Dharma, Dhamma, Damn.

I think I will get the word "Breathe" tattooed onto my wrist in Thai because that's the biggest lesson that I am trying to learn here. Every backpacker I meet seems better at traveling--and life-- than me. They just seem relaxed, cool, collected. HOWEVER, I have yet to meet any Americans. And those people that I do meet are often traveling in pairs, especially the females--and all of us smell. I've been tagging along with people though. I met phillip yesterday--He's from England, well traveled, sharp witted, spontaneous, clever and bears a close resemblance to my dream man. He and his girlfriend had been traveling down in the south and malaysia for a month and she had just left so he had breakfast with me. After which we walked to the Grand Palace,the big temple adjecent to the palace and Wat Pho-- home of the reclining buddha--maybe the only "sight" I will end up seeing. It was a half day affair and we found some great food at a market and were even "guides" for a time for a malasian group. (we found the back route to the temples, through the university and these three malasian tourists seemed to think we knew what we were doing." Phillip wanted to take a tuk-tuk back, but I find them to be extremely dangerous, after all, over breakfast he told me about how he was taken all around town by a driver who was clearly a part of a organized crime group---mob. It's called the "lucky buddha" trick. You get in a tuk-tuk (or sometimes even a taxi) and say you want to go to a wat. Then the driver tells you that the wat is closed for a special ceremony (it isn't) and that he will take you on a tour of ones that are open as long as you will go to a jewel shop (just to look!) at the end of the tour. The last wat is a fake! You get there and people magically appear , claiming that they've been to this jewel shop and its great! Then you are taken there and it's awful quality. If you're lucky, you get out of the jewel shop and get a ride back and pack. If you are unlucky your passport is held ransom or you yourself are threatened. Cool huh? No tuk-tuks.
I was going to find a way to the train station on the other end of BKK and take a train to chiang mai but in the courtyard of the guest house I met Tony an older EXTREMELY well traveled Austrailian, who was headed up there on the same day but via chartered bus. It's a 12 hour bus ride, air conditioned overnight. We'd both read about some scams where the buses are in poor condition and not what is promised, you wind up way on the outside of town where you are pawned off onto specific guest houses and even some theft. And this is why I'm so tense in thailand. But Tony had taken buses before so we scoped them out and booked with an israeli company based upon the logic "if anyone would raise a stink over bad service, it's the jews!"
So we leave tonight at 6pm and I hope it doesn't wind up being one of those stories I tell later. I bought a small backpack/daypack today so i can keep the most vital things close to me. The fanny pack just wasn't cutting it anymore.
But truely, Americans can't travel! Or at the very least we don't. I have yet to even HEAR an american accent. While doing my laundry in the sink last night I met a lovely pair of sisters from England. One had just finished college and the other was taking a year off before she started. Gap years. And they were spending that year traveling the world together. They were 3 months in had seen most of south east asian and were integral in telling me to calm down.
It's hard to know how much to loosen up. Enough to have fun, but not so much that I get really into trouble. Not an easy balance and I have yet to strike it. I ordered a mango shake this morning with breakfast and halfway through stopped drinking it over fears about ice in the shake. It's stuff like that....
The airport found my bag of sunblock and bugspray---but there's no way it will get to me before I leave for chiang mai, where I will actually need it. I took some malaria medication last night and got a massive head ache, but it doesn't look like Chiang Mai is at risk but the wat is just outside the city, up on the mountain. Apparently its the most important wat in the city. ... Something about a white elephant dying there....
But, like phil said "Hey look! There's a temple in middle of the road! Or a road in the middle of the temple?"
And the ever lasting question of the reclining buddha. But how do they get it in there?
Oh, and I stubbed my toe at wat pho. I just think that sounds cool, eh?