lizadooolittle: Finally in Chiang Mai

Journal Entry # 5
Saturday, Sept. 13

We finally arrived at Chiang Mai at 1 p.m., local time. After a breeze through customs, Patty, our Friendly Planet tour guide met us at the gate. We exchanged some money, and then hopped onto our tour bus—you know the kind we would make fun of in L.A. with the big windows, usually filled with Asians, but this time filled with mostly Caucasians.

After a whole day of traveling, I was relieved to hear that the drive from the airport to the hotel would only take 10 minutes. As soon as we got to the hotel, we were greeted with fresh glasses of chrysanthemum tea/juice that looked like green tea but with a sweet sugar-syrup taste. It was refreshing!

Finally, we SHOWERED!!!! It felt so nice to finally freshen up and get out of the clothes we had been wearing for what felt like weeks. After our showers we hit the streets to check out the local market and grab a late lunch. Here are some pictures from the local market, just a stones-throw away from our hotel.

Ritche channeling his inner most Andrew Zimmerman/Anthony Bourdain.

Rambutan fruit.

Dried seafood.

Squid on a 'barbie.'

All kinds of fried pork pieces.

Sweet and savory waffles. Some filled with fruit, some with meat.

Passion fruit. The colors are pretty.

I'm not sure what these were.

Dried sea fish.

Ritche tries out fried fish.

Day 1, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2008 – Chiang Mai

Journal Entry #6

During lunch, Suzanne and I decided that we wanted to get Thai massages to work out some of the travel kinks. For me, I also wanted to work out some of those tender spots from the 50-mile walk I completed last weekend. The boys decided to join in. We were picked up by the spa driver and dropped off about 20 minutes (due to traffic, mainly) away to a new spa. First they helped us change out of our shoes and into slippers. Then we were led to a wooden bench that was placed just above some river stones. Our masseuses rinsed our feet and legs above the rocks and gave each of us a salt and lime scrub. After we were gently dried off and helped into slippers, all of us were taken upstairs to a room that was divided into three sections…one for Suzanne and Russ, and another for Ritche and I (the third stayed empty). We quickly changed into our massage pants an shirts, and then the glory followed by pain began.

The foot massage was probably the most detailed labor of one-hour foot love I’ve ever received. Ever inch of my foot from the very tips of my toes (and even in between!) to the bottoms of my heels, and around to the tops of my feet and up to my knees were given therapy. It was EXACTLY what I needed to finally loosen up my joints and muscles. Then it was an hour of Thai pain. I kept my eyes closed the entire time, and it was interesting trying to imagine what position she had my arms, legs and back interlocked with her arms and feet. At times the stretch was so acrobatic and deep I wasn’t sure if I was suppose to “tap out” to let her know that with the slightest additional micro move she might pop off my leg, arm or snap me in half.

It was about 8:45 p.m. by the time we all finished our massages. We asked our driver to drop us off at the local nigh market, where we only lasted about 30 minutes before we squeezed into a tok-tok and headed back to the hotel to get some sleep.

Night market.