Chiang Mai

Piercing blue eyes of expatriates everywhere amble down the dirty side streets. Foreigners here, foreign to there places of birth. Yet Thailand is the one place that makes everybody feel at home. Friendly loving people have been welcoming the tourist and expats for decades and it shows. Travellers can find nearly every convenience imaginable, whether it be a late night snack from the 7-Eleven just around the corner, a tasty cheesebuger from one of the American run joints, or their morning cup of joe from Starbucks. While many people (including myself) find these corporate invasions to be unsightly and depressing, a large mass of white skin tourist can always be found lingering inside such establishments (including myself). I love it here. There is no end to what one can do and the prices are all too reasonable, however inflated prices can be found in more places here then in either Viet Nam or Laos. While an hour long massage cost less then three US dollars the price of a beer at a popular night spot can cost up to four. The live music scene in Chiang Mai is wonderful. Incredibly talented musicians bearing the most amazing smiles of joy and jubilation strum the blues like BB King on a low bar stage next to unfortunately dressed expats sporting socks with their sandals and blowing hard into shiny harmonicas. This city is alive but hardly in your face, which makes it one of the most attactive places I have visited on the entire trip. Sadly I have to leave tomorrow for Bankok, a place (so I have heard) that is dreadfully crowded and contains the pushy in your face locals peddling anything from a tuk tuk ride to prostitution. I will be joining two of my good friends though, Evan Huggins and Nick Runkle, so I carry very few doubts about not enjoying myself. I have come to discover that the most important thing in this world are the people who you are surrounded by, and in Thailand nearly everyone is on vacation or greatly benefitting from those who are and it just so happens that people on vacation are some of the happiest people in the world. This population makes it easy to enjoy Thailand because there is harldy an unhappy face in the crowd. I should note here that my Thailand experience is limited only to Chiang Mai and a few mountain vilages I visited on my first organized group tour so I am premature in passing judgement. In any case I am alive and well, enjoying every possible moment and thinking of Dean Moriarty all the while. Man would he have digged Thailand. NTC