After our long adventure through Laos we finally arrived into Chiang Mai, Thailand safe and sound. We found a cozy little place called Tawan Guesthouse where we ended up settling there a little longer than we expected. After checking in we took a walk down the main strip of the city where we found a Burger King, McDonalds and Starbucks. Seeing these joints made us a feel just a little bit more at home and a small sense of relief knowing that Thailand was going to be much more developed than the other countries we travelled from. We surprising passed on the McDonalds and Burger King and instead found a little sushi place where enjoyed fresh made sushi with some amazing spring rolls. Before coming to Chiang Mai there was a zip lining adventure, called "flight of the gibbon" that people and reviews ranted and raved about. The next day we embarked on an adventure of swinging through the tree top canopies of the jungle, attached to zip lines and harnesses. Never doing this before Kendal and I were extremely excited! we woke up at 5am to be the early group so we could avoid the afternoon heat and big crowds of other tourists. Our tour guide "cash" he was extremely enthusiastic and fun to be with for the day! Zipping from one tree to the next, across 33 platforms and 19 ziplines, our day finished to a wonderful lunch waiting for us back at the resturant. Returning to the guesthouse we were really tired and with all intentions of sleeping we ended up skyping home to our families. That night we bought $12 ringside tickets for the Muay Thai boxing fights. We expected to walk into a huge stadium like the one you would see on tv, but we actually ended up being an old, run down boxing arean with worn ropes, no dressing rooms and a terrible announcer who was talking through blown speakers. The fighters were being prepped right behind us in the corner! The ring was surrounded with tons of locals but also bars..the most memorable one to us was the lady boy bar.. Actually called "Lady Boy Bar" where local cross dressing males live the dream and dress like females and prance around the bar... thank god we did not sit there! None the less though there were 8 fights and none seized to disappoint! Flying feet and fists everywhere as fast as lighting. Deciding to order a drink while watching, Kendal thought she read a spot in the menu where it said girls drink 40 baht. ($1.30) Innocently asking about some clarification this ended up being the price that you can pay to order a girl to sit with you and drink for 40 baht! As the fight went on we were entertained with a halftime show, which happened to be blind boxing. Two men boxing with blind folds on and oh yea a midget boxer without a blind fold was thrown into the mix! So instead of 2 blind folded guys boxing we were witnessing 2 and a half men boxing blindfolded, but the midget had the advantage of sight because he had no blindfold!! Only in Thailand! As the fights went on they had to have saved the best for last. Two very good fighters with amazing speed and reaction going at it! With the fight so close little did we know we were about to see Muay Thai fighting at its finest moment this being a quick kick right to the face this would result in a knock out! We looked at each other dumbfounded on what just happened because it was so quick! It was an incredible finish!
Waking up the next morning Kendal was talking the owners of the place about Chinese medicine and naturopathic medicine which she plans to study in the near future. With intentions on getting some information on where to go meet a local doctor, they offered to bring us with them to their doctor. Pulling into a small creepy looking alley loomed a little screen door where a small 76 year old Chinese man was waiting for us. We were introduced right away and before we knew each of us were lying on his working table. Reading palms for only two seconds at most, it was like he had known us for years! He read everything.. personality, characteristics and medical issues, some we knew but others we didn't know about! It was amazing how he knew all this just by looking at our palms, and we didn't say a word. It was incredible and it was very fascinating to meet this man.
-Jeremy
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