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Published: February 18th 2014
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Instead of traveling overland to Thailand which was my original plan, we decided to fly to bypass the hours and hours on another bus, and the headache and tales of corruption we’ve heard regarding the border crossing. Our time is running short now and we decided to head up to Chaing Mai in the northern highlands of Thailand which would have been an almost 24 hour journey on bus from Siem Reap.
We flew Cambodia Airways into Bangkok which was a cheap hour long flight and included an entire meal. Did I ever say how much I love every airline outside the crappy budget American carriers? We transferred to Bangkok Airways and had another hour long flight into Chaing Mai, with another full and delicious meal!
Chaing Mai is the second largest city in Thailand and lies within the southern slice of the Himalayans. It straddles one of Asia’s great crossroads, the Silk Road running from China, Laos, and Burma (Myanmar). It is home to Thailand’s largest peaks, dense jungles, numerous ethnically diverse hill tribes and it the best place in the world to interact with elephants in their native environment.
We checked into our hotel the Sabai
House ($27, rip off) and then walked the streets of the old city that lies behind a medieval high brick wall. We immediately fell in love with Chaing Mai like everyone else does. It is a laid back city with over 300 temples wedged in between café’s and shops, a perfect blend of old and modern. There were no relentless tuk-tuk drivers vying for our business, and no street children begging for dollars. It was easy to see that the standard of life was much higher for the average Thai than Cambodian, resulting in a much more stress free environment for all. However it wasn’t stress free for Dennis as there are lady boys everywhere here, some beautiful and passable as women, many were not and easily recognizable. Again we saw many schtoopers, this time though they were sitting in bars mostly with the ladyboys, to each his own I suppose.
As we were walking I was distracted by my guide book and spinning around looking at street signs and temples and got hit by a car speeding down the street, him close to the sidewalk, me in the street. My bicep hit the car mirror and broke it
back, causing the driver to pull over. Luckily my foot did not get run over nor my arm broken, a narrow save from a trip ruining experience. Dennis has been hawking over me even more so now than he usually does.
After eating our first scrumptious street vendor Pad Thai ($.90) We went to a Muay Thai fight in the evening after we were given flyers at almost every single corner. I trained in Muay Thai for several years after high school and have always dreamed of seeing a real fight in Thailand. For some reason I had imagined it to be like the movie Bloodsport, and there to be little or no rules and blood and savagery. Surprisingly it was pretty tame, even though two opponents were knocked out cold in 5 of the fights. They started with a “lady fight” which looked like two “real girls,” both who fought incredibly. The headliner fight was between a French fighter and a Thai fighter, the Frenchman winning quickly with a kick to the ribs of his opponent, who looked more like a Sumo wrestler than a Muay Thai fighter.
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