I can't get my camera to connect to the computer so there won' be any photos :/
Anyway, my friend Emma moved to Chiang Mai back in January. As soon as she told me she was moving to Thailand I said, "I'M VISITING!!!" She works for an organization called Women's League Burma that helps Burmese women refugees acclimate to life in Thailand.
I graduated from Virginia Tech on May 11, left Blacksburg on the 13th and hopped on a plane two days later to come here!
I flew Korean Air from DC to Seoul, then Seoul to Chiang Mai. When I checked in at Dulles, the woman at the counter asked if I had a visa and I immediately thought, "sh#t! Emma never said anything about needing a visa!" I said I was only visiting for two weeks and she told me I needed a visa to go to China. I was in such a rush/weird state of mind getting to the airport and trying to get past security with plenty of time that I wasn't thinking clearly... finally after about 5 minutes of arguing over the visa I realized: wait, I'm not even stopping over in China, I'm stopping over in Korea! The woman thought that CNX (which is Chiang Mai's airport code) was in China. You'd think she'd know the airport codes a little better!
The flight was long: about 14 hours. I'd never been on a flight nearly as long before, but barely slept because I was too excited about getting here. I watched movies practically the whole time. Side note: One for the Money is not a good movie. I had about a 3 hour layover in Seoul and then hopped on my plane to come to Chiang Mai. Emma met me at the airport when my flight got in-- around 11 PM. We hopped on her motorbike with my suitcase (not the easiest feat) and headed to her apartment.
Practically everyone in Chiang Mai rides a motorbike. I'd say they're almost more popular than cars. They're fun to ride and pretty cheap; Emma said she pays about $3 to fill up every two weeks-- such a good deal compared to what we pay for gas back home!
I crashed pretty much right away after getting in that night since I had been traveling for a full 24 hours. The next day Emma took me around the city a bit-- the city is pretty cool and divided pretty much by the walls of the old city that form a square in the middle. Emma lives on the west side of the old city off a road called Nimmanhaemin, which is a pretty trendy part of the city.
We ate lunch at her favorite traditional Thai restaurant. Then we headed over to "Honey Plaza" (so named by two of her guy friends because there's always a lot of "honies" aka cute chicks there). Emma's favorite Thai massage place is at Honey Plaza where you can get a full hour for 150 baht, which is about $5. It was amaazing, especially after traveling for 24 hours the day before. That night she had a potluck at her house for her ultimate frisbee team; they were headed off to Malaysia the next day to play in their first tournament. It was cool because I got to meet a lot of her friends, some thai and others from different parts of the world.
Friday morning while Emma headed off to Malaysia for the weekend, I went off to the Elephant Nature Park not too far from the city. I was being picked up on Nimmanhaemin Road, but I wasn't exactly sure who to look for. A red sung tao (a cheap shared taxi service where you ride in the back of a pick up truck with benches with a roof covering) pulled up very purposefully in front of me. The guy didn't speak any English so he responded with a blank look when I asked if he worked for the nature park. Unsure of what to do (and against my better judgment), I climbed in after showing him the address for the office. Finally I was able to reach the office from Emma's phone (she left it with my while she was gone) and asked the woman if I was supposed to be in a sung tao: the answer was no. She had to get on the phone with the driver and tell him to turn around to drop me off. When he finally did, he tried to charge me 100 baht for the ride; sung tao's are typically 20 baht to go anywhere in the city, so of course I was like HELL no! He then lowered it it to 50 telling me that it was my fault he had to turn around. Finally I gave him 40 baht and just hopped out of the car... I only paid about $1 for the whole fiasco but I was still flustered!
Once on the cool-air conditioned bus to the park, I met a couple other travelers: one couple from the U.S. in their late 20s on their honeymoon, two girls about my age from the UK and a married couple in their 30s also from the U.S. Everyone was really nice, so I wasn't as nervous as I thought I was going to be about doing the touristy things on my own. We got to play, feed and bathe the elephants which was a lot of fun! They don't let you ride the elephants there because a lot of the elephants had previously been mistreated in jobs where they did rides for tourists. They show a documentary which is really quite heartbreaking about how elephants that are used for tourist purposes (aka elephant riding) are basically beaten into submission. They're kept in a cage for 3 days up to a week where they have absolutely no room to move around and are provoked and prodded with bamboo sticks that have nails on the end of them. By the time they get out of the cage they are wounded/bloody, starved, parched and submissive. Once at elephants camps they aren't even treated well: constantly carrying tourists around, are underfed and beaten. By the end of the film I wanted to cry. But the good news is that the Elephant Nature Park rescues these elephants and provides them with a good home and plenty of food. They never have to carry tourists around again!
A quick fun fact: elephants eat about 3 tons of food every.single.day. That's a whole lot of food = costly for the park to keep up, which is why they are more expensive to visit (about $80). But that also meant a lot of opportunities for us to feed them! We fed them baskets of fresh fruit. It was really quite interesting experiencing the elephants grab the fruit from your hands with their trunks. It's pretty funny to watch them eat. I have a soft spot in my heart for elephants now, especially the asian elephants! We headed back around 4 p.m. after a full day of elephant fun. Once back in the city, I was trying to figure out my plans for dinner. Luckily, one of Emma's friends (Hannah) texted her about grabbing dinner at a place just down the road. I responded saying I had Emma's phone while she was in Malaysia, so Hannah invited me to come along anyway! We ate at a traditional Northern Thai restaurant that had amazing food. There were 5 of us total: 3 that lived/worked in Chiang Mai (from the U.S. and Australia) and another American girl that was visiting Hannah but had been teaching English in Vietnam for a while. It's funny because you never realize just how many expats there are that live abroad teaching English or working in different countries for various reasons. It's making me re-think my life plans..... :)
After dinner we headed to a bar a couple streets over (on motorbikes, of course!) to listen to their friends' bands play. There was not a single Thai person in the bar-- it was all expats. It was a really cool atmosphere and everyone was laid back (which is basically how all of Thailand is). We got SangSom, which is kind of the national drink of Thailand-- it's whiskey that they give you club soda and a bucket of ice to drink with. Not bad, but not my preference.
The next morning I had to get up pretty early to get ready for my trek. I had signed up for a trek in Doi Inthanon National Park. However, when the guy picked me up he told me my trek was canceled but that they were putting me on one that was going to the North. I was totally fine with that! My tour guide said he prefers that area anyway. His name was Ping Pong and he was totally crazy. He had all these funny sayings like "same same, but different" (which is actually a very common phrase in Thailand), "oh my buddha!" "why you pay to walk on your holiday!? On my holiday I sleep!" and "FREE BEER... you pay tomorrow!"
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| Longneck woman |
We hiked for a couple hours, all the way Ping Pong asking me if I was alright since I was breathing hard because I forgot my inhaler. Along the way he kept calling the Dutch girls "long legs" because they were so tall and complained/joked about how they could walk 1 big step for his 2 tiny steps. I think we stopped almost every 10-15 minutes so Ping Pong could either smoke a cigarette or eat a snack, or both! He was not shy about the fact that he was a bit chubby even though he does treks almost daily...but seeing how much he ate I could see why he was still overweight! He was funny about it though and kept making self-deprecating jokes. After some steep climbs through the legit Thai jungle, we made it to the top of the mountain where we stayed with a hill tribe in their village. We had showers and were immediately bombarded by the women asking if we wanted massages. For 150 baht ($5) how could I say no? It was quite nice after the climb. Dinner was very good and we stayed up chatting for a while (minus the Koreans since they didn't speak much English) talking more about our travel experiences and differences among cultures/etc, just basically swapping stories and having a good time!
We all headed to bed and cocooned ourselves in our mosquito net beds. After about an hour or so, in a weird state of semi-consciousness I half dreamed/imagined that Ping Pong had caught a scorpion and put it next to my head. I (in reality) screamed and jumped out of my bed. And then fell right back asleep. The next morning everyone was asking who and why screamed last night....whoops! After breakfast we set off back down the mountain through the jungle to a waterfall where we swam for about 30 minutes- it was quite refreshing not only from the trek but because Thailand is plain HOT. It's been about 100 degrees I would say everyday. There is no escape from the heat.
After the waterfalls we trekked to an elephant camp and rode elephants (which made me quite sad inside), ate lunch and then headed off to white water raft and bamboo raft the rest of the way. Besides almost falling out of the raft onto some rocks in a rapid, the rafting was quite fun! We loaded back up into the truck and headed back to Chiang Mai. We all made a plan to meet up later that night at the Sunday Walking Street, which is a great street market they have in the old city on Sundays (could you have guessed?) We got some great food and a lot of stuff-- everything is so cheap! Suddenly it started pouring (typical in Thailand, although it only lasts for about 10 minutes), so we dashed into a bar and hung out while sharing some beers. The British guy told us he and a friend are interested in cycling from England (across the chunnel I guess?) to China sometime next year and I absolutely want to join him! Seems like it would be a great once-in-a-lifetime type of experience.
After bar hopping one or two more times I headed home and woke up to a mild "changover": a local joke about having a hangover after drinking Chang beers the night before. Emma arrived back from Malaysia unscathed and quite tired. Her team did very well though! They didn't win the tourney but moved up from 17th seed to 8th. She took me to a good breakfast place called Smoothie Blues that serves western fare, therefore meaning there are rarely any Thai people eating there, but it was really good! Afterwards headed into the old city for me to book my tour for tomorrow up to the North-- I'll be seeing Chiang Rai and the Golden Triangle, pretty excited! Then I did a mini walking tour of some temples in the old city (there are hundreds in Chiang Mai). They were really fascinating with opulent architecture and decorations. You can get blessed by a monk and receive a little hemp bracelet (I got two!). In one of the wats (temples), you could buy a little bowl of coins for 30 baht ($1) to place in a bunch of bowls which was meant to bring good luck in the future. There were statues of buddha everywhere, but each one was unique which was great. I wish I could upload my pictures to share!
After seeing the wats, Emma and I went back to Honey Plaza and shared some spring rolls at a little Vietnamese place. They were amaaaaaaaazzzzziiinnnng. Probably the best spring rolls I've ever had-- we got one plate of fresh and one deep fried, both which came with this really great sweet peanut sauce and different types of herbs you could eat them with. Afterwards I got another massage at the same Thai massage place (c'mon it's only $5!! so cheap!!) which was really nice since I am still sore from the trek. Then around 6 pm we headed to Doi Suthep (on motorbikes!), a mountain on the outskirts of the city with a giant temple on the top. We got there just as the monks were chanting for their evening prayers-- a really cool experience. We got blessed by another monk who was quite funny and whapped my on the head with his little bamboo thingy.
We headed back down the mountain just in time for dinner at 8 where we were meeting a bunch of people, including my friend Ben from Tech who just happened to be traveling in Chiang Mai with his brother the same time that I am here! We ate with some of Emma's friends at a Mexican restaurant called Salsa Kitchen (Mexican in Thailand you wonder?) They had good food, although not as good as back home, and great margs!
Now I'm about to head to bed to get up early for my tour in the morning. It's about an 11 hour time difference so 12:30 AM means 11:30 AM back home.
I am really enjoying my time here and am sad that I have to be leaving in a little over a week! Although I am not going to focus on that. I'm very excited to be heading down to the islands in a few days to catch some sun and do some snorkeling.
Everyone in Thailand is so nice and laidback; there is no judgement and everyone is very accepting. I really like the lifestyle and as I mentioned earlier, it's really making me re-think what I want to do with my life! (Which I still am unsure of but I suppose that's normal.) The Polish girl on my trek said to me "I don't know about you but being in Thailand makes me not care about anything-- my mobile, home, school, etc" and I have to agree. I think it's something in the air but I really feel at peace here (corny!) and really happy.
I definitely plan on returning at some point and traveling to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam as well. Most of the people I've meet traveling have been there or are going there and were surprised I wasn't staying longer and traveling there too. There's always next time!
I will probably post at the end of my trip after my tour to the north tomorrow, my cooking class on Wednesday, the islands with Emma for a few days and my time in Bangkok!
Saw Wa Dee Ka (hello and bye in Thai-- like aloha!)
