We're home- sort of. Julie's post

After a 15 hour flight, we arrived at LAX last night around 8:30. This time we were smart and asked for an exit row on both flights. On the longer flight from Taipei to L.A. the plane was so large that our exit row seating really had no seating for 6 feet in front of us which was wonderful. We bought those u-shaped travel pillows and they made all the difference too. I slept a good 9 hours on the last flight. The longer flight had 150 seats free unlike the flight going which was totally packed. So we had no one sitting next to us which also made sleeping easier. I think I'm always going to ask for the exit row when we fly internationally.

Customs was such a procedure, more so than I ever knew. First we got bussed from our outskirts terminal with the hundreds of other passengers. However, we had to wait for the 2nd bus. Then we stood in the customs line for a good while and got asked the standard questions, then got our checked baggage, and stood in another customs line to leave. It only took about 45 minutes but it seemed much longer after still being groggy from the flight.

The last couple days we met up with Jenny in Bangkok and stayed in a very nice hotel in downtown with all the skyscrapers. Some highlights were going to a swanky jazz club at the very posh Sheraton Grand. We paid $12 US for drinks and went in totally under dressed with not a care in the world. When I'd look around at all those international tourists, I swear we were getting the evil eye from a good number of them. The waitress was also very rude and snooty which was kind of bizarre considering she's a waitress at a Sheraton in Thailand. The music was amazing though and that's all that matters!!

Some good points were riding the sky train above Bangkok, going to the Chatuchak market, and last but not least MBK 8-story mall where Eric bought a couple of bootleg games and we gawked at the size and scale of the place.

Our last couple days in Pai were bittersweet as we really didn't want to leave. It was just incredible. Our last full day there we got on our motorbikes and rode around for half the day just looking at the beautiful scenery and taking pictures.

We're in Orange County staying with Eric's parents until tomorrow. Then we'll drive home with the dogs and start our life over again in this crazy place called America. It's been quite a shift just driving around this area and trying to get accustomed with this American lifestyle again. It is nice to be home. :)

Left Chiang Mai, now in Pai - Eric's report

After more eating, more drinking, more Muay Thai (I won $400B from a Scottish guy sitting next to me), and more shopping, we left Chiang Mai on monday morning. So after a 4hr mini-van ride from Chiang Mai we are now in the little valley city of Pai (pronounced "Bye"). We were only going to spend a few days here but we love it so much we're going to finish out our trip here and stay until Saturday morning when we will mini-van back to Chiang Mai and fly to Bangkok... spend the night in downtown, and fly home on Sunday evening.

Pai is awesome... it's a little city basically comprised of a 2km rectangle... so it's very small but it's very artsy, very hippy, and very beautiful. It's tucked in-between the mountains in a little misty valley. The surrounding mountains are very lush and the skies are clear (during the day when it's not raining.. rain starts around 4pm), clean, and blue. There's a nice river that snakes through the town. The first two nights we stayed on the river with an amazing view... there was a little bamboo bridge that connected our side (side the town is on) to the other side of the river. There were three bridges actually.. all very janky. No lights, no handrails, and not very sturdy. On the other side of the river are these bamboo bungalows nestled right on the banks of the river. Guests of those bungalows had to park their motor bikes on our side and walk across to reach their "home". Monday night as we were sitting alongside the river I joked about the stability of the bridges and laughed imagining drunk people trying to cross at night. Well anyway, it rained all night and when we woke up in the morning guess what... all 3 bridges were GONE! Completely washed away. Julie and I sat and ate breakfast watching the unfortunate people who stayed over there try to cross the swift moving river with 12kilo backpacks above their heads... water up to their chest. Sucks. One dude slipped and fell soaking everything.

So later that day we chatted it up with the owner of a restaurant... an American expat from Alaska who's lived here for about 8 years. He told us that in 2005 the river flooded and washed away all the bungalows on that side of the river. Apparently they are built on flood plains. 30 people died as their bungalows were washed away at 5am. Imagine waking up to that. So after 2005 the Thai government stepped in and said no one could build bungalows there..... so what did the owners do? They built them up the hill and moved them back down into the flood zone. Unreal. Anyone who stays over there is literally risking their lives and they don't even know it. Crazy the stuff you learn when you talk to locals.

More on Pai later, I'm hungry. :)

-Eric

Left Chiang Mai for the beautiful city of Pai!!! Julie's post

On Sunday night we took to the streets again for the Sunday night market in Chiang Mai. Last week it rained during our shopping adventure so we purposely stayed in Chiang Mai an entire week so we could go to it again. It was incredible and more impressive than any type of street fair I've ever been to. It stretched so many city blocks, you couldn't even count. We spent 4 hours walking it and didn't even get to half of it. Among the mix of cheaply made Asian fare, we came upon some amazing original art and a lot of handi crafts. As the market started to wind down, I walked over to the Taepae gate to take some pictures. The gate is about 2 or 3 stories high and has brick stairs with no railing of course. My heart sank for a second but there was no way I wasn't going to walk up them. I really had to restrain myself from looking down at the ground as I walked up. Surprisingly it was much easier to walk down than up. There were numerous beer bottles and trash strewn about at the top and also a few local Thai teenagers taking glamour shots of each other. The views from up there were pretty impressive. I wish I could post pictures but the cafe we're at won't let me install the drivers for the camera. We bought a card reader for the camera a couple weeks ago in Trang but the slot where my card is bent. So I've been having to install the stupid drivers each time I post pictures. Oh well...we only have a few days left. When we get back we'll put all of them on Flickr.

Two days ago we took a mini van ride from Chiang Mai north to Pai. The drive itself was about 3 hours but with picking up passengers along the way it came out to 4. I heard some horror stories of the drive being extremely windy and didn't want to chance getting sick so I took Dramamine. I'm glad I did because it was hairpin turn after hairpin turn. There's a funny sign here in Pai actually listing the exact amount of turns on that drive and it's over 700! Someones got a sick sense of humor to actually count the turns. :)

When we got to Pai I instantly fell in love. It's quaint and small but still vibrant with tourists who are going a bit off the beaten path. We even rented motor bikes which has been a lot of fun. There's so little traffic and most of it is motor bikes so it makes the windy scenic roads very pleasant to drive on.

The first two nights we stayed in a resort overlooking the river and mountains. The view from the room was phenomenal. Unfortunately they were putting in a pool and doing renovations while we were there so at about 8 AM - 7 PM we'd hear sawing and pounding. Today we moved guesthouses to a place called PAIridise hehe...We even decided to get a fan room instead of AC and saved money. The weather here has been much nicer than the rest of the country. It's not as humid and at night it gets chilly.

While we were in Chiang Mai at our cooking class we met a lovely Irish guy, John. He's from Dublin and works in IT. We had drinks with him the last two nights in Chiang Mai and it just so happened he was coming up to Pai the same time we were. Last night we had a drink with him at one of the coolest bars the most notorious incidents of people who got thrown out of the bar. Then there's another chalkboard with the names of people who've drank the most, complete with the countries they reside in. There was only one woman who made it to above 18 shots, her name was Michelle and she was from the United States. She won a t-shirt. I'm sure she's very proud. :)

At the bar we met quite a few people from all over, Ireland, Australia, UK, Israel, and San Francisco. At midnight that bar shuts down so we motorbiked it to the next bar just down the road, all 8 of us or so in tow. That bar closed at 1, so we motorbiked it to yet another bar until about 2 AM. The bar was mostly outdoors and playing incredible music- a lot of old hip hop and then techno and psy trance. It was pretty neat to see people from all over the world dancing to psy trance. It reminded me so much of Moontribe and brought back great memories. The whole town is a huge hippy fest. We love it so much that we've decided to stay for the rest of our trip and not go North to take a romantic river boat cruise. We're just having too much fun here to leave.

Tonight there's apparently a huge football...errr soccer...match at 2 AM that our crazy Irish friends are staying up for at a local bar. I think we'll have to pass on that. ha