We got back from our adventures in Paris last week and as soon as we disembarked from the plane, I began to complain to Ryan about the obvious lack of snow in Warsaw. When we moved, I envisioned mountains of snow and bought clothes accordingly. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case. This morning, however, I woke up to heavy snowfall and it continues to accumulate. Complaining seemed to work in my interest. 2017 New Years Resolution: Complain more. (Ry’s complaining face below).
With the snow back again, we’re reminiscing on warmer weather and Thailand from a year ago. When we first landed in Bangkok, we planned to spend the afternoon sightseeing and then take an overnight train to Chiang Mai where we would spend a few days seeing temples, hiking around, riding motorbikes, and sleeping with elephants. We landed in the early afternoon (I think? There was sun…) and took a harrowing (and cheap) taxi ride to the area surrounding the train station. From there, we popped into one temple before the sweltering heat and our jetlag after traveling for over 24 hours took over (but at least the Chinese had let us shower in their airport). We decided it was time to call it quits and go drink some Thai Iced Teas in a place with wifi so we could let people know we hadn’t been trafficked. You’re welcome, parents. Sometimes we’re responsible grown-ups who check in.
Two teas later, we realized we had the time-change wrong and were an hour later than we thought… Our train was leaving just over 30 minutes (for those interested, Thai Minute to US Minute exchange rate is approximately 1:1). After a quick sprint to our platform we scurried onto our train. Having never been on an overnight train before, muchless one in Southeast Asia, we didn’t really know what to expect. The beds were comfortable enough given my knack for sleeping anywhere though Ry would disagree as to their quality. Admittedly, the bottom bed in the bunk was created by leveling out our two chairs that faced each other, and said chairs had the tendency to violently go from an upright to reclined position in the blink of an eye. What we would both agree on is that the toilets were not up to anyones standards.
A couple hours in, Ryan returns from his first adventure to the ole water closet. With his mouth agape and face turning white, he simply muttered “Don’t go” before I could finish asking how the bathroom was. You see, the toilet was really just a makeshift hole that dropped onto the rickety tracks below, and the floor/walls/ceiling glistened with liquid from God-knows-where. So we both pretty much agreed to avoid that section of the train at all costs. For the next 13 hours.
Settling in, we quickly made friends with the nice backpacker from Chicago named Tim or Tom (we couldn’t agree even after just having met the guy) who was sitting across the aisle from us. Tony kindly offered to share two of his four Chang beers with us and we gladly accepted before he very quietly explained we needed to be covert in our actions as alcohol is no longer allowed thanks to this guy. Oh well, what’s life without a couple risks and a couple beers? Throw in a couple diseases from the bathroom and you’ve got a party.
About 5 minutes in to our beers, his bunkmate apparated by our side. He was a pleasant looking Thai monk who promptly began saying prayers in the bunk above Timon’s head. That pretty much sealed the deal that we’ll all three end up in Hell (which we had a preview of thanks to commode).
This year, count your blessings not your problems and happy 2017!
Texan Pole Dancer 