4 days of Winter: Back to Black

I'm finally feeling up about Thailand. Am still here in beautiful Chiang mai. This city is just super. It has all the attractions of a big city without the freaky weirdness and chaos of Bangkok. If I ever come back to Thailand again I am going to come here first and then down to Bangkok. I've been alternating my days between laying around in the hostel watching House on DVD and going out and doing stuff. Yesterday was my going out and doing stuff day.
We did go to play crazy golf the other night that was a blast, it was actually drunken crazy golf and the drunkest person won, and no that wasn't me. I came fourth. Which wasn't bad. The next morning I woke up all hungover and elated at my near victory, don't Irish people always come fourth, (unless they are on drugs, you Waterford Crystal, you equine junkie you!)? Then I fumbled to my pocket to check my messages/ overnight communications and couldn't find my phone. Empty bag and searched hostel later I resigned myself to the fact that I was now one of the great unwashed a phoneless person. Maybe all my gloating about my near victory had clouded me and damaged my karma, it was time to visit some temples.
Chiang Mai has over one thousand temples, the same number almost as Bangkok and it's about 1/10th

the size of Bangkok. So it's got full temple saturation. You can't really throw an empty Singha bottle over a wall or down a street without whacking a monk on the head, and the upside is that it's against Monk rules to retaliate. Most of the temples here are fab. And I got to do a Monk chat. This is where Monks sit around twiddling their thumbs waiting for earnest but ultimately stupid tourists to ask them inane questions about Buddhism and Thailand. Why has my mother cancer? If I'm not good will i come from Fermoy next time round? Is Richard Gere your favourite movie star? I thought that I could at least not do that.
The moment I sat down I totally lost the ability to speak in coherent sentences, it was like the cat had got my tongue and given it Novocaine. My chat with the monk wasn't too successful, I might go back tomorrow and try another one.
Well he told me that the path to nirvana was to forgo all desires, which I think personally is pretty good. We talked for a while about the difference about needing and wanting things. i.e. a person with bad burns needs plastic surgery and woman with small tits wants plastic surgery. Then I asked him was the desire to become a monk to attain nirvana not a desire and hence bad all by itself or even the desire to rid oneself of desire. It was like that moment in Father Ted when Dougal talks the Bishop out of being a Catholic, now I don't think that I talked him out of being a Monk and I am sure he will stay being a monk until he is happy to come out to his family, or get married, but with my experience of the clergy it would have to be the former. But I definitely made him uncomfortable and I didn't mean to. But I did find my phone in the makeup compartment of my bag 10 minutes later so maybe my karma wasn't that badly damaged by being a smart ass.
Anyway as I was walking around even another temple, I was thinking about how maybe it would be really good for me to go and live in a monastery and learn how to meditate and stuff. Really clear my mind, find out what makes me tick, what is the cause of all my inner angst, I sat down for a while to decide and then a mosquito bite me. And cleared my mind. Who was i kidding? 10 days with no TV, alcohol or fun. No internet access and no swearing and eating donations and having to hang out with a bunch of US college grads who's too wealthy parents had given them too much money to find themselves in Europe and Asia and in order to try to negate their guilt for spending most of the $50000 on ecstasy, hookers/cocaine and pot are now going ommmmmmh in a monastery somewhere in northern Thailand for a week with their laptops tucked in under their arms. "Lindsey make sure you get a photo of me with the Monk before I leave". Poke my eyes out with chopsticks and gouge my heart out with rusty spoon. I am not a trekking person and I am not a sitting around in a monastery trying to find myself for 10 days kind of person either.
I'm a touring around curious kind of person that is going on a two day boat, bus ride to Laos on Monday. That'll be cool, just hope Lindsey, Chuck and Shannon aren't on my boat.