Ari's Planet

Today I traveled from Phitsanoluk to Chang Mai in the north of Thailand. This is a jumping-off spot for exploring the hill tribes and other adventures. After my free breakfast of tea and toast, butter, and jam, I took the taxi from the hostel (60 B) to the bus station and hopped on the 10:00 bus to Chang Mai (242 B). A few stops later, including snacks and water (90 B) we arrived at Chang Mai at 17:00. On the way I kept on reading the incredible book Voss by Patrick White. What an author. I can't speed read this book, and it's not just the bumps in the road, it's the wonderful way in which White wrote, which is both challenging and fun. I'm just a quarter of the way into the book, with Voss being sent off on the start of his journey, and it is becoming one of my favorite books, as fun to read as Nadine Gordimer and a few other select authors. At the bus station I took a shared taxi (20 B), walked up to Soi 9 to try and find a place recommended in LP as not bugging guests about trekking, but they were full so I settled on OK Guest House (150 B / night, shared bathroom), which is really jusk ok, but the room has a fan, bars on the window, and the screens were intact. They show movies like Little Miss Sunshine and Dejavu.

The weather is much less humid here, a bit cooler too. A little stroll took me past the small market where vendors were wrapping things up for the day. Various food stuffs, fruit, fish, frogs. The fish's gills were exposed to show the fresh, bright red flesh. The frogs were partially skinned, again to show their fresh flesh. I had a yummy dinner of rice, veggies, cashews, and tofu at a vegetarian restaurant and practiced saying "a roy mahk" (that was delicious) in my terrible accent, but it elicited a smile from the owner. There are so many tourists here. The stalls sell all the usual world news papers, all decrying the end of something by some disastrous means, how I did not want to see this particular filth. Stopped by a place offering treks, will investigate and pick something to do around here.