We decided to take an overnight VIP bus to Chiang Mai which was really quite cool as you got a little steward in a nice polyester uniform who served us a meal and snacks. Chiang Mai was chucking it down when we arrived and so we had to make a swift dive in to a taxi. The taxis there are pick up trucks with roofs and so it was nice and easy to throw our bags in and jump in! We didn't know where we wanted to stay so we let the taxi driver take us somewhere which looked clean and was pretty nice. After a quick nap we decided to have a wander around Chiang mai and explore what was on offer. We'd read about the local women's prison in Lonely Planet and that you could go and get a massage of some of the inmates, intrigued we decided to give it a go. The women that gave you the massage were not the hardened crims and most of them were getting out within 6 months so that was a relief. After grabbing a fruit shake we popped back to the room to shower and upon getting undressed I discovered that I was covered in little bites. Thinking they was just mosquito bites I decided to spray on some deet that evening and conver the bites in tiger balm. The next morning though I had even more and they were in neat little rows of three... bed bugs! You never ever want to get bitten by those little gits, they are the itchiest things EVER! The never bloomin stop and they do so for about 4 days. That evening I made them change our room and the new room seemed ok but i was not happy.

When in Thailand you of course have to go to a Thai boxing match and so we did so in Chiang Mai. It was full of tourists but the fights were pretty good. There were eight in total and the first one was between 2 13 year olds. It was a bit weird watching at first as there was a clear winner from the start as one was much bigger (huge muscles on a 13 year old!) but then I figured Ricky Hatton didn't just jump in at 18 did he. The smaller kid got k.o'd though which we were not expecting. There was also an international fight between a Thai guy and an Italian bloke. The Itlalian knocked the Thai out in the first 30 seconds so that was a bit disappointing as far as a good fight goes. In between two fights three blindfolded guys entered the ring and began beating the crap out of each other. The ref got punched at one point and so did a flying kick at one of the fighters, harsh but very funny! The final fight was the best as the two fighters were really quite skilled and so it wasn't all about getting locked together, there was some realt talent. There was also a women's fight but that wasn't really that great to be honest.

Also whilst in Chiang Mai we went to this place where they have hand reared tigers and you can go in with them. We opted for a package where you spent 15 minutes with the 4 month old ones and then the same with the 14month old ones. The little ones were adorable and I would have loved to sneak one home. I did feel a bit sorry for them though as they wanted to sleep but the keepers were determined to get us some good pics. When he put one on my knee it did this pathetic baby growl and jumped off! The older ones were sleeping and so we just stroked them and posed around them.It was such a cool experience though. In the evening we headed to the night market to shop.

Chiang mai is also full of temples and so on the Saturday we walked down 'temple street and checked them all out. On Sunday evening it was Sunday night walking market which was huge. Probably the biggest outdoor market I've been to. Lots of shopping was done and we grabbed a nice spicy green curry off one of the street vendours. There were quite a few entertainers too but some poor kids were being made to dance by their parents, some of the girls looked like they were having fun but others looked bored.