Chiang Mai

We had to say good-bye to Puket, after 10 days we had mixed feeling about leaving. I could have used a little more time unwinding sitting by the pool but we both felt the need to get moving and experience a little more of the Thai culture. We bought plane tickets to Chiang Mai in the north, Faun (the Thai girl whose bungalows we were staying at) gave us a ride to the bus and off we went to catch our plane to new and cooler places in the north.

Desending into Chiang Mai the first thing we noticed was the air quality, it reminded us of the firestorm in Kelowna, but it isn't that bad everyday and after a while you really don't notice it at all...really.

A couple in Puket gave us the name of the Prince Hotel, they said it was a value in Chiang Mai with a pool, h/c water and aircon all for 600 baht ($20) a night, so we have taken up residence here and are quite comfortable.

Chiang Mai is a nice city, it has a population of about 165 thousand, it is very warm and welcoming. The old city where we are hanging our hats is built in a square shape surrounded on all 4 sides by a moat that was built over 700 years ago to keep out Burmese invaders. Each side is about 2 km long with traffic travelling clockwise on the outside of the moat and counterclockwise on the inside. The old city is dissected with a few main roads which makes it easy to get around in but off of the main roads there are hundreds of little "soi" or alleys down which you will find all kinds on restaurants, shops and guest housed (hundreds). It is fantastic to go exploring, each day we have rented either pedal bikes or mopeds to get around on. A close runner up to the number of guest houses in Chiang Mai is the number of Wats, Buddha temples, there are about 300 temples here almost as many as in Bangkok which is a whole lot bigger city.

Trecking, and cooking schools are all the rage here. Every morning when we go the market for our fresh mango shake for breakfast we can see the students and teachers carrying their baskets shopping for all the fresh ingredients they will be using in the coarse that day. The smells of the fresh spices and all the vendors selling grilled meats and stirfrys is absolutely incredible. The Thais use alot of spice/herbs with all fresh simple ingredients, their food is so good for you...well we did see a Mc and a KFC here but that kind of fast food in far and few between and it is expensive compared to the $1 to $2 meals you can buy in a local restaurant.

Needless to say we love it here.

A view of Chiang Mai from the road to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep a temple on top of a nearby mountain.

Looking down the moat at night.

One of the oldest Wats in Chiang Mai

The intricate carving is unbelievable, the hours of labour that must have gone into it is mind boggling

What do you call these?

A dragon guards the long stairway to Wat Phar That Doi
Suthep, Ken and I climbed the steps along with Buddhist monks. At the bottom Ken took their picture for them in this same spot, I guess they can be tourists too.

A vendor in the market sells deep fried cockroaches, grasshoppers and grubs, we passed!

The sun over rice fields, you can see how smoky it is.

OK, you know trips can't be all fun and games, and Ken and I have considered ourselves pretty lucky in all the travelling that we have done, but we had a little bad luck when our friend Tony came up from Bangkok to visit and go on a bike trip to the Golden Triangle with us. We were travelling through a twisty mountain pass having a great time and enjoying our day. I saw a great picture op and asked Ken to pull over so I could take a picture. We hit some loose tar and down we went. Not nice. Luckily a truck passed by and took me to a clinic while Ken and Tony rode the bikes behind. A nurse cleaned us up but told us to go back to Chiang Mai to the hospital. Somehow I sat on the bike for the 1 1/2 hour ride back to Chiang Mai and luckily the bike was still ridable and Ken wasn't that badly hurt he couldn't ride it. At the hospital they cleaned Ken up (some good road rash and a bruise from his hip to his knee). I on the other hand had to have a little bit of a knee surgery, the skin was wore off down to the knee cap, along with a few stitches to an elbow. 3 days in the hospital for me and I will walking with care for a long while. Fortunately no bones were broken, we were wearing our helmets and we both walked away from the accident. The travel insurance company has been good, of coarse we had to pay with our visa and they will reimburse us (more flyer points for us). Much to our surprise the bike only cost $70 to fix and the shop was really nice about it (people are so nice here!) I guess there are many accidents here everyday. The health bills have been around $1000 so far and I have to keep going to the hospital everyday to get my wounds cleaned and then the stitches removed in 2 weeks. I don't even want to think what it would have cost in the U.S.!!!

Anyway, our plans have changed a little, we will hang around the north of Thailand for a few more weeks then probably go to Bangkok and then to Vietnam only for the last week or so before we fly out. That's OK we are flexible. Here are few pics of the accident...

Ken and I get adjoining beds in emergency.

I get stitched up and settled in for a few days.

Ken's nasty bruise on his hip.

One of our lovely nurses, they were all sooo nice!

Life goes on.