Welp, I'm officially halfway across the world now and boy does it take a long time to get here!
First of all, I had an interesting time identifying exactly what would be necessary for a 6 month backpacking/climbing trip that could fit into a single bag. Below is what I came up with. I've been in Thailand for 8 hours and I'm already making an ordered mental list of which items I could get rid of and not miss too much. I could probably ditch a couple of t-shirts... but I could also ditch the towel and use the t-shirts as towels... or I could just free solo and ditch all of the heavy climbing gear. After all, I didn't pay for travel insurance for nothing!
First of all, I had an interesting time identifying exactly what would be necessary for a 6 month backpacking/climbing trip that could fit into a single bag. Below is what I came up with. I've been in Thailand for 8 hours and I'm already making an ordered mental list of which items I could get rid of and not miss too much. I could probably ditch a couple of t-shirts... but I could also ditch the towel and use the t-shirts as towels... or I could just free solo and ditch all of the heavy climbing gear. After all, I didn't pay for travel insurance for nothing!
Here was my view during 2 separate 12 hour flights. I watched movies, read books, picked meat out of my wonderfully basic meals and endlessly pondered the ideal sleep schedule so as to avoid jet lag upon arriving in Thailand. With 3 different layovers in 3 different time zones, I could never quite seem to come to the same conclusion twice. I ended up staying awake during the entire first flight, and sleeping the entire second flight so as to wake up Tuesday morning in Singapore. I think it worked out pretty well.
In case you haven't yet seen the Singapore airport, let's just say that it makes the Mall of America look like a joke. Also, my new favorite airport pastime is finding those fancy duty free shops, locating the most expensive Cologne on the shelves, and covering myself in it to see if people notice how rich I smell. Hasn't gotten any attention yet, but my wrists now smell like Johnny Depp...
Although the flights were long, the process was seamless and I made my way through Thailand customs without a hitch. With 30 minutes of free airport wifi I tried to reach out to my friend Kyle who is living in Thailand and then come up with a backup plan in case he doesn't get back to me in time. I failed on all fronts and sat there in the airport lobby thinking about how crazy the Thai alphabet looks.
Just then, I see a red truck pull up and drop some people off. This sets off one of those dramatic Hollywood cut scenes where I'm blasted into the past to remember something I read weeks ago. Thailand has a communal taxi service similar to Peru's collectivos. It's super cheap and can get you around fairly easily. I walk up and ask how much it is to get downtown (Is there even a specific "downtown" in Chiang Mai?). The man says 200 Baht, and as if I knew what the hell that meant or whether or not it was a good deal, I said thank you and walked away. As I'm trudging away determined to walk the 8 miles to get to "downtown" I notice the man in the red truck following me. He yells out the window "100!". I pause as if to be contemplating this new deal (that I'm cleary going to take...) and then crawl into the back of his truck. 30 minutes in Thailand and I've successfully bargained with my first cabbie!
I ended up finding a hostel in the Old City and I've already met so many amazing people. I'm learning tons about the culture here which is vastly different from anything I've experienced in North and South America. It has already been a wonderful learning experience. Grabbed some street food with a new friend and of course I had to go with the Pad Thai. Not too bad here. Kyle ended up stopping by the hostel later and dropping some more Thai tips and tricks.
Tomorrow I shall get one of those cheap massages and probably make my way to the epic climbing!
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