Palm trees, geckos and taxi scams...

Our first blog post... We are sitting in an internet cafe on the main road in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The traffic is super loud and to add to that there are firecrackers going off (its only midday) I think it has something to do with Chinese NY which starts tomorrow.

We arrived in Kuala Lumpar on the 6th after an 8 hour flight with no entertainment unit (Iphone to the rescue again). Other than that it was a pretty comfortable flight, I was a bit nervous about flying air asia as the flights are super cheap but it was totally fine. The plane descended over the top of miles of palm trees (palm oil plantations I think), as the plane got close to the runway I was a bit worried we were going to land on top of them as the plantation ends as soon as the runway starts but everything worked out ok and it was quite an amazing sight and start to the trip. The air in KL in sticky, thick and sweet smelling not unpleasent but a strange sensation. We were pretty exhausted so walked to our hotel and crashed out for a few hours before our flight in the morning to Bangkok.










Bangkok is... incredible but insane. All of your senses are constantly on alert, there is so much to look at, so many smells (good and bad) coming from every little lane, noise coming from everywhere and shiny things to pick up in the market stalls littered all over the pavement and street. We got scammed once by a tuk tuk driver (well actually his associate who just seemed like a friendly guy who wanted to help out a couple of confused tourists) who offered us a 10 baht ride to the peir (about 35c) where we wanted to catch the express riverboat to chinatown. Instead they took us to some random spot way up the river where they wanted us to pay 800 baht each for the tourist boat ("you see jumping fish and make photos!"). We politely declined and found our way back to the peir we needed after a half an hour walk and boarded the express public boat (13 baht each) to Chinatown. It wasn't all bad though, if anything bangkok woke us up a bit and kept us alert. Its kind of fun to struggle through the endless motorbikes and tuktuks making your way down streets where the pavements are entirely taken over by market stalls and street food vendors. And we ate some pretty delicious food.

Arriving in Chiang Mai after an hour flight from Bangkok was like a breath of fresh air. The air seemed a little cleaner and the climate is cooler. There was no haggling over the taxi from the airport, we paid a flat rate (which was a lot cheaper then bangkok) and the taxi driver didn't drive 135 km/hour in a car that felt like it was going to fall apart at any minute. The food here is soooo good, there are vegetarian restaurants everywhere and like everything else they are super cheap. On our first night here we ate at Mai Kadees vegetarian restaurant where we ate fresh spring rolls, pumpkin hummus with rice (so delicious) and a panang curry and shared a big bottle of singha beer, all for less then $10au. Our guest house here costs us about $13au a night and we have a big room with our own bathroom and a pretty courtyard downstairs to hangout in surrounded by plants and lights. Have had a couple of thai massages which are also very good and, like everything, really cheap. On Tuesday we did a full day cooking class which included a trip to a local market and learnt how to cook 6 dishes. The pad thai we made was pretty freaking good!






We have also done a 3 day bike trip around Chiang Mai and out into the surrounding villages. It was really nice to get out of the city and see some rural life, we hardly saw any other foriegners and met Thai's who spoke no english, it felt a bit more genuine and less touristy as the main centres do. We rode past endless rice paddies and workers harvesting the rice, saw lots of cute animals, visited an orphange for hilltribe children and visited temples and handicraft factories (pottery, aliminium work, mango wood carving). The people working in the factories were amzing artists and crafters and everything is done by hand. I guess it does sound kind of touristy but it didn't feel like it. My favourite part was stoppping in at a thai school where I got to teach the kids a couple of words in english, although I go the feeling they were already well aware of the words and I probably learnt more thai then they did english. Speaking of learning Thai I can now say Hello, Yes, No, Don't want (very important when you are being harrassed into buying something), Thank you, Very Beautiful, Mixed Fried Vegetables and Without beef, pork and chicken. Im quite stoked but sad that we will be leaving for Laos in a couple of days and I won't be able to use them for much longer.








Leaving tomorrow for Chiang Rai, then Chiang Khong and then cross the border into Laos for a 2 day boat trip to Luang Prabang.

Oh yeah and Geckos... we had one in our room.. and they make the strangest noise, its almost cute, they kind of chirp.

Till next time

Ruth and Mike

xxx