February 07, 2006
where cedar nouns and adverbs
two local girls finally came up and talked to me!!!!
however, they started talking in cantonese, and i was like uh sorry.
quickly one switched to english
girl: do you believe that jesus died for us?
me: not really.
girl: what do you believe in then?
me: lots of random things.
girl: have you ever read the bible?
me: i've read parts.
girl: on your own?
me: yeah.
girl: Jesus was crucified...
me: sorry, i have to go eat dinner.
reminds me of austin!
i finally like my business classes. i dont know if its cause i'm in hk. options and futures is really interesting, so is investment... even marketing isn't so bad.
for angela:
|
however, they started talking in cantonese, and i was like uh sorry.
quickly one switched to english
girl: do you believe that jesus died for us?
me: not really.
girl: what do you believe in then?
me: lots of random things.
girl: have you ever read the bible?
me: i've read parts.
girl: on your own?
me: yeah.
girl: Jesus was crucified...
me: sorry, i have to go eat dinner.
reminds me of austin!
i finally like my business classes. i dont know if its cause i'm in hk. options and futures is really interesting, so is investment... even marketing isn't so bad.
for angela:
February 05, 2006
thailand
its long. its for me. but i'm taking a lesson from denise. if you want to hear about my trip, well here it is!
I got back last night from an incredible trip to Thailand. I am sure I have forgotten so much about what happened, but I kind of figure(hope) that I remember all the important things. 10 friends, phil, Karen, queena, sam, andreas, Hermann, sarah, nikhil, Melissa, and I left for Thailand together early on the 27th for Bangkok.
Queena, sam, sarah, and Hermann stayed in Bangkok and then went to phuket, where they lived it up for 5 days. We met up with them for an eventful day in Bangkok, but most of my time was spent with the other 5.
As soon as we arrived, we headed for pattaya, to spend some time at the beach and relax. At the airport in Bangkok there are quite a few taxi services that will take you wherever. Pattaya is a pretty popular place, and they were offereing rates of 2700+ for a van that would fit all of us. We found a taxi service for 1500 to take us. The many airport taxi serviceworkers saw us leaving, and inquired who we were going with, and they saw our guy. Quickly a worker approached Karen and Melissa, and told them that we were going to die by using an “unofficial” service. They made throat slitting motions as we walked by. We were all pretty freaked out, especially since we had all just withdrawn a decent amount of baht for the trip. After much debate we decided to stick to our decision and go. Everything ended up fine, but we all got quite the introduction to the thai tourist culture that was so prevalent in the upcoming days. The taxi service tacked on an extra 300 dollars for the toll charge that was supposed to be included, but we would have been surprised if they hadn’t somehow increased the price when we had no choice but to pay.
Pattaya is crazy. Everywhere you look is an old western dude with a younger girl. Sometimes younger as in middle aged, other timesmid twenties, sometimes younger as in 15 yr old looking girls. This is an unfair generalization, but there is some truth to it: a lot of the younger white men looked like the stereotypical white trash from movies. Sorry, if my description is offensive. This scene was depressing in itself, but the people all looked so sad. Hardly anyone smiled as they walked by.The fact that a place like this exists is incredibly disheartening. A place where it is ok for a foreigner to buy prostitutes and walk around like its great. We had dinner at a pretty expensive steakhouse, that was decent enough. Filet mignon for about 5 U.S. The other tables were filled with old men and younger thai women. We ate, talked laughed whatever people do at dinner for awhile. However, the other tables were not talking at all. They were silent tables, as the men and women ate their steaks. When they would leave however, it would always be hand in hand.
We met up with Alicia and her friend in pattaya after difficult street crossings and slow text msgs talking that drained out my sim card. Crossing the street is insane, cars constantly come, and at an indiscriminate point in time, you just walk and pray that cars stop for you, which is a miracle the way people drive in Thailand. No attention is paid to lane markings, people just do whatever. We talked and made plans to go to a club later, which we didn’t go to, and I never saw them again, not even in Bangkok. I’m sorry. Communication was just difficult without cell phones =(.
We did go out in pattaya. We went to some pretty seedy places after going to some tamer places. Saw some very pretty boys, and some pretty girls I suppose. Had an unpleasant experience with a stripper =(. Someone gave her 20 baht and pointed to me, and well she she came over. She tried to go with me out, but yeah no. Unpleasant, but yeah I didn’t mind any of it that much. It was incredible, and thoroughly depressing to see the state of thai in pattaya. For 50 cents a women happily demeaned herself in the most disgusting of manners.
We stayed at a fairly decent hotel. Pattaya’s beach is pretty dirty, but its nearby islands are still pretty pristine. We headed to ko larn. We took a decent boat out there. And got on a smaller boat to get onto the island.
group photo
We hung out at the beach, rode on wave runners, swam, and ate. It was a perfect day.
We were considering staying, but since it was such a perfect day we felt it was a good time to move on. We headed for the bus station and left for Bangkok. We got in and tried to find a place to stay. We ended up at the White Orchid hotel. All in all it was pretty decent, and in the heart of Chinatown during new year celebrations.
Overall the people in Bangkok are much happier than in pattaya. There is some seediness, but it pales in comparison to pattaya.
We met up with other 4 plus sarah’s friend dale and his two friends who are all studying in Singapore. After a nice lunch (pad thai for 20 baht) we headed for the famous weekend market.
I had a lot of thai iced tea which is just tea with milk. I like it very much.
a small one
After that we had a nice family style meal at cabbages and condoms. It was really good.
Then we headed to pat pong. Theres a market there and street meat of course. The 13 of us all went into a ping pong show. Some dirty amazing stuff goes down there. I was most impressed with the opening of the bottle. Andreas, being the only white guy in our broken up group, always gets picked when someone wants to sell something. They come up to him approach him and pull at him. Whenever something is done to someone, it is ALWAYS me. I had 6 ping pong balls launched at me. The first one missed. I managed to bat the second one across the bar with a water bottle. That was pretty awesome. I then got hit in the forehead, and in other places before she lost her power and they started to not go very far. The ping pong show is as many things are in Thailand, pretty depressing. The total debasement of females, and people is terrible. Through it all I still smiled, and was somehow happy. Maybe I’m just an ass, but I just took it as another insight into how some people are forced to live.
After that depressing experience we went to khoa son road where the other group was staying. They enjoyed buckets of alcohol, whiskey redbull and coke, and a surprisingly good tasting mixture presented in a small pail with straws. Not too classy, but it gets the job done. I didn’t drink but instead devoured street food. Pad Thai again, some banana pancake with condensed milk and sugar, and a thai iced tea from 7-11 which sucks cause its insanely sweet.
street meat!
We said our goodbyes and headed back to our hotel. We split up this day, nikhil andreas and I headed for some wats, while the rest did other stuff ( they ended up at a wat and wasting their time from what I hear. The golden palaced was closed, the king and his family was praying there or something, but we hit up a good number of wats with the help of a very impressive scheme.
So we are informed by a pretty nice man about the golden palace situation. Hmm now I am starting to think he could possibly be part of the later scheme. He gave us the name of a few good thai wats to visit. The odd part about him is he spoke very good English and was aimlessly walking along the street. Anyhow, after leaving him a tuk tuk offers a ride for 10 baht each to go to all the wats. This is the normal price (which we are NEVER offered as tourists) and is a bit insane but we take it anyhow and smile at our good fortune. He takes us to a wat, drops us off, and waits outside. This goes on and we visit about 4 temples. They were pretty cool, lots of gold, and we saw the huge standing Buddha. One wat we went to was under construction. We met a student from Australia, who spoke very good English. He was in Thailand to visit his family. He did not have an Australian accent. Anyhow he introduces us to his brother who is in charge of fixing up parts of the wat. His brother goes off on a story about how one time he gambled away everything and was left with nothing but a ring someone had given him in Thailand. He had lived a bit in the states. He went to pawn the ring which had been bough for about 500 US. He was desperate, but much to his dismay the store offered him 1000. WOW, that’s a shitload of money. Anyhow, he smuggled out sapphires and rubys which Thailand is supposedly known for and made a killing. He also told us of his friend who did not like these activities, but when he saw how much money was being made he went back and buys 15000 worth of jewels and sells them when he gets back. He just uses it to travel for free! WOW! He tells us the name of the export center that he uses SS Jewels. What a nice guy to give out such a profitable business. I wonder why he is doing construction now. Anyways it was a really longwinded story so we left. One wat had a sign “beware of false tourguides”. We met a guy in that wat who told us that tuk tuk drivers will drive you around and then at the end take you to a jewelry shop, or an export center, or even a carpet warehouse. They get a gas coupon for bringing tourists in. He said it was all ok, except the carpet warehouse gives you an hour long presentation and they don’t really let you leave. We thanked him for the information. The tuk tuk driver says he is going to take us to a cool shop and we say sure! So we end up at SS jewels. We walk in, and well all they have are jewlels, earings, and necklaces. We try to look interested, but its terribly boring shit. After some small talk the lady just says, are you going to buy anything. We replied no, and she tells us we can leave. The lady says if we don’t buy a souvenir the driver wont get his gas coupon. She suggests this 100 baht bookmark. We laugh and leave. The driver happily greets and and takes us back to khoa son road where we want to get some more tasty street food.
We eat and then go back to the hotel to meet up with the others and head for the train to chiang mai. The station is pretty crowded, we ate some kfc. And then we leave!
We are all spread out in the cab. I first met this Canadian guy who helped us communicate with the workers with his thai! I talked to him for a long time that night and in the morning as well as a nice couple from the states. The wife had taken a year off from teaching to go to Thailand. She teaches English at the city one stop before chiang mai. She had just gone to Bangkok to fetch her husband who will now be with her for a while. These three people are all very well traveled, and have many interesting things to say.
I slept very well! The train was a great experience. In the night I could tell It was going really fast due to the training moving side to side reminiscent of quick turns during a quality roller coaster. We wake up and finally get our first breath of fresh air in Thailand. Chiang mai is in the north.
We are picked up and taken to the sk guest house, the people that will take us on a three day two night trek starting 10ish the next morning. We meet a newly married couple from Australia and talked about a few things, the heavy taxes on luxury items in Australia, and what the “mackers” are like there. Mackers is what they call mcdonalds. We all agree that Mcdonalds has the “chip” thing down and other chains like burger king should just give it up. We have one day in chiang mai, and we wanted to swim in a hot spring, but apparently those are very hot, and not good for swimming. The couple on the train had told me they swam in one but apparently not. =(.
We did go to wat doi su tep, and walk up 306 steps to this beautiful temple on the top of this mountain. This temple overlooks the whole city of chiang mai. Its really nice.
Sometimes I take stupid photos.
Nikhil is fucking obsessed with his lonely planet that is often inaccurate. This seemed like a good time to throw that in there. We search for this thai massage place and we finally find it. We all get 2 hour thai herbal massages. The whole experience was enjoyable, but nothing I would probably every do again. Just not my thing. A lot of people say it hurt, but I didn’t find it very painful, just often very weird. When the lady was massaging my groin area I couldn’t help but giggle. I was ticklish at first, but I relaxed and it was ok. My favorite part was when they rub you with the warm pads. That was pretty nice. The coolest thing was I attribute the massage to inducing me to have the craziest dream of my life. I don’t remember what happened, but I do remember it was animated. This affirms the fact that I AM A FUCKING NERD.
We then go to the night market which is like every other market in Thailand, which sells the same crap, with storekeepers with the same attitude of ripping people off and being dicks. It was a nice time. We ate at mcdonalds cause we couldn’t find a place to eat, and as we left I found a huge area with delicious food that I was too full to eat. =( We buy a flashlight for a terrible price of 250 baht because we needed it, and bug spray for 350. we know this was all a ripoff but we couldn’t get any better. We later saw bug spray for 49 at 7-11. Sad =(.
We leave via truck type deal for northern chiang mai. We stop by a market so our guide can buy us food for the trip. We decide to eat! We bought this very delicious fish for 60 baht. I wanted the one that only cost 20, that was piping hot, but Karen wanted the 60 baht one. She regretted it when the fish was lukewarm and not totally cooked on one side. The lesson here is I have pretty good food judgement. We ate very well on the whole trip. Despite the temperature and being not done, it was extremely delicious. We bough some rice for 5 baht, and some fried shrimp deals. It was a great meal but we stopped eating the fish when we got to the not quite done part.
The chiang mai trip is relatively simple. We see a lot of the countryside and what rural villages are like. WE WALK A LOT. We go some more and get to a village where we have some fried rice. People tried to sell us shit of course. It was super sad.
From here we start walking a lot.
our guide
The only highlight is a break at a waterfall where some of us played in a waterfall. It was extremely cold and waterfalls are pretty forceful.
Our helper guide carries all the food. He’s a fucking badass. This feeling was cemented when he cuts down trees and makes walking sticks for us. They’re badass.
me with walking stick
We walk up to a height of 1300m to the camp. An old man lives there.
old man with the badass guy who carries our food
Dinner is made, we eat and shower and some poo. I didn’t. Dinner was some delicious chicken curry and some fried vegetables and tofu. There is nothing to do since its pitch black and everyone is asleep by 9. We wake up the next day and eat breakfast. It’s a hard boiled egg and toast. mmMMmm Then the old man pulls out this pile of the same crap that is everywhere else in Thailand and tries to sell it to us. Some help him out and we go on our way. More walking till we get to an elephant camp. We eat this shitty ass ramen noodle lunch. We were all very hungry and our guide promised us noodle soup. DO NOT PROMISE ME NOODLE SOUP AND THEN GIVE ME RAMEN. Anyhow its my favorite ramen(from Thailand!) that I eat back in the states, except its overcooked as it was made in mass.
wtfwhyamieatingramen
The elephant part was pretty fun. Much to my surprise mine didn’t smell at all. I smelled much worse. The chair kind of hurts your ass after awhile, but its alright.
andreas and the dutch jonas
We get off and walk some more. We reach a village where dinner is made and we shower and poo and other things of that nature. After dinner we walk around another village, its nice.
village got a little high tech electricity!
its dark
We come back and these girls come dance “traditionally” in the “traditional” clothing for us. It is all terribly forced feeling. But it was festive nonetheless. They’re pretty fun and we dance and sing. Literally. They sing we sing. I couldn’t think of any songs when it was my turn. Eventually I busted out feliz navidad which I find pretty odd. We then went to a thai village with some Chinese influence, and they were doing a lil new year celebratin’. Nikhil impressed me for the first time that night. He picks up their dances pretty quick and joins in. Its kind of like line dancing, but circular. Everytime he gets it down, they change it up, which was kinda mean, but it was quite possibly coincidence. They throw firecrackers at people’s feet. That’s kinda not cool. They seemed to be m-150s. We found street meat, but as we were looking at it debating buying it, villagers come scoop all of it up.
We sleep again, but this night was ridiculously cold. I sleep for awhile, but I wake up and I can see my breath. I only have three small, thin blankets, so I stay awake along with everyone else who doesn’t have a cuddle partner or a sleeping bag.We then wake up and eat a crappy breakfast,and then the old morning routine.
its morning and you cant escape it
walk a bit more, swim in a dirty river while monks watch us, eat noodle soup ( it was rice noodle this time! But by the time I got my third bowl they ran out and ramen again appeared in front of me). We went rafting down the river, which would have been a boring experience, but we boarded each other’s rafts while the drivers laughed and splashed each other. I decided to chill, and the others nicely attacked some other rafters that we did not know.
After this our trek is over and we head back and clean up and head out to dinner as a trek group. I order a feast for the people who want to eat family style. Me phil Karen Melissa and jonas the swede. It was awesome. I then find out that the two dutch girls are in love me. They’re pretty cool. Some kids go out, some kids go to sleep, I slept. We fly back to Bangkok, eat our last good meal at this cafeteria with a lot of flight attendants (they were nice too), and fly back to hk.
At the end of the trip we’re missing two. Phil couldn’t get a flight back, and Karen stayed with him.
Thailand is pretty awesome. Culture is great, and food is amazing. The north is beautiful. Everywhere I went there was a depressing part. In pattaya it was dirty women doing naughty things. Bangkok was full of people trying to rip you off especially the tuk tuk drivers. I know not all people are like that, but the people who seek out tourists, the ones that I had a lot of contact with, were incredibly annoying. When we went to a small restaurant in chiang mai, the people were so nice and the food was great. When we went to anything tourist related, the people were arrogant dicks. In Chiang mai, the state of the people there depressed me. The villagers have become a little bit of a tourist attraction, and that in itself is in a way sad. Its not too bad, the money that comes in helps keep the people from dealing drugs or becoming prostitutes. What was depressing was how the village’s women would line up in the morning to sell you useless stuff for so little money. They would try to guilt you, pointing to their little children saying “for my baby”.
The experience I had was incredible, and I almost couldn’t be happier. Getting ripped off a little less, and eating a bit more would have made it a tiny bit better =)
perspective.
- more photos will be added later, check em out where the photos go... full size it plz
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I got back last night from an incredible trip to Thailand. I am sure I have forgotten so much about what happened, but I kind of figure(hope) that I remember all the important things. 10 friends, phil, Karen, queena, sam, andreas, Hermann, sarah, nikhil, Melissa, and I left for Thailand together early on the 27th for Bangkok.
Queena, sam, sarah, and Hermann stayed in Bangkok and then went to phuket, where they lived it up for 5 days. We met up with them for an eventful day in Bangkok, but most of my time was spent with the other 5.
As soon as we arrived, we headed for pattaya, to spend some time at the beach and relax. At the airport in Bangkok there are quite a few taxi services that will take you wherever. Pattaya is a pretty popular place, and they were offereing rates of 2700+ for a van that would fit all of us. We found a taxi service for 1500 to take us. The many airport taxi serviceworkers saw us leaving, and inquired who we were going with, and they saw our guy. Quickly a worker approached Karen and Melissa, and told them that we were going to die by using an “unofficial” service. They made throat slitting motions as we walked by. We were all pretty freaked out, especially since we had all just withdrawn a decent amount of baht for the trip. After much debate we decided to stick to our decision and go. Everything ended up fine, but we all got quite the introduction to the thai tourist culture that was so prevalent in the upcoming days. The taxi service tacked on an extra 300 dollars for the toll charge that was supposed to be included, but we would have been surprised if they hadn’t somehow increased the price when we had no choice but to pay.
Pattaya is crazy. Everywhere you look is an old western dude with a younger girl. Sometimes younger as in middle aged, other timesmid twenties, sometimes younger as in 15 yr old looking girls. This is an unfair generalization, but there is some truth to it: a lot of the younger white men looked like the stereotypical white trash from movies. Sorry, if my description is offensive. This scene was depressing in itself, but the people all looked so sad. Hardly anyone smiled as they walked by.The fact that a place like this exists is incredibly disheartening. A place where it is ok for a foreigner to buy prostitutes and walk around like its great. We had dinner at a pretty expensive steakhouse, that was decent enough. Filet mignon for about 5 U.S. The other tables were filled with old men and younger thai women. We ate, talked laughed whatever people do at dinner for awhile. However, the other tables were not talking at all. They were silent tables, as the men and women ate their steaks. When they would leave however, it would always be hand in hand.
We met up with Alicia and her friend in pattaya after difficult street crossings and slow text msgs talking that drained out my sim card. Crossing the street is insane, cars constantly come, and at an indiscriminate point in time, you just walk and pray that cars stop for you, which is a miracle the way people drive in Thailand. No attention is paid to lane markings, people just do whatever. We talked and made plans to go to a club later, which we didn’t go to, and I never saw them again, not even in Bangkok. I’m sorry. Communication was just difficult without cell phones =(.
We did go out in pattaya. We went to some pretty seedy places after going to some tamer places. Saw some very pretty boys, and some pretty girls I suppose. Had an unpleasant experience with a stripper =(. Someone gave her 20 baht and pointed to me, and well she she came over. She tried to go with me out, but yeah no. Unpleasant, but yeah I didn’t mind any of it that much. It was incredible, and thoroughly depressing to see the state of thai in pattaya. For 50 cents a women happily demeaned herself in the most disgusting of manners.
We stayed at a fairly decent hotel. Pattaya’s beach is pretty dirty, but its nearby islands are still pretty pristine. We headed to ko larn. We took a decent boat out there. And got on a smaller boat to get onto the island.
group photo
We hung out at the beach, rode on wave runners, swam, and ate. It was a perfect day.
We were considering staying, but since it was such a perfect day we felt it was a good time to move on. We headed for the bus station and left for Bangkok. We got in and tried to find a place to stay. We ended up at the White Orchid hotel. All in all it was pretty decent, and in the heart of Chinatown during new year celebrations.
Overall the people in Bangkok are much happier than in pattaya. There is some seediness, but it pales in comparison to pattaya.
We met up with other 4 plus sarah’s friend dale and his two friends who are all studying in Singapore. After a nice lunch (pad thai for 20 baht) we headed for the famous weekend market.
I had a lot of thai iced tea which is just tea with milk. I like it very much.
a small one
After that we had a nice family style meal at cabbages and condoms. It was really good.
Then we headed to pat pong. Theres a market there and street meat of course. The 13 of us all went into a ping pong show. Some dirty amazing stuff goes down there. I was most impressed with the opening of the bottle. Andreas, being the only white guy in our broken up group, always gets picked when someone wants to sell something. They come up to him approach him and pull at him. Whenever something is done to someone, it is ALWAYS me. I had 6 ping pong balls launched at me. The first one missed. I managed to bat the second one across the bar with a water bottle. That was pretty awesome. I then got hit in the forehead, and in other places before she lost her power and they started to not go very far. The ping pong show is as many things are in Thailand, pretty depressing. The total debasement of females, and people is terrible. Through it all I still smiled, and was somehow happy. Maybe I’m just an ass, but I just took it as another insight into how some people are forced to live.
After that depressing experience we went to khoa son road where the other group was staying. They enjoyed buckets of alcohol, whiskey redbull and coke, and a surprisingly good tasting mixture presented in a small pail with straws. Not too classy, but it gets the job done. I didn’t drink but instead devoured street food. Pad Thai again, some banana pancake with condensed milk and sugar, and a thai iced tea from 7-11 which sucks cause its insanely sweet.
street meat!
We said our goodbyes and headed back to our hotel. We split up this day, nikhil andreas and I headed for some wats, while the rest did other stuff ( they ended up at a wat and wasting their time from what I hear. The golden palaced was closed, the king and his family was praying there or something, but we hit up a good number of wats with the help of a very impressive scheme.
So we are informed by a pretty nice man about the golden palace situation. Hmm now I am starting to think he could possibly be part of the later scheme. He gave us the name of a few good thai wats to visit. The odd part about him is he spoke very good English and was aimlessly walking along the street. Anyhow, after leaving him a tuk tuk offers a ride for 10 baht each to go to all the wats. This is the normal price (which we are NEVER offered as tourists) and is a bit insane but we take it anyhow and smile at our good fortune. He takes us to a wat, drops us off, and waits outside. This goes on and we visit about 4 temples. They were pretty cool, lots of gold, and we saw the huge standing Buddha. One wat we went to was under construction. We met a student from Australia, who spoke very good English. He was in Thailand to visit his family. He did not have an Australian accent. Anyhow he introduces us to his brother who is in charge of fixing up parts of the wat. His brother goes off on a story about how one time he gambled away everything and was left with nothing but a ring someone had given him in Thailand. He had lived a bit in the states. He went to pawn the ring which had been bough for about 500 US. He was desperate, but much to his dismay the store offered him 1000. WOW, that’s a shitload of money. Anyhow, he smuggled out sapphires and rubys which Thailand is supposedly known for and made a killing. He also told us of his friend who did not like these activities, but when he saw how much money was being made he went back and buys 15000 worth of jewels and sells them when he gets back. He just uses it to travel for free! WOW! He tells us the name of the export center that he uses SS Jewels. What a nice guy to give out such a profitable business. I wonder why he is doing construction now. Anyways it was a really longwinded story so we left. One wat had a sign “beware of false tourguides”. We met a guy in that wat who told us that tuk tuk drivers will drive you around and then at the end take you to a jewelry shop, or an export center, or even a carpet warehouse. They get a gas coupon for bringing tourists in. He said it was all ok, except the carpet warehouse gives you an hour long presentation and they don’t really let you leave. We thanked him for the information. The tuk tuk driver says he is going to take us to a cool shop and we say sure! So we end up at SS jewels. We walk in, and well all they have are jewlels, earings, and necklaces. We try to look interested, but its terribly boring shit. After some small talk the lady just says, are you going to buy anything. We replied no, and she tells us we can leave. The lady says if we don’t buy a souvenir the driver wont get his gas coupon. She suggests this 100 baht bookmark. We laugh and leave. The driver happily greets and and takes us back to khoa son road where we want to get some more tasty street food.
We eat and then go back to the hotel to meet up with the others and head for the train to chiang mai. The station is pretty crowded, we ate some kfc. And then we leave!
We are all spread out in the cab. I first met this Canadian guy who helped us communicate with the workers with his thai! I talked to him for a long time that night and in the morning as well as a nice couple from the states. The wife had taken a year off from teaching to go to Thailand. She teaches English at the city one stop before chiang mai. She had just gone to Bangkok to fetch her husband who will now be with her for a while. These three people are all very well traveled, and have many interesting things to say.
I slept very well! The train was a great experience. In the night I could tell It was going really fast due to the training moving side to side reminiscent of quick turns during a quality roller coaster. We wake up and finally get our first breath of fresh air in Thailand. Chiang mai is in the north.
We are picked up and taken to the sk guest house, the people that will take us on a three day two night trek starting 10ish the next morning. We meet a newly married couple from Australia and talked about a few things, the heavy taxes on luxury items in Australia, and what the “mackers” are like there. Mackers is what they call mcdonalds. We all agree that Mcdonalds has the “chip” thing down and other chains like burger king should just give it up. We have one day in chiang mai, and we wanted to swim in a hot spring, but apparently those are very hot, and not good for swimming. The couple on the train had told me they swam in one but apparently not. =(.
We did go to wat doi su tep, and walk up 306 steps to this beautiful temple on the top of this mountain. This temple overlooks the whole city of chiang mai. Its really nice.
Sometimes I take stupid photos.
Nikhil is fucking obsessed with his lonely planet that is often inaccurate. This seemed like a good time to throw that in there. We search for this thai massage place and we finally find it. We all get 2 hour thai herbal massages. The whole experience was enjoyable, but nothing I would probably every do again. Just not my thing. A lot of people say it hurt, but I didn’t find it very painful, just often very weird. When the lady was massaging my groin area I couldn’t help but giggle. I was ticklish at first, but I relaxed and it was ok. My favorite part was when they rub you with the warm pads. That was pretty nice. The coolest thing was I attribute the massage to inducing me to have the craziest dream of my life. I don’t remember what happened, but I do remember it was animated. This affirms the fact that I AM A FUCKING NERD.
We then go to the night market which is like every other market in Thailand, which sells the same crap, with storekeepers with the same attitude of ripping people off and being dicks. It was a nice time. We ate at mcdonalds cause we couldn’t find a place to eat, and as we left I found a huge area with delicious food that I was too full to eat. =( We buy a flashlight for a terrible price of 250 baht because we needed it, and bug spray for 350. we know this was all a ripoff but we couldn’t get any better. We later saw bug spray for 49 at 7-11. Sad =(.
We leave via truck type deal for northern chiang mai. We stop by a market so our guide can buy us food for the trip. We decide to eat! We bought this very delicious fish for 60 baht. I wanted the one that only cost 20, that was piping hot, but Karen wanted the 60 baht one. She regretted it when the fish was lukewarm and not totally cooked on one side. The lesson here is I have pretty good food judgement. We ate very well on the whole trip. Despite the temperature and being not done, it was extremely delicious. We bough some rice for 5 baht, and some fried shrimp deals. It was a great meal but we stopped eating the fish when we got to the not quite done part.
The chiang mai trip is relatively simple. We see a lot of the countryside and what rural villages are like. WE WALK A LOT. We go some more and get to a village where we have some fried rice. People tried to sell us shit of course. It was super sad.
From here we start walking a lot.
our guide
The only highlight is a break at a waterfall where some of us played in a waterfall. It was extremely cold and waterfalls are pretty forceful.
Our helper guide carries all the food. He’s a fucking badass. This feeling was cemented when he cuts down trees and makes walking sticks for us. They’re badass.
me with walking stick
We walk up to a height of 1300m to the camp. An old man lives there.
old man with the badass guy who carries our food
Dinner is made, we eat and shower and some poo. I didn’t. Dinner was some delicious chicken curry and some fried vegetables and tofu. There is nothing to do since its pitch black and everyone is asleep by 9. We wake up the next day and eat breakfast. It’s a hard boiled egg and toast. mmMMmm Then the old man pulls out this pile of the same crap that is everywhere else in Thailand and tries to sell it to us. Some help him out and we go on our way. More walking till we get to an elephant camp. We eat this shitty ass ramen noodle lunch. We were all very hungry and our guide promised us noodle soup. DO NOT PROMISE ME NOODLE SOUP AND THEN GIVE ME RAMEN. Anyhow its my favorite ramen(from Thailand!) that I eat back in the states, except its overcooked as it was made in mass.
wtfwhyamieatingramen
The elephant part was pretty fun. Much to my surprise mine didn’t smell at all. I smelled much worse. The chair kind of hurts your ass after awhile, but its alright.
andreas and the dutch jonas
We get off and walk some more. We reach a village where dinner is made and we shower and poo and other things of that nature. After dinner we walk around another village, its nice.
village got a little high tech electricity!
its dark
We come back and these girls come dance “traditionally” in the “traditional” clothing for us. It is all terribly forced feeling. But it was festive nonetheless. They’re pretty fun and we dance and sing. Literally. They sing we sing. I couldn’t think of any songs when it was my turn. Eventually I busted out feliz navidad which I find pretty odd. We then went to a thai village with some Chinese influence, and they were doing a lil new year celebratin’. Nikhil impressed me for the first time that night. He picks up their dances pretty quick and joins in. Its kind of like line dancing, but circular. Everytime he gets it down, they change it up, which was kinda mean, but it was quite possibly coincidence. They throw firecrackers at people’s feet. That’s kinda not cool. They seemed to be m-150s. We found street meat, but as we were looking at it debating buying it, villagers come scoop all of it up.
We sleep again, but this night was ridiculously cold. I sleep for awhile, but I wake up and I can see my breath. I only have three small, thin blankets, so I stay awake along with everyone else who doesn’t have a cuddle partner or a sleeping bag.We then wake up and eat a crappy breakfast,and then the old morning routine.
its morning and you cant escape it
walk a bit more, swim in a dirty river while monks watch us, eat noodle soup ( it was rice noodle this time! But by the time I got my third bowl they ran out and ramen again appeared in front of me). We went rafting down the river, which would have been a boring experience, but we boarded each other’s rafts while the drivers laughed and splashed each other. I decided to chill, and the others nicely attacked some other rafters that we did not know.
After this our trek is over and we head back and clean up and head out to dinner as a trek group. I order a feast for the people who want to eat family style. Me phil Karen Melissa and jonas the swede. It was awesome. I then find out that the two dutch girls are in love me. They’re pretty cool. Some kids go out, some kids go to sleep, I slept. We fly back to Bangkok, eat our last good meal at this cafeteria with a lot of flight attendants (they were nice too), and fly back to hk.
At the end of the trip we’re missing two. Phil couldn’t get a flight back, and Karen stayed with him.
Thailand is pretty awesome. Culture is great, and food is amazing. The north is beautiful. Everywhere I went there was a depressing part. In pattaya it was dirty women doing naughty things. Bangkok was full of people trying to rip you off especially the tuk tuk drivers. I know not all people are like that, but the people who seek out tourists, the ones that I had a lot of contact with, were incredibly annoying. When we went to a small restaurant in chiang mai, the people were so nice and the food was great. When we went to anything tourist related, the people were arrogant dicks. In Chiang mai, the state of the people there depressed me. The villagers have become a little bit of a tourist attraction, and that in itself is in a way sad. Its not too bad, the money that comes in helps keep the people from dealing drugs or becoming prostitutes. What was depressing was how the village’s women would line up in the morning to sell you useless stuff for so little money. They would try to guilt you, pointing to their little children saying “for my baby”.
The experience I had was incredible, and I almost couldn’t be happier. Getting ripped off a little less, and eating a bit more would have made it a tiny bit better =)
perspective.
- more photos will be added later, check em out where the photos go... full size it plz