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Published: April 2nd 2006
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from the Train
took night train to CM and woke up to this beautiful countryside! Hey everyone, I am now relaxing in beautiful Chiang Mai... sleeping in late, taking long walks and just doing NOTHING TOURISTY! I am quite tourist-ed out after Cambodia and I have decided to make home in my little guesthouse called Daret's GH. The clothes line is up, backpack is empty, books sprawled on bed... I've never claimed my territory this bad before!!! I think i'm getting a little homesick in the sense that I need a place to call home! But no worries..I'm doing a fantastic job of doing just that in this norther oasis!
The first day here, Thursday, I just scouted the town and booked a cooking class at Baan Thai for Friday and chatted with a girl here that was raving about this yoga instructor. In desprate need to get some exercise, I was practicing my sun salutaions by 5pm that night!! Yogasala (for those bloggers traveling there-- http://www.cmyogasala.com) is great and the instructor is unbeliveable.. the class is TWO hours long and the last half hour he does a reading and then we do some mediation afterward!! He even serves up green tea afterwards if people in the class want to stay and chat! All this
Daret's guesthouse
before I marked my territory! for 250b a class, or $6usd!! I felt so refreshed afterwards that I ended up signing up for 5 more classes!! That night I was not really hungry and there happens to be a Starbucks down the road from my guesthouse.. Coffee is pretty big here in Chiang Mai, with plenty of coffee shops around town, so i felt a tinge of guilt as I ordered a Cinnomin struesel Latte from an such a western icon!! I didn't even look at the price because the pictures of the drink just looked delicious so when she asked for the 120b, my mouth hit the floor!! That's as much as my accomidation costs here!! Explains why starbucks was so deserted when you can walk nextdoor and get homegrown esspresso for 40b! The rest of the night I settled down into a internet cafe and plunged away at the keyboard for 5 hours to get my entries in for Bangkok and Cambodia!! Internet isn't that fast here so uploading a disk of pictures basically took 4 hours!! But it was all good because I milked that latte for about 4 hours, it was that delicous! ;-)
Friday I got up and went for a jog around the town because I knew I was going to be too sore to go to yoga..the pain began earlier that night w/ some crazy charlie horses...terrible!!! The cooking class was heaps of fun!! We went to a market and our instructor showed us the various herbs and vegtables that are key to Thai entrees.. They use 3 different kinds of basil, all w/ an distint smell..smells that i've been sniffing at as i've been dining in this country!! It's just amazing to learn the different species of basil..to most of you this sounds boring, but to those of you who know how obsessed w/ food and cooking I am, this just brought tears to my eyes and a smile to my face!! I was in awe! hehehe.. So what did we make?? Or that is, what am i gonna make for you guys when i come home???! We made Fried Cashew Nut w/ Chicken, Chicken in Coconut Milk, Red Curry Paste, Red Curry Chicken, Spicy Glass noodle Salad and Fried Fish Cakes. The best part--we had to eat all this delicous food that we cooked up!! So from 9:30 to 4:30 all we did was chop, cook, eat, chat, chop, cook, eat, chat... it was a very relaxed atmosphere and so while we ate we all got to know eachother.. Of the seven of us, there was a couple from brooklyn, a mother and daughter from England, a woman my age from Switerland and another danish woman. Topics of convo were pretty political and the comicstrip that came from the dutch woman's country that upset a lot of muslims was a big topic of conversation. Everyone was asking this poor lady questions about it!! When I got out of there I went straight to the internet cafe.. it stinks to have to isolate myself from expierencing this delightful town, but I was determined to get these pictures up so that I didn't have to worry about loosing any of these cd's i'm carring around!
Saturday I was able to finish my blogs up and walked around town.. discovered this great art gallery and bought some more souvineers!! The artist's style was using acrylic paints sketching a scene that leaves the viewer eye and mind to "fill in the blanks" and he would add some quote somewhere on the canvas.. some of the quotes I read were: "Live your dream, don't dream your life," and "Don't stare up the steps, Step up the Stairs." There were a few others but i don't want to ruin the surprise gifts!! Amanda--you'll also be happy to know i bought a calico bag from this shop so i can now tell the sales clerks when i go shopping, "No plasic for me, thank you, I intend to save the world with my handy calico bag!!" My nose then led me to an Herbal Basic's store (like the Body Shop) and I ened up buying a facial scrub, loofah soaps, and an essential oil that you dab on your temples to help you relax.. Not really on the budget, but the place was resonable and I only spent 120b.. as much as that damn Starbucks!
Oh, so now it's Sunday, election day over here... I've been reading the paper daily to see what's going on and I've even cut out the front pages of the papers, for the pictures of the riots and protests that are going on in streets I actually walked down in Bangkok is just crazy!!! I'm very curious to see what will happen the next few days, post election! All the bars closed Saturday and all day today.. not allowed to serve alcohol till Monday b/c of this election!! Funny law.. I guess they think that hungover or drunk ppl can't make a rational voting decision??!! Today there are lots of differnt street markets and I'm going prepared w/ my new calico bag! =) There's also events celebrating the begining of the Songkran Festival (I think it's Thailand independce day, but the tradition is to pull out the waterguns and spray every innocent bystander with their supersoakers!) so I will be attending one of these tonight!! Don't think i'm gonna be bringing the camera! Monday I'm going to watch some Criket...every April kicks off the Cricket Sixes in Chiang Mai--i'm excited to hear my first crack of leather on willow sticks!! On Tuesday-Wednesday I will be participating in an overnight mediation retreat at Wat Suan Dok. very excited for this and I also heard they have an inspirational forest where each tree is marked with an inspirational quote. Here's the website if you're curious of what i'll be up to:
http://www.monkchat.net/meditationretreat.php
I'm leaving at 4am in the morning for India on the 10th--very much looking forward to the maddness of Delhi but for now drinking in the laidback atmosphere of Chiang Mai till I leave... my only plans after the retreat are to relax, get a thai massage or two and practice some yoga!
Hope you are all doing well!! Love the emails i'm getting from everyone!! Thanks for thinking of me! xoxoxoxo
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Amanda Moo
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You go girl
So glad to hear that you are doing your bit for this world. i am proud of you and cant wait to go shopping with you and see you strut your greenie stuff. just remember me in Penang when i refused to buy the product as he was going to give me a bag. changing the world one tourist at a time.... love ya. moo xxx