Beating the Heat, Thai Style

We said farewell to the beautiful but way too expensive south and headed back up to Bangkok. Bangkok with its longtail boats, ancient wats and major modern mega malls kept us busy and entertained for the 2 days we were there. We found that the air conditioned cinemas were a much needed break from scorching midday heat. We managed to wander through the chaotic and lively china town and stopped in at the weekend outdoor market which is a gigantic maze full of junk, any kind of junk you never knew you needed; but the people watching is priceless if you can manage the heat in the over packed stalls. We also got a chance to meet up with my uncle Randy who frequents this tropical paradise from his own tropical paradise in Hawaii. He treated us to a couple of great dinners and it was fun to do things in style for a couple of days.

As we tend to get stuck in big cities we decided to high-tail it out of there and head for the northern city of Chang Mai. Our first day here, we rented cruiser bikes and wandered through the crazy streets in search of a tribal museum. Our bike day turned out to be a bit rainy, but we did stumble upon the museum after much aimless wandering through streets, puddles and parks.

The next day, we rented a scooter and headed up to Doi Suthep which is a famous wat and surrounding national park. The wat was beautiful and full of Thais, foreigners and monks alike. It supposedly has a great view of the city, but due to the haze in the air which is common this time of year, we didn't get to see it. We continued past the wat and visited a few tribal villages that are located in the national park. It was a long day on the scooter, and despite very sore buns, we had so much fun that we kept the scooter and visited another national park, Doi Inthanon, for 2 more nights. Doi Inthanon claims the highest point in Thailand, a whopping 2,500 meters. Relatively not too high, but the cooler air was very welcome. We saw many great waterfalls and stayed in a little hill tribe village right in the park. Our bungalow was old and made of bamboo, but it had a great lounging spot right out in front where we had campfires under the full moon. It seemed that we had the whole park to ourselves, luckily the high season is winding down. The lush green forest hosted many creepy crawlies including one "choncho", the spider who lived under the ply board steps in our bungalows bathroom and would come out at night to scare the living **** out of me when I would wake up to do business. This thing was gigantic, a monster. Think tarantulas, lurking in the corner with its beady eyes, watching you when your half asleep...not so cool. Luckily I got a little sleep in our bungalow since it had a spider proof net (a.k.a mosquito net), although I think Chancho could've eaten his way through if he was hungry enough. We are now back in Chang Mai and are heading toward the Laos boarder tomorrow for what may be 2-3 days of transit before we settle down in Luang Prabang.