Chiang Mai

We made it to Chiang Mai yesterday...a "first class" seat on a bus that also had "VIP" seats. Our first class seats were the very last rows, next to the toilet and directly under a speaker blasting the soundtrack of a bad american movie dubbed into Thai. Repeated requests to get the sound turned down resulted only in the hostess avoiding us, so we spent the first part of the trip (until the movie ended) with toilet paper in our ears. The road was in pretty good shape (excellent compared to those in Laos) but snaked up and down and round and round through several mountain ranges. We were glad to get off.

In good backpacker fashion, we crammed all four of us into a small tuk tuk for the ride to the guesthouse. Had we been in India, I'm sure we could have fit another 4-5 people in, but as it was, the Thai's were pretty amused.

The guest house we were hoping for was full, so we spent last night in another one down the street. This morning we dragged our bags back here (what did the locals make of the family parade of 4 wheelie bags at 7am?) and spent the morning playing tourist. In addition to a wander around a Buddhist wat that was constructed in the 15th century to host the 8th Annual Buddhist World Council, we visited the national museum. There we learned that the purpose of that world council was to compare sacred texts, and correct any errors that might have crept in.

I was very appreciative of the amount of English on the cards in the museum. Even if the translations are less than perfect, the objects become so much more meaningful when given some context.

Tomorrow will be spent doing some necessary housekeeping...figuring out how we are going to get from here to Phuket, getting our visas for Vietnam, getting extensions for our Thai visas (we noticed too late that we were only given 15 day visas, not 30, when we arrived from Laos), booking a cooking class, etc. Then it's back to being tourists again.