The Chronicle Continues: Goodbye, Hello

My foray into backpacking has come to a close back in my hub city, Bangkok, which according to the news at least, has been thrown into chaos. Red shirt, blue shirt, yellow shirt, rainbow shirt, no shirt, no service. Sure, things aren’t peachy here but safety is not hard to come by and things are generally no different than the usual everyday chaos (with the added chaos of Songkran). So if you’re wondering, I’m fine, no worries
Backpacking at a close, my travels with Rachel are also at a close; as I write she’s somewhere over the Pacific back home. Tough goodbyes. Neither of us could with a straight face claim the smoothest of sailing in our traveling partnership but at the same time, neither of us wanted to part ways. The times we had were particularly manic but everyday punctuated with sheer unforgettable joyful experiences. I’ve learned a lot about myself, sometimes more than I’d care to in certain respects. Good luck finishing school Rachel, you’ll get there, and thanks for the good times

Songkran, Songkran, Songkran. Wildly out of control. Songkran, the Thai new year (which seems to coincide with most other SE Asian countries), is the most ruckus and energetic of the years festivals. It has certain spiritual significance in Buddhist tradition but for most, especially the tourists, its the time of year that you can douse any passerby with water and get away with it with a clean conscience. Its water throwing madness. No street is safe. If you’re outside, you will be wet. A farang is by far the biggest target and there’s a particular joy children seem to get from sniping a white face with their water guns.
The madness began back in Pai. There’s a "schedule" of dates (that seem different from city to city) of when the festivities start but I doubt anyone every adheres to it. Two days prior to the start children already lined the streets having the time of their lives soaking unsuspecting (and suspecting) walkers, drivers, motorbikers and pushbikers and if there were other "er"s around, they’d get them too for good measure. Particularly smile inducing were the group of novice monks outside the temple on the main traveler street in Pai ganging up on anyone who passed by. At this point early in the festival, there were plenty still surprised by it all: whether they didn’t know about Songkran or whether they simply underestimated it, I don’t know.
Rachel and I rented a moto, which I still wasn’t the most comfortable about but reluctantly agreed anyway. After some wrong turns and treacherously steep dirt tracks, we eventually found the large waterfall in the area (but given the dry season, not as large certainly). Nice triple tiered slick rock falls with a couple areas for wading or swimming.

The real fun was the journey though where countless water wielding children reveled in the joy of soaking the two of us on the bike as thoroughly as possible. Most would humorously motion for us to slow down or stop altogether. I like to think that they were interested in our safety on the road but it could’ve also just as easily been for their ease of water dispersal.

Took the bike out to another waterfall but along the quiet dirt path we dead ended with no sign of the falls. Ventured out over what we thought was a bridge but was probably a fence instead but still found nothing

We made our way out of Pai. I still attest I could stay there for quite a while: the thought of opening a quality bike shop in the town (which currently lacks one) seems oddly appealing despite my recent wanderlust. This time I gave a big pass on the minibus and opted for the aircon government bus instead which mostly for the simple fact of its size, can’t barrel and careen around corners like the psychotic minibus experience; ended up being much more pleasant albeit slightly longer a journey.
Back at Arcade Bus Station in Chiang Mai faced with the choice of tuk-tuks we wisely this time chose a red songthaew to Tha Pae Gate to simply make the rounds for any place that happened to have availability during the crazy holiday. I tried to grab some travelers from the bus we were on to hop on the songthaew with us to get the price down but the self proclaimed leader of that group was a bit of an oddball. He vehemently fought the given price of 20B in favor of his demanded 15B rate he saw in his guidebook. I’ll be blunt: the guy’s a tool. First for basing pricing out of a guidebook and second for being stingy enough to fight over 5B (about 14 US cents). After making a scene and embarrassing us, he got on anyway.
Chiang Mai is at a whoooooole other level than anywhere else in the country when it comes to Songkran. The city is a known hotspot for this time of year and it shows. Surrounding the old city moat, the entire 2.5km square area, kids, adults, farang, Thai, and everyone in between, position themselves around the wall where an endless procession of cars, trucks, songthaews, tuk-tuks, motos and people walking stream by willingly giving themselves to the mercy of the water. All out water war, especially near Tha Pae gate where most of the action seemed to focus.

We luckily found a place with one room left; "I’ll take it". Strange encounter but I ran into Kristi! She was casually strolling the main street when she recognized me with some excitement confusing an unfortunate older man in front of me who seemed excited someone may have recognized him. Congenial hellos, quick exchanges. She seems to think I harbor some sort of ill will towards her apparently but nothing of the sort; I was very strangely actually going to write her to recommend she go to Pai and speak some Hebrew with the many Israelis who’ve made residence somehow in the city.
My image of how I’d spend Songkran in Chiang Mai was atop a bicycle pedaling about the warzone. My vision wasn’t entirely shared so with our final tiff of the trip (feels like I should scrapbook that as "our last fight of the trip, aww), we agreed to do our own thing for a while then meet back up. I rented a bike from a sweet old woman doing laundry who didn’t even want my passport and I rode away from the traveler area to the predominately Thai side where I was drenched head to toe in a matter of seconds. Armed myself with a dodgy quality but ubiquitous neon colored plastic water gun which I stowed in the bike’s front basket and wielded with one hand when the time was right. I had decided to keep my very non-waterproof SLR camera with me in case a dry moment struck me to photograph something but kept it in the very waterproof handlebar bag. By the end of the day, several hundred buckets of water dumped on me, not a drop of water inside the bag. Ortlieb: Songkran Approved!
Rachel and I met up an hour later and I squirted her in the face and she dumped a bucket of water on me and everything was behind us. Spectacular street food nearly everywhere; seemed like every vendor in the city was out! Fueled up with kebabs and sticky rice and mango, back into the thick of it. The day wore on and we decided to attempt to assimilate into one of the many roadside pockets of infinite water supply [hose] equipped groups (usually outside bars). Attacked at first but in time accepted into the group haha. Was a lot of fun having all that water at our disposal to fire at passing motos, pickups and especially tuk-tuks who we attacked with vigor.

With a flight to catch, we cut our Chiang Mai Songkran festivities short and boarded our insanely cheap (500B, $14USD) flight to Bangkok; was only half full. BKK airport, we caught a cab. Confidently forgoing a map or address to Refill, I instructed the driver in Thai Sukhumvit 72 and Soi 42. Only problem being, Refill is off Suhkumvit SEVENTY ONE. Normally this would be a small error, streets are laid out sequentially. In our unfortunate case though, there was no 72, the driver was confused by this, and took us to some random SOI (alley) Suhkumvit 72 (not Thanon, main street). I knew we were on some strange route unknown to me but once arriving down this random dark and quiet unfamiliar alley in the middle of nowhere, it was clear something was amiss; it wasn’t until I opened up my map to see where we were that I realized in my stupidity I was one number off. I felt incredibly stupid but after the realization, we high tailed it out of there and arrived just fine.
Rachel’s flight the next day was at a comfortable 4pm, plenty of time to laze about. Lazing interrupted when logged online we saw that she couldn’t check in for her flight, it showed the 17th and not the 13th! We had called EVA Air earlier in the week to try to change the flight to the 17th but it was booked up. We were offered a wait list position and said sure. Unbeknownst to us, that apparently meant CANCELLING her current confirmed flight on the 13th; seems to make no sense whatsoever to give up a confirmed flight for a wait listed one, I don’t know why they would do that but they did. Frantically started dialing all phone numbers we could trying to reach someone. The US office was closed, end of day; the Thai office closed as well, Songkran. Calling the airport proved no more fruitful telling us to call back later. Decided only way was just to head to the airport and find someone, anyone to speak face to face to. I was prepared for a drawn out battle to get the ticket changed back but a short wait in line, a quick explanation and in a flash the whole thing was solved; that sure doesn’t happen often. Still very impressed with EVA Air.
Sad goodbye to Rachel but getting back made a hello to my bicycle still stowed locked to a pole outside the hostel in the same condition in which I left it nearly a month ago. Freed it from its plastic sheath and installed all its parts back on and gave it a small shake down ride: felt strange, foreign, its been so long. Will have to be reaccustomed to it all over again.
More hellos, I met some of the others staying at the hostel: three English, Welsh (he’d appreciate greatly that I separated him from the English), Aussie and American. I had been studying maps on my escape route to Cambodia when I was happily approached.
Surprisingly short amount of time into the conversation I was being invited out with them to partake in the exotic bizarre spectacle that is the ping pong show; revolted and intrigued at the same time by the whole concept I felt like being three times in Bangkok I owed it to myself to pick up the experience. We took a pair of taxis to Patpong along the way passing a police checkpoint (which we were waved by, but the following taxi stopped), and then passed a large street completely blockaded by tuk-tuks apparently as part of all the protests but it seemed to be mostly taken advantage of by Songkran revelers; the streets were throbbing in a mix of flying water and alcohol, crowds of talc smeared faces dancing in the streets. Had been to Soi Cowboy before but not Patpong. It had an older dilapidated feel to it, still of course very sleazy but less so than normal I’d imagine: the streets were filled with soaking wet Thais partying instead of the would be crowds of the fat white sex tourist contingent (although they were still visible). We lost the other cab behind us when as we would only find out later, they were stopped at the police checkpoint where they were strangely asked to show passports and then let go (despite not having them on them). We kept hope we’d find them but never did. We ended up in one of the seedy bars, ear splitting house music blaring towards a stage jam packed with girls wearing bikinis but most interestingly, a number tag. We sat, had the mandatory beer and watched the unfamiliar surroundings as Japanese tourists and Thais alike ordered these girls like they were off a menu. Hard to not notice how sad all of this is, the girls often dancing in a haggard "oh god, another night" kind of way. None of it interested me in the least except for its value as a sociological study. No ping pong show but the other taxi group ended up going to one and told us about it, sounded terrible.
Had thought about leaving towards Cambodia this morning to get to the border before my visa ran out but late night last night and another day of hanging out with these new friends relaxing convinced me to stay another day. Tomorrow morning I’ll head out after studying Google Maps. Back on the road, tomorrow, somehow don’t even know what to expect, seems like I’m starting all over again. I think I may get a healthy dose of water on my ride out of the city; its actually too bad I don’t get splashed with refreshing water on every ride

 

UPDATE:

Still at the internet cafe doing some research about the route tomorrow. Relatively easy going, 230k, two day ride. BUT, I could also simply take a train to the border skipping what I’m told is very unexciting riding AND also getting there in time to deal with my expiring visa. Will have to ride to Hualamphong Station most probably getting soaked in the process but I can deal. 4 hour ride on the fast train, 6 hour ride on the ordinary train.

14.Apr.09 South East Asia 2009