And a Wat, Wat here, and a Wat, Wat there ....
Chaing Mai is FULL of Buddist Wat's and they are quite the sight to see...walking down the street you see nothing but golden peaks and white washed buildings.
We arrived here in Chaing Mai on Friday afternoon after a long delayed flight on Air Asia...and took a taxi from the airport to our pre-booked Hotel, the Royal Guesthouse - looks OK from the outside, small pool surrounded by vines...but our room - well, we ended up sleeping on the sheet I had brought - took the blankets off - and wore our shoes wherever we went - definately not work thE 600B we paid ...but gave us a place to stay for the night...we walked around town for a while and had dinner at a place called the Corner Cafe - yummy Pad Thai for me, yummy beer and curry (I think) for Kiev...and the owner looking lady asked us if we wanted to go to see Thai Boxing that night - we had been thinking of it as Kiev quite wanted to see, so we purchased our tix from her along with our meal for the event later that night...
We wandered around this Huge night market and had dinner there...so much to take in - so many textiles, fake name-brand goods and people everywhere - and then headed to the boxing match....
It was hard for me to comprehend at first because it is not normal boxing, and the first people to match up were kids - I mean like 10 years old or so. It was explained to me that this is normal conditionling (like soccer, hockey, etc where the kids start young) and that the Thai kids start their children boxing young, as a sport. Still, it was hard to see the kids wrestle and puch each other. As the events wore on, the contenders got older...and the main event was a white guy against a Thai guy...the white guy won...
We wandered around the town yesterday - getting a feel of the lay of the land. The old city is a perfect square - and surrounded by a moat - traffic is one way around the city with one side of the moat going in one direction, and the other side, going in the opposite. The old city, in addition to the moat, had a large brick wall around it as well, for protection, portions of which are still standing. There are people selling things out of carts everywhere...we went to a market and saw one vendor with a galvanized steel bucket with fresh fish swimming around, as well as having a table of fish and frogs, freshly gutted and beside that, fried fish - I found it to be the three stages of death for the fish...
Ok - I should sign off now, but wanted to send out a quick update. We are staying now, in a place in Chaing Mai called Grace's Boutique Hotel, which is lovely and clean and 400B a night (just under $12 for the both of us) and is in the old city....We are getting some sun, but it is very cool at night, so don't have much of a tan yet (and are using our sunscreen faithfully). We are having a great time and would love to hear from you!
Ciao for now,
Karrie
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Sawadee everyone!
This is the general greeting you hear everywhere whether it be passing someone on the street, entering a night market, walking into your hotel, or being solicited by young girls on Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok (any road for that matter).
On that note, it is one of the many reasons why we are kicking back in Chiang Mai. A major city in northern Thailand that we flew into from BKK on Friday. Compared to the craziness of BKK, this town is much more our speed. Chilled out like a surf town (sans surf) with fresh air and fruit smoothies falling from the sky (ok that's and exagerration). The days are warn and breezy, while evenings are quite cool (don't worry, it aint anything a bowl of (insert colour here) curry and a large Singha can't fix.
We booked our cooking course for today, (maybe Karrie will start when we get back home) ;P. It includes a shopping trip to the market! But sometime before then we have to flag down a tour dude to figure out a bus to the Thai - Laos border on Tuesday. Plus throw in a hill tribe trek for tomorrow.
Anyhoo, my hour ($20 Baht) is running out here in this internet cafe, sorry I can't be more eloquent. So I'm gonna run too. I've cooled down enough in this cafe and this skin won't tan itself.
Kawp kun kha
Lots of love
kiev
