chiang mai, chiang rai

since prolly the worst days of my life on the island of koh tao, god has totally made up for it.  departing the island, i took a boat and a bus back to bangkok and met up with inez again.  we spent a couple of days there then train-ed it to the northern city of chiang mai for songkran, or 'water festival'.  songkran is thai new year and a three day long event where everyone, and i mean EVERYONE, ages ranging from old-enough-to-walk to barely-able-to-walk, was armed with some sort of water projectile thing; squirt guns, super soakers, buckets, you name it, they had it.  so i got a super soaker.  i'm american.

i have never in my life been to a party as big as this.  throughout the whole city (from what i saw) there were camera crews for television stations filming, dj's blasting the worst r&b/hip hop known to man, and thousands and thousands of people running around like chickens with their heads cut off.  i'm surprised i've never even heard about it before.

saved by a starbucks window

at the doors of a mcdonalds there were people waiting for you to leave the restaurant

that was the last time i've partied.

inez had to go back to bangkok cuz her sister was flying in, so i fled to chiang rai to meet up with one of my scuba diving buddies from koh tao, jessica.  the city of chiang rai is pretty similar to chiang mai but there's an 'r' instead of an 'm' in the second part of the name.  ha!  see what i did there??  did you???  ...well, that's what happens when you hang out with only yourself too much.

j/k, chiang rai is awesome and i've been in such great company for the past week.  jessica is from portland and so is her best friend, eric, who is half thai and half white of some kind.  his thai side lives in chiang rai and they invited me to stay with them until i found a place.  from the moment i walked in the door the entire family, especially eric's mom, has been overwhelmingly amazing in every way.  they're letting me stay in a room in the apartment complex they own, they feed me, and they drove me around all day to help me find a muay thai gym (which i eventually did).  it's been awesome.

they took me to two huge landmarks within chiang rai, the 'white temple' and 'black house'.  first was the white temple which the architect has been building for like eight years and he doesn't estimate it to be done until 2070.  it is the most beautiful temple i have ever seen.

the glass made the building super shiny

my favorite part of the temple were the hands that surrounded the bridge, a "walk across hell" feeling

the devil's in the details

this was the bathroom.  seriously.

just as we were leaving a thunderstorm began

the white temple was more aesthetically amazing in person.  i will post more soon, especially on the black house, it was phenomenal.  phenomenally dark...

here's to posting soon!