Thailand Day 1
First off, There hasn't been much time since I've been shooting, so keep in mind that these journals are very raw.

I arrived on Saturday. A day later than when I was supposed to be there, but it’s always an adventure when traveling internationally let alone in third world countries. It’s funny how the sometimes inconvenient and trying situations make for great stories after the fact. Needless to say I landed in Thailand’s brand spankin’ new airport in Bangkok. The airport literally opened two weeks ago. It’s an amazing structure, I must say. It’s very fitting of the Thai culture, and super modern.

I meet up with Josh, a buddy of mine I haven’t seen in at least five years. He’s been here for a couple years teaching English and working with the local church. That evening, we venture out to the open market where they have cheap clothes. We do a little people watching and spot the famous Thai “She Men“ There are plenty to go around. They tend to be a rather beefier, unattractive girl with a deeper voice than a normal girl.

Bangkok has become very westernized over the last few years, with technologies even more advance than the States has. Still underdevelopment none the less. Outside of Bangkok, is a bit different.

Sunday evening Josh and I head off to the airport to catch a flight to Chiang Rai in the north of Thailand. Enjoying the new airport, we find that our flight is delayed another 40 minutes. We get the opportunity to enjoy it even longer. As we pass down to our gate, we glance over at the smoking room where we see a monk puffing it up in there. A little ironic. Descending to the lower area where our gate is, we see some white guy with a serious 80’s white trash mullet.

Landing in Chaing Rai is a trip. It’s a tiny 2 gate airport, where we find some taxi driver to take us into town to our hotel. He takes us out to the parking lot into a normal car without any taxi signs or anything on it. We hop in and hope for the best. Thankfully he gets us straight to our hotel, where we check in and where the very feminine guy at the front desk checks us in. As we’re checking in, we notice that yes, in fact he is wearing lipstick. Oh wait. I think he’s got makeup on too.

Thai culture has a lot of interesting faupaux’s for instance, you’re not allowed to show the bottom of your feet to someone. It’s like flipping them off. We’ve derived a lot of good jokes from it, like ”foot you“ and such. Another is touching the top of someone’s head is a very bad thing especially for little kids. Supposedly it is where there spirit dwells, and if you touch the top of their head it is bad juju. One thing that has really been a bit bizarre for me is drinking out of bottles. Drinking straight out of a bottle is considered rude and barbaric. You are expected to use a straw or pour it into a cup. I find this one a bit difficult because the straws they give you are usually about a half inch shorter than the top of the bottle opening, and requires two hands to pull off a drinking maneuver. I’ve chalked it up to just being a barbarian. On another note, Thai people aren’t PC about looks. It’s very common and funny to tell someone they’ve gotten fat. Saying that to a white person would be extremely offensive. On the flipside, telling a Thai person they have a bad attitude, is very offensive in the like.

We woke up, had some breakfast, then walked to the bus station to head to Mae Sae which is by the Myanmaar border. We arrived at the bus station about a half an hour later than we had expected and jumped on the Tuk Tuks which are the motorcycle taxis. Those are always an adventure when they grab your suitcases, put them between their legs, and you hop on the back and wisk through traffic.

After meeting up with Pakeem, a Burmese Orphanage Director and Pastor, we crossed the border into Myanmaar. The government has gotten stricter over the last few months about letting US citizens in and out of the country. There is a thing called a Day Pass for crossing the border, where you don’t get a stamp. You make a photocopy of your passport, leave your passport at the border for the day, then you get it when you come back. That way you don’t get an exit stamp. Josh could get any more exit stamps in his passport, so we had to get the day pass. After crossing the border we hop into this ghetto little taxi station wagon with our new skinny old Burmese taxi driver friend. We drive for a while, then turn up this rough dirt road and start 2 bying in this rickety old station wagon. We headed up to the orphanage where we snapped a few shots, then saw some long necks. After that little adventure, we went for some Burmese lunch. It was great.

After crossing the border, we crash for a while from food comatose. Then head out before sunset to snag some shots. Towards the end, we run into these guys playing a game called ”Dagaw“ that is basically a cross between soccer and volleyball. It’s played with this woven wood ball. They do all kinds of acrobatic kicks and it’s pretty impressive.

Later in the evening, we head out to the street for some Pad Thai on the street. Mmmm good!

Thailand Day 2
We awoke in Mae Sai for a not so amazing breakfast. Mine was alright because I had some Cup Jok. The infamous Thai rice soup breakfast. We found the name humorous the other day when I was reading it from the mini bar list. As it looks like “Cup Jock”, it should be pronounced “Cup Joke” either way could be taken with humor.

Timothy picked us up at around nine, and we began our journey through the jungles and countryside to Fang. We stopped at 3 hill tribe villages along the way. The first village was Rumsuk, where we found some kids pretending to be army men. These villages, people still live in bamboo houses. They’re all lifted off the ground about 5 feet. There are chickens and roosters running around all over the place. The second village was the Oko tribe, where the girls of the village put on their traditional dresses and did a couple dances for us. The third Hill Tribe was my favorite. It was called Akha Banluang. The kids had so many smiles and so much energy. We played with them around the village, and they really took a liking to me. It actually made it hard to take photos because they would all rush in front of the camera. Nice for a few shots, but hard to get the shots I wanted. We then walked up the hill to the rice and peanut fields to look at the view. It was great to have a connection with these kids and not be able to speak the language. As we walked through the dirt paths, I developed a trail of village kids behind me and in front of me. I started saying english words, and the would all repeat them back to me. It was rather amusing. It always amazes me the innocence of kids and the joy that the exude. In seeing these tribes, the simplicity of their lives is amazing to me. I would get so bored living the same life. It makes me appreciate the life that I have, and the things that I’ve been given.

As we drive finish the drive to Fang, we drive past the rice fields where the clouds roll in so dramatic and beautiful. The powerful green of the rice plants, light up with the soft light of the clouds. A truly amazing image.

That evening, we go to visit another hill tribe. They invited us into their bamboo home. The graciously offer us some bananas and sweet potatoes. This tribe is very traditional, where the girls have a traditional black dress. The older women have these hats with metal balls and other decorations hanging off of their head. The hat/helmuts weigh about 5 or 6 pounds. I couldn’t imagine, how warm these costumes would get. Apparently we are in the winter/cool season right now. That being the case, I don’t think I would really want to be inland during the actual summer.

After visiting the tribe, we stopped off for some amazing Thai food. There is a term here called “HiSo” which means “High Society” as they like to call it. It’s the term used for people with more money. Even eating “HiSo” it only costed a little less than 500 batt, which is about $13 for some of the tastiest Thai food I’ve ever had. A normal meal off the street costs about 25batt per person, which is about 50 cents.
We retire for the night in our HiSo hotel.

The next day is a full day of travel from Fang to Mae Sot. Timothy and his family drive us down to Chang Mai. About a 3 hour drive through the mountains. Absolutely breath taking. Then we hop on a bus for 6 hours to Mae Sot. The ride was a trip to say the least. The first half we got to listen to some wonderful Thai pop music blasting through the chamber, as I got nauseous with this guy driving the bus mach 3 through the windy bumpy road. Then it was time for the cheesy teen movie “Aquamarine” which kept digitally tweaking out until the driver decided to turn it off.

Finally arriving in Mae Sot, a very small town, we chill out for the evening. Go on a little bike ride adventure, and eat more amazing Thai food for $6. Of which we had Laab. It’s a really tastey dish made of ground pork and some lovely spices. So good we had two plates. Ain’t no getting skinny on this trip...

Thailand Day 3 & Recap
Today was pretty fun. We woke up, and attempted the bathroom shower. For the people who don’t know what that is, it’s a shower where the accouterments of the bathroom such as the toilet and sink are all in one compartment.
A local guy came and picked us up around 9am. We went to the school where they have the kids from the jungle. There are about 184 kids at the school. A lot of them are Burmese kids and kids from a tribe called “Kara” It was refreshing to hang out and chill with the kids. Taking time instead of hopping from one place to the other. It was amazing to see that the people lived in basically tree houses. The kind that we built when we were kids, except we didn’t build as nice of ones. The simplest of life. Probably the most primitive as I’ve seen. The kids look forward to going to school, and get sad when they close it.

We decided to take the night bus back to Bangkok instead of taking the first bus out in the morning. We didn’t realize that the bus ride is an 8 hour ride. I wanted to have the full day in Bangkok to recoop and rest. Taking a bus in a third world country is always an adventure. On the long journeys such as this they have two different classes. VIP and First Class. When we bought the tickets, we asked what the difference was between the two besides the fact that the VIP tickets were twice as much. “Oh, they’re basically the same except you get food coupons with the VIP tickets,” they say... Half way through the evening when we made a pitstop, we find out otherwise. So, we purchased the measly first class tickets. Much to our jealousy, of our cramped seats that are smaller than back of the plane economy seats on a Northwest domestic flight we came to find out, the VIP seats were beautiful and luxurious. We also got the pleasure of watching the “Moguli’s Great Adventure” one of the worst movies that ever got passed through Hollywood. Luckily I prized my sleep over that mess. The highlight of the evening was when we got stopped by the border police looking for Burmese immigrants. During the second search of the evening, just as we were hoping someone would get deported, our friendly bus driver decided to drive off while mister police man was still checking ID’s. He didn’t seem to happy about that as he started flashing his light towards the front to get him to stop. Of course, The bus driver kept going until the border 5-Oh, went running down the stairs to stop him. After driving 100 yards, he then proceeded to back up that 100 yards to take the police man back to his station. Good times..

Finally we arrive in Bangkok at 5am, a little earlier than we anticipated but ok. The city is buzzing already and the traffic begins. As we get off the bus we are bombarded by taxi drivers just waiting to give you a ride sans-meter. You know when they’re negotiating price up front, they are there to rip you off. Finally we find a guy that will take us and use the meter, all though by the end it only was 15 batt less than the bargaining guys... which leads us to believe he gave us an unwarranted tour of Bangkok. Regardless of the fact, 135batt is only about $3.60, so its not a huge loss. As we were cruising down the streets, a funny moment struck me when we passed some guy driving his little restaurant down the road. One third bicycle, one third motorcycle, and one third restaurant, this guy was cruising with a bowl full of raw meat just hoping it would fly out all over the road. Again... Good times..

I rock an early check in, and we reconvene at noon to head down to the MBK mall to find some cheap designer clothes and ride the sky train. I must retouch on the “SheMen” again. This is becoming quite the thing here in Thailand and it’s very widely accepted. “Ladyboy” is the direct transvestite... I mean translation. These “ladyboys” are very creepy, especially to us Hetero guys. They look at you with some dirty perverted thoughts in their eyes, and say “Sawadee Kah” which let me preface with the fact that that means “Hello” and “Goodbye” in Thai. Now, men and women both say different endings to define gender. Men say “Sawadee Cup”. Women say “Sawadee Kah” The ladyboys say “Sawadee Kah” in some creepy low transvestite voice. Much to our lovely downtown adventure, we had a couple ladyboys giving us the eye. So we ran for the hills. Ok enough with the ladyboys. They’re just all over the place.

Today was nice and relaxing. A much needed break. We went and got a 2 hour not just Thai massage, but a Thai Kwan Do Massage as I like to call it. These ladies did some crazy maneuvers and dug into some deep tissue. All for 300 bat per person. That’s equivalent to about 9 US dollars. Why don’t we have these in the states for this price?
Another goodbye to new friends. It’s interesting traveling like this. I meet new people, and it’s almost hard to say goodbye. It takes me about 3 days to get integrated into the culture. It’s off to India...