Tit for Tat

Last week I chased down a story about the protests over the Thai -- USA Free Trade Agreement talks that were being held in Chiang Mai. But after chasing down leads, interviewing organizers, flying to Lamphun on my motorbike when I was supposed to go to Lampang, blitzkrieging a story as the internet cafe threatened to pull the plug on me -- I found that I had nobody to sell the story to. Tried a paper or two in the states, but they had, of course, already contracted somebody from Bangkok to write the piece for them. So now I have an unpublished clip.

The guy that helped me out with that story was a British fellow named Peter who showed up at the protest with me with seven bags of chili powder in his pockets to blind the police with, aspirin, and a few packets of vaseline to grease his arms with and to smear on the police helmets to block their vision.

There was no real threat though. We sat in a huddle by the doors of the Sheraton as International negoiators met inside. The cops were surrounding us, but, in the Thai way, they were smiling and chatting with each other, singing along with the protest songs, and even accepting the propoganda that the activists passed out to them -- politely folding the leaflets away. There were some pushing and shoving that we didn't see, and apparently the cops hit some HIV infected that had swum across the river to get into the Sheraton -- but after it was all over, one of the chief cops made the announcement: "we are very sorry if anybody was hurt by the police, and we will pay their medical bills if they were."

Sure they're corrupt, but only in the 200 baht speeding fine kind of way, which they only abashedly accept.

But during my rushing around and this and that, I met an Australian freelancer at a bookstore.

"Hey, so what do you do around here, Gabe?"

"well, I'm uhh, trying to become a writer, like, you know, a journalist"

"Cool, let me ask you something: Do you like snakes?"

Now I'm working for an Austrian TV producer who is doing a bit about a snake charmer in Mae Rim. I am the American student who wants to learn the art of snake handling. The grand master snake charmer, "snakeman," is a stocky little Thai man who does not speak any English -- but it is a wonder to watch him work: handling the snake deftly between his nine graceful fingers. He kisses them, milks the poison from their fangs, and battles a python in a small pool of water on a little stage as an announcer narrates the event through a tinny PA system in broken English. Yes, Thai pop music plays during the show as well.

At some point in the next couple of days I am probably going to be handling a cobra. I'm also going to work on my own story about the experience, with my Auzzie friend, and sell it off in Thailand. For some reason, I have no real fear of snakes. I was right there with them, playing with the python, staring down the cobra, no problem at all. Maybe I should be the next snakeman.

So this is my next few days. Pictures to follow.

Aside from this, I have signed on for three months at a guesthouse in the old city. This was, in retrospect, a very poor choice. Although I get a tv, DVD player, cable, refrigerator, and internet, there is a Thai disco down the street that plays horrible music until 2:30 in the morning, and a construction site right next door that begins work at 8 in the morning, which guarantees that I get no more than five hours of sleep a night. I'll either get used to it or go nocturnal ... and kill, kill, kill.