Kris the Bartering King

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Well, after a good rest and some planning we were ready to have some real excitement in Chaing Mai. We got up early and went out to the crazy streets to find a ride to up to the jungle mountain temple Doi Sutep. We found a red truck which had a covered back and two benches going down the side of the back and were albe to rent it and a drive for the morning for a little under $4, what a deal. Oh yeah we did have to share the back with a few bags of garlic and other vegetables, but still $4 for all morning, I am pretty sure we are some of the best barters in the world or at least after our experiences in Bangkok we have become some of the best barters in the world.

So, the road up to the Doi Sutep temple wasn't too long probably just a little over a half hour or so. But the road was really winding and steep, the driver of the truck told us to make sure and look out the sides and forward the whole time so we didn't puke all over the back of his truck.

Anyways, we made it up to the temple and none of us puked or were even a little bit sick, amazingly enough. The temple was beautiful, one the best we had seen, and definately in the prettiest location, jungleyish mountains.

On the hundreds of long steps up to the Doi Sutep temple Kris meet a lady and monk who he became friends with. Also there were lots of little children dressed in traditional Homg tribal out fits begging on the stairs, I think one of the little girls that was begging was an albino. So, sad to see all the poverty, it is hard because you want to help a lot, but at most you can only help one or two people for a couple days.

Anyways after Doi Sutep we made our way back to the cafe we ate at the day before for lunch and again we got rice noodle soup and afew other dishes and made meduim pigs of ourselves.

Later that evening we went to the night market there at Chiang Mai where we found a lot of good deals. Well, Kris was the hero of the day and Clayton help a lot too, Ben not knowing any Thai got pretty good at nodding his head and trying to look smart.

So, Kris and Ben wanted to get some Thai fisherman pants, they are one size fits all pants. Kris had met a girl the night before that he wanted to buy the pants from. So, Kris made a beeline for her shop passing the thousands of other venders calling at us to look at their goods. Once there Kris and Clayton got Ben to try on the fisherman pants right there in the store over the pants he was wearing. The people there thought that was pretty funny. We decided that we needed three pairs of pants one for each of us, and they were all the same size because one size fits all. Anyways Kris decided that if he got the girl to fall in love with him she might give us a better price. Getting her to fall in love with him was an easy task for Kris a little of Kris's quick wits and few cunning jokes and she was soon all over Kris and the price of the pants had dropped considerablely. After we paid for the pants the girl had a hard time letting go of Kris. Well this story of Kris's barting was just a small sample of the his great bartering technique. With Kris bartering up a storm he and Clayton were able to get some really good deals. Ben on the other had being an accountant and somewhat frugle had a hard time being parted from his money and only bought the fisherman pants.

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