Today Just Rocked, Plain and Simple

I would like it to be noted for the record that Sarah and I had originally planned to be in Chiang Mai for three, four days tops. We have now been here six and are pretty sure we've just been lovingly coerced (we weren't a very hard sell, truth be told) to spend two more here. Meeting this ridiculously fun group of people up here has changed our plans, but we don't actually mind a bit. I really think it's pretty rare to meet such a group of people that so immediately just 'gel' and who can laugh so hysterically together after knowing each other such a relatively short time. So we've decided to take full advantage of having such cool people to hang out with and to use this time to 'rest' a bit as the rest of our trip is going to involve lots of changes, activity and lots of moving from place to place. Up to this point, we've been doing a LOT of 'doing' and 'seeing', so now we're just enjoying 'being'. And, as a bonus, we're having a great time in the process.

Speaking of which, since we had so much fun doing it last time with just Sarah, Dani and I, today we all rented motorbikes and spent the day roaming the areas surrounding Chiang Mai as a group. Between the six of us, we had five bikes. Think Hell's Angels but much, much funnier. Trying to keep all five bikes together in Chiang Mai traffic was interesting at times but I have to say that we kind of rocked at it.

Our one and only 'official' destination was a lake that Duncan had heard about. The perimeter of it was surrounded by thatched-roof, open-air huts with bamboo floors. So, so cool. And there was drink/food service by a sweet little Thai lady to boot. Frankly, we almost didn't get too much farther on our bikes as once we got to the lake and saw the surroundings, it was supremely tempting to just spend the day lounging around there. There was food, there was drink, there was sunbathing and there was hilarity. In thatched roof huts on a lake. In Thailand. Really, what else does a person need? But we pressed on...

... to nowhere in particular. We went back up into the mountains, we ate yummy Thai food for lunch, we visited a temple, Charlotte and Kiwi bought inexplicably weird hats, we drove and drove and drove only to end up at a dead end. It was awesome. And there was only one traffic ticket issued among the group of us throughout the day, so not too bad.

When we were trying to get back to the hostel at night, we took a wrong turn (or, eh hem, several) and inadvertantly ended up at the night market instead (some people will never live down the faulty navigating) so, hey, why not do some shopping and eat some de-lish street food while there, right?

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Oddly enough, the night ended with a late night trip to a pizzeria as a) someone mentioned pizza the other night and there has been a building craving for it ever since and b) we had the bikes and they were paid for so it seemed just plain wrong to NOT use them for all their worth. We're kind of ashamed to admit we ate pizza while in Thailand but, oh, it was so good....

So Today I Went to Prison...

I honestly didn't think it was possible to outdo yesterday's complete lack of activity. I was so, so wrong. At least yesterday was a planned 'chill day'. Today just sort of morphed into one all by itself. Granted, no one was complaining and no one tried too hard to change the course of things. We just fully embraced it for all it was worth. Turns out we are super skilled at doing nothing much of anything.

Breakfast was around 10. A plan for the day was formulated somewhere around, oh, noon or so. We finally got up from the table to begin putting it into action around 1. We left by 1:30. Not too bad, considering.

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The Plan, in its entirety, was to go to the local women's prison to get massages. Bet you didn't see that one coming, did you? We had heard about a rehabilitation center in downtown Chiang Mai that teaches work skills (cooking, pastry making, sewing, massage, etc.) to women who are about to leave prison so they will be prepared for life back out in the real world. It's a brilliant program, really. And we were certainly happy to do our part to contribute to it. And, really, how often in life do you get to say you spent your afternoon having a massage at a prison?

We even talked the guys into coming with us so all seven of us summoned all of our collective energy for the walk to the prison (easier said than done in this group, I might add). We got there and were were told there was a wait so... we sat and had some drinks at the restaurant the women run. More loafing, more talking, more laughing. Went back and were told we had to wait some more. So we played cards. When you're with cool enough people, even a long tedious wait can be part of the fun. We didn't even mind (or notice) the wait turning from 20 minutes into over an hour. And then we got in and all got lined up in a row in the same room for our massages... good times. The whole experience (come on, it was a massage in a women's prison, after all) was ripe for all manner of jokes, none of which we tired of no matter how many variations we made of the same ones. There were also a few moments during the massages that will live on for eternity in our collective memories. They will continue to crack us up hysterically for just as long.

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On a completely different note, in the evening I had a totally different kind of really cool experience. When I was a little kid growing up in tiny Bellefonte, PA, my second grade teacher was Miss Gibson. I always loved her and her class and have thought of her with great fondness over the years (she used to wear a perfume that, even into adulthood, would bring back instantaneous memories of her whenever I caught a whiff of someone wearing it). Shortly before my trip, my parents mentioned that they heard that Miss Gibson (now Mrs. Cochran) was living in.... you guessed it, Chiang Mai, Thailand! When I got to Bangkok, I wrote to her to find out if it might be possible for us to see each other while I was here... and tonight I saw my second grade teacher for the first time in many, many moons. When I saw her on the street, I recognized her immediately. We went to a great restaurant for dinner and caught up on so many years. Kind of crazy to be having dinner with her as an adult, when my last memories of her were as a little kid, looking up to her as such a huge, important adult in my life at the time. Also kind of crazy to meet her here on the other side of the world, an absolute eternity away from little Bellefonte. It was kind of surreal, actually, to be walking down the street in Thailand and see such a familiar face from half a world away and a lifetime ago. So cool.

Came back to the hostel and checked in with the posse... we actually have a plan for tomorrow. We're making progress! We rock.

Pretty Sure We're an "Official" Posse by Now

I am almost embarrassed to tell you what we did today. Or rather, what we didn't do. We had decided yesterday that today was going to be a "chill day" and, wow, was it ever. I know it seems silly to have to have a "day off" while on vacation, but when you're traveling for an extended period of time, sometimes you really do just have to take some time to sit and read, to not be trying to cram anything in, to catch up on e-mail and bills and such and just to soak up the glorious luxury of being able to spend a whole day on a rooftop terrace. Which is exactly what we did.

After our late night last night, we all made it downstairs to our meeting point in the common hanging out/eating area for a, eh hem, rather late breakfast (okay, let's call it a breakfast-slash-lunch). We hung about there with Duncan, Dani's fellow Brit and a very funny guy, for a rather long, leisurely time, no one wanting to expend even the effort it would take to get up to move to our next chilling out spot. We finally dragged ourselves away from the lounge... and relocated ourselves to the rooftop terrace the hostel has. Really lovely views of the mountains and, more importantly, rows of lounge chairs and hammocks. And that was pretty much our afternoon.
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We had "plans" to meet up with another girl at 5:00 to go to the weekly Chiang Mai Walking Street (a huuuuge Sunday night street market) but, frankly, come 5 o'clock, we just weren't quite ready to tear ourselves away. She came and joined us instead. Our lazy masses were growing. You know you're officially lazy when you don't even have the wherewithal to drag yourself out of a lounge chair to walk a few doors down to get a pedicure (which we had been talking about doing all day). Now THAT is lazy, my friends.

We did, however, finally make it to the night market. Amazing how miraculously a group of girls' energy can be restored when there is street after street after street of outdoor Thai markets waiting to be explored. I would also be embarrassed to tell you just how much time we did spend exploring them. (But check out what was randomly for sale for a mere 5Baht in the middle of the accessories stand)
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Back to the hostel where some of "the regulars" were hanging out and with whom we joined up again immediately. Here is what I really dig about hostel life: the people. It's kind of hard to explain but there's an odd little community that exists among people staying in a hostel at the same time. Everyone is in the same boat, everyone is doing the same thing and there just seems to be an understanding that it's always even more fun to do whatever it is with other people. There really is something to sharing an experience like this at a certain moment in time with other people. I've met lots of cool people at lots of hostels but at this one we've found a particularly cool, particularly hilarious group that has a particular ease in hanging out together. It's gone from inviting each other to do things together to there just sort of being a general understanding that we're going to all do things together. You go to breakfast, they're there, you come back in the evening, they're there. You sit, you talk, you laugh (and laugh a lot). Occasionally, we even do stuff. It's kind of like "Cheers" as now when you walk in, you invariably see people you know and just sit down together and continue a seemingly never-ending conversation. Although it ebbs and flows with people's travels, the current principal posse members are Dani, Duncan, Paul, Kiwi, Charlotte, me and Sarah. It's an awesome posse.

Settling Into a Herd

I despise tours. I dislike anything even remotely tour group-ish where I show up with a herd of other tourists, immediately and loudly pronouncing our tourist-ishness. I don't like having to follow other people around and follow someone else's schedule and, mostly, I don't like being paraded around from souvenier shop to souvenier shop to spend my money. Let me be clear and say that, yes, I am in fact aware that I AM a tourist. I just like to be as subtle and under the radar about it as possible. To try to go to "real" places and hang out with "real" people, never pulling out a map and never, ever wearing either a) a camera around my neck or b) white socks with sandals. That being said, today I joined a tour. I did it hesitantly, but I did it. And, in my defense, on the brochure it was called a "trek" instead of a tour, so that helped.

At some point, you just have to realize that occasionally someone else knows more about a place than you and can get you there a lot easier and faster than you can get yourself there, and with much less hassle. And when you want to do a lot of things in a short period of time, it's best to waste as little of precious travel time as possible. So we signed up at our hostel for the One Day Trek... and it was surprisingly very cool overall.

Sarah, Dani and I were the only ones from our little hostel but we picked up 6 other people along the way; with just nine of us total, I didn't think we could officially be declared a 'herd' of tourists, so that also made me feel better. It also helped that our mini-herd turned out to be super cool, a fun mix of British, Australians, Brazilians, French-Canadians and us.

I went into the day with an open mind, but they almost lost me right off the bat with the first two stops. A visit to an orchid/butterfly farm was totally random and, frankly, pointless. Well, the point was clearly to bring a group of tourists to a souvenier shop so I guess there technically WAS a point... but it wasn't making me change my thoughts about tours and it wasn't boding well for how the rest of the day was going to go for me. We then went to visit some tribal village communities, which was equally awkward for me. If it was something where we had somehow come upon it on our own or if we somehow knew someone who knew one of the people and we had been taken there, that would be one thing. I'm quite fascinated by the tribes and their way of life and would be genuinely interested in both learning about and seeing them. But to show up in a tour vehicle and walk up and down the row of huts, looking at them in their stands, them waiting for us with their wares out to sell to us... yeah, awkward. I wanted to take pictures on the one hand, but on the other I just couldn't. It was also a bit sad, in a way. Kind of like the Amish back home; it's a bit of a trade-off as the very thing that makes them a curiosity to people, what started off as simply being the way they live, is what they end up having to sell out a bit to tourists... so we get to see a bit of their life and they get to make a living off of it. It was all too disingenuous for me. As one person aptly described it, it was kind of like being "in a zoo, but with humans". I was more than happy to move on...

Bring on the elephants, baby! We went on about a 45-minute ride through the hills and trees. Other than the excitement that came when the guides were trying to kill a snake that was slithering in front of one of the elephants, it's a pretty low-key, slooow experience. But cool. Not every day I get to ride an elephant, after all. Kind of awesome to be sitting up there and have it lift its trunk up to you, waiting for a banana. And it will wait, seemingly indefinitely, until you give it one. Or five.

Lunch for fortification and then off to hiking. We walked about an hour into the woods before coming to a waterfall where we could mercifully jump in and cool off. The force of it provides a "Thai massage" of sorts, provided anyone could stand under the immense force of it for more than 5 seconds, that is.

An hour hiking back out and then... river rafting. We assumed it would be pretty tame, since they know it was a bunch of rookie tourists doing the rafting, but we hit some serious white water. At one point, I was OUT of the raft and had a real moment of "Huh. I am going to fall out of this raft" before barely pulling myself back in by the rope. Sarah had an equally thrilling moment a couple of minutes later. Good stuff.

Once we made it back to the hostel, we felt we clearly needed a massage. Obviously, after such a grueling day, we had earned it. Very coolly, we had also met back up with Jenny, the British girl we had roomed with back in Bangkok, so the four of us (our group keeps growing... !) went for ridiculously cheap massages and then to dinner.

Back at the hostel, we met up with some of our fun peeps from last night as well as some new ones. We hung out here for a long while before heading out in one big, massive herd to scope out some other local joints. I guess sometimes being part of a herd isn't that bad after all.

Utterly Delightful

This is how decisions are made on vacation: the three of us (we are now officially three, as we have adopted Dani) got to breakfast having no idea what we were going to do today. Someone (me) said "I heard riding motorbikes through the mountains is a great way to see Chiang Mai." and everyone else said "Cool, let's do that today." We asked the guy at the hostel, he made a phone call and within 10 minutes we were driving down the street on scooters. And that was it.

The funny thing is that there is no questionnaire, there is no "have you ever driven a scooter before?", no legal forms or talk of insurance or liability and no one asks if you know how to drive on the left side of the road. And there certainly is no talk about if you have a driver's license or not (Dani doesn't, by the way). If you have the Baht, they give you the bike. And speaking of Baht, it cost us less than $7USD to rent the bikes for 24 hours. And that is apparently double what they cost in some other places.

So we set off with a destination in mind but without a map, zipping into traffic, zig-zagging through the streets trying to find our way out of the city. At the point where we got on the highway, it occurred to me just how monumentally stupid it really is that they do just hand over motorized vehicles to foreigners who have no idea what they're doing or where they're going.... but I wasn't going to complain.

Fortunately, the place we were looking for is pretty well marked so we were able to follow signs pretty easily for it. We got out of the city and hit the mountains and immediately the tranquility of it all started to hit us. There was green everywhere and the actual smell of fresh air. The roads up the mountain road are winding and lovely and it was so relaxing to ride through them with the fresh air on your face.

We made a few stops along the way at spots where the view was particularly nice, but we finally made it to our destination: Wat Doi Suthep, a temple situated on top of a mountain. It was a bit of a climb to get there but the view was totally worth it. I have to admit I'm getting to the point of "you've seen one temple, you've seen them all" but it was definitely worth the trip.

After that, we decided the rest of the day was going to be a 'go where the road takes you' kind of day. And we did. We would get to an intersection and look at each other and ask "right or left?", someone would randomly pick one and that is the way we went. We wound up and up the mountain, deeper and deeper in. Just being in the midst of the mountains, having the freedom of our own transportation and not being bound to anyone else's schedule and being able to go wherever we wanted, being surrounded by green, hearing birds chirp and smelling nature was enough for us. But, as a bonus, we also came upon the summer palace of the king and queen (which we poked around) as well as a small village of native Hmong people. So cool. And then, forced to start making our way back out by the approaching darkness (considering we were on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere with no streetlights, it seemed prudent), we just happened to notice a tiny little hut set into the side of the mountain. We got out just too look at it and then realized it was a coffee farm. Where they actually grow and package the coffee. Right there. We couldn't NOT buy it in such a setting... can you say "Christmas present"?

We came back to the hostel fully intending to just have dinner and then head back out to the night market (the scooters were paid for and so much fun, it seemed like shame to just let them sit) but we ended up talking to some other people here and found the hours slipping by. By the end of the night, we were about ten at a big table, talking, laughing, trading travel stories. Even better than the market.

It was an awesome day. Nothing spectacularly exciting, nothing spectacularly historic or monumental or educational. But full of the freedom of travel, the fun of meeting new people, the experience of doing something new, the knowledge that at this very moment in time I am exactly where I want to be and I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing. It doesn't get much better than that.

Northward Bound...

The past two days have been busy and chill, all at the same time. We did a lot, and yet did almost nothing.

We made arrangements to have lunch yesterday with Woody and Tippy again since it was our last day in Bangkok. We met up at the Jim Thompson House, which has a lovely little restaurant next to a fish pond. Ironically enough, one of the most popular tourist sites in Bangkok is a house owned by an American. He came here after the war, fell in love with Thailand and its people and decided to make Thailand his home; he pretty much revitalized and silk industry in Thailand and became a national hero of sorts. He disappeared without a trace in the 60s and the theories of his disappearance still abound. He was also an architect so had built/designed a very traditional style house here that really is a stunning example of Thai architecture. Of course we took the tour after lunch.

We piddled away the afternoon until we caught our train at 7:30. It was a, ready?, 14-hour train ride (which turned into 15 1/2) to get to Chiang Mai, the town in northern Thailand where we are now. We figured we would take the night train as, if you have to waste 15 hours on a train, you might as well do it over sleeping hours. At bedtime, a guy comes around and puts down your bed and makes it up with sheets, a blanket, a pillow and everything. After our train experiences in India, it was a total luxury in comparison! We were actually able to sleep somewhat decently, aside from the fact that it was fre-fre-fre-freeeezing cold. Like, bone-chattering cold. Also, a travel tip for anyone considering a future trip to Thailand: never, ever walk on a railroad track here. Turns out that the train bathrooms are of an "open-air" style, meaning that there is no flush system in place... and that you get a free air dry in the process, if you catch my drift. Interesting.

We found our hostel easily and got settled in. The place we're staying has a very low-key, cool, backpacker-y kind of vibe to it. You walk into an open-air lounge area and everyone hangs out here, talking, swapping travel tips, eating and drinking, reading... We hung out for a bit, figuring out what to do while here and started talking to Dani, a British girl who is passing through. We decided to take a walk around to check the town out but the moment I got back to my room to get my stuff, I decided I HAD to crash, I just couldn't keep my eyes open. So Sarah and Dani went and I stayed behind and read and napped in the cool, fresh, non-humid air on the patio... delightful.

Tonight Sarah wasn't feeling well so Dani and I went out to the night market... huuuge, and SO cheap, and so many cool things. I have a feeling an awful lot of Christmas presents will be coming from that market....

We're Hooked

It's official. We love Thailand so much, we're staying longer. It was actually decided by 6 pm on our very first day here. We were at the market and I said "I want to stay here longer." and Sarah said "Me too.", and that was pretty much it. Fortunately, our RTW tickets allow for free date changes so it really is that simple. We called tonight and made the official changes...yay!
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In addition to allowing us extra days to explore some more places while we're here, it also gives us even more of a sense of calmness so that we don't have to rush around trying to cram things in, but can take it easy and relax a bit more along the way, just soaking up the Thai vibe (and, let's be honest, working in a few more massages).

We started off the day at, you'll never guess, a snake farm (you didn't see that one coming, did you?). And we got to see a snake being milked. Huh. Admittedly, this one would not have been on my list of things to do, but Sarah is into such things and we can't all be enthusiastic about all the same things all the time, right? And life (and traveling) is all about compromise so... to the snake farm we went. They actually started the place to create anti-venom... hence the snake milking. When I get home and am looking for work, please remind to NOT accept a job as a snake milker. Thank you in advance.

And then, the Grand Palace, a huge compound of buildings that include temples, mausoleums and, of course, the royal palace. It hasn't actually been used as a residence for the king and queen in about 75 years or so but it's still used for all sorts of official royal functions.

Within one of the temples in the complex, there is the Emerald Buddha which, oddly, is made of jade. It dates back to the 1400s and is one of the most revered Buddhas in all of Thailand; people make pilgrimages from all over to come pray to it. It is clothed in solid gold robes, which are changed three times a year (according to the seasons: summer, rainy, winter) by the king himself. The funny thing is that it is encased in a rather large, very elaborate temple (the 2nd pic) and the whole place is empty except for the altar on which the Buddha sits... all 28" of him. A tad bit of overkill, perhaps.

We had some yummy Thai food for lunch/dinner and then came back to the hotel to chill for a bit, read, nap, whatever (this is the relaxing part I mentioned earlier). Around 9 we headed back out to Patpong Night Market with a sweet British girl staying at our hotel. Turns out it is set alongside the Red Light District of Bangkok, which was interesting. I learned a few things along the way... and we got to try drinks with jelly in them so, all in all, a productive evening. At least by vacation standards.

Thai Massage in Thailand. Worth the trip!

Day Three and I still heart Thailand. Sarah and I have talked about it and I do realize that some of our immediate "We LOVE this place!" feeling about it is probably due to the extremes of having come here straight from India. To go from chaos to order, filth to cleanliness, tension to relative calm in such a short time is bound to bring on an extreme reaction. I mean, it's just so EASY (read: relaxing) to travel here as opposed to India. But that isn't the only reason I love it. I really, truly do love its vibe, its people, its food, its charms. And, as of this evening, I really, really love its massage.

As about 95% of the population is Buddhist, you can't come to Thailand without visiting some of its temples. We didn't try to resist. We started off at Wat Pho Temple, the one that holds the dual distinctions of containing both the largest number of Buddhas in Thailand as well as housing the largest reclining Buddha in the world. It's actually a complex of numerous temples spanning about 20 acres and we spent a couple hours meandering in and out of most of them. Lots of gold, lots of glitter, lots of tile, lots of incredibly ornate (almost overwhelmingly so) buildings. The most famous of all of its offerings, though, is the enormous (over 150 feet long) reclining Buddha, which represents Buddha passing into Nirvana.

We took a ferry to the other side of the river and checked out Wat Arun Temple, which is much less blingy, but is impressive in other ways. It has a huge center pagoda that you can climb, if you dare to tackle the super steep steps. We did and it was totally worth it as it provided very cool views of the city below and across the river.

The little place where you catch the ferry is an oddly constructed little string of wooden shops and restaurants which are built right over the water. But for whatever reason, they were built at a level where, at certain times of the day depending on the river levels, the floors are all submerged in up to a foot or more of water. You walk on a central plank walkway and look at the shops on either side. Some of them have built floors high enough to be above the water but others haven't, and the shopkeepers just sit there in the ebbing and flowing water all day. If you wan't to look at something, you point it out and they go get it and bring it to you. When we were coming back, the water was down a bit so I waded into one of the shops myself. Odd, but cool.

And then, as the clincher to an already lovely day, we went for.... you guessed it.... Thai massages! To come to Thailand and not get a Thai massage would almost be criminal. Again, we didn't even try to resist. Turns out that Thai massage is not your mother's massage. I'm used to western massages, soft and gentle and relaxing. Not the case here. There were actual moments of wincing involved in this massage. There were also moments of bending and pulling, pushing and twisting, kneading, pinching, prodding, digging, rubbing, cracking, stretching and grinding. And yet, at the end of it all, I felt like a new person, like every single muscle in my body had been worked. Perhaps even a few of the ones I didn't want worked. We're totally doing it again!

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P.S. Check out the flavor of the Pringles on the right. If anyone is daring enough to try them, I'll carry them home for you... but you would HAVE to promise to eat them.