Day 1 in Chiang Mai

Sunday - 1 June 08

Well what a place, I love it. Never go to Thailand without visiting Chiang Mai (locals pronounce it as shang my). This place is awsome and so so cheap and huge, its the second biggest city next to Bangkok and I am sure half the population is foreigners, but I can see why. Its great.


Rick and I were up early this morning and ready to get out of the shithole. We are glad we decided to find another place to stay and pay the extra 100 baht a night for a nice place with everything we want. We watched the AFL until 11.30 pm and then went to sleep, but not for long we were woken an hour later and kept awake then for the next 2 hours. The old coger (70 yrs old pommie) next door decided to bring a lady of night home with him and they decided to stand out the front of our door and argue about price for services and when they eventually came to an agreement got on with business for the next 2 hours until he sent her on her way. So for 3 hours we got no sleep, needless to say we were not happy little vegemites this morning having got very little sleep and the place being a shithole anyway.

We packed up and didn't even have showers we just wanted out of there, we handed our key into reception and Rick asked for a refund for our 2nd night and told them under no uncertain terms why and what we thought of their guesthouse. They wouldn't refund the money as we had actually paid the information kiosk at the airport, we didn't really care we just wanted to see the back of the sleezy joint.

We caught a tuk tuk to our new place of residence, 'The Night Bazaar Place' and for the extra 100 baht per night its more than worth it. The place is immaculate, staff friendly, central to everything, modern and has everything we need and want. We settled in real quick.

How cool is it being in the centre of everything. We walk out of our hotel and smack bang in the middle of Kalare Bazaar and within spitting distance of the huge Chiang Mai markets and everything is sooooooooo cheap. We can walk everywhere from here and save on tuk tuks. We had brunch at McDonalds McCafe and had a bucket of Latte as Rick hadn't had his morning coffee and was getting a bit grumpy.

We spent most of the day hanging out at the markets there is so much to see. We rested a bit in the late arvo and caught up on emails and internet stuff before heading out for dinner at the huge Open air food court right at the back of our hotel where you can choose food from many different asian countries. I had Vietnamese Clear soup and it was so yummy filled with noodles and heaps of seafood. Rick had his favourite, Pork Spare Ribs and sticky rice and it cost us next to nothing. We ventured out into the night markets and managed to pick up another small backpack that we can use on our day trips, our last one we bought in Bangkok finally gave up the ghost and completely fell apart. It was then a soft serve ice cream at burger king and then back to the Food Court where Rick had chicken spring rolls and I had deep fried Tofu, Tofu being one of my favourite foods but I have never had it deep fried, that was yummy too.

By the end of the night Rick and I were so tired and the finals of the Indian super league cricket was on so we headed back to our room about 9.30pm and veged. I can't wait to go and explore this region of Northern Thailand, I am aiming to go to the elephant training camp, hilltribe village and so many other places too numerouss to mention, we will probably need the 3-4 weeks we will be here to do it all.

Am posting a separate blog for today with more photos of Samui and their wicked airport, so check it out on the next post after this.

Anyway another great day in another great place. Stay tuned , until tomorrow!