Heading North (Relatively Speaking)

UPDATE: Now has pictures and other multimedia! May 7/2005

This is coming in from an internet cafe in Chiang Mai, Thailand's "second city". We'll stay here for a while, up to a week, then head off towards Laos.

First a quick video I took at the Democracy Monument in Bangkok.

Live From Bangkok Democracy Monument - Click here for another funny movie.

[N13deg45'24.1" E100deg30'06.8"]
I'm going to try to tag as much as possible with GPS coordinates. Its totally Web 3.0

After a few days around Bangkok, we headed North on May 5th, taking a bus during the day. Bangkok is a little intense - its sort of a machine for extracting money from tourists. Oh yeah, I'd like to give a shout out to Toby and Gareth for giving us a tour around the seedier areas of Bangkok on our final night there. I never thought I'd see a Thai Elvis impersonator, as well as other things I can't discuss around a dinner table.

There's a ton of pictures we took before we left from the Wats around Bangkok and other stuff, here's a few that I really liked:

Kao San Road Day/Night



Golden Mount


Palace Demons


Wall Murals from inside the Grand Palace

In this first picture we see two gods fighting, with the losing god protecting his people by leading them into his mouth, which is probably safe.

Some of the murals were chronological. Here's the same god later releasing the people by cutting open his stomach, which we can all agree is pretty badass.
The bus ride up to Chiang Mai was about 9 hours long, but it was more comfortable than any ride I've taking in Canada. And the road quality was suprisingly good too, unlike my expectations! I geuss I could chalk that up to the fact that there is no winter in Thailand, so the expanding and contracting doesn't destroy asphalt.

Part of what I like to do as part of my touring is cultural tourism. Not just seeing sights, but actually trying to determine what is the same/different about other cultures. So far, there seem to be certain universalities (getting drunk and meeting people/roads/graffiti/shitty bus or airplane food) but the differences are really fascinating. For example, in Thai architecture there seems to be no difference between "outside" and "inside". There really doesn't need to be anything more than a roof to keep rain out. I'm still finding this pretty alien. Motorcycles are everywhere too, unlike the traditional SUVs we're used to here. However, there seems to be no environmental standards since they all spew clouds of black smoke.

I learned a little bit about Thai Humour on the Bus. Taylor, the snob over my shoulder, says "They don't have any." but I think he's just too sophisticated. Although the bus mostly played cheesy karaoke videos on the way up (I taped one with my camera), it played an action movie named The Bodyguard 2 and a wierd game/entertainment show called Ching Roi Ching Lan by Work Point Entertainment. The game show played first, with a pretty original format. It would have two hosts, and would start with a bunch of sketch comedy. Then, they would bring on contestants, who would get bet on the comedians who just performed in the sketches on certain challenges. One challenge, for example, was to kick a bunch of balloons filled with flour, which was demonstrated by some Muay Thai champion. This was pretty hilarious, from the slapstick sense. Thai humour seems to be incredibly low brow, with pain, cross-dressing, mistakes made while on drugs. Also, in the game show they seemed to have some wierd fetishization with being covered with flour, which happened continuously. Next, The Bodyguard 2 played, an incredibly low-budge piece of work. The humour here I found interesting in that the worst things seemed to happen to figures of authority, unlike what you'd find in Western Humour. The also would throw frustrating slapstick moments which would halt right in the middle of the action. I found this pretty funny because it was so awkward, but I imagine Thais would be used to this sort of thing. Sure enough, at the end of the movie a rocket launcher exploded a crate next to the leading lady and she got covered with flour. WEIRD.

We're staying at a place called Gap's guest house, which is pretty awesome. I was trying to take pictures of the jungle-like interior (interior being a loose term) but the rain brings all sort of diffuse light into the camera, so I might have to wait until a non-rainy day. Supposedly this is the start of monsoon season.

Coming up in the next few days.
I'm going on a day trip with Chiang Mai Rock Climbing, doing some top roping and rapelling. Taylor will be taking a cooking class.