It's a really strange feeling to find yourself in a strange city not know the lay of the land at all. Chiang Mai has proven very difficult to figure out because of all the "sois", which are similar to side streets or alleys. There is no rhyme or reason to them here. They are illogical, they don't run congruent to the main streets, they curve, and come to sudden stops, one soi turning into another soi. Very easy to get turned around here. Upon checking in to ...

We depart the Riverside Resort promptly at 9:00 AM. Driving out of the town of Mae Sariang you can see every place (school) that the Princess had visited because it's completely decked out in her colour purple and with huge photos of her. Thais sure do spend a lot of money on their Monarchy and by most accounts they love their King. His photo is seen a lot around here. For mlles and miles down the highway the purple flags stuck in the ground provide proof th...

Preface: Spent 2.5 hours typing this post only to have had the system log me out somewhere along that timeframe and there wasn't a single word saved! After a night's sleep, let's try again. I'm typing this on Dec. 25 at 6:40 AM and am sick with a full on cold. Our day starts at 9:00 AM and we head on down the road only about 15-20 minutes or so and we reach our first adventure of the day. We are going to take a long tail boat up the Pai River towards Burma to...