Chiang Mai Thai

Hello friends, I forgot to mention that I have never seen the movie "Finding Nemo." This led me to be chastised by my fellow divers. The movie was referenced regularly during our dive briefings, when we were told what marine life we could expect to see during our dive. I didn't even know what kind of fish Nemo was! Now I do. We saw lots and lots of Nemos.
It's officially been 5 nights since I've slept in a bed that didn't double as a vehicle. I was on the VIP bus to Bangkok last night, which is not a terrible way to travel. The seats were wide and chairs recline most of the way back. I was able to sleep most of the night. Also, dinner was included. We stopped at 8:30 at a giant restaurant. We sat down at tables for 6 and at family style with complete strangers. I thought it was cool, and something you'd never see at home. Only problem with the bus: we got to Bangkok at 5:30 am. I could've used a couple more hours of sleep. I went straight from the bus station to the airport, where I waited for 6 hours till my flight took off. This sounds like a pain, but it was good I scheduled the flight to Chiang Mai for so late--I'd forgotten that you can't fly for 24 hours after diving or you risk getting an embolism mid-flight as the nitrogen seeps out of your system. You have to give your body time to off-gas sufficient nitrogen so that you don't arrive dead at your destination. Luckily, we stopped diving at 11 am yesterday.
I'm finding the act of getting myself from one place to another excessively tedious. I think I need to get over this. It is a fact of travel.
Also, for some reason the idea of Bangkok is overwhelming to me. Why? Unknown. I've already been in several other large Asian cities. Why should Bangkok be all that different?
I'm currently in Chiang Mai and back in backpacker-central. It reminds me a little bit of Hue in Vietnam--mostly because there's a moat around the old city like in Hue. Things seem pretty laid back here. I'm planning to take some cooking classes (I will try and learn to make a papaya salad as delicious as Mo's papaya salad--Mo, we can make papaya salad together on my return!). I can also take a class on batik-making for a day. This also sounds like fun to me. I'm going to try and chill for a couple days and sleep off the excitement of seeing a shark. Maybe I'll also have a look at some elephants.
Lots of people come to Chiang Mai to do treks into ethnic minority hill tribes (like I did in Sapa, Vietnam). I think I may pass on the trekking for now and focus on cooking and wandering and elephants. And getting to Laos.
I fly out of Bangkok on March 11 to Kathmandu (I think the Cat Stevens song will be stuck in my head for the entirety of my visit to Nepal).
Basic plan until then:
-hang out in Chiang Mai, learn to cook some delicious food
-make may way into Laos, get to Luang Phabang via the Mekong river; hang out there for a couple days at least
-go to some other cool places in Laos
-go to Vientienne
-go back to Bangkok--hang out in Bangkok for 5 or 6 days to complete last-minute SE Asia shopping, pick up my plane tickets, arrange my visa for India
Friends, I uploaded more photos for your viewing enjoyment. Unfortunately, my camera does not work underwater, so I can't show you any cool marine life.
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/laurenemilywinter27/