aric with an a

So, I’ve been thinking about what I want for my birthday and, although I’m sure you had something really fresh (trying to bring that word back) in mind, I have a bag the size of a Trapper Keeper (would like to bring that back as well) for the next 3 months or so and couldn’t fit much more.

Here’s what I want for my 29th birthday (and 36 months):

Sponsorships!

Here’s how it works; you can buy me a meal, beer or place to lay my head while travelin’.

Meals: $2-3

Beer: $0.50-1

Bed: $7-9

All ya got to do is send whatever funds you deem appropriate to my paypal:

aric.s.queen@gmail.com

(Please specify how, exactly, you’d like these monies to be distributed)

In return, I will take a photo and send to you for your refrigerator…please put it up with pride, my parents never did.

It’s almost like someone wants us to travel - sure, it’s hard, confusing, frustrating at times and no one ever tells you that picking up and going is a lot like shooting a film: exciting when something is actually happening but for the most part, you’re waiting around. Budget traveling requires not only patience, but more patience. Sure, you can save $15 by taking the local bus into town from the airport, but that waits until it’s full and goes at a speed that causes some to cut their travel days in half just for an air-conditioned alternative. But the surprises are what really keep us sleeping in dorm rooms and washing not only our hair with dish soap, but our clothes as well.

For example: I, a day before taking off to Bangkok, almost had to cancel lunch on a Thai friend of mine who offered to give me some tips. In the end, I was able to make it and was given a few phone numbers to call if I wanted to be shown around. Now, usually, I like doing my own thing, but I decided to SMS a friend of my friend who offered a lunch date the next day. Long story short, we immediately hit it off and within an hour of meeting eachother, I mentioned that in a few days, I was thinking about going up to the old hippy town of Pai, near the Burmese border. ‘Oh, really?’ She asked, ‘When’. ‘Am thinking the 17th or so’, I replied. ‘Well, perfect - some friends and I have a house up there and I’m going on the 17th, you can go with us!’.

Perfect, right? Well…there’s more. See, what she failed to mention in her very Thai humility was that said ‘house’ was actually one of the most stunning homes I’ve seen in Asia:

What you can’t see as of yet (will wait until I’m back to edit photos/video) is that the deck overlooks the Northern Thai mountains (read: sunset), is a 3-minute drive from town and oh yeah, ‘We’re leaving on Sunday, but please, please, please stay there as long as you want - it’s too beautiful not to be shared”.

What is it about being blessed with people who just offer up generosity like this to me? Less than 2 weeks amongst Buddhists and I can tell you I did nothing great in a previous life to be given people like Nym. Tim & Robin. Scott. Mel and Ollie. Collin & Kate. I’m also not going to broadcast it either though; whatever typo in the system resulted in me being overly blessed, I’m not of the character to bring it to mind. It’s sort of like ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ meets ‘Brazil’…but, you know, written by Hunter S. Thompson.

Can someone just mail my Mac and favorite pair of jeans here? I don’t think I can go back to China.

My short cameo apperance in a Spanish documentary. Wait, a ‘cameo’ is an appearance by someone who would be well-known to the audience, right? Guess that makes me an extra - and if I would have been paid the check would have gone to someone named ‘Larry’, so not even an extra. A filler at best, ha ha. You could start to see the town wearing on me here. 2 bottles of red wine and I’m talking about Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Postal System? Sheesh.

As if things in the North of Thailand weren’t rewarding enough, I woke this morning and made my way to the room-with-no-walls-but-windows for a coffee and a quick email check to find that Current TV had awarded me the ‘Most Prolific Blogger’ title for ‘shanghai diaries‘. That was sweet. While I don’t consider myself some serious journalist/presenter/et al, it’s always nice to have the people inside givin’ ya a smack on the ass.

Perhaps the overwhelming sensation of being surrounded by such gentleness added to my experience 15 minutes ago in this wat, but the combination of the light breeze passing in between the jade buddha and myself along with the chimes from the silver hangings outside and the low murmur of the monk chanting near the entrance behind me made me wish for my own religion to surrender it’s own scare tactics reserved for any of those who dared considering that there was an alternative.

If NYC is the city that never sleeps than Bangkok is the dealer whose amphetamine caused said insomnia. Some might say it’s not for the weak at heart, but I think just the opposite. The strong come knowing what evil wonders it has in store and prepare themselves, while the faint get slapped…but a good slap, like the one Sophia Loren might deliver. What many might not uncover is that it works very, very hard at keeping up everyone’s expectation, but a quick look above (or, below) the original ‘Sin City’ and you start to uncover it’s charm. Think about the first time you heard that Kid Rock is actually a gifted classical pianist. Or that Norman Mailer wasn’t a half-bad painter. Even stronger than this is the overwhelming sense of contrast. Large-named hotels are placed directly in the center of a slum. Prostitution runs sickeningly rampant, yet abortion is illegal. A large number of the male population pose as women and an even larger amount become monks, which, in itself hints at some overlap. It’s a colorful nightmare, a vivid kaleidoscope of all things dark.

And any town where American frat boys pay more attention to the lady boys serving them than the drunken Swedish girls next to them is a town worth the accolades.

I leave tomorrow morning. Need to pack. Should be doing a lot of things before I go but it’s the lot of things that made me want to go in the first place. I haven’t taken an 4+ month trip since I first went to Europe and came back an asshole. Hope that doesn’t happen again, but it might and that’s okay, because the ability to admit one’s an asshole is one often lost in this town. I think I got all ant-China’d and hate that. I have people I consider friends who are Chinese but that’s what all bigots say. I’m going all over and I love that. I don’t really have a plan which is also something to be loved. A few sites, like Bagan and Angkor Wat, a few towns like Luang Prebang and Chiang Mai. A volcano. Maybe Miss Universe. A good night’s sleep. A break from Facebook. I sure will miss Scott. He’s the Alan Shore to my Denny Crane. I know I’m leaving early and the book would be better had I stayed through the Olympics, but sometimes, chapters end with spare room on the page.