"Kii Chong" - to ride an elephant

Word up my American friends! It has been at least a fortnight since my last update, and for this I must apologize. I have been way to busy in Thailand to be shackled to the sorrow machine that used to own me! Now, I only have time for serious internetting once in a while.

Also there was the problem that I wasn't doing anything worth writing about, but having rectified this, I will now proceed:



During the previous two weeks I have been mainly chilling on the delightful Rangsit campus spending my copious free time playing ping-pong, winking at the Thai schoolgirls, and practicing the Thai language. I have made it my personal mission to not only master Thai conversation in my brief stay, but also the Thai script. Luckily for me, there are only 44 consonants and 32 possible vowel sounds to learn, so it will be a breeze. Oh, and the vowels can appear anywhere around the consonants and the words are not separated. Oh! And the words can have different tones and therefor different meanings from essentially the same sounds. For example the "mai" word can mean: new, no, right?, mile, or silk. So if you were to ask if the silk was new you would say "mai mai mai", and then probably be kicked in the junk for accidentally calling someone a donkey's foot or something. Below is a photo of my cramping hand while I practiced writing the first few characters.


Last weekend I went on a school sponsored field trip to the Chiang Mai province in Northern Thailand. On a University owned bus, we embarked on a night crusade into eternity... The bus ride was nine hours or me and my friend Erik homo erotically resting our hairy sweaty legs on each other. The ride was long, made longer by Thailand's national obsession with air conditioning. The climate master, whoever it was, decided that an appropriate temperature for bus travel for a bunch of foreigners in short shorts and flip flops was somewhere between 40 and 60 ... KELVIN! Attempts to close the vent were met with a tsunami of condensation.

We arrived at 6AM and after a quick nap, we departed for a Wat, a Thai temple. This would be quite a delightful thrill if these Thai temples didn't cover completely every square micrometer of Thailand. I have been here for a little of three weeks and I have visited maybe 15 Wats. That's 5 Wats a week. A Wat for every workday.



Anyway this particular Wat was in fact quite stunning. Placed atop a hill overlooking Chiang Mai Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, is the most beautiful Wat I have ever seen. The Wat was elevated above the city and the country and felt elevated about the strife of the world below. Then again maybe I was just loopy from the half hour man-leg sleep I had on the bus.

Like all attractions of any kind in Thailand and the rest of the world, to get to the actual attraction you have to break through a formidable barricade of souvenir vendors. Here is a photo of Prinda, our fearless leader and the teacher of two of my classes, fooling around at such a firm.

As a quick aside: Prinda is the best person ever.

Next we went to a market in Chiang Mai famous for its hadicrafts. Quite handy they were indeed. I nearly succumbed to the temptation to buy a life size elephant made out of shards of bamboo, but rationality and a dearth of Baht halted the transaction.

The last thing we did was see a Thai traditional dance show, which was weird. That's really about all I have to say about it. The dance was composed of women, draped in gold and colors with gilded talon nails slowly turning and tracing S curves with their hands while gently crouching at the start of every measure. The music was a tribal pulsing droning beat that was a bit frightening.


When we returned to the hotel of course it was time to party, to get "derm in the clerm" for my manorites reading this. We took the extremely safe Tuk-Tuks again and of course loaded them well below their maximum capacity. Below is a photo of us on the way to get WAY DOWN!

The club was a pretty typical Thai nightclub. Tables full of friends sharing bottles of Johnnie Walker red, dancing ladyboys, and of course a band playing Thai pop covers and American classics. This night was the first in a series of many when we would here the popular song "Low" aka "apple bottom jeans" played as an alt rock jam. Always welcome of course.

The next morning, a mere 5 hours after we got back from the club, after my friend Erik and I made an absolutely necessary trip to a nearby 7-11 for Frosties (frosted flakes in America) and pork buns (pork...buns ... I guess) we departed for the elephant park. The photo below is what the area around the elephant zone looked like. I was honestly hoping that all of Thailand, especially my apartment and University would resemble this, but no such luck.

Elephants are big grey godless marauding killing machines with an insatiable hunger for sugarcane and as the picture below clearly reflects, soccer. When we arrived we saw the elephant show, a series of tricks and demonstrations of their incredible intellects. The show included elephants carrying signs, throwing balls, posing, and even painting pictures of other, happier, less imprisoned elephants.

After the elphantaganza, we took an oxcart ride, which was precarious and uncomfortable, to the elephant ride, which was precarious, uncomfortable, and much higher. We rode through the beautiful area, passing flowers, sugarcane plantations, bananas, papayas, and naturally heaping mountains of elephant waste. As mentioned earlier, elephants eat sugarcane by the bundle. Its sweet branches can be purchased for about 20 baht a bundle, and the elephants eat maybe a thousand of these arm sized bundles a day. This leads naturally to giant piles of elephant #2.

I digress. Anyway, the ride was wonderful. Sitting on the chair ( plank of wood lashed with shoddy rode to the elephants face and tail) with the driver sitting on the neck, we lumbered through the jungle. We were thrilled when we realized that like a Thai Oregon trail, we would be soon "fording" the river threatening us ahead. We lost three oxen, two axles, 38 bullets, and Lucille to cholera, but aside from that it was a safe trip across the river. Actually it was amazing, the elephants walked up to their mouths in the quickly flowing river without wavering at all.

After the elephant trek we relived the Oregon trail once again by rafting down the pictured river on a bamboo rectangle. We had two...pilots, who referred to themselves and anyone holding the steering devices as "capitan", who steered us through the currents passed elephants wandering about and people washing their clothes in the brown water. After 15 minutes of serene floating, the skippers handed off their steering instruments to my friend John and I. For the first several minutes we deftly navigated the arrow straight river, but as soon as we encountered a small bend, tragedy struck. John and I were unable to steer the raft violently enough and we were headed straight for a low hanging branch. Everyone on board thought "there is no way we are going to hit that", but as it drew closer it was clear we were. "Mayday mayday!" shouted the Thai skippers, it was about the only English they knew. Everyone was struck, John was even thrown off and suffered minor laceration.

That night, after yet another market trip (the "waking street of Chiang Mai"), Erik and I found something to do. While wandering looking for dinner, we received fliers for a muay Thai fight. Having never actually seen one, we decided our attendance would be mandatory. We arrived via taxi and were greeted by ladyboys. For some reason, Erik is the ladyboy lighting rod, and due to this we received a minor entrance discount. The fight was awesome: 75 pound thai teenagers wailing on eachother, with the entire event bisected by a ladyboy lip sync known as the "blue diamond cabaret" (pictured below with Erik and I). We drank a bottle of Sang Som and were off to the club again.

The next day was a trip to see a "hill tribe" that had set up camp near Chiang Mai. We expected a bunch of hard working, indigenous, oral history reciting, bartering, rice paddy plowing, buffalo owning, traditional dancing, folk drumming, tribesmen. What we were met with was yet another gift shop, placed on a hill. The only difference was that this one had a couple of token "tribespeople", or vendors, dressed in traditional garb placed about for the purpose of picture taking. Everyone was truly disappointed by the inauthenticity of the place, but what can you do? Pictured below is me with an extremely authentic tribeswoman.

We drove back with our faith in Thai hilltribes destroyed, but our moral remained high, as you can see from this photo of Frank and Suzanna below, taken as we descended from the "tribal lands".

The drive back to Bangkok spanned the late afternoon and into the darkness.

"Mai Pen Lai": Its all good in the hood

Sawadee Khrap my Reno droogs! I write you this time with a head muddled by our dear friend Johnnie Walker. For whatever reason Thai people seem to love Scotch whiskey. I can't say I share the same affinity, but it gets the job done in a pinch. I seem to be in a lot of pinches lately. Alas! Anyway it has been a zany weekend saturated with adventure...and cunning.. and swashbuckling...and...touring. Right. On to the content.

On Thursday night me and some of my recent USAC cronies decided it was time to go a clubbin', and I don't mean in the baby seal sense. We piled into two taxis and after about twenty minutes of pointing to a tiny map that the Lonely Planet(c) corporation promised would guide us to the hippest joint in town, we were off. The taxis sailed across the Bangkok highways, ignoring all American road laws. Lane markers, speed limits, one way signs, all merely gentle suggestions. Driving in Bangkok is a bumper to bumper free-for-all really makes even San Francisco seem more synchronized than a Swiss watch...from hell!

After realizing that the first club we arrived at was deserted, we decided to move on to another. A savvy Thai associate at the University had advised us to venture to a place called RCA, a district known for its night clubs, specifically to the club Route 66. After intense deliberation it was on!

Having become bored with the illusion of safety in the standard taxi cabs, it was time for a spicier mode of transportation. Featured to the right is the "tuk-tuk". This transportation option is known for its even stronger avoidance of standard road decorum, its high frequency of rollover, and the financial hustle the tuk-tuk operators inflict upon their foreign naive prey.

The ride was intense. With five full sized adults in the back seat, the tuk-tuk raced up back alleys, performed wheelies, and threatened to rollover; all this in the pouring rain.

We arrived at the new club and were happy to find that this time there were actual humans inhabiting it. In fact it sounded like a lot of fun. The music was throbbing through the walls and was palpable from up the street.

Route 66, the club we ended up in met and exceeded expectations. It was loaded with happy Thais and there was even a band. I wormed my way into the front center spot of the stage to see what this Thai mystery band might sound like.

It turns out that it sounded like Radiohead meets modern alt rock fusion. The band, Modern Dog, kicked modern ass. The music was awesome. This band was very popular and it seemed that everyone in the crowd knew every word to every song. Using this, the lead singer would pull fans on stage and let them sing a line or two while he pranced about. Truly a wonderful experience. I can't remember having more fun at a concert.

The next day a group of us returned to Bangkok to see a couple major tourist destinations: Wat Pho, which houses "the reclining Buddha", and Grand Palace, which houses a plethora of shiny things. I forgot my camera, so if you really must see these world famous things, look em' up. They really do look like that. Wat Pho is damn big. Damn. Grand Palace is grand. What else do you want from me?!

The next day we had a field trip with our Thai Civilization class to the Erawan Museum. This was a pretty standard fare Thai style temple-museum-gift shop, except for the fact that the temple was housed inside a giant three headed elephants stomach. Seriously, look at this SOB. Bad ass right?

The bottom floor was a boring museum with chinese vases, the middle floor contained beautiful winding dragon skinned starcases which led to the top floor. The top was within the stomach of the elephant and represented Heaven. This was not difficult to determine as it was extremely stunningly beautiful. The walls were blue and gold, and ancient Buddha statues were everywhere. No picture could do this place justice. Plus, it was inside of an elephants digestive system.

The next destination was the "Ancient City". Don't let the name fool you. Ancient city is neither ancient nor a city. It is a sort of thai theme park. The city is a park, in the shape of Thailand, with famous runins and structures recreated for the viewing pleasure of the tourists.

This sounds like it would make for a compromised experience...you might ask "Why not just go to the real thing?" Because we didn't thats why. But, the recreations were so realistic that it truly left some of us wondering...what is real?

This golden statue is apparently a transvestite. Isn't that wild?

The next night as I was walking around looking for a good time and I hear "hey you" call to me from the darkness.

I look to my right, towards the call and I see this motley crew. I say to myself "these guys look legit" and sit down to chat. Of course none of us can speak eachothers language but that doesn't stop them from offering me some of their dirt cheap whiskey they are drinking from a broken plastic cup with ants floating around the top. Do I drink it? Of course!

I ended up sitting for hours, drinking and learning the numbers 0-1000 in thai, because thats just what Thailand is like.

Sah Wuh Dee Khrup! (Hello in Thai)

Salutations American fans! I write this second update from the public access computer room in the Rangsit University public computer center. I am safe, happy, and of course quite hung over from last night's drink too many glasses of Singha beer with rapidly melting ice cubes while Thais with ramones haircuts who don't speak english play really good Oasis covers party I attended at a local bar affectionatly referred to by the Thai as "around the back". No one seems to know what the name actually is in Thai, everyone calls it by its English nick name. Wild. Now: what have I been up to? I flew to thailand, moved into an apartment, and started college in Bangkok at Rangsit university.

If I were to describe the flight from LAX to Taipei in one word it would be…long. If my word allowance was expanded to 9, the description would be: why did they contract dwarves to design the seats? The entire traveling time was nearly two full days. Sitting in the seat my kneecap painfully extended a full two inches into the seat in front of me, causing my giant American femurs to continually trip the stunningly beautiful stewardesses. This could be remedied if my physique matched what they apparently expected in their clientell: 4’1” creatures with knees attached directly to their tiny pelvises. On a flight clearly designed to be slept on (taking off at 1:15am and landing sometime after the apocalypse) the seats have a maximum recline that matches the capital “L” character. Apparently the thighless dwarves at China Airlines R&D dept. find the maximum comfort zenith to be achieved when their knees and spine create a protractor worthy approved right angle. The only comfort I had on this flight was this lovely gentleman who spoke only a few words of English. He spent about 12.9 of the 13 hours asleep with his feet constantly crossing the borders of his chair and ending up awkwardly near my genitals.

The flight had a layover in Taipei of six hours that allowed for the meeting and greeting of all my fellow USAC group flight colleagues. After learning and instantly forgetting their names, pursuits, and credos it was time to mount the plane headed for Bangkok. We boarded the plane and then the plane boarded the clouds...anyway it was an easy flight without issue.

The flight landed in the extremely easy to pronounce Suvarnabhumi Airport which is the proud owner of the "world’s largest commercial airline hanger". Whether this is true or not I cannot verify with confidence, but I can definitely testify that it does look like a giant robotic space worm.





The airport was hot and humid, which is true for every sweaty inch of Thailand. Waiting for us terrified foreigners was this comforting statue, an ominous beginning indeed. We speculated while flying that passing through the Thai customs would be difficult; we were incorrect. A stern looking man with a gun merely nodded and waved us through. Immediately behind us was a middleastern fellow in with a turban, he was directed to a partitioned off area to be searched, tough break.


We were greeted by two American looking english speaking college students and two Thais. They ushered us abour a wildly colored bus with shag carpet and a broken window which would drive us to our new respective apartments.

The bus ride was long, at least an hour. We left the urban metropolis that is Bangkok and drove into a slightly more rural location where the college is located. The afternoon sunlight chased after us in the omnipresent pools of brown water covering the terrain as our rainbow bus cruised through the traffic passing backfiring mopeds with families of four, bicycles carrying swaying fish, and pickup trucks with benches in the back seating ten or more.

Thailand does not look like Reno. Reno is brown, dry, and clean, Thailand is green, wet, and dirty. Looking out the window, I noticed that the waste disposal was a bit different in the USA. Instead of rolling cans out on monday nights for a green truck to pick up, the Thai people just seem to take their refuse to the highway, mound it into a heap, and set it on fire. We passed at least 10 such smoldering rubbish heaps.

The apartment I am living in is a converted hotel, well I suppose its not really converted as it truly remains a hotel. It has a bit of an inner city look and the interior just feels desolate. The rooms are huge and empty except for the heavy wooden tables and beds about as soft as iron covered in diamonds. I was lucky enough to win the room on the corner directly next to the highway. 24 hours a day cars zoom, trucks roar, and two stroke mopeds put-put-put past my ears. Luckily there is really no need to open a window, the temperature doesn't really drop at all at night, merely ranging from hot as balls to still quite warm and humid.


The university is green and beautiful, looking quite a bit like a large beautiful American university. The campus is surrounded by a green hedge with occasional barbed gates and surrounding the hedge is a road and surrounding the road is the madness.

Across the street from the campus are hundreds and hundreds of street vendors selling cooked food, fresh fruit, and espresso. Yes, I wasn't expecting to see such an enthusiasm for the european caffeinated delight, but the coffee stands are everywhere. There is a bit of a different approach to coffee making here. No matter what you think you have orderred or tried to order, you get an espresso shot, mixed with two shots of sweetend condensed milk poured over a cup of ice with frothed milk product on top. It actually is pretty good though, but sickeningly sweet, which is another common trend here in Thailand. The food is somewhat similiar to the Thai food back in the USA, and I think I would seond the opinion that the Thai don't actually make the best Thai food. Unfortunately ordering is next to impossible due to the fact that I neither speak nor read thai, which looks like this: ฟหกสดาฟหกๆไพ๋๕฿๑ฟหกใฬ. That was a string a gibberish so don't bother decoding it.



I am getting tired of writing now, so Ill just leave you with two pictures that say a hell of a lot about what things are like here.

Pre-Flight, bags packed

Hello new devoted fans! This is my first blog entry ever, so bear with me as I awkwardly remember how to write.

Statement of purpose:
This blog was created with the intention of keeping my beloved friends and family back in the "Biggest Little City(c)" up to date on my each and every thought, feeling, emotion, tour, meal, step, and blink. I also intend to nostalgically reflect on the lost semester I had in Bangkok at some later date, and this tome of glory will perfectly fit that need.

Actual blog post:
I thought I would get this thing started before I left so that when I am neck deep in home-sick horror I will not have to learn how to do yet another thing. I picture myself in only one god damned day in a dank apartment, venomous godless parasites pouring through the chicken wire windows, unable to create a blog from scratch without sweating the last drop of salty sweat from my brow. Learning how to create and update a blog would be the straw that crippled the already sweaty and annoyed camel's final vertebrae. This way I can easily append more brilliance to an already established masterpiece.

So as stated in the previous paragraph, tomorrow is the day that I tongue kiss goodbye everything that I have ever known. What a thrill right? My current mental would best be described as frazzled. I am homeless, jobless, unwashed (washless?), and nervous.

Nervous: why? Well dear friends, this is Young Jeff's first international trip of any kind and longest aeroplane ride ever. Oh and also this:
This charming gentleman is one of the current protesters waiting patiently in Bangkok for me to step off of the 747 so that he can cut off my arms and beat me with them while shouting "quit hitting yourself". Thailand, as of yesterday has been put into a "state of emergency". A comforting thought indeed. I'm sure they'll get over it by tomorrow though, right? Right!

Here's from that time I was part of an exhibit at the SFMOMA:

Over and out