Chiang Mai

June 22

11:14am Thai time

This morning I woke and went to the bathroom. After I did my business, I opened the little wood box that holds the toilet paper. There was nothing in it but an empty roll! Melissa had used all the tp again and didn't replace it or let me know. I was in a bind. But, yey Asia! There was a little hose next to the toilet so I sprayed myself and proceeded to use my towel from my shower the day before to dry off. There is a little sign by the toilet here that says do not flush toilet paper down the toilet please dispose it in the bin only, yet she still flushes all of it down. I really hope it doesn't lead to another bathroom situation like we had in Luang Prabang. I forgot to write about it I think. She ended up using all the tp and trying to flush it and it clogged the toilet. I went in to use the bathroom and found it overflowing. I sai something to her and she didn't even look up and just continued eating her sandwich so I noticed the staff downstairs. The lady came up and was pissed. She yelled about how it was too much tp. And I told her to throw it in the bin and she still is flushing it. She also didn't know to take malaria pills or go to a travel doctor to look into any vaccinations. It's a little odd.

We divided into 2 vans and hit the road around 7:45am. We have a 5 hour drive to Chiang Mai. I'm excited to go back. This time I will be able to explore the city which will be nice. Unfortunately we leave for our overnight train to Bangkok before the Sunday market opens so I will not be able to attend that one. Matt said there are a lot of other markets and he has never ward of the Sunday night market. Even the taxi driver I had in Chiang Mai talked about it.

After about 2 hours in the van, we stopped at Wat Rong Khun in Chiang Rai. This temple is ridiculous. It looks like its from a snow globe. It's sparkly white and looks like it is covered in snow and ice. It pretty spectacular.

The closer you get to it though, the stranger it gets. There were heads hanging from trees and when you first enter the bridge to the temple there are skulls and hands poking up from the ground, sort of like a hell type feeling. It's so weird but ridiculously cool. The detail is amazing.

You then remove your shoes and go inside. You're not supposed to take photos but Matt actually encouraged us to do so discreetly because he thinks it is a silly rule. The inside is not as elaborate as the outside. It is pretty crazy though still. There is a Buddha painted on the wall, and 2 Buddha statues on descending levels under that and on the floor there is a monk. He looks real but he isn't. It's really hard to tell though. The walls were crazy too. It was really hard to take good photos if the walls because you had to pretend you weren't taking any and the sunlight from the door made parts bleach out in the photo. It was madness. There was Spider-Man, Harry Potter, Kung Fu Panda, Jack Sparrow on his ship, Hello Kitty on sky scrapers... Just a bunch of crazy stuff. The area around the temple had really cool buildings as well. There really is no way to describe them without photos. I think soon I should be able to get photos up either in Chiang Mai or Bangkok. Most likely Bangkok. :)

We also stopped for a bathroom break a while after the temple. Kat and I went and we pretty much provided the lady with a good laugh. We couldn't figure out the ladies versus the men's stalls or where the tp was. I saw a sign that said men but I couldn't find the lady one. We had walked right past it. And then we went in the stall and were trying to find tp and the lady was pointing to the wall. There was a roll by the sinks before you went in the stall. She was laughing away haha. It was 5 baht which is maybe around 18 cents?

I decided to sign up for a cooking class in Chiang Mai so well do that for lunch when we get there instead of going to lunch with the group. Should be good. I hope we get to go to the market with them!

I totally forgot how beautiful Thailand is. Really all these countries are so beautiful when it comes to their scenery. They're so green and mountainous. Except maybe not Cambodia. It was pretty flat there.

12:18am Thai time

I figured out today that I spent around $32 at the market in Luang Prabang. I think I spent between $80 and $100 at the market in Chiang Mai tonight. I got way more stuff though and it was higher quality gifts than just little trinket type stuff. And T-shirts in Lao were around $2.25 and here you are lucky to get it for $5. Very lucky haha.

But, I am getting ahead of myself!

When we arrived in the hotel we basically had enough time to set our stuff down and then Robyn, Courtney, Robby, Zara, and I met downstairs at 1:30pm for our cooking class. Robby was so stoked for the cooking class. He gets so excited about things it's really cute. The lady came to pick us up at the hotel in her car. We jammed 2 in the trunk... In real seats, sorry to disappoint... And 3 in the middle normal back seat. Her husband drove. Robby was pumping his fist in the back while she was telling us what was on the menu for the day. We were making 4 dishes. A pad thai, a coconut soup, a chicken Thai curry, and mango sticky rice.

We got to go to the market with her which was pretty cool. It is a local market so it was all food (that I saw). We got many different ingredients and she named many more ingredients for us. We walked over to a man with a machine and she explained to us that we were buying coconut juice and cream. The guy put the coconut (we use the brown one, the green one is only for drinking) in a machine thing and it shredded the coconut meat. We got to taste that which was tasty and then he took that shredded meat and added different amounts of water to it to make it juice/cream. After that we walked into the meat section. Zara is a vegetarian and I think it wasn't too enjoyable for her. There were full pig heads on display and they were hacking away at meat right then and there. I have seen that in so many markets at this point that it didn't startle me but everyone else seemed a bit uneasy. It was just for a quick minute though.

Then we drove to her house. When we got there and opened the trunk to get all the groceries out, the coconut cream and juice fell on the ground and exploded. Her husband had to go back to the market while we started cooking. At her house there is a little garden area where she holds the cooking classes outside. It's really nice! We started off by being able to try rambutans and mangosteens which we had all had but were not complaining about.

The cooking class was so great. Things were so simple and easy and since we were a smaller group we all got to cool our own food. Everything was so good. I can't even pick a favorite. And she gave us a full recipe book! It has photos and everything including recipes we didn't even make in the course! It was so good. And it was only 700 baht. The mango sticky rice was better than in Vietnam as well because it was actual mango slices versus a purée. The things we learned in this course were so simple and easy to replicate but the one in Vietnam, I don't think I will ever be able to replicate what he did. It was really complicated and there were too many unnecessary steps to really be able to remember things.

We ate our pad thai right after we made it but the other 3 dishes we waited to eat at the end. We had to take our mango sticky rice to go because we were so stuffed. They have a 6 month old puppy as well who was so beautiful and well behaved. I don't know what type of dog it was but he was larger and kinda reminded me of a sheep dog a little (like the floods dog shamus). His name translates to black chili. I was petting him and he started to want to play but I still don't want to play with dogs that bite here haha. He was well kept but I don't want to take the risk...

They dropped us back at the hotel and we had about 45 minutes before we were all meeting again. At 5:45 we met and waited for the people doing activities tomorrow to book them. I am getting a massage tomorrow and waking around the city. Ed, Cara, Bart, and Courtney are the brave souls going bungee jumping. If I had the guts I would totally do it. I know I can't do that though. I had trouble jumping off the rope swing, there's no way I will easily be able to swan drive into the ground. Robby and Zara are going bamboo rafting. I'm going to hang out with Robyn, Saskia, Kat, and Sarah.

After everyone's bookings were squared away we headed to the night market in a taxi. The taxi we took are different from what we would consider a taxi. It's more like an enclosed Tsung Tao with an open back that allows people to stand on the back as well.

The night market was so cool. I think it is better than the one in Luang Prabang. They are very different though. The one in Luang Prabang is a lot of hand made stuff but this one had a good combination of everything. It was crazy. As I said, things are way more expensive here too than in Laos.

I got some of the pants I have been wanting with the low crotch, some tshirts, a really cool shirt that lights up to the music, some jewelry, gifts, and some paintings of elephants that I have wanted for a long time. I am totally in love with elephants now. Can't get over them. They're such a ridiculously cool animal.

Then we met back again around 9:15pm and followed Matt to a Muay Thai boxing match area that also doubles as a lady boy bar. This was interesting. I don't understand Thai boxing so please don't ask me about it. There was a really funny staged one with 3 people where there was a midget who could see and 2 normal guys who were blind folded. They were just wailing on each other. It was actually really funny. We also had the chance to hold a huge ass snake. Matt told me I was a natural, a lot of other people were freaking out a bit. Laura actually took a really great photo of it. All the servers were lady boys. They were all getting rowdy in the back of the bar with Matt.

A group of us headed back around 11:30pm. Laura, Ed, Bart, and Courtney stayed with Matt. I definitely would describe today as exciting. I think I could have spent so long in that market. Such fascinating things and it was so large.

I later found out that we missed the best boxing match (guys covered in tattoos who were really good... Real Thai boxing) AND we missed Ed and Bart fighting. Normally you have to pay 200 baht to fight without a ref and only for 1 round, but Ed and Bart were going at it and they were so entertaining that they ended up getting 3 rounds, people were betting on them, AND they got a ref! They drew the first round and after that Bart won the next 2 rounds. Ed was pretty funny about it because he said that it was really hard since Bart is so much taller that if Bart contacted him with a punch he was still a few inches away from being able to reach him because his limbs are so much shorter. I saw the match on Bart's camera. It would have been so fun to watch. They went all out on each other!