off the beach and into the mountains

We finally overcame our extreme lethargy enough to get moving again. We passed through Bangkok's airport before the weekend protests and spent a few days in Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. We stayed in Chiang Mai's old town, which is surrounded by a moat and throbbing with a backpacker vibe. There are guesthouses everywhere and if you wander down the alleys they get cheaper, if a little dingier. We finally got out at night and saw a few Thai cover bands doing mostly old rock tunes. It's easier to name the tune from the melody line than the lyrics because the singers' accents are usually quite odd to our ears. They mostly advertised as jazz but we never did find any. Karen took a daylong cooking class and learned how to make a few of the dishes we've been eating. The leftovers were tasty, although she needs a little practice rolling the springrolls. We should have a good variety at our next dinner party at home. The biggest disappointment in northern Thailand has been the air quality. Chiang Mai has a lot of tuktuks and rental scooters, not to mention the badly maintained cars, trucks and buses. Add to that the soot from the burning crop stubble and the air was quite hazy and gross. We've since left Chiang Mai and are staying further north in Pai where there's less exhaust but more ash, so the haze level is still high but the air seems a bit more breathable. The van ride from Chiang Mai to Pai was more strenuous than we anticipated with hundreds of sharp curves (the T-shirts say 762 curves) in the last two hours of a three-hour drive. We are definitely in Thailand's hill country where there are quite a variety of small-population tribes, each with different languages and traditions. It's part of what every backpacker comes up here for, but we have yet to get out of Pai to see the villages or the waterfalls or the hot springs. You see, Pai is another chill-out place and that's all we've managed so far. Besides there's about five hours in the middle of the day when it's too hot to do anything, but drink beer and read. Yesterday, we over-exerted ourselves walking out of town towards a waterfall but didn't make it due to the heat. We did manage to hitchhike back to town and got a ride in the back of an empty construction truck that was filthy with concrete dust. Got quite a few odd looks from other backpackers who didn't expect to see westerners jumping out of the back of an obviously working local truck. We changed from one guesthouse to another this morning because the first bed was too hard and managed to save some money as our costs dropped from 500 baht to 400 baht a night, that's about $17 to $13 Canadian a night. Everything is so cheap that Karen is having difficulty restraining herself from buying. But who can resist a 70 per cent pashmina and 30 per cent silk scarf for $3, or earrings for half that? That's enough for now. If we sit in these leather chairs much longer Karen's prickly heat will flair up again. It has become our major consideration at dinner - what kind of fabric is on the chair cushions. And because Bob can't sit crosslegged, we can't sit on the floor cushions. We have put up a few pictures of our beach adventure in southern Thailand and will add a few from the north soon. Hope all our new backpacker friends are doing well, we'll try to round up all your email addresses soon and send out a few messages. Thanks especially to Daniel for the comment. Of course, it's always good to hear from home. Miss you. Bye from Pai.