Ok Where Were We...

Let's see, I am going to try and get my week all caught up on the blog on one post. Last I wrote, I was on a train to Bangkok with my friend Julie from Belgium. We had a great time in the bar car and actually got some good sleep in those makeshift beds. Neither of us had purchased train tickets from Bangkok up North to Chiang Mai yet, so we decided to do that together once we arrived in Bangkok. Unfortunately for us, there is a flower festival going on in Chiang Mai this weekend and the overnight trains are booked solid for three days. Damn. Good thing we had each other, because we were able to find overnight bus tickets  (although we got ripped of on the price we found out later... oh well lesson learned, always shop around for tickets). So we spent the day walking around Bangkok waiting for our bus to leave later that night. We walked for hours and hours, through many different kinds of markets and neighborhoods. Even though we were both pretty tired, we had a good time.

I finally got to see the backpacker's Khao San Road, much smaller than I thought but pretty cool.

Wannabe TOMS. Twenty bucks. Resisting was hard.

Our bus ride went pretty smoothly, faster than the train would have been but the sleep was damned near impossible. It was a nice bus, double decker and very clean. But the seats were made of smooth velvet material and it was all I could do to keep from sliding to the floor all night long. We stopped once and were given vouchers for a free meal at the weird cafeteria pitstop we were presented with. Julie and I decided on a noodle soup looking dish but decided that the meat tasted too much like dogfood and gravy and boarded back on the bus. We got in Chiang Mai at 6am, and for some reason we decided it was a good idea to wing it and not book rooms until we got here. Partly because most places are full with the festival going on, but we ended up finding a place to stay- oddly enough called Julie's Guesthouse (Mom you keep popping up everywhere!).
Julie is now in Laos, I met her at the beginning of her solo journey and we said our goodbyes two days ago. While we were here in Chiang  Mai together, she introduced me to a friend she also met on her travels a few weeks ago. Her name is Natasha and she is Danish. After Julie left, Natasha and I both needed a room so we found one together and have been roomates for the last three days. She is 28 and just finished a three month trip in Africa volunteering and teaching English. She is wonderful. I am not sure why, but I feel so sure of my personal journey after talking to her. I hope I am anything like her when I am 28. Yesterday we spent the whole day at a pool we found and just talked about life and the importance of travel in our lives and hard things and happy things.
While at the pool I sliced both of my toes on chipped tiles while getting out of the pool. Good job, HaLee. The funny (ok maybe not funny) thing was that just an hour earlier, Natasha sliced her toe on a rock in the street, so she had bandages on her and helped me get my feet back in working order. I am happy to report that both of my toes are their normal color still and are showing no sign of infection! Horray :)
Natasha came to Chiang Mai from a trip to Laos with a friend she met on her trip as well, a gay Australian guy named Angus, he is lots of fun as well. I am finding that most people who start off traveling alone aren't alone for longer than a day. Before Julie left for Laos, the four of us went out to find a drink on Friday night and ended up in a Reggae bar with live music and dancing. They set up a shot station in the front, a huge block of ice with a little wedge shaved down the middle where they pour shots down. Needless to say, we had a good time.

The shot slide