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