Arrived here in Chiang Mai 5 days ago - haven't done much but
walk
around taking lots of pictures. The
weather has been beautiful - mid to
high 80's during the day and low 60's at night.
After 4 days in Hong Kong, I flew to Bangkok. Now Bangkok can be
a bit
overwhelming - a city larger than
New York and ten times as chaotic.
Traffic - clogged streets, lots of noise and the heat can just knock
you right
out. Still, it's a nice place to see in small doses. This
time however, I decided to pass through and just come
directly to
Chiang Mai instead. This is a much nicer place to be. In Bangkok,
everybody always seems to be in
a rush (pretty much like any other
city) - here it's a lot more relaxed and laid back - a real nice place
to be. This
is a place where you can easily spend much more time than
you originally planned to stay. The fist time I was
here I came for a
couple of days and stayed for 2 weeks. Everyone I've met has a similiar
story.
When I got here I met up with a couple of women that I met last
year in
China. One is from Cambridge, Mass
who lives her from November to April
and the other is from the UK and lives on a boat in Greece. Very nice
people and great to hang out with. Last night we went out for
dinner
with some friends of theirs to a Thai
restaurant - not a tourist place
but the real deal - no English menus - everything in Thai. Our friend
took the
liberty of ordering for us because he knew the place from
coming there so often. The waiter brought us out
four large plates of
food from which we sampled a little of each. All of it was absolutely
delicious - so much
flavor - a culinary delight! All in all the whole
bill for four people came to five dollars!
Maybe today I'll take a rent a motorbike and take a ride out
into the
countryside - looks like it's going to be a
another beautiful day today........
