Bored with the uneventful Chiang Rai, we decided that it was time to head to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a huge city of 1.6 million people. It's the second largest city in Thailand. It's the land of culinary cuisine for the Thai's and very rightly so!
I thought I'd be clever and book a guesthouse before arriving. I emailed Same Same guesthouse and they said a reservation was all set up for us. We liked them because you got free breakfast and free wifi (which is a necessity for Joey to work). When we arrive, lo and behold they have no room in their guesthouse but have made arrangements for us to stay at a neighbouring guesthouse. They take us there, this place doesn't have free breakfast or wifi, and rooms are only 250baht but they were still going to charge us 400baht. I was livid!
So Joey and I are wandering around Chiang Mai forever trying to find a place. It is hard to find a guesthouse here because most of them will only let you book a room if you book a tour with them first. If you don't they will all of a sudden be 'full' or they will pester you and treat you like poo for your entire stay. We had that in Hanoi, Vietnam. I don't want that again. We finally found a place called Safe House Guest House, which I thought was an ironic name because that was exactly what we were looking for. We wanted to be safe for sales pitching hotel staff!
Despite all the fuss, we ended up booking a tour with our hotel anyways! One thing I really wanted to do in Chiang Mai was something called Flight of the Gibbons. It's basically a zip line tour through the canopy of the forest. The proceeds go to the conservation of the gibbons'habitat and protecting them from poaching. We had quite a lot of fun swinging through the trees, although both of us wish we could could have gone faster and higher. We tried many times to get a jump start, but were soon corrected by our guides. The constant safety reminders also made it a bit more tedious. However, we still had a really great time and met some really nice people.
In Chiang Mai we didn't do much of anything except eat and look at markets. The food here is absolutely amazing. One night Joey and I splurged on a seafood dinner where we got curried vegetables and crab, and grilled king prawns. It was definitely worth every penny. Later on that night we decided that a Muay Thai boxing match was something we needed to experience. We made our way down to the boxing ring via tuk tuk. We paid for ring side seats with all the tourists, while all the locals stand on the other side.
The first match was two young boys who must have been no older than 12. Both of them only weighing in at 31 kg (Less than 70lbs). My brother Calvin could take them any day! It was more of a cultural experience than anything to watch these boys fight. First they do a dance around the ring and praying to every corner of the ring, then they stretch and take off their traditional head rest. Four musicians off to the side start to play god awful music to serenade the boys as they attempt to pummel each other.
After four more matches, I was tired of looking at men beat each other up. I was ready to go home! I can now say I've have seen a Muay Thai boxing match.
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