Chiang Mai Night

The following was written in Chiang Mai, the night before my trek

11:07PM I’m tired and would like to go to bed, but I want to update this before I leave on the trek tomorrow.

I went to eat at a burger stand today. Good food, and they had plenty of funny signs making fun of Bush.

After that, I walked all around the inner-moat area. I ended up stopping at 6 different used book stores, but my daypack limited me to only buying 3 books.

At 5PM I caught a tuk-tuk to a Wat in the outskirts of town for Monk Chat. A monk about my age name Song (at least I was pronounced “song” – probably spelled something like Sawng) and I chatted for close to 2 hours about Buddhism. He cleared a lot of things up for me, and confused me more on others. It was a good chat, and I’d like to go talk with him again, but he convinced me even further that Buddhism is not for me. It’s so disconnected from the natural world.

From there, I walked to the clear other side of town for the famous Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. I managed not to buy anything, save for a spicy noodle dinner, but it was an impressive event. I wonder why we don’t have things like this back home.

I came back to the guest house at about 10PM and have spent the last hour packing. Trying to decide what to bring, what to leave here in my backpack, what to place in the sealed envelope. I’m leaving my passport, license, credit and debit cards here, along with most of my cash, but taking copies of the aforementioned and a little cash with me. I hope I won’t have any trouble leaving my valuables here. They’ve been fine here in my room, and will tomorrow will be locked away in a more secure location, but it still worries me.

I’m leaving my camera here, but will bring a journal with me (not this one – a waterproof one).

Off to bed.