After being in Chiang-Mai for a week and losing most of my most important possessions Mogley and I decided to do a jungle trek. Spending three days in the jungle hiking off the beaten path we saw some amazing views and met some amazing people. The first night we slept in a village of 450 people. We had a campfire, had a pork BBQ and smoked bamboo cigarettes (one of the many uses for bamboo which we soon came to find out). The next night we slept in a bungalow by a waterfall... completely gorgeous. On the third day checked out some river rafting..on bamboo of course and then gave some elephants a bath and road through the jungle...

This isn't what I thought they meant when they said give an elephant a bath... some people almost got crushed.

After three days in the jungle this is how you shower... behind this water madness is a sweet cave to chill out in...

Mogley finally made it back to the jungle...

Chiang-Mai city lights... A long, windy, and potentially sketchy road...make sure you have gas. (but if you don't...it's a pretty solid coast downhill).

84th floor. bangkok. we fancy now..

beautiful...

Explosions

We used to sit in the flowery dusk
contemplating the smeared pastels
until the stars materialized.
Then we contemplated them.
Our words filled the spaces between stars,
our bodies, the silence.

roadside..

Bangkok and whatnot...

What a trip so far... already learned a lot. Still have a lot to learn.

Among things:

• There is nothing free in Bangkok and if it's really cheap there is some sort of catch like the driver will take you to his friends tux shop and try and fit you for a "chep chep soot." The driver then gets 10 baht (approximately 30 cents) for this favor. How nice.
• You can buy pretty much anything in Bangkok for a fraction of the price in the US, thing is in the tourist area you're still getting over charged even though for you it's a good price.
• The toilets are called squatters. Self explanatory. The bathrooms are also paperless except in the tourist areas. I have managed to find my kind of "regular" bathrooms thus far, but I imagine soon in the more rural areas Ill have to make do with the hole in the ground and the bucket of water for "flushing." More to come on that... or maybe not. (If you don't hear from me assume I figured it out).
• Driving. Scooters (and these scooters move), tuk-tuks (Oh and Wells, pronounced toook-toook, not tuck-tuck, which is what you wnat a lady boy to do to you... so I hope you didnt get a lot of use out of that) and windowless busses so that the passengers can get a face full of grim. Different from driving in the US though... the general rule of thumb is haul ass and only worry about whats infront of you.
• Lady boys. There are a ton of attractive women in Thailand... only they're not women. You can take one home for only 8 baht....
• You can drink beer and smoke butts anywhere ... and pretty much in general do whatever you want. Hey-o!

Showing up in Bangkok and dealing with the city, the jet lag, all of the "salesmen," the diesel smoke, all the people, the total change in diet and whatever it is that's different in the beer that makes you feel like ass the next day, can make you pretty sick of Bangkok, so we went to the beach.

Down in Phuket now... gorgeous. We have been giving ourselves self-guided tours/getting very very lost via scooter. Dope.

More later...

To A Traveling Friend
W.S. Merwin

a harsh cry or partridge
echoes along the valley
through a misty rain
two months after you left
you would recognize it
though you no longer noticed the sound
except in your dreams

once again i do not know
where you may be
how to send you anything
whether you need it or not




you may be far away by now
yet i keep hearing your footsteps
all day in the house
in another room
this is like one of those letters
written on a mountain in China
over a thousand years ago

by someone staring
at miles of white clouds
after a friends departure
there were so many of those
unsigned and never sent
as far as we know

thanks dev. much love.

soon it will be cold

there comes a time in the night,
four, five, six when you sit awake,
eyes open - an emptiness about you.
sleep is not in the cards,
time is non-existent.
hours pass,
or maybe just minutes…

you survey the room:
the doorknob seems shiner than usual.
the clutter: more extensive.
you light a cigarette
and inhale slowly.
you watch the smoke
with blank astonishment
as it hangs there; suspended,
ghostly captivating.

it’s hard to place this feeling.
you want more, you want it all,
but death also seems easy.
the line between the mundane
and the fantastic blurs
leaving you levitating between
states, immersed in confusion –
the couch winks at you
and the dog asks the time.

it’s sometime in september now.
you fell asleep in july …

On The Corner

On the Corner

I gave her all the money in my pocket,
cold hands clawed at the bills,
tired body leaning toward a temporary fix.
Her face curiously void of articulation
despite the history detained in her eyes,
like an old photograph warped and yellowed
they concealed a youth that existed once
in a pause and a flash.
If youth could see her now:
groveling, soliciting sadness,
beseeching the soles of the city,
like a stray dog looking to catch an eye.