Snakes!

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We decided to have a nice chill out morning as that afternoon we were to be traveling up to Chiang Mai. we took a walk around the city and decided to pay a visit to a snake farm in Bangkok. Unfortunately as it was still the Buddhist holiday the farm was only open until 1pm and the usual show of extracting the venom was cancelled. Although this would have been brilliant to actually see. On the way to the snake farm a man stopped us and asked us where we were going. He seemed like a lovely, helpful Thai man and was interested in what we wanted to see and do. He recommended the snake farm but warned us that it might be closed.

On the way back we called into a Thai silk shop called John Thompson, to get some silk for Conors mum. The amount of bags, clothes and silk they had! It was such a beautiful shop, although not as cheap as we once thought it would be. We had a look around, Conor bought a top and we left.

Then again the same man who was there before was still walking on the same street, now even 50m since we last saw him about 2 hours previous. At this stage it clicked with me that maybe he was trying to get us to take a ride in his taxi of even tuk-tuk. He asked how the snake farm was and where we were off to now and when we said we were going to take a walk around China town he told us not to as there was nothing to see. Asked to see our map and said to us to go to a tailor that was out of the city as it was the best tailor around. That also made me think that he wasn't to be trusted as on the map it looked to be in the middle of no-where. Right enough after giving us directions and writing the names of the shops on a page he turned to the 3 tuk-tuks that were beside him and said that they could bring us there. This again just reinforced that even the people who don't initially try to get money out of you, will at some stage if you are in the right environment for them to do so.

For the rest of that day we chilled out at the hostel before heading to the airport and said our goodbyes to the fellas we had met the night before.

We arrived in Chaing Mai at about 9.30pm that evening, got a taxi straight to our hostel which only cost us 120 Baht per car. So about 2 pounds. We walked into the hostel which greeted us with a swimming pool out the front which was couldn't wait to jump into! the room was lovely too and we had, once again, booked in for a day later. We still barely knew what day it was never mind date! We went out for a bite to eat that night into Chiang Mai Saloon bar, for the first time we didn't eat traditional Thai food, I had ribs and Conor had the steak. I think by that stage he had had enough of the Thai food as it wasn't doing his stomach the best.

Sonny, the owner of the hostel we were staying in recommended that we go to the night bazaar and check out the food there. As it was dark we decided to stay close by and to gather our bearings in the morning. The food was good and then we went in next door to an Irish Pub (yet again!) as it caught our eye as the owner and landlord shared Conors surname! There was an Australian playing live music upstairs so we enjoyed a few beer relaxing,listening to him before going on another trip the following morning.

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