Back in Business

Before we begin, some FAQs:

Q: How are you feeling?
A: Much better. Thanks for asking.

Q: Did you lose a lot of photos with your camera?
A: I only lost a couple photos. Nothing too interesting.

Q: Are you going to replace your camera?
A: Read on, please.

After writing the last blog post, I walked to the hostel I had stayed in when I was in Pai before and booked a night there. I spent the night resting.

The next morning, I was going to go to the bus station and catch a bus to Chiang Mai. Just as I was leaving, the proprietors of the hostel were leaving for Chiang Mai to deliver a motorbike in the back of their pickup. I asked if I could come with and they said sure. I got in the backseat and we headed to Chiang Mai but the motorbike wasn't very steady in the back of the truck so we had to stop. They untied the series of elaborate knots keeping it upright and tried to figure out how how to redo it to make it more stable.

It was then that I remembered that I had some rope in my backpack that I had purchased when I bought my hammock. I bought the hammock a week or so ago thinking it would be a good thing to have at some point but I haven't had a chance to test it yet. I gave them the rope and they were able to tie the motorbike down in a way that would be considered Thailand-safe (which is admittedly much more lax than many other countries' definitions of safe). We made it to Chiang Mai without incident and I walked to DAA. There was a screening that night which I helped set up for then I stayed there for the night.

This morning, I went to buy a new camera. At a DAA teammate's advice, I went to the massive shopping mall in Chiang Mai.

Central Plaza. Chiang Mai

I went from up the escalators until I found the floor with stores that seemed to specialize in gadgetry. I looked in a few camera shops and within an hour, I had bought a new camera. My new camera looks almost exactly like my old one except that instead of a Nikon, it's a BenQ brand camera (whatever that means). I read some reviews before buying it and my tests indicate that it's good enough for my purposes.

After I bought my camera, I went and got a pretzel because that's just what you do when you visit a shopping mall.

I did not get the seaweed, ham, and chicken pretzel, though.

Tomorrow, I am going with the DAA folks to an event on an organic farm for the farm's 13th anniversary party. Everyone is going to the farm and going to camp out there for the night. After that, I will probably head to Chiang Rai then Laos. Part of why I think I keep having these stressful things happen to me is because I've been so rushed so I'm going to try to slow down and spend more time in each place I go.