Chiang Mai

Just a quick update for anyone actually trying to follow my travels with this blog. The black hole I recently disappeared into has a name, Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is the "northern capital" of Thailand and a popular stop for visitors to Thailand, and for good reason: it's really nice.

I arrived in Chiang Mai Sunday, April 20th intending to stay for 3 nights and then traveling on to Chiang Rai, Laos (which is north of Thailand and pronounced without the "s"), and perhaps even Vietnam if I had the energy before meeting my friend John from LA in Singapore on the 29th (yesterday). Well, 9 days later ... I was still in Chiang Mai.

There's plenty to do and see in Chiang Mai, but the reason why it many travelers get caught in its web (I met many foreigners there who had moved to Chiang Mai after visiting) is that the city is just so comfortable. And it's cheap. The guesthouses and restaurants are uniformly of very high quality and cleanliness and the old city (the main tourist and expat area) is small and accessible with the conveniences that travelers need but are often hard to find in other Southeast Asian cities like internet access and bars.

I'm mainly writing this to say that if you ever decide to come to this part of the world, make sure Chiang Mai is on your itinerary (and if you do go, let me know and I can give you lots of recommendations!). So far in my 2+ months of traveling, I've stayed in most cities for 2-3 days and general felt like it was enough or at least close to enough. After spending 9 days (the longest by far I've stayed in any city thus for on my trip) in Chiang Mai, I left with a heavy heart and wished I could have stayed many more days or weeks.

Another belated update -- from Thailand

The last time I posted I was in Ecuador. Almost three weeks, two continents, 6 countries, and 9 cities later, I am in Lop Buri, Thailand which is about 2 hours north of Bangkok by train. I haven't posted in a while again because of lack of internet access (when I was in China I had pretty internet access but the blogspot.com domain was blocked/censored) and partially also because of travel fatigue.

In terms of internet access, I haven't had a decent wifi connection since I left Ecuador which means I haven't been using my laptop very much. I've occasionally gone to internet cafes (where I am posting from now), but generally used that time to attend to more pressing matters.

As regards to travel fatigue, here's my itinerary for the past few weeks. From Ecuador--which I loved--I went to Peru. In Peru I was in Lima and Cusco/Machu Picchu--which I did not love due to getting altitude sickness and having stomach problems at the same time, though Machu Picchu is fantastic. From there I transited through New York on my way to Hong Kong, which was itself a transit point on to Guilin, China. After Guilin, I spent a night in Macau before flying off to Bangkok from Hong Kong International Airport (which means that despite not spending more than a few hours in Hong Kong at a time, I managed to collect a total of 6 entry and departure stamps ... good thing I got pages added to my passport in Lima!). I spent two nights in Bangkok and came up to Lop Buri by train this morning.

Please keep checking this blog. I do plan on posting more regularly, and will certainly write up the past few weeks in more detail. And as always, I want to hear from you (especially those of you I've met on my travels), so e-mail me at 26weeks@gmail.com.