We flew into Bangkok Airport from Sri Lanka just minutes too late to catch the daily flight up to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand where we want to head off to first and hopefully do a bit of trekking in the hills near the golden triangle. We had no problem getting onto the flight for the following day and were actually happy to spend a night in bustling Bangkok which we've both been to before and love! We jumped on the airport bus and headed for backpackers central - Khao San Road. As we've been on much healthier budgets for our previous visits we hadn't actually stayed in this area before...but we should have actually - it's great fun, a mad mash of budget guesthouses, bars, cafes, street-markets selling everything from clothes to satay (yuuuum!) and thousands of backpackers, rangning from the wide-eyed 18 year-old first-timers to the seasoned travellers in their uniform of tie-dye, dreadlocks and piercings. We very nearly missed the plane the next day as well, as we had allowed an hour in the morning to shower, get ready, and walk around the corner to where our minibus to the airport left from. The alarm went off and while I was blearily stumbling towards the bathroom, Nige suddenly realised that we'd forgotten to change our alarm-clock from Sri Lanka time to Thai time! PANIC!!! Luckily it's only a 1-hour difference and we had also set the clock 5 minutes fast, which left us with exactly 3 minutes to throw our clothes on and sprint around the corner, unshowered, hot and truly not happy campers!!! From there on in however it was smooth sailing - Thailand is incredibly efficient in comparison to the chaos of Inida and we were ushered through to our gate, complete with a complementry cafe, stocked with pastries, coffee and newspapers! We were very impressed that we got food at all for the price we paid for the flight and happily munched through our breakfast...we couldn't believe it when we got on the flight they fed two more times on top of that! Chiang Mai is a lovely city with the old part of the city encircled by a moat, now complete with fountains and bordered by big green trees and gardens. The newer part of town surrounds the moat, and this is bordered on one side by the Ping river. The thing that we noticed immediately was the laid back nature of the place and the people - everyone seems so relaxed and constantly smile! We booked into the Whitehouse guesthouse in the old town and got a few tips on things to do from the owner - a real character who speaks English with a broad London accent - very funny! On his recommendation we headed over to the massive Sunday market and walked around for hours looking at the lovely handicrafts, the fried grasshoppers, cockroaches and worms and put our Indian bartering skills into good use and got a real bargains (don't worry - clothes and handicrafts, not fried bugs!) After all that walking I was in heaven when we stopped at one of the lines of chairs for a wonderful Thai foot massage - which cost 50 bart (about 70p) for half and hour - bliss!!! The next day we explored the town properly, through all the winding little streets, with the ornate carved roofs of the old teak houses and the wats (the beautiful Thai buddist temples) peeking out from by leafy trees. There is also loads of markets, museums and of course bars to check out - and for 10 bart you can ride from one side of town to the other in the red 'seung-taws' (no idea how to spell that!) which are sort of share-taxis (more like mini-trucks with seats in the back) that you hail off the street and jump in if they're going in the right direction! We even managed to get one right up to the top of the mountain on the edge of Chiang Mai in one to have a look around the amazing Doi Suthep temple and over the city below.