Everywhere

I just realized that today, exactly a month ago, I flew out of the US. Since I have been traveling throughout various parts of central and northern Thailand.

I spent a couple of dull days by myself visiting Chiang Mai and kayaking down the Kwai Yay river. I had a brilliant time with Alexander in Bangkok figuring out the waterways and bus system, having coffee at various coffee venues and dining on fabulous Thai cuisine. We also got to hang out with my friend Leah from Taiwan who was in bangkok for a teaching course.

And then we left one of my most-loved cities and headed out to Thailand's best preserved jungle park, Khao Yai National Park. In Khao Yai we experienced disorientating Thai directons at its best along with some great wildlife sightings. Great hornbills, gibbons, macaques, jungle elephant, dhol, Malayan porcupine, sambar deer, barking deer and civets as well as loads of different kinds of butterflies, moths, and lizards. The sights and sounds of the jungle more than made up for the lack of decent coffee and countless times we got lost trying to find our camp sites or park headquarters.

After our time in the jungle we headed first to Ayutthaya and then to Sukhothai, both further north of Bangkok on Thailand central plains to admire the old architectural marvels of Thailand's former capitals. Seeing these brilliantly preserved temples got me excited about going back to Siem Reap and exploring the Bayon, Angkor Wat, Angkor Tom and more.

Unfortunately the modern cities or rather towns that now exist by the sides of these formerly impressive cities were rather dull and there was not much to keep us in either Ayutthaya or Sukhothai. I was ready to murder for a good latte or even just a decent cup of drip coffee. At one point I even considered trying McDonalds for capuccino.

A week after leaving behind Bangkok, a week after having my last decent caffeine, we arrived in Chiang Mai. At first Chiang Mai left me cold. It seemed that it draws a rather large crowd of new age-ie looking dreaded creatures and people wearing bloody crocs.

Lucikly we found a restaurant serving great food away from the main drag where restaurants displaying world flags seem to be rather popular (we discovered that a place displaying flags is generally going to be crap).

The next morning we hesitantly ventured out onto the streets of Chiang Mai, wondering if we'd find decent coffee in this city.

How brilliant it was, how great the moment, when we got served our first cups of hill tribe coffee and it tasted divine. Sweet and dark, just a little bitter. I was a bit disappointed in myself for adding a little milk, since the coffee itself needed nothing. I've since learned to have coffee without sugar and sometimes with some milk, unless I have a latte.

We strolled around town a bit and discovered that Chiang Mai place host to quite a lot of different coffee shops, mostly really cute and in pretty garden-like settings.

While in the north we decided to do an independent bike trip and so rented a motorbike and did a 5-day loop through northwest Thailand. The loop is known as the Mae-Hong-Song loop, the name of the biggest town on the loop and can be done by public transport, but since I've always wanted to do a bike trip in Taiwan and never did I thought this was the perfect chance. And I have an equally adventurous boyfriend/travel companion with me.

It was an exhausting trip due to the fact that we got rained on a lot and most of the road was going up and down hectic mountains. One day we drove through a mountainous pass where the road was often gone due to landslides.

But it was an incredible trip. Lots of the time we were the only traffic for miles and for the first three days we were definitely the only foreigners in the villages we stayed at.

We also experimented with some street food. The best were two variations on food steamed in banana leaves. The first one was a bit like a tamale in that it contained some sort of maize together with chicken and curry paste. The other one we had had pork and a lemon grass paste. It was pure yum!

We spent the final two nights of the loop in Pai. A popular little town a couple of hours away from Chiang Mai. It is clearly a very busy tourist town for both Thais and foreigners in the busy seasons, but luckily for us it is low season and it was very quiet. Lots of guesthouses and restaurants displayed signs saying the wer closed until later in the year.

We read about a place called All About Coffee in Pai. According to the Rough Guides it has caffeine in a variety of forms. And it did not disappoint. From the Pai blend coffee to the espresso and banana shake it was all grand caffeine kicks!

We also had our first taste of sticky rice and mango dessert in Pai. More yum!

We've been back in Chiang Mai since Monday, visiting the Chiang Mai Zoo, which was not bad for the most part, we saw giant Mekong catfish and pretty neat hornbills. We also spent quite a bit of time in various coffee spots around town like Wawee, 94degrees and Maze. Today we did a Thai cooking course out on a farm. It was pretty fun making our own curry pastes and Thai dishes. We totally pigged out on all the food we made and got to hang out on a Thai farm.

I like Chiang Mai a bit more now than when we first got here. It's a pretty city set against some beautiful mountains, there are loads of really good coffee shops and coffee to be had and the pace is slow. But I still miss Bangkok, we have even talked about moving there. But we'll have to see about Ho Chih Minh city first.

Tomorrow we leave for Chiang Kong on the border with Laos and Saturday I have to be out of the country. If all goes well we will be making our way down the Mekong on a slowboat to Luang Phabang in north-central Laos in two days time!

And so I say goodbye until I get time to sit down and write again. For pictures of our trip and more stories I have some pics on my other blog or check out Alexander's.

Till later.