I'm pretty sure the only thing that got us through the trekking weekend was the promise of a free day upon our return to Chiang Mai. And as if that wasn't enough, our free day was going to start with program-included Thai massages. Now if you've been reading you know that the DEPDC crew is old hat at Thai massages now. This was going to be my fifth and final massage, so I went big. I opted for a 2 hour Thai massage followed by a facial and pedicure. I believe I was there 3.5 hours.
The spa ISV works with is pretty fabulous, better than any we visited in Mae Sai. You would never know it was staffed by ex convicts. There is a massage place at the Chiang Mai women's prison that trains inmates to be masseuses upon release, and apparently this is an off shoot of that. Interesting right? The only time I got a little nervous was when she was cracking my neck... Even with all the added services I got out of the spa for under $10. That is one thing I'm going to definitely miss about Thailand. This would be the perfect place to retire, once here you spend practically nothing.
I did some writing and some napping for the rest of the day. Then we all headed back to the everything restaurant for one last taste of deliciously unhealthy western food. Then it was off to the night market! Thank goodness I put this off until the last night otherwise I probably would have kept going back and bought way too much. It was 3 large streets that shut down every night to transform into a knock off-filled Thai market. The walk there was longer than expected, it was over by the major hotels, and the streets were lined with bars with hookers and lady-boys waiting at the entrances. There was also about an equal number of old. white guys probably there for one reason.
Our large group of girls paired off and split up to spend a good 1.5 hours at the market. I bought some more weird Thai pants and some fake Ray Bans (my sunglasses broke in my bag a few days ago) to take down south. I'm going to miss Chiang Mai, so far if I could go back to any place in Thailand it would be there. But I'm so looking forward to some beach time down south.
Friday we flew to Phuket, which even at the airport was packed with tourists. But beach going tourists this time, not the backpacker types like up north. It was mostly couples, likely here to honeymoon. Seriously, couples everywhere. From there we took a 3 hour bus ride out to Khao Sok, a rain forest and national park. According to Mae this rain forest is older and more diverse than the Amazon, something about the ice age didn't cover this area with glaciers like it did the Amazon so the rain forest went undisturbed. It's beautiful up here, huge limestone cliffs with all sorts of tropical plants and trees growing on the rock face. From a distance it looks like moss on a rock, but it's really forest on a rock.
When we finally arrived at our lodge we realized we were legitimately in the jungle. This time along a really warm, clear river. And as soon as we got to our tree house room we found the first of many bugs. It was a cockroach on my bed's mosquito net... I knew we were in for some nasty surprises when Mae advised us to come get anyone at reception to kill bugs for us should we find any. Most of us took full advantage of this offer. First thing I did was get someone to come get the cockroach, but it ran away and either escaped or was hiding in our room for 2 days. I chose to believe It made it out the window, but I kept my bag zipped the whole time just in case. Then later that night Tegan found a giganto spider in our bathroom. I didn't even look, just ran, but I was told it was about the size of a hand. I went with her to reception to retrieve someone, and the guy there said "it's ok, you can touch it." To this I responded, "no, you can touch it." Then when the guy walked into our bathroom he looked a little surprised and just said "Oh..." which was a little validating. Then finally, as we're packing to leave Sunday morning we find a scorpion in our bathroom. A little one, it looked a little like a crayfish, but a scorpion no less. I just wanted out of that jungle, I was done with the place.
Unfortunately we spent 2 nights there because we were going on a lake tour Saturday. We took Thai long tail boats around a pretty massive lake that's surrounded by limestone cliffs and rain forest. It's a man made lake, so you could still see the tops of large trees that had once grown there poking out from the lake's surface. The long tail boats were long and narrow, we sat 2 to a bench all the way down to keep it balanced. And boy did they need balancing, it was precarious getting in and out. But the sun was out and the lake water spray was warm so it was pretty relaxing. We even took a swim in the middle of the lake. I'd like to day I was the first one out of the boat and eventually everyone followed.
We wrapped up the day by getting lunch at a floating restaurant in the middle of the lake. I wouldn't really call it floating though, it was just perched on one of the many small islands in the lake. Then we spent a couple hours sunning and swimming there, which is where we all fried to a crisp. Especially the tops of my legs and half of my knees, likely because of sitting on the boat all morning too. Sometimes I forget how close we are to the equator and forget to sunscreen the parts that don't normally burn. Except here everything burns. Hopefully it will crisp up into a nice little tan by the time I'm home.
I was exhausted that night, slept most of the ride home even. Pure exhaustion and sunburn. Not to mention the start of a nasty cold, my nose is all sorts of stuffed up. But it was up and at em before dawn the next day--the tour must go on.
What a beautiful place!
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