General thoughts about travel

Musing about travel.

I did not get to go back to the elephant park because getting a visa was of course more complicated than filling in an application and paying a fee...why would we want things to be simple.  It involved filling in an online application, making an appointment for two days later to turn in a hard copy of the same paperwork, wait for an hour for them to approve the visa and collect the fee. The visa will be ready for pickup A WEEK LATER! I was not planning to spend this much time in Chiang Mai, and I have plans for being on a farm next week.  So let's make things more complicated!  I am going to catch a train to Bangkok to get a bus to Krabi to play on the rocks and beach, then another couple buses to the farm for a week to then catch a few more buses back to Thailand to catch a train to Chiang Mai for the sole purpose of collecting my visa, then catch the train right back to Bangkok to finally catch a flight to India (a day past my legal stay in Thailand). The leisure of traveling without plans sometimes leads you into a strange mess of traveling, but I guess it's alright...I've got a visa (next week).

Toilets:  I don't mind the squat toilet that is typical of southeast Asia, and I don't even mind the water stream instead of toilet paper (like the spray nozzle of a kitchen sink). Except that I always think of drinking fountains.  You know how you don't really want to take a drink from the same spout that a small child has just made out with to get a few drops of water down...that thought alway crosses my mind when I think about using the water stream and I wish for a little bit of western comfort in the form of toilet paper.  Which often there is, but sometimes...

Beds: Once upon a time I spent the weekend with a friend who was just moving in.  In one room there was a bed not yet properly assembled, the box spring was hastily left on top of the mattress. After a small number of cocktails I deemed this box spring a good place to sleep and did not recognize it's discomfort (or my stupidity) until morning. The beds in Thailand have been comparable to that box spring, and I have not had enough cocktails every night to mask that discomfort.

Bugs: I have gotten spoiled in Denver with its lack of bugs that bite.  There are a lot of mosquitoes here.  I have been sleeping with a tube of antihistamine in hand for when I wake myself up sleep scratching.  

I wear bug repellant, but if you miss one tiny centimeter of skin they find it.  At least the city is not as bad as the jungle areas. 

I have not come across bed bugs (yet!), but I dream about them sometimes, and worry I can feel them crawling on my skin.

I went rock climbing the other day. The views were incredible, very green. I had really nice guides, but it was the kind of adventure that could have used a friend to rejoice and commiserate with.  Commiserate because some of the routes were f***ing difficult, and it's hard to motivate yourself to keep going after bruising your knees and cutting your hands to shreds on limestone.  Limestone is this lovely textured rock that provides excellent hand and foot holds.  Textured is a euphemism for jagged and sharp.  My poor little paws are still recovering, and I can't stop calling them paws in their pathetic, curled up, cut up, sore state. But I did make it up all 6 climbs...which brings me back to wishing I had a friend to rejoice with.  I know I sound like I am complaining, but I'm not.  I am well aware of how incredible it is that I had the chance to go rock climbing in Thailand!!

The food is still really cheap and delicious.  I am going to come home chubby.