Route 12

There's nothing better than being woken up by a beautiful girl jumping into bed with you with a fresh cup of hot coffee on a Sunday morning. I was exhausted from my journey the previous day, but the coffee helped. If I had my way, we would never have left the room that day, and for a little while at least, I got my wish.

It was almost afternoon as I hit the shower and got dressed. We stopped off for brunch at a local restaurant and discussed the plans for the day. We decided to drive out to a temple called Wat Pha Sorn Kaew. We filled up the tank, cranked up a Slash cd, and hit the open road.

We took Route 12, heading west, stopping off at a farm stall across from a waterfall on the Khek river, on the edge of the Thung Salaeng Luang National Park. We walked down to the river, the riverbank dotted with Thai families hiding from the sun in the shade or under umbrellas. I still find it odd that everyone wears shirts when they go swimming. I remember in Pattaya you could see who was from the North by the fact that they would not remove their oversized swimming shirts and swimming trunks, while the Southerners and locals showed off their bodies in tight bikinis.

We took a walk over the rocks as made our way to the waterfall. It was quite low apparently, but still bigger than the other so called "waterfalls" I had seen in Thailand before, which usually amounted to a trickle of water running into a pond. We watched for a little while, a man trying to fish in rock pond where fish had likely been trapped when the waterfall was stronger, before we made our way back to the car, and back onto Route 12.

Singing along as we sailed across the curved highways, I got to see a part of Thailand I had not seen before - the lush jungle on either side of the highway, dotted with farmlands from time to time, open pastures rolling over hills. I began to feel at peace - the last time I saw so much green was on St. Patrick's Day.

Nature called, so we stopped off at a touristy spot called Route 12 (after the highway), which was an Americana themed roadside stop, complete with cowboy hats and corndogs, blasting Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly and Elvis - the smell of french fries hanging in the air... This was an unexpected, yet pleasant surprise.

After some unfortunate confusion caused by me walking into the wrong bathroom stall, we sat on the scenic overlook, having a drink and a smoke. It was peaceful and relaxing, when we weren't dodging out of the frame as people were taking photos around us. I slotted five baht into the jukebox and asked her to pick a song. She selected Knife, by Rockwell. We had our last cigarette sitting outside the ice cream shop with the jukebox blaring, a tender moment, as crowds of people shuffled past us oblivious to all else but the rain that was starting to slowly patter down.

Fairy

Sometimes, when you meet people, it just feel like you've known them for years. It was like this with Fairy, even before I travelled north to go visit her. We had met at a concert the previous year, but never remained in contact. Over the course of the year we would sometimes randomly bump into each other in Bangkok, but the exchange would not last for more than a few minutes.

After Songkran I saw her on Facebook and added her, and everything just became so easy. Looking back at the dialogue over the last three months, I can clearly see my intentions were there from the first day, the text littered with subtle flirtings. It started out slow but we gradually began to message each other more and more, and it just wasn't enough anymore, eventually turning to Skype. I remember sleepless work nights, lying down on the couch at 4am, with neither of us wanting to go to bed, idly chatting and joking. There was so much to say, and so much to learn about each other.

Now that she was in front of me, there was a nervous air about, and I was unsure of myself for the first time. Since I had arrived so late, the hotel I was meant to stay at had been fully booked, so we set out to find alternate accommodation for me. It was late, and we were hungry, so the plan was to make a quick stop at the hotel and head out for dinner.

She had an idea of where to go, so it wasn't long before I checked into a hotel on the outskirts of town - tired, hot and sweaty, I needed a shower before going anywhere. She fired up her laptop to continue working while I went to go clean-up.

I emerged refreshed and feeling like a new person. I lay down on the bed beside her, heart racing, and we started to talk. It felt strange, and weird, and she even joked about pretending there was a Skype window around my face. I knew there was only one way to get rid of this feeling, so I kissed her. All that strangeness melted away with a kiss that had received two weeks of anticipation. Her entire body shuddered and the hours melted away as I explored her body for the elusive tattoo she had mentioned during one of our previous conversations.

I grabbed a Leo from the fridge and settled onto the porch while she recuperated her energy, and a short while later we departed for the night market, where I was to be sacrificed to some ancient mosquito God as we enjoyed dinner on one of Phitsanulok's river-front restaurants whilst listening to the smooth sounds of classic rock rolling down the river.

She began to laugh and grabbed my arm, motioning to the other side of the restaurant. An old Thai granny had gotten up and started to do the twist. It wasn't long before her family joined her. She seemed so alive and full of energy.

It was getting late, and her own grandmother was waiting up for her at home, so we made our way back to the hotel, stopping at a Tesco so I could get some essential supplies. I walked up to the counter and asked "ao condom haaw yai na khrap". I always laugh a little at how nervous the Tesco girls become when you ask that, so I didn't pay attention to what she was doing. I paid her and grabbed the Tesco bag with my dirty little secrets inside.

We got back to the hotel and I insisted that I couldn't quite remember where that tattoo was, I needed another look - she agreed. At a pivotal moment I grabbed the bag from the Tesco as it's contents fell out.

Sometimes I just really hate this country. She laughed, I cried and cursed the Tesco girl.

Looking Back

Phitsanulok truly is a Paradise City. Everything is green and the girl is oh-so-pretty.

In a way my weekend there showed me what life in Thailand could really be like, if you let it. I should have listened to McCartney a long time ago, and just let it be.

For the last two years I put my life on the back-burner looking for something I had found years previously but had somehow allowed to wither away.

Instead of continuing my sordid affair with Krung-Thep looking in vein, for something I already had, in dimly lit sois littered with homeless dogs and dull eyed beat folks who live the same day every day I could have been tuning into the true beat in Siam, getting turned on and dropping off the grid.

If you ever come here, don't sit in in your five star hotel drinking frappes or sipping cocktails on a rooftop bar. It is all a facade meant to cover the real beauty here. There's an energy in Thailand that cannot be captured, cannot be manufactured, and you cannot find it in the comfy recesses of a hammock.

The same thing applies to every country though, every city, every town.

Get out of the hammock and go experience something new.
You never know what you will find there.

Phitsanulok

I was filled with a mixture of excitement and trepidation as I boarded the bus to Phitsanulok. Tired, haggard, hungry and a little bit hung-over from my adventures with yadong the previous night, it did not help that the bus was late. I had spent well over two hours meandering around the station, starting on a pleasant note with a full English breakfast and a kaffae ron - it eventually devolved into walking around in circles nervously smoking.

When the 659 eventually pulled up the wiry bus 'host' hastily refused me access to his coach, my heart sinking when he hastily yelled "No space!" at my general direction. I looked on in confusion as he then proceeded to let two Thai nationals board the 'full' bus. I had been waiting a lot longer than these two bastards, so I was about to let out a barrage of angkrit-accented Thai slurs in a burst of anger reserved only for Farang who had reached the last reserve of patience and could not  care less about losing face as long as it got shit done, when I paused for a moment, drew a breath, and asked as calmly as I could why they could board and I could not - giving the wiry man a chance to avoid the hell-fury I had been ready to unleash a few moments before.

I rolled my eyes at his surprise that I could string together a heavily accented string of Thai words that would be scoffed at by scholars, but managed to convey my question. After a few moments he managed to recollect himself and explain that all the seats were taken - I would have to stand. I laughed and told him it was fine, I didn't mind and shoved past him on the bus. She said it was only 2 hours, I thought as my mind drifted back to her - I could stand in a cramped bus for two hours...

It was simple math of course. Lop Buri is two hours north of Bangkok, Phitsanulok is four hours away. 4-2=2 right? Yeah... Not in Thailand. Not when you get on the wrong bus. Not when you stop at every stall, farm and village as you zigzag west and east whilst heading north into Central Thailand.

Every thirty minutes my phone would ring.

"Where are you now? Where are you now? How long do you think?"
"My GPS says four hours...?"
"Don't trust the GPS."
"Ok."

I should have trusted the GPS. It would have been faster to take the bus/train back to Bkk and get the right bus up north.

After a grueling five hours, I eventually reached my port of call. Tired, angry, hungry and sore, I could eventually call her and say "Hey, I'm here."

As I waited for her to come pick me up I looked around for a place to wait. Preferably, a place where I could have a drink and a smoke to calm my nerves. No such place stood out, so I propped myself up against a pillar in a side soi, put on some Amon Amarth and lit a cigarette.

Monopoly

I feel so guilty when I see the link to this blog - it probably feels as lonely as I do these days, and that's my fault. This seems to be one of those projects which I pick up with gusto and abandon with the same amount of enthusiasm. I'm determined to change some things though - and hopefully my inactivity here will be one of those things. I refuse to take responsibility for what I do and do not change in my life in the next few weeks.

There's a quote that struck a chord with me today, and by struck a chord, I mean I spent some time on Google looking for it. I was reading up on madness and writing and how the two have always seemed to be intrinsically linked. Aristotle once said "There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.", and while I don't claim to be a genius per se, I've always been able to treasure my own particular brand genius and of madness. It's becoming harder to do so these days however.

The quote that struck me however is from Miguel De Cervantes. He said "Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be." Lately I seem to find myself preoccupied in the harsh realities of my physical limitations and consequences of mine own design, instead of the fleeting glimpses of a mad future tense where everything would resolve like a good fairy tale should.

In some way I feel like I've gone too far down the rabbit hole, passed sanity without collecting $200 - and here we go again, round the board, landing on properties owned by others, with chance and the community chest as my only saving grace. I'm bound for jail and I know it, but I've been playing this game for far too long and I don't know how to end it. . .

There's no resolution to this yet.