Moving On

I’m six hours through a twelve hour train ride from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. This morning I got up at 6:30am, showered, packed and said good-bye to Annika. She was truly a wonderful host. Being on this bus makes me thoughtful, somehow; I get to see the Thai countryside rolling past, varying between hills and dips and rice paddies and jungle-y areas, small houses and shacks on stilts interspersed throughout.

Yesterday was such a mix of ups and downs that it exhausted me a bit. It started out well, waking up at the same time as Annika and slowly getting ready for the day. I had a general schedule in mind, the first of which involved meeting Christy, the Couchsurfer who replaced me at Lucy’s, to head up to Doi Suthep, a temple on the mountain, and then for lunch at the vegetarian restaurant we’d eaten at on Saturday, Pun-Pun. Meeting her was an adventure in and of itself, since she doesn’t have a phone and my access to internet was intermittent. We managed to connect, though, and each walked a mile or to our designated meeting place, an intersection of a main road west of the inner city and Highway 121. I got there first but she showed up not five minutes later. My walk was uneventful, although at one point I thought I was there already and sat down to relax. As I perused a map, though, I realized that I had a bit further to go, and so luckily it all worked out.

[I just looked out the window to catch a view of huge rice paddies with workers dotting them. There also seemed to be a group cutting wheat or hay. Very picturesque and very much the daydream of what Asia looks like in the countryside.]

Our next challenge was to find a ride up to Doi Suthep, which is not too far out of town but is definitely up a windy, steep mountain. Most seongtows don’t go that far, and the ones that do wait until at least ten people amass before starting out. Christy and I waited with one driver for half an hour before deciding to walk partway and see if we could hitch the rest. This got the driver excited and he started negotiating prices with us. Finally, there were four of us and we negotiated at 100 baht apiece for a round trip ride. Everyone was happy and so off we went! It was a pretty drive and Christy and I chatted almost non-stop. About twenty minutes later we arrived and we got climbing: there were stairs up each level of the temple. My knees aren’t being very forgiving these days, by the way.

The temple was golden, with huge snake heads at the bottom of the steps and their long, undulating bodies lining the way up. Then you enter the main level, which is a landing that goes all the way around the main temple area. We walked all the way around, admiring the mostly-foggy view of the city below, the huge bells and gongs, and the variety of statues and Buddhas that dotted the area. Eventually we took off our shoes and went up into the main temple, which was another whole level to itself! Even though it was a Monday, there were lots of people there, about an equal mix of tourists and locals. Encircling the entire area were golden Buddha statues, seated and looking, as always, serene. From what I could understand, there were two indoor temple areas, both of which had monks offering blessings, albeit in different ways (one shook water over the heads of people that approached on their knees, the other tied a white string around their wrists). Each had the requisite huge golden statue of Buddha looking down on the praying people. In the middle of the main square outside, there was a structure under construction, so it was hard to admire it’s full impact.

All the time there were rites being performed around us: a long line of people, each holding a lotus flower, walked around the central square structure, muttering prayers; people prayed at different aspects of the Buddha everywhere; tourists snapped pictures and stared, or started suddenly when someone gonged a bell particularly firmly. It wasn’t a solemn place, but it was sort of like a controlled frenzy. Christy and I received our blessing from the monk’s assistant, kneeling and holding out our left wrists for the white string with a knot in the center to be tied around our wrists. He said a prayer in Thai and then said, “And good luck to you,” in English. We couldn’t go to the main monk who was doing the blessings, because monks can’t touch women. And we weren’t the only people doing this: locals and other tourists were all on their knees behind us in a line, shuffling forward as each blessing was given.

[This time, as I glanced up there was a golden temple flying past!]

After a bit, we descended. We had agreed with the other two seongtow passengers to meet back at the seongtow in about an hour. We were a bit early and so we made our way up some stone steps to sit beneath a huge statue of an abbey or ancient monk. I texted Annika to let her know I would be able to make an appointment with her later that day and I called Pom, the travel agent who booked my train, to check her office hours. It turned out she was open until 7pm so I was relieved that I would have time to pick up the train ticket that day.

As I was doing these phone things, Christy had been watching for the other two passengers. At one point she cried, “There they are! Let’s go!” And up we got to clamber down the stone steps, pile into the seongtow and head down. This time there were more people, including a cute guy named Brent from Boston on a six week holiday, split between China and Thailand. About halfway down the mountain, I panicked: my camera was gone. I tore through my backpack and my purse, then tried to calm myself and looked again. One of the Thai girls riding with us yelled up to the driver to stop, and he eventually turned around and we headed back up. I figured I must have left the camera sitting on the stone steps, because I’d taken a picture from the top of them.

We got back and I raced up to where Christy and I had been sitting, but there was nothing there. I asked a blond woman sitting a few steps below where we’d been if she had seen anything, and in fact she said she had! She said she’d seen something black up a few steps, but had been chatting with her friends. When she looked back, it was gone. She said that had been less than ten minutes before. I was silently berating myself and feeling pretty upset, when the Thai girl I from my seongtow grabbed my arm and dragged me up to the police station. No one was there so she called them. Now I was starting to feel bad, on top of feeling stupid, for delaying everyone in the seongtow. Eventually, the policeman showed up on a bicycle and I left a handwritten report with my e-mail address.

On the ride back down, Christy and Brent tried to soothe me. I just felt so absolutely moronic: I hadn’t managed to go even a month without losing my damned camera! And to just leave it sitting somewhere… stupid! On the other hand, as I tried to reason with myself, if that’s the worst thing that happens during this trip, then I'll consider it lucky. Plus, I regularly back up my photos and in fact had done so the night before, so the only pictures missing were the ones from that day. Christy promised to e-mail me her pictures.

[We are now sitting at a train station and I see vendors on the platform. I wonder how long we’re staying here? Perhaps I could run out and get… but no, we’re pulling forward. Ah, well.]

Once Christy and I got dropped off, we caught another seongtow to the vegetarian restaurant and ate there again. The food was not as wonderful, but still quite good, this second time around. I particularly enjoyed the spring rolls, which contained house-made sesame tofu and some mighty tasty basil. After about an hour, we headed our opposite ways, Christy back to Lucy’s and off to a guitar concert, and me to keep my appointment with Annika.

[Odd, we just passed a small field with statues of dinosaurs in it. This was followed by a temple. We’re not quite out of whatever city we stopped at in my last aside.]

My appointment with Annika was, for me, a fantastic deal: she needed someone to practice her massage on! In fact, her program requires that she do fourteen “case studies,” of varying amounts of time, and she had asked me if I would be one of them. I’m not one to say no to a massage, especially a free one, and so I agreed to meet her at her school, ITM (possibly standing for International Thai Massage school), which is just around the corner from her apartment. I arrived about ten minutes early and found my way inside. One of the school attendants, marked my a golden, Thai-style shirt and a name tag, looked at me inquiringly and I told her I was there for Annika. She nodded and pointed to a bench for me to sit on to wait for her. After a few minutes, though, a crowd amassed and seated itself on the floor, at the same time as an older gentleman dressed in the school uniform sat on the floor to my left, facing the crowd. He kindly motioned for me to join the crowd, which I did, somewhat bewildered. He then led the group of students – and me – in a meditative chant. It was really interesting! Everyone had their hands pressed together and was chanting call-and-response style with the teacher, which I did also. When he was finished, he called on one of the students, who then led the call and response. He did this three more times before the lesson ended, lasting about ten minutes total.

When it was finished, I looked around but still couldn’t find Annika. Finally I found her outside, waiting for me, and she led me through a few rooms and up several sets of stairs to a quiet, dark room with several mats laid out. She had me lay on my back on one of these and then began an hour and a half long session of Thai massage. She did quite a good job, lightening her touch when I got ticklish or being gentle when my super-unflexible body refused to stretch. Thai massage is focused around stretching and, from the masseuse’s end, looking for lines of energy and any blockages to those lines. Annika kept a slow but steady pace, working up from my legs to my arms, then my back and a few sitting-up stretches. She’s fairly new to the skill but has very good hands – strong, warm, gentle – for it. I could feel myself relaxing and actually fell asleep at one point! I felt loose and relaxed at the end of it, and told Annika so. She seemed pleased.

After this we went out to get a fruit shake, and then we parted ways for a bit. She headed for a yoga class and I decided to walk into the city center to get my train ticket. It was about a forty-five minute walk but it felt really good after my massage. I picked up my ticket and then headed straight back toward’s Annika’s, making two stops along the way. My first stop was an internet cafe, just to catch up on e-mail, Facebook and to check on the status of a couchsurfing request for a couple in Hanoi. After twenty minutes I headed off again. My second stop was at a store where I picked up a small electric fan and a small plastic container. These were presents for Annika, whose small one-room apartment didn’t get much air circulation at night when the door was closed. She has a screen door to a balcony, but without opening her front door there’s no breeze. Air conditioning is too expensive, so it just stays warm. The fan was my thank-you to her for hosting me, giving me a wonderful massage and letting me have her bed. The small plastic container I used to scoop up some good-looking soil on the walk home, and is for Annika’s little tamarind tree, which she sprouted from a tree and which was needing a home and some good dirt.

Annika was pleased with the gifts, thanking me and putting the fan to use at once. She decided to wait until morning to transplant the little seedling. Then we headed out for some dinner, going to a little stand around the corner from her. She got fried rice with tofu, hundred year egg, and fried basil. I tried the egg doubtfully but found it rather tasty! It was fried, though, so I’m not sure if it counts. I had some kind of rice and tofu dish which was tasty and filling. All together our dinner cost 65 baht, or just over $2USD. We headed back to her apartment, stopping at another vendor to pick up some coconut-creme fried treats that Annika adores, and at a copy place to make copies of my cookbook for her. Then we settled in at her apartment, alternately tapping away on our computers and chatting with each other, primarily about guys, a universal theme amongst women.

The rest is history: we went to bed, got up early, and I headed out this morning around 7:15am to find a seongtow to take me to the train station. I thought it might be difficult and/or expensive, and sure enough, the first two turned me down. Finally a driver agreed to take me for fifty baht, which is less than I’d thought I would have to pay. I got to the station, found my platform, and then found some breakfast (white rice with a sort of fried tofu omelet and hot sauce. I bought myself a large bottle of water, too, and thirty minutes later boarded my train: train 12, car 3, seat 9. It’s an air-conditioned car and besides a gaggle of frat-boy types and one girl, it was just me. The girl, Alissa, and I started chatting pretty quickly. She’s teaching English in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and has just started her second year there. She thinks she’ll switch to either Taiwan or South American next year. She took my guidebook and circled a few places she thought I should absolutely hit, including a restaurant, a beach and some things to do just outside of her city. We also exchanged e-mail addresses so we could keep in touch and maybe meet up when I get down to Ho Chi Minh City!

I love being able to meet up with people, even though they’re really strangers, in various places.

As for tonight, I’m hoping that a request I sent to a hotel near the airport in Bangkok will have e-mailed me back and that I can stay there. If not,though, I’m undecided on what I will do. I could, as Alissa suggested, lock up my baggage at the train station, go hang out in Bangkok for dinner and maybe a market, then come back and catch a cab to the airport to spend the night there. Or, I could go to Khao San Road for a night and catch a cab in the morning to the airport. Or, I could shell out the cash and pay for a night at a hotel near the airport, booking with them directly (which is more expensive).

Ah well… it will be interesting to see what the night brings! Just another four or five hours on the train to go.

--Z