I spent eight days in Bangkok dealing with visas, mostly I just had to wait between visits to embassies. I found a guest-house in the Khosan Road area, the nexus of all travelers in Southeast Asia – where young traveling college boys and girls mingle with aging hippies and middle-aged sex-tourists; where bar girls are always your friend and your friends are always temporary; where tuk-tuk drivers incessantly ask you if you need a ride, some “boom boom” perhaps, or maybe you’d like to see the ping-pong show in the red-light district (“ping-pong in pattapong?”); and where native garbed women so constantly try to sell musical wooden frogs, rubbing a stick up the carved spine of the novelty to make a cute high pitched sound, that you begin to think the fake wooden ribbit is actually some natural native fauna. Khosan Road – the beginning and the end of most Southeast Asian trips.

Having been to Bangkok before, and not wanting to suffer through the heat and sweat of traipsing around to the sights, I spent most of my days sitting outside my guest-house drinking ice-coffee, ice-tea, and, inevitably, cold beer. A few other travelers waiting out similar sentences in Bangkok were doing the same and I spent the week shooting the shit with the Brits, Irish, and Dutch (always so many Dutch people traveling) – soon we had a little clique of people who sat at the two outdoor smoking tables. John, from Britain, worked 6 months of the year at home and travels the other six – his job at home consists of driving around the U.K. selling herbs and spices, so he is eternally itinerant. Mark, from Ireland, has been traveling for over 6 months and we talked about India mostly. Vroni, a lanky Dutch woman, she must’ve been six-four, was going to teach English in southern Thailand. Vroni sometimes looked at me with her clear eyes and I wondered if there was something more than idle chit-chat possible. Others came and went, joining the group for an evening or two before heading off somewhere, but those of us waiting for visas or friends formed the core group.

November 1st was the official end of the rainy season, Loy Krathong, and we did manage to get off our asses and go watch the festivities. Candle-lanterns are floated down the river and into the air (like little hot air balloons). The flying lanterns were neat, little orange stars rising into the smoggy haze, but the floating ones were a disappointment, simply bouncing along the dirty docks and piers of the river and often getting capsized by passing boats. A few young men were swimming in the river, retrieving the extinguished lanterns and re-selling them.

After an hour or two of lanterns we all headed back to the guest-house to drink and smoke and talk. Travel is often about meeting other travelers – the normal social barriers are gone, everyone is a stranger looking for company, and it can be like an eternal party with shifting scenery and cast of characters. You can make some real connections, meet special people, have wonderful moments, but it can be a trap too – hang about having too much fun and where did you really travel to?

I managed to get dysentery (or something akin) on the one day I had to make three trips to embassies. Each time I would get off a bus or train I would walk stiffly and sweating to the nearest ticket-taker or security guard and ask weakly, “where’s the nearest toilet?” Thankfully, I always made it in time, although once, lost in a mall, I felt dizzy and faint with the effort of keeping my bodily functions under control and was considering laying down on the cool linoleum floor when I finally found the public toilet. The Chinese embassy in Bangkok, by the way, has a surprisingly decent bathroom (there’s even a big roll of communal toilet paper outside the stalls!).

Back at my guest-house the usual suspects were hanging about, drinking, eating noodles, complaining about this country or that, extolling the virtues of this beach or that island. Well into the evening a young Dutch guy – a boy really – came up to our table and said with a thick accent, “There is a Dutch woman. Look up.” We looked up. Vroni was out on the balcony waving goodbye to us all, it was her last night. “And she wants you to go upstairs,” the boy said to me. “Me? Go upstairs?” I asked. “Yes, you. Fourth floor.” Maybe I hadn’t imagined that twinkle in her eye. I grinned broadly at the guys, downed the last of my beer and said, “well maybe it’s goodnight to you all!”  I padded up to the fourth floor to find a hallway full of locked doors, quiet except for the whir of electric fans. “Vroni?” I croaked plaintively outside one door, then the next. Surely she would have left her door ajar if she really had wanted to see me. Wouldn’t she?  I went back downstairs and rejoined the guys, accepting the inevitable jibes.

Anna & Jessie

Lyndon & Lukmu

Moriyamo & Annika

chess w/ moriyamo

A few days later, visas in my passport, I headed up to Chiang-Mai, the northern capital of Thailand. Chiang-Mai is a breath of fresh air – literally and figuratively – after Bangkok. It’s a real city, but not a sprawling megapolis – the heart of the city  is about one square-mile enclosed by an old moat and brick wall with bustling avenues along each side. Inside the walls, most of the streets are narrow “sois”, barely a lane wide with no sidewalks and it feels almost like a small town. It’s a popular tourist destination, but has a great relaxed vibe – bars and cafes line the small streets and like many hot places nothing really starts until early evening.

My second day in Chiang Mai I randomly ended up having a few drinks with a small crowd of people at a tiny guest-house called Happy Hippy House. It had four rooms, plus a small outdoor bar and a tattoo parlor. It’s run by a British chick named Jessie and her boyfriend, and tattoo artist, Mek. It’s hard to explain how yet-another-drink seemed special, but the group of people (some staying there, some friends of Jessie) was somehow perfect. It was one of those mash-ups of people you meet that just works even though the age and background differences spanned continents and multiple decades. Jessie is surely the reason behind it. She is one of those special women who are almost always fun to be with; laughter and kind words fall from these people as if it were the easiest thing in the world, frivolity and festivity grow organically around them and at first you guess that they are not serious people, but they always seem to know exactly what is going on and actually take care to make sure people are looked after, giving advice freely and seldom cutting anyone down unless they truly deserve it. In short, she’s the perfect person to be running a Happy Hippy House.

I found myself hanging out there every day, getting to know the group of guests and regulars. Lyndon, with his cartoon hyena laugh who later, when asked what he was doing in Chiang-Mai confessed to being “for the first time in my life, a bit lost.” Mike, a Brit who teaches English in Hanoi and hasn’t left Asia for four years. “I can’t afford to leave anymore.” The lovely Annika and Moriyamo, Moriyamo would later play chess with me over breakfast at a nearby cafe (women who play chess seem especially hard to find in the world, and therefore that much more special). And there were two Australians, Rob and Scott. Scott lived and worked down in Khopangyan and was just visiting Jessie and getting a new tattoo from Mek. And, I must not forget, little Lukmu (loo-moo), the Happy Hippy dog!

That Friday the Happy Hippies, Lukmu, and hangers-on all crammed into one pick-up truck and went to a nearby lake for a picnic and swimming. It was one of those perfect days – the lake was beautiful, with tree crammed mountains rising into the western sky, and nearly deserted. Jessie and gang had purchased classic picnic fare – bread, salami, cheeses, onions, tomatoes, etc. – and the beers were cheap. We swam, we feasted and then swam some more, and laid around in the sun, and watched it set. There was nothing particularly fascinating or foreign about the lake, it was just a good day – I could have been in New York or California. Even on this extended vacation-journey-thing it’s still easy to forget what a pleasure a day “away from it all” is. Anyone can do it. Drop what you’re doing, grab a few friends and some food – walk, drive, bike somewhere and plop your ass down for the day. You can live like kings – just forget everything for a moment. Forget about the trap, and it’s not there.  For a moment at least.

Mike	Mek relaxing in tube	Slawek & Molly

On Sundays in Chiang Mai a huge market springs up in the late afternoon and runs until midnight. Blocks and blocks of silk shawls, blankets, t-shirts, dresses, beads, paintings, carvings, pottery and, of course, food. Some of the Happy Hippies went to the market to drink wine – two Thai women run a small wine stand where you can buy a decent cup of Longan Wine (kind of like Sauvignon Blanc?) for 20 baht, about 60 cents. Jessie convinced me to get a foot massage at the market too, a half-hour of luxurious rubbing for 2 bucks. Things were fine. For me, at least. Happy Hippy House, like many good things, won’t last it seems. Jessie and Mek learned that their landlord was ending their lease in six weeks and tearing down the Happy Hippy to put up a four story condo. Jessie drank numerous glasses of wine and bobbed her drunken head and blinked slowly. “I think maybe I need to get a real job. You know, earn some actual money – I’ve never been more than scraping by. I had a real job once, for six months – that’s all I could take. I just couldn’t run in the rat race, you know? But, I’m tired of just scraping by.” Maybe she’s right, but somehow I doubt it. It doesn’t matter what you do – there’s always something else you could be doing, something else you think maybe you should be doing. At least it’s always been that way for me. Trapped in a job, a career, or trapped without enough funds, trapped in the rat-race or trapped outside it. Take your pick and run with it, I say. There’s no escaping the trap, but just knowing it’s there, knowing that there’s this cage around you, and maybe a big fucking piece of metal spring-loaded and ready to break your neck and send you dirt bound at any moment – just knowing that is your escape. Like the man said, life is like a glass of tea.

Falc

Happy Hippy bar

Mek tattoos Scott

A few days later Happy Hippy threw a party for a friend’s birthday and the night was full of fun and joy – Jessie seemed more positive, talking of finding another place for a new Happy Hippy. Maybe she and Mek will find it, maybe Chiang Mai will continue to be blessed by their presence. Wherever they end up, I hope it all works out for the best and the Happy Hippiness continues to flower.

I’m in Laung Nam Tha, Laos, heading to China.