Yea, so this whole waking up early thing is apparently more than a fad, and I was up and at em at 6:00 again. I worked on setting up my room, enjoyed the sunrise out my balcony, which looks out over what I have been calling the moonscape little more than a few glorified puddles flanked by bulldozer tracks and two inexplicable towers. Now whether these are air-traffic control towers for small sea planes set to land in the largest of the puddles, or just the most tempting potential tree house within a tin-can-phones distance of my balcony, is up for debate. Notwithstanding, apparently no less than one year ago the moonscape was the nicest golf course in Chaing Mai. Oh well. After watching to sunrise, I went for a run around my neighborhood, quickly getting lost among the maze of winding Sois, but finding some cool potential locations for shooting.
Thailand, like so many places in the world is overrun with stray dogs, or at least dogs that wander the street in packs, and one such pack obviously took offense at my attempt to jog down a specific Soi, and as a result my jog turned into a wind sprint for a few minutes. While finding my way backI knew I should have brought my astrolathe, but alas it would be terribly cumbersome to tie it into my shoelacesI was repeatedly thrown off course by particularly aggressive dogs barring the more productive paths, but things worked out alright and before long Pong Pin 1960s-Miami-style apartment building (straight out of Scarface, think taupe/mauve stucco) was within sight.
I read for a while, worked on my computer until the battery died, and then met two of my coworkers for lunch. After asking if I had had Pad Thai yet, Pee Ann barely waited a second after my negative response to tell me that she and Caitlin were craving farang(white people) food, and thats what we were having for lunch. This was my first experience on the East side of the city, which is much different, packed with travel agencies, tour companies, moped rentals, seedy “massage parlors” and farangs everywhere. We splurged for a meal of omelets and bagels toasted with cream cheesea welcomed nostalgic break for Caitlin, but a inferior homage to the bagel I had eaten on the plane just a few dozen hours agoand spent 3 dollars each for our meal.
As Anne and Caitlin went back to work (suckers!) I ventured out to see more of the city and to begin experimentation with Thailands equivalent of combis: red pick-up trucks in which people ride on parallel benches the in their covered beds, called sawng taews. Now most people know how much I love combis, but these sawng taews definitely give them a run for their money. So heres how I see it so far.
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Combis (pic) |
Sawng Taews (pic) |
| Death traps weaving through traffic, held together by little more than string and the combined hope of their passengers. | Heartily put together pick-up truck adaptations, whose progress seems slow when compared with the dozens of mopeds dodging through traffic. |
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Point; Combis for having more character |
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| The opposite of taxis, with fixed routes, you just have to get on and off as it suits your purpose. | More like shared cabs, you tell the driver where you want to go and he brings you there as it fits in with others requests. |
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Point: Sawng Taews |
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| The pricing of combis follows a complex mathematical model based on expected time traveled along a specific route, (Think DCs Metro) | Always the same price, regardless of destination, or time actually traveled before arriving there. (Think Bostons T or the NY subway) |
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Point: Combis for mathematical elegance |
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| Stop running after commuters come home in the evening, and if you do happen to get one late night, you may end up having guards with billy clubs restraining a homicidal driver (long story). | Run throughout the nightalthough there certainly are much fewerproviding a convenient and cheap way to get home. |
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Point: Sawng Taews |
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I took a sawng taew down to a street along Chiang Mai University, where tons of vendors set up stalls at night. We walked on for blocks, seeing all of the dining optionswith Caitlin providing subtitlesand accumulated a whole mass of plastic bags, each containing a dish prepared to order from a different stall. All told, this is how my meal took form:
A fried spinach/seaweed patty, cut into squares and doused in a sweet soy sauce.
An egg shaped fried ball of rice, broken up and tossed with thai basil, hot peppers, cabbage, scallions and lots of ginger.