After leaving Kanchanaburi, I had to return back to Bangkok for a couple of hours before I could catch my train to Chang Mai. Again I didnt see much in the way of police or protesters. Everything and everyone seemed calm and indifferent to what was going on. Obviously, it is a big city so I didnt expect to have to crawl through picket lines but I would have expected to have seen something. The only difference I saw was that there may have been slightly less tourists then before.
I got to see Wat Arun and take a boat down the river in the city before I left. These were the last of the Bangkok sites I wanted to see. I thought the picture looked like something out of Ghostbusters with the sky spinning in the background. I was waiting for Gosser to show up or at least see Rick Moranis with a Proton pack, but it was a no go.
The overnight train to Chang Mai was a sweat-fest. That was one hot train, I dont know how I managed to sleep.
Chang Mai is in the Northwest part of Thailand and is the second or third largest city in the country. The West part of the country is suppose to be heavily effected by the rainy season which Thailand is in the middle of now, but I didnt see much of that. The city would be extremely hot for most of the day and then would have maybe an hour long heavy down pour. Then the heat would resume.
The city was nice. I got to stay in the old part of town. The old part of town is in the middle of an old walled in fort that is surrounded by a moat on all sides.
The city is suppose to have almost as many temples, Wats, in it as Bangkok but is much smaller. And Bangkok has a lot of Temples. The best temple I saw was the big one on top of the hill, Doi Suthep. To get to it we had to ride in the back of pickup truck probably 20 minutes up the side of a mountain. And then when we arrived we had to walk up probably another 300 steps. The picture below was taken at the top of the temple. The people in the picture are one part the people I went with and one part random people who joined our picture. Can you tell which is which?
Fight Night Chang Mai: I went with two of the girls in the picture above. We decided to grab a drink before we went in. I went with the big bottle with the Thai label. That bad boy turned out to be 18% alcohol. Fight Night has begun.
The fight was pretty good but there was just a lot of it. It started at 7:30 and there were 13 total fights with 5 rounds each. It was a LOT of Boxing. The night starts with the Thai National Anthem and then the first couple of fights are all young kids. You probably cant tell in the picture below but the kids in the ring are probably 13 years old. And the guys standing in front of the ring are all betting on the fight. It really looked like a miniature stock exchange. People were standing on stools and yelling and holding their fingers in the air. We ended up leaving after the 10th fight at 12:30 am. We had had enough. The only knockout we saw was of a 15 year old kid. He was taken out on a stretcher and didnt look like he was getting up.
. . . . .
Trekking Chang Mai: The next morning I left for a two day, one night trek in the forest. The trek involved us being taken to see a couple of waterfalls, a 9 km hike, one night in a real village, an elephant ride, bamboo ride, and white water rafting.
The trek was a good time. They trucked us around to the different waterfalls and eventually to the spot where the hike began. By the time we had to start hiking it had begun to rain pretty heavily. The uphill incline we had to go up was covered in water rushing down hill. You had to just give in and let your shoes get soaked. It was actually pretty intense. At one point, the guide had to stop and cut bamboo walking sticks for everyone to use.The worst part was there were several parts where you had to cross through ankle deep water. And the water was always filled with leeches. The leeches werent big and fat like you are use to seeing; they were about an inch or two long and really skinny. Whenever you tried to pull them off your leg they would stick to your fingers. You had to use a leaf to get them off you completely. One guy got one stuck on his butt. After walking for a bit, one girl noticed that I had a red stain on the back of my bathing suit. She thought it was blood. So to make sure that it wasnt a giant leech I had one of girls who was a nurse take a look at it. It didnt seem to take much convincing. I asked her if she saw anything; she replied 'I just see a lot of hair.' . . And dont you forget it. Hey thats just how it works, some guys get chest hair, other guys have to shampoo their ass every morning.
Jungle Doug
Termite wake up call.
Hold on Short Round!
The village where we slept.
The crew eating our morning breakfast at the village. You know those eggs are fresh.
Apparently the trekking trips cause a lot of people to get sick. Before I even left on the trip I met a girl who told me she spent the last 5 days in a hospital in Chang Mai after getting sick on the trip. She is not sure what caused it, but just felt very ill. She said the hospital was nice and clean but the nurses didnt speak English. After a day of observation they came to hear and said the problem was with here appendix and she was going to have it taken out. The girl said she started crying and yelling 'Its not my Appendix, its not my Appendix!' After seeing the English-speaking doctor she got to agree have them run another kind of test, I forget which one. And after the additional test, it turns out it they agreed it wasnt her appendix. They released her a couple days later and now is fine.A couple of people did end up getting sick on the trip, which was actually good news for me because I got double portions at every meal. But at one of the breaks this girl just started sobbing because she felt so bad. She was nearly hysterical. She was debating whether or not to stay in the village we were in but it wouldnt have helped because she had to keep going forward to get out. She ended up continuing on but was just a mess for the rest of the trip.
Up to a week ago I hadnt been sick at all the entire trip. It wasnt until I went to a Thai-Mexican restaurant that I ended up getting extremely sick. Its funny, I traveled to the opposite end of the world, eat Thai food for a month, and get sick on Mexican food.
I am never voluntarily riding on an elephant again. For the elephant riding portion of the trip, the pictures I was shown had everyone sitting in on a basket-seat on an the elephants backs. But there was an odd number of people so someone had to ride directly on the elephant's neck. . . . Me. Those things are one bumpy ride. You just have to let your butt go numb as there giant shoulder blades grind into your butt cheeks. I have determined there is no good way to ride an elephant.
My Dutch Company made the ride a little more tolerable though.
Our Bamboo Raft. This is a picture of a picture so its a bit grainy but Im the third from the left. The white water rafting was cut short because the rain had made parts of it too dangerous. Im not too worried though I think Ill get some good rafting in New Zealand.
. . . . .
Before I left Chang Mai, I signed up to do a 5 day Meditation Retreat with some Monks on Doi Suthep. That is the temple where I had my picture taken earlier. There was a bit of a language barrier with the monk I was speaking with because I only wanted to do a couple of days for fun but some how it morphed into 5.
Here is the schedule for each day.
5:00 am Wake-Up Time
5:30 am Morning Practice
6:30 am Breakfast
8:00 am Dhamma Talk
11:00 am Lunch
3:00 pm Reporting with your teacher
6:00 pm Evening Chant
10:00 pm Sleep
Do you notice anything missing? . . . . . . . Dinner! There is no dinner. I am going to have to sneak some food in with me because I dont think this will fly for 5 days.
I had to buy two completely white outfits for the retreat and an umbrella. I think this thing is going to be much more intense then I initially anticipated, but it still should be interesting.
. . . . .
Pai is a very, very dangerous place.
Everywhere you go in Thailand you see Westerners who got lost along the way. You see young guys who are living on the islands as SCUBA instructors and old men who look like they have been there since the 60s. The most common character you see is the 'Sex-pat', expatriated Westerners who come here and live here for the sex trade. These are the guys who you see at the bars with their 'Thai daughters.' They are everywhere and they freak me out a bit. But the reason I think Pai is so dangerous is because of all the places I have been so far I could see myself getting stuck here.Pai is a quite beautiful town right off a river. It is surrounded by mountains and is full of laid-back young people all just hanging out. I split my room with a guy I met from CA. I paid 50 Baht total for one night. That is just under $1.5 for a night. Tempting . . . . .
