Content-type: text/html Ray Manning

Thursday, July 3, 2014 8:02 PM

Thailand


Karl and I fly to Chiang Mai in Thailand and grab our hotel. We drop laundry off to be done and call Prayong. Prayong is a friend of mine that I have not seen for three years. Prayong comes over to the hotel that I stayed at a few years ago and we sit in the lobby and talk and then we go walking for a bit before we decide to find te bicycle rental place. So Karl, Prayong, and I all get on Prayong's small 110cc motorbike and ride to the rental shop. We figure out which bicycles we want and decide to come back in the morning since the rental is per ray rather than per hour. The owner, Mr Sak, is a very friendly older man with a great smile and I tell him "kuhn na rahk" (I like your smile or you have a cute face, however it can be interpreted.) and he appreciates it. The three of us get back on the motorbike and ride to the hotel near Pizza Hut where we meet up with Mew. We are sitting in the lobby for a second time when I tell Prayong, "We're not staying at this hotel". I cannot describe the look on his face of shock. (I stayed at this specific hotel a few years ago but this time we are at a different one.) Mew is Prayong's friend who I also met briefly three years ago. Mew used to be very shy with limited Englsh skills, bt now he is very outgoing and his English is veryy good. Mew's partner, Nicolet, cannot join us, but we have a nice dinne talking about many things. I've brought t-shirts for everyone on this entire trip, so Prayong and Mew and Nicolet get Los Angeles or California themed t-shirts (along with many of the Pakistani people that we worked with). (My suitcase is finally getting some room in it.) After dinner Prayong and Mew leave while Karl and I walk around Chiang Mai and along the river and then call it a night before 10pm.

On Saturday I sleep until 8 am. I can ony remeber two occasions in many years where I slept until 8 am or later and that was when I was sick. But with all of the travel and time changes and heat, I had a good sleep. Karl and I grab a tuk-tuk ride to visit Mr Sak of the Cacti bike shop in Chiang Mai to rent bicycles. We get two bicycles and ride out past a lake to Huay Tueng Tao and then ride around the lake twice. This is not enough miles so we ride back towards Chiang Mai, stop for lunch, and hen do a timed ride out along the river of Chiang Mai to the countryside. Finally we turn around and go back to the bicycle shop. It is hot today and I'm seating like crazy, but I just love being on the bicycle the seeing all sorts of things. We run across some other riders who are from Florida and serving at a Christian mission for orphan children. We have a nice discussion with them also. Finally as we return the bicycles to Mr Sak, Karl says that we should grab two motorbikes for the next few days. So soon we have rented two motorbikes from Mr Sak and we ride back to the hotel. I like Mr Sak a lot and tell him also "kuhn na rak" (You have a nice smile or I love your face or something like that) because Mr Sak always has a great smile and is warmand friendly. Later Karl and I grab some western dinner because our next guests will insist on Thai food for a while.

The price of the motorbike rental, which actually made sense financially because we can get around cheaper without paying for tuk-tuks and cabs, is worth the it just to see the look on Tree's face when we pull up to the airport to pick him up. After dropping off luggage we ride the motorbikes out to the pretty lake that Karl and I rode bicycles to yesterday and sit and relax and enjoy the beauty. Then we take the motorbikes up the steep climb of Doi Suthep to a Buddhist temple that sits on top of the mountain and overlooks Chiang Mai. It is good to enjoy the sights of the temple and to observe people - both natives and visitors - as they enjoy the intricate decorations and features of the temple. Finally we ride back home and grab dinneser. Tree is tired so he go to sleep as Karl and I start walking. We walk past a number of places and finally go to the new location of a couple of "stand-up" bars that I used to go to. We grab seats and there are a couple of people that I remember from a few years ago and we greet each other and try to catch up on what's been going on in Chiang Mai and other places. By midnight both Karl and I are tired so we walk on back to the hotel.

Karl and I return the motorbikes to Mr Sak. I like Mr Sak a lot because he is so friendly and always smiling. After shaking his hand to leave I give him a big hug. Tree and Mr Karl and I get a ride to the bus station and wait around for a three hour bus ride to Chiang Rai. The ride itself is beautiful as there are lush green trees and fields and twisty roads and mountains. We arrive at the hotel after 4pm and get changed for either swimming in the pool or a good aerobics workout just on aerobics machines. After getting cleaned up we go back to the city center for dinner. We get some Spy (Thai ine coolers) and walk over to the night entertainment center where people gather around, eat dinner, and listen to live entertainment. The entertainment isn't very good, but we enjoy ourselves. Because Tree wants to go to the night market which is only open between midnight and 8 am, he goes back to the hotel to sleep while the rest of us go to a club that plays Isaan province music (i.e., Thai country music). (This is the music that I don't care for, but have to put up with again on this trip.) This club is very large and we take our seats towards the back. After a while I can resst no more and I'm up and (more or less) dancing. It seems as if many people become friendly with me after I've started dancing and it is hard to hear so I don't catch anyone's names. There is a stickboy that I find fascinating, so I go introduce myself and do the best that I can over the loud Thai music. (Of course I have my earplugs in, which does not help being able to hear conversations.) Eventually the club closes and we stay in the parking lot waiting for a ride. I see the stickboy outside and finally can go talk with him in peace and quiet. But I just give him a friendly greeting and get his name and then go back to the ride situation. We catch a tuk-tuk back to our hotel by 2 am. Halfway to te hotel we see a motorbike and a rider laying on the ground at an intersection. Though he has just fallen, there are other people attending to him so we proceed on towards home. He was conscious and breathing but probably has a broken bone or two.

I go with Tree to negotiate the rental of three motorbikes for the three of us. It costs us about $30 for two days of three motorbike rentals. But we will probably come out ahead on taxi and tuk-tuk savings. We pick up the third motorbike and have lunch and now we're headed out towards the White Temple. This Buddhist temple is all white and was servely damaged in the (rare) earthquake a few months ago. When we get to the temple you can see some of the spires hanging off at crooked angles, cracked tile and stucco, and damaged artwork. For a while they considered closing the temple permanently, but fortunately it is open and being repaired. After the temple visit we start towards the largest waterfall near Chiang Rai. It starts to rain and we consider turning back, but I say to keep pushing on. The rain starts and stops and dries and starts again for the next two hours as we get to the waterfall and find it is closed for three months. We then start heading towards home but take a single lane road up the side of the hill towards hillside tribe land and have a fun (if bumpy) ride among trees and green meadows and beautfiul views. When we get near the top we stop and a man who owns the land there invites us onto his property for camera shots and to relax. The family offers us food and drink but we decline because we already have our own supplies. After a while we start back down the single lane road and the prepared roads for home.

After cleanup we take the motorbikes back to the city center for dinner. And then we meet up with a new friend, Jes, who is a Phillipino living in Bangkok but visiting his sister in Chiang Rai. We go to to a club to listen to music an relax. Again, the instrument playing is good but the singing is terrible! It's raining again, but we eventually walk back to the motorbikes (after getting lost) and ride back to the hotel to call it a day.

On Wednesday it is a slow start to the day as we grab lunch. After lunch we find a place that rents us decent bicycles for $5 per day, so we turn in the motorbikes and start out on a timed ride. (One hour out and one hour back since the shop closes in three hours.) We get outside the small city of Chiang Rai and eventually find oursleves off road in drt and mud and water puddles. At the one hour mark we are all muddy and we strategize on a plan on how to return the bicycles. The ride up and down the dirt and mud is a good one and the run back towards the city is also fun. We stop in at the hotel and find a garden hose unattended. So we are able to clean off the bicycles before we rturn them to the shop. Since we are all sweaty and dirty, we find cold drinks and start walking the 2 kilometers back to the hotel. We make quite a sight: two foreigners cmpletedly wet and covered in dirt and mud. When we get back to the hotel I excuse myself in Thai (khor tot krup) to each person/attendant that I pass and try to explain that we were mountain biking. But the people understand and just smile with/at us.

After Karl and I get cleaned up we catch up with Tree and go to dinner. We have a nice Thai dinner and enjoy some recorded and then live music. A quick trip through the night bazaar is fruitless at 10 pm because everyone is closing up. So we catch a taxi back to the hotel to call it a day.

Karl, Tree, and I go to the small Chiang Rai airport on Thursday morning. Karl will continue on to Nagoya, Japan to meet up with his family. Tree will return to his home in Bangkok and go to work this afternoon. And I will continue on to Cambodia to meet up with Person Ti_Ca.