I spent the better part of last weekend going back & forth to the Burmese border to get a new Thai visa. The thing is, Thailand will allow U.S. citizens to remain in Thailand on a tourist visa for up to 90 days in any 6 month period, but you have to leave the country every 30 days. I'm not entirely sure what the logic is here.
When I entered Thailand from Laos last month I was traveling with a friend from Brazil; the immigration officer happily stamped his passport for 90 days. I half-hoped he might do the same for me, but no, 30 days. When I asked about it, he just laughed and said, "Oh, Josie, U.S. and Brazil very different!" "Sure," I replied, "you like them more than you like us, right?" "No! No!", he said, "I like America very much. Listen. You come back next year. I give you 90 day stamp. I promise." Sure.
Anyhow, I had a stamp good til March 2nd, so I decided to head to Mae Sai, that being the closest border town to Chiang Mai. In theory, this trip should have taken about 12 hours roundtrip. In reality it turned into a 27-hour adventure that included a sleepless night in a cheap guesthouse in Chiang Rai, where Stacia and I got stuck because all of the busses heading back to Chiang Mai were full. This was likely due to the elections being held throughout Thailand on Sunday. For each election, Thais have to go back to their hometown to vote, AND there is no alcohol served from 6pm the day before the election until midnight the day of. So not only were we disappointed about being stuck 3 1/2 hours from Chiang Mai, but we couldn't even drown our sorrows in a cold beer. We spent a few hours walking around the night bazaar (lovely), and then headed back to our guesthouse, where apparently the group staying in the room above us had managed somehow to subvert the ban on alcohol sales. I think they may have also been bowling. In the room. I finally fell asleep sometime around 3:30 am and was none too happy when the alarm went off at 6 so we could catch our 6:30 bus back to Chiang Mai. But, no matter, I have a new visa, and I'm officially welcome in Thailand until March 30th. Fingers crossed that I don't get arrested sometime between then and April 1st, and I'll just have to pay a small fine when I fly out to India.
As I was riding the bus back to Chiang Mai, I was thinking of all the other bus rides, train rides, boat rides, plane rides I've been on during this trip. I know I've told some of you about some of them. From watching a family of Romanians throw what looked like all their worldly possesions onto a train, to almost getting left at a busstop in Serbia, to riding on the world's tiniest minibus in Laos, to hanging out for hours in an airport in the Philippines, to being awoken by police on a boat in Halong Bay in Vietnam, and let's not forget that looooong train ride across Siberia, there have been many, many transportation adventures. Here's one of my favorites from Turkey, back in October. At the time I think I sent this to a couple friends, but thought you all might enjoy it.
October 17, 2007: I watched the sweetest scene last night outside my bus window and just thought I'd share it with you....
I took a night bus from Istanbul to Goreme last night which has to go down in my top 5 (bottom 5?) travel experiences so far. I'm sick with some kind of nasty cold, and while it was a non-smoking bus of course the driver gets to smoke the whole trip which was awesome for me being just 2 rows back from the front. Also... sort of funny, sort of weird, sort of disturbing, the movie selection for the trip was "Dawn of the Dead", unedited, save for being dubbed over in Turkish. So there's this bus full of old people, babies, young kids etc. and this godawful, gory American horror movie on. Yuck. I just turned on the iPod and closed my eyes tight.
Anyhow, the movie had finally stopped (thank goodness), and we pulled into a rest-stop, probably around midnight. I'm listening to Brett Dennen, "The One Who Loves You Most" (always need the soundtrack info), and I look out the window and notice there is a group of kids standing near the bus in the next bay. I would guess there are all around 19-22. There are fıve of them, 2 gırls and 3 boys. The two girls are coupled up with two of the boys and there is one "extra" boy with a guitar strapped to his back. It becomes pretty obvious that one of the girls is leaving. She starts hugging everyone, the two boys that aren't her boyfriend hug her tight and kiss her on both cheeks, she turns to the girl and they hug for a long time before she fınally turns to the boy that is obviously her boyfriend and hugs him tight and kisses him on the mouth. He takes her hand and leads her up and on the bus. About a minute or so later, one of the other boys gets on the bus to retrieve him. He gets off the bus and basically just falls into the arms of his other buddy, the one with the guitar. I can just tell he's crying hard, and the boy with the guitar just holds on to him and rubs the back of his head and lets him cry. He's not saying anything to him or anything, just holding him. I watch as the girl standing outside the bus takes a call on her cell phone, which I assume is from the girl leaving on the bus. They are all, save the crying boy, watching the bus pull away and waving. Then the third boy joins the other two hugging and they all just stand and hold on to one another. This just *killed* me.... I know I am a complete sap anyway, but I totally started to cry. Don't you just remember having those dramatic goodbyes? :) I think the sweetest for me was to see these young men who looked so "tough" be so gentle with one another. There was no punching on the arm or trying to shake off the sad, just this open-armed (literally) acceptance of the crying.
It made me think of something else I saw when I was at that war photo exhibit in Croatia. They had this part of the exhibition where there was a video that a journalist had made of some Israeli soldiers walking into an ambush in an abandoned building... it was really scary and there was a point when they thought one of their officers wasn't going to make it, but they eventually pulled him out. Of course during the fighting these guys are all business and serious and shouting and yelling and everything, but there was this amazing scene after the officer was safe and in the hospital. His commanding officer came in to see him and laid his head down on his chest and just said, I love you, Avi, I was scared for you. Again... so amazing to see these big tough guys be so soft.
Allrighty...just thought I'd share the sappiness...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment