We rented bicycles today and explored Chiang Mai a little further. We went to some second hand shops just outside the city to get some trekking supplies including hiking boots for Bev and an extra pack. We succeeded to the tune of 4 bucks for everything. Oh, and I bought some jeans for $2.50. We then wended our way back into town and ended up close to the museum of culture and decided to pop in after our lunch. There were some interesting exhibits about how Thai...

Greetings from Chiang Mai! We took the sleeper train 700 km from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. It was pretty reasonable compared to the other seats on the train, and we had our own private room with bunk beds and a sink. NOT too shabby! We got into Chiang Mai at around 10AM or so. A few nuns were trying to push a cart filled with supplies out of the train station (on their way to go to an orphanage in the mountains), and we gave them a hand. They were very appreciat...

Bev's worst travel nightmare is realized today...NFL in Bangkok!!!! We watched the game over breakfast. Go COLTS!!! I hate the Patsies (sorry, Marcus). Doug, sorry about the Ravens, bro. But when all else fails, remember that team Pootie Tang won it all! Pootie rules. Superbowl should be a good one. It will be at 6:30AM while we are somewhere in northern Thailand or maybe Laos. Not sure if we'll be able to watch, but we'll try to hunt down a western hotel if the...

Woke up at 6AM and felt refreshed. We both hit the gym at the hotel for a hard workout, and then we mapped out the rest of the day. We figured we would hit the weekend market via the sky train, do some trip planning (next stop, Chiang Mai?), go to Chinatown to explore and get dinner, and then we would to the Night Bazaar, near the Muay Thai kickboxing stadium. In Chinatown, we were approached by "Professor Joe" from Singapore, who was really helpful and gave us ...

With our attempts at dedicating our time to learn the language thwarted, we decided to explore one of the big Thai markets, Pratunam market. Whatever you can think of, it is sold at this market. We explored the market, got our first in-country pad thai, and we returned to the hotel. We hit happy hour at the hotel, and surprisingly we passed out again. I'm not sure if it is the heat (90's and very humid during the day) or the schedule over the past 10 days, but w...