The Traveling Hutchu's: Thailand. We did it.

Kent and I thought we would avoid the whole Thailand affair while we were in southwest Asia. Anyone who calls themselves a backpacker travels Thailand and we're not the type to do the popular things just because that's what people do. HOWEVER... we loved Thailand, despite the massive hordes of tourists and the all-too-frequent sightings of old,white men with young, gorgeous Thai girls. There still is a lot to discover in Thailand, if you can accept that you won't be the one discovering it first.

We posted a video of the sleeping train to Bangkok. The Beds Master can fix a bunk bed or slam it away in under 3 minutes. Amazing. Too bad for Kent that in the Beds Master's haste, Kent's neck pillow was torn. Previously, they had not been friendly with one another, but actually noone was friendly with anyone (if that makes sense) since the air con in our train car with out of order. That's 15 sweaty hours, 8 of which we were supposed to be sleeping. We booked out hotel for the first night in Bangkok so we could come into town and rest. It had air con and a shower and some cable TV so we were feeling pretty good. Later in the evening, I noticed that our decorative bed runner had an unfortunately identifiable stain on it. It was from a previous patron's "One night in Bangkok, duh, duh, DUH. duh.duh-duh...." (ick- if you know what I mean). Kent to the rescue. He got us a new runner and free buffet breakfast in the hotel's restaurant. Does the end always justify the means? You be the judge.

We found another room for the rest of our 6 days in the Khaosan area, the backpacker zone. $5 per night, barred window, fan and shared bath... our usual modus operandi. We enjoyed travling up and down the river via river taxi. We visited temples and palaces and in the end of it all, we were totally exhausted. A 2-hour Thai massage brought some life back into our bones but we knew we needed some city respite. We think we managed to escape unscammed in Bangkok, but time will tell.

After Bangkok, we trained up to Chiang Mai and immediately hopped a minivan to a small placed called Pai. Pai has an incredible view of surrounding valleys and a plethora of streams and rivers. It's an ideal place for farming and permaculture in this area is really catching on. We stayed 6km south of the town, at TacomePai. It's a permaculturists paradise. You eat on bamboo trays, with bambook chopsticks and spoons and drink out of bambook cups. Sleeping under thatched roofs and atop bamboo framed beds. Please note the bambook theme. Lucky us, there was a workshop going on so we met people from all over the world. We also helped harvest the sticky rice!! That was one big goal for the trip. Rice. We also rented a motorbike and bombed around the mountain ridges and valleys in our off time, of which there was plenty.

Free buffet breakfast.

We'll take away many lessons from our ThaiTime, like the cheap stuff in SE Asai is the cheapest in Bangkok and at the best quality. And like, BYOB (bring your own bedding... which we did). And like, Japanese Hippies are super AWESOME!! We met a few JH families in the northern Thailand area and I now belive that we are meant to dwell with JH for the rest of our lives. Evan or Julia, if/when you work in Japan, you know what souviner I want most. A whole village of Japanese Hippies, please.