Sabbatical Week 7

Opening

Fun fact, white privilege means you can teach English despite you don’t speak English natively. I’ve met people from Russia, Ukraine and French who are English teachers.

There are more Thai food varieties in the States than I can find in a typical tourist night market in Thailand (I can count less than 5 types of food total) I do believe Thai food has loads of complexity especially its multiculturalism. Making things easy for tourists also means reduce discoverability

Day 1

Chill and hostel moving day.

Got myself a coffee at this Irish bakery (in front of an Irish pub of course)

After checking in then it’s almost dinner time

Was headed to the Sunday market, saw monks walking by

A Swedish girl from hostel I met in Cambodia showed up, I decided to buy her a drink and shared some food. ($290B)

Day 2

Hiking day! Took a Bolt ride to the trailhead ($66B)

After another hour or so, I reached to the final temple. Met a French and an American girl who’s from Bellingham, WA. The French decided to invite us for a smoothie. The WA girl and I hung out the rest of the day until dark.

We stopped by the night market next to Chiang Mai University to get some cheap eats

Called an early day due to the exercise during the day.

Day 3

Slow day due to having to move hostels again, sigh…

Headed straight to lunch on my way to my next hostel

One of the best meals I’ve had, perhaps unsurprisingly. Hole in the wall places are always the best.

My hostel journey just got better and better.

I guess the only complain I have is the bed. It’s not the most comfortable kind and also the blanket instead of a duvet makes it hard to sleep in. There’s also possibly either mosquitos or bed bugs been bothering me all night. Obviously, the loud snore doesn’t help. My final verdict is still the Premier Hostel in town, for the unbeatable price and comfortable bed.

I desperately needed some coffee, in part I really have to plan my a trip a bit. Lack of planning has been troublesome that I had to constantly move around hostels.

Soonish, it got dark and I got to meet up with a German from my previous hostel. We walked to the Chinatown area. The views were quite nice.

We walked to this nice temple which apparently doesn’t allow Women. This offended my German friend lol 🙁

We went to some food market near the Night Bazaar

to some mongo sticky rice with my German friends.

At this point the girl I met from the day before who lives in Bellingham, WA showed up. We decided to go to a “jazz” bar.

I said farewell to each other, bittersweetly. It was a good day! Life is good!

Day 4

Travel day to Pai.

The road was really windy, but the emotion sickness pill was also magical.

Took about 2.5hours to get to town.

Quickly checked into my hostel. It got a really cool backyard, but the cafe that’s attached to the hostel was closed. It was one of my deciding factors in choosing that hostel over another one that had better reviews. Oh well. (The hostel owners didn’t seem to be familiar with how Agoda works, tried to ask me to pay again. Also, didn’t offer me a towel. When I asked for it, they said no… strange. I think the owners were a bit grumpy due to having to wake up at noon nap time to deal with my check-in. They were nicer the following days. This seemed to be pattern in Thailand. The rule of thumb perhaps is to avoid check in at nap time)

The town is pretty cute in itself, I can see why it’s popular. Definitely a fine place to stay for a couple of days just to relax.

I saw a river front bar (owned by an American from WI) and decided to take 2 drinks (160B) because in Thailand, you can only get alcoholic beverages in bars and restaurants during 2-5pm.

(honestly, I didn’t like the vibe that much. There’s a pool attached to the bar hostel. Seeing a bunch of white teens half naked and lounging around didn’t exactly fit into this lovely Pai town. This is not a beach town after all. Maybe I just didn’t really like party hostels)

Soonish it’s night market time.

Met a German Italian who speaks flawless English. Had a great chat. Later we decided to go to a bar. Though I couldn’t keep up with the youngsters energy. (In part is I wanted to actually use my time wisely than just loading it with all the bar fun)

Pai night market, though small, definitely has something unique stuff

I had loads of fun playing Jenga (The Indian couple where I met on the minivan to Pai randomly showed up too) while watching people playing pool.

“early” night still managed to be after midnight.

Day 5

Motorbike day! Got up not too early (The girls in my dorm came back quite late. I also didn’t exercise long enough to be exhausted)

The motorbike was only 150B, unfortunately, I should not have taken this cheap version. Lesson learned. The tiny bike has two major problems, 1. the front wheel is very small and this can cause lose control easily (which I did) 2. there’s no seat storage

First thing was to go to this local temple

The view is always stunning. I am not that into temples, but the views I have to give credit for.

It’s really a beautiful day with near perfect weather.

The next stop was to see the Japanese friendship bridge

Unfortunately, at this point I got into a minor accident where I fell off my motorbike. I think I stopped too hard because I didn’t realize there’s a 4 way street ahead. The speed wasn’t really high, I think because the bike is so lightweight plus the front wheel was tiny that I lost control and flu out. Fortunately, it wasn’t really bad. There’s some laceration on my palm, and I think I injured my right wrist which barely just healed up from my previous accident.

I was able to to restart my bike and only minor scratches on the bike. I decided to run to a pharmacist to get the wound cleaned up. ($150B with all the supplies)

I personally think it’s odd to call it “friendship” when the Japanese invaded and forced the villagers to build the bridge.

Up next was the Pai canyon

Obviously this is no way to compare what we have in the US. nevertheless it’s free. I would have walked more if I wasn’t injured due to there’s some rough part on the trail.

Next was the Yunnan Village

It’s obviously a tourist spot, not a real village. Great for picture taking however.

I wasn’t really all that hungry, but still decided to try some Yunnan food. The portion size was all big enough that I had to only order a veggie dish and a noodle bowl

I had planned on going to the Bamboo bridge, somehow my phone’s GPS didn’t work and I missed the turn. After the meal I just didn’t feel like driving 30min back especially given the condition of the motorbike. I decided to head back to the hostel and chill.

I renewed my phone plan for another 16 days for $5.57 for the max speed of 20mbps.

Went out for more Yunnanese food. The owner actually speaks great Chinese.

Day 6

Lazy day despite slept quite well. In part is I needed time to recover from the injuries and also to avoid having to think too hard about where to go next. Some time the beauty is in front of you. I had a perfect morning with some light reading and socializing before time to check in my next hostel.

Book my bus ticket back to Chiang Mai

Soon was lunch time again. Found this local real Thai food restaurant next to my guest house.

The lunch (220B total with a tall beer) turned out to be some of the best meals I’ve had. I think there’s definitely advantage to be off from the typical backpacker zone.

Met a random Chinese (who’s roaming overseas for a while, finding work without work permit or a degree is not easy) and chit chatted a bit, I decided to buy him a coffee. Another random American from Miami that understood us mandarin Chinese. Interesting day indeed.

Chilled out a bit at my guest house and went out for dinner.

Unfortunately, the stir fried beef isn’t exactly what I thought (I was picturing the one in the picture above). It’s also simply too salty, I think it just had way much fish sauce. The owners were really nice.

Day 7

Started off by some sun bath, the night was rather chilly.

Haven’t had hot water for a while, for the cold morning, it’s a life savor!

My mom called me to wish me happy birthday and also informed me that my dad is retiring the next day at age of 60. They are free now.

(I must confess that I am guilty to not bring my parents enough joys. For them, I should be earning loads of money. I should be having kids and married with someone that matches their standard. I should be spending time with them just to eat, drink, and playing cards. However, those are not my joys. I simply don’t see life the way they do. I can’t be their son that can be shown off to the world how successful their parenting is. I am sorry. It is my life and I wish there is compromises I can make to bring them happiness whilst fulfilling my own. I hope they’d find peace and even be happy that I chose my way or life and I am happy the way I am)

I decided to take a walk around the river.

Absolutely amazing coffee and probably the cheapest I’ve paid.

Stunning day for some country side walk and the needed Vitamin D as well

Did my fasting and only started feeding again at around 5pm. Figured I’d try something new.

I saw yellow curry on the menu. Couldn’t resist

At least point, I bumped into the German guy Mirko which I met from Bangkok Once Again hostel. Another Egyptian guy from Chiangmai Premier Hostel decided to join me when I was eating with Mirko as well. It’s always amazing to bump into people even though I had no plan to.

Though the Egyptian guy invited me to a music bar, but I felt a bit chilly and also wanted to take a good rest for my bus ride the next day.

I decided to eat at this restaurant near my guest house once again.

The rice was getting a bit cold, I decided to order a pork rice.

That’s it for this week. Time really flies 🙂

Expenses

Week 7
Day	Food&Drink	Lodging	Transportation	Other (tickets/tours etc)
1	$27.86	$6.21	$0.00	$4.17
2	$15.07	$6.21	$3.82	$0.00
3	$23.43	$6.71	$1.23	$1.21
4	$19.75	$7.91	$7.66	$0.15
5	$19.89	$7.91	$5.76	$10.12
6	$18.19	$13.28	$0.00	$0.00
7	$14.10	$13.28	$0.00	$2.12
	$138.28	$61.49	$18.47	$17.77
	Total		Grand Total:	$236.01