Dude looks like a lady

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Well It seems like forever since I updated my blog. And I will do my best to re-cap the last few days. Okay...I think we left Chiang Mai Sunday... So after a Long, stickey-hot bus ride we arrived in Chiang Rai, which to us at first just seemed like a smaller Chiang Mai. There weren't any tourist information windows at the bus station and no hotel brochures for us to decide from so we flipped through my trusty travel guide book. once we had carefulley selected one of the 3 places that were listed in my guide book, we decided we should flag a tuk-tuk to take us there. before i could even lift my finger to point in the direction of one, he spotted me from far across the parking lot with his eagle eye. damn, maybe they can just smell tourists blood.... anyway we show him the hotel we wish to go to and he, of course, takes us to his friends guest house instead. not surprised we get out anyway and book a room. for only 400 baht (about 11-12 bucks) we get a clean room with two beds, AC, a fan, TV and shower. They had me at 400 baht.....

After we settled in we walked down the the Night Bazzar. yes, just what we didn't need to find, more shopping. We are getting really good at bargaining though. So i ended up buying some crap, a little bit of junk and a few more useless things. Once we were spent we checked out the nightly entertainment there. While Ryan was getting us a couple of Singha beers I watched the lady performing on stage. While watching i noticed she had very large knees....i thought this strange since Thai women are very pettite. the longer i watched the more i came to realize that....well..that chick was a dude. Ive heard about these 'Ladyboys" they have in Thailand, and from what i have hear many of them are very attractive...so much that it is sometimes very difficult to tell that they are in fact dudes. so look out for that.

The next day we took a half day boat ride up the Me Kok river with a guide. our guide was really great. He was a tiny, very cute old man named Homee and he laughed just like Whinne the Pooh. Ryan told him that there are a lot of cowboys in montana and he laughed so hard....we still don't know why. He took us to a cave that had been turned into a temple. There are monks that live inside. He showed us around inside and there were tons of bats above us. It was neat to see inside but i wanted out in a hurry because it smelled like guano and little bugs were eating chunks of my leg off. I have so many bites....

The place we visited up river was an elephant camp. this one was much better than the last one we visited. We fed the elephants some bananas and took a ride down the river. The elephant we rode liked sucking up water with his trunk and spraying us with it. it was pretty sweet.

The following day we did another tour. Ryan and I felt like celebrities because we had our own pivate tour. I guess since the political protests there have been many cancellations and tour bookings are down about 40%, so we were the only people. We haven't seen as many travelers as i figured we would. This time we went up to the Golden Triangle, which is where the countries of Loas, Burma, and Thailand meet and are only separated by two rivers (forming a triangle). This is where many people used to grow and trade Opium (and still do...only not as much and more quietly) We went in the Opium Museum, which was interesting. Lots of Opium pipes of all different shapes, sizes, and some were very very old. We also visited Mae Sai, which is the northernmost point in Thailand. We stood by the river, which is the Burmese border. All you have to do is cross the bridge and you are in Burma. After this we took a boat ride on the Me Kong River and crossed it over to Loas.

Today we slept in, we have been so tired! I think its the heat. But we did visit a white temple called Wat Rong Khun and it was the most beautiful one we have seen in Thailand.

I think that pretty much sums up the last few days. There is a pizza hut here which makes us feel at home. (We have eaten there 3 times in two days) We really like Chiang Rai. But every time we tell some we are from America they ask us if we are from New York. One guy asked us if we lived in Helena and we were so impressed. I don't know how he knows about Helena.

We were suposed to be heading south for the islands tomorrow, but i am not ready to leave nothern Thailand so we are staying until saturday now. I'll have to post pictures tomorrow, this computer doesn't have a memory car slot. Miss you all.

over out out
-Tara

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