44-Back in the Land of Smiles!

Yes, I landed in Bangkok on July 4th & it's good to be back in the Kingdom of Thailand. My travel plans are to stay in Thailand for perhaps 3 months(will have to leave every 30 days to do border 'visa runs') & also visit Cambodia for a month & possibly northern Myanmar. I have a return flight to Taiwan around Christmas & hope to do some subbing work & help out with the first Taiwan Rainbow Gathering. That's 6 months down the road though & for now I'm content in the Land of Smiles.
I didn't stay long in Bangkok but took an uncomfortable overnight Bus ride up north to the city of Chiang Mai. My favorite guest house is now listed in Lonely Planet & is way too crowded so I ended up finding a nearby room with a private bath for only 150baht(about 32=$1us) It wasn't a great choice as the nearby Disco blasted it's hideous drum and bass 'THUMP-THUMP-THUMP" from 11pm-4am! It did inspire me to write a letter to the local paper as I felt sorry for residents there(Also to buy some earplugs!)
CM is a nice city with wonderful crafts & clothing at the nightly & weekend markets where they shut the streets down in a section of the 'old city' It also has nice vegetarian restaurants like 'AUM' and of course, numerous places to experience a full-body(fully clothed) thai massage(only 150bt!) I needed the massages as I had two fevers my first week in Thailand. Perhaps from lack of sleep my first 2 nights or eating some street vendor food in Bangkok but whatever it was I'm fine now. An old friend is flying into CM on the 18th to spend time together & get some inexpensive, quality dental work done so I've decided to leave the city & head up the mountains to the village of Pai.