Adventures in Chiang Mai - aka the longest blog post ever

For our first weekend in the North, Nate, Kelly, Marianne and I decided to make the trek to Chiang Mai and see for ourselves what the city was all about. For those of us in Lampang, the journey was supposed to take 1.5 hours by a bus “that comes every 10 minutes or so.” Riiiiight.

Thais will always tell you what they think you want to hear, whether it’s true or not. This is important to bear in mind when asking important questions.

In any case, we found a lovely old lady who was willing to help get us on a bus. Which turned into a train. Which got us to Chiang Mai exactly 4 hours later than we expected to get there.

The amazing thing was that Kelly and Marianne had magically stumbled onto the very same God-forsaken train 13 hours earlier, in some random town that was ONLY a bus ticket, pickup truck hitchhike and motorbike cab ride away from where they were staying in BFE.

Like I said – MAGIC.

When they strolled down the aisle we were thrilled. I was a little tipsy from the huge Singha that Nate had picked up at the train station, so I think I was more amused than was truly appropriate. Whatevs.

We made it to Chiang Mai in decent-ish time and were immediately attacked by evil mini-bus drivers trying to rip us off. Being adventurous farangs, we decided to go with private transportation – a ride in the oldest Buick ever, operated by the oldest man ever, who couldn’t manage to turn off the left turn signal or even start the thing without some assistance.

Thank you, Thailand.

The first night was drunken and fun. Halloween isn’t that huge in Thailand, but we did see a few costumes. Blah blah.

The next day we ventured out for some attempted shopping, which was sorta lame. So we decided to take another little adventure, minibus style, and go to Doi Suthep, a mountain that sits just outside the city and is topped with a gorgeous pavilion overlooking the city and an awesome temple. This was a great idea.

We rented a mini-bus to get there. I copied Nate and huge out the back.

Obviously, these are images from the temple.







We are wearing crazy Thai gear that you have to put on to cover your legs and shoulders out of respect for the temple. Stupid farang, forgot about this rule.













After trekking back into town and relaxing a bit, we went for the gold – the Muy Thai boxing gold, that is. Muy Thai, or Thai boxing, is the national sport of this fine land, and I now know why.

The “ring” was in a “stadium” that was surrounded by a bunch of little bars, all run by drag queens. It was made into a “ring” because of some tacky banners, which I was led under once I showed my ticket. “Ring side seats,” which we paid a premium for, were inevitable – seating was only 2 or 3 tables deep around the entire ring. Heavy-weights only went up to 135kg. Between each of the 7 fights, the drag queens put on dance and karaoke shows to your favorite English tunes – my personal note was YMCA. Thank you Marianne for capturing this all on film.

Are you getting the picture here? One can only hope.

This is my favorite drag queen, but only because of her shirt. W$%?

So we’re drinking our 9th Singha, watching these little shits kick the hell out of each other, which was actually a lot of fun. We did a little random betting, danced with the drag queens, etc.

Thhheeeenn, this hot WHITE dude gets up there. With chest hair and everything. And he does the little Thai dance, and gets kicked around, and then totally knocks this Thai dude unconscious.

Panty melt.

Marianne, who has huge balls and does whatever she wants, gets up and introduces herself. And me and Kelly. To Julien, the hot, French/American Thai boxer who wants us to go out dancing with him later in the night.


Umm, yes please.

So the fighting ends, we grab a tuk-tuk and head out.

We get to Warm-ups, apparently the best dance club in Chiang Mai, where we dance like assholes for hours until the turn they lights on and kick us out. And we never find the fighter. But it’s cool, ‘cause we’re drunk and dancing.

As we’re stumbling to the next dance spot, who should Marianne trip on … but Julien.

YAY.

He’s trained in Thai massage, ladies. He showed us.

So we jump on random motorbikes – I’m squeezed between the fighter and his hot British roommate – and make it to a bar that is actually a broken down retro van that serves drinks to people standing outside. Where we continue to drink into all hours of the night. Julien breaks up a fight, Marianne shuts down the old Aussy. Blah blah.

We decide it’s time to go home. Or swim. Me in my clothes. After totally harassing Nate, who’s sound asleep and should have slapped me for being such an ass.

Then the hostel owners yelled at us and told us we can’t have more towels and get out of the damn pool in your underwear.

Then the sun came up, and we realized it was 7am and the girls had to catch a bus at 8.

And then I found a dollar.

And had a huge massive enormous hangover. But a very relaxed back. And wet panties, for various reasons.

It was raining all night. And I jumped in the pool.

The end.


Special thanks go out to Marianne for allowing me to rip off her pics. Apparently the English ARE good for something.