Introducing Marybelle and Heidi

Meeting all of these strange creatures on our journey, we have of course adopted new identities. I am Canadian, Heidi is from Hawaii. She is half Korean (Heidi Park).

In the middle of the night on the train (I took a sleeping pill and slept through this all), a young guy hanging out near our area apparently started roaming the hall saying that he needed an ambulance, that he was dying and had a fever. Alyssa thought someone was asking for tickets so she started getting out our tickets. The train dropped this guy off at the next little village to see a doctor. That would be freaking scary. In the morning the guy sitting next to him wantedt o go to the hiospital to get checked out just in case. It was obviously food poisoning because he was fine 4 hours earlier. Some other girls were like H1N1!!!! OMFG. I am so sick of that stupid flu. It is JUST a flu. I probably had it and didn't even know.

We arrived at our guesthouse in Chiang Mai and it is definitely the least flattering of our shelters on this trip. It is, however, 7 dollars a night... so how can one complain? We immediately tried to book a jungle trek and found out we were too late for the half day and tomorrow our train leaves before the half day trek is over. So Alyssa was like, What about ZIPLINING!?!? Even though I had JUST explained to her my terrible fear of heights and how in 7th grade at the ropes course field trip I freaked out and got stuck in the middle of one of the climby things in the maybe 15 foot trees. We would now be zipping through trees hundreds of feet high. So we made a deal, today we would do the ziplining and tomorrow morning we would go to the Tiger Kingdom and literally play with tiger kittens. Marie must hate me so much right now. Hehehehehehehe.

The trip planner man pointed us to a literal hole in the wall for lunch that specializes in pad kra pow, our favorite. If the place was in LA, people would burn it to the ground, cover it in bleach, and declare it a nuclear wasteland. But hey, the food was fabulous so whatever. I don't care about ants crawling on my table, and some guy off the street serving me my coke.

Then it was time for the ziplining. We took a car 45 minutes into the jungle outside of Chiang Mai. We were, as you may know, stuck in the car, and the subsequent trip, with two guys from Israel who were loud, crude, and every other bad quality most guys have. (Not all, most). They did teach us some fun words... and we unfortunately had a look at some rated R pictures on their cameras-- but we made it to the location with our sanity in tact. As well as our heads--- the roads were so narrow and windy and we were in a big van-- I think the car trip was scarier than the actual zip lining.

The zipline crew decked us out in our gear and we hiked to the first platform. Thank god they start out short. And not so high. My knees were shaking so much. And the guys in charge were really fun but in that older brother, I'm-going-to-tease-you-non-stop sort of way. That meant every sky bridge we walked across would be shaking due to the crewjumping up and down and pushing it from side to side. And when they would zip line, they would seriouisly look like monkeys... hanging all difefrent ways, mostly upside down. I only went on my stomach once... that was enough. We all extended our journey to Zone B, instead of just Zone A. Zone B included the longest zipline in Thailand which goes from one mountain to another. I wasn't exactly thrilled about this extension, but I really felt like I owed it to Alyssa for being so sick and lame in Taiwan. Zip lining was fine but walking up and down the really sketchy stairs and bridges really freaked me out. My fear is literally immobilizing and no one understood. But I made it, and even zip lined in the pouring rain. I also got bit by a GIANT ant. The ants are freakishly large in that jungle. Ehhhh.

After the three or four hours we had a dinner in the village nearby and said goodbye to our lovely hosts. We also said goodbye to the leader of the village who sat there watching us eat and swatting flies with his weird broom thing. I also realized today wast he first day on the trip that I wore socks. It felt wrong. Then anotehr death defying trip on teh narrow dirt roads in and out of mountains and we were back at our guesthouse, greeted by the owners evil dogs: a yorky and a pomeranian. The pom almost bit off Alyssa's hand. Little devil. Showering never felt better. Even our uncomfortable bed was heavenly. We then decided to go check out the night market so I could finally buy my mom's stupid silver bracelet that she probably won't even like even though it's really cute and both Alyssa AND I like it AND it was expensive. !!!!

We got rotee again, of course. I tried it with bananas this time. SO GOOD. Alyssas uncle wants to invest in a rotee place owned by Alyssa in LA. Its a go. Just wait... it will seriously be the next Kogi or Sprinkles. SO freaking GOOD. We wandered around buying little things here and there--- nothing too special at this market. We did get to try some fried cocoons. Another weird thing to add to my list. I bought a package of them so I could eat some in front of my parents on Skype. They enjoyed it. They love me.

Gotta wake up and play with tiger kittens! Bye.