Wednesday 30 December 2015

[Part I: 5 Days in Northern Thailand] Chiang Mai - Pang Mapha - Pai - Mae Hong Son


I took a short trip to Northern Thailand for 5 days earlier this month with my friend F. It was a much, much needed holiday from the life-sucking machine that is called work. 

It was, however, a very poorly planned trip (i.e. we only decided on going for the Northwestern route instead of the Northeastern side the night when we arrived in Chiang Mai) and you'd get to see why through the post. 

Nevertheless, I managed to get a good fix of nature, adrenaline and misadventures. And here we go!

 

DAY 0: Reaching Chiang Mai

The domestic flight from BKK to Chiang Mai was delayed for an hour without any explanation, and it had me irritated panning myself around the gate while the Thais were just super chilled, reading their papers and all. That's the defining moment that I realized that I have left Singapore and reached in Thailand, Land of Sabai Sabai

The Old City of Chiang Mai is very near to the airport. We chose to walk, but you can always get a tuk tuk from the airport at 60B each.There were a lot of bars and eateries still opened when we reached around 11pm, so dont worry about food. 


But it doesn't mean you should take your own sweet time to get to your guesthouse.

LESSON #1: Always tell your hosts your check in time +/- 2 hours and arrange for passing of keys especially if you are reaching at night. 

Otherwise, you could try:

1) Shouting "ANYBODY IN??" x10 outside the locked door
2) Forcing open the door and failing
3) Getting the host's number from the neighbour and failing to get through
4) Thinking about finding another accommodation but deciding not to cos you've already paid the deposit 
5) Explaining to the guest who happened to be returning back and asking her to let you in
6) Digging through the reception's desk and drawers to find your room key (Not Advisable)
7) Leaving a note explaining everything (but just briefly mentioned about the digging through their drawers part) to the hosts when they come back the next morning. 



Anyone who briefly knows my soul, knows that Somtham (Thai Green Papaya / Mango Salad) is my spirit animal. So it's a no-brainer to guess what is the first thing I bought. But there's also when I had my Lesson #2.

LESSON #2: Always make a small marking on your money, particularly the big notes.

Even up till now, I still think I've given the Somtham seller a 1000B note though he insisted that I only gave 100B. Even though there was indeed no 1000B note in his money basket, I still find it suspicious because I don't remember having any 100B note with me in the first place. I gave him the benefit of doubt my stupidity this round, but I went back that night and marked every single 1000B note I had. Nobody is gonna fool me twice.


DAY 1: Around Chiang Mai




The Old City of Chiang Mai is still dynamic place, where you literally see the old and new / East and West culture collides. Lot of temples, eateries and cafes to keep you occupy for a good half of the day. 


We rented a typical Thailand Honda scooter at 180B per day and officially became our trip. It would the be machine that would be responsible for our lives for the next 5 days. 

LESSON #3: Remember to haggle your bike rental price if you are renting for a few days. Check if insurance is covered. Take picture / video of the bike condition before leaving the shop. And most importantly, do not let them confuse you with the days of rental and the dates.

For example: If you are renting the bike from today to tomorrow, you should only be paying 1 day of rent. But if you were to count by dates, then you would have two days (ie. 30th Dec & 31st Dec). We didn't figure this out when we make the payment, so we technically paid for one extra day of rental. 



Rode up to Doi Suthep and visited the temple there. 
Saw this sign at the entrance and I just couldn't resist myself.

Note: Ignore the "Foreginer pay here" sign at the entrance, there are so many unguarded entrances around the temple once you walked beyond that point. 



There were many place of interest along the way, several other temples, palaces and waterfalls. We wanted to go to the peak, but it was F's third time riding a scooter in his life and the roads were more getting more difficult as we rode up. So we came to this viewpoint, played with some kid, and decided to head back down.


She talked to me SOOOOOO long in Thai and I thought she liked me so I was just kissing her and hugging her. Turned out that she was after my baht (I wanted to say butt -HAHA- but it's just such a bad pun) and after given her 20B, she wandered off heartlessly busy counting her earnings for the day. 

LESSON #4: No elaborately dressed Thai kid actually like to cuddle with you. Don't be naive and believe in love.







We then wandered off to a ticketed waterfall place. There were 4 or 5 waterfalls and a good half an hour trek. Would be nice if the weather was not too cold and you could have do some swimming in the waters. 



Got back to the city and went to check out the market. Cheap, delicious and weird (I am talking about beehive /bee larvae kind of weird) food guaranteed. 


There's a HUUUUUGE (you won't be able to finish everything in one night) night bazaar just outside of the Southern gate of the Old City. Don't miss it especially if you were there for the weekend. Food, drinks, interesting accessories, fantastic roadside massages etc. all in one. 

We walked into a temple and the lights suddenly went off halfway through my prayer for the Thai God's blessing. It turned out that they were conducting some ceremony for the Thai King's oncoming birthday.

LESSON #5: If you are a free-thinker, always make it a point to go to the local religious place and ask for the local god's blessing. Especially essential if riding on mountainous roads was gonna be involved.


DAY 2: Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son (Call us mad)


DAY 2 is the EPIC DAY  to be remembered of my N.Thailand Trip.
Not because that it was fun or exciting, 
BUT BECAUSE IT WAS A FREAKING PILGRIM

Let me first introduce you the "Switzerland of Asia - MAE HONG SON LOOP"


The Mae Hon Son Loop is a comprehensive way to discover one of Thailand's most authentic provinces. For those wanting to get out of the tourist scene in Chiang Mai, and experience authentic northern Thai & Shan minority culture, the Mae Hong Son Loop is the perfect antidote. Mae Hong Son is the most mountainous province in Thailand and receives few visitors due to its relatively remote location and time needed to reach it.
The loop is approximately 600km long and needs a minimum of 4 days to complete, this excludes time for sightseeing and activities along the way, so adding on an extra few days for this is recommended. The Mae Hong Son Loop is a circular route which starts from Chiang Mai and takes you through the Mae Hong Son province ending back up at Chiang Mai. The Mae Hong Son Loop can be taken clockwise (Chiang Mai-Mae Sariang-Mae Hong Son-Pai-Chiang Mai) or anti-clockwise (Chiang Mai- Pai- Mae Hong Son- Mae Sariang- Chiang Mai). Source: Wikitravel

Our plan was to get to Mae Hong Son and come back from through Pang Mapha and Pai because (1) we didnt have enough time to complete the whole MHS loop; (2) we wanted to clear the longest leg (Chiang Mai to MHS) in the earlier part of the trip.

I apparently didn't read the Wikitravel guide carefully cos I dont remember reading about distance and casually told F that Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son should be around 30+km. And apparently I seemed really trustworthy cos F took my word for it.

It turned out to be a freaking 255km.
And our butts basically got killed from the 10-hour ride. 

To add to the ordeal, I ALSO missed out the"most mountainous" part.
Good job me. 


JUST. LOOK. AT. THIS MADNESS.

 The road was turning like intestines like that for a good 3/4 of the journey, and the uphill and downhill certainly did not make it any easier. In fact, the 1095 route from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son is infamous for its 1864 turns. 

And to make F the scooter newbie to drive on this kind of roads for 10 hours with me and another 3 big bags was just MAD MAD MAD!! I have no idea how we even managed to survive and finish the journey. Must be due to Lesson #5 (see above).

LESSON #6: Always find out how far the journey is before embarking on it. Also, never trust me with numbers (e.g. dates/distance/money). 



Suddenly found ourselves at the end of a military cannon halfway out of Chiang Mai. I like unexpected road condition like this hahah.


Once we were out of the city, the scenery was fantastic.


Sometimes when you think life couldn't get any worse, it would. Just to prove a point.

Our tyre BURST halfway down a hill and we just glided our way to the nearest shop, which miraculously appeared not far away on an otherwise civilization-less road. A helpful local told us to find the mechanics shop 1km down the road and offered to pump up our tyre so that we could ride it for another 5 minutes. 

I got so overwhelmed and tired of my heart being in my throat for hours and hours of horrendous mountain roads and its non-stop turning, that a burst tyre was the last straw on my mental stability. I wandered off to take photos of nonchalant sleeping dogs as F stayed with the bike.  

LESSON #7: Sometimes life sucks. You should try to deal with it until you couldn't anymore. Then just ignore it. 



The pumped tyre didn't last us a minute. So we had to push the bike down to find the shop. When we reached the shop, the person kept pointing to the school down the road and asked us to go in. We were super hesitant and reluctant, cos WE ARE TRYING TO GET OUR BIKE FIXED BEFORE THE SUN SETS YO! AIN'T NOBADY HAS TIME FOR SOME STUDYING RIGHT NOW. 

But what else could we do? 
After some finding around the empty school and exaggerated sign language, we finally found the legendary mechanic, who was so shocked by how damaged our tyre tubing was that he just kept shaking his head. 


And it's time to hit the road again. This time, we really had to rush because sun was setting down fast and there was no street light on the mountains.




This sunset shot was taken so half-halfheartedly. All that was on our mind was to get to Mae Hong Son asap.

The following journey was double the intensity of the half prior to it. It was pitch dark, the uphill/downhill didn't stop, neither did the turns. We didn't even dare to lose focus for one second (thus the lack of pictures and videos) and rode in complete silence. I tumbled off the bike and rolled into the grass at one point, but also saw the most amazing starry skies I've ever seen in my life. It was a perfect moment mixed with awe and adrenaline.

LESSON #8: When you find yourself at a life-and-death situation, have faith and focus.


This was my state when we finally finally reached our place in Mae Hong Son. No words could describe the wave of relief I felt at that moment. 

I promise things would get better from here. 

Friday 18 December 2015

He’s a boy, and I’m just a girl


 
In the past 23 years, my life events had been a series of random happenings, fleeting memories, hasty outbursts and sudden mishaps – all of which my participation could only be described as half-hearted at the best.

But things have changed – drastically – this year, because of this one incredible human that came into my life. And right because of him, I feel like I have only begun to understand life right now and I can’t never thank him enough for that.

He is Q, which to me it just seems like the most beautiful alphabet ever.

As boring as it could ever be, we were classmates in college. “Can’t believe we actually have to start our stories in the most uncool manner possible – ‘we were classmates!'”, it is still something we joke about up till today. But we definitely didn't start off smoothly. 

Time had put up 4-year long test for us, as we were made to remain unclose and unlove, distracted and drained by people who weren’t made to stay. There were brief moments where our souls met and looked into each other – the memories of them stay unbelievably magical even until now – but we were too scared to acknowledge them and give the feelings a name. Because it seemed like time was telling us no, people were telling us no, society was telling us no; so in the end, we too told ourselves no.

‘No’ was all that we could hear, but what exactly are we saying ‘no’ to? We didn’t know back then, all we knew was that if we ever say yes, it would be the start of a complete whole new dimension of life and the idea of it was just way too daunting for us to even think about.

That’s the first lesson he taught me of love – that it is the ONLY one single thing that can ever be meaningful throughout the whole of our lives, and even though we can recognise it by a single moment, it takes immense amount of courage to embark on it. And sometimes, we got scared.

But life always loves to surprise.

Circumstances unfolded themselves in a way that neither of us had planned to, and suddenly, it felt like we could say yes. But still, for long while after that knowing, both of us hesitated. It was a long period of mutual and self-doubt, where we ignored our hearts and succumbed to the noises in our heads. There were nights after nights where I would lie wide awake, heart racing furiously at the memories of his words, the look in his eyes, my hair where his scent lingered and the temperature of his touch. I have a reputation for sleeping just about anywhere and anytime, so you could imagine the sheer intensity of thoughts that have to be present in order to keep me up that awake throughout the night.

Sometimes, my heart was so weighed down by the thoughts of him and pumping so angrily in my chest that I had to take a few deep breaths to calm it down. I remembered thinking, "If muscles have a finite extent of usage and would eventually stop working from years of accumulated wear and tear, then I am literally killing myself faster right now by missing him so tragically hard and sending my heart muscles to a non-stop HITT workout". Yet, there was nothing I could do but to miss him, rejoicing over any little happiness we had and then getting stuck in the imaginary doom that we won’t ever work out.

It was a months-long torment that I had with myself, which I am sure he had it himself too. But on hindsight, that’s when I understood yet another lesson about love – that it is indeed bittersweet, that it really has the capability of swinging one back and forth the spectrum unannounced, propelling you to a state of overpowering happiness at one moment and leaving you wading in absolute despair the next.  

“How could this possibly not be love? What else could make me feel this much if not love?”, I asked myself this over and over again whenever the noises inside my head started to sound. Time didn’t give us the luxury to toil in our own hesitation, it slipped away mercilessly as I swung between retreating back to my comfort zone and taking that leap of faith. Soon, we found ourselves standing at a point where we both realised that this would be the last chance that we would ever ever have for each other and for ourselves, that's when we finally, finally, jumped in.

And that’s the start of our stories.

p.s. Pardon me that for a long time from now, this space will be filled with many sentimental posts like this. I am having the love of my life, it’s so incredibly beautiful that it is really important for me to pen it down. Thank you for witnessing it with me. 

p.p.s. And on another note, today is the day that I listed him as my 'Emergency Contact' and I felt that it was SUCH a remarkable milestone in our relationship. So I texted him to exclaim "our" new achievement, hoping to trigger a string of emotional declaration of love and celebratory mood. Instead, he  stayed online certainly long enough to read my texts but then went offline without replying. Wellllllllllllllllllllllllll, I suppose this clearly tells you who is more excited for this relationship yea?

Monday 14 December 2015

What to do at work when it's December and you are really bored

Prerequisite: You should have DONE EVERYTHING from clicking through all your emails, going to a looooong lunch, reading actual world news and then moving on to news such as 'Is Robot Sex The Future of Humanity?', texting your boyfriend, thinking about how to spend your remaining hours and then realizing that you are already solving the question by doing the actual thinking of how to spend your time. 

Because, hmm, thinking takes time. and thinking of how to spend time is spending time by itself. I dont really know why I am explaining this, I just feel really Nabokov explaining it. And I also don't know why I wrote that 'I just feel really Nabokov' phrase, I haven't even read the Lolita.

Anyway, you get the point. Please be CERTAIN that you are GENUINELY and SUFFICIENTLY bored before you embark on trying what I have attempted below.

Since it's already December, it's natural that I start to think of what I should accomplish next year. But because I am too lazy to craft my own new year resolution and also that Robert E.Kahn and Vint Cerf had this amazing invention called the Internet (This piece of information is credible becos I just googled 'who invented the internet' and felt slightly mindblown becos I was USING THE INTERNET ITSELF to find out about THE INTERNET. It's like having to scoop a spoonful of spoons with a spoon. Oh my god. Scooping a spoonful of spoons with a spoon. Is this the start of my tongue twister writing career?? Albeit not such a fantastic one cos I was basically twisting your tongue with the same word which is really amateur. And also, I need to stop being so Nabokov), I left it to the Internet world to decide how my 2016 should turn out to be. 

And it sure looks exciting already.




Wednesday 18 November 2015

My Aspiration

For many weeks, I couldn't seem to feel my spirit. I know I sound incredibly hipster-ish saying things like this, but to the depth of my heart I swear that it is the closest depiction I can muster to describe whatever that I was feeling.

Probably due to the immense amount of introspection and self-reflection that were bursting inside my head as triggered by the annual birthday reminder of how yet another year of my life has passed, this feeling has gotten worse in recent days. To such an extent that I couldn't seem to be able receive the words of my lover completely - it was as if his words were literally bouncing off my skin - and I couldn't be truly present during the conversations with my friends.

Once again, I was starting to feel lost about life because I saw no directions on my compass.That's when I knew I had to address the elephant in the room, and that is what is it that I really aspire to do with my life at this point of time? 


After a good few hours, I found my exact answer in a serendipitous search that led me to Zach Ingrasci's words
_______________________

To pursue the intersection of the creative arts, business and sustainable development.
_______________________

The omission of any of the three components in the work that I do will thenceforth make that seed of dissatisfaction sprout in my heart, slowly eating my spirit away, leaving me in unalive and unhappy.

I do not know how to tell you how important this realization is to me. It's like I have truly, finally found the words to answer the question of "So, what is it that you wish to do?". There are only these few essential questions to a person's life and this is easily tops the list in many cases. 


I then went to check out on Ingrasci's notable documentary: Living On One (Full video here).

 

Here's a trailer of it

Though in my opinion, this film could have been made with the objective to promote microfinancing (particularly to show (exaggerate?) the impact of it by Grameen Trust) since one of its directors had worked for them before, it still managed to provide me with the much needed reminder that life has so so much more to my current petty dissatisfaction with my circumstances. 

Questionable agendas aside, it was a very direct documentary where you can actually feel life itself hitting you in the face. The kind of life you thought you know about because you had read it in the newspapers, the kind of scenery that you had imagined your dream hut was built on, the kind of simplicity that could just move you to your tears. 

And last but not least, I admire that flaming spirit of the directors.


Today I found the exact words to my aspiration.
Today shall thus be a day to be remembered.