Relaxing day in Chiang Mai

I was excited to have a day where nothing was planned so that we could just relax. We slept in a little bit and stayed in the hotel room until check out at noon so that we could book some of the hotels we still needed for Phuket. We then met up with Alyssa and Taya and headed to a wrap place in the old city to grab some lunch. I was super excited about the western breakfast and wrap options and ended up ordering a breakfast wrap and a smoothie. Also, anywhere that has free wifi is always great in my book.

After lunch, everyone wanted to walks round and shop but I was getting sick at looking at the same touristy shops so I headed to Starbucks in hopes of getting coffee and getting some writing done. I tried to order a caramel macchiato but they had different prices listed than they actually charge so it took some back and forth before we agreed upon a size and price. Then after ordering, I came to find out that they charge $150 baht for internet. That is outrageous especially considering every other place we've eaten at has it for free, so I was pretty annoyed. I finished my coffee and headed back to the hotel where I knew I could have internet for free.
Back at the hotel I ran into everyone else who had returned from shopping. I decided to join Jane and Te Tee for a Thai massage since they were only $6 and that is pretty hard to pass up. We tried to find the massage place that Alyssa and Taya had gone to the day before because they had said it was really good, but we couldn't find it. Instead we wandered around for a half hour, pricing different places before finally settling on one that was near our hotel. Jane and I got Thai massages together and Te Tee went upstairs for an oil massage. Jane does not like to be massaged by men, so when our masseuses showed up and she had a man, I switched with her so she would be more comfortable. My masseuse was very strong but the massage seemed a little frantic and didn't really work any of the tightness out of my problem areas. In fact, he spent some time screwing with my joints which I didn't really appreciate. We all left feeling dissatisfied which sucks after you pay for a service.
Following the massage, we met back at the hotel so that we could all go to dinner together. We had gone to "The Black Elephant" restaurant a few times since we got to Chiang Mai, and we'd always liked it so we decided to go back. We seem to always order tons of dishes (we got 9 dishes for 5 people) and Te Tee said that the waitstaff was marveling that we could eat so much (Te Tee speaks Thai and is invaluable when we don't understand what people are saying). We finished dinner and head back to the hotel to collect our bags and get a taxi.
The people working at the hotel said that the best way to get to the airport would be to flag down one of the collective truck taxis that run up and down the streets. We were able to flag a truck down and fit all of our stuff inside it, although Jane was a little worried she might fall out since she was in the back of the truck and there was no door. We arrived early to the airport since it is right in Chiang Mai, so we had some time to hang out and use the free wifi. Our flight left on time and miraculously we were all sitting in the same area although we had booked our flights separately. It was only a 2 hour flight to Phuket and so we arrived just before midnight.
We had to get a taxi to take us from the airport to Phuket Town which was a 35km drive. The taxi buses all wanted 900 baht, which seemed steep to us so we walked around assessing our options. One of the taxi companies within the airport had told us they were running a special that if you purchased your boat travel to the Phi Phi islands with them, you would get the taxi ride to your hotel for free. Since we were headed to the Phi Phi islands the next morning, we thought that might be a good option. Unfortunately since we had already gone outside the airport, we had to rescan all of our bags through the X-ray machines which was a huge pain in the ass. Once back inside, we negotiated a $1000/person rate including two way boat travel and taxi which seemed too good to be true. Come to find out that the earliest ferry boat they had for the following morning would be 11:00am. Considering it would be a couple hours by boat to get there, that we were only there for one night and that the latest return ferry the following day would be at 2:00pm, it didn't really make sense to go with that option. We decided to take our chances finding an earlier ferry and headed back out of the airport. Outside, we began trying to negotiate for a cheaper taxi bus. Now, they wanted $1000 baht and we couldn't understand why the price had gone up. We finally negotiated the price back down to $900 and jumped in our van.
Turns out, this was the best thing that could have happened. Te Tee started asking the driver questions in Thai about how we would get ferry tickets and the driver took us to a travel agent where we were able to buy tickets for the 8:30am ferry the following day. It had been crazy stressful and we were all exhausted but I was happy something finally worked out! We got to the hostel after a 40 minute drive and I was immediately distressed to hear the thunderous party music coming from the two clubs next door. By this point, it was already 1:30am so I didn't figure there was much chance of it stopping any time soon. I could tell Alyssa was upset about it, but really what could we do? I had booked the place so I felt responsible, but its impossible to know the circumstances of a place if someone doesn't write about it in the reviews.
We got up to our rooms, took quick showers and settled into bed. We would have to be up at 6:30am the following morning so we knew we wouldn't have more than 4 hours of sleep. Luckily the beds were comfortable and they did shut the music off just after 2:00am so I was able to fall right to sleep.

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