Dangers of Jogging in Chang Mai

Aiden and I are hanging out in Chang Mai, in the north of Thailand, where we just finished our second of three days of Thai cooking courses. Yesterday, we ate so much food that I couldn't eat until the next morning. This continuation of the blatant gluttony that has been our time in Thailand (as Dr. Nick put it, "a slow gorging process followed by assal horizontology") was already getting to me and the course pushed me over the edge. So when I was woken up this morning to the sounds of barking dogs, crowing chickens, and fireworks, I decided that I needed to go for a jog.

Heading out of the guesthouse, things were going well until I reached the end of the alleyway. At that point, I was introduced to the first of the many obstacles I was to face. Traffic. Bikes and cars seemed to fill every inch of road, and most of the sidewalk, while more poured out of each little side street. It was not chaos on the scale of what I saw in Phnom Pehn, but it was still a royal pain trying to get around. With my current physical condition, I could use the odd break, but it would have been nice if I could have kept moving for at least half a block.

The old part of Chang Mai is surrounded by a moat and I was finally able to make my way to it, then hop across the road frogger style. From here, I thought the large sidewalk would afford a decent path for my run. Wrong again. A few paces along this road, I ran into another obstacle in the form of street vendours who seem not to have understood the "walk" part of "sidewalk". This drove me back into the road where I had to skip between clear pieces of sidewalk, parked motorbikes, and oncoming traffic . At the same time, I was being introduced to another obstacle for which most of you will have little sympathy, the heat. At such an early hour, this was a lot for my tired brain to deal with, especially the fact that these people are all confused as to which side of the road they should be driving on. I still cannot get used to the logic of traffic on the left hand side of the road. The amazing "success" of English colonialism has afforded me the ability to travel to almost any country in the world and expect everyone to speak the same language as me. So I guess I shouldn't complain too much about this other side product. At least I think it's their fault. I'll blame them anyway .....

I eventually stumbled upon a nice little park with nice little ponds in the middle and a nice little paved track that I could run around like a nice little gerbal. The Thai radio blaring from speakers all around did little to dampen my relief and I set about trying to work off the spring rolls from the day before. Thinking I was home free, I settled into a pace and receeded into my own little world. This trance was broken when I nearly ran headlong into a pair of people standing still in the middle of the track. My surprise was compounded when I looked up to see that everyone in the park was stopped and seemed to be paying silent respect to a tune playing over the loudspeaker. I quickly surmised that I had just commited a cultural faux pas of unknown proportions. Once things got moving again, I figured I should cut my losses and do the same before an angry mob formed. On my way home, I had to deal with the same melee and accidentally bumped into a Thai woman as I was jumping to pass a motorbike. My horribly feeble attempts to say "sorry" in Thai didn't go over so well, and this reinforced my desire to get home fast. Returning to the safety of our guesthouse, I decided that I'll just have to accept my path towards obescity. Hey, I tried.

Sorry for this very pedestrian story, but I felt the erge to share. On a more interesting note, Aiden and I have been learning TONS about cooking Thai food these last couple of days, so I should be able to repay you by cooking up a storm when I get back. If anyone is looking for a housewife, I'll be accepting offers for the next 30 days.

Take care,

Justin