Chiang Mai
Oh man, we found an internet cafe where the pages don’t take a minute to load. This is a FIRST. I am so mad I don’t have Jim’s CD here with the new pics.
Before I forget–Lipton makes a canned Thai iced tea here that is DELICIOUS….Jim is addicted. I swear they should sell it in the states.
So, we are in Chiang Mai. We took the overnight train from Bangkok last night at 8pm and got here around 9:30am. Sleeper trains are the BEST as you just sleep away hours and hours of the trip. We got here and fought off the annoying touts trying to get us to go to their hotel, Jim fought with a public phone that wouldn’t work, and finally we called the place we wanted to stay and we took a …I don’t know how to spell it… saemlaaw or something.. which is like a small pickup truck that takes you around. The hotel was ok, a little dusty and 350 baht, which is like $9.
Jim really wanted to go on a 3-day trek, which is really popular here in Chiang Mai. Every single guesthouse offers treks and cooking courses. I decided I am already roughing it enough here and no trekking for me. I ain’t walking for no 3-1/2 hours at a time. I already do that in the cities here. I figured I would take a cooking class while he was gone and maybe a one-day tour…. So I talked Jim into taking a 2-day trek instead, and then well, I got talked into it too. It didn’t sound too bad, and includes riding on elephants through water (elephants are stinky and I don’t want to ride them, but this looked cool.) and rafting of some sort. Then when we come back maybe we’ll both do a 1 day cooking class.
So we wandered around the city today and thought, why is Chiang Mai supposed to be so great again??? I mean, there are wats around every corner, like in Bangkok, and some are really awesome… but it is still dirty and polluted. Not as much as Bangkok though. We decided once we are done trekking and cooking and going to the famous night bazaar, we’re outta here and flying down to Phuket or some other famous beach destination and the hard part of the trip is all but over.
We just took another saemlaw to a big wat on a mountain called Doi Suthep. We met more Canadians… did I mention we haven’t met any other Americans?? Tons of “farangs” everywhere but they are mostly Aussies or Europeans or Canadians. Anyway, I felt totally crappy on the ride up the mountain, as we were taking lots of hard curves all the time. Ugh. There were 300 steps to get to the temple and then a huge sign with an arrow and the word “Foreigners.” What the heck! Then a ticket booth that says, “Foreigner buy ticket 30B.” So like idiots we bought tickets and I didn’t see anyone else do it except the Canadians. DOH!
Jim took this pic from Doi Suthep.
We’ve been good though, and haven’t been trapped by any scam artists although they are everywhere. We even helped some blond girls (european) who were getting scammed by a guy trying to tell them a wat was closed when it wasn’t… we called them over and told them to be careful because he was probably lying. And ALL the time in Bangkok people will approach you and say, “Where are you going??” and pretending to be friendly when all they want is to either drive you somewhere, take you to their cousins restaurant/store, or sell you something. It is annoying as hell, because in order to avoid it you have to be so mean to everyone, and there have been a few times when we suspect people WERE actually trying to be nice to us… it is so hard to tell though. These people just stand around and wait for foreigners to come by. Man, I hate it. However, it was 10 times worse in China.
So what else…what’s going on in the world? Any big news in the U.S.?
Did I mention there are plenty of chickens here, both in live and cooked form. There really isn’t anything to worry about, since the people who are getting the flu are basically living WITH chickens every day. And yeah, I heard they found it in Delaware.
There are lots of lady-boys here, creepy guys with long hair in ponytails and we saw one with boobs, and they all seem to work at restuarants. I don’t care if I’m not politically correct, transvestites are weird.
I am fascinated by the cool flowers and plants here. There are so many different ones and of course Jim doesn’t care. I’m not a big plant person but they are neat. And we’ve seen geckos on the walls of a few places. They are so cute.
Ok, Jim’s getting antsy so we need to go. Later gators. Pray I make it through the trek tomorrow.
Me buying a necklace at the night market in Chiang Mai.
Tags: Thailand
Kelly
Kelly, I finally had time to catch up on your blog. Sounds like you guys are having a great time! I especially love the pictures–wow. Glad things are going well.
Irony for the day: I had a fortune in my fortune cookie the other day that said something about how travelling would be good for my soul. I immediately thought of you. (:
Best wishes for more fun along your way!
Are you going to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia?? Hope the camping trek was a wonderful adventure.
Hi Leigh!! thanks for reading. Funny fortune there!!
No, we aren’t going to Malaysia.