I was STUNNED. I couldn't believe she actually PUSHED me!!!! I looked at her, told her (in Spanish) that I was only taking a few shots before leaving. She proceeded to continue yelling at me, at which point her husband joined in and told me they'd been there since 7 and that was their spot and I wasn't allowed to steal it. Meanwhile, I had legitimately NEVER blocked their viewing (always having been almost kneeling on the ground when they were standing) and had been several feet away from them.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!?!
I was so upset that I took the pictures I intended to before leaving. I honestly couldn't believe that two grown adults had been so forceful and rude. It's a FLOWER FESTIVAL. It's meant for happiness and a celebration of rebirth. WTF?????
I got back into the restaurant and was almost in tears. I knew it was time to go find another spot. Jon and I left the restaurant and wandered maybe 50 feet from it, finding a great viewing spot with almost no one blocking the way. Why did that woman feel the need to be so rude? It really upset me!
We stayed at our new spot (where we were not physically abused by anyone) for about an hour while I took a bunch of photos (shocking).
The parade wasn't my favorite thing. Here's why:
As previously mentioned, people here don't really seem to have any respect for other people's space. Maybe that's what happens when you live in cities that are SO overpopulated there are people every foot. I don't know. All I know is that, I got sick of people standing DIRECTLY in front of me to take pictures of marching bands. And floats. The floats were nice, no doubt about it, but there was no need for people to walk up and down the parade route looking for THE BEST FLOAT OMZGGGGG.
We had learned about the parade through our guidebook "Southeast Asia on a Shoestring Budget". It's a great book - has definitely helped us a ton...but they made the parade sound like the most AMAZING thing. Honestly, it was a parade. Nice parade, nice bands, nice floats, but...it was a parade lol.
Apparently there were no barricades at this parade. People were free to roam wherever, whenever they liked. As such, in addition to people continuously walking in front of you to take photos, there were people who walked BETWEEN the people marching in the parade...just because! There were whole bands marching with spectators wandering between the members of the band! WHY!???
I will say, the chaos of this parade certainly made me appreciate the orderly way parades are conducted in the states!!
Can you tell I wasn't a fan of the parade?
Despite all that, I DID really enjoy the floats, which were beautiful, as well as hearing the marching bands, which were pretty good - one even did the same version of Star Wars that we played in band in high school!! Oh, Marching Band, how I miss thee sometimes...
After hanging around the parade for quite a while, we found a travel agency advertising trips up to Wat Dui Suthep. We had heard it was one of the nicest temples (not to mention the first) in Chiang Mai. The temple is built on a mountain about 15 km outside of Chiang Mai and overlooking the city. We booked a trip for 1 pm and decided it was time for relaxing massages!
We headed back to our hotel, dropped off our stuff, and then walked back out again to the Thai massage parlor on the corner. It's pretty hard to resist when massages are only $3 an hour!! Jon and I entered and the women began the massages.
Here's the thing about Thai massages. They are NOT what we receive in the US. At all. Thai massages are ROUGH! These women were getting a WORKOUT, not to mention using their hands, arms, elbows, legs and FEET in order to "massage" us. It was quite painful! They contorted our bodies in crazy ways unlike any other massage I've ever gotten. I told Jon, I'm not quite sure we paid for massages, I think we paid for the masseuses to workout instead!! After an hour of "relaxing" we were finally done, and couldn't help but laugh! What a strange (for us) experience! Our bodies are definitely still in pain!
After the massages we headed to "Bubbles Live", an organic restaurant in town for smoothies andddddddddd more Pad Thai! We are, afterall, back in Thailand...and it's kind of my job to eat Pad Thai in Thailand. We barely had enough time to receive our food before it was time to run back to the hotel to grab our things. Before we knew it our van was at our door picking us up to go to the temple.
The ride to the temple took about 45 minutes during which we promptly fell asleep (gotta sleep sometime - it's hard when we're always on the move!) We got to the Wat, climbed a LOT of stairs and walked in. And honestly...it kinda looked like every other Wat we've been to... except for the awesomely large gong (one of the largest in the world!):
and the view:
There was also a large scroll you could sign that was going to be used to dress Buddha for an upcoming ceremony:
I see some Capozzola's on there!
We wandered around the temple for a few hours (taking lots of pictures) before climbing back in the van at 3:45 to head back. We had been told to be back by 4 pm. When we got in the van, four people from our original group of 14 were missing. The driver did one loop around the parking area at 4:01, picked up 2 more people from the original group, and then proceeded to leave at 4:04 without the other 2! Apparently time is money here!
We got back to our hotel around 5, showered, and headed out to the Night Market to explore. We had read that Chiang Mai has a great night market. We started following the sign's...and only found 2 of them. We then proceeded to ask 3 people how to get to the night market...and they all just kind of stared at us. A group of police officers pointed in a general direction and said "that way"...super helpful.
So we walked "that way". And kept walking. And walking.
Eventually we ran into a group of American 20-somethings also looking for the night market...and we all continued to head in the same general direction. We asked along the way and people told us we were getting closer...but it was still so far!
After walking about 30 minutes, we FINALLY made it to the night market!
And it was pretty awesome. Vendors as far as you could see selling TONS of cool stuff. Yes, typical tourist stuff (shirts, elephant pants, etc.), but lots of unique items too, such as...the handmade chopstick set I purchased :)
We wandered around for a looooonnnggg time (after all, we had to justify walking 30 minutes to get there...) before deciding it was time for dinner. I wasn't quite hungry, but Jon was so we stopped at a food truck station and he grabbed a burger. There were about 6 food trucks in a circle and there was live music playing - it felt just like we never left Brooklyn :-p.
From there, we walked back to our hotel...wherein I decided I was hungry and finally ready for dinner... We headed to a restaurant right next to our hotel. We sat down to order...and the owner promptly came over to our table and told us that the government had shut off the water and they had no way to clean any food or dishes, so the menu was quite limited. Ummm sure. Five minutes later, a waitress came to take our orders. When I asked what they were capable of making, she said, "Anything is possible and we will do it." Sure enough, my meal (again, salad with chicken - sometimes your stomach just tells you it wants to avoid curry and lemongrass...) came within 10 minutes. Fascinating and impressive! After dinner we stopped for gelato ("The best Italian gelato in all of Chiang Mai! And hey - it wasn't half bad ;-)) before heading back to our hotel.
We just got back to our room - now to pack and get ready for tomorrow's early flight!
Jess' highlight of the day: there was a fire breather at the parade!
Jon's highlight of the day: Wat Dui Suthep
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