Pad Thai, Chiang Mai & Muay Thai

  Sa wat dii everyone and greetings from Thailand.  Thailand is a Kingdom in South East Asia that looks like the head of an elephant, with enough imagination, oh and minus the tusks.  The money is Bath, pronounced bot, and its 33 bath to the dollar.  Its a 15 hour time difference from California, which means add three hours, change the date, and change the little am/pm symbol; the only bummer is that I can't watch sports, then report to you who won the games early so we could make money betting, I still don't understand why, but its some kind cleaver trick the sports companies pulled.  The Thai people are great, very chilled out, friendly, actually the entire country almost has a SC vibe.  Though I was skeptical of the food, I was pleasantly surprised about how good it is.  Pad Thai is what I usually order, but I have yet to have something that I didn't like. 
  We flew in to Bangkok on the fourth of January, and were headed North, but Nima came down with a fever on the 6th so we hunkered down in our mellow little teak jungle house, away from the noise of the city.  Nima soon got well and we got to visit with Nimas family friend Greg, who comes here once a year, so his advise was great.  We saw some of the sites and went to a great weekend market, where I got a hat, yep a cowboy hat.
  We bailed out of Bangkok, and headed north, to Sukhothai, near Suk Weing, just down from the river Muinch Poon.  This little village was once the capitol of the first Thai Kingdom, and is riddled with old shrines, and ancient Buddhas.  We rented bicycles and rode through town.  It was cool to see such old monuments in peoples front yards being used to dry clothed, or beef jerky in some cases.  Here we stayed in a Bamboo Bungalow where we were able to download Machete, the best movie ever, staring Danny T. 
  After a couple of days we met up with a Spaniard, a German, and an Indian American; not to be confused with the American Indian, on the way to Chiang Mai.  Our party of five rented motor scooters and we headed out of town to the Temple on the Mount, where we climbed the Dragon Steps to the top of this jungle temple.  In retrospect I wish I had a slinky, that would have been great.  On the way down we checked out the waterfall and headed to get Falafel.  That night we met up with our old friend from London, Jamyang, at a Muay Thai boxing match, which was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.  It's like a very respectful dance sort of fight with kicking.  The music and the mood are great, we sat ringside at the blue corner where we watched the men gambling, shouting and drinking.  The women who fight are nuts, not the type of girl you want to mess with on the buss, unless your not a fan of your teeth.  Mid way through the matches, they stopped and four fighters entered the ring, were blindfolded, and proceeded to punch the crap out of each other for about ten minutes,with total disregard for the ref, who managed to dodge most of the blows.  All of this while disco lights flashed.  It was the best comedy I have seen in years.  
  So here we are in Chiang Mai on the down low till Nima overcomes her next little sickness.  She's all good, its just that the medication makes her feel a bit crappy.  We are stationed at this great little reggea bar called the Freedom Bar where they are currently blastin some Marley right outside our window, so nice.  We are headed to Pai next.  Well everyone, I hope the winter finds you well and where sleeping bears lie make sure to set your phone to silent.