Tonsai (the small climbing town on Railay Peninsula) has that certain intangible something; that something that makes a town feel familiar; that certain something that makes it feel like home. Ms. Golightly said "Home is where you feel at home darling." and I almost took it to heart. The town of Tonsai has an unparalelled level of unity within it. Unity born form a common interst in climbing and mutual respect for other climbers. There is little difference between locals and travelers there because most of the later become the former, for at least a few months, and that fact doesn't strike me as unusual at all because, if the dive trip hadn't pulled us away, I would have just started paying the monthly rate like everyone else.
Paasook, the restaurant next to our bungalow became Brittany and my goto dinner spot. There is just something in the spirit of the place. That spirit carries an inviting ambiance, and Dip, the manager, had an amicable laugh that was so warm and personal, that it made the tacky motif easy to excuse. Paasook had 5 star resort food, 5 star resort staff, fast food chain prices and still managed to offer an at home vibe. (They also made the best fruit shakes I have ever tasted.) Each night Brittany and I would say that we were heading out the next morning; explain that we were actually leaving this time, and we would say our goodbyes but on four separate occasions we failed to leave, so with a sheepish walk back into Paasook each following evening we were inevitably greeted by Dip's familiar, amicable lough. "Not leave yet?" giggling inquiries always followed. When we finally did leave, I found myself wondering how long I would have stayed if I was still the climber I once was.(Yeah, I am a has been climber, so what want to fight about it.) But even now, if I hadn't fallen into old patterns gotten myself injured back in December, Tonsai would have been next to impossible to leave. If Scuba diving hadn't still been on the list, I'd probably still be there.
Scuba diving... It is another one of those topics that I am almost scared to sit down and write about. The task of describing an experience of that intensity is daunting. By calling it intense I don't mean to imply that it is extreme though. It isn't in any way. It is actually quite peaceful, but taking it all in, or at least trying to is extreme. It is so exterm it becomes consuming. Diving brings with it enough sensory stimulation to cause a seizure, but between the Channel Islands and Thailand I have done over 10 dives now and I have yet to finish one that I don't absolutely love; that is the beauty of diving though. You are interacting with a world so unfamiliar, so exotic, so mesmerizing that it implores you to forget yourself. It demands that you let go and in the release it evokes child like giggle fits. Giggling however, is next to impossible with a regulator in. Choking back the giggles is enough to make you scream, but you can't do that either, so there is nothing to do but ball up all the emotion and wait.
At perfect buoyancy, water feels as I imagine space would. Without the slightest exertion, you hang motionless and float through turquoise emptiness. But the water is far from empty. The reef, and the vibrant life all around it it, is a celebration of color, and tranquil chaos is offered in the silent movement of marine life. For an hour I tried to yell tried to make everyone see what I was, tried to express with my hands what could not be said out loud. By the end I was ready to burst, and as soon as I hit the surface I did. "Holy shit, I cant believe we saw a lion fish, a sea snake and sharks, and did you see that eel, my favorite were still the sharks, but those jelly fish were crazy and that was the biggest barracuda ever. I saw 3 Nemo fish in the soft coral. I think the soft coral is my favorite. My favorite of the coral I mean, because the sharks are still my favorite..." It goes on like this, with the joyous rant broken only by the waves that turn words into inaudible bubbles. My tongue eventually tired, but two days later my mind still races when I think about diving.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Deep Water Soloing
Tonsai is a quiet climbing community at the north end of the Railey Beach Peninsula. Enclosed by 270 degrees of impassable limestone cliffs, and 90 degrees of ocean Tonsai is completely isolated from the mainland making Railey peninsula a virtual island. The town, nestled in the heart of a date palm forest hosts roughly 150 inhabitants (a healthy mix of adventurous guests and full time residents). Tonsai is the sort of town that makes you loose track of time; it is the sort of town I could get lost in. From the beach, views stretch out before you in every direction. The ocean to the West, and to the North, East, and South, jagged cliffs reach dizzying heights. The cliffs are upward of 400 feet in places and as Brittany put it, "it looks like the rock is melting".
200 feet above the beach, limestone spires drip down from the over-vertical rock face. Save for a lonely palm tree clinging to an open crack in the mountain side, the rock face appears lifeless at first glance, but if you let detail hold your gaze, the movement of rope, the taking of slack in a line, will guide your eyes upward still to lonely climbers scrambling the sheer face in pairs.
We came here to deep-water solo (see explanation below), but upon seeing how amazing the sport climbing is here, our 2 days of climbing has already become 4, and though our deep-water soloing mission was clearly the main event, bouldering and sport climbing, has taken the majority of our time.
Quick Breakdown of terms(Wikipedia made my life easy):
Bouldering is a style of rock climbing undertaken without a rope and normally limited to very short climbs over a crash pad so that a fall will not result in serious injury. (Pictured at left)
Sport climbing is a style of rock climbing that relies on permanent anchors fixed to the rock, to protect against injury.
Deep-water soloing is a form of rope free climbing that relies solely upon the presence of water at the base of a climb to protect against injury. (Pictured at left)
What can I say... Yet again, for the 100th time this trip the words to describe the past few days escape me. It's not that I can't describe the climbing, nor that can't describe the feelings that deep-water soloing evokes, its more that I couldn't do them justice. Hanging from a stalagmite, nothing underneath you but 50 feet of hot humid air and a warm ocean is life changing. I can tell you vaguely how it feels: its 3 parts exhilarating, 2 parts terrifying, and 5 parts joyful/liberating, but an ability to put the nuances into words, is quite frankly, beyond me. Brittany and I have agreed that in moments of that intensity, body language communicates what words fail to. Involuntary quivering breaths, nothing in the world has ever stirred as many for me.
When dw soloing you swim (or kayak) to the rock wall, dip your hands in a chalk bowl to dry the salt water, then climb. You climb until your muscles fatigue, or until fear gets the better of you; you look at the ocean, then at your feet, back at the ocean and then shaking under the strain of your own weight, you look back up to your hands. You take yet another good hard contemplative look down. Then, if you can push back visions of your impending death, you try to convince yourself that the water is not as far away as it seems; try to convince yourself that it only looks that way because the water is so clear. A mental sparing match to this effect, goes on for what feels like an eternity and you hang on until your fore arms quiver uncontrollably and your fingers begin to slip. Then seeing that you are going to drop one way or another, you take a purely involuntary, long, deep, quivering breath. hold it. Let the adrenaline pulse, and in a literal and symbolic release you let go of your hand hold, and feel the trap door open underneath you.
Falling 40 plus feet to the water is an experience all its own. Saying that your heart jumps into your throat is an understatement, it jumps into your brain. You can feel the pulse throbbing in your head as the bottom drops out. (Then again that is probably the adrenaline.) After eons of falling, when you finally hit the water it is hard to hold back laughter long enough to reach the surface. The joy that comes from a release like that just can't be put into words, so I will let the pictures tell the rest.
200 feet above the beach, limestone spires drip down from the over-vertical rock face. Save for a lonely palm tree clinging to an open crack in the mountain side, the rock face appears lifeless at first glance, but if you let detail hold your gaze, the movement of rope, the taking of slack in a line, will guide your eyes upward still to lonely climbers scrambling the sheer face in pairs.
We came here to deep-water solo (see explanation below), but upon seeing how amazing the sport climbing is here, our 2 days of climbing has already become 4, and though our deep-water soloing mission was clearly the main event, bouldering and sport climbing, has taken the majority of our time.
Quick Breakdown of terms(Wikipedia made my life easy):
Bouldering is a style of rock climbing undertaken without a rope and normally limited to very short climbs over a crash pad so that a fall will not result in serious injury. (Pictured at left)
Sport climbing is a style of rock climbing that relies on permanent anchors fixed to the rock, to protect against injury.
Deep-water soloing is a form of rope free climbing that relies solely upon the presence of water at the base of a climb to protect against injury. (Pictured at left)What can I say... Yet again, for the 100th time this trip the words to describe the past few days escape me. It's not that I can't describe the climbing, nor that can't describe the feelings that deep-water soloing evokes, its more that I couldn't do them justice. Hanging from a stalagmite, nothing underneath you but 50 feet of hot humid air and a warm ocean is life changing. I can tell you vaguely how it feels: its 3 parts exhilarating, 2 parts terrifying, and 5 parts joyful/liberating, but an ability to put the nuances into words, is quite frankly, beyond me. Brittany and I have agreed that in moments of that intensity, body language communicates what words fail to. Involuntary quivering breaths, nothing in the world has ever stirred as many for me.
When dw soloing you swim (or kayak) to the rock wall, dip your hands in a chalk bowl to dry the salt water, then climb. You climb until your muscles fatigue, or until fear gets the better of you; you look at the ocean, then at your feet, back at the ocean and then shaking under the strain of your own weight, you look back up to your hands. You take yet another good hard contemplative look down. Then, if you can push back visions of your impending death, you try to convince yourself that the water is not as far away as it seems; try to convince yourself that it only looks that way because the water is so clear. A mental sparing match to this effect, goes on for what feels like an eternity and you hang on until your fore arms quiver uncontrollably and your fingers begin to slip. Then seeing that you are going to drop one way or another, you take a purely involuntary, long, deep, quivering breath. hold it. Let the adrenaline pulse, and in a literal and symbolic release you let go of your hand hold, and feel the trap door open underneath you.
Falling 40 plus feet to the water is an experience all its own. Saying that your heart jumps into your throat is an understatement, it jumps into your brain. You can feel the pulse throbbing in your head as the bottom drops out. (Then again that is probably the adrenaline.) After eons of falling, when you finally hit the water it is hard to hold back laughter long enough to reach the surface. The joy that comes from a release like that just can't be put into words, so I will let the pictures tell the rest.
Island Hopping
Believe the hype... The South of Thailand is paradise! From the curry to the coral, to the people, everything just glows here. Brittany's glowing red sunburn fits in perfectly. Seriously though, Phi Phi Island is more colorful than Tim Burton's dreams. (Just think "Alice in Wonderland" not "Nightmare Before Christmas") Turquoise blue water gently laps at powdered sugar sand, lush jungle peeks over the edge of towering limestone cliff, and geological anomalies mascaraing as islands jut out of the blue depths as if reaching for the cloudless sky overhead. Fade in the Moby music, Que Leo D. and we are rolling... Cliche Hollywood garbage and... Action!
Sorry, I know that reference was ridiculous and over the top, and so if it was over your head my apologies for dragging you through it. But before Phuket was the screen saver to every computer in every public library in all the world, and before DiCaprio was Scorsese's goto star, Hollywood's then pretty-boy starred in a laughable dystopia film call "The Beach". I was among the unfortunate few to sit through it in theaters, and while the plot now slips my memory the panoramic opening shot of tropical beach paradise was burned into my head. Sitting in Maya Bay at "The Beach" 10 years after seeing the movie, the Moby music still echoed in my head, but Maya Bay is even more beautiful in real life than in the film. Cinematography just couldn't do Phi Phi Le justice, and if you see it in person you don't have to deal with the movie's awful plot line either.
Everything I try to write about this place sounds cliche, but then again this place is a tropical beach paradise, the mother of all cliches, so what can I say... I'll say this the Bungalow next to ours is empty, and if you book a flight to Krabi tomorrow, Britt and I will still be here when you arrive, and if the beauty of this place doesn't put you at a loss for words then I will cover your bungalow cost for a week. Ah Tho Ka is on the south east end of Phi Phi Ko. Until you get here, I'll be on the beach in a hammock sipping Mai Thais and hoping someone takes me up on it.
(Sorry I hadn't written in a while. I will fill in the time gap eventually, but not tonight.)
Sorry, I know that reference was ridiculous and over the top, and so if it was over your head my apologies for dragging you through it. But before Phuket was the screen saver to every computer in every public library in all the world, and before DiCaprio was Scorsese's goto star, Hollywood's then pretty-boy starred in a laughable dystopia film call "The Beach". I was among the unfortunate few to sit through it in theaters, and while the plot now slips my memory the panoramic opening shot of tropical beach paradise was burned into my head. Sitting in Maya Bay at "The Beach" 10 years after seeing the movie, the Moby music still echoed in my head, but Maya Bay is even more beautiful in real life than in the film. Cinematography just couldn't do Phi Phi Le justice, and if you see it in person you don't have to deal with the movie's awful plot line either.
Everything I try to write about this place sounds cliche, but then again this place is a tropical beach paradise, the mother of all cliches, so what can I say... I'll say this the Bungalow next to ours is empty, and if you book a flight to Krabi tomorrow, Britt and I will still be here when you arrive, and if the beauty of this place doesn't put you at a loss for words then I will cover your bungalow cost for a week. Ah Tho Ka is on the south east end of Phi Phi Ko. Until you get here, I'll be on the beach in a hammock sipping Mai Thais and hoping someone takes me up on it.
(Sorry I hadn't written in a while. I will fill in the time gap eventually, but not tonight.)
Monday, March 8, 2010
The Junk Show Rolls On
When Britt and I got completely lost in the Weekend Market at 1:00, our 2:45 train departure was hanging over head and making everything all the more stressful. But I guess that is the style I have come to expect of myself. Choreographing chaotic departures is becoming my specialty I am afraid, and my travel companions inevitably seem to be caught in the wake. Nev and I sitting in front of the wrong gate for over an hour, then running 25 gates down, begging them to hold the door, comes to mind. We made the train though, and ironic as it sounds, the 16 hour train ride and subsequent 4 hour bus ride to Malaysia, was a relaxing break from the madness of Bangkok.
PS Malaysia brought with it a jump in temperature that I didn't think was possible.
PS Malaysia brought with it a jump in temperature that I didn't think was possible.
A Reflection On the City of Sin
At first glance, Bangkok seems to be a commingling of world renowned cities and fictional places. As best I can explain it, the recipe looks something like this:
Take a hearty scoop of bladerunner era LA; sprinkle in hints of Venice; fill it with the soul (or lack there of) of Vegas, the population of New York City, the tumultuous street life of Sin City, and the royal splendor of Versailles; add a duck breast; smother it in red curry and simmer indefinitely at 100 degrees.
To serve, garnish with sprinkles of wealth and add red pepper to taste.
Joseph Conrad* would probably tell me to leave it at that, but since I think there is little room in the literary world for vagueness, I will go a step further, and explain. Bangkok is like no place on earth; still though you can't help but be reminded of other places each time you turn a corner. Every alley, spackled with billboards hanging over unimaginable people traffic, is a window into Riddley Scott's Bladerunner vision. The assertive "working girls", and so called "Lady Boys" are all trying to make a buck the hard way, and you can't walk ten feet with out a sex show being solicited. It is enough to make Vegas feel prude. In the greater Bangkok area the population is just under 12 million... They were generally friendly, but if you cut through the surface, violent sub cultures captivate the people and bring Sin City to mind. Unlicensed Muay Thai matches, and Cock fights are daily/nightly events. Every weekend market, and city arena offers the daily opportunity to gamble on which rooster will be the first to collapse dead.
As a cultural leap form that fact, a Venitianesque canal system weaves under and around the city streets. And as for the royal splendor, well Bangkok was after all the capital of the Siamese empire. The royal palace still sparkles... (As do all my new watches!)
Propaganda is not subtle in Thailand. We went to go see "The Hurt Locker" to get out of the heat. Before the movie started, standing for the national anthem, and then watching the king's promotional video, I didn't need English sub-titles to get the message. The benevolence of the king was conveyed through a photo montage that made me feel deeply uneasy. As the video progresses, a Thai child in a large class room surrenders his mistrust and finally bows down to the king; praising him for preserving the glory of the nation. Subliminal propaganda is everywhere in Thailand, escaping pictures of the king is like running from your own shadow, but the video was much more direct than the 3 story high murals. It said "Look kids, if you want your parents to love you and your teachers to respect you, then you had better bow down to the king."
Propaganda followed us across the city to the national museum the next morning, air conditioning however, did not. The museum was close to 90, with 100% humidity, and the national museum doesn't even have a solid fan system. The heat not only shot my attention span, it actually made me fear for the integrity of the exhibits. Paintings and wood carvings sit in the open air and swell under the relentless heat. The Museum was impressive, and I was blown away by the intricacy of the ivory carvings, but i couldn't help but wonder how much better the museum experience would have been if protecting national heritage was a greater priority. I couldn't help but wonder "how much of that canvas was blank 10 years ago?"
*The Joseph Conrad reference was obscure so i apologize, but having heard that it was the inspiration for "Apacalypse Now", and thinking that it was well in line with our travel plans, I decided to read "Heart of Darkness". How this 90 something page book inspired one of the longest movies I have ever seen I have no idea. Conrad is so vague that it almost feels cryptic.
Take a hearty scoop of bladerunner era LA; sprinkle in hints of Venice; fill it with the soul (or lack there of) of Vegas, the population of New York City, the tumultuous street life of Sin City, and the royal splendor of Versailles; add a duck breast; smother it in red curry and simmer indefinitely at 100 degrees.
To serve, garnish with sprinkles of wealth and add red pepper to taste.
Joseph Conrad* would probably tell me to leave it at that, but since I think there is little room in the literary world for vagueness, I will go a step further, and explain. Bangkok is like no place on earth; still though you can't help but be reminded of other places each time you turn a corner. Every alley, spackled with billboards hanging over unimaginable people traffic, is a window into Riddley Scott's Bladerunner vision. The assertive "working girls", and so called "Lady Boys" are all trying to make a buck the hard way, and you can't walk ten feet with out a sex show being solicited. It is enough to make Vegas feel prude. In the greater Bangkok area the population is just under 12 million... They were generally friendly, but if you cut through the surface, violent sub cultures captivate the people and bring Sin City to mind. Unlicensed Muay Thai matches, and Cock fights are daily/nightly events. Every weekend market, and city arena offers the daily opportunity to gamble on which rooster will be the first to collapse dead.
As a cultural leap form that fact, a Venitianesque canal system weaves under and around the city streets. And as for the royal splendor, well Bangkok was after all the capital of the Siamese empire. The royal palace still sparkles... (As do all my new watches!) Propaganda is not subtle in Thailand. We went to go see "The Hurt Locker" to get out of the heat. Before the movie started, standing for the national anthem, and then watching the king's promotional video, I didn't need English sub-titles to get the message. The benevolence of the king was conveyed through a photo montage that made me feel deeply uneasy. As the video progresses, a Thai child in a large class room surrenders his mistrust and finally bows down to the king; praising him for preserving the glory of the nation. Subliminal propaganda is everywhere in Thailand, escaping pictures of the king is like running from your own shadow, but the video was much more direct than the 3 story high murals. It said "Look kids, if you want your parents to love you and your teachers to respect you, then you had better bow down to the king."
Propaganda followed us across the city to the national museum the next morning, air conditioning however, did not. The museum was close to 90, with 100% humidity, and the national museum doesn't even have a solid fan system. The heat not only shot my attention span, it actually made me fear for the integrity of the exhibits. Paintings and wood carvings sit in the open air and swell under the relentless heat. The Museum was impressive, and I was blown away by the intricacy of the ivory carvings, but i couldn't help but wonder how much better the museum experience would have been if protecting national heritage was a greater priority. I couldn't help but wonder "how much of that canvas was blank 10 years ago?"
*The Joseph Conrad reference was obscure so i apologize, but having heard that it was the inspiration for "Apacalypse Now", and thinking that it was well in line with our travel plans, I decided to read "Heart of Darkness". How this 90 something page book inspired one of the longest movies I have ever seen I have no idea. Conrad is so vague that it almost feels cryptic.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Brittany's photo blog
I had thought this would become a photo blog... It didn't. But Britt stayed true to her word, and here is a taste of what she has been shooting. No new update from her, but if you are reading this then you should know it goes hand in hand with a lot of what she has been shooting.
http://simpledocumentation.tumblr.com/
http://simpledocumentation.tumblr.com/
Bangkok
At the moment I am sitting on what feels like the 100th floor of the Paragon Mall in Bangkok. This place is a trip. I am sitting outside of the I-max theater in front of the Multi-millionaire Siam Auto show. Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Rolls Royces, Benzes, Maseratis, Porsches and the list goes on. It is a mystery to me how they got them to the top floor, but what trips me out more than their presence is the permanency of the dealerships here. Tomorrow the show will be over and the Ferraris and the Rolls Royce booth will be removed, but even then the Lamborghini dealer will remain and it will be accompanied by more than a few names that cater exclusively to members of the highest tax bracket: Porsche, Maserati, Bentley, BMW, Audi, Lotus. In this mall you can buy a bad food court lunch, an Abercrombie t-shirt, a Starbucks coffee and if you are feeling plush you can top it off with an Audi R8. You know, just in case you don't feel cool driving home in the car you showed up in. Malls serve the elite here, and with that the elite names make it their business to be well located in the mall. As you venture through the Paragon Tower the higher you climb, the higher the price tags. Scattered about the first 5 or 6 floors are store fronts for Armani, Versacci, Balenciaga, Hermes and countless other couture brands that I no nothing about save for the fact that I can't afford the clothes they make. But If you want to make the kind of purchase that will elevate your status in the world then you have some literal climbing to do. The escalator journey to the Lambos is maddening.
Brittany put into words what I could not, so I will steal hers here:"Malls in America are considered a middle-class convenience; here they are a bustling grounds for the Thai elite to showcase their wealth... A Denver mall having Bentley's on display sounds absurd. The American elite prefer to seclude themselves; spend their money in Boutiques and high end pockets of the city as far removed from "everyone else" as possible, while here those who have wealth are spending money in public places for the world to see." Rodeo drive doesn't have anything on this place! Sitting in front of the cineplex I am glad movies are still cheap because I have come to realize I also can't buy anything in this place, so shopping won't be how i pass my time, and I need to do something in here to stay out of the heat.
Traveling is endlessly entertaining, always interesting, and at times deeply moving, but on a $25 dollar a day budget, it is never glamorous. My budget is technically $35 but between visas, major transportation costs that eat up three days budget at a time and the occasional other fixed cost I have roughly $25 a day to buy 3 square, put a roof over my head each night, and buy the occasional indulgence. Don't get me wrong, money goes a long way here, so with my budget I am not always roughing it, but in Bangkok life is expensive. The hard sell is on and the people are proud to lay it on thick. In under a minuet you could find yourself talked out of your own shirt, and the system is designed to empower the salesmen.
Example: I said budget travel is unglamorous; never has that been more true than with our arrival in Bangkok. the 10 hour bus ride was supposed to be our bed for the night. It was leaving Chaing Mai at 6:15 and the lady selling tickets had reconfirmed what the sign above her head had already told us. "10 hours." cool i thought. No bus has gotten us in on time yet, so we will sleep on the bus wake up at 5:30 in Bangkok grab an early breakfast then check into a hotel, and just like that my optimism got the better of me.
The good news is we spent way less time on the bus than expected. Unfortunately for us though, the suspiciously good trip time led to an arrival into the Northern bus terminal at 2:45 in the morning and at that time of night on the tail end of a 10 hour bus ride, haggling is the last thing I want to do. If you think that your negotiation skills are up to snuff in that scenario then you are either a better traveler than me, or you're lying to yourself. Brittany and I wandered the night for 2 hours trying to roll with the punches; trying to find a cheap logical solution. In the end none came. We spent an entire day's budget on a dingy room that smelled of stagnant water, and we did it knowing full well that we would be asked to check out in just under 7 hours. I love Thailand, but so far Bangkok is not my favorite.
Brittany put into words what I could not, so I will steal hers here:"Malls in America are considered a middle-class convenience; here they are a bustling grounds for the Thai elite to showcase their wealth... A Denver mall having Bentley's on display sounds absurd. The American elite prefer to seclude themselves; spend their money in Boutiques and high end pockets of the city as far removed from "everyone else" as possible, while here those who have wealth are spending money in public places for the world to see." Rodeo drive doesn't have anything on this place! Sitting in front of the cineplex I am glad movies are still cheap because I have come to realize I also can't buy anything in this place, so shopping won't be how i pass my time, and I need to do something in here to stay out of the heat.
Traveling is endlessly entertaining, always interesting, and at times deeply moving, but on a $25 dollar a day budget, it is never glamorous. My budget is technically $35 but between visas, major transportation costs that eat up three days budget at a time and the occasional other fixed cost I have roughly $25 a day to buy 3 square, put a roof over my head each night, and buy the occasional indulgence. Don't get me wrong, money goes a long way here, so with my budget I am not always roughing it, but in Bangkok life is expensive. The hard sell is on and the people are proud to lay it on thick. In under a minuet you could find yourself talked out of your own shirt, and the system is designed to empower the salesmen.
Example: I said budget travel is unglamorous; never has that been more true than with our arrival in Bangkok. the 10 hour bus ride was supposed to be our bed for the night. It was leaving Chaing Mai at 6:15 and the lady selling tickets had reconfirmed what the sign above her head had already told us. "10 hours." cool i thought. No bus has gotten us in on time yet, so we will sleep on the bus wake up at 5:30 in Bangkok grab an early breakfast then check into a hotel, and just like that my optimism got the better of me.
The good news is we spent way less time on the bus than expected. Unfortunately for us though, the suspiciously good trip time led to an arrival into the Northern bus terminal at 2:45 in the morning and at that time of night on the tail end of a 10 hour bus ride, haggling is the last thing I want to do. If you think that your negotiation skills are up to snuff in that scenario then you are either a better traveler than me, or you're lying to yourself. Brittany and I wandered the night for 2 hours trying to roll with the punches; trying to find a cheap logical solution. In the end none came. We spent an entire day's budget on a dingy room that smelled of stagnant water, and we did it knowing full well that we would be asked to check out in just under 7 hours. I love Thailand, but so far Bangkok is not my favorite.
Karen Village
Brittany fell sick in Mae Hong Son, and what we had thought would be a one night stay turned into two. It could have been food poisoning, bad water, or maybe the smoke. Neither of us could put a definite finger on it, but when it rained ash in the city, Brittany and I were forced to hide behind face masks. Unfortunately, because of the smoke, we wore them for the rest of our motorcycle trip... When Britt was feeling better we ventured out of the city, and into the mountains, to track down a remote Karen Village.
In a tradition I had mistaken to be exclusively African, the Karen people adorn neck elongating binds. To me this was as fascinating as it was surprising, but in the village, the dichotomy of new life vs old was more depressing than intriguing. The Karen Villages have become a tourist attraction. Each day their culture is psychoanalyzed, and each day their life is put under the microscope by more tour groups than I cared to count. Van-full after van-full of photo snapping tourists... Brittany and I were relieved to not be on a tour through the village, but even traveling as individuals rather than in a group, we still didn't feel comfortable pulling out cameras.
It was our first side trip to go undocumented through the lens of Britt's D-90 or the D-50 my sister lent me, but looking back I am glad we walked the high road on this one. They are people. The tourists snapping away, over-analyzing their every move, made me think that the outside world is loosing sight of that fact. Every flash takes with it a memento of Karen culture, but at the cost of the Karen village's soul I am afraid.
After a tour that had been in front of us spun on their heels and left, a middle aged Thai man, clearly not Karen, realized we weren't part of a group and marched over to us. "Where are your tickets?" he said.
"Excuse me? Wait... We need tickets for the village?"
Apparently, tickets to wander through the Karen Village, cost 250 Baht. Annoyed and deeply unsettled, Britt and I decided not to feed a parasitic economy and agreed leave rather than pay. We had come to submerse ourselves in an exotic culture, not to see traditions paraded around as though they were the main event of some freak show. The whole thing hurt my heart. Even now there is a bad taste in my mouth... Or maybe that's just the smoke.
In a tradition I had mistaken to be exclusively African, the Karen people adorn neck elongating binds. To me this was as fascinating as it was surprising, but in the village, the dichotomy of new life vs old was more depressing than intriguing. The Karen Villages have become a tourist attraction. Each day their culture is psychoanalyzed, and each day their life is put under the microscope by more tour groups than I cared to count. Van-full after van-full of photo snapping tourists... Brittany and I were relieved to not be on a tour through the village, but even traveling as individuals rather than in a group, we still didn't feel comfortable pulling out cameras.
It was our first side trip to go undocumented through the lens of Britt's D-90 or the D-50 my sister lent me, but looking back I am glad we walked the high road on this one. They are people. The tourists snapping away, over-analyzing their every move, made me think that the outside world is loosing sight of that fact. Every flash takes with it a memento of Karen culture, but at the cost of the Karen village's soul I am afraid.
After a tour that had been in front of us spun on their heels and left, a middle aged Thai man, clearly not Karen, realized we weren't part of a group and marched over to us. "Where are your tickets?" he said.
"Excuse me? Wait... We need tickets for the village?"
Apparently, tickets to wander through the Karen Village, cost 250 Baht. Annoyed and deeply unsettled, Britt and I decided not to feed a parasitic economy and agreed leave rather than pay. We had come to submerse ourselves in an exotic culture, not to see traditions paraded around as though they were the main event of some freak show. The whole thing hurt my heart. Even now there is a bad taste in my mouth... Or maybe that's just the smoke.
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