Chaing Mai

---

3rd stop Chaing Mai, much more chilled out than Bangkok, was nice to get some laundry done, and to escape the fumes of Bangkok. Spent 3 nights here initially where we sampled the local food, beer and evening entertainement. Hit the local nightclubs with 2 lads we met from Crewe on our first night. Met them in a bar called the Wall which was owned by a Dutch guy. Then hit a club called Bubble which was Chaing Mai's equivalent to Dukes Genesis, quiet to start with but played some good house for a couple of hours. Met a crazy guy from London who had a thai bride and a kid with her, he said to me ' the thing I miss most about London is the Mitsubishi Turbos' Ha Ha!! Ended the night in a bar/restaurant called Spice which played live premiership football until the early hourse which was cool. By the way the coverage of Englsih football is far better than England, you get a choice of every game being played, the only trouble is staying awake for it!!!

Met up with same lads the following night, went for a romantic meal for them on the riverfront . Tasty food and 2 live bands playing at either end of the restaurant covering western hits. Neal and I ended up in the wall and Spice again with a group of girls from Kent.

Our 3rd day in Chaing Mai we decided to do something cultural, so we took a tuk tuk ride to all the temples in Chaing Mai, and we actually quite enjoyed it, thought we'd been stung by the famous gem scam at one point but the driver just got a bit of commission for taking us to this really expensive cashmere store.

On the 4th day we started a 3 day jeep trek which covered 700km of North Thailand. Neal and I were the only two english on the trip the rest of the group (16 in all) were Israeli. We were in a jeep with 2 Israeli couples, they all spoke really good English and were friendly people. In the end we had a good laugh with them. Think they were a bit annoyed and us singing and head banging to our itunes blaring out of the jeeps speakers but they soon got used to it. They got us back with some dreadul Hebrew pop!!

3 days included an elephant ride and show (very amusing although slightly cruel), a snake show which was scary at times, visits to 2 hillside villages which was overwhelming, we handed out candy to the village children who lived such basic lives but seemed so happy with it. It certainly made me realise how lucky I was back home. Other highlights included visiting a cave and bamboo rafting which was fairly tame until we collided with a fallen tree and ended up pretty wet in the muddiest river I've ever seen. The 2 guides were good crack, the 60 quid we paid for this trek was certainly worth every penny!! Only downside was we had the same food for 3 days solid. Rice, rice ohh and some rice!!!

---