BLOGGITY

Everything lately is flavoured with a tinge of loneliness, but Mae Hong Son is beautiful.  The people are really friendly, even though I can barely speak their language, and they can barely speak mine.  I’ve had a few people now just walk across the street to ask me where I’m from, and my name.  So far, it’s been a bit of a disaster, but I’m coping as best I can. 

The place I booked online (which I only booked because I could online, and it was last minute) was a bit of a hole, and I could only stay there last night.  All the good places listed in Lonely Planet are full up to Christmas – apparently, it’s peak season, and trying to book a room on the fly was a poor decision on my part. 

I got in yesterday afternoon, after a mere 30 minute flight, and seeing all the mountains from the plane, I’m really glad I flew.  The roads would have had me vomiting left, right, and centre.  My time so far has been a bit lacklustre, as yesterday evening was a frustrating ordeal of walking all around town trying to find places to give me change so I could use the payphone, or to find wifi, so I could use Skype.  As it is, in a frustrating two hours, all I managed was a ten minute call to Tim in Bangkok, and he’s on his way back home now.   I collapsed exhausted sometime before 9PM last night and slept fitfully. 

I awoke early this morning, and ate a rather disgusting breakfast of frozen soy milk and Frosted Flakes (or Frosties, as they are known to the rest of the world) – I was so disappointed.  I had been looking forward to a proper cereal breakfast since I found the little box of Frosties, and then I put my milk in the fridge and it froze overnight.  That besides, it was really gross soy milk.

Unsatisfied, I went in search of wifi to check my emails and have a lonely cup of cocoa.  After that, I had to search for a place to sleep.  Rather after the fact, I found out I could have found a place for 200B a night in the centre of town, unfortunately, I didn’t realize it was even a place to sleep until a bit later in the day.  So I’m at a place called Sang Tong Huts, which is very pretty, and run by a young Thai man with an Australian accent.  He’s half Thai and half Oz, and I guess his dad used to own the place, so now he runs it half the year, and lives half the year in Australia.  I haven’t spoken to him much, but he has some Aussie friends visiting right now, and they told me all this while I was registering for my room earlier this morning. 

My room is really nice – a big hut with a big bed and a separate shower (for once).  I have a private balcony and a comfortable bed, unfortunately, it comes with feather pillows, but I feel as though the windows are just for show anyhow, and there should be enough fresh air that my allergies don’t bother me too much anyhow.  I made a little video on the deck earlier – if the internet gods are kind, I’ll load it to this blog.  I think it’ll be sans photos though – I have no wifi here either, and am typing this offline at the moment, with the intentions of going to snag wifi when I head down to the night market.  

(the internet gods were not kind! no video for you.)

 Today’s been a bit of an interesting day.  I emailed a couchsurfer in desperation last night, the only one in town, actually – but he couldn’t host me (hence me being here instead) ...and I bumped into him today at lunch.  I was eating khao soi at a restaurant earlier, and he walked in, and stared at me funny, and asked me if I was on couchsurfing.  Surprised, I said yes, and asked if his name was Janis (sorry Tim, I’m stealing this straight from my email to you – call me lazy) ...it was really random.  He sat down with me while I ate my lunch and we talked; the reason he declined me was because he’s supposed to have an American couchsurfer show up today.  After I finished my lunch, he asked if I would walk with him, so I did.  And we visited a bunch of little stores in town, it turns out, he made gingerbread cookies and was giving them to the owners of all his local haunts – the baker, the lady at the market, the owner of the restaurant I ate lunch at...and he’s going to make a gingerbread house tomorrow, and invited me to help him if I want.    

I walked back to his house with him, and found out that the nice lady who gave me directions this morning is his neighbour, and we all ate cookies and beverages together, with another invite to join them for Christmas dinner on the 24^th.  I don’t know if I will go to that – we will see how making gingerbread goes tomorrow morning.  I told him I plan to make a gingerbread igloo, to go with his gingerbread Shan-style Burmese hut.  And I’m going to make a Canadian flag for it.  I have to meet him at his house around 11AM tomorrow.

What can I say?  Strange things happen to me, sometimes.