It was getting close to the time that we had to start making some real decisions (vs the normal ‘what street food should I have today’ decision) about what we are going to do next, so today we finally came to some conclusions.

We did not have any fixed agenda when we got here, but the tentative plan was to perhaps go to Cambodia after about a week and explore some places we had not been to.  We really had to make a choice though so that we would have time to arrange the flights and an actual destination.

Our worst case scenario was to just stay in Northern Thailand and explore some of the surrounding countryside so we always had a backup, but with time running short if we wanted to do something big, we took some time this morning to make a choice.  In addition to Cambodia, we had talked about going down the Gulf of Thailand coast, or perhaps to some of the islands in the south, but in a strange twist of choice though Mrs. Columbus has decided that she wants to go to Laos!!

Laos was a country I have on my list to see at some point, but we had never really talked about it much before, however, at dinner the other night we were talking about our options a bit and our friend Ian told us about some of the things he sees travelers doing, and Laos came up as Chiang Mai is a pretty common gateway for travelers going to there.

The usual ‘backpacker’ route is to go up to the Thai/Laos border and get on a big, slow boat that floats down the Mekong River.  The trip takes 3 days – a day to go overland to the border, and 2 days of about 8 hours per day on the boat, with an overnight at a small town at the half way point.  I’m sure it would be an adventure, but 16+ hours on a full boat (40+ people) on a wooden bench does not get my adrenaline pumping!  Coupled with the fact that we have a fixed number of days left we decide that we will just fly to Luang Prabang and save the 3 days that it would take to get there on the river and allocate those days to exploring the towns we are going to see in Laos.

We are planning for a few days in each of Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng, and Vientiane and then will fly back to Bangkok for our flight home. So now to do a bit of research on the sights to see in each of those places.

After deciding that, we figured we needed a rest so for the rest of the day we have just been hanging around at our hotel and enjoying the pool, doing some reading, catching up on some emails, and chatting with friends and family back home.

We got a nice surprise at the end of the day – our friend Riam dropped by our hotel to shuffle around a day trip we had planned for tomorrow (she had a scheduling conflict and we have a pretty flexible plan 🙂 ) and she brought us a bag of fresh mangos!  Picked fresh that morning and perfectly ripe they were like no mangos we could get back home!!  Given that our minibar fridge is not that big Mrs. Columbus and I decided that the best option was to eat most of them straight away to best conserve the space.

We are planing to slip out for Thai BBQ (muu kata) for dinner tonight.  It is something that the locals do a lot, but with all the other food choices here it is not one that gets a lot of attention from the tourists so it will be a new experience for us, and we are looking forward to it.

We did find the ice cream lady yesterday while we were walking through the Warorot market and treated ourselves to a true ‘Ice Cream Sammich’.  It looks a little odd the first time you see it, but I must say that it tastes great, and with the freshly made coconut ice cream on the inside it hits the spot on a warm day!!

We have spent the last few days here just lounging about like retired people 🙂  Given that we have done most of the tourist highlights here there is noting we really need to do so we just start our days with a leisurely breakfast and then go where our mood strikes us for the day.

We have spent a fair amount of time just walking around different parts of the old city exploring the little local markets and looking at a few of the 100s of temples that are spread out all over Chiang Mai.

I took Mrs. Columbus out for a ‘date night’ the other night, we had dinner for 2, drinks, dessert and a massage each and the whole night was less than $15 – crazy!

We met a retired couple from Australia yesterday at our hotel who are basically moving here for the next 12 months because they say that it is getting so expensive in Australia.  They rented a fully furnished 1 bedroom apartment just outside the old city for $300 per month!  They have to fly back to Australia once every 13 weeks for a couple of days to maintain their pensions, but will spend the rest of their time here.  I must admit to being a little jealous…..

There was supposed to be a 4th of July party here hosted by the American Consulate – something that the expatriate community comes out for every year with their families, but perhaps Washington is spending all their extra cash on election ads or something because the party was canceled this year.  A few of the local expat owned restaurants had their own fireworks displays but unfortunately we missed them while having a massage 🙂 – it was still a good way to celebrate the 4th for us!

We took a walk up to the university area yesterday, it is very much a trendy area of the city as only foreigners and wealthy Thai families can afford to send their kids to university.  The area is sort of like downtown Kirkland or Whyte Ave back in Edmonton with lots of coffee shops, pubs, restaurants and shopping.  It was a good 2 mile walk each way and during the walk back the overcast skies cleared and the sun was beating down hard so we stopped at a mall on the way back for an ice cream sundae at Swenson’s – mostly because we think that Grandpa would approve!!

We still have yet to decide when and where we will move to next, but we need to figure that out soon, or start looking for an apartment to rent 😉

That’s all for now – hope all our friends back in the USA had a great 4th of July!!

After our brief overnight in Bangkok, we catch a short flight to our first destination – Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.  Now frequent followers of our travels will quickly note a recurring theme here because, yes, we have been here before, and no, I am not going to just cut and pase entries from before, although it would be pretty easy to do so. 🙂

Chiang Mai is not one of the ‘glory’ spots in Thailand like you see in the alluring beach photos, but it holds it’s own on the tourist trail for being so completely different from the beach.  It holds a special appeal to us maybe because of it’s small town feel, but it is just ‘comfortable’ like an old pair of pajamas (or work pants as some of us call them).  Mrs. Columbus always puts it on her list of places we need to go back to, and by now we know the city reasonably well, and have even started to be recognized as ‘regulars’ at some of our favorite haunts.

We have seen most of the sights noted in the guide books or promoted by the tour operators by now, so we are able to just focus on things we might find interesting and/or stuff that is farther off the beaten path.  It is pretty easy to fall into a laid back routine, and we quickly do so – I guess that is what vacation is really about.

We have barely stepped off the plane and checked into our hotel when we wander off down the road to Ginny Cafe, a place we discovered on our last visit, and our new go-to place for a great meal.  I quickly settle into a bowl of Khao Soi Gai (a northern Thai curry dish) and all is good in the world 🙂

But not everything has remained the same since we were here last.  After lunch and a nice visit with our friends Tee and Ian, we wander the few blocks over to see our friend Sopa who owns our massage salon of choice only to discover that she has sold the shop and is no longer there 🙁  There are definitely lots of places to find a massage here, massage shops are like Starbucks and it seems like you can’t go 1/2 a block with out finding another one, but it was nice to be able to go to the same place where you know the people, and are assured good value for your $4 per hour….

So we wandered around in a daze for a bit and took a walk past some of our other old haunts, and finally headed back to our room to take a break before the evening (we are going to the Sunday night market so we clearly need to rest up by the pool a bit before that).  Luckily good fortune smiles on us because by the time we walk back to the hotel we decide that it is time to just find a new massage place, and there just happens to be one right across the street from where we are staying!

It does not look like much from the street, but we have been walking for hours and have long since learned to not judge a book by it’s cover here, so we throw caution to the wind and settle in for a foot massage.  Well the roll of the dice pays off nicely and an hour later we are comfortably in a zen like state, so thankfully we at least have the massage situation sorted out!!

A trip to the night market and some street food rounds out the evening and just like that our first day is done.  All in all a pretty good start t our vacation!!

Happy Canada Day to us and of course all our friends back home!

Women are from a different planet than men.  I certainly can’t take credit for this bit of wisdom, as there are whole books about the subject, but in one of those lightbulb moments the sentiment really hit home with me during a recent outing.

The Chiang Mai Sunday market is truly a spectacle to be seen.  The main road through the center of the old city gets closed down at around mid-afternoon and the merchants begin setting up stalls in the street hawking every sort of item you can imagine.  Much of the stuff is oriented towards parting tourists from some of their money for souvenirs, but there are plenty of vendors selling goods to locals, and street food carts, and well, almost anything you can imagine.  The local people say that it stretches for over 7 kilometers and including branches down side streets, alleys, temple grounds and just about any other flat open area it is easy to see how it could be that or more.

As we are trudging through the sea of people, passing by stall after stall of people selling what certainly appears on the surface to be a repeating pattern of the same products (after all, how many booths really need to sell ‘iPood’ t-shirts and Bob Marley headbands) I am starting to wonder why we are still here walking about.  We have already had our delicious sampling of street food, and have now walked by the 4th or 5th place selling flip-flops when the light-bulb moment occurs – Mrs. Columbus actually likes shopping – not for anything in particular, just likes shopping!?!

I’ll fully admit to buying things so I guess technically that is shopping, but I am always looking for something not just shopping randomly, and if given the chance I would much rather do it online from the comfort of the couch, so I completely cannot fathom actually wanting to go somewhere to just look at stuff that I have no specific desire for and no fixed objective.  At one point in the trek Mrs. Columbus even says to me: ‘Boy it just goes on forever doesn’t it?’ and then ventures on forward….

Clearly women are from a different planet.

Well after a couple of rather uneventful (but lengthy) flights we arrived in Bangkok at about 11pm local time and as expected we are dog tired.  As we are not planing on spending any time here there was initially some very short lived banter about just staying in the airport and catching an early flight out to Chiang Mai in the morning.  However, being the princess that I am though I threw caution to the winds and splurged the $28 for a room 10 minutes from the airport – $28 that included breakfast, and a free shuttle to/from the airport!!  Best decision ever – we are not fully rested ’cause we still need to get used to the *much* more firm Thai standard for mattresses, but it was not a night of being all scrunched up in an overly cold (the air conditioning in the airport is very cold) seat at the airport listening to the overhead announcements every 20 minutes so we take the good with the bad.

Today we start out fresh, a decent night sleep under out belts, and a 10am flight to Chiang Mai where the real relaxing will begin.   Khao Soi Gai and a Thai massage incoming……