Big Flood Time

I am eating nice hot and sour coconut soup with chicken, noodles, a bit of boiled egg, and a disc of vegetable that is similar but nothing like potato. There is a hideous soap opera on TV behind me.

I have just said goodbye to a new and most excellent friend, esteemed musician, cardplayer and adventurer, Mr Nick Rocco. I think that's his name.

I will tell you of my day, from the very beginning. There are four things.

1. 4am, I am woken up, as I am every night, by the temple bell and the howling dogs. Someone is playing music that sounds like Cat Power, but just voice. Somehwere, a machine is on that sounds like a snoring basoon. It's raining. It's a good little soundscape, but I wish it was cool enough to close the balcony door.

2. 7am, it's still raining. I put on my plastic rain mac from 7-11 over my office clothes, and cycle to an interview at the Chiang Mai University Language Institute. BUT! What is this? Upon turning off the busy Huay Kaew road onto Sirimankalajarn, I am landed in six inches of water, which gets deeper as I go further along the street. I have never seen such a puddle. Every car is splashing me on my right, and my knuckles are white from fear of falling into one of the many potholes camoflagued under the brown water. I got really wet yeh. The interview was fine, and they're going to call me before December.
2.5. Later, after a sneaky full English breakfast, I comply with a sixteen-year-old Thai girl's approved request to have a lesson on how to flirt with foreign boys - I draw on my vast well of experience here: "So what do you think about you and me?" "Hi cutie." "You're so handsome." "I like your hair/ clothes/ music." Still, despite my efforts, she is concentrating on her phone and the clock on the wall.

3. I meet with Nick and Michael and Panisa, we have lunch and talk about when rascist jokes are appropriate and 80's teen movies. Then, then, Nick and I walk and walk, past the cabaret costume shop to the northwest corner of Old Town,  to this crazy Narnia building covered in white stone sculptures of lions, gorillas, and Greek boy gods, totally abandoned, half built and deteriorating. We walk up three flights of hazardous stairs, peeking in tiny empty rooms with floor to ceiling stained glass windows, until we get to the very top and out onto a big balcony, all of Chiang Mai presented to us. We poke around a little wooden house, empty but for a stool and two big knives. A woman starts following us around, pretending to sweep the concrete. Okay, sorry, we go now.

4. We want coffee, dammit, where can we get something like that in this town? Isn't it a Wednesday? In the middle of the afternoon? Where's the service? The service is currently under five feet of dirty water, sorry, closed today. And the next day. And most of the weekend. We hitch up our shorts and wade through. Thai people are stil smiling, heaving water with buckets from behind sandbanks, taking pictures of each other. Someone released a dam that was looking ready to burst, so rather than mess up the entire province, they just ruined a few homes and businesses by the river. Sabai sabai. It's pretty much okay now.

Milk Sandwich, Yam Sandwich

After 6 days of being in Thailand, I think I have arrived today.

A note on wildlife. Little lizards grip on to signs, gates, walls, mimicking colours. They are super quick, so no chance of catching one. Cows with sticking out ribs and shoulders have floppy ears and hump backs. They munch on boggy leaves in fields next to the main road. Dogs be barking, cats be slinking, kamikaze squirrels are bleached on their tummies and tails. After sunset, which is like a divine light switch being flicked at 7pm, crickets drown out the noise of the highway next to Wat Jet Yod temple, and the frogs compete for the best warble. Bats skim the river around Old Town. I saw a gigantic glossy rat streak behind a cupboard in the cafe I had dinner in last night. The day before, a beetle longer than my middle finger crawled out from under a table on quick spindly legs, wings clicking. Orchids languidly weigh down their stalks, hanging down from temple walls. Tiny fish swim in ornamental ponds, weird looking birds squawk in cages above bamboo furniture shops.

I got a little job at King’s School on Kaew Nawarat, Just west of the big brown Mae Ping river. I start on Saturday afternoon, and I’ll be on very part-time hours. Still, I feel good about having something to show for my first day hawking my wares. I got very muddled up in alleyways searching for the fabled AUA school, and after reading the guidebook I think it is far too good for the likes of moi. They have requirements for the dress code like shower every day, wear a bra, shave...

I went into Tesco (yep) and I have found my favourite food so far: Ovaltine snacks. Crunchy malt biscuits with a sweet gritty paste malt sandwich filling, only 35 baht for a pack. It seems there is a malt-based craze here, because Ovaltine is on every farang drinks menu. I have given in to it completely.

Hygeiny Lifestyle

My only temple visit has been the Golden Mound, a big old hill covered in gold leaf and many steps. you can ring big bells and bang gongs as you ascend. Once at the top, you can pay your respects to Bhudda, and check out the big view, smoggy but grand. Most of the tall buildings are unfinished apartment blocks, some quite ornate but stained black with mould. The city actually doesn't end, it's just one tangled nest of market streets. Orientation is A Challenge. (Lonely Planet is a really great paperweight, but its purpose as a guide is null. The maps are vague and small, the cheapest listed hostel is around 250 baht, and as with all sights listed in guide books, they have been pillaged by tourists. But it gives a good history of the country. 2/5.)

A talkative Spaniard and I took the metro to Silom to find a metal chastity belt for "his friend." Alas, the tales of this mythical red light district don't hold up in daylight. Only one shop in the area was remotely selling fetish wear, and they were closed. Instead we dragged our feet around in the heat, a few groups of women sitting in bars who listlessly shouted "haaaaay" over their cocktails as we walked past. Splendid billboards for strip clubs; my favourite was Pussy Glamour, which had lots of little wood carvings of people going at it to form the shape of a giant buxom lady.

Enough of this syphilitic den. We walked in the midday heat to the most beautiful house I have ever seen ever. Home to writer, lecturer, and former president M R Kurit, This complex of five teak buildings is preserved as a museum set up in a similar style to the way he lived. the roofs are tall and sloping, the rooms are dark and cool, and there are beautiful collections of masks, statues, puppets, and furniture stuffed in every gleaming room. Birds shriek amidst the thick mass of tropical ferns and flowers, and hardly anyone was visiting while we were there. Of course there was a swimming pool, which we furtivley took advantage of. Delight.

Back at the hostel Overstay, a great big punk rock show underneath the dorm until 5 in the morning, and then roadworks right outside at 9am. I met a lot of good people here, including a girl who just graduated from Norwich Art School, and a South African man who gave me plenty of sound advice for cheap living in Chiang Mai. Everyone is super friendly. People were drawing and painting all over the walls, playing pool, dancing to whatever techno was playing in the bar.

Other things too, but they are censored.