Crappy day! Beurk! - Chiang Mai, Thailand
Chiang Mai, Thailand
We didn't sleep very well last night because we were both cranky and some men kept walking though the hallway, making lots of noise and slamming their door. We still woke up at a fair time and packed our bags (which were a mess on the floor from last night). As we checked out we decided to ask what kind of availability they have in upcoming days, just in case things don't work out with our 'friends' (they think we are visiting friends for the week). It's a good thing that we asked, as we'll explain in a minute. We walked from DiVA guesthouse to Kikki's, getting a little lost along the way. It was a fair walk with out large, heavy bags, in the already hot day. When we finally arrived we found out that they had lost our reservation! We started panic and tried to find our confirmation (which came via Facebook) with the owners son. Well, it seems that since he was busy with god knows what else, he forgot to book our room. Perhaps now is a good time to mention that every day you can sit down in restaurant of any guesthouse or hotel for one hour and see at least a dozen people come by to see if there were rooms available, and there never are any! It's the biggest festival of the year and every hotel, guesthouse and hostel is packed. Just try looking on agoda.com or elsewhere and search for hotels for this weekend and it will tell you that nothing is available (unless you want to pay an enormous amount of money!). So you can understand that we were less than pleased with the situation. Especially since they took no responsibility and just told us that there was nothing they could do. One lady there felt bad we suppose and did try to find us a room but it was going to be about 30$ for the night! We decided to take our chances and do what we had seen so many do and walk from place to place asking if they had any availability. We were luckily able to find one quickly enough, though it is very basic. To tonight, we will be staying in a single room with a small bed for the two of us. Tomorrow though, we are able to get a double bed. The owner is a very nice lady who seems to desperately want us to book a tour through her, though she seems more expensive them so other ones we have seen. Also, all these places only take cash and now we have to take money out soon which is not what we had wanted to do! We had lunch here which was a reasonable price and the food wasn't bad. Less than thrilled though with the whole situation, Katrine really wants to leave Chiang Mai and go exploring - after the festival though. Unfortunately we were unable to move the Buddhist retreat sooner and so we are stuck here for at least about week and a bit. Chiang Mai is definitely not our favourite city, though the surrounding areas are very beautiful! We went back to Kikie's guesthouse to pick up our bags which they let us keep there and on the way back to our new guesthouse, we dropped off our laundry at a little shop as most of it stinks and we are staying in a tiny room so we cannot hang anything to dry. We returned to the guesthouse and our room was ready so we brought everything there and relaxed for a while. Still tried from our trekking and lack of sleep and then our series of unfortunate events this morning, it was nice to just relax - even though our room feels a little like a prison cell. At least there do not seem to be any bugs in the room! There are in the shared bathrooms, but oh well - what can you do. After a short nap we decided to go walking in search of dinner and to just get a feel for the surroundings. We found the streets for the Sunday Walking Market, which is actually closer the. We had thought, and explored some areas that we were not familiar with. Along e way we found some guest houses which offered Krathong (floating flower arrangements) making courses on Saturday and Sunday, but theta err a bit expensive, so maybe we will just buy one. We also found so very nice hotels and resorts within the city which extremely beautiful (but also very expensive). We stopped along the way and Chantal bought an milk bubble tea from a street vendor. Lots of girls getting out from school were buying them from different vendors. It very fun seeing the schools in the area, both in the city and out. We walked some more and stopped in at a little ice cream shop and had Hokkaido Milk ice cream. They even put m&ms on for free! It seemed to be run by a butch/fem lesbian couple. They are very common in Chiang Mai. It's a bit of a difficult culture to understand though. We've met men (one in the village in huge mountains) who date 'lady boys' (extremely effeminate men who talk and act like women and may or may not dress like women) but when asked if they have a girlfriend or a boyfriend will more often respond 'girlfriend', even though lady boys are not transsexual (no sex change operation and no desire to become a woman physically). Women are much the same in Thailand. They can dress, act and even talk like men, have no desire to become a man, and have relationships with women but still not consider themselves lesbians. It is also very much accepted to be a lady boy or a tom boy, with even elderly people laughing about a lady boy grand son or tom boy niece. Then we continued throughout the city and stumbled upon a large arrangement of lanterns Upon looking around, Chantal noticed a large statue called 'The Three Kings' and remembered that across from there was a square where some of the Yi Peng festivities take place. We decided to wait, as many Thais were also waiting, and it payed off. At 6pm all of the lanterns lit up and street vendors started to arrive. We took some pictures and decided to return a little later, as the festivities continue until 10pm. We went down the street and looked for some food, stumbling upon some beautiful temples. We decided to go in for a visit. The first temple was empty but open to visitors. It was beautiful and peaceful. The second one was large and as hosting a dharma talk (religious service of sorts) for monks and lay people alike. We took some pictures before continuing on our way. We stopped to have dinner at a little Thai place that was not too expensive (but still more thb we are happy to pay). The plates were quite small, which was disappointing, but the drinks made up for it (very sweet/rich iced cocoa and Thai iced tea without milk... Guess who had which :P). Afterwards, we returned to the festivities and found it to be much busier. There were people letting off lanterns, so we were able to watch how it was done and feel a little more comfortable doing it ourselves (now that we can no longer go with Kikie and her son Marco). It was so beautiful watching the lanterns go up, and so romantic. It will be spectacular to see tomorrow and Sunday. Now we have just returned to our room (or prison cell, as Katrine calls it) and might watch a movie before bed. We have also treated our wounds from today (Katrine has a rash of some sort and Chantal was eaten alive!). Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. But with all the issues that we had today, it could have been a lot worse at least we have a place to sleep for tonight and this weekend! We were not quite sure what we would have done had we not been able to find a place!