Blogs from North-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 19

It is Thursday morning and we are leaving during a northeast snow storm. I just left Erie, PA where we experienced 121 inches of snow during the month of December. I was hoping not to see snow for some time; however, it seemed to have followed us. Greg and I decided to stay in a hotel near Dulles so that we did not have to stress over the rush hour traffic and inclement weather. We quickly discovered that we had made a wise decision. OK, Greg had made the wise decision. I will give credit where credit is due. All 13 students arrived on time, in fact, many were early. A group of students had decided to stay overnight at a local hotel so they just had to take a shuttle to the airport. The other ... read more

I'm currently journaling on the plane to Thailand. Only three hours and 15 minutes to go! It feels like 7:23am in America. Yay for 24+hrs of traveling. Also i'm currently jamming out to some Justin Bieber while i'm writing this. It was on the airplanes music list, so why not bring back some old jams. I wish I could see outside the window, but its dark because it's 7:23pm in Thailand. I'm exhausted but proud of myself for doing this. The first flight was okay. I got nervous some times but always found a way to calm myself down. Also, melatonin didn't make me too sleepy, but 2 Benadryl worked eventually. This place ride we're supposed to stay awake as much as we can so we can sleep once we get to Thailand. Man it's rough ... read more

Getting to Mai Sai from Chiang Mai was easy. The green coloured buses run fairly frequently from Chiang Rai's central bus station, and from Mai Sai's not-so-central bus station it's a quick (depending on traffic!) ride up to the Myanmar border. We decided to stay in this dusty frontier town for two nights at url=https://www.booking.com/hotel/th/kongkam-house.en-gb.html?aid=304142;label=gen173nr-1FCAEoggJCAlhYSDNYBGiVAYgBAZgBLsIBCndpbmRvd3MgMTDIAQzYAQHoAQH4AQuSAgF5qAID;sid=2cb51fc303f0cbb837d657c7addf5378Kongkam House.The big problem was finding it! The location given on various map apps was incorrect. We had in fact walked past it but on some maps it is listed as Royal House and there is no sign other than the one in Thai script outside. That is how we managed to walk straight past! We then had to wait half an hour for someone to arrive to check us in as the cleaner wasn't able t... read more

So today was the day I went to return to Chiang Mai by scooter. To make sure everything went smoothly, I woke up early and was on my scooter at 9:30 or so. I felt I was getting quite adapt at scootering, so I was looking forward to the trip. The idea was, that if I arrived as quickly as it seemed I was going, I'd have time to see Doi Suthep, the temple on the mountain, I wanted to mountainbike to, but didn't, on the last day in Chiang Mai. On my way there, I ran into Alice, on her own scooter. I was going just a bit faster, but couldn't pass on the busy road, at that time, so I stayed a bit behind. Wasn't even sure it was her, until I signaled to ... read more

Today, I got up relatively early and got to the starting place of Pai Canyon. Brian, one of the guys that has been here for a while, knew the name and location. So by 10:00 I was ready to go, at the start of the trip. People describe it as a 3.5h jungle trek, with a waterfall at the end. At the start, I met up with Anne-Katerina, who I met in a previous hostel in Chiang Mai, and Mona. I passed them on the scooter (I'm getting really proficient) a bit earlier and they just arrived at the small parking lot, when I was ready to leave. The nice trip took us about 3h to the waterfall and only 5 minutes before reaching the end, we were passed by a girl that ran the whole ... read more