Halloween 2011

 

 

Khao San Road

It’s great to be back in Thailand. I only spent a few days in the city back in 2008, but I feel right at home. I love this place! I have been staying in the touristy section of town just off Khao San (on a much quieter street) in the Guesthouse Merry V. It’s basic with only a bed, ceiling light and fan in a room with paper thin walls. There is not even an outlet. There is a cold shower and toilet down the hall (porcelain throne, not a squat toilet!). It’s as basic as you can get, but for $5 a night I love it! It does have a nice view from the balcony. Honestly, after living in a proper apartment for an entire year I am really enjoying the simplicity of it all. I am not used to the heat and humidity yet, so a cold shower is perfect. (def not something I can say very often)

I arrived at 3 am a few days ago and met some friends on the plane. We had a few beers to celebrate our arrival. (It was 72 hours from Tampa) I needed some pad thai (yeah you can still get street food at 5:30am) before heading back to the guesthouse. It was delicious! Somehow better than I remembered. Since I was already awake I decided to stay up a little longer to watch the sunrise over the city from the balcony. It was really peaceful with the birds chirping, locals sweeping the street, and an occasional rooster call. The balcony overlooks the more traditional thai buildings, a wat, the street and then the modern huge skyscrapers are in the backdrop, way off in the distance. I was able to watch the monks collect their morning offering, drunks stumble home, stray cats and dogs wandering, a squirrel collect some food from a tree and vendors start to set up their stalls for the day. It was like an episode of Sunrise Earth from the Discovery Channel. But the moment was all my own.

View from my balcony

Over the last couple days I have done very little. This is the first time in a long time that I have had nothing to do and can just relax. I’m not even sure how to do it anymore. I always have a million things to do and now I have to just wait. In case I forgot to mention it, the night before I started traveling the company let me know the course was pushed back 3 weeks. Too late to make any changes without buying a whole new ticket so here I am. I have gotten out to see some of the flooding right behind the guesthouse, I got a thai massage, ate at my favorite restaurant in the world – May Kaidee, have been running even though it feels like a sauna here, and got some books because I’m off to the beach. I have been too busy to read lately and I cannot wait!

Oh, I was responsible today. I bought some contacts! The contacts I have been wearing expired in 2007 which means they actually were expired last time I was in Thailand back in ’08. In Thailand you can just walk into any eyeglass store and tell them your prescription and get contacts for next to nothing. (Just how it should be =)

My new friends have guilt tripped me into going down to the islands with them for the Full Moon Party, so I’m on the night bus heading there right now. I don’t know if its jet lag, the heat or all the crazy nights these last couple months but I don’t feel like partying all night long. Don’t worry…. I will and it will be awesome, but I can feel myself getting older. After the full moon party (and all the after parties) I am planning on reading in a hammock overlooking the ocean, playing frisbee, swimming, snorkeling and hiking to some waterfalls. You may not hear from me for a while =)

Bangkok Flooding

This is why it will be a few more weeks till I start teaching

This is 2 blocks from my guesthouse

Kids playing in the park/river

The river keeps rising

Great Wall of China

After all the worrying about the flight to Bangkok it turned out perfect. My passport arrived, I was able to leave on the 4^th and Air China gave me a 24 hour layover in Beijing, hotel included. Since I didn’t have a Chinese visa I wasn’t sure if I would be able to leave the airport, but it turns out, as long you leave for less than 24 hrs they will let you in for free. There were people on my flight who paid $165 for a rushed Chinese visa. Sometimes it pays to just wing it. Or be willing to sleep in the airport.

We got in late in the evening so we all (and by ‘we’ I mean the 20 some people who missed their connections. Some of us knew in advance but on top of that our plane left SF late) we were all shuttled to a nice hotel and crashed for the night. The people working there spoke a little English and tried to discourage me from taking public transport to the Wall. They said I couldn’t do it in a day and that I should take a taxi. From the 10 minutes I spent looking it up online in SF it looked possible…so I went. (I'm too cheap for a taxi and was up for the challenge.)

I dropped my bags off at the airport, took a train to the subway and tried to take a different train to the Wall. Everything was in Chinese and people were upset so I hopped back on the subway and went to the bus station instead.

In case anyone is planning on doing this trip soon. The bus number has changed from 919 to 877. Took me a few minutes to work that out after a bunch of 919 buses left and people kept telling me no, but didn’t know enough English to say more. They pointed. So I walked in the direction they were pointing. Bus 877 says Great Wall and Badaling. It looked promising and I knew I wanted to go to Badaling. (it was one of the 10 words I scribbled down on a piece of paper) So I gave them some money and hopped on the bus with a bunch of locals.

Beijing is an interesting city. I’m trying hard not to judge it, but the visibility was only 30 miles. If that. There are beautiful mountains all around, but I had no idea till we were half way out of the city. Because of the haze or smog or whatever it was, it makes them mysterious but it’s gross. It would be like living in Denver and not seeing the mountains, or even the foothills. I’m hoping it’s just haze…

The wall was sweet. I was told I had to buy a ticket for some ride, but then I used the wrong entrance that didn’t have the ride. I got to walk up the wall (it was better this way).

Before going to the wall I knew that this was the most crowded section and going to be a bit like Disneyland. And it was both. If you only have 24 hours then it’s totally worth the effort to stop by, but if you have any more time I would go to another section.

It’s an impressive structure. It snakes up and over and around the hills. Two fun facts – you actually cannot see it from space. I’m not sure where that rumor was started. Interstate 40 is wider. The second is that local people have used rocks from the Wall in certain sections to build their homes.

I am always blown away by what these ancient civilizations were able to accomplish. There are so many amazing structures still standing all over the world. I wonder what my generation is going to leave behind?

Back to my day at the wall. Because of that silly ride I used my bus fare to get home so I had to break some money. Considering the atm fees just to get an extra 5 bucks I chose to ride a camel instead, pay in us dollars and get back some Chinese currency. Yes, there is a camel you can ride at the Great Wall of China…and I did. But only to get bus fare. It was really cool! Camels are awesome! They have bears too.

When I was trying to ride the ride (I forget its name) back up to the wall, the ticket collector was giving me a hard time. Normally people ride up first, but I had walked instead. A couple of American guys, one who could speak Chinese and some locals came to the rescue and eventually I was able to pass. (I was not about to pay for another ticket for a stupid ride I didn’t want to take in the first place. I only rode it down because I couldn’t return the ticket) I hung out with Kurk and Joel for the rest of the day. We made it to the highest tower before walking back down to the bus.

I made it back to the airport early. Slept like a baby on the 5 hour flight to Bangkok.

3 days till Bangkok

1:00pm - I'm sitting at the Tampa Airport waiting for the flight to clt and then San Francisco. It's the 3rd.
7:30pm - Arrive in San Fran and meet up with some friends for margaritas and my last dinner in the USA (Mexican food, of course!)
Next day arrive at SFO airport at noon to fly to Beijing
Arrive in China at 7:00pm on the 5th with a 24 hour layover (another country checked off the list! And I didn't plan on going there right now)
Leave Beijing 7:00pm for Bangkok. Arrive at 11:45pm on the 6th. (Might as well be the 7th!)

Last night I found out my course and therefore teaching are postponed till the end of the month. It was a very last minute decision on their part. Not sure what I'm going to do with my life in 3 days....But I'm going to have a lot of time to think about it