In total we spent two nights in Chiang Mai, both times just as a means to an end. We're not sure how Chiang Mai made it so big as a tourist destination, sure you can organise all sorts of fun outings from Chiang Mai but you can organise the same things all over SE Asia in much nicer towns. The place is also jam packed with restaurants specialising in western food, so much so that we found it hard to find anywhere that specialised in Thai food which is another thing we don't quite get. Thai food is arguably one of the best cuisines around the world, yet western tourists come from the other side of the world and prefer to eat burgers, fries and pizzas.

Having said this, we did find a Thai place (that also offered western dishes) that made such a good Pad Thai that Jansen ranked it at no.1 thus far. Given that he's been averaging more than one Pad Thai per day, this was quite an achievement.

Chiang Mai will also go down in our memories as the place where Jansen downed a litre of chocolate soymilk in one sitting.