Elephant Ride & Doi Inthanon National Park 13/1/2550

Since we had such an enjoyable experience with a hired driver, we had another driver take us to ride an elephant and tour Doi Inthanon. The elphant ride was fairly expensive (600B) but well worth it.



The summit of Doi Inthanon is the highest point in Thailand, and consists of several beautiful waterfalls (Nam Tok Mae Klang was our favorite).



Equally impressive was the Phras built by the Royal Thai Air Force to commemorate the King and Queen's 60th birthdays.



We stayed a second night in the Chiang Mei Holiday guest house (200B/night) because we were too tired to find a new place. Because lodging is cheap and you often get what you pay for, we recommend the mid-range guest houses. It's worth an extra $5/night for a cockroach and mildew free room.

Ram's Elephants 11/1/2550-12/1/2550

We arrived in Chiang Mei before dark and booked rooms at Galare Guesthouse (Rams = 500 B, ours = 1,150 B). It was a nice place with a restaurant overlooking the river and a 5 minute walk to Chiang Mei's daily night bazaar. We got food at a cute restaurant with amazing cocktails and then headed to the night bazaar in search of Ram's wood-carved elphants.

The night bazaar was crazy -- teeming with vendors hawking various handmade shirts, jewelry, trinkets and thai dishes. This bazaar seems to be the major draw for tourists to Chiang Mei, evidently even Thai tourists :).



We walked for about an hour through the main outdoor market area with no luck. There were carved elephants, but none were of suitable size for Ram. We'd given up and were making our final purchases, when a guy told us about a bamboo saxophone shop that was in the warehouse section of the bazaar. We were excited at the news of indoor shops because that's where Ram remembered seeing the elephants. Following the guy's directions, Ram was able to acquire his prize.

We had to separate for the elephant purchase, so that Ram could fetch a better price (pretending to be local). Ken and I left the market shortly after, planning to meet up with Ram again in Krabi (he was taking an early flight the next day). At about 5:30 am there was a knock on our door.

Ram had bought two elephants (or rhinos?) and each was packed into an approximately 1.5 x 1.5 x 3 foot crate. Upon seeing this and realizing Ram was travelling alone, the front desk manager arranged a super-sketch 'taxi'. The cab was black and pretty beaten up, with no sign of being part of a taxi service. The driver was even more sketch because he wouldn't talk to Ram while he loaded Ram's stuff into the car. Fortunately, Ram came and got us, and when he asked the driver if Ken and I could ride with him to the airport the driver freaked. He said no, quickly unloaded Ram's stuff and split. Sketchy!! Ken flagged a red truck (great way to travel around Chiang Mei), and we rode with Ram to the airport. Ram was able to store the goods at the Bangkok airport for 100B/day, and made it safely to the dream valley resort in Krabi.

After that adventurous morning, we hired a private driver for the day (1,200B) to take us climbing. Crazy horse is amazing!!!



Climbing in Thailand is everything I'd imagined it to be -- super steep, interestingly-featured, over-bolted limestone!! I love this creative, strenuous climbing :)! Also, the driver fee includes a thai food lunch service, so we've also been enjoying the best crag food along with the best climbing.

Grand Palace & Reclining Buddha 10/1/2550

Eric recommended that if we can only see one thing in Bangkok it should be the Grand Palace (the Big C is second? :). The post cards certainly didn't do justice here, there are just too many amazing sights to capture on camera. Admission to the grand palace is free for thais (many go once a week to pray to the Buddha) and 250 THB for foreigners. We also saw the nearby reclining Buddha, which was very impressive but difficult to photograph. We made the mistake (again) of taking a nap upon returning to the hotel, and slept 3 hrs.


At about 10pm we began what turned out to be a very difficult task of booking a flight to Chiang Mei. All flights on the airlines we knew of were booked (Asia Air and Thai Air). This is where the lonely planet guide came in very handy, by providing info on several additional airlines. We ended up finding cheap flights $53/person on Nok (nokair.com), and in the process of booking someone recommended one-two-go airlines (fly12go.com). He claims that you can pickup/purchase(?) tickets for this airline at 7-11's. Ram was wavering on heading to Railey (Krabi), but he decided to join us on the trip to Chiang Mei. Ram plans to stay only one evening in Chiang Mei to purchase a tek wood carved elephant from the night bizarre for about $700 US. Looking forward to this market and checking out Ram's elephant (that he's mentioned several times since his thailand trip last year).


After booking this flight, we headed to the Tiger bar for dinner and beer. Hard to believe you can get a full dinner and live music at 12:15 am! Bangkok would be a super cool place to live if it weren't for the pollution.


We leave in about 3 hrs for Chiang Mei (3:30 pm). Will miss the Tiger bar and Big C within walking distance.

New Hotel: Suda Palace 10/1/2550

Jenny and Eric left on the 9th, and we moved over to their hotel, the Suda Palace (www.sudapalace.com), which was much more impressive and much cheaper than ours (Nice Palace). The Suda Palace offers rooms for only 700 THB ($20 US)/night that include A/C, a warm shower and free internet and breakfast. We highly recommend this Bangkok hotel because it is also within walking distance of the sky train, Big C, internet cafes, and a cool bar with outdoor seating and live bands (Tiger bar) is just around the corner.


The cheap and fun ways to travel around Bangkok are the sky train (15-40 THB) and canal boats (13 THB for express boat). Tuk tuks are ok because the fare is often negotiated before travel, but you're breathing in a lot of pollution. Renting a car is expensive and can be scary! Taxis are a pricey and inefficient way to travel. We have experienced/heard about the following problems with the taxi drivers: 1) you're taken to a high priced, lousy place that gives him comission, 2) he "doesn't know" your destination (and must drive around for awhile to find it), 3) he takes the long route, 4) "white man" tax. Even though our meter read 270 THB from the airport to the nice palace (20 min ride), we were charged 400 THB.

Jan. 9 Chinatown and Wat

We met up with Ram, Jenny, and Eric in the morning. First we had to return their rental car, then we took the subway to Chinatown and walked around for a while, then took these cool boats up the river an visited a Wat next to the river Wat Arun I think.

Monday 1/8 in Bangkok

Jenny says that the two greatest things in Bangkok are 7-11 and the Big C. Paul had told us that there were 7-11's on every corner, and indeed there were two within a block of our hotel.

The first thing we did was buy sim cards for our phones (200THB each = $6 US), and then called Ram, Jenny and Eric who were at a bird reserve about 100km from Bangkok. They had rented a car for the 2 weeks that they'd been in Bangkok and explored much of the parks, wats(temples) and ruins, travelling almost as far north as Chiang Mei and logging about 2,000 km of travel. Driving seems pretty crazy, especially around Bangkok, because you drive on the opposite side of the road, and there are pretty much no traffic rules...everything is ok until you get into a crash (in the event of a crash, the drivers pretty much split if they can, as many don't carry insurance). We might brave a car in Chiang Mei, but we'll see.

After talking with them we went for a walk and exchanged money in the bank. It was very busy because they are one of the only places to buy the thai lottery.

We met up with Jenny, Ram, and Eric at their hotel, which was adjacent to ours, at about 11pm. Our meeting was delayed about 1-2 hrs because of discovering the Big C. It is like a walmart and shopping mall combined, and we spent about $75 US there on clothes, shoes, and food. The most impressive sight from this day was the wall of oil at the Big C.

Long Plane Ride

We boarded in Los Angeles at about 2 pm. The plane ride was long, almost 20 hours of travel. I watch about 6 movies and Anja read and made jewelry on the flight from LAX to Taipai. We sat next to a nice guy name Paul who was thai and also headed to Bangkok. We landed in Taipia at about 5 am with a 1.5 hour layover. When we boarded in Taipai we both took 2 Dramamine and went to sleep on the plane, luckily it was pretty empty so we had three seats to ourself. We landed in Bangkok at 1 am there time about 10 am LA time. We went through customs and went to look for how to get to the hotel I had booked. Since there is a new airport in Bangkok I wasn't sure where to book, I guess I was wrong and my hotel was off somewhere weird, our taxi driver didn't even know were it was. Since I hadn't given them info we just asked him to take us somewhere good and cheap. He was very amused when Anja said something like "cheap, one bed". So here we are at "Nice Palace72/54 Soi Inthamara 1/1 sutthisan rd, Bangkok. We got so sleep and are going to head out to look around Bangkok.