We arrived with an two hours delay to chiang mai railway station and was greeted by our taxi driver "welcome chaing mai"
Both dani and myself were extremely exhausted after the over night train, looking forward to a nice shower and a rest! Our taxi driver was kind and pleasant, I was expecting maybe a Toyota with air-con and leather seats, oh how wrong was I?
Our taxi was a Toyota and it did have a leather seat, but it wasn't a car!! It was a pickup and we were in the back!
The journey was 15 minutes to vanilla place and we were greeted by Kem his wife Kath and their assistant Pim.
Pim kindly took our bags an layed them
In our room whilst we sat with Kem and Kath.
Kem was ever so kind and gave us an itinerary that he recommends for our stay in chiang mai.
We finished our greet and meet chat and Pim showed us too our room.
What we didn't realise that our room was up four flights of stairs and there was no lift! She carried both our bags at the same time all the way up, we were exhausted with no bags let alone both together.
Our room is basic but it has air-con fridge and a double bed, which was far more appealing than a train cabin bunk!
After a quick shower and a freshen up with a nice cup of tea we decided that food was in order!
Kem had recommended a nice little restaurant, huen phlen.
After 40 minutes of walking on a looky looky man pair of haviannas we were there and my feet were done!!
The place was nice and a very traditional Thai menu was on the cards,
Lots of local looking people inside so we knew were in for a treat!!
We didn't really understand the menu and asked our waitress what she would recommend, we all agreed a menu and was kind of looking forward to what the waitress had installed for us, within 2 minutes she had returned with our drinks, large singha beer for me and pepsi for dani.
Within ten minutes she had returned with our food, it consisted of two portions of sticky rice, po sao which was a northern curry with chicken, a vegetable curry, some fried chicken, some beef crackers, papya salad and a plateful of assorted salad leaves!
We both gracefully tucked in but my mouth was on fire, but the food was on par with the sugar hut in Norwich!! It was awesome!! Our bellys now full we kindly asked the waitress for our bill, she totted up the total "375 baht please" I nearly fell off my stool, this was the equivalent too six pound something. We would of payed sixty pound in Norwich for that! I donned my dodgy haviannas and started the painful walk home.
On arrival back at our hotel dani fell asleep and I perched my bum on the balcony of our room to watch the sunset, and catch up with some net time on the iPhone.
Two hours later dani had awoken and both feeling peckish again and index of a beer...
We were recommended a burger establishment called Mike's burgers from Catherine Simpson a north walsham girl we met in Bangkok. After a short tuk tuk ride we were there.
The burger was amazing and it melted in our mouths, would recommend it to anyone coming here, after eating it I had the beef shakes and needed a brad Pitt so decided to come home,
Another short tuk tuk ride, and passing people throwing up in the street, we were home.
Early night tonight, through lack of sleep.
Early start in the morning as we have patara elephant farm tomorrow...
Night night !