Songkrahn Holiday Part 1

As the mercury rises in April, waterguns go on sale all over thailand. These are signs of the impending songkrahn holiday and more importantly a week long break from school.
Songkrahn started out as a holiday that involved sprinkling water as a blessing on the elderly. It has progressed into and all out country wide water battle.

Combined with the redshirt unrest, mass transit to the northern provinces was packed with people going north for the festivals and to return to thier hometowns. This forced the group I was heading north with to take the dreaded Khao San buses.

I usually go to bus depots to book my buses. You go there, tell someone where you want to go, they direct you to a ticket counter. usually in less than an hour the bus leaves ontime (within 20 minutes of schedule) and you have a reserved seat on the bus, and the bus arrives at the bus station in the city you are going to.
Khao San buses on the other hand are for transporting backpackers and tourists who dont do enough research to find where the bus depots go. In this case we were some of the stupid who didnt book in advance. A shame to end up like the backpacker hoards that I both am part of and resent.

The travel agency says 'the bus leaves at 6' that does not mean the bus leaves at six. haha. of course not. That means show up at the travel agency at 6. at 6:30 someone will direct the group of people to follow him. He will then go to a few other travel agencies on Khao San to pick up more backpackers. By 7 he has the whole group and walks everyone to a curbside waiting place. Hopefully at 8 the bus will arrive. Fearful that the bus is overbooked everyone rushes to get a seat and creates an annoyingly pointless bottleneck at the bus door.

The ride is no worse than a normal bus ride...expect there are no thai people. Please excuse this next rant on why i have grown to resent the average backpacker. Actually, ill do an impression.
"Oi, names Jim. I'm either from Australia or western Europe. Ive been traveling for about 5 months now. Yeah Ive been to lots of cool places and met tons of cool people. Oh yeah I met these Swedes in Cambodia, and some great Brits in Laos. Have you been to the Full Moon Party? oh you gotta check it out, its wild. Nah, I havent met any Thai people really. Oh, thailand? been here about 3 weeks now, but Ill be leaveing soon to go to Veitnam. yeah im going to meet more Europeans while im there and gawk out the bus window at real people. Oh I'm booking my trip through a group tour thing. its too hard to travel like the locals. I mean, i would have to think for myself and might encounter situations that arnt listed in my Lonely Planet. Thats just outside of my comfort zone. Oh hey, do you have 30 minutes. I want to tell you about all the things i did that ill use to impress people at home."

Now i know that ive not been the greatest traveler, but its no surprise that lots of locals laugh behind the backs of backpackers. (in fact some do it right in front of them, they just speak the local language). I know that my experience in a foreign country is more of an immersion type, that some people just cant do. But the whirlwind trips that so many people take while traveling and 'seeing the world' are just to collect stamps on the passport and find the best spots that other foreigners party. and if you only see the world with the people that you had at home, why the hell did you come? I understand that sometimes all someone has time to do in a country is see a few of the tourist attractions...but if all you ever do is see tourist attractions and not actually experience the country, then you shouldnt have wasted the money coming. There are great coffeetable books that have real nice pictures.

(i think its my greatest fear that next time i travel abroad ill end up like the hoards that i bemoan)
Some loud people who were apparently in med school sat behind us. They were proud that they had finished a bottle of Hong Thong (a thai whisky) in two hours. We laughed at them for being amateurs. (no, i dont drink that heavily, but we were pretty certain that it was the taste of rice whiskey that slowed them down). Also, when they talked medicine...well lets just say I really hope they never graduate med school because they sounded like malpractice suits waiting to happen. And when they talked about thailand...simply ignorant of anything that was going on or the culture. I never bothered correcting them. I doubted they had the intelegence capacity to remake the neural connections needed to change a thought.

The other problem with Khao San buses is that they dont go to the bus station. Our bus stopped in a gas station on the outskirts of Chaing Mai. There was of course an overpriced Songtau waiting for the backpackers to get out of the bus and need a ride into town. I dont play that game. its simple logic that the rates would be jacked up for a bunch of white people getting off a bus and needing a ride. So I didnt give a second glance to the driver trying to get me in his vehicle, and walked over to the road. There was a driver parked there. I asked him his rate and asked him to take ten baht off of it. Then I walked over and told my friends the rate i had got and they all came over and got in, but not before the rip-off driver tried lowering his price to match, but his truck was already crowded, so we went with the honest businessman and let all of the other backpackers realize that they were being taken for a ride. (Hey, i cant save everyone).

We had our driver take us to the bus station and then looked for tickets to the town of Pai. We found one that left in a few hours and bought tickets on that bus. We then were pretty hungry, having not had breakfast yet. in the mood for Khao phat gai (fried rice and chicken) we asked a nearby tuktuk driver where the best was and he directed us to a nearby restaurant. And it was quite yummy