First day back at Bangkok just relaxed and caught up with old and new friends. In the morning went across town to book sleeper train ticket to Chiang Mai then had a right good nostalgic youtube session playing lots of classico choons. Train up north was fun, met a Dutch brother and sister travelling together and they had arrived from Schipol earlier in the day, plenty of duty free booze spirits were drank until we realised that everyone else in the train had gone to sleep! Needless to say slept like a log after all the Cointreau & Drambuie!! Bumped into a Canadian couple, the girl was from Italian descent.. turns out her parents were from the town where my sister was born in, Acquaviva delle Fonti! Small world!!

First couple of days were spent just wondering around the various gates in Chiang Mai, heading to the night bazaar for food and chilling with new found friends in the cool common area at the hostel. Sunday we headed to Tiger Kindgom which was real good to be with the Tigers and see how big they are in real life, we worked up a big appetite and headed down to the crowded Sunday market at night. At night was also indicisive about which zipline to do, either a shorter and cheaper one or a longer but more expensive one. Tossed a coin and ended up doing the longer one which was great as a couple of the lines on the longer route were well worth it as was the 40m abseil at the end of the longer route!

The next couple of days partied real hard with all the crew at the hostel, probably my favourite hostel of the trip thus far. Best part was morning after putting together the pieces to the jigsaw puzzle Hangover style but instead of crazy Chinese guy we had a cool Japanese guy. There was a great stall in the market next to us ran by a lady called Tip, did great muesli & fruit for brekkie at just over a squid and its just what the doctor ordered to eliminate all the previous night's toxins. Valentines day was real tough being away from my loved one but real grateful for skype! Met a Dutch guy who spoke far better than I did, he sounded Milanese whereas I sounded like Brad Pitt's character in Inglorious Basterds.. Buongeeeeeeornoow!!

Woke up rough as Wednesday, lost my padlock key, passport & valuables inside locker and less than 2 hours to getting picked up for Laos so had to call someone out to break padlock. Luckily found it just after that thus panick over! Got the bus over to Laos, stopping off in Chiang Rai and visiting the white temple on the way which was actually good because it was different from the norm, the murals painted with movie and famous characters. Crossed the border at Chiang Khong. Looking forward to Laos and a reunion with some of the guys from the hostel who made their way over there before me. Had a great time in Chiang Mai really felt at home here chilling and loved the traveller/hippie vibe. Magnetic North indeed.