Day 5 Bangkok to Chiang Mai

Despite the activity-packed days and late nights, I have been getting up pretty early... I'm not here to sleep!

I realized that I forgot to mention a strange sighting in Bangkok last night. When Nanda and I were in a taxi, we saw an elephant walking down the street. Not a little street, mind you, but a 4 lane street with a huge median in the center! I wish I could have had my camera ready for that one!

I headed out after the Internet cafe in search of the bug lady but I think she only works nights. I'm sure she has a ball laughing at the drunk farang (foreigners, specifically white ones) who decide to try them. I had the chicken and bamboo shoot curry with banana shake for lunch (banana shake because my mouth was on FIRE -- the curry lady and shake guy were laughing at me).

I wound up walking up and down our old street talking to travel agencies to get my Similan Islands liveaboard trip straightened out. A liveaboard is a scuba diving trip where you get on a boat and stay out at sea on a sleeper boat for a number of days. There are cooks and dive masters on board, so it's a floating hotel, but you're kind of screwed if you get motion sickness. No worries, I have my motion sickness pills with me just in case. Anyway, the Similan Islands is supposed to be one of the best diving spots in the world, and it's the best time of year to dive the Andaman Sea side. This is the side that the 2004 tsunami hit, but all of the dive shops were back up and running in about 3 months (need to keep the money rolling in!). The coral reefs had minimal damage in the Similan Islands, with only 5-8% damage (which will take decades to recover). I can't wait! Booking this was difficult, as many places are reaching full capacity. It's not a cheap trip either, but I am getting 13 dives for about $35/dive (plus room and board), so it is an amazing deal. I am flying down to Phuket on Sun Feb 20 and staying down there until the following Sunday. I will get some fun dives in some place else, possibly Phi Phi Island as Laura Fosco recommended. I ran into a Japanese-speaking girl at the travel agency, and she seemed sorely disappointed that I talked to the English-speaking agent instead. Apparently, Okada-san is new and is getting tons of pressure from her Japanese manager to book a certain number of activities to Japanese tourists. She was already talking to a Japanese couple when I walked in, but my agent doesn't have a quota so I could have helped Okada-san out. Oh well.

My trip is getting to be a nightmare of coordinating flights. I had to book the liveaboard before I could book my flight in and out of Phuket. I already have my Siem Reap itinerary for Feb 15-18, but I may cut the 4 days down to 3 so I have more time in Chiang Mai. It would be awesome for me to hook up with Lou's buddy in Chiang Rai area, but that may be too far away. I already feel like I am flying all over the place, so I will have to see how things go here.

I was doing so well up until now, not buying any stuff. But I broke down and bought two skirts and a fun top for $15. I only brought 3 bottoms and 5 tops, and it is proving to be not enough. But I really wanted to save shopping for the end of the trip. Bad Asami! Between travel agencies, looking for the bug lady and looking for a toilet every 2 hours, I lost the entire day near Khao San road. I never made it to Wat Arun but I may have another day in Bangkok when I see Sam and his wife.

Anyway, Nanda and I met up at the hotel at 5pm to head to the airport, and I may have never felt so disgusting in my life. I was so sweaty and gross from walking around all day, and it was a really hot and sunny day. Plus, I was so frustrated by the River Express because it didn't stop at my stop and I had to figure out how to get back to the hotel from a stop further away than I planned. It doesn't seem so difficult but I have a horrible sense of direction and it's hard to match up the street signs to the map. It took me 45 minutes to get back and I wanted to cry.

We made it to the airport via taxi to find that our 7:30pm flight was delayed... to 11pm. No kidding. Orient Thai airlines is the new budget airline, and we were warned that they often run late. I was thinking an hour or so, not 4 HOURS! Nanda and I got 1 hour foot massages at the airport, but I was pretty cranky at this point, so I told her that I am not hungry and decided to park myself at a bench and sleep. We got vouchers for a free meal for our inconvenience, but we couldn't find the restaurants (it turned out that they were past security, toward our gates). After a 2 hour nap in the busy terminal, I got up and found the Dairy Queen (our other choices were Burger King, a pizza place, a pasta place and an Irish pub). I had a green tea smoothie and Sprite (didn't want the cheese dog nor chili dog). Surprisingly, the Sprite tasted different than in the US. More like Japanese soda (the Mitsuwa cider or ramune). I hadn't had any soda yet, so that was a surprise.

While waiting at the gate, we met two Brits, Matthew and Andy, who are brothers and a German guy named Carlos who grew up in Italy. Carlos and Nanda chatted away in Italian. Aren't we an odd bunch... A German with a Spanish name who grew up in Italy, a Canadian with an Indian name who lives in New York, and a Japanese who grew up in the US. The flight was only an hour, but we were so exhausted from the wait. I couldn't wait to meet Nank and get to the hotel.

Nank was all that Nanda promised to be! He is a really nice guy and came to pick us up at the airport, even though it was almost 2am at this point. He lives with his mom, his sister and his niece. Not sure where dad and brother-in-law are, but he seems to be the only guy in the household. He took us to our hotel right outside the gates of Old Chiang Mai, and it is a really nice place. Nanda is staying here for her entire 2 weeks. While we are sharing, it's only $10/night with a private bath, fridge, TV and air conditioning. We even have a balcony overlooking the mountains! We headed out for some noodle soup before turning in for the evening. I slept like a rock.

I woke up so refreshed and dropped off our laundry next door. There are laundry services all over the place, and they wash, dry and fold for only 25B/kilo. I just picked ours up, and it was $1.50. This internet cafe is on the other side of our hotel, and there is a Japanese restaurant across the street. Nanda may be able to satisfy her sushi craving here. Okay, I am particularly scatter-brained today. Need to focus.

I hired Nank for the day as my tour guide, so I can cover alot of ground in a short period of time. We met at the restaurant downstairs and planned my Chiang Mai itinerary. Today, we were going to see the sights -- the most important wats and the Chiang Mai Arts & Cultural Center. Nank took me to a cooking school to book my class for tomorrow -- 9am to 3pm. I hope I will learn enough to be able to host a Thai dinner party when I get back! On the third day, I hope to do some elephant trekking and visit some hill tribes. I still have to decide if I want to fly back to Bangkok or try to catch a train so I can see Sukhotai and Ayuttaya on the way south. I may be trying to do too much on a tight schedule. My flight to Siem Reap is at 8am, so if I fly, I may decide to get on the last flight out and sleep in the airport!

Nank is a great guide. It's so nice to have someone who knows the area show you around, so there's not futzing with the map and walking in circles. He hangs out on the tuk-tuk and chats with his friends while I am wat-watching. We picked up Nanda from her massage school registration (she also had a massage - she's averaging 2 a day now) and headed to lunch at a Northern Thai restaurant (I had the Northern Thai curry soup with little cubes of blood - not such a fan of the blood cubes) and while there, Nank got a call from one of his tuk tuk driver buddies. His buddy had an Italian tourist who was asking him to take them somewhere, but the driver couldn't understand what they wanted. He called Nank for his English advice, but Nank handed the phone over to Nanda and she was able to translate Italian to English so Nank could translate into Thai for his friend. Wonderful! I told Nank that I could do the same for Japanese, if need be. Nank's friends must think he's amazing.

After lunch, I got dropped off at the Arts and Cultural Center to learn all about the history of Chiang Mai and the hill tribes in the area. This was a total coincidence, but it also happened to be the 2nd Annual Lanna (Northern Thai) and Japanese Cultural Exchange festival at the museum. After my little cultural lesson, I saw a bunch of Japanese folks showing Thai people how to do flower arranging, tea ceremonies, calligraphy and indigo-dyeing. There were Japanese food vendors out front, and it looked almost like a Japanese matsuri (festival) out there!

I guess I didn't get enough rest with my 5 hours of sleep because I was beat. I had Nank drop me off (Nanda was out shopping again) and I napped for 2 hours. I'll head back to the room to see if Nanda's back so we can go out for dinner. She starts school tomorrow, and I have cooking class at 9am so we'll have an early evening tonight. Tomorrow night, we are going to have the dinner and traditional dancing dinner show, then he suggested we do a cabaret show afterwards. Not sure what that's all about, but I will read about it in my Lonely Planet tonight.

That's it for today!

love,
asami