Neither of us slept well that night. The beds on the train were plenty big enough and comfortable, but it was a bit noisier than Monique was expecting, and Kevin kept expecting the driver to slam on brakes (as he was prone to do randomly) and roll off the top bunk in the night. Finally morning came on Saturday 30 June and Kevin clambered downstairs and together we watched the countryside roll past as the sun rose - lots of lush, green jungle and rice paddy's dotted with small villages and temples, with the occasional bigger town.

We pulled into Chaing Mai station at around lunch time. There was a Tourist Information desk in the station who were able to recommend some accomodation. We checked it out online quickly and it seemed legit, so we took the free taxi trip to the hostel, unpacked our things and had a quick swim (yes, they had a pool! quite a nice place all round actually.) Later we wandered around town in search of some food, in the direction of a market. We had a quick snack on some 'raw' spring rolls and an iced-tea at a little roadside restaurant, before finally arriving at the Walking Street Night Market. Its called "walking street" because they block it off to scooters - such a pleasure as scooters otherwise go pretty much EVERYWHERE (inside, on pavements, etc.) The market was one of the best we'd seen so far - selling a huge range of foods and crafts. Almost every stall seems to be selling something different - so many cool things. We got some more spring rolls to eat and browsed around until it was late and we were tired, before heading back.

Sunday we had arranged to visit an elephant park for the day. Unfortunately, the place that we wanted to go (Elephant Nature Park, recomended by our friend Michael in Toronto) was fully booked, so we went with another recommended by our hostel. Trips to elephant places are so common in Thailand that we really wanted to visit one that didn't abuse them in any way. After bouncing along in the back of a truck for two hours, we finally arrived. Almost immediately, without warning or any explaination, we were put on the back of an elephant and lead off to the camp. There we got to feed them bananas (which they seem to love) and just hung out and played with them a bit. We were a bit dissapointed though - this place seems to focus more on entertaining tourists than caring for elephants, which was not what we were looking for. Most of the group (us included) opted not to ride them anymore, content to just hang out. We had lunch of pad thai in banana leaves and fruit and then one of the mahut's got one of the elephants to do a bunch of tricks. We were't sure what to think really - if it was cruel or if the elephant enjoyed the interaction and attention :-/ It was a pity that noone spoke any decent english so we couldn't even find out what the whole deal was there. We enjoyed the walk up to the waterfall and the chance to swim and wash the elephants, before walking back to the truck in a torrential downpour - we got completely soaked! That night we went to the Sunday Night Market where, again, we just strolled around admiring all the cool arts and crafts on offer. Later when we got home, we had a quick swim before heading off to bed, our feet sore from all the walking.

Monday Monique left for her complementary Thai cooking course where she had a great time and learnt a whole lot. (So expect to get some next time you come for dinner!) They began by picking up some fresh ingredient at the market and ended with a feast where everyone got to taste each others dishes (each person could choose different things to make, so there was lots to taste.) Kevin meanwhile had brunch at a 'western' restaurant and caught up on a bit of world news and then wandered around town, exploring a few more wats (temples.) On the way home I stopped for a massage - so good - and then settled down to a bit of admin back at the hostel until Monique got back. That afternoon we had a nap (its so hot during the day that it's a strain to be outside) and then set out in the evening for another market :-)

Tuesday we were up early and walked down to some street-side washing machines to do some laundry. While we waited, we had brunch at this cool little place on the edge of the old city overlooking the moat, and also browsed around a book shop. Later, after dropping off our stuff, we walked accross town to see another wat - supposedly the most important in Chiang Mai. It looked much the same to us as all the others, so we picked up another lemon fruit-shake and walked off in search of a textile/ceramics market. We weren't able to find it, but did happen upon another night market, where we browsed around and bought a few small things. It was quite a walk back to our hostel so we were pretty tired and sore when we got back. We did a bit of packing and went straight to bed.

Wednesday we were up early to finish packing and then walked back into town with the intention of getting Monique a book for the next leg of our journey. Amature mistake - most places don't open until at least 10am, which was when our bus was leaving. So we sat down for a pretty yummy breakfast at one of the few places that was open and then walked back to the hostel to catch our mini-van. The trip to Chiang Kong (the border town on Thailand side) took about 5 hours, but was broken by a brief stopover in Chiang Rai to admire Wat Rong Khun (aka The White Temple.) Unlike every other temple we'd seen, this one is completely white. We arrived late in the afternoon at our overnight accomodation and, after a lengthy stroll down the only street in the town, we enjoyed our dinner on the deck, overlooking the Mekong river that would basically be our home for the next two days. That night we did a bit of admin before getting an early-ish night - it would bean early start tomorrow!