Chiang Mai: Paradise for Some?
08 September 2017 [link youtube]
Paradise for some, purgatory for others? Conversation with an anonymous, mystery guest (who is no longer on youtube / vegan social media generally). This was recorded in June of 2016.
Youtube Automatic Transcription
hey guys I'm sitting here with James a
guy who I've known on the internet for some time and now for the first time we met in person here in Thailand we actually used to have conversations by Skype I thought of him originally as a vegan on reddit he started out really making a lot of comments on veganism on reddit he branched into YouTube there were a couple of his videos in the past that I've showed it out on this channel and you may know him recently because like like myself he's been at the center of a storm of controversy and some people have denounced him as a a cancer on the on the feast today which you know lets you let you know you're doing something right um but yeah I think there's actually some really thoughtful and worthwhile content on his channel and you like myself and like the other channels I'm a fan of like you know vegan cheetah I'm a fan of a lot of people I may not have that much in common with but where I feel they're really being honest being really real so this conversation we're gonna talk about a you know an honest and down-to-earth subject which is kind of the the contrast between the reality of Chiang Mai Chiang Mai is a city in northern Thailand the reality of this place and the mythology that surrounds it a brief professor I'm gonna basically ask Jake is is its experience but for me during the last couple of years I couldn't believe how romanticize Chiang Mai was in the imagination of many of my fellow vegans and I was thinking well maybe it's gotten a little bit better since I was there maybe it's because you know you have a min do city in a fuse I knew this place well you know ten years ago already and I got here and I feel like everything's just got worse I view like the city's falling apart in in so many obvious ways now I'll start with a provocative topic you know we we vegans Jake we like to pretend that we'd never hurt a fly we'd like to pretend that we'd never kill a rat then if a rat came into our own homes we'd make it a bed and serve at dinner and and treat it as equally as welcome as our own friends and family but on the streets of chiang mai you see quite a few rats don't you okay so I've quite a funny story about that so yesterday I was walking home with my partner in 18 after the karaoke night that I met up with ISIL and a bunch of other vegans and we were walking home and we were talking about the rats because my partner Nadine really does not like rats you should love alright okay I don't like spiders I'm also equally as guilty so yeah we were walking past and I talked about rats coming out of the water because the night before we had actually seen a rat and Nadine Nadine makanda actually said their water adds like they do so no kidding five seconds later after I mentioned rats three rats and like pop out from like the sewers like through these little holes and like as you walk down the I guess the partial sidewalk that's actually there that's what the holes are for yeah yeah they make special holes in the sidewalk that are big enough for rats and cockroaches to breathe them low and come back up it's basically like a rat habitat faucet project you know it's perfect yes yeah you go on no I like I said increasing the biodiversity of this beautiful city the holes in the something I'll actually comment on later but yeah that's I was saying no kidding like five seconds later we walk past in these three rats pop out and Nadine just like jumps and sushi she's actually sitting in the back now listening to this and he's like curling up in the corner just thinking about this and here's me thinking like okay I understand like because I feel the same way about sliders as she does about rats yeah and once again I kid you not five seconds later I look down and there is a spider like the size and I did we both just like jump and scream and this was not like I would say like close to one o'clock in the morning this seems when it's like really bad like the night life comes out to play yeah and then that was just like and then of course like the cockroaches that are just like always walking around and it was like I I have seen I have seen a cockroach eating the blood of a dead rat you know rat yeah I mean you know I this year there I noticed there are seem to be very few mosquitoes in the city I don't know if that's the season or if it's actual deforestation a collage was like ten years ago I think there were more mosquitoes but the cockroach game is still is still pretty solid here walking down the street there were three women women who had straight jobs not students alone he tried to flirt with me you know in anti try to speak to me in Thai and I was really exhausted from the heat and I just didn't want to deal with it I just was walking and you know no normally to be honest to be a chance to practice the language to speak some Thai with somebody wants to speak to you and as I was kind of just shuffling past them this enormous cockroach you know went towards their feet and because they were looking at me they hadn't think they suddenly looked down the sidewalk and screamed all three of them screamed at this cockroach yeah I don't know if it quite touched them but it was right right at their feet yeah Oh Emmy how you grow up here you live here you work here and you're still afraid of cockroaches and that's human nature's is a funny thing that way but yeah the the cockroach game is on points the rat the rat game is on point and I mean all we ever hear on the Internet is that this place is paradise and you know I mean you know look I have nothing against cycling I used to be a long-distance cyclist it's not a sport I do now yeah I cycle is a yeah part of my fitness as well me and my pond you know yeah so we're not anti cycling but as a place to go cycling this is a remarkable place to ride a bike in so many ways including like a bitchin one I think we're gonna talk about the streets but the rainfall have you heard of rain it's a it's a kryptonite to long distance lightly you can't ride a bike in the rain here the rain would wipe your wipe you right out and you know it rains not infrequently and intensely and yeah you can barely walk in the rain when it's only been here like five days and I've experienced I would say what it like everything that he's talking about it's it's not like I see a rare occasion this is regular Chang legs my knowledge around this time at least right right and I mean it just say in terms of the city's infrastructure falling apart this thing where the streets fill up with water I'm sorry that's completely avoidable even in third-world countries which this isn't this is really the wealthiest city in Thailand and I myself I'm living in probably the wealthiest neighborhood of the wealthiest city and you know I mentioned one sense book so you walked home late at night last night after one or after midnight at least you know did you see any homeless people or people living in poverty like you don't wake on the street that's right I didn't you didn't snow that's what I say chiang mai by the standards of the region even in thailand the number of people is very small so that wealth is obvious in many different ways no aisles so I went to a hospital here and got blood tests done I did some tests before I go to China and the hospital I'm not joking it is better than the Austral system in where it just was in Canada because I tried to get the same test done in Canada before I came here okay so I have this contrast directly in mind and obviously by the Asian standards so in some ways the wealth of this society is evidence both in the absence of kind of beggars and almost people on the streets I've seen a couple during daylight hours just a couple but you know at night that you don't see that the kind of poverty and in the the opulence of the wealthy members of the population and in institutions like hospitals but riding a bike holy every time you cross me you're risking your life you know you you think he's uh he's just kind of like joking about this and make it more severe than it actually is but the first day I got here in Thailand in Bangkok we were in a taxi like driving to our apartment from the airport and there were people driving down the safety lane like it was a lane down the motorway and I'm just sitting there like what country have I come to right and they're going in the opposite direction oh yeah head-on collision style yeah yeah yeah I was sitting there just like are there any road rules and what am i government because I actually did bring my bike here I'm not gonna be participating in like the the riding out the mountain every morning but we don't actually bring our bikes here because I'm we've been told or everyone had claims like this is like the safest city in the world cuz ride your bike what could possibly and it's like my partner is a pretty confident driver but she would not even drive a car here it is yeah but I mean like like like just even the surface of the road and like the sidewalk if there is one the absolutely you know there's so much of just like the concrete falling apart and crevices and you know storm drains let's just say you have to bring a fair few spare tire to do I feel like you'll be running over a lot of stuff right but the cars that the cars can still kill you right I mean in terms of the way the traffic within the city I think you know going from one city next outside of Chiang Mai's different but we're talking about Chiang Mai we're not talking at all time with time with this one city and the conditions here so let me ask you to think back in your mind a little bit further like if you think back over the last say two years I know if it goes that far for you how do you but okay but about a year what was it you were expecting to find here kind of originally when you first thought it Wan Chiang Mai and then maybe what were you expecting like sort of before you got on the airplane and then what do you see because I would think of that as a three-phase like maybe you got a little bit more realistic you know before he came and then out of the actual experience contrast to that okay so my general kind of my understanding of watch him I was like was basically just based off the vlogs that I had seen by like train ride it freely but not just him but like everyone who attended the first of all and basically like all I had ever seen was just like fruit writing up about like a mountain riding outdoor sitive and then going out to dinner like them no one else ever kind of filmed anything else like walking down the streets the sidewalks like there was nothing else so my perception of what Chiang Mai was going to be like was like very warped because this is all I had really seen so going into it I guess it had really been painted as a paradise like this this wonderful fruit you get to ride up a mountain it's just like you know taking this wonderful vacation and some tropical paradise and I remember I booked my tickets with with my partner to go to attend the festival we both this like sometime last year and at the time I thought this is gonna be great you know it's it's gonna be a tropical paradise you know it was what I'd seen was just just great there'd be no real talk of anything negative which was really surprising to me but um as time went on it was like what am I gonna be doing for 21 days in Chiang Mai like it is this old that there really is just like eating fruit riding up a mountain and but but then what I'm like I started to think about those vlogs that I'd see on Mike what happens in between they do the same it's weird I mean you know look I mean the fruit here is okay okay that's what I'm on you know do it I mean like you don't like I think we're gonna see exact same thing yeah the fruit here is okay but it's just some people that move here for the fruit and I'm just like you gave up everything you had in your car the fruit but like look for me I can't even justify that if you moved here from Iceland like you know I know like so like I've lived in parts of Canada where the fruit is terrible but to give you an example like I bought a medium-sized watermelon it wasn't huge and the taste wasn't great it was it was an okay normal watermelon and that was 100 tybo it's just okay you know I mean the mangoes are okay a normal price remains 30 baht and here I'm gonna mention this before but you know minimum wage is 300 baht per day not 300 bucks per hour throughout the day there are a lot of people who could never afford to buy a mango in the shop or they couldn't afford to buy a you know a whole watermelon in the shop so this is also you know in terms of all this well you know what is a luxury and what isn't anything we live to take it I've taken Jake to a really cheap restaurant the local Pinot yeah yeah I'm not gonna say local poor people but they were working-class people like it's not the poorest of the poor and they're so like a like a tourist place one drink is 75 baht and we had you know soymilk you know vegan soy milk for 5 baht this is how extreme the difference is and they're like a whole meal is about 50 baht 40 50 rightfully so as opposed to one piece of fruit for you know what I've been other differences right crazy so I mean you know that the prices compared to Western rules one thing and I mean you know I've lived in all different parts of the world but you know compared compared to Hong Kong compared to South Africa I'm not I've never lived in South Africa but I know there are all kinds of places in the world that have grape fruit like South South America you live in Brazil or something I so I mean that also they have a lot more redeeming qualities to go along with them apart well I you know I it's it's a weird thing but I mean specifically if I was planning a bike holiday I would not plan it here it's kind of a it's a almost uniquely terrible place to ride bicycle and you know what I've asked people because I've been people's brains about this I'm gonna ask you nail two I said like well what what do you like about Chiang Mai you know they they kind of say things like well there are mountains right yeah I mean you know with the exception of certain parts of Arizona like most of the world you have act you know I mean there are some parts the world that are you know the Netherlands but most of the world you you can find a mountain if you're looking for one and I say oh and you know there are a lot of cafes that have internet access compared to waiter you know like compared to South Korea compared to you know hey but let's let's get back because the question asked you was to look at the idea you had yeah yeah versus the reality so cuz again look when you say you thought it was a tropical paradise I don't really know what that means to you you know means different things different penis so how was your idea of tropical paradise different from what you what you actually encountered well yeah when I got here that was like man like my partner can account for this like the first few days I was like in shock I'm like what what have I got myself now to be fair this was Bangkok but I'm like that's funny that's funny cuz you're more honest with her than you are with me I was terrible I was like having a mental breakdown it was it was so I was like you would not want to be around me for those two days but it was like okay I was in Bangkok that was a more like establish city what does Chiang Mai going to be like ah so yeah I guess like that the tropical paradise was like I said it was like beat the amazing fruit that everyone see like the fruit is just like 10 out of 10 here and looks like the the luxurious with the wither like I thought okay sunny way that what could go wrong with that you know and just like like I say just like living this this just like holiday life where it's just like you just sit around and seemingly do nothing all day not so luxurious when you actually get here and realize there actually is really not much to do all day right yeah yeah so yeah it's really so I just say you know thing I I think I've said I haven't said it on YouTube but you know I I could understand if you want to have a fruit festival or vegan festival in Egypt you can see the pyramids you can visit the pyramids in Egypt if you want to have a fruit festival in Auschwitz Poland you can visit the concentration camp no stress like there are places in the world where there's a major attraction that either has historical value or artistic value there's some obvious reason to be there but for me part of what's weird is like today I was telling you we're gonna go to the museum today and now for me because I have a certain kind of background I'm probably you know we're probably gonna talk about I'm probably gonna make it more fun for Jake because I brought him along here yeah we're gonna say oh this is interesting for this reason or something have some connection to the history and what have you but if you don't have that connection you know there's nothing here that's equivalent to the pyramids there's there's no like you know in a sense there is no tourist attraction and I mean in terms of activities now I don't you bowl exploiting animals oh yeah that's true well look no Capon look so when people say because you will hear this in the internet that there are tons of like charming cafes here or chawl bars or nightclubs that's true but if you're a vegan who doesn't drink alcohol ninety percent of what you see like walking in the street means nothing to you like really what it's like it's true there are there were bars nightclubs there were plenty old there was a lot of warehouses a lot of prostitution but again if you're a vegan you you can't eat anything because we can't eat anything even from the bakeries here obviously you don't drink alcohol and you presumably not here for prostitutes prostitution is vegan and I'm not you know but you know if that's not what you're for it's it's really weird so I mean I would just say there's a disclaimer I'm going gonna go back to having you talk like yeah some of my fans make fun of me because I interview people and I do boys I'm talking this is an occupational hazard with me if any of you come over to my house you'll see it's a problem uh but you know even with the entire land I know other cities and actually one of my patreon supporters was chatting about this and I think he didn't get like I'm not saying Chiangmai is such a terrible place saying I have lived in and visited other cities in Asia but also even within Thailand that I think would be so much better for a vacation for a living long-term whether you're a businessperson or what-have-you and and I know better places riding a bicycle because I've done the long-distance cycling you know and where you can ride the bicycle and where there's really historical ancient ancient architecture there and so on anyway so look we took your story up to the difference between the ideal and the shock so what came out for the shock like cuz I mean I'll you're on to a new phase now you're no longer shocked like most of the meat you've walked most of the city now yeah you've seen I mean that's what I mean that's what we're doing honestly for the most part just like just walking around yeah yeah sure and it's it's kind of a third world channel if I'm gonna be honest and not try paint this picture like it's something that it isn't then yeah I got to put words in your mouth yeah but yeah I think a lot of people are quite afraid to actually you say it for what it is yeah and that's what I wasn't expecting because I had never seen that aspect of Chiang Mai all in like videos people had painted this picture where it's like this luxurious paradise that you come to you have a carefree holiday and it looks like you walk around it's like all I want to do is go back home honestly because I had intended to stay here for 21 days with my partner for like the entire duration of the festival but we're gonna actually be traveling alcohol Chiang Mai to places like Chiang Rai and then we're actually gonna be hitting to Singapore because they're really oh yeah but like but this was just like recently organized just to see Singapore instead of well it was like what what am I gonna be doing here for 21 days yeah and you know I just say so I have a background as a scholar of Buddhism but when people ask me for advice on what to see here I do say to them honestly like if you're not a specialist if you've been to three different Buddhist temples they all start to look the same like for a normal person if you don't have a highly specialized interest like I had a scholar in that field I can't recommend you spend your time like going to visit every Buddhist temple and you know if you're not a geologist I think all the mountains look the same like you can you can a mountain and you could go back the next day but you know that's that's I have trouble giving people positive advice about that like also to do a G I was talking to my partner it's like if I and I hadn't met eyes'll here of the main tourist attraction no no I know you hadn't been here like no cuz who else am I gonna talk to who else that attends the festival I'm not trying to say that like no one knows nothing but like seriously yeah most people who have been here for year after year I know and they don't speak the language you know so but look I mean before I said it's kind of like a third world general yeah pardon my being honest but really I mean it's a combination of third world problems and first of all because we said before it is wealthy here it's you know relative to Thailand a relative to Asia and what have you so that that's also a weird part of it so I I in case you think I'm completely - I took Jake to a nightclub it was partly because it was one of the Warren of the only night goes how he's trying to seduce me oh yeah probably building yeah sorry probably bring him over to the dark side the dark side ethical veganism but look you know in that nightclub I chose it because I know there's no prostitution there it's not this kind of advise voice but again so that Michael that was a completely authentic Thai nightclubs not for tourists the music is Thai 98% of the people there were Thai it that is the local culture yeah but for you as a tourist what is it you know and what does it have to do with you what does it mean to you because for me I'm normally someone who never goes to nightclubs and not a boast but if you make the effort to go there and do that what's what's the connection you know so I you know it's it's hard work to make friends everywhere but I don't see the appeal of that and if you're vegan almost none of the local you know restaurants are the view and so on so yeah you're left with but the circle the nightclub is wealthy that's all so this makes it first world in third world it's funny because I'm I didn't go ask the question you know like how's your trip going in Thailand and have you been have you had any authentic vegan food like Thai vegan food yeah and it was like I mean I've been to some place I haven't been to many places but like the only authentic Thai vegan food was when you took me to a place that seemingly no one else goes right it's a place that's not for foreigners but yes that's what I mean it's like yeah well look I mean for me the other question is when I look at this so I mean I feel there's a kind of ageism going on to people who are teenagers are in their 20s look at older people including me but of course they're guys who are in their fifties sixties seventies they look at the older people as losers because they're here on their you're on vacation or they're here as retirements you know in permanent vacation but to me I look at that kind of the flipside to me it's kind of weird if you're in your 20s and you don't have any ambition and I told you Smee an ambition earned money but ambition to have a career or ambition to change the world mission to do something and you go on this kind of long term vacation here it's weird that those people are looking down their nose at people who actually did work a job for 40 years and then retired you know what you guys are the losers oh you old people you're not you're not cool because but I mean I I don't know what's cool about it and again if you did have a job here or you were doing humanitarian work something that engage you with the society that could be rewarding that could plug you into the reality of Chiangmai but if you don't you know whether you're here as a so-called digital nomad or on vacation you know I think what's meaningful here you know the struggle you know what life is like for real people enjoy mine you have you have no connection with either look I know when I first brought him to my street yeah this is soon after you arrived I warned him I said look this is one of the best streets of the city the rest are all I can say you know you hear these things from him you're like really and then a few days then you're like oh well he was right well whether whether you're walking we've drawn a bicycle the scenery moves more quickly and I guess it doesn't feel as hot you get a bit more of a breeze but god damn it's ugly walking past the 7-elevens just the the rotting broken-down building one after another I had people on my facebook were saying to me like I had just a photo of me doing something there like they couldn't believe the incredibly ugly powerlines and just the sense that everything is rotting not to mention that's infested with rats and so on it's like it's like even if you go to my apartment just look out the window you've got buildings that are like half being taken down and half being yeah and they just they just send this right this slate of like nothing's ever going to happen to them they're just sitting there as they are yeah well that's okay so that touches on another interesting thing which is the Chiang Mai I think when I was here ten years ago there was optimism for its future and there was a ton of new investments including in tourism and now when I walked the city's humid the empty buildings I see empty buildings of every kind like I see empty office buildings empty houses some abandoned like halfway through construction but some complete and the business set of businesses gone but especially in tourism like obviously tours have hit a peak at some point the past and then declined but you know nightclubs hotels tourist oriented buildings and tourist arranging restaurants there are tons of them that are abandoned even in the wealthiest parts of the city the most durable and in the downtown core the downtown core is really kind of rotting and in floating you know but look sir I don't I don't want to seem like I'm beating you up Jake it's so many reality but look so many things I don't get it like um you know people including like people I like your Jenna I've been all the close friends people who know me they invite me to go to a night market like I know what a night market is it's it's some I'm not been to them I've walked through them you know but it's some plastic stalls and it's stinking hot and you're sweating drenched in sweat it's some plastic stalls in a parking lot at night that's what it is and 90% of what they're selling is not vegan it's either meat or alcohol and it's nothing to do it like what's fun about it what's so great they seems to be this thing of like trying to memorize something that's not glamorous yeah because that's all that that's what they've got to work with because there is nothing glamorous in the first place about being in Chiang Mai yeah and I it's sad that so many people aren't willing to talk about what they really see or if they even really see it it was just cuz like you can't miss it like walking down the sidewalk you can't miss just like the rubble and the trash just literal rubble like not kidding it's just like it's like it's like they've started constructing the sidewalk they've got to finish it they've got all the mess left and they're just like well let's just leave it there so look for this video we're not gonna get into it but I say we've talked about this out camera I feel like on a larger scale the fact that Thailand's democracy has collapsed you know the failure of government here the fact that this is now a military dictatorship I feel this is related to bad governments as you see it in these things that in a sense you know the fact that the government is failing to manage the sidewalks and just obvious things and then the you know the raining rain water reflects the fact that currently you know there is no Prime Minister there is no Constitution there are no civil rights that this this country was taken over as military tissue so and that's happened repeatedly in the last 10 years they've had long periods of this so you know some level of mismanagement or worse than it would be management to those public public problems is is perhaps inevitable yeah it's uh it's interesting because I remember watching one of your videos and you were really upset by the fact that no one is willing to talk about this no one who seems like like they can and I remember kind of you know kind of sympathizing with you and me like oh yeah I kind of understand where it's like but when you actually get here and you witness just how bad it is and you see all these people just walking around just not talking about it's like how can you not yeah to even admit it to yourself like that this isn't the place that you're portraying it to be it's it's it's sad it really is yeah just like I like a little story also about like this is kind of somewhat unrelated but I'm talking about the street flooding once again it's one of those things like eyes will send it to me I'm like I surely can't be that bad right so we we were at a restaurant eating dinner together and the charming that we had this week I was okay by see right I would say like five minutes later the sky is just opened and it was like I think they refer to it as elephant rain someone told me I don't know what yeah bucket it down and within five minutes I could you knock the streets were just like you could row a boat down there it was yeah yeah you know like when you say stinks things when he says these things on camera he really isn't exaggerating and to like make it sound like it's worse than it is like if you have your eyes open and you're not in this little world of like yeah and that's what yeah well so I mean you know so you know wrap it up it partly is the the Instagram effect yes change in a moment to your life that are the most beautiful or what have you but I think there's there are many other kinds of self-deception going on and ultimately I mean I think the the cost is a loss of potential I just want to say some people misrepresent what I say about the vegans and shame I is if I think you're all idiots I don't I think you could be doing something better with your time I think you have the potential to be selling better even within Thailand or even within Chiang Mai you know that's why I talk about social engagement well I think you should be concerned about the government about politics about these problems if I thought you you were Complete Idiot's I wouldn't care I'd say well that and you know look think about how you guys if you guys are watching this the young the young people who think you're hip and cool even shame I how do you guys feel about the retired guys who over 70 years old who sit here you don't look to them to save the world you don't look to them to make the world a better place think well he's 75 years old he's just retired and drinks beer in a bar somewhere well I can't look at you that way you know I really am looking I'm looking to members of my own generation and Jake's generation Jake is a few years younger than me obviously I'm looking for us to take responsibility to shoulder that burden to make Thailand a better place to make chain my a better place if you choose to live in Chiang Mai and whether it's through veganism ecology other forms of activism organization to be concerned and and not just to live a life that revolves around fresh fruit bikinis and bicycles but goddamn limited have you seen one bikini it's let's cut it off there all right
guy who I've known on the internet for some time and now for the first time we met in person here in Thailand we actually used to have conversations by Skype I thought of him originally as a vegan on reddit he started out really making a lot of comments on veganism on reddit he branched into YouTube there were a couple of his videos in the past that I've showed it out on this channel and you may know him recently because like like myself he's been at the center of a storm of controversy and some people have denounced him as a a cancer on the on the feast today which you know lets you let you know you're doing something right um but yeah I think there's actually some really thoughtful and worthwhile content on his channel and you like myself and like the other channels I'm a fan of like you know vegan cheetah I'm a fan of a lot of people I may not have that much in common with but where I feel they're really being honest being really real so this conversation we're gonna talk about a you know an honest and down-to-earth subject which is kind of the the contrast between the reality of Chiang Mai Chiang Mai is a city in northern Thailand the reality of this place and the mythology that surrounds it a brief professor I'm gonna basically ask Jake is is its experience but for me during the last couple of years I couldn't believe how romanticize Chiang Mai was in the imagination of many of my fellow vegans and I was thinking well maybe it's gotten a little bit better since I was there maybe it's because you know you have a min do city in a fuse I knew this place well you know ten years ago already and I got here and I feel like everything's just got worse I view like the city's falling apart in in so many obvious ways now I'll start with a provocative topic you know we we vegans Jake we like to pretend that we'd never hurt a fly we'd like to pretend that we'd never kill a rat then if a rat came into our own homes we'd make it a bed and serve at dinner and and treat it as equally as welcome as our own friends and family but on the streets of chiang mai you see quite a few rats don't you okay so I've quite a funny story about that so yesterday I was walking home with my partner in 18 after the karaoke night that I met up with ISIL and a bunch of other vegans and we were walking home and we were talking about the rats because my partner Nadine really does not like rats you should love alright okay I don't like spiders I'm also equally as guilty so yeah we were walking past and I talked about rats coming out of the water because the night before we had actually seen a rat and Nadine Nadine makanda actually said their water adds like they do so no kidding five seconds later after I mentioned rats three rats and like pop out from like the sewers like through these little holes and like as you walk down the I guess the partial sidewalk that's actually there that's what the holes are for yeah yeah they make special holes in the sidewalk that are big enough for rats and cockroaches to breathe them low and come back up it's basically like a rat habitat faucet project you know it's perfect yes yeah you go on no I like I said increasing the biodiversity of this beautiful city the holes in the something I'll actually comment on later but yeah that's I was saying no kidding like five seconds later we walk past in these three rats pop out and Nadine just like jumps and sushi she's actually sitting in the back now listening to this and he's like curling up in the corner just thinking about this and here's me thinking like okay I understand like because I feel the same way about sliders as she does about rats yeah and once again I kid you not five seconds later I look down and there is a spider like the size and I did we both just like jump and scream and this was not like I would say like close to one o'clock in the morning this seems when it's like really bad like the night life comes out to play yeah and then that was just like and then of course like the cockroaches that are just like always walking around and it was like I I have seen I have seen a cockroach eating the blood of a dead rat you know rat yeah I mean you know I this year there I noticed there are seem to be very few mosquitoes in the city I don't know if that's the season or if it's actual deforestation a collage was like ten years ago I think there were more mosquitoes but the cockroach game is still is still pretty solid here walking down the street there were three women women who had straight jobs not students alone he tried to flirt with me you know in anti try to speak to me in Thai and I was really exhausted from the heat and I just didn't want to deal with it I just was walking and you know no normally to be honest to be a chance to practice the language to speak some Thai with somebody wants to speak to you and as I was kind of just shuffling past them this enormous cockroach you know went towards their feet and because they were looking at me they hadn't think they suddenly looked down the sidewalk and screamed all three of them screamed at this cockroach yeah I don't know if it quite touched them but it was right right at their feet yeah Oh Emmy how you grow up here you live here you work here and you're still afraid of cockroaches and that's human nature's is a funny thing that way but yeah the the cockroach game is on points the rat the rat game is on point and I mean all we ever hear on the Internet is that this place is paradise and you know I mean you know look I have nothing against cycling I used to be a long-distance cyclist it's not a sport I do now yeah I cycle is a yeah part of my fitness as well me and my pond you know yeah so we're not anti cycling but as a place to go cycling this is a remarkable place to ride a bike in so many ways including like a bitchin one I think we're gonna talk about the streets but the rainfall have you heard of rain it's a it's a kryptonite to long distance lightly you can't ride a bike in the rain here the rain would wipe your wipe you right out and you know it rains not infrequently and intensely and yeah you can barely walk in the rain when it's only been here like five days and I've experienced I would say what it like everything that he's talking about it's it's not like I see a rare occasion this is regular Chang legs my knowledge around this time at least right right and I mean it just say in terms of the city's infrastructure falling apart this thing where the streets fill up with water I'm sorry that's completely avoidable even in third-world countries which this isn't this is really the wealthiest city in Thailand and I myself I'm living in probably the wealthiest neighborhood of the wealthiest city and you know I mentioned one sense book so you walked home late at night last night after one or after midnight at least you know did you see any homeless people or people living in poverty like you don't wake on the street that's right I didn't you didn't snow that's what I say chiang mai by the standards of the region even in thailand the number of people is very small so that wealth is obvious in many different ways no aisles so I went to a hospital here and got blood tests done I did some tests before I go to China and the hospital I'm not joking it is better than the Austral system in where it just was in Canada because I tried to get the same test done in Canada before I came here okay so I have this contrast directly in mind and obviously by the Asian standards so in some ways the wealth of this society is evidence both in the absence of kind of beggars and almost people on the streets I've seen a couple during daylight hours just a couple but you know at night that you don't see that the kind of poverty and in the the opulence of the wealthy members of the population and in institutions like hospitals but riding a bike holy every time you cross me you're risking your life you know you you think he's uh he's just kind of like joking about this and make it more severe than it actually is but the first day I got here in Thailand in Bangkok we were in a taxi like driving to our apartment from the airport and there were people driving down the safety lane like it was a lane down the motorway and I'm just sitting there like what country have I come to right and they're going in the opposite direction oh yeah head-on collision style yeah yeah yeah I was sitting there just like are there any road rules and what am i government because I actually did bring my bike here I'm not gonna be participating in like the the riding out the mountain every morning but we don't actually bring our bikes here because I'm we've been told or everyone had claims like this is like the safest city in the world cuz ride your bike what could possibly and it's like my partner is a pretty confident driver but she would not even drive a car here it is yeah but I mean like like like just even the surface of the road and like the sidewalk if there is one the absolutely you know there's so much of just like the concrete falling apart and crevices and you know storm drains let's just say you have to bring a fair few spare tire to do I feel like you'll be running over a lot of stuff right but the cars that the cars can still kill you right I mean in terms of the way the traffic within the city I think you know going from one city next outside of Chiang Mai's different but we're talking about Chiang Mai we're not talking at all time with time with this one city and the conditions here so let me ask you to think back in your mind a little bit further like if you think back over the last say two years I know if it goes that far for you how do you but okay but about a year what was it you were expecting to find here kind of originally when you first thought it Wan Chiang Mai and then maybe what were you expecting like sort of before you got on the airplane and then what do you see because I would think of that as a three-phase like maybe you got a little bit more realistic you know before he came and then out of the actual experience contrast to that okay so my general kind of my understanding of watch him I was like was basically just based off the vlogs that I had seen by like train ride it freely but not just him but like everyone who attended the first of all and basically like all I had ever seen was just like fruit writing up about like a mountain riding outdoor sitive and then going out to dinner like them no one else ever kind of filmed anything else like walking down the streets the sidewalks like there was nothing else so my perception of what Chiang Mai was going to be like was like very warped because this is all I had really seen so going into it I guess it had really been painted as a paradise like this this wonderful fruit you get to ride up a mountain it's just like you know taking this wonderful vacation and some tropical paradise and I remember I booked my tickets with with my partner to go to attend the festival we both this like sometime last year and at the time I thought this is gonna be great you know it's it's gonna be a tropical paradise you know it was what I'd seen was just just great there'd be no real talk of anything negative which was really surprising to me but um as time went on it was like what am I gonna be doing for 21 days in Chiang Mai like it is this old that there really is just like eating fruit riding up a mountain and but but then what I'm like I started to think about those vlogs that I'd see on Mike what happens in between they do the same it's weird I mean you know look I mean the fruit here is okay okay that's what I'm on you know do it I mean like you don't like I think we're gonna see exact same thing yeah the fruit here is okay but it's just some people that move here for the fruit and I'm just like you gave up everything you had in your car the fruit but like look for me I can't even justify that if you moved here from Iceland like you know I know like so like I've lived in parts of Canada where the fruit is terrible but to give you an example like I bought a medium-sized watermelon it wasn't huge and the taste wasn't great it was it was an okay normal watermelon and that was 100 tybo it's just okay you know I mean the mangoes are okay a normal price remains 30 baht and here I'm gonna mention this before but you know minimum wage is 300 baht per day not 300 bucks per hour throughout the day there are a lot of people who could never afford to buy a mango in the shop or they couldn't afford to buy a you know a whole watermelon in the shop so this is also you know in terms of all this well you know what is a luxury and what isn't anything we live to take it I've taken Jake to a really cheap restaurant the local Pinot yeah yeah I'm not gonna say local poor people but they were working-class people like it's not the poorest of the poor and they're so like a like a tourist place one drink is 75 baht and we had you know soymilk you know vegan soy milk for 5 baht this is how extreme the difference is and they're like a whole meal is about 50 baht 40 50 rightfully so as opposed to one piece of fruit for you know what I've been other differences right crazy so I mean you know that the prices compared to Western rules one thing and I mean you know I've lived in all different parts of the world but you know compared compared to Hong Kong compared to South Africa I'm not I've never lived in South Africa but I know there are all kinds of places in the world that have grape fruit like South South America you live in Brazil or something I so I mean that also they have a lot more redeeming qualities to go along with them apart well I you know I it's it's a weird thing but I mean specifically if I was planning a bike holiday I would not plan it here it's kind of a it's a almost uniquely terrible place to ride bicycle and you know what I've asked people because I've been people's brains about this I'm gonna ask you nail two I said like well what what do you like about Chiang Mai you know they they kind of say things like well there are mountains right yeah I mean you know with the exception of certain parts of Arizona like most of the world you have act you know I mean there are some parts the world that are you know the Netherlands but most of the world you you can find a mountain if you're looking for one and I say oh and you know there are a lot of cafes that have internet access compared to waiter you know like compared to South Korea compared to you know hey but let's let's get back because the question asked you was to look at the idea you had yeah yeah versus the reality so cuz again look when you say you thought it was a tropical paradise I don't really know what that means to you you know means different things different penis so how was your idea of tropical paradise different from what you what you actually encountered well yeah when I got here that was like man like my partner can account for this like the first few days I was like in shock I'm like what what have I got myself now to be fair this was Bangkok but I'm like that's funny that's funny cuz you're more honest with her than you are with me I was terrible I was like having a mental breakdown it was it was so I was like you would not want to be around me for those two days but it was like okay I was in Bangkok that was a more like establish city what does Chiang Mai going to be like ah so yeah I guess like that the tropical paradise was like I said it was like beat the amazing fruit that everyone see like the fruit is just like 10 out of 10 here and looks like the the luxurious with the wither like I thought okay sunny way that what could go wrong with that you know and just like like I say just like living this this just like holiday life where it's just like you just sit around and seemingly do nothing all day not so luxurious when you actually get here and realize there actually is really not much to do all day right yeah yeah so yeah it's really so I just say you know thing I I think I've said I haven't said it on YouTube but you know I I could understand if you want to have a fruit festival or vegan festival in Egypt you can see the pyramids you can visit the pyramids in Egypt if you want to have a fruit festival in Auschwitz Poland you can visit the concentration camp no stress like there are places in the world where there's a major attraction that either has historical value or artistic value there's some obvious reason to be there but for me part of what's weird is like today I was telling you we're gonna go to the museum today and now for me because I have a certain kind of background I'm probably you know we're probably gonna talk about I'm probably gonna make it more fun for Jake because I brought him along here yeah we're gonna say oh this is interesting for this reason or something have some connection to the history and what have you but if you don't have that connection you know there's nothing here that's equivalent to the pyramids there's there's no like you know in a sense there is no tourist attraction and I mean in terms of activities now I don't you bowl exploiting animals oh yeah that's true well look no Capon look so when people say because you will hear this in the internet that there are tons of like charming cafes here or chawl bars or nightclubs that's true but if you're a vegan who doesn't drink alcohol ninety percent of what you see like walking in the street means nothing to you like really what it's like it's true there are there were bars nightclubs there were plenty old there was a lot of warehouses a lot of prostitution but again if you're a vegan you you can't eat anything because we can't eat anything even from the bakeries here obviously you don't drink alcohol and you presumably not here for prostitutes prostitution is vegan and I'm not you know but you know if that's not what you're for it's it's really weird so I mean I would just say there's a disclaimer I'm going gonna go back to having you talk like yeah some of my fans make fun of me because I interview people and I do boys I'm talking this is an occupational hazard with me if any of you come over to my house you'll see it's a problem uh but you know even with the entire land I know other cities and actually one of my patreon supporters was chatting about this and I think he didn't get like I'm not saying Chiangmai is such a terrible place saying I have lived in and visited other cities in Asia but also even within Thailand that I think would be so much better for a vacation for a living long-term whether you're a businessperson or what-have-you and and I know better places riding a bicycle because I've done the long-distance cycling you know and where you can ride the bicycle and where there's really historical ancient ancient architecture there and so on anyway so look we took your story up to the difference between the ideal and the shock so what came out for the shock like cuz I mean I'll you're on to a new phase now you're no longer shocked like most of the meat you've walked most of the city now yeah you've seen I mean that's what I mean that's what we're doing honestly for the most part just like just walking around yeah yeah sure and it's it's kind of a third world channel if I'm gonna be honest and not try paint this picture like it's something that it isn't then yeah I got to put words in your mouth yeah but yeah I think a lot of people are quite afraid to actually you say it for what it is yeah and that's what I wasn't expecting because I had never seen that aspect of Chiang Mai all in like videos people had painted this picture where it's like this luxurious paradise that you come to you have a carefree holiday and it looks like you walk around it's like all I want to do is go back home honestly because I had intended to stay here for 21 days with my partner for like the entire duration of the festival but we're gonna actually be traveling alcohol Chiang Mai to places like Chiang Rai and then we're actually gonna be hitting to Singapore because they're really oh yeah but like but this was just like recently organized just to see Singapore instead of well it was like what what am I gonna be doing here for 21 days yeah and you know I just say so I have a background as a scholar of Buddhism but when people ask me for advice on what to see here I do say to them honestly like if you're not a specialist if you've been to three different Buddhist temples they all start to look the same like for a normal person if you don't have a highly specialized interest like I had a scholar in that field I can't recommend you spend your time like going to visit every Buddhist temple and you know if you're not a geologist I think all the mountains look the same like you can you can a mountain and you could go back the next day but you know that's that's I have trouble giving people positive advice about that like also to do a G I was talking to my partner it's like if I and I hadn't met eyes'll here of the main tourist attraction no no I know you hadn't been here like no cuz who else am I gonna talk to who else that attends the festival I'm not trying to say that like no one knows nothing but like seriously yeah most people who have been here for year after year I know and they don't speak the language you know so but look I mean before I said it's kind of like a third world general yeah pardon my being honest but really I mean it's a combination of third world problems and first of all because we said before it is wealthy here it's you know relative to Thailand a relative to Asia and what have you so that that's also a weird part of it so I I in case you think I'm completely - I took Jake to a nightclub it was partly because it was one of the Warren of the only night goes how he's trying to seduce me oh yeah probably building yeah sorry probably bring him over to the dark side the dark side ethical veganism but look you know in that nightclub I chose it because I know there's no prostitution there it's not this kind of advise voice but again so that Michael that was a completely authentic Thai nightclubs not for tourists the music is Thai 98% of the people there were Thai it that is the local culture yeah but for you as a tourist what is it you know and what does it have to do with you what does it mean to you because for me I'm normally someone who never goes to nightclubs and not a boast but if you make the effort to go there and do that what's what's the connection you know so I you know it's it's hard work to make friends everywhere but I don't see the appeal of that and if you're vegan almost none of the local you know restaurants are the view and so on so yeah you're left with but the circle the nightclub is wealthy that's all so this makes it first world in third world it's funny because I'm I didn't go ask the question you know like how's your trip going in Thailand and have you been have you had any authentic vegan food like Thai vegan food yeah and it was like I mean I've been to some place I haven't been to many places but like the only authentic Thai vegan food was when you took me to a place that seemingly no one else goes right it's a place that's not for foreigners but yes that's what I mean it's like yeah well look I mean for me the other question is when I look at this so I mean I feel there's a kind of ageism going on to people who are teenagers are in their 20s look at older people including me but of course they're guys who are in their fifties sixties seventies they look at the older people as losers because they're here on their you're on vacation or they're here as retirements you know in permanent vacation but to me I look at that kind of the flipside to me it's kind of weird if you're in your 20s and you don't have any ambition and I told you Smee an ambition earned money but ambition to have a career or ambition to change the world mission to do something and you go on this kind of long term vacation here it's weird that those people are looking down their nose at people who actually did work a job for 40 years and then retired you know what you guys are the losers oh you old people you're not you're not cool because but I mean I I don't know what's cool about it and again if you did have a job here or you were doing humanitarian work something that engage you with the society that could be rewarding that could plug you into the reality of Chiangmai but if you don't you know whether you're here as a so-called digital nomad or on vacation you know I think what's meaningful here you know the struggle you know what life is like for real people enjoy mine you have you have no connection with either look I know when I first brought him to my street yeah this is soon after you arrived I warned him I said look this is one of the best streets of the city the rest are all I can say you know you hear these things from him you're like really and then a few days then you're like oh well he was right well whether whether you're walking we've drawn a bicycle the scenery moves more quickly and I guess it doesn't feel as hot you get a bit more of a breeze but god damn it's ugly walking past the 7-elevens just the the rotting broken-down building one after another I had people on my facebook were saying to me like I had just a photo of me doing something there like they couldn't believe the incredibly ugly powerlines and just the sense that everything is rotting not to mention that's infested with rats and so on it's like it's like even if you go to my apartment just look out the window you've got buildings that are like half being taken down and half being yeah and they just they just send this right this slate of like nothing's ever going to happen to them they're just sitting there as they are yeah well that's okay so that touches on another interesting thing which is the Chiang Mai I think when I was here ten years ago there was optimism for its future and there was a ton of new investments including in tourism and now when I walked the city's humid the empty buildings I see empty buildings of every kind like I see empty office buildings empty houses some abandoned like halfway through construction but some complete and the business set of businesses gone but especially in tourism like obviously tours have hit a peak at some point the past and then declined but you know nightclubs hotels tourist oriented buildings and tourist arranging restaurants there are tons of them that are abandoned even in the wealthiest parts of the city the most durable and in the downtown core the downtown core is really kind of rotting and in floating you know but look sir I don't I don't want to seem like I'm beating you up Jake it's so many reality but look so many things I don't get it like um you know people including like people I like your Jenna I've been all the close friends people who know me they invite me to go to a night market like I know what a night market is it's it's some I'm not been to them I've walked through them you know but it's some plastic stalls and it's stinking hot and you're sweating drenched in sweat it's some plastic stalls in a parking lot at night that's what it is and 90% of what they're selling is not vegan it's either meat or alcohol and it's nothing to do it like what's fun about it what's so great they seems to be this thing of like trying to memorize something that's not glamorous yeah because that's all that that's what they've got to work with because there is nothing glamorous in the first place about being in Chiang Mai yeah and I it's sad that so many people aren't willing to talk about what they really see or if they even really see it it was just cuz like you can't miss it like walking down the sidewalk you can't miss just like the rubble and the trash just literal rubble like not kidding it's just like it's like it's like they've started constructing the sidewalk they've got to finish it they've got all the mess left and they're just like well let's just leave it there so look for this video we're not gonna get into it but I say we've talked about this out camera I feel like on a larger scale the fact that Thailand's democracy has collapsed you know the failure of government here the fact that this is now a military dictatorship I feel this is related to bad governments as you see it in these things that in a sense you know the fact that the government is failing to manage the sidewalks and just obvious things and then the you know the raining rain water reflects the fact that currently you know there is no Prime Minister there is no Constitution there are no civil rights that this this country was taken over as military tissue so and that's happened repeatedly in the last 10 years they've had long periods of this so you know some level of mismanagement or worse than it would be management to those public public problems is is perhaps inevitable yeah it's uh it's interesting because I remember watching one of your videos and you were really upset by the fact that no one is willing to talk about this no one who seems like like they can and I remember kind of you know kind of sympathizing with you and me like oh yeah I kind of understand where it's like but when you actually get here and you witness just how bad it is and you see all these people just walking around just not talking about it's like how can you not yeah to even admit it to yourself like that this isn't the place that you're portraying it to be it's it's it's sad it really is yeah just like I like a little story also about like this is kind of somewhat unrelated but I'm talking about the street flooding once again it's one of those things like eyes will send it to me I'm like I surely can't be that bad right so we we were at a restaurant eating dinner together and the charming that we had this week I was okay by see right I would say like five minutes later the sky is just opened and it was like I think they refer to it as elephant rain someone told me I don't know what yeah bucket it down and within five minutes I could you knock the streets were just like you could row a boat down there it was yeah yeah you know like when you say stinks things when he says these things on camera he really isn't exaggerating and to like make it sound like it's worse than it is like if you have your eyes open and you're not in this little world of like yeah and that's what yeah well so I mean you know so you know wrap it up it partly is the the Instagram effect yes change in a moment to your life that are the most beautiful or what have you but I think there's there are many other kinds of self-deception going on and ultimately I mean I think the the cost is a loss of potential I just want to say some people misrepresent what I say about the vegans and shame I is if I think you're all idiots I don't I think you could be doing something better with your time I think you have the potential to be selling better even within Thailand or even within Chiang Mai you know that's why I talk about social engagement well I think you should be concerned about the government about politics about these problems if I thought you you were Complete Idiot's I wouldn't care I'd say well that and you know look think about how you guys if you guys are watching this the young the young people who think you're hip and cool even shame I how do you guys feel about the retired guys who over 70 years old who sit here you don't look to them to save the world you don't look to them to make the world a better place think well he's 75 years old he's just retired and drinks beer in a bar somewhere well I can't look at you that way you know I really am looking I'm looking to members of my own generation and Jake's generation Jake is a few years younger than me obviously I'm looking for us to take responsibility to shoulder that burden to make Thailand a better place to make chain my a better place if you choose to live in Chiang Mai and whether it's through veganism ecology other forms of activism organization to be concerned and and not just to live a life that revolves around fresh fruit bikinis and bicycles but goddamn limited have you seen one bikini it's let's cut it off there all right