The Lai Thai

Our First Guesthouse, originally uploaded by Robbi Baba.

I knew we'd be exhausted on arrival, especially the kids. It was to be an almost 24 hour journey. And we knew it would be hot. Really hot.
So we booked a place that would pick us up at the airport and had a pool. The Lai Thai seemed to fit the bill.

Here's my posting from our first day:

We finally got to our hotel about 6pm local time last night. Ugh. All in all, though it was a horribly long time to be in cramped airliner seats and almost impossible to sleep and it was a little confusing and stressful filling out the visa forms in Bangkok, the trip went without a hitch. The kids did great! What troopers.

Our driver from the Lai Thai hotel was right there with a sign waiting for us. He took us on a harrowing ride through crazy third world traffic to our hotel. That ride was just a blur of weird sights and frightening near misses with scooters.
The motel is a mixed bag. The rooms are much funkier than I imagined, but the big garden area is incredibly lush and pleasant to hang out in. There are fountains and spirit houses and the pool was pretty good this morning.
Last night we went out for a walk to find some bottled water. It was very much like an acid trip, and maybe a bad acid trip. I led us the wrong way it seems and we were in a funky dark smelly part of town with lots of scary traffic and most places closed up (at 7pm?). My guts were all messed up too, probably from the bizarre food on the Asian airlines. We were all wanting that water pretty bad.

We were feeling quite lost and a little scared when we ran into this super friendly gal from Canada. She escorted us into a strange little shop (which looked more like someone's grungy living room) and showed us a cooler with bottled water. 5 bottles for 27 bhat--about 50 cents. She also gave me a little map I've been using today. The first of many Angels we are to meet, I suspect.

The weather has been pretty good today. It was balmy all morning and only a bit hot this afternoon. Not too muggy either. So far Chiang Mai is much much more congested and dirty than I imagined. But we've barely begun to look about. I'm just glad we made it alive.

Note: as of this posting, the room rates at the Lai Thai are about $20 US double occupancy, but they will pick you up at the airport for free. I still think this is a pretty good place to land.