Scooting around in Chiang Mai - Julie's post

We're now in Chiang Mai, where we've been for the past three days.

We went to the Sunday night market, an open air market each week that spans many city streets. That's been the most memorable part so far of the city. The nice thing about Chiang Mai is that it's nicer, cleaner, and more laid back than Bangkok. However it's still a large city in that there seems to be endless amounts of people living here and still an amazing amount of things to do and see.

The first full day here we rented motor scooters. When we were in Jenny's village I got to ride one for the first time which was tons of fun. However, Jenny's village was small and there were two-lane roads everywhere with barely any traffic.

I had numerous mini heart attacks on that first scooter ride in Chiang Mai. First of all, there's really no traffic laws here other than stop signs and traffic lights. People ride their scooters 3 to a lane, with a tuk-tuk trying to cram its way between them. Our first adventure on the scooter was trying to get gasoline. We had to leave the relative ease of the inside of the city which is surrounded by a moat and venture outside of the moat area into the horrendous multiple lane traffic. We did a u-turn to get to this gas station. This u-turn entailed scooting into 4 lanes of oncoming traffic, many of the cars, tuk-tuk's, and scooters were in various lanes and nobody stays in the lanes. I think lane markers are just a suggestion here. People frequently cross over the double yellow to get in front of people.

I quickly realized I don't do well with no traffic laws. That u-turn was the scariest, most insane experience I've ever had behind any vehicle. I nearly had a panic attack. Needless to say, we returned the scooters the next day. I spent a total of about 30 minutes on that thing and each time, felt like I could die at any second. It's hard enough remembering which way to look, and having to drive on the left side, which seriously screws with your left and right hand turns...but then to put a bunch of crazy free-for-all driving in the mix. I wanted to come home alive, but more importantly, in one piece. I'll leave the crazy driving to the tuk-tuk drivers.

They have great food in the city and a lot of international cuisine. Two days ago I decided to be adventurous and try American food, getting a hamburger and french fries. Honestly, it was pretty good although all yesterday I felt the pain of that decision and stayed in bed most of the day trying to recoup from the GI pain and distress.

Eric got traveler's diarrhea while at the Amari resort. Within a few hours he started to get chills and a nasty fever. I was really scared for him. The last thing you want on your vacation is to get deathly sick. Thankfully we got a prescription for Cipro, a powerful antibiotic, which I was hoping we wouldn't have to take. He took it that night and started feeling better the next morning. He's all better now. I just hope I stay healthy until we get back to the States.

Julie