Chiang Mai has a wall around it and the area around the gate of this wall was crazy. People were everywhere with buckets and squirt guns waiting to drench passers by. Some people did it in a nice way, splashing us gently or pouring the bucket over our head. Some people were quite unnecessarily malicious about it, aiming their high powered squirt guns at our eyes or throwing the water in their buckets at us so hard that it actually hurt. Several companies set up stages and had DJs and dancing ladies promoting their businesses. It was mayhem but it was awesome. However, getting bucket after bucket of water thrown at you (and of course having a few beers) wears you out faster than you would expect. All three days that we were here for the festival, we were exhausted and needed a nap by like 5 in the afternoon. All this combined with the extreme heat made for some early nights.
At night there is a street blocked off to traffic with some really unique and cheap souvenirs. We were able to get over half of our gifts for friends and family in Chiang Mai for relatively cheap. We ate dinner most nights at street vendors who whipped us up delicious Pad Thai or chicken kebabs. On this trip we've found that a lot of the time, street food is the best food. The first night we just perused the street market and called it an early night because we were dead tired. The water festival was pretty much the same every day. The second day of it, I was wearing a bright blue tank top and we were watching Bangkok Airways dancers and DJ. Their colors are the same as my tank top and one of the guys came and got me and told me to come up on stage. I thought I heard him say free ticket if I came on stage so I was pumped and did it. That wasn't what he said, or if it was it wasn't true, but I still had a great time dancing on stage with Dustin (who got a free t shirt out of the deal) and the promoters of Bangkok Airways.
That second night we set out to find the Night Bazaar, a huge market that runs in the evening that's a little far from the center of town. We found it and had a great time (at least I did) continuing to shop for friends and family and haggling with vendors. It's funny because they will start off with a high price and even if I didn't try to argue with them, every step I took away from their booth made the price drop 30 Bat (a dollar). While we were at the night bazaar, we stumbled upon a cabaret drag show, which was hilarious. Beers were ridiculously expensive (by SE Asian standards) so we only stayed until the end of the show and then left. The next night we wanted to catch the show from the beginning but, even though it was advertised as a "free show," the waitress told us if we didn't both buy a drink she would charge us 200 Bat per person to see the show. We had already seen half of it once and we had spent a lot of money so we left. I'm sure Chiang Mai's night life is great if you can afford it, but we just don't like getting drunk enough to spend a large percent of our budget on it.
One of the nights (they are all kind of running together for me) we were on our way back to the guesthouse from the market and we saw this little girl singing on stage with a bunch of back up dancers. She had an amazing, adult sounding voice and was hitting some crazy notes. After the first song she sang, which was in Thai, all of her back up dancers left the stage and she was standing by herself. The music for Whitney's "I will Always love you" came on and this little girl, who we later found out was 7 years old sang this song like it was her own. She hit every single note perfectly and had such a strong, confident voice. By the time she was done, Dustin and I both had tears in our eyes and goose bumps on our skin, despite the fact that it was about 90 degrees F out still. It was amazing. We went back the next couple nights because the show was going on every night, but it was all other less talented little girls who didn't hold our attention as well as the first one did.
Yesterday, we took a tuk tuk to the bus station to get tickets to Bangkok for tonight. On the way back, we were stopped at a traffic light and a food vendor came up to us with three Styrofoam carry-out boxes full of stir fried vegetables (one for each of us and one for the driver) and just gave them to us. "Free!" she said. We were amazed and a little dumbfounded that we had just been given completely free food for no apparent reason whatsoever. It was really generous and acts of kindness like that always help to brighten the day.
So that was the water festival. Today we woke up, thinking, for some reason, that it was still going on. We donned our bathing suits with t shirts and shorts (for me) over them and set out in the 100+ degree heat ready to get soaked. The water festival was completely over and there was nowhere except this internet cafe and the 7/11 on ever block to escape the heat. So we spent 2 hours on the computer blogging and doing business and then started walking around the city looking for something to do.We spent over an hour looking at books in some used book stores. These stores are pretty big with an awesome selection so it's easy to lose track of time looking at the shelves and trying to decide which book to read. I learned that as of 2008, according to Mr. Guinness, the world's longest dog was 91.3 inches from nose to talk. That's a long dog.
We finally decided it was time to move on and set out in search of AC. We stumbled upon this Gibbon Experience place that we had seen ads for everywhere that looked pretty dead so we decided to go in, half to see what the Gibbon Experience was all about, half to get into the cold. When we got in to the office, we saw about 10 segways lining the walls. The office had not appointments and were looking for some business so they said if we wanted to go immediately, we could. We spent 15 minutes learning how to drive a segway in an empty parking lot and then set off for a tour of the city. Our guide spoke amazing English and took us to probably a dozen temples and wats and told us all about them. It was really informative and the guides (there were two of them) were really sweet and fun to hang out with for a couple hours. Halfway through the tour we stopped at a coffee shop and were allowed to get 65 Bat each worth of food or drinks for free. Anything extra was on us. We hadn't eaten since early this morning so I was all about some seaweed soup, which was only $2 so we paid a little extra but it wasn't much. When we had visited all the temples on our agenda, we went back to a big open area just to enjoy the segways and have fun with them for about 20 minutes before we had to return them. Dustin fell off his from spinning in too many circles and bruised his shin and heel, but he's ok. I had fun chasing pigeons around. When we were driving back the last two minutes to the office, Dustin stopped kind of suddenly and I, not paying as close attention as I should have been, ran into him. I didn't realize that he had fallen off the segway when we were messing around earlier so I thought it was my fault that he hurt his leg and for about 10 minutes before I learned the truth I felt terrible. Fortunately, although there's a bump and a bruise on one of us, the segways were not damaged at all and we didn't have to pay any extra. Overall, the segway tour was one of the most fun things I think we've done and I can now cross riding a segway off my bucket list. This tour was worth every penny we paid for it! If you are ever in Thailand, PLEASE do yourself a favor and try it.
When we got back to the office, the receptionist said they could book a Flight of the Gibbon tour for us to go out of Bangkok on Wednesday. Flight of the Gibbon is a zip lining canopy tour that "includes 3-4 sizzling hours up in the canopy, 5 STAR lunch or dinner, and a 1 hour river or waterfall trek. The Sky Rangers accompany us and anticipate our needs - sharing their knowledge of local lore, flora, fauna, and geology. The unique system enables us to view jungle life from a perspective previously reserved for a group of researchers. They take us high into the canopy using an ingenious system of stations, tree houses, cables and sky bridges for over 5 km. For thrill seekers and nature lovers alike there has never been a more exciting way to explore the tropical rainforest!"
At lease that's what the brochure says. We were also fortunate enough to walk into the office while the CEO of the company was sitting there and meet the guy who runs the whole show. It was really cool and he was such a nice guy, we couldn't say no. So the day after tomorrow, we will be zip lining through the canopy, having the time of our lives! If you want to check out this company at all (especially anyone who has any interest in traveling to Thailand) look up the website: treetopasia.com
That has been our time in Chiang Mai. The north of Thailand is beautiful and the people are a pleasure to be around. We have not had one single bad experience with a local so far and also, not on single person has come up to us and directly begged for money. We've heard it's quite a bit different in Bangkok, but so far, WE LOVE THAILAND!!
To contact us we are both on facebook: Dustin Lowry and Mariah Mahlendorf, or you can email us at mm1293@ship.edu (that's me) or d.lowry11@gmail.com for Dustin.
Goodbye for now and make sure to follow our blog to find out about our time in Bangkok!!
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