The specific travel dates for my winter holiday were mostly dictated by my vacation time balance and the expense of traveling during the holiday season. To keep costs reasonable, it was necessary to find a round-trip flight to Asia – as opposed to two separate one-way flights – so I opted for Bangkok.
Don’t let the above photo fool you; December 8th was not a fun travel day. To begin with, I had a very full day at home: working, packing, cleaning, preparing my apartment for my Airbnb guest, and trying to fight off a cold. After going to a friend’s company’s holiday party in the evening, I went home to grab my bags and start my 30-hour travel day: a few hours at SFO, a 14-hour flight to Taipei, a few hours in the airport there, a 4-hour flight to Bangkok, a couple more hours in an airport, and finally a 2-hour bus ride to Pattaya. Uuuggghhh.
The entire travel day actually went very smoothly since I had planned out all my transportation in advance and nothing was delayed. However, I’m unable to sleep on planes – even with chemical assistance – and I’m 6’3″ on a good day, so long flights are a real test of patience and pain endurance. Everything ended up being fine in the end, but my tolerance for long, uncomfortable journeys has definitely gone down. Needless to say, I was incredibly relieved upon finally reaching my hotel in Pattaya.
I should probably take this opportunity to explain why I went to Pattaya, a city infamous – even for Thailand! – for its red light districts and sex tourism. My only reason for going was logistics: Pattaya is the closest seaside getaway from Bangkok. I knew that after such a brutal travel day I would want sun, sand, and Singha; Pattaya has all those things within a 2-hour drive of the capital. The local airport also has a direct flight to Chiang Mai, my subsequent destination. And I had never been to Pattaya before, so in the interest of going somewhere new, it made sense. Plus I could be witness to a spectacle of unadulterated humanity and vice, which is always entertaining.
Allow me to try to summarize Pattaya.
For those of you who have been to Thailand, Pattaya is Khaosan Road in Bangkok multiplied by Soi Bangla on Phuket. There are multiple red light districts with literally hundreds of bars, dance clubs, girlie bars, massage parlors, and go-go bars (strip clubs). Pretty Thai women (and ladyboys) in tight mini-dresses and stilettos catcall everyone within shouting distance. Groups of Thai women, gay boys, or ladyboys sit outside the massage parlors, calling out “Meestah you want massage?!” while trying to grab the arms of potential patrons walking by. Wide-eyed Chinese tourists slowly drift around in massive groups, sometimes wearing identical outfits, but always wearing their backpacks facing frontwards, clutching them tightly as if Thailand was populated exclusively by purse-snatchers who could strike at any moment.
And then there are the farang: a few gap-year backpackers, a few honeymooning couples, some young parents with babies in strollers, a few trashy Russians on holiday, and a small clique of pretty, 20-something Russian girls who work there. But the real demographic of Western visitors is the fraternity of bald, fat, or ugly – pick any two, maybe all three – older white men who bankroll this town. Such men are often accompanied by a Thai woman twenty, thirty, or even forty years his junior.
Even with all the crazy shit I’ve seen on my travels, the one thing that still creeps me out every time, without fail, is seeing young white women working in the sex industry in Thailand. I have so many questions! Why can’t you do this in your home country? Why would you travel so far to earn third-world money? What men are traveling to Thailand to pay for a night with a white chick? I’m not sure I’ll ever understand.
Also, who the fuck is bringing their babies and children to Pattaya?! And then taking them for walks around town at night?! There were multiple nominees for “Parent of the Year” during my 48-hour stay. No eight-year-old kid needs to be bombarded with the screams of dozens of scantily-clad prostitutes and the sleazy salesmanship tactics of drug dealers and touts for ping pong shows.
With that colorful backdrop, I spent my weekend eating, sleeping, getting massages, reading my book by the rooftop pool at my hotel, and in the evenings, sitting at bars and watching the free entertainment with some new friends.
On a lighter note, apparently the new thing in tourist Thailand is VR! On Walking Street, the most popular strip of nightlife in town, there were multiple stations where tourists could strap on VR goggles and go on a virtual roller coaster ride while everyone else watched the video on TVs. Truth be told, the VR was good enough that people would flip out and fall over if they weren’t being physically restrained by those running the show.
And even though Pattaya certainly isn’t known for its food, the first meal I had – a random assortment of fried snacks – was spicier than anything I’ve eaten in months in America. It was good to be back.
On Sunday, I flew from the small, ex-military airport south of town up to Chiang Mai for a week of working remotely and seeing some old friends. My manager – who enjoys traveling and Thai food just as much as I do – graciously agreed to my proposal of working remotely when I talked to him about vacation plans a few months ago. In an effort to prove that it was a good decision, I decided to spend that week in a place that I’m familiar with and can be very productive in, rather than a new place where I might struggle to get work done.
Much to my chagrin, my first day in Chiang Mai was not productive at all, at least with respect to work. Because I slept late in an effort to correct my body’s sleep schedule, it didn’t make sense to pay for a full day at my usual coworking space, so I played a round of let’s-try-cafe-wifi-networks-today. And lost. On top of spotty WiFi, my company’s IT department had upgraded their VPN infrastructure that weekend and I continued to have problems (shocker) for the next 24-48 hours.
Sensing the workday was going to be washed out, I salvaged things personally by getting a haircut, wash, and head massage ($9 total) at my usual spot in town, followed by a $4 foot massage in the late afternoon at Wat Mahawan, which has always been a first-day Chiang Mai tradition for me. As usual, the temple was a wonderfully peaceful respite from the city’s traffic and noise and I spent the hour watching the monks tend to their gardening duties around the temple grounds.
Starting the next day, the week ended up being incredibly productive work-wise. In fact, I’m pretty certain I was more productive that week than I normally am back home, mainly due to zero distractions. Because my work schedule hardly overlapped with anyone else on my team, I wasn’t distracted by emails, Slack notifications, or people coming over to my desk. Once I worked through the backlog of messages every morning, which didn’t take long at all, the rest of the day was completely mine. And unlike my usual commute through the dirty, crazy jungle of Mid-Market in San Francisco, the walk through old city every morning was quite pleasant.
It took a couple days before I really settled into the flow there, but I can remember the exact moment it happened. I was walking home one evening, feeling a tiny bit hungry, when I came upon a street vendor selling mango sticky rice. I sat down on a cheap plastic stool at a cheap plastic table and ate with a cheap plastic spoon out of a cheap foam container. A Jason Mraz concert DVD played on a portable TV and I hummed along while cockroaches scurried among the bags of trash on the ground. As I ate some of the best mango sticky rice I’ve ever had, I glanced up at the dark sky, punctuated by the clear white light of a bright full moon. It was every Thai cliche at once and it was perfect.
My non-work time that week was spent catching up with friends and going to all my favorite spots in old city. A couple of my personal favorites had closed but the staples were all still there. I made sure to savor two of my favorite things about Chiang Mai: khao soi and the subtle joy of walking the old city’s tiny, quiet sois late at night.
After a week that went by way too quickly, I had a farewell dinner with my friends Jay and Mel before packing and getting ready for the next adventure. I could stay in Chiang Mai for months on end (and I have), but new lands await. Onward to Laos!
