Oh, man this place is rediculous. Every single human need is taken care of. I'm going to go nuts if something bad doesn't happen soon. My typical day in Chiang Mai consists of waking up at 10, getting a full "American" breakfast with "hilltribe" coffee for $2 while reading the Bangkok Post, hanging out in a shady jungle-filled courtyard with the expats until it gets hot enough to walk next door and get a full hour massage for $3, reading until it gets dark enough to start drinking, and then drink the bars closed. Even sex is available if you can't find it for free. It's awful. Life is SO easy here I can't stand it.

So I took one of those three day touristy treks that "follow the path of hilltribe villiages to experience the ancient culture of Thailand," or some crap like that. I guess I've been walking through stall after stall after stall of people trying to get me to buy the Elephant Safari trek or the "See the Longneck Tribal people" trek everywhere I turn. You can't even take a shit here without looking up to see a poster selling treks. Needless to say, I wasn't expecting much when I was able to bargain the price down to just over $30 for the three days, and the guy said something like "onry eight peopor, six girls! Ha ha ha, vely goo!" Which turned out to be 25 people, mostly couples.

But at night when most of the group went to sleep, I found myself sitting around a camp fire on the balcony of a bamboo hut at the top of a mountain overlooking deep jungle hills as far as I could see. The people who lived with the villiage and tour company came out then, not because it was part of the brochure, but because there's abolutely shit to do in the jungle at night. Before I knew it, one Thai guy wearing a tie-dye orange shirt and a Jimi Henrix headband and another guy wearing a Vietnam-era US military outfit were playing Niel Young on two guitars and a drum they brought out. Then the whiskey started flowing, and before we knew it we were passing guitars around to anybody who could play. They make a "whiskey" from sticky rice that's basically like a 35% strong Sake, and goes down a little too easy. Needless to say, sappy bleeding heart Vietnam-era american songs gave way to anything that's good to sing at the top of your lungs to. Basically we sat around a campfire, drinking booze and getting stoned, and sung awefully at the top of our lungs the same songs that we'd be singing in San Francisco or New York, only these people didn't speak English, and we were in the middle of the fucking Jungle.

I got back last night, a Saturday, and went Big. I guess I keep hearing the stories about the Thai girls, I decided to test the waters. The only rules are don't ever pay for sex, always use a condom, and don't end up married. We made it to Bubbles, the local "big club" at just after midnight. I guess I knew what I was getting myself into the moment I saw 80% of the people were white guys talking to thai girls. Sure enough, it took me all of 30 minutes before I found myself talking to a girl I thought was real pretty, but not pretty enough to be a whore. Far as I could tell, she wasn't a man either. Everything was going great, she had a name I could actually remember (as far as I could decipher, her name was "Two"), and she gave me the keys to her moped while I drove to my place, piss drunk, without a helmet, pretty girl knawing at my neck, in a country that drives on the left side of the road. I don't know why I spend so much time thinking about sex safety and then go do something like that. Anyway, we park the bike, walk inside, and end up completely cockblocked by the hotel staff, who have a policy of not letting Thai girls in after 9. I guess more times than not, there's money involved, and they didn't want to be associated with "that." Racists. Anyway, after the cold shower I figured I'd accomplished my goal anyway, to see if I could pick up a pretty girl at a sleezy club and not pay a dime for sex. The sex part is the most dangerous part of the task, save for the drive over there, and I was so piss drunk I wouldn't have remembered much anyway. Besides, now I can go back to Ayuthaya for that. Good enough for me. Check.

Off to Pai,

-andrew

Breaking in

It's a strange feeling to sit on the intersection of two lifestyles. For me, anyway, it took four days before I was finally able to accept the fact that I have nowhere to be for the next 9 months. Bangkok wasn't more than a stopover I guess. I did the usual thing: got lost in the markets, had a LEGITIMATE thai massage, and watched girls pull feather boas out of their twats (I lasted all of 5 minutes before making a b-line for a real bar), but I guess what did it was finally leaving town.
Ayuthaya is a semi-major city about 80 km north of Bangkok, that 1300 years ago served as the seat of the Thai empire. As a show of wealth and power, the Thais built a large rectangular moat around the intersection of (2 or 3?) rivers and decorated it with gigantic carved phallises surrounded by walls lined with buddhas. There were two or three fortresses I saw, with all the inner walls lined with buddhas sitting shoulder to shoulder. Thousands of them. Big ones in the middle as well, originally covered in gold. So the Burmese were so excited to finally sack the city that, to get the Thai to surrender, they systematically cut off the heads of every single buddha in the city and melted down the big ones. Talk about vengeful, this must have been the religious equivalent to salting the fields of all of Thailand. Anyone who's played Black and White knows that when you sack the temple of an opposing God, your religion points drop to next to nothing and your followers lose faith and join the opposing side. The ancient Burmese rulers must have known this trick. I'd sure like to play against them.
So I was contemplating this while taking a victory bikeride after getting to know this really pretty Danish girl, when I found myself alone in the dark among these ancient lit-up ruins all around me. The road was dark, I had no flashlight, and before I knew it I was biking for my life down the broken sidewalk as 5 rabid dogs chased after me. Apparently I had crossed into their turf. Dogs out here are a lot like the people who wander the sidewalks in Alphabet City. Most of them are poor looking for freebies, some are grossly diseased, and some are looking to start a fight. To be honest I had it coming, I biked right by this dog as he stood there barking at me, but I didn't expect all his friends go from dead asleep to dog racers so quickly. After dodging a few trees, cracks, and rocks in the dark (thank you New York City Crazy Biking School), I finally made it to a major road which, fortunately, was the end of their territory. Score so far:

Andrew: 1
Rabies: 0

Whoever chose Rabies in the "Disease that Andrew gets First" pool loses out today. Anyway, I'm finally in the swing of things. I'm up in Chiang Mai after taking the 10hour sleepless night bus. It's time to pass out. I'll find out what else I'm doing when I get there.

-andrew