Phuket to Chiangmai

It's was a long and painful two and a half days getting up here but it all seems worth it now after two good nights sleep in a nice guesthouse and a day of exploring Chiangmai. Getting here though was no picnic...

Andy and I took the bus all the way into Phuket town on wed night which was a good 4 hour ride from Khao Sok but not too bad with good company. Even though Andy had to be at the airport early morning the next day, he wanted to stay somewhere close to the bus station so I would have no problems getting to wherever I was going (still unknown at this point). We unloaded from the bus and looked for the closest hotel which was, convienently, located right across the street. Andy had offered to pay for a nicer place for our last night, but this place we came across and booked at was more than I was expecting. It was no Ritz Carlton or anything, but after bungalow living for the last three weeks, I felt like a poor little orphan child in a big, royal castle. We were upgraded to business class (not really sure what that entailed), but it came complete with a huge comfty bed, a flatscreen tv and a nice view of Phuket... which looks way better from the 15th floor. I can't deny that staying in a place like this does feel good and does make you a bit nostalgic for the finer things in life (a couch and sportscenter and air conditioning), and also makes you realize how much you have been living like a bum (out of a backpack with only 4-5 changes of clothing and proper showers only every couple of days), but so it goes.

We decide to go eat some American food since we are already on the 'what I miss from home' kick so we decide to just hit up the hotel restaraunt after having no luck finding a place nearby. We order a pizza and fries and even get a glass of red wine (which is nearly impossible to find over here), use our 20 minutes of wifi (that they only allow you to use when you spend over a certain amount of baht), and just enjoy the decor and finishing touches in the restaraunt. It is kind of bizzare how a place can try to emuilate a certain feel or vibe and get kinda close but be so off at the same time. For example, this place was trying to be a very chic and modern American resturaunt. Their menu consisted of burgers and fries and pizza with ice cream and shakes for dessert. But their pizza had topping combinations like: boiled squid, chicken, pork, and lemongrass with pepper or a hot dog with melted American cheese and cucumbers and lettuce. Then the decor was just silly. They come out and very nicely put down your placemat and silverware in front of you after you have ordered but the placemats are plastic with bright flowers all over them- something you would put down beneath a toddler when they are eating cheerios and kool-aid. They had put out little champaign glasses on every table with a rose in it for ambience, but below the floating rose was rainbow colored fish tank rocks... It's just funny. Do you think it's the same situation in America?? I wonder what any of these Thai people would think if they walked into one of our Thai restaraunts in the states? I don't know but it sure is interesting to observe it on this side of the world.

Called it an early night as Andy had to get up at 6 for his flight and we were both pretty knackered out from the last week. Woke up early and got Andy packed up and sent off. It absolutely sucked saying goodbye...this will be the longest we will have gone witout seeing eachother but, between his work and it being ski season and me just traveling and exploring, we know that Feb will be here in no time. Still... It sucks!

Now a bit sad and still confused on where I'm going, I have about 4 hours till check out time... meaning I need to figure my life out; and soon. The guys at the hotel prove to be no help so end up throwing a big chunck of change their way so I have wifi in the room to start doing research. The storm in the gulf doesn't look like it's stopping anytime soon so I decide to head north where there's nicer weather and even a few tahoe friends hanging around. Start looking up prices and times for both the train and buses (flights were just too much the day of) and decide to try my luck with the train. Eat my delicious buffet breakfast, take a HOT shower, watch the Yankees win the world series, and check out as close to noon as possible. Then continue to sit in the air conditioned lobby for 2 hours (where they are now playing Christmas music??) and get my moneys worth of wifi. Hop on a bus to Surat Thani train station and catch the 6:22 sleeper train which was running late (something I will shortly become accustomed to). The train is supposed to arrive at 5:20am and I ordered a sleeper so I really have no idea what to expect as we finally start moving. There is a girl sitting across from me who looks anwhere between the ages of 14-22 who is consistantly on her phone for the first hour but who later starts chatting with me in broken English. She ends up being 23 as well and was on her way to Bangkok to take her mother to the hospital. The steward(ess?) came down the aisle awhile later and started asking me what I want to eat. First off, everyone who works in our cabin here is a Thai ladyboy, so this petite guy who comes over to ask me about dinner has very plucked eyebrows and the most perfect skin and talks in a higher pitched voice. He brings over a list of items written in English and asks what I want. I first ask him 'do I pay?', 'is it included?' and he just laughs and smiles and says 'no pay'. Okay, sweet, I suddenly feel better about paying the large sum of baht for that train ticket. Tell him just soup and he says 'rice too' and says 'I bring you breakfast too' so tell him thank you and he introduces himself as Cham. So only an hour into this, I now have two Thai friends and I'm feeling pretty good. Go use the bathroom and as I'm coming back, Cham is holding a huge bucket of these ginormous beers as I pass him in the aisle. I point at the bucket and laugh and ask him if he's going to drink all those himself and, as he's trying to understand what I just said, the ladyboy behind him (the big one with longer hair and lots of eyeshadow) reaches into the bucket, pops the cap off and slams the huge beer down on the table in front of me before I can even blink. F! I know that this gigantic beer isn't free but what do I do now? Ask the burly ladyboy to take it back? I figure it will help me sleep and go back to my seat with my brand new beer. My Thai friend next to me and her mom laugh as they probably think I'm a raging alcoholic and I try to explain with hand gestures that it will make me fall asleep quicker.

I have probably had a total of 8 beers since leaving the states and I'm pretty sure that this monster is about 3 beers worth so I'm pretty much blitzed by the time I finish dinner (which I did indeed have to pay for- thanks Cham) and am ready for bed and this day to be done. So i call over the bed making guy to magically turn my seat into a bed. They have this guy on the train and his one and only job is to do just that. It's pretty cool actually how they do it as they give you a matress and a pillow and clean sheets and a curtain and all you do is stand there as this guy puts it all together for you in less than a minute. Brilliant! The bed is actually pretty comfortable and spacious and with the help of a sleep mask and that beer, I'm out for a good bit. Granted, it is nothing like the kingsize bed we had the night before but it served it's purpose beyond my expectations. It is funny though to see the cultural differences that start to appear when you do something like 'go to bed' with a hundred other people. People were still playing their radios for all to hear in the middle of the night and still had their cell phones ringing as loud as possible and I'm pretty sure every single person on that train hocked up a huge loogie at least once. I was pretty grateful for the beer at that point.

Wake up around 6 and we are still moving (we were supposed to arrive around 5:20) and take it as a bad sign that everyone else is still asleep. Slowly people start waking up and the bed-changing-seat guy is at it again. We are all seated in our upright positions as our train pulls in at 7:55. Almost 3 hours late, not bad. Good news is that I no longer have a long wait time at the station as my other train departs at 8:30. Bad news is the fact that the next train is running late too. Seems to be a pattern here... Finally get on when our train pulls in around 9ish and start moving at an oh-so-slow speed about an hour late. Met two girls, a Brit and an Aussie, in the ticket line so they were right behind me which gave me two people who could empathize with my pain (they were on the last train as well and had both been suckered into paying for those stupid beers too!). Slept for a bit here and there but was up for the majority of the trip. Finished my book, killed my battery on my old iPod and was saving the last of the battery on the new one and couldn't write because it was too bumpy, so it was a bit excruciating towards the end there. Especially when our train broke down for a solid 30-45 minutes, but we finally made it to chiangmai at about 11pm (our arrival was supposed to be 8:30). The girls and I get a taxi to a guesthouse we have heard about and are heartbroken when we walk in and are just simply told 'no rooms' by a guy who looks stoned and is watching tv. Great. Go next door and find out the same thing there. One of the women there tells us she will give us a ride to her friends place who definitely has room if we would like. K, sounds good. She proceeds to pull out a beer from the fridge and cracks it open as we are following her to her car. Sweet. It's midnight though by this time and she seems coherent enough and, honestly, we are just past caring so jump into her Honda civic and just make sure to buckle our seatbelts. When we get to the place it is actually perfect. I have to pay double since there is no triple bed rooms and I have the single room, but it's still cheaper than anything we paid for down south...and nicer. I go to bed after sending out my emails and the girls go out to get some food.

Woke up yesterday and turned in my laundry to be done and went on a hunt to go find some good breakfast. Got myself a bit oriented with the town by aimlessly wandering but it all paid off when I found the best breakfast place I have come across yet. It's like a old diner or waffle house kind of set up where you walk in, grab your own seat, and the server eventually comes over, completely uninterested in you, and asks you what you want. Their options for breakfast include eggs and toast with fruit juice and coffee or musli with fresh fruit and yogurt or banana pancakes or sticky rice with mango. It all sounds delicious. I opt for the egg combo that is cheaper than I've paid anywhere else and they bring out fresh carrot juice and an Americano style coffee (the coffee here has been crap so far!) and then my eggs (perfectly cooked) and toast (best toast ever with homemade marmalade jelly!) and I'm just happy as can be. Walk around for a few hours exploring temples and markets and find a couple bookstores that trade books. Come back to the guesthouse and chill for a bit. Go exchange my two books I have already read for two new/old books and grab some spicy curry thing at the little local market place I found, bought a bunch of bananas, stopped into an Irish pub for a few minutes when I realized Wellington's rugby team was playing and then continued to wander. There are temples (wats) here everywhere. To say on every street corner may actually be a lie because there are way more than just every street corner! You can walk around these gorgeous temples as long as you are covered (no tanks or shorts) and take off your shoes. I brought a sarong to wrap around my legs and got to see some breathtaking places. One of the most grand wats I went into had about 20 monks doing some prayer ceremony which was just beautiful to watch. Came back home after getting a pineapple shake and met up with the girls again and we all talked about plans for the night. They had met some kids at another guesthouse that they wanted to meet up with and I had just talked to Andy and Greg from tahoe about meeting up so we decided to get ready and head out onto the town. The girls came with me to the boys place and we all decided to meet up later at this rooftop bar after they picked up their new friends. Caught up with Andy and Greg for a bit- so good to have some familiar faces around here!- and then we headed out.

Got to the rooftop bar which was an interesting spot... You have to go up about 5 flights of stairs and graffitied walls and rasta color paintings and take off your shoes before the last flight where you end up on top of the roof. There is black lighting and only little tables that you sit on the floor next to (closely resembling the Chill Out Bar Andy Olaf) and weed leaves painted in various places. What's maybe a little more bizarre is being surrounded by all this rasta-chill paraphanalia while the DJ pumps out some hard core techno beats. Sweet dude. We have a beer and decide to get out of there after about an hour as we have had enough and still haven't seen or heard from the girls.

We hadn't eaten any dinner so plop down at a street vendor place where we get the best Thai food for less than a dollar. Sit at our table and watch the Thai prostitutes and old dudes just swarm around us. Next stop is a rock bar the boys went to last night which comes complete with a live Asian rock band playing Hendrix and other cliche rock songs but were actually decently good. Sat and watched the crowd, an interesting bunch at this place, as Andy and I started making up stories about everyone ('that guy over there, he came over here for some kind of research job and then he met that girl, the drunk Thai girl with a hash house shirt on, and fell in love. The younger guy and younger girl are his kids visiting and the Thai stepmom is trying to make sure the kids like her...'). This is our entertainment. We left and went back to the rooftop for a couple minutes to see if the girls had showed up but no luck so we just headed our seperate ways to bed.

Now I'm gonna go back to my little diner and have another stellar breakfast and get in contact with the tahoe boys and figure out what the next step is...