Thailand - Day Five - Chiang Mai

Breakfast with Pepsi. French toast, passion fruit juice and coffee. All part of the free breakfast as Baan Orapin. I asked our server his name. He said, "Pepsi," clearly he didn't understand, so I repeated myself. Same response. Then I pointed to myself and said "Jeff," just to make sure he understand. Then he made the drinking motion, said, "Pepsi" then pointed to himself. Once again, the lesson is that I am a stupid American. He sincerely struck me as someone who loves his life and loves serving/helping others. Later, when we needed to make a phone call, he ran to get his cell phone.

Then it was time to fly. Flight of the Gibbons was a zip line course in the rain forest that Lisa has arranged. 3000 Baht each, which included the hour drive, lunch, and a waterfall (huge, long, beautiful), as well as a 15-station zip line course. We met Matt from the UK and Susan/Joanne, sisters from Ireland.

It was a group of the five of us along with two instructors, one named Tiger. Lisa was a pro.

I was a bit dangly.

Supposedly one of the stations was the highest in the country, continent, world, something like that. Seemed likely. The instructors loved Lisa, mainly because they could bounce her along the line and she wouldn't mind. Let me use caps to fully express myself... THIS WAS WELL WORTH THE PRICE AND ABSOLUTELY NEEDS TO BE DONE IF YOU VISIT THE AREA.

After that we got a blind massage. Yup. Blind. The government helps support blind people so they can have a trade. We heard good things. I went with the oil massage, Lisa another Thai. Mine was like lightly rubbing lotion all over your body (awful). Lisa's was crushed. I would look over and every single time she was just wincing, and for obvious reasons, her guy didn't pick up on her discomfort. As we left, Lisa was convinced she would be bruised. She was correct.

That night we ate at Whole Earth. It is now home to the greatest chicken with red curry I have ever eaten in my life (on the right side in the banana leaf). It was actually mashed, so every bite was the same. I couldn't get over the flavor and constantly told Lisa as much.

That night we met up with Joann, Susan and Matt. Good times. We got drinks. Everything was dead that Sunday night due to a Buddhist holiday. Lisa and I finally learned the regular sized bottle is worth the hint of extra money because it is always served in a koozy and it is always cold. We spent most of the night talking about the differences between Americans and Europeans with pop culture. It felt like one of those convos you get into with friends about 80s cartoons. "You watched the British Office? Oh my god, me too! Remember that time..." and so on and so forth.