August 31 (Friday)
Up And At 'em
On Friday morning we got up, packed the last of our things, and headed down to the lobby where we checked out and asked them to hold our bags for the day. The system for storing bags here was a little different than New Siam II. There we put a tag on the bag, stashed it in a room next to reception, and kept a claim ticket. Here we just dumped the bags in a storage closet. Don't knock it if it works, I suppose. We got breakfast at the little restaurant in the lobby again and, just shortly after we took care of the bill, our tour group arrived.
It took about an hour to pick up the rest of our tour group (two Middle Eastern couples, one from Oman and another from Saudi Arabia, and a Vietnamese guy) and get to Doi Inthanon National Park. Along the way our tour guide introduced all of us to each other (hence why I know where everyone was from) and quizzed us about things like the tallest mountain in each of our countries.
Please Stick to the Rivers and the Lakes That You're Used to
Our first stop when we reached the park was Wachirathan Waterfall. We only had 30 minutes, but we were still able to walk part-way up the trail next to the falls and then a little ways downstream before heading back to the van. Unfortunately, punctuality wasn't a trait shared by everyone in our party. After like 10 minutes of waiting our driver eventually had to go and get one of the couples. Rude.
The next stop was a White Karen village where we walked around, saw the near-by rice paddy, watched women weaving, and heard a little about their culture. It was a fairly short stop, after which we headed for Siritharn Waterfall.
This one was bigger than the first, but we could only get to an overlook a good distance away from the falls. Still pretty though. As we got back to the van it started raining, which made yet another instance of us not getting rained on. My happiness at keeping the streak alive was somewhat dampened by the fact that, if it weren't for the 10 minute delay back at the first falls, we would definitely have gotten rained on. You win this time, lack-of-punctuality.
Top of the World
Next up was Hmong Market, a little set of stalls (covered, so we stayed out of the rain) where people were selling a lot of the same stuff we saw back at the Night Market, but also dried fruits and some bottled honey. This was another short stop, after which we headed for lunch. We were given bottled water, a few family-style dishes with white rice, and then some fresh fruit for dessert.
After that we headed for the mountain's summit and the tallest point in Thailand. It was actually kind of chilly at the top, but I suppose being a mile and a half (8,415 ft) up will do that. Unfortunately the cloud cover was hanging around, so the view was a bit obstructed. Even still, we were able to peek through an opening in the clouds and get a pretty decent view back toward Chiang Mai.
The last stop on the trip was the King & Queen's Stupa, a pair of structures built to commemorate Queen Sirikit's 60th birthday. The stupas themselves are quite impressive and the gardens around them were equally nice. Shortly after we arrived the clouds rolled in and cut visibility down to a few dozen feet, but it was still a nice area to end the tour with. After we were done there we started the two hour ride back to Chiang Mai.
De--say it with me now--nied
We had booked a red-eye back to Bangkok so we still had a little time left in Chiang Mai and this seemed like a good opportunity to fit in a massage. To the Women's Correctional Institution! Once we got there we found that, despite what we'd been told the previous day, they weren't doing massages Friday either. We quickly checked WikiTravel and the guidebook to see if there were any places in particular that were recommended, found two located on a street not far from where we were, and set off. We found the first place we were looking for and it was totally booked, so we headed to the second one and found that it was closed. However, because there are an absurd number of massage parlors, when we tried the closed store a woman across the street called us over to her massage parlor. Their rates were the same (about $5 for an hour), so we went with it.
Just in case you weren't aware, massages are awesome. We went with a full-body massage, so we got feet, legs, back, arms and even head and neck. Thai massage flirts with painful at times (elbows jabbed perilously close to the groin, I'm thinking of you), but the net effect is incredibly relaxing. One thing we definitely need in the States is cheap massages.
After the massage we grabbed a quick bite and then wandered along the moat surrounding the old city for a while. We'd taken a tuk-tuk or songthaew almost every time we needed to get somewhere, so getting to experience the city on foot for a while was cool. After a bit we made our way back to the hotel to gather up our stuff, take advantage of the Wi-Fi, and then get to the airport.
Setting Jets
While catching up on email and whatnot we noticed that our flight's departure time seemed in flux. Worryingly, some sources were listing the flight as quite a bit earlier than we'd originally booked, so we thought it best to just head for the airport. When we got there we found that the departure time had changed, but by getting delayed, not bumped up. our 11:45pm flight was now a 12:35am flight, which sucked, but at least we hadn't somehow missed it. As we checked in and went through security we found that the folks at Chiang Mai's airport are awfully laid back. They didn't mind that my bag was overweight and security even let us take through a bottle and a half of water. No one even bat an eye.
There weren't any further delays, so our flight left at 12:35am and, happily, they managed to make up some time in the air. We had originally been scheduled to land at 12:50am, but despite leaving 50 minutes late we were only delayed 20 minutes, so at 1:10am we were back in Bangkok. This time we flew into Don Muang, which is the older of Bangkok's two airports. The fact that it's an older airport is made very obvious not by the condition of the terminal but instead by all the ads in the terminal for the new airport. The gist seemed to be, "just think how much more awesome it would be if you were here instead of where you are now!"
We were flying carry on only, so we headed straight for the taxi stand, caught a cab back to Khao San Road (most cabbies didn't know where New Siam II was, so we usually ended up a few blocks away), wandered through the nightlife now in full swing, checked into our hotel (and got the exact same room as last time), and slept the sleep of the dead.