I wasn't really planning to post today, but since it's pouring rain today, and the Songkran is the most intense water festival on the planet, indoors on the computer is a great place to be.
Yesterday we decided to have a much needed day to chill out and catch our breath as we had been going non-stop the two days before, and it was a great call. During the day we took a tuk-tuk over to a nearby mall with two other people from our hostel to go to the rooftop pool to relax and catch some rays. Yes, there is a pool on the roof of the mall--only in thailand, hah. The tuk-tuk ride there was absolutely brutal since the songkran is going on (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songkran), which essentially means that you can't go outdoors without getting soaked by buckets of water and supersoakers. To make matters worse, tourists in tuk-tuks are definitely the preferred target of the locals. So, imagine riding in an open tuk-tuk (i guess that might be hard to imagine...) and every stop sign, stop light, traffic slowdown, etc, you get drenched by 10buckets of ice cold water and 5 more of dirty nasty warm river water. The ride was about 20minutes, and by the time we got to the mall we were SOAKED...it was pretty fun/funny/entertaining since it was warm out and we were going to the pool anyway, but wow what an intense ride. We made it to the mall, took an hour to find the pool (the directories are all in thai, and we couldn't find anyone that spoke good enough english to give good directions), and then relaxed in this giant (probably two olympic pools) pool for about two hours. We struck up a convo with 3 girls lounging poolside, and turns out they went to cal poly...what a weird coincidence. They were doing the thai study program, so i guess it's not that weird, but still to bump into cal poly kids in a city of 400k people in northern thailand was pretty cool.
At night we decided to go to a muy thai fight near our hostel. It was in this old warehouse type building with lawn chairs surrounding the ring and little tables in front of your lawn chair...interesting set up to say the least. But they served beer and food, and we sat next to an interesting french couple on one side and a cool dude from london on the other, so it was all good. [Sidenote: the french couple kept saying they were from france, but turns out they were really from some small island off the coast of africa that is a french colony/protectorate/whatever you call it...i guess even people that live in these colonies claim to be from france--kind of weird, i don't think that people from puerto rico claim to be from the US]. There were 8fights, including an awesome girl fight, which was interesting to say the least, and a "special fight" where they blindfold four dudes and they just throw haymakers for 5 minutes...it was hilarious. After the fights we wandered the streets of chiang mai checking out other markets and bars we hadn't been to (we walked by a "ladyboy" bar--well, i walked by, emily walked IN...it was just disturbing, i have no other words to describe it {ladyboys are what they call trannys here, if i haven't clarified that in any previous posts, and there are a TON of them). On the way back we picked up some rotee (like crepes) from a street vendor--which was awesome, and then were back to our hostel and called it a night. Great day.
Today we woke up to cold weather and pouring rain--unfortunate since today (the 13th) is the actual day of the Thai New Year, so the celebration is supposed to be in full effect. We needed to get to the bus station to buy our ticket to Pai tomorrow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pai,_Thailand), and figured that the rain would keep people inside and we'd be able to stay dry enough in a tuk-tuk. WRONG. We got absolutely murdered by ice cold, filthy water for a 25 minute ride in 65 degree cloudy weather...oh, and then we had to ride back the same way. On the way back we finally decided to fight back, and when people would approach our tuk-tuk with buckets of water, we'd wrestle the buckets away and a douse them with water...Of course we couldn't win, because it was always 20 vs us 2, but it at least made the otherwise brutal ride pretty entertaining. We made it back to the hostel drenched, freeezing, and shaking, but with two bus tickets to pai...small victory, though it definitely took away from my interest in the songkran festival.
Chiang Mai has been a really great time...Off to pai at noon tomorrow, and hoping for better weather in the next few days. Happy thai new year.
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