SE Asia Travelogue #2 – More Thailand

Dearest Friends and Fans,
 
When we last left you, we were winding down our sojourn in Bangkok.  After writing the last installment, we came upon some street performance, while wandering through a city park. On one side of the park there was a small orchestra playing traditional Thai music.  A few hundred meters away, a crew of shirtless Thai B-Boys was doing some of the best breakdancing we’ve seen since Berkeley.  The perfect summation of Thailand: holding fast to their traditional culture, while embracing all the manifestations of Western modernity.
 
Random Thai Fact #1 – “George”
Surprisingly, every Asian we’ve talked politics with (Thais, Burmese, Kashmiri) seems to be really into George Bush. They think his pillaging of Iraq’s oil is a good thing (gas is expensive here), and/or they’re hoping he’ll do something similar to the brutal dictators running their home countries.  We’re not doing a great job of getting across the depths of our hatred for the man, nor have we been able to communicate our disinterest in the Miss Universe pageant (a current Thai preoccupation) – but that’s a whole other story.
 
So, on our way out of BKK we spent an afternoon in Ayuthaya, riding bikes in the sweltering heat around amazing ruins of temples and headless Buddhas.  Riding on the left side of the road took a bit of getting used to!  As we were getting sick of looking at Wats (temples), we came across a bunch of elephants and their costumed mahouts packing up for the end of the day – they loaded the giant animals onto the back of big trucks and drove off. We followed them, riding to the outskirts of town to the King’s elephant encampment.  We watched in awe as dozens of elephants ate, wrestled, and did tricks with their trunks.  After a little while, we were invited in to play with the baby elephants.  So cute!  They were very mischievious, untying Steve’s shoes and trying to hug Phil.
 
Random Thai Fact #2 – “Farangs”
We didn’t realize that being Farangs (foreigners) would be our ticket to instant popularity with the under-6 set.  Not only do parents get to point us out to their children and identify us as Farang, but our very presence is enough to evoke everything from gleeful screams of “Farang” to exhortations such as “Hello-1-2-3-4!” as we pass by.  Seems like everybody’s working on their english.
 
We took a cool overnight sleeper train from Ayuthaya to Chiang Mai.  Very fun – never before had we taken a mode of conveyance where you get to lie down.  There was a bit of confusion at first- everyone seemed to have berths except for Phil, who just had a chair.  But soon the porter came by and with a few deft maneouvers transformed her seat into a bed.
 
Random Thai Fact #3 – “Bags”
Plastic bags play an important role in thai market culture.  Not only are they good for your sticky rice, your curry, and your soup, but also your Coke!  Vendors will actually open a glass soda bottle and pour it into a bag for you to take with you, with a straw of course.  Interestingly, also, any time you buy something in a bag you can be sure the bag will come puffed up to maximum plumpness, no matter how small a quantity of actual products lie therein.
 
After a pretty quick stopover in Chiang Mai, we were off to Pai, a little hippie town in the “toes of the foothills of the Himalayas.”  We stayed in a very cool place on the banks of the river, across a little bamboo bridge.  Our room was a little hut on stilts, next to a garlic and soybean field, sorrounded by wooly green mountains in every direction. 
 
Pai has become quite a destination for euros and israelis on the year-long travel circuit.  If anyone has a fetish for hippies on motorcycles, this is the place for you.  Apparently this otherwise peaceful town has been having an epidemic of motorcyle accidents, however.  In our two days in town, we witnessed two people in arm bandages, our neighbor at the guesthouse drove into a Thai kid within his first hour in town, and we saw a drunken girl simply drop off her bike and struggle to pick it up, all the while insisting she was fine.  In light of this, we opted for travel by elephant, which seemed a safer way to get around.
 
We had a great time swimming with them in the river – they would dunk us over and dump us off their backs, and squirt us with their trunks.  And we were lucky to get to hear our elephant trumpeting – an incredible sound that vibrated the elephant’s whole body (although the sound also seemed to trigger all the other elephants spontaneously peeing).  Afterwards, our bow-legged thighs were ready for our first thai massages.  We were slightly surprised to discover that a thai massage includes your ass-crack!  Josh’s masseuse in particular was giggly and reeked of whisky.
 
Random Thai Fact #4 – “Dogs”
Thai dogs seem to be considerably more lethargic than their american counterparts.  There are lots of them, and we tend to encounter them sacked out, semi-conscious, strewn about the ground in various random places – like in the middle of a busy street.
 
For the past few days we’ve been bumming around Chiang Mai – a pleasant, if heavily touristed, city.  We bought our first custom-tailored clothes, attended a glitzy rock concert promoting dish detergent, spent time at the kitschy – but beautifully air-conditioned – Chiang Mai museum, and shopped at a few too many markets.
 
Random Thai Fact #5 – “Books”
Chiang Mai has many english-language used book stores.  (Some of them also double as excellent vegetarian restaurants.)  We were happily surprised when Steve found a copy of Dracula shelved in the Biography section.
 
Tomorrow is our last day in northern Thailand. Steve has left us for the sunny beaches of the south.  We’ve got a batik class and a dance concert to attend.  Then we’re off to Laos! 
 
More news, and hopefully photos, to follow.  Keep us posted on your happenings too.
 
Love,
 
Josh (in the composing chair) and Phil (suggesting apt turns of phrase and arguing for grammatical correctness)