Saturday May 16, 2009

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Went to breakfast down the lane at a little mom and pop place (okay, they all are....) called the guesthouse. It was delicious, a good old fashioned american breakfast. It seems that people here do not have set breakfast foods, they eat the same thing they would eat for lunch or dinner. Afterwards, we rented a scooter, and after getting lost in town and accidently got onto the superhighway (not a place to be on with a motorcycle let alone and bleeping scooter!!!) we finally found the correct turn and headed into the mountain jungle to do some site seeing. We got sidetracked by some signs to a waterfall and got some amazing pictures of it. It was so beautiful. Next got back on track and headed a little further up the road to the elephant camp only to find out it was closed so we decided to follow the "scenic loop" to try and find another elephant camp so we could ride some elephants. I have concluded that the word "scenic" means a long way out of the way when it comes to roads. After almost running out of gas in the middle of nowhere, where no one except a handful of non-english speaking locals are working in the fields harvesting who knows what, we finally came across some signs of civiliation and praise the lord a gas station. We gestured in the best way we could to tell the lady we needed gas (no english here either, no problem, we are in Thailand and the people are very nice) and to fill it all the way up. Who knows where the next gas station will be. After we FINALLY arrived back in Chiang Mai it was 5pm so we called it a day and headed back to the hotel to drop of the scooter. The owner assesed us and proudly announced us as "one piece" and "one piece" and let us park our scooter in his driveway. Our legs were painfully sore from clutching on for dear life (thanks to Camden's stellar scooter skills we survived unscathed) so we walked down to the nearest bar, had a beer and then decided what the heck lets get a massage. This little place, like all the rest, consists of a bunch of mats on the floor, no AC, and no undressing. I just got a back and shoulder rub, I had to make sure I said softly so they wouldn't hurt my back again, but it was amazing. Where else can you get that for like $5? Oh yeah, I forgot to mention some scooter facts in Thailand: Not uncommon to seeing families of 3-4 on a scooter, passed by a scooter while the passanger was playing a video game while riding ( he was obviously not holding on for dear life like myself), and to top it off we saw two people on a scooter with one carrying a 20+ inch TV. Not the flat screen on either, the heavy kind! Later that night we went back to the night bazaar to do some shopping until it started raining.

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Photos

Camden driving
I was taking pictures while riding on the back of the scooter,this camera is awesome, the pics look like we were standing still...