Welcome Chang Mai

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So the last I lefted off was at Koh San Road this morning.  Had some breakfast and then waited around to pick up the tickets to Chang Mai at this travel agent somewhere in Bangkok.  That is an understatement - "somewhere", because literally we had no idea where it was.  We asked a bunch of cabbies and they had no idea where it was even though we had the address.  We finally attempted to get there anyways, which probably wasn't smart because it toke us 1.5 hours to find this place and our flight was at 1PM.
I was still pretty hungover from the night before but what's worst was the damn sweaty dirty smog that just clings to your face.  Pretty much 1 day in Bangkok was all I wanted to stay.  I was getting abit tired of it.  So back to my story, we ended up taking two separate cab.  Jen and Lindsay ended up puking in the other cab - snicker heheh.  We got there and jessica had to make a big deal with the cabbie because she thought she was over charged.  By this time, I think I was pretty tired of all the estrogen going around.  I tell yah, when you travel with a group of girls, PMS is like a viral thing.  As soon as one girl gets krusty, it's a domino effect.  I had to pretty much hide from them an hour here and there so stay sane. 
So we finally got out tickets with another hour of confusion.  And now we were going to head over to the airport.  This is where the fun begins.  I had no idea jessica had my ticket and I was travelling with Jen only in one cab.  We ended up waiting around for the other 3 girls and it was like 12:30, our flight was in 30 minutes.  We were starting to panick and then turn out we were at the International section of the aiport and should be at Domestic.  So we spend another 20 minutes trying to find the Domestic section  and no one working at the airport can help us.  After about 5 more attempts we ended up finding a taxi that toke us to the domestic section which is pretty much another airport on it's own.  So we were totally at the  wrong airport waiting for a flight that was about to leave in 15 minutes.  We get there and the two Lindsays came running  at us like lost family.  We had barely made out flight.  By this time I was pretty stressed out, hung over, estrogen overloaded and just pretty tired. 
The flight was short, only 45 minutes to Chang Mai but when we arrived, I felt so recharged.  Maybe it was a combination of the change of weather and scenerio.  We were greeted by Eddie our driver and he drove us to the S&H Guesthouse which was really nice.  There we were greeted by the manager and I finally felt more relaxed.    We toke a small nap and had a tribal meeting at 6:30.  The meeting felt like survivors because we were led to this area that looked like a survivor episode.  There we met the other ppl that were going to do the 3 day trek with us. 
I got to meet these two aussie girls which had came back fromt he full moon party.  That pretty much got me in a good mood.  They had been travelling for 6 months and had just came back from South Africa.  After the tribal meeting with our guide, we were able to go into town to relax.  That's when I sorta toke off on the girls to have some alone time.  I started walking around the town, pretty much had no idea where I was.  Going down alleys and streets and stopping for the occasional Sing Ha beer.  I really need to brush up on my Thai because you feel pretty useless trying to order and not know one lick of Thai and everything is in Thai.
After some strategic hand signals which looked like I was doing the chicken dance, I managed to order a plate or roast chicken and dimsum.  I don't think they have ever seen anyone wolf down a meal like that in 3 minutes flat.  They probably thought I haven't eaten in days the way i savaged my meal.
So i'm trying to find the night market and i'm not having much luck.  I am almost tempted to try a tuk tuk driver, but my last memory of that hasn't been too good.  I did bump into a few lonely travellers which seem to know where they were going.  I guess I still have to get use to travelling alone and gettign around on foot more. 
Well the mansoon rain just stopped so I'm going to make a 2nd attempt at this because i hail a chopper to bring me back to home base.
Griffo and James, I maybe alittle late meeting you guys in Phuket.  My trek ends on the 16-17th and I may stay an extra day for some white  water  rafting and bungee cord jumping.  I think I'm going to lose the Canadian Estrogen Girls on the 17th and fly to Phuket after my 2nd leg of the Trek.
Damn I hope I didn't give them this Blog site by accident or I will be sleeping in the hotel lounge tonight =).
Cia

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