Distracting my brain with a blog.

Goodbyes are hard.  I’m sitting in the airport at Chiang Mai with all my luggage, because Tim’s flight was four hours earlier than mine and I can’t check in yet, and I’m drinking one of those sickly sweet lemon iced teas the Thai’s are so fond of.  I don’t really have words to express how I feel right now; therefore, I’m not even going to try.  Why bring something to such a base level with words when clearly nothing will suffice?  I’m traveling solo again, and dubstep is the cure to all my problems.  

The last bit of time in Chiang Mai has been pretty good – of all the places in Thailand, this is the only city I could see myself living in, and frankly, I just might – they have a pretty good base for TEFL teachers, and that’s my goal for the next year anyhow.  We didn’t get to see Andrea and Jay again, though I did email them, but to be fair, they are packing up to move to Australia right now, and are probably pretty busy.  Such awesome people. 

I rocked the hell out of the Night Market the other night.  We wandered down to Taste From Heaven, a vegetarian restaurant that does really good Khao Soi (a rice curry dish that is a speciality of Chiang Mai) and then in an attempt to fight the motion sickness pills (aka FEAR THE DROWSY) ...we walked down to the night market.  I came away with four silk pillowcases that I bargained down 50%, and some delicious cookies.  The crowds have been really getting to me lately; I find I'm quite short with people when I haven't a right to be.  There's just always people in my way!  I want them to disappear.  

Yesterday, because Tim hasn't been to too many temples here in Thailand (whereas I am fatally sick of them) ...we chartered a sorng tou (song tao) to Doi Suthep, a temple up in the mountains just outside of Chiang Mai.  It cost us a lot to do that, but we were short on time, and the alternative would have left us traveling for most of the day to get there and back.  The temple was neat - hundreds of stairs to climb, and I somehow got convinced to buy a singing prayer bowl (though, I can make it make a very nice sound) ...but other than that, and the view of Chiang Mai, it was just another temple for me.  I'm glad Tim enjoyed it - I didn't take too many photos, but I'll add them to the next post.  I'm stealing wifi in the airport from a café and I don't have a plug-in for my laptop.  With the beast dying, I can't load photos without being plugged in, otherwise my battery goes kaput in an instant.  

The poor thing is dying in a bad way - anyone want to get me a new laptop for Christmas?  If it's still working at the end of the trip, I'll be pretty impressed with it.

We had dinner last night at an Irish pub, which served actual beer (not Chang), and proper burgers and chips.  We both felt like greasy bastards afterwards, but it was totally worth it, even if our bodies were screaming at us for eating grease and drinking alcohol again.  I haven't had much alcohol here in Thailand, but the stuff I have had for the most part has been cheap, and my body's never been able to handle much anyhow.  That said, we went back to the pub again before heading back to the hotel to get a bottle of Thailand's only apple cider.  It was good for something made in Thailand. 

Oh, and I sent 8 kilo's worth of stuff home yesterday at the post.  God, that was expensive.  Worth it, though.  My bag is back to the lightness it was when I left Smithers.  A bunch of clothes, and some souvenirs for myself, and just crap I didn't want to carry anymore, or haven't used, etc.  It's awesome to have a reasonably light backpack again...just in time for India.  Only one more week!