Trekking and Trannies in Tubular Thailand

Sorry it's been a while since my last post. Been busy trekking and in transit to Laos. Right now we are in Chiang Khong, spending the night until tomorrow, when we leave to take the 2 day slow boat down the Mekong river to Luang Prabuang, which is in Laos. While we're there we're going to go tubing. Yes, the same kind as you do on the Guadalupe. It's going to rock! Duh.
I'm not sure what else we'll do there, as we have no real agenda, but we have a 30 day visa, and a whole country. Only the good lord knows. (Not the bad lord.)
So, let me tell you about this lovely jungle trek. It was lovely, and it was a trek.
Ha ha!
So, as you can see in the photos, I did achieve my life goal of riding on an elephant's head. It was awesome. One of us was going to have to do it since the seat thingy only sat two, and I was like, "Ooh! Ooh! ME!" That was awesome. I could feel his shoulder blades the whole time and he kept slapping my legs with his ears. Let me tell you ,you have NOT lived until you've been slapped with an elephant ear.
While there was some debate over what our elephant was to be called, we forewent Nelly and Pepe, and decided on Clive, a nice strong pachiderm-ish name, I'd say.
The jungle trek was pretty challenging. Five miles the first day through steep and sometimes treacherous mountain side terrain. I did awesome at it, naturally. Only busted ass once the first day, but the recovery was so slick, it almost made me seem even cooler, if you can imagine that. I think we did five miles the second day as well, but it was an easier five miles. I did a very uncool ass busting that day, which only James saw since he was behind me, but I played it off with such good humor, I think it became a piece of slap stick comedic genius.
I’m such a turd, innit?
I’m practicing seemingly improper but commonly applied usages of the British term “innit.” Bear with me.
The night we spent out, we stayed in a bungalow/hut in a Lhemong (sp?) village, and had both the best chicken curry in life, and the worst night of sleep EVER! Just recounting that night in my mind makes my back hurt. Have you ever slept on bamboo, with a pillow the size of a steak, a child’s size blanket, in the mountains? Don’t do, trust me.
Then there were the rooster’s, who kindly started their daily ministrations at, say, 3:30 am. One was even so nice as to walk underneath our hut, which is up on stilts, and screech with his horrible rooster voice. I’m not gonna lie though. I was almost excited when they started, because the day beginning meant that I could at least stop pretending to sleep on that god forsaken bamboo.
But the next morning I had stimulating, if not the best, coffee, and got to feed toast to a really cute puppy, so all was good. I don’t know why it is, but Thailand has the cutest dogs. They all look like puppies. Though maybe dogs here just have a really short life expectancy for some reason ;-), and they all actually are puppies. The world may never know.
The second day kicked ass. We went in a bat cave. Uber cool. Plus, I got to feel all awesome since all the other girls were poons and like, “Yuck! Bats! Scary!” and “Oh noooo, I’m afraid of the dark!” But I, your daring narrator was like, “Let’s turn off our flashlights!” Heh heh.
At lunch, we met THE WORLD’S CUTEST PUPPY whom we named Togrog, after the currency of Mongolia. Just look at the picture and see what I mean. I fed him a pork sausage ball and he liked it.
We ended the whole trip thing with about 20-30 minutes of rafting, which was hardly hair raising, but really fun none the less. Then we rafted for a similar amount of time on a bamboo raft. Relaxing. Then back to Chiang Mai.
I have to add, I met a couple, Jennifer and Matt, who were really awesome and inspiring. They saved for three years, and quit their jobs so they could travel the world for a year. They’ve now been traveling for 15 months, and are probably going to keep going until next fall. Check out their web site which is http://www.keiltystravel.com. Click on links too. They make nearly one penny each time you do.
Most in our group decided to meet up later in the night for some drinks. The only ones who showed apart from my trio, were Steve, from Ireland, Michael, also from Ireland, and John, from England. All really cool.
We got shitty, played a little pool, some Connect 4, a drinking game with the Connect 4 game pieces, got kicked out of the Thai boxing ring twice, and had a few with some of Thailand’s famed “lady-boy’s” who were both really cool, and a couple, alarmingly pretty. James played a few rounds of Connect 4 with them, and got pretty friendly. As you can see in the photo, he was very pleased with their company.
Once we left the bar, and James and I both peed in an alley (I was pretty drunk, it’s excusable), and we killed a tuk tuk with the sheer weight of our group, we decided to go for Thai massages. We weren’t exactly sure of the legitimacy of the place we were going to as there aren’t many places open for massages at 3 in the morning. It turned out to be freakin’ AWESOME! Steve was really funny, making all kinds of embarrassing noises and saying “Whoa whoa whoa!” and “Play time is ova baby!”
After that we all just went back to our rooms and passed out. Yay!
Yesterday was just traveling from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai, where we stayed last night. The bus for that journey was PIMP! We paid 280 baht instead of 100 baht for that ride so we could ride in an air conditioned bus, and we were freezing the whole time. But such is life, as LindSAY says.
And I have to say, if you get a chance to check out some Thai tv or movies, do. Uber cheese! Straight up. Word.
The bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Khong, where I am now, was only 72 baht, was more on the level with what the locals ride, and was really quite comfortable. It pays to keep it cheap. Though we did catch the 7 am bus, which we woke up at 5:15 for , so it was cool despite the lack of a/c.
Then we paid 1 million dollars for a visa to Laos, took a nap, ate, walked, typed this blog, uploaded photos, sneezed. Now we are at present time, like that part in Spaceballs when they catch up to themselves while watching Spaceballs the movie. You know what I’m talking about. Laugh Dammit!
I’m not sure of the internet situation in Laos, so who knows when I’ll be posting again. I guess everyone will just have to continuously reread this and my other previous entries to kill time until then. Hey, it could be worse.
Till then, Sa Wah De Kah.

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