Goodbye Thailand

After several weeks in Myanmar I returned to Thailand where I would spend my last few weeks before *hopefully* heading to Australia. It was bizarre returning to Bangkok where everything seemed ‘normal’ and familiar after being in Myanmar. It must say something pretty odd about me that my version of normal now involves the chaos of Bangkok, endless streetfood, weird buses where I had to know Thai numbers, and Thai spoken all around me, however I was grateful to be in a familiar spot since that is where I would be spending Christmas. Unfortunately for me I spent all of Christmas and the few days after in a coffin like hostel bed only speaking to others when the girl two beds from me would offer to pick me up more drugs or would ask me when I last ate and would follow it up with a trip to 7-11. My one foray into the outside world was to head to the Bangkok Hospital to get a checkup and a chest x-ray so that my Australian Working Holiday Visa would go through. My sister had told me she was moving to Australia so using the terrible Burmese internet I’d managed to send off both our visa applications. She had approval within an hour, I was told that I needed an Australian approved doctors appointment and the one I tried to see in Myanmar (yes there is only one) didn’t have openings till spring. Luckily Bangkok fit me in and even more luckily their doctors are terrible. Despite the fact I felt I was dying the doctor said I was perfectly healthy and signed off on my visa application. A week later an equally terrible doctor told me I may have Malaria, they never were certain, they just threw some meds at me. Either way I feel I probably shouldn’t have passed a health check mid-Malaria or whatever I had but no complaints!

Up until my departure date I was still pretty weak but my New Years Eve and last two weeks in Thailand were pretty good. I headed back to Pai to the Circus School where I met some great people, I got to explore around some more, revisit the hot springs, see the famous Reggae Festival, and celebrate a pretty spectacular New Years Eve. The Pai Circus School easily has the best view of Pai and on New Years at midnight the entire sky was lit up with hundreds of fireworks and people sending of thousands of lanterns. It seemed like the sky was dotted with giant brilliant stars until you noticed them moving and realized they were lanterns. It definitely made up for my downer Christmas.

The one other notable thing during my last week in Pai was that I declared war on chickens. The sketchy 16 bed dorm I was staying in had holes in the floor that allowed you to see the outside ground and the family of chickens living under us. Since I was still sickish I spent so much time in the dorm that I discovered those damn chickens don’t ever shut up. I was describing in elaborate detail to a friend my plans to kill them all and some strangers overheard my plan, then told me they were not only 100% on board but they were willing to stand guard as I crawled under the building and wrung their necks. Luckily it never came to that because before I knew it, I was heading back to Bangkok to catch a flight to Australia. I was leaving the land of endless chickens and entering something much scarier. The land of poisonous spiders, snakes, spiders, sharks, spiders, kangaroos and most frighteningly spiders. At least it was a new adventure and one I’d be tackling with my sister!

One of the many fireshows at the Pai Circus School