Week 1 Wrap

 Chiang Mai is turning out to be one hell of a good place for taking a holiday.  Just a disclaimer before you read about our travels.. We are speaking a lot of broken english here to make it easier on the Thai people, hence all conjunctions like "and" are obselete. This means my writing may come out a little primary school-ish (note: this is not an excuse for my poor writing abilities).  We are settling in very well here and will soon be part of the furniture, not the new fancy furniture like my sister's recent purchase of leather sofas, but more the furniture that has too many food/urine stains that you can no longer simply flip the cushion to hide the problem.  The cost of living over here is almost laughable, we are getting through a day spending less then $12!  And the weather.. what a dream!  32 degrees everyday and the best part is that you don't need sunscreen!  It is perfect tanning sun, not like the dangerous aussie son, so no excuses for us not coming back and easily slotting in with an aboriginal community.

I will separate this story into the most important components of our trip, things like Food, Drinking and Activites.

FOOD:

So far the food here has been a delight.  Breakfast's mainly consists of fantastic pancake (not a typo) at various eateries scattered very closely to our guest house.  Dinners are mainly elements from various market stores with a large proportion containing rice or noodles with eggs.  Eating at the market is fantastic, you just walk to each stall which specializes in a different product and buy something.  Waffles with infused banana and bus loads of hershey's chocolate syrup are a favourite (so much so we have eaten them before and after or dinner).  There are also some menu items here in Thailand you won't often see in your everyday melbourne restaurant.  The best so far we have eaten are frogs and chicken feet.  The line was drawn at chicken heads, but it can be crossed at a later date!  We also found a pizza place that sell pizzas with "extreme" crusts.  The are spot on the money, except the extreme refers to the amount of heart disease it causes.  It contained sausage, bacon and cheese!!  The arteries literally wanted to pack up and jump ship after that.

Drinking:
As yet we have not found a great place to get drunk, but that doesn't mean we haven't found some fine drinks.  Chang is the local beer here, and it has some punch.  You buy a 640ml bottle for $1 and it is 6.4% alcohol, nice.  One thing they are not on top of here is the cocktail making.  You order and they blow the dust off the recipe, have a conference, and 15 mins later you are presented something remotely resembling what you ordered.  One bonus however, they have a cocktail called the 69er!  How could we not try one (tasted good too).  Fresh fruit shakes here go down an absolute treat, and the best place is to get one is Daret's.  We are going at a strike rate of 1 per day so far, hope we can continue the pace.

Activities:
So far most of our time has been time spent exploring.  We hired bikes on the 2nd day and they are great fun.  The one problem is crossing the main roads on them.  It is about as easy as playing three world chess champions simultaneously while also learning the cello and painting a picture only using your toes (or if you are a girl, just reading a map..).  The one injury we have suffered as a team so far came as Gizl was riding her bike and filming at the same time.  Well it was actually as she was packing the camera back in her pack, so we don't have any footage for funniest home videos.  She escaped with a small (but highly oozy) wound, well managed by nurse Linsey. 
A big highlight of the week was when the 3rd year physio students from Chiang Mai university took us out.  We started at karaoke which was great fun (we finished we a rousing rendition of "Eye of the tiger").  Next they took us to the "Monkey Club" which was packed but had great atmosphere.  There were two good cover bands punching out all your thai favourites which the crowd was very happy with (and so were we).  It was kind of surreal to be in this packed place and be the only white people.  I was at least a foot taller than everyone else there, hence i stuck out like a Ku Klux Klan member who washed his uniform with a his lucky red derps and the colour had run. 

Placement:
Placement so far has been great.  We are just basically acting like consultants while we are in the hospitals in the mornings, giving our opinions on the best treatment ideas for the patients.  Then in the afternoon we do some more fun activities.  This week that was Acupuncture.  We had this great traditional chinese medicine docter who had a great sense of humour.  While i was receiving acupuncture she asked whether I could do with some help with "impotence" (i tried to assure the group it was not a problem, I don't think they were convinced) and asked another girl whether she would like treatment for obesity.  We thought it was a riot!  Next week we are taking on Thai massage.

Becoming Better Friends:
When you are hanging out with people 24 hours a day you get to know them quite well.  So well in fact that bowel movements are a topic of regular conversation, and as it may turn out celebration.  Yes, the daily pancake and many other foods are clogging the system.  We also get to know each others sleeping patterns well, as it turns out, Gizl has quite an interesting night time quirk.  The other night we woke to a blood curtling scream from her.  This almost exploded Linseys and I's heart, but didn't even wake Gizl.. All just part of the process of becoming better friends i guess.

Misc.
I had my scrariest experience so far in a toilet of all places.  I went into a public toilet near the karaoke venue and was followed in by three locals.  As I was getting to business they started to massage my arms.. serioulsy.  Then one cracked my neck!  Now he did a good job, but i'm not sure i could trust a bathroom custodian with manipulating my anatomy a second time.  And talk about pressure to piss!  If I wasn't on the verge of exploding my bladder I don't think i could have ever started with these three guys hovering around me.  Then they helped me wash my hands and dried them and everything.  I did know all along they were going to ask for a tip, and thankfully i had a few coins in my pocket that i gave them.  Didn't really have a choice as they were blocking the exit!
Another comical happening so far is the story of Linsey and the toilet.  Apparently one of her favourite things to do is to rush home quickly, and before Gizl and I can do anything about it, run to the toilet and desecrate it!!  Seriously, the smells eminating from the bathroom after she has finished have been banned since WW2 due to the intolerable cruelty towards humans.  She renders the toilet useless for around 45 mins, seriously.  Gizl and I at least have the decency to let others use the facilities before defiling them!
While on the subject of Linsey, she left her camera at one of the pubs we went too.  But luckily the midget/child that worked there (she was the cutest thing we have seen here so far, we just couldn't work out whether she was a midget or child) had grabbed it and saved it for us.. Phew!

Ok, this is enough for the first week of our south east asia adventure, enjoy!

Daz, Lins, Gizl.