chiang mai

first, i've posted pictures! you can check them out here and let me know what you think.

scott and i took the luxury option to chiang mai - we flew. bangkok airways is really cool. very short flights and very tasty treats along the way. we arrived and everything was so pleasant, the weather, the prices, the town - wonderful. the old city of chiang mai is surrounded by a moat that is actually somewhat clean and not stinky. this was shocking because a lot of the water in thailand (and generally asia) is polluted and stinky. i was finally happy to be in a city that did not smell like feces.

the first day scott and i rented a motor-scooter and scooted our way around town checking out the various wats (buddhist temples) in the area. every town has its own wat and each was generally built in a different era, for a different king, and for a different purpose. so even though they're all kinda similar, they're all uniquely different. chiang mai has about 3 wats in the city center and a very popular one on top of a mountain overlooking the entire city. brilliant views when the haze/smog isn't terrible, and it wasn't. after the flatness of cambodia, it was refreshing to be around mountains again. at the center of the wat a huge stuppa (spire) was coated in gold foil (real gold!). it shone brilliantly as the setting sun cast its final glows on its terraced pointyness.

the next day we did an introductory cooking class (the main reason i decided to go to thailand in the first place) that did not dissapoint. a thai man and his english wife runa class out of their home out in the burbs. they are well setup and the class is well organized so even novices can feel successful. we cooked thom yum kheung (hot and sour shrimp soup), green curry with chicken, pad thai (noodles with egg and shrimp), minced chicken on cucumber, and a water chestnut desert with sweet coconut cream. it was a lot of fun. i hope to be back to complete the week-long series course where they cover the curries in greater depth.

the next three days we went on a trek to a hill tribe in northeastern thialand. despite a horrible pickup truck taxi ride that took 3 hours, we were tramped our way about an hour to a village stocked with elephants. i was a bit nervous about riding the elephants after hearing horror stories about how they can sometimes be treated, but this hill tribe (the Karen hill tribe) treated them very very well. it was a blast. a bit uncomfortable after 1.5 hours on their backs, but well worth it.

after leaving the elephants we walked another hour to the Karen village. their language is not thai but sounds softer and more polynesian. we learned how to say thank you, "dub loo". it was amazing to see how simply these people lived. very basic huts and a diet of mostly rice. they all kept pigs and chickens but it was explained to us that those were only for special occasions. mostly they ate small fish, birds, frogs, and vegetables. we got a tour of the village and got to sit in some of their huts. each hut was the most basic bamboo flooring and siding with banana leaf roofs. at the center of each hut was the fire used for cooking and warmth. it gets very cold in the mountains at night. during the day it would be in the 90s, but at night it would be near 40!

the next day was spent walking through the jungle and across riverbeds. our lunches were noodles with egg bundled in banana leaf packets and we ate fresh pineapple often. another night in a hut, this time without a surounding village. the following day we took bamboo rafts about 2 hours down river. very quickly and expertly constructed and pilotes by some karen boys, these rafts were flexible enough to get us through some rapids and shallow enough to skim across the falling river line.

the trek was awesome. i could have gone for many more days, but it was time to get back to bangkok and say goodbye to scotty and get ready for sean. he'll be here tomorrow night and i'm island bound again! more diving, sand, and sun!