Arrived in Chiangers

Erin and I have safely and successfully arrived in Chiang Mai after what was one of the least painful crossings of the Pacific I have ever pulled off. Hooray for scientific drinking! I never got anywhere near drunk, but I never had any trouble falling asleep when I needed to.

The layover in Bangkok involved very little laying. In fact, it involved a fair bit of running. We couldn't check our luggage through, so we had to clear immigration, wait for our oversized bike boxes (photos to come), clear customs (who were satisfied after asking a one-word question: "Bikes?"), get through the airport with our ridiculous burden of 180 pounds of bikes, bike boxes and luggage, and then check into our flight to Chiang Mai all in a span of 80 minutes. I'm pretty sure our flight was late because they were waiting for our bikes to get onto the plane.

But we made it, and we're in the pink. We've checked into a hotel that offers extremely reasonable weekly and monthly rates (think $250 a month) and we've already got our bikes unpacked and reassembled. They appear to be in excellent shape. Just seeing my beautiful bike in Thailand was enough to give me butterflies. I can't tell you how excited I am to get out there and tear-ass among the rice paddies.

I'm not sure when the cycling is going to start, though. We'd been here in Chiang Mai, in the dry season, for no more than an hour when the sky opened up and unloaded a foot of rain. We were exhausted but we were starving, so we went out in the rain and got completely soaked looking for a restaurant. Our wanderings actually involved a fair bit of wading. The drainage here isn't exactly awesome.

We found some amazing food, had a couple of beers, and at about 6 PM Erin declared that she was feeling fine and she'd be able to stay awake until at least 9 o'clock. She was in bed by 7:30. I lasted maybe another hour.

So Erin's been up since 3 AM. I lasted in bed for maybe another hour. We're both starving, but I'm sure that nowhere we could get breakfast is open yet. It's going to take another day or two to adjust.

Oh, and it's still raining. I won't be surprised if there are gondoliers going up and down the streets when we get out there.