Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Chiang Mai
Anyway, we decided to go north to Chiang at the time we did to participate in the Loi Krathong Festival. The quick rundown of the festival is: We all have bad emotions that manifest themselves inside of us as demons. These demons need to be let out, but only inspecific ways or else it will be bad for us and everybody else. (See:Sarah Palin) Apparently demons abhor pretty flowers wrapped in incensed banana leaves. Can't stand em. Hate them so much, in fact,that when one lets one of these silver bullets go in the river, the demons fly out of you with such abandon that you enter a state of purifying bliss. And you get to clog up the river with banana leaves at the same time! Win, Win!
Chiang Mai's festival is also famous for releasing wire-framed cylindrical paper lamps. Its simple: Take a kerosene coil, attach it to aforementioned lamp. Light the coil, wait for the noxious gas to build up inside the lamp until it becomes airborne, and Poof! You've got a beautiful, glowing, flying environmental hazard! How magical! But wait, where does that fireball land? Not here, you say? Goodenough for me!
Oh I wish we could do this five nights in a row, and throw in fireworks for good measure? Wait, you've not only got fireworks, but noisemakers? Ok, I've 'heard' those dinky things they sell in the States called 'noisemakers'. I want real, loud, "I think the hotel's been bombed at 4 am" noisemakers. You've got those too? Great, I'll take a gross. But wait one more goddamned second, surely there have to be legal restrictions. Noise ordinances, disturbing the peace, etc.
Oh, they've been lifted for the festival, and the boys in blue have been seen setting off fireworks on duty? Bingo Bango Bongo I love this town.
I'm really not that cynical about the Loi Krathong Festival. It was magical and romantic for Meghan and I. We had a blast. However, we did run into a landed lamp about 50Km away on our elephant trek a few days later. No doubt there were a few animal casualties caused by all of that magic.
Meghan got a head cold after about 5 days in Chiang Mai, so we had to postpone our trip to the Buddhist farm. So, with Meghan tucked into bed watching a dubbed 17 Again, I went off looking for some trouble. Look no further than the moped rental agency, young man. I'd never ridden a moped or motorbike in real life, but kicked butt in MotoCross on Nintendo, and that chick from Miami was always riding that thing all over campus in college. How hard could it be? I'd soon find out. It went something like this:
Me: How much for a moto for the day?
Lady: 100 Baht (3 bucks)
Me: OK
Lady: You ride before?
Me: Never.
Lady: Here go (revs throttle)
Here stop (squeezes brake)
Here start (points to key)
OK bye bye
And off I go onto the busiest street in the city. By busy, I mean no traffic lights, no stop signs, no land dividers, cars, trucks, buses, tuk tuks (big motorized tricycles with seats on the back two wheels),motos, and pedestrians and vying for about 2 lanes worth of space. But hey, at least its a boulevard.
OK, OK, I can do this. I drive my 50cc a few blocks, holding my sliver of the road, getting dirty looks from tuk tuks and getting passed by small children on more powerful engines, but hey, I'm really doin' it! OK OK but don't get too over-confident, Matt. Let's try to take some turns at an intersection. So I pull off on a side street and arrive at a 4-way stop.
OK, right turn. Easy enough.
As I make the turn I actually have a detached view of my synapses arguing:
Old, seasoned authoritative driving synapses: Right turn into right lane.
New, pip squeek Thai driving synapses: No, left lane in Thailand, dummy!
Old, seasoned authoritative driving synapses: Listen, you, I know what I'm doing. 12 years of driving experience talking.
New, pip squeek Thai driving synapses: NO! 0 days in Thailand, you fool! Get in the left lane!
Old, seasoned authoritative driving synapses: Oh shit you're right! Abort turn, just go straight!
New, pip squeek Thai driving synapses: You're going straight, but still into the right lane you idjeeut!
Old, seasoned authoritative driving synapses: Screw this, I'm out of here. (Enter Jessica Rabbit into stream of consciousness.)
SCREECH! SLIDE! SCRAPE!
No major bones broken. Legs still intact. OK I think I'm alright. Just a minor scratch on my toe and a loose side mirror. Confidence...drained. Ego...shrunk. People I know in the city...0. No witnesses to tell my friends.
OK, back at it then. Left lane, moron. Left lane.
So after the little incident at a major intersection in Chiang Mai, I took a little more time getting used to the new force between my legs. Never a bad thing. And, after several somewhat shaky but incident-free turns, I made my way out of town.
On the way to Chiang Mai
OK so its been a while since I've emailed and a lot has happened. So, where'd I leave off? Bangkok. Right. Wow, that was a lifetime ago. So we never went to the Thai island, opting instead to head north and stop at a few places along the way. First stop was Ayutthaya. About 100km north of the capital, Ayutthaya boasts stunning Khmer-style ruins and an amazing inner-island. The city is well over 600 years old and was the seat of the Siamese for a good long while. Anyway, Meghan and I took a bus there and met a Belgian couple along the way. We spent the evening together taking a boat tour of the city, and stopping at ruins and temples (wats). The night market was our disembarkation point and a tasty Padthai was fried up for about 60 cents. Noodles, veggies. Sprouts, Nuts. Yum. Meghan and I rented bikes the next day and toured the city. Sweltering heat, but no matter, we're fresh packers and can handle a little perspiration.
The next day we got to the train station to head for Lopburi. 13 Baht for a 90 minute train ride. That is 35 cents, people. We were so proud of our travel prowess until the train rolled up overflowing with human flesh. Hot, sticky, grabby, dirty human flesh! But not the sexy kind. The kind that is trying to sell dried fish and lukewarm soda to the heaping masses. It was a long hour and a half to say the least.
But we successfully made our way to Lopburi, the land of monkeys! Hot, sticky, grabby, dirty monkeys! And what a relief they were! As legend goes, a band of monkeys came in from the surrounding forest and set up shop in some temple ruins. Then they mated. And they mated some more. More mating occurred. Probably some buttscratching/sniffing to break up the monotony. Then back to the coitus! After a few generations of hot libido action, there were nearly more monkeys than people. And the people, being good Buddhists, couldn't bring themselves to killing the buggers off. So, they basically gave them the block of the city containing the ruins. You pay about 50 cents to get into the temple area and are immediately overwhelmed by an attack from air and land. Big and small macaques barraging you from all directions, using all their limbs to climb all your limbs for no other seeming purpose than to eat your hair. Cute! And getting them off is a world of pain. Swinging wildly is an understated way of describing my actions. Somehow, these flea-biters just think I've become a living merry-go-round, and as soon as I've flung one off, 2 have jumped back on. At first I felt bad for the babies. But after a few harried minutes of this monkey business, I was using the smaller ones as cannon fodder for the more pugnacious among the aggressors. A lessor soul might have been more craven, and alas, many a Chinese girl was humbled and humiliated that day, but I: I, my friends, showed the monkey a thing or two about what it is to be a Lyon. By the end of it, I was using butt munchers as javelins. I took home the gold for Monkey Toss.
What is that saying about "If you give a mouse a cookie?" Well, if you give a monkey a temple, it will want a city. The temple has the majority of the monkeys, but the surrounding city blocks are also crawling with simians. They hang from the power lines like urban vines. They inhabit rooftops like treetops. They use phone booths to make mating calls. They even wait for cars to stop to cross the street like....well there's no real jungle analogy for that, is there? They cross the street like flipping pedestrians! We have pictures to prove it!
After we'd had our fill of monkeying around, we soaked up some internet rays, then headed to the night market for grub and our first of many encounters with urban elephants. Just walking around, eating bananas out of tourists' hands. Master in tow, of course.
Well, Lopburi was merely an action-packed day stop and that evening, we hopped an overnight train to Chiang Mai, the capital of Thailand's North.
In the beginning...
Flew into Tokyo last Wednesday after leaving Tuesday. Flights were good, Yusuke Asakura of SHC fame picked us up at the airport. Went to Akihabara, which is a crazy Electric Town. Stories upon stories, buildings upon buildings, bazaars upon bazaars of electronics and accessories. It is nuts on a grand scale. Estimated at 35 million for Tokyo and its burbs, the city puts everything in America to shame. Like humiliating, cry in your soup shame. Spent the next day sightseeing, typical tourist stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary if illegible writing, hoards of Asians, urban shrines, lights so bright midnight feels like noon, pachinko parlors, screaming sushi chefs, short-skirted schoolgirls, smoking businessmen, and the most crowded and complex train system these Alabama eyes have ever seen is ordinary. And chopsticks.
What a blast.
The next day, after Meghan got bit by 'Tiger Mosquitoes'--an insect of questionable existence--the 3 of us headed to Nikko, the Japanese town of shrines. The motto is 'Nikko is Nippon'. Maybe. A little too many folks with cameras for my taste. But hey, I was one of them. And at least we were nearly the only Westerners. Beautifully crafted shrines and temples. It is the home of the Shogun warriors, sworn to protect the people of Japan. I felt like I was in Ninja Scroll. Some really interesting prayer rooms and legends surround the area and I was happy to have a translator. We will miss YuCrunk.
After sleeping in a forest lodge run by a monk, we went back to Tokyo and Meghan and I met up with John Alexander of Fairhope/Prague lore. John is a man of all cities, so to speak. A chameleon of a man, yet he keeps his roots. He and his Japanese fiancee (congrats!) take us to what else but Karaoke. And what a time it is! So much better than American. You have your own soundproof room to belt your heart out. We ran the gamut. The Doors, Sir Mixalot, Alan Jackson, Limp Bizkit, B-52s, Weezer, Biggie Smalls, Ricky Martin, and some Japanese flavor to name a few. I was way hoarse, but no complaints here! Then on to the hipster barrio for a little shisha hookah action. Nice hippie Japanese folk. Grateful Dead as we arrived, turned into some Phishy noise as the hours turned wee. Strange juxtaposition, but an absurd laughable life this is anyway! Then to an Andy Warhol-inspired bar with surfing movies playing projection stylee.
The next day, John and Maiko took us to an art festival on the outskirts of the city, off Tokyo Bay. Nutso bananas. Everything from traditional Japanese art to anime, photography, light art, performance art, live music, interactive art, bondage, artists painting as it happens, robot art, zombies, video games, sex art, minimalist, abstract, post-modern, terror, death baby dolls, and Hello Kitty.
We came and left with a subway with no human controller. A 30 minute ride between skyscrapers with no visible hand at the wheel. The urban jungle is growing a brain.
This morning we said our goodbyes to Yusuke, a wonderful host!!!!! Thanks so much you made our time in Japan unforgettable!
Now in Bangkok. Near Khaosan Road. Overrun with Westerners, but at least they're of the groovy laid back ilk, and not a bunch of people from Birmingham. I hate Birmingham. Just stuffed ourselves with $1.50 amazing Thai food and about to plan the next few days before heading to a Thai island perhaps? Or maybe a national forest? We shall see! I hope all is well in the States. We are doing well, although it is near 90 degrees with no A/C. Maybe a week will get us right.
If you've been to the region, let me know, I'd love to hear some stories/suggestions!
Good luck and good spirits!
Well, look who came crawling back to blogspot.
They are of my current 6 month trip around South East Asia. Enjoy. Or don't. Go back to refreshing your facebook news feed, then.
