Sore is the word for today. We woke up and rolled out of bed, somehow checked out, and took a tuk-tuk to Chiang Dao. Since we were just meeting Sean and Pink there, we only wandered around briefly, not fully experiencing the expansive park. While the national park/meditation area was somewhat "run down," it still had a certain charm, a subconscious beauty that the eye cannot view. Shortly Sean and Pink arrived, happily saving us from being eaten by mosquitoes, which were abundant due to the large ponds located throughout the park. And we know how much I love mosquitoes.
We walked down the street to a breakfast place, and had some yum breakfast. I had a pancake, which came rolled instead of flat, and some eggs, bacon -- the usual American breakfast. After a long conversation, we went back up the road to a massage place. All four of us changed into huge, comfy pants, and had a Thai style massage. Pink fell asleep. Sean kept asking if we were doing ok. I was trying to hide the pain (primarily because of the hiking from the previous day, but also because, well, I don't think Thai style massages are supposed to be "make you happy feel go lucky" style massages). And Yan-Shih looked as though she was about to cry. Despite this though, my 99baht had an excellet ROI: I left feeling rejuvenated and young-er.
Since we were in the hills, we somehow needed to get down to the main street. Four people, one scooter. Nope, not going to happen. So Sean took Yan-Shih and Pink (at the same time!) somehow down the road, then came back and I got on. I think people must have been highly amused by two white dudes cruising on a small scooter down a back road.
Yan-Shih and I jumped in a taxi thing and cruised to the bus station. Unknown to us, the next bus left at 1:30. It was 1:20, and we were about 200baht short. We ran to the ATM, where I withdrew a few thousand baht, then ran to get some food. I bought some type of fish dried chip things and some water; meanwhile, Yan-Shih purchased the tickets. We ran to the bus, where the door closed immediately after we got on, and like the bad kids we were, we sat in the very last row.
The five hour bus ride was a breeze. We read some more War and Peace, and took some naps. Diving into childom, we poked each other over and over for a few miles. The sun was just going to sleep when we arrived.
The taxi and tuk-tuk drivers in Sukhothai operate a highly competitive transportation ring. The second we got off the bus, the drivers swarmed us, bees around honey. To strengthen our bargaining power we teamed with a few English girls, and were successful to diminish the price of a tuk-tuk into town to only 20 baht. They went their way, and we continued our's.
We stopped at the Thai Guest House; a large slightly dilapidated house, converted into three or four rooms with a balcony. We paid, and were led up to our room. Our room, in my opinion, was one of the lowest class rooms I have ever stayed in (and I've been to some pretty crappy hostels). At the same time though, there was an invisible aura surrounding this dilapidated house. We went to pillage some food.
A short walk and we were in yet another nigh market, ordering food from some vendor on the street. We both had a rice+soup+meat mix, which was pretty yum. To complete the evening I ordered some type of desert, a thicker crepe-style pancake with chocolate on the inside. Subsequent bliss occurred, and dinner was complete.
Upon arriving back at the guest house, we walked up the steep steps and heard familiar voices; a group of people, two girls and one guy, were talking in Chinese on the balcony. We quickly realized they were from Taiwan, and proceeded to talk for a while. Well, that's a lie. I said a few broken sentences in Chinese, and Yan-Shih talked for a while. Sitting on the sofa near us was a guy from Germany, soon heading to Chiang Mai. Since we were just there, we donated our maps and tips to him, so he was quite grateful.
The last significant observation we made before bed was the abundance of geckos ... everywhere. On the wall across the small alleyway, on the ceiling of the balcony, on the ceiling in the hallway: there were geckos spread everywhere.
Sleep came quickly.
This entry is from my journal and was written on Aug. 9, 2006. It's been tagged with Travel. There have been 0 comments so far.