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Everything is gay forever
By the time I was back in Bangkok, I was ecstatic to see Joy again. Not only was she there, but she said, “If you stay a couple day extra, Tor is coming back!” Yessssss. I’m writing this post quite long after the fact of it happening, and I didn’t really see anything new aside…
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With A Little Help From My Friends
Last week while doing some research on special days in Thailand, Phi Ta Khon came up. Phi Ta Khon is a spiritual festival that mixes Buddhist tradition with animist elements and takes place over several days in an otherwise boring mountain village in Northeast Thailand called Dan Sai. Due to some confusing language and a…
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It’s all good… Karma
Patrick came to hang out with us at the hostel for dinner since it was his last night there before heading south. That was also the night Angie, Nick, and Aiden made it back to Chiang Mai and made a convincing case to go out clubbing despite exhaustion from ten total hours on a bike…
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Elbow Grease
Back in Chiang Mai, sick as a dog, I planned to spend my evening doing very little but seeing the new Jurassic Park movie, and that’s exactly what I did. Sometimes people can be fickle, so a group of six people that were going to see it with me dwindled to just myself in a…
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Try the Pai (it’s terrible)
A lot of other travelers had been raving about Pai to us for several days. “It’s just so peaceful!” “It’s beautiful!” “It’s just a hippy little town in the middle of nowhere!” After having been in the city for a bit too long I thought Pai was the way to get away from all the…
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The Summit
On Sunday, June 7, the Sons of Chiang Mai had big plans to really go after the tattoos and were going to attempt getting massages, among other things. The first thing we did was get a really American breakfast at a diner around the corner from our hostel – bagels and smoked salmon, Egg ‘MoocMiffins,’…
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Yin and Yang
Nick, another Californian, joined us the next day at the hostel just as Tom and Josh were headed out for a 2-day jungle trek (a very popular activity around here). This is was Nick’s first time doing the backpacking thing and his first time in Asia, so we were quick to include him into the…
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Sons of Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai is a much milder city than the torture chamber that Bangkok can be. (I mean, I loved Bangkok… But I’m not a fan of such large cities in general). For a good three blocks or so within the area of the train station, people were bugging me incessantly, asking where I was going…
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My Buddy the Buddha and the Best Train
Two days in Bangkok I spent learning about and trying to understand religion, which meant a lot of searching for temples and shrines and watching rituals. Vesak is one of the most important days in Thai Buddhist culture because they believe it to be the day of the year on which the (Supreme) Buddha…
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Ritualized Chaos
Recovery mode was on full throttle for the entire next day. I did not get up for a shower. I did not get up for food. I did not get up for green eggs and ham. Someone once told me that drinking was like a magical way of borrowing fun from the next day. I…
