Chiang Mai

---

Traveling to Chiang Mai, a City in the north of Thailand, we decided to treat ourselves and take a flight from Phuket rather than endure a bumpy and tiresome bus/minibus journey. Our boat to Phuket cost 250baht each. Upon arrival in Phuket harbour we were accosted by a number of minibus drivers willing to take you to Phuket airport, which is a little way outside the main town area, for seemingly extortionate amounts (particularly as we would be rounded up and crammed into a minibus like cattle!). Given our new found confidence in our bargaining ability, we decided to chance our arm at trying to flag a cab down and get them to take us to the airport for far less than they had ever taken because we were clearly special and different to every other traveling fool that has ever set foot in Phuket. We weren't different however, and needless to say, finding someone who would bow to our demands was easier said than done. After walking maybe a mile in the searing heat we came across a small family who had a car which was reason enough to assume that they could take us somewhere. We asked if they could take us to either the airport or the bus station for a small fee...they didn't understand us and we didn't understand them, but we made a good fist of trying to brazen it out and somehow wound up in a minibus with a strange man who seemed insistent on taking us to a taxi company, who would charge us the same as the minibus drivers at the port. We were insistent that we didn't want this to happen and rather forcefully declared that he should take us to the bus station and stop f**king around or words to similar effect. We paid the shifty bugger 50baht each, more out of relief to arrive at the bus station than anything else. The local bus then cost us a whopping 86baht, as opposed to the 200 each we would have paid at the harbour. Although short lived, it was a moral victory; Dog boys of Asia 1, Phuket Minibus Mafia 0. Our flight with Air Asia, booked through sky scanner, cost around 2,500 baht or 50quid.

We landed in Chiang Mai, which was a surprisingly pleasant looking airport and shared a taxi with a girl who was traveling to the centre of town also. The cab from the airport was a fixed price of 120baht to anywhere in town, so we just split the cost four ways.

We were dropped off at our guesthouse, Gwon Kaew, which cost us 280baht a night each for a very pleasant room, free toast and jam, internet and beers or other drinks whenever we wanted (provided we wrote down what we had on a piece of paper at the front desk, which was unsupervised...fool proof system if you ask me!). On our first night we decided to venture out to grab some very local food at a place called Self cook for healthy living. We thought that a restaurant with a name as catchy as that has to be good, so we sat down and began to order our "cook it yourself" cuisine; we ordered far too much veg, some teriyaki chicken and assorted beef which was all cooked by our own hands on our table which comprised of a hot plate and steam cooker. The food tasted good and was insanely cheap so would thoroughly recommend to anyone who has ample time but far less ample funds.

Whilst in Chiang Mai we scouted around the town centre, bumbled our way through the day market and stumbled across the fresh fruit and vegetable market. There wasn't really anything of any use to us here, unless we wanted some andidads or noike apparel. We didn't. We headed to the night market later on, taking a red song taew which is always 20baht to anywhere within the city centre. Here we found
excellent copies of just about anything...this is where the addiction seemed to start; we found an excellent little stall which sold a range of obscure and more currently relevant football shirts cheaper than anywhere else, which went from the sublime to the ridiculous - We purchased Gibbo a very nice Argentina replica, complete with "Messi 10" on the back (we were feeling nice as it had been his birthday)...I on the other hand was bought a 3 season old Birmingham City away shirt. Thankfully, the only saving grace was that I didn’t have the name "Zigic" on the back (for anyone not following football, he is not very good)! We then indulged in evermore miscellaneous team strips. Jake now supports Bangkok Glass and Togo, whereas as Gibbo and I have been swayed towards the expansive attacking style adopted by Chon Buri FC, although there will always be a soft spot in my heart for TOT FC.

The next day we headed to the "best Thai Cooking School" where we met our chef/teacher. He was an odd chap, with an odd sense of humour but to his credit he was certainly a showman. He took us around the Vegetable market where we learnt about how to propose to your girlfriend using the humble morning glory plant which is used in a vast number of Thai dishes, how to choose a good egg from a bad egg and then how to choose a good egg, or bad egg from a horse pee egg; horse pee eggs are painted pink to differentiate them from the rest to avoid nasty surprises. They are so named as they are fermented underground and smell terrible but are a delicacy in these parts...hmmm. The cooking school was great and we learnt how to make some traditional favourites such as Tom Yum soup, Banana fritters, Pad Thai (an inexpensive noodle and tofu dish), and a Panang Curry. With our stomachs as full and our brains nourished with new found culinary knowledge we headed back to the night market for our fix of football memorabilia, having established that the Thai boxing arena we wanted to go to had closed because of a fire.

In the morning we headed to a nearby-ish temple which sits proudly atop a huge mountain overlooking Chiang Mai. The temple itself was impressive and gold clad, providing some awesome panoramic views of the city below, although the heat haze did limit visibility somewhat and did not make for good photo snapping conditions. On this trip to the temple, we met a chap called Guippo, who was full of interesting if not wholly verifiable stories including tales of machete wielding in Korea where he was teaching English as a second language, to drug smuggling in the dreadlocks he used to have. Regardless of whether he was delusional, bullied at school for being fat and felt the need to grab peoples attention to make up for years of hurt and neglect in search for acceptance or just had a general disregard for honesty and decency, he certainly didn't allow the truth to get in the way of a good story. We also met a Canadian lad, who introduced us to the idea of being able to blow up random bovine in Cambodia. We instantly dismissed this as bollocks, but still the tripe kept coming...the terminally ill were next on this kid's list of "things" you could blow up if you had the right sort of money. Despite his protests to the contrary I told him he was talking shit and stopped listening to him.

Later that evening we hit the much talked about Sunday Market. This was the biggest market I had ever seen, and whilst it seemed almost impossible to differentiate between what the different stalls were selling, you couldn't help but admire the sheer scale of the operation. There were more people than you could possibly count and even more nats, which congregated in their thousands by the street lights which illuminated the market.

It is worthy of note that there were plenty of other activities in and around Chiang Mai which we didn't participate in such as Xorbing, Gokarting and Zip lining and it is certainly a good place to be if outdoor adventuring is your thing. We did not feel as though we were missing much as we had had the privilege of staying in Khao Sok but Chiang Mai could be considered a viable alternative if you are going to spending any significant time in the north.

Pressed for time as our visa was coming to an abrupt end, we paid 169baht to get a bus to Chiang Rai where we literally squeezed ourselves onto a tiny red bus (65baht) which took us to the Thai-Laos border at Chang Khong. A final journey from the drop off to the river crossing cost us a dollar. Any future travelers heading into Laos from Thailand need to know that you must retain your landing card from your initial point of entry into Thailand as the Thai customs at the border will try to charge you money to "verify" the legitimacy of your claims with the airport. If you do happen to lose it, get a photocopy of your passport for 10baht at the newsagents just up the road from the customs office, you will save yourself 90baht by not paying the border authorities to photocopy it for you themselves. The photocopy will be sent to the airport to confirm that you are leaving the country. The river boat to cross into Laotion territory cost us 40baht each and the Laos 30day visa set us back $35 US and we incurred an additional charge for arriving at the Laos border after 4pm, clearly this is when they would love to clock off!

This would be the last we would see of Thailand for a while. We were now in Laos!

---