Friday, November 25, 2011

Happy Birthday to Brooke!

Toasting to our Thanksgiving Feast!
Three Kings Temple
Hello to all of our avid tan followers,
Brooke and Tina are now in Chiang Mai! After a 15 hour train ride, we finally arrived (half alive) to the northern city train station. Tina decided she would never live on the train tracks in Thailand after watching her pee fall straight through the train car and on to the moving ground below. We originally planned on taking the night train but upon arrival to the Bangkok train station, we were told that the floods had canceled the trip.It was actually a blessing in disguise because we got to stay in the chinatown district for the night.
Getting into Chiang Mai so late, the guesthouse we wanted to stay at was closed, so these two blind bats went on a hunting trip and found one close by. We then met a bunch of crazy travelers, from Capetown/Sydney/London/Poland that took us on our very first big night out. We got a suggestion from the desk man (who ended up joining us later in the night), walked a bit, climbed a wall, and landed in reggaeville! There we found.... Drunk people. lots. After we listened to more reggae than we could stand, we were guided to SPICE, a cigarette hotboxed, multi-leveled, strip-poll dance club where we stayed up way past our Thai bedtime. We got a solid 6 hours of sleep that night, pissed off the wife of the guesthouse owner somehow, and walked around with our crazy dreaded traveling friends to find breakfast before heading off to our originally planned guesthouse. 
We settled in at the quiet, lonely planet recommended guesthouse and immediately headed through the winding Chiang Mai streets. Our first stop was a clean dentist office where we made our first appt for Sunday in over two years, this should be fun! (Keep in mind our destination is the hospital) We then happened upon a dermatologist (yay for Tina who has been SUFFERING from people-staring-at-my-skin-because-it's-bumpy disease) where Tina made an appointment for later that day. Found the Chiang Mai Ram hospital and was guided through the quick process of obtaining a vaccine and more malaria pills. Brooke received everything for the whopping price of 130!
 We got deliciously spicy soup then headed to Tina's appointment where the doctor (who studied at Howard University!) immediately identified what had been bothering Tina for the last 3 weeks as an immunodeficiency condition commonly known as psoriasis, and prescribed 5 different creams all for $50.
The Thanksgiving feast began... with a whole chicken( mostly bone), a papaya salad and banana/chocolate roti deliciousness. After giving thanks, we traditionally passed out early on our wood stiff bed (which has surprisingly alleviated Tina's backpains from her bed at home).
Woke up to a birthday rooster around 6am, took a shower in the combined toilet directly next to a shower head hose room. In these bathrooms, it is physically impossible to not turn the bathroom into a swimming pool. Going to get breakfast, we met the wonderfully talkative British James, informative tour guide, who came to breakfast with us, along with his stories of pregnant ex-girlfriends and possible future Thai wives. After ditching James, we found a nice spa to get a thai massage. The thai massage was a nice semi- relaxing mix into our travels. We got some delicious ice tea and coffee and went to the cultural museum where we learned that Chiang Mai was built according to spiritual beliefs about the city success and it's being the center of the universe and other interesting tidbits about the 700 year old city. Now we are off to find a delicious birthday dinner on the river, hopefully with some interesting birthday spirits. Until next time, probably tomorrow afternoon when we wake up after a birthday night on the town.
hom(kisses) and got(hugs) to all!

4 comments:

  1. Awesome awesome awesome! I'm so stoked for you gals. Its sounds like the real deal. Happy birthday Brooke!!
    -Alex

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  2. Happy birthday Brooke. Hom & got. A vaccination is not our idea of a great present, however. I hope Tina bought your favorite beverage on us.

    Enjoy the center of the universe!

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  3. Tina...this is so exciting! you could have the same thing in Ecuador - just go to Jipijapa or any small town - u get the same thing...toilet, shower- but I see that you are enjoying it! go for it! Love u mucho- but take care OK?

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  4. neato. i made pad thai today, so i'm pretty much right there with y'all.

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