So from now on I’m going to give updates in real time, and when I get the chance, I will complete the tale of the travels of Ian and Liebler. But at the moment I’m just going to try to stay in the present. And given the lack of comments on the last post, I imagine that it was simply too long to read recreationally, so I’ll keep this short
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With my visa run taken care of, I returned to Bangkok, exhausted but happy to be back at WE Bangkok, the hostel where I’ve spent so much time. I’m actually a legend there. I hold the record for most nights stayed, and I won a free beer for earning that record. Not only that, but my new Thai friend (Ton) who works at the hostel picked me up from the airport, and this was up when I arrived:
So cute.
I stayed 3 nights in Bangkok getting some affairs in order, then headed back up to Chiang Mai on yet another overnight bus. I arrived yesterday morning, and am staying at a very nice hostel called A Little Bird Guesthouse. When I say “very nice hostel,” I mean the place is clean, the people are friendly, and the beer is as cheap as it is at 7-11 (not that I have enough money for drinking). The bed was pretty uncomfortable, but at 100 baht ($3.25) a night, I think I’ll tough it out…
Last night I got shown around a bit by a Thai friend of a Thai friend: her name is Boom, and she knows Ton’s girlfriend, Noi, from some sort of nursing-related reason. The only problem with meeting up with a person who speaks little English is coordinating the meeting; it is difficult to communicate with someone who doesn’t know much English, and it is nearly impossible to do so on the phone. You would be surprised how far a little body language can go, not to mention the value of being able to see the other person’s mouth. She got my address in Thai from the guy that runs the hostel, then told me to meet her at 7-11.
Seem simple enough?
Nope. There are more 7-11s in any given square mile in Thailand than there are tie-dye clothes at a summer music festival. They’re everywhere. So I went to the closest one and, when I was unable to find her (surprise), handed my phone to the guy behind the counter and let him give her directions. Problem solver.
A few minutes later we went to dinner, and on a whim I ordered Tom Yum Gop, which is a spicy Thai soup with, brace yourself: Frog! Yes, I had had spicy frog soup, and liked it too. Frog is pretty excellent; legs that are something like really tender chicken, with parts of the body tasting a bit like a cross between fish and poultry. The only the only thing that got in the way of full enjoyment was the meat-to-bone ratio. I was also unable to eat the head… sorry guys, I guess I do have my limits; those little frog eyes looking up at me with that big frog smile was simply too much. I still felt good about it as a whole though, because even Boom did not want to eat the frog. That’s right, I eat stranger Thai food than Thai people do.
So after dinner we hopped on Boom’s motorbike and drove around town a bit, which included a tour of Chiang Mai University, which was quite a bit bigger than I expected. She brought me back around 9 and I had a good conversation with some Brits until 1 am, then I got some much needed sleep, given the fact that I got only about 2 or 3 hours of it on the bus the previous night.
Today I have been focusing on the job search (and writing this blog) and its going as I expected: no solid offers or interviews just yet, but I’m making calls and getting a better feel for what it’s going to take to get a job up here. I’m still optimistic despite a lack of truly productive calls or messages and some incorrect contact info from the interweb, we will see how long the optimism lasts.
Until next time, I love you all.
Still need a tag line…
Ian
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