Well so far every night in Thailand (outside of Bangkok) we have stayed in a different place every night… tonight is no different. It is a really nice place, but our two rooms are separate buildings and we are without AC, and the mosquito nets, while very pretty, seem like an ominous threat alluding to some potential night time visitors.
Today was more like a recovery day from the trek. We all slept in till about 10, which really isn’t common for all of us (maybe some of us, but not all of us.) We had a nice big meal, I took a chance to eat a pizza while it was sill available… it was good, but it was not an “American pizza.” We hit the internet cafe, and did some research on how we were going to get to Laos at some travel agent places around our hostel.
Every sunday there is a massive street market in Chiang Mai. We walked around for hours on end, and we had barely made a dent by the time exhaustion set in and we had to head back to bed. I don’t think it would have been possible to simply walk around the whole thing which spread through court upon court, and block upon block, never mind actually looking at the stands.
On the way back we got a quick massage for 2 dollars and then hit the sack.
With the fact that Lop Buri (the monkey city) and Ayutthaya (old capital of siam) are a lot smaller cities and a lot less western, we spent the first part of our day getting together some extra cash and toiletries etc. We then wandered down to the river (a minute or so walk from the guest house) to check out a longboat river tour. Previously billed as 500 baht per person the lady was selling seats for 300 baht per person to other tourists, and we convinced her to go down to 200 baht per person (She reluctantly said “OK” with a message of “no tell others”) I was quite glad we got to see it. The main goal was to go see a floating market, but the areas that the boat toured around were maybe even more fascinating.
Along the way we found a huge lizard-like creature swimming in the water… pictures will have to follow, I hope at least one turned out.
We had a nice lunch and headed to the train. A travel agent guy insisted that we needed him to pre-book the train and accommodations for our trip earlier, but that doesn’t fit with how we want to schedule things (ie. we don’t schedule) Anyways turns out that the trip to Ayutthaya cost us 15 baht. That’s like 50 cents. Not the hundreds he was trying to sell us.
We got in late and after some horrible confusing phone calls we got to the guest house.
First off, dad, love the free wifi link. We are staying at the New Siam II.. if you could find one or two near us that would be awesome. Watching the counter go down and searching is a little frantic. We spent most the day getting used to the heat, walking around, and waiting for Amy. No big plans for today except maybe enjoy some time by the pool.
Continued… turned out Amy’s flight was quite delayed. Not too bad, we enjoyed a nap while we waited and it seems it is never too hard to spend time doing nothing here. It t fantastic all the fruit that is around here. We met a guide named Taylor. Seems like a charismatic fellow; likely a front man type guy to the tuk tuk drivers who try to scam you into expensive rides around Bangkok.
