Observations

Apparently the frequency with which I post is a good reference for my mental engagement with the world...

Things have moved on a fair bit since may, I'm now actually at one of those potential options, doing a master's at U of T. Spending my days writing optimization routines and debugging them, however, is not the fount of excitement and learning i thought it would be. At the bare minimum, I suppose i'm building up some useful computer background skills and more raw number crunching ability, but i'm seriously lacking in any opportunity for abstract thought...

hence, chris is bored.... pyromania bored... but in a city where lighting a couch on fire in your back yard is not the quick and risk free way to fill an evening it was in kingston...

and once you lose your outlets, you get locked into a sick cycle of desperation where you surf the web, looking for updates on BBC news, abstractly hoping that the world will end and be covered in glowing detail by some far off news bureau... at least that's what i do...

Anyways, i'm going to solve my problem in the traditional way... well, one of two... first i'm going to the gym to hit the heavy bag, then i'm going to have a beer...

race you to the bottom...

chris

La plus ca change, la plus c'est la meme chose...

Still drifting... working now, a sucession which passed through the airport and ended up back in the old world of masterplan, carrying heavy objects and dealing with unreliable people for my bread and butter...

But i do like butter...

I'm at an interesting point in the pay scale where it's not quite enough to actually justify being the focus of my life, but just to stay at this point in the earnings world requires... you guessed it, for it to be the focus of my life...

So, that's how finishing the day at 6:00 am and working every weekend comes about... with a few perks in the form of free red bull and occasional meals...

Got into U of T, so it appears that's the focus of my life come september... lots of complicated math and engineering, and eventually maybe some useful skills... though... maybe just another piece of paper to mop up the drool around the corners of my mouth with...

Anyways, this post is predicated on the assumption that people care, so i'll keep it brief...

Same ol same ol, just everything is different...

still in a stew of indecision

Well, life hasn't changed very much for me in the ensuing months...

Still not a lot of exciting things happening in the land of chris - put in an application for grad school at U of T, which hopefully will give me lots of money to go there... but apart from that, my life is really all about avoiding big decisions right now.

Still looking for a job in vancouver in the meantime... or quite possibly a job in australia, where i can live with my sis and reap the benefits of 18 dollar an hour minimum wages... which might be significantly more than i get for being unemployed here... :)

Who knows, even the fact that i'm posting shows how desperately bored i am, so...

cmon cyberspace, cough up a high paying, rewarding, enjoyable job for me... or at least some more quality TV programs to download...

Chris

Back in canada, adrift in a sea of possibility

Ok, as many of you have noticed and loudly pointed out, i'm not actually in Chiang-Mai anymore, and there's a bit of hole in the story of how i returned to Canada, etc. etc.

So, back in vancouver right now, sitting around filling out job and grad school applications and wondering what the future might hold. Got back from Thailand in december, spend christmas with my family, then flew to Cleveland to spend chanukah with Care and her family. It was pretty good, got the best of both worlds with christian and jewish holidays and warm family love from everyone. Spent a couple weeks in kingston with Care hanging out, revisiting the old haunts and thinking about what i was going to do with my future (notice a pattern forming?). Gourmet Pizza and alcoholism aside, it was strange to back in kingston and not be in school... I think i may have moved on from the town itself, although it was nice to see old friends and catch up.

Flash to Vancouver, where for the past two weeks i've been doing lots of nothing and... wait for it... thinking about what i'm going to do in the future...

Please reference the title of the blog... That's what i'm thinking at this point...

So, at the end of it all, i'm fairly commited to the idea of doing a research master's degree in Aerospace engineering, preferably at a school which will give me lots of money to go there... In the meantime I need a somewhat throwaway job in Vancouver to keep me supplied with money...

Anyways, simple in theory, but now i need to actually get off my ass and do it... Damn apathy bred through extended south east asian vacations...

Chiang-Mai

hmmm...

Midway through a two day cooking course, and having just gotten back from a two day, one night trek through the mountains here, i'm completely exhausted. Chiang mai, in the north of Thailand, is pretty cool though, and even though i feel like i'm going to drop i'm enjoying it.

For the trek we walked for about 9 km along ridgelines, etc. to the top of the local mountains and a village of the white karen tribe. After trudging up the hills all day, i kind of wanted to lie down, but got talked into playing soccer with the local villagers on the rock hard dirt field. 3 hours later I was kind of having trouble walking. Soccer was very fun, despite my total lack of skill, because of my size difference with the local people. Ken described it as "watching godzilla wade into a herd of japanese tourists" every time I tried to get the ball - most of them got out my way to avoid my flailing limbs and lack of coordination, but i still didn't have a chance of touching the ball... The traditional thai version of football is played on a volleyball court with a net, but with soccer rules (meaning only your feet can touch the ball), so everyone in thailand is ridiculously good with their feet.

Apart from the sore feet, also rode an elephant (which makes really big poop) and forded white water on a bamboo raft. The rafting was pretty fun as the guide on our raft was a sick sadistic bastard who kept on viciously splashing the girls on the other raft and yelling "no wet? no fun!". Good times, despite a couple near misses on the rocks and me almost falling off the raft a couple times (I was standing on the back trying to help steer with the other pole).

Found out the white karen tribe we stayed with is named because the unmarried women in the tribe will wear full length white dresses to highlight this fact... makes things easier for the fellas, except that only the women can make marriage proposals, making it a very matriarchal society... Our guide hadn't been asked to marry by any girls yet, and the impression i got was of the guys having a pretty carefree existence and waiting for the girls to take most of the iniative.

Anyways, returned to chiangmai via a waterfall and another 9km of walking (downhill this time) and collapsed in bed. I was pretty sure i had birdflu for a while (especially with the @#$!ing roosters that woke us up at 4:30 am and were wandering around the village) as I had a fever and felt like a sack of crap. Woke up the next morning feeling slightly better (more like the ebola monkey than patient zero) and made for the thai cooking class to spread my viral particles.

The cooking class was amazing, and ridiculous, as you have to eat whatever you cook and we were trying 6 dishes a day plus dessert. Won't bore you with the details, but hopefully demonstrate my new skills, and new tolerance for ridiculously spicy food... The stuff that had our tongues hanging out and smoke coming out our ears was "too bland" for the thai staff there to help us eat.

So, i'm now plump, tired, and somewhat more knowledgable about thai food and culture - not bad for a non-stop 4 days north of bangkok. The next step calls for a night train back to bangkok, and preparations for the return home... by this, of course, I mean trying to drink the country dry of rotgut rice whisky and hideously insult all the locals on the king's birthday (the 5th).

Until next time, hopefully not from the depths of a thai prison,

Chris

Looking Snazz - u - lous...

Thailand has some pretty good tailors...

and more importantly, a fiscal and developmental gap with Canada that means they're pretty reasonable...

Result, Chris is edging towards joining the yuppy scum at the trough...




Don't worry, i'm still a heathen at heart (note the bare feet)

What's the capital of thailand? Bangkok!

Damn, i need Kaleb's cartoon to illustrate this...

Don't worry, i'm still alive, just haven't posted in a little while... Something about not travelling alone anymore, and something about general apathy...

Fled the south where the monsoon returned for one last fling - took a 13 hour overnight bus ride to bangkok, but it was actually very comfortable. For once the super VIP bus lived up to it's name, with easy chairs, free juice boxes, and even a toilet on board (trust me, a very nice thing to have on a 13 hour bus ride in thailand). Bangkok is a completely insane carnival of noise, traffic, pollution, and people.

Having learned from Phuket that the way to cross traffic in Thailand is simply to close your eyes and keep a steady rythm as you cross, allowing the traffic to flow around you like a river, tried to put that into practice on the 16 lane freeways here... After the first change of underwear, I was ok for the rest of the day...

Many more tales of Bangkok to be told, but unfortunately most of them involve rampant consumerism... Getting close enough to home, and christmas, that it seems easier to finish off my remaining travellers cheques to pick up some cheap clothes, presents, DVDs, automatic weapons, etc. in the markets around here, where you can very literally buy almost anything, and at a good price... Also starting to be very comfortable with the bargaining and pressure sales inherent in any purchase in Thailand, or asia for that matter... The tuk-tuks here get free gas, commissions, etc. for every unsuspecting tourist they drop off at a tailor shop or jewelry store - result, motoring around bangkok to see 4 different temples and china town only cost us 20 baht total (60 cents) but 4 different visits to various shops... Tough to cultivate that "i'm actually very interested, but just don't feel like buying today" look.

Anyways, a whirlwind next few days will see a visit to chiang-mai by train, plane, and bus, two days of jungle trekking, and two days of intense thai cooking classes, before a triumphant return to bangkok, then eventually home...

I hear you're whipping up snowstorms and frigid weather to make me feel comfortable when I get back, but i'm homesick enough that I won't mind... for the first 5 minutes or so...

So,

one last hurrah of crazy tourism, then back on the plane in spiffy style for a return to Canada... but not the end of this adventure...

Chris

Sippin from a bucket in phuket...

Now in the sunny climes of Phuket on the andaman coast of Thailand. Spent a few uneventful days on ko phi phi absorbing the sunshine and local bacteria and not really doing much else.

My two overriding impressions from ko phi phi were of the tsunami damage that is still clearly visible and the thai nightlife that I finally experienced. At first I didn't really notice anything as it was just one more strange, slightly rundown, asian town to me, but once I started looking closer I noticed the snapped off palm trees, bent steel beams on the remaining buildings, and the huge empty area in the prime resort space in the centre of the island. Eeriest for me was noticing the tiled floors of three shops just in front of my guesthouse that had been totally swept clean of the stores above. When i was swimming in the bay, the waves rolled in in these perfect, unbroken lines from one of the bay to the other that gave me chills. But, apart from that, the whole island looks like it's bouncing back, and at least my guesthouse was on a hill, so I probably would have survived a tsunami if it reoccured - The most ironic thing is that the cheapest, scummiest accomadation perched on the hills survived the waves, while the exclusive resorts and presidential bungalows right on the beach were completely ravaged.

So, with the eerie feeling in the back of my mind, relaxed on the beach, finally succumbed to the bacterial horrors of cheap hawker food, and relaxed for a couple days. Went out to experience the nightlife with Alex, the british guy in the room next to mine who is a perpetual traveller and stereotypical of a british backpacker. This means he knows where the best places for cheap beer and food are, and eats pretty much nothing but rice to save money for beer. Good times though, as I saw the lady-boy cabaret and some of the crazier bars on the island. The lady boys were actually kind of boring, once you get over the shock that some of them make very convincing women, it's really just someone with poor english skills lip synching to bad english love songs.

Another thing they have here is a bar which gives you a free bucket from midnight to 12:10 every night - contents of the bucket (like a child's sand bucket) include samsung (cheap thai whiskey), red bull, coke, and ice. Needless to say, a couple of those and your recollection of what you did that night starts to get really blurry. The bar next door had a muay thai ring right in the centre with thai fighters giving a demonstration and fighting a few bouts. If you climb into the ring and fight the thais, you get two free buckets... unfortunately, it's basically suicide, as the muay thai fighters are ridiculously fast and love to teach stupid foreigners respect for the martial arts.

Anyways, in phuket now, looking around at maybe doing some scuba diving here, and otherwise continuing my laid back progress around Thailand. Actually was fairly homesick for the last several days, aggravated by being sick in a strange country and constantly wondering what it was that poisoned you in the first place. Bought a new toothbrush and spent a couple days eating nice, bland, food, and eventually pulled through, but wasn't the most pleasant couple days.... You know it's bad when you start to wish for a kitchen you could just make your own food in, or a toilet that actually flushes when you press a button, rather than needing a bucket of water.

I'm still alive and kicking though, and on the plus side my hotel tonight comes with a chamber pot, so I can try some really rustic "historical" pooping.

Happy trails,

Rai Ley + ko phi phi photos