Stuck in Thailand
Trip Start
Jun 12, 2004
1
50
Trip End
??? ??, 2005
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Since my last entry, some good & bad things have happened which made me decide to stay in Thailand instead of travelling on to Laos & Cambodia...more about that later...
So, anyways, I made my way from Ko Phangan island in the south to the huge city of Bangkok. I visited some temples and rode different types of public transportation, including the subway, skytrain, and the public ferry on the river. I was bored of this after a couple days, so I headed west to the town of Kanchanaburi.
Kanchanaburi is a small city on the banks of the Kwai River. Here is the home to the "Bridge over the River Kwai" railroad bridge. This is where the Japanese made 65,000 british, US, aussie, and dutch troups and 200,000 asian detainees build a railway connecting Thailand to Burma in WW2. About half of the people who were slaves died of bad diseases or starvation, really sad. I made a trip to the Erawan Falls national park for a day where I hiked up the hill to see the 7 individual waterfalls. This was my 2nd favorite waterfalls I've seen on this year long trip (the best was Victoria Falls in Africa).
I returned to Bangkok to get the overnight train to Chiang Mai. The train took nearly 16 hours but it was comfortable since I had my own bed. In Chiang Mai, I registered for 2 weeks of Thai Massage classes. The guesthouse that I was staying at was about a 45 minute walk from the school, but I made the walk each day with an Austrian guy who was also taking classes.
Massage classes were held from Monday to Friday & followed the following schedule:
9-10 am Yoga
10-10:15 Break for tea
10:15-12 Lessons
12-1 Lunch
1-3 Lessons
3-5 Free time to practice (or leave if you chose)
During this week, my foot, which I had injured in a motorbike accident 2 weeks earlier, got more and more infected. The combo of showers, walking, yoga, etc was only aggrevating the injury and it wasn't drying out. It was hurting my immune system too because I had a fever at least 2 days that week. That weekend, I visited a doctor and was put on strong anti-biotics. I decided to take a few weeks off from massage class and I rented an apartment so I could have air-con and I could rest the foot.
My apartment in Chaing Mai is very nice. I pay just under $100 US for one month. For this, I get one big room with big bed, closet, desk & chair, refridgerator, cable TV (with 3 english channels), private bathroom with western toliet and hot shower, and a small balcony. I do have to also pay the electric bill, and that will be close to $100 since the A/C is on all the time I'm there.
So, after my foot healed (and I watched about 70 movies on TV in my air-con comfort), I was ready to venture out a bit. I have spent alot of time at the mall that is a 15 minute walk away. Lots of cool shops, cinema, and nice restaurants. I have visited several markets in CM. They have a famous night market where a tourist can buy nearly anything - crafts, T-shirts, etc. I made a one day trip to the Myanmar (Burma) border to renew my free 30 day Thai visa. On this trip, we stopped at a hot spring, an old temple, some tribal villages. We took a boat ride to an island that is actually part of Laos. On this island, I tried and bought a bottle of the local whiskey. The worm in the Mexican bottle of tequila is nothing... this whiskey bottle has a cobra snake inside! Also on this boat ride, we entered the center of the "Golden Triangle" where the 3 countries meet and was once famous for it's opium trade. I did some shopping in the tribal villages. Last weekend, I went on a trip to some craft factories with a british girl I met on my day trip. Yesterday, I walked many miles visiting the local markets and night market. I bought 2 big bags of clothes and souveniers.
