In pai... land of hippies
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2008
1
10
117
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Pai,
Thailand
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
ok tues 16 sept...
right so we wake up, jippy tummies on form this morning, especially for poor sean, meaning i'm left having to go pick up those blasted visas on my own. oh and when i said they cost 50 pounds, that's each, not for two, so you can see where my panic came from, believeing we were going to wind up homeless all for wanting to get into the next country. anyway, so i load up with passports, driving licences, all the ID i can find to prove that i do know this man i'm getting a visa for. anyway so i'm in the taxi, and the driver seems friendly enough, but appears not to know entirely where he's going and he keeps saying it's busy today, and i keep smiling and looking at the clock. it's 4.17 and he pulls over at the wrong end of the road that i need to be on and asks for the telephone number for the embassy so he can get directions, and i'm saying it closes at 4.30. 4.30. he looks around at me and starts saying 4.30 back at me. after realising we have only a few minutes to get to the embassy, he joins in my panic and puts his foot down, and we're both looking along the road for it, and suddenly it's there, and he starts shouting i need to turn, and looking for a u-turn. and it seems like we're driving on forever, but then we find the turn and he screeches up (maybe just slightly exaggerating) to the front door of the embassy and i throw 100 baht at him and jump out of the car. minutes left on the clock, i hand the receipt to the miserable lady from before, and she saunters to get our passports, stamped with our visas, and hands them to me, not a care in the world. all that panic for nothing it seems, but at least we've got them. phew! and it's back to hailing another cab and back home again, which takes forever because of the amount of traffic, and protests happening on one of the major roundabouts, and the sheer number of traffic lights stopping us at every turn. but i'm home again, sean still ill, so unfortunately no thai boxing for us tonight, but we take back some of our wasted day by picking up another very good, very cheap meal from a street seller and a couple of drinks. and just a note to say, we were sat at this one street bar for quite a while that evening, and there was this female traveller, i assume going it alone, and she was turning away the guaro women with some ball all the time we were there, as we were doing, until she got caught by this one woman who slowly roped her into buying two or three pieces of jewellery, which i'm sure she didn't need. and i hate to say it, but it was brutal, and she kept looking at us, embarassed that she hadn't escaped this one, and for me, it was maybe like watching someone get gang-raped. horrid, and you want to help, but what can you say?! btw i haven't ever watched anyone get gang-raped (apart from in that jodie foster film, where she's raped over a juke box, and that wasn't good), and nor would i want to, and my apologies to anyone who might have been gang-raped and is reading this thinking i'm an insensitive bitch, who should stick up for her sisters. but trust me ladies who don't believe me, don't even get me started on the subject. rapists shouldn't be allowed to live!... and the rant is officially over! right, next day...
weds 17 sept...
i'm afraid more of the same with the old tummy situation. and i'm telling you, you get to know a lot about the other person you're travelling with when your flush doesn't work for days, so you get to enjoy what you and they have eaten for the second time around. beautiful. anyway. sean isn't feeling too good again. i feel like shit (?!) but the iron stomach still seems to be getting me through better than his is. so we've got until that evening before our train to chiang mai and and we've decided to keep our room for a half day, as security for our jippy stomachs mostly. he can't do anything, which is really frustrating for both us, and after rowing, and me feeling bad for wanting to do something with our last day in bangkok, and calling him a f*cking cripple (sorry mum, i was very upset) and him calling me selfish for not understanding his plight, i finally apologise before trying to make the best of it by walking over to see the reclining buddha on my own. the walk is horrible, with me ever the sweaty mess, and tuk tuk drivers trying to force me into parting with my money, and me feeling very western and not being a good model for our country, and not particularly loving that everyone here is meant to be so chilled out and nice, but are still certainly out to get you in THE most sly ways possible, and one man being kind enough to help me with directions but then trying to get into conversation that will inevitably lead to an expensive tuk tuk ride, and others saying the buddha is closed but they can take me elsewhere, and women trying to force bird seed into my hand. but finally i get there, and this bloody great buddha, awaiting nirvana is freaking amazing! it is huge! and gold! with massive feet, decorated with mother of pearl. and people are stood staring at it for ages. it was one of those sights, like van gogh's sunflowers, that you could have just sat for hours looking at it, thinking how did they make this thing, but it doesn't change so you don't. anyway, really really good. good is bland but perhaps too awe-inspiring to know what to say here. afterwards, i escape horrible people with a taxi ride home. cheap. for a couple of hours after, we have some lunch at cafe corner, i think, where the waitresses look about 12 but sean thinks they're probably in their late teens and don't age. then it's cheap meal at the train station and finding our sleeper carriage. and it's all good. a lil confused to start with over how our seats will be converted into beds, but no matter, the dudes know what they're doing. so we're all sat down, and it seems quite peaceful, and we're all reading our lonely planet guides, looking at the maze of shanty streets along the track, that seem to have been hidden from sight, and then some aussie dudes decide that they'd like to take over one of the bays for a few drinks. these few turn into inviting the next bay to join them. and then it's music on, drinks all round, stopping the guards to invite them for a drink, them getting slightly sozzled, and keeping most people up until the early hours. we weren't drinking, but maybe we should have been, because once they'd drunk their full, i'm sure they would have probably slept like babies. as opposed to us, who were still listening to our bad mp3s, just trying to drain them out. good blokes i'm sure, but not for a SLEEPER carriage!... and they're back on it that morning. the party never stops. but i'll fill you in later. and so to chiang mai. x
