thoughts over wires and wavelengths

From http://t.co/O3FyXmvR
By Amy Benson

When you go to Thailand, go north.

When you get to Chi­ang Mai, rent a motor­bike from an Eng­lish­man named Tony. He’ll tell you to bring it back any time. He’ll use the words, “when you’ve had your fill.”

Com­mence ready­ing your bike for your trip. It has gears, nat­u­ral­ly, but by no means is the thing the last word in motor­cy­cle excel­lence. It’s a scoot­er and you must resign your­self to this.

If you like, you can test the elas­tic­i­ty of your tie-downs or the perk­i­ness of the brakes or make sure it has gas in it or walk in a cir­cle around it pre­tend­ing to be look­ing into its road-worthiness.

They will smile curi­ous­ly at your oth­er­ness, your patience and skill at get­ting there an auto­mat­ic tick­et of entry into their town.
When you’re ready to start, drive up high­way 107 to get out of town. Soon, you will become soaked, cold, and blind­ed by rain. Find a thatch-roofed restau­rant in the mid­dle of nowhere and decide that you have locat­ed par­adise itself. The wait­ress is so friend­ly! The dish­ware so attrac­tive! The small bud­dha stat­ue in the cor­ner is vir­tu­al­ly the great­est work in all of Thai­land!

At some point, the skies will clear. Pull onto high­way 1095 and keep going north.

Before you reach Pai, con­grat­u­late your­self on your cho­sen mode of trav­el. Become entire­ly wrapped up in your supe­ri­or­i­ty to other trav­el­ers and their buses and their clean faces and their infe­ri­or photo oppor­tu­ni­ties. You are priv­i­leged. You are forg­ing your own path. You are real­ly begin­ning to under­stand Thai cul­ture in a mean­ing­ful man­ner, despite hav­ing been here for only two days.

You are almost hit by a pick-up truck while round­ing a moun­tain cor­ner. You are a lone­ly, arro­gant moron.

Drive to six guest­hous­es in Pai look­ing for a room. Notice the horde of tents pitched on the other side of the river and reeval­u­ate your accom­mo­da­tion search strat­e­gy. Park your bike, cross the bam­boo bridge away from the cen­ter of town, and find a plat­form and a thatch roof for rent for 50 baht a night.

Drink tea. Sleep.

When you’ve woken, attempt to do yoga on your plat­form. Ten min­utes into the ses­sion, while set­tling into a down­ward fac­ing dog stance, shove your foot through the wood and cre­ate a giant hole. Con­fess the deed to the pro­pri­etor. He’ll think you’re an ass­hole but will tell you his son can fix it.

Once he does, keep going north. Drive your motor­bike 40 kilo­me­ters more to Sop­pong. Find your­self in a small mar­ket town and see only one other tourist. Rent a cabin from a Thai woman and her Ger­man hus­band. Eat streusel cake.

When you go to Thai­land, ensure you have timed your trav­els such that when you wake the next day, it will be the king’s birth­day. You’ll be informed that gas sta­tions are always closed on the king’s birth­day and that every­one knows this.

Use the last of your gas to fol­low a Swiss trav­el­er 17 kilo­me­ters through the moun­tains to a small town where there may be some fuel.

Ask him before you leave where the gas is in case you get sep­a­rat­ed. He’ll reply that it’s “at the store in town.” Ask him which one. He’ll reply that there is only one store in town.

Fill up your bike.

Because of the man­ner in which you’ve come to be where you are — you’ve rent­ed a motor­ized vehi­cle with no cre­den­tials what­so­ev­er other than Tony ask­ing you if you can han­dle your­self, you’ve dri­ven for days on nar­row high­ways and through vil­lages with­out see­ing even a hint of some­thing that might sug­gest a speed limit — it’s easy to become con­vinced of a cer­tain law­less­ness to this place. You will begin to think of your­self and your back­pack and your bike and your rain jack­et as its own repub­lic, with its own cus­toms and laws and dis­po­si­tion.

Your repub­lic could be accused of being social­ist. It wel­comes immi­grants but does ask that they fill out a bit of paper­work first. It places a pre­mi­um on areas of the land where petrol can be obtained. It stops any­where a hot sweet pota­to is being roast­ed on the road­side.

When you go to Thai­land, meet an Aus­tralian named John. Stay in his guest­house and meet his Thai wife and their one-year-old grand­child. John will tell you about the time he came to Thai­land when he was 22 and didn’t leave for 30 years. He’ll tell you about trekking in the north dur­ing the ’80s and watch­ing Burmese vil­lagers flee across the bor­der with their belong­ings perched on their heads. He’ll tell you about the time the Thai gov­ern­ment accused him of mur­der.

When you go to Thai­land, drive as far north­west as you can. Drive until a Burmese sol­dier tells you not to any­more. Spend the night in Mae Hong Son. Spend anoth­er one. Drive on to Mae Chaem and won­der, on get­ting there, why it is that you have done this.

Begin attempt­ing to speak Eng­lish in a way that you believe even peo­ple who don’t speak Eng­lish will under­stand. Use sen­tences like, “you give bed” and “I take food.” This won’t work, but, unfor­tu­nate­ly, that fact won’t stop you.

You will begin to be defined by move­ment, your des­ti­na­tions mere­ly excus­es for a pro­gres­sion through the ter­rain. Stay any­where too long and you will have to move on. You will have no real con­cept of the next town, but you’ll be dri­ven by an intense need to get on the road. It’s what you do.

Pass­ing the last evi­dence of town­dom each morn­ing, into the unknown of the moun­tains, you’ll be over­come by a sense of rev­er­ence for the road. At the end of each day, you’ll hope for a town that believes in the lib­er­al dis­pens­ing of elec­tric­i­ty. The most sat­is­fy­ing entrances will be made at dusk, when you can still see the road with­out your head­light but when the lights of the town are vis­i­ble from the road before you get there. You’ll won­der if they sell cold beer there. If some­one will make food for you.

As you make your approach to the most remote vil­lages, you’ll be met with imme­di­ate accep­tance. They will smile curi­ous­ly at your oth­er­ness, your patience and skill at get­ting there an auto­mat­ic tick­et of entry into their town.

For the night, you will be a res­i­dent. You’ll walk the main street and peruse the mar­ket look­ing at fruit. Later, you’ll go to the “bar,” if there is such a place. You’ll lis­ten to con­ver­sa­tions you can’t under­stand. You’ll look into peo­ple’s faces and try to under­stand them that way instead.

Early in the morn­ing, you will put the belong­ings you’ve unpacked back into your dry­bag and strap it to the bas­ket on the front of your bike. You’ll put your money pouch and cam­era around your neck, two lay­ers of pants on your legs, and your back­pack on your back. You’ll sneak out of town before too many peo­ple are on the streets.

One morn­ing, you’ll end up back in Chi­ang Mai.