In a phrase to cut these lips

Shakespeare, scurvy, and everything in between.
Phimai Historical Park, home to some of the oldest Khmer temples in Thailand. Great Thailand Adventure: If Cities Were Girls I really am grateful for this adventure, because I could not have wanted more from a vacation, and also because I cannot think of a more fitting close to this very epic year. Academia is inescapably important and I will make no attempt to pretend otherwise. (This passing reference only in light of tonight’s release of grades.) But in the end when I look back on 2011, a degree audit has nothing on me. On my heart. I should probably document the Great Thailand Adventure in parts as my photos slowly find their way onto Facebook, though for the time being, they make no haste in that direction. (Hopefully I will also find time to write more frequently about my snippets of Taiwan lest I never finish journaling that experience!) And when I think back to the two weeks I spent traversing Thailand’s capital, second largest city and rural outskirts, there are things I know will always stay with me, that make up some of the best parts of the year. If cities were girls I will remember Chiangmai with her dirty blonde hair in dreadlocks, schlepping around backpacker bars and market street stalls in fisherman’s pants and a tie-dyed top. Nails cut short and slightly grimy, perusing the shelves of a second hand book store with a skewer of grilled meat in one hand and a bottle of Chang beer in the other. I will remember Bangkok for her overt sex appeal, clad in a skintight dress in some tacky shade of neon, hemline barely skirting her hips, pouting expertly painted blood-red lips at a hapless farang. On a good day, she might be content with a cocktail on his tab; if her fancy turned, she might harness the muscle of touts and thugs to scam a poor foreigner into turning over a couple of thousand baht per night.  And then I will remember sprawling Korat, and its districts of Phimai and Pak Chong, and how the girl-next-door looked like she might be the most uninspiring part of the trip but turned out to be the best. The way her bare feet ran and skipped through trees across a forest floor like it was her living room and how her voice carried like the lilt of a rushing river. I will remember riding, in the back of an open air pickup, down dusty roads dotted with pot-holes, feeling the driver hitting every one with relish, and thinking, in that moment, that there was no fucking thing in the world that would make me happier.

Phimai Historical Park, home to some of the oldest Khmer temples in Thailand.

Great Thailand Adventure: If Cities Were Girls

I really am grateful for this adventure, because I could not have wanted more from a vacation, and also because I cannot think of a more fitting close to this very epic year. Academia is inescapably important and I will make no attempt to pretend otherwise. (This passing reference only in light of tonight’s release of grades.) But in the end when I look back on 2011, a degree audit has nothing on me. On my heart.

I should probably document the Great Thailand Adventure in parts as my photos slowly find their way onto Facebook, though for the time being, they make no haste in that direction. (Hopefully I will also find time to write more frequently about my snippets of Taiwan lest I never finish journaling that experience!)

And when I think back to the two weeks I spent traversing Thailand’s capital, second largest city and rural outskirts, there are things I know will always stay with me, that make up some of the best parts of the year.

If cities were girls I will remember Chiangmai with her dirty blonde hair in dreadlocks, schlepping around backpacker bars and market street stalls in fisherman’s pants and a tie-dyed top. Nails cut short and slightly grimy, perusing the shelves of a second hand book store with a skewer of grilled meat in one hand and a bottle of Chang beer in the other.

I will remember Bangkok for her overt sex appeal, clad in a skintight dress in some tacky shade of neon, hemline barely skirting her hips, pouting expertly painted blood-red lips at a hapless farang. On a good day, she might be content with a cocktail on his tab; if her fancy turned, she might harness the muscle of touts and thugs to scam a poor foreigner into turning over a couple of thousand baht per night. 

And then I will remember sprawling Korat, and its districts of Phimai and Pak Chong, and how the girl-next-door looked like she might be the most uninspiring part of the trip but turned out to be the best. The way her bare feet ran and skipped through trees across a forest floor like it was her living room and how her voice carried like the lilt of a rushing river. I will remember riding, in the back of an open air pickup, down dusty roads dotted with pot-holes, feeling the driver hitting every one with relish, and thinking, in that moment, that there was no fucking thing in the world that would make me happier.