Chillin' in Chiang Mai

It was a 12 hour bus journey to get to Thailand's second biggest city, Chiang Mai, which is located in the mountainous north, but I did the journey overnight so it wasn't too painful! When I arrived it was around 6:00AM and the bus station was very quiet, I noticed a tuk-tuk driver negotiating with a group of backpackers and decided to go over and see if I could take advantage of a cheap group rate. Happily the price was fair so we all piled in the back, and the driver took us to the city centre. It was too early to check into a guesthouse - 'you're not in Bangkok anymore', quipped the driver- so we all waited in a street cafe to kill time. In the cafe I got chatting to two awesome American girls, Katie and Ashley, and we decided to share a room to cut down on costs. An hour later we made our way over to 'Julie's Guesthouse' which is famous for it's cheap rates and very luckily managed to get a triple ensuite room for the tiny sum of £1.80 each per night!

From then on my 4 days in Chiang Mai were set to be a lot of fun hanging out with Katie and Ashley. The girls were looking for a relatively easy going time and that suited me perfectly, so rather than making a mad dash around the city to see all the temples (Chiang Mai has a lot of Wats), we decided to see the city by mooching up and down the interesting little sois (lanes), popping into the quirky handicraft shops, and sipping coffee on the river. It was a brilliant way to see Chaing Mai, and we soon realised how awesome the arty little city was.

We spent the next two days being slightly more constructive by visiting Phra Thart Doi temple which is located in a national park in the hills above the city, and taking a Thai cooking course with our fabulous teacher Uni.

The cooking course started with a trip to a local market to buy the required ingredients, which turned out to be quite a unique experience as the market was very definatley local and filled to the rafters with unusual foods. After selecting our ingredients, and learning a little about the fruits and vegetables we headed back to Uni's restaurant 'Green Mango cafe' to begin the class. Uni has set up a really sweet 'classroom' in the back of her open-air restauraunt under a mango tree,  the restaurant's namesake. It was just the three of us learning, so it was a really personal experienence and we all became very fond of our little Thai teacher. We spent the morning chopping away at piles of colourful fruit and vegetables, cooking over hot woks, and nibbling when no one was watching until we had prepared a feast. We had each cooked three different dishes and so lunch was a banquet of nine different meals; it was far too much food for us to eat, but we gave it a good go! With absolutely bulging stomachs we wished Uni well, and headed back to the hostel to rest.

My final day in Chiang Mai was spent sunbathing by a hotel pool. Our two days of activity had worn us out, and we were all in agreement that a day relaxing by the pool was in order!

The evenings with Katie and Ashley were just as much fun as the days, and often spent playing the card game 'phase 10'. As Americans, I was shocked that they hadn't heard of the game, so I quickly set about to change that! We also had a few nights out exploring Chiang Mai's Reggae scene, and were joined by another American, Greg. Our final night coincided with the enormous Sunday walking street market which sells an array of lovely local handicrafts, and so we spent the evening shopping.

It was a fabulous four days in Chiang Mai and I was very sad to leave the girls, but unfortunately my visa was about to expire, and they were staying in Thailand to go to a festival in Pai. In our short few days together we had got along so well that I felt like we'd known each other for years. They are travelling a similar route to me though, and so I very much hope we bump into each other again on the South-east Asia trail.