Thats all we have left before we leave for Thailand…. 30 days. I guess that leaves just about enough time for us to pack our things and for the monks to soothe the angry spirits in the airport. We really wouldn’t want to land in a place infested with pissed of ancient spirits!

1. You can’t start packing your actual bags until very late the night before you leave.
2. Using check lists when packing is clearly cheating.
3. No matter how seriously you take the whole packing task, you will forget to pack two or three items which can under no circumstances be bought anywhere at your destination.
4. Folding your clothes up neatly will not make more room in your bags, it will only subtract valuable time from any non-packing activities you could be doing.
5. Washing your clothes well in advance of the trip and keeping the clothes you wish to bring in a separate stack is clearly cheating.
6. Checking the expected temperature and weather at your travel destination before choosing what clothes to bring is clearly cheating.
7. All checked in luggage must contain at least one easily breakabl bottle of aftershave/perfume or greasy colored hair gel.
8. Buying unbreakably hard samsonite suitcases is clearly cheating all valuable breakable items must be packed in cheap soft bags with unreliable zippers.

We bought our tickets between Copenhagen and Bangkok back in April when we decided to actually do this little adventure. However, we did not at that point decide on how and when to continue up to Chiang Mai. Today we finally bought the last tickets… we will stay in Bangkok until November 2, where we will fly to Chiang Mai around noon. This will leave us a couple of days in Bangkok for the regular tourist show.

On a related side note: As some of you know, there has long been some vague ideas about Kasper Langer possible coming along. Today this moved from vague idea to reality with the purchase of tickets for him. He will be flying with British Airways on almost the same times as us… some of the flights might even be the same, we have been to lazy to check up on our own tickets so we really don’t know yet

Here’s one. Nine pence. I’m not gay! What? Nothing. Here’s your nine pence. I’m not gay! Eh. He says he’s not gay? Yes, he is. I’m not! He isn’t? Well, he will be soon. He’s very queer!

I really can’t believe this is purely a coincidence… Chiang Mai is hosting the Royal Flora Expo at exactly the same time we are going to be there. A 3 month interpretive flower and garden show with silk banners and royalty? Seriously… could they be more obvious in their attempts to bring out our inner gay hearts? With this kind of pressure, who knows how long we can sustain our heterosexuality in the land of the smile….

Squatting a local monastery with a case of beer and an old ghettoblaster playing mix tapes from the eighties might seem like the most natural habitat for our trip to Chiang Mai. However, since the country is now officially under military rule, we have decided to take on a more gentle approach.

We still wanted to live in a place primarily inhabited by local thai people, thus our plan was to find a nice little house to rent for our trip. Unfortunately, very few of the houses available for rent in Chiang Mai are available for less than a 6 month lease. Of these, almost none have an internet connection pre-installed. Since an internet connection at the house was one of our primary needs for our chosen residence, we started looking for alternatives such as apartments and guest houses.

We did get a few offers for apartments, but they were either not that attractive and a bit too expensive or in a building purely inhabited by western businessmen, so in the end we started hunting for suitable guest houses. A guest house might still be primarily filled with western people, but at least they will be crusty hippies or party seeking backpackers.

It turns out that Chiang Mai is filled with cheap guest houses and many of them with good internet connections. After trying to get in contact with a couple of the cheapest ones that seemed usable, we started to send out emails to almost all of the potentially suitable guest houses.

One of the few that actually responded was Wa Lai House. It is a bit on the expensive side, but it looks really nice, has a perfect location and they get really good reviews on several backpacker sites. After a few mails back and forth regarding monthly prices, we have decided to stay there and have requested a booking for 3 rooms… preferably with balconies

I am not yet sure if I am excited or frightened, but here just a bit more than a month before our departure for Thailand, the Thai military have decided to overthrow the government.

But then again, a few tanks in the streets and a military rule never hurt anyone.