First day out and about

Hello everyone in internet land!

Our second day here in Chiang Mai was a bit more eventful than the day before. (Wouldn't take much excitement to beat a day of napping and eating, I suppose.) Our friends the Sheahans treated us to lunch (never would have thought to put pork and mint leaves together, but it was quite tasty) and then took us out to a large market area in the heart of the city. While Mandi and Anne headed deep into the bowels of the market (okay, so that's not really accurate, but I have a daily quota of semi-gross words to meet, and "bowel" always seems borderline-crude) Dave and I went and met Andy, a man who's been doing media in Chiang Mai for a couple years. Andy is certainly a great contact to have here, and it was great for Dave to arrange this meeting.

We met up with the ladies at the market, where I WAS HIT BY AN SUV!!!

Okay, I don't often take the chance to play with a bit of sensationalism. The fact is that on a crowded market street, as an SUV tried to get by me from behind, its mirror nicked my elbow. It was surprising, but not painful in the least. And now I'm done exaggerating. Well, we'll see.

Mandi and Anne

Fruit and the feet of a monk.

People and things.

Getting coffee in the market.

The markets were not quite what I was expecting. Last time I was in a market like that was in Nairobi with Daylan, and the sales people could be pretty aggressive. The people here weren't aggressive in the slightest, at least not the ones we saw. We did a bit more perusing and then Anne, Mandi, and I headed to an eatery close to where we're staying. Anne explained how to get back to our lodging, marked it on the map we had, and we promptly got lost (to no fault of Anne's), despite being within easy walking distance.

Certain signs seemed to look familiar, but most places are written in the Thai script, and as much as I wish I could read the stuff, it all looks like a bunch of unintelligible squiggles. Being lost can have its charms, the whole adventure of it all, but after about a half hour I was pretty irritated that I couldn't find this place. It seemed so easy early on, and the fact that I couldn't find something easy to find annoyed me greatly. (I'm not fun at all when I'm irritated. Mandi can back me up on that.) So eventually we got in contact with Dave via the cellphone they loaned us (thank God for that!) and he asked for a landmark. I told him we were by the temple near the place we're staying. I knew it was a stupid answer because there are a bajillion temples in Chiang Mai. He asked me if there were any locals around, and told me to hand the phone to someone. The nearest person to me was guy with motorbike grease on his hands, and in English I asked him to talk on the phone, despite him not knowing any English at all. It was really awkward for me, and really confusing for him. Anyway, he talked to Dave a bit, explained where we were, and handed the phone back with a smile. I don't even know how to say thank you. That's gotta change. Anyway, within five minutes of getting directions from Dave, we made it back. The nice part is that we won't be getting lost, at least not in the same place, like that again. That was our adventure for the day. The rest of the evening is too boring to mention. That is all. Cheers.

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