Day 4- Changing gears: biking in Sri Lanna National Park

Changing gears this morning, we hop on bicycles and cycle right from the resort to the ruggedly beautiful Sri Lanna National Park. We peddle small back roads through real Thai countryside passing through villages, plantations and small farms. Much of the biking is on land following the irrigation channels used to water rice paddies and orchards. I watched farmers picking, watering, planting and harvesting many different types of produce from lemon grass and chiles to garlic and papaya.

We biked about 12 miles to the entrance of the Sri Lanna National Park. We come to a lake where we swap out our bikes for kayaks and shove off for some lake paddling. We kayak about 3 miles to a floating restaurant to enjoy lunch in a gorgeous outdoor setting. There are many floating homes along this river. Most all of them are occupied year round by fishermen. It was strange to see a floating 'neighborhood' with a restaurant and little homes, surrounded by longtail boats and fishing gear. After lunch we paddled back and then return to our bikes and ride a different route back to the hotel. On the way back, we go through a more prosperous village than the ones we'd been traveling through. We stopped outside of a school and watched the boy scouts and girl scouts doing some sort of safety training.

Floating fisherman's village. 

Having a little fun on the lake at lunch.

While biking back to the resort, I realize that biking in Thailand is like being inside a Nintendo game. You jump over ditches, swerve to avoid stray dogs that come at you, dodge motor scooters and cars that speed past you, and to top it all off, I have to remember to stay on the left side of the road!!! You really have to pay attention here!

When we get back to town, I ask my guide to take me to a drug store so I can grab some allergy meds. My allergies are going nuts here in Chiang Mai and I don't want this to turn into a sinus infection! When we walk into the drug store, I ask the lady for some flonase or something of that sort. Obviously, we have a language barrier so when I mimic a cough and sneeze, she immediately hands me a box of ammoxicillin. No wonder there is so much antibiotic resistance! I have a sniffle lady, not a bacterial infection. I write down the names of a few drugs since all the labels seem to have Thai and English on them. She comes back with more antibiotics and some other stuff I've never heard of. After about 20 min of back and forth with some awkward translation from my not-so-fluent driver, I settle on a nasal spray and some cough drops. The woman is laughing and I ask my driver if she's making fun of me. He says yes, she thinks you're a doctor of something and wants your help behind the counter. I smile and told him that I do work in medicine and that's why I was being difficult :-) He laughs and gives a big "OH! that makes sense!" Back at the hotel, I pop a Benadryl and doze off for a solid 12 hours.