We tried to research the quickest way to get to northern Thailand from Inle Lake because we were directly across the border. However, we couldn’t find a good way to cross via land, so we decided to take the overnight bus (yes another!) back to Yangon in hopes we’d have better luck catching flights. We arrived in Yangon after 12 hours and took a taxi to the airport. We didn’t have a flight, but we hoped to catch one back to Bangkok. The first several airlines turned us down—one even saying that the internet was down for the entire airport, and they couldn’t issue a paper ticket (and it could be down sometimes three hours or three days, so we’d just have to wait). Finally we found a small airline called Nok Air that was able to issue a paper ticket and get us on a flight to Bangkok within the hour. At Bangkok, we went through the same process, and we ended up going with Nok Air again (gotta love Nok Air). We flew to Chiang Mai (northern Thailand) and arrived in town by 2:00 PM. I thought this was impressive since we were just in Inle Lake the night before with no transportation booked. Twelve hours of bus and two flights later, we made it. We didn’t have a place to stay in Chiang Mai, so we had our taxi driver Bobo take us to the one that Lonely Planet recommended the most. It was full, but they recommended the place next door. It was cheap ($6 night) with air conditioning, so we took it. Bobo was selling his taxi services hard core, so we took his card in case we decided we needed him. That afternoon we discovered the wonderful world of hour long $6 massages and great Thai food.  I realized very quickly that Chiang Mai is a place that I could stay for quite awhile. The size of the city is just right. The old city is surrounded by a mote and walls. The food is amazing, the people are friendly, and of course the ability to afford daily massages is a major perk. Over the next five days, Alicia and I enjoyed visiting night and day markets, temples, yoga (first time!), massages, Muay Thai/Thaphae Boxing matches (and a class for Alicia), cabaret show, seeing tigers, snakes, monkeys, orchid gardens, and watching the World Cup. We also took a day long cooking class where I made papaya salad, sweet and sour prawn soup, green curry, pad thai, and mango sticky rice. I had a blast. They gave us a cookbook, so I’m going to replicate it at home.