Our next stop via overnight Government bus (more free drinks and snacks!) was Chiang Mai, an old walled city to the north of Thailand.It was a fairly big place but had a lovely traditional night market, if a bit too touristy, & loads of hidden away cafes & bars down side roads with the added bonus that we stayed here over Christmas.

On arrival we decided against the cheeky tuk tuk prices and made for the 3km walk to town.It was a fair way with a 60L backpack, but eventually we arrived at the Queen Victoria!!Our theory was to stay in a good Brit bar as the Thai's don't celebrate Christmas…bad idea, the place was a magnet for expats and their thai brides…usually of similar age to their grandchildren!The room was good though & later we ventured into town and went searching for a decent location for Chrimbo dinner.We found the Old Belle which seemed perfect but after 10 mins there we got collared by the local nutjob yarn spinner called Geoff who, apparently, wife died in a car accident, had 3 million in the bank, built big things, had a Thai lesbian girlfriend, took a different girl home every night, annoyingly high fived us after every sentence, created `havoc' (unlikely) wherever he went & knocked our beer over!! The blow with this was he was trying to plan meeting us there the next day and would no doubt have tried to join us for lunch so the Old Belle was disqualified :o) To end the night we headed to a bar near our guesthouse for a few Christmas Eve drinks with AC/DC blaring in the background!Sadly, this place cleared out prematurely around midnight after half the place erupted into a near brawl….luckily more handbags than action so no blood!!Funny that the Yank was being held back by one guy whilst the angry Scot had about a dozen trying to keep him off the Yank…think I know where my money would have gone!

Christmas day was not traditional, but still a good day.We started off by changing guesthouse & arrived at `little bird'.Once settle we found a traditional restaurant, but rather than the roast on offer we went for some yummy starters and the great sounding curries, one being a north Thailand Beef special and the other a pumpkin and chicken.They were perfect, best meal of the trip and the meal was topped off with our first wine and some English style Apple Pie and Mango Cheesecake puddings!After dinner, our Christmas treat to each other was a trip to the fish foot eating place…if you haven't heard of this you stick your lower legs into a tank of special fish (forget their names) and they munch the dry skin off your feet…it tickles but it is very relaxing, they seemed a bit put off by Tracy's feet but came round in the end :O)

For boxing day we hired rickety old bikes and headed out of town to a forest monastery where an underground tunnel system was in place to apparently keep a mad monk from leaving, & the grounds included a large pond with turtles and huge fish to feed…very tranquil and the monks gave regular talks to the visitors on their thoughts on life, while the forest trees had messages attached full of interesting proverbs. We could hear the monks chanting which was really peaceful & relaxing. Al has kept declining my suggestion of signing up for a 2 day meditation course so far!. Opposite was a highly recommended massage business where a 1hr Thai massage was only 2 quid!It was amazing, if very painful at times. Tracy had hers hard as her masseuse did not understand what medium or soft meant!Afterwards, it felt like it had done the trick!That night we found a great Mexican (bit random being in Thailand) where the food came out on plates that could easily be confused with serving trays….Al was in heaven and the whole lot munched without waste!!

After a lovely Christmas it was back to Bangkok to sort out the Passport, Visa's and meet up with Ash and B for just a few drinks at New Year!