Monsoon Lightning Rod

Saturday I drove a motorcycle to Burma. I wrote my friend Sarah an email about it and rather than try to one-up myself with an even better telling, I'll repeat it here. I'll warn that because this was a personal email to a good friend, and I was still amped up from the trip, I drop the F-bomb about a million fucking times.

Good story. Here's one for you:

So I had to renew my visa eh? Right, time to go to Burma. I buy a bus ticket, and a few hours later my hostel running buddy Noom says, hey, why not rent a motorbike and just ride up there? He knows I love bikes and figures it'll be a good time. This is Saturday and I have to get to the border on Sunday or pay a late fee. Trouble is I already have the bus ticket for Sunday morning. SO I head into town on Saturday night with the idea of renting a motorbike and refunding the bus ticket. I was sort of successful.
Met a lovely American bird, name of Katie, and ended up drinking all night with her, and making out next to the old fortified moat at 7am. Walked her to her place, decided that I was going to wait for motorbike place to open up rather than go home to my hostel.
Walk into Starbuck's. Order mocha. Sleep for one hour. Rent large-ish motorcycle for 2 days for the princely sum of 1600 baht (about 40 bucks.) Back to hostel, 4 hours sleep, then ON THE ROAD TO BURMA. WHAT THE HELL?
North from Chiang Mai the roads are curvy as hell which = huge fun on motorcycle. The bike is big, but fast, and wallows through turns like a well placed brick. I take my time due to the insanely uncomfortable seat, which causes me to need to get off it and awaken my ass muscles periodically.
Evening finds me taking pictures of an ancient white temple just out of Chiang Rai (not Chiang Mai. Chiang Rai is farther north, on the road to Burma. Stay with me now.) An hour of puttering around this city with no apparent center or tourist ghetto finds me in a 12 dollar a night hotel with all thais, free internet and free breakfast. Chicken fried rice, sleep, awake. Read news. Read Barack Obama's convention speech and actually cry with love for country. Can't wait to get home. Have to go to Burma.
Up the road to Burma. Border crossing is confusing but not too worrying. Burma side of the border is like Thailand's dark side. Dirtier, poorer. Drab. A bit dingy. I am befriended by a man who slurrs his speech and calls himself Danny. He walks with me 5km down a dirt road surrounded by beautiful tropical countryside. I buy him lunch which, as far as I can tell, is fried pork intestines. Danny is really affable. We discuss our mutual love for martial arts, and his various stories of being arrested in the united states. At the border, before I go back, he asks for money and I give him 20 baht. (90 cents.) He's actually a decent guy, I think.
A brief and terrifying dip into a Burmese street market shows me what it's like to be a piece of meat thrown into a room of starving wolves. After denying at least 50 different brands of cigarettes ("MAYBE HE LIKES MARLBORO LIGHTS WE DIDN'T ASK HIM THAT YET) and who knows how many brands of nudie playing cards ("YOU LIKE YOU GO BOOM BOOM?") ("no boom boom. thanks.") I escape back into Thailand. Back on my bike and off to the Golden Triangle, the meeting point of Burma, Thailand and Laos. The road there is beautiful but about the same consistency as the Grand Canyon. I finally rumble into town which consists mostly of hotels, restaurants, t-shirt stalls, and a 40 foot high golden Buddha in sitting position, placed right on the bank of the Mekong River. This is absolutely just as fantastic as it sounds. But I'm bleeding daylight and I have 6 hours drive (I thought, haha fucking ha) to get back to Chiang Mai. Snap snap snap photographs go! And back on the bike! I slam the throttle and scream manically into my ill fitting helmet as I zoom over man-sized potholes at light speed. Hey, I was running out of time.
By the time I get to Chiang Rai, still 190km from Chiang Mai, it's total night. This is fine except for two things:
1) It starts to rain.
2) The headlight on my motorcycle is rivaled for brightness by things like fireflies, and the first lightbulb ever invented.

Needless to say the idea that I can continue blithely along at 80km/hour is done for. My speed and body temperature are cut drastically. Roads that were really fun in the daytime, perfectly dry and illuminated by golden sunshine wrapped around beautifullly rugged, green jungle and coffee farm covered mountains, are now FUCKING DEADLY in the rain, thunder, lightning, and candle-powered headlight from hell. A 3 hour drive turns into 4, then 5, then 6. I hit a bat on the road. He gets caught in my shirt and I flick him away. At this point I have one of those moments, when you just laugh your head off and go

WHAT THE FUCK COULD I POSSIBLY BE THINKING THAT I AM DOING HERE??????

Needless to say that after absolutely losing my mental luggage I finally made it into Chiang Mai around midnight. I am now safe and sane at my home piece hostel run by my home piece Noom, who by the way wants to go to bed, which means he shuts down internet, which means this story is OVER.

Hope you loved it. I miss you! Africa sounds great. Keep loving everything.



So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. There's more news to be had here in Thailand (state of emergency anyone?) but I'll leave that for later. I hope everyone is fantastic. Register to vote if you haven't already!