Okay, for those of you who don't know (which is probably everyone
except Liz), Chiang Mai is in Northern Thailand, not to far from the
beautiful lands of Burma (where they gas their people and force them
to live in Poverty, weee!), and Laos (where I'm headed next and they
don't gas their people, but it is the most bombed country on earth
thanks to that little Vietnam Conflict a few years back).
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Chaing Mai is AWESOME! It's so much more laid back than bangkok.
There is far less hustling (the Tuk Tuks don't offer the Sucky Sucky
here), but fear not my friends, there are still plenty of rather
unhappy yet attractive looking Thai girls who want to know where I'm
staying. I'm just not sure what all this is about.
And on top of that, who IS this BUDDHA dude? I mean REALLY, there
are so many houses for him, and images in gold, and jade, lying and
standing and sitting, it's almost like a national obsession. He's
bigger than Tom Cruise AND Brad Pitt.
I left BangKok on Thursday, took a nite bus and met a couple
traveling companions: Brent from South Africa, and Fabiola from
Switzerland. Both are very nice and we've hung out since then. The
all nite bus trip was filled up with the 3 of us and everyone else on
the roster was from Israel. They sure like to travel.
In Chiang Mai we checked into Nat guest house, which is a little
sketchy in the cleanliness and quality department, but you can't
argue with the awesome friendly staff who is full of great info and
help and the fact that the womans name is Jane.
We saw a MUI THAI match (I didn't go in Bangkok, i'm not that big a
fan!), it was great, noisy, music playing (traditional,with drums and
flutes (wooden ones, not metal ones)) and there was betting (not that
I could figure out how it worked, so I just took pics and watched the
whole thing. Very enjoyable). There was even a very tall American
who fought a little Thai Guy and lost.
Then we went on a 3 day jungle trek to the mountain tribes of the
Karen people. The Karen women wear white shirts if they are
single... but they don't offer the sucky sucky, I guess that's just a
city thing.
The people were very nice, and our guide Tony "Montana", (say hello
to my little friend!) was funny. We swam in waterfalls and pools,
walked in hot sticky jungle, saw a few bugs, and slept in a hut with
a leaf roof and bamboo mats. It was pretty sweet. At nite we played
a little frisbee, and some Thai games. We all drank some local
whisky and had a grand old time. There was about 10 people with us:
3 Japanese folks, an American and a Thai family. Quite fun.
Two more days of trekking with just me, brent and Tony let us to more
villages, high up on mountains with views for miles of Green, greend
GREEN! We played Taklao with some hilltribe folks. It's like
Volleyball, but you use a bamboo ball and can NOT use hands or arms,
but can use everything else. It's sorta like hacky-sack with a net.
It's fun. I got a ball for $2, so we're bringing it to the states!
We also rode elephants and bamboo rafts down the river. Very fun.
And last nite, went out to a bar with a Thai band that played fun
covers as well. "You Give Love, a bad name!" (yep, again!) and
"Enter Sandman". Brent and I met up with this whole crew of...
Americans! First I've seen, some were teachers, another 4 girls play
rugby in New York (yep, they could kick my ass). But we danced, it
was fun.
Tomorrow I take a mini-bus and a slow boat for 2 days to Luang
Prabang in Laos for some shift of cultures. Then on to caving, rock
climbing, vietnam, hanoi hiltons, scuba diving, big temples, killing
fields and beach parties... whew!
It's go go go, and 5 weeks is simply NOT enough time (I bet 5 months
wouldn't be either), but in all honestly, I'm still having down time
as well, so it's good. All good.
Let me know what you're up to, and I'll tell you as soon as I figure
out this whole Buddha thing. Oh, and don't make fun of the king of
thailands ears...
Rock on
CraigO
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