Day 1: Saturday, December 25, 2004

So to start off the trip, I spent a day entirely in transit. I woke up around 10am, did a few last minute chores and closed up my apartment (turned various appliances off, etc). I stopped at a camera shop and picked up some AAs since I expected to need them at least once during the trip. After that I went to the Gifu bus terminal, where despite some language difficulties, I picked up a ticket and sat down to wait for the bus. I was about an hour early. But I didn't want to miss any connections, so I thought it'd be best that way. The bus itself was kind of interesting. It had these chandelier things that I'm sure looked very nice when the bus was new, but ended up being just noisy and tacky during my trip.

I got to the airport, managed to find the HIS check-in terminal (with the help of a friendly security guard), and picked up my boarding pass. I had a little time to spare, and I noticed a travelers insurance desk. So I decided to check it out. It was only about ¥5000 for full coverage, which didn't seem bad for a little peace of mind. So I bought it. I checked in, which was pretty breezy. The Japanese lady working the desk had a perfect English accent, I was pretty impressed. Even the metal detector routine was easier than the states. I didn't have to drink some of my bottle of green tea. I didn't even have to take my steel-toed boots off. They ran a hand detector over me and were pretty happy that I didn't have anything on my above my ankles, and apologized for keeping me waiting in a very Japanese fashion. And then I was waiting for the plane. Which didn't take long.

One cool part about the flight there was that even economy class had personal televisions, which provided you with movies, games and a rather cool nose-mounted camera. During takeoff the television showed the view out of the front of the plane. It was way cool. I would have taken a picture, but sadly electronic equipment is prohibited during takeoff and landing. So during the flight I watched The Bourne Conspiracy, Elf, and an Olympic hi-lights show. I even played a few games of Go. Practiced my kanji, and got a better idea of just what I wanted to do in Thailand.

Upon landing, it was fairly normal fare. Save for the bus that took me from the plane to the terminal. From square one, the airports in Thailand were surprisingly ghetto. I think all arriving international flights use a bus to get you to the main terminal. The standard connecting planks are only for departures. But anyway, I got to the terminal, did the customs thing, and met John (pretty easy to spot being the tall white guy that he is). He had been waiting about 3 hours for my arrival. And then, we were immediately hounded by taxi drivers trying to take us downtown. "Where you going?" they would ask, repeatedly. They finally shut up when the realized that we were indeed saying "Chiang Mai" and not just mispronouncing a Bangkok city destination. We made the connection to the Chiang Mai flight with just enough time to stop for a Whopper at Burger King (in the terminal). It was gooood :)

The local plane was styled like something out of the Brady Bunch. Right down to the attendants in violet single-piece dresses. It was a little odd. On the plane we organized the remaining days of the trip. It was a short flight (about 45 minutes), so we only got a few days in advance planned.

So we arrive in Chiang Mai. Again the terminal is fairly ghetto. At least this time there's a plank to get us off of the plane. But seriously, the Gifu bus terminal was more high-tech than the Chiang Mai airport. The place is very small, a bit dirty, and there's wood-paneling everywhere. We stopped and asked the information desk where the best place to get a taxi was, and they pointed us to the last doorway on the left. You have to be a little careful about taxis in Thailand. A number of them are scams, some of them will try to take you somewhere other than your destination and then demand more money to get your where you wanted to go in the first place. But thankfully, the Chiang Mai airport taxis didn't do any of that. They charged us 40 Baht for a ride to the "Smile" guest house where we had a room booked. They didn't even try to go into the guest house and grab a commission. I was pleased.

We checked in to the guest house, and apparently they were planning on giving us one big bed. The girls at the desk argued for a bit about whether it was proper to put two men in the same bed, and finally they just changed us to a shared-bath room with two separate beds. We settled in, and made a booking to go rock climbing the next morning. Day one was a success, and basically no trouble the whole way through. Rock!

Day 2: Sunday, December 26, 2004

Day two started early. We were up at 7:30am. We showered got dressed, and while putting some bug spray and sun-block on, I felt the earthquake. It was maybe just a level 2 or so, by the time it got to Chiang Mai. John didn't even feel it. I think I noticed cause I was standing at the time. Needless to say, I thought nothing of it at the time.

We went downstairs to find a nice western style breakfast buffet for about 80 baht (maybe $3 US). We ate our fill and were shortly called by the guest house staff to come get in the truck for climbing. This was our first experiences with these pick-up trucks that are used for transportation in Thailand. Basically two benches in a covered flatbed pickup. But all in all, it's pretty good ridin'. It was just John and I to start, and we said hi to our tour guides, a man and woman. The guy didn't speak much English, but the woman introduced herself as Nao. Both of them seemed to be mid-twenties or so. And we were off. Soon we picked up some friends as well. A girl from Singapore, two people from south west US, a couple from east coast US, and a couple of guys from (I think) England. I can't quite remember for sure. It was a fun crowd though. Some have climbed before, others were just beginning. We make a stop at the store than runs the climbing expedition to pick up some shoes and equipment, and we were off. The car ride to the wall was pretty long. We traveled north into the mountains quite a ways until we got to "Crazy Horse" mountain where we were going to climb.

The scenery was pretty great. The rock formations were something else. And the whole experience was pretty amazing. The first three courses weren't that difficult. Which was good, cause even having climbing experience, it was a little unnerving to be that high up on a rock. It took some time before I started to trust the rope and belay, and in the meantime I was deathly afraid of slipping. So much that I scraped my forearms up at one point hugging my way through a slight overhang. Looking down from the top was pretty amazing. The people looked pretty small, you were above the trees so you got a pretty clear view of the mountains nearby. I wish I had had the guts to take a camera up there with me, but I just stuck to climbing instead. Too worried to break the camera on the first day of the trip.

After the first 3 courses, we went for lunch. John and I had our first encounter with Thai curry, which was (as expected) delicious and spicy. We also had Thai-style iced tea, which was a lot like Chai, but little smoother. We also couldn't help but jokingly shout warnings to the chickens that were roaming freely about. "Don't go in there," we would call to them, "or you might be the next batch of curry."

After lunch we headed back to the mountain, but a different part for two more courses. These were noticeably harder. And taking photos from the ground was tough cause of close quarters, so I don't have any photos there. It was at this point where I banged my knee pretty bad. I ended up nursing it throughout the trip with a combination of rubbing alcohol and bandaids. Thankfully, the climbing guides had a pack with some iodine and bandages, so I could get it patched up pretty quick.

By the end of the afternoon, I had done 4.5 out of 5 climbing courses, and I was dead tired. I'm pretty sure we learned of the tsunami about the time we got back to the guest house. But from the initial video and reports it didn't seem so bad yet. Or maybe we were just too tired to really take notice. It didn't start to set in what had really happened until the next evening when we were watching the news for awhile.

So instead of mourning, like perhaps we should have been, we struck back out on the town. Ate some really spicy dinner. I had ostrich meat in a black-pepper sauce, which for me was soooo good. Cause I really like black-pepper. The ostrich meat was really on par with deer I thought. John ordered some "fried beef" which turned out to be beef drenched in chili sauce. We could hardly eat it at all, it was so hot. I think the locals were laughing at us as we made continued attempts to eat it. But it just wasn't happening.

After that we headed to the Sunday market (different than the Chiang Mai night market). It was probably the nicest shopping experience of the trip. People would haggle a bit, but still weren't very push and weren't trying to gouge you either. I bought a few souvenirs, and a strange gourd instrument, that I'm still not sure just what it is.

After that we headed for this "bar district", which was notable because instead of facing the street, it was a city block of bars that faced into the block to create an open square. People wandered from bar to bar talking. We ran into some of the climbing people here again. And played a rather interesting game of darts (as depicted). It was this night that we realized that Thai beer is definitely stronger than regular beer. Shortly after realizing this, we thought it would be good to get home before we had too many more. We grabbed a Tuk-tuk, and probably paid too much, but we were back at the guest house safe. Another day in the bag.

Day 3: Monday, December 27, 2004

This was, I would say, our first real "sight seeing" day. We started the day a little late, got some breakfast, and hopped on a "red cab" (otherwise known as a pickup truck with some benches) headed for Chiang Mai university. We had read in the guide book that the best way to get up to the mountain temple and village was to take a shuttle from the university. But the red cab dropped us off in a funny place. Near the department of Mathematics, I believe. So we weren't really sure which way to go. So we decided to ask a couple of (fairly good looking) college girls. They tried to explain it to us in English, and then just offered to give us a ride there since it was only about two blocks and they were headed that direction anyway. The girl driving the car was apparently about to head to Virginia to work as a tour guide at Busch Gardens. Which was a little surprising considering her English wasn't all that understandable. But I guess she'll be a guide for Thai people. Just not sure how dealing with the company will work out. So they dropped us off about 2 minutes later at the shuttle stop that would take us up the mountain to the temple and village that were up there. The shuttle was a (you guessed it!) pickup truck. We stopped first at the temple in the mountain and toured around a bit. It was pretty different than Japanese temples. Much more gold and ornate statues. We got some good photos to give you an idea of just what we saw there. There were quite a lot of tourists there as well, which isn't always the case at Japanese temples. John also managed to run into an old Aeon student (pretty sure he was a student anyway. Maybe staff of some kind now that I think about it). Pretty small world, eh?

Anyway, so the temple was pretty, but not entirely good story material. We decided to skip the King's Chiang Mai palace, figuring it was pretty much like the temple. This confused the truck driver quite a bit as we insisted on going up the mountain to the village. The village was also kind of touristy, but less flashy. Most of the village was a market with some interesting shops. One was a puzzle shop where the owner kept us busy with a variety of wooden toys for at least a half our. The puzzles were pretty basic wooden puzzles (Towers of Hanoi, sliding block puzzles, and the like). There was also an assortment of men selling cross-bow shots. 10 Baht or so for 3 shots at some rotten fruit. But it was fun, so I tried it anyway. The cross-bow was pretty basic, but I managed to hit the fruit once or twice! Go me. We wandered into the residential portion of the village. I was pretty surprised to find that it looked a lot like West Virginia. Go figure. Satellite dishes and all. Traveling further into the village, we found some really nice gardens, and took some pictures with some Thai people dressed up in traditional tribal wear. Good fun.

On the return trip home, we got some food. John took some really nice photos of these pretty white flowers (included). And finally we got back to the hotel and started hunting out some food. On the way, we found the Chiang Mai "Hard Rock Cafe" and "Cheers". So we took some photos of course. The Hard Rock Cafe was surprisingly seedy. Gotta love Thailand.

The food we found was at another guest house west of town that had a restaurant. We were attracted to the place mostly by the well dressed Thai girl that invited us to look at the menu. But then the menu also looked pretty attractive so we stayed for the meal. The food was some other varieties of curry. Also quite spicy. It was about this time when we started to draw a correlation between spicy food and drunkenness. Granted, Thai beer is a bit stronger than regular beer (6.4% vs ~5%), but the spicy food seemed to get the alcohol hitting you a little quicker and harder.

So we stumbled out of the restaurant and headed to the night market which was near by. It was much less interesting than the Sunday market. Prices were higher, lots of knock-off brand stuff. The "North Facf" backpacks were pretty amusing though. We also realized that Japanese between John and I was a formidable negotiating tool. We ended up haggling in English a bit, and then discussing whether or not it was good deal in Japanese.

To "top" the evening off (so to speak), we stopped at the large climbing wall near the night market. And climbed for a bit. Both of us were a little drunk though, so not very skillful. I didn't even make it up to the top once. Just got too worn out once I was most of the way up. But it was fun anyway, and it was a chance to meet up with the same people we went climbing with the day before. Which was nice. After that we headed home. Another day in the bag.

Day 4: Tuesday, December 28, 2004

We started the day a little late. Taking a bit of time to say goodbye to Chiang Mai. We got breakfast at the restaurant we first ate at in Chiang Mai, "the Zest". And watched the trucks pass by for a bit. Then we hopped on a "red cab" and made for the Chiang Mai Arcade bus terminal. Our goal for the day was Lampang. Or specifically, the Elephant Conservation Center just outside of Lampang. The busses actually ran pretty often, and we were on the bus within 30 minutes of buying a ticket. The bus was pretty low-key. And we were also the only foreigners on the bus, which was the first time we'd experienced such a thing. The girl in front of me wanted to have the window open which was windy and cold. I wasn't so fond of that, but I managed. At the elephant center, they just pull off to the side of the road and let you out. You have to walk about a kilometer to the tram stop for the center itself. I wanted to learn something about the elephants, but we were way too late (about 3 hours) to take the course they had there. But we could still catch the show and ride an elephant. So we did. The show was pretty interesting. And was very un-circus like. It was really a demonstration of how elephants are particularly useful in logging operations. I saw some pretty impressive demonstrations of strength, balance and intelligence. Including some paintings (as pictured. Yes the elephants painted those), and some music (video. It was pretty cool. At the end of the show you could exchange your ticket stub for some bananas or sugar canes which you could feed to the elephants. Got a good photo of John feeding one of the elephants too. Then we lined up for an elephant ride. Which was equally impressive. I had no idea how narrow elephants could keep their strides. We walked on trails that were way more narrow than any of the horse trails that I've been on. The looked more like single-file people trails. There was a little restaurant, so we stopped to get some Pad-Thai. There, we mused over the menu with the Thai Coke advertisement.

On a side note, the Elephant center has a three day course where you can learn the basics of elephant training. We met a man in Chiang Mai who did it with his family. Apparently his 9-year-old daughter was in it too, getting elephants to sit up and roll over and so on. I think I might have to go back there to try the course at some point. It's such an amazing idea to think what it must be like to command something of that size.

After leaving the center, we walked back the main road to wait for the next bus. But while waiting, we were approached by a decent looking family of three that wanted to give us a ride into town. So we hopped in the back with some coconuts and some luggage. When we reached town, the guy stopped to let his daughter out (who was the only English-speaker among them). She came back and said he would take us to the bus terminal for 20 Baht a piece. Pretty decent deal, we thought. The one downside of course was that we were in a part of town that we didn't know. And the guy wanted the money up front. This worried us just a bit. But we didn't see much in the way of other options. So we coughed up the cash, and a few minutes later we were at the bus terminal. Glad to see that there are some fairly honest people out there.

We decided to get some food and start looking at the next leg of the trip a bit. We found a pretty nice looking place where we got some food that was nearly Chinese food. I got to really try the a Thai-style squat toilet for the first time here. I was surprised to find how effective the manual flush system worked. Just pour some water into the bowl from a provided bucket. The foot spots were also porcelain though, which I found a little tricky to keep traction on. But I managed (thankfully). We looked at the book for awhile, and decided that we needed to take one stop out of our plans. Specifically: Sukhothai. We wanted to check out the historical park there, but it didn't seem feasible. So we finished our lunch, and headed for the bus terminal. Sadly the next bus was about 2 hrs away. So we had to wait a bit. We were really tired and ended out conking out in shifts, which was pretty amusing for the girls at the ticket booths who just sat there watching and laughing. We even stopped at the 7-11 across the street for some grub. We also called the guest house in Lopburi to get a room. At this point I think because of shifting plans around, we had made about 3 reservations that we never made good on. I started worrying about a karma attack of sorts. But thankfully it never really happened.

After the wait, we got on the (night) bus to Lopburi. An 8-hour bus ride starting at around 6:30pm. It was gonna be an interesting night. We fell asleep pretty quick since there wasn't much to do other than stare out the window. There was a movie for a little bit at first, but it was dubbed in Thai, and ended shortly after we got there. Can't remember what it was, though.

We were woken up at around 12:30am. It was a food stop, but we didn't really know what the deal was. We were really groggy and most everyone around us didn't speak English. So we wandered off the bus, and bought some food from a girl with a pretty smile, only to find that there was free food inside for people with bus tickets. The locals thought the whole exchange was pretty funny. But the meat was tasty, still pretty cheap (10 Baht) and the girl selling it was cute, so I don't consider it much of a mistake really. We ate, talked about how people seemed to be laughing at us a lot, went to the bathroom, and got back on the bus. Time to sleep some more...

We woke up at the end of the bus ride. It was 3am at this point. And we got dropped off at the bus terminal, which was really just a parking lot. We were instantly assaulted by a taxi driver who wanted 100 Baht or so to take us into old-Lopburi (where our hotel was). We insisted that we would walk it, and eventually it got down to 50 Baht for the ride. So we took it. Good thing too. The main road was pretty vacant and not too safe looking. We arrived at the guest house, checked in and went up to the room. We saw a lady in the hallway on the way up who we decided was a prostitute. Tough to say really. But we mused over whether or not there might be a room rate that included the girl. It made for interesting sleep-deprived conversation if nothing else.

After settling down, and getting the air in the room circulating a bit, we slept. Another busy day.

Day 5: Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Waking up in Lopburi was an interesting experience. Specifically because I woke up to John yelling "Monkeys! shit! Monkeys! dude! Monkeys, Monkeys!." Given the urgency in his voice, I thought there was one in the room. Thankfully there wasn't. But there was a monkey hanging on the metal fencing outside our window. The main part of Lopburi is pretty overrun with monkeys. Apparently they just sorta moved in, and Buddhist tradition prohibits hurting them. So they stay. There are stories of monkeys even boarding trains and returning to Lopburi after quenching a bit of wander lust. For the most part the monkeys ignored us, but they made for some great photos. Occasionally we saw monkeys fighting with each other on the street, or humping each other on rooftops. It was good fun.

It was about this point in the trip that things started getting very "ruin" centered. There wasn't much to see in Lopburi other than the ruins. There was an interesting food market, but it didn't smell so good. So we didn't spend much time there. We roamed around, took some photos. We ran into a group of school kids in the palace ruins that got a kick out of talking to us in English. John got a couple of good photos of them playing a kind of Thai-soccer in the palace ruins.

After roaming around for a bit. We decided to get some food at what turned out to be the after-school hangout for the local high school girls. We came for the food, which was pretty decent. But the kids came for this ice-cream lookin thing. So we decided to try it too. Turns out it was basically a smoothie, but heavy on the ice, and with some bits of bread and corn flakes. It was interesting, but not so tasty. Worth the experience anyway.

We realized that there really wasn't all that much to do in Lopburi in terms of sight seeing or other activities. So we decided to check out and catch a train to Ayuthaya to spend the night there.

The train was pretty easy to catch, and a pretty fun ride cause it was very old looking. On the ride there were rotating shifts of people selling food and drinks. Including beer. I was gonna get one, but decided not too. But I did get a steamed bun with black-sesame inside. Pretty nice stuff.

We got to Ayuthaya in the late afternoon and (again) were hounded by a Tuk-tuk driver as soon as we walked out of the station. This one had a new tactic though. A book of "customer testimonies" from various countries. We learned that this was a tactic of all the tuk-tuk drivers in Ayuthaya. It seemed genuine at first, so we went with it. But we learned to distrust it by the end of the trip. It was especially nasty in retrospect when we learned that there was a ferry boat that we could have taken for about 2 Baht. We made use of the ferry later though. So we were happy.

To top it off, the driver insisted on coming into the guest house with us. This was the first night we didn't have a reservation. There was a bit of commotion in Thai. Our guess is that the driver wanted a commission for bring us. The guest house seemed pretty quiet but they were "full" for tonight. We told the driver to piss off at this point and decided to look for housing on foot.

So the rule to follow here is: Don't trust the Tuk-tuk's. Pretty much never. It wasn't the last time we had to yell at them a little, either.

We set out on foot, heading first for a pay phone to make a few calls to guest houses in the area. This yielded no results. We noticed that the map had a concentration of guest houses in the part of town near the market. So we headed there hoping for some guest houses that weren't on the map. Along the way we came across Tony's Bar and Guest House. They didn't have any rooms but there were some nice people who gave us suggestions about where to look. They seemed like good people, so we sat down for a beer and some spring rolls to talk with them a bit. One guy was an employee of the place who welcomed us to sleep out the couch for 30 Baht (about $1). One of the girls in the group was another traveler named Stacy, we hung out with her a bit later in the evening. The other girl was a coordinator for a local tourist group. As such, she had to run off to meet some people that were part of a tour she was organizing. Stacy was actually in the midsts of something like a 5 month vacation around Asia. She was moving from country to country as the complimentary tourist visas expired. John mused a lot about the possibility of him doing the same thing a little later in life.

But anyway, the guy who worked at Tony's recommended that we head down the street to a shiny new guest house that might have some rooms. So we finished our beers and took a walk. Sure enough, the place was shiny. Downright immaculate. And they had two rooms left open for the evening. It was 350 Baht, which was a little expensive. But this was easily the nicest room we stayed in during the whole trip. It was clean, the beds were a bit soft, the shower had hot water. It even had a window (of course the view was nothing but someone's back yard), but still. Sadly, both John and I were not in a picture taking mood during this portion of the trip. So there aren't any pictures of this nice room. But it was just what I needed after the bus ride and the not-so-spectacular guest house in Lopburi. We settled in and went back to Tony's to let Stacy know that there was one room left, cause she was looking too. We had a little food and some beers and relaxed for a bit. After that we went down the street to an internet cafe and checked email. Then got some curry. At the curry place the waiter could speak some Japanese and we even ran into a Japanese tourist which was fun. Both John and I had been itching to speak some Japanese since the beginning of the trip. We even spoke Japanese to each other a bit for some practice. Eventually, we headed back to Tony's to drink some more and play some pool. Both of us were pretty low energy, so it was nice to not do much for an evening.

John eventually turned it in a little early. I stayed out for a bit and watched "The Guru" on the projection screen at Tony's. Stacy was there too, so we talked a bit during the movie, and after the movie we talked a bit about her travels, and some stuff about religion and philosophy which ended up having me give her an introduction to Taoist philosophies. It was really hard to explain to someone who hadn't ever heard of it before. It seems to me that Taoism can come off just seeming lazy if you don't get the explanation quite right. She got a kick out of the idea, and thought that she fit into the philosophy pretty well. I've always thought the best Taoists are the ones who don't know they're Taoists. But enough of my philosophical musings. I headed back, settled down and went to bed after a nicely relaxing evening.

Day 6: Thursday, December 30, 2004

The first thing we did this morning was head for the Ban Khun Guest House where we had a reservation for that night to drop off our bags. It was pretty close, so we decided to just walk it. When we got there, our room was still occupied by an older couple and they were in the process of packing up. So we sat down for awhile. The gentleman came out and started talking to John and I a bit. Apparently he works for a company that sets up English schools in countries that are just starting to become industrialized. So he was interested to hear that both John and I were teaching English in Japan. He even started to sell us on the idea of going to (I think) Vietnam. I wasn't too interested myself, but John took a business card. The beds were hard. Maybe the hardest we'd seen yet. Like a piece of plywood with a blanket on it. But we were only staying there one night anyway. I decided to make a pit stop, which was interesting. The bathrooms were communal and frickin nasty. I don't think they'd been cleaned in a least two months, probably more.

Anyway, we dropped off our packs and headed back toward the street that had Tony's on it. We wanted to get some food, and inquire about a boat tour of the ruins.

We found a little place that had some decent stuff on the menu. The guy handling the orders was actually from Holland, and just helping out to make a little part time cash while on vacation. We noticed some business cards on the wall, a couple of which were from Japan. But sadly neither John or I had a business card with us to put on the wall. I'll have to remember that for later trips. They also had quite a collection of foreign currency, but no 1000 yen notes. We were tempted to leave one, but $10 is a little much to slap on the wall of a bar, we thought. So we asked for some curry-like stuff. I forget what we had exactly, but it was good. Then we walked across the street to a place that advertised boat tours. We put in an order for a Thai-food boat tour, and also asked about some bicycle rentals out front. But the bicycles were in really poor shape. We did a couple of test panic-stops, and realized that it look a good 8 feet or so to stop, even when going slow. So we decided to just walk around instead.

We were gonna tour the temples, so we started looking for a ride in the right direction. This is when my favorite bargaining moment happened. A hot pink tuk-tuk pulled up and asked us where we wanted to go. We asked to go to the national park on the west side of Ayuthaya. He said 70 Baht. We said 30, he said 50, I said 30, he said no. So I walked away. Next thing, we heard a horn toot. We look back to find 3 fingers sticking out of the driver side window. Great stuff. So he took us to the temple ruins around Ayuthaya. Where we were instantly accosted by tuk-tuk drivers trying to take us back home. They're pretty pushy in Ayuthaya. The photos from the ruins pretty much tell the story, save for the oddly high proportion Japanese tourists. We spoke Japanese to each other a few times hoping they would notice, but they didn't. Ah well.

The picture of me scrambling up a half-built foot bridge has a bit of a story behind it. We needed a way to cross to the other side of this large field that had a creek running through it. I wasn't gonna do it until John said "We haven't had much adventure today." So I took of my sandles figuring I'd get better traction, and went for it. We both got to the other side without any troubles. Go us.

We got ruin-ed out after awhile and decided to head back to town. We had a bit of trouble finding transportation back actually. The tuk-tuks in the area didn't speak much English, and didn't know where we wanted to go. So we walked back to where we started exploring the ruins and got a tuk-tuk there. It was 60 Baht on the way back, but we didn't feel like arguing after all that walking

So we were back at the Guest House. We sad down for awhile and ate some snacks that we bought back in Lampang (yes, the Elephant Center). We'd been carting them around and thought it was about time to eat them. We watched the boats go by for awhile on the balcony area outside our room (I have some photos in Day 7).

As the sun went down, we made for the hotel to the place where we were supposed to take the boat tour. A tuk-tuk with a couple in the front seat met us out front. We haggled them down a bit, and got in. Interestingly enough the couple's kids were in the back. They were pretty cute, and were cool with us taking a few photos. We decided that we couldn't take the haggled price after getting those photos and seeing the kids (it was only about a 20Baht difference), so we gave them their original asking price.

The boat tour was apparently rescheduled for an hour later, so we sat down in the hotel for a while and drank a few beers, and talked about various things watching the sun go down over the Ayuthaya canal.

Eventually it was time to get on the boat. It wasn't quite what were were hoping for thought. The boat was really strongly air conditioned and had tinted windows. We couldn't hardly see anything as we went down the canals. The whole trip was really short too. I think we got bumped on to a different boat with that "rescheduling". But on the upside we did have a really great (and really huge) meal included with the cruise. We couldn't eat it all. We didn't even really come close, but man did we try. So we didn't feel totally jipped. Just a little miffed. We were hoping to get some nice night views of the temples, but at least we got a good meal. With the boat ride in the bag, we headed for home, but we couldn't get a good price back home via tuk-tuk. So we decided to see if we could find the ferry boat across. It was a lot easier to find then we though, and cost a whopping 3 Baht (yes, 3, that's about 9 cents). Probably the most interesting transportation we used (per-cost anyway). It got us a cross the river, and from there it was a short walk to our guest house. We stopped in the restaurant under the guest house to have a night-cap and plan the next day a bit. And that's about all she wrote.

Day 7: Friday, December 31, 2004

New Year's Eve. We were going to make it to Bangkok by that night. We woke up, checked out, and went searching for some food. So we headed back toward the market (on the road to Tony's guest house). We came across a side street with a McDonald's and a KFC and decided a taste of home would be good. We opted for KFC. It was pretty much exactly the same as in the US. Even the spicy chicken sandwich I had wasn't any more spicy than back home. But the place was covered in all this English claiming that KFC is "A place to bring your family" or something of the sort. John and I mused over people actually considering fried chicken to be a well-balanced family meal. Especially as an alternative to the Thai food, which seemed really good for you.

After we ate, we caught the ferry to go back across the river to the train station. There were a lot of people there, and we found out that the trains to Bangkok were delayed. So much that there would only be one train that day. We started worrying about how we were gonna get there. We sat down near another foreigner. We didn't say anything at first, but then a woman approached offering to take us all to Bangkok for something like 2000 Baht. We didn't wanna take it unless it got down to 500/person. So she walked off. We talked between ourselves a bit and started to thing that it might be a good idea to take her up on the offer. So I went to try to find her again. Apparently she came across this French couple that was willing to spend the 2000 Baht. The lady insisted that she couldn't take any more people. Hope looked lost. I went back to talk to John and the other guy to explain the situation. John went back to talk with her some more. During this whole thing, her husband showed up with the van and said that it was okay to take all 5 of us (John, me, the guy and the French couple) for 500/person. Which was great. It was just a van with a decent supply of seats. So we fit pretty comfortably with our bags and everything. The ride was pretty interesting. The road to Bangkok was packed. But that didn't seem to bother our driver who spent most of his time on the shoulder. Not something I would do, but it got us there. There was a ditch type of thing with some water in it along side the road, so I started planning an escape route, should the van tumble down into the watery ditch. But thankfully it didn't. About 2 hours later we were coming into downtown Bangkok. We didn't want to be taken directly to our guest house cause we didn't want another hassle with the commission. So we asked to be dropped off with the French couple who were honest about where they were going. While riding, we were able to figure out where we were, so it wasn't a problem getting to our guest house. It was about 3pm, the time the train was supposed to pick us up in Ayuthaya. We felt pretty successful that we were already in Bangkok, and with not too much money wasted on the transportation.

We walked to our guest house, which was pretty easy to find. The first floor of the guest house was an internet cafe which was constantly swarmed with kids playing games. There were even some times when we came home pretty late at night to find kids still sitting there playing games. But the cafe was convenient cause we could both check email, occasionally without being charged. They didn't have much in the way of a time-keeping system, so I'm sure there were a few hours that we didn't get billed for. But I digress. One slight problem with the guest house was the it only had one bed, sort of. It was actually two beds, but put together and sheeted as one bed. They had one with two beds but it was on the 5th floor with no elevator. We opted for this one on the 3rd floor. The bigger problem with this place was that the toilet had this habit of burping up foul sewer air. No matter how much water we poured into it to try to keep the bowl full, we would always come home to sewer smell. But at least we were in Bangkok, on New Year's Eve and ready to do some exploring.

The first place we headed was west toward Khao San Road. Which is the big foreigner party street in Bangkok. During the afternoon it's a bustling street market. So we shopped around a bit, and eventually found a place that made this noodle soup. Pretty similar to Vietnamese Pho. We loaded in some spicy stuff too. It was good. Then we headed back to the guest house to use the internet for awhile. Check mail, etc. It was about this time when we found out that Lauren wasn't going to be joining us after all. At first we thought this was silly. Then we decided to read some news about the tsunami that had hit the area. After reading some of the accounts and death tolls, we pretty much agreed that not coming to Thailand was probably a better idea. We did some laundry, etc. Chilled out, got a shower. All that maintenance stuff. Then it was about time to head out for the evening.

We started New Years evening at this Irish restaurant on Khao San road. We met some people from (if I recall correctly) England. Maybe Wales? I can't really remember. But it was fun to sit and talk and drink for awhile. The food wasn't really great. But it was a good bustling atmosphere of people looking for good things to do for the coming of the New Year. We roamed around a bit since we had some time to kill, and eventually made it back to Khao San road closer to midnight. The place was packed at that point. And we met up with this Vietnamese girl who got our attention by handing us some cans of beer (unopened, of course). We drank some beers and chatted for awhile. You could tell that the clock had nearly turned to midnight because everyone was standing and kind of waiting. Then people at random (probably cause of slightly out of sync watches) started saying "Happy New Year" and cheering and stuff. It was interesting cause there wasn't emphasis put on the exact time of the new year. Everyone seemed more concerned with having fun and just commemorating the moment within a few minutes of it passing. It was during all the commotion that I noticed a homeless guy hanging out with a beer and not really saying anything to anyone. I felt a little sorry for him, so I held out my beer to give him a New Year's toast. Then I kinda got locked into a conversation with him. Not a conversation really, but it was interesting nonetheless. The extent of his English was basically him asking me if I knew various famous Americans. "Hey, do you know JFK?" he would ask. "Yeah, I know JFK." "Do you know Elvis?" and so on. He was pretty drunk and I'm pretty sure he was peeing his pants. But it certainly made for some great photos. Khao San road was a pretty interesting scene. People from all over the world partying in different effects. Drinking, dancing, playing music. We found some break dancers at one point. Eventually, we got tired of hanging out on the street. So we went back to the Irish place where we had dinner because we'd heard that there would be music there. Which there was. A cover band actually. I can't only really remember them singing "I'm just a girl" by No Doubt. The rest was kind of fuzzy. Finally I realized that I was drunk and tired and wanted to go home, so I did. John wanted to stay out a bit, so I left him at the bar. Which apparently might have been a bad idea cause he got pretty lost coming home. But he made it home eventually. But when I got home and then when John got home (even later) there were still kids playing in the internet cafe (at like 3am mind you). We couldn't really believe it, and we felt kind of old hearing ourselves say "Shouldn't these kids be in bed?". So there you have it. New Years in Bangkok. Quite an experience.

Day 8: Saturday, January 1, 2005

Needless to say, we were a bit hung over the next morning. I think we started the day around 12pm or so. Got a shower, etc. Then went off in search of food, a Thai massage, and some muay Thai boxing. First, food.

Surprisingly, this was our first encounter with particularly bad Thai food. Not really terrible, of course. Just not good. We found this place near Democracy monument in Bangkok. On the main road there. It was a sidewalk cafe set up, which seemed promising. I decided to splurge a little and get the crab. John had the green curry. First, the food was slow. Really slow, especially the crab. Then when it finally came, it turns out that the whole crab had been deep fried. Shell, organs, everything. It was really gross and just tasted like fried stuff. I couldn't finish it. John's green curry had been bathed in lime to the point where it wasn't so great either. I wanted to eat so I ordered some chicken curry. Which also took a long time. At least the chicken curry wasn't so bad. But not great either. What a way to start the new year, eh?

But we ate, and felt mildly satisfied, so we put it aside and went in search of a traditional Thai massage. We got a taxi down to Surawong Road, which is a major commercial center in Thailand. When we got there, it was pretty easy to find the massage places. Just look for the Japanese guys, interestingly enough. We walked down the street a ways, looking at the different places. And finally settled on a modest looking place that had a comforting "Absolutely no sex" sign at the front desk. For about $10 US, we got a half hour massage. I ended up getting handled by an older lady who beat me up quite a bit. She seemed to have been in the business for awhile, but she only spoke Thai and a little bit of Japanese. The girl working on John spoke English pretty well. So the end result was that all the "move this way", "sit up" directions were given to me in Japanese. Which was a fun way to get some practice in. Afterwards, they gave us some water and sent us on our way.

The next stop on the agenda was Thai boxing. Which was pretty close to Surawong Road, so we just walked it. The match that day was more expensive than we expected, supposedly because it was New Years day. But at 800 Baht (about $25) it was still worth it. The first matches were actually really young kids. Which was a little disturbing. But they got a little older as the matches progressed. But the top age was about 17, which was still kind of scary. During the show they had a demonstration of old style Thai boxing, which was really cool. It was all choreographed, so it was actually much cooler looking than the normal fights. Real kung-fu style action. Sorry I didn't get any video of that stuff. I did, however, get the title bout on film, including the knock out. So check that out in the videos section. What made it more interesting than just a boxing match (in my opinion) was that they had music too that changed a bit depending on how the fight looked. The music would speed up when the match got hot, and start off just kind of slow. They seemed pretty integral to the fight, so I took a picture of them too. The guy playing the clarinet-type thing was using circular breathing the whole time too, I think. So it was just this constant droning. You can hear it on the video pretty well. It was great. If you ever get the chance to check out Thai boxing, go for it. I'm not sure I'll ever see anything quite like it again.

After the match we walked back in search of food and drink and stuff. We ended up stumbling upon some kind of beer festival. Which was cool, but didn't have any food we were interested in, sadly. But they did have some interesting displays including coin-op karaoke booths. So I took a picture, of course. We decided that we weren't gonna find food that we wanted in this place, so we started wandering back towards Surawong Road. There we found a Thai noodle place that seemed to be just what we were looking for. Spicy noodle soup, pretty cheap. The servings were kind of small, but it was kind of nice because the price was pretty low too. What you wanna eat for what you wanna spend. We ate and wandered a bit more. We found a Starbucks that had green tea frappuccinos. John was overjoyed. And sure enough, they were exactly the same as the ones in Japan. We wandered a bit more, until we hit the end of the commercial district, then tried to pick up a Tuk-tuk back to Khao San Road. We got the guy to take us there for 60 Baht, which was less than the usual 100. As a result, the driver didn't seem to care much for our safety or comfort. So the ride was kind of exciting and a bit frightening. We made it across town in about 5 minutes.

Back at Khao San road, we wandered a bit and looked at some shops and got some Pad Thai noodles from a street cart. We decided to pass street cart that was selling fried bugs (yes bugs. Grasshoppers, meal worms, crickets, etc). Although I was intensely curious. We went home pretty soon after eating, figuring that an easy night might be a good idea. So we went back to the guest house, did some email checking and called it a day. Tomorrow we would go to the Youth Hostel north of town and later meet John's friend Tokiyo at the airport.

Day 9: Sunday, January 2, 2005

Our first order of business for the day was to find the Bangkok Youth Hostel where we would spend the night. We decided to walk it even though it was a little far. And I decided to let John lead the way. Needless to say, we got lost. But in all fairness, we got lost again when I took over the path finding. We ended up walking a couple of different directions because some of the roads we were on curved a bit. But finally we found the bridge to cross into the upper part of town where the youth hostel was. From there it was pretty easy to find the place using the map in our Lonely Planet book.

Tokiyo had made the reservation, so it took a little time to explain what was going on to the clerk at the desk. And to make things worse, the reservation was for two nights which John and I didn't like too much, so we tried to change the reservations. Tokiyo made the reservations on the internet and apparently there was some problem with changing reservations that were made that way, etc, etc. But regardless we checked out the hostel a bit, and try to decide what we were gonna do today. We were looking at the map when some passing Australian guy recommended the Palace. Which turned out to be a great idea. Also, it was this point when we found the coolest transportation option in Bangkok. The boats. We noticed that there was a dock not far from the hostel and one near the Palace as well. So we struck off in search of the dock and the palace. The boat was a great way to go. It took a little while to figure out the system though. Each dock has two moorings, one heads up the river one heads down. There's a flag on each mooring (white, orange or yellow) which shows you if the next boat with be local, rapid or express. Then just check your stop and get on the right boat. On the boat you tell them where you're going and pay on the boat. It's surprisingly efficient.

After arriving at the palace dock, we immediately walked into a market. John asked some locals about taking a boat to a different area of Thailand (probably a day trip by boat). They looked at him like he had two heads. I guess boat travel is mostly considered as a short-range commuter option. The market was full of all kinds of food. We were hungry, so we stopped to eat before the palace. I had some Phad Thai which I ate like spaghetti. One of the guys sitting at the table I was at remarked that it was bad table manners to twirl your Phad Thai. I thought it was interesting that most Japanese table manners were pretty natural for me. But I had no idea what proper Thai etiquette was. While we were eating we ran into a trio from the US that just got there. So we imparted a bit of wisdom to them about dealing with Thailand and Bangkok. Mostly "watch out for the Tuk-tuks".

Upon entering the palace, we were approached by some people claiming to be tour guides. Despite the signs that said "don't trust people claiming to be tour guides" I started to say "hi" anyway. To which John quickly responded "Mat, don't trust the tour guides". He later mentioned that I might be too friendly for my own good. Sure enough, there weren't any guides for the palace. It was pretty self-explanatory. The palace was great overall. The pictures tell the story, I think. If you can't see any other temples or ruins or anything in Thailand, just go see the palace in Bangkok. It's pretty much got it all there. I highly recommend the stop.

On the way out of the palace we found a bookstore that we browsed for a bit. The bookstore itself was kind of funny because it had a section that seemed to be entirely concerned with the business of sex in Thailand. As well as stories of western men coming to south-east Asia in order to make use of said sex trade. There was a series that had a title something to the effect of "Bachelor's paradise", which some comical covers of a really fat white guy in a Hawaiian shirt surrounded by scantily clad Asian women. Often the guy had a cocktail in one hand. It's a culture all it's own. Walking out of the book store we met a little Thai boy. Couldn't have been more than 10 years old. He was trying to sell us postcards for about 30 Baht a piece (1 USD). Which was of course, outrageous. Especially when we later found the same postcards down the street for about 30 Baht for a pack of 10. Guess the tourist exploitation doesn't have an age limit.

It was getting about time to head to the airport to pick up Tokiyo. First we took the ferry as far north as we could to save on taxi fare. Then got the taxi to the airport (about 300 Baht). Then we played the waiting game at the airport. Finally Tokiyo showed up and then we were three. We got a taxi back to the youth hostel, but the taxi driver didn't quite know where we were going, so he didn't get us to the hostel itself, just near it. Thankfully I noticed one of the streets that we had been on earlier that day and knew we could walk it pretty easily from where we were. When we got the the hostel we continued to try to sort out the reservations and cancel the following night. We found out that we needed to contact the main organization to cancel the reservation. Quite a headache. But first, we needed food. So we went back to Khao San Road. We found a nice restaurant that had an internet cafe and international phone right next door. So we got some great Thai food, which was very spicy. Tokiyo had some beer and started turning red almost immediately. Thai beer does pack quite a kick. After eating we went out and tried to cancel the second night at the Youth Hostel. I think John and Tokiyo managed to cancel it, but I'm not sure, cause I decided to call my parents at this point. But eventually we finished, and went in search of a place to stay the next night. Some place closer to Khao San Road was the goal. The youth hostel was mighty far, and not terribly comfortable. The night we were booking for was gonna be my last night, so I wanted something comfy. We splurged a bit and reserved a 600 Baht room that had an air conditioner and a hot shower (still only about $18 total!). With that finished it was starting to get a little late, so we headed back to wander Khao San Road a bit and head home. We found a cocktail truck and decided to pick up some drinks. They offered them in two sizes, large and bucket. I was kinda tempted to go for the bucket, but thought I'd keep it tame (the large was pretty big too). I should have taken a picture of the bucket. I talked with a guy there who was drinking one and he said it was kicking his ass pretty hard. When heading back to the Hostel, Tokiyo wanted to try a tuk-tuk, so we did. But we made a crucial mistake of still having mostly finished cocktail glasses in our hands when picking up the tuk-tuk. The driver saw this as a sign that we were still partying and took us to a club despite our request to go to the youth hostel. We arrived at the club quite surprised and argued with the driver quite a bit. Finally he took us home. Once at the guest house, we pretty much headed straight to sleep. Only one day left!

Day 10: Monday, January 3, 2005

We got up, on my last full day in Thailand. Yet another day of good weather. We checked out of the youth hostel and made for the guest house that we would be staying at that night to drop off our luggage. I decided that this day for me would be basically nothing but shopping for souvenirs. Tokiyo and John wanted to go do some other things. I think a massage was involved, but you'd have you check with them to get the whole story. We started the day with some decent food around the corner from our guest house (just west of Khao San Road). I started the morning with a beer. I felt particularly relaxed that day because I didn't really have any plans. John and Tokiyo wanted to go do some things, so we set a time later in the afternoon when we would get together to get some dinner together. We parted ways and I started probably my most relaxing day yet in Thailand.

There's not even anything so notable during this day. I really spent pretty much all day just walking around, shopping, spending money, eating things. It was great. I wore all these loose clothes that I bought in Thailand (including the denim jean sandals that I bought the previous day). I stopped for beer now and again, relaxed and got some food whenever I felt like it. Traveling by yourself can be a really nice thing especially when you don't have any major deadlines to meet. I took a few photos of interesting things I saw while shopping. Including the guy that took the time to sit down and make a bag from a coke can for me. He had "diet coke" bags in the size I wanted, but said it would only take 10 minutes or so to put a "coke" bag together. So I just sat and watched as he put it together. I learned a few things about shopping in Bangkok during this time. The most important of which is simple: Don't shop on Khao San Road. Go just off the road. The shops immediately on Khao San Road are over priced. If you go about a block in almost any direction, you'll find most of the same stuff, at about two thirds of the price.

I eventually finished my shopping and went back the guest house to have a beer and wait for John and Tokiyo. I can't remember exactly what we did after we met up. I think we had a few drinks, got some dinner, that sort of thing. We had to wake up pretty early the next day to make it to the airport. We compared things that we purchased, got showers and mostly got ready to send me off the next day. John and Tokiyo had booked a plane to get to Northern Thailand, so we all had business at the airport to get done.

Day 11: Tuesday, January 4, 2005

We got up pretty early this morning, around 5am if I recall correctly. My goal was to make my flight. We walked away from the guest house and looked for a taxi that would run the meter to the airport. It took a few tries to find one. Most of the taxis wanted to just charge us 300 Baht plus tolls. But we found one, got to the airport. Once we arrived it was time to separate. We found a nice lady that took our picture all together, backpacks, beards and all. And that was it for the trio.

My one last note was that I was charged 500 Baht for "passport inspection" to get out of Thailand. Which at roughly $15 USD is ridiculous, first off. To make matters worse, I had given most of my Baht (save for some souvenirs) to John. So I had to exchange yen to get the necessarily Baht to make the transaction. Lovely... Left kind of a foul taste in my mouth about Thailand. But all in all, the trip was really great. I came away feeling that Thailand is indeed an easy place to travel in. There are plenty of cheap places to stay, lots of good food and decent transportation networks to get around (busses mostly, and the occasional pick up truck). And most people speak at least a little bit of English. Enough to figure out where you're trying to go. If you have the chance, give it a try. But I don't recommend Bangkok so much. Chiang Mai was much nicer.

As an epilogue, I arrived in Japan at the Kansai international airport. I couldn't help but find it funny that the air seemed comparatively clean. I took a deep breath once I got into the terminal. I also felt pretty comforted when I went to talk to the JR people to get a ticket to Gifu. It was nice to be in a country where I could speak the language (even if that language wasn't English). I took local trains back from Osaka to Gifu, which took about 3 and a half hours. It was a long ride, but a nice way to decompress after a trip to remember. Eventually I could see the warm white light of the Hitachi sign that told me I was close to home. Close to Gifu, that is. Kaori and I went out to get some izakaya food that night.

John and Tokiyo continued their trip for another week or so. They went up to north Thailand and had a great time from their accounts. John specifically said that Pai (a city in northern Thailand) was particular nice. John gave me his photos from the trip, and selected a few of the notable ones and posted them here.