chiang chiang, chiangity chiang she bop:-)

Hey all,

I last wrote on Monday, just before we left Hanoi. Our flight to Bangkok on Tuesday went smoothly (well, it was bumpy, but our execution of the day went smoothly), and we went straight to the train station to buy tickets for a night bus to Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand. Since we had all our bags, we basically just hung around the train station for the day, which was fine-- we ended up meeting a couple of Australians who had just been to India, so we spent the afternoon swapping travel stories and then caught our train at 6 p.m.

We decided to ride glamourously in 2nd class berths (I've done night trains without berths, and have since decided that they are NOT worth it) and the whole thing was a lot of fun. I think I just love any excuse to sleep in a bunk bed, really. We played cards before bed, and I'm not sure if I've mentioned, but card games are a big hit with the Thai people-- whenever we play, we always have a flock of them around us trying to figure out how we're playing and how to help us along. One of the train stewardess ladies actually sat right down with us and had quite a laugh figuring out how the game worked (though she didn't QUITE get that the cards were meant to be kept secret from the other players.) Lots of fun, and I got a surprisingly great night's sleep. (I suppose it helps when one doesn't have burly German women busting through the door for border control at 3 a.m., of course.)

Wednesday morning we arrived in Chiang Mai, where Fonze's uncle's friend David had kindly volunteered to pick us up from the train station (he's lived in Chiang Mai for fifteen years or so). He took us out for a delicious breakfast, and made plans to visit for dinner the following night. We spent the day wandering the Old City, which has about a trillion wats and lots of shopping. (I bought the most beautiful flowy blue Renaissancy skirt ever for about $13-- a small fortune in Thailand, but SO worth it.)

We had heard about a hike that ended with a temple on a hill, so we were talking about going there on Thursday, but we'd need to hire a tuk-tuk. Thinking we'd save money and have an adventure, we discussed renting a motorcycle for the day, but then we decided that for safety reasons (like, not having anyone to teach us to drive it) that probably wouldn't work. Jeff and Fonze then proposed that biking there would be a fun alternative. Cue an eyebrow raise on my end, because it was supposed to take a half hour to get there by TUK-TUK, before even starting the hike. I opted to pass, and on the way home from dinner I was able to book a ziplining excursion instead.

So, I got to spend my Thursday ziplining in the jungle. It was so much fun! There were 22 stations-- something like 15 ziplines, 3 suspension bridges, 3 rappelling stations (including the final "Happy Ending," a 40 meter drop), and a rickety spiral staircase. The group was just me, some Irish backpackers, and an Israeli family who spoke only a little English, so I made friends with the Irish group and our tour guide, "Mr. Boston." I got home around 3:30 p.m., and Jeff and Fonze were both already asleep in our room. I had admittedly had a less strenuous day than them (not having had to bike down a 3 mile hill without brakes or whatever it was that they were up to) but I was actually quite pooped too... so, it was group siesta time until David picked us up for dinner at 5:30. Dinner was a treat: His wife, Newie, made us (and a British friend of theirs) pad thai with shrimp for dinner, and mango pie for dessert. Yum! I am really going to miss all the fresh tropical fruits when I get back to CA, but luckily I have several weeks left of passion fruit and mangoes and pineapples, and that's quite alright in my book. (Must get an avocado-- I've seen them a couple times and they look delicious!)

David was pondering what else we might want to do while we were in the area, and he mentioned that his foster daughter, now age 20, was living with a hill tribe in Chiang Dao, and we could go visit her for the weekend. So, we had more wandering time in Chiang Mai on Friday, and then Saturday morning we hopped on a bus to Chiang Dao, about an hour and a half from Chiang Mai. Chiang Dao was BEAUTIFUL, a small town with just one main road, surrounded by jungle and steep green mountains that went straight up to the clouds. David's daughter Nasee and her boyfriend Aak helped us with transport, and took us to see a local cave ( super cool-- lots of bats) and to visit their hillside tribe. While there, we got to meet Nasee's grandma, who is revered because the tribe believes she can talk with God, as well as her mom, sister, and niece. In general, the tribe kids seem to think that we white people are fairly hysterical looking, which is amusing. We also climbed up a jungle hill to see a local wat, which was especially neat because it had inspirational messages left by monks, like "You've passed 201 toughest steps, with 309 easier steps to reach the Chedi and the Venerable Phra Ajarn Sim's cremated remains." Very sweet of them:-)



All in all, things are pretty good, and I'm enjoying being back in the land of a thousand smiles. We returned to Chiang Mai today, and tomorrow we're going on a 3-day trek and then we're planning on -- yes-- bungee jumping. I'm quite nervous about the latter, so I've been practicing the jumping part ("one, two, three, bungee!") off of curbs and things like that. Quite silly. Also, for anyone concerned at home about safety, I've promised Julie that I will make sure that someone else jumps before me, penguin style. But, we're going with a quite reputable company with a good track record, so there shouldn't be too much to worry about:-)

Until next time, much love,
Sara

P.S. I almost forgot-- for anyone out of the facebook loop who is interested, I've posted a photo album on facebook with more photos from the trip: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/album.php?aid=228207&id=503370711 . My profile should be pretty public, but you will probably need to log in from a friend's account if you don't have your own.