layna and i met up again in chiang mai...it's basically the second city of thailand...smaller, more laid back than bangkok...still full of temples, shopping, guesthouses, and markets...chiang mai is a great town to take a cooking course, or a thai language course, or a massage course...there are tons of tour agencies, and tons of trekking options...unlike nepal, where we did all of our trekking independently, there is very little independent trekking in thailand...treks in thailand last anywhere from 1-7 days most of the time...you can go see mountains, hill tribes, waterfalls, ride elephants, etc...there are also TONS of temples in chiang mai, most of them still in active use...something like 300 temples, which is nearly as many as in bangkok...chiang mai is also fantastic for shopping...there is a night market at which you can buy nearly anything...there is also a sunday walking market, during which a few streets are blocked off to traffic, and become crowded with stalls and people...i thought the stuff available at the sunday walking market was more unique than at the night market, but still, it was all stuff i didn't need...
chiang mai was where i had to throw away one of my pairs of capris...the first item of clothing that has bit the dust...i had thread, and had already patched them once, but they were done...sad...
one of our days we went to prison!! there is a women's prison in chiang mai, and as part of the program to help the women learn something useful for when they get out, they have the chance to become massueses...the women in the program go through a 180 hr training course for thai, and foot massages...the women working in the salon are all w/in 6 months of being released...we loved the massages, and wondered how much the women received for each massage they do...
chiang mai was where i had to throw away one of my pairs of capris...the first item of clothing that has bit the dust...i had thread, and had already patched them once, but they were done...sad...
one of our days we went to prison!! there is a women's prison in chiang mai, and as part of the program to help the women learn something useful for when they get out, they have the chance to become massueses...the women in the program go through a 180 hr training course for thai, and foot massages...the women working in the salon are all w/in 6 months of being released...we loved the massages, and wondered how much the women received for each massage they do...
after chiang mai, we went to chiang rai...the guidebook says it's a more laid back version of chiang mai, which i thought was plenty laid back to start with...we stayed in a place 23km outside the town, and the best part was the truck ride to and from town each day...standing in the back of the pickup with the wind in our faces was awesome...i could live here, but it's not a great place to visit...there is one temple worth mentioning though...called wat phra kaew...yup, the same name as the temple in bangkok...legend has it that the emerald buddha (the one living in bangkok) was actually found in the chedi of this temple in chiang rai...apparently lightning struck the chedi, and it opened up to reveal the buddha...there is now a copy of the original buddha, just .1cm smaller in all dimensions...
our last chiang was chiang khong...it's the border town on the other side of the mekong river from lao...most travelers come here for a night, maaaaayyyybe two, before crossing the border...for locals, it's an important market town for hill tribes...we ended up loving our guesthouse, and wishing we had more time to spend here...the owner of the guesthouse is a woman who said she ran away from chiang khong for 19 yrs, before returning and opening the guesthouse...she worked in chiang rai first, then went to school in bangkok...it was fun to hear how she has expanded over the years, and how her dog loves farang (foreigners)...the lives of women in thailand are MUCH better than the lives of women in nepal and india...
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