Chiang to Chang

After our trek, we had two nights to spend in Chiang Mai. The first night we got a hotel for $7, but the mattress was just as hard as the mats we had been sleeping on, and the toilet had to be manually flushed, so we decided the next night to upgrade. We got a beautiful big room with a separate bathroom. You know you have a nice room when it comes with sheets and an actual mattress, and the toilet flushes. It is even more luxury when the shower is seperated, and not a shower head hooked up next to the sink. AND it had air conditioning, which is almost a necessity for poor Jordi who is constantly dripping. Anyways, we loved our room, but we seriously killed at least 30 mosquitos by the time we went to bed. I don't know what was going on, but there were TONS of them!! Jordi and I were running around in our pajamas clapping and stomping for such a long time the owners probably thought we were having some sort of Indian dancing session.
We had a great time in town the short time we were there. We rented bikes and rode all around the perimeter of the town, and through all the little alleyways. We ate amazing brown rice curries and soymilk lattes. We ran into almost everyone from our trek, which was really fun. The second night we were there, we went out to dinner with the two English guys. They are a crack up, and it was fun to get to know them a little better. After dinner, we all walked to the night market which is HUGE!!! It goes for blocks and blocks and blocks, and you can buy absolutely anything your heart desires, as long as it's carved wooden elephants, t-shirts, or purses.
The next day we had to get the train back to Bangkok in the afternoon. It was absolutely beautiful scenery chugging out of Chiang Mai. We ordered dinner on the train, and had about as good a night as you could ask for sleeping on a train. We arrived in Bangkok at 6:30 AM, and got a tuk-tuk to Ko Sahn Road, the tourist area. 3rd time's a charm :)
It was blazingly hot, even at 7 in the morning, so we opted for a hotel with a swimming pool. We got cleaned up and did some errands, but mostly spent the day swimming or reading by the pool, which was really nice!
We spent one night in Bangkok, and the next morning at 8 AM, we got on a bus that was to take us the island of Ko Chang - 7 hours south of Bangkok and near the border of Cambodia.