On the Road Again (Northbound Thailand)

Well when I last posted I was still feeling uneasy from the whole meat skewer fiasco but am happy to say that I quickly recovered from my first (of probably many) tummy issues. Lets see...I dont even know where to begin! Every day has been action packed, full of completely different adventures. I guess I will just start with where I left off last time! Our guesthouse in Ayutthaya was a lovely, quaint place that was run by a local family. They said they only had one room available, but that it wouldn't be a good idea to stay in the room because it faced the main street. We both figured it couldn't be that noisy, and if I must say so myself, to call the room noisy was a huge understatement! The entire night sounded like we were in the middle of a riot or train station! But, the serenity of the outside patio overlooking the river made up for the horrendous night of sleeping! That morning, we headed to the grounds of the ancient city and were able to explore the first sight in peace. There were only a few other tourists so we were able to look in depth at the buildings and take lots of uninterrupted photos, which is always a huge plus! Afterwards, we managed to see two of the more popular ancient grounds in the area before we got "templed out" for the day.

Later on, we headed to Sukothai, which is known to be the most famous ancient city in Thailand. We got an early start to the day the following morning and caught a local

bus to the old city. The bus system in Sukothai is really funny. It is basically an old truck that has benches enclosed in the back of it. Then, the bus driver will just drive along, honking at people on the side of the road to see if they need a lift! When we arrived to the site, we decided to rent some bicycles since this area was much more spread out than Ayutthaya. To be honest, I would not have wanted to do it any other way! We just cruised around, hopping on and off as we pleased. Both of the ancient cities were very interesting and unique in their own ways. I loved though seeing the Thai school children who were on field trips in Sukothai. They would get so excited when they saw us, saying "Good afternoon" and "Hello" in their cute little accents. After we felt that we got a good taste of the ancient city, we decided to just call it a day and wait for our bus to continue north to Chang Mai.

     

Upon arriving in Chang Mai, we were taken to the area with a lot of guest houses and ended up finding a place coincidentally called Julie's Guesthouse. It had a very laid back atmosphere, but more importantly, really fun, interesting people. We were able to book all of our trips through the guesthouse and within 30 minutes of arriving, we had our first three days in Chang Mai completely booked! The following morning we were picked up for our first organized tour of the trip. It was a Thai cooking school, so we were both looking forward to bringing home some mad Asian cooking skills! The cooking course was a blast. Our instructor was this awesome Thai biker chick type lady who had a great sense of humor and was really good about explaining things to us. We learned all of the herbs and sauces used for thai food, as well as how to make everything from pad thai, to curry pastes, spring rolls, thai soups, stir fry, and desserts! By the end of the day, we had a massive feast, and our group was in a pretty fatal food coma. But the best part of it was that we got a detailed cookbook describing everything that we made throughout the day!

By the end of the day, we headed back to the guesthouse with our Swedish friends that we made during the cooking course and could barely move, yet be productive and manage to see any sites of the city! The following morning we were picked up for a 2 day/1 night trek in the jungle about an hour from Chang Mai. The tour began with a nice little elephant ride throughout the jungle.

Despite our crooked seats and feeling like we were going to fall over at any moment, it was really fun. We bought bananas to feed the elephants and enjoyed watching their bizarre behaviors. Afterwards, we had a tough four hour uphill trek to an isolated jungle town. We arrived there at dusk and had a very basic, 14 bed bamboo room with mosquito nets for accommodation. It was beautiful though because it was only lit by a few candles. The locals prepared an amazing feast for us, as we were all starving after the trek. Afterwards, we enjoyed a night of listening to some acoustic classic songs over a campfire. I must say, I never realized how much Thai people love making every possible song into an acoustic version.

The following morning I was fortunate enough to have Julie wake me up for sunrise. It was one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen. We watched it for nearly an hour, with only the sound of roosters (which was slightly obnoxious) as a distraction. Our second day of the jungle adventure consisted of whitewater and bamboo rafting. Trying to fit 8 people on a bamboo raft was a poor choice. We were sinking the entire time, but made the most of it and were laughing up the whole time. Overall, I thought doing a 2 day/ 1 night trek was the perfect amount of time.

By the end of it, I was exhausted and looking forward to a warm shower and a $5 Thai massage and pedicure! Later that night, which was Christmas Eve, we enjoyed some Italian food, which is 5x the price of everything else, but still only about $6 for a huge pizza, so that was a big treat for us! We met some great people from the guesthouse and all decided to hit the town, which ended up being a blast. There was a fun reggae bar and a random baby elephant walking around the bars with its owner! Since we had a big night out, the next couple of days were just spent hanging out and having fun with all of the awesome people at the guesthouse. When you are at a place with such like- minded people who all have fascinating stories, it is hard to want to leave! Now, we are heading to Laos so I will have a lot more to say soon!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmakkah!