Bangkok. Gateway to Southeast Asia

Here I am. Rocketed into intense heat, intense smells, lots of neon signs intermingled with ancient looking canals and classically asian temples. Bangkok is cheap, lively, smelly, beautiful, hot, and filled with some of the friendliest people I have ever encountered.

I neglected to fill in the rest of my trip in South America. At some point I will. Norina and I went to a surf town, it was amazing, then she got robbed and things ran amuck while we tried to get her sorted out. Then I had to go to Quito very quickly and flew out the morning after I got there.

I spent two glorious and surreal weeks in Canada, fitting right back into Ben's apartment and arms. It was amazing to be around people who already know me so well and love me so much. Everything was easy. I slept and ate the majority of the time. We went to Tofino for the most romantic getaway of my entire life, and then followed it up by an electrifying trip to Vancouver to get in on the olympic excitement. Rarely have I been prouder to be Canadian than running around in the streets after our glorious US vs. Canada victorious gold medal hockey game, high fiving little old ladies clad in smart red jackets and enormous smiles. Oh, Canada. Shiny, cold, devoid of public space but filled with warm people. However, it wasn't the same as ... oh.... any developing country. In a nut shell, when you walk in the streets in Canada you know more or less what to expect. When you walk in the streets in South America you learn to expect the unexpected - leaping out of the way of running donkeys, forming friendships with random goods peddlers, witnessing a spontaneous music concert. I love my country, but over my two weeks home I realized that I love it for its people and its beauty, and not its culture.

Regardless, here I am. Southeast Asia. The ultimate test of my traveling to date ... have the conclusions I've reached regarding the nature of our world been founded only in a single location or are they universal in nature? Vamos a ver!

I spent a very mopey 24 odd hours in transit between Victoria to Bangkok. The unlikely route of Victora-San Fransico-Tokyo-Bangkok was, for whatever reason, the cheapest. Consequently I elected it, and arrived at the baggage terminal in Bangkok at around midnight Bangkok time and utterly confused. My internal clock was not only off by some amount of time; it literally had no idea what time it was supposed to be guessing. All I knew was that I was tired, which seemed appropriate given the hour. I heard some english being spoken behind me discussing potential taxi possibilities. I turned around and asked to be included in a communal taxi - a wonderful choice, because it was there that I met Edith, a wicked french Canadian whom was also traveling alone. We were too exhausted to properly bond, but shared a cab with a guy named Bobby who was staying with friends, and ultimately decided just to share a room in the first hotel we walked into in the tourist sector. 10 bucks a head per night, but whatever.

We woke up after noon the next day, and were somewhat surprised that we had somehow navigated ourselves to the tourist pulse of bangkok. Our hostel seemed to be quite a happening spot. We had comfortable beds, air conditioning, pillows, towels, cleanliness, hot water... all of the luxuries of home. Other than toilet paper being replaced by spray water it was a dream come true. It didn't afford much of a chance to meet others, but we hit it off right away. We discovered that we shared a similar life philosophy and after that we were good to go. We ate some breakfast in the hotel and headed off to check out the town. Both yesterday and today we have been doing a bit of house keeping ... I've spent my time organizing an application for a visa to India (I head there next Saturday) and she was working on getting some flights refunded. All in all it was great fun just wandering around.

Neither of us speak a lick of thai. The language is ridiculously difficult. In two days we've barely learned how to say thank you and politely say no thank you, no and yes. That is the extent of my vocabulary to date. The language is radically different and the pronunciation of sounds largely involves using tones (high pitched, low pitched, rising like a question or falling like a statement....). Very confusing. Never the less, most people speak enough english and/or body language to get the gist of what we're asking for. Yesterday we ate amazing thai food (vegetables galore! South America eat your heart out!) and wandering around. We took a ferry along the main canal and checked out the sights from the water. At night it is gorgeously lit up... all of the temples lit with subtle lighting that seems genuine and not fabricated for tourists. Last night we had a few drinks and I went to bed early.

Today was all about chores. We woke up very early to try to get to the Indian embassy early and cheaply, local style. After breakfast we walked to a canal boat that takes you across town much faster than a taxi, because the traffic here is pretty brutal. The canal ride was pretty cool... the water was filthy, and splashing about, but if you sit in the middle of the long wooden seats it's quite fun and the breeze does wonders. We had to ask one of the many pleasant and helpful locals to direct us to our stop, and once there we walked a few blocks to the sky train. On the way I saw a photocopy centre and stopped to make copies of my passport. Unfortunately, however, when I pulled out 'my' passport it turned out to be Edith's. Two identical canadian passports in one locker can apparently lead to trouble. We rocketed back to the canal boat, took a tuk tuk to the hostel, grabbed the correct passport, and bartered a cab driver to drive us all the way across town. In retrospect it would have probably been faster to head back to the canal boat... the cab ride took almost an hour. When it finally dropped us at the indian embassy around 11 am, we were told that you couldn't in fact apply for a visa there. With a map to the right building in hand we headed off to get lost. The map was terrible. We asked several people before finally finding the building, zipping up to the 15th floor, and running into the visa office. They only accept applications until noon, and I made it with about 15 minutes to spare. Once there, all of my fretting turned out to be for naught. They had photo copiers, they had places to get photos taken, they had everything you needed... all for the low low price of almost 100 DOLLARS to get a stupid visa. Sigh. Quite expensive in this country.

After the visa we wanted to deal with Edith needing a refund for a plane ticket she purchased in order to get into the country. We also wanted to find out how to get to ride elephants, and had sorted out that there were elephant riding treks out of Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. We were checking out a hindu shrine on the street when a friendly Thai man approached me. He was dressed differently and had a different manner about him than most of the Thais who approached us... he didn't seem to be selling anything, and seemed to just be milling about, passing the time. He asked where I was from, and when I said Canada he got very excited and showed us a Canadian pin on his tie. Apparently his daughter had been on an exchange to Saskatoon (of all places!). We chatted for a bit, and when we told him we wanted to go to Chiang Mai he told us that if we were going to book train tickets, etc., we should avoid all of the tourist places near where we were staying. Apparently a lot of tourists book there and and think they have reservations but the agencies don't actually call anybody. He told us that we should go to the government run office, and that we could get a tuk tuk for 40 bat (about a dollar... far less than we were usually charged). We asked him to negotiate with a tuk tuk for us, and he happily obliged, saying that it was nice to have people to talk to on his lunch break (he worked across the street at a toyota dealership). We bid him a fond goodbye and were rocketed off to the government run tourist agency.

I was a bit skeptical when we first got into the agency... I wanted just to get train tickets but the guy there wanted us to book the entire trip with him... tickets to chiang mai, but he convinced us to book both tickets, a hotel in chiang mai, and the trek itself all through him. A three day trek included all the meals, but still, the 180 bucks they were asking for the whole shabang seemed a bit much for thailand. However, it would guarantee that we would be returned to Bangkok in one piece in time for me to pick up my passport and fly to India. So I agreed.

The next morning we walked around to again try and get Edith's plane ticket refunded, and after settling that out we found ourselves randomly run into an impressive looking temple. We were almost scammed on the way in. A guy told us that we couldn't go in because Edith didn't have long pants or shoes. She responded that she had them packed in her bag, and started to change. Then he said that the temple was closed that day for a religious ceremony, and would reopen at 1 pm. I protested when I saw people going in. He changed his story once again saying that it was only open for another ten minutes. At this point I was ignoring him but when he insisted that there were better attractions and started writing on Edith's map I was getting annoyed. By the time we finally got into the temple, which was open all day and had no important ceremonies, the man had disappeared into the wood work. We read a sign saying that exactly that sort of interaction at the entrance was the work of pickpockets. Fortunately we remained unscathed, as I had all of my money (as usual) hidden in my bra, and Edith's massive backpack hosting her collosal and amazing camera was pretty pick pocket sound.

The temple was amazing. There weren't many other white people around. There were golden buddahs lining open air halls winding along the outer wall of the temple, and steps in the middle led up to the spiritual center of the beast. As always we had to remove our shoes to enter, and we tiptoed in to be greeted with a massive and gleaming buddah, peacefully smiling in the center of the temple. Thais were sitting cross legged on the richly carpeted red floor, bowing and praying in silence. The walls were gold and red and purple and the place had the feeling of immense wealth and spiritual power. After tiptoeing around and taking some amazing photos of the buddah we retreated back into the blinding sun.

We next made our way down to the grand palace grounds, which are apparently the most popular tourist attraction in bangkok. We arrived in the heat of the day, and after downing some coconut juice (made by splitting open a coconut and providing straws) we tried to face the masses. There were white and japanese tourists everywhere, and the heat and crowds seemed pretty unappealing. As did the 350 baht entry fee. We were tired, we were hot, and we wanted to return to our air conditioned room for a nap before the night train. I decided to visit the grand palace grounds another day as I'm destined to spend quite a bit of time in Bangkok. Which, at the moment, sounds pretty appealing.

After a last chill day and night in bangkok consisting of wandering the streets, avoiding touts and eating deliciously cheap and flavorful food from street stalls. I'm obsessed with curry. Comparing the food here to south america is pitiful. Everything here is filled with vegetables and aromatic spices and somehow makes the heat seem less severe. And then, we borded the night train to Chiang Mai.