Awesome Things Which I Have Yet To Mention Until Now

While there has been no small amount of adversity over my last two weeks of travel, the entirety of my Thailand experience hasn't been so bad. Far from it. Here's a few things which I've not yet written about that've happened during my stay in Southeast Asia:

1) The snake farm in Bangkok. Seemingly antithetical in name (it was called The Red Cross Snake Farm... haha) the complex housed scores of snakes, most of them poisonous. Given my long-standing affinity for snakes, not going was not an option. The two hundred Baht entry fee was worth every ...er, Baht, and featured a duo of fearless (brainless?) snake handlers doing their best to piss off a myriad of cobras and kraits. Quite a spectacle.

Afterwards I wandered the various terrarium exhibits, which housed the rest of the snakes... again, most of them poisonous. If I'd seen something like this as a seven-year-old, I would've peed my pants in excitement.


2) Thai boxing in Chiang Mai. It was absolutely epic... ten fights total, and nine of them were won by knockout. The one that wasn't was an eight-round slugfust, a classic matchup - the big, arrogant heavyweight guy versus the smaller, faster underdog. They beat the crap out of each other, and finally the judges called it for the smaller guy, his opponent stalking off angrily. It was highly entertaining, and left me with a sudden desire to get back into the tournament circuit when I get back home. Maybe I will.

3) A Chiang Mai rendezvous. About a month before I left for my journey, my good buddy Tim left for a year-long missions trip that'll span several continents. It turned out his team was leaving Cambodia and headed for Chiang Mai around the beginning of April - it worked perfectly with my schedule. It was very surreal... a day spent with conversations we'd have back home, but in a completely different context. The last hour before parting ways was spent over a pool table with Heinekens and Thai cigars... it stands as one of my favorite days of the trip thus far, and a memory that'll stick with me for a long time. (We also discussed the status of our pre-journey throwing-of-the-gauntlet... I'll write about it later. Suffice it to say, I am losing.)

4) Celebration of the Thai New Year, or Songkran Festival. It's little more than a waterfest... for an entire week, people drive around in pickup trucks with buckets of water drenching everyone in sight. No truck? No problem - run around the streets with a watergun, use the hose from a storefront... you name it, it happened, for an entire week. Nobody was exempt - children, foreigners, police officers, motorcyclists...

me...

I had a difficult time staying dry that entire week, but it was all in good fun, and in a way I'm glad I got stuck in Chiang Rai... if I hadn't I'd have been in Laos and would've missed it. Funny how that sort of thing works out.



That's all for now... tomorrow I'm headed for Vietnam, then Malaysia, then the Philippine Islands where I'll probably be for two weeks. After that... well... you'll know when I do.