Chiang Mai is already past...now I'm in Mae Sariang!
Mae Sariang is nothing more than just lay back, relax and enjoy. Actually nothing happens here, well nothing?!?! We witnessed some kind of an argueing last night in which at least 10 people were involved and all of them were against one man. Normally I'm on the side of the weakest, but this time....no! This man was sooooo drunk and sooooo jealous of a group of men gathered together that he started the argueing.....Nice to see how these men handled the situation without the other man losing his face! Let say they handled it on a thai way :-)
Back to Chiang Mai:
Chiang Mai is really booming and touristic and still we stayed here a whole week. During this week I really needed some time for myself and did one of those extremely touristic jungle trips with elephant camp, hiking, visiting a hill village and rafting stuff. Still it was fun doing this and yeah.....I felt like 20 again....why?!?
Well 7 of the 10 groupmembers were either 22 or 23....and their main discussions were about cheap hostels, beer, getting drunk, youtube and not forget to mention the next fullmoon party on Koh Phangan (island of Thailand). The main goal of these fullmoon parties is how to get drunk as fast as possible. But like I said before...it still made fun. Especially the Bambooboat, normally this is less exciting than rafting, but if you need to be in control of this thing, like I had to be ;-), than it can be way more a challenge not to fall in the water! I heard my guide screaming to me: push left baby, left baby...oh no... now right baby, right baby and...push faster faster.....you can do it! This was so much fun and by the end all my boatmembers were wet and I...still standing and dry :-)
Jungle trip....nature was awesome, could clear my mind, found nice meditation spots and it was good to feel my body again.
In Chiang Mai we visited a lot of Wats, temples, and rented a scooter on which we had also a lot of fun. Janine was driving the first time on a scooter and all we jelled at her the first 200 Meters was....drive left....drive left...please drive left. After those first 200 Meters she handled this thing completely and we all felt save. The Sundaymarket from 4pm till ?? was incredable. No idea how many people there were...but the atmosphere was really calm, relaxed, almost silent. I loved it and could have stayed there for hours, just walking around or sitting somewhere and watching people....but we got tired after 3 hours walking. If you ever go to Chiang Mai...go there on a sunday...and stay there at least till 6pm....than it's getting even more quiet :-)
And now Mae Sariang. We came here with a local bus and we bought our tickets on the day before. Getting back from the busterminal we wanted to take a sort of a cab to the city. Okay the cabowners couldn't speak that good english but still....I asked them if they could drive us to Thapae Gate, which is one of the main 4 gates of Chiang Mai. Want to now what they answered?!? uhhhh thapae gate??? do you know the way? I couldn't believe my ears...and they gave me a map so I could show on the map where it is....so I did....and they asked me again....do you know the way ;-) Me after 6 days in Chiang Mai had to tell locals how to ride....hilarious isn't it?
Some expressions of the trip with the local bus:
- first stop was at a garage...something was wrong with the left wheel at the back
- the 'second driver' was the left mirrow as well
- had to stop to fix something about the left wheel at the back
- first 2 hours were guite relaxed
- last two hours were with a lot of curves and into the hills
- a vomitting child, with milk everywhere just behind me
- Jesse had to pee...we tried a little bag....a bottle....but he couldn't
- we arrived safely!
Tomorrow....Mae Hong Son!
See ya....carry
