Benny's Car Chop and Cock Fightery

8:30 am marks the latest I've left my apartment since I rented it. The usual routine, get up. First thing, into a shower, it's hot enough by five a.m. to sweat straight through your sheets. By seven-thirty you know rather it's a sweltering "Why did I leave the mountains" kind of day, or one of the much more manageable "Hide in the shade when the sun comes out" varieties. Seven-thirty is like ground hog day for me, today will be a fun kind of day. The air will move quickly from a marginally uncomfortable degree to ungodly hot by ten a.m. This is when the aging of the dense smog comes to its full flavor, by noon it will be the only flavor on your tongue. One-thirty p.m. comes and the atmosphere will be veritable soup, like the deep end of a swimming pool neglected for several seasons, only filled with car exhaust. It's fuck off days like these that lead to magical nights... really. These are my thoughts as Gong Ju and I round the corner into the side alley leading to her school. Just as we do five days a week, we pass what I have deemed "Benny's Car Chop and Cock Fightery". Sporting ten or more steal cages, each with a rather proud rooster, and a line up of ever changing cars it seems business at Benny's is booming. (Forgive me for the photos. I took them while driving by on my motorbike and don't have the best lens for the job) This further points to Thailand's split














(Notice the lack of license plates)



personalities. Even the criminals need two jobs. Benny's is a half block away from the best Thai Massage school in all of Thailand. But then, where else is Benny's suppose to be? The difference between neighborhood and just plain hood can be as little as ten feet. I love this about Chiang Mai. You can find anything if you walk for twenty minutes in any direction. Hop on a motor bike and in twenty minutes your in a temple on mountain tops. Possibly stop in at the jade factory on the way up the steps. Even when the sun booms like death there is always somewhere to hide here. It is in these places I have met people from every corner of the world. I would never have thought the first place I would stay here would be with a crazy German who constantly mixes up the three languages he speaks. Or that the first Tuk Tuk driver I meet would not only find the exact apartment I was looking for, but would negotiate the rent down by a thousand baht. There is many a crook in Thailand, believe me. But I don't think this experience is exclusive to me. This is what it's all about here. For me to pay forty baht for a large beer, some asshole Falang has to pay eighty, this is the balance of Chiang Mai and everywhere else for that matter. I've been the guy getting ripped and the guy catching the deal many times over here. And to think, I've only been here just over two weeks. I've been running down every dark corner and bright vista this city has to offer and I'm still far from the whole experience. From ten year old contortionists in front of temples, or boxing Muay Thai to the teaming streets of famous night markets held every evening all over the city. The pants I'm wearing cost just over one USD and they probably saw me coming, but who cares when it's the difference of ten cents to me. All and all it is easy to forget about the heat and cut with a knife kinda smog when you just sit back and let the city take you. Maybe a cock fight or a boxing match, an electronics market or roof top reggae bar, a chicken from the backyard or a five dollar Thai massage. Go anywhere, do anything, see everything. Chiang Mai is as happy to show as you're willing to look. Toss in a few extra baht and you might just have the night of your life...

Connecting Sacrament

In my experience, the Thais are a clean people. They'll have a market two square miles wide, so packed you can barely shimmy through the flow, let alone look at anything. Two hours later, You'd have no idea it was ever there. Rarely have I caught a whiff of body odour in this country, and when I have, it's almost certainly coming from the Falang down the way. This place is hot, and humid. Perhaps too hot and humid. So much so that you find yourself showering as often as new couples fuck. This general hygiene is however lost when gazing upon the Chao Phraya River. As I stand on a bridge overlooking this magnificent body of water I come to a startling realisation. I could be in Sacramento, CA... right now. Like I stepped through some fucked up wrinkle in space time and ended up at a crossroads between Juarez, Detroit and the town of Walker. You can almost feel Bangkok trying to sleaze its way up stream. "Water seeks out it's own level". Something my father always says makes me wonder as to the strategic placement of "Chinatown". Neatly backed up, right against the filthiest place in Chiang Mai. Did the Chinese here simply identify with the passing muck of the Chao Phraya? Or did the Thais humorously plan to cordon them off next to it. I imagine it was a bit of both. From this vista it is hard to believe that a few short meters away sit some of the most architecturally pleasing religious monuments of the past thousand years. But this is the duality of Thailand. Just behind the paint on the walls and the handy craft light strings are the true components. From the three hundred pound Falang hiding in the back, designing your meal to the liquor on the breath of your Tuk Tuk driver. The things that make this place tic are usually not the stuff of bed time stories. Fuck if it doesn't make for a good night of Muay Thai however. A hundred Falangs will sit and talk the awfulness of child labour. Then march around the block and lay down a few hundred baht on the seven year old standing in the red corner. They foam at the mouth, smashing down Chang after Chang screaming as he postures up to send a knee straight through his tiny opponent and on to oblivion. If he wins, maybe tonight he eats better, if not... Well, maybe we don't talk about that. I walk to the bathroom and the teenager from two bouts prior is still being propped up in the sink, trainer splashing water in his face. No win = no money and a beautiful night of porcelain god prayer for this gentleman to my right. I slide my hands in next to his face, catching a splash of water and I'm back on my way. Into the night, open to whatever may find me.