Bullet To Bangkok

---

Out of Khlong Thom, we spent a night at Crystal Lagoon, which is a very clear blue-ish pool in a swampy park. We were able to take the 45 minute hike in and swim liberally for some short minutes and go back once it started to get pretty dark. Another half hour and we would have been up the creak with finding our way out. Because we went out after 6pm, we were able to get in free. We watched Crank with the Thai guys who's family ran and lived in the eatery. They let out camp out in the parking lot. We tried to set it up on the nearby grass, but after being bitten by tiny ants for a while, we decided to relocate to a place where we wouldn't have to uproot their stony homes just to sleep flat. We relocated to the gravel portion of the lot, which was uncomfortable in it's own way, but at least we weren't being bitten throughout the night.

The next day, we caught a ride to another park, Hot Springs Waterfall. We had to pay because we got their early, but they old us we could camp inside the park, and it was cheap in comparison to a room. I vegged for about 5 hours in the hotsprings, which were extremely beautiful. I'd like to thing it was completely natural, but the series of terrace like tubs seems a bit perfect for that. Whatever, it was fun. Other than that, me and Alan just talked and argued and chatted and mocked each other while people came and went to the falls. We had found a small building used by massagers during the high season to shelter us during the short rainy moments, and we ended up setting our tent up on it's wooden platform. Sometimes bats flew around in there, and we could hear the rushing rivers just 10 meters below us all night. It was a good location. When we woke up, we ate fried rice (it's delicious, always on the menu, and always the cheapest) and left again for Khlong Thom, where we found rides to Trang.

We went to Trang in attempt to go South to Malaysia for a free 1-month visa extension for Thailand. We rested in the convenience of the city for a few days, where I was able to order a new pair of glasses (I think they look better than my old ones) in two days. Since there was a rush on Alan's date of renewal, we decided to just start our trip back North to Bangkok immediately, and renew visas in Ranong, a town on the coast of the Indian Ocean, which seperates Thailand and Myanmar. We did so two days later, to more hassled then we had expected, including boatmen who offered to take us to Burma without even having an exit stamp from Thailand; we would have been in a fix when we arrived the Myanmar shore, and for a high transportation fee too. To be fair, me and Alan shared a room (and hard double bed) for a ridiculously few 130 baht at a small lodge, designed like a 60's TV-bar, with a fishtank in TV, quirky wallpaper, artsy art, Zeppelin-style Thai hipsters, etc.

We got more rides to Chumphon, where the heavy rained convinced us to crash at Felang's where we had loitered at last time on our way South. The elderly lady who lifted us right next to it (without knowing our destination) randomly left us without about 20 bananas. We were shocked and thankful. We found out the night train to Bangkok was cheaper than a room, so we just ditched that place and trained to Bangkok. I slept upright, horizontally, and on the floor that night, trying to block out the grinding sound of railway transit and fit in the limited space of a train seat. I got most of my sleep after the sun started to come up, and woke up to a completely still train, in Bangkok. I woke Alan up, and told him to hurry before the train started off again. He jumped out just in time. I didn't see him and figured this out, and tried to jump off, but it had already started to move and there were now vertical beams in my path. Also, a security guard told me to stop, so I stayed on the train. I thought it was going to another town, but 10 minutes later it stopped again, still in Bangkok. I taxied as fast as possible to the previous station and searched for Al for half hour and found nothing. Knowing that Alan knew his way back to The Artists' Place (our Bangkok home), and deciding that Alan would think I knew how to get back, I just went "home." From the station I bused to the LRT, took LRT to interchange station and continues on LRT2, then walked for 45 minutes from the final station to our room in the suburbs. Alan's bags were there. Good. He felt bad, so I reassured him I knew he was OK and also knew my own way.

I rested a day. I don't really like to "rest," because it feels like laziness to be, but sometimes you have to do it. In the evening, we dressed up in cut-off t-shirts, ripped jeans and sweaty headbands, used all the product necessary to achieve showey hairstyles and prepared for our big Guitar Hero gig in MBK mall's arcade. Alan wore a tattered sock on his strumming hand. I wore black marker on one of my eyelids. I bought a Chang and two energy drinks to help me out. We ate greasey burgers at Burger King in Paragon mall. We then went from MBK to Paragon, to Discovery, to MBK again in search of the best arcade. Our stage was nothing like in Phuket's Central Festival mall, where our performances was open for all eyes on the second floor. We rocked hard to classic tracks, our favorite being 'Bark At The Moon,' because the solo was amazing. People stared, laughed, scoffed, and mostly enjoyed our ridiculous stage presence. Guitar Hero is not at all about being good, as those kids that sit on stools think, it's about sucking and looking totally awesome doing it; we did a good job.

The next place we were headed was Chiang Mai in the North, to work the organic fields of a Buddhist monk.

---