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Published: November 21st 2008
So this entry begins with me getting on an overnight train to Chiang Mai from Bangkok. I had pretty much had my fill of Bangkok's congestion, traffic and unscrupulous tuk-tuk drivers. That and my liver was begging me for mercy. I did have a good time there but it was time to move on.
The train was an overnight sleeper with air conditioning that left at 7 pm. That was about all I knew when I bought the ticket. When I got on the train and looked for my seat like the clueless foreigner that I was, there was a Thai woman sitting in my seat. Checked and double checked, yep, that was my seat. She got out of the seat without a fuss as she knew that it wasn't hers. What she had done was bought one ticket for herself and her 2 kids. Settling into my seat, I realized I was surrounded by those German guys again, with their Thai women and a few half Thai/half German kids to boot. Up and down the aisle I saw similar couples. At this point I began to wonder just what sort of train this was. I had bought my ticket at the train station and did not ask for any "special" train. At any rate, they were all pretty harmless as they proceeded to get drunk. One guy fell over a couple of times as he did not want to sit down but clearly couldn't be trusted to stand on his own. Around 10pm, the porters came and turned the seats into beds with some sort of magical folding action. Each bed had a nice little curtain that I could hide behind and read my book until I fell asleep. I had the upper bunk and my bunkmate below was the wasted German guy, I thought it very convenient that it wasn't the other way around as this guy could barely stand on his own much less climb the little ladder into the upper bunk. The Thai lady and her kids all slept on one bunk while her German partner (?!?) slept on a bunk all to himself across the aisle from me.
Sleeping on the train took a bit of skill. It stopped and started all night long. When it started it would give this wicked lurch that would occasionally send me against the straps that they had put up to keep me from falling out of the upper bunk. At one point, I'm pretty sure I smelled the drunk German guy smoking in his bunk below me. At another point in the night I awoke to the muffled sounds of copulation. I didn't stick my head out to investigate further, but I was pretty sure it was the German guy and the Thai woman that I had kicked out of my seat. To their credit, (or maybe just hers), it was short and sweet. Mind you, her kids were also a bunk away!
In the morning, the porters came around and did their seat folding voodoo, and we were sitting again. Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and slowly waking up, I realized what a gorgeous country I was passing through. It was very sort of Darjeeling Limited as the landscape passing by my window alternated between remote villages and lush countryside.
We arrived in Chiang Mai around noon (about 2 hours later than scheduled). And I proceeded to the guesthouse ( a guesthouse is what they call a pension, or a hostel, or hotel here; basically a place to stay that can be quite basic or really nice, they run the gamut) that I had picked out after perusing my trusty guide book. Guesthouse after guesthouse, I got pretty much the same response, "sorry, full. The festival." Festival? What festival? Asking around a little, I found out that Chiang Mai was having one of it's big festivals of the year starting that day and going on for the next 3. It was called Loi Krathong and was in honor of the water spirit and basically an apology for trashing all their water supplies. And trash them they do; I haven't seen a water source yet that didn't smell like a sewer and have trash in it. Sad. But at least they know it and have a festival commemorating it!
Anyway, I found a place to crash that wasn't on my list, but I basically just got tired of looking around with a big pack on my back. The place wasn't bad, but the bed was hard as a rock and I had to share a bathroom with someone. But I was just happy to have a roof over my head at that point. That night I met up with a girl from Vermont of all places. She was living in Chiang Mai doing some sort of research that I didn't really understand. But what I did know was that she seemed like a free spirit and fun. She was excited that I too, was a Vermonter at heart. She promptly threw me on the back of her motor bike and away we went to see less touristy places. We went to a impromptu jazz club that was very cool. She had a bunch of her friends there and we proceeded to party the night away. See pics #2 and #3 on Facebook.
There are some pics on my Facebook site. I had a camera disaster a few days ago that erased some amazing photos. I thought I was going to cry when it happened. I still can't talk about it. However, some of the photos on Facebook I uploaded before the "great disaster" were from Chiang Mai so I will try to reference them when possible. Sorry for the inconvenience and my camera ineptitude. BTW, any of you reading this who aren't my friends on Facebook, stop reading immediately. Just kidding. Just look me up on Facebook (Jeff Brent, Boston) and I'll respond to any friend requests so you can see the pics.
The festival was pretty much the same for 3 days. Parades, lots of fireworks, partying in the streets, floating candles down the river and lighting these balloon things. The balloon things were pretty cool. Essentially, they were paper garbage bags that had a piece of wood soaked with something flammable that you would light. This piece of wood would then burn and the hot air would get trapped by the paper bag part of the contraption and it would promptly rise into the night sky. When there were a lot of them they looked like orange stars in the sky. It was very cool. Again, I had a picture of this but, sniff, I still can't talk about it...But check out pics #1 and #4. Those are part of the festival. Lots of lights for sure.
The next night I hung out with this guy Alex from London (pic #5) who was a funny guy. He was 30 and a very bright bloke who had never really found his niche in England. This was his first trip overseas and he was really excited. My guess is that Alex won't ever leave Thailand.
We both had the same idea that night, to take it easy and watch the fireworks and balloon thingies from this rooftop bar. We drank lots of beer and talked about world politics. I'm pretty sure we solved a lot of the worlds problems that night, I just can't remember the solutions. Oh well. Next time.
The next night I was wearing out, as I had mountain biked up a big temple that day and didn't have much left for the festival. The bike ride was actually awesome and totally glad I did it but had I a better grasp on the metric system I probably wouldn't have done it. It was 16 kilometers from where I was starting from, which in itself is not a big deal (9 or 10 miles?). The hard part was that it was also 1600 meters in elevation, which is a grueling ride up ( see pic #6, a monk took this one). I finally made it up to the top of the mountain after the 2 hour climb, only to find out that there are 306 steps up to the actual temple. My legs could honestly barely make the climb up the steps. I now know what it feels like to be 80.
There I spoke to a monk in this program they have there called "Monkchat". Not even kidding. It sounds like something from your local cable programming. The monks use the time to practice their English and we get to find out what it is like to be a monk. So what I learned about being a monk is that I don't want to become one. It's funny, in a country like Thailand there are so many extremes. On the one hand you have these monks (and there are a lot of them) that are celibate while the rest of the country is shagging on trains. Anyway, the monk was cool and I obtained everlasting consciousness on my deathbed, so I got that going for me, which is nice.
I actually tried to get some sleep after my ride that night. Not only did I have nothing left in the tank after my ride but I had to get up early for a Thai cooking class the next day. I had signed up for this when I first rolled into town. So I went to bed, or tried. Only my cheapo room didn't have windows on it, only screens. So I lay in bed listening to fireworks go off literally right outside my room. I imagine living in Baghdad is quite similar. Sleep was just not to be, and if you can't beat em, join em. So out I went for another night. I won't bore you with the details of that night as it was much the same as the first 2.
The cooking class the next day was pretty cool. I mostly got to learn about the oddities that I had been eating for the last week or so. Some things, I learned that day, were not meant to be eaten even though they were in your soup. Curious, but it did explain a few things. I would have gotten more out of the class had I not been dead tired. But I managed to obtain my "certificate" that said I had completed the course (and not boiled my own fingers).
After consulting my liver, we both agreed that it was time to get out of dodge. The next day I packed up and moved on, looking for greener and quieter pastures.
Next stop Chiang Rai
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Brad
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Achieving everlasting consciousness
What the hell! I went to that a day retreat and I didn't get everlasting consciousness! Another case of how reading the crib notes actually gets you a better grade on the test.