Chiang Mai

The lobby of my guest house is comfortable and friendly. The only trouble now are the two only a little annoying people sitting behind me talking about this n' that travel story.

I'm in Chiang Mai, the big city in the North of Thailand. On the bus ride in from Sukothai (this town made for a nice bike ride around some ancient ruins and some good live music courtesy of a Thai cover band, not to mention bad pad thai and incredibly apologetic service) we passed by a shopping mall, a Carrefour, and a bunch of big box stores. These are things I do not miss from home, unless you count the fact that you know what you're getting and know what the price is.

Today we allowed ourselves a day of rest and relaxation. I just got up from a late afternoon nap and Wendy is nowhere to be seen. Hmm.

Tomorrow we've enrolled in a Thai cooking course, after which I will be prepared to whip up all my favourite dishes: spring rolls, green curry, chicken and cashew nuts. The only thing missing is sticky rice and mango but alas, that seems to be a desert rarely found in this country.

We spent some time today looking into flights from Chiang Mai to Samui on the 9th and ended up getting a ticket through our hostel. It's printed on old-school printer paper.

Okay, I have to give you some quotes of the annoying girl behind me:

"Singapore is more American than America. I really feel that."

"I spend a lot of time in the Botanical Gardens and little India."

"So you're from Munich? I haven't seen that movie."

"I'm going to this meditation retreat." "That's what I'm doing!"

"I just finished that book 100 years of Solitude, have you read that??"

Is she really that bad? I don't know.