ATVA - TIJC - DTGSADM

Warning: when we do so much during the day, it gets dark at 6 and I cannot understand anything on TV, and I have a lack of energy to do anything else while Chelsea sleeps, I write long, annoying blogs.


New photo's uploaded on facebook here!


TIJC

    Thailand International Jazz Conference : totally awesome.  It was outdoors in the auditorium on Mahidol University Campus, tons of people were there, and Danilo Perez and his band were blowin some minds!  I think it worked out to be $15.00 per ticket, which got you into all of the shows for the day.  I think that I have paid at least $50.00 USD to see Danilo Perez in Seattle before, so I was really excited!

Also, hip pop/fusion band ETC was great.  Smooth jazz, Thai love songs, shredding dual keyboard lines, and nice rock star fro's!  Check em out!


 I went with SomSak #1 and SomSak #2, both part of our Thai family.  Somsak #1 is my manager out here, he was self appointed.  Honestly, it is a little odd.  During set breaks and in between songs he would parade me around the festival and introduce me to people that he did not even know.  Make me say, "Sawadee Krap" "Sabai dee mai?" and "Khap Kun Krap" then stand awkwardly while he talked about how I am a great jazz pianist.  These people included the president of the college, the president of the music department, the booking agent, the founder of TIJC, three or four musicians that were playing that night, and several random women.  He really gets results though!  And man, if I would have known that there was a solo competition I could have entered and won 30,000 baht!  And man, I would have won!  Although the final evening acts were great, the majority of the musicians could not compete with the heavy cats in the USA.



ATVA
    Me and Chelsea tried something new today.  We went to a shop of a friend of our friend Bly.  We rented All Terrain Vehicles, or ATV's and went on our All Terrain Vehicle Adventure for the entire afternoon today. We had a total blast, it was something we have not ever done back home, and for the whole afternoon private trip with two personal guides it ran us about $150.00 US.  So we putted around Chiang Mai at first, then took off into the foothills for some gnarley 4x4 action.  At first we were having some trouble with our ATV's but eventually the guys busted em open, went to work on em, and had em up and running again fifteen minutes later.
    We rode around the mountains surrounding Chiang Mai for the whole afternoon.  Our guide James (his Thai name was too hard to remember) took us to a gigantic cave deep in the jungle, to the top of several large  mountains (although still smaller than even Mt. Si) to several temples, up and down the steepest hills you would ever want to drive anything up or down, and along country roads at blistering speeds.  Anyways after about three hours of riding, we were getting the hang of it.  We new how to go down really steep hills, and avoid things that would really jar your body.  A big part of driving an ATV is not only being able to find a route up or down the mountain, but trying to find a somewhat smooth path so that you do not jack yourself up too bad.  We were jacked up, but less jacking was happening after three hours than in the first hour.  Hah, make sense?  Anyways, you might know where this story is going if I have ever told you my first snowboarding experience story.

Jumps.

So me and Chels are both feeling really BA (bad ass) and one of our professional guides who makes a living racing ATV's took us to an old rice field.  The field was all dried out, but the terraces made for great jumps.  So we whip our ATV's around and watch as our guide takes off at top speed and hits the first terrace wall and goes shooting up to the next terrace, approximately a meter above the first one.  POC (piece of cake).
I revved the engine up a little, and shot off on the same path.  Hit the jump, got some air, landed successfully on top.  Chelsea came zipping along and could hang as well!  This just pumped me up a little more!  "Wow, I just did a jump on an ATV and it was POC, I am such a BA!" We blitzed off in the dust of the second story of the rice terrace's, and watched as our guide hit the second jump.

The second jump was by far much bigger and steeper, but it was the same premise.  In my head I justified it as "Well, the machine is doing all the work, its not like this is a PHYSICAL sport or anything".  Whatever.  I shot at the wall at breakneck speed.

When you approach a tall, steep jump on an ATV, it looks a lot like you are driving very fast directly into a wall.  It feels like it also.  Once the front tires hit the slope, in like a quarter of a second the ATV with a 250cc engine ceases to go straight, and basically is driving directly up in the air.  I was kind of expecting this, but not at the intensity that it happened.  I held on for the life of me and flew up the jump.  The immediate change in the direction I was traveling threw me off a little.  At one moment, gravity was pulling me down through my body vertically, the next moment I was being sucked down horizontally.  This pulled my body back away from the ATV, but I held on for dear life.  I held on so good, that it gunned the throttle and I got some serious air.  It felt like I was twenty feet up in the air, but it was more like three.  I was leaning back so far on the ATV I was almost vertical.  I could feel the beast wanting to flip back on me, and at this moment I knew I was not gonna conquer terrace two like I conquered terrace one.  I gave in, and pushed the ATV away from me as hard as I could.  It went shooting off into the dirt.  I fell down on my back, lucky to not get hurt at all.  It felt like I jumped up in the air, and landed on my butt on the ground.  Then Chelsea came roaring up behind me, saw me as she was about to get over the top of the jump, and in order to not crush me she slammed on the breaks, then rolled down the jump/wall backwards.  Eventually because of the grade of the slope, the ATV started to roll over backwards on her.  She hit the ground, and as soon as she did our guide James caught/shoved the ATV to the side so that it would not crush her.

Wow, that was a really close call for both of us.  It was amazing that neither of us got hurt.  After the shock wore off, we could have a good laugh about it.  The guides felt really terrible that we did not spend more time on the small jumps to learn to keep all of our weight forward.  After that epic fail, I had to hit the small jump a couple more times (it was really easy) to make myself feel better.  That level 2 jump will have to wait for another day.




DTGSADM
Down-to-get-suits-and-dresses-made.

Went to the tailor, placed our order.  Two suits coming right up, and a dress for Chelsea.  Chelsea admitted she was picky to me about cloths today when she couldn't find a good silk pattern for her second dress.  Win!

Anyways, here is a totally sweet video we made earlier in the trip that I forgot to upload!  Ch-ch-ch-check it out!

I thought I was safe...

I thought I was safe, but twenty days into Asia I have been struck with a stomach bug.  As I sit here waiting for the Imodium to kick in I will write a little blog!  I know this is disgusting, but I found this online!

Thank you www.wikipedia.org for being so informative.

Over the past few days we have been doing so many things that honestly it gets a little overwhelming trying to write anything about any of it. I will just give you guys a heads up as to what we have been doing over all.  

We left Bangkok two days ago.  We were going to try to catch a sleeper train to Chiang Mai but those were sold out for the whole week so we took the Sprinter Train.  Basically, a half step down in comfort and a little more expensive than taking a bus.  I really do not know what the benefit is.  We got on the train at 6:38 pm and got off of it in Chiang Mai at 7:20 am the next day.  It was hell trying to sleep on that thing!  

One of the weird signs you have to deal with.  I understand the image, but whats with the WC?

Our friend June (Miss Thailand Competition) was letting us crash at her pad in Bangkok for several days before we left, and her husband Mr. Tongchai is very nice and owns a huge company in Thailand.  Anyways, he called ahead for me and Chelsea and basically 'marked' us as VIP personnel for Chiang Mai.  We have had two tour guides the whole time we have been here, under the orders of Mr. Tongchai, and we have a home for as long as we want at the Chiang Mai "Night Safari".  The coolest zoo you have never heard of.  

It is the Jurassic Park of mammals.  Every night they take you out on these tram rides where you can see all sorts of animals in their natural habitat at night.  White Tigers, Lions, Hyena's and other predatory animals as well as elephants, a million types of deer, giraffe's, ox, buffalo, monkeys and so on and so on.  Oh, don't forget the LadyBoy show and the restaurant's and ........ bungalos/rooms for rent?  Totally awesome, totally weird.  I was really tired, but Chelsea actually had a hard time sleeping because our house was right near where the lion's and hyena's were, and they are super loud at night.  Our guides Bly and Rain are totally fun and entertaining to hang with as well.

So awesome!

It seems that one of the themes of this trip for me is to see all this stuff that is not allowed in America because people are so scared to be caught up in a lawsuit.  Sooo much of the really fun stuff we have done would be soooo not even a consideration in the States... and honestly, I agree!  I think we watched a 4 ton elephant do "crow" pose (yoga pose where you balance on your arms) less than 3 feet away from a class of 4th graders.  Like, the elephant was leaning over the kids.  It is interesting, America makes rules about things because of the exception - the one idiot, and Thailand just lets that idiot go hug the panda and get mauled.  

Today we went up to Chiang Rai, where we rented a speed boat and went on a tour of the Golden Triangle.  The Golden Triangle is the point where Thailand, Myanmar (Burma) and Laos meet, separated by the Mae Khong River.  Historically tons of illegal activity went on here, drug trades, selling of illegal things (like slaves) and there has been a lot of fighting over this territory.  It was really weird to see Thailand in comparison to Laos and Burma.  Thailand had hotels, restaurants, temples, houses, everything built along the banks of the river.  Totally modern.  Laos had little huts and shops built on top of the bank of the river, and when we went there we found a huge market.  Very dirty, very cheap.  All the Lacoste you could ever want.  This is where I drank Cobra / Tiger Penis whiskey.  (See video).  

When looking at Burma, you could see nothing. Only dense dense jungle, and a gigantic casino called Paradise facing the Thai border.  Gambling is outright banned in Thailand, so a Thai native cut a deal with someone in Burma to build a gigantic casino to try to attract people over the border.  A few problems with Burma :  Child Soldiers, giant armies of them.  Land mines.  War.  Extreme poverty.  Unless you are in the army, your children cannot go to school.  Less than 1% of people have cell phones.  Less than .1% of people have internet access.  People cannot move there, people cannot leave.  We met two refugees from Myanmar in Thailand, they were our raft guides.  They left their families and hiked through the mountains for three months in order to escape the communism.  They had nothing, and they now have nothing.  They have to stay in the woods in Thailand so that they do not get deported, so they work as rafting guides for one of the elephant camps where they make 100BHT a day, about three US dollars.  Then, they take half of that and send it to their parents back home.  However they said they love Thailand because they can choose what they do here.  They each went to high school for three years, and one of them could speak basic English.  They were really cool, we gave them a good tip.

Anyways, it was frustrating to see a giant Casino just over the border of a country that has so many problems.  Our guides told us it was not safe for white people to go to Burma, so we did not go.  They said the problem is not with the average Burmese people or families, but with the police and soldiers.  One of our guides knows a woman in Myanmar and said that for every 500 Kyat that she made, she had to donate 450 Kyat of it to the soldiers in her town so that they continue to keep them safe.  What..?