Chiang Mai

You know when you're on a bus and you're trying to sleep, but you've got 8 people behind you talking loudly all night in Hebrew...well that happen to us too.

Last night's bus trip was one that brought back memories of Africa. The bus left on time and got here when it was supposed to, so that was good, but it sure was difficult to sleep. We bought our ticket from a travel agent rather than at the bus station, because the price was almost half. It turned out to be a fake VIP. The seat were cramped and wore out and the walls had gum stuck all over them. To make things worse a group of Isreali backpackers talked all night long.

But enough complaining, we made it here, and Chaing Mai seems pretty cool. It's an old city that is surrounded by a moat and a crumbling wall. The pace is much slower than that of Bangkok, and the weather is much cooler since we're 800km further north. So it's petty cool...as in weather, and cool like snapping your fingers in a jazz club cool.

Today we just rented some junky pedal bikes and explored the town. Tomorrow we plan to take a Thai cooking course, and then we'll visit a National Park or two the following day.

The political situation at the airport hasn't really changed at all. Tensions seem to be mounting and the protestors continue to rally more support...so we'll just stand by and see what happens. As we said before we can't even tell that anything is going on. We're in the same city that the PM is in and things are very peaceful. We did however see a small group of pro-gov supporters today. They however weren't doing much more than driving around in a pickup truck and saying some things through a loudspeaker, but nobody really seemed to care. We'll keep you posted.