Such a joke....

I left the park (again) last night after (another) tearful farewell. I was smart this time & actually bought my ticket to Bangkok, so that I'd be forced to head on to Cambodia for my last week. Arrived in Chiang Mai, went to the train station, and....it was dark. There was a bus out front, a couple policemen milling about, but most of the lights were off & there were no travellers around. Odd. Then a woman approaches me to let me know that something has happened to 5km of the track somewhere between here & Bangkok, so no trains are running - possibly for the next 5 days. Great.

I decide to take her up on her offer to take the bus to Bangkok instead. I'm well aware it's something of a scam - the bus ticket turns out to be slightly more expensive than my train ticket (it's normally half the price), but I'm too tired & bummed about leaving the park to really care. I buy my ticket & climb on board. It's a double-decker bus. My bags are dumped unceremoniously on the lower level, in a little nook they've reserved for bags. I'm escorted to my seat on the upper level. This bus makes Greyhound look like a first-class method of transportation. Not only did my seat not recline at all, but my knees touched the seat in front of me, and there was no overhead compartment, so I was expected to sit with my backpack, purse & camera on my lap for the 11 hour trip. I'm fairly open to adventure, but this just wasn't cutting it. I sat in my seat for about 10 seconds, before I decided to get off, ask for a refund (got it), and grab a tuk tuk to my usual guest house in Chiang Mai.

Spent about an hour looking into flights to Cambodia, but they were either more than I wanted to pay for a 5 day vacation, or didn't go to Siem Reap (didn't want to go to Phnom Phenn). In the end, I went to visit Christina, a friend I made at the park who's been living in Chiang Mai for the past 2 months. She just laughed at me & told me to go back to the park. Done. I figure it's fate. I definitely want to see Cambodia (especially Angkor Wat) one day, but I'll save it for when Stu can see it with me. :o) My heart's at the park - at least for the remainder of this trip. I don't think I can completely explain it to someone who hasn't been there, but when I was talking to Jeff (a Canadian who does construction at the park for Lek), he knew exactly what I was talking about. There's this one curve in the road, about 4 minutes away from the park, where as soon as I get around the bend, I just get this feeling that I'm home. It's everything about the place - the scenery, the elephants, the people...

Anyhow, I'm flying back home on Monday, Dec 5th (flight leaves at 5am - yuck!), so my goal is to be back in Bangkok either Friday or Saturday. I'm sure they'll all be ready to kick me out of the park by then - we've had more than enough goodbyes. :)