Chiang Mai

For the weekend a whole bunch of us took a trip to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand. Pai is 4 hours by the slow chicken bus and 2.5-3 hours by the faster mini-bus. The mini-bus is just a small van that whips around the curves and is known to cause motion sickness. Thinking ahead we stopped at the pharmacy and downed some Dramamine before the ride. Unfortunately the lady in the seat next to us thought ahead but with different results. She brought a whole mess of plastic bags and proceeded to barf in them the whole way there and throw them out the window. Yuck.

Arriving in Chiang Mai a bit groggy from the Dramamine but not sick to our stomachs, we got some lunch and then rented a scooter for our transportation needs. A nice little scooter runs about 125 baht per day, or $3.75. Just be sure to rent from a place with helmets. The second largest temple in Thailand, Doi Suthep is located about 10km out of town and a nice view of the city. We hopped on the scooter and headed up the mountain. There was a lot of traffic in town but once on the windy mountain road it was not too bad, just need to remember to stay on the lefthand side of the road. The temple was very cool and has 400+ steps leading up to it as well as a nice statue of a white elephant. See here for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_Phrathat_Doi_Suthep

That night we went to one of the large night markets that has everything from lamps, clothing, scarfs, t-shirts, pirated DVDs and a whole mess of other hadicrafts and jewelery and stuff. I picked up a couple of beer Chang shirts for maybe $3.00 each. Later on we went out on the town and saw a live cover band, then to a club called 'Spicy'. In the club there were mormon waiters, (well waiters that looked like mormons) that would come around and push through the crowds to serve you. This is very nice because getting to the bar in a crowded club can be a realy hassle sometimes.

Today we slept late and then took the scooter out to an umbrella factory. The umbrealla factory is where umbrellas are made and painted by hand. Not needing an umbrella, the other cool thing they do is paint shirts and bags and really anything you want as it turns out. Another friend here with me had previously gotten a cool design painted on his messenger bag, so I decided it would be even cooler to have my laptop painted. It cost about $3.00 but as you can tell it was well worth every baht!