Chiang Mai

The bus from Sukhothai to Chiang Mai took about 5hrs and was great as we were lucky enough to get a seat. We were set upon immediately by taxi drivers, songthaews, tour guides.  We managed to get in a crowded songthaew which is a converted pickup truck type affair which dropped us off nowhere near our guesthouse as we had been led to believe.  Thankfully the centre of Chiang Mai isn't too big so we managed to trek and find the Mojito House Guesthouse which was to be our abode for the night.



We decided to head out and get a bite to eat and ended up in a small kitchen a few yards away. We sit down and all is well as we have made it to Chiang Mai.  A  man then walks in and decides he wants the fan directly behind us to be facing him and only him. He gets up and turns it without so much as 'excuse me kind people would you mind if...'  Then just as abruptly as he came in he decides to walk out so we turn the fan back thinking 'what a knob.'

He comes back in and upon noticing the fan is not facing the direction in which he left it and stomps over and turns it again and then apparently enraged at our rudeness goes off on one.  Just started shouting and literally everyone in there just turned and stared in amazement.  He seemed to think we'd gone out of our way to affront him saying things like 'You don't know about my life!  You don't know what happened to me before I came here! You think you tough! You no tough - we go outside and I'll show you tough' etc etc.

How the hell do you deal with crazy people like this.  A simple  thing as the direction a fan is facing almost turned into a throw down.  I was shouting back and shaking at the same time cause I was scared he was going to throttle Andy but then also so enraged by his arrogant I own Thailand attitude.  The good thing was everyone seemed to be on our side and tried to tell him that he was being stupid.  However insane people don't think they're insane so that was in vain.

He eventually left as apparently the hike in adrenalin had killed his appetite.  Thank god.  It just reminded me though, how easily simple things can escalate and next thing you know you're in hospital wondering what the hell just happened.

Dinner and our first night in Chiang Mai ended on a sour note.  Onward and upwards though!

We moved on though literally and found ourselves a new guesthouse the next day called the Tapae Inn which is really quirky.  It's part antiques store part guesthouse.

They have an insane amount of vintage Coca-Cola ads on the walls and just general dusty old things hanging around and piled up anywhere and everywhere.  They also have 2 fat little pug dogs that serve as the worst guard dogs ever.  They look up at you and give a lazy stare and then just go back to sleep.

Visa stupidity

We have just come off the back of the 2 worst days of our travel adventures yet.  In short we realised that we had seriously run over our visa time in Thailand.  I can't really rationalise why this happened so I can only put it down to us being complete stupidos.  We were sat at lunch on Sunday feeling pretty good about ourselves when a man starts talking to us out of the blue.  He was like an encyclopedia of travel knowledge which was handy.  Apart from that he made a comment about visas and how much longer did we have and we just gave him a gormless expression.  We acted calm but I could feel the fear ebbing in.

On return to our room we found our hidden stamps and discovered that we had indeed gone over by not just few days but a couple of weeks.  Not clever.  On scrolling the internet I thought I was going to throw up because there were tales of people getting thrown into detention centres and even jail for overstaying their visas.  We had been walking around as illegal aliens and didn't even know it.  Had we been stopped by Thai police it would have been bad news.

Anyways after the worst nights sleep we legged it to the Thailand immigration bags in hand fully expecting to get carted off to a Thai prison somewhere never to be found again.  Thankfully they let us off with a fine which wasn't that great as I was doing so well with economising.  It was a costly mistake lets just say.  Plus it's so terrifying to stand in line feeling like a criminal and waiting for them to call your name.  The experience has 1)reminded me to pay better attention to important things like this and 2)confirmed that I could never live a life of crime because I would be a wreck.  Anyway they have given us a week to get out of Thailand and come back or just leave so I think we will head to Laos now and stop dragging our feet like we have been.

Apart from all the anxiety experienced I quite like Chiang Mai.  It's filled with beautiful Wats and amazing food and you can walk around fairly easily.

Tuk Tuk you want Tuk Tuk!

Freaky deaky hair dye collection in our local Boots store.  Bride of Chucky anyone...

The 3 Kings Monument outside the cultural centre and museum.

Weird looking life size models depicting life through the history of Chiang Mai.

Andy's new mistress.

Art Exhibition

Just getting a bit of culture innit.

Wat Life.

There are so many Wats in and around Chiang Mai. We have seen a couple and they are stunning places to go.

Feel a bit wierd though being a tourist in someone's place of worship.

Street Life in Chiang Mai

    

Night Markets and general stuff

You do see a lot of old single white men walking the streets with  gorgeous
young Thai women.   You have to wonder sometimes how they hooked up
with them.  Saw these stickers in the night market

 Day Markets

We even made it to the exact food market where John and Greg took the contestants of Masterchef last year.  If you're sad like me and love Masterchef you can imagine what a moment it was walk into a place that they had graced.  Good times indeed and more the lived up to the promise. We ended up buying a feast from different vendors and I have fallen in love with Northern Thai Curry.  So delicious and probably the best dish I've had in Thailand. 

Northern Thai curry - Marry me and lets make more of you.

Thanin Market.

Food Porn O'clock!

Blurgh!

Thai Sausage.

You know we bought a whole one of these babies to take back
to our room.

I had to take a picture of my burger because it was literally the best burger I've had in years.  Mike across the road will tell you they have the best burger in Chiang Mai but they lie!  It was this place that truly did.  Thank you travel gods for guiding us here.

Anyway it's time to head to Laos.  We have a bus journey ahead and a 2 day boat trip.  See you on the other side.