Walking home in the rain

There is something intensely satisfying about walking in the rain. I arrived in Chiang Mai, in Northern Thailand, today, and I've already fallen in love with the city. I got a bed in a dorm room (with no other occupants) for $3 per night and dropped off my things then hit the city. Within 10 minutes, I had already talked to Tony, from Vienna, Austria, who was extremely helpful, and four women who were working in an NGO down the street from my hotel who have invited me to visit a few places with them. One of them is from Santa Rosa and another from San Leandro, California. Small world!

The night market is amazing, with everything you could possibly want of Thailand and more. I passed several western food places charging fairly high prices and wondered why someone would go there, when in the night market you can visit a food stall and have freshly made curry or Pad Thai for $1 or less. I guess they must have a large Indian population because they sell a lot of Indian food, roti, naan, etc. I decided not to buy anything and was pleasantly surprised that I was allowed to browse without someone saying "you buy something?" over and over. I love Vietnam, but the sellers in the stores and markets can be a little too much at times. Apparently the real time to buy is during the Sunday night market when the locals buy things. The market I went to today is for tourists. I'm definitely staying through the weekend to experience that!

I found a great place for a 30 minute foot massage combined with a 30 minute back/shoulder/head massage for less than $5. It was heavenly. I will be enjoying many more of those in the weeks to come. I discovered it had started raining when I came out of the massage, but after 3 months of being hot most of the time, the rain was a wonderful respite from the heat. I decided to walk back to my hostel. Just because. It's a wonderfully liberating experience to decide what I want to do and just do it. I love traveling with other people too, but sometimes it's nice to have the option to set my own itinerary and decide what I want to do based on how I'm feeling that day. I think I could get used to this.