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Published: February 9th 2010
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Monkey see, monkey doodoo
Truly nasty little creatures. Think giant rats, but smarter, faster and meaner. We've been busy since the last post and with each passing day, we fall more and more in love with Thailand! After a good nights sleep, we hopped on a very crowded and very hot train to Lopburi to visit the infamous monkey Temples...we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. When we arrived, we wandered around a bit with our new friend Pedro from Madrid, grabbed a bite and a beer and started making our way towards the temples. As we got closer, monkeys could be seen everywhere; hanging from telephone wires, sitting on pay phones, stealing fruit out of the hands of unsuspecting children and they even managed to swipe the last sip of my dragon fruit/banana shake by latching onto the bottom of my skirt. Now we know exactly where the expression "cheeky monkey" comes from. After watching and being slightly terrified of thousands of monkeys large and small running amuk, we shuffled around a bit more as we waited for a night train to arrive to take us North to Chiang Mai, Darjeeling Limited style. Note to self: one only needs a few hours in Lopburi! We had way to much time there, not to
Chiang Mai Wat
Beautiful wats and temples all over Chiang Mai. Our favorite Thai city so far. mention our train was an hour and a half late to arrive to the station, but thanks to a bottle of Hong Thong whiskey, K's new found obsession with the game Sudoku and a gecko the size of my forearm, we managed to keep ourselves busy. Feeling chipper and sleepy we hopped on the train (the last 2 to board!) and tried to make ourselves as comfortable as possible on the old, squeaky and loud night train...a 10 hr trip from the middle of Thailand to the north. Tucked in our little bunks we fell asleep (with some help) until about 5 am when I awoke cold and unable to fall back to sleep. K definitely had the better of the bunks (the bottom, warmer, quieter, darker, and less rickety) and I somehow managed to get a few extra hours when I crawled into his bunk, that barely fit him alone. Thank you my darling!
When we finally crept out of our bunk, we ate a little and enjoyed some coffee (and more Sudoku) and eagerly awaited our arrival to Chiang Mai. Pulling into the station, it became very clear that Chiang Mai was nothing like the other cities
Dinner is served
Night one of our mountain trek, amazing evening dinner! we have seen here in Thailand. The city is just beautiful. The streets are clean and well kept, the temples are all beautifully restored, the people are super friendly (and very small!) and the food is the best we've had so far! We checked into our hotel and headed out to explore and get to know Chiang Mai by foot and through our bellies. After snacking on some delicious Northern Thai favorites, noodle soups and a vast array of vegetarian dishes (they have a ton of options here which made me very very happy!) we headed back to our hotel to have a meeting with our guides for a trek the following day.
We, of course, overslept and hustled to get our bags packed and check out for the night. Our guide looked like the dread-locked Thai brother of Bob Marley, a funny guy by the name of "Bird". Our first stop was a waterfall where me and K got to fit in a shower albeit very cold, which we had missed that morning. We hiked, mainly uphill for the rest of the afternoon through rice patties, past large water buffalo, (who looked unimpressed) and one very terrifying spider
Tommy!
Tommy is the best guide ever. He is not Thai, he is a hill tribesmen. A true jungle man! with legs for days (insert chills here!) and we began to chat up and get to know our guides, Birdy and Tommy. After hours of sweating and a tour of the hillside, we finally made it to a little camp, owned by a family of a hilltop tribe where we jumped in the river to wash off the days grime and relax by the fire before dinner (and play with one very cute pup). Dinner, of course, was delicious, a pumpkin dish with rice and pork green curry. And beer? Like our guide throughout the trip, Birdy, said after almost everything, "why not?" We drank around the fire, listened to Birdy Marley play his renditions of our favorite songs (homeboy has good taste in music!) and as it got rapidly colder we knew that this night of sleep in our bamboo hut could get interesting...
After probably one of the coldest (and longest) nights of sleep we woke up and quickly started a fire and I tried to shake the sinus headache from the slight cold I had been trying to shake for the last 3 days. We ate a simple breakfast and then K and I and another
Bird's Leather Shop
Hungout with Bird and friends at his leathershop before drinking too much whiskey and danccing the night away at a Thail nightclub. new friend from South Africa packed up our bags, and began our trek back, leaving the rest of the group to journey one more day (one night was plenty for us, hotel pool and bed here we come!) with Tommy, who I've nicknamed "Puck," where we laughed and got to know our little guide before making it back to our lunch post. After lunch, we had one more stop before we hopped back onto the truck for Chiang Mai...bamboo rafting! We didn't know what to expect, but K, myself and our South African friend Jen threw on our suits and hopped on our raft which looked like a really long surfboard. Our guide, who couldn't have been more then 12 years old, guided us down the river and me and K stood on the back attempting to "surf" the river turbulence when we could. We found our team began to passing other rafts, so of course, K and I being the competitive couple that we are, tried to splash and help our young guide pass as many as we possibly could, getting drenched and laughing the whole way through. It was a blast! We dried off and headed back to Chiang Mai, checked back in and spent the night walking around the city which was celebrating the final day of the Flower Festival. We listened to live music, checked out a really cool upstairs lounge called THC (and it was nice to hear some good Dubstep music) and watched all the Thai ladies try and pick up the single men wandering the streets before we fell asleep in a very warm and comfortable bed.
So that brings us up to date...we've found the best place just up the street for delicious coffee, and the best breakfast; 2 eggs over easy with thai sausage and some other ingredients me and K believe is magic all in a mini baguette. Delicious! Now it's time to hang by the pool until we meet up with our new friends Birdy and Tommy at Birdy's leather shop to learn how to cook some thai food, drink some beers and hopefully get to know Chiang Mai a little better through the eyes of some very awesome locals...WHY NOT? C out!
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trenton
non-member comment
wow
this sounds amazing, all the right places. all the right stories. sounds soo funn. see you guys in 14 days. open up a coldie for me. hahah. love you guys. I cannot wait for Bali.