Our trip is planned to happen in quite a few venues, and today we switch to a new one, our second. We’ll be flying almost two hour to the city of Chiang Mai, the largest city in northern Thailand (or north-eastern Thailand, depending on who you ask). Chiang Mai translates to “New City” which is very appropriate for us.
Before we get there we get to have another great breakfast, pack, check out, and await the arrival of our taxi driver, hopefully at 12:30 as promised. We’ll miss this place. Our ever cheerful hostess tells me they have 20 of 23 rooms full, in response to my query. It’s a popular place, and we can certainly understand why.
Our taxi is 15 minutes early, which is no problem and we endure the 30 minute ride back to the Krabi International Airport. The businesses along the side of the road for our route don’t look any more upscale than a few day ago. We do see a couple of places we missed the first time, a big hardware store named Mr. DIY and a big grocery story named 24 Hour Super Cheap.
At the airport we learn we can’t check in for another 20 minutes, so we park ourselves and bide our time. We learn the airport’s slogan, which is "Krabi International: DOA for all!" We know what DOA means in English but that seems hardly appropriate in this context. 20 minutes later we’re checked in and relieved of our luggage. We tried but were told they’re small enough but too heavy to be considered carry on.
We breeze through security. They aren’t overly concerned with the cumulative amount of liquids we have, for which we’re thankful. As we await our flight we muse at some of the signs and enjoy a local beer. On the plane we’re surprised to see that there’s an advertisement on each and every one of the overhead compartment doors. What a great idea? Why has no one thought of increasing revenue this way before. We expect to see that in the states before long.
At cruising altitude we’re provided with our pre-paid meals which truly could not be any hotter (stove hot). It’s Thai food in plastic trays covered with aluminum foil that we couldn’t get off without really burning our fingers, so we burned our fingers. The food really wasn’t bad. There had been quite a selection and the charge had been something like US$4.50 per meal. We felt we could afford that.
An hour and fifty minutes later we land in Chiang Mai and collect our luggage. We’re greeted by a very short, very young, and very cheerful “Naht”. She explains that her proper name is much longer, but we can just call her Naht, as in Peanut. At the curb we climb into a big, comfortable, new Toyota SUV, the likes of which we’ve never seen. We later learn it’s the Toyota Fortuna. Who knew?
Close to our hotel we started paralleling a moat and turned through an imposing (though rebuilt) wall that, at one point, surrounded the old city. Going in through the West Gate (which is just an opening in the wall) we soon come to what appears to be some sort of old palace. It’s The Rim, our hotel for the next two days. It’s not what it appears, but was well constructed to look the part.
Nuht lets us know where to be, and what to bring, tomorrow morning for our elephant experience. She says her goodbyes and we’re on our own. Our room, like the hotel, is impressive. We unpack, relax, and head out for dinner. I’ve found a cute looking “Cru 2nd floor wine bar” not far away. We walk down an alley next to the hotel, about one half mile. It’s clean and very well lit. It could not be any more quiet, quite the change from Ao Nang.
The wine bar is super cute with seating for maybe 25. We’re the only ones there for a while before three other groups arrive. Dinner is good, as are the four glasses of wine we split (mostly French). Time for bed with visions of elephants for the coming day dancing in our heads.
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