Mae Hong Son Drive

There are 1874 curves in the road from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son. Although the actual distance is very short, it takes about nine hours on a bus. As we prepared to take the bus at six in the morning, I became very anxious. I just spent a week traveling alone. Finding time to spend alone is one of the harder things to find in this world. Now, I am traveling with a group.

I think I would put traveling with a group on one of the top ten things that I hate. Also on that list is sitting next to big guys on long bus rides. I hopped on the bus first and put a bag down next to me and avoided eye contact with everyone as they entered the bus. My icy appearance would deter anyone from sitting next to me. However, as the bus became full, one of the biggest guys from our group—Ned, came up to me, looked at his ticket and sat down on my bag. We were thrity minutes from departure and I was trapped between a big guy and the bus wall. I am not bigger than your average man, but I was definitely bigger than this chair, and he was bigger than the row. The main problem is that we are in Asia. I’m not gonna insult the size of people in Asia—mainly because it’s so fun to order a large and extra large clothes, but the bus was made for people half my size.

I get off the bus to get my last breath of air and pace till the last call to board. I talked Ned into giving me the isle seat so I could sprawl out, yet my plan was thwarted. I was all spread into the seat—half ass on the chair, and this lady comes up and stands next to me in the isle. Now the half ass that was in the isle, is being shoved back onto the chair. There is adequate room to stand behind and in front of me, but she insists on standing right next to me. Before I was just annoyed, now I’m ready for battle. Only Ned can push me around on this bus--so I shove back. I ‘hint’ that she should take a couple steps back and try to rock shake, but she is solid like a rock. So I start the advanced nudge. The advanced nudge is a technique only for the most passive aggressive. It starts like a slow nudge, timed perfectly with the curves and bumps of the bus. Each bump, you add a little umph and push them a further toward the goal. The goal is to push her just a bit behind me and clear up the isle for sprawling.

After two or three hours of becoming completely irritated and frustrated with the obvious belligerence of this woman, she gets off the bus and leaves me the three extra inches of isle seat left.

The curves start as we weave through the growing suburbs. They aren’t planned communities like the square cut outs in the states, but rather, these are rural communities that grew in size and were close enough to the city that they became commuter suburbs. Hastily the roads were widened with poor craftsmanship—the improvement is only partially drivable.

Then we started our ascent into the mountains. This forest is a sub-tropical sub-temperate, partially deciduous semi-moist forest. The trees have just shed their leaves for the ‘winter’. However, the lower layer remains fairly green and moist. With the extra sunlight, the undergrowth often does better in the dry season. There are vines and two canopy levels—reminiscent of a rain forest. However, the air is drier the sparse green pine trees remind me of the Rocky Mountains. Despite the classification ambiguity, this forest has its own mystical charm.

We arrive at the pristine clean bus station of Mae Hong Son, strap on our backpacks, and follow the road around to one of the cleanest and protected towns I have ever entered—even our backpacker guest hostel has a beautifully manicured garden and fish pond.

The next morning we start our first hike toward the first town Pakolo

Bad-ass Vacation

Anyway. So here I am traveling around Thailand by myself and Scuba diving and I have one day left of beautiful vacation. Since I was flying back to Chiang Mai I couldn't dive the last day of my vacation so I decided to explore the island. There isn't a better way to explore an island than riding a motor bike, so I head down to the motor bike shop. After chatting with the owners for a bit in Thai I rent my bike and head out. A little shaky at first--but eventually the motorcycle skills come back to me and I start popping up and down the steep limestone hills of Koa Tao. I am crusing along feeling like a bad ass mix of James Bond and Brad Pit on my quick motor-dirt-bike. So I am crusing down this one road and this smaller motor bike comes rushing up behind me, gives me a honk and swiftly glides past me. Ok so I am getting passed by a local on a motor bike--not the worst ego trip. Then I look, and it's an older woman flying past me on a motor bike--and she has three children riding with her. Ok so maybe I am not the fastest motorcyclist, but she totally didn't look as badass as I did. I just pretended she didn't pass me and I kept singing rock and roll songs in my head.

Burma Trip

Unfortunately it wasn’t for the romantic ambience that the Burmese border immigration office was lighted by candles. Rather, this town—which by no means is a rural or unimportant town, is actually running without power. This town is fueled by tourists who skip across the border to cash in at cheap markets and pick up a Burmese passport stamp. And all this skipping is unfortunately all the market that many of these people see.

It is across from the market that I met with an unnamed Burmese tuk tuk driver. See you have to go out of the country every couple months and Burma is only a short bus ride away. (Unfortunately you still waste your entire Saturday in a bus). He was quite the man, spoke perfect English. We stood directly across from the market, the reason that many girls from the office decided to accompany us on our waste of a Saturday. The market was chock full of name brand clothing at a third world price. The funny thing is that a lot of it is real. Since so many clothing companies are stationed around south east asia, they actually sell a lot of Gap, Billabong and tons more.

Yet he painted a story of a different type of country outside this border town. Most Burmese are looking to cross the boarder and find work in Thailand, yet no one wants to. The Thai’s treat us like shit; we escape from here and go under the boot of Thailand—he remarked when I asked if he wanted to work in Thailand. He then quoted an American proverb to me. Variety is the spice of life. Without any opportunity to use his skills he came to this town to drive a taxi. Years later he hasn’t even worked off the down payment that his boss is charging him to drive the taxi. He can’t leave now, he has a wife and one son.

Yet his frustration continued to surprise me. Not that he was frustrated, but that he continued to live. He continued to wake up and fight and spoke blatantly in English against the soldiers standing across the street in uniform. And he ended by saying—You tell George Bush to come over here and blow up this government. The UN came and they did nothing. Thousands of basic human rights violations each month and the only aid that comes are in bags rice—not opportunity or stability.

By this time the girls have finished their shopping (I admit I bought BBC’s planet earth for 3 dollars) and it’s time to head back to Thailand. A country that is more than happy importing energy from Burma to fuel their quickly developing nation. And since Burma has a great supply of candles, the military regime is more than happy to sell it to them.

Happy Hut Development

I am in a happy hut right now. I traveled half-way around the world in search of indigenous people to learn from their unique way of life. Now here I am in happy hut—the Thai Starbucks with iced lattes, green tea, and Jobim. It is hard to believe that the bassa-nova groove creating this coffee shop ambience in rural Thailand were actually composed by rural indigenous people in Brazil. The irony of it makes me reassess the importance of traveling all the way over here. It was quite an expense to travel half way around the world to type on my mac book in a coffee shop when I could have just footed it down from my college dorm room to La Spieza. It seams that the developing world has caught on quite quickly to how relaxing it is to spend an afternoon in a coffee shop to some gentle jazz with wireless internet. Now don’t get me wrong there are still a great number of people working in very hard conditions in this country, but when you look toward development you have to ask, why is everyone working so hard to get out of their ‘poverty’ and into neon development.