Chiang Mai

I love Chiang Mai. I know I said I love Ko Maak, but I also love Chiang Mai. I've been here four days now, on my first day I went for a walk around the city and saw some of the phenomenal Wats they have here, along with a visit to the Chiang Mai History Museum. The second day I spent at a Thai Cooking Class and the third day I went for a one day Trek-adventure (I don't like the word "trek" because I that's just a fancy backpacker word for walking) where I rode an elephant, walked to a waterfall, visited a hill-tribe village, and took a bamboo raft down a river. Tomorrow I set off for a two day rock climbing/caving trip with an overnight in some remote village.

Today I decided to take it easy. I woke up, had my standard breakfast of fresh fruit, yogurt, and muesli, then played on the internet for a while. The hotel I'm staying at has wireless and haven't yet set any limits on bandwidth usage so I have been uploading and downloading like there's no tomorrow. At about 2pm I decided I should stop being so lazy.

So I went for a massage. At the local women’s prison. You can make your jokes here if you want, I don't need to. The prison has a program where inmates learn a trade and earn money for when they are released. A tiny Thai girl gave my massage, I tried to imagine what she could be in prison for but it's hard to imagine tiny Thai women committing crimes of any sort. Especially when they are wearing pink masseuse outfits and have giant pink bows in their hair.

The woman giving my massage spoke some English, and would every now and then say "relax" as she pushed her heel into my knee and pushed my foot in some direction I didn't think it should go. Sometimes I couldn’t tell what she was doing at all, I would look up and realize that what I thought was her hand was actually her foot, and what I thought was a foot was actually an elbow. It was a bit strange, to say the least.

I will try to describe one contortion, which will probably make no sense, but here goes. I sat down cross-legged and she sat behind me with her knees towards her chest and her shins against my back. Then she had me clasp my hands together behind my head, where she proceeded to put her arms through mine and then pull back in such a way that I flipped over her knees in a sort of feigned arch position. The arch part was fine, it was the tiny Thai girl that I thought I would crush that was less fine. "can you relax?" she said, as she pushed her knees further into my spine and pulled the back of my head towards her stomach.

The massage was actually excellent, cost $5 for an hour, and I'm going to try and go back on Monday (my last day in Chiang Mai). This evening I'm going to the night market to get my new favorite dish - papaya salad - and then I'm taking a yoga class. Contort-a-licious.