Injuries and cooking school

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No matter how careful you are, you're going to get small injuries. It's just part of life. The injuries I have suffered over the past six weeks are an excellent way of recording where I have been. For example, I have several small scars on my ankles from the hundreds of mosquito bites I got in Taman Negara, Malaysia. (No, the bites didn't cause scars but me scratching them did). One of my socks also met it's death at Taman Negara. Carmen, the sweetie that she is, asked to use my socks to hike--hers were too short. An unnoticed leech sapped so much blood on to her leg that the sock had to be thrown out as it was totally red. Poor sock.

My deepest wound was from playing sand volleyball. I dove for a ball and landed on a rock. I almost saved it though.

Like every other tourist, we fell off the moped. I know, I know. It sounds scary and dangerous, but it really wasn't too bad. The very first time I tried starting the bike with Carmen and me both on top, I revved the engine too hard and lost control. We both escaped with just a few scrapes but the incident shook us up. In fact, we even waited a day before driving 140 km to Pai. :)

My neck still hurts from where Carmen fell on top of me as we were thrown off the back of the elephant. Don't worry, it was into a river. The river did happen to only be 2 feet deep though. The guide thought it was just hilarious.

I have a nice slice on my back from where I laid on the floor of a bus. Carmen made us take the overnight bus (it cost five dollars while the train cost ten) from Bangkok to Chiang Mai--a 14 hour journey. The bus was unbelievable. It was a "VIP" bus...aka the hotel we were in had it privately chartered for sucker tourists like ourselves. It was exclusively filled with westerners. Yes, it had a/c but the bathroom made the ride almost unbearable. The cage, as I like to call it, had a 4 foot ceiling and had not been cleaned since the millennium. The door was left open once and the entire bus reeked of feces for the rest of the trip. Carmen still says it was worth saving the money. Anyways, I can't sleep in a seat. Just can't do it. So I put a sheet on the floor and laid down in the center aisle of the bus. As I went down, an arm rail gouged me back.

The end of the bus story:
The bus pulled into Chiang Mai at 6am. Actually, the bus stopped at a gas station outside the city and we were all made to load the backs of pick up trucks. Apparently, the bus wasn't officially registered and couldn't enter the city. I hate it when that happens. Coveniently (wink, wink), the pick up trucks took all thirty of us westerners to a hotel. While we weren't required to stay there, they showed us their rooms, all the wonderful travel packages they offered and let us know that they were the only hotel open at such and ungodly hour. Instead of submitting, Carmen and I grabbed our packs and headed into town. With four hours of sleep, a gash in my back, and a heavy pack, I was less than pleasant to be around. Carmen refrained from pushing me into the river and directed us to Julie's, a wonderful guest house.

After getting a room, we had a cup of coffee decided to not waste the day but to go to cooking school. We learned five different Thai dishes and had a great time. I had to ask for three more cups of coffee and Carmen refused to sit next to me as I kept biting. The highlight, however, was that we discovered I am a much better chile chopper than Carmen. After finishing twice the number of chiles that she had, she declared, "Ok. You're staying home with the kids."