in mae hong son.

Oh, boy. I feel like every moment is exciting, but I know it's not really, so I'll try to just sum up the high points.
so, after I slept for a few hours, I left the guesthouse on Kao San around 730, because I was quite nervous about getting a ticket in a sleeping car. My taxi driver made fun of me for getting the wrong 7, but took me anyways. Initially, he dropped me off in front of some office to get a ticket, but they were for travel packages, but weren't a scam as I was afraid of. thankfully it was next to the actual station, where I had asked to go, so that I could just walk over and get a ticket. the driver waited for me, so after I got my ticket (moved to the front of the line, since I wanted one for today, as the official pointed out.. I was in the wrong area, but they got too exasperated trying to get me to the right spot so just caved and brought me to the front) I went back. He wanted to take me to the floating market, but once I realized it was an hour and half out of BKK , I wasn't really up for it. He dropped me off by a big outdoor clothing market, and I spent a few hours wandering various booths, getting turned around, watching boats in the canal/river(?) and going up this giant tower. While walked, a very nice Australian man approached me and we talked for a while, and ended up going together to Lumphini park, which was lovely and a great break, because I was already exhausted. I saw swimming lizards and sunning turtles, and we had a good converstation, which ended in him giving me the extra map and his email address, in case we wanted to go out on the weeked after his friend came. I don't think he realized I was leaving that day, but he was so helpful and quite gay (which made me feel safe) so that I didn't say much. I think I've lost the paper already, though. I stayed, and finished my book, and even though it was only one, was too tired to do any more walking, so I took the subway to the train station and waited until 7:45. I actually fell asleep on the floor and got woken up by some official.
I had an upper sleeping berth, and after chatting briefly with my compartment buddy, Pete, a Thai college student who had lived in New Jersey, and then falling asleep on the seats, someone woke me up again to put the beds together. It was amazing to sleep in a nice small berth (rather like the boat) on a rocking moving vessel. I accidently went in what I think now is the boys toilet, so I peed basically in a hole open on the tracks. Later on, I realized the other one had a seat, and toilet paper. Great. When I woke up, and saw trees and mountians and fields, it was pretty miraculous. and beautiful.
Arriving in Chiang Mai, I took a taxi to the bus station. Pete had written down, in thai and english, the name of the station and where I was going, just in case, but my driver knew english pretty well. I only had to wait about 1/2 hour until a van with air conditioning was ready to go. It was fairly comfortable, and about 4 people got off at Pai, which is halfways in between, so then we had lots of space.
Getting off of the bus/van in Mae Hong Son was immensely relieving. There were only two taxis waiting, which was overmuch considering there was only two passengers left by this time. Instead of a mad crunch of people, and innumerable forms of transportation, we were the only us there. The boy at the bathroom table (2 baht to use facilities, no paper) was watching soccer on TV, as as I waited for Emmett to pick me up, he and two other men took a small ball out and started kicking it around. The station was very clean and new looking, and since it was set away from the town a little I could see cows grazing, and hear birds. Emmett came, complete with the small motorcycle that everyone seems to ride here, and took me to a guesthouse that he knows and likes. I had called him from the Chaing Mai bus station, something I was pretty proud of doing, what with Thai phone booths and numbers and money all being a bit different, and hadn't really gotten any information on what we were doing, so as he explained it to me, it slowly started to sink in. At first, when he dropped me off in front of the house, I thought he was just leaving, and got quite panicky, but then we decided to go out for a bite to eat (the same place where I am now using the internet.) Basically, tomorrow I will take another bus, where another teacher will meet me, in order to pass me off to another teacher, who will be the one at the school I will work at, out in a village, but Emmett didn't know which one. Still, a very nice man, and we ate also with a woman from Vancouver BC, which was nice. Go, PNW! even if she was a bit of an oddball. It was great to learn the names of the woman who own this place, and the guesthouse, from Emmett, who obviously had a longstanding reportoire with them. Mae Hong Son is a lovely town, in the mountains, much quieter and more settled that what I saw of Chiang Mai, and especially of BKK. That city got to me fast. But here, there is the sense that people know each other, and that time is relevant to what you are doing. The streets are clean, but scattered with people, cats, and dogs, who also tend to sleep in this one area of the intersection right out fron where I suppose no one drives. At the guesthouse when Emmett dropped me off, a little girl came up to me and grabbed my hand, giggling, at the guesthouse, and I smiled and said hello, but she got shy and hid behind her mother. The insects are coming out now.. guess I'm glad I got those malaria pills after all.