With only two nights left on our visas, we had to make the most of our limited time in Chiang Rai. The artistic little city turned out to be a lot of fun, weighing in somewhere between touristy Pai and busy but culturally-rich Chiang Mai. We were sad to have to skip through it so quickly. For both nights we waltzed around the night bazaar, enjoying the free traditional dancing and music on offer. We felt rather embarrassed that it took us until our final moments...

We'd heard mixed reviews about the little tourist-haven town of Pai, and were almost going to give it a miss, but the lush forest and misty hills of this north-eastern pocket of Thailand convinced us to stop for a few nights. Only an hour on the bus from our homestay in Nong Tong, Pai was a world away. The quaint little riverside town with beautiful views of the mountains in every direction has attracted a solid community of backpackers, ex-pats and urban Thais, ...

Wanting to experience a genuine traditional hill tribe community in Northern Thailand, we decided to board the bumpy local bus to Soppong and the nearby village of Nong Tong. It wasn't until we arrived at this rough little agricultural village in the mountains, that we realised the authenticity of the 'Lisu Hill Tribe Homestay' which we had booked into. This place really was a living, breathing home for a Lisu family, and we were simply guests, like anybody crash...

Our flight from the Philippines landed us once again in Bangkok. Having already spent over a week there, we were keen to move on without much delay. Seeking cooler temperatures and the 'real' Thailand, we decided to head north to Chiang Mai. The twelve hour train ride was pretty comfortable, with glimpses along the way of rural living, untouched forest and farmers tending their young rice paddies. We knew that Chiang Mai was a large city, but still had drawn an ...

After ten days in Bangkok in search of all the western comforts that we missed in the Cambodian village, we're sure that we couldn't have found a starker contrast if we'd tried. Bangkok was commercial, polluted and flooded with tourists from all over the globe. A world away from our already missed village; simple living, leafy green, peaceful, friendly and local. Thai people are obviously far more used to foreigners than their Khmer neighbours, and we missed the...