From Bangkok to Ayuthaya to Chiang Mai

I thought I had kicked the bedbugs, but I woke up Friday morning in Bangkok to find a few spots of blood on my sheet just below the pillow, a strong indicator that they had returned.  I got a bottle of rubbing alcohol, found a new place to stay for the night, and did the whole de-bedbugging procedure again.  I REALLY hope I've finally kicked them (or perhaps this was a new case).

That night, I met up with Jenn Franson, a friend from DC who is teaching in Bangkok for a few months while her fiance, Nate, is finishing up his final year of grad school.  Jenn and I walked around Chinatown for a while, sampling all sorts of delicious foods from the vendors lining the streets as part of some kind of vegetarian festival.  For the most part, we followed the approach to food selection I've adopted since arriving in Thailand: find the vendor with the most locals waiting in line, get in line, and then when I get to the front of the line, I point at whatever item I saw the most people ahead of me order.  In addition to leading me to some great food, it also reduces the likelihood of food poisoning (because locals wouldn't eat there if they had frequent problems) and allows me to see what other people paid so I don't get overcharged (though this is not that big a problem with most street vendors, since the prices are so low anyway).

After eating our fill, we decided to catch a cab to Vertigo, a bar on the roof of the Banyan Tree, the tallest building in Bangkok (59 floors), which also happens to be next to Bangkok's version of Central Park.  All in all, you'd think it would be a fairly well-known destination and cab drivers would know where it is, right?  Well, you, my friend, have clearly never been to Thailand.  I have never been anywhere where so many people are so terrible at directions.  Even when shown a map with street names in Thai characters, the majority of people I have approached for assistance haven't even been able to point out our approximate current location.  Despite the help of a couple friendly Thai students who knew where we wanted to go and spoke to cab drivers on our behalf, it took us three tries to find a driver who understood APPROXIMATELY how to get there.  When we finally arrived, we each enjoyed a delicious cocktail that cost more than my accommodations for the night, but the view was totally worth it:

The next morning, I took a bus/van to Ayuthaya, the former capital of Thailand, and spent most of the next two days exploring the Wats (temples) and markets by bicycle.  The "city" is an island surrounded by rivers and probably only about 4km by 4km, so it was easy to cover pretty much everything worth seeing in that time.

I'm now in Chiang Mai and will spend 3 nights here before going on a 3-day, 2-night trek, where I will stay with some indigenous tribes, hike, and go rafting and/or elephant-riding.  After the trek, I will return to Chiang Mai for 1 more night, during some large festival, then take a 2-day slow boat ride to Luang Prabang in Laos.  Pretty much everyone I've talked to has said Luang Prabang was their favorite city in Southeast Asia, so I'm looking forward to seeing it for myself.

Bedbugs!

You can tell from the title that this isn't going to be a happy post.  Around 1:30am last night, I discovered and killed a few bedbugs at the place where I was staying (The Same-Same Lodge - it was recommended in Lonely Planet, but clearly did not live up to its billing).  I had been laying in bed for almost an hour, watching a movie to help myself fall asleep, and I saw a bug crawling on the sheet by the light from the screen.  Now, I had seen and killed a similar bug on the wall above the bed when I came in, but I didn't think it was a bedbug because it was clearly visible to the eye and I was under the impression bedbugs were very tiny and hard to see.  This time though, the bug squirted blood when I crushed it.  Then I saw another, squashed it, and saw more blood.  Yep, definitely bedbugs.


I flipped out, immediately packed up my things, tracked down the management and informed them of the situation and that I was leaving and wanted a refund.  Even though I had only been in the room a couple hours, they would only give me back half my money, because I had used electricity and water, and they claimed they had no way of knowing whether I had brought the bugs with me, since they had never had a complaint before.  Now, having seen and killed upwards of 4 bugs after less than 2 hours in the room and never having seen them before, I was confident I hadn't brought them with me.  I tried to stay calm and explain the situation, but they refused to budge and I left even more upset than I already had been about the bedbug ordeal.


So what do you do at 1:00am when you're on some island in Thailand, you've left your bedbug infested room and don't know what to do?  Why, you find a 24-hour internet cafe and email your former roommate in DC who happens to have written a piece for a travel guide on dealing with bedbugs, of course!  Unfortunately, the connection was horrible, so our gchat conversation got cut short.  Around 3am, confused and frustrated, I ponied up for a nice room at a resort/spa, showered, soaked my clothes in extremely hot water, and went to bed.  I'm hopeful my limited exposure to the bedbugs kept me from spreading them, but not informing the new place beforehand was not the right thing to do, so now I have to go fess up and probably sacrifice a rather large deposit.


For the record, I learned from Molly this morning that what you're supposed to do--and what I am off to do now--is find a new hostel, inform them of the situation, and theoretically, before letting you enter a room, they are supposed to wash your clothes at a high temperature, dry them at a high temperature, spray down all your belongings with something, and you take a shower.  We'll see how that goes.


This bedbug situation is a real pain, but I guess in the grand scheme of things, a lot worse could happen.  And the weather for the last week has been absolutely perfect, so there's that at least.  Always look on the bright side, right?

Journal Excerpts, Oct 12-16

Monday, Oct 12

9:45pm: Ok, so, I knew I would run into a lot of couples backpacking, but DAMN there are a lot of couples backpacking!  How I Met Your Mother was totally not the right show for me to pick up for watching on long bus rides.  I gotta start meeting people and making friends, i.e., meeting people who actually WANT to meet other people, or I'm going to go out of my mind.

Thursday, Oct 15

8:00pm: I'm currently in my room in Hat Rei Leh.  I arrived yesterday morning after a couple days in Krabi Town (Hat Rei Leh is one of the beaches in Krabi, but you need to get there by long-tail boat).  Walking around, it seems that pretty much every guest house/resort is doing some sort of expansion project.  I guess they must be trying to add some new rooms before the high season starts.

I have very little concept of days of the week right now.  I suspect that as I get further into this trip, I will have less and less idea what day it is.  Though I suppose it's also possible that as I get used to the lack of structure, I'll get better at tracking the day and date.  My internal clock has also been all sorts of crazy since I arrived.  I've woken up between 2-5am every night since I've arrived and no amount of naps or lack naps or timing of naps has seemed to make much of a difference.  Today, I woke at 2am, watched a couple hours of How I Met Your Mother, went back to sleep for a couple hours, showered, walked around the island a bit looking for interesting food options, had an egg/onion/tomato Thai pancake, went to the beach for a bit, had a beer and read a bit from Best American Non-required Reading, watched some beach soccer between two of the resort teams in a local tournament, went back to my room and had another beer and a package of TimTams while finishing off the 4th season of How I Met Your Mother, took a nap, did some laundry, went out and had crocodile for dinner, and now am back in my room typing this journal entry.  Wait... crocodile?!  Yep.  Kinda chewy, but not entirely unlike chicken, I guess.

Friday, Oct 16

11:40pm: Today I left Rei Leh and traveled to Ko Pha-Ngan, meeting up with 3 cute Polish girls on the way: Anya, Victoria, and Claudia.  We were on the same bus from Rei Leh, then ended up spending the rest of day-long trip talking.  They're all friendly, from Krakow, work in corporate finance, and speak English very well.  They will also be in Ko Pha-Ngan for a few days before returning to Bangkok, so we will probably hang out more over the next few days.  It's great to finally make some backpacking friends!

Lesson learned today: never pay for a taxi in advance, especially to anyone other than the driver.  Paid the tout on the bus 350b for the 4 of us, but then the taxi driver who picked us up from the port didn't recognize the name he put at the bottom, and we ended up paying an extra 100b and may have to pay more if he comes back tomorrow and isn't able to sort it out.

Arriving in Thailand

Alright, folks, I'm going to experiment with something here.  Instead of creating something new specifically for the blog, I'm going to pull somewhat random excerpts from the last couple entries in my personal travel journal, providing additional context where necessary.  Let me know how you think this goes....

On my flight out of New York, I was seated next to an Aussie couple, probably about my age, who were heading to Thailand as the final stop on about 2.5 years of traveling all over Europe, Canada and the US.  They were nice and we chatted a fair amount, finally bidding each other farewell at the baggage claim in Bangkok.  It was interesting to talk to people that many times over a period of about 24 hours without ever actually exchanging names.  I wonder how much more of that I will do on this trip.

As I de-boarded the plane in Bangkok and walked down the long terminal hallways towards immigration and baggage claim, the thought going through my head was "Holy shit, I'm really here!  I can't believe I'm on the other side of the world!"  That feeling still hasn't gone away.

My father's grad school roommate, Che, with whom he had not been in touch in 40 years until just a couple weeks ago, picked me up from the airport in Bangkok.  Not only was it reassuring to see a friendly face, but he and his family proceeded to give me the most generous welcoming imaginable, taking me out to lunch with his family, showing me around the financial district downtown, offering to let me stay at either his house or his studio in the downtown area, giving me maps and suggestions on places to visit, etc.  And the next day, his son took me to the floating market in Ratchaburi, a 2 hour drive from the city (more on this later).  It was definitely the right plan to stay with Che and is family the first night, as it would have been quite a bit more chaotic trying to get to a hostel from the airport and then arranging to meet up with him sometime during my stay in Bangkok.  Part of me wonders whether it wouldn't be a good idea to take him up on the offer of using his studio and just stay there and explore Bangkok by myself for a few days.  But I'm drawn to the idea of meeting people and spending time with them, and that's just not going to happen the same way if I'm staying by myself.

Going over Che's ideas of potential places to visit, it's clear I could spend a couple months just in Thailand.  I feel a few pangs of regret that I've already started locking myself into certain dates and locations, like committing to be in Delhi to meet Rachel and Sarah on November 20th.  Then again, I suppose it was inevitable that I would begin to develop more structure once I actually arrived, and a month and a half should be a good amount of time to explore Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.  And I'm super excited to know that I will have traveling companions throughout my time in India; after Rachel and Sarah take off, I'll be meeting up with Erica, one of my best friends from college, who will be in India for a wedding.  I'm a little concerned that the timing now makes it unlikely that I will stop and volunteer anywhere in Southeast Asia or India, but I guess if I really want to, I can always go back to India after spending New Years in Singapore.

On Saturday, Toey (Che's son) took me to the floating market in Ratchaburi.  We were accompanied by his wife, Gail (I think), and her brother, Jimmy.  There were very few farang (white people) there, and I was grateful to have a guide to take me to a market frequented by locals rather than the one featured in my Lonely Planet book.  They showed me which foods to eat and I devoured grilled sea oysters (that's what I'm eating in the picture), fish on a stick, fried prawns, fried pheasant eggs, a couple flour-based deserts, a local fruit similar to lychee (sp?), and some local snack with rice, shrimp, and peanut sauce wrapped in a flavorful leaf.  It was food heaven.

After Ratchaburi, Toey dropped me off outside the Overstay (www.theoverstay.com), a hostel I found through couchsurfing.  I ended up getting a room for 100b ($3), which thankfully had a working fan (some rooms did not).  There was a Jamaican Kamikaze-themed party (don't ask) that was quite fun, but when I woke up in the morning, I decided I didn't really want to stay at the Overstay another night.  Finding a place on Kho San Road wasn't really appealing as an alternative and going back to Che's so soon, while I knew I would be welcome, would have felt like admitting defeat.  So I decided to get the heck out of Dodge and head down south, figuring I'll come back through Bangkok on my way to Chang Mai.  Beach time sounds good right now, and given the advice I've received from multiple friends about avoiding Phuket, it seems like a good jumping off point for Ko Phi Phi (where The Beach was filmed), and then I'll probably go to the eastern coast, check out Ko Tao, and start making my way back up to Bangkok by way of some of the more local beaches Che and Toey told me about.

Having made my decision, I got directions at the 7-Eleven and hopped on a local bus, feeling very proud of myself for having navigated public transit.  Unfortunately, they bus let me out at the OLD south station, so I had to take a taxi to the new one.  I did manage to turn down one cab driver who wanted to charge me 150b and found another who immediately agreed to turn on his meter, which ended up coming to 68b.  I arrived at the bus terminal around 2pm, only to discover that the next bus to Krabi departs at 6:30pm, a couple hours later than I expected based on my brief internet research (damn you, wikitravel!).  I decided to splurge ($18) on a first class ticket for the 12 hour ride, which got me air conditioning, quite the blessing since I've been sweating virtually nonstop since I got off the plane, a condition I expect will be pretty much a permanent state-of-being for the rest of my trip.  Fortunately, I made the decision well before this trip started that I am not going to be bothered by waiting.  So far, so good.

Alright, this is turning into a bit too much of a play-by-play narrative.  I'm now wrapping up this post from the front porch of the Good Dream Guesthouse in Krabi, fully relaxed from an hour-long traditional Thai massage.  Some kind of 8-day festival begins today, so there will apparently be even more exciting foods and various vendors in the streets tonight.  For tomorrow, I have booked a longboat tour of 4 Islands.  I'm sure many envy-inspiring photos will follow, assuming the weather permits.

Photos!

I'll write an actual update later, but for now, you can check out my photos in my Flickr photostream on the sidebar of the blog, or at http://www.flickr.com/photos/delitzer/.  Marni and Molly, I wish you two especially could have joined me for eating our way through the floating market at Ratchaburi!

My first step to serendipity

[Warning: This is a long one, composed on my flight from Anchorage to Taipei, and posted from the airport in Taipei, while waiting for my connection to Bangkok.  In the future, I’ll try to keep them much shorter.]

The numbers in the lower right-hand corner of my screen tell me that it is 12:50pm EST.  This means my plane took off from New York just over 13 hours ago.  I have barely noticed them go by, having taken full advantage of my ability to sleep virtually anywhere, anytime--an ability I’m sure will be tested to the extreme in the coming months.  The remaining 5 hours of my flight from Anchorage to Taipei and 4 hours from Taipei to Bangkok are likely to pass decidedly slower, as my need for sleep appears to be temporarily sated and my entire body is brimming with anticipation.

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind.  After finishing up work at CWV, I spent two weeks finishing up travel preparations and saying goodbye to all the wonderful friends I am leaving in DC.  I flew back to the Berkshires for the weekend to celebrate my dad’s birthday, say goodbye to my family, and drop off all my remaining belongings besides the contents of the one backpack I am taking on my trip.  On Monday, I took the train into New York with my dad and crashed in Brooklyn for the next two nights with a friend, Moe, who was my brother Sam’s roommate on a kibbutz in Israel five or six years ago and has since become a regular and highly entertaining visitor to Chez Elitzer.  Wednesday morning, I woke up and followed the advice of my youngest brother’s (Jake‘s) girlfriend (Tiff), an intern at The Daily Show, and managed to score 4 tickets to that evening’s taping.

At this point, I was set to have a terrific sendoff: catching a taping of one of my all-time favorite programs and then heading straight to the airport to hop on a plane to Thailand and begin my adventure.  Unfortunately, that’s where things started to fall apart.  You see, The Daily Show begins shooting around 6pm, but they always give out far more tickets than they can actually seat in order to ensure a full house, so you have to start lining up between 3-3:30 to have a good chance of getting in, and they won’t let you jump up in the line with a friend after 4:15.  I had already made plans to meet another friend and frequent Chez Elitzer visitor, Eliran, near Lincoln Center for coffee at 3.  With his busy schedule, this was the only time he would be available to meet, and despite my love of Jon Stewart, I was not going to back out on seeing Eliran before my departure.

I hoped that Jake or Moe, also big Daily Show fans, would be able to go stand in line and have me come meet them before 4:15, but Jake had class until 6 and Moe had a meeting that he couldn’t reschedule.  I reached out to some other friends in the city and Jake and Tiff texted around to their friends, trying to find somebody who wanted to go and could get in line early, but apparently committing 4 hours of your afternoon to go watch a television taping on short notice is difficult, even for college students.  Disappointed, I resigned myself to meeting Eliran and then rushing over to The Daily Show studio, hoping against hope that for some reason, this would be the day that none of the other ticket holders would show up early either.

The coffee meeting was pleasant but brief, and I allowed myself to start to believe that maybe I really would make it to the studio in time to have a shot at getting in.  When I arrived just after 4:00, however, the line was already doubled up and wrapped around the corner of the building.  Dejected, I walked to the end of the line, figuring I would at least wait it out another 30 minutes or so just to make sure I wasn’t underestimating the seating capacity of the studio.

A minute later, a middle-aged woman came up behind me and inquired whether I was the end of the line.  “Well, I was,” I told her, “but I guess now you are.”  She smiled, and, in the hopes that like me, she had reserved multiple tickets, but unlike me, had managed to actually print out the email and bring it as instructed, I asked whether she might have any extra tickets, because I would be very disappointed if it turned out that I could get a seat but was then denied for only having a reservation number on my phone but not physical ticket.  “Oh, I’m sure they’ll take it as long as you have the email on your phone.  And actually,” she explained, “I don’t even have a ticket for myself.  My sister and her friends are near the front of the line, but they didn’t have enough tickets for all of us, so I’m just hoping to get in.”  As you can imagine, with my 3 extra tickets, we quickly became friends and rushed up in line to join her sister.

A couple hours later, I was sitting along the center aisle on the second row of The Daily Show studio.  After a mildly entertaining warm-up act left the stage, Jon Stewart came out and spent about 15 minutes taking questions and joking around with the audience, clearly enjoying himself and displaying all of the warmth, wit, and mildly self-deprecating humor that one would expect from seeing him on his program.  Then the taping began, opening with a segment poking fun at Tom Delay and his recent withdrawal as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars, then segueing into an amusing but biting piece calling attention to the pathetic excuses the Obama administration has been giving for delaying a meeting with the Dalai Lama (presumably to appease China), setting it in contrast with their willingness to engage in talks with folks like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez.  I was impressed by how quickly the taping advanced, with the only delays occurring during commercial breaks, and even those were about the same length as the commercials themselves.  The interview was with William Kamkwamba, a 22-year-old from Malawi who at the age of 15 built a power-generating windmill in his village, using only spare parts and diagrams from a library book.  Jon Stewart was so impressed with him, they decided to go back and re-film the opening segment, eliminating the bit on Tom Delay in order to allow time to air the interview in its entirety.

When taping was finished and the audience released, I bid farewell to my seatmates, thanked Tiff for her suggestion to attend the show, hopped a subway to JFK, and boarded the plane on which I am now typing this dispatch.  I couldn’t have asked for a better sendoff.

Several people have asked me for an explanation of this title, and I think the circumstances leading to my attendance at The Daily Show illustrate my intention beautifully.  I chose name because I felt it captured the spirit with which I am undertaking this journey, one that has led me to do much advance preparation but little advance planning.  I am not a religious or even a particularly spiritual person, yet the faith I have in myself, my support network, and the existence of enough well-intentioned people in the world, leads me to embrace the notion of leaving a large element of chance and uncertainty to this trip.  Although I know some troubles will inevitably arise (digestive problems and theft being the most likely), I believe this approach will lead me to some fantastic discoveries and unexpected encounters that will ultimately be far more exciting and memorable than anything I could have planned ahead of time.

I understand that my ability to have this faith and approach this trip--and, to a lesser extent, my life in general--from this perspective is due in no small part to having lived a life of extreme privilege compared to 99% of the world.  That I am able to take this trip at all is proof of that fact.  Yes, this trip is highly indulgent.  But I am determined to live up to the spirit embodied in a quote which I have seen attributed to Albert Einstein: “It is every man’s obligation to put into the world at least the equivalent of what he gets out of it.”  I have gotten a lot out of the world, but I am determined that over the course of my life, I will do my best to put back into it a whole heck of a lot more.

At the moment though, I’d be lying if I said I’m not looking forward to running up my tab just a teensy bit further… Thailand, here I come!