Waking up in Chiang Mai

June 21st

Sleeper trains are my new favourite mode of transport and in Thailand it will only cost you around £15 for the privilege of a 15 hour journey. The train arrived at 9.55, we were awake by 8, having hardly slept all night due to the ice cold temperatures of the air-con and the noisy train but fell asleep again for the nex two hours, missing the wake up call and only realising we needed to be out of the train within 5 minutes. Ive never gotten up so fast in my life, and by the time we were off the train after being shouted at by more than one guard for being late we were in beautiful Chiang Mai. 
As with everywhere else in Thailand the person who was suppoed to be our transfer never turned up, so we someohow managed to hitch a free lift with a tuk-tuk. It looked a bit like this:

The 'Small' Hotel

The day was eventful to say the least, we checked into our hotel [The small hotel] and spent the rest of the day eating thai green curry pot noodle and sleeping with a little break to go out and explore the area around the hotel where we found some pretty cool temples. Chiang Mai is one of those place you instantly fall in love with, it's relaxed laid back atmosphere and cool bars on every corner. We passed loads of stalls selling beads and bangles, mostly wholesale on the outskirts of the city.

Then came the temples, countless temples shrouded in gold and grand roofs. 

The detail is amazing when you first see one, the dragons that guard the entrance and the mirrors and gold everywhere. They certainly don't skimp on decoration.

Headed out of our hotel we went towards the centre of the city, just by the Tha Phae Gate is a place called The Coffee Club, definitely not cheap by Thailand's standards and hardly authentic it provided us with some of the best food of our trip. Although I felt like I was cheating on street food and the hundreds of lovely little eateries all over Chiang Mai, the food was just too good. After we'd filled up with cashew chicken and rice we decided to explore and try and find the famous weekend night markets, and boy did we exceed, they were intense, bright full of people and clothes and fakes of everything you could dream of, street after street was filled with stalls, most had little side streets crammed with them too, it was never ending and after about three hours we headed back, not having explored all of it. 



Next: Tiger Kingdom The good and the bad