Boxing Day!

It's actually the 26th. I'm on Koh Pha Ngan in Thailand. Here's what's been going down the last couple of days...

In Chiang Mai
- I changed my plane tickets to stay in Chiang Mai longer, skip Loas (for now) and go straight to Siem Reap to meet Danny. I actually had to cancel my first ticket and then buy a new one. The difference was about 6000 baht ($150). The city office didn't have cash to pay me back (I paid in cash in Hong Kong, so they couldn't put it on a credit card they said). They said try the Chiang Mai airport. More on that later.

- I bought an awesome hat from an Akha tribeswoman at the Night Baazar. It kind of looks like this http://www.akhagear.com/images/_small_akha_hat_2.jpg

- I met a girl, Sarah, who is teaching English in Japan (Errol is kind of one of her bosses) and convinced her to go to Elephant Nature Park for a week. She's there right now. I'm totally jealous. I hear the mahouts get really into their Christmas carols.

- I got a fancy foot massage and then a not fancy head, neck, back massage.

- I wimped out on taking the night bus to Bangkok because Helen (who stayed at the Park) was going to come back Wednesday night!!! So I got to say goodbye to her.

- I went to an "American" bar where they have pool, internet and popcorn for free. I wish we had internet for free in American bars.

- I finally went to see something famous. Doi Suthep is a fancy temple on the top of a hill overlooking Chiang Mai. Sarah came with me. It was an adventure, full of nausiating pick up truck rides and tough negotiating. The temple was cool, we followed an English tour group. The view was non existant. It was totally cloudy.

- I finally took a red pick up truck by myself to the airport. The limo from the airport had been 120 baht, and the red pick up truck ride back was 30. I was proud of myself. Getting less freaked out by the day!

Airport

- The Chiang Mai airport office for Bangkok Airways also didn't have enough cash to pay me back. My flights with them started in Bangkok so they promised that Bangkok airport would have enough cash and I could pick up my cash and tickets there.

- My 11:30am flight to Bangkok took off at 1:15pm.

- They knew I had a connecting flight (at 2:50pm) so they bumped me up to the 12:45pm flight to Bangkok which took off at 1:00pm and also had us get off of the plane first, which would have been nice except that the plane landed in the middle of nowhere and we boarded a bus to take us to the terminal. Getting off first actually pushed us to the back of the bus.

- I sprinted 486 meters from the domestic terminal to the international terminal.

- I got to the Bangkok Airways desk at 2:25 and asked if I could still get on the 2:50 flight. The lady replied "Too late! Too late!" I figured I had done all I could, accepted the fact that I would have to wait until the 6:10 flight and went and got a pedicure.

- Around 4:45 I went to the gate and the 2:50 flight to Siem Reap was just beginning to board. Not fair. For some reason Bangkok Airways doesn't have their flights on any of the monitors and the area where the gate is past additional security with no shops or food or anything so it's not like you wanted to get there too early. I didn't think to ask the lady "Is the 2:50 flight delayed by any chance?" Now I know.

- The 6:10 flight was delayed until 7:10 but then actually left around 6:40pm. Confusing, huh.

Then Cambodia for 3 days, then airports/Koh Samui for Christmas and Koh Phangan now.

I'll get to that stuff later. This computer's really slow and it's like a billion degrees inside.

I'll get pictures up later too.