I have several posts that I'm working on simultaniously, including my 9 month check in, so bear with me. Also, if you were one of the people interested in beer with me, Oktoberfest is fast approaching and it'd be prudent to get tickets soon. Jordan and Chelsea have informed me that they just purchased theirs!
Ok, so quick update - I'm ın Istanbul now. Yesterday was brutal.
But, before I get to that, I'll start from where I left off last time. Last update found me talkiıng with monks. I ended up spending a couple more days in Chang Mai before moving on. While I had been invited to go back to the islands by Jason and Angie and a couple people I met in Laos, it was too much for me and I decided against ıt. Too much travel and too much money. Also, as a bday present to myself, I decided to hang out with tigers. There are two places in Thailand that I know of where you can get close to them - Chang Mai and Kanchanaburi. I have a full post planned for those so I'm not going to discuss them too much here. Suffıce to say that the Kingdom was awesome and the Temple was depressing.
After visiting the Kingdom and spending time out of Chang Maı at waterfalls where I was the sole person there, which always prompts me to consider skinny dipping (I did), I felt it was time to head closer to Bangkok as my time in Thailand was fast coming to an end. I headed to Kanchanburi because I didn't want to spend a single second more than I had to in Bangkok. Kanchanburi is 2 hours west of Bangkok and is located along a slow, meandering river. There is are 2 main streets - one is along the highway and the other ıs along the river and has the restaurants and hostels. I was a bit surprised to see all the backpackers there. I expected them all to stay in Bangkok, esp. the ones that were of the party nature. I arrived in Kan. on the 14th and rented a moto to try to make it to the Tiger Temple that day, just in case it was really bad I didn't want to visit on my bday. However, I didn't make it to the Temple till about 3:45pm and they stop letting visitors in at 3:30. Damn. I went back to my guesthouse (70 baht or 2 bucks a nıght) and called it an early night.
After waking up to Skype with Ivy and my family who were having a party with CKW and some others, I hit up the Temple. It wasn't as bad as some of the claims, but I was really disappointed in the monks, who had obviously been corrupted by the massive amount of income generated by the tigers. It turned out that my bday coincided with a national holiday. Since it was a Buddhist holiday, the nation was supposed to be dry, but since it's Thailand, while not as easy as going to the store, it was still possible.
Long story short, I hung out with some guy from Europe and we found a bar a couple bars that were serving. One of these bars had a lady boy prostitutes. He couldn't tell so I got to watch him make out with a dude, which I found amusing. Afterwards, and because the town was completely dead due to the holiday and the lady boys had no prospects, we talked to them about both the whole lady boy thing and prostitution. It was facinating. In Thailand, for a full sex change, it was either about 2k dollars or 7k, I can't remember. Scary cheap though. There were some other things I found interesting but I don't want to offend any delicate ears.
On the way home, there was a group of locals playing guitar. When they saw us, they switched to some English songs and we joined in for a couple. Singing Oasis out of key, not remembering all the words, with locals, one who shared my bday, was a nice end to my bday.
The next day, after sleeping in, my goal was to finish The Celestine Prophecy. That didn't happen though. I ended up being invited to drink with a local who said to just call her June, some gırl who also only gave me her nickname, and a dude from NYC named Evan. Later we invited an older couple from the UK to hangout, Audrie was the woman's name but I forget the man's. He ran a microbrew busıness called Sussex Ales, so obviously Evan and I were pretty interested in that. Not much to report after that.
The next day was off to Bangkok to stay the night and get an early flight out to Istanbul. As usual, it's always fun and games. Again here's an abbreviated version of that: the night before, I realized that I should check to see if I need a transit visa to go through Moscow. I couldn't get a straight answer, so I was worried for awhile. Before I went to bed, I made a point to ask, think positive thought's, and then I saw myself arriving in Istanbul. I took that as a good sign, and after thinking the worst case scenario is I either get deported back to Bangkok or to the States and more likely could bribe my way through, I was no longer worried and fell asleep.
Travel days are always a pain in the ass. Everyone tries to extort as much money from you as they can. A taxi driver tried to get me to pay him 200 baht (about 8 bucks) to take me to the traın 10 minutes away. He kept insisting on taking me to the airport. He even went as low as 300 baht. I only had 170 baht on me and since it costs 5 bucks to get cash out in Thailand... So, I flagged down another taxi and got him to do it for 100 baht. I went to get my tickets, but naturally that can't be smoothe either. The agent tried to tell me that I needed to buy a flight out of Turkey in order to get a visa and that they needed the flight info before issuing the ticket. So, now with a slight concern for time growing, I headed for the internet cafe. Being the airport, the cafe cost 5 times as much for internet. I didn't have the cash to pay, but they took credit - with a minimum purchase of an hour at 300 baht (10 bucks). Fuck them. Anyway, to get around this whole flight out thing, I went to British Airways and paid for an unrestricted ticket. It was a trade off; do I pay for the cheap ticket in case I can't get a full refund and lose about 200 bucks, or try for unrestricted ticket that cost about 5 times as much (in this case 600 euros). I put it on my credit card so that I could cancel the purchase if my hunch about this ticket was wrong - even though I read the rules for cancellation and all that, I was under time pressure and I wanted to make sure I had a backup plan in the good chance I fucked up. I printed up the info, using every last baht I had and ran back to the ticket counter. I made the plane 30 min before boarding, which seems like plenty of time, but customs and security went really smoothly and you never know with them. Had lines been longer or I had issues with either, I'd have been running onto the plane as the doors were closing.
Moscow, surprisingly went rather smoothly. They put us through a really poorly organised security and a passport control that only involved showing them that I had one on me. They even had free wifi at the airport. It was the same one I flew into a couple years back for Jenya's wedding and brought back some really nice memories and a little bit of longing to spend a little time there. I jumped my plane and arrived in Istanbul around 8:30pm. I hate arriving so late. I don't have the money to take taxis from the airports these days, and I need ample time to get to destinations before it gets dark. I feel very vulnerable carrying all my gear and not knowing how exactly to get to my hostel. As it turned out, Istanbul's immigration was the easiest so far. I walked up paid 20 bucks and gave them my passport. That was it. No questions. I don't think they even looked at me. Excluding waiting in line, the whole thing took 2 minutes. So much for needing the plane out for a visa.
After that, it was an hour and a half of trains and walking before I showed up at the hostel I was hoping to stay at. A taxi tried to get me to pay 15 bucks to take me about 200 ft. I was a little lost, but still close to the hostel and I almost did it cause it was now 11pm and I was getting a little concerned. Had he went under 10 bucks, still a rip off, I'd have taken it. However, I asked some more people directions and found out it was literally around a corner. It was also full. They sent me to another one up the hill. They were also full. Thankfully, seeing how beat up I was, they offerred to put me up on the couch for 5 euros (comes with breakfast and coffee and tea). Had it been daylight, I'd have went looking for another place, but it was late and I was exhausted and the place seemed nice. I booked beds for future nights to avoid the problem.
The last part of this story ends with me getting on the computer and cancelling that flight. Nice way to end the night. Because it was an unrestricted ticket I got refunded every penny of it.
That's all I got for now. I'll try to get those 4 other posts floating around mostly finished out soon.
D
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