Camp finished January 15th. Kate (who also had the same vacation time) had briefly and I thought kiddingly, suggested ditching Chaz in Korea for a week to travel with me around SE Asia. She wasn't joking. Ideas and excitement began to brew. I asked for an extra four days off and was granted it from my afterschool program co-teacher....things were looking up! We looked on discount flight websites...no good deals. I stopped in a few travel agencies to check flight prices through them. ALL flights were booked due to peak season. People kept promising really great flight deals and then nothing was working out...we began to feel discouraged.
Sunday, the 17th, we decided we'd just have to go for it if we wanted to make something of our vacation. We sat down for 4 hours in a coffee shop with my computer, did enough pricing research to almost drive ourselves crazy, and finally booked two flights into Bangkok, Thailand on Tuesday, the 19th. Yes, leaving two days from then! We are crazy. Two seperate flights (it was the only option) landing a 1/2 hour apart from each other. Kate would have a direct flight and I would have a very cold layover in Beijing. We made a rough outline of where we would go-- choosing to visit Bangkok, Chiang Mai (city in the northern mountains), and Koh Chang (island off the southeast coast). We wrote down some activities that we wanted to do; elephant trekking, snorkeling, waterfalls, temples, etc. and booked a hostel for our first night in Bangkok. From there we would have to figure things out as we went and pray everything would come together smoothly...including Chaz being able to meet up with us halfway through. Monday was spent frantically running errands to prepare, doing laundry, packing, and trying to convince myself that this was actually happening.
I left my apartment at 5:30 am Tuesday morning to take the subway to the train station in Busan to take the express train (KTX) up to Seoul at 6:30 am. By the time Kate and I reached Incheon airport at nearly 11am, we had already felt like we'd had a long day...as you can imagine. There was a minor scare at the Seoul airport at check-in when I was told my single entry visa had not been changed to a multiple entry like I had thought had been taken care of previously. Meaning I would not be able to re-enter the country if I left! I was sent to airport immigration where I nervously sat in line, filled out additional paperwork, and paid an extra fee which caused for a grumpy attitude and a rushed re-check-in. Since my flight was about to leave I think they had already given away my seat to a stand-by OR I'm just a lucky girl because come to find out I was bumped up to business class for the short 2 hour flight to Beijing. Wahooo! The seats that laid all the way back, actual leg room, and personal movie screen made me forget all about the visa frustrations from earlier.
My flight out of Beijing was over an hour delayed. Poor Kate had to hangout in the Bangkok airport wondering if I was ever going to show up. Seeing her after walking through customs was a HUGE sigh of relief for the both of us!
hahaHAA! LET THE ADVENTURES BEGIN!
We arrived at our hostel around 3 am (5am Korea time), greeted warmly by the cute Thai workers and collapsed into our bunks. We woke up, put on our summer wear (the weather was pppperfect!), enjoyed a free, Thai breakfast then headed to the train station to purchase tickets to Chiang Mai. My stomach had been feeling funny ever since eating some plane food on the way to Bangkok so the unfamiliar smells of the outdoor markets and vendors were doing nothing for my queasy self. At the station a very friendly lady from the tourist information booth took us to the ticket counter to help us buy tickets for the sleeper train that evening. Two funny French men warned us that all the seats were filled because of some flower festival going on the next day...saying they had gotten the last tickets. Ah! But we were lucky and found seats (due to cancellations) on a train leaving around 7 that evening.
The Frenchmen asked us if we had plans for the afternoon and if not wanted to accompany them to some large market. Since we honestly didn't have any plans and were quite unfamiliar with the city, we agreed to tag along. To the Frenchmen's surprise the market was closed (weekend market only) so instead we went to the infamous Khao San Road to browse that outdoor market. It was an afternoon of laughs with the Frenchmen, listening to their stories and asking them for their advice about Thailand (they were experienced Thailand trip takers). We had a Thai meal, tried a strange fruit called dragonfruit and made a metal list of things to purchase when we would come back to Bangkok to meet Chaz after our stay in Chiang Mai.
With my queasy stomach still not feeling up to par, we board our sleeper train for the long communte to Chiang Mai. We arrived around 9 am the following morning. It was a miserable ride for me as I soon discovered, for the 2nd time in about a month, I must have been a victim of food poisioning...this time from the nasty airplane food or something I ate in the Beijing airport during my layover. I wasn't able to keep anything down, not even water, for most of the ride. Eventually I fell asleep and woke up feeling 1,000 times better with a slight appettite.
At the train station in Chiang Mai we were immediately harassed by taxi drivers and guesthouse advertisers. "Where are you going?" "Where will you stay?" Blah, blah. We hadn't booked a place to stay and felt skeptical of the people flashing picture of their guesthouse to strangers departing the station. Maybe it would be better to find something online, we thought. But then one man approached us saying his place was 200 baht (~$3 a piece) a night for a double bed room with a private bathroom. Probably sensing our skeptism he added he would take us there for free by tuk tuk AND we could look at the room before paying anything. Hmmm...was this too good to be true? We had nothing to lose so agreed to go with him. The place was PERFECT! A great location, super friendly workers, decently clean, and spacious. I have huge hearts for this guesthouse now and I will promote it until my grave. Chiang Mai Inn Guesthouse! Woo, woo! Everyone should stay there!
View from our guesthouse in Chiang Mai
Upon the advice of the guesthouse workers we walked around the "old city" of Chiang Mai and checked out some of the many temples there. We also stopped by the cultural center. I'm not a big musuem goer but this stop was a great decision. There we learned a ton about the city's history, people, Buddhist origins that truly helped us appreciate and understand the city. Plus gain some facts to impress new friends/other backpackers with later. Discussing our plan for the next day we decided we needed to do some trek outside of the city. Mr. Whiskey Tours (hahahaha....based out of our guesthouse) set up a 1 day trek for us involving visiting a hill tribe, elephant rides, bamboo rafting, and hiking to Thailand's highest peak. We carbed up with some giant burritos (yum!) and hit the sack early.
In the morning we found out a couple would be joining us for part of the trip. Sweet? Introducing Steve and Toni. Older (mid 60's I'd guess), friendly, wealthy and mostly ridiculous couple...one from South Carolina, the other from Oregon. Kate and I are pretty sure they are secret, vacation lovers living separate lives in the own states yet meeting for exotic trips aboard as much as possible. At least it was more fun for us to think of them that way. Talking with them was entertaining and all was well...until they screwed up the schedule by not finishing their morning hike through the hill tribe, causing Kate and I to miss out on hiking to the highest point in Thailand later in the day due to lack of sunlight! We are a little bitter. Regardless, the day still included elephant rides, bamboo rafting, driving (instead of hiking) to the highest point in Thailand, and a waterfall. The day involved lots of driving so we were able to rest between each trek. That ended up being nice as we were rested up and ready to hit the infamous night market to take care of our gift shopping. It seemed to be never ending! And awesome. Plus I feel like we did a decent job of bargaining for good prices...but I still hate doing it! Quite the full day but the best was yet to come....
The next day, our final day in Chiang Mai, was the day of the motorbikes! Aka the best day EVER! One guy at our hostel in Bangkok had suggested renting a motorbike in Chiang Mai to us as a great way to see the city and travel to the mountain top just outside of the city for some great views. Another person suggested bikes as well. So we had to give it a shot, right? We nervously requested a moped from our friendly guesthouse family and they nervously hooked us up. In fact, they might have been more nervous about the whole situation then Kate and I were. We did some practice drives down the alley, mapped out which roads to take, then with Kate at the wheel first and them shouting, "Be careful and drive on the left!", we sped off to the mountain. The drive was insanely gorgeous up the mountain and the moped ride was invigorating! At the top was a nice temple where we walked around for a bit but secretly we were both just anxious to hop back on the bike again. I took over for the drive back down the mountain. We stopped at a waterfall where Kate managed to drop her Flip video camera into the falls 2 minutes after our arrival. No worries though, I rescued it and remarkably it worked (with all our footage in tack) after a few days of drying out. How do you find a camera in a waterfall? For the full story you'll have to ask...it's a good one.
We were extremely sad to return the bike but had to scurry off to the train station to catch our night train back to Bangkok. Chaz was arriving the next morning and we would be there to greet him at the airport....
END OF PART ONE
Tune in for Part 2 coming soon....
