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Published: April 8th 2006
Ah Chang Mai
They really didn't scam like Bangkok.Today is the day when we leave Bangkok for the beauty of Thailand's Islands. First stop is Phuket, which should be pretty nice. There we're going to get certified to scuba dive and do a couple of day trips to some nearby islands. After that we head northeast to Ko Tao and Ko Pha Ngan. Should be pretty nice.
We spent the last 4 days in Chiang Mai, which was awesome and definitely a place we'll head back to in the future. It's a smaller town of a couple hundred thousand and it's got a lot of charm. We stayed in a really nice guesthouse called Ben's for a grand total of $5 a night. It was great and they even helped us out with a trek. We wanted to do a multi-day deal but we didn't have time so instead we opted for the one day pack in as much as you can touristy route.
We saw 2 villages of the mountain tribes, though I must say that they are geared for tourists, we then went swimming at a waterfall, at which point I decided to fall off a log while climbing up to jump off the cliff.
Thai Boxing
These are some photos of our Thai boxing experience! It sounds worse than it was and I've got some pretty cool battle wounds as a result. After a quick recovery, I continued on and jumped off the cliff (this is Chance by the way). We spent about 30 minutes in the waterfall before heading to the 2nd village and afterward to a little restaurant for lunch. After lunch was elephant riding. I'm sure some of us remember riding an elephant as children at the circus or zoo right? Well this wasn't quite as nice and pretty. The elephants blew snot back onto you the whole time and they had to stop and eat every 5 minutes or so. It was still really cool but I can see why people prefer doing the elephant ride before the waterfall on these little trips. Being covered in elephant snot is a weird experience. After that we did some "EXTREME" bamboo rafting. It mostly consisted of our guide splashing water on Teresa and the guy riding with us while I stood in the back and guided the raft. I didn't really know what I was doing so it was good that we are in nothing more than a fast moving creek. Overall it
was an awesome day and as soon as we can we'll post the pics.
The other highlights of the trip to Chiang Mai were the Muay Thai boxing and the renting of a scooter. The boxing was a lot cheaper than what we found in Bangkok and probably a lot less intense, but fun either way. We ended up at a big bar with a ring in the middle. The matches started with little guys, probably no more than 16 years old, and worked up to the heavyweights. The common denominator in all of it was that they beat the hell out of each other and everyone had a great time. We got some great videos so we'll have those when we get back to the states for everyone to view.
The scooter was a riot. I haven't ridden a motorized 2 wheel vehicle in quite some time and people also drive on the left side of the road in Thailand. We figured it out and never found ourselves in any serious danger but the first 20 minutes or so were pretty funny as we tried to figure out what we were doing. Teresa even had a go
Connect 4
We played some Connect 4 while we waited for each match. of driving, though she did it in the alley and not on the mean streets of Chiang Mai. Overall it was a lot of fun and we were sad to have to turn in the scooter. We took it to dinner, the night bazaar (huge market where I purchased a lovely pair of shorts for about 6 bucks after some intense bargaining), and a cruise around the town of Chiang Mai.
Other than that we just chilled and relaxed, which is what we're trying to do more of overall. We were wearing ourselves out so it's been nice to take things at a more leisurely pace.
I want to organize a trip back here in the next year or 2 with as many of you fools as possible so start saving money. Thailand is beautiful and very welcoming. Anyway, just wanted to give a quick update. We'll be in touch again soon, hopefully with some pics.
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lil bro
non-member comment
south
so your headin down to fuckit, sounds like somewhere i would to go!