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Other entries in Chiang Mai

living in luxury

way to go couchsurfing.com - just got styled with the best places to stay and peeps to hang out with. it'll be hard to get back into dirt-poor backpacker mode.

first stayed in mae rim, outside chiang mai, with chris. his wife erica is on holiday in the US and canada but that just meant more hospitality showered on me - felt soooo lucky! as if a king-sized bed in my own room wasn't enough, chris made the best meals, bought red wine (red wine!!!!!), made gin and tonics, introduced me to awesome friends, took me around the city/country side, had great convos, gave loads of good advice (from itch cream to relationships to living the ex pat life :). it was 5 days of bliss.

one night we met a bunch of peeps at this german restaurant. I ate sausages and saurkraut, drank bock beer, heard a traditional thai live band, was offered birthday cake by a 6 yr old girl who's clearly learned how to share, got the ins-and-outs of property ownership/rental in chiang mai. the sign above the stage said "your happiness is here and beer" - well put.

but finally had to go - mat and zac (2 other surfers who came in a couple days after I did) told me about the next place they were headed to "5 minutes outside the city" with this woman named esther.

well, we get there and learn that she runs this sweet guest house  (http://www.chiangmaieguide.com/restaurant_pingpalace.htm) and during low season, opens it up to couch surfers at no charge. which is great, cause there's no way I could afford this place otherwise. esther used to be a lawyer (singapore born, cambridge educated), did pretty well, and now is repaying the world through her generosity. glad I got swepped into the path of this woman! she cooked an amazing lunch - including a family recipie for hot pot chicken with fried bread (wont forget that anytime soon), and leter sent us into town with her driver. this didn't suck at all...

at lunch, we met a couple artists who had sweet things to say about the art scene in chiang mai. they're doing a mosiac (chuck close-style of a geisha) on a wall of esther's guest house. tomorrow I'll stop by their studio to check out more of their work and give this chaing mai place some serious thought....

matt, zac and I went out our last night. met up with some brits, got free scotch from a restaurant owner, ended up at a club...the rest of the night was the proverbial blur. spent the next day recovering. oy. remind me to never drink scotch again....

so once again, truly styled, once again, wondering how I ended up in such amazing situations.

now back in the city on my own (I need it!) with a couple nights to relax. monday I do a burmese border run to get my thai visa extended (the one I have now runs out 5 days before I fly out - doh!). it's all good tho - get one more stamp in the passport.

ps - a few health updates: turns out my rash isn't ring worm, just my body freaking out about all the sweat and humidity I've subjected it too the past 3 months. and I got a few dark spots burned off (yeah, ugh, but a little pain is better than skin cancer and it's super cheap here!) so I'm hanging around the city a little longer than I thought to let em heal but headed to the beaches in a few days.

pps - it hasn't rained in like 4 days - an all time record! but the river ping has been flooding loads. esther's GH had a foot of sludge on the ground floor. today before I left, I watched prisoners pile up sandbags on her deck. life is so random...

ppps - flip back a few entries, just uploaded tons of pics. my favs are the ones from the akha village

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