Chiang Mai Part I - The City

We arrived in Chiang Mai and checked into the "Nice Place" guest house. We read in our guide books that Chiang Mai's guest houses offer such low prices because they make most of their money booking trekking tours up north, rather than on the rooms. This was proved quite true when we were knee deep in brochures, pamphlets, and pictures before we could set our packs down. After gathering a head spinning amount of tour options from our wired front desk manager, we decided to discuss it over lunch before he ended up selling us a time share in the middle of the jungle.

Luckily for our dear Eric and Steffany, Chiang Mai has a wide variety of vegetarian restaurants. We all had really great tofu burgers with a side of (my favorite Asian spelling of french fries yet) "ships" (I believe they were going for "chips"). Try to place an order for a side of "ships" and not smile - can't be done.

While going over our thoughts on if and what trek we wanted to do, an expat at the next table suggested we rent a car and see the sights ourselves. He also pointed at my and　Steff's shirt:

Man: "That's great!"
Me & Steff: "What?"
Man: "You're both wearing green."
Me & Steff: ::dazed confused looks::
Man: "Um.. It's st.patricks day..."
Me & Steff: "Ooooh! Neat! Happy st. Patricks Day!"

We haven't had any concept of what day it was for over a month, so we had no idea it was St. Patrick's Day. We didn't tell the man we end up wearing matching green tank tops all the time because we only have 3 shirts.

The next few hours were　spent bumbling around town in the heat, looking at maps, going in and out of travel agencies and car rental places, weighing pros and cons, gathering more information, before going back to the guest house... and booking the first tour we looked at that morning.

That night we made it out to see Thai boxing! Steff and I have been trying to go see it for weeks, an we finally go in the cultural northern part of the country. ::shakes head::

Once you get past the whole "these are two human beings inflicting needless pain on each other for my entertainment" thing - Thai boxing is awesome!

The ring was in the center of the room, surrounded by cheering fans, confused　tourists, and themed bars. There was even a "lady boy" bar. Every so often the lovely drag queens would come out to perform the YMCA. This provided a nice contrast to the bloody battles.

The fights would begin with the two opponentｓ entering the ring wearing a stiff headband that looked like a halo, saying a prayer, and doing a little warm up to a rhythmic tune. Their trainers would take the halo headbands off, hang it in their corner of the ring, and the fight would begin. What's neat about Thai boxing　is it's done to a rhythmic beat. Their version of a "boxer shuffle" is really more of a dance. A dance followed by a lot of kicking, kneeing, and punching.

These are not big guys either. The heaviest weight class we say was 130 lbs. The smallest was 105 lbs. 105 lbs!? They weigh less than I do! We were later informed this was still "heavy" and the boxers in Bangkok were 90 lbs.　Don't be fooled though, theｙ are hard core. It wad impossible to tell who would win. One person could be ahead the whole fight and be taken down with a single blow! I turned around for one second, and the fight was over!

Me: "What happened??"
Steff: "That guy just kicked him in the FACE and he went down!"
Me: "Whoa.."

Yeah. Crazy.

We all made our highly educated guesses on who would win (I like his shorts - winner!). Eric and I ended up picking all the same boxers against Bryan and Steff. We didn't stay for the last fight, but I'm sure we won.

In case any of you are wondering: yes, we've seen Thai prostitutes every where. What's really odd is a lot of times they're with men for the day. Look around and you'll see an old white man with a scantily clad young Thai girl...playing checkers, going for a walk, having lunch, etc. On the way back to the guest house we walked past a few bars that, like most others, had Thai prostitutes outside. Is it bad that Steff and I found it really funny to watch Bryan get whistled at, called to, grabbed, and nipple pinched? Probably.. but we laughed anyway.


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