Sunday, December 24th, 2006
Bangkok to Chang Mai, Thailand

Part I

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again;
we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life."
~Jack Kerouac

It took a little over 8 weeks. A round trip from Bangkok, north through Thailand, across Laos, down Vietnam, into Cambodia and back. Moving through climates of warm to hot, by train, bus, slow boat, tuk-tuk, motorcycle, elephant, van, and flip-flop. We stopped in little mountain villages, backwater halfway stops, luxurious suites, hectic capitals and everything in between. We laughed with locals with no language in common, we scratched our heads at the process of southeast Asian border transfers, ate spicy foods that brought torrents of tears from our virgin eyes, doped up on cheap beer and malaria pills with new found friends that shared an experience that caps off a life changing year of travel.

And only now, sitting in a little bungalow over looking the ocean in Ko Lanta, Thailand, resting our battered bodies in anticipation of Christmas and New Years, that I have the peace of mind and time to try to remember it all. It's all probably too much to write in one entry... I tried once in a little town in Laos, to catch up on the time that had passed since Australia, but after a couple Beer Laos, and five pages of text, I had yet to escape Bangkok, so here's an attempt at take 2 of a month and a half of travel that seems to have lasted years.

And so begins Act Two. A journey through the hearts and minds of two twits from Canada. A journey that began on an oppressively hot and steamy night in Bangkok on October 11th or 12th depending on what clock you go by. After a slightly lagging flight from Brisbane, we arrived, slightly drunk on a selection of fine Thai brews, into chaos.

Bangkok is everything we'd read about. It's beautiful. It's different. It's filled with bewildered visitors, and welcoming locals. And it's a zoo to walk into at eleven o'clock armed with little more than an outdated, dog eared copy of Lonely Planet's take on Thailand. Of course there had been some investigation through the magic of internet and non-digital booklets, but it was confusing all the same. Within seconds of stepping out of the air conditioned terminal, into the ever present wall of humidity, we were descended upon by the sea of touts. “You want taxi? You want taxi!?” “Uhh.. no we're waiting for friends..” “who the hell should we trust here?”.

After standing around with a stunned look on our faces for a couple minutes, we finally decided on a cab that seemed half way official, and got him to turn on the meter. Yes, the meter my good man, we're not falling for any of your tricks, we're well informed travellers. You think a couple of savy gents like us are about to get suckered into an overinflated pre-arranged price? No sir. Needless to say we got ripped off. But he was a decent fellow, and we got to our destination with out hassle.

Enter Kohsan Road. The capital of tourist Bangkok. A small stretch of road that accommodates 95% of tourists arriving in the capital, equal parts Times Square, Chinatown and Amusement Park. Stepping out of our cab, we were thrust right into the middle of it. Not the most hectic part of Southeast Asia that we'd encounter, but a great introduction to the customs and insanity that we'd halfway prepared for. Right in front of you there's the Hungry Jacks (Burger King elsewhere in the world) competing for customers with the Pad Thai carts. Over there there's a man selling a zippo lighter the size of your head (yes, of course I bought one, and have continued to lug the stupid thing around with me ever since). Beside him there's the guy selling artwork, and the guy selling a rubber penis that you throw at the ground, to watch in amazement as it transforms from flat splat back to glorious rubber penis. And everywhere you turn there's the women with the wooden frogs. Here a wooden frog, there a wooden frog, no I don't want a fuckin' wooden frog. (But I will buy one of your wonderful leather bracelets). And then there's the rest of the mob that fills every chair, stall or possible exit. The sixty year old man from London and his eighteen year old Thai girlfriend. The lady boys and boyly girls. And the two white guys, with no place to stay, sweating under 80 pound packs.

Both eager and scared to jump in head first, we waded and waddled through the crowd, scrambling to find a place of lodging at, oh.. let's say midnightish. We settled on The Kohsan Palace, which seemed to lack any tell tale signs of your current, or latter day, palace. But it was a couple of border line clean beds, had a hot(ish) shower, and was right in the middle of Kohsan, and therefore the shortest possible distance we had to walk. We even splurged and treated ourselves to air conditioning at a wallet ringing $12 CDN all in. And looking back, that place shared the distinction of being the worst, yet most expensive, room we would book in over 8 weeks of moving about. Perhaps a slight exaggeration, as there were a couple exceptions that took the take on both ends of the scale, but they deserve their own spot many pages down the road.

After a couple of showers, we emerged from our air conditioned room, back into the buzz of Kohsan Rd. And back into the humidity. Impressive really, that people live in this weather. Even at night it's too hot. And we're here in the Cold Season. Fuck me. I know many people will say the true Bangkok experience, includes an expressively hot, cramped stay in a $6 room, but I've had that experience before in different parts of the world, and I'd prefer to avoid it whenever humanly possible. And we saw the look of death on the faces of friends trying to cope with said experience, so yeah, that will be a big pass. Thank you kindly. So we constantly tested our bodies and immune systems by jumping from climate extremes. There was a brief experiment with a personal climate bubble to avoid this inconvenience, but it ended horribly when our friend Marshal Bentweather's bubble was snagged by a tuk-tuk, never to be seen again.

So, our first night in the Land of Smiles was brief. We did a quick walk up and down Kohsan, avoided all contact with the street merchants and temptations of buggery, and settled down with a large bottle of Tiger beer and watched the scenery blur past. Before long, after a phone call back home announcing all was well, we were tucked into bed, sucking in recycled air. Until the stroke of Too:Early am when the speaker outside our window announced the call to prayer. This continued for a minor eternity, paused for a deceiving moment of silence, then was replaced by the latest American pop song from 10 years ago, often to be repeated half a dozen times just to make sure we knew all the words to Milli Vanilli or some garbage. Awake against our will, we rose to take shower number one of three, and broke back onto Kohsan for a little Pad Thai breakfast. Not bad for 20 baht (roughly 60 cents CDN). Oh and before I go any further let me muse over a fun little game in language. For some reason there is no standard for the English spelling of Thai words and places. So farang, the common moniker for foreign traveller, is found spelled falang or farang, depending on who's tried to write it out pheonetically. Same with baht/bath. And any destination on your itinerary. This seems to be common through out Southeast Asia. And combined with the forever amusing grammar found on signs and labels, it makes for a wonderful journey into the English language. But honestly, who am I to talk. I speak the bloody language, and in theory engaged in English classes up to Grade 12, and mine spelling and grammar is atroshous. And in all fairness my command of the Thai language is somewhat crippled by only knowing twelve words or less. But who can help but giggle when presented with a sign in your room asking you to “please not smoke in beb”?

Back to Bangkok our first stop was a little of what the chicks may call “shopping”. But in reality, a day spent walking past what was best described by a fellow traveller as a dizzying scooby doo background of similar stalls, ending up with thirty bucks of useless junk. One t-shirt stall selling Billabong, O'Neil, and Dolce Gabana knock-offs. One stall selling Tag Heur, and Rolex knockoffs. One stall selling pirated cds and dvds. And one woman selling wooden frogs. Oh those look interesting.. yeah I'll take one in wood. No thank you. Repeat this perhaps thirty times and your mind starts to believe you need the latest Rolex manufactured in Taiwan. And if you're really simple you'll end up with one those wooden frogs. Why do I harp on about the wooden frogs so much? Because the wooden frogs are freakin' everywhere. Women dressed in what we're supposed to believe it is their traditional tribal garb (but is most likely swapped for knockoff Dolce and Gabana after work), will take what resembles a wooden frog, and stroke it with something that resembles, no sorry is, a stick. The resulting sound actually half way resembles a frog's croak. This is the biggest selling point of the wooden frog. And you're an idiot if you have one sitting on your mantelpiece. I'm going to put mine in my bathroom.


Our day of shopping also included another Thai trademark, a ride in the infamous tuk-tuk. Named after the sickly put- put sound the engines make as they push the three wheels, one driver and up to four, five, or more people around, in what is either the best way around town if you know what you're doing, or a complete scam. Our first ride was actually a success financially, but almost ended with the death of countless people. We managed to get one of the craziest drivers in a city, country, continent of crazy drivers. Driving, so far in Asia, is an extremely loose exercise to be kind. Where most developed countries choose to set one speed limit and defined lanes, Thailand sets three different speed limits for different vehicle types on the same road, and encourages drag racing by showing a countdown on every red light. The motorists respond by simply ignoring every rule, line and light to weave and squeeze throughout time and space. It is not for the faint of heart. Our first ride lasted maybe ten minutes, seemed like an hour, and took ten years off our lives. All other tuk-tuk rides to follow would seem tame in comparison, but insane in their own right. That ride would place second only to a night to Patpong that included both the scariest cab ride (there), and the most ridiculous, hilarious, cab ride (back) in my life. But we're not at that part of the story yet. Almost, but not yet.

So we tuk-tuk'd and shopped our way through our first full day in Bangkok. As the sun set we retired back to the same patio that we had rested at the night before. As I tucked into several novelty sized Tiger beers, I got engrossed in a conversation with a couple sat next me, and we spent an hour or so talking about travel and the all the worldly knowledge we pretended to hold. As the hour drew on, and the third jug of beer was tapped, we parted to take showers and rest with promises to meet up and watch Baraka later that evening. Unfortunately the quick shower was followed by a nap that didn't end until the morning after, so I never did meet up with them for a little Baraka. My apologies to the couple who's names escape me. It was the air conditioning's fault.

Rising the next morning after some fourteen hours of sleep, Kyle and I set out to see some of the sights that Bangkok had to offer. And considering we had survived the first encounter with the tuk-tuk, we hoped back on the saddle. As we rotated a map of Bangkok and tried to plan our route, a gentleman introduced himself as a local teacher and gave us the low down, what to see, what to avoid, showed us down our names in Thai and even hailed us a tuk-tuk. Of course, if we had read our Lonely Planet guide buried deep in our pack, we would have recognized this as a standard scam of sorts, but we proceeded blissfully unaware. What we thought we were getting was a full day tour of the city, stopping to see several of the famous landmarks, giant budha statues, a local clothing market and a government sponsored travel agent. All for something like 40 baht, which in Canadian dollars is somewhere along the lines of $1.30. And oddly that's exactly what we got. What makes this a "scam" is that the stops you make are all in cahoots with the tuk-tuk driver and the "teacher" we met before, so everyone gets their cut. The tuk-tuk driver gets a voucher for gas if you entertain the proposed itineraries of the travel agent, etc, etc. However you're never really forced to buy anything, so you can effectively see the city, with a tour guide, for less than the price of a coffee back home. In theory.

Finishing off our tour of the city, we got back to our hotel with first class tickets to the moon tucked into the pockets of our fine thai silk robes. The rest of the day was consumed by cheap food and beer and a stop at a local bar where a Thai band banged out a reasonable facsimile of Black Eyed Peas. After another night of cramped bathing in the standard shower head on the wall above the toilet, and sucking in more stale over priced air, we resolved to wake early and sort out some new accommodation.

The next morning. after another hit of street pad thai, we eventually found a place that was in our price range, slightly removed from the noise of Kohsan, with a little room to move. Once we had checked in, we started scouring our Lonely Planet for some sort of plan for the next couple months. Having survived a battle of wits and bewildering yelling match with a travel agent the day before, we had a rough idea of what we wanted to see, and a timeline that roughly ended around early December to make it back to the south of Thailand to meet up with friends for the full moon party. A short walk from our hotel found us in a friendly atmosphere discussing visa and tour options with a young woman named Maht. After half an hour of humming and hawing over where we wanted to go, and what we wanted to see, we threw down a couple hundred thousand baht and handed over our visas.

Our plan was this: Day train from Bangkok to Chang Mai, a three day trek through northern Thailand, with a homestay with a Hill Tribe and elephant ride as the main attractions. A couple nights in Chiang Mai, a day trip up to meet the Longneck Tribe, then a mini-bus to Chiang Rai at the Thailand/Laos border. From there we had a two day trip from the border to Luang Prabang, Laos by way of slow boat. At which point we would be on our own. We read our little guide book, bored Maht analysing every possible destination in each country, and eventually set dates for each country that would follow. Not easy for someone who hates planning as much as I do, but it seemed like the smart move. We could have chanced it and applied for visas at each border, but there were enough horror stories depicting hours and days of delays at borders where you can't speak the language that we crossed our fingers and gave ourselves ten days in Laos, three weeks in Vietnam, and a week or so in Cambodia. Our visas would go before us to get all the necessary stamps and checks for each country, to be returned by Maht in Chiang Mai after our trek. Exhausted, we stumbled out and returned to Kohsan Rd to dodge the giant lighters and wooden frogs.

As we did our aimless shuffle a familiar voice called out. We turned to find Kevin, a fellow Canadian whom we had worked with on South Molle Island in Australia, standing amongst the stalls and tuk-tuks. After a quick "what the hell are you doin' here" we joined Kevin and his girlfriend Erin for a couple pints out of something that resembled a miniature gas pump that rested on their table. As we sipped our Chang we traded stories of the time passed since our last meeting. We laid out all the gossip that had transpired since they left the island, and they painted a picture of Singapore and Malaysia. With the gas pump on empty we set out to meet Maht and some her friends to see some of the local clubs. We shot pool, had overpriced cocktails (upwards of $4 CAD) and failed to convince the dj to play "Put Your Hands Up For Detroit". Good times and hangovers for all.

After a day of recovery and forgettable activity, we managed to pry Kevin and Erin out of their $6 sweatbox-special room, and rejoined forces to brave the attractions of Pat Pong. Known as the somewhat red light district of Bangkok, Pat Pong is home to the infamous "ping pong" shows. Not your average family outing, but something too perversely intriguing to pass up. So we all piled into the for mentioned craziest cab ride of my life. Perhaps the guy behind the wheel was having a bad day. Perhaps he wasn't happy that we haggled him down to such a low fare. Perhaps he was simply mentally imbalanced. Whatever the reason, we got our first "almost died" experience in Asia. For the better part of twenty minutes we weaved in an out of traffic, both imaginary and real. He'd get as close to the car, tuk-tuk or bicycle in front of before veering madly to one side, usually into oncoming traffic, attempting to scare our dinner to the surface. Regardless of our backseat shrieks and pleads, he continued with a deranged look, and we all started to wonder if we were even headed to Pat Pong. But, as this story is evidence to our survival, we arrived at our destination unscathed. And if memory serves me correctly Kevin actually kissed the ground after we piled out of Satan's sled. Of course he would later contract a deadly virus from the filth that covered the sidewalk, but we all had a nervous laugh and continued on with shaky legs. Not the kind of story Mom and Dad want to hear about, but such stories are a dime a dozen in backpacker circles and you start to realize that it's all just part of the experience. Just as in every other Asian country, not only is safety not the first priority, it's simply not an option.