Hi, all.
My last travelogue went out 3 weeks ago, so be prepared for a very long update. But, you're in luck. I smashed my pda recently, and since it contained my journals, I have to describe the first two weeks from memory, so not so much detail. :) Fortunately, I backed up my pda right before it got destroyed.
When I last wrote, I was in Bangkok and had started exploring Thailand.
Friday, 7/11
Hung out with friends in Bangkok.
Saturday, 7/12 to Monday, 7/14
This was a 3-day weekend in Bangkok. I stuck around Bangkok to hang around with friends. Unfortunately, everything went wrong this weekend. Plans fell through, people became unavailable, and I spent the whole weekend bored. Bored in Bangkok. That was a first. Towards the end, I was so frustrated I just decided to go out to the bars and meet some people there. Foiled again--all the bars were closed for the holidays. I did end up meeting some people in the end, so at least Monday night went well.
Tuesday, 7/15
Komsan showed me around some of the places I had not yet seen in Bangkok. Wat Arun (which was very cool), a little park by the river, a simple little restaurant on a pier on the river. All in all, a very enjoyable day.
Wednesday, 7/16
I took the train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai--the biggest city in the north of Thailand. When I got checked in to a hotel, I met Nui--someone I met online. He works as a bartender, so his days are free.
Thursday, 7/17 to Sunday, 7/20
Nui took me around Chiang Mai and some of the surrounding area on his motorbike. We went to some lakes where we had lunch in little bamboo pavilions, where we sat on mats while eating. On one of these trips we met some of his friends and ate, swam, and generally goofed around. We even had chicken fights in the water, which I hadn't done since childhood. (For those not familiar with this sport, it involves pairs of people fighting against each other in the water. In each pair, one sits on the other's shoulders. the job of the guy on top is to knock the other guy down. In our case each pair consisted of a white guy carrying a Thai guy, since David and I were much larger than Nui and Wha. Of course, Nui and I kicked their asses.) When we were having lunch, Nui asked me what I wanted. I made the mistake of saying "surprise me". (For those on this list for whom English is a second language, this phrase means "you choose for me--anything is fine".) Well, I was surprised. When the lid was taken off the first dish, it jumped out of the bowl. It was a shrimp salad where the little shrimp were still alive and jumping. It didn't taste bad. I was more grossed out by the fact that the shrimp were whole than than they were alive. Then next dish was pig liver, which wasn't too bad for liver. The fish was a bit more normal--head, scales and all.
We ended up dancing at a couple of different places over the weekend: Bubble which was a rather formulaic dance club catering to tourists and Nice Illusions which was a much louder, hipper club with a much harder edge. The DJ was OK, but the live band was great. If you didn't have to scream directly into people's ears to be heard, it would have been great.
I even ended up bowling--twice.
Monday, 7/21
I signed up for a tour to do all of the obligatory Chiang Mai activities--hill tribe village, elephant ride, and bamboo rafting. It was agony going with other tourists. The were pissed that this trek actually involved hiking up a hill. They were all told that it didn't, and that they should wear sandals for the rafting portion.
The hill tribe villages were, of course, nothing but gift shops.
When we got to the elephant riding portion, I was the only one who actually sat on the elephant rather than the seat on its back. It was a bit hard to hold on. I bought my first souvenir--a picture of me on the elephant. It was a pretty good picture.
Side note: I decided early on not to buy souvenirs on this trip, so don't be pissed when you don't get anything when I get back.
We went to a pretty cool waterfall, where I slipped on a rock and landed on my PDA, smashing the LCD. Since we were there for a while, I took everything out of my pockets and played under the waterfall and used the slippery rocks as a waterslide. Very cool. Nobody else seemed interested--even those who put on bathing suits. A really dead group of people.
On the bamboo rafting portion of the trip, I got to be the punter in the back of the raft. Going through some rapids, water came over, the raft twisted, and I fell off. I whacked my knee on a rock--I felt that for a few days. I was the only person who fell off a raft.
When I got back, Nui and I went PDA shopping (no luck) and had dinner at a nice restaurant by the river.
Tuesday, 7/22
Hung out with Nui before heading to the train station to go back to Bangkok. We relaxed by the lake. It was a mad dash to the train station, as another bout of travellers' diarrhea kicked in. One cipro and it was gone. The night train was quite nice.
Wednesday, 7/23
Hung out with Komsan and planned to go to Ko Samui with him. We saw the movie 28 Days Later. $2.50 to see a movie--and you get to choose your seat when you buy the ticket.
Thursday, 7/24
Hung out for friends and packed for the trip.
Friday, 7/25
Komsan and I took the train, bus, and ferry to Ko Samui. We got there after 9:00, which made finding lodging difficult. We were not in good spirits when we finally got to sleep.
Saturday, 7/26
Komsan and I found a new bungalow off the beach, hung out on the beach, swam, and had dinner on the beach.
We decided to explore the Samui night life. Man, was that depressing. The dance clubs were dead, so we ended up at a drag show, or as they are called in Thailand, a "caberet". That was the most lackluster drag show I have ever seen. It looked like it was trying to be Vegas. It succeeded in being plastic, but not in being glamorous. It was obviously packaged for a straight audience, which was pretty much all that was there. Before the show started, it looked like a strip club, but none of the performers where really women. I had never seen THAT before, and I hope I never do again.
I got bored there, so we went back to a dance club. Picture a large dance floor full of tourists who can't dance. Now I know how I must look when I dance. Scary. The music sucked, and the atmosphere was pretty lame. We didn't stay there long. Not much else to do in Samui, so we went to the bungalow and fell asleep to the pounding techno bass line.
I should mention that on Ko Samui, almost no one there is Thai. All the tourists are white. I was not the one that stood out--Komsan was.
Sunday, 7/27
We decided Ko Samui was lame and headed to the neighboring island of Ko Pha Ngan. We were told there was going to be a full moon party the next night. The island is famous world wide for it. It is a big beach party rave, generally full of drug heads. If we had an almanac, we could have seen that the full moon was not for two weeks.
We stayed at a quiet beach in a little cove. Our bungalow was very nice ($5 US) and sat on a cliff over the ocean and overlooked the beach. I thought it was great, but Komsan thought it was too quiet. We decided to head to the distant island of Phuket the next day.
We went snorkelling, which although not great, was quite fun. We watched the sun set from a rocky outcropping and had dinner on the beach. Afterwards, we got a bottle of rum and drank it on the porch of our bungalow, alternating between who got to sit in the hammock. We just sat and talked all night. A great night.
Monday, 7/28
We were going to take the 9:30 taxi to the ferry pier for the 10:00 ferry to the mainland. The taxi was 10 minutes late--we got to the pier just after they finished boarding. We missed it by a minute. I was SO pissed. The next boat was in 3 hours. That meant getting to Phuket late at night. Sadly, it was decided that we would stay on Ko Pha Ngan another night and then head back to Bangkok the next day. I was depressed.
We went to the main beach on the island and found another bungalow in the hills overlooking the beach. We played games in the sand--tic tac toe, connect four, othello. (Othello was tricky in sand.) It was surprisingly fun and brought up our spirits. We went snorkelling, but saw nothing.
Once again, we spent the evening drinking a bottle of rum on the porch. There was a rain storm going on at the time, which was pretty cool. A REALLY loud thunder clap startled me so bad that my chair leg slipped through the boards and I fell over. We laughed over that for quite a while.
We went for dinner where I introduced Komsan to lamb chops and Long Island iced tea. I also tried my first B52--pretty good.
The beach front bars laid down mats on the beach around fire pits for the "Black Moon Party"--not the Full Moon Party. It was ok, but not real lively.
Tuesday, 7/29
We took the ferry off the island, and a bus to the train station. We had 3 hours to kill before our night train left. We had a liesurely dinner in a little restaurant chosen because the clientel was Asian and not white. (For a restuarant in Asia a purely white clientel is a bad sign.) I had black eggs for the first time. Kind of odd, but not bad. Eggs pickled until the yolk becomes black and the whites are a translucent black.
After dinner, we got yet another bottle of rum and drank it at a street side cafe. I got a deck of cards for the train ride.
At the last minute I decided that we would go first class. We had a little compartment to ourselves, which was pretty cool. We played cards all night. When he commented on my shuffling skills, I joknigly asked if he had been a dealer in a casino. He had. He taught me the game he dealt, which I had never seen before. I taught him black jack, which he had never seen before. He won all of my pocket change before we quit. It was a hilariously fun night of cards. The rum didn't hurt.
Wednesday, 7/30
We woke up and got off the train in Bangkok, taking separate taxis home. Mine tried to rip me off.
I hung out with Jak and saw the new Tomb Raider movie. Wait for the DVD.
Thursday, 7/31
While having lunch, I got a call from Thien in Vietnam. It was great to hear from him again.
I went to the internet and chatted with a bunch of people. Seemed like everyone I knew in India was online today.
I met several groups of friends at a bar in Bangkok and we all ended up in a dance club later.
And today, my friend Nui is coming down from Chiang Mai to visit in Bangkok.
Well, that about wraps it up. Tune in next time and find out which country I visit next. It's a surprise! It was not on my original itinerary.
Best wishes,
Sidney
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