Chiang Mai 25th-28th Sep

Chiang Mai

Founded in 1296 AD, Chiang Mai is an interesting city located among the rolling foothills of the Himalayan Mountains 700 km north of Bangkok. Many moons ago it could only be reached by an arduous river journey or by help with an elephant. This isolation helped keep Chiang Mai's distinctive charm intact to this day. Chiang Mai's historical centre is the walled city (City is chiang in the northern Thai dialect while 'mai' is new, hence Chiang Mai - "New City"). Sections of the ancient wall remain at the gates and corners still stand, but the rest is gone and only the moat remains. There are more than 30 temples inside the moat of Chiang Mai dating back to the founding of the principality, in a combination of Burmese, Sri Lankan and Lanna Thai styles, decorated with beautiful wood carvings, Naga staircases, angelic guardians, gilded umbrellas and pagodas laced with gold leaf.

We took a short plane ride from Bangkok to Chiang Mai because the bus wastes our precious days and it was nice and cheap. In Chiang Mai we spent the first night moaning over the ridiculous room we received in the awful hotel we booked with - courtesy of our own naive stupidity and the likeable lady at Bangkok airport whom took the time to talk us into the booking, so she could make a few bucks. After we got over that we decided to book a tour with someone else so the hotel didn't take any more of our money and found another place to camp the last night and enjoyed the city during the day.

We found Chiang Mai to be a lovely city, especially in the old town - inside the moat. With little streets and many temples, nice bars and coffee shops and plenty of restaurants to try out.

 The most famous Temple is Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, which overlooks the city from a mountainside 13 km away. This Temple was one of the most amazing we have ever seen... It took us an hour in a Tuk Tuk to get to the top of the hill, our friendly Tuk Tuk driver patiently waited for us to have a look around the temple complex and lookout over the city and then took us back to town.

                              Giant Guest house ----> a nice place to stay and very cheap.....

                                    Chicken for breakfast                        

 Night market was one of John's favourite places - so much so he went there in the morning. Ha!

Nelly trek !!!!!

Sir David would be so proud of this sexual activity

This ones for Lyn as she loves a good poo picture

Jungle trek to waterfall

(above) Trekking goose..... spots a village in the distance and turns back to inform the pack ...'it's a jungle out there'


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A massive tree bridge for crossing a creek, lucky  it hadn't rained in a while and I could just walk around it. Some of the more daring or stupid (John) still walked across it, because they are tough and awesome and the best and don't have a gimpy left big toe.

I managed the walk ok with my wounded toe and with help from a trusty bamboo walking stick the guide gave me.

When we finaly arrived at the waterfall we had a dip in the nice icey water to cool off, the heat and humidity was intense and although the walk was not that long we were all sweaty and exhausted. 

I made friends with a mountain cat

it says 7 eleven on the sign - oh the humour of Thais

We also went to visit a small hill tribe, they make money by selling handmade beads and bags and bits and bobs to visitors.  Each item cost about 10p so John and I (being soft touches) went around and bought a little something from each stall so none of them were left out - as all the other tourist were tight arses.