Day 231 - East Meets West

The three days getting to Chiang Mai pretty much wiped us out. For our first day in Thailand's 'cultural capital', we did...NOTHING. Well, not much anyway.

We began by waking up late. I updated the blog and surfed Craigslist for apartments. Cz watched movies for what was left of the morning. At 1, we went across town to the train station to book our tickets back to Bangkok. Tickets in hand, we returned to our neighborhood for an oh-so-greasy, oh-so-Western, and oh-so-good burger lunch.

The burger joint is called Mike's and looks like a classic American diner. It's motto reads 'converting vegetarians since 1979'. I can see why. I do plan to go back to my partial veggie ways when I return home, but for now, that was a damn fine burger.

It was nearly 4 by the time we returned to the hostel, where we resumed doing...nothing. The common room is graced with several comfy chairs and floor cushions, a large TV, and American series on DVD. It is an enormous time suck, and our time was effectively sucked.

We had planned on going on a night tour of Chiang Mai with a group of people from the hostel, but unfortunately right about dusk, it began pouring rain. Most unfortunate, especially considering that part of the night tour was to celebrate Spicy Thai (the hostel) being voted #2 hostel in all of Asia. Undaunted, the hostel owner moved the party home, with bucket drinks, snacks and music.

We might not have seen much of Chiang Mai, but we certainly saw a lot of what makes Spicy Thai worth its new crown.