Life as a Local in Syros, Greece

Travel to Chiang Mai –

I believe our bus driver was formerly a NASCAR driver; he constantly weaved through traffic on multi-lane highways and never hesitated to pass on two lane roads even with oncoming traffic bearing down on us.  

The bus from Nakhon Sawan to Chiang Mai was very comfortable – much more so than the one we took down to Chumphon for scuba diving.  There was enough space between the rows of seats that you could lean your seat back without crowding the person behind you. For the 7 hour trip, a ticket was 333 baht (or $9.50) a piece.  It was a double decker and Jeanette and I had front row seats on the second level. 

Day 1 in Chiang Mai –

The first whole day that we were in Chiang Mai was more of a lazy day.  We spent time looking at the many different things to do and exploring Old Towne Chiang Mai.  After booking zip lining and a cooking school for days 3 and 4, we decided to rent a scooter (for 200 baht) that evening to go on our self-guided day-trip for day 2.  The hostel owner was pretty nervous (and rightfully so) for us because we both admitted that we had no experience on scooters.  It was a scary day…

We did test out the scooter that first night by driving to a nearby night market.  I was the driver with Jeanette holding on sitting behind me.  The whole time I was driving, I chanted inside my head “left side of the road, left side of the road”.  To increase my anxiety, we came across one road where the rule changed – they drove on the right-side (but we only found this on the one road).  

Day 2 in Chiang Mai –

The next day, we started our trip early to avoid checkpoints at the exits of Old Towne, and for lighter traffic on the roads.  The start went smoothly, and we reached a top speed of 50 km/hr which we both agreed was too fast and decided 40 km/hr was plenty fast enough for everyone.    

Our first stop was the Mae Sa Waterfall.  It was a nice hike with 10 levels to it.  It is near the end of the dry season now so the falls were not very large, but it still was a beautiful place.  

The second stop was an elephant care center where elephants go after retirement.  The oldest elephant there was 91 years old – see if you can guess which one that is.  Another elephant they called “Lady-boy” because he was a male without tusks – the workers really got a kick out of this.  I think I enjoyed feeding them more than Jeanette; she was a little nervous when she was close to them.  

The third stop was the botanical gardens.  They were amazing but we were squeezing too much in before lunch and I was getting hungry so we kind of rushed through it. 

This one of Jeanette was on the canopy walk. It was hard to capture how cool it was in photos, but the walk was probably 100 feet high.

The last stop of the day trip was a small town in the top of a mountain (or hill) called Mon Cham…and finally had lunch.  Jeanette’s biggest regret on the trip was not ordering the lemon cheesecake slice in addition to the passion fruit slice she is showing off here.  

After an awesome lunch and walk through their gardens, we decided to start heading back – the bike had to be returned by 7:30, and it was about 4:00 at this time.  Heading down the mountain was a lot scarier than going up. After the worst of it was behind us, we decided to stop for a bit to settle our nerves.  Jeanette jumped off, and I went to park the scooter.  When I tried to turn going to slowly, it fell over and I nearly slid into a fruit smoothie stand.  My main injury was to my pride, but I had a bit of a bruised hip and a scraped shoulder too.  I decided to have a cheer-me-up smoothie (I felt like I owed it to the stand anyway for nearly crashing into it).    

With our fears of the scooter renewed, we decided to try again and head home.  It was a tense ride, and we stopped about every 10 minutes so I could dry my sweaty hands and for Jeanette to calm her nerves.  After about 3 and a half hours, we traveled the 15 miles (from Google maps, but I swear it felt 5 times that) to get back to the hostel.  We were safe at last and only 4 minutes late on our bike rental return. 

…. And my shoulder is fine.  No need to worry, Mom.