the ottawa sun is reporting that yesterday 23 year old Christopher Beatty, son of conservative minister Perrin Beatty, was killed in a motorcycle accident in chiang mai.
i have seen two accidents already here. both times the driver of a motorcycle (they are mostly smaller 100 and 125 cc scooters here) got up and walked away with little injury. two days ago i saw a large truck pass a woman on a scooter stopped on the lefthand side of the road at an intersection. he passed her on his left, then turned sharply left and the back of his truck squeezed her off the road, pushing her bike off the road and momentarily pinning the woman between the moving truck on her right and a sign post on her left. she managed to extricate herself from the bike, dropping it to the ground. the driver stopped up ahead as i had yelled at him as he passed. he approached the woman and seemed to blame her. i have no idea what he was saying, but he was immediately yelling and waving his hands.
it is easy to revel in the madness of the traffic here. to celebrate the fluidity and lawlessness of it all. so many tourists rent scooters, larger bikes and off-road bikes. they often ride with no helmut, like many of the thai. but it seems that this is niave and foolish. traffic fatalities in thailand, and all of southeast asia, are extremely high. with just 16 percent of the world motor vehicles, asia accounts for half of the worlds traffic fatalities (according to the WHO). more than 600,000 asians are killed, and another 9.4 million are injured every year. in thailand road accidents are the third leading cause of death. there is an effort underway by the governement to curb these accidents, but it has been largely unproductive.

it is beautiful to see the calm expressions on the faces of drivers and passengers squeezed onto these bikes. they are seductive.
i have a quote in my notebook from a zen lecture. the simple phrase reads: my body is empty. i think of it often here.
in sukothai there are many motorcycle carts. the back is the back half of a motorcycle, while the front, with two wheels, is either a cart for cargo, or a covered platform for carrying passengers. i saw a thai woman travelling in one the first day i arrived, travvelling into town from the bus station. she sat casually on the floor of the cart, at the leading edge, bouncing comfortably with the bumps in the road, nothing between her and the traffic but the blowing wind and her relentless smile. her body, as i saw it then, was empty. and the next day as i rode a similar tuktuk, i too sat at the front, and felt the same thing i had seen in her smile. it was lovely and light.

fight night in chiang mai

a storm is definitely brewing in chiang mai province. the winds are blowing, and the storm shutters bang open and shut, punctuating the shuffle of palm and banana and bougainvillia that surround me.
a truck creeps down the alley toward this cafe weaving past laundry and motorbikes and dogs. loud speakers mounted on the roof advertise a thai boxing match. the thai slips into a few words of english and back into thai, and through the distortion i only recognize the linguistic shift long after it happens. with nine matches tonight, two regional championships will be decided. the locals will be out in force to support their fighters, no doubt. the fights start at nine.
i bought my ticket this morning, and got a primer on muay thai form, and its street-side variants. the secret, my friend Audee claims, is to fake a punch and step in with the elbow. the other technique is to throw a volley of punches to the face, and then sneek a fist into the groin - the "secret" to all street fighting. i nod pensively, with due respect for the life an death subject matter, when he demonstrates, and speak with the thin veneer of wisdom of my many years street experience, suggesting a few of my own favorite moves.

filled with a new found gastronomic confidence i have bought a ticket to a small town in the northwest of thailand. it has a reputation of being touristy and over-run with foreigners, but of being pleasant, even bucolic as well. we'll see. it also has the rather dubious reputation of a particularly unreliable police force. in early january two canadians were shot in a bar fight by a plain clothes policeman. the man died and the woman remains in hospital, but is recovering. the facts around the shooting remain unclear and the incident is being investigated. i plan to poke around a little myself, see if i can't get to bottom of this.

i'm looking forward to being on the move again. the comforts of chiang mai do not inspire me, as my first week of travel did. i seek some obstacles in my path. a fight to win. for now, at least, i seek a sense of overcoming more than success or comfort.

fight night in chiang mai.
lets get ready to rumble.

soi dogs

soi dogs,
originally uploaded by David Capell.

"soi" is thai for "alley." these mangey guys are pretty common. the thai government "culled" them a few years back to curb the problem and they say it is better now - i think it is too, from what i remember. of the soi dogs there is a higher class of sky dogs, dogs which have taken to inhabiting the raised walkways over roads, thus avoiding their one true nemisis, the cars. chiang mai seems to have spawned its own class of cat-like wall dogs which perch on the walls that line the alleyways in the old city.
in the evenings they gather in packs and begin to wander. you see the old mangey ones cower and hide behind cars as a pack rounds the corner up ahead. its always lead by an enforcer. at night you hear curdling screems of dogs attacked by the packs. they are brutal and efficient.
their's is another world, and so they are like ghosts or spirits of the alleys and roads of southeast asia.

mikes

i have sinned. i have committed adultery.
i have lain in the corrupt bed of american fastfood. that morally bankrupt gastronomic vaccum.
i have been unfaithful to one of the oldest and bravest and most beautiful cuisines that i have ever loved. and i do love her so.
but that lovely cuisine is a firery bitch sometimes, and she pushes me away. i cannot handle her. she is too much for me.
and so i tell myself that i was driven. i blame her. i seek excuse.
cheeseburger, onions and mayonaise, a fluffy sweet bun freckled with sesame, crisp and hot fries, coke in a pastic cup, my tongue cradling the straw, a single crisp curl of onion, battered and deep fried. the details keep circling in my mind. ketchup everywhere, on my face... my lap... my god, and the beyonce... and i shoke it shoke it like a polariod picture.
the shame. the filth.
out out damn grease. i cannot wash it from my hands.
i wanted to absolve myself. find some form of confession. but i wanted to smoke, too, dammit. to pull hard, draw the smoke deep into my lungs, feel the cool rush of nicotine once again. it is true. i must come clean with it all, right hear.
i am sorry spicy mango salad with your crispy dried shrimp. i am sorry oleang, you are rich and smooth and i love you so. i am sorry my passionate green curry. forgive me this one indiscretion (oh, and there were those chocolate chocolate-chip cookies this afternoon, and there is this italian place around the corner...)

News and Fortune

The Bangkok Post, from January 26th, and this weeks Chaing Mai Mail reported the following stories.

The Thai economy is expected to grow by 4.5 percent in 2008, continuing the rate of growth seen in 2007.
The world price of gold reached a record high, at 880 USD per ounce.
Two Thai men were arrested in the south, driving a modified cargo truck containing stolen motorcycles in hidden bays. Part of a suspected motorcycle theft ring, the two men claimed they were innocent, and that Kamelporn Suriyakod is responsible. The police are currently looking for this woman.
Si Ngoenngan, a suspect in a major investigation into narcotics in the region, escaped from jail in the city of Nan, in the north east. The police who were on duty are being investigated, though they claim the jail is in disrepair. The authorites in Lao have been alerted.
The Thai army destroyed another opium crop on Lishu hill tribe land as part of their annual crackdown timed with the winter opium harvest.
Food prices in China soared in Novemeber 18 percent, driven by the price of pork and noodles, despite the government fixing the price on cooking oil.
Thai politicians have been filling flights between Bangkok and Thailand, as they rush to meet deposed, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawata, who is widely believed to be behind the new coalition governement.
Nakhon Sawan is responding to the recent outbreak of avian flu discovered late last week.
The post did a profile on drug abuse by disaffected youth in the south of thailand, where political unrest in the largely muslim population persists. the new drug of choice is Kartom, a mix of coca-cola, cough syrup, mosquito repellent and Kartom leaves. The drug is not officially banded under Islamic law, unlike alcohol. Kartom, technically illegal in thailand, is commonly found growing in the south and is available in the markets of Bangkok and elsewhere. Chewing the leaves has a mildly narcotic effect.

At the night market last night i slipped a coin into a wheel of fortune which stopped on the number 26. "the 26th number tells you that you are going to be lucky. everything will be getting better and better."
This mornng i found a fortune at the table as i sat for a coffee. It reads, "following inner prompting brings quiet accomplishment."

My stomach is not happy today. perhaps it was the whiskey and the spicey, fishy, green mango salad at the night market.

think i'll spend the afternoon laying low and reading.

paper SUV

paper SUV,
originally uploaded by David Capell.

here are the lovely funerary paper SUV's. the rest are on flickr.

Teep

Teep,
originally uploaded by David Capell.

Teep taught me to count to four.
neeng, sawng, saam, sii.

I love to ride my crocodile

davidtemp 006,
originally uploaded by David Capell.

the bike i rode through sukothai.

yii sip sawng: the price of beerchang in sukathai

i can count from one to five, from ten to fifteen, from twenty to twenty five, from thirty to thirty five, fourty to fourty five, and from fifty to fifty five. and i think i know the word for "hundred" which would get me to five hundred.
things are looking up.
there are smiles all around when i bust it out.
except for the stern and focus-of-steel woman who just made me dinner at the night market. (and i'm pretty excited at the prospect of every town having a night market). she was young, in her late 30s, her husband assisting from a distance, and her son, sporting a radiohead shirt no less, serving. she never looked up. she was busy with orders (which suggests that the whole town knows she is the best).
she cracked a half dozen eggs, single-handed, over the handle of her spatula and into the wok in a few seconds. she added some dark tamarind paste (tablespoon), some peanut oil (two tablespoons), some water (one tablespoon) and sugar (tablespoon). added some chicken and scrambled it all in a wok over a propane burner, spinning the wok around with one hand. the wok never stopped moving, i noticed. she always had it tipping and turning. she guickly boiled some noodles and some cabbage and thin sliced green beans. mixed it together. the orders to-go were folded in a banana leaf, like a twisting pyramid, and pinned with toothpics. my order was lovingly layed on a clean white plate and served with some fresh bean sprouts, a mild green onion top, and some other leek-like vegetable. with a slice of lemon, too.
i thought about that job at the bangkok post all through my wonderful plate of steaming padthai.

sukothai

the official history of sukothai, ancient 13th C city state and former capital of Thailand.

Sukothai was founded in the middle of the 13th century. according to the stone inscription found at wat (temple) Si Chum. a Khmer warrior named Sabat Khlon Lamphong besieged the city after the death of Pho Khun Si Nao Nam Thom, the city's first ruler. The son of the latter (lets avoid these long names whenever possible) joined forces with Pho Khun Bang Klang Hao, his comrade (mercenary), and drove the enemy away. The son gave the mercenary the title of Si Inthrabodinthrathit, and the "Sword of Victory" (some tricky handshake) and (payback) consecrated him ruler of the city (suspiscous that the son of the ruler, and hier to the throne would just hand over his authority, no? there's something rotten in sukothai). Sukothai grew prosperously and stretched far and wide (occupier/colonialist) under the son of the mercenary (a good fighter too, i suspect). he introduced buddhism (to quiet the masses) and "supported the arts" (commissioned the peasents to make him stuff). "he gathered different principalites under his control" (more fighting) and was a powerful king. "the security and stability of sukothai was built undeniably through the charisma of the king" (despot). without him the kingdom grew weaker and fragmented. (a time of peace, perhaps).
according to the stone inscription (how big is this stone?) in 1347, sukothai was reunited (conquered mercilously) by Phra Maha Thammaracha Li Thai (a southerner). during his riegn the king expanded his territory in all directions. in later life he became an ordained buddhist monk (to escape prosecution, or just hide out, looking the same as all the other bald guys in saffron robes). he famously commissioned a large golden statue of the buddha which now resides in the current kings chapel in bangkok (the ruthless collection of taxes might have played some part in it, who knows). more southerners appeared. there was intermarriage.

that's the end of the story.
no doubt the civilization became corrupted, or over farmed, or used lead pipes, and met some demise.

(i wonder what the state of thailand's freedom of speech laws are?)

it was a lovely bicycle ride through the ruins and the country outside the walled city. a school girl taught me to count to four (it was all i could remember), and i met a lovely australian woman, and had a very pleasent talk, riding through the country side.

mp3 love

arrived into sukothai a few hours ago. seems like a nice sleepy town, from what i can tell. enjoyed the buss ride here. it was very posh. even had a stewardess serving drinks and snacks. that's right. i was reading the bangkok post, sipping a cold drink, reclined in a comfy seat, a/c pumpin.
but i really fell in love with my mp3 player. and i was thinking, i wonder if i could get to africa, overland from here?

having trouble uploading images into my blog, so i'm trying flickr right now. we'll see if it works better. my profile/account appears to be my name. look for them, and let me know if this works.

i tried something called "naa pong." thai rice whiskey infused with herbs. red like cough syrup. pretty nasty stuff. wouldn't recommend it. doesn't go down well with a spice green curry, that's for sure. but hey, things are looking up. the price of beerchang droped a few baht outside bangkok.

i spent yesterday lost in the market alleys of the indian neighbourhood of phahurat, and then into the chinatown markets, nursing a beaten and bruised body. that morning i took the riverboat express up city to the famous wat pho temple and cut through the gawking tourists, straight to the famed, traditional thai massage school. it can be hard to find a legit massage here. most come with "happy endings." but here it's all good. it is a seriously rough massage, though. the theory of thai massage is that you stretch the muscle, while pushing into it at the same time. it becomes a bit of a wrestling match. and it hurts. my masseuse asked my every few minutes if i was okay. guess i was wincing and moaning too much.
anyway, the markets were really crazy. narrow alleys, with stores flooding out, leaving a gap of maybe two or three feet, for a few kilometers. you could not see the sky through the overlapping awnings. could never move faster than a slow shuffle. i really have never seen so much conspicuous consumption. total junk. stores full of knock off hello kitty purses. plastic jewelry. stickers. every once in a while an old vespa would squeeze through somehow and you would be breathing in his smoky exhaust for the next five minutes.
i suffered through all this in the search for Chinese funerary paper. on the seventh day after a wealthy Chinese person has died the grieving relatives will burn paper versions of worldly goods. paper shirts. paper suits. paper cars. paper high heel shoes. paper stereo. paper jewelry. paper SUV's. paper cellphones. paper tooth paste. paper dentures. it was all life size (except the SUV's, unfortunately) and colourful. it was worth the endless toil in the end. they were beautiful sculptures. maybe one day someone will burn them for my after i pass from this strange world. the custom is dying out. i went by the local temple tonight looking to watch the burning ceremony, but it was deserted.

turned to sleeping pills. alprazolam. lets hope i can get my internal clocks going without a new addiction. i seem to be drinking a lot of beer, too. soon i'll fit right in.

more good street eats in the last few days. most exciting for me is that traditional thai coffee can still be found. i remember it from my first visit here fifteen years ago, but it was hard to find ten years ago on my second visit. at any restaurant or guesthouse now a coffee is made from nescafe instant powder. which, though it ain't coffee, is not all bad. it is very bitter and dry.
but last night, lost on my way home, i noticed a woman selling "oleang" just around the corner. so this morning i sat at her plastic stool, in the alleyway, at the edge of her living room, with her two soi dog puppys playing behind me, and sipped a thick, rich, dark chocolate coffee. the thai coffee beans are ground and mixed with chicory, and other spices, and placed inside a large cheese-cloth sock and left to steep, or stew, in a tin pot of boiling water. the coffee is then poured through the sock over a cup with a little canned milk (common here) and also sweet and condensed milk. the end result looks, smells, and even tastes like a luscious, liquid form of dark chocolate. it has a salty, buttery after taste at the back of your tongue. its got some serious kick, too. standing in the alley later i wrote in my note book: "are you fucking kiddin' me! this is so good! and for 10 bhat! that nescafe crap i've been drinking at the guest house is 40 baht!" so many exclamation marks. i was a little excited.

i rode the metro across town, met a sweet thai girl who gave me her number (i didn't call), bought a stunningly beautiful mini pannetone (and i thought i had to go to italy for that), sat in a park with the morning paper, considered a job in bangkok (seriously, the bangkok post needs an editor for its art section, hmmm...), swung by an artist-run centre (sadly closed), had a beer and a nap. had grilled prawns (not great) and a yummy sticky bun filled with butter and sugar. bought some roasted chestnuts and headed back to the guest house.

think i will travel north tomorrow to sukathai for a bicycle ride through the ruined khmer city.

so my day really started with a street-side cappachino - though next time i will follow the thai's and take it iced. after a quick run through a curious mall (i needed a few things) i stopped on my way back to the guest house for lunch along one of the alleys, or soi, that i have to navigate through. not really sure how i find my way in and out of this place. chinatown is a warren. just when i'm convinced that i am lost i find myself around the corner from this guest house. anyway, i ate at a stall that served a lovely roast duck on a bed of rice with sweet soy sauce, fresh cucumber and thin slices of ginger (probably galangal). with a little fish sauce and chili, it was delicious. it was a cart, with a few ducks and some pork hanging in a glass case, a half dozen steel tables surrounded by some brightly coloured kiddy stools.
across the street, and everywhere in the neighbourhood, were old wooden two story shops. they suggested a more glorious past, but now served largely as a kind of way station or purgatory for the industrial age. one shop was piled high, all the way to the ceiling, with various sizes of transmission clogs. there was a narrow path through the dark piles to a glowing shrine in the back. next door a stack of transmissions lay like bones.
i tired to sleep through the afternoon, with little luck. (its been two days now without sleep.) i ventured out to the local night markets. as the motorbike traffic slows down the alleys become patios and dining halls. i had a a really spectacular dinner of barbecued satay chicken with a spicy peanut sauce (more spicy and sour than i ever make it). brilliantly it was served to me with a side of cucumber, thin sliced and raw shallot, with large pieces of red chili in a sweet vinegar. the combinations were so good i found myself smiling more and more towards the end of the meal. all this in the midst of a street that reminded me of bladerunner.
somehow i found my way back to the guest house just when i was completely lost, grabbed a beer on the rooftop and watched the carnival of lighted riverboat cruises pass by. and now i will go and pretend to be sleeping for a few hours while my internal clock adjusts.
bangkok is more seductive than i remembered. its also more of a shithole. it reminds me of those "vanitas" paintings of decedent still lifes that are rotting, over-ripe fruit and rotten meat covered in flies next to gold clocks and skulls.