First Blood

Apparently I look like Sylvester Stallone....
I've heard people yell either Sylvester Stallone or Rambo a few times now, and I'm beginning to feel like a real celebrity. I've managed to convince half the population of Bangkok that I am famous and they're in the process of putting up some giant neon billboards with my likeness on them.
All joking aside, I'm the tallest person in this whole goddam country.
No, but seriously, Wat's the matter with a little humor? (for those of you not in the know, a "Wat" is what they call temples here and I am a funny bastard)

I'm no longer in Bangkok, but the capital of Thailand has provided me with an enormous supply of stories and laughs in the past few days. John and I have spent our down time coming up with all sorts of ridiculous Thai humor including:
-using the "baht-room" (baht is the currency here, and some bathrooms you have to pay to use, hence our creation)
-"cut the crap" = khawp kuhn khrap is the phrase to say thank you, we've made it easy to remember, and just say cut the crap when we're feeling lazy, they don't know the difference, they just think we suck at speaking their language
-our current phrases learned include: hello, where is the bathroom, thank you, check please, you are a beautiful girl (John's personal favorite), no thank you, can i take a photograph, and my personal favorite: take it easy tiger

Last night I rode a sleeper train to a city in the north called Chieng Mai. The train was the best part of my trip so far, and I'm not kidding. Our actual seats were in an air conditioned cabin, with upper bunks that swung down when you were ready to get some shut eye. The highlight however, was the food car, which was the part of the train where all the staff hung out for the whole ride and where food and beer were served until the wee hours of the morning. This particular car had no windows and was basically an open air restaraunt on wheels, in Thailand, rural Thailand, home to tons of small villages that flank both sides of the tracks and provide endless amounts of photo opportunities. Basically, I spent 6 hours of the 11 hour train ride hanging my head out the food car while dodging sign posts, tree branches, and the occasional dirty dish water from the kitchen at the opposite end. It was definately a nice introduction to the more rural sections of the country. We met a Thai girl on the train who works for Habitat for Hummanity and she gave us a contact person for when we head south to Phuket in about a week. She said they are looking for walk-on volunteers, so we plan on spending some time building a house and such.

Today I spent the day in Chieng Mai, a city surrounded by a moat. There was street after street of outdoor markets selling everything from wooden Buddhas to insects on a stick that double as a mid-day snack. (Oh my Buddha!) Rented a Tuk-Tuk for about five hours for approximately $4.00, this included the driver waiting for us at every place we had him stop and bringing us back to where we started. He shared some type of fruit he bought with us, that tasted better than any fruit I've ever tasted, but I can't remember what it's called.

Right now I'm at a huge night market, which is the main attraction of this city so I've been told. There's about 9,000,000 shops here which means 9,000,000 people say "Hello Mista, you buy now?" Sometimes I respond politely, other times, it's a comedy routine, and John and I are constantly trying to outdo each other. Example:
Man on street: "Hello, what are you shopping for today my friends?"

John: "Actually, we're looking for some high fashion suits and some fancy gems" (two of the big scams that people are constantly trying to get you into)

Man on street: (very surprised) "Oh, my tailor shop is right this way, follow me." (turns to lead the way)

Eric/John: Immediatey book it in the other direction, and by the time he looks back for the first time, we have vanished, leaving him wondering if he had ever really had the conversation. This is just the tip of the iceberg!

So, tomorrow, morning I leave for a four day trek into the wilderness, which i'm predicting already will be the highlight of the entire trip. I'm super excited about it, and will post the details when I return.

Short story: So, from day one, we kept seeing these t-shirts that read "Same Same" on the front, and "but different" on the back. We thought it was stupid shirt, and probably just a Thai attempt at being funny in some type of American way and not pulling it off very well. Three days later we were trying to get to a train station called Seim Sein, and we were pointing at a map saying "Seim Sein", and the driver was saying "No, not the same, different station". We got out of the cab and walked a ways and then decided we'd go somewhere else. Two hours later we are standing outside the Sky Train station, looking at the names of the stops, and John says "Hey, this one would be a good name to put on a shirt". A split second later, we realized that the t-shirt we had been seing for days was in fact the funniest t-shirt ever as it basically describes the exact interaction we had with the cab driver just hours earlier, which must be a very common interaction between tourists and locals. Same Same. But Different.

Don't forget to check out John's weblog, there's a link to it on the side of my page. You can get any parts of the trip that I may have forgotten from there!

I'll post again in a few days. Wish me luck with the bareback elephant riding, my goal is to do a no-handed standing ride down the side of a mountain.

First thoughts from Thailand

Hello everyone! I should have set this up before I left, but I didn't even think of it! This will be the place to be if you want to keep up on what I'm doing in Thailand for the next couple weeks. If you didn't know already, I'm here with my friend John and we arrived four days ago. I'll be posting as often as possible with some daily highlights and such. I hope you'll keep checking back and leaving me some commentary, it will be a nice reminder of home. So far this country has been absolutely amazing and continues to be better each day.

For the past four days I've been travelling the streets of Bangkok via Tuk-Tuk (crazy 3 wheeled motorcyle w/two person cart attatched)at high speeds, weaving in and out of incredibly dense traffic. The roadways are chaotic from where I'm sitting, yet driving head-on into oncoming traffic and coming within inches of other vehicles doesn't some to phase the local drivers. Motorcyclists make their own mini-lanes which are barely wide enough for them to escape a nasty crash. It took a little getting used to, but I'm feeling pretty comfortable with it at this point. I also rode on the back of one of the above mentioned motorcycles yesterday which made the Tuk-Tuk ride pale in comparison.

Bangkok is a massive city with equal parts history and industry. The contrast between the areas is amazing. I visited historic temples one day and stood in a times square-esque intersection with MTV on jumbo TV's the next. I've met some incredible people who are more than willing to show me around and point me in the direction of their favorite restaurant.

I've enjoyed my time in the big city, but am looking forward to the more rural areas soon to come. I'll be heading north via sleeper-train this evening in preparation for a 3-4 day trek to some small villages. I'll be staying with the villagers and getting there via foot, elephant, and bamboo raft.

As I said before, I'll try to update this as often as possible, but given my plans for the next few days, I'm not sure how much access I will have to any type of technology.