Trekkin' with Tomie: Thailand

Tomie arrived in Thailand Nov 25 and explored Bangkok: shopping malls, yoga, beer drinking. Karen arrived Nov 26 and didn't explore Bangkok then or later in the trip because of the short amount of time we had to travel between here and Vietnam. We flew to Northern Chiang Mai straight away and spent 5 or so days in the busy city, 2 0f those days blending into the local scene on our own scooter. Neither of us had driven a bike before and for some insane reason, when Tomie handed me the keys to the scooter and told me I was driving, I said okay. There are no words that can relay to you the fear and adrenaline that consumed me as I tried to a.)drive a motorized bike b.)drive on the left side of the road c.)not get hit by one of the thousands of bikes and tuk-tuks or trucks or taxis on the road. Insane. No rhyme or reason. No traffic signals or signs. Okay, mayber there were one or two lights in the city and maybe we did pass those same one or two lights two or three times on any given trip around the city as we found our way in and out of the city. A relatively small city surrounded by a moat. Easy right? Well, that first trip on that bike took us about one hour to find the road that took us to the temple we were en route to that day. We also rode an elephant, cruised down a river on a bamboo raft, visited a few temples, ate lots of delicious thai food, had dinner at some great venues along the river, went to the night market, had a massage for about $3.

Then we went south to the beach. Railay is a peninsula that is called an isthmus. No cars. Get there by long-tailed boat from Krabi. This was a sample of paradise at much cheaper rates than we are familiar with. 4 beaches on this small area and each different than the other. It was hot and the water was beautiful.
Perhaps you have heard of Phuket or Kho Phi Phi. We chose a more remote area and are so thankful we did after taking a snorkeling day cruise and stopping into Kho Phi Phi just for lunch. It was like a cruise ship terminal. So many people. Our snorkeling trip also took us to the beach where the Leo Decaprio movie The Beach was filmed. Too crowded. Beautiful, but way too many tourists there. Look at what we enjoyed instead!!