Goodbye, Chiang Mai

So far Thailand has been one of our most exciting destinations. We have loved every bite and every activity. 

On our last post we shared about a VERY unique opportunity when we went to the Chiang Mai Women's Prison. We haven't filled you on our massages yet. While they were wonderful, we were mostly inspired by the rehabilitation program. The women were pleased to work with us and even seemed overjoyed. There were lots of laughs throughout the experience. We have found that Asia really tries to build up its people. No one sits idly by and lets others suffer. People try their best to help their communities and families prosper and people are really working together. It is quite a refreshing attitude that we hope to pass on to our students.

We tried so hard to take these pictures before the massages started because we were afraid we'd get in trouble. Of course Nicki's flash went off in the dark room as we tried to be discreet. 

Next we visited the Historical Center in Chiang Mai. Not only did we learn about the city, but we discovered interesting content about the nation as a whole. The country prides itself on the fact that it has never suffered a cultural conquest. This is very different than the other nations that we have visited. While the historical cultural sites in Vietnam, Laos, and the Philippines tended to be focused on tragedy and suffering, the sites in Thailand are the exact opposite. The Thai are glad to share their heritage but they do not have the same suffering to share. Their sites are positive and informative. The diversity of activities allowed us to observe and interact with Thai culture in our own way and force a special connection with this beautiful country. 

It was a pleasure to learn about Chiang Mai. This city is the educational capital of the country and this makes it stand out to us even more. After the Christians were welcomed into the northern part of Thailand, the shift of the region focused on studies. There are many schools and educational centers around and we also saw many students during our visit.

Chiang Mai has so many different peoples and cultures. The city was able to keep its independence for about 500 years and has had many different rulers since. While this northern part of Thailand has had many transitions, it has held on to its rich Buddhist identity. Each tribe holds steadfastly to this belief as well of its use of the natural surroundings. The surrounding bodies of water, forests, and wildlife are used to the fullest by the thousands of tribes that inhabit Thailand's northern provinces. 

We even learned more about our wildlife crushes, the elephant! Our beloveds were used for transportation and labor until the railway system was developed through the country. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were missing out!

A few days ago we considered visiting the Karen Long Neck Village. We were told this was an area where many cultures inhabit one community and live harmoniously even though they have cultural and linguistic barriers. We were excited about this opportunity until we did some further research. Many compared this experience to a human zoo, and the tribes do not even see money from the tourism that occurs there. We learned about this tribe and many others during the trip to the museums. This felt more natural and less invasive. 

On our last night here we revisited the market. We ate at one of the bustling markets as busy servers walked by with live lobsters and fresh coconuts. We enjoyed the diverse people-watching while we enjoyed our spicy curries. 

We woke up early the next morning to head to Phuket. This beautiful destination is not part of our Fund for Teachers Fellowship, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to enjoy the georgous scenery and beaches that this island has to offer.

Our hotel is close to Patong Beach, and we look forward to visiting it tomorrow. Today we boarded an early-morning boat to the Phi Phi Islands. The weather seemed quite ominous during our two-hour ride and it definitely poured on us. Good thing we packed the motion sickness medicine for the rocky ride.

As we pulled up to Maya Bay, the weather finally cleared. This beach was featured in the movie, The Beach. If you haven't seen this interesting 90s DiCaprio flick, Nicki recommends it. Arelys has obviously not seen it, but maybe you can watch it with her when we get home. 

The boat took us around the rest of the island for some more stunning photo ops. 

Can you tell it rained on us?

We were dropped off on the main island, Phi Phi Don. Here we enjoyed two lunches (oops), some scenery, and another massage (another oops). 

As we walked back to the boat, we ran into a new friend! She is petite with brown hair and brown eyes. Her name is Nancy and she has a huge heart. Oh yeah... she's also a monkey. We paid three dollars to be photographed with this cutie. We know some of these animal photos can be considered morally questionable, but come on! You know you couldn't resist a baby monkey with a bottle in overalls. 

The boat ride home seemed nice at first. We took some more pictures, caught some rays, and read our books. This lasted for about twenty minutes until the wind started raging. Arelys upped her dose of the motion sickness medicine and Nicki surprisingly fell asleep through it all.

Nicki even took her first successful selfie! Literally.

We look forward to enjoying the sun and scenery tomorrow. Thursday we head to Bangkok for a few last adventures. Get ready because our goal is to eat some bugs (on purpose)!! We thought it would be the best way end our Asian food tour... Maybe you'll agree?

Wish us crunchy luck!!

Your hungry, 

Frizzy Girls 

PS Did you notice we only have one food picture in this post?!

Exercises in Trust

We don't even know where to begin. Oh right, we love food. Last night our dinner consisted of binge eating street food. Between the two of us we sampled mango sticky rice, a Mexican burrito, pork wrapped mushrooms, chicken on a stick, vegetable spring rolls, vegetable goyozas, spicy sausage, a waffle with banana and Nutella, and a magical swirled potato with pizza seasoning. Don't worry, we spread this out during the course of several hours. 

As we went in and out of many shops and bars we made many new friends and ran into many familiar faces. In a town as small as Pai you're bound to see someone you know or someone that wants to know you. We spotted a Spanish couple from our elephant ride and we befriended a bar owner named Jikko. The entire night we thought his name was Chico until we met a close friend of his the next day that told us otherwise. We didn't make the connection that the bar was named Jikko and that it was named after him. We spent most of our night here and he even let Nicki make a drink. We also met some repeat visitors of Pai who can't get enough of a town we also loved. 

With only half a day left in our Pai adventure we wanted to make the most of it and we did. Our first stop of the morning was to Big's Little Cafe. We hung out with Big himself as he made our BIG hashbrown breakfasts. 

Afterwards we rolled ourselves to cooking class at the Pai Cookery School. Good thing we didn't have to eat until the end of the class because we needed plenty of room to enjoy our delicious creations. With only a knife and a mortar and pestle we managed to whip up two types of curry, fried spring rolls, pad thai, a pad sea ew with a lot of help from Gaew, the instructor. Despite recovering from the night before, she was still able to help us with a smile on her face. She even bought us orange and dragon fruit juice! Arelys was delighted that cleaning up after ourselves was not part of the process. Not to toot our own horns (beep), but we can still taste the delectable dishes we made. 

Warning: the following story may seem reckless and stupid, but we are safe and fine. 

Here goes... We rented a motorbike. Everyone we have met along the way had recommended the experience, especially in Pai. The peer pressure must have gotten to us because before we knew it we were driving away towards Pai canyon early in the afternoon. Here is our series of red flags:

Red flag 1: We debated for a while about who should drive. Arelys had "much" more experience having driven a motorbike three times by herself in Guatemala just a few short years ago. Nicki's closest experience to driving a motorbike was driving a jet ski. The debate was basically who trusted the other more not to kill us both. In the end Nicki reluctantly became the driver.

Red flag 2: We were asked about our motorbike licenses and explained that insurance was not an option. Blah blah blah... lots of fines... Blah blah blah... Here are helmets... Blah blah blah... Bon voyage. PS your tank is empty. 

Red flag 3: The first task given to us was to get gas. It took us longer than we would have liked to find the gas station. When we FINALLY got there, we could only give a dumbfounded look to the attendant because we had no clue how to fill up the bike or how much gas to get. Good thing money is universal. Then we were ready to stumble out of the gas station on our pink ride.

Red flag 4: We were really "fine" for about two minutes until we noticed the ominous sky. We went back and forth for a few minutes with the following comments and questions. "It's going to rain." "It's definitely raining" "It will stop in a few minutes." "It can never rain that hard for that long (the Bob Rosenthal classic comment)." "Was this a bad idea?" "This was a terrible idea." "Should we pull over?" "Can you take off my sunglasses?" "I can't see." "I'm going ten miles and hour.. No it's ten kilometers! Waaaay less." "I don't like this!" "I'm nervous..." "Let's pull over NOW!!"

Nicki had no idea this photo was being taken, mostly because she was asking Arelys to talk to her about anything but what we were doing at that moment.

We stopped at this little shack on the side of the road with a Thai couple. We took photos while we waited out the rain and the couple just laughed at us. There were no words exchanged which could have been the language barrier or because they thought we were too stupid to deserve their conversation.

Red flag 5: We left the shack too early. We were optimistic that the rain had calmed down, and Arelys was ready for her turn at the wheel. About three minutes passed before we needed pull over again. We found a little coffee shop and made the most of our calamity.

All in all we remained four minutes away from Pai canyon and never made it.  We did however look up pictures on the internet. That's the same as a real-life visit, right? We were satisfied. Our bike was returned and Nicki said goodbye to the rental lady "forever."

That afternoon we got on the bus back to Chiang Mai. Should we have motorbiked there? Naaah. The ssssscucu bus didn't seem as bad on the way back, until we spent an extra hour in the city traffic. The driver was on the phone for the entire four-hour experience and WOAH the language barrier. She made Nicki talk on the phone to her boss about five times. It was beyond frustrating, but we finally arrived at our hostel.

Finding dinner felt like a long journey. We were too hungry to find our way out of the crowd. We almost had a hangry (hungry + angry) moment until we found Le Spice. Our Indian food was flavorful and satisfying. 

Afterwords we "happened" to find ourselves in the night bazaar. We only spent money on our nail art! It was worth every Baht! 

That evening we met Sak, a Tuk Tuk driver that agreed to give us a great price to go to the Tiger Kingdom. He picked us up at 10:00 am and we were off!! We went back and forth about whether or not we wanted to visit the tigers here. There are rumors that the tigers are drugged and not treated well. We heard from a trustworthy friend that the tigers have a good life and it was worth checking out.

We definitely agreed!! The baby tigers were adorable and the huge tigers were a beautiful sight. We enjoyed getting to bond with the wild animals. Here are the pictures to prove it!

Nicki had quite a day of getting in trouble. Our baby tiger trainer was not happy when she lightly tapped it on the head.

On the way out of the kingdom we had an unexpected adventure. We went in zorbs on a small pond. We just learned this word today so we don't expect any of you to know what it is either. A zorb is a giant plastic ball that you can roll around in on the water. We clumsily glided across the small pond for as long as we could stand the blistering heat. This was about three minutes, if you're interested. We looked like a couple hot messes in the giant plastic spheres. 

Sak took us to Thanin Market for lunch. This was one of the most local places we visited on our journey. We were the only white/brown faces in the whole places. We sampled lots of treats and dishes. Good thing Sak was with us or else wenwould have struggled big time!

That afternoon we decided to get our toe nails painted. We love cheap nail art!

We walked across town to The Riverside Bar for dinner. There we were able to enjoy the live band who played many western-style hits from Hotel California to Adele. This place was packed and we literally got the last table. Once our food came we understood why it is so popular for tourists and locals alike. We shared ribs, French fries, mashed potatoes, garlic bread and panang curry. Good thing all of our new pants have elastic waist bands! 

After dinner we had to force ourselves to enjoy the Chiang Mai nightlife. Each day we do so much that we are exhausted by the time the sun goes down. Since it was our last weekend, we decided we needed to tough it out. In our typical fashion, our moods alternated the entire 29-minute walk to a bar called Zoe. While one of us was complaining of fatigue the other was powering through. We whined so much that we barely noticed when we arrived. It was worth it!! We danced our butts and dinners off to the western and Spanish hits. It was a blast and a great recommendation from our nail girl. 

We ventured out on our long walk back to the hostel. The night market was on our route so we naturally stopped for late-night foot rubs! Each of our ten-minute sessions cost a dollar. This was the best dollar spent during our six weeks! Nicki is convinced... We think we can bring this trend back to the states. Maybe we can get on Shark Tank and woo Mark Cuban to fund us! Consider this our official trademark, so don't get any ideas...

This morning we FINALLY slept a little later. We walked to the Chiang Mai Women's Prison for lunch and massages. Yes, you read that correctly. The correctional facility houses a rehabilitation for its inmates. The women work as chefs servers and provide traditional Thai massage for visitors. Every guard and inmate we interacted with was sweet and helpful. We loved our adorable server, and we hope she isn't a serial killer :)... The food was surprisingly delicious! We gorged on fried mushrooms, pork relish, pad thai, spaghetti, and fresh juice! If all prison food is this good, maybe we will consider a career change! Even the wifi is good. We are posting right now from the cafe! 

This afternoon we will visit the Chiang Mai Cultural Arts and Historical Center. The Thai settlers here welcomed Christians and other settlers. This history is very different from the other countries we have visited. Even though many Christians and Chinese settled here, Chiang Mai was able to hold on to its rich cultural roots and Buddhist religion. There is a multitude of Thai and Eastern Asian cultures that call Chiang Mai their home. The art and artifacts are bound to be fascinating.

Tonight we will eat at a restaurant called Dash! that we are glad to say has absolutely nothing to do with the Kardshians. It is a perfect last day in Chiang Mai. Tomorrow we are off to Phuket for some R&R before we head home. 

Our Thai adventures seem endless, but they are really winding. We will be back in a week's time, give or take the 24 hours of travel time!

Until the next sweaty, elephant-loving, stuffed with food post,

The Frizzy Girls (Big Spoon & Little Spoon)