Arrived..

---

Well, yesterday was a memorable day. We spent Monday night in a hostel on the Koh Sahn Rd, met some interesting people on Monday night in an 'Irish' theme bar with live music. The Thai women are well into playing Pool out here, the men hardly play at all. We got involved in a mini competition in this bar but didn't do very well. The Thai women kept sneaking up to the board and wiping peoples names off so they could get back on the table, even after I put my name back on...she came back but wasn't successful a second time. Met some guy who's been travelling for 3 years, he's teaching english in Bangkok at the moment, nice guy so we may meet up with him again when we head back to Bangkok.

So, we decided to see some temple's around town yesterday as our bus didn't leave for Chang Mai until 6pm. We went to the main temple with the recling gold buddha (can't remember the name of it now), but as we were going on this 'helpful' guy told us that it was closed for the day as it was a holy day and the monks were praying, he said that we could go to another 2 temples though. On that he summoned a tuk-tuk driver and told him to take us to these places for 20 baht, bargain.... not so. The driver was a real character and he took us to the two other temples which were very impressive. He also took us to a suit making shop and a jewellery shop.. From living in Bangalore a couple of years ago I did expect this, they get gasoline vouchers from these places if they bring tourists there. We literally nipped in and out of these places so he could get his vouchers. When we arrived at the last temple he again said he'd wait for us, but when we came out he was gone... Oh well, we got a free ride around town.

So we headed back to the bus station where a travel agent told me the main temple hadnt been shut at all, that 'friendly' guy just tricked us into getting into his friends tuk-tuk. I was pretty annoyed as I did want to see that temple, but hey, we'll see it when we head back to Bangkok.

The coach journey to Chang Mai was quite amusing too. The bus was excellent, air conditioning (although at some points we did feel like he was trying to freeze us solid!!) and recling seats. We had two movies, but both were in Thai so not much use. Met a french guy staying at our hotel who's travlling on his own, I spent a few hours teaching him english on the way, a first ! We stopped off at a very dodgy night stop for toilet and food break, neither was tempting. Laura freaked when she discovered the only available toilet was a hole in the ground with stagnant urine and various bugs flying and swimming around it... But hey, we were in the middle of nowhere at 2am. Got some sleep then and abut 20 mins before arrival at the Chang Mai bus terminal the bus driver turned on all the lights and cranked up some mental Thai music to maximum volume, everyones faces on the bus were a picture ! He kept this going for a full 20 mins until we got there at 4:30am ! Jumped into the back of a truck thing.. and headed to hostel which was nice.. just before we fel asleep spotted a lizard scaling the walls... oh well, too tired..fell asleep.

Today we've been wandering around town, it's much quieter here, it's tropical too, lots of greenery, very similar to Bangalore minus the traffic. We head off to the jungle tomorrow, only for 1 day though as we want to head on a trip to Laos - Burma border the next day. Tonight we're going for a meal with a local Thai group, they entertain you with traditional Thai music and dancing, so really looking forward to that one.

We will make an update in another couple of days.

---

Photos

Bright lights big city
The famous Koh Sahn Rd