Bangkok and Northern Thailand

Bangkok Tovah and I could not believe how nice the Bangkok Airport was when we landed that we even considered sleeping there that evening. After a quick and painless customs process, we got a taxi to Khao San Road- seems to be the backpackers mecca of Bangkok. The street is lined with bars and restaurants, food, clothes and other various market stalls. After one night of staying right on Khao San Road we opted for a room at a guesthouse a street behind it. We did some sightseeing such as taking the ferry and walking to Lumphini Park. The park is awesome. Not only is it beautiful, but there are exercise machines and weight lifting equipment scattered throughout the park and people go on as they like. There is paddle boating on the small lakes, a running track going all around it, and the craziest variation of volleyball we have ever seen. Our favorite part however was the 6:30 pm aerobics that took place throughout the park. In some areas there was only about 10-15 people doing Tai Chi, while at the main area there was probably more than 300 people doing aerobics led by a woman on a platform. It doesn't cost anything to do the class, but you can leave a donation...not bad. What Tovah and I found particularly different was at 6 pm a whistle blew and everyone on the track stopped running/walking, and those sitting stood while the national anthem played, then another whistle blew and everyone resumed what they were doing. While in Bangkok we hit up the massive Sunday market that no one would be able to get through in a day. In 3 hours I was only able to hit up about 1/8th of it- but of course Tovah nor I left empty handed. Although it was March 11th we decided to celebrate Tovah's birthday that night since we were going to be on an overnight bus to Chiang Mai on her actual birthday (the 12th). We went for a quick street meal, then headed to a bar/club hoping to meet some people so that we would not be celebrating alone. For the first hour or so, aside from a few games of foos ball with some of the waitresses that worked there (who by the way appeared to have had lots of practice as they schooled us), it seemed that we would in fact be partying solo. However, my perfect timing for a visit to the bathroom led to me meeting Prewa (from Phuket, Thailand). She LOVED to talk and when I told her it was my friends birthday, she walked straight out of the bathroom and right up to a confused Tovah giving her a big hug. From that moment on we kept accumulating a crew of people and ended up celebrating til the bar closed and we had to go to another one that was opened later. The next day we had to pack up and store all our cold weather clothes/gear at the hotel, and caught the bus to Chiang Mai that night. The bus actually forgot about us and so they sent someone on a moped to pick us up and transport us one at a time with our backpacks to where the bus had stopped to wait for us. Once on we realized the only 2 seats together had almost no leg room and so there was no way Tovah could sit there....I even struggled. Chiang Mai Our bus rolled into Chiang Mai at like 7 am. As we were warned, it dropped us at one guesthouse as they bank on the fact that everyone will be so tired that they will just stay at that guesthouse out of convenience. A group of us decided to grab a map and set out on our own to find accommodation. After walking for 10-15 minutes a few of the crew began to drift off leaving me and Tovah with Laura (Canada) and Andrea (Slovenia). We got some coffee and breakfast to regroup then ended up stumbling upon a guest house called the Nice Place 2. It was in fact a 'nice place', and they also offered a 3 day 2 night trek for a reasonable price and with it your 1st night's accommodation is free and every night there after is discounted so long as you book through them. We checked out the night market which is huge and spans many blocks on both sides of the street, organized our visa for Vietnam and ate dinner at the greatest vegetarian restaurant called Aum (delicious, cheap, and fast). We went to see a Thai boxing match since Tovah had wanted to see one on her birthday, but it was good we waited as it turned out to be much less expensive in Chiang Mai then in Bangkok. We waited for our ride to the arena, but it turned out our ride was 2 mopeds. Not sure if I have mentioned it, but I am not the biggest fan of riding on the back of such vehicles. Nonetheless we each got on one and off we went. We got to the arena and took our seats on the side of the ring with Tom, one of guys from the guesthouse that drove us. It was very interesting as the boxers only get points for kicking but they are allowed to punch (these pointless, literally, punches turned out to knock a few of the boxers out). There were about 8 or so fights and they started with kids around the age of 12. I didn't love watching that as they were so young but it was really cool to watch the art and culture involved in these fights. The next day we had to wake up early as we signed up for a Thai cooking course. It was a really great course from Baan (800 B). It began with a trip to the market where Dtom, our instructor, showed us the various kinds of foods, spices, etc. that we would be using for our food and we purchased everything we would need there. We headed back and got to first try the traditional 'welcome' dish which was quite the concoction of foods and very good. Then we went right in to preparing the food. We started with Pad Thai, then savory minced chicken salad, hot and sour prawn soup, green curry with chicken and water chestnuts with coconut milk for dessert. It was a very good course that seemed more individualized than I had expected. We all got our own woks, and all the food with meat/seafood had tofu substituted for me. While undoubtedly one of my favorite things about this course was the fact that we got to eat everything we made, Tovah and I had to roll ourselves back to the guesthouse for a meeting/briefing with our group that we would be going on a 3 day 2 night trek with. It seemed like a good crew and it turned out to be even better than we thought. Aside from Tovah and I, there were Paul and Matt from England, Anna from Australia, Jason and Susie from Australia and Denmark, Lindsay and Chris from Canada, Flor and Eva from Holland, Oren from Israel, and Judith from Switzerland. The next morning we left all our stuff minus a small pack for the 3 days at the guesthouse and 13 of us packed into a truck that was not meant to seat 13, so 2 people stood off the back of it and held onto the roof. We arrived at the Lisu tribe village for lunch and had enough time to play with the kids there before heading off on what proved to be a more strenuous trek than I think most of us had imagined. The landscape we trekked through was beautiful, but unfortunately due to the burning of the land, it was very hazy. Once at our final destination for the night, the Lasu village, we played cards- our favorite game of course, "shithead", which seems to have different rules depending on what country you come from, but more or less the same ('same same but different'). We watched our guide Mr. O giving a tattoo with bamboo to the other guide he affectionately called lady boy, and then sat down for a fabulous and massive dinner. Dinner was followed by a singing and dancing performance given by some local kids who had us join in, and then for some beers and 'moonshine' which is the traditional homemade grain alcohol. Mr. O convinced us to drink it saying "its good for your health". The next day brought more trekking to a small village where we ate lunch and hiked up to a waterfall that was freezing cold but very refreshing. From there about another hour or so of trekking until we climbed aboard elephants that took us almost the rest of the way to our final destination for the night, the Karen tribe. Riding elephants was quite an experience. Tovah and I started off riding on a seat that was fastened on the back of the elephant. It felt a little unsteady and took us a little to get used to.....in fact, I am not sure Tovah ever got used to it as she claims she will never ride an elephant again. Anyway, the 'driver' that sat on the elephant's neck was very aggressive with our elephant and since we had the male elephant that sported a 5th leg as we were on it (probably due to the female elephants in front of us), he was acting up and doing his own thing. Every time the elephant didn't listen or do as our driver requested, our guide would take out this thing that looked like a blunted knife and hit the elephant hard on the head with it making the elephant cry out. This obviously upset me, and so every time I saw him reach for it I would plead, "no, no, please, no". The man clearly got annoyed with my objections and so he jumped off the disobedient elephant and told me to go on its neck and take over the steering. Seem like a good idea to leave two girls who have never been on an elephant before to fend for themselves with an elephant that was misbehaving? I think not! Anyway, I ended up moving to his neck and taking over the guides job but instead decided my steering technique would be to be gentle and kind to our elephant. It seemed to work and although there were many times he went off course on the very narrow and steep pathway, he seemed to respond better to my technique than to our guides aggressive abuse. I have since been entertaining the thought of changing professions. Once at Karen Camp, we showered and had dinner that was followed by drinking games initiated by Mr. O. The first game was called 'bang, bang, bong'. Whoever messed up not only had to drink the moonshine, but also got charcoal from the bottom of the wok that was used for dinner rubbed on their face. By the end of the game everyone's face was covered in black. The next day we hiked to where we were to go bamboo rafting. We were put in groups of 3 and 4 and had to stand on the long bamboo rafts with long bamboo poles to propel us along. The rafting turned into a competition of who could be the first raft to get to the end, but ended with the ultimate goal being to get everyone to fall into the river. When we got back to Chiang Mai we were exhausted, but all but three of the group (who had already left for different places)met up for dinner at the Sunday market. It was huge and you could get whatever you wanted for like 20 cents, and so we each got a plethora of foods for dinner. After dinner we went to this bar that was playing a soccer game that the Brit's wanted to see. It turned out to be a great idea as this bar had free pool, foos ball, air hockey, internet, peanuts and popcorn! I mean really, what could be better? We took advantage of the free entertainment until around 2 am...needless to say I woke up with sore arms from intense air hockey and foos ball playing. The next morning we decided to go to Pai and meet up with Flor, Eva, Paul and Oren from our trek so the following morning Tovah, Anna, Chris, Matt and I caught the local bus there. While the local bus was the most economical, it was extremely uncomfortable and long. There was no leg room in the already small seats that even I (having short legs) had trouble fitting them in. When we finally got there we got bungalows from the place Paul reserved for us called Riverview. Perfect but very basic bungalows on a small really chill river. Pai is a cute little hippie town that I could have definitely spent more time in. There is a schedule daily of all the towns happenings such as yoga, meditation, hot springs, music, etc. We spent our time there relaxing, hula hooping (Anna is a pro "hooper" and she has begun to teach us some moves), and partying a bit with our friends. However the town seems to shut down early and it is a little eerie to be walking back to the bungalows at night in the dark with seemingly no one in the streets. After a wonderful 2 days, Tovah, Paul, Anna, and I embarked on an extremely long journey that would bring us to Laos. We had no interest in the 2 day slow tourist boat, so we opted for the do-it-yourself bus route. Tovah and I were very lucky to have found two fun and lovely people (Paul and Anna) to travel with. The four of us and Matt, who was staying in Chiang Mai for a few days, got a van that made the 4-5 hour journey there. Once there we were going to throw our stuff in Matt's room til we left that evening. We were very disappointed to find such a complete change in attitude from the people at The Nice Place 2. They were angry with us that we booked our bus ticket through someone other than them that they were rude to us and were going to make Matt pay double what he was meant to pay for the room saying prices went up....how convenient they went up during the 2 days we were in Pai! After finding another place and putting our stuff down we hung out til we had to get to the bus station. It was a nice bus (called V.I.P bus) and aside from one stop at midnight, took us all the way to Udan Thani where we arrived in the early morning. From there we had to take a government bus to Nong Khai then a tuk tuk to the border. Once we got our visas and crossed over into Laos, we caught a local bus to Ventiene. In Ventiene we got money out which made us feel rich as $1 USD equals about 9,550 Kip . We got a tuk tuk to take us to where the bus would leave for Vang Vieng and had just enough time to get lunch before another long bus ride. Finally, after about 5 buses and many tuk tuks we arrived in the small, tourist friendly (or tourist oriented) town of Vang Vieng.