We booked two seats on a 2nd class bus for 240 Baht ($6), thinking it can't be too bad. Shelly got on the bus first, while I watched the bags being loaded. When I made my way to the back of the bus I found a 70 year old, heavily tattooed, monk sitting in Shelly's seat. Not realizing the situation I showed the ticket attendant our tickets and asked why we were not sitting together. She rattled off something in Thai to me and then proceeded to ask everyone on the bus about the two "Americans" who had to sit together (at least we think that is what she said). After this went on for way too long and a few bad looks from Shelly, I finally said it was fine and took my seat next to the monk. Apparently women cannot sit next to monks, so they moved him to our seats...lesson learned.
The bus ride was a long and bumpy ride through the mountains of Northern Thailand on a bus with no shocks. All the while the monk kept falling asleep on my shoulder. At one point loud heavy metal guitar started blaring from someone's cellphone. We could barely contain our laughter when the monk pulled out his cellphone and answered it. At the first bus stop, in the middle of nowhere, the monk jumped off the bus and began to bum cigarettes from random people.
We were happy when the 4 hour bus ride was finally over and we rolled into Chiang Rai, a sleepy little town with an extravagant clock tower as one of its main attractions.
On our first day in Chiang Rai we decided to find the famous "Chiang Rai Beach." We followed the sign towards the beach without realizing it was 10km walk from town. After traveling past some very rural neighborhoods we ended up at a park next to the Mae Kok River.
View of the river from Chiang Rai Beach. There was a huge white Buddha on one side of the river.
Bamboo fences.
Sun Dried Fish...mmmm
No comments:
Post a Comment