Wednesday, April 3, 2008. 15:37pm. Room 303, Teak Garden Resort Chiang Rai. I woke up this morning after a delightful night of sleep in my cold, delicious room here, complete with air conditioner noisy enough to please my need for background fan noise- at the scandalously late hour of 6:30. I'm definitely acclimating as I suspected, this number is slowly working its way farther into the morning so that by the time I leave I'll have the most difficult time possible adjusting back to PST. I laid in bed, read a little, worked on this page and pictures from yesterday and waited until I saw the people from the tour around me leave just before 8am before I got up for real. I showered in my huge tiled shower, grabbed the laptop and headed to the restaurant totally forgetting that breakfast buffet is included the whole trip. I was the only one there, the food dwindled down to little bits of each thing left in the warming trays. I sat outside on the porch, enjoying my stellar view of the beautiful sunny lush grounds with my coffee, laptop and eggs. Let me show that shot to you again: perhaps you didn't see my breakfast paradise:
No, really, it's *that* awesome. The weather is a balmy high 70s, so I took my little bag with my laptop, camera and room key and had a lingering breakfast while enjoying the fact that I opted out of the optional tours: this morning is elephant riding in the jungle. No thanks, no more animal exploitation, I can't take it. I wanted the day, as promised in the trip guide FREE, on my OWN to do with as I please. Nan also scheduled a visit to the hill tribe village to see the Long Neck Karen tribe as well as 4 others. I also opted out of the optimal 500 bhat experience of another contrived village-culture "experience" with people who ploy their now-dead or dying traditions for tourist dollars. Somehow it doesn't seem interesting, as I have flashbacks of the cheesy tribe in Costa Rica with the "kapi kapi" masks, and singing. Shelby Edwards is saying NO. This was absolutely scandalous to most of the Front of the Bus crowd who heard me, dying for an "authentic" Thai experience, and Kerry thinking she's going to win an appointment as travel photographer to National Geographic with her photographic gold taking pictures of Thai children with sad eyes and beautiful, bleeding-heart smiles for posterity. You can have a $2000 camera, that doesn't make you a photographer. And you can dress up, but that doesn't make you classy. Spare me. I opted to stay at the hotel, work on this website and get it up to date, get some banking done, check my email, maybe wander around the area and take pictures of the rice farms and maybe, just maybe break my no-bathing-suit-clause for an afternoon. After breakfast I went to the lobby and tried to connect to the wireless, but failed. I think their connection is down because I tried again later in their business center and got the same thing: no connection. I guess email will have to wait and bills can be paid in a few days.
I petered around, walked the grounds and a bit outside of the grounds not seeing much other than an incredibly friendly, smiley Thai man on a bicycle give me a very enthusiastic "sawaddee ha" while I was taking pictures of flowers on a local road. I tried to get artistic, probably failed, and then spent 2 hours by the pool and have the sunburn now to prove it. Listen, world: I HAVE FOUND HEAVEN- IT IS POOLSIDE AT THE TEAK RESORT, CHIANG RAI, THILAND!! The birds were chirping and flying everywhere, the flowers and plants were swaying in the breeze, the pool is blue and sparkling, and there are a zillion dragon flies in the wind.
The grounds, nice guy riding away. I find taking pictures of people while they're
looking at me somewhat presumptuous and condescending- it's a 3rd world country,
so somehow I'm entitled to be snapping obnoxious pictures of another thinking
human being who is wondering what the hell I'm doing taking a picture of them
without asking?
Unless you can do it without being seen. That I like.
And the best of all? After this, I went straight to the pool, stripped in the deserted courtyard into bathing suit and dove in. Ahh. At 2:15 the troops came back and I ran into M&I by the pool themselves while I was trying to check into what time the bus was going to the night market (I can eat dinner there). We laughed about the trip, Marius actually talked a bit to Nan politely about not being schizophrenic about the schedule, about so much shopping and talking incessantly. God bless him. They went to the hill tribe and I am currently going back to the pool now that this page is up to the moment for some more r&r. I hope I don't run into Dumb again- this horrible woman from NYC here with another woman from NYC, both just among the strangest people known to man- talk about fussy, finicky and awful. Both made this scene in front of M&I at JFK airport checking in, asking stupid, minute ridiculous questions about the flight that everybody around them wanted to choke them. They call them Dumb and Dumber. I agree. Dumb (or maybe she's Dumber, it's hard to tell) didn't go on the elephants either, and cornered me at the pool this afternoon and chewed my ear off for 15 uninvited minutes about how this trip was not what she wanted, no history at all, no culture, just shopping. No "authenticity." Fine. We all have different standards. And you did sign up for a tour, I reminded her. And since she was so negative and sucking up all the good vibes from the surroundings like a dementor I finally was just rude enough to pull the book in front of my face and affect reading so she finally went away. Can I guarantee the hill tribes won't be some contrived thing? I'm thinking what kind of stupid are you? What kind of "authentic" hill tribe village is going to have parking for a 40 seater touring bus (probably several), and charges 500 bhat per person entry? Do you think it's going to be contrived for tourists?! Duuh!?
If it's important to you to feel like you're possibly going to get a shot that will land you in National Geographic or at least so you can blow it up, put it on your wall and brag to your friends with your best denial of self-important superiority about how you visited this rural authentic Thai village and took this picture of this lovely, toothless smiling woman suckling her 86th child wearing a traditional headdress while she grinds rice, be my guest. It's all about priorities. I can skip it. For the rest of the tour, people just want to see what it might be/have been like. If you would find that interesting, shell out the 500 bhat and shut up! I'm not interested in having a 30 minute discussion about it.
*ahem!* back to what I was doing... now what was I doing again?... oh, yes. nothing.
...
21:50: unfortunately my solace was short-lived. Just because you have a microphone, does not mean you need to use the microphone. I don't care what the hell you bought at each and every rotten little stop and don't need the update. I don't need banter about how you love this job and from your heart you want to be the best tour guide and what your life's goals are are this excessively familiar, bleeding-heart commentary about your life, everyone's life, whatever. I made the mistake of taking the bus to the night market, mostly because I wanted to eat something besides pseudo-american fare at the hotel restaurant and got onto the bus to the Nan verbal diarrhea in barely distinguishable english once again. I've also been promised the "afternoon" and lunch on my own tomorrow on a fairly short drive to Lampang, with one stop at a wat along the way. She has, once again, felt compelled to fill that with a compulsory lunch stop at some 200 bhat rotten buffet lunch stop of her choosing instead of letting us get to the hotel and then do our thing. And why do we have to get up at 6:30 in the morning to leave BY 8am if we have a short drive? Why not let people sleep in for god's sake? I said this after CR, but I will never do this tour crap again. This is awful and all tour guides are miserable. Marcos still has Nan beat, although I'd rather hear about politics, religion, natural history and culture instead of her personal quest to be the best tour guide to americans ever.
Night market in Chiang Rai is dinky and wasn't really worth seeing- although I get to say I once again at Thai street food. I had spring rolls and got some of these little crispy pancake things with some kind of white and yellow stuff in them that smelled good as I walked by, they were okay- too sweet to eat the whole bag that he gave me for my 10 bhat. I also got thai spring rolls with plum sauce for 30 bhat, and a beer for 30 bhat, and got some fried (?) cashews in case I don't opt-in for the 200 bhat buffet lunch tomorrow. another day full of nan-banter. Just kill me now...
Oh! And boy I got one RAGING sunburn this afternoon?!?!? One lousy hour in partial sun with sunblock and I'm like maine lobster. Ouch! The skin and my thighs have been in serious pain since I climbed up that hill in the golden triangle the other day, i look like one of the CP kids in our office walking. My quads have never felt like this before- i'm not sure why they're so sore but I can barely flex my knees, go up or down stairs without tearing up. what is that about?
Then I came back to my room to find these little guys hanging out on the steps, and the gecko hanging out on the wall in my room. i wonder how he got in?
