Last stop: Bangkok

I am back in Bangkok, where I began my whole Thailand extravaganza. I'm splurging big time on a hotel at $25/night. In a few hours I will get on a bus to the airport to board a four hour flight to Beijing with a six hour layover and then another 17 hours to New York. Total travel time: 24 hours.

I can't believe that my stay in Asia has finally come to an end. I truly feel as if one door in my life is closing and another one is opening. I know that sounds really corny.

Anyone who knew me prior to my arrival in Vietnam would definitely say that I was completely lost. That my choice to come to Vietnam was kind of out of desperation to help myself figure things out. That was absolutely true. Almost fourteen months later I can say today that moving to this part of the world was the best thing I could have done for myself at the time that I did it. It was an especially great move career wise. I am more focused, I know what I want to do, and I have gained many skills to help me further my goals.

I'm going to be ridiculously busy once I get back home, so I have a lot to look forward to.
About a week after I arrive to the States I have my cousin's wedding to attend in Maryland on the fourth of July. Then in the middle of July I am flying out to Colorado to spend 2 1/2 weeks with my boyfriend, Ryan. It's difficult to believe that it will have been four months since the last time we saw each other...in person (thank goodness for Skype!). After that I only have a couple more weeks before I move to Vermont to begin graduate school at The School for International Training.

So...goodbye Asia! Thanks for everything! See you again!

Pai-Chiang Mai-Sukhothai

I spent the rest of my time in Pai relaxing and reading in my hammock. Most people who go to Pai rent a motorbike, but having just spent a year riding one all over Hanoi I preferred to walk. I thought it was kind of nice to walk the 15 minutes back and forth from my guesthouse area through the fields and over the river to the town anyway.

Pai was an interesting little town built for hippies. You would be hard pressed not to walk past a cafe with a white guy with dreads playing Bob Dylan on his guitar, or hearing Bob Marley or Jack Johnson streaming out from a bar.

Wednesday I took a bus back to Chiang Mai and finished up some last minute shopping.

Yesterday I got on a local bus from the Chiang Mai bus station to Sukhothai - the ancient capital of Thailand. On my way here I had a sudden realization:
I kept thinking that I was leaving Sunday because my flight leaves at 1am Sunday. I planned to spend all of Friday (today) in Sukhothai to see the temples, then head to Bangkok Saturday and still have most of Sunday to hang out in the city before I had to get on my flight in the evening. However, on the bus here it hit me that I'm actually leaving Saturday night/Sunday morning at 1am to go back to the U.S....not Sunday night. I can be so silly sometimes. As soon as I reached the bus station last night in Sukhothai I bought a ticket for this morning to Bangkok. I would have completely missed my flight if I hadn't realized this.

The good thing about this is that I am smack dab right in between Chiang Mai and Bangkok...there's only another 6 more hours to go as opposed to the 11-12 hour bus ride/train ride I could have taken from CM to BKK. Also, if I had planned on going straight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok I would have taken a tour bus which would have went straight down the highway, but I took a local bus which made many stops in small towns along the way, so those were nice to see.

White Water Rafting in Northwest Thailand

The other day I was just moseying down the street in Pai town when I noticed a trekking/rafting agency. I thought to myself, "That could be fun!" I popped in and made my reservation to go rafting the next morning. That's what is so cool about traveling by myself - I can do whatever I want when I want to. The downside of traveling by myself is that when I am doing the things I want to I feel that I would be having 50% more fun if I had someone else to share it with.

The next morning some guys from the company came to pick me up at 7:30 am. We then went to get another guy, Charlie, and his Mom, Penny. It was nice because it was just 5 of us in the raft: me, Charlie, Penny, the guide and his assistant.

We drove 1 1/2 hours to the site where we would begin our journey on Nam Khong River. I was surprised to find that the trip out to the site was so cold! The man at the agency told me to bring a jacket or a sweatshirt with me warning that it would be quite cool and I thought he was being silly...he wasn't. I don't have either of those things with me anyway, so I was freezing on the way up and around the mountains.


They had to tie my flip flops onto my feet so they wouldn't fall off in case I fell in.

Along the way we stopped at some waterfalls for swimming and lunch. I think that besides Mai Chau, I have never seen scenery so beautiful in my entire life. We paddled through a jungle full of bamboo trees, Kingfisher birds, orchid trees and lush greenery.




Eventually we flowed into Pai river, which was a bit rougher than the easygoing Nam Khong.

We hit some hot springs and took a rest in the warm waters.
At some point our guide spotted a monitor lizard hanging out in a tree. He turned the raft around because he wanted to catch it. He asked Charlie to go with him. Eventually after some provoking, the lizard fell about 300 meters to the ground almost falling on top of Charlie, but he got out of the way and the lizard ran into the river. Our guide was so excited about what happened that he talked about it for the next fifteen minutes.
Seven hours later in the raft we reached the end of our journey.

It took another 2 1/2 hours in the truck back to Pai town.
In the evening I had dinner with Charlie and his mother. They were an interesting pair. She has been volunteering with an NGO at refugee camps for Burmese ethnic minorities on Thai border towns, and he is just visiting her from the UK.

The trip was so much fun and I definitely recommend it for anyone visiting Pai!

Chiang Mai and onto Pai

For most of the morning and some of the afternoon I wandered around the old town area of Chiang Mai. It is a city within a city confined within four walls.
I stepped into a few temples to take a gander. The first I saw, and the most important temple of all was Wat Phra Singh.

Posted throughout the temple grounds were Buddhist sayings.
I stumbled upon a few other temples. Not quite sure of the names of them though.

After walking around for 5 hours in the Summer heat I took a tuk tuk back to where I was staying at the Parami Guesthouse.

That evening I sat around and drank a beer with, David, another lone American traveler. Roger, the guesthouse owner, invited us both out to dinner with his wife at some local rice shop. They took us on the back of their motorbikes. The food was delicious and for the four of us the bill was less than $20. I love eating in Asia.

This morning I hopped on a bus to Pai, a small town in the north west. The trip only took about 3 1/2 hours and cost $7.

I didn't book any hotels in advance...I just figured that I would find something when I arrived. I'm staying at a rustic resort of sorts about 15 minute walk outside of the town.
I have my own bungalow complete with a hammock!

After I got settled I walked into town and took photos along the way. This place is so beautiful!




When I told a few people that I was going to Pai for only three nights they would say, "That's what everyone says, and then they end up staying for 2 weeks." We'll see if I decide to stay longer.

I went into a tour agency and booked a white water rafting trip for tomorrow. It's the whole day and everything is included (ie transportation, food) so I'm quite excited about that!

For the rest of the day I'm just going to chill out and relax in my hammock.

Thai Cooking Class

This afternoon I took a cooking class through the Thai Farm Cooking School. The class was held at their organic farm about 17 km outside of Chiang Mai. I was with a group of 8 other people, so it was quite small. What I really liked about the course was that we could choose from a list of what we wanted to make - we didn't all have to make the same thing.

This morning they picked each of us up at our hotels and brought us to a local market to show us different kinds of rice, how the vendors make fresh coconut milk, and about the condiments we would be using later on.

Next, we went to the farm and our teacher gave us a tour of all of the fruits, vegetables and herbs grown on the farm.

She then showed us how to cook sticky rice and jasmine rice.

Finally, we were able to start cooking. We were each given our own station to work on.

We had to make a curry, so we were given the choice between red, green or yellow curry.
I chose green, so I made green chicken curry.


Next, each of us made a soup and I chose to make a tofu tom yum soup. This one was by far my favorite.

Last, we were given the choice to make a stir fry of some kind, or a papaya salad and I chose the latter:

Lunch time!

After lunch we had a rest and then it was back to the kitchen to make two more dishes. I made a dessert with banana and coconut milk (no picture, sorry) and a pad thai!

We all had to take our food home because we were too full from lunch. Much fun definitely had by all!

On the road to Chiang Mai

I really wanted to get a haircut in Bangkok, so yesterday Veronika and I went to a posher side of town to have our hair done at a salon.
The stylists in the salon did not speak English very well, so I just said "Victoria Beckham" and that was enough for them to understand long in the front and short in the back. I've had a haircut similar to that in the past and I was quite content with it. The cut was just what I asked for, but I should have gesticulated in some manner that I didn't want it too short in the back because that's also what I got. Luckily, my hair grows really fast, so in about 2 weeks it'll be just the way I want it.

We wandered around the area a little bit, poking our noses into some shopping malls.

That evening Veronika and I went to the Hua Lumpong train station so I could get on my over night train to Chiang Mai.
The train was supposed to arrive at 9:45am the next morning in Chiang Mai, but it did not exactly happen as planned. Around 6am the train attendants woke everyone up (although it seemed as if they only raised the attention of the foreigners) and told us that our train had been in an accident and we were going to switch to a bus at the next station. I think if our train had been in an accident we would have felt it which no one did, so we were all very confused, but compliant. Conveniently, there were four tour buses waiting for us at the next station. I was trying to think about how this could be a scam of some kind because Veronika told me as soon as I arrived in Bangkok that there are quite a few Thais are out to scam foreigners in one way or another.

The bus I got on stopped about 45 minutes into the trip because it wasn't working very well. Long story short, I didn't arrive in Chiang Mai until noon today.

Smallest room ever.

I'm staying in a guesthouse just outside of the touristy area, so if I want to go anywhere I have to cross a footpath bridge...which is a really nice walk.

This afternoon I headed to Warorot market just over the bridge to grab something to eat because I was starving. I saw a woman eating this sort of egg/noodle concoction and decided I would have a go...it was delicious! It actually looks and tastes just like Pad Thai.
I then walked around and did a bit of shopping near the old town. There were several used book stores along the way and it made me so excited! Books! Good ones! Vietnam has a crap selection of books because everything is censored by the government. I picked up a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird because I have heard so many people say it's their favorite book and I have yet to read it.

After returning to my guesthouse I had a facial at the spa next door!

This evening I walked back to Warorot to grab some dinner. As you can see I had a bowl of noodles and to drink I had "Roselle Juice". You can also see that it's extra red and that is probably because red food coloring was added to it, as well as a ton of sugar. Veronika explained to me that once she ordered a green tea and was expecting a natural green tea looking liquid, but instead her tea was bright, bright green because whoever made it added food coloring. She learned that Thais like to see the color of whatever their ingesting, so if it's green tea it MUST be obviously green, and if it's "roselle juice" it must be glaringly red.

I think I'm going to stick to water from now on.

More in Bangkok

Yesterday morning Veronika and I headed to a little French cafe around the corner from her apartment. I had a cinnamon roll and a cup of coffee and it was so great!

After breakfast we went to the Grand Palace. I've never seen structures so ornately decorated. My pictures do not do this area any justice.

I had to wear a big shirt over what I was wearing because the sleeves of my shirt were considered too short.




We then took the ferry again to Chinatown and wandered around...getting slightly lost. Eventually we found a street with lots of food vendors and we sat ourselves down and enjoyed some fresh fruit juice. I'm definitely going to have to start using my juicer when I return home because I'm going to miss having fresh fruit juice whenever I want and so cheaply.
Later on in the evening Veronika got a foot massage and I had a full body Thai massage. Amazing.