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Published: November 9th 2005
Market
There are milions of markets in Thailand. This one just happened to be near our guesthouse.We spent the last week relaxing 650 km North of our home in BangNa. We took an overnight bus to Chiang Mai, which was not exactly the most enjoyable part of our trip. The bus was two hours late to the station and sitting at the station sucking up diesel fumes late at night was not much fun. Then again the long bus ride wasn’t exactly the most enjoyable part of our vacation either. The unnecessarily loud Thai comedy program that they showed for the first few hours of our trip may have counted as torture under the Geneva convention. Ditto for the music they started blaring at 6am the next morning. Note to self: Never ride the bus long distance again!
So we arrived at the bus station at around 7am, feeling sore and sleepy from our time on the bus. We called around to a few guesthouses that we found in our Lonely planet guide. After calling a couple places and having little luck finding what we wanted, we called an inexpensive guesthouse that our guide book has described as “friendly”. A more accurate description would have also included the words dirty and small. They were nice on
Rainforest
The rainforest is hotter than you can imagine. The humidity makes it feel like a sauna. Which is why Thai people like to take foreigners there, its funny to watch us sweat. the phone and had some rooms available for very reasonable rates so we decided to book the rooms and took a Tuk-Tuk (small 3 wheeled Taxi) over to the guesthouse.
When we arrived and checked in it was apparent that while the staff was indeed friendly the place was in need of some sprucing up. The rooms were small, the bathroom shared, and the overall décor could best be described as dingey. We were tired though, and I turned on the fan and passed out on the bed while Emily headed downstairs for a shower. The bed was comfortable enough and I was in dire need of a little rest after the bus ride.
After the nap I got cleaned up and headed out for some food. Michelle had already headed off by herself to do a little exploring. We checked our guidebook again looking for some comfort food and found an Italian place that was supposed to have some decent cuisine. After a pleasant walk to the restaurant, we were seated on the patio, ordered some ravioli and garlic bread and finished off our meal with some homemade gelato. The food was actually very good and totally
spring
Deep in the rainforest there is a beautiful 7-color spring. I couldnt find all 7 colors, but that is beside the point. hit the spot. We hadn’t had Italian that good since Emily cooked gnocchi with a chicken and pepper sauce for the family. After our meal we headed out for a little exploring and quickly found numerous other Italian and other ethnic restaurants. The town was obviously geared for tourists to a large extent yet was not putrid like Pattaya.
The city was very nice and rather quaint in comparison to Bangkok. There was a large moat that surrounded the old part of the city, which now contained numerous fish and fountains. There was no smog and the temperature was also a few degrees cooler, not to mention the air was much less humid. Everything about the place was comfortable, from the dozens of temples and little parks around the moat to the open-air markets that were replete with hundreds of different types of Thai and Lao food. The mood in the city was more relaxed and reminded me quite a bit of Minneapolis, in some strange sort of way.
We spent the afternoon exploring and then met up with Michelle back at the guesthouse. After a group huddle we decided that 1) we would find a new place to
Tree
Here is a strange tree that we saw in the rainforest. Thankfully, cameras dont sweat. stay tomorrow, and 2) that we would go to an Italian restaurant for dinner. On our way to the Italian restaurant we stopped for an hour of massage to whet our appetites. The massage was delightful. After an hour of gentle kneading and aromatic, oily rubbing I was relaxed and strawberry scented.
Dinner was even better than lunch and the wine released any tension that the massage missed. We stayed at the restaurant for a couple of hours drinking and talking about politics and religion. After a liter of wine and all the politics we could handle we staggered over to a nearby night market to check out the local wares. We strolled for several blocks looking at the arts, crafts and clothes that merchants were selling and then walked back home through the comfortable night air. By this point it had become obvious that this was going to be a nice little vacation.
The next morning we got up early, cleaned up and headed out in search of a new place. We started our search by heading to an internet café and checking for some accommodations in the area. After the dive we had just stayed in
Dam Damn
Here is a giant dam near our friend Neng's hometown. Many years ago when the dam opened the king visited it and drove along the walkway from which I took this picture. End of story. we had our sights set on something a little more upscale. By upscale I mean something with a floor without holes and a private bathroom that doesn’t smell bad. We found some nice looking places that had pictures of the rooms online that looked to be quite suitable. After a quick call to make sure that they had vacancies, we grabbed a tuk-tuk and headed to the new part of the city to check the place out. It was underwhelming. The rooms in the picture were nicer than the rooms at the hotel. Further, the prices quoted online and over the phone were much less than the prices that we were offered when we arrived. This actually happens more than I would like and is often due to a combination of our lack of Thai speaking abilities and their understanding of English.
Feeling a little discouraged, we sat down outside the hotel and started calling other guesthouses in town to see if they had any vacancies. As we were searching through our guidebook we were approached by a middle aged man who asked us if we were looking for a place to stay. I instinctively said no, as am usually
Temple 1
Here is Em and Neng standing in front of a newly constructed temple. Judgeing by all the gold P-Diddy may have had a hand in planning it. hesitant of these type of services as the drivers are often paid commissions by resorts and therefore are more concerned with getting kickbacks from the hotel than they are with finding you a nice place to stay at a reasonable price. Em and Michelle, being wiser than me, told the man that we were indeed looking for a place to stay. He pulled out a bunch of brochures and asked us what we wanted and how much we wanted to spend.
After making a few calls to different resorts trying to get rooms within our price range he called the Lana Thai guesthouse and they had rooms available in our price range. He said the place was clean and nice and that he could take us there. Feeling like this was the part where the scam would start I asked how much he wanted to take us there. He said that because it wasn’t far and there wasn’t really any business today he wouldn’t charge us. So we hopped in the van and drove over to the guesthouse. The driver waited while we checked out the rooms so if we didn’t like them he could take us to check out
Serpent
May I present to you, Angry Serpent. rooms at another place.
The rooms were nice. They were clean, had high ceilings, working fans and nice little bathrooms with hot-water showers. The location was also perfect, it was in a quiet little neighborhood just a couple of blocks from the Night Bazaar, a giant market that lines both sides of the streets every evening with vendor stands selling almost anything you can imagine. We tipped the driver and thanked him for all his help and then checked into our rooms. I felt like a bit of a dumb-ass for initially trying to refuse the man’s help. It’s hard to get over the mistrust that I had cultivated for all those years back in the US. If traveling here is teaching me anything, it’s how to trust people, as not knowing the language forces me to rely on the help of perfect strangers on a daily basis. With the exception of Tuk-Tuk drivers my trust is almost always well placed.
From then on the trip took on a distinctly touristy feel. We would spend the days wandering around, eating, drinking coffee, and occasionally buying something from the local shops and vendors. The evenings would involve a nice dinner, often
Serpent smasher
And now, let me introduce, Crazy Serpent Smashing Demon. Italian, and some good conversation. Among the relatively interesting things we did were: watch an amateur kickboxing match, visit the Chiang Mai art museum, visit some temples, and drink several gallons of iced coffee. There really weren’t many adventures to be had.
Em and I did spend a couple of days visiting out friend Neng, who lives 40 KM North of Chiang Mai. The town where we stayed has only 700 people and is primarily a farming community. It was beautiful and quite. We met much of her family and spent most of our time touring around sight seeing. She took us to a park in the rainforest with a strangely colored natural spring (see picture) and numerous waterfalls, not to mention incredible heat and humidity. Then we went on to see dams, forests, temples and everything else worth seeing in a 20 KM radius. It was a very nice time and a nice break from the touristy feel of Chiang Mai. We only spent 2 days and one night in the little town before we headed back into Chiang Mai to meet up with Michelle again.
So we finished up our week in Chiang Mai and headed back to
Temple Dragon
They have a real eye for detail when constructing temples. Notice the gold encrusted rectum on the dragon. Bangkok. This time we took the train and paid the little bit extra to get sleeper cars. Em and Michelle ended up in the second class air-con sleeper and I splurged and got the first class private sleeper, which was a nice little private room with a bed, a sink with running warm water, and plenty of space for me. The trip back home was at least 1000 times more comfortable than the bus ride there and I slept relatively well through the night and arrived in Bangkok feeling pretty decent.
Coming back to Bangkok felt like coming home. After nearly a month in this huge city it was finally starting to feel like it was my home. This trip marked the end of the traveling leg of our adventure. I must say that I am more than ready to settle down a bit and explore Bangkok. Traveling is nice, but like I said in an earlier entry, it is the places you go and people you meet that are enjoyable, not the long hours spent cramped up in a plane or bus. There are plenty of people to meet (more than 6 million) and places to go here in
Giant bug
This bug was huge! Somehow, it flies. It resembles a burned chicken nugget with wings. We battled. I won and forced it to pose for a picture with me. Bangkok and I am looking forward to getting to know the city.
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Compuchron
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nice statues
That's a cool serpent dragon! I like the lion with the gold pooper, too!