last night i met up w/ jason (jamie’s friend who decided to try living here in thailand). we went to a bar called rasta cafe to get some drinks. this place was pretty cool: laid back atmosphere, pretty good music, and everyone that worked there either had an afro or dreadlocks. jason was also supposed to meet this girl there, and pretty soon she arrived w/ a friend in tow. so, the friend was a bit stand-offish, and after only a few minutes of conversation, things got awkward. it seemed like all 4 of us had hardly anything to say, and i wanted to leave and go back to my guesthouse, but they convinced me to go w/ them to a club. the club was pretty packed and there was a band on stage playing thai cover songs. everything was fine till all of a sudden this crazy bar brawl broke out right next to us. i’m not exactly what happened there, but next thing i know there’s blood splattered *everywhere* all over the floor (and on my shorts too i discovered later). seconds later all sorts of people were getting kicked out, and i took my chance to go home.
today i got up really late, and after checking the bus schedule (i needed to catch the bus to chang rai), i realized that i only had a few hours left here. there’s this small town called Bo Sang about 15 km outside of chang mai that is really famous for making those paper umbrellas. jason and i decided to ride down there and check it out. turns out it was our lucky day. today just happened to be the paper umbrella festival (a big deal in this town), and there was a huge parade to celebrate it. watching the parade was pretty dope. they had a marching band, tons of different paper umbrellas of all shapes and sizes, people doing dance routines, old men with old-school traditional drums, and even some floats. of course, the floats were not very high tech… they were actually just large pickup trucks w/ crazy decorations on them and little platforms.
after that, we got back w/ just minutes to spare to get to the bus. unfortunately though, we got in an argument w/ the scooter rental people who accused me of messing up the breaks on the bike. i had no way to prove that i didnt, so 400 Baht and 15 minutes later i missed my bus. damn! luckily though, there was another lame bus going soon after that, and i was forced to sit only halfway on a seat for the next 4 hours.
-v
I knew sooner or later the scooter people would scam one of us. Oh weel, no recourse in Thailand.
I am in Taiwan waiting for my connecting flight. I have four hours to kill so I decided to go online. It is so nice to have a high speed connection, but I would trade it in a minute to be in yours or Jamie’s shoes… Getting to this computer was almost impossible. It took me forever to convince the immigration officials to let me through…
I knew sooner or later the scooter people would scam one of us. Oh weel, no recourse in Thailand.
I am in Taiwan waiting for my connecting flight. I have four hours to kill so I decided to go online. It is so nice to have a high speed connection, but I would trade it in a minute to be in yours or Jamie’s shoes… Getting to this computer was almost impossible. It took me forever to convince the immigration officials to let me through…
Have fun in Loas…
-Tom
yeah.. i totally would have fought it too.. but i was in such a rush to get to my bus that i had to just let it slide and pay them. oh well… at least it wasnt too much $$. drop me a mail to let me know how it is being back… it must be SO weird.
actually laos seems like it will be cool. we’ve soent a few hours here in luang prabang and it’s nice… but that’s after a truly heinous 2 day boat ride!!
-v