We left on a Thursday night, arriving in Bangkok around midnight. We had planned this trip much better than the Philippines, and we even had a "guide" (my good friend Phil) who actually SPEAKS Thai! Our group this time was also 8, but consisted of Laura and me, 4 USC guys, and 2 Austrians. That night we went to the LKF of Bangkok, Khowsan Rd or something (the bar/club street), had a drink then hopped in our van around 2:30AM. Phil's aunt was nice enough to hook us up with a HUGE, air-conditioned, 10 seater, DVD-equipped van and driver (affectionately known as "Hee Hop"). We drove through the night to our destination, Chiang Mai, a backpackers heaven in the north of Thailand (and I really was a "backpacker" this time BTW). I didn't sleep much given it was Eric's birthday and the boys wanted to "celebrate" on the way there, but how could I complain, we were on an adventure!
One of my first adventures was around 5 AM. I had to pee. We were at a gas station. Gas stations in Asia only have squatters. The time had come. I had to learn. I did! And what a feeling of liberation it is to be able to use a squatter as a girl! The whole world really opens up to you!
That day we checked into our perfect little hotel, Roong Ruang, after our first yummy $4USD Thai meal. Then we talked to the travel agent and booked an afternoon ATV riding excursion. It was a blast! I felt like such a bad ass. But I have to admit I wasn't very good at driving it because I don't like to go fast and my hand muscles would start cramping after like 5 minutes of holding the gas trigger thing. Luckily, Laura wasn't scared and she was very good at driving it so I enjoyed being passenger. We went through some jungles and past a bunch of beautiful vegetation terraces and small villages with the cutest kids you've ever seen on their way home from school, smiling and waving at you with their enormous backpacks. It was quite an experience! The whole journey was supposed to take 3 hours, but because of the boys frequent stops without the leader's permission, and one of the other group member's fall into a ditch, it took about 4.5 hours! Thank you Laura for driving all that way! We were going soooo fast on the highway!!, but for some reason, I kept
falling asleep and my helmet kept banging into Laura. It was funny. I guess I did need that sleep more than I thought.That night, we went to the night bazaar which was super interesting. We got fake LeSportSac bags for $10USD and new scarves for $5. Oh! Also, it was election time when we were there and they have a policy of no alcohol sales during elections. Nevertheless, there were still places you could drink, but it was a bit of a sketchy operation. Phil had made friends with some bartender who said to come back around 11 PM and she'd let us in. So we show up to this bar and the metal shades are pulled down and it's completely dark, but then one of the shades comes up, she lets us in and we just hang out in the bar with the shades drawn for a while with a few other foreigners.
We decided to turn in early because we hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and had a big day ahead of us!
The next morning Laura, Phil and I had a delicious breakfast at the cafe next door for $5 (Matt was not very happy we hadn't woken him up. Sorry Matt!) before the truck came to take us to the white water rafting place. It was going to take about an hour to get to this place and the boys had been planning on sleeping in the car on the way there. They were rather disappointed when an open-air truck with some benches in the truck bed shows up to take us there. White water rafting sucked basically because the water level wasn't high enough so we just kept getting stuck on all the stupid rocks. The guides would have to get out and push the damn rafts through. I fell out twice. Jumped out once too to pee. Heard later there were snakes in the water... But the fact that the rafting was so bad just made it really funny.
Next, we had lunch in a small village and bought some Oreo's at a little local shop for dessert. (got to use the squatter again too!) We jumped back in the van and headed for the elephants! Now, elephant riding sounds like this elegant, grand, extravagant activity, but rea
lly it's a lot of animal begging for bananas and bamboo, trunk snot on your bare thigh and getting showered in snout water at the "watering hole." Even so, I still love telling people, "I rode elephants in Thailand!" because it just sounds so damn cool. Our final stop was bamboo rafting through some more forest/jungle and crazy tree house looking villages. The raft guides were so silly though. Our guide must have been 12 or 14 and got such a kick out of bumping our raft against the river bank so I would wobble and then he'd look back at me and snicker, so I would snicker back at him. Laura thought it was really funny.That evening we had divine foot and back/neck massages fore $7USD, half an hour each. Sooo good! Then we packed up, jumped in the van, had another sweet Thai meal for $7 and headed back to Bangkok. We started to watch Bee Movie; it really sucked. We all slept well that night. Bangkok, TBC.
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