The last week in Chiang Mai was special for me because a dear friend of mine, Živa, came! I was so happy because she took the time and energy and stepped out of her comfort zone as she took her first long distance flight, alone :)! I gave her the instructions to get to the apartment but actually wanted to surprise her and I waited for her at the airport. I was so nervous while waiting for her to pick up the luggage, overwhelmed with emotions. She almost went pass me but at the last minute her confusing eyes changed into a smiley ones :)! I was so happy she came just one day before my birthday, it meant a lot to me to have her there. Not that I wanted to do something special but just to spend it with a close person. And after the best birthday gift ever (the video I mentioned in the beginning) I spent the day pretty slow and nice. I ate good fruit, a delicious mango and cilantro smoothie and had great spring rolls and green curry at Bodhi Tree. In the afternoon I relaxed and took a bath with candles and ate a delicious raw vegan brownie :). In the evening we went to the rooftop and danced like crazy for quite a while, it was so fun :). It was such a nice day that I didn't even have the need to have a beer :)! The first days were very nice and lazy - we slept a lot, talked so much that one time it was just a little over 11 o'clock in the evening when the staff came to ask us to keep it down :). And yeah, we can babble quite a lot and we also laughed like crazy, we had to keep up with a lot of things as we didn't see each other for quite a while! Just the day Živa came it started to rain and cool down so that's why we spent the first two days mostly in the bed, and the third day we also spent in the bed as we both got a bit sick. Probably it was the dinner (I ate an amazing mango curry:)), we ate too much and also we talked too much about everything so a lot of emotions came out and it was a bit overwhelming for both of us. And then it stopped raining and we felt better but we spent so much time just laying around that we both kind of got a bit nervous - me because I didn't do as much of Tai Chi training and research I had hoped for and had to work a lot more on my blog. And Živa because she wanted to experience more of Thailand that just the inside of an amazing apartments :)! But travelling means also spending quite some time researching places to visit and we had to do a lot of this as the first idea was to do kitesurfing and windsurfing and also see tea plantations and some other interesting things.
Travelling alone is much different then doing it with somebody. When I travel alone I sometimes make up my mind in the morning where to go. Sometimes this is also possible while there are more people but the most important thing is to tell one another about the wishes and plans one has. Because it can easily come to misunderstandings and tensions which are normal while travelling. A lot of times plans don't turn out the way you anticipated so it can be disappointing if you have too much expectations. And where there are more people involved, one influences another, which sometimes is good and sometimes not so much. My problem was that I didn't take enough time just for myself and work on the things I really wanted to - especially Tai Chi and this blog. But it was hard because I wanted to spend a lot of time with my friend and wanted her to have the amazing holidays! But sometimes by wanting too much I didn't do enough for myself and that was a mistake. But I have learnt my lesson :).
For two days we rented a car and went to Ban Rak Thai, lovely tea plantations close to the Burmese border which we both fell in love with just by seeing the photographs of it. As I had been living for more than a month on the left side of the road, I drove the car first as I was already used to driving on the left side. But the problem was driving an automatic car, which I had no experience with. It was really hard until I realised that it is the same as driving a stick, just that the left leg is kind of useless as there is no clutch. Soon I realised it was a big mistake to use the right leg for the gas and the left leg for the break as it meant breaking really really quickly (because the left leg is used to quickly press the clutch), one Thai guy was looking at me weird like"Crazy woman behind the wheels":))! And then it was easy:)! I had a good navigator who had to be aware of the road conditions all the time. The road to Pai is not just extremely winding but also full of road works which meant that a lot of times there was only one lane and without warning I had to drive on the opposite side of the road and just hoping that no one will come in the opposite direction. Luckily there wasn't that much traffic and although people drive like crazy (3 cars in a 2 lane road) they are also very aware of the cars and drive actually quite good. On the way there we stopped at Pai Canyon for a snack and later we had lunch at one road stop with a view. We bought a lot of food on the JJ market and I ate delicious sweet mangoes with black sticky rice inside of a coconut (homemade lunch :)), I ate a bit too much so after driving for about 4 hours we switched and this time I was the navigator. We still had to lift quite high and the last 20 kilometres were even more winding and very steep, but the views were amazing. Finally, just before the sunset, we arrived at the lovely village, found a nice bungalow, dressed a lot as it got really fresh in the nights and walked around the village, got some dinner and crashed soon. In the morning the view of the little lake under the tea plantations, which were just across our bungalow, was amazing. We walked around and really enjoyed the scenery and did a lot of tea tasting as Živa wanted to buy a lot of tea for home, and she did, over 1,5 kilos, I am glad they didn't arrest her for smuggling:)! Well surely we had to try all the different teas that she wanted to buy which wasn't the smartest idea just before heading to a 7 hour drive mostly on a winding road. I didn't have the best feeling before I got in the the car and later I felt really bad in my stomach and also my head was very dizzy, I hope that was just normal tea and not some other stuff as we were kind of close to the Golden triangle :). So the road back wasn't the sweetest for me, we stopped just for food break in Pai and were kind of in a hurry as Živa really wanted to see the Sticky waterfalls. Well we made it just before the sunset and the shower there was so amazing as I really needed to cool my head. And it was funny walking on the stones in the waterfalls that aren't slippery :). Well after we found the gas station while for the second time had been driving for quite some time one the red gas light (on the almost empty tank) we arrived in Chiang Mai, exhausted but happy with the trip we had made.
We had one more day in Chiang mai which we spent getting a massage, eating delicious fruit and buying the last things needed. I said "See you later" to Marina, Martin and David and I met one girl from Slovenija who lives here and works for one nonprofit organisation and the next morning it was time to go to the sea :).