Chiang Mai

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We touched down in Chiang Mai airport on the 23/12. From the airport we got a taxi into town and started looking for a place to stay (literally walking up and down ally-ways). We found a flier that said 5-stars Guesthouse and thought this must be the ticket. A tuk tuk came past and saw us reading the flyer so she drove us there 3 people at a time. After arriving at the hostel we organised a few things (3 day trek around the mountains and Laos visas) and then headed out for some chow around the corner. While we were at the hotel, we booked tickets for thai boxing (muaw thai or something) for that night. Dinner was just down the road at a new restaurant (only 1 month old) called Bamboo *something* (don't remember), run by some European guy. The food was silly silly good and still quite cheap. You could also get western food here so we decided to go back for breakfast the next day.

The thai boxing stadium was pretty big but not very full. I think this was mainly a tourist fight, although the punches and kicks look like they didn't tickle. It started off with smaller kids in lower divisions and then moved up to older fighters. I was sitting next to one of the fighters before the fight and showed him a thing or too. He couldn't speak a lick of english but basically i was trying to tell him that i could take him and that he better watch out (he actually lost his match later as well - probably felt intimedated). After buying a few rounds of Chang beer we thought it would be a fantastic idea to have a bet. We lost all the rounds of betting but it was a lot of fun. The bookies wouldn't accept bets on the guy that was obviously gunna win, so i think it was just a skam anyhoo we didn't loose too much money. Andy B (reckless) completed his task (see earlier) so he got free drinks all night.

After the boxing we headed into town with a canadian guy and a belgian to a nightclub called the rooftop bar. It was a pretty chilled out place where you could get a drink and just relax on the cushions on the floor. Wasn't too much action tho so we left and had a relitively early one (around 1:30).

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Photos

Lunch
Settling in with for lunch around the road from our guesthouse

Fight Night
Our tuk tuk on the way to the fights - getting fired up

Fight Night II (the return)
Milney (diesel) & Burty (flowers) square off

Fight Fight Fight
Pretty hard to take a picture, but you get the general idea

I can take you
What a sellout, he didn't even win his fight!!

Schitty Wall
View from the rooftop bar of the wall that surrounds some of the city.