Clearing the cobwebs

November 23, 2012-11-23

Chiang Mai is seriously hot yet we are not even in the summer season.   I slithered thru the crooked labyrinth lanes the second morning looking for better digs.  I went from luxury to a flophouse -  the hotel in Korea (thanks Air Canada) then the spot I opted for last nite after midnite called 'My Home',  Note the little weiner dog in the pic below in the 'My Home' sign . . . 

My Home, the ragamuffin hotel

I get a shoe box of a room with cardboard walls and windows that just open to the hallway.  A tattoo artist is set up in the front lobby of the hotel so I witness someone getting ink poked first thing in the a.m.   I wanted to check out his work but had my focus on getting out of this flophouse palace first.

The tattoo room

Wall Art at My Home

I got in way late and just took the second spot I saw to get a sleep and start fresh in the morning.  Little did I know that the hotels were all booked up partly because they have a beautiful lantern festival for a week so lanterns will be everywhere maybe even in the dirty river that acts as a moat around Chiang Mai center - the Old City, where I opt to stay.  Being a creature of habit I stay in the same periphery as 5 years prior.

Some things are the same same and few are really not, like the hotel I’d hope to stay at.  It’s just gone.  I was coerced to stay at this ramshackle castle by a tall Thai guy and his shorter oz troll tenant accomplice with purply burgundy gray hair pulled back in a bun and sporting a multi colored flowered skirt – that looks quite good on him actually.  He had a long feather earing in one ear and a dangly silver earing in the other and he smelt like a keg.  He was friendly and fun yet reminded me of the bad ass Texan in Costa Rica.  He even had a eerily similar Diablo voice when he chose to conjure it up and there is even a slightly scarey resemblance   Yet this oz bad ass is into ‘lady boys’ he tell s me too soon.  ‘Slutty lady boys’ he reiterates too loudly as one that fits the bill walks in front of us at the 7-11.  He repeats this line for special effect with no apparent results.

Oh yeh, the 7-11’s are rampant in Thailand and are often used as a reference point.  ‘Just past the 7-11’.  The only recognizable and pronounceable land mark for us westerners being that it is just digits. 
               

‘I am looking for someone to play with my Cock’, he informs me when I ask what he is up to tonite.  ‘Is that too much information?’ he asks.  Not really.  Yet he is willing to stray and hit a Thai straight pub with me so I can just observe like a  sober fly on the wall yet he ditches me the moment he finds out I won’t play the reindeer games and drink with him.  He peddles off on his bike, his short skirt flapping in the wind with his gay pride.

Resident Troll 'Richelle' sporting a skirt.

He seems a permanent fixture here and is even wearing a purple threadbaren shirt with the 'My Home' hotel logo on it.  I like him yet am reminded how I end up in places with a chronic alcoholic in my midst and he may fit the bill minus the chronic adjective praps.  Anyhow, he is a character and helpful, and seems to have taken on the role of a troll/gatekeeper at 'My Home', yet I really want to move from my cell sized room.

I walk around from 12:30 till 2:00 am the first nite and it is like walking thru a dream I had 5 years ago as I remove the cobwebs from my attic of a memory while walking down the snake and laddery side streets -  like a dejavu I see an array of pregnant cats with crooked tails, the wary mutt bred dogs, the street rats and cockroaches looking for scraps from all the food stalls set up selling Thai suppers, soup and slippery food and cut fruit in plastic bags.

I meet a sweet peitt french guy dressed like a monk who tries to charm me with an accent like Peppi la Pew. He has missing teeth that he is having replaced by a masochistic female dentist in Chiang Mai.  Dentistry is generally cheaper in Thailand though the prices have shot up a lot the past few years since so many westerners got on the Thai tooth wagon.  They boosted it closer to 'farang' prices now.  That is the moniker they dubbed us tourists/travellers with.  Not very flattering, yet I don't blame them.  We have invaded their country with no damage control for our rampage.

At the palace I am reminded of how Thais squeeze the shower and toilet together in one teeny room.  So the shower head is attached to the wall in the midst of  the toilet space.  So when you shower, everything gets wet – the toilet seat, the floor, the sink, the tp and most of your belongings if they are not strategically placed.

As well they have special toilets in Thailand - the squat toilets.  Some kind of hole in the floor set up that you squat over and do a one or two and there's a spray gun to wash your butt off and you can use your left hand to wipe off any leftover whatever and you are done.  I never figured out how to dry myself via this method and I try to remember to have tp on me all the time for these special event toilets.  It is custom and polite to use your right hand to pass anyone anything or to touch anything because it is common knowledge what your left hand is used for.  Or is that just in India . . .

The position of squatting is actually better for our bodies esp for pooping rather than sitting up all anal retentive like us Westerners - no wonder. Same with childbirth, squatting makes sense - not to equate the two.  And I am surprised they have a western toilet in my cardboard hotel.  And surprised again that there is toilet paper in the shared bathroom.  BYT - bring your own toilet paper to Thailand - now there is a good travel tip for you . . .  

Okay so this is the dog I dubb 'danger dog'. Tattoo guy Po finds this moniker amusing - it's his dog, which may mean it is his digs.  A weiner dog with major attitude - a chihuahua complex I reckon.  She snaps and snarls when you get close to her yet look at the big suck between Po's toes now - go figure.  He is the dog depicted in the 'My Home' sign pic.  A ramshackle castle where you can get alcohol and a tattoo at the same time.

Do you know the difference between a traveller and a tourist?
Tourists know where they are going but don't know where they have been.
Travellers know where they have been but don't know where they are going.

* I have permission to use Richelle (RCHL), the gatekeeper troll's pic and quote tho I had to make sure I spelt his name right and change 'penis' to 'cock' with 'a capital C'.  He doesn't seem to mind the 'troll' moniker either, yet he still has to read this, gulp.