Lyrics Snippet #14

Since I was hitchhiking the last few days the song 'Me and Bobby McGee' came to my mind. I think it's a great song - not because of the lines I quote here but because the rest of the song.

While doing some 'research' on this song I found out that it was written by Kris Kristofferson. I alway thought it was by Janis Joplin...

Can you come up with other songs that relate to hitchhiking?

Busted flat in Baton Rouge

Waitin' for the train

Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans

Bobby thumbed a diesel down

Just before it rained

Rode us all the way to New Orleans

~ "Me and Bobby McGee" - Kim Kristofferson ~

Travel Blog: Day 170

My train to Chiang Mai ran late making the journey 17 hours instead of 14. Once I got there I explored the city on foot for a couple days. I found some geocaches and also went to the Chiang Mai women’s prison for my first Thai massage. Some of the women (the not too bad ones that will be released within the following 6 months) are given the chance to earn themselves some money by either giving massages or working in the prison’s restaurant. I mostly enjoyed my 1.5 hours massage (about 6 Euro). It hurt only a few times, and then mostly because I am everything but flexible. The following day I rented a scooter and went to the Doi Suthep temple. This place was full of tourists and did therefore not emit the quiet atmosphere one would expect. A few kilometers past the temple was the royal winter palace where I took a stroll through the garden.

My main activity in the Chiang Mai area was then a two day hike through the rain forest, including elephant riding and whitewater rafting. There were 12 people in my group and we were driven into the mountains where we the elephant riding was the first point on the agenda. I did not really enjoy it. The first 5 minutes were interesting but after that I just wanted it to be over. The poor things appeared drugged to me. When we were off the elephants we really started the hike – about 3 hours uphill in 35 degrees and really high humidity. Especially a slightly overweighed American couple had to struggle severely. But we made it to the top where we were shown our little hut containing of a single room sleeping 12 (just mattresses on the floor with a mosquito net for every two). The hut was on the edge of the mountain and also had a big patio from where we had a wonderful view over the valley. We were fed a pretty tasty meal and afterwards played some games with our tour guide and just talked till everybody was tired (which didn’t take long).

The next day after breakfast we started our descent which was a lot easier than the way up (surprise!). After about two hours of walking we arrived at the rafting place and split up in smaller groups to man the boats. Since it was almost the end of the dry season the water in the river was very low and the biggest challenge was not to get stuck. It was still fun but there was hardly any ‘whitewater’. After this we had a short ride in a bamboo float which our rafting guide nicknamed bamboo submarine – luckily I was the one standing in front steering the thing with a long pole while the others had to sit down….the bamboo float floated a few centimeters underneath the water so everybody was basically sitting in a puddle. After that we got fed some dinner and were driven back to Chiang Mai. It was a fun tour with fun people.

The same evening I boarded a plane that took me back to Bangkok where I stayed for another 3 days. Most of my time there I spent reading my book but I also did some geocaching, went to see the Grand Palace and went to the medical/forensic museum at the hospital. The latter was quite interesting…and gross. They had samples of all kinds of human parts floating in formaldehyde. While it was interesting to see how artificial heart valves work, it was shocking to see distorted babies on display. I remember some samples of Siamese twins and a baby with its intestines growing outside of its body. The forensic part of the exhibition showed hundreds of skulls, hearts, livers, lungs and whatnot – each with your choice of burning wounds, stabbing wounds, shooting wounds and so on. You get the picture.

Ok, that is it for today. I flew back from Bangkok to Sydney to continue my Australian adventure but I will tell you about it another day.

Travel Blog: Day 152

One Night Day in Bangkok

After a rough night on the train that hardly allowed me any sleep, I step onto the platform of Bangkok’s main train station at 5:40am. It is already warm and my shirt gets damp instantly. I find the luggage storage and drop my big backpack. Then off to find some breakfast. The “Dunkin’ Donuts” is still closed but I find another place that serves good cappuccino and chocolate donuts. I eat on the steps outside the train station and start walking at exactly 6:04. I figure I will go to Chinatown first because the Lonely Planet says that there is a market that is busy from 4am to 11am. I decide not to do any temples today because I can’t be bothered to put on long pants. Actually the pants would be OK – I could just store them in my backpack – but according to the LP you need to wear closed-toe shoes. And the thought of wearing my hiking boots all day is not very pleasant to me. I will to the temple stuff on another day.

The main streets are already busy at this hour but the side streets are still pretty much deserted. Just a few street merchants are setting up their stands to serve breakfast to the working population. Besides them there are only a few orange clad monks in the streets and a few stray dogs (and a couple rats). I keep walking to the beginning of the LP Chinatown walking tour. I wipe the sweat of my forehead every few minutes. I actually don’t get lost and find my way on the first try. This is not easy in Bangkok since street signs are scarce and there are dozens of different possibilities of translating the street names from Thai into Latin letters. So the signs do not necessarily match the names on my map.

When I get to Ratchawong Road I don’t dive into Chinatown right away but go into a 7/11 instead. I don’t buy anything – I just want to freeload on their air-condition and cool off a little bit. Ahh, that’s better.

Back out onto the street. Here the streets are a lot busier. The merchants have set up their little booths, offering stuff like plastic bracelets, umbrellas, shoes, Hello Kitty purses etc. They seem to have a very fine collection of about everything I am not particularly interested in. I see people wearing masks to protect them from the exhaust fumes and the smog. And, honestly, this is not the worst idea mankind has ever come up with.

I am still the only non-Asian and feel quite the explorer. I know that this is more attributed to the time than to the place, though. By 7:05 am I am through with my little Chinatown tour and I sit down to get some rest and some water. I also take some notes for this post ;-)

I decide to hit some of the shopping malls next. Maybe I fill find a good deal on a new cell phone. I start walking in the direction of the National Stadium and stop at a little coffee shop – mainly to get out of the heat again. I order an iced green tea and I am delighted to not only find an electrical outlet for my netbook, but also an open wifi. So I settle down for a while to check my mails, post yesterday’s blog and learn that Germany lost against Argentina in a friendly football (!) match. I am tired as hell. I write the beginning of this blog. I don’t really care to go back outside again where the heat is killing me and the heavy traffic is making things worse. I guess the shopping malls open at 10 so I have some time to spare anyway.

I leave the comfortable coolness of the coffees shop and continue walking towards the MBK – supposedly the cheapest place in Bangkok to buy cell phones. And, sure enough, the fourth level of the mall feels like a bazaar for cheap electronics. Except, it is not really that cheap as I am bound to find out. The prices for phones are higher than what I would have to pay in Germany. I almost give up but then approach one more booth where I see my beloved HTC Touch Diamond 2. The price I’m told is way too high but obviously there is a second hand unit. And the price on this one makes me think. I play around with it for a while and cannot find any flaws. So I somehow come up with the money and the thing is mine. The next hour I spend on the internet with my netbook to find the most important software I need on my phone. Amongst others is Glopus, a geocaching software. So I am finally able to pursue my hobby again. When the battery of my netbook is almost empty I decide to move on. There are a few more shopping malls nearby and I wanted to see the glamorous Siam xxx. By the time I get there I am really hungry. I see a Subway’s and decide to check what the sub of the day is. Guess what – tuna! Bad luck because I hate tuna. But behold! My luck is about to change. I come to a place where a fashion show is on. Three not too bad looking girls pose for some yoghurt….and somebody offers me a free cup of this yoghurt. So now I have something for my eyes and my stomach! I keep exploring the mall and come across several car stores. I have no clue how they got those cars to the third level but there are some really nice ones standing around: Jaguar, Lamborghini, Porsche, Lotus, Maserati – you name it. On some of the stores are little pictures telling you not to take photographs. The one on the Lamborghini I discover only after taking a picture. I decide not to delete it ;-)

I also find a bookstore and go looking for Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’ because this has been strongly recommended to me. I find it and soon later it’s mine. Looking forward to read it but first I have to finish ‘The Saga of Guns N’ Roses’. It is an interesting story but poorly written. But I am not somebody to leave a book unfinished.

Buy the time I leave the mall it is already 3pm. I decide to go to Patpong, one of the city’s red light districts, since it is on the way to the train station and as an opened minded tourist I feel compelled to see this side of Bangkok, too. I hop on the skytrain for a couple stations and speed along over Bangkok’s congested streets. I am in Patpong in no time. As soon as I get into the area I see a bar that has a Paulaner sign on its wall. I walk over to check out the price – I haven’t had a wheat beer in 5 months now – but am approached by a guy trying to sell me a massage. He wiggles pictures of half naked women in front of me and tells me something about Happy Hour…”only 500 Baht!” (~11 Euro)

I leave it to you to make up your mind what kind of special massage this would be. Just let me tell you that you can get a regular one-hour Thai massage for as little as 200 Baht.

I try to get away from him, telling him that I don’t have enough money (which is true), and totally forget about the wheat beer. I walk down the main road in the neighborhood and it is definitely too early to get some red light atmosphere going. Most people are busy setting up booths for the night market. But I get similar massage offers all along the way. By this time I am actually only looking for something to eat, but the restaurants seem too expensive to me and the street food doesn’t look good enough. I try to convince myself that I am so hungry that I am not hungry anymore. I decide to get some cheap food close to the train station later and head for the park. Then I pass a McDonalds and get weak. Not so much about the food (which is really not good and not cheap incredibly cheap either) but more about the prospect of spending some time in an air conditioned room. So I tell myself that I will just have a snack now. While I eat my Chicken Pepper Burger I see a guy walking past carrying a big insulated backpack that reads ‘McDelivery’. I try to think if I have seen a thing like that ever before and I fail.

After the snack I do head over to the park. I see a few people doing aerobics, people skating and people just chilling out. A family feeds the fish in the pond and those things are big and all over the bread. The pigeons try to get their share, too, and I make a mental note to myself to finally find out the difference between a pigeon and a dove. Some of the pathways in the park feel like jogger’s highways and I, the lazy pedestrian, have to be on my guard. So I lie down in the grass and doze off until some music rips me out of my daydreams at exactly 6pm. I figure it is the national anthem because everybody stands up and looks toward the loud speaker. I have actually seen that happening before at the train station about 12 days before. It is about time for me to head back anyways. Before I leave I remember to take a picture of myself for my ‘A Picture Every Now and Then’ gallery. Have not done that in a few days. I make my way out of the park and this time I hop on the subway. Both the subway and the skytrain are very modern and clean. I usually like to take the subway to get around big cities because it is always easy to figure out - unlike the city buses. Try to figure out the buses in Buenos Aires if you like a challenge! As I pass through a metal detector the thing goes off. No wonder, I have tons of stuff in my backpack. The security guy dutifully asks me to open my backpack. Now, this thing is packed to the brim and has 5 different pockets. I open the first one and take out the book on top of it. He is satisfied with it and lets me go. This guy must have X-ray eyes.

Back at the train station I retrieve my big backpack and go buy some food and a couple of (okay, okay: three) small cans of Chang beer. This is one of the cheapest beers in Thailand and it claims to have 6.4% alcohol. Rumors are that this is only the bottom end of a pretty rough estimate and that nobody really knows the real figure. After this I try to find an electrical outlet to charge my netbook. This is not easy because all the outlets seem to be used to charge somebody’s cell phone. Damn these phones! I finally find an empty one and make myself comfortable on the floor next to it and start writing this post again. A voice from the loud speaker asks all the passengers of train 13 to Chiang Mai to board the train and I move obediently. I find my seat in the train and write the rest. I am tired as hell and my feet are sore. I have blisters on both of them. I definitely did not make the most out of this day. I was planning to go see the forensic science museum. But what the heck, I am on vacation and it was exhausting enough the way it was. The train is moving now. My day in Bangkok is over.

Travel Blog: Day 151

At the time of writing this post I am just 5 minutes into my 12 hours train ride from Surat Thani to Bangkok. The ‘good’ trains were full so I am stuck with a 2nd class seat without air condition. I seem to be the only non Thai in the whole railroad car and this train looks even more beaten up than the one I came south on. But this reminds me that I should start at the beginning.

I arrived in Bangkok in the middle of the night and stayed at a hotel close to the airport. The following day I moved into the city, to a place close to the famous Khao San Road. After being shown in the movie 'The Beach', this road became even more popular with backpackers from all over the world. I went there at night and dived into the buzz of street merchants, restaurants, bars and a huge partying crowd. Quite an experience! On my way back to the hotel I even saw a little elephant on the streets of Bangkok. This might be a normal sight for Thais but you sure don’t see that in any European city.

The next day at about 7pm I boarded an overnight train to Surat Thani, to eventually get to the Krabi region. The train looked worse than I imagined but I still had a good time playing 'Phase 10' with some fellow travelers and I actually got some good sleep. Once in Surat Thani it took a bus and a couple of vans to bring me to Ao Nang. That was a long trip to the beach. From Ao Nang you could take a boat over to a place called Railey - a beautiful piece of land featuring two beaches. Since it is cut off from the rest of the mainland by impenetrable rocks it is accessible only by boat. This was my first glimpse of the beach paradise that makes Thailand so popular with travelers. I did some hiking to a lookout point and after that down to a lagoon. The latter part of the hike was actually pretty strenuous and I don’t think it was worth the effort. The lagoon looked good but I thought the water to filthy to swim in. I finished the day with some quality time at the beach and, back in Ao Nang, with a cocktail. I missed the sunset, though.

I came back to Railey the next day to watch some rock climbing. I was only a passive watcher since my toe still hurt and I didn’t want to force my foot into one of the very tight climbing shoes. Talking about shoes – on this day my flip flops finally broke. It was actually a little sad, because they were very comfortable. But I’ve had them a long time – they carried me faithfully through 11 countries – and the sole was so worn, that they actually became death traps when I was walking on wet surfaces. Let’s see if my new ones will be as good as their predecessors.

From Railey it took almost a day’s travel to the island of Ko Phangan. Here I stayed for eight nights. The longest I have spent anywhere on this trip. One reason is that it is really a beautiful place to stay, definitely high quality postcard material. You can relax and snorkel and/or party all night if you feel like it. The beach in Haad Rin would fill up every night with people that want to have a good time. There was a lot of fire shows going on like jugglers etc. But if you wanted to do more than just watch you could participate in the fire limbo dance or the fire rope skipping. I tried the latter and burned myself slightly. It wasn’t my fault though. Some other guy jumped in and messed up and suddenly I had the rope on my neck. I also played a few games of Connect Four with these local kids going around challenging you for money. I only won one out of four games which made me a little angry. Next day I downloaded a few programs and tons of reading material about strategies onto my computer. Too bad these kids didn’t show up the next day because I had really smartened up by then.

Anyway, the other reason why I stayed so long is that one of the famous Full Moon Parties was only a few days away and I decided to go take a look at it. The little town of Haad Rin was definitely packed and the streets were buzzing. I met up with a few other people to have some beers and everybody got painted with those fluorescent colors. What people didn’t know by then was that there was hardly any black light at the beach. It was still fun. I will try to get a picture of what my back looked like. Be patient.

So these parties are huge rave and techno events. And if you know me than you will also know that I despise this kind of music. But with the help of some ethanol in different shapes I managed to have a somewhat good night. But for me once is enough. Make that whole thing a metal show and it would be awesome!

Like the other continents Asia took a toll on my electronic equipment, too. I lost the cell phone I bought in Australia…the third one on this journey to get stolen, break down or get lost. Also some sand somehow made it into my camera so it only works half of the time. And when it does you can hear all kinds of crunching sounds when the lens extends or you use the zoom.

Now, as I said at the beginning, I am on a train back to Bangkok. I will get there at about 5 in the morning and will spend the day exploring the city – I didn’t really see much on my first visit to Bangkok. Then, at about 7:30pm, I will get onto another night train that will take me to Chiang Mai. So beach time is over. Bring on the culture and the trecking!

PS: Book update

• 'Und morgen in das kuehle Grab' by Mary Higgins Clark (terrible book!)
• 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen
• 'Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less' by Jeffrey Archer
• 'Sonnenblumenland' by Miriam Sieber