The Moment of Truth

After 16 hours on a plane and 12 hours on a train we are finally in Chiang Mai, Thailand! It is absolutely beautiful here, hot, but beautiful!

I wasn't quite ready for it but I had my first encounter with a squatter on the train. I haven't had the best of luck with such commodes in the past especially on moving vehicles. So far I have fallen in - head first (Korea), slipped in tail in first (with tadpoles - Indonesia), and slipped into one (where's the toil... squish - Japan) and those are just the highlights. So really what was the expectation for success on this particular occasion on a very bumpy train?

After I committed to the thought of using the squatter and psyching myself up to the duty, I had to choose the "method" since I chose to wear pants and then step up to the little platform. Everything was going well until the moment of truth - where's the toilet paper?

There's that moment of panic when you have to carefully consider your options - finding some sort of paper inside your pocket (will I really use the 20 baht note?), wallet, or whatever just not, unless there are no other options - good ol' righty or lefty will have to do the trick.

I chose lefty. But right before the um, deed, I noticed that hidden under a teapot was a nice, clean roll of paper for me to use instead - Whew! So, not entirely a bad experience and everything in the end went where it was supposed to go.

Today I spent my first full day in Chiang Mai - we went to a really cool temple (wat), I got a blessing from a monk, walked around the city (they have a huge square moat around the old city) and fed an elephant. This is a seriously cool place, very hot and sticky, but awesome! I will be here for about 2 weeks and then off to China. I will post some pictures once I figure out how to do it (and if they will let me tinker around on a public computer).