February 6

sawatdee kaa from thailand
Spontaneity has its moments of backfire, yet for me, planning seems to have, more often, this effect: so after we had a somewhat chaotic trek to Thailand, due to persistent crooked lying salesman, obscure source references, ignorance, and a funny yet fickle roommate whom I have to nag continually to commit to anything, we ended up in a city I’d never even heard of, and lovely it was. The boat that was supposed to take us all the way to Ko Chang, was double the amount in price we were told it was going to be by our Phnom Penh sources, and only dropped us at the border, Koh Kong. After we stepped off the boat, where we had ridden on the roof with live chickens and produce, fallen asleep, gotten sunburnt, green about the gills, we found that at the border it was even more expensive to take a small van to our actual desired destination than the ridiculous boat ride, way over the amount we had planned to spend. Suckered again. Sick of traveling, disoriented and lost in translation, I received an e-mail from my friend Phil in Bangkok saying he had to leave to get his visa stamped the same day we were planning to arrive, the appointment forcibly moved up a couple days. He had to go 10 hours north to Chiang Mai. We didn't want to be so far from Bangkok, so spur of the moment we bought tickets to a beach city just 2 hours outside of the capital called Pattaya. The lady asked us where we would like to be dropped off, and we had no clue. She named all of these parts of town and we just sort of looked at each other blankly, until a man who had spend the last 3 years living in Pattaya referred us to the backpacking district, Soi Buahkoa. He had quite a temper and after he picked a fight with the equally ornery driver with a glass eye, he got kicked out of the bus, leaving us with a eccentric late 20s horndog backpacker from London. After the driver demanded an extra 50 baht to bring us to a guesthouse on top of the excruciating 800 baht we had already painfully shelled out, the 3 of us found ourselves at the corner of the street in the middle of downtown, confused and dizzy in the midst of Thai’s wild and blurry night life. We finally took a taxi to a decent guesthouse, and fell asleep in front of the TV, flipping between pipemasters and rap videos.

The next day we perused the city, got breakfast, ate fresh fruit on the beach, got lost in the mall, had our first starbucks in over 5 months (Cambodia doesn't have it), and instead of going out to the bars or clubs or discos at night like normal youngfolk, the boring mellow us (Liz and I) bought chicken and rice from a street vender and watched a movie and were perfectly content. The beach wasn't amazing, unlike the more secluded beaches in southern Thailand, nonetheless we were fried from falling asleep on top of the boat the day prior, and I was just stoked to be in a developed city with great food, and wonderfully friendly people. (ps. to the potential asia traveler, the people are much nicer in Thailand than Cambodia) We took the bus to Bangkok this morning, and meandered through the gigantic malls, upset because we had no money to buy anything at all when we wanted everything. Phil brought us to the bookstore, Kinokuniya, which was enormous, it had the biggest arts and graphic section i've ever seen, which is the current trend (according to Phil) in Thailand. It was full of so many mind-blowing art books, I was so happy I could've cried. This thriving metropolis is a torrent of creativity, inspiring just to walk its streets. Now I'm here, just picking up somebody else's wireless, looking forward to all the chaos and adventure tomorrow could hold.