Lampang

The next morning we began our trip to Lampang. It was a four hour bus ride from Sukhothai in another "charter" public bus. It was slow and there was no Thai movie to keep us occupied. Luckily I did not need to use the restroom on our pit stop this time. I made sure to remain dehydrated until we got to our stop. When we arrived in Lampang, we had the option of riding around the town in a horse and cart, but everyone was too tired and hot so we had two hours to kill before our traditional Thai massage. Somehow, by the grace of God, during this brief window of time was when my stomach finally failed me. I don't know what caused it but I was just glad that didn't happen while I was on the bus or while I was getting my two hour massage. At least if I'm going to be sick, I have great timing.

Our Thai massage began at 4pm. They met us in our room. My roommate was excited because she had had a few fantastic massages in the south before our tour started. I was looking forward to it, although I couldn't imagine how you could get a massage for 2 hours. Apparently there was a miscommunication regarding the difference between a traditional Thai massage and a traditional Spa massage. I was anything but relaxed. My limbs were tossed around like a contortionist and I'm pretty sure there were bruises all over my body. The woman was standing on my bed yanking on my leg, stepping on my thigh, and flinging my arms and legs in directions they are not supposed to go. Having your inner thigh stepped on is not comfortable. The women kept making phone calls and answering phone calls as well. Upon further investigation we found out that all of the women were doing this in the other rooms as well so we determined they were talking about the reactions of everyone while they were massaging them. I managed to keep it together most of the time, but it sounded like the other groupmates had a harder time, yelling and crying out seemed to be common. We are pretty sure that someone just let a group of random women into our hotel to beat us up for two hours and then get paid for it.

That evening we went to the Riverside Pub which I recommend to anyone visiting Lampang. Gorgeous view of the river, and great food, both Thai and American. There was also a live band that took requests, as long as you requested an American 70s soft rock anthem.

One of my group mates requested "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus but it didn't happen. Lots of cheap drinks and lots of singing took place before we headed back to the hotel that night.