Lady Boys, 7 11s, and Beaches! (Thailand Part 1)

What else could you want? Right?

Thailand! You all know it! You all love it! What a place! This South East Asian tiger started mass tourism in SEA years ago so it's no wonder EVERYONE can find something that appeals to them in this cornucopia of pleasures. It really is anything you want it to be. If you're a rich fat cat from Amerrrrica go to Thailand, if your a party seeking graduate go to Thailand, if your a experienced backpacker looking for untouched towns and culture.... Go to Burma but then Thailand!

Whatever kind of trip you want you can get it here in the land of he-shes and pad thai!

The second place I visited on my grandiose adventure, after Beijing, was Bangkok in order to experience their New Years celebration "Songkran". This is essentially a nation wide water gun fight, which in my humble opinion was the best holiday I have ever been apart of. If you want to read more about it go back a couple months on my blog.

The second time I entered Thailand I had already experienced a little taste and I was dying for more!

I heard amazing things about Chiang Mai(CM) and they were all true! My plan was to stay for five days and then head to Pie but I ended up having such a good time that I spent nine and a half days there.

There are just so many activities one can take part in in CM! There is an abundance of hostels in old town (which is where most backpackers stay) so there are tons options!

When I arrived from Houi Xai Laos I was traveling with an awesome American named Joe. Our minibus pulled over to the side of the road in a main square in old town and Joe woke me up. I woke up and looked my window and who should I see but my old travel buddy life guard Chimone! Yet another miraculous small world story! We all had beers together that night it was tons of fun.

Afterwards Joe and I walked over to an AWESOME hotel a friend had told me about. It's call M.D. House. Although it is a bit pricey ($12) it is in a perfect location a few blocks from Zoe's and the rest of the popular clubs and bars. It has a pool, hot tub, work out room, computer room, and free breakfast! This is a great place to stay if you have been slumming it for awhile. My first day in CM I hardly even left MD Hostel! I uploaded all my pictures and videos (because I could use their free fast computers), worked out!!!!!, went for a swim and explored a little bit.

That night Joe and I walked a bit of the old town perimeter. Old town is surrounded by a square moat so it is easy navigating within the square. That night I found a bakery with a line of about 15 Thai people outside of it. Now anyone that knows me knows about my affection for baked goods. So I jumped in line as well. This bakery was turning out savory and sweet hot pies! After eating one if you don't go into cardiac arrest you will be amazed! If you want to try and find it go to the top north west side outside part of the moat that goes around old town and look for a yellow store that has two huge ovens outside. It was about 6pm when we went.

This is a city where you can interact with a lot of animals if you are interested. So let's start here. Elephants, tiger, no bears..... Big sigh. I would caution everyone before partaking in any animal related tourism activity. Not just in Thailand but all over SEA animals are treated terribly and like objects. They are made, mostly by physical abuse, to entertain tourists in order to make their owners money. So please think twice before supporting any company or person who uses animals to make a buck.

I would say 90% of people wait for Chiang Mai to interact with elephants because there really are so many opportunities to do so.

Elephant Nature Park

If your one of these people I'm going to make life super easy for you right now..... Are you ready? Go do the day trip or volunteer at the Elephant Nature Park!!!!! It is SUCH an amazing organization! I was told by a few friends I had to make sure if I did anything with elephants it had to be with The Elephant Nature Park (ENP) and I'm so glad I did. It is a more expensive option but you get what you pay for!

I went with my two English friends Alice and Jaimee and we had such an amazing experience! You get driven out in the morning to the sanctuary and on the way you watch a super informative (yet VERY cheesy) mini documentary on how elephants are treated in Thailand. You then get to the most amazing 100 acer sanctuary and you are introduced to the different herds of elephants and told how the ENP works. The ENP is ran by an amazing elephant advocate named Lek. Her mission in life is to rescue as many elephants as possible and get their legal status changed so they are no longer just consider simple live stock that have next to no rights. After being educated a bit by your guide and shown the different herds you take a tour of a small portion of the sanctuary. On our tour a huge herd of water buffalo came up behind us while we were taking some photos and it was amazing. You can see some of the hilarious photos we took with these curious guys in the background on my Facebook.

Then it's feeding time!!!! You feed a metric fuck ton of fruit to an elephant, which is such a cool experience! Then you have an amazing buffet lunch. After this you go down to the river and bathe the elephants. It's a fantastic day, an amazing organization to support, and no animals are ever mistreated in the process.

Riding elephants destroys their spine especially when they have those wooden seats on their backs... I could go on and on but I won't. Just go to ENP and have an amazing time!

The Tiger Kingdom

Now this is a touchy subject..... I have had so many discussions/debates with other backpackers about the tiger kingdom and if they drug their tigers and if it's ethical to go and so on and so forth but I really don't want to get into all that so I'll try and summarize my views and experience.

There are three places to go see tigers in Chiang Mai and the best one is Tiger Kingdom because they say they don't drug their tigers. The others two places do.

I was on the fence for a long time whether to go or not. I did a lot of research and in the end I went and had a very unique experience. For around $40 I got to go in a cage with a full grown tiger and pet it and sit beside it. I also got to spend twenty minutes playing with a two month old baby tiger cub! I have always wanted a tiger as a pet since I was young so it was childhood dream come true! Would I go again? No. If I could go back and do it over would I still go? I honestly don't know.

The Tiger Kingdom is in no way a sanctuary or rescue center for tigers. They bread them to make money. It is a zoo but with only tigers. While I was there I felt a bit uneasy because I don't support zoos for this exact reason. So I feel if it was any animal but tigers I wouldn't have gone but the tiger cubs got to me in the end I think.

Haha So some of you may think of me as a hypocrite considering I was just going off about animal rights and then I told you I went to a place that breeds tigers for money. Maybe I am but I talked to two volunteers that were backpackers working at the tiger sanctuary and they all assured me they aren't drugged, their taken great care off, and their living conditions are similar to a North American zoo.

Trekking

Chiang Mai is a great place to do some trekking but considering I just came from the World Cup of trekking (The Gibbon Experience) I didn't do any. I how however caution you not to support any treks where you ride elephants and not to do "The Flight Of The Gibbons". I heard it sucks.

Hostels

Like I said the first hotel I stayed at for two days (M.D. House) was super nice and amazing but once my Amerrrican friend Joe left for Bangkok I had to vacate and find something..... A bit shittier. So I left M.D. House and went to talk to a tuk tuk driver to take me to Spicy Chiang Mai another hostel out side of old town which I heard was really good. While negotiating with a tuk tuk driver however I was approached by a nice young feller and his friends and asked if I was looking for a hostel. I said yes and this awesome duder said "Hey man my name is Mehdi and I am staying at this really cheap hostel a few blocks from here. We have a solid crew of people there and we have been partying hard and having a great time. You should totally join us if your down!" I assumed I was being propositioned to join a cult so I of course joined this marry, yet quite intoxicated, group of misfits and proceeded to their hostel. Along the way I began talking to Mehdi and after a few minutes learned that he was from Calgary Alberta, went to business school at U of A, he was on the U of C finance JDC West business competition team, we actually met at JDC West 2011, and that we have a ton of friends in common! Yet another miraculous Derek Juno small world story!

I was taken to what would be my new home for the next seven days JJ's Guest house! I paid 60 baht a night ($2) for a dorm bed and loved the place! It is definitely barebones but run by "Momma" the nicest little old lady entrepreneur in Chiang Mai!

JJ's hotel is just across the road and offers nice private rooms and the famous Julie's Guest house is right beside that.

Thai Cooking Courses

I would highly suggest doing a Thai cooking course especially while in Chiang Mao. There are so many to chose from but make sure when you do chose its a cooking school that has its own farm and gives you a detailed cook book of all the receipts when your done. I did my class at "The Chiang Mai Thai Farm Cooking School" and it was phenomenal (and I was extremely hungover the whole time)! You go to a market in the morning and then driven out to their organic farm. Here you go harvest all your ingredients and cook in a spotless open air concept kitchen. We were given great receipt books and made delicious Thai dishes all day. Here's their website:

www.thaifarmcooking.com

Story Time

For the next week our band of drunkards and techno lovers partied almost every night and had quite the time! I have been trying to keep the details of my drunken escapades down to a minimum on this blog due to the amount of family that might read it but there were four consecutive nights where something progessively crazier happened to me each night. I think you are all pass due for some solid Derek Juno party stories so here we go.

On the 1st night of four there were political elections being held throughout Thailand, which meant no stores were selling liquor. As you could imagine, that made it a bit hard for a good honest group of scholarly youth to acquire an alcoholic beverage or.... two. After regressing to eighteen year olds again, pleading with mom and pop shop owners to sell us beer, we were golden! We had a few wobbly pops at JJ's and hit the town. I led our group to the night market and we had a huge debockle over 35 baht pad Thai haha; we all left this little restaurant because the owner told me 35 baht for pad Thai, but then told us 60 after I brought 12 people to her restaurant!!! I then met up with Simon and his friend Dan. I said I would meet my group at the rooftop bar after visiting with my friend Simon for a bit. But after leaving Simon and his friends and walking to the bar, I realized it was closed. Thus, I was on my own but not for long. I met a group of american high schoolers dying for a party (because it was their one day off from volunteer work and due to the elections they couldn't get booze), so I became team leader and asked some tuk tuk drivers to take us somewhere we could drink. We were unfortunately taken to the dirtiest strip joint I have ever been to! Not only was it skeezy but it had INSANELY expensive drinks. So I resigned as team leader and tuk tukked home. The tuk tuk driver tried to rip me off so I ran off when we stopped in old town. I unfortunately jumped a fence and ran into a group of wild/farrel/angry dogs. I had to climb a building and hangout on the roof for a while to get away from them. I finally arrived back at the hostel where everyone was drinking and having fun and wanting to know where the hell I had been haha.

The 2nd night we went to a Mui Thai boxing fight where I won 700 baht by betting on fighters with the best looking head bands. We saw three knockouts and i became friends with an Australian who fought and knocked this Thai guy out! We then went back to our hostel, grabbed our friends the british girls, and hit Zoes (a great club) but half the group got lost along the way! I went searching for them for like an hour, then found them at Zoes haha. We partied and drank there for a few hours and had a merry old time. We then walked home where I apparently went into my dorm room turned on all the lights and packed up all my stuff haha. I grabbed my big back pack, walked 30 feet down a deserted alley and passed out. Some of our group found me on their walk home haha. They brought me back to JJ's and put me to bed. I woke up the next morning at 8am to go to a thai cooking class with a terrible hang/chiang over, dirty looks for some reason from all my dorm mates, and no recollection of this at all. The one bucket my Mehdi bought me just destroyed me!

The 3rd night we played ring of fire, then hit reggae bar and Zoes and danced our faces off! At the end of the night I came home VERY late and passed out wearing only my boxers in the common area just outside our hostel (don't ask me why). I woke up to someone yelling. There was a thai guy just outside our gate yelling "Hey... Hey are you okay?" I woke up drunk and confused and didn't say anything. The guy pushed the gate open and walked in and said "I look for friends at JJ's guest house. You know where is?" I said "yes this is it". He smiled and looked around a bit and said nerviously "are you drunk?". I lied and said "no just tired". He came over to the couches and sat on the couch next to the one I was on. He looked at me straight in the eyes and undid his top three buttons of his dress shirt. I was getting really weirded out so I got up to leave when he asked me "have you seen my friend?" haha. I said "no sorry, I don't think they're here". He looked me dead in the eyes and asked...... "do you want to be my friend?" and then he undid the rest of his buttons on his dress shirt and.... HE HAD BREASTS! haha he/she started fondling himself/herself and just looking at me..... After about 15 seconds of the most awkward moments of my life I said ".... No thank you I'm going to bed!" He/she then yelled "NO!!!! Wait! I give you free boom boom because you so handsom!" Then he/she started pulling down his/her pants! I yelled "NOPE!!! I'm done! I'm going to bed!" I turned around and went into my dorm room, locked the door and went to bed.

On the 4th night most of our crew had left for Bangkok on the night train so it was just my British friend Nick and myself polishing off a 26 of whisky. We then hit Zoes. We had a great time drinking with the owner and making new friends. At the end of the night I lost Nick and ran into a tuk tuk driver that wanted to give me a free ride home. Now im not an idiot so i told him "Nothing's free!" He had great english and retorted with "this is mostly true but im headed up this street anyway. Do you want a ride?" I talked to him for a bit and thought I might as well. I told him I was staying at JJ's Guest House and he said he would be going right by there, he just had to go grab something first from a bar. We got to this bar, then he got super weird. He told me "you have to just come in with me quick". I said "no I'm just going to walk home." He then stepped in front of my way out of the tuk tuk. The other way out was blocked by the passed out Indian dude (I forgot to mention this. There was a passed out Indian dude beside me in the tuk tuk this whole time). He then said "you have to come in but you don't have to buy anything or participate. I just get money for bringing people." I said "not tonight man, maybe tomorrow". He wasn't moving so I was about to make a move over the passed out Indian guy when he grabbed my hand and he said "just come in we have drinks, women, ladyboys, and children....." At this point I was kinda freaking out. So I said "Uhh I dont know...... I do feel like another drink though." I got out of the tuk tuk, he turned and I just bolted. It was pretty fucked. I'm not sure if he tried following but I lost him if he did, and eventually I made it home while the sun was rising.

That's the last of some crazy nights in Chiang Mai.

That's about all I got for Chiang Mai. On my last day there I met up with Mick Mack and grabbed a train with her down to Bangkok.

NOTE: whenever going to Bangkok to Chiang Mai or the reverse take the night train! It's only like $15 and it is really comfortable (it can get pretty cold if your not in separate compartments though eh Mick Mick?)

I was in BKK for the day where I went on a crazy local bus adventure, walked around near Khao San Road, and bought a bunch of Canadian flags for Canada day.

That night we bused to Koh Phanang to celebrate Canada day on July 1st and MY BIRTHDAY AND THE JULY FULLMOON PARTY ON JULY 3RD!!! I was a bit excited.

A lot of backpacker I meet and old friends ask me variations of the question "whats your favourite place you have been to?" and one of the more popular variations I get asked is "what is your favourite hostel, hotel, and bungalow you have stayed at while traveling?". Well my favourite bungalow of my whole trip is Rainbow Bungalows on Koh Phanang! it was around $8 a night if you get three people in there. It is on a private part of Banthai Beach about a seven minute tuk tuk drive from the main fullmoon beach (Hadrin). So at night you would go into town and get crazy and have tons of fun then during the day you could recover on this paradise beach! The place is run by a great family. Martin, the dad is Australian but don't worry he is a really nice guy. His wife (whose name escapes me) makes the best Thai food I have ever had at their little restaurant! The beach is perfect for skimming and I think Martin is the only one on the island who knows what skim boarding is and who owns one!!!! Every evening at around 4:30 there is a game of volleyball on the beach that anyone can join. The place was paradise!

Now I'm going to recount these days separately because they were so much fun!

June 29th I got to Koh Phanang and I found most of my Chiang Mai crew and partied with them. It was an awesome reunion! We checked out Hadrin Beach then made our way over to the Coral Hotel Pool Party, which was tons of fun.

June 30th I hung around Rainbow and skimboarded with Martin's son Jack and chilled out. I met a group of awesome canadians from a resort a few km away and invited them to join our Canada Day festivities the next day. That night we partied at Rainbow Bungalow and tried to see the moon haha.

July 1st was CANADA DAY!!!! So I put on my best red and white and hit the beach. Our Canadian friends came out from up the beach and we ended up having a Canada vs England SOCCER match, which Canada came out on top of course! We all then crammed into a tuk tuk and went to Hadrin Beach. To all of our amazement there were tons of Canadians all decked out in the glorious red and white. We all gathered together in the middle of Hadrin beach and represented Canada as best we could. We sang, we played drinking games, and we apologized for things even when it wasn't our fault! It was beautiful! That night we tried to all go to the jungle party but it was a huge rip off and the guys running it were huge assholes. Thus, we took it upon ourselves to warn as many people as possible haha. We got about 100 or 150 people to turn around and follow us to the beach party at Hadrin. It was epic.

Now July 2nd was magical because three awesome individuals arrived on Koh Panang! My good friends Arin and Steph who I know from Victoria. Arin and I rented motorbikes for the day and bombed around the island. If you ever get the chance make sure you go find bottle beach which is on the other side of the island! Then at the end of the day who should arrive but the craziest Ozzy I know!!! Good old Elloit Davis! I told him it was my Bday on July fullmoon and he told me he would be there for it but I wasn't really sure if he would show up haha.

We went out that night with a huge crew to the Coral Bungalow Pool Party in order to kick off my birthday! There were handstands, backflips, and Elloit may or may not have picked up a fully dressed girl and threw her in the pool. She also may or may not have had an iPad in her purse haha. The night got a bit out of control and I don't remember everything but I do recall walking down the road to Rainbow Bungalows and finding Mick Mack face down in the dirt and Elloit sitting criss cross apple sauce beside her playing with a disgustingly cute puppy dog that he had dubbed "Bowdy". I had to fireman carry Mick Mack to the bungalow and interagate Elloit to find out where he had stolen this dog from haha. He told me he "found" it running around on the road and that he "rescued" it from death. We now know he broke into some guys property and stole the mans bran new puppy haha. Elloit found the owner the next day and gave "Bowdy" haha back. I remember being in bed that night laughing at Mich Mack passed out in bed, Elloit trying to spoon me, and our new feline friend pissing on our floor haha. If that's not a good start to a birthday I don't know what is.

July 3rd was my birthday and the day of the fullmoon party that every young backpacker dreams of. Unfortunately the morning and most of the day sucked but the night did not disappoint!

My new Canadain brothers Drew, Daniel, Hayden, and sure why not Lewis came with some more cool cats to Rainbow for dinner. I got iced we ate great food it was awesome! Everyone but Elliot headed back to their resort to start partying, painting, and getting ready for the nights shenanigan. We invented a new sport called bucket pong, painted ourselves in colorful colours, and took some pretty awesome pics. Just as we were about to leave Elloit shows up with a bag full of booze and fire works haha. So we all quickly paint him then head out. About sixteen of us are jammed into one tuk tuk and Elliot pulls up on his scooter. I tell him "bro jump in, there's tons of room". He says "nah I like having my scooter there at the beach so I can drive home in the morning". I then say "dude you've totally been drinking you can't drink and drive." Elliot looked at me square in the eyes and says "how dare you Derek. I would NEVER drink and drive...... I sip and ride" he then lights up a huge firework which screeches and shoots off a ton of sparks and then basically blows up in Elliot's hand right after he tosses it. Everyone ones quiet because we think Elliot just lost his hand but then he yells "WE'RE OKAY! LET'S GO!!!!!" I'm a HUGE advocate against drinking and driving but there was nothing I could do and in the moment that whole situation was hilarious.

We all drove to the beach drinking in the back of our tuk tuk and singing with Elliot driving shooting off fireworks behind us. We then hit a makeshift roadblock. A cop checks our tuk tuk then waves us on. They pull Elliot over though. We then realized just how screwed he is. 1. He is driving with an open beer in his hand. 2. He's driving a little intoxicated and 3. He has a huge bag full of fireworks which are illegal on Hadrin haha. I wanted to go back and grab him but everyone said there's really nothing we could do so we pressed on hoping Elliot wouldn't get stripped searched.

Fullmoon

The party is insane! The beach is sectioned off into different stages, dancing areas, and sleeping zones haha. The whole beach is SUPER packed so it's imperative you make a meet up location if you want a chance in hell of ever finding your friends. Our crew got to the beach and all stuck together at the first dancing zone and bucket selling strip. I met some friend I made in Vang Vieng Joe and Casey who are actually from Victoria haha. I was also reunited with my bar promotor friend Tony who worked at Q Bar in Vang Vieng! Also, right before we all adventured down the beach we found ELLIOT! He didn't end up in jailed. I ran up to him and I was like "man WHAT HAPPENED?" he said "Derek.... It was terrible.... They took my fireworks!" I said "Dude, are you serious if that's it that's great news! I thought they would put you in jail" he said "nah Derek! I had big plans for those fireworks!!!! They did say I could go pick them up in the morning though" haha what a guy!

The rest of the night was a blur of dancing, M-150s (an energy drink that's illegal everywhere but SEA), and finding people. I even stumbled upon life guard Chimone and his cousin haha.

My big goal for my birthday this year was to not passout until July 4th I was determined to stay up all day and all night and I'm happy to say I achieved this goal haha. Around 6am I found my Canadian friend Drew and we went looking for everyone so we could all watch the sun come up. We found some people and sat on the beach watching a wicked sunrise. It was a really cool moment and not because of all the M-150s I drank made me feel like I was flying. Throughout the night I had met up with people I had seen in different countries since I started traveling. Just thinking of all the good times we had shared and what I just experienced, it was really cool.

After being deep in thought for a few minutes I looked down the beach I and who should I see just COVERED in sand? That's right Elliot. I called him over. He sat down then passed out drooling at the mouth haha. Drew went to our meeting point and found the rest of our friends we hung out and talked for awhile then at 10am we decided to get some food. I woke up Elliot and told him we were going to grab some food then head home. He looked at me with a very confused look then said "ya ya that's like a great idea. You go do that I'm going to go do some mushrooms" HAHA. So he walked off towards mushroom mountain. We grabbed some chicken sandwiches and headed home. I dropped down on to my bed around 10:30am and went to bed. Just when I thought it was all over I get woken up by Elliot. He brought back a fucking monkey and some dude name Lex and they wanted to party haha. He soon realized he left his camera at the beer store so he went to go find it. He then he came back a little while later with a bag full of beers we shotguned then hung out for about two hours. He passed out on our bed. He woke up six hours later and jumped in the bath tub and said "I am either going to shit myself or puke but I don't know which one" haha. I was going to bed so I flopped down onto the Queen mattress Elliot (the sand serpent) and I were sharing and then realized he had pissed the bed haha!!! Haha and that ladies and gentlemen is the last of my fullmoon/ 23rd birthday story.

This post is already WAY to long so I will continue my tales in part 2! Stay tuned kids!