Screwing Oneself

 In the "Screw me?  Screw you!  Oh, I Screwed Myself" Department I offer this up.

Last night we went to the famous Chaing Mai Sunday Night Walking Market.  Perhaps long ago on a distant planet in a remote universe it was possible to walk in this market but last night it was more of a huge mass of clogged lanes punctuated by the occasional bottleneck where no one went anywhere, sort of vibrating in place for a while.  It was a constant struggle not to trod on someone or be trod upon so not much marketing was going on.  Lots of stuff, lots of food, lots of people.

We took a little minibus to the old city from our condo - the ride, door to door, cost 60 baht, or about $2.  After being constricted and squeezed and sweated upon for a few hours - a dinner at a Thai restaurant included where we sat just off the main street watching the trodding from a safe distance - we decided to head home.

All of those friendly minibus drivers who are always pulling up to the curb and offering cheap rides anywhere?  Not so friendly.  Scratch that - not so accommodating.  They were out in abundance and still friendly but in the environs of the market they had plenty of potential customers so not one of them was interested in hauling our asses back out to the suburbs for a couple of bucks.  One of them said something that sounded like "No, I'm going to stay parked here until I can load this mother up."  He did offer to help out - in this case hailing a little three wheeled motorcycle contraption.

This guy was happy to take us home.

"How much?" I asked.

150 baht.  Maybe 5 bucks.

"No, too much," I said.

"How much? he said.

I said that I wanted to pay what I did to get down to the market in the first place.  He waved dismissively and drove off.  Fine, you dick.  SuperK and I begin to trudge in the general direction of home.  About a half an hour later - well off the track I had intended to take and with a couple of terrifying street crossings, all kinds of traffic boiling around us thrown in - we finally manage to hire a minitruck to get us home.  This guy makes a stop at a gas station and then pitches us off his vehicle a couple of blocks from home.

I believe that I had what you might call a genuine cultural experience.