Helloooooo - long time no see! I hope you are all well :D
I’m currently sitting in a hostel cafe on the island of Koh Tao. Back to the islands and my last stay in Thailand before another braaaand new country!
I had written the first part of this before my monk retreat as I wanted to get it out before I went away, but was on very little sleep and couldn’t really form a proper sentence, so decided to leave it instead of putting out slop. (dw, not AI, none ever used in this :))
Thereeeeefore, this issue is focused on the north of Thailand and back in Bangkok with a special visitor. I have already started writing down all my thoughts on the monk retreat; they have started steadily pouring out over the last couple of days. The retreat definitely deserves its own issue, so am leaving that for the next one.
Chiang Chiang Kok↗
This issue covers the two northern ‘Chiangs’ (Rai & Mai) and, of course, the capital. I spent around a week at the top of the country, coming off the Mekong River and hopping down to Chiang Rai.
Chiang Rai is an amazing place!
A little off the tourist trail, with most people just transiting through it, it has a collection of super cool temples and food.
I stayed with Leo (remember him? Met on the slow boat) for 2 nights there.
Chiang Rai has temples of various colours. The most notable ones are the blue, white and black temples (there was also a red one but it was kinda small).
By the time we arrived in Chiang Rai it was already decently late but I had time to do a quick lap of some of the closer sites - I followed what I thought was a temple on maps but ended up in a school lol - before a dinner with Leo and some beers (Leo ofc).
I woke up the next morning, determined to hit the trifecta of Chiang Rai temples.
First on my list was the white temple. Technically speaking, it isn’t a temple; it is actually a modern art sculpture of sorts.
The outside is incredibly impressive and I was taken aback with how bright it was. Not only was the whole thing in ‘cocaine’ white, but there were also lots of little pieces of mirror that bounced the rays around, multiplying the intensity of the reflection (if that’s even possible).
The ‘temple’ is meant to reflect heaven and hell. You basically start in hell and walk along a little footbridge over hundreds of outstretched arms and skeletons; it was done really well and felt a little creepy. You take the bridge up into ‘heaven’ and assume everything is gucci, but not all is what it seems…
They were pretty strict about not taking photos inside, unfortunately, but there was a very lifelike statue of a monk praying in the middle of this room which was surrounded by very odd murals.
At first glance it seemed like the normal sort of imagery you would associate with a temple (e.g. geometrical patterns and stoof) but, looking closer, you soon discover some oddities.
For one, there was a depiction of a plane striking the Twin Towers, which caught me off guard. Then, surrounding it, there were movie characters and modern devices like iPads and a PS4; it was really random.
I’m not a million percent sure what the artist was on about when he made this but I really liked the design on the outside lol.
Upon exiting the temple there were signs to a ‘ghost cave’.
Things just got more odd.
It was a little cave with lots of things.
Actually did get kinda scary at one point when the people in front of me disappeared and I was all alone surrounded by weird gargoyles.
My eyes were constantly adjusting to different levels of darkness and so new details would pop up every couple of seconds even if I hadn’t moved my eyes, making it seem like the things were coming out of the wall. Felt like I needed some Scooby snacks after that lowk.
After getting the blurry ell out of the ghost cave, I absolutely chomped a padkrapow and mango sticky rice from the nearby food market and got the longest moto Grab of my life (45 mins on the back of a Grab is tough work) to the north of Chiang Rai, where the black ‘temple’ was.
In fairness, the info online did say it wasn’t really a temple, but I thought it was only right to check it out after seeing the white one. uno yin-yang and that.
So it turns out, from my understanding, it’s another sort of art installation thing. This time a wealthy collector had amassed all sorts of odd things and built little black huts for them.
Apparently the huts were in traditional Thai village style, but I’m not sure they used to be all black, I think the artist just wanted to be edgy.
There were huts called stuff like ‘reptile hall’ which was just a bunch of crocodile skins and stuff, again kinda creepy. My favourite hut was the toilet, where I spent a good amount of time dealing with what I assume must have been the padkrapow from earlier.
If you ever find yourself in Chiang Rai I 100% advise you not to visit the black temple; really a waste of time unless you are into stuff like this…
It was approaching dinner time at this point, which I told Leo I’d join him for. Fortunately the blue temple was conveniently located right along the route back to the hotel and so I managed to knock off the three colours in one day.
This one was an actual temple, although I think a modern reconstruction, but still. Very cool indeed!
Another banging meal with Leo and some beers and whisky! I got to know Leo a bit more; he had a fascinating life story. Born in Papua New Guinea, abandoned on the door of an orphanage, he got selected in a random ballot to be transferred to Singapore, where he was adopted and spent his childhood before serving in the army for 8 years and travelling for the last 4 years.
He was also somewhat of a social media influencer (less of an influencer and more of a ragebaiter, but still no difference these days) and gave me some tips ;)
After mosquitoes started to try and get some whisky through our blood, we headed to sleep and walked down to the bus terminal the next morning, bound for Chiang Mai.
Leo had lived in Chiang Mai for the last year and so knew it very well indeed. He works at the Mad Monkey hostel there and was due to be back working that day, so we had one more lunch together before we went our separate ways.
I had 4 nights in Chiang Mai and took it noice and slow, walking around the old town and seeing the markets.
On the second night there I headed to the local Muay Thai stadium. I had seen posters all around for this fight. The headline card was a Brit against a mean-looking Thai fighter; I had to go and watch.
Just as I was munching a pre-fight padkrapow I saw one of the couples from the Laos slow boat who were also going to the fight. I joined them and we watched fighter after fighter getting slumped.
After a few fights it was time for the Brit. Almost immediately he was pummelled by punches and kicks from all angles but managed to hold himself and lasted the full 5 rounds before losing on points (very fairly; I think he maybe landed one kick in the whole fight).
Just as everyone was leaving, a surprise fight popped up. Two 12-year-olds sprang up in the ring.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
The bell went off and the traditional music was literally like 5 notes into the song when one of the yutes received a disgusting heel kick to the back of the head and just folded.
That was the roughest KO I had seen all night and came out of nowhere. When the poor guy came to, he was in tears; he had probably trained for ages and his moment was literally like 2 seconds. Brutal.
On my last day in Chiang Mai I thought it was only right to treat myself to a massage. I had been walking by this place run by ex-prisoners the last few days and decided to give it a go.
It was very good! A different style of northern massage that focused more on stretching than punching my body, so I was happy.
I saw the main man Leo for a quick bite to eat. He was fresh off a gnarly pub crawl dealing with the gap year dons from the previous night, noice. No idea how you do that hostel rep job, the same thing pretty much every night (yes, some nights off), but to do it for close to a year is crazy.
Anyways, twas time to get back down south. To the bus station we go!
There were two main options to get back down south: a train or bus. The train would have almost certainly given me more chance at sleeping (esp in the beds), but left at like 5pm and got into Bangkok at 4am, which wasn’t very friendly.
I chose the bus, and we drove away at around 9pm that night.
Not much to say about the bus journey! I had snuck a Soju on board with me as a little nightcap and listened to this issue’s album of the week (issa banger) as we zoomed down the highways, pulling into Bangkok early the next morning.
I didn’t get any sleep :( (see this issue’s thought of the week lol) and so basically zombie Grabbed to the hotel I had booked to dump my bags and try and get at least 30 mins of sleep in the toilet as check-in wasn’t for another 6 hours.
A few coffees and a half-awake haircut later and it was time to check in and conk out.
Big Chig, Sean Kane, Shi Hong, the engineer, SK beats, call him whatever, but he was jetting over to BKK via Ashgabat! Another chapter of the trip was about to unfold for the next week…
You know what they say: what happens in BKK stays in BKK. I’m not going to say too much about what happened, but we went to Khao San Road a few times, escaped from Nana Plaza and watched a ping pong show on Soi Cowboy during our nights there. A lot of drinking and one night getting wayyyyyy too high, “it hasn’t hit yet” being the famous last words before the “ohhhhhhh shiiiiiiiiiii”.
In uni and in Michigan, my go-to concoction for a night out would be as many gin lemonade doubles as I could remember buying. That phase was fun while it lasted, but I am mature now and so wanted to actually remember the nights. I’ve found that a couple of Leo beers (big bottles) and then literally 1 or 2 puffs of a joint and I’m right where I need to be. No hangover, no nausea, cool beans.
To Mum and Dad: I promise I’m not abusing it! Just sampling the local veggies every now and again.
Unfortunately, I think I caught a cold on that bus back down to BKK and so couldn’t go out every night, leaving Big Chig on a solo mission in Bangkok. No idea what he got up to lol.
On our last day we decided to do some actual sightseeing (in fairness we had seen the Grand Palace, Chinatown, ICONSIAM and Jodd Fairs already) and got a Grab down to ‘The Ancient City’. A pretty random place.
Basically a sort of theme park but without rides (well, apart from golf carts with Shi Hong driving).
It was a reconstruction of lots of different buildings and monuments from Thailand’s past, as well as some art installations. A very nice way to round off the trip, actually, some good wholesome chats before finishing up back in Bangkok at the infamous Tichuca bar.
Unfortunately, it had started raining and we discovered rooftop bars weren’t quite the same with the extra water feature, and so left it. I popped back to the hotel with hopes of dispelling the cold with some electrolytes and stoof while Shi Hong met up with some people we had met partying earlier in the week.
Just like that, the next morning he was off! Back to Turkmenistan, where I was hoping he wouldn’t drop a cheeky lil freestyle and get detained. Although that would have been pretty funny.
Thank you so much for coming out, Chig, meant so much to see you and I really appreciated our convos. Syden 4L ong.
The next issue finna be a bumper one, a deep dive into monastery life and my slightly wack takes on philosophy.
Thank you for reading! Hope you didn’t miss me too much :)
I’ve been more active on posting stories on whatnot on @nutbrowngram so feel free to check that out, and also joaj.net.
Buhhhh byeeee
Thought↗
I need to get better at going to sleep, that’s the next thing I want to super focus on. I’ve been trying to make this a kinda passion of mine lol, trying to train myself out of being such a light sleeper. I find it really hard to sleep if someone else around me is awake or if there are any noises in general, so I’ve been trying some different and not at all successful techniques. Earbuds do help, but I’ve realised it’s not just the noise; it’s something about sort of having my ‘guard’ completely down.
Album of the week↗
Honestly top ten albums of allllllll time. Welcome to the Machine is my favourite, very cool sounds. The whole album is super atmospheric and obviously prog rock, so you have to be patient with it and give it time. Trusssss it’s worth it. The Dark Side of the Moon is regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, so you gotta at least give this one a try. Recommend doing it in one sitting because all of the tracks feed into each other.
P.S. - Big travelling ahead, may have to go to FORTNITEly issues and actually focus on writing quality instead of just spewing out what happened like this one lol