Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai was great. It was alot more laidback than Bangkok which was exactly what we needed after a few days there. We stayed in a nice little hotel in the old city which was literally right next door to one of the bigger temples. It was really nice and the staff were really friendly.

We spent about half a day walking round and looking at the temples but to be honest at this point we were feeling a bit templed-out, and really alot of them look exactly the same. Got a few good pictures nonetheless. We got hit by rain a few times in Chiang Mai - it's quite strange, you get an hour or so where it rains really, really heavily and then ten minutes later it has cleared and is roasting hot again.

The next day we went and did a cooking course which was loads of fun. We cooked 6 dishes in total which were all really good. Our teacher was a really funny camp Thai guy called Pong. He made it a really fun day and we got a cookbook at the end with everything in, so i'll hopefully be able to show some of you my skills when I get back - the biggest probelm will be finding alot of the ingredients which we picked up fresh from local markets. When we cooked the stir fry we had to add the water to the oil which sets all the oil on fire so there was about 3 feet of fire flying out the pan - utterly terrifying (got some good videos for later). There was far too much food to go around so we took loads of it home too which the hotel heated up for us at night. Good times.

That night we went to see some Thai boxing (Muay Thai). We had wanted to go in Bangkok but the tickets were a bit too much (40 pounds each), here they were only about 8 pounds so we gave it a go. The night was pretty good, the first few fights were with what seemed to be really young children which felt a little bit wrong, but things picked up. The main fight was between an American and a Thai (billed as 'international war'). The American won. The highlight though was definitely the 'special fight'.  Was absolutely ridiculous, and stupid but they put four Thai boxers in the right at once, blindfolded them, and them let them loose on each other. It was just carnage, the ref took quite a few blows too. No photos but we got a god video which I will try to upload at some point.

The day after that we visited the Elephant Park (loads of photos up). The day was really great, spent the morning learning about the Mahout (elephant riders), and learning some commands in Thai. We practiced these out on the elephants and spent a bit of time feeding them and such. After some lunch we headed out on a trek with the elephants. We were riding them bareback which was a little uncomfortable at times but great fun. It ended up with us heading to the river to wash the elephants and generally having a bit of a water fight.

Our last day ended up with us having quite alot of bits to sort out and some shopping to do (a trip to Boots before Laos). We planned to go up to another temple which was on top of a big hill (apparently with a great view), but the rain got in the way of that one. That night we got Thai massages which was absolute bliss - we wanted to go back for another one in the morning before our bus journey but unfortunately they weren't open in time. We had a quick look around the night market and then headed back to get a good nights sleep before the journey ahead.

The plan: 10am Saturday leave Chiang Mai for Chiang Khong (about 6 hours). Travel across the border into Huay Xai, Laos. Stay the night. 10am leave on the slowboat to Luang Prabang - this takes two days in total with an overnight stay at Pakbeng, arrive in LP at around 5pm on Monday. Things didn't quite turn out that way though.....


Check the Andreya Triana album out. She's great, does the vocals on the latest Bonobo album, but here solo stuff is great too.