The trip from Bangkok to Cambodia was supposed to take about 4 days and it’s taken me… 8? 9?  I can’t even keep track anymore.  But alas, I’m here, just a few km outside the Thai-Cambodia border and have eaten monsterous quantities of Thai street food.  My stomach protests audibly but I’ll ignore it for now in order to give all y’all an update.

Let’s see - the first day and a half was pretty uneventful and kinda crappy.  Took a train to just outside Pattaya (to avoid the suburbs of Bangkok) and biked along a busy highway with lots of exhaust fumes.  Second day was much more of the same but I was able to turn off the main road onto this beautiful tree-lined path that skirts the coast and on to Ban Phe.  Stopped to have lunch and talk to this old Thai man.  Our conversation consisted of pointing to our tattoos and explaining what they meant.  We didn’t understand a word the other person spoke, but it made my day.

Next day I woke up bright and early after getting no sleep because of a crazy thunderstorm the night before.  The air was cool and I hoped to get some good riding in before the sun got too intense.  I had to get back on the main road for a couple hours, but quickly darted onto the next available small road and in a few minutes, I was blissfully lost.  The sounds of traffic died down, and I finally was able to look up and enjoy the scenery.  I rolled into a small foodstand and used one of the only useful phrases from my Thai book.  “I’m hungry!  Anything will do.”  Everyone laughed and I got to eat a delicious bowl of noodles.  Next thing I know, the local English teacher from the nearby elementary school is asking me if I want to speak to her students and stay with her for a couple of days.  “Sure, why not!” I say.  We go to her place to drop off my gear and am followed by group of boys laughing and yelling, and trying to race me there! 

I spent the next few days there speaking to the students during in their classrooms.  It was really hard and a little discouraging at first, because I was trying to teach them something but couldn’t get any points across.  I was talking to my Mom about it after the first day and she said it was mostly important that the kids got a feel for speaking to a native English speaker, and see that “Hey, this language that I’m learning I can ACTUALLY use to speak to other people”.  So with that in mind, the  next day was much easier.  The English teacher, Pe Pe, was amazingly kind and generous.  She gave me a place to stay, fed me, helped me find a place to stay in Ko Chang…  She wanted to build a coffee house outside the school so the evenings were spent with many of the teachers, eating food (prepared at school) and drinking with the construction workers putting up the coffee house.  I really liked that slowed-down pace of things.

Anyway, went to Ko Chang afterwards. The 10km ride along the coast of the island has some of the most grueling hills I’ve ever climbed… the pictures say it all, really.  I did them the first time near dusk, and tourists and locals would be cheering for me as I huffed it up the hills, and look in awe as I screamed pass the buses on the downhills.  I couldn’t help but smile the whole way.  I was only going to stay 2 nights but ended up spending 6.  Yikes!  I blame it on a combination of beatiful beaches, heat stroke, exhaustion, Swedish and Norwegian girls, and not knowing which way I would travel.  Met some great people, and the beaches are truly fantastic.

Today the first 50km or so were depressing.  Rather, I was slightly depressed.  I can’t place a finger on it but I suspect it’s from being too long on Ko Chang (essentially one big tourist island) and the crappy traffic I had to deal with.  It’s odd, but the only times I’ve ever  been lonely are in Bangkok and Ko Chang, both tourist hot spots.  When I’m alone on my bike or in a small little city, not at all.  Anwyay.. after passing through the town of Trat the traffic dwindled and the roads turned to rolling hills, with the ocean to my right and lush jungle to my left.  I was back in my groove and smiling all the way!  Buddhist monks would smile and wave, and kids on scooters would holler and (I suspect) cheer me on.

Tomorrow morning I cross over into Cambodia where I believe my Thai phone will cease to work, so it’ll be email/blog from here on in.

That’s the name of the Thai phrase book I bought for $3.  “Deal!”, I thought.  Wrong.  The book is filled with the most delightfully useless phrases, and almost no useful ones.  Examples:

My wife is accustomed to Chinese food - “Pharaya-phom shob a-harn chine”.  Buddy, tell your wife to deal with it.

Please excuse me while I change - “Khaw-thode phom khaw-plian seua-pha”.  Not a problem for me, as I only have one change of clothes.

Wonderfully missing are the phrases, “Yes”, “No”, “Please”, “Thank you”… the list goes on.

Bangkok!  Wow!  I’ve been here for 6 days now and I’m just starting to get into the groove of things.  Arrived on Tuesday and made my way down to my Mom’s hotel.  It was great to see her and catch up (and steal some of her travel gear!), even if it was only for a few hours.  The next few days I met up with Nick and Dan and did some of the touristy things… visiting temples, drinking, and seeing the darker parts of Bangkok.  It was good to catch up with those two but I wasn’t fully into the party scene here.  Partially because of jet lag and partially because I’ve been itching to get out on my bike.

Nick and Dan took off to some island and I spent the last couple of days trying to get my bike ready.  To be honest, I’ve been a little apprehensive about actually taking off.  It’s kinda like cliff jumping when you’re trying to psych yourself up and jump, but at the last second you chicken out.  I don’t know… all these things run through my mind.  “Where direction should I bike?”, “How bad is the traffic out of the city?”, “How many spare tubes should I bring”, “I swear there is a rattling in my rear derailleur… probably should stay another day and fix it”, “Ooo front panniers, do I need them?”.  All these things kept swirling in my head and I felt a bit paralyzed!  So much for the brave, “Whatever, I’ll just figure it out when I get there” attitude I had when I left.

Anyway I decided to confront this fear by hoping on my bike and heading right into the chaos of Bangkok traffic.  I’d talked to a couple of cyclists who said not to worry about the traffic here, and that drivers always gave you lots of space… I was still dubious.  Riding in taxis and tuk-tuks made it seem miraculous that I hadn’t witnessed and accidents on the road.  So I inched my bike out of the tourist area and WHOOSH, I was swallowed into the stream of cars, scooters and motorbikes.  Everyone was right - Bangkok is a joy to bike through!  The cars are used to all the bikes and always shoulder check.  The only thing you really need to pay attention to is the scooters that weave between parked cars.

Tomorrow I’m heading towards Pattaya and the south-eastern coast of Thailand and then heading into Cambodia.  Good beaches, nice roads, and courteous drivers.  I’m hoping to be back in Bangkok in two weeks so I can check out the full-moon party at the end of the month.

I meant to post this during the summer, but I was too busy… enjoying the summer. I went to What The Heck Fest in Anacortes, Washington this year and they gave out the best designed info book. The picture says it all - a tiny little booklet that easily fits into any pocket. Because what’s the point of a booklet when it’s too big to bring along wherever you go? Small print, but all the information to know which bands are playing when, where.

It’s the year 2010. I’m sitting in the airport (a hub where flying machines come and go) eating a to-go meal of food that came from god-knows where. I peruse the various news feeds on my iPhone (a communication device hooked up to a vast network of other computational devices), checking what friends have been up to, anticipating what the weather will be like in Seattle, etc, etc… I notice Sean has just recently posted to his blog and he mentions that he’s sitting in the Calgary airport too, waiting for his flight to depart. I send him a message and also call him (both via said iPhone), but to no avail - it looks like he’s already gone. A few minutes later I get a call, “Hey Kenshi it’s Sean, my flight is about to leave…. What gate are you at? … Okay let’s meet quickly”. Seconds later we are shaking hands and walking towards his gate. “What have you been up to? How’s the job? How was the wedding?”. We exchange stories and discuss future plans. We arrive at the gate and I bid him farewell. He’s now somewhere in the sky, and in a few hours he will be in San Francisco.

Dear future Kenshi: Don’t forget how remarkable this is.

Onwards!

1. No Kids - Come into My House

So I’ve made my foray into the world of Mac and bought myself a sexy aluminum Macbook.  A couple of first impressions and comments:

• The first thing I did was install Fink (so I can install unix packages)
• Got emacs up and running.
• Meta keys are all messed up, argh!
• I can globally change my meta key through Mac OS, but that is awkward for the rest of OSX
• Any ideas on how to change the meta key ONLY in emacs - I want it to be the command key.

The pictures from my trip are slowly making their way onto Flickr. I have Istanbul and the first part of the Lycian Way posted, the latter having the added bonus of being geotagged. Oodles of fun.

I have five days before I start work at Amazon and it still hasn’t quite hit me yet. Flights are not booked. Visas have yet to arrive in the mail. It’s going to be a typical last-minute Kenshi affair, but it’ll all come together Saturday night.

… is where I am right now, Budapest to be exact.  Will post photos if I get a chance!

I would love to see a plot of outside temperature vs. final exam mark. I bet it would be a sharp decaying exponential. I write distributed systems (the last final exam of my undergrad) tomorrow and I’ve got zero motivation to study.

It also doesn’t help that I leave for Europe next week and cannot think about anything else. Went to MEC yesterday and bought a sleeping bag, GPS, thermarest, hiking boots. That store is deadly.