Cup of Holiday Cheer

Thailand. Each of the southeast Asian countries are drastically different from each other, Thailand might be the strangest of them all. First world icons scatter the streets giving the place a developed and advanced feeling, but the culture and prices are still trapped in the third world. Perry and I crossed the border into Thailand yesterday without any trouble, in fact the just waved us through on the Thai side without even stamping our passports. After several hours of bombing down the modern divided highway we were still ages away from our goal, Chaing Mai. I had had enough of the highway drive and was not looking forward to another 10+ hours the next day so with after prodding Perry into springing for an overnight bus we loaded Ramos and Meigal onto a rather ancient looking Mercedes bus and tried to make ourselves comfortable for the 11hr ride. The bus was frigid and my knees were buckled under the seat, comfort was not an option. I popped the remaining half of a sleeping pill I had been carrying for this exact purpose and managed to get a couple hours of back aching sleep. Perry was less fortunate. By the end of the ride we had found some blankets in the overhead rack and huddled together, not in an act of man love but as a means of survival. At 5am are bus pulled into the Chaing Mai station and we unloaded our bikes into darkness. We were delirious, or still are delirious, and spent several minutes considering our options. We didn't really have any however and walked our bikes to the 7-Eleven for a cup of coffee and a packaged and processed pastry. In our daze we managed to get directions to the center of town, which we decided was our best option. A few minutes later we were staring at the familiar sign of corporate America, a three story Starbucks right on the corner of the main town square. Despite the stamp of corporate America, Chaing Mai has struck me as a very charming and inviting town. Perry wandered into the square and fell asleep in his sleeping bag while I wandered into the familiar decor of the corner Starbucks and swallowed my pride and my budget. I sat down in one of the purple overstuffed chairs with gold spiral pattern and sunk into the terrible holiday covers blasting from the speakers in the corner. I am ragged, wild eyed, and my fingers are perpetually tinged black from oil and grease, but with my overpriced coffee and horrendous holiday tunes all is right in the world and for the first time I realized it is actually the holiday season. NTC