Our sleeper train arrived about an hour late, which is quite normal, and so we boarded around 1am ready for the 7 hour trip to Chaing Mai.

I have been suffering with a stinking cold, and the AC on the train didn’t help much –but it was ok when I stuffed my t-shirt in the outlet — it was a pleasant nights sleep and we arrived around 10am. We immediately got mobbed by tuk-tuk, taxi and guest house touts, and so I took James Freeston’s approach and walks straight through the middle, saying ‘no thank you’ loudly in a strong English manner. However, we did succumb to a tuk tuk lady, and she took us to a few places we pointed out on the map, but in the end, we went one if her suggestions.

We have been here a week and haven’t seen anything we can swim in yet, and so Graces Boutique Guesthouse’s pool was very inviting, though we only used it once! The room was nice (300b/night fan room, old city area) and overlooked the pool.

After lunch, we had a wander around to explore the area. Chaing Mai seems to be very different to the hussle and bustle of Bangkok, and is very well set up for westerners — everything is easy and if you don’t like Asian food, many places have a western option.

In the evening we went to yet another night market, this one was very boring, same stuff, same gimmicks, but not a lot of enthusiasm 🙂 perhaps we were just tired!

Food court at the night market is definitely for foreigners … bland and easy to order 🙂

We ended up in a nice place called ‘next station’ which seemed to be run by a Thai/French couple, and they served lovely (and relatively expensive) red wine.

The great thing about Chaing Mai is how easy it is to cycle about, we rented bikes the following morning and went on a self guided tour of the amazing temples in the city.

I have never been very religious, and so I was surprised to be so interested in Buddhism. I had a chat with an American Zen Master, who was given permission to base himself at Wat (???), even though he was not a Tharaverna Biddhist — because he is able to teach tourists Buddhism in English. Rosha (?) explained a bit about what Buddhism is about. He also suggested that we purchase a book on tantric yoga, and went through a couple of breathing exercises.. A bit strange but why not eh! I questioned him on some of my own ideas about multiple lives and enlightenment but didn’t really gain much more understanding. Another interesting thing was that he also teaches Physics at he local university.

That evening, we ate at the Dada Kafe (lots of French people here it seems) and had an early night ready for our ‘elephant experience’ the next morning.

I was very apprehensive about this, as I did not want to be the cause of unnecessary stress to the animals. We did some searching, and food that the best place to go is called Patara elephant farm (as recommended by others too) — they were fully booked (they only take 6 people a day, a very expensive, but have only the Elephants interests in mind). The next best option was the Baam Cheng elephant park — which is supposedly good, and doesn’t force the animals to perform tricks etc.
We had a lovely time, feeding the elephants and learning how to command then etc. but I couldn’t help feeling that these elephants were only there for us to have a good time — they appeared to have no fee will, and were not allowed to roam free or mingle with each other directly.

When I questioned this, the guide (Woody) told me that this is because they have all be rescued/bought from other camps who may not have treated them well, and that they are so used to being in captivity, that they would cause lots of problems andante fight or another of they could walk free — he also said that when given the opportunity they often re-tie the chains around their own legs.
I came away feeling that I had a fantastic experience, but uncomfortable about whether it was a good place or not.

That evening/afternoon, we found ourselves in ‘John’s Place’ which is high up above the street, has a pool table and sold the mythical Beerlao that I had heard so much about. We it chatting to a local ex-pat (USA) called Shaun – who runs a wood sculpting shop. He introduced me to ‘Poy Key Mao’ – spicy fried noodles, which one should order ‘Pet Ghlang’ – medium spicy, if spicy isn’t really your thing. Of our own volition, we found his shop and had a look at his stuff, and he showed us some of his photos from Ankor Wat, and the nearby Wat (???!). It also turns out he’s friends with Leonardo DiCaprio’s dad. We decided not to buy anything from him that night before we even went into the shop, but that if we liked something there we would wait until sober to buy it! I spotted one thing I liked, but at £400 delivered to the UK we have to have a think about it!

This morning we headed out to Doi Suthep, a temple on the top of a local mountain. It was much cooler and there was a cool mist covering the place, which menu we could not see the apparently breathtaking view of the city — but I was nice all the same.

We are now on the 4 hour bus ride up to Chaing Rai, where we plan to spend one or or two nights before penetrating Laos, down it Laing Prabang and Vientienne.