Dearest Family,
So you may know, but this week started out pretty darn bad. I waited all day Sunday for my host mom to pick me up, and at 10 pm she called and said she wasn't coming too Monday. Luckily, Monday was a holiday (Buddha's Birthday) and for this holiday the entire city of Chiang Mai walks up a mountain to this temple and circle it three times. It has something to do with a legend about an albino elephant walking up that mountain, walking in three circles, and falling down dead. Anyways, so some of the other girls doing internships wanted to go up so of course I had to do it. Who doesn't want to say they walked up a mountain in Thailand?
The four of us started walking at about 11:00 pm and at 12:30 two of the girls decided to go back to the city. I was having a good time so I stuck it out and went to the top. After about 8 miles and three hours Torri and I got to the temple. Then of course there are the famous stairs. Sooo many stairs and sooo many people. It took us 45 minutes just to get up those dumb things.
After seeing the temple and deciding that 3:00 am was a good time for bed, we headed back down. It's hard to believe that there were more people on my way down than on my way up. There were guards directing traffic (both cars and pedestrians). About 1/4 of the way down the mountain Torri and I got separated. I thought we'd both walk around a truck and meet up, but I didn't see her. I waited for 5 minutes and decided that she had just kept going. Oh, I forgot to mention that both of our phones were out of minutes. Bad planning...
After walking another 1/2 hour by myself and feeling like I was going to die at any moment, I said a silent prayer. Literally right when I was done a taxi pulled up and turned around in front of my. I immediately jumped on and took it to the bottom. I got down like an hour later and asked the driver to take me to the place I was staying. He said he had to go and drove back up the mountain to get more people.
There are two kinds of taxis here. Rut Dangs and Tuk Tuks. Rut Dangs are cheap and Tuk Tuks are way expensive. So of course I wanted a rut dang, but they just kept going up and down the mountain, and weren't taking anyone into the city. I asked a Tuk Tuk how much it would be to take me back to the city and they said 350 baht (more than $10). I looked and to my dismay, I only had 140 baht left.
Long story long, Chris came and got me, we found Torri, and I'm safe. Really other than that, nothing else happened this week.
Until Next Time,
Mandy (:
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