Soundtrack to my vaction: Side B (Thailand)

Soundtrack To My Vacation—B side (Thailand)

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello...The Beatles


As with Bali, we hit Bangkok late and without plans. (Obviously, based on our utter inability to LEARN BY EXPERIENCE, we deserved whatever we might get.) Bookless—we'd elected to buy a cheap Lonely Planet off of the street upon arrival—we knew our best bet would be to head down to Khao San Road and try our luck checking into somewhere:

a) cheap
(but)
b) not a “den of iniquity,” as the tactful and euphemistic might put it.

We had, I suppose, learned something in Bali: we did elect, on this “wonderfully spontaneous” occasion, to station our friend G at a Swenson's (yes, they have Swenson's in Thailand!) with all of our bags. Meanwhile, J and I bravely, wearily ventured forth to price-compare hostels in the area. (It's around midnight by this time, btw.) After visiting several “contendahs”--one, swear I'm not making this up, called the Cha-Cha (see? I wasn't kidding with my lodging criteria above)--J and I returned to Swenson's.

We've collected prices and business cards. A little clean (though slightly strange-seeming kind of) place called the Hello Guesthouse is cheapest. Sweet. Decision made. We gather our stuff, wheel slowly over, and crash for the night (well, morning at this point). Look out, Bangkok! (In about ten hours!)

Now, our friend A—the recipient of the fateful phone call on Chuuk, if you remember—is, coincidentally, also going to be in Thailand and wants to meet up.

“No problem!” we had said. “There's Internet everywhere—it'll be a cinch to work out!”

So, that later morning, before we head out for the day, we email A to let him know where we're staying, what we're doing for the day, etc. Surely he'll be able to find us based on that.

We fill our first day to the brim and then some. We start out by trying to visit The Tourist Attraction: the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Though the palace ends up being closed for a national holiday, we do learn a few key pointers on Thai dress and custom. Now, as it is about 3000 degrees outside, and we're on vacation (e.g. off-of-perma-t-shirt&knee-length skirt duty), G's wearing shorts and a tank top, I shorts and my (new-found $5) Little Miss Naughty t-shirt. We do, however, know temple rules; we've brought sarongs to cover our offensive legs.

But, before we get a chance to show off our remarkable amount of cultural sensitivity, a temple employee before us snaps, “No tank tops in the temple!” Then, looking around at the slowly-collecting crowd of hopelessly dressed foreigners, she picks up her megaphone in order to tell us, loudly: “no sexy in the temple.” Evidently she likes her own phrasing, for she then repeats to the crowd at large, with added vehemence: “NO SEXY IN THE TEMPLE!!”

The day flies by as we flit from wat to wat, then finally from tourist office to home. When we get in, the desk informs us: “there was a man call for you. Nine o' clock.”

Hooray! A had gotten our message. We sought further information. “He called? He's coming by? Wait, nine o' clock this morning? Tonight? Tomorrow morning?”

Our only answer were puzzled expressions, shrugs. Without any phone number at which to reach our compatriot, we did the only sensible thing to do in the situation: go up to our room, eat ice cream, and wait...and wait...and wait. Finally, when around 9:30/9:45, we still had heard nothing, J called down to the desk.

“Hello Guesthouse,” they answered.

“Can you tell us,” J asked, “has our friend called?”

“Do you need a room?” they offerred.

“I'm IN one of your rooms,” a frustrated J cried.

Her questioning revealed that the desk had (well, we were pretty sure) received no calls or visitors for us. So, after a bit more waiting, J went down to the desk. They greeted her excitedly: “Your friend called!”

“Really? When?”

“A girl this time.”

A girl? Huh? We didn't have any girl friends in Bangkok. We scratched our heads about this for awhile. Then we got it: J was the “girl friend” of ours who had called for us. Good times.

As we would later learn, our friend A came by the following morning to find us checked out and gone, the only souvenir of our visit my photocopied ID at the desk.

With that, it was Goodbye Hello, Hello Chiang Mai!


When You're In Prison...The Offspring


Boy had we gotten a deal! (Or so the smiling man at the “official” Tourist Authority office had told us as we—quite unsmilingly—bought our tickets the prior night.) A two-day trek, two nights of lodging, mucho food, and a FREE BUS RIDE TO CHIANG MAI, all for a modest...[you get the idea].

Hello Chiang Mai!, the side of our bus cheerily proclaimed. I think after our ride, however, if anyone had greeted us after such a fashion, we would have punched them in the face. Hard.

You see, we had been assured that we would be traveling north in the lap of luxury—“not a bus, really...more like a hotel on wheels!” The seats were to recline to a near-sleeping angle, there was to be air-con, lively, interesting fellow travellers, and entertainment! [Care for a translation?]

Reclining seats! “Well golly gee! My seat reclines to a
luxurious 92-degree angle!!"


Air-con! Haven't been this cold since, oh, a real winter

Worldly and interesting travel Noisy, drunken British kids (who nearly miss the
companions! bus when we stop midway for dinner because they
are so oblivious), who enjoy nothing better than
lounging with their smelly socks on my armrest!

Entertainment! They're showing a DVD of a movie called THE
CONDEMNED. At least they've got a healthy sense
of irony.

I believe in miracles. Know why? Directly following this delightful jaunt, we got off the bus, and I asked J: “how did you sleep?” She answers something along the lines of “awful. And you?” “I slept great!” I reply. I AM STILL ALIVE AFTER THIS CONVERSATION. Case closed.


Every Little Thing's Gonna Be All Right...Bob Marley


After I fortuitously survived the above exchange, the tour people pack us off to the hostel we're staying at in Chiang Mai for the evening—Nice Place (gotta love the names!). We shuffle in with the other turistas and sit along the side of the lobby, sipping complimentary coffee and awaiting further instruction. We watch with a combination of amusement and horror as some of our fellow travelers put away beer alongside their morning coffee. Um, excuse me, I wanted so badly to ask, did you just get off of the same bus I did? Or did you just step out of some kind of parallel universe?

Well anyway, I'm sitting there in wonderment when I see a strange sight out of the corner of my eye. Could that familiar-looking white boy be...

“A!!!” I yell, putting aside my coffee and running over to give him a hug. “We found you!!”

“You found me?” he laughs. “I've been chasing you bastards all over Thailand!”

When we inform him that we're signed up for this all-inclusive trek, A's displeasure is evident (e.g. “you guys got yourself suckered into this and so now I have to come along?”). He's a good sport, though, and signs up to come explore with us the following day.

The next morning (post-bucket—the bucket is highly essential if you visit Thailand) dawns far too early. We're tired, headachey, wondering what exactly we've gotten ourselves into. (If this translates from spiel to reality anything like the bus did, I'm pretty certain that fewer people will come out of the mountains than went in, if you know what I mean.)

However, I think it was somewhere between our guide Pon singing Bob Marley with us in the truck, riding an elephant, and he and I turning our hats sideways gangstah-style that I knew the trip would be epic. Words can't describe accurately what was truly the greatest travel experience of my life, so a few moments/images will have to do...

being pounded by clear rushing water in the sunshine
laughing down a mud hill in the rain
rounding a bend in the road into a village out of another world,
wreathed in cloud like a holy place
and green curry and laughing and singing and Elephant beer and Pink Floyd—and no one can sing
along, but it doesn't even matter—and lying in a pile like warm puppies against the cold
and the dark
waking up fresh and bright
can't leave, but must,
our green-gold wonderland of goodness
and down down we go, singing all the way
on the truck, the wind whips our faces as we travel through time and space out of magic,
back to real

Singing don't worry,
about a thing,
'cuz every little thing's
gonna be all right, child...


Crazy Train...Ozzy Osbourne


We rolled out of our trekking world and back into real life on a tight schedule: we had to make the 5 p.m. night train back to Bangkok. Theoretically, this train would put us back in town at 7:30, and we would then hustle to catch our 8:30 bus down to Ko Chang. Perfect. This would give us two nights and a day on a gorgeous little island before heading back to Bangkok to spend one day sightseeing with A and a last day sightseeing on our own. Come Saturday, we'd catch the plane back for the long haul aaaalllll the way back to Kosrae. (Sorry, I know this seems boring, but it's relevant.)

Well, those of you who have traveled with me are probably quite familiar with the Megan Dichotomy: chill most of the time, insanely high-strung when it comes to making planes and trains and buses and things. We actually arrived at the train station quite early, so we stocked up on provisions (read: street food), hung out with A, and just generally chilled. Suddenly we realize: hey, whoa! Our train is leaving in about four minutes!

We accordingly start walking along the train. What we don't know is that we are in practically the LAST CAR. We're walking, the train has started making its starting up noises, we're in 5 and we're walking by 10 for crying out loud! We pick up the pace—this is it! No wait, dining car. Then we hear that awful sound—air brakes being released. We're going to miss the train and we weren't even late!!

J for some reason has gone at some point to the other side of the train to walk, we don't even know if she's abreast of us or not, I reach car 5, practically throw myself up the stairs, and then there's J and there's G and we've made it. I'm so worked up that I'm screaming profanity as we bust in the door. It must have taken me a good fifteen seconds before I look around, take in my surroundings. Holy shit. We're in a train car. We made our train, and now we are surrounded by a bunch of quiet, subdued, sophisticated travellers who are staring at me in shock whilst covering their children's ears in order to prevent the introduction of some decidely spicey new vocabulary words. I AM the walking stereotype of the asshole American. Awesome.

I shut up. The people in the booth to the left are giving me looks of horror. I silently skitter down the car to our compartment, shame-faced. (The train just started going.) However, J informs me that the people giving me the horrific looks were only kidding—they're Europeans. This makes me feel better.

We eat our food and begin to soak in the ambience of the train. (I think I like Goodbye Chiang Mai much better than the Hello version.) Our train attendant comes by and, though we hadn't planned to order additional (expensive) food, he's just so charming we can't help ourselves.

When our fabulous waiter returns with our food, he asks us what we'd like for breakfast in the morning. “We'll be getting in at 9:30. Would you like your eggs scrambled or fried?”

The problem? We can't get past his first sentence. “Whoa! What?? We're getting in at 9:30?? We have a bus to catch at 8:30. Are you sure about that time??”

He just repeats the scrambled/fried query, confused as to why we are freaking out.

“We don't want any eggs! Are you sure we're delayed two hours?”

Yes, we are in fact two hours delayed. Only now do we decide to refer to our newly-purchased guidebook. “Trains,” it informs us, “are a somewhat unreliable form of transit as they are frequently delayed.” Awesome. Our whole plan is fucked.

I'm crying on our tray table, G and J are flipping through travel books searching for a remedy to our problem, our non-refundable bus ticket problem. Around this time, the staff decides to come around and fold out beds. Sleepy time, everyone. Joy.

I broke my watch in LA en route to Peace Corps. I tried once to replace it, but that watch died by rain on Kosrae. Taking this to be Fate speaking to me through electronics, I never replaced it. So, on the train, my alarm clock and my iPod were my only guides as to time. I slept fitfully, waking up several times in the middle of the night. Upon one of the waking occasions, I discovered that my alarm clock had stopped. (This happens periodically when the battery slips out of place.) I reset it according to my infallible little iPod. (Thank you, Steve Jobs.) Alarm set for 6:15. This way, we could wake up early enough that, in case of an on-time Bangkok arrival—a possibility, we had been told—we would be ready to zip off and catch our bus and save our trip.

I awake to my alarm. No one else is moving about the cabin, but I'm sure they are just lazy, ill-planners. I run over to J and G's beds and wake them up. “Get ready, guys! I'm going to go find out when we're getting in.”

Five minutes later, G is cursing at me. “Megan, it's 5:15!” She brandishes her cell phone.

“Haha, whoops!” I say. Turns out the iPod doesn't know its time zones so well as it thinks it does. “Sorry.”

We all go back to bed.

By some sort of miracle, we end up rolling in to the Bangkok train station at 8:15. (Late, but still possible to make our bus.) As soon as we're there, I go into full-on NYC mode—weaving through the crowd on the platform, not looking back, prepared to bowl over the young the weak and the elderly, if need be. We are MAKING THAT BUS, GODDAMMIT!

I hurry over to the taxi stand. We get the first taxi, ants around in the car, jump out in traffic at Khao San (where we are to pick up the bus). We run over to the tourist office and find...all the other tourists are still there! We're saved.

We wheel through traffic to the bus stop (well, bus median, really). And wait. Ten minutes later, the bus rolls up. (We thought we were late—ha.) Then we sit for a good fifteen minutes at the stop, wind around town, and (around 9:30) make a stop at the train station before peacing out of Bangkok for Ko Chang. Told you this country had a healthy sense of irony.