Bangkok-Chiang Mai

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Ok, yes. I know I promised that I'd keep a relatively up-to-date travel blog but, of course, I've been lazy and this is my first entry (5 days after i've started my trip...opps)

Oh well, better late then never right?

We landed in Bangkok on the 23rd late and crashed at just crashed at our hostel, not before noting how HOT it was outside in the middle of the night first of course. I thought that I'd be able to deal pretty well with the heat here; I mean I'm not a fan of cold weather and it gets pretty hot in NYC during the summer right? Yea...I was wrong.

On the 24th Klaus and I, jet lagged as anything, decided to explore the city of Bangkok in the middle of the day....on foot. We should have known better when we explained to the receptionist at our hostel what we were planning on doing and she laughed at us and said that it was "not a good idea". We decided to go anyway. It was about 95 degrees and SUNNY. We saw Wat Po, (Temples in SE Asia are called "Wat"s) which was pretty neat. It was a huge (maybe 1/2 or 3/4 the length of a football field) Buddha lying down in a big temple complex. Unfortunately, however, the entire area was under construction. It brought back memories of our trip to the Forbidden City in Beijing where the first thing we saw when we walked in was a huge blue tarp covering the main building. Oh well.

After that we attempted to go to the King's palace but were told by a security guard that we didn't have the right shoes. We were supposed to wear closed-toe shoes in the 95 degree weather with a shirt with longish sleeves and long shorts/pants or a skirt...that wasn't going to happen. Instead we hired a Tuk Tuk, a small open-air vehicle with a loud engine (hence the name Tuk Tuk). I wouldn't recommend going in one of these unless you are ABSOLUTELY clear about where you want to go. Our driver kept on taking us to go "shopping". We went to a really sketchy gem shop in a back ally where a Chinese man attempted to sell us fake sapphires at inflated prices. After we both explained that we were poor students and I referred to his merchandise as fake in Chinese, which he most definitely understood, we left, at lunch and then passed out in our room from 4-7pm. That evening we went to the night market and the Siam shopping center which was AMAZING. I've never been to a mall like it before in my life. It was huge and every store was some kind of expensive label designer (gucci, prada, LV, escada, burberry etc etc). The wealth concentrated in this mall brought the income disparity in this country into sharp relief.

The next day we did a much better job planning for the weather. In the morning, we went to a local gym (which was VERY nice) and then went to see "Pirates of the Caribbean 3" in Siam mall. The movie theater was as beautiful as the mall itself and, while I wasn't thrilled with the movie, it was nice to spend the hottest hours of the day in comfortable reclining chairs instead of out in the sun. That afternoon we went to a park near Silom street. It was pretty uneventful until a HUGE lizard walked within 5 feet of us as it chased some pigeons. The thing had to be over 2ft long.

That night, we took an over-night train to a city in the north of Thailand called Chiang Mai. The train was decent except for the fact that they DIDNT TURN OFF THE BRIGHT FLOURECENT LIGHTS. I slept probably 3 hours straight that night and Klaus even less. We arrived in Chiang Mai tired, but determined to make the best of the day.

After checking into Seven Suns hostel (which is VERY nice by the way..esp for about 20 a night) we walked around the town and went to the Chiang Mai zoo. I've been to a lot of zoos in my lifetime but this one had to be the best. Firstly, unlike the Bronx zoo or DC zoo, the jungle didn't have to be replicated, it was all around us. Also unlike zoos in the states you can get much closer to the animals. This probably isn't the best for them, but it was fun to feed and pet the giraffes and be about 15ft away from giant pandas. The only exhibition that I found troubling were the crocodiles. The fences surrounding the biggest ones were only about 2 1/2 ft high. One Thai man was even helping his young daughter STAND on top of the fence of the enclosure housing the biggest croc. I couldn't watch. Afterwards, we headed back to the city and went to the food market and the night market.

Chiang Mai is a very pleasant place, the temp is cooler than Bangkok and the people are nicer. I highly recommend it.

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