Still the overnight trip to the beach was the highlight of my trip but my bike ride around Chaing Mai isn't too far behind. While brid went off for the day washing elephants and Deirdre got her nails done, myself, sista and Lisbet went for a half day bicycle tour around the southern part of Chaing Mai countryside with our very own tour guide. Our your guide who's name I shamefully never bothered to take note of was so nice and passionate about nature and Buddhism and was like totally deep and interesting and stuff :) ah no seriously though he was perfect.. We were cycling through quiet green lanes and came to a sort of village of identical huts with a church in the centre. Our tour guide stopped us up and gave us the low down of the place. The village was a leper colony set up by an American missionary about three generations ago. I have information on this and other attractions but I think I will put the information in as a comment attached to come of the pictures because otherwise this post will be massive and nobody would bother to read it which would make me sad in my little black heart.
After the leper colony we stopped at a temple with monks about the place. When Ruth got off the bike here the strap of her top came down and she was basically standing there with her boob out oblivious to the fact that she was flashing the guide, I quickly informed her and had a great laugh. All I can say is thank The Lord the monk didn't see, silly slapper!!! Oh and she was wearing a bra so it wasn't a full flash but funny all the same. The guide took us to a pond in the temple where we fed the fish and he told us lots of interesting facts about Buddhism ( ill share some of this info in comments attached to my photos) after the temple we cycled through rice fields where we saw farmers working and other fields where farmers were planting vegetables. Our guide pointed out so many different trees and fruit growing on them. Next stop was a school followed by a bakery where we not only got to see how the produce are made but actually got have a go at making them ourselves. And we got to eat some of the products also, joy! I have a video of this but at the moment am having trouble uploading videos but hopefully ill get them up eventually.
We cycled along a bit further and were taken to a small restaurant. Here our guide ordered for us and I am glad he did because the grub was delicious and there was so much of it that we were stuffed getting back on our bicycles. We saw the ruins of the old capital dating back hundreds of years and finally visited another temple before heading back. It was a great day and we also got so much exercise which is always a bonus.
Andy (our Scottish friend) arrived in Chaing Mai so we met him and headed out that night to celebrate briddies birthday. It was such a fun night, we started out in a cool relaxed pub full of only Thai people and once the drinks were taking affect moved onto a more lively area full of people, mainly tourists dancing to the same music that we would dance to back home. We stayed here dancing till it finished and then hopped into a tuk-tuk to a nightclub where we continued dancing until god knows when.
On the way home we experienced just what people mean by monsoon season. The street to our accommodation was no longer a street but a river which came up well above our knees. I actually fell into a dip in the road and was drowned from head to toe, it was so so funny. So funny in fact that our poor neighbours came out to yell at us for waking them. The next morning the street was bone dry again, madness!!