Back on the road...again!

---

Well I saw a different side of Bangkok whilst I was there this time. I met up with Alex and we ended up going back to where he will be living for the next few months whilst he is teaching. The area is in the far North of the city and I actually spent most of the weekend travelling back and forth from Khao San to there. We went out in Sukumvit on the Saturday night...which was relatively fun, although many of the places there were very expensive so we jsut stayed at one bar. No mental clubbing experience was had, but it was cool to see Alex. I then stayed at his and in the morning had to get the bus back to Khao San to check out of my hotel, grab my stuff before heading back over there for a nights free accommodation. We didnt really do much in the afternoon, in fact we went to see the film 'Public Enemies' which was alright, although i'll be honest, i wish i'd gone to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, especially after listening through the books for the last month! The next afternoon I had to head back over to Khao San Road to catch my bus, another hour long journey across the city!

The bus ride was relatively uneventful. Although I did meet some Israeli's who i'd seen on my bus from Vientiane to Bangkok. The first time they were in a group of 10 and very loud the whole journey. This time though there were just the two of them and one of them offered/made me eat some of his fallafal sandwich which was nice of him. It was very tasty, thank you. We also had our first stop at a place which claimed to have 'very lovely and clean toilets' but had an aweful food selection.

We arrived in Chiang Mai at 7am and then had to wait around till the guest house we wanted to stay at opened at 8am. I only just got a bed in one of the dorm rooms. The place (Julie's Guesthouse) is very popular, and its hardly surprising with a dorm room costing 70 baht per night (that's around 1pound 20!) and its actually pretty nice with a great chillout area.
Spent the day lazing around recovering from the bus journey and then we went to a Muay Thai boxing event in the evening. We managed to barter the ticket price down and then were showed to our seats by the ladyboy waiter/ess. We even got complimentary nuts! 😉

Today I have been a lazy boy once more, just reading my book and wandering a little bit round the town. I wouldn't say Chiang Mai is particularly impressive in the way it is laid out, or the style of buildings here. Its not really particularly nice. But it does have something about it which makes it easy to relax. The atmosphere is really nice. I did organise my trek today. Will be heading off on a walking/elephantriding/rafting experince visiting various hill tribes in the area for three days from tomorrow. Quite looking forward to it, I just hope i manage to find some energy from somewhere. Certainly feeling pretty lethargic at the moment!
Will let you know how i get on some time over the weekend!

---