The Descent into Madness

Friday morning came, and we were ready to make a move.

Koh Phagnan, for all its beauty, was beginning to wear on us with its "Endless Spring Break!!!" attitude, and as our taxi arrived we were inspired to set our minds free and explore something more meaningful. We were on our way from the South of Thailand up to the North (Chaing Mai), which would take us some 15,000km and about 24 hours from the trunk to the head of the "elephant." A boat, a couple planes and a few taxi rides later we'd be resting comfortably in the cool, mountainous regions of some of Thailand's most historically and culturally rich land. Fittingly, this was the artwork adorning our ride from our hotel. I'm pretty sure she isn't wearing any bottoms.

So off we were into the night, our early-morning flight to Bangkok requiring that we take a sleeper ferry, which the woman at our hotel sold us on with: "you even get your own beds!", something - as you've seen in previous posts - is never a guarantee. And technically, she wasn't lying. The problem was this: the "beds" were 1-inch thin mattresses stacked next to each other in 2 rows of 80, in a room with 5-foot ceilings, 170+ inhabitants and very, very little air. The next 7.5 hours were filled with several near mental breakdowns, a tense argument between a Scot and Israeli who both had been assigned Bed #18, and a below deck run-in with a middle-aged Thai man that took the phrase "invasion of personal space" to a new level. (I'm still not quite sure if he wanted to kiss me or kill me, and even worse, I'm pretty sure I would have opted for the latter).

But we survived and advanced, knowing that the experience would somehow make us stronger, if only for the fact that I now strongly, strongly despise night ferries. Our journey pushed us onward to Sura Thani "You're Only Here Because You Want to Be Someplace Else" International Airport (where airport security is mainly rooted in the honor system). After drawing the ire of the sole night security guard who we awoke from his peaceful slumber, I treated myself to some of the best sleep of my life, seen here.


The next 18 hours or so is a blur, summed up best by these faces, and the fact that the highlights of our day included riding a combination people-mover slash escalator, and betting on what time which flight's gates would open for check-in. (I would eventually realize that it worked on a system of 2 hours before departure, but somehow still manage not to make any money off this information.)

Bleary-eyed and delusional, we finally arrived, and after finding a cheap hotel with two beds, a real shower, and a television show that plays an all-day stream of bootleg movies, for which they inexplicably create their own opening credits (I don't understand this on so many levels), we dubbed Chaing Mai the greatest place on the face of the earth. Two thoroughly disappointing meals and one horrible night market experience later, we cried for the fall of our dream city. But, at least this happened:


We're off to find the beating heart we know this city has.