Arrival in Chiang Mai

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At some ridiculous hour in the morning we were woken by someone walking down the carriage chanting 'sa wat dee' (hello/good morning) and trying to sell fresh orange juice. If you were not woken at this point it soon became too noisy to sleep as the guards started to collapse the beds back into chairs. We arrived in Chiang Mai at 9.45 and were met by 'Ali G' to take us to the guest house where we had one night before and one night after our trek booked as part of the package. The guest house was called Nice Place 1 - it was reasonable but not great. We still had a bathroom but only a fan (no air con), probably a cheap room if we had of researched it ourselves.

We went out and explored the city. It was quieter than Bangkok although still busy, but there was no horrible smell as you walked down the street. We walked to Wat Phra Singh and met a very friendy local who worked at the school and 2 further people who lived in Bangkok and were in Chiang Mai to do some business shopping. They told us where to go and which areas were cheaper for local products because they were aimed at the locals and not tourists.They all also recommended 'Imperial Fashion' if we wanted anything tailor made. We were told it was a little more expensive than you might pay in the tourist areas but the quality was so much better so we headed there by Tuk Tuk. Dom managed to get a good deal and he was measured up for a suit. From here we walked to a market aimed at locals where there were lots of different types of fruit, beautiful flowers and lots of food. We saw snakes, eels, fish and turtles in buckets all still alive waiting to be sold. The smell was disgusting, mostly coming from fish that had been cooked and sat around all day. We then headed back to Imperial Fashion for Dom to have his first fitting.

We spent the evening at a night market on a road which was shut off to traffic. Stalls were lit by a single light which looked very pretty as it became dark. We had big belgium waffles for dinner, one was plain and the other chocolate and cashew nut, they were lovely! We then got a Tuk Tuk back to the Guest House.

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