Temples a'Plenty, Rock climbing in Railay, Buckets in Bangkok, and Motorcycle Mania


I left Mama's bungalows in Ao Tonsai, Krabi Province by longtail boat and I got on a bus with a Mexican named Pablo and a hillariously cynical Napoleon Dynamite haired German named Phillipe. We shared stories and succomed to the nods more than once. After some crazy driving in our not so special bargain basement, "VIP Bus" we arrived at our destination 17 hours later. The morning was welcomed with greetings and offers from Scouts, Touts, and Tuk Tuk Drivers in Bangkok. 7:00 Am is not a good time to get on my nerves. After telling them off in Thai (I only know a couple of the important words, but still enough to get the point across) We took off to find our hotel my usual one was full so we followed the German to (ironically enough) the United Hebrew Connection (sometimes referred to as the UTC or united travellers connection) It was a very Posh, Clean, and Cheap albeit noisy and slightly pretentious.

That day was spent waiting at a coffee shop for a familiar face from College, Miss Christine Lynch. A Comically warped and Hysterical person who I have shared a sea kayak in the gulf islands, a tent, a rope on a Glacier in Garibaldi National Park, and way too many vegetarian camping foods. Parenthetically, two vegetarians should not share a tent if eating large quantities of tofu. We met up and immediately took off for some sightseeing. Later that night, Christine, Pablo, Phil, Lucas (an Argentinian from the bus) and I all got together for a ruckous good time on Khao San Road with some icy cold Chang and some Tasty homemade Buckets (Red bull, Song Sam wiskey and Coke all mixed together in a bucket with the appropriate amount of straws in it. Thais seem to think drinks are made better by putting them in a bucket or a bag for takeaway). Too many to count. After dozens of fended off offers for delivery to a Ping Pong show (use your immagination) on Patpong Road we made our way into a night club and another nightlub followed and the rest is blurry but it ended hilariously with mostly everyone ending up somewhere other than at home for various reasons all with their own story of how their night ended. Spicy food on the way home made for some regrettable but hilarious morning after stories.

We spent the next day taking all of the shady gem tours and Lucky buddha scams we could find. After getting run around town adn left in the middle of nowhere. Christine and I stalked up on some new books and headed off to Chiang Mai in a stinky and possibly condemned bus. The side door was bungy strapped shut and no one seemed able to navigate them to get to the toilet so those that couldn't wait asked the bus driver to stop at the next toilet. When the driver pulled over on the side of the road and ran up (double decker bus) yelling "Toilet, Toilet. You say toilet. I go toilet. I stop. Stop toilet. ToiletSTOP, Toilet TOILET TOILET LOITET! I go Bangkok!!!!" People were, understandably, confused. Nobody got up. Nobody even reallly said anything. Scared to say the least. I presume everyone just waited so as not to cause any more trouble. I should note that this was the first time I had ever really seen a Thai person "lose it" in public. They are usually well mannered and calm. Mai pen rai is a great Thai saying. It means no problem and never mind. They think life is fun and that there should be no reason to get overtly upset at anything.

Christine and I started to attack the towns tourist attractions and temples as soon as we had a 5 hour nap in our hotel room in Chiang Mai. The town is a very bohemian sort of college town. The arts here are very present. We took part in a market day and went to china town for some chinese new year celebrations. I carried around 4 boxes of fire crackers all night and never found an opportunity to light them. I am trying to be culturaly sensitive and do the right thing. Which is hard, since I am a redneck from Saskatchewan. I follow examples I was hearing firecrackers all day long and I thought, "Sweet I am gonna get a whole bunch of these things and light them off tonight" The final showdown for chinese new year. Everyone is wearing red. Dragons spraying sparks out of their mouths, or spraying you with water when you put money in its mouth. It was really cool. But there were no fire crackers and definitely no countdown. The kids were getting right into it though. We had some awesome food and called it a night.

Renting motorcycles is a pretty important thing when travelling in Thailand. You can rent one for about $3 Canadian and gas for the day can cost you about the same. Christine and I rented one and went to the biggest national park in Thailand with the tallest mountain in Thailand. Our goal was to summit this ethereal beast. We left at around noon and drove for about an hour. We got to the mountain thinking we could scramble up it. When we got there we found out that the trail up was 50 kms long and mostly a road. So we opted to drive our 125 Honda Dream Scooter up to the top instead. We nearly Froze to death wearing nothing but a thin shirt and shorts when temperatures dropped to (brace yourselves) 16.5 degrees celcius. I know my friends from Saskatchewan are giving me no sympathy right now but let me tell you this when you drop 25-30 degrees in any climate your body will notice. Ouch! That was Cold. We got to the top of Thailand 2575 metres. I drank some delicious and locally grown Coffee and headed home. We stopped along the way for a bite to eat and watched night fall on us. Upon getting back on the bike we found our headlight to be burned out. I stopped at every gas station along the way and tried to get a bulb through mimeing broken thai and broken english and found out that my desired product waited for me only at my final destination, Chiang Mai. "Mai pen Rai", I said, "I will just put a small LED headlamp on my helmet and follow a car or another motorcycle." When you don't have a headlight the scariest thing isn't not being able to see people but, rather, them not seeing you. This was the cause of our near demise. People driving and running accross the road immediately after a car has passed. What they didn't account for was the small motorcycle with no light carrying two passengers. I recall asking Christine: " Who do you think would be at fault in an accident like that? The guy driving a motorcycle at night on the highway with no headlight or the guy driving the wrong way down the shoulder and cutting accross three lanes of traffic? I would rather not be around to find that debate out the hard way. We got home sucessfully and enjoyed a large Singha and a cheesy Thai "B" grade movie at the theatre with funny mistranslations in the subtitles and gratuitous Bikini scenes.