The morning after arriving in Chiang Mai at 1am, I explained our situation to the host and she laughed it off. Our room was spacious and had a nice private shower, towels, and even toilet paper. These are simple luxuries, easily taken for granted at home. Not so much in Thailand. Many of the cheaper hostels have shared bathrooms and a bring-your-own policy on anything you use to dry, absorb, or wipe.
Our first order of business was exploring Chiang Mai's temples. A university town, and the second largest city in Thailand, Chiang Mai is young and thriving. And there are lots of wats (I may be borrowing this phrase, but it's too good not to use). We walked around and snapped photos of half a dozen or so, marveling at the giant Buddhas inside until we got templed-out.
In the afternoon Sergio decided it was time for a beer, so we stopped in at the nearest watering hole. Chatting away the hours with our friendly bartender, Goi, we learned some Thai words and shared some Spanish. I also learned that Sergio trained as a knife fighter. This hadn't come up in the few days we'd been traveling together, but it certainly explains why he sleeps with a knife. He even showed us a YouTube video as proof. Huh, I thought. I'm traveling with a Mexican knife fighter. This could get interesting.
The knife is quite practical, really. I borrowed it one day to skin and slice a fresh mango. I've considered getting one myself.
After leaving Goi's bar we stopped by our hostel for a quick nap. It was 8pm and we intended to get up around 10 for more exploring. We didn't wake up till the next morning.
Some more photos from Chiang Mai:
You really are the selfie king, aren't you? ;-) Great pics, I missed a lot of that stuff when I was in Chiang Mai.
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