October 17 - Thailand: Chiang Mai

We did practically nothing today.  The days of sightseeing and traveling and stuff has caught up with us, and all we wanted to do today was sit around and read our books.  There was a little bit of activity, but mostly it was a relaxing day in our room.  Jon went for a run in the morning, so here's what he has to say about that:

Jon Goes for another run around Old Chiang Mai (special appearance by Jon:  run #14)

My last run around the old city was so nice, I decided to try it again.  I noticed that once I got outside it was a bit misty out, which I figured would keep the heat away for a bit.  Wouldn't you know it, I hadn't been running for three minutes when it starts to rain harder and harder.  It didn't actually pour, but it was a constant rain.  At least it wasn't as hot as it could have been.  Just as I finish my run the rain completely stopped and it became a sunny day.  I swear the weather here is just like Florida!

We went for lunch at Jerusalem Falafel, which was just as good and as inexpensive as it was yesterday.  We walked around the furniture market for a few minutes, admiring the lovely teak furniture but then we went back to the hotel for more relaxation.

For dinner, we went to the night market, where we walked around looking at the stalls and bought a few t-shirts to get us through the next months.  We had dinner at a little place in the back of the market with outdoor tables.  I don't know if it had a name, but there were a lot of locals there so it must be good - and it was.

Random Ruminations

To make up for our lack of culture today, here are few random ruminations:

• Ice Cream Vehicles: Throughout our travels, we have seen a number of strange ice cream vehicles - similar to the ice cream trucks of our childhoods - but not.  On the Red Sea, we saw an ice cream boat, which pulled up to our scuba boat selling ice cream for an absurd amount of money.  In Vietnam, we saw Ice Cream Bike which played silly XMas music and road all over town.  We saw an Ice Cream Bi-ped in China, which was a guy walking around selling ice cream.  We've also seen an Ice Cream Dolly - a guy selling ice cream which he wheeled around on a dolly.  And today we saw an Ice Cream Sidecar, which was a guy on a motorcycle selling ice cream out of the side car.  These are all interesting to us, although I can't rationally explain why.  But we find it all very amusing and it's turned into a sort of game.
• Geckos: Asia has geckos.  Everywhere.  They don't bother me at all, in fact I welcome them because they eat bugs.  I just find it noteworthy that they're everywhere.  It's not uncommon to look up and see little Geckos on the roofs of restaurants, the walls of Internet Cafes, and especially in our bathrooms (they like humidity).  But what's funny is that some little animal was making quite a loud chirping noise in our bathroom last night.  I can't figure that these little geckos really make that much noise, but whatever it was eventually left and continued on it merry way.