Day 10

Wet and wild

After a leisurely wake up from our most comfortable bed yet, we had a light breakfast and headed out to the airport to meet up with John and Jenn to fly up to Chiang Mai.

Greeting each other after going through security, we quickly gave hugs all around and began to exchange stories about our recent adventures.

Apparently we are in the middle of the Thai New Year festivities called Songkran, and it is a HUGE week-long ordeal. Basically it is a big free for all water fight, and hearing the stories from our friends who had just experienced it in Bangkok, we were getting nervous! Tales of water guns, snipers, ambush, buckets of ice water, and clay mud getting thrown and smeared onto faces --- then they informed us that Chiang Mai is supposed to be WORSE!

Oh no, what are we in for?

After a quick 70 minute flight, we stood in line for a taxi, only to be told they were out. Out? I didn’t know you could run out of taxis. To the rescue, a man approaches us with an offer of a ride in his unmarked Toyota Corolla taxi. We accepted, although Oanh and John had to help the driver solve the jigsaw puzzle that was our bags and his trunk. At one point the driver thought it was a good idea to just leave the trunk open. We were very happy to make it to the Novotel Hotel with all our bags intact! It is a very clean, Western style hotel and we are glad to continue our trend of using a separate shower/toilet/bathroom thingy. J

After a quick pow-wow, we decided to hit the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar (the night market) by way of the street around the moat (where the New Year was being intensely celebrated) and the oldest Wot (Temple) in town. We put on our swim suits, quick dry clothing, and went off to arm ourselves by stopping at the first shop and buying a few multi-colored space age water guns. A bit foolish looking we headed down the street and BAM!! Not even a half a block from our hotel and we were drenched. Just as predicted, people with buckets, hoses, water guns and anything else that could hold water were spraying and throwing water at any passerby. Imagine a pickup truck with a very large bin of ice water driving by with very wet folks screeching with pleasure, laughing wildly and screaming “Happy New Year” as they doused you with buckets and buckets of water. We don’t have to imagine, we saw 40 of them! But it was all in good fun.

After a bit of a walk, we were all drenched from head to toe and realized that we had been walking in the WRONG DIRECTION!! Thanks John! J

So we quickly hopped into the next tuk-tuk (motor bike with attached bench seat for carting tourists around). As we arrived at the moat, we got out and made our way though the festivities. Water flying everywhere, people swimming in the brown cloudy moat and splashing everyone and everything, you could barely move through the street. It was an absolute madhouse. Imagine Times Square but in the middle of summer and with water and you can get a little hint of the people and the craziness. Dancing with music blaring, people having a great time, and the occasional ice cold water dousing, we slowly made our way towards our destination.

Sopping wet from head to toe we arrived at Wot Chiang Man. We ended up walking around the buildings and taking pictures of the exterior and made no attempt to actually go inside. Could you imagine, walking into a sacred temple sloshing water and dripping profusely on the beautifully painted floors and such? Yeah, no. Going through the gardens we came across a monk in a motorized wheelchair. Steering with his joystick and rolling over cobblestone paths in his orange and red robes and shaved head, much like Chiang Mai it was an interesting contrast between the old and the modern.

Another tuk-tuk ride and round of dousing later (it was unavoidable) we arrived at the Night Market. Shopping we went! Once again haggling was the name of the game. I always thought Oanh was the best at this, but you should see Jenn at work. She has a way of getting the prices down to half or more from their original price. The merchants are as surprised as we are of her skills. I wonder how she’d do at South Coast Plaza? J

After collecting our prizes, we got some grub at one of the restaurant stalls in the market: fresh fish, stir-fried veggies with crispy pork and our favorite… mango and sticky rice. No disappointment here.

After we filled our bellies, we stopped at one of the plethora of massage parlors and had our first (of many, I hope) foot massages on this trip! 150 baht for 1 hour. That’s $5. (Over 2 hours have passed and we were STILL wet.)

All relaxed we hopped into another tuk-tuk and asked for the “NO WATER” route back to the hotel. He did well, and we didn’t get any new “wishes” on our way back.

Thank you Mr. Tuk-tuk and Goodnight… for tomorrow we ride elephants!