"Happy Happy Chiang Mai No Problem"

Sawadee-ka!

[The title of this entry is dedicated to the guy on the corner in the alley we pass by every day--thanks for the greeting.]

Our adventure is coming to a close--and, fingers crossed, it seems like we'll be able to fly out of Thailand as scheduled. Civil unrest has wrought the country for the last few months, a people's political anti-government protest, which recently escalated into what they termed their "final battle:" the occupation of Bangkok's two main airports. For over a week both airports were closed completely, stranding some 300,000 tourists in the country and crippling the country's economy. Finally this week, just days before the national celebration of the King's 81st birthday (today--Long Live the King), the prime minister was forced to step down, the demonstrators left peacefully.

Recently we've still been in the northern part of the country, spending time in the villages of the Golden Triangle, museums of Chiang Rai, countryside of Pai, and city life of Chiang Mai. The mountains have been chilly--our bikini lines have faded and been traded for scarves. Something divinely therapeutic about soaking in hot natural springs--we've found a couple to soothe our travel-tattered selves. We learned the history of the opium trade and its effect on the region dubbed 'The Golden Triangle' by a U.S. politician in the '60s (to draw attention to China's ban on the crop). We stayed at a bungalow in a traditional Akha hilltribe village in the Golden Triangle run by a local villager--ask us to sing the traditional "thank you" song the next time we're all around a campfire...

Wats are as common as pad thai here, so it was refreshing to visit a contemporary version of the traditional Thai wat. Still under construction (started in 1997), this glittering white wat is the mastermind of a painter-turned-architect who has depicted Buddhist worldview on the wat's interior walls using modern-day cultural references. Images of Superman, cell phones, gas pumps, planes crashing into the Twin Towers, rocket ships, Matrix' Neo, man pleasuring woman, and nuclear explosions mix together leaving a powerful impression.

We bungee-jumped! One of those things we never felt we had to do with any kind of conviction, but after we were already at the Xtreme Sports center in Chiang Mai for Zorbing (a hilariously silly recreation where you're strapped inside a giant plastic ball and rolled downhill), we couldn't pass on the chance to free fall from 50m. Its more terrifying than we imagined, we discovered, but what a rush!
Pai (pronounced pie or bye) is a tiny hippie community in the mountains where you can't be caught dead without your trendy scarf or Aladdin pants. Two coffee shops per block, delicious Thai and Western food, nestled along a river in wide mountain park, this was a great place to chill out for a few days. Originally settled by Westerners, we were surprised that most the hipsters were Thai--equally surprising was the number of photos they posed for in front of any imaginable object or place. The rest of the Pai people were Westerners with dreadlocks, I think you get an idea for the place. So we tried to be as cool as possible while we were there--you know, to fit in. It was from here that we motorbiked to a natural hot springs converging with a river creating tiered pools of just the right temperature in a sunlit forest!

Tomorrow we say goodbye to Chiang Mai with an alms offering to over 11,000 monks! Then we fly to Bangkok and home Tuesday the 9th. Happy to have traveled and happy to be homeward bound. We'll miss the land of smiles, a country of warm people, spicy food, awesome natural places, and fascinating culture. The menu at our guest house the 1st week of our trip read: "Going be Memorious..." and it has been.