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Right, so i haven't updated this thing in ages. Sometimes its the last thing you want to do when you've been on a slow boat for 10 hours etc.
Err....on this day....i........Oh yeah i remember - I headed up to Doi Suthep finally!
I was going to hire a scooter but it was a bit rainy and just thought id get a red taxi bus/truck. I changed bus/truck at the university, the road was amazingly winding its way up the mountain (would have been perfect on a scooter). Got to the top and was confronted by lots of steps - There was a cable car thing but thought it waould be a good test for the foot. A few people were puffing and panting and they would suddenly try to hide they're fatigue when they saw my bandaged foot along with my beaming elated face, which was brought on by the relieving ease that my foot glided the stairs (hell yeah!). At the summit is the temple and a viewing platform to look across the whole of Chiang Mai. Luckily the weather had cleared up and there was an amazing landscape, city outlined by the old city wall, to the left black clouds emitted a sheet of misty rain across the paddies and then the doomed realisation that i hadn't put my camera in my bag! - I really wasn't used to this 'going out and doing stuff' milarky. So instead i took some mental photos, saved them to my braindrive and headed into the temple. It was nice, lots of gold with people walking around holding flowers.
Headed back down the steps and people again would taking a second glanse as i skipped past them - Muhahaha! Grabbed a BBQ corn and got ushered into another red bus/truck. Sat there for about 40 minutes whilst they waited for more passengers. I passed the time by watching a girl who was franticly going to each of the bus drivers, performing a lot of hand gesture then spinning away in a huff. She finally got into our bus/truck and we set off. (silly girl had been saying to the bus drivers she didnt want to get in ours and wait as she needed to go sooner - and it ends up we were the ones waiting for her to get in so we could set off!)
She explained why she was stressing on the drive down. Me and another guy were trying to explain that its easier to just go with the flow in theese situations but it was easier to let it lie.
We got dropped off at the north gate (which she wasn't happy about as she thought she was being dropped at the east gate). I said i knew how to get there and was checking a map to make sure. An american chap saw her streesed face and my head behind a map and stopped his bicycle to assist. from beyond the map i heard "the lost farang! - i knows it, i live here and see it everyday". He was a nice fella but was talking for ages about where to go to get the best fried chicken and jeans etc. He compared his ankle injury with mine and eventually we were on our way. My hotel was first but it was very close to the east gate so i pointed out to the girl the street to head down.
That evening i wanted to get an early night as the minibus was arriving earlier than i had been getting up over the past few weeks. So in my brilliant wisdom i thought i would head out for a beer in an attempt to aid my early bed time delirium, just the one though. After i had 'the one' two french dudes asked me over to join them. They were pretty cool and reminded me of 2 characters of a French film that i cam't put my finger on......So.... one became two, three, four, pub shut, head to late night bar, one thai whisky, uh oh, bye bye/ au revoiur, zig zag wanderer, bed!
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Anna Hey Jim, Doi Southep is the monastery where I hoped to spend 21 days, did you hear much more about the retreats there?