Chiang Mai Oh My

After nearly 24 hours of straight traveling, with the exception of four hour delay in Bangkok at the train station, we pulled into Chiang Mai. John, our Bangkok connection, met up with us for Songkran, the Thai New Year and let us stay with him at his hotel the first night we were there. It was quite a step up from the guesthouses and hostels we had become accustomed to-pool, room service, even free shampoo. A little later, we decided to grab a bite and hit the streets to celebrate the new year with water fights. As we were leaving, John advised us to leave anything we cared about in the room or put it in a plastic bag. We soon understood why, after merely ten minutes on the street, we were all soaked from head to toe. We quickly invested in water guns, hopped on a tuk tuk, and joined in the battle. We were all as giddy as children, having buckets of ice water dumped on us, and shooting people with water guns. It was unlike any celebration we have ever been involved in, and we are trying to figure out how to bring at least a day of it back to Portland. People of all ages were lining the streets with buckets, water guns and hoses soaking everyone-paying special attention to tourists. After the first day of the celebration, John returned to Bangkok and we switched to Libra Guest House.

It was impossible for the next three days to leave the guest house dry and return that way. We decided to spend the final day of the celebration on an overnight trek. We left Libra in the morning and our trek guide, Nu, armed each of us with a squirt gun. We spent our ride to the the first stop on our trying to avoid being soaked. Our first stop on the trek was at a beautiful waterfall, and that was followed up with a stop at some hot springs that were nearly too hot to get into. After that we went on a 9k trek, stopping at some tribal villages along the way. On the trek we got soaked by rain and were relieved to arrive at our final destination-a far off Thai village, where we "showered" in the river. We ate dinner and were treated to some "happy juice"-Thai rice whiskey, and some Thai delicacies (beetles and frogs). Danielle enjoyed the beetles so much that she asked what they were seasoned in, and was irritated when the bowl was taken away from her. We ended the night singing songs like Hotel California around the campfire under a blanket of stars. The next day we were awakened early to ride elephants and ride back down the river on bamboo rafts. It was an incredible experience.

We spent the rest of our time there parousing markets and lounging by pools. We even took a cooking class so that we could learn how to bring some of our favorite cuisines home with us-we learned to make the best sticky rice and mangoes of our trip. Chiang Mai exceeded our expectations, and I don't think any of us have seen our last Songkran.