chang mai

ok i'm going to try and spew out as much as i can about this while i can, it seems i have quite the limited attention span for blogging when not totally in the mood..
that was suposed to be taken care of by the palm life drive and brand new ir keyboard i brought with me, but about 8 of the keys on the key board arn't working.. so that just makes it ttaly infuriating to try and use.
but here's a brief recap thus far.
flew out of LAX around noon, and after alot of bumbling around i found my way to my gate and onto my plane.
the flight was super easy due to the fact that i had 2 Valium with me, so after my first meal on the plane I took them with a glass of wine and was out for about 12 hours, when they woke me for meal before landing, easiest 14 hour flight ever!
then i had a stop over in taipai and another short flight to BKK.
I trudged around the BKK airport a ton trying to see if I could get a connecting flight up to chaing mai for bike week were some friends from EBRMC were taking part of.
well all fights were booked so I shot out a txt to all my thai Friends saying i was in town and after getting on the wrong bus found one into down town BKK.
luckly while on the bus I got a call froma friend inviting me over so then I hoped off the bus and got a cab (BKK cab drivers always get lost! i'm not sure if it's because the street system is so fucked or because they are probably just a farmer with a bad crop last season)
anyways, got a shower and a few hours of sleep then headed down to khosarn rd (yea I hate it there but it's a convenient hub)
first out i found out all trains were booked and even the tourist buses were full so it was down to the bublic bus terminal, but first i hit up an ATM then whent by my old muythai studio and gave them a ton of $ but should keep me set with boxing lessons for when ever i'm in BKK. I took a class and really didn't do as bad as I thought I would for having nt trained for the last 6 months, after a 4 hour class it was to the bus station, but unluckily i miss pronounced the name and said chit lom not mo chit, and got a grand frightening tour of Bangkok rush hour traffic on the back of a komakosy motorcycle taxi, but i fily got there and got a ticket for a train heading out in about 3 hours, so I sat on the ground with the 2000 or so other people waiting for buses out. fuck it's tough to sit on the ground for that long i a crowd and not be able to point your feet in anyone direction (cuz thats super rude!)
the bus ride when fine, really the same as anytime i'm onm a bus tran or plane, i sit there really needing to pee but not wanting to bother or wake the person i'd need to climb over to get to do so.
we stop ed at around 2 in the morning to get food but I couldn't find my food vouture (and really the government food terminals are so crazy, no really, billions of half awake people skittering around trying to grab food, use the rest room, smoke, and find there way back to there bus before it leaves with out them. I got out tryed to figure it out and said screw it, the food is never that good anyways (on the trip back i'll take some photos to post.)
at the end i got into chaing mai before the sun came up found a moto taxi and got into the city.. where into the city i didn't know and it took a few hours of walking around with a crappy com pus and a crappy map to figure it out, luckily i came across a really cool ceremony where there was hundreds of monks brought in on military trucks and about a mile of tarps laid out on a street , then the monks would walk down the center of the tarp and people sitting on either side would give them offerings. the still datrk sky was lit up by thousands of hanging lanterns and some really pretty music was playing from speakers that were everywhere,
I continued to walk around for about 5 hours till some places were open so i could use the Internet and find out where my Friends were.
after I met up with on guy who i had only b\met I think once before (JJ) he gave me a ride atround to a few bike shops so I could try and get a deal on a motorcycle for while I was therere. after a bunch of serching I found that all big bikes (anything over 200cc) are ass expencive like close to 20 a day! but i knew if I got some good use out of it it would be worth it.
unluckly trever was sick, and soon after JJ got sick aswell, so I ended up just spending a bunch of time on my own for a few days, wandering around the city and such.
JJ was kind enough to let me crash on the floor of his room for 2 nights though so I couldn't be too hard on myself for spending so much $ on the bike.
we whent to some biker rallys, most of which were preaty lame, sitting at a big table somewhere listing to bad western muisic covers and drinking...
the thai bikers are a funny bunch, just like the punkers, raga gutys ect, they are all so very into it. but most look like a weird cookie cutter usa biker image. funny but cute.
we also met up with some of the santa crawl guys geary, mike, and soran. so we had 3 santas with us which was intresting. and yes, one night i threw on the stinky santa outfit for a bar crawl.
we finaly did get to do some riding, and ended up on some fantastic rough dirt roads, unluckly everyone was much much slower than me (JJ had already left at this point) so I was on my own for much of the ride then I'd wait 10 min or so for everyone to catch up and continue on (I think being the right size for the bike made a big diff) also i think the theory of on dirt more gas is the soulution to everthing (which it is) got me so far ahead of the pack.
but fuck I forgot how much fun dirt bikes are! now I really want one.
also the it was just amazing beutiful out in the deep jungle/forest. I can't wait to do that again..
more later...