Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Day 161: Chiang Mai and Surrounds


Time: Most of the morning
Distance: Two Thirds of Old City
Avg Speed: Walking
Terrain: City street

With no real reason to beat the heat we slept in this morning. We were still some of the first people to brekkie though. I think that cities in Thailand tend to get started late in the evening and end early in the morning. We, being the fuddy duddys that we are, like to get back to our room early and be in bed at a reasonable hour.
We decided to go and check out a wat near our hotel this morning. You would think that after visiting a wat or two in every town we stay in or pass through we would get ‘templed out’; but with major differences in layout and architecture they remain interesting. The wat ended with us sneaking out a back exit to avoid Mr. Noi, and his touting. He was real keen on us taking a ride with him to several other wats and stopping by to ‘look’ (aka ‘shop’) at a couple of local manufacturer’s wares. After taking a trip along those same lines in Bangkok, we were not real interested in that dance again. We walked and dodged traffic across town to a book shop to get a Laos Lonely Planet Guide. We found the guide and managed to trade a couple of books we had for it. We thought we got a smoking deal on the book having only paid 210 baht for it. When we got back to the hotel and checked it out in detail we noticed that all the pages looked like Xerox copies. After even closer inspection we noticed that it was the 2005 guide copied and wrapped up in the 2007 cover. It will still work great for us, but I guess this is another case of buyer beware. I am glad that I didn’t get the Rolex watch I had my eye on. The afternoon took a turn towards the interesting when we found Miguel’s, a Mexican restaurant owned by an expat from San Diego. I had some great fish tacos, while Leslie enjoyed the bean burrito. We could be dancing with the devil by eating Mexican food in Thailand, but it sure does taste good!
Tomorrow we have rabies, wats and maybe a repeat visit to the Mexican food restaurant for their giant nachos.
CK

No comments: