We heard about Khaosan road from a friend we met in Invermere who gave us a business card for the D&D Hotel in Bangkok. He called it the Dragons and Dungeons, but it's actually called the Dang and Derm. Not sure if those are names or polite swearwords, but at 1100 bahts a night it proved to be pretty comfortable for our first few nights of culture shock. The shower worked well enough, the room was clean, and there was no Claude van Damme dubbed in Cantonese showing on channel 44. That may not mean much to you, but it's important to me, so I thought I'd mention it.

Khao San road, which you may have noticed is now spelled differently than above, is only a long city block in total in an area of Bangkok about a 100 baht taxi ride from the upscale shopping district of this city of 15,000,000 people. Its location could be described more accurately by someone who knows the city, but that would be a different person than the one writing about Khaosarn road in this blog, so if you really need to know, google it. Try any of the spellings used so far or make up a new one, I'm sure it'll work.

We arrived here during the so-called peak season, on January 3rd. Or 4th (we seem to have lost a day somewhere between Vangroovy and Hong Kong!). Picture this: 10,000 hawkers of bootleg t-shirts, CD's DVD's designer watches phones shoes jeans, food stalls, beer stalls, 7-11's, and every few feet there's a guy who calls me "boss" and tells me I'd look good in a suit. These touts may or may not be from India, and although friendly enough, they are pushy, and there's a lot of them! Truth be told, the suits do look pretty darn natty, and at anywhere between 2000 and 6000 baht, way cheaper than Savile Row. Maybe before I leave...      Khao Sarn Road boasts about 25 bars in its short length, and they'll serve anyone, it seems, from practically daybreak to, well, almost daybreak. At night when the street is wall to wall humanity, not many cars or scooters attempt to navigate it, but that's not a hard and fast rule.

But I really started this blog not so much to describe Kaosan as to tell you about the blind musicians who make their way up and down this carnival-like street hour after hour, singing into mics plugged into amps they carry strapped around their necks. We saw two of them, one a man and the other a woman, but the real star was the guy. His amp, which looked homemade, hung in front of him and had a mixer whose knobs he occasionally adjusted as he shuffled very slowly, one flip-flopped foot touching the back of the other at about .2 kilometers per hour. The music he sang to was Thai, sort of minor-key ballady stuff, probably some sort of karaoke CD, and he had this angelic voice that a week later I still have floating around my head. Next time we go through Bangkok we'll film him if he's still there, and I'd bet he will be. His plastic cup was always ringing with coin, and I wouldn't be surprised if he made a pretty good living.  ***KHAOSAN ROAD***

Woke up today unsure of what day it actually was. We lost a day somewhere along the way from there to here, but it doesn't seem to matter. We'll catch up bit by bit.
This morning we took our first tuk-tuk ride..sorry I'm being distracted by a kitten that has just discovered that getting pets is a good thing.. the tuk-tuk was a crazy great experience. The driver, Mr K, was associated with the Tourist Association of Thailand, and therefore pretty much on the up and up.
There was the obligatory stop at a tailor shop who gives him a kickback for delivering potential customers, so we obliged by oo-ing and awe-ing over the gorgeous bolts of cloth while pretending to consider the idea of tailored clothing until we figured the show had gone on long enough. Back in the tuk-tuk to visit some buddhist temples, release some birds for good fortune and happiness, help a Thai teacher practice his english (who incidentally gave us some great advice, and confirmed a scam or two to be aware of that I'd read about on line), and on to the T.A.T. - the Tourist Association of Thailand, where we booked our tickets south to the islands, thereby avoiding one of the major scams in Bangkok which is an unbelievably cheap ticket possibly followed by a drugging on the bus and the loss of all your stuff. The tickets are cheap because the price is supplemented by the theft of all your possessions.
Crime exists the world over, and the old adage that if it's too good to be true..well, it's too good to be true. As it turned out, the T.A.T., a government sanctioned entity, exists to increase and safeguard tourists. It doesn't hurt that the King has just issued a few billion baht to help increase tourism after a rather shaky few months in the eyes of the world.. a messy governmental coup, the airport shut down by political agitators, and the economy handcuffed by the unrest, not to mention the global meltdown.
We definitely benefited by the King's release of funds into the tourism industry as our next venture down south falls into the grey area of quotas and other mystery tourist incentives.
By the time Mr K delivered us to the MBK, a massive 7 storey complex of electronica - and more - in downtown Bangkok, we were almost glowing from the tuk-tuk experience whose total cost was 40 baht. We gladly over-tipped and gave him 100 baht. We were happy/he was happy.
At the MBK, we found a Sierra 880E aircard (probably overpaid - such is life), got hooked up with Dtac (think AT&T or Telus), and for 999 bahts per month we have unlimited access anywhere a cell phone works in Thailand, which is pretty much everywhere. We tried to find a portable firewire external drive at the MBK, but a lot of looking and asking proved that it was not to be found there. The kind folks at Dtac suggested that we'd find it at a place called Pantip Plaza. We figured another tuk-tuk ride would get there cheap and quick.

This is when we discovered that there's a big difference between T.A.T. affiliated tuk-tuk drivers and your regular joe tuk-tuk driver. Pantip Plaza was approximately 5 kilometers from the MBK Plaza, given the price and distance of our morning's tuk-tuk ride, we thought that 50 baht should be more than reasonable, so we went out onto the street to flag down a tuk-tuk and negotiate a price. Our new tuk-tuk guy said 25 baht would get us there.

Perfect.

And it was all perfect until he pulled over after about 2 kilometers and started to re-negotiate the price at 250 baht.

Perfection ended with us arguing, suggesting that a conversation with the police was in order and we hopped out of his tuk-tuk seriously steaming. The steam built as we realized we were in some kind of no man's land, with a crisscross of expressways literarily all around and above us. Off in the distance, we spied a pedestrian overpass, and we both thought the grass looked greener on the impossible-to-cross other side of the road. Still steaming we trudged towards the overpass and found a taxi stand on the other side. The taxi driver took us for oafs and gave us the price of 250 baht.

God damn it, now we were really getting pissed off mad. Didn't know where we where, couldn't find a ride to the Pantip Plaza without getting ripped off, and couldn't cross the street without getting killed.

The Karma Cops took pity on us and sent us Rossilamn, a genuinely wonderful Thai woman, who under the guise of practicing her english, set us straight, filled us with the affirmation that most people are good, armed us with a map, and after exchanging email addresses, helped us cross the impossible street headed in the right direction. The remainder of the steam evaporated as we walked the 2 kilometers back to the MBK Plaza and got in a cab, paying a proper price for the ride, and found ourselves delivered tot the Pantip Plaza in one piece with no steam emitting from our ears.

The Pantip Plaza is a computer geek's paradise, a veritable Disneyland of hardware/tech glitter stuffed into 7 or 8 floors of pure WOW. Within 5 minutes we had our firewire external hard drive and were back out on the street before blowing our year's budget on assorted techno gak. The price of the external drive made up for the price of the aircard (sort of..), and our goal was to find a reasonably priced cab back to Khaosan road. Once more, the Karma Cops smiled on us, and soon we were back in our little pad to drop off our new gear, and out onto the street for a plate of Pad Thai and spring rolls, followed by fresh papaya and pineapple.

So now, we're connected to the net, full on great food, and people- watching on the little crazy strip that is the Khaosan road.

It's really hopping tonight, which makes the idea of an island in the gulf of Thailand seem even more appealing. Khaosan road is a delightful experience, but it wears a little thin by day 3.

I look forward to leaving Bangkok almost as much as I look forward to returning to it.

Tomorrow, it's a tour through chinatown, and a night train down to Suri Thani, followed by a ferry ride to Koh Phagnan.

Forgive my spelling of Thai words, especially of the city or street names, they are spelt differently every time I see them.. same same (only different).
      

Leaving vancouver on the 20th of december was stressful intense.

We only slept for 1 1/2 hours over 48 hours to get it all done. We managed to shut the door of our 5x5 lock up with ted using his feet and legs to push the door while i rammed the lock closed. Quite a feat.

Another door closed on an era.

We left our keys on the counter of  our condo for the new owner and set off in our over-stuffed car amidst a paralyzing (for Vancouver) snow storm. We headed through the city picking up the last bits and pieces of gear, the second laptop, an apogee audio interface, logic studio8, abelton live, and finally hit the highway to begin the odyssey of  making it to Invermere,  bc.

A 12 hour ride on a greyhound bus to our destination seemed a wiser choice than a risky ride in our ancient beamer. We also looked at the bus ride as a practice for our long flight to Bangkok Thailand.<br/> We arrived in Golden, bc, and were met by my Mom and my brother Tim who brought us south to the town of Invermere (mom's home town since leaving Quebec 1992).

A quiet and wonderful christmas in the heart of the Rocky mountains, crisp cold beautiful.

After an awesome turkey diner, and a musical jam giving mom  a quick djembe lesson, my brother lit a massive bonfire from pine and spruce boughs.
Watching the flames reach skyward, sparks dancing against the frozen night's sky, thinking about the spirit of people, the wonder of winter, and the warm beaches awaiting us in Thailand.

Another long bus ride through yet another snow storm got us back to Vancouver and closer to the airport and our immanent
departure for the other side of the world. A fuzzy new year's day saw us packing our bags for a year on the road.

One more snow storm on the night before our plane took off  set us on our way with the memory of sugar coated trees bending over the highway . A magical 4 wheel drive ride from George and Wendy got us to the airport with enough time to buy online travel insurance, online banking, and do some emails and phone calls to friends and family before starting our odyssey in asia.

We arrived in Hong Kong after a 14 1/2 hour flight out of Vancouver. It would seem that  the airline saved their most uncomfortable claustrophobic seats especially for us, between two big guys who's elbows extended well past the invisible boundary.

Hong Kong was a fabulous experience, super clean and polite, helpful people and surprise surprise most of them speak english. We wandered around Kowloon for about 8 hours,  both of us in that state of punchy exhaustion. <br/>We sat in a few different out of the way spots for a beer. I seem to remember drinking Sol and eating nachos, and later an irish pub ..? Sometime during the night we sat on the steps of of beautiful mosque in downtown Kowloon and played our little martin while a night rain threatened but it never really fulfilled it's  promise. We wandered some more and found a promenade along the waterfront, a bronze statue of Bruce Lee in the foreground, the island of Hong Kong sparkling across the water behind him.

Huge billboards of Jackie Chan on downtown buildings gave us flashbacks of getting to know Jackie quite well when he was in Vancouver shooting "Rumble in the Bronx". At that time, none of us had a clue who he was.. i got to know him in an accidental way when i needed help clearing set dec and props off the street in a time sensitive 3 minute window. I saw a guy not doing anything and asked him to help me. He looked astonished, but smiled and gave me a hand moving a bike rack and some other stuff, then sauntered away grinning like a cheshire cat after I thanked him for his timely help. Within moments I was swarmed by the chinese portion of the crew, asking me if I was crazy- did i know who that was..?, and so on.. that's how I met Jackie.. from then on I had a new friend on the crew who happened to be the main star, the unspoken director, and editor of the film. He was always very gracious and kind, and a fabulous host of many impromptu late night parties that he hosted throughout the next three months of shooting. I became his do-wop girl at many a karaoke party, and enjoyed the spirit of this very unusual man... so wandering around Kowloon where he still graces many a billboard campaign was refreshing, and fun to realize that if we had thought to bring his number he'd come collect us in some sexy fast sports car and whisk us off on a tour of his home and a night on the town. As it was, his number is probably sitting on a piece of paper deep and dusty within the hold of our 5x5 u-store lock up back in Vancouver.    
 I'm not really sure what day it it is - my computer thinks it's sunday but i know it's monday or possibly/probably tuesday.

Today we tried to get our own modem so that we're online whenever whatever. We came so close.. but with a little more research tonight I think we'll be golden tomorrow. 

We wandered around bangkok last night, still punchy easy exhausted,  through back alleys along the city's river, a left turn here a right turn there, feels like a safe city to wander around in - no ones too pushy, generally, most folks are kind and polite.

Saw a billboard on a bus with the sentence "perishable beauty".. its poetic truth is swilling through my brain and I've no doubt it will find its way into our music. Tomorrow we'll solve our connectivity issues and then one more night in Bangkok before heading to the islands in the south, and a quiet life of create/relate and mastering some of our
 new programs.

So..cheers from Moscow fish as we sit on Khoasan road (between dueling stereos - EminEm / Joan Armitrading) sipping a cold Chang, feeling the spirit of this pace slide into our bones.