Tips

Planning a trip to asia? I have a few helpful suggestions for you:

1. Carry toliet paper everywhere you go. They do.

2. The key to asian toliets? Just take off your pants. Just do it. Oh yea, and you face the opposite way. Mystery solved.

3. The most important: DO NOT BOOK YOUR FLIGHT WITH CHINA AIRLINES. They are the single worst airline in the business-- and perhaps the more poorly run corporation on the history of the planet. No exaggeration. After two days of waiting to hear how much it would cost for me to change my airfare date I was told I would have to CALL them to confirm and then GO to the Chiang Mai airline to pay the fee.
Fine. I came back from Pai a day early and cried in the process-- the most incredible place in the world (again, no exaggeration), or at least in my top 3 (1. New Zealand's south Island, 2. Hana Maui and 3. Pai, Thailand). The bus was making a stop at the airport in Chiang Mai so I figured, now's my chance and I hopped out, took all my stuff and went to find a phone. I called the airline and spent most of my phone card being on hold, then went to find the desk. "Sorry, no desk for China Airlines today, maybe try tomorrow?!"
What?!
Fed up, I took a taxi back to my old guest house, got some lunch to revive my stressed out self and then Jan and I spent an hour in 2 languages talking to several people including the supervisiors of both bangkok and chiang mai.
End result? I can confirm a flight on the 24th of August, but pay more because its a weekend and they would send me a confirmation email and cancel my other flight. I could only pay in 2 ways-- in CASH?!?! at the chiang mai airport-- which actually isn't possible because I don't have enough travellers checks to do that I make my budget last or WAIT until I get to BKK airport in late august and pay then but when I asked if I would be GUARANTEED the current price I was put on hold and told they would call me back in 20 minutes or I should call them again, everyone was busy at the time.
I give up.
I'm just going to enjoy my two months here and stop dealing with this perpetual head ache.
I can't justify 21 days of mediation when I'm only here for 57 so I'm going to pull out of the course-- besides I am NOT a buddhist, not by these standards and I am less in sync with thai buddhism every day. They worship buddha as a god, which is exactly NOT what you're supposed to do, at least in my belief.
I'm going to go back to my bamboo thatched guest house of peace and bliss in the butterfly filled hills of Pai, where I walk into town every day and buy fruit in the market and ride a bike past rice paddies to a natural hot spring. I will meditate under my mosquito net and write on my candle lit balchony.
Then, maybe I will go to luang prabang.
Then, I will go south by train to the islands for the last month.
Beautiful.
Maybe I'll even go bungee jumping.

Plans only exist in the future, but the future does not exists, only now is promised.