It’s been a while since the last post, and this is definitely more of a retrospective, since I’m in Malaysia now but barely scraped the surface of the Thailand experience.

Bangkok is a big place. The infrastructure seems functional, but the traffic is seriously something else. I read somewhere that, some days, during rush hour, the carbon monoxide levels in the city reach “international danger levels”… I’m guessing that that means your tuk-tuk driver could just up and die on you while waiting in a traffic jam, but it didn’t happen to us.

We stayed in China town, in a small, hot backpacker place. Compared to Chiang Mai, Bangkok seemed like a real place.. not something evolved into a strange tourist draw. People, everywhere, were getting on with their lives. Things were noisey, busy and confusing.

We made the call to stay in China town, rather than the backpacker district, learning from mistakes we’ve made several times now. The reward was getting to stay somewhere which wasn’t packed with touts trying to get their hooks into some tourist money. The food seemed pretty genuine and things were lively, in less of a top-50 pirate music “shake yo’ braided hair’n booty” kind of way, and far more a “wow, these people seem in a hurry to get to places.”

So yeah, the vibe was good. I liked the city. Fortunately, we explored something we haven’t really done much of in our travels - taking transport to get to remote locations. Rather than our usual style, walking for hours and hours every day and tiring ourselves out until we weren’t enjoying ourselves, we took fairly cheap tuk-tuks. Saw the backpacker district, thanked the lor’ je-zeus for our aforementioned decision, bought some stuff. Saw river city (a shopping centre, lest you get the wrong idea, we -did- focus on retail commerce…) and admired some artifacts and antiques that were well out of our price range, and brought up some internal conflict in me - do private collectors deserve the booty of Angkorian carvings plundered and sold in neighbouring countries to rich antique dealers? (mmm.. maybe?) Went to some road packed with big brand shops and business people having lunch.

We generally chilled out and got a taste of the place. Took the train to the airport which was much less difficult than we anticipated, and finally flew out for a short trip to Malaysia. Our plane was delayed about two hours, so the airline bought everyone lunch at the airport, and then SERVED US FOOD ON THE FLIGHT ANYWAY! Man. Didn’t think you’d get a meal on an hour and a half long flight.. but these Asian airlines seem generous like that.

And.. that was the end of Thailand.

We’re in Chiang Mai, a city located near the centre of Thailand.

It’s a busy place, comprising of a once-walled, moat encircled old city, and a much larger, sprawlier expanse of everything else.

The city is definitely a tourist destination. There are whiteys everywhere. There are lots of Thai girls going about with foreign men. Plenty of clubs, eateries (serving the same muted brand of Thai that the Thai places in Australia serve,) clothing shops, electronics boutiques, etc etc.

It’s rather disconcerting, having come from China, where you’re “lucky” to see another tourist even in places like Kunming which, while far from being Hong Kong, is a significant city and centre of commerce in its own right.

There is very little to remind me that I’m in a foreign place. There are Australian accents arround every corner, and lurking in every whore-flooded bar pumping teeny bopper music. Hell, they even drive on the correct side of the road here. (the left, yankee!)

However, thinking about it earlier, I realised that Thailand is a much older country than many. Culture and traceable history reaching back a long time, to say nothing of their ruined temples and more remote regions in the north. The tourist dollar is clearly helping build a functional infrastructure here, given that there was a well maintained road from our starting point in the north, to here - the start of the perportedly more modernised southern region.

Be that as it may, ground zero is an ugly place. We haven’t encountered a greater concentration of the fat, or greying, or Australian, or otherwise repulsive tourist archtypes anywhere else we’ve been. There’s barely a backpacker to be seen! That’s saying something.

On the other hand, there are some awesome side effects to be witnessed. The night bazaar is, as the name implies, a market that operates at night. With the exception of some unique boutiques selling handmade clothing, anything you can buy in Chiang Mai can be had at an unfixed price at the night bazaar.

Aside from the over abundance of fake designer jeans, pirate media, watches and cheap jewellery, there are also stalls selling relatively tame weapons. Automatic electrically operated airsoft BB guns, knives in every cruel configuration you can imagine (why stop at folding, pocket and dagger, when you can have butterfly, flick, and nastily eye-width spaced clawlike punch knives as well?!) ninja stars, bottles of mace sold in shrink wrapped pairs, nunchuks, extendable batons, crossbows. Am I getting carried away? This is like some fictional China town from a science fiction novel. We walked past one of these places to see a bemused tourist being chased out by a laughing Thai man wielding a stunner, two inch blue arc marking some stupid voltage anywhere between 40,000 - 70,000 volts passing by in uncomfortably close proximity.

I like the night bazaar. A woman was selling the unquestionably cool and original T-shirt designs of a friend of hers studying in Bangkok. I bought four, Lili bought 2. Most impressive and artistically authentic thing I’ve seen yet.. particularly awesome when juxtaposed against the cookie-cutter paintings of buddahs and cast bronze figurines which have been available for sale in EVERY country we have visited.

Little indications that individuals are creating new culture in the places we visit are encouraging. Even in China we found ourselves in a weird little shop which sold, exclusively, weird bits and pieces based on the strange character designs of some random guy. Anything from gloves, keychains and mobile phone danglies, to bags, shirts and anything else you can stick a drawing onto.

As previously mentioned, the looming end to our travels gives pause for reflection. Thailand is a strange place to hit as our second last destination. It is hot, relatively safe and sane, people drive on the left, there are Aussies everywhere. We might already be home. Talk about a gradual ease back into reality.

I can’t wait to go back to China.

Lili and I had retired to our bunks once again. Bunks on this boat were thin mats on the floor, covered with a thin blanket. Surprisingly comfortable.

Lucile, (Lulu in France, Lili in China, amusingly) who had quickly managed to befriend, seemingly, the entire crew, and all the rest of the passengers, came in and let us know she’d just been told we’d be arriving near in Laos within an hour and a half, and, due to the shallow depth of the Mekong at this time of year, would be taking a smaller boat to Thaliand.

“Cool!” Lili and I hadn’t been expecting to arrive at least until the following night, given the lazy way we were proceeding until that point. We got our gear together and waited out the rest of the trip.

Eventually we pulled up near the bank.. and.. sat, waiting for a while longer.

Ultimately a speedy little thing with a massive engine and one of those whippersnipper type shafts depending into the water, pulled up alongside. Owing to our planning and aggressive nature, Lili and I were among the first in line to get on the thing. Lulu was first, passing her bags to the guy and lowering herself into the rocking boat. Then Lili followed suit, as I passed her gear to the driver. Lili isn’t quite as seaworthy as she might like, she asked Lucile how to say “I’m scared” in Chinese, and, along with “Fuckfuckfuck” repeated it like a mantra, until she was safely aboard, where she hunkered down and did her best not to move an inch. The boat, now half full, was blessed then with my presence, followed by Asing. It looked like we were full, but the driver moved some bags around and three little Chinese people- two women and a boy, crammed in infront of us.

This boat was clearly designed for speed, with other considerations left until later in the design. So much so that the driver was very anxious not to let it bump against the ship we were on. I assume because we could easily get damaged, or.. I suppose thinking about it now, be capsized by the thing if it shifted weight right alongside.

“Xiexie!” We cried to the crew as the boat backed out and turned, and then we were off.. skimming at a ridiculous speed down the Mekong.

Picture the beautiful scene - calm waters, the green of the Mekong’s banks on either side, the setting sun over Myanmar, and eventually Thailand glinting its haze off the water. It was awesome. Lili just kept her eyes shut for most of it, and squeezed my leg in a whiteknuckled grip, still convinced, I think, that if she moved an inch she would tip us.

Eventually we arrived at Chiang Sean, disembarked over another boat and climbed the concrete steps up to the little immigration control office by the bank of the river. I let the bulk of us go ahead, dealing with the weight of my backpack - which I must investigate before we think about getting on a plane - and its significantly less functional nature now my waist strap is half missing.

When I rejoined the group, it became apparent that we were having trouble.

The greasy looking official behind the metal screen was telling us over and over that he stopped stamping passports at 6:00. It was 6:05.

I dumped my stuff and got my passport out. No way in hell I wasn’t being granted entry, damnit!

Asing was pleading to the man to process our entry. The fat fucker, smug behind his screen and heavy green uniform, kept telling us it was too late, the computer was switched off, he stopped at 6:00. The man repeated over and over that this wasn’t an airport, he wasn’t available at all hours. He didn’t seem to be going anywhere, and neither were we.

I stood back, biting my tongue. By some evolutionary sidestep I am entirely unequipped to survive in these situations. I’m looking at the guy and fantasising about waiting by his door on the other side of the building, and punching the side of his big fat head when he finished his shift for the night and emerged. Useless fucking beaurocrat. Authority figures always get my goat.

“Go back!” he told us, “Where to?” I ask, “How? We just came from China, on a boat for three days, our boat is GONE! There’s nowhere for us to go back to.” I point down to the water. He stares at me, expressionless, before switching to Thai and continuing (I assume from the tone) his rhetoric about this not being an airport. Asing lept to the breach, and resumed the pleading.

We assemble our passports and push them through the screen, onto his desk. He ultimately relents.. after half an hour.. and proceeds to hand out little forms. He takes his sweet time, which is fine by me, since apparently it IS his time he’s encroching on now. Stupid little wanker. Mine gets processed first, without any drama, then the others, and finally the Chinese people.

“Welcome to Thailand” offers the arrival card, clearly a mistranslation from the Thai “Go FUCK yourself!”