that the Aussie was going down, but in the end he won. I think that fight came down to skill points. I guess the judges thought he earned himself more skill points (I just made that term up by the way - I have no idea how Muay Thai is scored or judged). The fight before them that was between to Thai guys came down to endurance. For the last round, the fighters bumped fists and walked around the ring - well, the loser staggered. He was so worn out by the final round that they both just agreed the other guy was the winner, no need to fight it out. There was also a fight between two women. Well, if I heard the announcer correctly it was more like a woman and a girl. One was 28 and the other supposedly 14. And she could have been 14 - she looked quite young. But she knew what she was doing and ended up the winner. I loved her face and the way she held herself. She was so calm and collected with an air of bad-assness that contradicted with her round face and squinting, happy eyes. I loved the rituals that the fighters went through before their match. Everyone had their own, but they frequently consisted of making some sort of prayer or acknowledgment in all four directions of the ring. The 28 year old woman did this by kneeling with a bowed head and then stretching in each direction from the center of the mat. The Australian guy touched his fist to all four corners of the ring making some sort of prayer for a few moments at each. Some took five minutes, others less than one. It was cool. We ate at a new restaurant that night. It was a cook-it-yourself place, like the Melting Pot or Sukishi (the Korean BBQ place), but with soup instead. A sukiyaki buffet. Man it was awesome! One wall was lined with little plastic boxes filled with slices of beef, pork, and chicken, mushrooms, noodles, seaweed, carrots, fish, wontons, eggs, cabbage, bok choy, etc. You take what you want (no limit - the only limit is a time limit of one hour) and drop it all in a little soup pot built into the table in front of your seat. Everyone has their own little pot and the ingredients simmer and make a tasty, tasty broth. It was great. Why do we not have this in the states?? I also got to try a century egg while there. There are many names for this type of egg, so it's best to just describe it. It's an egg that is wrapped in a special mixture of clay and then buried in the earth for... I dunno how long. Long enough that the white bit turns a deep translucent brown and the center turns a rich green-black. Something about the acidity of the clay keeps the egg from straight-up going bad, and instead creates this frightening looking delicacy. It's not nearly as bad as I expected though. It just tasted like an egg to be honest. I guess it was a bit more sulphury than usual, but it was just an egg. I did not, however, eat the whole thing. It's appearance is enough to turn the stomach.



Another day we went to a local hospital that was home to a forensic medical museum with one of our new friends, Evelyn. The museum was hauntingly impressive. The first room had a bunch of deformed babies in formaldehyde. One had a flat skull, another had developed with his intestines outside his body, another with his legs fused together like a mermaid, and another two were conjoined at the torso. Continuing on we saw some skeletal remains from victims who had perished in the Indonesian Tsunami, as well as from people who had been murdered, died in various other accidents, or died from cancer or something similar. I was amazed by how many lives must have been lost to fill the museum. They even had three full, upright, decaying bodies displayed behind glass, with metal pans underneath to collect the fluids and fats that were slowly seeping out of them. One had an english tag that stated he had been a murderer, sentenced to death. And there his body would apparently rot away, in the name of science. For all the few people who happened to stumble upon the hidden museum to see. It's strange how gruesome stuff is so fascinating. Fascinating and disturbing. There were rooms filled with multiple specimens of the trachea and tongue of someone who had choked, the lungs of a cancer patient, hearts of people with congenital defects, organs that had been shot through with a bullet, a hand that had been ripped apart in a car accident, more babies and fetuses that had died, a little person (that's the PC term now, right?) that had died and been split in half and preserved in formaldehyde to be studied. One of these small museums was right next to the school of medicine and we could see cloth shrouded bodies in the rooms beyond if we peeked through the doorway at just the right angle. It was quite an interesting day!

The 23rd was the day we left Bangkok for Chiang Mai. We had said our goodbyes to a few people from the hostel the night before, as well as to a Thai friend we had met a few weeks earlier. We passed her by whenever we went anywhere and had sat and had conversations in broke English and Thai quite a few times. She (being a bit melodramatic) was very sad to see us go and would make disapproving faces whenever the subject of our leaving was brought up. When it was leaving time, we caught a taxi with a girl from the hostel, but with traffic being as bad as it is in Bangkok we had to get out and walk the last 100 meters or risk missing the train. We opted for the AC sleeper car which turned out to be pretty decent and comfortable. We were awake for only a few hours of the train ride because it was an overnight trip. Sleeping is the best way to travel. Having an actual bed-like surface to sleep on is even better. By the time we woke up, we'd be just about in Chiang Mai!

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