afterword

Excerpted from Haruki Murakami's novel Kafka on the Shore, a passage I circled from a book I took from the Bangkok guesthouse I stayed in:

"I'm free, I think. I shut my eyes and think hard and deep about how free I am, but can't really understand what it means. All I know is I'm totally alone. All alone in an unfamiliar place, like some solitary explorer who's lost his compass and his map. Is that what is means to be free? I don't know and I give up thinking about it."

A quick note.

I've uploaded several photos, so look down the page. Also, there are two new posts here recounting my last days, so start at the next one and read up to get the correct chronology.

A Premature End.

So now the explanation.

This was on Tuesday. The friday before I had called Northwest Airlines from the train station in Ayuthya. I was wondering about the details of moving my return date forward. As far as I'd known I had made no commitments. The circumstances were difficult however, as Thai public telephones differ little from any other public telephones in your ability to hear the other end. This is only complicated by a language barrier, and even more so by the deafening roar of trains only several feet behind. What I got out of the conversation was that I would need to call back next monday to find out the details, as the office in Thailand was closed on weekends, and the office in the U.S. had already closed, as it was night there.

So as the weekend wore on, and I became more accustomed to travelling alone, etc. my need to move my flight date forward was diminishing slightly. So I didn't even call on monday as directed.

When Tuesday came I decided I should probably call and find out the details I had inquired about. I'm still not sure what would have happened had I not called back. But I would definitely still be in Thailand, though perhaps with no way to return home. So, I called Northwest Airlines and asked for Bang An, as directed. She quickly proceeded to tell me that she had changed my return date to July 5th at 6 a.m. it was July 4th at about 11 a.m. and Chiang Mai is a twelve hour train ride back to Bangkok. Obviously I had not anticipated this, or I would have likely been in closer proximity to Bangkok international airport. I told the woman where I was, and that I wasn't even sure that I could be in Bangkok by 4 a.m. the next morning. To which she replied that if I wanted to change it again, she would have to charge me for the first date change and then once more for the second date change. I didn't know what to do, so I told here I would call back in an hour.

Now, this was perfect. Never before have I felt so much force against my will. I don't believe in fate or divine intervention, but between leaving my passport at in the copy machine in Yelm on the way to the airport, and the big confidence boosting cold sore, and then this wonderful misunderstanding, I was starting to get the idea that something wanted me not to be here. I was coming to understand my fate, and that required me to return, and perhaps I was never supposed to get on the plane to begin with.

Of course that's mostly silly. But that was the way I was beginning to feel. And it's only mostly silly because if it all happened the same way again with all the misfortune, I would still choose to do it. It was a truly interesting experience, and I'd learned a lot in a week and a half. Despite the complications I do plan on giving it a second go.

And back to the story. So I returned to the guest house and gathered my things. I needed to see if I could actually make it to Bangkok on time. I had no train reservations, no bus reservations, and didn't know if there would be any room on any transportation back to Bangkok by 4 a.m. The woman who ran the guest house that I was staying at was very helpful though. She called the train station and told me that it was unlikely that I would make it by train. And she instructed me to go the bus station. She even wrote down directions for a tuk tuk driver so that I would have no problems getting there. I made it quickly to the bus station and tried to figure out how to navigate the terminal. As with everything in Thailand, being vigilant and cold-shouldered wins over the chaos of many smiling competing individuals trying to sell to you what you need. I don't know if I got a very good deal, but as I new my journey was ending money didn't really matter. After some confusion I found a bus that would get me to Bangkok's bus terminal just after 1 a.m. So I called back the Northwest Agent and confirmed everything, and got my flight information.

And I had a couple of hours before the bus left, so I decided to take up one of the many happy individuals trying to sell tuk tuk rides, and find somewhere to buy some souvenirs. The adventure wasn't over yet. I wanted to buy some silk scarves to take home. I'd seen them at the night bazaar for an advertised price of 80 baht. Which means of course much less than that. But unfortunately, the word "scarf" is not an international word. I managed to find the key words, "Thai Silk," which one of the tuk tuk drivers friends recognized, and I agreed to go somewhere. Unfortunately this one was likely also my own fault, fortunately, I'd stopped caring about baht. So I'd read about these "silk factories" out of town that you could get dragged off too, where they pretend like they make the silk there, but really only sell you very overpriced goods, under the auspices of authenticity. The dilemma was this, however: I was apparently being skirted away via my own volition. If it had been a tuk tuk scam, I don't think the driver would have had to stop to ask for directions. And so when I say I stopped caring about baht, that doesn't mean that I was willing to pay 1300 baht for an 80 baht scarf, what I mean was that I was willing to tell the tuk tuk driver to take me back into Chiang Mai, which would mean a more expensive ride.

I had him take me to the place where the night bazaar was held, despite it being the middle of the day, I knew there would be some merchants open. And the ride that should have cost me 60 baht ended up costing 200 baht. Nevertheless, I quickly found what I was looking for. They were a little more expensive than I'd seen, but I I managed to talk 120 baht per scarf down to 100 baht per scarf, or 5 for 600 down to 5 for 500, reasonable enough. I also picked up a t-shirt and a wooden Buddha statue for myself. And with a little bargaining, managed to get reasonable prices. The bargaining is actually quite entertaining. I ask for the price and say, "Oh, I don't have that much money." And they say, "How much you want?" And I say about half the price they said, and they laugh at me. Eventually we work things out, and everyones happy. Its a much more lively way to shop.

And then it gets blurry. I spent the next 34 hours travelling, by bus and cab and plane. And got 1 hrs sleep in 48 hours. I met a kind Thai gentleman on the bus who immediately took it upon himself to be my guide, until he fell asleep. And managed to outwit some men selling non-metered taxi rides. And had a lot of time to think, though my mind wasn't quite functional enough to do so.

The last moments before the mad dash.

I will recount the final days of my journey, but first let me say that I've returned home. This has been by far the most chaotic trip that I've taken yet, and I am both disappointed and relieved to be back. But first let me recount my time in the northernmost city that I visited, Chiang Mai.

Chaing Mai is Thailand's second city, though it is remarkably more hospitable than its bigger brother Bangkok. The city center lies inside of a square canal, and the ancient brick gates still stand at the major entry points. Chiang Mai is far more pleasant than Bangkok, due primarily to two factors. 1) It has Thailands best municipal waste management program, so the trash is taken care of. and 2.) It has a very high proportion of expatriots from European countries, and so has many restaurants and businesses with menus in Latin script. What this all boils down to is likely much higher rents, which creates a noticeably more wealthy city. In other words, they keep the poor outside the city walls, probably much like in ancient times.

The city within the canals is quite small and I walked extensively around it, not necessarily by choice. The city was clearly built before any sense of logical city planning was in vogue, so finding the right street is difficult, and there are many winding alleys. I found myself walking along the canal edge trying to guess which street into the center would bring me to where I wanted to go, only to end up on the other side of the city at the opposite canal, quite frustrating at times.

The city is also known for its high proportion of temples. Wandering around, it was inevitable that I would happen upon some. The guest house I was staying at was near the largest temple in the city, the name of which I forget. But as I was trying to find my way back to the guest house I decided to walk around the temple grounds. I gazed up at the crumbling temple, and took photos of the four golden Buddhas still sitting at the top. I wandered around and saw the monks in their saffron robes sitting under the trees studying. As I was walking past them, one called out to me. I'd read in the guide book that at certain places there were rooms set aside for "monk chat," where you can sit and have a conversation with monks. They get to practice their english, and you can find out about monk life. So here I was apparently being solicited for an impromptu "monk chat" session. I sat with the monk for maybe a half an hour. He asked me questions, and I answered as honestly and as thoughrouly as I could, and he responded similarly to my inquiries. It was very interesting, as I came to understand that buddhist monks don't just sit around meditating all day in search of enlightenment. Rather, I found out that they study nearly everything, certainly a form of enlightenment, but of a far more material variety. For example, as we were sitting there, he was doing korean homework: practicing writing in the korean script. And I asked him why he was learning Korean, expecting that he was planning on teaching in Korea, or some other reasonable answer. But his reply was simply, "I study all languages." And he proceeded to name the many languages that he was studying. He answered similarly when I asked him about what form of Buddhism he was studying. "All of them," he replied. As I came to find out the reason for a young man becoming a monk was really quite practical, and though I'm sure the spritual aspect is shouldn't be underestimated, the reason was that becoming a monk was cheaper than attending a University.

That was perhaps the most interesting event that took place in Chiang Mai. I had thought that the next day I would go back to see talk with the monk again, but I didn't know that things would be different the next day.


That night I headed out to Chiang Mai's famous night bazaar. The night bazaar is located well out of the inner city, and as I passed bars full of eager thai women, I found myself questioning whether I were going in the right direction. Soon though I had found my destination. The Chiang Mai night bazaar is apparently a relic of the past glory of Chiang Mai. Throughout antiquity, Chiang Mai was a major trading destination, situated as it were between China to the north, and harbors throughout Thailand and Burma to the south. Ancient caravans used to converge here to trade goods, and that tradition lives on in the Chiang Mai night bazaar. The market is quite extensive, and you get the feeling that the asian import stores get their goods from here, or places like it. There are many things to buy, and it is all quite cheap, and it gets cheaper if you are good at bargaining, but nobody pays full price for anything. I wandered around for a while, and bought some hanging lantern ball things, mostly because of how nice they looked all dangling from the umbrella, like an electric rainbow glowing at night. On my way back I saw one of the german couples I'd met in Ayuthya. Clearly on the path marked, "Tourist."

Day Seven

Well, yesterday I hung out with the monekys some more. At the same time, what I think was a wedding caravan came by to go to the temple. It was five or six trucks with people standing up packed into the back. The first one had people playing music, everyone else was dancing. They made there way to the temple and went in to do something.

I spent some time reading in a bookstore. Of coursee there were no english language books, but I had my own. There was a little cafe there and it was air conditioned so it was a nice break from the monkeys and the heat.

And now I wait to get on a 10 hr train ride north to Chiang Mai.

Day Six

So there are monkeys here. Its very interesting. Though they represent more of a nuisance than anything else to the people that live here, they can't do anything about it: as they are buddhists, they can't bring themselves to kill the animals. Its the same things with the wild dogs everywhere, even though they are sickly mange ridden and probably rabid, they let them die naturally. Its really quite strange, as the don't seem to have any problems eating chicken, or pork, or cow. For some reasons the animals that should be killed are left to be pests.

Of course there is another side to the story. Though the monkeys are a nuisance, for instance the police walk around with slingshots to keep them from knawing on peoples cars and crapping on them, they also bring in a lot of tourist dollars. So apparently every year the people here have a festival thanking the monekys for making their city prosperous. If it weren't for the fact that they treat the dogs similarly, I would think that they keep the monkeys around only for that reason.

Nevertheless it is a sight to be seen. I just hope that none of them crap on me.

On another note, I had my first run in with what was most likely a food borne illness. Luckily it was a fairly mild case. But it did require an urgent return to my hotel room.

I have three suspicous incidents in mind for the culprit.

1. In Ayuthya, at the Baan Lotus guest house, I may have recieved a bottle of water which had been refilled with tap water. I believe that the seal on the cap was broken when I got it, but I could be mistaken.

2. I ate Pad Thai from a street vendor. The food was prepared hot and fresh in front of me, however.

3. I ordered a beer with a meal, and didn't notice until too late that the bottom of the cup had about an inch of ice in it. At first I thought that maybe it was one of those cups with the ice inside the glass, until it popped up and started floating.

I think number 3 is the most likely.

Day Five

I woke up with a cold sore on my upper lip. Apparently my immune system has been compromised. Having a fat lip doesn't exactly help give me the confidence necessary to meet people. Not that there was really anyone to meet, it seemed that I was in a little exclave of Germany. Not only at the Guest house, but all around the ruins in the city the only foreign white people I saw seemed to be German.

Nevertheless, I rented a bicycle to explore on my own. My first task was shopping. I needed a memory card and some Deet. There was a big shopping center not too far away that had both. It was fairly straight forward, though I could only find %15 deet lotion. I would have preferred a higher amount to keep the bugs away for good. I bought a 512 mb memory card for 1500 baht. Something like 40 USD. Seemed fairly reasonable.

Afterwards I set out to explore the ruins on my own. I went to the Wat Phra Mahathat first. There is a tree there which has grown over an ancient buddha head. Its very interesting, most all of the other buddha statues have had the heads cut off and sold. Thai entreprenurialism at its best. There isn't much else there as the towering structure had collapsed about a hundred years ago. Some large sitting buddhas with there heads still on were there too.

Across the road is another ancient temple, this one has the tower still intact. Unlike european historical structures, the Thai let you climb up and on things. Not very good for preservation, but it makes it much more interesting when you can walk up and inside things on your own. Inside of this tower there were three levels to descend into. The lower you went, the hotter it was, but the more intact were the ancient murals. The were mostly corroded away. But in the bottommost level, which is barely large enough for one person to fit into, the murals were intact. It is sad though, because they are not being preserved. I could have chipped off a little piece of an ancient mural for a souvenir had I liked too.

...

This morning I took a train to Lopburi. There are more ruins here, but these ones are supposedly run over by wild monkeys.

Day Four

I took a train to Ayutthya. It took me awhile to find the guest house, and when I did the lady wanted me to go on a tuk tuk tour of the ruins in the city. I didn't have anything else to do, and the price was reasonable, 180 baht for a three hour tour. I thought maybe it would be a good way to meet some new people.

It could have been, except that the four other people were two german couples who wanted to get to know each other, in german. They were friendly, and occasionally spoke to me in english. We saw many ruins and stopped to play with some elephants. The ruins are erie after dark.

Unfortunately, not having a memory card for the camera, I didn't get to take many pictures. I'll try to find one today, but it seems like it will be a challenge.

Day Three

My new friends friend arrived. Upon which I thought initially that I would be alone again. Luckily, however, they invited me to spend the day with them. I was relieved.

It was at times akward. Perhaps a short description of their relationship is in order: Two women who have known eachother for sometime. They are both from Twin Falls, Idaho. The most important detail though is that this meeting was the first time in nearly two years that they have seen each other. The second one, Victoria, has been in the Peace Core in Kyrgyzstan for that time, and has come here on Vaction to hang out with her friend. Needless to say, they had a lot of catching up to do. I know quite a bit about the social network of middle twenty somethings in Twin Falls now. I felt a bit out of place. But most of this chatting occured at a place called Larry's Dive, which is probably one of the only Mexican Restaurants in all of Bangkok. The food was good, so I was happy.

But they are both very kind, and never once did they make me feel as though I were in their way.

So then more fun. I have had enough experience with this in my life that it is strangely relieving: we went shopping. Or rather, they shopped and I followed. The markets here are giant. And everything is really cheap.

Two things first. The only real chain store in Thailand is 7-11. They are everywhere and the are air conditioned and have really cheap water, so they are very useful. Secondly, nearly every place that is flat has some vendor on it. So accross the street from the hostel is a 7-11, and surrounding that are stree vendors. Mostly food. Well, they wanted to get some food. So we found a place, and this extrodinary man who owned the place started to chat with us. His english was very good, and he was wearing a navy hat. He was in his mid 60's I would guess. So I immediately thought that he must have spent some time in the military, probably during Viet-nam. As his story unfolded, and as he proudly showed off his Social Security card, and FCC radio operating cards, he let it be known that he had flown for Air America, the private airline secretly owned by the CIA that delivered supplies to the secret wars in Laos and Cambodia during the Viet-Nam war. He was very kind, and interesting.

Later that evening we went out to the Sukhumvit area of Bangkok to find some bars. I should have known better. Somewhere I had read that this area was frequented by sex tourists, and that we should have gone to the Backpacker area where there would be people our age. So in this area there are prostitutes everywhere, and middle aged white men. The first bar we tried to go in was this area down an alley with all kinds of pretty lights. We were whisked up an elevator into a balcony area. The elevator only went up, so we had to walk all around. The first door up the escalator, some people tried to push us into, and as they opened the door, we saw, to our surprise, mostly naked women dancing. We all took a step back, and gasped. Not what we were expecting. So we had to walk all the way around this balcony area, every few feet a door opening with the same thing. At one point a prostitue grabbed my arm and tried to pull me in. It was frightening. Some of them were poorly disguised males. They even grabbed one of my companions, who is female. We left there berwildered, but found a very nice bar on a rooftop with only a few prostitutes entertaining a couple of men, very laid back in comparison. That wasn't the end of it though, as we were walking off of that street some strange women walking by stuck her hand out and tickled my stomach. I also thought prostitution exploited women, but here I felt objectified and uncomfortable, not the other way around.

Day Two

The day started out not so good. The problem is that the area where this hostel is located is not very friendly to tourists. Its dirty, poor, and their are not many foreigners. So when I tried to find the subway by myself it was a bit disconcerting, culture shock maybe.

Luckily there was another lone traveller in the hotel, who hadn't even tried to venture out, so I introduced myself, and we set out to explore together. It was much better that way.

We must have walked accross half the city, despite using both the subway and the skytrain. And in the heat and the humidity, sweat gushes out of me. Despite drinking three large bottles of water and two cups of coffee, I only urinated once during the day, the rest of the liquid leaving through my pores.

But walking is interesting, as you can see much more. Bangkok being the capital of Thailand, the area that we walked through had alot of government offices, interesting ones like The Office for the Empowerment of People with Disabilities, and also the Kings palace. It seems as though every other person is wearing a yellow shirt, which is a symbol of their respect for the King.

The Kings moat is an interesting sight, despite the fact that it looks like a sewer, there is an outrageosly thriving ecosystem. The water moves with life. And situated alongside it every 100 yards or so is a man with a big gun, though they aren't all that frightening as one clearly had an ipod he was listening too. Anyway, in this moat live thousands of fish, you can see there bodies just under the surface (they must be close to the top as the water is murky). Also there are the occasional turtle. But most interesting of all was the existence of giant lizards. I saw at least three giant lizards at leat two feet in length, not including the tail. All in the kings dirty moat.

There are warnings throughout my guidebook, and on the tourist maps to beware of extra friendly locals. Its apparently a fairly common occurence to be approached by some stranger, who just really wants to help you do all the neat stuff you can. And there is always something that is just about to close, or that is only open for one day (that day) that you just must see. So after looking over our map and telling us where we need to go, and also pointing out where to get a really nice tailored suit, a tuk tuk pulls up. This right after he informed us that you haven't been to thailand if you've not been on a tuk tuk. (These are three wheeled open air taxis.) And then you know its a scam. Its quite disillusioning, but I'm glad I was warned.

Then dinner: the food here is extremely spicy. And after that we took a taxi back to the hotel. The taxi driver was very friendly and taught us a few Thai phrases, and told us about how much he liked the king. He was wearing a yellow shirt.

Day One

I have arrived, and the air is thick.

Here's What To Expect

1.) I cannot say how often I will be able to write updates. It could be every other day, or every week. It all depends on circumstances of which I am still uncertain.
2.) This does not, however, imply gaps in the chronology of my jouney; as I will be keeping a written journal I will always be able to keep the story up to date.
3.) Thanks for paying attention/ you're welcome for the experience of living vicariously through me.