Thanksgiving in Chiang Mai

One hour outside Bangkok via train is the city of Ayutthaya, a former Thai kingdom. We hired a Tuk Tuk driver for the day, and were off on a tour of some of the city's famous Wats. It was an easy and fun way to spend the day, and most of the Wats were spectacular. You could even view some of them on the back of an elephant, which we passed on. That night we were scheduled to take the sleeper night train to Chiang Mai at 9, so after eating dinner the Tuk Tuk driver took us to a pub/cafe to burn the remaining hours before our departure. Here we were met by a long haired Thai man who spoke great English, as well as a handful of other languages, and put on Nirvana in his Cafe because we were from Seattle. Jimi Hendrix also. He quizzed us about the US, knowing more than we did, and taught us some great bar tricks.

After arriving 2 hours late, our train finally made it and we were on our way to Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai is in the northern part of Thailand, cooler and less humid it was a pleasant break from being sweaty 24/7. We stayed at a relaxing, helpful guest house on the edge of the interior city, that provided complimentary high speed Internet, wi-fi, toast and tea/coffee/hot coco. It was also very quite, and mostly unoccupied, had a lovely garden and relaxing outside lounge area. The owner called taxis for us, set-up our mountain biking and food course, as well as giving us discounts when he could. So on our second day, Thanksgiving, we took a Thai cooking course. We were picked up in the morning by our instructor, a young, pretty Thai lady and met the rest of our classmates back at the school. Two other Americans, on their honeymoon from Utah, were also in the course, making the Thanksgiving meal a little more family like. First on the agenda was a trip to the local market to learn about ingredients. This was followed by a tour of the school's own garden which contained their spices and peppers. Eric sampled "mouse shit" chilies straight from the vine, the chili Thai's use most to fire up their meals. Many leaves, basils, fruits and chilies were also sampled. Each of us then chose our 7 dishes we would be cooking, an appetizer, a soup, a stir fry, noodle dish, curry paste and curry dish as well as a tasty desert. There were soo many choices, but some of the highlights were spring rolls, tom yum soup, pad thai, pad sew uw?, green curry, red curry and the Chiang Mai khoa soy? curry. In the end, just like at Thanksgiving back home, we were all incredibly full and ready for some serious nap time. Eric and Brandon were hoping they could bring the lovely Thai teacher home with them, that way they wouldn't have to remember the recipes anyway, right? Plus she was funny and got a kick out of her own jokes, and telling us to "kill the little mouse shits!" when the chillies were to be smashed with a knife.

The next day we all enjoyed chatting with everyone back home on their Thanksgiving, before Eric I were picked up for a day of mountain biking. Amy had a spa day planned and Brandon worked. At the bike shop we selected some pretty beat looking downhill bikes, were given full body armor, a dinky little helmet and thrown into the back of a truck with a British kid and a French Mediterranean yacht captain (only 33 years old! what a life!) who had previously raced downhill bikes competitively back in Europe. The British kid had just quit his sales position and was traveling the world for a year with his girlfriend, and planned on seeing the Rocky Mountain region of the US in an RV next summer. He had also never been mountain biking before...

Between Eric, the French captain and myself we were not worried about the day ahead of us (no way it could be like Whistler..), Amy had also instructed us to be mindful of the lack of medical assistance. Oh how wrong we were. The upper trail through the national park was thick forest, narrow steep trail, vines, low trees and the riding was fast. The guides just kept going faster and faster and even the french racer was working to keep up followed by myself and then Eric. After the forest section we came to some very intimidating steep rock gardens, your only choice was to point it and lean far back on the bike. Going slow only led to gravity catching up with you. It was intense. An hour later we had successfully made it through the rock gardens from hell, success being no major injuries because we all bailed at least a handful of times. From there things opened up and we could tear down more stable and open trails to the finish. It was one of the greatest and most technical rides I had ever done, and the French captain agreed. He wanted to go again and said he would be coming back with his own bike and pro friends to this undiscovered downhill thrill ride. The newby British kid was a little shaken, but also enjoyed it, pretty impressive for his first experience. The guides said they never get to ride that fast though and most people end up walking their bikes down. On the way back to town we enjoyed some tall refreshing Singha beers and shared our travels.

That night Brandon and Eric went to a Thai boxing match, Amy and I stayed at home, too expensive for us. They got back late and haven't shared that much information about the night besides "it was pretty fun". We didn't go when Eric really wanted us to so he decided he would withhold the ongoings of the night from us.

Onto Laos, first via the most northern town Chiang Rai for one night. Stayed tuned for more on long strenuous treks and nightmare bus rides before we arrived in our current oasis of Luang Prabang, Laos.

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