We show up at the restaraunt where we booked our bus tickets. We set our bags down in front of the closed shop next door and sit down on the side walk. Morgan heads to get some snacks for the bus trip, always a necessity, and I pull out the guitar and start strummin away. One of the lady's at the restaraunt asks where we're going and looks a little confused when I tell her Bangkok. The owner of the restaraunt asks us the same, and looks a little worried and mad when he realizes there are three of us, and from what I can gather he only booked two tickets, or none, or something. Morgans getting a little worried, Quincy has no idea what's going on, and I don't care, I'm just sitting on the sidewalk playing guitar. About an hour after we are supposed to get picked up, the lady who we booked the tickets from shows up, and looks at us confused asking "where are you going?"
"Bangkok"
"Oh" she says, pulls out her phone, turns around and walks away.
The main mode of cheap transportation in Chang Mai is a thing called a Song Tao, or Two Bench. It's a pickup truck with an open camper on the back and two benches in it. a good hour and a half after we were set to leave, a Song Tao shows up full of people and luggage, so we gracefully squeeze ourselves and our luggage in, or on as the case may be, as I calmly explain to Quincy that this is the bus we will be riding for the next 14 hours. He didn't think it was very funny. The Song Tao pulls into a deserted dirt parking lot just outside the city limits and stops next to the only bus waiting there. We off load and get on the bus. It's a decent Thai bus, and we get blankets cause it's a night bus and they usually crank up the A/C. Two more full Song Tao's arrive and we depart. Within 5 minutes of leaving, we hear a guitar coming from below us....Morgan's convinced it is his being played by the guy in the luggage area. We take off and pretty soon, they turn the A/C off and let the inside of the bus reach about a million degrees. They turn the A/C on for about 5 minutes to cool it off and tease you a little bit, then back off again. My body really doesn't know what to think. I've got a cough, a headache, a fever, the tempurture outside is about 95 degrees, I've been going in and out of air conditioned buildings all day, and the tempurture on the bus is fluctuating faster than a frat boys on super bowl sunday. The staff on the bus waits untill they see that everybody has just fallen asleep so they can turn the bright lights on, pull into a bus station and kick us off the bus, barely letting us know that we're changing busses. More confusion, hysteria, and some food for me, and another, slightly more decrepit bus pulls up next to ours. You would think we would be adding to the people on the other bus to fill it up, but no, just for entertainment our two parties are swapping busses. I stand and watch as the bags all get pulled out and set on the ground, then the mass confusion of what bags go where etc... untill they finally close the luggage door, and my bag is one of the only two still sitting outside of a bus. I get it in and get on the bus. I'm sitting on the bus staring blankly out the window and I notice the guy pull my bag out of the baggage compartment as if to put it on the other bus. I tap on the window and start pointing to myself. He probably thought I looked like a self important ape, but he got the message and put it back on the bus. Two minutes later they pulled it back off, to repeat the whole scherade again, and put it back on.
On this bus the AC works more consistently, but there are no blankets. I finally manage to fall asleep about 15 minutes before we enter the city limits of Bangkok and they again turn on the bright lights. We got to Bangkok in morning rush hour traffic and the drive to our drop off point takes over 2 hours in stopped traffic. Of course, were inside the city limits, so even though the bus ride is 2 hours from over, they have to turn on the lights and wake everyone up. The bus is supposed to take us to Koh San Road, the backpackers central of Bangkok, and the drop off point where the bus stops is a 2 lane road on the side of a massive mess of roads going everywhich way, and they just let us out in the middle of it. If you didn't know the area already, you'd be fucked. This perticular road doesn't even resemble Koh San and no directions or help is offered. When we get off the bus our bags are waiting for us in the dirt. We grab them and head down the little brick alley to the guest houses we want to stay at. It's about 7:30 in the morning and it's normally hard to find a guest house room before 9:00 when people have checked out and the maids have cleaned the rooms. We luck out and find a nice cheap room at the second guest house we try.
About 6 hours later when I wake up I head to Nee's internet shop to say hi and wander across ma. They're there alright and we head for some coffee and the re-meeting de-briefing of recent events that always happens whenever some of us leave then hook up again. Ma's heard snipits of one night in chang mai that was interesting, so I chime right into the story.........
It's 4:00 or so in the afternoon. I'm bored so I call my friend to see whats up. He says he's not going out that night, so I suggest we go get some food.
great, where do you want to eat?" he says
"I don't know, where's good?" I reply
I'm sure he's thinking, you bastard, put it on me to pick where to eat cause he quickly reply's with O'Maleys, the place we ate at yesterday. About twenty minutes later I head out to meet him at the restaraunt and as I walk into the crowded chaos of the night bizzarr, coming straight at me from the opposite direction is my friend. We stop there, and I tell him I'd rather go to another place he had suggested the other day with great burgers. We sit down at the place, and pretty quick he explains to me, that if I see his girlfriend here, don't be supprised and just ignore her, cause the owner of this place is a good friend of her boyfriends. Why we're eating here, I don't know, but he doesn't care. A couple of minutes after he mentioned this to me, guess who shows up. That's right. My friends girlfriend with her other boyfriend. They chat for a minute, then she takes off. Within seconds we've payed the bill and gone to have a drink.
We stop at a place called the Elephant Cafe and the first thing I notice is a girl who was hitting on me in my friends bar. We sit down and play some pool, and a couple of drinks later we take off. We decide to hit up one more place that I haven't been to yet, so I stop at the house to get my other friends, but there not around. I leave them a note and take off. The foxy Lady is a gogo bar like any other. As soon as we sit down my friend has eyed his favorite girl in the room, the stunningly gorgeous surly waitress, who could dance better than all the chicks on stage. She won't even give him the time of day. A couple of other girls come over and climb into our laps, so we buy them drinks. Somehow I have attracted the drunkest girl in the bar (a running theme with me, either drunk or crazy, the crazy ones are more fun), who while trying to dance/gyrate on my lap, has slammed her shoulder into my chin, and the back of my head into the mirror several times. I'm very relieved when she goes to dance again on stage. My friends girl has pissed off cause he said he's got no money, i.e. the magic leave me alone phrase in these places. He's still going for the waitress. At this point my friends show up, and take a seat. One of them sits down and is instantly quiet and awe struck watching the girls. Somehow he is the only person i have ever met that can go into a bar like this and leave without spending any money. Bastard. My other friend got stuck with the only one who didn't speak any english, and recently had surgery on her stomach, although we couldn't even find out what for (usually a guess is good enough). After a while, finally my friend gets the attention of his waitress and gets a quick conversation out of her. Her surly attitude and ignoring him have got him eating out of the palm of her hand, and right as he is about to go to the bar and talk to her, we notice a police officer walk into the club. M's a little freaked, and I start cracking up laughing as the police officer walks directly over and kisses the waitress. My friends jaw drops as the lead settles into his stomach that her real boyfriend is a cop, and that's why she wasn't talking so much. He takes off, and not letting anything sway him, my friend walks over and talks to her. She explains he's not really her boyfriend, he goes around to all the bars, etc.. My other friend lays an off hand comment about the cops waiting outside, and a few minutes later, the cop walks back in with his partner. Our girls have come back and fucked off at this point, and once the cops are gone, we take off to get some food.
About 6 hours later, we are sitting around at the guest house learning how to mack in thai. Me and M head off to see our favorite Jazz trio in BKK. Quincy goes dancing with the girls. The small blues bar is packed as always. The trio is playing, but with a different drummer and a couple of guests. Ma asks and gets me up on the mic to jam for a couple of tunes. We head back to Ma's room to have another one of our famous GH parties. In the middle Morgan tries to leave and Sandy woes him into staying by offering ritz crackers and peanut butter. Morgan eats a couple and says
"There's no msg or fresh vegitables in these, this is making me soooooo happy!!!"
We find some chocolate and make ourselves makeshift smores.
At around 3 in the morning I take off to go find the crew and party with them for a while before I leave. Morgan and Quincy are there with a few extras they picked up at the club. The center of attention is this little girl named Nicki, who is plastered and louder than shit. She had too much to drink and fell asleep, so we kicked it for a while longer untill the group slowly dissapated.
It's 12:15. We just checked out of our hotel, and walk to Nee's internet shop to drop off a couple of things. We should be rushing to a taxi and going straight to the airport to catch our 2:35 flight to Macau, but we decide to eat first. Our food takes forever and we end up leaving Banglumpoo at 1:00. It's normally an hour ride to the airport, and we are flying internationally. We get to the airport at 1:45, find our check in counter, and there's no one in line. So far so good. We stick our bags on the check luggage plate, I hand the lady my printout and my passport, Quincy grabs his passport, and Morgans fucked off to the bathroom. Great. He shows back up right as we are finishing and gets his bording pass as well. The plane is bording in 10 minutes and we still have to go through customs and security, so what do we do? Quincy goes outside to smoke 2 ciggarrettes, Morgan gets something to drink, and I sit down and talk to a group of students at the airport trying to improve their english. We meet up again and head through exit customs, security, all with no lines and head towards our terminal. When we arrive the line is about 30 people long and final call is flashing in red on the board. Impecable Thia timing as always. We walk through the gate to a bus terminal. Alright. We hop on the crouded bus with no seats, and stand there for a while waiting for the inside of the bus to heat up beyond the 10,000 degrees it already is so we can leave. About 5 other people get on and we take off. The driver starts weaving in and out of the runways, seemingly looking for our plane going, "I know I parked it around here somewhere?!?!?!" We arrive at our 737-300 and every makes a mad dash for the plane. I decide to look at my ticket to check my seating and notice I'm in seat: ___. Great. Either a monkey checked me in, or it's free seating. I was hoping for the monkey, but it's free seating. Most of the people on the plane have a row of 3 seats to themselves cause the plane is mostly empty, and I take a row of luxurious leather seats all to myself. I just wish I was a midget. As most everything else hear, the spacing is Thai sized. The seats may be comfortable, but theres shit for room. I've always loved flying in a 737 cause on take off, it actually feels like your taking off. There small little planes with a good amount of power, and a lot of accelleration on the runway. The flight was boring, but the plane empty so it was comfortable.
Destination: Macau.
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