Arrived at Ko Lanta yesterday afternoon and brought the storm with us: within a half-hour of arriving, the fastest thunderstorm we’d ever seen blew right over us and headed out to sea. It joined up with two other storms somewhere south of Ko Phi Phi, we figure. Nice dinner entertainment!

Well, we arrived in Bangkok safe and sound and it’s been a wild last few days. Songkran did indeed begin in earnest the evening of the 12th, and it’s just been getting crazier and crazier. But in the end, it isn’t the drunken falang-fest, nor the massive unauthorized groping we’d feared. 99% of the people plugging the streets are Thai, and the few falang who didn’t move up to Chiang Mai can’t be bothered with other foreigners. The Thai are very good-natured: if you don’t want to be smeared in their chalky paste stuff, or soaked with bottles of icy water, just put up your hand and smile.

In the end, we didn’t do much of that, and as a result we (and especially Nazma) found ourselves in the middle of the scrum, clothes soaked and faces muddied beyond recognition (we were only missing the cucumbers over our eyes). The cheeky ones said hello before they coated our faces with goo; some looked genuinely sorry and apologised first, and then coated our faces with goo anyway, like someone was holding a gun to their heads.

The chalky paste stuff was apparently for good luck, and the saying about the water goes: the wetter you get, the happier you’ll be. If these maxims hold true, we should be set for life. Here’s some locals reloading their little plastic goo buckets.

All in all it was a great laugh: we spent all day doing laps up and down the main drag, watching the crowd packed in shoulder-to-shoulder, the unbelievably stupid passenger cars trying to get through the chaos (and getting muddy handprints all over their paint jobs as a result), and the shiny happy people dancing, dancing, dancing away, Thais and tourists, ladyboys and sexpats. That having been said, though, we’re getting our asses to a mall tomorrow. Happy splashing!

Songkran is the Thai New Year, and is characterised by:

• everyone travelling everywhere at the same time (i.e. no transport or hotels)
• everyone throwing buckets of ice water over everyone else, especially tourists

It’s the Water Festival, and everyone partakes, which would normally be fine. But apparently the Festival has been somewhat hijacked in recent years by drunken foreigners who are out to create as much mayhem and many wet t-shirts as possible. This means unrepentant gropings, general pandemonium, and not a few deaths from traffic accidents, caused by stupid people dumping ice water on passing motorbikes, causing the drivers to swerve into buildings or oncoming traffic. Only in this part of the world would you have to plan around something like this. Our options now are to hole up in our hotel room (if we can find one), escape the city (if we can find a bus), or escape the country (Nazma’s looking up flights right now). If you don’t mind separatists and possible bombings, the Muslim south apparently is a safe haven. Mind you, Giant Water Fight still beats Boring Commute To Work. Some people come to Thailand especially for this, and we wouldn’t mind joining in the festivities (it’s mid-to-upper 30’s in most of Thailand). The worry is having to sleep on the soggy streets for want of a hotel, and injury after being drenched for the millionth time by some stupid falang on a passing flatbed. Keep your fingers crossed.

The grand-day-out was a Thai-army “survival course” which had just started up a few weeks before. The upshot of this is by the time you read this, my ugly mug will likely be plastered all over the freshly printed brochures. The tour was run by Jane, the brutally honest lady whose internet cafe we would always end up at. “Brutally honest” as demonstrated one time I was there, when she tried to sell the tour to these two Brits. When they declined and left, she told me, without a hint of cattiness, “Probably because one of them is too fat”. Sure thing, Jane.

Jane’s brothers are in the Thai army, and to supplement their income apparently they have some kind of arrangement to let yokels like me into their jungle training compound on the weekends to do a bit of a hike and some other sanitised (i.e. less psychologically debilitating) but still interesting activities.

So five others and myself were whisked off in the back of a pickup early in the morning to the compound. First off we were shown snakes, and how to handle them. Things didn’t bode well when the first snake they pulled out of the bag bit the handler dude, but he seemed to take it pretty well. If it’s got its fangs in you, the trick apparently is not to move suddenly, and he won’t venom you. Thanks for the advice. The two girls in our troupe were already pretty squeamish, and took this opportunity to hide behind the truck.

Language barriers being what they are, I couldn’t identify for you which snakes we saw. We got to hold pythons, though, and he pulled a cobra out of a rice-sack and showed us how to suppress it. Then I had to pee and while I was gone they pulled out one that was even worse than the cobra; not even the handlers went near it. Pics were taken but the photos are somewhere in the Pacific right now, en route by slow boat back to Vancouver along with all the booty we picked up in Bangkok/Chiang Mai.

Next they showed us some useful jungle plants. Lemongrass apparently repels mosquitoes. Another one, when chewed, tasted like lemon but apparently stops thirst. One was some kind of iodine plant for cuts. There were a few different kinds that were for “man power”, if you know what I mean. The Thais seem to be obsessed with this. “Well, I won’t be needing that, haha”, we all said to each other, manly men that we were.

Then they set up some fruit on stands and we had a little crossbow tutorial and tournie. This is tougher than it looks, and the equipment was pretty shoddy (yeah, that’s it). I hit an apple on my second practice shot (the only one to do so) but when it came time for the actual contest I went 0 for 5. Mind you, I watched the army guys go afterwards and they weren’t much better, so that’s why I can blame the equipment.

We set off on our little hike, up for about an hour to the top of the waterfall. The plan was to do a 3-stage abseil down, with the last stage in the waterfall. My harness looked like something had been at the loop where the main-line/belay device attaches. When I pointed this out, Jane gave me another one, but took the gnawed one herself. “I’m lighter. No problem.” Sure thing, Jane.

On the first stage, down a little crevasse in the rock, I got a taste of the iodine plant firsthand when I cut a knuckle on the rock face. They found a nearby bush, crushed up some leaves, and rubbed it into the wound.

Second stage was a bit freakier but still dry, at least. This was on a sheer face down the side of the waterfall, and the splash pool below looked pretty tiny. Still, no problem, and I arrived at a little lip right beside the rushing water. I was third up and watched everyone before me go, but when I traversed into the water, I completely blacked out.

I’ve never liked water, but I’d never known what a phobia was like until now. I started hyperventilating and while my conscious brain remembers everything, this primitive hindbrain reflex kicked in and all I wanted to do was get out as soon as possible. I scrambled back to the lip, but as soon as I was out I’d already forgotten why I was so afraid. Honest Jane was very sympathetic – “No problem, maybe you try again, but don’t worry.” I stood by while everyone cycled through and went, but I was totally lucid: part of my mind was thinking about how I’d explain a failure on the blog. I was determined to try again.

Second time around I think I lasted longer in the water, but I wasn’t moving. My mind was screaming you can’t breathe, and I just stood there in the waterfall, gulping air and mountain stream, while Jane screamed for me to come back to the ledge. In the end, the height wasn’t the problem: it was this uncontrollable fear of drowning. They pulled my sodden, quivering wreck of a body out of the water and I slumped down the side, around the waterfall through the forest and down to where everyone was already waiting. One of the girls handed me a shot of something and commiserated. It turned out to be sangsom (Thai whisky); a few refills later, I’d calmed down pretty well, and the abseil became a very abstract memory.

One of the army guys had been doing the entire trek in his flip-flops, including abseils. He did the waterfall portion backwards (face down). Nice. By now, all the army guys were down and were prepping lunch. Here they showed us all the techniques they’d had to come up with to cook food in the jungle. They had hollow bamboo segments filled with soup and rice, double-boiler plastic bags full of sticky rice hanging from a bamboo tripod over the fire, and chicken/beef/pork sides roasting. Then they dug up the fire and underneath they’d buried bundles of rice, steaming in underwear, wrapped in banana leaves. Whatever it takes, I guess, but let me tell you, that, washed down with water and sangsom, was the best lunch I’d had in a long time.

Afterwards we hiked back down to the truck for the short drive to our last stop, a 35ft-high tower and zipline where they do basic parachute training for the troops. After the water, this was nothing; we strapped on our helmets and harnesses and I was the first one up.

Bravado aside, there’s still a quiver that runs through you when you’re tramping up the stairs. Two guys strap you onto the zipline, and there’s probably only a 2-3 meter drop before the harness takes you. Still, the ground is pretty far away, and it is Thailand, even if they have insurance. Feet placed here, stare straight ahead, no clutching onto the side of the tower (I imagine all kinds of fingernail marks there but I was a bit busy to check). On the count of three, you’re supposed to jump well clear of the tower on your own, but I could swear I felt a knee in my back at two-and-a-half. Out I went and the world spun out of control until the harness went yank. Then I was rushing down the zipline toward the far end, where another line clotheslines your harness and you swing up 90° before swinging to a halt. This was by far the worst part: that final downswing + harness + manly loins = bruised peaches.

The stepladders were brought out, someone grabbed my leg, and I was unhooked and sent on my way. It was so good they let me go twice. Jane felt badly about the abseil, and I had something to prove. The second time was just as much fun, if a bit scarier, only because I was dreading that downswing at the end.

Part of the deal is you get awarded “wings” by a 5-star general once you’ve made your jump. As deplorably cheesy as this sounds, after the day we’d had, damned right we’d better get our wings. There was a palpable sense of accomplishment and we were all pretty pensive on the drive back into town, the wind rushing and the sun setting in the nearby mountains.

Nazma, toenails still drying, was there at the guesthouse to greet me as I returned, flushed with triumph, completely unaware of my manky jungle-stained clothes and parachute-helmet-hair. Clutching my wings and bundle of lemongrass, for a long time afterward I couldn’t stop grinning, like a little boy who’d just done something really cool.

We had heard good things about Ko Lanta, and headed out by ferry to the island after two days in Ao Nang. This involved sitting on the deck of the boat for 2 hours, at the end of which I emerged, lobster-like, into the din of taxi touts. We arrived at our first place, a pretty upscale place (by backpacker standards) right on the beach. The place had been rebuilt following the tsunami last year (out of pocket: they apparently saw no money from the aid) and only reopened three months ago. We got a nice bungalow amidst the palms.

I attempted snorkelling, but my ridiculous glasses proved too big for the mask, so on top of my morbid inability to swim, I was blind too. I saw several dark forms moving through the water that Nazma later explained were fish; I have to take her assessment on faith. Apparently there were topless girls about, which I also missed. Nazma was very happy to tell me all this, in the safety of my blindness. Utterly dejected, I spent the next two days reading on the beach while Nazma splashed around. And in case you were wondering, no more topless girls availed themselves once my sight was restored: a final cosmic kick-in-the-crotch.

In our walks along the beach we discovered what the travel agents in Ao Nang had failed to mention: all the places were beachfront. We found a place that cost a third what we were paying, and had more character, and so we moved there for the rest of our stay. This place had been similarly rebuilt following the tsunami, and was staffed by some cool tattooed dudes who liberally exercised their dj booth nightly. We also had our choice of hammocks. Here’s the one on our porch.

And here’s the other one, by the beach. I spent an obscene amount of time here.

(The photo at the top was a fire-dancer we chanced upon one night on the beach. If buskers in Vancouver put in this much effort, I’d empty my wallet (er, paper/money-clip) every time I saw one.)

Let us speak no more of Phuket. Skip ahead a couple of days: we arrived in Ao Nang, a little beach town north of Krabi. What Germany is to Phuket, for whatever reason, Sweden is to Ao Nang. All the menus were in Swedish, and we could even have had a decent approximation of Danish food, apparently, at any number of restaurants. The town has a nice boardwalky, schlocky, pirated-CD feel to it, if you like that sort of thing. Nice public beach, loads of knockoff North Face gear, and endless boat and taxi touts. But nice sunsets.

Oh, and random false teeth. I must say, I really like this photo: I think it captures this ineffable feeling of sadness and loss. Somewhere out there, a poor toothless Scandinavian granny gently weeps.

After a longer-than-anticipated stay in Chiang Mai, we hopped on a minivan to Pai. The treacherous mountain journey there, careering around hairpin turns, belied the peaceful hippie-ness of the town. We (or rather, Nazma) had our doubts about hitting a village reputedly overrun by yoga- and health-food-loving vegetarians. But soon we were totally sucked in, and we ended up staying almost as long as we did in Chiang Mai (though that doesn’t mean we got our hair dreadlocked).

Meeting us there was Alia, Nazma’s cousin’s cousin who happened to be there for an extended stay, so she knew the area quite well and had been scouting places for us. After a brief reconnaissance we three piled onto two scooters and zipped off to what would be our first abode, an inexpensive ($6 CAD) little hut that used to be by a river, until that river flooded last year and redirected itself (after destroying everything). Pretty rustic, with the bathroom (though attached) open-air. Being bamboo huts, you can understand how nervewracking it is to do your business when you can hear (and participate in, if you like) the conversation next door.

Soon after arriving, we saw how everyone around town had a scooter: seems everyone gets off the bus and heads straight for the rental place (the fact that they sponsored the only free maps of Pai doesn’t hurt their business I’m sure). We picked up a 125cc for $3/day, no questions asked, no licence necessary, and apparently no ability required. Guy tells me which buttons do what, and there I go. I only fell off our newly rented scooter once, and I made a woman on the sidewalk jump out of my way into a bushel of pineapples. After some initial rumbles, though, I was a pro, but like Zoolander, I could only turn left. We were also the only losers in town wearing our helmets.

After two days it started getting a bit lonely at our place, even with the poor French girls beside us, privy to our privy though they may have been. Maybe that’s why they didn’t talk to us. By this time we’d been to visit Ban Nam Hoo, another little clutch of huts where Alia was staying. More people about, gracious hosts, and better bungalows meant that we uprooted on the third morning and moved there.

Can’t offer up enough superlatives for this place: our own wonderful, ridiculously underpriced bungalow ($7.50 CAD) in the green hills, awakening to cowbells every morning. So that’s how we spent a week, not doing very much of anything. Our new scooter-mobility allowed us to make the 5-minute commute into town whenever we needed food or laundry: a nice simple existence, all in all.

One night, our two new Italian friends at Ban Nam Hoo had a run-in with a snake in their bungalow, which proved to be a very exciting evening. Of course Nazma offers up my skills as a “trained snake-handler”, which is a total lie that thankfully no one really believed so I didn’t have to embarrass myself. We had to get a expert from the village nearby to come and get rid of it: this turned out to be a guy in flip-flops with a rake who was even more scared of the thing than we were. At least the rake would have been useful for scooping it up, you’d figure; well no, buddy decides to stab the thing, with the blunt end, and he missed to boot. So the thing goes crazy and bolts/slithers for the nearest crack in the wall, and the next half hour we’re thrashing around the bushes in the dark trying to find it. Of course it’s long gone by now. We all went to town and had a nice dinner and reflected on what snakes like to eat (”Italians”).

So that was Pai. We were sad to leave, but in the end, it was time to hit the south. Said goodbye to Alia and the Ban Nam Hoo crew and rode off one last time into the morning mist to catch the bus out of town.

(This photo is a total scam: Nazma never drove the bike herself. She just wanted a shot of herself looking tough.)

Slightly disappointed, we turned our gaze eastward and started thinking about Laos. Our hotel, and seemingly every other travel agent in Chiang Mai, advertised a package that included a Laotian visa and a 2-day “slow boat” ride on the Mekong to the historic city of Luang Prabang.

We signed on. Mind you, it took some talking on my part to convince Nazma that the boat would be a really great “experience”, and that she could really claim to have mastered the squat once she had tried relieving herself in a hole in the deck. Maybe that’s why they call them “poop decks”, but I’m not a sailor.

And then, as we are wont to do, we changed our minds the morning the boat was supposed to leave, following an innocuous visit to an internet cafe. The change was in part prompted by (a) an e-mail from Alia, a cousin of a cousin who was just a few hours away in a village called Pai, inviting us to visit; and (b) my discovery of a pretty unique trekking opportunity which I’ve alluded to before, but have been too lazy to report on, as yet. Or maybe it was because I didn’t want to listen to Nazma bragging about how empowered she felt with her newfound poop-deck talent for the next 3 months (”Guess what I just did…?”)

So anyway, suddenly, Nazma and I realised that we should just stay put in the north for another week and a half; laid-back Laos (we would hear later from others) isn’t really doable in the week or so we had available. The longer stay in Chiang Mai allowed us time to hit the elephant camp and for Nazma to blow more money on gifts (you lucky people).

(By the way, if you’re wondering just what the hell the title has to do with anything, it was in the AutoComplete from some previous user on this computer when I went to type in our actual title. Sounds like a far more interesting post than mine.)

Another common thing to do here is to go on a “trek”. I’ll post about my crazy Thai-Army-survival trek later, but for Nazma’s sake, we opted for a sanitized, don’t-get-your-feet-wet tourist special. Note we got a discount; otherwise, we probably wouldn’t have done it. The tour-guide even pulled us aside and told us not to talk about what we paid with the other suckers.

Our “trek” involved a trip to the elephant training camp outside of town. All well and good, but it was a little sad seeing the big guys chained up and performing in a sideshow-like “performance” that had the package-tourists hooting. “See elephant dance!” “See elephant paint!” “See elephant play soccer!” (This last one was actually pretty cool – he’d toss it up with his trunk and scissor-kick it with his back foot into the goal.)

Mind you, the alternative is probably extinction: at one time, they used them for hauling logs, but now machines do that, and they don’t have much of a wilderness to go home to, considering the people have stripped the forests, so they end up in these camps.

One stupid lady actually tried to feed them Campinis (those little cream-soda-flavoured stripy candies): zero nutritional value and it doesn’t take much for it to lodge in a windpipe. They were selling bananas there to feed them with, which I guess she was too cheap to buy. We got a bunch and it was gone in seconds. We saw one elephant nip around a guy’s back, take the whole bushel he was carrying and swallow it in one gulp.

After the performance, we got to go for a ride. This was pretty sweet; at one point the handler ran away with our camera to take a shot and we were left sitting on the head, where he’d been. No problem until Bertha started feeling around with her trunk for her errant owner, only to find nervous-Chinese-guy instead. Wet slobbery elephant kiss. Nazma said she’d let that one pass, though I’d pay money to see her take on Bertha (about even odds, I’d say).

On Nazma’s insistence, here’s a picture of a baby elephant to end the post, for you to coo over.