Long Journey Into the Night

I recently arrived back in my village after two weeks on the lamb and had only been back for three days when I got a phone call from a friend of mine living in the south. She was trying to talk me into going up to Chiang Mai for Halloween because heaps of our friends were meeting there to dress up and celebrate the great American holiday. I was certain she wasn't going to be able to convince me after having just gotten back from an excellent trip but near the end of our conversation she said something that entered my brain like an earthworm buries itself in the dirt. She goes, "You'll regret it if you don't go." Two days later I found myself on a city bus heading down to Ubon Ratchathani. Here starts my journey.

10/30/09

At about 9:30am, I jumped on the rickety, always noisy, wooden floor bus from the main city in my area down to the biggest city in my province, Ubon Ratchathani. A friend of mine who lives in the city reserved me a ticket on what is apparently the longest bus in Thailand. I arrived in Ubon around noon and waited only a half hour for my bus to arrive.

Now, I know what it must seem like, the longest bus in Thailand, 18 hours in a chair, rough rural roads, but I'm so used to it now after almost two years of living here, all the buses are the same. Whether I take a two hour pick-up truck, a five hour tour bus, a ten hour minivan, an 18 hour over-night, the variables associated with traveling through Thailand even all rides out in the end. For example, I'm tall here, like...megatron tall, so no matter what I ride in, it's almost always going to feel tight.

I read and slept the 18 hours away and arrived in Chiang Mai at about 6:30 am, Halloween morning.

10/31/09

Chiang Mai is beautiful city, save for the air pollution. It sits at the crossroads of all major antiquity caravan routes originating in China and ending in Myanmar. Because of it's strategic location in the hills of northern Thailand, ancient Chiang Mai was completely surrounded by a moat and city wall. The moat remains but only remnants of the wall still stand. Nonetheless, Chiang Mai retains a character unlike any other city I've seen in Thailand, save for the air pollution.

I checked into my guest house on the east side of the city wall and set off for breakfast. One nice thing about Chiang Mai is how easily walkable the city is, save for the air pollution. You can get anywhere in and around the walled city center by foot, which garners it extra points on my personal "Cool City" scale (to give you some comparison, Sydney, Australia has the highest score on my Cool City scale).

I set up shop at a place called Art Cafe just south of my guest house but still near the east wall. Art Cafe sits on a corner of a busy intersection across the street from one of the main city gates, making it an excellent location for people watching. Now, I've been to Bangkok countless times and I've also visited other tourist destinations within Thailand but nothing prepared me for the alienness of Chiang Mai. It's like I entered a different country - and I very well could have with how long my bus ride was - but I was definitely still in Thailand. Back in my village, I am the only white person for miles and all of my communication is in Thai or Laos. I saw more white faces on that particular street corner than I have anywhere else in my time here in Thailand. The languages they were speaking were also indiscernible. I could feel myself beginning to breathe heavy, my temperature was rising, and I felt very jittery. I was experiencing what I would describe as "inverse culture shock." What I mean by this is, I have been living here so long that, even though I'm not Thai, I feel more like a local than I do a foreigner. Once I started seeing the influx of tourists, my anxiety level rose dramatically and I had to calm myself down with a little controlled breathing. After about an hour, I was able to convince myself that it was still Thailand and that the whole city would be the same; enjoy it for what it is.

Volunteers showed up in pairs and by night fall, we numbered in the twenties. Everyone dressed up and we held a party in the courtyard of the guest house I was staying at before hitting the night scene. My costume was Where's Waldo, red and white striped shirt, red and white hat, black rimmed glasses, and sneaky hiding places in pictures - my friends have a bunch of pictures with me poking my head out in the background. The other costumes were all very well done. We had a tree, a masquerade, Lady Gaga, a pumpkin, and other random things. After pre-gaming at the guest house we moved on to a bar in the city called Cafe Del Sol. All I can say is, I don't remember much after grabbing the microphone from the stage to sing, "Billy Jean." We had a great Halloween.

11/1/09

Art Cafe, I was soon to find out, is the most popular breakfast spot for the volunteers. A group of us met up there to recuperate over cups of coffee and breakfast burritos. After breakfast, a few of us decided to get a massage. This was however, not your typical massage. I followed the group to the Chiang Mai Woman's Correctional Facility. Yeah, we got convict massages! The story goes, these women have served almost their entire sentence and so to better prepare them for the outside world, the Thai government lets them practice a trade, in this case Thai massage, before being released. I got one of the best massages I've ever had but unfortunately didn't land any phone numbers.

I slept the day away in my room and woke up with time for a run. My friend and I ran laps around a stadium north of the city - I'm currently training for a marathon which I will run on November 22nd. In the evening the same friend and I went shopping at the night market outside the city. I picked up a couple shirts and a wool hat that would have cost me $30 in the states but only cost me $2.50 here. I crashed hard once we made it back.

11/2/09

It's a Full moon: Thais are celebrating. Loi Kratong is a holiday in Thailand, my favorite holiday as a matter of fact, in which the Thai people make little boats out of banana tree trunks and leaves, flowers, candles, and inscents and float them down rivers or in canals, really anywhere there's water. From what I understand, the symbolism is that the person doing the floating is appeasing the water spirits and asking for "mother water" to cleanse the body of bad karma. This may not be the academic definition, but it's close. The reason I like Loi Kratong is simply because it doesn't involve copious amounts of alcohol. Thai holidays can get crazy but Loi Kratong is much more laid back, chill, and relaxed than most.

Specifically in Chiang Mai the Thai's float lanterns made of paper into the sky for the same reason mentioned above. The sight is truly amazing, watching the sky fill with hundreds of glowing orbs. The only word I can use to describe the scene is, magical. A group of about ten friends and I sat up on the rooftop of a bar that overlooks the city. We were able to watch the sky fill with lanterns for about three hours while listening to reggae, drum and bass, and dub music. After the bar, some people split up to watch the chaotic scene down by the river and the rest of us ate burgers before crashing out.

11/3/09

In the morning I went straight to the bus station where I boarded a bus that terminated in a rural town where my friend Cameron lives. He's about three hours southwest of Chiang Mai (Lii). He lives in a high, flat valley surrounded on all sides by mountains. We walked around his village, went for a run, and relaxed with a couple glasses of whiskey before eating dinner and crashing out. Nothing crazy.

11/4/09

I left Cameron's village early in the morning just as the morning rain let up. My next stop was farther west yet, near the boarder of Burma. In the main city of Lii, I met two Monks that were headed in the same direction I was headed and so for the next four hours, I proceeded to hitchhike with these monks until our paths no longer continued in the same direction. One thing to note about our on again off again transportation: while walking down a desolate but beautiful mountain pass, I asked the older monk if he thought we should hail a car. Prior to this we had just allowed the vehicles to pass. His answer was simple, "If someone wants to stop, then we will take the ride." I thought that a very Buddhist thing to say and I allowed my inner spirits to absorb the idea for...oh...about five more cars, until finally I waved one down and we were picked up. Patience Tony, patience.

I finally made it to Mae Sariang by about 3:00 and checked into my guest house. I changed my clothes and went for a run up a big hill to check out the view, which overlooked rice fields, rivers, cityscape, and mountains. It was very pleasant indeed. That night I talked to some NGO workers helping with Burmese refugees but they were uninteresting and actually very dull so I hit the sack early.

11/5/09

The pickup truck ride from Mae Sariang to my friend Peter's village is a five hour snake, up and down, left and right, near upside down ride between two mountain ranges which separate Burma from Thailand. I passed the time by watching the view weave it's way by. I finally reached his place but nothing could prepare me for what it looked like.

The Karen people are ethnically mountain folk who live in the hills which straddle Burma and Thailand. To make a long story short, the Burmese Junta and Karen people don't get along. Thailand has lent support for these people but only as refugees. As a result, the boarder between these two countries is littered with refugee camps (a total of seven in all from what I've been told). The largest refugee camp, which contains approximately 40,000+ people - there's no real way to count - is only about 10 kilometers from Peter's village. The site is incredible. Words, nor pictures, cannot do this Swiss Family Robinson-style land grab justice. The Karen people have built their houses on rolling valley hills out of bamboo and tree leaves, sunk in behind a mountain vista of sheer cliffs that loom over the people like a barrier to freedom. The west side is guarded by the main road that connects Mae Sot and Mae Hong Son and the east side is blocked off by impassable mountains that seem to reach the sky. We walked along the road and I couldn't help but stare in awe of the huts that litter the landscape.

Within Peter's village are Karen people who are nationally Thai. They smoke these huge cigarettes that look like stogie cigars and wear colorfully decorated clothes with tassels and fringes. They are short people, even shorter than Thais, but smile just as often. After dark, Peter and I had a couple of beers with his neighbor and I was able to learn a little about the history of Karen clothing. Once it got late, Peter and I headed back home and went to bed.

11/6/09

TODAY! I'm caught up with my blog. Well, at least until tomorrow, right?

I'm currently sitting at an internet cafe in Mae Sot, a boarder town near the southwestern part of northern Thailand. I came down here to shop for souvenirs and eat foreign food - there's a strong foreign community all along this boarder due to the refugee camps. Who knows what's next, but I'll be sure to blog it all.