Oh Mai, Chiang Mai

Got through the end of first quarter at school, with report cards, parent teacher conferences, and a school Halloween party.  It's been so busy with all of that at school that I've hardly had time for thinking about anything else, but I did plan a trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand with one of the other teachers.  We went for the first week of November, which was our school's fall break.  Here's what I can remember of the trip.

Day 1: Friday, Nov. 2
We rushed out of school after a professional development day in a private car, went home to get our bags, and headed out to Macau to catch the plane.  One lasting lesson I've learned from this trip is NEVER, EVER try to fly out of Macau unless you have a half day to get to the airport.  The car ride took almost three hours, and that's just to the border crossing, called Gongbei.  We get there, and it's this crazy busy scrum of people going into a huge building, just nonstop rivers of people.  Inside the building, you get in line for exiting China.  I think that took about 30-40 minutes, and then I thought we were through.  We walked through a long corridor, turned a corner, and there we are at ANOTHER IMMIGRATION LINE!  This one was to get INTO Macau.  Waiting, etc, then we rushed out and got a taxi to the airport and made it with 15 minutes to spare.  We got into CM late that night, took a tuk-tuk to our hotel, and crashed for the night.

Day 2: Saturday
Woke up and had breakfast, then went walking around the city to get our bearings.  Stopped for a fish pedicure, which felt awesome:

Then we spent the rest of the day walking around, looking at temples and monuments, getting a massage, stopping for snacks and drinks, and planning for the rest of the week.

Day 3: Sunday

Got all ready to go for a tour we had booked earlier, and ended up waiting for over an hour because the tour company forgot us.  We finally got out to the countryside, down a bumpy road, to the beginning of our white water rafting adventure.  We were grouped with a bunch of Belgians, who seemed to take having to wait for us pretty well.  After a brief set of instructions we headed out.  This was a first for me, and I'm pretty sure it was a relatively tame stretch of water.  Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun.  I almost fell out once.  We were in there somewhere around 2 or 3 hours, then headed to our village "homestay".  This was a stay at a guesthouse in a small village in the mountains outside Chiang Mai.  It was nice and peaceful, we got a home cooked Thai meal, in-room massages, and had to go to bed early because the whole town was shut down by 9pm.  The village had multiple streams running through it, so the sound of rushing water was a pleasant background to everything going on.  

View from the balcony of our guest house

Day 4: Monday, International Jon-Luke Lind Day

Woke up relaxed and ready for more action, had breakfast, and we were rushed off to the tour company's office to begin our zipline journey through the jungle canopy.  This was a really fun and exciting activity, lots of different ziplines high in the trees, just the right mix of adrenaline and beautiful scenery.  We had a really funny guide, and my travel partner surprised me by getting the group to sing me happy birthday on one of the platforms.

Went back to the office for a Thai lunch, then to a waterfall, 

then back to town. After settling back in we went for a massage, then some exploring, then a night on the town starting with a Thai boxing match.

I'll post the rest of the trip later.