Thailand Day 7

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Now for the day I was looking forward to the least! Come on, who really wants to go on a Mountain bike ride when the temperature is in the mid 30's, oh yea, that would be Charlie! On a plus point we weren't being picked up until 09:30, which for us is now classed as a lay in (bring on the Beach section). Another plus was that the ride was 90% downhill, though we're not talking roads here, we're talking dirty tracks with rocks, ruts and roots strewn across you path. But the briefing and all the kit (helmets, gloves, arm and leg pads) were all professional. Due to an illness of one of our group we were reduced from four to just us. This actually paid off as our guide was very friendly, chatty and spoke very good English. I will point out that we did choose the 'beginners' track, which might explain why we made the 25 km trip without falling off, though both of us had a moment (or two) where we thought we might. As you'd expect Charlie went up quicker (due to fitness) and I went down quicker (due to weight... and a reckless regard for safety)! Being a beginners track we had plenty of stops to admire the view from the top of Doi Suthep National Park all the way to the bottom, all of them providing outstanding vistas of Chiang Mai Province. But the best was yet to come (and not just because we finished), the end of the ride was based at a beautiful lake, where each group had a private stilted roofed platform where lunch was provided. To be laying only a few inches from the most tranquil lake was amazing, it looked just like it was taken from a Japanese drawing. It was at this point that we were more than happy to realise that we had taken the right ride, one person on the intermediate ride had fallen three times, another had been stopped dead in her tracks be a 2.5 meter snake and another had head-butted a tree and cracked his helmet! And the look of horror (and relief) on one of the guys who had completed the extreme ride spoken volumes!
The evening involved more shopping, firstly to the Tailors to pick up the skirts and then to a local park that is open day and night. When the Tu-tu driver asked upon dropping us off "Why do you want to come here", we realised it wasn't a tourist haunt! But it was great, the saw the locals unwind, which included playing Football with a tyre at each end as a goal and 'football' volleyball using a wicker ball.
Our final shopping expedition was to the Saturday Walking Market which runs from 18:00 until midnight. This varied greatly from the Night Market in that the majority of the goods on sale were handicraft and to my delight more food stalls. A good two and a half hours later Charlie had burned through a grand total of 500TB (or a slightly less substantial £10)! Fully laden (and in my case sated) we walked the fifteen minute walk back to our hotel for Charlie's last (Chiang Mai) massage, whilst I tried to contact Airmiles to find out why I received a change of flight email... 

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