CHIANG MAI 13TH-15TH NOVEMBER 2006

Chiang Mai is more than 700km north west of Bangkok and Thailands second busiest city. It is full with lively gusthouses, bars, foodstalls, shops and is surrounded by a pleasent looking moat. It has a slower pace and is less hummid, has less tuk-tuk than Bangkok but is still full of pollution and tourists. There is a huge offering of massage course, cooking lessons and trecking tours in Chiang Mai, this is the reason most people visit. As we weren't looking for non of these things here we only stayed two nights.

It was very busy on arrival, which we instantly realised when faced with many full-up guest houses, a problem we had not come across before. After being turned down by many guest houses we booked into 'The Whitehouse', a clean room but lacking in any character. We most a five minute walk away for our second night to 'Darats Guesthouse', which was a lot cheaper and served the best banana shakes yet. We hired a mo-ped for the day to try and find something to do. We went to a free tribal museum then ran out of ideas so went to the tourist information office which were not helpful as they could only reconmend us a flower show! Neither of us were eager to follow that lead so we had a western afternoon, eating ice-cream and watching a movie at the cinema. In the evening, Chiang Mai has a fabulous Night Bizzar... streets of stalls selling every type of souvaneire and rows of cheap food stalls and eating places. Enough to easily fill your evening.