doi suthep

wat

and so waking later than intended and finding that the world was veiled in the darkened clouds of a hangover it seemed such an easy way to sort myself out...off to the latest macchiato place, two drunk in what i've been told is the italian style...ie quickly...then a bowl of soup made spicy, eating all chillies and finally another bike for a run along the road upon which i discovered the utter joy of motorbikes...or this year scooters...as it wound up and around a hill to a wat which holds some relics of the buddha and 4km past this a palace...and beyond this a deterioration into the style of the roads out beyond rishikesh as the corners tightened and the potholes grew larger...and memory, for once had played no tricks it is the most wonderful road....

and changes found strewn upon it....the road out of town now a chaos of cars, a weaving haar of exhaust fumes and impatient gweilos - later i would see two fo them on a bike which cast clear illumination upon the reasons that people die here as they struggle down the hill with an blindingly obvious inability to cope with the road, creating a tail back and a kill zone of a sort...i don't know, i'm not the most gifted bike rider but, having been taken off mine by a car and still suffering a decade later from the effects of it, aware that my helmet saved my life...i do wonder why fold who abviously are not experienced on a bike would carry a passenger and go without a helmet...and i say this having done some outrageously foolish, but fun, things on bikes in the past...which in the here and now leaves them open to contriubuting to the local police benefit fund...which i also saw as two police happily fined a group of about eight for no helmets...maybe i'm just growing elderly and conservative...whilst i will admit to preferring no helmet this just isn't that kind of place....

anyways i digress...back in the last century the wat was a fairly quiet place, now there appears to be a village of stalls upon the road outside and up the early steps to the naga staircase and the wat itself packed with people, selfie city in a way...no complaint in there really, it's a holy place housing relics of the buddha...and yes i did the three times around the stupa ritual as i sought to gain some more karmic brownie points...although after the ganges and kanyakumari i appear to have broken the cycle of samsara...should i return then it will be as boddhisvata...ah the echoes of kerouac;-)

and the city has grown so much, from the viewpoint of the wat you can see over the plains and the surprising sprawl of modern chiang mai, unlike road and wat this was very different in my memory...

returning to town all good intentions vanished once again as i found myself invited to a place called the living room to play pool...where i actually won a couple of games in a cycle of winner stays on...drank a little too much beer and misssed the sunrise trip which i'd planned for myslef...so here i sit once again, macchiato place, two taken, bike retained at least one more day, plans to take it up the mountain tomorrow as there's a summit and a viewpoint whcih can be reached by road and the idea of a sunrise run appeals massively...but we'll see...this place for all of it's changes and expansions still holds some kind of appeal, i've met many who just came here for a few days/weeks and who haven't yet managed to leave...last night in the pool place vincent, from italy, was drunkenly informing me that i should just do what he did and get a job in a call centre and stay. in the early morning haze i could see the appeal but it's not my time...less than a week left on my visa and the road is beginning to whisper to me again...this festival still appeals and i have tome to see, at least the first day...or i can just do a visa run on the bike and get another month...but aj should be in the north at some point soon and despite my intitial thoughts of having too long i seen that time will not be on my side...ah yes, the inability not to travel without my bag of changes and indecisions runs on....however, on the plus (?) side i do appear to have found words again and the optimism that they will soon improve and sharpen into something worth writing....

and so to the bike and another sobering jaunt up the snakeroad to the wat and beyond....