The Reasons Why

This is what good luck is, finally we have some. This is why we do it. This is why we drag ourselves on through culture shock and feelings of "I can't do this, I wasn't cut out for this...why did I leave everything dear behind?" This is why we squat in dank holes, endure horrendous bowel movements and share showers with cockroaches, spiders, mosquitoes and blood suckers. This is why we came here. This is Thailand and this is our year.

We hefted a year's worth of our lives onto our backs and shuffled through Chiang Mai: Song Thaw, walking, bus station, floor, bus, Chiang Rai, Song Thaw, guest house, floor, beds. Heft, drag, collapse, that's the key. Chiang Rai held little promise, save for the White Temple, a gleaming reminder of the morbidity of Religion, it blinds in sunlight. Once again we hefted, dragged, sagged, squashed ourselves into a minivan which seemed too clean for our grubby feet. Everything is too clean for our grubby feet. There we stayed, huddled and contorted, laughing at ourselves as we wound up dizzily through the mountainside, up, up, up towards the heaven of Pai. It is a heaven, if one believes in such a thing, this is it. Pai is beautiful, it's views are the pictures you see in your mind when you think of Thailand, and there those pictures were, right outside our window and we were weaving in and out of them, incorporating into it, tiny ants in a vast sphere of awe.

9:00am and we hired scooters (stop laughing) to zip through and around Pai. If there's one way to really appreciate where you are, in this haze of rolling green and blue power, hurtling through it, feeling its stinging breath pelt you in the face and freeze your grinning teeth is certainly the way to go about it. Euphoria. There's a freedom comes from it, from being in control and being on your own two feet, it was so good to feel that.

Speeding on, we stumbled on these sights. Stumbled upon them! Only in Thailand could you unexpectedly crest a hill and be confronted with all this...breathtaking. That's the realisation we all need, being able to think "okay, THIS is why I'm here" is a great, great thing. Left, right, loop, return, up, down, this way, that way? We picked a direction and gunned it down, only two minutes in and we stopped to pet the elephants who loitered right next to the road. Another beautiful surprise, just there. Right there, in front of us. Just elephants. HA!

On we went for the day, on and on, never letting up on the accelerator, never letting up on our grins. Pure, sweet, tangy life. Best day.

And then I just CHUNDERED EVERYWHAR...