Chiang Mai

We arrived in ChaingMai at (according to Ken (our guide) surprisingly early) 7:00 AM. Groggy from the train ride everyone opted to check into the hotel early so that we could get some rest.

The Hotel was an absolute hoot. Pictures are worth a 1000 words. Think Sean Connery -James Bond hotel room. Plastic enameled everything, console buttons built into the furniture.....4 decades old, but very clean and comfortable. Glad to be able to call this place home base for the next two days.

After our power nap, went off to see the old Temple, this structure has an incredibly storied past, with Pagan, South Indian and Siam origins. The structure is apparently only 700 years old, but not sure if that is credible as it looks at least twice the age.

We then visited the the ChiangMai hilltop mountain. This temple is the areas main monastery. We would have enjoyed the view of ChiangMai that was supposedly there if not for the thick smoke haze that blew in from a massive forest fire in Myanmar (Burma). Little did we know we would be choking on this smoke for the next three days.....

This area is known for its unbridled food pallet. We came across a vendor who was selling a variety of fried insects. This qualified as culture shock three chili spicy level.

I was brave enough to suck down a few maggots, but could not bring my self to indulge as valiantly as Grant (on the group members) in his ingestion of deadly scorpions and sickening giant cockroaches. I kid you not, as we pulled away from the insect stalls, I swear I saw a terminex truck pull up behind them..... god only knows...

Ken proceeded to take around the tourist trap circuit, not because he wanted to, but because he thought we wanted to. He wanted to take us to the;
-Silver Factory
-Lacquer factory
-Silk Factory
-Umbrella Factory
-Historical tribal museum

After the Silk factory the group staged a mutiny.
We soon clarified to him that GAP travelers (the company we tour with) typically have no desire to entertain automated factory tours and over priced souvenir shops... clearly the subcontracting company GAP worked with was used to catering to teachers on summer holidays and the geriatric vacationer.

I retired for the evening to catch up on some sleep, Aless and the others opted for dinner and the night bazaar, which is a mishmash of food stalls and entertainment. Aless was treated to traditional northern Thai dancing.

Tomorrow we set forth on our trip to the hill tribes of Northern Thailand.

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