Over eggs and toast the Canadian girl and I helped Suntan with his hostel brochure. He and his sister made up the backbone of Chiang Dao’s tourism industry, and Suntan wanted to stay on top. “Mafia,” he kept saying. The brochure, written by some prior guest, was full of cheesy adjectives, relying heavily on the … Continue reading Chinese New Year in Akha Village
I awoke in the hostel bed. It was on the ground enshrouded by a mosquito net. I walked downstairs to the kitchen and made coffee using one of those chrome Italian percolators. I scrambled four eggs in the wok and ate that with toast and some mushrooms and morning glory leftover from the night before. … Continue reading Chiang Dao (Part II)
I stayed up too late so when the birds started chirping outside my hotel room window at 8 A.M. I knew it was going to be a day. And yet I was filled with excitement and nervousness about my upcoming scooter ride. I took a long shower and set off in search of my hotel’s … Continue reading Chiang Dao (Part I)
I’d heard rumors from other travelers that certain bars in Thailand sell mushroom smoothies, or as they’re colloquially known, “happy shakes”. Because they were freely given out to tourists, I expected them to be only mildly hallucinogenic. This turned out to be a serious underestimation. The mushrooms in my shake were fresh-picked and thus at … Continue reading Pai (Part II)
After about four hours of climbing twisty mountain roads, we reached Pai. We pulled onto a market street thick with tourists. The van had to crawl through the endless stream of people eating street food and shopping for linen pants before pulling into the station and setting us loose. I was not in the mood … Continue reading Pai (Part I)
I took a public bus from the airport to the city center, which was crawling with tourists, many of whom were backpackers. I was famished and stopped at a street side food market and ordered pad thai. I ate it with chopsticks while observing all the other travelers as they did what I was doing: … Continue reading Chiang Mai
Within an hour of my plane landing I was sweltering in a crowded bus headed into downtown Bangkok. Only four hours on a plane and I was in a place that doesn’t know cold. My body had been adapting to winter at a natural, gradual pace as the Pacific Northwest gently moved away from the … Continue reading Bangkok
The cheapest route I could find to Asia was a nonstop flight from Seattle to Shanghai. On the day of my departure my mother drove me to the subway station. We hugged and then I turned and began my day-long journey to China. I didn’t sleep at all during the 11-hour flight. After we landed, … Continue reading Shanghai
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