I am so happy to be out of Bangkok that I'm not really sure how to express myself. We are currently in Chiang Mai, but getting here was a bit of a challenge. On the first day in Bangkok we were brought to a legitimate travel agent as part of the useful scam(Colin got a suit and that's what we were looking for, plus we got our Chinese visa without having to go to an embassy). We got overnight train tickets there that left in the evening and were to arrive in the morning, we wish.

The train was fine until 4 in the morning, when everyone started making a bunch of noise. I tried to ignore it until someone woke me up and said "Wake up, we got to get off, the train don't go no more." I think the problem was flooding but I never found out. We were all shuttled on to buses to the various places we were going and we were on the German and French filled bus to Chiang Mai. I can't say the bus was as comfortable, but they did turn off the fluorescent lights, a change from the train.

Our first day we wandered about, wandering. There are beautiful temples and the architecture is all intricately carved teak wood. The real adventure however didn't seem to start until today.

A main activity in Chiang Mai is too go on treks. We opted out on this one not wanting to take a 3 hour drive to ride on an elephant in circle and then see the elephant get bathed and then sit on a bamboo raft and then walk 20 minutes before getting back in the car. Oh and yes, all the treks include visits to hilltribe villages. I asked one travel agent what one does in these villages and she said "you walk around and look and some people sell some stuff." As much as I love staring at natives, this one didn't do it for me.

Instead we rented bicycles and decided to just ride out of town. When I rent bicycles I don't expect much, but the bike I got was rough. I had to lean forward at every turn of the peddle to get the thing to move and then on top of that one of the peddles was horribly warped. I'm strong though and I rode on until we reached the city limit. Sweat was pouring down my back and my face was bright red. Colin looked fine and I thought myself to be the real weakling. He graciously offered to switch bikes with me, got on mine and instantly deemed it unridable. We tried to fix the peddle then opted instead to catch a ride back into town and switch bikes. Out we rode again (our destination was some "craft villages" about 10 km from town). We intended to go to the farthest village and then stop at others on the way back. It never really seemed like we got into the countryside that I was expecting, and we didn't make it to the furthest town. I got a flat tire.

That seemed to be a sign that we should get something to eat so we went to an openair roadside cafe 10 paces from where I got the flat. Although we have been going primarily to restaurants without English on the menu, this time there was no one to help and we didn't want to get noodle soup with fishballs again. We both gesticulated wildly and when I saw the cook through a bunch of green vegetables into a wok I pointed and jumped- we got two of those, plus tons of stares. If I had come straight from America I would probably be uncomfortable with that, but having been stared at plenty in Taiwan I smiled at every stare and got very warm smiles back.

We thought we would have to walk 10 km back to town or hitch a ride, but ended up finding a shop where a 13 year old boy expertly fixed the tire for about 50 cents. I would have happily given $10 to be able to get back into town. As it was we got a chance to stop at a few of the handicraft stops. All but one were disappointing. Most sold paper umbrellas (I considered getting a bunch to decorate my house and then realized I have no house to decorate) along with really tacky touristy stuff. They had people making the umbrellas, which was cool at the first place and quite amazing, though a big stop for the tour buses. The only place that was really amazing was a pottery factory where they had long stemmed vases and very beautiful dishes. Again I considered buying- for my mom a huge black and white vase, for Colin's mom a cool sushi plate set, and for us a set of dishes , but opted against more extraneous shipping.

By the time we got into town again I was so tired I felt like going to sleep right there. Instead we got Thai massages for $5. The massage style is really interesting. It was a combination of a person stretching your limbs for you and the motions a kitten makes with it's paws when dreaming of its mother's milk. Tomorrow is a cooking class but we may go back to the same massage place (it's also a school) Monday for a class.