Blogs from North-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 473

After partying hard over the festive period I packed my life back into my wee purple bag and made the epic 26 hr journey from Ko Phan Ngan to Chang Mai via a tuk tuk, a boat, a bus, a plane and finally a taxi. Phew. So anyway, Claire, Marianne and I arrived Chiang Mai on the 5th January and instantly fell in love with the place. The air is clear and the city surronded by mountains. The traffic is, naturally, a lot calmer than Bangkok and the people are welcoming and smiley happy. On our first day Claire and I hired bikes and cycled around the city and out to the University of Chiang Mai grounds, later that evening all 3 of us signed up for an excellent Thai cookery course where our teacher Nooky ... read more

Sawatee kaa once again.. Life in Chiang Mai continues on. I have 12 minutes until my massage appointment with So, who is a blind masseur. It is a common thing here for blind people to do massage, and someone told me its because it allowed for people to feel less exposed since they couldn't be seen. Its also of course a wonderful career for a blind person. I got my first hour massage yesterday from a different blind masseuse, and it was wonderful. I felt great afterwards, though nervous through it because she really wailed on me. but I got up and floated away pain free for the first time in ages. She even adjusted me twice, which shocked me because its illegal in the states for an LMP to do that, and I had no ... read more

Finally... We arrived in Chiang Mai after a week of seeing anything and everything Bangkok has to offer. The 5am wake-up call to catch the flight has made some of us giddy with tiredness. However, we got set up in the beautiful and extremely peaceful setting of Crystal Springs Guest House where we will be staying for the better part of the next two weeks. The accommodations seem to be more than sufficient for our needs. We then proceeded to Payup University where we met with the President of the school. He was extremely appreciative of our willingness to help with the service-learning projects. For lunch, a dozen or so English majors from Payap showed us around campus, and helped us find lunch at their cafeteria. We also had an orientation that laid out the plans ... read more

After our third day in the Chiang Mai area, we decided to book a van to the town of Pai up in the mountains to the north. We figured it would be better to do some trekking there. Perhaps it was just a little bit, more remote than Chiang Mai and maybe we would have a more authentic trekking experience. The scenery on route was certainly spectacular, but the mountain passes were at times frightening. It was barely a highway; often the van driver played chicken with on-coming traffic on what was a very narrow, winding road. The drop offs to each side were sometimes thousands of feet. One could never really see what was coming around the bend. Along the way, the driver stopped at a local roadside cafe for a lunch break. Many dishes ... read more

We've taken a public bus back to Chaing Mai where we were reunited with the rest of our luggage. :-) Ah, clean clothes! We've got a few hours before we board the over night train to Bangkok so I thought I'd drop a quick note before heading off on my own into town. Its tiring being with people contantly - I need some alone time. (the sign of a true introvert! - see and you were all fooled!) I'm weary of traveling from place to place and having to carry everything I need for a couple days at a time with me. It will be nice to get home and know I get to sleep in the same place for more than 2 nights in a row. However, if I hadn't been so sick before I ... read more