Not a lonely planet for everyone!

I apologize for my long silence--I've gotten caught up in catching up on research and making sure I make it to Laos next week. Speaking of research, there comes a point in everyone’s life when they must acknowledge that someone else is better than them. For a Let’s Go RW it’s a difficult and painful acknowledgement when the person in question is their Lonely Planet counterpart and nemesis. Don’t get me wrong, though staunchly loyal to Let’s Go, I’ve never actually had anything against Lonely Planet books and I’ve never before experienced any inkling of emotion towards a specific writer. But over the past month I’ve come to resent the Lonely Planet Northern Thailand researcher. For no other reason than that he’s better than me.

And I don’t mean better in general. That’s a completely different question, and one that I can’t settle without actually meeting him. I suspect that I’m probably younger, more attractive, and hold a degree from a more prestigious university, but as far as my research is concerned, I always feel slightly inadequate. Let’s begin with the fact that he lives in Chiang Mai. I found that out as I was eating a pleasant dinner with fellow farang at Libra Guesthouse. One of them, a slightly tipsy Englishman, asked me about my job. He seemed very interested, but soon I realized that the interest was merely aggressive skepticism. He asked me to read aloud my research notes. "Why don’t you have a look at them yourself?" I suggested, seeing that everyone else wasn’t as excited to hear my thoughts about restaurants in Tha Ton. "No, I want you to read them to me," he retorted belligerently. I read him a sentence of my marginalia. "How long are you in Chiang Mai for?" he asked. "Two weeks," I lied (I actually only had a week and a half). He nearly jumped, "Two weeks?!" and proceeded to tell me that two weeks wasn’t enough time to research Chiang Mai. (Of course it’s not.) Could we imagine a Lonely Planet researcher only spending two weeks in Chiang Mai?! My Chinese-French neighbor confirmed his suspicions, and told me that the Lonely Planet researcher actually lives in Chiang Mai with his Thai wife (memory is creative; I may have made up the Thai wife) and certainly spent more than two weeks time researching Chiang Mai.

He lives in Chiang Mai?! That must be why their food section is so well researched and organized. I felt the first stab of inadequacy. After that, everywhere I went in Chiang Mai I was following his ghost. Restaurants that we list would proudly advertise that they have been recommended by Lonely Planet for 4 years already, with no mention of Let’s Go. Amazing Sandwich was most impressive, with a list of about 10 guidebooks and maps (some of which I’d never heard of before, meaning they’re too obscure to be sold in the best travel bookstore in Boston) that recommend the restaurant. No mention of Let’s Go. I was tempted to cut them.

The final blow came the other day in Pai. I was checking out a tourist police box, the most useless and least English speaking tourist-geared office in any town (actually, I take that back; in Mae Hong Son, right in front of the official tourist information office, is the "tourist volunteer center" a 24-hr tourist information booth staffed by a guy who couldn’t answer my question, "what do you do?" and didn’t have enough English to give me directions to the post office; but he did give me a completely useless maps identical to the one distributed of the official tourist office; and then I signed the guest book), and in this marginal, isolated booth, I heard from the police officer that the researcher for Lonely Planet had been there last year. And that he speaks Thai.

He speaks Thai?! I might as well give up now. If I could speak Thai I wouldn’t have to spend half an hour trying to find out when the pharmacy opens! People would never have to pore over my Lonely Planet phrasebook deciphering the miniscule Thai characters, and thinking that I was asking them when the sun rises. I would breeze from shop to shop from office to office and gather accurate, comprehensive information. And I would be in no hurry, since I would live in Chiang Mai, and my Thai wife might even accompany me and help me out with my research.

But alas, I’m merely a Let’s Go researcher, forced to gather accurate, comprehensive information at the record speed of three towns in three days. And I guess I better go do that now.

PS. Case in point: I was on a bus to Phitsanulok, sitting just behind a group of middle-aged Americans. Their guidebook looked pleasantly familiar. "You’re using Let’s Go?" I asked. "Yeah, we’ve misplaced our good one," they answered. Fortunately they got off the bus before they had a chance to ask me why I on earth I would lug a computer around with me on a trip to Thailand.

Monk Chats and Russian Connections

Today, I took part in a monk chat which is exactly what it sounds like--sitting across the table from a monk and chatting. Both sides get to ask questions and satisfy their curiosity: I, for my part, finally figured out the difference between chedi, pagoda, and stupa (I won't bore you), as well as the reasoning behind Thai years--they start counting from the year after Buddha's death. That makes this year 2549 in Thailand. Apparently in Myanmar and Sri Lanka the count starts from the last year of Buddha's life, so it's 2550 B.E. (Buddhist Era) across the border. In turn, the monk asked me what A.D. stood for in our Western years. Then, finding out that I was Russian, he demanded to know some phrases in my native tongue, which he proceeded to pronounce almost perfectly. Moreover, as he asked me to repeat the phrases, I saw that he was correcting my approximate rendition of Russian in latinitsa with....IPA!!! Apparently he knows IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet, for the uninitiated). Apparently, he is also familiar with Webster's system of transcription, which is different from IPA. At the end of our conversation I was very surprised just by how pleasant the chat had been, especially because I was reluctant to participate at first, practically forced into it by a random Hungarian I met at the wat.

Russian knowledge came in handy yesterday as well. I was walking down the street, minding my own business, when a tuk-tuk driver ran up to me, frantically waving a 100-baht banknote. I must admit, I'm rather wary of tuk-tuk drivers; all of my prior interactions with them have consisted of me being overcharged, so I immediately recoiled and indicated with pidgin sign language that I have no need of a tuk-tuk. But then I realized that this driver wasn't holding 100-bahts in his hands, he was holding 100 rubles, which does look surprisingly like a 100-baht banknote. The driver was simply asking me to identify the origin of the mysterious bill in his hands. After I explained that the money was from Russia, he started complaining that the bank had refused to exchange it for him, and I reassured him as much as I could that the money was actually worth a little over 100-baht. He seemed rather distraught about the whole thing, but was pleased to know where the bill came from (at least it's not Monopoly money) Unfortunately his English wasn't good enough for me to find out how the 100-rubles made it into his hands, but I suppose it was some хитрый Russian hoping that the not-so-хитрый tuk-tuk driver wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the bills. I bet the driver had thought he was pretty clever himself, charging the foreigners 100-baht for a lift around the corner, and now he's stuck with 100 rubles. But then again, it's actually worth more than 100-baht...

Master Chef

Well, maybe not yet, but I do know how to prepare anything you may want to order in a Thai restaurant: green curry, pad thai, spring rolls, tom yum gun, sweet and sour chicken, and mango sticky rice. The class was taught by a woman who spoke fluent pidgin English--I always knew what she was saying and she even inserted jokes into her speech "sit down your big ass" or "take baby weapon" (referring to a small spoon for the mango rice), but there were no tenses, inflections, or function words in her speech. Unfortunately, I also had to eat all of those dishes in a span of three hours, so the last thing on my mind is the hot dog barbeque at the US consulate where I'm headed now.

Welcome to Chiang Mai

Yesterday night I got into Chiang Mai and am still recovering from the culture shock of Western civilization. The hot showers, English signs, and Asian-to-Caucasian ratio suggested that I was in California, further supported as I passed a Starbucks, a Doner Kebab stand, and a Tapas Bar within 5 minutes of leaving my guesthouse. After indulging in a meal at a local Japanese restaurant, however, I was reminded that I'm actually in Thailand, where the only good ethnic food is Thai food. There's nothing quite like being disappointed by sushi. Except for, maybe, being disappointed by your Doner Kebab, so I don't think I'll try one, as tempting as the umlaut over the "o" looks...Speaking of excellent Thai food, I plan on taking a cooking class tomorrow, followed by a party at the American consulate.

A couple more

Wat Tha Ton again, with some monks in training in the background
Here's a view of Laos (across the river) from my guesthouse in Mae Sai.
This one doesn't need a caption.

Teepee Bar in Chiang Khong

Some photos

This is me at the Golden Triangle, not terribly exciting, but one of the few photos I have of myself.











These are monkeys by the Monkey Cave sitting on top of a wat. Anyone know the species?












Same cave, different monkey.













These are chili peppers drying on top of a roof in Mae Salong. It must be chili pepper drying season here because they were tarpfulls of them all over town.









View from Wat Tha Ton of the Kok River











This is me hiding from the rain at the Doi Phuka national park near Nan, with about 70 wet kilometers to go on my motorbike.

On mosquitoes and being eaten during dinner

I found a spectacular little restaurant in Chiang Khong today; it's called Green Tree House Restaurant, and it's exactly as you might imagine it--you feel like you're in a tree house eating your meal crosslegged on floor cushions. The food was excellent, and I was just beginning to sip my favorite drink (a watermelon shake) while listening to Thai pop playing at the Saturday night market, when I realized that the mosquitoes around me were rather hungry too. In vain I searched my bag over and over for the 98% DEET I usually keep there. The bloodthirsty bastards weren't particularly interested in the exposed skin of my arms, no, they went straight up my linen pants and started their feast as I sat helplessly twitching on the floor and contorting myself in previously unfamiliar ways, hopelessly trying to scratch my inner thigh in public without seeming inappropriate. Unfortunately the mosquitoes were faster and more agile, and they probably enjoyed their meal much more than I did, though hopefully I squashed at least some of them in my frantic slapping. Fortunately, I was the only person in the restaurant. But still I'm covered in mosquito bites from butt to toe, so if I die of some scary tropical disease, please think kindly of me.